"I think dinner will be more relaxed than it was tonight but yeah, we might be able to get him those. I'm—wary of doing much myself, I don't want to make them more suspicious of me."

Nod. Squeeze. "Makes sense. Any suggestions on how we should aproach them about it?"

"I... think this should wait a couple of days, lest we seem ungrateful for it."

Sigh. "Alright." He tries to smile. "Maybe he will get used to it once the initial shock is over."

"That's what I'm hoping, yeah."

Squeeze hug. "Are we supposed to do anything else tonight?"

"Kiss each other and have a lot of sex and try to not think too hard about anything else?"

"You know what? That sounds like a good plan." Kiss.

So they have a perfectly enjoyable evening like that.

In the morning, the High Consul has some people who would like to see sorcery demonstrated.

Sorcery: is demonstrated.

The people find this very fascinating! They are agreed that Felix and Kaede should work on writing down everything they know and trying to reverse-engineer what they don't.

Of course, they will do that. Is there anyone they should submit their progress and otherwise report to on the matter?

Yes, the palace librarian.

Great. They will do that. Felix also asks if she thinks this world would benefit from things like the printing press, the steam engine, germ theory, and other bits of science?

Yes extremely yes but she hasn't really thought of a means of disseminating that information yet.

Well, they really should think it through this time. Would they hoard the printing press?

Meanwhile, Felix can write things down, possibly alongside other facts about his worlds when he has free time from sorcery.

How is Naoh doing?

She thinks the best way might be to actually cheat with her omnipotence and have the relevant bits of information appear in various different places at the same time.

As for Naoh, he's... doing better, but not altogether well.

Wouldn't people find the timing suspicious? Some discoveries being made around the time sorcery shows up?

Does it help if Felix keeps Naoh company?

Is there anyone that isn't as intimidating that would like to keep Naoh company?

(Does Kaede think this is the time to petition The People In Charge about Naoh's situation?)

Oh sure they will but by then it won't matter anymore. And yes, Kaede does think so.

"What would be the most efficient way to achieve what we want?"

"That's the gods-cursed question, is it not? What do we want?"

Snort. "Specifically for this situation? To make Naoh more comfortable, either by finding a way to send him back home or making the situation here more bearable."

"Honestly I think just asking would do it—they don't have a reason not to let him at least have limited contact with his home, and I'm not sure how to plan for if they do without knowing what it might be, and it's plausible Naoh just hasn't asked because he's terrified."

"I just don't want to screw things up for him again."

"Yeah. But thinking about it strategically: what can we do? We can visit a few places in the palace and talk to some people. What do we know? That they don't want this knowledge getting out before they understand way more than they already do. This might prevent Naoh's family from visiting because Naoh could tell them about this magic, and it definitely prevents Naoh from leaving, so like I said any contact he might have with the outside would be very limited. They don't—officially—know we know these things. If we ask it could plausibly be out of ignorance, but not for long. I'm not sure what they'd do if they thought we were being uncooperative but I can imagine them announcing that sorcery was some wicked spell worked by a metamancer and so terrify the people out of using it, although that requires a level of hypocrisy I'm not sure I want to ascribe them."