"I don't think nudity's allowed in the bar, do you want some clothes or should we just stash you in the Belltower or what?"

"Yeah, something, we have run into too many naked people dooring around today," says Shell Bell.

[Is that door gone? Can I come out?] asks Glass plaintively.

"Nicely done," Aurora tells Jellybean. [Yeah, you're safe, Glass. It's that bad?]

Glass pops back out, pale and trembly. "It's nauseating. You're well rid of it, whatever-your-nickname-is."

"I might want to evacuate my parents or something later, and it might be that Celo can't stay out forever," says Aether. "...Aether. I'm Aether."

"You won't have heard of me. I'm Tab, I'm new. I have a timesyncing alternative to Jane but apparently I don't want to get it anywhere near where you're from."

"Wow, are you okay?" says Celo to Glass. "You look like you need a healer. Or maybe a hug."

"I need to never look directly at that world again, is all. I see - metacausality - and I'm astonished a Bell lived to adulthood in that."

"I would really like it if people would stop being surprised I wasn't suicidal. It's not like a relatively unambitious life is so awful as to be not worth living."

"Sorry. Ugh. I want to go home. I want Jane fixed and then I want to go home. How long has it been?"

"We didn't check your three worlds," says Stella, shaking her head. "Aegis, let's you and me see what we can do." She teleports the entire group out to the Belltower, and lets her aura loose.

Celo looks around in fascination. Jellybean snuggles him affectionately.

Aegis - is present. And contains Jane.

The Janepoint sloooowly reassembles itself. "Moooooom, what'd you doooo to me," she says plaintively. "And who's plugged in? There's somebody plugged into me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"That's Kers. She's your time-sync backup now," says Tab, distributing the remaining Kersibles to the Bells who don't have them in their own worlds yet. "Hi. I'm Tab, I'm new."

"My sincerest apologies for my apparently nauseating world."

"I was thinking maybe Jane should have her own body. Maybe not a biological body. Devices are lower-maintenance and might interface better."

"That sounds like a job for you, maybe Brilliance, and Aegis. I want to go home," says Cam, peering at the Kersible Tab gave him. "We can have a party later."

Except Aegis and Aurora, both of whom want to contact their respective Jokers promptly but don't plan to go home.

"Jane?"

"I'm a nymph!" says Celo, grinning friendly-like. "We do that."

"But you're totally naked," giggles Kiawen. Her piano bear is batting at her hair from his position on her shoulder.

"I didn't actually get a coin supply before everyone scattered or I'd have perfect recall by now, but you must be one of Glass's kids."

"I'm Kiawen. Do you need to talk to Be- to Glass? She doesn't have all that many coins."

"I'm awake, I'm awake," says Jane, "hang on, lemme ask around - okay, Pattern's gonna spot you a starter set - I'll just drop them over there - you can fish around for an evil and get your standards all in a batch and coinsorter them up."

"...Okay," says Aether, and she does indeed fish around in the resulting pile of assorted coins for an evil, tentatively wish for state-of-the-art Bell standards, blink, and slurp up the remaining heap into her sorter.

"What'd you get?" wonders Celo.

"Teleporting, perfect recall, enchanting, invisibility - apparently the state of the art agony beam is updated from what the visitors told us about - flying - all kinds of stuff - I'm going to need to go Downside too to be able to torchable people, I guess, even if I can't get you. That magic language Jellybean was speaking, I have that now. Lots of stuff. And of course it'll all probably go haywire if I ever go home." She sighs and leans on Celo. "...So there's a Jarvis here? Hello, Jarvis, can you point me at someplace private me and Celo can go for aura-getting?"

"Certainly," says the local Jarvis. "Just out the door and down the hall to your left, then up the stairs, the first door on your right will be a guest room which you may occupy for whatever purpose you like."

"I really do!" says Celo, flopping onto Aether and snuggling up.

You lemme know if you need a break or for me to tone it down. And she starts up.

"Ooh," he murmurs, wriggling. "I like it."

Mmmmmmmmsnugglesnugglemmmmm.

Snuggle enchant snuggle enchant snuggle.

"I can go faster if you want," chuckles Aether.

"Ooooh yes please," he says, nuzzling her cheek affectionately.

Pouuuuuur.

"I love you," says Celo, and then he commences having a predictable reaction to all this gorgeous pain.

I have not been watching that room since you entered it, says Jarvis.

