Newton isn't an unusual outpost city, in any sense. It has the modest population, the cheesy museums, the tour guides and camping gear stores, and the hospital built from the ground-up to provide emergency services for the many tourists exploring the pristine forests.

It did not have someone seemingly teleporting into it from the middle of nowhere, right between two huge, white skyscrapers that work like walls only separated by a street so narrow that it wouldn't permit 2 cars to pass each other. Didn't have until now, that is.

...okay, so this is one of those visions that happen sometimes in Zoria's Maze. She should... stay on the path and try to make progress, probably. She sets about doing that, by walking down the street, and not gazing too closely at what is probably a metaphor for the maddening clarity of the Day realm or something.

Occasionally, she finds a crossing, even seeing people in the distance a couple of times. They don't pay her any real attention, just walking around to their tasks. They wear all sorts of clothing: athletic clothing, slinky dresses, business suits... there are even people wearing what looks like blankets, walking around. It doesn't take her much time at all before she reaches the outskirts of the city, a small clearing separating the outskirts from an intimidating and incredibly dense forest.

Every building is bizarrely tall, largely undecorated and square, colored either in white or the occasional grey, with many blueish panes of glass that seem to be windows, yet are completely impossible to see through. It doesn't seem much like a place where people would live; there doesn't seem to be a grocer or any other kind of business anywhere, to mention one thing.

Okay. She's in Varushka; stepping off the road into the intimidating forest is always going to be the wrong answer. She'll turn down another road and... keep walking. She doesn't do visions very often, the horse dream went on for a while, so it might be a while before anything interesting happens.

Or maybe being lost in a place where everything is too tall and everyone is from a different culture is some kind of important metaphor itself. The melting-pot theme makes sense as a stand-in for Anvil, although none of them are really a recognisable Imperial culture, but tall, impossibly smooth and square buildings are kind of the opposite of that - kind of like Urizen by way of Day, perhaps?

Oh! Oh, right. Urizen meeting the League - a huge city made out of Spires - yeah, this makes perfect sense as a vision to be hanging around at the moment. Presumably she should just keep walking until it feels like collapsing into something else. Or maybe she should stop walking to make it finish? She pays more attention to looking for a nice place to lean against or sit down - she generally prefers walking to standing around.

Eventually, a man stops in front of her, wearing a 3-piece suit and a pair of pants that look like they're way too tight to be remotely comfortable. "Miss, is there somewhere you're intending to be? It seems to me like you're not quite sure which direction to go in. Do you need directions to get somewhere?"

He instinctively looks at her, noting shoes very different from anything a thomassian would wear. He begins to think as he waits for the strange woman's response.

"I'm in pursuit of an agent of the Whisper Gallery," she replies, automatically; then realises that the vision is probably not going to help her with that practical consideration, they rarely do. "But... I think this is a vision, so actually... yes, I am not quite sure which direction to go in. I went to the Unburdening, and it made me think; I've just been falling back into old patterns because they're comfortable, and there, rather than working out whether they really suit me, any more."

The man becomes very uncomfortable. "Ma'am, do you have any suspicions that... you're not quite sure exactly what reality is like right now? I can call someone in to help you, if you're feeling unsure." He prepares to reach for his phone and call for help, as he tries to size up and understand the woman in front of him.

"In reality, I'm in a maze, attempting to catch up with my military unit, having been interrupted by a giant Night snake that really wanted me to have this vision," she says, which she obviously feels pretty confident about, but is probably not going to put her interlocutor's mind at rest.

She tenses up a bit as, to her mind, the slightly drab bravo goes for a concealed weapon, but calms back down fairly quickly - it might be unpleasant but it's only a dream, it doesn't really matter if he pulls a knife or wand on her.

"Oh, it sounds like you're not quite sure what's real right now and what's illusion? I'll call over someone to help you with that; they'll help you get out of your vision, promise." The man very slowly and very carefully reaches for a phone in the inner pocket of his jacket, and he quickly taps it for maybe a minute or so.

"They can be slow to arrive, so please be patient."

A woman wearing a beautiful, all-white uniform appears 5 or so minutes later, holding a rag.

"There's medicine in this rag; just take a few breaths, and you'll be taken back to reality again. I must warn you; you'll feel like you're falling asleep, before you wake up from your illusion."

It's a sedative designed to quickly bring her to sleep, hopefully letting her brain rest long enough for her to wake up in the psychiatric ward of the hospital with all her uncomfortable and confusing delusions gone.

The 'phone' is quite an unfamiliar object - maybe some kind of magical focus, although that's a very short and quiet ritual - of course things don't have to really match up with reality in a vision. She takes a somewhat worn notebook out of her bag - it has black-and-bronze geometric designs on the front and back - and a coloured pencil, and starts to write down details of the vision; she doesn't think that will persist out of the vision, but it will probably be useful for writing it down again more neatly and precisely when she gets back.

Her handwriting, previously in a different colour of coloured pencil, is an appalling childish scrawl.

When the woman approaches and makes her pitch, she just nods; clearly this is the way out of the vision. She takes the rag, doesn't bother to sit down or lean against anything, just raises it to her face and takes a deep breath.

The woman effortlessly and gracefully catches her, before motioning for the car hidden behind a corner to arrive. She gently places the woman into the car, before she gets driven to the hospital and carried to a bed in a small, white room, only somewhat larger than the bed and side table. She writes a handwritten note and leaves it on the side table, hoping that it's noticed when the woman on the bed wakes up:

"Being in states of mind like yours can be scary, uncomfortable and confusing. We hope that what you experienced was a one-time thing, and that this won't happen to you again. We can gladly reassure you and train you to better handle such confusing and uncomfortable experiences. To prove to you that you're lucid, we've left a piece of candy on the table, with this note. It'll taste like nothing you've ever tasted before. Because it's real, and you're real."

The piece of candy is placed within an anonymous white wrapper. The taste is simply beyond words; it doesn't taste like anything that's possible to make using any kind of "normal" cooking technique. But it is pleasant, vaguely, even though it's so completely alien.

The room is very... White. And sparse. And generally feels like she imagines the Day realm, all blank and clean and minimal.

She automatically reaches into her bag and puts a face mask on - even though she's clearly already inhaled a considerable quantity of magic, there's no need to let that get in the way of sensible precautions.

She sits up and reads the note.

So. On the one hand, when one wakes up in a Realm pocket with a vaguely threatening note (she is pretty sure she doesn't want to be 'trained', and 'lucid' is a very Day realm thing), one should not eat the mysterious candy.

On the other hand, she is in Zoria's maze, Zoria is a paragon of Wisdom, and Wisdom absolutely does say to eat the mysterious candy.

She loosens her mask and drops it for just long enough to pop the candy in her mouth. Then gets absolutely distracted by the alien candy flavor. This is clearly very important and not being able to describe it beyond 'vaguely pleasent' is distressing - this is a very complicated vision and it's probably very important and she's screwing it up, of course, as usual... 

A while later, someone starts talking. She can easily hear whoever it is on the other side of the door.

"Hey. I realize that this can be scary, but I want you to know that we all support you, happily. Many people have episodes like this, and you're almost certain to end up feeling fully lucid and aware. I presume you've tried the candy? You've noticed that the taste is so alien? That's exactly the point. You can't hallucinate something you've never experienced; the candy is proof that there's still a world outside you, telling you what's truly happening. Just listen, and you'll do well. If you need to talk, you're free to talk to me."

Judith is pretty sure she can hallucinate things she's never experienced; just a few days ago she was having a very vivid dream of riding and caring for a horse, after all.

And even if that was an experience from her soul, Night magic and Goosewhisper gave people novel visions all the time.

She considers not responding, but what is she going to do, just lie on the bed and expect rescue? This is getting a bit longer than the standard vision, she might have somehow been dropped through a portal...

...oh right, she should actually check about that. If she's in a realm pocket she should be able to detect the regio.

"Zoria," she begins, as that seems appropriate for her last known location, "as you identified the virtuous animals, let me identify this place. As you examined the world around you, let me examine this place. As you led your people to insights, let me see truly what is here." If she is not interrupted she will repeat this a couple of times and wave her hands through the air as if to draw some kind of mystical sigil, the whole process taking about thirty seconds, then look kind of disappointed and confused.

The voice on the other side of the door sounds slightly disappointed. "Can you tell me what that just did, dearie?"

Judith considers shutting up, but that has never been her best talent.

"Look. Can you just tell me if I'm in a tiny Day realm pocket, or still in a vision, or - at least come in and let me see you? I understand that making sense might be against incomprehensible vision rules, but I am getting quite fed up with this."

"None of those things. You're just in normal reality; not a dream, nor anything else."

The woman cautiously opens the door, looking at the woman in the room, making an apologetic face at her.

Judith has another quick look around the room. "This is clearly not anywhere in Varushka. Are you claiming I've been taken all the way to Urizen?"

"There is no part of the world named Varushka, and no part of the world named Urizen. I think it's clear you've been taken... too far for anything to make sense or be familiar for you. Please give me a minute."

She closes the door and walks away, somewhat panicked. She'll change into her PAPR system, anyway; why not think "rather safe than sorry"? And it was honestly burning a hole in her locker; it'd feel like a waste to not let it see some use.

So. That's one more point for 'inscrutable Day Heralds are attempting to mess with her head'. Certainly the women looked much more human than your usual herald, but they would do something like that for optimal confusion. Or might even be employing humans as a go between - after all, that's what she was looking for in the first place...

It could still be Night. Night can look like anything, that was the point.

She flips through some old notes in her notebook. They all seem to be there in great detail, which either is something that is just directly convincing her of that, or she's out of the vision section and in some kind of actual place, even if it is a magical one.

Is her notebook potentially dangerous information? Should she be destroying it? There are some secrets in there - and a lot of petty things about various important people that could maybe be used against them... But she doesn't want to destroy her notebook, and there's no obvious good way to do it here like a fire or something.

She could just tear out the page about Syrene.

If she was in a realm pocket, and not still in a vision, Detect Magic should have worked.

All knowledge is incomplete. Unless it is needful rest, inaction is always unvirtuous.

She gets up and tries the door. 

It's a normal door, leading to a normal corridor with a few rooms that look like the first one when seen from the outside.

She wasn't really expecting it to be unlocked!

Nevertheless. Have they left her walking stick to hand? She'll gather that up if so, and then venture boldly into the corridor, and open the nearest other door - sneaking out might provide a higher chance of success, but she'd feel bad if she didn't at least try to rescue anyone else who is also trapped here.

A man is waiting behind one of the doors, in a room that's very that clearly built like the one that had just been abandoned.

"Excuse me?", he said, slightly confused at seeing Judith.

Hmm. She hadn't actually thought through that most of the people here would have fallen for the ruse. Well, she might as well start with the straightforward pitch, there are lots of doors and only a limited time until her captor returns.

"I've come to rescue you," she declares, loudly, with as much confidence as she can muster. "This isn't reality, like they've told you - this is a trap, a place that will erode your soul. Come with me and we'll find a way out, or at least serve our souls by resisting."

"Yeah, no, that's not how this works. Souls aren't a thing; we're just people, living walking around, just like how animals do. I'm here of my own free will; I had a horrific nightmare and started becoming scared that a monster would eat me, so I asked to be sedated and taken here to re-connect with reality. I'm just taking a break to relax."

"Also, where did you even get that mask?"

"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.

The man reads it aloud to Judith, before nodding.

"It's just a diary with brief snippets. I don't see see why this would mean anything. Presumably, it was this snake herald that sent you here somehow."

"It means I did actually write things in the section I thought was a vision - you can't sensibly write things down during a vision, even if you're still in it they don't read back properly. Maybe in a true liao vision but you'd have to be acting as your past life, which I wasn't.

I still want a helicopter ride though, it sounds awesome."

She now gets in the elevator. Walking up a ridiculous number of stairs isn't going to mean any more than walking past all those streets.

It... probably is reality, or at least something significantly weirder than Ylenrith deciding to kidnap her to a research facility. But she really, really does not want to think through the implications of that right now.

"How does a helicopter work, anyway?" she asks cheerfully, hoping to get them chatting before the aura can sink its teeth in about her responsibilities. Building rapport is an important part of it, after all.

"Helicopter rides are awesome! I'm so sad that people so rarely have the ability to appreciate how amazing they are."

"To explain helicopters: a paper plane works because because when it's sent through the air, it pushes against the air below it, just like how you push against water when you swim. A helicopter works by forcing a wing to strike the air, like when you wave a fan, so quickly that it can lift itself up into the air, rather than moving the entire vehicle together with its attached wings."

The elevator is very quick; it takes well under a minute before it opens onto a rooftop with several large helicopters strewn across it. 

"These are ear-splittingly loud, so you'll have to wear ear protection to protect your hearing."

He just puts a pair of earmuffs on Judith, giddy to send her on the first helicopter ride of her life. This is probably the last gift he'll provide Judith; he wouldn't want to explain the boring money situation until she comes back again. He leads Judith to one of the seats, explaining to the pilot that somebody wanted to rent the helicopter for a brief ride, before asking Judith to sit down in one of the helicopter's impressively comfortable seats.

"Ready to see the world from the sky?", the pilot asked, using his microphone.

"Absolutely!" calls back Judith. This is an incredibly impressive contraption, like one of the League's little clockwork toys writ large, and while she has a bit of an eye on intelligence gathering it also looks like it's going to be great fun.

The helicopter starts flying directly up, giving her a view of Newton from above. The city is amazingly compact, with skyscrapers even on the outskirts. Virtually every roof is covered in greenery, and from a sufficient distance, it might give the impression of the city being acres of beautiful parks in the middle of nowhere.

"How much more do you want to see? Our range is quite spectacular, just to let you know."

"How close is the nearest other settlement? Do you have, like, farmland? Coastline? What other sizes of city are in range? Do they all look kind of like this one?"

"The closest other settlement is maybe 200 miles that-a-way; this is a really remote area that's fairly far inland, and the coastline would be barely outside my range. We have a relatively small amount of farmland, but nothing within hundreds of miles of here. We think it's cool to grow food under artificial lights, so farmland is fairly rare, but there are several relatively large farms in certain parts of the world. The biggest city in range has a million residents in it; not too big. Again, it's a really remote area. Basically every city looks quite similar to this one; it's just the way that people prefer to live. Parents' cities can look somewhat different, fewer buildings, more spaced out. But they too have these super-tall towers that people live and work in."

"Okay, let's go back then." Without any other major landmarks in range, she'd just be trying these nice people's patience in order to stall some more on having to work out what to do about all this.

It sounded like they lived a lot like the Terunael, which made sense, given their stupendous technology; she vaguely wondered if she'd end up turning a spring winder or hauling a lift rope with their other slaves once she'd stopped being an interesting curiosity.

The helicopter lands back at the hospital. The same man that led Judith to the helicopter returned, with a tense look on his face.

"Because you arrived here suddenly, you have no access to a currency account or a basic income. This means that you're in a very awkward financial situation. I have a suggestion that I recommend in the strongest terms: give me permission to make it public knowledge that someone who teleported from another world has spontaneously appeared, and wants to be paid for sharing her knowledge. Charities will gladly pay you for teaching us everything you know about the world you came from."

"In addition, you'll want to find someone trustworthy to receive the money into a currency account on your behalf, as well as to introduce you to everyday life in this world. Nurses like me are required to sign oaths of omnibenevolence, and we are generally considered highly trustworthy; I would gladly help you find housing and introduce you to this world, at least for the length of your time in quarantine. I'll be explicit that this, unlike everything you've received so far, wouldn't be a gift; I will expect the charity money you eventually receive to go towards repaying me for lodging and all other expenses. I'm quite certain that you don't have any better options, at the moment; there's little else to do without a currency account, so I again strongly recommend you find someone to be your agent who can spend your charity money on your behalf. Getting one will likely be an involved process."

