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Veron is installed in a nice house in Seattle with the help of Isabella's staff.
The colony gets big enough that Isabella sculpts herself an ice crown and applies permanency to it so it won't melt. She makes Adarin one too out of cypress branches, wired into shape, magicked to stay alive and shaped like that, and then freed of the wire. She wears hers on Earth sometimes, as well as on the colony. Her queen elects not to comment.
Various people are resurrected. Isabella hires more people to sort more requests; she's not going to be able to handle this via descending on charities. (She extracts longer-term promises of help - and nonviolence - from the clans she shares this spell with, though.) She opens an office near San Francisco, puts a lot of poultry in the back yard and makes a deal with an egg producer to save the otherwise unwanted males till adulthood for the purpose in future months, arranges regular deliveries of all the necessary herbs and ashes, and has someone carve out an enormous stencil of all the runes to speed up the process: the diagram may now be drawn with a broom, as long as it's still a witch doing it. (She also has stencils of the immortalization spell made.) There is always some witch in residence, working off their favor to her a few hours at a time, and a security team to prevent unruly demands, interference by religious protestors, and a receptionist or two to make sure the people coming in actually have appointments (or standby arrangements, in case of no-shows) to collect loved ones.
She gets into a bit of an argument with the United States military about resurrecting fallen soldiers. While she originally had no intention of discriminating against soldiers, she insists that resurrected ones be considered honorably discharged and that their re-upping be optional, and absolutely refuses to approve any systematic preferential resurrection of people who are just going to pick up guns and walk into war zones again.
Normally, there would be some clan with access to the spell who'd cut a deal.
On this occasion, with this particular Olympic witch having come up with three (really two, but the portals are still officially credited to her, with everyone understanding now that she's proprietary about the process and capitalistic about the disposition to fund her anti-death projects) revolutionary spells in fewer years than that, they're a little concerned that they won't get a look in the next time she publishes, if they do things she doesn't approve of.
Isabella threatens to move her resurrection office to New Zealand. The military backpedals. Resurrections proceed.
(Isabella does open a second resurrection office in New Zealand. And one in Finland and one in India. There are witch clans all around the world and they are all beholden to her.)
Insurance companies freak out, then remake their actuarial tables and throw lawyers at their contractual language and calm down again. Isabella's insurance company of choice has a small head start. Isabella's insurance company of choice loves her.
Luzia gets her son back. She dithers for a bit about the husband. She gets the husband back. The husband is kind of taken aback by Luzia's activities since then but decides that Zeviana "doesn't count" as cheating. It's up to Zeviana whether she wants to call that close enough and continue carrying on.
Isabella and Adarin have no such problems. They continue to be deliriously happy.
Then, there's a relatively slow day. Isabella flops across her husband's lap on the couch and says, "Want to start looking for places to plague with utopias?"
dark_light
prodigal_miser
Adarin is delighted to have his father back. Veron gets a cellphone, and then the two of them occasionally call each other or schedule father and son things to do. Veron gets pictures from the wedding, acclimatizes to Earth relatively quickly, and then happily starts setting up a proper life. He doesn't need a job, not with occasional presents of only slightly ludicrous amounts of money from his son, but he gets one working at the portal hub as a security guard, anyway. Because he dislikes feeling useless.
Zeviana tolerates Luzia's husband, and shows remarkable restraint with not punching the man out. She thinks about it for a little bit, deems Luzia worth the trouble of dealing with her twit of a husband, and carries on as her girlfriend. She's not the jealous type, she doesn't care if Luzia wants to bang her husband, so the change doesn't bother her in the slightest aside from occasionally having to put up with him.
Adarin continues to be absurdly in love with his wife. He approves of all of her actions after the invention of immortality, giving occasional advice and happily helping in any fashion she needs. But reaction to immortality is her show, he's perfectly content to let her take the reins for it.
He manages the colony. He manages to make a spell to help with programming, and shortly after the robots get a language update to something more pronounceable. Building projects are planned and then enacted, various little buildings for portals are made, and then have portals put in them. Adarin has slowed down a bit on portals Earth-side, because they are slowly running out of cities that are easily connected to the portal network, so he takes the opportunity to turn the colony's public transportation system to be entirely portal based.
