He turns to watch her, dragging the snapped wood-and-canvas wings along the edge of the ward circle. "No, seriously, what the hell. Where am I?"

The one who spoke before, the younger browner one without the crazy ears, says something else. Still incomprehensible.

"Where am I? Why am I here? Why is there an invisible wall that broke my glider? Who are you? In decreasing order of importance."

"In our room," says the blonde with the ears, "at our school, in Elcenia. Because the summoning spell picked you at random and we're going to show you to Nemaar. The ward is in case you're dangerous. I'm Korulen and that's Saasnil."

"Okay. Three things. One, magic is not a thing. Two, if I assume that magic is, in fact, a thing, why are you randomly summoning people? You know, without asking them first? Three, you're going to pay for materials to fix my glider."

"I could have been doing something important. I wasn't, not particularly, but what if I was trying to put out a fire, or pulling my airship out of the way of hitting something? This seems incredibly short-sighted. And I am strongly opposed to not receiving some sort of compensation for you making me break my glider. Long pieces of wood are expensive, you know."

To Korulen, "Yes you did. You made me think I was falling to my death." To Saasnil, "Because there's only so many trees. Come to think of it - how big is this place? I haven't felt the ground shift once."

"Whatever you call it. Yes. A thing that shows how to find places. Holy hell, you have solid land. No wonder the ground feels so weird, you use wood for floors and have so many books because you actually have enough trees and I bet you can even mine metal. I've changed my mind, I'll consider my glider paid for in exchange for five kilograms of iron."

"You're being an enormous hassle to me, you know. The least I can do is return the favor."

"We don't have to do anything for you at all," says Saasnil, crossing her arms.

"If you're not going to do anything for me in exchange for showing me off to your magic friend, put me back where I came from please. Preferably before my ship runs into anything without me there to pilot it."

Nick has dealt with teenagers before. He's angry enough that saying anything would not improve the situation, so he ignores the bickering and starts trying to take off his jacket without breaking the glider any more than it already is.

"If you're worried about getting expelled, think about me. I'm worried about getting killed."

"I. Need. To. Talk. To. An. Adult!"

If this goes on much longer Nick is going to start seeing how durable the invisible wall is.

"Okay, but that doesn't actually stop my ship from killing someone without me there to stop it! Full engines, flying straight towards a town! It was a few miles off, so maybe it won't hit them but maybe it will and this is an absolute disaster godammit!" He punches the ward again.

"How long will it take to hit if it hits?" asks the green-haired woman.

"Approximately forty-five minutes. Do you use minutes? About... Six times as long as I've been here already."

"Assuming that you cannot go back, but someone else can go to the ship, what should they do about it?" she asks.

"Someone from here? If they can't fly it, deliberately crash it into the deeps by puncturing all the gas cells."

"All right. It's being handled," she says. "Is there anything else extremely urgent like that?"

"No. Unpiloted objects and uncontrolled fire are the only really dangerous things I can think of, and I try not to use fire at all. But how is it being handled, exactly?"

"My husband is drawing a sending circle, will be done in less than the described amount of time with plenty of safety margin, and will then - provided it's safe to do so - send me or one of our employees to go and puncture the cells and then be unsent."

"Can you fly? Quickly? You'll need to catch it if they can only send you to where it was. And come to think of it cutting open the cells wouldn't be very safe, you might breathe the gas. You should just hold open the valves from the control room instead."

"I can fly," says Keo, "but he can send me where it is now, so I shouldn't need to. He can put me in the control room. May I scan your mind to see which valves you mean, in case a description wouldn't be adequate?"

"Scan my mind? By magic, presumably? How thoroughly?"

"Minimally invasively. I will also want to confirm the story about the runaway ship entire, and determine whether it would be safe to let you out of the circle, but I won't see anything I'm not looking for."

"Fine, you can read my mind to confirm the story and find my ship's controls and see that I'm not going to attack anyone. I guess it's reassuring that you're asking for permission. But I'm only agreeing because lives might be in the balance, I wouldn't hold with random mindreading for no good reason if I could stop you."

