"I don't know. The ritual was checked three times before being cast. It wasn't... it wasn't supposed to just go."

"Time—time passes differently—it could be days, it could be years—" She shudders. "We need to reopen this portal right now."

"Okay, but a portal making ritual is just too big to remember correctly... Do you have a way to get retroactive eidetic memory?"

"If it's possible no one's had enough mana for it—" She tries. "It's probably impossible."

"Okay..." Felix says a bit shaken while he evaluates their options, "sorcery schools work by tagging things with a magic marker. You can probably reverse engineer a school from that and we can construct something from that."

"M—magic marker? How does that work?"

She hugs him and clings to him.

Felix clings back.

"I don't know the details, but the school-making rituals are supposed to be a magical effect that 'tells to the world' what an action or object or something is supposed to do when powered by lifeforce. And since sorcery was sort of contagious to you, maybe it actually means that it is just a contagious effect... We should check if ritual sorcery works normally here."

"Okay. Okay." She nods. "Do you have a small ritual or something to test?"

"Yes, hold on." Felix takes the instructions and materials from his backpack and superspeeds to set it up. "Just something to control the temperature around. You should superspeed analyze it."

Felix starts casting the ritual. It's meant to be used indoors where it can be more useful, but they aren't aiming for the practical uses of the spell here.

It works.

"Even at superspeed, this is like... looking at a finished building and having to rederive the blueprints for it, and after that rederive the physical principles behind the building choices."

"Does this mean you can't do it at all or that it's going to take a long time?"

"I can most definitely do it. It will most definitely take a long time."

Nod nod. Felix would like a hug now.

Yes. Yes so would she, this is very much a hugging time. "It could be the other way around, though," she says, trying to sound reassuring. "It could be years here and only seconds there, they might not even miss us..." Pause. "Oh my gods, Sadde—"

"Fuuuck."

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck... Okay, okay. Let's think about this. Whatever happened to our portal might not have happened to the one to his world. Or maybe he managed to get back in time. Or... or..." Felix feels suddenly out of breath, he didn't realize he wasn't breathing in. "They have Milliways, there ought to be some way for them to find us from there."

"Right. Right, Milliways. It—door. We need a door." She squints at the ground, points at it, and a door emerges from it fully formed. Thank Sadde for the fuckton of lifeforce she can convert into mana.

Felix speeds over and opens it... nothing, he opens it again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again...

...okay that's a good idea yes she'll make another door and do that, too.

While still opening and closing the door. "We... maybe should consider what to do in the near future."

"...learn sorcery and reconstruct that ritual from scratch?" she suggests.

"I was thinking more in terms of where we are going to stay and what about the delegation that is coming our way?"

"—oh. I, I don't know. The delegation—we could wait here, and explain—show sorcery to prove we weren't lying—but without the portal to back us up they might just as well decide to try to subdue us or declare us heathens—and I do have enough mana now to stop them—"

"What does being called heathens entail exactly?"

"Death sentence, usually."

"Ouch. If we try stopping them... then what? Would we be on the run?"

"Yes. I am technically already on the run, wearing my other faces."

Felix stops opening the door and goes over to hug her.

Hug. Very hug. So much hug.

Eventually: "Do you think it's worth it to try to make sorcery socially acceptable? By ourselves I mean..."

"Maybe. I'm not sure. The fact that everyone on the planet could do it could serve as incentives but people might find it all the scarier for that..."

"I think magery might be stronger in every aspect that isn't creating permanent effects and accessibility. Should we present sorcery as less scary then?"

"Possibly. I see two main classes of objection: religious, because it's new and scary and who knows what kinds of evil gods might have made it, and practical, because it's unknown and giving everyone on Galatea magic like that would be... a very delicate situation."

"We could present the story of my people as an evidence that sorcery is good? And most people wouldn't know how to use sorcery. Elan figured it out mostly by luck and exploring ruins... Should we be afraid of metamancers knowing it exists?"

"So where did the ruins come from in the first place? And—possibly. Shit metamancers will totally figure out that sorcery's started existing."

"Ancient civilizations, we are going to use Milliways to figure out. And shit. How fast do you think they would figure out? And if a metamancer tells someone that there is a new type of magic...?"

"They wouldn't, that'd reveal they're a meta and they'd be killed. And—without you and knowledge about the rituals, having absolutely no clue at all about any of it—months, at least, they wouldn't figure it out sooner than that."

"Okay." Hug. "And we have the lifeforce advantage too. And the mana one. Now I don't know if we should consider recruiting metamancers in case the various governments turn against sorcery."

"...maybe. Might be a good idea anyway, make the Cult of Vinkar exist if it doesn't."

"Vinkar? Yeah, organizing metamancers sounds like a good idea anyway even if we do that in parallel to distributing sorcery in this world."

"Vinkar is the evil god associated with metamancers, there's rumours of a group of people who think that, hey, maybe metamancers aren't so bad after all, and it's purportedly named that. I've been looking for signs of them for a while and not found anything, which makes sense since if I did they'd probably be too incompetent to not be all decapitated, but it might also indicate they're just a myth."

