i am the oncoming storm

[autokinetic]

There are three Bells in Milliways.

They want a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. A seventh.

And then Downside is going down.

Comments

[ending_of]

"Why is it so urgent for you to empty the catacombs?"

[autokinetic]

"Because time is passing in all the live worlds, and someone who could go home to their family now might not be able to do it next year," says Aegis reasonably.

[ending_of]

"If you received them sorted in order of how recently they died, would that lower your urgency?" She glances at Template. "Four years, by the way."

[self_composed]

"Thanks," murmurs Template.

"Yes," says Stella, "once we have a first-pass algorithm for when we can send people home if they want, that'll help - people whose choices are staying here or moving someplace new anyway can sleep a bit longer without that being an emergency, I think. We'll want pamphlets. I know where those will come from."

[luminous_regnant]

"Yes," says Golden, rolling her eyes, "I'm sure Elspeth will be happy to come up with informational materials to give everyone as they wake up."

[ending_of]

"Would the catacombs themselves suit your size requirements?"

[autokinetic]

"Depends on how amenable they are to being rewired to let Jane see their contents," says Aegis. "We were teleporting around, didn't get a good impression of the physical layout."

[ending_of]

"The physical layout doesn't matter. The catacombs are under the cliffs, centred on this tower, with one entrance at the Upside ground level and the other at Downside's. Everything else about them can be changed."

[self_composed]

"Perhaps we should put you in our link?" Stella wonders aloud. "It makes working out things like that much faster. Jane could tell you directly what she'd need, to be able to operate there, in terms of sensory networks and computing hardware."

[ending_of]

She shrugs.

[mind_game]

Jane shares.

[self_composed]

"...About the new worlds that show up periodically. Are all of ours attached? We only know about Shell Bell who's not here, and Golden and Juliet and Template. What about me and Angela and Aegis and Amariah?"

"I should really think of a better name," muses Template. "Not much of a theme, is it."

[ending_of]

"Yours are," she says, pointing to Golden, Juliet, and Template. "And the one you mentioned who isn't here. None of the rest are. I could connect to them, except yours," she says, indicating Amariah. "You have an afterlife that's taking precedence."

[autokinetic]

"...So on our worlds there's just nothing? If you connect us do you get people who've died in the past or just going forward?"

[dark_light]

"...Can you tell anything about mine besides that it exists?"

[ending_of]

To Aegis: "Past, present, and future."

To Amariah: "No."

[dark_light]

"Well," says Amariah. "I suppose we may have another project on our hands."

[self_composed]

"Hook me up," says Stella, "it's better than nothing - at least it is now."

[autokinetic]

"Me too."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Agreed."

[luminous_regnant]

"First things first, Amariah," says Golden dryly. "This is already a multi-year project and we are not patient sorts. Yours can be next. Perhaps it is lovely and not urgent at all and all it needs is a loop back so that people can interact with their dead."

[dark_light]

"...Maybe. I'm unsettled by the way daemons disappear where humans and witches leave corpses, though, I don't know what to make of that now."

[ending_of]

"I've connected all requested," she says. "There are a lot more dead people in the queue now."

[luminous_regnant]

"As long as we can order them sensibly, we can get the urgent ones out of the way soon enough," says Golden. "And have the process streamlined in time for the others."

[she_sells_seashells]

The Bells hash out to-do lists.

Those with stable empires - Shell Bell, Golden, and Stella - will set up processing on their end for receiving and repatriating dead people. Golden's going to have to accelerate her unveiling process a bit; Stella will have to work a bit harder on integrating with the governments of Earth which she has thus far left largely unmolested.

Golden will set Elspeth to writing instructional materials for those who'll awaken in the catacombs going forward. (Nathan is induced to door to Aurum and fetch her so she can be linked up and summarized at. She begins work on a first draft.)

Template (who still hasn't settled on a better nickname, but is considering "Pattern") will take a while collecting representatives of each world connected to Downside, and going in with them to install a Jane-point therein; she'll then return to her own world, find a way to explain herself to her parents, and catch up with everyone else in terms of empire-building.

Juliet, Angela, and Aegis will work on their empires, and whenever it is possible they'll set up their own processing intakes.

Amariah will have no dead natives to process. She'll act as support and be the first port of call for appeals processing.

Jane's going to acquire the ability to see life histories and worlds-of-origin at a glance, and she'll flag anyone who's not only "sketchy" but also dangerous; these will only go to worlds fit to hold them, if applicable, and otherwise be shunted into Downside-at-large, newly inhospitable to unfriendly violence.

Once all the Bell-operated worlds are smoothly reintegrating the dead, they'll take what they've learned and start branching into the worlds that have no such leadership, starting with the worlds in which they already have friends to help show them the ropes and moving out from there.