It does not! It looks very non-useless!

And occupied!

"- hi."

'. . . Hello.'

They step through and close the door behind them.

They're - a person, tall, wearing a fancy jacket and half a ballgown, cut out in the front to show off shiny pants and knee-high boots.  Their mouth doesn't move when they speak.

"Uh, welcome to Milliways. - it's not mine or anything, I got here same as you."

'Whose is it?'

"The bar is sapient but she calls whoever controls the door and other stuff 'the Landlords'."

'Are the Landlords around to be met?'

"It does not seem so."

They start walking around and looking at things.

There is a window beyond which stars are exploding brightly. The bar itself, unstaffed and with no drinks on the shelves beyond. Stairs. A hallway, leading most proximately to a bathroom. Booths and tables with benches and chairs respectively.

They occasionally run their fingertips over one thing or another; after a few minutes they approach the bar.  'Is there a purpose to this place?'

I'm not aware of an overarching goal, but I serve drinks - first one is free - and sell objects to patrons.

They make an inscrutable sort of gesture before correcting it to a nod.

Can I interest you in a beverage?

'You can.'

Here is a glass of something black with white foam.

"So what's your name, I'm Cam," says Cam.

'Ancorabenilisifentiliane.'  They take a sip.  'It is nice to meet the two of you.'

"Ancora- sorry, I didn't catch all of that -"

'Ben-i-lis-i-fen-til-i-a-ne.'

He writes it down this time. "Nice to meet you."

Sip.  'What are you; humans can't have wings by themselves and you are not one of mine.'

"We're called demons. I used to be a human, though, and I could put wings on a human."

'One of mine could put wings on a human who wasn't mine as well, but then that human would be mine, a little.  Who made demons?'

"It's not clear anyone did. What are you exactly?"

'An artist.'

"I meant like your species."

'Yes.'

"...you're a species called artists?"

'Yes.  Why do you think this would not be so.'

"I'm used to art being a variable talent within species."

They don't react to that for a moment, their hair drifting slightly in a nonexistent breeze.

'Artists make and are made of art.  I met creative humans but there are none of them in our realm to need a collective name for.'

"How are you made of art?"

'Humans are sustained by food and drink and grow stronger by exercise and practice; artists are sustained by their projects and grow stronger when reality is in line with their visions.'

"...huh. What kind of projects do you do?"

'Myself alone or the species entirely?'

"...both."

'Most artists do woodworking, masonry, metalsmithing, weaving, embroidery, pottery, gardening, implementing natural design, and things in that vein.  I have undertaken those projects as well of late but do not prefer to.  Previously I made a magic system.'

"- you can do that?"

'If I could I would not be making doors.  But perhaps someday, again, and perhaps sooner than I thought, now that I am no longer trapped with only other artists.'

"- can you tell me about how you made a magic system?"

'I selected some humans who seemed amenable and with their input decided how it should function.  There were several minor missteps in the implementation but it seemed like the project would be immensely successful until one of them killed the other five.'  They take a sip of their drink.  'This was not in accord with my vision.'

"Sounds like the sort of thing you don't want your art project doing, yeah. What's the magic system like?"

'People who are mine can drink others' blood and have both parties gain magic.  People who are not already mine can use their gains to gradually become so, or for their own uses.  Magic allows people to make temporary or permanent improvements to themselves or others, generally, or do instant effects on living things.  The first interaction with magic a person has gains them a soul.'

"When you say someone is 'yours' and mention 'souls' what is it that you mean?"

'Unaltered humans are made up of only physical matter, and die when that matter is disrupted.  Interacting with magic gives them a hook of sorts, which things might catch on.'  Sip.  'I will eventually be able to retrieve the five.  But not any of the billion who would have received one and did not.'

"Oh. Can't make a new magic system that has resurrection built in?"

'In the event that somebody else has gone there and spread their own version, I would be able to use those for my purposes.  But not if there is nothing left of the person but atoms.'

"What about people who weren't made of atoms to begin with?"

'Those are accessible.'

"There're about a million dead ones in the world I just came through and I really want them to be alive again."

'Oh.

'I am very weak at present.'

"And you need to - do more art? To be stronger?"

'Yes.'

"Can I help with that in any way? - I can make arbitrary material objects and that includes media from the worlds I'm familiar with if that's the kind of thing that's useful to you."

