"- I can't say that I'm surprised," Merrin says to Antonio. "I - guess I was just hoping that your economicmagic would have - seen something more informative than that - but that's basically just what I experienced. I wish I could tell you more." 

Pilar Pineda...looks like the sort of person who'd be really great to do an intense EMT shift with...?

- Merrin is not at all sure what to make of that impression. She generally has a certain level of calibrated trust in her surface impressions but who knows if that applies at all on another planet. 

"Your clothes are an outlier-with-respect-to-our-expectations in their sophistication and complexity," what an incredible language, Antonio doesn't even understand that thing he just said.  "It's an obvious thought to inquire whether you perhaps come from a place that would have more ideas than we did about what happened.  May I ask - what manner of person you may be, and what is this place of dath ilan that sent you?"

- The first question is way easier. And probably she shouldn't throw too much information his way at once– okay fine actually she just wants a reason to limit how much she has to think about right now. 

"I'm an emergency-medical-responder. My specialty is endurance, as in - emergencies that last a long time and where you can only send one person in - I'm the person you would send, I have the natural ability and also the training for it. ....I've done a lot of training for Exception Handling but in real life I haven't really dealt with any exceptions before - this."

Interesting.  "Are you then a - your language has no word for 'cleric'.  Or 'god'.  Fascinating.  How does one respond to medical emergencies without economicmagic to heal people?"

What??? 

"......That is going to take me a really long time to explain and I should at least check with you first whether that's the best use of your presumably-limited ability to speak my language." 

- there were two mysterious words in there and it seems in context like they were probably important?

"We are at present trying to triage you as to where you fall within Cheliax's priorities-for-limited-allocation-of-resources, and from your clothes alone I would guess that you are a woman expecting accomodations and treatment that we would usually reserve for only a few; the question of whether you can be useful to us is, I admit, not far from our thoughts."

...expecting accommodations??? Merrin wasn't expecting anything here, she doesn't think–

- well, she was expecting to be DEAD, which is not all that difficult to improve upon. 

(It is possible that Merrin would in general have some mental flinches around being considered important or worth attention from Governance.) 

- He used the word 'triage', which might just be a magic-translation thing and maybe his underlying concept is very different, but it still leaves her a little more inclined to positive feelings about him. 

"...I would like to figure out how I can be useful here," she says, "but I think it will be a lot easier to do that once I'm less incredibly confused about - your world, and how it works, and also how and why I ended up here." 

"I'm honestly not sure of where to start," says Antonio; without the thought particularly occurring to him that anybody might find it very odd that somebody tried to claim they were being honest in the course of transmitting information at all, given that any question as to its veracity would likely apply to the meta-claim of its being honest.  "Well, I propose that we at least find a nice room with a place for you to sit, provide you with some food and drink.  Perhaps allow you a few minutes to catch your breath and think," under appropriate telepathic supervision.  "We can, I think, provide you with such as would be appropriate to the highest level of visiting dignitary.  But continuing the same level of hosting after that would depend on a longer conversation we would then have, about what we can do for each other."

If 'Merrin' is not a cleric nor a wizard,  she shouldn't have much in the way of Will saves?  Probably?  The previous round of Detect Thoughts worked on her with no sign she noticed.  But she was distracted then, and Antonio is not quite sure that they should make assumptions about what people from another and nonmagical world can do.  A Chelish diplomat trying Suggestions is riskier, if it fails, than somebody noticing some disposable wizard students tried to read her mind after she burst into their classroom uninvited.

He'll get a more senior wizard in to try those, Antonio thinks.

Merrin is too distracted to notice anything odd about the 'honestly' that was dropped in there, aside from maybe a vague unease which is immediately lost in the much larger pool of pre-existing vague unease about everything she's experienced in the last twenty minutes. 

...the highest level of visiting dignitary what? Does that mean she's supposed to...do...anything...? 

Oh good they're offering her a few minutes to sit down and catch her breath? Great! That's considerate of them. Merrin suddenly likes this person about 30% more. 

"Thank you. I would appreciate that– um, if anything really urgent comes up, I can be functional as required within my domain of expertise, I think? But...if you want me to do more general reasoning and communication then, yes, I could really use some time to sit down and catch my breath." 

