Gokigenyou Academy of Purity welcomes you back to its grounds.

Her mapping efforts have had a subtle effect on how she interacted with the world. Finding new things meant work now: Labeling, taking notes, stealing maps, assembling everything, letting the map encroach on living space... There was a freedom to just go out and explore that was lost when she felt obligated to her map monster.

But she felt good when she saw her progress too! Cartography would really help here. She thought maybe she could make use of computers, but one look at the keyboard told her that wasn't happening. She had been making use of her clairvoyance to spy on classes as they were happening to try to pick up on the language, but keeping up the motivation for that had been hard. It helped that she was starting to pick up words more often, and tried to make a game out of interpreting what was being said, but it still got really boring.

She needed to find a new portal, she was supposed to be a multiversal traveler dammit!

She teleported several times in quick succession.

There's a distant sense of something not quite exactly like a portal. It has some of the essence of Earth and Rockhome to it, and some of the essence of Lesbos, and a handful of other aspects that are less familiar and hard to get a read on at this distance.

Also, it's moving fairly rapidly, not directly toward her but definitely getting closer over time.

"That's new!" She tries to make sense of the feelings she's picking up from it.

"What the heck am I sensing here?" Why was it moving? Portals didn't move. She tries to teleport to it, preempting its movement so that she can get ahead of it. A weird feeling of dread suffuses her as she focuses, but she doesn't really see what there is to be afraid of. She jumps.

The source of the effect turns out to be a girl on a bicycle.

This bicycle was not meant to take passengers, certainly not so abruptly.

One girl on a bicycle becomes two girls on a bicycle becomes two girls off a bicycle in short order.

"Augh!" the stranger exclaims.

"Wagh!" She screams as her world becomes one of pain, confusion, tangled limbs and bicycle parts jabbing her ribs.

The bicycle ends up on top of both of them when they roll to a halt; the stranger starts to push it away, then stops when she observes that there's another girl there.

"—are you okay? Where did you come from??" she says, baffled, in perfectly ordinary English.

Up close, the unfamiliar parts of her aura are clearer. There's a sense of flat calm quiet stillness, lonely and eerie; a sense of sandy fields of metal flowers under a gentle faceted sun; and a sense of a warm, humid forest whose ground is filled with bones.

"From your dreams baaaby..." She mumbles, vaguely concussed. She jolts upright. "Wait, you speak English!"

The blonde girl's aura is simpler, Bevin and Earth intermingle within her.

The sudden movement jars the bicycle; the stranger winces, then heaves it off of both of them. The bicycle itself seems none the worse for the encounter. The stranger is doing pretty well too; her wine-red motorcycle leathers are slightly scuffed at the knee, where they protected her from what would've been a nasty scrape otherwise.

"Y...es," she says. "Yes I do. You're, um—you're not local, then?" She blinks a few times. "No, you can't be—you're definitely another Conduit."

Conduit, what is she... "Is that what we're called?" She picks herself up, the blonde girl isn't doing as good, its clear she's gotten a bad scrape from her fall, she hisses as she wipes the filth and gravel from her hands. The blonde girl may not be a local, but she definitely dresses like one. This one is wearing loose, poofy socks, with black shoes, a pink skirt, a tight white shirt with a pastel heart on it, and a light pink bolero jacket. She blinks at the stranger. "Aw man, where'd you find that outfit! That looks sick!"

"Oh, um, I made it," she says, ducking her head shyly. "One of my worlds is a forest and you can get this leathery bark by asking the trees for it very politely... I don't really have another source of clothing so all my stuff is made out of it."

"That sounds amazing! I've had to steal all of my clothes." She pats herself off. "I'm really sorry I teleported into you like that, I just teleported into the center of the disturbance I felt without looking first. It turns out that when a jump is filling you with a nameless dread before you do so, you should probably abort!"

"...I will keep that in mind if I ever learn to teleport. Is that a power you picked up from a world? Which one?"

"I..." She blinks. "You can't do that?" She thinks. "I'm actually not sure. Frankly I'm a little unsure of where some of my powers come from. Some of it is from Lesbos, uh, I mean this world. I got some lightning manipulation and parkour from a world that was filled with golem people and... I got a bunch of purple fire stuff from a world that is very dark and rainy." She crosses her arms. "Teleportation doesn't feel like its from any of them, though."

"I think this world is called the Academy," she says, trying not to laugh. "I don't recognize either of those descriptions but it's been a while since I read through a list of all the worlds I've heard of... I have the power that lets my library pick up books published by other Conduits, it's very useful."

She opens her mouth, then closes it. She's at a loss for which of those threads to pick at first. Library? Books published by Conduits? List of worlds?! Was she supposed to know that a library power was something she could get? She puts a hand on her forehead. "Wait, wait, can we slow down? I'm sorry, this is a lot. We should absolutely be friends and hang out and compare notes! But I literally just crashed into you and now my world is getting turned upside down." She smiles awkwardly.

"...reasonable," she says. "At least there aren't dinosaurs. Last time I met another Conduit I had to jump in his car to make a quick getaway because he was being chased by a T-rex."

