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The portal system is replaced with a more secure successor over time. Inferno's subworlds are still non-urgent, but the daeva do get a portal to Limbo, where the humans present are much less likely to be able to freak out and successfully move from freaking out to doing anything along the lines of "nuke the rogue daeva and hope the summoner's within the blast radius". Cam visits his dad and gets a letter to his mom asking that she show up at his dad's house. He makes useful things in ways that won't be too traceable (if his dad's fridge has slightly more bacon and cheese and apples to share with the neighbors a few days in a row, who'll notice?), as a short-term intervention while awaiting more acculturation to the way Limbo works so they won't upset any very delicate balances. The portals to the other worlds can wait until there are actual plans on what to do with them. And possibly until their alts have more free time to help. In the meantime, Cam has his parents again.
"Yeah. We'll get to it. They'll keep a little longer while we catch up on what Limbo's deal is."
She giggles. "I'll study my technology obsessively. I've still got to make the mirror thing, and it's not like the - biological study will be much good in Limbo, since everyone's got immortality. But technology is scale-able."
"Technology is scalable with resources. Limbo doesn't really have any. I think probably the best thing to do for them is make rivers."
"Well, yes. And - actually. Can we borrow Ice's robot army? Or just have you make robots that are connected to their network except working for us? And farming and such for food along with water."
"The network doesn't behave across portals, so it'd have to be a new network. Farmer robots are a good idea, but I'm not sure if Limbo will accommodate a normal water cycle. Normally it doesn't have, like - weather. Even over the ocean."
"Yeah, that's probably the way to go. Maybe eventually summon other demons to add water if we can find some who are, if not as nice as me, at least loosely trustworthy."
"Zane's an option. I don't think it would be his dream job, but it's easy enough, I don't see why he wouldn't."
"... Well. Yes, but - if that's all we wanted Zane to do, every now and then, he'd be okay with it, because he's got other things to do besides just making water. If we put him on a strict 'go make water every day' schedule, of course he'd balk, but if it's just a once a week thing, that would be fine."
"So - maybe a big mountain far away from the ocean, with a river between the mountain and said ocean, and a complicated reservoir arrangement in the mountain so that once-a-week refills can handle it?"
"Adorable little ones with little fake plastic trees!" she giggles. "And we can just do those tests in Pantheon."
"Maybe a New Kystle dayside? There's got to be actual irrigation they could use done there."
"Oooo. Ooo, I love you, have I mentioned, lately? Let's go with Cypress's, he'd love us for that."
"And," she points out, "I bet Prime knows people that know a lot about irrigation, considering. We can crib from their notes."
"I do think that for Limbo in particular we need to use as little non-daeva magic as possible, tempting as it might be. Not unless it's runecasting, anyway. All of the others have a scaling problem, and Limbo is very big."
"Runecasting has a scaling problem too in the sense that we have to either centrally produce the scrolls or turn the knowledge totally loose."