jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He sets a forearm-guard, a shoulderpad, and a breastplate on the ground.

[segreant]

Kaja fetches her swordstaff, stands at a reasonable distance from the objects, and brings the weapon over her head and down onto the breastplate with an earsplitting clong.

There's a dent, but it doesn't break.

"Nice stuff," she says.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He fetches the armor. "It's resistant to fire, by the way, in that it won't let heat pass through it as easily as steel. I can make more, with a few days' warning and some coin for the materials. Would the Bright Sister be interested?"

[segreant]

"Let me see how it takes a blessing," says Kaja, "before I spend her time on finding out." She picks up the armguard. "If you don't mind?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I don't mind."

[segreant]

So Kaja holds the armguard between her hands. "Winter Light, to safeguard your agents from violence and to better serve you, I ask that you grant some small part of your strength to this armor, to protect whichever of our sisters and brothers in your service may have cause to wear it. In your name let it be blessed."

The armor glows a little bit.

"Not as good as fresh steel," she says. "But that might be entirely because you've worn it and you're not a paladin. It'll break if you wear it again, incidentally. And it wasn't bad, and it does start stronger than steel. I bet Bright Sister would like to put paladins in suits of this."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"...I hadn't expected it to become unusable to me. I wish you'd warned me. Well, in a few days I can replace it and have you bless a fresh piece and see if it turns out better. I still expect to make communication devices for the Order, which will take longer than armor, and I would like to know which to try for first."

[segreant]

"No, the blessing will break, the material will be fine."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Oh. Shall I loiter and begin repairing it while you inform the Bright Sister of this and ask for her judgment on communication devices and armor?"

[segreant]

"Yes. I'll be right back."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

So he loiters and applies tools to his armor. It'll never be quite as strong again because the inner layers will be ruptured, but once it's at least in the correct shape he re-inserts it into the suit.

[segreant]

Kaja comes back. "Sister wants the communication things first."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Then I will make communication things first. The easiest communication things involve running wires to the places you want to communicate with, but I'll just skip straight to wireless kinds. Expect it to take at least two weeks, and there will be chores to keep them working."

[segreant]

"What kind of chores?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Changing drained batteries for fresh ones, keeping a fire under a generator that produces the electricity they need and stores it in batteries, managing the way they are linked together if you add more."

[segreant]

"That doesn't sound so bad."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I can go over it in more detail when I actually have some communication things to present. For now, I'd better get to work. Have a nice couple of weeks!"

And he goes and finds that moneylender's grandson and explains the 'hiring him' condition on the loan, hires him, and sees about getting raw materials and a workspace.

Four days later he has a miniature generator on wheels that will take heat from a woodstove under it, and a long string of electric lights. He rents a wagon and drapes it in brilliant light and drives it around the city to advertise this new product.

[alicornucopia]

The electric light is a curiosity indeed. People keep coming to look at it.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

When he has a decent crowd he launches into a sales pitch about oh how much brighter these are than candles, and they don't make smoke, and you don't need to change them every few hours, all you need to do to light an entire mansion is keep a fire going, who would like to have them installed in their building?

[alicornucopia]

People want to know how much this would cost.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

The lights cost three copper each, installing the wires will cost about two copper per light. The generator costs eight silver, but several people who are neighbors can share it.

[alicornucopia]

This prices out a lot of people. He gets one immediate order from someone who runs a theater, though.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

So he makes plans with the theater-owner, hires some extra help for the next day he's free, and spends it installing lights all over his theater wherever directed and explaining how to work the generator and use the switches he installs. The generator is designed to be easy. Light the fire under it, give it a good shove, and off it goes.

While he starts working on radios, he investigates buying an empty lot and building a large plant from which he can distribute power to homes without having to sell them all a generator. Are there any inconvenient laws or bureaucracy that threaten to interfere with this project?

[alicornucopia]

The city has walls around it and is a little cramped, so an actually empty lot is hard to find, but if he's willing to settle for "unoccupied" he can get one within his means in an undesirable part of town.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Adventures in being a utility company, what fun. It should be profitable at least. He starts assembling a large generator and substation in the run-down property. Before that's done, though, he has radios ready for the paladins.

He has a wagon of gear including a generator to hauled their compound and tries to find Kaja.