And then someone is standing there, looking around. "...Summoner, I believe you've made a poor choice of party decorations."

"I. What."

"Your geometric floor decoration has accidentally summoned a random fairy. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous. You're lucky I'm one of the nice ones."

If those wings are a costume, they're a damn good one.

"I-" she starts, but then she actually looks at him. Then she tilts her head. Then squints.

"Okay, so, either you're mad and somehow managed to get in here really quickly and you put wings on your back to complete the ensemble... Or not."

He raises one eyebrow and starts floating himself a foot off the ground. "You somehow got to high school age without learning about summoning, this should be interesting."

She raises an eyebrow when he starts to float. Well, that's one of the hypotheses down the drain.

"... 'Summoning' is not common knowledge. I would know if it were anywhere near common knowledge, and it's not. I've not just been sequestered away in some hidden community, fairies are seriously not a thing. ... Or they weren't a thing."

He notices the cell phone and motions at it. "...Congratulations, your hilariously terrible circle has managed to pull me into an alternate universe, or possibly just the past."

Of course it has.

"It's 2015, and in case it wasn't obvious we're on Earth. Does that answer your question?"

"Actually, no, Let me look something up." Some kind of tablet comes out of a coat pocket, telekinetically. Tap tap tap. "Alternate universe. Summoning became common knowledge in 2005 or so, in mine. This is the strangest thing to happen to me in the last century."

Telekinetically. Really. Well, that's interesting.

"... How long do fairies live? And why do you keep calling my circle terrible?"

"I have never heard of a fairy dying, we don't age or get sick like humans. This circle has zero bindings and called for a random fairy. This is a terrible idea. If I wanted to I could be in the nearest city throwing skyscrapers around by now."

"Oh. Well. Thank you for not, but what do you mean 'bindings'?"

"They... I shouldn't explain summoning any more. If you get it into your head to summon the other kinds of daeva, and getting me wasn't some sort of one-time fluke, and you aren't good enough at bindings, they could literally destroy the Earth."

"I mean, I wasn't leaping to doing whatever I did with this one again, but yeah, that's a good point. But now I'm curious... what other types– no, okay, nevermind."

She looks at her surroundings again, reminded of what she was doing, and says, "I've... got to text some people. And presumably get rid of these shapes."

"I have to think, this is potentially great for your alternate universe's humanity, summoning can be very beneficial, but equally potentially apocalyptic. On the Earth I know there was at least one case of nuclear weapons being used just to deal with one rogue daeva. If you have a relatively hidden place I'll be happy to wait there for a little while."

"I... Yeah? This isn't my place, actually, my friend's out right now getting some stuff, so. Uh, I might just have to ditch the party. My place isn't far and my mom's out right now so you can probably wait in my room, anyway, but. Uh. Yeah, just a sec."

She starts texting people on her phone. Coming down with a sudden illness? Sure. That's a fine excuse. She can use that.

He'll only just stand there patiently for about three minutes.

That's fine – Eva's good at texting.

"Okay, right. I'm ill and can't turn up to the party," she says, kinda pointlessly. "Do I need to do anything about this?" she asks, gesturing towards the shapes on the floor.

"...Not unless anyone's liable to copy it." It's pretty obvious he's trying to limit the amount of information he gives her.

"Okay, well, probably not, unless taking a photo of it somehow counts? I don't know how much people might get when it's crowded in here, but if it has the chance to do that much damage... It's safe for me to just get rid of bits of it, right?"

"Yes, rearrange it or remove a few bits and it'll be safe."

Luckily it was just bits of coloured tape and paper, because that's what all the cool kids use for decoration, so that's pretty easy to do. She gets rid of the circle and reshapes some of the other bits.

"Right. We should be ready to go, then? ... Can you hide your wings?"

"Unfortunately not, but if you give me directions I can be extremely fast, not much time for anyone to see me."

"Okay. Right." She thinks for a second, trying to come up with a good description of how to get there from a bird's-eye view, then decides just to give the directions to get there along streets and a description of her house that should make it somewhat recognizable.

"I'll be there in like 10 minutes."

"I could carry you there. That's the whole point of summoning fairies, getting them to move things."

".. Of course it is, you used telekinesis earlier. Sorry, this is all a bit... new." She runs her hand through her hair, then says, "Yeah, that'd be good."

"Up so we're specks in the sky, or streetwise and hope nobody notices the weird blur?"

"Uh. I'm fine with specks in the sky." Of course she is. Totally fine.

She realizes that she should probably grab her bag, so she fetches it, then says, "Right, I'm ready to go."

Fwoosh! They're out the door and high, high up without so much as a rush of air or a feeling of acceleration. He hovers for a few moments, pretending to look for the right house. (He's clearly showing off.)

Okaaaay. This is pretty exhilarating, and also very freaky, but kinda scary.

Jackpot. She has hit the literal jackpot, assuming she's not dreaming.

That assumes the fairy can be convinced to cooperate. He's not been too unreasonable so far, at least.

And then with another surreal zoom of motion, they're at the back door of her house with only a little plant-rustling to show for it.

Of course it assumes that. It's not, however, an unreasonable assumption.

She takes a moment to steady herself, then gets out her key and opens the door. "Right, so. You made it sound like you've never had to try to bring a world up to the modern age before. Do you have stuff saved on your... tablet thingy? Like, perhaps, scientific research papers?"

"I was planning to have you unsummon and resummon me, so I could download a library. Getting enough tools to kick-start a scientific revolution is not cheap unless you're willing to risk dealing with a, a particularly dangerous kind of daeva."

"Okay, but do you have anything on you now? I'm a little worried that you're going to disappear and then I'm not gonna be able to get you back. I mean, I have never heard of real fairies, ones like you, ever before."

"...Okay, I do have a ten year old encyclopedia from a hundred fifty years in your future. But if I give it to you maybe you just don't resummon me, and get rich and famous off it not to mention I've just lost a semi-nice computer and all my information security in one go."

"I'm not saying all of it, but if you could somehow get a couple of... I don't know! Research papers? Product designs? Something that would pay off and have benefits for sure, like something that gets water out of the atmosphere into a potable form? Or a scientific breakthrough, if there's been anything revolutionary."

"...Fine, fine, I'll set it up to only show a few things that came out relatively close to 2015 unless I unlock it again with a hideously long password. It'll take a bit of setup, though. The water thing isn't really possible, RO membranes get more efficient but there's real physical limits involved. How about... Instructions for making hydrocarbon batteries and the formulae and synthesis steps for a couple dozen medicines?"

"I think that would be extremely useful, awesome, and is approximately exactly what I was looking for, so thank you!"

She is not literally bouncing, mainly because it would be too undignified.

