faderift | war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

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war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

WHO: Innovators
WHAT: Riftwatch hosts a world's first Cultural Exposition
WHEN: Now
WHERE: University of Orlais
NOTES: OOC post

Music filters through the expansive hall of the University of Orlais. The knot of musicians here to underscore any awkward silences with gentle lute plucking and flute piping are stationed under the glow of tall stained glass windows, and seem to be playing a tune that a few people among Riftwatch may recognise resembles the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams". It echoes off the rounded stone walls, where small stages and displays await the curious for closer inspection.

Welcome to the Riftwatch Cultural Exposition.

The Exposition takes place over two long days. A printed program has neatly allotted everyone windows of time for presentation, in which those in attendance filter towards the designated banner, corner, or antechamber (as desired) to listen with reserved or perhaps enthusiastic interest to the otherworldly.marvels on display.

In between these presentations, a mix of academics, artists, merchants, and miscellaneous others wander the hall, chatting together, engaging members of Riftwatch in conversation. Anticipate some curiosity into not only the items or ideas you have on display, but also the world you come from, and how it differs from Thedas. And remember to keep certain innovative information under lock and key for now.

A small taskforce of undergraduates have been recruited to assist in running platters of pizza and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies around the hall, in helping to set up display stages or assist in interactive demonstrations, or to shepherd the nearby crowd closer when it comes time for your presentation, so make use of them.

NOTE: Consult the Points Distribution Chart to see what kinds of threads can earn us points and therefore results from the overall event! Honour system in place, so please only mark a Bank item complete if you progress a thread relevant to that item.

Once we have some points banked, we'll figure out how to distribute their spending, so don't spend 'em yet!

Drop any questions you have here.

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Strange had wanted to present something more exciting and dramatic, which would obviously be the best way to turn people’s heads and draw their attention, but the prospect of running a live blood transfusion in the middle of a showroom floor was apparently a little too ambitious.

Baby steps, the others reminded him.

Which is how he spends his time at another table beside Cosima and her microscope, mostly doing middle school science experiments with, basically, papier-mâché. He demonstrates their plaster-wrapped mummy-esque figure, talks about how it provides a clean stable environment for bones to regrow unimpeded, how it’s like a splint but so much better. He slathers layers of plaster onto intrigued visitors’ arms passing by their table, letting them wander off before returning to be broken loose. At one point, a guest eventually starts panicking and prying at the solid cast, Get it off get it off get it off, and Strange is trying to keep them calm, but ultimately needs some assistance from someone else to pin them down and cut them out of it with a large pair of scissors. (“Lend a hand please??”)

In more successful visits, perhaps an interested party stops by, an NPC academic or wannabe-scientist or healer, and he starts talking their ear off about the science. Bars of soap are shoved into hands as expo treats, and he has to keep reminding the guests not to eat them. The food tables are the other direction.

In the evening, off-campus, he attends a fancy dinner hoping to woo some donors. He’s wearing an Orlesian mask in the manner of a plague doctor, but too decorative and raven-like to look real. He carries on eager conversation amongst the group, hands gesticulating wildly; or perhaps seeks refuge by the dessert table later with a fellow member of Riftwatch, taking a breather from all that schmoozing.

( also feel free to wildcard! hmu @

quadrille if you wanna confab. )

It works out, collaborating with Cosima. It means there are two pairs of eyes to watch the microscope so no one accidentally breaks or steals their quite literally invaluable artifact; there’s someone to help him with the messy plaster; there’s company to chat to whenever there’s a lull in the visitors; and, perhaps most importantly, someone to help smooth over Stephen Strange’s rough edges.

Some of his explanations have landed on deaf ears, or entirely bored ones, or occasionally with an impassioned fervour from Thedas’ equivalent of a mad scientist (he got along best with that woman), but today, he is struggling.

