She's in a dirt alleyway between two buildings that wouldn't be out of place on Samaria, in a smallish town. People glance at her a few times, talking in some strange language, but don't bother her. There's an unfamiliar castle in the distance, over there. It's pretty cold.

After a couple minutes of wandering around, someone in a blue and green uniform spots the wings. He crosses the street to address her in several languages, stopping when English is a hit. "Hello. Please tell me, you are lost yes? Did the criminal Innata give you those wings, or are they your own? We can try to put you back home either way."

"The wings mine!" says Pen. "Dunno who Innata but do wanting go home."

"Innata is a bad Witch who kidnaps people from all over and transforms them into things just because she can. Where are you from? Who gave you the wings? You're too young to have your own magic yet, I think."

"From Samaria. Wings from Mommy side of family. Have only little bits magic not much."

"I'm glad you seem to like your wings, then. Samaria... Samaria. That doesn't sound familiar. I think we have some maps back at the station. Would you please follow me there?"

"Is not going be on maps. Wrong world."

"...Different world? How. Uh. This planet is called Terra. How did you manage to get lost here? Your magic?"

"No, not having going other worlds magic or already have go home. Got through nice bar except door break and stuck now and not having any Jane nor any ones Mommy, Daddy, sisters, any party people."

"All this tangly magic stuff sounds like something the Witches should deal with. I'm just a peace officer, they might have a better idea what to do."

"Okay."

"A little maybe."

Pen likes fish and potatoes and butter. "Okay."

"Is broken. Is supposed going home from nice bar but goed here!"

"The only magic going on right now is some sort of talking thing, and a very, very thorough, very permanent shield. Can you show me where you arrived in this world?"

"Yeah. But door not door for bar any more or would not lost."

"It still might help. If it doesn't there's other things we can try. Some Witches can teleport. I've never heard of teleporting between worlds, but it might work. Sounds risky, though, so we check other ways first, right?"

It indeed no longer does. "So this door was leading to a bar, which was supposed to lead home but instead lead here. It's gone now, at any rate. Nothing magical about this door. Hm. What's your world's magic like? It smells pretty different from Witch magic."

"Oh, my world not having magic any itself."

"Oh really? You're quite the little traveller. How many worlds do you know about?"

"Eighty...seven? No um that numbers worlds not all worlds numbers... do Milliways count? Ninety-two? If count Milliways."

"That's a lot. Huh. Is there a way to get the door to the nice bar? That's Milliways, right? If not, oh well, we can go find Lytee. She can teleport to specific people and I think she's the best chance to get you home today."

Headshake. "Shell Bell can doing, and Jarvises if practice, but not any other anyone, and some people doors liking them but still not for sure and not me."

"Let's go up to the base, then. Lytee's on patrol right now, but she'll probably be back by dinnertime. We can ask her to take you home then. How fast can you fly?"

"Not too fast, am little. Dunno exactly."

The little angel takes off and flies. She can do about forty miles an hour.

"Pen-ni-nah," says Pen. "Pen."

"Pen. I like that, it's pretty. We need to know who to teleport you to when Lytee's back. Your parents? And I'd like to know if there's anything dangerous on your world, or anything we shouldn't do, so we can be prepared for it."

"Um, can putting me in any place with Jane is fine. Should not do appear at home or someone maybe see. Maybe putting on space ship?"

"She needs to put you at a person, not a place. But at Jane should work."

"...Jane lots places, which place putting? Do not much matter for where ending up but might matter to going."

"...I have no idea. Jane is in lots of places at the same time?"

"Yeah. That why so good for putting places. Except she not here."

"You, uh, probably want to think of someone else in case Lytee can't teleport to people who are in more than one place."

"Okay. Any Mommy in a more magic world fine. Rose maybe. Okay to magic where Rose."

"What's this about any mommy? Have you just got a big family, or is it something else?"

"...Something else."

"Well, I think you'll be back to Rose in a few hours. I have a little stuff to do. Paperwork. You can stay with me if you like, or I can try to find someone else to watch you? I want to warn you, though, if alarms like a bell go off you need to stay out of the way. They mean the Neuroi are coming and everyone here has to get ready to fight them. And if you hear alarms like a buzzing sound, you need to fly away as fast as you can. Unless you think your protection magic can stand up to the nastiest monsters we have here."

