Almost like flying

[what_greater_weapon]

Zinseyn sometimes wishes she could pass as Aluvai reliably, but then if she could pass Aluvai reliably, she would have some other problems besides just getting to the inside of the planet. Or, maybe, if she was too good at passing as Aluvai she'd be unable to get to the outside of the planet. Which would be just as annoying. Only being able to go to certain places because people will want to kill you is just annoying as a concept.

She does know how to play up her more Aluvai traits, though. This helps a bit. Usually she plays them down - long hair covering the hint of a point in her ears, the type of smile that doesn't show the hint of fang. Here, though, she'll play it up, though pulling her hair back in a ponytail's all she can do. It's not like she can drag out her Aluvai father and go, "No, wait, see, I am actually part Aluvai, just, the other part is Ceirene!" Not without causing some... problems.

She would like to avoid those problems. See; why she isn't taking the elevator. Awkward questions. Possible chance of rampant racism. And climbing is fun, and there's no place more interesting to climb than one of these chasms. There's no other place where she can get as close as one can get to flying without a pair of wings. If she were on an elevator, they would - make it professional, boring. She is not on an elevator. So when she climbs down far enough that she's stopped being insistently pulled downward and is instead weightless, she can just hang out here. And be weightless.

When she first did this, she was very careful to stay near the edges of the chasm. Very careful to not go careening off into the open air with no way to stop.

Well, she's now had more practice with this, and has learned that with careful application of rope and climbing materials and planning, and with a certain fearlessness towards scrapes and scratches, you can fly. Sort of. Kind of. Eh, it'll do until she figures out what she has to do to get a proper pair of wings and be able to fly anywhere. Better than nothing. And it's sort of like a reward, for a lot of hard work getting there.

So Zinseyn is enjoying herself a relaxing float before going into Aluvanna proper, carefully attached with multiple ropes to multiple places so she doesn't go floating off to someplace strange. The climb up is always the hardest part, and there is literally nowhere to go but up. Not being fully rested before it is a bad call. Besides, this is relaxing.

And then it stops being relaxing, when down suddenly reasserts itself so strongly that she thinks she must have fallen through a portal, because down does not hit you randomly like that. She opens her eyes to check her ropes, see what went wrong, and finds them all cut. She lands painlessly on soft grass before she can even think to scream. She stares at the blue sky above her, even though she left hers hours ago. Even though there's a lot of rock between her and it, now. Even though it is impossible.

She sits up. Must have found a secret portal to a Sphere, she thinks, brushing herself off. Strange that the ropes were broken, though, her mother's portal doesn't do that. Some aspect of the Sphere that's responsible...?

Standing, she looks around.

"Hello?" she calls.

Comments

[pythbox]

The pickaxe turns out to cubify two feet by two feet by two feet of dirt at a time. Now she has 1 Dirt.

[what_greater_weapon]

Okay.

She digs out the floor, replaces it with wood (because it is much nicer to stand on, and less likely to get her bitten by bugs) and makes a Workbench and puts it neatly against the wall. What does this do?

[pythbox]

It allows her to make more things!

[what_greater_weapon]

Yes it does. Okay then.

She makes a bunch of wooden walls and a door, and classes the place up. Wooden walls instead of the cave ones, and a wall with a door in it instead of the mouth of the cave. She then makes a table and a chair, and sticks them in the corner, and organizes most of her stuff on the table so she knows what she has and how she can use it.

Okay. What next? She technically has water already, though she doesn't think it's safe to drink. She still has her canteen, and some food, she is reasonably set there for a while. She can make a fire, but that's not advised while she's in a place that is now entirely made out of wood.

...

She should figure out how she fares against the blobs of the world. So she knows just how completely fucked she is.

She gets the copper shortsword and the axe if she needs a backup, and she carefully steps outside her shelter to find the smallest blob available and see if stabbing it does anything in particular.

[pythbox]

Stabbing the blob repeatedly causes it to explode in a shower of goo, releasing several copper coins in the local style and a couple of tiny balls of blobstuff.

