metalogs | LOVE POTION #9

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LOVE POTION #9

LOVE IS... not in the air! The reintroduction of Confluences into this world has left it rocked, so the season of love is not quite as lovey-dovey as it usually is. People are stressed and anxious. Valentine's events are being cancelled left, right, and center in fear that a Confluence may catch young lovers unawares.

Unbeknownst to mortals, the God of Love really can't afford his month to be ruined by a few little dimensional catastrophes. This is his month! ... And for whatever reason, he seems to be stranded on the Earthly plane.

Surely he can fix things. Push it along a little. Though Gods don't usually meddle in mortal affairs, this is a personal catastrophe. All it takes is a few drops of love potion on a token of affection, and voila! Instant-connection.

(This event has a blanket warning for dubious consent of the love spell variety. To opt out completely, characters can simply not be in Sunset Falls at the time of the event, which runs through Valentine's Day.)

WHITE HEARTS FESTIVAL

Welcome to Sunset Falls, the most magical place in all of America! Literally. The streets are charged with magical energies, and while it won't be spinning your words into spells, it will give anyone who is magically inclined a comfortable little buzz. Maybe it's the boost you need to get a spell working, or maybe it's just a pep in your step. Confluence-displaced metas who take the Guilds up on their offer to tour the new housing will arrive just in time to witness the an annual tradition: The White Hearts Festival, a festival dedicated to all forms of love - familial, friendship, and romantic.

The whole town is decked out in pinks, golds and reds. Town square has been overtaken by food booths peddling elaborate meals and desserts with various magical effects. (It's probably better not to ask why some of the cookies being handed out are in the shape of anatomical hearts.)

Eat an emoji cookie and find yourself sprouting heart-eyes, or gaining a flurry of hearts above your head.

The Bolder Biscuit - by far and above the densest thing you've ever tried to eat - makes you bold. It compels you to march right up to someone and tell them what you think, good or bad.

And there's also the Firework Delight cake, which makes you shoot off literal fireworks the moment you touch that special someone that makes your life complete... but honestly, they go off when you touch anyone. Sorry if you end up giving off the wrong impression!

In addition, pop-up craft stands sell trinkets that guarantee you'll be together with your people forever and ever. The most popular item on sale this year appears to be the Eternal Bond - which is just an enchanted finger-trap that refuses to let go unless you tell someone a deep dark secret.

There is an altar at the town park where you can make your offering and give prayers to the God of Love in hopes he will smile favorable upon you. Lay your chocolate heart at its base and offer up a prayer to the God so that your life will be full of love and connection.

Truthfully, when it started it wasn't as cutesy as it is now. It became a lot more wholesome when people began to offer only chocolate hearts to the God of Love. Now it's fun for the whole family! ... So long as you don't veer into the woods. Some people still practice the old ways, and there are (what you hope to be) animal hearts nailed to trees. This is Sunset Falls, after all. Weird often goes hand in hand with terror.

LONELY HEARTS

For those of you who don't yet have those special people, lonely hearts still single can collect white rose enamel pins from the festival committee. They're expected to pick someone to give it out to as a declaration of their attraction by the end of the festival. However... there seems to be an issue this year. There's more pins here than there are people in town. Committee members start handing them out to anyone, single or not, and from there that's where things start to get a little weird...

You clip the pin onto your shirt and at once, your life has suddenly become a romcom. Everything is just a little brighter, the sounds a little more musical (sometimes literally), and you're suddenly compelled to reach out and find connection.

And the universe is conspiring to bring it your way! Cliches won't stop happening around you. Suddenly people are determined to give you a makeover so you can catch the eye of an admirer. Your friends are betting on your romantic future. A complex love triangle is springing out of previously platonic friendships.

You're not not limited to one partner, and that partner doesn't need to be romantic. It could be a best friend, or a nemesis that you're compelled to fight over and over again for the joy of it. What matters is the connection and the way the world seems to stop at nothing to give you that perfect three act structure: You Meet, You Lose, You Get.

Reach the end of your romcom's little arc and you'll find yourself freed from the spell... and probably will have some choice words for its caster.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Regardless of how you participate in the festival, everyone is at risk when the town itself falls under a love spell.

This may be unlike anything you've known before. Perhaps it's the first stumbling steps of puppy love. You want to be with this person all the time. Hold their hands and work up the courage for a kiss. Or perhaps this is something fierce and passionate. You want to be kissing them always, pursuing these passions heedless of consequences.