"...Do you think your infinite mana hack would win if they were using magical defenses against detection? ...would they be using magical defenses? I am not sure the other mages are any good at any sort of metamagic."

"...probably to the first, but I'm not sure they'd be using magical defences—at least not from detection."

Nod. "Should we tell the three delegations about the lifeforce-to-mana conversion? We could justify it as being an aspect of foreign magic."

"But they'll discover we were lying when it turns out they can't convert lifeforce to mana."

"I mean, in the sense that only Sadde could do it and we... don't have access to him anymore." Squeeze.

Yes, very squeeze. "I'm not sure we should tell them about it, actually. Letting it be known that I have unheard-of amounts of mana sounds... unwise."

Nod. "How about huge amounts of lifeforce? I think it would be diplomatically worse if we revealed great power after they tried to contain us for one reason or another. At least worse than if we just came forth as having great power and they negotiated with us a bit warily. But I don't really know."

"...you have a point. I'm not sure; if I just announced I had enough mana to lay waste to the continent they'd—" She pauses, and her eyes widen a lot. "We could go north. We could end that stupid storm and figure out what's there and found our own country if there isn't one already there—"

"How long would that trip take? Is there a way around the storm? If there is a country over there it sounds like we could get a complicated political situation in our hands."

"There is no way around the storm as far as anyone knows. No one can cross it. Why would we have that, though, it need not necessarily be known we were the ones to do it."

"I mean, if two political unities suddenly found each other that could lead to all sort of complications. And my guess that if they treat metamancers even a tiny bit better than 'behead at earliest convenience' then the three nations on this side of the storm would react badly. Does the storm goes all the way around the globe? All the way to the upper atmosphere?"

"Yes to both, and my guess is if they treat metamancers better then they have metamancers and the Three Kingdoms don't really have the power to stop that."

"Possibly. I still would prefer something less... extreme than removing the storm if we can manage it? Wait, can you manipulate the storm's magic?"

"I don't know, I've never tried, but if it were easy some metamancer in the past few hundred years would have done it. Why not remove the storm, though, the standard result of equally powerful nations meeting should be either open trade or war, and we can prevent the latter—and maybe we should try just crossing the storm and seeing what's on the other side, first."

"I am not categorically opposed to removing the storm. I just want to be careful before we do anything world-changing. We-we have to stay alive."

She shudders. "We're not going to die, we have the power of gods—" Pause. "Could sorcery do immortality, if it does permanent things?"

"The main problem is that it doesn't stop aging... But we have more than enough to ward ourselves a lot. You might figure out a way to covert youth between different species or alter how our own works so it doesn't erode with time."

"And other than aging sorcery can deal with other causes of death?"

"Yup, with enough lifeforce around you can create wards for nearly anything, heal nearly anything, even improve your memory. Resurrection has yet to be managed but it seems more like a resource limitation. Our plan before meeting you guys was to figure out a way to..." they don't have the concept of virtual reality, "copy people's minds into a lucid dream."

"Copy people's minds? How? And where would this lucid dream even be?"

"Sorcery can copy mental information as long as you specify enough and have the power to fuel it. The lucid dream would be done via an artifact. There is a theoretical non-magical solution, but it wasn't invented on my world yet."

"So the idea is to bring back a... simulation of the originals, without the physical body attached? How do you secure the artefact?—and this is academic, we should focus on making ourselves immortal."

Nod nod. "I have some warding rituals with me, which we can make stronger by just applying more lifeforce. Can you edit wards? Might be easier than just casting different versions over and over."

"Maybe? Lemme check."

She squints at him.

She can in fact mess with the wards, maybe a bit harder than Galatean magic since they are meant not to come off when poked by outside forces, but she can definitely do something.

"This will probably take a few days to figure out," she declares.

Nod. "Where are we going to stay? ...If we leave we should leave a message, maybe they can find some way to find us from Milliways."

"We could stay here, I have camping gear in my backpack that should last us a few days, we'll hash out the details of dealing with the delegation."

Nod nod. "We should think of a presentation that maximizes the notion 'sorcery is actually a good thing' and possibly other sorcery and Galatean magic interactions. Are we sure mages can't detect sorcery-related magic? Or maybe it can activate sorcery-gifts."

"Mages other than metamancers are actually uniquely bad at detecting magic at all—detecting magical effects is difficult and costly, detecting artefacts and other mages impossible, so I'd be surprised if they could." She opens her backpack and starts rummaging through it. "Don't know about sorcery-gifts, though."

"Could someone make a spell that directly affects lifeforce? Or generally someone's biology? ...People sometimes get them under very lifeforce stressing circumstances, which is to say, life-threatening circumstances. Even if mages can't affect lifeforce directly if they could keep someone alive they could create sorcery-gifts by various uncomfortable means, like suffocation, keeping someone awake or just... damaging them."

"I mean, making a spell that affects someone's biology is pretty trivial and magic would easily affect lifeforce inasmuch as it's tied to that. That said, biological magic is typically very expensive, mana-wise, and keeping someone alive when they've been damaged a lot is not in general easily feasible."