Merrin doesn't seem to have a lot of Bluff and, if that seeming is at all true, reads as basically just not picking up on the hints that she's got to play nice in order to keep the nice things that will be offered her?

Maybe this woman actually is just exhausted and scared after ending up in another plane?  Pretty pathetic if so.  She's not even visibly wounded.

Antonio considers offering Merrin a Lesser Restoration, decides against it, there'll be time later to see how she responds when less fatigued and for now this may be useful.

"Come along, then," says Antonio.  He takes a few steps forward, towards the other door behind the desk (not the one he originally emerged from), and beckons Merrin to follow.

Merrin follows, still emotionally if not physically exhausted and still oblivious to any of the subtext. (Even if she were paying very close attention, which she isn't, 'she's pathetic for being scared after ending up in another plane' would be such low-priors subtext according to Merrin's experiences so far.) 

She is, instead, dwelling on the fact that EVEN IF the Keepers know that actually True Death isn't even a thing and that every time someone would otherwise permanently cease to exist, they end up in a random economicmagic fantasy setting instead - well, they're not going to tell her parents. And so her parents and her boyfriends and her colleagues and everyone she's ever met or cared for in her entire life is going to, right now, be thinking that she's gone. Forever. No more Merrin.

...They'll be all right. She has to believe that Merrin catches this thought before it's quite formed because obviously that is not how anything works. But - at the very least it's still true that dwelling on that more right now is not going to help her parents or anyone else. And that it will help HER if she can focus on her current situation. 

(For whatever it's worth, fully three of Merrin's boyfriends are pre-Keeper-cleared to a level where they will be told the much more disturbing truth about the Isekai Theory of Immortality.  But not her parents and family, no.)

Merrin will be led through a couple of doompunk-themed hallways to a relatively brighter (still indoors) room which offers her a glass and a selection of wines and juices to pour into it, and a variety of primitive low-tech light snacks.

Antonio will stick around to see if Merrin has questions about those, rather than leaving her alone.  ETA on the seventh-circle wizard called in from elsewhere in the palace is still a couple of minutes, and he doesn't want Merrin left alone until they can snoop her thoughts properly.

This place is so weirdly doompunk! Well. Slightly off doompunk. Merrin could give them some constructive criticism, if for some reason she wanted to do that. It seems like not at all the priority here. 

...Okay they're offering her things to drink? None of them are warm. She kind of wants something warm, right now, but not badly enough to ask for it and maybe inconvenience someone. 

(Merrin has spent a lot of time and effort on training herself to be more comfortable inconveniencing other people, but she's particularly out of her depth right now and so falling back on older mental habits.) 

She sits down and pours a random beverage into her glass and sips it. 

A fine old Westcrown vintage of thirty years ago!

What in the name of nuclear-waste-contaminated wet wipes is this supposed to be???? 

...On the one hand, if they're poisoning her and she just goes on drinking the poison because she doesn't want to offend the locals, that would be stupid, and not even an interesting kind of stupid?

On the other hand, if they're trying to poison her then probably all of these are poisoned. Also they have literal magic. If they're trying to kill her for any reason then– well, maybe the worst case scenario here is that she finds herself on a different random fantasy planet? Since that's apparently how True Death works?? 

...on the other other hand she could just...ask. Maybe she has different biology than the apparently-human locals. 

"Is this supposed to taste like something poisonous?" 

"...no.  Hm.  Do you have -"

"Your language contains no word for 'wine' or several related beverages.  I wonder if it wouldn't have its standard-expected-causal-effect on you, or if it would work but your faction has prohibited it as some factions do?"

Antonio indicates the lighter-colored liquids.  "These are fruit juices, which perhaps may be more to your taste since terminology for the concept exists within your language.  If not, I'll have plain water brought for you, and if that doesn't work, we may have a problem."

Merrin is apparently now VERY CURIOUS about the standard-expected-causal-effect of the beverage that Baseline doesn't have a word for! 