He starts tapping away on the computer. "I'm an unusually technopathic fairy, by the way, most don't bother. It's traditional to pay fairies with food." Hint, hint.

"Thank you," she repeats. "Is there anything in particular you like? Brownies? We have brownies and cookies, if you want something sweet."

"Brownies sound nice, thanks. I'm not trying to be mean, here, I'm just being careful and part of me can't stop seeing you as an incompetent summoner even when I ought to know better."

"No, don't worry, this is great."

Okay, she should probably stop with the continued thanks and go get those brownies, but even if she didn't summon him back, she would probably be set for life. A couple dozen medicines, depending on what they do, could make her extremely wealthy. Of course, she'd have to find someone to sell the rights to or something, and they'd have to believe that she's not just made everything up, but that is not insurmountable.

Right, brownies! She goes to fetch them.

Tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap. He seems very efficient about it.

"Actually, if you could get me a lot of food to bring back I could buy more stuff. Second computer, a printer, plasma cutter, you know, tools."

She stops. "Okay! Uh, anything in particular? I could run to the store and fetch stuff."

"Cheapish packaged processed stuff, chips, cookies, cheese, meat, beer. Fairies in general aren't likely to notice it's from so long ago."

"I can't actually go buy more beer, since I'm not 21 yet, but I can get you what we already have. My mom, uh, trusts me."

If that's all, she will write that as a note into her phone and drive to a local store to get lots of the aforementioned stuff.

"Oh, right, drinking age is a thing. Beer specifically isn't necessary, it was just an example."

By the time she's back, Nick will be done with his hasty reprogramming.

And she is back with large quantities of stuff. If the de- and re-summoning works fine, he can take it back in batches. "I'm baaack," she says, still being somewhat ridiculously happy over the whole thing.

"Okay, so." He levitates a significant chunk of the stuff in front of him, touching it. "I wrote out a new circle that will get me and only me. When you want to summon me again, draw most but not all of the circle on a flat surface in any material, then write out the script around it, then finish the circle. It'll call me, and I might not answer immediately so just leave it until I do. And I'll need a few hours to exchange all this food for futuretools... Unsummoning me works by wanting me gone for a solid minute."

"Okay, so is everything ready for that to happen?"

He hands over the tablet, which just shows a list of documents and a password form, and says, "Yep."

"Okay! Again, in case something goes wrong, thanks so much!"

Then she gets to focusing on him gone.

And in about a minute: There is no Nick.

And she now has a few hours to kill.

She decides to look at some of the documents on the tablet thing. If she can glean any information with her high-school level of science, or through that and heavy use of the internet, it could definitely help her work out how to use it and distribute it. It's not as balancing or obviously geared towards altruistic goals, but it should definitely allow her to gain influence and focus on other things separately.

... Hydrocarbon batteries sound interesting, actually.

Hydrocarbon batteries have an energy storage capacity of something like five times as much as lithium-ion batteries, and can be refilled with most things that are burnable if you don't have access to a charger.

The medicines just look confusing, high school science and the internet only helps understand what the documents are even talking about so much. There are five kinds of antibiotics there, though, and antibiotic resistance is fairly a big worry in the medical community.

Eva's heard of MRSA and things in a similar vein to that, so she understands the significance of the antibiotics. After actually thinking about the batteries a bit, she realizes the potential scale, and deems it... rather ridiculous.

Eeeee. So rich. (And so much more ability to do things. But rich, too. Eee.) Plus, that's only if she can't resummon him. There's nobody around, so she might as well do a little dance.

Eventually, the few hours have elapsed. She grabs a permanent marker and goes into her garage. After drawing most of the circle, then the words around it, she completes it, hoping that she did it properly – why did she not write it down? Because it sounded so simple, that's why.

He does not immediately appear.

At least he warned her that might happen.

Yeah. That he did.

She is nnnot freaking out. She has her phone, so she's just gonna wait here. For a while. A really long while, if it turns out not to work.

After about five minutes, he appears, levitating a big crate. "Hello again, summoner."

"Hello!" she says, totally not having freaked out for those five minutes. "... Wait, didn't I introduce myself? I'm Eva."

"I'm Nick, nice to meet you. I didn't get as much as I'd hoped for the food. It's not nothing, though, and I do have a deal worked out with someone for the rest."

"I can always get more. I mean, I think it's probably important enough. So. I admit I haven't really planned through what I'm going to do, or rather what we should do, with the fact that you're a telekinetic fairy with alternate-universe future knowledge."

She summoned him, okay? She's not literally staking a claim to him, but she'd like to be included in things.

The phrasing gets an eyebrow-raise. "Given that you can send me away relatively easily I probably won't go haring off and doing things you disapprove of. Plus, wings, who would take me seriously? And I'm not the only fairy, you could summon more, and other kinds, if I can tone my paranoia down from twelve and explain bindings really really well. But the other kinds of daeva are all three harder to pay, more likely to want to cause mayhem, and more dangerous if they manage it."

She at least corrected to we!

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, depending on how large-scale your telekinesis is, you could do a lot of damage. You accelerated me kinda ridiculously, and if you did that and didn't decelerate me..." She shakes her head. "I don't even have to be particularly creative."

"I could ignite the atmosphere. Things moving through air at a significant fraction of C... The second kind changes things. They can remodel your house on the cheap... Or turn you into a piece of living furniture, or make live radioactive material. The last kind makes things. 'Things' includes 'black holes'."

Eva opens her mouth. Then shuts it.

Then opens it again. And shuts it.

Finally, she talks: "Oh. Rrright."

"That is why I'm being so paranoid here. Let's stick with technology or being exquisitely careful and not publicizing summoning for a few years, at least."

"Yyyyeah. I vote that. Um. So. The bindings presumably stop them from doing these things?"

"Yes, but I don't think I should explain further at this time. I hardly know you... We could fix that."

Okay, that sounds like flirting, but it feels ambiguous. "I'm eighteen, I'm a senior at the high school I go to... I do lots of parties? They're fun. I'm not literally all about them, though."

"I'm... I lost track, three twenty or so. I'm actually a big nerd about science and technology. Spend most of my time tinkering or watching old comedies when I don't take summons. But I more meant, spend some time attempting to kick-start the tech here, build a little trust. I still need to make a second trip with the rest of the food, by the way."

"Yeah. Uh. It's getting kinda late, and I'm not sure what I can actually do on this end without a lot of long-term planning or your powers. It might be best if you went back with more food – maybe you could go back and forwards a few times to take all the stuff, then we meet up again tomorrow after you've traded it?"

"Sure, I suppose." He sighs. "Bringing everything to a new world is exciting, but some space to breathe and think is reasonable."

"Yeah. Okay. Some of the stuff's in my room and some's still in the kitchen, so if you go get some of it and then I send you back and re-summon you for more, that should be okay? ... Can I just retrace this circle, or do I need to do a new one somewhere else?"

