Someone comes down from upstairs, walking gingerly and slowly. Despite the heavy, concealing clothes, their frame seems somehow thin and frail. They head over towards the bar and get into a seat with some amount of difficulty and a heavy sigh.

"Good morning, Bar. Another three thousand kilocalorie meal plan today, please. I think I'm making good progress. I'm up another nought point seven pounds. I feel alert, if still weak."

Bar replies to them on a napkin.

"Yes, that sounds good. Thank you."

And then they are tucking in to meal of a hearty bowl of some sort of chili, mashed potatoes, beef, and fries.

"Hi! I have a lot of magic and like solving problems! Got any problems you'd like magically solved, either personally or where your door goes?"

"Magic? I suppose this bar is already rather magic so the disbelief is somewhat... Silly. Hello. I also like solving problems. I'm Jeffries Gobel, a machinist. That means I make precision parts out of metal. Can you rapidly remediate malnutrition without adverse health effects?"

Jeffries Gobel has a very particular way of speaking, like they're watching their tone and diction carefully.

"Pleased to meet you, Jeffries, I'm Anda Vrin-Vanse. I'm familiar with machinists as described; before I became a full-time magic person I worked in machine repair. I can remediate malnutrition without adverse effects as I or most people I know would define them. May I ask Bar if we're the same species? I can still help if we're not, just might want more details first if you'd rather not just let the magic take its cues from your biology." Anda gets the vibe that this is a person who'd prefer Anda do as much of their own detail work as possible.

"I am suffering from malnutrition. I would like to not be. You appear to be the same species as me but I don't know much biology. I don't mind if you check."

The vibes say that Jeffries would prefer he stste things nice and clearly.

A hint of enthusiasm appears in his voice.

"What kinds of machines did you repair? I mostly make parts for pumps and motors. Pumps and motors are the heart of industry, because they use force to distribute materials, like our own hearts!"

Bar confirms that Jeffries is the same kind of human Anda has experience with, so Anda says, "I am fixing your malnutrition now" and replenishes his body's store of all the useful vitamins and minerals, adds a reasonable balance of fat and muscle to all the locations that could use some, and repairs any lingering tissue damage. "I did small appliance installation and repair with a focus on the kinds of machines you get in makerspaces--laser cutters, 3d printers, kilns, drill presses, and similar. Lots of motors, only the occasional pump."

Jeffries shivers uncomfortably and starts fidgeting after this happens.

"That feels strange. I am glad you did it but it's strange. Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. I recognize kilns and drill presses. The settlement I live in has a blast furnace, which is a bit like a kiln. We recycle heat from the smelting as steam to help run the ore lifts and mining drills. I think it's very clever. But it requires some strange turbine designs that can handle a variety of steam conditions, instead of a highly optimized design that is very efficient at a specific set point."

"Oh, that's neat! Want to infodump*?"

*The Convergentlanguage term is a shortening of "explain-unconstrained", by contrast to explanations with a specific practical goal in mind.

"Yes!"

And explaining-unconstrained will commence! It gets technical quickly. From context it sounds like this is some kind of arctic settlement. Heat recycling and pipe repair is a big deal. Anyway they use this kind of additive to alloys for fixtures that will handle high pressure steam because it is resistant to pitting and scaling and corrosion, but it's notably less workable and the chromium is scarce so-

This could go on for a while. His food is getting cold.

Anda's not smart enough to have been an engineer back home, but they've pentagoned a bunch of skills and they're smart enough to ask thoughtful questions now and then! And keep the food warm, they can also do that. Not that it's a problem if Jeffries never eats this particular meal, now that he's healthy, so long as he eats something at some point.

Turbines and water pumps and air blowers and the process of single-part casting radiators for the insides of housing units and alternators that provide power to the greenhouse devices he doesn't understand very well and the water systems for said greenhouses and filters and the design and operation of an industrial shredder and- 

Well, eventually, he'll run out of steam (steam powered devices to talk about, that is). For now. He seems to suddenly notice the food is still there and starts eating again. 

"Ah, you never waste food. It's rude, disrespectful, a sin. If you like solving problems, maybe solve the food problem."

"I'd love to! What sort of food problem is it? Just that it's too cold where you are for most crops to grow?"

"We have steam houses. They are adequate. The problem is something else. I'm not precisely sure but I think it's a matter of exhausting the soil and not having the resources to make proper fertilizer?"

"Do you know the name of a person or institution who'd know more? I can just go around replacing soil with soil I know is good, but if that's not the problem it won't work and will take annoyingly long to be obvious it didn't work. And of course I can just make food in the meantime but I think it'll be better for the economy if I make stuff nobody else is making."

"I don't know what most people do or how an economy works. It's all so complicated and difficult, not like machining parts. I am only guessing, but maybe 'Sasparilla' Sarah Sampson? People say she is good to spend time with. I hear that at lunch a lot. Or my boss, Head Engineer Larry Medici? He talks to the Baron, so he must know more about what's going on than me."

"I was imagining a farmer or an agronomist but that works too! Anything else I should know before you open your door?"

"I don't know any agronomists. The farmers I know are grumpy and not very good at explaining themselves. If you see any damaged or leaking pipes, especially red pipes, you should tell a technician or engineer right away."

"You got it. What's in those pipes?"

"Water, steam, sewage, fresh air, dirty smelter air, fertilizer mixture, sulfuric acid but that's only within the ore treatment plant itself and the pipe is about ten meters long..."

Jeffries is oriented enough to the conversation to realize that now is the time to stand up and go open the door, but not quite oriented enough to wonder whether giving people with lots of magic who healed their malnutrition access to their world is really a good idea.

So he goes and opens the door. "Good luck!"

Sending Anda places is a great idea according to Anda!

"Thanks!" A second Anda appears next to the first Anda and one of them goes through the door, accompanied by the narration.

They are in an industrial metal hallway. Pipes run along the ceiling along with some electric cables. It's cold, maybe close to the freezing point of water. To the right is a short hall and a door. To the left is a longer hall that splits into two at a T junction, with a few more doors visible. No other person is here now, but there are noises of heavy machinery operating coming from somewhere nearby.

Scry for the nearest person?

A woman and two men repairing some kind of drill in one of the side rooms towards the T-junction! It looks very run down.

Anda goes and knocks on that door.

"Alf, go see what it is."

The younger-looking man trudges over to the door and opens it.

"Hello, what is it?" Frown. "I'm afraid I don't recognize you..."