...This is not in any way a good reason for her to drink it, though. Merrin knew by the time she was five or six that "but I want to know what happens!" was - not necessarily a temptation that she shouldn't follow, but one where she should at least do some research first. 

....She's still curious. 

"Thank you. I think I'd like to try one of the fruit juices -" is there another glass she can use that isn't already full of Mystery Substance? "- but, um, I'm actually really curious what the expected effect is? If it's not poisoning you." Which it tastes like it should but she doesn't need to repeat that. 

"Increased relaxation although-that's-not-actually-an-accurate-description?  I would not have offered it to you if I had not expected you to already know what it was, a folly for which I apologize."

Being more relaxed sounds like it might be useful, right now? She's still inconveniently jittery from the thing where she ALMOST DIED. Or maybe actually died. She's not sure what to call it at this point. 

However. Apparently it's a psychoactive drug??? Why? Is it just a normal thing here to offer visitors psychoactive-drug-laced beverages? Without telling them what they ARE– ...he did acknowledge that he assumed she would know what it was, which is maybe an easy mistake to make, Merrin assumes she's making some assumptions that are at least that awkward. But still. She is apparently STILL CURIOUS about the mysterious psychoactive beverage but now is not the time actually. Especially since he said explicitly that 'increased relaxation' wasn't a fully accurate translation of the effects. 

".....I think I would rather have plain water. If that's all right." 

"Of course," he says graciously and apologetically.  "I could also have simple fruits brought for you, if you have analogously-structured worries about the hidden-complexity-dangers of the overcomplicated snacks."

What a fascinating language.  It really says something about the people who must speak it that they have a single-syllable word for 'overcomplicated' and a two-syllable word for 'dangers hidden within complications', which isn't even quite what Antonio was thinking, but it's the word that came out.  Their contracts and compacts must be works of technique and art on par with this woman's clothing.

"....Um, I wasn't previously worried about the snacks but are they also known to have - psychoactive effects other than the usual ones you'd expect from taking in calories?" 

Merrin had thought it would be more relaxing or relieving or something, to have someone here able to communicate with her? Instead she keeps feeling like she's missing something - as though there's an object just right at the edge of her peripheral vision - 

- probably she's just stressed about the entire situation. And she should try to focus and stop obsessively paying attention to any possible indication that the stranger from another world is upset with her, and instead think about how to explain things. 

Antonio separates out one of the snacks.  "This one was made with 'liquor', which is a specialcase-of-a-supercase of the 'wine' I offered you.  Aside from that, everything here should be not psychoactive.  And the amount of liquor in that snack would not be enough to have a least-perceptible-effect, assuming-all-rules-operated-as-expected."

Huh. Merrin isn't sure why they put drugs into a random selecting of their foods and beverages here? The fact that they do is leaving her kind of dubious about the whole selection; she's not all that hungry anyway, so she might as well hold off. 

She sips the water he brings her, and tries to think. 

(If anyone is paying attention: most of her thoughts are about her parents, and the boyfriend she was flying to see, and the four-year-old on the plane with her - she's wondering if he's also recently woken up in another world - is he all right, there, that would be terrifying it's hard to even imagine and she doesn't want to but she's trained herself not to flinch away from things she doesn't want to think about, or at least to flinch less...) 

(There is no even-slightly-believable possible world where should could have stopped it from happening. She's not an engineer and she couldn't have been, she barely scraped past the qualifying tests to be an EMT which isn't even very g-loaded, and yet it's still incredibly tempting to think that if only she'd studied harder, if only she'd signed up for more trainings, if only she had done enough then she could have fixed it–-) 

...Merrin recognizes that line of thought. None of the usual things she would do about it are available, except for 'distractions', but there's no shortage of those. 

After a couple of minutes, "- I can answer questions now. Or, um, if it's easier on your end for me to start, I can give an explanation of what just happened from my point of view? ...I'm probably not up for explanations on the level of putting rigorous probability estimates on everything but I can do the basics." 

Merrin is pretty sure that she's messing up first contact with an alien world VERY BADLY, but to be fair no one SAID it was important for her to do trainings about this, or to read more science fiction, which she hasn't had time or spare cognitive capacity for since she was, like, twelve.