They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
"If your magic is contagious that's a constraint on hopping worlds looking for things that can solve our problems - you may be springing elementals and mages everywhere - and it seems likely aliens in our universe also got elementals and mages recently..."
"Crossed my mind. I think it only happened once there were a lot of elementals here but it's hard to be certain."
"Timing matches the second batch of rescuees, yeah. But it could be that elemental-time-in-universe builds up some magic effect or something. Once the colony planets have more people we can find out if it's per-planet or per-universe, at least."
"Could be a gravity requirement but why would there be a gravity requirement - we just need more data points."
"Hard to get exact numbers. The team has personally observed dozens that were owned by people who sold them some which were held back."
"Haven't come up with a good plan for that yet. I mean, I guess at a certain point we could just shoot people and then steal the amulets off 'em."
"Some people are hunting elementals expressly to sell them - I suppose if there keep being new ones that might not happen -"
"If the shops close up and the attacks on elemental-owners continue, hunting for pay stops looking like a good deal."
"They're still worth money, people are just also trying to come up with working security measures."