I closed and locked the gate from the inside. I didn't think Charlie would come back immediately after that send off, but it can't hurt to be sure. If he keeps his word he will be back bright and early tomorrow morning. So will others. I need to get Nola set up and figure out a way to lie more convincingly.
Oh, it looks like Charlie left everything behind. I guess its all mixed together anyway. I... should put those somewhere for him. Show of good faith or something. Or re process them into categories again. I can have Nola make some takeaway containers once we are set. Would that be more or less suspicions? Probably more. I never got the gossip vibe from the old guy, part of why I chose him as my first contact. But he was right, this may be too much too fast.
I got a push of reassurance from Nola. And then impatience. She wanted to get started. And I am here worrying myself in a circle.
No time like the present.
I called Nola to me. She exited the bulb and flew to my hand. Still the size of an over large baseball. Its a good look. Much more substantial than the sliver of crystal we started with on the mountain... yesterday. My god it feels like years and its just barely been 2 days.
And I just signed up for even more with Chopper.
I probably should have slowed down and thought about this more. Another burst of impatience from Nola.
"Alright, alright. I'm going. Keep your pants on" That phrase does not work as well when speaking to a rock. At least I didn't say 'bite me'. That could have been bad.
I walked to the half fallen shack in the center. As good a place as any to start.
"Nola, do you know what to do?"
Yes. Dungeon master must send an order to place down roots while holding the core.
Seems simple enough. Nola is a bit more direct there than usual. She must be getting impatient with me.
She floated to chest height directly in front of me. Show time.
"Nola" I thought and spoke the order at the same time "Take this spot as your dungeon and put down roots"
She shook for a second in my grip before shooting directly downwards. I'm glad I have a naturally wide stance. I am not sure if she would have stopped for my foot.
And then once again - things change
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It wasn't as severe as last time around. No oneness with the universe. No psychedelics. And I kept my close on this time. I actually think I remained fully in my body. Thats good.
I could still feel and taste the dirt, metal and trash all around me. Not my favorite flavor.
Could you take a step back please. I would like to put up our metal flower.
It is much harder to walk when you can consciously feel every single rock you are stepping on. It doesn't hurt, but its weird. The rocks didn't mind.
"I'm gonna sit down by the fence if you don't mind"
I do actually. If you are outside of the dungeon it is much more costly to speak with you
"The fence is outside the dungeon?" Wait, what did she say about costs? "And what do you mean more costly"
My current power level is low, I can only claim a portion of this yard as a dungeon at this time. I can convert matter to gain more energy, but we need that to create a successful dungeon for Chopper and his friends. As for costs, every letter inside the dungeon costs us less than a pennies worth of matter. Outside, several pounds worth, even just to send feelings.
Kinda like old school texting plans.
"Wait so every time you sent me a message before now..."
Several pounds of matter. Incredibly wasteful. I am lucky you were able to give me so much. I would have been forced into silence otherwise.
"How far is the edge" I said backing up. But I didn't need an answer. I stepped over the edge of the boundary and immediately knew. The awareness of my dungeon dropped off dramatically. I could still feel where Nola was, but I no longer knew where every rock and twig within her was.
I stepped back in "Never mind, I got it" Nola's dungeon was about 600 square feet of area all circling out from the central point in the shack. About 27 feet wide. Not huge, considering what we are trying to do. Growing into the space is gonna be a priority.
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"I would like you to start getting the pieces we made out. It is gonna take me most of the night to get those together.
I don't think it will
"Did you level up again?"
Not exactly. Inside my domain construction is much simpler. And I can build much larger
Sweet.
"Will you need any help putting the processing plant together? Or do you have that part down?"
I will only need help with the ramps. Those will extend outside the current domain
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She started by eating the shack. It sort of collapsed in on itself almost like a sinkhole had opened below it, but the ground remained solid and unmoving. Most of the shed was inside of our circle of control, except this one small corner. The metal sheets were pulled into the ground and sheared away from the support post. The beam remained moored in concrete bent over Nola. Before I could move to do anything about it Nola extended a vine as thick as my leg from the dirt and grabbed the beam hanging over 'her' dirt. She didn't move outside the circle I noticed. Even when the beam snapped, leaving the concrete footer in place .
