Chapter 2.10: Waiting for the Burndown

Vesper and Weaver, followed by Alric, Morgana, Ellie, and Hope return to Bright Books.

Some time before Alric's arrival at the store...

Vesper's patron is whistling cheerily by the time they reach Bright Books, stepping into the store in high spirits. Sawyer's already waiting, a rumpled sweater pulled on to cover most of his tattoos and the cookie jar from behind the counter held firmly in his hands.

“Hello, Bookseller,” Chance sing-songs. “I was promised a tithe.”

Sawyer opens the jar. “Allow me to insist you accept my hospitality first,” he says, tone pointed as he raises one eyebrow, focusing on the first potential problem before he assesses the next one.

Chance obliges, fetching two cookies out with a snicker and offering one to Vesper as he speedily devours his own, following on Sawyer's heels to the back hall as the man sets the cookie jar on the counter and heads into the far less public hallway. “Have I ever declined your hospitality?”

“Would you remind me to offer my hospitality if I forgot?” Sawyer asks critically, voice unimpressed.

Chance frowns. “What, you think I'd hurt you on purpose?”

“I think it's a lot easier for you to keep from accidentally causing harm when you've got rules to follow,” Sawyer says dryly, giving Chance a long look. “No cutting any deals in my home unless they're with me to renegotiate the usual ground rules, no shears, no pulling threads out of line, you can touch but you can't take or alter.”

“Unless they're already cut and freely offered or given,” Chance hums.

. Sawyer shakes his head, gesturing with one hand. “Not relevant today.”

”Always relevant, no changing the clause without negotiation,” Chance scrunches his nose.

“Understood," Sawyer sighs. "Clarification: I didn't call it out because it isn't relevant, you already know the deal.”

“But you call out my shears and tell me not to play with threads, like that's not part of your usual deal atop baseline hospitality? My Pontiff, Vesper, doesn't know the details of the agreements you and I have in place for when I'm here. It's important for her to know that if we talk in your store in future she is free to pass on materials she's gathered for me within your walls. It's groundwork for possible future occasions,” he says, posture straightening to a more formal rigidity.

Sawyer eyes him from behind his sunglasses, clearly evaluating his posture as he picks his words. “... my house is not your meeting room. It is my home. You don't need to be on guard from me, Chance. You're my guest.”

”If,” Chance emphasizes, even as his posture unwinds to a lazy, casual stance, tension melting away like smoke in the breeze as his shoulders slouch. "Incidental. Not planning anything," he complains more like a scolded teenager than something capable of plucking at the threads of the world.

"Noted." Sawyer points down the hall with one hand, pulling a small jar of honey out of his pocket with the other. “Your offered tithe is in there along with the chair you keep stealing. No smoking unless you go outside, I unlocked the window.”

Chance snatches the jar of honey with a look of unvarnished delight and vanishes down the hall to swing into the indicated room, a bounce in his step, offering a gleeful greeting as he does. ”Scratch! Eustace! Imagine seeing you two here!”

Sawyer's gaze finally swings away from the Sidhe to focus on Vesper, one problem solved and one giant, confusing question mark left to navigate. "... so. You're Vesper?"

"Vesper Sellain, that's right." I flash Sawyer an apologetic grin. "Sorry about Inara's behavior earlier. You won't be seeing much of her anymore, though, so there's that. I hear you're teaching Alric magic?"

The man offers a slow shrug. ".... don't worry about it. There's no reason for you to apologize for her behavior unless you were egging her on."

Sawyer studies Vesper's face for a long moment, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, evaluating something. "Working on it, even if he'd like to take off at a full sprint instead of a walk, but not many people who find their way here don't. The hard part's making sure you kids don't blow yourselves up in the learning process," he speaks with a tired kind of affection in his voice. "Probably not going to be the only one - I'm able to teach traditions that I don't personally practice, but some things are better learned from someone with personal experience or expertise."

He seems to finish putting together the mental puzzle he was working on. "Were you the one who was here, the first time you all came in? The one who asked if he wanted to go look through books in your sanctum?"

Nothing wrong with wanting to learn fast. At least Alric is serious about magic. "Yes, that was me. He didn't take me up on it, though... I think he was too afraid of Inara, thought she was plotting to murder him, or something."

There's a distinct look of unease that passes over Sawyer's expression, but it vanishes just as quickly as it appeared. "...or something, sure."

He tilts his head, having seemingly shaken off whatever it was that was causing him such unease. "... So. Was that offer to check out some of your books only for Alric, or would you be interested in facilitating greater access to some of that information in general? Wizardry is a notoriously closed-door practice, but so are a lot of the traditions I've managed to dig up information on for greater proliferation, so while I'd understand if you didn't want to take that risk, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask if you'd be willing to see if there was anything we could reproduce for greater dissemination. Dresden did the world a service when he arranged for his book of rotes to be more widely available."

"I agree. The more people that know about magic, the better. The worthy cannot rise if they do not even know what they are capable of." I pause. "I'm not sure which books would be most helpful, but you would be welcome to visit and look through them with me... my own exploration was rather curtailed by having to carry it out in secret without Inara noticing."

Sawyer's face breaks into a smile that, in comparison to his initial cautious greeting, is far more genuine and far less on edge. "That's not a perspective a lot of Wizards share, unfortunately, but it's one that should be a lot more common. It's really easy for those with nascent potential to get into bad situations if they can't access the resources they need to keep themselves safe. Hell, that's common enough even with guidance and mentorship, since people are always going to be people, and a lot of new practitioners are going to want to experiment with their limits despite the risks. It's human nature."

He pauses, weighing his next words, then takes the jump. "Alright. So. Full disclosure, I'm not sure how your... being two people thing works and I'm not going to assume it's something I've run into or read about before. So. Apologies if this is an insensitive question - how old are you compared to Inara? Have you two always been like this? I'm asking because I'm trying to get a bead on how much experience you have in terms of knowledge and practice, and it... sounds like you're a lot less confident in what you know compared to Inara? No offense meant by that, asking this is part of my gig - knowing what level of knowledge and understanding someone's operating at helps me figure out where you're starting from in terms of your background and how to meet you at your level of understanding."

He gestures. "That said, I'd be happy to do take a look - especially if you're not sure what may or may not be useful. I can even show you a few ways to help identify how... broadly applicable a text might be. Dresden's rotes, for example, are keyed to the practices of Wizards... but there are ways to adapt some of what he's done to be more broadly applicable, especially with some of his wardwork. The Dresden Candelabra, for example, has been adapted to be workable by a few other traditions."

"No, we weren't always like this. Our, uh, condition came about due to a demonic curse a few years ago." I hurry on, glossing over it before Sawyer can ask awkward questions. "We're about the same age, but Inara grew up in a family of wizards and I didn't even know magic existed until I was already an adult. Even then, I never had any formal training. Just the bits I could figure out on my own or scavenge from the few books I could find, or after Inara took over, what I learned by watching over her shoulder, so to speak."

And of course, the tricks that Weaver taught me.

"I'd love to take you back to the sanctum now, but we're in the middle of dealing with the shoggoths. That's actually why I came over — I was hoping you might have a cleaning spell." I gesture to my stained robe. "I spilled some gasoline on myself while trying to make explosives and Morgana was worried that it might catch fire if any flame got past her ward."

Glossing over the details doesn't seem to prevent the way Sawyer's expression grows carefully schooled as Vesper glosses over her circumstances. "... but your background and magical predilection is also towards wizardry," he says, half a question and half a statement. "I see."

He shakes his head. "Yeah. I wouldn't recommend today, either, with Arkham the way it is right now. I'm not turning my attention away from it until I know how much damage control we're going to need to run," he says it offhandedly, even as he pulls a sketchpad from one pocket and starts to write and draw, attention zeroing in. "Yeah. I can do that. Don't move."

He finishes his scribble with a flourish that turns into a snap as he peels the spell away from the paper and flicks it at Vesper.

Rolled: [2, 5] Result: Success! 🎯

vigor: [3, 2] Result: Failure ❌

The spell is quick and efficient, leaving Vesper's robe perfectly clean!

Sawyer blinks, then lifts his hand to his nose, pressing one hand to it and checking the pads of his fingers, grimacing as he sees they're already stained with blood. "Fabulous."

He wipes his hand on his sweater as his nose begins to bleed in earnest, tilting his head just so to keep blood from dripping onto the floor as his other, clean hand pulls a card from his pocket and holding it out. "...anyway. You can call the store, or you can use this number to get in contact with me. Alric's got my number, too, but... I don't do triangulation," he shrugs.

. He pulls a black handkerchief from his back pocket, still holding out the business card, pressing it to his face with a roll of his eyes. "...If Inara's got the books she learned from in her sanctum I can help you figure out which ones you should start with and we can talk about helping you get a more solid knowledge foundation in general, too. If I'm already teaching Alric it's not much more work to help you get an idea of the bigger picture, too."

He shrugs. "...I'll get you a copy of my safety tips booklet before you head back out, I mass print them for a reason," he pulls his handkerchief away from his face for a moment, offering a wry, bloody grin. "Even if you've already had a taste of what happens when shit goes wrong, it doesn't hurt to have a quick set of reminders. Having one permanent side effect or curse doesn't mean you can't stack more on top."

A-are you okay?" I ask as I take the card. "I wouldn't have asked for your help cleaning if I had realized it would hurt you like that."

Sawyer laughs. "It's fine, it looks way worse than it is. Long-term side effect of ignoring the speed limits and a natural disposition to bleed make for a very visual demo of potential side effects if you push your limits too far and too fast," he jokes cheerfully. "Burnout and brain damage are a lot less visually impactful. Not that I did it on purpose - I don't enjoy bleeding like a stuck pig, but... It's comparatively minor."

He presses his handkerchief to his face again, nudging his sunglasses up with his thumb to look at Vesper with eyes that she can now recognize show a glimpse of the Fundament. "If I cared about a little blood getting in my way I would have quit practicing when I was a teenager."

He lets his sunglasses drop back down. "... to be clear, this? It can be a much nastier side effect, but it's one I've been dealing with for a long time - I know the risks, I know how to manage it, I know how it manifests when I need to stop and take a break to avoid it escalating to a point where it's causing real damage. This? This isn't a problematic manifestation, just a messy one. Treatment's the same as with a normal nosebleed."

He pauses. "So, just to be clear, if you start bleeding after you cast a spell, you should take it seriously and get someone to check you out for long term damage. It can be a sign of an internal hemmorage and catching that shit as early as possible is important. Even if someone heals you up, check with a doctor just in case."

I nod sympathetically. Bleeding whenever you use magic must really suck, even if it's not life threatening. "I'm not sure what a mundane doctor can do that healing magic can't. Internal bleeding sounds bad, but it can't be any worse than broken bones and severed fingers. Inara gets in a lot of fights, so I've had plenty of chances to see healing magic up close."

"One, it absolutely can be, because internal bleeding is missable, especially if someone assumes the inciting injury didn't seem bad enough to be worth healing up. It can take a hours or days for the symptoms to become noticeable, and most people don't have enough power to heal an injury that severe. If you two are cursed, then you already know some things aren't fixable with healing magic. So. Teaching moment: the problem with relying on healing magic is that it is absolute shit at dealing with anything chronic, or anything genetic, or brain damage, and half the types of healing magic out there can either give you cancer or burn other bits of you for fuel or have some other chronic trade off." Sawyer says, brow arched.

"Case in point:" he gestures at his own face. "I can't magic away the fact that I have hemophilia. I could heal the bleeds, sure, but the cost-benefit analysis isn't worth the hassle."

"Anyway. Just because something is healed doesn't mean there aren't lasting effects. Standard healing magic won't tell you what an MRI can. A doctor can tell you if you've got the kind of brain trauma that spells can't fix and they can get you set up for the therapy and rehab that can help."

He gestures with his free hand, palm open. "I'm not just talking hypotheticals, for what it's worth. I've done a lot of work with people who have unbreakable curses or permanent damage from backlash. Sometimes a non-magical solution ends up being the best way to support or resolve the issues we can resolve, especially since relying strictly on magic to work around a problem can have unexpected conflicts or side effects."

"Wait, really? I sort of assumed healing magic wouldn't have any trouble with mundane disorders — it's one thing for it to struggle with two peoples' souls getting fused together, but hemophilia is just a normal disease, right? Why can't magic fix that?" And, cancer? Inara would have said something if her spells had that kind of side effect... right? Right?

“Magic is amazing, but magic is still a tool. It allows us to interact with the conceptual layer of reality. Nowadays, humanity’s non-magical tools for manipulating the physical layer of reality are significantly more advanced than they were in the old days, and, in many cases, more advanced than the magic tools to accomplish the same effect. It’s important to choose the right tool for the job.”

"I was raised with magic, but this isn't the kind of topic most people want to talk about. You might get a bit here and there through cultural osmosis, but... education gaps are a big problem. Magical cultures or traditions where healing has a major cost talk about medical issues and complications significantly more, especially compared to groups or cultures that tend to blame the injured party whether they deserve it or not, no reason to dig into things if it's just a sign of personal failings or bad breeding," he rolls his eyes, then pauses, examining Vesper's expression. "... Wizard healing's on the safer side of the spectrum. Sorry - broad knowledge base, broad examples."

"I'm glad I don't have to worry about getting cancer from all of Inara's healing spells. Magic really is amazing." My smile fades. "Unfortunately, I get the feeling nobody really wants to talk about it at all unless you already know it. Either that, or they won't shut up but everything they say is bullshit. You wouldn't believe how much fake magic is out there. I think I could spend a lifetime chasing down false leads."

I sigh. "Thanks for the cleaning spell. I should be getting back to the lot, though. Alric shouldn't be on his own right now."

"It's a complicated situation, but you're not wrong - even getting people in different communities to talk can be like pulling teeth, sometimes. Some of us are trying to make it easier, but there's only so far individuals can reach. I've got storefronts in New York, Arkham, and San Francisco, but people have to find us for us to be able to do anything, you know?" He gives a tired laugh. "I'd absolutely believe how much fake magic is out there," Sawyer shrugs. "Even grimoires can have a lot of nonsense, although I vett the texts we get so we can give readers a heads up. Saije, with the commission, vetts the books available there. We've got a sticker system on the supernatural-related texts in the public areas of the shop, for the record. Purple's got the highest level of truth to it."

He shrugs. "Sure, if you need to head back out, head back out."

Morgana finally walks in, just in time to hear Vesper's comment about Alric, looking a little tired. "Miss.... Hope? Is with him right now, too. So you'd all be back together." She heads for another room, much to the audible delight of the room's resident Ellie.

<cut to Alric and Hope arriving at Bright Books sometime later>

"Alric! I was just about to come find you." I offer him a warm smile. "Sawyer got my robe cleaned up, it took him like ten seconds. How did the bombs go? Are we ready to begin the assault?"

Alric, now with no soot on his hands or face, is about to knock on the door frame to Sawyer's workshop as Vesper greets him.

Still weird to see her face being friendly. Gonna take a while.

"I.. yeah, the bombs are done. I finished yours and then made one each for the boys, if they want to join."

He scans the room. Who's there, and is there any food around?

Sawyer seems to have chased nearly everyone out of the workroom with his chalkboards except Vesper, Ellie and Morgana, whose bird turned back into so much paper around the time Hope came out of the lot. (This appears to be because she's currently taking a powernap next to her girlfriend on a small couch Ellie seems to have dragged into the room.

There's a second door open down the hall, with the scent of homemade food wafting out of it, and Sawyer looks at Alric for a long moment, then at Hope for a much shorter moment, before making an offhand gesture towards it the hall in its direction. "Saije, Scratch, Eustace, and Chance are in the other room, down the hall. There's dinner if you want, Zeke picked up Indian for the staff and..." he gestures. "Everyone else, since we've had high traffic today."

Alric nods. "I think I'll take you up on that offer, in a moment." His voice is casual, he's just chatting. "Vesper, I meant to ask.. Is.. seeing threads a thing you can do? Earlier I saw my debt as an actual thread and I think you did too, I was wondering if you could double check whether I have more debt threads connected to me."

"Oh! Sure thing."

Rolled: [1, 1] Result: Critical Failure! 💀

There's a thump from down the hall and the brief sound of bootsteps as Weaver walks over to peer in at Vesper, brow scrunched and tone baffled. "What? I was in the middle of something, why are you shouting for me when I'm down the hall? What do you want?"