"I didn't know dinosaurs were an option!" She grins. "I don't know how, but I'm going to ride one." She looks around. "Let's sit down somewhere?"

"Somewhere other than the ground? Yes. Good plan." She gets up and collects her bicycle, then turns back the way she came. "I passed a nice park a little bit ago. Well, there are always nice parks. But I happen to know where this one is."

"Oh god, tell me about it. I've spent the last month trying to map this damnable place out, and let me tell you, the nice parks are everywhere. Did you know that every body of water with beaches is a lake with coasts just distant enough that you can't see the other side from the ground? Literally every one I've seen." She follows the stranger.

"You know, I haven't seen that many beaches so far, but somehow I believe you completely. It sounds like the sort of thing this place would do. I've been trying to make a map too, but mostly only near my bridge to Arbor—that's the nice forest—well, I say 'nice', it wants you to turn into a tree but is overall very nice about it—I am not succeeding at having a reasonable conversation."

With that, they're already at the park. It's every bit as picturesque as all the other parks in the Academy, and has a bench close by. The stranger in the red leather outfit leans her bike against the side of the bench and sits down.

She flops down. "Ah, yeah." She sighs. "I do like having easy access to nice parks. But this place is so uncanny, it took me almost a week to figure out that it wasn't Earth, you called this world the Academy?"

"Yes. I found a book by another Conduit who had explored some worlds and that's what he called it. And, um, the Cozy Cave House is called Bevin. You have one of those, right? I think I can sort of tell..."

"Bevin? What kind of word is Bevin? I've been calling it my Rockhome. But, yeah, I have one, it's currently housing my mapping project, so there's basically no floor space." She has a thought. "Oh! They don't run out of air, do they?"

"It has never occurred to me to wonder if Bevins run out of air, but I've been sleeping in mine every night for three years, so if it did I'd be in trouble, probably. I guess maybe it helps that I have plants...? I didn't have very many plants to start with, though. Oh! Speaking of which," she pulls a jar out of her pocket. "Would you like some blueberry jam?"

Her eyes sparkle. "Jam!" She takes the jar and holds it aloft. "Jam." She should give her something. She holds out her hand and pulls a chocolate bar from her... Bevin. "Do you like chocolate? I have other snacks if you want."

"I do like chocolate," she says, eyeing the chocolate bar covetously. "...is it stolen, though? You said you stole your clothes..."

"Uh, yeah, I have stolen everything. I don't even think they mind much. When I said this place is uncanny, I meant it. Have you... seen black specters or a big monster of some description?"

"...the only big monster I saw was the aforementioned T-rex, which was not from around here..."

"Right, we need to talk about it later. But the thing is, there are these... specters with eyeless faces that all the girls here just ignore. When something breaks, they fix it, when something goes missing, they replace it. Sometimes they come in these nondescript white delivery trucks, and they always bring everything that might be needed, clothing, food, you name it. As an experiment I took a towel from a dorm room that wasn't in use and then kept an eye on it, I have a power that lets me look through portals without going through. The next day somebody came to replace it, when they hadn't bothered coming when nothing was missing. Like they knew somehow."

"...goodness. Um. I've seen strange figures that people ignore, but I've never gotten up close to one—I knew they looked a little vague, I didn't know they didn't have eyes. That is much spookier than I was imagining them."

"You should be careful, I have also seen a monster covered in tar that almost killed a girl before I took it out. I don't know what it was, or where it came from, but this place is dangerous."

"Concerning... I'll probably be fine, though. Last time I died I just ended up in Arbor, being pitched on the many benefits of becoming a tree."

"Oh, I woke up by a purple fire in the dark rainy place every time that I've died."

"I think it's common for worlds to have immortality powers. I'm glad mine doesn't involve waking up in the rain, but probably you're going to tell me you're glad yours doesn't involve taking a months-long dirt nap."

"Months?" She is taken aback. "It hadn't even occurred to me that it wasn't instant. Hm, do you have a watch, next time I die we should time it. But I don't want to leave you hanging for moths if it works like that." She thinks back. "I think mine works on the scale of hours, actually, given how little things changed in the prison when I died."

"...have you, um, been dying a lot...?"

"Four times. Each in a stupid and embarrassing way."

"Oh. My condolences. ...I'd ask if you want more jam but I've been trading most of mine to Fib, the other Conduit, who lives in a world that runs fifty times faster than this one so I cannot possibly make enough jam to keep up."

"Oh yeah! Food. What I was trying to get at before was that I've been skimming stuff off the top from this world and I'm not sure I've actually inconvenienced anybody by stealing." She looks away. "Maybe I've gotten too comfortable with theft though. When I got here I spent a lot of time very wet and very naked and was desperate enough to steal clothes in the first place and now I might've made a habit of it."

"Maybe I should save some of my jam for you in future. And... maybe I could make you winebark clothes, if you want?"

"Sick leathers, yeah!" She thinks. "Do you like fish? I can buy fish in the city world. I want to say legally but..." She thinks about it. "So one of my powers from that place? The parkour power? It, uh, it makes money? So I've been paying with that. I think its legal? I have seen others there make money through cool tricks."

