"Who's Iverindo?"

"We've never met. I was told the chip's safe?"

"It's safe. Where'd you get him?"

"I have... almost no idea how much context you're working from here."

"I'm an Elf. Like you I was transported here unexpectedly and landed near the pharaoh. There seems to be such a thing as different Ardas with similar premises but different details; another such visitor came to us from one that is different from mine."

"I can tell you're an Elf. D'you know what a Silmaril is?"

"No."

"Well, they do chip backups, like Mandos, without being Mandos. Lot of chips were destroyed. So was Mandos. I was putting people back."

"Mandos was destroyed? How?"

"I'd rather not talk about that," he says, dropping his face into his hands.

"I'm going to go ask our visitor from the other Arda if he'd like to talk to you with me, in case he has usefully triangulating questions to ask," she says, and she goes.

"I like him."

"Do you notice something funny about them -"

"I do."

He bites his lip and doesn't say anything.

She pulls Cor out of his guest room again. "New person. Came through an Arda but isn't from it, like you, but it seems like another different one and it might have things in common with yours that it hasn't with mine, will you come?"

"Sure, I guess."

En route: "You'll want to be aware that the pharaoh has magic objects that let him spy on people. He said you can borrow one, I don't know if that's mollifying. I didn't bother asking about his privacy policy since if you're going to fret about this it'll be because you don't particularly expect him to follow such a policy in reality, am I right?"

"I dunno, maybe he'd really lose his powers, but it wouldn't be the first time somebody crossed a hell of a line over me. Probably my best defense is not to be especially interesting to spy on."

"Right. I had the idea that I could learn the local language and yours too and then if you wanted to get out of the palace I could translate for you till you'd picked it up but I keep getting delayed at the prerequisites by new arrivals."

"Magic object work outside the palace?"

"I suspect so."

"Thing where everybody does what he says, that work outside the palace too?"

"Probably."

"It's a nice thought but don't stop attending meet-and-greets on my account. This all caught me at kind of a bad time, I'd been prioritizing things other than getting over my issues and now I can do that instead."