Whence comes the air?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

They sail on fluidized matter

The air acting as the fluidizer (engineers have a broken relation with the concepts of liquids and gases sometimes) comes from vents in the ocean floor:

Quote

The ship pushed back, slipping off the dead, grey spores nearest the rock into the true spore ocean. This began to shake and vibrate as the vents deep below on the ocean floor began send up bursts of air.

With this agitation, the spores became as liquid. Wind caught the ship’s sails and it struck out toward the horizon, leaving a wake of disturbed emerald dust behind it.

But where comes the air from? At the first reading I simply thought about pumps, pipes and compressed air in the harbor. While that would work locally, working locally is insufficient. It needs to work the whole trip. Is this some arcane art at work? Do the spores themselves or the things they sprout into cooperate to cause this effect, that is is that a pseudobiological effect to capture/infect new hosts? Any other ideas?

Edited March 5, 2022 by Oltux72
adding a biological explanation

[Frustration]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

They sail on fluidized matter

The air acting as the fluidizer (engineers have a broken relation with the concepts of liquids and gases sometimes) comes from vents in the ocean floor:

But where comes the air from? At the first reading I simply thought about pumps, pipes and compressed air in the harbor. While that would work locally, working locally is insufficient. It needs to work the whole trip. Is this some arcane art at work? Do the spores themselves or the things they sprout into cooperate to cause this effect, that is is that a pseudobiological effect to capture/infect new hosts? Any other ideas?

I was thinking ti was some kind of black smoker.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I was thinking ti was some kind of black smoker.

It happened exaxtly as they wanted to depart and kept happening when and where they wanted. The spores were not liquid before they wanted them to be. Now it is possible that this happens periodically in a large area, but even then, how do they predict it and what causes these vents to be so universal?

 

[Ixthos Luke/Luke]

I suspect the oceans have this as a natural phenomenon, that at certain times along certain paths the ocean flood releases a flood of compressed vapour and this turns the ocean fluid, as they seemed to be in a hurry, possibly to sail in time, though that also could just be the Duke being impatient to leave - it may also be that ships can somehow induce this effect. Not a lot of details were given on what exactly happens. The quote implies that the vents are naturally occurring, as fissures in the ocean floor on our world can be called vents as well - they may be a natural phenomena, or perhaps can be induced by the ships, or both - something natural that can be triggered or one must time travel around.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

19 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

I suspect the oceans have this as a natural phenomenon, that at certain times along certain paths the ocean flood releases a flood of compressed vapour and this turns the ocean fluid,

So we are talking about an island that happens to be made of a type of rock that yields protection against the spores and happens to have a deep aquifer of potable water and happens to have a harbor withinh reach of volcanic vents? Technically it is possible. But only technically.

[Ixthos Luke/Luke]

5 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

So we are talking about an island that happens to be made of a type of rock that yields protection against the spores and happens to have a deep aquifer of potable water and happens to have a harbor withinh reach of volcanic vents? Technically it is possible. But only technically.

This is also a world with twelve moons that are in perfect geosynchronous - technically geostationary - orbit, are so large and so close that they dominate the sky such that nowhere on the equator at least doesn't have at least one visible, and drop columns of spores with magical effects. Having vents, volcanic or otherwise, nearby to one of the locations very strongly associated with one of those moons so as to form harbour is the least unlikely element. I'm also not suggesting that this place just happens to have these properties, but that this is something common throughout the planet, that every major port is connected to the others by a chain of vents under the ocean floor, and that ships sail along specific routes at specific times to reach their harbours.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

So we are talking about an island that happens to be made of a type of rock that yields protection against the spores and happens to have a deep aquifer of potable water and happens to have a harbor withinh reach of volcanic vents? Technically it is possible. But only technically.

This can be exactly why this Island has settlement on it. Because there is no reason (beside salt mines) to settle there. But Island is  comunication and transportation center (we know ships sail throu harbour all the time). Sure there are other saltmines on the planet, but clearly this island is very important - so important that must be constantly inhabitable.

But I have another idea how this can work. Basicly there is salt water below Spore Oceans. Spores meet salt, die, and decay over time. They crumble to dust, then to vapor, basicly Investiture. This vapor is going up, to the respective moon (for whatever reason, maybe Aether Investiture wants to remain in Aether so when in pure form is pulled to the main body). So we would have Investiture flow on the planet, like on Roshar, but vertical, not horizontal.