017.5 Ithea

[Corwin]

[21:03] <Kotono> Sleep. Ithea dreams of things she can't remember - the only thing she remembers is the sound of a knocking on her bedroom door. It ruins her dreams, chasing them away - something pleasant, something that slips through her mind like water through a sieve.
[21:05] * Ithea yawns as she gets out of bed. "Coming!" she calls out, making sure she looks somewhat presentable before moving to open the door.
[21:07] <Kotono> At the door you find Adrian. "Did I wake you from a cat-nap," he says with complete aplomb, grinning. "You awake enough for something?"
[21:09] * Ithea rolls her eyes. "Seriously, get new material, Adrian. Or at least try to be more subtle. Like...'Did I pull you away from a warm sunbeam?' or something," Ithea retorts. "And yes, I'm awake enough. What do you want?"
[21:16] <Kotono> "Your help," Adrian answers back, "Have you seen the giants play Galuh before?"
[21:18] <Ithea> "Yes, why? Did you get challenged to a game or something?"
[21:21] <Kotono> "Not a chance," Adrians norts, "No, no. There's been a growing betting pool over Galuh games in the courtyard. There's some money to be made in them, if you're game."
[21:25] <Ithea> "You didn't lose enough money against Arrel, the princess and our friendly neighborhood vamp? Want to lose money to me too?" Ithea asks with a grin.
[21:28] <Kotono> "If I was playing fair, yes?" Grinning right back, "No, I'm thinking of the two of us enhancing our odds to win."
[21:29] * Ithea gasps. "You want to cheat? How -terrible-!" she says, then pausing, asks. "Okay, outrage out of the way, what are you planning?"
[21:33] <Kotono> "Magic. Subtly using your magic to influence things in our favor. Dumbing down the bet leader to get better odds, managing to sabotage certain competitors, that sort of thing."
[21:37] * Ithea raises an eyebrow. "You do realize most of my magic isn't exactly subtle, right?"
[21:40] <Kotono> "Well then, be subtle," Adrian says, "Can't you manage to slip in a bit of useful magic in the sly?"
[21:43] <Ithea> "About the only thing I could do that might be subtle is using ghost sound to distract a giant just as he's about to make his throw. I think they'd notice magic if I touched them, or a ray went blasting from me towards them," Ithea replies.
[21:47] <Kotono> "Mmmm." Adrian murmurs, "I thought you had more subtle magic. Alright, change of plan then," he says, "How would you go about doing this with what you have?"
[21:51] <Ithea> "Like I said, ghost sound is about the only thing I could do that might work. Everything else is a little too obvious. If you want something more subtle, you might want Tepen or Annalise. I'm sure they have the skills to disguise their spells, but it's not something I ever really bothered learning.
[21:51] <Ithea> Never really mattered before if people know I'm the one casting a spell that's screwing them over, y'know?"
[21:52] * Ithea pauses and then adds, "Well, not Tepen given his problem with casting magic..."
[21:52] <Ithea> "Forgot about that for a second," she says with a small wince.
[22:02] <Kotono> "Hm." Adrian frowns a bit, "The reason for doing this is to scare up some extra money for Aurora repairs. We could use all we can get for it, you know?"
[22:06] * Ithea nods. "Yeah, and the green dragon thing didn't pan out for money, even if Jaela did get a pretty nice spear out of it. But unfortunately, my magic really isn't meant for subtlety in general. It's all show of force stuff, so..." she says with a shrug. "Otherwise, I'd do it just for the giggles, honestly, not even the money so much."
[22:15] <Kotono> "Hmph." Crossing his arms and staring off, "It's harder to make money around here than I'd like. The sooner we get Aurora repaired, the better. Let alone equipping soldiers and improving our own equipment. I'm not really in it for the amusement factor."
[22:19] <Ithea> "Who says pleasure and money can't go hand in hand?" Ithea counters. "We haven't been doing too bad with repairs in any case. Labs did come out a little more costly than I'd hoped, but we've gotten them fixed up quite nicely, and we have the field up now around the fortress."
22:25] <Kotono> "Yeah," Adrian agrees after some thought, "Still." He kicks at the ground, "The sooner the better. I doubt we'll be left alone forever."
[22:28] * Ithea nods. "We know those damn devils know about us, and our little princess' daddy is definitely going to act sooner or later...oh yeah, and the gith's queenie will probably want to kick our ass if we keep her waiting long enough just for the offense," Ithea admits. "We're definitely growing popular."
[22:33] <Kotono> "More reason to get things together," Adrian says, "Ah, the hell with it. Want to get breakfast? Got a couple of friends we can eat with."
[22:34] <Ithea> "Sure. Oh! Speaking of friends, have you met 27? He's my new minion!" Ithea says cheerfully. "You'd like him, I'm sure."
[22:36] <Kotono> "The badger thing? I saw it - it was climbing the walls of Aurora. How the hell did it do that?" Frowning, "It walked up them, then in the air from the outer walls to Aurora proper."
[22:38] <Ithea> "It's from Limbo," Ithea says drily, as if that explains everything. It doesn't really to her, honestly, but given what Limbo was like, it really is all the answer one needs.
[22:38] <Kotono> "Oh." Adrian merely nods to that, "That makes entirely too much sense."
[22:42] <Ithea> "I'm going to miss Limbo, honestly. Had so much fun there, dragon maw made out of acid aside," Ithea says wistfully as she starts heading towards the cafeteria like Adrian had suggested.
[22:47] <Kotono> Adrian stops there, "You enjoyed Limbo?"
[22:50] * Ithea nods with a grin. "Felt almost like I was at home or something, weirdly enough. Apparently I have a gift for manipulating the environment there, it's why 27 latched onto us, calls me Lord 888 and stuff," Ithea answers. "Our green dragon had the ability too, it's what prompted the dragon maw I just mentioned. He didn't take kindly to me rearranging his home."
[22:51] <Ithea> "Well, he wasn't a green dragon anymore, rainbow work-in-progress dragon, come to think of it," she adds. "You really missed out."
[22:52] <Kotono> Pausing to rub his forehead, "I'm rather glad I didn't come. The entire things ounds like a surreal daydream after eating bad mushrooms."
[22:54] * Ithea laughs. "We did that too, remember? Or Willim did, anyway."