bellfounding
Bella's public facing email address (eor@eor.eor; many of the Bells are following similar protocols to Stella's, for web presence, and in Origin the relevant empire is called the Empire of Rings, after Saturn's feature) gets a lot of mail. Jane used to help with it; without Jane, there is still extremely smart filtering going on, and a program no one has noticed at work yet auto-responds to almost everything with canned but tweakable responses and links to the imperial website.
This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.
She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:
Can you raise the dead?
Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.
I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!
This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.
I want to be able to torch.
There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.
I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.
This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.
Are you sure you can't raise the dead?
I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.
She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:
Can you raise the dead?
Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.
I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!
This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.
I want to be able to torch.
There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.
I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.
This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.
Are you sure you can't raise the dead?
I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
bellfounding
[Demons. Aianon's the last regular one, and he in particular is fine, but there are demonic spirits of various sorts, spooky dark things.]
tearingup
[Definitely. I've been assuming this fellow is reasonably humanoid, correct me if I'm wrong. Or let me keep my pleasant illusions.]
bellfounding
[Wasn't expecting the former, was quite pleased with the latter. I didn't realize you wrote virtually all the songs; you're very talented and I look forward to seeing what Saturn inspires.]
tearingup
[Anything in the name of art,] Ripper says cheerfully. [I'll let you know when I come up with something good.]
bellfounding
[I need to pick something by the time the next Olympics roll around, even if I have to wish up some skills and write it myself, so it's good you can apparently write songs fast.]