"If you didn't want to let me we'd have to confirm that your world was safe to visit some other way, and you'd have to stay in that circle, which would get very inconvenient very quickly, but I wouldn't do it without permission." She pauses, then smudges the chalk. The ward vanishes.

"I want to have a long conversation about this very interesting world once my ship is safely crashed. But do please make sure nobody's going to die because I was summoned as quickly as possible."

"The circle is in progress," she soothes.

Nick paces impatiently. He takes off his jacket and gets a better look at his broken glider. "Do I have to do anything in particular to help?"

"No. You're stuck here for the near future. The school is responsible for you; I can put you in a spare room."

"I meant to help kill my ship."

"I've learned what I'll need to know, the circle's in progress, and you can't go along," she says. "If you'd rather not down the thing I could pick up from you how to bring it to a stop or anchor it or whatever it is you do, but if you want it killed it's all going to be handled."

"There's no safe long-term solution for me not being there, except downing it. Much as I regret throwing something as valuable as a ship away, it's not worth the risk. I don't suppose you could get my books off it first?"

"I can grab as many as I can carry," she says. "I'll bring a bag."

"Yes. This way. You may want to leave your broken glider."

He leaves the broken glider and follows her. "Possibly a bad time to ask, but why green hair if you're going to dye it at all?"

He keeps his balance effortlessly despite the lurching. "Yay, magic."

"Don't try the stairs? How could badly enchanted stairs possibly be worse than trying to climb up the outside of the building or something?"

"They'll trap you until someone magics you out," says the green-haired lady. "I'm not saying you should scale the building, just stick with the lifts. This is my husband Kanaat, by the way. And I'm Keo."

"That is an undesirable quality in stairs, yes. Hello, Kanaat, Keo, I'm sure I'll be much happier to meet you once I'm not about to be the cause of a major accident."

"We'll take care of it," Keo assures him.

Nick alternates between watching Kanaat draw the circle and reading book titles.

The book titles mostly appear to be about magic.

He keeps reading the titles. His mind is too busy to properly form questions.

Eventually, Kanaat finishes the circle. Keo, holding a bag, stands in it. Kanaat performs a gesture and speaks words, and Keo disappears.

"She knows what to do. Damn, my hands are itching. I hate the idea of losing control of my ship. It's the worst thing an airman can do. She knows how to fix this."

"She's got your books," Kanaat says. "She's venting the gas now."

"...And you know this how?"

"We have a mindlink," Kanaat says.

"So, you're reading each others' minds?"

"Yes."

Nick lets out some kind of wordless noise. "Ugh. Tell me if she needs help or when she's done, please."

"When she's done I'll unsend her," Kanaat says.

Nick will go back to reading book titles, then.

And eventually, Keo reappears and puts Nick's sack of books down on the floor.

All the nervous tension bleeds out of him at once. "Thank you for dealing with that. Not being able to control my ship felt almost like suddenly realizing that I don't have a right hand. But it's not going to hurt anyone. I don't suppose I could get something to eat?"

"Of course. You can have full cafeteria access as long as you're here," says Keo.

"Right, and I still want someone to pay for my glider. Maybe not the ship, I did tell you to sink it. Walk into the lift and name my destination, right?"

"Yes. Do you want me to go with you to the cafeteria?"

"Right," says Keo, directing the lift to the cafteria. "I'm a dragon, Kanaat is an elf."

"My hair, his ears, our lifespans, my shapeshifting and various other properties," says Keo. "The full list in the case of dragons would take a while."

"You shape-shift? I thought you mind-magicked."

"Ah-huh. And what do you shape-shift into? ...Is this a school?"

"This is a school," confirms Keo. "I shapeshift into a human. Sometimes a mouse, but less often."

"Ah, so naturally you look like something else. That could have interesting navigational uses if your weight changes as well." Nick walks up to the rows of food. "Ooh, meat." He has some of anything that contains meat or seafood (which he recognizes as more meat).

