22:11 <banana> Willie's second visit to Inchcape is a lot less dramatic. 22:12 <banana> VI4 aren't holding court tonight. The main body of the mansion is mostly dark, with a few lights coming from the east and west wings, and some floating balloon-globes out in the garden, where some vampiric noble is hosting a tea party. Sergio steers well clear of that on the way in. 22:13 <VoxPVoxD> Willie is very alert, for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that she feels the way she does when she's physically on fire. 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> Distinct but not dissimilar from the figurative fires of passion, lust, etc. It feels really good, but it's always juuuuuust grinding along the edge of being overwhelming. 22:15 <banana> Your route across the grand patio doesn't go through the gardens, but Willie has at least five senses. Only a few of the people out there are vampires - the really well-dressed ones - and the others are their playthings. In the shadows of the trees they're playing games that involve too little clothing for the incipient winter, a lot of passing around partners and laughing. Alcohol and 22:15 <banana> other fluids. 22:16 <banana> Sergio says: "I haven't asked around about Samhain, since I wasn't sure it's a secret. How exclusive is this thing?" 22:16 <VoxPVoxD> Does Sergio seem to react at all? 22:16 <banana> His reaction is to hurry past, and inside. 22:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie obliges. "It's by invitation. You won't be the only Kindred in attendance, but you might be the only one from Inchcape." 22:18 <banana> Tonight it looks like you'll be turning left from the boxy foyer, into a modernised wing which has a lot of trailing cables and utility rooms. There are offices, presently shut up, and a few multipurpose rooms containing sound stages or computer gear. 22:19 <banana> Sergio: "That will be interesting. I'll have to play diplomat, or whatever they now call diplomats. God knows we haven't got any left at the Foreign Office." 22:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Only implicitly. The premise of the night is that who we are and what we are doesn't matter. Hence the masks." 22:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Obviously to some extent that's a polite fiction... but only, I think, to some extent." 22:22 <VoxPVoxD> "You'll get to meet my whole team as well." 22:25 <VoxPVoxD> "If we get along with Bob and his girlfriend, I'm going to propose a Double Date somewhere down the line." 22:26 <banana> Sergio does an exaggerated mechanic's whistle. The 'that's gonna cost you' noise. "Then... I'll have to reserve the premise a little. These people must matter if-" He's interrupted! 22:26 <banana> You've passed a lighted room, with a man and a woman inside it. Both set up that blood-fire that Willie is learning to recognise as the Greater Curse which calls to her own. 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> Willie has a reaction to what Sergio says, but also to this. She draws closer to him instinctively. 22:27 <banana> "Ey, Serge!" The guy calls out. He's got dyed-blue hair and Oxonian tones. "Is this she? Are we so graced?" 22:27 <banana> Sergio: "Ah, fuck. Willie, this is the salmon man." 22:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Ah yes! Scungio's told me about you." 22:28 <VoxPVoxD> "How do you do?" 22:29 <banana> Drew Salmon: "Aahahahaha! You saw it! That's bloody fantastic. I'm, oh, I'm fine." 22:29 <banana> The apparent young lady vampire has extremely short-cropped hair and something like a ballgown, cut up with patches of denim sewn on. "He's fine. I am Patience Errol-Chyves. And you must be Wilhelmine Wellesley." 22:30 <VoxPVoxD> "I am indeed. Do call me Willie." 22:30 <VoxPVoxD> "A pleasure to meet you both." 22:30 <banana> Sergio judges there's no need to intervene here, though he rolls his eyes at the other two. 22:31 <banana> Patience: "Pleasure's returned. Are you looking for a master copy of Cod War II? We have plenty left." 22:33 <banana> Drew: "Surely she's here for an audit. Eccles shouldn't have been running two sets of books." 22:34 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Sergio was just going to show me some of what he's been working on. I didn't know there'd be European trade regulations involved." She sounds sincerely enthused by the prospect. 22:36 <banana> Sergio: "Actually, I have a couple of timelines to show you from this piece on how club culture's developed in the wake of the reopening." 22:36 <banana> Drew: "Ah, the fleshpots commission." 22:37 <banana> Sergio: "It's in another lab. Any of the other labs, really." 