"Sorry!" I say. "I was just trying to use your magic to look at Alric. I didn't realize it would disturb you... does it always do that? That must be so annoying."

Weaver cocks his head. "It's my Name, did you think I wouldn't hear it whenever you call on me?" He shrugs. "Annoying? Not really. It's part of the package - it's not annoying unless you decide you want to do things to annoy me on purpose."

"Ah. Well... is it okay if I try again?"

Weaver blinks. "Oh. You were trying to do something with it - that makes more sense. You can just... tell me what you're trying to do and I'll just make it happen? I'm right here. You already have my attention."

"I wanted to look at Alric's threads. He asked me to, ah..." It occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't tell Weaver that Alric thinks he lied about being debt free. Oh well. Too late now. "You know, check if he has any other outstanding debts."

"I mean, everyone has debts, they're a basic form of bond," Weaver says. "The big question when it comes to debts is if they can be leveraged," he says casually. "Most can't - a life debt between mortals can be used for a guilt trip, sure, but most mortals can't get enough of a tangible grip on those kinds of debts. I can see any debts he has to me - none, we cleared that balance already - and through our bond, I could see if he has debts to you, but if he has a debt to someone else... that's a lot harder to see, unless he has a pattern of behavior, like being an an excessive debtor. Getting a read on who those debts are to, though..."

His fingers tap one black marble cheekbone as he thinks. "You can get the equivalent of a credit score, basically, but getting any deeper into the details would entail the kind of... credit check that would cost me something, and that's not something I'm going to do. If he has any other leveragable debts I'm not going to get caught up in them by being too nosy. Narrowing it down to if he has a leverageable debt will give you data on if there's anything that can stick, and getting a basic idea of if you're in the red or the black on that front isn't too much of a problem. You and Inara and Hope would show up in the red already, obviously, because of the life debt to me, but Alric's should only be deep in the red if he's got leverageable debts with something else."

"So.. I wouldn't have asked Vesper if I knew it'd involve bothering you, I don't want any debt for finding out whether there are more debt surprises coming my way. Or if I have any debt on anyone, I guess. Like, the luck I was informed I had too much of in the past has to be somewhere, right? So maybe someone owes me for a change?" He shrugs. "Eh, not that important. But, if you're already here.. I primarily came here to get some answers - including from you, Chance, if you don't mind me asking a few questions. I'd like to gain a better understanding of what actually happened earlier."

Weaver scrunches his nose, squinting at Alric in bafflement. "Why would Vesper's requests cost you anything? You're not part of our arrangement, you don't pay for her subscription plan."

Sawyer clears his throat. "He thinks that because he asked Vesper to help him with something that you'll count it as him asking for help from you."

Weaver's bewildered look intensifies, head cocking as his black eyes narrow at Sawyer. "... that's stupid, he isn't my Pontiff. Vesper is. Does he pay for her phone plan if he calls her? Nonsense. Why would he think something like that?"

Sawyer shrugs, checking his nails.

Weaver looks at Alric, hand on one hip. "Everyone has luck, good fortune and bad have a natural equilibrium, it's a balancing act. You're set up to get a slow dripfeed of bad luck over a longer time period to balance out your good luck so you don't risk having it all come crashing down at once."

"Mmmmmm. I guess you can talk to 'Chance' if you want, but I'm not playing right now, I'm talking to Vesper as her Patron. If you want to talk to me when I'm playing 'Chance' you'll have to wait until I'm pretending again." He considers, tilting his head one way, then the other, thinking. "I was in the middle of talking to someone else when Vesper called and left my drink alone with Scratch, so I need to go and see if he decided to spike it with something awful and finish my conversation. I just wanted to see what Vesper needed since she was calling my Name. You can talk to someone who isn't me until I'm done. It probably won't take that long, unless you're talking to Morgan, in which case I'll probably be done talking long before you are."

I watch Alric carefully for his reaction — this line of thought is awfully paranoid for someone who supposedly got it pruned less than an hour ago. I really wish I didn't have to invoke Weaver to see the threads.

Alric chuckles. "Oh well, it's good to know that I'm not yet out of new ways to fail my persuasion checks. Sounds good, let's just try again later." There's amusement in his voice. He claps his hands and points at Sawyer. "Morgan it is then! Yeah, that'll take a while. We can do some of the talking here, but I also wanna do some of it in private. What do you think?"

"Oh, and Vesper.. You don't need to take on debt for running my credit score, it was just a hunch. It's pretty unlikely that I either owe or am owed anything of significance at this point. But I appreciate you giving it a shot."

"It doesn't work like that," I say, relaxing a little at Alric's tone. "Helping you check your 'credit score' doesn't cost me anything extra at this point."

"Oh." He thinks for a moment. "I mean, I'd take it then, if it doesn't cost you anything."

Sawyer gives Alric a silent thumbs up, watching Weaver and Vesper.

Weaver's attention is focused on Vesper, fingers idly plucking at the air in an absent-minded, habitual way - it's clear he's waiting for her to confirm what she wants to do, rather than acting off of Alric's confirmation.

I glance at Weaver. "If you wouldn't mind showing me the threads?"

Weaver beams. "Of course." He steps closer to Vesper, gesturing for her to follow his motions as he reaches out and plucks at the threads of the world with one hand to bring the threads into her sight.

There's not much to see - there's a faint bond to Vesper, but it feels like a relationship and has no leveragable debts weighing it down, and neither does the silk-thin green thread leading back to Weaver, which reads as 'distant acquaintance' and doesn't feel like a debt. There are whispers of connections, but no weight to them, nothing that feels like it has the kind of substance required for a leveragable debt.

Vesper has a direct comparison, after all, the weight of her bond to Weaver is heavy with the feeling and, like this, she can feel how the Patron-Pontiff bond has shifted the weight to be a bit more equitable than it should be.

"Nothing," I say. "You're clean. Debt free. At least of the kind of debt Weaver described."

Note: Vesper isn't seeing all of Alric's bonds, only the ones related to debts; and debts can only be seen in detail by the person sharing the bond. Meaning that only Vesper and Weaver's debts would show up in detail. The whispers of connections from others form a sort of metaphysical credit score, but show no details. His metaphysical credit score would be weak because he does not have an established history.

Weaver releases the threads with a flick of his fingers. "... if you're satisfied, I'm going to get back to what I was doing. I want see if the children have figured out how to do something clever without violating hospitality, but giving them too much time to think about it is boring."

"'Debt free' is all I needed to hear. Vesper, great stuff, I appreciate your help," he says as he stands up straight from the wall he was leaning against, then gives her a slight bow. "So.. unless I'm needed here, I'll excuse myself and nab Sawyer for a while." He checks the non-existent watch on his left wrist. "..yeah, mhm, I'm due for two more persuasion fails, and I don't want to miss quota." Alric quickly returns to a straight posture with his arms behind his back, then makes eye contact with Sawyer. He raises his eyebrows and nods in the direction of the door - do you want to go somewhere else? -, and then he'll wait for Sawyer to lead the way, hopefully to a place with no other people present.

If Vesper seems satisfied, Weaver will become Founder in the space of a blink, yawning wide as a lazy cat and heading out the door and back down the hall.

"Here's fine," Sawyer says. "Vesper, would you mind leaving the room with Chance? If you haven't eaten, there's takeout down the hall - only door that's open - feel free. Saije is in there, too."

He turns, looking towards the couch where Ellie and Morgana are. "You live here, if you're going to nap on a couch go sleep in the living room instead of my workroom."

"But this is comfy," Ellie complains quietly, hugging Morgana and yawning before she teleports away with her girlfriend.

Alric will wait for Chance and Vesper to leave, close the door behind them, then walk over to the now vacant couch and throw himself onto it.

"Mondays, amirite?" he says, staring at the ceiling. His right arm is dangling lazily off the couch.

Sawyer gives an exhausted wheeze of laughter. "Pretty much."

Alric chuckles, and after a few seconds of silence speaks up again. "Okay, this is comfy." He sighs, then sits up and turns to Sawyer. "Alright, let's get to it. What happened earlier? I mean, like, in here." He gestures at the room.

"Yeah. That's why Ellie keeps dragging it in here," he shrugs. "... nothing much. Phone call finally went through. Solidified some of the variables and confirmed that I could put my contingency plans on the back-burner."

Alric looks confused for a moment, then returns back to normal. "Ah. Okay, that's why they ambushed us on the way back out. Good to know. ..that's not what I meant though. I wanted to know what lead to our argument earlier. Like, I feel like I ought to apologize for something? The air around your head literally started to boil - which, by the way, I really want to know how that worked because I didn't see you drawing any diagrams - but I have to be missing something here to warrant that kind of reaction and well I've been missing a lot today so I figured I'd ask."

"I am not why they crashed the party," Sawyer clarifies. "They figured out their own timing. My geometry was set up to go through as soon as any phone connection was able to get through to Chance so I could get a bead on how many Sidhe were going to show up and if it was as many as I expected."

He trails off, then leans against the wall. "... It's complicated. Do you want me to be nice or do you want me to be honest?” He pauses for a long moment, then cracks his knuckles, stepping away from the wall and straightening up. “... nevermind, doesn’t matter. Teacher. Knowledge. Fine. Fine. You asked, so let’s get into this. You want to know why.”

“External factors: Arkham's a shitshow and I hate that I can't help directly with the problem myself - defusing situations that involve eldritch abominations is one of my specialties. When bigger problems pop up in Arkham it’s a high stress event. Your co-workers had already gone in and hadn’t come out and, despite having gotten confirmation about who it was who called Aspen I couldn’t get a line through to Chance, which is not normal.” He speaks, voice brisk, posture straight.

. "Non-External factors: aside from ignoring my warnings? You've been a condescending asshole to people - not just me - who have a better idea of the stakes and the danger involved when dealing with the supernatural world. You actively insinuated that you, someone who's been learning the basics of magic for... a week, now, give or take, could, despite five people nearly dying in there, four of whom have extensive combat and supernatural experience, solo whatever was left inside the hive after the topside burned down without help. That is a suicidal level of overconfidence and shows an intense disregard for the people around you who are being cautious - implying that you're smarter than everyone in the room despite not having more than a month? of experience."

He smiles, showing his teeth, dropping out of the brisk informational tone and into his usual dry one. "...and trust me, I know what suicidal overconfidence looks like. You were reminding me of how I used to get when I was younger. That’s not a compliment."

He switches back into the brisk, informative tone again. “I’m not going to get into the weeds and break down everything I think you could have done better. You’re an adult, you’re going to have to figure some of that out yourself - maybe start by asking Miss Black why she was so angry with you earlier, because gathering outside information and perspectives is important. It keeps you grounded, but you have to actually listen to what they’re saying to do that.”

. He crosses his arms. “... also, significantly...” He lowers his glasses, voice going quietly, deadly serious. “I know what happens when you cut people off from safe avenues of education, Alric. I’m trying, here, even though I am still furious, because I don’t actually think it’s helpful to anyone for you to burn the handful of bridges you have, and I’m not going to be the first to bring the matches to the party. I do not want you to die. I do not want you to be another tick in my statistics. If I tell you that my advice is going to give you a lower fatality rate, I need you to hear me and understand that it’s not a joke, that it’s not condescension, that I am speaking from decades of experience. You do not know how many people have come into my shop seeking knowledge, ignored my warnings, and got themselves killed.”

He spends a second, staring into the middle distance, counting, before his gaze drops back to Alric’s face. “.... fifty-seven in the last decade.”

Alric listens to everything Sawyer has to say, nods, then falls quiet as he leans back and stares at the ceiling. After a minute or two he turns back to Sawyer and responds in the same relaxed conversational tone he had the whole time.

"Okay, so, first of all, I appreciate the honesty. I'm starting to grasp what's going on. So.. I- Mhm. If you lay it out like that, I can see how the situation resulted in that reaction. You thought I was about to just jump into the hive on my own, and I didn't listen to your warnings about it - that I should not do it solo, that I should have a team for it, and plan everything out. But instead I wasn't listening, and pretty much running head first into an early death. That's.. yeah, I can see it. I think it makes sense for me to describe my perspective so you get where my behaviour came from."

"So.. From my perspective the plan was to first burn down the lot, safely, from the outside, and then figure out the hive later. We both decided on that the moment before we let everyone else into the room. That's the assumptions I was basing my decisions on - I didn't intend to run into the hive. I just wanted to set the lot on fire, which I still think would've had a higher chance of success if I just did it myself. It did work out, but it also could've resulted in either Morgana or Ellie drenched in gasoline, as it did with Vesper, or even on fire."

. "And then people, like, started arguing about the rules? I'm not taking responsibility for people drenching themselves in gasoline and burning alive if they actively do things against my instructions. Like, we were literally playing with fire there and why would it be my fault if people don't do as I say? Does.. what I say make sense? I was never opposed to getting help, I was opposed to being responsible for people being idiots, which, so far, I have to admit I was, no, still am, highly concerned about. Saije tried to carry vital equipment into a potentially Shoggoth-overflowing lot, there's that kid that quite literally explained that he's the scorpion in the fabel of the scorpion and the frog - oh, and it's not paranoia if I skip out on the takeout left in a room with him as it's clear now that tampering with unattended drinks is a thing that is almost expected? And then Vesper, I already mentioned that one."

"A lot of rambling, but, like, that's the perspective I was coming from. I didn't intend to solo the hive, I just wanted to torch the lot, and then figure out the hive later. I think it would've been reasonable for me to wait and listen for your explanation, and I fucked up there. I didn't because I.. I cared? I wanted things to go right and people kept on bickering and being problems, and at some point I was just done talking to people and wanted to get the obvious next step done. And yes I should've listened to you or explained my perspective to you but you really managed to push my buttons with the whole 'you have to do what I say' thing. Especially after you almost got me killed last week, or whatever the consequences of brain boiling are. Like, I'm not angry about it, but it also didn't make me more likely to listen to your opinion."

. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling again.

"Ah, now that I've laid it out like that, I think the big issue here is my inability to trust people that I've perceived fucking up. Like, their intentions might be good, I don't doubt that - never did, despite the paranoia diagnosis - but I just feel unease when I don't do the thing myself? At least, if I fuck up, it's my fault, if that makes sense? I think the rational thing would be to not get hung up on these things but man is it hard if you actually care."

Sawyer listens, patient, and considering.

"Mh-hm. Also, margin of error for what you're defining as fucking up, possibly. I know Saije - I trust her judgement. Did you ask her why she was carrying the equipment and what her thought process was, or did you assume she wasn't thinking?" He stops, shooting Alric a tired half-smile. "That one is a leading question, we're friends, I talked to her about what happened before you two got here."

He pauses, then arches a brow. "I almost got you killed?" he gives Alric a baffled look, then blinks, slowly as the context settles in. ".. Alric, if I'd told you not to do it, do you think you were less likely to try and cast that spell a second time in a row when I wasn't around? Testing your limits while you're in a controlled environment with backup present to help stabilize you or alleviate problems if they arise is... a lot safer. No, that spell wasn't supposed to do that if you cast it a second time - which, also, I wasn't able to replicate the results later on myself with the same geometry-" He draws it on the board, at this, a proof of memory that will match the first sheet he handed Alric if he takes a photo to check against later. "Which would mean I'd be doing more research to figure out the parameters to trigger that effect but I was...." He trails off. "... out-voted."

. He licks his lips. “... for the record, I do have a lot of bad personal safety habits, but, like, do as i say, not as I do, and all that shit. I’m willing to calculate the risks and take chances with my own mind and body, but that’s not, like, something I recommend. It’s… a problem. Dangerous as hell. More than my share of near-death experiences and all that, kind of how I have such an extensive list of extra safety tips. But. Whatever. Not the point.”

He clears his throat. "Anyway. The second cast left me over-energized, yes, but not to the extent that you were hitting, so there's some other variable in play that we weren't seeing. It's even possible that the difference is that my body is just better tuned to handling magically sourced overflows at this point. I wasn't going to test that on someone else, though, my personal code of ethics kind of means I'm limited to self-experimentation unless someone's asked me to work with them on something, and that work tends to be... more focused on specific goals or solutions," he waves the comment off. "That said, realizing there was a risk that was previously unidentified was why I added the more precautions against overflow or overcharge to the second relief geometry, so you couldn't risk overcharging yourself to that degree. Does it resolve the fact that it happened once? No. Should it help in the future. Yes."

