Ah, so they want servants and serfs. Well, better doing that than dying of starvation in Milliways or swords outside it. "That's an interesting idea. I'd like to talk to Bar about it, if you're not in a rush."

"Feel free! This isn't an impulse decision, not even slightly. You should probably talk to tons of people before making your decision. I was planning on spending a lot of time here anyway."

"Room and board aren't free, but it's reasonably worth spending savings on if you have them."

And Karasauriu will head over to Bar. What are published works by and about farmers and childcare workers in Thomassia like? How often do they publish works or have works published about them, compared to, say, weavers or bakers or mayors of cities or such?

Bar, when responding to these queries, would also like to see if she's got any intuitions about Thomassian food preferences that suggest a significant portion of the population suffers from malnutrition, because she can model what Karasauriu is interested in here.

"The Optimal Size of Farms: Grains and Fruits, Annual Edition No. 208" is perhaps 200 pages. After a brief introduction, there are dozens of pages that are just tables with information about the sizes of farms dedicated to all sorts of plants in all sorts of soils and geographies. There are then a few different quite nice-looking infographics, comparing the sizes of different kinds of farms and explaining the constraints that keep them their current size. Finally, the bulk of the book is a brief and summarized explanation of how to work many different kinds of crops, how to keep schedules and follow harvesting calendars, how to handle natural features that leave the farm looking different than the ideal featureless flat plane, and finally some advice on how to reshape farm plots in order to use awkwardly shaped areas more effectively.

The book helps Karasauriu learn that labor-intensive crops like strawberries, require the use of significantly more, extra-complicated machines that move slowly, with higher maintenance needs, such that a farmer can keep up with a much smaller farm. When it comes to wheat/rice/soybeans, the book claims that the money is better, and present-day robots and tractors, together with hyper-intensive cultivation, have meant that optimal sizes are hovering around the 2000-acre mark. The days are long and the work mind-numbing, but it's a fantastic way of making money if you can accept the isolation of living in a farmhouse surrounded by so much farmland.

"Caring for Under-5s: Nurturing the Next Generation, Annual Edition No. 63" is a slightly slimmer book. It spends more time on babies under 2 than children from 3-5, and it has information about reward schedules for children to help reinforce positive habits, how to comfort crying babies, advice for when to summon a reserve babysitter, the importance of using touch in order to have children feel relaxed and safe, how to set positive examples as a method of instruction, the importance of integration into adult society at a young age, usage of GPS trackers to let children enjoy playing in total freedom, controlling screen time and teaching children ethics and manners.

The book about caring for children does have some information about when it's OK to use milk from a milk bank instead of milk produced by the caregiving mother without harming child outcomes, but beyond that, neither book mentions nutrition or what people eat at all.

It generally seems like farmers and childcare workers, write relatively less and have less written about them. There are a nigh-endless amount of writings from weavers, bakers, and mayors, consisting of things like clothing designs and fashion manifestos, subtly different recipes for a huge range of pastries and breads, and a near-endless amount of different attempts by mayors to build ideal cities, unless they chose to publish some interesting sci-fi about radically different societies instead.

Bar can share these with Karasauriu, along with the information that there doesn't seem to be a systemic malnutrition problem from what she can tell, including among farmers and childcare workers.

There must be an error. A single isolated household is farming how many acres of wheat fields? For what yields per acre? Is this for real? Do all the publications agree?

All the recent ones agree! Also, there's a history of increased mechanization of agriculture and improved calorie-per-acre yields!

Jaidi's radiant crook.

Industrialization of agriculture is not even an especially rare phenomenon.

Anyway. It does actually look like the farmers are not having a terrible time, right?

There are things Bar might miss, but yeah, literacy and adequate nutrition and such seem pretty universal.

And Karasauriu will go back to Candace. "I'm tentatively interested."

Eventually, Candace walks up to Karasuriu. "Well? Do you think you're interested enough to walk through the door and see everything for yourself?"

"You'll hold the door?"

"Ahh, yes. I'm thinking of staying here kind of as a doorstop, because it seems like an awesome opportunity to meet people! You go on ahead." Candace leads Karasauriu to the way she came into thomassia, and gingerly holds the door open.

And Karasauriu heads through. What's on the other side?

Many, many tall buildings, surrounding a fairly small park. There are occasionally a few people walking around. Looking around reveals that it's near the outskirts of town. It's maybe an hour or so before noon.

Wow.

Aaaalso this excursion seems under-discussed.

Karasauriu heads back in. "How long do you feel up to holding the door for, and would you be willing to write me some useful phrases so I can make a phrasebook?"

"Well, I'd be fine to spend a night here? Just tell my mom that I've decided to sleep over at a friend's house."

Candace returns to the bar, asking it for a phrasebook that's useful for Karasuriu. "I am from another dimension, I am unfamiliar with this language, I wish to have you communicate via pictograms, I wish to be employed" and about as many other phrases as she manages to brainstorm. Including "your daughter is currently sleeping at someone else's house and you don't need to worry about her safety." Hopefully, this is enough to let Karasauriu get into a proper language education program, after asking around and getting oriented.

Karasauriu jots translations down for once the phrasebook isn't in the translation effect.

"So, how do I go about finding your mom? That sounds difficult, it seems like there are a lot of people in this city."

"Well, I'll call her and she'll be waiting for you on the other side? I think that'd work." Candace grabs her phone from her waistband, tapping the buttons so she can call her mom over. "Mom? I'm at that escape-room place. I met someone who could really use help from you. Can you drive over and get her? She can sleep in my room for tonight; I'll be staying with someone else, for now. Love you like always!"

"She should be headed over! Just wait, and you'll see her car show up."

"What does her car look like?"

"It's a big, three-row minivan! It seats 9 with lots of cargo space even with all seats up! It's huge!"

It takes around 10 minutes for the vehicle to show up. It really is as large as Candace said, and flat in the front, making it very boxy. A woman walks out of it. "Who might you be?", she asks Karasauriu.

"I'm Karasauriu. Your daughter said your area was taking immigrants, and I'm interested."