Celo kisses her.

Can kiss you, dunno about anything more intense on my end. I am a subtle artist and have excellent mental control, she replies merrily.

Mmkay, I'll be over here getting intense, he says, continuing to kiss her. I love you. You're awesome.

Nuzzle nuzzle pour kiss.

Nuzzle nuzzle kiss mmmmmmmm.

Time passes. Lemme know if you need a break.

I really really don't, he hums, snuggling up.

Good, good.

Aether giggles too. Cute.

"They are! I love 'em," he says, curling up closer and licking his fingers some more.

Oh, but what about my appetite for dinner, she teases. (Kiss. Pour.)

You are, it is true.

Licking might be called for. It won't do to make a mess on these nice guest sheets. And licking isn't cognitively taxing enough to prevent her from continuing to pour-pour-pour.

Celo is all in favour of licking.

Oh, good.

Mmmmmmmmm.

"Nice," says Celo, cuddling her some more. "My epic-level girlfriend."

"Is that what I'm getting?"

"Yeah, you've got 'don't mess with this one' written all over you, it's hot," he says.

"Probably just makes you want to mess with me," she snorts.

"Depending on your definition of 'mess with'..." He grins.

She giggles. "When it's in at full strength. I'll compare with Glass, I guess."

"'Kay," says Celo, and he nestles close. He's feeling more snuggly now, not so much with the honey.

"She'll be able to tell what else it does, too." Snuggle. "I think I might be coming up on done, based on the estimates..."

"Wanna go check? Or give it a little more first? I'm good either way," he says, snuggling.

"I'm gonna check. Wanna come along?" She tapers off the channeling.

"Nah," he says, "you go, just don't be too too long with it, okay?" He grins. "I might get lonely."

"And that would be terrible." She nuzzles his throat and pops out of the room. "Hi, Glass. Hi - person."

"This is Tony. One of my wives. Nickname Iron," introduces Glass. "Tony, this one's Aether. Looks like your aura's all full up and -" Glass peers at it.

"Hi!" says Tony, waving.

"Hi," waves Aether. "Celo called me 'epic level', so I guess that's one thing?"

"Yes and - and - I think - you can go home," says Glass. "I think this is - the opposite of the thing that is horrible about your world. I think you cancel it out, near yourself."

...okay but like what does that mean, says Celo.

"Can you be more specific?"

"Your world is - anti-causal. Not all the time, but much more often than is healthy. Your aura won't let that happen within -" Glass squints. "A mile or line of sight whichever's farther. Even if you withdraw it. That's an always-on feature - well-behaved causality. It doesn't make you invincible, but - you can take actions and rely on their effects and nothing can cheat to stomp on you."

That is pretty fucking helpful, says Celo. I want one.

You're not going to get the exact same thing probably, but you'll get something. "I can go home," she says slowly. "I can do my Belling at home."

Yeah, but if that's how helpful they get, I want something that's that helpful to me, says Celo. I don't really give a fuck about causality the way you do, but I've got my own shit, you know?

"Yep, you can! And I won't throw up again if I look at your world while I'm close enough to you. And it won't break Jane if you take a gem home as long as you keep it on or near you," says Glass.

[That's nice to know.]

That'd be awesome, he says cheerfully. Wanna come mess with me first?

Sure do. "Thanks so much, Glass," she beams at her alt, "nice to meet you, Tony," and she pops back into the guest room.

Where Celo proceeds to - mess with her.

Mmmmmm psychic powers are good to have. Celo is good to have. She has him. More than once.

He is so there for that right now. Mmm.

Good, good.

And eventually, when she has had him as many times as she wants, he can summon another Joker. Corona happens to volunteer.

Aether goes Downside to collect torchabling (it is on her checklist) and makes a Janegem with a chain that tucks under her hair and hangs on her forehead. It'll look like a psionic enhancer, hanging over the third eye location like that. She reminds Shell Bell that she should find Etty at her earliest convenience, though Glass remarks vaguely that the amount of time it takes to get around to visiting a place doesn't affect how much time will have passed there at the time one arrives, so there's not a particular hurry. She writes a Bellbook entry and learns about the history of the template. And when she has done all of these things, she checks in on her boyfriend's aura progress, since handling it through Corona's supposed to be particularly swift.

"You did? How?"

