this state of affairs is incorrect

[unblinkered]

Brenda's is closed. Brenda's is never closed. Not during its usual hours, not at 5am. Except on national holidays, or during severe weather, neither of which is present today. There's no notice on the door, just the Open sign flipped around to Closed. This state of affairs is incorrect.

There was no indication that the coffee shop was in financial trouble. Max knew as much from eavesdropping on the teens working in the back. The manager didn't come out much, but she never seemed alarmed or upset- always a little smug, if anything. Max wasn't sure if her name was Brenda, or if that was just the chain- she was always Ma'am to the staff. Her employees-only room down the hall, near the bathrooms- usually dead quiet. All day long, at least when Max was there. Enough activity- footsteps, occasional laughter- to tell she was there, but nothing that indicated any trouble for the store.
An emergency, then. She'd been called away on some urgent business, and... told the kids not to come into work? It wasn't as if she did much managing- could she not trust her staff to do their job unsupervised, despite more or less doing so day in and day out? And...
And no, she couldn't have gone somewhere. Her car, that Volkswagen beetle was there. It was definitely hers, she left to go get lunch every day at 1:00. No other cars parked nearby, that he could see. So, unless she'd gone on foot to something extremely urgent, she was still in the building.
Max knocks. There's no answer.
Max goes around behind the building and takes the key from under the dumpster, where a less than cautious morning-shift barista had been fool enough to retrieve it while someone like Max could have been watching. He opens the door and goes inside, because they don't have cameras and he's a regular- they wouldn't charge him with breaking and entering, he's sure, even if they did find out.

People who aren't Max might have shrugged and gone to a different coffee shop. People who are Max are instead inclined to find out what it is that disturbed their nice, orderly little universe and demand it account for itself. 

It's dark and no one is there. Max looks around for anything out of place, and finds that there is exactly one thing out of place. The manager's door is open. This is considerably more unusual than the related fact, which is that the manager isn't there. Max has seen how careful she is to lock that door before going anywhere.
He goes inside. Privacy is not something Max has a lot of regard for- more something he resents, to some extent. And the room is clearly the sort of thing someone might want to keep private. 

There are bookshelves, and there is a desk, and there are chalkboards, and they are all covered in paper. As is the floor. The paper is covered in smears. Some huge collection of notes, or documents, or something, all smudged into illegibility. Written in pencil, erased by a particularly smeary eraser. Most of the shapes of the smears suggest diagrams and math more than they do writing. Max inspects all of it, searching for clues. Nothing is legible, except for a few notes posted by the door.
The other door. Not the one leading in. A door with scorch marks and dents. A door set into the wall, where according to the geometry of the building, it ought to open into the alleyway, despite no such door being present. The legible notes, written in ink and taped to the wall, read "I HAVE TO GO", "DO NOT OPEN" and "SOMEONE PLEASE BLOCK THIS OFF" and "DON'T LET HER IN" and "YOUR NAME IS PRECIOUS", scribbled in hasty capital letters.

Max wonders what is behind the door. He's unnerved somewhat by the surrounding evidence of the manager having some sort of psychotic break, but his thoughts have not had sufficient time to settle into questions before opening the door. He is still in the information-gathering stage, and there can clearly be nothing behind the door but additional information to gather. The question of whether to open the mysterious door in the mysterious place fails to even cross his mind. 
He steps into a dark room.

Which abruptly stops being a dark room, and starts being a brightly-lit forest. Max's hand, halfway through reaching for the light switch, falls to his side.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"I don't know if I have DNA," she says. "I mostly study sorcery and more practical-level things like where there's quicksand and where there's hostile fairies and where there's fruit. And I will only let you read my books if you are not going to deface them."

[unblinkered]

He breathes. DNA, probably not the most important right now. This girl does not have access to the deep secrets of the universe- or if she does, she doesn't want him to know. Books...

"No, right, hypothetically, I meant, I wouldn't scratch at your books. Unless- well, no, they probably wouldn't have one of those publisher pages in the front with all the legalese and numbers no one cares about. No fairy ISBN."

He pauses. He needs to figure out... where he can find the most information. This leaflet is visibly confused, possibly annoyed by his questions. Max needs to find someone better-equipped to expedite his making-sense-of-the-world agenda. And who is less likely to be the person who kidnapped the Brenda's manager and mind-controlled her into erasing all her notes.

Questions, right now, need to focus on navigating fairy society and finding someone with the appropriate spirit of scientific inquiry, or at least the appropriate spirit of enjoying listening to someone ask lots of stupid questions.

"So... okay, other people who could be responsible for the effect. You said- nobody's designed a spell in living memory, so they wouldn't be easily found. Where... this is all forest, out here, but are there cities? Places with lots of fairies in the same place?"

[imeanforever]

"The assemblies of ones who accumulate plentiful vassals. The Queen's court, the family halls of the breeding kinds with their long parentage chains, some others who've managed it other ways. I haven't had cause to go far from my tree yet, it's not very close to any such concentrations of fairies, and I'm neither master nor vassal, save for the Queen, so I live in a thinly populated forest. Did I say something that sounded like no one having designed any spells? Sorcerers design spells; I could design spells, if only simple ones."