Nod. "We should probably fail to mention that is a way to get sorcery-gifts."

"Yeah, probably."

She removes a long wooden stick enveloped in cloth from the backpack. It is in fact much longer than the backpack should be able to contain.

Felix goes over to the door and starts absently opening and closing it, not at superspeed and only enough to see what is on the other side.

Not Milliways.

She throws the stick on the ground and it opens itself, unfolding into a tent. "Ta-da."

Felix gives her a smile that is 50% fondness and 50% willpower to work his muscles that way.

...aw. She walks up to him and hugs him again. "It's bigger on the inside."

Felix hugs back and takes a look at the inside of the tent.

So much hug.

The inside is, in fact, bigger. There is a mattress that looks pretty comfortable for being on the ground, as well as a pile of clothes and pillows and cushions and blankets.

"What happens if you... fold the tent while there is someone inside?"

"It's made of cloth, so it just... falls on them, kinda. It won't squeeze them or anything."

"Ah, what about things that break easily or... food?"

"It will never get smaller than whatever's inside it that wasn't enchanted with it," she clarifies. "So at worst you'll have a lot of stuff under cloth, which shouldn't... be able to break anything stronger than a dandelion."

Nod. "I was just curious." Does Kaede want to snuggle on the mattress and talk about their plans?

She very much does! There are completely snuggles.

Yeah, Felix needs those.

He can have as much of those as he wants and needs. She kinda also needs some, but she's better at dealing with this kind of thing if she's doing stuff.

Felix understands that sentiment, but talking about their plans counts as being productive, right?

It definitely does. They will snuggle and strategise and it'll be great, and eventually it'll be time for her to make them food.

Would she like help? Felix doesn't want to mooch off her.

Sure, he can help, but most of the cooking will be done magically anyway.

He can at least learn how it works for future reference.

Sure! It's pretty easy.

They have dried meat and a few kinds of grains and hard but tasty bread and mead, which Kaede explains is food typical of Bezanab.

Felix is happy to taste the typical Bezanab food. "Love you," he says between bites.

"Love you, too," she sighs.

They eat. "Mages can't see what is on the other side of the storm?"

"No, the storm's also a scrying barrier, apparently."

"How does something like that even happen anyway? The storm I mean? What is it like?"

"No one knows, and I've never been to it so I can't say. It's been there as long as anyone can remember, no one's recorded as having put it there."

"Fair. What exactly does the storms do? Or is it just perpetually storming?"

"Perpetually storming, plus the magical scrying thing."

"Any way to tell if the magical scrying thing is something that could happen on purpose?"

"It could definitely happen on purpose, it's possible to prevent scrying, but it's usually a mana limitation: the more mana you pour into your scrying block, the more mana someone trying to scry into it will need to spend. And no one's been able to scry beyond the storm no matter how much mana they poured."

"Ah, similar thing with sorcery. Albeit different lifeforce aspects perform better... Now I am wondering if the magical storm could be the cause of magery, are there more mages born it's vicinity or something?"

"Its vicinity is open sea so not really. And the distribution is statistically random."

"Ah, I should look at a map of Galatea at some point. And I guess an open sea would contribute to metamancers not squinting the thing out of existence."

"If we at all can, yeah. Which I suspect we can, given I can even see otherworldly magic. And I actually do have a map." She reaches for her backpack again.

In that case, Felix looks over the map, memorizing any important landmarks.

It's a continent more or less the size of Africa, there are several landmarks, most of which are too small to be marked on the map. The Three Kingdoms are delineated, as is the northern mountain range and the even more northern desert and the even more more northern giant storm.

And when you remember their low population number and what happens with metamancers that go public. "I can see how that storm got to stay there this entire time. Your world is really crippling itself with the metamagic prejudice."

"That it is, yes," she sighs. "But I can't even speak up about it."

Felix puts an arm around her and hugs her. "We will fix it."

"We will."

Soon they're done eating and tuck in for the night.

And Felix doesn't need as much sleep as Kaede, but he needs more cuddling.

He has standing permission for cuddles.

Then he will help himself to a lot of cuddles.

And she will eventually fall asleep.

And Felix holds onto her and occupies his mind with lifeforce exercises and eventually falls asleep too.

He wakes up fairly early the next morning.

Felix wakes up. He half-expects some moment of confusion where he will think he woke up next to Katur... but no. That doesn't happen. Felix snuggles up to Kaede.

"Good morning, love. I need to cast a spell."

"Sure. Do you need me to unsnuggle?" He will do so as soon as she says yes.

"Nope. Just wait a tad—" And he starts describing in plain language and lots of detail how his body's going to change to accommodate his new internal body map.

Felix listens quietly.

And after a few minutes—

—boy!

A hot boy! "How much of the attractiveness is from your specification?"

"Pretty much all of it."

"Oh? Now I am curious."

"Well it's not part of the incantation because that'd take forever but I designed a lot of the details and broad strokes myself and baked them into the original spell, and have since added an actual mental impression of this specific form to every new casting."

"I meant I was curious about something else, besides the technical aspect of your transformation."

