"All right... I can find it and get back in a day, with my invisibility ring... if Barvid doesn't notice it when I've picked it up.  I don't think he will, but I'm not totally sure.  Can you hold the door for that long, or do you have any speed spells or" (she looks at Jane) "non-spells?"

"I can't cast Haste, which is third-circle, but I can cast Expeditious Retreat for you, Your Majesty. It's first-circle transmutation, which is my specialty. It increases your running pace by five feet per second."

"...Bar, any problems with my leaving a 'this way to Milliways' marker here?  And Conrad, those are good ideas, mostly, Geas excluded and I am very much a fan of Mind Blank, but I was in fact serious about getting magic items.  Not just scrolls.  We should look through the list, and maybe see if anyone's been playing with the custom crafting rules in the bigger markets -- actually, I bet we could gather...no, that's just more people to have to shield, most likely.  ...As far as transport, yeah, I have plenty of that, if you don't mind holding my door first."

Lila is still working out the numbers (she's not used to this sort of math) when Jane answers.  "Great; of course I'll hold your door!"

:I'm not sure what you mean by a "marker". Putting up a sign about this place would not upset me, but I don't control the doors. Once you close it, it's probably not going to lead back to here.:

"I have my own methods of travel, Mx. Bar; I would not like to wander in should I be unwelcome, or set a beacon that would attract unwanted attention."

:You are always welcome here. The...beacon would not be any problem, since the Milliways usually won't open doors for anyone it thinks would cause harm to me, itself, or the other patrons.:

"Then I'll do this," and she pulls out a rune-carved sphere, then twists it in half, placing one side atop Bar and returning the other to wherever she was originally keeping it, "and trust you to keep it somewhere safe."  She detaches two (of six) of the screen panels from her bracer, sets them up to show a particular wiki, and passes them to Lila and Conrad.  "This is the System Reference Document for Pathfinder, and you're looking at the page for magic items right now - put your finger on the screen and drag to move the page, pinch to zoom if the text is too small, tap the blue underlined text to go to that part of the document, the glowy button on the side takes you back one step; you two should take a look at it and see if there's anything useful.  Er, if the translation effect covers it, at least.  If not...Bar, is there anything you can do on that front?  Either way, I'll go rustle up a ride for Lila, a whole bunch of diamonds, and probably whatever magic item occurs to me in the next hour or so."  She starts to head out, then catches something, turning in her steps towards the door.  "Hey Conrad!"  She produces a small diamond, cut in a medieval-appropriate fashion, from wherever she keeps her gemstones, tossing it at Conrad - though from the subtle flickers of magic around it, if he can still see them, she's not just throwing it and hoping for the best - it's being guided into his catching hand, assuming he bothers trying.  "Are you able to tell if that's good enough for magical work?  Wouldn't want to be unknowingly committing fraud, and I don't know how equivalent my diamonds are to your diamonds.  Or, for that matter, if there's any metaphysical translation layers of this place's function as a nexus that would go along with its translation of languages."

Conrad is very impressed by the illusion-information-light bracer. 

"I can't read it. Likely this place can only translate spoken language, then. If I end up sleeping here, I can prepare Comprehend Languages tomorrow." Fortunately, he is a very good student who paid attention in wondrous items class. He can just describe the items (which he can recognize by the pictures) as they come up to Lila. 

"If we're going to be fighting a caster, then I recommend Mantles of Spell Resistance and Cloaks of Resistance. Rings of Protection are also good to have, since they provide deflection. It protects against touch attacks by casters. Oh, and Headbands of Vast Intelligence. Very useful for wizards." Okay, the last one isn't actually very necessary but he might as well get it out there. Who doesn't want to be smarter?

He receives the diamond with cupped hands, like the treasure it obviously is. The diamond is clear and seemingly free of inclusions. "It's Raise Dead grade. I would say it is good enough for magical work." It's worth five thousand gold pieces. He can...buy a headband with that money. And still have a thousand left over to buy spells with. 

