EVENT: A Certain Confession

[joybound]

Who: everybody!
When: Day 16, evening
Where: wherever you are

[As the sun sets and the new stars come out, there's a message on the ChainChat app. The username is new -- it's not The Construct, but it also doesn't have a profile attached, and doesn't accept private messages. It appears to be some different admin account.]

★: Hi everyone. Good news and bad news here. Good first: you should find your new train car attached as of this message! You guys wanted a garden, so hopefully you'll like this one.
★: As for the bad news: we're having a bit of a problem generating positive energy, so from now on we're adjusting the whole "sparks of light" thing. Starting tomorrow, you'll only get a payout when you consciously make a decision to increase your bonds. We're talking about increasing prices, too, but... one thing at a time.
★: Sorry for the bad timing.

[There's a pause, and then a follow-up.]

★: There are some things I ought to explain now, but I'm not sure where to start. Just be aware that things might get rougher in the future. And that Trials... I might've lied a little about those.
★: I'm sorry. This wasn't supposed to happen. Please try to hang in there.

[It's not a cheerful message, but on the upside, there is in fact a new train car at the end! On the outside it looks like one of the communal cars, with a stylized flower symbol on the door. Inside, however, it's a huge greenhouse. There are several different "rooms", each about 50 feet square, aligned to different climates. It also comes with various basic gardening tools - trowels, gloves, etc -- and enough seedlings to get started growing flowers and veggies. There's always (artificial) sunshine coming down through the glass roof, and the soil in the beds never loses fertility. There are even benches here and there -- it's not only a practical facility, but a nice place to relax!

More seeds and seedlings, equipment, and decor, can be bought via the sparks shop. You may in the meantime assume any simple plants you want are provided -- but they won't be re-issued for free if you kill them!]

[OOC: You can use this toplevel to reply to the prince's chat message. He'll respond for a limited time, but you can use this opportunity to uncover some major plot info! You're also more than welcome to talk to eachother -- it's a chat room and the conversations are public. The changes to the sparks system are outlined in this OOC comm announcement. Thank you!]

Comments

[ewestmarch]

My position right now is basically a lab technician. The qualified people do experiments, I just repeat procedures to fix the things someone else already made. I can do more than that -

[Frown.]

- but I can help with my current goals better where I am currently. So that's what they let me do.

[bowtiedbones]

Neither of those is really anything anyone does at home, but that's still good. We won't have to spend a week teaching you to draw a perfect circle.

[ewestmarch]

You can use a pin and a string, right?

[is she missing something]

[bowtiedbones]

For drafting, that’s fine, but you need to be able to do at least a beginner’s ward freehand.

[ewestmarch]

[This is the attempted poker face of someone who thought she was too smart to do the studying and has just been using a shortcut for a long time.]

Alright.

[bowtiedbones]

We can have you start with that, then. I learned with tracing hula hoops when I was little, and that's about the size you'll need for a regular one.

[ewestmarch]

I've been drawing them, I can get it.

[A little defensive. She can just do it without the string its Fine, she's Got It, she's Competent.]

[bowtiedbones]

[unruffled. if she's teaching someone, they're getting every basic on the way— no such thing as too much safety and repetition when a one poorly-drawn spell can be your death.]

Do you know what a beginner's ward does?

[ewestmarch]

Only what I can guess from the name. I've worked with wards to protect the summoner from what's being summoned before, and wards sewn into battle robes.

[bowtiedbones]

Those sound a lot more specialized. This is going to be just a circle, but it's going to be the foundation of every piece of spellwork. My world's magic doesn't work as something you can just print out or hand off to someone else to use, so by practicing a perfect circle, you're investing focus and training yourself to keep to that flow by habit. Normally our field of influence is restricted to our bodies, but this is the first step to expanding it.

[ewestmarch]

[this is chafing at her pride, and she breathes out through her nose - its noticeable on someone who normally doesn't breathe.]

Alright.

[you asked. this is the first step. we're gonna do it. it's worth it to get the goal accomplished.]

Does it have to be drawn on a particular surface?

[bowtiedbones]

No, any surface or drawing tool is fine.

[ewestmarch]

I'll start practicing. It's not like we have much else to do between trials.

We don't even have a library.

[she could do better without indoor plumbing than she does without a library, honestly]

[bowtiedbones]

Most necromancy texts are in Latin, anyways.

[ewestmarch]

I'm just really bored. Might as well get something accomplished with all of this time.

[bowtiedbones]

If you get super bored, you could also practice a polygram chart.

[ewestmarch]

What's that?

[definitely don't have that one.]

[bowtiedbones]

It's umm... you know like pentagram, hexagram, octagrams, right?

[ewestmarch]

Oh!

[Yeah, okay, yeah.]

Yes. I know those.

[bowtiedbones]

Right, so it's just the whole sequence of those. Like triangle to hexagram, pentagram to hendecagram, square to octagram. You take the shapes and keep rotating them. It's good practice for tracking your lines and keeping your angles clean in freehand.

[ewestmarch]

Mm. Alright. I'll start practicing. No straight-edges?

[bowtiedbones]

None! No protractors either.

[ewestmarch]

Why? Can they tell?

[bowtiedbones]

Of course not. If you're doing everything right, you'll never never summon anything that can read your spellwork. But as much as it affects them, it's programming for the magic we put into it.

[ewestmarch]

It's still my hand drawing the line.

[this is why you're a pain in the ass to teach things, Emilia.]