Here are some excerpts from my correspondence with Morpheus about the Travel Agency universe. Quotes from my own emails are preceded with TS:, quotes from him are preceded with M:.

Note that this is not an official FAQ or story bible or set of “rules” for the universe. It’s just a set of quotes from emails.

There are minor spoilers for various Travel Agency stories, including both of the ones I've written and some of Morpheus'.

TS:

I’ve just been re-reading some of the Travel Agency stories, which are some of your better stories in my opinion — not as good as some of your best recent work, but above average for your oeuvre as a whole. Have you any intention of writing further stories in that setting eventually? If not, would you object to other people writing stories in it?

M:

I originally had several more stories planned out in that universe though got distracted with several other projects and ended up losing inspiration. It’s funny that you mentioned this universe because I have recently been thinking about possibly going back and writing another, though I have so much on my plate right now that it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. If other people wish to use this universe they are welcome to do so.

TS:

I think I might finally be ready to start writing this story. In the last day or two some details of the plot have fleshed out better in my mind. I wanted to run the general plot outline by you before I start, to make sure I’m not contradicting anything you’ve got planned for future stories.

My first idea is to set the story in another region of the world, vaguely Arabian-Nights-esque, to avoid accidentally contradicting things stated about the region where your four stories are set. Perhaps the Gray One has just expanded his operations into this region.

[Here I gave him a plot outline of “Travel Agency: Scouts”.]

Does anything in that outline contradict anything you’ve established about the setting, or have planned for a future story? Do you envision elves, dwarves, pixies, giants, etc. being ubiquitous throughout the world, or might they be limited to certain regions (dwarves maybe living only in areas with lots of mineral resources, for instance, and elves in forested areas)? Is healing magic ubiquitous enough that a spy in a king’s service should be able to get his legs/spine fixed unless maybe he’s in disgrace with his employer and can’t afford the wizard’s fee?

M:

That sounds like quite a workable idea. My main ideas were focused around a more western fantasy world, but there is absolutely no reason why there can’t be other regions such as the Arabian Knights one that you describe. Healing magic is around, but could very well be difficult to get for a common man who may not know how to contact the appropriate magic user or have the means of paying.

I had a few more ideas for this universe but never got around to writing them for various reasons. Who knows, you just might inspire me to revisit and some of the ideas that have been floating around for awhile.

TS:

Would she [Keisha/Tariq in “Scouts”] automatically swap back with the person in her body when the time limit elapses, no matter where she is? In the earlier stories, the visitors from our world found themselves back in Mr. G.'s office, surrounded by the chalk circle, although in their borrowed bodies they weren’t in the same place when they returned as when they arrived. I figure that’s because magic works equally well anywhere in the Gray One’s world, but only in certain places in our world, and Mr. G. wants them to be in the center of a relatively high-magic area — where his office is — to make sure the return spell works right. If the shadow government holding facility where Tariq/Keisha is taken is in a low-magic or no-magic area, the return spell won’t work.

M:

The reason I had Mr/Mrs G reverse the spell from the Earth side is as you suggested. There isn’t enough loose magic around to do it easily so more preparation needs to be taken on the Earth side of the exchange. I had planned for a later story where the swap was reversed from the magic land side, but it would take a lot more preparation and magic than normal to do it that way due to a magical leverage issue, such as trying to force enough magic all the way to Earth to counteract the lack of magic on that side.

TS:

[more plot outline of “Scouts”] ...Does that mess up your plans for future stories, having a government agency watching Mr. G. and trying to figure out what he’s doing? How much is it okay for Keisha to tell under pressure? If she tells the plain truth, they probably won’t believe her, not without further evidence that magic is real.

M:

The men in black chasing after Mr/Ms G’s operations is one that I hadn’t considered before but it is a very realistic possibility and something that could add depth to the universe.

M:

I finished reading your draft and don’t see anything in it that will contradict the universe or what I’d originally planned for it. You used Mr/Ms Gray in a more open way than I have in the past but you’ve kept him/her consistent in that he/she is trying to help the clients out. It made for a very interesting take on that universe.

TS:

I’ve been vaguely planning another story in your Travel Agency setting — this one to feature a family vacation, a husband and wife and two children..... [Plot outline of “The Family that Plays Together”]

One element I wanted to ask your advice/permission about was this. In your stories magic is portrayed as getting gradually stronger in our world as the convergence approaches. At the time of your stories, the strongest physical effect Mr G. seems capable of is to levitate a small object. I think by the time of this story (which is probably set 13-15 years after yours, or at least 16 years after the Grey One first set up shop in our world, assuming my viewpoint character’s parents were among Mr. G’s very first customers), it’s noticeably stronger. Maybe Mr. G. can bring over small physical objects from one world to the other — not as large as a human body, or at least not an adult body, but possibly as large as a dwarf or a human child, or at least a pixie. And maybe our viewpoint character and his sister are skeptical about magic when their parents and Mr. G. tell them, and Mr. G does a demonstration — which involves bringing over Maella from “Free Trip”, who has arranged to visit Chad in her own person.

