spellbinders | [WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[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

[On the bright side, Lenka at least manages to get a vague reassurance from the Palai that nothing magical has been done to their dishes this time around -- while Waver is communing with the breadsticks, he hesitantly starts in on the shrimp. It won't do to waste food, either way.]

... I guess the food is okay. [in terms of taste, too; he nods at the shrimp, it's got his vote] They put a lot of stock into this sort of thing. I don't know how long we'll be trapped, though.

[Waver gets a questioning look; maybe he has some way out of this mess? Preferably before Lenka puts his foot in his mouth again or they get passed around the entire coven.]

[Waver still doesn't trust that. The breadsticks and shrimp can be for anyone else. Literally anyone else, he's good for now and for a very long time.]

At this rate, probably until we've talked to everyone and they're out of potential rotations. So...multiple hours, probably.

[That is the worst answer ever to give, but at least it is a very, very honest one.]

[Lenka will continue nibbling, on his end; now that he's dug in, it turns out that mortification works up an appetite. And certainly, if they're going to be stuck here for as long as Waver projects they'll be stuck, they're going to need sustenance to keep their guards up. There's nothing saying speed dating is all the Palai have in store for them.

He really doesn't want to think about those possibilities again.

Anyway, Lenka appreciates honesty, he does, but...]

... All of this is magic, right? Shouldn't there be someone with the power to... undo it?

If someone doesn't know the counterspell? No, they can't. And that's assuming that their magic works the same as other types. Until that happens, and it probably won't because there's no time to puzzle the system out, we're all very stuck.

[Waver shakes his head, having concluded his grim forecast.]

They're too enthusiastic.

[Huh. He seems like he knows a lot about magic, so if he's this grim and panicked at once, then they're probably totally doomed. All the same, Lenka puts down the shrimp and then puts his elbows on the table, turning his full focus back to the conversation.]

How would you know the counterspell? Do you have to be a Palai? [the barrier, after all, looks of Eltos make; it's all crackly] And if you can't counter it, what about... canceling it?

[His questions are partly actual attempts at formulating a strategy, and partly just curiosity. He's been magically flying by the seat of his pants so far, but that probably won't hold forever. He should learn what he can, too.]

I....I don't know, okay!? I haven't spent years studying Eltos magic, I'm just making some reasonable conclusions based on what I've seen! It isn't like [He snaps his fingers] there, I can fix the problem!

[He can barely do magecraft, but that is neither here nor there.]

It's okay. I know less about magic than you.

[He can say that with absolute confidence, because magic literally doesn't even exist where he comes from -- so anyone who knows anything about it is already leagues ahead of him. Lenka has no problems admitting that. That said, apparently Waver is really worked up about this?]

But... we all have magic from Qri, right? That we didn't study years for.

[It's confusing, since none of the people who seem familiar with magic seem all that comfortable with the coven's powers either. But if they're going to get through magical traps like this (though maybe trap is going a bit far?), it'll probably be with whatever Qri gave them.]

But that's the exception, not a rule! Magic's usually got some level of study behind it.

[Waver scrubs at his face, exhausted and frustrated in all of this.]

Ugh. Maybe we'll get lucky and we're near the end of this.

I mean, we didn't study it, but we can still... [he pauses for thought] There's different ways to use it. Maybe there's something we haven't thought of.

[Lenka doesn't comment directly on Waver's sorry state, but he does keep his voice quiet and even, talking through their options to see if that can help a little for as long as they're both stuck at this table. That, and his mind isn't directly on their current dilemma anymore, not all the way.

It's a pain to be stuck here, true, but it gives him time to study the Palai -- more specifically the Eltos, right? -- and their barrier. Jay had mentioned creating a barrier over the entire city. What kind of setup would even be needed for that?]

Maybe we can end this.

[He means their mission in general; the rest here is still up in the air.]

Like...?

[Waver isn't optimistic. Nor is he thinking in the long term either. Whatever the mission Qri sent them here to do - and as far as Waver can tell, there isn't any because no one has said a damn thing about what the end goal ought to be - isn't as immediately important as this terrible situation.]

What're you thinking about?

[Because that cadence of voice suggests, well, something, at least.]

This shield.

[Lenka waves a hand towards the big crackly thing penning them in above their heads, as though Waver could possibly have missed it; he throws it another thoughtful look before grabbing a breadstick and getting to work flagging down another Palai.

Hopefully this one will stop being overenthusiastic about dates and food long enough to answer their questions?!

Meanwhile:]

The coven was talking about making a bigger one, for the city. If we know how this works, that should help.

