It's definitely a bigger town. Not quite a city, but there are some two-story buildings, a few dozen shops (some fairly specialized like the dye shop, a livestock exchange, a glassmaker, and a furniture-maker), two different inns, at least three restaurants, and many streets with different quality and style of dwellings on them. Windmills and farms are visible in the slowly rolling and rising hills to the east, and at the peak of a long rise of terrain is a tall building that Link identifies as Purah's laboratory.

What a nice place. He's not even nervous about it after visiting Kakariko went so well.

"Will Purah be up for visitors now?"

"She does research all the time but she doesn't get many visitors. She'll warm up when it comes out that you come from a strange new world, I bet."

"Well I'm up for meeting her." He heads in the laboratory's general direction.

"Even before looking at some shops or resting up from days on the road? It's a bit of a hike going all the way up there! But if you say so."

"If you'd rather! Which shops are worth a look?"

"Well, restaurants are expensive but it'd be nice not to cook my own food for once. And the dye shop is neat. There's also a blacksmith you could probably sell indestructibility to, if you care to do that."

"Those all sound like good ideas. If I'm probably about to have paying work I can definitely treat you to dinner, want to go eat first?"

"Yum. Sure! Grilled meat and sauces place or fancy bread and sandwiches place?"

"First one! What kind of meat will they have?"

"All sorts, usually. Kinds of fish, kinds of bird - herons and such can get pretty big and there's these ostrichy things that live in the badlands - rabbit and boar and cow and pig and goat and deer and once they even had bear."

"You must hunt a lot more than we do at home."

"I just bet we do. Like, more than one percentage point of our population is wandering treasure hunters, monster-hunters, survivalists, adventurers, and the like. And there's not a lot of us compared to how much land there is these days, thanks to the Calamity." Sigh. 

"That's a lot! At home it's, uh, zero unless you count people who just like being hermits in the forest. But they don't kill any monsters or hunt any treasure."

"Hyrule's a realm of adventure now, for better or worse. There's the grill place! You can already smell it!"

He picks up the pace. It does smell good, he wonders if they designed the place to help the wind come through and carry all those enticing scents toward the road.

It seems that's exactly what they did. A duct from above a huge stone grill with a big fire under it goes straight out into the street, drawing the warm, scent-filled air with it.

They sit and get menus from a quiet waiter - the guy at the grill is loud and boisterous, though. "Honey-glazed venison, ooh. A classic. Grilled fish with palm fruit in Lurelin Village style? Salt-brushed fire-grilled stag. So many meats, so little room in my stomach..."

"What do you recommend?" he asks Link.

"Ooh. You haven't tried anything spicy yet. Not everyone likes spicy though... It makes your mouth feel like burning, but only a little and, like, in a good way. Doesn't actually hurt you. I'm gonna get honey venison and we can swap if you can't stand the heat."

"Sure, I'll try it." It sounds ominous but if Link likes it and she's willing to trade him if it's terrible then it doesn't seem all that risky.

Goron Spiced Meat Medley for Valanda, and Honey-Glazed Venison for Link. It's cooked up fresh, they can watch it done while they wait. The waiter brings them water and bread, meanwhile.

And then the food arrives. It smells pretty strong, that's for sure.

Careful small bites.

He doesn't hate it.

"I've never had anything like this before."

Between bites Link comments, "That's 'cause your empire is culinarily deprived."

"That's true! And yours doesn't have flights!"

"We should both learn from each other! The Rito can fly. The Divine Beast Vah Medoh can, too, and some of the Guardians. Hey, maybe you could take seeds home if there's anything really useful from Hyrule? I don't actually know how they make Goron Spice though."

"We might have as many plants as you at home, there's just no reason I'd know as much about what we have that I can eat as you do about what Hyrule has that you can eat. The Rito probably can't carry enough cargo to mimic what we've got but maybe Vah Medoh can. How much can the flying Guardians carry?"

"...No idea. Guardians themselves are pretty heavy? Probably could carry two or three people without much trouble, but that's guessing."

"Can you take the Guardians back like you're doing to the Divine Beasts?"

"Nope! Have to kill 'em."

"Then I guess you can't recruit ten and bring mass transit to Hyrule. Maybe later we'll be able to figure out how the Sheikah made them fly and do that."

"Well, Purah might know. She studies Guardians, among other stuff."

"Even if she doesn't, we can read about it later. I guess flight is as good a starting point as any. Safe travel is more important than it probably sounds."

"Oh, I know that. Keeping the roads clear and escorting folks came before exterminating monsters, back in my guard days."

"That's a really good thing you did. How many people were there doing that back then?"

"The Hyrule Volunteer Guard Corps was two thousand strong at its peak!"

"Volunteer? How did you afford weapons and food if you were working for free?"

"Oh, you do get paid some. It's just- you make a commitment when you join, and it's separate from the army and the Royal Guard both, not even strictly answering to the King, so it needed a different name."

"Oh, that makes sense. Did the government fund it out of tax revenues?"

"Don't remember." Nom.

"Guess we just have to kill Ganon so I can ask Zelda. ...I think I like this weird flavor."

"Horray, we've discovered another food you like! Spicy things, noted. Say, how do your world's flights work anyway?"

"...I'm thinking about what Impa said. Maybe I should wait and tell you how it's done in Milliways. The short answer is magic."

"Well, if Ganon can spy on us wherever we are, I think we have bigger problems than him figuring out how to fly. He already makes flying monsters and uses flying Guardians."

"Well, given your optimism, sure. Force mages can fly alone, we don't have too many people in the air for that at once, but that's less safe and less comfortable. Mostly they have crews of two or more force mages. They can sort of lift things with their minds, so they lift these, you could call them buildings but they're much more aerodynamic and, uh, portable than the usual building. They sell space to people or cargo and they leave at fixed times from airports in different cities and people can rent space on a flight, you pay per pound times miles traveled. Usually they have different compartments at different temperatures so they can keep some things frozen, like if you were transporting a lot of meat and didn't have a defense mage on hand. Most flights start or end in the capital but I think that only works because the whole continent isn't very big."

