[open] december will be magic again

[kingsroads]

Who: everyone!
When: the evening of D15
Where: A small meeting hall on the moon, close to the portal to the carnival
What: a whole bunch of show-offs meet up to show off their magic, people interested in magic come to learn about said magic, and other people show up to see if something inevitably gets set on fire. (aka mage club)
Warnings: none so far, will edit if needed.

The meeting hall is a large open space, with hardwood floors and a rustic decor. A few chairs and tables are scattered around, though there aren't enough for the amount of people who'll hopefully show up. Some food has been set out: mostly finger foods (tiny sandwiches, fruit, veggies & dip) though there are some savory options and plenty of home-baked cookies, courtesy of Rin. Drink wise, there's water, hot chocolate, hot tea, and a few bottles of wine because tipsy magic sounds like an awesome idea and this is what happens when the alcoholic makes the dinner menu. Aside from the food table and the few tables, there's not much of anything in the room: plenty of open space for showing off or getting out of the way of someone who wants to show off.

One of the doors of the meeting hall leads to the outside. There's a wider, 'backyard' sort of area with plenty of room for people to cast magic as large and impressive as they want. A fire pit stands outside also for warming your hands and other fire-based magic. Please don't set the building on fire.

This is all very informal. If pressed for details, Strange would have told anyone to just come whenever, stay as long as you like, and so on and so forth. The emphasis is on learning about each other's magic, displaying one's skills and talents, and helping anyone who wished to learn magic decide on a path for them to take.

Showing off is just a given.

( ooc: This is an open mingle log! Feel free to make your own top-levels & tag around! )

Comments

[whattaprick]

"If you do have ideas? Sure. I want to hear them." Hear them just in case they turn out to be unmitigated disasters he can head off at the pass and before Foster can hurtle along down that merry path of self-destruction and take the Carnival with it. Though he'll also hold up a finger to mutely request that Foster pause before he gets into it.

"I'm not a mage, and I don't have all the time in the world. So try to keep your explanations more..." He cocks his head, searching for the right term to use. "Focused."

Assuming Foster's capable of that. He nods towards an empty table with a couple of seats. "Is this going to have practical demonstrations, or can we do this sitting down?"

[criticallyfucked]

Foster hasn't even opened his mouth before Lambert's got a finger up to silence him, but he isn't offended. On the contrary, he's.... not pleased. Gratified.

This doesn't change when Lambert commands him to keep his words to a minimum, either--he really only loses that look of intense focus when Lambert suggests they relocate someplace else for it. Then he blinks.

It takes him a second. He falters. Looks from Lambert to the tables. Hesitates.

Lambert will be able to see the exact moment when everything he just said clicks with him; it's literally visible in his face, and once it comes home, he flashes the Nightrider a prehistoric grin, then practically trots over to the table accommodatingly. No demonstrations today--most of this stuff is still theoretical in nature anyway.

[whattaprick]

Good. That was easy enough to settle.Lambert takes the seat up across Foster, much the same way he had when they first discussed this. They must make an odd pair to anyone looking at them, or perhaps they're all too superficially similar, both mutated and changed by magic.

He folds his arms to rest on the edge of the table, then nods.

"Talk."

[criticallyfucked]

Oh, good.

Lambert remembered to tell him when he could speak again.

"The... easy way is blood tracking--but using my blood, not theirs! Although I guess I could do it the other way, too... hahaha. It would just be a lot messier." And moreso if he's tracking an unwilling target. He's tapping his claws on the table, tracing patterns in the woodgrain.

"There's also... another option. Even less messy. I could craft a curse to make someone... let's say forgettable." A small, private laugh. Or not-so-private. "The instant its... ah, victim leaves your line of sight, they'll be forgotten. Like they never existed to begin with." There is probably no not-ominous way to say something like that, but if it weren't for Foster, it definitely could have been less ominous. His tailtip flicks over the powder snow.

Of course, the ideal result is that in a situation where the target of that spell has done something... memorable, or impossible to 'forget,' the witness(es) would simply forget who was responsible, but honestly he has no idea if he'll get it quite that right on first cast. So he simply omits that level of detail.

"--oh. And the nymph-looking guy... I don't remember his name, but you know him... he and I are working on something, but that won't be ready for a while." He smiles at Lambert like he's making him a promise.

[whattaprick]

Blood tracking. Well, that's one way to get it done, but Lambert shakes his head at that.

