ioduanlogs | [EVENT] Moon and Mirrors (Welcome Mingle Log)

[EVENT] Moon and Mirrors (Welcome Mingle Log)

Characters: ALL
Date: January 15
Location: At the Dreaming Bridge and all over Aifaran!
Situation: A large influx of Dreamfolk arrive in time for one of the Lunar Festivals, and they're all invited!
Warnings/Rating: N/A

A surprising amount of Dreamfolk have arrived within a short time frame - a peculiarity remarked upon by a number of Aifaran's residents. It is unusual in that it coincides with a lunar festival, one which only happens every fifty or so years.

Newcomers will find the streets packed with all sorts of people, stalls of fried and sugared foods, carnivalesque games and rides, and all other manner of things to do. Merchants are very keen to get their wares out there, and the stipend given may just burn a hole in your pocket when you see what's for sale.

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Yep, definitely another Dreamperson. Eve's here too late to do any real good, but she wants to at least get the lay of the land, see what might have happened.

If she's going to be living here, she may as well involve herself with the strange magical happenings. It's her job.

She shakes her head at the more or less friendly inquiry. "Sorry, no. I haven't been here that long. I thought taking a look around would be a good idea, but I haven't found any first-hand witnesses yet either."

Grimacing, he sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, throwing a scowl out over the milling crowd.

"No one seems to have." Grunting softly, Rokuta turns back to look up at her with a brief, small smile. "Thanks anyway. You'd think with this crowd, though..."

If the people who's lost someone looked away at the "right" moment, that's one thing, but if no one else either that's just starting to edge into even more suspicious. Like the whole thing doesn't stink already.

"Yeah, that's the funny part." She nods an acknowledgment to him too, since that's a good note to make. "It'd be one thing if it was just that no one had done anything. If you get to the point where no one has seen anything despite how many people there are... that makes me think magic."

Of one kind or another. She's still not sure how things in this world work yet, but probably the principles are the same. Power. Focus. Effect.

Right now, they only know the effect.

"Yeah," he says with a little shrug, easy agreement making it clear that's what he was thinking and doesn't find anything odd in that, "I'd just hoped someone had seen enough to give a description."

Briefly, Rokuta's expression falls into something soft and frustrated - if this was just some annoyance at home and not people disappearing, he'd indulge in a childish foot stomping right now. But it isn't, so he doesn't, just clenches his hands.

"Not sure if it'd matter, but with a description of how it looked, maybe the people here would recognize the magic used."

Yeah. Eve feels about the same as she can read in his clenched fists. She flexes her own, wishing for something easy to punch in lieu of just a mystery.

"It could be that in itself is a tell," she says finally, a little slowly as she works out the thread of what she's thinking. "No one saw the disappearance, no one saw the magic... maybe it's illusion magic. Either to cover the disappearance, or something else about it that would be recognizable."

As ever with magic, she has to pause and think about if the words that just came out of her mouth even make sense.

Looking up with a frown, a question on his face at that slow pronouncement, he does wait for her to continue, and then stares for a second or two.

"... You know, I wouldn't be surprised. If that's something they can do, it'd sure be an easy way to make your abductions in peace." And, it'd be thematically fitting, wouldn't it? He'd taken a short jaunt through the "fun house" and a lot of the charm of the place was obviously the illusions created by mirrors or other set pieces.

"Great." Though his tone suggests it's anything but great.

"Yeah." It's a flatly sarcastic agreement. Great is about the right assessment. "We can take a look around anyway, but I'm not the right person to ask about magical residue or anything like that."

It's telling that she automatically goes with 'we,' she thinks. She's still very used to being part of a team. This alone business is going to take some getting used to.

"How're you with magic forensics?"

Rokuta's quietly grateful she appears to have no qualms about walking around with what looks like a thirteen year old (never mind the ways he is exactly that), because he's certainly not ready to give up yet.

"A second pair of eyes is a second pair of eyes," he says with a shrug, too tense to be nonchalant about this and sets off at a rather purposeful stride, flicking a glance upwards at the question, "and, uh, can't say that's a strength of mine, and I'm even worse at profiling."

He flashes a small, ironic smile up at Eve, almost self-deprecating. He's already wondering why whoever did this did it. What sort of circumstances would force them into kidnapping?

