Looks kind of like an abandoned city - not completely deserted, but the guy he can see tiptoeing around has the affect of a looter, not a resident, and also the half-full sack of a looter, not a resident. Why it was abandoned might have something to do with that big - sinkhole? - something over there which creates a round gap in the buildings; the looter is avoiding it.

Most people do not have flying powers like Lawrence and it is eminently sensible for them to avoid the sinkhole!

The city looks both interesting and...troubling. After checking his other unconscious Duplicates in his Eyeless trees...he uses Facade to render his skin a normal shade of light brown, turns his sclerae white again, and puts on a white shirt and pants and shoes from his Bevin — apparently his Bevin takes his color scheme very seriously and hasn't produced any non-monochrome clothing colors. He looks like a normal human being from Earth! It's actually interesting how humanlike that person he saw was — from what he's read and heard, lots of world inhabitants are humanoid but he hasn't seen any that are human. They always have some kind of morphological quirk.

He can't turn off his Living Bridge effects, but oh well. Earth's Living Bridge effect is literally nothing. Bevin's effect is a moderate regularization of temperatures towards comfortable ones, and Prison's muffles background sound. Those aren't easily noticed. But Mu's spawns little eddies of Color, especially around people or objects associated with strong emotions, and Kuiper's spawns little eddies of space dust. Difficult to hide or explain away. Oh well. It isn't Earth so...it should be safe...safer...

He feels naked, neither wearing rubber or marble.

He steps through. There is now a person on the other side!

The looter doesn't notice him immediately.

He doesn't actually have a view directly into the sinkhole from here. Would he care to approach it or is he going to look around the empty buildings?

Neither, he's going to pay attention to his Spatial Sense which can now cover a sphere 81 meters in radius all around him! If he's more than 81 meters away from it, then he will move closer until whatever's below intersects with it. He can theoretically see light and color using it but he hasn't bothered training and sensitizing that new sense that much because, well, very little is colorful in Prison. He can feel out shapes, densities, gravitational and electromagnetic fields.

His spatial sense is actually really fucking confused about the sinkhole probably. There's nothing there, it's inherently awful that nothing is there, and distances are indeterminate within.

He is really fucking confused and it's awful! It's...wrong. It's incorrect. It doesn't...doesn't accord with the laws of physics. No, the universe. He knows what vacuum feels like to his Spatial Sense and it's not this.

...regrettably there isn't any way to turn off or selectively remove volumes from his Spatial Sense. The most he can do is kind of look away from the area. Ugh. This is going to bother him the entire time he's here.

He's going to walk through the city now, away from the bad hole. It's been a long time since he walked through a city! Both in the sense of 'walking' and 'through a city'. Such as the city might be. What is there to see?

Away from the bad hole the city is spatially normal! There's houses and apartments, streets and sewers, theaters and bars, mostly empty of movable property but not very thoroughly. Stray cat. Feral pigeon. They don't have electricity. They do have gaslamps.

It's like a reverse Rorch! Fires but no electricity. He hasn't been but he's read books about it.

He's assuming the city is abandoned because of the horrible sinkholes though he can't exactly ask anyone. Part of him wants to fly to move faster but the nostalgia-novelty of actually bothering to walk again is enough that he continues walking instead. He looks for any visible signage or billboards or pamphlets on the ground to get started on picking up the language. His Duplicate can duplicate them, monochrome, with marble tablets.

Are there any other spatial anomalies?

There are some signs up! For businesses, mostly, and street names and address numbers, a few handbills. There are books among the abandoned things in the less picked-over houses. The evidence suggests yes printing press no more sophisticated methods.

He's going to leave them where they are once he looks at them but he will copy them!

The technology is very quaint. It's kind of charming.

After a few hours of walking, the nostalgia-novelty of walking again grows thin. So he's going to fly up into the air now and look around. Is the sinkhole thing like, confined to this city or are there others? 

There is one in the city.

Miles and miles off, there's another one, in a bit of rocky scrubland, much smaller ("smaller" here meaning you would not take as many steps to skirt around it at an equally conservative distance).

...part of him really wants to try experimenting with the badness sinkholes but he should probably learn more about them before like. Trying to stick and drop things in them.

Can he find any non-abandoned cities with enough flying? Or has civilization been utterly reduced to post-apocalyptic anarchy?

If he flies enough he can find populated towns of various sizes that don't have sinkholes in them!

Okay great!

...he's actually never done this before. He's visited Mu and Kuiper but didn't like. Interact. With any sapient inhabitants. He supposes he'll just have to find out if people are friendly.

He'll touch down in the outskirts and walk in. Who to approach...does anyone seem like the sort of person who would be amenable to being telepathically communicated to. Does anyone have that kind of vibe.

