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Morty knows he shouldn't be screwing around with multidimensional shit. It's dangerous, it's impractical, it's blah blah blah. But it's a potential key to unlimited energy, how does nobody see that? He's built a dimensional siphon (it kind of looks like a cardboard box with a funnel and a TI-84 taped to it, but it damn well works), keyed in the dimensional coordinates to a random plane, and by God he's going to use it.
He flips the switch and waits for the energy bar to fill up.
It does! It fills up very rapidly. Then it explodes, along with the box. There's rather more smoke than there should be, and once the smoke clears someone is standing there.
"Oh dear," Morty says faintly.
Flicker at Whateley
point_b
"Sorry about that. Anything else to take care of here before I go take Ariel up on her offer to bring me clothes shopping?"
"No trouble. And I don't think there's anything else until your testing. Unless you'd like a specially issued student ID without powers classification, for whatever reason."
point_b
"Doesn't seem urgent; empirically the campus store and so on don't require one. Thanks!"
And out she pops to where she left Ariel. "I'm all set up. Want to help me pick out outfits?"
And out she pops to where she left Ariel. "I'm all set up. Want to help me pick out outfits?"
in-like-a-lion
"Hell yes!" She rattles off the address of Cecilia Rogers' shop and bounces excitedly in midair.
in-like-a-lion
What follows is what would surely be a very entertaining montage of cloth flying through the air of its own volition, strange machines scanning Bella for her measurements, and Ariel giving in and buying yet another pair of Goddamn combat boots. (They're purple, they're steel-tipped, they have skulls on them, she can't resist, okay?)
Eventually they leave the shop with: clothing!
Eventually they leave the shop with: clothing!
point_b
Hurray! Now Bella has clothes and will not have to borrow a towel to stand around in while repeatedly laundering this one outfit. She notes the price and keeps track of how much of her stipend she has gone through so far.
"Two questions. One, where should we get dinner, I'm starving, and two, can I get a list of Detroit-like locations, because I have a cached set of places I can go if I need to be somewhere far away in a hurry and since this is Earth it might mostly be valid but I don't want to be unexpectedly irradiated or anything."
"Two questions. One, where should we get dinner, I'm starving, and two, can I get a list of Detroit-like locations, because I have a cached set of places I can go if I need to be somewhere far away in a hurry and since this is Earth it might mostly be valid but I don't want to be unexpectedly irradiated or anything."
in-like-a-lion
"Uh... There's a Wikipedia article of 'cities destroyed in mutant conflicts' if you want to check it out. Never read through it myself, but all the anti-mutant assholes like Humanity First! cite it in all their bullshit. Where to dine depends on if you want free and really good or expensive and really good. Except most of the places nicer than the Crystal Hall caf take reservations, so that's probably for another day. So: Crystal Hall, probably. That place has no business being a high school cafeteria."
point_b
"Ooh, Wikipedia persisteth. You know what else I need to spend my windfall on, I need a laptop. After dinner though." She peers at her map to get a bead on Crystal Hall, flickers to her room to drop off the shopping, and comes back for Ariel and puts them at the cafeteria.
in-like-a-lion
"You get a school laptop as part of being a student," Ariel notes. "It's kinda shitty apart from being nukeproof and having a word processor, though. And you're not allowed to use it for gaming or any of that extracurricular shit."
The cafeteria is visually impressive! It's a massive dome apparently made of either reinforced glass or grown crystal; there are several massive lunch lines delineated by signs. The four signs most obvious are one bearing a carrot, one bearing a human form, one bearing a cow, and one bearing a slice of pie.
"You're probably in the humanoid line, unless you're vegetarian or twins have to eat way more. Don't worry, contrary to the signs they don't carry long pork. I will be over in the 'massive haunches of miscellaneous animal' section, because I am a dinosaur, raaar."
