A lean man with a vacant expression walks in, dressed in a faded and patched red and black tunic. It takes him a moment to come up with a reaction to being in an unexpected place.

"...Hello, I think I might be lost."

"Oh, hi. This is an interplanar bar called Milliways. Its portal has appropriated whatever door you would've walked through normally, but Bar says - she's a person - that you can most likely go home through the same door whenever. First drink's free."

"...Oh." Well, that's really inconvenient, someone who can think should be here and he can't figure out how to make that happen. "Would you mind telling me what I should do with that? It seems important."

"Oh, I'm just having a milkshake and using the time-pausing thing - uh, time's paused in your world by default while you've got the door closed - to do my homework, it doesn't seem wise to try to take further advantage. Though I guess if you have a friend in earshot you could probably get away with calling them over."

...They don't need to pause time now.

They needed to pause time in the past. He could let someone know that they should go tell someone in the past about this place.

"Everyone I would want to bring here is through the door I was trying to go through." At least if he fills his mind with thoughts on how to get through the wall that won't particularly hurt to think about.

"That sucks, I'm sorry."

He doesn't have any tools for excavating.

Okay, that's as much as he wants to think about that.

"If you're stuck on anything, I always like listening to people talk through their problems. Or anything else. If you don't want anything I'll probably just go home so I'll get to tomorrow faster, but I still think there's probably something useful I could do here and maybe it'll come to me if I just stay a while."

"I guess I could read you the confusing parts of my handout on treating depression and maybe the translation effect'll make it make more sense to you than it does to me even though you have presumably not taken the class?"

"Sure!"

So she can read from her handout, which alas makes a lot less sense in a language that has never been spoken by a subtle artist.

"Do you... make people... not feel unpleasant things?"

"That's the idea, or at least it's part of the idea, yes. I'm still in school, of course."

"I feel unpleasant things." Which he is Not Thinking About.

"I'm really not qualified but I guess if you don't have access to any subtle artists where you're from and it's not super complicated I could maybe take a look?"

"I don't actually care if you wreck me, I'm going to die tomorrow if nothing changes. - I care if you wreck me badly enough that I can't do it but that's all."

"...okay, have a seat. Did... something happen?"

"Yes." Oh no he's going to think about the thing. He studies her milkshake glass to distract himself.

"...I don't necessarily need you to talk about it but I need to be able to find it. May I have your permission to look for it, and read the memories and thoughts that seem relevant, with the understanding that I might find something that is not relevant and stop looking at it but only once I realize that?"

"You..." FINE he will think about this briefly. "...should not make me hurt other people or leave me worse off and unable to kill myself or ask for help. Other than that I have no real preferences about anything you look at in my mind or do to me." He might have more preferences if he thought about it more. He is not going to contemplate the details of his own misery.

"I'm not fully trained at this, it's always possible I'll make a mistake. It's unlikely that I will leave you too catatonic to carry out your suicide plan even if I make some kind of error but I cannot definitively guarantee it, and I can't get a more experienced artist from my side of the door over here to fix it if I do something wrong."

"...I think I'm willing to take a small chance of instead starving to death if there's also a chance I end up more useful or. Something." It feels like it would be really pointless and silly to say or happy.

"It's small, I'll be very careful, I just can't say it's zero. I'm going to start looking when I say 'now', and you can tell me to stop any time and I will stop, but please try not to startle me. Okay?"

"That's - I'm going to get a drink first so I have something to distract me if I get bored, I might have a harder time not startling you if I get bored. How do I get a drink?"

"You just walk up to her and ask, she can hear you. She's talking to me telepathically but she'll address you by writing on napkins."

He walks up to her. "Hello. I'd like my free drink and if there's anything you'd like me to read I'll read it while I'm trying not to startle - I didn't get your name, I'm Verlan."