Oh hey when he's close enough there's another spatial ?!?!!? over that way. - and one that way and one that way.

ugh ugh ugh are they the same kind as the sinkholes or

They are similar! They're more like those than like anything else, except vertical and more sort of ring-shaped! But perhaps more exciting is that past them there's different stuff to spatially sense than what there is if you sense around the back of them.

He knows wormholes exist and that Conduits of Kuiper can make them. He doesn't have the ability, though. Surely they don't feel like this. It's a different flavor of incorrect from the sinkholes of nothing though, so there's that.

He will get closer. Do people walk into them? Or out of them. Are they a teleportation thingy. His intuition thinks they are.

People do walk into and out of them! They certainly might be a teleportation thingy.

Is there any kind of guard or tollgate situation? Or do people really just walk through like it's the door of a shop or something. He really wants to try entering one but there might be a specific requirement for it and maybe if he tries, he gets spaghettified.

Looks like people just walk in. Sometimes with carts and stuff.

Can people... see him, hovering in the air, by the way.

Nope, he touched down already. His instincts for Gravitic Angel and Spatial Sense are good enough to land him gracefully even when startled.

There's probably some book that teaches you how to better approach unknown new worlds but if there is, it isn't in his more than ten thousand book library. He should urge his Bevin to fetch some, next time it does. From wherever Bevins get their books from.

He'll scoot over to a place with fewer, but not 'none except one other' people, and then select someone who seems interruptible and friendly. Based on vibes.

:I have telepathy and I can receive what you push at me.: And then he sends a concept: dividing the current thoughtspace into the deepest layer, memories, the middle layer, surface thoughts, and the top layer, speech. And that only the speech part is being shared, and that it's true for him too.

:Hello. Sorry, I'm from far away and I don't speak the language. Are you free for some minutes to converse?: He's looking at them and he gives them the knowledge of what he currently looks like and where he is in relation to them.

"YEEP," says the chosen person, falling off her sidewalk café chair.

:Sorry!: Again. He is dying of mortification but he has had this power long enough to avoid transmitting anything he doesn't want to. :If you don't want to talk to me, I'll go away if you say so.:

:Where are you from?? Nobody has this! This isn't a thing!:

...if he says 'The Prison' it's not really going to be very reassuring. So he's not going to do that. Nor is he going to contradict her two blatant falsehoods.

:Do you know what's up with the weird spatially warping-ly empty sinkholes in: and he sends an impression of the city he came in, plus a sense of the direction and distance away from it.

:The disappearance point?? You're not from anywhere on the entire planet, I live in Gatesnest, I'd know! Where are you from? Can we go there??

:What's a disappearance point? It seems...very bad.: He sends this with an air of expectation, like he's expecting that someone ought to be on the task of fixing them.

:Maybe?: Well he can definitely take them there but like. Doing any more than a few would be so troublesome. Also the Prison has little to offer regular humans. Which...he actually doesn't know whether or not they're regular humans, yet. This world didn't feel like an Earth, when he stepped into it...he doesn't want to just ask whether or not they're human but maybe they're past the point where caring about rude question is totally irrelevant.

:Yes! They're very bad and we're all gonna die!:

...............okay that actually doesn't sound hyperbolic.

:My condolences: he transmits uselessly. :Do you know anyone who knows a lot about disappearance points? I might be able to contain them. Maybe. Actually, before that, are there any places to go to or books I can read to learn about Gatesnest's laws? And its areas of jurisdiction. I would really hate to inadvertently break your laws.:

:This is really not the time to be too worried about that if you might be able to contain the disappearance points! Even if you want to do some murders! We are ALL going to die! Go talk to the mages or something!:

It's really important to Lawrence that he knows what the laws are in a place even if he isn't going to follow them. Not that he's planning on murdering people. Also, now he knows murder is most likely illegal in Gatesnest! 

:Could you tell me where they might be located?: He also sends the wordless impression that she can send pictures and locations to him too.

:You go through the Ravensquarter gate over there and then take the one to Journeyman Square and then there's one to Chandler's and the mages have a sort of guild thing in Chandler's I think:

:Thank you!:

He records this information and. Deep breath. He closes his eyes and steps through the Ravensquarter gate. Then opens them. What does he see? If it's the interior of his Bevin then it means he died.

No, he sees what is presumably Ravensquarter. It's raining here.

It has been so long since he last experienced rain, wow. He didn't realize how much he missed it. Water falling from the sky! He will dance in the rain for a bit and let himself get soaked.

Okay, then he'll go somewhere unobtrusive, go to his Bevin, change, pick up an umbrella, and go back. Now to Chandler's! Is a mage guild in evidence.

If he can read the signs, and in particular if he can read around some angry vandalism, yes.