Crops are grown, electricity is generated and then used, pipes are made, and the colony soon becomes completely self-reliant. They keep retrieving new refugees, with temporary portals up to move people and then being destroyed once they have moved. Some people are skeptical at first, but upon seeing the colony and how nice it is, and how happy people that live there are - there are still several obstinate people who refuse to go, but overall, it's doing better than Adarin could have hoped.
Back on Kystle, people have started noticing entire towns just - disappearing. Not killed, just gone - their things packed up and taken with them. No one has figured out who's responsible. Not yet, anyway. That's just how Adarin prefers it.
He wears the crown. Less for the sake of wearing it and more so he can match his wife. He'd heard somewhere that marriages get a bit stale after a while, but if that's true then it's not of their marriage. They are a team, they are fixing two worlds together, and he is enjoying every minute of it.
So obviously he wants to go fix some more planes, too. Two is hardly enough.
"Sure," he laughs, when Isabella asks. "Do you want me to do the same thing I did when we were planet shopping?"
Zeviana tolerates Luzia's husband, and shows remarkable restraint with not punching the man out. She thinks about it for a little bit, deems Luzia worth the trouble of dealing with her twit of a husband, and carries on as her girlfriend. She's not the jealous type, she doesn't care if Luzia wants to bang her husband, so the change doesn't bother her in the slightest aside from occasionally having to put up with him.
Adarin continues to be absurdly in love with his wife. He approves of all of her actions after the invention of immortality, giving occasional advice and happily helping in any fashion she needs. But reaction to immortality is her show, he's perfectly content to let her take the reins for it.
He manages the colony. He manages to make a spell to help with programming, and shortly after the robots get a language update to something more pronounceable. Building projects are planned and then enacted, various little buildings for portals are made, and then have portals put in them. Adarin has slowed down a bit on portals Earth-side, because they are slowly running out of cities that are easily connected to the portal network, so he takes the opportunity to turn the colony's public transportation system to be entirely portal based.
Crops are grown, electricity is generated and then used, pipes are made, and the colony soon becomes completely self-reliant. They keep retrieving new refugees, with temporary portals up to move people and then being destroyed once they have moved. Some people are skeptical at first, but upon seeing the colony and how nice it is, and how happy people that live there are - there are still several obstinate people who refuse to go, but overall, it's doing better than Adarin could have hoped.
Back on Kystle, people have started noticing entire towns just - disappearing. Not killed, just gone - their things packed up and taken with them. No one has figured out who's responsible. Not yet, anyway. That's just how Adarin prefers it.
He wears the crown. Less for the sake of wearing it and more so he can match his wife. He'd heard somewhere that marriages get a bit stale after a while, but if that's true then it's not of their marriage. They are a team, they are fixing two worlds together, and he is enjoying every minute of it.
So obviously he wants to go fix some more planes, too. Two is hardly enough.
"Sure," he laughs, when Isabella asks. "Do you want me to do the same thing I did when we were planet shopping?"
dark_light
"With the mirrors and pausing to let me take pictures of anything pretty. Yes."
prodigal_miser
"Mhmm. Though, fair warning, it won't be as clear since it's other planes, they're harder to scry. So maybe not as many pictures as with planet shopping."
He gets to scrying. There are lots of pretty, pretty planes, though some of them are just bizarre. A place with giant, twisting mushrooms and one planet where water flows up.
Then there is one that looks perfectly ordinary, like Earth or Kystle before it was destroyed - except with cities and towns and what obviously looks to be people. Adarin sends the scry to inspect the people, and finds them to be human or somewhat close to it.
"Probably a decent place to plague with a utopia," says Adarin. "Maybe we can try scrying on their leadership to talk to in order to make it easier?"
He gets to scrying. There are lots of pretty, pretty planes, though some of them are just bizarre. A place with giant, twisting mushrooms and one planet where water flows up.
