This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
imeanforever
wormcan
Canary almost smiles. "Me too."
She gets escorted out by Sarkany, and the Director addresses Promise. "Notwithstanding the complication at the end, this was a very successful test. You're not immune to Masters, but that wasn't a condition of the deal. We will have to keep you away from whatever prisons they end up in, of course."
She gets escorted out by Sarkany, and the Director addresses Promise. "Notwithstanding the complication at the end, this was a very successful test. You're not immune to Masters, but that wasn't a condition of the deal. We will have to keep you away from whatever prisons they end up in, of course."
imeanforever
"Of course."
She... might have a solution for that. But it isn't one she wants to bring up right this second.
And unless she wants to torture Yellow... which she only very slightly does... it would require a mortal.
She... might have a solution for that. But it isn't one she wants to bring up right this second.
And unless she wants to torture Yellow... which she only very slightly does... it would require a mortal.
wormcan
And that concludes Promise's ongoing projects with the PRT.
Over the near future, the Tinkers give her her spare harmonic flatteners, the PRT continues to try to talk or bribe her into making more gates, preparation for the prisoners' trials begins, and Armsmaster asks again about sorcery after Promise has had a chance to visit a library. Various important PRT and Protectorate members are also considering which if any major threats to deploy her against.
Outside the PRT, Uber and Leet's video of the Bakuda fight has hit the Internet. The public sees them and Bakuda fight the Undersiders, the Undersiders escape, and then someone invisibly start ordering Bakuda. From her asking for Uber and Leet's names, people manage to start speculating that the names were what allowed it. That cat is irrevocably un-bagged.
Over the near future, the Tinkers give her her spare harmonic flatteners, the PRT continues to try to talk or bribe her into making more gates, preparation for the prisoners' trials begins, and Armsmaster asks again about sorcery after Promise has had a chance to visit a library. Various important PRT and Protectorate members are also considering which if any major threats to deploy her against.
Outside the PRT, Uber and Leet's video of the Bakuda fight has hit the Internet. The public sees them and Bakuda fight the Undersiders, the Undersiders escape, and then someone invisibly start ordering Bakuda. From her asking for Uber and Leet's names, people manage to start speculating that the names were what allowed it. That cat is irrevocably un-bagged.
imeanforever
Promise takes a minute to contemplate her answer to Armsmaster re: sorcery.
"...While in Fairyland anybody who wants to can pick it up," Promise says, "there, it's a longstanding well-known factor and doesn't interact very much with anything else. You can already, obviously interact with sorcery; I don't know that I'd just be teaching you to turn invisible and make lights and other things that I consider as ordinary as you consider light bulbs and phones if you got creative. It could escalate enormously beyond what I can predict or what the institutions intended to deal with capes are capable of reacting, perhaps destabilize some of these mortal systems that barely function as it is and have a lot of moving parts I don't understand. I think I'd have to know any prospective sorcery students from this world very well and trust them very deeply. We are not there."
She doesn't even say 'yet'. He's okay when he's geeking out, but his actual personality leaves something to be desired. But she does add:
"And you probably have more useful things to do with your time than hanging around me trying to get me to like you."
For more gates she will accept something that can copy library books for her to add to her personal collection, because this is annoying to do by hand. And when Sarkany offers her a custom computer that will redact anything that looks like a name and replace it with a consistent sequence of numbers, and also accept hand-drawn written input or voice (since Promise has no idea what to make of the Roman alphabet) that's a gatepair too. (The software update for the written input takes a little while and requires a sample of Promise's handwriting, but Promise has no shortage of non-private handwriting samples.) Now there are gatepairs over the Rainbow Lava Flows (Promise has always wanted to see those) and behind the Sourceless Waterfall.
And now Promise is discovering the internet. The internet is her favorite mortal invention!
"...While in Fairyland anybody who wants to can pick it up," Promise says, "there, it's a longstanding well-known factor and doesn't interact very much with anything else. You can already, obviously interact with sorcery; I don't know that I'd just be teaching you to turn invisible and make lights and other things that I consider as ordinary as you consider light bulbs and phones if you got creative. It could escalate enormously beyond what I can predict or what the institutions intended to deal with capes are capable of reacting, perhaps destabilize some of these mortal systems that barely function as it is and have a lot of moving parts I don't understand. I think I'd have to know any prospective sorcery students from this world very well and trust them very deeply. We are not there."