"Prices are always by weight? So you're just out of luck if you're a really big and heavy person?"

"Yeah, it does mean some species pay less than others to travel."

"Oh well."

The finish the meal. The bill is a bit higher than buying the ingredients would have been, but not absurd.

He pays.

"Where to next?"

"Up to the lab, I guess. Dye shop is neat but we don't actually need to visit."

"To the lab! ...Hey, what's that fire for?"

"Ancient power source of some kind. I had to ferry it up to the lab when I first got here."

"That's kind of promising, isn't it? If Sheikah tech runs on normal things like fire."

"I guess. I really don't know the details."

"But you will soon!"

"I wonder. The best use of my time isn't trying to understand tech, being perfectly honest. I'm not good at it. I'm good at fighting."

"You'll still need to be the one to copy books in Hylian. Whenever we get there, anyway. That might not be for a while."

"Whenever the door does come back, I'll make sure to get some good books, for sure."

"I wonder how the Sheikah organized their books. Maybe we'll get lucky and there'll be a book called How To Create Sheikah Tech From Stuff You Find In The Untouched Wilderness."

Link just laughs.

It's a long walk, and uphill too, but not that long.

Though the slightly-incoherent warning signs posted on the upwards path might be a bit worrying.

Not worrying enough to turn them away. When they're there he looks at Link, not sure whether to walk in or knock or some entirely different thing.

Link knocks, and the door is answered by a - small child?

"Link! You're back! With a friend? Have you got more ancient materials? I think I could upgrade your bomb rune still!"

If that were a reason not to take her seriously Link would have said so.

He lets Link take the lead again. He isn't actually sure what he's doing.

"Hi, Purah! Actually, not really, but Valanda here is from another world, has foreign magic, and I'm sure he'd love to talk about ancient tech with you."

"What kind of magic? How does it work? Is it teachable or intrinsic?"

(Link summarizes Valanda's defense magic.)

"That violates several of what I thought were essential axioms! I'll have to throw away years of research! This is great!"

"It might make more sense to say your magic follows those axioms and mine doesn't. I used to work in magic research, I'll answer your questions if you answer mine."

"There are properties of that sound like they may violate rules that are thought were essential to all possible magic. A scientist is happy to be proven wrong, however. Come on, come in!"

The interior of the lab is... A mess. Weird arcane tools are scattered around, but most of the mess is a ton - probably literally - of books and sheafs of notes.

"What did you think was essential to all possible magic that I might be violating?"

"The principle of conservation! I want to watch you defend something under a mana-scope to be sure but it sounds like it doesn't actually tire you out or consume anything to enchant a thing! Are there any circumstances or places where you would be unable to enchant an object? Magically unable, not like, you can't focus on it well enough."

"No, it's eating something. If you maintained an effect all day you'd be a little hungrier than if you didn't do any magic. Not by a lot but it has a cost. Maybe a couple handfuls of pecans for twelve hours, but that's just a guess and it'd depend on how much I was doing, too. I couldn't enchant something another defense mage had warded against having magic done to it."

"But you can make permanently defended objects. Are those eating something?"

"One-time cost to cast the magic. They're not draining me afterward. We don't know that they're permanent, we just know there are some from centuries ago that don't show any signs of failing yet."

"I wanna look at 'em under a mana-scope! Snap! Come and do one for me?"

"If you'll tell me what a mana-scope is and how it works I'll enchant something under it for you."

Purah is happy to explain mana-visualizing spells baked into her scope! It's an expensive and delicate piece of equipment. Mana flows one way or another whenever any local magic occurs, and analyzing the patterns helps them study magic.

(Link says that she's going to take a nap outside, it's nice weather for a nap.)

That's completely baffling and he doesn't understand it at all. Isn't there a chance someone might see her there? Even up this hill, outside is outside.

The mana-scope, on the other hand, is pretty interesting. He says as much to Purah when he gets done looking at Link like she's grown a second head.

"What would you like me to ward for you?"

"Lots of different things to see if there's any differences in the mana! But for now-" She grabs a sheet of paper. "This. The temporary kind first, then the permanent kind."

"Do you care what kind of enchantment I put on it? You just want to see it happen, right?"

Behold a sheet of paper that can't be torn. Temporarily. Just until Valanda stops concentrating on it.

"No change. Surprisingly, that's what I expected!"

Purah has a lot of other experiments to do on this. She shoves aside a whole tableful of notes on some other project and calls her assistant, a middle-aged guy named Symin, to come take notes while continuing to ask Valanda to do various bits of magic.

And if she wants him to cooperate with that she'll have to answer his questions. He has so many. How does the slate work, what are the most useful Sheikah artifacts, does Sheikah tech use electricity, what's the fire for...

"Not that I mind explaining things but going question-for-question is distracting! Can you save them up in batches?"

"Sure, batches work fine!"

He cooperates with various experiments for a while.

Purah explains Sheikah tech! So much of it is lost and so much else they don't understand that well! Sheikah tech doesn't use electricity. The Sheikah Slate is incredibly complex and they can't get a super clear look but works on the basic principle of conditional-switching mana conduits. The fire is (probably) a self-sustaining mana tap drawing up the stuff from deep underground!

"Are you worried about running out of underground mana?"

"Snap! We found scraps of Sheikah books that made references to managing that! It sort of trickles back, and shouldn't be a problem unless we were running ten thousand mana furnaces for decades. I'd need to study it more to get a definite answer, and I'd need any research budget at all to think about doing that."

"It's not completely impossible we might be able to get you a research budget and arbitrary books from that era..."

"Books! How! The budget can wait if you can get undamaged Sheikah-era books!"

"I'm not sure if it's wise to talk about it where someone could overhear. There's no guessing when I'll get the chance to get some but I expect to within the year. It could be while I'm here and you'd be just up the hill. It could be anywhere else and getting you to where you'd need to be to read them would take days. If it's the first thing we'll just go get you. If it's the second and I have to defend a... way out of this universe... for days by myself I want something for my trouble."

"Not wise to talk about- Did my sister put you up to that nonsense idea? It sounds like something she'd do! Discussion is almost always good! Tell me tell me tellmetellmetellme!!"

