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[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Bored, the demon walked over to the lake to see who was around...


((Crowley really, really wants to do some bastardly things to people. If you'd like him to do something nasty to your character, leave me an OOC note in your reply, otherwise he'll be good. Marginally. No promises, really...))

Comments

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Well, yeah, it's tough. But it's home, you know? It's not like we can go anywhere else. So we adapt." It wasn't terribly easy to keep a straight face, but Crowley had had lots of practice.

"And our world is too large for quickly going to the other side. I mean, I suppose we could fly, but there are five billion people on Earth and only a few hundred airplanes. That pretty much leaves two billion people to die if any one of the elephants stops."

The demon shrugged and continued lying out his teeth. "Dark clothes are stylish. Only the strongest can stand to wear them, so it's something like a badge of honour."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"Ah," Carrot replied. That made sense to him. "It isn't so different in Ankh-Morpork there. Black is the colour assasins wear, and most of them are pretty powerful. And I don't think I've ever seen the Patrician wear any other colour. But it doesn't have anything to do with heat. What's an airplane?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Inordinately and irrationally pleased to be grouped with the cool and powerful people of Carrot's world, Crowley smiled. "It's a metal vehicle; a tube, about two hundred feet long with giant wings and a tail. About two hundred people can fit inside. And it flies at around five hundred miles an hour at a height of 30,000 feet in the air."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"What an astounding invention!" exclaimed Carrot. It sounded a bit like a dragon, only it'd be a bad idea to ride one of those.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"You'd be surprised at what useful things have been invented in the last century, Captain. A plane, for instance, can make a transatlantic flight in a matter of five hours or so, as opposed to a week or two by ship, depending on the weather. But telephones, faxes, and computers can make communicating with someone that far away an instantaneous process."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot stared throughout this speech in incomprehension. After a few seconds (in which he could be seen mouthing some of the words to himself), he said "...like the Klacks?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"What the fuck's a Klacks?" asked the demon.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"They're towers that transfer information over them. They can go all the way from Ankh-Morpork to Uberwald. The work through a series of sounds that sound like klacking, so they're called the klacks. The Watch uses small versions of the Klacks to communicate with each other, too."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"You guys are still stuck with the telegraph?" he asked, bemused and condescending. "Hey, maybe in a few decades you'll make it up to the internal combustion engine!" added Crowley sarcastically.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"What's an internal combustion engine?" he asked.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going to explain everything in the world to you," said Crowley sharply. "It's the Prime Directive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive) or something. And don't ask what that means. If you don't know, there's a reason."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"...All right, then," said Carrot somewhat blankly. He didn't know what Prime Directive was, but he wasn't going to ask. "Well, I'd say I hope I'll get to see your world someday, but I'd really rather just go back to mine. We have a lot of interesting technology, too. Does your world have iconographs? Or Dis-organizers?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Iconograph," muttered Crowley. "Greek for image writing? Is that like painting or calligraphy or something? And no, we don't have disorganizers. Or rather, we have organizers that just make people more upset and stressed out when they forget to use them or don't use them properly." That had been rather a good idea, in hindsight. And the best part was they brought it entirely upon themselves.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Since there's no such thing as Greece on the Disc, most of Crowley's comment goes over Carrot's head. "Sort of? It's a little box with an imp inside. And you point it at things and it paints a picture of what you just pointed it at. Very interesting, and especially useful for detectives as I'm sure you can see! And Dis-organizers...seem to do the same thing, actually." At least from the way Vimes had used most of the ones he'd ever owned. "It's another box with an imp in it, but in this case the imp reminds you of your appointments and keeps track of things for you. And the latest version also runs messages to the Klacks! It's quite an astounding invention!"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley looked horrified. "You enslave imps?!" So far as he knew, imps were evil elementals that were actually quite good at menial tasks, but would be more trouble than they were worth for humans. Demons could barely contain an imp's chaotic nature. Humans had no chance. So either these humans were more powerful than he knew or their imps were less so. Crowley tended not to take chances like that, so he began to treat Carrot carefully.

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Well, when you put it that way, it did sound a bit cruel. "Uh, maybe? It might just be a job, they don't seem to mind except when you make them work too hard. Like golems. Except-- well, some golems did mind, I guess." He frowned. The ethics of imp slavery were not something that Carrot had ever really considered, especially since imps were so unpleasant. But...Vimes had been quite cruel to some of his Dis-organizers.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Right," said Crowley sarcastically. "A job. What's that pay, anyway? Good benefits, are there?" The demon snapped his heels together in a very Third Reich sort of way, not that Carrot would recognize the reference, and bowed stiffly. "Good day, Captain Imp Enslaver."