entrancelogs | Tavern Mingle (INSIDE)

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Tavern Mingle (INSIDE) | OPEN

Who: EVERYONE
Where: The Dark Lantern Tavern!
When: 1/15/16 -1/18/16 - The duration of the event!
Rating: Probably PG-13, will vary by thread.
Summary: Let's go to this creepy tavern and ask for some directions! A log for staying nice and dry inside.
The Story:

For the duration of the event, the mansion has become a dingy tavern. It has two floors, the bottom being the main tavern and the upper floor has six bedrooms with one bed and one magic closet in each room for everyone to fight over, unless they don't mind sleeping on the floor or in the tavern somewhere. With the amount of people in Wonderland, everyone is cramped together and it will be very crowded. The closets will work, however they will only provide clothing and items from time periods long gone (though they do not seem to be bound to any particular time period). There are no employees to be found in the Tavern, but there's a working kitchen with a wood fire stove and enough food and drink for everyone to last the entire event comfortably. There's even a stage with musical instruments to entertain yourselves with! There's no electricity, but plenty of candles and lanterns around.

For the entire length of the event, it will be dark outside. In addition to the never-ending night, it will pour for four days straight, and it will all seem rather ominous once it becomes apparent the sun isn't coming out. Pretty much all signs will suggest that everyone should stay in the tavern and eat, drink, and be merry with their stupid new names. But it really is tight quarters, and some might be curious to see what else is out there. Maybe there's another place to stay out there, or something. Maybe the Beast Alice spoke of is out there.

(Lost? Perhaps you're looking for the outside log or the event information.)

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"So like a really old, powerful demon?"

If these things work for the Handler the same way they work in Thedas. Most things come down to demons in the end. Werewolves? Demon. Or a spirit. Similar enough. Vampires? Hunger demons. Shapeshifters.... mages. And darkspawn, also not demons. But. A lot of other things come down to demons. It tended to be the safest bet when something bad and magic happened. As opposed to the usual human bad.

"And angels?" That's not a term he's familiar with so all he can tell is that it's something that's also old, just not as old as this demon. Not especially helpful.

Bobby grimaces. Okay, so this is where it gets complicated.

He shakes his head. "No, no. See -- demons, they're just angels that decided to Fall. Followed Lucifer when he took his little vacation to hell after being cast out by the Father, that is, God." He isn't sure what the theistic differences between their world are, okay. "Angels 're ... they were created by God to watch over man. But Eve..." how does he explain this.

"Eve was trapped with all the other goodies in Purgatory, a sort of in-between place for the seriously evil stuff, older than anythin' else. Dragons had to sacrifice plenty of virgins to get her outta there."

When the Handler finishes his explanation there's a long moment of silence.

"I think I get it." Slowly, piecing things together as he goes, Alistair goes on, "We call Him the Maker. The Father. And He made spirits as His first children. Before making humans." And presumably elves and dwarves and Qunari, even if they all believed in their own things. "Some of the spirits resented the living and became demons." So these angels must be spirits. That all seems simple enough.

"Virgin sacrifices are new though. I mean, why? How does that even work?" He was certain that magic of any kind wasn't affected by whether or not a person had done 'it'. And how did a dragon know if someone was a virgin? It's not like they'd be able to smell it or something.

Right, so Alistair's world wasn't all that different as far as things went religiously. He wasn't a philosophical man, but all the religions did boil down to a lot of the same things in his world, so why not cross-dimensionally?

He has a theory as far as the virgin sacrifice thing goes, though, based on all the things he's had to deal with.

"Well, a lotta reasons. Much as I might be what they call a 'late convert', the soul's a real thing with a hell of a lot of power. Souls get marked by their experiences, good or bad, or mystical -- or whatever. Th'virginal soul is rarer and more valuable as a result, I guess. Purer substance." Don't even get him started on the sacrificing babies theory.

"Spill their blood, spend the power, and...bang."

Souls being real hardly sounds like anything surprising to him - they've got to be real. As real as the Maker Himself who, for whatever reason, presumably created these other realms too. Hence why the Handler knows of Him. As for the whole sacrifice bit-

"Sounds kind of like blood magic." Using souls or blood or life or however you wanted to put it to power a spell. As far as he knows blood magic isn't at all affected by the 'purity' of the person being sacrificed, which made it that bit worse - a blood mage could just grab anyone and use them to power their spells. These dragons had to try and get specific people it seems.