Symin nervously interrupts Purah, "Ah, perhaps I should go get young Link?"

"Impa was worried about Ganon finding out. Hylia doesn't seem worried about it, I'm just playing it safe. You can ask Link if she's willing to take more risks with the information."

Purah bolts out the back door.

And then back in, Link following and yawning. "Jus' tell her. Even if Ganon does figure out Milliways, Security will be able to take him. Apparently. Sorry I didn't remember that sooner."

"I'd like to see what kind of security can take Ganon. But sure. Purah, at random a door might decide to lead to a magic bar in another universe that sells all the books ever published in every universe."

!!!

"I wanna visit. At random? You can't have many data points yet, can you?"

Now her barrage of questions is about Milliways, not Valanda's magic system.

"No but we've also asked around inside and don't know how to predict it. It seems to favor some people more than others but we've heard that some people get just one door in their lives. But for all I know that might not be true. I don't know why it favors some people and I don't know any ways to predict if it'll like you. It has weird magic and you'd have fun there if it let you in."

"I want to write down a list of book requests and give it to Link now. It'll be a snap! Since it seems to like you two more than me and all, you've been there before."

She fetches a fresh piece of paper and starts on that, muttering book names.

"Are those names of books? How do you know what books they had back then?"

"We have some books, which contain references to some other books sometimes! And it's not just book names... Hmm, Meto Kaven's work is a bit weird should I include him..." Back to writing.

This seems to be taking a while. Maybe he'll just go for a walk while they wait. He opens the front door. It doesn't open on Hateno.

"Found it!"

"That's some kind of crazy luck," Link comments, laughing as Purah grabs a bunch of notes and a mask-thing before running into Milliways.

He holds the door for Link and Symin if they're coming.

"I bet we can get Purah to do the book-copying for us!"

"I bet she does all her own book-copying!"

Symin follows through, too, looking around curiously.

...That looks like Nick, over there. Except dressed differently again, and... Much paler than the other two Nicks. There's a strange facet to the way he's standing.

"Oh, you already know Milliways, grand. Any chance you lot want to rent a magic crystal ball?"

"We do know Milliways and an alternate version of you from another universe. What's your crystal ball do?"

"Alternate version of me. I hope he's made out well, can't very well copy my circumstances. It gives the user a metaphorical vision - a hallucination - almost like a dream, to truthfully answer a question they ask it. There's a short ritual to do. It works better on things like 'where is my hated enemy, That Guy' or 'how do I use the lost compass of Gale Saxon' than 'what is the meaning of life'."

"Think I could find the Master Sword with it?"

"Quite probably, though I can make no guarantees. The door needs to be open to your world while it goes, to answer questions about your world."

"I can imagine I might want that if it didn't cost much. What currencies are you familiar with and how much do you charge for how long with the ball?"

"This is a powerful magical artifact, you know. I'm quite lowballing it at sixty dollars per question. Bar, what's that to them?"

177 Rupees.

"There you go. Or if you want to rent it for an hour and ask it lots of questions, you could probably fit at least ten in if you're quick, flat six hundred rupees will do. I do regret that I can't give you a free sample question to prove it works."

"I can get a similar service for a thirtieth the price back home with more proof it works than your say-so. You feel like matching that?"

"Nope! If your service is really that good and cheap you'd be using it. Also, it's not easily accessible from Milliways, is it? Though, perhaps I could allow you to pay after asking your first question - I'll still want my pay unless you are very unsatisfied with the result, that is."

"My door opens in the middle of a city. It'd be mildly inconvenient but leaning out and shouting would get me someone with the right kind of magic in a couple minutes. But you're right, you're here, you're convenient, if I only have to pay once I know your ball works I can offer you a little extra. Say, twenty rupees?"

"If that's twenty rupees on top of the fee I already stated, you have yourself a deal."

"You have anything urgent to ask, Val? I wanna find that sword. I'll pay. If it works."

"Nah, if I had anything I really needed to know I'd just ask at home or ask Bar. I don't think this guy's price is any less of a hassle than managing bringing in a knowledge mage."

"Well, I do need to know, but maybe one of Purah's lost books will have it. I know it's in the sacred forest, just not where that is. Probably one of the books will say, now that I think about it."

"Well, if you don't want my services at the price quoted, oh well. There will be people who do sooner or later. Bar, another cup."

What looks and smells like blood appears.

"Your loss. ...Two rupees if you tell me what species you are?"

"Deal. I'm a vampire. It's more of a curse than a speciation, technically. I've learned to live with it."

He pays.

"Hey, Bar, do you have books on vampires? And any books from Link's world from before the civilization known as the Sheikah, if there were any other book-writing civilizations before them?"

Quite a few of both. Are you looking for anything more specific?

From within a pile of texts, Purah shouts, "I've got ancient Sheikah books covered, Link's friend!"

"How old is the oldest book from Link's world? In their local time, not Milliways time."

That does depend on how strictly one defines a 'book'. The oldest written work I can provide you, however, is approximately 56,000 years old.

"Wow. From what you can tell, were any past societies more advanced than the Sheikah? Would we be better off looking at books from twenty or thirty thousand years ago instead?"

I have not actually read all these books. I simply have them available to me. I'm afraid you will have to read a representative selection for yourself.

He gets the shortest nonfiction books from twenty, thirty and forty thousand years ago in Link's world and six hundred years ago in his.

"Hey, Purah, what's your strategy? I'm probably not overlapping with you but we can jointly learn more if we coordinate."

Bar provides the books requested, also including one about the kind of vampire this Nick is.

"Skimming through books by famous Sheikah people I already know stuff about! Found one history, seven religious journals, three novels, two travel guides, and an ecological study of the Gerudo Desert so far. I was hoping for more science but I'll find it sooner or later!"

"Bar, are there any books by Sheikah with titles that translate to anything like How To Build A Robot or Guide To Repairing Flying Machines or Everything We Know About Science In This One Convenient Book Series?"

Nothing quite that convenient.

Several textbooks appear. "Essential Theories of Mana" seems promising (and Purah quickly grabs her own copy).

