"I took a few when there started being lots - before that there was no chance I'd catch one - but they were really overrated. Some people get lucky with the randoms, I guess, but not me."

"People didn't have anything interesting to offer you?"

"I got to go to a concert once but it wasn't that much better than getting the recording, and I didn't like being gagged at all."

Shudder. "Yep, I'd find that - horrible - people are that worried they'll be talked into, what, this?"

"Well, this but with someone nasty, I suppose. Also they think they have souls."

"- I think we have souls. What does that have to do with anything?"

"They think demons collect them? For some reason? I haven't the foggiest idea what I'd do with your soul if I knew how to take it."

"They're used in some dark magic? It'd really surprise me if you could do anything with it. It's probably the 'demon' thing, if you'd gone with a different name maybe people'd be less scared. ...the Elves use it to talk about their metal brains, I guess I could see a demon getting into collecting those."

"I'm not sure if the name came before or after human contact with actual demons. It was pretty established by the time I appeared."

"If it turns out there's a way to do summoning in my world Timothy might be careful to use a different word."

"Well, that won't help if any demons introduce themselves, will it? It's the same English more or less."

"He might warn 'em not to? But I don't know, I am better at guessing the effects of Timothy's plans than what the actual plans are." Yawn.

She hauls herself up out of the grass and dusts herself off. "Well, let's see if this place is also a hotel and if it's not I'll make you a treehouse or something. Needing to sleep every day sounds so - exhausting." Smirk.

"Do demons sleep?"

"We can but we don't have to. Part of the indestructibility package, we get hungry but only to a point, injured but only to a point, tired but only to a point, once caffeine was discovered we did way less sleeping as a species. I like it but only now and then."

"This sounds like a really good deal." Inside they go. Minor and Finis are huddled over some textbooks. Timothy is not around.

"Where'd Timothy go?" asks Amriac.

"Upstairs."

"So it is a hotel?"

"Yeah, get a key from Bar."

"Is Timothy paying you for things or are you just doing whatever?"

"Me? Just doing whatever."

Nod.

"I suppose it's sort of better that you weren't getting paid," reflects Amriac. She drops a stack of banknotes on Bar. They are replaced with a key and a room number.

(And there goes the good mood Cam was in.)

He goes upstairs with her. "Are you just giving him a hard time about it because he neglected to mention the 'wizards from four hundred years ago' thing, or are you mad about it?"

"I'm annoyed about the wizards from four hundred years ago thing and I'm kind of shocked about the holed a planet thing and it's not like anyone from the planet can give him a hard time instead. He's like the last person I'd have expected to hole a planet."

"Timothy either thinks he had a really good reason or thinks that acting like he had a really good reason is safest for our planet, don't know how to tell which one but if you're shocked that's evidence for the first one."

Shrug. Here is room 4000000. She counts the zeroes. Odd that it's so accessible. "He'd be the last person I'd expect to think there was a really good reason to hole a planet!"