It gets worse
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...ew.

He waits to be introduced.

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Which does not take too long. The queen apparently has her own dialect because of the different mandible configuration. She has already been apprised of the situation.

"Come my visitor. Is it true that you're a faraway visitor?" she speaks. The translation makes her unnatural voice sound maternal and gentle. "It is easy to believe by just looking at you. But one does well to ask such things, even the obvious, before starting a friendly conference."

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"I am, yes, although perhaps 'far' is not the better word. And you are, I presume, the Queen?"

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"Yes," she says amusedly, "Queen," a very long series of insectoid sounds, Sadde would need to seriously reconfigure his vocal apparatus to make half of them, "but call me Queen Bah."

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"I am called Sadde. It is an honour to meet you, Queen Bah."

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Crystal emerges from behind Sadde's head, looking at the Queen.

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"I know it is." This is technically less arrogant than it sounds. "Thank you for coming. What can we do for each other today?"

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"I have some magic foreign to this world. I would try to help it. But... I'm not sure how best to do that, or where to start, and I'm... fairly confident this is not the best use of my time in the long run."

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"Well, what does your magic do? Could it be used to restore the dead? Create resources? Advance the sciences? Why wouldn't it be the best use of your time?"

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"Your world has only thousands of deaths per year, out of a billion people. Mine had tens of millions out of around seven billion, some worlds are worse. And your biology is very different than mine, so there's no guarantee my main immortality solution would work. And culture seems very different—" He explains the magic he has access to, about humans and vampires and sorcery (which they probably have access to, too, now that he's here) and explains why he's emotionally compromised.

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Crystal becomes more restless by the minute. At one point she takes flight and starts flitting about.

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She is sympathetic to his pain.

It sounds very unlikely, but not necessarily impossible that their species could be turned into vampires, but the need for that is greatly obviated to the point she doesn't want to create a "husk" (a body without a crystal-brain) to test that.

She thinks his personal magic is interesting, but not all that game-breaking - times of scarcity can be endured by having the queens storing surplus population inside themselves.

She is greatly curious about sorcery and magic in general. Is he willing to share sorcery knowledge at all? What can sorcery do? Does this mean that every world that Sadde has ever visited also has sorcery?

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He can share what knowledge he has, yes, but he didn't actually spend that much time around his mates learning it. And yes, it does.

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Queen Bah would be glad to know more about sorcery. Is there anything they could trade in return? Maybe some could sing what they know about technology and history?

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That would be useful.

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"You should take something from here. So you can open a portal, later."

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"—also that, yes. I—should have—" He looks down at his feet. "I would take something, from here, so I can return someday."

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Queen Bah thinks for a moment - going uncannily still - then she says, "We can certainly grant you such thing, yes. What exactly do you need?"

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"A native sapient always works, but I don't want to bring a person with me. A living creature I can keep in suspended animation should be the best alternative."

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"That shouldn't be hard to arrange." Queen Bah ensues orders to that effect.

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And Sadde presumably starts teaching someone the rudiments of sorcery.

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Which they're eager to learn! They sing about their history. The insectoid chorus is actually not bad, Sadde could imagine people enjoying it for relaxation purposes. This world is clearly per-industrial revolution. And writing doesn't appear to be very common, but they get by with longevity and magic.

They bring a creature that is about the size of an apple. It only gets out of hibernation to feed or to mate (if it detects any other members of its species) and should survive a couple dozen years without intervention. It looks like a beetle.

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How cute.

In addition to sorcery he also has technology knowledge to share.

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Technology! They'd like some!

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He imparts as much knowledge as he can.

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