Bella looks over her shoulder. "Hey, do you know where we are?" He doesn't look old enough to be in college - she could be wrong and he is anyway, he could be as young as he looks and the door thing is extending beyond MU, she's not sure.

"I have absolutely no idea where we are!" he replies, brightly. "This is supposed to be the school library, but you know what, I'm not complaining."

"For me it was supposed to be a closet. Uh - what school would yours be?"

"Forks High. What closet, are you in Washington, or should I start giggling madly about magic?"

"What's Washington?"

"... State that's part of the United States of America. One of fifty. Are you extremely foreign and from a weird place that has never heard of Washington, or are you not from Earth?"

"...Earth, the element, or Earth, something else? I've never heard of the United States of America."

"Earth is the name we creatively picked for our planet. Because we're awesome at naming things. See: the Sun, and the Moon."

"Ours don't have great names either."

"...Uh, yes? To the species thing; there's either five or eight continents depending on how you count some of them. Does yours not have non-human people? I can't decide if that sounds boring or like a really convenient solution to racial tensions. ...Do you not have non-human living things, what do you eat, just conjured food or do you get by on rings of sustenance?"

"Sentient species, sorry, we've got plants and animals. We also have non-human people, I'm one of them, hi. We're technically in hiding, it's kind of terrible."

"Wow. Okay, that's worse, why are you in hiding?"

"To be honest, I'm not quite sure? Probably because humans would freak out, and a lot of us are represented really badly in mythology. Plus they might - not think some of us are people, because I don't look anything like this in my actual form."

"How not-anything-like-that, like, are you more like a dark elf, or like a yokai, or like a dragon - please don't be a dragon."

"I'm not going to hunt or eat you. Dragons aren't extinct where I'm from, though."

"Thanks, I'd protest against being eaten," says Darren dryly. "Kind of tempted to geek out about dragons, but - those sound bad where you're from?"

"They - vary, but I wouldn't want to be alone with one in a bar, just in case."

"That makes sense. What's your magic like? Assuming you have some. I have some of mine, but I'm trying to learn more and it's really, really annoying how no one will teach it."

"I only know high-school level arcana so far," says Bella. "And I'm not even majoring in it, so I couldn't tell you much more if you'd caught me with a college diploma in hand. And I know no divine magic at all. Why won't anybody teach you magic? They could, you know, charge tuition, it's a racket."

"If I knew that I might be a bit more forgiving of it. Basically if you screw it up, bad things happen, it's kind of volatile. But, that's why you make good schools so people don't screw it up experimenting to figure out what works on their own."

"Yeah, wow, that sounds like a really unstable situation."

"It's kind of frustrating, yeah. I am teaching myself magic, and plan to publish things once I'm any good. So there's more to go off of than, 'Don't ever do magic ever, not even if you require it to make the items that let you go outside in public with opposable thumbs, and the knowledge to make more has been lost.'"

"You can't make more of your passing-for-human things? That sucks."

"Yeah. It really does. So I want to learn how, or at least get a system set up so we can collectively get to learning how."

"I wonder if there's a good way to get you something that'd do that from my plane? I can't think of an off-the-shelf product, but maybe an applied enchanter could come up with something."

"Maybe! What's your world like, anyway? It sounds like you have all kinds of magic. We just have the one."

"Uh, well, there's lots and lots of sapient species, but as far as I know none of them are winged deer. And there's lots of specialties of magic, but again, I only know high school level arcana and nothing about divine magic - I can tell you that at least those two things are both magic as opposed to, say, subtle arts, which technically aren't. Annnnd dragons aren't extinct? What do you want to know?" Pause. "I haven't introduced myself, I'm Bella."

"Oh, I haven't either - I'm Darren, nice to meet you! Just - assume I want to know everything, it's easier. What's subtle arts?"

"Mental powers. And telekinesis and pyrokinesis, for some of us. - I'm a subtle artist but I'm not reading your mind, I don't do it without permission."

"... Thank you, for not doing that, that would freak me out!"

"Yeah, no kidding. Most subtle artists don't read accidentally, but people worry so I tend to disclaim early that I don't have that problem."

"Makes sense. I've gotten weird racism for peryton's special snowflake ability, so I can relate. By the way, I don't eat hearts."

"I had not been going to guess that you did until you said that."

"Well, I felt like assuring you about it, anyway. Perytons get shapeshifting, to a specific person. When they eat their heart. It's extremely terrible, and I am never doing it."

"Good plan."

"Thanks. I try."

"What's your world like, besides having talking winged heart-eating deer?"

