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One moment Loki is trying to kill the snake-monster before it gets any closer to civilization, and then next -
She jabs at its face, but with momentum intended to meet resistance, and there is none. With momentum intended to compensate for a dodge on the part of the creature, but it surges forward. She's engulfed, and then there is no snake, and there is no ground, and she's falling.
She gasps. The air is clean; she doesn't need to heal poison out of herself with each breath. She sees - floating land, of sorts, there, some kind of oddly geology-themed ship maybe. She could, potentially, turn Lævateinn into something with enough surface area to steer herself onto it rather than fall farther and suffer worse from the fall, but she just recently perfected a new...
She's a bird, a swift, and she catches the wind, and her spear is a twig clutched in her feet, and she wings her way to the land.
Rockeye's first glowfic. Loki (a Bell) falls on Nick in Cloudbank.
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purposeful_glory
cloudwanderer
"So you did. I thought you had lost your weapon, since you weren't carrying anything obviously weaponlike. Should I reevaluate the potential threat of that little stick on your belt? And it's not that I think you're going to hurt me, it's that you being able to hurt me makes me slightly nervous whether or not you're going to."
purposeful_glory
"Well, then you may have to be slightly nervous." She pulls the stick off her belt, turns it into a little knife in a way that could look like it's a switchblade if one weren't paying close attention. "My mother gave it to me and I could never replace it."
cloudwanderer
"Thank you for telling me. I can deal with being a little nervous. Do you think you've learned enough about the ship to help me set her down somewhere inhabited? It'll be tricky, with just one wing."
purposeful_glory
Loki puts Lævateinn back on her belt. On the opposite side of where it looks like she's putting it. When she's back in alignment with her visible outline: "I'll do what I can, of course."
cloudwanderer
He looks strangely at the motion. He seems fairly observant, and he noticed exactly where the sound was coming from when she threw her voice the other day...
"Well, better get to work."
Getting the ship to an inhabited island involves communicating from a distance, something Loki hasn't observed yet. He has a set of forty flags, and he raises them out the top of the ship in particular patterns. The village responds with its own flags.
Nick explains the meanings as he goes, the entire conversation is:
My vessel is damaged. Request permission to land.
Are you capable of maneuvering?
Capable of limited maneuvering. No danger of loss of lift.
Permission to land granted.
Then they carefully line up, letting off little spurts of water and gas and turning the engines up and down and using the control surfaces on the one remaining wing. In a little more than two hours, Nick's ship is securely tied to a wooden pole sticking out over a farming village of eight houses and some twenty people.
"Alright. Thanks for helping me set down. You could get off here if you want, but my offer to ferry you to a good-size town still stands, after I make at least a crude replacement for that wing." He slides down the ship's ropes and starts trying to trade with the farmers.
"Well, better get to work."
Getting the ship to an inhabited island involves communicating from a distance, something Loki hasn't observed yet. He has a set of forty flags, and he raises them out the top of the ship in particular patterns. The village responds with its own flags.
Nick explains the meanings as he goes, the entire conversation is:
My vessel is damaged. Request permission to land.
Are you capable of maneuvering?
Capable of limited maneuvering. No danger of loss of lift.
Permission to land granted.
Then they carefully line up, letting off little spurts of water and gas and turning the engines up and down and using the control surfaces on the one remaining wing. In a little more than two hours, Nick's ship is securely tied to a wooden pole sticking out over a farming village of eight houses and some twenty people.
"Alright. Thanks for helping me set down. You could get off here if you want, but my offer to ferry you to a good-size town still stands, after I make at least a crude replacement for that wing." He slides down the ship's ropes and starts trying to trade with the farmers.
cloudwanderer
"Not particularly."
In fact, she can have two entire days as he carves down some of the tree branches into moving parts and structural components, trades some pork for glue and cotton fabric made from the farmers' own crops, replaces the broken glass in his greenhouse with some spares from a box in the cargo bay, and assembles a smaller and rather crude-looking facsimile of the wing that was torn off by that squid-thing. He is available for conversation between these activities, as are the farmers.
In fact, she can have two entire days as he carves down some of the tree branches into moving parts and structural components, trades some pork for glue and cotton fabric made from the farmers' own crops, replaces the broken glass in his greenhouse with some spares from a box in the cargo bay, and assembles a smaller and rather crude-looking facsimile of the wing that was torn off by that squid-thing. He is available for conversation between these activities, as are the farmers.
purposeful_glory
So Loki talks to some farmers and Nick, trying to get an idea of what her plans should be if she's going to be on the planet long-term. What kinds of work are available...?
(She's also discreetly trying to figure out what things she can think of that seem feasible with their materials have and have not been invented yet.)
(She's also discreetly trying to figure out what things she can think of that seem feasible with their materials have and have not been invented yet.)
cloudwanderer
The kinds of work that are available outside of a big town are pretty much: flying a ship, farming, or making things. Usually a combination of the three, since the islands themselves tend to act like ships. Large towns are typically made up of dozens or hundreds of satellite islands held together by long rope bridges. They have enough resources flowing around that there is room for academics and artists and nobility of various kinds.
The main limitation in terms of resources seems to be that there is almost no metal of any kind available, and everything else is rather more scarce than she is used to. Organic things are plentiful, wood and the strange floating rocks are used for most constructions.
As much as possible is recycled, so they have material and chemical processing down pat. There are plenty of things she could invent and use or sell that they don't seem to have - complex clockwork, good-quality telescopes, medicine, more efficient engines that aren't mostly made of ceramic. Electrical devices are almost completely unknown (falling under 'lost technology') but the materials to make them are probably locable, if rare.
