Tatenika waves a hand.

"Notal is not hard. In five days, lots of city speaks Notal. And ... we want you to fun. We can pay people look like you, gawk at things, speak only Notal," she suggests.

"...Okay, that would be pretty amusing." She giggles.

Tatenika beams at her.

"Yes! We will do it," she says. "In some days, so people can knowing Notal. Before then ... you want to tell questions? Help me knowing Notal? Look at rift and for gooding it?"

An envoy comes down the street, and sets Weiss's books on the table, now that they've fully scanned and distributed them. They nod politely to Weiss and Diplomat Tatenika, and then turn and head for one of the tents.

Inside, things are very hectic — although from the outside Weiss probably can't tell, since everyone is signing to one another in order to keep the tent relatively quiet. Central River City Emergency Services is organizing:

• A baking contest
• A look-alike contest
• The myriad Notal-learning efforts that have sprung up approximately autonomously
• The re-routing of supplies, both basic and emergency, for a city that is expected to roughly double in population over the next week
• The handling of the quarantine procedures — people are being allowed into the city, but not out, and everyone who doesn't want contact with the alien is being reorganized into a separate district temporarily
• Procuring authorization for static weapons emplacements to put around the rift
• A proposal to the Global Minimum Standards Body about equipping the rift with a last-resort nuclear device to prevent monsters from gaining a foothold
• Preparing language questions for Diplomat Tatenika to ask if she gets a chance
• Preparing magic questions for Diplomat Tatenika to ask if she gets a chance

... and generally coordinating what is proving to be a fairly busy day.

The envoy signs at one of the dispatchers, and then waits while they finish a message, before receiving another assignment and hurrying out the back of the tent.

"The rift is... We know 'maybe' and 'sometimes' and 'it feels like'. We know how to make rifts that go from Tirra and to Tirra... Sometimes. Complicated. Also... A thing I don't want to talk about... Because..."

She collects her books into her tail, thinking.

Shrug. "Because. -Oh! I want to see a map," demonstrative illusion.

Something is off. They have towers, and cars, and all the other modern stuff, but they... Really aren't acting like any country she knows, even if she's been gone for like sixty years...

A map is an easy request to foresee. One is brought out from the tent, and Tatenika spreads it on the table between them:

She points at a point on the eastern coast of the northern part of the smaller major landmass, about half a line south of the big lakes.

"We are here," she says.

Then she taps the center of the southern part of the larger major landmass, near the red line.

"Humans come from here," she continues. "But now we are all places."

...................Yep, USA, Europe, Africa...

There's no way this place is, what, Georgia??????

??????????????????????????????????????????????????

Tatenika watches Weiss's reaction.

"I work for Smaller Continent Uniform Trade Standards Area," she elaborates, since it looks like Weiss is looking for something more. "They are here,"

She draws a shape around most of the smaller major landmass (northern and southern parts), noticeably excluding the more desert covered and mountainous area to their west.

"...But where is... Hrm."

Maybe she should keep mum about the whole 'Earth' thing because there's NO FUCKING WAY the US, what, split into east and west and then the east side conquered Canada and South America? Well, maybe after 300 years, but not 60...

The realization hits her with a sinking feeling. It's an AU. AU Earth. That's... Probably not any weirder than Tirra is. Maybe less, even. Who knows how isekais work, or where that fox jewel came from in the first place...

Push it all back. "Okay, so we are near the ocean?" (Tap the map.) "I hate boats unless absolutely necessary."

Tatenika nods.

"The ocean is ..."

She turns and points over her shoulder.

"It is four days walking, only a little bit by going-places system. But we have going-places things that go through the air, so if you want see Larger Continent,"

She points at the larger landmass.

"You can go in air, not on water."

Ugh, AIRPORTS. SECURITY. PLANES.

"Maybe later."

What did she miss most about Earth... Fast food? The internet?

"...I want to learn whatever it is you're all speaking, too. Maybe learn your board games?" Here's a solid illusion of a chess set, pawns advancing autonomously turn by turn as a demo.

Tatenika peers at the illusion. They have games like it, but she doesn't appear to recognize this one specifically.

She leans back.

"We can learning you Smaller Continent Official Language," she agrees. "You want learning it first, or learning board games first?"

"I'm going to be tense and irritable either way so... Yes. And the, the games that are on the math machines. Those looked fun."

Tatenika nods, and turns to sign some words at the person currently standing just outside the tent.

A few minutes later, the Emergency Services personnel helping coordinate all this have procured a two-player casual strategy game with some simple SCOL dialogue, and a computer to run it on.

Like most þereminian computers that aren't phones, it's a large, boxy model with a separate screen. They run a cable from the tent for it.