This doesn't need to be a romantic love. It can be strong and familial. Perhaps the sort you've always desired but never had. You could fall into a family unit with others affected by the spell. Compelled to hug each other and say words of encouragement or praise. Perhaps you, while living your own love story, are the best friend in someone else's - offering up the speech that tells them they deserve more than they think they do.

Whatever your flavor of love may be, you're prone to dramatic declarations. Confessions at the drop of a hat. It's go big or go home, and since nobody's going home right now, you might as well go as big as you can. Perhaps you're arranging for Flash Mobs to declare your feelings! Or making plans to move in together despite only having met a few hours ago.

This is all fine and well at first, but it may become clear pretty quickly that characters who try to hold their burning passions are likely to burn themselves! If you're the repressed type and you try to resist the compulsions that the love spell puts on you, you might just burst into flames, and someone will need to put you out. Don't worry — move quick enough, and there won't be any lasting damage, and if there is, the Guilds' healers can help you out.

MEET CUTE-PID

For those paying attention to that sort of thing, one constant of all these wild declarations can be spotted in the background. A tall man with curly blonde hair and an all too charming smile never seems to be far from the romance.

Those who are curious enough to follow will find he retreats to a lavish mansion on the outskirts of town. The mansion has the gaudy and abundant decor of a honeymoon suite on the Las Vegas Strip, with lights attuned to music and a massive twirling heart above the roof of the building. Peer inside and you will see hundreds of tiny viewing windows, each depicting a different romantic story unfolding outside of town. The door to the mansion appears to be locked tight and the windows are magically sealed, but some quick thinking may get you inside.

If anyone wants to engage him, HERE is a top level where we will summarize encounters. The more PCs involved in an encounter, the bigger its outcome will be. We will determine the impact on the god of love on Valentine's Day, so get your comments in by end of day on the 13th! You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At least they did that. I'm lucky because my teammate is actually a biokinetic. It means he was a healer, basically. But at least I'm glad to hear you were a good enough study.

[Perhaps information was private with him in this manner, but Jean didn't know that David had almost taken his revenge very much into his own hands. And David didn't want to know what the punishment from the Council back home would be for that.]

Thanks for that. I'm sure she wouldn't do anything about it here, but it would be a mess back home.

I think... a lot of the romance has died out in my world when it comes right down to it, sadly. But I can't see how anyone would see that of you. Unless you're not what I'm seeing now. And I do believe that you are more than you seem. Everyone is. But nine times out of ten I'm a good judge of character.

People don't like anyone who threatens their script, and I've a habit of going off book.

Born to aristocracy and an excellent education, but that much is obvious I'm sure. Some day I'll wax poetic about classical theater. Wanted to go into acting, actually. Father put me up for a political position too early; I understood the laws, didn't understand politicking with power-hungry gits. Stole a ship, took off. Changed my name. Became a pirate. Thought I was free. Turns out you can't ever really run from who you are; a theft turned into somehow being the lost queen's right hand man and trying to save the realm from meddling immortal spirits and a crazed emperor.

[ A beat. It feels strange, to leave out the rawest parts. It feels strange to say them, too, like it solidifies that they happened. ]

Had to put a few people down along the way. Lost a few I really would have preferred not to.

[ He pivots to a grin, theatrics easier than honesty. ] How'd I do? Is that what I seemed?

And everyone's a critic to boot?

[An aristocrat? That explained the looks. They often had such beautiful faces. The education he knew though.]

Okay, I'll admit, that's a story that trumps a lot I've heard, and I've heard a lot. I think you'd be a good actor, just from a few minutes with you. Politics tends to taint those who are worth keeping though, so good on you for running. Laws tend to be for the people in power anyway, those power-hungry gits. But the way you talk... I'm starting to think by piracy you don't mean on the sea.

[Which was the interesting part. Not that he's got an issue with fucking over immortal spirits and not liking crazed emperors. But a queen... How interesting.]

I'm starting to think you're even more complicated than I thought moments before. You didn't go out there and become a pirate alone. You liked the state, which means you like people and watch eyes on you. You need an audience in some way or another. So I doubt you were alone. And it takes a strong man to fight immortals, whether they're gods or spirits or something else. Toppling empires makes you noble, especially since I suspect you might have been involved. Comes as an easy read with the whole idea of 'power-hungry gits' and toppling someone.