"In fact it sounds exactly like blood magic. Spill blood, do magic." No surprise that it exists in other places if demons do too. The two went hand-in-hand unfortunately.

"Well, yes -- blood's a powerful spell agent, no matter the sort. The darker the magic, the more specific they are -- at least, that's what it seems like." Yeah, Bobby's done his share of simple spells and that sort of thing to summon demons and track people when he can, but that's about the extent of his power.

"Anything that has 'vital' power, so to speak, can be used. Hair, skin, nails...that sort of thing's a bit easier and more inconspicuous to gather, if you're the baddie planning to hex your spurned lover or somethin'."

"Riiight. A skin mage? A hair mage?" Actually, that would be pretty funny. Also gross. And creepy... so maybe not that funny.

"You know a lot about this. Even for someone who hunts demons. You're not a mage yourself, are you?" It's possible where the Handler is from mages are allowed to do that sort of thing. It seems like a bad idea to him, sending someone most at risk of possession after demons, but maybe if he works with a Templar. Or something like a Templar that exists where he's from. Clearly the man isn't possessed and he's managed to grow pretty old doing what he does so he must know what he's doing if he is a mage.

"A mage? No. A witch? Also no." He waves a hand to the side, dismissive.

"I know the ingredients and incantations to some basic spells, but I'm not goin' to be doing any high-level juju any time soon. Not in the blood I've got, and also not something that I think I'd even be able to do now." Being dead probably puts a damper on his connection to that kind of thing, he supposes.

It helps that he got into the hunter lifestyle pretty late. That does wonders for the life expectancy.

"You can do spells but you're not a mage? How does that work?" He sounds utterly baffled by the idea. It's honestly stranger than demon-summoning dragons and vampire-shapeshifter-werwolf-whatevers. Demons come in all kinds of forms, that's fine. But only mages can do magic. Never mind the rest of his answer - not being able to do it now? Is it something to do with Wonderland itself?

"What kind of basic spells can you do?" That seems the best place to start. See how it compares to the magic he's familiar with.

Finally remembering the plate in front of him, Alistair picks at what is left, wondering if it would be too much to make a run for the kitchen soon. As interested as he is he's still has a Grey Warden's appetite and he needs to keep his strength up in case something happens.

"Lotta spells just require you know the right ingredients, sigils, and incantations. It's not somethin' quite as fancy as what witches cook up." He pauses, thinking over the things he's learned about. "Summoning spells, primarily. Witch-killing spells, tracking spells, that sort of thing. Not goin' to be making anyone's nose bleed by staring at them or anythin' like that, though. Most witches -- they draw power from somethin', usually a demon ... but there's naturals too, though not as many if I'm understandin' right."

He raises an eyebrow at Alistair's plate. "Grey Wardens come with a bottomless pit for a stomach?"

"Really? That is a terrible idea." If anyone can do these summoning spells the Handler mentioned. He doubts they'd be summoning something harmless... Even if an actual mage has more power he'd still take that over anyone being able to call up some nasty, magical creature thank you.

That might just explain all the things the other man says he has to deal with. Spells gone awry, letting something nasty out into the world. Fun for everyone. He'll definitely take home given the choice, even with the darkspawn and everything that comes with being a Warden. Most of which isn't completely awful.

Following the Handler's gaze Alistair blinks and nods. "Heh. You could say that. Believe it or not I was worse when I first joined." Whether his appetite had actually slacked off any since then or he'd just gotten better at dealing with it was anyone's guess. All that really mattered was that his meals didn't come with a splatter zone any more....

Alright, fine. They came with a smaller one now.

The Handler shrugs his shoulders in an easy roll. "I ain't seen a whole lot of things in the world that screamed 'really good idea' to me, t'be fair. Maybe it's some sorta deity-related foresight that I haven't got." To be fair, 'harmless' was sort of a relative term. Sure, he'd summoned the King of Hell and Death more than once, respectively, but ... well, there were extenuating circumstances. Plenty of people summoned run-of-the-mill crossroads demons, and those were a dime a dozen (even if they were still capable of running off with someone's soul).

If the Bastard had voiced that opinion of creatures being in existence because of spells gone awry, he'd have corrected him - plenty of creatures came about because they'd been created by Eve, after all, and not because of a spell. He knew too many good witches to really be all that against them. Anything was dangerous in the hands of an idiot.

"...huh. So it does somethin' to your body, huh? Wouldn't imagine your recruitment posters advertise the ability to eat your own weight in cream puffs as an incentive, though." If the Bastard was from the sort of medieval time that he'd assumed he was, having to eat more was probably a disadvantage.

