"The lack of air means that people are collapsing when they try to do difficult physical work, and some delicate people - old ones, anyone sick, babies - are suffocating in their sleep more easily than they would otherwise. It's not a matter of hours; if it were that bad up in the mountains it'd be worse at sea level than it is. They can, like, walk down the mountains they live on, if they want, the trouble is there's nowhere to go. No one is currently in a good position to take refugees and you'd lose a fair amount of logistics time on getting people to believe that they were being evacuated, letting them pack because they'll insist on at least bringing food considering the food situation, and getting them all together, and it's not something you can obviously outsource to local helpers."

:Mm. I'm not really in a position to help with food. There's the...I read Eyeless trees in Prison could be made to grow edible but tasteless food — the ones I control, anyway — but I don't know how long that would take, and I don't know if they'd be edible to normal humans. That could be a solution to the food situation, but there's no water there...I suppose I could do the imprisoning water in my Bevin thing again — my Bevin can make lots of water — but it's not going to be enough for hundreds of thousands of people...:

He sighs.

:Wait, I — or I guess my Duplicate, who is also me, sorry, having Duplicates is new to me and I haven't figured out quite how to relate them to people — is rereading my books regarding the other worlds and is saying that Asphodel would be the best place to put people. It seems like it would be easiest to obtain food and water there. I'm not connected to it, though.:

He sends what his Duplicate wants him to say, which is apparently a passage from a book.

The lands of Asphodel stretch seemingly without bound, lit by a gentle sun each day and bright stars each night. The flora of Asphodel do not compete with each other, seemingly forming into gardens and manicured forests of their own accord. The weather in Asphodel is always clear, with the primary sources of water being rivers fed by mysterious springs and sourceless mist appearing on plants slightly before dawn.

Agathodaemons are the most notable population of Asphodel, and take the forms of animals, occasionally with anthropomorphic characteristics. They show compassion towards all, but that compassion often takes the form of encouraging visitors to stay and recuperate, refusing to help visitors they deem insufficiently recovered find bridges. Some agathodaemons work alone or in teams towards strange projects, though they typically refuse assistance with these from anyone they deem insufficiently recovered.

Apparently, it's a kind of afterlife? Descriptions of the powers of Asphodel conduits, called the Blessed, say they have the power to guide the souls of the dead. But that's not really so relevant — the important part is that it has lots of food and water.

:The agathodaemons refusing to help people find bridges isn't really a problem because I can make bridges back to Prison. But I have no way to get there myself, or rather, I could try looking for a bridge but I don't have an innate sense of where the nearest one is, so it would just be mindless searching.

My Duplicate says that Rim is less of a good idea because it's untamed nature and the megafauna can be deadly. And the native population isn't guaranteed to be friendly. But it's the second best option, he thinks.:

"Okay. I can try sending someone to Asphodel - it'd help if I knew more about the place, like if there's a picture available, or a landmark to aim for. And if I send a mage, then if they find the place as described on landing, they'll hopefully be able to come back, and that will demonstrate that the spell works, and then I can send you, to make a bridge - or ask for one, if the natives are willing to help."

:Okay, I'll...my Duplicate will...look for more descriptions.

:I don't think asking the natives is going to work. I suppose they might have the ability to traverse bridges but I think that's an ability exclusive to Conduits and...people like us. And bridge building is a separate skill that not every Conduit has, and you need to be connected to a world to build bridges from it, unless you're Crowned in a world...basically I think it's really unlikely they'd be able to help with transport but it wouldn't hurt to try. Nothing I've read suggests they're malicious.

In the meantime, supposing the plan works and you get me there, I'll need eight days to build a bridge back to Prison. It can't be direct to here because I'm not connected to this world or Asphodel — Conduits can metaphysically connect to a world and receive various benefits and powers — but it takes a long time, years.

Fortunately, when I'm making a bridge, I can direct the far end to wherever I'm familiar with...I might need to take time to study the location where the bridge is, in Prison, to ensure that the Asphodel bridge lands near there. My base in Prison is quite a ways away. So that would add...I think a week but it greatly simplifies logistics if the bridges are close to each other. Especially because it's in a different floor, ugh...

...Anyway, how are we to transport people to be near the bridge? I or Rendon can help by using the moving platforms.:

"The good news is that Gatesnest has bits of it all over the world. It's the only city like it - there were three but they've all merged, by this point. I can get somebody on figuring out which cities have the most survivors the most densely packed for evacuation that way. A lot of people are coming to Gatesnest anyway because we've got the least disrupted trade because you can just walk from here to here," he pokes a couple points on the map. "I'm not sure I understand exactly how bridges work, what will someone evacuating from here see?"

He continues to have positive feelings about gates.

And he can explain bridges! Bridges are where the boundary between worlds grows thin. Bridges to certain worlds can tend to form in certain locations — bridges to Kuiper tend to form in outer space, or in very wide open spaces — or exert an effect on the environment — bridges to Prison quiet sounds and give one the feeling that one should be quiet, and bridges to Mu give out Color and may spawn aquatic creatures.

Conduits can sense any bridge that is nearby, and can tell what world it connects to or get a sense of it if they're unfamiliar. Conduits can tell the direction to the nearest bridge to any of the worlds they're connected to, if there are any in the world they're in. Some Conduits have other, better bridge sensing powers but Lawrence is not one of them.

You cannot see the world on the other side of a bridge or where it lets out. He can, because he has Scrying, but regular Conduits and regular people can't.

Aside from their physical effects, Bridges aren't really something you see. Conduits can sense them but they're insubstantial.

