12527/Fighting Fire with Fire

Fighting Fire with Fire
Date of Scene:	20 August 2022
Location:	The Velvet Room - Gardens
Synopsis:	Plans were made, information shared, food and even a little fun were had!
Cast of Characters:	Rien D'Arqueness, Jonathan Sims, Chas Chandler

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Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Having found the letter Lydia left in the sitting room, Rien makes an executive decision to do an impromptu meeting for the leadership of the JLD. Jon and Chas both get texts requesting a meeting in the garden at the Velvet Room, promising food and drink to go with the talk. Well, she's French, cooking sort of comes with the territory. She doesn't just magic the food up, either. She /cooks/. Going for a handheld theme, she makes up a profusion of baked and fried handheld foods. Empanadas, samosas, bierocks, paninis, pasties, quesadillas... if it can be eaten by hand, there's at least two or three to pick from!

The drinks are courtesy of the Velvet Room, of course, and will appear when requested. But Rien tries to make sure there's tea there as well, in case Jon isn't in a drdinking mood. She still isn't sure what Chas drinks that doesn't come from the Velvet Room, so there's coffee and water along with the tea. She's laid everything out and glances down, then waves a hand to change her outfit back to her usual understated chic; darkwash fitted jeans, brown knee-high boots, a cream-colored camisole under a light blue summer sweater.

When they arrive, she offers a soft smile and motions them in, "Hi, thank you both for coming. Sit, help yourselves. I tried to get a little of everything we might like."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon slept late, and then spent the day on his balcony, tending his plants in the sun, so he's hardly dropping any feathers for now, and his arm is its usual magical emerald green. He stills faintly of sun-warmed dirt, and there's a smudge on his jean shorts, which are paired today with a simple grey t-shirt. His nail polish is peeling, cracked from the work he's been doing in the garden.

    He arrives carrying a bag of something, which he takes over to the newly constructed greenhouse over in a far corner with a "Just a mo'!" to Rien. He deposits the bag in the greenhouse, then comes back dusting his hands. "Finally got my hands on some good tobacco seeds. I'll plant them this week and they can grow in the greenhouse for now. Still need to see if we can't convince at least a /portion/ of the garden to stay warm and dry regardless of the weather in reality." He looks around. "And I'm still trying to figure out where to put a curing shed." His tone is normal enough, even chipper, but there are dark circles under his eyes, as if his body can't help but show signs of the stress he's been under.

    "What's this about a letter from Lydia...?" He tries to keep his tone casual, but it's a bit strained.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas hasn't been well. Having a hangover from alcohol can be bad. It can be really bad. Near deadly. But compared to having a hangover from The Source. That's in a league light years beyond anything alcohol can do. He comes into the garden looking more ruffled than he should. "Got your message" he says shortly.

    His eyes are alert and active, but the pallor of his skin as well as his clothing--a dark blue tee and black jeans today--and hair, they all look out of sorts. Which considering the fact that he is usually impeccable, draws more attention that it otherwise should.

    "Word from Lydia, yeah?" he says, getting a glass and filling it with water, downing it, filling the glass again and snatching up a panini. Sandwiches are good for alcohol hangovers, maybe they'll help with magical ones as well. It's clear that he's willing to try.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"I actually have a suggestion for that. We might be able to make it work by asking the VR to keep a portion of the garden following the weather progression from an area that would be better for growing tobacco. So not just trying to force it to create weather, but mirror weather from elsewhere that suits the purpose." Rien gives a quick smile to Jon before moving back towards the seating and calling up a glass of wine for herself. Bougie person that she is, she holds it only the stem, never at the bell of the glass, sipping from it lightly. Then Chas is arriving and looking perhaps even more out of sorts than Jon.

Lifting a brow, she murmurs, "Is there anything we can do to help with that? You look... hungover. I didn't think angels could get hungover." She casts them both a brief, concerned look, but the mirrored questions has her nodding. Moving to the table, she picks up a piece of paper and holds it out to them so they can read it for themselves, "I found this in the sitting room when I came in in the morning." She'll wait until they've had a chance to read it, sipping on her wine and watching them both.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon gives Chas a flat look. "Drew on too much power, did you?" He quirks a brow, and then sighs. "Well, I suppose it was for a good cause, but I expect I will no longer have to give you lectures about the dangers of relying on that kind of power too far?" He grabs up an empanada, himself, and takes the paper from Rien to read Lydia's letter.

