"I'll have to see if I can find a way to let her know."

"Lizard's a person too?"

"Yes and no - familiars are manifestations of their wizards, not independent entities. It's usually best to think of them as one person in two bodies."

"...huh. Well, she's very photogenic."

"Mmhmm. All right, if you don't need me for anything else I'll go see what else has been happening while I was gone."

"Sure, pick me up on your way to Mars."

"Will do."

Emails?

He got a notice about the Palmkernel Award. A reminder about his Mars meeting. An invitation to a photoshoot at no cost to himself. Does he want a walk-on part in this reality show, the participants don't know about Oerth yet and it'll be hilarious. Somebody wants to write his biography.

The reality show would be hilarious but also seems a little mean-spirited; he sends a polite letter declining the invitation. The photo shoot is more interesting, what do they want to use the photos for? He's not a very good choice to write a biography about, most parts of his personal life are either private or boring, but he'd be up for working on a book of stories about his travels if they'd like to do that. He also emails the insurance company, while he's at it.

He posts a few of the photos that they didn't use for the website on the blog, with a blurb apologizing for the lack of posting and explaining that he's been busy and will probably continue to be for the next while, and pointing anyone looking for healing to the oerth.com site. "I expect I'll mostly be posting about my personal travels here, in the future," he adds, "now that they're taking over explaining our world. I don't know how often I'll be posting, but I'm sure I'll have interesting things for you from time to time - it turns out that photography is a lot of fun."

He checks his schedule, next - lets some of the people who'd invited him to stop by whenever know that he probably won't be, checks in with Luna to see if they've gotten in touch with the author they wanted him to try raising or want to set something up to find him in Limbo, sends an email asking if the Prime Minister of the Federation still wants to meet him in a few days as planned.

It's lunchtime, by then, and he looks up how to sell objects while he eats.

They want to sell the photos for miscellaneous uses.

They would need a different ghostwriter for a travelogue but can hunt one up.

They haven't gotten in touch yet - there is apparently somehow two-way demon mail between the living and Limbo, how they don't know, but Limbo-side penetration is limited and hasn't seemed to reach the guy as of now.

The Prime Minister no longer thinks it is urgent now there are more points of contact and would be happy to skip it if Raafi's busy.

He could auction them on Biddr or set up a store on Lutsara.

Biddr looks good. He managed to score a whole batch of ioun stones that are enspelled to float but have no other magic, lots of gnomish art pieces that do various minor things mechanically or magically or both, some elven jewelry, a beautiful dwarven axe and shield set, some halfling-carved wooden housewares and small sculptures, several wearable holy symbols or decorative hangings of Pelor's sun and a few of Fharlanghn's horizon (noted in their descriptions to make the locations around them visible to the gods, though there's no guarantee they'll actually look), and a few properly magical items - pipes that produce whatever sound the piper imagines when they're competently played, boots that grant knowledge of how to move quietly, a potion that makes it much easier to resist the effects of fear for ten minutes, and a cloak that keeps its wearer magically warm or cool in uncomfortable temperatures.

He emails the Prime Minister back suggesting that he get in touch later if he'd like to speak to Raafi in particular, sets aside the photoshoot and travelogue emails to ask Ramona about later, and lets Luna know he'll look into making contact when he starts exploring Limbo for himself - probably in the next few weeks. And then it's time to head to Mars; he stops by to pick up Ramona first, and Pelor gets there just as they do.

The prices bid up pretty fast. He gets questions about all the magic stuff - how durable is it, how extreme a temperature can the cloak handle, what happens when the potion wears off, can ioun stones carry anything.

President Melo of Mars receives them and offers handshakes all round - "Who's this?"

"Ramona Lee, sir, I'm consulting."

"All right, have a seat."

Magic things are magically durable, though not completely resistant to actual attacks. The cloak doesn't make it a good idea to stick your hand in a fire or encase yourself in ice but hanging out next to lava or on an iceberg is fine. In general if something tried to scare you while the potion was in effect and failed, you won't be scared by it again in that encounter unless it does something new. Ioun stones can't carry very much at all; perhaps a sheet of paper or two.

He shakes the president's hand and sits where he's told. "So, what can we do for you, sir?"

"I know you have an FAQ up now. It's a creditable response! I'm glad you put that together - I assume you were involved, Ms. Lee -"

Ramona nods.

"That having been said, as a head of state I need more information to plan going forward as regards the intersection of Oerth powers and the needs of Martian people. It takes only so much sting out of a murder or a whole lost arcology that the dead are actually all safe in another universe, you see, though this is very good to know; and even apart from the Ganymede prisoners now loose and the GCP no longer to offer a guarantee about capturing new ones, I assume there may be more divine hobby projects, more things besides gods, things I need to know."

Pelor nods. "We are moving very cautiously on breaking news of your world to ours, for that reason - most of the gods in particular who might take unwelcome action here are minor enough or willing to negotiate enough that I expect to be able to stop them from doing anything unfriendly, though there are a few exceptions, and, yes, other things you should know about. Is there anything in particular that you'd like me to start with?"

"When you say 'willing to negotiate'..."

"I had myself in mind, there; I'm not formally the god of humans but it's common for other gods to come to me when they have an issue with your species. It is possible that one, or their representative, might come to you, but you can come to my church for help in that case, too - it might be that all we can do for you is help you figure out how to best accommodate them, but I should be able to get them to give you time to do it - Fharlanghn in particular has agreed since Ganymede to allow his clerics more time to negotiate, and most of the gods are already more understanding of that."

"Now, among human governments ultimatums are a pretty hostile tactic. I've got people who want to read Fharlanghn that way."

"I understand that," he nods. "It may help to think of us less as people in the sense you're used to and more as, in some cases, manifestations of peoples' rights. Restrictions on peoples' freedom to physically travel are an attack, to him, quite literally."

"Pretty hard to attack, or not-attack I suppose, someone who's not in the universe. Could be next year we turn up another universe that doesn't like something you're doing at home - in fact, we don't even have unfiltered information on what you're doing at home. It's very asymmetrical."

"I agree that he should have given diplomacy more of a chance, especially under the circumstances. As to information about our world - if demonic models aren't enough, the next step would be to bring you there, which I don't think is wise at all; we're not prepared to protect you from our world yet, if news of this one gets out there."

"It's not that I can't imagine reasons to be asymmetrical, far from it. And I'm not asking for a tour. But you - gods in general - can show up and tell by magic that somebody's doing something you construe as an attack, and launch one of your own; we have no means of self-defense, no credible means of retaliation, no sanctions we can bring to bear, and no hope you'd listen to a sternly worded email because your next election's at stake. Somebody was calling it an announcement of low-intervention conquest in my last meeting. You're untouchable, and some of you want things that'll hurt us. Telling me exactly how upset Fharlanghn had to feel about the situation doesn't change that. When I'm telling Luna that they can't send me an ambassador who abuses diplomatic immunity they don't try to tell me how much he's emotionally attached to driving his bike drunk. They tell me they can recall him but will I settle for taking their turn at hosting the Celestial Games. - I didn't."

"Ah, we're having a translation problem - I mean attack literally. As another example I expect to be able to finally destroy a few of our plague gods with information from your world about vaccines and immunity."

"You mean to say that Ganymede existing was actually injurious but... what, only once he found out about it?" asks Melo.

"In this case I don't believe it was actually injurious yet, though it's a very unusual situation and I'm not surprised that he reacted as if it was. It would have started harming him as he became relevant here, approximately - this is very hard to discuss with mortals, since it's so far outside your experience; I'm concerned that I'm not going to be able to give you a very accurate picture of the situation from our perspective."