Ah, here's the other shoe - this gentleman would like to own her. 

"I realise I'm not in the best negotiating position. But, if you don't mind, I'd like to see a copy of the oath, or you can recite it to me?"

That should give her a few moments to think - if they are so benevolent, they'll probably settle for spending at least a little time thrashing out a written contract?

It's a bit Freeborn to demand that, but she doesn't have the shared context to be sure that any verbal commitments she makes mean what she thinks they mean, and standard Highborn deal making is rather high on needing shared context and established systems of trust. 

"Absolutely. We don't do comprehensive contracts here in thomassia; they're seen as too vulnerable to loopholes and the inevitable complexity of the world. I'll try to get something reasonable off the top of my head. Let's see if we can get a reasonable beginning of an oath, at the very least:"

"I, Ronald, son of Augusta, shall receive the charitable donations intended for the benefit of the lady before me in her stead, and exclusively use these funds for her benefit and in her stead. I shall refuse to divert even the tiniest fraction of the money meant for her, and surrender the wealth held in her trust to her the instant doing so proves practicable, extinguishing this contract. Were it at all possible, I shall fulfill the entirety of this contract every moment it remains active."

"Does that sound like a fine contract? I can have it in writing, too; although recordings of oral contracts are generally considered superior."

"I actually meant the benevolence oath? You're considering your own access to my information your reward, right? I don't want to damage your Prosperity by - obliging you to do work without getting anything out it? If it's for the Wisdom of finding things out, or the Loyalty to your cause, that's fine.

I'm happy to, like, informally undertake to speak to people about my world for a reasonable period of time each day? As long as I don't suddenly discover that by 'reasonable' you mean, like, 'ten hours a day without breaks every day in perpetuity', or 'expected to not decline any question even if it's somebody else's secret' - this is the kind of shared assumption we just don't currently have, that I was thinking a written contract might be better at making explicit."

"My benevolence oath is 'I shall never enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor unwillingly, see every person as fully deserving of joy and happiness, and preserve the autonomy of others by my every action'."

"The contract isn't really me accessing your information; I'll just receive the payments from your work, on your behalf. That I'd gladly do for free, as a gift; it's essentially no effort on my part. There's a chance I'll charge you for doing other work, like teaching you about our world or doing some other service that might prove necessary, but I'll tell you in advance."

"Any contracts about how much you'd tell them would come later; I'll tell you now, there'll be a line of people showing up to ask you about your world for an hour or so. You won't need any kind of onerous long-term contract for that. I think it'd be best if you had somewhere to stay and for you to be somewhat settled in your life before finding out how to be paid for your unusual knowledge."

"Right. So. I can essentially - appoint you proxy for my bank account, which doesn't exist yet - by accepting your oath? What are you asking me to agree to right now, in return for your help getting me - 'settled in my life', as you put it?"

"Well, at the moment, I'm only asking you to agree to me becoming a proxy for your bank account; that I'll do just to help you, as a gift. Afterwards, I'm thinking that I'll charge rent for one of the rooms in my apartment; it would be very hard to find an apartment that the owner is willing to rent out to someone being quarantined."

"If explaining how things work would take me at least an hour, I'll probably also charge you the rate of an unskilled worked for teaching you how to navigate life in this world. I'm thinking, largely, that it'd be really interesting to hear your reactions and thoughts to how we do things here, and that it's sufficient reward for doing the trivial work of being a proxy and teaching you how to navigate everyday life."

"What happens if my earnings don't cover the rent - or the wages I owe you? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want enough context." Enough context to be sure you're not setting up a cunning ruse to enslave me, 'autonomy of others' or no, she doesn't add.

"If that happens, I'll evict you and you'll have to find another way of supporting yourself. I happen to be extremely trusting of your ability to earn enough to repay me, however, and will offer you quite a generous amount of credit."

"Can we agree that - I'll make a good faith effort, at least at the suggested level of - chatting to people, at least four hours a day, about my world, assuming you have - arranged to provide opportunity? In return you'll take payment for, services and rent and, like, food and things, out of what I make for that; administer my money, until I request you to transfer it to me; and not hold me liable for those payments if they exceed my takings, except by refusing further goods or services?" She checks things off on her fingers as she's saying this.

"Then I'm confident that I'm not going to end up in debt, you're confident I'm not going to end up in debt, everything's fine, and we can - move on to actually sorting things out?

I don't expect I'm very expensive to feed or so on, by the standards of a world that makes twenty story buildings and helicopters."

"Four hours a day is quite sufficient, yes. The terms you're proposing are a pleasant surprise on my end; the terms I had in mind weren't quite so specific or demanding on your part. And yes, I'm expecting that you won't be much of an expense on my end at all. I'm quite convinced that we both have the same expectations for what would be considered a fulfillment of our contract, and you seem interested in moving on to sorting things out, so I'll be so bold as to start sorting things out."

"My shift ended a few minutes before you arrived, so I can start showing you around now. The first thing I'd want to do, at least, is to let you at least know where you'll sleep for the night. My apartment is the type with an additional bedroom, so it'll prove an excellent place to stay. Follow me, if you would."

He specifies a relatively low number as the rent, charged daily; it's reassuring, even though Judith doesn't know enough to know just how low that rent is. Ron's apartment is only a couple of blocks from the hospital, in a building with seemingly no doors. As he approaches, however, a grey panel starts retracting into the ground, revealing another spacious elevator, perhaps 3 meters by 3 meters. It ascends lightning-quick before opening directly into a spacious living room, with no corridor or anything else between the elevator and the apartment.

"This apartment has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The larger bathroom is the one further away from the entrance. You're free to explore and ask anything about the apartment."

The living room is rectangular and stretches quite far, having a dining table easily seating 4. There's a confusing absence of a stove or oven, with only a small, rectangular box placed on a counter along one side of the living room that looks like a microscopic kitchen, with its cupboards and drawers. The walls are universally painted in inoffensive colors, whites and grays, but much of the furniture is wooden and colored in a variety of browns. There's a blank white wall, with a sofa pushed against the opposite wall. There are floor-to-ceiling windows, but the view is just of the surrounding, intimidatingly tall apartments.

Ron suggests Judith explore the apartment herself. She walks into the closer bathroom, seeing a shower alcove slightly smaller than the one in the hospital, as well as a porcelain toilet (without a chain? or toilet paper or bidet??) and a relatively wide sink only meant for 1 person. She also checks the bedroom closest to the elevator, a room with a bed barely smaller than a king-size bed. The second bedroom also has a dresser that perfectly fits against the wall, almost camouflaged against it.

Finally, she takes a look through the other bathroom and bedroom. The larger bathroom has a spacious, squarish bathtub placed in a corner, opposite a shower alcove that's slightly larger than the one in the hospital; the bathtub is deep and large enough for her to easily be submerged up to her neck when sitting down. The larger bedroom has another large bed, together with 2 quite big dressers on either side of the bed. Everything seems to be made with a frankly bizarre level of precision, and there's an extremely high level of fit and finish in everything, whenever Judith took a closer look.

Ugh. This is why she tries not to negotiate with Leaguers; she's no good at it and always digs herself into a hole.

At least this time it's probably a hole she wants, she tries to reassure herself; she wants to be introduced to a wide range of people to talk to, she needs to get her bearings as soon as possible so these poor people can stop fearing death, and dooming themselves to long stays in the Labyrinth...

The hidden door is somewhat startling! The elevators still kind of feel like going between Day chambers, but if this is a Day realm operation, it is sufficiently vast that she doesn't think she has any real chance of dealing with that, so she might as well live in the world where she actually can do some good.

"How does the door work?" is her first question; if she's living here, she's extremely keen on not getting stuck outside.

Lack of cooking facilities isn't very surprising - individual places to live, especially in cities, tend not to have them, it's a fire risk and you can just get food delivered - from the lack of food stalls, she assumes delivery food is the main model here, anyway. As she's been invited to explore, she has a look in some of the kitchen cupboards.

"Is the sink in the bathroom drinking water, or is there another place we get that from? And, uh, what's the protocol for me drinking, eating, using the toilet?" If she phrases it like a quarantine thing, then hopefully he'll explain the toilet before she has to admit she can't work out how to, uh, clean up afterwards.

Everything is ridiculously well made, but, well, twenty stories is a short building and they have flying machines.

"The door actually doesn't actually work in a particular way. It just automatically goes down whenever you stand in front of it and there isn't anyone wanting to go up. And just in case, we also have emergency stairs that can be accessed with a key; I'll give you my key, if you're worried. I've never needed to use it, because elevators are built to be spectacularly reliable."

The bottom cupboards have a garbage can and some laundry; the laundry bag is basically empty, it just has a few articles of clothing in it at the moment. Among the upper cupboards, you notice the absolute absence of food of any kind, but there is plenty of silverware, plates and a variety of items that seem to fit snugly within the rectangular cooking device on the table.

"The bathroom sink is drinking water, that's right. You're expected to have your food and drink delivered. For the toilet, just do your business and press the little grey button. It might be a bit camouflaged, but it's sort of near the top and right of the upper section. It uses sensors and things, so you don't need to hold it; it automatically uses just enough water when doing the flushing."

"I mean, I expect you won't want me, like, out of the quarantine suit, in rooms you're using?

I'd... like the key, if that's okay?" She considers asking "how do the elevators work", but she doesn't quite want to get into the whole 'finding out who they've enslaved to run all their ridiculously tall buildings' thing yet.

"I assume you've got, some kind of catalogue, and you'll order for me while I still don't have a bank account?"

The other thing that's missing, thinking about it, is - books. Pamphlets. Newspapers. Things with writing on, in general.

Maybe they just always take a shower after using the toilet. That would track with how... immaculate... everything is.

"Take my key! I'm pretty sure it'll prove unnecessary."

"Yep, until we can be sure that you're not a real risk, I'll have to insist that you keep the quarantine suit on outside of your own bedroom and the smaller bathroom. It means that you won't be officially allowed to have a proper sit-down bath for at least a week, but I'm sure you can survive just showering in the secondary bathroom."

"And speaking of catalogues - I'm just kind of stupid, I'm so used to using the phone and projector system for everything. Here, let me show you a catalogue."

Ron walks up to the couch and sits down. He says "Hello, World!" in a very deliberate tone, and an image appears on the opposite wall.

"Mr. H, please show me an old-school catalogue with a broad selection fit for someone who has arrived very recently with essentially nothing."

The wall is replaced by a catalogue full of vibrant, charming images, all of them illustrations like you'd have seen in ads included in old comics magazines.

"Now, just look around, and the catalogue will flip over the pages for you!"

Ron moves his eyes to the right side of the wall, and an animation of the catalog pages flipping begins to turn. The catalogue is full of clothing, food, furniture... it seems like it's completely random, rather than any kind of rational organization.

"I feel like actually trying to ask Mr. H is the better option, but this is probably as close as you're getting to a paper-based catalog of options. Unfortunately, catalogues are now a thing of the past. Although I can get some books ordered here, if you insist on reading things on physical paper."

"Oh, is the - magic focus, the 'phone' - that summoned help, something that - sends messages to Mr H here?

Should we work out - some kind of budget? I guess I'm not going to need much in the way of - how often does the quarantine suit need washing, I'm assuming you send away laundry too?"

"You don't need a phone for Mr. H, you can just stand near the couch to summon his help. You'll absolutely want your own phone, too, although they're very expensive and complicated, and you really won't be needing a phone as long as you have access to Mr H."

"This is a lucrative opportunity for you, you won't need to budget much, really."

"We wash all clothing, including the quarantine suit, daily. Washing clothes in need of quarantine is a pain of its own, but I'll order the necessary equipment and everything else, as well as 2 extra quarantine suits now. They'll be here by next morning, promise."  

He taps a few buttons on his phone, before nodding to himself.

"I think it might be a while, still, before people agree on the kinds of questions they'd want to ask you. If you have any questions, this is a truly excellent time to ask them; you don't have much else to do, right now."

Of course, even in the Glorious Technocracy, the laundry is still a horrible drudgery and she still has to do it.

"How do - things go, from here?

I have loads of questions about - how do people here socialise with each other, it surely can't all be apartments but all the buildings are blank so it's hard to tell what anything is, am I going to need an office to talk to people in or are they going to come here, are you handling enquiries for my time or do I need to start - taking messages and scheduling - obviously I have no idea who to send messages to - 

I guess I would like to work out what's urgent - dinner, laundry, bank account, anything I need to do to get the meetings started - and then I'd like to - is it okay to sit writing at this table? Otherwise I'll want, like, a small writing desk for the room... I should get some things down on paper, before I start to forget."

"Well, people meet on the rooftop parks, and constantly invite each other to apartments. And the thing with the buildings all looking the same, that's fixed with phones; they let you know where the clubs and bars and hair salons and everything else is."

"You don't need an office, actually. We have systems that let you participate in meetings and interviews remotely. At the moment, I'll be responsible for handling the scheduling; some of the money spent on interviewing experts does go to paying the people responsible for scheduling, actually."

"We'll have enough time to order dinner - well, we have plenty of time, really - laundry comes by quick, before another change of clothes. A bank account, however is painfully involved and is one of the few things you have to do in person, tragically enough. For slightly confusing reasons, the government sends money to every bank account regularly, so they're extremely scared of fraud."

"But if we're talking about the meetings again: the Mr H does the job of letting you see and talk to the people wanting to interview you, so that won't be a problem. I'll set everything up when the time is ready, don't worry."

"And you're absolutely free to write on any table, wherever. Getting things written down would be a brilliant idea."

"I do have some - there's a bunch of normal stuff I just can't keep down - so depending on how your food is, we might need more planning for dinner than was obvious...

Bank account is for after quarantine, then? Do you have an idea of how long the investigation will take, am I going to need to go in to see a doctor about it at some point?

Is the suit good enough for me to go to, like, a nearby park if Mr H gives me directions and I come back before I need to take it off for any reason?

I think that and a bit of practice with your - message device and vision projector? - is all I need before I sit down and start sticking knowledge on paper that might fall out of my head."

"Well, we have quite a variety of foods; it would be quite bizarre if there wasn't anything you'd be able to eat."

"The bank account would have to be after quarantine, unfortunately; they take your palm prints, and they'd insist on you keeping your gloves on unless you were cleared. 10 days is a very long quarantine; I worry that it might take as much as that, if you're unlucky."

"After 2 or 3 days, we can send in a doctor to test you for what you might be carrying. There's a chance we made you sick, as well."

"The suit is plenty good for walking around in public in! Unless you were walking around vulnerable people in the hospital, people would probably let you go anywhere, really. You just wouldn't be able to eat anything or take it off."

"We actually have a park not too far from here; just walk 2 blocks to the right, then continue left until the park shows up on your right. Once you're back, I can teach you to use the phone and projector. But the projector usually works by just asking what you want, so I'm not sure you'll really need my help there."

"I think I'll stay here for now, I just wanted to know my options if I need a change of scenery? 

Is Mr H always listening? I don't mind, I just feel a bit bad just ignoring him - does he have specific working hours?"

She suspects Mr H is a collective name for a group of servants that are always on call, but he did encourage her to ask questions.

"I usually tend to prefer the rooftop park; it feels almost magical to be under the sky, the horizon visible in the distance, no buildings to break up the view. You might think the forest is cooler, though. It's been very carefully preserved, and I think that some of the groves can be really magical."

"Mr H is always listening! He doesn't really mind being ignored, and he'll be available whenever you need him. He doesn't have any working hours, no."

Not reassuring, but rather expected.