He skims the books from earlier periods in case there's anything really interesting in there and lets Purah figure out the textbooks.

"Can you sell us the kinds of materials needed to repair old Sheikah tech or are they inherently magical?" he asks Bar when he gets bored of skimming books.

The book on vampires declares that they are usually evil not to be trusted! Also very strong and dangerous, but vulnerable to sunlight.

Early Hylian books are probably fascinating to historians or anthropologists, which Valanda is not. Nothing super compelling is in them.

Unfortunately, it seems that almost all of the tools required are inherently magical.

"I can make a lot of this stuff!! And if Link goes and finds my friend Robbie, he can make a lot of this stuff too! Also last I heard Robbie had an ancient utility robot in working order, which makes doing all the other stuff way easier!"

Evil and untrustworthy sounds like Valanda's kind of person! Known to be evil and untrustworthy while surrounded by people with morals sounds like an uncomfortable position, too, and one Valanda can get him out of easily.

So he goes over to him.

"Hey, I read a book about you and it seems like vampires don't have morals but other people you deal with do. That sounds pretty uncomfortable. Want some help?"

"That book is wrong. It's just that it's much easier now to ignore the squishy little morals-voice in my head people call a conscience. Not that everyone and his mom hating us vampires makes me feel particularly indebted to humanity or society, but I do have standards."

"Then it sounds like your problem is that people around you react like they're moral and you're not. Which is also a problem I can solve, no one in my world would care even if you were evil, you could move there."

"...Not an instant 'no', but I would need to know more about the place first. Thank you for bringing it up."

"World peace enforced by the worldwide Hari Empire. Member states enforce most of their own laws but it's illegal under imperial law to commit murder, assault, theft, trespassing, vandalism, perjury, breach of contract, tax fraud or cause a person who can't follow the law to become free. The magic we have there comes in twelve kinds, some people can magically learn things, some people can magically edit someone's genes, some people can change the temperature of things, some people can make other people unable to do anything they don't want them doing... I can ward you against any of these, by the way, I'm the kind of mage that can do that."

"Ah, slavery's baked into the system? Well, can't have everything. I would want some protection if I go through with this. How hard would it be for me to buy blood there? Human is best, and I don't like hunting animals unless I truly have to."

"Another species also drinks blood but their preferred prey species is different. There are a small number of humans, maybe one in a hundred people is human, so you'll have an easier time if you're willing to branch out and eat other species but you certainly don't need to hunt. Depending on how fresh it needs to be you might be able to just buy some at a market but that won't be human. If you find yourself someplace where it's not for sale that way just make it known you'll pay a human to let you drink their blood, you'll eventually get some takers."

"Good enough. I'll eat animals too, no matter. I'd also need the local language, though I have my shiny vampire brain and an artifact to help with that... I'll pay you something to stick around for a couple hours while I read about the Hari Empire and decide whether to jump on this chance to get away from those bastards in New Orleans once and for all. How much you want?"

He hesitates, thinking of letting Nikolas name a price in case it's higher than Valanda would've considered. But then he gets an idea.

"For staying here a couple hours of my subjective time and opening my door if you decide to move there I'd like to have your crystal ball answer some questions for me. Say, six questions?"

"Hah! Good one. Very well, I'll take that deal on the condition that you ask the questions before or within twenty-four hours after I go through the door with you - I won't make myself unavailable in such a case - or they expire."

"Deal. Hey, Link! You can ask the crystal ball now if you want!"

"Oooh, great! Be right back, Varrin."

She meanders over. "That guy's cool, he can do water tricks. And he hunts seals under deep ice for a living and fights evil fire-tricks guys sometimes."

"Hi, Varrin! Why do the evil fire-tricks guys need to be fought?"

"The Fire Nation is trying to take over the world, that's why! And it's water and fire-bending. Not tricks."

"Sorry!" Link calls out.

"Right. Anyway, Fire Nation is taking over the world and the Avatar - who's supposed to stop stuff like that - has been missing for thirty years, ever since the Air Nomads were massacred."

"Why would it be bad for the Fire Nation to take over the world?"

"...Because they're the Fire Nation? They kill people because they can, fathers dueling sons, they burn down whole villages for nothing more than refusing to pay absurd taxes that were invented yesterday! They're going to destroy everyone's cultural heritage! They already slaughtered all the Air Nomads! They're going to do the same to us, the Water Tribes, and then move on to the Earth Kingdom, until everything is either Fire Nation or ash!"

"Wow. They sound like a really bad choice to have rule the world. Want to be fireproof? It's just... whatever ninety rings is in your currency. What's your currency?"

"Yes, I want to be fireproof. We, uh, I have some carved arrow heads, a few sealbear-circles - those're Water Tribe coins - and a couple of Earth Kingdom silver pieces... Bar, a little help?"

Two sealbear-circles are equal to approximately 100 rings.

"I'll give you those, then - after you do it and... I try to burn myself." He looks dubious at the idea of that.

"Deal. Want me to do it now? I can also make you immune to frostbite, it's not much extra work when I'm already fireproofing you and you'll already be overpaying a little."

"Oh, that'll be handy too. We know how to deal with cold, but you never know when you'll end up naked, your fire gone, your coat soaking wet, and under an iceberg. It's happened. That was not a fun hunting trip."

Giggle. And now Varrin will not freeze or burn.

"You can test it whenever you're ready."

"Hey, Link! Can I borrow your fire sword?"

"Sure!"

Link comes over. "Ah, Val made you fireproof? Nice. No violence in the bar, let's go out back to test it?"

"Sure. And maybe we can spar after all - there's a lake." Varrin grins.

"Sounds like a plan. Want to come along, Val?"

"Ah, let's not go far at first," Varrin muses, "Just far enough to test it without breaking the rules. Don't want your friend to think I'm running off without paying him."

(Nick calls out, "She used one of your questions, by the way, defense magic guy!")

"Sure. Hey, if I'm not back today it's probably time falling out of sync again, not me walking away from our deal. Come get me if it seems like time might not be passing for me," he tells Nick and then heads out back with Link and Varrin.

"I think I'll follow you, just in case." He picks up his stuff and does just that.

