Hmph.

"All right, but can you tell me more about how it works after that? Like is it just, charge the lightlines once and then as many books as I want?"

"Also, what kinds of books do you have here, and how are they organized? Once I have privileges, can I browse the stacks myself or do I have to describe to you what I want and you get it for me? Is there anything like a card catalog?"

Opalyn says 'card catalog' hoping that whatever magic does language translation fills in the most appropriate thing, and not something too literal to be meaningful to the librarian.

(It's not that she wouldn't fuck him for book access, he's pretty hot and kind of stern and books are worth a lot to her, but she also expects to charge the lightlines pretty soon and maybe doesn't need to be giving away favors just yet.)

"Four credits per day per book.  You can browse the stacks yourself.  No catalog, this is Capital and the Farm has a central library repository running on multispatial presence and semantic assortation.  That means once you head out of the front browsing area, the library offers you choices between different bookcases, you travel past one bookcase to choose, go down a virtual hallway, the library offers you another choice between bookcases and passages, you keep choosing in the direction that you hope is more like the books you want until you find a bookcase that has something acceptable."

"Is four credits a lot? How many credits do most people earn when they charge the lightline once?"

"Are there always lots of books no matter what subject you show interest in, or do you sometimes run out of selection?"

"Is there any way to get a random assortment of books, or random within some search criteria while remaining fixed in other ways?"

"Lightline opportunities are once per four days, a typical Baron-level gets their baseline set to 50 credits and 100 per unit extra effort."

"There's always more books, if the library starts to run out it'll pay less attention to some of your earlier choices."

"If you just look at the very first choice the library offers you, that's about as random as anything is."

Opalyn pauses to think. She really wants books, but also it sounds like she won't have to wait long, and on her current models she's going to be able to afford a lot of them once she starts earning credits. She could apparently fuck her way into book borrowing privileges but she doesn't actually feel like it at the moment, and it sounds like kind of a set up where she blows the guy and then he tells her it wasn't good enough, even if actually it was great, and she's not really interested in that, it's not her kink.

So... probably it's time to eat and then see if she can volunteer to charge the lightlines sooner than later so she can have some books during this subjective day.

"All right. Thanks for your help!"

And if the guy does not immediately respond in any interesting way she will turn and go back to the refectory.

She's allowed to browse books here, but the librarian isn't going to say anything if the newcomer doesn't ask.

(Besides, if he does point it out to her, she'll no doubt snap that she knew that and wasn't interested in browsing, in order to not look stupid to him.  This librarian has been in the Dramatic-Lewd section of the criminal-sorcerer holding facility for longer than a day.)

Opalyn often takes rules somewhat too literally and fails to read between the lines or guess at the gray area! Opalyns function best in environments where everything is legible! She's going to have such a great time in Eldrida!

Back to the refectory, then, in search of protein to go with her carbs. If the macronutrients on this planet are even the same, which, upon reflection, she's not sure about.

There's more eyes on her, this time.

...the food offerings do seem really heavy on items that look like what an Earthling might consider dessert.

This soup could be a savory dish, maybe?  It's got stuff floating in it that could be meat, and no obvious frosting?

Opalyn searches her Orphan memories: what do fit people eat around here? Is it likely that these people are just eating to stave off hunger but then they're using magic to transmogrify the food in whatever form into actual nutrition? Or would the collar prevent that?

Does what she eats matter in any way to how she feels or how she ends up looking?

...Orphan's memories are consistent with her eating Whatever and having not noticed any problems with this, but also Orphan still ate some fair amount of meat in there, and meat-vegetable stew, because that was what Orphan found actually tasty and merchant caravans didn't carry tons of chocolate cupcakes when robbed.

Opalyn's going to eat whatever actually appeals to her for any reason whatsoever and see what happens. It's a brave new world of nutrition science magic and she's just going to have to experiment. She'll also watch what other people eat and see what that seems to do to their physique and energy.

She takes the soup and three very different-looking cupcake things and goes to an unoccupied table that seats four and begins to eat.

How's the food?

Unfamiliar!  Tasty!  The soup is in fact savory and the meat-like stuff could legit be meat, though smooth and tender.  The most brightly-colored of the three cupcakes has inedibly sweet frosting, unless Opalyn thinks that there's no such thing as "inedibly sweet" in which case it is no doubt the tastiest thing she's ever eaten.

