"Yeah! It's very encouraging."

"Oh good!"

"What'd the pharaoh say?"

"Hmm? Oh, blah blah blah have fun."

...snort.

" - did you actually want to know? He said that to Osirion peaceful peoples of other planes are always a delight, and that any friend of peace and prosperity is a friend of his, though if they have different gods there might be significant repercussions to the integration of their planes with our own, which Abadar will no doubt desire to take a role in guiding.

He did not used to talk to me like that."

"...oof."

Shrug. "What were you looking for in the book?"

"Experiments. Of the sort that would get you squashed where I'm from."

"Did you find them?"

"Yup. I feel so much less like I might arbitrarily die at any moment."

"Good!"

"I agree! - I will need to put up a sign to tell my patients tomorrow that I have to cancel, if you're going to want me all day."

"Right, of course. You can send someone."

"I guess that makes sense since I'd need help writing the sign anyway."

He looks outside again and then ropes in a guard. "What do you want the sign to say?"

"Uh... 'with apologies to my patients, I will be unavailable to keep appointments this...' Week? How long do you plan on keeping me?"

"A week's more than enough for the languages, how long do you expect the magic to take?"

"Don't know, I was avoiding learning much about the state of the art in arcana around here because it seemed like borrowing trouble and I don't know how much of it you know already anyway."

"A week for now?"

"Sure. With apologies to my patients I will be unable to keep appointments until at least the - nineteenth."

The guard nods and bows and departs.

"- do they have my address? Somehow?"

"Oh, did you not give it to them earlier when they were having their fit of paranoia?"

"It was not among the things they asked but maybe they looked me up by name and have it that way."