[phone calls OTA] Technical Difficulties

[st_abby]

He'd passed by the alien, gleaming thing in his room a hundred times by now, or nearly must've done, and hardly stopped to examine it. It was strange, but so were most other things in this place. A shiny, awkward looking device attached to the wall by means of a long cable, set on one of the little tables that seemed to litter these rooms. It had neat rows of square buttons with numbers etched on, and a handle, so Vax'ildan had supposed it was meant to work some feature of the room in a way he could scarcely imagine. He didn't want to break it, but eventually the boredom and curiosity got the better of him, much like with the door locks. It would probably fix itself, if it came to that.

After the first few moments spent listening to the monotonous warble that came from the handle, Vax'ildan reached to jab a finger into a button. When it beeped but did no more, he pushed another. And a third...

OOC Note: If you would like a thread with Vax, please leave a top-level comment to this post and he will reply! No need to pre-arrange, but as one does when learning new technology, he may disconnect the call etc. accidentally or your character may tell him to leave them alone in very few words if they so choose - most of these threads are likely to be short.

Comments

[st_abby]

"I prefer daggers," he admitted, since she seemed to have an interest. "Sneak in close, stick them, disengage quickly. I can do a lot of damage, and I can dodge well, but I can't take many direct hits."

[st_illunsmeared]

All seventeen cloaks? The words tugged at her mind, connected with a memory and the voice suddenly slotted into place. Phryne quirked a sly little grin, pleased with her sleuthing, and that Vax'ildan proved to be as interesting as he looked.

"All the more reason to come to my room, Vax'ildan. I'm sure I have a stray scarf," she replied, smile evident in her voice. "And you'll see I can have food brought to my room, although whether or not I'll tell you how I accomplished it rather depends." On what, she hadn't decided, but Phryne didn't doubt she'd think of something. She always did.

[st_abby]

Vax wasn't surprised that she had recognized him. There weren't so many of them, and they all needed to make use of the common areas. He hadn't placed her yet, though he likely would once he saw her face. He was surprised that she knew his name.

"So much for anonymity," he said lightly. "How did you figure out my name?"

[st_eadiesthefour]

Vax had not known the wires would carry his voice to Constance – was it always so random, she wondered, or could you send your voice to the right person when you wanted to? It wasn't much good if you couldn't, she decided, and scholars of the future were so very clever coming up with their machines.

But if talking to Constance had been more like unexpectedly running into a friend at the markets, he must have more to do than explain the device to her when it was so difficult without being able to at least see what the other was talking about. "Sank you, Vax'ildan, et bonne journée."

[st_unning]

Alcuin saw what Vax was doing, and offered him a little smile. "Oh, was I the one teaching you? Considering I did not know what it was called until a moment ago..."

[st_illunsmeared]

"A lady never gives away her secrets," Phryne replied lightly, teasing, but then told him, "I've spent a great deal of time observing people and learning things they didn't wish me to know. Since you haven't made any effort to hide your name, learning it was a simple matter. Applying it to your voice, the insight of a moment connected to the word cloak."

[st_abby]

"Let's learn how to work it together," Vax offered compromise with a smile of reply. He showed Alcuin to where his machine sat, picking up the handle.

"The part you listen from, and talk into," he began, knowing that Alcuin had learned as much already. "And these numbers here are connected to the rooms..."

[st_abby]

He didn't know the exact expression he used, but he took her meaning well enough. "And goodbye to you, Constance," Vax told her before putting the handle of the phone down onto the base again.

[st_reyofsunshine]

For a moment, Rey is silent.

"Would you mind teaching me?" she asks. "How to avoid being hit, I mean. I'm sure there's something I can teach you, too, if you'd like. Maybe how to fix things, or salvage them."

[st_accato]

Buffy blinked at the phone and then her lips curved into a large smile. She finally connected the voice but it wasn't until he'd connected first. "Hey you. Yep that's me. So you're mastering the phone, huh?"

