This is a bonus post. See the day’s regular content in the post before it.
You can still join this RP by comment, open for two more players. Catch up from the beginning here, or whatever. This is an “urban fantasy” in an earth-like world. The characters are students at the equivalent of a community college, for the usual reasons a person might end up there instead of a more prestigious school. What are you doing here? What’s your major, something mundane or something adventurous?
~Previous~ 🏵️ ~~~
Your first night at community college, the day before your first classes – what a great time to go to a club and guarantee you’d make a terrible impression on your professors. Magic Boots appeared before you, built into the hollowed-out facade of an old department store on The Boulevard. Magic lights spelled the name of the business, with a pair of glowing boots beneath them that danced in an eternal animation loop. This was an adventurer bar, full of men who travel the land getting into hijinks of sword and sorcery, and more settled guys that aspired to adventure themselves, or just liked the company. Manly romance was entirely possible in this kinda joint (tho note: the GM will not ERP with you), and there were also a few girls or variously gendered people who liked to dance or to watch the story unfold.
Ilmardan the aspiring Illusionist had come from the dorms with a very manly cohort indeed. The muscly young meatheads included Div the silenus party animal and grappler, Humuk the orcish sportball player, Grundr the dwarven warrior, Tollison the human sports fitness major, Liu-gon the angelic man, and Markud the leopard-headed fencer. Div had said he didn’t want to show up til after nine, but couldn’t resist the social energy of going with the others. They’d walked from Cortellire Hall up the hill and south several blocks to find the place, arriving at about eight.
Also along for the ride were some softer types, the roguish human Racker, the A/V nymph Keires, and one human woman, a rough-skinned waif named Ilenka. Ilmardan expected to meet the lizard madonna Kaldonia and the feyish swordsman Josh in the crowd somewhere, but hadn’t clocked them yet. Keires looked nervous. Would their lack of experience cause them to get pushed around by the boisterous men within? To what extent was being pushed around what he wanted? Everybody should have limits.
Conversely, Racker was Mr. Cool, and Ilenka was shifty-eyed and smirking. Div was hard to pin down, weaving out into the crowd and back multiple times, but was always very friendly when he came by. He said, “This place is great! Tuition well spent. Who needs the U of R when your major is partying?”
Tollison said, “Living down to stereotypes, buddy?”
“It isn’t a stereotype. It’s my culture to be a party animal. You stiffs need it, don’t you?”
Keires stopped levitating, shrinking away at being pegged for a stiff. Ilenka wrapped a supportive arm around him. “You will not be stiff for long.”
Racker said, “This is alright. I’m gonna find the bar. Who wants to come with?”
The meatheads pointedly smiled at Ilmardan, who had promised to buy drinks.
Grundr said, “It only needs to be tall and thick!”
“That’s what he said,” said Ilenka.
“Hey-ooooo!,” said Div.
The building was thronging with party people, bustling past each other with intoxicants in hand, getting ready for the proper dancing to begin. At this point it was head-bobbing at most. The volume was gonna get cranked before long. There was a balcony area upstairs, close to the level of the lights and glittering balls, and the downstairs was mostly dance floor, with a bar and restrooms off hidden in darkness. Was there a kitchen as well? A few people had snacks.
~Previous~ 🏵️ ~~~
–
Ilmardan had indeed promised to buy drinks, though he made very sure to remind the gang that he had only promised to buy the first round and wasn’t going to be a walking credit card tonight. Ten potions, even if some of them were going to be overpriced mixed elixirs from the cocktail menu, shouldn’t break the bank, after all. Though he didn’t want to have to go crying to Lord and Lady Erenath for funds before classes had even started. He addressed everyone in turn, taking orders.
