Opero finds himself in a forest with extremely tall trees. The sky is a twilight-purple with large bright stars, there doesn't appear to be a setting (or rising sun). There are a couple of deer grazing in the distance. They are huge, easily taller than him at the shoulder.

Interesting! It seems like there's a general increase in scale in this world, He'll make sure to keep a running list of notable differences like that, and the sky. He doesn't know whether this world simply has a particularly bright night-sky or if this is more akin to a sunless day-time. Regardless, he takes a breath and names a telling-spirit four times, exhaling once in four directions, each spirit-breath spiraling out and searching for signs of human habitation, echoing out through the forest like silent thunder. As long as there's any sign of people within a radius of several hundred miles, and those people do not destroy every spirit which hears them, then at least one of them will return to him within the hour and point him in the right direction.

In the mean time, Opero begins climbing one of the enormous trees. Even if the spirits have likely already passed the horizon by the time he reaches the canopy, he may still spot something interesting which is nonetheless not evidence of humanity.

Once, he climbs the trees (spotting some normal-sized squirrels scurrying along the branches) he has a vantage point that allows him to see something other than forest.

At a glance, it looks like a city with squat builds made out of stone. The sky above it is remarkably dark, as opposed to purple-with-bright-stars.

Also, just looking at it makes his skin crawl with an uneasy dread.

Well! That doesn't look like good news. If one of his spirits doesn't report back soon then he knows that they're at least passively disrupting spirits, one way or another. Opero allows himself to slide into a properly combat-ready mindset, feeling the warmth of the caloral state spreading through his soul. He spreads two great fans of black soul-dew out from his back, gathering a modicum of heat from the strange pseudo-starlight, then leaps from treetop to treetop  towards the foreboding city.

The sense that there are tiny things walking over his skin does not get weaker as he approaches.

The city appears to be empty, but hard to tell given how dark it is (which is itself a sign of emptiness). And when he gets close enough, there is a deep chasm between it and the forest. Like someone dug deep into the earth.

His dew-armor is sealed tight. There is nothing between it and his skin aside from under-clothes. Surely?

This is a strange place, that much is certain. Is it possible that this is actually some sort of...naturally formed city? Some strange rock formation created by the unfamiliar natural processes of this world that simply happens to bear some remarkable resemblance to the shape of a city? Maybe the darkness that hangs over it is related? The only way to find out is to enter, he supposes. Opero leaps once more, expending a quantity of vital heat to truly fling himself from the treetop closest to the chasm to the other side, stretching his fans thin and wide to start gliding and soften his landing.

There really isn't anything physical between the dew-armor and his skin. Just the mysterious unpleasant sensation.

The chasm he crosses is very deep. It seems to just go infinitely down into nothingness.

The sense of wrongness gets stronger once he is there. The darkness feels like a physical presence heavy on him.

Closer, it's noticeable that the buildings are crude, but in straight angles. Everything is stone. The doors and windows are paneless openings. Entire buildings appear to be made of singular stone slabs, with the occasional crack. There are even what might be lamp posts, pillars of stone, without any light source on top of them.

The breeze is quiet, and the place is utterly deserted of life. Even moss. It's like a sterile ghost town.

Wow, that's a deep chasm! Probably the deepest Opero has ever seen. He does not plan on exploring its depths unless something quite unexpected leads him down there.

This is not a pleasant place to be. The monolithic buildings also do not exactly weigh strongly against the disconcerting notion that this may in fact just be some incredibly strange rock formation. Regardless of whether it was even inhabited, though, it certainly seems empty now. He will journey a short ways into it, just in case there's something of interest, but he will stay long and if he doesn't find something he will quickly make his way back out and across the chasm.

The buildings change some in style, but not a lot.

As he makes his way into it... he might feel himself heavier? More tired?

It's not just weight, not just exhaustion. Something is attacking his vitalities directly here, somehow. That's...fascinating, but also deeply disturbing. Some kind of unlife is infesting this empty city. Maybe the dynamologists will find some use for this place, in the days to come, but it's certainly of no use to Opero right now. Back to the forest it is.

Just crossing over and not looking directly at the empty city presents a remarkable improvement.

Also, shortly after, one of his spirits should return, to report a human settlement over that way.

Ah, good, this world isn't solely populated by abhorrent monoliths and unliving darkness. Off to the human settlement!

As he approaches, the sky shifts and turns into a more typical midday blue. There is no visible singular sun, instead the stars appear to compensate by becoming brighter.

The settlement is maybe a few hundred buildings scattered around a city center with a tower that looks like a lighthouse. There are no bodies of water around. Remarkably more colorful than the city. And infinitely more alive.

Its inhabitants appear to be human... except some are remarkably tall, easily eight feet. He might also spot a couple of horses that are similarly sized.

More evidence of some current of 'bigness' running through this place, though not universally. Odd that they've got a lighthouse as well, but maybe it serves some symbolic purpose instead, Opero has seen stranger temples in foreign lands.

He hangs back from the settlement, naming a different spirit a few times and expending some vital heat to reinforce them before dispatching to gather the people's language and bring it back to him. In the mean, he begins to build a camp about the outskirts of the settlement, moving earth and stones to form a sort of artificial cave. He's not especially stealthy about this, even if he's still a ways from the settlement, so he won't be terribly surprised if someone comes by to check on him.

The ground is really compact a few feet deep, but large rocks are rare unless if he digs a hundred feet down.

No one really approaches. If he is in the look-out, there are people that come closer but keep a very comfortable distance before departing.

Eventually, a couple of young men show up in the sky. One holding the other.

They land a few yards away from where the "construction" appears to be taking place. The young man that was held takes the lead and approaches at a deliberate pace.

"Hello?"

This certainly won't be the most pleasant hovel that Opero's lived out of, but this is the sort of thing the gens brings him in for, so it's not entirely unexpected.

Opero stops his work, tensing in preparation of potential conflict as the two descend. Flight is an expensive and difficult technique, especially over long distances while carrying cargo. Opero has fought fliers before, but he'd rather avoid it at this stage. The presence of fliers is another notable thing to add to the list, though.

Unfortunately, Opero's language-gathering spirits haven't returned yet, so he has very little idea what they said. Probably a greeting? He relaxes a fraction before replying. "Salvete. Possumne adiuvare vos?" It can often pay to be polite to locals.

The two men look at each other, and one of them holds a hand up. He searches for something in the inside of his jacket... a bracelet. He puts it on. "Hello! Can you understand me?" He says, his words should be comprehensible now.

That is surprising, and Opero quickly double checks that his armor hasn't somehow been breached without him noticing. "Yes, I can. What is that bracelet doing?"

No apparent breaches.

"It does translation. I think it's the kind that uses a sound illusion?"

It's disturbing how ineffectual his armor has been at keeping the local's magic out. Hopefully that will be something the researchers can fix. For now, at least it's opened communication. "Alright. Well, what brings you to my humble abode?"

"Well. Someone spotted you and your... abode making and was concerned. And asked to check."

The other young man is not exactly rigid. But he is alert. Not like someone ready to attack, but like someone that wants to be ready if there is an attack. He is not holding the other anymore, but he is keeping himself close.

That's good instinct, on the other one's part. "Ah. I apologize if I've caused anyone trouble. I take it you work with sort of local authority then?"

"Correct. And... I don't think the land is owned by anyone that would care to claim it, but the use of magic by someone unidentified was... remarkable." The last turn of phrase sounds very diplomatic. "And... what is your name? I am Henry Oswald. This is Fernando Vaesteri."

Odd names, though no odder than any other foreign nomenclature. Two for each, so he supposes he'll leave his epithets by the side. "I am Opirogius Docenius, though I prefer Opero if we are not being formal."

"Alright, Henry is good. And Fernando should be as well." He does check this with his partner, who nods. "Uh, do you mind if we come closer and speak for a while?"

He doesn't check that suggestion with his partner, who doesn't nod and barely visible reacts to the prospect of getting closer to the unknown, powerful sorcerer.

"Please feel free, though hopefully you can understand I do not exactly have many amenities at the moment."

"Understood." Henry will approach. Fernando follows closely. "Do you mind answering some questions?"

"Not at all." Though Opero will certainly be considering the potential ramifications of any answers he gives and will be choosing them carefully.

Henry nods. He is actually not sure how to proceed with the conversation. "So... what exactly are you doing?" He starts conversationally.

"I am building a...well I suppose it's not really a house at this point, but a place to stay. I figured it would be better than trying to negotiate for lodging before I'd learned the language, though evidently that's less of a problem than I anticipated."

"Okay. Uh, does this mean that you will want to come in the town proper?"

"Assuming this language trick applies to the people there, yes. Otherwise I was planning on coming over tomorrow or possibly the day after."

"Ah. Yeah. You can even burrow the bracelet while there?" Pause. "Uh, assuming you have only peaceable intentions?"

Fernando asks something that Opero can't understand. But Henry translates it as "Where are you from?"

