"The universe, as a whole, can decide to be shy or squish you based on being annoyed at you - experimenting on it," says Darren, staring. "It does not stay still, and systematic logic is - bad. That's - quite possibly the most terrible thing I've ever heard of. Ever."

"Not necessarily as a whole. It is also a bad idea to screw around with gods and dragons and so on, because they can also squish you," cautions Bella. "But yeah. I mean, we can do some things that would have seemed like science fantasy a century ago? But not proper science."

".... Hold on, gods?!"

"Several of them, yes, do you not have those either?"

"Not any that - make themselves apparent, there are lots of religions but they don't have any proof."

"Mother Khaele was on television three weeks ago."

"... Yeah, that is not a thing that happens with us. There have been religious wars over whether or not a god exists or not."

"There are some relatively shy gods whose existence is controversial - nobody's heard directly from Khersis in a long time, people sometimes don't even bother to put the divine letter in 'Anankha' - but whether there are any isn't in question. There's nymphs and clerics and paladins and the gods themselves making it very plain."

"If there are any gods in my world, they've got to be either really shy or really sneaky. I'm not ruling it out, before I was eleven I didn't know there were magic flying deer, but as a whole - little to no proof."

"How would you not know that there were magic flying deer?"

"Well, the medallion that turns people human works on their kids, too. Until the kid come into contact with a medallion of the same type and it breaks the spell. That is when you get a peryton who didn't know they were a peryton."

"Huh. And you haven't," she waves a hand, "scienced out how to make more medallions, yet?"

"No, but I'm working on it. It's not - instant miracles that happen just because science, it will probably take years. If I manage it at all."

"No instant miracles, huh? I guess they probably gloss over the boring parts in the bad cartoons."

"It's really more like - systematically figuring out how things work. But a lot of the time the things you figure out have nothing to do with the things you need to know. So while it's useful, you still don't always get the result you want."

"Yeah. Um - your world sounds kind of scary, should I see if there's a way you can - I don't know, flee to the hills to mine or something?"

"I don't know how I'd do that - I'm tempted, this sounds like the start of an escapist sci-fan novel, ordinary college student finds a door to a science world and adventures with - with replication studies and empirical testing ensue, but - I don't know. For all I know I'd just - bring it with me."

"Thaaaat is kind of terrifying, is there a way we can safely check to see if science works here?"

"If it doesn't work, it's not safe," says Bella. "There is no contained cute fourth-grade class project of it like there is with raising caterpillars until they turn into butterflies or something."

"Eep."

"Sorry."

"Not your fault, just - kind of freaky. Um. If we can figure out a way that you won't bring it with you, though - you can jump ship, start living the dream of an escapist sci-fan novel."

"I'd do it, too. My parents would be out of their minds about it, but - I'd do it."

"They can come with? Is there a way to retrieve them?"