    His expression changes from stoic, to nodding slightly, to frowning. And then frowning more. And then all but shoving the paper at Chas with barely-contained fury, snatching up a glass of wine, and dropping into a chair.

    "She hasn't learned a damn thing," he grouses. "/Fuck/." He drains the wine glass in one gulp, glowering at nothing, and then starts eating the empanada as if to keep his mouth occupied so he doesn't keep ranting.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "Only when necessary..." Chas says, giving Jon a pitiful look. To Rien he shakes his head. "I don't intend to repeat the process if I can help it. We can't get drunk on normal sources. I drew on The Source directly. In the end I was carrying around the equivalent power of 'Let there Be Light' in a red solo cup. Fucking brilliant move on my part, right?"

    He arches a brow as Jon is shoving the letter at him. He is quiet as he reads and then sighs. "I'll have to track her down..." he says. "I don't think she realizes that, but I might as well head it off before it becomes something I can't just let go."

    He settles down and sips his water and takes a bite of the sandwich, holding up the letter. "Can I keep this?" he asks Rien with an curious expression on his face. "When I find her, and I am going to, it might help to have some direct quotes on hand."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"I'll admit, I feel a little out of the loop just now. Is there some part of this that I should know about that you two have intuited from the letter?" Rien looks between the two of them, one brow lifted. "I know that I kept more of a distance on the dealing with Lydia's.. issue.. both because she and I have had friction that I didn't want to antagonize with Viscera in her head, but also because the both of you are closer to her than I am. You have a better gauge on her."

She draws in a breath and adds, "That said. I can't help but feel like this whole time, since this thing with the Fears started.. the two of you have been talking and sharing information that isn't getting to me. Especially since Jon's return from that trip through Dante's Inferno." Rien smiles faintly, "Mind, this may just be me, but I felt it bore bringing up."

Looking from Chas to Jon, she nods to him, "So please.. what is it that is so troublesome about her letter?" To CHas, she nods and motions towards the letter, "She left it in the sitting room, so I presume it was meant for all of us."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "There's no information that I've shared with Chas that hasn't gotten to you, that I know of. Lydia cut out her empathy, because of whatever she faced when she went into the High Priestess door. She was so afraid that she ran away, let the Predator take over. And then under /that/ influence she was so afraid of the dream the Fears gave her that she gave into Viscera." Jon sighs. "And now... she's running away again. She could have come to one or both of you, talked about what should be done regarding her future in the JLD, asked if I was ready to talk to her... instead she leaves a note and runs off. She's a bloody coward, and it's--"

    He shakes his head, grinds his teeth. "I don't know what Chas is talking about. We've none of us--we should be talking more, we should be meeting like this regularly and making sure we're all in the loop. I'm sure there are things going on that I'm barely aware of, or Chas is. I think it's just... we let them distract us, and divide us. When all of this started with Lydia, I was so depressed and distracted I didn't make sure that you both knew what was going on and saw the danger. I dropped the ball."

    He takes another bite of empanada, still glowering at a tree in the distance like it personally offended him.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas nods along with Jon, keeping the note in his hand. He was aware of the situation with Lydia's empathy and what she had done. The specifics hadn't been laid out, but he was at least aware of it. And it tracked with what Jon was explaining. His own words however are a bit more complicated and significantly more recent. "I... I burned out the Beast in her. Incinerated it. It held the concentration of her guilt as well as a significant portion of the pwer that Viscera had given her."

    He makes a face and lets out a sigh that has nothing to do with air. "When I did it, I gave her an edict. A -divine- edict." He extends his hand and repeats the words, though this time without the overflowing divinitey flowing through his veins. "'Now go and make amends for the damage caused in error.' She has to fulfill that or... I have to discipline her. Usually that discipline is done with the sharp end of a sword."

