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church's stipulations
cam and paladins in milliways
Permalink Mark Unread

There is a person sitting at this bar. He's got wings, and a tail, and no shirt on, and is reading a book and drinking a latte.

The bar is Lawful Good. The person is Chaotic Evil. They are both very very powerful, so it's pretty radiantly obvious to anyone checking.

Permalink Mark Unread

Araya Rabassa is checking, mostly on reflex, because she just opened what she thought was the door to her room at this inn and instead it's an extradimensional space and that's the sort of thing you check first thing when you accidentally walk into someone's extradimensional space. 

She tenses at the demon and then is slightly distracted and confused by the bar and then goes back to tensing at the demon. "...sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to trespass, I was looking for the attic room?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You're not trespassing, this is a, uh, public interdimensional bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - I see." So suspicious. "Your public interdimensional bar?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, it's, uh, hers? Or her employers' - the bar is a person -" He knocks on it a bit. "She talks by napkin, if you want to ask about the ownership situation of the public interdimensional bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

She looks surprisingly nonconfused by this claim. "Hello? Is this your bar? Did it borrow the door to my inn room, by any chance?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Hello. I manage the affairs of the establishment and am a permanent installation, but I do not control the behavior of the door. If you prefer to go home to your own world, the door will take you back where and when you left, but it will still do so if you stay longer, such as to partake of a drink. First one's free.

Permalink Mark Unread

She grimaces. "I'd love to check out the interdimensional bar but I have a ship to catch at first light -" and she squints at the napkin again - "or, do you mean that this is an interdimensional bar with time dilation -"

Permalink Mark Unread

It is, yes. I cannot absolutely guarantee no time will pass in your home world, but that is how it works in virtually all cases where it is not the case that the person will not return to their world except contingent on an event occurring there.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I see. Well, in that case, I'll stay a while - I don't drink, regrettably - and thank you for the invitation. Do you want to tell me more about yourself?" 

She is still ignoring Cam.

Permalink Mark Unread

I'm Bar, and I serve beverages and food and also operate as a library and general store, although after the first drink (which need not be alcoholic in nature) I am obliged to charge reasonable currency-dependent prices, though many people choose to run up a tab.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmmm. I'll think about what to order, then." And she braces herself slightly and tries smiling at Cam, too. "I travel as Mariona Pere." Seems like a bad idea to give demons your real name.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm Cam. You can let her recommend stuff, she's good at that." He sips his latte.

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can recommend me a nonalcoholic drink, if you'd like," she says to Bar. She is still very tense. "Have you, uh, been here a while?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"A few days. Um, are you okay? You look really - anxious?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not trained for extradimensional travel, and I haven't actually met any...demons before? You are a demon, right?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, assuming the translation effect is treating us kindly."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Demons are Chaotic Evil, are formed in the infinite Abyss from the souls of dead mortals and also sometimes of their own accord, are in the middle of trying to eat my planet..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know what the first thing means, the second thing sounds pretty close, last thing doesn't sound like us. I mean, presumably you have a different kind."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They don't look like you either, though that could be shapeshifting. Chaotic Evil is, uh, uninterested in large-scale civilization or coordination or - fighting in armies, taking vows to religious orders, constraining your current self for your future self. And Evil. Does that one not translate. Evil is hurting people."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Chaotic sounds about right for typical demons of my sort, I guess, and we have a bad reputation. I'm pretty conventional looking - I mean, more ethnically homogenous than a lot of demons but I'm not doing anything anatomically weird and I don't know if I even look like a recognizable ethnicity to people from other worlds."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You could be from central or northern Avistan, I think, aside from, uh, the wings and tail, which humans where I'm from don't have."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ours either, by and large. Uh, is your planet... going to be okay, what's the prognosis on that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, we're doing our best. It's not - immediately going to get overrun or anything, we have magic defenses around the place where the demons are eating everything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is there anything I can do to help without, uh, leaving here? I'm reluctant to leave here, I'm hoping to find somebody who can resurrect the dead."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And I probably shouldn't let Chaotic Evil demons from other worlds into ours. If you'd like, you could help me look through the library and see if there's anything applicable?

