Sworded Affair

Is Felix right about that? Emma asked, turning her attention to the buffet in lieu of having to approach anyone and potentially start up a conversation, which was never the easiest thing to do at a party full of strangers, even when they hadn't spent the past hour or so trying to kill each other.

[Felix deliberately worded it to piss people off, but the general sentiment is correct. The Empire, as a whole, is built upon reputation first and foremost. Practitioners and Magi can get by with money or maybe barter, but every Master will have more Thrones than they can spend and their choice of anything common in the world, magical or otherwise. Anything truly valuable at the highest level can only be obtained by leveraging relationships, whether that's research material from the top family in a particular field of magic, or rare resources from another age that were mined out centuries ago and only persist in hidden vaults.

Reputation is everything, and because of this, those who are part of magical society are taught from birth to be very careful in how they present themselves to their peers. Those who performed well and made it to the finals take centre stage tonight, because it's your time to shine. Those whose performance left something to be desired will stay on the periphery, doing their best to keep their heads down in the hopes that their presence is forgotten, unless there are other factors to their presence, such as being the party of someone who is ascendant.] Explore hidden tales at empire

"Seems about right, Emma admitted, scanning the room now that her drinking horn was empty.

Not counting the Eastern entourage, there were maybe a dozen or so people scattering along the edge of the hall, and they uniformly stuck to the buffet, stuffing their faces with table manners that varied greatly: from a few who wouldn't look out of place at a noble banquet to others who ate like it was the last call for breakfast at McDonald's. A few huddled together to talk, but none looked comfortable approaching any strangers, let alone the top four Felix called by name, all of whom were positioned near the centre of the stage when they arrived in a manner that was surely deliberate in hindsight. None of them appeared to the System either, which was clear evidence of magical concealment at play, because despite them not making it to the finals, Emma doubted they were helpless enough to warrant a Level 0 rating.

[It's not truly a secret gathering, because their appearances are still unaltered, so anyone who runs in the same circles will quickly recognise one another. Felix could have forced the issue and made everyone's name visible, but he clearly wasn't too invested in making friends, and declined to exercise that option.]

"Fine by me," Emma shrugged, happy to leave them to their own affairs.

She'd never particularly cared about games of status, not in school and not now, and she likewise wasn't extroverted enough to go out of her way to befriend total strangers. If they had the guts to approach her, she might have been more interested, but it didn't look like that was going to happen any time soon. Emma was contemplating swapping to her homunculus for a proper meal, when a thought came to mind that she couldn't help but voice.

"Would I ever have been introduced to magical society, if the System never activated?"

[No, but the question is rhetorical at best. The terminus was always going to happen during your lifetime; I was able to narrow it down that much, even if the precise date and time eluded me until it happened. Realistically, it could have happened when you were ten or not until you were forty-five; maybe it would've been another Class to begin with as well, but there was a one-hundred percent chance of activation. It's more uncertain with transplants, but a direct descendant gets priority access during times of crisis, so that was never in doubt for you.]

"Fair enough."

Emma waited to see if anyone would approach, she really did, but the sibling pair were chatting up a storm with each other, while Tian Mao had a dozen people vying for his attention at any given time, all of them formed up in a protective cocoon around him that she found a bit ridiculous; he was the strongest one among them, for god's sake.

"Is there a time limit on tonight?"

[Sunrise, officially, though I imagine everyone will clear out after an hour or two, unless they happen to be very heavy drinkers.]

"That's plenty of time for a meal first," Emma decided, finally swapping over to the homunculus.

The spare body was still somewhat lacking in the clothing department, something that never seemed to reach the top of the priority list despite being a recurring problem since it was purchased; the broken spacesuit looked very out of place in the viking hall, but it was intact enough to preserve her modest, and the helmet was gone, so she was able to eat with it at least. She'd never tried Scandinavian food before, and was a little lost at the selection, but there was enough that was familiar for her not to go hungry. Emma ended up opting for a big hunk of sourdough bread, fresh Cheddar and Red Leicester cheese alongside fresh tuna and finely chopped pickles; not the fanciest of foods, but close enough to the old Ploughman's Lunch in its flavour and simplicity of eating on the move, without any cutlery in sight.

Not everything was quite so pleasant however, as Emma made the mistake of opening a bowl of gelatinous white fish, only to gag and drop the lid right back on, hard enough to crack it.

"What was that?" Emma asked, a hand over her nose; while it wasn't the worst smell she'd ever encountered, most of those hadn't been served for dinner.

[Lutefisk, a specialty dish in those parts. It's like Marmite, people either love or hate it.]

"I wonder why."