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The Fate who calls herself Mountain tried to convince some of her neighbors to allow the occasional mountain in their lands, for stability purposes.
"I meant no insult!" Dodge ball of lava. "I don't intend to interfere, you said no!" Dodge house-sized spear of ice. "I'm leaving peacefully, okay, so stop tearing up the tile!"
"You'll respawn at home. No permanent damage. You interrupted an important meeting, you need to learn a lesson about territory, mountain bitch." Dodge- no, fail to dodge a thrown tree, and then another ice ball. The next sphere of magma is what destroyed that form.
She wakes up, stripped of all her tools and enchantments and even clothes, and groans in pain.
Steel in Wormverse
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sturdycoldsteel
sturdycoldsteel
"If villain means bad para human like I think, no. I'm going to build roads and predict earthquakes."
sturdycoldsteel
"That's where I'm going now. I don't want to keep Alexandria waiting. I can maybe spar tomorrow if you still want."
The cape is alarmed and impressed and surprised and very embarrassed! "Oh um. Yeah don't leave her waiting. I'm, sorry to bother."
He floats away quickly.
He floats away quickly.
sturdycoldsteel
So she really is famous and respected. That's convenient for fending off any further interruptions.
Shortly, "I'm at the roof, Alexandria."
Shortly, "I'm at the roof, Alexandria."
"I will be with you in a moment."
Alexandria is soon there, and a sort plump man with glasses accompanies her. "Hello," the man says in Celtana's language, with an accent slightly worse than Alexandria's.
Alexandria is soon there, and a sort plump man with glasses accompanies her. "Hello," the man says in Celtana's language, with an accent slightly worse than Alexandria's.
"I'm Harry. I will help understand the structure of your language and collect samples of it to help develop tinker tech to do it automatically."
He is not automatically understandable, but Mountain will find herself having much less trouble divining the meaning of his sentences than she did Alexandria's.
He is not automatically understandable, but Mountain will find herself having much less trouble divining the meaning of his sentences than she did Alexandria's.
sturdycoldsteel
"Sure. But I'm itching to do something useful sooner or later after I lost most of that island."
"You have saved countless lives and destruction would have been far worse without you." She starts leading them in and through the various scans and passwords.
"Some people's powers are to be very good at creating technology," Harry explains. "Those people are called Tinkers, and they are generally useful."
"Some people's powers are to be very good at creating technology," Harry explains. "Those people are called Tinkers, and they are generally useful."
sturdycoldsteel
"Technology..." She turns the word over, attempting to extract more meaning for a moment, then shrugs.
"But what I mean is I feel the stones around me on an immediate and visceral level. Preventing that monster from tearing everything to pieces was like watching someone swing a hammer down on your arm, over and over, and you can only block half of the blows."
She winces just remembering it. "I don't regret it, of course, I'm just trying to explain why I want to build something so badly.
"But what I mean is I feel the stones around me on an immediate and visceral level. Preventing that monster from tearing everything to pieces was like watching someone swing a hammer down on your arm, over and over, and you can only block half of the blows."
She winces just remembering it. "I don't regret it, of course, I'm just trying to explain why I want to build something so badly.
Harry furrows his brows. Alexandria translates some of that, and Harry's power fills the rest in and he translates it back to Alexandria herself.
"Technology is things people make that would not exist without people," Harry supplies, finally.
"And I understand your desire to build something. We have found you a nice spot to create a mountain," Alexandria says.
"Technology is things people make that would not exist without people," Harry supplies, finally.
"And I understand your desire to build something. We have found you a nice spot to create a mountain," Alexandria says.
sturdycoldsteel
"Good. But to figure out my language, should I just keep talking or should I say specific things?"
sturdycoldsteel
That same slightly ragged piece of paper and pencil appears out of a slot on her back. She writes. "Well, here's the alphabet." It has sixteen letters, none of them taking more than two strokes to write.
Harry asks questions about how each letter's pronounced, about the presence of accents, and how words are formed from the alphabet.
sturdycoldsteel
Her answers are entirely consistent with a working language that wasn't made up on the spot.
That is good! Not that he'd been expecting something like that, but it is still reassuring.
He asks her to say things in her language, and write the things she's said, and he tries to repeat them and change them around some, and this can in fact take quite a while. Harry seems to like his job.
There will be food available when they need food.
He asks her to say things in her language, and write the things she's said, and he tries to repeat them and change them around some, and this can in fact take quite a while. Harry seems to like his job.
There will be food available when they need food.
sturdycoldsteel
She talks and writes and explains and eats and solicits intermittent English practice during all this.
There's a bit of a talent for languages there, probably from knowing seven (and a half, depending on if runes count) reasonably well already, but she won't be writing the Great American Novel any time soon.
There's a bit of a talent for languages there, probably from knowing seven (and a half, depending on if runes count) reasonably well already, but she won't be writing the Great American Novel any time soon.
That is interesting! Though without a power like his or Alexandria's, learning a language in one day is probably still infeasible.
Most of the notes will be sent to a computer anyway to create something that can automatically translate stuff (and be turned off when Mountain wants to speak English and practice, naturally).
Most of the notes will be sent to a computer anyway to create something that can automatically translate stuff (and be turned off when Mountain wants to speak English and practice, naturally).
Well, that's not a bad comparison!
Eventually Harry grabs a book in English and starts asking how certain sentences there would be rendered in her language. Not everything can be divined based on conversation and a parahuman linguist's intuition.
Eventually Harry grabs a book in English and starts asking how certain sentences there would be rendered in her language. Not everything can be divined based on conversation and a parahuman linguist's intuition.
sturdycoldsteel
This language apparently has lots of room for syntactic ambiguity. She writes two sometimes quite different versions of most sentences longer than five words. (Or maybe she's just not all that good at English yet.)