"Okay, let me just practice and check I've got it." She turns towards the projected catalogue. "Mr H, can you suggest some possible food for dinner? I can't eat onions, tomatoes or peppers, and I especially like mushrooms and carrots."

"Certainly, there are a broad range of foods available with none of those ingredients."

The catalog turns into a big-format menu, like the one you see behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant, with many attractive options: Indian, Chinese, Thai, pizza, falafel, as well as an array of super-simple dishes, like baked potatoes, omelettes, salads and rice with a raw egg. Almost all prices are a reassuring single-digit number, with some of the meat-based dishes hitting the low teens. Quite a few of the proposed options have mushrooms or carrots as an ingredient, although it seems like a bit of an afterthought in some.

"Is there anything that you find particularly tempting?"

So. On reflection, she should absolutely have expected that. After all, this place is basically the League with an Urizen colour scheme, and the menu looks like a list of every restaurant in one of the great Leaguish cities, whilst 'rice with a raw egg' is the kind of food she'd expect from a Spire.

It is pretty obvious that she is somewhat taken aback with the huge range of foods. 

"Uh, can you recommend me something? If it is in any way spicy, it's probably no good. I'd quite like something with chicken?" She hasn't mentioned meat before because she'd had no idea what kind of Vitalists they might be here, but it looks like they eat all the normal kinds of animals.

It's ambiguous whether she is addressing Mr H or Ron.

"If you insist on things not being remotely spicy, then I can offer a spice-free take on soy sauce chicken. The taste is quite excellent, and the meat is amazingly tender. It has the aftertaste and zest of lime, and comes with a side of rice and vegetables with soy sauce pre-applied. It is generally considered the chicken dish enjoyed by the largest fraction of people."

Mr H replies, this time with the voice of a classy waiter at a fancy restaurant. Ron is obviously amused by the way Mr H speaks.

"Sounds great! Uh, hold on -" she clearly turns to Ron this time, "is it a reasonable time to have dinner? And, it might be awkward to eat sitting on the bed... I saw furniture in the catalogue, could we maybe fit a tiny desk in my room?"

She tries to recall if there was really space for a table. She's a little self conscious at leaving the poor waiter, who she's obviously been handed off to from the general servant, waiting.

There would be space for a table, but it'd be pressed against the wall and quite small. There is barely enough room between the desk and the walls for the dresser to fit in the same room as the bed.

"It's slightly early by my standards, but I'd be happy to have dinner now."

"I think that a breakfast-in-bed table might make more sense, honestly. You could fit a desk, absolutely, but there isn't much room around the bed, and it'd feel really cramped."

"Laundry is pretty magical; we're proud of being able to dress our babies in all-white clothing, because the stains clean out so well. A system of you eating, changing the bedsheets, and then changing back once the bedsheets return from quarantine-laundry would be annoying, but not untenable. Or you could just be careful about eating; most food is designed to minimize crumbs or spills, so you'd probably be able to keep everything pristine just by eating carefully."

"I'd rather eat sitting up properly - a little folding table should work, then it won't be in the way of the dresser when it's folded up?"

The idea of sending out her bedsheets for cleaning every day because she's dropped crumbs in them is too horrifying to address directly - he might be happy putting their laundry people through that, but that's the kind of thoughtless attitude towards servants she's going to need to be careful not to fall into.

"Yep, we could get something that fits. You could also use the bed as an impromptu chair, if it's a vaguely appropriate height. Just something that'd fit would be quite cheap; unless you want more time to think exactly what kind of table you want, I can order something that does the job right now, and it could arrive with the food. Sound reasonable?"

"Yes, thank you!" She smiles appreciatively at Ron. "I'm sorry I'm such a hassle, hopefully it'll get better and be worth your while once the interviews start.

Unless you can think of anything else, I'm probably going to start writing notes."

"Sure, go ahead. The food - and furniture - will arrive in 40 minutes. As much as we obsess over doing things quickly, the soy sauce chicken always takes time to get ready."

"Makes sense," she agrees, putting her new notebook and pencil on the table and taking a seat.

She draws out a couple of column dividers and labels the columns 'Religion', 'Magic', 'Geography' and leaves the last one blank.

She starts filling in the columns with short headings.

'Virtues', 'Doctrines', 'Liao', 'Paragons', 'Ceremonies', 'Exemplars', 'True Liao' go under Religion.

'Realms', 'Spells', 'Rituals', 'Regios', 'Egregores', 'Laws', 'Artisanry' go under Magic.

'Nations', 'Continents', 'Enemies', 'Foreigners', 'Trade' go under Geography - she starts writing something starting 'Lib' before 'Trade' then scribbles it out.

'Senate', 'Synod', 'Conclave', 'Military Council', 'Bourse' go under the blank column, then she goes back and adds 'Oaths', 'Hearth' and 'Materials' under 'Magic'.

Then she turns to a new page, heads it Virtues, and starts summarising the Virtues - Wisdom, Prosperity, Vigilance, Pride, Loyalty, Courage, Ambition...

Meanwhile, Ron sits down and sees a few scenes from a Battle of Cape Fear River reenactment. He thinks it's just so incredibly cool to see the pirates desperately fight on their upturned ship, as the British ships are slowly lifted and freed by the tide. It's one of the most unfair battles, but he never gets tired of seeing the pirates and Brits struggling, and failing, to get their (simulated) cannons on target.

It's the end of another reenactment and it ends in the predictable, if boring way: the British ship, lifted by the tide, ends up in a position where it can fire on the pirates with impunity, who become forced to surrender as a result. The announcer speaks:

"It's a classic finale to this battle, this awesome end to a fantastic piratical career. I never get tired of these battles, from the 'age of wooden ships and iron men', and I'm excited to see the next battle that this company elects to bring to life. This was a riveting episode of 'Muskets and Marines Battles'; see you next time!"

Of course they have gladiatorial arena battles on a huge scale, that is exactly what you do if you're Terunael.

She reminds herself sternly she is in no position to pick a fight about it, yet - it's surely going to be much more effective to inspire them with tales of the Paragons until they decide to stop for themselves.

She starts taking some rough notes while thinking about the Paragons.

Zoria for Wisdom, although actually it seems like their society has plenty of Wisdom, if a hospital staff member is confident she can live like a noble on the proceeds of answering curious questioners. Maybe they'd actually like Atun better, but not a priority.

Good Walder for Prosperity, hmm, she's going to have to recall a good Exemplar too - Good Walder makes less sense if you've moved on from being primarily farmers. Zemress, probably, there's a perpetual campaign to get her recognised as a Paragon anyway and, well, they clearly like the age of sail and trading ships even if they fly everything everywhere now.

Vardas for Vigilance - no, while there's more about Vardas to say, the Sentinel is more the kind of Vigilance she would like to teach, if they're running enough slaves for huge elevators and constantly on call servants and naval gladiators she doesn't want to emphasis fighting against Freedom.

Kethry for Pride. She guesses she's going to be taking a lot of inspiration from Kethry herself, as she's stuck here as a single representative of her culture.

The Marked for Loyalty - ugh, maybe she can just talk about Elayne Silverlark, that sounds more like it will actually provoke understanding rather than her making a lot of stuff up.

Korl for Courage, of course, she's always liked the stories of Korl, insisting on retrieving the secrets of iron even when everyone told him it was foolish. Probably save Ahraz for whoever seems like they might have abolitionist sympathies.

...and while she prefers Tian, she expects they'll find Aldones more relatable for Ambition. And it will let her explain past lives and Atuman and building on what your soul offers you.

A while later, Ron stands in front of the elevator, as the cute and charming little cargo bot shows up with the soy sauce chicken, his favorite Indian place's tandoori chicken dinner, and the box for the folding table rolling in a mini-trailer behind it. He pats the robot on the "face", the marketable dot-matrix screen responding by creating a facsimile of a pleased expression, as he takes the 2 meals and the table into the apartment. The bot makes a little chime before it disappears behind the descending elevator, likely starting on a laundry round on the return trip.

"Food's here! And the table! Want me to set up the table in your room?"

He takes the 2 boxes of food, carrying them onto the table in the living room, while leaving the box containing the folding table just in front of the elevator.

Judith looks up as the elevator arrives. Aww, they have little boggart type critters delivering things. That's at least better than human slaves doing it.

"If you don't mind," she replies; she thought briefly about insisting on doing it herself, but practical furniture assembly is not exactly her speciality. She follows him through to make sure she can see it unfold and guess how it folds away, though.

Ron walks into the bedroom for Judith, taking the table out of the box. He lifts the table up, and the hinges of the table are simply pulled down by gravity. He sets the table down, blocking the way to the dresser. The table is a bit short if she wants to eat while sitting in bed, but it's really not that bad.

Ron then pushes a clearly visible purple button, that popped out of the hinges when the legs of the table were pulled down by gravity. The table's hinges then started only going one way, letting the table fold down again as he turns the table around and gravity can only push the legs down.

Then he just extends the legs of the table again, pushing the purple button again.

"You should probably want to get a feel for how the folding table works, yourself. Basically, it uses a togglable one-way hinge that makes it so gravity can only lower or raise the legs of the table when you turn it around. It's super simple and super-stable; I think it's just such a genius solution."

'push a button' is not actually a totally normal mode of operating an object for Judith, but it makes sense if she thinks about it like a puzzle box.

She expects to have trouble lifting and inverting it, but it's more unwieldy than heavy - in fact she almost throws it the first time because of how surprisingly light it is.

"I think I've got it!

I guess if I take things from the kitchen to eat with I should wash them up in the bathroom before I bring them back out - do you have spare dish soap?"

"Actually, the safest thing would be to put them in a bag to be taken away to quarantine-cleaning, and get someone to get you new cutlery afterwards. We actually clean anything sent back to a restaurant to quarantine-grade, anyway; if you leave your cutlery and plate in the box the food came in, they'll give it a quarantine-grade cleaning."

Ron walks out and returns with the box of food with cutlery on top.

"I have to insist that you keep the door closed whenever you eat; I'd rather not have you open your mouth without a PAPR system ensuring you don't spread any germs."

"Yes, of course. Uh, it seems like the room is very - contained - won't the bad air just come out with me when I open the door again?"

"I'll use my special fans to ensure that the bad air is kept in that room."

"I think that's all, then."

She waits for him to leave and close the door, then attends to the package of food, laying it out on the table as best she can. Then she reaches up and... bother, how does this thing go on and off? It can't be that difficult...

It takes a bit of fiddling, but eventually, she finds a latch that's extremely well-hidden near the back part of the plastic contraption, that lets her release the strap pushing the plastic bit that covers her mouth and nose, and take the whole thing off.

The bedroom doesn't smell of anything whatsoever, and she doesn't feel like there's any dust or anything else in the air; it's a somewhat strange feeling. The air is extremely fresh, basically indistinguishable from being outside.

Hopefully the food smells of something still! Although she wouldn't put it past the Urizeni to 'perfect' food that was meant to be enjoyed just through texture, or something like that.

She nibbles some cautiously - so far everything points to them being scrupulously accurate in all matters, but she never quite trusts unfamiliar food any more.

The food smells really fantastic, after taking off the lid of the box; it smells sweet, and it smells rich, and it smells citrusy. It's almost like the taste of a very delightful lime lollipop, being put into smell form.

The taste of the food is stunningly delicious. The chicken is so tender, juicy and rich that it's clear that it came from no ordinary chicken, and after a few tastes, there's a really fantastic, zesty lime taste covering her tongue. The food's portion size is absolutely enormous; eating the whole thing would leave you stuffed, even if you hadn't eaten for many hours.

Judith dutifully sets out to eat all of it - she doesn't have anywhere to store it and it's not like she can share it with the whole quarantine thing, and it would be a terrible pity to waste something like this - but halfway through she has to admit that she at least needs a glass of water.

Which is in the other room... Connected outside the door... Which she has to suit back up to get to.

And there isn't anywhere to wash her hands in here, either. Ugh, she should have thought of all this. Or no, Ron should have thought it, he's the one who hasn't just been catapulted into a totally foreign country.

Either way, there's nothing for it - she wipes off her hands and mouth on a corner of the bedsheets, that being the best solution she can think of, and tries to put the thing back on.

The straps go there and there, and then they did... something... 

She manages to find the button that makes it possible to breathe in the contraption, as she gets geared up for leaving her room. A pair of electric fans, constantly blowing a breeze towards her room, greet her as she walks out and makes her way to the bathroom that's right next to her room.

So. Is there something resembling a cup or jug in here, or is she going to have to search the kitchen too?

Also she might have to see about securing a chamber pot, that is going to get very annoying in the middle of the night. Although bringing it through to empty it will also be awkward... Maybe they've got one that magically seals, that sounds like the kind of thing that is similar to the puzzle box table and this breathing apparatus in the first place.

Anyway, that is a problem for later. First, water supply - she'll want one of those by her bed in the night anyway, she often wakes up thirsty. 

There is a small, strangely heavy plastic cup, but nothing else that would be useful for drinking. There's a half-gallon glass jug in the kitchen; it's the one thing that's unexpectedly light, and it's amazingly well-balanced, as well. It gives the weird feeling of being the Platonic form of a jug, coming from the Elemental Plane of Jugs; it seems to be the goal of designers here.

Clearly they... Drink straight from jugs, here? It wouldn't be that odd, but this jug does seem designed for pouring, so clearly there's something it pours into?

She also recalls wanting a bowl to wash hands in, and tries to find a bowl or high sided plate she can carry under the water filled jug, so she doesn't have to make two trips; it's only for her, so it can be quite small. 

There are a few, barely smaller glass cups in the kitchen, but it's clear that they don't see much use.

She does manage to find a fairly spacious bowl that's useful for washing her hands. The jug fits easily within the bowl.

Excellent, that will be one small glass cup, one jug full of water, and one bowl, then. If she's very lucky she will somehow be able to reopen the door without accidentally dropping them all.

The door hinge and handle are very light; it's not hard to use the hand that's used to carry the glass of water to open the door without any worry of spilling anything.

Being used to big heavy wooden doors with similarly overwrought metal latches, Judith almost over balances due to meeting less resistance than expected, but her expedition is successful.

Unloading onto the table - this table was an excellent plan - she closes the door again to resume her food adventure. She is definitely not going to be lying down for a while, but eventually ploughs her way determinedly through it, packs up all the remains as neatly as she can (which is not very, she is neither naturally tidy nor at all dextrous), pours some water into the bowl and ceremonially washes her hands. That feels a lot better.

...now she has to work out how to move things into the floor or dresser, stow the table, and... go back out to find a quarantine bag? If they've arrived yet. 

Ron was walking towards Judith's room, holding several off-white bags with a strange pictogram on them, just as Judith opened the door. He quickly explained that Judith would want a fair few quarantine bags, as well as mesh bags to store any laundry in. He asked her how well the quarantine suit she was wearing fit, and whether she'd want to take her measurements to ensure that any clothes she ordered would fit better.

"It... seems okay? The only fiddly bit is the head straps, and those are less fiddly than my usual mask now I've got used to them. I - guess I'll need a change of, 'bodysuit', but the intake lady said it was basically okay to wear around? I don't want to cause extra hassle," by which she means extra laundry, everyone hates normal laundry and Special Quarantine Laundry must be even worse.

"Oh, and - can I get a chamber pot? I know it's pretty lazy of me, but I don't really want to be suiting up at four in the morning when I need to pee. I'm imagining you have, like, super technological sealing chamber pots to deal with the obvious problem?"

"You'll need more clothing to get into eventually, I'm pretty sure. But it's not too urgent at the moment."

"We do have special self-sealing chamber pots. We have a few different designs; I can just order one that I think will work for you, but you can try looking through our options, if you wish. It'll take a bit before it arrives, unfortunately; it's not carried in any local stores."