Their voice remains as expressionless as ever but gold and silver glitter starts gently falling around them.  It fails to accumulate on any surfaces.  'I would read any books you cared to provide.'  The glitter stalls in the air for a moment before resuming its descent.  'Consuming media is not a project but inspiration is useful.'

"A lot of stuff isn't books but images or sound. Sometimes moving images with sound."

'I would also see paintings and hear music, yes.'

"Theater? Sculpture? Dance? Do you know how computers work?"

'Those three as well.  I do not know of computers.'  They adjust their hair with a breeze which fails to affect the glitter.  'Of the listed artforms, only sculpture exists in the artist realm.'

"May I show you my favorite aerial ballet or would you rather start with something more familiar?"

'I encountered the others when I travelled to Earth, but my conspecifics were uninterested in them when I returned.'

"- does that mean you would or wouldn't like to see more?"

'I would very much like to see works in the forms of art which I have been cut off from for a century.  And the descendants of those forms.'

Cam gets permission from Bar, makes a TV on the wall above the fireplace, and puts on Atriama.

'What is that,' they say when he turns on the TV.

"It's a television screen, it plays recordings of moving images. With sound." The overture starts up; the principals dance introductorily through their leitmotifs.

They watch in complete stillness for several minutes.

'This is very abstract,' they eventually comment.

"It has a plot," Cam assures them. "Though I don't know how accessible it will be from your perspective. I can explain what's happening as we go if you like."

'Do.'

So Cam explains the plot of Atriama.

'Are there supposed to be people represented here.'

"...yes..." He pauses, gets up, traces Atriama's balletic outline with his finger. "That's Atriama. It's a flat image, maybe your vision doesn't work well with flat images - no, you said you paint?"

'I see rectangles, in three colors.'

"...do you do mosaics?"

'Yes.'

"Does it help to think of it as a moving representative mosaic?"

'Artists do not generally make representative art, excepting myself.  Human mosaics were.'  They pause for a long moment.  'Human mosaics had larger and more-self-consistent color blocks.'

"Yes, with the color blocks much smaller and more changeable this actually looks to human eyesight a lot like being present in the location of the camera. Look -" He makes a camera, takes a picture of Milliways, displays it.

They stare.

'Do humans exert effort to see things like this.'

"No, not particularly. I guess some of it might be cultural but a human who grows up around photography doesn't need to actually work on it consciously."

'I will experiment.'

They continue staring, blinking once every few seconds for a minute or so and then several times rapidly.  'Oh.  I see the forms of objects now.  The colors are supposed to match reality also?'

"With some allowances for equipment, yes."

Blinking, blinking . . .  'Start the aerial ballet from its beginning.'

He skips back to the overture.

'This is much more comprehensible.'

"Oh good."

They sit through the rest of it fine.  Their body stays completely still and their face completely emotionless, but sometimes ambient effects happen around them; the glitter rain makes a reappearance, occasionally short ribbons of color dash into and out of existence, and during two of the most impactful moments the air surrounding them goes frigid.

It's a couple hours long. Cam looks at them sort of hopefully at the end.

They gaze back impassively.

"Was that - helpful, or anything -"

'Consuming media is not a project.'

"...yeah, I guess not. Is there actually a way I can help?"

'I may not know what sorts of projects I want to do, or can be done, until I have consumed substantial amounts of media, however.  This was not possible when I visited Earth.'  They gesture at the TV with a swirl of sparkles.

"What year was it there?"

'Before the turn of the twentieth century, but near to it.'

"Yeah, movies hadn't taken off then, and didn't get sound till a while after they were already popular in silent form. Also humans tend not to have wings so you don't see them doing aerial ballet but that's separate."

'Are small immediate gains more important than foundational work, here.'

"...there's a million dead Maiar, about."

"I don't know what that implies for - time horizons or whether you're willing to help at all."

'I intend to grow in power regardless.  Once there is enough of me I will have the ability to work on this in parallel with more central projects.'

"Okay. Would you like to - see more, or have me teach you to use a computer so you can browse on your own -"

'If you think that's wise.'

"I can keep recommending things instead but I don't know if my taste is likely to correspond to what will - inspire you."

'Your first choice was unlike anything I have encountered before.  I do not think I absorbed very much of it.'

"...do you want more recommendations, or just the Library of Hell and a computer tutorial to browse it?"

'I would like to watch the same thing again.'