"I don't plan on starting any trouble." It is always better when these sorts of things go peacefully, though he will have to see how the elders feel about it eventually. "I apologize preemptively if I make any uncouth mistakes in my unfamiliarity with your people. As for where I come from, I don't imagine you know of it? It is...very far away." Or at least, that's a good enough analogy. No need to out and say he's from another world yet.

"Okay..." Henry was slightly more relaxed when he said that he didn't want to start any problem. "But can you name it? Are you a native from Elsewhere? Or maybe Elan?"

"Elsewhere?" It takes Opero a moment to register that is the name of a place, rather than just 'some other place,' "No, I don't believe so. I was born in Rimocolles, but I've traveled around a lot."

Head tilt. "And... where is Rimocolles?"

"It's maybe a day's travel by sail-cart along the road north out of Antevissura. If you don't know of the capital city of Campium, and I do not expect you do, I doubt you'll know of any place I name."

"But..."

Fernando interrupts him, and demands translation. They whisper to each other.

"Okay, okay. Fernando wants to know, what are your capabilities, if you don't mind sharing?"

"Well, I need to keep some trade secrets, if that's alright. But as you can see I'm proficient with humorism, enough to use my soul-dew to augment the strength of my limbs. I'm also a competent spiritist, and a survivalist of sorts."

"I am sorry, I think some of those words didn't translate right." He responds to this by checking the bracelet.

Ah, "Humorism? Spiritism?" He hadn't considered the possibility given the one them flew out here, but maybe their understanding of vitalism is lacking. Or, perhaps just different. There was that strange zone of unlife after all, so this world clearly has some deep differences from his home.

"Yeah, exactly those."

Fernando takes this moment to pick up Henry's wrist and insert his hand through the bracelet. Not all the way through because it's not large enough, but apparently enough to make it work. This leaves the two of them awkwardly close, with Fernando using the other arm to hold Henry. Again, the posture is not hostile, but has a defensiveness to it, a preparation to fly away.

"Your claim that we might know where you come from because of distance is confusing enough that our priory assumption is that it is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. If you are lost, or otherwise truly has non-hostile goals, I would advise more forthcomingness. Being secretive will not push us towards hostility, but sounds like a waste of time and resources to little gain to both sides. If you think your goals are better served through hostility, you have at least confused me enough to think that we will both gain from mutually sharing information."

Of course, this is a simplification of hostile scenarios, but Fernando won't exactly do Opero's planning if that is the case.

"Hm, very well. How familiar are you with the idea of...other worlds? It seems you may know this, but the methods of traveling from one to another are quite new, to my people at least, so I thought it best to present the analogy of distance instead."

"We are familiar, and have access to some. Did you find yourself here suddenly and without explanation? Or maybe by a method that you know of?"

Hm. This is starting to feel like it could be a significant information leak, but Opero supposes he can just object if they start asking about the particulars of the otherworld pool. He doesn't personally know much about it anyway. "I was sent here with intent, though I didn't know exactly what this place would be like when I departed. That's rather the point of being an explorer, I suppose."

Well, that does get him raised eyebrows. "Interesting." He pauses to think for a moment. "I suppose that we should offer you the opportunity to establish diplomatic contact then?"

"How about offering the translator," Henry says, "so the two of us don't have to stay in this awkward position?"

"Oh, I'm hardly a diplomat. Given your people are here I'll certainly be making the ordinary sorts of trade to avail myself the comforts of civilization, but I won't be making any--" He makes an odd upwards-spiraling hand gesture, "--high level deals.or anything. Assuming everything goes well I'll be headed back to my people and the real negotiators will come by and handle that stuff."

Fernando nods. "Reasonable. I think there will be people that will want to talk to you anyway, even with the understanding that you are in here as an explorer. And, do you want the translation bracelet?"

He really thinks about it for a minute. This bracelet is already doing something to him, or to his words at least, to let them understand him and he them, at range and through his armor. What more could it do if he allowed it on his person? Neither of these two seem bothered by it, but it's hardly impossible for magic distinguish friend from foe, or them to simply to be unbothered by whatever other additional functions might exist, such a tracking the wearer's location or recording their soundscape.

As he's about to reply, however, his stomach grumbles deeply, and he's reminded of how much hunger he's accrued over the last several hours of hard work. He had been planning on hunting one of those deer, but with the possibility of just walking into town and buying some prepared food instead, his mind is made. "I believe I do, though given I'll be acquainted with the language in a couple days, where should I return it to once it's no longer needed?"

"Well, the thing that I actually want is to request for one of us to escort you around. Even if we assume the best intentions from your part - which, forgive us if we can't be entirely sure - it sounds that leaving you unsupervised might cause at least some deal of confusion and concern from people. That said, the bracelet could be returned to the lighthouse-looking tower near the center of town. I think at maximum the charge would last a day." He removes the bracelet from Henry's wrist and holds it up in offer.

Opero will take the offered bracelet and put it around his wrist, on the same side as he saw Henry wearing it. He affixes it to the outside of his armor, and definitely does not let it make any sort of direct contact with his body. Assuming it doesn't do anything nefarious that he can notice, he'll take a quick assessing look over his dirt-hut, then turn back to the two men. "I think I'd be alright making myself known. I don't think this thing is liable to fall down once I take my eyes off it anymore at least."

The bracelet doesn't feel meaningfully different.

"We can get you accommodations there if that turn out to be more of your liking. Do you mind following us then?"

Well, if it's doing something it's not obvious about it at least. "Please lead the way. Though, if you fly I may have some trouble keeping up."

"Don't worry about that. We can walk with you, or at least keep at your pace. We will just regroup with the others and lead you back to town if you don't mind."

The others? Opero may soon be quite outnumbered, not he hasn't faced such circumstances before. "Very well."

"Follow us then." Fernando says, and then walking without preamble.

Henry makes sure Opero is following then.

Walking! Towards the town, hopefully.

They indeed go town wards. With a small detour to pick up three people that are some ways a way.

Which include two people identical to Fernando.

"Sup? Is everything good with our interolper?"

"He claims being from another world unknown to us."

Opero is not unfamiliar with the idea of triplets, and assumes that is the explanation for this seeming triplication. He raises a hand in salutation to new ones. "Greetings."

"Greetings. Do you want to take us to our leader?"

"He claims that he is an explorer rather than a diplomat-"

"Talk like he is here, Fernando. Which... Hello, I am Felix Vaesteri, this is Thomas and that is Gabe."

"Gabe Valentine. Not, Vaesteri. In case, that was ambiguous."

"No, it seemed rather evident. I am Opirogius Docenius, or Opero when formality is not a concern, and yes, I'm here to explore and to assess whether this might be a valuable place for my people to settle. So far it has certainly seemed to be as such, though not without it's dangers as well."

"Dangers? You mean the dead city."

"Dark, ominous, extremely creepy and obviously cursed?"

"Oh, good, it's not some new horror then. Terrible place that is."

"Not exactly the first touristic recommendation I would make, no."

They can presumably resume their way to town again now that everyone is acquainted.

Indeed, into town the six of them go.

The locals are exchanging what they know.

Eventually, Gabe asks. "So, what's up with the pepsiman get up?"

"He means your armor. Or suit?"

Okay. Opero can imagine not having dew-armor if you aren't a humorist, or not having it up if you're comfortable with your surroundings and confident in your safety, but not knowing of it seems to confirm that the locals' understanding of vitality simply does not include humor at all, not just lacking a word for it. "It is armor, yes. This is my soul-dew, a product of one of those untranslateables you mentioned earlier, my humorism. It is a sort of substance I can conjure by concentrating, and whose properties and behavior I can control mentally. I've sculpted mine into armor that can protect me from...most danger, which is naturally useful when it comes to exploring strange and unfamiliar places."

"Huh, cool magic system."

"How does it work? Is it something you're born with?"

"In some sense I suppose, but only in the same way that you're born with breath in your lungs and warmth in your breast. It takes a good bit of work to enter the right sort of mindset to let soul-dew condense on your skin, but with the right help it can be easier than learning to inspire your breath."

"Oh, gods. Is it another magic system that requires meditation to use? Ugh."

Thomas sporfles. "Breath goes with spiritism? Does Humorism uses stamina?"

Opero chuckles a little at that. "Where I come from you won't get far with magic if you don't have the patience for meditation, doubly so for humorism. And, yes, spiritism operates on your breath, though I wouldn't say that humorism uses stamina, not in the same way at least. Humorism mostly just takes time, once you've gotten the basics the only things left to do are grow and develop your soul-dew and refine your understanding of the world to better shape your dew's growth."

"Huh, are these the only two magics in your world? Worlds?"

"Or magics that you're familiar with?"

"Information about other worlds is rather secret, to my knowledge at least. I actually didn't know other worlds even existed until I was tapped for this expedition. As for other magics, I only know of Calorism. I can't use it, and don't know too much about it other than going from the name it's got something to do with vital heat, in the same way humorism deals with vital moisture and spiritism with vital breath."

"Seriously? Uh, here we have one world that doesn't know about the rest, but otherwise its common knowledge."

"Vital heat," Henry says, somewhat disgusted.

"Sounds hot."

