"Kaede. Nice to meet you. I was just about done interrogating Bar about stuff, if you have questions you can probably shoot them at me and I'll know."

"My pleasure. Any idea what kind of magic was used to create this place? Interworld transportation is always handy. What is the name of your world or universe?"

"Bar doesn't know how she was created or how old she is, and there isn't really a sense in which that question has an answer because the door can pick people from any universes at any point in their history. My world doesn't really have a name? My continent's called Galatea and people there call the planet the same thing but there are other continents. You seem much less surprised than I was by the whole multiversal shenaingans."

"I'm surprised this place exists as it is, but not that it could exist if someone was powerful enough? And multiversal shenanigans are a commonly known thing? My current residence is in a pocket world that is connected to five regular universes including my native one."

Blink. "Yeah mine isn't. This was really really new to me."

Nod. "Yeah, one of Elsewhere's features - the pocket world I mentioned - is that it sometimes abducts people from other worlds. At least this place offers free drinks and explanations."

"One free drink," she corrects, smiling. "It's a very helpful bar." She looks around. "Er, when I arrived it was kinda full. From what Bar tells me, this might've been on purpose."

"That is one more free drink than people that get lost in the wild get. And what do you mean with on purpose?"

"Sometimes it looks like the door grabs people who would for one reason or another be interesting? She can't directly communicate with it or whoever's in charge of it, but."

"Oh? Well, you are interesting to me. Not everyday I get to meet a person from a new universe. Also, is there some translation effect going on?"

"Yeah, there's blanket translation magic here, it's really cool."

"Extremely cool. So, do you have a sense of what Galatea is like when compared to other worlds?"

"Nope, I haven't asked Bar about other worlds, only about the bar itself and the door and stuff."

"Well, how would you describe it? I'm curious."

"That... depends on what your culture is like, really. My continent—Galatea—is basically the only inhabited one. There are lots of islands, and there's one other continent with a few people but not many. There are three kingdoms, and they're really different. There are—four types of magic."

"Why only three kingdoms? And what are the four types of magic?"

"Why only three is a long and complicated story but the magic types are Elementalism, Enchanting, Arcanism, and Metamancy. Elementalism is using magic on yourself, Enchanting on objects, Arcanism on symbols, and Metamancy on magic itself."

"Elementalism doesn't use magic on elements?" Pause. "Does your magic consume anything?"

"Elementalists are called that way because one of the magics elementalists can do to themselves—do you want, like, the full explanation?"

"How long is the full explanation? And can your magic be learned in the time period we are here? I'm still curious but not enough for a two hour lecture about magic I can't bring back with me."

"As far as I know my type of magic can't be learnt, you're born with it, but it won't take two hours, no, more like ten minutes."

"Sure, go ahead. I can give you a magic lecture about the types of magics I know about in return if you want to."

"I do! But okay, so, about one percent of people where I'm from are born with some kind of magic. About thirty-three percent are elementalists, another thirty-three are arcanists, another thirty-three are enchanters. Some people—it's hard to know how many—are metamancers instead. You don't know which kind of magic you have super early, though. To figure it out, you have to, like, actively try to do magic, and it's different for everyone so you won't ever know for sure you don't have magic—you could just have failed to find the right way to do it. Most people find theirs before they're twenty, but there have been some cases where a sixty-year-old managed to Express."

Nod. "Metamancers have a harder time to express their magic or are they just rare? No ways to detect it or only metamancers can do it or something else?"

"Only metamancers can detect magic—it's how we know people are born with it rather than just getting it later—but they're rare, and, er, there's a. Taboo. About metamancy."