He blushes a bit. "Is that how they do it. Well, I imagine we can figure something out."

"That's the convention, there's probably unconventional ways."

"Well, it's probably convention for a reason." Yep, still blushing.

Khiem giggles.

"It's not usually - discussed in polite company, at home." The blush deepens.

"Oh, well then, I'll hush up."

"You don't have to."

"Haven't that much to say about it, I'm not a summoner of any sort myself. But, you know, what do you get for the daeva who has everything?"

"I guess it's an obvious choice when you put it that way."

"Let me wrap up an extra slice of cake for you."

"I appreciate it. It was a lovely evening, thank you." He books a hotel room while she's doing that, takes his cake, and disappears.

He has the next day to himself, after his devotions; he decides he'll go back to Limbo in the evening, and asks Dogwood if there's a way to take reader questions about it without getting completely deluged and the PR firm if they'd like any answered for the website, and then settles in to read about the world. He's curious mostly about laws and the legal system, that being the most obvious place someone could run into trouble, but he has a few questions about cultural norms - attitudes toward discussion of violence and toward prostitution, to start with.

You could let readers vote on the questions and only look at the top ten?

Can you set that up for me? I'll take the top twenty, I won't be in a rush.

He's definitely not going to be trying to find anyone, this trip; he'll see what he can do about the rest. It occurs to him that Pelor probably hasn't told them about the duplicates situation; he fills them in on that and explains that he'll be meeting his own duplicate there.

Self-defense is the important thing; what are the norms about it, when are people expected to back down rather than escalate? How about defense of others, defense of property, provocation? How about threats of violence that don't end up going farther than that?

Prostitution being legal is a nice step up from what he's used to, but he doesn't trust it to be the whole story; he goes looking for civil rights groups devoted to the topic, to see what they have to say.

Sure, here, just confirm and pick a poll duration.

He confirms; he'll check the questions out an hour before dinnertime, by his clock.

Duplicates he doesn't know much about; he gives them some less-sensitive details about how similar he is to his, and mentions that they seem to have at least one friend who's a duplicate, too.

How does one go about getting help, if they're attacked?

He emails one of the larger prostitution groups to let them know that he's available to help with disease outbreaks.

Depends where. Lots of places have security or police of some kind who respond to yelling or various apps. The introduction of the chiplocked computer, despite its low uptake in the general population, cut the crime rate because they let you undetectably hit a panic button and restraining someone doesn't help.

They don't have outbreaks but can advertise his services to furloughed workers if he can tell them what it costs and how many patients he can handle.

He spends some time researching chiplocked computers, coming to the conclusion that wizards should have them but arranging it is going to be somewhat complicated. He sends a few emails to get the ball rolling on that, pointing out that the new healing magic makes it safe, if expensive, to try anything that doesn't carry a significant risk of death.

I'm not sure it makes sense for me to try to help out on a regular basis; I won't be able to offer more than a couple of spells a day, and even that not completely reliably. I'd be willing to do it for free, though, if you have a way of figuring out who most needs it.

I'll put a note in the system.

Right, and who does he need to talk to about getting that worked on?

Uh, chiplocked computers were invented by... some demon.

That's interesting. New search: How does one go about talking to demons? Without freaking out the locals, that is.

Some people do it! To not freak people out you need a summoning license and a good reason, like learning demon languages.

Hm. Is it possible to hire someone to do that sort of summoning, or will he need to get a license himself? Also, does the internet know which demon and how to get in touch with them in particular? Or how to let them get in touch with him?

People have tried to summon the chiplock demon but it no-shows. You can get conjured mail, which includes mail from any daeva who happen to want to talk to you, if you sign up for a conjured mail service.

And that'll, what, go to his email? Dogwood is handling that admirably well but adding four more worlds' worth of correspondence might be a bit much. He emails Dogwood to ask about it.