:Thank you. Are the points all cylindrical in shape? If they have well defined borders that would help imprisoning them. My condolences regarding the war.:

"Insofar as they have a shape they are all cylindrical, yes. Gates are also disappearance points, created on, usually, planks of wood and then peeled apart so the space warping joins the two halves wherever they're transported, though you'll have seen them with protective apparatus around them so nobody trips and falls into the edge. But they're not used for spells after they're first created and do not grow noticeably over their operational lifespans."

The sensation gates give him is horrendous but they are super useful!

Does Cor have a suggestion for a point that is good to experiment on. One that not too big. It's fine if it's far away — he explains the possible fast travel methods of 'putting Cor in his pocket dimension' and 'extending his flight magic to him'.

"So, Gatesnest is so called because it's a sort of distributed city, there are things that aren't near any of it but I don't know about any relevant ones - uh, how many people can you fit in your pocket dimension, does that improve evac throughput -"

:Yes, it's really cool!: That's probably not the correct thing to say given that their world is being destroyed but. It is true. Anyway, he wants to go to a smallish one to see if he could imprison it.

:Sadly not. The mechanism by which I transport people into my pocket dimension is the same one that I would use to push or pull them across worlds — my pocket dimension is also considered a world for its purposes. I could probably transport one person every five seconds if everyone was very coordinated, but...:

Lawrence is connected to the following worlds.

Bevin, which is his personal pocket dimension and is the size of a house. It could support one or two dozen more people but that's it, and it'd be packed. Also it's his personal pocket dimension and he doesn't want random people living there.

Prison, which is a flattish expanse of white marble interspersed with the occasional geometric object of marble and absurdly tall towers, and black, leafless tree looking things. Humans won't instantly die there but there isn't any soil or food or anything, and no water sources either.

Kuiper, which is outer space with sapient rocks. It has no air and humans would near-instantly die there.

Mu, which is an...he's not sure if it's infinite but it's said that it's an ocean with no surface. It also has no air and humans would near-instantly die there.

There are other worlds than that but he isn't connected to them. He could traverse a bridge to them if one was present, but...for worlds a Conduit is connected to, one can tell where the nearest bridge to that world is. But not so for nonconnected worlds. And it doesn't solve the throughput problem.

(He's not sending Earth, because...of the whole Queller situation...and anyway it's not like it would be willing to accept a bunch of refugees appearing out of nowhere either. The idea of having to negotiate for it is horrifying.)

"Saving one person every five seconds is obviously better than not doing that but I do wonder if it's possible to improve on. - before you arrived my project was to see if I could get between worlds, which was a substantially more suicidal plan before I got confirmation that other worlds are in fact a thing. Do you know of any worlds you're not connected to that could take refugees? If I can get you to one, can you transport more people there without this using more of our magic?"

He lets his stream of consciousness stream into Cor.

It's possible but in a roundabout way. There already exists a gate from here to Prison, and if he could take him to another world, he could create a bridge from that world to Prison. He can't do it directly because he isn't connected to this world or the target world — normally it wouldn't even be possible to build bridges but he has the Prison's Crown and so he can always build bridges to it. And it would take eight days to construct.

As for possible targets...

The Rim is a ring-world special for having time dilation. Fifty years there is equivalent to one here. It's this big jungle with abandoned ruins and tribal people and megafauna. Potential target.

Yomi is immediately discarded. Horrible place for humans.

Pink Desert is a desert where people have lots of sex with each other. He doesn't know how much food and water there is available and the whole...sex situation seems like it might cause friction. He doesn't know much about it but he thinks they do like, domination contests with each other or something? Potential target but put that low on the list.

He thinks Aether doesn't have ground — all the native inhabitants can fly. He doesn't know much about it in any case. Discard.

Crucible is immediately discarded. Horrible place for humans.

Gokigenyou is this like, school that covers an entire planet. Filled with teenage girls for some reason? But it's finite and small. Also there might be hidden evil or something there, he doesn't know much about it. Put that on the same tier as Pink Desert.