“Yes, they’re alive,” he says, bristling as a Chantry priest presses his skeptical eye to the microscope, “but the organisms are very much not magical. They’re just very small. This is mere science, ser, not rifter enchantment—”

Strange is, ironically enough, a person Cosima finds comfortably familiar. She certainly (at least to her knowledge) didn't know any sorcerers at home, but she knew plenty of doctors; the give and take of their microscope demonstrations, and even their chatter between, has an edge of familiarity that isn't unwelcome.

It's certainly more familiar than Orlais, even for her with her longer tenure in Thedas. She's opted to wear her Riftwatch uniform and no mask today. Even apart from the impracticality with her glasses, today she'd rather look like the rifter she is and invite those who want to ask questions to do so (at least within reason). She'd slipped away to see if she could score a couple of Jude's cookies for the two of them, and she got waylaid by just such curiosity on her way back.

Which was fine on its own merits. But another way in which Strange is familiar is the rising undertone of frustration she can hear as she returns. (Surgeons, she thinks, if not without some fondness.) She hustles a bit to join them.

As the Brother looks up, Cosima smiles and adds, "He's absolutely right. No magic at all. Are you familiar with the concept of a spyglass?" It's not disingenuous per se, but Strange has the context the Brother lacks to hear a particular tone that suggests Cosima may once have asked if someone would like fries with that, years ago.

It’s a welcome reprieve, Cosima swooping in to graciously deflect some of that energy like a very affable lightning rod: the priest isn’t hostile, exactly, just absolutely stony and implacable and perplexed. Strange shoots her a grateful look and shifts a little sideways so he can lean his palms against the table, moving a little out of view so the whiplash flicker of annoyance on his voice and that pulsing vein in his forehead are both a little less noticeable. He’s not patient even on the best of days — he’s doing better today than he did in Cledwyn last fall, however, steeling himself to be as polite as possible to the locals. Trying to be less of a walking PR disaster.

“Yes, but spyglasses look at things very far away, not up close,” the Brother says doggedly. “How is that relevant?”

I am going to murder him, Strange mouths to her over the other man’s shoulder.

She shoots him back a look that is easy to parse as no murder when the Brother glances down at the microscope.

"Did you ever look through a spyglass the wrong way, as a kid? Just because you were curious? The wrong way around, it makes things look farther, not closer, right? So the principle is similar. Curved glass lets you see things in a way your eyes couldn't do on their own, but it makes a difference how it's curved." She does genuinely like teaching the basics sometimes, but this man's stubbornness calls for full customer service voice. "So in our case, instead of trying to make far things look closer, we're trying to make small things look bigger."

Maybe he'll get it, but his facial expression doesn't give her much hope. On the other hand, at this point, if he leaves without Strange actively fighting him, maybe they can call that a win.

She’s so much better than him at this, and thank god for it. The Brother’s eye is still pressed to the scope as he makes a thoughtful harrumph.

“This grass is all just blobs of colour, like paint,” he says. “How could that be alive?”

“Fleas are very small and you can barely see them. This is like that, just even smaller.”

Nevermind that a flea in full high-resolution is like a monstrous horrorshow of an armoured creature, like something out of the Deep Roads, but— actually, that gives Strange an idea. “Water,” he says suddenly. “Try the water slide instead, you’ll be able to see some other things.”

Working like a well-oiled machine and tag team, they swap out the slide, the tiny slivers of glass with the samples in them. The Brother looks down again at the water, and then recoils in horror. “Those are are insects!”

“Yes,” Strange says. “Water is filled with microscopic life and tiny bugs. From ponds, rivers, and such. This is why you ought to boil your water before cooking or washing any injuries, so you don’t get that,” he points at the microscope slide, “beneath your skin or in your wounds.”

Terrifying way of phrasing it, but okay.

He's not wrong, but at the same time: "Not everything you can see moving in there will hurt someone. But unfortunately, since they're all too small to see, there's no way to easily tell whether a particular drop of water has something harmful in it. But as my colleague said, bringing the water to a full boil will kill nearly everything in it."

The Brother looks dubious, but at least shaken enough not to be dismissive. "It seems like something people would have worked out, if it were true."