Sorta. He has some experience figuring out the meaning of books he doesn't know the language of that his Bevin fetched, but little experience in field linguistics. What he does have is Spatial Sense! He'll walk into a building which seems to have spatial fuckery occurring within it but still has people, since that seems like the properties a mage guild building would have.

Is he stopped from doing so? Is there a guard or a secretary in the presumable lobby?

No guard no secretary. It looks like it's meant for more people than are around at this time. A harried looking woman glances at him and decides he does not look like he's about to set fire to the building and continues on her way.

Okay great. He indeed doesn't want to set fire to the building! He doesn't even have the ability to! He doesn't want to bother her because she looks Busy, but he's going to wait a bit to see if there is anyone who comes by who is less Busy looking. Is there one?

Nope. The same woman comes back the other way a minute later with a folding chair, though, and this time she takes more notice of him. "...who are you?"

He sends her the same spiel he gave the woman from earlier, about telepathy and not having the language and being from far away!

:Is this the mage guild? I was told to go there to find people knowledgeable about disappearance points:

"What do you mean far away."

:A place you can't get to by traveling in any direction. Another dimension.:

"...I don't literally owe Cor money but I spiritually owe Cor money. Okay. How did you get here?"

Oh good, money exists here!...but maybe they stopped using money because she said she doesn't literally owe Cor money. What with how it seems like it's the apocalypse and everything.

:There are places where the boundaries between worlds becomes thin, and these are called bridges. People who have my kind of power, called Conduits, can traverse bridges. There's one at: and he sends the location of the place he dropped in at. :It connects to the dimension I spend the most time in.:

"Okay. How many people can get across?"

:Normally you can't traverse a bridge if you're not a Conduit, although you can still suss out where they are if you know what you're looking for, because they tend to be located at specific places and have physical effects you can spot.

I do possess a power, called Calling, that permits me to transport objects and people safely across but I have to do it one at a time. At maximum throughput and optimal logistics I could probably send across one person every 5 seconds. And it requires me to be present and active and I have to sleep.:

"Is it just you?"

:No.: He sends the sense that the situation is very complicated regarding other Conduits, which he assumes is what she's asking about, and that she basically ought to treat it as if the answer is yes. But that he wants to answer her question literally and truthfully.

And then, because he doesn't want to get off track, :Would you be willing to explain how the disappearing points work? Do you need rebuilding help? I might be able to contain them with my powers — this is why I came to this building.:

"Contain them? That'd - well, it'd buy us time - there's a lot of them -"

He's thinking that they're considering evacuation, but he doesn't know how urgent it is.

:Is the situation urgent on the order of hours or days? I don't know what's happening except I heard that the world is ending. I don't know if my power would work but I'd want to try it.:

"We're not sure. We think - maybe some people will be able to hang on for months. Depending."

:I see. I would be pleased to buy you time if I'm able to do so. Before that...:

He has a bunch of questions. What's the legal situation in Gatesnest? He would love to be given books on governance and law and precedent in Gatesnest. Where is its territory and jurisdiction? Does he need to have a visa or permission to enter — he can leave and then do what is necessary first, if so. Although...he's assuming it's an international problem in which case is there international government he should direct requests to? He was told, or he implied from another's words, that murder is illegal but he doesn't know what criteria constitute murder. Is there legislation regarding the appropriate use of magic — he used his flight ability before but maybe that's actually prohibited, because no one flies here. Not to mention telepathy...

The questions stop abruptly. :Is there anyone you know that would be willing to act as legal liaison for me? Or, actually, has martial law been declared? If so, I would like to speak to whoever is in command of Gatesnest.:

Ranary shares the random café-goer's opinion that this is not really the time to be worrying about the legal situation in Gatesnest. If he is super hung up on it she knows where the hall of justice is but has no way to verify that it hasn't been looted for containing burnable paper and/or symbols of the institutions that failed to prevent this so it might not currently contain a complete written code. There is not an international government what would that even mean. Is he planning to kill anyone, she can source him a volunteer if he needs to kill people to make his evacuation magic work?? They are trying to minimize magic use right now because it makes the disappearance problem worse but if he doesn't have that issue that doesn't apply to him. They can't fly or do telepathy so they don't have laws about it. There is OBVIOUSLY no single identifiable person in charge of Gatesnest? There wasn't even before? Having single identifiable people in charge of things is how you get them assassinated?? She was going to recommend he talk to Cor but she really, really doesn't understand why he seems to want some kind of lawyer and Cor is not a lawyer.

Well Lawrence cares about knowing the law! He wouldn't want to inadvertently break the law in Gatesnest. He thinks of it as being a basic thing you want to do when you enter a place, like knowing whether a house is a shoes-on or shoes-off house. But if they're in a state of apocalyptic anarchy...oh well.

