Aitim strikes up a conversation with Merenre about interdimensional trade and waves Pelape over to join them. 

"What's up?"

"Apparently permanent dimensional gates are a thing and if we can go home we'll be able to set one up."

"Ooh! Tourism'll be complicated but the magic cleaning should let trade work fine and soon you'll have an internet - should ask if Cam can squeeze in compatibility out of the box but he probably can't -"

"It'd be really good, though, I think the internet does a lot of cultural levelling and they could sure use some."

      "Cultural levelling?" asks Merenre.

"Like, people talk to people in other countries and good norms spread faster and dumb ones die out and Amentans could be a good influence on your culture, which is honestly very concerning."

       "And then they all end up in the Maelstrom?"

"Yes, I know you have some reasons to hesitate about cultural change."

       "Trade we're delighted about, though."

"Is Maelstrom one of the torture ones?"

"No, but it's bad enough you don't want a lot of uptake," Ismat says.

"If you can make magic items yourself then you'll quickly be doing that, but also if you can make magic items yourself I'd expect you to have noticed."

"Maybe we could but only here or something, bears testing."

Nod. "What all could we buy from you?"

"Plastic; you can think of that sort of like glass except it's lighter and you can get it very thin and flexible and at our industrial level it's also cheaper. Electrical gadgets - catchall for things that do stuff like store and display compressed text and images and sound, or do something like a scry from a fixed location all the time at negligible marginal cost, or produce light, or do kitchen appliance stuff. I don't know how much of our medicine will be applicable cross-species or useful when you've got magic, but we can at least check that out. Fabric, plausibly, does what I'm wearing look interestingly exotic, I buy cheap mass produced stuff with synthetic fiber. All kinds of little doodads that are probably weirdly expensive or nonexistent here or haven't been invented, like pens and rubber bands and zippers and bicycles and chairs with caster wheels."

He takes notes. What she's wearing is interestingly exotic. "Fabric is expensive, do you have a way of mass-producing it?" Will Amentans want to come tourist. 

"Yeah, fabric is mass produced and cheap to the point where a shirt will cost the same in the smallest and largest sizes. Amentans will want to come tourist if and only if you get adequate plumbing and plumbing-related labor infrastructure handled everywhere they'd need to go plus assurances that everything they'd touch is clean to standards I get the sense you might find a bit exacting."

- weird. Is there non-magic stuff Amentans would plausibly be importing or should they be pretty much thinking about the magic stuff.

"Besides souvenirs... don't get me wrong, you could do a lot of business in souvenirs, there are a lot of us, but besides that I'm not coming up with much."

In that case he would like to learn more about Amenta's population and likely magic item demand and how business is arranged and Ismat might have more specific questions.

Ismat wants to know about the use of plastic in jewelry and the cost of shipping and the aesthetic fashions there and what magic wearables might be most popular.

Aitim does not really participate in this but he watches for a while. Watches Rabiah for a while. Tries and fails to get a good look at Khemet's wives.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"I think that you are an alternate universe version of my brother's wife. Ismat too. It's kind of fascinating."

"...we're not married."

"She's new," puts in Amina.

"There's an Amentan me? What's she do?" says Ismat.

"Sorry, I - don't know what the applicable term is - I thought Osirians were very mad about people having sex while not being married?"

"I'm in the household. And he's a prince." She did not manage to score a seat next to him so she cannot lean on him. "So it's okay."

"Well, it's certainly okay with us. You should come meet Makel and Peka sometime, you can all compare children and music."

"She probably doesn't have a Khatijah since you have that thing that lets you sleep around without any babies but I guess if they have kids together."