And they've arrived at the baths. There's some little areas with curtains, and some open showers that people are washing under, and multiple pools people are soaking in. True to Cumin's word, modes of dress vary from nudity to full-coverage black robes and hats.

There is a lot of water! Conrad smiles.

:How do you use the baths?:

He wants to Splash but presumably you are not supposed to Splash because none of the people are Splashing.

«Oh, first you clean yourself off in the showers or by magic, then you pick a bath of temperature you like and soak in it, then you dry off when you're done. Often you can chat in the baths, or if you have a waterproof book you could bring that. I'll demonstrate showering.»

Cumin dismisses her hat and her overcoat, but not the rest of her garment, and gets into the open showers. If Conrad doesn't stop her, she'll explain the process of showering while she does it. There's a soap for hair and another soap for skin and such.

Waterproof book! Paper is not waterproof, but maybe he can make a book facsimile with metal and read it then. Or actually, what he can do is flip through the pages of a book very quickly to record them, and then read the recorded pictures slowly later.

Conrad will mimic her very precisely! Hopefully the fact that his clothes prevent him from washing the skin of a lot of his body doesn't render the showering invalid. Also, he's still wearing his boots.

He will use the soap for hair on his hair and the soap for skin on his skin if Cumin does it like that.

«Oh, you need to let the soapy water run under your clothes some, and also the rinse water. If the water cleaning were less good you'd probably need to be fussier. And you should dismiss your boots or water will accumulate in them and your feet won't get properly clean.»

Cumin can do a better demonstration of adjusting clothes to let water under them while maintaining modesty than she did the first time.

Ah. He will copy her, and also dismiss his boots like she says. He also dismisses his socks even though that was not in her original suggestion.

It seems like a terrible hassle compared to just like, cleaning himself with magic, but he wanted to learn how baths work. And presumably it's less of a hassle if there are no clothes in the way.

«Alright, I think we're ready to go to the tubs. You can stick a finger in to see what the temperature is and pick one you like on that basis.»

How many tubs are there? Conrad will diligently do this, and pick the one whose temperature is such that it is the most tepid. That is to say, the one that is the least hot and least cold to the senses.

There are three tubs. It's possible that even the hottest of the tubs does not feel particularly hot to Conrad's senses, though.

He will feel the very hot tub as very hot, but the valence of it will be neutral to him still.

He will enter the middle tub as it has the most tepid temperature! Tepidness!!

What are the other people in the bath doing. Are they moving. Are they doing activities.

Pretty low-key activities? Most people are sitting or leaning on underwater benches, or lying down and floating, or lying down and not floating. There's some conversation. These two girls are snuggling. Someone's combing her hair.

Cumin will follow Conrad and lean on a bench.

He doesn't need air, so he will lie down and not float and let himself sink to the bottom of the pool! How deep is it?

Not as deep as he is tall, but plenty deep enough to cover him while he's lying down.

«You in fact don't need to breathe, correct? I'm pretty sure you don't, but if you do, that's a bad place to be lying down.»

:I don't need to breathe. Why is it a bad idea?:

"Well, you're not experienced at moving around in water, so someone like you might need to breathe and then have trouble getting out of the water to do it."

Oh. :That makes sense.:

Conrad will use his very weak Waterworking to lift himself a little bit above the floor, and then slowly rotate himself with it. It's very good practice. He really likes having this much water to work with such that he can immerse his whole body in it!

Cumin is happy to just lie around. «Having fun? Do you know how dizziness works?»

:Yes!: Conrad is having a lot of fun. :I used to get dizzy but I don't get dizzy anymore.:

«I'm having fun too! Sometimes spinning can make people dizzy. Dizziness can lead to vomiting and you shouldn't vomit in the bath. I guess I don't know if your body does that, but dizziness still isn't fun for most people. If you feel dizzy, you should stop spinning. Or maybe spin a tiny bit in the opposite direction and then stop, I think that helps some people.»

:I see. I used to get dizzy a lot when they put me on the centrifuge but then I stopped getting dizzy. And they also stopped putting me on the centrifuge. I don't know what vomiting is.:

«What's this about a centrifuge? And vomiting is a process where the contents of your stomach exit through the mouth.»

:So they would put me on this pod attached to an axle, and it would spin really really fast. Or they would put me in this chair that had a bunch of rings around it, and the rings would spin around really fast, in various directions.: He sends pictures of each.

:Oh. I don't think I've experienced that, but I also put stuff in my stomach very rarely. So that's probably why I don't know about it.:

«Well, you put stuff in your stomach today, so I'd suggest being careful.»