[So he's going to ask them about the shield they're using on them, apparently.]

...That....does track, yes.

[Waver lets out a thoughtful hm, unsure of if the Palai will actually provide any information at all.]

You've got the thoughts, you should do the questioning.

Oh. Yes.

[He might not sound especially certain at this point, especially with multiple Palai suddenly converging on his breadstick signal (it's super effective?!), but Lenka has at least had previous experience trying to get information out of the Palai. Or rather, watching someone else try to get information out of them.

... The Palai are under the impression they need more breadsticks. He gives up on convincing them otherwise in advance, using the time they're piling more breadsticks onto their table to try and lay out the situation: they need to know more about the barrier.

Unfortunately, neither of the Palai present are one of the Eltos, but after some more confused breadstick negotiation -- at some point, a breadstick replica of the barrier and its Eltos creators starts appearing on the table -- they seemingly agree to send one over for some nebulous purpose.]

... and they want an exchange. I guess, for us to cooperate with the game?

[This time, the glance Lenka throws across the table is actually uncertain. Maybe they can get away with just one Q&A?]

[Who knew? Waver files the breadstick information away for later, and he proceeds to just listen to the entire explanation. And as they gain more breadsticks, Waver starts building a house the way one might with Lincoln logs, if for a want of something to do with his hands after the barrier is done.]

...I guess that's okay. I mean, it can't actually be worse or more embarrassing than what we've got right now.

... Okay.

[Except it might be worse, because now there's them, the two Palai, some nearby Palai who have been drawn by the commotion and anyone else who's been signaled in the search for an Eltos -- all spectating their table like there's some kind of quiz show going on. Not that he's really watched quiz shows, but it's the feeling of suddenly becoming a performing monkey.

Well, it's maybe not so sudden.

Lenka dithers for a bit under all the scrutiny, and then just gives up and goes with the first question that comes to mind:]

What's your power. From the coven.

[Surely the Palai will be pleased with that, even if he sounds a bit robotic about it.]

Smoke creation and manipulation, yours?

[Waver can do straight forward. It's still indulging the question, but there's no say, demonstration. This is quickfire, rather than lazy and indulgent.]

If we have to do them all quickly, then just keep up a good pace.

[Rapidfire interrogation or something? He can do that, though he hopes they won't have to go on for too long. Lenka nods and searches for the easiest possible answer.]

Summoning fridges.

Name?

Wait seriously? Summoning refrigerators?

[What the actual hell?]

Waver Velvet.

Lenka Utsugi.

And yes. Refrigerators. Real ones.

[At least this is a question he's used to answering!]

Do they run on their own or do they have to be plugged in? [#priorities]

I think they need to be plugged in. But they're magic, so...

[He's never really tried it, because they've mostly been temporary solutions to things; he can usually summon more, so they've been used less like actual appliances and more like... tissues... Magic is weird.]

Well, I ask because food preservation on the hub isn't gonna be easy, so if we have magical refrigerators, that's a pretty big advantage, you know?

Yeah, that's true.

[The problem is that, as with all things, his summoning power is limited and the lifespan of his refrigerators is also limited by the need to have them on hand in places other than the hub. He's still not entirely sure how long the fridges would stick around without him in range (whatever that is), or without his banishing them entirely.

It's been a little hard to do long-term experimentation in the same place.

But if they're just talking the hub itself, while they're there, Waver has a point too.]

If we had a reliable source of power, they could be used on the island. There's plenty of food.

I guess we'd need to set up an experiment to see how long they keep cool without a power source. It'd be food waste, probably, but if we could just use some nearby plants or whatever, it'd probably work.

[Waver hums, still thoughtful about this.]

It'd be better than sitting about running wild boars off the grounds at least.

Or something else that needs to be kept cold. Ice?

[But no, what they need, practically speaking, is to figure out how something organic would fare; but the thought of ice sets off another idle tangent in their strange series of tangents here -- they don't necessarily need power for the refrigerators. They have magic, don't they?

He's trying to remember if there's any ice magic in the coven when there's a brief commotion near them where some Palai have been watching: someone's finally managed to peel an Elto off the barrier to come answer their questions.]

Oh. I guess that was enough?

[It wasn't as painful as he would have expected, probably because they were vastly off topic in terms of the point of the exercise. But: the results are what count. Lenka's going to do his best to cajole the Elto into giving them more details on the creation of the barrier, but they seem to only have basic information about how they use the barrier and its general... sparkiness. Hmm.]

[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)