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]

"Point to point would do it. For visiting cities and advertising your shiny new island. We might want regular trips to the various existing places and back, if we find any cooperative municipalities."

[from_scratch]

"I was thinking bridge with an automatic train."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Bridges can be destroyed by someone sufficiently determined, and cannot reroute as easily. If you find a relatively unclaimed spot and claim the far side it might work, though."

[from_scratch]

"What is the state of the bridge-destroying art?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Pyre-fire burns hot enough to melt most metals. Sugar-oxygen bombs are unstable but powerful. You can make a nick and repeatedly freeze and melt water inside it to force something apart. If they were really determined they would start flinging boulders the size of buildings and slugs of metal the size of people at it."

[from_scratch]

"Okay," shrugs Cam, "I'll get exotic with my bridge materials and be ready to make ferries if someone gets past them."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If you think that'll take care of it. Time to fly over the sea looking for convenient islands?"

[from_scratch]

"After I designed one? It'd have to be a hell of a natural island to grab me."

But he lifts off and flies out towards the sea.

[sturdycoldsteel]

The sea is past several hundred miles of land.



There are no amazing, perfectly positioned natural islands.

[from_scratch]

Well, now there is an amazing, perfectly positioned unnatural island.

Cam lands on it; the land meets the ship just as much as the ship meets the land.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"The things you can do continue to be slightly unnerving. I'm tempted to never draw circles again, in case I get someone like Durant."

[from_scratch]

"Durant?" Cam hops out of his ship.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"He's the richest man in Opri, thanks to his buddy-buddy relationship with Kell, tax exemptions, protection rackets, and monopolies on certain services."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, that would be an unfortunate daeva to summon, but the ones you'd really have to worry about would be more overtly destructive than - I mean, accumulating capital is not a thing in Hell or Heaven, it's probably a thing in Fairyland but then you'd just have a fairy participating in your economy, that's not such a disaster."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"So the ones to avoid are less greedy authoritarian, more serial killer? Fair enough."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, if you get a greedy demon, they don't even take summons. Why would they? They can make an enormous pile of gold and jewels and sleep on it like a dragon if they want without having to bother you. The time to worry is if they want to hurt people."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Do you already have the infrastructure of this place appeared? Water, electricity, sewage, the subway - underground trains, I assume?"

[from_scratch]

"I have space for it. It won't all be hooked up until there's somewhere for it to go."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I get a residence, yes? I think I'd prefer to live at the top of a tall building. But leaving everything below me empty until you decide what should go there seems a bit odd."

[from_scratch]

"I didn't realize you wanted to move in. I can put in an apartment building, sure. Any other preferences besides 'tall'?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"At least a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, workshop, and two unused rooms. Open floor plan. Include all your technological conveniences even if I don't know how to use them yet."

[from_scratch]

"Sure." Cam pulls out his computer and fiddles with floor plans. It's really quite unclear by looking how he does any of it; he doesn't seem to have to poke things like Steel has to poke her phone. And then, overlooking the water on the high end of the gently sloped island, is an enormous glassy apartment building with scallopped balconies on every floor, asymmetrical, plants all up and down the sloped side between the columns of windows. "Penthouse is yours. Your phone will open the door, proximity-like."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"That is an impressive-looking building."

"...Say, how are you controlling your computer? Does it track your eyes, subtle finger gestures, is there something directly in your head?"

[from_scratch]

"There is something directly in my head. It's a demon interface model, it's possible you would survive having one implanted and be able to use it afterwards but it'd be dangerous."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'll pass, then." She starts flying towards the apartment building.