Dave guesses that he had best ask about those washing machines - he's pretty sure nobody wants them, but you never know. It would be poor form to steal them if somebody happens to own them, after all. He walks right in through the destroyed door and bellows out
"Hey, are these washing machines yours? If so, can I have them, I need them for stuff!"Nobody appears to be around to hear him, however. He can hear some vaguely disturbing roaring and sloshing sounds coming from deeper within, though. Taking whatever bits he can and running off is beginning to seem like an attractive prospect, honestly.
* * * * *
John decides to take Luz's advice.
"Yeah, I'll try to get something useful. Just take it easy, Luz," he says before a thought hits him.
"By the way, I never asked, what with going on a mad adventure for a leyline and such, but what do you kids even do? I mean, do you still go to school or what?""Not lately," Trey replies.
"And we weren't exactly the most responsible students before that," Luz adds.
"I think school might have been canceled the past two days, what with the freak dinosaur and shampoo weather that's been happening. We weren't planning on going, anyway.""We've moved beyond all that school bullshit now. We're magical delinquents or something. And it's great, lemme tell you."While Trey begins to talk about the joys of magical delinquency, John decides to take a look at his mag again.
"Hey, I'm- oh, right. Spells."All three of the wizards then look into their respective magical thingamabobs, perusing the diagrams with determined eyes.
[John's mind roll: 4]
And this time, John does manage to center himself sufficiently to capture some spheres. Hopefully at least one of them will be useful!
1. Perfect Coffee Mug
2. Banish Hair
Hard choice right there, buddy. But hey, you get one spell regardless. Too bad none of them are siege material, huh?
As he makes his choice and raises his eyes from the mag, he notices Trey look kind of excited.
"I just got a cool spell!" he says.
"Hang on, I'm gonna try to cast it. Okay, first off, concentrate..." he continues, then lapses into murmurs. John looks over at Luz, who seems to have slumped down to a seated position and is looking blankly forward. Uh...
"I lost my entire spell list, can you believe that?" she suddenly asks, turning to John. She seems to be... somewhat okay, John supposes. With that in mind, he tries to call back the unknown number. It takes a while, but somebody eventually picks up.
"Yis? Yello?" a voice on the other end asks.
* * * * *
Halesey and
Larry agree to a blessing - after all, why would somebody refuse such a gift? The van man places his hands on both of them, and a wonderful white light surrounds them for a few moments before subsiding. When that's done, the man points to the dudes' palms, and Larry and Halesey notice an obvious difference - they appear to have a stylized, brightly glowing eye on them now, and the spot feels a bit sore now.
"It's probably going to glow and hurt for a short while, but you should be able to regulate the glow and the power soon enough. Just point it at a demon and that should send 'em running, or at least make them not want to mess with you. Your bodily fluids are a bit toxic to them now as well. And your souls smell like... well, let's not get into that, but rest assured they don't like it. Nifty, huh?" the van guy explains. At this point the wizards decide that they should head over to the nunnery, since they did leave a consignment of dangerous material there, and after this little Q&A, they suppose they should address that problem.
"Hey, I'll give you a ride over there. I'm kind of your guardian angel now, after all. Gotta help out on occasion, you know?"Seeing no reason not to accept aid from angelic sources, Larry and Halesey take advantage of the offer, and soon they find themselves back at the gate of the nunnery, the time being about two o' clock in the afternoon when they reach the place. The place doesn't look particularly burned down, or really all that damaged, which leads the two to suspect that nothing obviously terrible has happened yet. The gate looks to still be closed, and the intercom is probably still working.
* * * * *
Eta continues her schooling of Lois in the ways of the pastry.
"Yes. Like this!" she says, picking up a chocolatey cupcake and demonstratively slowly taking a bite out of it. It's quite the wonderful cupcake, actually, and she makes a slightly surprised sound of enjoyment.
"Ah. I see," Lois says, her eyes wandering over the cupcakes, muffins and other pastries placed on the platter.
"Does it matter which one I choose?""I like the chocolate ones myself. You know what chocolate is, right?" Eta says. It's a bit strange to try to explain things to what is, in effect, a blank slate of a person.
"No idea, actually. What is chocolate?" Lois asks in a slightly absent fashion, seemingly concentrating on the choice of cupcakes more.
"Oh, it's those brown ones over there," Eta explains, pointing out a cluster of chocolate muffins right next to the one Lois seems to be currently examining.
"If you mean what chocolate itself is though, it's a kind of food you make from cocoa (a plant) and some sugar to make it sweet. I love it. I've got kind of a sweet tooth myself. There's this place where they take chocolate muffins, heat them up so that the chocolate inside melts and then put some cold ice-cream on top and... and you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Lois looks back at Eta, furrowing her brow for a moment. Her expression softens as she seems to remember something.