"Retracing works if you make sure to retrace over all of it." He flits away to the kitchen, retrieving stuff.

"I should be able to? I mean, I could always do a different color or something."

Saying that, she goes and fetches a few more marker colors, and starts focusing on dismissing him when he's done.

Nick disappears, and he's able to bring all the remaining food in only one trip.

Well. In that case, she will probably just leave it until the morning to re-summon him? Luckily she did the circle in the corner of the garage, so she can just cover it with a conveniently-placed folded tarp to prevent anyone getting curious about it.

Assuming nothing dramatic happens, she'll be awake for a couple more hours, she'll text a few of her friends to say sorry about flaking on the party, and she'll then go to sleep. In the morning, she has breakfast, speaks to her mom a bit, and then sneaks into the garage to remove the tarp and draw back over it in another color. Most of the circle, then the script around the edge, then complete the circle.

She hopes he's not asleep. If he doesn't respond, she'll try again in another couple of hours.

He appears straight away. With another crate. "Good morning! I have proper tools, now. Metalwork reactors, 3D printers, chem kits, et cetera."

"Ooh! I have no idea where to set them up. We could possibly do it in here, and I guess I should tell my mom about this eventually..."

"I have no advice regarding parents... The tools are not that big, but they've got a hefty power draw. If you were a university student we could try and borrow a lab space."

"Unfortunately I'm not. Will they run on regular mains electricity? Because we could try running them here, and meanwhile I look into warehouses that might have the sort of facilities required for larger-scale production?"

"Oh, no, I'll have to spin the fairy generator I brought along until I can rig a transformer. I think... A nice warehouse space would be good, then contacts for raw materials or industry once I have some prototypes, that kind of thing. This is going to play like a startup business, I think."

"Oh right. Well, we – you, whatever – should still have an extremely decent head-start, what with the magic powers and the future knowledge, which is, again, extremely nice. Feel free to put them here – I'll go make my mom think I've gone psycho, then convince her I haven't, then go research warehouse spaces."

She's grinning madly. It's kinda adorable how thrilled she seems by this all.

It is pretty exciting, he's going to get to bring modern science to historical times. He starts humming a cheerful tune as he arranges things.

So, off Eva goes to tell her mom about telekinetic fairies.

... It goes surprisingly well! Her mom asks if she's feeling okay – "Yes, I'm fine," – and then checks that nothing terrible's going on at school – "No, mom, I told you I'm fine," – and then lets Eva speak. Eva manages to basically totally convince her that she is not hallucinating, she is not making things up, and that she is super thrilled because "C'mon, it's so obvious how ridiculously unfair this all is."

Eva goes into the garage again and asks, "Is it okay if my mom sees you? I mean, I told her about you, and she's now pretty sure I'm not crazy, but it would be nice for her to have confirmation...?"

"Fine by me. Though again, I don't know from parents."

"It's okay, she's cool," says Eva, and that's not totally just because her mom's right there. She opens the door further, points at Nick, and expects that the wings are probably sufficient to show that she's not totally crazy.

Eva's mom is surprisingly okay with seeing a random guy with wings in their garage, especially since her daughter is typically very trustworthy. "Do you want some coffee? Or maybe some tea?"

"I'd prefer tea, please and thank you." Stuff is pretty much set up now. He starts spinning the generator. It's surprisingly quiet. "I'm wondering what to make first. Is bio-fuel a thing yet?"

Off Eva's mom goes to make some tea. How nice.

"Biofuel? Like bioethanol grown using sugar crops, or like burning plant waste? ... I think that's probably a yes? Bioethanol isn't widespread, though, if I recall correctly."

"Oh, ethanol biofuel, I can make that outdated in a week. Same principle as the batteries, just bigger. Might need some strange materials, or to visit a junkyard for material."

"My knowledge might not be totally up to date, but yeah, I think Brazil is like the only place that uses it, and not in that much quantity. Strange materials can probably be bought, depending on how expensive they are – we're kinda well-off, but not ridiculously."

"We could try summoning the medium-dangerous kind of daeva if material costs become prohibitive. It's safe enough if you're careful with the bindings. But it shouldn't be a problem at first. I need steel, aluminum, and then a few catalytic converters from a junkyard or something and that's it for the fuel thing."

"Was that the one that changes things? Because really, that kinda sounds more frightening than the one that can make things."

"Yes, but they're known to be friendlier overall, and they can be paid with electronics. I'm just saying it's an option, I'm not about to ask you to try it."

Eva studies him when he mentions the payment, and decides not to ask. "Oh okay. I mean, if I'm writing the binding in English, I could try looking for ways through it to tighten things up, but presumably there aren't many – or any – if it's tried and tested. And if they're friendly... it's probably fine? We can go look through a scrapyard later, if you want. It doesn't even need to be particularly nearby if you're doing the transport."

"There's groundwork to do first, anyway. But I'm wondering, are you interested in learning the tools and science, or just helping me spread the knowledge and making lots of money and useful contacts in the process?"

"I am somewhat curious about the tools and science, but I might be more help in the contacts department. I like to think I'm good with people."

"I've been told I'm a good example of the introverted nerd stereotype. A people person and a tech person is a good dynamic, anyway."

"Yeah, definitely."

She doesn't have much more to add. Is he doing anything interesting, or should she go look up potential warehousing and scrapyards?

He is watching a 3D printer print something while working on some kind of blueprints on a large screen.

"Hey, would you like your tablet thing back? Seeing as how you can come back whenever."

"Oh, right, I almost forgot about that. Thanks."

Eva runs back up to her room to fetch it, grabs her laptop, then goes back down to the garage and hands the tablet back over to Nick. She'll just sit in the kitchen researching things for a bit.

There are various noises coming from the impromptu workshop. None too loud.

After a while, Nick starts asking occasional questions about whether this or that service or material is expensive or if such and such a thing would sell well.

Eva is happy to look that stuff up!

And soon enough it's time to run to a junkyard. He's worked out an only slightly awkward-looking way to hide his wings. Eva should probably come along to negotiate for the not-used-to-Earth fairy.

Eva is again happy to do so. She's got a couple nearby candidates, and has directions to get there. ... Are they even going to pretend to take a car or something? Presumably they also want some sort of bag to collect stuff in.

Nick has a sack. And he could tolerate a vehicle for appearances' sake if it could be important.

Probably not too important, and if they were to take it it'd just slow them down (unless Nick transported the car with them too, but that just seems kinda pointless). It would just keep up appearances a bit more. Admittedly not really necessary, and it's probably not too weird to walk to a junkyard to get stuff?

(She really can't be bothered to take a vehicle. It was just a suggestion.)

Junkyard-wards?

