why is there a word for that

[alicornucopia]

Finnah's just arrived at work to open the store for the morning shift; she has her apron on but hasn't put her hair up yet. She lets in the customer who always takes half an angle to determine that he wants four buttercreams, again, and then nips into the back to tend to her hair and check the overnight progress of the rock candy.

This isn't the back.

But that -

No, he's too tall to be Mial, if this is a Mial prank it's a stupidly elaborate one.

"Okay, I give up," she says, "what the hell?"

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes," interjects Miles.

[isthisart]

"Someone who needs it more might turn up in the next week, but they also might not, and also in the next week I'm going to be reading all these textbooks I have on runecasting and might well learn to heal any particularly alarming acute injuries. Bar? Is Lalita compatible with elves?"

Perfectly, says Bar, at least if Koridaar is representative.

"She says yes. I can administer it if you like. It's too high-volume for a hypospray so it will hurt a little."

[greatcomposure]

"Let's make the experiment."

[isthisart]

So Isabella takes a baseline medical scan and injects Koridaar with the remaining dose of Lalita's blood.

"This will take a while to do anything much. The first two doses were used on Miles and his five-year-old alt with the same bone condition and they made slow steady progress over several hours."

[greatcomposure]

"Noted. I'm sure I can find some way to pass the time. Reading your runecasting textbooks, maybe."

[isthisart]

"I think I heard the phrase 'translation spell', so you'll probably still be able to figure them out after you've got them home. I wonder if you'd find pens useful without a background in computers or an infrastructure designed for them. Probably not very, but maybe enough to be worthwhile."

[greatcomposure]

"Pens...?"

[isthisart]

"Holo pens." Linya pulls hers off her necklace and draws a line. "They'll store any sort of thing that can be considered information - text, images, holos, sound, etcetera - though you need another bit of equipment to get sound out again. The tutorial is designed for people who've seen comconsoles before, though, the version for the uninitiated isn't done yet."

[greatcomposure]

"That looks very interesting," says Koridaar.

[thisvorlunatic]

"'Comconsole'... tell me more about those," Mial says thoughtfully.

[isthisart]

"They do what pens do, but you can't pick them up to draw with or carry them around, and they don't need a peripheral to produce sound. Oh, and all these devices network with each other - I can send a message from my pen to Miles's without having to be nearby."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I want one. I want dozens. I want to manufacture them on Elcenia," says Mial. "Pens more than comconsoles but I don't see why I should limit myself."

[isthisart]

"Well, I've already given away the blueprints once - but I'm not sure you have the technological infrastructure to read them usefully. Maybe you can skip a lot of steps with magic or something."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I will skip as many steps as it takes," says Mial.

"Is that what that mood looks like from the outside?" murmurs Miles.

[isthisart]

"Occasionally even more so," murmurs Linya. "Well, they come in various colors and styles, have a catalog, you can bring home a box of them if you like." She tosses Mial a catalog.

[thisvorlunatic]

Mial happily peruses it.

Miles laughs. So does Stalas.

[on_my_word]

"Watch out, everybody, Mial's had an Idea," murmurs Avar affectionately.

[alicornucopia]

"Aieeeee," says Finnah.

[thisvorlunatic]

In the spirit of the thing, Mial produces a cackle.

This cracks Stalas and Miles up completely.

[unmarred]

Mark too.

[middlingalong]

"Reinventing small electronic computing devices is not the style of Miles-plan I am familiar with," says Ivan.

"It's in character for Mial," says Aurin. "Dare I ask?"

"Well, now that you've implied you've considered asking you'll probably get at least an example," says Ivan.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I mean, are you thinking more of the 'drive an antique tank, dig an escape tunnel' genre of Milescapade or the 'avert a civil war, liberate a POW camp' type?" wonders Miles. "I'm sensing more of the latter."

[middlingalong]

"Oh, either, they're both very different from the inventor bit."

[thisvorlunatic]

On a hunch, Miles asks, "How did you get into scoot racing?"

"I was eighty-one and impatient and disguised myself long enough to come second in the tryout race for a league that didn't technically have an equivalency restriction," says Mial.

"Now that is an escape tunnel," says Miles. "With just a hint of Dendarii."

"I am intrigued by this classification scheme and doubly intrigued by how I almost understand parts of it even though I don't know any of the incidents you're referring to," says Mial.

[middlingalong]

"The tunnel is a childhood incident that collapsed on my head and the Dendarii are his plausibly deniable covert mercenary corps."