it isn't often one sees a person reach a limb directly into a furnace to handle a piece of glowing-hot steel as casually as fetching a dish from a cupboard
this is how i met leandre
they pulled their left arm from the furnace – an expertly carved and articulated arm of sturdy granite etched with the glowing script of a powerful heat resistance spell
words are barely adequate to tell of what i felt right then
sheer awe at a perfect merging of body and tool and art
then they walked to a display with several more arms of all sorts dangling from a rod and grabbed it securely and ... let that granite arm detach from their shoulder
they swapped for a glittery liquid-filled glass arm just by pressing their crystal shoulder port up to it and then they let go and it was simply a part of them moving just as naturally as the first
as naturally as my legs
i'd pondered adding the ability to swap out my legs
now i need it
no longer optional
my original plan had been to stay with one design until fully harmonized which seemed reasonable then but it's absurd now
why stop at a single interpretation of self?
why not be a full gallery of self?
why not continually adapt my body to express who i am or need to be?
...
at the very least i could keep a backup set of legs in case something terrible happens to these because there sure is precedent for that
anyhow once leandre's workday is done we'll compare notes
in the meantime we were there with leali to help leandre and crew start outfitting both "hardbacks"
a hardback is a huge heavily reinforced self-powered carriage originally developed during the war to transport cyran soldiers
these will be adapted to carry us comfortably and safely through the mournland
some of that is already done but we'll spend the next 2 weeks modifying them to suit our relatively unusual needs
we'll probably decorate the outsides because why not?
the best part is that we'll have full schematics for everything so bell and i can repair damage along the way which i hope we won't have to do too much
we're also welcome to make our own modifications so long as we bring back full documentation for anything we change and accept that it's our responsibility if we break something in the process which is entirely reasonable
i'll leave that to bell because i'll probably be too busy reworking the design for my shoulder ports
now that they have our measurements and such the flock of 7 crew have set to adjusting their plans and that includes asking advice from medya and i – the "fours-on-the-floors" as they put it!
they also have to account for the possibility of magical interference form zer's "subtle arts" so there's some reworking of that aspect but they're confident that they can do it
while they work we have 2 weeks to enjoy the city ... and try not to get lost in it