Junkyard-wards. He has only human levels of being able to tell when people are looking at him, but he can manage a fast descent in an unoccupied alley near the junkyard just fine.

And they can walk to the entrance, pay a scavengers' fee, and look around for whatever Nick needs.

He needs telekinetically yanked-and-coiled wires, little trays from inside catalytic converters, lengths of rubber, the less rusty pieces of steel, spark plugs, oh an intact alternator that's handy...

There's a large variety of stuff here! Eva's trying to look out for anything he mentions, but a few of the things are definitely not things she'd recognize without researching them some more first. 'Rubber' or 'steel', she can help spot that fine.

Do they get everything Nick needs, or will they need to check out the other scrapyard?

They don't need to visit the other scrapyard for the first round of prototypes, but it might be useful later. Time to whoosh back to Eva's house?

Time to whoosh back!

Now that she's not so stunned by it, whooshing is actually kinda fun.

It really is.

...He thinks of a line he just can't resist using. "I can let you feel acceleration, too, pretend to be a rollercoaster. Do you like to ride rollercoasters?"

Eva raises an eyebrow. Well then. "I think the answer would have to be a yes," she says, somewhat teasingly.

He laughs. "Sorry if that was too forward, I just couldn't not say it once I thought of it. But, say, what's your favorite kind of rollercoaster? Fast and smooth, or one with variety?"

"Oh, well that is a question. I think... hm." She makes a show of thinking. "Slow to start off, but then builds? So yeah, variety."

"I'll keep that in mind in case it becomes... Relevant. I wouldn't presume to tell you when you want to ride a rollercoaster, of course."

"Oh, of course. Relevance is a necessary part of any... rollercoaster ride."

Is it clear that the metaphor is being stretched thin?

Clear enough. "Well since the relevance of this conversation is in question, I guess I'll get to work with this stuff. I'll have a shiny thing to show off to potential investors in a few days, tops."

"That sounds like a good plan!"

And Eva can do some baking or something, because fairies are typically paid in food, don'tcha know. They must have a cookbook somewhere.

Well, this fairy mentions that he is going to want to be paid in actual money if he stays and helps long-term. But food is nice, yes.

Tinkering progresses.

Well of course, money too. There will presumably be enough for them both to get ridiculously rich. Several times over.

Baking progresses too. Eva can follow a recipe, and so if Nick comes back in about an hour, he should find that she has cooked cupcakes!

Cupcakes: Are delicious.

He attempts to divulge the principles by which his synthetic fuel machine will work. It's probably a good idea to know what it is you'll be trying to sell, and the broad strokes aren't too complicated since she can cover any nosy questions with 'trade secret' or 'proprietary method' or other buzzwords.

So long as he's okay with explaining it thoroughly, starting from the more basic concepts and working up, he should find that she's actually keeping up! She'll ask quite a few questions, and the higher level stuff might take a while to sink in without the contextual knowledge, but she can definitely keep track of the broad strokes. Of course she can respond with 'trade secret', and she almost certainly will, but it's still interesting to find out about how the machine actually works.

The broad strokes can be summarized as: It performs a miracle of carefully-controlled chemistry when supplied with electricity, and also works as a proof of concept for the hydrocarbon batteries that are trickier to make. Quality, safe-for-cars gasoline from water and carbon, either from carbon dioxide in the air or from ash, and electricity. The cost works out to something like $2.25/gal at industrial electricity prices, but they can throw a huge fuss about its eco-friendliness, and the price will go way down if they build a fairy-powerplant that produces something on the order of gigawatts in exchange for a steady stream of cupcakes and trinkets.

That is totally ridiculous! It's brilliant.

My, what a fortunate arrival Nick has been.

There's more where that came from.

The next thing on his list is more advanced electronics and/or shiny new AI systems and the like, but you need a bit of a reputation to get something like Intel or Comcast to listen to you. Medicine and medical equipment is up after that, because it will almost certainly take contacts and capital to make the stuff above-board.

He could announce some random advance in quantum field theory and hope for a Nobel Prize but that feels like cheating... Could he win the Randi Prize? A million is in the bucket once they get big, but it could smooth things over in the short term.

The Randi Prize? Is that... the supernatural thing?

It is! That definitely sounds like a good way to get their start-up project kickstarted.

Apparently there's a form to fill out and then a wait period. Nick fills it out and resumes tinkering. Now that the shiny demonstration unit is working so they can show off to anyone who listens to them, he's making tools that will be used to make tools that will be used to make tools that will be used to make the actual products.

Of course he is. That's actually kinda cool.

Meanwhile, Eva has been looking around for people and organizations on the internet who might be interested in a demonstration of the product. It's not been long, so she's not actually made much headway, but she's started!

He hits a bit of a lull in productivity sometimes, when something's running that can't be sped up. He asks to be returned home for a couple hours once, but otherwise spends a lot of this time discussing the science and future plans with Eva.

There may be occasional flirting, though he doesn't try to escalate.

The occasional flirting is reciprocated, but Eva also doesn't try to escalate at this stage.

Eventually, they have a few responses! Unfortunately, two are along the lines of 'don't waste our time with this', and the other one is tentatively interested but isn't actually very high-profile, so it might be better to wait to see if they get any better options. Sigh. She keeps looking around for other places that seem like they might be more open to innovation, and tries to persuade the other groups that no, she's not lying.

Nick thinks they should go ahead and show off to the low-profile company, and just yammer something about 'investigating our options' to stall them and wait for higher profile clients.

Unless they can get a major tech-based social media person interested? He recalls that kind of thing was just starting to really take off in the 2010s. There has to be one or two sciencey blogs or video shows that might accept a shiny new toy. Not that he doubts she's trying, but it's a bit hard to believe nobody is interested.

It is kinda hard to believe, or at least annoying to believe, but they are – basically – nobodies saying that they have a revolutionary product. It's somewhat farfetched.

She had been looking for investors as opposed to just publicity, and therefore didn't focus on the blog-and-videosphere as much as she should have. Turns out there are people who are interested in trying it out and getting information on it out there! In the future, she shall strive to do better. Now, when would they like to meet with some of these people? Literally as soon as possible? She thinks it's probably that, but she'll check with Nick just in case.

'Literally as soon as possible' is correct. Nick is faster than an airplane.

Literally as soon as possible is the option she picks! Unfortunately, they can't do 'immediately', but how does tomorrow morning sound?

Tomorrow morning will have to do, then. He spends the night hopped up on coffee making tweaks to the thing.

She spends the night sleeping, as humans do, but she's up bright and early the next day!

Where is this internet person? Are they local-ish, or will Nick have to fly below a thousand feet halfway across the country to avoid detection by air force radar technicians?

They're not local local, but they're in the same state. Here's an address and directions from a nearby landmark.

Whoosh?

