| We Need a Guild | ||
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| Summary: Discussion of Sarah's need for enchanted glasses turns into a discussion of the need for the Magic Guild to properly reform. Who: Dorian, Sarah Markham, Skeeve, Spike, Terezi, Twilight Sparkle, Zelan When: June 28th, 2017 Where: Library, Usual Restaurant     |
Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "Something in her caused magic to flow into that eye more so the stronger amount of magic she was looking at, meaning the flow of mana into the eye at such a quick pace seemed to be causing the problem. It happens whenever she looks at someone like me...certainly it'd be a problem in your case as well...and it was something she was doing involuntarily... Meanwhile, a well tanned redheaded woman in glasses that might be recognizable to Twilight Sparkle walks by, quietly humming to herself some recent pop tune. She walks on over to the shelves, then stops, pauses, and looks back to Twilight Sparkle and Dorian. "Eh?" she says aloud, her attention piqued by the conversation. "Ah, I see," Dorian replies. "That does sound like a control issue, yes. The glasses shouldn't be the only solution, mind. They can be knocked off in battle, and if she's incapacitated by her eye, she could be injured." He turns to Zelan as the woman speaks up, and bows to her. "Greetings," he offers, then observes, "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you before." He doesn't give his name just yet, though. Twilight_Sparkle says, "That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of either. I guess I've been looking at the problem so long that I forgot to think of a lot of the more simplistic details..." She pauses and peers over to Zelan. "Ah, hello! We were just talking about a problem I've been looking into for someone, but having a lot of difficulty with. How've you been?" She starts to open her mouth to do introductions, but pauses as she notices the hesitation on Dorian's end. "Good to see you...."" Zelan laughs a slight nervously. "Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, and I certainly feel like I've missed part of it, but perhaps a choker that projects a visor over her eyes with the same effect might work? It might compound the magic used, sure, but if that gets knocked off in combat, she probably has larger issues to deal with..." She then blinks and laughs at Twilight's talk of helping someone. "Oh, that reminds me! I've been really busy so I've not been able to work on your computer perhipheral, but I've... oddly set my boss, Raven Aurora, to work on it as a project to get her engineering juices flowing." She looks to Dorian and, seeing his older style of clothing, bows slightly to him rather than offering her hand for a handshake. "Zelan Darkflower, former lead of Design Team Petal of Magus Spaceworks." Twilight can confirm... she always introduces herself that way. Dorian hears Twilight's words, but he doesn't want to talk about another person's personal problem while someone he doesn't know is around. Though Twilight seems to know her, so that makes it a little easier. He nods to Zelan's introduction, and offers in return, "Dorian, Altus mage of House Pavus, formerly of the Tevinter Imperium. How do you do?" He'd introduced himself the same way to Twilight Sparkle, too, as it turns out! Twilight_Sparkle says, "Oh, that's right, I was just talking to him about wishing I could carry all my important scrolls with me. I hope this...perhipheral will work well with me." It's not that she doubts Zelan at all, just that she's so uninitiated to technologies that she has NO idea how this will work... Amusingly, being the princess, she has the most casual of greetings and tends to always greet herself in that way as well...granted if she was amoung the pony types in Equestria, she'd likely have to be way more formal as her title would sometimes require. She smiles between the other two and nods. "That sounds like a possible design to a solution as well..."" Zelan pauses a moment, looking down at Twilight's forlegs, then she looks back to her face. "Well, with a smaller phone, we actually should be able to set up a forleg mount that you can use your other, uh, hoof to navigate... though it might require some help putting it on. Voice activation would work well in that manner, as well, but... I was referring more to a desktop or laptop perhipheral." She then offers a smile to Dorian. "A pleasure to meet you, Dorian. I am actually quite well of late!" The conversation about technology makes Dorian pause a moment, to think. "Hm." Looking to Zelan, he notes, "Do you have experience with magical technology? Or in meshing the two together? That could be useful for this problem we've found ourselves with." Twilight_Sparkle twitches her ears a little and peers between Dorian and Zelan. "Dorian's coming up with a lot of good thoughts..." she states, "I can't really come up with anything technology based on my own, since I'm so uninitiated with it so far." Zelan raises an eyebrow, unable to hide a smirk. "I've, uh, dabbled in the field," she says to Dorian with a grin in a way that suggests she's done /far/ more than dabble in it. Still, she lets that subtlety end. "I've nearly gotten to the point where I think I can market a Bluetooth device that will scan moniter magic in the area for use with a phone app... Though I'll need help getting that app made and up to snuff. Weaponry is another area I've been working as of late, and I'm starting to redesign a set of FAST packs that I may try to sell to the NTSDF for use with mecha pilots that are also magic users, not to mention the work I've already done in designing a frigate that uses a magic array to give it the punch of a battleship. So... yes, I have experience with it. What seems to be the problem?" She then sighs and nods to Twilight Sparkle. "Yes, I should probably help you with some primers on the subject." "That's all right," Dorian says to Twilight's words of not being good wth technology. "I admittedly have had little experience with it until very recently." He is, in fact, from a world with little technology. Zelan's description of her magical technological prowess prompts a surprised look. "Well. I'd say that would qualify you," he notes. Then to Twilight again, do you want to explain the issue?" Twilight_Sparkle says, "We've been talking about how Sarah has the issue that makes her eye start smoking whenever she looks at someone with a lot of magical energy. I've been trying to get my hooves on a way to fix it but...my research thus far really makes it look like a better idea to focus on making something instead..."" Zelan blinks, then nods. "Sarah... really tall, red hair? I might have met her once." She considers a moment. "Well, I think some form of glasses would work best, actually. If its for combat, you can easily attach a simple strap. But the idea that's coming to mind quickly is to have a simple magic detection device attached to the glasses with a forward looking arc, make it a bit underpowered so it's actually overloaded easily, then throw in a circuit breaker that, when it pops, it sets off an effect that diverts latent magical energy around her eyes..." She then frowns. "That last part is the most difficult, though. But if either of your magics have a way of doing that, I'd love to analyze it so I can replicate the spell for this device." Dorian nods as Twilight Sparkle explains the issue. He doesn't know Sarah, but it's a situation that he's not willing to leave a person in. Zelan's explanation comes then, and he thinks about it. "Actually... that might work. That was the problem I was coming up against -- I know how to 'block' magic completely, but that's not what we'd be trying to do, or that would leave her unable to use the ability at all." A nod at the basic idea. "We'd need something to absorb and naturally vent the excess magical energy, too. Crystals set into the frames, perhaps. A low-level Barrier spell, if locked into the lenses, should be able to filter out excess magical energy. I'd have to tweak it a bit to allow bleedthrough up to a certain point -- a reverse Barrier, if that makes sense. The crystals could actually use the absorbed excess magic to power the enchantment on the lenses." Twilight_Sparkle blinks a little as the other two speak. "Those sound great," she replies, "...I feel like I've been something of a dunce thus far... maybe I /have/ been trying too hard." She shakes her head some. "In any case, are there any specific materials we should use? Dorian mentioned crystals, but since these will be handling magic, we should probably consider the materials carefully so they aren't likely to break easily due to the magic involved, or hinder the magic." Zelan nods to Dorian. "The bleedthrough effect is what I meant by using the circuit breaker, if