Shooting Strange a small glance, Cosima says, "You may not know why, but I bet most people who live outside cities know that moving water is safer to drink than still water. And if a particular well or water source goes 'bad,' the creatures you can't see may be the cause. I'm sure people know that water can make you sick, they just haven't had the tools to learn exactly why, before." Glancing back at Strange, a silent prompt to back her up.

“Hmmmm,” the Brother says. “I suppose that’s true. Not that I work much with the ill, it’s mostly the sisters. I tend to the paperwork and the vestry.”

Strange, long-suffering, tries to keep the ball rolling. “It’s like how villages will drink a lot of beer rather than water, the former making fewer people sick. The alcohol kills the small organisms, though you might not know that’s what’s happening. I’m sure there are other examples.”

He’s been drawing on as much medieval-adjacent trivia as he can recall, but it’s like dredging the bottom of the lake for whatever he can remember from eighth grade history, and he’s running low himself. He does add, though, “So if one does invest in this craftmanship, with glass-makers and adapting telescopes, people could build compound microscopes and witness this for themselves, and help keep their environments sterile and healthy. It could be good for researchers and academics and any Chantry brothers or sisters who would like to learn more about— how the Maker’s world functions.”

Paying that platitude to the Maker feels like pulling teeth. It makes him feel like a used car salesman: hustling, schmoozing, trying to pitch strangers on this microscope technology.

“I’ll consider it. Thank you,” the Brother says, crisp, and there’s a contemplative pause as if he’s trying to think of any further questions. He also must be running low, though, because he eventually turns to walk off and the rifters watch him go, wondering if that particular interaction was a colossal waste of time.

“Well, we survived without a priest punching me in the face, so,” Strange says, musingly, weary as he leans his weight back against their table. “I’m having flashbacks to medical conferences. I feel like I should be handing out business cards. But it’s not like they don’t know where to find us. The Gallows is— distinctive.”

Setting up for the exposition also means enlisting some helping hands. In the absence of the brawny members of Forces, and the absence of being able to just telekinetically float everything off the wagons and into the museum proper, Strange offloaded some of these duties onto the younger members of Research instead. He’d sent a scrutinising look at Talis’ broad shoulders earlier — smiths could carry stuff, right? — but Peter was eager to help and quick to offer, which made the boy an easy accomplice slash pack mule.

Which is how Strange winds up directing his colleague while reading off the manifest, unloading materials from one of the carriages before the expo’s official opening time.

“Wysteria’s wind generator, the Thaumosphere…” he recites, his head bent over the checklist.

He’s simply listing off the inventory. He doesn’t realise, yet, that Peter has actually started picking up all of the crates as they’re named, starting to balance them in a precarious Jenga tower in his arms with a startling feat of strength.

Peter, of course, volunteered when he heard about the Riftwatch Expo; he's a nerd, anything involving technology is going to catch his attention. Especially in a place like Thedas, where there's technology and magic to contend with, and so many possibilities in between. He's still almost certain he's going to switch to Scouting eventually, but for now, Peter is content with his duties in Research, and so he happily offers his help where he's needed.

Of course, he quickly offers his services to Strange, without hesitation. This is a risk, given that he's still trying to maintain keeping the balance of the memory spell in place as best he can AND he's trying to keep his abilities on the downlow.

What this results in is...well. Hazardous slapstick seems the most apt description for it, honestly. As Strange lists off the various materials needed, Peter moves to pick up the matching crates, starting a Jenga-esque tower in each arm of various crates. Currently, he has about three crates balancing in each arm, which seems like a normal and not at all obvious amount of strength to him. He hopes.

"And uh, where do you need all of these again?" He calls out to Strange, wanting to make sure each crate goes where it needs to be, and that nothing gets damaged in the process.

“Off the carriage, and then into the great hall, I think. I heard we roped some students into helping us set up the tables and demos, but we’ll need to get the supplies in first, and I don’t really trust anyone unpacking them but us—”

It would figure, coming all the way here to show off their inventions only to have their hard work stolen, their priceless artifacts taken. So sue him, he’s being a little paranoid and handling Cosima’s microscope as if it’s made of diamond.

