There is a (somewhat hapless) food-minder, who happens to just be returning with a restock of a different kind of jam from presumably the larder. "Uh, the pricing isn't for individual condiments, u-unless you have faculty or staff account. For non-affiliates it's two pounds a plate." He (a tall, tan, and rail-thin young man with black hair pressed flat against his scalp) gestures to the plates, stored in a cabinet with a glass door. "B-but please don't just take all of any of the dishes!"

Is slavery legal in Pleroma? Or in this country specifically, which he's actually not sure what the name of is? Okay, that's not relevant. 

Two pounds a plate...are pounds currency? He has heard of some places that weigh silver or gold by the pound as a measure of value. Or do they weigh the food you get? He's going to lean on the latter theory because Bishop gave him ducats. Wait, this place isn't Asmodean. He can just...ask for information...without them reading into it.

"How many ducats is a plate?"

The boy gets a bit of a grip on himself as he answers. "One twelfth, sir. I can make change if you need it?"

Wow. Only one-twelfth of a ducat to get this much food.

Two hundred ducats is a lot of money.

He looks at the paper slips he's been given and tries to find one that is of the lowest denomination to give to the minder.

Hm, ducats. Is this region a duchy? Duchy of who? He might get clues if he looks at the paper slips more closely.

He's going to take a bunch of everything, with lots of butter, jam, and sugar to go with the toast and the pancakes, and take just water to drink. He doesn't take any fruits, because he doesn't really like citrus fruits. He wonders how they're able to manage this much food and this much variety for people who are, presumably, commoners, even though they might be trained specialists. He hopes he doesn't go over the weight limit: he eats a lot. If he doesn't go over, he'll definitely approach it.

Is being an echoic researcher very prestigious and valuable? Or perhaps the winds have specific magic that make it easy to grow crops: like weather control. He remembers Melissa talk about how there were 'dragons' which were...hostile sentient weather? So presumably the winds have weather in their portfolio, and it also seems that the winds are more cooperative and powerful than druids who can cast Control Weather for you.

The smallest denomination he has are one-ducat bills! He has quite a few of them, alongside a fewer number of five- and ten-ducat bills, and a single fifty-ducat bill. Each denomination has a portrait of different unfamiliar person on the front, and a different landscape on the back, three different sorts of monuments and one that seems to be an aerial view of a densely urban port city (that one is on the fifty-ducat).

The food-minder will take one of the one-ducats and pop four coins of various sizes out of a neat little device on his belt, one large one, one whose diameter is maybe four fifths that of first, and two that are each maybe a third the size as the first, which he hands back to Conrad along with a plate taken from the cabinet. He'll watch (attempting and failing to be surreptitious) Conrad fill his plate, and will look just a hint worried when Conrad takes a bunch of butter, but he doesn't raise a fuss about it and Conrad is free to eat his breakfast.

He places the coins in his coin purse along with the other full-ducat bills, which he has carefully arranged inside the soft purse to avoid crumpling. The device is very interesting and he's tempted to interrogate the person about how it works and run Detect Magic on it, but he can't get too distracted.

The food is great and it is very difficult to be unhappy about dying, losing everything you know, and losing your spellbook when you're full.

He'll place the cutlery in the designated receptacle if there is one, and leave it on the table otherwise.

He'll then walk outside and see what the grounds outside the building look like. Is the guard from yesterday still there?

The food-minder brought a wooden box with him when he returned to the canteen a moment ago, which he will gesture to when it seems like Conrad's looking for a place to put his used cutlery.

The grounds outside are fairly sparse. There's a large, flat, clear-cut area that seems like a potential staging ground of one sort or another, as well as an area on the other side of the building that seems to have been scoured of grass by hoofmarks and wheeltracks, plus some suspiciously large sliding doors, perhaps leading to an indoor stable, though Conrad hasn't smelled anything like that up to this point.

There is a guard in the gatehouse, but it's not the one from last night. This one is a severe, rough-looking man with a shaved head, perhaps middle aged, well-fitnessed and also not very talkative at all.

Interesting. He's going to walk over to the slide doors and – not open them, it might be a prohibited area – but he'll run Detect Magic through it. So long as the doors aren't made of more than three feet of wood or one inch of metal, the spell should be able to penetrate the doors and see whether there are any magic items in there.

The doors do not block Detect Magic, which depending on how he angles it might pick up anywhere from one to four large and powerful auras, all of which share a common ratio of primarily metabolic with a hint of echoic.

Those auras are the sort of auras emitted by powerful magic items: the sort that require high-circle and skilled wizards to craft. It does seem like basically every item has at least some metabolic in them, although it seems that in this case, the metabolic component is the main one. 

He'll go to the guardhouse and ask, "What's in that room?" and point in the direction of the non-horsey stable.

"Automobiles," he answers simply.