[unblinkered]

"Wh- yeah, you said, uh, something that sounded like... if any magic exists that was designed... something... you- you definitely said something like that."

Here it is. The first contradiction. He's starting to make a dent in her ruse, little by little. He'd like to see her try to wiggle out of this one.

[imeanforever]

"No one designed how to design spells," she explains. "That seems to have been stable. But a lot of spells must be purpose-built or at least customized per occasion. If I wanted to - oh - set that little ivy there on fire," she gestures as she flies at a sprig of new ivy, "I'd need to land near it and have a look at just how big and how dry it is and adjust the spell to match. Making a new spell is more or less like that on another scale, but I can't decide that from now on magic in general is going to work by - singing while standing on one's head."

[unblinkered]

Oh. Perfectly reasonable miscommunication. Right. Okay. Suspicious.

He wants to ask if she has books on designing magic at her house. But, of course, if she wants him there for nefarious purposes, on false pretenses... she'd say yes. So... if she wants to encourage him to come by any means necessary, he needs to flip the script and...

Wait, no. He's going there anyway because he doesn't have anything better to do. He'll just... "And do your books go into how to build new spells like that? What... sorts of "magical" things about this world seem like they could be powerful complicated spells within that system, and which things appear to stand on their own?"

[imeanforever]

"I have books like that, yes, but at a relatively elementary level... I don't know nearly enough to guess if it would be possible to make new fairy kinds by magic with our native sorts of magical properties intact. I imagine the effects on geographical areas, such as this forest not having a night or the Forever Snows always snowing could be accomplished by spell but I am satisfied enough with the forest's layout to have chosen other priorities than remodeling it. I haven't the first idea about how speaking could have been done by spell - it would have had to be done by somebody, and if they couldn't speak I'm not sure how they'd conceptualize the magic - but that doesn't seem like a fundamental limitation of the system, per se."

[unblinkered]

"That's reassuring. That's... honestly reassuring, to know that there's a solid system in place and its underlying mechanics could conceivably account for most of this. There's a line of inquiry, there. I'll want to read those books... and possibly find a way to buy books that go into the underlying mechanics and metaphysics, if those exist."

There's still the serious possibility that there is no house and no books, but instead some gate or nasty magic thing that the manager had been trying to warn people about. Ideally, he'll encounter another fairy before they reach their destination, and the opportunity will arise to confront her about the messages in Brenda's. But... he should know what she wants him to think about other fairies, first.

"You mentioned earlier, that other fairies aren't as harmless as you- something about being a disposable toy? What... how are most fairies likely to treat a mortal like me?"

[imeanforever]

"You cannot stay here long enough to read all my books unless you want me to feed you - you'd starve - and frankly I'm not sure I want to feed you; I'd feel even more responsible for you than I already do. And it'd depend on the fairy - kind and individual both - but nearly every fairy you meet will want to get you to eat something or tell them your name. Even if they don't want you, they can pass you on to someone who does. Fairies that are smaller than I am and don't have claws or sharp teeth, in this region, as a general rule of thumb that I do not guarantee overall, will not physically attack you but might know sorcery - other fairies vary too much in their violent inclinations or lack thereof for me to offer a good heuristic. Even if you eventually get hungry and talk me into giving you food in spite of the fact that I'd then feel particularly obliged to look after you, I don't plan to, say, order you to dance without rest until you expire or something, but the list of things that someone might find amusing to use you for is long and unpleasant."

[unblinkered]

"I don't intend to just go back- I'm- I can't ignore all of this, just because it's not safe. Why... where do you get your books from? Who sells them, what do they cost, can I buy my own? Can I buy food, get someone to give up their claim? What are my options for living here?"

[imeanforever]

"If you stay here long enough you will wind up someone's vassal or dead, and I have not invited you to be my indefinite houseguest so most of those possibilities are not pretty - I can make a gate to the mortal world that will stay put for you, maybe? Then would you at least go home for meals? I'm not sure how long it will take. I'd need to get books - there's a library in the glen I have borrowing privileges with and when I want to own a copy of a book I take a library copy to the scribes up in the cliff and do their foraging and chores for them for a few days. Or copy it myself, occasionally, I make my own paper - you couldn't get to the glen or the cliffs without flying. And - buying food is economic, not, not, claim-invalidating. It means you aren't stealing; it doesn't mean you didn't accept food from whoever sold it to you. It's the accepting, not the owning. You can basically live here only if there's a gate that will let you go home and eat - apples and whatever else - on a routine basis, or you haul in enough food to last you the rest of your natural life and no one ever sneaks a candied dewdrop in with it, or you become some fairy's vassal and they bother to hand-feed you as often as you need."

[unblinkered]

Hm. So she can make the gate herself? That's... if she could do that already, then why would she need him to...?

Max hears rushing water up ahead. It's probably wise to ask more about gates before they arrive at whatever place is past the river.

"I'm not... you said you could make a gate? Just... that's something you're ordinarily capable of? You don't need me to help you with that?"