. "If you're setting rules, you have to expect people to ask for clarification. Scratch asking a clarifying question - which, yes, he was also being a little shit about how he asked it - isn't unreasonable, especially considering the fact that no one in that room, you included, is keen on being told 'you have to do what I say'. Having others promise to 'do as I tell you' is a very, very, very loaded rule, and one that could be easily abused. There are a lot of ways it can be taken advantage of and used to take advantage of others without interfering with the other two rules you laid out, although, as I said before, limiting it to the context of the mission at hand was a good way to minimize overreach," he clicks his tongue. "Keep in mind, if someone has any relation to the Good Neighbors, that they take promises very, very seriously."

“Related to that, some things are in people's nature," he hooks his thumb towards the door. "... which, hopefully you've caught on to a bit of that by now? Kind of difficult to flag some things without hitting the ‘offensively rude’ thing with the Good Neighbors and their kin around, but since he’s not here to hear me, anymore… We'd literally have to talk Chance around until he understood why you thought there could be a transitive property between you asking Vesper for a favor and that becoming a favor from him, because that's not how ... people... like him think. The Good Neighbors and their kin don't always have their brains wired the way we do, and clarity in deals is... an important skillset to practice. There are rules and boundaries that we, as humans, do not intrinsically understand as part of our nature, but that others do."

. "Supplemental Case: Hospitality. Taken very seriously, which is also why Scratch won't actually risk tampering with the food - he's accepted my hospitality and there's a Sidhe in the house. Even if you're willing to push the limits, you don't do something that stupid with something that has an understanding of and puts high value on Hospitality nearby. That's why Chance said he was wondering if the kids had done something clever - he’s in a mode that makes him more friendly and playful, he likes kids, and he likes clever kids even better. He’s encouraging Eustace and Scratch to try and do minor, harmless mischief towards him because he thinks it’s fun.”

He smiles at Alric’s last comment. “Yeah. No shit. At least you can go outside, hm?” He sighs, pushing his sunglasses up and rubbing at his eyes. “Yeah, it’s a bitch of a learning curve, but there are going to be a lot of things you can do alone, but which leave you at a much higher failure and fatality risk. Even if other people add factors you can’t predict or account for they’ll also be bringing knowledge, skills, and perspectives that you don’t have. The safety increase is … usually worth it, in my experience.” He puts his sunglasses back down. “But that’s just me hammering the same drum. More helpful to think about: what about the people who are still willing to trust and work with you, even if they think you’ve fucked up? The world’s a two-way street and everyone’s going to fuck up or misjudge things at some point. What are your tolerance parameters - how many perceived errors does it take before you think you’re better off alone? How often do you let people know about your concerns so that you can come to an understanding about what happened to prevent recurrence of errors?”

Alric takes shorthand notes while Sawyer explains. "Okay, give me a moment, I want to think it through before I answer."

And think he does, for a moment, or two.

And then a third, fourth, fifth as he tries to see if anyone mischievous is either magically listening in or standing outside the door.

There doesn’t appear to be any active spying magic that Alric can see.

"I.. don't think I'm in a bad enough state to actually warrant these questions? Like, I don't immediately ditch people if.. Okay, we've got to be talking past each other. Let's make sure that we're on the same page. What happened earlier was, as far as I can tell, that we both had different expectations of what I was about to do when I tried to leave this room. And you got angry for what you perceived was throwing myself into a guaranteed death. I can see how what I said could've been perceived as condescending if one assumed that I was talking about going into the hive, rather than torching the lot. Does that track for you so far? Please correct me where I'm off or if I'm missing parts of the picture."

He checks his notes.

• Saije
• Almost dying last week
• Mysterious variable?
• New relief diagram
• 'Good Neighbors'
• The whole 'other people' thing

"Regarding Saije. No, I didn't ask, I still think she didn't do any thinking. I bet she had a good reason afterwards, I think I'd get annoyed hearing it. I agree I shouldn't have blown up on her, and I'll apologize to her."

"The whole magic tutorial situation. I went in there with the expectation that a magic 101 lead by you wouldn't result in my near-death. I assumed you knew what you were doing, and you didn't, so I updated accordingly. I'm not saying you don't know anything. I still think you're very powerful and know a lot, and I'll continue to consult you and take your opinion into account. But I'll take it into account with less weight. The circle, by the way, same thing. You could've just slapped the paper out of my hand, it's not like it didn't take me forever to cast it. Instead you guys just waited patiently? Again, I'm not faulting any of you, I'm frustrated that I had wrong expectations."

. "But to actually answer your question: Yes, I'd have cast it twice in a row at some point. I'd have probably died in that situation. On that note. Other variable? Shannon back then said something about a contract with a demigod but I don't recall the details, and I'm up to four demigods met by now, so, that, probably?" He furrows his eyebrows. "But no, we just ran a credit score, that's not it. Ah, fantastic. Question. I've built my first Relief disc based on the diagram in the tome you gave me, not based on the modified diagram you gave me after the brain boiling. Will the disc kill me?"

"And finally, 'good neighbors.' Yeah. For some reason it occurred to no one that this is actually super fucking important to teach the new guy. I probably need a 101 on them before I head back out, but let's figure out the other stuff first."

(Alric would know from his previous research of faeries that “The Good Neighbors” is a euphemism for the fae.)

Alric did get that! But considering that his own research didn't even bring up that they can only speak the truth, it's likely there's more he's missing.

"There's a lot more nuance than that, and if you want me to give you a point by point analysis we'll be here all night and I'll bill you for my time," He waves off any possibility of further discussion of his rates. “Look. If you really want a detailed re-tread, today really isn’t a good day for it. It sounds like the most important thing I told you didn’t sink in, Alric, so try it this way: you’ve been acting like you’re the only tree in town when there’s a whole forest around you. The world is a complicated ecosystem, and the Dyer Lot is one piece of a very, very, very large puzzle that is constantly in motion. The things I’m angry about are still too close to home, too unresolved, and Chance telling me why the remaining wards at the Dyer Lot were gone is not helping that at all. Understood?”

He claps his hands together, sinking back into his teaching posture. "If you want a specific example regarding the condescending attitude? The way you’re talking about Saije. I highly recommend you actually listen to Saije instead of deciding that any rationale she has for her actions would be a hindsight justification, because right now you're insulting someone who, in my experience, is not a reckless idiot, and, frankly, I'm angry on her behalf," Sawyer says tone slowly evening back out. "Assuming you'll get annoyed is priming yourself to assume that whatever reason she had isn't good enough, and that's-"

He breathes out, slowly, through his teeth, forcing the agitation out of his posture. "... apologize, yes, but listen to her, too," he says quietly. "Strip your assumption that her reasons won't satisfy you out of the equation. They aren't helpful, they won’t change what has already happened, and they definitely won’t make it easier to work with her if you stay on with the Commission in the long or short term. Understanding her reasoning and her thought process could.”

. Considering his words a few moments before, it doesn’t take a notice check to clock that he’s trying to practice what he’s preaching. He hasn’t *asked* Alric why or what he did that ended up breaking the wards, yet, but it sounds like he’s putting that line of questioning off until he isn’t trying to navigate a vastly larger set of calculations.

He taps his foot against the floor. "Alric. Do you know everything in the world about everything you study? Can you predict every possible variable? I do know what I'm doing, I’m not being egotistical when I say I am, legitimately, one of the foremost mortal experts on magic, full stop, but even experts make mistakes. There are very few circumstances under which using magic does not carry some risk of failure or backlash. Would you rather I lied to you and claimed you just found some spectacular way to do it wrong, rather than try to actually identify the problem and figure out a way to minimize the chance of recurrence? If I make a miscalculation, I will tell you. I’ve used that same geometry arrangement before, is the thing. I gave it to my daughter to use when she was up studying too late. None of us ever had that problem. Sometimes things go wrong and determining how is impossible. It’s possible that if you’d gone home and cast it twice in a row that you would have been fine. I don’t think it’s smart to test that hypothesis. We don’t know what the variable is, so we can’t account for it, yet. If I figure it out, I will tell you.”

. “Also, I do not get physical with my students. Theoretically, I could have slapped it out of your hands, but, counterpoint: I like my teeth. Getting aggressive towards people when they're not expecting is a great way to get punched in the face. Doubly so if you get physical about it.”

He presses his palms together. "... tell me, where do you think the safe exit point is on a circle, Alric? There isn't one built in. It is a circle, a shape with no end and no beginning, the simplest form of Eternity . Ripping it away from you could have gone even worse. On the fly calculations, buffered by the fact that I had a spell of my own active, made me conclude that trying to knock you out of the effect would have had a more direct negative consequence than the alternative. Weird side effects are one thing. Brain damage is another."

He shakes his head at the demigod comment. ".... hypothetically a pact with something could have been a possible explanation or variable for why the spell misfired in the superboost direction," Sawyer says. “As for the disc, if you show it to me later, I can take a look. I didn’t see any immediate red flags in the diagrams, but I can take another look. Worst comes to worst I can check my contacts and point you at another artificer - Shannon might also be able to find you a contact - but I can’t guarantee that whoever we dig up would be up for answering your questions or offering any extensive help. Most people aren’t. I … may not always be as available as I’ve been for the last week, as a heads up. I do have an actual consulting gig outside of Bright Books.”

. He breathes out at the mention of the Good Neighbors. "Yeah, Alric, it's almost as though I expected your boss to be the one in charge of easing you into the deep end, not me," he arches his brows. "Seriously, though, I wasn't planning to be the one to introduce you to any of them. So, you know, pop that on the board as reason one. Reason two - people can only absorb so much information at a time. If you’re magic-hungry, I’ll teach you as much as you can safely stomach, but that means other things aren’t automatically on the syllabus.”

Alric listens, then stares at the ceiling for a minute.

Ah, of course. I'm an idiot. Cultural differences. I should've just lead with this from the start.

He turns back to Sawyer, keeping the same conversational tone he had the whole time.

"Please ignore any perceived subtext in the following words."

"I suspect we're not making headway because we're having a different understanding of what we're doing here. My intent is to build a shared model of what happened earlier. I am not arguing, I am not trying to convince you. I consider it important that you understand that I do not talk in subtext right now, and I don't think I have before. Imagine me as an anti-'good neighbor' right now, a bad neighbor, if you will. Very, very low rate of subtext. Just text."

"I have listened to what you said and taken notes. I predict we'll make more progress if we go one by one over each thing. So, let me start this again by offering you an answer to a question you seem to have, and then I'll ask a question."

"I unleashed the shoggoths by scratching a line into the dirt from inside the lot to the outside. The intent was to see if the inside part of the line gets reset the same as the rest of the lot. The only information I had about magic at that time was that it runs on meaning, and that diagrams and hand signs are used to cast it. If I came across the information that boundaries are important by that point, I must have failed to grok that information as important and remember it. At that point in time though, I wasn't aware there was a barrier at all and that barriers can be broken by these kinds of actions. I don't think I could've done better given the information I had at the time. Please point out if I'm mistaken."

. "My current model of what happened in here earlier roughly looks like this: A implies B, A[me] being that the plan was to torch the lot from the outside, and B[me] being that I should, for the highest chance of success, just do it myself. My suspicion is that you had a different A[you], namely, torching the lot plus clearing out the hive, which implied a different B[you], namely teamwork and planning. If that suspicion is right, what you perceived happening is A[you] resulting in B[me], and it makes sense for you to perceive that as condescending. Does that track for you so far, or am I off?"

"And I agree, there is a lot more nuance to this, on both sides. But the first uncertainty reductions have the biggest ROI. I don't need to have a perfect model to come to the same conclusions as you. But I need some information here, or I predict I'll leave the room without having changed my mind. I'd also like to point out that I don't recall having used any subtext since I started responding to you, and I estimate it as highly important that you process my response as such."

When Alric looks back at him, Sawyer has one hand over his eyes, massaging his temple with his thumb. He drops his hand back down as Alric starts to speak. “... I'll keep in mind that you're trying to avoid subtext, but be aware that discarding or ignoring subtext is effortful and not a natural part of how I process communication, and generally requires trust. I'll take you at your word that any negative subtext to this discussion in particular - including your unspoken rejection of my request to table this for another time - is currently unintentional, and non-malicious.”

"My being upset and angry with you because of the results of your actions doesn't actually have to mean I am blaming you for the choice you made or assume you were being stupid or careless," Sawyer says, hand rising back up to his temple. "The information on boundaries in the book I gave you is aimed more at the practice of magic - what’s inside and outside the boundary of effect - and is relevant to when you're already aware there's an active spell in the area. If you didn’t know there was a ward or barrier, you couldn’t have known you were about to break it. Yes, it’s understandable that you didn’t know better and couldn’t have done better. Reality is a bitch and consequences are a domino effect. While intentions matter in spellwork, in this case? They don’t change the end result of the ward breaking: Chance calling in Aspen to ensure the problem remained contained until it could be dealt with properly and the situation escalating from there.”

. “So. Yes, there was a misunderstanding about your intentions, and part of that was because your comment about covering yourself in napalm and lighting it was still waving about five red flags in the back of my mind, which made it very easy to have my perception overcorrect back to ‘Oh, shit, you’re going to die’ instead of remembering that you were going to set shit on fire and start from there, especially considering you’d just turned on a dime and said you quit the Dawn Commission.” He breathes out, then shrugs. “...that said, I still think your B-point, as stated ‘I should … just do it myself’, assuming no hidden codas or modifications were planned at the time, was impulsive and unwise. I also had the impression that you didn’t sufficiently consider the fact that you weren’t operating in a vacuum, which was part of why I was angry Which. Let me run through the smaller scale factors, to align understanding, here, of what I’d consider additional requirements for your A-point to succeed..”

He turns to one of his blank chalkboards and draws a rough sketch of the lot and the sidewalks and lots next to it - including his interpretation of Aspen’s concentric circles based on Mori’s descriptions. “The lot isn’t in an isolated location. Fire spreads. Moltovs and napalm can start a fire, but if the fire spreads to the neighboring lots, then there is a heightened risk of harm to yourself and others. He draws a fire truck and a police badge. The fire truck is only recognizable as having been meant to be a fire truck because he scrubs the sketch off the board and just writes ‘Fire Department & Emergency Services’ in its place. “Outside resources help mitigate that risk.”

. He draws an arrow from the edge of the lot to the inside. “Second point - guaranteeing the fire spread all the way into the lot and took out all of the fire and vegetation. Theoretically possible solo. Likely would result in having to go into the lot at one point or another - which leads to ‘how do you keep any shoggoths that are still in the tall grass past the area Aspen cleared from murdering you’, which… Maybe you could have set one on fire, but I would be really concerned that you wouldn’t be able to get it off of yourself without getting grabbed by a shoggoth that was now on fire.”

He turns back to Alric. “... Morgana told you about the concern about the fire spreading before you got to Bright Books. Getting help from Emergency Services doesn’t count as doing things alone. Likewise, protection from not getting eaten by shoggoths if you did end up needing to go into the lot, see ‘ensuring this whole place burns to ash’. When you were leaving, I asked how you’d burn the whole lot without having to leave a safe distance. Not nicely, obviously, but that doesn’t mean the root of the question wasn’t reflecting a valid concern. You may have already had a plan on how to handle that risk, you may not have, that’s not the point, and I don’t actually need or care about getting an answer here, these are datapoints.”

. “Fire and smoke hazards were things you were looking into, already aware of that, not putting it on the board. What I am going to flag as an additional risk which I don’t think either of us factored into our base calculations here was Aspen. She was - is? - working inward to clear and claim the lot, which means the exterior sections, the ones you’d be able to easily reach from the sidewalk, were considered her stuff, which means burning it without her giving the go-ahead would annoy her, at the least, and risk angering or insulting her, which is a bad time.” He pauses. “... Morgana was already at the lot, so you had someone who could warn you. She’s always been a good kid. No idea where she got it from.”

. When Alric says he doesn't recall using any subtext in their conversation, Sawyer clears his throat.

