[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

[teratias]

...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.

[probablynoteren]

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?]

[teratias]

[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.

[probablynoteren]

... 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.]

[teratias]

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.

[probablynoteren]

[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?

[teratias]

Wait seriously? Summoning refrigerators?

[What the actual hell?]

Waver Velvet.

[probablynoteren]

Lenka Utsugi.

And yes. Refrigerators. Real ones.

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

[teratias]

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

[probablynoteren]

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.]

[teratias]

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?

[probablynoteren]

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.

[teratias]

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.

[probablynoteren]

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.]

[teratias]

Meat springs to mind.

[Waver's not going to question why and how it takes an Elto so long to come over. They're here now, and that's good enough. Waver listens carefully as well, then asks a single question:]

Could we examine it ourselves?

[probablynoteren]

[Lenka is soon nodding along, since that's probably their best bet at this point; he doesn't attempt to get up, though, just yet -- because he's already tried that part and dragging a chair around while you're trying to walk is just inviting knocked knees and bruised elbows.

The Elto seems to give that and the current magic binding them some thought; however, they don't appear inclined to do any kind of despelling. There's a quick and furious exchange among the Palai near the table, some moving around and clearing of the table itself, and then a polite request for their two guests to back away for a moment.

A blink later, their table is now encased in the same kind of strange electric shield the entire congregation is; the Palai apologetically hand each of them the food that had to be moved off the table.]

You can make them this size? [that's kind of fascinating, actually, and Lenka's immediate impulse is to try poking it with a breadstick] ... Oh.

[Freshly crisped breadstick, anyone?]

[teratias]

[Yes to the breadstick. The crunch is nice, and Waver ha a few thoughts.]

Hm. If they can be reduced to that size, then why not use them during Uvi attacks to stay safe? That seems a logical thing based on how localized and targeted the attacks can be.

[But they're still stuck to the chairs. That's a problem.]

[probablynoteren]

[Lenka crunches on his own breadstick -- it's a bit weird that it comes from a barrier, but eh, you gotta be resourceful when you're stuck between a chair and a speed dating place. Anyway, the barrier is the more important part: he's wary of touching it with his bare hands, but the Elto hasn't left yet, so they should investigate while they can.

His powers aren't the best for investigating something of this size, though, unless they want to run the risk of getting beaned by refrigerators bouncing off the shield.]

It's an idea. I guess it depends on how they're made. How many, how often?

[The last part is directed at the Elto -- there's a brief considering pause, and then a slightly more detailed answer than they were given before: about the need for an Elto to create the barrier, how long a smaller barrier might last... it seems to be new territory for them.]

[teratias]

Huh. So, new experimental magic, in short.

[That meant testing had to be done and all of that. It wasn't bad information to have, not at all, and now--]

Maybe they'd help deflect the Uvi from you guys, you know.