"...how... does parkour... make money...? Like, I assume if people were paying you you wouldn't be so confused about whether it's legal..."

"Ok, so... Wow this is going to sound really dumb." She pauses. "I do a bunch of cool tricks, I land, and then money springs forth ex nihilo from the spot where I landed. The cooler the sequence before I land, the greater the payout."

"I wouldn't say it sounds dumb but it certainly sounds odd. I have no reason to suspect it of being unethical, though. I could try parkour fish."

"I'll make a point of getting you some, I don't have a fridge or anything, do you have a way to store fish?"

"Bevins aren't good at appliances but mine does have an icebox these days."

"Man, mine barely has anything that I haven't put there myself. It has a fountain, a bed and a jar with the blandest cookies ever."

"...I am experiencing the urge to give you a potted plant but I probably should not do that. For one thing I don't have any pots. And if you don't have the garden power for your Bevin, it might have a hard time growing there... maybe one of the metal flowers would be all right...? No, those are pretty fiddly to take care of..."

"Hah, I appreciate it, but its not like I have room for it one way or the other. I don't know if all Bevins are like this or not, but mine is made of sandstone, and nothing sticks to sandstone, so my mapping project lives on the floor." She remembers something. "You've said something about mapping too right? We should pool our maps together."

"Oh! Yes, good idea." She starts to pull a notebook out of her bag, then stops. "Hmm, this is just my notes from this trip, though, I'd have to go home to get the rest... I'm slow at crossing bridges, it takes me a few minutes."

"Huh, it takes me seconds. It takes me a minute if I try to jump to a distant... they're called bridges?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, it only takes me a minute to go through a bridge if its really far away. Hm, I think I could pull you through a bridge, it might be faster than you doing it yourself. We could try."

"That makes sense... or, hmm, could you follow me into my Bevin? If you went and got your maps that would give me time to go through the bridge. Though testing if you can pull me through bridges also seems worthwhile. But it only lets me get to my notes faster if you can go to my Bevin ahead of me, which seems wrong somehow."

"I, uh, actually think that I could just do that, actually. And full disclosure, I think I could peak inside if I tried, which I haven't."

"...goodness," she says uneasily. "Well... probably best to know if it works, I guess. You can go ahead of me and try to pull me through if you want."

"Well, here goes nothing." She takes a quick peek to make sure she isn't landing anywhere stupid, then jumps.

She lands in, basically, a blank sandstone cube—but it's well-lit, and there's an open archway in one wall leading to a medium-sized sitting room, which is not at all a blank sandstone cube and has real furniture made of non-rock materials.

Her jaw drops. "I've been gipped!" Dammit, why does everybody always seem to have their shit together more than me? She sighs, looks at the girl and pulls her through.

"Unsettling but convenient," she comments, arriving with her bicycle hoisted in one hand. She leans it against a wall and steps into the sitting room. "Let me see... probably it's best to look through the notes out here, actually, the library is rather devoid of two-person seating. Just a moment." A left-hand turn and she disappears rapidly between some bookshelves.

She takes the opportunity to look around. "Oh my god, this place is gorgeous." It's so bright! Not the shitty dim light leaking through cracks in her Bevin. She said she had powers here, if she took the time to meditate and connect to her own, maybe she could make it look like this, if she really wanted to.

A few seconds later, her host reemerges, with three notebooks tucked under her arm and a pen in her other hand. "I can show you what I have so far and try to make fresh copies for you to take home."

"Yeah! I have a bunch of maps at home, but they're set up in an annoying way. I think I could bring them over?" She looks around, trying to see if there's enough space to lay down all the maps she has collected.

If they rearranged the furniture they could lay everything out in the sitting room just fine.

"I'd love to see them! If it wouldn't be too annoying."

"Ok, I'll be back in a second." She focuses and... She blinks. "My Bevin is completely inaccessible, hold on." She goes back to the academy.

As soon as she's through, her Bevin bridge starts working again.

Weird. She jumps to her own Bevin. She carefully makes note of where she left everything, then scoops up all her mapping stuff, along with a notebook and a pencil. She then Jumps back and forth back to the stranger's Bevin.

She has opened her notebooks and is transferring the day's notes into the master book of maps.

"Ok, we may need to move some furniture to get this all settled." She sets the stack of maps onto the floor, and starts spreading them out. She opens a notebook with notes on how it is all arranged.

"Goodness. All right." She closes her notebooks so she can drag the table out of the way, and the rug, and the sofa, and that armchair...

It's a bit of a squeeze, but after exiling one of the armchairs to the kitchen, they can make all the maps fit.

She replaces twine, bluetack and board game pieces. After a few minutes she thinks everything is as she had it before. "Ok, this is what I got, let me know if you have any questions."

"...did you... find all of these? I never thought of just... looking for maps that already existed..."

Indeed, when she reopens her notes, it's all hand-drawn.

