Ian Lai
True to form, Kalen found himself a couch to
occupy within moments of entering the library. Ian watched him for a
moment as though he found this behavior curious, but he let the Hermetic
doze off without interruption. There were, after all, books to be had,
and Ian took his time wandering through the library, letting his eyes
roam across the various volumes and titles that lay upon the wooden
shelves.
Ian didn't precisely give off the impression of being an
academic type, but nonetheless his interest in the library seemed
genuine - if perhaps of a different sort than Grace's own interest.
While he wandered, he grew quiet, and perhaps Grace would begin to feel
as though her presence had been forgotten, but then Ian paused and
looked back at her, his expression contemplative.
"How long have you and Kalen known each other?"
Grace
When
they first walked in, Grace led Ian around to the different sections.
The library is ordered, in a certain way. The books aren't nearly as
haphazardly placed as they might seem. But then, she let him browse, and
Kalen sleep, by plucking a familiar worn manual off the shelves and
slinking off to a chair with it.
Kalen sleeps with twitchy
restlessness. It's easy to see why he's always tired, if this is what
constitutes sleep for him. If Ian pays any attention, he might find her
occasionally peeling her eyes off of her book to watch him, but she's
not going to wake him up. He needs what little rest he can find.
The
question... ahh. It has Grace pondering for a moment. "It was August or
September last year. Something like that. School had started. I was
only a few weeks Awake. He likes new Mages, I think."
Ian Lai
"That doesn't surprise me."
Ian
hovered a moment near a section of books about spirit lore, tracing the
tip of a finger over a couple of the bindings. Not all of them had
obvious titles, and he had to pull a couple off the shelf in order to
inspect their contents.
"You a Hermetic too, then?"
The
stereotype didn't seem to fit her quite as well as it did Kalen, but
then, one couldn't always go by stereotypes. What little Ian knew of
Hermetics included the fact that they did not like to share knowledge
with anyone outside of their Tradition.
(Then again, Kalen had already proved that assumption wrong on a couple of occasions.)
Grace
"Nope, I am a certified Virtual Adept. He did try to recruit me, but not much. And I'd already been spotted ages
ago by the Adepts, so," she says, and lays her book down on the side
table. Seems it's conversation time. Sometimes, Grace follows social
rules, like 'don't read when people are trying to talk to you' and such.
Sometimes.
"I'd be a pretty poor match for the Hermetics," she says, and she can already hear Adam's complaint. "Not all of them seem to think so, but I do."
"What about you?"
Ian Lai
Ian made a sound in his throat - a little hmm
- when Grace said that she was with the Virtual Adepts. Not so much in
question as in understanding. But whatever his opinion of that
Tradition, he kept it to himself. When Grace tossed the question back at
him he smiled, just a little, in amusement.
"I'm not a Hermetic."
That
wasn't exactly a complete answer, but Ian didn't seem terribly inclined
to offer further information. He moved toward a table and set his books
down, pulling out one of the chairs so that he could sit and look
through what he'd found.
"Are you the one who set up Ginger?"
Grace
Ohh
Ian, you make this mysteriousness into something fun. "Aww come on. You
must be an... Ecstatic?" Grace says, making this into a game of Guess
the Tradition. She gives him a bright grin at that.
Are you the one who set up Ginger?
"Well,
yes and no. I helped set it up, but it was the brainchild of another.
Gadfly, he called himself. But I administrate it now, along with Kalen.
Either of us can set you up with it, you know," she says, and
looks over to the twitching Kalen, mumbling in his sleep. "I can
probably answer more questions than he can though. Especially right
now."
Ian Lai
Ian glanced at Kalen when Grace made
mention of him, watching the way the Hermetic slept (the restlessness
of it.) The silent pause before his next response seemed to indicate
thought.
"He already offered. I turned him down." Though something
about the way Ian was questioning Grace now seemed to indicate that he
was still at least considering it.
