delta v over delta t when there is no t

[ertia]

In a bar, there is a girl.

She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.

Comments

[first_and_final]

He giggles.

[ertia]

"You good to go? I'm starting to actually get tired of reading, which I had not imagined possible."

[first_and_final]

He thinks about it.

"I need another half-day to wrench my sleep schedule back on track. And in case I drop my personality and it rolls under the bed for another week. After that I think I'm good."

[ertia]

Kithabel laughs. "All right, let me know."

[first_and_final]

"Will do."

He goes back to Bar and gets a short introductory engineering textbook from some world or other and reads it and sleeps for four hours and gives it back to Bar and finds Kithabel again.

[ertia]

Kithabel has been introducing herself to "movies". But she has a bunch to bring home with her and doesn't mind interrupting her current viewing. "All set?"

[first_and_final]

"All set!"

[ertia]

They go home and resume sorcering.

[first_and_final]

Milan does so much sorcering. He's pretty sure he has surpassed six times normal mental capacity and is trundling steadily toward seven. He is going to have the fastest-growing momentum in history.

When can he start helping Kithabel out on projects of meaningful size?

When can he start flying?

[ertia]

He can start helping now, if he wants!

...Flying, not yet.

Kithabel makes a habit of doing all her sleeping in Milliways, since she can get doors at will.

[first_and_final]

Milan thinks this is an extremely sensible habit and he picks it up as well. (Having Kithabel to manage the paying-attention-to-time part of maintaining a sleep schedule is extremely beneficial and he would not be doing nearly so well at the biphasic thing if he didn't have the external cue, so following her shifting schedule would be a good idea even if it didn't also let him effectively spend zero time sleeping.)

...

With zero effective time spent sleeping, and a maximum mental capacity climbing steadily from seven times normal, it is not going to take him all that long until he can fly, is it. (Although becoming effortless master of all he surveys is still a frustratingly long way off.)

[ertia]

He can set a record. (Kithabel approached the previous record but did not break it. She will try not to grumble.)

[first_and_final]

He has outrageously unfair advantages. Kithabel can be the best sorcerer in the world who isn't a flagrant cheater.

So, he does cooperative projects with Kithabel and manages an ever-increasingly complex entourage of assorted performing objects and pushes for flight and automation and more things more things more things. As many things as he can possibly do. More things than that.

[ertia]

Kithabel acquires a small entourage of things, but she can't pay attention to nearly as many as Milan. Oh well.

When Kithabel thinks Milan will be able to fly any day now, they go into Milliways for naps and there is someone there.

[taste_tester]

"Hello. And what're your life stories?"

[first_and_final]

"Complicated. You?"

[taste_tester]

"Also! You from an Earth or not an Earth, it's fifty-fifty so far."

[ertia]

"Not an Earth. I'm a sorceress, he's working on it, he moved to my world because his... was dangerous," she amends from something less polite.

[first_and_final]

"Sorcering is fun. I'm not from an Earth either. Can I ask, are you human? You don't quite look it."

[taste_tester]

"Nice catch. I am a vampire."

[first_and_final]

"Some otherworldly version thereof, I assume, it'd look different if you were the kind from home."

[taste_tester]

"I'll take your word for it. My kind look like our original selves plus sparkly complexions and red eyes."

[first_and_final]

"Odd, but not the oddest thing I've heard of around here."

[ertia]

"I'm missing some context on what vampires are?"

[taste_tester]

"In addition to the aforementioned we drink blood, we have rather unfair arsenals of superpowers, and some of us get magic on top of that."