"Mostly it seems like it makes you immune to heat exhaustion, I think. I've heard if you get very good at it you can do some strange things but the tales are all wildly different so who knows?" Opero shrugs.

"Still, what kind of tales?"

Opero waves a hand dismissively. "Impossible things. Teleportation, immortality, time-travel, wish-granting. All the things people like to fantasize about doing because they can't be done."

"Immortality you say?"

"That they can't be killed, that they come back when they're killed, that they never grow old, all sorts of things you know?"

"Huh."

"What are you not going to jump on him and ask all the details like a cold and calculating human flourishment improvement machine?"

"Maybe when someone gives me more time to think about what to ask. Which, you don't think the immortality thing is likely at all?"

"I mean, who knows? Calorism is barely more than a myth. Maybe it really can make you immortal. It just seems weird to me that it would be able to do that when spiritism and humorism can't. I certainly haven't personally witnessed anyone coming back from the dead, calorist or not."

"Well, you did mention that you weren't aware of new worlds until you're contacted to explore this one."

Felix gently elbows Fernando. "Sorry," he apologizes to Opero. "It would be good to find a magic system that does straightforward, no down sides immortality."

Opero shrugs. "It's still kind of hard to believe. Haven't really processed it, I suppose, just compartmentalized it. Focus on the job, deal with the earth-shaking revelation after I get paid, right?"

"Sounds hard."

"Anyway, what can you do?"

"Well, I can use my armor to augment my strength and dexterity. Those two," He indicates Fernando and Henry, "saw me working on my little hut back there, which would probably have taken me a few days at least without it. That and keeping me safe is most of what my soul-dew does. Spirits-wise I use mine mostly for surveillance, and a bit of linguistics. They're how I found out about this town of yours, and in a day or two they'll let me give this thing-" He taps the translation bracelet, "back to you all."

"What sort of surveillance?"

"Listening, following, searching. I had the one that brought me here looking for the sounds of human habitation for example."

"And they can, see things? Or only listen?"

"And how smart are they?"

"I've heard you can get them to see things but I haven't figured it out for myself. And if you can hold your breath for long enough you can put your entire spirit, just your whole entire person into one, but for all practical purposes you can only put about as much thought into them as you can pull through your own mind while you're holding the breath inside. Maybe I'm slow, but I don't generally manage too many thoughts in just, what, five minutes at most maybe? Especially when I'm holding my breath and doing all the mental work to get into the spirit mindset."

"That sounds... complicated, yes."

"Are they invisible? Do you have any around now?"

"They're not completely invisible but they're pretty tricky to spot, especially if you don't know what to look for or it knows how to hide. I do have a few floating around the town acquiring the language for me, but the ones I had looking for humanity almost certainly ran out of vitality and dissipated a few hours ago now, and other than I haven't made any in this world."

"Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Fair warning that spying on people is considered rude in our culture."

"Fair enough. The spirits aren't going to remember who said what or anything, they're just learning the language, but I'll make sure to mention it's frowned upon to my fellows when I head back."

There is a brief pause in the conversation. "Is there anything you'd like to know?"

"Plenty! The first thing that comes to mind is what sort of things your own magic lets you do. I've seen you fly, and you've got this translation thing which I still have no idea how works, but what else can it do, commonly anyway?"

"Flying and the general category of moving things, heating, freezing things... controlling light and sound... life force transfer. Some relatively simple mental things. Protection against all of those."

Life force transfer. Heating, and to a degree freezing things also sound interesting, especially if that can be combined profitably with Calorism. "Fascinating. And you mentioned stamina earlier, I take it that's a...form of life force, I suppose? You seem familiar with breath as well. Are there others, as your magic goes?"

Opero might not actually catch the way Felix's head twitches at super-speed to look at Fernando, but it's not like his brother could give a reaction at super speed. Still, what is the harm in sharing information?

"Five aspects. Breath, Stamina, Wakefulness, Health and Youth. They are used as fuel for sorcery magic, and each is good at different things."

Opero does not perceive it with his eyes, but the extension of his mind permeating his soul-dew certainly does detect the motion, the information trickling back up into his physical brain along with rest of the sensory information his armor is gathering and feeding back to him. "Interesting. And you can...put it, the sorcery, into things, like this bracelet. And I suppose that 'dead city' has somehow come to have a dearth of them?"

"Yeah. The dead city was a very rare failure at making a much less aggressive artifact. I take you can't make persistent artifacts?"

"No, not-- hm." He raises a hand to his chin contemplatively. "I suppose it depends on exactly what you mean by 'persistent' artifacts. How long does this thing last?" He gestures to the bracelet. "If I put a spirit into some of my soul-dew, it can last a few hours, and a specialist in that sort of thing could maybe make it last a week? And if they're around to do maintenance on it they could refresh the spirit, in which case it'll last as long as that same specialist bothers to keep it going."

"Wow... that is... short. I don't know when that bracelet was built, but it was, like, in a dusty box before I did inventory. It probably is a couple of decades old?"

Opero's raised eyebrows of surprise are not really visible but his change in posture may still be readable through his armor. "Wow, that's definitely quite, uh, persistent. I could maybe imagine holding a spirit in stasis for that long, but if it were doing anything on a regular basis, even just moving around, it'd definitely need maintenance at least every few days." That's definitely another major point of interest for future colonists. That's plausibly the birth of a whole new industry, especially if there's any sort of crossover between this sorcery and vitalism. "I understand if this is a difficult question to answer, I imagine this is all quite normal to you, but how does having access to these sorts of artifacts, ah...impact your life? What sort of things in your life are artifacts, or made by artifacts, or enabled by artifacts?"

"I mean... We might be a bit of outliers. Uh, artifacts themselves are not that common. They require Youth, which is the one lifeforce that doesn't regenerate and, well... spending it causes aging."

"Or cancer if you fuck it up bad enough."

"Or cancer. If you're not paying attention, bad enough to create a systematic structural crack in your lifeforce. But you can create artifacts with nearly any sorcery effect? Though, they are most useful for things that technology can't replicate. Oh, what is your technology level?"

"Meaning, what non-magical things can be done with your world's knowledge? What non-magical objects have been invented recently?"

Interesting. It looks more and more reasonable that Opero's held back on information about Calorism, these people have a distinctly outsized interest in its capabilities and he is not prepared to barter about it. "Non-magical, hm. That's a a tough one, Humorism is very common, it's relatively easy to teach, compared to Spiritism at least, and the nature of soul-dew means it tends to be quite a bit more advanced than purely lifeless material devices. I'm actually not sure what the most recent lifeless invention is? Maybe, hm...I think I heard about a new way of forging lifeless steel that can achieve better strength and flexion? Maybe something about mundane ship-building? I think I heard something about that on my way to the facility I was sent here from."

"Oooh. Are you medieval? Or maybe Bronze Age given the whole Greco-Roman sounding name?"

"Huh... Steel, I am sure there ought to be some improvement on how to make steel in the past few years. But that wouldn't be the first thing I would comment."

"Just say that we went to the moon half a century ago to plant a flag and collect a few rocks. Your nerdy types love that story, despite not getting us any moon cities."

Opero actually stops in sheer surprise for a moment, before quickly recovering. The Moon is a place you can go to, apparently. In this world-- He looks up and notes a lack of moon-- in another world connected to this one, at least. "Wow, yes, that's certainly more advanced than anywhere I've heard of. The possibility of such a feat didn't even occur to me. As for the steel, that may be biased by my own interests. I keep up with various sorts of material developments since it's relevant to advancing my own humorism. And, I have no idea when 'medieval' refers to, there have been lots of 'middle ages' and I suppose you could call the present time a middle age of sorts, just since it's between the past and the future. I'm not totally clear on when 'the Bronze Age' would be either, but outside of clocks and I think maybe nails for ship hulls it's much less common than steel."

"Bronze and Middle Ages were just periods in our words, and it's... sort of easy to think of them when trying to guess technology levels."

Felix does notice the pause and smiles. "That does sound Middle Ages to me. Relatedly, do you think your world is up for an Industrial Revolution?"

Opero shrugs again. "Fair enough, and I imagine that having another couldn't hurt? But at a guess I'm not sure that having, say, lifeless manufactories for example would be much of a game-changer economically. I could be wrong about that, though, it's not really my area of expertise."

"Oh, I guess we don't know how much your kind scales. Though, there are probably still benefits."

Opero nods. "I'm sure there will be some, I just am not in a strong position to speculate what they'll be. Regardless, even if magical artifacts aren't especially common, it sounds like mundane devices make up a much greater deal of your day to day fare, so to speak, evidently in a way which has allowed you to industrialize without industrializing magic at the same time. It will be interesting to see how the path following from that diverges from what I'm familiar with."

"Oh, yeah. Most of our non-magical industrialization came from a particular world."

"For a sense of scale. How many... nails do you expect a worker to make in a day of work? Can be something else if you are more comfortable giving that as an example."

"How many nails, hm."  Opero pauses for a moment, bringing his hand back to his chin as he does some quick estimates. "Maybe a million? Assuming they work three quarters of the daylight and aren't making anything else. That might be off by a bit though, I don't have productivity statistics committed to memory."

