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For the next month Sapphire works to reestablish something approaching normality. She's not really comfortable being as important to the world as she's become but she isn't alone, she has the support of the league. She finds an apartment, sends applications to schools, and helps. She meets with the team from Star Labs, researches infectious diseases and starts working on what she can, researches hospitals and makes plans for how to improve them and she pays attention to the news and goes to help with earthquakes, tornados, and floods. There's a particularly bad flood in Pakistan and also a series of wildfires in Russia. Batman also sends a few requests for scans, she doesn't like the cloak and dagger work but she understands it's important and she helps. That doesn't stop her from keeping meticulous records and tries to understand his plan. She keeps herself very busy and at some point she decides she needs a break. She reaches out to Atlantis about visiting. It's amazing that it's real here.
Atlantean furniture is made in shapes similar enough to what she's familiar with, but the materials are all different. Nothing is made of wood—instead, metal or sometimes stone are used—and the fabrics are all different, they seem to be woven from treated plant fibers of some kind. The more expensive items use fish skin.
The higher end furniture makes use of enchantments to make cushions more comfortable, because the unenchanted versions are mostly not.
Alright, she'll look over tools next. What kind of tools are they selling?
Fishing equipment, knifes and machetes, a lot of stone-working tools, cooking implements, and metalworking tools, including the all-important rock-enchanted-to-be-hot-but-not-boil-water.
A lot of the things you'd normally find in a hardware store, like hammers, saws, and screwdrivers, are nowhere to be seen.
That's interesting, it makes sense given that wood isn't a building material. She'll go look at some sculptures next.
Atlantean sculpture heavily features: Atlanteans, sea creatures, and ornate renditions of plants, corals, and more abstract organic shapes. There are a few more abstract pieces, but it doesn't seem to be a popular style. Also available are beautifully decorated vases, mosaics and bas-reliefs, often designed to tell a story, sometimes enchanted to be animated.
The enchanted vases are pretty. She'll peek at the clothing then go in search of something to eat.
Atlantean clothing tends to be close-fitting but flexible, in simple, but elegant cuts, and bright colors. It's not... entirely clear what the fabric is made out of, but it looks comfortable enough. And expensive.
After leaving Pearl Street, Sapphire can find a reputable-looking restaurant. They serve fish, shellfish, a surprisingly large number of varieties of algae, kelp, and fish.
She'll go for a vegetarian sampler platter if she can find one.
Atlanteans don't really do vegetarianism, possibly due to the lack of good vegetables, but she can get an algae sampler plate. Atlantean currency consists mostly of small copper coins, which Sapphire fortunately did stock up on before visiting.
The algae tastes... surprisingly bland. Perhaps it doesn't help that she can't really smell anything.
Ring, can you allow aromatic compounds to filter through the environmental shield in safe amounts?
"Compliance."
She can now smell some things, but it's still much less than she'd normally be able to. The algae tastes a little better, but it still seems off, like it's missing something.
Ring create a pocket of the surrounding water about twice the volume of the solid food to accompany each piece I bring through the environmental shield. Release it when it's inside my mouth and my mouth is closed. She tries eating again.
Ring evaluate the following instructions and assess any risks: allow the water to touch my face and create a barrier to ensure the water doesn't go down my windpipe.
"Course of action likely to result in suffocation of user unless windpipe is also supplied with fresh air."
Amend the previous instruction to include supplying air and then execute. And more food.
"Compliance."
Once Sapphire's nose and mouth fill with water, she it at last able to taste this food as it was meant to be tasted! Aromatic compounds only soluble in water rise up from the algae and stimulate her olfactory nerves in ways they have never been stimulated before! Each bite is an explosion of flavors which can scarcely be described by the english language!
From outside the restaurant she hears several dull thumps that sound like... explosions?
She savors the flavor for the few bites she manages before the explosions start.
Ring store the remaining food and five liters of the surrounding water then return the environmental shield to the state it was in before I started eating. Maintain the protection of my windpipe until it's no longer necessary. She moves outside to try to see what's happening.
"Compliance."
In the streets outside, guardsmen are fighting people dressed in full-body black armor, wielding some sort of underwater stun guns.
Ring scan those in black armor and recommend means of non-lethally subduing them.
"Compliance. Recommend targeted electrical stimulus to central nervous system or application of tranquilizing drugs."