The man laughs, notices that Conrad doesn't look like he's joking, takes a moment to scrutinize him, then laughs again a little louder and with a big grin. "Well damn! Nice to meet you!" He offers Conrad his hand for a handshake. "I'm Stanmoor."

"Well met. I am Conrad." 

...why is the person sticking out their hand? He keeps his hand at his sides.

"I'm currently waiting for the shuttle to take me into town."

Normally, that'd be all he says, but he feels like it's safe to ask for information. From this person, at least.

"Have you worked with other Recognizants before? If so, what were they like?"

Dr. Stanmoor quickly retracts his hands when it’s clear Conrad isn’t going to shake it. “I was around for the last one to come by, yeah, a guy named Adon Oumbark, I believe.”

He looks up as he recalls. “A real Lanzendaling-type, if you know what I mean, big and tall and rugged, though I don’t know if he was actually Lanzendish or from some other trackless steppe. He was very polite but pretty quiet, though that might have just been a language issue. He was echoic of course, and his invocation was an interesting forecasting-type, sort of a danger-sense, a very broad and subtle thing that he could call up and sharpen with the phrase. Almost chorismic, honestly, but we confirmed he wasn’t a twice-Recognizant. I forget what the actual words were unfortunately, they were in some other language, or maybe were nonsense.”

He refocuses on Conrad. “I’ll hold myself back from questioning you too deeply, we’re all on break after all, but out of personal curiosity can I ask, what was it like? Being Recognized?”

"I don't know what Lanzendal is. I'm...from someplace very far away. The manner of my Recognition is tied into me traveling here. Lord Echo was very friendly and understanding when They Recognized me, although at the time I didn't understand what was happening and flailed pathetically. It all went well in the end. I would say the sensation is like...being with someone who understands you very deeply, and sitting near them without talking to them, but knowing that they are there. I think Lord Echo, during my Recognition, specifically tried to make me calmer, but I foolishly resisted."

Tall and rugged. He would describe himself as tall and rugged. Perhaps the echoic wind has the same taste in men as him.

"Lord Echo granted me an effect similar to that during the day I was Recognized – giving me the lay of the land, and information about pathways and buildings – but I don't think I can call on that anymore."

He seems briefly rapt by Conrad's description, and visibly has to stop himself from probing further. "You have a perfect accent, wherever you're from, and Lanzend is a country, sort of. Really it's more of a city-state that claims to control a vast, and in practice largely lawless, territory, northeast of here."

He pauses, thinking for a moment. "That's maybe a bit impolitic of me. They're an up-and-coming player on the international stage, I suppose. And that fits. It's not exactly science yet, but it's well-supported by Recognizant testimony that Recognition often comes with various one-off mut-- blessings, let's say. The metabolic most strongly, of course, but all of the winds to one degree or another."

He looks back at the man he was playing a card game with and shares a quick glance, before turning back to Conrad. "If you've got the time, care to join me and Godsor for a game of Castle & Quarry? We can teach it, if they don't have it where you're from."

He smiles slightly when Stanmoor says they have a perfect accent. Thank You, Lord Echo.

"Interesting. I'm not sure about the geopolitical situation around here. Not that I'm planning to be a player on the world stage: my invocation is indirect and mostly sensory. It seems that Lord Echo gives out those types of invocations, in contrast to the other winds, which seem to prefer directness and forcefulness in their effects. Quite frankly, I'm surprised Lord Echo Recognized me and gave me such an invocation, because indirection is contrary to my character.

It's not self-evident to me why the metabolic wind would give out the most one-off blessings. 

And no, we don't have that game where I'm from. I'd be inclined to learn it, if one game is shorter than thirty minutes."

What does Castle and Quarry look like?

"Well, you know what they say about who the ec--who Echo chooses. People going through things, people who are growing and evolving." He shrugs. "And if it doesn't work out, you can always change it, right?"