"Huh, despite offering the nail as an example. I don't know the answer myself. But I would expect to average of about that?"

"I think that would be per machine? And workers wouldn't, do that much... working on the nails themselves. Like, they would mostly be putting into boxes and inspecting for quality control."

"That seems like a fair parallel. I don't think I've ever actually visited a nail manufactory, in more than passing anyway, and my understanding of how your machines would work is naturally speculative, but as I understand it once a vitalist has incorporated the necessary knowledge, developed their soul-dew into the correct form, and named the spirits to operate it, their only further conscious involvement is primarily ensuring the proper functioning of their manufacting vitality. Clearing blockages, refreshing the spirits, that sort of thing."

"Is that guy unique?"

"A nail-maker? No, not at all. I can think of plenty of families whose industry includes nail-making, though most of them are pretty vertically-integrated, so they're just making nails for their own further use and thus probably aren't devoting their entire output to just nails."

"Huh, here it would be like, just a place that pumps out billions of nails a year and sell to other people to use. Granted, I am not up-to-date in the nail industries. Maybe we should focus on different stuff? Like, what do you have for communication? Spirits? Oh, right, books! Are those cheap to make?"

"The families are usually pretty...protective, of their supply chains, I suppose. Yes, spiritism is the primary means of mid- and long-range communication, and books are fairly cheap as long as you're willing to use low-quality paper and binding. Not as cheap as an equal weight of nails, probably, but I could still pick up a passable notebook at a random paper-shop for maybe a bronze pound? Ah, that's another use for bronze in the modern day I suppose. That would get you a meal from street-food vendor, as another point of comparison. That's just how much they cost to buy, though, I'm not very familiar with their production so I don't know what sort of mark-up they're liable to have."

"The price of books doesn't sound too far off. I could buy a box of cheap ones for a similar price. But they would be the type that would have been thrown away otherwise."

"Felix loves his cheap romance novels with shirtless heroes on the cover. Could you use spirits to talk in real time with someone on the other side of the world?"

"Not real time, no. If you both are good with seismic spirits, or have immediate access to people who are, it'll take about an hour and half to send a message to the opposite side of the world and receive the response, not including however long it takes the other person to compose their response. I've heard that some families have some kind of specialized humorism network that can send messages around just about instantly but I don't know the details and given I haven't seen it common use I assume it has some serious downside."

"Seismic spirits? Are spirits elemental? We can do nearly instantaneously, thought it requires the right infra-structure between the two points."

"What would be the downside of communication humorism? And do you have something similar to a... publicly available library, but based on your communication network?"

Opero forms an obscure gesture with his hands. "Eh, I wouldn't say they're elemental exactly? The way I learned it is that spirits are sort of like sounds, more than they're like anything substantial. It's intuitive to make them move through the air because we breath the air and spirits come from our breath, but people have figured out how get them to move through just about anything, and if you have them move through the ground they can move a great deal faster. Regarding communication humorism, I don't know much about it, my family doesn't have anything like that and the ones that do are rather secretive about the specifics. At a guess, I imagine it requires a lot of familiar humorists to already be set up along the way, since I figure they need to sort of connect together." He brings his hand to his chin yet again. "Honestly even then, you'd either need droves of them, or they'd need to be specialized in spreading their soul-dew out to exceptional distances, which I know personally is extraordinarily difficult. Regarding a public library over communications, I don't think we do. I know my own family has a system for accessing our own archives remotely, and I imagine most other families do as well since it doesn't seem especially difficult to set up, but the charitable libraries that are open to everyone aren't especially well-run."

"Oh, it being sound explains a lot about the delay. The infrastructure works mostly using light that humans can see and electrical signals flowing through cables. And one of the uses for the infrastructure-"

"Just call it the Internet."

"Okay, one of the uses for the internet is a library of sorts. You can find various kind of variously useful and variously truthful information on it."

Opero considers that for a long moment. "I only have the faintest idea of how that would work.But assuming you can convince the senate to let you lay the cables, and that there aren't any issues importing them or manufacturing them locally, that could make a pretty big difference. It might take some work to implement the electricity as well. My understanding is that it's rather difficult to," he gestures with his hand again, "transport it, sort of, long distances? But given what you say I assume you have some solution to that."

"Implementing the internet is not at all easy, so far the other worlds haven't been able to properly replicate it, but..." Fernando shrugs, "It's an investment. Same for electricity, though it doesn't have to cross the globe, and most electricity tends to be used for power locally? I am not sure how to explain the internet."

"The internet is for porn. Like 90% is-"

Henry - without looking - raises his hand and covers Gabe's mouth. "For the sake of diplomacy, ignore him."

"I take it pornography isn't seen as an honorable profession here?" Unfortunate, though Opero's encountered similar opinions of it and other sex work in other countries before.

Henry holds Gabe's mouth shut harder. This is awkward while they are walking.

Their progress is slow, but steady. They can see some farmsteads in the distance.

"Uh, we didn't make a good point of explaining, but there are, like, four kinds of hereditary magical traits? So while I think there is less hang up about sex itself, but people do care about reproduction and keeping track of that?"

"And forbidding any of the terrible evil sex between two consenting partners with the same downstairs."

"Fair enough. Families where I come from tend to care a good bit about blood as well. I suppose, ah, surveillance is a bit more common, so ascertaining who is the father isn't usually much of an issue. Now that you mention it, though, what are these hereditary magical traits? Do they relate to the life-forces you mentioned earlier?"

"Figuring out fatherhood is possible, even easy, but people are still dumb about it."

"One of the traits is having up to twice as much lifeforce, they are called naturalborn sorcerers. The five of us having that to various degrees. There are two from Elan, one of it is called Synth, which lets people alter hereditary traits to a limited degree, but includes the other Elan trait: Augmentation, which is just making the organism stronger, faster and bigger, it increases their Stamina, Health and Youth. Though, a completely augmented human doesn't interact straightforwardly well with sorcery. So the local eugenics-minded people arrange for half-augmentated naturalborn sorcerer descendants, because it's the sweet spot, it nets you triple lifeforce. Then there is Heat manipulation from Efross, which lets its carriers absorb and later release heat."

"The last one relates to stamina, in the sense that people with more stamina can store more heat. But it's a matter of paired capacity and people are, like, less adjusting their cultural customs around it."

Huh. That last one has some surprisingly immediate parallels to Calorism, even if they're also obviously not the same. "Interesting. And for Synth, Augmentation, and Heat, they are 'from' particular worlds. Pardon my vagueness, but how does that work?"

"In a sense, sorcery is from Elsewhere itself? Mind, we actually don't know much about how that came to be. Elsewhere, had a civilization in the past, like fifty thousand years in the past. And we don't know what happened to them, but they died. Then about four-to-five centuries ago Elsewhere got 'closer' to Elan and naturalborn sorcerers started being born there."

"Naturalborn sorcerers that never been to Elsewhere will be transported to it at some point in their lives. Landing in a random location on its surface. Sorry, we are explaining it all out of order. And being a naturalborn sorcerer that 'found Elsewhere' was one of our theories for you, by the way."

"Yeah, that. And anyway, Elan just always had Synth and Augmentation, well, Augmentation came from Synth, but you know. Efross always had Heat manipulation, it's partially a trait of the world. Some animals there have a lesser version than the human one."

"Hm. I don't think I'm a naturalborn sorcerer, I certainly came here on purpose, but i suppose that doesn't actually rule it out entirely. Is there any way to tell? Perhaps someone with access to Synth could determine it? And, were Synth and Heat manipulation always lineal things, or did that somehow change when their worlds, uh, came into contact with Elsewhere? I'm curious what to expect, if my home world is liable to enter contact in the future."

"Given what you told us, we don't expect for you to to be one. But sorcery can determine it. And Synth and Heat manipulation still are lineal things. Uh, using Synth is painful on the target, historically it largely has been done to fetuses because of the smaller mass making it faster, and presumably them no feeling the pain if they are undeveloped enough."

"Synth feels like being electrocuted, and even magical anesthesia has a problem with preventing the pain. So you can augment an adult, it is just... torturous."

"Anyway, we never had a world coming to Elsewhere on its own. But assuming that you are cosmologically close enough, I expect Elsewhere to... put roots. Which will lead to children being born as naturalborn sorcerers."

Opero has had the misfortune of being struck by lightning before. If being subject to Synth feels anything like that he will certainly avoid it if possible. He nods. "Vitalism is more a discipline or skill than a matter of biology. I've heard tales that some people have gotten songbirds to produce spirits, but I've never seen it myself and I'm rather doubtful of it, and other than that it seems to be an entirely human faculty, so I suppose it'll only be going as far as it's taught. And, given that naturalborn sorcerers are spontaneously transported here at some unknown interval, I imagine there will soon be great demand for sorcerers to come and identify which children bear the mutation. Thinking about it, another relevant question is, what's involved in becoming a sorcerer? I know for vitalism there's a fairly large hurdle to get over initially, figuring out how to reliably enter the correct meditative state. Is there something similar for sorcery, or does it have a lower barrier to entry?"