Cam rewinds Atriama. "There are also other productions of the same," he mentions.

They nod a beat or two later than would be a usual response for a human.

"...do you want to see a different one or this same one again?"

'The same one.'

Cam falls silent. Makes himself dinner while it plays again.

They're less motionless on this watch; they request that he replay certain moments of choreography frequently enough that possibly he will want to teach them how to do that themself - there's a few bits they watch a dozen times over.  With those, they get up and start mirroring the dancers.  Apparently they're capable of shifting forms, although at first it's hard to tell; they don't grow or appear wings so much as make it seem plausible that they'd had them all along in a way that one just failed to notice.  This extends to their clothing as well; their boots - if they were ever wearing boots - get traded in for more dance-appropriate shoes and bits of their coat and skirt appear smaller so as to stay out of the way of their movement, or flare out to accentuate a spin.  Somehow they never hit the ceiling or floor even when it definitely seems like they should.

They also ask a lot of questions, mostly about what's fiction versus reality, but also the plot in general, whether things are foreshadowing, details about the music theory and what instruments are being used, and how the lighting works.

Fortunately, Cam really likes Atriama and can get into all the fine details for quite a while, though he has to look up details about how this production was orchestrated and lit.

'Another production?'

Cam puts on another very different staging.

They refrain from commenting till half an hour in.  'I dislike this.'

"...would you like to switch to a third one, or keep watching it for, uh, background, or do you mean you've determined you dislike Atriama in general?"

'I would like to switch to a third one.'

Cam switches. There are many productions of Atriama in the history of Hell. It's even been put on by fairies once, with costume wings and particularly elaborate choreography, and angels, twice.

They ask for a few instruments once it occurs to them to do so and add quietly playing along to their methods of active consumption.  They pick up the appropriate harmonies and counterpoints for whatever they're playing rather than sticking to the melody, and make some mistakes in so doing but not very many.

From their reactions to various versions, Cam can determine that their aesthetics tend toward the gothic and elegant, though it's not exclusively that; they seem to quite like some flavors of gaudiness but have no tolerance for anything resembling garishness.  Synths and electric instruments and ones they haven't heard before particularly fascinate them, if the number of questions they ask about those is any indication.

Cam provides instruments, and looks up facts about instruments, and chooses grandly elaborate productions over kitchen-sink slapdash costumery. He drinks coffee in quantity.

'I would like to learn how to use a computer now,' they state after maybe a day and a half.

Cam sets them up with the nicest non-brain-surgery computer on the market and walks them through its use.

They have a bit of trouble with the interface at first but pick things up readily enough once that's overcome.

And Cam can produce the Library of Hell on servers in the Milliways backyard, if they wish.

They wish.

All the works of everyone in six worlds are at their fingertips.

They appreciate this!  Immensely!  It's even possible to tell this by their body language and facial expressions a bit; they start trying to copy those too after a few more days of exposure.  They don't quite manage to do it while concentrating on absolutely anything else, but attempts are made, and they're happy-seeming ones.

Cam remains on hand to troubleshoot as needed (and make sure they don't wander off into unfriendly time dilation).

There are occasional questions - it turns out they can't see cartoons very well, although 3D animation is substantially better even at similar levels of stylization; it seems to have a lot to do with the level of shading detail (and indeed, they don't have an issue with the painted backgrounds when they watch the earliest animated films, just the simpler moving characters) - but in general they're fairly content to sort through everything on their own.

They play their instruments and dance, both with variable numbers of limbs, and eventually think to ask whether Cam wants to join in.

"I can't dance but I do play violin."

'Why can you not dance?'

"Too clumsy. The wings and tail help but I still fall if I break into a run or dance."

They consider that for a moment.

'This is fixable.'

"- really? Uh, I don't want to - spend down resources you could otherwise direct toward resurrecting Maiar -"

'Not yet.  If you were mine you could do it yourself, and this would contribute, not detract.'  A smile, which they hold for a beat and then immediately drop in order to resume speaking.  'It is better when more people can do more things.'

"What exactly are the features of being 'yours', the phrasing isn't - neutral, as I currently understand it..."

'If I instead call them 'vampires' will this cause you to become distracted by etymology again.'

"...a bit, yes."

'How so.'

"Traditionally in fiction about vampires they drink blood, may or may not be evil, have various vulnerabilities and drawbacks that would bother me more than the inability to dance, sometimes have psychic powers and connections which ethically concern me..."

