A Warping of the Blood

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

*Vayj commences his inhaling and dribbling, while Leondegrance imagines himself meat pie, potatoes, and cider. The serving maid comes back around to see if anyone's having trouble getting the items to work, and simply stares at Vayj severely until he notices her.*

 

[Erekose13]

*Scinathar sips a nice delicate wine, while watching the dracha and non-mojh play.*

What this creature sees in these non-mojh I will admit that I am curious, though why this dragon-slave is even here is far more intriguing. Will it have anything to do with the darkness Deepstorm divined? the mojh thought to itself.

 

[Rystil Arden]

*Vayj chooses to ignore the serving girl, even after the point when he notices her. Once he feels that he has "defeated" the cup, however, he decides to stop with his experiments for now.*

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"Is the wine you picked so terrible? Or do you so dislike our hospitality that you feel the need to cheat? We may make pretense of being civilized, but when it comes down to it, we're just another frontier town. And that extends to how we treat cheaters," she says severely. "If you wanted a bargain, there are several other taverns down the street with cheaper prices. There's no need to attempt to make money off of my father's hard work."

*She makes a subtle gesture with her hand, and Vayj becomes aware of a couple of human peacekeepers lurking unobtrusively in the shadows.*

"If you're not going to be polite, there are other places you can go."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Please," Vayj says off-handedly without looking up or noticing the humans, "There is no reason to get riled up. I'm a magister; I like examining interesting magic, and your father's work is excellent. I've paid for my drink already, and I'm using the purchase price to do some experiments."

"See, no harm done...unless...I was working under the assumption that the glasses' ability to produce any comestible substance meant that it was merely conjured from the air by magic. Could it be that instead the magic of the glass conjures up some sort of reagent or something from the cellar and transmutes it into the desired food? I'll admit the workings of the item were something I was trying to discover but failed, not something that happens too often in my examination of magical phenomena. I was under the impression that my studies in wasting some of the drink weren't costing you anything, else you would not have made the meal an all-you-can-eat bargain, but if I was mistaken, then I humbly apologise. Could you let me know how it works? Could I talk to your father about it? I'm curious, is all. Glirael, goddess of invention, knows that if I understood the workings properly, perhaps I would be able to engineer a way for you and your father to increase your profits a thousandfold. Much as I hate to admit it, I know some people involved with the skyships, and if you could produce unlimited supplies of food and drink from these glasses, and then ship them across the lands via skyship, you could replace the chain of supply of the whole kingdom's farmers..."

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

*The girl's face soften slightly.*

"It's a variation on the spell conjure repast," she explains finally, "made permanent and put into the cups and plates. And while you can certainly eat all you desire, father doesn't want people taking endless amounts with them. The items are so powerful because of this place specifically. Otherwise they'd be to ruinously expensive to create that we'd have to either go into debt so deep we'd never get out, or charge a hundred times what we do now. Father's hedged them with some many restrictions that it makes them only terribly expensive to make, instead of ruinously."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Aha! Hmm...so if they are powerful based on the place, does that mean that the foodstuffs will eventually fade away if I leave with them? If so, or even if not, it should hardly upset you if I tried to take some with me, and if they don't fade, then you could still make a fortune selling them across the lands."

"Hmm..." he turns towards her, "You say you could make a version of the item that works without the place-magic restriction for only 100 times the current price? If your father would like to make one, I would be willing to purchase it at that price, and besides, I'm always glad to fund the research of a fellow faen magic-lover...I know all too well what it was like to be a poor student at Se-Heton with barely enough on which to live beyond tuition and that not even earned by me."

*At that comment and still gazing at the serving girl, his eyes look distant and then begin to fill with tears, and he looks away, his voice cracking a bit in sorrow*

"Ah yes, but the days at the academy were...were the happiest days of my life. I...I'm sorry...I..."

*He can't continue to speak*

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"Ah, there there," she says, climbing up on a chair next to Vayj to pat him gently on the shoulder. "There there, don't worry. You'll have happy days again, Elistara, goddess of future happiness for sad faen, knows it."

*She waits a bit until Vayj has regained his equilibrium before continuing the previous converstaion.*

"Ah, I'm afraid such an item, without my father's restrictions, wouldn't be a hundred times more than the prices now. I said the prices would have to be a hundred times what they are now in order to pay for them. A cup or plate created without restrictions would cost fifty-eight thousand queens, at least," she confesses.

 

[Rystil Arden]

*Vayj's shoulder muscles give way completely at her touch, leading to a somewhat pathetic slump. He looks away while talking because he can't bring himself to do any more, occasionally shifting his head back slightly and then turning away again, tears in his eyes, but his composure more-or-less recovered. By the way, what colour are her eyes? He was looking at her for a little while there. Anyway, he seems uninterested in the cups any more.*

"Not I. My future is as dark as my trusty Ebonfall; the only brightness left to me is the light I can bring to others in need. I am Vayj Rubyflame, Jaaviin be praised, and once I was somewhat famous for my idiosyncratic runic research at Se-Heton..."

"What is yours?" he asks quietly.

 

[hero4hire]

Leondegrance-human

*Eats food, at first warily, then with more enthusiasm.*

Not bad..Not Mother's but...

*A look of sadness sweeps over Leon's face as he stops eating.*

No..Not Mother's

*Conjures up Mutton and Mead in lieu of the Cider and Pie*