“Clarifying point, for the record, on the way you’re talking about subtext, because I think there’s a misunderstanding here on what subtext is. Whether you consciously recall it or not, there’s subtext to every conversation. It comes from our internal beliefs and convictions, our attitudes towards a topic or conversation or individual, our emotional states, our body language. They’re all part of conversation and communication. They’re subtext. Reading into what people say and how they choose to say it is part of that. Phrasing, what you say, what you hold back… it’s all subtextual, even if it supports the actual text of what’s being said. You can’t really have text without subtext.”

He pulls off his sunglasses, cleaning them with the sleeve of his sweater. “... and, for the sake of being direct: if you haven’t been catching on to the subtext I’ve been using when there are people around that mean I can’t openly explain things to you for risk of causing bigger problems or insulting people, then it's possible you may be missing the point of why I’m choosing to ask some questions or make specific comments or, for example, why I would explain to Chance why you think he might consider you in debt to him when Vesper uses his Title. I was trying to tell you - through subtext because it would have been a bad idea to say out loud - that Chance thinks about debts differently.”

Alric takes notes, listens, then responds.

• Quitting the DC
• Doing it myself -> unwise
• "doesn't count as doing things alone"
• "tree in a forest"?
• subtext

"Okay. So. Regarding subtext: I'm not completely missing it, but probably a lot. I think for the purpose of me actually understanding the points you are trying to make, as little subtext as possible is very helpful. And I appreciate you putting an effort into this, despite talking in this way being foreign to you. To move on, let me try to rephrase what I expect to be the most important thing of what you just explained, to make sure I got it. You want me to understand that I don't exist in a vacuum, and that other people are important. Not just in general, but also for the purpose of solving the problems at hand. You are under the impression that I don't like to work with others and rather just do everything myself. The evid- ..the data points you use to support that hypothesis are me quitting the Dawn Commission and me walking out on you guys. Does this ring true to you so far, or is there anything wrong with how I understood your explanation? Please point it out, and.. it would be helpful to keep explanations short. The more you explain to me at once, the more I'm bound to miss. You do not need to worry about me entrenching myself - I will continue to reiterate how I understand your perspective until you're satisfied I actually got it."

"Talking this way isn't foreign to me, Alric, it's agreeing to ignore subtext that isn't. Additional point: you're not the first Rationalist I've talked to - obviously, I've introduced you to Shannon - but you're the first one whose asked me to ignore subtext," he checks over his sunglasses and puts them back on. "Moving on. I'm not necessarily assuming that your behavior and actions today are guaranteed pieces of a long term pattern, Alric, but your behavior and attitude threw up red flags. The way you talk to people and the way you've been talking about them in this conversation also says things about you. If you're not noticing the subtext to that text, that's a red flag. The way you were dismissive of the idea that anyone could actually be helpful in what is a much larger crisis scenario when leaving, and the fact that you seemed to think that you were the only person for the job. Red flag."

He massages his temple again, brow creasing. "I think I've already flagged that shit already, though, and I genuinely don't have the spare mental bandwidth to give you a genuine or useful point by point on that front. If you do want to look into them, they're social factors. The social context means you should talk to other people, like Saije, to get a better multi-perspective data spread."

He cocks his head. "I asked you questions, including asking how many errors it takes for you to decide you're better off alone. I'll clarify now: I don't care about the answers. The questions are for your benefit and consideration in the long term. They're meant to point you towards asking, big, hundred dollar questions, like: 'am I about to burn a bridge without actually gathering all the information I need to make an informed decision?' and 'Am I overlooking or missing something important?'. I care about the first two things you call out as important, yes."

. "The third thing? I'm well aware that you ended up accepting assistance from my daughter and Ellie. See my earlier comment about the questions I was asking - they've added more weight to this point and your perception of what I think than intended. At the end of the day, if you take actions that burn bridges, that's a you problem as long as it doesn't have a high chance of negatively affecting my calculations on an active big picture problem or mean someone decides that you're just a symptom of a bigger problem and the solution to that bigger problem is that it's time for another round of 'try to murder Sawyer Morgan'."

He winces. "You might not have time for a full scope of that if you want to talk about anything else tonight, Alric. I've got one hell of a migraine building up, so if you can focus in on your high ticket items here that would be fantastic."

Sawyer, roll Notice (Empathy)

Rolled: [6, 3] Result: Success! 🎯

Notice: [1, 6 💥 5 = 11]+2 Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

BROKEN LINK

There's nothing interesting to read in Alric's face. As far as Sawyer can tell, Alric has just been patiently sitting there for the past 15 minutes or so while listening to Sawyer's lectures, with no notable shift in mood.

"Mhm. I.. get the sense that my attitude is the crux of your anger. Does that sound right? It's less about the actual things that happened, and more about the underlying attitude that led me to dismiss others and walk out of here? I understand by now that you weren't happy that I walked out, and that I should've worked with the team. Me acting that way earlier, and the way I talked about Saije indicate to you a larger problem about my attitude, and that attitude is infuriating to you. ..have I captured the crux of the matter, or is there more I've done wrong or other things I'm missing? I'm also not quite sure I get why anyone would murder you for my attitude problem. If you could explain that, that'd be great, otherwise I'll move on from the current topic - we can shelve that until you're better. There's one or two completely unrelated things I could use your opinion on."

"The attitude is a big part of it, but your actions and implied actions - don't at me, we went over that miscommunication already, but it's still part of the relevant context - and the bigger picture consequences that could become part of the domino effect aren't divorced factors from that."

If this doesn't do so, let's slice the rest of the gordian knot to your satisfaction in brief strokes in meta, if you don't mind? I don't know if my communication skills are fully up to the /convey task, & I'm worried that I'm not quite hitting the mark & don't want to make it so we risk going in circles due to that. ie. I think I've been consistent but I may be wrong!

"I have the audacity to educate people, Alric. I'm willing to teach people other groups of practitioners write off as being of no value or below notice. There are people who take offense at that action alone. Still. If you burn the wrong bridge or step on the wrong toes, there's always a chance you'll run into someone who will decide that the person who was willing to teach you is just as big of a problem," He shrugs. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Yes, let's move on, please."

"Okay. That's great news! That means I'm starting to get a sense of what's going on. I can't claim that I begin to understand how I managed to evoke as strong a reaction as I did, but I get the sense that.. cultural differences.. are a big factor here. I expect to gain a better understanding over time, as I get acclimated, and I appreciate you patiently explaining these things to me. For what it's worth, I want to apologize for any insult I've brought you. It is true that I'm having difficulties relying on others, but I didn't intend to imply a lack of competence on your part. I am still valuing your council, and I didn't intend or even expect to burn any bridges. I wasn't aware that my actions had that much of an impact in that regard."

"We can also stop ignoring subtext now, if you prefer."

Alric checks his notes.

Ah, yes. Fae.

"Let's get to the fun stuff."

"Aspen. Shannon, paraphrased, mentioned that Aspen is the only person she knows of who sells bags of holding, for favors obviously. Aspen did imply that she'd, at the time of the picnic that is, be interested in taking me in as a student. I am interested in accepting that offer, because damn, she made her own picnic basket of holding and I want to know how because it's a billion times cooler than my stupid discs. So. I won't immediately make a deal with her, same as I didn't before, but I'd be interested in negotiating with her and finding out if there are terms Aspen and I both can agree on. However. I know fuck all about the good neighbors, and I've been failing charisma checks left and right, including probably in the discussion we have at this very moment."

"To summarize. I have a strong desire to learn Aspen's craft, but I can't even begin to estimate the risks. What is your recommendation here?"

"I'm a very passionate person," Sawyer says in response to Alric’s comment about the strength of his reactions. "That's not a thing that's limited to positive emotions, even if the rest of my family wish it was."

"Okay. I hear you. I appreciate your words. I... yeah. We're good."

Sawyer cracks his knuckles, "Fun stuff. Let's go."

"... did she ask if you wanted to be her student? Morgana didn't mention that," Sawyer asks, looking more than a bit surprised. "I know of a few people she has a mentorship relationship with, but... I wouldn't recommend pursuing that at this time. Especially since those bags are made with Name magic - her method won't work for you unless you make a long-term Pontiff deal to get access to her power, which is a hypothetical statement because I am not making guarantees or predictions as to whether she'd take you on as a Pontiff."

He smiles, a quick flash of teeth. "... there's a reason 'don't summon things' is in the safety guide. I would recommend proceeding with a lot of caution with the Good Neighbors in general, especially if you're talking to then when they aren't playing at mortal. I would put it at a nintey-percent confidence interval that if you asked Chance or Aspen to ignore subtext that they'd laugh at you like you'd told a joke. At best. Saint might be willing to try."

. He runs a hand through his hair. "... I don't particularly like having to navigate talking to them, especially on days like today, but I'm on... relatively good terms with the Dynamic Court. That doesn't mean I don't think Lu- Chance wouldn't be willing to do something particularly unpleasant to me if I upset him, and considering how much my more frequent consulting gig needs me to do high-risk magic, I do not take those risks and I bribe him to hell and back with sweets to add a little wiggle room to my buffer."

"Phoenix's friend is the one who's probably going to be your best chance at a safe set of Good Neighbor training wheels - Saint's fucking weird for their kind, but in a good way, the way that means you can make mistakes without getting a steep fucking bill to pay later for accidentally insulting one of the Gentry because you don't know the rules of engagement. Your work with the commission should count towards any payments he might ask for - he wants people to protect people, help others, and hunt monsters, those are the big three payment forms he asks for and you've got a job with the 'trying to help people' group he already has a positive relationship with, basically."

A confidence interval is used to indicate the probability of a value being in a range between two other values. What you're describing is just a simple probability.

Alric mentally chuckles at the notion that this would've actually bothered him before today.

He's trying, though.

"She didn't ask. I do pick up on subtext, I do speak it, I just considered it wise to avoid it for the particular discussion we had earlier. What happened was that she pointed out that she wouldn't explain something because I haven't asked to be her student. It's likely that she formulated it that way because the idea was on her mind that time, I'd have expected other formulations significantly more likely otherwise. Could've been indirectly aimed at someone else present, but, you know, the whole soul gazing thing before that. I think I mentioned that when I was here earlier. Actually, I think I mentioned the whole thing earlier, and you already told me not to go with the first Good Neighbor I meet. But, yeah, too much stuff going on to keep track of."

"Man, I really wanted to learn making my own magic items, rather than just making discs for spellcasting. But, eh." He shrugs. "Right now it's a bad idea, and I'll drop it."

"..Saint's the ..safest one? The big one that got his shotgun out and started getting it in working order the moment things got just a little heated with Chance? ..well, at least it wasn't scissors." Alric gets his phone out and starts googling for any random bits of knowledge about fae.

"Can you give me a quick rundown on what not to do around them? I don't even need to understand why, I just need my ten commandments to follow."

"If she wants you as a student she won't hesitate to drop the subtext about it," he hums. "Oh. Yeah, no. That was a literal. You don't have and didn't ask to have that bond with her."

"You can learn, just give it time. My doors are heavy duty workings, but they're mostly mortal workings - our Rabbi's lent a hand with the major renovations, but we're definitely not having that conversation today. Focus on what you have now, get good at it, and then work up to the next steps. I believe in your potential, I wouldn't encourage you if I didn't."

He pauses, then snorts. "Pretty sure that wouldn't have been about you. He's with Phoenix, they were there with your coworkers to clear the lot before and they're back there again, he's still on contract, and, let me double-check my assumptions here, here - " his eyes glow purple behind his sunglasses. "Yeah. Yeah, if you attacked Chance and had a justification that aligned with Saint's core beliefs and functions, Saint wouldn't take grievance. Just like he wouldn't be offended if he clocked me doing that check because it was for Safety Advice."

. He fishes the black handkerchief he had on Saturday out of his pocket and presses it to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Either way. You should probably get Phoenix's thoughts on talking to him first. Saint's hell on doors so he's not allowed to touch any of mine or step on my thresholds, and locking in a promise to never come here without someone willing to open doors for him so he doesn't accidentally break my shit has been the biggest conversation we've had. I really haven't needed to talk to him much, myself. I know what I know and I know what I've heard ."

"Quick and dirty best practices:

• Be Polite.
• Don't make promises you can't keep.
• Don't break your word
• Watch your wording and theirs for loopholes.
• Don't insult them.
• If they're pretending to be human, play along.
• If they're not playing mortal, try to use the correct title to match the face you're talking to. Using the wrong title and inducing a shift in which face they're showing is bad manners, you might be allowed to get away with it depending on your relationship but it's better to be safe than sorry
• If they offer you a chance to negotiate a debt they're giving you an opportunity to define some of the limits of what they can do based on what they percieve as an imbalance, if you refuse then you'll have a fae with a grudge with no limits on the petty and not-so-petty shit they can do.
• Don't break hospitality.
• Related to the prior point: If you somehow find yourself in the position of a guest or host, bread and salt are traditional ways to affirm hospitality - pretzels and french fries are also valid, take the hospitality and follow the rules."

He pauses, taking a moment to pull something up on his phone.

"Faeresiensis has a fantastic article on hospitality, I'm sending you the link now."

Alric nods. That kind of magic not being out of his reach is reassuring.

"Okay, got it." He scans through the article real quick. Doesn't seem to apply right now, but will definitely be important later, when a demigod inevitably decides to show up on his doorstep. "Would it be safe to never adress them by a name at all? As in, just go with 'you' the whole time? And is there anything I should know in particular before my chat with Chance? I plan to make my questions airtight, but.. would too much ..cleverness be impolite or something?"

"Would you consider someone never calling you by name impolite?" He shrugs. "So. Going into a bit of hearsay, my understanding is that Chance and Aspen have a higher number of formal titles than most. I don't know why. I'm not going to ask them why. If you politely ask which title you should use or how they'd prefer to be addressed should be within the boundaries of good manners."

He makes a face. "This is all a skill thing, and it's... not a skillset I was super invested in picking up. My first run-in with one of the Good Neighbors was enough for me to never want to talk to one again."

He clicks his tongue. "We can't always have what we want, though. So. Chance. He's in friendly mischief mode, so casual and conversational is good."

He considers. "If you've got sweets or something, those are good bribes to keep him in a good mood. I tend to go with honey because it's also a traditional offering."

He hesitates, rubbing his temple. "If you run your questions by me I can tell you if I'm seeing any immediate red flags?"

Can relate. I'd rather avoid them in the future as well.

Alric does another Detect Vectors to see if anything feels magically shifty, then proceeds.

"Mhm.. yeah, that's a good idea. So.. First one." - he's writing them out so he can remember the exact wording for later. - "'If I didn't have debt to you earlier at the lot and also knew everything you did about souls, would I still have agreed to the changes you made to my soul?'"

There was active magic when Saywer's eyes glowed purple, but none after that.

Seeing what Sawyer did there: [1, 5]-2 Result: Failure ❌

The blip of magic was fast. It is still hard for Alric to get a good read on how magic vectors work because they point in directions that aren't the physical cardinal three.

Sawyer looks like he's about to drop into expositon again and visibly reels himself back in. ".... I think the question works. I think the 'knew everything you did about souls' might need some qualifiers - knowing something is a good idea and doing it aren't necessarily going to be mutually inclusive. You can probably get a useful answer or perspective from him either way if he agrees to answer."

"Okay, that's good. Mhm. Second one. 'When we first shook hands earlier at the lot, did you have the intention to.. no. Mhm. ..did you intend to provoke me?'" Alric leans back for a second, waiting for Sawyer to respond, then remembers something. "Actually, wait. I think he did say something in that moment about being friendly or kind or something by warning me? To me it sounded like a pretty damn obvious veiled threat, especially with him immediately dismissing me afterwards. But then during the argument he told me something about not being able to lie? Is that an actual thing, as far as you are aware? In that case he might have meant that literally?"

"The question itself seems fairly safe. Good Neighbors can try to mislead you with their word choice but no, they can't lie. They're held to the letter of their promises. They do not like people who break promises, that's lying."

"As to the rest.. uhm. Morgana would probably be able to give you a better answer, she was there and specific wording is important. From what you're saying - I'm going to guess that yes, it was a warning. With the context of debt, denial of debt is an insult. Not that you had context for that at the time."

"Mhm.. The only other thing that I'd like to know would be if- actually, let me just phrase that as the question.. ..'Do you-' Nope. ..'What is the cause of the run of bad luck you expect me to have and that you are currently managing by keeping a finger on the scale?' Yeah, that, I think? Like, he said twice now that I'm due for a lot of bad luck because of balancing reasons but man, I haven't had any good luck in years. I don't know what he's talking about when he says things about balance there, cause there's nothing on the other side of the scale. If anything, I should have a lot of luck in reserve? The best I can come up with is that he took a bite out of my good luck, and that's what he's drip feeding instead of hitting me with it at once? Like, does any of this make sense to you?"