:Yes, the Milliways can only handle spoken words, sadly. You can sleep here, but not here here. There are rooms upstairs you can rent for the night.:

Lila stops dead-still next to the door.  "You can raise the dead!?"

Interesting. He wonders whether Bar would accept Chelish currency. It's backed by gold, but also by damned souls. That might cause issues.

"Is it possible to pay via services? If you have laundry, cleaning, or dishwashing that needs doing, I can do it. Prestidigitation can get rid of dirt in seconds." He spills a little of the beef stew gravy on the countertop and casts Prestidigitation on it. It vanishes, and the bar counter is left pristine.

:That's amazing! Yes, of course. With that level of efficiency, two hours of work will be sufficient to rent a basic room for one night.:

"Er, yes. It's a fifth-circle cleric spell. I can't cast it. Not just because I'm too weak, but also because that's a divine spell, and wizards cast arcane spells. Do you not have divine magic where you're from? Raise Dead is the weakest of the resurrection magics. It requires that the body be fully intact. It will heal lethal wounds, but it will not regenerate lost or severed body parts. Only important people get raised, though, because you need diamonds for it. Raise Dead grade diamonds are usually worth around five thousand gold pieces. There are other resurrection spells: Resurrection can work with just a tiny fragment of the body, and True Resurrection doesn't need a body at all. Sadly, those ones need bigger and therefore more expensive diamonds, and also are a higher circle of spell."

If the Church of Asmodeus were to be first to offer resurrection magic to Lila's world...

"Jane - you said you can make diamonds easy -"

Her surprise is giving way to a different sort of shock.  This will change all sorts of things and reopen all sorts of stories that were ended.  The whole idea of ending stories will need to be changed.

"Can you raise people who died of anything?"

"Sadly not, Your Majesty. Revival spells cannot revive anyone who has died of old age. It...has to do with how souls are retrieved from Pharasma – the goddess of the dead. Further, Raise Dead cannot revive anyone who died because of a death spell. By that, I mean that certain necromancy spells are able to prevent the raising of those they kill. However, Resurrection and True Resurrection are able to get around this. As an aside, coming back from the dead is taxing on the body and soul. People who are raised usually come back weaker, but this can be healed via Restoration. That's also a divine spell I can't cast."

Now's probably the best time. "As a Lawful faith, the Church of Asmodeus offers revival services for the price of the required diamond and the cleric's time and spell slot. The fees are comparable in price to Abadar's church, although Asmodean churches do not offer resurrection insurance. Er, resurrection insurance is something very rich people or adventurers take out to ensure they are revived if they die or get killed."

Oh.  So some stories will stay the same, at least, because people will still be dead of old age in the end.

That will still be sad in a way, but they will have lived a good life.

And Barvid probably doesn't know that sort of necromancy.

"I think we should all get that insurance.  We can't rely on anyone being able to bring the diamond afterwards."  Also, she'd rather not put herself in the hands of the god of tyranny's church.

"I agree, Your Majesty." Him? A first-circle caster, getting resurrection insurance? It's...absurd. Not going to argue that, though. Honestly, it's disappointing that Asmodeus's church doesn't have resurrection insurance and Abadar's does. That's probably heresy and he is not going to think that. Asmodeus is Asmodeus and Abadar is Abadar.

"We can visit a temple to Abadar in Ostenso for that. Cheliax permits other Lawful gods to set up places of worship. It will be much more expensive if you do not provide a diamond. To clarify, you can give them a Resurrection-grade diamond then and there, and they'll use it for you if you die. That's an option you can take when signing up for insurance. It's cheaper if you do it that way, because then they don't have to go through the trouble of sourcing the diamond themselves."

"...The question is, does Adabar even cover our putative service area?  I wouldn't want it to turn up too far away...Maybe I should learn the spellwork, set it up on a contingency basis; I probably 'count' as far as 'has divine spellcasting class levels' goes, given some of my...youthful indiscretions, and it's yet to be too far away like that.  Certainly works here, at least.