"My weight does change, but I seldom need to navigate like you do," she points out dryly. She helps herself to a few foods too. There's lots of meat available; if he wants rabbit and beef and chicken and pork and tuna and shrimp he can get it.

"It's not particularly hard to come by here. We have to have it available for the leonine students even if everyone else were vegetarian; they're carnivorous," says Keo.

"And someone mentioned conjuring iron. If I ever go back I want about ten tons of the stuff - metal is extremely rare at home. Rare enough that it's hard to make proper tools. A lot of people's lives would be a lot easier with a little steel."

"That will be easy enough, although it'll probably be necessary to send it in batches rather than draw an enormous circle," says Keo agreeably.

"I don't suppose magic can be exported, too? From what I saw of your office, there's easily a dozen kinds here."

"Not a dozen," says Keo. "Well, depending on how you count, I guess, but anyway - most forms of magic you have to be born with. Wizardry won't work in your world at all even if you import wizards. It is possible you could use witchcraft but I wouldn't count on it."

"Wizardry is the chalk and circles and hand signs, correct?"

"Yes."

"This is a school, does it teach wizardry? As long as I'm here I might try to learn it."

"It's a school of wizardry, but you probably can't learn it, it's unlikely you have a channeling capacity."

"Can you check?"

"Yes." She does a gesture and a word. A symbol appears. "No CC," she reports.

"The what?" asks Keo. "Compost? Why would we have a compost bin?"

"To recycle food into fertilizer. I guess you don't need it if you have more than bare rocks to grow plants on."

"We don't," she says, and she knocks on the table and everything on it disappears.

"Convenient. This is a surprisingly relaxing place to be irreversibly summoned against my will to, you know."

"I'd say 'we try' but it's actually not a common problem," she says dryly.

"Which is probably a good thing for all concerned. Are you particularly busy? I know I couldn't have left my ship alone this long even if it weren't about to hit something - show me a place to sleep and give me shopping money and directions to a store and I'll get out of your hair."

"Korulen can take you shopping in case the city or the products are confusing," says Keo. "To work off her misbehavior. I'll show you to an empty room so you can form an idea of what you want to put in it."

"Sounds good." He follows to the lift and memorizes its destination.

And here is a room like Korulen and Saasnil's but undecorated.

And when Korulen comes to take him shopping, he smiles sweetly. "Nobody died."

"That's, um, good. I mean, I know. Mom told me," says Korulen.

"I hope you can see why I was so upset earlier. In my world, it's hard to live to adulthood without a healthy dose of caution."

Nod nod.

"Good. Let's go shopping. I want clothes, paper, and crafts supplies. Lead the way."

Nick has no comment on the architecture. It's not like he's seen a city built on solid land before. He does seem slightly awed at the sheer size of the place, though.

She takes him to a clothing store first. There are plenty of options; the men's side is however all variants of one sort or another on pants and shirts.

So Nick buys some pants and shirts. Nothing too fancy or expensive. Are those some shoes? He gets a pair of those as well.

Korulen pays for everything with some kind of credit system, and then shows him to an art store, which has paper as well as miscellaneous craft objects.

"Where's your coins? They just trust you to come back and pay later?"

"...What? No, they're scanning my credit stamp," says Korulen.

"So the stamp connects to a bank or something, and showing it tells the bank that you've bought such-and-such? Clever."

"Yeah, basically. There are coins too but it's inconvenient to carry too many."

"I'm beginning to think Cloudbank doesn't have much of anything compared to this place."

Korulen shrugs noncommittally.

"I wasn't going to complain," mumbles Korulen.

"I mean, I don't use a hover platform, I can fly, but they're pretty popular," says Korulen.

"You can fly? Without a ship or a platform or anything? Is that a thing dragons do?"

"I'm not a dragon, but yeah, in my other form, I have wings," she says.

