His "Yes Ma'am" is proportionately less annoying, and also reminds her that she's forgotten her manners. "My name's Margaret, by the way. And you are . . . ?"

"Raafi, cleric of Fharlanghn, at your service."

Benefits of her architecture: she can replay her memory of his pronunciation of "Fharlanghn" as many times as necessary, and her speakers can reproduce any sound she can hear. "Pleased to meet you," she says, shortly before preceding him into the bar.

He follows. "Is there anything else I should know about the situation?"

She fills him in, quietly. Deskyl and where she is and what she's doing; Tenin and the problem with him being around.

He nods along. "I can raise the dead, if nothing else."

Upload is impressed. "I guess it's true what they say about Milliways staff always being capable enough. Does your world have enough people who can do that to keep up with people dying?"

"No. It would be nice if we did, but it's advanced magic, and expensive to boot."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Now, what's that Sith up to, and more importantly how is DZ doing?

DZ is still holding the door; her body language is pretty subtle, but Margaret probably knows her well enough by now to recognize the worry in it.

Tenin and his challenger have drawn a crowd; Raafi takes her hand and speaks a word, and they're teleported to appear in the backyard, bypassing the obstruction.

The Sith seems to be fighting blind, circling defensively with clear awareness of his opponent's location but not tracking her with his eyes. His opponent has a shield, glittering and sparking teal with some kind of magic or energy effect, but no weapon; she seems confident regardless.

"She's not fighting to kill," Raafi comments. "But he will be, you said?"

"I expect so, yes--at least if the options are kill or lose." Thank goodness DZ's alright. "I'm going to go hang out by the door to the bar in case someone else comes in."

She doesn't get far before the crowd at the door starts parting to let someone through from behind it: Deskyl, re-lighting her 'saber as she crosses the threshold, with DZ a step behind.

Apprentice, she signs, and DZ repeats it aloud. Stop playing with the Forceblinders and come here.

He growls, not shifting from his focus on his opponent. She speaks over his growl: "Is he yours? He's very rude."

I know. She steps up to join the fight, and Tenin adjusts to guard against her as well. Do you have a grievance?

"Nah, he's just a little shit."

Good. And then she closes on him. Red blades flash, both of them moving too quickly for the eye to track, and after a moment his body thumps to the ground, and she turns to go back inside.

Upload has never actually seen someone die in real life before. She's just going to stand where she is and stare for a bit. 

The crowd, and the other combatant, seem just as shocked. Raafi steps up to herd them back inside, and stops to cast something on the corpse before returning to Margaret. "Are you all right?"

"Me? I'm fine . . . He's not. I know it's better that he die than somebody else who didn't start it, but . . . he's still dead. I don't know."

"Off to the next great adventure, yeah." He's solemn, despite the lightness of the words.

"People in my world do sometimes have experiences after death--some philosophers would argue I'm one of them, even. How does it work in your world?"

"We have afterlives, depending on what kind of person you are. Most worlds with magic do, of some sort."

"My world has magic, so maybe everyone gets an afterlife and not just some people. His world has magic too," she adds, gesturing at the corpse. "Though I don't know if he can get to his world's afterlife from here even if there is one."

"I've never heard of anyone getting stuck."

"Yeah, Milliways seems too nice for that. I should go make sure DZ's alright, though she might have gone upstairs with Deskyl. Or possibly Lord Pradnakt now."

"All right. Good luck."

It takes a few seconds for DZ to answer the door when she knocks. Pradnakt is sitting in the room behind her, signing an explanation of Milliways to two other Sith, a calm but slightly impetuous woman a bit older than she is and a teenage boy who is doing an imperfect job of hiding how dubious he is of the situation. And this is Upload, she signs to them when she comes to the end of her explanation of the time dilation. A human from another world inhabiting a robot body. She has engineering powers and will be helping me with my next project. Upload, this is my new apprentice, Lord Valyr, and her apprentice, Rin.

"Pleased to meet you," she says with something approximating her usual cheerfulness. Then to Pradnakt: "I take it everything went well out there?"