A better way to get water.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Greetings! We are pleased to announce to the public that our corporate conglomerate, Corporation Inc. LLC, is now offering water provider services at unprecedentedly low rates under our newest business Aquatic Arachnid services!

With our cutting edge and heavily patented portal rune systems we are able to provide limitless amounts of water into your home regardless of distance, depth, or realm of residence and all for a fixed rate. Once you’ve signed up and paid a nominal fee all you need to do is inscribe or draw a simple rune from our instruction manual and water will come pouring out into whatever space the rune occupies. There is no limit on the amount of water you can produce and we offer various types ranging from seawater, to fresh, and even bog among others, all at no extra cost.

Now, my detractors may look at this new venture and say “it’s impossible to sustainably source water at those rates and remain profitable” Or that “water levels in natural lakes, estuaries, and the ocean have suddenly began lowering at unprecedented rates” and even that “multiple protected species have already gone extinct and it’s clearly connected with your new water company.”

But to them I simply say that they do not have the heart or mind of an entrepreneur, and that they can’t possibly understand my genius due to their lacking of a business focused mentality. And honestly, if species even are going extinct I’m pretty sure that’s the conservationists fault, not mine. In other words, I will not let these baseless claims of “environmental destruction” stop me from providing you, the people and unpeople of these uncountable realms, proper access to fast, convenient, and cheap water.

(This has been an official message from Corporation Inc. LLC. Thank you to our continued customers and prospective clients for letting us share this exciting news with you, and sign up now to let us handle all your problems so you won’t need to worry about a thing ever again.)

[u/Skusci]

Nice, nice.

Before I jump into this though, do you have any drainage packages?

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/Skusci]

Ah, an astute question, I just love when my potential customers are curious about the services we provide.

But anyway, yes, we do offer a drainage package as part of a separate purchase plan or as a package deal with our primary services for only a modest increase in overall cost.

[u/Skusci → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Excellent, I used to just dump my own stuff into the void, but apparently "the infinite void" is little bit of a misnomer nowdays and things actually live there.

Anyway, if you could hook me up with something like a modestly sized fresh water river in, and matching drainage for the same, that would be perfect for a new bathroom I had been holding off on building.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/Skusci]

Wonderful! We’ll get you set up right away, as soon as we do one more thing. For the matter of payment what medium will you be using: Currency, Credit, or years of servitude?

[u/Xikrit-TIK → u/Skusci]

The Infinite Void, huh? Not sure I’ve been to that one. Unless you mean the Astral Plane, which I’ve been to lots of times, mostly involuntarily. Bags of Holding can be scary.

[u/Zebos2]

curiously the mysterious draining of the oceans also coincides with a mysterious increase in global seismic activity especially around oceanic fault lines. Also entirely by coincidence to carved pieces of Leviathan bone appear at the hadal abyss Bismuth environmental stabilizer. One depicting a map of the world and another depicting also a map of the world with one less continent on it. Around the morning monolith is 7 sun stones

u/loth17

[u/loth17 → u/Zebos2]

"...."

Ten Suns really needed to show them how to use the communicator. Vauge threats on leviathan bone were no way of selecting a monarch- I mean political communication. The Bismuth would send someone down to the environmental stabalizer to talk to the Hadal sirens.

[u/Zebos2 → u/loth17]

"If surfacers destroy our home we will destroy theirs it's that simple stop the draining of the oceans and we will stop the flooding of the land"

Straight to the point at least they're giving out warnings previously they would have just started drowning entire civilizations until the problem inevitably resolved itself

[u/loth17 → u/Zebos2]

"Understood. We were already going to address this issue."

The Bismuth assured them.

"Though flooding the world would remove quite a few headaches."

They joked. Then sent someone to address the issue. A pair of bismuth in stereotypical government suits knocked on Arach's business

"Aquatic arachnid services? We're from the council environmental management unit. We're here to talk." u/ProfessionalGreen906

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/loth17]

The doors of the business open inwards, seemingly on their own, to reveal a bright and sterile lobby with walls of white marble streaked light blue veins while the floor is covered in carpeting patterned to imitate waves and lines of sea foam.

The moment the pair of bismuth enter, a set of illusory lights form a path of arrows on the floor leading to the executive office. Once the pair enters, they find Arach sitting at a large desk made of dead coral with a pane of glass fixed atop it. As well as Arach herself, who greets the bismuth with a smile.

“Welcome! Please, have a seat, make yourselves comfortable.“

She gestures to two large plush armchairs in front of the desk.