Link brings out her Flameblade and holds the blunt side up to Varrin's exposed left hand.

"...Warm, but barely painful. You sure that's not the sword, though?"

"Very. It's plenty hot, it burns stuff - just magically created."

"Well then. This will be a nasty surprise for the next firebender to fight me. I don't suppose you can also make me immune to stabbing? Or do it to some of my friends, maybe? Wait, shit, I can't go get them even if I open the door. Ah, well."

"I can't make people immune to stabbing. There are people who can, it'd be a little hassle to try to get one in on this but I could. It's not impossible I could be convinced to visit your world and make your friends fireproof but it's not sounding safe so far and you don't have all that much to offer me."

"No, you're right about that, I don't, do I? I guess I could give you a lot of sealbear meat, but my door is in a hunters' shelter alone on a vast frozen plain right now so that isn't really a practicable course of action. I'll be happy with what I got."

"How far are you from any other people?"

"Miles." Shrug. "Hey, even if we were all frost, fire, and stab-proof, we could still get crushed by flaming boulders, drown, starve, so on, so forth. We'll carry on as best we can."

"Prudence and caution is a better lifesaver than any armor."

"Exactly! This guy gets it."

"Only miles... I have an idea, come find me inside if you don't see me for a week."

He goes in to ask Bar if she can sell any vehicles that one person can pilot that can travel several miles in less than an hour.

I have many options for such a thing, of widely varying types and prices. If you remove any equipment from the bar the price will go on your tab. However, you can return it to get your tab lowered, less the worth of the fuel if it uses any and provided it is undamaged.

"I need it easy for me to pilot with no experience, not likely to do anything deadly by accident, able to cross a vast frozen plain, I'm guessing waterproof would be good... doesn't need to protect me from the cold, doesn't need to handle a hundred years of daily transcontinental flights. What's the cheapest thing meeting those specifications?"

Bar shows a picture of a utilitarian gasoline-powered plastic-body tracked snowmobile for one.

If ground transit is preferred. 3000 rings. Fuel cost will likely be approximately one ring per three miles.

And a picture of something that looks even lighter, but the same general aesthetic, with four wide ducted fans instead of treads.

If aerial transit is preferred. It has an automatic piloting feature. 6500 rings. Fuel cost will be approximately one ring per mile. It would be inadvisable to fly in strong winds, however.

"Is the fuel cost included in the prices you quoted me? Can I also get instructions on how to operate them? And how much fuel do they come with, measured in miles I can travel?"

They would come with a full tank of fuel. The snowmobile can travel approximately 100 miles on a full tank. The personal hovercraft can travel approximately 30 miles on same. I can provide refill containers if you wish, as well. As for instructions, of course.

Two users' manuals appear.

He skims the manuals until he's sure which he likes better and returns the other.

He goes back out to tell Varrin he might be able to cross the vast icy wasteland and ask exactly how far in what direction he needs to go to find people.

"Oh, you're really offering to help us this much? Thank you. I'm sure they'll be able to pay you back, somehow."

He describes a route through 8 miles of snow to his friends' camp.

"Hold the door for me and point in the right direction, I shouldn't be long. Hey! Vampire Nils! I'm going on an errand, you know I'll be back because I need the door and my last five questions, you probably won't be ready before I get back."

And off he goes to find out what manner of frozen wasteland these people live in.

"Let me write you a note to show 'em... We've got secret codes and stuff, they'll trust it."

Varrin writes.

"Yes, I know you'll be back - if I stand near the door while you're through it, at least."

Valanda figures no one will trust that he didn't look at the code so he doesn't bother avoiding that.

"Oh, yeah, I'll have to invent a new one, but this's worth it. I'm using words we pre-arranged to mean 'Varrin trusts this guy' - but only once."

"That's a pretty useful thing to have arranged!"

To the vast icy wasteland?

"You learn tricks like that when you fight a war. They might threaten you with ice, we're kinda on edge. Good luck!"

To the icy wasteland! It's very waste-y. And cold. Flat snow and ice to the north, patchier ground to the south. Varrin said they're camping 'near the dead tree', and there's only one of those visible.

He heads for the tree, looking around for any sign of people.

...Does that pile of snow have eyes? He might not have noticed if he wasn't as alert as he habitually is. But it does.

How about he goes wide around it and tries to figure out what it is from a distance. Just in case it wants to eat him.

The snow pile turns into a man with a spear doing some kind of dance! And now he's thrown off the snowmobile where it hit a chunk of ice that suddenly appeared! And there are five of them, approaching him with stern faces!

Well that seems like it's probably the people he's here to meet. He holds out the letter and belatedly remembers he doesn't know the local language.

They chatter at him for a minute before realizing the same. They hold ready poses.

Someone takes the letter and reads it and suddenly they're a lot more friendly and a lot more confused.

They motion for him to follow and the leader starts - skiing? - away. Someone puts the snowmobile right side up again. It doesn't seem obviously damaged.

He follows.

The take him to a nice little camp! It's obviously a temporary sort of place, though. The structures are tents, lean-tos, and holes in the ice instead of proper buildings. There are piles of frozen meat on sleds.

The leader has accepted that talking to Valanda won't do much good. He draws in the snow with a stick. Fire, and someone shivering, and then crossing through both of those, and then nodding vigorously and pointing at people. Some of these guys seem more dubious than others, but the leader keeps pointing to the letter and arguing right back.

"Two sealbear-circles per person" is a pretty straightforward thing to communicate without words. At least, Valanda thinks his meaning is clear.

They don't quite have enough, would he like this nice fur coat or maybe the meat or pelts they hunted up instead? Or maybe pearls? Pearls are valuable, right? How about this elaborate tapestry and helmets and stuff they stole from Firebenders?

The tapestry obviously has a lot of effort put into it. The top is dominated by a prominent stylized fire symbol. Just below that is an elaborate and rather detailed (given the tricky medium of cloth) depiction of a tall building on a rock at sunset. On the edges are figures - somewhat more crudely done, standing around looking regal or doing fire tricks in martial arts poses - red fire, blue fire, and lightning. Some fantastical creatures occupy open spaces - dragons, flaming birds, and the like. There a fair bit of what is probably writing here and there, too.