Lawrence is not intending to kill anyone and it's not necessary for his magic to work. He also isn't intending to steal or attack people without provocation or destroy other people's property — he sends his conceptions of the definition of these words which basically correspond to their Earth definitions.

:Am I currently at risk of assassination? Why are people in Gatesnest being assassinated?: (He has immortality but like. Dying is painful. And maybe their world's magic can truekill him...he doesn't know the reason why all the old Conduits seem to have disappeared...)

Yeah they're in a state of apocalyptic anarchy. People are mostly doing what they've always done with apocalyptic anarchy on top. "I don't think you're very much at risk - it's mages who can do it and if mages wanted the world to end faster we'd notice that. It's just major politicians get blamed for things and there's often someone who thinks it'd be better if they were dead."

He sighs telepathically.

:I'm going to give you a bit more context about the powers I have which seem relevant to the situation.:

Lawrence has the ability to generate and shape Prison marble, which is incredibly durable. He thinks it might be indestructible, actually, not that he has good destructive powers. He's rammed huge blocks of it against another at Mach speeds but they just plinked off of each other with nary a scratch. It also seems to have magically abjuring or blocking powers, because it's opaque to Spatial Sense — he explains Spatial Sense and how it allows him to notice the shape and density of things, including their interiors. But with Prison marble, even if he knows that the marble is hollow, he can't tell that it is so with Spatial Sense unless he breaks into it.

He can also Imprison things by totally enclosing them in Prison marble. As far as he knows, it's impossible for the imprisoned thing to break itself out, or really, to have any further causal effect on the world.

His current experiment plans are to try to drop Prison marble on a disappearance point, try to partially insert a Prison marble object in one, and entirely enclose one. Does she know where they could find a small disappearance point to try these things? Does she think any of these things would have some obvious horrible backfire such that he should not do them?

"Most disappearance points aren't very skinny and most of them have punched through the globe by now I think. ...we can make you a tiny new one if the first experiments seem promising."

Nonskinniness is fine!...wow okay, so that's what's causing the apocalypse. That might be a problem because, while Lawrence doesn't need to breathe, he isn't immune to high heat. But maybe he'll figure something out still.

Does she have any recommendations on where to do the tests at? She can convey an image and a location for them. He can bring other people along to fly — he is comfortable bringing two. Alternatively they can walk, or he can put her in his pocket dimension while he flies there and let her out at the destination. The pocket dimension is anchored to his body.

"I think maybe you should talk to Cor, and I should go tell everyone else what's up."

:Okay! Oh, right, I forgot to introduce myself. I am the Lawgiver Lawrence.: 'Lawgiver' is a title and 'Lawrence' is the name. He is fine being referred to by either or both.

It turns out that social skills are a thing that can rust and when the only social interaction you have for fifteen years are your slave, a zoologist monster hunter, and a shut-in who writes weird erotica, all of whom are magic...you lose the instincts for social interaction with normal people.

He can be led to Cor.

Ranary will take him through the necessary series of gates to get to Cor's neighborhood and the necessary series of streets from there to get to Cor's house.

"I'm working!" comes a voice at the knock.

"Well, stop that and come out!"

Cor answers the door; he's got blood painted on his left arm. "Ranary, this is not especially the time - hello, who's this -"

Passing through gates continues to make his Spatial Sense freak out but he is ignoring it.

That is certainly a bloody arm. Hm, maybe they do animal sacrifice here for their magic, including human ones? The woman, who did not offer her name back, did come to the hypothesis that Lawrence's magic might require it rather quickly.

He will tell Cor about telepathy telepathically. And a summary of the earlier conversation.

"Ranary, you are forgiven everything," he says, grabbing a sponge out of a bucket of water to rinse his arm off before he puts on a shirt.

"I'd better be," she agrees.

Before launching deeper into conversation about magic, Lawrence will remember his manners this time and introduce himself.

:Hello. I am the Lawgiver Lawrence. You must be Cor?:

"That's me. Welcome to our world, it's dying. If you can lock up the disappearance points - or even if you can generate enough of your marble stuff to feed them so they stop eating other stuff - that buys us time to get out of here - are there more of you, can we recruit extras to improve bandwidth even if they all have the same abilities you do - come on inside -"

He enters.

:Thank you for your welcome. I would be extremely shocked if they could eat the marble and it would obviate the locking up plan.:

Regarding the question of other Conduits, he gives the same answer he did earlier.

:Aside from locking up the disappearance points or conjuring additional matter to feed them...could I get an explanation of how they work, etc.? Maybe there's something else that would be better that I could do.: (It's kind of cruelly funny. Their world will last, apparently, months. Not even a full year to gain a point to spend something on. Not that he could use it for anything — he hasn't connected to this world yet.)