The cafeteria is visually impressive! It's a massive dome apparently made of either reinforced glass or grown crystal; there are several massive lunch lines delineated by signs. The four signs most obvious are one bearing a carrot, one bearing a human form, one bearing a cow, and one bearing a slice of pie.
"You're probably in the humanoid line, unless you're vegetarian or twins have to eat way more. Don't worry, contrary to the signs they don't carry long pork. I will be over in the 'massive haunches of miscellaneous animal' section, because I am a dinosaur, raaar."
point_b
"Until I have been here for longer I'm going to have a persistent trouble with knowing when you're joking," Bella remarks. "I'm not a vegetarian or a dinosaur."
in-like-a-lion
"Sorry. Humanoid line has Stuff That People Eat. Casseroles, pasta, diverse meats, etc. Cow line has massive quantities of meat, eggs, breadstuff, et cetera, for those who need absolutely insane calorie counts to maintain their powers. Vegetarian line has veg, pie has desserts, you must visit dessert it is fantastic, that one over there is supposed to be a geode, it's for the people who eat minerals, and then there's the little line for people who have to have stuff like live prey or gasoline. Tidy little system."
point_b
"All right. See you post-food-collection, then."
Bella goes down the humanoid line. She comes out with half a turkey club, and a cup each of broccoli chowder and tomato soup, and veggie mac 'n cheese with ground beef in it, and a salad that includes hardboiled egg and bacon and ranch. She will make a separate trip for dessert.
Bella goes down the humanoid line. She comes out with half a turkey club, and a cup each of broccoli chowder and tomato soup, and veggie mac 'n cheese with ground beef in it, and a salad that includes hardboiled egg and bacon and ranch. She will make a separate trip for dessert.
in-like-a-lion
Ariel is sitting at a table with a girl covered in swirling purple tattoos. She waves Bella over enthusiastically, over an enormous pile of meat and a small side salad. And a coconut cream pie. (And a cup of coffee the size of her head.)
"Aw, humans. People who eat reasonable human quantities of food. I love humans, they're great."
"Aw, humans. People who eat reasonable human quantities of food. I love humans, they're great."
heavymetal
Her companion clears her throat and points to her own plate, which bears an entirely reasonable human amount of food. (Vegetarian food.)
in-like-a-lion
"Your food is salted with cobalt, you don't count. This is Sally! She's my roommate. This is Bella! I have been gossiping about her nonstop to you."
heavymetal
"Special dietary requirements. I'm technically a golem. I've got free will, though, thanks entirely to this one."
Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that Sally's skin is not... skin, per se. It looks more like unusually smooth brown marble. Her hair looks kind of like steel wool, but made of a strange black metal. And her irises, which at first glance just looked grey, are actually carved out of iron.
Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that Sally's skin is not... skin, per se. It looks more like unusually smooth brown marble. Her hair looks kind of like steel wool, but made of a strange black metal. And her irises, which at first glance just looked grey, are actually carved out of iron.
heavymetal
"I'm very difficult to offend. You're not likely to meet any real golems, either, so you're probably in the clear. But before you ask, I'm not Jewish."
point_b
"That was not actually my first question, I was going to inquire after the free will bit, what are the usual and special-case parameters there?"
heavymetal
Sally goes quiet for a few minutes to compose a summary. "Well, golems are quite illegal to make nowadays, because there are sentient enslavement laws and all that. Back when they were made, they were sentient but couldn't have free will unless they were freed magically, which was rather dangerous, because they would often go on vengeful rampages et cetera. I look like a golem, because I'm a special breed of odd duck called the Artificer. And the explanation for that is fairly long, and I'm willing to tell it but I'm bad with interruptions, so do you have any questions about the first bit?"
point_b
"That is a sensible strategy to deal with interruptions and I may steal it. I will also want to know how golems are made and under what circumstances they tended to be freed magically and what, if not free will, governed their actions before that. But I'm not picky about what order I learn all this information and the Artificer bit in."