M:

I always had fun playing around in the Travel Agency world and had planned to go back to it but kept getting caught up in other projects. It would be fun seeing another one, especially with a family exchange of that nature.

I think that in the future it won’t be much trouble to bring over something as small as a pixie, though a human child may be much more difficult. However, I’d imagine that the Grey One would have ways of storing up energy for larger effects like that if necessary.

TS:

Possibly, too, the viewpoint character’s parents are Mickey and Eddie from the first “Travel Agency” story, if you don’t mind my using them — but more likely I’d want to create original characters to give me more leeway.

M:

I do think it would probably be best if you used original characters for the family as that would give you a lot more freedom and wouldn’t have you tied down to previously existing continuity and personalites. However, bringing Maella could be a fun little cameo.

TS:

Where do you envision the city where “Travel Agency: Free Trip” takes place being? I have it tentatively located in central California, but I could change that on final draft.

M:

In my Free Trip story, I never really decided which city they were in or where it was located. I intentionally kept that information vague in the story as I often do.

TS:

As of the time of “Free Trip”, the Gray One couldn’t exchange people’s bodies for longer than a month. Could that limit get longer over time, as the worlds grow closer together and the power of magic in our world grows stronger? That might affect this story [a possible sequel to “Scouts”], since the sultanate would want to bring their engineers over for as long as possible.

M:

That sounds like an interesting idea and I’d imagine an engineer might have fun if he thinks about how big a difference he can make in a technology deprived area. However, it might also be frustrating if the laws of physics are subtly different enough that simple things may not work quite the way he thinks they should.

As for exchanging for longer periods of time, in Larger than Life, Mister G arranged for a permanent exchange so it can be done with special preparations.

TS:

Another, vaguer story idea relates to the time some years later when the worlds get close enough to touch, and “travel between them be easy as stepping tween rooms” as Grestick says. I have a notion that maybe people who have visited the other world a lot — Chad, Maella, Tariq, the Kendricks — will be focal points for this merging of worlds. They might find themselves spontaneously swapping bodies with some of their former hosts, and swapping back with no warning, or they might find physical portals between worlds opening up in their vicinity, maybe when they’re thinking about the other world, or when they’re under stress, or by some other trigger. But I reckon you have your own ideas about this merger, and may have stories planned about it that this would could be inconsistent with.

M:

With the merger, I don’t see it causing people to randomly swap bodies, but I had been playing around with an idea for a story where a rival of the Gray One is trying to figure out how he does this and causes a few unexpected switching while experimenting.

TS:

I’ve started working on the second draft of “The Family that Plays Together”, and I’m thinking about the way languages are dealt with. Leslie swaps bodies with Serenikha, who is a recent immigrant from the Naga Kingdom. She’s studied the language of the Dragon Empire, but she’s not fully fluent in it yet.

When Leslie swaps bodies with her, should she have the same knowledge of languages as her host? That is, speaking the majority language of the Naga Kingdom fluently, and the Dragon Empire’s majority language with a strong accent and frequent errors? Or would the Gray One’s spell give her a fluent knowledge of the majority language spoken in the area she’s visiting, but not other languages of his world? I mostly assumed the latter, when writing the first draft, but I’m not sure I was consistent about how I handled it, and I want to fix those inconsistencies on second draft.

M:

That would make sense the way you described the swaps with them gaining each others muscle memory and physical mannerisms. I’d always thought of it as a general translation spell on the vacationers so they’d be able to communicate with just about anyone, but having them just gain the language abilities of the hosts is more logical in a way.

TS:

If I change it that way, it would require more extensive rewrites — if Leslie has only Serenikha’s limited fluency in the local language, she’d have communication difficulties with her family and with just about everyone except for the other naga. But maybe Kinuko foresaw the difficulty, and warned the Gray One about it, and he modified the spell on her so it would give her a boost in language ability over her host?

M:

You may be putting a little too much thought into the situation. It is often good for the writer to understand how everything works, but you don’t necessarily need to bring it to the attention of the reader. I like to leave some of that information in the background unless there’s a reason to bring it up, such as the main character marveling at being able to speak the local tongue.

TS:

I need to figure out how it works to make everything consistent, and whether Leslie is fluent in the local language and whether she can speak the naga kingdom’s language at all are both things that have a significant impact on the plot. Whether Leslie understands why/whether her acclimation spell is different from the one cast on the rest of her family, or whether it is ever explicitly explained to the reader, is less important.

TS:

I’ve a question about dwarves in the Travel Agency universe. Specifically, about their sexual dimorphism. Would humans or elves be able to tell male from female dwarves at a glance, assuming they’re dressed normally? Do some or all dwarf cultures in the Gray One’s world have strongly distinct gender roles, gender presentation, etc. for different sexes?

I’m considering a story where the main character swaps with a female dwarf and doesn’t realize it until she comes to undress at night, or until she needs to pee. She feels something’s wrong but maybe the sex difference is at first lost in the noise.

M:

I imagine that with most dwarves, you can tell the males from the females, but there may be a few dwarf clans where this isn’t as clear.

TS:

E.g., the women’s breasts aren’t very large and they have beards?

M:

Again, I think that varies between clans.