mortal is as mortal does

[imeanforever]

Promise is looking for dewdrops. She has just learned to candy them herself - it's not hard, if she does it in her own tree instead of in the field. So she's brushing the droplets into a little wooden cup. They blend together but she can separate them out again later.

Comments

[ending_of]

The administrator takes no visible action.

"Well, you now have the instantiation ability and access to the food category," she says. "Which now includes items from your own world, since it might as well. You may do what you like with it."

[imeanforever]

"Oh, if it includes fairy food that's much likelier to be safe and I'd also know what it was," says Promise. "Thank you. How do I use it?"

[ending_of]

"You should find it possible to recreate any particular food item you have eaten," she says. "Or to instantiate a food item at random from any chosen subset of the available worlds. The items are categorized by world and by time of collection."

[imeanforever]

Promise considers this, then makes a candied dewdrop, then eats it.

[ending_of]

"I have no indication that you are now my vassal," she mentions. "I find it likely that I would notice if you were."

[imeanforever]

"Food-based vassaling doesn't usually produce feedback, but maybe you would anyway."

[ending_of]

"It is likely that I would," she reiterates. "I do not care to test it further. Now you may explore my domain. I do not think anyone will be able to bother you excessively."

[imeanforever]

"Okay. This is the same tower the gate was near?"

[ending_of]

"Yes. I will return you to the location of the gate, if you like."

[imeanforever]

"That seems like it might be quicker than me flying out the window."

[ending_of]

"And it would not involve structural changes to this room," says the admin. "I have created a barrier around your gate which will admit you and no one else, since it would be untidy if people were able to freely move between my domain and your world. You may return here at any time by approaching the top of the tower from outside."

Now Promise is at the base of the tower again, next to the location of her gate.

[imeanforever]

Promise finds the gate again, places a candied dewdrop at each end of it, and then goes out toward the buildings in the distance. Flutter flutter.

[pythbox]

The gate is in the middle of a semicircle of flat grey rock at the base of the cliffs, very close to the door at the base of the tower. To her left, a scattering of smallish houses come up to the perimeter of the semicircle and stop; to her right, it gives out on bare dirt with a couple of buildings barely visible in the distance; the largest building visible that isn't the tower is directly in front of her, along the middle third of the semicircle's perimeter, and it says LIBRARY in large black letters on the side facing her.

That seems like it might be a good place to start.

[imeanforever]

Promise lands and goes into the library.

[lookingforwardtoit]

There is a mortal - well, for values of 'mortal' that apply here - sitting in the lobby, reading a book. She looks up when Promise walks in.

She blinks.

She peers at the wings.

"Okay, that's new."

[imeanforever]

"What is? Leaflets? I'm told this is an afterlife, and we're immortal, so that makes sense."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Ooookay. How'd you get here, then?"

[imeanforever]

"I made a gate. The person in the tower accidentally found my world and needed help getting back, and I came along to have a look around."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"...Which person in the tower?"

[imeanforever]

"Are there several? She's up at the top, the bit with the windows."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Really?"

[imeanforever]

"Is there some reason why she is less likely than anyone else to have fallen through a tear into Fairyland? According to her it's the first time a tear has ever happened, you'd think it would be equally unprecedented regardless."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"I've never heard of Fairyland, but I've heard of the person at the top of the tower. Out of all the people in this afterlife, and there are a lot, I would have thought she'd be the least likely to talk to anyone who might ever talk to me."

[imeanforever]

"Well, she couldn't get home on her own, and I found her first. Is there some reason I shouldn't be talking to you?"

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Not that I can think of. It's more that the admin has a low-key reputation for being somebody you don't talk about if you can help it, let alone try to talk to."