"Yeah. Eva, you've seen the motherlode we're sitting on and how much we've already brought you. Think you can advance us a discount immortality?"

"I'm tired of watching our friends and allies die because they can't afford proper medicine. So that's a yes. I'll take it out of my personal accounts as a no-interest loan."

"Huzzah! So, how does this work? I mostly want something where... If I die out there, I come back. Maybe missing some time, maybe after a delay, but I come back, with all my personality and memories and... Me. My soul, if you can do that with our kinda souls."

"Your kind of soul is different from ours, but give me just a moment." 

A comfortable chair with dark cushions appears, a metallic halfsphere embedded in the seatback.

"Sit down and put your head in the slot."

She does this, a bit nervously.

There's a tingle of electricity all through her head and all the way down her spine, and a flicker of blacklight, and that's it. 

"Saved. We have you on file now; you'll be re-embodied from the last time you put yourself on file if we hear news of your death or if you go more than a year between stops back here to save your current state. No warranty against accidental parallel embodiment, it's your responsibility to always check back in within a year. Here's your OTC beacon for checkins." 

She slides a beacon not unlike Thorn's across her desk.

"Whoo. What a load off my mind, huh? Just make sure the threshold for credibility on reports of my death are pretty high, okay? A year is fine otherwise." She stands up and grabs the beacon, turns it over. "...How expensive is it to make something, like, I can summon it back to me if I wanna? Will it work for anyone other than me? Don't want to get stranded by losing it and losing Thorn somehow too. "

Eva winces. "Beacons are delicate. We'd make them summonable by default but that fouls the trace signal. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to be careful with it. I can, however, give you a spare."

She conjures a second one.

"And this one will only work for you. It's keyed to your body - it could be opened using a sample of your blood, maybe."

"I'll put it in a safe-deposit box. And now, shopping. What's our budget for magic and materials to bring back? We can get a warehouse today and a Moloch tomorrow, and dozens of barrels of Hours in a week or two. And I might want some of the upgrades Thorn has while we're at it."

"Your total budget all combined is about two hundred and seventy thousand OTC, which have a nominal 'exchange rate' with Sovereigns at about nine-to-one, so in Sovereigns that's two point four million. I'd suggest a budget of about fifty thousand sovereigns. Which still leaves you with two hundred sixty four thousand OTC to play with. For enhancements like Thorn's you'd have to see a high-level medical professional, probably a Clematis on business. You have enough to be able to afford about forty-five minutes of her time, which would get you at least three, maybe four enhancements. Replacing your eyes is a delicate operation even with magic, you know?"

"Millionaire. A million Sovereigns. God... Yeah. Well, I've lived with it this long. Serious body enhancement can wait a bit more. Dietware, ring of nine lives. The perfected boots would be handy - can they match the ones I already have? The photo-contacts. A panacea just in case. The water cloak could come in handy, fires aboard ship are bad news. An aetheroscope could potentially be a useful warning or something sky-nonsensical. The amulet of inviolable form because more protection is better. Combi-tool might be an engineer's dream. I want to try a lasgun, d'you have a firing range? Scarab of sterilization, maybe..."

She frowns.

"So many things sound a little useful, but I'm a little worried they'd accumulate, if you have a tool but can't find it when you need it you don't have it, you know? Hmm. What exactly do people use worry beads for?"

"Here's a pair of boots that matches yours, you don't have to buy them." She manifests a range and a lasgun on her desk. "Feel free to try out the hardware. Worry beads are primarily used for expanding the amount of training you can cram into your head - they can help you learn piano faster, or learn to shoot, or learn magic, or..."

"Ooh. Sounds like something you want a week free for, and our planned vacation's gonna get cut short in the best way."

She looks over the lasgun, identifies safety and loading mechanism, sights it down the range (finger off trigger). Sets it down again and turns to Thorn.

"Thorn, what do you think we should buy? I'm not used to being any kind of rich."

"Neither am I," Thorn admits. "But I think there's no good reason to hold back here. Take everything, if it's not that useful you have more money. Sure, you can grow used to tools, but that doesn't make you helpless without them."

"Good point! In that case, let's add a bunch of just-in-case consumables, ooh and we have to get something for the hospital since I got their emergency Hours supply, and one of those sealed armors just in case, and sending stones, and an eternal battery - we can hook the headlight to it so it doesn't use the engine - I think I whatever general boosts for my body as you'd recommend worth about a third of the budget, for now."

"I'd suggest cutting back on needed sleep first. It's more time in your day, every day. For impact it's probably the most obvious of my modifications."

"Good point. Dreams can be nice but sleep is mostly just pointless. Ooh, also I want a stylish lined coat, I think I could rock a long coat. Long-term I want to learn some kind of magic, I could poke at it while we travel maybe? Aaaand, something fun..." She glances all over Thorn, then looks slightly embarrassed and shakes her head, then... "I maaaaay have to try the dire cocoa fudge. At that price it had better be amazing, though."

"There's manuals on magic you can probably afford. I will warn you that dira cocoa fudge is actually hazardously good. And if you were interested in... the other kind of fun... there's an entire separate Rose Bowers catalog for adult items."

...Headshake. "I got the impression it was safe-ish. It's the kind of thing that's obviously, blatantly a terrible idea in my universe, but here... If you say it's hazardous, oh well. A, uh, Rose Bowers catalog should be fun to look at. Or something with non-adult toys, like magic puzzle boxes or something, if I'm frivolously spending on fun?"

"I can actually recommend you some puzzle boxes that contain other puzzle boxes! Space-folding can be very fun, there's a whole ten-box contraption with keys and so on that you can get for like 20 OTC and if you like it then you can get more in the series."

"And here's a Rose Bowers Catalog."

Lenora pages through the Rose Bower catalog slowly, expression growing more and more amazed/slightly alarmed.

"That is... A lot of stuff. Wow."

"People get creative. I think now you might see why the Rose Bowers could be... a bit much?"

"Yes. More than a bit much. The things that change my own perceptions still feel unsafe, but..."

She pages through the catalog a bit more.

"If- You're fine with me buying a few things-"

"I am absolutely okay with you buying as much or as little as you want."