"Oh, another traveller!" Shen Yuan says brightly. "I actually lived in two worlds before this one, one with magic and one without. And a good thing too, I think -- I expect I would have had a much harder time adjusting to this world, if my second life hadn't prepared me so well for the worst." But that's enough of that brooding.

"Who is the Scholar?" he asks next. "Are the patrons in your world like gods, perhaps? I suppose you've already picked apart all the differences between your world's set, and this one's." And he smiles invitingly. Go on Nara'a, tell him all about it!