"You probably have a better idea what's good than I do. Uh, maybe just run the selected one by me before ordering?

I guess 'nice simple black hooded robe' is going to stand out a mile here? And nobody will even recognise Cantiarchi heraldry, let alone already have a pile of them stashed in a corner.

I should... Pack up the food box. Write more things. Digest."

"Sure. A black hooded robe would look extremely distinct and bring you quite huge amounts of attention; a simple dress would stand out much, much less."

Ron uses his phone to show a largely greyish, round chamber pot. It's tall enough to sit comfortably on, and there's an infographic showing its lid lowering and sealing the contents just seconds after its user stands up. The inside is, for some reason, white as fresh snow; the things that these people choose to make white seem like they'd be the hardest things to clean.

If Judith wants to pack up the food box and everything else, her best bet is probably making use of the space near the corners of the bed. It's the most spacious area of the bizarrely cramped bedroom.

"I suppose I could wear a simple dress. That looks fine. I'll - tidy up and have a think."

She takes the bags, closes the door, and starts to package up the food box and find a reasonable place to start a little bag pile, maybe at the bottom of the dresser.

And... Does she still have the egregore bond.

She'd contemplated this before, in - well, in the place she least liked to remember, and of course most remembered anyway - but there she'd been grimly hanging onto the certainty of it, rather than even entertaining the possibility that it had gone.

It's surprisingly hard to tell. She could probably reconstruct the Autumn ritual that would definitely tell you from first principles, but only with plenty of mana and - normally she'd study a few hagiographies, but the only hagiographies that are left are the ones in her own head.

Well, that certainly focused the mind. She finished packing up, ceremonially washed her hands again, put the gloves back on, and headed back out to the desk, to start writing down more tales of the Paragons before they fled her mind entirely.

Ron waits until breakfast before getting Judith's attention, as he sees her sleeping with her head on the living room table.

"You've managed to write so much that you lost track of time and consciousness. Right now I'm about to order breakfast, so I felt like you'd want to know that I'll be at work relatively soon. You'll probably want to order some food and get on a telepresence interview while I'm still here and can use the phone to help you out."

"The chamber pot will arrive in the evening; the elevator will open and the cargo bot will make a chime to let you know that it's here."

"Now, will you want something to eat? You don't have to eat it immediately; you can take the food out of the box and reheat it later, breakfast foods are designed to keep all day."

"Uggh." Judith is not at her most articulate as she is dragged back to wakefulness. "M'sorry? Should... Breakfast, yes."

She goes to run a hand through her hair but hits the quarantine suit straps and stops abruptly, then groans with considerable additional feeling.

"If it's fine for you, I'll order the breakfast version of soy sauce chicken, with bread in place of rice, as well as a larger side salad."

"Now, there's an org called Touch History that wants to hear about everyday life and cultural attitudes in your home country. They'll pay you about 2 months' worth of rent and food to be allowed to show the world their interview with you while it happens, but they're still willing to pay enough for 2 weeks of rent if you insist on them just writing down what you said without recording your face or voice. They're asking to hear your thoughts for 3 hours, ideally today, and they'll pay less proportionately to how much shorter your interview is. Sound fair?"

"Yes pl's", she mutters, while she is trying to work out how to respond to the rest of it.

Oh no. She has to preach to the world, for three hours, today, when she probably hasn't had much more sleep than that, while she's still in this quarantine suit...

But, as Berechiah would say, inaction is a choice, just as action is. If she just gives a recorded interview, they can twist her words.

She was just hoping to be able to get a bit more context herself, with a nice curious scholar, before being displayed in the dining rooms of the entire world.

"Can I - do it this afternoon? And is there anyone - lower-key - I can speak to first? I don't want to - be really offensive..."

They don't believe in souls, but what do they think of magic, virtue, spiritual forces, gods... She should have asked all this last night, but she thought she had plenty of time!

Also she really needs a glass of water and the loo, but she's got to get this all sorted out before he disappears to work all day.

"Yes, they're trying to accommodate you in their schedule. Name basically any hour of the day, and they'll be happy to start their interview then."

"I'm not sure what someone lower-key would mean. They'd probably find a million volunteers who'd happily hear you talk and guarantee not to tell anyone else, if you want to talk to someone less important and ensure that you won't be recorded saying anything crazy. Would that sound like something you'd like better? They'll do basically anything to accommodate you."

"Yes, that would really help!

I can probably do their interview this evening if I can talk it through with someone who - knows how people come across on things like this, and can help me not - put my foot in it?"

And she can practice her Revelation attempts on them first, and see if any of them resonate at all.

"...so, breakfast first, then I need to have a shower and so on, then I can speak to their volunteer, then I should be able to get ready for the interview.

I guess I can just ask Mr H about what clothes will arrive in time, although maybe it's good to show I'm being responsible and wearing a quarantine suit."

"Yep, those proposals absolutely make sense. If you sit down in front of Mr H, he can probably get you connected to one of the volunteers whenever you want to get ready for the interview. The volunteers will basically be ready all day; just tell him you want to talk to a volunteer and get ready for an interview, and Mr H will hook you right up."

"It'd probably be more theatrical for you to wear something historical; you wouldn't need to show that you're wearing a quarantine suit, they'd expect you to wear one under your other clothes anyway. I'll order our breakfasts and tell them that you'll want to talk to some people in private, to be more prepared for the interview."

"Yes, ideally I'd want my actual Chapter tabard, white with a white horse on a red shield, but I don't imagine local stores would have that in stock, if hooded robes are unusual. And a hood would be appropriate. But I should talk this through with Mr H, who can actually look up and order me something?"

"Yep, Mr H is quite excellent at looking things up. I'll ask him right now."

"Mr H, do you have any recommendations for somewhat historically inspired women's outfits or tabards for Judith here?"

The wall of the living room gets covered in what looks like a storefront, displaying various kinds of dresses. They're fairly modest and undecorated, and there's a variety of tabards with swords, shields and unicorns, but nothing that looks close to Judith's Chapter tabard. There is a small sign advertising tailoring services, with the names and specializations of various local tailors, on the "window" of the wall.

"Are there - fast tailoring services? If they've got a horse template for the cut out, a normal white tabard and a bit of red felt, it should be possible to combine them in time, but I don't know how backed up they get?

I know Hannaniah could knock one out in half an hour but she had a lot of practice.

And, uh, ideally a black hooded robe goes under it. Could use a separate hood if attached ones aren't usually in stock, as long as it goes up and down easily."

"Well, actually making the clothes goes by at amazing speeds; tailors do most of their work in picking out the clothes and making them fit. Calling some no-name tailor, asking for a design, getting rough measurements... I think we can get it done within 30 minutes; getting the black hooded robe as well won't be any extra work."

It can't have been more than 3 minutes since Ron ordered the food, when the elevator opens and another delivery bot shows up in it, carrying 2 squared off metal boxes of food.

"If you're willing to pay a tiny bit extra, there are restaurants making food continuously for their breakfast menu, so it's always ready. If you need anything else, just tell me while I'm having my breakfast."

Ron walks off with the box, sitting down by the living room table. Breakfast and dinner both come in quite gigantic portions, here, so it'll take Ron a while to eat the food.

"If it's only going to take half an hour, I might just ask Mr H to talk me through it when I've had a chance to talk to the volunteer..."

The sight of Ron eating reminded her that she definitely had some physical requirements.

"...excuse me," she mumbles, then gets up extremely gingerly and hobbles carefully and determinedly towards her bathroom.

The quarantine suit is very quick to get off, thankfully. The toilet is relatively low, but it's still perfectly usable, and it's reassuringly comfortable. It actually vibrates ever so slightly, massaging Judith just the tiniest bit as she sits down on it. It just works, without anything unusual or surprising happening.

Ahh, that's better.

...why is it moving. Is she heavier than it is designed for? No, it's just... doing something. Judith is not sure she approves, but it's not like she can do anything about it mid stream.

And. Uh. She never did get to the bottom of the toilet paper thing. Whoops.

Oh well, she'll just shake off, then hop in the shower and plan to mop any drips up later. She moves to start doing this...

The toilet sends a perfectly aimed thin stream of water that's just barely warm enough to be pleasant, leaving Judith squeaky clean, before a wave of warm air begins quickly drying her off, as she starts standing up. It'll take a few seconds for the wave of air to remove every last drop on her body, such that if Judith stood up quickly, there'd be a few drops from the retractable, snake-like bidet that haven't fully dried off yet.

Judith certainly stands up quickly with an undignified yelp when the toilet - attacks her? Has a plumbing malfunction?

She immediately reaches again for toilet paper that isn't there, her instinct being that some kind of horrible sewage splash has happened.

But she's not at Anvil, the toilet doesn't have weird burny alchemy in it to keep the festival goers from spreading diseases to each other, and everything seems quite - clean?

Eyeing the toilet suspiciously now, she dutifully presses the grey button.

The grey button causes the toilet lid to lower itself slowly, before Judith hears the sound of the toilet flushing, and the lid makes its way back up again.

That's quite a neat trick, although she supposes she should be getting used to this habit of objects being surprisingly convenient.

She looks at the shower briefly, but actually she's not sure she wants to deal with any more surprises right now, and she's never been very fond of showers even when she knows exactly what they will do. This one probably plays a soothing little tune like a Leaguish music box and sprays her with gentle perfume, or something.

At least washing her hands works about the same as always; she enjoys the luxury of doing it under running water rather than having to fill a bowl and keep using it, she's sure they can afford it with all these other contrivances.

Eventually she can't keep putting it off without actually having to investigate the shower and she reluctantly gets back in quarantine suit. It's nowhere near as uncomfortable as it looks, it's just... Wrong.

Clearly she does have at least some effects from the egregore bond still.

There was rather a lot of dinner and when she inspects it there is indeed rather a lot of breakfast - she's not sure how these people aren't all entirely spherical, if this is how they eat all the time and they don't even have to climb the stairs.

"I'm going to go have breakfast, I'll just ask Mr H anything else?" she says. The jug of water and glass should still be in her room from last night, and she really needs to drink a lot of water right now, even if she's not all that hungry yet.

"Yep, Mr H will answer just about any question you might have. Especially those that might be uncomfortable to ask a someone right in front of you! It can often be tough to ask what you really want to ask, especially if you're not already close with someone."

Judith is not really listening, none of that sounded urgent so she is going to take her breakfast to her room, stick it on the bed for now, drain the jug of water and set up the table again to pick at the unreasonably delicious food.

She is definitely just making sure she is properly fed and watered and not at all procrastinating, yes.

Before she can plough through the whole breakfast she has to get back in the suit properly to head to the bathroom and answer a further call of nature. This time she is slightly more prepared when she lifts her weight slightly off the seat and lets it do what it wants, although the whole thing is still remarkably unnerving.

And she didn't have the presence of mind to bring the jug with her, so that's another trip to refill it.

Eventually, Ron finishes his dinner. "I'm going off to work now. Ideally, I'll be at work for the next 8 hours. You seem like you'd err on the side of caution, so I'm trusting you to use Mr. H and know how to handle the situation with the interviews and tabard. Shout at me if there's something you have to urgently know before I walk out."

Ron prepares to take the elevator down and go to his job at the hospital. 

Judith nods distractedly, intent on her tasks.

When she's had another jug of water and really all she wants of breakfast, she succumbs to the temptation to have a nice lie down, just while she thinks through what to say to the volunteer.

Some time later, she startles awake, takes in her surroundings, groans gently about it not all being a very complicated dream.

Abandoning the table and the sad remains of breakfast, she fumbles the face parts of the suit back into place and stumbles out to the main room.

"Hey Mr H," she says, feeling somewhat self conscious, "can you find me a volunteer that's happy to have a chat and not repeat any of it unless I say they can?

And, uh, what time is it?"

"It's presently 11 AM. I'll choose the friendliest of the many volunteers willing to maintain confidentiality; I'll show him in in full size now."

A harmless seeming nerd appears on the wall with the projector, poorly hiding his excitement at being able to interview Judith.

"I'll happily keep everything you tell me secret. I'd like to help you prepare, by asking one question that I'm sure the Touch History guys will also ask: name one dish from your world that's an unaffordable luxury for the vast majority, and explain as much as you know about how it's prepared."

"Oh. Uh, hi? Um. I don't really know... the League has a lot of fancy food... I suppose almost everything is an unaffordable luxury if you, like, include all the countries that aren't the Empire? I am - not a good cook..."

Judith is very glad she did not end up straight in with this question in front of the whole world, she is absolutely making a terrible fool of herself.

"I was hoping to ask about, uh, like, things I shouldn't mention? And, I know a lot of you don't believe in souls, but I really do want to try my best to explain how you can actually see them - I don't really know where to start there though, I was hoping you might help with that too..."

The history nerd looks at Judith quizzically when she claims that "almost everything" is an unaffordable luxury. Would that even be possible without everyone starving and being too dead for the question to make sense?

"It's really hard to think of things that wouldn't be accepted to mention if prompted, let alone considering the leeway provided to someone from a clearly foreign culture... We have no sex, death, reproduction, human waste, or incest taboo. I wouldn't be worried, in general. Even if you say something people don't like, the Touch History guys will find that interesting in itself."

"Wow, you believe that there's a way of seeing souls! The Touch History guys are gonna be over the moon! Can you tell me this method? This is way cooler than trying to deduce things from people's attitudes to food."

"Unfortunately it relies on a substance I don't know how to synthesise myself," admits Judith. "It starts with the sap of a particular vine - I don't suppose you have a vine that exudes milky white sap which causes dreamless sleep? The attachment of the soul is the seat of dreams - if you perturb it, you cut someone off from the ability to dream - and with sufficient refinement, you can obtain a substance that focuses the human spirit sufficiently to do other things to the soul. To see its state, and to mark it with words, and to align it to a Virtue - and to align things and places likewise...

And if you refine it well enough, you can die and yet not pass on, and see the lives your soul once lived. But that took an awful lot of dangerous experimentation to derive in the first place, I guess it'll be a long time before we can get there."

Where to start, with someone who never had liao, or at least not for religious purposes...

"Do you have ghosts? One of the other things that we do with it is cause restless spirits to pass on - if you have something you already use for that, it might be close to the right thing. Unless it's just bells, obviously they help and sometimes they'll do the job on their own."

The history nerd listens, slightly uncomfortable and stunned.

"I don't know about any such vine, maybe it doesn't exist on this planet? And no, we don't have ghosts. We thought we did, but double-checking reveals that we made a mistake in thinking that."

Sufficient precision of observation and generally promulgating the belief in not leaving ghosts probably would be effective, she guesses, especially if they don't have the kind of major wars and atrocities that tend to leave ghosts.

"If it doesn't, it's going to be rather more difficult to find a substance that produces the correct effect, I'm afraid.

It's also possible to produce some of the effects without it - but only for sufficiently Virtuous people, and if you haven't been pushing your souls in that direction, you might not have any yet.

Do you have any concept of - spiritual forces?"

Ugh, which of those are most like the normal meaning of the word.

For that matter, why do these people even speak Imperial?

Maybe this really is ancient Teruneal. Maybe she has travelled back in time.

"Like, if someone was very - Courageous - do they leave behind a trace of it on objects that were relevant to their acts?"

"Spiritual forces? It sounds like another thing we checked and found nonexistent."

"Nope, courageous people don't have any trace left on objects they used. Things owned and used by courageous people have their own charm, but they don't any real trace in the things they used."

"Right."

Ugh. This is going to be difficult. They're clearly... Prosperous, right? There... certainly were paragons before the Way... but without liao, how do you tell?

"Without liao, it's very hard to tell what's going on. Even the ancient Paragons didn't - they didn't leave any writings that other people could understand about what they were doing. As far as we know."

