spellbinders | [WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

Who: Participating coven members
Where: The Palai marketplace
When: Day 49
Open/Closed: OTA

[ Any and all who are in the marketplace will find that there is suddenly a mysterious barrier around the marketplace (that may be eerily familiar to some) -- specifically one large portion of the marketplace with a large number of tables and chairs, perhaps purposefully set out for nefarious reasons.

A few Palai are ushering coven members to chairs, and everything seems about normal. As normal as the Palai can be when they're putting on a show anyway. It's not until a sizable portion of the coven members are seated (and also supplied with breadsticks and small shrimp), that things get a bit more bizarre.

Thanks to the power of the Eltos, a small band of energy keeps coven members stuck to the chair (magic can interfere, of course), but that's not the end of it. On each table, next to those delicious smelling breadsticks and shrimp, is a bowl of scraps of papers. Every five minutes, a strip of paper will pop out from the bowl.

If you ask the Palai, they'll be inclined to explain speed dating to you. Asking questions, getting to know a person, then being shimmied off to the next potential mate -- this is made possible by Elto magic yet again, through flying chairs that transport their holder to a new table at standard intervals.

The Palai are extremely invested in this exercise? Will you let them down? ]

[ OOC: In the spirit of speed dating, each character will have a top level. All who want to respond to this top level can with questions from this post, but the threads have to end at 10 comments from each character. After this last tag, the characters can be assumed to have been whisked to a different potential match. You're free to have characters make up their own questions, interact with Palai serving food, etc. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[she is still bright red at his latest string of compliments, but when Madoka looks up at Jake again, there's a grateful smile on her face. he seems to understand — and she's relieved that he's offering her something else to focus on.]

Oh! Well ... Mitakihara is a ... pretty normal city in Japan, I guess? It's big, but not as big as places like Tokyo.

[now she's half wondering what it must be like for the magical girls in Tokyo. she pauses.]

Um ... I mentioned earlier that there's magic back home, but it's limited to just a few people. Most places have one or a group of magical girls who protect it.

Wow. Like Batman... [Except he guesses cute girls instead of a middle-aged man but still. Madoka is now cute Batman to him.] If it's a big city, you must not work alone, right? Seems like that would be rough otherwise...

[... cute Batman. she'd wear that title with pride; it's the coolest anybody has ever made her sound.]

You're right! There are five of us in total, plus Bebe. But, Mami-san had been working alone for a while before the rest of us arrived.

Fighting off nightmares incarnate all by your lonesome... [That sounds terrible.] I'm glad you all have each other now. Though, it's a fair fortune you all have magic if it's rare there. Otherwise all those poor folk would be defenseless...

[whoops, she looks a bit embarrassed again.]

Oh — it's not a big deal! We were just doing what we were contracted to do...

Um. Do you think you could tell me a bit more about your magic? From back home, I mean — if you don't mind.

[she's had a few people explain god tier to her, but she'd like to hear it from Jake, too.]

Oh, no, I don't mind at all. Though I'm probably a bad person to um... have explain it.

[He never really understood it. Or, rather, he guesses in some way he does but it's complicated.]

Uh, well! My... title? I guess you would call it, is Page of Hope. I don't really recall when I learned that. The um... confusing bit is that I guess even before we enter the game, we have some of these powers. I don't think that's common? To have powers, I mean. I know our family members did but they're a special case, so I can't be sure. Dirk might know. Anyhoo, with mine, what makes it hard for me to tease out why I know things is because that's... just what a Page does? Knows things. I can't really explain it except maybe something like laser-guided intuition. But, it's not really on a conscious level, so it's a tad bit useless unless I figure that one out.

[Which. Also goes for Hope, actually, so it's a good segue.] Hope, meanwhile, is quite powerful, though... I don't really understand what it does just yet. The one time I did use it, I was a bit, um... [Brainwashed? ...Yeah.] Brainwashed. Someone explained my full title to me as being something like... infinite potential over time, even if I'll be useless at first. When I was in a jam, I used my Hope powers to make a fragment of Dirk into the real deal to defend me.

Oh, and to get to that stage, you need to achieve God Tier. Which really sucks the horse's patoot because it involves dying.

[But he's died like four times now so it's Fine. (It's not Fine.)]

Uhhh, oh, I guess on top of all of that, we all get the ability to fly and a sort of immortality. Though, that last bit is frankly not that useful given how flippin' easy it is to hit the right conditions to kill us still...

[He tries to think if there's anything he left out.]

I guess the only other thing is that our titles relate to um, some aspect of our personalities or... something like that. I think that's it? Umm, sorry if it didn't make sense? I hope it did.

[it's okay, Jake, she has also died or been obliterated A Lot. misery loves company.]

[she's silent for a long while when he's done speaking, thinking. trying to understand. she gets the impression that she might not really fully understand unless she sees it in action (even then, there's a good chance it'll be beyond her).]

[but if there's one thing that Madoka understands, it's hope. that unrelenting, sometimes naive, sometimes foolish desire for the world to be just as wonderful as she thinks it is — how she desperately wants it to be. it's the driving force behind her existence. it's her everything.]

I'm ... not sure if I get it entirely. But, it sort of sounds to me like your power means you can do ... literally anything you put your mind to.

[Jake stretches out his fingers, looking at them in thought.]

That might be it. [It seems pretty logical and fits with what little he knows.] But... I don't really know how to tap into it, I guess. Before, um— before I was forced to use it, she said something like... my mind needed to heal for it to happen? Like, my soul or something like that.

[that ... seems to bother her, honestly, and Madoka reaches halfway across the table as if she wants to take his hand, but hesitates. she doesn't want to embarrass him, she just cares a lot.]

I don't ... really know much about healing souls. [her issues with her own soul aren't quite as abstract, she thinks.] But if talking would help, I'd be happy to listen.

[He notices the motion and after hesitating as well, he puts his hand forward. It's okay. Even though he's shy, he really does appreciate her concern.]

I don't understand it either. But thank you. Um, if there's anything I can help you with, I extend the invitation to you as well.

[Madoka happily takes his hand then — and if any Palai get any ideas or comment on this, she will ... actually get mad at them. this is way more important than speed dating.]

I'm sure that you'll be able to figure it out, Jake-san. There are a lot of people here who know one or two things about souls ... maybe they could give you some advice?

[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

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