...also our priests can resurrect the dead, though it's awfully expensive."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think your demons are a different kind, remember - uh, expensive how?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your demons might well be different but you're Chaotic Evil in your own right. It's expensive because it requires a diamond and, at minimum a fifth-circle spell slot, and there aren't many people who can cast that."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Oh.

If I give you as many diamonds as you can get out of Milliways will you take them or do I, uh, smell too evil or whatever."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- in exchange for resurrecting someone for you?  I don't want to promise on the spot but... almost definitely? I'm not myself powerful enough to do it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If I only got one I wouldn't know who to ask for, I need something that scales, but like, your planet is being eaten, you could probably use them?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Yes. We'll take them. - thank you." 

Permalink Mark Unread

"What kind do you need?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know. Is the library going to have books from my world?" she asks Bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

Yes, I can access anything published in any world.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wow. Okay. 

wow. Uh - sorry, can you give me a minute to think -"

Permalink Mark Unread

Of course, take as long as you like.

Permalink Mark Unread

She spends a minute staring dazedly off into space. Then she checks anxiously in all directions and pulls out a dagger, not particularly ornate, and clasps it in front of her and closes her eyes and prays.

 

That is, after all, the thing to do when a situation seems above your paygrade.

 

 

Permalink Mark Unread

Cam watches her sort of curiously but doesn't say anything.

Permalink Mark Unread

What would the Inheritor do with an offer of as many diamonds as you can carry and all of the books in all of the worlds.

 

 

Proooobably diamonds are more valuable than books so you should carry mostly diamonds and just try to commit the books to memory? But she can't stay here that long, she doesn't have that much spending money. And maybe there are some books in all the universes that are even more valuable than diamonds, at least if you're going to have tons of diamonds anyway. Also she's going to get stopped and robbed. Or possibly attract worse attention than that. 

Her eyes pop open. "Do you accept pay in diamonds?" she asks the Bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

I can take almost anything in barter, diamonds included.

Permalink Mark Unread

"She accepts counterfeit so I've been paying for my room that way."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- I don't want to counterfeit money!" Araya says. "But if diamonds are allowed, and it doesn't go against your intent too much with the gift, I might sell a diamond so I can buy food so I can stay here longer and, among other things, train in personal defense so I can safely leave here with more diamonds. And books. Probably I'll want to memorize the books but I'm not sure yet, there might be some useful ones I can't learn anything from."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can make food too. And books. Though Bar will be better at suggesting specific books. Uh, I could give you an electronic book storage object, too, if you want, that's a way to store information in a very small space. It does require charging but I could make you a solar charger, assuming your world has a sun."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sorry, how are you planning to make all this stuff?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's what my kind of demon does, make stuff. Arbitrary material objects."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

 

 

"That's - 

- that seems like you'd just rule the multiverse?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Historically interdimensional travel options have been very limited. Material objects don't get you that."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Does prayer not work in here?" she asks Bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

That will depend on the relevant deity or deity's relationship to time dilation. However, it is likely to work normally in any case if you hold the door open.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"If it's all right with you," she says to Cam, "I would like to open the door and, uh, pray for guidance?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I don't mind? Why would I?"

Permalink Mark Unread

" - well, you're Chaotic Evil so I assume you wouldn't get along with my god. Who is the opposite of Chaotic and the opposite of Evil."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not like I -

- I don't mind. Go ahead."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

 

She goes over to the door and props it open and kneels and pulls her dagger out again and prays.

 

She does not immediately get a response, which makes sense because prayer does not usually get a direct response. She keeps at it for hours, because probably it's hard to tell which of Your followers have something really important to tell You and having been at it for hours will be informative on that front. 

