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Pattern has gone through all the worlds that are hooked up to Downside and installed Janepoints and checked for Bells everywhichwhere. There have been no new Bells since Rose, and Rêverie wasn't hooked up to Downside before anyway.
Pattern has returned home, and reintroduced herself to her parents with much weeping and hugging and explanations, and she is sort of living with Charlie again (Renée's Jacksonville place does not have a room set up for her).
But she's also made herself a pretty palace on Titan. She has deliberately not matched the Atlantis or Eos palaces, nor any of the capitol compounds on Aurum. Her palace is a spiral-twist tower of pale lapis lazuli and surrounded by a dense and ivied garden of magically blued plants and water features bubbling up out of kyanite structures. She's apparently picked a theme color and run with it, although not everything is blue (there is trim in white agate framing the windows and the edges of the outer spiral wall, and a stripe of pale jade waterfalling down one side; only the traditionally green parts of her plants have been blued, so the flowers and the resident hummingbirds and butterflies are every color).
This palace (she calls it "Tethys", after an aquatic Titaness) - specifically the open bottom floor, which has more than enough room to host a Bellparty if Pattern is ever called upon to do so even if the peal and its associated escorts quadruple in size - is where everyone will be meeting before descending upon Saturn above/below to enchant it into a habitable colony world.
She conjures up a big whiteboard with the spells she and Sandy have worked out and a division arrangement so no one is enchanting on top of each other, and she tells Jane to tell everyone that she's ready to receive them.
bellfounding
manofmyword
The Joker is the first guest to arrive; whimsically, he's wearing the old suit and makeup.
"Pretty," he comments, tipping his head back to look up at the tower. "I love what you've done with the place."
"Pretty," he comments, tipping his head back to look up at the tower. "I love what you've done with the place."
manofmyword
He looks at her and smiles.
"Y'know," he says, "it's funny how all the other alts of us met each other without anybody dying first. Don'tcha think?"
"Y'know," he says, "it's funny how all the other alts of us met each other without anybody dying first. Don'tcha think?"
bellfounding
"You mean, of ones who come from the same world, so not counting Queenie and Ghosty? I guess," says Pattern. "But I didn't have a future sister-in-law to steer me away from the van or a mint friend to fix me up in the hospital. Or conveniently live in a different and van-free town like Juliet or year like half the rest or world like the remainder. So it got me."
manofmyword
"It's a pity," he muses. "We-ell, I can't complain about how it all turned out. But I gotta wonder if we woulda met some other way. If you hadn't got squished, and I hadn't got asteroided."
bellfounding
"I don't think, without magic coming into it somehow, I'd have ever done anything that would have attracted your attention," Pattern says.
bellfounding
"We don't do much that's unusual at all till magic happens, and we have strong senses of self-preservation. I would've done something relatively unremarkable - would have been a doctor, maybe, or done something for some nonprofit - and I wouldn't have gone anywhere near Gotham or anywhere you were rumored to be."
bellfounding
"I'm not sure I would've liked you to love me," Pattern points out.
manofmyword
He laughs. "Got me there. I wouldn't blow up hospitals for you, though. I'd... hmm, what would I do?"
bellfounding
"I'm fine," shrugs Pattern. "I don't know how I'd have met you, though."
manofmyword
"All kindsa things can happen. Maybe you would've been in Gotham when I really got going. Or were you gonna avoid it anyway? It is kind of a hellhole even without me around to spice things up."
manofmyword
He giggles. "And I guess I wasn't too likely to go anywhere. I loved the place too much."
bellfounding
Bells start to appear. They take quick tours of Tethys and the gardens. (Rose's excursion among the plants leaves them a riot of out-of-schedule blossoms in spite of Pattern's very clear wish about when various flowers should open and close, but she assumes they'll fall back into place after a while.)