"Most flying things I know use hydrogen to fly, it'd be interesting to see it done with wings. Would you mind?"

"I don't mind. Do you want me to grab your stuff as long as I'm shifting?"

"It'll come along? Great, sure, here."

"Wow. You look like nothing I've ever seen before. What's that called, the... Things covering your skin?"

"...Scales?"

"Scales. Interesting. They look heavy, but tough."

"They're sort of metallic textured," she says. "I don't have any loose or I could see if I could get it off for you to have a look at. Anyway, flying is like -" She checks the area around her, finds she has space for her wingspan, and lopes a few steps, flapping, to take off. She goes up over the buildings, makes a circle, and then comes in for a landing.

Nick claps his hands. "Beautiful. Muscle alone bears you aloft. That would be a bad idea where I come from, since there's barely any land to land on you'd risk getting tired before finding a safe place."

"I can soar for a long time, but I wouldn't, like, try to cross an ocean," she agrees.

"Exactly." He starts walking back to the school.

She follows on all fours, wings folded. Possibly just to avoid carrying the bags.

"You're not going to fly back? I can find my way. Hm, you'd have to wait for me once you're there, I guess. Oh, I never did see a map like I wanted to. Where can I find one?"

"I'm supposed to escort you, and I have your bags," she points out. "We could get you an atlas at a bookstore."

He makes a face. "I'd rather not buy books I only want to read once. Is there a library?"

"In the school, yeah. You can use it."

"If you want you can totally do that."

Silence for a while. "It's just so strange to not need to do anything. I could just stand here, I won't run out of hydrogen or get caught in a storm, I won't collide with anything, I won't get attacked by wild animals or pirates."

"I mean, if you just stood here forever you'd get hungry eventually."

"Keo told me the cafeteria would feed me. And there was a sort of fountain there. Infinite water just - coming out of a hole. You guys don't need to worry when it goes a whole week without raining. I have come to the conclusion that my home planet is just a terrible place to live."

"Esmaar is probably nicer than most countries," says Korulen. "I mean, they don't have any of that in Ryganaav."

"Why not?"

"Ryganaav bans magic," explains Korulen.

"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

"I mean, they ban a lot of things. They're kind of a terrible theocracy and also they live in a desert so not having waterspouts is kind of a problem."

"I've been to towns that ban fire, or ban alcohol or something, but there's always a good reason. Fires can get out of hand really fast, and it's a lot easier to fall off if you're drunk. Unless using magic, like, rots your brain or something it seems a lot more dangerous to not have it, right?"

"It doesn't rot our brains," Korulen says, almost indignant. "It's against their religion, is the trouble."

"Religion, huh. Those are troublesome. I never saw the point myself."

"Me either," shrugs Korulen, "but lots of people do, and the one in Ryganaav in particular bans magic, and being a nonhuman too."

"...They kill nonhumans? And nonhumans from other countries put up with this?"

"There are practically no non-humans there, anymore," Korulen says. "I think there are some leonines still, but the leonines will use magic - anyway, we take refugees, anyone who approaches the border and wants in."

"Yup, Ryganaav sounds pretty terrible. I'm not sure if it's comforting or not that this world isn't necessarily safer than mine everywhere."

"It's nice here though."

"Well, apart from that place does most of the world live in relative safety and abundance? I think it would be a terrible shame if there were just one or two cities with all the shiny magic, and everyone else had to scrabble in the dirt to survive. Esmaar takes refugees, you said, so, probably?"

"Erubia doesn't allow wizardry, I think witchcraft too, but they'll allow other kinds of magic so it's not that bad - less convenient but at least they have lights. And yeah, it's really easy to immigrate to Esmaar most of the time once you get here. And there are some private charities that help with getting here."

"Good, good. Say, how many people live in Esmaar? And how many in the rest of Elcenia? Cloudbank is too spread out to get a good estimate, but it's probably something like two to five million people over the whole world."