Strange ticks off the last item, then looks distractedly up from the manifest — and instead of seeing Peter’s face, he’s just faced with boxes. Wooden boxes. Very heavy wooden boxes, even if some of them are thin. He stares.

“Wait, are you okay?”

Somewhere behind all that is a kid from Queens, Peter’s voice slightly muffled. At least, he’s pretty sure there’s still a kid back there and he hasn’t been crushed yet —

"Off the carriage and into the great hall, got it," Peter repeats, both as confirmation and so he doesn't forget where he's meant to be going with all of the crates. (And also in case he needs to ask directions if he gets...sidetracked.) "And be careful with the unpacking too."

He can understand Strange wanting to be careful; from what Peter knows, everyone presenting here today worked hard on their inventions and to have those inventions stolen or misplaced would be devastating. Therefore, Peter's determined to do as much as he can to help protect these crates as well as deliver them where they need to be.

Strange asks if he's okay and Peter would give him a thumb's up if he had the hand to spare. As it is, he tries to make sure his voice is casual and reassuring all at once, as if it isn't unusual to see a young man balancing so many wooden crates all at once. (He's totally got this, he tells himself.)

"I'm good! Trust me, I've got this. I, uh, work out a lot at home," he says, hoping the lie doesn't seem as awkward and as obvious as mouthing said lie feels. "I'll make sure nothing happens to these crates, you can trust me."

“If you say so,” Strange says, dubiously. Can Peter even see where he’s going? Deciding to help, he picks up a folder filled with handwritten presentation notes (he’d had Cosima write it all down), shoves it beneath his elbow, and starts leading the way with his voice.

Not exactly being the type for strength training and bench-pressing himself, not knowing how heavy those crates are and if this is even humanly possible, Strange just has to take the kid’s word for it. He works out a lot. Okay.

“Alright, over here—” and he leads the way, holding open one of those tall doors for them to enter the university and walk across those marble floors. The walking tower of boxes wavers past him, a little wobbly, and Strange watches Peter move with an eagle-eye looking for the fault line, the overbalancing, where it might start to sway and topple. Thankfully, it hasn’t yet.

“I used to be able to bibbety-boppity-boo this stuff back home; it would’ve saved us so much time and effort.”

Peter does say so. But he also knows actions speak louder than words, so he focuses on carefully carrying the crates as best he can. He is grateful, however, when Strange begins guiding him with his voice; he tunes in and concentrates on following the direction of his words, moving as swiftly as he can while carrying such a load.

"Thanks," he says as Strange holds one of the tall doors open for him. He can see some of the boxes waver but, thankfully, nothing feels loose that he can tell.

He snorts before he can help himself, picturing Strange as the fairy in Cinderella, wings and all. "Did you turn pumpkins into carriages led by mice turned into horses too?"

For all the growing up Peter's done over the past year, he remains a smartass teenager. He lets himself indulge in the familiarity of sassing Dr. Strange just because he can.

A thing Peter has done before, and will always do again, because he can’t not sass Doctor Strange.

“Only if the mice really deserve a nice day on the town,” he says back, just as tongue-in-cheek.

For a second, they can just settle into this oddly comfortable banter and byplay: no greater worry than getting these boxes unloaded, their tables set up, their equipment unpacked, academics eventually impressed. There’s a few nerves associated with this expo and wondering how it’s going to go, if maybe Stephen’s gonna score an official reprimand from Tony by the end of it — but he’s been at this sort of thing before, giving presentations in front of a crowd. He thrives on attention. He’s not genuinely worried.

