Alicornutopia

--Cloudbank!Nick and Raezenoth--

Raezenoth: "How does your ship fly?"

Nick: "By being made mostly of hydrogen by volume, and therefore lighter than air. How do <i>you</i> fly?"

Raezenoth: "I am a god."

Nick: "You are obviously magic in some way, but I was under the impression that gods are not a thing."

Raezenoth: "I have yet to see another god in this world, and I only recently entered it. I am not surprised you thought we didn't exist."

Nick: "I don't suppose you would like to trade? I currently have a significant amount of glass, paper, and other simple made things. Though I wonder what you could offer in return."

Raezenoth: "I have a variety of offerings left to me by my followers. I see no issue with trading some of the less useful ones for things that are more useful."

Nick:"Are any of your offerings metal? Metal is extremely rare here, so much so that we are forced to use bone and wood for almost all tools. I would happily trade two or three large pieces of windowglass for a steel knife or some copper wire."

Raezenoth: *summons copper coins* "Would these do?"

Nick: "These will do. Strictly speaking, iron would be best, but I can find someone with tin and make bronze with these. Perhaps such a strong metal will help me make better devices, or even a proper combustion engine instead of a steam-powered one."

Raezenoth: *head tilt* "..." *summons a decent amount of iron swords* "May I follow you and watch?"

Nick: *becomes very excited* "I'll need to buy a forge. And clear a safe place to use it. And buy a book on metallurgy... It'll take a while. Of course, you're welcome to take some glass and paper in exchange now, and welcome to watch as long as you don't start unnecessary fires."

Raezenoth: "I will not start unnecessary fires."

Nick: "Good. Fires get out of control really easily with so much hydrogen around."

Raezenoth: "Yes. I will also take the paper."

Nick: "For this much iron and that copper, you may have one third of my glass and one half of my paper. It's still a lot. Say, can you do that appearing trick with water?"

Raezenoth: "Yes."

Nick: "Most of piloting a flying ship is about minding one's weight. Extra weight when I need it could be very useful."

Raezenoth: "I can oblige you if it is important."

Nick: "I have enough water for now. I wanted to know so I could ask for help if there were an emergency, a sudden storm for example. It's no use to anybody if we're drawn up into a firestorm because we're too light."

Raezenoth: "That is understandable. If such an emergency occurs, you may ask for help."

Nick: "I appreciate it. Fair warning, I won't be able to work with the iron from those swords for a few days. Unless you want to watch me pilot my ship or try to find a jellywings or sky-squid I don't know if there's any interesting things for you to do until then."

Raezenoth: "I believe I want to watch you pilot your ship. I like it. It's clever."

Nick: "Thanks I built it myself. It's fairly unique, the hard shell makes it nice and tough but poses interesting design problems..." *long ramble about ship design while flying the thing*

Raezenoth: *listens raptly*


--Spaceship!Nick and Raezenoth--

Raezenoth: "By what manner did you appear out of nowhere in the middle of my domain?"

Nick: "By crashing in it, apparently. My jump drive suffered a critical malfunction and dumped me here instead of where I was trying to go. Who are you?"

Raezenoth: "I am Raezenoth, god of the desert wind. Welcome to my domain."

Nick: "...A god. That's a first. Please don't try to kill me, most of the magic worlds try to kill me."

Raezenoth: "I will not attempt to kill you unless I have sufficient reason. Finding sufficient reason is unlikely but not impossible."

Nick: "Right. Well. I plan on staying here and repairing my ship and then leaving. If you wish to trade something I may be open to discussion, though."

Raezenoth: "That depends very highly on what you would like to trade with and for."

Nick: *gives detailed description of advanced technology and expresses desire for precious metals*

Raezenoth: "I see. I believe I would like to trade, then."


We could not find a viable method to get Zenikiel and Raezenoth in the same room together without involving other characters. Skipped.

