crystal.

[achievable]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Howard Stark
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: Nah

[ A snappy American (or dwarven or Qunari) accent, familiar only to anyone Howard has bothered in person over the last couple of weeks while finding his way around and becoming slowly convinced this isn’t a fever dream, breaks the mid-afternoon doldrums with, ]

You people really live like this, huh?

[ The time for acclimation is over. ]

You have kids who can throw electricity out of their fingers. And you’re walking up ten flights of stairs, in this heat? It’s interesting, but I hate it.

[ The time for being an ass has begun. ]

Someone explain lyrium to me. Only the dwarves and the wizards without feelings can handle it—I assume everyone else has tried gloves.

[ But, like, he’s not sure. Please confirm. ]

Comments

[saam]

Do you like getting blown up?

[achievable]

It isn’t in my top five favorite activities.

[saam]

What about getting poisoned and going mad?

[achievable]

Depends on the poison and the madness.

[aventuriere]

I'm sure Valentine would remember the details but I believe a Monsieur Ferrars? Flerrard? Something like that did a study on this very subject, constructing gloves out of a number of different substances in search of something that might allow safe manipulation of lyrium.

[achievable]

[ She sounds pretty, he can tell.

Or it's the accent.

Both. ]

Yeah? Do you remember if he had any luck?

[aventuriere]

Oh no, he went quite mad.

There was some debate, I recall, about whether perhaps his later experiments were tainted by madness caused by earlier iterations and if in fact some of them might have been viable had he still had his wits. But another fellow, a former student of his, attempted to prove this theory and began with the later designs but he ended up thoroughly mad as well.

[achievable]

What kind of madness are we talking about? Nonstop screaming, thinking your shoes are a hat, having ideas other people don't think are possible—it's a wide spectrum.

[justice_is_blond]

Maybe we'd live better if people weren't intent on caging the... kids who can throw electricity out of their fingers.

[At least, he's pretty sure that's a reference to mages.]

[achievable]

Do the cages have stairs?

[justice_is_blond]

You're living in one of the former ones, I'd have to assume. The Gallows.

[achievable]

Right. Then we shouldn't be walking up the stairs.

[limier]

Are you suggesting we build flat?

[achievable]

In this climate, I'm shocked you didn't. Or at least that your Hightown and your Lowtown haven't switched places.

[gentlecountry]

Well, towers is traditionals for mages. I understands it's meants to be a good ways to isolates folk from one another, and froms the outsides city. Prefer undergound living, myselfs, not that I gets much choice; duty is whats it is.

[Barty cannot be made to take offense. He is the definition of unflappable; no amount of being an ass will avail you, Stark.]

Now Lyrium's a peculiar sorts of mineral. It's sorts made of a... like a raw sorts of fade energy, I'd suppose. That's what makes it so usefuls, and so dangerous; if you makes it into a sort of dilution, you can injects that energies into all sorts of situations, which is damn handy for mages. Templars uses it too, but that's a subject of some debates and controversies, as I understands it. Some dwarfs uses it in enchantments engraving, which is what I'd calls a dead-useful bits of engineering

But that's Orzimmar fors you; we do loves our engineers, and there's always good trades to be made for lyrium.

[achievable]

Does the engraving wear off, or does it last forever?

[ Business first, asses later. ]

[gentlecountry]

Well, it's more of a, ah, like a inlays sortsa thing, I think.

[There is a thoughtful pause.]

Suppose it coulds wear off, over time. No reason to says it couldn't. Don't usually see these things that old or worns out, is all; lyrium's valuables enough that the enchantment itselfs is usually protected from wear, or else it's reclaimed by the destructions of the object.

Suppose in absence of use, it'd last just about forever. Some thaigs got enchantments in 'em laid pert near ten thousand years ago, give or take.

[achievable]

So you have what's essentially a real free energy source, and for the most part you're the only people who can handle it? [ A pause. ] Has everyone else ever tried to conquer you?

[rathercommon]

Have you got an alternative to stairs, then?

[achievable]

Hot air balloons.

[ And, like, elevators. ]

[rathercommon]

[ With irritation: ]

A real alternative, not a stupid one.

[achievable]

Ooh. Feisty.

Elevators.

[tender]

Live like this? Like what?

[achievable]

Walking up stairs. Plus there’s the lack of automated fans—that might be more egregious.

[tender]

[ squints ]

You could put in a request for ice. I have a friend who might be able to make you a glyph if you ask him.