"...Ah. That explains some things. Well, the way to ask it properly is to write eight single words relevant - emotionally or logically connected - to your query, on eight of the divination papers, arrange them around it, and have someone else light them on fire all at once while you speak your question aloud. The words have to be your own, and ideally should be written by your own hand. Traditional Chinese characters would be even better if you knew Chinese, but having me translate them into it would do more harm then good."

That explains why he needs exactly forty divination papers.

He comes up with eight words and tries to think about his next few questions instead of about how this is making his skin crawl. He writes them in Ilan. There. Now they can burn.

It's-

-Like falling into a dream. Nothing makes sense, and everything makes sense at the same time. Images swirling in the crystal ball, the rest of the world fading away.

Somehow the vision he sees makes it totally clear that Bar sells something for that. Despite not showing Bar or anyone changing sex.

"Next thing I need to know is..." He's already counting out divination papers for it. "How do I safely ward living creatures against getting stabbed or hit?"

Varrin interrupts him.

"Hey, uh, I forgot that the bar and backyard is really really warm. And I can't work on my next statue and also keep the one I just did frozen..."

Well, he can finish asking his questions later, as long as they don't fall too far out of sync. Off he goes to ward things.

"Yeah so I'm gonna need to call you over every time I finish one? Maybe the time thing will be helpful."

Here is a reasonably elaborate and sometimes-clear sometimes-frosted ice sculpture of some kind of fish leaping out of water! It's approximately torso-sized.

"If it doesn't take too long I can watch."

And now that ice sculpture will not melt! It won't stay cold to the touch but it will stay solid.

"This took like half an hour? All the fiddly little details require so much careful control. A bigger one that's swoopier and less fiddly I can do faster... Any particular requests?"

"Can you do waves?"

"Oh, yeah! There's lots of kinds of waves - freezing one right as it breaks - hmm..."

He can go ask more questions after this sculpture, right? Art is nice. As long as Varrin doesn't mind and Nick doesn't come for him he'll just watch the ice.

"It's fine. If you have to go I'll try and come find you when I'm done."

The ice turns to water just long enough to wobble into a new shape and freeze again. Or a chunk of it cracks off and rotates and melds back...

Varrin has to do big, flowy, athletic motions to sclupt the ice. Those might be almost as attention grabbing, given that they have him moving his whole body back and forth. He's obviously very athletic (all the other waterbenders were too, to be fair). He mumbles about the sculpture - how light will glisten and refract here - if he frosts this part will it look nice...

And there. A really quite realistic frozen wave.

It's not lost on Valanda but he's mostly watching the ice. What a nice kind of otherwordly magic to have.

"Wow! That's great, you ready for me to ward it?"

"Well, if you let me I'll keep changing little details until I fall asleep, so you'd better ward it and tell me to move on to the next one, yeah." He laughs.

Meanwhile someone new comes through the door. She looks around frantically.

"What is this place?" she asks anyone who happens to be nearby and willing to answer.

"Hi! This is Milliways! It's not dangerous, shut the door and I'll explain."

(She has pointy ears, unlike most of the people in here.)

"There is a 95% chance that abandoning my master now will result in his death. Whether Milliways sells healing potions is the only thing I have time to learn now."

-She moves suddenly, reaches out and closes the door.

"There. Time pauses out there when the door's closed. Uh, bar can't sell magic things, but I have a couple healing elixirs..."

Fi's grip on her sword tightens.

"I would like to purchase one of your healing elixirs. I do not have material goods to offer but my memory contains a library of facts about diverse locations."

"Time is paused out there, do you not - well, I understand feeling very urgent about it. But we gotta be at least a little careful about this stuff. Is your, uh, master, shaped mostly like me? Also maybe chill with the sword, there's rules about that here."

"He is a member of the species you appear to be. I do not intend to attack you unprovoked. This sword's sheath is on the other side of the door."

"Ah. Well. I don't have a sheath handy, but Bar might let you borrow one... What happened? If someone from my world urgently needed a healing elixir I'd guess monsters, but I don't know anything about your world."

"We were attacked by monsters. Are you using the term 'world' to refer to the area known to you, to all spatially contiguous locations, or to something else?"

"Second thing, probably. Heh. You talk a bit like... Like someone I know. It's strangely comforting."