"If it's someone else from my world - my sister, say - could she close the door and hang out in here and then open it again later to let me in?" Vanyel is picturing Lissa's reaction to the whole thing, and the one thing he's sure of is that she's going to see a bar and want a drink. He frowns. "Oh, but I guess that would mean time was paused outside in my world, relative to here? That might be inconvenient if Cam is waiting on me to, er, get my answer." 

Yes, time will only pass in your world while the door is open, unless something unusual is going on. But someone else from your world can maintain door access in the same way you can.

“That’s very helpful. Thank you, Bar.”

Vanyel turns back to Cam. “Um, I wanted to ask. If there’s anything you can think of - with your maker power, or knowledge from more, er, advanced worlds - if there’s any definitely reversible way I can arrange to almost die. I was thinking I would use my magic to remove all the air from a shield-bubble that I’m inside, but...I expect it to be extremely not fun, and it’s not maximally safe since there’s not actually a Healer in residence in my father’s keep right now.”

"Uh. I went to medical school and could probably dose drugs for that without actually killing you but maybe you should ask the person staffing the infirmary to come with you. She can't help me with my thing, I checked, but she'd probably be able to spot you."

“You have an infirmary here? That’s incredibly useful, and yes, I should definitely do that if you’re comfortable with it, thank you!”

"It's around the corner. Uh, I don't want to actually leave the premises but I can administer at range if you don't mind being within sight of the door for it. This is so you can talk to your death god? He didn't leave a mailing address?" Cam gets down from the barstool and shows Vanyel around to where the infirmary is.

“...Yes. And no. I might ask him for one though.” Vanyel smiles briefly as he follows Cam. “Never had a reason to, um, contact him deliberately before, the other times were the an incidental result of someone trying to kill me. Or my being an idiot. I wouldn’t expect you to go out there and I don’t mind being within sight of the door.” He would slightly prefer a less public locale, but if it does bring his entire family running, at least he’ll have already accomplished the task.

The infirmary contains a woman who stands up and says, "Show me where you're hurt," when they come in.

"She's kind of, uh, weird," says Cam. "Her world has no published written material Bar can get ahold of - Bar is also a library - so I don't know how to figure out what her deal is."

“Huh.” Vanyel smiles at the woman. “I’m not actually hurt right now, but there’s something I, um, wanted to ask if you could help with...” He repeats the request.

"He isn't hurt but he is going to be. Can you come out and wait, and when he's hurt, heal him?" Cam clarifies when she looks nonplussed.

"Yes," she says.

She follows them out.

"Bar," says Cam, "is he pharmacologically human like what I trained on so far as you know?"

Yes.

"How old are you, do you have a preexisting caffeine tolerance, are you allergic to anything, do you have any conditions affecting your general health especially your heart and lung function, you probably don't know your blood type and it probably won't come up but -" He materializes something. "B-poz." It goes up in flames. "Do you know how much you weigh?"

Vanyel blinks at Cam for a moment. “I’m thirty years old - years in my world, I don’t know if that differs between worlds? I have no idea what ‘caffeine’ is, I’m not allergic to anything as far as I know. I did get stabbed in the lung once, long story, but I think it got completely Healed, I got stabbed in the gut on a different occasion and that one still bothers me sometimes but not in a way where it’s dangerous according to our Healers. One time my heart stopped when I had horrible pneumonia but I suspect that’s less because of anything wrong with it and more because the Shadow-Lover wanted to tell me off for being an idiot. I think that’s everything relevant there. I weigh nine stone.”

"...coffee, which you've now had two cups of, contains caffeine. Probably don't have more today if you're not used to it. You'll develop a tolerance and it's addictive and it can make you anxious."

“Oh.” Vanyel spends a moment trying to figure out if he’s anxious, or otherwise feeling different than he would expect. “...Is that why I’m in a weirdly good mood? That’s too bad because I wanted more, but I guess that makes sense if it’s addictive, and I won’t.”

"People can responsibly use caffeine to, like, wake up in the morning every day with a skipped weekend once in a while to ratchet their tolerance down, but you should be aware you're doing it. I use it to skip sleep because I don't in fact need sleep and can't be addicted to things, but you're a human."

“...I’m so jealous, needing to sleep is one of my least favorite parts of being a human. I’ll be responsible, though.” Vanyel glances at the door. “Shall we? I’ll need to give my Companion a quick explanation and then ask her to find my sister to hold the door open for us.”

"Go ahead."

Vanyel opens the door and sticks his head out. 

:Yfandes? I need you to find Lissa and drag her over to the chapel. And, um – something really important happened and I promise I'll give you all the details soon but I need you to be patient. Quick version is: I found a magical room outside time that connects other worlds sometimes, and I met someone from another world who really, really needs our help. In order to bring about a million people back from the dead, it's important. I have a plan to talk to the Shadow-Lover and I swear it's safe; the person I met, Cam, has a really powerful kind of magic and also access to a Healer, he's helping. I just need Lissa to hold the door so it stays open to the magical place outside time, and I need you to...be nearby. And not panic that I'm going to reversibly die for five seconds. And maybe while I'm at it, I can ask the Shadow-Lover about some of our other problems: 

Pause. 

:'Fandes, listen, we...could really use Cam's help. But he's not going to do anything else until he's solved this problem. Understandably. So I want to make that happen: 

:Chosen, are you INSANE?:

(There are mental horse grumbles. Vanyel pushes across some of his memories of the last candlemark. He doesn't back down. ) 

:Fine, I'm coming. But we need to have a talk after this: 

A while later, a girl comes jogging toward them, with a white horse following behind her. 

"Van, what do you – wait. What?" She reaches the door. "What happened to the chapel? Why is there – ooh, is that a bar? Who's this? Van, can you please tell me what's going on?" 

"It's a place outside time. At least when the door is closed and I'm inside. It's complicated. This is Cam – Cam, meet my sister, Lissa." Vanyel says it as matter-of-factly as he can. "Lissa, I promise I'll explain everything soon, but right now I need you to hold the door open so I can step out for a minute without losing the way into this place. I'll buy you a drink at the bar after."

He hands off the door to Lissa, steps outside, and waves to the woman in the infirmary. :Yfandes, sorry: 

"Cam, I think you can go ahead and, er, do the thing now." 

"It's nice to meet you, Lissa. You ready?" Cam asks the healer.

"...do you need healing?" she asks, confused.

"...go stand over there," Cam says, pointing where Vanyel is. "He's going to."

She goes and stands over there and watches Vanyel.

"You might want to, like, lie down," Cam tells him.

"Oh, right, that's a good idea." Vanyel lies down on the cobbles and crosses his hands under his head. :See, 'Fandes, we have a plan and everything: 

He waits, trying not to be nervous, it's not like he hasn't died four times already and this time isn't going to involve any stabbing. 

"Count down from ten for me?"