"I'm not dead," says Keo. "I'm given to understand that's unusual here."

"...Yeah, no kidding," she says. "Like, to the point where I'm pretty sure you're either joking or very, very confused."

"My daughter and her roommate performed an unauthorized summoning spell and got someone claiming to administrate this -" gesture, "place. She said she added my world to its scope; my daughter was able to summon her roommate's deceased grandfather, who is now to all appearances completely healthy. The first summonee was not very helpful in explaining what anyone who woke up while still here might expect to see, so my husband sent me here to check the place out, but via magic, not via untimely demise."

"...Okay," she says, pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them. "Let's say I buy it. Do you want me to tell you all about how this place is kind of shit? Because this place is kind of shit. In oh so many ways."

"Yes. In particular, while my daughter will be able to send your administrator back soon, she does not actually have to do so on any particularly constraining schedule," says Keo with a tight smile. "She's in a very convenient place to receive complaints, right now."

"...You have the admin locked up somewhere in your live world?" she says incredulously. "Wow. I am impressed and a little frightened. What's she like?"

"...Indifferent," Keo says. "Not very helpful, although plausibly she's just far enough removed from the motivations behind my questions that she really didn't know how to answer them usefully."

"I'd buy that," says the woman on the desk. "I've never met anyone who'll admit to having seen her. I don't think even most judges have seen her, although supposedly she appointed the most senior ones herself. All most people know about her, if they know anything about her, is that she spends all her time at the top of the Tower and it's a bad idea to try to get her attention. But it's the judges who come down on you for it, even then."

"Well, if you want to talk to her, we could summon you for a visit," remarks Keo.

"...Tempted," she says. "Could go horribly wrong, but since when do I let that stop me?"

"I don't think she can get out of the ward she's in, but she can apparently do at least 'adding the world to the afterlife' through it, and possibly other things. And of course it would be hard to keep her forever."

She grins. "Whatever. There is a limit to how bad it could possibly be. So how's this summoning thing work?"

"My husband and I draw a diagram on the floor of his office, one of us casts a spell, you appear in the diagram and we let you out. Assuming it's safe to let you out, which I may as well figure out here instead of there."

"And you figure that out by...?"

"Well, part of the reason most people don't use summoning spells is that they don't have a good way to do it, but I have copious amounts of mind magic, I can check if you care to let me. I won't pick up on anything I'm not looking for and I won't change anything unless you ask me."

"...Copious mind magic. Okay then," she says. "Sure, go ahead."

"Sure! Just gimme a minute to find somebody to cover the desk," she says, hopping off it and heading for a door in the wall behind her that turns out to lead to a hallway.

Keo hangs out. Back in Elcenia, Kanaat starts drawing the circle.

Meanwhile, the man looks at Keo and... pauses.

"The circle will take a bit longer," she informs Eights. "What are you looking at?" she inquires of the man.

"Evidence seems to suggest that you aren't dead," he says. "It's very curious."

"She didn't believe me at first," Keo says, pointing at Eights. "Did she tell you or what?"