He winces slightly and makes a sound of mock-pain. "Ooh, no, it usually takes more like an hour or two, especially if we're teaching along the way. You're headed into town then? Maybe we can catch you the next time you're here at the facility?"

The cards are pretty unfamiliar to Conrad. They're still rectangles, and a reasonable size for playing cards, but each one is divided into two sides by a black line down the middle. On each side of the line there's a design in one color, either red, green, blue, or black. The cards currently on the table form an odd sort of tree-structure, with cards laid half on top of each other in long straight lines, except for occasional branch-points where a card is laid down turned ninety degrees.

"Change what?" he asks offhandedly, before getting distracted by the cards.

"Yes. I haven't been there yet. And yes, I'm likely to come here for a while."

This world really likes its groups of four. It makes sense given that there are four winds, though. He initially thinks it looks like solitaire, with the long lines of arranged cards, with some sort of rule that lets the two halves be joined together, but he has no idea how to interpret the branching parts. He feels...stress...initially, because it's vaguely evoking the anxiety of being tested and not knowing the answer, but he forces himself to relax.

Echo will offer a still-distant pulse of reassruance to help with that!

"Your invocation. Honestly it's one of the most fascinating things about Recognition. I'm looking forward to delving into it." Dr. Stanmoor rubs his hands together greedily. "If you're up for it, of course! If you like your invocation no need to change it just for me."

He stops everything he's doing and looks at Stanmoor for a moment, before letting out an "Oh." 

"I didn't know you could do that. I plan on seeing the full capabilities of my invocation before replacing it, though, since it doesn't seem like you can just switch them up on a whim.

I'm planning on working with Dr Bishop – Lord Echo specifically directed me to work with her, and I wouldn't dare disobey Their direct order."

Stanmoor brings the palm of his hand to his forehead in embarrassment. "Right! You just got Recognized yesterday and are from Waker-only-knows where. Sorry, didn't mean to assume. There's plenty of literature on how changing invocations goes, even if most of it's idiosyncratic mysticism written by non-scientist Recognizants in their autobiographies, I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out once you feel the need. And, Bishop does good work, always been one to care for strays, so it makes sense she'd be the one to, uh, get the job I suppose. I'll see if I can talk to her about some experiment ideas I'm having, later today."

With that, unless Conrad keeps him, Dr. Stanmoor will sit back down at the table with Godsor and starts to set up a new game of presumably Castle & Quarry.

Conrad will Observe the game taking place, until the clock strikes 0655, at which point he'll return to the front room to await the shuttle, which ought to be there very soon.

What does the shuttle look like? Conrad has seen carriages, and can imagine a carriage without a horse, but he has no idea what an automobile is supposed to look like. Presumably there would be wheels and seats, and perhaps a driver.

The beginning of the game involves gathering all the cards up and shuffling them thoroughly, as most card games do. Each player is dealt a hand of five cards. then the remainder are dealt out into an odd sort of pile which has a pyramid-like construction, with a layer of cards on the bottom, then a smaller layer of cards laid on top of them that are rotated ninety degrees, then a smaller set on top of that again rotated, going like that until the very top is a single card.

Godsor says "High," and then Stanmoor flips over the top card, revealing a blue design and a green design, prompting Godsor to swear under his breath and for Stanmoor to chuckle as he takes the blue/green card, flips over the two cards that it laid on, then put one of his cards down onto a separate space next to the card-pyramid. The game progresses in alternating turns, Stanmoor and Godsor taking face-up cards form the pyramid, occasionally flipping new cards face up as they're uncovered, and putting cards onto the other space, always placing cards half on top of other cards such that one of the new card's designs matches the 'free' design of the card already on the table.

At 6:54, the man eating breakfast (who finished while Conrad was watching Stanmoor and Godsor play) pulls out a pocket watch, stands, and heads out of the break room. When Conrad goes out to the front room, he'll find the same man waiting there along with a handful of other varied facility staff and faculty.

