odd little alucine

[affodell]

It's never previously occurred to Cayra to put a door across an alucine boundary, but now that she's encountered it in practice it makes sense. It makes it visually obvious and it lets you lock it if you want. This door wasn't locked, and it looked like it led to a public bathroom, not a bar, from the signage, so she's still confused. Still, it's a good idea. She twists open the glass vial pendant around her neck and bends her head to the little blue lily inside to make a note of it; as an afterthought she tries to send it off to her antheomancer-chatcircle, anything to have a decent conversation, but it doesn't go. Her flower doesn't look wilting, but she can put it back in the garden and get a fresher one for the vial later. At least her personal files look okay. She closes up the vial again, giving the flower a touch of antheomancy for its health, and finds a bathroom inside the bar that dominates this little alucine.

And then she emerges into the bar. It doesn't seem to be staffed. Or stocked. Why wasn't it locked?

Hello, anybody here?

with Flynn (ErinFlight)

with Harry (andaisq)

Due to some icon rearrangement errors, some of Flynn's tags appear with an incorrect icon. The correct face for this thread is Rosario Dawson's.

Comments

[affodell]

"Speakflower. Do you not have those, in your... universe?"

[fortheliving]

"Nope. But if you use them to talk to people in different places, we do have that. Just not with flowers."

[affodell]

"What have you got then?"

[fortheliving]

"...Very complicated things. It's kind of like... you know what, I'm not equipped to explain technology, I've never had a working phone that wasn't made of Bakelite. You may have to trust me on this one."

[affodell]

"Who else is going to explain it, then?"

[fortheliving]

Harry shrugs helplessly. "I can tell you about magic, if you want, it's just that I am really, really not able to explain cellular signals. Maybe you could ask Bar?"

[affodell]

"...Bar?"

I am she. Hello.

"...Hi?"

Can I get you anything to drink? Or an explanation of telephony if you prefer.

"...I'll take the explanation?"

Telephones are nonmagical devices that are networked in a more limited way than speakflowers, allowing, by default, just one-to-one voice communication.

"Oh. That's weird."

[fortheliving]

"Yes. That."

The dog snorts derisively.

[affodell]

"Speakflowers are better than that. You can do the phone thing with them, but I mostly use them for my chatcircle and personal petals."

[fortheliving]

"...so, the Internet. Or so I have heard."

[affodell]

"Do I need Bar to explain that to me too?"

[fortheliving]

"Almost certainly. She do words good."

[affodell]

The Internet is similar to chatcircles, although its interface allows many other pastimes to use it as a platform, not only for things such as your system of monetary escrow and business reputation systems but also for games and nonverbal media.

"Huh."

[fortheliving]

"Very fun, or so I'm told. I can't use it myself because the internet access box would explode. Downsides of wizardry."

[affodell]

"That's... a weird vice."

[fortheliving]

"Vice?"

[affodell]

"Downside to learning magic?"

[fortheliving]

"Guess you could call it that. Though if you've got magic in the first place, you're going to get some hexing whether you learn proper wizardry or not."

[affodell]

"Hexing is - the thing where phones and internets don't like you?"

[fortheliving]

"Yep. Wizards release little bits of uncontrolled magic into the air, and they futz with whatever high-tech junk happens to be around."

[affodell]

"That sounds inconvenient. Probably not as bad as being an oneiromancer or a pyromancer."

[fortheliving]

"What happens to them? I really hope pyromancers don't randomly catch fire, that would just be awful for everyone."

[affodell]

"Oh, no, pyromancers just lose emotional regulation. They're like toddlers, which doesn't really work well with the pyromancy. Oneiromancers lose receptive language."

[fortheliving]

"Gah. That... might be worse, really. Today I have learned to be thankful for my wizardry, and the fact that I can set things on fire without turning into a small child."

[affodell]

"Lots of vices are okay. At least in smallish doses. Almost everyone has at least a little antheomancy. I'm working on automancy."