"Um, is pretty good magic. What monsters doing?"

"They're big black and red flying things. They blow things up with heat and light, and they heal very fast from almost anything we do to stop them. Our world has been fighting them for years. You really aren't from here, huh?"

"No, am not. Pretty sure okay for heat and light. Is okay for singing while paperwork?"

"A band?" Pen asks.

"A group of people who make music to sing to, like at festivals and such."

"Yeah."

Lytee looks bored all through Gren's explanation. "Alright, I can put her home. But you have to clear it with the boss, and I wanna bring a half-squad. I'm not teleporting to an unknown world alone. 'Zat okay, Pen?"

"Not supposed bringing strangers places. Probably okay bringing you because you bring me but dunno about more people."

"Well... How about me, you, Gren, and one more person? I'm really weak after a teleport, you see. I don't wanna get hurt while I recover."

"Nobody going hurting you. Rose a one Mommy, she nice."

"Is not my world, is Rêverie. Can't go my world in case someone seeing. Go Rose instead."

"But you can get to your world from there, to hear you tell it. Same idea. D'you want to go home or not?"

"Yeah."

"Then you'll have to bring me and Gren with you."

"I know, but not other people! Rose maybe mad if bringing other people."

"Okay, no other people. Just me, Gren, you. Deal?"

"Yeah."

"Rose nickname not real name, real name, uuuuuuum, Belle Cygne. Has three daughters looking like my sisters. Married to a one Daddy who a cat monster sometimes. Live in castle in woods. Enchantress, aura do wind and plants. Look like Mommy, brown hair brown eyes. Except is specially pretty for enchantress reason. Live in Rêverie. Wears dresses."

Rose is in midair, with one of her daughters, wind swirling around them.

This altitude difference presents Pen with no obstacle, per se, but, "Shhh. Think she enchanting, bad for interrupt."

Lytee staggers upon landing and leans against Gren. Otherwise they hold still.

"You okay?" wonders Pen.

"She's just tired. Teleporting to a person takes a lot of mana, I think teleporting here took even more. Using too much magic all at once knocks us Witches out for a little while."

"Oh. Maybe Rose can fix when done with spell."

"Be fine in a 'min." Lytee mutters. "This is why I needed Gren here too."

And Rose, trailed by her thirteen-year-old, descends to the ground. "Hello. Welcome to Rêverie."

"Pen's shields -"

At this moment a winged person who looks like a less pretty version of Rose appears and picks Pen up.

"- are made with a form of magic from a world called Eos. Hello, Angela."

"Hello. Thank you both for helping Pen."

"...So that's what she meant by 'any mommy'. Huh. And you two are orders of magnitude more magic than she is, I almost want to turn my special off, jesus."

"If it's uncomfortable we could try to rig up some sort of baffle, or just stand back and converse by brainphone?"

Rose withdraws her aura.

"We're very strong. It's what we do. What are the Neuroi?"

"Giant, regenerating, crystalline red and black monsters that fire beams of heat at everything. They started appearing out of a giant hurricane that appeared over Ostmark thirty two years ago." She glances at the two children. "Things did not go well for the people of Ostmark. Or Greece. Or Karlsland."

"Well, if you'll take a Janegem home we'll be able to access the universe, and while we're not yet giving our full attention to worlds without native Bells - that's us - or other noted templates because there are only so many of us to go around, we can certainly handle major disasters like that. And attach your world to our shared afterlife so the people of Ostmark and Greece and Karsland can come back whenever the world is ready for them."

Gren splutters. "There's an afterlife after all. A shared afterlife? Can. Can I see my brother?"

"Almost certainly, unless he's different from the two of you in some unusual and relevant way. To connect your world to the afterlife - it isn't hooked up yet - we either need to make at least one of you immortal or bring you to the afterlife for its administrator to look at."

Lytee immediately asks, "Is there a catch here?"

"If under circumstances that would otherwise kill you, it will look like you catch fire; and then you'll reset to a healthy state. This can be inconvenient if you are in circumstances that won't stop trying to kill you. Past 'young adult', no aging unless you want us to special-case it. The process is totally irreversible - if you become tired of being alive the remedy is unconsciousness, not cessation."

"Done."

"Well, we're very sure, but what would you like to see to arrange that you too can be sure?"