The game itself is a turn-based RPG that involves defending against continuous waves of enemies. The enemies descend from the top of the screen, and you can get different resources by successfully killing them. You do this by spending resources to summon and command little minions that you can place around the battlefield.

The game doesn't require fast reflexes. Both players have their own independent turn cycle, with enemies moving in accordance with the turn cycle of the player whose side of the screen they're on, but the two players share resource pools, and can do various other things to help each other out.

Occasionally, the enemy wizard who is generating these monsters comes in to taunt the players (in Southern Continent Official Language), and — although Weiss will probably not see this unless she plays for many hours — the game ultimately ends by noticing and pointing out a cycle of monsters that produces a positive amount of the resource the wizard is trying to get from the players, and negotiating their conditional surrender in exchange for the information. Although you can also just keep playing, and see how many waves you can defeat until an enemy reaches the bottom of the screen.

Like all þereminian computer systems, the data storage is removable, and saving your game for later just involves yanking the data storage out. This particular computer has two data storage slots, so that friends can save their progress on separate media.

The controls are fairly intuitive, although without much grasp on the language, Weiss may have trouble following the logic of which enemies produce which resources. Tatenika has played this particular game before with her niece, though, and will do her best to explain in halting Noten what is going on and provide translations. By watching the resource counters, Weiss might notice that they seem to count in base six.

It doesn't need fast reflexes? Too bad, her APM would be really high. Ahh, Smash Melee, she misses you... This has the vibe of a game that has a lot of interesting and amusing little descriptions on the units.

She tries to ignore how many people are fucking CATERING to her, or at least find it fun instead of IRRITATING.

They can take brief breaks to discuss SCOL. She's bright, she takes illusory notes, but she's also distracted and flighty and not especially motivated to rapidly learn, so progress is far from optimal. Mostly she keeps talking in Notal.

"You know... It's interesting how this one is cooperative, not competitive? So, hm, I think I need to get an ice guy for the bird monster but that uses up most of the blue, are you gonna need blue?" And don't you have more important things to do than play vidya with her?

"Competitive is, the players fight each other?" Tatenika clarifies. "I don't need blue yet; I can use green."

"We have competitive games, but they are ... many people find them less fun to ... one player is good at it, one player isn't good at it, yes? So your first þereminian game, I thinking, first cooperative," she explains. 

Tatenika makes several hundred marks per hour. It turns out that getting people to reach agreements that permit additional trade and more efficient utilization of infrastructure is really economically valuable, and she has the rare skillset to make it happen. So she is paid quite well.

Her time is not the most expensive on the planet; that honor goes to a really alarmingly brilliant research mathematician on Larger Continent. Her time isn't even second or third most expensive on the planet. She is unusual in how she provides value to the world, but not unusual in that she provides value to the world.

And right now, the single most valuable thing she can be doing is absolutely putting their visitor at ease and trying to ensure she'll be willing to share knowledge about magic, rifts, and other worlds later.

"Yeah. Ranked play can get toxic, but a little competition can be fun. When I have more words for it I want to figure out what things cost. Oh!" She produces one of the gold coins. "For the museum, like the other two. You can pay me by weight of gold, but if you want to pay more because it's alien, I won't say no."

"Thank you," Tatenika responds, taking the coin and setting it aside to be picked up. "I will ask what the museum will pay."

"I can say how much some things cost," she offers. "This math machine — computer — cost about 2,0000 marks. A good muffin costs about 4 marks. The amount it pays to live for a year — Universal Basic Income — in this city is about 1,1000 marks. But the cost it takes to live in the city is more than 13,0000 in a year. Outside the city, it is about 4,3000."

She casts around for other examples.

"A robe cost about 530 marks, a meal cost about 30. You can learn it fast. Careful of lightning monster!"

.......And a silver Ecu was worth one??????

"I want to buy raw silver and copper."

Tatenika blinks.

"... yes," she agrees. "How much? For just you, or selling with the rift?"

"I don't know, it's just- One silver ecu got me one mark and that's twenty copper centimes- 32-" Base six, base six... "Which is... You can eat bread and stew for three days."

"Uh."

Tatenika does some quick mental math of her own.

"This is learning me some things of Tirra," she says. "The people there ... mostly they farm? And they do not have machines for digging?"

"Machines are good for digging — they can dig good amounts of down, not many humans need to dig. Machines are good for farming, also, but ... farming is more ... there are lots of bits that are not the same, they need a human to look at them. Also, food must be eaten now, rocks can wait to go the slow boat way. Also, machines can be turning silver rocks into silver better than fires ..."

She does not have the vocabulary to explain modern ore washing.

"Lots of small things, all together is a big difference in price. Years ago, silver costs more. Years ago food costs more. But getting less costs are not the same."