Rorch is this city full of stone-people. He's not sure if they like, eat. They're very into business and dancing and also fire and combustion are totally banned there. Pink Desert tier.

Arbor is a world composed entirely of trees with no animals. He doesn't know why there aren't any, and he doesn't know if the trees are like. Fruit trees. He does know that the trees are people. Pink Desert tier...maybe somewhat above that.

Brazen has no food for humans but they won't immediately die there. Prison tier.

Carnation is immediately discarded. Horrible place for humans.

Asphodel is...it's sort of like this therapy paradise or something? He only knows a little about it. It's an afterlife, he thinks, and it's sort of like, a place where you recover from life trauma. He thinks the native inhabitants there are like, very pushy about you being Healthy for a certain definition of Health. Potential target?

:Tangentially, is your planet...: he sends an impression of a star system with planets orbiting a star. :Is your planet like that? My flying is quick enough and I am immune to vacuum — I could bring you to another planet in the same system as this one in...hours to days, if the scale by which this world operates at is the one I expect.:

Cor grabs some paper to write all this down as it goes by. "Our planet is like that but none of the planets in the system look like they have life on them - if you want to check some to find out for sure that might make sense. Do we need to coordinate on a single evac target or could people split up by what appeals?"

Lawrence can slow down or repeat as necessary so Cor can write it down!

:They probably don't, but yes, I can check.

What I meant to say was — if I understand correctly, you have a spell to transport people between worlds or great distances, but that this would hasten the consumption of your world, and possibly land you to a place that was inimical to human life  — I could bring you to the lifeless planets here and you could put disappearing points there, fixing the first issue.

Your magic requires you to pick a disappearing point to make bigger when you cast, right? Is there a limit on how far away it could be?

Having different evac points is possible but I have to make bridges for each one to the Prison, and that takes eight days for each one.:

"I don't have a way around needing air. A disposable planet all the surviving mages could hook into so we're not making things worse here would be great, though. I don't know if my spell will work. It's unprecedented and I wouldn't have been trying it if the world weren't ending; it could easily just fail, killing me in the process. I am not aware of a distance limit but we've never tried anything offplanet. Is it eight days wherever you are, so the" notes "Rim would be fastest?"

:I don't know if it works like that. Conduits become stronger by existing in a world, but from what I've read, Rim Conduits gain points fifty times slower. So it's possible that in the Rim, it would take me more than a year to build one.:

Lawrence doesn't need air. But...he's going to stream of consciousness at Cor again.

He could travel to a planet...though actually it probably wouldn't be good to go to a planet in this system because that might mess up the orbits, if the planet got fully consumed. An asteroid or a planet's moon would be better. Anyway, he could travel there and create a marble box, open at the bottom but forming an airtight seal with the ground. It wouldn't imprison things because it's not fully enclosed with marble. Then he could...it would be a chore but he can imprison air in his Bevin, take it out inside the box, let the air out, and repeat until it fills up with air. Add flashlights, and Cor could work in it. As for temperature, he can imprison hot water and let it out inside the box too, to heat the space up.

:The person I talked to who introduced me to you said that if the tests with marble seemed promising, a new disappearance point could be made so I can try imprisoning a disappearance point on a small scale. But offworld I assume there wouldn't be an issue?

If imprisoning disappearance points work, what I think might be best is for me to try to imprison the biggest disappearance points here...the fact that many of them go into the core where it is very hot would be an issue, but I think I'd be able to work out a solution such that I could travel down there. And that could stabilize things enough that you'd have years to work with, rather than months. I can't imprison disappearance points and do evacuation at the same time.:

"We're currently dealing with famine and logistics problems everywhere from war aftermath per se, panic about the world ending, and the actual early stages of the world ending like high-altitude places no longer being reliably habitable even for people who've acclimated to them. I'd like to save the world; saving the people is more important. But since there's only one of you and we don't have a no-brainer evacuation destination spending some lives on time to experiment makes sense... To be clear, any experiment involving our magic is potentially lethal. That's just what happens if you do anything wrong, if it's wrong enough that it doesn't stop at taking a few toes. So I only want to do experiments which, if they are successful, have a clear path to saving lives."

