Indeed, snacks! Henry opened a bag of off-brand not-cheetos that smell like the color orange. But there is a ziplock bag of fried up fruit (half of each are reconizable).

Felix and Fernando are in the kitchen making something simple.

Thomas, meanwhile, is waiting for them to come downstairs and proudly holding the Elsewhere diorama.

It's basically a flat piece of amethyst geode that hovers in the air near Thomas' hand. With a crystal part pointing down, and surface covered in teeny tiny miniatures showing a forest, a city and some kind of Obviously Ancient Ruins. Above that there are tiny 'stars' made of floating glass beads. It's not... completely bad, but it is somewhat tacky.

The diorama is interesting, Opero assumes the floating is generated through sorcery of some kind though given the…scholastic nature of the item he’d be surprised if it were constructed with Youth.

Funnily enough though he’s somewhat more interested in the not-Cheetos, which are evidently quite foreign to him. “What are these?”

"Skilhos? It's an off-brand Cheetos or something? But who knows what Cheetos are? They are completely unnatural and unknown of origin."

From the kitchen, Fernando yells. "They are made of grounded up corn, which is then extruded by a machine that cooks them. It started as a byproduct from making animal feed." After a pause. "They are safe to eat."

“Fascinating…” Opero takes one a pops it in his mouth, his face briefly screwing up at the utter uncanniness of the flavor. He doesn’t grab any more, instead preferring the fruits. “Perhaps they’re an acquired taste. I do wonder what particular convolution of history lead to them not appearing in my world, given we also have corn and livestock. I suppose some difference in how our supply chains are arranged?”

Henry will eat some sheepishly.

The dried fruit comes in plain, sugar-coated and dipped in chocolate.

"From what Fernando said, I guess you don't have machines that can take grounded up corn and extrudes it while also cooking them? I am not sure how that came about, and who thought of turning it into snacks, but it sure sounds like a way to get an industrial snack into the world."

Felix peeks out from the kitchen. "Hey, do you have any food allergies? Or problem with animal products?"

Opero will try the sugar-coated and chocolate ones, and will probably find the sugar-coated to be a bit too sweet for his taste except for perhaps on the tartest fruits. The chocolate is very nice though. "Not lifeless machines, no, but plenty of families with farms have millers to grind their feed-grain. And, no allergies though with this whole other worlds situation that's always a bit of doubt. I personally don't eat meat, not that I haven't hunted myself anyway, I was raised religious and it impacted my taste, but I don't have any real moral compunctions about it."

"Going to round that off to vegan tomato sauce."

"Everything we do is lifeless machines. Well, everything that is mass-produced on Earth. You could make the argument that we try to turn workers into lifeless-like machines."

"When you put things like that, you risk of causing some terrible miscommunication that makes us look much worse than we are."

He and Gabe have since moved next to each other on a couch. Gabe has his arm around Henry.

"Yes, but it mildly amuses me. Priorities, you know."

Opero chuckles at that. He can sympathize with not having the highest opinion of how things are done."Being made into a machine is bit less metaphorical with some families I've seen, Stunning what 'the good of one's kin' can justify doing to those kin." He gives a weary sigh. "So, what comes next? Leaving aside the exceptions of my case you all evidently have much more of a history with inter-world contact than myself."

"Honestly, I think we would like to put you under an analysis ritual, just to be sure you are not just lying or delusional about the new world and new magic thing. I am not sure why Fernando and Henry didn't jump to that right away. It sounds like them."

"Oh, I was going to look up one that was okay to teach him and then explain to him how it works. It sounded only... polite, not ask him to just trust us. I am not sure about Fernando."

Fernando floats into the room.

"I was just going to wait until someone else brought it up, because I am not the best at discerning when people are comfortable with that sort of thing.  And then we could properly contact, higher ups at the High Library and our own grandparents - they are influential - about you, Opero."

Hm. If this 'analysis ritual' pierces his armor as easily as seemingly every other sorcerous phenomenon has, it might detect that he's a calorist. But, given the story he's spun about its obscurity, maybe he could convince them it's simply latent? He'll draw up the memories of excitement and elation he felt when he first achieved the caloric meditation to try and react appropriately, if that's how he decides to play things. "I suppose my armor could have been some sort of exotic artifact, and my language a convincing fake. Would there be any predictable side-effects from this analysis ritual?"

"Your armor makes more sense as a health gift, at least it looks versatile enough. And I don't expect any side effects, unless? All it's meant to do is to check magic on your person, and at most seeing if any of that magic is acting on your life force. Which should be enough to rule out as you having sorcery gifts."

Oh, right, gifts. A mistake that he's sure a native wouldn't make but again, not beyond the realm of acting. And wow! That sounds like it will definitely detect his calorism. Better get ready for that bombshell then. He gives a shrug. "No accounting for unknown interactions, that's fair. I'll submit to one if it clears up the possibility that I'm some kind of madman or fraudster."

"Or a madman fraudster."

"Or a brainwashed time bomb."

"Brainwashed Fraudster? Madman time bomb? Since you guys are being so cheerfully paranoid."