citylogs | [open mingle]

WHO: Anyone helping with prom renovations!
WHAT: An open mingle log!
WHERE: District 4, Science Discovery Center Planetarium
WHEN: Anytime until December 2!
WARNINGS: Please warn for content in individual headers!

An open mingle for threads relating to prom setup and the planetarium renovations!

★★★
Possible renovation activities include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Ripping out and disposing of a couple of rows of chairs in the planetarium to make room for a dance floor
• Laying down flooring for the aforementioned dance floor
• Clearing room for and rigging four stations where food can be prepared
• Kitschy photography station design
• Installing light fixtures, darkness shutters, and other aesthetic additions provided by Kaveh
• Playing toolbox dodgeball (IF YOU CAN DODGE A WRENCH...)
• Impromptu caber-tossing match feat. lumber somebody probably intended to use for something important
• Assorted various OSHA violations

Anyone is welcome to drop in a top-level, just please warn for content as needed on individual thread headers!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Got it! Okay, I'll go take care of that now, then.

[She'll be back for barriers later, but for now, she carefully scoops up those signs into her arms, and bustles off to deliver them.

A fair bit later, after bouncing around helping out wherever she can, and when most people have called it a day, she comes back to search out Alhaitham again.]

[Alhaitham will be lingering by the doorway as most of the other people have filtered out, giving Altria a nod in greeting as she approaches.] Ready?

Ready!

[She trots over, taking a deep breath, and then nods to him.]

Give me just a little bit of time. It won't be visible, but you can try to come in after a few minutes.

[With that, she heads right on inside to set up her bounded field--ideally.

The problem, of course, is that a Planetarium is a large building, and she does not have near as much power as she used to have. She gives it her very best shot, but by the time the bounded field clicks into place, Alhaitham will find that it's pretty easy to move into the planetarium itself, though eventually, he will hit a wall--an invisible one, set around the area where the majority of the renovations have been done, around the dance floor and some of the area being set up for food. All told, it's perhaps a barrier with a 30 foot diameter, but it seems pretty solid all around.]

[Alhaitham waits until the signal to move, and then he starts forward. The pace is slow enough that it's the toe of his boot that hits the barrier first and bring him to a stop. Alhaitham presses his hand to it, and then slides around its perimeter.]

It looks like it covers most of the area. [Not everything but enough that most people would be under its protection if something did happen.] I don't have any way to test its response to magic, but I assume it will withstand that as much as a physical blow?

Yes!

[The barrier remains solid under his hand, equally sound all the way around. At the very least, even if it isn't as large as she was hoping for, it is consistent.

She moves towards the edge of the barrier to better hear him and speak with him.]

Magic, creatures, and force--all such things are protected from by a bounded field.

It seems solid. [He's not about to bruise his hand to test it, but that it's working at all is a good sign.] Can you cross your own barrier?

Not one like this. I mean, I can, but it will undo the bounded field, because I'll be breaking the rules that were created for it.

If it was just a field intended to conceal the people inside, then me leaving it would have no impact so long as I could still supply it with mana... but if it's a field meant to keep people from coming and going, then...

[Her leaving completely contradicts its existence.

... And then, with a sheepish sigh:]

Maybe if I was a little better at it, I could make a more nuanced bounded field, but, um...

[She's not.]

[That's fascinating, actually, and makes Alhaitham think of that book on curses he has borrowed from Ghost: magic with expectations so precise that one can circumvent its intentions with some rules lawyering.]

Does that apply even if you specify the barrier to things that are a threat?

Um... to be honest, I haven't tried! I wasn't always very precise even back home with that sort of bounded field, and usually the idea was to keep everything bad out...

[So she never tried to leave it just to experiment with it.]

But I suppose it should work, logically.

[... Presuming Altria's magic doesn't perceive herself as a threat, which would be rather existential.]

You must have an innate sense of when your barrier is and isn't active if it drains mana. We could test it now.

Oh, yes, that's true.

[Setting up a barrier like this should be practically nothing, but ever since getting here, it takes a lot out of her--no wonder, really. She's back to being as weak as she used to be, if not more so...

Regardless, she dismisses the current bounded field with a wave of her hand, scrubs at her face, and takes a deep breath, putting her game face on.]

Right, okay...! One bounded field, keeping out only threats, coming right up...!

[She focuses, and she feels... a bounded field of some sort click into place. Alhaitham will find that he's able to walk through this one, this time--and while the barrier is invisible, there is a somewhat noticeable difference in the air between inside and outside of the barrier--because Altria is far from the most precise and detail oriented of mages.]

[Alhaitham waits, watching, as if Altria's movements will inform him any more just how her powers work. It seems not unlike Visions, that innate ability to control with mild gestures and will.

Once the new field is up, he steps forward. Pauses, cants his head, and then turns to walk back out of it.

He does this little circle two more times.] Interesting. It's passable but I can still sense what area the barrier has covered.

[He points it out nonchalantly, and she goes a little red, shoulders drooping.]

... A really, really good Bounded Field shouldn't be noticeable at all. So you have no idea if you walked into one or not.

[...]

But I feel like what I can do here is pretty limited...

Everyone is restricted. But since the entire venue can't be covered, it could be better that everyone can sense when they are within the barrier. Even those who don't have much experience with this sort of magic.

[She's abashed because it's lacking. But Alhaitham doesn't point this out for comfort--it's pure practicality that they're dealing with people with many different experiences and only as much power as they can scrape together.]

Oh... that's true!

[She perks up at that, even if he wasn't trying to comfort her. At the very least, it helps to know that her own inability to provide a more impressive Bounded Field isn't a hindrance.]

In that case, I think this'll work out just fine! Whewwww, what a relief.

[open mingle]

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