we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[dark_light]

Can I stop them from being able to do that?

[truthwright]

No.

[dark_light]

Is it sure or might there be a way it doesn't know about because the angels can hide things?

[truthwright]

If it's not sure, it tells me it's not sure.

[dark_light]

So basically there are more angels around, these are all bad but the others are potentially a mix, anybody might show up - I don't think I can make the angel tank discriminate by loyalty to the Authority. Maybe I should just let it suck up all angels incoming and leave instructions on how to get in touch with me.

[truthwright]

Yeah, if the Authority ones don't just straight-up murder any of the other ones they catch.

[dark_light]

Are angels who would get murdered by the Authority's contingent going to approach the Clouded Mountain to begin with?

[truthwright]

They could. We don't know they won't. We don't know anything about them except they exist.

[dark_light]

I guess I could make individual sections pinch off for new angels and swing by once a week to see whether they get added to the general population or turned loose.

[truthwright]

Sure. Do they get their very own bakeries? he laughs.

[dark_light]

Nah, this bakery will send them trays. Are you good for another enchantment?

[truthwright]

He giggles.

Go for it!

[dark_light]

Amariah kisses him and augments the angel tank. Incoming angels will get their own cells, with delivery cake, and automatically notify Amariah.

"Does the alethiometer know if I can enchant the mountain - or for that matter the land of the dead - to permit wishes to work normally?"

[truthwright]

"Can't. Twice," he says succinctly.

[dark_light]

"That's really annoying. Can I affect the land of the dead with wishes from the outside? I expect I can't do that for the mountain, given how you put the explanation of how it's anti-wish."

[truthwright]

"Depends on the wish; it can't effectively tell me more than that without a more specific question."

[dark_light]

"Restore the daemons, is what I was thinking."

[truthwright]

"No daemons in the afterlife."

[dark_light]

"So I am going to have to move everybody. Okay." She closes her eyes and thinks. "Has to hold a lot of dead people, and harpies. Has to collect the dead, as they die, and not overwhelm the limited number of harpies. Has to be daemon-compatible -" She pauses. "Has everyone in this worldsheaf got an external daemon?"

[truthwright]

He checks.

"No."

[dark_light]

"Okay. So those people are missing pieces but not creatures with their own names. I'll have to account for that. Space could be a problem, though less so with insubstantial shades - can we get a ballpark population figure?"

[truthwright]

"Uncountable. I'm really starting to think the alethiometer is just bad at math," he laughs.

[dark_light]

"Maybe I'll just make an infinite plane like Downside so I'll be able to teleport and mark locations there," laughs Amariah. "With - doors - can I wish or enchant doors between worlds in this sheaf?"

[truthwright]

"Yep! Either way," he says. "Maybe just - a door that takes whoever walks through it back to their own world? Kind of like Milliways, but smaller-scale."

[dark_light]

"Right. And harpies as gatekeepers - and some other mechanism to slow things down, so all the worlds aren't mobbed with dead people. My land-of-the-dead will be more comfortable, of course, but a lot of people are still going to want to leave. Maybe I can slow down if I let live people go visit it."