"Are Conduits the only people you're aware of with remotely possibly applicable abilities or resources of any kind, or could you help us reach non-Conduits who might have something? I can give you the background on how disappearance points behave but mind that we have recently learned some new things about them and our extrapolations from that might not all be right."

:Possibly no. But trying to meet some and ask them for help...I don't know how long that would take. Possibly decades, maybe more. I could go into more detail later.

Thank you for your warning, please do.:

"Magic - our magic - is based on destroying things. The three basic forms of destruction are death, burning, and annihilation. Mages use representations of those things in our spells - usually the first two, easier to work with - to identify what we want to destroy and how, plus some chanting to focus the effect. The way someone becomes a mage is by connecting to a disappearance point. Every time we do any magic, the disappearance point eats a little more. I say 'eats a little more' and not 'gets a little bigger' because they don't have fixed sizes, exactly; they warp space.

"We were aware that some had gotten deep enough to be eating magma under the surface of the planet, but - it all looks about the same. We didn't know how deep they were. The new things we have learned recently are that they accelerate their destruction on their own, not exclusively when they are used, and that they were quite a bit deeper than we'd guessed. We found this out when one punched through to the opposite side of the world and swallowed half a city. But since that was a novel phenomenon it looked like an act of war and we had a war about it for a while before we realized it was happening all over. Most of them don't have cities on the other side but we're losing ocean. The planet's getting lighter and we're bleeding air into space, too."

: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.:

"...the food you're sending mental concepts of all sounds both of edible and way better than it's currently feasible to get, but if it might kill me I should give my notes to Ranary first."

:Right.: Now he wants to try to see if their biologies are similar enough that the food will transfer but this isn't very relevant. :Which travel method would you prefer?: He loves flying and thinks more people should get to experience it but this is not true of all people.

"Flying is good, I am also curious about your pocket dimension but as long as we're worried about things maybe killing me I'd rather hand off my notes first."

No problem. Fly fly fly back to Cor's house.

He gathers up his notes into a bundle to hand over to the other mages Just In Case.

:If you are ready to enter, I can bring you there now.:

"I'd like to hand off the notes in case Ranary has any questions about anything on there!"

Oops. Also, he's assuming Ranary is the name of the woman, now.

Lawrence is fine with flying the two of them to wherever she is, if he knows.

If they're going to wait, then Lawrence might just take out furniture and dining ware and the food out of the Bevin and eat it here. Is that fine? He's assuming Cor's house is not set up to entertain visitors right now.

She's presumably gone back to the mages' guildhall and Cor would appreciate the flight and he is welcome to eat at the guildhall while Cor catches Ranary et al up on things.

Lawrence has already visited the mages' guildhall and can take them there!

He doesn't really know where's appropriate but he's going to pick a seemingly unused corner and cause a a marble block to appear in his hands and make a chair and a small table from it, and then he causes food to appear on marble plates, along with cutlery. There's eggs and sausages, creamy rice pudding, garlic fried rice, and pound cake. The pound cake is from yesterday but it's not stale because he imprisoned the leftovers. There is also a tea pot, a tea cup, and saucers, and a bowl of sugar and milk.

He's a slow eater so unless Cor finishes in more than an hour, he'll still be at it.

Cor takes about half an hour to turn over his notes, take questions thereupon, and make a copy of the key parts he'll need if he winds up wanting to try his spell himself in the future, and then he swings by to rejoin Lawrence. "- I smell garlic," he remarks.

:Yes, it's garlic fried rice.: It's actually jarlic — he's recently been able to coax his Bevin into providing vegetables but they're all non-fresh ones. He guesses he'll have to spend on the Bevin garden perk if he actually wants fresh stuff.

He, and anyone else there, is totally welcome to eat with him and he will even produce additional chairs and cutlery and expand the table, with the understanding that it might be poisonous because of subtle but vital biological differences. He thinks it ought not to be but all the books he's read about the different worlds were written by Conduits (or at least, it seemed to him that they were) and Conduits have magic biology and immortality, so.

"Garlic's been impossible to get for a while, there were only a handful of places best for growing it and they were all hard-hit." He will take a seat and some rice.

That is so sad!!! Anyway, they can eat together in silence for a bit.

:I just realized that I've been very dumb.: Embarrassment.

:I forgot that I gave my slave, Rendon, some of my magic and that he can traverse bridges too. And transport others across them, etc.: He didn't think of this before because he was thinking only of Conduits and also because he normally doesn't have the Calling perk.

:So it turns out I don't need to choose between evacuation and trying to imprison the disappearance points. Which I still need to test, if it works or not. He can do the former and I can do the latter — he doesn't have the ranged sculpting ability. If imprisoning the points doesn't work, then I can help with evacuation.