(Lawrence wants to say condolences again but it's probably condescending to keep repeating it.)

:I think...there are constraints to my powers but I do have a bunch of powers and there's probably a way to...combine them in a way that's better. But I'll need some time to think about that. Right now, I want to travel to a disappearance point and try out the first two marble experiments: dropping some in and partially having a marble object enter one. Do you want to go with me to one?: He already asked this question before and he thinks he doesn't really need Cor there but it would be more convenient to have him nearby.

"If you can fly me, yeah, I do not myself travel super fast."

:I am able to exert acceleration on anything I am touching and that is how I'm able to fly. So I'll need to be touching you for it to work.: He holds a hand out.

:Make sure not to let go. Though even if you do, I'm certain I'll be able to catch you. I won't fly very fast. Do you have goggles?: Lawrence personally just closes his eyes and lets Spatial Sense do the work but it is valid for Cor to not want that.

"Yes, actually." He digs them out of a drawer and then takes Lawrence's hand. Can he just mentally give directions to the nearest point?

Yep! And then they can fly!!! Or, well, he's going to lead Cor outside first and then they can fly!!! The safer thing would be to make a kind of carriage or seat out of marble and put Cor into it and then fly both together but doing it like this is more fun. Actually no the safest thing would be for him to go into his Bevin and come out when they arrived, but that is even less fun.

He will alight a good distance away.

"So what's your - range limit, on creating the marble?"

:I can shape marble 324 meters away.: Yes, he's measured it. :I can create it if I create an outpost...I should probably do that with the bridge to the Prison available. It will generate a bunch here.

Technically, my bones are now marble and there is a technique to pull them out to use them as marble, and I can create clone bodies, but slowly. But I don't usually go for that and typically just dig it out of the Prison.

I'm going to take a block of marble out of my Bevin, now.: He holds his hands out, and a one kilogram block of marble appears in his hands.

"...I ask because you really don't want to trip and fall into the disappearance point."

:Don't worry. I'm going to fling the marble in with my acceleration power.:

And he does so! Throwing anything within his Spatial Sense with Gravitic Angel basically ensures a perfect shot, environmental circumstances notwithstanding.

He'll track the location of the marble with Spatial Sense and continuously sculpt a spiral into it, to track that it's still in his range or otherwise able to be affected by his power.

When the marble enters the point, is it still shapeable? Can he detect it with his Spatial Sense; can he detect it with his remote sculpting proprioception?

His spatial sense continues to be rather borked by the point.

:It seems like marble I throw into it is either destroyed or irrecoverable, though it's a bit hard to tell because my Spatial Sense really doesn't like them.:

Test two. He takes out a bigger block this time, ten kilos. He'll shape it into a really long hollow pole, then add a bend in the middle. Marble has shapes that it doesn't like and being drawn into thin lines or sheets is one of them. It really prefers chunky shapes and will resist otherwise. But he has enough 'dexterity' with it with the points he's invested in Bevin, and he can take out more marble out of his Bevin and add it on.

He will stick one end of the stick into the point, and then take it out. Does that end of the stick get nommed?

Looks like... no!

"Promising in the one direction though discouraging in the other."

:Yes, indeed.: He wants to try imprisoning one now but he hasn't figured out a way to travel to the center of the earth without melting, yet. Or being crushed.

:I understand the urgency of the situation but I want to think on things, and I also want to eat, now. Do you want to eat with me in my Bevin? Though, I'm not sure if my food is suitable for you...: he's thinking about his Bevin food and it's all normal human food but maybe this world has like, opposite chirality amino acids and sugars or something...

:Alternatively, I can fly you back to your house, or have you enter my Bevin and then I fly to your house and deposit you there.: