New Working Environment | Glowfic Constellation

impetuous_force

"In that case I'm sure we can work out something economically palatable," says Roxbury. "When we get to base I want to take a statement of your powers and inclinations under a different form of lie detection than Swan used and assign you quarters - unfortunately since we can't keep you in the barracks it'll be a repurposed holding cell, the base doesn't have a guest room, but we can leave the door open."

"I don't actually need to sleep, can my quarters be a workshop so I can start on UV emitter precursors?"

impetuous_force

Roxbury hummms. "We're a small base. What kind of equipment do you need? We might not have it, wherever we put you."

"To start with just open space, internet access to research what you even have at this tech level, maybe some steel or aluminum, maybe random electrical parts. Planning phase and making a frame."

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"We can get you that, but it'll have to go in the repurposed cell to keep you out of sight. Later on we can move you to Seattle."

"Would I also be moving to Seattle?

"We'll see, Swan."

"Alright. I don't think moving would be necessary if I end up working on this in Seattle - I can commute to anywhere on the planet in ten minutes. Somewhat longer with passengers."

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"How much longer with passengers?" inquires Roxbury.

"Perhaps fifteen or twenty. Mostly because I'd be going slower to ensure the passengers' safety."

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"That's a really big deal," comments Bella. "Especially if you don't need to sleep. Response time in areas far from a base would shrink enormously and could draw on farther-afield resources."

"Summoning fairies is useful, who knew. I personally have little desire to be an emergency response vehicle permanently, but every fairy has similar abilities so when I teach summoning you could find some who are more willing."

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Roxbury nods thoughtfully.

Walk, walk. Taptaptap on the tablet for UV emitter reference materials.

"Fairies are the easiest to pay of all kinds of daeva. A trip to China might cost you a tray of muffins."

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"I'll let the base cook know," says Roxbury, smiling slightly.

He gives a short 'heh' and goes back to hiking quietly.

impetuous_force

Eventually they reach the base, which is a short compact group of buildings with a walled, razorwired, humming-with-magic perimeter just outside a similar wall big enough to surround a whole town. Bella and Roxbury both have to give retina and palm scans and perform what looks like a dab of magic and then Roxbury has to have a short conversation with someone who's manning the door to confirm that Nick can come in. Then the door opens and they're in.

Roxbury leads them to a cramped little room in one of the buildings, performs a spell which bears no resemblance to Bella's lie-detection, and asks Nick to summarize his powers as completely and accurately as possible.

"I am a daeva, which means I'm indestructible and can be summoned. Specifically as a fairy, I can move any number of objects or pieces of objects that I can sufficiently identify, at any speed including up to the speed of light. There are limits to my range, acceleration, and maximum volume affected but I'll have to look those up. Should I give more details about the summoning?"

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"Yes."

"Summoning works by a human drawing a summoning circle, optionally under bindings. I will not be describing how to summon in more detail yet. I feel a potential summon as a sort of mental nudge, and can decline to answer. Once summoned, the summoner and I usually negotiate on a task and a payment. The bindings relax just enough to allow me to complete the task, and then I cannot be unsummoned until I receive the payment."

"There's nothing stopping a summoner from just leaving me alone and not explicitly negotiating a task, like what is happening now. There is no way to add more bindings except by unsummoning and resummoning. I also have no bindings right now and I would argue that they're not necessary because I genuinely want to help. Bella should definitely not repeat what she did earlier to resummon me because that grabs a random, potentially hostile fairy. That thing being a valid circle was almost certainly a once-in-a-millennium fluke, however."

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"Would it have mattered what order she drew its components in?" asks Roxbury.

"Only slightly. You finish the circle itself only after all necessary components are done, or it might change the bindings or lose specificity, otherwise it doesn't matter. Oh, you can also summon a particular individual, but again I'm trying to hold back the actual process at least for now."

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"I'm just trying to figure out how aggressively that particular divination spell should be suppressed," Roxbury says. "A lot of people wouldn't have come straight to us with a fairy."

"I think better safe than sorry. Whoever manages to duplicate what she did closely enough could do it, any significant deviations might or might not invalidate it. I don't know this kind of magic so I can't advise further, I think."

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Roxbury nods and makes a note. "More detail on 'indestructible'?"

"Shoot me between the eyes and I'll bleed a little bit. Put my arm in an industrial press and it hurts but the press will break. Stuff a daeva in a black hole and they are very, very bored for a very, very long time. I don't know about magical attacks, but my intuition is that they can't significantly harm me either."

impetuous_force