counterfeit

[onceandforall]

This. This is a good bar.

She does not mind taking counterfeit currency and she sells everything.

Bella is going to exploit the fuck out of that but first she is eating really, really good pad thai and finally talking to a person who is a) interesting b) not someone she has already talked to a lot in the last... several years. Lovely friendly bar who makes a lovely delicious pad thai! Bella will have to try opening that door at that moment again in the past.

Comments

[onceandforall]

"Okay, sure."

[whatamithinking]

She conjures a mirror. It appears to be a view of a strange cityscape, surrounded by an ornate golden frame. Various people are milling about, doing various actions that seem to have a certain...significance to them, even if it's not apparent what. Some things are reasonably interpretable--there's a figure that looks exactly like Bella being peered over and exclaimed upon by several of the figures, many of which bear a strong but imperfect resemblance to Edie.

"Interpretation's automatic if you go in, but I don't actually get anything besides the switch in the back of my head that lets me know I can shut the spell off whenever just from having the mirror open."

[onceandforall]

"If you go in, can you, say, reach out and close a curtain...?"

[whatamithinking]

"Close a curtain?"

[onceandforall]

"If I borrow a drape or something from Bar could I put it over my mirror, duck through, tug it closed, wander around, and come out? So nobody would accidentally stare into a me-mirror."

[whatamithinking]

"Yeah, you could do that."

[onceandforall]

"Okay, I think I want to try it more than I am spooked by the idea of someone looking at a mysterious City of Bella, or whatever I get if I'm not a city. And if this winds up being cover for any non-privacy-related unpleasantness Bar assures me that security here is really good at its job, just FYI."

[whatamithinking]

"Noted. I am not, for example, suggesting you use the Mind Palace Gateway, like, at all."

[onceandforall]

"That one's riskier?"

[whatamithinking]

"If you move stuff around in there, it stays moved. So, for example, if you went into that scene you just saw and removed my mental representation of you, I would immediately lose all memory if interacting with you until it got put back. As far as I know nothing you can do with it is irreversible, but still, that is not the kind of thing you want to trust a stranger with."

[onceandforall]

"Yyyyeah. Sounds interesting, but I'd want to mess with it very carefully over a longer period, not try it once in a bar, however unique an opportunity it represents. My time here is somewhat limited even if you want to stick around entertaining me for ages. But I'll try the look-don't-touch version - Bar, may I borrow a suitable curtainy thing?"

Bar supplies a suitable curtainy thing.

[whatamithinking]

And Edie--very carefully, so as not to let herself or Emily get a glimpse--makes a mirror.

[onceandforall]

Which Bella drapes, and then hops into.

[whatamithinking]

There isn't any particular time dilation effect between the outside and inside of the mirror, so however long Bella decides to poke around they'll end up waiting.

[iamnotpolaris]

At some point during this interval, Emily discovers that Bar does the first drink free!

[onceandforall]

That she does!

Bella comes out forty-five minutes later. "I probably should have asked if that takes a lot out of you to sustain, or anything. But it was really cool."

[whatamithinking]

"Nah. Casting spells takes some energy, but maintaining a long-term one doesn't do much of anything. It really is an experience, isn't it?"

[onceandforall]

"Oh, yeah, I could probably wander in there for days if I didn't need to be out of here in a week."

[whatamithinking]

"...Why a week, in particular?"

[onceandforall]

"My magic, and also just my baseline existence even if I don't do anything, takes a finite resource. I can't replenish it in here. If I keep it way down, I will have enough leeway to get out, collect more valuable prizes, and recharge. If I wind up in some kind of bar emergency or really, really want to push it, I still need enough that I can go out and - this is going to sound very strange, it's mostly okay and there's an explanation but not a succinct one - if I run too low on magic to be able to take the steps necessary to get more, I need to exit the bar and commit suicide."

[whatamithinking]

"...What good does suicide do you? I'm not doubting you, here, but you've got me curious."

[onceandforall]

"I'm in a time loop. Which doesn't usually have Milliways in it, so I'm going to milk the place for all it's worth. I didn't find out that my loop resets if I die on purpose, but it does. From where I currently am, the nearest place to get more magic recharging swag is from some monsters I don't have down pat yet - I'm in a city I don't usually visit on a standard run - so I'd have to use some magic to beat them up. If I reset, that doesn't reset my magic, but as long as I have an hour of baseline operation I can steal a recharge object from another puella magi while she's sleeping. If I have four hours I can get to Seattle and find a monster I've fought often enough to reliably kill with no magic, and if I fuck up that option I can still go the theft route."

[whatamithinking]

"Aha. That seems...profoundly disturbing, but in a way that's inarguably not your fault."

[onceandforall]

"Oh, the fact that I'm in a time loop could easily be construed as my fault."

[whatamithinking]

"Oh?"