"Let's do it now, Gamble will be an hour or two most likely."

His place is part of a set of rooms above a repair and resale shop full of random machines. He has to explain Blai away two people clearly acting as a neighborhood watch of sorts to get into the little courtyard, watching the street and exchanging gossip about what dangerous people and events have been seen in the area recently.

Up on the third floor he has a dingy little apartment. Currently empty- "My wife is at work and our daughter moved out a while ago- Just spread everything out on the table here, I'll look for any old books I wouldn't mind getting rid of and that might be useful to you in the meanwhile."

"Thank you."

He starts casting over the table. Fruits and pies and stuffed rolls, easy to distribute in small snackish amounts.

Samuel finds a couple of cheap paperback novels and a few newspapers and an old English to Spanish dictionary to throw in the shopping bag.

"Should I have any context on the nature of the books before I read them?"

"These two are fiction- This one is set in the past during a big war - the war actually happened but I have no idea how accurate it is as real events - and this one has made-up magic in it. This one is a dictionary that matches words between Spanish and English- English is what is mostly spoken around here, but Spanish is a fair-sized minority. It's what I have. These are recent newspapers, probably don't believe too much of them."

"Don't believe them in... what way. They're fiction, they're propaganda, they're lazily researched, they're heretical, they're exaggerated for effect...?"

"They're a mixture of propaganda, lazily researched, advertisements, and exaggerated for effect. Mostly used for entertainment value."

"Understood."

"You can find things out from them with some level of actual relevance, but it's a skill. Here, I'll toss in an old math textbook... No idea where I got this. May as well, yeah, if I'm never reading it?"

"Thank you."

Once the food appears he salts it all and them spends a few minutes - lying - about a banquet that got canceled and tax written-off, and there's enough fresh food for everyone to have some. Blai is helping him with that, but he's probably going away soon, you know how it goes.

Then they can head on foot to the increasingly dense Gamble Street. The place is a maze of human activity and effort, everyone hawking everything. Clothes. Food. Electronics. Furniture. Tools. Porn. Vehicles. Weapons. Books. Jewelry. Drugs.

(Blai bags enough for his own meals today and breakfast tomorrow, rolls full of eggs and cheese, pies full of chicken and spinach or apple and honey.)

Blai is nonplussed by a lot of these things and sticks closely to his guide.

Tough looking men in yet another register of Gang Fashion guard and watch over the place. These ones look mostly Tian for some reason.

He checks the backs and internals of the phones vendors show him for something and keeps declining them until one passes his scrutiny. Then over to a different part of the market, more focused on programs and media. Again he passes by many of the vendors on some unclear judgment, and eventually buys a small chip that he loads into the phone. Also, a little solar charger and battery pack.

Away, away from the teeming throngs of commerce.

Oh thank goodness.

Back near the pod hotel, he'll explain the basic functions of a phone, and how to use Igloo. It'll read the words out loud and highlight syllables as it goes and do comprehension questions and get more complicated as he gets them right. It has a cutesy ice and snow theme.

He could do without the cutesy ice and snow theme but it doesn't matter! He is thoroughly ignorant of devices needing to charge and will stay that way unless informed.

Samuel explains that, too. He got a little solar thing. Or you can plug it into these sockets in civilized places- Don't stick your fingers or anything metal in there or the lightning will shock you.

Miracles of Azlant. "Thank you."

"Are you still thinking that the Badlands is your best plan for the immediate future?"

"Possibly not the immediate future. But I'm not at this time aware of an alternative where I won't be abducted, though I imagine that even if there are some you might not know them either."

"I wouldn't know and trying to find out would be hazardous. There are guys who are known to be charitable but like- I don't know them, maybe they're caught up in shit of their own and being monitored, maybe it's all a front while they spy on someone else or take corruption privately, maybe they really are good people but have no idea what the hell to do with you."

"Well, I could prepare Detect Good but most people aren't powerful enough to have a reading so I don't know how far it would get me."

"I have no idea what the constraints on that are but there's a lot of people in the city, if you check everyone passing through a busy part of Gamble Street for example, that's easily over a thousand people."

"The people who have a reading aren't just - a phenomenon that pops up occasionally for no reason, it's powerful adventurers. And empowered divine servants, we have a reading right away. In a city, I would usually expect Detect Good to get me retired adventurers, or ones who were in the city for a shopping trip or rest or something. There's not very much adventuring to do in a city that would make someone more powerful. The people going around threatening civilians might be powerful but likely not Good. I guess Aura Sight lasts long enough that it might be worth a try, though it'd mean a day of skipping food."

"Would people with a lot of augments count? They're - sort of alchemy, sort of medicine that can make you stronger, better at aiming, better memory, that kind of thing."