So it’s a pretty good day, in terms of the war. So in they go, and Strange maneuvers them over to the assigned area. “You can just drop them over here,” he says, but as Peter moves to set them down…

Peter might be strong, but he does not have eight arms. So the top crate slides out — starts to plummet and fall out of his reach — with a yelp, Strange instinctively goes to cast a spell, almost explodes it with a blast of too-strong telekinetic strength, before he remembers at the last second and summons a shield instead. The box bounces off the shield, slides sideways, and he pivots the arcane shield to smooth its descent down.

As focused as he is on capturing that top box, he doesn’t notice the quick reflexes or sticky acrobatics Peter’s about to undergo to secure all the rest.

"Generous of you," Peter replies, smiling to himself because he thinks Dr. Strange can't see his face and the way he allows a familiar fondness in his expression.

He follows Strange as he directs him to the area of the Expo where they need to be. Peter isn't presenting anything but he is excited to be here and to see what other people have to offer. This feels like the closest experience to a science fair and/or a Stark Expo Thedas has, and Peter finds himself taking comfort in that familiarity.

Peter gets too comfortable while trying to balance too many boxes; he sees and feels the top crate start to slide, and he curses louder than he means to, while trying not to react too fast so as to disturb the other crates. Unfortunately, his movements do just that, so Peter enages his Spider reflexes and sticky acrobatics to catch the various crates and set them down safely, uncaring, for now, as to who might see him.

When he finally sets the crates down, Peter lets out a long, low breath. He rubs a hand through his hair sheepishly.

"Okay, maybe I bit off more than I can chew."

Strange shoots the kid a slightly dubious look, assessing his build: small, lean.

“Yeah. I mean, no offense, you don’t exactly look like a body-builder.” He puts down his checklist on a nearby empty table set aside for their use, and starts prying open the first crate, carefully lifting out all the materials within.

“Are you fine running around being everyone’s Taskrabbit the next couple days? I know it’s probably too early in Research to present anything of your own creation.” A beat, “Do Taskrabbits even exist in your world? I’m assuming yes, but hell, maybe it’s called Choreweasel where you come from.”

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heartstumbles - 2023-08-21 14:51 (UTC) - Expand

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portalling - 2023-08-27 00:34 (UTC) - Expand

The side benefit for Joselyn of Niehaus and Strange's booth is that it is functionally much less work for her to present hand sanitizer when most of the work of explaining the basics of germ theory and handing out bars of soap is already being done by two of the more foreign and thus more interesting agents of Riftwatch— she's able to shift gears from explaining those principles themselves to focusing more on discussing the ways that she's worked alongside the Provost and other members of research to apply these ideas to principles of Thedosian alchemy and her work in, for instance, supplying and supporting the infirmary.

In a way, it's like a filtration system: the only people who really want to have a much less glamorous conversation with her after being sufficiently dazzled by Strange and Niehaus are those who are taking them seriously. In other words, those to whom her work is meaningfully useful, and who recognise it as such.

“I don't know about you,” sounds like a woman who probably has a wry guess that they are having different experiences, “but I'm having more fun than I expected. Tea break?”

She offers Strange a cup.

“Fun? No, it isn’t exactly my picture of fun.” Arch, frustrated. Strange has had to employ every meditation technique he’d ever learned at the temple: deep breaths, emulate his teacher as much as possible, try to put on that irritating cool placid facade of patience embodied —

But it means he takes the cup. Wong had always forced some mint chamomile into his hands whenever he’d gotten too worked up; it keeps his hands busy, gives him something to focus on, something to anchor himself by. He breathes in, exhales, tries to feel his heartbeat thrumming low through his chest, arms, hands, fingertips. Blows on the hot liquid, lets it settle.

Finally, he looks up at her. Joselyn Smythe. Attached to Tony, which is a thing Strange has noted but hasn’t pried too closely into. He’s very professional. (Mostly.)

“All the true idiots have gotten bored and wandered off before they even get close to your table. I’m jealous.”

“And I'm grateful,” she says, dry, holding onto her own cup and taking up a comfortable position at his elbow. She's a slight woman — at this distance, slight enough he can probably see down to the slight shadow at the roots of her hair suggesting it isn't naturally as light as she wears it. Joselyn Smythe, alchemist. There's a lot of uses for her work, and some of them are just for style points. “It's a good example of the synthesis of your theories into Thedosian reality, though. I make it plausible. The clever ones are going to get ambitious.”

