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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.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel spends the entire hour enthralled and diligent and detail-oriented, especially for a six-year-old.
swordofeden
In that case, at the end of the hour, there will be three bobbing lights at her command.
"You'll want to do this several more times before you actually start compressing the components, but it will be easier in the long run if you start thinking about what you want to compress it to now."
"You'll want to do this several more times before you actually start compressing the components, but it will be easier in the long run if you start thinking about what you want to compress it to now."
giftedandtalented
"Okay..." says Mehitabel, looking at her lights. She makes them spin in a circle together, and then go red and green and gold, and then turns them into a halo for herself. "And it's got to be something I wouldn't ever just say. So not 'three lights'."
swordofeden
"Making up nonsense words that can be easily written phonetically seems to be traditional."
giftedandtalented
"They shouldn't be total nonsense though or they'll be easy to mix up." Mehitabel considers this, then says, "I'll think of a way to pronounce my cipher!"
giftedandtalented
"Yeah!"
Mehitabel, haloed by lights which change color and occasionally spin or come to rest in her hands or approach mirrors so she can see what happens when they do that, comes up with a system by which to pronounce her cipher so that most English words thus transformed will result in pronounceable but non-word results. She translates "triple lights" instead of "three lights" because the "thr" combination doesn't come through very well, but it will still be hard to confuse for any other spell.
Mehitabel, haloed by lights which change color and occasionally spin or come to rest in her hands or approach mirrors so she can see what happens when they do that, comes up with a system by which to pronounce her cipher so that most English words thus transformed will result in pronounceable but non-word results. She translates "triple lights" instead of "three lights" because the "thr" combination doesn't come through very well, but it will still be hard to confuse for any other spell.
giftedandtalented
Yes. She will delightedly work on that now that she knows what she wants to squish them down to.
swordofeden
She can probably get each individual component reduced to a gesture or a word before bed, with a break to eat something for dinner, but not any sequences.
swordofeden
Tomorrow morning Anna asks her if she minds being left alone for most of the day (having long since determined to her satisfaction that the house was still going to be intact when she got home if she left Mehitabel by herself) to work on her spell while Anna runs errands like trying to find her a proper magic teacher.
swordofeden
"Leftover mashed potatoes and chicken are in the tupperware with the blue lid, leftover tomato soup's in the tupperware with the red lid, and you know where the cold cuts and bread and so on are." She pecks her on the top of the head. "Have a good day, then."
giftedandtalented
"You too!"
Mehitabel works on her spell, and she reads, and she works on her spell, and she has tomato soup for lunch, and she works on her spell, and she notebooks, and she works on her spell, and she has potatoes and chicken for dinner.
Mehitabel works on her spell, and she reads, and she works on her spell, and she has tomato soup for lunch, and she works on her spell, and she notebooks, and she works on her spell, and she has potatoes and chicken for dinner.
swordofeden
And not long after dinner, Anna comes back.
"I found a promising prospect, but he's wrapped up in a research project right now and won't be available for a couple of months. Also, the best time to go to Fairyland in the near future is in six weeks and five days."
"I found a promising prospect, but he's wrapped up in a research project right now and won't be available for a couple of months. Also, the best time to go to Fairyland in the near future is in six weeks and five days."
swordofeden
"Gates to Fairyland open and close on schedules that relate to things like the tides and the lunar cycle and the position of stars relative to Earth. Six weeks and five days from now one that's not guarded by hostile fairies will be open, and three days after that a different gate with similar criterion will be open so we can come back. I assumed you would want to spend a couple of days."
swordofeden
"If you like it and decide you want to spend longer at some point I can keep an eye open for fortuitous gate scheduling, but longer than three days isn't feasible right now."
giftedandtalented
"That's okay. That's plenty for a first visit. Do you know enough magic for me to have magic to learn while I'm waiting for the teacher? Or should I just learn a lot of things about other stuff until then?"
swordofeden
"I don't know if I know enough magic to keep you occupied until then, and anyway it's probably better to learn other things as well--I think human minds do better at tasks when they have breaks from them?" She's genuinely uncertain. Angels don't work the same way as humans, that way--she can get caught up with reading, organizing and indexing books to the point of not noticing a year has passed.
giftedandtalented
"Yeah, I took a couple of breaks today. And I need to know other things too. I want to know what really happened instead of the Bible stories that aren't written down right, and how everything works, and the battery math."
swordofeden
"Biblical history, battery math, and science. Okay. Oh, and it's not necessary, but it would probably add to your gravitas if I taught you Latin, Greek, and/or Hebrew."