He huffs again. "I was not built for riding."

"Besides," he says, suddenly revealing eagle wings of his own, "I can fly."

"Okay, but I hope you two know how to pose really well for cinematic battles."

"Cinematic battles?" Fernando returns, with a pile of binders in his arms.

"There has been a shortage of cinematic battles in my life lately, I'm afraid. It's all just been boring politics and the end of the world."

Fernando distributes the binders around. They are sorted between things like "World profiles", "Tech resources", "Magic resources", "Issues and threats I", "Issues and threats II", "Plans and solutions", "Unsorted" and "Misc. & Etc." Which are further categorized and color-coded.

Yyyyep.

Fernando gives them a quick overview of the organization system. Mostly sorted in various forms of accessibility and priority. "My plan is to write all of this in multiple books for various levels of tech advancement so people can buy them. Books with sensitive information are going to be coded or ciphered. At least one of my books - likely my first - is going to be something with the codes. I am likely going to write "I dedicate this book to" and a list of pen names for my other books too."

"What's the point of publishing the code? Or letting people buy the books at all?"

"Publishing things allows Bar to sell them. This means we can facilitate the distribution of information by publishing things in our own world - we only need to sell three books and Bar can make them available to anyone that walks in. The obvious downside is that anyone includes potentially very evil people and Bar would still sell them, even if it was Adolf Hitler seeking nuclear secrets. I have tried, but failed to convince her to filter better. And all of Bar's information is already available, the most I can do is not make it easy for hypothetical Hitlers to get to it sooner. Thus I can hide under codes, ciphers and subterfuges. Most people wouldn't know me well enough to think it was out of character that I published a knitting book or something, but my alts, their families and theirs yous and Katurs would notice. Thus they would get curious and investigate and then find out the secret messages where I can condense the shortcuts for nuclear secrets and other sensitive information, or even personal things. It even allows for continuous one-way communication even if we never find Milliways again."

"So your goal with this is making this information more easily available to our alts, or...?"

"The coded information is meant for our alts, the non-coded is for whoever. Not everyone would know how to properly research Milliways' library."

"So you just want to make certain kinds of information more easily available. That makes sense."

"Exactly. Sorry for not being clearer."

Meanwhile, Katur has been paging through the binders...

"Fernando, why did you name a world 'Torturotopia'?" he asks nervously.

"I didn't. Its owner did."

...oh. He knows how this is going to go. He slowly closes the binder he's been reading.

Katur starts reading the description...

...but Thomas takes the binder from his hands. "Sorry, Katur."

Thomas inspects the binder - not the world profile, but the tags that mark the worlds that are similar to this world. He closes the binder.

"We need to leave this place."

Yes, they probably do.

Fernando turns to face him. "We shouldn't. This is a great well of resources."

"This place was designed to mock and torture you personally. That is the only explanation. A well of resources, a bunch of worlds to save, but everything requires luck, a lot of work and self-flagellation. It gave us Kaede and Sadde, but took them and Felix from us- and don't even think to blame yourself for that! And to top it off the entire fucking thing manifests in the fucking ridiculous fucking facade of a bar. This place is going to eat you alive until there is nothing for the others to return to."

Fernando is about to say something -

"I swear to the abyss, I am going to kill myself. Then the three are going to return to your hollow shell, myself at-best-resurrected and Katur traumatized. And it's going to be your fault."

"Thomas," he says in a warning tone.