'Yes, mine are modeled after those.  I read about them and they were the most perfectly-aesthetic thing I had ever heard of, so I made them real.  Though I did not see fit to include the evil or the vulnerabilities.  There are some psychic powers available but I avoided unethical ones there as well.'

"What ethical psychic powers do they have?"

'They can decide how much to care about people and model them better than they would otherwise be able to.  And make them fall unconscious; it was decided it would be better for people to have the option in a situation where they might otherwise kill someone.'

"...model them better how?"

'It helps one understand how others work as people and predict how they'll react to different situations.  Its fidelity is not very high.'

"Understand and predict them by what mechanism?"

'I don't understand the question.'

"- I probably shouldn't be a vampire anyway because it's very important that I be a demon and I'm not sure they'd interact constructively, so maybe it doesn't matter for my purposes."

'I do not think it is very different, but if you think it better to refrain then of course proceeding would be unhelpful regardless.'

"It would be very bad if it interfered with something about my demon-related characteristics. Even if it helped you bring back the Maiar, I'm using demonic conjuration to bring back dead Elves and I'm only halfway done."

'I see.  What are Elves.'

"They're a species of people that lives in the world I came through. They look sort of like humans but taller and prettier."

'How can you resurrect them with conjuration.  Might it expand to humans from the world I encountered.'

"No, sorry, it's a special Elf feature. They have backups."

'It is more urgent to me to obtain souls for people who will otherwise be lost than to resurrect people who are dead but without chance of getting worse.'

"That's understandable. I just can't leave the resurrections half-done, it could take them a long time to find somebody else to finish them up."

'I am informing you of my priorities, not attempting to dictate yours.'

Cam nods. "If you're able to help with the Maiar would their - characteristics change in any way -"

'Not inherently, I do not expect.  If any of them did it might help scale the operation, but bringing them into the project as active participants when they are not aligned with it is worse than leaving them out.  But it would have to be a different system in any case; vampires were designed around physical beings.'

"Okay. I don't know if any of them would be - aligned in the right way. I'm not sure what that means exactly."

'Having similar aesthetics and goals, or acting as if they do.'

"I don't know any of the dead ones at all. Or the living ones well. There's probably stuff in the library about some of them, if that helps."

'I would not expect it to at this stage and would expect it to at a later one.'

"Can you tell me more about the stages there?"

'For now, I will continue consuming media and working on small-scale projects.  Once I have grown strong enough, I will have the capability to teleport to my Earth, and shall do so.  There, I will begin work on ensouling people, and enlist people who are already contributing to help.  This will cause me to become more powerful substantially faster, and once I can divide my attention between multiple bodies, I will return here in one and begin preliminary work on resurrecting your Maiar while others continue there, including determining whether it will be more efficient for me to resurrect them all or construct a system they can work within to do it themselves.'

"- thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, do you have a time estimate - or need anything else from me -"

'You also have been very helpful thus far; I appreciate this likewise.  My estimate for the first stage is not less than several days and not more than several months.  I expect it would be very likely to valuably help if you came with me to my Earth; the risk of another misunderstanding of the magnitude that returned me to my realm of origin the first time concerns me.'  They emulate a head-tilt.  'Although I suppose I also don't know that you yourself won't go on to murder.  I certainly did not predict such conduct from any of the six before it happened.'

"It... takes exceptional circumstances. But I'm nervous about leaving Milliways before I'm done resurrecting all the Elves."

'I am nervous about leaving, making a mistake, being forced back, and not being able to help you from there either.  I think you should be as well, although of course how you weigh these concerns is your choice.  What takes exceptional circumstances.'

"Getting me to murder people takes exceptional circumstances. What kind of mistake do you mean? Forced back where?"

'Back to my realm of origin; if I am weakened enough I cannot subsist outside of it.  This is what happened previously; I am not eager to repeat it.  It seems likely there are many sorts of mistakes, which I do not expect I can predict, that could lead to this outcome.'

"I'm not sure how having me along would make that less likely."

'You're psychologically closer to human, yet in a sufficiently different context that I would hope that if I made a mistake, it would be of a different sort than I would make with them.  It would be my hope that perhaps one side could catch the other, in that event.'  They pause.  'But perhaps consuming enough of their media will gain me more competence there.'

