They're taken aback by the 'Alexandria' part. Somewhat starstruck? Maybe. "Okay... Alright, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but how do you know you're not like one of those... you know, how do you know your memories are true?"

"Well, I don't have a gemma. How do you know your memories are true and not a product of your shiny new brain structure?"

"...I'm surprised you even know about the gemma, I've only heard of it from a bunch of academic papers. And, well, I don't have a discontinuity in my memories. I mean, everything's consistent, other people remember the same stuff I do, that kinda stuff. If I suddenly showed up in a world with very different physics than what I'm used to I'd definitely very seriously consider the possibility that I had hallucinated my entire past. Not having a gemma is pretty weird, though. Are you sure yours isn't just particularly small, or badly located, maybe? Those papers said that the location and size of the corona pollentia and gemma tended to vary from parahuman to parahuman."

"Protectorate gave me physicals. They made a big deal about how I didn't have a pollentia or gemma, even over the other ways I don't work like a human anymore. And besides, I really really hope my memories are true. But if they're not, what's different? I'm still here, I'll try to avoid dying just the same either because it really hurts or actual fear of oblivion."

"I'd normally expect fear of oblivion would instil better self-preservation instincts," they say dubiously. "Anyway, the other ways you don't work like a human anymore are all expected, or within the realm of the expected, for regular parahuman powers. Having all of that and not being a parahuman? Kiiiind of a big deal."

"I kinda have a million questions about your world, would you be too bored if I asked them?"

"I'll stop answering if I'm doing something tricky, and might get too bored of it eventually, but a few questions would be fine sure."

"So you said it was flat. How does that work? How large is it, what's under it and above it?"

"There are separate continents, more of them as far as you can go. Ocean, plains, forest, mountain. In between is just nothing. At least as far as anyone where I lived could tell. The one I lived on was maybe a hundred by by a hundred and sixty tiles, irregular edges. Er, a tile... The world comes in square pieces, each square is made of four triangles pointing to the middle. They were about... Three or four miles long?"

"They're... what, floating in the middle of nowhere? Where does stuff come from? Is it just endlessly generated? And why are there square pieces, what's important about them?"

Yeah, floating in the middle of nothing. Vela like me, make all the stuff. Stuff is most efficiently made in those square pieces, and only square pieces latch on to the- grid, I guess, and don't fall. But Legend told me not to try it here.

"You keep throwing these names around like that."

"What do you mean? It's true. I talked to them."

"I know, it's just. Wow." They shake their head very quickly at if to clear it. "Anyway, what's a Vela?"

"Our name for our people with powers. I'd translate it to something like 'fate'."

"Oh. You said you were human before...?"

"Yeah. But when you achieve something sufficiently grand, I guess my world decides you deserve more."

"So it just... happens? What's sufficiently grand, for your world?"

"It just happens. Mine was a large, automated, safe underground transport grid. A bit like the subways. Some other famous examples are the stormveil, which prevents tornadoes from touching down over a few dozen squares and directs lightning strikes to harmless areas. Or the wardwall, an anti-volcano shield over an entire city. Big feats of our equivalent of engineering, which this world would call magic."

"That... sounds pretty amazing. Where does weather come from? Have you ever flown below a square to see what's there? What keeps the squares up? Is there a sky?"

"I can't remember five questions while multitasking. There is nothing below the squares, we've looked with telescopes and scries. I've flown a few tiles down but it really is just empty. There is a sky, people have been determined enough to go visit it. Seems like there is a separate grid for suns and moons and stars a really long way up, and it's just as empty beyond that as below the surface."

"A grid? How big are suns and stars? What are they, there?"

"Suns are pretty big. They're spheres of fire... We don't understand our world as well as people understand this one."

"Are they embedded on something? What does this grid even do? How does it separate? Does it correspond to the earth grid?"