Mingle - Emergency Potluck

[pumpkinhollow]

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WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Yeah. Those two jackasses over there are my current apprentices, and that guy," River points out John Rambo with a thumb, pauses to wave at him, "is also learnin' from me but that's a personal arrangement. Where I'm from most skilled trades do apprenticeships, you kinda have to. Without an influx of youngbloods to do the bitch work nobody has any of the little things they constantly need, y'know? Apprentice carpenters make the bowls people eat out of, apprentice smiths mend your pots and pans, apprentice masons lay the bricks for your chicken coop, 's a whole deal. Vital work but, and this is key, fuckin' annoying."

[hate_gettin_older]

He nods, but frowns slightly. "Making stuff, fixing stuff ... how's that annoying?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

River spreads her hands, philosophically. "It's not like, annoying in and of itself, but when you make things you wanna...make things, right? Hone your technique, challenge your skills, get better. I'm not a master smith, I've got a long way to go, but I am at a point where making nails and mending pots just isn't a challenge any more, it's something that keeps my hand in the game but it's rote, boring, repetitive. The thing is...day to day, people don't really need a masterwork. They need their pot mended."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Huh." He considers that. "Guess I never got good enough at anything like that to get bored with it. Y'make weapons and that? Arms and armor?" Nodding back at the sign.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Yeah, 's how I was trained. I picked up smithing along with the demon summoning, ain't no demon that'll answer someone who can't work a forge." Beat. "The demons at home, the ones here are assholes."

[hate_gettin_older]

"That's, uh. That's what the infernal part means?"

Edgar's trying to still sound casual, but he's never been very good at disciplining his facial expressions; demons does not sound good to him.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Yeah. I work with hellfire, purest forge-flame you could ever ask for. Great for enchanting, works with any metal you care to put in it, doesn't need coal...it's good shit. Dangerous, but what fire isn't?" River shrugs, philosophically.

[hate_gettin_older]

"... Like. Actual hell hellfire?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Depends on what you mean by actual hell. What I mean is the flame of the Forge Below, the workshop of the gods that was ceded to the Secondborn, whom men call demons, whose fire is forge-flame at its purest. Buncha people around here seem to think I mean 'evil fire' which like. Regular fire is evil fire. Evil fire is the default fire. Fire's not exactly a loving substance."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar looks like he's not at all sure they're still speaking the same language.

"Right," he says finally, "okay, might need to think that over. You said enchanting, that's like ... putting magic in them? D'you do that as well?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Yeah! Though that might get into the weeds a bit, you uh, you down to hear some technical terms?"

Look at her ears twitching Edgar. Look at her wide eyes. She's so ready to spit hot nerd bars at you. Look at her. LOOK AT -

[hate_gettin_older]

He's looking! It's ... kind of cute actually.

"Oh sure," he says amiably, "don't promise to understand a word of it but go ahead."

[somebodychildofanyone]

BIIIIIIG smile! River does a lot of Gesturing while she explains, excited and trying not to talk to fast. "So like, from a professional perspective 'putting magic in' is like, nonsense? Helpful nonsense but it's like how people say they 'put a hold in' something, it's useful but technically wrong. Magic is sympathy, it's -"

So. Much. Gesturing.

"It's the idea that everything is in some way like other things, and ultimately in some way like its creators! If you can move stone 'by magic' it's because you're a bit like stone, and you can make stone a bit like you. A flaming sword is a bit like wood and a bit like fire, right? Even the stuff people think of as sketchy comes back to this. You can summon demons because you're a bit like them, you can raise the dead because you have a mortal nature."

River beams.

[hate_gettin_older]

He listens, and watches her hands move, and grins.

"You know what, I dunno if any of that made any sense, but it feels like it makes sense? If you get me?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"I come from a strong oral tradition. We're not fans of the academic mages, they have this habit of giving my line of work a bad name. Books bound in human skin an' shit, ugly as hell." River shrugs with a winsome smile. "But yeah, I had a similar feeling when I started learning."

[hate_gettin_older]

"So, uh, if somebody could like ... make fire by magic," he says, "but only cause somebody else gave it to them for a joke or some shite, what would that mean?"

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Good question," River says with a thoughtful frown. "...See, in the paradigm, the uh, the style I work in, right, making fire is an absurdity. You need fire to begin with and then you manipulate it. But the local magic's different, and that's before we get into everyone else who came off the boat..."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Well," he says, and tries to figure out how to explain, and then gives up with a sigh and says "it's like this," and turns his left hand palm up, cupped just slightly.

And a little burst of flame manifests in the air over his hand, and dances there.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Oh wow," River breathes, all wide-eyed wonder. She half rises from her chair, reaching out, and then stops herself. "May I take it?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"If you want? I dunno what'll happen, but ... yeah, go ahead."

Edgar's learned enough control to keep the fire small and self-contained; he's never tried handing it off to anyone else.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"We're surrounded by doctors and healers, this is the time to try dumb shit..." River's face takes on an expression of concentration, and she gestures with one hand, almost beckoning; she's trying to take the flame to hold in her own palm.

What happens?

[hate_gettin_older]

The fire seems to hesitate for a moment, then leaps from Edgar's hand into River's and curls there like a cat.

Edgar gives a tiny breath of something like laughter; the flame's mirrored in his eyes, as wide and wondering as River's were a moment ago. "Look at that."

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Pryokinesis, manipulation of fire through sympathy," River explains in a proud voice. "Been working on it since I got here, I can't consider hellfire a secondary option any more..." Her head tilts, curiously. "The flame's feeding on my will now, so far so normal, it's..." Air quotes with her free hand, "'Mine', but what was it feeding on for you?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"Fuck if I know," he says, and his half-laughter cools to something more like curiosity. "Your will, you said ... I dunno, maybe it was mine before? When I first got it, it came out when I was mad, or scared. Had to learn to keep it from jumping out on its own."

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Hrmm. If I hold this too long I'll pass out," River says by way of example. "Do you feel anything when you exert this power?"

"...Are you able to take the flame back?"