"I can lie-detect for a little while, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't just nope me with all that ridiculous power. If you say you have good intentions, or at least intend to do no harm as you define it, that's plenty good enough for me. The torching is enough to convince me our standards of good and harm are close enough."

"Our intentions are good and we do not mean any harm. But your lie detection may be thrown off by our mental shielding, which I'd rather not tamper with. We could probably find you someone with less heavily rated defenses if it's necessary."

"That's Luc," puts in the thirteen-year-old. "He's nice. But not very interesting. Don't tell him I said that."

"A lot of people are nice but not very interesting. Sometimes I think I'm one. It's not that weird."

"Anyway, assuming you want to let us our plan would be to have another Bell who can see some particularly useful things over to look at you, to make sure the world is Jane-compatible; send a Janegem there either with you or with one of our husbands' alts; scan the world for alts of ourselves and people we know; if there's a Bell, hand her copies of all our copiable magic and leave it to her; dispatch a Bell if you don't have one, which is unspecified, to lay down basic protections like forbidding earthquakes and in your case also deal with the Neuroi unless they're staggeringly intractable; see if we can copy your magic and distribute it to interested and trusted parties; and then put you back in the queue for more thorough upgrades when some Bell can be parted from her world long enough. Although you'll be able to contact us through Jane for spot assistance if something comes up."

"I can't go home for a few hours. Teleporting to specific people takes extra mana, and across worlds apparently takes even more extra mana. Unless you fix that or something."

"Well, I can try, if you like."

"I would like. We don't have a good idea what mana actually is, all we know is that Witches power our magic with something our bodies generate slowly. We can feel how much we have, sorta. Using too much at once knocks us flat for a few minutes, and using too much in one day makes us unable to do further magic, but doesn't necessarily impair us physically. We generate less mana as we get older, which is no longer a problem for me at least."

"Hmm, sounds complicated enough that just in case I should wait for Glass; she can either do it or call Lazarus, who's particularly good at seeing magic."

[Brainphone. On the house.]

She startles a bit. [No mana cost, unlike Chatterbox's special. Can I give it to other people?]

[The option's available but not default.]

"Hullo, Luc. Sorry to pull you away from whatever you were doing. In your opinion, are Belle and her counterparts people we want in our world?"

"I should say so," says Luc. "They're tireless, consummate altruists."

"Some worlds are dangerous, and others are not open for any but the most discreet tourism for information security reasons, but the remainder can be visited by well-intentioned people. If you're done with Luc, I can put him back?"

"Of course."

Pop. Pop.

"How many of you are there? At least three so far, and Pen said there were at least ninety-two worlds..."

"Most worlds don't have Bells. Most worlds on that list we just inherited when we took over our afterlife, and we discover new ones periodically - our current typical discovery mechanism yields Bells more often than not because we have a way to funnel new Bells in our direction that doesn't bother with anyone else. There are sixteen of us in contact right now."

"And you're all probably just a few steps away from being benevolent gods. The multiverse doesn't know what's gonna hit it."

"The question of whether we're gods or not depends a lot on what kind of distinction you're using the word to draw. I assumed control of an entity that most people on my planet worship and I think I'm doing a better job with the position."

"And the question of what the multiverse may or may not know is still above our pay grade. Glass - who will be finished playing cards with her children in a moment - is our best peek."

"Enchanting, which is actually native to this world, is one of our more versatile forms of shareable magic. It can substitute for our default utility magic in a pinch - and I use it preferentially because I had it first, and so does one other Bell. Using the upper levels of its power, however, requires unusual personnel assistance, intense powers of concentration, a magical upgrade, or unethical behavior. And you have to do a lot of enchanting to get an aura. We have a shortcut for auras, which incidentally doesn't require very much skill either, but then you'd still have the ability to enchant in non-aura ways. And torching means you could survive a lot of untutored trial and error."

"...You're talking about the pain? Yes, that's a significant limitation. I do suspect I'll be unusually good at learning magic - my special ability is to copy the stuff. I can't grab any of yours yet, it's too different from what Witches have, but I can understand it some."

A new Bell appears.

"We try to be a little careful about handing out magic. We don't know any alts of you - do we, Glass?"

"Nope, new and new and new moiety to boot. So the alts you don't have can't vouch for you."

