"Oi. You said it, not me. At that point it becomes long term, at least, and you have to worry about staying functional for it."

...Oh, that's what she meant. Ahmose just went and put his foot in his mouth again, misunderstanding and assuming the worst. Why did he think he could parse nuance in a language he didn't even know yesterday? He knows why, though, it's because he's Ahmose. 

He feels a familiar burst of hot embarassement. He's learned to keep talking through it but he thinks it's obvious to others something's wrong; they don't question him out of kindness. 

"I - yes, you're right," he says stiffly. "If it takes more than a week I should spend some time to - adjust, make longer-term plans. I'm sorry I misunderstood." Don't ask about it don't ask about it -

"Nothing gets done if you drive yourself into a hole. But yeah. Good luck, I guess?" She sighs again.

"Thank you." He will try to extricate himself from this suddenly problematic situation!

Is Jasper still there?

Jasper is not in the game room. He's at the Champaign guest house, probably. The green-furred one isn't there either. 

"Thank you for inviting me," he says to Sporty Lime, with a shallow bow. "It was nice of you, and I saw some interesting things. I'll leave the portal in the kitchen cupboard." And with that probably terrible and nonenthusastic goodbye, he escapes back to Champaign. 

Who is there? He hopes they didn't just leave him alone for the few days they said he could use this guest-house!

Sporty Lime gives him a polite goodbye.

Jasper is still there! Actually, so is Shining Black Lily, but she's focused on a large textbook and some notebooks spread out on the kitchen island, and doesn't really acknowledge him.

[Hello again, Ahmose! Do you need anything?]

Oh wow she really is studying like a wizard! This continues to be so cool.

"I think I should keep trying interplanar portals. Unless you have a better idea for what I should be doing. Can I use the basement again?" Does he need them to supervise him with the magic wards? It would be very inconvenient and he hates to keep imposing (and increasing his not-quite-official obligation to them), but it's probably a good idea not to leave him alone the next time he opens a portal into a giant. He doesn't even fully understand yet why he was blown through his first interplanar portal.

[You may! Please don't try to operate the wards yourself. They only react to a Puchuu, for safety reasons, as they could explode if operated improperly. I'll also have to warn you if the energy is low and get Shining Black Lily or someone else to channel for them. We wouldn't want anything unfortunate to happen, and a little bit of prevention is worth a lot of cure!]

Oh, that makes things so much simpler! "Thank you. I'll be there if you need me." (Another apparently-pointless truism that people say sometimes and so he finds himself saying it too without thinking.)

He's had a very stressful day. Being alone is appreciated. Ahmose tries to sit and rest, but dwelling on his thoughts only makes him more anxious. Portals it is, then.

He still can't see any way to direct a interplanar portal, to revisit or avoid any specific destination. And the portals still take so much power that he can only have one open at a time (just barely, what with the portal he's also keeping open to Chicago). But he can make two more eye-sized pinholes, and that's enough to chain portals and explore the far side.

The pattern that emerges is:

- Most portals go to space. He can't tell if it's the same field of stars every time; it would take too long to draw the stars each time, and he doesn't have a great visual memory. There's no nearby sun large enough to show a disc, or anything else of interest.

- About one in twenty goes to the water-world. Portals a few hundred miles up show only a few bare islands poking above water; he reluctantly admits this is not, after all, a river. (Seas seem like such a waste, they take up valuable space and you can't even use them for irrigation.) There might be more land on the far side of the planet; it would take him a day to be sure. The portal seems to be opening in the same place every time, judging by the sun.

- Several times, the portal opens inside earth or stone or something else solid. It's hard to tell since he can't make more portals into it, and he doesn't want to try to get a sample without Jasper to tell him how to do it through the ward. 

This is presumably the Elemental Plane of Earth, since as Jasper correctly pointed out, in most planes with planets or at least an open sky, most space that the portal could randomly target would be empty. But then, how can he reach the sea-world planet? For that matter, why does the portal open just above the water, and not below or far above it? Ahmose is painfully aware he does not understand how this works, and is cautiously optimistic that with the help of wizards (or wizard-minded people, anyway) they can make some progress studying this.

He can't identify any of the other planes. They could be the Elemental Plane of Water (if it has water-planets and not just, like, water all through), or Air or Fire (for the gas giant), or any outer plane that has space with stars. The same moral luck that hopefully prevents him from blindly opening a portal that cuts someone's head off also seems to ensure he never opens one he can see someone's head through.

Ahmose keeps opening portals and cycling through various unpleasant emotions about not making any progress and not having any idea of what to do differently. He can't stop thinking about maybe being stuck in this world, and he also can't think anything useful about it. He's going to try the boat idea, even if it means he might die, because the alternative is giving up on everything and feels that he can't - think that thought yet. 

Eventually he can't ignore his hunger and tiredness any longer and goes in search of food and some distraction from his thoughts.