And that's the idea, isn't it— that all of this will go somewhere, build on something. That being frustrated today will be worth something tomorrow.

“I suppose it’s a reassurance for them, a flesh-and-blood Thedosian talking about our insane rifter theories and sounding very convinced. Plus, you look respectable.”

He takes a sip, watches the ebb-and-flow of movement through the great hall, the people drifting from table-to-table. Some of the other tables are flashier and so have been drawing more attention, heads on a swivel, students goggle-eyed like tourists.

Tony must be used to this; there have been so many Stark Expos. Strange had never attended, although there had been some murmuring in the medical community about wanting to adapt those fully-articulated robot assistants for new laparoscopic techniques. It’s all a million miles away.

He drags his attention back to Joselyn. “Do you have any experience with this sort of crowd? You’re very learned.”

They had shared the Research workroom, he’d overheard bits and pieces of her discussing her alchemic concoctions even if it wasn’t his specialty, and she spoke well to the academics who did wind up at her table. He wondered if she was some professor, perhaps formerly some university scholar.

With a shake of her head, “No, our Circle had nothing like this.”

One thing he will never have seen her do is use magic, though he may have observed her carrying a staff— bladed at one end as they often are, identifiable as one a mage might carry but never used that way. Habit, maybe, more than anything else. Habit, and the obvious benefit to habitually carrying a weapon in these trying times.

“Skyhold sometimes would have...not exactly this, but there'd be visiting scholars, more often than in the Gallows. Nothing like this sort of crowd. Alchemy was a very solitary occupation in Markham.”

Less magical than most of what was being studied in that tower.

The mention of a Circle cinches it, looping back and closing the small question which had occurred to him a while back in lieu of witnessing any spellcasting: could, like, anyone wield one of those bladed staves? He had set the question aside, then mostly reached the sensible conclusion: she must be a mage, and therefore she’d automatically ticked another couple notches higher in his esteem.

“Wish we had more of that,” Strange muses, thoughtful, looking out at the minor sea of minor scholars. The University of Orlais had the familiar and well-loved feel of bustling academia, if more grandiose than back home. He’d had eight years of higher education. Although he likes to get his hands dirty, some part of him will always be comfortable in halls of learning like this.

(An ally had said that to him once, a couple days into knowing him: I think I just discovered your superpower, Doctor Strange. Surgeon, sorcerer… You, sir, are an excellent student.)

“Hopefully we can get some of that out of this exposition,” he adds. “Visiting fellows, guest lecturers, a knowledge exchange. If we trust them within the Gallows.”

“There's the rub,” Joselyn says, wry, “that if. But it's not as if we haven't got the space, you know.” All the unused rooms from when the Gallows housed so many more bodies than Riftwatch has; even the prepared rooms in the central tower for guests, mostly accumulating dust (and periodically having it cleared away).

Transforming the Gallows into a hub of learning the way everything she's ever heard says it wasn't even as a Circle... there's an appeal to that, she can admit.

Strange stands by her side, sipping his tea and contemplating that vision of a potential future. “Something to consider,” he says. “There’s so much I don’t know about local magic. I could probably do a year abroad here on study exchange and still not be satisfied. If, y’know, there weren’t a war on.”

He glances over at Joselyn. There are probably subtler ways to do this, to get to know her, but he’s not good at it — prefers just cutting through the knot, getting straight to the chase even if it’s not the most delicate approach.

“So, how long have you and Tony been together?” he asks, lightly. As small talk goes, it’s the sort of thing he might ask a friend’s girlfriend at a cocktail party; this setting will simply have to be close enough.

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obdurata - 2023-08-14 08:48 (UTC) - Expand

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portalling - 2023-08-16 02:43 (UTC) - Expand

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war table: the riftwatch cultural exposition.

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