Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham at all that going to some other place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I don't know about whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation, because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."

Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham at all that going to some other place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I haven't directly observed whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation, because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."

Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham at all that going to some other place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I haven't directly observed whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus, and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation; because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."

Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham that going to some place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I haven't directly observed whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus, and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation; because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."

Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham that going to some place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I haven't directly observed whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus, and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation; because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is; at least assuming that such any such entity as Asmodeus, or gods in general, exist.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."

Until this person spoke, it had not occurred to Keltham that going to some place might mean that he could not, from that place, go to other places; and the fact that somebody thinks he might need to be reassured about that is not reassuring.  It brings a lot of other things into question; too many things, in fact.

"Let me put it this way.  From my perspective, what you said implied a lot of facts entirely new to me, like, implicitly, it might not be good to trust somebody who said I'd be better resourced in Cheliax, unless they added 'you have my word', and then, you think, I ought to trust that.  You expect me to worry that if I go to Ostenso, I might not be able to get passage back; but you don't expect me to worry that tickets would be too expensive, that I couldn't find other work, or that Cheliax's equivalent of Governance wouldn't order everyone who sells transportation to not sell me a ticket.  There's this particular implied range of attempted defections against a prospective business partner, which you think I should worry about, and which you're trying to reassure me about, but that range itself is less - the word that translates in my language as 'Lawful' - compared to my world.  And right now I have not observed enough facts about this world to establish basic causal entanglement between this reality and my mind; when I wonder whether your statements are true, I have to wonder whether any place called Cheliax exists, not whether you're saying something false about Cheliax.  To the extent I have to worry about deception like that, I also have to worry that you would still be planning to defect even if you said you gave your word, because I haven't observed whatever system of incentives here makes people trustworthy when they give their words."

"My uncertainty is so wide, in fact, that I haven't thought of anything I can pragmatically do about it.  I mean, I could try to talk to the giant six-legged things inside the bubble and ask them if they're actually demons bent on destroying the world, but that doesn't actually seem smart because it's potentially dangerous and a narrow shot inside a very wide space.  So yes, fine, let's go to Ostenso, under the understanding that I am a prospective business partner trying to cooperate with Asmodeus, and your general treatment of me reflects on his reputation for reciprocating attempted cooperation; because the very smart very Lawful entity should be an anchor of sanity and good coordination if anything is; at least assuming that such any such entity as Asmodeus, or gods in general, exist.  And then I request a translation spell and a library visit, so I can read a lot of random pages in random books and start to infer back the world those pages were written in."