WHO: James Holden and YOU WHAT: Catch-all for April WHEN: Fantasy April WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall, mostly, but around NOTES: Starters in the comments, lmk if you'd like something bespoke or feel free to drop in a wildcard.
"You know, I used to spend a lot of my time here wishing an engineer would fall through a rift. Maybe Tony would make us a typewriter if we convinced him it was an interesting project?" She doesn't feel like it's his bag, necessarily, but she does feel like he's the most likely person to actually succeed.
She leans back in her chair at his second question. "...that's actually an idea. I mean, it's probably just messy handwriting, but it's possible it could be some sort of shorthand? I wonder if a native might know." She knows more about Thedas than a lot of rifters, but she's still been there less than four years cumulatively and hadn't done a lot of travel in that time.
"It'd help him too," he points out, as we beef up our defense here, "he probably has to read a lot of paperwork nowadays."
Freshly minted Provost Stark, and all. But he pauses when she does — he was mostly kidding, and it probably is just messy handwriting, but she has a point. Besides which, he's quickly learning just how formidable an analytical mind she has. If she has an idea, it's worth listening to.
"It's worth a try. There might be common abbreviations neither of us know about."
"It can't hurt to check. I mean, it does mean putting off the practical part until we do some more research, which is probably the responsible thing to do but. Way less fun, admittedly." With an apologetic smile, she adds, "Sorry to rope you in to what ended up being try to read this guy's chicken scratch. Not the most satisfying day's work."
"I've had worse," he assures her, leaning back in his seat. "Besides, I prefer doing things responsibly over accidentally blowing up half the Gallows."
"OK, I was going to offer to buy you a drink after this frustrating afternoon anyway, but now we are definitely getting drinks because I deeply need to know if you were in danger of blowing up the Gallows. Preferably with details."
"Good to know, as someone who currently lives in the Gallows. But my point still stands. Do you want to finish up here and get that drink now, or do you have plans? I can take a rain check if I need to."
"Sound logic." As she starts to pack up her things, she asks, "Is the alcohol here really different than what you get at home? Even though there's way less variety, most of what is here doesn't seem wildly different to me, but maybe you've developed past grapes stomped into wine by your time."
"Wow, man, that's bleak. Do you ever get planet-side stuff, or does the distance make that impractical?" She's conscious of asking a question that may be silly, but there's no other good way to learn about a time so different from her own.
He shakes his head. It's an answer that comes easily, an economic system he knows well, or well enough.
"It's 560 million klicks from Earth to Ceres Station. It's a hell of a lot more than that once you start thinking about the outer planets. Moving resources that kind of distance takes a long time and is expensive as shit. Besides which, Earth and Mars care more about bringing raw materials in than selling nice things out to the Belt."
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She leans back in her chair at his second question. "...that's actually an idea. I mean, it's probably just messy handwriting, but it's possible it could be some sort of shorthand? I wonder if a native might know." She knows more about Thedas than a lot of rifters, but she's still been there less than four years cumulatively and hadn't done a lot of travel in that time.
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Freshly minted Provost Stark, and all. But he pauses when she does — he was mostly kidding, and it probably is just messy handwriting, but she has a point. Besides which, he's quickly learning just how formidable an analytical mind she has. If she has an idea, it's worth listening to.
"It's worth a try. There might be common abbreviations neither of us know about."
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Probably. It's still hard to say what that pyramid is capable of doing.
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Is what he confirms, moving to pack up some of these papers for later.
"Besides, I think we could both use a drink right now."
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"Yeah," he says, "booze from vat-grown yeast and fungi is most of what you can find in space. It's even shittier than it sounds."
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"It's 560 million klicks from Earth to Ceres Station. It's a hell of a lot more than that once you start thinking about the outer planets. Moving resources that kind of distance takes a long time and is expensive as shit. Besides which, Earth and Mars care more about bringing raw materials in than selling nice things out to the Belt."