75 Godiva, Wednesday

[vdistinctive]

The house was gutted down to studs, many of which had been rearranged to make the new configuration of rooms the team had agreed on. Eliot was working on framing the new upper story now, which meant a hard hat, tool belt, gloves, the works.

Seriously, he had this whole men-at-work carpenter look down up here. He hoped his partners appreciated it. Lord knew he did on the few occasions Hardison got down and dirty with a maker get up. He wondered how much Hardison would fuss about the sawdust if they tried to fool around in (a carefully cleared area of) the construction site. . . .

Work was happening, if a little slow. Since the carpenter kept distracting himself with idle fantasies.

[yeah I dunno. Open! Eliot should be visible from the street while he works. . . .]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

"Adventure has it's perks," Eliot said. "But you've busted out of one jail, you've pretty well busted out of them all."

[magnusrushesin]

"I've broken into a prison before, but never out. It does sound fun, though."

Eliot, do not encourage this.

[vdistinctive]

Of course Eliot was going to encourage this.

"Breaking out sometimes involves chains. That can be fun."

[magnusrushesin]

"I do like chains," Magnus admitted, looking like he wanted to get arrested now so he could do this.

[vdistinctive]

"If they think you're dangerous enough, you could get yourself handcuffs and leg irons. . . ."

Eliot was pretty good most of the time, but occasionally he fell back on old habits from when he'd been a bad, bad man.

[magnusrushesin]

"I'll do it!" Magnus, for the love of god, no.

[vdistinctive]

"Make sure you record it," Eliot suggested. "For posterity. And -- whatsit -- ballads and stuff."

That was what fantasy adventure heroes cared about, right?

[magnusrushesin]

"Oh, no. I get erased when I die," Magnus said casually. "But it'll be super sick in the moment. You know, live for the now."

[vdistinctive]

"You get -- I'm sorry, what?"

Did he mean there was no afterlife? Maybe?

[magnusrushesin]

"Yeah, I'll get erased from everyone's memory because of... the thing... that I can't talk about." Fisher. His name was Fisher. Her? Their? Yeah, their. "Unless you're dead. Dead people totally remember, which is good."

[vdistinctive]

"Wait, so what happens to the stuff kids learn in your classes?"

[magnusrushesin]

"Well, it's like. So, we had this coworker who died and he had, like five hundred kids or something. And they know they had a dad and stuff, but the details are gone."

Oh, Boyland. You were so boring to only the trio and literally no one else.

[vdistinctive]

"That's . . . seriously fucked up, man."

[magnusrushesin]

"Yeah," Magnus agreed. "It totally is. It's just all these layers of secrecy and 'who can you trust!?' and stuff."

[vdistinctive]

"How the hell'd you get wrapped up in all that in the first place?"

[magnusrushesin]

"Well, we got hired by Merle's cousin to transport some stuff and then we ended up fighting some gerblins and a giant spider and a guy named Magic Brian--" Oops, he staticked out on that name. "--and we found this... thing that destroyed a whole town. And we got hired to stop that from happening again."

[vdistinctive]

Every time that Eliot thought he could be all blase and cynical about the stuff he saw on the island, it threw something like a self-censoring name. Or the term "gerblins".

"And gettin' hired to do that somehow resulted in you getting erased when you die?"

[magnusrushesin]

"Ahyep," Magnus confirmed with a nod. "It's, like, super secret stuff. Spy Who Loved Me style."

[vdistinctive]

Talking to Magnus was like an unholy cross between a time traveler and Hardison at his geekiest. "Right. Seems to me like you'll have to just make sure you don't get killed, then."

[magnusrushesin]

If it helped, Magnus was an inter-dimensional astronaut. He just didn't remember it at the moment.

"Well, yeah. For now. It's not like I want to live forever or something. No being a lich for me, thanks. Liches get stiches."

Sorry, Barry Bluejeans.

[vdistinctive]

"The hell is a -- you know what? I probably don't want to know."

[magnusrushesin]

"They're like a ghost," Magnus whispered in the way that he was basically at a normal volume. "Only magic. And usually kind of evil?"

He only knew two one not evil lich, after all.