"I've looked far and wide for a world map, I have found none. I'm pretty sure they have geography classes but every map I have seen is of the local area." She points to a black board game piece. "This is the bridge where I first entered the Academy." She points to a different map Northwest of that, and points to a blue piece. "This is the bridge to the city." And then points somewhere to the northwest just outside of any map. "And this is where we are now." She pauses. "I mean not like right now. You get it."

"Where my bridge leads back to, yes, I see. So, hmm..." She finishes transcribing her notes and then brings her notebook over to that corner. "The scale is off, but you can see here the bridges I've mapped out... the one in the middle of everything is to Arbor, and those two are Earth, and that one's to Brazen. When you crashed into me I was trying to see how far I had to go in order to find the next Earth bridge."

"Wait, Earth? As in Earth, Earth? That Earth?"

"—yes? Oh. Um, yeah, I had a bit of a moment too when I realized I could still go back. I... haven't gone back, though."

She looks at her hand-drawn maps. "These are pretty good." She looks up at her. "You told me about Arbor, what is Brazen like?"

"It has—actually, I can show you, come out to the garden."

She picks her way across the map to the archway opposite the foyer, which leads out to an enclosed garden area. Right in front of the little porch, there's a sort of huge sandbox filled with glittery rust-red sand, and silver and copper flowers of all shapes and sizes blooming there.

"Metal flowers," she says, gesturing to them. "And iron trees, like those." She waves at a distant stand of black oaks, past the sand garden and an assortment of berry bushes.

She gasps. "It's so pretty!"

She snickers. "And pretty metal."

...tiny giggle.

She stares at the metallic foliage for a few seconds. "I don't know if I want to go back either."

"...to Earth? Yeah."

"...yeah." She stays silent for a bit.

"...not to become that girl who solves all her problems with fruit and fruit derivatives, but do you want a strawberry?" She points at the bushes up ahead..

"Do I!" She very carefully navigates the garden and gingerly picks a strawberry. She nibbles at it. "It's very good, thank you."

"I have mostly refrained from stealing but I am not above taking a tree branch or a cutting of a bush to plant in my garden."

"Hah, oh man, I have essentially been haunting colleges for weeks now. I was afraid to sleep in my Bevin, due to an uncertain oxygen supply, so I had been teleporting into empty dorm rooms and jamming a chair under the doorknob to sleep! That's also how I've been getting my showers. I'm not as self-sufficient as you yet." She chuckles. "It wouldn't surprise me if some of the girls had been telling ghost stories about me."

"...you don't have a shower?? Oh dear. ...you can use mine if you want?"

"You have a shower?!"

"Yes? ...sorry."

"What? No! No, you didn't do anything wrong! I'm happy that you live in a world with easy access to a shower! I'm just mad at my own Bevin!" She thinks about it. "I'm not even mad about that." She pauses again. "Your house is very cool."

"Oh. ...really? I mean, it would be kind of fair to be mad at me for getting all this good stuff for free when you don't have a shower and weren't even sure you had air..."

She blinks at her. "Friend... that wouldn't be fair of me at all. That would be completely psychotic."

She struggles to find the words. "A friend that would get mad at you that you have things better than them... they're not a friend at all... they just... they just... they just want somebody to feel superior to."

She looks at her. "I am happy that you have nice things."

She considers this.

"It is possible," she says after a few seconds, "that I have not, historically, had very good friends."

"I'm sorry." She thinks about it. "Listen... I think a thing that I've had to realize is that I have a choice in how my life proceeds." She pauses. "You don't have to put up with it. I appreciate this, I appreciate that you'd let me into your house, and share your strawberries with me. But I don't want you to do things for me because you owe me, y'know?"

"...I don't feel like I owe you, I don't think... it's just... there are all these nice things you don't have, and I can give them to you?"

"Right, ok. Sorry, I might've been projecting there a bit." She smiles. "I just don't want to take advantage of you."

"I... appreciate that," she says, a little uncertainly.

Hm. "So... I don't know if I'm totally off base here, and I'm sorry if I'm harping on this a lot. But, if I did something you didn't like, or something that you didn't want to happen, would you be able to tell me no? Or to ask me to stop?"

"...maybe?"

She waits to see if she elaborates.

"...I guess I..."

"...most people don't want people to say no to them, right?"

She continues to stand there, patiently, she nods at her, as if to continue.

"So, I mean... it would be annoying if I did, wouldn't it?"

She stands determined to let the girl complete her thought.

"...so... I don't know, why do you want me to?"

"Ok, if you wanted to do something and I said no, then that would be annoying, right? So you wouldn't want that, right?" Her voice is as free from judgement and condemnation as she can make it.

"I mostly don't get annoyed with people."

She waits.

"...?"

"Nobody has ever done anything that you didn't want?"

"—well—I wasn't annoyed about it."

She nods, as if to tell her to continue.

Well, after a moment her sad, subdued expression fades into a more generally confused and uncertain one. That's about all she's got.

Dang, she thought she was going somewhere with that. She feels like there is a crucial realization to be had here, about why it is okay for people to say no to her and not vice versa, but she's not sure how to get there. She can't just state the conclusion outright, that won't do anything. Getting better is a long and difficult process and she feels ill-equipped to get her new friend there.