Whoosh! He lets a small part of the wind hit them, this time, it's more fun that way.

His wings are hidden when they navigate to the internet person's house.

Whoosh!

And eventually they arrive. Hello, internet person. Watch Eva be charmingly interesting at you.

Internet person answers the door and invites them in. He serves coffee and lets Eva apply charm and small talk for a while, but soon asks to see the devices.

Eva's happy to show them off! She repeats the bits of Nick's explanation that she understood fully and feels are relevant. Do you have anything to add, Nick? Would you maybe like to demonstrate them?

The internet person cuts her explanation off. "Actually, let me start recording now?" A microphone and a little camera is deployed. "There we go."

Nick only has a couple things to add or clarify. He talks about how they're going to scale it up, and the problem of needing rare materials as catalysts.

Internet person catches on that Nick is the mastermind behind the device, but then Eva is more photogenic and also has better enthusiasm in her voice so she keeps the spotlight.

Eva can definitely be very photogenic and personable when she tries, but she also caught a lot of the explanation that Nick gave her, so she shouldn't be missing anything too important. She takes the additions and clarifications in stride, and overall it seems to go well!

At one point internet person asks how exactly they came up with the idea, and whether there might be more like it. Nick looks at Eva in a what-should-I-say sort of way.

Eva gets through it by – in essence – pointing at the brains of the operation and saying that it's so amazing what the education system can produce when people actually apply themselves. They definitely think there will be more ideas like it.

...Alright, internet person can accept that answer, and the question-dodge implied in it.

The last step will be to test the things and show them in action. Can they please follow him to such and such a university lab with plenty of space and also tools if they need to make adjustments? (Nick snorts a bit and mutters 'not likely')

That's fine! Eva follows, continuing the conversation.

Ugh. Slow travel. It's so... inefficient. It's bad that she's already kinda used to the speed of fairy telekinesis, but it's just so convenient.

Soon enough they're in a Fancy Science Building. Nick turns the machine in and turns it on, it makes a loud noise and produces gasoline. Internet Person takes some off in a teaspoon and makes a big show of measuring how well it burns and applying other science instruments to it, like a spectrometer. He seems very, very impressed, and Nick is just smug now.

The tests for the battery are less flashy and take longer, do they mind if he keeps it for three to five days?

Eva looks to Nick, gauging his reaction to it, and decides that yes, it's fine. They want people to know that the products function, and that they function well, so having the Internet Person perform an array of tests on the batteries and then publish the results should help.

Internet person is very excited about these devices! He's going to release a detailed report on the things on his website and give them a special extra video from his usual schedule. It should be about a week until that happens.

Well, this seems like it's been a success.

Eva, ever personable, thanks the Internet Person for his time and now they can presumably leave.

Yep.

Nick flash-steps them back to Eva's house. "So that went well."

Whoosh!

"It did! Is this a cause for celebration, do you think, or should we wait until the response is published?"

"I think it's good enough for some celebration, he'd hardly spend all that effort getting video of us and the fuelsynth and then not publish it."

"So. Champagne? Obviously I'd happen to get some non-alcoholic champagne from a bottle that looks surprisingly similar, because laws and things."

Obviously she's never drunk a drop of alcohol before.

"...Champagne? Oh, right, traditional for celebrations. Hey, why not. I might even be able to stop it from fizzing everywhere."

"Something wrong with champagne?" she asks innocently, going to fetch a bottle. They do have a well-stocked house, how nice.

"It's just not really a thing anymore in 2180, or not a thing in fairyland, I guess. But: New experiences can be fun, let's have some champagne."

"Oh, huh."

She gets out two champagne flutes, places them down on the side, and then pops open the bottle.

The bottle fizzes up predictably.

Nick looks focussed as the liquid flies around, but he does collect most of it into a little sphere of floating, bubbling champagne. "Huh, even trickier than normal since it's liquid and gas." The floating bubble of champagne goes in one of the flutes.

She tops it up and then fills the other glass.

"To innovation? To... the future? Everything sounds so corny."

"It's not corny. It's classic. To technology!" Clink.

Clink. "To technology!" And then she takes a sip.

And so does Nick. "And to improving the world via capitalism."

"That too."

Despite her pining for money, she does actually want to make the world a better place. Altruism is just more effective if you have something to give away, and have a nice system to give it away through.

Sip, sip. "I kind of want to pull a malaria-eradication, but that would, again, require dealing with more and more dangerous daeva."

Sip. "I'm not totally averse to it, especially provided they're kept contained somehow, it's just... You're all frighteningly powerful."

"Yes, that's what bindings are for. They'll keep the daeva in question from doing much of anything outside the bounds of the task and the payment. Which also need to be very carefully defined. If you ever summon more daeva be careful not to say 'yeah' or 'okay' or stuff like that."

"Yeah, okay. Well. I mean. It should be fine, then? So long as it won't do something like make me sprout a tail or give me bad 'mystical energy' or something potentially terrible like that? Nothing's happened summoning you, as far as I can tell, but still."

"As far as I know it doesn't affect the summoners at all beyond making them responsible for negotiating with and dismissing the person they summoned. And again, they're not all nasty. Just that they all can be, and non-fairies are more likely to be."

"Well, presumably if there are fairies like you, there are also – um, Changers and Makers? – who are like you too. Unless they're predisposed to certain personalities. Or there's cultural pressure. Or just magic. I have no idea. Um. Yeah, okay?"

"The problem is incentives. They don't need things from Earth as much. They can just make or change them. So the ones who takes summons are all assholes looking for the few things they can't just make."

"Okay, so something like books? Or maybe music or movies?"

"That works, sometimes, especially for changers. But makers can make everything an author ever wrote just from knowing their name. One summoner I worked with used the phrase 'hilarious infosec hazard'. The traditional way to pay makers is to have sex with them, or your soul. I have no good evidence either way whether souls are, in fact, a thing, or what they do if they exist."

"Well. It sounds like we can just leave the makers for later, in case it takes a while to find a nice one. I'm okay with a changer if all I need to do if hand them books, but depending on how alternate universe we are, they might already have most or all of the books I can offer them? It's not like I'll have any 'recent' releases."

"Luckily, changers will also tend to accept electronics. The spare computer I brought from fairyland, for example. Detail work like that takes a long time apparently."

"Oh! Okay, if you're sure. Uh. How would they help with the malaria extinction? Or was that just an example."

"We'd need a maker for the malaria extinction, unfortunately. But give me time to write up a shopping list and knock over a tree in the middle of canadian wilderness or something, and a changer will jump-start our little industrial revolution."

"Okay, sure!" she says, and unless he has anything further to say, she'll go look at some things on her laptop.

Nope, it's time to go back to the garage-workshop, apparently. Though the place is getting crowded and it might be time to find a warehouse.

