"Oh, I do apologise, I shall inform the others they should think of you as a Marcher and they should get the idea.

We do have a religion, but it certainly has nothing to do with gods, and... I should take my leave or we will be discussing comparative philosophy all night."

"I thought I heard Capital Letters around some of those virtue-words.  And I have to admit that I'm certainly no better at keeping my mouth shut!  So - do go do your thing!  Before the theology conversation catches up to us!"

Leonardo hastily exits the building. And absent mindedly locks the door behind him.

Right.  She's going to...take a nap.  Hopefully.  If the amenities are sufficient.  ...She's glad she doesn't need to pee.

It's actually a pretty good bed, assuming the user isn't allergic to feathers.

She's not allergic to feathers, at least, though she's actually used to firmer mattresses, overall.  Probably.

(Oh, and not sleeping in her clothes, that's...probably not helping.)

Still, it isn't actually horrible.

Leonardo heads back to the College, manages to restrain Elena from rushing over immediately, and is woken up somewhat earlier than he'd like to explain himself to Provost Sienna.

All in all, it's no more than a couple of hours before noon when he and Elena will get back to the outbuilding.

And she will...maybe be awake then!  If a bit bleary-eyed.

There is still definitely a person in there, though!

When the door opens, she looks rather like she's been through some shit, overnight.  Sleeping is not her friend, and she is consequently rather rumpled.  "...Good morning?  Glad to see I haven't vanished overnight, at least."

"Leonardo is very sorry for locking you in all night, aren't you Leonardo."

"Uh, yes, I do hope you were not too inconvenienced," apologises Leonardo awkwardly.

"I hadn't actually noticed yet, so - no harm, no foul.  I think I actually woke up, like...just nowish?  I am not a morning person, and time is an illusion anyway.  You should fix the door, though; it's a fire hazard.  Doors that can't be opened from the inside, I mean.  There's a pretty famous example of that killing people, back home; I'd rather not repeat it.

"...And, uh, I'm pretty sure there's something you can describe as the linear passage of time, it's just, my brain's not very good at it.  Sorry for the confusion.  ...Though I suppose that if you go for the quantum-probability models...  Anyway!  Ah...thank you, miss...  Um, I don't believe I know your name?  Yet?  And I'd like to, you seem nice."

"It can be opened from the inside if you have a key," insists Leonardo. "It's just that someone gets quite aggrieved when I forget to lock it, you see."

Elena ignores his peevish whinging. 

"Hi there! I'm Elena, and I'm flattered, I rarely get accused of being nice.

I hear you've brought us a new way to generate tame lightning, and 'quantum probability models' sound delightfully intriguing...

But we were sent to see if you needed some breakfast and whether you'd be amenable to lunch with the Provost. She'd quite like to meet you, but we do like to keep her away from the shed, it tends to make her ask us awkward questions, like 'where did all the frogs go' and 'have you been exhuming cadavers again'."

"What you should have on the inside of a lockable door is a simpler 'slide the deadbolt in or out' or 'engage or disengage the thingamajig that keeps the handle from turning', sort of thing, not anything requiring a key, though.  ...Hm, how even do locks work around here, anyway?  I might know some useful things; wasn't my field of study but I'm rather a generalist."

Elena's quips, afterwards, get her to laugh.  "Breakfast would be much appreciated, please.

"...I think I would be amenable to lunch, if a bit terrified because I don't believe I've ever spoken to a university's provost before and I don't want to mess something up."

"Would you like to come up with us to the dining hall, or would you rather we brought you something here? I wasn't sure of your tastes, or I'd have brought you a basket down. The bacon will probably all be gone, but there's several kinds of porridge, eggs, a considerable variety of breads and preserves, and almost certainly there will be sausage.

We can arrange lunch in a smaller room if you think the high table would be a bit much."

"I'll be quite happy to go somewhere with actual plumbing.

"...Speaking of which, don't put lead in a human body.  ...That's hopefully unrelated, but, can't be too sure.  Apparently lead somethingate was a common sweetener, let alone the lead in the water pipes.  And even traces of lead, a single part per million or billion or something, a single bit of chipped-off lead paint that someone inhales as dust, can fuck you over, because it just accumulates and disrupts the function of the human organism.  Especially the brain."