Act older, get treated with your apparent maturity. This goes the other way more often. It doesn't mean she won't try to protect him, but she can at least respect the businesslike attitude.

There's a quick flicker of a smile back, something resigned to the situation but cheerful about it. "Well, still better than having only one pair of eyes," she agrees. She'd be happier if she had something to sense magic, but she'll work with what she's got. "Let's take a look this way, then. Although with this many people..."

Hopefully there'll be something left for them to spot.

"Yeah," Rokuta mumbles, then throws a look around, "maybe between those of us who're trying to look and the Sentry, someone will find something..." Something he really, really hopes. There's already been a couple of people who's disappeared, and as long as no one can figure anything out, the risk of people continuing to do so lingers.

"Don't seem like they're keeping people away yet... but there's an area 'round here people are disappearing in, isn't there?" He's been wandering further away while asking people, and no one elsewhere on the festival grounds and on the streets seem to have had people go missing.

"Or we'll confuse any remaining evidence too far." Eve grimaces. "At least magical evidence usually lingers longer than physical. Usually."

She thinks. Normally it's the type of thing that gets left to other people; Eve's really not the magic person.

Right. Try to think positive. "Yeah, I don't think it's happened any further off. Maybe we can at least narrow down the exact boundaries of the area, that'd be something."

"If it is magical, as long as we... or anyone else, don't use any other magic aside from trying to track it, it should probably be fine?" He frowns as he speaks though, a little uncertain about that. Magic probably works a little differently in different worlds, especially as different as this place is, as vaguely familiar as some things seem.

"Yeah... how far away any of them have been, so far anyway." He doesn't like that thought. The possibility that more people could disappear - even if they can establish some sort of perimeter, how to make sure people stay outside of that? Will the sentry officers listen to suggestions? He wouldn't be surprised if they would consider any information coming from strangers to this world with some wariness, no matter how used they might be to other people turning up. They have only just arrived, after all.

"Yeah, probably." She sounds about as dubious as he looks, though. Her experience with magic is that it lingers long than you'd like; but in this world, things might be different.

There's a lot of hoping and crossing of fingers to be done.

But hey, at least they have something they can do right now. Eve claps her hands together briskly. "Right. Let's head this way, then." Gesturing tangentially to where the clustering of people and Sentry officers are. "Establish a boundary, then... I don't know, there's got to be some magic experts around here, right?"

Flashing a tiny grin, Rokuta nods and turns the way indicated, but makes sure to take a wider circle than strictly needed - both so they're not actually in the way of the Sentry officers, and to make it less immediately obvious they're still going to hang around. He's seen more than one askance look thrown the way of someone who clearly belonged to the newcomers, or clipped, if polite, denials of assistance. The Sentry wanted to do this themselves.

"Uh-huh. Considering they do got magic, that's something they gotta have somewhere, yeah." Though, whether they'll be easy to find or numerous, is another question entirely.

"Maybe this ain't much, but being able to do something..." He shrugs. He wouldn't be able to just... ignore this.

Good move, kid. Eve notes the caution and approves of it, even if there's not room to explicitly acknowledge it. She lags behind him a little bit, taking advantage of slightly longer strides, and keeps her eyes roving as they pace.

It doesn't look like much. There's people, none acting especially shiftily, only those who are concerned and searching or confused and trying to figure out what everyone else is fussing about. If there's anything magical, Eve sure isn't seeing it.

"Usually magic at least has the decency to glow, where I'm from," she grouses eventually. "A magic expert is sounding like a better and better idea."

There really isn't much of anything to see, aside from the obvious distress of some people... which just digs all the deeper inside. At least walking around trying to get a roundabout idea how far away those who have been kidnapped so far have been from the building it all seems to have happened around means they walk further away from that distress...

And Eve's comment does at least startle a little bark of laughter out of him, flashing a brief little grin up at her.

"Oh, yeah. That'd be helpful. It sometimes does that where I'm from, too. Or have the letters the spell's made up of visible all over the thing that's enchanted. Hard to miss something like that."

Sometimes it was more subtle, too, of course, but he didn't linger on that.

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[EVENT] Moon and Mirrors (Welcome Mingle Log)

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