"You said that other people would be annoyed if you said no, but also that you don't get annoyed, why does that matter?"

"...well, because it's not good to annoy people?"

"But then, wouldn't it be better if nobody got annoyed?"

"...isn't that what I just said?"

"The crucial distinction here is: if I ask something of you that you don't want to do, and you said no, wouldn't it be better if I didn't get annoyed? Why would you have to not annoy me, and what right do I have to be annoyed?"

"...it's not about you having a right... it's just..."

"I... feel like if I ever do anything to upset someone then I should just go be a tree because it isn't worth having me in the world if I made another person unhappy."

She is scared of how genuinely uncertain she is about the possibility of murdering whoever made her feel like this.

"I think it is deeply unfair that other people are allowed to make you feel like you should be a tree. I think it is unfair that other people have this power over you. I think that it is really unfair that you feel like you have to do things you don't want because otherwise the person will make you feel like you should be a tree."

"...is it? I mean—I don't know. I'm just—used to it, I guess. It's not—the problem isn't that someone is making me feel like I should be a tree—it's just, how I've always felt, I guess?" She looks out at the lovely metal flowers without really seeing them.

"I think," She turns to look at the metal foliage. "that if somebody does something, and as a direct consequence of that you feel like you should be a tree, then that person has made you feel like you should be a tree." She pauses. "Being used to something and things always having been a certain way doesn't mean that that is the way that they should stay."

"I assure you I'm perfectly capable of feeling like I should be a tree all by myself in my own house just because I contemplated the abstract concept of inconveniencing someone."

"I did decide not to be a tree, though, when it came up. Because I... like being alive, I guess."

Something gives way inside her. She has to turn away to hide the burning in her eyes. "I'm very happy that you chose not to be a tree."

"...are you okay?"

"I-" Her voice hitches. "I know that I barely know you, but I want you around much more than I value my own moment to moment happiness or satisfaction, I-" She takes a steadying breath, she tries to find words.

Something tells her this is not a problem she can solve with strawberries. She waits.

"I'm ok. I just think that-" She's not sure what the right thing to say is. "I really do want to be inconvenienced if it means you have a better time. I just- I don't know if I'm really..." She trails off.

Is this the sort of situation where you wait for the other person to finish their sentence? She will proceed on this assumption.

"Ok, so what I think I'm trying to express is that I have a strong preference for you telling me no. I won't be angry, or upset or annoyed, in fact I think at this point I'd be pretty happy." She sighs. "When I said I didn't want to take advantage of you, I meant it, and I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't sound mean. And if I'm off base here feel free to say it. But I think its really easy to take advantage of you."

"Well... I'll try?" she says. "I don't think that sounds mean at all."

"I mean, I've barely just met you, what do you think?"

"?"

"I mean, about being easy to take advantage of, do you think it's true? False? Or maybe it's more nuanced than I think?"

"I think... you're the first person I've met who has been this concerned with me not getting taken advantage of. Myself included. Does that answer your question?"

She tries to keep the sadness out of her voice. "Yeah, yeah I think it does." She turn back to the garden, lost in thought.

"...do you want to look at the maps some more?" she suggests tentatively. "I could try to get mine copied out for you to take home, and get yours copied out for me to keep... it'll take a while but that's no reason not to start."

"Yeah, yeah we should get started on that." She has an idea. "Listen, if saying no is too hard then maybe you could start with asking if it's ok to say no? Then we could talk it out, we can talk about each other's preferences and what needs we have and what are our feelings about it?" She starts walking back to the maps.

"Hmm... that does sound like it might be a good idea."

She follows.

She smiles at that. She has pretty much decided that she will protect her. Or protect her insofar as... she... they haven't exchanged names, have they? "Oh, we haven't actually swapped names, have we? My name is—"

She freezes.

Quickly Brain, what is our name?

We're sorry. The name you are trying to reach has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you believe you have reached this thought in error then please check your memory and self-reflect later.

Dammit!

Precious seconds pass.

"When I met Fib I couldn't come up with a good name at first and nearly ended up being called Jam. I decided on Groundskeeper instead, as a temporary measure."

She snaps out of it.

Oh, she's also...

She smiles in sympathy. "You too, huh?"

"Names are hard. I never really liked mine."

"I mean, people should get to choose their names. I didn't have much issue with mine, but it's not suitable anymore. You get it."

"...do I?"

"Y'know, because... I mean the old name would be..." 

"I am actually not sure what you're talking about. But, um, you don't need to explain if you don't want to?"

"We can look at maps."

"Okay. Should I suggest silly names or just let you think about it?"

"Haha, sure, I only really conclusively ruled out Tiffany and Samantha. Go ahead." She kneels down by the maps.

"Consider: Strawberry."

She snorts. "Pahaha, hee hee, ah, just think, I could be Berry for short!"

"I think that would be very cute!"

"It's is very cute." She is genuinely considering it. "Strawberry, Berry." She sounds the potential name out. "Miss Strawberry?" Maybe it works as a last name? She's unsure. 