"Oh? You might need to spell it out for me."

Felix has a better idea than spelling out. The first step is kissing Kaede.

Oooh okay Kaede is responsive to that.

Yeah, the follow-up step is exploring Kaede's current chest configuration.

It is interestingly different! His voice is also deeper so the noises he's making when this happen are rather novel, too.

Felix will investigate these noises. Also Kaede's abs. Both of those things.

What do you know, this produces more noises.

What a surprising turn of events. How about if Felix moves further down?

(Click here to skip the explicit content.)

Even more noises! Who could have expected this.

Also, other reactions than noises. Further down.

Those are interesting reactions. Felix investigates them further. Using his other senses as well, like taste.

It's a good thing they're so isolated from civilisation, isn't it? So Kaede doesn't have to hold back.

It's great! Felix would hate it if Kaede couldn't feel comfortable to just give himself to the moment.

Yep! And Kaede has a hand which he will use to run through Felix's hair while he... tastes... him.

And there is quite a lot to taste. Felix would ask how much of that was planned, but his mouth is busy, obviously.

Perhaps he will remember to ask when his mouth is not thusly occupied.

Like now, as Kaede pulls Felix back up for a kiss because otherwise he'll be done way too soon.

Kiss! A very thorough kiss! More of a naked make out.

Yes those are very good. He reaches down between them for some further mutual stimulation.

The stimulation is so very much appreciated.

Is it now. He wasn't sure. And he thinks he wants to turn Felix around.

Really? Is there something interesting to see in the back of his head?

Oh well he does kinda want to nibble on the back of Felix's neck but the main thing he's doing is further down (aided by some magic).

Oooh.

(Magic is so great.)

It is! It makes some things so much easier!

Like entry.

Easier is so much better.

It is.

And then he's in.

Which Felix enjoys very much.

Now out and back in.

He can do that a few times. And nibble on Felix's neck while he does it.

Which is the best way to get a delightfully squirmy Felix.

Oh good that's just the objective.

Well. Not the only objective, but that he can get by continuing to do what he's doing and perhaps reaching around with a hand...

This is yet another good decision of Kaede's. Felix is very pleased.

"Pleased" is exactly the goal. Kaede sure does hope he can please Felix about as much as it is possible for Felix to be pleased.

And of course, if Kaede is pleased himself.... Felix won't be complaining.

He is. He very loudly and vehemently is.

That is great! It can be a pleasant morning!

And after all that pleasure they can snuggle.

Yay, snuggling. (And snuggly kisses.)

But eventually: breakfast.

Breakfast! After that, what do they have in the agenda for the day?

Trying to reverse-engineer sorcery!

Yay! ...Well, it isn't as interesting. Felix catalogues everything he knows about magic, writes it all down and then he and Kaede go through various experiments to see if Kaede's metamagic can disentangle things more easily.

Even with Kaede's boosted cogntive speed the process is slow going.

Kaede is sort of used to slow going and is expecting this to take several days.

Yeah, the diplomatic delegation is likely to arrive before they make any meaningful progress.

And indeed a couple of days later they can see carriages in the distance.

Felix notes this, tries to look his best with used-but-magically-cleaned-clothes and follows Kaede's instructions.

Kaede's Token starts glowing as they approach, then blinking. "Oh look, here's the ping," he says, raising an eyebrow. "So much advance notice they give us."

"You think it's on purpose?"

"No, I think they're probably just disorganised. Or, at least, I can't think of a reason why they'd do it on purpose."

"Okay, any last minute tips?"

"No, don't think so."

The carriages approach, and from a distance they can see the pimply boy that manned the counter when they visited the Guild chapter—Naoh—chattering excitedly with someone else.

Felix fidgets uncomfortably and revises his mental notes on "I am for real from another world, no kidding! And here is why you shouldn't consider my magic evil."

And eventually they get there.

"May Bezana shine your mornings," says a man with glowing tattoos covering his face and a lot of his mostly exposed skin.

"And yours," replies Kaede.

"I understand there has been a remarkable finding?"

Felix echoes the "And yours."

"Yes, there was," Felix says gravely because part of it is that he's stuck in Galatea. "There was a portal to another world, my world and I came through it with Kaede."

"With Kaede? I'd been under the impression she was from our world?" he says, apparently not connecting the boy by Felix with the girl Naoh described.

"Oh, sorry, Kaede is from your world," Felix agrees waving at Kaede, "he is genderfluid."

"My apologies," says the man.

"Do not worry about it. So my finding was, ah, a portal to another world... except it's gone."

The man raises an eyebrow.

Well, they discussed what to do.

"As far we can tell, Kaede activated some sort of ancient magical effect that transports people between worlds. He met me and my brothers there. My own world is a hub of worlds connected to others. We used magic to create portals between worlds to create a portal to here, assuming it would work normally, but... it did not."

Felix's face looks very obviously controlled in a way that is about as telling as if he was sobbing over the fact that he is stranded in another universe.