"There isn't a universal definition. In a sense, a sorcerer is one that practices sorcery, in the way that someone that practices art is an artist? Granted, having extra lifeforce lets us use more and be more comfortable... killing oneself with sorcery is not easy, but, it's a thing that can happen. And once a sorcerer comes to Elsewhere at any point of their lives, they aren't taken later, even if they come via portal. Though, I think your civilization still is going to want to learn about it anyway."

"No worries. Kids that have twice as much stamina and wakefulness tend to make themselves very well known to their parents. And neighbors. And teachers. You are allowed to pity our parents for having to deal with the three of us growing up."

"That does sound like they might be a bit more rambunctious than the average, though especially at the more moderate end of the spectrum having explicit confirmation will bring families some peace of mind. And, given that analogy, it sounds like sorcery is indeed somewhat more...loose, perhaps, than vitalism? Anyone can pick up a brush and apply paint to canvas, or shape clay between their hands, and becoming a painter or sculptor is a matter of improving on that natural capacity. In contrast with, hm...maybe literacy? You can be a better or worse writer, have a stronger or weaker grasp of poetry and prose, but you can also be completely illiterate, not just a poor writer but a completely incapable one. Would you say sorcery is more like the former than the latter?"

"I want to say something in between. Maybe speaking a language if it's... Have we explained gifts or rituals at all?"

"I don't believe so, no. Please go ahead?"

Gabe - freed from the oppression of Henry's hand - says. "You guys are the worst interworld explainers."

"We thought he was from a long-lost colony that thought there still was a war going on. Anyway, gifts and rituals... Well, gifts are powers you have, one for each of the five aspects, wait we did explain that."

"We did. We talked about them a few minutes ago."

"Okay, so. It's possible to learn to manipulate your own lifeforce on your own? And gifts are powers. You get one for each lifeforce aspect you can... grow a power attach to it in your lifeforce. They each use that aspect for fuel. It takes time to grow them, and usually it's done by meditation... or trauma to the relevant lifeforce aspect." Henry shifts uncomfortably.

Gabe sort of, quietly pulls Henry away from the conversation.

"The trauma version is not, I can't emphasize enough, a reliable way to get gifts. Anything that affects your lifeforce that much is just as likely to kill the person. Though it happened in Elan..." Felix shrugs as if trying to clean something off his head "Anyway, growing gifts takes time, naturalborn sorcerers have an edge there because it's just easier for us to just notice our own lifeforce the right way. Still, with help it can take a week, months without or if you are not a naturalborn sorcerer, each of the aspects takes progressively longer."

"Rituals are the other part of the sorcery. They are more versatile, you can do a series of steps, like chanting, arranging specific objects, doing some actions, with the purpose in mind. This produces a magical effect, the caveat being that the magic that is metaphorically hearing your request is very literally, and each action in a ritual has a meaning. If you do it incorrectly, you can die because you accidentally told the magic to take away too much of your lifeforce or because you told it to explode on your face. In that way it's like speaking a language. You can learn phrases in a language, but it isn't the same as being fluent."

Long-lost colonies? A war that is apparently over? Something to ask about when this topic has run its course. "Ah, yes, sorry, I didn't realize that was what 'gift' was referring to. It's interesting, and I'm curious whether, for example, my training with spiritism, and my comfort with spiritual meditation in particular might incline me to develop a gift for breath, at least more easily than someone otherwise as totally unfamiliar as myself might. I assume, going from how you speak of noticing your own life-force, that developing a gift is the 'part' of sorcery that might be the more direct path to detecting naturalborn sorcery in children?"

"Without knowing much about Spiritism, it's hard to be sure. Tentatively going to say it would be easier, the meditation can be hard for some people. Also, please, don't go off and try to do unsupervised. It would be embarrassing if we indirectly caused the first visitor from your world to die that way."

"And he would be dead."

"And naturalborn children don't always develop gifts, but their threshold is much lower. To a regular person, it would usually just result in death, but... even regular childhood accidents can cause a gift to bloom."

"I will make sure to find some supervision before attempting it! Death is certainly not a desirable outcome. Another thing I've begun to wonder about is, what sort of," he produces another gesture, "things do gifts do? I know you've previously mentioned the broad remit of sorcery as a whole: movement, temperature, light and sound, some limited mental effects, and protection from other sorcery, and that it's fueled by breath, stamina, wakefulness, health, and youth, and that youth in particular is used to create sorcerous artifacts, which at a guess I'd imagine is more of a ritual sort of thing than a gift sort of thing? But what would a gift for breath do, to pick a potentially soon-to-be-relevant example?"

"The same things. Though, for examples of gift..." he theatrically takes a deep breath and raises his hand. A small flame appears above his palm. "This is stuck on about this size, but it dodges away from obstacles without me having to directly think about it. Thomas' gives him some ability to sense mass. Fernando regulates his own body temperature, so he can be comfortable in extreme weather."

"There is a tendency for gifts to have some form of synergy and Breath has a larger tendency towards synergy as well? Our mom's Breath blocks the harmful parts of light, she doesn't get sunburned, doesn't need to cover her eyes. And her Stamina gift is creating light. Also, artifacts are usually ritual sorcery. Most Youth gifts can create permanent effects, which sort of count as artifacts, but less versatile?"

"I got this thing that controls my hair and nail growth for Breath. Honestly, they are kind of a disappointing? It's nice to have, but a week of being bored out of your mind meditating."

Felix shrugs helplessly. "'Small but convenient' is the best way to describe Breath gifts. Maybe there is going to be a synergy with Spiritism."

"Interesting, though I'm rather baffled by the variation in possible gifts. Sorcery is...very different from vitalism, not just in what it can do but seemingly in its essence, somehow. I'm not sure exactly how to explain how I've come to that feeling."

"That sounds valid. The previously known kinds of magic aren't exactly... unified in theme?"

Opero shrugs once more. "Fair enough. I suppose it's only natural for things to be different in one world from another. Perhaps I should be more surprised by how similar things are? You all seem like well-formed humans after all, and i don't see why that would be any more necessary than our magics sharing some sort of fundamental basis."

"Before today, the theory is that Elsewhere was just attracted to worlds with humans."

"Even then, most wildlife is similar. Not identical, there are species that don't overlap between worlds, but they're largely similar and compatible."

Oh, he just realized. The tall people, and maybe the large deer, might be a product of Augmentation. Huh. He nods again. "I didn't recognize the trees, though I'm hardly a forester, but I did recognize some of the animals that I encountered earlier, or at least their overall forms. Hm. That makes me wonder about what sort of benefits might be had from agricultural exchange between our worlds. If Synth can be applied to crops or livestock, for example, I can only imagine the varieties you might have that would be new to my world."

Felix smiles very excited. "Oh, Synth can be so applied to crops and livestock. It's very useful into creating new and exciting plant varieties."

"I am quite interested to hear more about that, but before I allow myself to indulge in that interest, I do want to go back to one thing was mentioned a moment ago. Specifically, Henry said something a lost colony, and a war. Is there a chance that other worlds my people reach, or that come into contact with Elsewhere might be hostile? What is the missing background for me here?"

"Oh... well, it was thirty or so years ago, but it isn't any less embarrassing. The war was mostly from the Elan side of things. Elsewhere, did its best to stay out of it by closing portals. There are two others worlds we don't mention, they were part of Elsewhere since ancient times. Elan had colonies in the one called Exile and the previously named Efross. Those got cut off when portals were closed."

"The different worlds that are part of the Elsewhere cluster have different polities with different goals. I would... tread carefully with Elan and Earth, because they have a greater range on that. I believe Elsewhere itself will be largely friendlier if guarded? More prepared to the idea of a new world just showing up."

"Uh... Earth doesn't actually know about magic," Henry says, giving Fernando a side glance. "But otherwise, that sounds alright."

"Doesn't...know about magic? That's an odd situation to be in. And, I'll be sure to relay that to my people. We're perfectly familiar with the idea of disunity at the global scale, the same is true in my world as well." Wait a second. Elsewhere. Elan. Efross. Earth. Exile. "Do all of your worlds have names that start with almost the same sound, or is something weird going on with the translation bracelet?"

"There is also Epoch, which was the other world that was already attached to Elsewhere before Elan. But to answer your question, a wise man that spoke our language decided that it would be funny to make all worlds be alliterative."

"Earth and Elan are actually just called that. Efross' name in their native tongue starts with a hard, almost breathed out 'hir'. Elsewhere, has been called other terms before, but the current trend is that. Exile is... descriptive for its past use. Epoch is largely inhabited, the only thing of interest there are these memory story crystals. Which, gives the place academic interest. As opposed to, a place to colonize."

"He must have been very wise, if it's stuck. Or I suppose he might have made that declaration very recently. We'll see what people come up with for my world. I don't think anyone local has a name for the whole thing other than 'the world' or similar in various languages. The idea of there being other worlds is very, very new, I believe I've mentioned. Regardless, good know that politics is not a unique defect of my world in particular. Or would be a relief to know that other worlds don't have to deal with it?" Opero shrugs, then looks out across the farmland they're now passing through. "So, crops and livestock?"