I'm following you correctly? We just adjust the amps that it can take until it matches Sarah's limitation. It's not a problem for anything other than her eyes, is it? That means if we divert the energy that would have reached her eyes when that circuit breaker hits /to/ the enhancement, you're right, we could keep it powered with a minimum of battery usage." She pauses a moment and shakes her head. "Crystals are standard for use in magic to electronics interfaces. Granted, you get much better efficiency if you use different crystals for different types of music, but if we're going for an overall, everything detection, we should be able to use a perfect clarity diamond without issue in this case. We don't need high resolution for this." Oh, sure, just a diamond, no big deal, right? Dorian nods. "I know what crystals from my world can handle magic," he notes. "And crystals generally need to be 'prepared' for accepting magic, or they won't hold it." He also nods to Zelan's words. "A Barrier usually works by trying to completely block magic, up to the spell's limit. Hence I mean 'Barrier in reverse' -- rather than block up to the spell's level, this Barrier spell would allow magic through it, up until a limit given to the spell. It wouldn't start actually blocking until the limit had been reached." Though the mention of a perfect clarity diamond, he notes, "That would require a minimum of preparation, yes. Though their rarity means I've learned to use lesser-quality crystals for the same task. With greater preparation, a simple squartz crystal can do the job." Twilight_Sparkle says, "Heh, amusing choice of wording there. If we were going to use a clarity diamond, the best per--er pony for the job of locating one would have been my friend Rarity, but she's one of the two of my friends that hasn't arrived here." She looks thoughtful again. "Obviously we can't use a type of framing material that might be affected badily by heat...so nothing that will melt or otherwise deform easily."" Zelan looks between the two, actually appearing confused. "Rarity? Difficulty locating, what are you-" Then she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose under the glasses with an annoyed look. "Right. Right. The false scarsity on this world. I keep forgetting that. Look, industrially created diamonds work just fine. On a world without a monopoly controlling the supply, they're really not that expensive or rare. I can take care of making some diamonds, I just need a good carbon supply and a bit of earth magic boosting." She sighs again and looks to Twilight, now smiling. "Carbon is again our friend for framing. This time in carbon fiber form." Dorian thinks about Twilight's words. "That's true. Metal would be out, it would heat up and injure her. Plastic would melt. Though if we were able to concentrate the magic into the crystals themselves..." Zelan's mention of diamonds not being exactly rare gets a blink. "Manufactured diamonds?" he asks. "That's something I've never heard of before. Would they be of similar quality?" Twilight_Sparkle tilts her head at Zelan's mention of monopolies and false scarsity. "Wait, so...the diamonds aren't really rare in this place," she replies, "....so those people at the jewlery store caused me to have to get discord's help for no good reason..." She looks rather irritated. "Sorry, I just meant, my friend, Rarity, her magical skill is locating all kinds of gems. So she could EASILY lead us to the nearest diamons if she was around..." She belatedly levitates a piece of paper to herself and gets a quil and ink from somewhere (probably a small bag draped over her) before she starts (also via levitation) scribbling down notes on all the different suggestions they've been making. She's starting to lose track and remembered Spike isn't around to be her penman. She murmurs different parts of all the past suggestions softly as she writes them. Zelan frowns a bit at Dorian for a moment before grinning. "Manufactured diamonds are actually of higher clarity than natural ones. You don't have the randomness of nature pressing at the depths of a planet's mantle. You have uniform pressure gained through a controlled process. I've sourced out some producers on this planet, but if I want them fast, I can hand make some... but I'll need an earth magic booster, as I said. Not too hard, actually. I have a booster back at my lab for each of my universe's six elements." She looks back at Twilight with a frown and a nod. "And I'm betting your friend can find diamonds as easily as she can find any other gems. Yes... That's kind of how their monopoly works here. They're purposefully holding back the mines off in... where was it, Africa? Yeah. The place where they're most common here. They've reduced their production purposefully to keep them more expensive. They've also convinced most people that they're higher quality than natural diamonds... which is actually arguable when jewelry is what you're talking about. It's the imperfections that make each natural gem have its own personality... but for the purposes of manufacturing, perfect clarity is preferred to uniqueness. On that line... it's actually easier to make a diamond than it is to make a crystal for more specialized elements. It takes a much more careful knowledge of the unique structure of each type of gem... something that's actually fairly simple in a diamond." Dorian's brows raise. "Locating gems in a world where they ARE rare seems like quite a useful talent," he comments. And of course Twilight's telekinesis ability does draw his attention! He doesn't use magic quite so directly as that. He listens to Zelan explain, and nods. "That sounds like normal business practices -- if you're the only one who can produce a thing, make it rare so you can charge more." However, the note of diamonds versus other gems, that gets a thoughtful look. "That... does make sense. Diamonds are just carbon, yes? Other minerals are of different elements, in different configurations. Simple carbon, in a relatively straightforward configuration, does seem like the easier thing to produce. And to use." Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply to Zelan. "The only difficulty was actually mining FOR the gems in question, unless it WAS something that was actually a rare gem in our world...but most of them aren't. I mean she uses them VERY often in making outfits for people, it's like it's just another piece of fabric, just slightly harder work to get...but when I arrived here and had to find gems to feed to Spike, they gave us no end of trouble to the point /Discord/ had to show up and give us bags of gems so poor Spike wouldn't starve." She blinks as she notices Dorian attending to her levitating things. "Err...sorry, is this problematic somehow, Dorian?" Zelan frowns. "He... eats gems? I don't think manufactured diamonds are going to be healthy, then..." She smirks slightly. "Let me guess, it'd be like pure sugar to him? He needs his more complex gem 'veggies', I'd guess." She then nods to Dorian. "Exactly! Diamonds are simple. That's what makes them so clear and so strong. And I can't really argue against what you're saying on the monopoly, either... they're clearly making money hand over fist, and then add that whole engagement ring thing." She actually rolls her eyes at that. Dorian first answers the question. "No, not at all. Merely a curiosity. I've never seen someone use magic quite so directly," he answers evenly. Though between the two of them he does have a question. "That... actually is a good question. If gems could be manufactured for him, it would likely make things much easier for you all." And the mention of engagement rings, and the lot, that gets a laugh. "Ha. Well, you know how it is. Everyone's out for themselves." Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "Dragons live on gems in Equestria. They CAN eat other things, but gems are thier basic form of food." She looks thoughtful at Zelans further questioning. "I'm actually not sure...but not I'm sure I want to TEST that theory either. I'd rather not have my little dragon running around in a sugar rush...but it WOULD be good if I could make a sustainable food source for him instead of the hoops we're having to use currently." Whoever Discord is, they really seem to give Twi a case of sour face whenever she mentions them, or at the VERY least the idea of having gotten /unnessicary/ help from them. Whatever the case is, she seems to have mentally moved on from the topic as she smiles at the others again, scribbling away in her notes over this new information about the gem rarity and the artifically made gems. "Ahh, magic is very common amoung unicorns in my world, and I was unicorn originally. Not all unicorns go the way of magic use, but most of us use it for every day tasks as it is sometimes a great deal simpler than than trying to use hoof or muzzle to acomplish a task. Admitably it's even more of a cruch for me because I've gotten so used to Spike acting as my assistant and secretary..." She frowns at that last line from Dorian, but she can't deny that that's quite often the way of things. Zelan laughs and nods. "It's quite useful when one doesn't have opposable thumbs, isn't it? Actually, I'm sure you can use a computer with just that, but I'm thinking for your friends, as well with the device I was pondering." The latter part was directed at Twilight, obviously, but she frowns at the difficulty of feeding Spike. "Yeah, I'm afraid that's not going to be simple. Like I said, other gems aren't remotely as easy to create as a diamond is. It takes time and effort to direct the crystal growth in a way that's not as easy as a diamond. In the end... I'd still suggest trying to find a source of inexpensive gemstones... perhaps going unrefined would help? I'd certainly not bother trying at a jewelry store." "You'd have to know exactly what nourishment he was getting from the gems, and then see if that same thing is inside the manufactured ones," Dorian suggests. "If he's eating the magic, I might actually be able to help there." As for the magic? "It's common where I'm from as well, just not such direct applications. Though I can see how you'd need to learn it; I'd imagine it might be difficult to manipulate small objects with hooves rather than hands." And he also agrees with Zelan, "Unrefined gems are often less expensive. Particularly when you need to buy them in bulk. And I'm sure gems for industrial applications would be cheaper still." Twilight_Sparkle says, "And...I suppose magic is even MORE of a commonality to alicorns than unicorns. Most alicorns are created because another pony performed some sort of special task that shouldn't really be possible. It's not always magicaly based, but magic is now basically a part of what we are..." She nods in reply. "I'll have to so some more research on the gems and see if I can find out the reason behind dragons eating them. Maybe Fluttershy will know more on that specific topic...though, probably not. As much as she's highly skilled in animal care, she's afraid of grown dragons..."" Zelan tilts her head. "Hrm. I hadn't concidered that he might be consuming magic from the gems. If that's the case, I'd not suggest gems from this universe, as they don't tend to gather magic naturally on their own, anyway. And if it is literally just the minerals and such that are the nutrients for him, then any industrial gems probably won't be as nutritious, as they'll have less of the natural imperfections that would likely be vital for him." She frowns that Twilight doesn't know what the actual source of nutrition is, and considers askign if spike might know... but then shakes her head. "If he's eating the magic, that's an easy issue," Dorian replies. "I can enchant a mineral crystal with veilfire, and that would render it able to sustain him. Perhaps for a longer period of time than a normal gem, even." And then the mention of DRAGONS! Dorian blinks. "...Spike is a dragon?" He hadn't expected that. But Zelan's words get a moment of thought. "If it's the impurities, then he could consume the metals and other minerals in the gems," he suggests. Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "Spike is a baby dragon, my test to get into the magic academy I chose was to use my magic to hatch a dragon egg. I've been raising Spike ever since and he's acted as my helper." She doesn't say it or treat it in such a way, but she's technically his mother when you think about it. Zelan stops and considers for a moment. "Like just about everything from your world, it seems, dragons are legendary, mythical creatures in my universe. I'm curious as to most elements of being a dragon... but not sure if there are any practical applications to anything involving them other than, well, feeding them, I suppose." She offers a shrug. "But we've gotten sidetracked, haven't we?" Dorian blinks. "Interesting. The dragons in my world are... not tameable. Well, the males are. They're sometimes used for mounts by the very adventurous... or the very stupid." Zelan's words of getting sidetracked, get a nod. "Ah. Indeed, yes. But if there weren't a great many problems to discuss, great minds like ours wouldn't be discussing them, yes?" Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "Dragons aren't usually a normal thing in pony comunities, they tend to live away in thier own land in isolation from the rest of the world. Cases like Spike are really rare and it's actually caused him a little trouble in the past since he's not a pony, but he wasn't raised anything like a dragon." She hakes her head a little. "Yes, sorry...that was a rather large digression. There ARE a lot of problems that need some kind of sorting out, aren't there?" Zelan nods with a frown. "Yes... there are... and yet the people that are supposed to be running the magic guild here... don't seem to be doing much. They supposedly have a building taht's become corrupted from powers beyond space and time or something, and they're not doing anything about it! They just have the campus... locked away. I thought at one point they'd do something, but..." She shakes her head. "Maybe we should do something." Dorian nods. "That's generally how one tames a drake, by raising it from an egg." A pause then, as Zelan mentions a corrupted building. "What? That's rather ridiculous. Then again, if you can't destroy it, seal it away." Twilight_Sparkle raises a brow. "I didn't hear about tue magic guild doing nothing. I heard there was a leader to it that I should speak to some time...but not much else. ...that's really something that should be taken care of some how. Do you know any further details? Zelan shrugs to Dorian, then shakes her head. "You've spoken to her, Twilight. It's Frey, of the magic shop? Reguardless of the old campus, there needs to be a magic guild again, if you ask me. I was an active part of my arm's magic guild back home. I honestly miss it quite a bit." Dorian offers, "My father is a magister, he has a seat on the magisterium." Sounds like a magical parliament, doesn't it? "While he's not here, I have rather been groomed to take over his position practically since I was born. I might be able to help you." Twilight_Sparkle blinks at that. "Oooh, I guess I've been missinformed," she says with a frown, "I was lead to think it was a male. I haven't spoken with Frey all that much, but I have deffinetly frequented her shop. And I've been slowly working up something of a magical research club myself, if that's any help." "I've been trying to learn an academic knowledge about how magic works for different kinds of magi from different lands. Archene has a like interest, but has also been trying to find a magic he can use. And Dorian seems to have an intrest like my own..." Zelan shrugs to Twilight. "Well, I was under the impression it was Frey that was at the head. If it's someone else - perhaps you were thinking of Skeeve? - Then maybe confusion of who is in charge is the real problem." Skeeve, as though by some kind of divine providence, or even just blind luck, chooses this particular moment to push his way through the front doors of the library, a thoughtful frowning expression on his face and a stack of books tucked under one arm. Dorian is listening, but pauses, looking at a clock on the wall. "Kaffas," he swears quietly. "I'm going to be late." Looking to Twilight and Zelan, he offers, "Terribly sorry, I need to be off. Do let me know if I can be of assistance. I'm usually here. Take care, both of you." He also gives Skeeve a nod of greeting as he starts towards the exit. Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "That was who, yes. Then again, it was Dash who gave me the information, so....not meaning offense to her, but I can't expect her information about something involving the mages' guild to be entirely correct. ...it's really not something that would hold her interest." Twilight_Sparkle also gives a proper parting to Dorian, of course... her player was a derp and posted a moment too early though. Zelan nods to Dorian. "Take care then..." As he walks out, her eyes of course follow him... and she spots Skeeve. "Well, speak of the devil and there he is. Good evening, Skeeve. We actually were just discussing you somewhat." Skeeve nods absent-mindedly to Dorian as he passes, dumps the stack of books into the return slot, and only glances up when Zelan calls out his name. And she's standing next to another pony, one he hasn't met yet. "Oh, hey Zelan... who's your friend?" He glances slightly curiously at his own shirt, then Zelan's, then Twilight's mane. "...did I start a trend or something, and I just didn't notice?" Twilight_Sparkle raises a hoof and waves toward Skeeve. "Hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle, good to meet you Skeeve!" She seems confused as to what he's refering to about the 'starting a trend'. "Zelan had just brought up the magic guild." Zelan follows Skeeve's gaze, taking a moment to realize what he's talking about. She then smirks and looks back at him. "Great minds think alike and all that? Purple's a good color, Skeeve. I guess that's something we can all agree on." She then nods to what Twilight says. "Yes... we were just talking about how we do need to be more organized... she has her magic research group, which frankly should be part of the guild, if you ask me... but the guild is inactive as far as I'm aware... and then on top of that, we both had different ideas as to who was supposed to be in charge of it." Skeeve, at the mention of 'Magic Guild', scratches his head lightly. "Right, the Guild... well, before the Collapse, I ran the Guild myself. Since the place came back, well, I keep meaning to get around to that... Frey seemed pretty gung-ho about being in charge. But I got lost in the jungle for a few months so I'm not sure what's going on just right at the moment." Skeeve adds, belatedly, "Nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle." He flushes lightly at having forgotten his manners. Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. "I was given the impression by a friend of mine that you were the leader of the guild, Zelan says Frey is...but it's understandable that the friend in question would give incorrect information. Zelan also said something about a corrupted building?" Zelan nods to what Twilight says. "Yes, the old campus... It was something we were discussing... oh, a year ago? I don't think it's been /that/ long, but I'm not sure it's much shorter than that. The place south of the Tokyo Tower somewhere... Honestly, I've forgotten where it was." Skeeve nods a few times at that. "Yeah, it's been about a year or so. There's a lot of weird stuff in there.. but I guess that happens when you inaccurately duplicate an astral pocket. I've got the doors warded down tight to keep any problems from getting out, but never have gotten around to clearing it out." He shrugs lightly, then smiles. "Although! Definitely glad to hear that there are others banding together. Us magicians gotta stick together, right?" Twilight_Sparkle smiles and nods. "I'd be happy to help for whatever you guys could use my help on...it's sort of part of my job even..." "I don't think I've seen that place yet either," she adds, "But I haven't gotten around /horribly/ much. I've had a bad habbit of burrying myself too deep in my research." Zelan frowns as Skeeve looks so cheerful. "We need to be organized," she says bluntly to him. This is, of course, a woman who is used to a much larger, more organized Magic Guild than existed here even before. It was for a whole galactic arm, afterall! "While having research 'clubs' about is a step in the right direction, I'm just thinking we need to be less spread out, less..." She shakes her hands as she seeks out the words, fails, and only comes up with, "Disorganized. I miss the comradarie of it. I miss having the set place where I know I can talk freely about these kinds of things and expect people to actually be interested, and not get shushed constantly by the librarian like here." Clearly, Zelan is quite passionate about this subject. Zelan glances at Twilight again. "...and it'd be good for her to have a place to research where she'd be more likely to have someone watch over her and get her to go out and relax more often." Twilight_Sparkle says, "Well...Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash do try...but they shouldn't be expected to be my keepers...and it probably doesn't help on some level that I'm considered "better" than them." She makes quotation marks as best as she can with her hooves. "Dash even seems conflicted about if it's better to let me sink into my research or drag me out of it." Skeeve cant help but smile lightly at that, shaking his head lightly. "I don't disagree, actually, Zelan. If for no other reason than we need to steer public perception, so that the average guy on the street doesn't think of the random two-bit necromancer with a bone stuck in his craw when magic comes up in conversation." He shrugs slightly at that. "As for dragging people out of their research... well, I'm the wrong person to speak with when it comes to how to do that. I spend way too much time in the basement as it is. But we, as a group, could benefit from reviving the Guild. Like I said, I know that Frey is also really interested in that idea. Until we can get the old ruins cleared out, for now all we'll need is some meeting space, and we can build from there." Zelan shrugs lightly. "The key is balance. I'm not so sure someone like Rainbow Dash is going to know the difference between productive research and unhealthily intensive research. A proper group of peers should have a much better idea on balance levels... I'm guessing most of us have been on the unhealthy side. I certainly know I've been guilty of it." She nods to Skeeve after that. "Exactly. And it needs to be an /open/ place. A place where people don't feel too afraid to approach us... Frey's shop could be a good starting point, but..." She shakes her head. "That's a business, even if it's being run by the official head of the guild. We need a neutral, welcoming space that's dedicated to just the guild itself, even if it is temporary." She then glances off to the vague south. "Of course, getting the actual campus cleared out should be a priority, if you ask me. If it's possible." Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply to both. "Granted, the 'fear' problem I'm having is with status instead of people thinking magic is bad," she states, "But it's having the same sort of effect...and I think we'd be better at ignoring things like titles." "I'm not certain rather I could help with clearing out the campus or not, but I can find out." Skeeve taps his chin lightly at that. "Well, I mean, that's going to be an ongoing task. I'm not sure how the bubble dimension got duplicated, precisely, but some strange stuff is in there. I know the lobby seems to be inhabited by some kind of half concrete golem, half gelatinous cube, but beyond that I'm not sure." He shrugs again. "Either way, I'm sure I could get in touch with Quick Construction and get them to at least build us a temporary building in the parking lot, that should be more than adequate until we can get real facilities down. I'll make some calls tonight." He's quiet for another moment. "I guess the next question is, who do we invite in on this? Obviously the three of us, Frey, Minerva... Miriam when she gets back... who else? You guys know any other wizards in town? Zelan taps a finger to her chin. "Sarah is one... we were discussing a problem she was having a bit before you came. I understand there are some magical girls in town, but I'm not sure if you count them or not? My employer... well, you know Rave. She's been showing some signs of being capable. A big part of this will be, I will guess, that when we /do/ start showing ourselves as being a real thing, others will come out of the woodwork. And as far as if you're asking for help in clearing it, I know a... frighteningly capable bounty hunter we could hire..." Twilight_Sparkle says, "There's Dorian, who just passed you as he was leaving earlier. I'm not sure if Archene would be ready or not. He has the capability for magic, but he's still in the process of learning of any he can use here. Sarah, as Zelan mentioned. There's a little girl that's met some of us ponies, but I got the feeling she wouldn't so much be interested in this sort of thing."" Skeeve stares flatly as Zelan lists Sarah as someone who should be included before he realizes who she's talking about. "...never going to get used to that..." Shaking his head lightly, he replies, "Ah, really anyone who's looking for a research circle is welcome, I feel. And I suppose Raven's kids, too, if only on some kind of provisional apprentice status. I'm not so ideological to want to restrict membership or anything like that based on what kind of magic one uses, but I get the feeling we're not going to have much to offer the average magical girl, though." Zelan facepalms. "Yes, Dorian, duh. I can't beleive I already..." She clears her throat and looks upright again. "I say even if this Archene is interested in learning, there's still a place for him at the guild. That's a part of what we should be... a place where people can learn and be welcome no matter their skill level." She glances at Skeeve a moment then nods. "On the contrary, I'd almost try to /recruit/ people with vastly different magic. I want to /study/ it. But of course, yes, if they're magical because of... limited circumstances as I think the case might be with most magical girls, then yes, they might not see a point to joining." She rocks on her feet slightly a moment before asking, "So then, is there, as things stand, anything resembling actual membership? Because I don't beleive I've ever actually signed up for anything. The times I've been at Frey's I've always had such specific thigns I was looking for that I never considered asking about that." Skeeve can't help but grin a little bit at that. