Lucy gets warped to a different place and time in the Fallen London universe
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Well... London is huge and sprawling and none of these people exactly have a map. Somewhere on the lower levels, probably? In the south-ish bits of the city, far out where the city is half-abandoned and sparse. They can handle a long walk.

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Is the entire landmass the city is on part of the city?

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It's spread out and amalgamated onto like a dozen different big rocks. The more densely built parts of London are almost as solid as any mountain, though.

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Hm. Okay. She lines some shipping crates with enough insulation that the passengers won't freeze and enough glowing diamond that even if she misjudged the amount of oxygen necessary they won't die of hypoxia. And then anyone who wants to go in the box can go in the box and anyone who wants to climb inside her shell's chambers can do that. 

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Uh...

 

They all pick the boxes except for, like, two people.

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Those two people will be a lot less crowded than the people in the boxes, then. 

She picks up the boxes and makes for London, choosing care and stealth over speed. 

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Stealth is achievable. On the way there she will catch glimpses of the direct, distant glare of the Clockwork Sun - northwest of here, peeking through gaps in the barren mountains. Most everything close to the Clockwork Sun has been vitrified into sharp blue-green glass. There is at least one former Dreadnought out there steaming erratically around despite the massive shards of glass growing out of it.

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That's so concerning. 

She finds a suitably uninhabited bit of London and opens the boxes. 

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Workworlders file out, gather up their stuff, and start walking into town!

A few of them have cold feet and are just kind of exhausted and overwhelmed with everything don't want to leave the boxes or, like, do anything at all.

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Uhhhh. Okay. Well, she'll take a poke around London herself and try to pick up some seeds and so on and if they're still in the boxes when she gets back she'll take them back to the rock. 

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London is a loud, tangled, smoky mess. It has apartments and stores and workshops and brothels and salons and museums and soup kitchens and locomotive construction yards and police stations and greenhouses and circuses and hotels and bars and mansions and criminals and everything else the biggest city in this part of the High Wilderness could possibly contain. It's extremely vertical and crisscrossed with bridges and elevators and all the buildings of human life - the lower layers are the poorer ones, almost universally. The lower levels aren't as bad as the Workworld was, but they are at least on the scale. Various places sell seeds! Some of them even sell Reach-flora seeds, which tend to grow very vigorously. And she can probably get some by stealing from suburban gardens or picking acorns and the like.

Some of the people are still on the boxes. Some have wandered off. A few homeless-looking people have wandered in and seem to have made friends with the Workworlders who remain.

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She pokes her head in and informs the homeless Londoners that she's perfectly happy to take them along but if they don't want to leave they should go. 

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They're glad to hitch a ride. It's almost a badge of pride among the Skylarks - the loose identity vagabonds and hitchhikers share around here - to be some of the first to go to a newly interesting place.

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Cool cool, just as long as she doesn't accidentally kidnap anyone. 

She brings the boxes back to Workworlder City-to-be Rock and plants seeds and glows very aggressively at them for a little while, then leaves for the next Workworld. 

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They've stepped up security a lot. Goons with binoculars and guns are hanging around, there are cannons scattered around in clearly rushed emplacements, and there is a Dreadnought in the trainyard.

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Any convenient spars? 

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There are a few plausible options, but nothing quite as convenient as the last one visible from here. She'd have to snip in two places and cut a lot of pipes leading upward to get that street that looks like it has a steam plant on it, for example.

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Hmm. 

She lands on the Workworld-proper, somewhere the administrators won't see but the workers will. 

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There are Overseers about, but they mostly stick to the wider paths and are always in a hurry. They are avoidable.

The smoggy hell of this workworld seems to focus on Hour refining. Loose time is thick in the air, curving and pooling in the refinery halls where they're processing and spooling it. Some workers' right sides are much older than their lefts.

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Eugh. 

She finds a worker with this particular effect and glows at him aggressively enough to bring all of them down to a reasonable and healthy age. 

"--Hi, I'm the reason security's been tightened, I'm here to help, can you direct me to some local Resistance?"

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She looks down at her right hand, turning it over wonderingly. She looks over the sizzling vats.

"...She's off the books, calls herself Rose, cuts deals with the brass to keep the quota pressure off a bit but they're basically a gang themselves. We don't actually like her much. She's slightly better than the Overseers."

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"Oh. That's unfortunate. Is there anyone I can liaise with or am I playing this by ear again." 

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"Overseers are pretty good at smacking organization down. Rose got most of what's left for herself. How are you gonna help, walk the streets glowing?"

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"I mean I should glow at everyone at some point but no, I'm here to evacuate you all." 

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Her mouth opens slightly. She shifts posture.

"How good's that glowin' stuff?" She hefts a wrench. "I don't really care about pain anymore. Bet half this shift is the same. Could just bash Rose's goons up, get them out of the way. Might not even need to if she sees the writing on the wall. This place is close to boiling over about her already. Hoarding the best billets and easiest jobs for her goons, no better than the Overseers."

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