    He quickly adds. "It's not like I want to. But even with Free Will there are things that even -I- can't get around as an angel. Edicts are one of those things. So I will need to track her down and force her into contrition. Or I will be -made- to track her down and forcer her into contrition if I don't act fast enough."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Listening first to Jon, then to Chas, Rien nods a little as she's able to put things together as more is explained. She sips from her wine often enough that she has to refill it before too long. She also plucks up one of the pasties and bites into it, chewing on it as she takes in both their revelations. Washing the bite down with another sip of wine, she focuses on Chas first since his definitely seems more dire.

"This edict. Was /she/ aware that you placed a divine edict on her, and that she has an obligation to fulfill? If not, that seems like... hm. A poor form of enforcing amends-making." Rien frowns faintly, "I also don't hear any sort of a timeframe in that edict. Is she compelled to do so immediately? Or does she have a certain grace period? She only just underwent the whole ordeal 24 hours ago. That seems like.. a rather short timeframe to give her to make amends for the things she's done."

Then to Jon, she smiles faintly and adds, "Most of us have taken time to lick our wounds after our personal ordeals with the Fears. Robbie ran away entirely. And I do mean, truly ran away. He didn't bother to leave word with anyone, or give anyone a chance to come after him. He slunk out and took Gabe with him. We know where Lydia is, roughly, and we know who is keeping track of her. We know we can find her if needed. I would suggest to give her a little time to try and figure out who she is now before chasing her down to call her a coward." Pausing, she clears her throat, "And that is difficult for me to say, she and I have not had the most pleasant of interactions, and quite often I feel she acts more like a teenager than an adult. But in this case.. she has to come to terms with what she did under Viscera's influence... but more... the fundamental of who she is has been irrevocably altered," she motions towards Chas.

Looking between them, she suggest, "Perhaps we can give her a little time to truly come to terms with everything. She's acting on instinct right now, she's lost /huge/ chunks of who she'd been, and she's scared and likely confused. She's.. grieving. Lets give her time to grieve, /then/ we can confront her."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I wasn't planning on chasing her down," Jon mutters. "Chas might be, but I'm not. She can take all the time she bloody needs. If she just hadn't said /anything/ yet, I would have understood. But, no, rather than face or talk to anyone--she leaves a note and runs away. And this isn't the first time. This is something she /herself/ admitted to. When she's in danger, she freezes and then runs. It's an entirely normal reaction, many people have it--but by now, in the life she leads? If she simply cannot face her fears? Then no, she shouldn't bloody well be part of a group like this. She should stay home and write her damn novels. She's /good/ at that."

    He shakes his head. "Forgive me for not having much sympathy just now. I'm not--" He pauses. "I do not have much patience for--"

    He shakes his head, and gets up. "Look... one of you signal me when you're done talking about Lydia? I can't. I can't, without getting /angry/, because if I have to hear one more person tell me to have /sympathy/ for her in the mental state I'm in right now I will tear this castle down in my rage and nobody wants that. But you /do/ need to figure out what to do, I just--I /can't/."

    He turns to walk away, toward a part of the garden filled with flowers, still holding his empanada.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas winces a bit as Jon gets up and walks off. He shakes his head. "When an angel, filled with the divine light of Heaven comes and tells you to do something, usually you do it, no matter what..." he replies. "It's not immediate and it's not like it's going to do anything to her if she doesn't. The guilt eating her is enough penance for her in the immediate. It's going to start bugging me in about... a fortnight. Two weeks. I hope by then she's come to her senses and realizes that running isn't going to help anyone. Least of all her."

    He raises the page and shakes it. "There's more here though." He calls over to Jon. "Jon! We're done! But the last bit of the letter! Have you heard anything about a prison in the castle?" he asks. "Or... I guess, given the location, a dungeon? A crystal dungeon?" he arches a brow.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien watches after Jon with a worried expression, giving a small sigh and looking back to Chas. "Okay, then lets give her at least a week. We can both hunt her down then and find out what's going on and what to do about it. We'll leave Jon out of the visit and we can deal with what we need to after, the next time the three of us sit down." She lifts both brows, "Will that suffice for your angelic requirements?"

Chas is calling back to Jon and Rien gives a nod, lifting her head to look back towards them, "Yes, please rejoin us. I think we've exhausted the topic and there is definitely more that needs to be discussed." She offers him a quick, warm smile.