A few minutes later, a horn honks, a loud sound, and the small crowd begins to file out. As Conrad exits with them, he sees the bus and may be rather amused by it's construction, which is a bit like if someone had taken a covered wagon, enclosed the driver's bench in a box, and stretched out the back to three or four times the length, then affixed a pair of big, rumbling cylinders to the back. With all the people evidently getting on, it might be a tad crowded, but not badly. The driver, speaking clearly and loudly from inside the driver-box either with incredible lung-capacity or magical aid, informs soon-to-be-passengers that change will not be given for overpay, before the door to the passenger section opens and people begin to board, passing coins through a slot by the door, entering only after a bell rings, evidently induced by having paid a sufficient amount.

Wow, yeah, this is definitely going to take an hour to learn. He can tell that there's domino-style halves matching going on, but he can't divine the rules from watching them play for that short amount of time – not without taking out a pencil and paper and writing down observations, which is entirely too much effort just to learn a card game.

The bus is fascinating and he wants to take it apart to see how it works. Magic item crafting is a lesser passion of his, but it's a passion all the same. 

No change? He hurriedly checks his coin purse, deliberately letting other people go on before him so he has time and doesn't make people wait. He paid two pounds for food, which means he should have gotten twenty two pounds as change. Checking his coins...given the 'multiples and divisors of twelve' theme, he'll guess that he got a twelve-pound coin, a six-pound coin, and two two-pound coins. Since there are twelve ounces to a pound, he'll be overpaying by a lot if he pays with a two-pound coin.

He calls out, "Does anyone have change for a two-pound coin?" He'll suffer embarrassment if it means saving precious money which he's not sure he can get more of – until he gets his first paycheck from the facility, his brain will refuse to accept that the test subject job is real.

At least five people's hands go to their coin-purses (more might be reaching for coins in their pockets, or might reaching for their pockets for unrelated reasons), though the nearest one to Conrad is also the fastest. When they go to offer the coins to Conrad, they're actually the same size and design as the two smaller ones he already has.

"Ah, I always mix up ones and twos, too. Don't know why they don't put the numbers on the coins," says the woman who offered the coins.

...did the food man just cheat him!? That seems very unlikely: the coins came out of a machine, and he wouldn't dare try that with everyone in the facility. He probably has one eight-pound coin and two one-pound coins, then. Eight isn't a multiple of twelve, so it kind of breaks the scheme he had in his mind.

Mostly to the woman, but also loud enough that other people could hear, he asks, "Does anyone have change for a one-pound coin?" If not, then he'll just eat the one pound difference – he doesn't think one ounce is valuable enough to spend eight or more hours running towards the town.

The woman quickly searches through her purse again, and manages to find a half-pound and six one-ounce coins before her turn to board comes, offering them in exchange for one of Conrad's one-pounds. When she boards, just pays with a single one-pound coin.

...

...

why and how are people in this country so Good???????

how do you live like this????

He's going to stand there dumbfounded before thanking the woman and getting on board, paying the exact amount of money.

How quickly does the bus travel? He'll sit, if there are any window seats available, otherwise stand, if possible. He wants to be able to look out and see what the scenery is like on the way to town.

There are indeed plenty of window seats, probably about half the seats are situated by windows, and while there are a good number of people on-board a handful are choosing to stand, so there's room for Conrad to have his preferred seat.

The bus goes at a fairly sedate pace as pulls away from the facility and travels down the hard-pack path out to the highway. Once it's on the highway, it begins to accelerate, the cylinders at the back of the bus producing a gentle whine. It's going at least as fast as a good horse, and is still accelerating. It's going as fast as the fastest Phantom Steed that Conrad has ever seen, and is still accelerating. The trees of the valley forest are a total blur by the time the bus stops accelerating. If Conrad has ever been on a sailing ship with a strong tailwind, that might be a similar speed, though the bus has reached it seemingly on its own and with much less time.

He loves buses now. He loves automobiles, and he wants one of his own. They're probably really expensive, but he'll use his Recognizant powers to earn money and splurge on a great one. He can't believe how fast it's going. No wonder the ones in the garage had such a powerful aura. He isn't sure how you would make this with Golarion magic. It would probably take an absurd amount of spellsilver, or take like, an eighth-circle crafter to make.