Crops and livestock! Synth is good at improving those. It's possible to combine animal traits, but that is more finicky and doesn't always breed true. Augmentation does mean healthier livestock, though the larger size can be considered a mixed blessing at times. With plants/crops, the thing gets more fun, they can be more easily tweaked and mixed for desirable traits. Crops that are more resistant to disease, droughts, temperatures extremes, different soil conditions, sometimes even to pests (the example they give is one that is toxic to bugs, but is safe to humans once cooked). Then there is more on the consumer end, where they can change yield, size, shape, flavor, nutritional content.

Some more interesting examples include: a fruit with a spiral peel that is very satisfying to pull; a coconut variant, but smaller and more cylindrical, so it fits better in one hand, and comes in a variety of fruity flavors; a flower whose pollen can be turned into a tea that halts the menstrual cycle; a plant whose sap can be filtered with minimum chemistry to be used as a temporary blood substitute.

Incredible! Opero will happily explore all the varieties Felix knows of, asking about their usage, their histories, basically any information he can get. Probably this conversation can go on for as long as it takes for one of the others to interrupt, or for some outside force to do so, like the group reaching whatever their destination is in town.

There is plenty on the topic, most of their knowledge comes from the triplets having lived in a Elan city for a time, but they have read on the topic too.

The forest gives away to fields and pastures. They point out how the cows are "regular" sized (maybe a bit bigger than Opero is familiar with, but they could just be well-fed), while the goats and chickens are noticeably larger. So is a dog larger than a wolf that is running around herding the animals. They say it's probably less dangerous than a regular dog, but for Opero to stay on the safe side and not set foot in the fenced area.

Fernando looks at his wristwatch, then up to the sky.

"Hey, guys, two things. Time to play another round of 'we are not prepared to explain our world' to Opero. And also, time for sunset, does anyone mind if I just fly ahead to deal with that?"

Opero will certainly remain outside the fences. He isn't truly worried for his safety, even if he did end up attracting the ire of one of the herding dogs, but it would certainly be an significant inconvenience, and a bit embarrassing.

"Hm. I did notice that the sky was in an odd sort of twilight, away from your town, and totally dark over the dead city. I guess there's maybe some sorcery involved with that as well?"

"You guys explains," Fernando says with unusual cheer, and then he flies away.

"I want to let it be registered that I knew we are going to explain it at some point. I just wanted to use that tacky geode diorama thing your aunt has," he informs Henry and Gabe.

"Okay... anyway, uh. So Elsewhere itself is not a planet? I am assuming your world has spherical planets? Anyway, Elsewhere is actually flat. Usually two-miles thick and almost three thousand miles in diameter. There are giants crystals on the bottom that keep it a float and regulate gravity, air, weather. And the 'stars' above us, are another kind of crystal that produces the twilight light. But we can tweak it to create a day-night cycle."

"Elsewhere also grows. Slowly, but steady. And the dead city hijacks and corrupts the system. The first sign the city is expanding is causing the crystal stars to fall, which is why the place is dark."

"Oh, and if you go a few miles away from the surface, space itself becomes weird. It eventually becomes so unstable that it destroys everything. Elsewhere, is safe in the surface," he quickly amends, "but going too far has that risk."

"And our job is literally Lightkeeper apprentices, so we have to tell the stars to turn the day into night or the daylight becomes wobbly."

"Approximately spherical, discounting surface details and oblation due to spin and whatnot, yes, and I'll make sure to warn my people to not fly directly upwards for several miles." He pauses for a moment as he considers things. "I suppose it's good that Elsewhere grows, given it seems to naturally attract some populace, but it's concerning that the dead city is also expanding. I can only assume that someone, somewhere is working on a way to stop that?"

"Currently, digging all the way down and pretty much cut off the infected parts. Which is the cheaper solution that means politicians don't have to deal with it today."

"It's not... that bad. But, like, thirty years trying to find a better solution and people's hope lost steam. The dead city is not an urgent problem in the scale of years, not even in decades. But if your kind of magic can help with controlled demolition and digging, that is sure something people would be interested in."

" Oh, that chasm was for containment, that makes sense. I don't know how well spiritism and humorism compare to sorcery at that sort of thing, but I'll certainly look into it." Opero looks back up to the not-stars briefly as he thinks. "You know, if the length of day and night is a construct, how do you know when to change them? I mean, I saw the wristwatch, my people have clocks, but how do you decide how long the day is? Is it just tradition, or made to match the daylight of whichever other world, or other town even I suppose, that you trade most with, or something else?"

"All of the above. Most settlements start sponsored by someone which tends to be the deciding factor. Sometimes it changes, it's rare for towns with disparate time standards to be close enough to be a problem, but usually they negotiate to stick a new one."

"There are, like, three 'universal' standards."

They are getting close enough to see "traffic" in the form of trucks and horse-drawn carts. Some of the horses and their riders are enormous. People seen to be mostly avoiding them.

Interesting. Automobiles seem more common than Opero is used to, but that seems like one of many natural consequences of these people's more advanced technology. "So, what are those standards? And, how long should I expect days to be around your town in particular?"

"There is 'Improved Central Time Standard', and 'True Elan-Elsewhere Standardized Time', and 'Lake Turquoise Standard.' That last one is what Ashenville," he points at the town. "And our days are 24 hours long, each hour is sixty minutes."

They can use their watches to see how long a minute is and extrapolate how long they have been walking.

The not-stars start to demean gradually, faster than a sunset, but not all at once. The streetlights turn on.

Where Opero comes from, an hour is defined as one twenty-fourth of a day, and a minute as one sixtieth of an hour, so yes, finding out what that actually amounts to is necessary. After considering it for a moment, and drawing on some crystallized memory from his armor, Opero's change in stance again expresses some surprise. "Huh. That's remarkably close to how it is in my world. Another strange alignment of circumstance."

"Huh, I think that particular division is a mathematical convenience thing? Easy fractions to split the day, or the hour. Though, if I recall, 'Improved Central Time' uses a time system with multiples of ten."

"Just to be sure your world doesn't happen to have cities called Rome, Athens... Constantinople?"

"Istanbul, not Constantinople," Thomas sing songs.

"No, though I'm not familiar with every name of every little town. Though, actually, hm." He pronounces 'Athens' in isolation a few times, varying it slightly each time. "It sounds like it could be a mangled pronunciation of Adienie? Maybe a mistranslation even? Is yours also known for being the birthplace of olive tree cultivation?"

"I am not sure about the birthplace of olive tree cultivation, but there is a legend that it got its name from a goddess that gift the city with a olive tree? It was an olive tree, right?" That is asked to the others.

"Don't ask me. I don't know about mythology."

"No, an olive tree sounds right."

Opero nods. "I think I can remember some civic legends about Kiekruops being divinely inspired, which sounds like it could be related. So, what does this mean? That our worlds are...siblings, somehow? Branches? Do worlds have relations to one another in that way?"

"No idea. I assume you have a world map? How many continents? Is there an ocean in a pole and a large cold continent on the other?"

"Yes, and six, though it depends on how you count them. One pole just has an island nearby, the other has one of the major continents, yeah." Opero extrudes a sheet of shining substance from his armor, which shifts in color and texture, quickly resolving into what is pretty obviously a geographic map of Earth, and evidently Opero's homeworld as well, with a mercator projection. "How's this?"

"That fits..."

"None of the other worlds are... branches. All have been completely different despite the obvious similarities."

"Fascinating.... Perhaps Elsewhere isn't able to connect to branches in this way, on its own at least, so the exception of my arrival allowed it? That seems like it'd imply some things about the method of my arrival that my people didn't mention, or else imply some very strange things about the broader 'tree' or 'forest' or whatever we're dealing with here."

"It could be? Our understanding it's that it sort of creates 'roots' into the world. We have been assumed a singular version, but maybe it's rooted into yours... Or something else entirely."

They have now arrived at the lighthouse-like building. There is a light on top, thought, it isn't projected in the way an actual lighthouse is. The sky is pretty much undisguisable from a regular night, except the lack of moon.

"I suppose this something new for everyone involved then, on some level. I'm sure you have researchers for this sort of thing and my people are working on that as well, once contact is more firmly established I imagine they'll communicate about it." He pauses as he looks over the not-exactly-a-lighthouse. "So, I assume this is your place of work?"

"Yup. Also, where Henry and I live."

He climbs up and opens the door without much preamble.

Fernando is inside a small reception-like room, talking on the phone, "-nothing to worry. But we will likely be late."

He is already facing the door, and waves when it opens. "They are here. Talk to you later."

Opero follows Gabe up and inside. "So, aside from dimming and I assume brightening the lights, what sort of tasks do lightkeepers do? Or do you all have, uh, day jobs I suppose?"

"Oh, general 'provide-magical-services', which is mostly renewing wards, giving first aid..." Henry waves at Opero. "checking unusual happenings that involve magic. We actually work for a private organization called The High Library of Magic, which is contracted by local governments to do that sort of thing."

