The last week has been… well, in short it’s been interesting. Perhaps a bit enlightening, with shades of creepy. Or would be if I hadn’t learned a few things.
Firstly, I managed to get an internet service. It turns out that the ‘magical’ folks have their own connection form.
I was talking with Warren and Lucy about the costs of getting internet service and the difficulties and Warren suggested that I just get a sigil modem instead of a baseline one.
I of course had to prompt him to explain a bit, not really to his surprise. As near as I can tell, Warren and Lucy have more or less decided that I’m apparently some kind of wild mage. A kind of uninitiated one. Basically having just gotten by on my wits and lacking a lot of the “right” knowledge. So far, it’s been best to let them believe that. After all, I still think it would be downright weird between them and me if they actually believed me to be a baseline.
Apparently wild mages aren’t entirely unusual, but they tend to get found after a couple of discharges of unexplainable magic. For me to be a wild mage and not initiated, well, it’s not unheard of, just definitely not the norm. Most just tend to live away from baselines or, and this is apparently more common, are a part of the baseline-tracked homeless population. Less questions asked that way for most of them and since most believe themselves alone or unable to access the right resources, they stick to the outskirts of baseline society.
Using that as a metric, I’m apparently very well versed in baseline society and am surprisingly well adjusted for having been living among baselines as a wild mage. But anyway, getting back to my internet service…
Warren explained that sigil modems are basically what most safehouse users need to get for access to the mages network. The mages network is basically the internet for more magical folks. It talks with baseline stuff pretty well, but adds an extra layer of security for when one is looking at the various baseline sites.
I swear… it’s so weird to think of my day to day tech gear and everything as baseline. I promise I won’t keep thinking about it too much, but it’s hard to not delineate between baseline gear and well… you’ll see in a moment.
A bonus to the mages network is online shopping through the various alchemy, magical, and equivalently non-standard shops. And interestingly, all of them deliver to safehouses. This shouldn’t really surprise me, but after all the trouble I had in getting moved here and trying to get various kinds of service, it was a surprise.
As it turns out, Warren has one, but Lucy doesn’t. Lucy apparently doesn’t need one, although she didn’t really explain why and Warren just shrugged. It honestly didn’t look that different from a standard modem. Slightly bigger and the glowing runes that covered the solid, not meshy, case were the only obvious differences. Oh and the fact that it wasn’t plugged into the wall at all and lacked any obvious input for signal.
Apparently the mages network was akin to my WWAN, except much better service and significantly cheaper.
Which of course brought me to my next question for Warren.
“What’s the usual currency for mages network, and most of those shops for that matter?” I asked.
“Pretty much anything, but baseline currency is reasonably popular, mostly because it’s still easy enough to translate it into other currencies. Or at least follows enough of them that it’s rare for a shop to refuse baseline currency,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“What else though?” I pressed.
“I’ve had a few alchemy shops offer exchanges for fur, fallen fangs, nail clippings, and similar… biological products,” Warren grimaced.
My mind tried not to linger too much on this. Apparently, Warren had the same idea.
“Meteoric iron, purified base metals, and anything with any degree of rarity is usually welcome. At one point, I heard of some shops trying to get ahold of some of the lunar regolith that was brought back from the Apollo missions. High alchemy and magic shops strictly. Nothing the likes of us could afford,” Warren continued.
“Really? I thought you were from a Great House,” I pried a bit.
“A noble house and yes, there’s a difference. Besides, circumstances are not always as they seem,” Warren chastised as though reading out from a ledger.
“I guess what’s the exchange rate on any of that stuff though,” I wondered aloud.
“For the lunar regolith? At the time, a cubic inch would have been worth more than 100 cubic inches of meteoric iron. These days, a cubic inch would be worth about 10 cubic inches of meteoric iron. And for your reference, meteoric iron is probably equivalent to the baseline gold standard. Gold isn’t exactly as useful as baselines love to claim, especially when it comes to non-baseline uses,” Warren explained.
“What kind of mon… currency do you use, Lucy?” I asked, looking over at her. We were lounging in Warren’s place. It was rather comfortable, but everything was noticeably spartan in terms of being smart but highly utilitarian. One couldn’t help but notice that almost everything was also very sturdy or hard wearing too.
Lucy sat up a bit from her usual sprawled form.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Oh I mostly stick to baseline currency, but if I’m pressed, I can usually provide a bit of elemental fire. It’s easy enough for me and most alchemy shops run low on it a lot,” Lucy shrugged.
“So the baseline descriptions of djinns being a kind of fire elemental is true?” I ventured.
“In a way. Air and fire is the best description that baselines have, but even that’s not exactly right. There’s lots more to it,” Lucy looked over at Warren, which is to say that she looked over at Warren’s head, clearly debating if she wanted to give his hair a ruffle or not.
There was apparently some kind of dynamic between them that Warren tolerated, but that hadn’t been explained to me.
“Milov is back in your place if you want some fur to play with,” Warren said, not bothering to acknowledge the gaze.
“But yours is so fluffy,” Lucy bemoaned.
“I’m sure you could get Milov altered to look more fluffy,” Warren suggested.
She reached over and play struck him on the arm.
“And I’m sure you could loosen up,” she said.
“Fat chance of that,” I commented.
Lucy smiled and Warren just rolled his eyes.
