We meet back up to exchange notes, and certain things become clear.

Someone else, anyone else, might not have first asked about the facial expressions. The laughter, the smiles, every act of emotional display from the people around us, the people we’d been interacting with? They’d all seemed off, wrong, to me, and I couldn’t figure out why. I still can’t express why to either of my companions, but I don’t need to. Amber doesn’t need me to; she saw the same thing, and she can put it into words just fine.

“I think,” and she’s talking to me, because we both know that Zidanya’s already seen the same thing; the Druid’s not even pretending to pay attention, “that there are a thousand ways we show emotion. A smile changes your bearing, your eyes, the lines of your jaw, your shoulders and back.”

I try it out, looking over at her and trying to pay attention to what my body does as I smile. “I’ll take your word for it,” I say diplomatically since, right, I’m already smiling and I can’t really test it.

“These… they simply smile. Nothing else.”

“Not even proper imprints, these.” Zidanya cuts in with something between a scowl and a sneer. “Each and every soul at my challenge, I tell you true, was an imprint full and fine; these are automata, with but a simple script and no unifying animative impetus. Without the framework, how could they do other than merely smile, when they smile?”

“Also, what’s the deal with the short ones?” They both look over at me in silence. “What? Did I say something taboo?”

“How are you not -”

“Of course you aren’t -”

Zidanya and Amber both start talking at the same time, and then both stop simultaneously. “You’ve more experience.”

“Ye’ve the more recent by how long?”

“Fair.” Amber nods, smiling, and turns to me. “The gamahad are -”

“- Gamahad? Are they not Nayyosa?”

“The gamahad,” Amber says firmly, sparing a glare for Zidanya, “who once were called the Nayyosa after the name of the foremost of their tribes but of whom it is no more correct to say they are Nayyosa than it is to call all humans Hytherian or Ionderai, are … what they are.” She pauses for a moment, shrugging. “In truth, I am not sure if the three peoples of the Nayyo are three wholly different ilk of folk, but the gamahad are counted among the kindred, while the other two are counted among the kith. The gotz and the vavoc, who are shorter still than the gamahad; the gotz tend to the fat and hairless, while the vavoc...” She looks over at Zidanya again. “Do you know how the vavoc look? I’ve never seen one, nor heard of one described.”

“A foot and a half of muscle and fur, the one I knew ere I died; what news of them the surface has seen since, I’ve no knowledge of. Like unto a mole, and horrifying to behold.”

I stare at both of them. “Wait, you mean that guy wasn’t just… I mean, I thought he had some sort of growth factor disorder, we don’t, the Fleet doesn’t generally get them, but obviously anyone can apply and we don’t discriminate, that’s normal for him? I mean, there are people that’s normal for outside the Temple?”

There’s a pause, a long one. “Yes?” Amber eventually ventures a hesitant word, and I drop my head into my hands. “What other thing were you envisioning, Adam?”

“Well, I mean. I thought that the whole variant humanoid and sophont non-humans thing was just the Temple being funny. That’s… this is…” I blink, and realize I’m hyperventilating.

“Unburden yourself, Magelord, before the cork should split.”

“This is so cool!” I almost squeal the words, grinning ear to ear. “Stars in the deep, this is so cool!”

“Adam?”

Amber sounds extremely dubious and a little worried. I don’t care. “Listen. The Wayfarers forge and anchor a fresh path on average every twenty years. They’ve been doing that for almost a thousand years. Fifty systems, and that’s just the Wayfarers! Known space is hundreds and hundreds of systems, and we’ve never seen even a hint of sophont life other than humanity in our teeming masses, and now we’ve got dwarves and horrifying mole people?”

“Hold that thought.” Amber’s hands come down onto my shoulders, and she spins me around to face her. “That word for the gamahad, for any of the Nayyo, we don’t use. Understand?”

“What? I…” I blink at her for a few seconds. My brain feels like it’s auto-cycling or like it’s in a metaphorical free-fall for a little bit, and then suddenly I can think again. “Wow, mania wave. I usually don’t get them that hurt. Sorry, what were you saying?”

“That word. The word you use for the gamahad, which started with a ‘d’. It’s considered extremely offensive to use for any of the Nayyo. You cannot use it to describe them, especially not so casually.”

“Um.” I’m flushed, not just with the afterwave of mania but also with embarrassment and a little bit of shame, for all that I had no real way of knowing that ahead of time. “Can I ask why, or is that a taboo thing?”

