Mitros glances at Iobel. "We might consider that, then, when we're less needed here. How long would the trip be?"

"No time at all. We took a while to get to you because we landed at a random point in the universe, but the worldleaper we used to get there will act as a beacon."

They file into the palace. Mitros dismisses the guards. The newcomers aren't exactly safe to be around but the guards don't make them any moreso. Several people should keep ranged spells for unconsciousness charging outside the door, just in case. Antir lands on his shoulder. He murmurs to her that she should go meet Maitimo. 

So she lands on Maitimo's shoulder instead. Maitimo's face remains perfectly relaxed but Mitros can tell he's startled. 

"All right," Mitros says. "Can I get you anything to eat or drink?"

"Stop me if I'm treading on a hospitality obligation of some kind but I can make arbitrary matter and that includes food," Cam says, raising a hand. "Can I get you anything?"

"Persimmons."

Cam hands her a persimmon.

Mitros laughs delightedly. "Chocolate fudge cakes from the little store near Iobel's old place, or is that insufficiently specific?"

"If you gave me the name of the place I could probably do those too!"

He names it.

Plate of fudge cakes, enough to go around.

Mitros stares adoringly at his wife and lets Antir do the monitoring of reactions in the room while everyone eats. Finankar has noticed what Mitros is up to and is amused, though keeping a straight face. Maitimo has figured it out and disapproves strongly but is hiding it almost perfectly. Findekáno's also leaning towards disapproval. Cam seems carefree. 

And Iobel is watching everybody thoughtfully and enjoying her persimmon. "So arbitrary matter, but does that get you crane machines all by itself?"

"Oh, no, we've also got more advanced technology on top of that - I'm not sure how to cash it out in terms of years, since it depends what you focus on and with what development resources and also whether you're an Elf, Elves are kinda slow at things - these ones are better than average - but anyway much better tech, you're many prerequisites behind from what I can tell."

"What do those prerequisites look like," Mitros says. "with an eye mainly towards improved quality of living, disaster relief, and life expectancies?"

"First of all you need electricity, which is basically tame lightning," Cam says. "That does all kinds of good stuff. The other intermediate steps between electricity and drones like the crane mostly don't touch on those priorities, though."

"Okay!" Mitros says. "Do you happen to have a standard approach to giving worlds a substantial technological boost or should we spend the next few hours outlining one?"

"We do not yet have such a thing, you may choose to feel slighted that we came unprepared or delighted to have design input as you prefer." Next to the part of his computer display that is producing translations as the Marlatians speak, he produces a notetaking window and starts an outline.

And Mitros sits back in his seat. And frowns. "Okay," he says to Maitimo, "I am actually really disappointed in you, what happened -"

"Later," Maitimo says wearily. 

"Huh?"

Mitros smiles at him apologetically. "Sorry, I should have - introverted? takes a lot of notes to organize your thoughts? very good at being exactly the sort of person you endorse? because you have the mannerisms, you have the priorities, you have the sense of humor -"

"...You have a me somewhere?"

"...Mitros?"

"I think so," he says. 

Maitimo tentatively nods.

"Not to impugn your judgment of character but how do we check?" wonders Iobel.

"...their families looked like they matched," Cam mutters, and he shoos his notes and produces -