"Well, of course you're scared that monsters will eat you, if you think you don't have a soul - that's why it's so important, that we come back, so we're not lost to fear.

I'm sorry, I only packed one. I could probably improvise something with one of these bedsheets, if they tear easily?"

She's giving him one more chance, then she's going to move on - there are lots of rooms and she can't get stuck in the first one. Maybe she can bring some people back to forcibly rescue the others, although the snake wasn't a normal portal so she's not exactly sure where the entrance is. 

"I know I don't have a soul! What makes you think I do? And I'm not asking you to improvise something, I'm asking you to get a proper face mask, not one taken from the middle ages." The man is quite non-receptive.

All the rooms open easily; most of them are empty, and the other people she's meeting are similarly non-receptive. They're just scared by the delusional woman trying to use weird fantasy-novel speak to convince them that they have "souls" and that monsters will eat them and things about "being lost to fear". Could I end up like that, they ask themselves, worried that they'll lose their grip on reality again.

Okay, she's clearly not qualified for this. Hopefully when she gets out she can mark the entrance, and then... write to the Custodian of the Lost and suggest an expedition. There might even be a conjunction here.

Or if there isn't, she'll talk to Gralka and they can start working out which Eternal has all these people captive - she suspects Ylenrith, wasn't that what she got in trouble for in the first place?

She starts trying to find her way out of the corridor of identical rooms; she doesn't want to detect magic again until she's in a more promising looking location, technically the portal could be anywhere, but if she uses it too much she'll run out.

The woman who opened the door to Judith's room has returned, wearing a strange plastic device that covers her mouth and nose, together with a pair of plastic goggles over her eyes. The plastic is incredibly transparent, leaving her mouth perfectly visible. She looks Judith up and down, finally understanding that this really is someone from another world; she's wearing a crude, home-made mask, but hasn't asked for any upgrade of any kind. She begins to speak.

"Miss, I believe that you have somehow been teleported here from your homeworld. I assure you, none of this is an illusion or a trick; this is real flesh-and-blood reality. Although you might have had vivid visions like this before, I would like to introduce you to flavors and sensations that are beyond your imagination, to prove that this is really base reality, not just some delusion. Please trust me when I say that all of this is truly real, not an illusion of any kind."

Ah, they've clearly heard her speeches and are trying another tack.

"'Flavours and sensations beyond my imagination' are fairly typical of the Realms - more Night than Day, but I'd expect Day to be able to do something vaguely similar."

Being strictly antagonistic probably isn't going to help here - nobody's used force on her yet, but she'd probably lose as soon as they started.

"How many humans do you have confined here, and do none of them know about their souls?"

"Miss, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what 'realms' are, and I can assure that your brain works by being exposed to external stimuli. You can't hallucinate something you've never experienced in any way; you can only mix together memories you know."

"Nobody is confined here! This is a hospital, where people go to get help. They can leave whenever they want. They know all about souls; they know that souls don't exist, because we've done so many experiments to know, beyond any question, that people are made of normal matter and nothing else. We understand that this will prove a shock to you, but we can assure you that souls are only a misunderstanding from people less informed than we."

Okay, we're not going to be staggered by the responsibility of bringing the Revelation to these people without so much as a drop of Vinum or any actual ceremonial knowledge. Save that for when it's actually real.

It's probably easy to tell from the outside that it is, in fact, proving a shock to her, though.

Focus. What would prove that this is actually a different part of the material world, rather than a trick of the Realms? It's hard to do exactly because they can just fool the senses - no shit, it's all external input to the brain, that's the problem - especially without Insight...

And she needs to get back to her people, and she knows that's just the aura but maybe she'll have it forever now, and what if all these people depend on her...

No. One thing at a time.

"If you really want to convince me this is part of reality," she says, "and you can't - produce a priest and have them teach me Insight, because you don't have any priests - then, I would like to see a lot more of the place?