Her plan doesn't make sense, if that's the case. Why lie to him, why try to get him out of here? Besides genuinely caring for his safety, but a false negative on malice is more dangerous than a false negative on benevolence. Why would the Brenda's manager write warnings against the...

Oh.

"Wait. Scratch the gate thing. More urgent question. Can fairies be made vassals to- they can, you said- mortal with mortal food- did you mean- can mortals vassal fairies?"

[imeanforever]

"...Why would I need your help? You aren't even a sorcerer. And yes, you can, if you feed us or get our names. Don't try it, please."

[unblinkered]

There is a new, scarier thing to worry about. Promise is probably not secretly evil, her actions and words being consistently inconsistent with the nefarious plan as initially outlined.

"Right, of course you wouldn't. A fairy wouldn't need someone's help to enter the mortal world, right? I..."

He hesitates for moment, wondering if Promise is in fact hostile and trying to trick him into revealing that he knows... before realizing that she'd have no reason not to simply call him on it.

"Until just now", he confesses, "I've been suspecting you of being responsible for creating the gate that brought me here, and of kidnapping someone through it. But that explanation doesn't make sense anymore, and I think that, yes, I do need to get back as soon as possible, because of the alternate explanation for what happened."

[imeanforever]

"I don't even know how to make a gate yet. I'm going to have to learn. I'm afraid that if you came through an unstable gate, and you probably did, the kidnapped someone could be anywhere - I can scry on them if that's a higher priority than figuring out gates, but that doesn't guarantee they're within traveling distance or retrievable if they are."

[unblinkered]

"I'm not... sure the person was kidnapped, actually. The door I went through to get here had notes on it- saying to keep out, to bar the door, and to not let "her" in. What I thought was that you were the "her" on the other side of the door, and that you were planning to get into our world somehow by using me to open a passage."

"What I now suspect is that the kidnapping went the other way- that a mortal used an unstable gate to kidnap a fairy from your world, and... how much do you know about the mortal world? Do you know why this could be extremely dangerous?"

[imeanforever]

"The mortal world has... mortals in it. And apples, apparently. I've read books about it but it's not clear how much to trust them sometimes. I suppose a mortal with a fairy vassal could then - feed the fairy lots of mortal names, since you give those out like candied dewdrops, and command those mortals at one remove?"

[unblinkered]

"That's the worst-case scenario, yes. It's not just easy to get someone to give you their name- we have these things called phone books, see. They're like... we have phones, devices that allow people to speak to anyone at a distance, but each person's phone has a different number attached to it, and you need to know the number to call them. So some people, they use public records to... compile enormous lists of people's phone-numbers alongside their names, so that anyone who wants to contact someone can look up their phone-number in the list. Not only is it trivially easy to find names, it's trivially easy to contact the people those names belong to and give them orders. Becoming Queen of the mortal world, for someone with a vassaled fairy and a telephone, could be less than an afternoon's work."

He stares off into space and shakes his head. "The phone book... is a powerful artifact that grants the wielder absolute control over the human race. The phone book."

This is the state of affairs concerning the universe, apparently. He shakes his head in disbelief some more.

"How long did you say it would take to make a gate?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, I don't know, exactly, since I don't currently know how and haven't marked it on my schedule as a project. More than days, probably less than months."

[unblinkered]

"...that's going to be a long time to go without eating anything, and an impossible time to go without drinking- is water typically safe to drink?"

It's also a long time to go with a potential world domination attempt in progress, or at least a very-nasty-behavior-requiring-magical-coercion attempt in progress. The fairy, though, is more likely to be concerned with his immediate well being than...

It's actually weird that fairies haven't already tried to take over the world on their own, come to think of it. It'd be insulting if none of them cared enough to try.

[imeanforever]

"Water's safe if that's all it is. I know where to get you safe water."

[unblinkered]

"Speaking of water..."

They've reached the river.

"I don't... rivers come from... I'm not even going to start questioning the geology of this pl- wait, if it just goes on forever, how can there be a consistent water cycle? How does it regulate the... are ecosystems even stable over long time periods here?"

Max doesn't necessarily care, and suspects the answer is going to be some variation on "it's magic", but that's not reason to not ask the question. Not asking a question is like... not thinking a thought.

[imeanforever]

"Don't drink the river water," she recommends. "This particular river comes from a spring up on a mountain that way, and the spring would be safe to drink from, but between here and there it picks up enough detritus that it's not completely pure. I have safe water at home."

[unblinkered]

"Do people here get possessive about their river detritus? Random strangers in the habit of giving mortals orders just to check if they've accidentally swallowed some of their trash? Or... do fairies have a sense for when someone becomes vassaled to them?"

He walks down the river bank, looking for a good place to cross. She'll probably point it out when he reaches it.

[imeanforever]

"We have that sense about names but not about the food thing, but mortals are uncommon and interesting enough that someone might well test orders on you to see if they've got an incidental claim like that. Especially if you don't look taken, or only taken by a very new leaflet with no vassals of her own to bring to bear." She points out a shallow swath of river with tall rocks. "Can you wade that?"