He shifted in his chair,
leaning forward with both elbows on the table, and met Grace's eyes with
his own. Ian's gaze was sharp and steady, laced around the edges with
notes of his cunning resonance. "What makes you think I'm an Ecstatic,
hmm?" He seemed amused by the question, and interested to hear Grace's
response. Light flickers of humor touched the not-quite-smile that
hovered at the corners of his mouth.
Grace
Ian
turned down the prospect of Ginger, hmm. "Well, I'm not going to
pressure you into it, or sell you some lie about it being perfectly
safe. It's not. It's just safer. I understand if you don't want in."
And
Grace meets his eyes with a touch of... well, not humor exactly.
Calculation, perhaps. "Well, it's the way you... I don't know. You
seemed to be really into the Node. Feeling it, you know, like
you had to bodily connect to it or something. And you flirt. Not that
that's a purely Ecstatic trait, mind you. But yeah, I can see how you
might be someone who enjoys experiencing things to their fullest. Am I wrong?"
Patience Mason
Another
night, another visit to the chantry. Some might notice, or they might
not that the curious woman from out of time did infact stop by the
Chantry on a semi regular occasion. Be it to recharge in the nodes
healing waters or to peruse the chantry's ample library the woman,
dressed in her uniquely vintage garb was starting to become a regular
haunter of these halls.
Some might notice that Patience rarely
seemed to enter through the front door, sometimes it was a second story
window, other times it was the back door, others the garage...tonight
for once shes coming through the front door. Dressed in a pair overalls
with a leather panel sewn into the front, pockets at her hips bulging
with various and unusual devices the woman stepped into the chantry and
moved through to the lower levels, carrying a large package in both
arms.
She would descend to the library package in tow and when she
spied the two occupant's, sky blue eyes would widen in both surprise,
and pleasure.
"Appropriate temporally alligned sociological verbal
salutations Grace." She would say with a nod. "It is an appropriately
positive temporal reference frame to re-acquire and actualize your
individualized paradigmic personage." She said as she moved towards the
large central table.
"Addendum, uncategorized, unactualized
bio-paradigmic personage, it is of equal parts positivity that I
actualize your relativistic existence and disseminate my heritalogical
identifier. I am catagorized as Patience Mason." The package, made of
burlap is deposited onto the table with a heavy thunk, indicating
something heavy and metal within, and Patience began to unpack it.
Kalen Holliday
[Work cooperates! -- Kalen, how much do you hate your subconscious right now?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Ian Lai
"The
Cultists certainly have their appeal. But their point of view has its
limits." He seemed about to elaborate on that, but then the door to the
library opened, and Patience appeared. Ian regarded her with a nebulous
expression... somewhat reserved and touched with a kind of wary
skepticism. He didn't return her greeting, perhaps because he couldn't
figure out how communication with her might actually work.
When he
turned his attention back to Grace, some of his relaxed humor seemed to
have evaporated. "You aren't wrong in your observations, but no. Not an
Ecstatic."
He opened one of his books and began to flip slowly
through the various chapters (as though looking for something in
particular.) "Who else is involved in Ginger? Tell me about them."
Kalen Holliday
Kalen's
eyes flutter open. Where the Hell is he? Ah. The library. Ian and
Grace and something luminous to chase away the echoing memory of living,
all-consuming shadow. And death. Always so much death.
He takes
a slow breath. There is that luminous glow and the sense of Ian like
some lurking great and Grace all ever-moving and brilliant. He thinks
that she must feel like those sharp-angled outlines that keep changing
colors on screen savers. See. They are not dead. They are right here.
He
sits up slowly, giving Grace a 'did you seriously let me fall asleep
here?' look. It doesn't manage, what with Kalen still being not
entirely awake, to look particularly annoyed. He glances over at Ian,
and though he considers it for a second, he doesn't try to summon him
any closer. He does smile a little as he watches him flipping through
the book.