"Um, I remember the world has like... ten billion people? Something like that. Esmaar I don't remember exactly, maybe a couple hundred million. We have plenty of people our size but not that many fey, they like places that get more rain - having a lot of fey will drive up a population fast because they're little."

Nick stops walking.

"Your world sounds really tiny. This city has a couple million people."

"Weird," says Korulen. "I wonder where it would go if it just kept floating until it was out of the range of the planet's down-magic."

"...Down-magic. Does air get thinner as you go up? If so, it'll stop when the air is thin enough. I think it would just keep going if the air is the same all the way up, though."

"The air's the same everywhere," says Korulen.

"I think I need to find a physics textbook."

Korulen looks puzzled, insofar as it is possible to read facial expressions on a toothy lizard face.

"I mean, it's a school, there's lots of textbooks."

"Then it's a good place for me to spend the rest of the day. My glider's still in your room, what's left of it anyway. Could we go get it from yours and then drop everything off in mine?"

"Have a nice day. Be careful with magic." Nick looks around. Does the room contain a flat surface other than the floor large enough to lay out his glider on?

The spare bed is too soft. Hmm. Think her name really hard? Keo, are you still reading my mind?

<No,> comes the reply, <I just keep an ear out for my name.>

&ltTalking like this is... Strange. Anyway, are there workshops or workrooms of some kind available? My room isn't big enough to put out my glider's full wingspan so I can try to fix it.&gt

<There are workrooms, off the south wall of the library.>

&ltAnyone gonna mind if I drag tools and art supplies down there?&gt

<No, that's fine.>

So he takes the tools and craft supplies and glider, walks to the lift, and declares, "Library."

And the lift takes him and his belongings to the library, which is very big and full of many books.

Students check to see whether the room's available a couple of times, but they just close the door again when it isn't.

The cafeteria has equally abundant food, changed in the details since he was last there.

His food is again completely carnivorous, and he sits alone unless approached by someone.

People look at him, but nobody strikes up a conversation.

&ltKeo, you said I'm stuck for the near future. How am I going to go home in the not-near-future? I'd like to go back eventually, even if there's nobody I'm urgently missing.&gt

<When Korulen has advanced far enough to get a familiar, it'll increase her channeling capacity, possibly by enough that she can send you home herself. If she can't do it, Saasnil can try, although it's a longer shot. We can have someone good at spell breaks look at you, but that's iffy at the best of times, and a co-cast is not the best of times.>

&ltIf a break works, will it send me back that instant? Because I'll fall into the deeps without my ship there to catch me.&gt

<If a break is successfully cast, yes. Someone can analyze the feasibility without actually casting the break, and if it's feasible we can plan to unsummon you along with someone who can fly you to safety.>

&ltIt isn't urgent on a scale of days. I would definitely like to import conjured things if and when I go back, though. What kind of things sell well here? What sort of jobs are available here so I could fund such a project? Who should I ask about this kind of thing if you don't know or want me to stop bugging you?&gt

<I'm not sure what your standards for selling well are. You probably don't have any locally demanded skills, and even in a nominally unskilled job you're unfamiliar with how, say, retail works here. The girls, being the source of your inconvenience, are more or less at your disposal if you need anything, but they're less likely to be able to answer questions than I am.>

&ltI mostly want money so I pay someone to conjure and send various things. We have almost zero raw resources in Cloudbank, anything I can have sent there there will be exceptionally valuable. In particular, wood, silver, steel, rubber, and meat are worth a lot of money. I could try trade, buy glassware or something for a bit of steel, sell the glass in Elcenia, pay someone to conjure more steel.&gt

<Korulen can look up how to conjure and send things for you; Saasnil may be able to help her.>

And after a bit of wandering, onto a table go a moderately large pile of books. An atlas, history books, a first tier wizardry textbook, and a book supposedly summarizing all the different species in Elcenia. He starts reading.

He attempts to find a book that summarizes the different kinds of magic.