"Originally I was mostly being silly but now I think it might suit you."

Maybe she could just embrace it and give herself an equally silly last name like Cake or Tart or—

She chuckles. "Help, I'm sincerely considering a future in which my name is Strawberry Shortcake!"

"You could try it and see if you like it?"

"My name is Shortcake, Strawberry Shortcake."

She tries for a solemn nod, but fails to make it solemn.

"Yes! My foes will all rue the day they crossed—"

"—Strawberry Shortcake."

"It's impressive how you almost manage to make it sound intimidating."

"In fairness I've already made a foe or two rue the day they met me." She thinks for a second. "Briefly."

"Goodness. Um, was this the monster you said you found in the Academy?"

"Yeah, the other was this monster man in the dark rainy place. The details are a little gruesome, actually."

"...do you want to talk about it?"

"Ah." Hm. "Well, to keep it vague, this giant monster man had been doing bad things to prisoners. I got really scared, then I turned it around and used the darkness and teleportation to scare him into making a mistake that let me kill him." She pauses. "I've been procrastinating on going back for a while."

"That does sound very scary. I think if I were in a similar situation I would run away."

"That sounds pretty smart. I should try it one of these days."

"...it's better for the prisoners that you didn't, though."

They weren't responsive after she had freed them. They had been just like the emaciated man, there was a hollowness to them. She doesn't know if they will ever be ok again. She doesn't say any of that. "...yeah."

"But... it matters what's good for you, too."

She smiles. "I could say the same thing. But, I'm ok."

"Are you sure?"

"I think so." She looks around at the maps. "If I find that I'm not, I'll let you know."

"Okay."

She goes back to making a fresh copy of her map. A few more carefully labeled landmarks, and she can tug the page out of her notebook and add it to the sprawl.

Berry's own notebook is basically a legend of what is appended to the maps, more like a manual to assemble the sprawl beneath them. There are also notes on variations between universities: Which ones had computer rooms, maps, communal restrooms, vending machines, vacant dorm rooms, etc.

Very little of that sort of thing made it into Groundskeeper's map, but she does have descriptions of all the bridges she's found, as well as a few other points of interest such as a library, some especially nice trees, and a swimming pool.

"Ok, so we've covered a pretty wide area. We have a bridge to the dark and rainy place, a bridge to Robot city, a bridge to Arbor, a bridge to Brazen and three bridges to Earth. Am I missing something?"

"I think there's a bridge to the Prison somewhere—that's another of my worlds, but it sounds scary and I'm not sure I ever want to go there—but wherever it is, it's far enough away that I haven't gotten a good sense of it even now that I have a bicycle."

"Hm, well I can take a look through the bridge and see if it's dangerous on the other side, and I could come with you, if you ever want to explore it. Remind me, have you checked the other side of any of the Earth bridges?"

"No—I can't see through bridges and I don't... want... to go there. I've, um... I've heard that not all Earth bridges go to the same Earth? But I'm not really sure what to think of that."

"Oh. There are many Earths. If that's the case then it may actually be impossible to find our way to our original Earths. Hm, Regardless I'll make a point of going to each of these Bridges and taking a look on the other side to see what is around."

"That seems reasonable."

She starts trying to draw a copy of Strawberry's map. It... will take more than one session to copy it all, probably. But that's all right, she has time.

She thinks about drawing a copy herself, but gives up on the idea. "Oh, all of the universities have copy machines. I could sneak in and make a copy of your map to take home. Or whatever you need copies of, really."

"That... would be faster than drawing it all out myself," she says. "Although some of these might be too big for a copy machine?"

"Yeah, my mess of maps has grown at an unsustainable rate. I kept telling myself I'd draw it all out but I kept putting it off. I think we should draw a smaller and unified version of the mess, combine it with your map, then I take it all and make copies for both of us. What do you think?"

"Hmm... all right."

Her notebook is pretty big but she definitely can't fit this whole thing onto a single page in any reasonable level of detail. A few pages, though, atlas-style, and a sort of overview page with a zoomed-out version... yes, that seems doable. She attempts to convey this creative vision, speaking hesitantly and gesturing at which sections of the Map Mess she thinks would work well as individual pages.

Strawberry goes along with her vision. She lets her take the lead and helps her as best she can.

Then in a more or less reasonable amount of time, they will have a finished atlas! Or at least an up-to-date atlas.

"I do still want to make more detailed copies of the whole thing, at some point. But I think this is a very good start. And we can keep expanding from here!"

"This is great! It will be nice to have floor space again. I make copies and then I'll make new copies whenever we make big additions."

"Good plan."

She scoops up the condensed maps and puts them in a binder. "What should we do with the old maps, do you want them? Should I take them?"

"Hmm... if you don't mind leaving them here, I could work on copying out the details in my spare time..."

"Yeah, sure. I'll head out, I shouldn't be long" She vanishes with the binder.

Groundskeeper observes that they've been at this for hours and she's kind of hungry. She wanders into the kitchen to make jam sandwiches.

"Victory! An honest to god positive social interaction with a new friend!" She giddily makes a few jumps to the nearest college, she will return in the next twenty minutes.