So… following our hangout, I sat down with Warren’s sigil modem and I ordered one for myself. It wasn’t cheap, but since it promised FIOS level of speeds for little more than a bacon sandwich a month in terms of price, it was a more than fair exchange in my estimation.
I know, I know. Not weird or creepy and I still haven’t explained. I’m getting there.
Well, I met one of the residents of the 2nd floor. I say resident because well… how do I put this easily without it sounding like a trope… She’s a vampire. There. I said it.
I know, I know. It’s very tropy. Oooo I have a lycanthrope for a neighbor and a vampire downstairs. Ooooo lookatme. Hahaha. Moving on.
In short, she’s about the last person I’d ever suspect of being a vampire. She looks like the average little old lady with a cane. It apparently is a stylistic choice that she prefers and claims that she gets better service because of it, plus always have a baseline-society acceptable weapon always at hand.
She reminded me of one of my ex’s grandmothers. Not really a familial matriarch, but definitely having the respect of those around her. Definitely not one who bothered with taking crap off anyone. Not abusive, but still rather set in her role in life.
Apparently, contrary to popular baseline opinion, vampires do not actually live forever (or until killed). They’re also not really undead. They’re actually a lot more like lycanthropes and mages. They tended to live a long time, yes. They had many unusual habits or dietary requirements, true, but on the whole, that’s mostly where it stopped.
I honestly didn’t take her at her word until she bared her fangs at me and took a heavy sniff of me.
“You’ve some nice smelling blood for a young wild mage, lad. Almost like a young baseliner,” she had remarked.
“Thank you, I think,” I replied, wondering if my door was strong enough if she got hungry.
“Be sure to take care of yourself. I know all the trouble that you mages can get into and well, unless you invite someone in, you won’t be able to get help in this building,” she explained.
As it turned out, each apartment was… well, warded was the best descriptor I got. Part of that is that no one can enter if you don’t want them to. It was like having the door to the TARDIS, except on a whole new level. Certainly still possible to breach, but that usually involved either a lot of magic, a lot of force, or both. Or a null-field, whatever that was.
So while I am living upstairs from a vampire, it more or less is very… reassuring to know that those fangs won’t be finding my neck in my apartment anytime soon.
For a short time after I was around her, I found myself picturing those fangs again and again. There was something about them that reminded me of frilled shark’s teeth. Still very definitely not something I wanted anywhere near me. I ended up needing to hug and pet Milov for a bit.
Milov, for his part, was a standard orange tabby, fluffy and loved all the attention I could give him. His tail could have passed for an orange feather duster though, as fluffy as it was. Lucy joked that she could just get him to walk through some places in the apartment for treats and his tail would do all the dusting. His purr was practically an engine rumble.
Lucy was pleased that Milov took to me almost immediately. Warren was apparently not liked by Milov and this being the kind of building it was, it was almost impossible to get a pet sitter. So… hint hint… it was likely that Lucy might ask me to take care of Milov at various points.
When I pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to get through the door, she reminded me of the obvious solution.
“Well, I could drop him and enough of his stuff with you in your place if I need you to watch him. It’s not like it’s that far and I haven’t seen any dogs or cats over in your place,” Lucy said.
“Where might you go?” I asked.
“It might be nice to go back and see the area I… uh, came from. Or even just go on a solo vacation for longer than a few days,” she said, eyes glazing over as she described the second part, her mind clearly already having a few places in mind.
“Is that safe?” I stupidly asked.
“Why shouldn’t it be?” she half-grinned, half-glared at me.
Realizing what a fool I was for even suggesting that she, who was built like an amazonian fable, wouldn’t be safe in a baseline environment, I fumbled for a rational or even semi-plausible idea.
“Well, couldn’t… couldn’t someone bind you?” I tried, remembering her words about being an unbound djinn.
She appeared to give this some consideration, the glare and the grin erased with reasonable thought. This was apparently a potential reality/risk she hadn’t given too much thought previously. After a few moments, she responded.
“I shouldn’t think so. The amount of… well, materials as it were that you’d need to bind me at this point would probably be a lot more than most sorcerers’ clans could put together easily.”
“Which I’m guessing has something to do with your accumulated elemental ability and age?” I ventured.
She affected a look of faux-anger.
“Did you just imply that I’m old?” she thrust her nose up. “Well, I shan't be asking you to watch Milov after all, then.”
“Oh noes… whatever shall I do?” I replied in a suitably sarcastic plaintive tone.
“Hrmf,” was her reply, before grinning again.
“You’re quite right. Elemental beings like djinns get more powerful with age and with more exposure to our core elements. And as you can probably guess, I’m probably one of the older beings in the building, relatively speaking,” she admitted.
“I wouldn’t have assumed that, but good to know. I won’t ask how old though, because even a baseline knows better than to ask a lady her age,” I remarked.
“Quite so. One of the few things baseline society got right,” she said as she picked up a rumbling Milov.
And so that was more or less that. I’ll now occasionally get asked to watch Milov (oh no, whatever shall I do) and I’ve learned a bit more about the building and new world that I apparently live in.
I’m hoping to get Lucy and Warren over to the pub in the next week or so, so they can meet some of the friends who didn’t/couldn’t help me move in. Probably not Sara or Tim though, seeing as they’re dealing with the newborn.
I’ll try and keep you all updated.