Oh, the sun's coming up. ...weird for the sun to be coming up and not match felt dawn but probably the days are extremely wonky durations here.

"Happy dawn! I can help you uncover your room's windows if you'd like."

"Yes, thank you."

It's pretty straightforward.

"And this is how you use your curtains and blinds. You might want them for sleep. I use an eyeshade sometimes if it's bright enough and I'm sure we can rustle up one of those for you as well if you'd like."

"That may be useful, I've taken a night shift before but the fort didn't have windows."

"Sure thing."

The view outside Blai's window is nice, if you like buildings and snow.

The eyeshade is a bit like a blindfold, but instead of being a uniform strip of cloth that you tie every time, it has padded cloth in the front and a thin stretchy bit in the back.

He is not a huge fan of it after giving it a try.

In that case Kevin can give it back to the person whose spare eyeshade it was.

Chris would like another meeting with Blai at his convenience.

Of course.

"So, it seems likely that the archmages aren't going to pick you up for the convention."

"They are at minimum delayed and most likely have decided they can do without me," he agrees.

"You should probably plan as if you're going to be on or near Earth indefinitely, and I was thinking now might be a good time to talk about that."

"Yes. What sorts of planning strike you, an Earthling, as most urgent for me to do?"

"Thinking about the basics of an introduction to the global stage. Getting ready to fly in an airplane, children manage it but it's good to know what to expect. Taking advantage of your last chance to be around people whom nobody's had much opportunity to filter for you-related reasons. And probably some unknown unknowns."

"I have never previously been introduced to a global stage. What do you mean by unknown unknowns?"

"Things which we haven't thought of which will turn out to be important."

"Is there a way to prepare for those?"

"Probably not, but we can try? You can do exercises like imagining yourself next year and checking what problems you picture yourself having, occasionally that helps a bit."

"I do not know very much about what my life will be like next year."

"That makes sense. I mostly mentioned for completionism."

"So, the government has concluded that it's not possible to keep you secret in the long run given that you don't strongly prefer it, dozens of people who don't work for one of the parts of the government that's good at keeping secrets know about you, and such. We thus haven't been trying. People have pre-registered research about created water, people have discussed you on their blogs without your face or name, our government does know who you are and what you look like. The Acts aren't available to the general public yet."

"You could say 'well, I would like to only be more public about my existence once I have already gone to the United States, because doing a long bunch of international travel while being a celebrity sounds difficult'. You could also say 'I want to publicly announce my existence now, so that I can get started on accepting interviews from interested journalists and such, and get things done with faster'. You might want something else also."

"What does it mean to pre-register research about created water? - I have not interacted with journalism even on my own planet. And I don't know what international travel here is like without, let alone with, uh, celebrity status."

"They have not gotten to the point of formally publishing everything but they have told other scientists what they're thinking about, to make it harder for them to be dishonest in the future."

"International travel in this case will involve flying in an airplane from Scott-Amundsen station to McMurdo station, then from McMurdo to New Zealand, then from New Zealand to the United States. McMurdo station is a lot like this one, but larger and with more people and more buildings, and it's on the coast. You'll probably spend a few hours or days there. There's more stuff there, like hills, if you want to climb any for fun, but I get the impression you might not."

"An airplane is a large machine that flies hundreds of miles per hour. There will be a pilot and co-pilot, whose jobs are to operate the plane. You will get a chair to sit in, with a seatbelt, so that when the airplane shakes you don't get too shaken. When the plane takes off, it will move so quickly that you will feel like you are being pushed backwards a little bit, the way you feel pushed down most of the time. It's possible that the motion of the plane will make you want to vomit. There are drugs that can mitigate that, but they can make people feel sleepy. Some people also find that ginger helps, or looking out a window, or eating lighter meals before the flight. If you do need to vomit, there will be bags for vomiting into. On short flights, it's good to stay in your seat with your seatbelt on the whole time. On longer flights, there will be points where the pilot thinks the plane is moving smoothly enough that it's safe to get up if you need to. There will be a small toilet on the plane and those times are good for using it. If you are traveling with enough stuff, you won't be able to keep it all near you while you fly and the airplane operators will want to put it in a different section of the plane, but I don't know if you have enough stuff for that."

"When you get to New Zealand, you'll arrive at an airport, which is a place where airplanes take off and land. The government of New Zealand will probably ask for information on you being allowed to be there before you leave the airport, and whether you're carrying anything you aren't supposed to. The United States has gotten permission from New Zealand for you to be there for a bit and there are papers we'll show them about it. I don't think anything you came here with is stuff you're not allowed to bring to New Zealand, but we can go over that more when it's closer. If you want to carry your mace on your person that will require special permission, which you might be able to get."

