He breaks eye contact what is, with his luck, a half second too late.

Did you just read my mind, he does not ask. Stranger is a difficult customer as well as potentially a reality-wender. Wild guess, playing dumb will be a wiser genre of Please Save Me Teacher, here, than playing straight and hoping Stranger cooperates. (Of course, none of this is really happening, it's all some misunderstanding that in retrospect will be so embarrassing, the teleportation is reasonably explicable somehow and he's making everything else up, Rikka's always had an overactive imagination. But. Just to be safe.)

So. That's a human.

That doesn't mean she isn't stuck in some kind of horrible City of Locks realm pocket. It's not even really evidence of this, given the alternative hypothesis is, what exactly? It would mean that a lot more effort has been put into this than even the high level she'd already assumed from the personal Herald trap and the enormous implausible city...

What would Kade even want from her that was worth the effort? Has one of her old contacts developed an interest in the Autumn realm?

"Look," she says. "I know that if this is the place I expect it is, you're probably forbidden if not incapable of giving me a straight answer. But. Do any of these words make any sense to you: Casinean Empire. The Autumn Realm. Regio pocket. Herald. The Realms of Magic. Basilius Flint. The City of Locks."

She watches Rikka's reaction as much as waiting for his answer, hoping that maybe he'll betray some sign of recognition or amusement even if he's going to deny all knowledge.

To the extent that any reaction shows, it's plain bewilderment with a side of intense curiosity, and a dash of skepticism for flavor, at every single one of those words.

" . . . No."

The jig could very well be up, now, but Rikka isn't going to try to fake what can't be faked.

"...right.

Either you are exceptionally good at masking your reactions, which I can't absolutely rule out given the context...

...or you're being kept in the dark about an awful lot of things on purpose...

...or something much stranger is going on."

Allegra sighs.

"Look. If you are from the City of Locks - or similar - or someone who is, is listening - then congratulations, you've won. I hate engaging in Autumn nonsense at the best of times and this is not the best of times.

Hi. I'm Allegra Foundhome, Brand of the steading of Foundhome, sworn Vate, occasional Guide. My only other hypothesis is that I am a very long way away from there. I would like to get back, but the best way I can see for that to happen, this far out of context, is to work with you, on whatever you thought was valuable enough to put up with all of that rudeness. Does that sound like something we can do?"

"Yes, until and unless I demonstrate that at my level of lack-of-context I am incapable even of that. For instance, I have no idea what a Brand is.

Um. This is Byway. The society on this planet, that is. I get the feeling you might be lacking that much context?

In any case" he nods and raises a hand "formally, hi, I'm Rikka Eksil Ram Askielal Forth, systems programmer with Eksil and eager to work with you here. I know I said most of that already, but I know I'd have forgotten."

"I have no idea what a systems programmer is! And yes, I had no idea what you called this place.

You have one society for the whole planet? That's... sorry, I shouldn't get distracted. A Brand is, uh, essentially a leader? Someone people choose to follow. Which is why I kind of need to get back to them, although I'm beginning to think that is not going to be straightforward at all."

(Allegra's use of 'leader' has translated into Byway as 'hero'.)

"Oh.   . . . Shit." In the case that Rikka isn't getting led along.

"First stupid question from me: how did you get here? Feel free to ask away of me, then, too."

"An entity that I believed to be a Herald, although I'm beginning to think it might have been something much more bizarre, turned out to be a trap which transported me here. Which would normally be some kind of open portal that I could immediately reverse, but it doesn't seem to have left any traces on this side.

What does a systems programmer do, and what is networking equipment? My current level of knowledge there is 'a network is how people are connected to each other by relationships' and 'a programmer is a strange way of referring to someone who writes those little pamphlets Leaguers like to hand out before plays which tell you who's in the play and advertise things'."

Wow, this was really not the kind of guiding Rikka was expecting to have to do for a stranger who can teleport. ???

"Do people where you're from ever have to do long, monotonous tasks of calculation? Like for precisely architecting really big buildings to be robust, or doing chemistry, or predicting the weather?"

"Oh, right, you're a - computation ushabti designer? That's enough of a thing here to be standard? I guess if you want huge buildings and have to build them... how many people are there in this city?"

"About 8 12^5s.

Ushabti? Why would you design huge buildings and then not build them?"

"...presumably it doesn't sprawl as much as Tassato, then, or it would be less... dense.