For himself he decided on Atharain’s Tincture of Superior Awareness – an old elven recipe and something of a favourite. It was a frothing mix of midnight blue liquid served in a tall goblet with a variety of night-blooming flowers hanging from the side, tasting somewhere between vermouth and orange soda. Yes. it was very mildly alcoholic, but that was more than compensated for by its alchemical properties, which opened the drinker’s powers of perception and mental clarity to very heightened levels indeed. If he was going to indulge then he’d rather know a lot more more about the world around him than a lot less – leave the fug of ale and hangovers to the dwarfs. Which reminded him – a two-pint tankard of Thangrim’s Old Peculiar for Grundr and… he tried to remember what the rest had asked for.
Having taken orders and, with Racker’s help, brought the drinks back to the group, Ilmardan wrung every bit of jovial approbation from his friends. Well, his fellow revellers anyway. Friends was rather pushing it after only a day or so, and if he was still trying to buy their affections with expensive drinks they probably weren’t friends yet. Either way, he enjoyed playing facilitator to their amusements.
He turned to Keires and inquired quietly how he was feeling and what he hoped to get out of the evening. He seemed to be falling into the role of the group’s support wizard, and part of that involved making sure everyone was all right. Well, support wizard sounded better than mother hen anyway.
By the time Ilmardan, Racker, and a last minute Humuk came back with the drinks, Kaldonia and Josh had shown up … with no extra people, and a little embarrassed and disoriented by the additional crew. Humuk was actually real cool about it, because he was shyboy too, and sensing their awkwardness, slid right into hanging out with them. Josh had left his sword at home. Some guys in the crowd had weapons to show off their respective specialties, bound with magic cord to not be usable in the club. None of the freshmen had brought theirs.
Div was too amped to notice the shyness and do something about it, tho that would surely be his usual inclination. Sauced with a little help from Ilmardan, he pushed the conversation to more boisterous heights. Racker and Ilenka helped Keires sometimes, but were very easily distracted by the boys – which is where Ilmardan’s help was of some use.
And where the potion was of some use, limbering Ilmardan’s social faculties. Keires had declined a drink initially but Racker stuck a wine cooler in front of him with a squeeze of elemental lightning-infused lemon, and he sipped obediently. The volume came on, the dancing began in earnest, right around the time Ilmardan got Keires to open up. They were close enough to just hear each other above the big beats.
“Love always brings us back. I heard you elves get it too. Try to lay off the stuff for a hundred years, but it pulls at you. Could I meet a beautiful man here? Soothe that part of me?” He rolled his eyes up and took another sip. “I cannot believe how loud music gets now. By the gods.”
Ilmardan was just about to launch into a standard, off-the-peg pep talk about how it’s never too late, how we just have to follow our dreams, take the rough with the smooth, all that stuff, when he realised he almost certainly didn’t know what he was talking about. Perhaps it was the Tincture talking – he was certainly never this introspective when he hadn’t been drinking it – but what advice could he possibly give on matters of this kind? Especially to someone who had gone so many more times round the block than he had?
Nevertheless, the team support wizard had to say something, didn’t he?
“I’m an illusionist, not a clairvoyant, but…”
Hmm, not going terribly well is it?
“…I tend to take the attitude that most of us make good choices most of the time, and if the opportunity arises we generally know when to take it…”
Better. Sounds vaguely profound, even if it isn’t.
“…we long-lived peoples have got the advantage of time, at least – imagine packing all your ambitions and joys into eighty short years!…”
He looked round surreptitiously and hoped none of the others heard that bit. What else? What else? Aha! Personal anecdote! that should go down well.
“…I thought I was in love once. It made me rather gullible and detached from reality. Or maybe the cynicism it caused in me now is the real illusion? Who is to say where our feelings lead us astray and where they lead us to where we want to go?…”
Sounding appropriately vague and allusive. Well done Ilmardan, good save! But hold on, maybe he doesn’t want vague and allusive? Maybe he’s just asking for permission to put himself out there? What do air spirits think on this? Am I touching on some below-the-surface cultural taboo? Cripes I’m out of my depth here. Abort! Abort! But no, I can’t run away now – I’ve talked myself into this. I just wish I knew a bit more about where the guy is coming from. If only I could ask him. Hey, wait, why can’t I just ask him? For a guy on Atharain’s Tincture you sure can be dense sometimes.