"I sort of remember something about this kind of thing. Chocolate is made of cocoa butter and/or powdered cocoa products, with no more than 40% of its weight composed of additional ingredients. You can't have non-milk-derived animal fats in it, and... you know, I'm thinking this isn't actually a chocolate muffin. Do you think it has any chocolate actually in it?" she says, critically examining the indicated muffin.
"Well, of course it's not made of chocolate, silly. It just has chocolate in it... I think. At least it looks like chocolate to me.""It could be chocolate-flavored. Or merely have a chocolate flavor, and not contain chocolate at all," she says, picking up the muffin and examining it against the light. Unable to divine anything this way, she shrugs and takes a bite, chewing it ponderously.
"Tastes good, though. I suppose that's what's important, no?" she says with her mouth slightly full, a few crumbs spilling out.
"You do seem to know an awful lot about chocolate," Eta notes.
"Hmmm... I wonder, what else do you know about? Do you happen to know what is the definition of... candy?"Lois thinks for a moment, swallowing the bite, then speaks.
"Candy, for certain intents and purposes, includes chocolate creams, bonbons, gum drops, jelly drops, jelly beans, imperials, caramels, stick candy, lozenges, taffies, candy kisses, wafers, fudges, or Italian creams, nougats, peanut brittle, sugared almonds, chocolate covered fruits, and nuts, glace or candied fruits and nuts, popcorn and other cereals and cereal products mixed with or covered with molasses, sugar or other sweetening agent, hard candies, plain and chocolate covered marshmallows, candy cough drops and sweetened licorice not taxed as cough drops, sweet chocolate and sweet milk chocolate whether plain or mixed with fruit or nuts; and all similar articles however designated," she rattles off mechanically with her eyes turned to the ceiling and seemingly keeping rhythm with swings of her hand. When she's done, she looks back at Eta.
"Great care must be taken to exclude cereal breakfast foods, cake and pastries, and bitter chocolate which needs the addition of sugar before it becomes pleasing to the taste, and also goods used in the manufacture of food products such as ice cream, cakes, and pastries. That's one definition. There's others, of course, like candy being a preparation of sugar, honey, or other natural or artificial sweeteners in combination with chocolate, fruits, nuts or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of bars, drops, or pieces, and that candy shall not include any preparation containing flour and shall require no refrigeration. But candy's an unclear concept in general. Candy is candy, pretty much," she says, then takes another bite of the muffin.
"This seems to be a pastry. Or maybe a cake?"After a moment of consideration, Eta pursues a different line of questioning.
"So when you said you went to law school to fly into things do you literally mean that you were taught how to fly into things in a legal manner?" she asks.
"Well, flying and smashing into things is kind of uncomplicated, you know," she shrugs.
"As well as illegal if you deliberately do it to another person. Other than that, as long as I don't vandalize the property with myself or any bits I happen to lose in the process, or cause property damage, I suppose they can't prosecute me too badly. Or you, since you'd be the one firing me. It'll probably be you who's blamed if you use me as a blunt object to smash things with. But it's all up for interpretation in the end, I guess. Depends on the judge and the legal system and all that crap. I'm pretty sure there are jurisdictions where people can stone me for simply flying down the street if they feel like it. And I'm fairly certain I didn't actually go to law school. It's just that... I feel like I'm supposed to say that. The knowledge is there, but there's no experience of learning it, you know?""Oh, don't feel the need to say things just because you're supposed to. Although, I wonder, how much do you actually know about law? Do you know, for example, what's the tax rate for confectioneries in this country? Or is your knowledge limited to more general things? Or do you perhaps happen to know anything about all these... strange things that are happening? Those people call magic? Is there any law in magic or the divine world, if such things exist?" Eta asks, hoping that maybe someone born of magic has inherited an understanding of it.
"Thinking about it, I guess I do know a lot," Lois says, finishing off the muffin at last.
"It's like I can call up all sorts of obscure legal trivia. For instance, I think there's a sales tax here that applies to candy, though that's more of an economics thing, I think. It was somewhere around 10%, maybe a bit less? And as for magic, well, I don't have a clue. I think the laws of magic might be a bit different than the kind you learn about in law school, though. Just a feeling," she continues, seizing a smaller, non-chocolatey cupcake and popping it into her mouth.
"Hm, the chocolatey ones do seem to be a bit better, to be honest," she says after a moment of quick digestion.
"This one seems to have blueberry flavor plastic in it. And I think the cup might not be edible," she says, pulling out a bit of paper from between her teeth.
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Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 273743 times)