Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, Saturday, All Day

[bigdamnprincipal]

It always felt like a bit of a stretch to call an event in January a "picnic," and the weather today wasn't helping with how seasonably cold it was outside. Thankfully, there was plenty of warm food to keep everyone toasty, along with as many carafes as The Perk would offer, filled with hot water for tea, light and dark roast coffee, and hot chocolate.

It was time to welcome in another new semester, everyone!

[Going OCD-free this time, stay warm together!]

Comments

[sairis]

"If you can't change your mind given new information, you're an idiot," Sairis opined. He smirked a little. "Though I suppose I'd have to be willing to be proven wrong on that.

"The island is sapient? Are - no, you hadn't heard of the Shattered Sea." Which was both reassuring and worrying in its own way. "What are your opinions about it, then, Magus Liliana?"

[deathsmajesty]

Magus? An acceptable title. Much better than ma'am.

"That it's another conversation best suited for either indoors or warmth," she said with another laugh. "Though, at its most basic, I do believe that it exerts some level of influence over events, likely in a kind of fated capacity."

[sairis]

"It's definitely not warm." Sairis grimaced. "If this is autumn, what is winter like?"

[deathsmajesty]

"This is winter, darling," Liliana said. "Who told you it was autumn?"

[sairis]

Sairis sighed. "It was autumn back home. So I've changed seasons, too? I'll have to get a calendar. And a map, if there is one." He sighed again. "I probably don't even know all the things I'll need to know."

He'd never been more than five miles from home since he was almost too young to remember. Now he was on an entirely different world. The learning curve was going to be ridiculous.

[deathsmajesty]

"The first thing you actually need is a device called a phone," Liliana said. "It's a pity that Summer is in Ravnica, she was very helpful in explaining to me what a phone is and how it works, but anyone who is from this general time or has been on the island for a few months should be capable of helping you choose one. It's a communication device that also includes a calendar, access to this plane's collected information, and also a way to take instant pictures. If you have money from your world, there is a bank that manages to exchange pretty much anything for the currency this island accepts. If you do not have money, other arrangements can be made."

[sairis]

"I have some money." Sairis took out a pouch much like hers (albeit much simpler) and shook a coin out of it to show her. "Enough for an inn and food for a week. After that...I'm used to trading charms for what I need, if there's a place I can do that."

Well, charms and the clothes, armor, and horses of the knights that tried to kill him. He thought he'd leave that part out for now.

He was filing away the mention of a "phone" and putting aside the things it could do until he saw it for himself.

[deathsmajesty]

"As a student, you have access to the dorms and the cafeteria in the school," Liliana told him. "So that's lodging and food, though I believe the dorms have kitchens or some such if you'd prefer to do your own cooking."

If that sounded like madness to her, it's because it was.

"There are also plenty of businesses in town that are likely hiring if you're looking for a way to earn wages. I manage a magic shop, for example."

[sairis]

On the brink of saying he was used to doing his own cooking, Sairis was brought up abruptly. "A magic shop?"

Look, there was "we don't kill our necromancers", and then there was "we let anybody buy and sell magic things".

[deathsmajesty]

"A shop that sells magical artifacts," she clarified. "Not reagents or the like. I believe there's another shop that sells magical supplies if you need those kinds of things for your magic."

Tch. Imagine.

[sairis]

"You sell artifacts?" And they didn't kill people or drive them insane?

He nodded distractedly. "I can make my own things if I have the means...sorry, you sell artifacts?"

Wait, different rules. "Are we talking about powerful magic items, often with demonic or fae spirits in them, that have a tendency to do nasty things to people who don't know what they're doing with them?"

[deathsmajesty]

"We're talking about magical items that range from party tricks to incredibly powerful items that use mana to work properly and a tendency to do nasty things only if you buy ones that are meant to do nasty things and use them correctly and often nothing if you fail," Liliana said. "Rarely do they run on the souls of anything, that's mostly the province of Innistradi geistmages."

[sairis]

"Right. Okay. Party tricks." Sairis shook his head. "If there was ever any magic that innocuous back home, it's long since been destroyed or lost. The artifacts I know are much more dangerous. And they don't exactly run on souls, they just trap them. Although they could theoretically leach their energy as power." Not that he'd seen any that did that.

Yet.

"Are you looking for employees, with the caveat that if I can find a way home, I'll be taking it?"

[deathsmajesty]

"Understandable," Liliana said, though she doubted he'd be getting home anytime soon. "Come to the store on Monday - that's two days from now. Aim for middle of the afternoon; I rarely open the shop before ten and I take a..." A smile curved her lips "...long lunch."

[sairis]

That was an odd pause. What was she doing on her lunches?

Sairis nodded. "Two days from now, in the afternoon." This was all so overwhelming.

Okay, focus on the things that made sense. Next steps. "I should be able to live in the dorms. And there's a bank. And I need to get a 'phone'. And I have classes."

[deathsmajesty]

See her and Ignis interact for roughly three minutes and the answer would be perfectly clear.

"Correct," Liliana said. "Though, I would suggest dorms today. Take tomorrow to gather your wits, explore the dorms, meet some fellow students, breathe. Monday for classes, bank, and meeting with me. By then, you'll probably have more of an idea what further questions you have for me."

[sairis]

"Right. That makes sense." Then, because Karkaroth hadn't exactly raised him with manners but he'd somehow picked them up anyway, "Thank you."

[deathsmajesty]

"Of course it makes sense, I'm excellent at what I do," Liliana said with a smile. "Whether that's necromancy or being a faculty advisor."

She nodding towards the nag. "Speaking of, darling, are you planning to keep that around?"

[sairis]

"No," Sairis said. "I was planning on exorcising him as soon as I arrived. Though now I'm not sure where I can leave the body. Do you know where the local knacker is?" That seemed the most logical thing.

[deathsmajesty]

"There isn't one," Liliana said. "Not on the island, certainly, and not in Baltimore, either. Your best bet is likely to have it walk out to sea where it can feed the marine life."

[sairis]

But where did people get their glue and soap? And what did they do with their carcasses?

Sairis shook his head. This place was stranger the more he found out about it. "I suppose that will work."

Then he'd have to spend a while just staring at the ocean. It was a lot of water.

[deathsmajesty]

At the store for the first and what made him think Lilian had extraneous corpses for the second?

"Better than leaving it to rot somewhere in the woods where someone vastly unprepared to deal with death and the dead could find it," Liliana said. "This plane is very distanced from death. It's almost remarkable."

[sairis]

"There are still plenty of things dying all around," Sairis pointed out, a bit confused. He knew there were; he could feel them.

[deathsmajesty]

"And they don't notice or understand," Liliana said. "Death occurs in the wings, off-stage, for many of them."

[sairis]

"That may be the strangest thing so far," Sairis said slowly. That judgment might not hold up, but for now it was definitely odd.