"I'm pretty sure we don't use lead sweeteners up here, there's no shortage of honey. Don't go to Sarvos, though.

Clearly that's why they're the most vapid Leaguish city and always obsessed with fashion and building giant statues of themselves rather than anything important.

The pipes are lead, though, maybe stick to the fruit juices if you're worried - they're well maintained and shouldn't be flaking off into the water, but you can never be sure. What else do you make pipes out of?"

"Copper, I believe.  Maybe alloyed?  Not sure.  ...Some types of plastic, once you've invented that, but who knows if you've even got the right raw materials; they came about under pretty specific circumstances, back home, and I don't know your geological history.  ...What does PVC stand for anyway...Polyvinyl chloride?  I think that's right but I have no idea how to figure out vinyl.  I mean it's all fractional-distillation, probably, but that's not...enough to go on."

"Anyway, I'll stick to the fruit juices and avoid pewter.  Hopefully.  Damn I wish I knew the process for aluminum that made it not insanely difficult to refine.  My guess is that it's electric, somehow, but fuck if I know."

"We have little enough copper that sounds quite expensive, and I have no idea what a plastic is as a material itself, it sounds like the kind of deformation you can't return a material from?

Or a vinyl, for that matter, although the apothecary department can probably react you up a chloride of it if you do figure it out. Alum we have, I don't know aluminum.

But I recognise this conversational pattern and it's one that means no-one gets breakfast. Do you want to come to breakfast or should we pick up a basket for you?"

"That's a homonym of the material.  I'd rather go to breakfast."

"Oh and while I'm talking about tiny things that can kill you: Diseases!  Those are - mostly, some are deficiencies, like scurvy, or having too much of something-or-other which is, I think, exemplified by gout - tiny things that can kill you!  By hijacking the normal processes of cells - I am told you actually have microscopy good enough to see things that are that small, which is really quite impressive with your tech base and the general circumstances hampering experiments - to replicate themselves.  So you should wash your hands, ideally with soap, before you put them on or in or near anything that could get inside of people.  And, uh, not put your literal actual shit in water that anyone might drink, because that's full of bad bacteria.  And viruses.  And such.  Hopefully you already know this sort of thing.  ...Oh, here's a good one you might not have.  You can derive certain chemicals from molds and whatnot that actually fuck up bacteria.  And there's other stuff that will usually not ruin a human's day but makes bacteria metaphorically shrivel up and die, but penicillin was what came to mind first."

"Yes, yes, we're not Marchers, we know what soap is. I admit it's a bit rough and ready out here but all of our actual toilets have nice hand basins and plenty of soap.

Roseweald or bladeroot can normally mop things up infection wise, but something cheaper to do that would be nice, it does sometimes get a bit grotty in winter when nobody wants to be outdoors.

Do you need to pick anything up before we head off? Run a comb through your hair or anything? I wouldn't worry too much, we do have a number of people who wouldn't know what sheveled looked like if it bit them."

"Oh, good, that's very good to know."

"...Winter is the best season, though!  Admittedly I say this from a position of having electric heaters but I'm right.  And I'm ready to go."  She runs her hands through her hair a bit, detangles a bit that got tangled.  "Breakfast awaits!"

Breakfast awaits down the muddy track that turns into a road someone has at least attempted to put gravel down on, which turns into a cobbled street, and suddenly buildings everywhere rising out of the morning mist, and they are in the outskirts of Temeschwar proper.

Through a great gate in a somewhat out of place white wall - some buildings so far have been whitewashed but 'dingy grey stone' is the primary aesthetic - and now they are in a place which has had Architecture occur, mostly fairly austere architecture but certainly planned and carefully executed and then repeatedly improved.

Heading through an archway into a quadrangle, they pass through a small door set in large impressive double doors and finally obtain the promised Dining Hall.

It is high ceilinged, with vaulted plaster work, and well equipped with dour paintings of mildly disapproving patrons, long dark wood tables and benches, and a servery at one end which smells really rather enticing, if you like pork products and potato scones.

It is FOOD.  That is sufficient.

Also there's jams and such.  That helps.  "So, I know Leonardo is studying electricity; what's your field, Elena?"