I've never heard of a Realm pocket bigger than a large castle. Obviously you might be controlling my senses completely, in which case there's no way to tell, but Realms tend to be quite... stuck in their own metaphor.

And if this is part of reality and you are humans but you don't know about the human soul - and if you don't have... the right plants, treated in the right way, it's easy to miss - then, that's important..."

Possibly she shouldn't have admitted the last part yet, it'll only give them more handles on her, but she could barely keep it in. She's going to need to write down all she knows, quite soon, so it's not lost if she dies before they can refine liao.

If this is real. Which it is probably not.

"I can show you just how big our world is, but you must do one thing in return. You're already wearing that mask to keep yourself safe; we insist on you wearing something more substantial and more protective, to keep both us and you safe. We know that our world had illnesses that caused horrific damage until very recently, often coming from people who were perfectly healthy. So we'd be quite scared that the same was the case for you. Once you're dressed, I can take you somewhere to show you just how big our world is."

She motions for Judith to follow her; someone shows up with a bodysuit that seems like it'd fit Judith quite precisely, as well as a plastic contraption quite similar to the one worn by the woman talking to her, with a grayish box in front of it.

"The room you woke up in is probably the most convenient to be in when you get changed. When you're ready, please follow me to the helicopters; they'll show you that this world is quite a bit bigger than a small castle."

"...if this is meant to be clean, is there somewhere for me to wash, first?

And I'm sorry for polluting all those people if this does turn out to be part of reality - I definitely have gone through something magical, and I didn't even get to wash my hands."

"It's not really clean, it's supposed to keep everything else clean? We have a well-equipped bath not too far away from here, and you could get cleaned up and changed in there if you're worried about being too dirty. It's a bit more work on our part, but your peace of mind is much more important."

The woman walks towards a door with an image of a shower on it, and opens it. The bath is amazingly spacious, with a shower head fairly close to the ceiling above a spacious alcove in one corner of the room. In the other corner, there's a modest bathtub, with a handheld shower head tucked into a railing attached to the wall. Near the entrance to the room, there's a toilet with support bars next to it, with a sink on the adjacent wall. Everything is either white or in various shades of gray, other than the blue tint of the floor.

"It's not complicated; you just turn the 2 knobs to make there be more or less water, and to make it hotter or colder." She walks in, turning all pairs of knobs in the room, miming flinching at the high heat when she turns up the temperature on one of the knobs.

"We can leave the suit and PAPR system - that plastic thingy - in here; call for help once you're done. Especially the PAPR system is complicated to put on, and we'd want someone to be sure that you did it properly. Everything make sense?"

It's a bit of a small bath-house, but she supposes if they don't like getting changed in front of each other then they probably bathe individually too. Or this is their special quarantine bath-house.

It isn't much evidence, Ylenrith likes cleanliness too, but she can't help but be pleased at the idea of having a good wash.

"Thank you," she says, sincerely. "I suppose I should be in the undersuit before you get back? Should I put my clothes anywhere in particular?"

Is the suit at least black? She's not sure she wants to make a fuss about clothes, it seems like a silly thing to pick a fight over and she can lean on the aura to make it feel less wrong, but taking away her tabard is somewhat a step to take away her identity, if that's what they're trying to do.

"Oh, and is my bag going to be okay? The coins and mana and pencils won't mind a wash, but there's a newspaper and pamphlet and notebook that can't easily be cleaned... I'd like a new notebook to carry if I can't have the old one around?"

It's probably too late to worry about secrets in the notebook, they could have just read it while she was out already.

"Yes, please, put on the bodysuit before we return. It's not quite an undersuit; we wear it for quarantine reasons, so usually don't have anything over it. But we could you get a dress or something, if you'd really feel naked in just the bodysuit. You'll have to put your clothes and bag in a corner; someone will use a special bag over them to maintain hygiene. And you can easily be provided with a new notebook, yes."

The undersuit is white as paper. Any stain would be extremely obvious on it.

