trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

She takes a swig of juice. "Ah, carbonation. I'll watch, sure. Appear it a few inches above a hand so I know where to stare."

[from_scratch]

Cam holds out his hand. He makes a pretty blue morpho - deliberately attending to the fact that he means to make an Earth one.

The butterfly lands confusedly on his hand, flaps its wings a few times, then flies away.

[sturdycoldsteel]

A couple seconds' pause, then. "That did - something. I was listening and looking both. I heard a faint echo of bass, almost like what healing makes. Your soup was different, almost transmutation-y. And it was like the butterfly - shoved out all the fog that was in its way when it appeared. It has a strange outline, though not as strange as yours. What kind is it?"

[from_scratch]

"Blue morpho. I promise not to make two of anything until I know what species you natively have in the area. What's my outline look like?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Like a person. But a weird person. The features I know to look for to see if you're sick or hungry or hurt just aren't there at all, and you have some weird, almost non-geometric twist to half your patterns. I don't think anybody would notice it unless they looked closely."

[from_scratch]

"There is a distinct limit to how much I can get sick or hungry or hurt without my own express permission. The twist I have no idea. Can you name a local butterfly species?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Tricolor Copperwing, eastern variety. They're local."

[from_scratch]

So Cam makes a tricolor copperwing, local as can be...

[sturdycoldsteel]

It's a butterfly. Its wings are very shiny, and a section of them does indeed look like copper.

She blinks. "Yep, that's it. The effect on the stream seemed exactly the same as your morpho."

[from_scratch]

"Okay, there goes one hypothesis on what the heck bluestream is. Well, partially, anyway, maybe the difference would be too small to see or I made the morpho incorrectly."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"What was the hypothesis, exactly?"

[from_scratch]

"The book mentions there's less bluestream at higher altitudes, and also that living things affect it. I don't have a good way to test the hypothesis 'there's a magic rock at the core of the planet' but I could give a whirl to 'life on this planet has something about it that generates bluestream'."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Try making some other life from your planet, and some from mine? I can kill things you make so they don't become invasive." She names half a dozen more insects, and a local species of rabbit.

"...What would be really interesting is if I could somehow get to orbit without, you know, dying. We could see if the stream is still anchored to the planet and rotating with it. If I try to make something, whether it flies away at high speed before I'm done because of the orbital velocity thing."

[from_scratch]

"Oh, I can make us a little spaceship. Trouble is, then there's a little spaceship, and I'm not confident I want to leave one lying around."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Of course you can make a spaceship, why wouldn't you be able to? You'd free up big chunk of the magical workforce with nonmagical water pumps, farming equipment, and elevators, by the way. Though trade school graduates are pretty inflexible and would likely need further education."

"Would a thoroughly hidden or possibly violently disassembled little spaceship be safer? You can bury it under a hill, possibly letting the hill fall a few feet onto it, when we're done."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, I could also slag it. Just trying to be thoughtful. Elevators, water pumps, and all manner of exciting agricultural devices are also available once I know how best to distribute them."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Hmm. I want to warn you, the balance of power needs upsetting, but if we do it hastily people will be hurt more than they need to. The Telra Senate likes to send in the army when any one city grows too powerful. They call themselves a republic, but... Each city gets one vote. Guess who casts the city's vote? Whoever's been appointed by the Senate to oversee the city. The current system is better than lawless anarchy, but by appearing things you have a good chance to undo it without the tremendously nasty 'civil war' parts in the middle. You'll want proof, of course."

[from_scratch]

"I do tend to like to know what's going on before I disrupt governments, however dodgy their systems of representation."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"You'll notice I'm not asking you for weapons or anything else government-disrupty. Do you want to try making a few more alive things now, see if I can find a difference, or start hiking back to town since you don't seem to want to make a ship?"

[from_scratch]

"If somebody sees a ship going up or down what will they think it is?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"As long as they see it from a fair distance they'll probably think it's someone's magic experiment. It's fairly well-known that abandoned wilderness is the place to do magic experiments. Small chance you'll set off rumors of disaster, unexplained flying objects are signs of calamity to the superstitious."

[from_scratch]

"That's not so bad. All right. Wanna go to space today?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"You're immortal, or claim to be. I'm not. It's safe and reliable?"

[from_scratch]

"Yeah, humans in the mortal world I'm accustomed to do space travel routinely. Some of them live on the moon and others have colonized a second planet."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"In that case, yes. I'd like to try to learn one of your languages at some point, even if there's no translation-dictionary. Seems like it'd be convenient."