Phew. Didn't quite denigrate the Paragons to the poor innocent soul in front of her.

"It was only when we refined liao and could interact with souls directly that we managed to derive - well, we call it the Revelation, but it took a lot of careful experimentation over many years to get to the point where it was obvious enough for people to change their way of life.

Spiritual forces are - the driving forces behind human behaviour? We split them into the True Virtues - Courage, Prosperity, Wisdom, Vigilance, Loyalty, Ambition, Pride - and False Virtues - Anarchy, Vengeance... Fate, Apathy, Fear, Hatred. Each of these can leave their mark on places, objects and souls."

The history nerd listens closely. He doesn't hide is utter lack of faith in anything Judith is saying, as he takes notes while remaining quiet.

"I can tell it is going to be difficult to explain this without some kind of demonstration. And without liao... Manufacturing ghosts is highly unethical..." 

It's clear she's not sparking any kind of inspiration here. Why couldn't she have been a priest with a bag full of liao?

"Essentially I want to - not come across as an ignorant spectacle, so I haven't accidentally prejudiced people against the Way of Virtue before I have the chance to - at least attempt to research ways of accessing the mental state required to create auras, view and affect the soul."

"So mental states are important for your supernatural experiences? We love hearing about mental states and supernatural experiences! Do you have some technique? Do you need any kind of equipment? We can get you meditation pillows and mats, or beads and instruments. We're really interested in hearing about any visualization techniques you're using!"

"Yes - what liao does is shortcut the process of getting into the correct mental state to manifest auras.

I would love to try some of your technologies for this - it's possible to reach that state without liao, but very rare, and I don't have any formal training in even the techniques for using liao - I have seen it done, and some of the underlying principles are the same as I use for magic, but...

You don't have magic either, do you? I tried to detect magic once and the area was entirely dead, I've never felt anything quite like it, like when all the birds go silent?

I didn't sleep very well so I'm not sure if that's why I didn't regain mana or if I just... Won't. Not that I can do anything impressive without mana crystals, and if your whole world is as magically dead as the hospital was, I suppose we're not making any..."

"Well, we've been quite sure about the nonexistence of magic for many years now. But for all we know, it could exist somewhere, we just haven't realized it was magical. I'm sure someone'll sponsor sending you a trip all over the place to find if you're able to detect magic! This could be incredibly important."

"...probably not as important as figuring out your reincarnation situation - or maybe you do all fall into the Abyss like orcs who don't fight, I don't have any way of telling from here, I suppose!

But yes, the unique thing about the human spirit is that it can spontaneously create auras under the right circumstances, but those circumstances involve being really intensely Virtuous - if your world is mostly tamed, that might be significantly more difficult, the very few that do it without training tend to do so in situations of extreme adversity. I wish I could say 'right, I'll just become a Paragon then' but I am not, actually, even sufficiently good at Pride to think that is likely to happen. I think the best approach there is probably to - relate the tales of the Paragons and Exemplars and the Virtues to some of your people who are already very good at either going out and doing things or intentionally inducing unusually intense states of mind in themselves, and see if we can get anywhere like that.

Which won't work if you do have different souls - or no souls at all, I suppose, although I'd be very surprised. I did initially think you might all be Heralds - magical creatures that can do most of the things ensouled beings can, but are made of magic instead of animated by a soul - but unless I have transited bodily into the Realms..."

Oh. That is. That is not a great thought. It is perfectly consistent with everything that this is a particularly bizarre corner of the Day or Autumn Realm, especially Day, somewhere artificially maintained with a dead magical signature. Or that she lost her skills when - when she became a copy - a Herald - a creature without a soul...

To the volunteer, it looks like she has been struck by some kind of horrific realisation and just... stopped.

The volunteer barely reacts, expecting that Judith would make it clear if she needed to be comforted or reassured in any way.

"Hmm. I don't think we have human spirits, unfortunately. Spontaneously creating auras sounds fantastic! We'll tell some particularly skilled meditators about some promising new techniques. They might be able to glean something from learning about Paragons and Exemplars."

We sure don't have any magical abilities, and we're quite sure we don't have souls either, miss. It sounds like there's something scary about being transited to the Realms? Speaking purely hypothetically, of course, what would be the downsides or issues if that were to happen to you?"

"My soul wouldn't be able to follow me," Judith replies, slowly and dully. "I would just be - a creature of magic and matter, like the Heralds. There... there would be no reincarnation that I was a part of."

"What's kind of the worst-case scenario, then? What are you missing because your soul isn't following you here?"

"A future," replies Judith, somewhat despairingly. "The possibility of paragonhood. The ability to... imprint Virtue on the world.

I'm not really sure what the point of doing things is, without a soul. Eternals do things because they're bound to their nature and Heralds because they're bound to their originator - or the Realm itself I guess.

I don't think it really helps them, though, they just can't help themselves."

"Paragonhood and imprinting virtue sounds interesting. But this thing about the point of doing things... I mean, why would having a soul make it so there becomes a point to doing things? It sounds like the sort of thing that you can't... do by putting in elbow grease and moving things around, if you get my point? Don't you just do things because, you have a desire to do them coming from somewhere?"

"It's - a virtuous circle. You want to do things because your soul prompts you, and it's worth doing things because it improves your soul.

I - without one - don't really want to do things? Other than, you know, needing to maintain a body."

Judith helpfully begins to attribute the yawning void of motivation within her to a potential lack of soul rather than to the lack of good sleep and general upset of being thrown into an unfamiliar world.

"Well, we don't have souls, and we still want to do things. Maybe you'll find out that you won't need a soul to have wants after all?"

"I guess.. I'd eventually become native to the Realm. Do your - bodies wear out, though? I think it varies a lot with Heralds..."

"Yes, we do age. Although we try our best to slow it down, and we try keeping our bodies as perfect as possible once we feel like we've aged enough that aging any more would probably cause irreversible damage."

"So - that's it.

I'm on a deadline and I don't even know - what for.

And... I can't actually tell if you're just lying to me to increase cooperation. Because I don't have any liao and I never did learn to Insight anyway."

Ugh, this conversation is falling into a horrible well of self pity. Judith decides she does, in fact, have at least momentary preferences and one of them is Not That.

"What sort of things do people try to do here? And, uh, I guess I'm meant to be preparing for a worldwide projected communication, so, what are people interested in? Other than, uh, food prep, which I am still bad at."

Maybe she can at least work out if she's in a Day or Autumn situation, and how to impress the local Eternal and get in on that life extension.

"Well, people try inventing things that improve everyone's life? Or have fun exploring forests and mountains? Or like racing cars? Or just meet people? And they're interested in everyday life in foreign cultures, basically anything you say would be interesting to them."

Sounds like Day. Or it's presenting itself as Day to extract value from her, but they seem to be generous so far.

Judith chats through a few of the things that might happen at the broadcast interview so she can avoid looking stupid, and then thanks the volunteer for their time and arranges lunch and costuming with Mr H.

Mr H can get Judith one of the near-endless available food options ready for lunch. Ron takes Judith's measurements, and has a different robot arrive with a tabard and cloak for Judith to have on over her quarantine suit, meaning that she'd look appropriately theatrical for the broadcasted interview. Eventually, the projector displays a famous TV show host, with an audience of several anthropologists and historians, mentioned by name but not shown on screen.

"Hi, curious seekers! I've been introduced to the most fascinating interview subject I've had in the history of this show, a woman who by all accounts came here from a different dimension. Please let her introduce herself, to a warm welcome!"

Judith then becomes visible on the screen, with her head next to that of the TV show host and a few credible-looking academic types.

Judith puts on her best Enthusiastically Addressing Conclave voice, as that's her closest reference point.

"Hello, everyone!

I'm Judith of Cantiarch's Hold, and I met a giant snake in the Maze of Zoria which brought me here. It's not entirely clear where 'here' is, or which parts of me we brought along, but I imagine we'll get onto that later."

"Yes, let's." The show host tries to remain unaffected and neutral, but is put off-balance by Judith's words.

"Cantiarch's Hold sounds like a fascinating place. Did you grow up there?"

Oops, that was apparently not what they were after. Oh well, if they're really Day they'll live with it and if they're Autumn they deserve it.

"Yes, although the Hold is actually spread across several geographical locations. I grew up in Cantiarch Minor, the holding in Reikos - I realise that isn't going to mean much to your viewers, a separate territory some miles away that was overrun by enemies a few years back. I also kept our Waystation in Bastion - that's basically an inn for pilgrims - for a while. And the main Hold is based in Casinea, which is the original place that the Cantiarch held against the Patricians..."

She's rambling again, isn't she? Oh well, if they didn't want a fluent history lesson they shouldn't ask a Highborn about her Chapterhouse.

"Yup, thanks for the info. We're happy to have a bunch of place names for the moment. But you kept what you called basically an inn for pilgrims. What was that like? What were your responsibilities? What pilgrimage were these waystations used for?"

"Bastion is the heart of the Imperial faith - so much so, that it's one of the recognised signs of the Paragon - that's someone who truly understands the spiritual world and can perform miracles - to take a pilgrimage there.

Obviously that makes pilgrimages quite popular! The Waystation of the Cantiarch is a fairly mid-range hostel, it's designed not to be too imposing or expensive so that more people can access pilgrimage, although it isn't a sleep-on-the-floor Navarr wayhouse.

I enjoyed seeing all the pilgrims come and go, hearing their stories, helping them out with practical matters. As keeper of the Waystation it was essentially my job to make sure everything kept running - we had staff to do the day to day making of beds and sweeping of hallways, and an excellent kitchen staff for food, but it was my job to hear complaints, hire people, fill in when someone couldn't do their job, and generally keep the pilgrims happy and have them speak highly of the place.

I'd often spend the day pointing out the sights of Bastion on the maps that we kept, answering questions about their significance, but just as often I'd be urgently trying to get more toilet paper, or taking sheets back to the washing house and making sure they got the stains out this time."

"Wow, sounds excellent. So, you mentioned how Navarr wayhouse is a sleep-on-the-floor place. That must be because the pilgrimages really matter! What are they for, what do they mean? What makes them important?"

"People undertake them for a lot of different reasons. Mostly the idea is that you do something moderately difficult, get out of the place you were in, and contemplate the Virtues in suitably inspiring surroundings.

They're for making a change, getting direction in your life, giving you space to listen to the promptings of your soul.

They're important because it's very easy to just learn what you're told at home, to not contemplate other ways of being, but one of the Virtues is Wisdom - that you should test what you learn, that you should seek out the right question - for a reason, and all of them benefit from a little bit of perspective on your home life.

It's generally considered a bad idea to live too long in Bastion itself, either - because you'll get inured to the wonderful buildings and teaching and that too will become stagnant, rather than inspirational."

"Wow, sounds like something we should try more of ourselves! Really helps get you out of the everyday rhythm, huh.

You mentioned Wisdom as one virtue. We'd like to know what the others are; they sound like they could be a very useful idea to know about and think about."

"Courage, Wisdom, Ambition, Pride, Vigilance, Prosperity, Loyalty - in no particular order, they're each as important as the other.

Courage is - facing unwelcome truths, but once you believe you are right, sticking to your convictions. One of the most famous Paragons of Courage is Korl, who brought the secret of steelworking to his people - they didn't think it was worth the effort, or that it could possibly work, but he persevered and proved them wrong.

Wisdom is - knowing all knowledge is incomplete, but applying what you know anyway. Never being satisfied with the easy answer, but also not being distracted by pontificating - a famous saying of Wisdom is, never use fourty words when four will do. Kala is a Paragon of Wisdom - she brought standardised weights and measures to her people, by not being satisfied with the incomplete solutions people were using beforehand.

Ambition is - knowing what you want, and paying any price to get it. Reaching beyond your grasp. Aldones di Sarvos is a Paragon of Ambition - he united a fractious group of city-states, by absolutely refusing to take no for an answer.

Pride is - knowing what is valuable about you, knowing you are valuable, and your culture is valuable, and refusing to let people take from you those things that nobody can take from you unless you give them up. Kethry is a Paragon of Pride - she maintained the customs of her tribe when they were conquered, so fiercely that when the warriors came back to their own tribe-mates from their next conquest, their tribe had adopted Kethry's customs, rather than forcing her to take on theirs.

Vigilance is facing and eliminating threats - knowing what you value and continually seeking how to protect it. Berechiah is a Paragon of Vigilance - he was a great spymaster for the Empire and famously wrote about how the consequences of action were more often noticed than the consequences of inaction, but the latter were often a greater threat.

Prosperity is - things should not go unused, you should not go unused, but also, your work should be rewarded, and if it is not then find someone who will value you instead. Prosperity is the drive to be useful, and to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Good Walder is a Paragon of Prosperity; he would roam the Marches taking on farm work, and driving greedy or wasteful employers off their land with his cudgel if they cheated him.

Loyalty is knowing your own heart, and being wholehearted in your commitments to others. Often people try to invoke it to compel people to do what they want, but that is not Loyalty - true Loyalty comes from within and can only be given freely. Cora Holdfast is a Paragon of Loyalty - she founded the Anvil Hospital, despite having no official authority, because of the Loyalty she inspired in others."

"Wow, those are some really beautiful, interesting values. That last thing you mentioned, the Anvil Hospital. Could you tell us more about what that's like? What sorts of treatments and medicines and equipment did they have?"

"Well, it's a field hospital - Anvil is a temporary settlement that comes together four times per year to deal with matters of government, and to take advantage of conjunctions of the Sentinel Gate that allow people to travel to far flung areas that need help.

Before the Anvil Hospital, those who were wounded on those quests had to rely on independent medics, or their own nation's healing arrangements, which was incredibly inefficient.

It's fundamentally just a big tent with some makeshift beds, but it is staffed by physicks of all nations; each nation has a representative on the hospital council, and the Loyalty of everyone who benefits from it moves them to donate supplies.

Tools and equipment vary a lot from physick to physick - there are some standard curatives, bandages and soaps and leeches - but before you all recoil in horror, the most important medicines they wield are magical herbs, which close wounds with rapid healing, knit bones and tendons back together, remove poisons and imbalances from the body's fluids, and suppress the effects of injuries so casualties can make it home.

Much of a physicks' work is setting up the right conditions for that magical healing - it's a bit of a blunt instrument, it will heal whatever's there in place, so complicated fractures must be properly set first and foreign bodies removed from the wound and so on.

There are more impressive houses of healing in the cities and so on, but the miracle of Anvil Hospital is that it exists at all, in a place that cannot be built on by law, and where there is a lot of political mistrust between the disparate people that come together there."

"Who's stopping people from building thing there? Wouldn't the countries try to find a way to make something more permanent? And I'm honestly not understanding how it's helping people "on quests", wouldn't the hospital be too far away from them?"

"Nobody gets to build on Anvil because, frankly, it would be an enormous argument that would probably come to blows.

It's the site where the First Empress met with the leaders of the nations that formed the Empire, which makes it significant enough that people can agree to meet there for international government. If people were allowed to build on it there would be endless wrangling about who got to build on it and how the land was allocated to the different nations and, well, it's now tradition that this doesn't happen.

It's also the site of the Imperial Regio - a place of magical power that is connected to all the territories of the Empire, and all the realms of magic - and that powers the Sentinel Gate - a piece of Urizeni artifice which allows people to travel long distances instantaneously, so long as the stars are right for the journey.

It's through this Gate that people go out on quests, and come back wounded."

"And you're not 100% sure about what wounds them on their quests? I was thinking that eventually you'd get rid of dangers and fewer people would get wounded, right, but maybe not? And we kind of have a bit too little context, here. Can you tell us more about the Urizeni?"