"Fair enough" Opero replies, chuckling slightly. There's something oddly humorous to him about an organization being called The High Library of Magic, though he can't really put to words exactly why. "So, what am I doing here? And will it involve food, because I'm actually rather hungry after that walk."

"I can get you some. But I am not sure if it's better to go out for something."

"Ah, I spoke to the Mayor's office earlier. And they want someone accompanying Opero if he is going to be around people, specially with his powers visible on."

"I'm alright with something simple if that's easier. I'm no stranger to traveling food. And, I've only got my underclothes on under my armor, but if I can acquire an outfit I could make my armor transparent."

"I can lend you some clothes no problem, but everything in this house is either me size or my elderly-aunt size," he raises his hand to a height at least two head below Opero's.

"I will go look for a snack and then see what we can do for a proper meal."

"Too large is better than too small when it comes to clothes, in my experience, and thank you Henry." Presumably Opero will either be lead to a clothes-room of some sort, or be given some?

Gabe leads him upstairs to a small somewhat messy bedroom. Where he picks up some options from the closet, either a pair of jeans or cargo shorts for the bottom, and t-shirts with company logos for the top.

The jeans look good and durable, so he'll go ahead and put those on, pulling them right over his armor, which proceeds to sort of soak into and merge with them, before fading into transparency, revealing the jeans again along with Opero's feet and ankles.

He also appreciates the aesthetics of one of the logos, a sort of oblique checkmark shape, but hesitates before selecting it. "I don't actually know what any of these brands mean. Is there anything I should consider before picking one?"

"I don't think anyone would find them offensive? That one is a sports brand from Earth, the broken bell one is from Elan, but fuck if I know what it is about. No one commented on them. But maybe they are just distracted by my chest." He makes his pecs bounce.

"Understandable." Opero remarks with a modicum of humor. He makes the upper portion of his armor transparent before putting on the shirt, revealing that he is likewise quite fit, as well as exposing his face, clean-shaven and shortly cut black hair, and looking like he's maybe in his early thirties.

The clothes do fit a bit loosely, but being saturated with his soul-dew means that Opero can easily shift them around with just a thought, so it doesn't manifest any real discomfort or inconvenience.

Gabe looks with shameless interest. He also offers him a pair of cheap plastic sandals, since that sounds like the sort of thing people might give crap for whatever reason. Downstairs?

Opero gives a little flex before quickly slipping on the sandals, and then they are indeed downstairs, hopefully finding snacks.

Indeed, snacks! Henry opened a bag of off-brand not-cheetos that smell like the color orange. But there is a ziplock bag of fried up fruit (half of each are reconizable).

Felix and Fernando are in the kitchen making something simple.

Thomas, meanwhile, is waiting for them to come downstairs and proudly holding the Elsewhere diorama.

It's basically a flat piece of amethyst geode that hovers in the air near Thomas' hand. With a crystal part pointing down, and surface covered in teeny tiny miniatures showing a forest, a city and some kind of Obviously Ancient Ruins. Above that there are tiny 'stars' made of floating glass beads. It's not... completely bad, but it is somewhat tacky.

The diorama is interesting, Opero assumes the floating is generated through sorcery of some kind though given the…scholastic nature of the item he’d be surprised if it were constructed with Youth.

Funnily enough though he’s somewhat more interested in the not-Cheetos, which are evidently quite foreign to him. “What are these?”

"Skilhos? It's an off-brand Cheetos or something? But who knows what Cheetos are? They are completely unnatural and unknown of origin."

From the kitchen, Fernando yells. "They are made of grounded up corn, which is then extruded by a machine that cooks them. It started as a byproduct from making animal feed." After a pause. "They are safe to eat."

“Fascinating…” Opero takes one a pops it in his mouth, his face briefly screwing up at the utter uncanniness of the flavor. He doesn’t grab any more, instead preferring the fruits. “Perhaps they’re an acquired taste. I do wonder what particular convolution of history lead to them not appearing in my world, given we also have corn and livestock. I suppose some difference in how our supply chains are arranged?”

Henry will eat some sheepishly.

The dried fruit comes in plain, sugar-coated and dipped in chocolate.

"From what Fernando said, I guess you don't have machines that can take grounded up corn and extrudes it while also cooking them? I am not sure how that came about, and who thought of turning it into snacks, but it sure sounds like a way to get an industrial snack into the world."

Felix peeks out from the kitchen. "Hey, do you have any food allergies? Or problem with animal products?"

Opero will try the sugar-coated and chocolate ones, and will probably find the sugar-coated to be a bit too sweet for his taste except for perhaps on the tartest fruits. The chocolate is very nice though. "Not lifeless machines, no, but plenty of families with farms have millers to grind their feed-grain. And, no allergies though with this whole other worlds situation that's always a bit of doubt. I personally don't eat meat, not that I haven't hunted myself anyway, I was raised religious and it impacted my taste, but I don't have any real moral compunctions about it."

"Going to round that off to vegan tomato sauce."

"Everything we do is lifeless machines. Well, everything that is mass-produced on Earth. You could make the argument that we try to turn workers into lifeless-like machines."

"When you put things like that, you risk of causing some terrible miscommunication that makes us look much worse than we are."

He and Gabe have since moved next to each other on a couch. Gabe has his arm around Henry.

"Yes, but it mildly amuses me. Priorities, you know."

Opero chuckles at that. He can sympathize with not having the highest opinion of how things are done."Being made into a machine is bit less metaphorical with some families I've seen, Stunning what 'the good of one's kin' can justify doing to those kin." He gives a weary sigh. "So, what comes next? Leaving aside the exceptions of my case you all evidently have much more of a history with inter-world contact than myself."

"Honestly, I think we would like to put you under an analysis ritual, just to be sure you are not just lying or delusional about the new world and new magic thing. I am not sure why Fernando and Henry didn't jump to that right away. It sounds like them."

"Oh, I was going to look up one that was okay to teach him and then explain to him how it works. It sounded only... polite, not ask him to just trust us. I am not sure about Fernando."

Fernando floats into the room.

"I was just going to wait until someone else brought it up, because I am not the best at discerning when people are comfortable with that sort of thing.  And then we could properly contact, higher ups at the High Library and our own grandparents - they are influential - about you, Opero."

Hm. If this 'analysis ritual' pierces his armor as easily as seemingly every other sorcerous phenomenon has, it might detect that he's a calorist. But, given the story he's spun about its obscurity, maybe he could convince them it's simply latent? He'll draw up the memories of excitement and elation he felt when he first achieved the caloric meditation to try and react appropriately, if that's how he decides to play things. "I suppose my armor could have been some sort of exotic artifact, and my language a convincing fake. Would there be any predictable side-effects from this analysis ritual?"

"Your armor makes more sense as a health gift, at least it looks versatile enough. And I don't expect any side effects, unless? All it's meant to do is to check magic on your person, and at most seeing if any of that magic is acting on your life force. Which should be enough to rule out as you having sorcery gifts."

Oh, right, gifts. A mistake that he's sure a native wouldn't make but again, not beyond the realm of acting. And wow! That sounds like it will definitely detect his calorism. Better get ready for that bombshell then. He gives a shrug. "No accounting for unknown interactions, that's fair. I'll submit to one if it clears up the possibility that I'm some kind of madman or fraudster."

"Or a madman fraudster."

"Or a brainwashed time bomb."

"Brainwashed Fraudster? Madman time bomb? Since you guys are being so cheerfully paranoid."

"I'd argue all of those are still kinds of madmen, albeit artificial in the cases of being brainwashed. Anyway, are we doing this now or is waiting for after supper?"

"After, I don't want to do sorcery on an empty stomach."

"After. I am going to need to make calls across worlds, and I don't want to do that on an empty stomach."

"Hey! Maybe I want to tell our grandparents about the juicy interworld gossip."

"Doing any sort of work on an empty stomach does not seem wise, yes." Opero will peer into the kitchen. "Anything I can do to help with the cooking?"

"No worries. It's almost done!"

"So... what is life like in your world?"

Opero grimaces lightly and gestures with his hands as he attempts to conjure the words. "It's hard to say? I'm a well-traveled man, but that brings its own biases to what I see and how I see it. What is ordinary for me is probably not ordinary for most people from my world, or even most people from my country. I suppose, things are mostly good, at least in parts of the world I travel most. There aren't any big wars going on at the moment, even if there are some skirmishes in the more exploited parts of the world between warlords and puppets and the like. Food scarcity is less of a problem than it's ever been, especially in the wealthier countries. The senate's still basically owned by the oldest and richest families, who exploit this ruthlessly. I don't know if that paints much of a picture."

"Aww, sounds just like our Earth. And Elan. And we don't know much about ancient Elsewhere society and worlds, but I bet it isn't that different."

"Do you have an ideal of the global population? Literacy rates?"

"I think the last estimate I remember was around ten billion? I haven't checked in a while, though. And literacy globally I think is around 60%, but it's close to 100% in my country and most wealthy countries. There're are some charitable efforts to teach it in other countries, but they don't tend to cooperate with local operations that want to make a writing system for their own language, so there's quite a bit of resistance."

