this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[from_scratch]

Cam will relax when she's still doing that and he's past the moon.

[whole_new_can]

She doesn't chase them. She doesn't give any indication that anything happened at all.

[from_scratch]

That's nice.

They clear the moon after a few hours.

"I apologize for that. I can give you... most of an explanation. Where do you want me to start?"

[wormcan]

"Start with why there's an Endbringer after me!"

[from_scratch]

"Because you yoinked me into the world, and if you die I yoink out of it again, and I'm just full to bursting with the kind of prosocial ambition known to keep the Simurgh up at night. I would absolutely relieve you of this feature if I could do it without being stuck at home, but I can't, because for some reason the process isn't replicating in the way I expect it to."

[wormcan]

"No part of that made sense."

[from_scratch]

"Well, we have a long flight, I can give you the long version. I am from another world. I am a sort of magical creature, which can be pulled from my home to Earth. Normally it is not this Earth but a markedly less horrible one, but for some reason you managed to be the first person to get a magical creature of my variety here. I tried to have somebody summon an additional magical creature, but it didn't work. So that means I am the only one this Earth gets, and your particular summoning of me is the only chance this Earth gets to have me around, and it badly needs the help. Summonings end on the summoner's death. The Simurgh managed to get me to start a war in China with pomegranates by threatening your life, I don't want more of the same, I will make you a lovely arcology on Mars and you can have Internet access."

[wormcan]

"So I, what, go into solitary on Mars for the rest of my life?
If she cares so much, why wouldn't she just kill you instead? Or worse."

[from_scratch]

"I'm immortal. I actually find the fact that she had to extort me very encouraging, because it suggests that singing to me wouldn't have done the trick. I apologize for the solitary conditions. When I figure out a way to kill her I will happily bring you back, or just finish terraforming the place - I'd do it now but it'd take weeks - and bring some colonists. Hopefully the Internet connection will help; it'll lag but the bandwidth will be fine. I can take other requests for what would make you more comfortable too."

[wormcan]

"You think you're immune to the Simurgh, because she told you that, and you're planning to colonize Mars, and you do know what happened to the moon guy, right? You should be the one running!

Uh, unless getting away involves killing me. You know what, you're probably immune."

[from_scratch]

"I was planning to show up to Endbringer fights. If I'm not immune I will get in touch with you about that. There is a plausible but not overwhelmingly determined reason why I might be, though. And I'm not planning to colonize Mars while she is still around because I do know what happened to the moon guy and even if I'm immune I don't want to attract her to bystanders."

[wormcan]

"For all I know Mars isn't far enough. Just how badly does she want you gone?"

[from_scratch]

"If her top priority was getting me gone you would already be dead."

[wormcan]

"Right, the world-destroying monster has other things to do aside from killing me.

I don't suppose this is just all delusions of importance on your part and she doesn't actually care about either of us?"

[from_scratch]

"I replaced Kyushu including everything that was there pre-Leviathan minus the vertebrates and contents of refrigerators, you tell me, do I seem like I might interest the Simurgh?"

[wormcan]

"...maybe, yeah."

[from_scratch]

"So you can see why I'm concerned. I am not in personal danger of death; but I'm here to do good and if anybody could get me doing more harm than good it's her; so if she's going to extort me I need to be non-extortable."

[wormcan]

"And this works? She still could threaten to kill me, if anyone can reach this far it's her."

[from_scratch]

"I'm not going to make any more things on her say-so. Getting anywhere farther than Mars would take ages, and if she can and will chase you to Mars there's no reason to expect Titan to be out of reach. Would you like me to put you in an autopiloted spaceship on a trajectory of 'away' until and unless I or someone figures out how to kill her, instead?"

[wormcan]

"That sounds like the kind of thing I'd never get back from even if you did pull off killing her. No return signal she can't fake, probably. And Mars is at least a planet.

There's really no way out of this, is there. As long as I'm being stuck out here, you better at least make me an entire Taj Mahal or something."

[from_scratch]

"You can have an entire Taj Mahal, no problem."

[wormcan]

Exile to Mars: at least not a total loss.

[from_scratch]

Cam spends the rest of the flight designing the summoner's arcology to spec and working out what sort of food supply he'd find most agreeable and so on. Cam lands. He makes the arcology, hands the summoner a copy of the blueprint he used for a map, and then says the internet connection will be online when Cam gets back to Earth to set up the far end.

Cam doesn't go straight back to Earth.

When he's about halfway there he pauses to make Endbringer bits in a sort of exploded diagram.

He wants to know what they're made of.

[whole_new_can]

Endbringers are, apparently, made of Endbringer. Every piece, whether it be the outer skin of the Simurgh or the thick non-blood of Leviathan, has a crystalline structure like sharp-edged snowflakes. No cells at all. (It has exactly the same structure regardless of how closely he looks, and Cam has very good microscopes.)

The monsters have no internal organs. What they do have is layers. The flesh gets progressively tougher from the skin down to a core, and even the outer layers are relatively indestructible compared to what they have any right to be. Between the lack of vital organs and the Endbringers' known regenerative abilities, the entire visible body is probably just some combination of armor and decoration.

[from_scratch]

He goes through his chemistry notes to see if anything would like to energetically dissolve this stuff.