"Hello, Autumn. I'm Verena. I'm the head of the Introductions department and I'd like to formally welcome you to Literate Elfland. If you'd like to visit us in the capitol you're welcome to do so and we can provide housing. If you'd like to speak with Consul Ceanothus I expect that she is also interested. We are also willing to exchange maps with you."

"We're doing well for ourselves out at Revival Base, for the most part, and it would be...unwise to make our Conduit friend pass through any densely inhabited areas more often than is necessary. Talking with Consul Ceanothus and exchanging maps both seem good, though!"

"This telephone actually has a map function, anyone on the response team should be able to show you how to use it. Will you be available in three minutes or do you need to depart sooner than that?"

Minutes? Oh, like, Earth minutes, not Rim minutes. "Three minutes should be fine, our people back at Revival Base aren't expecting us back for at least a couple local days, and if things take longer than that we can contact via our own phones."

"We call the local day-night cycle a pass. I'll schedule the meeting. This may be premature, but would your party be interested in an exchange of library-mirrors with us?"

Autumn briefly holds the phone away from her head and confers with Fib before answering, "We're alright with that!"

"That's excellent. We have an internet now and thus can spare a mirror, I'll have someone send one over."

"Thank you. Fib, our Conduit friend, seems excited to expand the reach of his network. It's been a big part of how we've been able to skill-up and gain as much from Earthside trade, so I think I can understand his feeling. Anyway, anything else you'd like to ask us in the mean time? Maybe we can trade questions."

"Have you solved immortality?"

The four of them discuss the answer to this question as well. "Fib has as special bondfire in his Stone Library, which we've all bound ourselves to and which preserves us as long as its stores of color-flame are maintained, which Fib endeavors to do. We're not sure if that's the kind of solution you mean?"

"Something like that would be of use, as it's very rare for elves to live much past 50 weeks. The Consul has a personal solution but she hasn't figured out how to share it with elves yet and expects doing so to potentially take years."

"Ah, hm. Being bound to the bondworks does prevent aging, but it also requires physically visiting the bondworks, in Fib's Stone Library, which in turn requires each individual to jump there with him. Fib's jumps are also particularly dangerous, due to how they cause his world-auras to flare significantly for a short time afterwards, which can have deleterious effects on the mental states of himself and those physically near him, as well as cause the appearance of hostile wildlife and planar phenomena. We have teams, like this one right now, who are trained and accustomed to handle these sorts of things, but even if you go with us there's still a chance that you might be killed or suffer serious mental harm before you can bind yourself to the bondworks."

"We get new immigrants frequently and have much lower infant mortality than we used to. If Fib wanted to auction off travel slots to the elderly I'm sure he'd have takers, but even aside from the travel risks, I'm not sure anything requiring a single person's active intervention would resolve the issue at a state level."

"It is not a scalable solution," Autumn agrees.

"It certainly means that if you're interested in any goods or services we can offer you'll have something to exchange. I'm also happy to answer your questions now, of course, you've answered some of ours."

"True," Autumn replies, before Fib asks her something, and she in turn asks it to whoever is on the other side of the phone, "With regards to less risky trade-goods, would you have any interest in orichalcum or desert glass? They are metal Fib is capable of conjuring in significant quantity and which is suitable for construction purposes, and a highly versatile material which can he form from sand taken from a particular world, which is suitable for purposes similar to many different kinds of rubber or plastic."

"We have local metal and plastics production, though we may be interested in these goods nonetheless. Do you know what the conductivity properties of orichalum are? If it's possible to conjure integrated circuits with it we'd be quite interested."

Once again Autumn confers with the others before answering. "Fib is only able to conjure orichalcum as large blocks, at the moment, and has to personally shape them into other forms, which would likely not be an efficient method of producing integrated circuits, even leaving aside the fact that, while we haven't confirmed it as such, Fib believes that orichalcum is likely to have an extremely high electrical resistance."

"Would Fib be interested in elves doing remote work in his name on Earth so as to fund Earth imports? We could discuss exact profit divisions if so."

"We actually already have a significant network of sosei-shita and allied humans on various Earths already, but expanding that probably wouldn't be bad? I suppose you already have your own Earth imports sorted, then. Fib has already made contact with another Conduit relatively recently, so we could potentially act as couriers between your Conduit and the other?"

"Oh, that's interesting. Both the multiplicity of Earths and that you've been acting on them. We've made a lot of tradeoffs towards subtlety due to some concern about Quellers, has that not been an issue for you?"

"Quellers?" Autumn asks, looking with some confusion to the others, who can only shrug in response.

"I believe they're a violent anti-Conduit organization."

"Ah," Autumn says simply, Fib's fiery colors flickering with hues of fear and doubt. "Do you have more information about them that you're willing to share?"

"We do, I personally don't. Would you like to hold while I review our records?"