And then he looks at Patience, gives her a warm,
half-apologetic smile. "Hey, Firefly. I am...not awake enough to
remember what noospheric means and put all the words together in a
manner more customary to you. It's good to see you, though." Give him a
minute, though. He might start managing to catch up to her speech
patterns yet. It is one of his favorite games, after all.
Grace
"Hey
Patience. Good to see you," Grace says, and smiles. It's a bit of a
show that, meant to reassure the woman. The last time they met, Grace
was... not well. And in this library too.
Her package goes thump
on the table they're all sitting (or laying, in Kalen's case) at, and
Grace puts a finger up to her mouth. "Kalen's sleeping," she says,
quietly. So do try to be quiet too, Patience.
Apparently, she's not going to introduce the newcomer to Patience. Maybe she thinks that he doesn't want to tell her his name.
"Ahh, there's a lot of people who have access, but as far as admins, just myself and Kalen so far. You know
about him already. Gadfly was... hmm. He was a good guy. Socially
inept, but a good guy. Showed up at my book signing, and had memorized
every word in the story I read, and I could tell by the way his lips
moved along with, even though he was staring off into space. Virtual
Adept, if that wasn't obvious. He disappeared," she says, and the story
is touched with nostalgia and sadness. She speaks of he whom she
believes to be dead.
And then, Kalen wakes up. She smirks back at his look, nonverbally communicating back a 'yes, I did, you were tired'.
"What is that, Patience?"
Patience Mason
The
package is unwrapped with care, and what lays within seems to be a
series of parts and pieces, of what was likely some device, some
assembly required. There were panels of circuits, gears and gyro's along
with four curiously fashioned crystalline panels which were each in
turn wrapped carefully within heavy felt parcels of their own.
The
newcomer offers no response to Patience's greeting, and it amounts to
nothing more then a gentle puckering of the woman's full lips as she
regarded him. Those sky blue eyes met his and she smiled, before
shrugging and turning back to her venture at hand. She would have tried
to be more quiet from that point, but Kalen had already risen, risen and
greeted Grace and herself and she smiles back at the man and offers.
"Verbally
transmitted Salutations Kalen, actualization of your relativistic
bio-para-noospheric existence is complete. Were your REM units
appropriately allocated this juncture?" She inquires idly as she pulled
out a long thin screwdriver and began piece the device together,
affixing several parts to a large brass frame.
"It is as she works
that Patience explains the device, not looking up from the work as she
lowers an image enhancing monocle over one eye. Her voice calm and clear
as she went on. "This basal electro-paradigmic device is cataloged as a
multi-spectral indexer, a supplementary component of the Aurora's
primary, secondary, and tertiary data acquisition array. It's primary
methodology for data acquisition and compilation is utilizing spectral
luminal wave variances to correlate data and assign appropriate
catagories to foreign and frotean elements not registered within its
primary data latice." Patience looked up briefly as she slotted the
first of several boards into the main housing.
"Further verbal dissemination of the device's intrinsic nature is possible Grace, if such data transmission is requested?"
Ian Lai
A
lot of people, Grace said, and perhaps that wasn't precisely the answer
that Ian wanted to hear, because the questions stopped after that. He
just listened and nodded and went back to his book. And likely he would
have remained that way, quietly reading while Grace and Patience
conversed beside him, but then Kalen woke up.
And here, see, an interesting thing:
Ian
looked up and watched him silently. But he didn't make a move to
approach the space where Kalen had laid himself out. And though he could
have asked if Kalen had enjoyed his nap, he didn't. Possibly the answer
to that question was easy enough to discern. One did not enjoy sleep
when one's dreams were full of shadows.
Patience went about
assembling the contents of her package, explaining it to Grace as she
did, and Ian finally afforded Patience a steady glance. But it was like
trying to fathom a completely alien species, and after a moment he
seemed to abandon the effort.
"I'll leave you two to your little geek-fest."
And
he picked up his books and moved to a chair that was further out of the
range of their conversation (presumably so he could focus on what he
was reading.