"Also, I'm going to want to watch you cast Comprehend Languages, because while I have my own tricks, that one is one I'm only making do for rather than actually making work; the last place was more of a Babel Fish about translating, and only sort of covered written language, so if I'm not still covered by that, a reliable way to do such for arbitrary languages would be grand.  I've got plenty of tricks for the spoken word, but not any for writing, yet." 

She's rather glad she does have such tricks.  They're probably going to be -- "Speaking of which, I would like to teach and learn your languages by way of my own spell.  Well, I say 'my own spell', but really it's someone else's spell I...hm, reverse-engineered isn't quite the right word for that, but it's not exactly plagiarizing either...  I've got the spellwork, regardless, and it's mostly a black box that I've figured out how to plug things into, rather than something I necessarily fully understand, even if I do know exactly where it came from.  Still, teaching and learning your languages in turn is well within its remit."

"I'm not sure. I do know that there are planes which the gods of Golarion can't reach. Though Abadar is an ancient god, not like Iomedae or Norgorber. He has a wider range, I would think. Sadly, I can't cast Comprehend Languages. I already used up my two standard spell slots for school, and my specialist school is transmutation. Comprehend Languages is divination. I can cast it tomorrow, though. And that spell you're talking about sounds fascinating. It sounds similar to Voluminous Vocabulary. Not a common spell, but diplomats and envoys use it."

He currently has Expeditious Retreat prepared in his specialist school slot, although that fact is not evident. He offered to cast it on Lila earlier, but he'll just keep it in his back pocket for now. It is a wonderfully useful spell. The name is misleading, too, since you can use it just as well for attacking. He is not the sort of person to run away.

"I'm going to operate under the assumption that we will need to test whether a cleric on Golarion can resurrect someone on Lila's world somehow.  Do...you know where your brother's body is, Lila?  I can get arbitrary diamonds; we can make Resurrection happen, it's just going to need something of him for the spell to focus on, something that was him when he died.  And then we'd want Restoration, to shake off the negative level.  Or we could do Reincarnation, that's an option too, I guess, which is...certainly an option, but not one I'd really prefer, too random.  Maybe even True [Rez: Resurrection-but-it's-one-syllable], which would mean not needing to visit his grave, but there the limiting assumption is 'is there a cleric or other divine caster capable of casting a 9th level - circle, I mean - spell'; you don't get those every day any more than you get wizards who can cast something as absolutely bullshit as Wish.  It's highly unlikely that Abadar has one stationed in Ostenso; I'd expect such to primarily be in his faith's place of greatest prominence, not out in the middle of Asmodeus Land.  High-level adventurers are power projection in and of themselves; it's rude to swing them about without permission."

"As far as the spell I'm talking about...Well, it's called Communication Through Essence, and while I've done a bit of tinkering with the spellform's targeting, it's still mostly in the state I plagiarized it from, but to my understanding, it works by a different method than Comprehend Languages or Voluminous Vocabulary.  It's spiritual communication, rather than extra knowledge inserted into your head.  Which is why it only works on living beings; most objects can't talk back.  ...I should see if it works on computers sometime, I know it works on plants and I know materials do have a Presence characteristic in that cosmology, which is what the spell's limits are tied to natively even if I reworked that bit to be less of a pain, so we can determine that soul is an emergent behavior, and if I'm carrying that metaphysics around with me...Anyway. 

"It'd basically be me 'saying' 'the concept of English as I currently understand it' at you, and you hearing and understanding that, and some instructions for the...mental motion I needed to figure out how to encapsulate broad concepts like that in the first place, so that hopefully you can do it in turn.  Biggest ask I've made of this, really; I've used it to 'say' images before, and transmit abstract concepts, but not an entire language yet.  ...and I can't really think of a way to make Milliways' translation effect useful for machine translation that wouldn't be an absolute pain, so Comprehend Languages is probably what I want to get; then I can pair it with some sort of language-learning algorithm and any actual study of linguistics and anthropology.  ...I have to admit, speaking of Milliways' translation effect, that I'm very curious what I'm going to hear on the recording of all this later.  ...And whether it varies depending on whether I'm in Milliways or not, because if it works on recordings...And if it works on sign language!"  She tests this hypothesis with the pidgin sign she's picked up from working around military types; saying something that's approximately 'I will advance to the objective, calling air support; you two hold position.'