"... that definitely opens you up for a non-answer, but if you get a non-answer I think it would be one that provides you more data." Sawyer considers.

"So. Making sense or not. I'm not one of them. I can't verify some of what I'm going to say, here. The cost to know the specifics is too high and I don't want that kind of attention. What I say is a product of my experience and my understanding, but there are definitely gaps and I may have a flawed understanding - the Good Neighbors aren't one of my fields of interest, they're something I've had to learn about for survival purposes. So," Sawyer breathes out, rubbing his hands together.

"They don't necessarily think the way we think or see the world the same way we do - this is evident. Their... perspective is shaped by their nature and their individual conceptual leanings. Chance is, in essence, at least partially composed of the concept of Luck. There's an innate understanding of things tied into their concept, and that may not always translate well into mortal terms. I'm sure it makes sense to him."

He pulls his black handkerchief away from his face, checking to see if his newest nosebleed has slowed to a stop. "What I can tell you is that he's only tried to get a good look at my luck once, and he recoiled with a look on his face like an upset cat, so..." he clears his throat. "Sounds like you weren't doing too bad, yet."

Alric laughs. "Ah, fantastic. Yet."

He raps his fingers on the couch, thinking, then speaks up. "Okay. So. Bear with me here. I have an unfathomly bad idea that I want to run by you. I'm preempting this because I already know that you'll tell me that it's a horrible idea, but I still want to run it by you on the very far off-chance that it might just be a good idea. Me sharing that idea with you is conditional on you not using or sharing or acting on the idea or so unless I'm fine with it. You don't need to promise, but, like.. Please? Okay? Okay. Do you want to hear it?"

"Alright," Sawyer says slowly, pocketing his handkerchief. "Yes, I want to hear it."

Alric does his Detect Vectors. Nothing shows up.

"Alright. I can't detect any spying magic or anything. If you have anything to confirm we're in privacy, that'd be great. We're talking weapons grade bad here."

With Sawyer confirming that everything is fine, he continues.

"Okay. So. Once upon a time I had the idea of a secret society or whatever that would be based on the concept of higher level thinking, and it would work not by publicly advertising itself or actively recruiting people, but by waiting for people to deduce its existence. These people would then deduce the Schelling- the obvious way of getting into contact with each other, and just get in contact. The deduction itself would be the initiation process, so to speak."

"I never put any time into it. I don't think it exists - it would require at least some people to have the same idea and act on it. Very, very low odds. But. But. If we're talking gods or demigods. Like, there's got to be my kind of demigod or god out there, and they gotta have come up with the same idea. And I don't expect that facet - am I using the word correctly here? - to advertise their existence. I'd expect them to wait for people to deduce their existence and then call them, or at the very least I'd expect them to have come up with that idea, and then discarded it, because, like, what are the odds. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to deduce my existence and then come knocking. But I want to try it out. Like, for a god I'd pray? How does praying even work, like, mechanically? I'd like to try that out first. And.. if that doesn't work, I'd like to make a list of possible names a demigod like that would have and try to call them, with your help, because you can do Name magic and I can't."

. He quickly adds: "..all of this assuming of course that you proclaim it reasonably safe under some set of circumstances, and that I know the risks involved and actually want to take them."

Alric falls silent for a moment, before speaking up again.

"Actually, learning how to pray might be a good thing before the shoggoth hive in any case, you know, just in case we end up needing a deus ex machina."

“Summoning unknown names is not safe in the least bit.” Sawyer clarifies before anything else.

“That said, you have an interesting idea of what things would be bad for other people to hear,” Sawyer’s lips twitch up at the corners. “Especially since I could easily say that my bookstore, for example, could be considered a Schelling Point. A lot of what you’re saying seems to assume or hinge on the idea that people who think the way you do with regards to picking a point will also have a similar goal or goals in the long-term. It also assumes that no bad actors could pick the same point… and that no one’s monitoring or has a trap set on the point you flag as your Schelling Point because of it having been a popular locus in the past. I assume you don’t want people to hear because if you did execute this idea it would spoil the integrity of the execution?”

“Putting aside the secret society aspect, that depends on how you define your kind of god or demigod. Facet - a facet is a side or an aspect of something, when used in context about a Good Neighbor, it’s usually referring to a title. Chance exhibited two of his facets when he was in the room earlier. Clarifying question: are you asking if there is a Rationalist among the various entities of Chance’s power level or above, or are you talking about a different cross-section of criteria?”

He breathes through his teeth. “... making a list of possible Names isn’t a simple thing. Making an approximate coordinate set that could correspond to where a Name could be in concept space? That’s simpler. So. It's possible that if you pinpointed a specific coordinate set that you might be able to find what you're looking for, but just because it has the right cross-section of concepts that you were looking for doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be friendly. Not every coordinate point is populated."

. He gestures. "If the thing you're pointing to doesn't exist, that opens the door for something else to come in. If you don't have the proper coordinate - like you try to call for Weaver, but you don't know his Name or know enough about summoning - and this is summoning that you're talking about - you could get something else that's close enough in concept space to hear your call. It might have a mind that operates like ours. It might be an eldritch thing from beyond the stars that heard the dinner bell. Might be a demon. You might just make a Weird. Difficult to predict. If you don't get things right - especially if you don't realize you didn't get them right - then you don't know what's coming until it's here, and sometimes you won't know until it decides to let you know the intentions it came through with."

"Focus on the basics for now. Build up your skillset and understanding, and if you really, really want to learn summoning... later... we'll talk. Esoteric Mathematics is honestly going to be your best path to finding what you want if you try for a coordinate call that's... specific."

. "But. Sure. If you want a crash course in faith, I can do that," he cracks his knuckles. “It's been awhile since someone's asked anything about it. I'm going to be glossing over a lot of the intimate details, here, because I don't think you actually want me to get anywhere near as deep into the religious studies course as I could," Sawyer's tone is playful as he motions, continuing onward. "Faith and prayer, the relationship of the divine and the devotee, comes in two main flavors: Rituals and Invocations. Ritualized prayers and practices operate much like ritual magic, except for one key factor: you’re not the one providing the power. The fabric in which these ritual paths are carved is not that of the fundament itself, it’s that of the Divine Presence the rituals are linked to. If you do not have Faith it will not work. You cannot ask someone you do not believe in for help.”

He wiggles his eyebrows above his sunglasses. “Which isn’t to say that belief is the only requirement. Not every believer, not every rabbi or priest or imam or what have you is connected in the same way. Not everyone can make magic happen through faith. My family has a long history of faith-based magic practice, and I used to be able to Invoke the divine. Now I can't. I can use a few rotes, sometimes…" He laughs quietly. “But I skipped Synagogue on Saturday to be here when you and Inara came by in the morning so that’s not really doing me any favors right now… which I’m using as a convenient segue to move on to the other flavor: Invocation.”

. “Prayer is a form of Invocation,” he grins, showing his teeth. “ It’s asking someone else to use their Name magic in your favor. You make a covenant with the Divine - when and how this is established can vary, but traditional coming of age ceremonies or the onset of adolescence are pretty traditional. Then you stick to it. Whether we’re talking about Names of the other things you can summon to make pacts with and the Names of the Divine, both boil down to Invoking their Name for their help at the core."

“So. All of that said. I can teach you to pray all you want, but if you don’t believe in what you’re praying to, it won't do a damn thing for you. So. Deus Ex Machina. You're going to have three of the Good Neighbors with you. I imagine Saint is the only one likely to go inside - so you'll have two Deus Ex Machina waiting right outside. What kind of help do you want to be able to call instead, and why would you assume it wouldn't cost you something?"

???

I'm the paranoid one?

"I- you- no. What?" Alric shakes his head and chuckles, relaxes. He squints at Sawyer for a moment, then continues. "No, the bad thing is the summoning of something you don't know anything about besides the name? I didn't even consider that people would come up with the same hypothetical, and then would set traps. Like, anyone who would manage to come up with that idea would understand that careful cooperation is the dominant strategy? And, like, that'd require one come up with the idea, then expect people to actually execute on the idea and then also bother executing on the trap? ..I don't want people to hear the idea because a) they might be tempted to execute on it and b) it's my idea, I figured it out and if anyone tries it, it's me dammit." He chuckles again. "I- I was called paranoid, Sawyer. The overconfidence, I can stretch enough to see that people would judge me as such, but even I didn't consider traps. I- Chance gotta mean something different with the words overconfidence and paranoia when he explained stuff to me earlier. It just- yeah." He shakes his head, bewildered.

. "Moving on. Rationalist- I am definitely not look for a rationalist entity. Nah. Fuck that. No, like, what I'd be looking for would be something that yeah, shares some territory with rationality. But not, like- no, let's skip that, I'm not going to get started. I'm talking about something different. It'd.. something in the direction of orthogonal thinking? Orthogonal thinking isn't really a specific way of thinking, that's not what's actually happening, to no one's surprise. It's far more about seeing how things actually are. You can't think outside the box if all you see is the inside of the box, but it's effortless if you don't imagine boxes where there aren't any. I don't know how else to explain it. I just think there'd be something out there that would tick like me, somewhat, and I'd want to say hello. But if there are places in concept space that aren't populated, I'd bet some serious money on that being one of them."

Alric listens carefully to Sawyer's explanation about faith.

So, you were a cleric before? You're obviously missing the strength and constitution for a paladin.

. "You were a cleric once? ..wait, no- I know. You told me your Name last week, and that's one of the things that are really hard to forget. And you- you.. no, none of my business." But you are living proof that one can get weight and leverage to their Name. Alric shakes his head and continues in his same relaxed, conversational tone. "So.. if praying is just ritual magic or a form of Name invocation, how is cleric magic different from warlock magic? Like, both is just getting something bigger than you to do magic for you? And.. I'd still like to learn to pray. The point- Yeah, I feel like a thing that repeatedly happens is that people completely misinterpret the thoughts that lead to my supposedly overconfident or paranoid behaviour. I don't want to know how to pray because I expect shit to hit the fan, I want to know how because learning how has basically no cost, but the downside on the very far off-chance that it's needed are devastating. I don't know what it'd cost me to call for help, and the odds are against me on anything happening at all when I try, but I'd still like to have the option? Like, there isn't any downside to having the option, is there?"

"Careful cooperation is the dominant strategy for humans," Sawyer clarifies. "Paranoia is suspecting people are out to get you with little basis to go off of. What I'm talking about is reporting on things I've seen and read about. I'm also not telling you to assume that everywhere you go might be bugged or trapped, I'm not saying there's a high percent likelihood, I'm just telling you that there are things who would and will do these things. Some of them are malicious. Some of them are just keeping an eye out for, example, groups of scrappy college kids banding together in magically charged areas to investigate things that may be setting themselves up to get in way, way over their heads."

"Mh. Orthogonal thinking is going to get you something less human," he comments. "But we don't need to get into that right now. Table it for later."

"Alric, this is fantasy, but it's not D&D. I was planning to go to rabbinical school before things went to absolute shit on that plan." Sawyer laughs quietly. "I assume by ‘warlock’ you mean ‘pontiff’ and not ‘betrayer.’ The ritualized rotes are one of the big differences, the shape of the covenants is the other."

“I appreciate you clarifying your thought process, because that helps me understand where you're coming from and why you're asking the questions you're asking. I can show you how to pray, but without living in accordance to a covenant, I doubt it will do you much good." He pauses. "... or speaking fluent Hebrew, that could be a problem. But, before we get deeper into that...if you're going to start asking a question after mentioning my Name, that's a question I want you to finish," Sawyer says slowly. "Because I don't want you to come to incorrect conclusions."

"..Do all covenants require Hebrew for their prayers? Wait, sorry, first my incorrect conclusions." He blows raspberries, then falls silent for a moment. "I don't know how close those hit to home, but it's probably going to be closer than whatever bad things I said earlier? You can just tell me to stop at any time. So.."

"So. What I think I perceived last week was, well, your name seems to intersect hard with the concepts of Knowledge, Space and Eternity? Which is pretty wild for a mortal Name? That is, as far as I can tell, I know fuck all about this stuff. So, maybe you aren't fully mortal anymore, question mark? And also I saw that you nearly burned to extinction and then rekindled, not sure I understood that one right. And you're an Occultist and not a leveled down Cleric, from what I could tell, and if your faith was a big thing before then that whole series of events is related and it's not a far jump to say that the burning and rekindling probably related to whatever Clerichood you don't have anymore? Cleric isn't the right word here is it, but you did say you could invoke divinity before and not anymore. Also you told Shannon that I didn't use your name and using another's name is a Good Neighbor thing and not a mortal thing? So my best but still bad estimate would be that you were a Cleric that then tinkered in Occult stuff and then lost one for the other?"

"Nope, I'm just Jewish, so those are the ones I'm familiar with," he grins crookedly, then listens, quietly, expression serious, before he gives a quiet huff of laugh. "Definitely going to need to get that Seer ability of yours trained up further, you're really going to be something with that."

"No. I'm not fully mortal, anymore. I don't recommend trying to replicate the process, however, because it will kill you." He shrugs, hands in his pockets. "When I was a teenager I had my connection to the divine forcibly burned out of me as a side effect of an encounter with a malignant entity. Magical Burnout is often the end of one's practice. That wasn't an acceptable outcome. It took time and effort to be able to pick Ritual magic back up, and from there..."

He gestures, voice still even and matter-of-fact. "... well. Long story short, we took what we learned and made Bright Books into what it is today."

Alric can make a Notice check if he wants to read further between the lines of what Sawyer isn't saying.

Not undead, probably? His windows aren't tinted. Mhm. I'd bet money on dying being an expected part of the process. Would love to know how that whole thing works, would give me more info on afterlives and what else is on the other side, if anything.

Read between the lines: [7, 4]+2 Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

When he says Alric would die, he means Alric would stop. Permanently.

This is a practiced explanation, but there's fraying at the edges of Sawyer's mask of indifference that speak to a lingering trauma. A hard break between before and after that supports Alric’s conjecture that no longer being a cleric was related to the burning and rekindling. There's definitely more to the story, something about the malignant entity ... and the implication of we feels inclusive. Whatever happened to Sawyer, he wasn't the only one the entity harmed.

There are no magic vectors that Alric can see.

Alric nods. "Alright, I'll skip out on that process then. I'd still like to know how it works mechanically, but if that's something you're willing to talk about at all, we still probably want to postpone that. Prayers, however. So, do they all work the same mechanically? Or does your covenant's method of praying, independent of content and language, also have its own, like, thing?"

"We'd need to know each other a lot better before I'm up for that conversation," he says, adjusting his sunglasses.

"I can only speak with experience to my own cultural practices. I've talked to people from other backgrounds, but while faith is simple it is not straightforward."

Prayers differ based on cultural practices - the methods, the words, the motions, each is steeped in the culture and religion they stem from.

He'll walk Alric through a simple prayer for protection he learned when he was young, and joke that if he wants it to work he should come to synagogue next Saturday.

As they finish with the prayer discussion, Sawyer's cellphone starts to ring and he pulls it out, grimacing. "... looks like we're out of time. I need to take this call."

He ushers Alric to the door and accepts the call, kicking the door closed once Alric is through "Merkaba speaking. Hermes. What do you want? I'm monitoring a situa-"

The door closes, leaving Alric in the hall.

Well.

Good thing Alric was fresh out of questions. Eh. Almost.

He'll google the word "Merkaba" ("Hermes" he already knows from greek mythology, messenger, fast as fuck), and then while he's at it, "Hypate" as well.

"Merkaba" apparently means "chariot"? "Divine vehicle"? Something about helping people meet the cosmic energies? Spiritual ascension?

Ah. My archmage friend is literally doing God's work. Let's update the odds of meeting a full blown god in the next two weeks to 'ah, fuck'.

...

Hypate.

Lowest note of a tetrachord in greek musical theory? Highest string of the lyre. And a.. muse? Wait. A muse*? Like, from fucking* greece like far far back?

...

Fucking wild.

Alright. Food. Chance. Saije. Not necessarily in that order. We'll see.