Permalink Mark Unread

In this time Cam finishes his book and returns it to Bar, starts another one, finishes his latte and refills it with a mocha, eats a slice of cheesecake, returns the second book without finishing it, creates a plate of bread and lentils next to "Mariona Pere" in case she's gotten hungry and can eat while she's praying, picks up his violin and puts it down in case that will mess her up, and relocates to the couch in front of the sofa, where he fiddles with some programming projects.

Permalink Mark Unread

And after a couple of hours another woman, a couple of decades older, huffs and puffs up the stairs and blinks at the open door. 

"Mariona Pere" scrambles to her feet. "I rented the room for the night," she says, stepping in front of the doorway to screen off Cam. 

       "No, no, it's all right, the Inheritor sent me."

" - oh. Oh good. Thank you. Uh, come on in - this is Cam, who is a demon, but from another world - did She explain already -"

       "Nope! Just, vision, go to this place right away." This woman doesn't seem even mildly afraid of Cam.

"And this is Bar, who runs this place, and sells food and drink. It has time dilation but only when the door is closed. And Cam has offered us, uh, lots of diamonds. And a book-reader. And - I might've forgotten some other stuff."

      

Permalink Mark Unread

"...hello," says Cam, peering over the back of the couch.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hello. You've ....offered us lots of diamonds?" 

Permalink Mark Unread

"It sounds like they'd be useful. It's not like, hard, for me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They would definitely be useful. Is there - some kind of metaphysical fashion in which this gives you ownership of the people thereby resurrected or something?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...no, what? No."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your world's magic apparently works different from ours so I don't know what kinds of things it might be able to do. You don't expect the diamonds to behave any differently than diamonds gotten from digging them up?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They shouldn't, unless your diamond mines are magical in some way. Or intelligent, that would also fox it if you have intelligent diamonds."

Permalink Mark Unread

She nods. "Thank you. Then - we'd be very grateful. Is there anything we can do for you in return?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I guess if you're one of the people who can resurrect people I could open my version of the door and find out who a good one person to get back would be, I'm sure someone around knows."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - different spell list, I'm a paladin, but we could certainly arrange it. Or, uh, if you'll accept missionaries, we could set up in your universe, do lots of resurrections."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My door doesn't go to my own universe, which doesn't need it particularly anyway, but I could ask someone in and see what they think of it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'd appreciate it. It might be a good idea to learn more first, though - who manages this bar -"

       "The bar says she doesn't control the door but sells drinks."

"Are there any laws here?" the older woman asks the bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

It is forbidden to do any violence including consensually in the main bar area (which includes the bathroom, infirmary, security office, and lowest flight of stairs, but not the backyard or private rooms). This is enforced by categorically adequate Security personnel as necessary with a stay of a few hours in the Security cells or in serious cases expulsion from the establishment. There are things I will not dispense or will not dispense in some circumstances, but it's not against the rules to ask. Please do not harass the giant squid, who is unable to enjoy the safety of the main bar area.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is 'violence' defined to include the use of magic targeting another person?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Only harmful magic, not divinatory or beneficial.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you." And she sits down on the couch across from Cam. "Is it all right if I talk to you, or would you prefer I don't?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"You can talk to me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you want to tell me more about your - world of origin which doesn't need a church, and the other world that might?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"My world of origin is very nice. It has afterlives, and it's inconvenient that travel options between them are limited, and also the world of the living does not in fact know that there are afterlives which is unfortunate for them, but adding resurrections as a service wouldn't, I think, be terribly important. The one I came through had a - war, and - doesn't have an afterlife, not in the way that -

- this is a long story and I'm not going to enjoy telling it but I think it might be important context."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Of course."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In my world of origin there's three kinds of beings who can be summoned, collectively 'daeva', and some dead people become us while some daeva just start existing, and the rest of the dead people go to a different afterlife instead. I'm the dead person kind of demon. Summoning's very common where I'm from, that's why it's so nice. I got, by incredible fluke, summoned to a different world, where summoning was unheard of. The kid who summoned me belonged to a group of people who were preparing to make war on an evil god on another planet from the one they were from.

