letter to cam #17

[thisvorlunatic]

You would not believe the month I've had.

I really did mean to get back to you within a few weeks of my last message, but circumstances intervened. On the other hand, it seems to have worked out all right this way, because there's an Ash and Stars tour coming up and I'm not dead yet. How would you like to attend a concert in addition to raiding the comm nets?

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Contact with the mortal world does help a lot, of course, because it's also amazing how long the average person can sit on the couch watching television when they needn't do anything to keep the electricity on, but we've gotten to a point where there's enough background in the basics from the motivated human population that the demons can make great strides."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Good for them."

[from_scratch]

"Mm-hm."

Are they there yet? Can Cam have his usual number of extremities again yet? Oh please?

[thisvorlunatic]

They are nearly there! Look, it's the lake. And there is the house. And here is Miles landing next to the house.

[from_scratch]

And here is Cam tripping on his way out of the lightflyer and landing with a tail and then sitting up and taking off his shirt and having wings.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles giggles.

[from_scratch]

Flap! "At last. You know, if you want to come see Atriama with me you will look out of place likewise."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah, I'd thought of that, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't know if I would like having wings."

[from_scratch]

"Demons without wings are not completely unheard of. Actually, what would be weirder is - not your height exactly, short demons also happen, but the... asymmetry? That would basically have to be a deliberate cosmetic choice in a daeva."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles contemplates this information.

"Perhaps I should just not go see Atriama with you."

[from_scratch]

"Perhaps. I assume there's a reason your mother hasn't already symmetrized you, and I can't expect Atriama to be that much of a draw."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Magic doesn't officially exist, I am already pretty close to the limits of what modern medical technology can do, it would be very awkward to explain to anyone who knew me well enough to notice but was not cleared to hear about angels. So. As much of a draw as Atriama is, I might have to pass it up."

[from_scratch]

"Fair enough."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Maybe someday. Anyway, let's look at vehicles."

Miles has a few good ideas, and after some poking around on the comconsole these ideas bear vehicular fruit. Behold, several different varieties of small intrasystem craft mostly designed for short trips between a planet's surface and its orbital stations. Look how cute and low-emissions they are. Information about how easy it is to fly them is a little harder to come by, but Miles has some relevant experience and can make good guesses about how fast Cam will be able to figure out the controls.

[from_scratch]

Cool. Cam sips coffee and looks at the cute low-emissions shuttlethings.

[thisvorlunatic]

"And I think that's all I can get you without dropping several more hours into intensive research. Would you like to go to the taieli monument now?"

[from_scratch]

"Anything else I should know about it first?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"If you're secretly hiding a duplicate of yourself somewhere, all of you do in fact have to visit the monument at the same time or it won't acknowledge you. I'm not sure if it's actually possible to leave the monument during your nine days unless you outright quit. It does this thing where it shows you visions that feel like they took five minutes but actually take several hours. I think part of the reason it was making me wander around aimlessly at the beginning was because it hadn't yet figured out how to get proper two-way communication going, so if you go in amenable to having surreal telepathic conversations with a building, you might have better luck on that count."

[from_scratch]

"I am not hiding any duplicates of myself unless there's some weird and very secret thing where daeva have those. Surreal telepathic conversations with a building sound par for the course, I'm game."

[thisvorlunatic]

"All right. I'll see if Mother is around, she's better at interdimensional portals than I am. Oh - and the reason why there's nearly nothing visible out the windows is because the last star in that universe went out thousands of years ago. The monument is indestructible, it'll keep going forever no matter what condition the rest of its world is in."

[from_scratch]

"Okay."

[thisvorlunatic]

Off goes Miles in search of his mother.

[greatcomposure]

And his mother creates an interdimensional portal to... well, it's very dark there, wherever it is.

[from_scratch]

Will this flashlight that Cam has now help?

[pythbox]

Surprisingly little. The space he is in is very large.

And a few seconds after the portal closes behind him, it illuminates itself and renders his flashlight redundant.

Yep. Very large. Big enough to fly around in and then some. The windows in the ceiling show utter blackness, as promised. And whoever built this place was really, really into the number nine.