"Uhh... Large-scale transportation, at least where I live, in the form of cars. Metal vehicles that run by technology and powered by refined oil. We have - television, basically broadcasted moving pictures with sound attached, and the internet, which is really hard to explain."

".... Yyyes?"

"You live in a science world?"

"The - world has science? Why is this weird, science is just a way of systematically figuring out the world. Technically my magic can be considered a science, it's comparable to chemistry."

"You can do science to magic. Khersis Dei, you lucky bastard, you live in a science world."

"Do you not have science? How - how in the world does that work?!"

"We have science fantasy. Fictional worlds where you can poke and prod the universe over and over again and it never, ever gets sick of it and decides to eat you. Practiced science is reserved for cultists and people without self-preservation instincts."

"You can't just go around sciencing things. Well, you can, maybe, people from my world can't. If you're very lucky, all that will happen is that whatever you're experimenting on will get shy and whatever you thought you'd learned will be worthless."

"The universe, as a whole, can decide to be shy or squish you based on being annoyed at you - experimenting on it," says Darren, staring. "It does not stay still, and systematic logic is - bad. That's - quite possibly the most terrible thing I've ever heard of. Ever."

"Not necessarily as a whole. It is also a bad idea to screw around with gods and dragons and so on, because they can also squish you," cautions Bella. "But yeah. I mean, we can do some things that would have seemed like science fantasy a century ago? But not proper science."

".... Hold on, gods?!"

"Several of them, yes, do you not have those either?"

"Not any that - make themselves apparent, there are lots of religions but they don't have any proof."

"Mother Khaele was on television three weeks ago."

"... Yeah, that is not a thing that happens with us. There have been religious wars over whether or not a god exists or not."

"There are some relatively shy gods whose existence is controversial - nobody's heard directly from Khersis in a long time, people sometimes don't even bother to put the divine letter in 'Anankha' - but whether there are any isn't in question. There's nymphs and clerics and paladins and the gods themselves making it very plain."

"If there are any gods in my world, they've got to be either really shy or really sneaky. I'm not ruling it out, before I was eleven I didn't know there were magic flying deer, but as a whole - little to no proof."

"How would you not know that there were magic flying deer?"

"Well, the medallion that turns people human works on their kids, too. Until the kid come into contact with a medallion of the same type and it breaks the spell. That is when you get a peryton who didn't know they were a peryton."

"Huh. And you haven't," she waves a hand, "scienced out how to make more medallions, yet?"

"No, but I'm working on it. It's not - instant miracles that happen just because science, it will probably take years. If I manage it at all."

"No instant miracles, huh? I guess they probably gloss over the boring parts in the bad cartoons."

"It's really more like - systematically figuring out how things work. But a lot of the time the things you figure out have nothing to do with the things you need to know. So while it's useful, you still don't always get the result you want."

"Yeah. Um - your world sounds kind of scary, should I see if there's a way you can - I don't know, flee to the hills to mine or something?"

"I don't know how I'd do that - I'm tempted, this sounds like the start of an escapist sci-fan novel, ordinary college student finds a door to a science world and adventures with - with replication studies and empirical testing ensue, but - I don't know. For all I know I'd just - bring it with me."

"Thaaaat is kind of terrifying, is there a way we can safely check to see if science works here?"

"If it doesn't work, it's not safe," says Bella. "There is no contained cute fourth-grade class project of it like there is with raising caterpillars until they turn into butterflies or something."

"Eep."

"Sorry."

"Not your fault, just - kind of freaky. Um. If we can figure out a way that you won't bring it with you, though - you can jump ship, start living the dream of an escapist sci-fan novel."

"I'd do it, too. My parents would be out of their minds about it, but - I'd do it."

"They can come with? Is there a way to retrieve them?"

"I don't know. I don't know what this place is, or why it was in my closet or your library, and even if it is as stunningly well-behaved as I can imagine, my parents don't live near campus and it would take a while for them to respond to an urgent request that they come visit me, and they probably wouldn't show up at the same time."

"Hrmm. So what we need to do is investigate this bar without the use of empirical testing, and figure out what to do from there." He shifts back to human (for the height difference) and starts looking around for a bartender.

"Okay, it's nice to meet you. Um - root beer float, please?"

Darren makes a face. "Then - no safe way to test it. Damn. I'm sorry, Bella."

"Yeah, me too. I don't want to wreck your nice science world. Mine's - okay, for everyday, anyway. I can work out my frustrations lucid-dreaming, that's safe as houses."

"You can lucid-dream?"

"Subtle artist trick."

"That sounds fun. How does - subtle artistry work, anyway? If it's not magic."