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> "Do lead on, then." 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> Stage whisper: "I'll keep close." 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> She does. 22:37 <banana> Patience: "Have a nice evening, lovebats." 22:38 <banana> Sergio takes Willie into a nearby computer room and mashes the keyboard to awaken an obsidian monolith. "It's not that they mean well, but they think they do. They mean to mean well." 22:39 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "They meme well." 22:42 <banana> Sergio: "I suppose Salmon can caption a photograph with the best of them." 22:43 <banana> He boots up the system and starts walking Willie through some of the work he does, a lot more facile with the nonlinear editor than with more general forms of computing. She can tell that for Sergio it's an artist's tool, to be mastered with focused practice, not out of technical interest. 22:43 <banana> There's plenty of time for conversation. 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> Willie lets him explain stuff a fair bit. She loves letting men explain stuff to her. But she has things to ask that aren't just about the work, and things to say that aren't just appreciative oohs and ahhs at Sergio's expertise. "Is it safe to talk here?" 22:49 <banana> Sergio: "Should be. Is there something you'd rather keep from Salmon and Chives? If they're of a mind to break in on us I should hear it before it happens." He turns down the volume on the workstation. 22:52 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "No more than I might by inferring the fact you don't particularly rate them. But I'm quite curious about your experience with Inchcape and its people, and the organisation as a whole. And since I have invited you to a debut of sorts, but one with a less comprehensive need for secrecy, I want to answer any questions you might have as well." 22:54 <banana> Sergio: "Let's take turns until the game of it becomes tiresome. Your organisation, Willie... what is it? Who do you actually work for?" 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "We work for ourselves, and for the night-city. The Nameless House is a team of hunters and ex-hunters who have decided to put our skills to work on behalf of people who, by rights, we're meant to hunt. They need help too, help that's hard to come by because of who precisely has those skills." 22:58 <VoxPVoxD> "The member of our team who generates leads found an opening in the market and asked me to help him put the rest of the team together. In addition to field work, I did the onboarding for everyone." 22:59 <VoxPVoxD> "There will be five of us at Samhain. Two you've met." 23:01 <VoxPVoxD> She'll stop there. She doesn't want to give spiels on her coworkers if Sergio's not interested in them. 23:02 <banana> Sergio's eyebrows raise slowly and steadily. "There's so much more to this underground world than I knew when I accepted Simpson's offer." 23:03 <banana> "Even the idea of organised... vampire hunters... is not something you hear bandied about. The general feeling is that there's just a sort of controlled opposition." 23:03 <banana> "But it's your turn." 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> "I know the feeling. Speaking of which: what exactly are the strings attached to that offer? You mentioned that you incurred a debt, which makes sense. But how is it meant to be paid off? Is it money? Blood? A term of indentured labour?" 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> "When are you free?" 23:07 <banana> Sergio's lips twist ironically. "Oh, it's a life debt." 23:07 <banana> "We are... potentially... immortal. When you've died once already, what's the point in doing it again?" 23:08 <VoxPVoxD> Now Willie's eyebrows go up. 23:08 <VoxPVoxD> "Blimey." 23:08 <banana> "The whole covenant," he explains, "forms a kind of web. Debtor to debtee, though those are crude terms. We share, well, blood." 23:08 <VoxPVoxD> "By inheritance, you mean?" 23:10 <banana> Sergio pushes the keyboard away and swivels around. This is serious-talk stuff, and he's not about to pretend otherwise. "It's more regular than that." 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> Willie was already facing him. She turned her head to look at the screen, when needed. 23:12 <banana> "The oldest kindred of the covenant actually depend on the rest of us for blood... purity or filtering or something along those lines. Emily would gain nothing from the, ah, veins of a normal person only twenty or a hundred years old." 23:13 <banana> "They give back, too. The blood of our elders is everyone's on occasion, which creates a strong tie. I no longer have the instincts which would have found this all incestuous, unhygenic." 