"The phrase 'never again' has a longer history, meaning that you have lots of intact prewar records? And … we share a close enough definition of 'atrocity' that stuff like mass murder, torture, or slavery are central examples?"

"Yes, we have pretty good records of the prewar time. Part of what Starlight did when it was a network of institutions of learning, before the war, was do their best to have multiply redundant copies of any important records including historical documents. And yes, we share the same definition for atrocity."

"If you have not been lying to me thus far, I think I like Starlight. Though there is occasionally information which is useful for development of terrible weapons, or that sort of thing, what is your stance on that?"

"We still have the technologies used to wage the war that caused the crisis. The knowledge needed to create them is inextricably linked to a lot of other important things. And we have the knowledge to weapons even more effective than what we had then. Ultimately, we take the stance that knowledge is all else being equal good to have. The issues come in how you acquire that knowledge and how you use it. That said, the specific details of how to build our most dangerous weapons are only available to a small minority of our population."

"Knowledge of generally useful information in my world that's useful for building the most effective weapons my world knows of is heavily restricted. Perhaps your world's Crisis was less damaging than the War of Aiquzall? The War of Aiquzall was likely damaging to the structure of time itself, I don't know if yours got that bad."

"No, I'm not aware of any weapons technologies that could do that. Our most powerful weapons could kill a lot of people but ultimately the scars they leave can be fixed with enough time and effort."

"Thank you for explaining. I, ah, do think I ought to withhold some information from Starlight until it's clearer to me what your capacity is to prevent misuse of it. Though I do understand that you are offering me a great gift, and that you could simply have misled me in a way which caused me to be more informative, and should there be anything you urgently need to know I will do my best to address your concerns."

"That's more than reasonable. Our help isn't conditional on anything, not for the basics anyway and we consider immortality to be part of that." And they've gotten to the end of their elevator ride. There's a brief jerk as they go from 1.1 g to 1. The doors on the side open. "Welcome to Mistpiercer proper. We named the station after that strange mist outside."

A small metal device with rotors flies by and drops a white crystal sphere a few centimeters across into Emiko's outstretched hand.

Emiko reaches through Griffith's bubble and offers it to them. "This will copy your mind into our central archives. We'll watch to see when your body dies and build a new body for you then."

Griffie takes the sphere.

When Griffith takes the sphere there's a voice in their head. It isn't speaking any languages exactly more raw concepts. Do you consent to your mind being stored in the Heart's archive? There's also a sense that this is the most reliable known place for storing minds and that there are strict rules forbidding using anyone's knowledge from these archives without their permission.

Starlight mind-affecting magic is subtle, and thus if they were going to harm Griffie they probably could have done it by now. Griffie attempts to reply to the sphere. Yes, I do so consent.

There isn't any particular sensation. Maybe a small amount of pressure in their mind and then after about a minute. Your mind is now in the Heart's Archive. Retrieval code is Red Blue Blue Green Purple Black. You may choose to memorize this or look it up at any later point.

Griffie attempts to memorize the code. It's short. "What precisely is the retrieval code used for, and ought I refrain from recording it?"

"The retrieval codes are to give to friends or other people you want to handle getting you a new body. The division of immortality will do it if you ask them to and I filed that request on your behalf but if you want someone else to handle it they need the code. I guess in theory someone could kill your body and then use the code to make you a new one but that's pretty unlikely and we check on people after they get new bodies to try to ensure nothing nefarious like that is happening."

"Alright. Contact with my world is an interesting problem. That said, any archon, and any high-ranking servant of a Celestial deity, is permitted to involve themselves in my case should they consider it appropriate. I do doubt that you will make productive-for-you contact with my world without further knowledge of the situation, though."

"It certainly sound like that's the case from what you've said."

"Well. If you are honest, you have given me a great gift. The fact that you offer it freely does not lessen this. I am willing to share information should you have safeguards against it being used for net-destructive warfare, and I am willing to perform various feats of magic for your organization. And of course, should you be interested in contact with my world, I would be eager to provide you with all necessary information that I have."

"Also, I perhaps ought to ask you what your name is. I have already stated mine."

"Oh sorry, I forgot I haven't introduced myself I'm Emiko Shīkā. If that's hard to pronounce you can call me Seeker. Everyone who works in positions where they might talk with people from outside of Starlight chooses a name likely to translate."

"'Emiko Shīkā'. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's very good."

"Thank you. I'm glad I can pronounce it correctly. I used to be worse with languages, one of my friends' names contains a /θ/-sound and I approximated it as /t/ when we met."

"You've made a lot of progress it sounds like."

"Thank you."