"Okay..." The purple finds the manufacturer's label on the bottom of a wooden case of charm bracelets and gives it to Temnin. ("Temnin?" "I haven't picked a new one yet.") The other purple bags the jewelry for him.

He is thinking quietly about the nature of plastic and suspects that it's probably more aligned with Air than anything else but he needs to learn more.

Out loud, he says, I can carry the bag if you want. I want to see the candle store next. Nice scents that burn to nothingness seem appropriately luxurious.

"It won't make it hard to walk?" asks Temnin.

The candle store has decorative ones as well as scented ones. Vanilla is on sale.

He sends a mental image of him holding the bag strap over one of his slightly less pointy teeth.

He sticks his head into the store and sniffs back and forth a bit, but once again doesn't attempt to actually enter.

That 'silver pine forest' candle doesn't smell much like any forest I've ever seen.

Temnin hands over the bag. "Maybe our trees smell different? I've never been in a forest, I don't think, or at least not a pine one."

It's sort of like a painting of a forest, not a real forest? Like that concept art, vague swirls of blue and green and brown and white that sort of resemble a real actual planet.

"Well, real forests aren't made of wax either. I dunno, I've never taken a candlemaking class."

I'll buy some anyway. The idea of luxuries that get used up forever is a little transgressive and a little thrilling!

His selection of what scents he likes seems fairly random. He wants a couple big ones of each scent he likes if that doesn't add up to much more than he spent in the jewelry place.

Candles aren't expensive; they get bagged up and the purple throws in a little vanilla one for free.

He will carry these bags on his teeth too! What else is in the mall?

If they go up a level - Sunwind can probably climb up over this railing if he's very careful, but Temnin doesn't think he ought to try the escalator - there's more clothes, and a souvenir shop with a bunch of stuff themed around the city's claims to fame printed on various objects, and an electronics shop, and a toy store, and a store devoted entirely to disposable plastic covers and protectors and bags and the like for keeping things from touching other things, and a store with dishes and silverware, and a tabletop game store in the middle of a tournament.

He can successfully climb up a level very very carefully. He appreciates the challenge of delicacy, if anything. Still, he tries it near a support pillar, just in case.

-What's going on in there? He wonders of the tabletop game store.

"They're playing a game to see who's best at it. Sign says the game's called 'Windowpane', I don't know it."

Ooh, now I'm interested. Contests are fun. Could you find out what it's about?

Temnin sticks his head in. "Sunwind wants to know what Windowpane's about -"

A few people jostle each other for the opportunity to be the one to tell Sunwind what Windowpane is about. A green wins. "Windowpane is a deckbuilding game - uh, that means there are some cards, and you try to put together a group of cards according to a set of rules, that will then perform well according to another set of rules but it takes a while to get good at it - and this is a tournament celebrating the new set release."

Correctly preparing a 'deck' is the key to victory, then?

"Yeah, that's right. And then using the deck once you have it."

Preparation is key but correct movement in the moment is important too? This is a truth in more things than just games. It seems a little strange to make up complicated rules and compete by them, but possibly fun. I think I might like to learn this game - if my helper doesn't mind the delay? He glances at Temnin.

"I'm here for you, I can hang out," says Temnin.

"It's too late to enter but I've already been eliminated, I'll teach you if the store'll loan us a basic set," says the green.

The store will do this!

I wouldn't want to enter a contest in my very first attempt, I would obviously lose!

...He gravely listens to the explanation of how to play.

The premise of Windowpane is that you are trying to build a town; cards include abstracted population (described as individuals but representing more people than that), buildings, transit, policy options, and a handful of rarer things. There is a quick building phase and then the neighborhoods continue to grow as a series of event cards must be responded to with the contents of the towns. "The green who invented this was aiming at the blue schoolkid audience but it picked up a recreational play following," says the green teaching them (Temnin has to play because three is the minimum number of players).

...He is kind of bad at this game.

I don't have intuitions about any of these things. Like why trains are better than buses or what the difference between the kinds of houses are for. And I can't read the cards. It's making me want to steal the idea but have it be managing an ecosystem well enough that you don't starve, though.

"Trains aren't always better, it depends what kind of strategy you're using. I could see an ecosystem deckbuilder, that might work."

He plays out two full matches, asking questions about strategies and the cards, and thanks the green for showing him how to play. Maybe he will want to try it again some time, it's complicated and twisty enough to be interesting even though it's just a game.

"Oh, if you like them twisty you want something like Jewels of Sarispen."

"Isn't that the one where -" begins Temnin.

"Yeah, the one where you can subscribe to a rules interpretation service. You wanna houserule it a little to make it tolerable but once you get into it -"