So here's the question I've got for you.

[He sips his tea to figure out how to phrase it. Then, once he's decided, he takes another sip for the weighty moment.]

Did you stop the spirits and emperor for revenge, or to protect the weak, or for this queen?

[ Balthier agreed with a lot of this until very recently. Now he wonders if the only way to make real change is to be one of the people making the laws, but he's also loathe to be that person, especially without a stake in it. ]

I'm impressed. Your deduction skills are quite remarkable. I have [ It's still too painful to make it past tense ] a partner, the best. Fran. She makes my magick look like children's playacting, and she's deadly with a bow. Brilliant. I wouldn't be alive without her. We had some others on our little adventure, but I've been with Fran a long time. As to piracy, I'm a sky pirate. No borders, no walls. Just endless blue skies.

[ The question pulls a surprised chuckle from him. ] I well should have expected that. [ He leans back, sighing as he thinks. It's a question he's been running over in his own mind whether he means to or not. It's easier, somehow, to be talking to a stranger than to his own memory. ] All three I suppose. And obviously for the infamy. Aiming to be the most famous pirate in Ivalice's history.

[ The compulsion to be honest is still there, or maybe it's just the catharsis of sharing. ] I didn't set out to topple empires. My father had a lot of power -- he was a weapons researcher. That's part of why I left. That research led to destroying an entire city, and toppling nearby countries. I didn't think I could do anything. I didn't think I should have to. I wanted ... nothing to do with him.

Fate's a fickle lady, though. One tomb robbery leads to finding the missing queen and a couple of teen idiots. My bleeding heart got one of them kidnapped, so I had to go rescue them, and next thing I know the queen is asking me to kidnap her too so she can go find the fated weapon of kings and prove her bloodline. I only did it for the treasure, which there turned out to be none. But the empire attacked us. It was my father's weapons. It was men I'd known as boys. Something...changed. I said it was for the treasure but...there were a lot of people I could help, especially the ones I'd come to know from pirating. Aristocrats are usually fine. The common people aren't.

It's really not becoming on me, all this nobility. I'd be laughed out of the guild. [ Fran had liked it. That was what had pushed him to keep going. And Ashe...Ashe had listened. ]

[How interesting. David listened to it all with a smile. Alright, he got all of it, and he'd come to his own conclusion.]

I think the guild would be losing something amazing if they did. You're, well, you're exactly the sort of pirate that would be told of back home in stories of the golden age of piracy. Not that those stories really properly explained what it was really like in those days. That said, you sound a lot like what Katherine is doing back home. A pirate more or less, condoned by our people. She rescues our people from places that they can't get away from, she steals us back one person at a time, and protects our rights.

There can be nobility in all professions.

You're making me blush. [ He's not entirely joking. ] Katherine sounds like my kind of company, though I will say, I'm quite motivated by treasure and finery. Maybe I'll become a noble antiques dealer here. [ here. He's hoping to get back home, but he's not certain that's likely. ]

Any piracy in your life? You don't sound like the completely to the law type yourself.

Well, you'd like her for treasure. She goes intangible. Really great for getting into places you aren't supposed to be. And great with as sword. With a fashion sense you'd appreciate. I feel a bit under dressed if i'm honest.

[An antiques dealer. It makes him chuckle. That was interesting to hear. But a reasonable enough business, so he doesn't mind supporting that idea.]

I've stolen a number of jets, but I'm typically more of a hero. That said, people have tried to make the very thing I am illegal, so yeah. I believe that the ends matter, but sometimes means have to be considered too. Right now, back home, I'm actually a detective. Though I look into people who got hurt, not things that are missing. Things can be replaced. People are precious.

[The way he says those last three words, it's almost like saying 'you're precious'.]

There you go again, reading me like a book. If your friend makes it through, please introduce me.

That's the thing with heroes and villains, isn't it? Framing and author. Morals and actions matter a good deal more to me. [ He omits that he's joined the Society of Villainous Reform. It's not that he sees himself as a villain; it's that he's too tired to wade through others' ideas of righteousness. He knows he'll rise to the bait. He wants some time to think.