Kalen Holliday
[Ian. Why are you so
hard to figure out like a cat? Some people are tired but still trying
to figure out all your mysterious. Spending WP, because last time they
hung out was kind of a disaster....]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Ian Lai
[Because I just wouldn't be as much fun if I was easy to figure out.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
is, fortunate enough for the moment, relatively used to speaking with
Patience. "For me, incredibly so. Thank you." He smiles as he listens
to her explain the thing she's brought with her to work on, follows
half of it, and resolves at some point to ask if she can build him a
robot lion. Because he really, really wants a full-sized lion sentry
for the library. And he doesn't think anyone he knows in Denver can
animate that marble statue. Yet.
He rises and moves closer to
Ian. Patience gets a hand on her shoulder for a second as he passes,
because it would be a terrible, terrible thing to muss whatever
intricate thing she does to her hair. Grace gets a tiny little wave,
but no touching. And then he settles into a chair near Ian and leans
into him to murmur something.
Kalen Holliday
"Had
you met Patience before? She's brilliant, but she can take a minute to
get used to." There is a little glance at the book, just a motion of
those pale eyes. "You want space with your book, or are you just
fleeing from the overwhelming aura of science and enlightened reason
going on over there? Because I can stay, or I can go back and beg
Patience to explain science to me until I can follow her. She will.
She was aptly named."
Grace
Ian goes off to have a
little privacy, or a little snit. One of the two. Doesn't seem to like
nerds. Well, he can just continue to not like them, and she and Patience
can continue to be completely awesome. Grace does give him a little
fake-pout, if he's even looking. Sad to see him go. Not so sad as to be
overly upset though. It's a fake pout, after all.
It's
good to hear Kalen had a good rest. So rare these days, she knows. She
can tell. And she lets him pretend that she actually can't tell. He gets a smile, but no words. Sometimes they don't even need to speak.
Then, it's back to the thing on the table, which is far
more interesting than trying to figure out the reason why Ian wants to
be by himself. Kalen seems to be on that job anyway. "So like, a magic
sensor? It categorizes the stuff you detect?"
Patience Mason
Geekfest,
Ian had called what they were doing a geek-fest. Several looks cross
the woman's features from confusion, to realization, and then to utter
amusement. She actually lets out a warm, full bodied laugh as Ian moves
off to another side and Patience simply looked back to Grace with a warm
smile.
Kalen has slept well, or at least he seems to say he has
and to that Patience offers a agreeable smile. When the man walks past,
heading after Ian he places a hand upon her shoulder, an act which draws
a surprised, if not unhappy look to the surface of her features and she
blinks at the man, halfway through inserting the next circuit board
before looking at Grace in silent question. It seemed she was drawing
alot of information from Grace, simply through reading her facial
expressions.
But then its back to the ultimate geekery, to which
Patience's eyes gleam with excitement and pride as she inserted the last
of the primary chip sets and began to work on some of the cogs and
armatures. "A appropriate approximation of the standard operating
procedure of this device Grace, this unit has been active and cataloging
redundantly for the past twenty two solar traversal's having actualized
and catagorized significant data in its activity cycle. Though
concurrently this particular schematical variant is no longer nominally
efficient, its highly erudite index supposes its utilization as an
pre-emptive dissident and frotean detection alert system is subjectively
prominent. Successful integration with the data acquisition and
dissemination algorithm concurrently identified as 'Ginger' may increase
paradigmically actualized individuals awareness and prepardness ratios
by a factor of fifteen."
Ian Lai
Given Grace's
assumptions about Ian (and his opinion of nerds,) she might have been a
little surprised if she'd met him as a kid. People changed, though. Not
always for the better.
When Kalen sat down next to him, Ian looked
up from his book and raised an eyebrow in a manner markedly similar to
that of a person who was being told the benefits of some extremely
dubious looking new food-stuff. His response came in a half-whisper,
soft enough to match Kalen's tone.