"Once you leave the airport, it'll be green and warm and sunny. People will speak English, like you've been practicing. A lot of people spend some time in New Zealand before they go to the United States, and you could be one of them if you wanted to. You could possibly get permission to stay indefinitely, honestly, you're very special, but we'd prefer you come to the United States. If you wanted to do that, the United States government might offer you a hotel room, or they might prefer you stay somewhere else, I don't know. It would have more space then here. If you choose to spend some time in New Zealand, you could do things like go to local restaurants or warm beaches or forests or museums."

"When you leave New Zealand, it might be on a big commercial flight, or you might be offered a more private flight, I don't know. If they don't offer a private flight and you don't ask for one, then you'll go to a big airport, with a lot of people. Again, carrying your mace would require special permission. You'll go through more checkpoints where they check what stuff you're carrying and whether you have a ticket for the airplane and such. And then you'll be on a long airplane flight – you could have someone such as me accompany you for all this, probably, I'll be less busy once I'm not on Scott-Amundsen Station. The big commercial flight would probably have hundreds of people on it, and you'd probably get a special larger seat in the front of the airplane, and they'd serve meals. Once you arrive in the US, it'll be a different time of day than it is in New Zealand. The government officials at the airport will want to check that you have permission to enter the United States, and what stuff you have. And then you might have another flight to DC from wherever you arrive, but it would be much shorter and the time difference would be less significant."

"I do not necessarily have to have my mace on my person if the risk that anything will attack me is low enough but I would mislike its being lost, it's magic and I can't replace it. Same with the chainmail. I would appreciate your company on this journey if you are not needed elsewhere."

"Anything? I really doubt you're going to be attacked by an animal in an airplane or airport. The only risk there is that a human would try to kill you, and if that somehow did happen they'd probably try to do it at range with a firearm. You can maybe wear the chainmail except when you're going through security checkpoints, if you want, I could ask about it. And once flights are going the government should be able to arrange to fly in my replacement as soon as possible so I can leave early with you."

"...are security checkpoints not a relatively obvious place where someone might attempt to attack me with a firearm if I will predictably be unarmored?"

"Security checkpoints have other people with firearms right there running the checkpoint."

"And these are to be presumed incorruptible and also highly observant?"

"I would in fact expect them to not take bribes to let someone kill you. That's the sort of thing that leads to serious consequences. And at least some of them are observant. I also don't think your chainmail would help that much with a firearm, honestly, though I don't know what its magic does."

"It makes it a little better at being armor, is all. Why would it not help with a firearm?"

"Firearms accelerate bullets to very high speeds which would break the rings, I think? When we have a connection to the outside world again I can look into it. We manufacture chainmail, sometimes people who are only worried about stabbings or shark bites use it, but we don't issue it to soldiers and we would if it helped."

"The rings break before I do, is the idea. It is quite heavy and if you have - technological equivalents of Mage Armor - then of course that would be preferable."

"We have armor designed for people being shot at and could have a set shipped to you when things open up, but the most effective stuff is still heavy."

"Maybe it's worth shooting at both of them on some sort of dummy target at some point. In any event, I would be surprised if it were of no help at all and do not want to lose the only magic armor on the planet."

"I'm not arguing otherwise. It's very nice."

"Should I be deriving, from your general attitude here, that it is not likely that reports of my existence have already alerted powerful interests capable of deploying assassins? Because on my planet that would be something I would have to worry about if I were somehow this unique."

"I would expect the other major countries to prefer you alive, to the extent that they believe you exist as opposed to the more plausible theory that a group of isolated people has gone mad or decided to collectively lie. We are not currently having a great power war or so far as I can tell about to have one, if that's relevant. If you appear key to decisively winning a future great power war that might change. As it stands I think major powers are much more likely to prefer spying on you or luring you to their side or kidnapping you and any threats to your life are more likely to be crazy people. I'm not an expert, though."

"Understood. In that case I can carry the armor in my bag."

"There might actually also be issues with your holy symbol in an airport, seeing as how it looks like you could stab someone with it. I think there are some people who are commanded to carry knives by their religion and it's possible there might be some kind of exception, I don't know."

"...it won't help that in an emergency I can use a different blade, will it."

"Is there a minimum length or sharpness requirement?"

"I think insofar as it's not sharp enough to theoretically function as a weapon it has to be more symbologically accurate, but I have not interrogated an expert."

"What would be more symbologically accurate? We could maybe make something."

"This one is pretty close, I believe, but the cover of the nice copy of the Acts has a more precise rendering. I do not actually think I am religiously required to carry a holy symbol at all, in the sense that if, for example, I were lawfully surrendering and whoever was taking me prisoner wanted me without the ability to cast spells, I could hand it over; does that mean that the religious exception does not apply to me?"