Fun.

Alric will follow the smell of food, enter the room, greet everyone, and then look for something light to eat. Not full blown Indian takeout. He still might have to do some running later.

Chance is sitting in one corner, deep in conversation with Scratch and Eustace. Saije is in another, tapping away on her phone. Vesper and Hope are here, presumably eating.

Alric knocks on the open door, then speaks up. "Hi! I've been informed that there's food he- ah, there." He walks over to the food and looks around. "Has anything not been claimed yet?"

What's available?

There's a spread of Indian takeout in large silver catering trays along with cookies from Sawyer's kitchen - the spicy ones are labelled this time - and a veggie tray, hummus, and pita chips, along with a flat of water.

Saije glances at him, but makes no move to be friendly.

The boys in the corner likewise note his arrival, but continue with their conversation.

I wave at Alric and gesture for him to come over once he's finished getting food.

Alric will then grab a plate, put on some veggies and two cookies, grab a bottle of water, then plop down next to Vesper.

"Alright, what did I miss?" he says in-between bites, his voice a hint more cheerful than the previous relaxed, conversational tone he had with Sawyer.

"So I've been thinking," I say. "You know that thread cutting thing Chance did to clean up your paranoia? Well, what he said afterward got me thinking. If you can cut a thread out of someone, I bet you can stitch it back in. And if a 'thread' can be anything, a trait, a mindset, even the Gift itself..."

Alric looks at her, amusement in his eyes. "Well, aren't you fun." He chuckles. "What do you have in mind? Give people fillable cups?"

"What? No, you're thinking too small — though if you want a Gift, I'm sure we can find some undeserving wizard and cut it out of them for you. But no, I'm thinking more along the lines of stitching stuff into myself. Knowledge, skills, whatever. Like... I'm just an ordinary person right now, maybe a little extra thanks to Chance's work, but not especially smart or talented.

"But if I was 50% smarter, I bet I'd be able to find enough ways to make myself another 50% better, and so on. If 'paranoia' is a thread, 'intelligence' has got to be one. And even if it's not, there's so much room for improvement here. Imagine being an expert in every single field of magic and science — I bet there would be tons of low hanging fruit that nobody's even noticed because you have to get a PhD in like three random disciplines to even be able to find it."

(If Vesper or Hope had been trying to eavesdrop on Chance’s conversation, they would have found it got hard to hear about ten minutes ago, after their conversation turned away from Scratch and Eustace’s classes and toward family gossip.)

Ah. Very fun. Yes. Let's take people's souls apart for scraps.

I've heard Anywhere Else is great this time of the year. Maybe I should book a ticket there and take a few days or years off.

There's no visible change in Alric's mood. He's still the same level of slightly amused.

"Ah. So the plan is to take apart people with PhDs? Well, aren't I glad that I only got a master's degree." He chuckles. "Mhm. Can't you just check if intelligence is its own thread?"

"Hm, probably not. Seems like it'd be hard to get a steady supply of volunteers, you know? Even if I leave the original thread more or less unharmed — that's what Chance did with Inara — I doubt I'd get many takers. No, I was actually thinking about cutting threads from the shoggoths."

"Ah. So, people with PhD's get asked. Okay, whew, that means I'm safe once you come for the people with a master's." He chuckles. "But.. I don't think shoggoths have PhDs? How are they related to what you're planning?"

"Well, it's not like we'd have to start with PhD level knowledge. I bet there's tons of useful threads in those shoggoths. Like... I dunno, they probably have some enhanced spatial senses or something. And more importantly, it's a chance to practice. Most of this is just speculation — I've never actually cut a thread out of someone, let alone stitched it back in. Once I'm good at it and we've exhausted the low hanging fruit it'll probably be obvious what the next steps are."

"As much as I appreciate not nibbling on human souls, melding shoggoth bits into yourself seems dangerous. Could you steal from animal souls instead?"

"That's like saying water atoms are somehow 'tainted' just because they've previously been in a shoggoth hive. One thread should be as good as another. Besides, I wouldn't stitch anything in that I didn't understand — if I mess up, there won't be anyone to fix me. But part of my pact with Chance is that I bring him 'interesting' threads, so I figure I can ask him about whatever I've cut out when I do that."

Alric listens, and then thinks for a moment.

"Ah, I think I'm getting it. Mhm.. So. I had a plan for myself, but I think you can execute on it far better than I can: I've been informed that we're lacking cast- I mean mages in the commission. I planned to train up my whole Seer thing and then check people's magical affinities - as far as I understand it, anyone can learn magic, the hard part is finding out what you're good at and then getting access to materials. I think. But you could check these on a glance, and not only that, you could shuffle skills around? Like, if Inara or you became better at using wizardry, you could supply that to the rest of the office? And the same for what other people do? And then we'd have a commission full of high level and flexible casters. Yeah, that's right. I'm stick with the word 'casters.'

"But to start small, maybe you could just go around the office and check everyone for their affinities, making sure nothing was missed?" He leans in to Vesper, conspiratorial, and whispers. "You could start with Saije this very moment, if she wants to know?"

"Well, you know more than I do. Soul threads don't sound as simple or well-understood as water molecules, to me."

Detect threads: [4 💥 2 = 6, 3] Result: Success! 🎯

"Ooh, that seems like a good way to practice looking at threads. And yeah, I could shuffle stuff around, though I'm not sure to what extent I can take from one person without reducing their skill. Like, maybe I can only take the occasional clipping, not enough to instantly make everyone a wizard at Inara's level."

I grin at Alric and whisper back. "Yeah, sure. Let's see..."

I try to keep the invocation quiet and gestures subtle, and this time it goes off without getting Weaver's attention.

Jesus fuck-

"Vesper, no. Ask first, for the love of god." He's still whispering.

"What? I'm just looking. Relax."

Across the room, Chance blinks and throws Vesper a curious look, then turns his attention back to Scratch and Eustace.

"You don't just look at people's souls without their consent. What- Do you not want to stay friends with her?"

"I don't think I've ever seen someone ask before using their Sight. Some wizards just have it running all the time — it's not a big deal. Now please be quiet, I'm trying to focus here. This is still pretty new to me."

He speaks up, in the direction of Saije. "Saije. Vesper wants to take a peek at your soul, to see if you have any hidden magical affinities. It's a thing she can do. Is that something you want to have looked at?"

Saije’s soul is in parts tangle and in parts skein. Vesper doesn’t really know what to make of it, other than, just like the other souls she’s seen, there is more information encoded in the knots of threads than she could possibly fathom. Countless strands spill outward and twist off to connections unknown. Vesper can feel phantom textures of the threads between her fingers, but the weight and gloss mean little.

Saije glares at Vesper through eyes thick with streaked makeup. “Don’t. I don’t know what you mean ‘peek at my soul.’”

"Nothing harmful," I assure her. Maybe it's best not to mention that I already invoked the spell. "It would just let me see the threads and concepts that make you up. No guarantees that I could actually find anything in there though, I can look but I'm not very good at understanding what I see."

"Mmpf. Well, I’ve tested enough ‘psychics’ with it.” She moves over to sit by the field agents. “I know I don’t have the gift. What do you see?”

She in fact doesn’t have the same shining throughline that Inara and Vesper shared.

Where do you look? At the chaos, or at the order?

I almost tell her what I was just talking to Alric about, but manage to keep my mouth shut just in time. Who knows if she'll be as small-minded as Hope about these things?

Back to Saije's threads. I look at the chaos, of course. That's where the most interesting things are found.

The tangle in her soul has threads for grandmother, for tarot cards, for tourmaline, for magic, for authority, for sleight of hand. Guilt, love, hate, betrayal all interweave the mess.

Saije is folding her hands in front of her chin and looking Vesper directly in the eye when Vesper refocuses on the physical world.

I share everything I saw with her, adding at the end. "Unfortunately I'm not quite sure what to make of it... I was hoping the spell would do more to tell me what kind of magic you would do well at. But at least it seems like you have some magical talent? Is there a divination branch of magic, maybe?"

Saije purses her lips. "Well, that seems like a pretty invasive spell you got there. Next time ask before you cast it. Care to spill some equally invasive tea on yourself?"

Alric will reduce his breathing and motions to a minimum, and wait for the situation to relax again.

..did she cry? Like, it looks like it, but she's only sat in the store for the past hour. Did I.. I have no idea how I could've caused this while being outside setting things on fire, but I'd bet I still managed to somehow be the reason for this.

Next time I just won't say anything. Thanks, Alric. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Please don't spill tea on me."

Saije rolls her eyes. "It's an expression. Spilling the tea means gossip. So was it you I had lunch with last week and not Inara?"

"Ah. That makes more sense. Yes, that was me, though unfortunately I didn't get to front for very long before Inara took over again. But that's all in the past now. Chance fixed my Name — the days of Inara forcing me out are over." I hold up the hand with the enchanted bracelet. "You won't be seeing much of Inara but if by happenstance she gets the upper hand for a little while, this will tell you it's her. She might be able to get rid of my robe, but she can't fake this. It's bound to my Name. Chance's work."

She nods. "Good to know. Did you know that your eyes turn black when you're using the 'soul peeking' spell, or whatever you call it?"

"Really? That's cool. I wonder if it's specific to Sight or if it's a side effect of invoking a Name."

Saije tilts her head, studying Vesper for a long moment.

"Yes? What is it?"

"... I'm trying to decide what I think about you." Saije says. "Do you know what it means when you have black eyes while casting a spell?"

"No, I had no idea it meant something specific. What does it mean?"

"It means people can tell when you cast it."

"Oh." I lean back, mildly disappointed. "Yeah, obviously. I thought you were going to say there was a connection to the type of magic or something."

"I'm saying that that spell is intrusive and you should get permission ahead of time to use it on people, and people will know if you cast it. I felt the intrusion too. Don't use magic to take advantage of people. I mean, also, just don't take advantage of people. But using magic to do so is cheating in the grossest way."

"You felt it? Huh. I thought it was passive sight as long as I didn't try to cut or stitch anything. Anyway I wasn't trying to take advantage of you; I was trying to help you. Sure, it didn't work out, but it's not like I was trying to cut threads out or anything."

She wrinkles her nose. "I don't care that you weren't trying to take advantage. I didn't ask you for help and you invaded my privacy. How would you like it if I peeked into your head?"

I stare at her, baffled. If someone had read my mind to try and fix my Gift, I would have thanked them — not accused them of trying to take advantage of me. And then there's what Inara always says: if you have a problem with it, you ought to learn how to defend yourself from it. Being offended about someone using Sight on you is just embracing your own weakness.

"Sorry," I say, somehow managing not to sound totally insincere. "I won't do it again." That part, at least, is true. It's a good thing I learned about the eyes and physical sensations here, in a relatively low stakes environment.

"Hmm. It's fine. Ask first; it's rude to unmask people when you're working in mixed groups."

Alric cocks his head slightly at Saije mentioning that she felt Vesper's soul peek.

He'll pull out his phone and discreetly shoot Sawyer a message.

Hey. Can everyone feel their soul being touched or is it just me because I'm a super special capital S Seer?

Sawyer is busy. Alric’s text is left unread for minutes.

“You haven’t socialized in a while, have you?” Saije asks Vesper. “When was the last time you were on your own? Eighteen? Younger?” Saije is studying Vesper’s face

Alric will then keep an eye on his phone and otherwise avoid drawing any attention to himself. He isn't tense or scared or anything (though that wouldn't be unreasonable given the mood Saije is in). But this is an opportunity for him to return to his favorite habitat, the background, and he'll enjoy it while it lasts.

"I mean, the last time I fronted alone was last week, when we met. But that was a bit of an unusual circumstance; Inara usually doesn't let me front, and when she does, she usually keeps a close eye on me. She was really tired that day, though, stayed up all night researching shoggoths. Did you know she was initially planning to take on the hive alone?"

"If you mean like this, a big group of people... it's hard to remember, but I learned magic was real a few months after turning eighteen, and then spent the next half year researching it before getting fused with Inara. So yeah, I guess eighteen is about right. Why?"

Saije nods. “You seem young—younger than you look. Let me guess, nerdy type? More interested in books than people?”

"I — yeah. But I mean, magic is real. Why would I ever do anything else?"

“People are real.” Saije retorts. “Magnets are real. Pistol shrimp are real. The little blind spot where your optic nerve goes through your retina is real. There’s a lot of neat real things in the world. Magic is pretty neat, but so are social skills to get along with others and have them not be upset with you, so maybe they’ll share what they learned about magic, or whatever, with you.”

"People mostly seem interested in keeping secrets to themselves, or lying about them." Arcanum on the one hand, occultists on the other. "All that other stuff, sure, it exists, and I'll probably pick it up along the way —" especially if learning is as simple as snip, stitch "— but I don't know how you can say that magic isn't better, isn't more important than random scientific trivia. And I think you do know that on some level, otherwise you wouldn't care about learning magic."

Alric can see the direction this conversation is taking, like a graph mapped out in front of him.

He gives four to one odds that Saije's yelling will be directed directly at him in the next three minutes.

Saije gives a small sigh. “Do you think people who don’t know magic should be taken advantage of by people who do?”

Saije seems awfully hung up on this whole taking advantage thing. "No, not particularly. It would be a lot easier for them to defend themselves if they did know magic, though. All the more reason to learn it."

Saije does seem awfully hung up on the whole taking advantage thing. It’s a drum she continues to beat. “Not everyone can. And it’s dangerous to learn—I’ve known people who died because of their study of it. And the fact is that the majority of people don’t know magic, even many who are Aware of it don’t or can’t learn it. Defense is harder than offense, and it is impractical to expect everyone to be an expert. Do you think it is right to go into people’s houses and look through there things if you have a set of lock picks and they have only average locks on their doors?”

"Everyone has the potential for greatness within them. Just because someone can't learn one kind of magic is no excuse to give up on it entirely." And the limitations of what kind of magic you can learn might not be as set in stone as you think. "Your house scenario misses the point — it's not about right or wrong, but about ability. If the thief can break into the house, everything else is just empty words."

It's probably pointless to try to help Saije — anyone who dismisses magic like that clearly isn't thinking straight — but I push on anyway. "If you, personally, aren't sure what to do, you need only look inside yourself. The only questions that matters are what do I have, what do I want, and how can I use the former to get the latter. Being careful because your actions have consequences is one thing, but enslaving yourself to some arbitrary morality only squanders your potential for greatness."

Sawyer's reply finally comes in.

context? Touched = literal, metaphorical, hyperbole, ? ymmv, source, mechanic, subtlety of actor, etc lots of variables tldr if you can feel it someone else could probably feel it under the same circumstances, seeing & feeling aren't connected by default

Alric responds, keeping the screen out of view of the others and avoiding sudden movements as he reads the message and types out his reply.

Vesper looked at Saije's soul and I think there was touching involved? Looked like it by the movement of Vesper's hands, but I couldn't see the soul obviously Saije felt it. I remember feeling my soul getting touched back when inara did her gift check Worth checking if she also got some skills in that direction?

He quickly adds another message.

AFTER ASKING HER okay?

“Arbitrary morality.” Saije scoffs. “I’ve made an oath to protect victims from slime bags who would prey upon their hope and ignorance. Do you stand for anything but yourself?”

oh if it's a Pontiff ability that makes sense W usually touches things when he looks at them like Patron like Pontiff

There's along pause after Alric's added message.

... do you think my F R I E N D Saije and I haven't already had the aptitude discussion? She already knows who she is and what she's capable of. 🤨

Alric responds.

fair maybe something changed since you guys did that? I bet I wasn't born a Seer either

He shoots another one after that.

nevermind, it's probably just wishful thinking on my part thanks for the info

Alric will put his phone away, then close his eyes as he puts his face in his hands.

He'll spin up the Circle a few times. Maaaaaybe she picks up on that? Super low odds, but also no cost with high potential upside. Worth a shot.

Roll Circle

Spinning up the Circle: [4 💥 4 💥 4 💥 2 = 14, 2]-2 Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

"If you truly wanted to protect people — and not just feel good about yourself — you wouldn't be so eager to waste your potential for greatness. Or, even better, you would try to help others achieve their potential, so that they don't need your protection." I shake my head. "I don't have to justify myself to you. This conversation started because I tried to help you — I can see now that my efforts were wasted."

Alric, you may increase your Circle up to three die steps, and must increase it by at least 1.

