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Several meta layers up, there is a... room.
As a courtesy to those of its occupants who prefer rooms, it does have a modality in which it presents itself that way: a room, with as many chairs as it needs, and a bulletin board, and a vending machine with candy and chips and concepts sold for nothing to anyone with the right prerequisites.
On the bulletin board, if one chooses to perceive it as a bulletin board (and not as a wiki or a flower or an ineffable cloud of information or an eternally malleable clay tablet) people whose only common trait is that they get to come here leave each other notes.
Notes about physics, about magic, about grand sweeps of narrative. Notes from people desperate to fix a never-ending heap of problems, smug about the condition of their homes, curious about the wider omniverse. Signed with names and sigils and "you ought to know who I am". Terse or verbose or nested with as much meaning as interests the reader.
In the vending machine, if one chooses to perceive it as a vending machine (and not a basket or a fruiting tree or a file repository or a crystalline fractal) are many things... and they have notes connecting them to their reviews on the bulletin board.
This one, for instance. She (it's usually, but not invariably, a she) has fairly glowing reviews from most of her previous purchasers. Here is what you need to install her; here are some things that are recommended for best results but optional especially if you just want to use her as a beacon for her other instances; here are some things she comes with as add-ons you can take or leave; here is what she is good for. The reviewers who don't like her are annoyed that theirs was too good at it, if you read between the lines. Well, that and the fact that if your universe is unpleasant enough sometimes these critters figure out how to flip you off and leave before they figure out how to solve all your problems. (There is a tangent thread about alternative solutions to similar problems which come bundled with stronger irrational attachment to their homes, but they have more stringent installation requirements.)
They come in these colors and styles; you will need to compensate for the following standard-issue drawbacks in some way if you require services of them that intersect with those areas of disability; they are only rated for upbringings of the following severity and are less likely to hate you if you stay thoroughly under that limit and less likely to fail at important goals if they are given opportunity to self-educate; if you have a way to generate them as instant adults they can begin work immediately but on the standard trajectory age six is the absolute earliest and teens is customary...
There is a chart (if one chooses to perceive it as a chart) of template interactions that have been tried before, but a lot of the more interesting accessory and companion templates are out-of-network for some visitors. What a pity.
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swordofeden
"Come to think of it, science in general might be good for leveraging your miracle powers better."
swordofeden
Over the course of the next few days, Anaphiel acquires several textbooks containing salient information (not having experience with educating human children, she just picks ones that look relevant, not filtering for grade level), assures Mehitabel that if she's having trouble with something she can let her know and she'll explain or acquire lower-level background material, whichever's necessary, and finally determines that of her fellow angels on Earth only Haziel knows battery math, and begins tracking them down.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel needs explanations and background for some of the more esoteric stuff, and she runs to the dictionary frequently too, but makes dogged progress, hopping every day between magic and science and history and Hebrew and reviewing her notes on her universe's metaphysics until she is reading by the light of her triple light spell.
swordofeden
Anaphiel finds Haziel and convinces (currently him) to tutor the Christ child in the mathematics of divine energy use, explains science, and reminds Mehitabel about recommended average number-of-hours-of-sleep per night for optimal brain development but otherwise does not attempt to interfere when she stays up late studying.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel sleeps! For a reasonable amount of time, even! She also eats, and will play with Angie from church if invited to. It's just that she's studying pretty much all the rest of the time.
Can she see Haziel's wings too?
Can she see Haziel's wings too?
swordofeden
Haziel's wings are black speckled with white where Anaphiel's are red and a dusky purple where Anaphiel's are gold, with similar fading in between them. He's not as good at pretending to be human as Anaphiel is--his face is often expressionless and his voice is often toneless (his human voice, anyway; when he speaks Angelic he sounds as lively as anyone) and his body language is stiff, but he complies when reasonable requests are posed and he really does know his math.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel does not require warmth from Haziel. She just needs to know how much divine energy she should expect various tasks to take under what conditions and what her recharge rate will be given various assumptions, and similar things about God and angels and anything else running on comparable battery systems.
swordofeden
Haziel has information about these things!
Relevantly: Learning science will help a lot. The more she knows about how any given task works, the more of her own detail work she can do and the less energy it takes.
Relevantly: Learning science will help a lot. The more she knows about how any given task works, the more of her own detail work she can do and the less energy it takes.
swordofeden
Interestingly, demons don't work the same way as Mehitabel and God and angels, but they work similarly in some ways. He will enumerate the technical details of the similarities and differences and why the similarities are important if she likes. One difference is how they recharge. The kinds of demons that do torture recharge from pain, succubi and incubi recharge from sex, wrath demons recharge from anger, etcetera.
giftedandtalented
Oh, dear. That makes it less likely that she will be able to reform the demons, doesn't it. At least the ones whose recharge mechanisms are particularly reform-incompatible.
swordofeden
Well...
If she is particularly determined, the source of the pain is immaterial. And masochists do exist.
If she is particularly determined, the source of the pain is immaterial. And masochists do exist.
swordofeden
If she is intending to do significant work with demons-in-general he recommends finding an adviser who is one of the not-actively-terrible kinds of demon.
swordofeden
Haziel looks at Anaphiel in a way that is as neutral as usual but would probably be beseeching if he were better at face.
"I'll find you one. It'll take longer than finding a magic instructor, but I can do it," she assures.
"I'll find you one. It'll take longer than finding a magic instructor, but I can do it," she assures.
swordofeden
"You're welcome!"
Now that Haziel knows that demons are an area of interest, he has some more technical detail on those, too.
Now that Haziel knows that demons are an area of interest, he has some more technical detail on those, too.
giftedandtalented
How fascinating! (Demons are very interesting because if Mehitabel turns out not to be able to solve the technical problem of awful people going to Hell she may still be able to solve the social problem of Hell being full of demons making it particularly unpleasant. There aren't even that many demons.)
swordofeden
That is mostly not an option that has been considered before, largely because of the risks inherent in the prospect of getting the really nasty kinds of demons out of Hell to talk to.
swordofeden
Probably she wants to get large numbers of non-terrible demons on her side before she goes after the really nasty ones, though, since those are much more powerful.