The main limitation in terms of resources seems to be that there is almost no metal of any kind available, and everything else is rather more scarce than she is used to. Organic things are plentiful, wood and the strange floating rocks are used for most constructions.
As much as possible is recycled, so they have material and chemical processing down pat. There are plenty of things she could invent and use or sell that they don't seem to have - complex clockwork, good-quality telescopes, medicine, more efficient engines that aren't mostly made of ceramic. Electrical devices are almost completely unknown (falling under 'lost technology') but the materials to make them are probably locable, if rare.
purposeful_glory
All right. So she may be able to establish herself as an inventor - they certainly spend enough time worrying about running into things that she imagines they'd appreciate telescopes, and the basics are simple. But she'd like to do it someplace a bit bigger than this. She decides she'll carry on with Nick if he'll have her, and tells him so.
cloudwanderer
"Alright, sounds fine to me. Fair warning, it's hard to aim for a particular town - they move around too much. And the governments... Vary. They tend to be at least marginally effective and friendly, because ineffective unfriendly governments make people leave. Thought I should warn you, at any rate."
"That squid tentacle will fetch a decent amount of coin if we find a town with at least a few thousand people. It occurs to me that I should pay you for it - How does half of the squidmeat's value once I sell it sound? I keep the other half because you were on my ship, and the squid smashed it up a non-negligible amount."
"That squid tentacle will fetch a decent amount of coin if we find a town with at least a few thousand people. It occurs to me that I should pay you for it - How does half of the squidmeat's value once I sell it sound? I keep the other half because you were on my ship, and the squid smashed it up a non-negligible amount."
purposeful_glory
"I won't quarrel with the division. How much does that add up to?" wonders Loki.
cloudwanderer
"Hard to say until I actually find a buyer. Definitely enough to live on for a while - maybe half a year. You'll be able to buy whole notebooks, if you still want paper."
cloudwanderer
They set off, Nick waving farewell to the farmers. Unless something else interrupts the ship, it will arrive at an appropriately large town at mid-afternoon the next day.
The town is a fairly impressive sight, almost as vertical as it is horizontal. There are lots of parks and urban gardens and pretty wildlife in the surrounding islands. People move around on little cars suspended from ropes, or miniature balloon-like things. The ship dockyard has some three dozen vessels of widely varying size and design attached to it, which Nick's somewhat-battered houseship soon joins.
The town is a fairly impressive sight, almost as vertical as it is horizontal. There are lots of parks and urban gardens and pretty wildlife in the surrounding islands. People move around on little cars suspended from ropes, or miniature balloon-like things. The ship dockyard has some three dozen vessels of widely varying size and design attached to it, which Nick's somewhat-battered houseship soon joins.
purposeful_glory
Loki likes this town! It's very cute. It needs a telescope workshop on it.
cloudwanderer
Someone falls off one of the islands!
...And then stops falling a few seconds later. Upon closer inspection, there is a web of rope hanging under the entire town, held up by poles extending outward from the lowest and outermost islands.
It will take Nick a few hours to arrange for repairs to his ship and a buyer for the squid and all his other food and his tree.
Loki is free to walk around the town, handed a few wooden coins (yes, wooden, and marked with a peculiar symbol that seems to be on a lot of this town's buildings - a logo of sorts), and advised to return at sunset for the rest of her money.
...And then stops falling a few seconds later. Upon closer inspection, there is a web of rope hanging under the entire town, held up by poles extending outward from the lowest and outermost islands.
It will take Nick a few hours to arrange for repairs to his ship and a buyer for the squid and all his other food and his tree.
Loki is free to walk around the town, handed a few wooden coins (yes, wooden, and marked with a peculiar symbol that seems to be on a lot of this town's buildings - a logo of sorts), and advised to return at sunset for the rest of her money.
purposeful_glory
All right. Stroll, stroll. Where does one get glass, and miscellaneous tools?
cloudwanderer
One might pay attention to the helpful maps posted here and there. Some of the larger islands have names, the one she's on right now is "Stairway." It's probably the most vertical, and seems to be a hub of sorts. If she wants glass and tools, why not try for the island labelled "Glissei's Glassware Workshop"?
cloudwanderer
If she takes the most obvious path, she'll arrive at a very pretty storefront labelled Glissei's, on an island near the bottom and outer edge of town, leading into a store that sells glass and things-containing-glass of all shapes and sizes and colors.
purposeful_glory
She has no reason to take a non-obvious path. She takes a look at the glasswares before trying to speak to anyone. Just double-checking on the telescopes.
cloudwanderer
There is a large, obvious sign in red lettering: "If you break any product, you will be responsible for paying recrafting fees or performing labor to account for same. Enforceable by Linral All-Town Agreement #32."
There are telescopes by a window, conveniently labelled 'for demonstration purposes'. They are mostly made of wood and what looks like bone apart from the glass bits, very bulky, and if she looks through one, she will observe that it has weak magnification, it is difficult to adjust the focus.
There are telescopes by a window, conveniently labelled 'for demonstration purposes'. They are mostly made of wood and what looks like bone apart from the glass bits, very bulky, and if she looks through one, she will observe that it has weak magnification, it is difficult to adjust the focus.
purposeful_glory
Okay, so she can't invent telescopes from scratch, but she can improve on them. If they can make mirrors. Are there mirrors?
cloudwanderer
There are mirrors. They are very expensive. They seem to be made entirely of glass and silver. The silver is probably what makes them so expensive.