"They do say the Maker moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes I think it's more like He enjoys having a laugh at our expense." Or was testing them. He'd always been terrible at tests.

Alistair snorts in amusement at the Handler's observation. The increased appetite wasn't as huge a disadvantage as it could be, given under normal circumstances Wardens were kept well-supplied, but like most changes a Warden underwent it wasn't something they talked about much. "Mm, we keep that one as a surprise. Most of our recruitment spiels are all about how you get fresh cream delivered every day and all the prettiest girls throwing themselves at you. And cute little bunny rabbits!"

Because jobs like theirs come with so many perks.

"If you believe the guys running Upstairss where I'm from, he hasn't shown his head in a few millenia. Even the angels have more or less given up hope that He's going to show up, since he didn't even try to stop the last few apocalyptic events." Bobby shrugs his shoulders. It's still kind of tense, talking about Heaven --but the angels couldn't and didn't want to, as far as he understood it, really want to mess with the whole 'personal heavens for humans' gig, and that was fine with him.

"So maybe you've got an absentee father in more than one way." Okay, he said he wasn't going to bring it up, but that was just too perfect a setup to ignore. The other comments have him clearing his throat with a laugh.

"Right, 72 virgins and the whole deal, right? All you have to do is sacrifice your life for the cause." He does want to clarify something, though. "Guessin' it's like being a hunter. No thanks from nobody, and usually more trouble than it's worth."

Alistair frowns, considering what he's just heard, and shrugs. "According to the Chantry the Maker turned his back on us a long time ago. So that doesn't surprise me." And whether or not He will ever return is for the Chantry to worry about. It doesn't much effect his day-to-day life. Except in the way the Handler points out.

He snorts with amusement and grins at the other man. "Hey, at least it's not just me." Does that make everyone a bastard? No? Oh well. It would make this sort of thing where names are apparently taboo awkward if they were.

"Um... sure. All of that." Especially the sacrificing your life in the end. "Pretty much. The order used to be well respected but that was centuries ago. Now a lot of people don't believe the Wardens are necessary. We still have certain rights but we have to be careful how often we use them or people get... touchy. Same for your lot?"

Well, at least this Chantry place seemed to have a little more sense when it came to figuring out when they'd been abandoned.

"People still pray to God like he's going to listen. I guess that's riled a lot of 'em up, not getting any of their prayers answered." He's still not sure what to think. Heaven exists, angels exist...who was to say God didn't still exist somewhere, eternally eavesdropping on his little creatures?

He nods at Alistair's last question, though, and leans his head back. "Lord, yes. Think it's got something to do with people not wanting to admit that there are actually things that go bump in the night that they should be afraid of. Getting supplies seemed like it was always getting harder and harder, even in the not-so-legal sorts of ways." Credit card fraud was kind of a given in their line of work.

And yet the Chantry still tells people to pray to the Maker despite Him having turned away from them. Not that Alistair considers praying to be a waste. He believed that the Maker must still care for His children and listens but if he was answering prayers it had to be more like... giving people the strength to face their problems themselves than striking sinners down with lightning. Or so he hoped.

"You should try getting supplies when there's a price on your head." Luckily they'd managed but there had been a few interesting moments there. "But at least we don't have that problem here." Plenty of other problems, but getting supplies wasn't one of them. Speaking of. Alistair lifts up his plate. "I think it's time for a supply run now. You want anything?" Or to escape back to the solitude he might have been enjoying before Alistair decided to introduce himself.

"Trust me, I have. Suppose it's easier to disappear under a new name for a while when there's more of a population, but a lot of things make communication faster than I'm guessing it might be in your time." At least, as far as the non-magical means of communication went. He supposed if the Bastard had mages, they might like to communicate.

"And -- nah, I'll be just fine." He does in fact want to keep to himself for a bit, though. The whole atmosphere of the place is a little stuffy even for someone used to dive bars.

Faster communication like the magic boxes they have here? If that sort of thing were commonplace it would make avoiding notice difficult. Even if being able to talk to people who aren't around is the sort of thing he could really get used to, it's definitely a good thing it doesn't exist in Ferelden.

"Suit yourself. I'll see you later then." Given how long it takes to move through the sea of people jammed in with them and get anything from the kitchen, he's not counting on there still being space here if he tries to come back. With a nod and a smile, Alistair turns and begins to shove his way towards the kitchen.

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Tavern Mingle (INSIDE) | OPEN

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