How many people live on this planet?:

"...it was about a," his mouth is full, he'll choose this moment to dispense with the talking-aloud crutch, billion before the war. Less now. I don't know by how much. Slavery is illegal in Gatesnest but under the circumstances you can probably get a pass.:

No, him talking aloud is actually helpful in picking up the language! But yes, it is not necessary for him to do it, and he may choose not to do so.

(Hm, a billion. Less than his Earth. But they have a lower tech level...did the Earth population reach a billion in the 1800s? He's not sure.)

:That makes me very reluctant to let him out of my Bevin to do work. I would accept it if there was someone with authority here who could make representations that it was permitted to me but there but she, Ranary, I think, said that there wasn't one. I don't want to help and then be punished for it. Does it matter legally if the slavery was entered into with mutual consent? It was actually me that was the reluctant one...: Amusement.

:Do you know the specific wording of the relevant laws prohibiting it?:

:No one has the authority to punish you, you're not from this planet and don't live here! Please do not either make me figure out how to legalize slavery or do half as much to help my dying planet when you can simply do neither of those things! I don't know the full text of the law, just snippets like, all persons shall self-represent to the public except where they are minor children or definitive incompetents, something like that?:

:I'm not making you do anything. It's just —: Exasperation. Annoyance. Frustration.

:I'm just going to operate under the assumption that law has been suspended in the meantime, I guess. Maybe. I don't feel good about it because I feel like I'm wronging him, by interacting with a society that refuses to legitimize his existence as a slave...nevermind. Let's talk logistics and magic. Can you procure a map of the planet?:

:I can go see if the one in the basement is still there.: He gets up and heads down the stairs.

:Do you want me to follow you or wait here?:

"Waiting here is fine."

He's back in two minutes with a big map rolled up under one arm.

In the meantime, he will imprison all the leftovers and put them back in his Bevin. And expand the table so that it fits the map, and make or move a chair for Cor.

:Thank you. I want to know where we are right now. And where the bridge to Prison is, where I came in: He can give an impression of the location to Cor.

:I also want to know the location of major settlements, and the locations of...you mentioned earlier there are people whose situation is much more urgent because of the planet losing atmosphere thus making high altitude regions uninhabitable? If I understood or remembered correctly.:

"This neighborhood is here," Cor points. "But my house is here," on this other continent. "What do you have that you'd be able to do about people who live in the mountains?"

The gates are truly a wonderful working! He creates a marble token with a relief pattern of concentric circles and places it at the neighborhood, and another token for Cor's house with a house design.

:I can make a large platform out of prison marble and have people go on it, then use my acceleration power on it. At full utilization I can accelerate 1600kg of material, myself included, at 4g acceleration — I can accelerate more material at the cost of lower maximum acceleration, but obviously I'm not going to accelerate the platform with people at 4gs anyway — they would be hurt by it. This should be enough to transport thousands of people from those places to safer places — I don't know which places would be able to take in refugees, here, though.

The alternative would be imprisoning them but the time stasis situation is...:

The books he's read say that imprisonment keeps people who are in it aware. There were several mentions of it. But it also like, puts them in stasis. When he imprisoned a watch and released it, the watch was as if time was stopped while it was inside. He's tested imprisoning Rendon and when he was released he said that he didn't feel anything inside, didn't feel time passing. So his best guess is either that the books are wrong, or that they are aware but they're put in a kind of time loop, or that they are aware but there's an effect that reverts things back to how they were at the moment of imprisonment when they are released. So it's kind of like. Fraught.

:I interpreted the situation as them dying from lack of air such that it's urgent on the level of hours, so I think this is the best use of my time right now but maybe not. Both me and Rendon can do this but he'd be slower. And it's best to give them advance notice of the evacuation so we don't wait so long for stragglers.

I'll need to make an outpost here: he gestures at the portal location, :to generate a lot of marble with which to make the platforms. It will take an hour and maybe another hour to make the large platforms.:

"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."

(Lawrence is totally the sort of person who would be tempted to use world-destroying apocalyptic magic for cleaning. This is not a productive thing to say.)

:I'm going to leave behind Rendon here while I'm offworld — you and others can talk to him if necessary while I do the familiarization. He also has telepathy and I've been relaying the logistics conversation to him.:

There's another person standing next to him now! He has black sclerae and he's wearing a black rubber catsuit up to the top of the neck.

:I am Rendon.:

If there's nothing else, Lawrence will step out and fly back into the bridge and start making a mental map of the Everything Nearby. The thing is that the Prison is...super samey...so you have to look out for the really little things. Spatial Sense makes it a lot easier, and he starts having a Duplicate make a scale model of the surroundings, like earlier.

