MASQUERADE PARTY, 33 Apocalypse Ave, Friday Evening

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Party night. The best of nights. An ornate sign on 33 Apocalypse’s door invited all to knock and make themselves known.

The space inside was bigger than it looked from the outside, stretched and displaced by magic. The wallpaper was green and textured, hinting at the English countryside. On one side of the room sat a significant bar offering food and drinks, while the other gave ample space to sit. A large Jenga tower held prominence in a corner.

It was easy to miss it, though, in favor of the little streams of water that ran across furniture and floor. Tiny glass gondolas, animated by magic, made their way back and forth across each stream. The gondolas were real, though the water itself was an illusion. It called attention to the ceiling, doubly enchanted: both to draw all cigarette smoke to itself so it wouldn’t blow in anyone’s face, but also to mimic the starry sky above Venice.

You could watch the stars twinkle, or see the occasional cloud go by. Magical fireflies added to the illusion, dancing through the air like tiny lights. If you listened closely, you could hear the sea rolling in across an invisible beach. Even the air smelled faintly of it: the sea, warm food and good wine.

Welcome to Eliot and Margo’s pad, people. They’d make damn sure you had a good time.

[ocd up, come party!]

Comments

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

Liz had a drink and was trying not to be as awkward as she felt as she stood off to the side and watched what was going on. She took a sip of her drink, trying to tell herself that she could handle a party for a few hours.

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Hopefully the woman who had sold him the camera wouldn't mind him taking her picture with it? Because here was Jon with the camera, taking her picture.

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

Liz didn’t mind at all, she spotted Jon and smiled when she saw him with the camera. She waited til he finished, “I take it there are no problems with the camera then?”

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"No, thank you," Jon answered. "It's working fine. Oh, um." He waved a little awkwardly. "Jonathan Sims, by the way. Jon." They'd never really gotten around to introductions.

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“Oh that’s good,” she smiled because she’d imagine that it would be a rather awkward conversation otherwise, “I’m Liz, Liz Sherman,” she said.

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"It's, um. Good to meet you. Or, um." Jon gestured vaguely. "You know." God, he was bad at this.

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“Same here,” Liz smiled and then paused, “so …uh…are you enjoying the party?” Liz wasn’t that much better at this either.

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Oh, yes," Jon hurried to say. "I think so."

Helpful, Jon.

"I, um. I'm not much of a party person, really," he confided.

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“I’m not much of one either,” Liz admitted, as evident by the fact that it took her ages just to step into the house, “it’s been a while since I’ve been to one, my former employer didn’t really have a lot of social gatherings,”

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"My former employer was, um." Jon grimaced. "Wildly evil? So, um. Not a lot of big parties like this, no." He thought about it for just a moment. "Thank god."

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“Oh,” Liz said, “mine was a government agency that protected the public from the supernatural, not many people back home know about it so kind of makes having parties a bit hard,” she gave a small smile, “the public relations agent already had a challenging job convincing people we didn’t exist,” even though admittedly she had been the cause of the most recent amount of stress thanks to the whole Pittsburg incident.

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Oh!" Oh, good, that made conversation a little easier, anyway. "We were a, um. A private institution for researching the supernatural, at least officially. Most people just thought we were crackpots."

He grimaced. "It turned out we were a temple to an eldritch fear entity, though. Not, um. Terribly conducive to fun parties."

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“Oh,” Liz blinked, “no I can imagine that it wouldn’t have been ideal,” she said, “sounds like some of the missions I used to go on,”

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Oh? The, um. I'm curious which part, if you don't mind," Jon said.

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“We’ve had a few encounters with a cult trying to bring Rasputin back,” Liz explained, “Professor Bruttenholm encountered him in 1944, it was our worlds first encounter with a demon dimension and where one of my former team members comes from, Rasputin’s goal was to bring about a demon apocalypse so far we’ve been able to stop that happening,”

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I...right. I'm sorry, Rasputin and demons sounds a bit Hollywood to me." Jon, stop being a dick! And when did his internal monitor start sounding like Martin? "Though I...I'm sure 'eldritch fear entities' probably sounds just as bad to you, so."

He grasped for something polite to relate to.

"Why does everybody want to start an apocalypse?"

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“It does seem to be a common trend doesn’t it?” she paused after a bit as she considered, “I’ve never actually thought about why someone wants to start an apocalypse,”

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"For immortality and power," Jon snarled, then he took a deep breath. "That was why my boss did, anyway. He wanted to live forever and rule everything. And he was a complete and utter arsehole."

Re: Mingle!

[flamesburned]

“Oh that… Uh…,” Liz really didn’t know how to respond to something like that, “I’m sorry,” she finally said because it seemed like the only thing she could say.

Re: Mingle!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"No, I'm...I'm sorry," Jon said. "The apocalypse is a...a bit of a sore spot, I suppose you could say," he added wryly. "But yes, so that's why. At least for one person. My question was, um. Purely rhetorical, really."