"Understandable. Will seeing my history help convince you? You have past-scrying in there somewhere, I think."

"Yes, but it's time-consuming. If you don't have a privacy issue at all, Jane or Elspeth can judgesight you - that's a total copy of your history from your perspective copied into them."

[I can keep a secret. Elspeth kiiiinda can't.]

[It's not a secret, precisely, just something I don't want going around too far. Go ahead, if you want.]

Bam. Judgesight.

[Gren's all to the good,] Jane reports. [Lytee I'd maybe worry about if there's a contact loss and nobody to theoretically keep an eye on her.]

[Is contact loss likely?]

[It's happened. We've patched the obvious ways for it to happen again, but if, say, we give Pen one of my gems in case she goes astray, and she does in fact get lost again, and it's another hostile-to-my-medium world, then I go down. That doesn't totally cut off contact because you exist, Shell Bell may be able to force the Milliways door to your world, and there are people who can do a thing called 'freecasting'; what it would do is disconnect your timestream from the one I keep synced up. Oh, and depending on how your teleporting works this may have happened already.]

[I expect to effectively live forever now, and I expect that if I ever lose contact with your group and regain it later, which is inevitable because I expect to live forever, you will investigate my activities for the duration. I'll behave.]

[Sounds plausible to me.]

"Getting back to the original point, Glass, what do you think about increasing Witches' mana?"

"...Hm? Oh, that looks totally straightforward. It's a substance, you want there to be more of it, we should be able to do that and if it turns out we can't trying won't hurt anything."

"A booster will be enough to get us home, but out of curiosity, could you make us generate more? It's inconvenient to nearly fall over every time I do a difficult teleport."

"Eh, probably take a higher grade of coin. Not really out of your price range since you brought Pen back but you might want to know more about what your options for things to spend the favors on are before you pick?"

"Torching is already worth it. But by all means, tell me about the kinds of goodies I can get."

"...Name ethically-in-the-clear things that operate on a planetary scale or smaller and I'll let you know if you hit something we can't pull off."

"The Neuroi are probably an afternoon's work unless they're really weird in some way I can't see from looking at you two, healing's easy, enchanting's doable, the magically operated house you probably either want to give us a design or wind up with something sort of generic, ash is easy, if you just want Europa restored to its original condition we can do that but it might inconvenience people in the ruins, and we don't know yet if we can copy and add Witch stuff to other people, even preexisting Witches, but it's about even odds. We can do dead people if you have a good place to put them but that's a real concern - large-scale resurrection is a hassle and people who know it's available tend to both want some and tell all their friends. More mana looks simple, more ability to hold stuff might not be but looks safe to try."

"I can almost guarantee there's nobody in the ruins. The Neuroi kill anyone who approaches. You can try to give me more mana now, I teleport everyone into our world and we can deal with the Neuroi before moving on to the rest of the stuff. Should've done that five minutes ago, really."

Glass does some magic.

Lytee perks up. "Woah. That definitely worked. Who-all am I bringing besides myself and Gren?"

"You, Gren, and a Janegem," Rose materializes a thing, detaches it from itself, and hands over the half that doesn't disappear to Lytee, "will do, and actually you can even leave Gren behind and Jane can take her."

Lytee takes the gem and disappears to the fields outside a certain castle/military base.

Glass squints at the world.

It's definitely on the meaner side as worlds go, though it's not as bad as the Sunshine family. It's high-stakes in a similar way to Gift, but not going out of its way to be mean. Once fixed, it'll probably stay fixed. The only magic here is Witches - Neuroi run on physics, apparently - but they're very common compared to Aurum witches or ingots. It's vaguely Earth-ish, but strongly off standard in a lot of new and old ways.

"Earthalike, Witches are the only local magic, more Gift problems than Sunshine problems, go nuts," Glass diagnoses to Angela, and then she disappears.

"All right, what can you tell me about the Neuroi?"

Gren and Lytee take turns summarizing the things.

"Do you suppose they might be intelligent?"

"If they are, we can't tell. Empaths can't feel them, every way we've tried to contact them doesn't work. And the way they act is almost random. I don't think they're intelligent... Though it's probably worth checking, given how easy it is for you to do that."

"Mm-hm." Angela attempts to pentagon a Neuroi language.