Wow that's a weird outfit. Also the slavery. But there are more important things.

"Do you have immediate questions before I go try sending someone to Asphodel," Cor asks Rendon.

:No.:

Unlike Lawrence's, whose mindvoice's typical structure and intonation is meandering and diffident, Rendon's is crisp and crystalline.

"Okay. Back in a few."

And he disappears into another guildhall room.

:Understood, Sir.:

Rendon is just going to stand there motionlessly with his eyes closed unless someone talks to him.

...Cor would tolerate worse to save the world or even just some of the people on it.

He's back in fifteen minutes. "Any updates?"

Wow, he's very upset by him. Lawrence said not to read what Cor isn't actively projecting but it's not very difficult to tell that he is. For Rendon, anyway.

:My Master says that, in a book, it was said that the familiarizing process required one to be familiar with a place as though one has 'lived there for a week'. He has previously only linked to places that he already lived in for longer than that, but the bridge area was one he only recently explored. He is planning to be conservative and spend a whole week there even though he thinks the time could probably be cut down, because if the bridge lands in the wrong spot, it would take another eight days to build one.

I do not need to eat, drink, excrete waste, or sleep.:

"That's sensible of him. And convenient for you, probably."

:Yes, Sir. It was such a chore to have to do it back then. Though I still possess the ability to eat and drink, and sometimes do.:

"That's the way to arrange it if you can," Cor agrees inanely, finding somewhere to sit and doing so. "I have a name. You can just call me Cor."

:Yes, Cor. As you wish.: Rendon does not sit and continues standing motionlessly. Indeed, he doesn't even breathe.

There's nothing that Cor specifically is needed for at this moment but there are a lot of things he can help with, like getting evacuation-relevant data dug up and collated.

He sets about that, checking in on Rendon every now and again in case anything has changed.

Rendon is silent and still and doesn't communicate with Cor unless he initiates the conversation. But after a bit, :My Master has said that you may make use of me with regard to anything that would be helpful to the saving of the world.:

"Besides having all the maintenance requirements of a brick what is it you can do at this time?"

He will describe his potentially relevant capabilities.

He has telepathy like Lawrence but shorter range. He has Gravitic Angel and Spatial Sense but also less max acceleration and range on both. He is strong but it's rather obviated by Gravitic Angel. He has Sculptor but he only has the tables and chairs made of marble to work with right now, though it wouldn't take long for him to go through the bridge and get more.

If Cor needs to be flown or things need to be ferried or people need to be escorted, he can do those. Spatial Sense has the benefit of improving mundane spatial intuition and memory, even when it pertains to things outside its range.

He doesn't know the language well enough to read and write documents, but people can read the documents and he can understand them. Well, provided their reading comprehension is fine.

In that case Cor will sit near him while reading documents for various evacuation-supporting research purposes.

He is amenable to that and will say so. Is any of the evacuation research anything that he can help with or is it magical research.

It's not magical but it requires reading; people are getting censuses and collecting news and checking maps against each other to find out how to most efficiently collect refugees, in case Ranary manages to come back and report that Asphodel will have them.

Meanwhile, Ranary, barely dressed with a bag of soot tucked in her bra, appears somewhere else.

She's at the bank of a shallow river. The water seems to have a golden glow to it, and it's warm. The sun is directly overhead, seeming like noon. The sunshine is warm on her skin but the weather isn't hot. On the other side of the river is a forest, with some of the trees having tiny red fruits in bunches.

On her side of the river, there's an anthropomorphic sheep — thte figure has fluffy sheep wool and no clothes and a sheep's head but is standing on two legs. With one of their hooves, they're holding hands paws with another anthropomorphic animal: an grey wolf. With the other hoof they are holding a wicker basket.

The ground is covered with slightly wet, lush green grass.

They're facing away from Ranary and towards rows of bushes, this time with tiny orange fruits in bunches. The wolf is picking berries and putting it in the sheep's basket.

She is not particularly optimistic that she'll be able to talk to them but the other guy had telepathy. "Excuse me?"

The sheep puts down the basket. And bleats at her. But somehow Ranary can understand the bleating, like it's a totally normal language that humans can understand.

"Hello!"

The wolf waves hello, and it's clear that they are waving hello and that this gesture is not intending to mean something else, somehow.

...wow, okay, score one for "the other guy had telepathy" reasoning. "Hello! I'm Ranary. My planet is falling apart and I'm looking for a place to put refugees."

The sheep and the wolf put their hands on their mouths! That's so sad!! The wolf is...gesturing. Somehow it's clear that the wolf really wants to help.

"This is a good place for refugees! Anywhere in Asphodel. How many people are coming?"