Looking back to Chas, she offers, "It certainly tracks with what Maggot, I mean, Margaret said. Jon would probably be better to talk to about that. I am.. not pleased with this place and at least /some/ of its denizens just now." There's a mulish set to her jaw and a tightening around her eyes that show that displeasure more clearly than words.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon takes a moment to go ahead and lean on a tree and sob, letting the anger flow out into pain and frustration. It's not long, but it's enough to let him calm down some before the others call him back. He wipes at his eyes as he does so, sighing. "Sorry. I just--it's a lot. I need to talk to her, but not yet."

    Shaking his head, he sits back down and grabs up the wine glass. "All she said was that the lower levels were dangerous, and encouraged us to go investigate them. I think that's a good idea. We need to explore and investigate the rest of what castle beyond just what we use. But I suppose it... makes sense, in a way? Asag called us 'Wardens,' right? Maybe we're supposed to be watching over this prison? Or putting things in it?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas nods per Rien's suggestion but lets it lie there. When Jon returns and gives his assessment of the words his expression darkens. "More of that reason for it all, huh?" He eyes Rien for a moment. "There's a story there but I'm not sure it's one we need to touch on just yet. Crisis before us, interpersonal relations with the Attendants after."

    "Then I suggest we do that... and soon..." he looks at the ground. "I can't imagine getting into a supernatural dungeon is going to be easy so it might be best for us to get a start at the very least. Especially since... well..." He sighs. "There's just a lot of Old God to go around it would seem. Still got your dopple out there... and Megan's not right either."

    He runs a hand through his short mussed hair. "I need one more day to recover but after that I should be good to go... just... make the call and I'll be there."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"Oh don't get me started on this 'mysterious purpose' that we have here that /nobody will tell us about/ but that we have to uncover for ourselves, like this is therapy and not the fate of reality itself," Rien grumps and stares off to the side with a huff. She sips on her wine before nodding, "Definitely a story for later. I'll tell you over drinks sometime. Preferably in a real pub."

She looks to Jon and shakes her head, "You know I'm with you, but you also know how over the cryptic bullshit this place loves to throw out. I've already died for this place, literally, multiple times. I'm here for the JLD, but this place.. hm." She shakes her head again and sips on her wine.

She glances between them, and nods towards Chas, "That actually brings up a point for me. I'm going to be returning to the ivory tower, taking out the Stranger, and claiming its power for my own. I've been feeling.. drawn back there, and the pull of it keeps getting stronger. There's something happening, building, and I need to take care of it or I'm just going to keep getting more and more... testy? frazzled? Its like there's something I'm supposed to be, or be doing, and I don't know what it is and it's important and its putting my hackles up."

Rien clears her throat and looks to Chas, "What's this about Megan? I haven't noticed anything /too/ unusual for her, but she was acting a bit.. emotional.. at the warehouse."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I suspect there's very much been a certain amount of... testing going on," Jon says to Rien. "Imagine the damage Lydia could have done, if she'd known all this place's secrets and been able to give them over to Viscera? I think I passed whatever the test is, but--" He coughs. "Well, ahh... they know /quite/ well I'm incapable of lying, and have a tendency to just blurt things out to people. I suspect they're not telling me, so I won't tell people I shouldn't just yet."

    A shrug. "Or whoever made this place operates under the same principle I do, that a lesson one figures out for oneself will stick better than a lecture."

    He eyes Rien for a moment. "Back to the Ivory Tower? Well, if you're feeling drawn there, you should definitely go. I presume you'll want backup? Because I'll be glad to come help. I don't know much about it, or its defenses, though."

    They glance to Chas. "And... what's this about Megan...?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "I was working up the dossier for The Crawling Rot... which is almost done, I might add" Chas starts, "when Mike walked in. Michael Hannigan. Said that he had noticed some... odd behavior in Megan. More aggressive behavior than she's known for and that her Soul Dagger... the weapon that is forged from her soul... was red instead of pink. Which I noticed that last night as well."

    He pauses, sips his water, and continues. "He confronted her about it, and with her boyfriend managed to talk her down from the aggressive tendaencies she was displaying. She was visited by a nightmare and was presented with a choice by a mirror version of herself that turned into some sort of demon. Her options were simple, become the demon, or learn to control the powers inside her. She chose the latter. I don't know what that means, but..." he looks over at Jon, "it sounds vaguely like your friend or someone like her. Control. Power for a price that isn't clear on the outset?"