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, then, with the power vested in me by, well, me, I hereby dub thee a member of the NeoTokyo Magic Guild. Your membership card and hat is in the mail." Twilight_Sparkle tilts her head. "In the mail...I guess I should give you my address then," she states, "And yes, I'm fully in agreement with allowing all sorts in, I just wasn't sure what the guild would find allowable." Zelan smirks. "Good to know! Send it to the workshop to keep things simpler, you know where that is, right? Okay, then." She glances at Twilight. "A proper magic guild should allow all who cast magic, learn about magic, and want to be part of that community. That's the purpose of a guild, if you ask me." She sighs and leans back against a bookcase. The side, thankfully. "Though... I'm noticing the librarian giving us the stink-eye about talking so much, I think." Skeeve chuckles a little bit at that. "Ah, it's just an expression anyway. I mean, who uses the post office in this day and age? I'd probably just send it by special courier anyway." He glances sideways at the librarian as well, just out of the corner of his eye. "Wanna hit the Usual while we hash out the details? I'll buy you gals a drink. Alternately, there's always privacy spells." Twilight_Sparkle nods in agreement with Zelan's talk about who a guild should let join. She's...while not always PERFECT on it, usually ALL for the equality and inclusion of all. "Both of those are fine, but I do think I'm getting a little hungry. I can get the food?" Zelan smirks slightly. "A drink sounds fine, just so long as you don't think you're picking me up, Skeeve. Let's head over and see what else needs to be hashed out. Maybe check out the parking lot and seeing what kind of space we're talking about after?" Skeeve rolls his eyes slightly at that, albeit with a smile. "If I was trying to pick you up, Zelan, trust me, you wouldn't have to ask. And that should be fine, Twilight; dinner's on me. C'mon, let's go." He pulls open the door, holding it for his two fellow mages. Zelan smirks and flips her hair over her shoulder. "Good. You know I'm not into human males, right?" she says as she walks on out thought the opened door. She does sound like she's just teasing, though. Twilight_Sparkle follows through the door. "Well I meant I could pay for the food, but either way is fine." Skeeve just chuckles a little bit at that. "Yeah, I hear that from a lot of women, actually." He follows along out the door, letting it shut behind him. Zelan laughs and just keeps walking on. "Of course, at this point I'm pretty much taken anyway!" she says as she looks around. "So, shall we all just fly? You have a flight spell, right Skeeve?" Twilight_Sparkle doesn't even seem to be considering any possibility that she could be getting picked up on. She's a pony so...why would she be? "Flying deffinetly works on my end." Skeeve chuckles lightly. "Yeah, I hear that a lot too. Women seem to like telling me all about their SO's - I'm beginning to think I might have a reputation." Chuckling at his own expense, he adds, "Yeah, I know a few." With a brief flare of magical energy and a spoken word of power, he starts to float off the ground, his shirt riffling just a little in the sudden disturbance of air. Zelan makes a few motions of her own, smirking at Rainbow Dash. "Yes, well, I figured those wings weren't just for show." She pushes forward with a hand and lifts off the ground. "Well, let's go!" Twilight_Sparkle flies with her wings, of course...though she's not Rainbow Dash at all. She's no where near THAT good...but at least she's a passible flyer. Skeeve's spell appears to be pretty basic, straight lines, slow acceleration, low power, the perfect casual flight spell. "Right on your heels!" Zelan's flight is speedy enough, but she holds back for Skeeve's flight spell. She does speed up a bit and land first as she spots the UR, then walks on in. Twilight_Sparkle is either going to be on speed with Skeeve or behind him, most likely. Either way she just walks on in as well. Skeeve clearly doesn't seem to think this is a competition; either that or he's intentionally throwing. "Been a while since I've done that... didn't realize how much I missed it." Zelan walks in and looks around. "Table or bar? Twilight_Sparkle says, "A table would probably be better, given what we're here for." Zelan nods and moves on to a table and takes a seat. "Right... now, where were we again?" Twilight_Sparkle says, "We kind of trailed off...should we go with the idea Skeeve had about having a building on the parking lot of the academy untill it's cleared?" Skeeve pulls out a chair for himself, sliding in lightly. "I think it'd be a good idea if we want to establish a presence as soon as possible. It's not the building that's the Guild... it's the meeting of minds, you know?" Zelan nods. "I think so, yes. Frankly, we need something. If we get something going, we might attract more of the expertise in dealing with the problems the building proper is having. And... yes, like Skeeve said. It shouldn't be the building that's the guild... that's just the facility. That's just what we would use to make things more convenient for us." Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply. She wasn't asking out of any kind of doubt, she was just trying to grasp at some place to pick the conversation back up from. "How do we want to open up knowledge that we're trying to get people in on this?" Skeeve leans his chair back onto two legs, picks up a menu to idly flip through. "I was thinking word of mouth at first. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to have to put up with all that many douchebags, so anyone we can vet sounds good. We'll worry about opening it up beyond that once we get more formal about it." Zelan frowns at it, but nods. "So then... we share the reopening with people we know, even those that aren't spellcasters, and they let those they think would fit?" She motions with her head to Gonfei, the firey haired bartender. "Do we ask him to spread word? I understand this... tends to be a place that people who newly arrive show up... should he point magic users at us?" Twilight_Sparkle raises a brow at the word 'douchebags'. She looks like she WANTS to say something, but she doesn't say whatever it is. "...I can talk to the other ponies? Even Fluttershy knows a surprizing amount of people." Skeeve nods a little bit at that. "Sure. I mean, one of the goals here is to make magic, and the people who use it, generally seem like the upstanding and reliable people that we are, right? With that in mind, as long as we're not letting people like, oh, I don't know, 'Zaltorr the Bloodthirster' proclaim membership, it should be fine." Zelan nods and puts a mental note in to make sure Gonfei is aware of it. Meanwhile, she's of course not aware about the time the bartender encouraged an Ork not to give up on making his warband. Sometimes he doesn't seem to really pay attention to who he is encouraging... "Right, well, presumably you can eject people from the guild, yeah?" She taps a finger on the table, and says, "Screw it. I'm thinking a mojito tonight. I know it's a work night, but... eh." Twilight_Sparkle says, "Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I don't see why we shouldn't be able to. I'll have some mint tea and a hibiscus and honey on wheat sandwhich." Skeeve nods lightly, hands his menu to the passing waitress. "GLT on white, and a strawberry sun-" He pauses for a moment, then amends, "Strawberry soda, please. And yeah, hopefully it's not necessary, but no reason we can't. As far as amenities go; obviously some temporary bookshelves are a must, but what kind of equipment do you two need to do your research?" Zelan frowns slightly. "Honestly? With my specialist needs... I think I'll be supplying as much equipment as you would. But I will just say... don't skimp on computer equipment. I know a lot of mages think technology is beneith them, but those magi are just closing off an entire field from themselves." She pauses a moment, then shakes her head. "Well, I can go through my current equipment and then send you a list of what I'd need to recreate it. But I do have an entire research lab more or less of my own as it is... I suppose I'll have to discuss with my boss what