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Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
Steel summons Demon Cam
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sturdycoldsteel
"It's a new technique. By expanding the muscles and skeletal structure of the upper body, non-shapers can sometimes withstand the modifications necessary to grow wings. It has negative effects on the heart unless closely monitored, though."
"You'd know more than me," the guard shrugs. "Have a nice day, Steel. Remember to keep your shirt on, Cam."
"You'd know more than me," the guard shrugs. "Have a nice day, Steel. Remember to keep your shirt on, Cam."
sturdycoldsteel
After they're away from the guard, "I could have sworn I warned you. Wings make people assume you're a shaper. Shapers can withstand our method of body modification more easily than non-shapers."
from_scratch
"Yes, you told me that. You didn't tell me it meant I'd have to pretend to be one. I can't produce proof of that on demand - can't see the stream, can't transmute things unless I happen to know enough about their chemistry to do it by making and then only in limited ways, etcetera. What about being a shaper helps with the add-ons, anyway?"
sturdycoldsteel
"Keep in mind that I'm not a full doctor, I only took a half-load of med courses for three years. Our way of body-modification is a lot less finessed than yours. The going theory is that shapers unconsciously support their add-ons in ways that baseline humans can't. Shapers will grow capillaries in a new appendage all on their own, they generate their own skin and sweat glands, their new bones grow marrow without grafting, their minds more easily learn how to control new muscles, and so on. Non-shapers do none of these things, so it's all manually created, and it's too easy to miss something and end up with a defective body."
sturdycoldsteel
"Me neither, but the evidence speaks for itself. Are you going to find a hotel? I'm not that keen about letting you sleep in my apartment, to be perfectly honest."
from_scratch
"I don't have to sleep. Does the city completely go dead at night? I can just wander around, familiarize myself. Or find some nook to read in."
sturdycoldsteel
"It definitely slows down at night. I'm heading to my office right now, to get some documents, and then we can head to the pump facility and see what you can do for it. Come to think of it, I don't feel like waiting for an elevator, and I have these shiny new wings..."
She takes a bit of a running start and flies up, landing in a park suspended halfway up between two towers, a few blocks ahead. "These wings are convenient as well as awesome."
She takes a bit of a running start and flies up, landing in a park suspended halfway up between two towers, a few blocks ahead. "These wings are convenient as well as awesome."
sturdycoldsteel
"Well I'm hungrier than usual, and they seem like they could get in the way sometimes, but yeah. Civil service building is this way."
The 5th floor of all these buildings is almost like an entire second layer of streets. Entrances to businesses, homes, workshops, offices, government buildings are all lined up along wide pathways that escape being 'streets' only be the absence of horse-or magic-drawn wagons.
The 5th floor of all these buildings is almost like an entire second layer of streets. Entrances to businesses, homes, workshops, offices, government buildings are all lined up along wide pathways that escape being 'streets' only be the absence of horse-or magic-drawn wagons.
from_scratch
"I like this layered look. I bet Fairyland has cities like this. Hell can't organize well enough and Heaven does a cave network shtick and humans where I'm from can't fly."
sturdycoldsteel
"I think the reason we're vertical like this is so that we end up with almost a cube or sphere of constructed bluestream. It doesn't degrade nearly as quickly when it's in the middle of more bluestream. I wonder if you'd like to see the urban farms later? They're very magic, compared to using fields and natural sunlight."
from_scratch
"I mean, I won't be able to see the magic, but it could be instructive anyway, sure."
sturdycoldsteel
"Later, though. Here's the office." She goes in, and explains to the receptionist, "I'm just going in and out, Lina. I found a foreign expert and we're gonna give him a tour of the pump building."
"No tea, then?"
"No, thanks." She shows Cam into an office, which is crowded with neatly labelled and organized boxes and folders and papers and maps, and starts gathering papers.
"No tea, then?"
"No, thanks." She shows Cam into an office, which is crowded with neatly labelled and organized boxes and folders and papers and maps, and starts gathering papers.
from_scratch
"You know, if you can adequately specify the files you want I could just recreate them all, but maybe that would be more trouble than it's worth."
sturdycoldsteel
"Probably more trouble than it's worth unless you put them on a computer and also teach me how to use it... Pumpjack diagram, water use statistics, the water main map... That's all I wanted." She carries a small stack of notebooks back out the front.
On the way out, the receptionist asks, "Did he do your new wings, boss? They're very fine work."
"He did, in fact. But I have to be on my way, sorry." Back into the air! This time she flies to the top of a building that takes up two entire blocks and manages to be taller than 90% of the rest of the city.
On the way out, the receptionist asks, "Did he do your new wings, boss? They're very fine work."
"He did, in fact. But I have to be on my way, sorry." Back into the air! This time she flies to the top of a building that takes up two entire blocks and manages to be taller than 90% of the rest of the city.
from_scratch
"Now people have conflicting stories about whether I'm a shaper," remarks Cam. "Hopefully that doesn't bite me."
sturdycoldsteel
"...Oops. Well, Lina isn't very gossipy at least. And they aren't supposed to make you use magic, you can lean on that if anyone confronts you about it."
sturdycoldsteel
Fly, fly. Land on a roof. "This is actually one of the farms, we took over the top two floors and built the water infrastructure there." She goes in, revealing a warehouse-sized room filled with pipes and about fifty pumpjacks. Each pair has one bored-looking person sitting nearby and moves in sync. One set of jacks is offline, being inspected by someone in a red uniform.
"Behold, two-point-six million gallons per day of pumping capacity. The water gets squeezed through a sand filter and activated charcoal on the way up, and we change out the charcoal and re-activate it every two days. It sits in the tall tanks on the roofs, then drips down along mains embedded in walls and pathways to other buildings' roof tanks. The main sewage plant is outside the city walls, I can show you that later. What do you think?"
"Behold, two-point-six million gallons per day of pumping capacity. The water gets squeezed through a sand filter and activated charcoal on the way up, and we change out the charcoal and re-activate it every two days. It sits in the tall tanks on the roofs, then drips down along mains embedded in walls and pathways to other buildings' roof tanks. The main sewage plant is outside the city walls, I can show you that later. What do you think?"
from_scratch
"Not bad for working without electricity. I'm going to guess you don't have hot running water? How's the water pressure, is taking a shower here like getting rained on?"
sturdycoldsteel
"We have hot water, heat is easy. But it's usually lukewarm or cold again by the time it gets to whoever's using it. Most showers aren't very strong, especially if the building's water tower isn't close to full."
from_scratch
"Right, so I can definitely improve things. Where are you collecting the water to begin with?"
sturdycoldsteel
"Some from the river in the canyon, but the city of Nel kept complaining that we drain the river too much, so I convinced Grind to pay for a drilling operation and now we get most of it from an aquifer about half a mile below ground. This was a couple years ago. The whole thing is chugging along without me, now."