If he looks hard enough he can find one! There's witchcraft and wizardry (the latter of which comes in three 'traditions'), there's sorcery and lightcraft, there are four kinds of mages, and there is the magic that various species sapient and non- can do.

He skims a few spellbooks - things like "50 Spells Your Friends Will Expect You To Know If You Are A Wizard" - to get a better idea of the kind of things wizardry can do, but by then it's getting rather late. He asks the first not-busy person he can find if he has to put the books back himself.

The kid he asks says there's a spell to do it, and if he doesn't know it a librarian can do it.

"I have no CC. Where can I find a librarian?"

"Behind that desk," says the kid, pointing.

"Thanks." The librarian spells his books back. Nick directs the lift back to his room and goes to sleep and wakes up at the next day's sunrise unless something interrupts him.

Nothing interrupts him.

He eats breakfast (It actually contains things that are not meat, he's had his fill) and wanders around the school, thinking about wings and wood and lift and drag.

Assuming he's not going to try the stairs, it's not very suited for wandering per se. The halls don't connect to each other except by lift and he has to know where he's going to use that. He can go outside if he likes; there's plenty of prairie to walk around, and a pond.

He looks contemplatively at the pond. &ltKeo, I'd like to try swimming, where can I find a place to do that?&gt

<The pond's safe but not really ideal. There's a river with a calm spot if you go a few miles east by southeast.>

&ltWait, you know I'm by the pond? Are you still in my mind for more than purely voluntary communication? I thought I made it clear I would not like that.&gt

<The pond is the only conceivably swimmable place you could have easily walked to without knowing where it is,> says Keo. <Calm down.>

&ltCalming. It's hard not to be a little paranoid being near people with abilities vastly greater than my own.&gt

<Anyway. Do you know how to swim? It's potentially dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.>

&ltI do not know how to swim. I had planned to find still, shallow water and play it by ear.&gt

<The pond will work as far as still and shallow goes but there's a fair amount of algae in it and the bottom's very silty; you won't come out clean.>

&ltHow does one clean clothes around here? I didn't see detergent in any of the shops.&gt

<Magic, usually. Enchanted baskets, but some people just learn a household spell for it - you'll want the basket.>

&ltHow do I get a credit stamp?&gt

<You deposit some money with a bank and ask for one.>

&ltMay I have some money with which to do that? I will promise to use it only for things like the laundry basket, which the school should owe me since I'm stuck here by a student.&gt

<I'll set aside an expense account for you with Espaal United Financial.>

&ltCan I find an office of that bank in town and ask for a stamp or some coins?&gt

<Yes. Do you want Saasnil to show you the way or do you want me to directly supply directions?>

There are quite a lot of things in this city. The residential areas have very tall houses organized in circles around shared lawns; the commercial areas, interspersed at intervals of easy walking distance around and between the residential sections and much more grid-organized, have groceries and theaters and bookshops and commercial casting outfits and public lights and charity offices and newspaper stands and calligraphers and witch shops with shelves of potions. Plant nurseries and scoot repairs and the central international temple of the most divine Kovin and furniture stores and restaurants and a music school and - there's a bank. Espaal United Financial.

"Binaaralav?" asks the young elf lady.

"Apparently. The wizard school. Keo and Kanaat run it. If you couldn't tell, I'm under a translation spell."

"And what's your name?"

"Nick." Nope. Nope. She only gets the first part.

"Nik what?"

"Can you look me up some other way? I have a strong dislike for my last name."

"I need your full legal name for the records," she says.

Sigh. "Fine. Nicolas Streiss."

"How do you prefer to render that in Leraal characters?"

"I don't know Leraal, could you do two or three possible transliterations and pronounce them?"

"My pronunciation of foreign names isn't the best. 'Nikolas' is easy enough, but, uh - Satress? Asteriss?"

"Try S-ter-ei-ss."

"That, uh, vowel, doesn't work in Leraal, although we can represent it with a combination if you have one you like. Uh, I can put a sed and a ten together without anything first if you want me to, though. S'teriss?" she attempts.