“So what sort of man are you looking for then?”
(apologies again for the lack of posting this last week or so. I am now on my summer break though, so I should be able to be more attentive in future).
(i’ll just keep doing this for as long as i have a player, barring any radical issues in my life, pace is no biggy.)
Keires smiled wanly. “I forgot how young you all are. Fell in love once! I’ve been losing at this game for over a thousand years now. I wouldn’t even remember how long, but the Stones of Kriggan Hill were new, and I’m told where that puts me in history…”
Elves couldn’t afford to “clock out” for a century the way nymphs could, since they still required food and water to live. How much of that time had Keires truly been living? Might be less than many elves he’d known. He did have a vibe similar to elves around the seven century mark, who were starting to have trouble keeping up with the world. At least he could speak the modern trade tongue with little accent.
“It’s really not about how they look; it’s about how they treat me. I’ve had to outlive three human lovers. Their moment of beauty flashes by, but their passion keeps them enthralling. I wish I could tell the difference between a man who is merely serving the will of his cock, and man who has a heart. I always find out too late. Maybe we’re all illusionists.”
Ilmardan pondered. He’d had more than enough existential ennui from his extended family to last a very long time, and he wasn’t always the best of listeners when they got going. He’d rather his night out didn’t involve too many more hours of this kind of thing. His father was close to a thousand years old, his mother not much less than that, and Ilmardan had always thought them incorrigibly boring, so he’d never really paid attention when they talked about how the centuries weighed on the soul. He had read some pretty racy romance novels in his time, but he doubted those could be mined for actionable romantic advice. Oh well, so much for drawing on personal experience. Time for flailing around randomly and hoping.
“If you’re after something long-term, have you tried dating people a bit less… temporary than humans? There was a fire elemental in a band I used to like who had a thing for airy boys, or maybe take a trip to the Forest of Safarron when the dryads and twinklings are in pollinating season. And if that’s not your cup of tea then I hear the mage-smiths at the Court of Galatea do quite an intriguing line in personalised love golems!”
Keires smiled weakly. “Keeping it practical. Thank you… Hey, you should get out there and dance to this … loud music. I’ll be better when the drink kicks in.” Ilmardan’s senses were heightened. Whether he was keen to start dancing or not, he could find a spot to check out how the rest of his band were faring…
(presuming he did here. you can add a response to the first, then second part of the post.)
Ilmardan felt the tips of his ears vibrate with the beats, felt zaps of magic energy arcing through the room, smelled the sweat and cologne and booze, sensed the moisture and pressure in the air. His eyes flicked over the crowd, seeing what the rest had gotten into.
While he could see several dwarves, none were so young as Grundr. Racker was also presently unaccounted for.
Josh and Kaldonia were dancing with each other, but not super into it. For some reason they kept shooting glances at Humuk, who was meekly dancing with a more assertive, huge silenus – about his own size but fairly older.
Tollison and Markud had, like Josh and Kaldonia, sought to ease the social discomfort of dancing with strangers by dancing with each other. They were on a part of the floor where it was easy to disappear into a crowd – the area where most everyone was a muscly young dude about six feet tall. Liu-gon was in there as well, dancing with a young human stranger around said stranger’s enchanted glaive-guisarme.
Div was dancing alone but totally comfortable with that, having found a pedestal on which to stand, make a spectacle of himself. He was stripped to the waist and dancing very aggressively, erotically. Men around him on the floor couldn’t help but look up in admiration. The energy of youth, or whatever he was on.
Ilenka was dancing with another random straight girl, moves that allowed them to go back to back frequently so they could check out all the hot gay dudes around them, an make mischievous smiles.
Ilmardan’s left ear vibrated with a different sound – Racker’s voice, spoken softly enough that he must have been aware the elf would be able to discern the words through the oppressive noise.
“Wanna dance, Ilmerd?”