"Huh... we have around twelve billion, but that is divided mostly between Earth and Elan. And I haven't checked, but our literally is around 85% worldwide. Why they don't cooperate with local operations?"

"Interesting. I'm not sure what exactly would lead to such a difference in population. Nothing about spiritism or humorism seem like they'd obviously encourage it over sorcery. Perhaps just a quirk of history? And, I may be a bit of a cynic, but a combination of paternalistic ethnochauvinism and ulterior economic motives is my guess."

"I am sure that is part of it. But without looking more closely at your world, I would guess that your magic had positive effects earlier own? On Earth, the population exploded in the last century, alongside several technological leaps, but some of the richer countries are foreseeing population replacement problems. On Elan, they had a head start on the population because of better quality food, medicine and... well, just plainly healthy people, but also birth control." Shrug.

Opero strokes his chin thoughtfully again. "That is possible. When was magic, of any sort I suppose, first discovered in your worlds, if you know? Spiritism has been practiced since time immemorial, though it's experienced a considerable expansion in practical knowledge and feasibility since the discovery of humorism, which took place about two centuries ago."

"Not counting when Elsewhere introducing sorcery to the worlds. Synth has always been around, alongside with simpler augmentations, and has been a steadily progressing ever since. Same for Efross' heat magic, but with less room for research."

Opero nods. "I suppose that makes sense, especially with them appearing somewhat in other animals." He gives his chin another scratch. "And there's no magic native to Earth, to your knowledge at least? I wonder if that relates to how spiritism and humorism aren't as," he produces another uncertain hand gesture, "biological, as Synth, Augmentation, and Heat manipulation?"

Collective head shake. "Like, unless you want to enter the realm of conspiracy theories that say that Earth's magic is extra hidden. Which, you might as well say that the other worlds also have super-duper extra hidden magic. Or that ancient Elsewhere reptilian overlords control everything."

"Assuming that Spiritism and Humorism are Earth's magic, that could be the case. Huh, is there really no biological component to either?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Or, well, it's fairly well supported that brain damage in certain areas can hamper or destroy your ability to achieve spiritual or humoral meditation, but only in the same way that damaging certain parts of your brain can hurt your ability to, say, form sentences or coordinate your movements. I suppose it's possible there's some difference in brain-structure between my people and yours, but given the other similarities I'd be rather surprised if that were true. I don't know if such a thing would be detectable to the analysis ritual?"

"It should be able to detect a brain difference if there is something about the brain-structure that relates to your magic. Or at least differentiate between a 'maybe' and a 'definitely not'."

"Sounds like another good reason to give it a shot, then." Opero smiles, or perhaps smirks. "I'm honestly rather excited to find out. I didn't really have any expectations about going to another world but a mystery like this certainly isn't the worst thing I could have encountered."

"Dinner is ready!"

"Oh, we needed to set up the table."

There is the sound of wind coming from an adjacent room. "Already set up the table!"

Food! Boy is Opero hungry. "I won't apologize for being good conversation, but before we continue, let us eat!"

They move to an adjacent room, where the dinner is served. It isn't exactly spacious, but despite being half a dozen of them, they can sit without rubbing elbows.

Opero isn't bothered by the tight quarters. Honestly he probably doesn't even pay too much attention to what the food is so long as it's reasonably intuitive how to serve and eat. He's very hungry. He might be making a bit of a faux pas if the locals have some pre-dining ritual, which he'll catch quickly but not before he's started to serve himself.

Henry actually takes the lead to serve the platter.

Then It almost looks like they others are praying, or something close to praying? ...They appear to be whispering to their hands. Though, this isn't synchronized like a prayer would. Instead, each is just systematically moving their hands in front of their mouths.

"Washing hands, it piggybacks on existing wards, so I am afraid we can't do it for you."

Opero raises his hands, inducing the armor over them to reveal itself with a silver shine for a moment before returning to near-invisibility. "They don't really get dirty nowadays."

"Convenient."

"So, where on your Earth are you from?"

"I believe I mentioned this to Henry and..." He takes a moment to recall which Vaestreri is which, "Fernando, I was born in Rimocolles. That's a suburb of Pratensurba, which is the largest city in Offlumenia, which is a country in the southwest of Atlantica." Opero produces the geographical map from his armor, again, now highlighting an area that stretches east from the Colorado river, covering much of what would be Arizona as well as the southern tip of Nevada and some of southern California, with a dot in the northwest of this highlighted region being doubly-highlighted, which is in about the same place as Las Vegas.

"Cool, a fellow American!"

"Huh, we are from a country that covers that area. And we got transported to Elsewhere more or less from pretty that area."

Opero is briefly overcome by a powerful feeling of uncanniness. "More strange coincidences. Though I suppose that this is mostly just a continuation of the strangeness of being from 'branches' of the same underlying world."

Henry mouth becomes occupied with food, so he can't answer.

"You wouldn't happen to know if that could be an effect of your method of travel?"

Possibly weird: Opero can continue to talk even with his mouth full of food, seemingly without any impact on his intelligibility. "I do not. This technology is very new, absolutely cutting edge sort of stuff. I'm pretty sure we only know just enough to be confident we can aim it at worlds that aren't going instantly annihilate an explorer. I suppose it's possible that some part of that aiming process has accidentally aligned it with our own 'world-tree'? That would make sense as a way of ensuring the world is reasonably hospitable, at least on a basic, fundamental physics level."

"I am sure it will be the topic of a lot of scholarly research. Though, I wonder if there is a sympathetic connection going on. With your magic aiming based on similarities."

"Hey, are you into men?"

Henry very pointedly rubs his forehead.

"Maybe? We'll see, I suppose, and yes I am, though I try to not get too entangled when I'm on the job, so to speak."

Grin. "I was asking because, like, everyone else on the table is into men. So it could be another one of those things hanging from the branches of the world."

"Ah, that is not coincidence. That is just how the gays naturally flock together."

"I am bi."

"So are the three of us. It's the broad definition of 'gay', my dude."

"I... I think we should stick to a degree of professionalism. Uh, no offense, Opero."

Opero waves a hand dismissively. "It's only natural to be familiar over food in your own or a friend's home. Between this and the overly stiff formality that is the other primary response when I'm passing through a place, I prefer this greatly. This food is excellent by the way, I should ask for the recipe afterwards, if you're free to share it."

"Oh, thanks. It's nothing special."

"Even so, it's new to me, at least in part. Thank you."

Presumably there is more small talk between the six of them as they eat their dinner. Afterwards, probably, the preparations for the analysis ritual begin.

Among themselves, they exchange small talk regarding their day-to-day and prod Opero for the same, but without being pushy.

Since two out of three triplets took care of dinner, Henry and Gabe take care of washing off the dishes.

The triplets set up the analysis ritual. Which primarily involves arranging a lot of various objects (crystals, bowls of herbs, one candle) on the floor in a specific pattern. They have a dedicated room for that purpose. They also need to paint some symbols on Opero to mark him as the target of the ritual.

Opero honestly doesn’t have much to say about his day that he hasn’t already? It’s only the first day he’s been in Elsewhere. It’s been good so far (aside from the dead city, naturally). He also offers to help with the dishes but won’t insist.

As the preparations begin, he will watch with raptly, observing and storing away as many details of the process as can be seen or heard by a layman-to-sorcery. He will also adjust the attributes of his armor such that it is receptive to the ritual paints, if that works, but he will be hesitant if it needs to make skin contact.

They double-check. Is the issue having paint on his skin or having to lower his humorism shields? They can do it with a marker that involves proximity, but they aren't sure if there could be some interactions.

It is just an overabundance of caution with regards to his humorism shields. The odds are slim, but especially considering the close relationship between Earth and his homeworld, the possibility of some pathogen making the jump feels risky. There's also always the possibility of something unpredictable happening, like a powerful and violent rogue sorcerer showing up out of nowhere or some kind of magical mishap occurring, which lacking the full use of his armor would limit his ability to react to. He's willing to take these risks, at least as long as he can keep his armor up over his orifices, but if there's an alternative he would greatly prefer it.

Okay, they are willing to try while the armor is still up. Though, it will be harder to sell the idea that their magic is From A New World without at least having some sorcery diagnostics as a claim. If the ritual somewhat fails to go through, they could maybe negotiate something.

Also the Lighttower has wards. Specifically against rogue sorcerers. But they understand that he might not want to take the chance.

Would it be too much of an expenditure to try it with his armor up, and then try it again with it down if there is some sort of averse interaction?

They can do it. They wouldn't want to try a third time because sorcery is all about managing your lifeforce reserves, but they could do that too.

If there's some way Opero can compensate for the difference, he will. Maybe he can offer some of his own life-forces for the ritual, if that wouldn't confuse the analysis?

They could try that, maybe for the second time. The problem here is that if he is part of casting the ritual, then an outside part will raise the question: 'are you sure he didn't alter it?'

Yes, that is a reasonable worry. Opero sighs, and hopes that nothing weird will happen with the first ritual.

With that settled, presumably the ritual begins?

It does! The triplets co-cast it, while Henry and Gabe watch from outside the room.

Now, what is going on with Opero's magic?