And she's off on her way to the library.

She crosses a few roads full of car traffic and into a large  public park full of ferns and conifers. The library is in the center.

The tiefling at the desk waves at her when she comes in. "Hello! Need help finding anything?"

"Yes please, I'm looking for a history of the OTC and a general primer on what magic exists."

"History section's in the back left, I reccommend Robinson's "A History of Many Worlds"; Magical Theory is on the right, for an introductory overview I recommend Marquia's "Finding Your Path". Do you have a library card?"

"I'm new in the area, what are the requirements for getting one?"

"Just a calling and an address - calling to distinguish from truename, I mean, you look like you might be an offworlder. Do you have an address yet or no? You can read as much as you want without one, you just need one to take out books."

"I don't have an address no, I'll stick to reading for the moment. Do you often get offworlders around here?"

"We're one of the major cities, we get offworld tourists. Here to gawk at the blood and tats and then go back someplace that less offends their delicate sensibilities. Sorry, did I just say that out loud?"

"Every place I've visited has things to teach."

"And I'm glad you're looking for them in my library!"

"I'm gonna go read now but maybe we can talk more later. I hope you have a nice day." Being in a library is comfortable, it's not exactly like a library back home but all libraries have some commonalities.

A History of Many Worlds covers the founding of the company as a merchant venture from the then-small world of Oifilei; how it gathered godly backing and immortality from the world of Lifewell, where anti-aging magic erupts from deep in the planet's core; how Theta and Seria brought advanced technologies and magics into the company's wheelhouse, and three of the remaining Directors; how the first Trade world was established with the help of Arcbright's native goddess, Aura; the expansion of Oifilei over the years into an industrial and bureaucratic juggernaut; the Namer's War with Cthonia; the exploration of hundreds or thousands of Half-Tamed worlds; the discovery of Heresy, and the resulting Thousand Years' War, still ongoing, as the OTC attempts to salvage the entire plane from its ongoing massive humanitarian crisis. Evil gods and also galactic scale seem to be to blame.

Finding Your Path covers thirty different magical traditions ranging from artificery to persona magic and discusses what qualities are necessary for each.

The ongoing war is concerning. Is there an indication that it's spreading or is it confined to Heresy? What exactly are Half-Tamed worlds?

As for the magic, how many of the traditions are heritable vs being something a significant part of the population can learn? Starlight mostly hasn't found useful magic that isn't dependent on the Heart or confined to particular heritable traits.

The war is confined to Heresy and has been for the last several centuries. 

Half-Tamed worlds are - worlds the OTC has contacted and made mercantile ties with but not yet fully absorbed, terraformed and upgraded to a full Trade world. There are 126 Trade worlds and 1,539 Half-Tamed worlds. 

There are no less than 17 magics in this book which can be learned by putatively anyone.

Are there introductory exercises in the book for those seventeen? She shouldn't actually experiment with unknown magics without a spotter but knowing the exercises is something she'll want to lookup at some point anyway. Just to be through.

There are! Many of them seem to start with esoteric variants on meditation. A few are more concrete, involving gathering reagents or inscribing runes.

She carefully commits them to memory. And also scans them of course. And then she takes a step back. The assumption that every world will be assimilated into OTC is a concerning one and she packages up another report with the scans of the history book and the magic book. While she waits for a reply she looks for a runic dictionary. Rune magic seems at the surface similar enough to magecrafting that it's intriguing.

There's a runic dictionary right over here with two hundred of the most common glyphs arranged by stroke count. It goes all the way up to fifteen strokes. All of the meanings are unique and precise. There's an example working in the introduction that composes some of the earlier runes into short phrases - when inscribed precisely into a circle, this should produce a floating sphere of pure white light.

So rune magic works without being activated by a person. That's fascinating. If that scales that's going to change a lot.

While she's contemplating that another message comes in.

This assignment is now marked as extreme risk. As always further participation is voluntary.

Diplomatic contact is not advised at this time. Prioritize any public information on inter-realm travel methods. Prioritize information of how much control the OTC exercises over trade worlds.

She considers leaving this to someone else but again decides against it. It's possible that even messages are reinforcing the link between realms and if Starlight decides to quarantine itself she doesn't want Crescent ending up on the OTC side of the quarantine.

She steels herself and goes looking for the information that she was asked to.

In the travel section there's brochures on interworld tourism. It's apparently possible to teleport to other worlds through OTC-controlled Transit Centers located in major cities on all Trade Worlds and in wherever-the-OTC-has-a-foothold in Half-Tamed worlds. There are some simple searches at the transit sites to ensure you're not carrying prohibited materials to worlds that bar them, but otherwise travel is very free; reading between the lines a bit, it seems like free movement of people and goods between worlds is one of the things the OTC enforced on Cthonia when they conquered the place. 

Cthonia is a Trade World, but it has a non-OTC planetary government called the Seat of Shinrai that manages everything the OTC doesn't. It seems the rules imposed from on high are quite simple - no slavery, exit rights for everyone, otherwise the plane can fend for itself. It seems to be the case that Arcbright and Valimer are treated similarly, with independent world governments and the OTC managing interworld trade and transit. Nobody pays taxes to the OTC - it is a company, it makes a profit by selling things that are common in some worlds within the greater Consortium to worlds where they are rare or nonexistent. This mostly means magic and high technology, though agelessness is a common leader that it uses to convince half-tamed worlds to accept the OTC's presence. It does not attempt to administrate any of the Half-Tamed worlds, instead apparently trusting the effects of the goods it sells and its cultural presence to eventually convince the world to willingly come under the OTC's control. The attitude is very much "We'll wait and they'll come around."

That is... a lot less bad than it could be. It's still an attempt to impose a foreign economy but that is potentially something that Starlight can survive. Of course she's reading this on a world conquered by the OTC so everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. She dutifully scans the relevant works and send them off.

And then she takes some time to think. OTC could probably do whatever it wants to them if it becomes aware of them. The real question is what it wants and how with the level of power it has there's anything meaningful to exchange. How does it make sense that stepping on 2000 legos is equated to an AK-47... why is an AK-47 even a useful thing to offer to people when you have runic magic. It feels like she's missing something really important.

She goes back to see if the librarian is still there.

She is! 

"Hey there, find what you were looking for?"