:The peel of either fruit is edible.:

The creepy black water is, as promised, tasteless, and doesn't irritate the volunteer's mouth or throat or stomach.

Chomp goes the fruit.

The fruit has a gummy peel and an interior the texture of thick jelly. It's a little bouncy. Like the water, it is tasteless. It likewise does not provoke acute negative effect.

"I'm not excited to live on this for weeks but it's not miserable or anything," reports the taste-tester.

"That'll do," says Cor. "How much of this stuff can the area produce, that'll affect how many people we want to assign there."

:Within a 5km radius from the bridge, there's about 40 trees. Each can bear around...fifty of these fruits a day. Master says that he can have the trees alter the proportion so that there are more water fruits than food fruits. He estimates that one of those large trees can support two or three people.

He is currently growing many, many more in the area, as many as he can make before the seven days are up, on the order of hundreds, to a few thousands, but they won't start bearing fruit until...probably ten days, and they'll bear less fruit each. But there will be lots more of them.

Master can contribute his Bevin's food and is stockpiling it but it doesn't scale, and will be inaccessible when he goes to Asphodel to make the bridge.:

"Okay, so we want a few hundred people, with an advance group that's smaller than that to put up tents and signs and stuff. Translators, medics, missing persons handling, security, supplies for those... what am I trying to forget."

"Do the fruits keep?"

:I should give you important information about the Prison.

The Prison is lit by a constantly overcast sky — there is no day and night. There is also no weather and no rain. The temperature is constant. So there will not be any elements to need protection from.

People absolutely must never remain in contact with the same bit of marble while in the Prison for extended periods, on the order of hours. This is most important for marble forming the ground — there is no soil in Prison and the whole ground is made of it — but is also true for marble not of the ground. If you do so, it will slowly start to grow up around you and this may lead to limbs or people getting stuck. In the extreme case they may become imprisoned. If you put down thick tarps, cloths, etc., and sleep or lay on those it should be fine, as long as there aren't any holes, though optimally it would be on a raised surface.

Marble outside of Prison or its outposts does not exhibit this behavior.

Remaining in contact for long with Eyeless or Eyeless trees is fine.

Eyeless trees that are under my Master's control are safe, but those that are not will whip people who approach with their branches and send Eyeless to attack them. However, my Master is planning to put up tall walls to form an enclosure to prevent disturbed Eyeless from entering and people from wandering out.

The fruits won't spoil while they're on the branch and they will just stay there until picked. I don't know if they'll spoil if picked, or if they do, how long they'll last.:

:Master can create structures with marble according to specifications but cannot create doors — that is to say, there can be openings but he can't make doors. He can also put up signs but he doesn't know any of the languages so you will have to draw what you want the sign to look like, and then he can put up blocks of marble with those written on.

Master's Eyeless have only receptive telepathy. He plans to have them be available in the camp to help with various things like carrying, etc., but they are strong and durable and can function as security, provided that you previously inform us of who is in charge of that. They can read people's minds. They can't speak, though, so you should create signs with words and numbers on them so they'll be able to communicate back by pointing, and help translate for people. They don't have that much intelligence but Master's Duplicates will manage them.

He is planning on creating a Jurisdiction stele. The way it works is that rules are written on it, and if people break the rules while in its area — which will be the whole camp — both he and the person who did so will be informed of their transgression, and he will know their exact location. He plans to make touching Prison marble directly for more than an hour illegal so that if anyone does it, Eyeless can be sent to move or wake the person who is doing so to prevent imprisonment. Him relaying this information won't conflict with building the Asphodel bridge.

If there are any other rules you think should be written on the stela, please suggest them. What counts as illegal is based on his interpretation of the words written.

Doing all of these won't conflict with his needing to spend seven days familiarizing himself with the area.:

"Why are they called Eyeless - especially the trees, it's normal for trees to not have eyes -"

"We can have people bring rugs and cots and stuff to put on the bottom of their tents and on paths between them, that's good to know. Do they read minds only to the level of the telepathy you and Lawrence do or more than that?"

:Eyeless don't have eyes. But they are able to see — they have a sense like sight that allows them to see omnidirectionally. Eyeless trees are called that because they make Eyeless. Master is using his power to have them make the fruit instead.

Both he and I have the ability to read minds more deeply. We simply refrain from doing so because it is rude. The Eyeless that Master controls can be made to only read thoughts shallowly in the same manner as us.:

"Thanks, I appreciate that. If someone does get imprisoned can they be let out or is that irreversible?"

:They can be let out by me, my Master, or his Duplicates. But Prison is called Prison for a reason — there are very dangerous entities that are kept there, so we would be extremely reluctant to uncover any cells unless the location of the imprisoned person was very clear. Neither of us have encountered anything like that but we haven't tried our luck — all of our books are very clear on the danger. It is very possible we [ex] would not be able to deal with something bad that was let out.:

"Is the relevant area one with dangerous stuff under the ground? I guess even if it is that can't reasonably be helped. Does wearing shoes suffice, for not counting as directly touching marble?"

:Yes, if they're thick enough. The important part is not touching the same spot for a long time without moving unless you have barriers. You should think of it like...the marble will start to enclose you the fastest if you are directly touching it, and if you have barriers when touching it, the time it will take for the marble to start doing it will become exponentially longer. Put enough and it will take days, enough for you to sleep, and have a raised platform and it will be a very, very long time, basically indefinitely. Does that make sense?:

"I think so but the jurisdiction stela thing is still a good idea in case there are implementation problems with rugs and cots."

Acknowledgement.

Do they have any proposals for what to put on the stela? What's on the stela can be changed but only Lawrence can change it and he won't be able to reach it from Asphodel.

"I don't want to overload it, I can think of reasonable exceptions to most rules I'd want generally followed in the encampment and don't want to bet I'm thinking of them all."

:To clarify, doing an illegal action just produces a notification. If it's decided nothing ought to be done about what happened, nothing needs to be done. But I agree that the rules should be judiciously chosen so that we don't get swamped with notifications.:

"It would certainly be ideal if no one were attacking or stealing from anyone else, but I'm not sure how to word it and it's going to need to be communicated in a whole lot of languages."

:The stela's effect is independent of language, but yes, it doesn't telepathically announce what the rules are. The deadline is in seven days so there's still time to think about it.: 

"Right, I know the stela works regardless of language, which is why it could startle someone. I'll mull it over and put it about that it's an available option."

Are there livestock and volunteers available now to do tests with the bridge?

Another thing that they want to try is using Calling to push people through a bridge rather than pull them through. That way, Rendon and Lawrence can be on the near sides and help coordinate with telepathy.

Someone's got ahold of a sheep but no one has a cow brought in yet. Cor's willing to be a test person going across if there's nothing contraindicating it.