[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

[bulletbiter]

[ Julius will also spend this time quietly squinting at whoever is in the opposite chair and definitely consuming that breadstick. ]

What's your name?

[oneandmikleonly]

[oh, well, that didn't get as much reaction as he expected, but it's all right. he considers making a bread pun of his own name (Mikloaf? Bunleo? he's sure Edna and Lailah could come up with about twenty more if they were here) but then rejects it. the last thing he needs is more nicknames, that's a step too far with this joke.]

It's Mikleo; I'm not actually a breadstick. What's yours?

[bulletbiter]

[ Really, he's just very stoic and deadpan. ]

My name is Julius. Is there a reason I can't really see you?

[oneandmikleonly]

It's a power related to my species, not something I'm doing on purpose. You must have a little spiritual sensitivity if you can hear me, but you need to be fairly strong to be a human who can see a seraph. It's a thing.

[he sounds a touch apologetic]

It is nice to meet you, though...?

[bulletbiter]

[ ... right, it's magic, isn't it. ]

I can perceive you a little, but not much more than that. [ Maybe it was Qri's magic, maybe it had something to do with the Singularity. ] It's a pleasure to meet you as well.

[ Mikleo doesn't strike him as someone that he needed to particularly avoid, so it's fine. ]

Do you use magic?

[oneandmikleonly]

You mean besides the abilities we were granted by Qri...? Yes, frequently. I deal with water, for the most part.

[the breadstick has shifted enough that he must be leaning over the table between them a bit; interested]

What about you?

[bulletbiter]

I come from an entirely non-magical world.

[ So he's just generally numb to all the amazement that it's supposed to be eliciting. ]

I'm quite unfamiliar with the concept.

[oneandmikleonly]

What about science? Technology? From what I've heard from people a lot of worlds without magical influence tend to develop machines faster and further.

[bulletbiter]

Yes. That was heavily used in my world.

[ Enough to delve into bio-engineering, even. ]

But without tools, I'm not sure how to help out here.

[oneandmikleonly]

Well, if the Palai market's devices aren't advanced enough...perhaps you could ask someone else in the coven to help create what you need? Some people have the magics or knowledge to produce unusual items.

[bulletbiter]

How unusual?

[ It doesn't sit well with him to have to ask the help of others, but that's inevitable right now. ]

[oneandmikleonly]

Foods. Er...fridges.

[this is not an encouraging start, but fortunately he continues]

Fusion of items that shouldn't be reasonably able to be fused without serious intervention, conditional complete deconstruction of items...those are the ones I know about. Would those be useful to you?

[bulletbiter]

[ Yeah, that's Lenka alright. ]

Those are very exceptional. Though I am not sure if I have the understanding sufficient to utilize them.

[ That can be remediated by talking to the people in question, though. ]

I can grow plants.

[oneandmikleonly]

[haah]

If you need water put into anything, taken out of anything, or if you need to keep things cold, I can help you out as long as we're in a world with sufficient frequency -- that's my natural power, not the one Qri gave me. That one...is kind of useless for building things, I'm sorry to say.

[well, that's a bit of lie: he could do heavier lifting with it, like he did when they were building the Palai city or clearing out the destruction. but otherwise, nah. useless for making things.]

[bulletbiter]

[ He wouldn't call his own ability useless, but it came with heavy caveats. Thus, a nod: ]

Is there a way for me to learn the magic from your world?

[oneandmikleonly]

[...hesitates...]

This is personal, I guess, but it depends how human you are. My grandfather taught me that seraph magic has a pretty bad effect on humans, if they're not in a direct pact that would protect them.

[bulletbiter]

[ He has to stop himself from assuming a wry smile, because: ]

I was once human, but no longer. Does that help?

[oneandmikleonly]

[the pause is very long here, Mikleo's unseen face going shuttered and a little sad; 'once human and now not' is a pretty personal issue for him right now

it takes the chairs joggling underneath them, preparing for a move, to knock him out of it. Julius can hear some of the discomfiture in his tone -- he's willing, but unsure]

I...actually have no idea. Probably. Let's talk about it more later, yes? Our hosts seem intent on moving us on.

[bulletbiter]

[ He can tell that it's not exactly a comfortable subject. Best to drop it. ]

Don't trouble yourself with it. I apologize for bringing it up.

[oneandmikleonly]

It's not that, it's--

[whisked off before he can finish that sentence, WHOOPS]