He doesn't even prepare Phantom Steed most of the time – instead, he casts Communal Mount for his squad.

He has been on a ship, but only a few times, and they were small fishing boats his friends had: Laekastel is a port city.

He feels...a little strange sitting on the very fast moving bus. A little dizzy, maybe, but it's minor.

He times how quickly the trees near the road are passing by and bets that it would take less than an hour for the bus to reach the town. Unbelievably fast. His face shows his obvious child-like delight.

If he looks, Conrad can maybe see a couple of his fellow passengers react to his enjoyment of the bus-ride. One seemed to be happy to see someone having their first bus ride, the other maybe a little annoyed, though they also look quite tired so they might also just be cranky from a lack of sleep. These people are coming home from a night-shift at the facility, after all. Regardless, neither pays Conrad much mind over the rest of the ride, and if anyone says anything it's almost impossible to hear over the whipping of the wind.

With the speed, Conrad might have some trouble picking out the exact transitions, but over the course of the trip he can see the trees become more regularly spaced, and then suddenly stop, replaced with great terraced fields of farmland extending across the valley floor. A river is visible in the distance, as is another road through the farmland on the river's far side. Ahead, the town, or more like city, grows from the horizon. There's no castle or wall, at least not ones that stand above the numerous and relatively tall civilian constructions. Towards the end of the trip, the rain slows to a drizzle and then stops, the clouds parting just in time for the breaking dawn to be visible.

As the bus enters the city proper, it slows down. The sprawling farmland is replaced with rows of buildings, other smaller automobiles joining alongside the bus as the road underneath widens by a lane on each side, pedestrians walking to either side of the road or occasionally across a road-bridge that passes over the traffic. Eventually, the bus turns off the highway, travels briefly along a lesser road, then pulls into a covered station. "We have arrived at the Swarthwalls township shuttle station. Everyone please deboard. If this is not your final destination, please be ready to reboard in 15 minutes." The driver's voice instructs via the same magical amplification (and perhaps transmission) as before.

Conrad knows how to get from here to Dr. Bishop's apartment, but it's still only the morning and she'll be expecting him by the afternoon. If he wants, he has plenty of time to explore the city.

No castle or wall? Perhaps the weapons of this world are such that castles and walls are useless, because their weapons are strong enough so as to be able to wreck them easily, or that this society is so peaceful that there is no need for such fortifications. The only reason why he's putting a nonzero probability on the latter hypothesis is because of how Good everyone has been acting. Although he's still rather incredulous at the prospect – surely not every country in this world is this Good? What about Lanzend? 

The civilian structures are tall, but not unheard-of-tall. Probably they have more wind shenanigans that make building things easier. Or maybe they have slave labor? Surely not – he has trouble squaring the Goodness of everyone around him thus far and them having slave labor. Or is it that people can actually detect easily whether one is a Recognizant, and are according him respect and deference as befits his status? Maybe. The people at the facility talked about needing tests, but perhaps those tests are only necessary to detect the specific abilities of the Recognizant, whereas detecting whether someone is one is much easier and is trivial.

He's initially confused why the driver would tell everyone to get off and then get on again if this isn't where they were planning to go, but then he realizes that the fee-collecting-door-opening machine is probably coded to only accept only one single fee, and that fee is per-station, given that he didn't pre-buy a ticket at some booth. He gets off.

Given that this is a station, are there pamphlets or city maps that he can collect or buy? He'd like to get oriented before wandering around. He can defend himself from thieves or muggers just fine, but he'd rather not deal with that. He doesn't want to inadvertently walk into a part of the city he shouldn't have.

A general layout of the city would be good, as well as knowing where he might get the following things.