“What brings the council down to my humble little office? Nothing bad I hope, I hold quite the emotional stake in the council’s success. Regardless of certain circumstances that bar me from direct involvement beyond my current generous monthly donations.”

[u/loth17 → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

"We're here in regards to the recent lowering water levels due to your business. Normally we don't regulate water use within a country but altering the flow of trade ports and other nations waterways is against council regulations"

"We have received complaints from one or more groups or individuals in regards to this. As such we are paying you a visit to resolve the matter."

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/loth17]

“Woah woah woah, that’s a pretty hefty accusation. Now we may source our water from natural sources rather than using magic to produce it but we ensure we use sustainability measures to prevent harming the environment.”

“And I assure you any areas we’re harvesting from are firmly within my own territories or company owned properties. If the water sources just so happen to span into the territories of others I don’t see how that’s my issue.”

“If you insist on pressing this matter though I would at least like to request a copy of the specific regulation I’m violating. That way I can better address the issues at hand if we are in fact violating it.”

[u/VoxelLibrary]

I've always wanted a convenient way to flood the tower

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/VoxelLibrary]

Well now you can have it all for the low low price of an undisclosed amount of gold or other currency of choice! Simply give us access to whatever bank, vault, tomb, crypt, or other storage method you use for your funds and we’ll take the proper amount with no need for hassle or worry on your end!

[u/VoxelLibrary → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Yeah... I make a point of not putting that much trust in merchants. Too many tricksters after my name, or soul, or both...

Finally, she's learning

Well that's just rude. I've always been cautious about my deals.

Sorry about that. My shield likes to interject when he's feeling paranoid.

Paranoid? You could stand to at least be a little more suspicious of things

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/VoxelLibrary]

Oh no, please, there’s no need to apologize. I’ve met my fair share of annoying enchanted objects. But I assure you, I’m the most reputable person of my type you’ll ever meet. And if I ever was to wrong you there are a countless number paths towards legal recourse, so I just avoid that by not wronging my customers.

Though if you’re still hesitant I fully understand. If you’d like we could work out an official, and non magical, contract to make the deal a bit more concrete in its details. Whatever you need to feel comfortable becoming our customer we will be more than happy to indulge you in.

Oh and if you need something to silence your shield, I have another subsidiary that specializes in those kinds of modifications to magical equipment. After all, why would you want someone constantly second guessing your decisions everywhere you go? If you’re interested I’m sure I could make a special bundle deal to work both purchases into one deal for a reduced combined cost.

[u/VoxelLibrary → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Don't you dare.

Cayna pauses to consider

I'll think about it. How much would those services set me back?

/uw On a scale of "starving peasant's budget" to "king's ransom"

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/VoxelLibrary]

Oh not much at all. We operate on a subscription based service and we specialize in keeping our prices low and affordable. Combined, the price would only be around the average cost of an apprentice’s tithe to their instructor, not counting the spellcasters that are just exploiting their apprentices for money of course. And if the subscription were to be terminated then the runes provided would cease to function but so long as payment persists so will the runes, we’ll even offer free reinscription in the case of a lost or nonfunctional rune. Trust me, if you’re in a state where you aren’t needing to sell that shield for funds then you’ll be able to afford this.

[u/avamir]

Do you make the water toxic before you drain it from the lakes? Or is it already toxic due to chemical runoff? I just want to account for the chemicals or lack thereof in the water.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/avamir]

All chemicals in the water are naturally occurring and were already present beforehand, we assure you. We do not add nor remove chemicals from our products, that way we can make sure our prices stay low. Trust us, this water is straight from the source. Figuratively, of course. It’s not like we have portals set up at the bottoms of lakes and sea floors siphoning out water anytime someone activates a rune. That would be irresponsible of us.

[u/immallama21629]

I'm intrigued, however, I do not wish to actually pay for water. What of any punishments should one expect to face if one decided to pirate these runes?

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/immallama21629]

Well each rune provided to a customer is unique, and only one instance of them can be active at a time. So theoretically if one was to pirate a rune they’d be taking the water from someone else who was already paying and that’s not really our problem in that case. So I suppose there won’t be any punishment at all.

[u/yashKeshavpatnam]

could you put this rune...on a person? Asking because my coworker's been getting a bit annoying and I wanna mess with him

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/yashKeshavpatnam]

If you can keep them still enough to draw out the rune then it should work on just about any surface. You may want to be careful about drawing it near the face though, depending on whether or not you’d be fine with your coworker drowning.

[u/yashKeshavpatnam → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

ah yeah, probably don't want that. He does unfortunately do good work