Yup. That's what it is.

I can take either, but the first drink is free, says the bar on a napkin. It appears with a coffee.

She takes a sip. "Ah, good stuff. I have no idea what this place is, but you have coffee so it can't be bad. Do you also do food?"

I do! And most other things, too.

"Interesting. Food variety is a bit short where I'm from." She puts down a little torn-off square from the ration card, good for one meal in the base. "I'll take something that doesn't have fish or rice in it. And as much explanation about this place as you feel like giving?"

Gren receives sizzling buttery steak and pesto gnocchi and spicy-lemony mixed vegetables and a dish of strawberry ice cream. Milliways is very complicated; is there anywhere in particular you'd like me to start?

I don't remember how I first came to exist, alas. I'm comforted by the fact that this is a trait I share with most people. The door to your break room has temporarily been replaced by the door to Milliways. When you exit the establishment and allow the door to close, you will find the door has resumed normal behavior and, most probably, that no time has passed in your world. I can't say why that door or why now; I don't control its movements.

"So there are lots of worlds, huh? Can I buy things from them? Something to turn the tide on the Neuroi would make my year. Nasty buggers that like to reduce everything they meet to ash. Weapons, a portable telegraph or something, better steelwings, something to track them from long distance?"

I don't sell weapons, but I can help you on some of the other items.

"I'd love to read through a list of examples or something when I'm done with this delicious food. Is it usually so empty here? This is a fairly big bar, but I'm the only one."

Not usually so empty, no, but sometimes. I don't like to produce lists. Recommendations yes, menus - no.

"As you like. What can you recommend in terms of communication devices likely to last a while without otherworldly maintenance? And possibly books from places who've had longer to science things, now that I think of it."

Bar produces a napkin about solar powered chargers for long-distance earpiece communicators -

- and the door opens.

She stops reading the napkin. "Hullo! Please don't be alarmed, this place is weird but nice."

"Is it. Nice how?"

"The bar is a person, the first drink is free, and since it's between worlds she likely has interesting food and devices you've never heard of. And you get to meet interesting people too, apparently. You've got magic that's really exotic to me, I can smell it all the way over here."

"You smell magic?"

"Yeah, I smell it and copy it, that's my special. Oh, something in here is translating for us by the way so the word might not sound familiar, but have you heard of witches?"

"The word does sound familiar, but probably as a translation artifact."

"Well, I'm a witch. It's a thing I was born as, not something I learned, in case that was in question. What kind of magic are you?"

"Several. I'm a magician, which means I study multiple kinds of magic more than casually. Witchcraft of my native variety among them."

"Ooh, you get multiple kinds. Nice. I wonder if you can make any more sense of this place's magic than me?"

"Then this inner workings of this place will remain a mystery for now. I might be able to copy magic from you. Probably not the original way you're doing it, more of a version translated into what my mana can understand how to do. But you're capable of so much different stuff I'm having trouble picking individual spells out. D'you want a drink? The first one's free, apparently."

"Should I want you to copy magic from me?"

"I've never hurt any person with magic, I've got no nefarious intentions, and probably better or as good versions of most of what you have already? I swear to use anything I get for the good of many by trying to prevent the nasty city-destroying monsters called Neuroi from turning another town to ash every few days? That's what this uniform is for, by the way. Witch wings, we fight Neuroi since witches are about the only thing that can survive a fight with a Neuroi."

"Well, as sales pitches go that's not bad." She approaches closer. "I'm Bella."

"Grendyne, call me Gren. Nice to meet you. If you've got lie-detection somewhere in there I won't fault you for using it, by the way. Does your world have monsters too? I hope it doesn't, nobody needs monsters."

"Nothing quite as systematically troubling as it sounds like Neuroi are, but there's manticores and such."

"How do manticores be monstrous? Hey bar, if you have everything you probably have Perrot's A History of the Invasion, right? There's an illustration on the cover that I think is a particularly good example of a Neuroi. They come in all shapes and sizes, though."

"Yup. That's the one that got most of Berlin. Moved its core around, which is something Neuroi hadn't done before then. I was in that fight, along with about three hundred other witches. That's the only way to kill them - getting the core. But enough depressing stuff about monsters and so on." She goes back to reading that napkin about communication things.

Bella reads over her shoulder.

"I didn't even know about the telegraphs and steam trains," remarks Bella.

"Maybe you can find some things here that would be useful back home. I am assured that the door will lead back to whichever door it hijacked if you open it. How do your lenses work? We don't get to create magic items. Or if we do, they're so rare as to be legendary."

"...I get to create magic items, is how. Each lens has a different sort of spell woven onto each other for seeing magic, and the whole set have a spell to make them cooperate okay with each other."

