"You can buy the box and the finned cylinders here. Oh, you haven't had your free drink yet, have you? You should talk to Bar, she's the bar, the bar is a person for some reason."

"The bar is a person! Okay then. Like some super-advanced automaton or something? And I still don't know what you want. I have some pounds sterling, but... The government is kind of gone. So. I don't know if they're still worth anything."

"Yeah, like that! We'll find out if Bar can change pounds sterling into something useful. ...Oh, hey, how about if you give me the pounds sterling and I buy the metal? Bar might let me get away with that and I'm pretty sure metal's cheaper where I'm from."

"I don't doubt that. Lemme talk to Bar some first though?" He is, after all, a near-total stranger asking for her money.

"Sure thing. Want me to call for Saraisan now or wait till you've talked to Bar?"

"If time is paused outside - which is crazy if I know anything about physics, mind you - then we may as well wait? Unless you think he- She? They'll think of a good idea."

"She might think of something, this is her job. But she can do that just as well after you've talked to Bar, I guess."

"I'll just go talk to Bar, then."

...She sheds a layer of clothing, that overly-thick coat, first, revealing a heavy sweater under it. The metal arm gets in the way a bit, so she just removes it and reattaches it to some kind of device on the end of her stump of an elbow.

"...Doesn't metal get really cold? Is that a safe material for that to be made of?"

"It does. But I need two hands. Well, 'hands'. But my elbow's only so big, it's not like metal all across my front or something. And there's a rubbery bit that helps too."

"Maybe that arm needs to be immune to extreme temperatures. Anyway, I'll stop distracting you, you still have to talk to Bar."

"Right! This is going to be a good day!"

She talks to Bar. She gets a big mug of hot chocolate for her drink. She asks for a list of every newspaper published in the last month. There are dozens... But not thousands, like there were before the great winter.

(Sigh. The biggest tragedy since the Black Death. Maybe bigger. She'll just have to help whoever's left.)

Bar can take that big stack of pounds, worthless paper found in some abandoned factory owner's safe, two weeks' pay for a hundred workers, at face value.

Link has 160,231 rings.

"I hope that's enough for some ever-hot metal?"

"You have more than enough for the metal you want, you could live here for a year on that much, you could live here for a year on what's left over after you get your heaters. You really do want to pay me and have me buy the metal, though, ask Bar how much she'd charge either of us for a box of metal things, it's ridiculous but she has this objection to arbitrage."

"That's strange."

She asks Bar.

"...Yeaaaah. Okay. You get to buy me tons of finned cylinders, congratulations. I want a big box, though. Several big boxes. I can afford it, right?"

"You sure can. If you use all your money on boxes of metal scraps I don't think you'll be able to carry them out the door. And that's even if I take a cut. How are you planning on carrying these, anyway? Do I need to get one of my force mages to help with that?"

"You can totally take a cut. Not a huge one, but I don't mind a mediumish one. I can get them outside with pulleys and winches and rope, and then load them onto my automaton! Leave the rest in the factory and come back for them later. Automatons are great, they're strong and steady and will work or walk all day with nothing but some coal and water - nothing but water and a few of my shiny new heat sources!"

She has sketched out a model of what she wants. A cylinder about three feet tall and a few inches wide, with fins in a spiral pattern on it, and a big handle on both ends. "Should fit in most boilers and stoves, and makes it easier to move 'em with a hooked stick or something."

"How about I take a twenty-fourth of the difference between my price and yours? Bar, how many human-liftable boxes full of titanium rods made to those specifications can I get if I take that cut and the boxes are, hm, let's say also titanium?"

"Works," says Liane.

A box of three such items would be as heavy as a human can safely lift. If I provided you with small carts to be wheeled to Ms. Hunter's vehicle, such a cart could hold twenty without strain. I could allow for thirty such carts before the venture begins to strain my obligations to the landlords.

She names a price, about double the cost of the raw metal. To account for the complex shape and the cart.

"Well, will you be able to roll them over whatever the terrain is between you and your automaton? This deal works for me if it works for you."

"Yeah! I'm in an old factory. There's junk on the ground but I can deal with that. This is such a good place. I wanna hug you or something but I'm covered in snow."

"And I'm immune to cold and love hugs!"

In that case, hug!

Such hug!

"Milliways is pretty great, if you're literate you probably want to read some of the books, Bar has some books about how to make technologies that I never heard of before coming here."

"Oh, cool. It's the age of progress and all. The Royal Society studies and invents all sorts of things. That all stopped with the great frost, but without scientists we wouldn't have even known it was coming. I'll definitely hang out here a while, eat warm food, read interesting books. Call it a vacation."

"It's a good place for a vacation. Ready for me to get Saraisan?"