[Tennis courts]
"I dunno," muttered Xavier. He dabbed delicately at his tongue and winced. He glanced at his fingers. "I'm bleeding," he said with a little surprise. He held a finger to his tongue and murmured, "Cexiyl." He shuddered as the magic ran through him. When Xavier touched his tongue again, there was no blood.
"Dang, that feels weird," he muttered, rolling his jaw. "I'm okay now," he said to Qrlil. "Don't worry about it. And it wasn't your fault anyway." He picked up the tennis ball and through it to her. "Thirty-forty, you're up."
[Dining]
Kat noticed the two people coming in and decided to greet them. Walking up to them, he waved and said, "Hi. I'm Kat Berend. Who're you?"
Hoxle grinned at him.
"Hiya. Call me Hoxle."
Yale, stepped forward, and extended his hand. "Oh. Hello Kat. Please call me Yale."
edited 12th Nov '11 9:18:17 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories![Dining]
Kat nodded to them. "Forgive for not shaking your hand, but..." He rubbed the back of his neck, rustling his wings. "I have... issues with physical contact. Anyone I touch directly immediately remembers everything I remember, and I remember everything they remember. Basically, we swap memories. That in itself isn't too bad, but..." He shuddered. "Some of the things I've seen can break minds. Anyone who touches me would probably be reduced to a gibbering wreck on the floor."
edited 12th Nov '11 9:28:34 PM by TeraChimera
Hoxle looked at Yale through her glasses. Yale looked back at her.
They looked back at Kat, before looking back at each other, and then back at Kat.
"Kay." Hoxle shrugged. "No big deal."
Yale looked around for an inspiration for a nicer line of conversation.
"So, been enjoying yourself?"
edited 12th Nov '11 9:21:03 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories![Game Room]
"Er... yeah. Anyways." Well, I've satisfied my curiosity, and made this very awkward. And, oh, there it goes... Rachel's thoughts as the ball bounced past her are best left untranslated. She returned the ball, managing a fair swing. "Anyways," she said, again, "I suppose it's not worth worrying about. You've got to enjoy life while you've got it — er, so to speak. Whether it's curling up with a good book like me, having sex with anybody who seems even mildly interesting like Asayu, or whatever else."
[Dining]
Kat nodded. "Yeah. My colleague and I came here to investigate interuniversal effects on entities, and we've been here for about two days now. I've been filming stuff, and he's been asking around, talking to people. He somehow managed to drag his brother here; I don't really know what's up with that."
He glanced over to the bar. "You want something to drink?" he asked, jerking his thumb towards it. "They've got everything, and everything is free."
Yale shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't like my emotions to be fiddled with like that."
Hoxle slapped Yale on the back. "Then you get to do us the honor of watching me drink. And Kat. You wanna drink with us, Kat?"
Read my stories!Tennis courts
Qrlil made a small oh noise. "Was that magic?" she asked, curiously.
She took the ball, walked back up to her side, and lifted up the racket. "Are you sure you are all right?" she asked again. Her tone turned slightly teasing. "Because if you are" - she swung and whacked the ball back across - "I do not intend to go easy on you!"
[Game Room]
"Yeah, totally. Although what this Asayu does is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind for enjoying life ... but each to their own, I guess." Sakuko said, as they batted the ball back and forth a couple times.
"Hey, that reminds me of something completely unrelated - karaoke. That's another great vacation activity, and you don't even have to be any good. Any favorite songs?" Sakuko said to Rachel.
[Dining —> bar]
Kat grinned. "Oh, yeah. It's BEER! Who doesn't love beer? Even the Mesopotamians loved beer. One of the first known writings is a list of ingredients for beer."
He sat down at the bar and ordered — surprise, surprise — a beer. He took a sip and said, "Seriously, they do have everything. Two people ordered a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. You know, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
[Tennis courts]
"Yeah, it was magic," said Xavier. He smacked the ball back. "And yeah, I'm fine. Go as hard on me as you want."
After a few moments, he added, "If I wanted to, I could cheat with magic." The ball briefly froze in the air before resuming its normal course. "But where's the fun in that?"
edited 12th Nov '11 10:03:00 PM by TeraChimera
Yale nodded politely. He had never heard of such a thing, nor did he particularly think tradition should make him drink beer, but OK.
Hoxle snorted. "Everything, huh?" She cleared her throat. "Ølfabrikken Gammel Ekstra Porter, please."
Yale looked at her confusion. "What language was that?"
Hoxled shrugged. "I dunno. Sounded kinda german-ish to me. Maybe I'm German."
Yale did not answer this. Instead, he motioned for a drink as well. "Acai juice, if you have it. "
"Acai? Geebs, you really are asian, aren't you?" Hoxle smirked.
Yale smiled faintly. He seemed slightly pain in his expression.
