"I - think so."

"Stuff we could check for with her?"

"I haven't done this. I think - I would expect that there'd be inconsistencies because of how memories are stored. Degrees of ability that were inconsistent with memories of practicing those skills, periods of time where everything's accounted for but none of it was spent doing the things one would've expected to spend it on..."

"She's us, she might just notice that on her own."

Anaander looks fondly at the door that she vanished through.

And another person appears behind the pharaoh's shoulder, and gets yanked away from there.

" - sorry - what -"

"That one's mine, I gave him that earring. I'll catch you up."

The pharaoh waves his guards off. 

He looks around at the room in increasing bewilderment.

- I'm glad you're all right. I'd heard you were missing.

Here's where I went missing to. Anyone get anything out of Eru yet?

He said that the place you were was 'kind of tasteless'. I assume he wasn't referring to the decor. He glances around. I guess maybe he was referring to the decor.

I'm not really sure what to read into that. Anyway, there's a bunch of alternate universe versions of both of us here, I was the first to appear but there's also natives of each. Three of me are out of the room right now, look like this and this and that, called Cam and Cor and Rubelite who is actually part of a sapient spaceship, that one over there's a you, so's the one cuddling the me named Annie there, so's the pharaoh over there, he's the local and has protocol arrangements under normal circumstances like thus and such but they're presently eroding, that man over there is local Findekáno name of Hemaka, pharaoh's brothers are - She rattles off everybody's names.

He unsurprisingly appreciates this. 

Okay. What're we trying to do?

At the moment Rubelite is upset because Khemet might not want to send her back to the rest of herself; Cor's trying to help her be competent enough at social maneuvering that she could reasonably contain the information, Annie and Pelape and Aitim are trying to figure out if that's the only thing that needs doing, although earlier Pelape and Aitim were talking trade arrangements with Merenre and Ismat. Cam's working on getting the place an internet. 'Magic' is trying not to get turned into a statue again. The rest of us are mostly just trying to keep oriented as things keep happening, but unless the appearances are very much nonrandom Cam's Maitimo is the only person yet to arrive, so we can probably settle into some long term projects as they seem our comparative advantage.

I assume you tried getting home.

Tried contacting the Valar. Didn't work. The other Ardas have worse Valar, especially Magic's, but there's a lot of things going on that could use ours' help.

Do you think Eru's running this?

He doesn't seem to have impeded it, and the Ardas repeat. It doesn't seem exactly his style, though, it's too - I don't know, it's not exactly funny, but it's too far in that vein, even if something's set up to go more Eru-shaped later it lends a sort of silliness to the whole thing for this to happen in this way.

Nod. I want to go meet everybody.

You aren't allowed to talk to Khemet's wives because of their sexual propriety protocols.

- is that a common problem?? Enough that they have protocols around it?

Apparently! It's more relaxed for everyone else, Masaharta has half a dozen girls in his 'household' and is apparently married to none of them, you can talk to those and Merenre's wife if you like. But no addressing the pharaoh's wives. Women are allowed to, if you want to feed me lines and borrow my eyes, though I'd want to make sure that was okay with Khemet since it seems to violate the spirit.

He glances at Khemet. 

Was he unhappy before the nonsense started or is he just stressed about how to manage it.

I think he is under more stress than usual but has not been enjoying his tenure as monarch.

That's interesting. I'd appreciate if you'd ask about talking with his wives, I'm curious if any of them are people we know.

"Khemet, is it all right if I talk to your wives while letting my Maitimo borrow my senses and suggest things to say, or no?"