23:13 <banana> "Intellectually I know it doesn't sound good. I wouldn't put it in a narrative for mass consumption." 23:14 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "So you're all enthralled to each other? Up and down the line?" She stops. "Ah, no, I'm sorry. I'm taking extra turns." 23:16 <banana> Sergio: "It's fine, sweetheart." 23:16 <banana> "What do you mean by enthrallment?" 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> Willie melts a bit at 'sweetheart' and it takes a moment to recover the gumption to ask "Well, I know that, if a human - or whatever I am - drinks vampire blood, it enthralls them. They come under the... I believe the term is regnant? the regnant's control. Does that not happen to immortals?" 23:21 <banana> Sergio: "I bet that's the way they put it in a vampire hunting manual." 23:22 <banana> "Nothing's as black and white as that really, or rather... the effect is limited. If you drink a vampire's blood, yeah, you'll find it easy to think of them as important, powerful, attractive, you want to be on their side. It's not a total compulsion. And it only happens once." 23:22 <banana> "That is- the taste of blood immunises you against others. Like mRNA." 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "So it's a bond." 23:23 <banana> "But not up and down the line." 23:23 <banana> Sergio: "Simpson, I'm afraid, thinks of me as a moderately talented but somewhat naive young child." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I know that feeling very well." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> "But! It's your turn now." 23:25 <banana> Sergio thinks for a moment. "Well, what are the 'seelie'? Witches and bogles and dwarves? Is this to do with the King under the Hill?" 23:26 <banana> A screensaver begins, but he turns to it for a moment to waggle the mouse. There are stills on the screen of guy on a dance floor giving a subtitled speech about nihilism. 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> Too many dicks on the dance floor. 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> Even if he's the only one. 23:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "It is, yes. The Tors of Manchester, specifically the Winter Tor, is hosting a Samhain party, I suppose to mark the beginning of winter. The seelie folk are friendly fae - or at least, they're as friendly as people are. I'm sure there are rude or unpleasant ones. But the ones I've met have been lovely." 23:29 <VoxPVoxD> "They keep a low profile, because they value their privacy and look out for one another. No secret masters of the world here." 23:31 <banana> Sergio: "I'm really looking forward to that experience. It would be a treat to make some friends who have that connection to these weird new nights but with less of a, well, fixation." On blood. 23:32 <banana> "Tor is a very old word. I don't think anyone still living in the traditional sense would use it." 23:33 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Nor would they mark Samhain as their event of the year. Clearly a Celtic pagan tradition. Whether it goes back that far or is meant to be evocative of it, I don't know." 23:35 <banana> Sergio picks up a sketchpad by the keyboard and begins to draw as he talks. "As I've heard it, this King used to rule... all the creatures of the night around here, or perhaps throughout the North. A long time ago, out of history anyone cares to record." 23:35 <banana> "That's no longer the case, but he's still important somehow. From fragments I've heard.. there's some sort of protection in place, or some duty owed." 23:36 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Seal of the North, Limit of All Edges..." 23:37 <banana> Sergio: "Biblical catastrophes held back by the Hill King's grace. Or perhaps he no longer wakes in that barrow, but will rise to fight the apocalypse when it comes." He's drawing an armoured knight asleep on a stone table in a roughly-sketched cave, swords in the ground surrounding the bed or tomb. 23:37 <VoxPVoxD> "You're so good at that." 23:37 <banana> :D 23:38 <banana> Sergio: "With what kind of grave goods is a seelie King buried?" 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't know. My understanding is that he is, to quote one of my seelie friends, 'a nice old guy with a silly beard'." 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> "Perhaps a pipe. Perhaps a bowl. Perhaps fiddlers three." 23:39 <banana> Sergio frowns and reverses his mechanical pencil, erasing the knight's armoured head to make him sillier. "Your turn." 