"We're not sure. Maybe - maybe hundreds of millions. The person who can bring them across seems - keen to help but can only do one at a time and we're not sure how long the planet will - still have anyone on it to come across - the way I got here will make it worse, if we do too much of it."

They're so sad!!

"Hundreds of millions is okay! What will you and them need? We'll go tell people. Are you hungry?" The sheep holds out the basket of orange berries. Ranary will have to reach down a bit if she wants any because they are four feet tall, and the wolf is only a little above that.

"They're going to need food and water and something to build homes out of - we can let them pack but they can't carry their houses - are you super sure humans can eat those -"

"I think so! I haven't heard of anyone who can't eat these. There's a lot of food and water and trees to make houses out of! The two of us just prefer to sleep on the ground, though."

The wolf noms one.

"Does it not rain?" She takes a berry; if they'll all die of poisoning if they try to come here she can probably still make it back to deliver the news.

The berry is sweet and tart and gooey. It tastes like mango. It doesn't burn her tongue or throat or anything.

"Um...I don't think we have that here...?" She looks at the wolf, unsure, who nods at her. "We have the twilight mist. Just before sunrise, the plants become dewy. Is that what you mean?"

"It's not but it's still good to know. What about wells, or... if someone dug from the edge of the river, in a line, would part of the river flow where they dug?"

"I don't know what a well is. The river would flow where they dug!"

"Okay, great." Civilization does not have to approximate a line segment. It'd be better than everyone dying but it would be SUCH a hassle. "What else should people who are going to move here know about it?"

"Hurting people is bad. People who are going to move here should not hurt us, each other, themselves, or others." The wolf nods sagely.

"I recommend drinking from the river Pyriphlegethon when you're thirsty. The River of Dreams is also good to drink, but maybe not right away if you're new. You will get visions of the good when you drink it! Very good experience but you have to be in a good mindset to appreciate it. Drinking from the river Kerlaugar is fine but it tastes bad. It's bitter. We swim in it to get clean." The wolf makes a disgusted face.

"You can eat any of the plants here but some are tastier than others." Wolf nod. "But people vary on what they like to eat."

"...since there are hundreds of millions of people," says Ranary, "I don't think I can be sure that none of them will hurt anyone. It's too many people to check, if we even had a good way to check, and some of them are children, who might grow up any which way."

The wolf makes a mournful expression of understanding.

"No, it's okay. We want to help as many people as possible — do not worry about...picking which people are good or bad. We want everyone to be able to heal and have peace here in Asphodel. It takes time for people to stop hurting and learn to stop hurting others. And we will teach them and help them." Wolf nod.

"If someone is very violent then perhaps we might put them to sleep, and then when they wake up they will be more calm."

"That sounds... probably... fine..." What is Cor going to say if she relays this. "How long will they sleep for if you do that? How violent is very?"

"Maybe a few hours. A whole day or a whole night if they're really tired.

Very violent is when you're hitting people." The wolf mock karate chops the sheep's head, and the sheep cringes and rubs their head. Then returns to their regular pleasant expression. "Like that."

"And this will make them calmer just the way sleeping normally makes people calmer, or in a different way?"

"I don't know how you could be a different kind of calm when you sleep? I guess if you have bad dreams you might not be calmed by sleeping..."

"...okay. Uh... does anyone else live here besides people like you two already?"

"Yeah, lots of people. Do you want to meet them?"

"Not right now, if I'm gone too long my friends will think I'm dead. But can you tell me about them?"

"Okay. Well I'm Mina and this is Sasa," they gesture to the wolf.

"Narina likes swimming and basket weaving. She made my basket! Tepa can fly and his nest is super high up in a tree and he has lots of shiny rocks. Paz also likes swimming. Tumi and Tamomi and Raya and their friends want to make a tiered garden as high as a hill! Rati likes sleeping. Mima" and she is going to continue like this unless Ranary stops her.

"That's not what I meant. I mean, you two are the same sort of person, right? You're furry and you're - from here - and your friends you mentioned are probably also about like that except for the one who can fly maybe? Are there other kinds, like are there groups of of refugees or their descendants, or people who are from here but don't look like the same kind of thing as you and maybe act differently in some ways, besides just having other hobbies?"

"No, I haven't met anybody like that. Or talked to anyone who knew anybody like that. But I haven't traveled much." They look at Sasa. Sasa shakes their head.

No proof of concept, hoo boy. "Okay. So - people can come here, and eat the food and drink the water and build houses and dig irrigation channels, and if they hit someone they'll fall asleep for a while... are there ways to get things like metal and stone and sand that can be made into glass, here?"

"Yes! And I don't know what metal and glass are but there's stone and sand!"

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?"

: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.

There's nothing contraindicating it but they don't have to do it right now, and Rendon is fine with waiting until people are ready.