Magical Innovation Centre: The Grand Opening

[undergroundmods]

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It's evening in Richmond and the grand opening of the Magical Innovation Centre is about to begin. Doors open at 6.30pm with the event closing at 10pm. This is a black tie event, so get out your evening gowns and tuxedos. You won't be allowed in if you're wearing trainers or jeans.

Fae are forbidden from entering. Any fae who wish to sneak in must do so under a glamour and are likely to be discovered and kicked out if they linger for too long. Alternatively, they could pretend to be in service to one of the witches attending the event, if they have any witch allies willing to do that. Fae already in service to Circle Daybreak are the exception to the rule and this will be the first Daybreak event where a number of witches in attendance will be accompanied by their familiars in various forms. Ever since Samantha took her crown as Mother of Witches with a certain cat on her lap, familiars have started to become fashionable again.

Order of Events
6.30-7pm: Doors open
The first half hour allows time for guests to arrive and mingle. There's strict security around the centre: everyone who enters must sign in and get a name badge at the reception desk.

7-7.30pm: Samantha's speech
Standing on the staircase in the foyer, the Mother of Witches will address her audience with a speech to announce the opening of the centre.

7.30-8.30pm: Tour of the centre
During this hour, guests can join a tour of the centre. There will be three tours of around fifteen minutes each. Guests will be shown the following:

• Starting in the main foyer, the tour guide will give a brief overview of the centre's purpose.
• Next, the Potions Lab, which looks very much like any modern lab except that the bottles on display are magical rather than chemical.
• Then, the Pentacle Room which is an empty classroom with several intricate pentacles drawn on the floor. Cabinets along one wall hold shelves of herbs and charms that are used to strengthen or protect the pentacles, as well as shelves of spellbooks. An empty iron bird cage sits on one of the cabinets. This room is where witches can work together to perform powerful magic or to summon fae from the Other Realm.
• Then, the Botanical Garden which is what it sounds like. Herbs and plants of many kinds are grown here, and there are tables where witches can cut and dry the plants to prepare them for use in spellcraft and potion-making.
• Finally, the Magic Lab which looks very much like the Potions Lab except that there's more space. This is where witches will experiment with creating new spells.

The tour is guided and guests may only spend a limited amount of time in each room. They can't go back to the rooms after they're closed; security is tight and anyone trying to sneak around will be quickly spotted.

8.30-10pm: Networking
The rest of the event is open for mingling. There are information stands in the main foyer where witches are handing out leaflets outlining the purpose of the centre and inviting witches to join. If you're not a witch, you can still look and ask questions, but you can't register your interest to work or study at the centre. There's also a screen playing an artfully shot video of Samantha and several young witches looking alternately mystical and windswept on a moor, then clever and industrious in one of the laboratories. Tradition meets the modern world.

Coffee, champagne and canapes are all available, and are served by handsome fae waiters dressed in sparkly blue tuxedos. Despite several setbacks (none of which will be mentioned by Samantha or any of the staff) including the recent loss of Croydon to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, it seems that Circle Daybreak is still intent on portraying an image of success. The Daybreak fae here are tame, well-mannered and subservient. Everything is under control.

Comments

Definitely Not Eames

[falsify]

Oh goodness, oh my. Who's that handsome gentleman accompanying Arthur tonight? Keiran smiles easily, watching this evening with an expression that seems fascinated at almost all times, like seeing the Christmas lights in the West End for the first time.

He's definitely not memorising the faces of any fae he sees around the room or trying to spot any holes in security, not at all. It's just the keen eye of someone who's excited from witnessing something so new! So innovative!

(It's a little difficult to maintain the facade when the tour takes them to the Pentacle Room, but he manages with a thoughtful expression. One that makes sense for a man who's never seen this sort of thing before.)

For most of the night, he sticks relatively close to Arthur, but once the speech and the tour are over he lets the leash on his curiosity a little slack. Asking questions of the witches — what made them want to follow Samantha, what their hopes for the centre and the future are, how they're planning to run a place like this, ect. — but he never sticks in one conversation too long. Often looking like a photoshoot come to life with a glass of champagne in his hand, he'll often sidle up to anyone who doesn't look fully convinced by all this (especially anyone who's less than magically-inclined) with a smile that's a touch sympathetic and a touch wry.

"Not impressed?"

[baisant]

It is hard for Jean-Claude to be anywhere without being recognized for who and what he is. So unlike Eames, he has not made any effort to hide himself. He is dressed in his customary white laced poet's shirt under his delicate velveteen jacket with accompanying knee-high leather boots, his black hair tied back in a dark blue ribbon. He looks rather out of place in all of these modern people here gathered, but then again he feels it, so perhaps that is the point.

It's early in the evening yet -- before Jean-Claude has had a chance to catch the witch on her own himself (which is just as well, she is probably going to throw him out on his heels once he does). He turns aside to the attractive gentleman addressing him and offers him a crooked smile of his own.

"Ah, I am afraid that it takes a lot to impress me these days," he replies.

[falsify]

"Yeah?" Keiran raises his eyebrows with a smile, giving Jean-Claude a bit of a look up and down (it's really not difficult to peg the guy as a vampire) but he's otherwise genial. "Need a little more theatre?"

That part is accompanied by some modest jazz hands.

[baisant]

Honestly, when you get to be as old as Jean-Claude, it is more difficult to pretend to be human than it is to just embrace what he is. And when you get to be as high up in the Nest as he has done, what is the point in pretending to be human anymore. Especially when he does so love being what he is. For the most part anyway.

He offers the other man a smile at the jazz hands. "What can I say," he replies, cocking his head to the side, a stray curl falling into his eyes coquettishly as he does. "I do so enjoy dramatics."

[falsify]

"So how else would you do it different?" He's genuinely curious, though Jean-Claude could be forgiven for thinking it's a trap, "I mean, from what I heard you're not a fan of all this."

[baisant]

Jean-Claude's smile changes slightly. So his conversational partner does know who he is talking to. He's hardly being discrete, but it's hard to tell with anyone outside the Nest. Obviously this man is associated with the supernatural to some degree, but Jean-Claude cannot get an exact read on him, and that unsettles him slightly.

"You are correct," he agrees, swirling his drink in his glass -- his drink that is artfully half-full and will continue to be so for the rest of the night for that matter. "So I am uncertain how to answer such a question. I would not be making such a speech in the first."