"I have the involuntary mindreading at a short radius. I can also do other things to people's minds on purpose, though I'm very nervous about it and only do it when the alternatives are all really bad. Over a much wider area I have pretty arbitrary control of temperature and I can create and extinguish and control fire."

"Interesting. I would like to know how your powers compare against mine, sometime, but I would be hesitant about the impact reading my mind might have on a mortal, and this does not seem a place to test fire control."

"I mean, it's not going to go out of control." She holds out her hand and a little orange flame dances in her palm.

She nods. "Interesting. It seems to be an ordinary fire, to my senses. What is the definition of 'fire' your powers operate under? Does it include all plasmas?"

"Plasmas?"

She explains the states of matter, and that some especially hot fires are the same sort of matter stage as lightning, and a few other natural phenomena - technically lower heat, gaseous fires are more a product of continual chemical reactions, rather than being a particular state of matter...

"I... don't feel like I can do things that aren't fire, but maybe if I heated it up enough it'd technically be some of these other things?"

"That's reasonable; magic in my world sometimes also - interacts with a physical reality in a representational way. Is the definition of fire then a natural language one? If you can't control chemical reactions that produce heat in general."

"I mean, I can control heat in general... I don't know what the chemicals would then tend to do about it."

"Might be something to test, then, especially once I have a better sense of this place."

"Sure, take your time, I'm going to be here for a while most likely."

She nods. "I think I have some questions for Bar, first."

Can I interest you in a free first drink?

"Sure," she says, smiling. "Though I'm curious what, in general, is free or charged for, and what sort of currency do you accept?"

I am obliged to quote prices for everything other than the first drink, napkins, plain water, and incidentals like straws. I can accept any currency and price things in whatever is convenient to my patrons.

"Reasonable. I'll have to think about what would be convenient to me - I do have some coins people have left me as offerings, but there might be something easier... And do you charge for information about how Milliways works? I have some questions about how it interacts with my home universe."

The conversation is free. What would you like to know?

"Thank you. What's happening when the door is shut?"

Nothing, most likely. Patrons typically find that time is stopped in their universes while they visit Milliways and the door is not open to that universe.

She nods. "Are there ways to undo the pausing other than opening the door?"

Some relatively unusual effects can accomplish this. I do not know you to have access to any, but would not necessarily be aware.

"I can interact with my temples, Realms, and worshipers if I feel like it, even without colocating places, which seems it would at least do something interesting."

It may. I can see if any forthcoming publications from your world become available to mark time but don't have any more direct means of doing so.

"I could also ask a follower to mark time themselves, between contact attempts, assuming contact works in the first place."

She stares into the distance, reaching - seeing what happens when she tries to view her Realm.

"I can renew time in my own Realm, but it doesn't automatically propagate to the other Realm I have access to, and I think when I stop looking time pauses again," she says after a few moments. "This bears experimenting with, eventually. Is there a limit to how long someone can stay here?" she asks Bar.