Bella fiddles with her spectacles and peers at Gren. "Maybe. I can make you a few little things as a favor but healing doesn't go into items especially well; I could put a spell on you that would heal target people when you said a trigger word. Protection amulet can do but I don't have the materials on me and would have to get them here. I can't even lean out and send my cat to get me things; the door this place took is the door to my workshop."

"I'll buy you materials too, if bar can get them. Even just one protection amulet could make a big difference. I suspect I might be able to copy them, too, but I'll just have to try. Would the healing trigger be infinitely reusable, or at least replenishable?"

"Oh, yeah, once you've got the trigger on you, you can use it as much as you want."

"Convenient, that."

"Yeah. I have a few healing ones, but I can do triggers for a lot of possible things - one famous trigger spell shoots a jet of soapy lemony water, which does have an important use but is none the less quite arbitrary from a setup standpoint."

"I'd invite you into our world but I assume you don't want to be stuck there. I wonder if I can whisper spell at other people on base if I hold the door open, have them come in here? Four healing triggers are better than one, if you're willing to do that many."

"I don't have any inclination to charge for labor under the circumstances. Ingredients would add up, but if you can get more people here presumably they can bring money?"

"Lovely. I'm sure I can survive a day or two, but I'm rather more suspicious of this place now."

"Fair enough. What do you need for a protection amulet and healing trigger? Bar, I'll buy the things she needs with Svalten."

"Best all purpose healing trigger will need..." Bella pulls a notebook out of her sleeve and rattles off an ingredient list. "Protection amulets are - depends on what kind you want? I can guess, but my guess will be better if you tell me about what you need protecting from."

"Neuroi beams are by far the thing we'll need protecting from most often. They're mostly heat with some concussive force on top, so fire protections?"

"Okay! I can get you something that will work okay for that." More ingredient list. Bar provides.

Gren asks Bar for some books on engineering, but pays close attention once it's clear that magic is about to happen.

"...Not exactly. There are species affinities for magic but humans don't have any; but I'm not sure if you can do it because you're not from my world and that might matter."

"Mmm, it takes more than one spell to cultivate, say, a witchwell... I could maybe teach you a simple dragon spell or something but there's nothing obvious to actually cast...?"

"How do witchwells work? It sounds like a pool of power that witches can use. I wonder how it'd interact with my mana."

"It doesn't look anything like your mana, so probably not much? But yes, that's about what it is."

"Oh well. It's not that urgent, really, and I can still get tech from bar."

"I might think of something that you could reasonably cast to see if you can do any of my kinds of magic, it's just I started with witchery and therefore things I think of as 'introductory spells' involve spending ages cultivating your witchwell first."

Bella gets started on making the protective amulet.

And eventually she has a protective amulet!

Gren turns it over in her hand a few times. "Hm. I can sort of copy the way it's trying to protect things, but I don't think I can make more. I'd have to power the copy myself. Still, this will be excellent. How many can I badger you into making, and are you quite sure you don't want something in return?"

"I'll make as many as you can cover expenses for unless that's, like, fifty. It'll be my good deed for the day."

"Many thanks. Bar, how many of those can I cover expenses for on another 900 Svalten?"

Twelve.

"Twelve it is, then, unless that's too close to fifty. Say, what other kinds of magic do you have? I can make out more than two sorts on you - the witchcraft and dragon spells you mentioned, and the lenses had like a dozen different flavors to them."

Bella orders the ingredients and blanks for another dozen. "It depends on where you draw the line between 'knowing' and 'having'. Witchcraft is most clearly the second; others include sorcery and elf magic and dwarf magic and a little borrowed wizardry and unicorn spells and stuff."

"I can see why you became a magician. I'd be one, if I lived in your world."

"It's great."

"I almost want to visit. I probably would, if I had a sure way to get home again later."

"I don't think I can guarantee that. I don't know how to finagle interdimensional travel on a reliable basis. Sorry."

"The bar itself and your healing trigger and protection amulets are plenty nice already. Can't have everything."

"Alas. What I wouldn't do with everything."

"Stop or contain all the really nasty problems in the world, then start going down the list of everything from most to least interesting?"

"More or less."

"Today is the best and most interesting day I've had in months." She starts humming a little tune.

"Likewise!"

"If you really want to, there are some ingredients for spells that are inconvenient to get for reasons other than expense? I don't want to cut into your useful souvenir budget too much."

"I'm cutting very deep into my bank account on the assumption that I'll be able to make most of it back through clever useful-souvenir-exploitation. Another two hundred Svalten won't make that much of a difference. I'm spending at least ten thousand. Saving up several years of combat pay pays off if you need money suddenly."

And the otherworldly magician performs otherworldly magic.

"Likewise!" calls Bella, grinning.