Hopper describes the design of the ship, wanting to build a ship to let her see far inland and to have a better view of the world around her than any other. She wants a crow's nest barely lower than the height of the portal, on a steady ship that doesn't sway, with a large, safe and comfortable platform for her to look down on the world in.

(Memorizing what to say here would just have made too much sense, wouldn't it?)

Everyone industriously takes notes; Gallio's are precise diagrams, Alejandro's are mostly numbers and calculations that he angrily crosses out or surrounds with question marks, Yasmina's are a summary of the exact words.

"Please forgive me if this is impolite," she begins, "but have you considered an arrangement of lenses and mirrors? I can see from Alejandro's face that raising a steady platform so high in the air will be - a challenge - but with a polemoscope, you could extend your viewing height from a more reasonable altitude..."

"Yep, I considered that. And that won't do. I like seeing things through my own eyes, being able to turn around freely. I'll compromise once I can know for certain that what I want, or at least something similar, is truly impossible."

"Nothing is impossible," asserts Alejandro, hotly, as he scribbles out another attempted calculation. "The problem is, this would need to be, very large."

"And the Navarr have been buying up all the weirwood that hasn't already found its way to Atalaya," Gallio contributes. "Something about the Great Forest Orcs knowing a better way to upgrade their herb gardens."

Sofia rolls her eyes. "Please spare me the sob stories. How many wains are we looking at?"

"At least half a dozen, and that is a low estimate," replies Gallio, "and we've barely got one on hand."

Sofia looks somewhat taken aback.

"Please do continue to get me a better estimate," she replies, "but I will have to - discuss financing options."

"Or you could tell us what this is really about, and I could see if any of my old friends would be interested," suggests Yasmina.

"Alejandrio - Gallio - much as I am sure you are upstanding citizens..."

"The fewer parties to a contract, the less things to go wrong. Come on, Alejandro, we have a lot to..."

"You might be content to leave this to Yasmina, but I'm not going anywhere. Happy to look something over, if you want me to sign to keep it to myself."

Sofia produces a few pieces of paper and begins to write industriously. It appears to be a basic confidentiality contract, with a break clause... that parties found to have broken their confidentiality will be pursued in court for treason.

"I'll watch the door and divert any listening ears." Gallio leaves the room; the other two sign two copies of the contract each, so each party can keep one.

"Hopper. The full explanation. If I can't trust these people to keep their contracted word, we cannot trust anybody."

Hopper nods grimly, taking a breath and a few seconds so her first sentence starts off right.

"I don't come from this planet, or universe, or reality. I am a traveler from a world enormously more prosperous than this."

"I was casually enjoying a swim underwater, when I somehow discovered a portal leading here. I fell into water, was rescued by two dolphins, and ended up here."

"I believe that the world on the other side of that portal has the wealth to provide a life of royal luxury and safety for every person here. If I could return to the portal, I could free slaves and children from lives of misery and toil, and save the lives of untold numbers or poor, desperate, or starving people here."

"I would bring an obvious illness that was easily curable by those on the other side of the portal, spreading it among those soon to be captured as Grendel slaves, terrifying the Grendel from capturing anyone else for fear of bringing pestilence to their lands, building a home for those exiled due to their illness, and some day, everyone else on this side of the portal."

The bit about the illness is Clearly Not What Sofia Expected and she looks briefly horrified before going directly into damage control mode.

"That is, of course, only an example of the powers on offer - and the dangers - obviously we will have to, ah, fine tune any relevant plans to be acceptable to all parties..."

"Should we be taking quarantine precautions, if your world has novel illnesses we haven't been exposed to?" 

Alejandero opens his mouth to say something, closes it again, then settles for glaring suspiciously.

"Precautions will be entirely unnecessary on your end. Our world is essentially illness-free, and we'll take extra precautions to ensure that nothing dangerous crosses into your side of the portal. I wanted an illness that's obvious, not dangerous. There are... secretive methods for developing illnesses that can be perfect for this purpose, an illness that makes it unacceptably risky capture slaves, while leaving those would-be victims far better off than if they had been sentenced to a life in chains. Any attempt to fight the Grendel would risk far more lives than a nonviolent approach, and I believe that they will merely extort us for impossible sums if we attempted to buy a significant number of slaves from them, beyond this wealth encouraging further slave raids. I truly believe that an obvious, but not dangerous illness, is the option that will free the most lives."

"The thing about illnesses," Alejandero can't help but interject, "is they don't tend to stay how you put them. Even if you've mastered the arts of the Druj and can tailor them to your whim."

The way everyone reacts to the term 'Druj' suggests it is not a good thing to be compared to.

"Well, we have methods of preventing significant deviation in the properties of bacteria, especially. And our medical science works incredibly quickly; we can be quite sure that anything coming here will change in a way we can control."

"But you're making it clear just how horrifying an illness would be! Surely letting a few people get ugly spots, a cough and runny noses can't be worse than a life condemned to Grendel slavery. You said it yourself; it's something the Grendel couldn't possibly risk."

"The problem is," replies Yasmina, calmly but with a somewhat exaggerated precision, which gets colder as she proceeds, "if we're sufficiently horrified by what you are offering - why would we build you a way to return to the portal, and bring back untold armies and diseases and whatever else?

As you are neither an Imperial citizen, nor a member of a recognised foreign nation, nor an official diplomatic delegation - you do not actually have any protection under the law.

I suggest you choose your next words very carefully."

Hopper blinks, giving her enough time to collect her thoughts, calm down and collect herself.

"I am only here because you have some interest in what I might be offering. You're free to entirely refuse any assets I might provide you; but if neither armies nor diseases are on the table, then I'm happy to leave you like you like they were before you met me, vanishing never to be heard from again, as the path to my homeworld remains forever beyond my grasp."

"I can guarantee you that I will bring back no armies, and no illnesses, if that is your wish. I'm hoping that I'm not signing my death warrant saying this, but I can bring back a staircase leading into the portal, if that's a sufficiently non-horrifying manner of preventing the enslavement of untold numbers of people."

"I'd really rather have not heard a plan involving diseases, as they're so troublesome to check for," replies Yasmina. "But I'm also not one to inspect gift horses quite so hard they disappear.

Sofia, would you stand surity to a contract? I don't mean to insult our guest, but I know nothing of her customs.

And - we literally don't have enough weirwood on hand, we can't lay our hands on that much in a hurry regardless of the prize. I would also, given what we've just heard, not really want to see you off to Anvil where I'm sure you could find some people who would consider that a wonderful idea.

Would you be willing to sign a contract to the effect of what you've just said, and - Alejandro, you can round up some corsairs for an escort, yes?"