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]

"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.

[from_scratch]

"Do you want me to show you around or leave you to settle in?" he calls after her.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm sure I'll figure it out! I'll find you in an hour or so, we can talk about finding immigrants for you."

[from_scratch]

"Sure."

Cam gives himself a freestanding house near the landing place for his shuttle. He goes into it and makes himself some food and some coffee and a change of clothes - including a shirt, since he expects to be in Opri in the future - and adds the apartment building to his computer's map of the island and does some notebooking.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel is back in something like an hour and a half, in different clothes. "The electric stove was confusing, but luckily I realized what it was doing in time to avoid setting something on fire."

[from_scratch]

"Welcome to my humble abode. Did everything else make sense or non-dangerously present its nonsense? I'll probably want to hire somebody to give new residents tours of their appliances."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Apart from the coldboxes, many of the other kitchen things are confusing. I just stopped touching them after the stove. I figured out the air conditioning and heating controls. The plumbing was familiar enough. I'm not sure where all the light-switches are yet."

[from_scratch]

"Lightswitches are generally near doors or the lights that they control."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"My point is, guided tours to show how to use the appliances, and perhaps written summaries, would be helpful."

She starts describing other things potential immigrants are likely to want. "Free stuff" is at the top of the list.

[from_scratch]

"It's easier if they want free stuff I can make in large standardized batches than if they want it all custom. Although it's not much harder to make a heap of things in different colors so they can pick if they want blue or red or whatever."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Large batches of near-identical clothes and food and fancy gadgets will suffice to begin with, I think. People tend to make stuff when they live here. Though I more meant along the lines of 'no rent or taxes' than 'gifts for everyone'."

"I think we can just go around publicly yelling about free stuff in the less well-off parts of cities, and we'll get takers. We probably want to get a doctor in the first few batches of people. You said you have medical knowledge, and you can probably teach the doctor new things, but people are used to being magically healed of minor cuts and such."

[from_scratch]

"I can magically heal cuts but I probably shouldn't be doing all the medicine for the entire island if there's more than a handful of people on it, yeah. I can outfit the doctor with cool medical gadgets and drugs."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Shall we head back to Opri or maybe Nel? People in Opri and surrounding areas will be less likely to think it's a hoax, since most of them will have heard of the dam."