• Shop or tailor selling clothes for men. He's pragmatic enough to be fine wearing his Chelish military uniform, but it feels...wrong to wear it. Somehow. Well, that shouldn't be surprising, given that he defected. He's not looking for anything fashionable, just plain and practical.
• Hotel or inn for stays for around a week or so. He's content to just sleep in Bishop's office or in the lounge room, but the researchers might not like that.
• Stationery and book shop. Do they have empty spellbooks and magic ink they most certainly do not have spellbooks and magic ink. Still, he wants to get a really sturdy notebook and pen he can use as a diary and maybe also a grimoire for his invocations. It will be his echoic recognizant spellbook. Totally legit.
• Place selling magic items, if there is a specific shop for that like in Golarion, although perhaps shops here are more specialized. It does seem like magic items are more common here and used for more civilian applications, though. Most magic items in Golarion have military uses. Peasants and commoners don't get magic items, and many of them don't even get to touch one their whole lives.
• Bookstore. Just bookstore. But he's unlikely to buy anything there, because it's likely the researchers will be more than happy to talk to him about anything he asks about, because they're That Kind Of Person. Oh, and not Asmodean, so they're not going to hold information over him as an advantage to be jealously guarded. Alternatively, a library.
• Do they have arms and armor shops here? He'd love love love to see wind-based weapons and armor. And yes, he has to learn how to wear armor now, because he lost his spellbook and has to fight like a noncaster fighter who can't cast Mage Armor and Shield. Will one hundred and ninety eight ducats cover a set of plate armor and perhaps an aketon? If not, he'll settle for a breastplate.

Back in the break room, Stanmoor seemed surprised to hear that Conrad was the Recognizant that everyone was in a hubbub over, but it's possible that he just happens to lack whatever sense is involved, comparable to being blind or deaf, or is particularly disused of it for some other reason. Still, it's a bit of evidence against the 'everyone is treating him better because they can tell he's Recognizant' theory.

As Conrad looks for pamphlets or maps, he might notice that some workmen enter the bus where it's parked, bringing various tools with them, opening up various parts of the bus and exposing underlying machinery and inscriptions.

There isn't anything really informative in the shuttle station proper, aside from a table of times for when the shuttle bus heads to and from the research facility. However, if he wanders a just a little bit farther, he'll find a larger bus station immediately adjacent to the shuttle station that appears to house intercity routes, which does have an information kiosk selling maps and tourism pamphlets for just an ounce each (and they have change). There's also a kiosk worker there who looks a little tired but says she can answer any (reasonable) question that Conrad might have about the city.

From this, Conrad can develop a comprehensive understanding of the city's high-level layout, as well as numerous more granular facts:

 - The exact location of Dr. Bishop's apartment building,
 - Where various districts are and what functions they serve, including implicit information about the class-structure of society in the city (notably: nobility apparently existed but doesn't anymore, at least not here? There's history here but the kiosk worker isn't going to explain it unless he asks.)
 - The names of the three nearest-by-travel-time cities (Pellton, Wallermoth, Cockersee)
 - The name of country he's in right now (Dalenmercia, often shortened Dalmerc),
 - The locations of several clothes shops that serve men covering various price ranges and at varying distances from the bus station (the closest is a bit pricey, since it's dealing with a lot of tourists, but not as much as the ones down by the river which is also a tourism hot-spot and the hub of intercity trade),
 - The locations of several nearby hotels (they cluster around the bus station and river dock, as one might expect),
 - The locations of several good paper-shops, including one the kiosk worker can personally recommend, showing off a notebook she has with her right now that is quite well-made, durable but not bulky or cumbersome. They're hand-made, not factory-made, though, so they are a bit expensive.
 - The fact that there aren't any places labeled anything that reads like 'magic item shop' or similar, and the kiosk worker can't think of any place that sells all sorts of inscribed items. There are some professional inscribers of various stripes that Conrad could hypothetically commission one-off projects from, but otherwise shops are mostly delineated by the purpose or function of their inventory, so any high-class store is going to have fancy inscribed versions of its normal products for people looking to spend a lot of money on the best of the best.
 - The locations two libraries, one public and one club-owned, a well as several bookstores including one that the kiosk worker used to work at and says is middling in quality but run by very nice people who paid her well.
 - There are a small number of shops labeled as selling 'sports-dueling equipment & apparel' or the like, located close to the river, which the kiosk worker says will be the closest Conrad's going to find in the city. Swarthwalls isn't exactly a hub of the dueling circuit but there's a sizable club that has regular small-scale tournaments that helps support the local industry. The kiosk worker actually has a friend who made top four at one of the tournament this past summer and won a bit of prize money for it, if Conrad's looking for someone to introduce him to the local scene she could put him in touch.