The balls of blobstuff, when whiffled together and held, proclaim themselves to be 2 Gel.

And now she can make a torch, if she likes.

[what_greater_weapon]

Well there's only one thing to do, isn't there.

She makes a torch. Does it just - instantly create fire?

[pythbox]

A bright heatless fire, ceaselessly burning on the end of a wooden stick!

[what_greater_weapon]

Right.

She makes a tiny experimental fire station, where she puts a torch on a blocked wood that is three blocks high, and sees if it catches fire.

It does not.

This is bizarre and strange, but fine by her.

Back to the Zincave she goes. She lights the place up with torches so she can see.

[pythbox]

Now her cave interior is lit! How nice.

[what_greater_weapon]

Yes, very nice.

It's actually starting to get late in the evening by now. Soon the sun will be setting.

Well. Last minute preparations.

She creates several sets of wooden barricades between the table and the door, and then knocks out the back wall, digs out another (much smaller) room, adds a door to this room, and then fancies up this room, too. So she can cower in comfort, if it turns out that she does need to cower.

Right then. Bring it, night. Zinseyn's relatively ready for you.

[pythbox]

There is a muffled sound from the next room.

Almost like a certain familiar voice saying...

"In order for a room to be considered a home, it needs to have a door, chair, table, and a light source. Make sure the house has walls as well."

[what_greater_weapon]

The fuck?

She opens the door from her designated cower room and looks at the source of the muffled sound.

[pythbox]

It's her not-person!

"Two people will not live in the same home. Also, if their home is destroyed, they will look for a new place to live," he says helpfully.

[what_greater_weapon]

She is sorely tempted to reply something along the lines of, 'So get the fuck out of my house,' but it would be pointless. So, so pointless.

She sighs, and checks to make sure he left the front door securely closed. Is it securely closed? You can't trust not-persons with anything.

[pythbox]

It is securely closed! So securely.

There are more muffled sounds coming from outside, but these are not so languagelike.

[what_greater_weapon]

Charming.

She won't be opening the door to let them in.

But she will hang out near it with her shortsword ready to see if she needs to barricade the door more thoroughly or if just the door is enough.

[pythbox]

The door works fine.

[what_greater_weapon]

...

Just in case, she barricades the door with wooden blocks anyway. If something does open the door, they will be met with solid wood.

She gives the not-person a bit of a glare, eats her food and finishes off the water in her canteen, and then goes and curls up in the tiny room to sleep.

... Just to be sure, she barricades this door, too.

And then she sleeps.

[pythbox]

It is a peaceful night.

Well, peaceful if you can ignore the muffled sounds of the nonperson talking to itself and the whatever-they-are outside banging ineffectually on the door.

[what_greater_weapon]

Eh, she's slept through worse. The uncomfortable ground is more of an inhibitor for sleep, really, but she can get past that, too.

When she wakes up the ineffectual banging has stopped. Good. Take that, ineffectual banging.

Right then. Priorities for the day: food and water. Also some sort of latrine. After that - something more comfortable to sleep on, she's kind of uncomfortably sore. She can get all of that done in a day, probably.

"Oi, dust for brains," she says, to the not-person by way of greeting. "Do you have a pre-composed sleep solution or something? Everything else I can handle."

[pythbox]

"To make a Bed at a Sawmill, use: 15 Wood. 5 Silk."

[what_greater_weapon]

... That's useful. And the thought of sleeping in an actual bed instead of on the ground again is wonderful.

"How do I make a sawmill?"

[pythbox]

"To make a Sawmill at a Workbench, use: 10 Wood. 2 Iron Bar. 1 Chain."

[what_greater_weapon]

Okay. So she can get useful information out of him, it's just annoying and painful.

"How do I get silk. How do I get a chain. How do I get iron bars," she asks, in a monotone.

[pythbox]

"To make Silk at a Loom, use: 7 Cobweb. To make Chain at an Iron Anvil, use: 1 Iron Bar. To make Iron Bar at a Furnace, use: 3 Iron Ore."

The nonperson can do this all day, apparently.