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> She leans on him and just watches for a bit, before "Suppose I were inducted into Vie. As in, suppose I were willing and they were willing to accept me, and all the infernal kinks were worked out. Who would it fall to? To whom would I be bound?" 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> Gold is for the mistress — silver for the maid — copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade — 23:42 <banana> Sergio: "It would be me. The language is poetic: you are Embraced into the Kindred. Your Sire is also your liege, your Regnant." 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> Willie shudders at the intonation, but doesn't pull away. 23:43 <banana> Sergio said 'web', earlier, but they sound to Willie like a pyramid. 23:44 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Very hierarchical. Which comports with tradition, I suppose." 23:44 <VoxPVoxD> "But it's not really compatible with a relationship, is it?" 23:44 <banana> Sergio: "Maybe not." He's sketching increasingly detailed skulls and bones in catacomb-walls. 23:44 <banana> "The bonds can change, somehow. Emily.. she didn't embrace all three of the barons." 23:45 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "They're all different clans, yeah?" 23:49 <banana> Are the clans in the hunting manual too? "I think so. Fortunato and Simpson, at least - they're each the master of a family. I don't know who Carl's childer are, if anyone." 23:50 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Right. The distinctions are interesting. I was discussing this with our team's scientist and expert. Theories of convergent and divergent evolution." 23:50 <VoxPVoxD> "Anyway, you turn." 23:50 <VoxPVoxD> She sounds more alert than her snuggling suggests she is. 23:50 <banana> Sergio: "Umm." He's done drawing for now. 23:51 <banana> "Do you believe in Satan? The Satan of the Bible?" 23:51 <banana> This is more like cozy fireside chat for Willie Wellesley and Sergio Bonasera than it would be for other people. Not 100% more. 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> Willie grins into his arm and sits up a bit, mostly to collect her thoughts. "I... don't know, honestly. I enjoy the aesthetic trappigns, the whiff of the Miltonian, the Faustian, and so on. And I was raised a good Anglican. I still am, inasmuch as I can be when I can't wear a cross, enter the sanctum of a church, or touch holy water. I pray, sometimes, even though it feels preposterous." 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> "But I don't think of Satan as my... sire, if you like." 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> "One truism that they teach us in Milan is that the blood surges every seven generations." 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you know where we land, in my family tree, if you go back seven generations from me?" 23:56 <banana> Sergio: "I've never actually owned a copy of Who's Who." 23:56 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Good." 23:57 <VoxPVoxD> "Despite my generation - my brothers and I - holding the apparent tenth duke of the line, the title only goes back seven generations." 23:57 <VoxPVoxD> "So you go back and you find Arthur Wellesley, the Field Marshal, the Prime Minister, the vanquisher of Napoleon." 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> "The Duke of Wellington." 23:59 <banana> Sergio: "I think he beat Napoleon twice." 23:59 <banana> "Damn." 23:59 <VoxPVoxD> "In Milan they would ask us to conjure the image of the Adversary in our minds. I was always thinking of the portrait of him that hangs in the main banquet hall in Stratfield Saye." 00:02 <banana> Sergio: "You believe in family." 00:02 <VoxPVoxD> Willie laughs. "Yes, in lieu of Hell." 00:03 <banana> "Mmmm." He grumbles a little. "I do go to church sometimes, but the place I'm attending.. they don't want anyone in the congregation who isn't damned at least a little bit." 00:04 <banana> "Maybe you'd count. I could talk to the minister." 00:04 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Am I damned enough? I could conjure hellfire for the congregation if that would help." The tone is playful. 00:06 <banana> Sergio: "It really wouldn't. If you meet any kindred who reacts to fire with interest, they're basically insane." 00:07 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I have, actually! Definitely put the 'mad' in 'mad scientist'." 00:08 <VoxPVoxD> "What happened between when you died and last year? Were you just on ice all that time?" 00:14 <banana> Sergio: "That is a good question. Just a sec?" He stands up and walks to the door of the suite, opening it. There's no light out there apart from what's behind him. He seems to listen closely, turning his head, sniffing the air a little... 