Deskyl gives DZ a little 'go ahead' gesture this time, rather than signing to her at length.

    "No, sir, not a different realm or planet - Master Deskyl says that your physics are noticeably different here, not to a degree that she has trouble working with them but to a degree that makes it clear that this is a different place altogether; your kind of magic doesn't exist in our home universe, either. She isn't interested in going back but doesn't expect that she'd be able to figure out how to if she was; Sith can't usually teleport at all, so teleporting between universes is entirely unprecedented."

"From what I gather, physics can be quite different in the Realms, but if you're unused to magic, that seems unlikely...

It turns out they don't teach you first contact with extra-universal life at egregore school! I now have... several people arguing in my head at once, so apologies if I'm a little distracted.

Why don't you ask me any questions you have, while they settle down a bit."

    "There are some things Master Deskyl believes she should discuss with you about the technology she might introduce here, but it may be best for that to wait until you aren't distracted, sir. Master Deskyl is interested in hearing more about conditions for the Navarri outside of Foundhome, and I have some questions about the books Master Allegra let me read earlier, if you'd like to talk about one of those instead."

"Well, now I am hearing from the League, who are very excited and determined to invite you to Holberg, so I suppose I should hear about that technology before they show up to steal you away!" Cerys mostly seems amused by this turn of events.

"Briefly, though, this is one of the nicest bits of the whole Empire here, if I do say so myself - if you prefer cities then Seren is probably more your speed than Foundhome, but in general Miaren is very pleasant and almost everyone else has it worse in one way or another."

    "There are several specific inventions she might introduce, but the main ones are electricity and motors, which allow for machines that do work without a human or animal providing the power for it - she'll be building a small electrical generator today to restore my supply of electricity, for example, which is what I use instead of food to give me energy to think and move around. The main thing she wanted to discuss with you in particular, though, is that these technologies can cause problems in the long run - the generator she'll be making today will be powered by hand and by the stream, but at your technological level motors and electrical generators are usually powered by burning coal or oil, and the smoke that that gives off can cause major disruptions to the entire planet - it takes a few hundred years but can leave a planet uninhabitable if it isn't managed carefully enough."

"Yes, I am glad you are much more concerned about that than Lucia van Holberg seems to be, here in Navarr we take our responsibility to not accidentally cause any more existential threats to the planet seriously.

I'm also hearing from Camilla von Temeschwar - apparently the League have experimented with electricity - and do already burn quite a lot of coal in the foundries and for heating and so on, and oil primarily for lighting - apparently electricity has a habit of killing anyone who tries to do anything interesting with it, but that might just be in Temeschwar?

Do you have a suggested way to manage these problems, or avoid causing them in the first place? The Synod may be able to maintain some control within the Empire, but then there's Grendel, the Commonwealth, Sarcophan and the Asaveans, who might start messing around with it, if it becomes obvious..."

    "Unfortunately she hasn't personally studied ecobalancing or clean power generation, so she won't be able to give you the relevant technologies directly, but she knows enough about the basic principles to work with someone on reinventing them, and ecobalancing in particular doesn't need to be done in the same place that's producing the pollution in order to reverse its global effects. She can also explain the basics of working with electricity to someone; that's much closer to her primary area of study."

"Okay. So. 

Do you like it here? Because I think what happens next is we try to keep the number of artisans that we drop on you to work on this down to about twenty or so, and they make the trip to wherever you're staying.

If you did want to go somewhere else longer term, any of the League cities would be overjoyed to ensconce you in a university, there are multiple Urizeni spires that have not fallen down or sunk into a swamp that would love to host you if quiet contemplative stone towers on windswept mountains is your thing, the Lyceum would like to talk about that 'inherently magical' thing - that's the Brass Coast magical college, if you like sunshine and beaches I guess - and I'd steer clear of Highguard for the time being because they think the best course of action involves killing you right now, which obviously I don't agree with.

Oh, and the Varushkans and the Winterborn would also like to put in bids, if you're interested."

    "She does like it here, sir, but she says she'd rather travel than disrupt it too much, once she's ready for that. She doesn't like cities very much but isn't ready to make a decision beyond that; she does think she might want to travel to several of those places, though, possibly including at least a brief stay with the League."

"The League pretty much only does cities, although I guess you could stay at a wayhouse or country estate, or one of the towns like Trivento.

It sounds like Urizen might be a good match? They have, like, one city and it is mostly just a collection of individual spires trying to pretend there are not a load more of them right next door because it's such a convenient port location.

Or my colleague would like me to offer that we can just build you something out in the woods or fields of Miaren, we have plenty of space and a lot of Trods heading everywhere from here.

I'm sure I can find you a nice Striding to work with if you'd like to take a grand tour once you're ready to go - it's quite traditional to travel with a Striding to find where you want to be, there are plenty who specialise in it."

    "She says she'll think about it, sir. And that she does expect that it will be worth spending several months to a year or so in one of the League cities to teach them about electricity, she just doesn't want to move to one permanently."

"Okay. This did not go how I imagined it, well done. Uh. Do you want me to ask and answer more questions about, like, other bits of your capabilities and what you're planning to do with them, or should I just go talk to Allegra about how many artisans she can host in the interim?"

    "She would like to know what expectations you have about her magic and how she might use it, sir. And whether there will be any special considerations regarding me, though that seems unlikely so far."

"Currently I'd like to know a little more about the - scope of it? If it only does things to your immediate surroundings, I'm not worried about it unless you break Imperial law with it, which is fairly easy to avoid if you don't hurt anyone and you don't take down any auras that might be miraculous. If it has the scope to affect the wider world, I'd obviously like you to be careful with it, but your concern for the long term results of your engineering projects suggests I don't have much to worry about there, either?"

