The librarian can get him set up with a tutorial for that first if he wants.

He has no idea whether this is a vital skill or some niche thing that he'll never use again, he's just following her lead, but he'll do the tutorial, sure. And if nobody is waiting for the computer by the time he's done, he'll go look at the university website from there.

Nobody's waiting yet.

The lectures from a number of different courses are available online. Many are beginner-friendly. Many are from the king. The overlap between the categories, though, is fairly small: just Considerations in the Response to Extraplanar Humanitarian Crises, Theories of Identity and Population Ethics, and Historical Approaches in Jewish and Christian Exegesis.

Theories of Identity sounds fascinating, but he'll come back to that, Humanitarian Crises is what he's here for.

In this lecture series he assumes some background familiarity with the assorted hells and talks primarily about what has gone into the decisions they've made about whether and when and how to try to intervene in which of them. They've had to try to answer both empirical and normative questions, and they've had to move forward with a lot of remaining uncertainty.

The first lecture is just an overview of the questions they've faced and where they've looked for answers. To what extent is it right to prioritize protecting what they have? To what extent does delaying matter, when they have eternity? What can they expect if they limit themselves to accepting immigrants and protecting their own society? What can they do without antagonizing anyone? What are the risks if they antagonize one or more hells? Are demons morally relevant? How many people are suffering right now? Can they more effectively intervene on Earth to help more people make it to a more comfortable afterlife? At what point can they countenance another society's problems and ally with them, or is that even the best framing for that question?

They've been working on all these questions for a while and the current policy is conservative about antagonizing anywhere that doesn't already hate them and mostly focused on diplomacy and facilitating immigration. They're looking at military options; not all of the details of that are public, but what is public is that nothing along those lines is in the works right now.

His notes are minimal; he doesn't need them and he doesn't want to stick to an outline he might think better of later. He's spent two thousand years picking up jargon and he uses almost none of it without an explanation. He speaks like someone very used to making his voice carry exactly the right amount, and like someone who is very good at making what he's saying sound important.

Raafi'll have to wait and see what he's like in person, but so far this looks promising. Can he find anything about setting up a meeting?

He can, with a little work, discover an email address.

Cool. So. It's just like writing a letter, right?

Greetings, Your Majesty;

My name is Raafi; I arrived here unexpectedly this morning from a world that your world hasn't previously been in contact with. We have magic there, of several kinds. I in particular am a powerful cleric of our god of travel, Fharlanghn, who I understand would be displeased at the situation in some of the hells here, as he objects to any person being denied their freedom; as such, I'm interested in helping to remedy the situation, and it seems that working with your established plans and resources will be the most effective way of doing so. I'd be interested in discussing this with you in person at your convenience; I can be reached at this email address to make arrangements.

Thank you for your consideration,
Traveler Raafi

Before he hears back about that, there's a response to his application for housing; they'll have a place ready for him by tonight, here's the address, here's the range of times when if he stops by there'll be someone there to hand over the keys and show him where to find things.

He should probably do that before looking at the other lecture. Oh well; it'll be there when he gets to it, apparently. He gets his map back out and attempts to find the address he's been given on it.

It's a very long way off, far from both the library and the gate. He might want to take the subway.

He in fact fails to figure out that the subway is an option, though he does notice that it's too far to walk. He puzzles over it for a bit before deciding that he'll fly, and heads outside to do that.

He draws a lot of attention but not really negative attention, mostly.

Wheee!

He doesn't make it quite to his destination in one shot; he has to land and check the street signs against his map again when he gets close enough to recognize landmarks.

The buildings get taller as he gets closer. They've assigned him an apartment on the fortieth floor of one of them, not far from the nearest park. People give him space to land. Otherwise it'd be hard to find a place for it; as he gets closer to this edge of the city, the crowds get denser and the streets narrower.

Skyscrapers: wow.

He spends a minute just admiring them, then finds the building he's been assigned to and heads in to find someone to talk to.

There is someone to talk to.

"Hi, I understand I've been assigned a place to stay here?"

If he can just give his name and date of arrival they can confirm that and hand over the keys.

- he hasn't found the date yet but he just got here this morning. Also he's from a world that hasn't previously been in contact with this one, he's not familiar with how they do things and probably needs to be shown how to get to the room and so on.

That works. He can get shown there, and also get a tour of the apartment and an explanation of things like light fixtures and faucets if he needs one. There's a kitchen and a bedroom and a bathroom.

The building rules are posted on the inside of the front door (nothing that didn't already come up in the email: no pets, quiet hours ending around dawn, bad enough failure to deal with trash may result in annoyed neighbors getting management to let them in to deal with it), and the person giving him the tour wants him to confirm that he's read them and understands them.

He signs where he's asked to and asks about nearby libraries.

This person knows quite a bit about the neighborhood and doesn't mind talking about it. The closest public library is very new and built from the ground up with mass transit, electricity, and the internet in mind. He can also probably but not definitely get into the nearby church library. Or if he wants to go further out there's a bigger, fancier library with a bigger collection.

Ooh, he wants to see the big library. -actually, he's gotten a little sidetracked, he wanted to ask - how was he meant to get here? He started out way over at the edge of the city where the bus dropped him off, and then he was assigned here, and it was obviously too far to walk - he ended up flying over with some magic he has from his world, but how was he supposed to do it?

"Oh, well, if it works then it's how you're supposed to do it, but I would've taken the subway."