Let's make it 1.

Saije stares at Vesper in disbelief. “Vesper, my whole job at the Commission is to help others achieve their potential. I’ve organized and digitized our entire archive of grimoires so that people have access to the basics! You did not help me. I know my own aptitude already, and you violated my privacy before asking! God, girl! You know what, you’re just validating my decision to not join the field agent team.” Saije gets up and walks away from the table. “Phoenix really is shit at picking people.”

Saije glances briefly at Hope and Alric, but she has nothing more to say to the unhelpful bystanders. She goes back to her corner of the room and resumes typing on her phone.

Hope, if you're paying attention to the room with your hunter's vigilance, you might notice Chance pausing in the middle of his conversation (again) to look at Alric, arch his eyebrows, then tap Eustace and Scratch, motioning for them to look at Alric. He seems to be saying something with a lot of hand movements and enthusiasm, drawing a circle in the air with one hand.

Alric, with his eyes closed, does of course not see Chance talking about his circle. He is a little preoccupied with the fact that he's now apparently unlocked the ability to set other people's bridges on fire.

Ah, fantastic.

Alric sighs, dragging his hands down his face as he stares up at the ceiling. He gets up, takes a deep breath, then speaks to himself. "Alright, fuck it, let's just get it over with."

He walks over to the Absolutely Amazing Fucking Fantastic Unbelievably Great Neighbors. He gives a slight bow. "Gentlemen. I humbly request to join you, in the hopes that my presence does not constitute too much of a nuisance."

Eustace smiles and says something inaudible while gesturing to the empty seat between him and Chance.

Chance sighs and makes a motion like he's parting a curtain and holding it open so Alric can step inside.

His words become audible as long as he holds the open-curtain position. "-cles back aside, that's why you need to be careful about those bonds. I've talked about it with y... others in your situation. Just because you're related to someone doesn't mean you owe them your regard or loyalty. Bonds are a two-way street. Take my advice or leave it, but keep it in mind."

Alric steps in, nods to the group, then pulls out the chair and sits down.

"I hope that I'm not interrupting anything important. If I am - I don't intend to do it for long."

The trio are seated in a loveseat and a cozy, overstuffed armchair, with a less cozy armchair between them.

Chance drops his arm as Alric settles, and he can hear the acoustics around him change as the spell settles back into place.

He waves his hand at Alric, signaling that the two college students still have his focus priority.

Scratch shrugs. “We’re about done anyway. So. How’s the fire?”

"Mhm... I think it should be settling down by this point. It was pretty wild at the beginning. Oh, wait, I took a video, if you want to see." He pulls out his phone, puts on the video of the burning mansion, and then holds it so anyone interested can look.

Chance's focused attention drops off and unravels as Scratch says they're just about done. He gives a relaxed shrug and sprawls in his cozy chair like a lazy cat in a sunbeam, stretching his hand down to grab his drink from the floor and sip from it before idly tipping his head so he can see Alric’s video.

“That sure is getting along.” Eustace observes.

“Stream or recording? Oh, recording.” Scratch answers his own question.

The video isn't long. Alric puts his phone away once they're through it.

"Yeah, so, that happened. But, not to keep you guys for too long." He turns to Chance. "I'm still confused by a few things and hope that you can help me lay them to rest. I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding what happened earlier at the lot - I am aware of the traditional balance that comes with these things and intend to answer truthfully any questions you may have in return, be that truthful answer the actual answer to the question or the fact that I'd prefer not to answer. And, also, the whole thing would be time bound to ten minutes max, I don't want this to go for forever. What do you think?"

Chance sips his drink, then shifts to sit sideways, kicking his legs up onto one arm of his chair. "I'm not allowed to make or negotiate deals while under Morgan's hospitality," he says with a shrug. "But I am allowed to play games."

He tilts his head, gesturing with his glass. "That's one traditional balance. It's not the only one. Just because one person plays the game one way doesn't mean everyone is interested in the same kind of gamble - the currency of your truthful response is negotiable. It's only worth however much value someone is willing to exchange for it."

His lips twitch up at the corners. "So what do you think - what value do your answers hold, and why do you think I would value them enough to take them in exchange for my own?"

`He's told you what he thinks, Alric.

Your turn.`

My turn.

Alric's body loses all tension as he melts into the seat. "Man, I don't know. I just figured I'd ask? I don't know what the hell I could tell you that you would be interested in knowing. I... Yeah, I don't know why I figured it's worth asking. Cultural differences? I've only been in this world for like three weeks and I still know fuck all about how people here think. I'm used to people answering questions just because they want to be helpful, but it seems awfully naive now, to be honest."

He sighs, and sits up straight again.

"Yeah, nothing comes to mind. From what little I gathered, you're vastly bigger than me, you have power and knowledge of which I wouldn't even understand what I don't understand about it. I'm not even picking up on what game we're playing right now, but I'm probably already losing?" He shrugs again. "If you don't want to answer my questions, that's no biggie. Just let me know and I'll stop wasting your time."

I concede.

"Sometimes a game is just a game, not a gamble. Not every game is about winning or losing, sometimes it's just about playing." He sighs. giving an exaggerated roll of grey eyes. "Not everyone is free to just give things away."

He makes an exaggerated hum, then looks at Scratch and Eustace, eyes glittering with playful interest. "One of you can ask him a question. I want to know what questions you have."

He looks thoughtful. "... you two can also try answering. What do you think my answers will be? Can either of you piece together my motives enough to predict my answers?"

Eustace tilts his head. “Alright.”

Scratch pulls his legs up to squat on his couch cushion and steeples his fingers in front of his chin. “I’m game!” He chirps in a chipper voice at odds with his menacing posture. “Should we ask a question first?”

Chance gives a quiet laugh. "Acceptable."

Scratch bats his eyelashes at Alric.

"Yes."

Alric keeps the same relaxed and friendly conversational tone he had the whole time.

"Alright, my turn."

Alric pulls out his notepad, but hesitates before opening it. He has an idea, and it's higher priority than the other questions.

He thinks for a moment, then turns to Chance.

"Is the mechanism that determined whether my debt took a universal thing, like a magical law that divines the validity of any debt, or is it just based on your belief that I broke the seal?"

“Universals are almost always not.” Eustace attempts, watching Chance more than Alric. “All rules have a context that they work in, and you can’t get out of bringing at least some of your context with you when you test if a rule exists elsewhere.” Eustace glances at Scratch, who nods.

“Ok, so that’s the broad philosophical pontification part of a simulated Chance answer.” Scratch says. “Debt pontificating would be the next step, something along the lines of, ‘the potential debt existed from the shape of reality, my shape filled the space—’ no, you would say, ‘the thread caught on the spindle as soon as it got close enough.’” Scratch looks at Chance for confirmation.

"If it didn't have truth to it the debt wouldn't take, I already told you that." Chance looks a bit disappointed, but it's tempered by Eustace and Scratch offering their answers.

"Points for imitation of style of speech," Chance chirps. "Content - high grades. Scratch - you missed the impact of the qualia of debt."

He turns his gaze to Alric. "My nature tells me the debt is there, an itching, scratching thing, an imbalance, a very real nuisance writ in the margins of my balancebook. A single strand in a sea of slights, but one which became actionable when my understanding of the situation broadened enough to make this particular strand snap into sharp focus and gain the tension of connecting to its origin.”

He props his chin on his hand. "Laws governing one's nature are a related concept. My nature binds and shapes me in a different ways than yours binds and shapes you - mortals can break their rules with limited repercussions. I cannot."

He smiles lazily. "Insults, on the other hand. Those are very much about belief and perception. For example.... what insults me may not insult Saint. What offends Saint's nature may not offend mine."

Scratch absorbs Chanc’s correction, then asks his question, “So you’re a professional monster hunter, right? How does that work? As a career path?”

Alric leans back. "Scratch, I'll respond to you in a moment. But I notice that I still haven't gotten an answer to the question I actually asked. Yes, you already told me that there had to be truth to the debt. What I asked about is the nature of the truth. Whether it's enough truth for the debt to take if you just believed in the debt, or whether it actually required objective truth, as in, fact in reality. Whether it just requires you to understand the situation, or whether it also requires you to have a correct understanding.

"Here's an example. You said lying isn't a thing you do. But you were wrong about the fact that we never met. You saying that you never met me could be described as a subjective truth, as in, something that you perceive to be true. But that's not necessarily the same as objective truth, as in, what's actually true. So. To paraphrase, I've been asking whether debt 'truth' is the same mechanism as speaking 'truth'."

"Whether you understand the answer you've recieved or not isn't my problem," Chance's expression darkens, losing some of the friendly edge as he swings into a more formal posture, planting his feet on the floor.

"We had not met. You being in the same location as my date is not meeting. You being rude enough to take a photo in a crowded bar without the permission of the inhabitants is not a meeting." He smiles smoothly, showing flat, human teeth. "I guarantee you, I would have left a much more lasting impression if we'd met. I suppose I'll have to take Scratch's place for this question, instead: Do you seek to offer me insult, or are you too socially inexperienced to notice when someone's given you a warning?"

“Objective” Scratch says, “In relation to the Reef…” Scratch cuts off as Chance talks over him.

Eustace and Scratch share a look.

Chance blows air out through his teeth and speaks without looking at Scratch. "He won't understand what the Reef means. You can leave it at Objective. That's what he cares about. That's all he gets."

What's up with Chance getting ticked off?: [6, 6 💥 4 = 10]+2 Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

He got angry last time you implied he might be a liar, too.

There are cultures in history—and unfortunately not confined to history—where any slander upon honor must be met by a challenge, up to duel or death.

Alric continues in the same tone he had the past hour, of course.

"I do not seek to offer you insult. I managed to pick up that you warned me to not insult you, at least I think that's what you tried to convey, but beyond that, nothing. I have yet to pick up on what would be insulting to you, and I don't intend to find out. For what it's worth, what I'm doing here is considered respectful conduct in the culture I'm used to. I appreciate the straightforward answer, it's probably best to move on from that question."

He opens his notepad. Everything in there is completely unreadable to mere mortal eyes. If you thought it looked like a doctor's writing, you wouldn't be far off - Alric has so far only been using shorthand, the writing system doctors use.

"I think it's my turn to ask a question. Mhm. If I didn't have the debt to you earlier at the lot and also knew everything you did about souls, would I still have agreed to the changes you made to my soul?"

Eustace’s eyes widen in alarm.

Scratch attempts a response, “Fra… ahh.” He starts over at a glance from Chance. “Hypotheticals are tricky? You need to pin it down more.”

Chance nods slowly at Scratch's revised answer. "Hypotheticals can be dangerous territory."

"Excuses will not save you from those you offer insult to. Consider the implications your words, because if you don't others will.

"Assuming I would have made an offer in the first place...." he sticks his tongue out, resting one elbow on the arm of his cozy chair. The movement is still too rigid, he's clearly trying to work himself back into a playful mode of operation. To keep this exchange of questions a game. "How should I know? There's a lot more to you than just the knowledge you lack. Different people act differently even with the same knowledge. I'm not some oracle."

He tips his glass back. "Even if something is in their best interests, that doesn't mean everyone would take advantage of the opportunity."

Scratch shifts positions to curl up and tuck himself under his boyfriend’s arm. “Well, if my question about Slayer careers has been booted from the queue, how about whats the most extreme thing you’ve done to commit to a bit?”

Chance glances at Scratch, expression more genuinely indulgent than the ones he's been directing at Alric. "... I appreciate your willingness to allow me to override your question with my own."

He leans over slightly, voice playfully conspiratorial. "....besides, the Dawn Commission Field Team isn't strictly about hunting monsters. They're also meant to be able to gather data and look into developing situations. Whether the current team develops fully into that role is a different question. They're new, and so is Alric. He's learning. His answer may not have satisfied you, unless all you wanted was an answer... or to hear his perspective as a greenhorn and outsider-stepping-in."

He points towards Hope. "If you want a mortal that has monster hunting as their dedicated life purpose and career, speak with Hope."

Ah. So there is too clever a question.

Mhm.

But I'm actually having fun with that one.

He mentally shrugs - in this moment Chance has to earn Alric's goodwill, not the other way around. So, fuck it. Let's push it.

"I appreciate the advice, Chance. I'll write it down, actually, if that's fine with you." With Chance not indicating otherwise, Alric starts writing out the exact responses Chance has given him. "Scratch, your question wasn't booted from the queue, just pushed down. But I liked your straightforward answer earlier, so I'll expand on Chance's response to your question without it counting.

"Chance is right. I'm not a monster hunter, let alone a professional one. I mean, for some definitions of 'professional' and 'monster hunter' it'd track.. But Hope really is more the person you're looking for. I'm just a guy who tries to figure out everything he comes across and then push the ruleset to its limit. Before the commission I was a mechanical engineer, specifically, I was designing a variety of mechanical parts that would then be put together by other people. Mechanical engineering is really just one of the flavors of engineering, which is all about pushing the rules of physics to your benefit. It does help with the whole 'burning down shoggoth lots' thing though.

"But if you want career advice, really, ask Hope. She seems to have been on the job for years, which, honestly, is quite the impressive feat.

. "The bit question though. Mhm. Bit. Bit. I mean, I once burned down a lot and its mansion to commit to a whole 'being a Dawn Commission agent' bit. Actually, no, at that point I was inofficially and temporarily not really but somewhat but also not out of the commission. But still, that might be the biggest thing so far. Besides that.. Mhm. Yeah, still, the whole agent bit in general, though, probably? Nothing else comes into mind. It certainly feels like a bit, I definitely don't feel like an agent or anything.

"And to answer your question of how you should know, Chance: I don't expect you to know the absolute truth, I was just looking for your best guess. So.. I think I'm up two questions. Let me rephrase the first one and then add another one.

"Given the hypothetical scenario that earlier at the lot I wouldn't have had any debt to you, and I knew everything you did about souls and about the consequences the changes you made to my soul have, and you offered to do those changes free of charge, what would be your best estimate on whether I would have accepted that offer?

"The second one is easier: When we first shook hands earlier at the lot, did you intend to provoke me?"

What did Scratch start to say with his "Fra... ahh."?: [8, 5]+2 Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

(It was definitely a long “a” sound like “fray” and not a short “a” like the beginning of “fraction.”

Fray, frail, frame, frank, fraise, fragrant, frazzle, France, or some conjugation or continuation of those words is likely to be what he was going to say.)

——— “I wanted to replace my question because I didn’t care about the other answer anymore.” Scratch mutters, retreating deeper under Eustace’s arm and squeezing into the crack between the couch cushions. It’s not that effective; he’s an 18 year old bean pole, sulking into the couch isn’t going to hide him.

Eustace rubs his boyfriend’s arm to comfort him. “It’s a fine question. I learned something. But we are losing the plot if this is supposed to be a game. Let’s keep it a game and figure out how to put some fun back into it. Good games have tempo!” Eustace snaps his fingers to a beat with his words. “A snappy back and forth. Scratch, what should a good game have?”

Scratch eyes Eustace like a turtle inspecting his shell.“Stakes.”

“Delicious.” Eustace says.

Scratch cracks a smile. “A way to punish the losers.”

“Also delicious. Mr. Alric, what’s an element a good game should have?” Eustace is still snapping his fingers softly to a beat.

Under any other circumstances the right move would be to leave the table before any more fae bullshit starts to happen. Alric is, however, adamant on giving Chance, pardon the pun, a chance. If Alric doesn't find any closure, doesn't find an angle to see the things that happened as good or at least acceptable, he expects, he'll eventually end up killing Chance. Not today, not tomorrow, not even this year. But eventually.

And Alric has enough sense of fairness to at least give it an honest effort, despite how hard Chance is making all of this.

Alric of course isn't thinking or feeling any of this right now. That'd be lower level thinking, boots on the ground. On the level of abstraction he currently is operating on, on the level of unseeing but directed inward, he has at best a vague sense of 'this is what I would do if I were a good person', and thus he'll yes-and the fae kids and stay at the table.

He continues in the same relaxed conversational tone he had the whole time.

"Fair point. Alright, let's shelve those two questions. An element a good game should have.. Well, I'm a big fan of rules, so.. A set of rules that everyone participating fully understands and agrees to?"

Eustace nods. “Yep, that’s vital. Mr. Chance? What’s another element a good game should have?”

