Taking Ian's lead, Niels decides that it would be best not to reveal the extent of Earth's technology, at least until they learn more about the society they find themselves in. "I'm a... craftsman. I designed and built wheeled contraptions, somewhat like carriages." And aircraft, for most of my career, but best not to mention that. "We also have farmers and foresters, but we developed tools to help them produce more food with fewer people. Most of our people live in cities, and we have a lot of merchants."

"Ian, Ronja, and I are... academics? Scientists? Natural philosophers?" Chloe's not sure exactly what the translation magic can do, especially if there are words that do not have an equivalent from one culture to the next. "Ian studied the past of our people, and Ronja studied chemistry." Will "chemistry" translate? If they don't have a scientific tradition, maybe as "alchemy"? Only one way to find out. "I studied a type of mathematics, but I ended up in a job where I managed other people who were using mathematics to organize things."

"I believe some places in Noten do such- They carry and trade promises of payment from a specific noble or merchant guild, rather than physical coin. I heard that many do not trust them, though, as the Duke Pharos infamously refused to acknowledge his late father's debts, and the King had to step in. Ah, a craftsman and three scholars. A noble pursuit, all. Of history, or something more than that? Of - salves and tinctures and acids? Medicines and poisons and esoteric liquids changing form, like lye and tannins and wood-varnishing? And of mathematics. I hesitate to ask more about the mathematics, lest I sound like a pig trying to speak! Were you from a great city, then, that there was opportunity to go to schools?"

"The King of Noten offered to those holding promises of payment to Duke Pharos the third, to purchase the papers at half of the shown value if they would swear before Erius that the claimed debt was legitimate. Half is not none, but half is also most certainly not all, and there's little to say that other nobles won't do the same thing, so people only trust the Royal promissory notes."