She doesn't even say 'yet'. He's okay when he's geeking out, but his actual personality leaves something to be desired. But she does add:
"And you probably have more useful things to do with your time than hanging around me trying to get me to like you."
For more gates she will accept something that can copy library books for her to add to her personal collection, because this is annoying to do by hand. And when Sarkany offers her a custom computer that will redact anything that looks like a name and replace it with a consistent sequence of numbers, and also accept hand-drawn written input or voice (since Promise has no idea what to make of the Roman alphabet) that's a gatepair too. (The software update for the written input takes a little while and requires a sample of Promise's handwriting, but Promise has no shortage of non-private handwriting samples.) Now there are gatepairs over the Rainbow Lava Flows (Promise has always wanted to see those) and behind the Sourceless Waterfall.
And now Promise is discovering the internet. The internet is her favorite mortal invention!
wormcan
The PRT Directors eventually come to a conclusion about where to send Promise. Ellisburg.
It used to be an ordinary mortal city, until a powerful parahuman took over and killed everyone in it. Since then, Nilbog has been living alone except for the monsters he creates, and recycling the biomass whenever anything dies. The heroes have decided to leave him to his own devices and hope, not because they couldn't capture or kill him—there are heroes powerful enough to storm the city alone, if they wanted to—but because of what comes next. They have precogs, if unreliable ones, who consistently report disaster if Ellisburg is attacked. Their hope is that Promise can prevent that, and the precogs at least report that the countryside is unlikely to get decimated if she goes in. It'd be alone, to minimize the risk of provoking a reaction, but they can teleport her out in an emergency.
Nilbog's real name, on a clearly marked and warned subsequent page in case she decides not to go in, is Rinke.
It used to be an ordinary mortal city, until a powerful parahuman took over and killed everyone in it. Since then, Nilbog has been living alone except for the monsters he creates, and recycling the biomass whenever anything dies. The heroes have decided to leave him to his own devices and hope, not because they couldn't capture or kill him—there are heroes powerful enough to storm the city alone, if they wanted to—but because of what comes next. They have precogs, if unreliable ones, who consistently report disaster if Ellisburg is attacked. Their hope is that Promise can prevent that, and the precogs at least report that the countryside is unlikely to get decimated if she goes in. It'd be alone, to minimize the risk of provoking a reaction, but they can teleport her out in an emergency.
Nilbog's real name, on a clearly marked and warned subsequent page in case she decides not to go in, is Rinke.
imeanforever
And what exactly do they want her to do with Nilbog, assuming she finds him easy to master? Besides prevent him from decimating the countryside.
wormcan
The important result would be Nilbog captured and out of the city, with all his dead man's switches deactivated. Beyond that, they do want him turned over and tried.
They expect her to object to putting him in the Birdcage, and can make a guarantee this time. It turns out that state legislatures are easier to influence than the one that passed the TSPA, especially when tempted with the prospect of removing Nilbog from their back yard. New Jersey is now the first jurisdiction to consider criminals powerless for legal purposes if under a sufficiently inviolable Master power.
Over the objections of Director Piggot in particular, the PRT decided to ask Promise to include an exception to the powerlessness order allowing him to use his creations to aid against other S-class threats.
They expect her to object to putting him in the Birdcage, and can make a guarantee this time. It turns out that state legislatures are easier to influence than the one that passed the TSPA, especially when tempted with the prospect of removing Nilbog from their back yard. New Jersey is now the first jurisdiction to consider criminals powerless for legal purposes if under a sufficiently inviolable Master power.
Over the objections of Director Piggot in particular, the PRT decided to ask Promise to include an exception to the powerlessness order allowing him to use his creations to aid against other S-class threats.
imeanforever
"I don't mind letting him do that, but I don't plan to conscript him as slave labor. Is that agreeable?"
wormcan
It is a little-known fact that the prohibition on slave labor contains an exception for this exact scenario. Piggot decides not to mention this.
"Agreed."
