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The shaper known as Steel is flying down the right side of a road, shoring up the edges of the bluestream that lets her lift herself off the ground as she goes. Sure, she'll be a bit clumsy and weak when she gets to Opri, but she's not planning on doing much more stream-shaping today, so might as well.
She glances at the bluestream (the magical vision blinds her physical vision for a short moment, but not long enough to crash into anything) and determines that this next crossroads is where she needs to turn. She tilts to the right...
...And lands on a patch of orange grass in a forest clearing. This is not the town of Opri. She opens her eyes and ears to the bluestream, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
The bluestream here isn't a nice, orderly, useful pattern like on the roads, or the formless fog that it usually decays to after a while. Instead it's a riot of random patterns swirling around, wispy and confused and obviously not designed to do anything useful.
Steel, deaf and blind for a few seconds thanks to her peek at the bluestream, stands very still and is very confused.
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sturdycoldsteel
sturdycoldsteel
And the pair go back to being studious and occasionally interacting. Two days later, Steel manages to transmute copper to gold and laughs.
She goes and finds Promise. "I just transmuted copper, a relatively common metal, to gold, an extremely rare and valuable one. Problem is, gold is only valuable because it's rare. If I teach sorcery to people back home, someone will think of the same thing, it'll wreck the economy. And yet, I can't stop thinking 'Gold! I'm rich!' It's a bit silly, isn't it?"
She goes and finds Promise. "I just transmuted copper, a relatively common metal, to gold, an extremely rare and valuable one. Problem is, gold is only valuable because it's rare. If I teach sorcery to people back home, someone will think of the same thing, it'll wreck the economy. And yet, I can't stop thinking 'Gold! I'm rich!' It's a bit silly, isn't it?"
sturdycoldsteel
"Oh well, what's fun about life without a little silly now and then? I want to get as many fun things and as much silliness as possible done when I'm still young so I don't end up as a stereotypical crotchety eighty-year-old complaining about how kids these days waste their youth."
sturdycoldsteel
"You don't have to worry about that, now do you? Fairies are immortal, lucky little *mumble* Anyway! When I get back home I'm going to buy a big old copper globe, turn it to gold, and probably roll on the floor laughing at the face of the first jeweler I try to sell it to."
sturdycoldsteel
"One would hope, yes. And in exchange for these sorcery lessons, I'll go to the library and look up all the known information about the stone circles in hope of making you one. I doubt I'll find a book that's directly about how to make them, not at a branch library like mine. Maybe I'll have to go to the capital city."
sturdycoldsteel
"Would you like to visit for a few hours, see what it's like? Wait, everyone uses original names over there, that seems pretty risky. If you only talked to bluestream shapers, they'll probably use their trade names, but still."
sturdycoldsteel
"Yeah, that sounds painful and inconvenient. Hmm. Indulge my weirdness, please. Would you say we qualify as friends now? I'm bad at - social categories like that."
imeanforever
"I don't really know. I'm sure to have even less practice than you at it, considering."
sturdycoldsteel
"Low population density will do that, I guess. See you later, I'll be in my sun-circle, reading this." She pats the book and walks into the forest.
sturdycoldsteel
Back to being companionable bookworms, then.
Steel produces harmonic maps in more or less the same order Promise asks for them. She practices sorcery and reads sorcery books and asks sorcery questions. She sometimes disappears for a day or two then comes back. This goes on for a while.
Steel produces harmonic maps in more or less the same order Promise asks for them. She practices sorcery and reads sorcery books and asks sorcery questions. She sometimes disappears for a day or two then comes back. This goes on for a while.
imeanforever
And eventually:
"I think I can cast a gate now. Where do you want me to put it on the mortal world's end?"
"I think I can cast a gate now. Where do you want me to put it on the mortal world's end?"
sturdycoldsteel
"How well does the location have to be defined? And can it be somewhere out of the way on this end? I don't want to pop up in your front garden every time I want to visit fairyland, and other fairies coming through would be a problem."
imeanforever
"Well, and ideally with geographical features rather than relative to anything else. I can put it wherever you like on this end. I can also close the gate until some specified time, if you're worried about unauthorized traffic."
sturdycoldsteel
"Geographic features... Could it reference a certain bridge? And can I make a deep hole with a room at the bottom in my sun-circle clearing? If I cover it up after, probably nobody will manage to stumble in even if you leave it open."
imeanforever
"Mountains or rivers or coastline would be better than a bridge. And yeah, go ahead."
sturdycoldsteel
She makes her hidden room and shapes the harmonics of it correctly and considers locations.
"The bottom of the Marv Canyon's river valley, just north of a sharp bend that splits it into two rivers and just south of the Glass Bridge, which is a hundred miles north of an ocean and surrounded by almost perfectly flat plains, except that the east side of the canyon is about a thousand feet higher than the west. Do you need more specificity?"
"The bottom of the Marv Canyon's river valley, just north of a sharp bend that splits it into two rivers and just south of the Glass Bridge, which is a hundred miles north of an ocean and surrounded by almost perfectly flat plains, except that the east side of the canyon is about a thousand feet higher than the west. Do you need more specificity?"
imeanforever
"That should do it - if I understand you correctly, that was quite a sentence, do you maybe want to draw me a map?"
sturdycoldsteel
"That's probably a good idea."
She draws a map, notes all significant nearby geography, and marks a certain spot.
She draws a map, notes all significant nearby geography, and marks a certain spot.
imeanforever
"All right. Do you want me to leave it open or close it for a while once you've gone? Is there anything you want to do beforehand?"
sturdycoldsteel
"I've got all my stuff, you've got your books back, I can send up a flare and pretend to have been lost in the canyon for two weeks. The old food wrappers will help with that story. And - you should probably close it for a week or so. I'll be back around then. It shouldn't be hard for you to get in and out of here, but please move the camouflage back over the entrance when you leave."