So the lack of trust and liking each other hasn't totally killed professional solidarity dead. That's good to know. 

"Yeah. I feel you." 

Fundy paces while he talks. It’s a pretty common habit—Wilbur, Quackity, Sapnap, and Tommy all do it too—but Fundy manages to make it look more anxious than they do, somehow. Or maybe it’s just his voice.

“What about you, what have you been doing?”

He should probably have a better canned answer for that one than he does. Still not bringing up Wilbur unless Fundy brings him up first, though. 

"Learning hang gliding, mostly! And getting used to how there doesn't seem to be an economy here." 

Blink. Yeah, he’s probably going to look stupid for this one.

“…What’s an economy?”

"The— right. Uh, in many places that are not this server, and in particular in the last place I lived, money can be exchanged for goods and services instead of mostly making everything yourself, and there's enough people around to make that... work, broadly speaking. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's taking getting used to." 

“Oh, so like, a Hypixel thing. Got it. I’ve only really lived here, but Purpled’s from Hypixel, I know things are different when you have enough people for that sort of thing.”

"Yeah, like a Hypixel thing." It's a good enough answer for government work and it's not like the actual name of anywhere he's from would mean anything to Fundy anyway. "My old city has two hundred thousand people in it, the transition's been weird." 

“What’s it like? Having that many people around.”

"Louder. When I'm working I might talk to a hundred people in a day. And you don't know everyone? You can't, you can't even know most people, I walk into a room and it has fifty people in it and I know maybe one of those people, maybe none." 

"Huh. ...How's that work with the economy? I mean, it sounds like it'd be easier to scam people if most of them don't know you."

"...huh, I guess you guys wouldn't have any of the really interesting kinds of fraud. 

Uh, most ways of scamming people are illegal and if you try it and get caught you will have problems, which stops people from trying a lot of the time, and you get pretty good at telling when a deal is too good to be true? ...some people more than others, obviously." 

"Like prison illegal or like the president will ask you to stop illegal?"

"Uh, I think it's fines and, you know, town square stuff, usually, plus generally having peacekeepers paying attention to you for the next however long. If the president gets involved that's the point where you're praying they'll stop at the death penalty and it's... probably not impossible to cause that kind of problem just doing fraud? But I've never heard of it happening." 

"...Huh." That clarified nothing! He now has more questions! "What happens if you can't pay the fines?"

"Same thing that happens if something takes more than you have for any other reason? If there's anything you can figure out how to go without you go without it, and if not, sucks to be you, now you can't pay for food or housing. I guess if it's for a crime you committed they probably skip the step where you argue really hard that they should give you another month because you'll totally have the money together by then." 

"What if you don't have a house or a farm so you don't have anything to... not pay for?"

His first thought is right, housing would be an asset not an expense here, everyone owns their home, there's enough land and so few people that nobody has reason to rent—

Then Fundy finishes the sentence. 

"...uh, then you are already having some bad problems and in winter you will have worse ones?" 

“…What’s winter and why would it make it a problem?” He feels like he is five years old and it’s kind of embarrassing but the curiosity is still winning out. 

"The... part of the year when it's colder? Do you have seasons?"

He knows this place isn't tropical, Tubbo was clearly dressed for cold-- and Las Nevadas isn't, like, freezing, it's certainly not as bad as Dessa winters, but it's sure not warm either--

"Uh, and the reason it'd be a problem is that where I'm from it gets cold enough at night in winter that you'd get hypothermia if you tried to sleep outside, people can die from that." 

“There are places when it’s colder or warmer but not times. Sleeping outside— wouldn’t be fun, but wouldn’t kill you. …The mobs might kill you if you don’t have it lit up? But even just digging a hole in the ground should fix that.”

The mental image of hordes of people going around with pitchforks that can only be deterred by streetlights or digging a hole in the ground has to be wrong. It has to be. That word has to mean something else and he is going to ask someone else about it, later. 

"...good to know. I will take hypothermia off my list of things to worry about." 

“There’s… if you stay inside powdered snow for too long, I guess? I don’t think you can have a bed inside that but I haven’t tried very hard. Maybe I should? What’s a little freezing for science.”

"I'd expect you to be right, I come from somewhere with very different physics. ...not that I'm gonna stop you from freezing for science if you, like, want to." 

“I mean. Gotta at least try it.”

Part of him wants to introduce Fundy to Beetee and Wiress. 

Shut up, brain. 

"Course. What kind of science would it be if you didn't even try."