picknicking

[dark_light]

There's something unutterably pleasant about landing in a bit of woods in the middle of Nowhere, Manitoba, removing a sandwich and an apple from her backpack and having a picnic before she's ready to move on. She could eat in midair, but it makes it too likely that she'll drop something and find it unrecoverable.

Path's on her knee, and her cloudpine is propped up against the tree next to her.

Comments

[prodigal_miser]

"Right, of course. So I'd just want to blow up the sun, instead. Or maybe invade it," says Adarin, deadpan. "Because there is no way that can fail."

His people have known about the sun being a sphere and really, really hot for a while. They can scry.

[dark_light]

"I cannot recommend either course of action, Adarin, sorry."

[prodigal_miser]

"Darn. I guess I'll need to think of a better way to be a villain," he says, in a monotone. "Should Iiiiii.... Take over the world, and then run it really badly? Bwuah-ha-ha?"

[dark_light]

"Well, the use of germ theory also can lead to the invention of biological weapons, I'm just going to go ahead and warn you on that one."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oh! That's good to know. Thank you, some idiot will try to use that, calling it now."

[dark_light]

"So if that starts happening you make the affected population boil everything they are going to ingest, is usually the first low-tech line of defense."

[prodigal_miser]

"You continue to be wonderfully helpful. Thank you!" he says, with a little smile. Book of germ theory notes is retrieved, and he writes this down.

[dark_light]

"You're welcome. Did I explain vaccination or just mention it...? I think I just mentioned it in passing. People throw off diseases that are caused by germs because there's a thing called an immune system in our bodies that figure out what things are germs - as opposed to just random stuff that isn't trying to hurt us - and kicks them out before they do damage. You might know of some diseases that you can only get once in your life? Chicken pox, maybe? Those are staying pretty much the same, so once you 'learn' what it looks like it never bothers you again. Other diseases change their details so you can get slightly different ones and be just as sick dozens of times. Colds are like that. And it turns out that if you take some germs that you've killed, or weakened - or even germs from a similar but less dangerous disease, in one case I can think of - and then you put them where your immune system can get a good look at it and easily beat it up, it'll know what to look for next time. Also, fun fact, allergies are what happens when your immune system gets the wrong idea about what things are germs and freaks out over nothing."

[prodigal_miser]

Notes are taken. Copious amounts. He's grinning, again, and Vern's excited.

"We do have some once-in-our-life illnesses. Vaccination will help greatly, I think. We've had a few outbreaks already and it's been bad. Do you think there's a way that magic could help the - " he checks his notes for the name. "Immune system?"

[dark_light]

"Witches mostly don't get sick - I mean, we can, but it's highly unusual - so, yes, but not one I actually know about, because mostly it hasn't been researched, because the magic people are all pretty safe and their beloved humans only figured out what immune systems were fairly recently in spell development timescales."

[prodigal_miser]

"I'm going to have to invent like five new types of scrying just to figure out if mine can do it or not," he says, amused. "It's a good thing I like challenges, isn't it? If your magic can help, or fix it, then that would be fantastic, but I'll try mine. Since it's rather hard for me to test yours."

[dark_light]

"It's not hard for witches who focus on magic - like me - to invent variants on spells that have been done, like when I brought the alethiometer I based the design on another summoning-an-object spell. But completely new things are harder. We have spells to cure diseases - witches get attached to mortals more than often enough to encourage that - but there's nothing for me to start from for boosting immune function unless it's brand-new and hasn't made it into my clan library yet."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oooh, that's handy. We haven't managed any spells to cure diseases, but broken bones and stab wounds and such some of us can do. Not me, personally, but I know a few who can. I have a bit of training, but apparently my teachers decided healing was not the kind of thing I should be able to do," he explains. "It's another thing I'm working on."

[dark_light]

"Well, while I'm visiting I'll heal anybody with something I can cure who comes by if I have the materials for it - I won't be able to bring literally everything."

[prodigal_miser]

Pause. Then; "You are absolutely wonderful, Isabella, and I'm only barely holding myself back from hugging you and then showering you with money."

Vern snickers.

[dark_light]

Isabella bursts out laughing. "Well. If you want to hug me I won't stop you, and you have already showered me with an alethiometer accessory that puts objective truth at my fingertips. So you and your excellent taste in people need not consider yourself too indebted when I tell you that witches avoid using money per se."

[prodigal_miser]

He snickers, then says, "True, but I'm likely to bother you for permission to borrow your objective truth-telling device every now and then. Just throwing money at you would be less in my personal self-interest."

Then, without further ado, she is hugged!

[dark_light]

Hugs! (Path is reasonably practiced at keeping out of the way.)

"There's more than one missing alethiometer, incidentally. I could see if I can nab a second for you - if it turns out it still works in your world, which it might not. We can ask it what it thinks when the second thingamajig is done."

[prodigal_miser]

(Good, Adarin was worried about accidentally touching him. He's careful of Path's bubble of space, anyway.)

"I'm just going to need to stop being surprised by you being you, aren't I?" He decides to tease, once the hug has ended. "Is a thingamajig the proper technical term for a tremendously complicated magical item? I would have thought it would be 'doohickey' or a 'whatchamacallit.'"

[dark_light]

"Well, the stuffy scholars who inefficiently study non-missing alethiometers refer to them as 'artifacts', but that has the connotation that they're old and irreproducible, so your alethiometer accessories will not achieve the status for some time."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oh, well. There go my dreams of stuffy scholars calling something I made a thingamajig with a straight face. I'm crushed," says Adarin, not looking even remotely sad.

[dark_light]

"Oh, I'm not planning to let them at the thingamajigs. They keep one of the alethiometers in a heavily secured glass case in an art museum, where it talks to itself and does nothing else of use, twenty-four hours a day."

[prodigal_miser]

He makes a face. "They don't even make a look-alike replica that's useless for truth-telling to replace it with? That way the alethiometer could still do something of use, but they can show off what it looks like? That's stupid. As the creator of the thingamajig, I'm going to veto anyone trying to put it in a museum if there aren't more thingamajig pairs than there are alethiometers."

[dark_light]

Isabella giggles when he deploys the word "thingamajig" twice in a row. "Nah, the Louvre is big on authenticity and it's classifying the alethiometer as art. They have one in good condition and they are, I suppose, pretty."

[prodigal_miser]

"So what I'm hearing is that if I make a powerful magical item, I need to make it ugly so idiots don't put it in a museum rather than using it. Isabella, may I borrow the thingamajig? I need to make it bright pink."

He is teasing.