Ushabti is the Urizeni term for general-purpose animated servants - humanoid is traditional, but actually you can make a variety of form factors. I used to know the basics, but I haven't even done maintenance on one for years, and the ambient magic here isn't strong enough for them, so it must be something slightly different you're using?

It's more efficient to have koboldi build really large fortifications; the only large buildings I've lived in were Spires, which are left over from a previous civilisation. I suppose the League has a lot of architects, but nothing quite with both the scale and detail of the building we're in right now - I suppose maybe the Walls of Holberg might be comparable.

...do we have an aim for what we're talking about here, or are we just gathering context at random?"

"Well - tell me if you have a better aim in mind to start with, but - ambient magic? Like, the nonsense word from the poem. The one that's supposed to mean 'what wishes were made of if wishes were made of anything'." RIKKA has stopped working.

"Uh, yes." Allegra is somewhat taken aback by this - some places didn't exactly like magic, but the flat denial of its existence is new. "Obviously it's a lot more complicated than that, but the basic - mental motion - is calling up some raw power and aligning it to what you want it to do, yes.

If there isn't enough ambient magic to recharge my personal mana overnight, then... Then I really have a problem. I mean, I'm smart and can get things done, but it looks like I'm a long way behind on technology for being stuck here.

...I'd try out some hearth magic but the only unambiguous result I can achieve is stopping someone bleeding to death, which is awkward to test for the obvious reasons. Similarly for testing if my staff bites you, I don't exactly want to injure my most useful contact here right now..."

She looks down at her belt and bag. "Oh, right, lightstones. It's hard to tell if they're working in this much light..."

<💭>This is a test, isn't it, I'm supposed to cut my own throat and then when I don't die I'll have proof</💭>

<💭>Ah yes, just what Sir Soberjoy would have told me. Jump off the bridge, alone, and when it catches you you'll know the bridge salesman wasn't lying. Besides, literally how is that proof of magic? He has some hush-hush medtech, cool but no cigar.</💭>

"Summoning light probably isn't going to be able to convince me of much," he says weakly. "I know a decent amount of physics - " <💭>though I'm no fucking Agario - </💭> "and I still wouldn't be able to prove without a lot of fancy instruments that a light wasn't just a trick."

He has no idea what the fuck is going on anymore. He still knows he is going to take advantage of it!!

"Unfortunately most of what I can do with magic that is - appropriately impressive - requires resources I don't have on hand, or have a very limited supply of - which I'd rather get to an apothecary who can study it and see if there's a local equivalent than use it up on a demonstration.

If I do refill overnight, I can search for areas with better ambient magic and crystallise some mana there, which is what I'll need to do anything that couldn't be a trick and isn't violent; I think turning a dead body into compost within a couple of minutes is the most dramatic effect I can do by myself, but I'd rather not use the crystals I have on it until I know I can replace them."

"- if you had a lot of prep time, is there anything you can do that amounts to - I pick some difficult-to-fake physical effect, and then you create that effect in short order?"

"I can design arcane projections, but they're inefficient, they all need mana crystals to cast - and magic has a lot of rules.

And a projection does a specific thing and can take months to draft - possibly more if your stars are unfamiliar, I can Turn the Circle with blood but I'm better with constellations if it comes to designing novel effects.

The most dramatic effects I can access relatively easily are speeding up natural processes - like healing, decay and so on - we call that Spring magic and it's the variety I have the most practice with.

If you're looking for something quick, I think taking the rest of the liao to whatever you have for an apothecary will at least give us something to work with - and I think I have three crystals...", she opens her bag to confirm, "...yes, so I can let whatever specialist you think will be able to analyse it best have one of them and still be able to do one demonstration ritual - although not a projection, those take a lot more."

"If there are only certain things you can do - then that doesn't sound like magic, that sounds like you have a bunch of insanely high-powered gadgets for some reason.

Probably just a dumb semantic quibble over jargon, but I - assumed certain things, on hearing that word, and I'm glad they weren't accurate."

"If you think of mana crystals as - a very flexible kind of gadget - I suppose that isn't entirely wrong. I can manufacture more if I can find somewhere with the right energy - it's just a crystallisation process, I can't imagine anyone who can build buildings like this having problems with it.

If none of those places exist, I'm not sure how we're going to make more of them, and unlike what I'd think of as gadgets, they are used up - I can't just, rewind them or something.

At that point I'd want to work out how to safely test chirurgy because at least I could then teach useful first aid, once I've got the idea of whatever your local hearth magic is."