"Well - I say it's not magic because it doesn't ping magic-detection spells. It otherwise works a whole lot like a kind of magic. I can tell that you are a mind - so even if I just unexpectedly encountered you in deer form in the woods and you didn't say anything, I'd know you were a person - and if I try, I can - do things with that fact. But I'm not going to unless you want me to or attack me or something. And I can defend against other subtle artists who try to do things to me, and supposedly if I work really hard at it I have a little teekay potential I can train up. When I'm out of school I'm going to be a mental healer."

"That sounds really nice of you. How does that work, is it - healing mental trauma?"

"Not necessarily trauma. People go to mental healers for fairly ordinary issues too, with mood or their interpersonal relationships or anxiety or things like that. But trauma too, sure."

"Huh. That sounds better than ordinary therapists, certainly."

"All therapists where I'm from are subtle artists, as far as I know. I suppose if you don't have them somebody has to do it."

"Yeah, it's - I think it's people that are good at empathizing. But, no magic."

"Again, subtle arts are not technically magic."

"... Not-magic that conveniently works exactly like magic in every way, except for being sensed by other magic."

"I spend too much time around other subtle artists in my classes to let it go without nitpicking. I'll do the same thing if you call it 'psionics'."

"What's psionics, and how is it different from subtle artistry?"

"Psionics doesn't refer to anything other than subtle arts - except, sometimes, science fantasy versions of subtle arts - it's just another thing subtle artists nitpick."

"Huh. That's - kind of weird. Magic users from my world aren't picky at all about what they're called."

"What do you wind up getting called, then?"

"Ehhh. Lots of contradictory stuff. Witches, wizards, oracles, rune-casters, sorcerers, arcanists, occultists, warlocks, shamans - it's really annoying, actually. This is what happens when you don't have a centralized school for magic, people call themselves all sorts of things."

"So you can see why the subtle artists might want standardized terms."

"I can, yeah. If I get the chance to standardize things, I'm going with rune-caster, it's the most accurate."

"Why's that?"

"Well, the entire magic system's based around drawing runes. That's why I compared it to chemistry - each rune's similar to an element on the periodic table, and if you put them together in a certain configuration with certain sizes of 'element' you get a desired result. Or, if you're not careful, an undesired one."

"...You remember the part where I am not from a science world, right?"

"... Right, right, um - sorry, it's - easy to forget, I'm really used to being from a science world. You have a rune that does several types of things, but there's only one result from it that you want. So you combine it with other runes to cancel out the effects that you don't want, and then more runes to cancel out those effects, and it's - a giant puzzle."

"Oh, cool. That sounds fun. What I know about arcana isn't much like that - elementalism can be a little, I guess, but fuzzier - and divine magic isn't at all."

"It's pretty fun, yeah. Lots of math, good thing I'm not terrible at it. And I need rulers to draw things out. How do yours work?"

"I really do only have high school level understanding of arcana. I'm not - at all competent to teach the stuff. I mean, I can list common enchanted things? We have televisions and mirrors and crystal balls and golems and - oh, these boots are magic, they make me less clumsy. They aren't quite expensive enough to make me actually graceful, but they do a solid amount of less clumsy."

"That's useful! We can do stuff on items, too, but I'm not quite that far yet to manage it. Things that bestow luck, or do a specific thing, or the obvious one of the medallion that lets me shift."

"Luck charms exist at home but they're mostly ripoffs."

"Ours actually work. Allegedly."

"Ours work too, they're just very difficult to make and therefore very pricey and they don't work that well."

"Aha. I think luck charms are one of the easiest persistent items for rune-casters to make. If I knew how, I'd offer to hook you up, but."

"But," agrees Bella. "For all I know, bringing something home from a science world would count as cheating."

"... Ugh. 'Cheating.' If I could make one, I would have worked hard to do so, how is that cheating?"

"Because it's from another - game."

"Oh my god, I just realized - this is like D&D."

"Like what now?"

"It's - there's - it's a game, a literal game, with dice and little figurines and obsessive maps. There are lots of different species and different types of magic and gods are running around changing the fabric of reality. It wasn't - it didn't say, 'No science allowed' but. It's - kind of similar."

"You have magic and different species, though, too, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but mine doesn't work like the game's magic. Also, their different species aren't the correct ones, a lot of the actual ones show up as monsters to fight."

"Some people consider goblins and dark elves and so on to be monsters to fight at home and those are people," remarks Bella.

"Yeah, but - I'm mostly just annoyed because perytons are listed as 'always evil' and that really bugs me."

"You do not seem evil."

"I'm really not."

