"If I treat her as a contact? At least five good stories about her time as crew in a dangerous frontier profession, quite a bit of her personal time, and her word as someone of established reputation working on my behalf. Call it five hundred Datum, another seventy-five Takkarash, and considerations. Round up, five hundred OTC." 

Eva pulls out a paper catalog of items and slides it across the table to Lenora. 

"...This is like, too much to pick from. I don't know what would be useful. And my instincts mistrust everything that says it's magical, because that usually means dangerous and-or unstable."

"Your instincts are good for your reality, so I wouldn't bring in magical goods casually. We could sell you mundane objects, they are in the catalog, but generally we try to be more of a specialty shop for goods across the multiverse. So... come back when you've thought about it more? I'll keep your account open."

"Mm... The only really inherently dangerous and warpy thing is Correspondence. And the beings that can speak it, Judgements, Messengers, other things about that cosmic. Like, Chron, that seems weirdly expensive to me because Hours are pretty cheap all told - but Hours aren't smart about applying when you need it. Dyne and Ka seem probably safe, too. What is 'experiential memory'? The Stormwalker's Raiment could probably fail inconveniently, but the ring of nine lives would probably work alright."

"Experiential memory means you experience and remember something, and that gives you the ability. Sometimes that's magical, sometimes it's simple skill. You could inherit the experiential memory of six months learning to play the piano and learn how to overnight."

"Bag of holding sounds dangerous, cleansing collar would be handy and would probably fail safely, earthsmasher pickaxe and sealing box too... The amulet of involable form and rod of freedom would probably fail against anything powerful enough to do that shit in the first place... The ancient coin seems safe actually? Subtle, slow, not excessively powerful things in general, you know? Hold on, I need paper to make a shopping list..."

Eva waits patiently for her to finish.

"...Can you fulfill the order without looking at exactly what I want, or is that stupid?"

"I can entrust it to an automated process and give you a brown paper bag full of your order so long as you order things that are carryable or intrinsic."

"Okay!" She starts writing. "Hey, I wonder if the torque torc can speed up a locomotive. Gear it for high revs, wear the torc so it doesn't just choke out..."

"Perhaps we can test it, though I'd be wary of forcing myself to wear a torc all day on pain of engine failure."

"Good point. Also, hurting doesn't sound too bad if it gets me more of all this cool stuff, what's the difference between the cheap Takkarash thing and the expensive ones? What are those like anyway?" Scribble scribble scribble. "What about datum, can I use them anywhere and suddenly know things? Like, in an emergency?"

"The expensive ones offer less of a cut for minting services, finer control, more privacy, and more selection in type of pain experienced. The classic model feels like being stabbed by something: more expensive models are able to provide other experiences, like being burned. The tasp mentioned for the Shiver-Sweet model allows it to provide pleasurable sensations as well as painful ones, for people who are into that. There are a surprising number of people who are. 

"As for redeeming Datum in an emergency, that's possible but not recommended since you'll just get the best match OTC's information library can provide to your current conditions, which is likely to be poor in a new universe."

"Ah, yeah, maybe not then. I'm thinking about emergency prep. I want a few dyne on hand to use in stressful times but that's just outside the budget after everything else I want and I don't exactly want to double over in pain right now to pay for that, more like over the course of a day, can I get a pain kit and then change 'em out for dyne later?"

She folds the completed paper in half and taps it.

"You can." She taps the order, and it disappears; a plain brown bag appears on the desk. She folds the top over and hands it to Lenora. "Here you go."

"If this stuff works as advertised I'm going to want to buy more you know~ How do I use the Mercury Reaches? That's the big thing and not one I'm all hush-hush about."

"There should be a glass ampoule containing a silvery liquid in the bag. Drink it and sleep; you'll have dreams of survival on a faraway world where everything is quicksilver, and when you awaken your grace and reflexes will have been sharpened dramatically."

She peeks in the bag and smiles. "I'll do that tonight, then. Seems like a useful thing to have in a dangerous place and all. Thanks! Say Thorn, do I have to stick with you to get back here some other time?"

"The beacon's necessary and it's too valuable for me to leave lying around where random people can get at it, so unfortunately you'll have to come back with me if you want to. Next time I'd prefer to do it at the edge of town in an abandoned house I've got set up, but if need be we can do it like this again later. And thanks for listening. Shall I get the door?"

"If there's nothing else you particularly needed to do here, sure. If all goes well, you'll do more in the High Wilderness than just sell stuff to me eventually, right?"

"Definitely. I'll go from scout to agent and we'll start opening up to this world and helping with its problems. After all, that's how OTC makes much of its money - finding people with problems and solving them." 

She pulls the door open and steps through.

Lenora follows. "I want to hear about some of the things you've done! Telling stories is a way to get to know each other, right?"

"Yeah, it is! Here's a good place to start with - remember how I said I was familiar with dragons? Well, that's because I took it on myself to hunt one of them. Now, dragons in the planes can take human form, and are smart like humans, but many of them, particularly chromatic dragons, are frankly assholes. Greedy, violent, smug assholes who like using humans as pawns in private wars or as guinea pigs for nasty experiments. This dragon was like that. He was an old and mean one, with over a thousand years under his belt. And it fell to me, to catch him out and execute the bastard. 

"It took help. A whole party of nine, not all of whom survived. The bastard knew Trap The Soul and wasn't afraid to use it; we never found the gems that Colins and Devra got locked into. But eventually we cornered him in his sanctum, pinned him down using his research as bait. He threw a lot of magic around, ate Gerard, but Gerard cut his way out through the bastard's heart and that was an end to him. I helped. That's when people started calling me a blood instead of a cutter." 

"...Damn. Dragons sound more like Curators all the time. They say the old Masters in the Neath were actually Curators, and they did awful experiments or proxy violence or just ate people sometimes too. And I know some academics who that would totally work on, so good strategy."