Funny that. She's actually looking stuff up on the warehouses – she's made decent progress in between finding people to look at the tech, but she hadn't been totally focused on it.

She'll be ready with a few suggestions by the time he's done with his shopping list; Nick hasn't given her many actual requirements for the space, so she's mainly just finding a decent space that's relatively easy to access, hopefully out of the way enough that the telekinetic fairy magic won't be noticed but still easily accessible, and also not too expensive.

Yeah, his only requirement for the warehouse space is 'big'. He'll be building all the machinery inside it himself. He's making a lot of progress on that actually - most of the clutter in the garage is a series of increasingly elaborate drones that are smart enough to build things themselves, once told what to build.

He leaves off flirting for a day or two after discussing makers, but teasing and flirting is fun so he starts again sooner or later.

Eva tones down any potential flirting during those couple of days, but then continues at the previous pace afterwards. The drones are cool.

She's found a few potential spaces! One is smaller and slightly cheaper, but it's really far out of the way, so it'd be good for keeping hidden (although the inaccessibility is potentially inconvenient if they're dealing with other people). Another is larger, middling in price, and somewhat out of the way, but if there's lots of telekinetic fairying going on, it could definitely be noticed. The last is (in her opinion) the best, and it's slightly larger than the second one; it's out of the way yet still nice and accessible, but it's the most expensive of the lot.

(Internet guy publishes the video on their fuel-making machine. It seems to be doing well, and his reputation means people are hesitant to declare it a scam, but it's only the first day.)

...Nick runs the numbers and decides that the two viable options are renting the cheapest one and continuing as is, or ideally to rent the most expensive space and hire a changer to eliminate material costs in turn. He doesn't really think summoning a changer would be too risky, but then he's not the one taking the risk.

Well, Eva had decided that she liked the more expensive option too, so it's good that they agree. Summoning a changer, while somewhat scary, should be safe if they take the appropriate precautions, right? Because if so, she's decided she's okay with that.

Yep.

He spends a while reading books about summoning, then finds an appropriately tight binding. He doesn't translate it into a language Eva wouldn't know because that could introduce loopholes and ambiguity. So she will learn proper summoning mechanics, by reading the English paragraph to be written around the circle that starts with 'I summon an angel' followed by a lot of 'they shall not this or that' and such.

They should do it in their new warehouse, after Nick has assembled several large piles of wood for raw material and tanks to hold liquids and things like that.

Okay! Well, that's good, because the warehouse is ready to go! Eva gives Nick some directions to get there (it's not too far – it's closer than the Internet Person) and waits for him to set stuff up.

Setup takes another day or two. He makes sure she understands the binding, which will mostly just prevent them from leaving the area or using the changing-power, except on the defined task. She should probably leave most of the negotiating to Nick, he's more familiar with how this works.

Okay, so they're ready to go?

Yep, all ready.

She writes out the binding, as described, and completes the circle.

And here is a winged humanoid for her effort!

"Greeting, Summoner," he says, smiling.

"Hello, angel. I'm Nick, I'm helping negotiate. We're after raw metals for an industry startup, a fairly long list actually. I'm not sure what you'd want but my opening offer is this tablet." He gives a brand name and model number from two years ago. "It's got a five-day-old version of the Kellifer library, a big name in fairyland, on it, too.

"Oh, hm. Sure, why not," he says, still smiling. "What kind of industry startup?"

Eva will just stand here, not agreeing to anything unless Nick specifically tells her it's okay.

"Making a new, modular version of those convenient hydrocarbon batteries, to start with, and maybe a custom chem-mixer workshop. If we do enough processing first, daeva-materials aren't illegal here." That's technically not a lie.

"Oh, huh. Sounds fun! Should we get started then?"

He looks down at the circle, then back up at Eva, still smiling. My, isn't he a happy angel!

"Nick?"

"Hold on, it's her first summon. Let me show you the list first." He opens it up on the tablet and displays it to him. "Just to be crystal clear about it, the deal is that you use the raw materials provided to make the things listed here, in exchange for this computer and a copy of the library I mentioned. Both of you, agreed?"

Theo looks through the list to make sure there's nothing too dangerous or, y'know, radioactive, then says, "Yeah."

Eva looks to Nick, just to make sure, then says "Yes."

Some of it's valuable, like palladium, but there is indeed nothing too dangerous.

"Excellent, let's get started." He floats the computer over to Theo.

He takes it, puts it in his jacket pocket, then says, "Sure! Should I go through the list from top to bottom, or are there specific things you want first, or...?"

Eva will just stay out of the way, watching the changer work. It's a new magic! She's interested!

"Top to bottom is fine. I'll be sorting it as you work. When you get to the liquids I'll hover timbers over those tanks in the corner." His little army of drones appear, ready to help organize shelves.

"Okay!" he says, then starts changing the stacks of wood into the appropriate materials. He looks like he's having fun! It's almost like he was born to be an angel. Oh wait. He was.

Nick efficiently sorts the transmuted things, or gives them to drones near the shelves to sort. Look how professional and unsarcastic he's being.

Theo probably appreciates that fact, but he doesn't know what the fairy's like when he's not being all professional and interacting with another daeva, so.

Change change change.

It only takes about forty-five minutes, in total. "I think we're done now, good job. Could we have your name and an idea of what you'd like next time, in case Eva decides to summon you again?"

"I'm Theo. And hm... I don't know. Some music? Maybe some movies or whatever they're called now? I'm fine with a lot of things."

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Theo."

And if that's all, Eva will dismiss him.

... Pop!

Yeah, that's all. He notes down the date and time of the summoning, so they could repeat it some time.

"As I said, changers who answer summons are not nearly as generally malicious as makers who do it. Still pays to be cautious, of course."

"Yeah, he seemed nice. I'm glad we were careful, though – the idea of him doing that," here, she tilts her head in the direction of the metal, "to me... It's still frightening."

"Sufficient carefulness does make it relatively safe, though. Say, I think it's about time to make our own website, advertise stuff, maybe do that kick starter thing. With all this stuff I think it'll only take a month or two until I can start mass-producing things."

"That sounds like a good idea! It's great that everything's working out so well."

"Careful. You'll jinx it."

"That only happens in movies and storybooks," she responds, smirking.

"Oh, so you're saying this isn't a romantic comedy about the two skilled but lonely go-getters who build a business together, which of course goes down in flames due to contrived circumstances but at least they found each other?"

"A romantic comedy? Ooh, a bit presumptuous, aren't we?"

Or perhaps not.

"If you say it's not, that's that. But I like you enough to help change your alternate universe Earth for the better and get rich in the process, so, yeah."

"No, it's definitely got the skilled go-getters. It's also got some of the comedy side. I'm just not sure it has enough of the romance side."