Ian Lai
"I don't have any problems with science or enlightened reason. I just don't have the energy to keep up with it right now."
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
smiles at Ian's response, murmuring back. It's totally calm for a
minute, and then even from across the room you can see Kalen retake some
of his more customary distance, pulling back a little and expression
smoothing into something emptier. Safer.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
smiles at Ian's response, murmuring back. "Hey. You don't have to.
I'm sure they are in pure intellectual bliss over there.
"Look. I
know you have things going on. And I know I'm not really going to be
able to do much, so I'm going to stay the Hell out of it, because it
probably isn't going to help to drag you back at thinking about it all
the time. But if you do need anything from me, let me know, okay?
"You-" His eyes widen, very slightly. And then his expression shifts. Goes distant.
"And
I just realized the full degree of the irony here." He smiles, but
there is something about the tone that hints at something sorrowful.
Whatever just occurred to him, probably not remotely something he wanted
to thing about.
"And will stop speaking."
Grace
"You
want to give it a Ginger account? You don't even have Ginger yet! Oh!
Oh I should..." Grace says, and doesn't finish, as she rummages around
in the laptop bag she laid at the foot of her chair. She pulls out her
laptop, and starts booting it up. Yes, we need Patience on the network.
This must happen.
"You have a phone? Or a computer? Or... whatever you would want me to put Ginger on, for you own
use? I could do that right now," Grace says, and hopes that whatever
device Patience might want to hand her comes with a USB adapter, or else
they're going to have to get Creative.
Not that that is ever a bad thing.
"So,
it would post updates on dangerous things automatically? Like... a
weather alert system? Only instead of storm warnings, we'd get magic
warnings? That would be so helpful... What's it's range? Like, how far
is it looking for 'dissident frotean' stuff?"
Meanwhile, as she
speaks, she's booting up a monster of a laptop. It's powerful. And fast.
Ready in seconds, and nearly silent. It was purchased specifically for
such qualities, and that didn't come cheap. Whatever lack of interest
she seems to put into her car or her clothes, this does not extend to her hardware.
Patience Mason
"Though
this device's standard operating dynamic is for that of atmospheric
actualization, even located upon the external elemental reduction and
diversion layer of this paradigmic facility a range of approximately one
standard mile would not be beyond its concurrent abilities." Patience
offers as she looks briefly over at the two men conversing quietly.
Grace
is going on about giving Patience a Ginger account, and though Patience
smiles, equally eager to have access to the service she frowns ever so
slightly, her brows furrowing in contemplation as a finger raised to tap
at her chin idly. "The mobile verbal/aural telecommunications
transmitter which is concurrently present upon my bio-physical structure
is automatically updated via the Aurora's primary computational matrix.
Inload of the algorithm would require direct access to the matrice's to
efficiently affect software alterations and repurposing." She pulls out
a small cell shaped device from one of her many pockets, showing Grace
that there really was no port on the device.
"We could movate our
locality to the Aurora to affect such application, it is concurrently
stationed at a relativistic altitude of twenty point three five meter
units above this geographical locality." She offers.
Ian Lai
Given
Ian's seeming absorption in both his book and his whispered
conversation with Kalen, one might imagine that he'd long stopped
listening to whatever it was that Grace and Patience were talking about.
And it's true, he wasn't directly focused on them anymore, but his ears
picked up a lot more information than most people assumed.
At this moment, that information was being filed away somewhere for later use.
The
reality was this: there was a person who was missing, trapped and cold
underground. Who the hell knew if he was even still alive. And another
person... taken. Possessed. And Ian couldn't do a damn thing about it
except to look. And look. And hope that he got lucky. The fact that he
could stroll around and make jokes and sit here calmly having
conversations about Traditions and secret communication software was not
necessarily an indication that he was handling things well.
But that didn't mean he wanted to be reminded of that fact, either. So whatever Kalen said to him then, it got a pointed look.
