hell of a party

[middlingalong]

Ivan must be drunker than he thought he was. He could have sworn he knew his way around Vivienne's parents' house, since she wanted to introduce him last week and showed him the place, but maybe they have a... secret... upstairs... bar? where Vivienne's room is supposed to be? And most certainly was last time he checked? He's never going to find the sweater she sent him up looking for here, anyway. Why is there a secret upstairs bar in Vivienne's parents' house?

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"I wouldn't call it a hurry exactly," says Stalas.

"But I do like having the plan planned," says Miles. "It's very planlike."

[isthisart]

"I mean, we do have a a more or less complete accounting of all the obviously profitable exchanges between applicable worlds, or we wouldn't have sent the little ones home already, but I am concerned that the moment we step out, six more sets of alts with more fascinating trade goods are going to come in."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Which logically implies you want to stay here literally forever," says Miles. "I'd rather not do that."

[isthisart]

"Perhaps not literally forever, but I might want to wait for another week or another alt, whichever comes first."

[thisvorlunatic]

"We can survive a week, I'm sure," Miles says agreeably.

[isthisart]

"You know you don't have to wait for me, right? You can step out and I will be along presently regardless, because of the fascinating temporal properties at work."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes, but there is not a hope in hell that I will actually do that."

[isthisart]

"I know, just reminding you that I'm not in fact holding anyone hostage to my reluctance to leave."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I won't consider myself to have missed anything interesting if we go home and never find out whether or not more alts came by afterward, but I sure as hell will if I go home and you pop out a few seconds later having actually met some."

[isthisart]

"If I meet more while waiting I can open the door and tell you and you can come back in to have a look," she points out.

[thisvorlunatic]

"And yet I'd still feel like I missed something."

[unmarred]

"And the door might decide to vanish on you until they're gone out of pure spite," Mark contributes.

[isthisart]

"Still, please do not hurry me out the door until I am good and done waiting."

[warpfairy]

"I might be about ready to go, myself. I'm not in quite as good a position as you are to exploit what we've already got. After a certain point it amounts to narcissistic curiosity about all the myriad ways I can exist, and that's worth some loitering but possibly not a week's worth."

[unmarred]

"I wonder," muses Mark, "if there's such a thing as a full alt of me."

[middlingalong]

"Or for that matter differently mixed-and-matched combinations. I will refrain from listing examples lest I terrify myself."

[unmarred]

"That would be even more bizarre than Lalita, I think."

[middlingalong]

"Just a bit, yeah."

[unmarred]

He shrugs. "I won't worry till I see one, though."

[warpfairy]

Eventually, after double-checking that there are no things on the relevant order of usefulness that they should be hauling home, Isabella and Lalita and many souvenirs depart (though not before Isabella and Linya hug each other).

[dream_me_up]

(And Lalita scoops up Mark one more time.)

[alicornucopia]

And the door opens again -