Ooooh, he really likes that tapestry. How many wards is that worth to them?

How about 'the rest of us after the seal-circles are used up', that being 'six'?

Works for him!

Great! They roll it up again for him while he does the invulnerability thing to everyone. The first man to be warded tests it by plunging his hand into icy water and then grinning.

He wards the tapestry, too, just in case the return trip through the icy waste doesn't agree with it.

"Hope you get good use out of the wards," he says. They've been around humans a lot, he figures they'll understand without knowing the words.

It seems to be a productive and mutually beneficial transaction!

...What's that noise? It's a low rumbling, a cracking.

The waterbenders don't like it. They go for weapons.

Valanda looks around for the source of the noise. It's probably time to get out of here but he doesn't want to run right into it.

A large, metal ship spewing smoke from a smokestack, smashing straight through the ice and heading for the little camp!

It launches a flaming boulder at the general area! He'd better move now!

How about if the ice it's about to go through is suddenly unbreakable.

He runs but he's not really sure-footed on ice or used to moving fast.

The snowmobile is still sitting on the ice over there. There are sounds of fighting from behind him. Ice crackling, rushes of water, the fwoosh of flames, a scream-

Why didn't he learn to protect living things from getting hit. It's the single most in-demand ward in the multiverse!

Is the ship shooting its boulders with something like magic or is there a convenient mechanism to freeze?

It's a catapult! But they've abandoned it, now, thanks to the close range - there are dozens of Fire Nation soldiers streaming out of the ship to overwhelm the waterbenders. The defenders seem to be holding their own, but their camp is very much on fire.

Someone with a more elaborate helmet points towards Valanda and shouts a command. A few soldiers start after him.

"Back away! I'm a neutral outsider! Back away!" he says very clearly in a language no one else here speaks.

He could probably outrun them on the snowmobile if he gets there fast enough! The firebenders seem to have at least a little trouble with the snow and ice. The waterbenders probably can't help him - too busy fighting.

He gets there as fast as he can. If they get too close he'll try turning the closest firebender into a statue.

They're coming after him pretty vigorously, that's for sure! But one of the waterbenders makes a mad dash, breaking away from the rest of the fight and skiing over to protect him. He bowls over the fire-soldiers with snowballs and motions for Valanda to go!

He goes. It might be bad to lead them straight to Milliways but if he outruns them he can just shut the door and Varrin can prepare for as long as necessary. And they might have friends there already. He heads due doorward.

The snowmobile outruns them pretty effectively. He leaves the fight behind him. The waterbenders seem to have gotten the upper hand, but they're still fighting when he disappears over the horizon.

Varrin holding the door to his little shelter leading to Milliways comes into view soon enough.

He hurries through.

"Shut the door. Firebenders."

"Wha- I've gotta go help them!" He starts heading through.

"Wait! The door stops time!"

He keeps fighting to get through for a moment, then registers what he just said and yanks Valanda and his stuff all inside and slams the door. Breathing hard, looking grim. "...Did you manage to ward them before the attack?"

"Yes, but the firebenders also hurled boulders at us, there might be injuries. I'm sure there was property damage. If you didn't know about the door stopping time did you know you can buy almost anything from Bar? Including things your world doesn't know how to make or books you could never get otherwise. Up to you what you do with that, just thought you should know."

"...Yeah. I kinda don't have much more money and I don't - I'm not Chief Myrrin, I really don't know what to get to help with long-term war strategy. But... I'll have a look." He rubs his hands nervously and glances around. "Ugh. I want to go out there and fight. But if I rest up and - get stuff - maybe Fire Nation books? Try and learn their weaknesses?"

"Remember you can make money off other patrons, you're not stuck with what you came in with. I don't know enough to give you any more advice than that." He tries to look encouraging but there's really no way Varrin will decide that fight. It was probably over before Valanda got to the door one way or another.

"I can... Dry things out? Make ice sculptures maybe? I don't know water healing, only women learn that." He looks dubious.

"Well... You made your money, you warded me and my friends. I appreciate it. Oh, hey, you took that tapestry off 'em? Good. Ying-wu, the northern occupation fleet commander, will hate that he can't get it back, and if he's mad he won't think as straight."

"If your ice sculptures are nice I might like one. I could ward it so it wouldn't melt. ...I could ward a bunch so they wouldn't melt and you could sell people magic unmeltable ice sculptures, maybe you'd still turn a profit. Oh, and if water healing's been written about in a book..."

"No, we have books but it's a thing women do. The ice sculptures plan sounds like a good idea. I won the moon festival ice sculpture contest two years in a row once! I guess I'll take on a tab and pay you to ward a bunch? Or pay you to ward a bunch with a sculpture or two if you like them."

"Sure, how about I take my favorite one if you make twelve, my favorite two if you make twenty-four, and so on for however many you're making? Oh, if you haven't gotten your free drink yet you might not have to pay for the water."

"No, I did. I don't think bar charges for water? She might if I want, like, a tubful." Shrug. "I'll take a tab if I have to. Let's do it." He turns around and heads for bar.

Slightly disappointed, Link asks, "Does this mean we're not gonna spar?"

"Maybe later."

"Ah well. You do you. I'ma go talk to more new people."

"Tell me when your sculptures are ready for wards!"

And where's that guy with the crystal ball gotten to?

Lurking in the corner/shadows. He's apparently pretty good at it - Valanda didn't notice him again until he wanted to be noticed.

"Busy, aren't you?"

"I just survived getting a flaming boulder thrown at me. I'm ready to ask some questions. You still deciding?"

"If I look at it on a balance sheet, it's an obvious yes. Convincing my gut to go along with it is another matter. Come to that booth, but first ask Bar for a bunch of divination papers. Forty. They help."

(Forty divination papers are available for two rings.)

Sure, okay. Those sound like they should be too magical for Bar to sell but Valanda's not the divination expert here.

The crystal ball is now set out on an attractive eight-sided patterned red mat, sitting on a very pretty brass stand with dragon-heads, clouds, mountains, and so on reliefed into it.