"I think that's all, then." White isn't so bad, although it's all very Ylenrith.

She looks longingly at the bathtub, but it's probably impolite to make them wait for her to take a full bath; as soon as they are gone, she starts efficiently taking her clothes off, then looks for some soap and a flannel. 

Under her robe she has a half-vest style bralette and some fairly sensible briefs, in offwhite undyed fabric, both with drawstrings rather than elastic.

There are various brands of soap stacked in a corner of the sink; they come in individual paper packages, being thin bars of soap, perfectly sized for a long and indulgent bath. There's a perfectly placed bin, full of wrappers from the various brands of soap. In addition, there is a thick stack of impressively fluffy towels, made of a strange material that feels unexpectedly warm and pleasant to the touch. They're all in very inoffensive colors, whites and shades of grey and blues.

They're all probably fine? She should probably just take a soap packet and towel and get to work cleaning herself in the big shower alcove. It's so spacious that she's can't even touch the glass partitions around her, when she reaches out with her arms. And it has a scarily responsive temperature dial; the water streaming out heats up or cools down instantly.

This is a very good bathhouse.

...bother, she forgot to ask about her glasses. Fortunately they wash fine, hopefully that means they'll be fine? Not having them would kind of defeat the point of going to see the world, after all.

There seems to be everything else, is there separate hair conditioner? Her hair's going to get horribly tangled... more horribly tangled... if she has to just use soap on it.

Regardless of conditioner status, she has a very successful shower, a marvellously fluffy towel-off, and then starts trying to work out how to get into the quarantine suit.

...if they're going outside she'll want a hat, but she assumes they'll be able to sort that out, they were going to get her a dress if necessary.

There is no conditioner, unfortunately. Maybe they're really particular about conditioner, so you're supposed to bring your own?

The quarantine suit has a zipper; just tugging on it causes the back of it to close, so it's pretty clearly supposed to be how you put it on. Stepping in is quite easy, and it's immediately obvious that it is very, very comfortable; it's amazingly breathable, soft, and flexible, so it feels really amazing to have on. Testing the range of motion reveals several well-hidden gussets that makes it almost completely non-restrictive. The suit doesn't cover her hands or feet, though, which begin to feel a bit strange as they're left exposed by the suit.

The plastic thingamajig remains quite mysterious. It looks like she's supposed to wear it over her face, somehow, but the plastic bit going around her head doesn't fit very well, and it's almost impossible to breathe when she tries putting the part covering the other woman's nose and mouth on her own face. Presumably this is what was so complicated to put on? Why else would that woman say that thing about "calling for help"?

Well, she's covering everything that she'd need to cover to be decent at Anvil. She'll take the thing back off her face and shout "Hey out there, I'm ready for the face thing to be fitted!"

Presumably once she gets a response she can ask about shoes. It makes sense the hands are exposed - it'd be pretty difficult to wash them otherwise! 

A man walks in, this time. He fiddles with the plastic straps holding the vaguely mask-like thing, before putting it on Judith's face. As the air starts getting stuffy, he presses a well-hidden button on the back of the... device, and a gentle breeze of fresh air starts blowing in front of her face. It gently cools down her face, and her breathing is completely unrestricted.

"We insist in also protecting our eyes, but for you, it's quite unnecessary. Don't worry about the eye section."

The man then brings out a light grey pair of shoes, that go up to just barely above where her bodysuit ends. The shoes are amazingly thin, almost feeling like socks instead of actual shoes. He shows that they're supposed to be tightened by a kind of belt around the bottom part of her bodysuit. He also holds up a pair of transparent gloves that feel super-nice to the touch and leaves her dexterity basically unaffected; these people clearly aren't risking anything.

"Please put the gloves on, before you leave this room. Pandemic illnesses have killed huge amounts of people in the past, and we insist on taking every precaution we can, in case you unknowingly brought something scary from your world."

Well, fine. She wouldn't want to share hand-washing bowls with someone who might have the Reikos Flux either.