He takes a long look at her. Making sure he's not reading it wrong. But, well, they have been flirting off and on for a while.

"I think I can fix that." And he steps close and leans forward for a kiss.

She smiles at him and, oh look, they're kissing.

...Yeah, this is nice. It should continue for a while.

Kissing is something you don't really forget how to do, but he might be a bit out of practice. After a few moments the robots stop moving things and fold themselves up, in absence of further instructions from Nick.

This is nice, he's right! She is perfectly okay with it continuing for a while, and, well, she isn't out of practice.

And if he floats a bit to be in a slightly less awkward position for kissing that can only improve things, right?

Right! Less awkward kissing: so much better than more awkward kissing.

He's learning fast. And if one hand wraps around her back and starts stroking her hair?

That is... okay!

Still: kissing.

Yep, kissing. He doesn't push further than the hair thing.

After a while, though, "We should probably talk about what each of us wants, here."

"We probably should. ... Um, I'm not really looking for anything, uh... seriously serious."

"More or less the same. I like you, I like kissing you, I'd certainly enjoy anything more than kissing, but we're going to build great things literally and not metaphorically. I do not predict I will develop a strong desire to declare you my girlfriend or ask you to avoid romance with others unless you particularly want that."

"I do not currently want that, no. I'm glad we agree."

Now, since that's over with... the kisses can resume.

Kisses! Kisses are fun, yes. He makes little appreciative noises.

Oh, that's nice! Kisses are indeed fun.

Are kisses improved by Nick bringing one hand up to cup her cheek?

Mmmarginally. How about if she puts her hand on the back of his head, and... increases the intensity?

Yes.

This is a good spot. He likes this spot, he could stay here for a little while.

Oh, she's so glad he's enjoying himself, because it's makes her enjoy it more too. She can stay here a while, too, but if it gets to be too long, she'll probably break off the kiss.

Of course, what she defines as 'too long' is flexible, and it's not like they have anything pressing to attend to, so it might be a while before that occurs.

'A while' turns out to be 'until one of the machines in the corner beeps loudly', a few minutes. "...I should probably get to work with all this new material."

Well, that's unfortunate, but she can cope. "You probably should."

"There will be more kisses later, worry not."

"Don't worry, I was planning on it."

So she gets out a book to read, occasionally looking up to watch Nick doing things.

Nick is in a construction frenzy! He moves things around seemingly at random, his bots bolt and weld and cut as various shapes start to take place. He seems to be controlling them via a combination of tapping on his tablet and verbal commands. The smell of ozone and a hint of ash, like lightning and thunderstorms, is in the air.

Well, all this productivity is infectious, and Eva decides that no, she should probably not be reading a book. She gets out her laptop and looks up how to make a website.

... And yes, of course she knows she doesn't have WiFi here; she's using data through her cell phone.

...Actually, after about an hour, there is WiFi here. Faking it by connecting a thing that piggybacks Eva's house's WiFi here was one of the first things Nick did. Because having access to wikipedia is important.

A large generator-looking thing is almost complete. Nick starts turning it. "I think I'm about done for now. I've queued up parts for the fabricators and the first batch of plastic is cooking. Just need to charge the batteries some so we don't use too much grid electricity before we go."

Oh, well, in that case she won't be using her cell data. At least, not after the hour.

"Okay, cool! I can pack up whenever, so just let me know when you're ready."

"Ten minutes or so, I think."

"Okay!"

There seems to be, overall, positive feedback to the Internet Person's blog and video. Some people are rooting for some major companies to invest, and others are just exclaiming how cool it would be to have the technology around. Then there are the few who call it all a hoax, or something ridiculous that will 'never get off the ground'.

A few people have contacted her about it, actually. Turns out there are a few more potential investors. She tells Nick as such.

"Ah, that's good news. You're the one who has to figure out contracts and patents and so on, though, for which I am grateful."

And it's time to go. Fwoosh back to Eva's house?

"That I do."

Fwoosh!

Fwoosh!

Once they're inside, Nick attempts to divine whether the kissing will continue, by looking at Eva with obvious desire.

Hmm. You know, this is a really difficult decision.

... The answer is definitely a yes. Watch the kissing continue.

He goes back to the approximate intensity they were at before fairly quickly, appreciative noises and all, and places one hand at the small of her back.

Eva returns her hand to the back of his head, because it got such a positive response last time, and then lets him know what she thinks of the situation.

It's 'yes'.

She may be able to tell that the positive response last time was more from the 'increased intensity', than her hand being in that particular spot. Not that it doesn't help.

He mutters compliments into her lips here and there. But mostly kisses.

Mm. Eva is very fond of compliments. She'll mention some back, too.

How does Nick feel about wandering hands?

Well, that sort of depends on where they're wandering to. But generally his feelings are: Yes. Notably, his wings can feel touch and are not all that delicate.

His hands start wandering a bit, too. Mostly around her back. For now.

They were wandering under his shirt. She'll probably get to his wings eventually, but she's currently treating them like they might be fragile, not having been told otherwise.

Well, he enjoys that, too. His hands will start to wander a little more, if she's being that bold. For example, onto her butt.

...There may be some nonverbal signs of enjoyment developing.

Oh really? How interesting.

She approves.

Kisses on just the mouth is a bit limited. He tries Eva's jaw, neck, collarbone...

Some of those spots get a lot of approval. Her hands will keep wandering, and she might make a few noises in response.

This might go on for a while.

It really, really could.

In keeping with the 'building slowly' theme, he doesn't really escalate more than trying to prompt a few more of those cute noises. Unless she does, of course.

Hmm... not yet, she won't. She does enjoy making those noises, though.

But eventually, "Fun as this is, we still have things to do."

"We do," she responds. "Aaand we should probably get to doing them. Improving the world and all."

"Yeah. My current thing is: I would like to take a break and visit an old friend in Fairyland. Would you mind resummoning me tomorrow morning?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Bye!"

So she focuses on dismissing him.

Aaaand he's gone.

Work continues on Nick's various projects. He keeps Eva up to date on what's ready and what's not - but they kinda need a real customer soon.

They do need a real customer soon! Fortunately, as has been mentioned, there were a few more potential investors and Eva's been busy working to try to sort out a good deal. She's been researching patents and contract law, and has decided that it would probably be best to consult a lawyer about this sort of thing, because while she'd be able to do some of it herself, she should probably consult somebody who does this thing for a living instead.

Nick should probably also attend. With the wings sufficiently hidden, of course.

He should!

So, it turns out the lawyer is much more knowledgeable about all this stuff than Eva (wow, such a surprise), and her first understanding of the IP system is overall... largely incorrect. Hardly surprising.

She's not exactly happy about this, but she knows when to step aside and have someone else handle things for her. This definitely seems like one of these scenarios.