Carya and cloudbank!Nick:

Cayra: "How does that thing float?"
Nick: "It's mostly full of hydrogen, which ends up making it lighter than the air around it."
Cayra: "How do you get that much hydrogen?"
Nick: "There are plants that make it. Technically you could use iron filings and water and heat, but nobody is stupid enough to waste iron when floatgrass grows everywhere anyway."
Cayra: "Huh. We have sky islands but bits of them don't keep being… skyish… if you break them off."
Nick: "...Cloudbank's sky-islands float because they're mostly hydrogen. Are yours solid rock that just stays put? What holds them up?"
Cayra: "Something like what holds up the dirt in alucines, I guess, only in the middle of them? I've never personally seen a sky-island, they're not that common."
Nick: "What is an alucine?"
Cayra: "…what do you mean, what's an alucine? They're where all the stuff is."
Nick: "They're like towns, where useful things are concentrated? Most of our large towns are in the lower middle layer of the planet's atmosphere."
Cayra: "…No. They are where all the stuff is. All the stuff is in alucines and no things are not in alucines."
Nick: "My planet is a large ball of rock several thousands of miles across, surrounded by a layer of air 300 miles thick, surrounded by vast reaches of empty space without even air. I am beginning to think we live in very, very different places."
Cayra: "No kidding. I couldn't make your thing up if I were on drugs."

---

Carya and spaceship!Nick:

Cayra: "What the heck is that thing?"
Nick: "My ship. I did not mean to appear here. I do apologize for the crashing- This place seemed to come out of nowhere in jumpspace."
Cayra: "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Nick: "The jump drive lets me sort-of... Teleport between places. It broke, and I ended up here instead of where I was going."
Cayra: "I've never heard of anything like that. I want one."
Nick: "Do you have a few hundred tons of titanium and proper tools and hired labor? If not, I will be happy to construct a similar device and sell it to you for other goods or services rendered - but I need to fix mine first."
Cayra: "Not on hand, none of that. I'm just an automancer-in-progress."
Nick: "Mancer? Oh dear. This world is magic, isn't it? Magic tends to make worlds try to kill me. I will warn you: I have powerful weapons. Don't test them."
Cayra: "I don't want to kill you, dude."
Nick: "And I appreciate it. Apologies. I've got a bit of a flinch reflex to magic."
Cayra: "I mean, do steer clear of pyromancers and tephramancers and stuff, but automancers are harmless and all I can do so far is change color."
Nick: "Would you mind telling me why my scanners can't detect anything beyond a few miles? Not even enforced vacuum. It's like the world just... Ends."
Cayra: "The borders of the alucine. If you want to get to a different one you'll need to find a portal."
Nick: "This world is divided into a series of caves linked by portals. I've seen stranger things, though not many."
Cayra: "They're not caves. Caves have earth or stone on top."
Nick: "I've never seen anything like an- alucine, was it? Never seen one before. I don't think I like it."
Cayra: "What's not to like?"
Nick: "It's too small."
Cayra: "There's big ones."
Nick: "How big? Unless they're big enough to contain planets I don't think I'd be comfortable. I'm used to thinking about space in terms of light-seconds - the distance light can travel in one second, about 186000 miles."
Cayra: "That… is bigger than alucines tend to get."
Nick: "Yes. Most other worlds, ones I've visited at least, don't have alucines. They just have one ridiculously vast continuous space. Billions of light-years across. Anything else feels- cramped. Hence why I want to leave."
Cayra: "Well, will you leave me some cool stuff before you go?"
Nick: "Will you buy the 'cool stuff'? My prices are negotiable. You could also pay with local goods that are rare elsewhere."
Cayra: "Hmm. Do you have networked flowers in these roomy worlds you're used to?"
Nick: "I do not, please describe."
Cayra: "I'm not totally positive I can get you to actually give me a good deal on the cool stuff if I just tell you all about them first thing."
Nick: "I am not willing to buy a thing I know nothing about. Metal, wood, and food are reliable trade goods if you want some examples."
Cayra: "I don't have those. And admittedly the flowers would not tell me how to get ahold of them. But I want your word that if I tell you about the flowers you won't just pick some wild and use what I tell you without giving me anything."
Nick: "Fine. Information is an acceptable trade, sometimes. I'll give you a scanner in advance, and some tools you are very unlikely to already have if your information is as valuable as you seem to think it is. I will warn you that you probably can't make more of the tools - this place doesn't seem like it has the right infrastructure."
Cayra: "Cool. So, the networked flowers come in two kinds, one of which allows communication with anybody who has another flower, one of which directly communicates knowledge in various domains including 'mancy."
Nick: *asks lots of questions about flowers, writes it all down, gives the promised tech, collects flowers*
Cayra: *plants flowers so they'll survive transplant and behave for him* *warns him against learning 'mancy casually*
Nick: "Why not?"
Cayra: "Because it comes with personality changes. Which you might be able to live with, I have some antheomancy and some automancy and it'll be more automancy, but you don't want to pick up tephramancy and then decide to conquer fifteen universes, that seems like the sort of thing it is especially a problem if a guy with a jump drive does."
Nick: "That... Is a pretty serious side effect. I'm not sure I'll actually be able to sell these. Ah well, a deal's a deal. Farewell."
Cayra: "Bye! The speakflowers are safe, worst that happens is extroversion!"