Cerys does kind of realise he has entirely failed to answer the second question, but he really doesn't even know where to start and is hoping Allegra has this element of Clearly Vate Business under control already.

    "It does mostly only affect her relatively immediate surroundings, yes sir; there is a class of techniques she knows that can have a corrupting effect on the area where they're used, but the effect is generally mild to start and fades with time if it isn't too severe, and she prefers to reserve those techniques for emergencies in any case, so she doesn't expect that to be a problem. There may also be cultural differences in what effects are considered to hurt people, but she says that hopefully being conservative with that will be sufficient."

"I'd tell you to be careful with that, but it sounds like you already are. We'll try to make sure there aren't any emergencies, I might also round up a few Thorns to watch for intruders now that rumours of your presence have got a little further afield. 

It's technically a prosecutable offence to even shove someone, or physically stop them going somewhere that isn't your private property, but around here you can usually expect common sense to prevail unless someone really has it in for you, and even then the magistrates will usually let you off with a token fine if you don't seem to be a general danger to people who weren't asking for it."

    "Yes sir. She's more concerned about unexpected reactions to her magic - for example, this hasn't come up yet in practice, but she suspects based on what she's heard about approved and unapproved virtues that people here might be less approving of her causing someone to feel calm than her causing them to feel fearful, which is the opposite of how it would be in our world, among non-Sith."

"Oh, yes, try not to use emotion magic on people in front of anyone who cares.

Uh, I mean, the Way is a vital foundation of the Empire and the false Virtues are bad for reasons, and Peace and Fear are both on the naughty list. So, maybe don't do that thing. Or tell people you can do it too loudly.

Allegra hates being called a Guide but she's so much of a Guide she actually got to Guide a past live vision once, her religious advice is worth considerably more than mine."

    "Yes sir. It's not something she'd do casually, to be clear; she considers it less hostile than drawing a weapon on someone, but it's a hostile act in most contexts even in our world. Her main question is whether there's anything else like that, where you consider something more important than she does; of course you might not be able to guess any more than she can, but it's possible that you'd have some ideas."

"Hm. As Navaar we tend to be pretty focused and unless you were specifically doing it to impress me, the way you led with 'I want to go take a look at the Vallorn and see if I can fix it' gives you a lot of credit to work with.

If you looked like you were about to decide 'actually, what should happen is the Vallorn should take over the world', we'd have a problem.

More widely in the Empire? People get touchy about anything that looks like someone restricting their lives or claiming the authority to order them about; hoarding is suspicious, against the virtue of Prosperity; vengeance is also one of the things on the naughty list, the best revenge is living well and all that; don't say anything rude about paragons, or exemplars, or the Virtues.

Oh, and don't trade with Heralds or Eternals or ideally do anything with or to them unless someone like Allegra who knows what they're doing gives you the nod. And if you like worshipping gods, try not to be too loud about it. Or make statues to them. Or 'subtly' incorporate them in all your building work.

Those are the things I vaguely remember foreigners getting into unexpected trouble about. 'I didn't defy the law on purpose and I won't do it again' will get most things that didn't kill anyone down to a fine and a good talking to from the magistrates if you're convincing about it."

    "She says that that all seems reasonable enough, thank you, sir."

"Right. What's next? It sounds like I need a chat with Allegra and then to head back to Seren tonight for some recruiting.

Oh, is there anything else you think I'll find surprising about your magic? I found the emotion bit surprising - magic can produce effects which are kind of similar to a weak consecration, and sometimes has emotional side effects, but we generally consider that to be more of a spiritual than a magical thing."

    "She's not sure what you might or might not find surprising, sir. Among Sith, she's a sensory specialist - the sensory effects she has constantly active are something like sight but without requiring the use of her eyes, so that she can 'see' behind herself or through objects, an effect that lets her sense peoples' emotions, an effect that lets her sense peoples' medical status, and an effect that makes magical effects or entities obvious at a distance. These are relatively short range effects unless she's focusing on them, but while meditating she can improve their range up to several miles, as well as reading minds at close range. Other common Sith capabilities that she has are telekinesis, of objects, people including herself, and some other things like fire or lightning; improved physical endurance and bodily control - Sith can block pain and aren't subject to things like poisoning or frostbite, and they can last about three times as long as a baseline human before starving or drowning, and Master Deskyl also has the ability to share these effects with other nearby people - a precognition-based danger sense, and heightened intuition and general luck, plus a broad ability to develop new techniques; for example since hearing is painful for her Master Deskyl has been using the Force to block her sense of hearing until she's able to fix the underlying problem, which isn't a standard technique. The techniques that she has that can cause corruption are one that allows her to produce lightning, either in projected bolt form or as arcs on her skin and clothing, and one that directly strengthens her both physically and magically. Also, while her lightsaber is not itself magical, you might be surprised by it - when activated, the hilt you see there produces a glowing blade that can cut through almost anything."

"Several miles is quite a personal range! Seeing emotional auras is more of a spiritual thing, and I'd expect to need a big ritual team on most of the rest.

I definitely need to ask Allegra's permission to send her more people and then go and do that. Is there a number of extra artisans, or sentries, you'd consider too much of a crowd?"

    "She says that if you send in more than thirty or forty people she's likely to want to set herself up at a bit more of distance from the village, sir, but otherwise she expects to be fine with anything Master Allegra is comfortable with."