MEETUP: CRAFT FAIR

===================> 22) MEETUP: CRAFT FAIR <===================

Open/Closed: OPEN: This event is open to any player who wants to sign up
             using +event/signup. There may be limited space, so signing
             up does NOT guarantee you a spot in the event.
     Poster: Alik*
 Start Time: 08:30:00 PM (LOCAL), Sunday, September 25, 2016  (7m 25s)
   Location: Festival Grounds (A11)
Level Range: All

The Alexandros Chamber of Commerce is holding its annual Craft Fair! All the city's diverse racial, ethnic, religious and other groups will be showing off rugs, jewelery, tapestries, idols, sculptures and other traditional crafts*!

Be sure to stop by the Tastes of Ea pavilion, where traditional dishes of the many cultures of the region will be available, along with purification spells from Temple representatives and, where needed, poison neutralization.

As a special treat, the Adventurer's Guild has sponsored a Magic Craft Fair as part of the festivities this year. Crafters of enchanted weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, rings and wondrous items are welcome to show off their wares, both magic and mundane.

Also, attend our panel discussion on What The Well-Supplied Adventurer is Wearing and Wielding: Magic Items for the Adventurer on a Budget.

Spellcasters are invited to exchange spell formula at the Caster's Corner!

Plus! The Chamber of Commerce has agreed to donate half the purchase price of all transactions finalized during the Fair to the Home for Orphaned Adventurers, so every purchase you make is helping an innocent child whose parents never made it back from their last mission. (This does not discount purchase price or change crafting price.)

• - In accordance with Public Safety Measure AJ-5173, traditional crafts that explode, spit acid, set fire to things, or otherwise demonstrate potential for large-scale havoc must be cleared by the Havoc Safety Commission before inclusion in the fair.

[Public] Alik says, "Fireworks go off over the Festival Grounds! (cf +event 22)"

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--<* A11: Festival Grounds *>=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

The sweeping Festival Grounds serve many purposes. For much of the year they serve as practice grounds for training knights, for the games of children who pick up ball, bat, and begin a game of stickball. During other times, they're filled with colored tents, with performers for some of Alexandria's many festivals.

Along one side are a set of permanent bleachers, and at either end an archway. Each archway is carved in the style of a grand entry and marked with images of of Daeus, with rearing horse and flying pennon. Here, the god stands depicted in his roles of defender and knight-warrior. Recently, the Lancers of Serriel have taken to practicing here, along the knights and warriors of other orders, and a small number of them take a select pride in the upkeep of the grounds, alongside the Daeusites, Navosians, Gileans, and other mixtures.

Littering the grounds are places for archery, target practice. Here too, scheduled a few times a month, is the space given for ridden sport, organized recently by the arvek nar. The reigning champion's name is displayed in an upright lance at the end of the field, a silent challenge for next month's contender.

========================

Mikilos has arrived.

The Festival Grounds are bustling with activity. Colored banners hang from the back of the bleachers, announcing the Annual Craft Fair! in dozens of different languages. Booths litter the grounds with artists and crafters of every description hawking jewlery, art, textiles, food, all sorts of things. Singers and dancers and performers present traditional art forms of different cultures. And near the back, viewed with equal parts admiration and terror from the ordinary denizens, is the Magic Craft Fair, where all the artificers, wizards, alchemists,and so forth are hawking their arcane, divine, and artifice arts. Alik is standing in front of an open-air forge, where he is demonstrating the crafting of an enchanted rifle.

EVENTS: MEETUP: CRAFT FAIR is scheduled to start RIGHT NOW!

Mikilos sets up a few simple rope barricades to clear a space in the vendor area, double check the distances before steppign back and muttering. In a few moments, long stone slabs rise out of the ground, settleing into place to serve as rugged tables that aren't going to break any time soon. A few more murmurs and gestures into the empty air to set some wards against theft, and the magus starts pulling product out of his bag. It's not exactly a small bag, but the table is barely a third covered when the bag really should be empty, and yet Mikilos just keeps pulling out more stuff. Wizards.

A giantborn child, about Mikilos' height, stands in front of his booth and stares in astonishment at his magical display.

Alik takes a break from working his forge and sets it to cooling, and walks over to join the crowd forming around Mikilos' booth. He inspects the items as they appear on the table, with the air of a critic, but ultimately he nods approval. "Is good work."