It had taken a couple of weeks for Buffy to realize that he wasn't under the costume spell as the hottie elf. He was a hottie elf. She still was convinced that Ethan was connected to the hotel in some way.

[st_abby]

"That's..." Vax was a bit nonplussed to hear how conversationally the man had put all of that.

"You and your buddies in this order, you decide this all in secret? What to keep, what to share, who should live, who should die?"

[st_abby]

"Teach you to dodge?" Constance wanting to learn how to use a dagger seemed an easier thing to teach, all told.

"I suppose that I could show you a few things. Something of timing, how to read your opponent's movements, sure," he agreed after a moment. "But a lot of it's you - how swift and nimble you've got the ability to be, your reflexes - and a lot of it's time. I've been trying not to get killed for a good long while now."

[st_abby]

"That's really clever," he admitted. "It's true, cloaks aren't exactly the fashion around here. Well done, fair lady. I'm not quite as clever as you - I still haven't got your name figured out yet."

[st_abby]

"It's a bit early for anything like 'mastery.' But I've figured out the part where you give the machine numbers and you can have a conversation between rooms," he allowed himself that much credit.

[st_reetwolf]

"And Nobby wasn't even the worst. Ankh-Morpork had a river so polluted you could walk on the crust on top mostly safely." And she knew of at least one dog who'd been loaded in a sack with rocks, tossed 'in' the Ankh, and squirmed out of the sack to trot back to allegedly solid land no worse for wear.

She wondered absently how Gaspode was doing. Likely well, as he was quite clever for a dog. "So never you mind the musty bird smell. At worst, I can smell you coming, but I could do that anyway."

[st_reyofsunshine]

"I appreciate it." And it's clear from Rey's tone of voice that she does. "But what's been trying to kill you?" There's plenty of things where Rey's from that could kill you -- especially on Jakku.

[st_illunsmeared]

Although not a woman who needed praise, Phryne nevertheless basked in compliments, especially compliments on her mind. Why shouldn't she? After all, she had earned them. It put a touch of that earlier purr back in her voice when she replied, "Haven't you? The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher. But you may dispense with the formalities and call me 'Phryne'."

[st_udious]

"In this particular instance, she was kidnapping virgins so she could sacrifice them and open a gate to purgatory and release a far greater-" He cut himself off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I wasn't high enough in the order to make those kinds of decisions. Beyond that, I'd hardly call them my buddies and it hardly matters now anyway."

[st_abby]

"Phryne," he tried it pleasantly. "Clever and Honorable. Now I'd really like to meet you, though I still feel you're getting the short end of the bargain."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Darling," she purred playfully again. "Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

[st_abby]

"What hasn't been, would be the easier question to answer," Vax pointed out. "All sorts of people, monsters, dragons, demons," he rattled off easily enough. "A goliath with razor burn, on occasion."

[st_abby]

She could probably hear his wry grin. She flirted like Vex bargained - natural as anything. He could appreciate it without reading too much into it. "You'll have to give me a where and a when."

[st_abby]

"Well that sounds pretty disgusting, but I'm glad not to offend your delicate snout," he told her in good humor. "I'd better get back to working this thing out, but let's sniff each other soon."

That did get weird.

[st_abby]

Vax might've argued, but there didn't seem to be any point to it.

"Is all of this a treat, or it it terrible? To be locked up in the zoo with all the strange creatures you'd write about from a comfortable distance back at home." And Vax was sure that the voice had noticed by now, given his work, how many different varieties of resident there were. He was willing to bet it would make an unusual living arrangement even for this learned fellow.

[st_udious]

There was a heavy pause on the line. "I wouldn't qualify anyone here as a strange creature," Henry finally said. "The people here are people, regardless of what else they may be beyond humanoid. The population of this place doesn't bother me. No one here has given me any reason to fear them. The Inn is a mixed blessing. I'm grateful to be here, to be alive, to get to know my grandsons and meet several other wonderful people I wouldn't've otherwise. That I know I never make it back to the place I originally came from isn't any fault of this place. Please don't confuse my academic non-combative nature with someone who doesn't care about the beings around him."