"I mean, she's not super worried about assassination attempts but probably she's any worried? There's a lot of bullshit out there. But mostly it's just that there's trillions of people and if feeling like it was a good reason to bug somebody trillions of people know about was good enough to get a meeting, they would instantly suffocate probably."

He has magic from a process that kills most people instead of giving them powers. It isn't something people just happen to feel like.

There's really no benefit to tipping them off when they slip up. But he can't think of a reasonable and on-topic response that doesn't. He shrugs. "I guess. Anyway, you mentioned you were at war with some kidnappers?"

"Not anymore - or, I guess technically we might be in a state of declared war that is presently ceasefiring? We joined Vanda Nossëo and they didn't."

"They don't want to pick a fight with Vanda Nossëo and Vanda Nossëo doesn't want to pick a fight with them either?"

"Princess Beldri gets along with her adopted sister pretty well, but their queen still sucks, is how I heard it? So Vanda Nossëo protects us so they won't try anything and we're just sorta waiting for the Asgardian princess to inherit."

"Makes sense. And, hm. You mentioned I could learn to give other people the translation magic?"

"Sure, they hire tons of people to do it at bus stations and stuff."

"Do I have to agree to work at a bus station to learn?"

"No, that's just an example. - you will probably have to pay for a class if you don't want to do it under a scheme where you agree to take some kind of job and pay your financer? But they're cheap as magic classes go."

"I don't know what we'll do about currency conversion but I can probably trade work, I just don't know if working at a bus stop would be the fastest way to pay it off. Anyway, how do I arrange that and check up on the availability of your dangerous magic things?"

"You want the internet. Internet's fantastic."

"I don't own a computer, I didn't get to pack that kind of thing when I moved here."

"Well, you should get one, then, the fancy kind works on humans so you can get a nicer one than I have."

"You keep recommending courses of action that involve already having opened up some channel for interacting with your society in response to my questions about how to interact with your society."

"The envoys can probably get you one installed?"

Melda nods.

"Thanks. 'Installed'?"

"The kind of computer he's referring to involves a chip in the user's brain," says Melda. "It works on humans and Elves and orcs; research is underway on other species' brain anatomy. Then you can control the computer with your thoughts, which also encrypts the contents of the device. No other kind of computer is fully proof against conjuration, though there are ways to make it inconvenient."

He has questions and the answers spawn more questions and - he doesn’t want brain surgery but this probably isn’t the first time this has happened, it’s probably their thousandth prophecy about this day and if he turned them down the first time then they probably read his mind anyway and had their seer write everything down. When this happens for real he’ll consent, because something could convince him to and they have mind-reading and a million tries to get him to do whatever they want.

So... fine. Getting a new computer is obviously the most convenient thing to do and whatever seems convenient is probably what they want from him. He wouldn’t rather they trick him into thinking he wants it. He’ll get a horrible brain computer and investigate their internet.

Melda wants to check if anyone else would like chiplock computers in the same trip, to save the shipboard demon time.

Not Valan, anyway. Vida would but everyone’s doing their best to keep Vida away from these people. They can probably find quite a few interested people around town, though, including the page with fox ears.

As long as his brain is still totally normal and human he can safely get a chiplock even if he is planning to go morph a fox later, though people who routinely morph often go with a thoughtspeak-based computing solution.

...He might want to morph a lot but he also wants a computer today.

Computers for all! A brief training montage! And back to our regularly scheduled diplomacy.

Yeah.

"I'm not demanding it but if you would give your word that you aren’t, haven't, won’t, and wouldn’t ever use prophecy or intentionally cooperate with the use of prophecy or mind-reading to extract information or cooperation without regard for honesty or the wellbeing of the people you’d be getting those things from it’d be nice."

"To my knowledge," says Melda, "Vanda Nossëo policy for everyone you will by default be invited to interact with - who works for them in a diplomatic capacity, this doesn't apply to the cafeteria staff on the ship or to people who have private sector work - forbids lying. More broadly Vanda Nossëo law forbids nonconsensual mind-reading or mind-altering magic any more invasive than facial recognition or communicative telepathy outside designated areas of which this planet has none, forbids attacking you in most cases sometimes up to and including in self-defense, and instructs us to assume that if we receive contradictory orders it's a red-team exercise or actual infiltration which we should report to our supervisors however many layers up seems called for. If you would like you may speak to someone who is sworn to never act on nor reveal anything you tell them so as to be able to get advice on sensitive situations without the pressure of other agents pursuing other goals on the basis of your information. My reports do get passed up and used to inform a summary delivered to an allied precog but I am not receiving or acting on instructions detailed enough to be an attempt to path you through anything complicated and when I have in the past received precognition-aided instructions they were about averting deaths or disasters, not about extracting cooperation. All of that is accurate to the best of my knowledge, I so swear."