    He shakes his head. "I smelled one of them on her when we took down Lydia. I think we need to sit down and figure out what's going on, just so we know the specifics. Mike should be there too... so she doesn't bolt at the sight of us. Like she did last night."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
She nods, looking at Jon, "I have to. And I think if I start trying to draw out the Stranger, do what I need to do, then both Nikola and my doppleganger will show up. It will end up being a /fight/. They're serving the Stranger, both of them. They'll be there." Rien lets out a breath, "And if all goes well, we'll have more power on our side, and be able to take care of the lingering... issues.. from my Fears experience, all at once."

Looking to Chas, she frowns faintly and murmurs, "Megan has been struggling for awhile with her magic. I was hoping to get to her first, but.. everything going on, I'm sad to say.. I dropped the ball. I didn't reach out. I should have." Blowing out a breath, she looks between them, "I want to help Megan. She's a good person, has a ton of potential. And there's something about that Soul Dagger of hers.. we want to make sure she stays on the right path, or I have a feeling things could get even more catastrophic."

Frowning faintly, she sips pensively from her wine and murmurs, "There's something about that dagger... I need to hit the library again. There's something I should know and I can't recall..."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows hard as he stares at Chas. "The Mother of Puppets? Oh, good lord. That poor girl." He shakes his head and rubs at his face. "But that just underscores my feeling that the Velvet Room is waiting to see--that's /two/ of us now that have given into the Fears, and Rien's doppleganger got in here, and I was playing with fire with the Watcher for a while there. We need to bloody well sort ourselves out."

    He draws in a long breath. Lets it out slowly. "But... we need to talk to her, yes, before she does something she'll come to regret. Help her to fight this thing." He swallows. "If the Mother came for her--hmm. Control, manipulation, addiction..." He waves vaguely toward the greenhouse. "All too often people who are afraid of losing control wind up being obsessed with control, in return. Maybe she wouldn't have gone there without this interference--but it's worth remembering."

    They sigh. "We'll have to be careful with her--she's bloody insidious, the Spider. Maybe we'll be lucky and she hasn't fallen that far--certainly not if she's overtly different. The Spider's usually more subtle than that."

    He glances to Rien. "Where /is/ this Ivory Tower, anyhow? I never ran into it, nor heard much about it. Well, I heard about any number of towers but I'm not sure which you're meaning."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "There was a boat and a river. Lavenza led us to the dock and from there... we went..." He frowns. "Direct is weird here in the astral. I don't know the direction we went, I only know that we ended up at the edge of the astral plane. Between the Abyss of Nullspace and this plane was the tower."

    He grins at Rien. "And then Rien went and blew the bloody thing up. Brilliant, by the way..." he remarks with a grin to the woman. "But it's on the bank of a river... maybe this river you travelled. All the way to the edge? We can get to the dock at the very least and from there..." He shrugs. "Let's just hope we're not attacked by the One Alone again on the way."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"We should absolutely make talking to Megan a priority. We can't afford to keep losing people to these Fears. Not just because of the castle, but because /we/ keep dropping balls and we're supposed to be better than that. That's why we're the leaders. We're supposed to be picking up what others drop and making sure our people are holding together." Rien lets out a breath and frowns at the information about who might have Megan in thrall.

"We want to go about this carefully, very carefully. Megan is capable of great magic, she has it in her. But she's never had /real/ training in it, and she's been very afraid of hurting people with it when she doesn't mean to. It's made her very hesitant to really dig into her magic. If the Mother is showing her just how powerful she can be... that can quickly become addictive." Rien finishes her wine and offers refills all around before settling back, "But we should try to get a gauge on how things are going for her."

She flashes a quick grin at Chas, "Nikola practically dared me to do it. She didn't think I would. So I mean.. I was almost required to at that point." She sips her newly refilled wine and adds, "Besides, the look on its face after it was remade was worth it." Rien gives a nod, "It isn't /quite/ Nullspace. There's a bufer between the Astral and Nullspace, created by the clashing of the 'dreaming' and 'oblivion'. Its called the Void. A nebulous place between two dimensions that is part of both but also its own place. It's a place of shadows, darkness, and hidden or forgotten things."