"...And, say, could you Prestidigitate some more, when I get back?  If I'm not going to run you out of spell slots.  I don't think that's a thing for even prepared casters' cantrips in any of the third [ed:edition, as a one-syllable word] alikes, and I know 5e doesn't have spell slots for them, but I don't have as much practical experience...  Anyway.  I've got my own solutions for a lot of what it does, but how the fuck can it handle flavoring things?  It has to be operating on a mechanical level, because it's not mind-affecting, but you hardly have to tell it the chemical structure, and it can mask scents as well as make them..."

Her door opens to a bustling street, and she makes sure it stays open with a shim of force anchored to an actual shim as she sticks a sign on the door, pulling it from what's probably a bag of holding; some sort of hazard symbol, perhaps, from the bright coloration?  A line, inside a circle, inside a triangle, black on shining yellow, and, after a moment's thought, a cordon of caution tape from a reel that seems to just be yellow before it goes through a device attached to one end.  "Warning: Magical Bullshit Behind This Cordon, Enter At Your Own Risk."  Then she sticks another warning sign, a red octagon with a stick figure having been punted into what's probably a portal, beneath the first.  Having reclaimed her screens, she does something with them for a minute or so, and makes a satisfied nod as she steps back inside, letting the door swing almost-shut, as the bustle of the city continues. 

"Alright, my bike's gonna be here soon enough, and I've placed an order at the fab for riding gear and comms for the both of you, which you're going to wear for this, gender roles be damned; I don't care if you wear something else over it right now but I don't want either of you getting mugged to death and this is the best way I have of preventing that that doesn't take more time than I have patience.  ...I'd better suit up properly, for that matter."

"Fraddir's not my brother; I hope his body's found and buried by now, but I didn't stay around to see...

"We're all going?  Shouldn't one of us stay behind to make sure the door doesn't close?"

"Ah, my apologies.  Don't know how I gathered that impression.  Still, having someone who actually knows what they're doing with your world's magic around can only help when it comes to repairing the thing and making new things, if we can but find him.  And I can make very sure the doors don't close, short of a high-level caster deciding that this specific door being a smidge open has offended them specifically and deciding to do violence about it.  I'll add an order for a couple of security droids, plonk them in here, set their shields up against the door..."  Tap tap tap tappita tap, go her fingers once again. 

"...Bar, if I'm on the other side of a different door and my door closes, am I on my own for getting back there, or is the, connection, held open by people passing through it?  If you know.  ...Same for if a door closes while someone from another world is on the other side, for that matter.  But regardless...the one world I would have a pain making my own way to a specific instance of the hard way, really, is Golarion.  There's too many of them to have much reliability finding a specific one that I've only seen and casually interacted with just from knowing the general story, if I don't have a unique native or narrative to point at.  Though at this point I think I could probably specify both of your worlds well enough that I'd be able to land in their space first try, with only a little winnowing; interacting with Milliways is quite distinctive, if nothing else."

He barely understands half the words Jane is speaking, but it seems to him that he's about to get a bunch of otherworldly ?magic? items from her homeworld, so he doesn't complain or interrupt. Apparently she can make infinite diamonds? He...is going to refuse to consider the implications of that for him. Not thinking about things is a vital Chelish life skill. He's not as good at it at Lucia, but he's passable.

"Yes, I can cast Prestidigitation as much as I want. Cantrips can be recovered after casting them. It's one of the first things you learn in wizard school."

:I don't advise that. If your door closes, I cannot help you get back, save for the Milliways itself leading you back to here.: