"Yeah!" She can pull up old photos. "Here's Aitim giving a speech, Kan's over there sitting behind him. There's both of them and baby me asleep on Kan's shoulder on the train not long after they adopted me. There's one of their wedding photos."

"Awww. It's weird that people used to be babies. I wonder if animals could be just as smart if people raised them. Which of them do you like better? I like my adoptive mom most, because she believes me about things."

"Animals can't be as smart if people raise them, if you get a kitten it's still going to grow into a cat. I'm not sure which I like better. When I go with them to work I usually go with Aitim but that's because he has meetings more and those are more interesting to watch than Kan writing emails all day but that's not because I like Aitim more."

"Huh. I guess they could be equally good. Or maybe you just don't know yet, that's okay. Did you want to do anything besides look at the roster? I don't really want to take a bath here, I don't know any of these people."

"Let's look at the roster first but I might take a bath anyway."

Nod.

They don't really have lots of things, so there's not much to do in the room. It has only one bed; they've been given keys to two rooms, but Daernir hasn't yet remembered sleep exists, so he just holds onto his key as they go back to the mean receptionist.

"Hello. Can we see the roster?"

"I cannot show you the roster, because we also want to maintain some privacy for our guests. You can tell me what skills you want to request, and I will tell you who we have who can help."

"I need help with introducing novel things to people who might want them."

"Hmm..."

She scans their roster.

"We have a travel agent...an airplane inventor...a matchmaker...a pan vendor...and a bard. Will any of those do?"

"We could meet more than one, if you think it would help," he says to Lintalai.

"A bard could be good! ...also the airplane inventor."

"Maybe the travel agent would have suggestions on what we can do, too, since the most useful things about a new kingdom is harder to spread in stories, like bards do it? I don't see how the matchmaker or a pan vendor could help."

"We can try the travel agent too, yeah, they might at least know good places for me to visit next."

The receptionist gives them room numbers; she won't hand out the names. She wishes them luck.

Time to go knocking on doors! She will start with whichever room is closest; any of them might be out at the moment anyway.

The first one may be out, as there is no response. The second one, the travel agent, does answer.

A person with long, black hair and pointed ears answers the door, wearing a silk dress that would be translucent if not for the opaque flowers that recur across it.

"Hello," they say, their voice having a slightly musical quality. "Can I help you?"

"Hello, my name is Lintalai! The person at the front said you were a travel agent? I'm trying to explore Arcadia to learn more about it so I can start a polity and eventually bring colonists from my home world over and I wondered if you'd know good places to explore for that purpose."

"Oh, of course! Come in, have a seat on the bed there."

They rush back inside and rummage through a cloth bag until they retrieve a scroll case. They open it, and unroll the parchment within.

"What kind of places are you most interested in? Many neighbors, or fewer? Lots of local crops? Abundant animals to befriend or kill? Can any of your future citizens fly?"

"My future citizens can't fly but do know how to build flying vehicles. They will want to build large cities and enough farms to feed everybody there - these are live people - and I want to attract lots of magic users too eventually - neighbors are fine but the colonists will have a lot of kids and need room to expand."

"Assuming they'll be satisfied by our native flora, I can find a spot near a substantial number of farms. Neighbors are fine, but room to expand- what you might want is formian neighbors, they do like building quite a bit...as for attracting magic users, I would suggest placing yourself near a god's realm and becoming magically interesting, spellcasters are a tricky bunch to treat as a class. Away from Heliopolis...let me find you somewhere distant from Azuth and Savras' realm, magic users would actively prefer going there than to a fledgling kingdom...this still leaves us with some options. What is your opinion of collaboration? Do you want your magic users to work with magic users from other settlements?"

"I think room to start farms would be more important than already-existing farms in the long run but some already existing farms would be good except I don't actually know if most Amentans can eat the plants here, I'm unusual. Collaboration sounds good!"

She continues looking through her parchment and making thoughtful noises.

"Would your Amentans bring their own seeds to start farms with?"

"Yeah! I guess they might have a hard time bringing across heavy farm equipment and stuff if the portals are very small but they can probably bring it in pieces and maybe there could be bigger portals."

"Empty land in which Amentans can grow their plants...open air...I would recommend founding your city on Abellio to avoid any issues with your flying vehicles, it's easier to unintentionally travel from a lower layer of Arcadia to a higher one than the reverse. Formian neighbors, because they tend to build underground and will only leave an above-ground interface for trading with their neighbors. Somewhere near Marduk, which will make a strong trading partner and which has a relationship with us, as well. I can't help directly with attracting spellcasters, unfortunately, beyond putting you between Marduk, home to many priests, and a settlement with a relatively high population of mages. Were there any other concerns, or should I create a shortlist?"