"We did," agrees Edarial. He's rather pleased about how it all went, but - well. It might be a bit premature to actually be optimistic.
"I have the impression that you built your little empire from near-scratch. Marlatia has a lot of preexisting - baggage. So perhaps it's not quite as good a fit for my skills until I've learned more."
He doesn't add 'for someone who has absolutely no background in this' because that does not seem very wise.
Isabella sighs. "Yeah, I mean, the people already existed but they'd been recently uprooted already and the planet was empty of anything except alien ruins and my robot army. Maybe a better luck of the draw there."
"You've been doing extremely well and I have high hopes for when you are up to speed," says Edarial. "It's all right."
Mostly because he kind of wants to give his alt a reward for not being a total twit. Only mostly a twit.
"I think I have a little chocolate of some kind in here, lemme see," says Isabella, rummaging in her portal bag. "Ooh yes here I have truffles." She produces a plastic-wrapped ball of chocolate.
"You do not have to share it if you were saving it for yourself. You do love chocolate, after all."
"I can get more at home. I just have assorted food just-in-case in here." She offers Edarial the truffle. "Uh, unwrap it first, I'm getting a distinctly 'plastic has not been invented' vibe from this world."
Nom.
"This is delicious," he declares, and then it is gone.
"Chocolate! If you have a rainforest to grow 'em in I can get you chocolate plants."
"Not in Marlatia, but they certainly exist. I suppose I could make some trade deals with someone who has a rainforest and get them to grow it."
"I could also just get you chocolate directly. Cocoa beans or whatever stage of the process you want."
"And for that matter plastic, but that'd be way harder to explain - also, we are ludicrously rich but I'm funding some large scale charitable efforts and diverting a lot of resources up to the colony, so I'm not necessarily arbitrarily able to funnel you guys cool things no extra charge, but Cricket mentioned Iobel thought maybe you could trade me herbs? I need herbs for some of the things I am doing, in pretty large quantity."