[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[spellbindmods]

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. ]

Comments

[oneandmikleonly]

I just wasn't sure. It looks like an arte glyph, a spell glyph, a little, but you're telling me there's no magic involved...

[he taps it. the contact definitely registers! this is delightful

wait, though.]

Didn't you get a new ability when you came here, like the rest of us...?

[of course, he knows not everyone's abilities are practical in the everyday, but surely any power can be put to use somehow?]

[deem]

[It looks like magic...? That's an interesting thought, having divergent capabilities that resemble one another. It certainly piques his curiosity, but 9S doubts it's something he can ask to be shown while they're stuck to chairs like this]

...If I got a new ability, I haven't figured out what it is yet. I've honestly been wondering whether someone like me could wield magic at all, considering I wasn't built with it in mind.

[As such, even squaring off against magic users was pretty dangerous. Not that this has stopped him, when does it ever, but the point stands.

At least he doesn't seem concerned with the lack of ability, tapping the screen between them to bring up another and dragging his finger across one module, then another, apparently intent on something]

I mean, being able to broadcast to everyone, even if they're not like me, is something I would've thought impossible already.

[oneandmikleonly]

Everyone else got something, I think...maybe check with Brie or Genette? They definitely seemed to have some knowledge of what we were given, back on the island; I didn't confirm mine until they told me and gave me a way to practice it.

[not that that went particularly well.]

A lot of us have new abilities that...aren't natural to us normally, I think. I certainly wouldn't turn into a dragon at home, except under extremely dire circumstances. Is it so much of a stretch to believe you'd get one, even if you're not naturally a mage...? She seems to have given them to us as failsafes.

[deem]

Magic's all but unheard of where I come from. Emil was the only one...and he'd been around since the days of human settlements.

[9S expects that Mikleo will understand his meaning, based on previous conversations. It's been millennia, and beings with such powerful magic were either few or nonexistent save for Emil and his many, many clones.

He can't be sure, having encountered no others]

It might be worth knowing, but I'm not too sure how I feel about someone else having modified me. If it didn't disable my motor functions, I'd remove this thing again.

[He taps the signet embedded into him with his free hand, still touching displays on his screen with the other until...

Until that temperature reading in one corner starts resolving itself into something much more resembling a human face. Mikleo's face, in point of fact, and 9S taps that small module to make it bigger. He smiles, pleased]

...Now that looks more like what Jay showed me.

[oneandmikleonly]

Well, better to know what you need to do something about either way than not, right?

[he does understand his meaning, but he hopes magic isn't something 9S doesn't reject for himself outright--

oh my god that is his face. his voice goes up into a squeak]

How--?!

[deem]

[9S supposes he can't argue the point. He should figure out if he has any added capabilities in case they might prove helpful in some ways, though he still doubts that he could be modified on such a level.

Maybe he should doubt less, when he can have conversations with organic life-forms through thought alone. Still, he can't imagine how he could have been changed.

It's a matter he sets aside, watching Mikleo's face on the screen. It matches right up with the sound of his voice]

Well, I was thinking... Water's outside the visible spectrum, right? But we can still see it, because of its reaction to light. [He doesn't even know how on the nose this is] So if you're outside the visible spectrum, it just means it's necessary to bend light the right way.

[Like it's the most intuitively sensible thing in the world, what a weirdo, 9S]

[oneandmikleonly]

Just like that?! You made that connection so fast...

[he gives up dignity briefly, in the face of sheer delight; 9S gets the dubious pleasure of seeing him wiggle his fingers at the screen and pull a couple of faces, before covering his face and laughing at himself]

What are you even using? We don't even show up in normal mirrors, and I've never heard of light-bending ones.

[deem]

I'm adaptable by design.

[Mikleo may live to regret making faces, because 9S is recording the whole thing for his own reference. It's just to ensure that he has relevant data on how light filters work with Mikleo's condition, but nevertheless, this moment will live on in his memory files.

He wonders how it must feel, being invisible like that. On the one hand, it'd be terribly convenient for reconnaissance, but to go unseen even when one wanted to be... 9S frowns as he considers that, but the expression passes quickly]

It was just a theory, but... I changed the way my recording system filters light, to see if I was right. [And then he smiles, because the results mean there's something he can do] I can duplicate results like this, with the right materials.

[oneandmikleonly]

[Mikleo's expression goes from goofy to shocked in the space of a moment; that is a legitemately world-changing revelation 9S just dropped on his head]

You can...so that anyone could see a seraph? By changing the light?

[MIND BLOWN]

[deem]

More like changing the way light responds to you, but yeah, something like that.

[He's relieved the concept is much more straightforward than adapting technology to work with the locals' magic. Something like this is easier for him to apprehend, and he's got a good idea of how it could be done...

Just a matter of implementation. So he believes]

Shouldn't have to be too heavy-duty. Maybe something you could wear?

[Technology so ridiculous it comes up with even more ridiculous technology: more likely than you might think]

[oneandmikleonly]

[he is not normally physically demonstrative but 9S YOU ARE GETTING A HUG

...

it's kind of awkward since they're both tied to their damn chairs, but, it's a hug]

[deem]

[And this is his very first hug. Very educational, catching people from across a table and holding them. Or well, it would be, if 9S quite recognized the gesture]

...Mikleo?

[His voice is muffled against a sleeve here, but the puzzlement is clear enough]

[oneandmikleonly]

Oh, um, sorry, sorry, I should have asked, but this is a lot, this means a lot, and --

[flusters, gently letting go of him; oh no the chairs are starting to prepare to move away]

Thank you? Thank you! Let's talk more later!

[deem]

[And so their game of musical chairs goes on. 9S opens his mouth to speak, but they're being swept off to other tables. So he thinks better of it]

I don't see a reason to be sorry, but... I'll let you know when I have something.

[It'll take him a while to figure out that was a hug]