He sighs. "Fair enough, I guess. It's a great place to learn science too, though. And you could learn our kind of magic?"

"That could be fun. Both of them."

He perks up a bit. "Yeah! Especially since you're sort of starting from zero, there really is probably nowhere better than Whateley to get yourself up to speed on science stuff. And the local magic- well, I never really got anywhere with it, but you could see if your experience with your kind makes it any easier to understand? Or something?"

"That seems unlikely, but arcane magic and subtle arts are completely different and I like them both, so might as well add more."

"I can get behind that. I'm a specialist, but it's kind of hard to resist the urge to specialize when your specialty lets you pierce the heavens and fly in the face of God using only cardboard and duct tape."

"...So, you can also get away with thumbing your nose at deities, here?"

"Yes."

Morty once again looks like he wants to throttle an alternate universe.

"Are they real and just uniformly really laid-back about blasphemy, or... not real?"

"Some of them do exist? Or at least it seems that way, like, there's an Avatar of Ganesha and it seems like that'd imply there is a Ganesha to be an Avatar of. But they don't smite anyone on their own. Supposedly they used to smite people thousands of years ago, but these days I feel like they're worried someone might smite them right back."

"...That's weird. I mean, people sometimes get into fights with gods at home, if they're epic enough - I think attempted deicide is a formal crime in the Imperium, even - huh. I don't know what to think about that. But talking about them any which way is definitely safe?"

"I mean, I'm sure that killing Zoroaster or someone would be frowned upon. They might be subject to murder laws, even. All I'm saying is that a particularly thunderbolt-happy deity might end up being classified as a supervillain and Thwarted. And yeah, god-bothering's 100% safe. I mean, don't do it to their faces, but that's rude anyway."

"...Okay. I like this place more all the time."

He grins. "Hubris: a delicious part of this complete breakfast."

"My parents were always worried my hubris would get away from me."

Morty makes a face. "I know I sound like a broken record, but seriously, that is the worst sentence. Hubris is great."

"I'm accustomed to getting it out of my system with lucid dreaming."

"That is pretty neat," he allows.

"It's not as good as being able to really do stuff, though."

"Yeah."

Oh look, the infirmary! Inside: A receptionist. She is poised and alert, though mostly to the state of her crossword.

"Hi, um, I'm supposed to be vaccinated?"

She glances up reluctantly. "Caduceus' office is third door on the right. She'll get you done." Before the last word leaves her lips, she's returned to the crossword.

So Bella goes to the third door on the right. Knock knock. Is knocking even a local custom?

Well, the woman who opens the door doesn't seem shocked by it, or anything. Her hair undulates idly. "You must be Bella. And- Morty? Oh, helping her around? That's good of you."

"Yeah. Here for shots."

"Well, yes," she titters. "Come in, come in."

In comes Bella. "I've never had this done before," she comments, in case there are about to be procedures that would seem startling to the uninitiated.