Then there is one that looks perfectly ordinary, like Earth or Kystle before it was destroyed - except with cities and towns and what obviously looks to be people. Adarin sends the scry to inspect the people, and finds them to be human or somewhat close to it.
"Probably a decent place to plague with a utopia," says Adarin. "Maybe we can try scrying on their leadership to talk to in order to make it easier?"
dark_light
"Sure. It's unlikely to be global leadership; you can find whoever's running a specific country okay?"
prodigal_miser
"Yeah, I think so. Give me a bit."
He fiddles with his scry, accidentally aims it at a bush, and then gets the leadership of a country.
He is surprised. "... Isabella, love," he says distantly. "Are - those look like us, don't they? I'm not just seeing things?"
They do. A man and a woman, a man with familiar white hair in a similar style, and a woman with the same shade of brown at a similar length to Isabella's. Adarin fiddles with the scry some more, manages a close up, and through the blurry and smudgy scry - that's recognizably them. In a garden. With crowns, on their heads.
He fiddles with his scry, accidentally aims it at a bush, and then gets the leadership of a country.
He is surprised. "... Isabella, love," he says distantly. "Are - those look like us, don't they? I'm not just seeing things?"
They do. A man and a woman, a man with familiar white hair in a similar style, and a woman with the same shade of brown at a similar length to Isabella's. Adarin fiddles with the scry some more, manages a close up, and through the blurry and smudgy scry - that's recognizably them. In a garden. With crowns, on their heads.
dark_light
"They. Look exactly like us. Down to the crowns. Well, the presence of crowns, anyway."
prodigal_miser
"To be fair, ours are unique and magical. What... I have never heard of this before in my life, what should we do?"
prodigal_miser
Adarin snorts with laughter. "I suppose, I mean - I wouldn't complain if - a set of us with magic powers showed up and offered to use them to help."
dark_light
"I mean, I guess they could just look like us, there are sometimes strong resemblances between people who aren't even related, but they are together, wearing crowns, identified by your scry as running a country, I'm very suspicious. Look, they have critters, too - I can't tell if those are daemons or pets, they're not birds though..."
prodigal_miser
Her husband peers at the blurry scry. "A snake daemon? I don't see myself as a snake person, love. I can maybe see you as a cat, but a snake is weird."
dark_light
"I'm not sure why I'd have a cat, frankly, maybe everybody gets a pet in this country or something."
prodigal_miser
"Possibly. It's still worth investigating, though. I have the mana to take us there now, but we should let my sister know if we plan to crash their date immediately."
dark_light
"We can mirror her," agrees Isabella. "Birds come along or stay behind, you think?"
prodigal_miser
"Stay, I think. For safety, we know how planes that don't have daemons react to planes that do. Vern, you okay with that?"
Vern nods. "I can cuddle my Path."
Vern nods. "I can cuddle my Path."
prodigal_miser
Vern cuddles right back.
"Okay then, I'll mirror my sister," says Adarin. He retrieves the mirror to Zeviana, informs her quickly of what's going on, where they're going, and asks her to stay on standby if they need retrieval. She agrees.
"All right then, I... Guess we can go crash a date."
"Okay then, I'll mirror my sister," says Adarin. He retrieves the mirror to Zeviana, informs her quickly of what's going on, where they're going, and asks her to stay on standby if they need retrieval. She agrees.
"All right then, I... Guess we can go crash a date."
dark_light
"Cool."
Isabella grabs her cloudpine and her portal bag and is all set!
Isabella grabs her cloudpine and her portal bag and is all set!
prodigal_miser
Adarin retrieves his book of cheatsheets, maps out a teleportation spell, takes his wife's arm, and then -
- there they are. In the garden.
- there they are. In the garden.
royal_obligation
So is Edarial!
"What the - how the hell did you get here? Who are you and why are you - why do you look like us?"
"What the - how the hell did you get here? Who are you and why are you - why do you look like us?"
dark_light
"Sorry for dropping on you like this! Okay, next time, we should probably appear somewhere out of the way and, like - knock," says Isabella. "But we don't know why we look like you either and came partly to find out!"