Food! Boy is Opero hungry. "I won't apologize for being good conversation, but before we continue, let us eat!"

They move to an adjacent room, where the dinner is served. It isn't exactly spacious, but despite being half a dozen of them, they can sit without rubbing elbows.

Opero isn't bothered by the tight quarters. Honestly he probably doesn't even pay too much attention to what the food is so long as it's reasonably intuitive how to serve and eat. He's very hungry. He might be making a bit of a faux pas if the locals have some pre-dining ritual, which he'll catch quickly but not before he's started to serve himself.

Henry actually takes the lead to serve the platter.

Then It almost looks like they others are praying, or something close to praying? ...They appear to be whispering to their hands. Though, this isn't synchronized like a prayer would. Instead, each is just systematically moving their hands in front of their mouths.

"Washing hands, it piggybacks on existing wards, so I am afraid we can't do it for you."

Opero raises his hands, inducing the armor over them to reveal itself with a silver shine for a moment before returning to near-invisibility. "They don't really get dirty nowadays."

"Convenient."

"So, where on your Earth are you from?"

"I believe I mentioned this to Henry and..." He takes a moment to recall which Vaestreri is which, "Fernando, I was born in Rimocolles. That's a suburb of Pratensurba, which is the largest city in Offlumenia, which is a country in the southwest of Atlantica." Opero produces the geographical map from his armor, again, now highlighting an area that stretches east from the Colorado river, covering much of what would be Arizona as well as the southern tip of Nevada and some of southern California, with a dot in the northwest of this highlighted region being doubly-highlighted, which is in about the same place as Las Vegas.

"Cool, a fellow American!"

"Huh, we are from a country that covers that area. And we got transported to Elsewhere more or less from pretty that area."

Opero is briefly overcome by a powerful feeling of uncanniness. "More strange coincidences. Though I suppose that this is mostly just a continuation of the strangeness of being from 'branches' of the same underlying world."

Henry mouth becomes occupied with food, so he can't answer.

"You wouldn't happen to know if that could be an effect of your method of travel?"

Possibly weird: Opero can continue to talk even with his mouth full of food, seemingly without any impact on his intelligibility. "I do not. This technology is very new, absolutely cutting edge sort of stuff. I'm pretty sure we only know just enough to be confident we can aim it at worlds that aren't going instantly annihilate an explorer. I suppose it's possible that some part of that aiming process has accidentally aligned it with our own 'world-tree'? That would make sense as a way of ensuring the world is reasonably hospitable, at least on a basic, fundamental physics level."

"I am sure it will be the topic of a lot of scholarly research. Though, I wonder if there is a sympathetic connection going on. With your magic aiming based on similarities."

"Hey, are you into men?"

Henry very pointedly rubs his forehead.

"Maybe? We'll see, I suppose, and yes I am, though I try to not get too entangled when I'm on the job, so to speak."

Grin. "I was asking because, like, everyone else on the table is into men. So it could be another one of those things hanging from the branches of the world."

"Ah, that is not coincidence. That is just how the gays naturally flock together."

"I am bi."

"So are the three of us. It's the broad definition of 'gay', my dude."

"I... I think we should stick to a degree of professionalism. Uh, no offense, Opero."

Opero waves a hand dismissively. "It's only natural to be familiar over food in your own or a friend's home. Between this and the overly stiff formality that is the other primary response when I'm passing through a place, I prefer this greatly. This food is excellent by the way, I should ask for the recipe afterwards, if you're free to share it."

"Oh, thanks. It's nothing special."