chalk

[alicornucopia]

In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.

In unison, they complete their shared spell.

~~~

with Adarin (Aestrix)

with Ekador (kappa)

with Brilliance (kappa)

with the admin (kappa)

with Teah (kappa)

with Katran (lambda)

with Hall (kappa)

with Joy (kappa)

with Kalinda (Christy Hotwater)

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Okay, then I guess we're walking."

To the lift, to the entrance hall, to the exit. There is a path leading to a very sharp-bordered city a ways away.

[or_the_broken]

"Huh," he says, upon observing the city.

[alicornucopia]

"What?" asks Korulen.

[or_the_broken]

"Cities where I'm from have... different design philosophies. It's interesting."

[alicornucopia]

Korulen peers at the city. "...different how?"

[or_the_broken]

"It varies. The dropoff between city and no city tends to be more gradual, that's the main trend I'm thinking of."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, that. Paraasilan's due to have its municipal wards recast over a larger area soon but until that happens people aren't building outside of it unless they can afford the individual castings."

[or_the_broken]

"Municipal wards?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, uh, this country doesn't have a military, at all, so if we're threatened in some way Parliament can raise the wards over all the cities at once, and city governments can do their own too, and individual buildings have to have wards even if they're not inside city limits. They're not like the one you were in," she adds hastily, "they keep stuff out, not in."

[or_the_broken]

"Interesting way to run a country. Does it work?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, really well."

[or_the_broken]

"Huh."

[alicornucopia]

"And the demilitarization saved a lot of public funds too."

[or_the_broken]

"I'll bet."

[alicornucopia]

Korulen falls silent until they get close to the city, then says, "So I know where to get you sheets - and I know a place with men's clothes - and I know a witch shop that'll have shampoo and stuff - what else do you want?"

[or_the_broken]

"If I thought you had a communications network that compared to what I'm used to at home, I might want the equivalent of a PADD, but I'm guessing you don't."

[alicornucopia]

"...yeah, I'm not sure what that means."

[or_the_broken]

"I could try to explain, but I don't know how much background knowledge you're missing."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know either. What would you say if you assumed I knew nothing?"

[or_the_broken]

"All right... start from paper, I've seen that here. From paper you get to books, right? Okay, now say there's an artifact that's like a library in book form - it contains the information of hundreds or thousands or millions of books, and you can cue it to show you the ones you want, one page's worth of display at a time. And you can write on it, record new books into the library. And any two of these things can talk to each other, swap books back and forth. And there's a semi-centralized network so you don't have to physically find the exact one that has the information you want, you can just go on the network and find it from wherever you are. There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics."

[alicornucopia]

"Sounds like... a cross between a library and link paper," says Korulen.

[or_the_broken]

"Link paper?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, you buy pads of it in pairs, and you keep one and give one to another person, and when either of you writes on it what you're writing appears on the corresponding spot on the other."

[or_the_broken]

"Link paper. Sure. A cross between a library and link paper."

[alicornucopia]

"That sounds amazing."