:Mars. I don't think you've likely heard of it:

:No, I haven’t, sorry.: Which doesn’t feel surprising, somehow, everything about this feels too strange for Tarinda to be from somewhere normal and straightforward like the River Kingdoms. :I'm sure Urtho can find a way to get you home wherever it is: because it's not clear if there's anything Urtho CAN'T do, and besides he got her here somehow in the first place, :but - it might be a while. ...I'm sorry it's a bad time: 

She's very tempted to ask why it's a bad time but there's no reason to think it's related or relevant to Urtho sending her home, she's just curious. 

:Can you bring things from where I came from, here, and it's just hard to send me back?:

:I have no idea! It depends what experiment Urtho was doing and I’m not a mage — you’d have to talk to him, and it’s difficult since he’s not a Mindspeaker.: And Urtho really shouldn’t be handed an exciting magical puzzle right now, he’s staying up all night enough already.

She’ll start ushering Tarinda in the direction of a nearby conference room, which should now have drinks and an array of foods courtesy of the hertasi.  :Is there something that would be helpful if you could get it?: 

:Yes, for me and everybody else too!:

Well that's cryptic! At least it's not the ominous kind of cryptic. 

She clears her throat. :Well, if you're all right here for the moment, I can go ask Urtho if he knows what happened and whether it'd be easier to - make it happen again, rather than reversing it to send you back. Is there, er, anything I can tell him about what sort of thing it is you'd want him to try to get?: 

:Uh, do you have computers at all?:

Whatever a 'computer' is isn't coming across incredibly clearly in Mindspeech, but then again Ellona isn't a mage and there are an awful lot of things Urtho would know that she doesn't. :I'm not sure. Is that some kind of artifact?: 

:It's not a magic thing if that's what you mean:

:Oh. I think we don't, then. What does it...do?: 

:It's a machine that can reason:

:Huh. So it’s - like a created species but made from things that aren’t alive, rather than animals?: What an incredibly bizarre idea. Who would even think to try that? She’s also not sure how one would do that without magic but there are plenty of things she doesn’t know.

:Sorta! We have a really good one back home and if you could bring some here that would be great. I have one in me but it's not as smart:

:That sounds really interesting: to Urtho more than her, :and useful! I can go tell Urtho about it and see what he thinks he can do.: She can’t see where Tarinda would be keeping a thinking machine on her, but maybe it’s just very small, like one of those clever clockwork timepieces the artificers make, and fits in her pocket? :Do you need anything else before I go?:

:If you have a dictionary I could flip through my AI can start learning your language more:

…Sure, why not, that might as well be how it works. She’ll have the hertasi bring a dictionary. 

The hertasi are so delighted to be helpful! They can bring several dictionaries! Are there any other kinds of book that would also be helpful? They have lots of children’s primers on learning to read, or on learning Tantaran for students who grew up elsewhere (the hertasi like children and teach a lot of those lessons.) 

If the alphabet is phonetic she'd appreciate having some words pronounced for her!

They can do that! 

It’s going to be about half an hour before Urtho comes back (he was pulled away for an urgent war-related matter in the interim.) Does Tarinda want to request or do anything else while she’s waiting?

Nope, she's still working on the dictionary and occasionally asking hertasi to pronounce irregular things.

And half an hour later Urtho is back, looking frazzled but also excited.

He's brought Ellona with him, to relay what he wants to say in Mindspeech. 

:Ellona tells me the country you come from has artifice that can think and reason? I have so many questions!: One of the hertasi manages to catch his eye, and he ducks his head. :Sorry - my name is Urtho. I run an academy of magic in this tower. You would not have heard of it, I think, it’s quite well known but it sounds like you are from very far away.:

:Yup! I don't think I'm likely to be from anywhere in this entire half of the galaxy at least! Probably farther! We don't have magic where I'm from!:

:What, no magic at all?: He stares raptly at her. :You think you are from another world entirely? …I have no idea how my spell caught you! I did not think it could do that!: He doesn’t seem upset about this so much as fascinated. 

:I'm pretty confused too! Can you bring things from my world here? We've got a non-magical thing that has done a really good job with our world and could do stuff here too, like making sure people don't die and stuff: