"Front hall," Korulen tells the lift. It moves backwards. "Our years are broken up into eight months," she adds.

"We have sixteen. Weeks are measured in fives. The thirteen extra days technically don't fall under a month and are a time all of their own. It's customary to throw huge, lavish parties during this time," he explains, smiling a little. He's surprised when the lift moves backwards, but he handles it reasonably well enough. These people seriously need stairs.

"We have seven-day weeks. And eight days that aren't in months but are in weeks, between each pair of months. They're sort of low-level holidays, but not huge lavish party type holidays." The lift descends.

Adarin snickers, just a little. "Apparently someone on my world decided not to break up the parties. They wanted all of them, all at once."

"It sounds like fun," offers Korulen with a tentative smile. The lift door opens to a large hall, and Korulen steps out to cross it.

"It can be, but it can also get tiring. It's supposed to be a time of forgiveness towards enemies, new renewals, new chances - and so on. But the parties do grate after a while. Usually everyone's glad when it's over and they can just relax for a little while," explains Adarin, following after her. He has no idea where the shops are, so he's happy to follow her.

"You can't fly, can you?" she asks.

"No, I can't. Perhaps for extremely short distances, but I would over-exert myself soon enough, after the scrying spell and the clock. Neither were particularly small," explains Adarin.

"And I probably can't carry you either. Okay, I guess we're walking." She lets them out of the building. The surrounding area is flat, grassy, and marked with a flagstone path from them to a metropolis with a well-defined border perhaps a mile ahead.

"It... Seems like it would be insulting for you to carry me? Even in your other form. To you, I mean. You're not a beast of burden or something," says Adarin, heading along the path.

"Well, I can't anyway, I'm too little. Mom could. And you can't fly, so it would be faster that way; I don't see how wasting time walking is less insulting."

"True. I suppose my perspective's strange. I'm used to everyone being extremely concerned about never lowering themselves to less than what they deserve, even if it would be more practical for everyone."

"I mean, I'll say no if a toddler goes up to me in the street and asks for a ride, sometime when I'm more obviously a thudia than I am right now. But that's mostly because I don't have a saddle and it'd be a distraction from whatever I was doing."

"That makes sense. It's a nice change, is what I meant," he says, somewhat amused. "This is a surprisingly nice place. If it were more viable and not... Potentially problematic, I'd try and get people from my home to move here."

"What would be problematic about it?" asks Korulen. "I mean on your end - it'd be hard to scale up the summonings on our end, and if there were more of you I bet it'd get legally complicated, but it sounds like you had another problem in mind."

"Honestly? Most of them would probably get together and then proceed to try to take over a country," explains Adarin. This is maybe a problem he's dealing with at home! Yay. "Not all of them, mind you, but many. They're in something of a desperate place right now and anything looks better than where they are."

"Oh. Well, they wouldn't get far in Esmaar," she remarks. "There's wards on everything and tons of wizards. Plus, you know, Mom."

"I never said it was a decision I supported. I doubt they would get far past 'wards.' If one of those was what was keeping me in the circle, then they wouldn't get anywhere," muses Adarin.

"Yeah, that was a ward. The ones around the buildings are obviously not up all the time or nobody could go anywhere, but they'd activate if anybody got spooked."

"Makes sense. We have shields, but someone needs to keep them up or they'll dissipate. For a larger shield, and keeping it up longer, you'll need more people to help. So it's not really viable unless you're directly in a fight or desperate," he explains.

"Your magic sounds really complicated."

"Yours, too," says Adarin with a bit of a smile. "I think I prefer yours, though, even if mine can make portals. It seems to be friendlier."

"Portals?" asks Korulen.

"Ah, right. It's a way of teleporting from one place to another. You can see through to the other side, and just walk through with no trouble at all at any time. The further the distance you travel the more difficult it is to cast, but I have an easier time of it than this world seems to do with your version," explains Adarin. "Shape of the portal isn't as big of a deal as the distance, so if I wanted to make a really big one on both sides it wouldn't matter much."

"You're going to be rich," says Korulen. "My uncle's one of a handful of wizards who can do teleportation circles and he's rich. Well, mostly for something else, but it's still worth his time to do them, they're that expensive."