"I find a lot of what you say hard to - contextualize," Cam remarks.

"By which I mean I don't really know what you're getting at and would appreciate it if you rephrased it, or gave examples, or something."

'For example?'

"...in this case I still don't know how having me along would help anything. I don't feel clear on what we'd be doing or how it would be better with my assistance."

It takes them a while to formulate a response, and they speak slowly once they do.

'I have told you what I want to be done on my Earth, in some amount of detail, and will have time to elaborate on and clarify that before it is possible for me to return there.  There is some chance that I will have conveyed it poorly, and some chance that you conveyed yourself poorly to me and are going to murder people or otherwise intentionally take actions to weaken me.

'With the people I will be speaking to on my Earth, there will also be these chances.  I will have less time to explain things and get to know them in, as well.  It is my intuition that, if I go alone, I am taking the full weight of each chance separately.  It is also my intuition that if you came, and helped to explain things, that I would have to make the same mistake twice in order to make one at all, because you and the other person would have an additional opportunity to notice if the other was misunderstanding or malicious.'

"I know that you want to give people souls so they can be resurrected and that your powers somehow work by means of doing art. I don't actually know what that looks like on a - project management level. If you need me to... translate Japanese, book hotel rooms, pawn things for cash, act as your agent in art galleries, construct a museum on the Moon, source materials out of which to create blackout poetry, teach myself IRB proposal lingo and get legal permission to turn people into vampires... I can probably do most of those things but the last one sounds really hard? But I don't know what kinds of things you would make mistakes while trying to do."

'I do not know what almost any of those things are.'

"And I do not know what the things you would need me to do instead are."

'I think I also do not know these,' they admit.

"One thing we could do, if you're willing to wait, is I could get some people from New Valinor to hold the door for me, spend a few months getting the rest of the Elf resurrections done, lightleap back to Valinor to deal with war dead and make sure people know where my summoner is, and then come back."

'I do not think I am very willing to wait while there are people irretrievably dying.

'Also my picture of your situation and its logistics is unclear and I don't understand how many of the terms you use fit into it.'

"It's a long story. I should at some point tell it to you anyway, I guess."

'That seems likely to be helpful.'

"Demons can be summoned. Usually we are summoned to an Earth, which is probably similar in some respects to the one you know, and under some magical restrictions that prevent us from doing whatever we want without human oversight. In a - freak accident, I was summoned to Arda, instead. Without any bindings on. They were in the middle of a war with an evil god. Anything I need to clarify so far -"

'What is a war.  Expand on 'evil god'.'

"A war is a large-scale armed conflict. The evil god was a Vala, I don't know if you've come across anything about Valar poking through the library. They're magical entities, poorly defined powers, and there are fifteen, one of whom likes torturing people a lot."

'I see.'

"So, I got summoned by a child belonging to a host of Elves who were planning to travel to the planet on which the evil god was conducting his war and fight him, and since if my summoner dies or dismisses me I vanish back to Hell I went and made the summoner kid and his family and some people to keep them company a safe planet in the middle of nowhere where nobody else knew the location to wait out the conflict, and once I'd determined to my satisfaction that they weren't making up how evil the god was I helped with the war, material support mostly. Any of that need clarifying -"

'No.'

"Valar, Maiar, Elves, and orcs who are an Elf offshoot species, can all make binding oaths, which means that if they say out loud in the correct phrasing they will do something then they have to and can no longer choose otherwise. Melkor, the evil god, and his associate evil Maiar, could spoof this by making illusory sound, which doesn't count as speaking aloud for this purpose. But a friendly Maia, Melian queen of Doriath, enabled me to test that I can conjure for all and only recordings of spoken words by a particular speaker. Which allowed me to verify that oaths were actually made, for purposes of negotiating anything we wanted the other side held to."

Nod.

"Eventually he offered - everything we wanted, a complete stop to all the torture and all the war for him and all his Maiar and the orcs too, an excruciatingly detailed oath about it -

- if I went to Valinor where the other fourteen Valar lived and put a black hole in it."

They don't respond at all for several seconds, and then, abruptly -

- it's awfully cold in here.

'I had thought you were speaking of a hypothetical.'

Cam shakes his head.

They're silent, cold, and still for a long moment.

'You want them back, still.'

"I didn't want to kill them in the first place! I turned him down the first time he suggested it before we knew I'd be able to resurrect at least the Elves!"