The way David's last sentence lands catches him by surprise. Something about it feels more forward than the rest of their conversation, or maybe it's the way his head has cleared a little. ] My good sir, if I didn't know better I'd say you were flirting with me. Not that I'm complaining.

[Oh yes, he laughs at that. Perhaps Katherine would like him. Shadowcat liked all sorts of types. He'd probably introduce Kurt as well. Yes, they would be good fits for this one. Though David would have to compete for attention he feared.]

Super heroes often get caught up in themselves. This said as someone who's been one. Well, mostly a super hero. I am used to being more a supporting role. But I just care to make sure people are okay. Guess I'm a soft touch like that.

[Though, for all that David's own head is clearing up some, he finds that maybe he meant some of that flirtation.]

Clearly you don't know better if you would only say it, rather than knowing it. But it's okay if that's too forward. I seem to remember that complaint.

[And he's used to being told 'yeah no'. So he'll let it go]

[ Balthier chuckles at the supporting role comment. ] I am clearly a leading man, but my partner seemed to think I was support. Maybe she was right.

[ Balthier twists the ring on his pinkie figure, fidgeting with the tea cup with his other hand. Coy and aloof is easy. Honest still isn't. ]

No, I'm just putting my foot in my dashing mouth. Forward is good. I quite like forward. And I'm finding I quite like you, truth be told. [ Scions he sounds like an awkward school boy. How do people do this earnestness business? ]

Perhaps you were, in the tale of the queen. But one can be the support in one story, and the lead in another.

[He sees the touch at the ring. Nerves? Perhaps, given the admission.]

Oh, I'm finding myself a bit more charming than I normally am. Truth be told, I'm a bit of a disaster. For instance, this isn't the first world I've been to like this, that kidnaps people from a lot of different places. And that means I've been through some very weird things that just sell the point of being a wreck. I figure you deserve the warning.

I'm wondering if support for awhile would be a nice change of pace, truth be told.

[ Balthier cocks a brow, but feels something in him relaxing. ] Warning me off? You must be interested. And here I was worried it wouldn't be reciprocated. I really am out of practice.

I haven't hopped worlds before, but I've been through my share of disasters and displacements. I think like needs like, to a certain extent. I'm not certain how much of a wreck I am myself right now. Hasn't settled in yet. Things before I came through.

I can recommend supporting rolls. You tend to get hurt less. Physically I mean. Hearts can be broken no matter the role.

[The fact that Balthier didn't seem offended about being warned was interesting in him, but he had to nod. What could he say, he really had developed a thing for bad boys that were, at their heart, good. He thought of Damian, of Tommy, of Nori even, though she was a bad girl. Loki was a more complicated matter, and Kavinsky hadn't fit the bill as much as David had thought.

Boy he was really striking out a lot these days.]

Balthier, don't worry about being out of practice. I'm pretty sure you could radiate a 'come hither' look if you tried. While looking bored. But if you allow me to play the role of concerned friend, I suppose the best thing I could say is that in the last world, some greater force didn't believe in letting us Go. Death... didn't last.

[That was about the level of implication he'd get into here, too worried that being fully blunt would drive hte man away.]

[ He notes the gravity of David’s voice and his need to reassert the warning. It’s sensitive. He can see why, but he’s also genuinely not flustered. Maybe that’s foolish. ]

I’m sorry. That sounds deeply unpleasant, though I’m selfishly glad you’re here.

You know technically I’m 2000 years old. There’s another woman from my world’s future so that makes me an ancient relic.

In more seriousness, my partner’s species ages significantly slower than mine. She was a few decades older than me. Certainly will outlive me.

If you’re looking for a way to chase me off you’ll have to try again.

[Two-thousand years old? He's been interested in older. And it's a 'technically'. So he snickers.]

Really, you just claiming that so someone can tell you that you've aged gracefully? Come on, share your real age. I'll go first, I'm twenty-five, if you don't consider the whole temporal double-time I've sort of lived. I'm not trying to chase you off by saying I'm old, Balthier. I'm trying to point out that I've passed away. Multiple times. It just hasn't sort of stuck yet.

[There, fully blunt. He's expecting the guy to run off now, then maybe reconnect and talk via some social media later.]

[ The implications of that are certainly headache inducing at best. He searches for what to say —- he wants to provide comfort, but how do you soothe a legitimate distress? ]

I spent the last chunk of my life convincing myself that it was rational to distance myself from someone I cared for, and now I’m not going to get the chance to correct that. If you’re here then you’re alive enough for me. [ He clasps David’s hand in his. ]

And I’m 23. I like older men. You’re practically my elder.