If she comes back twenty minutes later then she will find Groundskeeper sitting on the park bench where they had their first conversation, reading a book.

"Hey buddy, whatcha got there?"

Mild startlement.

"Oh! Um, a book." Was that too inane? Maybe that was too inane. "It's about..." what can she even say that's not a spoiler "...a girl who goes on a boat." She has perhaps failed at making contentful statements about the book. "It's good?" she tries. Help.

"Boats are good!" She sits down next to her. "So your Bevin just materializes books?" She peeks at the book over her shoulder. "Are they all in English or can you read other languages?"

"I have the language-learning power from Earth, so I can pick up languages easily, even just by reading them a lot. This one is in English but I have some in my library where I don't even know the alphabet yet."

The cover does indeed depict a girl standing at the railing of a sailing ship, her hair blowing in the wind.

She eyes it curiously. "I think I have that power too. I have been listening in on some of the classes here and I've been picking up the language." Oh! "Do you know anything about translating Old English? Or whatever language they speak in the dark and rainy world?"

"I think 'listen to people speaking the language or try to read the books' is how the language power generally works. I could see if I have anything in my library in Old English? But that only helps if it really is the same language, or a related one..."

"Ah, yeah, well," She focuses, then a red book with gold filigree materializes in her hand. "I've had this book for a while, I found it in the prison I told you about. I'm pretty sure its filled with evil knowledge, but I'm hoping to learn more about the world and maybe ideas on how to apply my powers. I've been trying to read it on and off for a bit now but its slow going. I've just started picking up a few words."

She peers at it. "That does look plausibly Old English-related..."

She sighs. "I think I just need to knuckle down and really study this thing." She sets the book down between them. She opens the binder.

"...if it's hard to find time for it, I could study it for you?" she offers. "I spend most of my time reading books."

She turns to her. "I'm pretty sure this book is evil though. Given what I've seen, I'm fairly certain that this book details some pretty nasty things. The illustrations weren't encouraging." She fishes out some pages from her binder and makes sure the set is complete.

"...well, if it's going to be upsetting, all the more reason for only one person to have to put up with reading it, and if I'd get through it faster because I spend more of my time reading, then..."

"I mean... you'll have to translate for me anyway, right? And I can probably make more use of the contents anyway. So if we want to minimize suffering between the two of us it probably makes more sense if I'm the only one who reads it." She holds up the map stack, focuses for a couple of seconds, and it vanishes. "I put the maps on the table we were using in your Bevin."

"It is convenient yet also concerning how you can do that. —and, you see, if it is mostly full of upsetting things, probably there is not much to be learned from the upsetting parts? So I could tell you about all the parts that aren't upsetting, faster than you could hear about them on your own."

"Well... hm." She sends the binder with the copied maps to her own Bevin. "I mean..." She looks at her. "It has tongue removal and its use in some sort of magic bell... are you sure? I can absolutely handle it."

"That sounds icky. I think I'll be okay, though? This won't be the only spooky book I've ever read. It might turn out to be the spookiest but I still think I'll be okay."

"Well..." She sounds uncertain. "Be my guest." She waves at the book between them.

She picks it up and tucks it into her bag.

"Alright, well, we should figure out what our next move is. I should investigate the bridges, you said something about another Conduit, and you had a book with a list of worlds?"

"Yes. Fib sometimes visits the Academy, usually accompanied by an explosion and some sort of minor disaster—he has a problem where bad things happen when he crosses a bridge. I sell him winebark bags in return for interesting plants. He's interested in hearing about all the different worlds, so he might want you to tell him about the ones you've found. There are usually people with him; there's some world or other where he found a lot of people having a bad time and he rescues them when he can, and sometimes they travel with him to help him out. Investigating the bridges is a good idea. I should find where my list of worlds has got to and see about keeping it updated with new information, and see if your rainy world and city world are on it."

"Ok... Do you know what bridge he uses to get here? And does he have a schedule or does he just come by at random?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to call it a schedule, but I usually see him about once a day, from the same bridge he originally came through. Sometimes I miss a visit because he doesn't stay long and I'm not always near that bridge, and sometimes he doesn't come by on some particular day because he has urgent business elsewhere."

"Oh, I somehow expected him to come by less frequently than that. Especially if its a small disaster every time he comes through a bridge?"

"In addition to the exploding bridge problem he also has a problem where if he doesn't spend equal time in all his connected worlds he starts getting forcibly dragged through bridges to make up the imbalance. He is having a difficult time. —and the Rim runs on a different scale of time, so it's less insane than it sounds to be making a circuit of every known world once a day. I think he said it was fifty times faster? So an hour outside the Rim is about two days inside it."

"F— Fifty times?!"

"Fifty times. But you don't accumulate power faster there to match. So getting a year's worth of power in the Rim takes fifty Rim years."

"Woof. Ok, so there are pros and cons. Still! An anime protagonist could get so much training there!"

"An anime protagonist such as yourself?"

"I'm a magical girl! Of course I'm a protagonist!"

