barring emergencies

[the_very_best]

Bella's not sure where she has wandered. She thought she was about to walk into a shop, but this appears to be an unattended bar. With none of the windows associated with the shop she thought she was entering. It could be an elaborate psychic assault of some kind, but it doesn't feel very... assault-y... and she was in the middle of a town and doesn't think any humans want to sic their 'mon on her. It's strange. She approaches the bar, looking around warily, hand hovering near her belt.

with Max (Benedict)

with Earth and Lightning (kappa)

with Ann and Sabrina (kuuskytkolme)

Comments

[unblinkered]

"Great, okay. I'm sure that's really convenient for you, with monsters roaming around who know how doorknobs work. My question is..."

His question is "can I get another coffee", because that was a good coffee, but... it's only the first one that's free, isn't it? If there's a trap, it's here. He asks a different question.

"What would another coffee cost?"

[the_very_best]

$1.75 in your currency.

"Wild 'mon don't know how to open doors by and large," clarifies the girl. "So the ones who do know don't roam."

[unblinkered]

Money?!

"Just... a buck seventy five... what if I don't have change? I won't have to do any... favors?"

The thing about Pokémon and doors is perfectly reasonable, he assumes. He's going to have to call up Isaac and ask him a lot of extremely silly questions.

[the_very_best]

I can make change, the bar promises. I can also take arbitrary currency as used anywhere in the multiverse, and in some cases at my own discretion, outright barter.

[unblinkered]

...Max pulls out a pair of bills from his wallet and lays them on the counter. He watches them intently- there's no cash register, and no cashier. Is she going to disappear his money?

[the_very_best]

Two singles vanish. One American quarter appears.

[unblinkered]

As does another coffee. He is alarmed momentarily by the possibility of the bar disappearing money from places other than the countertop, and then realizes that physical bartenders are also capable of stealing from their customers, but don't do so for a number of reasons.

...he discreetly double-checks his wallet anyway.

"So... what am I supposed to do, here? What do people usually do, besides order drinks?"

[the_very_best]

Meet other patrons - it's usually more crowded than this. There are rooms upstairs which may be rented and some people stay here for extended periods of time. There is a backyard, with a lake and a forest. People borrow books and other media from me, from their own or other worlds; borrowing is free if you return the object in good condition. Occasionally people go to other worlds through the door, which may be accomplished by going through while someone from the world you wish to visit holds the door for you.

"Ooh," says the girl. "How much are rooms?"

They vary by size but begin at ¥1500/subjective day spent within Milliways, in your currency.

"That's a steal for a hotel room," whistles the girl, "if they're at all nice."

Unlike hotel rooms they do not come with amenities beyond basic furnishings, although they do all have ensuite bathrooms.

[unblinkered]

"...and how much is that in dollars? I'd be interested in staying longer, unless there's some way to get back here reliably."

[the_very_best]

$65, says a napkin. I can't tell you what your door acquisition traits might be without information that doesn't exist until you leave and come back a few times.

[unblinkered]

Sixty five dollars a day... not something that an out-of-work substitute teacher can afford regularly.

"I... suppose I can afford one day here, to investigate. If time is frozen out there, I'm at least going to want to get my biorhythms in order so I don't start getting tired early."

He pulls a debit card from his wallet. "Do you have... a card reader, or something, or do you just... magically scan it?"

[the_very_best]

I magically scan it, the bar says. One smallest-size room for one day, and will that be all on this card?

"What's that?" the girl asks him.

[unblinkered]

"It's a credi- er, debit card. In my world, we keep most of our money in electronic accounts, and... this thing is sort of a standardized way of controlling access to... I use it to pay for things. You have orbs that atomize and contain superpowered monsters, and you're thrown by credit cards?"

As an aside, he asks the bar if Milliways has compatible power outlets- he's going to want to take notes on his laptop, and it's low on battery.

[the_very_best]

"We have electronic money, we just don't use cards that look like that!" says the girl.

[unblinkered]

"Oh? So you have... differently-decorated cards? Psychic pokémon bank tellers? ID numbers?"

He looks around for a napkin on the subject of power outlets. If the bar's aesthetic is a product of the home culture of its owners, presumably some sort of human, he predicts that if there are power outlets, they'd be some common Earth type.

