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

[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?"

[the_very_best]

No. Pokéballs are not magic. Furthermore, in your universe they would not be able to accomplish anything without Pokémon to contain.

"If you're about to ask if you can borrow a 'mon," says the girl, putting her Linoone back in his Pokéball, "the answer is no."

[unblinkered]

"I wasn't gonna ask that! Those are, like, your pets, right? Of course I'm not going to ask to..."

Now, hold on a minute.

"So- hold on, the door- how hard is it to catch a pokemon? In my kid's game, he could get something in like, a minute... if you went to catch a pokemon, and I held the door to the bar, would it stay open to your- I mean, bar, would it stay open to her world?"

[the_very_best]

"...Uh, if you don't care at all about what you get? It'd take longer than a minute to get to a good place to definitely catch something, but it wouldn't take that long. What takes a long time is training them. My life is not actually a video game and you probably shouldn't extrapolate too much from the video game about Pokémon training. I'm also not sure if you could even handle a 'mon if I gave you one."

If you are holding the door, the door will lead to your world, not hers, says a napkin.

[unblinkered]

"Well. That's... that's two reasons that wouldn't work, then."

Oh! Max remembers how he got on all this. Nonmagicalness, enchantments, translation, homophones... knowing about znorfblargs.

"So... back to the item-ordering thing... the translation mechanism is what translates my English into whatever you hear it as? That's... leaving aside how a fully general perfect language learning enchantment could be... psychologically invasive, what happens if I ask for a real thing whose name I know, but which I don't know anything about the details of? Say I visit some science lab, and ask someone to name an esoteric piece of equipment for me, and then come here... without knowing what it is, would I be able to order it by name?"

[the_very_best]

Yes, says the bar.

"Oh, you know what I want, I want an authentic Pokédex," says the girl. "How much are those?"

¥9,000,000,000. My apologies.

"Ah, damn."

[unblinkered]

"What? That doesn't make any- how would you know what to conjure? Do you just have... a list of every possible object? Do you read my- do you read the scientist's mind from wherever he is? How on earth..."

The sum of money for the Pokédex sounds exorbitant. In fact...

"And while I'm at it, how does pricing work? If someone lives in a universe where, say, batteries are extremely uncommon and expensive, and someone else comes from a place where you can get them for a couple bucks at the convenience store, do you quote them two separate prices? What's with that?"

[the_very_best]

I don't need a list, napkins the bar, and I do not read minds. I just speak English. And those two people would be extremely unlikely to operate from the same currency.

[unblinkered]

"You don't need a list and you don't read minds- 'speaking English' isn't enough to know how to build a- a- a whatever complicated thing, just from its name! And- and the other thing, currency has nothing to do with it! If someone comes in and asks for batteries, and you base the price on how much they cost in their world, and they can't afford it... and then someone else from another world shows up, do they... do you see what I'm getting at? If I came from a world where they handed Pokedexes out like candy, wouldn't that price you gave be unfair?"

[the_very_best]

If you'd like to buy a Pokédex for her or give her some of your money to see if she has better luck with that I will hardly stop you, the bar says. I do not have to build things. I just cause them to appear.

[unblinkered]

So okay, it is just blatantly unfair, and- what?!

"Cause them to appear?! Wha- that's not how- what are you talking about?! What does that mean? Where does the information that tells you to make the one thing as opposed to the other even- there's- there's no free lunch!"

this bar is either stupid or lying or the fundamental mechanics of information theory are broken ohhh no no no no

[the_very_best]

They aren't manufactured. The coffee you are drinking did not previously exist in a bean state. I do not technically serve free lunch, but I do serve free drinks.

[unblinkered]

"I- of course it wasn't beans, but it had to be- you had to know what a coffee was! You would have to know what a znorfblarg was! What, do you just... already know what everything is? Are you omniscient? How?!"

[the_very_best]

I am hardly omniscient. For example, I do not read minds, napkins the bar patiently. Would you consider someone fluent in your dialect of English if they didn't know what coffee was?

The girl giggles.

[unblinkered]

"Yes! Yes I would! If they spoke perfect English but had never seen or heard of a cup of coffee before, that would totally count! Language doesn't... it doesn't encode information about things all by itself, it's a library of triggers for other people's concepts! If some scientist told me to go here and order a... a, a diatomic parallel cyclotron, or something, and neither of us knew what that was prior to my arrival, there's no way you should be able to appearify one just by being told its name!"

Max, in unsurprising contrast to the bar's patience, is losing his cool, if he ever had it. How can this thing- how can she really not understand why this is strange?

[the_very_best]

But I'm fluent in the hypothetical scientist's dialect of English, too, says the bar.

"She's being very forthcoming about what she can do under what conditions, why does it matter so much how that lines up with your previous concepts?" wonders the girl.

[unblinkered]

He stares at the napkin. That's. Basically sort of mind-reading.

"Right. Previous concepts. So..."- he puts his hands to his head- "You know, effectively, the definition of, and enough technical knowledge to synthesize rather than make a nonfunctional replica of, any medium-sized object anyone who speaks any language or dialect has a word for?"

That is... there are frightening implications, here.

[the_very_best]

Nonmagical objects, clarifies the bar. And there is some fuzz around the borders of constructed langauges and codes, some of which give me some trouble, and of course if you refer to something strictly fictional which cannot be made to work without magic I can't necessarily figure out how to make it for you.

[unblinkered]

"Well. Okay. That's... that's terrifyingly powerful. But... other limits, I assume if I asked for 'a piece of paper containing a detailed description of your boss or bosses and their motives', that wouldn't work- nor would it for any other oracular sort of thing?"

Because that would be too easy.

[the_very_best]

It wouldn't work because they have never published such a thing. I am unable to author the piece for you myself.

"Ooh, but you can do arbitrary books that have been published?"

Of course.

"Are those borrowable? Are you a library?"

I am a bar, but I can loan you books.

[unblinkered]

Books?

Max likes books. Books have a habit of monopolizing his attention.

"Books! Books- arbitrary- are we restricted to books that have been published in our universes? Could we order, for instance, published texts from other worlds describing how to build advanced technology?"

[the_very_best]

I can provide books from any universe as long as you either specify which you want or elect to accept my recommendations.

"What about ones that are out of print - like, really old books?"

Nothing is out of print here.

[unblinkered]

The Library of Alexandria. And the Library of Allegedly Infinite Alternate Universe Alexandrias. And the Library Of Alternate Universe Future Technology That Can Make Him Very Very Rich. Nothing is out of print here.

Max's frustration and suspicion evaporates, and his jaw hangs open. This is probably what a religious experience is like, he thinks.

[the_very_best]

The girl laughs at him and names a book that she would like to borrow. The bar gives it to her, and she takes it and goes to sit by the fireplace. She releases a Pokémon to sit on her lap and be petted while she reads.