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Margaret is exploring the tunnels under Whateley again, because everyone else is in the cafeteria and that's only so interesting when you can't eat or drink. There's some pretty interesting stuff down here! For instance, this room has a bar in it, and despite the entrance being underground the window has a view of exploding stars.
She admires the view for a bit, then wanders up to the bar.
Welcome, says a spontaneously generated napkin in tidy cursive. As you will be unable to take advantage of the free drink policy, may I offer you a complimentary recharge?
"I'd love one! Is this an automated system or are you a person living in the bar?"
"Pleased to meet you, Bar! I'm Margaret, codename Upload. Are you a student here?"
Goodness, no. Also, "here" is not your school; this is Milliways, an interdimensional establishment.
"Oh, I'm in another dimension? Neat! This is exactly the sort of thing I went wandering the tunnels for, portals to other dimensions and stuff. Whateley has all kinds of weird things in it." She pulls a cord out of one ankle and plugs the charging device into it, then sits on a barstool with the charger in her lap. "So does an interdimensional establishment mean it's in multiple dimensions at once, mine and some other ones? Or something else?"
The portal is unlikely to persist, cautions the bar, unless something unusual is going on. The establishment is its own dimension with the ability to connect to others via the door.
She immediately stands up again and glances nervously at the door. "Unlikely to persist? As in, it's going to disconnect from my universe and trap me in here unless I leave first?"
No, no. But if you go out and allow the door to close, it will tend not to be a door to Milliways the next time you try it.
You kind of need lungs for a proper sigh of relief, so Margaret doesn't attempt one. "Okay, so, 'stick around until I'm definitely done exploring', not 'run before I lose access to home'. Okay. So what are other dimensions like?"
The door opens again to reveal a silver robot, her chassis smooth and regular in a way that suggests mass-production. She's holding cleaning supplies, but tucks them away behind the door before coming in. She looks around a little as she crosses the room, examining the decor and exploding stars more than the other patrons, but she's clearly making for Margaret.
Wow, the newcomer doesn't look like a walking scrap heap at all. Someday Margaret will look that cool. "Hello! Apparently this bar connects to multiple universes! . . . which means you probably don't speak English, except Bar does, so what do I know."
"I don't speak English - I speak Basic, Sith, Sith Battle Sign, Huttese, and Droidspeak. I do understand you, though. Do you know anything else about this place?"
"Well, apparently it does awesome magic translation, because I heard that in English. That's an impressive list, by the way, what are you hearing me in? Also apparently if you leave and shut the door you won't be able to get back in here. Also the bar is friendly and talks via napkins and hands out free battery packs."
Hello. Would you like a battery pack? It's in lieu of the standard free drink.
"No thank you, Ma'am. Can you tell me more about how this place works, please?"
She reads the resulting explanatory napkin, then asks "May I bring my master in?" Another napkin. "Thank you, Ma'am."
At the word "master", Margaret says "Um." After a few seconds she says, "Sorry, that translated very oddly--your who?"
Oh so she's like a nurse or something, that's fine. Much more logical than whatever weird political and/or sex thing she had been nebulously worried about.
"Oh, okay. I'd be happy to meet her. What's a Sith?"
"I'm not sure how much background you'll need - does your world have Force-sensitives, people who can do things that seem like magic?"
"We have people who can do lots of different things! We have people who can move things with their minds, or create things from thin air, or shapeshift, or read minds, or be super strong and fast, or do what we call magic, or build devices that work by magic, or magically build devices that work really well by normal physics. I'm that last kind."
She nods. "Force-sensitive people can learn to do most of those things, and the two most common kinds of trained Force-sensitive people are Sith and Jedi. The Sith approach to using the Force is more powerful than the Jedi approach but tends to make them emotionally unstable."
"Okay. Does emotionally unstable mean there's anything I should be especially careful talking about? I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings on accident."
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