One of the people accompanying the man—a woman wearing long, dark robes with blue-green lines—looks at Naoh suspiciously, and he shrinks under her gaze. The man doesn't seem to notice or care, though. "I see. You'll understand if I'm somewhat sceptical of this claim, Mr....? Oh, and I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself, I am Baleo phe Bez," he says, and the translation spell helpfully explains this is a name taken by high priests of Bezana.

"Mr. Felix Vaesteri, grandson of Dal-Jaon and Dal-Yora of honorable patrons of Milirevi." Hopefully the translation spell will also translate that 'Dal' is vaguely equivalent to a priest. "It is a blessed honor to make your acquaintance. Your skepticism is entirely justified. We were originally going to back our claims by actually taking you to another world. Our current best evidence is one of my world's native magic."

The translation spell actually consists in Kaede bouncing the meanings between them telepathically so only to the extent he knows who the Dal are.

"And I presume this magic is not going to be fakeable by forbidden magic?"

"I am not entirely clear on how the forbidden magic would be able to fake it. The test we devised would require cooperation from people I never had contact with to cast a simple spell ritual."

"And the effects of this ritual would be unfakeable?" he repeats.

"Oh, yes. It's costly, but this kind of magic can make permanent effects that require no 'mana' maintenance after the initial casting."

"Interesting."

"We can make an artefact and then you could have an enchanter verify that it is not our kind," Kaede suggests.

"That... should be sufficient for the purposes of the Explorers' Guild and I'm sure scholars all over the world would be excited about it but I don't see that you need a delegation for it. This sounds quite frankly like a waste of our time."

"It's relevant to you because sorcery rituals are not... personal like the other kinds of magic. Once a sorcery discipline is established, anyone that understands it can use it, much like anyone can use an enchanter artifact. And as far we know the effect has spread to your world already."

"Even nonmages have it now?"

"It would be more accurate to say that your world has it now. But using sorcery rituals is not really obvious or straightforward like your other kinds of magic."

Kaede looks at him. "I must have completely failed to explain our magic to you if you're under the impression it's obvious or straightforward."

The lady in robes steps forward. "That's all very interesting but we'd still like a demonstration."

"Comparatively straightforward," Felix corrects himself. "And we do have a demonstration prepared. If you don't mind watching me casting a ritual for a few minutes."

Kaede looks like he wants to argue the point but drops it.

"You said you'd need cooperation from someone else? And if other people can do it, too, it would help corroborate your story if one of us tried it," the lady suggests.

"Yes, the cooperation of a non-mage," Felix clarifies. "I will explain the steps of the ritual and then you can make Kaede and I sleep so we can't tamper with the results. We hope that should be enough to prove that it's a new kind of magic."

If there are no objections, Felix will explain sorcery.

Naoh starts bouncing again as Felix explains, and the other four people in the delegation listen attentively to the explanation.

And once that is done Felix will accept one or more volunteers for people that want to learn how to do a specific ritual for testing purposes.

They will all want to learn.

Felix teaches them, being very careful to be sure they all get it right and very patient with questions.

Eventually they have all learnt.

All right, time to proceed with the test then?

That it is. "We will knock you out with a spell, which should last two hours or until we try to wake you up, if that's acceptable."

Nod. He gets comfortably horizontal and waits.

And they are knocked out by a one-sentence spell with some hand gestures.

When they wake up, the other four look... rather disconcerted. The lady in robes, who still hasn't introduced herself, is staring in fascination as Naoh tries to light a match and it completely fails to take. phe Bez and the other man, who also did not introduce, are looking at the two speculatively. "This is rather interesting."

The match will fail to light up and will go out as soon it gets in the ward's radius.

"We guessed that you would find it so."

"Where does your magic come from?"

Felix shrugs helplessly. "We don't know, it is just how it is. If there is an intelligent will behind it it's likely good because it sent sorcery to save my people from really horrible slavery..."

Felix then proceeds to tell the story of the Daliath people - his people - and how they were oppressed and considered pariah, worked as slaves to the corrupt class. And also, how that same oppression that worked them to physical and mental exhaustion, caused to drown on rivers to flee or subject them to terrible punishments meant that Daliath could develop sorcery gifts and fight back. Felix also mentions how it was a group of Daliath that discovered the right set of Elsewhere ruins that revealed the secrets of ritual sorcery. It goes on like this. Gosh, it was certainly something suspiciously similar to positive divine intervention that led Elan to acquire sorcery.

They are very satisfied with this explanation.

"If it works here, then Laoku must have allowed it," reasons phe Bez.

"Unless Vinkar brought it," counters the lady in robes.

Well, Felix is hardly going to tell them otherwise. Are he and Kaede allowed to talk to Naoh?

No of course not the ambassadors want to discuss theology.

Of course. What do they want to discuss? Felix will be glad to answer.

Mainly they want to know how they can be sure this isn't some trick that will be terrible for everyone.

Well, discovering how sorcery rituals work is extremely counterintuitive and mages appear to have the upper hand in terms of both versatility and sheer strength. And insofar as that is reassuring, Felix can point out how his world uses sorcery for constructive purposes. Plus the fact that sorcery costs lifeforce.

How exactly is the fact that it costs lifeforce an argument either way?