00:14 <banana> Sergio closes the door and returns to Willie, swivelling a chair a couple of times before he sits down to face her. 00:15 <banana> "It's something I've wondered myself. I was told.. other people I've met who were Embraced in times past were told... that the process took time. We would eventually rise from our graves." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> "..." 00:16 <banana> "I trust you with this, Willie, but please don't pass it on." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> Willie can keep a secret when she's aware she should! "Of course, darling." 00:17 <banana> Sergio: "There are just too many of us who woke up throughout 2020 by chance. And it's not just that- Drew and Patience? They were embraced within the last year. Seemingly overnight." 00:19 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Yeah... that... sounds like... a lie..." 00:19 <VoxPVoxD> "You have no memories? No dreams?" 00:21 <banana> Sergio: "I woke with a sharp pain in my chest, like a reverse heart attack. It was as if I'd closed my eyes a moment ago, but my bones no longer ached, I was in the crypt beneath the mansion, and of course there was the hunger. Full disclosure on the hunger." 00:23 <VoxPVoxD> Holy shit. Holy shit it's Horseshoe Theory again. 00:24 <banana> Sergio sighs. "I'm sure there's a reason for the deception, but I'm also fairly sure there is a deception." 00:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Do you know about stakes? To the heart?" 00:26 <banana> "Well, yes. We get a speech about which of the myths are true, and some of it is instinct as well - a sharp bit of wood won't kill me, but it'd be close. Leaves you helpless." 00:26 <banana> "..." 00:27 <banana> "Are you suggesting... but why? As just a sort of delay?" 00:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "There are a lot of possible motivations of varying savouriness. As a matter of policy you do have to keep a close eye on the vampire population, I expect, relative to the - do you have a special word for mortal humans? - population. So there is a bleak prudence in keeping people on ice until you're sure they can support themselves." 00:29 <VoxPVoxD> "And then of course, it's an excellent way to make sure they're totally estranged from their old selves and old lives, and totally dependent on their regnants." 00:30 <banana> Sergio: "Forty years. I was warned, though. Told to expect a long time, a changed city." 00:30 <banana> "Forty years." 00:30 <banana> "I'll have to ask Simpson about this." 00:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "You missed Thatcher, at least. Now everyone's some flavour of Liberal, but it was touch and go for a while." 00:31 <banana> Sergio: "And you're here." 00:31 <VoxPVoxD> :D 00:34 <VoxPVoxD> This is a heavier moment than Willie was expecting. Maybe... maybe there is a road to freedom for Sergio Bonasera. 00:34 <VoxPVoxD> Maybe it goes through Hell. 00:34 <VoxPVoxD> Maybe every road to freedom does. 00:34 <VoxPVoxD> "How are you with other crafts? Besides our masks, we're going to need to make one for one of my colleagues." 00:35 <banana> Sergio: "Oh my God." His eyes light up. 00:35 <banana> "I need photographs and cruel stereotypes of each one." 00:35 <banana> "I need my studio. We need a sofa or something." 00:40 <banana> --------------------------------8<-------------------------------- 00:42 <banana> There were craft supplies at Inchcape, but Sergio Bonasera wasn't in the mood to stay at the office. He, Willie and a cardboard box filled with pilfered bits to supplement his own stocks have now made their way home. 00:44 <VoxPVoxD> Eeeee. 00:45 <banana> Sergio: "Let's not try and finish them all tonight, but we can stick a few things on other things and see how it looks. Storm some brains." 00:46 <banana> "You, me, Bob... and three others?" 00:46 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Absolutely. We've got plenty of time. Yes. Only one of my colleagues needs a mask, but they'll all be there." 00:47 <banana> He looks a little disappointed. "The others are bringing their own?" 00:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Ms. Badawi will be wearing a veil. Mr. Hughes is wearing some kind of football player mask." 00:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Bob you've met, briefly. Mr. Aster is the colleague who needs a mask. He's our technician, our investigator, our polymath. Serious to a fault. He'll risk danger for respect and disrespect for money. He may have had fun once, but if he did he didn't enjoy it." 00:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Brilliant man, very capable, and for all his curmudgeonry and disaffection he does care. A tiny bit. Maybe a very tiny bit." 00:49 <banana> Sergio: "Hmm. Let's do notional mask designs for the others, and we can see who gets it right." 