Jasper is still here, but Shining Black Lily is gone since it's been a couple of hours. He can show Ahmose the pre-packaged snacks in the pantry and fridge, or order a pizza or something. If he doesn't leave the guest house, he might not encounter anything more distracting, though.

He'll eat whatever he's given, he's a polite guest!!

What do the sorcerer/wizard women of an alien world stock in their pantries?

The contents of the pantry include but are not limited to: Gatorade, Diet Pepsi, sliced bread, peanut butter, Aspirin, Pop Tarts in three flavors, Quaker oatmeal packets, granola bars, gummy fruit snacks, bags of chips in a few varieties, a Tupperware of cookies, fancy crackers, Cheerios and Corn Flakes, a bag of trail mix, and cans of mushroom soup. The fridge has milk, cheese sticks, carrots, hummus and naan bread, ketchup, pladtic-packaged sushi, tortillas, shredded cheese, butter, apples, and grapes. The freezer has plastic bags with frozen veggies, prepackaged sausage egg and cheese rolls, ice cream (chocolate), a frozen pizza (supreme), and a bag of Orange Chicken Bites.

It just might be more variety than the average osirian laundry wizard gets.

Jasper will operate the stove and microwave for him, if he indicates interest in foods that need them.

They drink these alchemical potions?!

Jasper reassures him they're just "drinks" but Ahmose isn't fooled, they are RED and BLACK and BUBBLING and nothing does that without, like, a good reason. He'll have the milk, please, or just water. (The milk tastes rather unlike what he's used to, but that is fine; many different animals can be milked.) 

In the same spirit, he eats some of the bread and cheese and apples, familiar foods or at least familiar words to call them by. And then, once his hunger is quieter, he dares to experiment. If he likes something he can replicate the flavor back home (but won't share it unless he finds a way to fairly compensate them - which he already doesn't have for all their help - never mind, he'll eat this first and worry later.)

Pop tarts: it tastes like fairly inexperienced laundry-spell flavoring by a wizard who hasn't learned yet that there's such a thing as too sweet. (He's aware this is not a universal belief.) The cheapest tavern in Sothis that can afford a prestidigitator in the kitchen is better. But after he quietly fixes it up a little, the crunchy mouthfeel is quite nice! This world might not need laundry wizards but if he's stuck here he can at least work in a tavern - stop that, brain, please let him be distracted by the new food.

(Living with prestidigitation at your fingertips gives one a very good appreciation for mouthfeel unaffected by taste.)

Various 'chips': he likes the whimsical name! Unfortunately, that's all he likes about them. They seem to be salt-preserved trail rations, or something?

Granola and the trail mix: see, that's how you do trail rations! He is very appreciative.

Ketchup: oh, that's nice! A complex, hard-to-reproduce flavor that adds well to other food. Ahmose Approves (internally; he's polite enough to not deliberately tell his hosts he doesn't like some of their food, even if realistically everything Ahmose thinks can be picked with zero Sense Motive.)

Grapes: it's very nice of plants to grow fruit that's basically just water-sugar and he's very appreciative of Erastil about it but they're frankly not as good as watermelons back home, the mouthfeel is all wrong.

Gummy fruit: no sorry he takes that back the grapes are actually quite fine!

Sushi: ...look, he's not a food expert by any means (only an enthusiast), but Ahmose grew up next to a river, he can tell this isn't fresh fish!! Non-deliberately non-fresh fish: a big no-no in food circles!

Chocolate ice cream: oh my gods he takes it all back this is brilliant who INVENTED this thing? Golarion will trade for this!!!

Jasper agrees that a lot of modern foods are highly processed and artificially flavored. Most people don't have prestidigitation! There are different flavors of ice cream. Maybe he'd like chocolate in candy bar form, or ice cream in vanilla or mint flavor, or with nuts and things.

If he likes interesting food textures though, some things to try include Jello, funnel cake, pizza, croissants and other pastries, stir fry... Or for sauces, soy, mustard, mayo, marinara, and plenty more.

Ahmose appreciates the recommendations! He's not sure when he'll get the chance to eat food outside this house again, but he'll try to keep those names in mind.

The idea of more ice creams is intriguing. He experiments with prestidigitating the chocolate ice cream; the texture and temperature make some flavors taste new and exciting. It seems that being cold enough subdues sweetness, while bringing some other flavors into sharper relief, and then the taste changes over time as it melts in his mouth. (One of the laundry spell's biggest shortcomings is not working on food that is already in his mouth and preventing him from speaking.)

Jasper watches over him mostly silently. 

Shining Black Lily swings back around the guest house once the sun is setting, and mentions that they've sent off all the water samples to the various labs that Jasper had contacts in and could do anything useful with them. Results will probably be available tomorrow.

Ahmose regretfully (embarassedly) tears himself away from his ice cream research and back to his more important duties.

