What a cute nerd. Raafi'll have to remember to have a few soul-related spells available for the appointment.

So now he's basically prepared, is there anything else he should look up... actually yes there is, he should look into what they do with rescuees, it's always a good idea to be able to answer peoples' questions about what they're getting into in a new place.

 There's a little information easily findable on the internet. There's an article on the concept of refugees that links to an article on the special challenges posed by refugees from one of the hells in particular, where they're taught to serve their demon overlords and then sometimes unleashed on the world of the living to trick people. There's the personal reflections of someone from one of the hells (a different one), who came to New Jerusalem a few years ago and has found the culture hard to adjust to but appreciates the lack of torture; they mention that there are public services they didn't avail themself of, but not what services those are. There are news stories about living refugees on Earth, which are probably less relevant.

That's not quite what he's looking for. He'll go ask a librarian.

The librarian can point him at a book titled Approaches to Refugee Integration in New Jerusalem and Allied Polities, a page on the New Jerusalem government website consisting almost entirely of links to the websites of or contact information for charities that work with refugees, and someone's memoir about their experiences working with refugees.

He'll look into Approaches, first, maybe it won't be too dry to get anywhere with.

According to this book, approaches vary most by the general goals of the polity implementing them, but also by the specific histories of the refugees. In New Jerusalem, many of those rescued from hells are processed the same way as other new arrivals: offered food, shelter, translation, and maps, and left to figure out for themselves what to do next. If they or their families ask for it, they can get free spiritual counseling or classes on certain basic skills or a handful of other things. But sometimes this is not an adequate solution.

For instance, sometimes they didn't have much of an education before death, because they died young or had neurological problems or were raised by animals or any number of things, and then spent their entire afterlife getting not-very-educationally tortured, and then they come to New Jerusalem or another not-very-bad polity as adults who lack even the skills necessary to independently figure out how to get oriented or what they need to know. Translation magic can only do so much for people who don't have a first language; maps aren't much use without the concept of representational art; common sense founded in experience isn't much use in sufficiently unfamiliar situations. Some polities that accept some refugees still sometimes won't accept people who don't have at least one language, or can't count, or don't know what a society is or what a law is. Some will accept them and dump them out in the wilderness somewhere they won't get in the way. New Jerusalem sometimes places them with people or families who think they can help and seem competent, and sometimes keeps them in institutions where they can be kept out of other people's way and taught what they need to know. There's substantial debate within New Jerusalem about how strongly to incentivize them to learn quickly. On the one hand, it's not like they'll die if left alone in a big walled garden for a while if they're too suspicious or tired or overstimulated to want to engage with a class; on the other hand, the longer they stay, the longer it takes any given facility to be ready to handle more, and they also can't make their own informed choices about how fast to learn because they can't know what they're missing because not knowing that is their entire problem. The good news is, at least, that dead people are very hard to permanently damage, and don't have much trouble picking up a first language at age five hundred.

A thornier problem is the places that try very hard to convince people to do things that are popularly glossed as "evil" - torturing people, going to Earth to talk living people into hurting others, or possibly coming to New Jerusalem to cause problems. They sometimes end up detained, as well, but that's less common. It's less clear that this benefits them and it's not that easy to do unfixable harm in the time it usually takes New Jerusalem's law enforcement to respond to a problem. The current policy is that if they're not trying to break the law and they want to be left alone they should be left alone. But not all of them want that; some of them are badly out of practice making choices, and some have lost confidence in their own judgment, and some don't want to take the risk that they'd be alone if their former overlords sent anyone after them. At any rate when they pass through official channels directly from their hell of origin - as opposed to sneaking in, or immigrating after living peacefully in an allied polity - the available services are opt-out, not opt-in. It's different in other polities, of course; some won't take them and some don't let them go free without passing some sort of evaluation, and on the other end of the spectrum, the Dead Republic's official position is that immigrants from all cultures are equally welcome and no one should be singled out because of their background. Most polities' policies are controversial - people criticize New Jerusalem in particular for not trying harder to make help available, and for making it too hard to avoid, and for aiming to make people more convenient for their neighbors in ways that aren't in their best interest, and for not trying harder to teach these people right from wrong, and for letting them immigrate at all, and for treating innocent victims with such unreasonable suspicion...

Ugh, books. He skims enough of it to be reasonably sure it's only talking about edge cases and sets it in the receptacle to be shelved.

He really should know, though, if he's going to be advising people - maybe his neighbor from the roof will know something useful; he gets back on the computer and after some fumbling sends an email asking if they're available to talk to him tomorrow. Then - the woman from the information booth might have an idea, too; he flies back over to see if she's there today.

There's a different information person today. No wings this time. But they can field questions too.

He waits for a lull before going over to talk to them.

"Hi! I've been through here already but I'm still new, and I have a question I haven't had much luck with at the library - I'd like to know about what you usually do for people coming in from other worlds, who've been rescued or what have you."

"Uh, usually it's the same if you came from Earth or one of the afterlives, so you'll've been through it coming here."

"Huh, all right. What are the exceptions?"

"Well, some of the worlds torture people, and when people come from those, they sometimes benefit from extra help healing, so I'd give them a list of free resources they could look into - I can print that list out for you if you'd like. I only see people who can ask for a list like that, though, so I wouldn't really know what they do for people who can't."

"The list sounds like what I'm looking for to start with, thank you."

Then he can have one. "Anything else?"

"That's all for now, thanks."

He'll try the subway to get back home; either it works and it saves him a teleport or it doesn't and he's no worse off than not trying it.

There are automatic ticket machines; there are signs that explain how to use them, with illustrations, and he can hang back and watch for a while first.

Then he will successfully get into the subway. He looks over his printout while he's waiting for the train.

There's a website and a physical address for an organization that teaches classes, mostly aimed at educationally neglected adults, on topics like arithmetic, literacy, budgeting, personal hygiene, geography, civics, statistics, history, and literature. There's contact information for a friar who is apparently good at talking people through hard times, and for a couple of other people with broadly similar skills. There are several people who do things in the general genre of spiritual cleansing or will attempt the dubious local magic practices. There's a meditation retreat.

The friar sounds like a promising contact.

He puts the list away again and waits for the train.

The train doesn't take long. It's a bit crowded.

Crowded is fine. Raafi watches out the window.

They go through a tunnel for a while. It's not terribly visually interesting, at first. But this line happens to pass part of the trip aboveground, eventually passing some farms where the city curves and the train track takes a shortcut. No one bothers him.

It may not be very interesting per se but it's still very exciting; he watches raptly until he gets back to his stop, then heads to the library again to send the friar a brief explanation of his situation and what he's doing and ask for an overview of the state of things here.

It's a bit early for lunch, still, when he's done; he gets out his map to look for nearby parks or things to visit in the meantime.

By the time he's back to the library Sam has gotten back to him ("Sure, on the roof at noonish or what?").

For a sufficiently broad definition of "nearby" he could see a park or an art gallery or a museum about the history of architecture in New Jerusalem or a small amusement park.

Noonish works, he can bring lunch, do they want anything in particular?

Ooh, an architecture museum. He heads off to see it.