newroutines | Party!, Purposefully Creepy Mansion, Thursday Evening

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Party!, Purposefully Creepy Mansion, Thursday Evening

It was once more Halloween, and the island had finally calmed the fuck down again.

Well, mostly. The Jack O'Lanterns outside in the yard lighting the way to the house occasionally laughed in a PG-rated creepy fashion, and bat cut-outs flew around the ceiling above the partygoers' heads, and the black cats printed on the sides of balloons flicked their tails back and forth and sometimes hissed at people when they went by.

And because it was tradition, there was a bloody goblin in the fridge, complete with a name tag identifying it as April. Only this time, whenever you opened the door to get something, it'd tell you whatever you were grabbing was actually poison...ously delicious!

(Shut up, it was made of plastic, its punning game wasn't the greatest.)

There were also once more lots of snacks, lots of drinks, and way too many kinds of jello shots. But fewer renditions of Monster Mash on the Spotify playlist for this party, this year! So far, anyway. Mike had a sign up againwith instructions on how to find the playlist and add songs to it, so that may not last all through the evening.

[ooc: OCD up, have at! OPEN TO ALL! If you're an adult, you got an invitation! Students are welcome to try and sneak in should they so wish, but may be politely removed from the premises.]

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"That's fair," Duke said. "They even have Halloween where you're from?"

“Nah.” Beau looked down at the empty jello shot cup in her hand and snorted a laugh. “We have Harvest’s Close, and there’s a few religious holidays, but most of the gods are kinda totally illegal where I’m from, so … not a lot. And nothing like this.”

"The . . . gods are illegal. Like, the worship of them? Or are they actually all piled up behind some great, metaphysical 'keep out' sign or something?"

“Actually, yes,” Beau replied. “There's this Divine Gate thing -- they can't actually manifest on our plane, they barred themselves from doing that like hundreds of years ago. It's a whole long story. But no, the Dwendalian Empire only has six of the gods that they consider legal to worship."

"Wow. That's . . . huh." Yeah, he didn't really know what to make of that. "What if your religion is more based on, like, a really spiritually pure person and not a full on deity?"

“That’s a good fucking question.” And not one Beau had ever had occasion to think about before, given that the most exposure she’d ever had to religion was after she’d been dropped at the monastery. “Whatever the answer is, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have heard it, you know?”

"Totally fair," Duke said. "And hey, it's not like I'm planning to go to your world and start proselytizing or anything. Maybe just tossing off a few fortune cookie phrases as most."

"That's probably about all you could get away with before the Crownsguard started keeping an eye on you." The Empire was so much fun. "But now you have me all curious about how this religion works."

"Buddhism? The basic idea is that we're all here to, like, seek the truth of the universe. And every life we live is part of the process of learning that truth. A Buddha is a person who's figured it all out, and doesn't have to keep being reborn again and again anymore. So, like, you can follow their advice to get closer to enlightenment, but they're not a god or anything."

Beau had a detached but attentive look on her face at the beginning of that explanation, but by the time Duke was done explaining, the detachment had faded away and she just looked interested.

"It's all totally voluntary? That's ... huh. That's new."

She'd appreciate the truth-seeking aspect of it all more someday soon, too.

"Sure. I mean, there are plenty of people who were raised to it, but yeah. Like, I figure I'm good to live a couple dozen or so more lifetimes, thanks. Even if I do end up coming back as, like, a fish."

Sometimes being a fish sounded nice, honestly.

It sounded interesting, though Beau would rather come back as a bird. Some kind of cool raptor, if she had her way.

"Being a fish might give you an interesting perspective, maybe? Like just from getting a real up close and personal understanding of the food chain and some deep and philosophical interpretation of that."

She was pretty sure she'd seen something to that effect in a book she'd flipped through before reshelving it, back at the Cobalt Soul library. It had been in reference to shapeshifting spells and abilities, but close enough!

"It totally could," Duke agreed. "Plus, you know, you could breathe under water."

He'd maybe always kind of wished he could do that.

"Yeah, that'd be super useful," agreed Beau. "Not something I thought about that much when I was a kid, but now that I'm, like, surrounded by the ocean here, kinda seems more relevant, right?"

"Having spent most of my life surrounded by ocean, I can assure you it is very relevant, yes."

"Not much ocean in the Empire," Beau explained. "Just the frozen shit way up north, and we're surrounded by mountains otherwise."

“What kind of empire doesn’t even have any ports?”

Beau spread her hands and shrugged broadly. "Dude, I don't know. The Menagerie Coast has all that shit, I guess we have some arrangements going on there. Unless we end up slowly taking that over, too."

Because King Bertrand Dwendal was a jerk.

"Well. It is an empire, after all. Taking things over is kind of what they do."

Beau had paid more attention in her history classes than she was willing to let on, so she didn't go into a brief ramble about how much of western Wynandir had gradually been eaten by the Empire.

"Yeah," she said instead, rolling her eyes. "Where I'm from kind off blows, let's leave it at that. Anyway. This truth of the universe thing. Is there some kind of absolute concept of what that is, or is it subject to personal interpretation?"

"I think it's supposed to be one ultimate truth. It all has to do with desire being the root of suffering, apparently." He sipped his drink. "Another reason why I am still a very long way from figuring it out."

"… oh." That pained grimace on Beau's face probably said it all, huh? "So if you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to … stop wanting things? That’s. Huh.”

"They always get you in the fine print," Duke said sympathetically.

“Seems like less shitty fine print than other religions, though,” Beau said after a second, and then wondered when exactly she’d started making the occasional attempt to find a positive spin on things. “Like, it doesn’t sound self-serving at all, does that make sense?”

"It totally could," Duke agreed. "Plus, you know, you could breathe under water."

He'd maybe always kind of wished he could do that.

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Party!, Purposefully Creepy Mansion, Thursday Evening

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