"Oh, no, it's usually fighting. The Empire is a much more dangerous place than here. There are multiple nations actively at war with us, bandits in the countryside, living terrain that wants to eat you, and magical experiments that run amok. In my lifetime we've managed to make peace with some of our neighbours, but only one seems to be lasting.

The Urizeni are one of the nations of the Empire - there are ten - Highguard, the Brass Coast, the Marches, Dawn, Varushka, Navarr, the League, Urizen, and the Imperial Orcs. Uh, I've missed one... Wintermark.

Urizen is a mountainous place, mostly, where it isn't jungle; the people live in Spires, for the most part, big isolated structures many of which are very old indeed, and not all built to human scale. They're known for their magical aptitude - there's magic that only works in their mountains, like the ushabti, who are magical servitors - and they were the last human nation to join the Empire. When they did decide to join, they brought the Sentinel Gate, which they had been powering off a rather sinister plateau of magical obsidian called the Black Plateau.

I'm sorry, that's probably given you more questions than answers?"

"We're happy with your answer; we kind of like the mystery and seeing enough to see how much there is to the picture. Wow, ancient structures. It's really impressive that they managed to build those all those years ago!"

"It's actually likely that the really impressive Spires were built by a previous civilisation - possibly a completely different species, given they are built rather large for the current inhabitants.

There are plenty of impressive ancient buildings throughout the Empire though - the Sentinel is a Paragon of Vigilance known for constructing the great watch towers and fortifications throughout my home country, and the ruins of Terunael - who are kind of the precursors to the Navarr - are even older.

Nothing like the enormous tower I'm in right now, though. The architects of the League, who build our most densely packed cities, would faint with envy."

"Wow, glad to hear those compliments! The densely packed cities sound interesting. How much do you know about them? How are they built differently?"

"I've visited, but never lived there. They each have their character; Temeschwar is a little more rambling and less insistent on admitting natural light, which makes sense for its long hard winters; Sarvos strives to be elegant, although their habit of building on top of each other in several layers makes it difficult for them, their walls may be smooth but they're no Grand Basilica; Tassato clings to its river, getting taller as it gets nearer the water line either side, as each side of the river tries to outdo the other, but no two buildings can agree on a style; and Holberg is rather constrained by its huge walls, which withstood years of siege, and is a warren to rival Temeschwar's worst excesses, it's hardly clear what is a street and what is a corridor through most of it."

"We've spent tons of time learning about how people used to deal with density before they had our tech. It's going to be great hearing more from you about it all! You seem like the pilgrim type. Have you gone on a pilgrimage? What are the steps, and have you had any interesting experiences?"

"...so, I did go on a pilgrimage to Bastion as a teenager, it's basically what everyone from where I'm from does.

And that was rather a problem, because a good pilgrimage is not just following along with what everyone else does. So it was more of a sightseeing holiday than a true pilgrimage, I think.

Usually the steps are - figure out a specific location you feel a deep connection to, but have never visited - the Grand Basilica is a popular default, but probably if I wanted to do it properly I'd go to, I don't know, Empress Giselle's tomb, or Britta's Pool, or something.

Talk to your local priest about what you want out of your pilgrimage. Sort out the practical arrangements - it's easier to go with a big group but I sometimes think that defeats the point - generally you'll need to save up a bit to cover expenses unless you're really quite well off, or prepared to work your journey.

Then - just go. A little planning for the necessities is Vigilant but too much planning is unWise - the whole point is you don't actually know what you're going to find there.

...I think the most pilgrimage like thing I've done is really going to Anvil - in particular, going to the Hall of Worlds for Conclave. I didn't know what to expect, I felt a great sense of awe and wonder, and I found things out about myself."

"I'm sure that there's a huge amount you have to tell us about your world! But those are the questions we have time for for today. So, miss Judith, wave goodbye to everyone watching at home. This has been an incredibly fascinating interview! We're hoping to hear more from you next time!" Eventually, the credits begin rolling over the show host and people in the background starting to make their ways off stage, before everything fades into darkness. Ron waves at Judith before starting to talk to her.

"So, the payment you just got is quite enormous. This will tide you over until after you're on basic income, many times over. You don't owe anyone anything at all, now. Although you still kind of need me in order to use the money."

"Oh, good," says Judith, vaguely. 

She is feeling rather disorientated. 

"So. Uh. I... don't really know what I should be doing. I mean. People clearly value that? I could do it again? But. I still feel - a bit lost. I don't think I'm going to convert everyone to my religion and I'm not sure it's even applicable to you. Or - me, any more."

"You were trying to convert people? I barely noticed! Well, there are, in the end, only 2 things you can be doing: helping others or enjoying yourself. It doesn't sound like helping others is quite on the table for you, if you don't know what you should be doing. That leaves enjoying yourself. Find something fun, it could only help!"

This does not seem to have made Judith any less unhappy. 

"...I, uh. I don't - actually know how to enjoy myself?

Like, of course I enjoy things, but mostly - I enjoy discovering things, knowing useful things and being able to tell people about them?

And - there are so many new things here - I don't know where to start."

"What are some worse ways to start than a walk in the park, seeing the trees, meeting some people, taking your mind off things? At some point, you have to stop telling yourself you don't know and start finding out something, anything. I think ruminating on what you don't know is one thing worse than a walk in the park, at least."

"...sure. Let's go to a park."

"Wait one moment, because this is extremely important." Ron over to his room, before coming back with a brownish, rectangular shape. "The mask on your face isn't designed to have you breathing by yourself. It's designed to use a special machine that pushes air over your face, so it does the breathing instead of you. But that machine needs energy, and that energy comes from this. Now, I think you should hold your breath; it's hard to breathe when you don't have the fresh air blown on your face." It takes maybe a minute or a minute and a half to replace the batteries in Judith's PAPR mask, during which time it makes breathing quite uncomfortable.

Judith submits to what is clearly some kind of Physick Fiddling With Things, although she is not good at holding her breath and ends up gasping and coughing a bit.

"Sorry about that. Strictly speaking, it wasn't necessary; you still had batteries for few hours more. But, uh. I think you should have a very, very good margin for error. Now, how about we start heading off? It's within comfortable walking distance. Although you might want to experience a car; I'd want to see your reaction to it, at least."

"I'm pretty curious about the car now," replies Judith, "the helicopter was, pretty great actually, I wish I'd been less nervous."

"Sure, I'll get a car ready for once we get down." Ron leads Judith into the elevator, tapping a few times on his phone. When the duo heads outside, a huge car, tall enough for a short person to stand inside and long enough for 3 rows of seats with decadent legroom, is waiting for them. The sliding doors reveal the seats, and Ron makes his way to the middle row, motioning for Judith to sit on the rear row.

"Extremely unnecessary, but I still think they're stupidly fun."

"...does this normally take more people?" she asks, climbing in the back of the contraption, which she guesses is a bit like a wagon, but more like an entire room on wheels for some reason.

"About half the time. The other half it just carries one person. So they don't have to put their legs together and have lots of room for all their stuff and can shift positions without bumping into anyone else. It's mostly a symbolic gesture, really."

While all the fancy buildings and medical technology and flying had been a clue, Judith had not yet really appreciated just how incredibly wealthy this society was until this moment.

She gently runs her hand over the material of the seat, wondering if it feels even more luxurious without the quarantine gloves.

"Feels nice to have room, eh?" Ron ostentatiously puts his arms to the side, showing off how he can sit in any way he wants without worrying about intruding on the space of anyone next to him, as they finish the (rather short) trip to the nearest park.

After getting to the park, Judith can immediately see a group of boys and girls wearing white skirts, climbing in squat trees with many wide branches that make them easy to climb.

An entire room that just - moves. At least the helicopter had some kind of sycamore-seed arrangement on top that made sense...

At least the park has some nice normal things, like grass, and trees, and kids who are going to get grass stains on their nice white skirts.

"Is there some kind of - protocol, for meeting people at a park? I'm sure everyone will be gracious and forgiving from what I've seen so far, but..."

"No protocol, no. Just ask questions that they'd be happy to answer, no need to introduce yourself." One of the kids then falls off the branch, but manages to land on his feet, so he doesn't hurt himself anywhere. He mumbles and grumbles in annoyance.

Aww, that's cute.

She doesn't really want to talk to kids though, she's never been good with children. Are there - paths, some kind of map, a general feel of the layout?

Yes, there's 4 different paths, getting ever more complicated and winding, with the closest one the most direct. Looking ahead reveals a bed of flowers, ponds with people sitting on benches or swimming in the water, beautiful trees, colorful turkeys (?), and an adorably cute statue of a sleeping faun with knitting sticks instead of antlers placed on a white pedestal. People are enjoying runs, talking to each other, listening to public readings, having picnics and enjoying the weather in all sorts of ways. The park doesn't quite reach the horizon, but it goes nearly as far as the eye sees, before leading up to another near-wall of white skyscrapers.

Ooh, a statue!

Judith heads over to the statue to admire the artistry and maybe find someone else looking at it, so she can practice asking someone (who isn't Ron or the very obliging Mr H) something.

A woman pushing a baby on a stroller is looking at the statue, with some level of reverence. "To Commemorate The Lives of Mothers who'd Have Died but for the Heroic Efforts of Doctors" is what's engraved on the pedestal. She smiles before making her way past Judith, slightly amused by her PAPR mask.

Judith smiles back, which is hopefully correct etiquette? She was going to ask what the symbolism of the knitting needles was, but that feels like a bad question to ask someone who actually has a baby with them.

Maybe someone less attached to a child will come by in a moment. What's the statue made of, does it have tool marks, is it white granite?

The statue has 0 tool marks, somehow! And it's actually made from white granite, rather than marble or any other kind of rock. Another woman, this one wearing leggings, decides to stop for a moment to admire the statue.

Okay. Sure. Of course they just casually have white granite statues.

"Um, excuse me. If you don't mind me asking, do you know anything about the symbolism of the statue? I mean, it's probably meant to be cute like a little kid, but knitting needles?"

"The stereotype is that mothers like knitting, maybe even knitting baby clothes. The symbolism is a cute and vulnerable animal, that doesn't need antlers to fight off any danger, but can instead sleep soundly, knowing that it's safe and can relax and enjoy knitting instead."

"...people enjoy knitting?"

Judith had tried to learn how to knit, once. It was great for making gloves and scarfs, apparently. She was hopeless at it.

"Not anymore they don't! Now they just get the all-white baby clothes tailor-made and delivered to them. But a lot of people back then had to knit their own clothes, so the symbol lives on."

"I'm glad to hear that! I tried knitting once, but I was terrible at it. Not that, uh, I'm planning to have children any time soon..."

...could she have children here? She'd never intended to bring children into the Empire, but, they probably wouldn't send them off to war here.

"Knitting is tough! And precise! It's really stunning to think of our ancestors spending so much time creating clothes in such a laborious and tedious way. It's really almost embarrassing to consider how much clothing we have to choose from now."

"And it arrives so quickly, too!" she contributes, thinking of her tabard. Just to tack on the symbol piece would have taken Hananiah, who was much better at this than the average person, about the same amount of time as it had taken to make and deliver the whole thing.

"That's the power of machines and automation, for ya. We're slowly getting closer to those sci-fi novels where each person gets an entire floor of a building to themselves, so they have lots of space and privacy for themselves."

"It's very impressive," she says. It would be nice to have more than one room to herself, but she's not going to say that out loud, Ron has been very generous to let her stay with him at all - especially as it seems like these people have the personal space instincts of Urizeni...

"So, because I didn't want to be too direct: why are you wearing all that equipment? It's not Pandemic Awareness Day, so I'm curious why you're wearing it. Do you have a weakened immune system?"

"No, I've just come here from - a very long way away. So I've got to wear this for a few days in case I'm carrying something." She glances awkwardly at Ron in case he wants to fill in whatever details she's meant to be sharing with random people. She supposes she did announce where she came from to the entire world over the video, but clearly this woman wasn't watching, so it might not be polite to explain at length?

"Ahh, that sounds right! I really, really appreciate you taking precautions like that. And, you know, happy that people can do that without isolating themselves or wearing uncomfortable masks that make it hard to breathe. Now, off I go getting in better shape!" The woman in the leggings start running at great speed away from Judith, enjoying the spacious park that lets her run as fast as she wants.

Okay. That wasn't the worst conversation Judith has had. She looks inquiringly at Ron, hoping to get some indication of whether she got a good grade in talking to random people here, something it is normal to want and possible to achieve.

Ron looks back in confusion, as he continues walking with Judith and appreciating the scenery. Eventually, they see a group of people dressed in suits and helmets that fully cover their bodies, swinging at each other with scarily real-looking swords. One of them is notably more skilled than the others, managing to strike hits as he fights them off and pushes them back.

"Of course you'd have good sparring gear. Although I'd have thought with all this technology around, you'd be doing better than swords by now?"

Ron replies. "We're doing better, just not funner! And we also have sniper rifle, assault rifle, and submachine gun sparring, as well. So maybe we do have funner, as well, but still like the variety?"

"I... can work out what those probably are from context, but our state of the art was the hand crossbow," replies Judith. "How do you spar with one of those 'rifle' or 'gun' things? Don't the projectiles go too fast?"

"Well, that's fine if the point is testing out how well you can hit people with them. Sparring is mostly about the part involving people pretending to attack each other, isn't it?"

"I'm - not sure how those are different? Sparring is pretending to attack each other for practice? You can't really tell if you're aiming right if you just point at people and shout, although it does give them practice at dealing with broken lines when the person you shouted at goes down, it's useful if you might need to be ready at any time or don't want to waste the herbs."

"You don't point at people and shout, silly. You fire real projectiles! And you don't need practice dealing with broken lines, that's a non-issue now."

"Okay, and you have one of these sparring suits that just, soaks it up, I guess?

How do you fight for real, then? Or has armour technology just got way ahead of personal weapons?"

"We would fight, if it were to happen, for real mostly using drones and artillery, although there is still some need for capable soldiers as things like scouts or sentries. And we don't fight for real, just to make that obvious."

"...that must be nice." Definitely more a Day thing than Autumn, regardless of War Fish, he also always treated it more like a strategy game than an actual fight, he'd probably love the sparring club. "I suppose Dawn would keep having tourneys even if there was no actual fight to prepare for."

"There's a riddle I remember being asked, when I was a child. I'm hoping you're going to love the answer as much as me. The riddle is: when can it make sense to start a war?"

"I'm not sure what the riddle answer is, but there are a lot of actual reasons - like, the other guy is going to start a war at a time to their advantage if you don't do it first, or they're doing something so awful to their people that war is better... or some people would say, just because you could be better for them than their current government - or use their stuff better than they are..."

"I don't think any of those really make much sense. I'll give you a hint, because I think we're thinking about wars differently. You're a general, and you have essentially 0 resources other than soldiers. Knowing this, when does it make sense to start a war?"

"Now, because you're going to need to feed your soldiers, unless you can safely disperse them somewhere they can feed themselves; probably better an organised war than unleashing bandits, although neither's a great choice and you shouldn't have got there in the first place."

"So it sounds like the only thing that happens is that you're using your soldiers starting a war so you can have soldiers. And you'd think that unleashing bandits would really dissuade just about anyone from trying to raise an army! I'm not quite sure how you'd be in a situation where you have an army, but you can't disperse them so they can feed themselves. Presumably, they must have been doing that before joining your army? I don't think that's a very good answer to my riddle."

"You were the one who said I had an army and nothing else. Usually you raise an army because some other people are trying to kill you and you'd like to fight back more effectively."

"I don't count wanting to fight back more effectively as starting a war. I'd like to try giving you the biggest hint I can without revealing the answer: the answer to the riddle is related to the general's soldiers, and nothing else."

