She sits in an adjacent seat. She folds over the cover and it sticks to the back revealing a matte panel of what looks like glass. She holds it out for Griffie to take. "I've set this to Sylvan for the moment but you can change it to another language if you'd like. I've also set it to be in a basic mode so that it's easier to use. That does mean some of the other features aren't available." On the screen there are four large icons: a book labelled as 'library', a depiction of a person labelled as 'talk', a depiction of a gear labelled 'options' and a depiction of two clasped hands labelled 'assistant'. "The panel is sensitive to touch. Generally you can make things happen by touching the panel in the right places."

"Why is 'options' represented with a gear?"

"That is a good question," She laughs. "Mostly it's a historical artifact. People did it that way on some of the first machines like this and people keep copying it because it's familiar."

"Ah! Thank you. What do I need to read through to get a better understanding of the residency agreement?"

"There's a book on that called 'Joining Starlight' that should suffice to get you started. It also references a number of other books if you want to read more. I can set it to be immediately visible in the library view if you want. I can also show you how you find specific books in the library view."

"Let's go over finding specific books in the library view, and then I'll have a look at 'Joining Starlight'."

"Alright you can tap the library button to get started." After Griffith does the screen changes to show three smaller icons at the top of the screen: a magnifying glass labelled as 'search', a bookcase labelled as 'browse' and a circular arrow labelled as 'history' Below that in large text there's the words. 'Currently reading' and below that in smaller text 'It doesn't look like you're reading anything right now. Below that there's another section labelled as 'to read list' and a similar message that says. 'there's nothing here right now'

Griffith and Emiko go through the library tutorial, and then Griffith settles in to have a look at 'Joining Starlight'. They're mostly interested in confirming that the details match Emiko's description, and would also like to know if there's an exit procedure available.

The details do match what Emiko said. There is a chapter titled "What if I want to leave?" In that chapter it explains that people are free to leave if they wish. If you leave for another civilization you aren't allowed to bring certain items with you, generally things that are either dangerous or easy to make into dangerous things. Exact rules can differ from civilization to civilization. There is a more complex procedure if you want to leave during a declared extreme emergency but as long as you're not currently essential to protecting others from harm you're free to go as long as you can make your way to wherever you want to go by your own means.

Well, if Griffie wants to protect others from harm during an extreme emergency and then leave before the emergency is over, it's going to be a complicated problem no matter what, so that's fair.

"Having considered their policies, I would like to become a resident of Starlight," Griffie says.

"Great, that shouldn't take long to setup." Emiko asks a few basic background questions about how Griffith wants to be listed in records and a few small other details.

Once that's done with Emiko says, "Congratulations you're now a resident. I added the 'accounts' view to this device for you and you can keep this as long as you'd like, that will let you see how much you're allocated and let you use this device to pay for things. We can get you something more convenient to carry if you'd like."

"Thank you! And my belt pouch is actually a connection to a larger extradimensional space, it should fit in there fine."

"Really? That's awesome. Also you definitely shouldn't us a transposer. I have no idea how one would work with trying to move an extradimensional space. We should test one to make sure it works with your type of exotic matter before you use one regardless but that especially sounds like a bad idea."

"The technology works just fine across teleportation and plane shifts. What's a transposer?"

"It's our version of teleportation. We use it for travelling between planes and also sometimes for travelling within them. Transposers sometimes don't manage to keep active magical effects working though. Some magics work and others don't and a collapsing extradimensional space seems potentially dangerous."

"Hmm. I think your teleportation and plane shift mechanisms may be worse than ours. If my friend were here he could demonstrate at least the teleportation. As it stands I won't be able to help much unless you can get information by looking at my boots, which are designed to enhance the wearer's capacity to bring passengers when teleporting via the magic bonds between distant plants of the same species. I'm not actually strong enough for that, yet, but I'll hopefully get there eventually."

Emiko chuckles. "That's intentional, transposers and other means we have for moving between planes are designed to be selective. We can add compatibility with additional magics but the default is excluding magics and other exotic effects instead of including them."

"Ah! So it's a security measure. Well, everywhere you can access is apparently all made of incompatible exotic matter by my standards, so I don't feel the urgent need to travel."

"I bet we can find a way to make things less incompatible and give you a safety net."

"Oh, that'd be nice. Until then I'm going to need to expend two of my three best spell slots a day on stabilizing myself, the spell only lasts sixteen hours."

"Yeah, needing to remember to do something twice a day to survive isn't something I think anyone would enjoy."

"So. We've gone over the residency agreement. What are your research priorities?"

"I think there's three broad categories off research I'm interested in. First is learning what you know about your magic and how things work in the planes you know about. Second is directly studying the magic you're capable of performing. Third is understanding the matter you're composed of. As for priorities I think they highest priority should be giving you a safety net if we can manage it. That probably means focusing on either the second or third category though if you know if you know anything that might be helpful that's a good place to start."

"So. Conjured matter seems to be stabilized outside of my bubble, a bit, by the residual conjuration magic. If you want to inspect a sample with instruments that I should be more than an inch away from, I can get you a water sample that will last around ten minutes. And it'll have trace amounts of fire for heat. For further examination of samples, I could work on a stabilization spell that can target containers and not just people, or if I take the time to prepare spells, I can get you other samples that'll persist for minutes that way. I can also go over in more detail what my stabilization spell does with you."

"I think starting be explaining what your spell is doing is a good place to start. It's potentially possible that the spell trace I took earlier would be sufficient for one of our mage-crafters to copy it but more information can only help."