"And I'm glad, because if you were evil you might attempt to hurt me and then I'd have to knock you out and leave and you'd have a horrible headache after and I wouldn't get to hang out in the cool interplanar bar."

"Yeah, that would be terrible. I don't even get why doing evil things seems like an intelligent course of action. I mean, something like - embezzling, that I can get. I don't support it, but I understand the why. But just randomly being evil? Don't understand it at all."

"I suspect most evil people have something else going on, even if it's just that they're a demon and need to eat human livers to survive or something."

"I guess. But - not being evil is more viable in the long run."

"Not if you need human livers to survive it's not."

"If I needed to eat human livers to survive I would go politely inform a government of my liver-eating status, and eat the livers of inmates on death row or hit up spare livers from organ donors or something. And then I would encourage organ donors to be more common so that I could one, get more potential livers, and two, convince people do donate organs because it saves lives."

"Organ donors?"

"Oh - um. We can take organs out of one person shortly after they die and put them into someone else whose appropriate organ is failing them. And then they get to keep living, because they don't have a faulty organ anymore."

"Science world," mutters Bella. "Anyway, if a demon tried to go to the government to ask nicely for livers they would be stabbed to death by paladins immediately."

"Okay, then I start raiding morgues for livers, no one has to die."

"That one might work, I don't know how morgues are run. I think demons might need them fresher than that?"

"Then I take up being an EMT, wait for cases where someone is guaranteed to die, where there's no way anyone can save them, and then I eat their liver. In secret, I'm not sure I could pull that one off, though."

"What's an EMT?"

"Emergency medical technician. Basically, emergency healer, but with science instead of magic."

"Oh, makes sense. I guess that would work, although if it were me I'd feel bad about profiting from all that death and then not scraping up the cash to get the people resurrected."

"I can't. That's divine magic. And it's very expensive, and it involves dealing directly with gods and has to be undertaken kind of delicately."

"We can't resurrect anyone," says Darren, wide-eyed. "When they're dead, that's it. They're - gone."

"Are you sure? I mean - you know you can't do everything right now that your magic could do. Medallions."

"I - well, it might be possible, but - as far as I know, no one has ever managed it."

"None that we have proof of."

"That's - that's appalling. I think that might be worse than my no science world. I think I will just go home after I'm done talking to you and the bar."

"You have an afterlife? What's it like?"

"Several, it varies person to person. I don't know anyone who's been there and back, personally, though."

"Makes sense. I mean, for all I know there is a perfectly nice afterlife in my world, we just - haven't seen it. Because, no resurrections."

"Yeah, I suppose. I hope so, anyway."

"Me, too."

"I've had a long time to get used to there being no science, but not to the idea of people just - ending."

"I think I'm the opposite? Used to - people just ending, not used to not having science."

"Yeah, of course."

"Not much of an escapist fantasy after all," says Darren wryly.

"Not a bit. In the science fantasy you might not have a conventional afterlife but at least you'd be immortal by the power of science."

"Not quite. We're working on it?"

"Science is slow, huh."

"Remember that part I mentioned about not always getting the answers you're looking for? That - happens a lot."

"That's disappointing."

"Sorry," winces Darren.

"I doubt it's your fault."

"It's not, but I feel like a jerk for screwing over science fantasy for you."

"I presume the books will still be there. And you haven't made any inroads on the lucid dreams either. These things were never intended to be realistic."

"True. And we might manage it eventually, anyway."

"Good. Then you can live in a proper science fantasy paradise."

"That'll be fun. If it turns out you won't break it by showing up at that point, you can have an invite to it."

"That'd be nice. But the bar said we can't expect to find doors again. I'm probably going to stay here for a while, I have cash on me for nibbles from the bar and it's Friday afternoon and I can skip the one class I have between now and Monday, it's just Basic Knife. But that's it."

"Oh! Oh, phew, okay, I don't need to make a mad dash back to class."

"What kind of classes do you take in Science World, anyway?"

"Algebra, French, Gym, History, Earth Science, Art... What kinds of classes do you have?"

"Uh, most of those, I don't know what French is and obviously we don't do Science. I'm in college now so I'm doing Basic Knife for my weapons requirement and a lot of subtle arts mostly. In high school there was more of a mix. I took an etherscaping elective, last year of it."

"Um, why do they teach you how to use knives in college?"

"I picked Basic Knife in particular because I'm not going to be doing any serious weapon work, I'm not on the skirmish team or gladiating in my spare time and I'm not a delving or combat major and I don't leave the warded paths at night, but I think the ostensible rationale is that if they're going to require us to carry weapons everywhere we go, we ought to know which end is sharp."