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

[dark_light]

"You have not seen some of what qualifies as art in some genres, I take it."

[prodigal_miser]

"Er. Probably not, no. Is this another thing I should be educated on?"

[dark_light]

"I doubt it has any practical value, but it might amuse you. There are museums of modern art where the idea of 'modern' is so opaque and divorced from attempting elegance or appeal of form that it's literally possible to mistake janitorial equipment for an exhibit."

[prodigal_miser]

"Ah. That sounds confusing. I'll maybe go get educated on it, later, but for right now... Eeeeh. Janitorial equipment doesn't appeal, at the moment," he shrugs. "Is there another idea for how I should spend my between-spell downtime?"

[dark_light]

"It's possible you should read an encyclopedia. Not cover to cover - maybe not even a paper one. I could take you to the library and you could go cruising through Wikipedia. Start with things that are in common use where you're from and proceed to whatever it says supplanted them."

[prodigal_miser]

"I have no idea what that is, but I agree that it'll be helpful!" he grins, then adds, "I'm going to get absurdly wealthy off of borrowing ideas that other people had and then using them to my own benefit, aren't I? That's completely diabolical, you're fantastic."

[dark_light]

"Oh, I have every intention of getting the alethiometer to find me some land in the middle of nowhere that I can claim without anybody contesting it and turning it into a portal hub with your kind assistance, off of which I shall profit enormously."

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin raises an eyebrow, pauses, and then - he cackles. "I approve," he manages, once he's recovered.

[dark_light]

"I would certainly hope so. There's still a little issue getting places to put the portals on the other ends, so I'll have to quiz the alethiometer and/or mine clan connections to various state or municipal governments, but it's definitely a doable project and every witch in the world will think I did it myself. I'll be able to get them to listen to anything I want to say between them guessing and me contradicting them."

[prodigal_miser]

He giggles, just a little. "It's a good thing I don't mind you taking credit for things I do if it helps a mutual goal, isn't it? Doooo I get a cut of the inevitable huge profits, or should I find other ways to make absurd amounts of money?"

[dark_light]

"I'll cut you in if that makes it easier to get you to make portals and I can help myself to a share of any readily collectable use you see of what I've been helping you with."

[prodigal_miser]

"Sure," he agrees. "I think I would have joined in on making portals with you anyway, because I am impressed and I support being diabolical for the sake of doing good things."

[dark_light]

"Is capitalism considered diabolical where you're from?"

[prodigal_miser]

"No, but cheating the system like we're planning to is."

He's still grinning. Oh man, is he excited.

[dark_light]

"There've been people benefiting from trade and new ideas they were the first of their cultures to find in another culture throughout history here on Earth. We're just the first to grab farther afield."

[prodigal_miser]

"Technically," he clarifies, "My people have actually done it before. But this is more viable than that other attempt, and hopefully will not end as badly."

[dark_light]

"Why, what happened last time?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Er. Well," he coughs. "Invasion? Fleeing to another plane to avoid nigh-certain death, madness, or slavery? That kind of thing."

[dark_light]

"Sounds... bad. And you went looking for chamomile anyway."

[prodigal_miser]

"To be fair, the people that tried the first attempt summoned someone from another plane without speaking to them prior, based off of the vague notion that that particular race had magic and they wanted it. I came here after a large amount of scrying to at least check to see if this plane had anything close to an invasion force," he explains. "And if it went horrifically, terribly wrong, then I'd be the only one doomed. Everyone else would be fine."

[dark_light]

"Unless we'd had the ability to travel between planes ourselves and could trace your incursion. What'd you see when you scried here?"

[prodigal_miser]

He winces. "Yeeeaaah. I uh - also wanted an excuse to not be at home anymore? Not seeing the sun gets old after a while."

Awkward head scratch. "Large buildings - I was amazed at your cities, I checked up to see if you had magic and the answer was yes. Then I checked for armies or a possible invasion force, and found out that there isn't anything particularly organized set up world-wide, though I'd have to avoid getting on any nation's bad side. Then I found out the people present weren't an utterly different species, but human, so if necessary I was going to do a bit of infiltration."

[dark_light]

"...Is there some reason you can't see the sun in New Kystle? Also, the speciation of witches is arguable what with the all-women marry-humans thing, but there's also the bears."

[prodigal_miser]

"The scry wasn't that specific, unfortunately. I did not know about the bears. The bears were a surprise," he says. "New Kystle is tide-locked to the sun. You can get either eternal day, or eternal night, or if you're lucky you can live in the area that's eternal twilight. Most of the government is living in the eternal night portion, because we're using the twilight and habitable day-parts for farming. So, no sun."

[dark_light]

"That sounds really inconvenient. I am pretty sure I can't unlock your planet, and even if I could I imagine it would destroy whatever ecosystem the place has and cause unpredictable changes to weather and so on. But I can do some things that affect temperature. Unfueled fires? Permanent ice? Scaling up enough for you to build a city around the one or on top of the other would take a while unless the day side has a lake for me to start with, but it could help."