Next the mini plant went into the dirt. Then the table. Then all of Charlie's garbage. Then the gravel driveway. I half expected the dirt to ripple like water as the things sunk. It might have made me feel better about the surreal sight.
And then we were looking at a plot of clean, even dirt in the middle of an old scrap yard. But not for long.
Rather than re creating the pieces we had designed together last night, Nola bloomed. The metal flower grew as a single piece from a tiny organic looking sprout to a massive 10 foot tall bulb and platform. It looked a lot more like a flower than the first version. I could feel Nola wanting to go further before she said anything.
I know it has to look industrial for the story, but can I make it look pretty? I will only use the green and yellow paint from those tractors we found!
Great, thanks for the reminder that I am a felon. "I'm sorry Nola, but that may be a bit too much too soon for this project" Who am I kidding, a 10 foot building just appeared out of nowhere. This whole thing is too much. "We need to get people to accept you are a machine first before we get you a coat of paint. I promise after people are used to us we will let you turn any color you want"
Nola seemed to accept that as an answer, for now. Industrial is not her style, but she is willing to listen to me. Again, for now. I should probably have a garden out near the back fence as we expand. Just for appeasement sake.
Next she focused on making the intake ramp. The ground near the front entrance started to sink into a bowl shape. The edges became covered in rolling trays built into concrete. All the edges focused the future garbage to a single point, the brand new ramp to the intake side of the flower bulb. It actually looked pretty nice, for an industrial garbage chute. I sent Nola a mental note to put shut off buttons on both sides of the ramp all the way up its length. I could force the ramps to stop with my mind, but what if I wasn't paying attention and someone fell in. That would be a disaster. Actually...
"Hey Nola?"
Yes?
"Is it possible for you not to process things?"
Of course. I already showed you during testing. I can select what to absorb.
Phew. "Alright, anything human; don't"
Of course.
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The finished material ramps were more of a problem. Nola was so good at breaking things apart we could have hundreds of different bins collecting separated pieces from just a single bag of residential trash. In the end we decided to play to our market. The scrappers wouldn't care about things like plastic or glass or wood. They wanted the metal. Stripped wire sells for more than jacketed wire after all. Everything else was waste to them. The junk men, they just wanted it gone. If they could make a buck on some easy metal or glass they would, but otherwise it was all just trash to them. We set up 10 ramps for the major metals; copper, lead, aluminum, steel, iron, tin, brass, nickle, zinc, bronze. A bin for each ramp that could collect the processed bits and then taken away by our customers. Nola was unhappy with the plan of letting matter walk out for nothing, but understood the long term play
The problem comes from the true believers. Diligently separating things out to have the most impact on the recycling process. They were gonna be a problem for me. For us.
They don't care that it isn't currently profitable to recycle most glass, paper, or plastics. Well, profitable to scrappers anyway. Somebody is making money in that process.
No, they actually want to see the promise of recycling and a closed loop realized. If I could convince them to leave it with me, that would actually be true. But at this time I have nothing that looks like a glass making shop on site. I'd need more bins for them. 15 more to be exact. For all the other recyclable material that could be processed elsewhere. Nola was extra unhappy about that. In her words, 'that's basically everything'.
I promised her I would talk to the true believers that came in. If I could convince them I needed the stuff for future experiments I could probably get them to leave it. We will see.
The last bin was ours. General waste. Everything that didn't fit into the other categories. The food. The unrecyclable plastics. The styrofoam. The chemicals. At the end of the day after we lock the door Nola could eat everything in that category. It would probably be enough for her.
The last thing we made was an intake desk for me. It was just a simple folding table. I didn't want anything too fancy for day one. But Nola insisted that I have a plant on it.
She made me a basket of geraniums.
Yeah, we need that garden.