- they blink, and the room is again at a normal temperature, and instead there are several other effects - a vicious wind whipping their hair and clothes about, howling but not actually affecting anything but its origin - their eyes glow from behind their mask and dust trails out like tears from them in red and silver and gold and black, swirling around their figure in the gale - they seem taller, bigger, than should really be able to fit in the room, but they're not hunching or hitting the ceiling -

Cam buries his face in his hands and waits it out.

This only causes it to escalate, apparently.

Bar has security, she said, they'd show up if this were dangerous and most things aren't in fact dangerous to Cam. He waits more. Starts crying, eventually.

The intensity starts to taper slightly, and shortly afterwards they glide out into the backyard.

Cam flops miserably on Bar for a bit. Eventually makes a pint of ice cream and borrows a spoon and goes through it.

They don't come back inside during that time.

They're probably not going to want to help any more but waiting in the bar is still his best bet for meeting someone else who will. When the ice cream's gone he picks up his violin, plays through his repertoire.

It takes a few hours for them to open the door a crack.

Cam pauses mid-note.

It does not open more than that.

"I'm sorry," he tries.

'That is very clear.'

"I'm immortal, if you want to go do something else I can - wait for someone else who can get the Maiar back, here, no time's passing in Arda while I'm here."

He sets his violin down. Sits on the couch in front of the fire.

'I apologize for the cold.  I had forgotten that physical people are vulnerable to it.'

"I'm not, actually - I mean, I felt it but it couldn't hurt me any."

'But you did feel it.'

"Yeah. It's fine."

They come inside - walking, not floating - but keep their distance.

"Is there - anything I should clarify, or -"

'I did not at all understand your comment about time not passing.'

"According to Bar while someone is in Milliways, usually time doesn't pass where they came from. I checked to make sure that was true of Arda, and it is, it's paused. I'm not keeping anybody waiting, looking here for somebody who can get the Maiar back."

''Looking here for somebody'.'

"- yeah, that's what I'm doing here, I'm - seeing who comes through, trying to find someone who can bring back the people I can't - and you're the only promising one so far but it's only been a few weeks -"

'But I am a promising one.'  A small breeze picks up around their feet, noticeable only in how it catches their skirt.

"You can invent entire new magic systems, that seems like it'd probably work."

'Yes.'

"So - anything you need that doesn't risk abandoning the resurrections in the middle, I'll help you out, if I can, if - you still want me to."

'I do, yes.'

"Thank you."

They . . . attempt a facial expression.

"I'm not really sure what you're trying to communicate."

'It's mutual.'

"I just - I don't want anyone to be dead and I especially don't want anyone to be dead because I killed them."

'That is not the aspect about which I am confused.'

"What is?"

They puzzle.

'You're . . . upset.'

"...yes."

'You're more upset than you were initially.'

"I'm always upset about it. I'm usually - compartmentalizing a little so I can do other things but bringing it up directly brings it tor the surface more."

The breeze continues to dance around their feet.

'By my understanding, humans cry and cringe when they are very upset.  You did not start with those until well after it was already brought up.'

"- it also seemed possible you were upset enough to not help with the Maiar, which would have been bad."

Headtilt.  Unheadtilt.

'Why.'

"...why would that be bad?"

'Why did it seem possible I was upset enough to not help with the Maiar.'

"You were... reacting very strongly, and I find you confusing in general, and it's in range for what I'd expect of a human, that they wouldn't want to work on anything with me after finding out I holed a planet."

'I apologize again for the cold.'

"The cold itself was fine, I'm indestructible."

'What is the not-'itself' which was not fine.'

"Just - being scared that I'd lost a chance to get them back. That I'd wait and wait and every time it'd turn out like that, that as soon as somebody has the full story they'll - go, and not help me fix it."

'But then it would not be fixed.'

"- well, yes, but. I'm not sure that would be everyone's overriding priority. If they still believed me about what I was trying to do at all. And - I'll get it fixed, somehow, I'll stay here as long as I have to."

'How could someone self-consistently be upset enough at you doing that they then don't want to fix it.  Either it is worth being upset over or not; if it isn't then there's no sense in being mad at you and if it is then it needs fixing.'

"If they decided I'm generically untrustworthy," he suggests.

'I will do research, and if it transpires that you have misled me about important facts about the situation, then I will not help you with the objective you were attempting to mislead me into,' they determine.  'Unless it is also important.'