Or, no, scratch that, he predicts they're probably magic and conform to the power interface requirements of whoever's using them, because they can do that kind of thing apparently. Or they're not there to discourage loitering.

[the_very_best]

The napkin says, indeed, Outlets in rooms - as well as the plumbing and if necessary the ceiling height and furniture size - adjust to match occupants. You will find twenty-first century American three-prong power outlets in convenient locations.

"I have a Pokétch app. And a guild ID, for intraguild transactions. I don't think I've ever seen a 'mon working for a bank except as a security guard."

[unblinkered]

Max remembers the "buying any nonmagical object" thing, and decides to investigate that.

"So... buying things that aren't drinks, anything nonmagical. What are... the limits on how much you know about an order? If an alien walked in and asked for a znorfblarg, please, would you just know what that was? Would they have to describe it to you, would you have trouble fabricating something unusual?"

In the first case, it'd imply some magic inferential or oracular power whose limits could bear further testing. In the second case, the cultural vocabulary of the bar's creators could be triangulated by investigating the bar's menu. He has a good feeling about this avenue.

"And you- what's a Po-catch?"

[the_very_best]

If znorfblargs were a real thing or a reasonably extrapolable compound concept of some kind, I could produce one, although the individual ordering it would have to be specific about any idiosyncratic preferences they might have for customizable aspects of the item.

"It's this," the girl says, pointing at her watch, which on closer inspection is some kind of smart watch. "It does lots of things, including my bank account."

[unblinkered]

If they were a...

"So, hold on. Real thing? There's an infinite number of universes, supposedly- so somewhere out there has to be something called a znorfblarg. It's definitely a real thing, I just don't have any idea what it is because I'm not from a universe with znorfblargs. If I asked you for a znorfblarg, I assume you wouldn't know what I meant and be unable to produce one. But... if someone came in from a universe you've never met anyone from before, and they ordered a znorfblarg... the only difference would be that they would know what a znorfblarg was. Do you... read minds, or is the system more complicated?"

[the_very_best]

I do not read minds, but the translation mechanism in place that is, for example allowing you and she to both read the same napkins and speak to each other also works for me, and it does not simultaneously inform me of all the homophones in the multiverse every time you utter a word.

[unblinkered]

"Wait- she's not speaking English? These- if I took these napkins home, would the translation fail and I'd look at the napkins and they'd be covered in gibberish, or are they enchanted napkins?"

He looks at the girl, trying to find writing somewhere on her clothing that he could confirm as an alien language.

[the_very_best]

She is not wearing any text.

If you take the napkins home, you will find they are in your language. If she takes them home they will be in hers. If you write something she will be able to read it here but not at home, and vice versa.

"I'm speaking Islandish," supplies the girl. "I probably have a pretty generic Sinnoh accent?"

[unblinkered]

So, enchanted napkins confirmed...? Or...

"So, hold on. Does the text on the napkins change when I bring them home, or does the translation effect just persist on the napkin itself? If I took a napkin, left the bar, came back with the same napkin, and gave it to her, and she took it home to her world, would she find it written incomprehensibly in my language?"

He... realizes he can't imagine how knowing one way or the other would be useful, but he finds himself asking anyway. He invents himself a reason- if it's a persistent enchantment, he may be able to bring it home and get someone to study or reverse-engineer the magic. Yes. Good. Practical thinking. He awards himself a gold star in his head.

[the_very_best]

If you take a napkin home and then bring it back with you, speakers of other languages will be able to read it here but not if they bring it home with them. It will stay written in a specific language once it begins to be so.

"How does this place handle ambiguous sorts of translations?" wonders the girl.

Very effectively, I find, considering the magnitude of the problem.

[unblinkered]

Damn. Okay. No enchanted napkins, then- enchanted bar, separate enchantment for making the translation permanent when you leave. That could have been the loophole in the "nonmagical items only" requirement.

...No, wait.

"So, you can only order nonmagical things, but... you said you could sell her Pokéballs, right? Those things are as good as magic in my world, but presumably in hers they're ordinary technology. Is 'nonmagical' relative to the magic saturation level of the customer's universe, or something?"