"What are automobiles?" he asks. Very strong metabolic component, and minor echoic component. Something that manages sound, like an illusion? Hm, wait, no. He pulls on newly given language and automobile breaks into two words. Something that moves of its own accord. Like a construct?

The guard sighs wearily. "They're like a carriage that doesn't need a horse."

"I see." Very useful, if you don't have Mount or Phantom Steed, since those require no maintenance. And having a horseless carriage will speed up his journey to the town by like, a lot. But mostly he's very curious to see how it works.

"Can I ride one?"

The guard grumbles irritably. "Talk to the front desk."

Back inside, the woman at the front desk smiles at Conrad. "No word back from Dr. Bishop yet Mr. Ferrer. She's probably still asleep."

After he asks about riding an automobile. "Sure! You can rent one of the facility's for ten pounds a day. I can put Dr. Bishop down as the signer since you're her guest. But, if you don't mind waiting..." she checks a clock on her desk, "a little over half an hour, you can catch a ride on the shuttle bus for just eleven ounces instead."

This is so confusing. Okay, so, the man at the counter said that a plate was 'two pounds'. He assumed that meant weight, but now the woman at the desk is definitely using it to mean currency. So since two pounds is one-twelfth of a ducat, there are twenty four pounds to a ducat. But then, what's an ounce? Presumably it would be a fraction of a pound, but he's not sure how many.

"How much is that in ducats?" Now that he's here, what's the time now? He has confirmed that they tell time the same way here as in Golarion, which is interesting on its own.

The woman does some figuring before answering. "Twelve ounces to a pound, twenty four pounds to a ducat, so that's eleven two-hundred-eighty-eighths of a ducat."

Leaning a little to check the desk clock, it's apparently just a few minutes until 6:30.

He's going to need to get used to that, but it'll be fine. He survived Chelish public school math class.

He thanks her, still feeling awkward about it, then wonders whether there are any sitting areas or lounges where he can while the time until the shuttle comes. He would be content with walking, except that walking will take a while, so he's willing to spend eleven two-hundred-eighty-eighths of a ducat on doing Not That. Even though that means he's skipping on doing cardio. Which you should not do.

From what she said, it the shuttle is scheduled to arrive at 0700.

"Do the shuttles come on a schedule?"

"Yup! There's the morning bus that comes at 7, the lunch bus that comes at 1 after noon, and the evening bus that comes at 7 after noon. They're usually quite punctual, too, since there generally isn't much traffic on this stretch of road."

There are modest chairs in the front room, which  aside from the woman at the desk is unoccupied at the moment. He could also sit back down at the canteen, and there's also a break room with fewer but more luxurious seats similar to the one that he slept on in Bishop's office, though his knowledge of the facility's usage indicates that there probably are people there at the moment, especially since he didn't encounter any faculty at the canteen.

He would be content with just sitting at the front room, but he's also kind of unreasonably excited by the prospect of comfy shapeshifting chairs? Cheliax does not put any effort toward comfort in anything, unless it's meant for someone important or rich. He'll go to the break room. Presumably there'll be a clock there, but if not, he has a good sense of time if he keeps the time in the back of his mind – timing spell durations is important, and pocket watches are expensive. Usually only the sergeants and higher have them.

He'll sit on an unoccupied chair and see if it can also do the leaning-back-and-turning-into-an-ersatz-bed thing.

It absolutely can! It's a little bit more well-worn than the one in the office, probably on account of being used more often, but it's definitely still very comfortable.

There is also a nice clock-face hanging on the wall of the breakroom. There's no visible machinery under or around it, a bit like if someone took a pocket watch and just quadrupled its diameter.

There are four other people in the break room, all older men with grey or salt-and-pepper hair, of varying height but all of distinctly academic build. One of them is snoring in a reclined chair, another is sitting at a table eating a canteen breakfast and sipping coffee, and two are chatting while playing a card game. The latter two take notice of Conrad's arrival, and one waves amicably, but the sleeper and eater are not distracted from their respective activities (or lack there of).

He waves back at the man, but otherwise doesn't initiate conversation.

Yep, they look like just what he expected from wizards researchers. Absolutely contemptible. Asmodeus will reshape them in Hell no he doesn't want that anymore, actually.

Echo's presence pulses, just a bit, accompanied by a subtle sense of reassurance.

Even if Conrad doesn't initiate anything, after a few minutes the man who waved to him will stand up and head over to him. "Hey! Haven't seen you around here before. You turn up for the Recognizant, or just got lucky?"

Thank You, Lord Echo.

He turns to the man and says, matter of factly, "I am the Recognizant." His face seems calm and composed, almost serene.

Should he have said that? Right, he keeps forgetting not everyone he meets is an Asmodean. That's going to near the top of the list of Things Conrad Must Get Used To Now. Which is very long.