Opalyn has met lots of people who'd be thrilled by "inedible sweetness," but she's not one of them. She finishes the soup and attempts to eat just the cake part without the frosting part. Normally this would be a messy process but it's her first day here so she's somewhat neat about it. She'd rather not have someone come up and power-move her right when she has rainbow-colored frosting all over her face.

A woman brushes past the table without turning or looking in Opalyn's direction; if Opalyn is not being Constantly Vigilant it may take her a while to notice that there's now an unobtrusive scrap of paper on the tabletop.

It does take a while, but when Opalyn realizes that she's been Passed a Note she's kind of thrilled! In middle school, participating in Note Passing was a popularity-marker.

What does the note say?

woman you snubbed was Baron-level
but enforces for Duchess-level Carnidine who dominates in this section
enforcer not usually cruel but she won't let it pass if you do nothing

Woman she snubbed, woman she snubbed...
Who did Opalyn allegedly snub, now? What could this be about? Could the note have been delivered to the wrong place?

Let's see, there was the woman in the hallway who directed her to the library. There were the people she passed by the first time through the eating area. There were the people she passed by when she fetched her food.

If this note is true at all, it's probably about the woman who called her a "newcomer?"

Is that woman still around? Will Opalyn even recognize her? She had more clothes on, that could be a way to locate her again. Opalyn tries to look around without obviously looking around.

Still here.

Opalyn is not entirely sure what to do here! She is quite certain she didn't 'snub' this woman, and equally certain it won't matter what her intentions were. She is not, at this point, afraid of the enforcer. Opalyn could just ignore the situation, but that doesn't sound right. If there really is a problem, she'd rather address it head on than wait for it to catch up to her at a less convenient time.

She walks up to the table with the three people, pulls a chair from a nearby empty table, and says, "Mind if I join you?"

She does not go so far as to sit down, she waits for a response.

The woman there quietly but audibly exhales, and then says, "We can try."

Huh. Opalyn expected either a haughty rejection or, outside chance, something both positive-and-dominant sounding at the same time, but this was neither. This was quiet and subdued. There is definitely something strange going on here.

She pushes the chair into place and sits down, orienting herself toward the woman.

"Hi, I'm Opalyn. What shall I call you?"

"Tiraff will do."

"I'm in the habit of offering a helping finger, if not a whole helping hand, to newcomers.  Walking right past me after I called to you makes that a little difficult for me to do, in terms of keeping up appearances, but it's not the sort of mistake that's beyond repair or reparation."

Ha! Apparently the previous overture was intended as warm and welcoming as well as being a power move! Good to know!

"Nice to meet you, Tiraff."

What does one say to another prisoner? Most of the Earth-standard openers don't work. Might as well skip straight to the important parts.

"What do you value, here in this place? I have little in the way of resources or power at the moment, but I like to help people, and to do that it helps to know what they want."

She chuckles quietly, at that.  "Well, a less perceptive person might perhaps talk about Farm credits; or contributing one more strong arm as we dance just short of the level of violence that provokes the Headstompers to separate us and tell us to save it for later; or, of course, the sort of tradeable relationship influence that we all want individually as we do our best to fall in and out of love."

"But really I'd say that the most fundamental thing a human being wants, in the end, is appearances.  I'm trading away some of mine for letting you just sit down at my table after insulting me earlier.  I'll want it paid back at some point through you making me look good.  Once you phrase it that way, and realize it's at the bottom of everything, there's so many ways for one person to make another look good.  Even a newbie Baron-level with no underworld savvy can do it."

Opalyn can't claim that she doesn't value appearances at all, that wouldn't be true. She did refrain from getting rainbow frosting all over her face so as not to look a fool; she knew that being obviously unkempt would result in a worse opening position in any subsequent conversation. She has such a thing as a concept of personal dignity.

But Tiraff's claim that "the most fundamental thing a human being wants is appearances" does not have the ring of truth. It's not generally true of all humans, and Opalyn wonders if it's even really true of Tiraff. If she only looked powerful but wielded no actual power would that really do anything for her?

Still, there's probably something in it, and Opalyn would rather learn more than start picking it apart, so she'll just ask more questions.

"I apologize! I did not actually realize that walking past your table would harm your reputation, and I probably would not have done it if I'd realized."

"Who here are we trying to impress?"