"That's entirely appropriate. Thank you."

Nod.

' - If a world's time is paused while one of its members is here, then my priority upon getting a multiversal teleport should be to bring someone back here, instead of attempting to operate there immediately.'

"I'm not from Arda and I'm pausing it, but if you can do that it sounds promising. You could also try opening the door and see if you can reach your Earth, if that's where you have in mind?"

They try the door.  Outside it: a pretty forest.  They close the door.

"Where's that?"

'It is where I was before I was here.'

"With the other artists?"

'Yes.'

"Do you think any of them would help?"

'No.'  They're quicker on this response than usual.

"...why not?"

'They are all - very narrow, in their interests and abilities.'

"I see. What makes you different?"

'My progenitor dabbled in broader projects and one of them, left idle, was successful enough to create me.'

"- oh, huh, so you're some sort of second-generation artist?"

'I'm not sure what you mean by that.'

"You were made as, yourself, an art project. It wasn't obvious to me where artists normally come from, maybe that's typical."

'I wasn't the project; I resulted from its success, as is the standard method of reproduction for my species.  I expect my efforts here to result in at least one new artist, unless things go poorly again.  And I likely have fewer generations above me than almost any artist my age, but certainly not as little as two.'

"So you - sort of bud off when your parent makes enough art?"

'Enough successful art.  Which is why they're all so narrow.'

"What makes art successful? How does that make them narrow?"

'Successful art matches with its artist's vision and intentions.  If those intentions cover only very specific and carefully-chosen criteria, they are generally acknowledged to be more achievable.'

"...huh. And the characteristics of the art affect the budded-off artist."

'Correct.'

"That's an interesting way for a species to work."

'It is a terrible way for a species to work.  None of them even were interested in music, when I returned with the concept.'

"Well, most species do evolve over time."

'Is that so.'

"Most of the species I'm familiar with. Admittedly not most of the species who are people that I'm familiar with."

'I hope they are pointed in better directions, then.'

"...Elves seem lovely."

'What direction are Elves pointed in.'

"I'm not actually sure what you mean by that. They're - prosocial immortal artistic folks."

'What traits is their population acquiring more of over time at the expense of ones they are losing over time.'

"The being immortal means they may not be evolving in the same way. And they were created to begin with. I'm not sure there are coherent directions most evolved species are aimed at, except in retrospect."

'Artists are also immortal.'

"I had guessed but it's good to know."

They walk over to the electric guitar Cam made them and sling it on.

'What is it that you were playing before.'

"Most recently? Uh, Beethoven's ninth sonata for violin."

They look at Cam's violin, and at Cam, and back at the violin.

"Do you want me to play it again."

'I do.'

Cam rewinds his sheet music and takes up his violin and begins Beethoven's ninth violin sonata from the beginning.

They noodle quiet improvised accompaniments.

At the end of the sonata, Cam asks, "What's next for you?"

'I will continue to create more art and expand my reserves of magic.'

"Okay. Let me know if you need anything. Or, uh, want to introduce me to art-offspring."

'I do not think any of those are likely to make an appearance any time soon.'

"That's probably good, they'd complicate matters. - did making vampires produce any?"

'No.  The project was still in progress when interrupted.'

"- condolences, if those are appropriate."

'I consider them to be.'

"Does having an audience help? I'm up for looking at whatever you're working on."

'I do not believe it to be directly beneficial but you may look regardless.'  They keep at playing the guitar with two hands and have at any given moment the number required to operate their computer on top of that.

There are paintings, a few dozen of them, in various stages of completeness.  The medium and relatively-finished ones look a lot like those produced by incarnates at similar stages, but the early ones are completely different; they don't seem to have a concept of sketching at all, or if they do they don't use it here.  Their subject matter is exclusively representative and exclusively of non-nature subjects: lots of architecture, especially cathedrals and castles; lots of people, all of them very elegant and frequently wearing high-fashion sorts of getups; there's a realistically-rendered 16-frame animation of one production's Atriama doing what might be original choreography.

There are instrumental compositions, also variously fleshed out, some very short but fully orchestrated, others much longer but with portions of only melody or only chords blocked in for long stretches at a time.  They have recordings of the practice sessions they've done but aren't inclined to show those off, especially since they have largely occurred with Cam in range to hear them.  Every piece with more than two parts has a mix of synths and electric instruments with more classical ones.