The evil god was very bad.

Gods of that type can make binding oaths. If they actually say out loud with words that they will do something, they have to.

Mostly he just wanted to keep on being very bad, but the one thing he wanted more was for the other fourteen gods of his type to be dead, and I made a deal with him. There was a lot of collateral damage because in order to kill them I had to destroy the entire planet they lived on, which also had a lot of mortals and about a million mini-gods. I can put the mortals back, they - it's complicated but effectively they count as material objects for me in a way that humans and gods do not, and I can resurrect them, I'm about halfway through doing that on the replacement planet I made, but I can't put back any of the dead gods.

Then I found this place, and it does not void the oath if they get resurrected, so I'm going to stay here till someone can do that."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"- wow. All right. Uh, it sounds like you do need Iomedae. We have an Evil god problem too and She's the best for opposing them."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, the oath is still in force and it was pretty airtight, I don't think he or anybody who worked for him is an ongoing threat, but if she wants to check for loose ends, I guess. Do you think you'd be able to scale up enough to resurrect a million mini-gods if diamonds are free?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not quickly. There's not enough priests. What's their afterlife situation?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Don't appear to have one. There was a god who could bring back dead Elves - that's the people I've been resurrecting - and in theory also dead orcs, a related species, but not the other incarnates, humans and Dwarves, and I can't do those either for the same reason he couldn't. And he's one of the ones I killed so I'm doing all the Elves myself and will go back and get the war dead after I'm done with the ones from the destroyed planet."

Permalink Mark Unread

" - I'm not sure if our resurrection will even work without an afterlife. It pulls the soul back from the afterlife into a restored or newly-made body, and if the soul's been destroyed it doesn't work." Headshake. "I'm sorry. I'm sure it's solvable, even if I don't yet have the resources to do it myself."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, I might be in here a long time. I can still make you diamonds though. - I'm not sure they've ceased to exist, strictly speaking, due to, uh, complicated physics stuff I suspect you don't have the physics background to understand, so it might still be worth trying one if one of the Elves can recommend me a candidate. It's even possible that if we got one back they could pull the others out, I'm not sure, although if they got the Valar - the fourteen big ones - they might go back to making summoning impossible, which they did for the duration of the war arfter being apprised of my having appeared, and people are currently trying to turn that into an afterlife situation for the humans and the Dwarves."

Permalink Mark Unread

"These are the gods? I don't think you could kill our gods that way so I don't know exactly how to think about their abilities, or how to expect them to take it if Iomedae is there by the time they get back."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Your gods are immune to physics or something? It was important that they didn't have warning, at one point during negotiations with the evil one I threatened to tip them off that this was on the table, it wouldn't have worked then."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They don't have physical forms. I think destroying their domains would be very bad for them but I don't think it'd kill them. Some gods have been killed but - when they were taking a physical form or investing themselves all in a specific place for some reason, not at arbitrary times."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The Valar did a lot of investing themselves in the planet in question."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. Then - that makes sense.

 

My condolences."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...thanks, I guess, but I'm not really the wronged party here."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You'll note it wasn't at the top of my list of things to say, but - if it happened to one of my soldiers I'd be terrified for them for the next while."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not in danger."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Were you Chaotic Evil before the war, do you know?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's not a discernible feature of the universe where I'm from, people make ethical judgments, uh, idiosyncratically. Probably not? I'd never killed anybody before."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Do you want to repent?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is that a... discernible feature of the universe, where you're from?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes. You have to mean it, but - people are more than the worst thing they've ever done."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know what you mean by 'mean it'."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You have to regret it, and intend to set it right, and intend to grow such that you won't do anything like it again - that can be growing in ways other than...changing your mind...like, if you intended to become a god so you didn't ever have to make a tradeoff like that again, I know someone who Atoned in that fashion and it went through -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...becoming a god is also a thing where you're from?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes. Iomedae is an ascended human."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know if I strictly speaking regret it. I mean, apparently, the best thing I could possibly have been doing is convincing all the Elves to open as many doors as possible around the clock until a miracle occurred, I suppose while also maintaining information security so an orc didn't do it first, but I couldn't possibly have guessed that. If I'd messed up the oath I'd regret it, but - I didn't."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"That makes sense. I - don't know that that's disqualifying, but I think it means we shouldn't rush into it, at a minimum. 

