Riley explores Cthonica (OTC)
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In "The Gods Come Down" - It would appear that the OTC revised the local realm to do a one-time removal of all memories of truenames, in the end, using the abilities of a woman named Aura, colloquially known as the "Sleeping Goddess". She is described as being able to treat reality as her lucid dream. 

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Well that's terrifying, they have a clearly sapient being as powerful as the heart that takes requests. She already sent the book at high priority so people will know soon enough.

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A couple minutes later she gets a message.

Local emergency committee convened. Truenames appear to already be present in localspace. Anti-soul countermeasures are functional. Tentative decision is to proceed with exploration.

New priorities:

At all costs don't initiate hostilities with OTC

Gather information on OTC

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Well, it looks like she's here to stay. She could bail and they'd send someone else. Everything is volunteer but that isn't the sort of person she is.

She looks for more books that talk about the OTC, is there anything that looks like it says more about their gods?

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There aren't very many books about the OTC directly, but over in the artbook section there's a big splashy picture book of "The Worlds of the Consortium". It's pretty thin. The table of contents says:

1: Trade Worlds
    2: Arcbright
    8: Cthonica
    14: Valimer
15: Tourist Worlds
    16: Sensefest
    22: The Rose Bowers
28: Manufacture Worlds
    30: Seria
    36: Theta
    42: Lifewell
48: Half-Tamed Worlds
    50: Heresy
    56: Skanthivus
62: Oifilei

 

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That seems worth looking at. She scans it and sends it back. Then she goes looking for a map of this world if they have one.

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She's able to find a historical atlas comparing pre-OTC and post-OTC Cthonia.

Cthonia is an arid planet, so settlements clustered historically around limited water sources, but now that the OTC's come in there's been a bout of terraforming and also a certain amount of immigration. The planet is about the size of Mars. There are five major oceans with settlements all around their rims and on their islands. The deserts were recently colonized and parkscaped with the help of teleportation logistics, so most of the planet is inhabited now. The borders are a mess; there are a lot of independent cities doing their own thing under the "federal" rule of the OTC. She's in one of the largest and oldest cities on the planet, Shinrai's Breath, usually shortened to Breath. It's on the coast and surrounded by satellite cities of its own.

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That's useful context. Does the Atlas have modern-ish maps for the city? She'd like to find a large library if it does.

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There's a map of the city in it, with a public library marked. If she checks the streetsigns outside she can find her position - it'll be a bit of a long walk but a doable one, twenty blocks or so.

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Thankfully she optimized her biology years ago. Twenty blocks is easy. While walking she keeps an eye out for any businesses without clear analogs.

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There is an import shop with OTC branding ten blocks down the road!

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Risk vs reward. Risk vs reward.

If they wanted someone extremely cautious they would have given her more specific priorities and rescinded the priority to establish diplomatic contact.

The books don't make it seem like OTC is inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.

She goes inside.

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There's a human woman standing at the desk inside. "Hello, welcome to the OTC! How can I help you today? Imports? Travel? We have almost everything."

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"I don't have local currency... I expect that's an obstacle to purchasing anything so I'm mostly browsing."

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"I can provide you a minter for free if you're interested in spending from your personal stores. Dyne? Takkarash? Neither? I have a tablet here with a pricing catalog."

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"A catalog sounds good." She accepts the tablet both reading it herself and scanning it for transmission. "I take it that these are current exchange rates between the currencies? Also, for Dyne if I'm understanding correctly someone for whom a night's sleep lets them work for two days would lose more working time than someone for whom sleep only sustains them for one day?"

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"Yes, you have that right. And yes, those are the current exchange rates - except you should know that Izikiel is deprecated and currently being rebought by the OTC for twice its face value in credits. The effect has proven too subjective in practice."

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"That seems like it's probably for the best. Destroying people isn't something I would generally expect societies to encourage."

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"No comment, sorry. I'm on the clock. Anything else catch your eye?"

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"Nothing in particular is jumping out at me. I'm more in the market for information than items and I'm not sure if it's just the labelled items that would react poorly to analysis."

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"Just the labelled ones. And we do sell information, here. What are you in the market to buy? I can quote you prices."

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"I'd be interested in a history of the OTC if that's available. Also any general primers on what kinds of magic exist. I'm not sure if I'd be better off going to the library though."

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"You'd probably get a better deal from the library, sorry to say."

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"That's why they exist. It's good to know that this city has a good one. I think I'll go check it out, I might be back later depending."

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"See you!"

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