is actually rather a lot
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They'll be the same shops, what difference is he thinking of -

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Fennelosa is happy to do that. Look at all these people, all these storefronts, that Absalom skyline in the background, those brothels over there, that man towing a herd of goats through the street...

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- he doesn't know they're the same shops.  Keltham is - planning to check prices, he thinks the prices on scrolls are weirdly high and that we're maybe trying to control what magic he can access, he can ask the scroll be brought back and verify it was a real scroll shop that way.

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He can look around in the shop and buy an obscure scroll, look at it in front of the scry to verify it's the same scroll that will be brought back, that would help verify the storefront wasn't just illusion because the whole trip was just illusion - but it sounds like we've got that covered -

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The special shop can have a gorgeous obscure scroll display in the front window. To your left, Fennelosa. 

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Sure, he'll walk down this street to get out of the way of the goats. Pass a weaver, a shoemaker, a magic shop with lots of scrolls in the window...

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Keltham does notice!  But the earlier sight of what are obviously sex-work shops, in a city supposedly too prude for written pornography, has now started Keltham down the road to inner panic by a completely different route.

Can he - is there any way, if the Ordinary world is true at all, could the Ordinary world prove itself to him - obviously, by having enough erotic novels written showing the character viewpoint of a masochist - but Keltham hasn't been having much luck with his previous literary queries, as is, of course, not a very good sign at all, but it does mean that the surviving Ordinary worlds are just like that - how would Fennelosa even find a shop that carries church-disliked books, this city has no searchable index and that shop might not be listed in the regular index even if the city was searchable - and then that shop will only have four erotic novels written from the viewpoint of a masochist and that'll be the same quantity that Conspiracy faked for Chelish history books -

If Carissa is right then half the people in his field of vision are genuine masochists.  But how does Keltham verify that, in the presence of mind control and illusions and mindreading and alternatephysics that the Conspiracy could just be lying to him about?  Is there any equivalent of a move-countermove search-tree that - the sex shops could be real, the Conspiracy has no reason to show those to him, after making that claim about pornography, if they're not in a real city or at least not basing all this on a real city - but if the Conspiracy passed the test with that priest of Sarenrae, they've obviously got control of questions and answers - any question Keltham knows how to ask a masochist, is one whose Keltham-sought answer the Conspiracy can guess, especially if they're reading his mind - there'd have to be some way to ask a question that only a real masochist could answer quickly, that somebody pretending to be a fake masochist couldn't answer quickly, and whose answer Keltham can verify after the fact, without himself knowing the answer beforehand to expose to mindreaders -

Nothing like that is going to exist, obviously, and if Keltham hares off on that, it gives the Conspiracy more time to fake things inside that scroll shop.

He should just go ahead and try the scroll shop, where things might actually work, and consider what to do later on the impossible problem of checking for masochism when there's no reasonable way to locate a high concentration of Ill-Advised books inside Ordinary, when Ordinary can't even locate a high concentration of Chelish history books -

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Can Snack Service please intervene now?

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Yes. 

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"Hey.  Snack Service says that a retired Worldwound warrior named Arnsen Puddleton, who lives in the mini-manor on the other side of the alley back of the Laughing Sword shop in Ivy District, has an exhaustive collection of erotica featuring submissive protagonists, and would let Lord Fennelosa in to browse through it if Lord Fennelosa says he's calling in a favor owed to Lady Sali."

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"Can Snack Service please tell me where I can find a similar concentration of Chelish history books.

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"It says that's not in Cayden Cailean's domain the way that Arnsen's erotica collection is, and also that the decision theory continues to be complicated.  You're inside a lot of different possible worlds right now from your own perspective."

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"How were the impending Rovagug cultists inside Cayden Cailean's domain?"

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"Snack Service says they weren't, another god watching out for that saw the Rovagug cultists, and pointed them out to Cayden Cailean, who got permission from Broom's god to tell Snack Service."

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"I really, truly, sincerely, honestly, and wholeheartedly wish I had some way to let you punch my curse in the face, for whatever that's worth."

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"...am I going to be able to borrow any books from this collection, just to verify that they all actually exist and the Conspiracy didn't just have twenty erotica authors write a page apiece for twenty fake books like that, once they saw how my book-browsing habits worked just now."

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"Snack Service says Lord Fennelosa can probably talk Arnsen into that, if Fennelosa says it's for important research purposes and promises sincerely to bring the books back within a week."

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"Yes.  I know."

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Keltham has simultaneously been keeping an eye on the scry, while this was going on, and hasn't spotted any other shops with scrolls in their display window.  Yes it could be a Conspiracy plant because they were reading his mind, Keltham is aware.

Message to Lord Fennelosa:  Head into that scroll shop from a block or so back.

Keltham will look into this erotica thing later but he is already pretty sure it's going to work out exactly like Snack Service says.  Keltham is not even sure why he is trying to hold onto his feeling of annoyance, unless it is so that he cannot feel desperately relieved, it just seems like annoyance with Snack Service is really truly warranted at this point.

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Lord Fennelosa turns around and heads back to the scroll shop. 

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"I'm not entirely sure I followed all that," Carissa says quietly to Pilar, "but - thank you, Cayden, if you just made it possible to convince my boyfriend masochists exist."

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