[He hasn't even begun to touch headache inducing. He could get there. But that's not what this moment is fore. Instead he considers Balthier quite silently, and thoughtfully. Then he smiles, especially when Balthier takes his hand.]

You're sure you're not a con artist instead of a pirate? Because you have a silver tongue that could get you just about anything you wanted.

[A charmer. Dammit why did he always fall for these charming, damaged men who probably didn't need his mess in their lives?]

I should probably tell you something, Balthier, in case that affects those comments you've made. I came to Sunset Falls to investigate a magical event. Given we arrived in the middle of a Valentines' like festival, that might have something to do with getting along with me.

[He's finally finding himself mostly free of the compulsion, and that makes him wonder if there isn't something... connecting his behavior now to, well, what he and Loki came here to do.]

[ He thinks about sharing the rest. That he murdered his father. That he couldn’t even hide his feelings enough to convince literal children that he didn’t care about Ashe and the kingdom. But David keeps talking and the moment is gone. ]

Oh? Tell me more. I’m not familiar with Valentine’s. [ Magic? Is that what his behavior being off was? But that feels clear now and there’s still a genuine connection here. Still. He moves his hand to take another sip of tea. Something feels like it has passed. ]

[Here David was, trying to avoid the family topic because it clearly hurt Balthier. Don't begrudge him the unintentional dodge, and the attempts to comfort the man that would come after.

David does regret the lack of the touch, but he supposes the distance is better, probably due to Balthier realizing there's nothing really there.]

There are certain religious traditions in my world, and perhaps this one, that venerate a god that tends to allow the spirits of those who have passed deep in belief of the system to become powerful forces for good. A bit like immortal spirits, but theoretically only able to meddle by praying on our behalf or something. One of them was Saint Valentine, who according to lore, did something or other to come to represent romantic love. In my world it's celebrated on the fourteenth of february, and is all about romance and love. People give cards and chocolates and gifts to their romantic partners. IT's considered a big thing, like an anniversary of a relationship.

You suspect some heightened truth to these endeavors then? Someone who came through like us or something local? [ It’s comfortable to switch to business. And disappointing too. That won’t change if he doesn’t. ]

That doesn’t change anything I’ve said or done. I’m not…I don’t feel connection with people often, and I find you both warm and engaging.

No clue. Magic is not my specialty. You talk about it like it's something that can be learned in your world through practice. In mine, you have to have an aptitude for it. I know all about the magic of my world. But I can't do it myself. I don't know why he asked me for help.

[Beyond Loki wanting to get into his pants.]

I am glad to hear I'm not boring, though. For all I knew you might, well, not normally chase guys, or I might be less engaging than I seem. Or maybe you'd think I'm too much of a know-it-all or reading you a lot. See, what I'm doing here is giving you another out now that I'm realizing it might be justified, because if you don't take this one, I might buy you a second cup of tea just to learn about this Strahl of yours so I can be impressed by your engineering skills.

Magick on my world is something else entirely, I think. Most people can train in it, though some of us have some particular affinities. The ocurria and scions and the like were new to me, though I suppose those weren't powers humans could harness.

[ If he's going all in, he's going all in. He's thankful David has stuck around; he clearly would have squandered this the first few tries. ]

I don't normally chase anyone, but gender's never really been my determining factor in attraction. I like people who are smart and to the point -- something most of my close confidants have shared. I have no interest in taking your out and quite a lot of interest in that tea and conversation. Some of that may be helped along by whatever this magick is, but all of that is consistent with who I am. [ There, he finally feels like himself. ]

I don't think magick really changes us. I think it heightens what's there, or can find fears or desires. My father -- I thought my father was under the control of the ocurria, immortal magickal beings for the sake of simplicity. I thought they'd corrupted him, made him go mad. That would have been easier.

It was all there within him. The magick helped but I was a fool for thinking he'd ever been anything else. It's easy to blame something like that on some outside source, but the truth is the hearts of men are simple and often transparent things.