"Heh. My world's magic likes tradition. The papers are traditional, so they help even if they're not technically magic. So, what question do you want to ask?"

"Link only used one, right? I still have five?"

It'd be flagrantly irresponsible to spend their last question on the one he most wants to ask.

"Correct. And you can always buy more." He waggles his eyebrows.

Suuuure he can.

"Is there any way with the resources available to me to change my sex or any of the associated features that I hate?"

"...Ah. That explains some things. Well, the way to ask it properly is to write eight single words relevant - emotionally or logically connected - to your query, on eight of the divination papers, arrange them around it, and have someone else light them on fire all at once while you speak your question aloud. The words have to be your own, and ideally should be written by your own hand. Traditional Chinese characters would be even better if you knew Chinese, but having me translate them into it would do more harm then good."

That explains why he needs exactly forty divination papers.

He comes up with eight words and tries to think about his next few questions instead of about how this is making his skin crawl. He writes them in Ilan. There. Now they can burn.

It's-

-Like falling into a dream. Nothing makes sense, and everything makes sense at the same time. Images swirling in the crystal ball, the rest of the world fading away.

Somehow the vision he sees makes it totally clear that Bar sells something for that. Despite not showing Bar or anyone changing sex.

"Next thing I need to know is..." He's already counting out divination papers for it. "How do I safely ward living creatures against getting stabbed or hit?"

Varrin interrupts him.

"Hey, uh, I forgot that the bar and backyard is really really warm. And I can't work on my next statue and also keep the one I just did frozen..."

Well, he can finish asking his questions later, as long as they don't fall too far out of sync. Off he goes to ward things.

"Yeah so I'm gonna need to call you over every time I finish one? Maybe the time thing will be helpful."

Here is a reasonably elaborate and sometimes-clear sometimes-frosted ice sculpture of some kind of fish leaping out of water! It's approximately torso-sized.

"If it doesn't take too long I can watch."

And now that ice sculpture will not melt! It won't stay cold to the touch but it will stay solid.

"This took like half an hour? All the fiddly little details require so much careful control. A bigger one that's swoopier and less fiddly I can do faster... Any particular requests?"

"Can you do waves?"

"Oh, yeah! There's lots of kinds of waves - freezing one right as it breaks - hmm..."

He can go ask more questions after this sculpture, right? Art is nice. As long as Varrin doesn't mind and Nick doesn't come for him he'll just watch the ice.

"It's fine. If you have to go I'll try and come find you when I'm done."

The ice turns to water just long enough to wobble into a new shape and freeze again. Or a chunk of it cracks off and rotates and melds back...

Varrin has to do big, flowy, athletic motions to sclupt the ice. Those might be almost as attention grabbing, given that they have him moving his whole body back and forth. He's obviously very athletic (all the other waterbenders were too, to be fair). He mumbles about the sculpture - how light will glisten and refract here - if he frosts this part will it look nice...

And there. A really quite realistic frozen wave.

It's not lost on Valanda but he's mostly watching the ice. What a nice kind of otherwordly magic to have.

"Wow! That's great, you ready for me to ward it?"

"Well, if you let me I'll keep changing little details until I fall asleep, so you'd better ward it and tell me to move on to the next one, yeah." He laughs.

Meanwhile someone new comes through the door. She looks around frantically.

"What is this place?" she asks anyone who happens to be nearby and willing to answer.

"Hi! This is Milliways! It's not dangerous, shut the door and I'll explain."

(She has pointy ears, unlike most of the people in here.)

"There is a 95% chance that abandoning my master now will result in his death. Whether Milliways sells healing potions is the only thing I have time to learn now."

-She moves suddenly, reaches out and closes the door.

"There. Time pauses out there when the door's closed. Uh, bar can't sell magic things, but I have a couple healing elixirs..."

Fi's grip on her sword tightens.

"I would like to purchase one of your healing elixirs. I do not have material goods to offer but my memory contains a library of facts about diverse locations."

"Time is paused out there, do you not - well, I understand feeling very urgent about it. But we gotta be at least a little careful about this stuff. Is your, uh, master, shaped mostly like me? Also maybe chill with the sword, there's rules about that here."

"He is a member of the species you appear to be. I do not intend to attack you unprovoked. This sword's sheath is on the other side of the door."

"Ah. Well. I don't have a sheath handy, but Bar might let you borrow one... What happened? If someone from my world urgently needed a healing elixir I'd guess monsters, but I don't know anything about your world."

"We were attacked by monsters. Are you using the term 'world' to refer to the area known to you, to all spatially contiguous locations, or to something else?"

"Second thing, probably. Heh. You talk a bit like... Like someone I know. It's strangely comforting."

"Using that definition I am not aware of multiple worlds inhabited by your species. Where are you from? Do you have access to resources we might find useful for destroying or sealing an evil god?"

"Milliways has all sorts of duplicates, though. And, funny you should ask. I'm working to destroy or seal an evil god too. Milliways let me find where the Master Sword is hidden, which is a big step forward. Where'd that guy go..." She looks around, fails to see Nick. "The guy with the crystal ball might be outside or something, though."

"I have known other worlds to contain echoes of places but not of people. Who is your evil god? Ours is known as Demise."

"Ganon. Hatred and malice incarnate."

"That name is unfamiliar to me but the description resembles entities I know of. Demise is similar. I estimate a 54% probability, conditional on surviving the fight I just escaped, that we can destroy Demise with the aid of my creator, Hylia, and am willing to consider a positive-sum deal with you to destroy both Demise and Ganon if you help us now."

"Hylia? The Great Goddess Hylia? She's helping me too. Huh... Parallel worlds..."

"If you truly serve Hylia then our goals are aligned. I estimate that the assistance of an additional knight in Hylia's service could more than double my master's chances of survival in the current battle, but it may be that you are more effective in your world. Regardless, we may be better served by sharing information before taking action. I am Fi, the spirit of this sword." It's the same sort of blade as the Master Sword and it looks like its designer had a similar sense of aesthetics. "I am normally not the one to wield it, but I took it to keep it away from monsters when Master Link was unable to keep hold of it during the fight. Our proximate goal on this errand is to strengthen the blade through the use of a sacred flame."