---

Zenikiel has no reason to pay attention to Shell Bell in particular.

Hmm…

Alicorn/rockeye_stonetoe:
Spaceship!Nick and T’Mir (would trading with Nick technically be illegal? I don’t remember if he has intra-universe FTL, but he probably doesn’t have warp specifically)
Spaceship!Nick and AI Jane

I’ll take that last post to implicitly mean I shouldn’t request Hatice and anybody else.
ErinFlight hasn’t volunteered characters or I’d request Alex and Jarvis.

Cath and Isalian

Cath's preferred method of translation is Milo, but I could also have the vocabulary of her meow-language translated like it was briefly in that one Radon Absinthe thread with Milo in the Dresdenverse. Please specify which you prefer when making Cath requests.

For quickversation purposes I've been letting Cricket speak generically intelligibly.

Cath doesn't feel like doing the same thing, for some reason. (I think she's shy.)

Nick: *Hails T'mir's ship* "Warning, other vessel, my engines are currently damaged so be careful of my momentum."
T'Mir: *gets out of the way*
T'Mir: "I've taken evasive maneuvers. Do you need assistance?"
Nick: "An atmosphere would be nice, but I can make the necessary repairs without one. Do you have any spare hyperium fuel I could trade for?"
T'Mir: "I'm not familiar with the substance."
Nick: "...How do you get between systems, then?"
T'Mir: "…Where did you say you were from?"
Nick: "My ship was built some ten jumps off from this 'verse. I'm a bit lost."
T'Mir: "………Around here, we get between systems with warp drive. I'll tell you how it works if you tell me how jumping works."
[exchange of detailed technical explanations]

Alicorn:
The assistant at Gyre’s shop probably is too NPCish, but if not: her and Angela
@Meow and, say, Pattern’s father before her revival
Nemaar’s-just-been-born!Mallyn and pre-Alethiometer Amariah, because of fears about becoming violent
If Mel’s enough of a character despite being 4, her and Angela because aura (I should have tried her when Mr. Cole was too NPCish).

Alicorn/Kappa:
Mel and Micaiah, same reason

Fairy assistant doesn't even have a name, and not because she's narrated in first person.

Meow: "...and then she killed my babies! Again!"

Charlie: "Maybe you should set something up that'll keep her from laying an egg there. Spikes in the nest after you've laid the eggs, something like that."

Meow: "Then how will I sit on them?"

Charlie: "Don't. Get a heating pad."

Meow: "Hmmm."

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Mallyn won't talk to Amariah. She scares him.

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Mel and Angela: *music together companionably*