Mikilos sorts his table into three major areas, an assortment of formally enchanted goods, many of them begin in nature to allow kids to try them out. Hats of Disguise, and the like. The second area holds a number of small clockworks, entirely mundane, but complex in their own way. Clocks, wind up toys, and the like. The largest area is a mish-mash of goods, from dresses to sculptures to baskets to almost every professional craft an indivudal might try their hand at making. Some are a jack of all trade, master of none. Mikilos is a master of many trades.

Alik is clearly not inspecting as a customer, so much as a potential competitor, or at least a fellow practitioner. So he pretty much ignores the miscellaneous crafts and the clockwork, and focuses his attention entirely on the enchanted items. "Inventory, you have on hand?" he asks, genuinely curious. "Deliberate, or customers not show up to complete commission?"

Mikilos smiles, and waves vaugely. Are enough customers to go around, so no troubles with competitors. "A little of both. I try to keep a few of the more popular items handy for those who want something in a rush. But I do have the occasional indivudal who backs out of a commission; usually if something comes up they inform me right away. I might start an item anyway for later sale. But seeing as many customers are adventurers, have had the occasional untimely demise cause a stop in payment."

The giantborn teen picks up a Hat of Disguise and tries it on, transforming into a five-foot-tall Lucht. He looks in a mirror and, wide-eyed, snatches the hat off hastily.

Alik laughs, not unkindly. "Is not perfect, yes?" he explains to the teen. "Make smaller, taller, thinner, fatter, darker, lighter... but are limits." He puts the hat on and appears as a giantborn himself, growing a foot or so, remaining about 4' tall. "See?"

To Mikilos he nods, still in giantborn guise. "Sense, makes. Should do the same, I should, maybe, but... too much crafting for my own use, still to do. Money good, survival better."

Mikilos nods. "I've been at this a while, things build up over the years. But yeah, keep to your own pace. An item not being used isn't of any good. Well, you might carry say a potion of healing an not end up using it, but still good to have. Anyway, you get what I mean." The magus eyes the hat exchange a few moments and grins, adjusting the clip in his own hair... before shrinking down down down... and peering over the tabletop quite similar to his orginal appearance, but gnome sized. "There is the occasional exception... It's called a 'Hat of Perfect Apperance.' Never have figure out exactly how it works, but allows one to appear as a gnome, whatever the orginal size. But ONLY a gnome, no other sort of disguise." ((Reward from a Staff plot))

Alik nods. "Gnome is best," he asserts, putting the hat back and resuming his usual appearance. "Crinking of the neck, less painful," he adds. "But yes, interesting. Of this, I do not hear before. Impressive." It's clear that he's thinking hard about how to achieve the same effect, but not coming up with anything. "You not craft it, then? Who does?"

Mikilos shakes his head, touching the clip again and returning to his reagular apperance. "I don't know. I receivid it via the Explorers Guild, as part of a payment for a job. I have a few ideas, but no proof." The magus glances around a moment before leaning closer, speaking low and confidential. "You familiar with Fizzlefuse?"

Alik shakes his head, then stops. "Familiar, no, but name have heard. Is Professor at Academy, yes? Am seeing shop, hearing stories in Happy Valley, but man himself have not met."

Mikilos nods, then frowns thoughtfully. "Might not be a professor, think he lost his tenure again. Anyway, brilliant man, very powerful inventons... but have a dangerous habit of going wrong."

Alik smiles fondly, then whistles in a fashion that you have an awful intuition might have been intended to be innocent. "Ah, yes. Dangerous inventions. This is very bad, very bad. Acceptable, not at all." He wags his finger for good measure. "So he invent hat?"

Mikilos shrugs. "I don't know. But I don't know anyone else who might have." The elf frowns thoughtfully, considering a moment, then shakes his head. "No. No one else who might have. Which isn't to say there isn't someone I don't know." The magus blinks, peering up the line of vendors, and straightens. "Looks like a crowd of customers incomming, should likely focus on our booths."

Alik nods. "Yes. Forge is cooler now, return to work on Thunderbelcher."

Mikilos has disconnected.

Alik returns to his booth and demonstration.

EVENTS: MEETUP: CRAFT FAIR is now CLOSED.