He nods. "I've met angels and demons; I haven't met a god as such but Fharlanghn has contacted me once or twice." He touches the wooden pendant he's wearing around his neck. "If you want to put that in your report."

"I will. And... is there any reason we shouldn't try to contact him?"

"Fharlanghn? Well, he's generally very busy, but if he doesn't already know about this world he'll be even more thrilled than I am to find out about it, you shouldn't have trouble on that front, and I can try too - he should be able to see me here even if he can't otherwise see the place. And if that doesn't work and it's difficult for you to keep trying you may want to wait for me to be able to get home under my own power and tell people that way instead, I'd expect it to be five or ten years before I can cast a ninth-tier spell to do it."

"Will it disrupt the process of you gaining spells if you die in that time?"

"-it would at home, if someone raised me to continue working on it in the first place; it'd set me back by a full tier which is years of work at this point. I have no idea what would happen here. I'm not even sure that wouldn't send me to one of my home's afterlives."

"Then it's strategically important that we keep you alive. So if we do try to contact your god... what would he be likely to want from us?"

"To set up free or reasonably free travel between this world and ours, to see you improve your transportation infrastructure and share the things you've invented for it with us - presumably through trade - and possibly some political consesions to make travel easier in your territory. And I'm assuming you don't have any slavery here that I haven't run into yet, he'll expect that to stop if you do."

"...We don't," she says, slowly starting to smirk.

"-we're quite serious about the slavery thing, is there something I ought to be looking into?"

"Yes. Yes, there is. - I guess arguably most of what I'm worried about is more like torture and prisons and indoctrination but I think some of it will count as slavery." She is grinning so much now. "Possibly what you should do is read up on things and then get an appointment with the king."

"Prisons count, it's the denial of the right to travel that matters. Torture's not itself a problem but I'm obligated to help people leave situations they don't want to be in, and indoctrination's a subtler issue but I'm still not a fan - please do."

"Right, okay. Books, then. Let me just..." She squats down to look at something on her side of the counter, and comes back up with two books for him, a thick one with an unillustrated cover called A Guide to New Jerusalem, and a slimmer one, whose cover has a picture of an altar with candles and blades, called I Found Jesus (Right Where He Said He'd Be During Office Hours). "This one," she says, tapping the first, "tries not to assume you know anything. And this one," she says, tapping the second, "assumes a lot but one of the things it assumes is that you take religion seriously and want to hear all about the religious implications of everything here. And, uh, there are books about modern technology that you should read, but I don't have one on hand for you so you'll have to try a library. Anyway, once you're oriented, you can schedule an appointment with the king through his website."

"Sounds good. Should I come back here or try at the library, if I have questions? Or do the -" he waves vaguely - "mail thing, I guess."

"You can come back here but you'll probably find borrowing a library computer to look online works fine and the librarians will know how to find information about a broader range of things."

"All right." He takes the books. "When will I know about housing?"

"Uh, we told them why it's urgent, so check in a few hours and if it gets to be evening and you haven't heard from them then... maybe try offering hotels magic for a room? Or find a library or maybe a restaurant, those usually have places where people can rest, libraries especially, but you'd have to be quiet. And if that fails, it's usually warm and dry this time of year."

"I can definitely camp if I need to, as long as that won't bother anyone." He takes the books and moves off to a table to get his map out again and take a look at the area - he should figure out where the library is sooner or later but first he needs to find someplace to sell spells, or perhaps some of the trade goods he has on hand.

There's a pawn shop a ways off, not quite in the same direction as the nearest library but not too far. There are shops, and there are places that sometimes hold outdoor markets; on the way to the pawn shop he'll pass places that sell cookware and furniture and soap and jewelry and computers and phones and textiles and haircuts, as well as a handful of very nice homes that have been only slightly updated this millennium.

He heads off in that direction, wandering through the shops to look at the prices on the merchandise and keeping an eye out for an alley or other secluded place to get into his storage.

There are lots of little alleys around here.

He finds one that seems private enough, waits a couple of minutes to be sure he hasn't misjudged the amount of foot traffic it gets, and spreads his portable hole on the ground so that he can double check the inventory he has inside.

He's not interrupted.

Good. He climbs out some ten minutes later, list in hand, and continues on his way to the pawn shop.

Inside there are collections of things hanging from the walls or displayed under glass. A couple of people who seem to be together are looking at instruments and knives, while someone else is just finishing up pawning an excessively fancy day-of-the-week calculator.

He waits for the customer with the calculator to be finished and steps up to the counter. "Hi! I have some things to sell - probably not all of them, I need to know which ones you're most likely to want before I bring them in." And he presents his list:

gold, silver, copper coins, about 10lb each

platinum coins, about 2lb

diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, misc. sizes/cuts (mostly medium to large)

exotic seeds, misc. decorative and medicinal plants/trees with descriptions of growing conditions

experimental fabric (good quality), 1 bolt each blue silk and green/silver linen

trio of marble carvings of cats, about 1' tall

expertly carved blue oak serving set with acorn decorations - 2 large bowls, 2 medium bowls, 2 serving spoons, platter

fox fur cloak, red and silver, men's cut, full length, with matching handwarmer

large light yellow amber pendant, teardrop shaped, with trapped dandelion seeds