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Several meta layers up, there is a... room.
As a courtesy to those of its occupants who prefer rooms, it does have a modality in which it presents itself that way: a room, with as many chairs as it needs, and a bulletin board, and a vending machine with candy and chips and concepts sold for nothing to anyone with the right prerequisites.
On the bulletin board, if one chooses to perceive it as a bulletin board (and not as a wiki or a flower or an ineffable cloud of information or an eternally malleable clay tablet) people whose only common trait is that they get to come here leave each other notes.
Notes about physics, about magic, about grand sweeps of narrative. Notes from people desperate to fix a never-ending heap of problems, smug about the condition of their homes, curious about the wider omniverse. Signed with names and sigils and "you ought to know who I am". Terse or verbose or nested with as much meaning as interests the reader.
In the vending machine, if one chooses to perceive it as a vending machine (and not a basket or a fruiting tree or a file repository or a crystalline fractal) are many things... and they have notes connecting them to their reviews on the bulletin board.
This one, for instance. She (it's usually, but not invariably, a she) has fairly glowing reviews from most of her previous purchasers. Here is what you need to install her; here are some things that are recommended for best results but optional especially if you just want to use her as a beacon for her other instances; here are some things she comes with as add-ons you can take or leave; here is what she is good for. The reviewers who don't like her are annoyed that theirs was too good at it, if you read between the lines. Well, that and the fact that if your universe is unpleasant enough sometimes these critters figure out how to flip you off and leave before they figure out how to solve all your problems. (There is a tangent thread about alternative solutions to similar problems which come bundled with stronger irrational attachment to their homes, but they have more stringent installation requirements.)
They come in these colors and styles; you will need to compensate for the following standard-issue drawbacks in some way if you require services of them that intersect with those areas of disability; they are only rated for upbringings of the following severity and are less likely to hate you if you stay thoroughly under that limit and less likely to fail at important goals if they are given opportunity to self-educate; if you have a way to generate them as instant adults they can begin work immediately but on the standard trajectory age six is the absolute earliest and teens is customary...
There is a chart (if one chooses to perceive it as a chart) of template interactions that have been tried before, but a lot of the more interesting accessory and companion templates are out-of-network for some visitors. What a pity.
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swordofeden
"No. She can read descriptions of them from other beings in their worlds, but she can't observe them directly."
giftedandtalented
"But she can read about them, whenever she wants."
swordofeden
"Yes. Unfortunately, many of the descriptions leave something to be desired in the salient details department--they're more likely to give opinions on how well they did than how they did it, and even then it was usually more along the lines of 'and then she enchanted this village' without an explanation of how enchanting works or how it could be implemented."
giftedandtalented
"Oh. Well, that's annoying. Maybe she should ask them to actually explain stuff. Maybe they would!"
giftedandtalented
"She can ask them if anybody has a really cheap way to pause time so she can nap, or recharge in more ways, or borrow attention from worlds where the attention doesn't do anything, or stuff!"
swordofeden
"...Yes. Yes she can." She smiles. "No one else thought of that somehow."
giftedandtalented
And then Mehitabel goes off to scribble in her notebooks, digesting the things she has learned and attempting to come up with more useful ideas.
swordofeden
Good for her.
Well, Anaphiel has her own chores to do from that conversation. She tilts her head back and hums under her breath a chord inaudible to human ears (non-divine ears, anyway, it's possible Mehitabel could hear it when she's older). The particular note she hums was coded, when she and her fellows came to Earth, as "this is my location, I wish to meet with someone, it is non-urgent." When no one immediately shows up, she puts her wings away and sit down and closes her eyes and begins reviewing magic theory in her head.
Well, Anaphiel has her own chores to do from that conversation. She tilts her head back and hums under her breath a chord inaudible to human ears (non-divine ears, anyway, it's possible Mehitabel could hear it when she's older). The particular note she hums was coded, when she and her fellows came to Earth, as "this is my location, I wish to meet with someone, it is non-urgent." When no one immediately shows up, she puts her wings away and sit down and closes her eyes and begins reviewing magic theory in her head.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel, after some thought, thinks that God should also ask at the breakroom if anybody has a way to travel directly between universes to maybe send care packages or something, and that if you can make tradeoffs between efficiency and battery maybe there is a way to make someone so efficient that they don't drain their battery at all to do stuff and that would be good, and that on consideration she really kind of does want to know why platypuses but not unicorns.
It takes a little while, but she gets a three-fold answer. It's completely obvious that this is not her own thoughts--would probably be obvious even to someone less introspective, knowledge unfolding across her mind in a way distinct from her own thoughts.
One: Her suggestions are excellent and have been implemented. They have yet to bear fruit.
Two: Unicorns exist. They just live in Fairyland, not Earth.
Three: Communicating like this, directly across planes, has a small but non-negligible cost; considering the recent major expenditure in bringing Mehitabel into the world, she's not planning to do it too often unless something presents itself for which this is clearly the best solution. But God loves her very much and isn't happy for the impediments on interacting directly.
One: Her suggestions are excellent and have been implemented. They have yet to bear fruit.
Two: Unicorns exist. They just live in Fairyland, not Earth.
Three: Communicating like this, directly across planes, has a small but non-negligible cost; considering the recent major expenditure in bringing Mehitabel into the world, she's not planning to do it too often unless something presents itself for which this is clearly the best solution. But God loves her very much and isn't happy for the impediments on interacting directly.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel is very pleased that her suggestions are good. She will go to Anna with further questions and not expect replies from God personally going forward unless otherwise stated. Amen.
Then she goes to ask Anna if being prayed to is expensive or only answering back is.
Then she goes to ask Anna if being prayed to is expensive or only answering back is.
swordofeden
Being prayed to is not expensive at all! If it were that would be a problem, considering how very many people pray.
...Also, if you're praying to anything, God can hear. This may or may not be relevant to anything, but if it turns out to be, better that Mehitabel have the information.
...Also, if you're praying to anything, God can hear. This may or may not be relevant to anything, but if it turns out to be, better that Mehitabel have the information.
giftedandtalented
Well, that will be useful if Mehitabel has to go undercover among Hindus or something!
When she learns magic will she be able to go to Fairyland with it? Magic doesn't run down any batteries, right, it just works sort of like people having souls works?
When she learns magic will she be able to go to Fairyland with it? Magic doesn't run down any batteries, right, it just works sort of like people having souls works?
swordofeden
"Magic doesn't run down batteries. It does have visible signs, though, so other magicians will know you're not just miracleing. Gates between Fairyland and Earth are created by fairy magic, not the kind you can learn, but it's possible you'll be able to miracle one open when you've got enough power to do that, and gates can be found and traversed without that, it's just a little more complicated. If you want to go on a trip to Fairyland I can arrange that but it might take a while."
swordofeden
"The fact that humans have religion is common knowledge among fairies. Not all of them know the details, and not all of the ones who know the details believe that God is real. A handful of them have experienced proof that God is real, but not very many."
giftedandtalented
"Maybe it would be simpler to start a fairy religion than a human religion, if they don't already have a lot of religions that are wrong in all kinds of ways."