Magic items! Sadly, he can't stand there and gawk for too long, because he actually has places to be.

He pays the kiosk worker an ounce for a map, and another ounce to tip her in exchange for the information he has.

He's...not sure that he can be Good, as this society seems to be. But he thinks he can be Neutral. The secondary worship of Abadar is permitted in Cheliax, but he knows that any Abadaran theology is Cheliax is heavily censored, even more heavily than theology usually is (which is already a lot). At the Worldwound, they were permitted to go to the nearby Abadaran fort and get positive channeled energy healing there, although they were forbidden from talking to them. Still, with the amount of healing he has to get or help others get, given that he's a combat wizard, it's inevitable that he'd hear snippets from conversations from the Abadaran clerics. He pushed all those thoughts out of his mind, though – he was a very obedient and devout Asmodean – but he can only push the thoughts away, not erase them. Now that there's no looming threat of whipping, immolation, or execution looming over him, all those repressed thoughts come rushing back.

The nature of Abadar is trade – trade which leaves both parties better off, rather than Asmodeus, who always wants to fuck over the other person in some way. The kiosk worker didn't demand money in exchange for information – she just gave it – which would leave him free and clear to just leave under Asmodean codes of conduct. But he knows that if the kiosk worker did ask for money, that he'd pay an ounce, perhaps even several ounces, to be given all that information conveniently. The kiosk worker isn't entitled to get his money, but she does deserve it, what with how she helped him in a way that was actually helpful. So, he'll give her the tip. Besides, he still kind of thinks Good is weak and pathetic and deserving of contempt, so he's only willing to go as far as Neutral. He will conveniently ignore the fact that the only reason he's here at this time is because of a very Good person handing him a bunch of cash for free. A part of his brain is still thinking that was an elaborate hallucination that wasn't real.

Cool notebook. He'll see whether the local stationery shops have similar good-quality notebooks like it.

...no nobility? Right, most likely Good society. 

He's very happy to have received this geopolitical knowledge, and finally know where he actually ended up. 

Hm. He thinks of which place to go first. He thinks the clothing shops would be the most logical choice: likely the stores, or stores nearby, would also sell bags, which he can use to put all the things he's going to buy. He's very strong, he can carry lots of stuff even without Ant Haul, but he only has two hands.

Mm, that was what he expected given that civilians can afford magic items too – rather than a centralized place for magic items, all shops would carry a mix of mundane and magical items that are all grouped according to a purpose or theme. He wonders whether there are inscribed clothes he could buy, which would function like armor but leave his movements free enough that it wouldn't incur arcane spell failure. No use in pondering that, because he's going to the clothing shops anyway.

Public library! He'll add that to his itinerary.

Dueling circuit and tournaments. They're not as Good as they sound, it seems, if they have gladiator duels. Do they have slaves which they let fight in the arenas? Cheliax runs the Dies Irae tournaments every solstice and equinox which let slaves fight to the death, with the winner being freed and receiving the wealth and title of para-baronet. He's no fighter, but he's a strange wizard that likes to fight melee, and his grandfather taught him how to fight with a greatsword. Oh, and he's very durable. More durable than the vast majority of third-circle wizards, rivaling even fighters at his Worldwound fort. He can take a lot of punishment.

"Yes, I'd appreciate it if you could put me in touch. My name's Conrad Ferrer," he tells the woman.