Wince. "Metal is, um - oh shit." She has a little knife. "Metal is like this. To go home so my friends don't think I'm dead, I'm going to need to cut myself, just a little bit to get some blood to freshen up these marks on me. Is that okay or will I fall asleep if I try?"

"That's so shiny! Tepa would like that.

No, only some people have the ability to make others fall asleep. I'm so sad that you need to cut yourself to get back to your friends, though. Can we make it painless for you, though? If one of us is touching you, things hurt less."

"...I think it works fine if it's painless, it's only the blood that I need. But you don't have metal here in this world?"

"Okay! Where do you want me to put my hand?

Well I don't know if there isn't any...just that I haven't seen it."

"It might be underground," says Ranary dubiously. "Hopefully there's some underground... uh, on my knee is fine, that won't get in the way of the painting, but not yet, I have to wash off the old marks so I can redo them fresh. Is there anything else I ought to know before I get ready to go?"

"I don't think so...?" The wolf shrugs.

Okay then, she's gonna rinse off in the river, dry off, and then mark herself up with soot and then present her knee for painkiller purposes while she nicks her elbow for the blood she needs to add.

The elbow nick barely stings when the sheep puts her hand on her knee!

That's pretty neat! Ranary paints herself briskly, and then she does some ominous chanting, and she vanishes.

The chanting is so ominous! Goodbye!

The sheep and the wolf walk away and tell everyone to prepare for several hundred million refugees.

And Ranary bursts into the room with the good news! "Your spell works! Asphodel looks lovely! I'm not sure about the natural resource situation and anyone who does violence might spontaneously fall asleep but they are happy to have several hundred million refugees!"

"That is fucking fantastic -" Cor and Ranary are hugging now. "Can you tell Lawrence, please -"

Wow, that's fast.

:I have done so. Master Lawrence sends his congratulations.:

"When will he be ready to go to Asphodel to make a bridge from it?"

:Still seven days to go for familiarization.

He has also been thinking about ways to speed up evacuation.

He says that it's possible to do two people at a time provided that one person be able to carry the other person briefly — that way Calling will interpret the other person as 'something they are carrying' and they can be put through in the same motion. We should practice doing this at some point. More than two will work if they're young children and can be more easily carried.

People can bring items so long as they are able to carry them all at the moment of transport. So a luggage bag might be possible but they have to be strong or big enough to hold onto it at the moment of transport.

Given that there's a mandatory wait of fifteen days, I do not know whether it would be better to start transporting people to the outpost now, perhaps even putting them into the Prison already.

He has connected to the Eyeless trees in the local bridge area and says that he has coaxed them to produce fruit and water in sacks — apparently it took less time than he anticipated — but he isn't sure if it will be edible for regular humans. I can fly over there to pick some up so people can check.:

"Okay, so we want logistics to favor people carrying things - I was also going to ask about livestock, sounds like that works the same way? Do they have to be directly in arms or can they be carried in containers? - putting people in the Prison early might make sense for a small number of people who can set up, say, some kind of infirmary and missing persons situation for anyone who has a problem in transit. And yes, we'd like to test the fruit and water, fruit won't keep a person going for two weeks but it'll be snacks for a few days."

:Sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, etc. are possible to transport. Cows may be too big. I can transport one to the bridge to test, if you could find one to use. I will imprison it in transit.

They can be carried in containers. The important part is that one is strong enough to entirely support the weight of it on one's own body only.

'Fruit' is being used metaphorically — it's not very similar to fruit from regular plants. Master's Duplicate's reading suggests that it ought to be a complete food, that one could survive off of it alone for long periods, but he is not sure whether or not that applies to normal humans.:

"I think maybe some people can carry calves - maybe not weaned calves - if we make it known that you can bring what you can carry someone will try. I'm sure we'll have lots of volunteers for the complete fruit and if it is in fact complete we can move across as many personnel as it can sustain ahead of time to set up supportive logistics in Prison."

"Oh, rats, I didn't think to ask if there were fish in the river. I didn't notice any when I was rinsing off."

:Master wants to see if it's possible to have a cow or a horse be the target of the Calling, and have it be laden with people and items.: He can take directions to pick up a volunteer and livestock and bring them to the Bridge to see if that's the case, since Rendon has Calling too. And then he can pick up the fruit and water on the way.

"Okay... I'm going to go get somebody who isn't a mage to go ask weird questions about people's livestock actually -" She runs off.

Do they want him to wait for Ranary or should he pick up the fruits and come back?

He should go pick up the fruits.

Rendon returns in an hour with a big marble box! He opens it and there are two compartments: both of them have palm sized black balls, but one compartment has matte ones and the other glossy ones. There are several dozen of each.

He fashions the lid into a cup and a knife, and cuts into a glossy one. He squeezes thin opaque black liquid out of it into the cup — from how much it fills up it seems like it has no pulp and only contained liquid inside, aside from the outer membrane.

:This is the water. It's black but it doesn't taste like anything and is fine to drink, for the two of us. The fruit,: he gestures to the matte ones :are also tasteless and good to eat for us. It doesn't need peeling or any prior preparation.:

Cor has in that time found a volunteer for the taste test (Ranary is currently still the taste test for the Asphodel berry and shouldn't double up, and Cor's doing alien interfacing work). The volunteer drinks some creepy black water and - "Do I eat the peel?"