Applebee's Grill and Bar was a restaurant. The decor was brash and loud, reminding Jarv more of a Bon'Melsomme gleehouse than a family dining establishment. Music played in the background, of some variety, the product of a crafted artifact he couldn't see but was probably a distant relation of the door chime they'd installed at the base.

The three of them had arrived mid-afternoon, and the space wasn't crowded. A handful people sat at the bar area, and a few families sat at tables closer to the glass walls at the front of the establishment, but most of the tables and booths were free.

They took up a booth near the back, alone and without anyone nearby.

"Is it safe to plan in here?" Eind asked, looking around.

There was no one in earshot, but people could come and go, and they didn't know how crowded it might get.

Jarv was about to reply, but Indrie respond first.

"As far as we can tell nobody in this realm suspects our presence. We have a grace period for now. We should enjoy it while it lasts."

Jarv added his initial thought. "And if anyone else in this city speaks Drekalchan, we've got bigger problems."

Indrie nodded at the point.

Jarv brought out his journal and opened at the start of what was a 20-page stretch dedicated to the materials and construction of an Ogrigg Gate.

Eind brought out his own books, two hard-backed printed volumes, titled Embedding and Blending in the Age of Reason and Principles of New Materials, as well as a shorter booklet that looked to be covered in schematic diagrams.

"I'm comfortable covering the ritual end of things," Jarv said, turning his journal to a page that featured several diagrams, not all of which were circles. "We'll need some platinum wire and jeweler's tools, maybe some geometer's equipment, but beyond that I can improvise the rest with spit and chalk. All I really need is time and space to work. Some of these diagrams can be compressed. I think I'll be able to fit the full array into the ritual room back at the base."

Indire jerked her head, catching Jarv's attention, and indicated a waiter who was approaching their table. Jarv closed his notebook and leaned back, forcing a smile.

They switched to the local language to order, and waited until the waiter had gone before leaning forward and resuming the conversation.

"The spiritual components are another matter," Jarv said, looking at Indrie and then Eind. "We need Weight, Float, and Invitation. Unless we've got a way to generate a portable draurferric field, we'll have to do the extractions at the base, and I don't know where we can get any of them."

Eind broke in, whispering despite the fact that there was nobody near them.

"The field at the base is created by a storm-essence generator about the size of a drum keg. It's portable, but it takes several hours to saturate a space well enough for ritual work."

"So we aren't necessarily tied to the base, but we won't be able to just break in somewhere for a quick tokenization," Jarv said, catching his point.

"We have a stockpile of around seven and a half thousand dollars in local currency," Indrie contributed.

"Is that a lot?" Jarv asked.

"No. But it might be enough to buy what we need, depending on how we can source those spiritual items."

"For Weight, I was thinking an anchor," Jarv said, opening his journal to a list surrounded by small doodles. "We'd need something well seasoned, but I don't think it necessarily has to be expensive. The city is a port, and I've seen ships on the inland sea here, so presumably they have anchors. If we can get something that's seen twenty or more years of service I think I can make it work."

"What about the rest? Float, Invitation..."

"I don't know. Float could come from an old stormkite, or a cloudelasac-"

"Neither exist here," Indrie said.

Jarv scratched his head. "Then I'm not sure. I don't have any other ideas for the rest. I need to see more of what they have here."

"It would make things easier if they could source the tokens you need on Dron'alon and send them through Thunder Bay," Indrie said.

Jarv gestured at her to concede the point, but then disagreed. "It might work for Float, but Weight will be a pain to transport, and Invitation needs to be taken from the local realm."

The waiter returned with a tray of their drinks and they fell silent as he distributed them.

Jarv took a sip of tea then caught the waiter's attention.

"Excuse me," he said, forcing his gruff voice into its politest setting.

The waiter turned his attention on Jarv wearing an open expression.

"Can you think of anything that floats?"

"Uh. I'm sorry. What do you mean?"

