Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Though the residents didn’t know it, the supports beneath the building that kept it upright were actually scrived with commands that convinced the wooden pieces they were dark stone, immune to the rotting effects of moisture and waste.

Of cpurse

saw the man in the rookery window

Didnt that just collapse

how long’s an hour?> <IT IS RECORDED AS SIXTY MINUTES.> <Oh, that’s wrong. They changed all that. Listen…> A huge exchange

Lol

<I guess this is the life we’d lead if a whole army wasn’t looking to cut you to ribbons, huh?> asked Clef

Oh he loves stealing so much fun

scrumming buildings started falling down! The whole neighborhood’s gone mad!” “Oh,” said Sancia. She coughed. “Ah. Very strange,

Well she aint gonna waste any time feeling guilty this is kinnda xrelayed to her

I need any fight to be as unfair as it can get.”

Lolbsays the quet part out loud

“at all of five foot no inches, and a hundred and nothing pounds,

we must know shes tinjy

Every instinct of his told him to run to the site and help, but he realized that his previous actions tonight made that unwise.

He suddenly thought this Sark a very clever man.

You figured it out in like 30 seconds

Gregor got the impression that Sark had made a connection with someone good enough that they didn’t need much of his help.

And still others burned incredibly hot when whirled through the air, giving them the possibility of setting one’s opponent alight.

Or yknow third degree burns

Gregor sighed. He did not like killing.

Im sensing hes the type to kill a ton even while not liking it

No! he thought. No, no! There are civilians, there are civilians!

The military had to lug around miniature lexicons specifically built to power such scrivings, and once the projectiles reached the limit of that lexicon’s range, the scrivings failed

To much code to write on the device itself

Stay here, he pleaded with his mind. Stay with me…

very short girl

Remember shes tiny

he could hear what she said: “Come on, asshole! Run! Run!”

She is helping why?

small but surprisingly strong

“Why did you save me?”

this is what an editor said

“You burned down the waterfront!” he said. “That was an accident,” she said.

Lol no it wasnt she was reckless

“I do not lie,” he said quietly. She squinted at him, surprised by his tone. “Nor do I kill anymore,” said Gregor, “unless I have to. I

I guess he had to kill all those people he iled then

As he moved from Commons to campo, the change was abrupt, and severe: from muddy pathways to clean cobblestone; from the odor of smoke and dung and rot to the faint aroma of spiced meat being grilled nearby; and then, of course, there were the people in the streets, whose clothing changed to being clean and colorful, whose skin became clear and unblemished, who suddenly walked without any ailment or deformity or drunkenness or exhaustion.

But Gregor ignored all offers.

Lol y

It could be worse,

Lol a cathedral is bad somehow?

for God’s sakes…”

Lool one god multiple sakes

he’d been so distracted with his case, he’d forgotten to prepare himself for this.

Its ok the this didnt exist until just now

carriage crash.

Lolllll not car

a young man of about twelve

That is a child

followed the boy

See?

that had been, what, twenty-three years ago? Twenty-four?

I dunno you tell me

A foundry lexicon was an intricate, bafflingly complicated, and stupendously expensive device that essentially made all scrived devices work on the campo.

I was making inquiries at the time—and was quite successful, if I might say so.

Lol you bumbled into her

them

Y not she. He knows its a woman

“You want a big, showy, public trial—to clear your name.” “To make it clear that the Waterwatch project is sustainable,” said Gregor.

“Odd that your solution is to start chucking so many common men in jail.” Gregor’s natural response would have been—It is not just common men that I wish to jail. But he wasn’t so stupid as to come out and say that.

I mean maybe arson is a crime that merit jail time i dunno

When they found the ruins in Vialto, Orso lobbied me heavily to try to secure some of the items before they were snatched up by our competitors. I consented—reluctantly—and Orso did his utmost to acquire one curious relic. It was an old, cracked stone box, but it had some similarities to a lexicon. Orso spent a fortune getting it—but then, while in transit between Vialto and here, it…vanished.”

Like most people, Gregor did not understand the mechanics of scriving. He could not tell one sigillum from another.

Saves the writer time

There were millions, if not billions, of them.

Y the point of code is building complex commands off simple commands

you knew these symbols—though few did—then there was nothing stopping you from using them.

Ok so why DON'T people learn them

fifty or sixty sigils long.

Thats not long

you could take a blank slate of iron, write out that extensive, complicated scriving command; but then, you could follow it with the sigil for “meaning,” and next write a completely new sigil, one you yourself just made up.

Yep that is how coding works. You write somke code for a function and gived it a name

you had to stay close to whichever slate of iron had the commands written on it.

Lexicons were huge, complicated, durable machines built to store and maintain thousands and thousands of incredibly complex scriving definitions,

They are servers

“Right now, it is not ‘off,’ as you put it—the more accurate term is reduced.

Lol caught by the exposition machine

the definition was inactive, and thus did not work; if it was in the down position, then it did.

Binary

when people were close to a true hierophant—like Crasedes the Great himself—they suffered from powerful migraines.

that damned thief—who has humiliated me not once,

Thinks she stole the other artifact

her memories returned to her, like bones bubbling up from the depths of a tar pit.

Flashback scene!

the bite and slash of the sugarcane leaves.

Lol not how i exoected the sentence to end

“You have damaged lives and careers through your actions,” said the captain. “Not just mine, but those of my officers. You harm those around you without reflection or compunction.