should be left open to the Guild and what I should consider to be our proprietary information. But I think the scanning technology I've been working on should be open source. It pretty much is back in my home universe, so... well, I guess that's the guideline, isn't it?" Twilight_Sparkle says, "And I can bring my own books, paper, ink, and quills...those are the only things that are /certain/ I would need. Everything else depends on what I'm researching at the time... For instance, sometimes I do potions work..." Skeeve nods a little bit at that. "Alright, so, computers, vent hoods, cauldrons, writing materials, comfortable seating, all that fun stuff." Zelan nods, then adds, "Tables. Safety equipment. Defintiely fire fighting equiment of some sort. Honestly? We should have some vending machines and a kitchenette, too. And signage emphasizing not to experiment in the kitchen. Kitchen is for food only." Skeeve snickers a little bit. "So no fireballing the kitchen sink, got it." Zelan says, "....Or, for that matter... brewing potions there." Twilight_Sparkle chuckles. "Of course, what good would a sink brewed potion be anyway? Unless we wanted a potion of living mold and lost hairs..." Zelan glancs at Twilight Sparkle with narrowed eyes. "Trust me. We need that signage." Skeeve just snickers a little bit at that. "Well, you know, random fungi and drain gunk probably might make for some useful potion ingredients, depending on what you're actually trying to do." He, Zelan, and Twilight Sparkle are sitting around a table near the bar, chatting amiably. Twilight_Sparkle nods. "Not everyone understands potions enough to understand how bad an idea it is." Terezi enters the Usual, cane tap-tapping ahead of her as she sniffs at her surroundings. It's her first time here, but given the scents in the air, she has a feeling she may come to like the place. Making her way toward a particularly interesting set of smells, she comes to the group near the bar, stopping next to Twilight... and leaning down to lick the pony's face, without so much as a 'hello'. "Hmm... mulberry, but with a hint of dragon. Definitely not a dragon though. Some kind of neighbeast..." Zelan says, "They might, but I'm more worried about contamination of the food area than the other way around, frankly. We can give them a sink in the experimenting area to use instead. We can...." Whatever she was going to say is lost as Twilight Sparkle is licked. "Uhh... friend of yours, Twilight?"" Skeeve just blinks a few times at Terezi's rather random proclamation, then glances over at Twilight Sparkle. "If not a friend, then she should at least buy you a drink first." Twilight_Sparkle blinks and looks at Terezi in that kind of competely surprized and lost by what just happened sort of stare. "I...have no idea, actually...." Terezi doesn't really seem to be looking /at/ anyone, rather looking vaguely in their general direction when they speak. "Hello! I'm Terezi, Terezi Pyrope. I'm blind." she explains, then turns back to Twilight as the unicorn speaks up. "Oh, you can talk. Sorry, I didn't realize you were intelligent. I would've licked more~" This is punctuated with a very wide, /very/ toothy grin, and every single one of those teeth ends in a wickedly sharp point. Certainly not a smile you'd want to run into in the dark of night! Twilight_Sparkle says, "....that's quite alright...I'm Twilight Sparkle...er...nice to meet you?" Skeeve just shakes his head a little bit, not sure whether to be amused or exasperated. "Call me Skeeve. Let me guess, Miss Terezi, you're new to these parts." Zelan looks at Terezi with a bit of a wary look. "Zelan Darkflower. Former head of Design Team Petal of Magus Spaceworks," she says for the second time today, more tensely than the first. Terezi petpets Twilight's mane, giggling a bit. It's not a pleasant sound. "It's okay, I was mostly joking. Mostly." she assures the pony, before shrugging at Skeeve. "Yeah, I guess so. It's a pretty crazy place, way busier than anywhere I've ever been before." And then a nod of acknowledgement to Zelan. "Never heard of them!" Twilight_Sparkle shifts around a little in here chair. "Ahh, alright," she replies, "Umm...Is there something we can do for you?" Skeeve nods a little, making a small sound. "I'd surmised as much. A word of free advice; most people around here don't take too kindly to vague threats of being eaten, and a lot of them are mighty jumpy on the trigger finger." Zelan sighs and nods. "Yeah. Pretty much no one here has heard of them." She glances around looking for where her mojiito might be. "Also... most people do not like being /licked/ by other people." Terezi looks taken aback, at least as much as she can with her eyes covered by a pair of bright red glasses. "I wasn't going to /eat/ her! I can taste shapes and colors. My eyes might not work, but I learned other ways to see~" Twilight_Sparkle says, "Oh, I didn't think she was threatening to eat me, it was just...extremely unexpected..." And uncomfortable, but she's holding that bit." Skeeve nods just a little bit. "Well, no harm done, I suppose, but bear in mind that most people aren't going to be as... understanding, shall we say, as Twilight wsa." Zelan sweatdrops. "Yyyyeah.... we'll need to... figure out another way to get you to see. One that doesn't violate people's personal space to such an extreme degree." Terezi hrmphs. "I'd really rather /not/, thank you. It's the only connection I have left to my lusus, and I'm not letting anyone take it away from me." she snaps at Zelan, placing both hands atop her cane and leaning on it. Twilight_Sparkle says, "Ummm...maybe it's more just an issue of announcing your intentions first? It's just a little surprizing is all... It'd be bad if someone jumped to the wrong conclusion and tried to hurt you." Skeeve adds, in a very reasonable tone, "As, for example, I almost did." Zelan says, once again quite warily, "I would ask permission before doing that if I were you." Spike teps into the usual, his back-pack full of important stuff. New quills, a bestiary, scrolls and a couple of muffins from the bakery...which he's really looking forward to. he has one last stop to make, some rose-tea for Fluttershy, he glances at his list to double-check...then spots..."Oh! Twilight!" he grins, "Didn't expect to see you here, great! Saves me the walk home!" Terezi grumbles a bit about how she could totally take some jerk who'd attack a blind girl, but ultimately, grudgingly, nods. Suddenly though, a familiar voice! Sort of! Sniffing the air, she turns toward Spike and grins again at the little dragon. "Hey! The little dragonling! Been a while!" Twilight_Sparkle says, "Oh, Spike! How are you? I was just talking about you earlier today." Part of her is still a little uncomfortable with letting Spike just wander around in Neo Tokyo...it's not Ponyville after all. She just has to keep reminding herself he's big little dragon, who's done things like saved kingdoms before. "Did you want a snack?"" Skeeve just turns and shoots Zelan a bit of a look. "Takes all kinds, huh." Spike says, "Hi, Miss Terezi," he greets, waving his little claw. He then chuckles to Twilight, "Always," he grins toothly and climbs up onto a seat next to the Alicorn, "Talking about me? Well, well, well," he says cheerily, "Nothing too modest I hope," he jokes." Zelan raises an eyebrow at Skeeve with a slight nod. "It's certainly a city of very strange people. Ourselves not excluded, unfortunately." Twilight_Sparkle says, "Spike, this is Zelan and Skeeve...you already seem to know Terezi..." She flags down someone to put in a whispered order of some sort of treat for Spike. "He's my assitant." And as Zelan heard earlier, hatched by Twi herself." Spike says, "Nice to meetcha!" he stands up on the seat and bows polietly!" Terezi steps closer to Spike as he takes his seat, and gives him a lick on the cheek in greeting before turning to Twilight again. "Your assistant? I think he mentioned something about that before..." she says, tapping her chin as she tries to remember. Zelan nods, then brightens slightly in understanding. "Ah! Yes! We were discussing natural versus manufactured gemstones earlier, and you came up as a result." She however still insists on introducing herself. As she said, she's not excluded from being an odd one. "Zelan Darkflower, former lead of Design Team Petal of Magus Spaceworks," she says for the third time today. Skeeve tips his non-existent hat, displaying his own particular oddity. "Pleasure to meet you properly, Spike. Although you seem familiar, I think we may have bumped into one another before." Spike merfs, but he's kinda used to that. Hiow come Rarity never licks him like that? Pinkie Pie, though...he just laughs. "I help twilight with her oganizing, studying, letter writing, you name it!" he says very proudly, "I even help