holy place

[she_sells_seashells]

My alternates tend to take over the world. Advice available. Rates negotiable.

Shell Bell puts up her sign and nibbles her most recent charity meal. Not potatoes! It is not potatoes. Or fish or clams. It is rice and curry and a fruity yogurt drink. That nice person told Bar she could use his tab for four meals, and this is meal number two.

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

"Mmhm. Can you fix the track if they do that?"

[seewhathappens]

"That depends on what exactly is sabotaged. I can clear obstructions, but not make precise small-scale repairs."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I suppose the Peacekeepers there are incommunicado with the other units, or this would be a lot simpler."

[seewhathappens]

"Someone told them what was happening and then they stopped answering calls. Perhaps they've guessed that the only people still able to try to call them are working for me."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Seems likely."

She sighs, and approaches the bewildered citizens.

"Hi. How are you guys doing?" she asks the bewildered citizens.

"We - hey, you've got one of those things."

"I do have one of those things," agrees Shell Bell.

"Where did you get it?" asks a bewildered citizen.

"Kiro brought it to me from the other section of his empire so it's obvious by looking that I'm helping. Do you need some help?"

"The other what?"

"He already has an empire. He's just added Panem to it."

"He's some kind of Atlantean god?"

"Yes, more or less. Do you need anything?"

"There's not going to be a Hunger Games?"

"Never again," Shell Bell asserts.

"What will there... be instead?"

"...Nothing," she says. "The Hunger Games wasn't doing anything that needs doing. So they will just go away and not be replaced."

"Oh."

[seewhathappens]

Yes, she is doing a good job.

[she_sells_seashells]

"So what do we do now?" one of the bewildered citizens says.

"Well," says Shell Bell, "now the Capitol isn't in charge any more, and they can't kidnap teenagers or shoot poachers or bankrupt us with conveniently adjusted and timed taxes. So you can do some of the things you've always thought you might like to do if only those weren't problems. Also, Kirovalin can bring food here just like anything else and he'll give it out to whoever needs it - for real, you don't need to stockpile it or anything - so if you get tired of berries, though they are very yummy, you can ask about getting something else."

"...These things are edible?"

"Those things in particular are highly edible strawberries." Shell Bell eats one illustratively. "Eventually there will need to be temples so there's a centralized location to get non-strawberry things. If any of you know how to build things, you could help with that."

One of the bewildered citizens nods slowly.

[seewhathappens]

Kirovalin considers pointing out to Shell Bell that she is now in a position to recruit temporary help to the priesthood - she even has the disks already - but he'd rather not take the chance of spooking the people she's talking to.

[she_sells_seashells]

"There's trees everywhere," says a bewildered citizen. "I don't know how to get home."

"The coastline should still be the same," says Shell Bell. "Where do you live?"

They tell her where they live, and she gets them as far as the beach and points them where they need to go.

[seewhathappens]

"If you want to recruit anyone as temporary help, you have the disks and can request more," says Kirovalin. "The train to District Twelve should be leaving soon."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. Do the disks need to be worn to count? I've only got one of them actually on a string."

[seewhathappens]

"No; they're a reminder to the person themselves as much as to anyone else, and for that purpose they work just as well carried in a pocket."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. What should I tell them to do with the disks when they're done helping?"

[seewhathappens]

"Return them to you, or tell me and let me take the disk. They may be more comfortable with the first option."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. I should have thought of the part where a lot of people are not at home on Reaping day and may find the new flora hard to navigate, I'm sorry."

[seewhathappens]

"I'm clearing away some of the stray trees now that I have the time."

[she_sells_seashells]

"What are the minimum requirements of a temporary distribution-of-stuff center, and also, are there like - really, really introductory books about who the heck you are and how gods work, like for kids, I want to give my mom one, she teaches school sometimes."

[seewhathappens]

"A temple. It needs to be a building large enough to store supplies in, with people to distribute the supplies. Permanent temples are decorated with statues of me to identify them unambiguously, but there are signs that can be put up for temporary versions. And there are books like that, but none of them are in a language you speak."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Kids' books are short and you do translation - if you just, read through the best example of one aloud to Ranae would that not work? She could write down the translation and paste it over the words. It'd be easier than writing something from scratch, at this point. I think I'll commandeer the tesserae building for a temple, I doubt anywhere else meets the criteria even if the associations aren't great."

[seewhathappens]

"I could do that."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. Will it take a while to pick a book, how many are there to choose from, I can go to her after I set up the tesserae building?"

[seewhathappens]

"I'll tell some of my priests at home to choose one or a few that they think are best suited."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay."

Shell Bell gets ahold of a large wooden board, brings it to the tesserae building, makes sure that there is not currently anyone trying to hold the place as a Peacekeeper stronghold or anything, deputizes the fellow who usually gives out the grain and oil to continue doing that but with less discrimination and soon-to-be more food variety, and then with her fire wand neatly singes into her board:

Temporary Temple of Kirovalin, Information and Resource Distribution Center.

She gives the distributor guy one of the disks to put in his pocket.

And then she goes to find her mother.

[seewhathappens]

Kirovalin adds to the new temple's supplies.

On Shell Bell's way to find her mother, he gives her a short book printed in large type in an unfamiliar alphabet.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell flips through it to have a look at the illustrations.

She eventually finds her mother in the schoolhouse with some confused kids. Ranae receives the book, an explanation, and a disc, and gets out what she will need to paste English over the other language, and hugs her daughter and is confused by the fact that her daughter has a pendant.

When Ranae seems set up to take her transcription, Shell Bell goes back to the temporary temple to help the distributor guy and explain things to further bewildered citizens.