"Could I get a hat, if we're going outside?" She kind of feels like she wants a hood and maybe a veil, but she's not quite ready to ask for those yet, then she really would have to take the daunting task of saving all these souls - from either the Day realm or their own ignorance - seriously.

"Sure? I'll see if we can scrounge up something that fits; hats are quite unusual here. If you're ready, I'd like you to follow me to the helicopters on the roof. That's what we'll be using to show you just how large this world is, to finally reassure you that this truly is base reality, just not yours."

The man begins walking away, taking her to an impressively spacious elevator. She motions for Judith to follow him in.

"This is how we get to the roof; there are stairs, but it's a long way up. These are much better."

Judith is suspicious of the elevator. Mines and construction sites sometimes had lifts, but it was rarely worth the effort and risk if you could sensibly put in stairs.

If she wanted to surreptitiously move someone from one Realm chamber to another, a room like this would definitely be involved.

"How far up?" she asks, not stepping into the 'elevator' yet. "And what's a 'helicopter'? Is it a device for seeing far, like a heliopticon is for sending distant messages?"

It's probably much easier to fake images through some kind of Day telescope than let her get in a cart and get out to inspect things when she wants to.

"About 15 or 20 floors from here? Hospitals tend to be quite low, especially in places like Newton. A helicopter is a vehicle that lets you travel quickly and see the world from a great distance; you just get inside and it takes you wherever you need to go. I mean, we can't really park them indoors; they have to be put on the roof so there aren't any obstructions in their way."

"Oh, so, like, ornithopters that actually work?" Judith's mouth is on autopilot while her brain tries to catch up. "Does that mean they can set down places so I can check it's not just a painting?"

Fifteen to twenty flights of stairs is too many stairs. The idea of that being a short building is... Probably having the exact effect these Day realm monsters want it to have, ugh.

This is also about the point she remembers her walking stick, although it just gets in the way on stairs and is unlikely to be useful while she's seated in some kind of flying object.

"Can I get a new notebook and pencil now, and ideally a walking stick?" It's not really urgent, probably, but it's useful for stalling and she doesn't want to be without them for too long in case something else ridiculous happens. She hasn't even got to...

"Hang on a minute. Can someone who can do so carefully enough inspect my notebook and read me the last paragraph or two?" She's about to state her hypothesis when she realises that will make it much easier for them to fake it, and shuts up.

"Yep, that's exactly it. And yes, we're happy to let you land anywhere so you'll know what things look like up-close."

As the new notebook gets mentioned, another woman arrives, giving Judith a notebook. It's spartan and grey, like everything else her. She then heads off for a few minutes to also bring a pencil.

"We can absolutely get you a walking stick, yes. Usually, we'd rather have it be custom-made, but there are a few of them just lying around in the physiotherapy halls. I'm probably safe to read the last few paragraphs of your notebook; I think the guy supposed to bring them to a secure area hasn't showed up yet, so it's just a quick dash back to the bath."

He runs back to the bath, carefully taking the book out of one of the bags left on the floor, before returning to Judith. He looks at the book carefully, before finding the last few paragraphs of it, curious if he'd even be able to understand her writing.

Her handwriting is absolutely appalling, but aside from that it appears to be a horrible scrawled version of the main written language here.

Remnant night magic inn room second right upstairs ask proprietor desc

Agent male Varushkan, brown eyes shoulder brown hair scar on left chin small jagged, wearing white red embroider robe flowers and zigzag, ran off down road unit in pursuit 

Zoria maze snake herald? mirror face, attacked, into vision - white square walls weird mirror designs, flat straight road, distant people weird clothes - blankets, maybe league but boring? - sudden clearing dense forest off road, turned and man drab league clothes ask if intending to be somewhere, know direction, need directions. On admitting lost said might not know reality, would call for help. Took out magic focus cuboid, did fast quiet ritual or slow quiet spell just gesture at object.