[ There have been much easier ways to work this into conversation, but he's afraid if he doesn't say it now, he won't. ]

You should know I murdered him. To stop the ocurria, to make sure the queen stopped the empire and took back her crown. You asked if I did it for vengeance or protection or her. I don't know. I just know that that man destroyed everything he touched. I wanted so badly for the spell to fall away, for him to use his last words to make it make sense.

[ The confession comes tumbling out. He hasn't said that outloud yet -- everything happened so fast. But he turns it into a grin. ] So there you are. Your chance for an out. Maybe magick works differently here. Maybe I'm just the romantic pirate backdrop in your heroic investigation.

[Well now there's an interesting point of view. The idea that magic doesn't change a person wasn't one David shared, mostly because he knew Loki and Billy. Though he supposed Loki changed Loki and Billy, for all that he was a god to be, stayed rather the same. He just changed everything around him. But did he change people? That's a whole philosophical debate he'd love to get into with Loki sometime. Or Stephen Strange. Still, he takes the point Balthier is making very seriously.]

So you see magic as like a prism. The way it can amplify is like light passing into the planes of glass. While it doesn't destroy the light, it does show us the constituent parts, and perhaps makes some of them a bit more obvious than others. Or maybe a lens is a better metaphor, in that it can enhance and magnify, and perhaps even leave us burned by the intensity of the focus it brings to bear. I've got to admit, that's a new take for me. Though the magic I've run into that I see change people tends to actually be soul magic, and it has a warping affect due to very specific properties of how it damages a soul.

[Fratricide. Some would call it a great sin. From what little he's learning of Balthier's father, he doesn't think it was that simple, or that easy. And David had known people who had done that before, accidentally or deliberately. And had forgiven it as well.

Still, by the end he's merely nodding and, having finished his cup of highly caffeinated tea, he sets the fine cup aside.]

Do you think I'd want to know you less for making a hard choice like that? Saving the world is a hard thing to do. Fighting someone else you love to do it is even harder. Feeling disappointed by, or like we are a source of disappointment for, our fathers isn't simple either. There are still fine details that matter in the grand scale of measurement of the good or ill of such actions. But please, allow me to be blunt, Balthier.

The day I met my best friend, he almost murdered another friend of ours as part of an attack by the anti-mutant group he had joined, not knowing he himself was a mutant. But I still love him. Hell, my con artist ex-boyfriend's subconscious once manifested and stabbed me in the back, leaving me paralyzed. What you did? You did to help someone, and helped the world in the process. Even while hurting you. You clearly don't revel in it. And that? That means that the only reason I'm getting out of this seat is to get us fresh cups of tea. Rose again? Or, would you perhaps be willing to take a recommendation from a strange source? Because my cup was very insistent that it quite likes the spiced orange tea here, and I think I want to consider it's suggestion.

I haven’t encountered soul magick, but I’m willing to bet a good sum that that isn’t what we are dealing with. The occuria could influence reality —- that felt different than this. I think your prism lens metaphor is apt. Sometimes lenses provid clarity, too.

You’ll have to pardon my surprise and mild disbelief. I haven’t met many people who believe in forgiveness or weighing the complexities of moral decisions. Should have stayed in theater I suppose.

[ He’s making light because he doesn’t know how to accept the support. He doesn’t want to be that person anymore. ] Thank you for that. And for the tea. Being open to suggestions from the universe and new forms of magick has been going extremely well for me today. [ He raises his glass, nodding his head to David with a smile. ]

Reality warpers perhaps? That can be a hard power to work around. If you really did win free of them, you've done something impressive on a scale the likes of which few people in my world can achieve.

[So, you know, there's that. The man deserved applause if reality warpers had been shaping his world and he and others hopefully won their freedom. But to have done it at such a cost could not be easy.]

I'll pardon whatever you wish. It's not easy for me, all the time, to forgive what was done. But I feel that it's important to try. And in your case I think your past matters only insofar as whether you feel guilty or not. You clearly feel responsible for the things you did, and given the circumstances, I can't envision a repeat performance.

[In David's line of work sometimes doing the right thing isn't always a good thing.]

The orange spice is hardly a recommendation from the universe. Just my tea cup. One of the gifts I have here is something called psychometry. I can read the history of objects. Sometimes they have opinions. I find that's pretty common at tea shops and coffee houses. Let me go get those cups and then you can sit around and tell me at length about this Strahl and in return, I'll tell you about the vehicle Forge and I built for that race. Two engineers talking about their work, nothing complicated there.

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