He meant that people can't be wasteful or reckless with it. Or rather, they can, it is just not really sustainable.

Is it possible to make someone unable to perform sorcery, or learn rituals? Purely hypothetically, of course.

There are various wards that could prevent magical effects. And learning rituals is... pretty much the default? Sorcery rituals were only rediscovered because someone with translation magic was blessed enough to find the right set of ruins. Why is this question hypothetical? While Felix does view sorcery as a positive thing, if an inter-dimensional visitor came along with some completely new kind of magic it would be completely prudent to want to know possible ways to defend oneself. Elan has a saying: "You can be offended by a raised sword, but you can't be offended by a raised shield".

Right, sure.

So... how does one learn more rituals? Can he teach them?

It involves careful research to balance the different ritual components until you have something that is at minimum useful, but ideally also efficient. Felix is happy to share the rituals he knows, but his current selection is limited since he... wasn't planning to be cut off from his home world.

Can they be reverse-engineered?

To a degree, yes. But they are lacking part of the metaphorical vocabulary and Felix doesn't know how much they can advance without that. They might be stuck with mostly-protection oriented rituals, healing and sorcery gifts until contact with Felix's worlds is stabilized again.

And what are the risks from... rogue sorcerers?

The local kind of magic is significantly more versatile and flexible than sorcery. Stronger too. Felix doesn't think there is going to be a large quantity of these problems and less so a quantity that can't be solved with the resources they have at their disposal.

Okay. That sounds reasonable, then. They would like Felix and Kaede to be reachable and serve as consultants in the long term, and in the short term they'd like them to commit as much as they know to writing as possible.

Of course. They actually have done some of the writing already, but they are still working on making the notes useful (translating, formatting, confirming-that-they-are-accurate).

Very well. Will they come with the delegations, then?

Felix looks at Kaede for confirmation and - presuming an affirmative - nods.

Indeed. Off they go.

Felix is generally going to be quiet and hug Kaede a lot.

Well Naoh wants to know more about the magic, and the lady in robes, who finally introduces as Vamm, no title, has several questions about the other worlds.

Felix can answer their questions. Felix himself wants to know how open he should be about the entire sorcery business?

...maybe keep it quiet for now.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. More magic-and-worlds questions?

Yes, lots of those.

Transport by wagon is slower and less comfortable than flight, but does give one more time to appreciate the scenery from below as the sun starts moving towards the horizon.

Scenery is an advantage, yes.

Where exactly are they going?

The capital.

Oh, what can they tell Felix about the capital?

Well what does he want to know?

General things, since he doesn't know what to ask. Maybe they could tell him about the place where they are going to stay?

At the embassy. It's rather pretty and spacious, actually a whole wing of the palace.

Isn't that a bit... much?

Why does he think so?

Well, it is not that he isn't grateful for the hospitality. He just doesn't think he merits a whole wing.

Oh he doesn't, that's the ambassy. He'll get a room there.

Felix facepalms. Of course, now he is feeling silly.

Well, presumably there are going to be diplomats? Any etiquette it might be relevant to know?

...probably, yes. He might need a crash course.

Well... Felix will do his best to learn everything.

Kaede can help. He is... rather good at this, it transpires. Wonder why.

Well, Kaede is a very smart person and interested in a wide variety of knowledge.

Yep, that he is!

The whole trip will take a few days.

A lot of time to learn the local language and the culture. And spend time with his genderfriend.

(And possibly exchange quiet telepathic conversations with Kaede. Does he think things are going well?)

As well as could be hoped for, really, but I think they'll want to control a lot of the information about sorcery.

Do you think it's wise to just let them?

I think... after we establish contact with your worlds again it will get out anyway and it won't hurt to let them until it does.

Okay, how long do you think until we are free to explore beyond the magic storm.

Oh we never will be, they won't let us go, we'll have to run away eventually.

Joy. Relatedly, what do you think of spreading sorcery knowledge to the public?

Oh I think it's a jolly good idea, but might need a lot of organisation. We don't have the infrastructure.

Yeah, I was debating the pros and cons of convincing them of doing this or that with sorcery. ...I think if we are going to run away, we should establish sorcery as non-evil first and then wait for an excuse that looks somehow justified.

If we're patient enough we can just wait until it becomes obvious that they're not letting us go and run then but they have the power, here.

Yes. I don't think sorcery increases their ability to find us and detain us, but it does scale their ability to do everything else. Sigh.

I meant political power, actually, if we flee we're fugitives—again, in my case. We could just teach sorcery to the masses, if it's safe enough, then they wouldn't have an even bigger power imbalance going on.

Yeah. At least it would be a relatively nice cover. Or nicer than just running away.

We'll probably have to run away eventually, they really really won't just let us go.—although they might, now that I think of it, if people start learning about sorcery and it's not directly linked to us.

I get that they might not blame us in that case, but I am not sure why he would just let us go then.

Because if the cat's out of the bag and we've taught them everything we know there's no added benefit to keeping us.

True. Felix snuggles. I can't say I am happy with this deception in general. Are you sure they won't figure us out? Or worse yet, figure you out?