The Neuroi language she gets is naturally rendered in different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. The brainphone can provide an interpretation that she can understand.

[My name is Isabella and I'm here to request and require that you cease attacking the humans, and any other antisocial activities you may be undertaking.]

Angela narrows her attention to "One". [The humans do not appreciate your help, and you will stop.]

[They are already stronger. Seventeen arrived many years ago and studied the humans for fifty cycles. It found that struggle increases their progress. We force them to advance in knowledge and creativity. They have already made significant advances.]

[And why is this desirable to you?]

[Space is too empty. We can no longer reproduce, but the galaxy cannot be allowed to be void of intelligent life.]

[I see. Well, if you withdraw of your own accord and think of a nice, human-friendly way to apologize for your behavior, I may decide that it would not be a terrible idea to reenable your ability to reproduce.]

[Now, we have already recalled all drones. Seventeen will prepare to restore the changes to the climate. We must consider our apology for some time.]

[There is no particular hurry. Brainphone my friend, who I have just added to this conference,] she includes Jane, [if you think of something, before you do it. I will be very annoyed if your next idea for benefiting humans is like the last one.]

[We will do as you say.]

"I don't mind staying to talk to the UDF if they want to talk to me now. If they will take a while about it, then yes, direct them to Jane."

"They're a large, distributed bureaucracy. I'll send them to Jane in a day or two."

It goes. "Ooh. No side effects so far. It's just touching my magic, not the rest of me. Thank you. Have an excellent day, I know I am."

[I'll ask them when they speak to me next,] Jane says.

[Taking him in isn't the question, it's taking him in and explaining him to anyone who knows he used to be dead,] Jane says.

[I'm less sure about that. On the one hand, it won't be difficult to draw attention away from one more undocumented refugee. On the other hand, my mom's a bit of a gossip. Ugh. I've probably just ruined secrecy, haven't I?]

[There's no particularly official policy to be going against, here, you weren't geased into keeping quiet because it doesn't matter that much; but how soon you can get dead people back depends on how soon they can fail to cause total societal upheaval. Gossip won't do it; gossip and a person resurrected from the dead might.]

[I think we've had a whole lot of upheaval already. Enough that I suspect more upheaval wouldn't really be that bad. The maps look completely different than they did twenty years ago, nine of ten nobles are out of their estates and powers, there are tens of millions of displaced refugees and thousands more every week. Though that'll stop now that the Neuroi are leaving.]

[Okay. Do you have the infrastructure to support five hundred million people who admittedly don't need to eat, drink, or sleep, but will get mighty uncomfortable if they don't unless they happen to like slitting their throats to torch instead? A billion? Do you have a principled way to distinguish between your brother and Refugee 9,800,345's grandma?]

[Not immediately, admittedly.] Pause. [I have some hope that it'll be sooner rather than later when we can. The UDF is already starting to shift gears to demilitarization and reconstruction. The systems to support refugees can be adapted to support revenants.]

[Sure. Keep us posted. If the UDF is Bell-friendly enough you could probably even get Angela to lay down Standard Peal Colony Infrastructure. But she has a Day Job, as do all the Bells, and can't set aside arbitrary amounts of time to make things go smoothly on your end if they're inclined by themselves to be unsmooth.]

Jane is occupied in a few dozen other tasks and will not be impatient.

Eventually, [The UDF has appointed Geoffrey Peters with a wide range of powers to liaise with you, the Bells, the Neuroi, and any interdimensional things. Can you find him just from the name?]

[Anybody else named the same thing?]

[I wouldn't know.]

[Then better narrow it down to be sure.]

[Well, he's the only Geoffrey in this room. Will that do?]

[Hello, Jane. Miss Nylund has briefed me on the events of last Thursday. I am assured by our precognitive talents that the Neuroi will no longer be destroying anything, but could you possibly give me more details? The interim government is, understandably, extremely concerned about them.]

[The Neuroi were intimidated-slash-diplomacized into withdrawing. They were, in an alien way, trying to be helpful to humans as a species, and are willing to apologize, in the form of helpful Neuroi drones dispatched to do your work and in the form of teaching you stuff about the universe. They're hanging back until we give them the go-ahead that this won't freak anybody out.]

[Frankly, I doubt I could convince anyone to trust them. They have been depicted as the very embodiment of evil from early childhood to over half of everyone alive today.]