 

You haven't asked many questions about our world. Are you curious about anything?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah. It seemed less urgent than sorting out the diamonds thing, I can always get books from Bar later. Mostly I'm curious about the - good and evil being discernible properties thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Good and Evil are axes along which the gods differentiated themselves, a very long time ago, long enough they have different accounts-for-humans of it. When people die, they are sorted into afterlives based on their conduct in life. For most people, you can't tell, while they're living, how they'll be sorted, but for powerful people, you can. Very powerful people radiate it. Paladins - the sort of servant of a god that I and my companion are - can detect Evil at sixty feet."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. She was very polite, considering. Does it - track the human concepts pretty well, or is it mostly just useful at a granularity of having murdered people or not?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It tracks the human concepts reasonably well, in most cases. Murder is Evil, slavery is Evil, brutality towards prisoners is Evil, hurting people is Evil outside of contexts where it's necessary to avoid greater harm. Defending the innocent and feeding the hungry and healing the sick are Good. Most people end up Neutral but not an overwhelming share."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Guess holing Valinor didn't count as necessary to avoid greater harm."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think killing - millions of innocent people - is - I mean, certainly if you died and went to trial Good would make our case but I am not surprised that it causes you to read Evil even if your cause was good. Killing guilty people is likelier to be compatible with Good than hurting innocent ones."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Holing Endorë instead wouldn't've worked since Melkor knew I could do that and also it had more non-resurrectable civilians."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I am not saying that I could have found a better option. I - don't know enough to form an opinion in any direction, on that, and it's not the most important question."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What is, do you think?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"How many worlds are there? Can Iomedae work in them? Is there a library book that can teach us how to defeat Hell, and how do I get it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Bar doesn't know how many but I stopped asking after she confirmed it was more than an octillion. No idea on Iomedae working in them. I did ask about magic you can learn from library books here and apparently that doesn't work but maybe you have something else in mind."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Maybe there's something that'll do it and isn't magic. I don't know what, but I guess we have - a lifetime, so it seems worth a thorough look."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'd rather if you have other options you don't ask me to drop a black hole on it, at any rate."

Permalink Mark Unread

"An octillion worlds? I'm sure we'll be able to do better. If it doesn't happen in my lifetime, well, Iomedae has lots of servants."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Good luck. Presuming your list of good and evil things didn't leave anything important out."

Permalink Mark Unread

Then she'll go up to Bar and ask for a meal produced without slave labor, she's not otherwise picky, and books from worlds that do not have a Hell and did at one point have slavery but stopped and now do not have hungry people except those who fast for visions.

Permalink Mark Unread

None of my meals are produced with slave labor, I make them all myself from nothing. Here is a bread bowl full of seafood stew and a pile of creamed leeks and an apple turnover. Does she mean anything the translation effect might catch as "a Hell" or just a realm of torment and evil?

Permalink Mark Unread

Just torment and evil, are there other Hells that don't have any torment and evil? - she'd specifically like books from places with Hells that don't have torment and evil, actually. 

Permalink Mark Unread

She gets some books about a world with lots of daeva that look suspiciously similar to Cam who are summoned to maintain a lovely post-scarcity world busily colonizing other planets.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

....well, it's a place to start. What sorts of things does this lovely post-scarcity world have.

Permalink Mark Unread

Demons and angels and fairies who aren't remotely like the ones she knows about. Spaceships and space stations. They didn't have dinosaurs but they do now! Moon arcologies. Plans for a generation fleet to colonize the next star system just 'cause why not. A hundred percent literacy rate. No slavery, no hunger, excellent public health.