"Agreed."
imeanforever
She reads his name. She confirms that it is his name.
She'd like more intel before she goes in. His creations might not count as sufficiently under his control that her merely knowing his name would be guaranteed to stop them from harming her if they were so inclined. She wants pictures of the place, she wants to know how they're going to teleport her out if she requests evac.
She'd like more intel before she goes in. His creations might not count as sufficiently under his control that her merely knowing his name would be guaranteed to stop them from harming her if they were so inclined. She wants pictures of the place, she wants to know how they're going to teleport her out if she requests evac.
wormcan
They give her as much information as they can. The creatures are autonomous, and are not likely to be included in her control of Nilbog. What Ellisburg used to look like, the powers of the creatures during the disastrous raid ten years ago, aerial photographs of the current city with his likely location marked. It looks surprisingly neat, for a place ruled by a goblin king.
They're sending her in with a force field for protection, and have two redundant teleporters on standby to get her out if she presses a panic button. Another device to disintegrate whatever's immediately above and launch her upward, if she wouldn't rather trust her own wings in an emergency. And multiple harmonic flatteners, just in case. Other capes are available to fight the creatures if necessary, but if anything goes that wrong they no longer have assurances about what Nilbog will do.
They're sending her in with a force field for protection, and have two redundant teleporters on standby to get her out if she presses a panic button. Another device to disintegrate whatever's immediately above and launch her upward, if she wouldn't rather trust her own wings in an emergency. And multiple harmonic flatteners, just in case. Other capes are available to fight the creatures if necessary, but if anything goes that wrong they no longer have assurances about what Nilbog will do.
imeanforever
This is an acceptable number of redundant precautions. Pity they don't know any of the creatures' names.
She studies the materials supplied, puts on all her snazzy articles... on a hunch gets a long-sleeved leaf dress so they're less conspicuous... and then she supposes she's ready to go.
She studies the materials supplied, puts on all her snazzy articles... on a hunch gets a long-sleeved leaf dress so they're less conspicuous... and then she supposes she's ready to go.
wormcan
Ellisburg post-Nilbog has been redesigned. The architect was unconcerned with functionality, attaching floorboards or doors to exterior walls in order to add extra spires and structures in whatever combination Nilbog found interesting. The trees are all perfectly regular: some are perfect cubes, others perfect spheres, others forming arches. Even the grass has been designed with care: flowers grow at seemingly random points on the lawns, but the grass is trimmed perfectly level right up to the stalk of anything growing. A scarecrow stands in front of one house, with its dog skull head facing upward and holding a rake in its child-sized human hand. Nothing alive is visible.
imeanforever
Promise, descending from the helicopter above, lands on a street, has a long look around, and, when not accosted, proceeds into the town.
wormcan
On her way, she will notice a creature about a foot shorter than she is. Reptilian, with brown scales and small black eyes. It's also wearing clothes. Less so than the humans she's seen, but a pair of shorts and suspenders is more than any nonhuman mortals so far. It opens its mouth impossibly wide when it encounters her force field from behind, and hisses.
imeanforever
"Hello," says Promise. "I wish to speak with your master."
(This city is not a fairy court. But it is more like a fairy court than anything else she's run into in this world, as far as she knows.)
wormcan
He or it stops hissing, but starts pawing at the force field. Another creation joins and does the same.
wormcan
They back off, briefly. A few hisses from the reptilian creation and grunts from the piglike one. One of them starts removing a few small objects from a pocket and dropping them, then taps on the field again.
If Promise looks closely at the windows of the buildings, she might see misshapen silhouettes or reflective eyes.
If Promise looks closely at the windows of the buildings, she might see misshapen silhouettes or reflective eyes.
imeanforever
"I don't know what you're getting at, unfortunately, or I'm sure we could come to some agreement."
wormcan
After a few more hisses and whistles, a third creature joins the other two. It's carrying tools, possibly designed for use in building or gardening but also very threatening-looking. It brandishes a long serrated blade, then steps back. It drops the weapon, pointing at Promise. The smaller creatures resume scratching at Promise's bubble.
imeanforever
"I'm not carrying any weapons. I have some things that will help me move around, and my personal space bubble, and something to help me use fairy magic, and that's all."