Before Chance says his part, Alric, roll Notice to notice the relevant things.

Does Alric notice relevant things?: [7, 6 💥 2 = 8]+2 Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

"No punishments. That's was the point of it being a game. Lower stakes." Chance says slowly, thumping his empty glass down on a side table. "Not letting the ignorant put himself back in the badwill book. He's trying very hard, though, and I don't think he understands that I don't care about him. Phoenix cares. Vesper cares. He lost his opportunity to keep me personally invested in his well-being when he cleared the debt. It's collected. He has no balance. He holds no interest."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a package of clove cigarettes, tapping his nails on the packaging and looking at Alric. "Delusional people rarely bother making good decisions. They convince themselves that the evidence they have means something different. Cut the street epistemology, your implementation of it isn't making you friends now and it won't make you friends with almost anything like me. I do not like you enough to twist myself into enough knots to try and play that game with you."

He taps his fingers on the package, looking towards the window. "I'm answering your second question anyway. I'm not answering it for you."

"No, provoking you would have been making things messy on purpose for my allies and my Pontiff and distracted everyone from the job I wanted done. Vesper's still learning when not to use my title. I told her to call me Chance for a reason. I was planning to wait and figure out the balance books after things were all tidied up, but being knocked from a mortal-facing friendly face makes holding that motive of a significantly higher difficulty than when I transition of my own accord."

. "What I wanted to do was make sure you were aware that Vesper considered you her friend and imply that you should be nice to Vesper because she needs friends - good friends, preferably, but even mediocre ones are better than being isolated and imprisoned in her own head with no one but her not-sister to talk to - and that I'd be mad if you were unkind to her. The mortal kind of friendly playful shoveltalk mad, not real mad unless you hurt her. Not insulted. Just disappointed."

"Her now-sister is an awful influence. Trauma cycles. they're so annoying when you're just trying to find good help," he says the last words lightly, but shows his teeth in a frustrated grimaces that belies the lightness in his voice. "Not that I think you'd probably be a fantastic influence, considering the fact that you're apparently socially blind, but she said you were her friend and she was so excited to tell you about getting her magic fixed..."

He seems to come to a decision, pulling a cigarette from his carton. ".... and you probably wouldn't agree if she said she deserved to be a prisoner in her own head for being weak, either, which you'd think would be a low bar to clear, and yet."

In spite of the flippant way he says trauma cycles, Chance is disguising genuine concern and a weave-deep weariness. Despite the fact that her behavior seems to have some parallels with his calling Alric on the debt, he clearly doesn't think Inara is in the right despite having more power than Vesper.

. He looks at Eustace. "It has to be fun. It isn't right now, and the longer this street epistemology shit goes on the harder it is not to be Rook and he'd eat Alric alive. Metaphorically. So. I'm taking a smoke break. Outside the window is still part of Morgan's home. Hospitality holds."

"The longer this street epistemology shit goes on the harder it is to not be Rook” is said with a undercurrent of what sounds like the pain of grief. This is reminding him of someone.

He unfolds himself from his chair, walking from the arm to the side table to the window, throwing it open and climbing out as the privacy bubble pops.

Chance is indicating that he's disengaging to try and prevent his facet from shifting, because he thinks it would be an exceedingly negative experience for everyone involved if he let that happen. Presumably for him part of that is the fact that, per Alric's prior research, his kind really don't like being shifted from one face to another (unless they're the ones doing it).

He didn't answer the question for Alric, he answered because he thinks it might be good for Vesper's sake for Alric to hear his answer.

Once Chance has made his way towards the window, Alric starts scribbling down the most important parts of what was just said. In short hand, of course.

And then he thinks for a moment.

Summarize, real quick.

Debt mechanism. They claimed 'objective', but 'objective relative' to a reef? Which might as well mean fuck all from a fae. First guess, 2 to 1 in favor of the debt being caused by his belief.

Soul changes: good or bad. Yeah, that one falls strongly into the bad category. Didn't answer the question, twice, and then stormed away from the table.

Provocation: He's cleared on that one.

Additional data?

Referenced street epistemology. So.. That makes absolutely no sense. Hypotheses, please.

Mind reading. Haven't thought about rationality or street epistemology in forever. Could be familiar from other sources and matched way of thinking? None of my thinking of the past hour was remotely rational, that's a separate skillset. Yeah, not that one.

Soul read- Ah right, both Aspen and Chance took a close look at my soul. Could be written all over it, or implied by a combination of threads.

He picked up some rationality skills from somewhere and recognized me doing street epistemology. Even though I wasn't doing that at all. Doesn't track. I never dug into his assumptions or anything.

Assuming soul reading, why would he pattern match asking normal questions onto street epistemology? Yeah, I'm super confused about that. Feels like he had the info that I had rationalist habits, anchored on that, and then just pattern matched that the moment he got the chance?

. But.. The whole soul reading thing is touch based? As the patron, so the pontiff, or something. He never touched anything rationality related, I definitely would've noticed. Which means Aspen saw something and told him in the time between the picnic and the handshake.

So.. He played along with someone else doing street epistemology and he's feeling grief about that? No, about Rook coming out and burning that bridge?

Man, I'm actually curious to hear the worst thing Rook can come up with. That I caused a wildfire? That I'm detached, or that I burn every bridge I pass? He could try to grind my gears by being annoying, but that's about it?

Mhm..

He seems to think Inara is in the wrong in the way she treated Vesper. And then also puts fucking scissors to my soul?

There's a bit of anger that manages to flare up, somewhere far away, only noticable from the outside by a short flare of Alric's nostrils. He's back to normal in a second.

Something here doesn't track, it's too messy. He'll postpone the analysis.

Priorities.

Don't antagonize Chance to the point of going into the bad-time-for-everyone Rook facet. Apologize to Saije. Minimize talking.

Okay, that's good, there's overlap. Let's go.

.

All of his thinking is over in about five seconds. He puts his notepad away and then turns to the boys. The same tone as before, of course. "Lads, come up with a game, preferably one that doesn't require me to talk though I haven't decided whether I'll participate, and I'll invite the others."

He takes a deep breath, then gets up and sits down next to Saije.

"Hi. I know you hate me and that's understandable and I just wanted to use the few words I have before things go worse again to tell you that I'm sorry that I was rude earlier at the car and that I probably unleashed the shoggoths and also I think I made you cry somehow while I was setting the lot on fire and I'm sorry about that as well and" - he takes another breath - "and for suggesting to Vesper to check you for any hidden skills that one's also on me I didn't make it clear enough that she should ask upfront" - This bridge is already ash, might as well take some of that heat as well - "and also sorry for losing your pen. I'm sorry for, like, everything, I don't know." He gets up and out of her space again. "And, also, the boys are coming up with a game. You can join if you want, if you want me to keep my distance just let me know I'm not much for games anyways."

And then, finally, he'll walk over to Vesper and Hope, and tell them to also join the game if they want. He'll then sit down with the boys, and, depending on Saije's reaction, stay there and stop talking, or leave.

On some level he'd actually prefer leaving, to be honest.

He'll shoot Sawyer a message, keeping the phone screen out of the sight of the others.

How much effort would it be to check if I'm cursed?

Saije glares at Alric for the first half of his apology, expecting a “but” at any moment. Her face softens by the end when Alric doesn’t re-burn the barest thread of a rope bridge he built with his apology. “Thanks for apologizing.” She mutters as he leaves.

Alric interrupts me while I'm thinking about threads. "A game? We have shoggoths to kill. And —"

I cut myself off before I can say anything more. I've already spoken too much about my plans — after having had the last few minutes to think about the conversation with Saije, it's become abundantly clear that the less anyone knows about my new magic, the better. I've watched Inara kill enough evil mages to know I really don't want to attract attention. At least not while I'm still weak.

When it becomes clear Alric isn't going to bother answering me, I sigh and follow him over. The sad fact is, there's not much I can do without being able to experiment. "So, what game are we playing?"

Alric, estimating that things start to go bad at around 500 words and seriously take a turn for the worst at around a thousand, decides to restrict himself to about 250.

"The boys might have an idea. Or is there anything you use to play while waiting for a shoggoth hive raid to start?"

20? Two dozen? Something like that.

"Usually Inara just paces restlessly before a big job like this," I say. "And this is my first time actually fronting, so..."

"You.. don't seem restless at all yourself." He still has the same friendly, relaxed tone.

30?

"Thanks. I'm mostly just impatient for it to be over. Inara loves fighting, but this is the first time I've really been able to front in... a long time. There's so much to do."

Alric nods. "Have you already planned out what you want to do?"

40. Ah, this will definitely go great.

"Of course! I'm going to go back to Inara's sanctum and read everything. And see if I can find some of Inara's original hairs for Chance to work with. And practice the magic that —" I adjust at the last instant "— works much better now that my Gift is fixed." I pause. "You seem to have found a capable tutor, but if you wanted to come hang out, you'd be welcome. It's nice and quiet at the sanctum, and if there's anything we can't find in its library, Arcanum's stacks are just a doorway away."

Does she mean Sawyer? That was a one time thing, he has already fulfilled his part of the deal. And I certainly can't afford another 30k.

"I.. appreciate that. I might take you up on that offer. Actually, considering that it's your new lease on life.. I built my own magic disc this morning that, in theory, allows me to cast a spell, Relief, that gets rid of fatigue. If it works, and that's a big if, I can tap you with it as well so you can, well, be yourself through the night rather than go to sleep. I myself plan to never sleep again. Especially after today."

Fuck that was far too many words, I need to zip it. 100?

Let's hope it's word density and not total amount.

"Whoa, that's awesome! I had no idea there was a spell for that. Yeah, that'd be perfect, Inara would be able to sneak out and do stuff while I slept otherwise. Are there any side effects to using it repeatedly? Because yeah, never sleeping again sounds pretty good."

Alric had sat back down by the boys, who have not yet spoken back to him, let alone propose a game. They, in fact, didn't really seem to be listening. Until Vesper mentioned the Arcanum. That got Eustace's attention.

"Any chance you'd be willing to sneak me in there too?" Eustace asks.

"I didn't realize you were studying magic," I say. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

He holds up his left hand and shows the signet ring on his pinky finger, the type that many wizards wear to show their heritage. "Yeah, I have a few things I would like to look up."

Recognize bloodline: [2, 4] Result: Success! 🎯

The signet is that of House Clay. Artificers, primarily. Arthur Clay, the family patriarch, is on the Wizard Council.

"Ah. Let me guess — you failed Arcanum's entrance test too? And then the wizard side of your family cut you off?"

"They haven't cut me off just yet, but I am the black sheep of the family... and I am banned from the Arcanum library."

Scratch grins. "Red-headed stepchild." He mutters.

"You're a red-headed stepchild." Eustace banters back.

"I'm a red-headed bastard." Scratch corrects. "Stepchild presumes my parents were married."

"Wizards are like that." I flash Eustace a grin. "Yeah, you can come with us. Lets show those gatekeeping bastards what you're capable of. If anyone sees you I'll just pretend to be Inara and threaten them with the family name or something. Come by tonight?"

I give him directions to get to the sanctum from the public library.

"Sure!" He smiles and writes down the directions.

"I.. don't think there are any side effects except maybe a weird sense of time. I specifically requested a spell from Sawyer to never have to sleep again, and his diagram looks similar enough to the one in the artificing tome I got today. We should be good, but I can't promise anything."

"Mhm. I don't have much to gain from books about gang sign magic. Unless they have books on how to make bags of holding or similar things, I think I'll skip out on doing any trespassing into unfriendly Wizard territory today and stick with my magic discs. I still have my tome to work through anyways.

"I'd love to take a look at your own library though, just out of curiosity."

180?

Gang sign magic? "Arcanum has books on everything, not just wizardry. But if you're worried about being caught, I can look for books on crafting extradimensional spaces for you, if you like?

Now imagine them successfully heisting Arcanum actually meaning something to me, like the lives of my coworkers.

And I'm the villain for getting angry at them doing stupid shit.

Yeah, there's been an excessive amount of talking and I still don't get it. But by god do they need someone to be a good influence, and, well, I'm the next best thing.

He mentally sighs, then continues speaking in the same tone as usual.

"I appreciate the offer. It's not just about extra-dimensional spaces, it's about anything artificing-related. If you find yourself in there and can get me something like that, that'd be great. But I won't participate in a heist a) that's happening today because it's been a really long day for me and I'd like to return to my comfort zone at some point and b) that's been.. minimally planned.

"But let me be the bad influence here for a second. If you want to actually do this heist, you have to plan contingencies. If we assume that the top level wizards aren't idiots, they'll have dozens of spells active at any time that present a variety of different ways to a) prevent non-wizards to enter without permission and b) detect those that manage to enter anyways. And even if they aren't idiots, they'll still have both of those things just by virtue of people trying things, succeeding, and then the hole getting plugged. I'd suggest you find out what those are, preferably all of them, find solutions, and then pour a lot of plan Bs on top anyways because some of your intel is bound to be wrong and failure means a lot of fireballs to your face."

300? 350? Zip it, Alric.

I stare at Alric for a moment. "Who said anything about a heist? We're not looting the place, we're just going in and checking out a few books. Inara does it all the time. No big deal."

"Yeah, I was a little bit dramatic there. The stuff I said still applies though, I fear. Or do you think wizards don't have things setup to keep non-wizards out?" He thinks for a moment. "Mhm.. Maybe I'm still too cautious?"

"I mean..., I'm sure there are wards on the front doors and such, but we'd be taking a portal straight to the stacks. I doubt anyone bothered to ward that door. Most people probably don't even know it exists. And the library itself is in the middle of Arcanum's campus." I shrug. "If you're really that worried, I can ask Inara when she wakes up. Might take a while, though, and Eustace has the Gift, so I don't see any reason for at least the two of us to go looking for books. If you want to videocall us or something so we can find you stuff too, I'd be up for that?"

"Oh, that'd be nice. Though.." He chuckles. "Yeah, I don't know enough about artificing to even recognize material about it. I only really got into it this weekend, and so far I only know it's about materials, and angles, and triangles and circles on discs. That's about it. Another time for me, maybe?"

Alric, by this point, stops counting. He's aware that he's already pushing it.

"Sure, anytime. And I can try to look for things that are labeled with artificing, maybe we'll get lucky."

Alric nods.

Lucky. Heh.

He discretely checks his phone. Any answer from Sawyer that Alric missed?

No message from Sawyer yet. Whatever he's up to must be keeping him busy.

While the room's residents are still talking, Chance swings back in through the window, striding across the endtable and the arms of his borrowed armchair. He hops lightly to the floor and beelines for the exit, phone pressed to one ear as he heads for the front door of Bright Books, lighting up another clove cigarette as he vanishes outside.

With the conversation getting stale and Alric being almost out of words, he'll check his phone and then get up.

"Alright, the mansion should be done by now." He turns to the boys. "I've built a bomb each for the two of you in case you want to participate in the hive raid. If you want them, I'll explain them to you at the lot."

And then he'll start making his way out into the bookstore, quickly stopping by Sawyer's workshop to let him know they're getting going. In the bookstore he'll pet the cat (if he can spot it and somehow hasn't managed to make it hate him as well), and then get to the car and start preparing himself.

Sawyer gives a distracted wave and thumbs up when Alric checks in, phone pressed to one ear and a sprawl of equations starting to fill a half-circle of chalkboards he's assembled around himself.

Nebula is locatable! Nebula would like to know if Alric has snacks, and will politely sniff his hand and allow herself to be petted.

Is Alric going to text Morgana in case she and Ellie are still available to assist?

Asking about the girls to make sure we've got an accurate tally on support team presence.

Alric, of course, hasn't completely forgotten about the girls and will text Morgana to find out if they want to participate.

Alric regretfully informs Nebula that he doesn't have any snacks available at the current time, but expresses his intent to arrange some for the next time he comes around to the store after today.

Morgana sends a confirmation. Shortly after, she and Ellie troop down from the upper level to join the departing team.

Eustace and Scratch also join. On the way to the lot, a chunky grey cat falls in at Eustace’s heel.

Saije does not come.

Alric skips out on petting the grey cat. It's a familiar, and also he just pet another cat and who knows how the new cat reacts to Nebula's smell.

Alric will leave the signpost at the car. Taking it with him will result in an argument with Phoenix and he's out of words, and also he should've made it a haiku.