00:49 <banana> "Do you associate Aster with any animals or gemstones?" 00:51 <VoxPVoxD> Willie delicately neglects to mention the immediate animal association she makes. "For stones, I think the lapis lazuli. Something in a royal blue. For animals... perhaps a dolphin? Highly intelligent, a talented communicator... just a bit rude." 00:54 <VoxPVoxD> "Technically, Mr. Aster used to be a police officer. But he's not at all the stereotype of an American policeman, claiming overtime while drinking in a stationary car, then driving home drunk to hit his wife. He's like one of those investigator-dandies off the telly. Columbo or The Wire. He wears designer shirts." 00:54 <banana> Sergio: "What if we give him something tech-y? A porpoise, but it's a boxy shape with rivets, hints of metal. Or no, that isn't really about calculation and deduction..." 00:55 <banana> "Instead... something with complicated patterns on it. Multicoloured geometry." 00:56 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Something vaguely tech-y wouldn't go amiss. It'd probably fit with whatever outfit he wears. He likes this very frustrated-poet-y black coat for night work." 00:58 <banana> "Alright..." Sergio arranges bits of card and crepe and makes marks on a piece of butcher paper. "Let's let that one percolate." 00:59 <banana> "Do you have any fixed idea for your own mask?" 01:00 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "It depends on what I wear. Which I leave up to you, for three reasons: one, you're going to have to help me put it on. Two, you're going to have to help me take it off. Three, we're technically working security, so I need to be armed. If I weren't showing off my sexy, flammable boyfriend it'd be easy - stick a knife in my garter and then on the off chance danger does break out 01:00 <VoxPVoxD> I can just fwoosh." 01:01 <VoxPVoxD> "But I don't want to put you in that position unduly. So it might need to be something with petticoats, so I can hide a shotgun in my skirt." 01:02 <banana> Sergio chuckles in astonishment. "Of course. Where else would you keep your shotgun?" 01:03 <banana> "Now, I don't know a lot about dressmaking, but I can design a mask to fit an outfit that has lace and ruffles." He considers Willie's profile. 01:03 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I suppose I could just strap it to my back, like American movie guy John Rambo. But that is not ladylike." 01:03 <VoxPVoxD> She lets him, sitting demurely as if for a portrait. 01:04 <banana> "How do you feel about a dessert theme? Or wing-down? ...fruit?" 01:04 <VoxPVoxD> "Good enough to eat, am I?" 01:05 <VoxPVoxD> "I like the idea of confectionery more than fruit. I may be sweet, but I'm not quite natural." 01:09 <banana> Sergio: "I could see you as a strawberry in decadent cream." 01:10 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "That... would do. The best sufficiently poofy dress I have without needing to send away to storage or the country house is... very red." 01:11 <VoxPVoxD> "It was probably going to be that or the Inchcape gown." 01:12 <banana> Sergio coughs at that, but keeps taking notes. He's started breathing at some point. 01:13 <banana> "Images of gowns and wrappings. You mentioned a veil.. about these others who are probably bringing their own masks. Who is Ms. Badawi?" 01:15 <VoxPVoxD> "Agostina Badawi is a bit older, an accomplished criminal. A burglar. She takes her work very seriously, and it pays dividends in competence. Intense, but sweet. Soulful. I constantly feel as if I am disappointing her." 01:16 <banana> Sergio: "I'm not sure I like that. Teacherly?" 01:17 <VoxPVoxD> "Mmmmore matronly than teacherly. She expects us to know what we're doing already. Hence the sense of disappointment. For a gemstone, I think something with a lot of layers. Rhodochrosite. And she has something of the swan about her." 01:21 <banana> "Well, if the veil doesn't suit her, something avian does make sense. Do you have a picture?" 01:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "No. I don't have pictures for any of them except for the ones who've stood in front of our TrackCheck since it got appified. She's... not comfortable around vampires. She took the news of my association with you the hardest of anyone on the team." 01:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Of the team, that means I only have photographs for me and Bob." 01:24 <VoxPVoxD> "The other one who's bringing his own mask who you haven't met is Mr. Hughes. A veteran in Her Majesty's service, he's done reputable and disreputable work for the military and the Human Office for decades, particularly in Ireland. He's... I don't know how freshly immersed you are in modern stereotypes. But he is a stereotypical Leave voter." 