"I have to gather Spirit Orbs from ancient shrines to get strong enough to beat Ganon, and free the Divine Beasts from his influence, and get the Master Sword. We should show each other maps and stuff! Also you should totally get some invulnerable armor and shields from my friend Valanda whenever he comes back. They are so useful for not dying."

"An invulnerable shield would save about ten rupees for every errand we run on the surface. I am unfamiliar with Divine Beasts and Spirit Orbs but can recommend teachers and potion suppliers in my world if you would like."

"Could also save your life if the shield declines to break at an inconvenient time. And I've got the Divine Beasts covered, probably. Potions suppliers might help!"

"We can assist you in reaching the potions shop at the Skyloft bazaar if needed or purchase the potions you need there and return here. How long will this portal remain open?"

"Someone from your world has to be holding the door open, so maybe it wouldn't work. No biggie if so. Oooh, I bet Purah would like to talk about magical technology with you!"

"Will you introduce me to Purah? Is she available now?"

"She's right over there!" Link points to what looks like a small child, surrounded by books and notes, muttering. "I suggest saying something interesting or wrong about magic to get her attention."

"Hello, Purah. It is possible to access other worlds by performing music but only when using certain instruments."

"Maybe it works like that for you! I wouldn't know! But all this magic is so! Cool!"

"It's good to hear you're enjoying it. I am unfamiliar with the feeling but I am sure it is very comfortable. What are you researching at the moment?"

"Magical information processing! Guidance Stones have a specific instruction set, called a rune, pretty much engraved right into their core. They've got mechanisms for transferring the pattern to other magical devices, but they can't take data. Write only! Except these books say there's a different device I don't have that can take a rune, pick it apart, change it, and then make Guidance Stones read the new magical patterns! I want one! A lot!"

"I can see how such a thing would be useful. Would it be helpful to have someone else assess which of these books contain relevant information? I read very quickly."

"Maybe! I kind of don't even know what I'm looking for yet! I'm gonna be in here reading for weeks!"

"Ah, yes, such a period of time would feel long to someone your age."

"Hmph! I'll have you know I am actually a hundred and twelve!"

She certainly looks six or eight or so, though.

"Oh, I've never seen a person like you before. You don't really look biological! Snappy! Are there lots of people like you?"

"I am aware of a small number of others. We are highly useful but extremely difficult to create. If you are a hundred twelve years old, how old was the adult of your species I spoke with before?"

"Hum, hum, hum. Link's a hundred thirty or something. Or just thirty. Ish." She gives a dramatic sigh. "She was frozen for a hundred years, and I had an accident with a de-aging rune. Neither of us're normal. We both don't like talking about it I think though."

"I apologize and I will not mention it again. Link mentioned that someone here had access to healing potions...?"

"Healing elixirs! They're pretty interesting actually, they're basically a concentrated and very insistent version a certain manaform that strong and healthy living things have, so when you drink one it spends all its energy aligning your systems - mostly healing by magical fiat rather than accelerating natural processes, like most medicine does..." She could ramble about healing elixirs for a while if not interrupted!

Fi interrupts her after less than two minutes of magic lecture. "I would like one or more. If you would like to trade I can sing, dance, recite prophecies, recite poetry, read quickly, do advanced mathematics..."

Fi has an impressive list of ways she can pay.

"Woah woah woah. You've got some snappy skills! I actually have some pretty nasty calculations I was trying to figure out for a side-project... Can ya solve fifth-order polynomial equations?"

"I can."

Fi is superhumanly fast at it.

Purah throws math at her for almost half an hour before running out and declaring, "You've more than earned my healing elixirs! Getting lots of annoying math out of the way will save me weeks of checking things! The flow-density tables'll make a good reference!"

Purah gives Fi half a dozen elixirs, bouncing cheerfully.

"Thank you."

Fi considers the other opportunities this place presents before deciding that she's not equipped to take advantage of them anyway.

Valanda eventually comes back in.

Varrin waves Valanda over to ward another couple of ice sculptures!

Link asks, "Goin' so soon?" As Fi leaves, but shrugs when she continues to do so.

She wanders over to Varrin and Valanda. "Huh. Pretty. I can't do art, but this is pretty."

"It really is! Varrin's great, shouldn't have any trouble selling these. Hey, got any question ideas? We've got three left."

"I dunno, maybe sell the questions? If he'll let us?"

"No," says Nick, without looking up from his book.

Link shrugs. "I can ask about my odds of defeating Ganon before doing all the things that I could do to help with that, I guess."

"Maybe ask if you're right about how to do it. And I can ask about immortality. That'll be three, I can't think of any better ones... maybe we're just not thinking of something important but I don't know what that would be."

"Immortality is a good ask. Goddess Hylia says it's just... Not a thing she can do. Longer natural lives yes, lingering spirits - sometimes. Proper immortality, no."

"I'm sure some kind of mage can do it but I don't know which kind or how. When did Hylia say that?"

"Hmm. One of the times I was praying to her. I don't remember exactly."

"Well, you can have the next question, if you want to do that now."

Link asks the crystal ball, with all the necessary theatrics.

"...I can do it. I'll want the sword, and the Divine Beasts, and it'll be a tough fight, but then I can do it." She impulsively hugs Valanda.

He hugs back. "Good. Not that I'm surprised."

"Everything is going to be okay. I'm not done - We're not done... But Purah's learning all sorts of crazy useful stuff, I'm going to defeat Ganon, and you're going to be a wise and just ruler in your homeland. It's going to be great."

"Yeah, it really is. I hope someday I get to see what Hyrule's like without Ganon!"

"Milliways likes us! I'm sure you will!"

They have such hope! And a couple more questions and Valanda double-checks that Nick's familiar with Hari laws before he's willing to let him out in Har.

Varrin's sculptures sell well. Bar supplies stacks and stacks of books for Purah. Valanda saves up and stocks up on advanced otherworldly medical supplies.

And eventually Valanda walks back out into the Hari Empire and goes to his interview.

Nikolas the vampire follows, lurking lurkily. What a nice society of amoral selfish people to go get get lost in.