"I see the logic. Well, if you hang around that one bridge, you'll probably run into Fib and can see about hitching a ride."

"Well, yeah, ok, good plan. So we should probably wait for him, in the meanwhile, we could check up on that list of worlds?"

"Do you want to come look through my library with me? Or, I suppose more accurately, do you want to drag me through the bridge into my own house and then look through my library with me?"

"I would love that, yeah." She puts a hand on Groundskeeper's shoulder, takes aim, pushes her into her Bevin, then follows.

She leads the way into her library, which is absolutely stuffed full of bookshelves which are in turn absolutely stuffed full of books. "You can browse the shelves if you want while I'm digging through my desk."

"Ooh." She runs a finger over the spines of the books. "So a power makes these books appear? Where do they come from?"

"Some of them come from other Conduits, and I think some of the rest are from... any book that gets lost or destroyed in worlds I'm connected to? I'm not sure, that's just the feeling I get."

"That's really handy! And fantastic for preservation, I'm a fan." She pulls out a book. "Is this it?"

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."

"Yeah! just two smooth criminals! Breaking the law! I think. I have yet to see anything resembling law enforcement here."

"Even if there's no law against breaking into dorm rooms it still feels kind of wrong."

"I mean... yeah." She picks up Keeper's list. "So your Bevin being nice is because of powers?"

"Yes. And I'm pretty sure that having more powers also makes it nicer independent of what the specific power does—I noticed my Bevin had a growth spurt after I got the control power even before I started using it."

So if she were willing to spend years on it, she could make her Rockhome nicer. Maybe she should just try to import stuff, it can't be that hard to bring in like a generator or something. Could she plug things into her nose and power them that way? She shakes her head. "So what does this mean?" She points to 'Drinking Starlight' on Keeper's list.

"Oh—in Arbor the stars are all different colours, and there's a power that means I don't need to eat or drink if I stand under the starlight. It works on other light sources too, but it's better when there's more different kinds of light."

"Heh, I could go for that, just sunbathing when I'm feeling extra lazy and don't feel like eating. What does it, I dunno, feel like?"

"It's nice! Soothing."

"It's odd, a lot of this isn't what I would've conceptualized as a 'power', y'know? I mean some of it is! Enhanced strength is a classic, but things like knowing how to make a flask for a healing elixir or..." She looks for a suitable example on Keeper's list. "Gathering sand? It's not what I expected."

"Technically what the gathering sand power does is give me a sense for how much sand I can take from where without messing things up, and for where to find more sand. I could just scoop up the sand in a bucket either way, but if I wasn't careful about it the flowers would die and I would be sad."

"Hm." She looks at her own list. "Do you know what powers you could get at the academy?"

"The one I'm working on right now feels like it's going to be pretty similar to the Bevin control power. I'm hoping I'll be able to use it to clean up after the Fibsplosions. And maybe make the Arbor gazebo a little nicer... there's definitely more powers than that, but I don't have a clear view of all of them. The other one I've caught a good glimpse of looks like it will involve people coming to me with their problems and I'm definitely saving that for when they won't be so upset about me."

"Right, that's neat. Uh, do you get the impression that you could learn to... transform?"

"You mean like a magical girl? I'm not sure... if there's a power like that out there, I haven't caught wind of it. But maybe I just don't have the prerequisites? For some reason, the architectural control power seems to be rooted in the specter-related one. I didn't see it until after I had that one."

This was all starting to sound uncomfortably like a skill tree. She would be tempted to try to draw one out based on their shared knowledge, but if she did she might start seriously contemplating Solipsism. That was obviously wrong.

"Maybe I have a power that you don't. I've gotten a lot of use out of it. But then again I do go into combat a lot, I didn't get the impression that you wanted to fight things."

"Fighting things sounds difficult and stressful! I would much rather stay home and make jam."

"I have found violence to be pretty therapeutic. I mean, also stressful, up until the point where it was not."

"I think perhaps you and I are very different people."

"We both like jam though!" 

"Very true."

"If I can fight and you don't I could evacuate you into your Bevin whenever we run into something dangerous. Even if you don't want to go anywhere dangerous, if you stick around the academy you might run into a monster. I still don't know where they come from."

"I've been there for a while without seeing any, but I might just be lucky..."

"Hm." She goes over the lists a couple more times. "Well, what do you want to do now?"

"I'm not sure. I should finish my book and start reading yours at some point..."

"Ah. I suppose I should go check out the bridges. Though I should stick around for when Fib shows up."

"Well, at least it seems like you won't have any trouble finding me again. Ideally less precipitously, next time."

She snickers. "I only promise to try."

She takes a look around. "I'll be back." She's about to jump, but she thinks of something. "I shouldn't just come in to your Bevin without letting you know first, it's your house. But I'm not sure how to knock?"

"If you find my Bevin bridge somewhere and I'm not attached to it, I'm almost certainly sleeping. So... wait a few hours and try again, probably."

"Yeah, sure, that makes sense. Well, see you later then." She jumps away.

And Groundskeeper collects her books and her bicycle and heads out to bike back to the Arbor bridge. It's her favourite place to sit and read.