The green goes and finds one, weaving around the tournament as it goes into an uproar over a ruling on orange population's interaction with a public health event, and reports that a cheap plastic Spelltiles is the same price as one of the pendants. Temnin goes in to buy it for Sunwind.

Too many people here, he tells Temnin. I'm getting anxious. This was good but I want to get the TV and Tree Palace and go before it gets intolerable.

"Okay."

They find a place with the Tree Palace series - the first one is cheapest - and a place willing to deliver a TV and walk back to the studio.

I don't want any more help for today. I'm going to arrange my new stuff and practice camouflage and sleep. 

Wire has managed to get back to Amenta by now. He is not a cannibal. He tries to figure out what the auction site thinks about all his auctions that were in progress or not yet shipped when everything blew up.

They're all labeled "suspended - technical/logistical difficulties - click here to receive an update when the auction resumes".

Does the seller portal look any different or offer clues on how to put them back in motion?

The seller portal has a button that says "All's well, resume" or "Cancel auction".

He resumes them all and posts on Quoteme and Ourplatform that auctions of his art are resumed! Anyone who won an auction but didn't get the goods yet will be getting shipping tracking numbers soon.

Everyone is glad to hear that he is not a cannibal and that they'll get their stuff!

He very carefully avoids the topic of pollution online. He emails to ask that university if auditing classes can still happen and the population control blue who helped him initially about applying for Tapai residency.

He can still audit, though the schedule is no longer convenient for him to enter at the beginning of a semester. That matters less for auditing anyway.

The population control blue can get him the appropriate status.

Wire has a grand time being popular on the internet and making a lot of money at art auction. Money is useful for buying raw materials and workspace.

He arranges a time and flies back to the university after finding a garage or similar to rent in the nearby town. He has acquired a stylish green scarf at some point, wrapped around and around his neck, and lands outside the correct building just before the correct time. He's even wearing little rubber things on his claws that help them work more like fingers without scratching things, so he can open the door himself!

And here is the registrar! "Hello, Wire! Do you have an idea of what courses you want to take?"

I want to take the electromagnetism physics class to make sure my understanding of it has no major gaps, some of the sample tests I found were confusing but I'm not sure if it's because of the language or because I am missing something important. Other than that, I'm not really sure except that I'm more interested in science and engineering than anything else. Maybe intro to computer science, maybe something in crop science or ecology, maybe intro to communications systems, maybe integrated circuits design, maybe something in the math curriculum or chemistry.

"Do you want to take a math placement test and see if you're interested in the level you'd be ready for?"

Yes! I might not understand the notation but understand the concepts, but if that's the case then perhaps I need the class anyway.

"It's pretty notation-heavy and a lot of people get through math by symbol manipulation without keeping all the concepts in their heads, so it'd be a special concern there, yeah. Let me pull up a placement test and send you the login." She does this.

He is rather heavily impaired by the notation, especially once you get beyond algebra, and the placement test thinks he should go for Calculus I.

"Okay, in light of that I think you should get a student tutor - someone'll want to have 'taught a Draak math' on their CV, even though we don't subsidize tutoring when you're not paying tuition. That'll catch you up on notation to use in your other classes and maybe in a math class later. You'll be handicapped in the math-heavy sciences but we can put you down for electromagnetism physics anyway, and comp sci and intro agricultural science and intro ecology and if you want to take five things the chem class - that's got notation too but doesn't get into the weeds about it at the intro level and it's less abstract, somebody in the lecture hall will be managing to think about actual chemicals most of the time probably."

I know math, it's just not your math! But of course giving me tutoring benefits the giver in some way. It only makes sense. Five seems like at least one too many classes... Might want to drop crop science. I'm not so much into crops. I'll be a resource for Draak who want to export food and save some land from becoming fields if I do, though, so... Yes, I'll keep it.

I'm paying tuition, aren't I? I'm going to pay to audit the classes? Or I thought I was. It'll be really interesting seeing what you teach in terms of ecology. It's a popular study among Draak and I think I would already know the basics, but again I can't be sure, so best to try it anyway.

"You're not paying full tuition which comes with extra resources like tutoring subsidy, sorry, I was unclear. Auditing is less expensive."

Okay. From my art sales I have - He gives a figure - And I think I can earn about a third of that per month surplus of rent and materials if I spend enough time making more, is it enough for auditing?

"It is, yeah."

Good. I want to audit those four classes but not chemistry. What now?