"Jokers do this thing - Sue does it, and Harley did it," he says, "we pick ourselves up and shift worlds. I'm gonna see if I can learn it. And if I can, my field's part of me—I can just pick it up and put it somewhere! I wanna talk to Sue and Harley about it, though, and it sounds like they're both busy. And I'm not sure where I'd put it, anyway. Maybe this world. This world's nice. Would that be okay by the locals, you think?"

"I can ask Glass for you. This world is definitely nice. I'm not sure how your field's magic would interact with the forest magic if you were inside this country, though, so Glass should maybe stare at you for a while first."

"I'm fine with Glass staring at me," Celo says cheerfully. Corona giggles and kisses him.

"Should I call her in here or should we go to her?"

"Bye," says Aether to Corona, and she teleports herself (with Celo) back to Glass. "Hi, Glass. If Celo figures out how to transplant his garden can he put it here? Asking both on the subject of permission and magical compatibility."

Glass sets about peering at Celo. "I'll have to consult Marianne about permission but I don't think she'd mind - there's the question of how, if at all, you want the place signposted or warded, since people here won't be familiar with nymph fields - and - There will be magical interaction between nymph stuff and the forest, but I think it will be friendly interaction, I don't expect it to do you any sort of harm."

"It says you're - at some point I should go starred into Alethia and look at some of the angels there for comparison, but I think it's claiming you're divine. Also friendly, at least to me. And if Aether didn't mention it, you're torchable now, do you want to be torchable? You're more - self-contained, now, than you were when I first saw you, you used to be attached to something that wasn't you and now you aren't. That perception power you have turned way down right now is more under your control now, I think, in convenient auraly fashion - aaaaand - did there used to be - things you couldn't touch without hurting them? I don't think that's a thing anymore, I think your divine energy is more about your preferences than categorizations of things as divine or not-divine or anti-divine now."

"...That... makes a surprising amount of sense," says Celo, "and will come in handy if I ever need to heal a demonblood, I guess. Uh, I'll skip being torchable until I've moved my field, I think. And I might not want it even then - if it's just gonna make this body immortal, well, there's plenty of uses for a nymph corpse and I'll just pop out of my field again anyway."

"Torching in general is more - absolute, than the respawning thing you do. I'd give torching good odds even against the nauseating anti-causality in Materia, I don't think the welcoming committee could have been permanently destroyed there no matter who they bothered - not that I'd advise trying it. Your field would be quite safe here, but if you do hope to be properly immortal that's a lot of time for small chances to add up, and Materia isn't Downsideable. It might make sense to consult the admin to see if there's a way to make your field torchable instead of your body."

"Good idea," says Celo. "Potentially. What's the admin like?"

"She's - locally omnipotent, kind of apathetic, willing to let us run her afterlife so she doesn't have to do it, quite amenable to requests."

"Okay, then sure," says Celo. "As long as she doesn't randomly decide to eat me."

"I do not know her to have ever eaten people," says Glass.

"That's promising!" says Celo. "I mean, not that I've never been somebody's snack, but usually only when I'm having fun or getting paid or both."

"Never mind," says Celo. "Uh, it's - kind of garden-sized, I don't know, I've never measured it. I could walk it out for you if we were outdoors, though."

"Bigger or smaller than this room?" asks Glass.

[It sounds smaller than the palace. Do you want exact dimensions?]

[It would make finding a place for it much easier,] says Marianne.

Glass puts herself, Celo, and Aether out in a nice flat place for walking out the dimensions. "If you don't mind."

Celo closes his eyes and thinks, and then he paces the perimeter of a garden that is more or less rectangular and not all that much smaller than the palace, with a bite taken out of one corner where a small house apparently sits.

Glass composes a little diagram of it for Marianne, with dimensions attached, in the text brainphone feature.

[Thank you,] says Marianne. [I wonder if someone should upgrade the brainphone to do pictures? I'll look for somewhere nice to put it.]

"That's nice of her," says Celo. "I wonder if it'll come with the wall? I don't actually know."

"No idea. Sue doesn't register as magic when I look at him, except for stuff of known provenance like minting and aura. So whatever - moving around thing he does is not something I can help you with the details on."

"Not even to tell me if it really is all of us or not?"

"I might need to watch one of you actually doing it."

"Is Sue still busy?"

"Good question. Jane?"

[Sue's snuggling with Aegis in Peace, I can pass him a message if you like. And, hey, Aether, Amariah wants to talk to you.]