She motions to Chas, "I had thought it an off-shoot of one of the Greek Underworld rivers, but it being an offshoot of the river you spoke of, Jon, makes more sense."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon nods. "The Great River... I think /maybe/ there's connections to the Underworld river? I'm told, on good authority, that the river that runs through Duat is the Styx, which is the Acheron, which--well. That they're all the same. And the Great River, it doesn't have proper tributaries. Instead of collecting water /into/ a watershed, it splits further and further into smaller offshoots--like a circulatory system." A pause, to sip his wine. "And a circulatory system has a return journey for the blood. I heard hints that the water recycles at some point through caverns 'below.' I /think/--and this is a wild hunch, but it feels right--I think that possibly those caverns are the Underworlds. But... well... that could be /entirely/ off-base."

    He shrugs. "That's neither here nor there, though, really. What matters is that if it /is/ along the Great River, then that might give us a good staging point for further forays into figuring out what they're trying to do. It's a long, long way down, but... maybe that means we've got more time than I thought before they reach the City."

    They hum softly. "I know what you mean, about the Mother--I know /precisely/ what you mean. Do you think you can help her with her magic? I'd be willing to try, but I've got two students already, and the other one is--a handful." They laugh. "Oh my /gods/, remind me to tell you about--I told the kid to create a water bottle and he--he teleported a man. Because..." They keep laughing. "Because the spell was... /quench my thirst/." They shake their head, still laughing.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas can't help but snicker at the recount of Jon's trials with his 'thirsty' apprentice. "Glad to know I'm not the only troublesome apprentice you have..." he replies. "Let's figure out how we can help her and once she can gets rid of her little Spider problem, then we can see about which of you takes her on?" he asks arching a brow between them. He sure as hell wasn't in any condition to teach her, that's for sure.

    He leans back and finishes off his panini and washes it down with water. "So we have a rather full docket it looks like. Megan, this dungeon, and your tower in the immediate..." he glances to Jon, "other things in the long term. And I will have the page on The Crawling Rot by tomorrow evening at the latest. I'll get copies to each of you and start dispersing them from there."

    He looks at Rien and then at Jon. "Rather productive conversation, isn't it? We really ought to convene like this more often but... well, there's been a lot to get through in a short amount of time."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Looking to Jon, Rien is about to answer when Chas jumps in. She chuckles lightly and shakes her head, then looks to Jon, "I was already intenting to offer tutelage to Megan, so yes, I'm more than happy to help her." She takes a sip from her wine only to nearly snort it out over the retelling of what happened with Jon's apprentice. "Well. If there's ever a delige of menfolk, let me know.."

She looks back to Chas and gives a nod, "And we have to keep an eye on Mercy as well. If that Crawling Rot came around once, it could show up again. The whole reason for... Margaret.. showing up in the first place is there was a worm from when she ran to the VR after being attacked, that escaped our sweep and was found in the lower levels of the castle."

Nodding, she offers, "Might I suggest we try to convene every few weeks? With how things have been progressing, that seems like a good timeframe to give us time to deal with the things we talked about in the previous meeting and gather up any information we need to bring to the next one." Rien smiles, "But I am glad that we were able to do this. We definitely should more often."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon snorts at Rien. "I'll be sure to let you know should there, in fact, be a rain of men." A pause, and then his brow furrows. "You mentioned Robbie... left. And took Gabe. I presume... well. I presume condolences are in order? If you need to--well--rage or cry or even just go out on the town, just let me know." He smiles, a bit sadly. "I appear to be the only one of us with a stable love life."

    He leans over to pick up samosa, takes a bite, and then stops. And blinks. "Alright, yes, we are convening every few weeks if you promise to keep making samosas. And here I thought the French couldn't use spices." He grins at Rien and then keeps on eating.

    "Oh, Mercy thinks one of them might have gotten in the plumbing when I helped her rinse off when she came in, so--we definitely need to check the lower levels."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas rolls his eyes at the joke from Rien and Jon's quip about a stable love life. Way to rub it in, Jon. He doesn't voice the irritation though instead nodding. "All the more reason to go down there. I'll see if I can't get in contact with Megan soon... I'll let you both know before we meet with her, the more of us there the better chance we have of pinning down what we can do to help her."