That lawyer also helps them set up an Official Corporation. Nick does not officially exist, which the lawyer is, somewhat sketchily, prepared to deal with for the right price. At least the dodgy legal maneuvers will make collecting on his Randi Prize easier.

Nick is not particularly concerned with patenting everything, which should make the lawyer's job easier. He has a hundred and sixty five years of tech to pull from seemingly nowhere, after all.

Oh, okay. Well, that does make things easier, and they're probably going to get lots of money through those things anyway, so it's not really that necessary.

Eva feels a bit like she's not actually contributing much to this project anymore. Oh well, she can still be the public face, and she's the one who summoned Nick, so. Eh.

Nick does not want to have to talk to customers or negotiate with them, except perhaps to their engineering teams, as tech support. She should be the one to talk to Shell/BP/ExxonMobil about their fuel thing, and whichever cell phone or electric car manufacturers about the slightly more difficult batteries. Dealing with people is an invaluable skill.

She still feels like she should be doing more, but she's somewhat mollified by that.

The business talks progress. Woo!

Nick will just be in this workshop continuing to produce revolutionary technologies on a pace of about one every two weeks. And occasionally flirting at Eva, of course.

Of course! She's occasionally flirting back, because she in fact likes him.

Eventually they do indeed get a client for the fuel thing. The lawyer's also gone over some things and they've been sorting out some patent applications, so that's nice.

Will they in fact summon a maker at some point?

That depends on Eva's risk tolerance, really. They'd definitely be handy and it's not that risky, but things are going well enough without them.

After thinking it through a bit, Eva has actually decided that she is fine summoning a maker.

It would be interesting to see what they're like – presumably somewhat humanoid – and see how they act. And it's true that it's not really that risky, so she's not altogether opposed to the whole thing.

She tells Nick as such, one day.

Right. He looks over her list of authors/artists/musicians/actors that a demon might not have heard of and that are butterfly-effected away from their original earth and suggests to make a smaller list to offer, in case they want another maker later. And here is the shopping list, and here is the circle, the bindings are rather tight but will at least allow them to move around inside the circle and talk.

She cuts the list down to just the relevant content creators, then breaks it up into a few separate chunks and picks one for them to use.

Once she's done, she fetches Nick, gets him to take her to the warehouse, then draws and completes the circle.

This maker is an ordinary-looking vaguely eastern european woman with a neat bobbed haircut, dressed in a very fancy business suit. She would be indistinguishable from a human if not for the grey, leathery wings folded up behind her, and the exaggerated canine teeth. She grins. "Hello, summoner... And fellow summonee." She glances over Nick's body appraisingly. "I appreciate the marginally looser-than-usual bindings."

Well, that's... a bit creepy.

Oh well, she can deal.

"Hi there," she says somewhat cheerily. "We've got a list of things we'd like you to make," she says, holding up the shopping list, "and a list of assorted content creators that you probably haven't heard of."

Then she looks over to Nick before she continues and says anything that could constitute an agreement or an offer. This is only her second proper daeva summoning, after all.

She scans the list. "I'll make the top half of that for two names. Musicians, or actors."

"What about the rest of it? Don't want to do it all, or would you just want more payment?"

"I'd want the other usual payment, from him." She points at Nick.

"No."

She shrugs. "That's that. Summon someone else for the other half of your list. Top half, two names, deal or no deal?"

"You do up to this one," Eva says, pointing at a specific entry halfway down the list, "and you get two names of musicians or actors, deal."

She taps her foot impatiently as large stacks of objects begin appearing. It takes only a couple of minutes.

Eva reads out two names from the list, spelling them if necessary, and then says, "Thanks!"

Providing the maker has nothing else to add, she unsummons her.

The maker disappears.

"Well. That went alright, despite some awkwardness."

"Yeah, I think so. Should I just redraw the circle to get another one, then?"

"Yeah."

So she in fact does re-draw the circle.

Does she get another random maker? She's expecting another random maker.

She gets another random maker! This one is much more open about being demonic. Big, menacing wings, villainous-looking clothes, horns and tail. "Another mortal wishes to bargain? Will you offer the soul that only shackles you?"

She raises an eyebrow and asks, "And how exactly does it 'only shackle me'?"

"It shackles your thinking. You hold onto it because you're born with it. It doesn't help you in any way. It doesn't make you human. It doesn't help you in the afterlife. It doesn't generate your emotions. Wheras it could help you, if you were to give it to me."

"It shackles my thinking? How exactly? And what would you use it for?"

"It shackes your thinking metaphorically. I collect them. It's interesting, seeing what different people's are like."

"It... shackles my thinking... metaphorically. Right. So, it does nothing?"

Meaning it does nothing to shackle her thinking. Whatever. This daeva is… kinda funny in a pathetic way, really.

The demon doesn't seem to think he's pathetic, he just finds the whole situation amusing. "It does nothing, which is why you shouldn't be afraid to give it up. So I have a flair for the dramatic, sue me."

"The binding can't prevent lies," Nick warns.

"Eh. Nah, I think I'll keep my soul for now. Presumably people only come with one, right?"

Yeah, the maker really seems like they're having the wrong kind of fun for 'I want to steal your immortal soul'. Either way, it can do the rest of the list for something that's not sex or soul, or they can go find another maker. She doesn't really want to give up her soul if it exists.

The demon gives a dramatic sigh. "One each, every one a unique bouquet. But very well. Names, then?"

"How many for the bottom half of this list?" She holds up the list and puts a hand over the top half, making it clear which items are left. "And do you care whether they're musicians, or actors, or what?"

"Hm. Isn't selling demon-made things illegal? Well, that's your problem, not mine. Three, at least one fantasy author."

"Who said anything about selling? Anyway, three names, including at least one of a fantasy author, in exchange for you making the second half of this list – from here onwards," she says, pointing at a specific entry. "Sounds good."

She doesn't know how precise she has to be, and this is kinda just repeating what's already been said, but it's better that she do this rather than he interprets 'second half of the list' as not including some entries or something. It seems approximately halfway, but she's not sure it's precisely halfway.

Things start appearing. One of the things appears directly above Nick and nearly falls on him. Nick catches it, and the demon gives a smirk. "Forgot to specify where to appear them, summoner. But I'm just having fun so I'll play nice now."

Eva raises an eyebrow. Right.

Well, at least he's not appearing them in people, such as her – admittedly that would probably stop his fun, but it would do damage.

She waits for him to finish the list.

He's done soon enough, still smirking amusedly.

She reads out three names – saying which one is the fantasy author – and then, provided everything is fine, thanks him for his time and dismisses him.

The demon disappears. 

Nick says, "And now we can really get kick-started on heavy industry."

"We can!"

It's going to be great. She can tell.