"I actually don't know the details of the policy, I'm just guessing one exists to some extent because there's a religion that tells people to carry knives, which I also don't know the details of. Is cutting a flat piece of plastic in the shape on the cover of the Acts and then having someone paint it worth a try? The M&M players have painted miniatures, they might have an appropriate paint set and if not we can figure something else out."

"It is worth trying, though obviously plastic has not been invented on Golarion so as far as I know it has literally never been tried."

"Is Iomedae otherwise picky about materials?"

"Again, I haven't interrogated an expert. I don't think so."

"Well, if it fails then we still have a cool necklace."

Nod.

"Should I go over what to do if you encounter large scary wildlife like bears or wolves or should we skip that because you can avoid it if you stay in cities? …I guess sometimes coyotes are in cities, we maybe should discuss that. It's not important to international politics but you sounded sort of concerned earlier."

"If there is some particular thing I should do in case of encountering bears or wolves that isn't 'kill the bears or wolves' yes. Also I don't know what a coyote looks like."

"It isn't 'kill the bears or wolves or coyotes'. Coyotes are a lot like wolves, if you see what might be a wolf it might also be a coyote. If they pose an immediate danger to human lives, or they've killed a human, then go ahead and kill one. But they usually don't do that. We, uh. For a while we killed large predators when it was convenient and it turns out it's possible to do it too much, and then, for one example, you get too many deer and the deer get sick. So now a lot of the large predators are in nature preserves like national parks that are specifically supposed to have them. And when they do kill humans it often involves scenarios where people were feeding them or getting super close to them or such even though we tell people not to do that."

"I will not feed a wolf, bear, or coyote, nor disobey guidelines on whether to approach them that seem meant to include me. People don't eat the deer?"

"People sometimes eat the deer but I think the demand for hunting deer is lower than the oversupply, or maybe the hunting permit system is too strict? I don't know. And the sick enough deer aren't safe to eat."

"There's a spell for that."

"If you personally would like to make some diseased deer edible you can but you're the only spellcaster we know of on the planet."

"It doesn't seem a good use of me but if clerics were to start being commoner."

"Ah, okay. Probably if clerics become commoner we'll want to encourage them to work in hospitals, we haven't called on you for healing much but in a big city a lot of people get injured in a day."

"Yes, but people have a limited number of channels a day. I'm below average at that but the normal number is still only three. You want someone staffing the - hospital - at any given moment, but a given person's shift might be short."

"I could imagine someone doing this as a hobby or out of particular care for some rural community but if someone was trying to feed the hungry or resolve ecological problems they could probably do so more efficiently."

"If you say so."

Chris shrugs and has a glance at his phone.

"Oh, the Mazes & Minotaurs players say they don't have a paint set, it's the Aegis Fantasy Tactics players who have a plastic-appropriate paint set, and they want to know if you want to look at the paint colors or if they should just go with, uh, Chrysomallos and Selenite Silver and Zorba Red, the first of which I'm assuming is a gold paint."

"Maybe I should look at the colors."

Chris makes some clicking noises with his mouth and does some typing.

"They can bring the paint set to dinner and you can have a look then?"

"Sounds good."

"Great. Anyway, we were going to discuss publicity."

"Yes. I'm not likely to generate novel and usable ideas on my own with this little background in the topic or the Earth-specific manifestation."

"There's a lot to be said for waiting. I think the main question here is whether you are in a massive hurry to get people to seriously read the Acts."

"I would not say I'm in a massive hurry, no."

"All right. Then we wait, and hopefully we can get you all the way to the US before too many random people figure out who you are."

Chris tilts his head. "We maybe want to make a few extra holy symbols, assuming it's not a symbol of office that we shouldn't use, to create a bit more ambiguity if necessary."

"It would be a little weird to wear a symbol without being empowered because it would cause people to think you could cast spells and they might attempt to go to you for that purpose but it is not otherwise a problem or unheard of for someone to - hm. For someone who is broadly speaking on Iomedae's side to wear Her symbol. It would be a bit troubling for someone who did not find themselves to be one of Her allies to do it, though I think against this much backdrop of ignorance it would not be a serious problem."

"From what I've heard she sounds pretty neat and I'm sure other people here feel similarly. Your call if that's adequate. We can probably find someone on base with stronger feelings. You could also lend someone the clothes you came here wearing, it'd be a bit blatant but we're not aiming to confuse smart people here."

"I am not attached to the clothes at all, they are not magic."

"Well, we'll get someone else to wear them for the trip, then."

Nod. "What other things should I be deciding about now?"