    About Mercy and her wayward passenger he nods. "All the more reason to keep an eye on her. They might've tried to use her to get into the castle. There have been more simply invasion vectors before. If they've done it once, no reason they won't do it again."

    He runs his hand through his hair again and stuffs the letter from Lydia into his pants pocket. "Never rains, but it pours... and not a single man among the torrent for Rien. A pity," he adds with his own smirk.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien smiles faintly towards Jon and shakes her head, "No need. I appreciate the thought but... I don't want to dwell on it. I'd rather get to work and focus on the JLD. Gods know we'll be here for an eternity, so we might as well make our mark now and set the tone right." She clears her throat and adds, "But when things quiet down for a minute, we definitely need to do a karaoke night." She lets the remark of the stable love life pass without comment.

Glancing back to Chas, she lifts a brow, "Are you sure you should be the one to contact her if she's terrified of you?" To Jon's comment, she laughs and winks at him, "I only said we didn't /need/ to use spices, not that we didn't know how. But yes, I can make more." She picks up a pasty and offers it to Chas, "You might like this. It's essentially pot roast encapsulated in puff pastry and lightly fried."

Leaning back, she sips from her glass of wine and glances sidelong towards Chas, "Oh there is... too bad he's too dense to recognize it." She quirks a faint grin before she glances back to Jon and adds in a conspiratorial 'whisper', "Thick skull, don't you know. But I keep at it. He's not entirely hopeless, after all." Siiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon almost chokes on the samosa, widening his eyes at Rien and then shaking his head. "Yes, well, good luck with that. Gods know you'll need it." He rolls his eyes, sits back, and sighs.

    "This is nice," he murmurs. "I'll bring something along next time, too. Potluck's a rather American thing to do." A pause. "The word actually comes from a traditional gift-giving feast from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, this tradition of giving things away to show power and wealth--and neither of you care, I'm sure." He smirks and shakes his head. "Competitive altruism's rather fascinating, though."

    He picks up the glass of wine. "But... well... there's food to eat and wine to drink, so here's the the Justice League Dark, I suppose? We'll figure this out. Even if we've been disorganized before--they're /scared/. We're going to win, I'm sure of it."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Whatever exchange that's going between Rien and Jon, Chas is utterly oblivious to it. Thick skull, indeed. He takes the pasty and gives it an exploratory bite. After a moment, the exploratory bite becomes more indulgent. "This -is- good..." he says, with a smile. They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, Rien might be starting to dig.

    At the proposal of a potluck he adds, "I'm not much of a cook myself, but I can figure something out to bring, if we're going to make a meal of it each time."

    He gives both of them a sly grin. "I'm sure there will be plenty of time for you to regale us with the etymology of many words in due time, Jon. But for now... I'm going to indulge in Rien's altruism."

    He eats more of the pasty and is mostly finished by the time Jon proposes his toast. Even so, he raises his glass of water and nods. "To the JLD and victory."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
She lets out a very long-suffering sigh and nods slowly, "Yes, yes I will..." Then Rien lifts her head and grins, "Thankfully, I have all the time in the world. Quite literally." Chuckling, she adds, "I might actually need it." Then she's sipping from her glass again and settling back with a contented smile.

"This /is/ nice. I really like this. And yes, please! I have entirely too much time on my hands just now so I've been cooking entirely too much. But I am more than happy to set up more of a potluck situation." The mini lesson has her smiling and adding, "Actually, you know, the whole thing about birthday presents /used/ to be about the birthday person giving their /guests/ gifts to thank them for coming and spending the day with them. It was an Egyptian custom originally, and it /was/ a means of competing amongst the very rich to see who could give the best gifts and throw the most lavish parties." She lifts her glass to Jon and smiles.

Then they're toasting and she lifts her glass higher, "To the Justice League Dark. To victory. And to us finally getting our collective shit together." Rien flashes a grin and takes a sip of her wine. Chas's enjoyment of the pasty has her smiling, "I actually blended British and French traditions together with those. I cooked the roast and made the gravy in the French tradition, used puff pastry instead of the usual dough... but the vegetables used, the cut of meat, and the construction itself is all British."