Ian Lai
"I don't want anything from you, Kalen. I don't ask that shit from people. Okay?"
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
sighs, murmurs something else to Ian, and then glances over the books
he can reach without getting up. After a few second's consideration, he
picks one out, reaches over and pulls it off the shelf, and flips
through it for a minute before settling on a page to start with.
And then he curls up in the chair, still close enough for murmured conversation but no longer really leaning into Ian's space.
Kalen Holliday
"Yeah,
I may have noticed that. I'm offering. It's this baffling thing that
sometimes people do." He smiles, very faintly. "Don't worry. It
confuses me too."
Grace
Grace
gives Patience a look that is at once awed and massively intrigued.
"Your ship is?" she says, and points up. "Well. Hmm. We will have to get
creative then."
"I could try to directly connect to the Aurora computational matrix, if you would allow it? I don't really
need a wire, it just helps. I can piggyback on the phone's connection.
It would be secure. But I would have access to your databanks. I'll let
you watch the whole thing. Considering this all seems to be homebrew
equipment, I might need your help navigating it all, actually...
"And... oh wow, I would not mind a tour either. But I do have to give Kalen a ride home later."
And,
let's just put it bluntly -- Kalen and Ian are being ignored for the
time being. Grace is absorbed in Patience's stuff, and her idea for
upgrading Ginger with an automated sensor is killer.
Patience Mason
"The Aurora has
sufficient volume and internalized capacity to relocate Kalen, your
movating internal combustion drive system structure and your own
physical bio-structure along with several other parties, if so
required." It is offered as an option for getting him home, if perhaps
Grace didn't feel like driving.
"If such socio-political dynamism
is not concurrently appropriate or noospherically positive we could
initate a remote data transmission and dissemination algorithm to upload
your directives into the system, upon such actualization if within
alternate and divergent temporal frames Ginger users could gain
sufficent access to the Aurora's primary data acquisition apparatus for
improved logistical analysis and situational awareness." She makes this
offer freely, either shes quite certain of her security, or just that
willing to help out the others of the city.
She hands her little
communication device to Grace regardless however, and turns it on with
the depression of a tiny indent on its side, the surface folds open
revealing an operating screen on a crystalline surface, it seems to
operate through the manipulation of various light streams visible on the
screen itself using ones fingers.
Ian Lai
It was
probably a good thing that Grace's attention lay elsewhere at the
moment, given the spike of awkward energy that had bloomed between Ian
and Kalen. It wasn't really clear what had caused it, but anyone giving a
close read of their body language might identify Ian as the source of
the upset. Kalen was pulling back. Retreating. And Ian didn't seem
especially concerned with drawing him back in.
"I'm almost afraid
to ask what 'The Aurora' is," Ian finally rejoined the general
conversation, looking up from his book with a tentatively curious
expression.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen doesn't seem
particularly upset now, but he definitely did retreat. Whatever sparked
off that distance...seems to not matter so much anymore. Ian speaking
gets a little flick of his eyes in that direction, but he's asking about
Patience's...whatever the Aurora is. It is in the sky, which is
awesome, but Kalen isn't quite in the mood for that.
And he is
in the mood for herbalism? Since when does Kalen care about that? But
he seems perfectly content reading about mandrake roots for the moment.
Grace
[Corr 2: Secure Connection -- Diff 5 -1 for taking time. Connecting to the Aurora.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 6) ( success x 2 )
Grace
[Int
4 + Computers 4, diff 8 - 1 (Computer Aptitude); Specialization: Int
(Creative), Computer (Analysis) = Okay, now figure out this completely
new, foreign operating system, Grace!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 2
Grace
"Oh
wow, Patience. That is amazing," she says, and gently takes the device.
She puts it down on the table next to the sensor array, and begins
typing away at her own device.
The screen on Grace's laptop turns
black, and then begins to churn with the loading of her programs. Text
blocks scroll down the screen in stutter-stops as she works.