01:24 <banana> Sergio: "Ah well. Going by sheer guesswork, an ovenbird would be fun. You've got the brown sides of hte mask and the spotted undercoat..." 01:25 <VoxPVoxD> "That sounds lovely." 01:26 <banana> "Not a stereotype that means much to me. But if he was in Ireland, I'm guessing it was Northern Ireland." 01:27 <VoxPVoxD> "Yes." She's prepared for this; she wanted to make sure to get an evocative sense of the man for Sergio once she realised he was coming to Samhain. "In your day he's the sort of man who'd get drunk on Special Brew and throw sharpened coins at police horses after a West Ham loss, only stopping to top up on amphetamine. But he's a bit old for that sort of giggle now." 01:30 <banana> Sergio: "Evocative. Dismaying. Useful?" 01:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Yes, very much so. He's deeply stupid, but he's not a fool. And he really does try to be agreeable, in his way." 01:33 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Some chimera of a lion and a bulldog, and topaz the colour of a full pint of lager." 01:33 <banana> Sergio: "Your man Hughes probably prefers his own mask, but we could do him a bulldog. Or the lion-and-unicorn." 01:33 <VoxPVoxD> Willie nods. 01:34 <VoxPVoxD> "Now Bob, I expect, is going to show up in full costume. The man has never seen anything he was willing to do that he wasn't willing to do to excess." 01:36 <VoxPVoxD> "He's American. Very American, as a superlative and a pejorative. He's got the internet in his sunglasses and he never takes them off. He has the kind of brain that both implies and creates." 01:36 <banana> Sergio: "I was just going to ask about Bob." 01:36 <VoxPVoxD> "Kind of a deeply stupid knight-errant, a Don Quixote who keeps looking for Dulcineas when he needs a Sancho Panza." 01:36 <banana> "Who would you nominate for the mentor-servant?" 01:37 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I think I could pull it off." 01:37 <VoxPVoxD> "But I don't know. Maybe you and he will hit it off." 01:38 <VoxPVoxD> How does Sergio look when Willie says those things? 01:40 <banana> Curious. "You're actually friends. I'm glad it's just not an impersonal team of... contractors." 01:43 <VoxPVoxD> Willie smiles. "Yes, we are. I was very resistant to making friends among my coworkers, because they are contractors and they're all so terribly different from me. And older by a fair bit as well. But Bob's very disarming and sweet... it sneaks up on you how annoying he isn't. I fully sanction his buffoonery." 01:44 <VoxPVoxD> "He's the one with a personal connection to the Tor. His girlfriend is of the Winter Hill." 01:45 <VoxPVoxD> "What are those shitty, scrawny, yappy little wolves they have in North America? Kayotes?" 01:45 <VoxPVoxD> "That's a mask for Bob." 01:45 <banana> Sergio nods along and then relaxes a bit, thinking. "If the glasses don't come off, and he's with one of the hill...folk - then maybe something creative. A grill, like the kind rappers wear, but positioned like a man in the iron mask thing, you know? Metal in the shape of the thing's jaw, cyber-coyote." 01:46 <VoxPVoxD> "I think he would vibe with that." 01:46 <banana> "Just as a design idea if he hasn't built his own costume, which seems unlikely." 01:46 <VoxPVoxD> "If he has, I bet he'd enjoy it as a gift anyway." 01:47 <banana> Sergio: "Let's do it. You can get surprisingly far in small metalwork with low-heat bends." 01:47 <VoxPVoxD> Why is she pretending she doesn't know what a coyote is? What a pointless affectation. "I like it." 01:48 <banana> "As for myself... I had the idea of something with a long nose. Hooked, maybe. I see a mask that's always grinning, but callous rather than clownish... maybe I'm painting a picture in my head instead of designing something that would actually look good to wear? 01:48 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Like an oni?" 01:52 <banana> Sergio: "Ahhh, that's where I've seen it. Japanese demons." 01:53 <banana> "Hmm, knowing where the idea came from makes it less appealing, but it's a good fallback." He's likely to keep coming up with mask ideas for as long as Willie will indulge him. He bores less easily. 01:54 <VoxPVoxD> Willie is very indulgent. And if he's breathing, that means he's even more snugglable. 01:54 <VoxPVoxD> They can just spend the rest of the night like that for all she cares. 01:54 <VoxPVoxD> But they could do other things too.