"It makes sense to start a war when you have ended up with too many soldiers? I mean, it doesn't, but if they're going to kill you otherwise then some people will do it anyway. The only actually good reasons for starting a war are external circumstances."

"The only time when it makes sense to start a war, is when you end the war with more soldiers than you started. A general could use his soldiers for nearly any purpose, but using them in a war must mean that they cannot be used to loot the people or tax your empire. Someone else starting a war when it's good for them, because they can expect to subjugate you and your men, or doing something so awful that a war would be better, or because you'd be better for them than their current government -

in all these cases, what makes them special is that a general can be sure that at the war's end, he will have more soldiers than he had before its beginning. If you have nothing but soldiers, a war will ultimately never give you any bounty beyond more soldiers, or more citizens to tax so you can support your soldiers, amounting to the same thing."

"...I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually make sense? That sounds like a very - Jotun perspective on war. They definitely go to war so that they can - produce more war. But most people go to war because they want something in particular - land, resources, to liberate people..."

"There are people who jump out of windows because they think it's a suggestion from their cat! The thing limiting a general's land is, in the end, how many soldiers he has able to protect his land, and the willingness of them and his people to work for him. A general who conquers land but loses his soldiers, will be unlikely to keep it for long."

"The resources won through war are similarly limited, although obviously, having the wealth through conquest to support your soldiers is a perfect reason for warring with your neighbors. There is no need to start a war for resources; if it would lead to victory for one side, then it is only foolhardiness that makes it happen to begin with."

"And liberating people is one thing a war tragically fails at, unless it uses their numbers to create an army powerful enough to overcome their oppressors, of course."

"I think you have a very different model of war to me?

Military might does affect how much land you can hold, but resources are just as much a part of that as soldiers - a properly supplied and trained soldier can be worth a hundred terrified peasant levies.

And the shape of the land also affects things - one country I know has no soldiers, but is entirely surrounded by mountains, has built traps in all the passes, and has the favour of an Eternal to call on if all else fails.

It's generally not foolhardiness that starts wars over resources - I mean, sometimes it is, wars over land are often that way, someone is upset that their great grandfather used to live there and now it's someone else's - but, it's incomplete information. Both sides think they can win because one of them has underestimated the other - or because it's genuinely uncertain, sometimes wars turn on weird events, sometimes people will fight just in case something happens to change the balance while they're doing it, or because they prefer a fight to the alternative where they definitely lose.

Liberating people isn't easy, but assuming the rulers are sufficiently concentrated and sufficiently awful, it can sometimes work. We took Ossium from the Druj, who rule by fear and torture and despair, and the people there are pretty much universally grateful for it. We went and fought the island full of people running the global slave trade, didn't take over the island, just killed enough of them that they couldn't maintain control over their slaves any more and the liberated people did the rest."

"You're correct; one supplied and trained soldier is worth a hundred peasant levies. So they'd surrender to him, and strengthen the warlord's army, whether directly or indirectly. If a country has traps and mountains making it impossible to invade, trying would never let you strengthen your own army. And well, if the war could end well, with you on top and your army mightier than ever, then starting it probably shouldn't be called foolhardy. And taking Ossium: you said it yourself, you killed enough of them that they could no longer control the slaves, leaving them to do the rest."

"The peasant levy doesn't surrender if their alternative is worse than death. I'm still not sure how this relates to not having wars, other than that you already killed everyone who wanted to enslave people, or torture them, or would start a fight for bad reasons, or had other irreconcilable differences?"

"Well, there's one more step to it. Essentially, the world used to be a place where what people had made through their own labors, represented a huge fraction of people's wealth. But think about the mask you're wearing now: it keeps you ventilated and comfortable and safe from illnesses and reveals your entire face, just imagine how valuable this would be to those suffering through a deadly plague killing thousands. But in a very real sense, it's not something you can really take.

A farmer, by himself, makes grain. If you seize it, or burn down the farm, he can still make, more or less, as much grain next year and this. But coercing people into creating the huge number of complicated and interlocking parts in the mask over your face, that's essentially just as difficult as doing the work of every one of the hundreds of people that are needed to put it together. If you force a farmer into growing you grain, that is far less work than doing it by your own hands. But forcing someone to follow the innumerable steps required for making the mask you're walking in, that's really not much less work than putting it together yourself. And certainly more work than buying it honestly. When your wealth is in the form of inventions coming from knowledge inside the heads of hundreds of people, it no longer becomes the kind of loot that an army can seize."

"...okay, but there must still be rare raw materials, right? And - differences of opinion about governance tradeoffs?

I can see how freer polities eventually outcompete other people on technology, assuming they can bear the overheads for long enough for it to pay off, but don't they still compete over, I guess not literally mithril mines, but whatever your equivalent is?

And if not that, over things like, where people should sit on the action versus risk tradeoff? If you think someone else is being unacceptably profligate with globally scarce resources, or risking global catastrophe, you might still go to war over that - you can stop them doing the bad thing even if you can't usefully coerce this generation of their engineers.

I think what you've actually got is some kind of stalemate where nobody can win so nobody tries anything because everyone else would make sure anyone using force of arms will lose?"

"Your stalemate where nobody wins sounds like a less flattering way of making quite a similar argument, yes. To talk of something else: using a chamber pot and that tiny table and everything else seems like it'd be really annoying for you. Do you want somewhere to live by yourself? You could very much afford to live somewhere much nicer than me, with what you're being paid to talk about your unique past."

She doesn't want to seem ungrateful, but also he's probably finding it annoying to share as well...

"Oh! Yes, if you can show me how to go about it, it would be nice to not have to constantly deal with taking this on and off when I'm just trying to get some water or go to the loo..."

"Yeah, that'd be miserable. I can show you around some of the other places to live early tomorrow?"

Ron decides to spend the day together with Judith, showing her some roomier places where she'd finally be able to walk around without having to constantly take her PPE on and off again. At her budget, they could absolutely afford someplace properly big, high-up and spacious.

"That's... too big," said Judith, tentatively, at the first walk through. "I'd feel like I was eating alone in an entire communal dining room..."

"Huh, you're wanting something relatively smaller? Then I think you should try a pinnacle unit; it's on the level directly under the rooftop park, so you can just take the stairs up and end up in your own park. Really sounds like something you'd really appreciate, and their smaller sizes maybe wouldn't be a big tradeoff for you."

"Yes, that sounds more like it...

How long term is this apartment arrangement? I guess it might be unusual here, but I'm not used to living alone - obviously I want to right now, for quarantine reasons and I don't really know anyone..." 

"Long term? Well, you tend to pay for them one month at a time, if that was your question. They're not actually allowed to let you have an arrangement lasting over 99 years after the apartment's built, though, but I don't think that'll be relevant."

"How far away are we looking? If you don't mind, I'd quite like to be close by, at least for the next month while we're still sorting finances? I know the cars are quite fast, so that might not be all that limiting?

Is it just we're looking at places that are, uh, quick and flexible to move into, or does everything get torn down every century? I guess if you learn new ways to build things all the time and materials are cheap..."

"I didn't think about distance at all, I thought that the cars would be fast enough or that you wouldn't need my help too often. But sure, I can limit it to places that are fairly close. Things don't get torn down every century, it's just that, after 99 years, the owner can demolish your house and you have 0 say, you don't have an arrangement. But there are people living in 130, 140 year old buildings, although most people would prefer an upgrade before then."

"I guess I'm used to, well, our chapterhouse is well over five hundred years old? So either you move into a bit of something like that, or, I guess the League do rebuild things, but normally because they've caught fire or flooded or fallen down?

I hope I won't need to keep bothering you too much, I can probably work things out with - oh, do all these places come with access to the, projector and - helper setup?" They hadn't liked the word 'servant' much before, even though Mr H was clearly a servant. 

"Yep, 1 projector and one Mr H for every unit! A few of the bigger ones, for extended families and such, actually have more than one. You should probably get a phone, as well. But I'll just send you one via cargo drone."

"Okay, what have we got in pinnacle units? It feels weird planning to spend a lot of money, but I guess most problems are solved here so there isn't something else very useful to do with it?

I kind of feel like I need to be more - oriented - to what I've got coming in, what I can reasonably expect going forwards, and how that compares to these, rent numbers?"

"Well, this pinnacle unit has an ultra-nice, huge bathroom? With multiple showerheads, and a huge pool, and it's near the windows so you maximize that openness feeling? Or there's this one, with an in-unit gym, and a super-nice lounge area, and it's fairly close to a lake with fantastic opportunities for diving, artificial coral reefs and treasure chest hunts and all that?

What you're getting right now, that's around 20 times what these cost. And I feel, that if you manage to write books and stay fairly popular, and you did tons of interviews and things, you'd be making 4 or 5 times as much as these cost? But that's really subjective. I think you should put everything you make, above living expenses and rent for one of these pinnacle units, into an annuity, where you pay in advance to get money back for the rest of your life. I think that should help you, if you're worried about the sustainability of living here. Basically, build up your annuity, and see how far that early rush of interview money can take you. That's my advice."

"...shower heads kind of confuse me," Judith admits. "I still think instead of these huge places I just want, like, an inn suite - a bedroom with enough room for a writing desk, a bathroom with a nice tub? I guess the writing desk and projector set up could be in another room if they're all like that.

Then I can work out what I actually want in a place without using up much money on the way there. If I was rich at home, I'd want, like, a live-in cook, but I guess you usually use delivery for all that, given it's so quick?"

"Hmm, I don't think pinnacle suites go that small? But I'll try to see how close I can get; they tend to be a bit smaller, and once in a while, you find a building where they really split that pinnacle suite into many smaller, single-person units. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that it'd end up a fair distance away from here. But let's try this one? Fairly compact, divider bath, main room on the smaller side. And it's not even too far from here."

"...that is not a 'nice tub', that looks like something I need a ladder to get out of! Presumably it fills quicker than I'm expecting?

...can you humour me a moment, and show me some actually cheap properties? Or do you do that by sharing one massive one, and these are the smallest single person units?"

"Well, sure. Let my try showing you some actually cheap properties. You're right that sharing one property over several people will ultimately be the cheapest option, but well. These properties are way on the outskirts of town, near the ground floor, compact main room, bedroom only mildly bigger than the bed, shower, sink and toilet in a small rectangular room, not even a bath to sit down in. This city was built fairly recently; that's about the cheapest units the builders thought anyone would want to live in."

"Okay. So I definitely want a bath, although not, like, actually a swimming pool, and I probably want to be able to keep my clothes in the bedroom, so I wouldn't want the absolute cheapest place...

Why doesn't anyone want to be on the ground floor? It's not like you can see all that much than the next apartment building... I guess if things don't catch on fire much and the lifts keep working it's not so much of a problem, but I'm not sure why it's a selling point, except for the places right by a park."

"Well, people like the feeling of being high in the sky. It feels so outdated, almost, to be near the ground? You're right, it honestly is really arbitrary and doesn't make much sense." 

"So, what does something with a decent bath, but not acres of empty floor space or particularly high up, look like?"

"Well, there's a slightly nicer unit near the edge of town? If you go one floor up, you can get a unit with a normal tub. It sounded like you really didn't like the divider bath idea. A lot of other people don't like it, either. Presumably, that's enough for a decent bath?"

"Yeah, I'm sure the divider bath is perfectly fine, but I'm kind of at the top of my weird things tolerance as it is, a nice comprehensible bath tub that looks something vaguely like what I expect is helpful.

What's the price difference between that and something closer in? I suppose with the cars and the lack of bandits or other external threats, that's just a status thing too, though, exact location?"

"The price difference is maybe 15-20%? And, well, it's not just a status thing, there's also a convenience advantage. And we didn't tell you this, but cars aren't actually very cheap; but yes, exact location doesn't matter much."

"...I assume 'looks out onto a park' is also at a premium, but what kind of premium?"

"Maybe another 5-10%? This place is mostly used for people who love the forests, so they don't really put that much premium on a park. Other places like having parks built near the outskirts, because land is cheap so you can make them big, but here we chose to have tons of forests that are good for hiking instead. So you'd have to be closer to the center to find a park here, actually. It's really unusual in that way."

"I can't say I'm terribly keen on forests, although I imagine they're much better without wolves. Or with wolf-resistant clothing, or whatever you have to deal with the problem.

So. Compromise solution - somewhere central-ish that looks out on a nice park, the more flowers and - formal garden-y elements, the better. With a sensible bath. And as small and cheap as it gets with those constraints. Am I narrowing things down too much, I don't know what availability is like?"

"I'm sure we can find somewhere that's just right for you, yes. Well, let's look at a few places?" Ron uses his phone to find a few places fitting Judith's prescription, before ending up somewhere with a fair-sized courtyard, that's full of bright flowers of all kinds of colors, together with some trees for shade. "I think this is probably the best flower-filled park? The rooftop park also has its own garden with lots of flowers. And here's a unit that just has an above-average sized shower enclosure, as well as a bathtub, rather than anything too extreme. If you live next to a hospital, you can get a balcony that has its own garden. But they always have fairly large units, so that'd maybe make them not fit you too well."

"I don't think I actually want my own garden, I'd have to take care of it! I much prefer other people's gardens...

I'm still not keen on showers, but maybe I'll get over it, and the bathtub looks good.

What's the next step on actually moving here?

Oh, uh, given everything here is unnaturally excellent I'm assuming there's not, like, anything particularly bad about some neighbourhoods or parks or anything? I'm sure you'd have mentioned it... I guess if everyone's rich enough to eat well and cash isn't carried around with you, there's less reason for petty crime to happen, although I'd think some people would be bored enough for, bar fight type behaviour?"

"I'm not sure what would be particularly bad about neighborhoods or parks. I think it looks quite nice, if you're asking if it's bad in some way? And people bored enough for bar fights can just enjoy sparring! So they do that. And for moving there, well... you put up an advance, so you'll always pay rent to live there 2 months. But you have plenty of money, so it's not remotely a problem."

"I guess people who have these empty are keen to fill them? So we transfer the money to their account, they give us the - lift code, the thing you use at the bottom of the building to get in - and then it's ready to move in and I can just go there? And arrange with you and Mr H when I need other things?

Presumably someone has to be told that they need to - clean delivery things that stop there - if I'm going to wander around it without the suit?"

It sounds a lot like getting a room at an inn, but apparently they all live like this all the time. And the 'rooms' are usually unnecessarily huge.

"Well, yup. There's really not more to do, than just getting the key to your unit, and asking me or Mr H whenever you need something. And I'll tell the relevant authorities, that any robot used to deliver stuff to the apartment needs a quarantine clean. It's a bit of an annoyance, but..."

"Is there anything I can do to make it better? Like, I could be out of the main room and... run the air cycle thing, and then the delivery bot could show up and just leave what it's delivering there, and I could come back in for it? Or is the air cycle thing not installed everywhere?"

"Well, you have to pick stuff up from the delivery bot, it can't drop things off itself. So I think you wearing your quarantine outfit, when you get stuff from the bot, that that's the most helpful thing you can. We have something like that air recycle thing everywhere, yes. But it doesn't stop things like your breath or sweat drops getting on the delivery bot."

"Right. That doesn't sound too bad, it's only for a few more days, hopefully..."

"Yup, yup. All that annoying PPE, you're not gonna need for many more days! And then you can just enjoy our beautiful little city."

"It is kind of odd that you do everything with money, but I suppose that's just the way it works when you have an awful lot of people in a small space - it's more efficient than everyone trying to get to know each other."

"Very much so! Just think about how many different relationships between just two people there are, and how many you'd need to put together for something like... a building. It'd be just about impossible to know all the different people you'll need to put it together, right?"

"Yeah, we have rather smaller buildings and they're a lot less complicated! And people still generally do get paid for working on, like, fortifications. I guess most of the cultures of my world also do this, it's just the Highborn tend to gather in Chapters and do all the money stuff at the group level, rather than the individual so much."

"Well, is doing money stuff at the group level really that vastly different? It sounds like the same general idea, finding a way to make things work with fewer relationships. It doesn't sound too different from how we use money for everything."

"I guess not. You wouldn't buy a place to live in Highguard unless you were just passing through or you were, like, a total outcast, though? You would join a Chapter and they would own places and you'd live in one of those."

"I'd be terrified if getting a place to live would require me to join something, as opposed to spending money I could earn in any number of different ways!"

"There are a number of especially accepting Chapters for people who have various problems that stop others taking them on - rehabilitating people is seen as a great good work - but I suppose you would probably not actually want to be rehabilitated, either..."

"Well, no. I'm perfectly healthy, and don't need any kind of rehabilitation. I'm kind of rehabilitating people now, actually. Although I'm not in an order."

"Anyway, Judith. There's a subway station that leads conveniently close to the new apartment; please follow me."

Henry walks a few blocks before entering a door built into one of the skyscrapers. It has a simple pictogram of a train on it, and he reveals that it hides a set of stairs leading down. He takes Judith down the stairs, revealing that the door was hiding the subway. A train arrives some thirty seconds later, creating a rush of wind that blows over the two of them. Henry steps inside, revealing spacious (as always) seats. It takes 7 or so minutes, flying past several empty stations, before they're taken to their station. Walking out, they can see an incredibly tall building, with a window taking up nearly the whole first floor, across the street from a beautiful garden.

Henry sends the money Judith earned towards the landlord, and he gets a picture of a storage locker that he saw in the station that he just came from, together with a combination for the lock. He quickly runs back down into the station, where he opens the storage locker that with the key, before running back and putting the key from it in Judith's hands. Then he opens a normal-looking door, walking inside the building. There's a charming cafe on the ground floor, next to the elevators and emergency fire stairs. There are several elevators, including one leading to Judith's new apartment. Henry pushes the button to call it down.

He pushes the 2 buttons that lead up to Judith's room, with a door that fits her new key. The door instantly reveals a main room with a view of the garden from high up, as well as the door leading into the bathroom and bedroom. The bedroom has a king-size bed and a big closet next to it; it also has a wide window looking out into the main room, with a view of the garden, but mostly the main room. The bathroom is fairly humble; there's a tub with a shower, a toilet that looks totally normal and uninteresting, and a white porcelain sink with a fascinating, grey pattern all over it.

"Hey, where are you going?" calls Judith when he runs off, but she hangs around and shortly he comes back with the key.

"Oh, it's nice there's, like, actual stuff at the bottom here!"

Judith's eyes widen at the view. "It's almost like being in a Spire! And this isn't all that high up for you, I guess...

Oh, and the bedroom - looks straight through the main room? I guess that makes sense if only I'm living here!"

She manages to look away from the excellent view to peruse the rest of the area, sitting on the bed to determine how squishy it is. "There's so much bed! You could fit three people in this!"

Venturing into the bathroom, she nods approvingly. "I'm sure Mr H can tell me about all those controls..."

She heads back to the main room and asks, "How do I get Mr H - summoned? connected? - here, then?"

"Well, we don't call him Mr H yet."

Henry furiously clicks through several menus on his phone.

"Mr H, are you operational?"

A robotic voice replies.

"Personal Assistant System ending Delta-Foxtrot-Three-Charlie operational. Ready to respond to Mr H."

"I think you should be able to ask Mr H for help like you did at my place, now."

"Oh, does he answer to whatever name you pick, then?

...I've kind of been meaning to ask, what is Mr H? I thought he was just a front for a group of servants that were always available and trained to be interchangeable, but that first bit sounded more like how some heralds talk, rather than like humans do..."

"Mr H is an AI system! He's a huge pile of computer code with the ability to put together what you tell him and what there's available to know on the Internet to answer questions and create useful information for you."

"There were definitely words in that which were not carrying the meanings I was expecting them to. 'computer code' especially? And Internet sounds like something Urizeni do with their heliopticon, it all sounds very Urizen actually, I think they do computation with ushabti sometimes?"

"Wow wow wow, that's a lot of unfamiliar words lady! Heliopticons sound like an apt comparison, yes. But if you don't know what a computer is, I think explaining anything would be painfully complicated!"

"What's an ushabti? Is it a kind of animal? I wonder if it might make for a good starting point..."

"A ushabti is a kind of animated statue that does simple tasks - they usually can't talk though. They only work in high magic areas, but they mean the Urizeni get away without doing much manual labour."

"Yes, yes. That sounds incredibly similar to a golem. A computer can be thought of as a vast number of ultra-small ushabti. And with enough of them interacting, you can get a system as awesome as Mr H over here!"

"Thank you for the compliment. I really appreciate it when people want to thank AI systems like myself", says Mr H.

"Autumn realm stuff tends to be called golems, but yes - so Mr H is an artificial person?"

That explains, quite a lot really. They don't have to have an exploited underclass of actual humans because they've created artificial people to do that.

"...I guess that does beg the question, what kind of jobs do people do when they're not being a healthcare worker or a professional curiosity? Like, someone still has to grow food, right?"

"Yes, they do! And there's still some amount of manual effort in mining materials, and fixing wells, and everything else. But the biggest fraction of jobs people have, is actually just doing things for each other. Massages, making coffee, making food, performances, writing... you don't need much work to just live. But helping others find fun and meaning in life? That's what people are doing with their jobs, now."

"How does it get - organised? This is all a lot better laid out than a Leaguish city, and even Necropolis has a lot more places where there were clearly two different styles competing with each other."

"... people show up and do it? Like, the big idea is that you start with the things that have the least possibility of getting changed later; like how people get places. And then you do the second-least changable part, where you keep the parks and everything else. And then you... sort of put together a city in these layers, and you always ask yourself what lets people have the most space so that they can this open feeling, and so they can make themselves comfortable because they're not bumping into others or having to curl up because they don't have the room to spread out? By that point, you're really only ending up in one place."

"...look, I keep trying to decide that everyone here is actually people and I'm still a person and even if it isn't true it's got to be the best way to handle the situation, but saying things like that makes it a lot more difficult. Day heralds could probably self-organise to that kind of degree. People in my experience absolutely do not."

"A day herald hasn't ever done any of that! But people have, constantly. If it really makes sense to say that it's people, and not the person-made-of-people working together? I think that people organize to do the right thing, and when everyone thinks the right thing is the same thing, they only do one thing. That's how people organize, just about."

"That, uh, that really does seem to be," Judith takes a moment to pause and breathe and generally stop having a mild panic reaction, "my experience of people is - very different to that. People organise to follow their own personal self interest, maybe their family's self interest, if they organise at all - and no group of people large enough to raise a city has ever all thought the right thing is the same thing."

"Well, everyone knows that, and that everyone knows that, and then everyone knows that they have to do something to work together better. So... that means that they make it so that personal and family self interesting, is doing what they want the world to look like. And, well,  just about everyone in this city thinks "doing what is best by my own desires and values" is the right thing, so they all do truly think the same thing about what the right thing is, the thing that the person believes to be right for them. It can work!"

"Sometimes people's desires and values just don't line up, though? Like, if I desire to, I don't know, rule over people by fear, or specifically to have a larger house than everyone else, or for - you don't have orcs, right, so, everyone with blue eyes or something, to not exist any more and certainly stop taking up resources that I could use instead?

I can see that because you're very rich most people might be able to just get what they want, but that usually just makes people want more and more unreasonable things? Does, like, nobody believe they can get one over on someone else by deception?"

"Well, if we permit desiring others not to get their desires as one of the possible goals, then that near-instantly devolves into a battle to be the first ones to essentially imprison everybody else. A group that must be the enemy of everyone else, will obviously find itself with fewer allies than one wishing to be the ally of everyone else, so those with such desires simply have to accept having them frustrated. If you wish to rule by fear, those wishing to live free from fear will prove an impossible opponent.

If you want a larger house than everyone else, you have to persuade them that you produce sufficient value for them to be happy with the house you have in return. I'm sure you could find a way to do so. People don't end up wanting more unreasonable things; after all, there's an increasingly shrinking list of things that are unreasonable. When it comes to deception, it is a tool that only succeeds once. That makes it a tool that is nearly never the right one to choose, and those stupid enough to try it are invariably too stupid to succeed."

"...is this something that happens because of, like, the better communications?

...I guess you could characterise basically everything I've previously known as a huge battle to be the first ones to essentially imprison everybody else, yeah. It's just people try to make the prison fancy enough and pleasant enough that people don't mind being in it too much, so they don't fight it, because the alternatives are someone else's prison that's worse, or having to entirely fend for yourself.

But maybe being really rich breaks you out of that equilibrium because fending for yourself gets less hard?

Like, I'm still not sure why that turns into a stable equilibrium with huge high rise buildings everywhere rather than some huge high rise cities and some underground cities and some scattered collections of huts, though. Don't people also just disagree on the facts of what's best, like, place to put the sewers or whatever you use instead?"

"Here, it's not the choice of one prison or another, it's the choice of one garden or another. When that's the case, people are far more likely to change their mind and want someplace new, whether by making or moving to a garden they like better.

People do disagree on what's best, but not enough to make a difference. You need many people to disagree, and everyone else to accept your disagreement. There are only so many different places the sewers can go, and thinking quickly leads to virtually everyone agreeing on one place as opposed to another. And there are scattered collections of huts, in places were people want those the most. There just aren't that many of them."

"That's what I don't get, though. How do you decide who gets what flat bit of ground? I'm assuming you've basically explored everything and there isn't unpopulated frontier left that has, like, liveable weather?"

"Centuries ago, every square inch of flat ground was annexed. We were mad, and we were sick of greedy kings, so we decided that that the money shouldn't go from many to one, but from one to many. We chose to merge together countries and polities, before ending in a situation where anyone with one flat piece of grounds must pay every other person for the ability to use it. Whoever manages to pay the most, gets to have that piece of ground. It means that the only way to have it, is to in a very real sense, give to everyone else."

"...how does the whole place not look like a giant city then, I definitely saw wilderness areas, surely they can't pay for themselves?"

"Well, it costs a little to keep the wilderness, and we do pay for the parks and such. We have a finite desire for city, here. Do you think we should want ever inch of the planet to look like here, because obviously we want a a city more badly than the wilderness surrounding it?"

"No, but - I'd assume all the people who owned the land would compete for having housing built on it, because land with people living on it is more valuable, and you'd get much more of a sprawl, unless everyone pays a lot for the wilderness?"

"More valuable for whom? The more it's worth, the more you pay everyone else. And I think you're underestimating how much nicer things get with the parks and wilderness. Do you worry about not getting food enough, because what if it's more valuable to use it for sacrifices, so you give up all your apples as sacrifices instead of feeding yourself?"

"...yes, countries that follow 'gods' fall into exactly those kinds of traps, that's why we banned the worship of gods.

Anyway, I think we've got distracted from, uh, we were setting up the apartment? And maybe figuring out what kind of job I should look for training in, for when the novelty circuit runs dry."

"Yes, you haven't quite fully moved in. You'd need to set up the toilet so that it's to your liking, and you'd want to join the maid-service rounds once we're not worried about the quarantine stuff. And when it comes to jobs, well. You seem like you'd do really well re-enacting things that happened in our history? We also have caring for and raising children as a job, you can easily find work doing that. I'm not sure where your interests lie."

"...set up the toilet?"

Judith heads over to the beautifully clean bathroom and looks nervously at the toilet. At least it sounds like she doesn't have to learn to clean all the complicated extra bits? And the toilet seat looks way more comfortable than even the fancy porcelain toilets back home.

"Do you reckon the re-enactors would be interested in how our armies and battles worked?

I'm, uh, generally not very good with children, I'm afraid.

Mostly I've been - an innkeeper, a library assistant, an expert in ritual magic which I don't think there's much call for here as there's no magic, a wandering priest which again I'm not getting the feeling people are very in to, and logistics for a small military unit? Mostly I like jobs where my job is to know lots of things, or to make sure things get organised and everyone has what they need."

"Well, yes. There's the temperature, and the angle and position of the bidet, and the sensor sensitivity. You'd ideally want everything custom-aimed for you, right?

Re-enactors would be beyond fascinated to see a person from the types of time they were re-enacting, they would be utterly amazed at seeing you!

If you're not good with children, then innkeeper and library assistant are jobs you can easily start doing without too much difficulty. If you like a job where you have to know lots of things or ensure that things are organized and people have their needs met, I think that your best chance would be doing support work for local governments. They have tons of logistics needs and you learn new things all the time."

"...custom-aimed?" she replies, with some trepidation.

She looks much more interested in the list of careers. "I think I would love to do support work for local governments, if I can scrape together enough context to actually be useful."

"Well, yes. We're a bit obsessed with cleanliness, ahem, in that hard-to-reach area. So a bidet that's targeted doesn't splash unnecessary water, whilst being even more hygienic. Especially women make that a priority, due to the nicer kinds of underwear they use more often.

I don't have much context myself! But if you spend enough time reading reports and keeping up with affairs, you'll end up in a really fantastic position to do all kinds of support work."

"I'm assuming Mr H can direct me to appropriate sources of reports and news?

Uh, is there some kind of, instructional pamphlet that this thing comes with?"

"Pamphlets are on your phone!" He taps away, finding a guide on how to aim the retracting and recoiling "snake" that emerges from a hole inside the toilet's tank (it folds away and self-cleans! To make sure it never gets anything on it.) It's a bit over-elaborate; there's a simple remote that comes with the toilet, although it's more convenient to use a phone app. The correct position is fairly close (don't forget, it hides away when not in use), and the flow of water is to be "straight on."

"Great. I'll, uh, experiment with that when you're gone and my phone shows up in the - drone post - then?

Will my - phone - automatically come with your, uh, address loaded so I can send you - letters? Or will Mr H let me know when I've got it and ask? I don't want to take up loads of your time, but, uh, how does ordering food and so on work while I'm still waiting to be able to get to a bank, if I'm not doing it through your system?"

"The phone won't come with my address by default. Mr H, would you mind keeping my address on file so that this young lady will be able to know who to text when she needs a question answered?" An incredibly reassuring chime sounds for a moment. "I'll have to be your middleman? You can send the people you're buying food from a text with this address, tell them that the money comes from me, and I'll send them the money, and then they send you the food. Is that an acceptable system? I can tell Mr H to send the money on my behalf whenever I'm unavailable, if that makes you feel safer."

"If that's, like, a standard option, sure, that sounds like it should work."

Judith is beginning to stretch out just a little; her shoulder are less tightly held.

"If there's nothing else urgent you can think of, I think I'd like to sit and chat to Mr H for a bit, and see what information he can point me to?"

"Sure? If there's nothing urgent on your end, I slightly want to get back home. I feel like it's appropriate for you to be able to walk around without that mask on, even if you find it curious. Oh, and there's something else important. I'll send you more batteries to keep the fans blowing air over your mouth so you can breathe easily. Mr H will run you through changing them. They comfortably last a full day, so you're going to need a few. They're not necessary for you to breathe, but you know what it's like without them on."

"Oh! Yes, thank you for reminding me."

Judith heads back out into the main room and sees Ron off into the elevator, then sits back down at the main room table.

"Mr H? Let's start with an easy one, let's look at some food options so I can decide what to eat tonight?"

"Food options means too many things, miss! Do you want meat of one kind or another? Or do you want something vegetarian? Would a soup be of interest? The ocean of options is simply too big for me to show you more than an arbitrary and infinitesimal fraction!"