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"Huh? Oh." You hand over the cylinder, and Gil unscrews it.
He shows you the inside. "This one has mirrors i-in it."
"Mirrors?" Long ago, you talked to Eloise about mirrors. "I thought they didn't have any special properties?"
"Not inherently. They won't generate something like this spontaneously. But they do lend themselves to certain uses, no?" Horse Face slides a pen out of his pocket and passes it to Gil. "Why don't you show her?"
Gil shows you the pen (pen-sized), then the canister (maybe an inch long), then lowers the pen into the canister. It never hits the bottom. Gil gets the whole pen in, then drops the whole pen in, and when he withdraws his hand it's gone. Vanished.
You process. "A pocket dimension?"
"Well, i-i-it's not— that's kind of an outdated—"
"Actually," Horse Face says, "this is one, yes. It is localized inside reality, not along the edges, so it isn't AUX space— even if most things got reclassified. The trade-off is, this is far less useful. The actual space inside this canister is equivalent to..." He makes a circle with his arms. "...a large backpack, perhaps? And the opening is so small! It'd be best suited for a collection of marbles, or some such."
"Or beetles," Gil volunteers.
"Yes! Provided they don't need to eat or breathe— I daresay any collection of real beetles would soon become a collection of dead beetles. You, however, would be fine. Convenient, that."
Gil shakes the pen out of the canister and offers it to you. "I-I was thinking about, um... you know. Transport? I-in case you needed to take me anywhere... it'd beat the bottom of a backpack."
"It would?" You twirl the pen, which seems no worse for wear. "Wouldn't it be scary in there?"
"Uh... I-I mean... i-i-it's sort of scary in a backpack too. And i-i-it'd be dark, and quiet... I could sleep? So I didn't have to think about..."
"I mean, if you say so. What's the difference between a manse and a pocket dimension and an awks-space?"
Horse Face chuckles. "That's a heated topic, you realize? The lines are not well-drawn. Location is the largest factor: manses are adjacent to a mind; pocket dimensions are outside a person, but inside reality; auxiliary spaces are adjacent to reality. Manses are directly shaped and influenced by their possessor; pocket dimensions are unchanging and featureless; AUX spaces are somewhere in the middle. Manses and pocket dimensions are destroyed if their anchor-point is, while AUX spaces are persistent and accessible from anywhere, provided you have access to the means of accessing them. Are you following?"
Hmm. "But I've been to manses that aren't in people's heads? They're just out there."
(2/3)
