The title is Travels Through the Worlds. "Ooh! I think that might be a new one—I should put it on my to-read pile." While she's thinking about it, she also takes the upsetting book out of her bag and sets it on the appropriate area of her desk, then goes back to rummaging in drawers. "I thought for sure I... aha, here it is. Okay."

She pulls out a notebook with World List and Notes handwritten on the front. "This should have all the notes I've taken on what worlds exist and what I've heard about them. Let's see..."

The table of contents on the first page lists the following worlds:

• Earth (Earth)
• Bevin (Cozy Cave House)
• Arbor (starlit forest)
• Academy (Planet of College Girls)
• Brazen (metal flowers)
• Prison (things encased in marble)
• Rorch (electric trains)
• Yomi (gloomy ghosts)
• Crucible (zombies and monsters)
• Rim (dinosaurs and time dilation)
• Mu (psychic ocean)

"...it's, um, mostly written for my own reference," she says, embarrassed. "There are longer descriptions later."

"Makes sense." Ok, so Robot city is probably Rorch, and that means the dark rainy place might be Crucible? She flips ahead to that section.

Each world has one page of the notebook devoted to it; the descriptions are mostly pretty sparse. Rorch's page does mention people made of stone and metal living on islands doing parkour and eating(?) fish, and Crucible's page does mention that it's raining all the time and there are strange purple campfires that can resurrect you. Groundskeeper is trying not to fidget in embarrassment at someone else reading all her odd turns of phrase.

"So the purple fire is called Azoth. Huh, isn't Azoth an alchemy term?"

"Is it? I don't know much about alchemy. I can see if there's any alchemy books in the library, if you think it would be useful to know about?"

"Well..." She sets the notes down, then opens her hand, palm up. Wisps of purple fire flare from her fingers and coalesce into a brilliant fireball the size of her fist. "This stuff can make me stronger, if its an alchemy thing and more could be made that would be nice to know."

She peers at it. "Goodness. Okay, I'll look into it."

She closes her fist around the flames, they vanish without a trace. "Let's see." She flips over to Mu. "So, what's this about a psychic ocean?"

It's a much sparser page than usual. "I haven't found a book on it so this is just notes on what I heard from Fib in idle conversation." The notes are as follows:

• Underwater world
• Psychic powers
• Psychically and biologically engineered marine life
  • Terrifying face-eating starfish
• Whoever is doing all that engineering sounds scary

"Uh." She goes through the sparse list twice. "Maybe a world for later." At this point she goes back and goes through the remaining worlds in order, starting with Earth.

Earth's page is blank. Bevin's page has some disorganized speculation about how some of its powers work, like the garden ones and the library ones, plus a mention of a rumour she read that a Bevin's constant growth may eventually cause it to reach and engulf strange caverns not created by its owner. At the bottom is a fresh note: "the power for controlling layout and decor is very cool".

Arbor's page mentions that it has a power for making you better at gardening, which also makes you physically stronger. Also winebark, and "the good dirt", and "resurrection: spend months(?) in the ground getting pitched on being a tree".

The Academy's page talks about the language and the aesthetics and general vibes and some speculation on what powers might exist, including a note about "something for controlling layout and decor like the Bevin one? might be useful?"

Brazen's page is mostly taken up by a list of which flower species have been confirmed to exist in which metals, but there's also a note that there may be clockwork bees.

The Prison's page talks about marble slowly engulfing anything that stands still on it, and the black trees that spit out strange rubber creatures to fight you if you bother them.

Rorch's page is as above.

Yomi's page says that the people there are burned by the sun during the day, have their memories eroded by magic mist during the night, and generally seem to be having a terrible time.

Crucible's page is as above.

The Rim's page mentions the 50x time dilation in big letters at the top, with some figures for what that means in practice (an hour is about two Rim days, a day is about one and a half Rim months, a week is about a Rim year, a year is 50 Rim years), and then some notes on local flora and fauna including one bullet point that just says "worm fruit (worm fruit?????)".

Mu's page is as above.

It's quite a bit to go through she goes over the list several times. She makes particular note of Arbor. "So Arbor makes you stronger? How much stronger?"

"...a fair bit. I was never previously athletic and now I can sort of just haul furniture around."

"Huh." The thought that right now she is significantly lighter than furniture, and therefore easy to sweep into a bridal carry, comes forth violently and without warning. She tries to hide her expression in the notes. "So, uh, we should, like, go over what our powers are."

"Oh—I have a list of mine," she says. "I'm sure it's around here somewhere..." She checks a drawer.

"Yup, yup, cool." Breathe. "Right, a list would be good. I should write mine down, I'll be back." She goes back to her own Bevin, taking a moment to collect herself while she grabs her notebook, then jumps back into the fray. "I'm back."

"Huh... I have no idea if having this much of an intuitive sense of my powers is normal or not. I haven't gotten into the question with Fib. There's definitely gaps in what I understand about my powers, but I can tell which ones are linked to which worlds, and I can sort of tell what some of the options are when I'm growing a new one—I picked the quick-change power on purpose because it's a big help with the whole making my own clothes situation, and the Bevin control power on purpose because it seemed like it would be useful. The one about the mysterious figures just sort of happened, though, and I still don't know what it does."

"So... what, you think you have some way to interact with those specters?"

"Probably! But... if I don't go near the specters, they just stand there quietly, and if I go anywhere near the students, they flinch and run away, so I'm afraid if I go near the specters they will also flinch and run away, so I'm saving investigation of my specter-related powers for after I have a deep enough Academy connection that the people there are no longer compelled to act like social anxiety nightmares come to life."

"Right, that sounds like a good idea, they seem kinda sensitive here. Do you know how much longer you have left until you get there?"

"Definitely at least a few years. It would go faster if I slept in the Academy, but I'm not sure I have it in me to barricade myself into an empty dorm room every night. Or sleep in the Arbor gazebo."

"I could go with you, if that would make it better, we could jump straight in and out of a dorm room. I've seen camping supplies, so I could get a sleeping bag or something. It'll be like a slumber party, just more forbidden!"

"A mildly criminal slumber party! ...maybe. We'll see."