save the day here and there," he grins."Fake Gems have a weird after-taste," he makes afce in reply to Zela. He then nods to Skeeve, "Yeah, I tyhink we've met, there's so many people to keep track of here that it's not easy." Terezi pats Spike once or twice, but then tilts her head. "Fake gems? Why bother making fake gems when you can just go out and get /real/ ones?" Zelan looks to Twilight Sparkle. "Well, I guess that settles that question we were debating earlier." She looks up at Terezi and says in reply, "Because in this world, they're hard to find due to a matter of false scarsity brought on by monopolies. Well... at least that's the case with diamonds. It's why I have to manufacture my own for my equipment." Skeeve adds, "Not to mention, everybody and their brother wants them for their magical uses." Twilight_Sparkle nods in reply to Zelan. "Seems like...deffinetly a time saver, but it might make getting the gems stay as it is. And well, of course, not everyone's a miner." Zelan shrugs to Skeeve. "With an earth booster, I can just compress coal into fairly good quality diamonds for magic use. We were discussing this earlier... It's actually relatively easy to the point that diamonds really should be the cheap gems." Spike taps his toes together as he sits. "Anyway, we use magic to replicate the gems so we don't run out or have to dig for them or have that guy in the jewelry store freak out all over again," he coughs just a little. "Breakfast at Tiffany's...right...." Terezi just sits there looking mildly confused. "And you can't just go dig them up?" Sarah shuffled into the restaurant, a lazy grin on her face and one of her pseudo cigarettes between her lips. Things had been going fairly well recently, and she figured celebrating a small success with some decent food would be nice. She glanced around, spotting a few familiar faces and shuffling over to greet them. "Heya Twi, heya Spike, heya Skeeve, how's it going?" Zelan frowns slightly, then shakes her head before catching herself. "They aren't /that/ common. You still have to find the right regions and formations. I'm no geologist, I don't know the details." She looks up at Sarah and raises an eyebrow. "Forgot about me again, eh Sarah?" Skeeve offers Sarah a casual wave as she strolls on in. "Oh, hey, long time no see. Have you met-" He pauses, then adds with a chuckle, "Clearly you have. Feel free to join us." He adds a little bit, "And the instant you find 'em you have to get them out without anyone else noticing. Gems are complicated." Twilight_Sparkle says, "Sarah, hello! I've decided to stop looking for those glasses I told you about. With help, I'll be making something instead!" Sarah chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck and shrugging. "Heh, sorry about that Zelan, I've kinda had other things on the brain." She turns to Twilight at the mention of the glasses. "You were still looking for them? After all this time? Wow, uhh, thanks. What are you making, exactly?" Spike says, "Gems aren't so easy to find here; back home, they're all over the place," his snack arrives! Yay! he begins munching down on a double veggie burger! Oh, Hi Sarah! How are you? Want some of this Twilight?" he offers some of his burger. "The Ponyradish is great!"" Terezi finally just shrugs, deciding all this gem business isn't worth her attention. "Well, whatever, I don't need them anyway." she says, then waves to the newcomer with one hand, sniffing in Sarah's direction. "Hello miss, may I lick your face to see what you look like?" Twilight_Sparkle says, "Yes, time's part of why I decided to stop trying to find them...it's been long enough. We were working out what materials to use and such, so I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think we'll be sticking with the glasses format..." Skeeve just stares at Terezi for a moment, then sighs lightly. "Well, it's progress." Zelan glances at Twilight Sparkle. "Well, with the plans we discussed, I'd remind you you're not well versed in electronics." She looks back up to Sarah again. "We discussed a hybrid device involving a crystal sensor, likely a diamond, that is focussed ahead... so yes, likely attached to glasses. We attach that sensor to a circuit breaker that breaks just before the thing with your eyes happens, and it sets off something that diverts the magic away from your eyes, possibly into the device to help power it." She glances to Skeeve. "With his girlfriend's help, we should be able to minimize the electronics to be unnoticable in size." Sarah, for her part, simply shrugged at the odd request. "Ehh, sure, I guess. Name's Sarah, by the way." She chuckles before turning to Twilight and Zelan to continue the discussion about the glasses. "These aren't going to mess with my ability to channel magic into my eye, right? That's kinda important to how I fight." Twilight_Sparkle says, "At that point, you should be able to take them off and be fine, I'd think...." Zelan frowns at that. "Not until it reaches the burnout point... when it would, yes, or at least it would channel magic away from in front of your glasses. I imagine it would only work against ambient magic rather than actual focussed magic, though." She blinks, then looks at Twilight and nods. "Or just take them off, yeah." Terezi grins again and then gives Sarah a big, long slurp across her face. "Thank you. Hmm, hazelnut with a hint of strawberry. Hee hee..." she says, stepping back a bit and continuing her strange, mad giggling. Skeeve has to resist joining in on that giggling, but admittedly for different reasons. Once he gets himself back under control, however, he adds, "You might be able to do something with a simple little trigger that flips the lens. Either something tiny that could be telekinetically tripped, or a little hand switch you can stick up your sleeve or on a ring or something." Spike just occupies himself with eating. Twi dowsn't want some? More for him! he laughs as the Ponyradish tickles his nose! A Puff of flame hops out! "Excuse me!" Sarah blinks, before pulling out a handkerchief and wiping her face down, wiping off her glasses before resuming the conversation as if nothing had happened. "So, I need to take them off to focus magic into my eye and aim, but focusing magic into my eye to aim is causing the eye strain, and I'm not doing it outside of combat..." Sarah wasn't entirely certain how this was going to work. Twilight_Sparkle tilts her head as Sarash asks that. "Well...it is still a design in progress," she points out, "We've been trying to figure out things like this..." Zelan frowns. "My apologies. I was thinking the situation was something different entirely. I think I'd have to see the problem happen with my high resolution sensors to really have a solid idea as to what's happening and how to correct the part that's the problem." She glances down at Spike and scoots back a couple of centimeters as the flames come out. "Er... you're... excused." Skeeve really starts rolling this particular problem over in his mind. "Well, if it's causing you eyestrain... clearly your eyes are doing all the lensing, right? So if you can get the goggles, or glasses, or whatever, to lens the psion stream the way your eyes normally would, you can just sit back and relax as the goggles do all the work. You know, so to speak." Terezi offers, 'helpfully', "Or you could just go blind. It takes a load off, really." Sarah shrugs, blinking and staring at Zelan, her right eye covered in a reddish, flickering aura. "Well, the problem's more that for some reason, I can't seem to throttle the magic enough to keep the strain at bay. I'm pumping more magic into my eye than is necessary, but I can't seem to actually get back to the flow I was using before this started." Twilight_Sparkle lets Spike finish his sandwich before levitating the little dragon onto her back. "Well, sorry to eat and run but, I just noticed how late it is. I should get Spike to sleep soon." Skeeve offers a casual wave. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Sparkle. Safe travels." Zelan frowns, unwilling to make any further guesses before she can properly see what the problem is. She does look at Sarah as she displays it, her own eyes flickering for a few moments as the lower grade sensors she has on her take a look at it. "Ahh.... well... Hrrm. So it's an issue of magic /control/?" She then snaps her attention back to Twilight Sparkle. "Ah, well, yes! Have a good night, then." Spike makes himself comfortable on Twi's back! Sarah turned to bid the two goodnight, taking care not to look directly at Twilight lest she blind herself again. "See you around Twilight." She turns back to Zelan, shrugging. Twilight_Sparkle says, "Nice to meet you too!" And then she waves and she's off into the....moonlight I suppose?" The accountant let the magic fade as she blinked, rubbing at her eye. "That about sums it up, though the weird thing is that my control hasn't been compromised for any of my normal magic, at least, not in a way that I can tell." Skeeve kicks his feet back up onto the table as Twilight and Spike wander off. "Is it possible you might have run into any wayward curses lately? Consumed any energy fields larger than your head?" Zelan keeps her frown and looks back to Sarah again. "Well, this is another reason why we need the guild up and running again... To better research why things go /wrong/ like that... or... wait, it's something that's always happened, isn't it? Something about your lost glasses, they were correcting the problem before? Blast, now I wish I could have analyzed those..." She frowns, looking down at a now nearly-finished mojito, and wondering if drainking something alcoholic actually was a good idea on this work night. Sarah shrugged. "My glasses are the same ones I got here with. It didn't start until I figured out how to use my magic to do some better damage. See, my magic is based around conjuring office stuff, so in a fight it's not the most useful against someone with some armor, or anything all that large. Recently though, I figured out how to conjure full metal variants of my attacks, and that's when the problems with my magic eye started occurring." Skeeve quirks an eyebrow for just a moment at that description. But, eh, he's heard of weirder spell suites, he supposes. "Sounds like your particular paradigm doesn't play too well with density." Zelan frowns deeper as she taps the table. "So it's this... boosting of your own magic that is causing the problem. But you have to focus through your eye? Just the one? Maybe it's a matter of practice, and changing the way you do it... is it possible to focus the steel part through your other eye?" She raises both hands in the air. "Gah! I just don't know enough! I'll need to get you into my lab to see just what exactly is happening." She then looks over to Skeeve and tilts her head slightly, her left ear actually twitching slightly. "It's... possible? At this point with how much I planning things wrong, I just don't want to make any more assumptions without better data." Sarah arched a brow before realizing she had explained herself rather poorly. "Actually, I don't focus my magic into my eye to perform magic, I do it cause it helps my god awful accuracy. Heh. Terezi pulls a face. It's a very unique face, that only she can do. It looks like >:? and yes, she somehow even does the dot in the question mark with her mouth. Who even /knows/ how. "But magic is fake as shit, why are we even talking about it?" Zelan frowns. "So the bleedoff of the extra energy is hitting a feedback loop into your-" And then she just stops, and slowly turns to look at Terezi. "You've not been in this city very long at all, have you?" Skeeve raises an eyebrow at that and snickers. "You can see things with your *tongue* and you're complaining about magic?" Shaking his head a little bit at that, he adds, "Maybe focus that energy into short range scrying effect, and use that to aim?" Sarah chuckled upon hearing the odd girl dismiss one of the major facts of life in a majority of the multiverse, as well as this specific crossroads within it. "Heh, don't look now, but uhh, magic's less fake here than you realize." As if to emphasize her point, she snaps her fingers, a set of pens appearing in the air and spelling out the word 'magic', accompanied by jazz hands made of coffee. Terezi gives Skeeve a blank, for lack of a better word, look. "Yes. Yes I am. Wizards are just fictional characters in silly books written for grubs, everyone knows that. They have dumb scars on their foreheads, and things like that." She doesn't react in the slightest to Sarah's display of magical prowess either, because... well, blind. Skeeve can't help but snicker at the sight of the coffee jazz hands. "Okay, that's a nice touch, Sarah. And perhaps, but this is a place where fictional characters from silly books written for grubs end up after getting dumped out of their own dimension. You really are new around here, aren't you." Zelan sighs and shakes her head. "Lady, you've just basically said all three of us don't exist. So clearly you must be crazy and hearing voices in your head." She huffs out a breath of air and looks back to Skeeve, then Sarah. "Again, I don't feel comfortable making any conjectures at this point without seeing exactly where the flows of magic are going and which flows they are, and stuff like that." Terezi frowns. "Really? I'll grant you that Paradox Space is pretty weird, and alternate universes open up all kinds of possibilities, but I doubt something as silly as magic could exist in any of them. It's probably just some weird paradox shit, that stuff's /everywhere/." Then, with a grin in Zelan's direction, she adds, "It wouldn't surprise me." Sarah shrugged. "Welp, not my problem whether or not you decide to believe in what's around ya." Zelan smirks slightly and looks to Sarah. "Well, you know. Some people just don't beleive what they can't see." Terezi frowns even harder. "You're not making fun of me because I'm blind, are you?" Sarah shrugged, pulling out a new cigarette and lighting it with a snap of her fingers. God she loved the little ease of life spells. "Ehh, not entirely certain seeing is believing, to be honest. I've seen some messed up stuff, and I'm still not certain I believe it. Like the prices of beef jerky at convenience stores in comparison to those of similar products at competing super stores. It's highway robbery, I'm telling ya." Zelan says, "Only a little. More that you don't beleive we exist. Well, I suppose it's a combination thing, to be honest." She frowns. "Okay, that was in bad taste. I'm a little tipsy. And that beef jerky usually has bad taste, too." The red haired woman shrugged. "Maybe in your world it does, but in mine, oh lord. Not gonna lie, I'd do some pretty messed up stuff for that jerky. Like steal forty cakes when no one's looking. Forty. That's as many as four tens, and that's terrible." Somehow, she managed to say this with a straight face. Zelan gives Sarah a look that suggests she thinks that was a joke... but she clearly doesn't get the joke. "....forty cakes. Okay." Terezi just looks even more confused. "Anyway, I'm going to leave now. You two continue being nice little voices in my head and converse like good friends, okay? Goodbye." And off she goes. Well then. Sarah merely gives the girl a lazy wave. "See ya around." It then occurs to her that she hadn't actually gotten the bizarre girl's name at any point in the conversation. Zelan sucks down the last of her mojito and waves to Terezi even though the troll can't see her. Even if she wasn't blind at this point since she's turned away. "Bye now!" She looks down at her empty glass with a frown. "Why did I drink on a work night?" Sarah shrugged, taking another drag. "Not sure, I'm not one for alcohol myself. So, what kind of work do ya do?" She was rather interested in actually learning a little bit about how all this magic she threw around worked. Sure, practical knowledge got one pretty far, but NeoTokyo had a habit of raising the stakes and switching up the rules on her, so some knowledge about magical theory would probably be pretty helpful. Zelan looks up from her glass and says, "Magitech engineering. Technically, most of my experience is in starship design. As you may or may not recall from the first time we met, I am the former lead of Design Team Petal of Magus Spaceworks. But these days I'm mostly working smaller scale, getting some solid magic scanning equipment that can work across all magics, not just those comperable to my home world's, as well as some weapons work and a few possible concepts for the NTSDF I've not actually tried to sell yet. But I'm trying to keep myself from overworking, so I only work weekdays now." If Sarah was honest, she only really got the gist of the entire answer, but that was good enough for her. "Sounds interesting enough, and that scanner thing sounds pretty helpful. Magic's enough of a pain to understand already without adding in the complexity of a near infinite amount of forms of magic that all behave differently." She sighed, finally taking a seat and leaning against the table. She idly pulled out her trusty pen, deftly twirling it as she waited for the waiter to come by. Zelan, on the other hand, pulls out her chair. "You have my phone number already, right? Give me a call during work hours when you think you can come in for a proper scanning, and I'll see if I can figure out what exactly is going on. For now... I'm gonna head out and sleep this off so I can work right tomarrow." Sarah nodded, giving a lazy wave. "Sure thing. See ya around Zel, take care." | |
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