"We've got other ways of finding people with magic, but every time it's counted it's usually not much help. It seems like anything to do with tracking is the first thing anyone wards against." That's only his own theory, of course, but -- "You saw it in the manor. You could sense the bird was still in one piece, but you couldn't call it to you."

Apparently, he's talking to Syrlya? Well, they did work together -- though that Foster doesn't remember (or refuses to call him by) his name isn't the most encouraging sign. Lambert brushes it off and moves on.

"A curse isn't the first thing I'd think of when I ask for protection." But he hasn't dismissed the idea out of hand. He's considering, turning it over in his head and slightly pursing his lips. "Tell men more about that one."

[criticallyfucked]

Lambert is right, of course. Foster doesn't know about anyone else's efforts or failures in tracking because no one tells him anything, but his inability to locate what was effectively an extension of his own will back at the manor was clear enough.

It was mostly an easy spell to offer--boring, but Lambert's magical directions do skew towards boring. The thing is, Foster hates boring. He'll obey it, at least for now, if he has to, but... well, his eyes light up a little at Lambert's interest in the more experimental idea.

"Curse is only a technical term," Foster explains with a humourless smile. "But it can be... ah, inconvenient. There won't be any exceptions to it. So you might want to stick close." He laughs--it comes out less humourlessly than his smile, but it's an unflattering kind of humour.

"And magic is... a process, where I'm from. If you blow something up, that might be more memorable than the spell is worth. At least until I know."

Foster is atrocious at selling himself; often he doesn't even realise he's doing it. As far as he can tell, he's told Lambert what the spell does. What else would he want but the risks?

[whattaprick]

Lambert knows a lot of creative ways of killing people, but his imagination is a bit lacking when it comes to pretty much anything else. However, he does know a bit about curses (mainly as a creative way of fucking people up that he gets paid to stop). However, it doesn't escape his notice that Foster's explanation leaves something to be desired.

"You're skipping around," he says, a bit testy with impatience. "You said it makes someone 'forgettable.' Does that include you, or would you always be able to tell where someone is?" He glances at him sharply. "Little hard to lift a curse that no one knows is there. Because you can lift it, can't you?"

It's a bit tricky to wrap his head around, but at the very least, he's trying. "I can work with no exceptions. I'd just like to have a better idea of what else I'm working with."

This is so edgy lmao sorry

[criticallyfucked]

Foster blinks.

Then he smiles. Without teeth.

"Oh! Oh, no, I would remember." As much as Foster van Denend remembers anything. "Or at least, I wouldn't forget magically."

His smile gets sharper, more crooked as he makes eye contact with Lambert.

"And I would be able to break the curse." But he wouldn't count on it being broken any other way. Curses require a certain degree of malice to cast, after all. And his heart, when not completely void of anything, is vile, noxious; his soul is nasty to the touch.
Most people have some amount of innate decency, an instinct to fight against such things in themselves. Not him. But at least he knows this. The root of his disease is rot, after all--is it any wonder his own soul is rotten to the core? He can't promise much else of himself, ever, but disease, malignancy...

He has.... plenty of that.

"If you know what strings to pull, any spell will come toppling down."

foster van denedge

[whattaprick]

"Hm," Lambert says, tapping his finger on the table. Unknowingly, his concerns run idly along the lines that Foster probably considers a total non-issue, but for the sake of the spell's utility, it's something rather important to know.

"So what happens if you die?" he asks pleasantly, like he might just be inquiring after Foster's favorite drink. "Is it going to break itself, or will anyone you case it on just have to fucking live with it?"

[criticallyfucked]

"Well, it wouldn't be much of a curse if it ended when I died, would it?"

This time, the smile comes with teeth. He has the audacity to sound amused, which is... a less frightening mood than he's been projecting for most of this conversation, really. He's still very stressed; he feels the pressure, but he feels... more in control of it now. No longer desperate to catch Lambert's eye, his interest--Lambert is asking questions, and not bad ones either, really.

"The only mages who cast curses like that are vampires. And I'm not very dead at the moment, now am I?" His expression grows more pensive, though. He doesn't want Lambert to refuse him. He refuses to allow Lambert to refuse him. Not like this. Not over the inevitable.

"I could cast it like that, but...."

A pause. Then, with a kind of callous certainty:

"It would be better to leave it to the Ringmaster in that case."