"I'm not sure opening more blind planar portals will help. They seem to repeat - I'm not sure if from a finite set or if there are just lookalikes, it would help if you have a quick way to check if the star-field in two portals is the same. And I guess there might still be less likely destinations that I could get if I keep trying." (And if he's smart enough to recognize them when he gets them, and not - mechanically close the valuable portal and go on to the next, which he is quite afraid of doing when he settles into a routine over several hours.) "Can you think of anything else I should try? I can spend the time to go all the way around the water-world..."

[We might be able to do a star-field comparison if we take photos with a camera! I don't know of any pre-built software to do a comparison like that quickly, though. Wishes are very rare and unreliable or I might suggest one of those. The other thing we could try is accumulating blessings of magical control and potency on you. Some magical girls and witches can cast spells that boost other people a little bit. With enough boosts, your control over the interplanar portals might improve.]

He wasn't suggesting using a Wish! ...they probably don't mean, like, a Wish Wish where you can wish for anything your true love brought to you from across the universe just. A wish.

And - mental enhancement spells!!! He always wanted those!

"Yes please!! I, uh, the mental enhancement, uh, blessings. Those sound - very good and I, um, I don't know if they're worth using on me but if they are I'd really appreciate that." He is visibly very excited about this prospect! Every wizard wants enhanced Cunning. As far as wizards are concerned, that's what item enchantment is for, and all the rest is just a convenient byproduct.

[A lot of the people who can do that sort of thing are in high demand, though. You might need to negotiate with them.]

"It takes a certain sort of personality to enjoy being a buff dispenser," Black Lily adds, nodding. "I can do one- Sort of a buff, at least. The Bone Pick of Determination. It makes you focus intensely on a single task, which makes you better at it at the cost of ignoring other things going on around you."

That sounds sort of like the opposite of what he has naturally. Maybe if he gets the buff, he'll average out to a normal person?

"I'm not sure if I'd want that? I mean, I don't know how costly it is for you, or what you'd want in exchange. I'd try it if it was cheap, but that's" - maybe not how to relate to Black Lily, because he doesn't seem to have a purely mercenary relationship with her, but he's not sure what it is he has instead - "I'm already presuming too much on your hospitality," he settles on lamely.

"If I sold spells I'd be bothered by all sorts of people at random hours. I just want to study engineering and have fun. You're odd, but interesting, so... Why not? It's not like I'm short on mana and I need a break from studying anyway."

[I suspect it's making you more uncomfortable than I anticipated to have things be informal and hospitality-based. Would it be helpful to switch to a currency-based accounting and denominate everything given to you and received from you in U.S. Dollars going forward?]

Oh no, they noticed of course they noticed, Ahmose cannot hide his thoughts from most people, let alone a telepathic outsider and a mage who seems to cast from Splendor.

"I - think I'm uncomfortable mostly because I don't understand what the local rules for hospitality are. They vary a lot even between countries on Golarion." Osirion has the objectively best system because it allows people to opt out and operate under explicit Abadaran rules without giving any offense.

"So I - didn't want to suggest using currency. Because some people see that as a rejection of hospitality, or a claim they can't be trusted to provide hospitality, and that offends their honor. Which is a big deal in some places!" (This is the kind of Wise Advice About Distant Foreign Lands that Ahmose is proud of himself for knowing even though he learned it from a book and not by, e.g., visiting those lands through a portal.)

"To be clear I am - very thankful for your hospitality. I appreciate it a lot, hospitality to strangers is a very Good thing, and I would reciprocate if I had the opportunity. But also, if you think I can provide you with a lot of value, and some of the things I'm asking for are cheaper than that, it would help me to make that clearer so that I know what I can ask for as a transaction instead of as a favor." And if it turns out he's not going to provide them with enough value, he'll be embarrassed and in their debt but - he doesn't think that can happen unless he fails to connect them with Golarion or the other planes, and he's Not Thinking About That right now.

[I think you can provide us with a lot of value. The value of a standing international portal network would be extremely high, especially if it were public, but even if it remained private to Magical Girls and Puchuu. I didn't want to press on that while you were adjusting, as not bothering your guest too much is also part of hospitality.]

"Some people can get pretty scuffed about hospitality and the like but I think we're going to try to be - diplomatic here? Try to understand that we're from different places that do things in different ways, and probably fail at that, but, you know, default to assuming good will and miscommunication even if one of us is offended."

[As far as cheap things go, the guest house is cheap enough to be hospitality. We're still working on getting you a boat and a place to send it through to the ocean world. That is expensive enough to be a minor favor, and why we asked for a standing emergency-use portal to Chicago for arranging it. Our organization going out of our way to specifically organize stacking large numbers of buffs on you would be outside the bounds of simple hospitality, I think, and require a more specific accounting. We won't stop you from dealing with individuals to get buffs cast, of course!]

Black Lily waves and smirks. 

"I'll bone pick you if you want. It's intense, I don't use it much myself anymore because I don't need to pass this test or anything, I just want to. I used to use it for stuff like keeping curses stable on things that needed containing... If you'd rather get paid and pay for shit on your own recognizance that would be totally fair. We do have the notion of honor, and trust... It's surprisingly hard to describe from a cold start, though?"