"If you continue to condescend to me without apologizing, I will preferentially get things from other patrons instead of from you when I can, even if they cost more, and I will not be inclined to do you favors like taking your opinions into account when considering what to do with my world."

"The extent to which worlds exist is really complicated. I don't understand it perfectly myself. I've seen other customers get seriously derailed by their obsession with this, and I haven't seen them accomplish productive things this way that I remember. To be clear, I am not actually interested in negotiating about how much you account for my opinion, nor am I interested in profit maximization, I just don't want to be rude to you."

"...Fine, we're good."

"I'm glad. Do you have other questions for me at this time?"

"Well. One of them probably has the same physics as we do, and more or just different technology, so I'd like to read about how they make things like the tablet game thing."

"The version of Garden of Seihra-Gara you played was made referencing publications by Nikolas Roth, who obfuscates some of the fundamentals of computing. I can sell you that book, which has editions in Hari and Ilan, and it will likely be helpful. However, you'll likely want some understanding of hardware, which Roth specifically avoids offering, and to use a different programming guide to annotate Roth's."

"Huh. Yeah, both sounds good." She frowns at the name for a while, before concluding it's probably Devin. "Nikolas Ross, but I pronounced the last part wrong, right?"

Roth's book (which Bar is happy to let Saira look over before she purchases) and additional books appear. "Yes. I can also get you a guide to pronouncing that sound if you care, though it's very common for people without that sound in their native language to be unable to pronounce it when it appears in other languages."

"Humans can learn Devin, I just haven't. Maybe I will if it ever seems like I might need to speak to him."

"I've met him, actually. He spoke English with me, not Devin, and English has that phoneme as well. English is a language foreign to Har, but there are many primarily-human worlds where English is commonly spoken, some of the books I've loaned you are in it."

"...I want the last few episodes of South Coast News and Weather from the world where he publishes stuff. Actually, no, I want to do multiple sources here..."

Bar can provide a range of news sources! Notably, some sources are from 'New Dover' in the Hari state of 'Ira Sani'. Some of New Dover's publications are in English, which Bar helpfully flags, noting that the New Dovites are almost certainly a group of refugees who came to that Hari Empire through her from an 'Earth' (a category that worlds often fall into, with a human-only or human-overwhelming-majority intelligent population), and that Roth is from a different Earth.

"Well, if nothing else, his Earth's technology works in his Har's universe, so I can probably get somewhere borrowing books from it."

"I can get you a guide for English speakers learning Hari, but not vice versa, so that isn't as helpful as I'd like. But yes, you can read lots of books on technology from Roth's Earth in here."

"Sounds great. Can you recommend me books on things that sold well when introduced to the other Har and that I can ideally make myself?"

"If you're working by yourself, you'd have to buy tools from me or spend a very long time on things. Unless you just want human genetics information, that I can get you."

"Wouldn't turn it down and I guess I can figure out what to do with it faster."

Massive genetics text that actually contains enough sequencing information to be usable for an inheritance mage! Did Saira know that humans can produce lactase in adulthood (and use this to digest animal milk) if they have the right genes for it? This text did!

This is much easier to cram, since she already has a mental scaffold for it, but with no time pressure she's inclined to let herself get sidetracked anyway.

"What can you recommend me by way of nutritional information about milk and milk recipes from human societies?"

Guide to cheesemaking! Cream! Butter! Other fermented dairy products, including some containing alcohol! Things to do with whey! Dishes that contain dairy products alongside known Hari ingredients, like stewed greens with cheese, ice cream, milky porridges, eggnog, et cetera! Nutrition information for everything! A note that Bar would be happy to expand on any of these topics!

Interesting! She'd like to try one of the fermented dairy foods while she reads.

Saira can have a grilled cheese sandwich fried in butter, with a small amount of mustard on the side as well as a dill pickle, and a note saying "This is a grilled cheese sandwich. The mustard can be used in small quantities on the sandwich if you like, and is one of the popular sandwich condiments. Pickles are also traditionally served with sandwiches."

What the fuck is this. It smells weird. She nibbles cautiously.

It's awesome.

Bar is quietly smug! Bar is less quietly stacking up books on flour and yeast and bread production and a note saying "If you start producing bread, please do have a look at the genetics textbook's section on celiac disease"!