And
then, the people in the room will feel it -- the way she slices through,
all the way up. Like the rug being pulled out from under with a sharp
tug, like a surgical [bit]shift. And her screen now mirrors that of the
phone on the table, ready for upload.
"Oh well... hmm. It's not
standard is it?" she says, after a bit of trial-and-error attempts at
working the interface. "I think I can figure out how to at least install
the payload though. You want to give me access to the installation
routines, Patience? I'm the process 'chimeric01'."
Ian Lai
Grace
and Patience were likely too absorbed in their conversation to notice
that Ian had asked a question, and well, to be fair, he was the one
who'd gotten up and walked off to begin with. So he didn't take the lack
of response personally (or at least, didn't seem to.) Instead he just
pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and closed
his eyes for a moment.
"I'm going to go read these upstairs."
Perhaps
he ought to have asked permission first, given the value of the books
in his hands and the fact that he was a relative newcomer (unproven and
untrusted.) But it wasn't as though he was going very far, and
presumably the three of them could probably stop him if he tried to make
off with anything that didn't belong to him.
In any case, he
closed the book in his lap and stood up, making his way toward the door.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
lets Grace and Patience work, and he lets Ian go with no more than a
wave. He has plants to read about, and he is perfectly content with
that for now.
Grace
"Hey, um...
er..." Grace looks up at Ian with a remarkable face that reads like
she's encountering a marvelous new moral dilemma.
The last thing Grace wants to do is be a rule-maker. She doesn't really do that. She's no authority. But still.
"Maybe
you shouldn't? I don't mean to be rude, but there's a reason why the
door is thick and has some massive locks on it. I don't know if this
place has alarms for the removal of inventory or whatever. I've never tried."
She's
not going to tell him no. She's just going to give him reasons, and
hope he follows the logical path. Either that, or she'll find out if the
place is wired to go into alert mode if books leave the premises.
She
looks over to Kalen, who is busy reading a book on... plants? Clearly
something has been missed here, and it has Grace confounded. Ugh. People. Why are they so hard to figure out? Computers are infinitely easier.
Ian Lai
[Let's make a WP roll, shall we?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )
Ian Lai
Grace
interjected, and Ian? Stopped just before the door. He didn't say
anything for a moment, but there was this little click of his jaw as he
rolled the muscle and bit down. (Not really angry, but... frustrated,
maybe.)
"Fine." His voice sounded deceptively placid. Accepting,
if not overly thrilled with the situation. And he walked back to the
shelf where he found the books, moving to replace them in their proper
locations.
But then... he paused. And gave a little twitch of his
head, rolling it on the axis where it met with his vertebrae. Then,
without a word, he picked the books back up again and drifted back into
the furthest corner he could find. Presumably in an attempt to avoid
distractions (of all varieties.)
And that was where he would remain for most of the night.
Ian Lai
[Ok, this is a roll for Ix's SL. Wits+Occult, diff 8, cause someone doesn't have any Cosmology]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
Ian Lai
[Int+Library, spending WP because this is actually important, yo]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Grace
Grace
and Patience will work on their little project for some time. It's a
thing, trying to connect two wildly different systems, and Grace is
going to have to recode the Ginger program to Patience's specifications
to get it to work. But in the end, they'll have achieved some success.
Let's hand it to them, they are no slouches in the technology
department, either of them.
Patience, at least, will have Ginger
access. And, the program will have been installed into the sensor array.
Whether they can get everything communicating with the Ginger server is
anyone's guess, but still. Between the two of them, it's likely.
Grace
will have to ask Kalen later what had the two so upset. Probably on the
ride back, if he doesn't just doesn't want to sleep the whole way. She
does worry that it might be her, or Ginger, or... something. Ian is
difficult to read. Mysterious as Kalen said he would be. And humans are
somewhat mysterious beasts to Grace even at the best of times. But for
now, she leaves them be, to work and plan and possibly provide a
automated magical sensor readout to the people of her city.
