[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

[alphonse]

[Come on, what's more scientific than clapping your hands to make statues?

It's not the first time Al's heard that comparison. Fortunately, it's more a point of interest than something to get to defensive about so he simply shakes his head.]

Not at all. Up until a few weeks ago there's no way I would have believed magic could even exist.

[So now he needs to know everything about it.]

Come to think of it, I spoke to someone else who described his world's alchemy as something more like yours. He said magic ability only ran in certain families. Is it like that for you too?

[rootbound]

[something flickers momentarily in his face, darkening his expression; Al hit a point of fear. if someone else from his and Geir's world is here -- well, if it's a human they're unlikely to know each other, but it could still get them in some trouble.]

...yeah, it passes down by blood. It's not a guarantee a magic user will have kids with the ability, but Mother's must have been pretty strong. My brother and I both had it. Who told you that...?

[that comes out only a little unsteady. it's getting slightly easier to talk about family. still, he also tries to swing the subject around]

And, Geir said you could actually teach people alchemy...? That it's not a blood thing?

[alphonse]

[Al shrugs like he doesn't remember the specifics. Waver didn't swear him to secrecy or anything, but it's better to err on the side of discretion.]

Just someone I ran into when I first got here. It's sounding more like that might be a common thing.

[It would explain the trend of alchemy languishing in the background, anyway. He nods to the last question, resisting the urge to laugh. He's pretty sure he told Geir the opposite of that when it comes to him teaching, but somehow he's not surprised the point stuck.]

Really skilled alchemists are rare because it's such a hard thing to master, but anyone has the potential to learn. It's about effort, not bloodlines.

[rootbound]

All right.

[that's fair; if he's right, and they're from his world or a similar one, they'd be cautios too. he understands.]

. . . did he, um, was he interested in learning from you, maybe? He said I should ask you, but . . . it'd be nice for him to know more about the principles of making things and transforming them, too, instead of just destroying them.

[alphonse]

He brought up the idea of teaching the Palai, but I told him there wouldn't be enough time. I didn't realize he was interested too.

[But something in what Vern said strikes a chord with him, and he's suddenly hesitant to dismiss the idea outright.]

He told you I'm not really a qualified teacher, right? It wouldn't be the best way to learn.

[rootbound]

He didn't mention it. Though...what does qualified even mean in this context? You're technically, well, the only possible teacher here for it, and we don't really have reference manuals unless I really missed something while browsing the marketplace.

[he bites his lip; maybe that was too harsh?]

...That's not meant to discount you, just pointing out a fact.

[alphonse]

[On the contrary, Al takes it as a fair assessment.]

That's the problem. You'd be learning from just one alchemist's perspective, without any real way to study independently. It's not impossible, but it's not usually how things are done.

[Not that there's anything 'usual' about being here at all.]

And I know the armor makes me look older, but I am still a kid. I have a lot left to learn about alchemy myself.

[And about the forces at play in other worlds, which is why he isn't outright saying no. He can't get the information he wants without a little willingness to compromise on his end too.]

Knowing all that, you'd still want to try?

[rootbound]

It's worth a shot, at least?

[he 'hmmms' that over, briefly, thinking; the passing-down of power and knowledge where he's from isn't particularly formalized, differing from family to family. no one likes magic users enough to give them centralized schools and things of the sort -- and the infrastructure of the countries, always at war, would only questionably support that sort of thing, anyway.]

If you know, like...basics? Safety procedures? That would be a grounding that wouldn't require a particular perspective, right?

[and after a moment of mental backtracking]

--wait, how old are you, anyway, do they just grow them really big where you're from? You're like three times my size.

[this is not quite true, Vern's a tallish dude, but he is way less bulky than Al's suit of armor is.]

[alphonse]

[A laugh, brief and awkward.]

Oh, I'm fourteen.

[Aaaaand moving right along. He sets his hands on his lap, leaning forward thoughtfully.]

I'll make you a deal: you guys tell me more about the magic in your world, and I'll help you with basic alchemic theory.

[That much is probably fine, right? It's not really teaching. And it's not like he actually expects to learn magic in turn; all he's really after is the chance that something in the methodology could be useful to him.]

[rootbound]

...you're not all that young...

[fourteen registers to him as 'young man,' not 'child'...weird.]

We can tell you what we know, sure. Geir knows something of god-magic, though he doesn't know how to use it...I know something of human magic, though my education's incomplete too. That sounds like a fair deal.

[puts his hand out to shake on it]

[alphonse]

[God-magic? He has no idea what that means in a functional sense, but it certainly sounds promising.]

Okay. Then we can--

[He reaches out to return the handshake, but barely makes contact before the chair decides it's time to be whisked away.]

We'll talk later!