[Well, you can send them to mine things in uninhabited areas and send only a handful of particularly even-keeled people to fetch the products from drop sites, if you like.]

[That could work, yes. It would probably help if they learned English and talked to us. On another note, the I would like to know what kind of standards the interim government should meet before you're willing to consider mass distribution of immortality or resurrections. The UDF may be disbanding soon, a lot of administration is still up in the air, so we're keeping the idea that such things are possible quiet for now. But we want to implement them sooner rather than later if at all possible.]

[Immortality is a lower bar than resurrections. All you have to do is also let us distribute the brainphone with it, so nobody gets into a situation where they're repeatedly torching and can't call for help, and have some reason to believe that people won't riot in the streets about it. Resurrections you need all that and to be able to support the projected population of resurrectees without abusing their ability to live by suicide alone, but we can take care of that part to a sort of one-size-fits-all standard with an empty spot and permission to put magic stuff on it. Another planet, if necessary, with portals thereto.]

[I am not literally in charge of the entire United Force, but I imagine permission to put things on another planet won't be a problem. Thanks for the information. Can I get back to you in an hour or two?]

[Sure.]

A couple of hours later, [Jane, distribution of the brainphone along with torching won't be a problem. There's currently some bickering about who gets torching first and the only thing that's been agreed so far is that sick, elderly, and especially elderly Witches have priority. Some are arguing for Witches to have priority as well. How should we arrange people-to-be-made-torchable once they've come to a decision?]

[If you can just march them by one or more cameras - let me know how many you want - I'll take care of it.]

[Yeah, that's the sort of things Bells might eventually get annoyed about and take out of your hands if you don't reform it. Do you want me to put the cameras in a pile somewhere or what?]

[I don't think anyone wants Caelid the Red free to torture people again. At least not without a geas or similar. If you make one camera in front of me now, I can show you a space that will fit a thousand. Will they be particularly delicate, need any kind of maintenance?]

[No and not anytime soon.] An example appears. It looks like a faceted blue jewel.

[Enchanting hurts, and losing control of an enchantment is dangerous. You can offload it onto somebody else if they agree; doing it if they don't is harmful. Do you have a plan for that?]

[One: I'm rather used to pain. Comes from fighting a war for two and a half years. Two: Lytee and I have agreed to take turns bearing the weight of heavier enchantments until and unless we find someone who likes pain.]

[Okay. Next time a Bell swings by she'll give you both the ability to enchant and the bare-bones skill to operate it. It will not be stuck onto your torching; if you torch, it's gone unless you convince one to give it back.]

[Are there books around somewhere that will help our understanding of the theory? You wished for languages, I imagine enchanting skill is similar, but I don't want to make a foolish or hasty mistake.]

[Rose has an enchanting library, but it hasn't been abridged for low-security-clearance consumption, and you each get a pentagon of basic enchanting which will probably take you farther than any ten books anyway, enchanters tend not to write for beginners.]

[I can see and hear through them, and I can brainphone anybody who has more questions, and my attention is more divisible than these cameras could possibly overtax. Does Lytee want to be actively toured or just dropped in strange worlds?]

[The latter. Preferably places that speak English. She'll follow all your safety, secrecy, and security precautions.]

[Sure. Tell her to grab a gem when she wants to go and I'll put her on Pattern's Jupiter. It's multilingual, but there's a decent number of English speakers and I can translate.]

[No, d'you want to be?]

[Yes.]

[There you go.]

[Cool. There is a low but real risk that something dreadful will happen to me and you will be stranded for an indefinite period of time wherever you are then while time de-syncs between worlds and the peal fixes me. If you want to minimize the risk of being stranded for long periods of subjective time, I can keep you in worlds that have natives who can open doors to Milliways reliably without my help; this will not prevent large amounts of time from passing here while you are gone, though.]

[Have you forgotten that I can teleport?]

[If you have some sort of distance limit which interacts with a form of distance we don't know how to measure, you might have trouble getting from some peal worlds back here; and time de-syncing has no trouble making a hundred years pass in this world while you notice that I'm not answering you and scramble to return.]

[I've made arrangements for the possibility that I'll disappear for a long time. May as well keep me to worlds you think are safest if you're that concerned, though.]

Jane relays the list.