Permalink Mark Unread

 

All right, how did they do it. Just ...having demons and angels and fairies? Are those Good?

Permalink Mark Unread

The world does not have good and evil as detectable qualities! Occasionally they are very bad; there is a daeva prison on a moon of an outlying planet of the system. It seems like they were already on their way to some of the nice stuff before they suddenly realized that you could summon daeva, though!

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you happen to know if controlled electricity works at home?" the older woman asks the younger one after a while.

"Controlled how, like, single-target?"

"No, like, used for lighting."

"I've never heard of that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have some engineering background if that's something you want to bring home, it's possible to learn from books but a little harder."

Permalink Mark Unread

He has a suddenly rapt audience. 

Permalink Mark Unread

...gosh, okay. "My education was spotty on how you actually acquire raw materials and render them into the useful forms, because I can just make stuff and was taught with that in mind, but I can teach you how it works." He will start with a basic chemical battery and a lightbulb.

Permalink Mark Unread

They are not notably brighter than average, and they clearly have approximately zero science education, but they're very very focused, and seem to be taking entirely seriously the possibility that they'll spend their natural lives here studying engineering. 

Permalink Mark Unread

If they want to spend their natural lives here studying engineering Cam will accommodate this as long as people from other worlds can still get in the door sometimes. He'll buy them rooms if they want and don't object too much to counterfeit.

Permalink Mark Unread

They want the door closed; that means their world will be paused while they learn engineering. They object to counterfeit of fiat currency but not to Cam producing items of value which Bar will accept as currency.

Permalink Mark Unread

Cam will switch to paying Bar in assorted corundum.

Permalink Mark Unread

They introduce themselves, eventually, a couple days later, for real - the younger woman is named Araya and the other woman is named Isavel. "Ideally we'd have more people in here, but I don't think Iomedae can work with the door closed, or they'd have come in already, and I don't know anyone else who's close - we're far from the areas the church normally operates in."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I mean, if you want to hold the door I can pay for your room. I guess I could also make a shuttle without myself leaving the bar, and pilot it remotely to whoever you wanted to pick up?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's not really safe to leave open for days. ...what's a shuttle? Wouldn't it need electricity? We don't have that at home."

Permalink Mark Unread

"A fast flying vehicle and I would make it with a fully charged battery. It can probably get any one place on the planet and back in less than a day unless your planet is huge or something, but if you want lots of trips, it'd take days. I could... buy the inn for you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"....maybe we could do that. I guess it wouldn't look that suspicious, really - and luckily we're on this side of the border -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is the innkeeper likely to take gemstones or should I sell some to Bar for gold minted like yours?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They'll want coin, there's probably no one in this town who can check gemstones to see if they're real."

Permalink Mark Unread

Cam sells Bar some rocks until he has a very large sack of platinum and gold for them to buy the inn with.

Permalink Mark Unread

"We should do the shuttle at the same time, probably? So we're not holding the door twice - will the shuttle be noticeable to magic -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, it's not going to be invisible. It's going to be a large metal object that flies through the air. It's not super loud and it's not itself magical."

Permalink Mark Unread

They exchange concerned glances. "...could it be invisible?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I can't make it that way but I could make it very high up? It will still have to land to collect passengers..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There aren't Chelish spies in Lastwall, but this place is going to be crawling with them. It's all right if it has to land when it gets there. - also probably it shouldn't collect them, they'll be suspicious, it should just have a note telling them where to Teleport to."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If it's just going to carry a note it can be much much smaller," he gestures a squirrel-sized shape.

Permalink Mark Unread

" - oh, that'll be safer. Even if they notice it they won't think it's something important. Yes, something like that - how does it fly without magic -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The little kind is very fast spinning things, like you know those seeds that spin when they fall, if you do one of those that's powered so it can spin faster it goes up instead of just falling more slowly."