I would be more afraid of this if I weren't by providence of my alt basically omnipotent now.

Felix smiles, albeit a bit sadly, when he remembers Sadde. He wishes he had told Sadde he loved him.

We'll find them again. Or they'll find us.

Well, they have Milliways' resources and we have time. Might just have been a couple hours on their end.

Or might have been a year, or a millisecond, it's not really possible to know.

Yeah. Snuggle.

Naoh is extremely excited about sorcery, and the others are various levels of excited and willing to demonstrate this excitement.

Felix is glad to teach more sorcery (presuming he is authorized to do so). While also learning how-not-to-cause-diplomatic-incidents.

Sometimes he might need to be alone, but he will understand if all he gets is some quiet moments holding onto Kaede.

Well while in the wagons they don't have much in the way of personal space but when they stop at night they have Kaede's tent.

Small blessings.

And eventually they reach an even more Game-of-Thrones-y walled city. There is a line to get through the main gate.

Let's hope this city doesn't end up involved in a war involving all kingdoms. And zombies. Felix should really ask Kaede if zombies are a thing.

Well until he does he will remain in ignorance.

They're waved through, and it's more waiting until an enormous palace becomes visible in the distance as they pass through streets and plazas.

Impressive! Felix pays attention.

It is much cleaner than everywhere else, that's noticeable even from a distance, and when they finally reach it what they see is a whole square dedicated exclusively to the palace gates. Their situation is explained and in they go, and the inside of the palace walls is even more stunning than the outside: gardens, fountains, children playing naked in the lake, maidens eating fruit, the whole picture.

Pretty. 

(He is literally in a place with "maidens" in it!)

Presumably he has been around virgin girls before?

Well, yes. But they aren't subjected to the same sort of social constructs of a "maiden".

(It's a cultural shock, that is all.)

(Kaede explains that this is mostly a Bezanab thing, other places don't really have it.)

(Felix explains that it is something very... associated with some story genres and it feels surreal to visit a place where it's actually put in practice.)

(Well it's surreal that there are humans in different worlds like that, her suspension of disbelief has been shot to heck.)

(Her suspension of disbelief? Felix is the one visiting a Medieval Fantasy Land™!)

(Hey, at least Felix has the concept of a Medieval Fantasy Land, alternate universes are completely novel!)

(So much potential for cultural exchange! Alternate universes! Science Fiction! Comic books! Cuisine from at least four worlds!)

They soon reach the actual door to the palace and are told to wait in a sumptuously appointed waiting room while the diplomats go about their business.

Felix will wait politely and wearing the clothes they provided him (since it was a multiple-day journey and all). And he fidgets just a little.

Naoh is also somewhat subdued. He had hoped to see another world, sure, but no one said anything about going to a palace.

After ten minutes they're still waiting.

Felix is hardly going to be impatient now. At minimum he and Kaede can go over rules of etiquette.

It takes another twelve minutes but then a tall man in a white cloak fastened around a white linen shirt and white trousers, lined with silver and gold thread in complicated patterns, strides into the room. His face is also covered with glowing tattoos, but they're all silver and gold and pink unlike the blue ones phe Bez had. Kaede gets up immediately and bows the specific way they were taught to bow, with both hands clasped in front of them. Naoh does the same.

"May Bezana shine your afternoons!" the man declares, beaming.

"And yours," Kaede and Naoh reply.

"And yours," Felix replies following the instructions perfectly.

"I am called Jintes phe Bez," he introduces. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"I-I am N-Naoh am M-M-Melo," Naoh introduces himself.

"I am Kaede," she says.

"No relations?" phe Bez asks wryly.

"None worth mentioning."

"I am Felix Vaesteri."

"So you are our alien visitor. The Kingdoms of Bezanab and I, the High Consul, do bid you our humblest welcome," he says, and bows even more deeply than they did.

Felix bows back in the specific way to reply to this specific bow (and to think he was wary of learning how to use ten different kinds of forks when the etiquette lessons started).

"It's my honor to be allowed passage and to be granted hospitality," Felix says formally.

"Not at all, not at all, the honour is ours," he says, straightening up again and dropping into informality. "Baleo had good things to say about you, and lady Vamm was the Teinnaban equivalent of brimming with excitement about your new kind of magic. They couldn't stop talking."

"I am glad to hear," Felix says with a smile that is more sincere and much better than the previous one.

"And these two...?" he asks, looking at Kaede and Naoh.

"She is my girlfriend. And he is from the Explorers' Guild."

He frowns. "So why is he here?"

"Well, he came with the delegation to investigate the new world, except the portal collapsed. So, he helped the delegation test our claims that sorcery is real and works in this world."

He peers at Naoh, who shrinks under his gaze. "Hm." He looks at Kaede again. "And she's your girlfriend. Native. How peculiar."

"It is given how extremely blessed I feel for having met her," Felix says sounding very sincere about it.

He straightens up again. "Good to hear. Well! We'll get you to your rooms and then we'll have dinner, what say you?"

"Sounds perfect and thank you so much for your hospitality."