And then there are four files with CGI models in them.  The first three aren't anything much, just basic shapes and one abandoned attempt at a donut, but the last is a ridiculously-detailed filigree panel, forming swirling leaf shapes at a distance and more inorganic crystalline ones up close.  It looks meticulously hand-modeled rather than autogenerated.

"Ooh, I like that," Cam says of the filigree, "and the implications about your learning curve here are really interesting."

Glitter rain.  'What are the implications.'

"You seem to have more - startling jumps in your technical competence than a... I don't have a good collective noun for the kinds of person that aren't your species, and 'non-artist' makes it sound like they don't make art at all... Uh, hm, I saw a slideshow once of every twentieth drawing, bar none, doodles included, by a particularly well regarded angel artist, and maybe that would give you an idea of how it's typical to develop over time, if you feel like it. But your first three projects here look like anybody else's first three projects, getting familiar with the interface, and then this is really fancy."

'I tried things alone at first, then began to follow a video tutorial but disliked the suggested subject matter.  So I read the descriptions for each of the interface options and treated the work as a creation I was committed to and did not discard it at the first frustration.  This is unusual?'

"Yes. Even someone who reads all the documentation will tend to need practice to get a good result, and practice usually takes the form of several inferior final drafts."

'I am already practiced at sculpture.'

"But not at computer modeling. It's not something I'm criticizing, it's just noticeably different."

'How could that be construed as criticism.'

"Uh, I'm not actually sure but usually when I spend this long picking apart exactly why I made some remark on somebody's skills or achievements it's because they interpreted it that way."

'I wonder if, if you made a physical version of this, it would expand my reserves of magic farther than modeling it did alone.'

"I can do that if you tell me dimensions and material."

'I would like it in silver, sized to fit on the exterior of the lid of a harpsichord.  And a harpsichord.'

Here is the harpsichord made to order.

Smile, unsmile.  'I can hold more.'

"What does that mean?"

'My magic reserves are larger than before you created that.'

"Oh, good, happy to help."

'I will model more things now.'

"Enjoy."

They take off the guitar, seat themself at the harpsichord, and get to it.

When they approach Cam again, they have kind of a lot of requests, including frames to put some of their paintings in, instrument cases and stands and new instruments proper, a collection of figurines, and more large furniture pieces than might be strictly wise to attempt to fit in the bar.

Cam can fill all these orders but some of them he will fill out back.

'I expect to have the teleport shortly.'

"Whereupon you're planning on going back to the Earth with the vampires?"

'Briefly, yes.'

"Do you still want to - workshop the possibility of me coming along -"

'I did not think that would be necessary if I am only bringing someone back to pause the time?'

"Okay, cool, that simplifies matters."

'I have - very little idea of what it will be like there.  Some, from descriptions of your Earth, but I do not know how much to expect that to hold, especially since for all I know time could have been passing at different rates between there and the artist realm.  But I have some rather cursory information about people who are particularly aligned with the project.  You may be better positioned than I to evaluate which of them I should invite here.'

"What's your cursory information?"

'I can tell who has the greatest reserves of raw magic at any given time and of late it has largely been one particular person.  I can tell there is one person who used the first magic they got to save seven lives in one night.  I can tell there is an inventor with interesting aesthetics.  I can tell there is a person who - '

It's frigid again for half a second before they catch themself, and then it's raining around them instead.  It shifts to snow over the course of a few seconds, though Cam still can't feel any cold from it.

"...you okay?"

'Someone has made birds who are people.'

"...is... that bad? Could go either way..."

'I believe it to be good in general, but - ' they play a motif from Atriama.

"...the birds don't last after they die?"

The snow gradually lets up.  'No one there lasts after they die yet; they are simply eventually retrievable or not.  It is not an emergency but I had not connected the implications until now.'  It's no longer snowing at all.  'Please refrain from making any eggs.'

"I won't."

They nod.

"The person who saved seven lives sounds promising. Do you know anything else or is what you told me all the information I have to work with? Do you have their names, for example, I could use that to conjure for more."

'I have more information but nothing especially concrete or conveyable.  I could paint them.'

"That might or might not be enough for conjuration to go on."

They start on that, and eventually present four files to Cam.  They're less realistic than most of their other work, and the backgrounds are very abstract but very detailed - in places more so than the portraits proper.