Hoxle's eyes bulged out when she got her order. "Well, damn. That is impressive."
She turned back to Kat, as Yale eagerly sipped his juice, smiling to himself.
"So, you have a Hitchhiking guide?"
Read my stories![Bar]
Kat snorted. "I wish. It's just a novel, if a funny one. You've heard of that, right?" he asked, to be sure he wasn't making references that would fly right over their heads. "Douglas Adams, 42, Belgium, Life, the Universe, and Everything?"
He took a deep drink of his beer. It was surprisingly good; he hadn't had anything like it back on Earth.
Hoxle frowned. The words were vague on her mind. Maybe...at some point, they had had meaning.
"Nope. Sorry. I...don't read...that much." She paused and spoke awkwardly as she took this as an excuse to down the beer.
edited 12th Nov '11 10:17:28 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories![Bar]
"Oh, sorry," said Kat. "Anyway, the Gargle Blaster's the best drink in the universe, and one of the strongest. Apparently, drinking it feels like... what was it that Vincent said..." He scratched his head. "...like getting your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a gold brick, apparently." He shrugged. "I haven't tried it; I'm a bit fond of keeping my brains in my head, thank you very much. Even if it doesn't really remove them."
"Sounds more like hyperbolic compensation to me." Hoxle rolled her eyes at the concept.
Yale snorted into his drink, and immediately looked ashamed that he did so. "Geez, sorry I laughed."
Read my stories![Bar]
"Eh, don't worry about it," said Kat, waving his hand vaguely.
"So what brings you here? Did you just pop in? That's happened to a lot of people. In fact, most people come here that way. I think Vincent and I are the only people who've arrived here deliberately. It's intriguing, but we won't be able to gather the right amount of data to do any work on it."
[Dining]
Peter threw his hands up into the air.
"No way, I'm staying far from Plant Magic. My master uses spells to grow his crops and all vegetative life around him extremely quickly, and as a result, the first tree I saw in the area tried to eat me."
[Dining]
Virgil leaned in and whispered to Asayu;
"You know, if it's getting boring, you know what we could do, right?"
edited 13th Nov '11 3:10:58 AM by Dvdmacyoshi
Yale shook his head. "Oh, not at all. We came here because we had some free time, and felt we needed a break."
Hoxle drunk her beer, her silence not necessarily contradicting Yale's statement.
Read my stories![Game Room]
Letting the ball bounce past her without even trying, Rachel said, "sure, why not? Let's go sing horribly cheesy pop songs and old tunes from the 60s!" This would be fun, she decided. And she was actually rather proud of her singing voice. In fact, she could only think of two people with better: Aulde and Alice, and she knew for a fact Aulde used illusion magic to cheat. (Alice clearly had professional training, but when and why she'd gotten it was, like many things about her, a mystery.)
[Dining]
Asayu, her voice dry, said, "your lack of creativity disappoints me. I realize this is going to sound strange coming from me, but there are things other than 'have sex' to do here." She said no more, curious to see what Virgil would come up with, and what it could tell her about him.
[Dining]
"Well, I just didn't figure you for the kind of woman who would want to do normal relationship acts," Virgil answered, "I mean, what do you propose we do instead? Lay down on the beach, stare at the clouds, while I hold you in my arms and tell you how beautiful you are? I don't think you would like that very much."
[Game Room -> Bar / Dining]
"Alright! I'll set it up..." Sakuko said, walking out of the game room with Rachel into the Bar / Dining Area.
Sakuko rolled up her left sleeve, and typed on what appeared to a painted-on control panel. Program 52, 'Karaoke Mix' selected. Please Stand By.
The lights in the room flickered, as multicolored dance lights appeared on the ceiling. A large flatscreen, no more than a centimeter thick, materialized in an open space near the center, accompanied by a wireless microphone on a stand. She walked up, and said to Rachel, "You just say the name of the song you want in the microphone - it has nearly anything remotely popular programmed in. Do you want to go first, or should I?"
Just to clarify, it's not magic - and so has nearly every song from Sakuko's reality programmed in, which would be Earth songs up to 2024, in a Like Reality, Unless Noted sense (at least until 2017.)
edited 13th Nov '11 12:43:25 PM by Sonzai
[Dining]
"Oh," said Vincent. "Bad idea, then. Are there any other kinds of magic that you don't want to touch? I've got a few that I won't use under any circumstances. Most of them are mental-related..." He shuddered. "I've had bad experiences with those."
[Bar]
"Time off from what?" asked Kat. "I can imagine some jobs that would require lots of time off. Or maybe you're just stressed. Either way, it's a good way to let off some steam."

Tennis courts
Qrlil set down her racket and hurried over to Xavier.
She reached him and dipped her head briefly. "I apologize for that. Are you all right?"
Edited out some spatial confusion.
edited 12th Nov '11 9:29:08 PM by nrjxll