"That's close enough, thanks."

"Nikolas Steriss. And your address?"

He names a room number at Binaarlav.

She writes this down. "The primary Binaaralav account holder has authorized a supervised draw expense account for you, which means that he'll be able to look at whatever you're spending money on but the stamp will be on you. Do you want to receive your stamp now?"

"Yes, please." He holds out his right hand, palm up.

And she picks up a wooden octagonal prism, taps it to where she's been writing her notes, and then taps his hand. "You're all set."

"Have a nice day." He walks out and finds a bench to sit on. What does the newspaper have to say?

Rathadaar Kerik is starring in "Salute the Night". Noted advocacy charity Voices for All is spinning off a division to be its own organization, called Voices from Afar, specializing in immigrant and tourist issues. Pineapples are going to be expensive this year because of an Egerian blight. Someone tried to burn down a Sand Dusk Chanter temple but the fire mages on call stopped them and brought them into custody. The wards have been re-installed over Paraasilan and the old ones decommissioned; there is more space to the south and west for any would-be developers and the land is going fast, mostly to residential builders. Pleia's war with Mekand is going well for Mekand (yay). The national convention of witches and witch suppliers will be held in Mifaar this year.

Wars, ouch. They're probably more devastating and last longer since the aggrieved party can't just float away. He's not sure he wants to know, but... Does the newspaper have a casualty count?

Not a total for the entire engagement, but in the battle it's specifically reporting on, Mekand reports three "irrecoverable losses" and Pleia's deaths are estimated at thirty.

There are magic laundry baskets available at a furniture store.

<Don't pay more than three aaberik for a meal, but that's fine.>

He doesn't respond in words, just a little mental acknowledgment. He picks a restaurant offering food below three aaberik at random - Tahaan's.

Tahaan's is apparently a "Saraanlan" restaurant. The menu has "substrates" and "flavorings" with a warning that you shouldn't put more than two flavorings unless you know what you're doing.

He doesn't recognize the names of about half the flavorings. Feeling adventurous, he chooses rice with blueberry and something random from the stranger half of the list - "chocolate."

And in short order he is brought blue-brown, sweet-smelling rice pudding.

The waitress can take his credit stamp, although she's confused about why he's so puzzled.

"I have no idea how most things work here. I've been in Esmaar for a grand total of less than twenty-three hours."

"Well," she says, "welcome!" And she scans his stamp and goes off.

He smiles and grabs his laundry basket and starts trying to find his way back to the same street he entered the city with.

If he sticks to the gridded commercial areas and can distinguish the cardinal directions he should be all right.

He attempts to use his compass. This does not work. He watches the sun instead - it's afternoon, so that direction is west. Off he goes, back to the edge of the city, back to the school, drop his basket off in his room, take a shower and change clothes, then once again to the library.

The library continues to librar.

Nick attempts to find a book about how to learn Leraal.

This library is geared exclusively to students who already speak it, so it's kind of lacking in that area. It does have dictionaries and grammars, neither of which will work well for their intended purposes while he's under a translation spell.

<Yes?>

&ltCan you make me know Leraal? The limitations of this translation spell are becoming inconvenient.&gt

<It'd take me a few angles, but it's technically within my abilities, yes. What do you need to know Leraal for?>

&ltAngles, not hours or minutes? I suppose it would be stranger if you did use hours. I mostly just don't like relying on an ongoing effect like the translation spell, I'd feel more comfortable without needing it. It's apparently not trivial though, so if you have better things to do, how can I learn Leraal myself?&gt

<You could hire a tutor - I'm afraid there won't be any books on it written in your native language, but a dragon tutor will be able to speak it, that's one of the things dragons can do.>

&ltIf we're taking about tutors then we're back to the problem that I don't know how to earn money here. Oh well, I'll stick with the spell for now.&gt

<I could ask my cousin for a favor, since she teaches languages, but it'd take even more of her time than it would of mine so if it were that necessary I'd probably just do it directly.>