"Great!" He claps his hands together and turns around, striding away from the room. Kaede and Naoh follow quickly.

I think he's a bit strange.

In what sense? I don't have much of a baseline to compare the people of your world.

Just... eccentric.

He leads them through decorated hallways with huge paintings, enormous leisure rooms, extremely pretty stairs, and two dining rooms, before he reaches a corridor that has several doors and apparently houses the "guests of honour."

"Now, hmm..." he says, stopping suddenly and peering at them again. "Do you two room together?"

"Yes, if it isn't imposing too much."

"Not at all, not at all." He looks around at the many doors, picks one apparently at random, and leads them to it. "Here you go!" he says, opening the door to reveal the most gorgeous suite any of them has ever seen in their life. The bed frame and post are exquisitely carved out of wood with asymmetrical and complementary details, there is a marble table more like a sculpture, a stunning water fountain they can drink from, a beautiful fireplace inlaid with gold, breathtaking paintings of various landscapes—the whole deal.

"Oh," is all Felix can say. This place is gorgeous.

"I'll leave you two to it, we'll dine in an hour and a half."

He bows and closes the door, which prompts Kaede to go exploring the staggeringly pretty bookshelf. Then she frowns and—" This is all fake."

"In what sense?"

"It's not really this pretty, look." And she pinches the magic everywhere and—doesn't break it, merely stops it, holds it in suspension for a bit so Felix can see what's really there—

—it's not ugly. It's a perfectly ordinary room, with a perfectly ordinary fireplace—which is inlaid with gold, but it's not especially pretty gold—and the bed is nice but not spectacular, and the water fountain is entirely normal—

—and then she lets go and it's once again the prettiest place he's ever seen.

"Ah, I see what you mean." Felix makes a gesture to indicate that he wants to talk telepathically.

I don't think you should say things like that out loud in case they are spying on us.

I'd notice if they were, I checked that as soon as I got in—was how I noticed this magic, actually, it's pretty tight and cleverly hidden.

Ah, good. "Is this kind of set up common? Should we infer anything from it?"

"I expect it's common of places that don't want to actually have hundreds of ridiculously pretty rooms. Bet the part where it looked like he picked a door at random was just an act, too."

"...I am not actually sure what to take from that. Maybe they are afraid that we would steal things? I am bothered more with a subterfuge than to have an illusory sensory experience." Would the stereotype of metamancers play anything meaningful in this situation? Maybe they think you'd break the illusions or something?

"They're probably just stingy."

"Maybe the other rooms are like that too? Why do you think he pretended to pick it at random?"

"To make it seem like any room we chose would be like this, when I bet this one was enchanted in advance."

"I honestly don't know if this is the kind of thing that we should try to unravel, it is very... the only word that comes to mind is 'Slytherin' and I don't think anyone explained Harry Potter to you."

"No one did, no, but I don't know why you'd expect it to be any more complex than them wanting to have a pretty place without paying a lot of money for it. Simpler explanation and all."

"I mean, that is simple, but the really Slytherin part is the bit where he pretended to pick a door at random."

"Because he probably doesn't have literally all rooms enchanted, that would be needlessly expensive."

"No, I'm talking about deliberately doing a small thing that would be easy to miss just to manipulate. Enchanted rooms is manipulative, but not as Slytherin as that."

She shrugs. "I think you're overthinking it. And what is this Slytherin thing?"

"Oh, right, let me explain it to you," brief introduction to Harry Potter,  the impact the series had in modern literature, the Hogwarts houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin! Personality quizzes! Fanons! Self-sorting and the inconsistencies thereof. "And Trevor always says we would all end up in Gryffindor, but I think I am a Hufflepuff. And Fernando doesn't see any Gryffindor in himself and thinks he would be a split between Ravenclaw and Slytherin."

"—yeah no I think Trevor might have a point. I would be a pretty even split between Ravenclaw and Slytherin—possibly favouring Slytherin—and I don't think that was particularly Slytherin of him."

Shrug. "That is definitely not my strength. All my ambition comes from a very Hufflepuff angle."

"I can also see that." Kiss. "You're adorable."

Kiss. "You're delightful."

She walks over to a door—" Okay this isn't this pretty in real life but with the illusion it's the prettiest bathroom I've ever seen—what say you we share a bath?"

"Gosh, after days in the road? And with you in it? I can be convinced."

She giggles and pulls him into the jawdropping bathroom.

It's a lovely bathroom, but Felix thinks the best feature is one of the occupants.

Felix is very flattering.

When they're done it's almost time for them to go eat.

Yes, where are they supposed to go again?

They're supposed to wait, actually, and—

—knock knock.

Felix briefly wonders if he should introduce knock knock jokes to this world. He answers the door.

"Good evening," says a servant wearing a less outrageously pretty and formal version of what the High Consul had worn. "I am to escort you to the dining room."

"Thank you, lead the way."

So he does, taking them to yet another exhaustingly beautiful room. Naoh is already there, shaking like a leaf.

Oh, dear. How is he doing?

Not very well, given the way he jumps when Felix addresses him.

"It's okay. It's just me. Is there anything I can do to help?"