“It implies them, a people in their own right with a lineage unrelated to that of the other ilks of kith since before any record we have or have found, to be…”

She’s looking for a word, but I think I already know what she means. “Calling them that is like saying they’re just some variety of assistive humans? Which seems like it would be a pretty insulting thing, if they’re really not.” I’m feeling the stunned feeling again. “Non-human sophonts. Stars. Were Mathilda and Johannes a… an ilk, you said? Were they an ilk that exists outside the Temple?”

“Yes, but perhaps we should be focusing on the problem in front of us?” Amber’s grinning at me, and I grin back despite my embarrassment.

“Okay. So we’ve got these gamahad and these … gotz?” Amber nods at me. “Gamahad and gotz and humans, and it’s like a caricature of a town square. Everyone’s friendly enough, because they think we’re either nobles or wealthy merchants, since those are the only people who use the five internal teleportation entry points.”

“Not royal, for any who know aught of class or rank know that the royals cleave to their own and would use their own in the palace, nor common, for those use the seven outside the city.”

I nod at Zidanya. “Seven, five, and one. Three primes, if you count one as prime, which technically it isn’t, and if you add them all up you get thirteen, and that’s prime. That’s probably not a coincidence, since nothing in one of these scenarios should be a coincidence.” I pause. “Oh! What did you two find? I’ve been doing too much talking.”

“Mmm.” Zidanya smiles, or maybe smirks. “Dame Ashborn?”

“I believe,” Amber says slowly, “that the building across the way is intended to represent an administrative center and courthouse. There were no fortuitous encounters with any folk, though I was able to confirm that there are gotz dwelling within this city, and sheda as well. You know them, Zidanya, as Nimarai; six feet or more, pale as the clouds, with an aversion to rosewoods and flowers. They are deeply attuned to the arcane flows of the world, and to how those touch upon nature.

“I was not in there long before it felt as though the flow of mana itself were pushing me out. The people, the insides of the building, they were… without significance. But I did find this.”

It’s a single sheet of paper, a broadside of some sort with a stylized person stepping around a corner. “If you observe it, report it?”

“It bore enough significant to draw the eye, and once I took it in hand, the push towards the outside from the ambient mana began. It’s as though…”

“As if twere the only thing of note there. As if a full building’s front was a story whose only message is this one wee sheet of paper.” Zidanya frowns. “Belike it’s even true. Wouldn’t be proper to drag us astray; to lead, mayhap, and certain-sure if we stray on our own there’s naught to stop us, but not to drag.”

“Always possible we’re meant to come back.” I stretch, looking around. “So does this thing mean anything to either of you?”

“This man,” Amber says, pointing to the guy on the sheet, “is suspicious. See how he slinks around the corner? See how his body language is shifty, and his silhouette suggests likewise?”

“Honestly, no,” I respond with unconscious and immediate honesty, staring at it. “But I’ll take your word for it. So this is … an exhortation that if you see someone or something suspicious, you’re supposed to report it? To whom?”

“To the authorities, and it must be self-evident to whom that means.” Amber is frowning, I’m frowning, and Zidanya isn’t paying any attention to us. “So everyone passes information to these authorities on the regular, or they would know not how.”

“Which means the society is paranoid. Rightly or wrongly so, you can’t have that kind of behavior without paranoia, and wouldn’t this just be theater? I mean, how actually competent do we expect a random person to be at figuring out whether someone is … suspected to be behaving in an antisocial manner?” I look over at Zidanya again. “Spirit calling Zidanya. I mean. Voidshit.”

I sit down on the ground, hard, and just breathe for a second as it hits me yet again how far I am from anywhere I used to call home, hits me like a hammer out of nowhere. I’d told Amber when I’d first met her that I was going to fall completely apart when my forward momentum was expended, and that turned out to be mostly true, and a few solid meals and a night of sleep did a decent job of getting my feet back under me again. A decent job; it wasn’t some sort of panacea, and I’m not entirely okay, and that’s okay.

And that’s okay, I remind myself, and then I’m looking up into Amber’s worried face and Zidanya’s almost curious expression. “Sorry about that.” I reach a hand up, and Amber clasps my wrist and gives me a boost; sure, I could have gotten up on my own, but Amber’s hand is right there, and I use the boost as an excuse to step in closer to her and kiss her. “Thank you.”

“Magelord.” Zidanya inclines her head to me. “You were about, I should think, to ask what I found in my travels, as you and Amber shared for yours.” I nod, and she smiles a little, a weird, tight smile that doesn’t touch the rest of her face. “I’d show you if I could, but alas. Settle yourselves now upon a bench; I’ve a tale for you, and it begins with a ladder now gone.”