They compliment her design, and they have a quick jargon-filled chat, mostly not in complete sentences, about the spell designs and their assigned tasks. Golden and Aegis switch. Shell Bell goes to the planet surface and makes sure that the standard powersuite can handle being on Saturn; she comes back and reports that it can do so quite comfortably, but they'll all want to boost or supplement their vision to be able to see more than dense cloud. The peal all make various wishes. (Pattern goes with an option that lets her interpret any substance, visually, as though it were not present. She peers out a window at Saturn, squints at it, and watches everything but the rings "vanish" as she calibrates. She supposes this will also be useful in smoke or ordinary cloud.)
Every Bell pairs off with a channel. Plenty come with their own. Golden is loaning the Joker to Juliet because she's invited Eights, and Shell Bell asks Ghosty, and since Rose's aura is already head and shoulders above anything she's read possible and she doubts it can get much stronger she's taking a more coordinatory role and won't be casting as much but will instead be darting here and there with spell-sight on to check everyone's work with her years of experience. If any of the other channels need breaks (there is much snickering) then her husband will be available. Except, for obvious reasons, to Golden.
When the Bells all have satisfactory auras, they and Eights will go home, and the Jokers will stick around and do some of their own enchanting to accumulate auras of their own.
They compliment her design, and they have a quick jargon-filled chat, mostly not in complete sentences, about the spell designs and their assigned tasks. Golden and Aegis switch. Shell Bell goes to the planet surface and makes sure that the standard powersuite can handle being on Saturn; she comes back and reports that it can do so quite comfortably, but they'll all want to boost or supplement their vision to be able to see more than dense cloud. The peal all make various wishes. (Pattern goes with an option that lets her interpret any substance, visually, as though it were not present. She peers out a window at Saturn, squints at it, and watches everything but the rings "vanish" as she calibrates. She supposes this will also be useful in smoke or ordinary cloud.)
Every Bell pairs off with a channel. Plenty come with their own. Golden is loaning the Joker to Juliet because she's invited Eights, and Shell Bell asks Ghosty, and since Rose's aura is already head and shoulders above anything she's read possible and she doubts it can get much stronger she's taking a more coordinatory role and won't be casting as much but will instead be darting here and there with spell-sight on to check everyone's work with her years of experience. If any of the other channels need breaks (there is much snickering) then her husband will be available. Except, for obvious reasons, to Golden.
When the Bells all have satisfactory auras, they and Eights will go home, and the Jokers will stick around and do some of their own enchanting to accumulate auras of their own.
lookingforwardtoit
Eights is actually the first channel to take a break, after Golden's very first major spell; she holds up a hand and says, "Okay, gimme a minute," and takes about thirty seconds to steady her breath, and then indicates that Golden can continue.
luminous_regnant
Golden gives her the required break, and goes on. Earth power as drawn from Saturn is interesting and copious. Rose hadn't been sure it would work at all, but it does.
Her channel takes more breaks than everyone else, but they're short; she's probably going to wind up with aura before everyone else unless Eights decides to sleep instead of have tiredness wished away, but it's hard to tell when flying among the clouds of Saturn, casting bubbles of towns and resorts and future public buildings into semiautonomous existence.
Her channel takes more breaks than everyone else, but they're short; she's probably going to wind up with aura before everyone else unless Eights decides to sleep instead of have tiredness wished away, but it's hard to tell when flying among the clouds of Saturn, casting bubbles of towns and resorts and future public buildings into semiautonomous existence.
lookingforwardtoit
Her breaks are much shorter, yes, probably because she doesn't spend them in the orgy chambers. All she needs is a few minutes here and there to catch her breath or torch.
manofmyword
And this adds up, because everyone else is spending their breaks in the orgy chambers. With increasing frequency, as the lingering effects of channel-pain build up and up and up.
gunpowdergelatine
Queenie is the major exception among the Jokers, because like Eights, she torches every so often. Which doesn't mean she never decides to take a Joker-style break, but does mean she only does it about half as much.