When you traverse one, or when you are carried across one with Calling, you just kinda...shloop. Well for Calling, which is what he'll be doing to people, it's more of a yoink, but yes. He sends his best sensory impressions of them. And then you're just on the other world, with the stuff you were carrying, like you popped out of existence from the previous and popped into existence in the next.

"And this will take people only to Prison, and then they have to go from there to Asphodel, so there's a concern that the Prison ends of the two bridges won't be sufficiently nearby?"

:Yes. But if I spend several days familiarizing myself with the location it oughtn't be an issue — I've built several bridges before.: (He has bridges in his Bevin to Earth, Mu, Kuiper, and Prison in case he ever needed to make an emergency exit.)

:Wait, sorry...my Duplicate tells me that apparently, bridges to Asphodel often appear over closed landfills. That is what a book says.: He has no idea why that is the case since it doesn't seem thematically coherent — typically, bridge effects thematically cohere with what that world is About™ :and they smell of flowers. If you can give me the locations of closed landfills, I and Rendon can travel to them to check if there are any here. Maybe there already is one.:

"What is a landfill?"

:...oh, it makes sense that you don't have landfills. Landfills are holes where you dump garbage in, and then cover it with dirt when it's full. Simplifying greatly.

Are there any like...middens? Really old archaeological dumping grounds? Maybe there are Asphodel bridges there.:

"I can ask around but it seems like the sort of thing we do not have. Magic is old."

In that case, Lawrence can output more facts about Asphodel! There are facts he's read which seem more...dubious...or which are from more dubious seeming sources or aren't corroborated by others. Should he err on giving more information which is of dubious quality or stick to ones which seem most reliable? Or can he just mark the parts that are dubious? He's not sure which one would be best for their magic.

"Better to have fewer more reliable facts," says Cor firmly.

Can do. Here's a summary of facts he would be willing to bet on.

Agathodaemons need little food and water relative to their size. They have the power to communicate regardless of language — for most of them they can only communicate feelings and broad intentions, but some can communicate more complexly.

Some agathodaemons have the ability to touch people to put them to sleep, if they are willing. Some can also erase painful memories by touching people.

Water in Asphodel, aside from the sourceless mists, come from three rivers. The Pyriphlegethon is suffused with light and warmth — it is associated with the sun. The River of Dreams causes you to have visions when you drink from it. The Kerlaugar is foamy and is good for bathing and laundry.

Not everyone in Asphodel is an agathodaemon.

Outposts of Asphodel are glades, typically with perimeters of evergreen trees and tough grass. Agathodaemons may wander there. Lawrence's commentary: Outposts are places that possess the qualities of two worlds. They are anchored on bridges.

Gateways of Asphodel look like paths of flowers leading to it that do not wilt when trampled, but do lose color. They often climb slopes or pass through tunnels. Lawrence's commentary: Gateways are places where regular people can travel to and from one world to another. They are also anchored on bridges. Regrettably, Lawrence doesn't have the power to create gateways.

Is this the sort of information that's helpful? There are pictures but he doesn't know how representative they are — of the one book he's found with illustrations, it's rather stylized. They're woodcut prints.

Does the Kerlaugar have actual soap in it, like, such that you can't drink it? And, just checking, not only can't Lawrence create gateways but he doesn't know where to find anyone who can either?

It's unclear. It's been described as 'foamy' and 'bubbly' but he's never seen 'soapy'. Apparently it can also clean 'less material' things and he doesn't know what to make of that. The River of Dreams and Pyriphlegethon are affirmed to be drinkable so for the purposes of securing potable water, it should be fine.

The Conduits that Lawrence has ever had correspondence with or met have not evinced any ability to create gateways, and even if they did, they'd specifically need the Asphodel gateway ability, Path of Flowers. None of them have evinced an Asphodel connection or Asphodel perks. Also, unless you are the right kind of Conduit, it takes a year's worth of power to create a Gateway.

Okay. He's gonna aim for the banks of the Pyriphlegethon because he's not sure how the visions will agree with people who will already be incredibly stressed out. Any last-minute anything before he designs the refinement of the spell and then goes to send one of his friends on a maybe-lethal experimental mission?

:Does your magic require speech? What kind of ingredients, instruments, and procedures are used in it?:

"Yes, it requires chanting. This spell wants blood and soot; cargo would be chancy so my subject's going to go minimally clothed carrying only a little bag of the soot and use their own blood for the return trip. Why do you ask?"

:My Eyeless and converted Eyeless, of which Rendon is one, are immortal — in the sense that they respawn from their trees when they die with their memories and selves intact. I am similar but my immortality method works a little differently. But Eyeless can't speak, or lose the ability to speak when they become them.:

"Telepathic chanting might work since you have telepathy but it'd be experimental and it is not at this time an essential experiment. Anything else or should I go attempt to send a volunteer to Asphodel?"

:Oh, that wouldn't work either. They can only do receptive telepathy and not projective. Regrettable.

I have nothing else. Do you feel that it would be more worthwhile for me to start familiarizing myself with the bridge area, or experiment with imprisoning disappearance points? Note that, if the imprisoning is successful, it almost certainly will make it unusable by mages, because it'd be causally sealed off from the world.:

"I think we're currently more confident we need the bridge than that we need to imprison any points, yes?"

:I think so. I thought that stabilizing the planet would be more worthwhile, but even if I did so, the food situation would still be dire.:

"Also there's still pretty considerable temptation to use magic. Not for - cooking and cleaning, I don't think anyone's likely doing that, but - killing infections. Abortions. Getting rid of locusts before they can wipe out what there is left to eat."