Altarrin has a belt of Constitution now. He’s not particularly tired at all when he gets back with a crate of fully powered shield-talismans from one of his records caches. 

Bastran should not in fact go with them, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to spend the entire time they’re gone being unproductively worried.

(Altarrin would be capable of instead NOT pointlessly fretting, if their positions were reversed. It’s not exactly news that Altarrin has some skills that Bastran lacks, and Altarrin also wouldn’t think he ought to be embarrassed about that, but apparently he’s going to be embarrassed anyway. And worried.)

Caris has absolutely no idea how to be emotionally supportive of people aside from distracting them with sex. He'll just smile at Bastran and promise to bring back a present. 

And then they can hacky-artifact-augmented-Plane-Shift again! They land in a random ocean, which isn't very unusual for a Plane Shift; she'll Teleport them to land, because she's been there before and Altarrin hasn't.

And then she will go find the correct skyscraper (by looking; she doesn't have a local map yet) and go up to the ninth floor to drop off the contract.

Ramona is on her way back to her office from the bathroom and sees Carissa and someone else she doesn't recognize outside her office.

Dang. Receptionist! Need to get on that!

"Oh! Wow. I have a packed day today. I hope this is the making-arrangements meeting and not the actual meeting?"

"Either way, I do have just a few minutes before my 9am session. Why don't you come in."

Ramona unlocks her office door with a key and gestures Carissa and her associate inside.

"I'm just here to drop off the contract and a scholar's ring so you can read it." She drops the scholar's ring on Ramona's desk. "- I think by rights this is worth much more than I'm otherwise paying you but I suppose I can cover it. This is Altarrin. We're going to spend the day exploring this lovely planet of yours; if we stop by at the end of the day will that give you enough time to read the contract and let us know when you have availability?" Carissa has toned down the outfit today; she's actually exactly imitating the receptionist from the pediatrician's office. No point in calling attention to herself.

(Altarrin is not reading Ramona’s mind with his Detect Thoughts item, because that wasn’t part of the agreement and would risk violating the confidentiality of her other patients, but he kind of wants to. He isn’t exactly anticipating anything specific going wrong, but he’s definitely somewhat on edge.)

Ramona is used to Google Translate, or that thing where you point your camera phone at a package of noodles you got from Uwajimaya so you can read the instructions about how to prepare them. She is not used to jewelry doing translation. What is it going to do, read the contract to her? Wouldn't that make more sense as earrings?

"I, um. This is a new kind of technology for me. I'm curious enough that I'm going to try it even though I don't actually know you well enough to trust you, but I have to at least pretend to be a little bit cautious here. What does this ring do, exactly? Does it have any side effects besides reading the contract to me?"

“It can also cast Legend Lore as the sixth circle wizard spell? That’s not actually relevant very often but it fits in really elegantly so I don’t usually tear it out even though it’d save some spellsilver. …Legend Lore is very mediocre long range pastwatching.

- anyway, it won’t hurt you. If you have other magic rings on the same hand it might interfere with those but that’d be nondestructive interference. Unless you have a Ring of Spell Turning.”

Ramona holds out her hands.

"As you can see, I didn't wear any other magic rings today," she says dryly. "Most of what you just said flew right by me but I'm going to focus on 'it won't hurt you' and go with that."

"Okay, please hang on just a moment while I try it on and see if I can actually understand the document and how long it looks."

Ramona squares her shoulders, takes a breath, and puts the ring on her right hand.

Nothing terrible seems to happen.

Ramona picks up the contract that was previously all chicken scratches. What does she see now? How long does it seem to be?

It is four pages long and written by an ex-Asmodean, which is to say that she's not actually trying to screw anybody over but she doesn't know a way to write contracts that doesn't have that as something of a baseline assumption. It emphasizes some normal things like penalties for damages and some non-normal things like what will be done in case of possession by unquiet spirits.

The document now appears to be in English! Nothing is speaking out loud in Ramona's ear or on her finger! She can just - read it. This is like...

Oh. Fuck.

It's like magic.

Ramona feels a little bit silly.

She glances over it. It looks nothing like standard legal boilerplate, but the sentences and paragraphs basically make sense, and it's not super long.

"Yes, I can review this today. If you come back in the evening I'll be ready to ask questions or possibly just agree to it, depending."

"Here is my corresponding disclosure form. It's much more about what I promise you than what you promise me."

Ramona hands Carissa the usual paperwork.

"We'll read this as well. Thank you! Have a good day!"

Ramona closes the door behind Carissa and her associate and realizes she totally failed to introduce herself or get his name. Which one was it, she wonders? Well, she'd figure that out later. She has more important things to do in the... seven minutes before her session.

She stares at the contract, and takes the ring off, and watches the document change.

She puts the ring back on, and it changes again.

She sliiiiiiides the ring off slowly, trying to find the exact moment where she loses the ability to read the contract. Is it like a switch flipping, or did someone put a fader on the transition?

Ramona giggles. This is fun.

Does she have any books in here in languages she can't already read? Will the ring work on those or only on Carissa's language? Was it bound to her, or if she lends it to a friend, will the friend be able to read things too?

OH FUCK. She can't lend it to a friend. That would be breaking confidentiality, because her friend would have SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Sigh.

This job has so many highs and lows.

Carissa has plans for a day that is nonthreatening to hypothetical surveillance. She is going to exchange more gold for more local currency and then buy more books and see if there are any slaves for sale (fastest way to get acquainted with the way this society works without asking any suspicious questions) and attempt to document the behavior of the local shiny megafauna.

Altarrin is still tense, which is inconvenient, it's not actually useful at all. He's not sure whether he got a good read on Ramona. She does seem competent? And she's noticeably somewhat confused and overwhelmed by the situation, but - that just seems reasonable and correct of her. It's a really bizarre situation. 

...He's pretty sure the large shiny fast-moving things are not megafauna. They aren't alive, and he doesn't think they're magic, either. They mostly don't show up to mage-sight at all, and to the extent they do, it's in a very strange way that he's never seen before. He quietly points this out to Carissa, and then follows her. 

Carissa is not herself possessed with the ability to tell if things are alive. She had noticed they weren't magic. Maybe they can purchase one, disassemble it, and see how it works? And same thing with a dozen other technologies? Though she does need to take a few hours to read through the contract and confirm she is not selling her soul or anything else she's fond of.

Also, she needs to get Bastran a present. She will check out the clothing stores for impossible dath ilani fabrics. 

--

They'll be back at Ramona's office in the evening, with a Bag of Holding full of goodies including a perfect 1/16th scale model of a Toyota Corolla.

(Altarrin helped Carissa read through the contract. He's - impressed, mostly, less about the specifics - though he can pick up that Ramona made some careful additions - and more by the fact that this world clearly has infrastructure built around standard confidentiality agreements for professionals whose entire job is to give people live advice, or in this case, relationship advice specifically. It's a good idea! And one that would definitely not have occurred to him.) 

Ramona spends her lunch break trying to decipher the contract. She is missing a lot of context and not all of it actually makes sense. Like, what is interplanar transit? She debates whether to ask for every word to be explained until she really actually gets it, or if it's sufficient in this case to sort of handwave a bit. Surely "interplanar transit" is just some kind of... going from one place to another. By magic. As you do.

She does pause to consider the section on Lawfulness. It sounds like they have a concept for whether a person has ever broken any laws before. They do seem to have, like, categories of laws - such that if you've broken agreements "like this one" before then that would obviously be a bad sign. This does not seem to map neatly onto categories of laws that Ramona knows. Misdemeanors and felonies? Moving violations vs. grand theft auto? Ramona doesn't get this part. She is definitely missing some important information here.

She is a little bit charmed that there is an offer for her to verify whether her clients really mean the contract and will hold up their end of the deal. What a luxury verification would be! Ramona's basic assumption about all of her Earth clients is that 1) most of them are basically good people who 2) lie to themselves and other people all day long as a matter of course. Ramona makes promises to her clients. She doesn't hold them to the same standards. She assumes they're going to be all over the place.

They do have to pay their bills, but she can't really even make them do that. She just has them pay as they go and won't keep seeing them if they don't pay.

And anyway, she doesn't have any truth magic or technology. There've been some big advances in human/computer interfaces in the last couple of years such that you can actually get a printout of someone's thoughts now, but it's expensive and invasive and Ramona's only used it when rich clients have provided the equipment. And she's had a few psionic alien clients, but their powers weren't catching.

So Ramona will do what she always does: hope for the best and keep her wits about her.

That evening, Ramona hears a knock at the door. She pushes aside her chow mein and opens the door.

"Hello! We read over your agreement and it mostly seems sensible. I did have one question. You mention you will report it to some authorities if anyone wants to kill themself or hurt children? What probability of getting yourself killed does a plan have to have to qualify as suicidal and activate that clause? Does it matter if the harm is to people in general, some of whom are children? Presumably every law harms some children, right?"