"What floats around here?"

Indrie glanced at the waiter with a look of mild panic on her face.

"We're playing a game," she explained.

"Yeah, we have to list things that float in the air. Like feathers, but bigger, and floatier."

"Uh..." The waiter spent a moment looking like he was trying to figure out a way to get away from the table, but after a few second he seemed to change his mind and his expression turned pensive. "Well, uhh, a feather, a kite, a parachute."

Indrie mouthed the word parachute at Jarv. He thought for a second then shook his head.

"Hot air balloon. Oh, blimp! Um."

"What's a blimp?" Jarv asked.

"You know, like a balloon they fly over football games. I think they have one over Wrigley's Field this week. Look around when you get out, you might see it." He was quiet for a few seconds then said, "That's all I've got."

"Thank you," Indrie said.

The waiter left their table smiling.

"Blimp is a ridiculous word," Eind whispered. "Blimp. Blimp."

"Blimp," Indrie repeated, testing the word out.

"Blimp," Jarv said, then scribbled the word down in the journal. "It's something we can look into."

"What about the components of the physical machine itself?" Indrie asked. She turned to Eind. "Eind, can you give us a rundown on what we need?"

Eind was drinking from a milkshake, and it took him a second before he was able to speak.

"Yes. The mechanics. The physical base of the machine is fairly simple. We need a glass sphere capable of withstanding a pocket void, copper piping that can go around the sphere, several liters of frost oil, and a lead bearing to act as the gate seed. Thunder Bay will be sending us the true state condenser, as it's too complex to manufacture locally."

"I don't think any of that will be simple," Indrie said.

"Does the container absolutely have to be a sphere?" Jarv asked.

"Not technically. The gate will be limited to the size of the vessel, and a smaller volume is easier to get into a true state. A sphere is the best choice."

"But technically we could do it with a wine bottle and still fulfil the mission of establishing a gate," Jarv said.

"That would not be a useful gate," Indrie said.

Jarv didn't say it, but creating a useful gate wasn't as important to him as creating any gate. His continued existence was contingent on completing his given orders, technically or otherwise.

The waiter returned carrying a platter of small trays, and started distributing them around the table.

"We've got chicken quesadillas," he said, passing one of the red plastic trays to Indrie, "And another quesadillas. All chicken quesadillas."

All three of them took their trays. After the waiter left, they each spent a long minute staring down at the food.

"How do we think things are going?" Jarv asked, looking up at the other two. "In general. With the infiltration. With the mission."

"Bad," Indrie said.

"Quite bad," Eind said.

The quesadillas were a kind of flatbread, wrapped around chicken and cheese, and spiced with a sharp fruit that burned the inside of the mouth. Indrie, who had identified them on the menu, was very taken with them, but Eind and Jarv were ambivalent.

They finished the meal and Eind spent some time calculating volumes and true state ratios for vessels of various sizes and materials from tables in his books, while Jarv and Indrie talked about logistics and possible leads for the soul tokens they needed.

Indrie plied the waiter with casual questions when he came to collect their trays, giving the impression they were ordinary native visitors to the city.

After about an hour, the restaurant began to fill up. Eind had paid for their meal, and they left the building through a stream of people filtering in from the street.

They turned north as they got outsude, looking for the blimp, but didn't catch sight of it until they left in search of the Tourist Information Center. It appeared in the distance, hanging between two rows of the towering buildings like a silver cloud.

Sunlight glinted on the metallic elipse, the flash of a logo or company name visible on the side for a moment, then obscured by brightness. It drifted lazily, barely even moving with the wind.

"Well, it's certainly floating," Eind said.

"We'd need to know more about it. Its route, its defenses, where it makes port," Jarv said.

"I can probably ask around without raising suspicions," Indrie said.

The three of them stared at the shining ovoid as it drifted in the distinct.

"Blimp," Eind whispered to himself. "Blimp. Blimp. Blimp."