The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (10/20)

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph had most definitely not ordered the dozen large pumpkins that were in a crate on the front step of the store when she showed up this morning, but they were clearly addressed to the store, and really, what was a girl supposed to do with a bunch of gift pumpkins in the leadup to Halloween except start carving them?

Don't answer that.

It was a moot point, anyway, because Steph was already getting to work on pumpkin-carving within half an hour of opening up and yes, all of them were going to have fantasy monsters of some variety on them if the Sharpie sketches of manticores and giant spiders and mindflayers and the like were any indication, to say nothing of the beholder pumpkin she'd already gotten started.

All the dice sets on display along the counter today were in shades of orange and black and purple, and an army of miniature zombies was surrounding a hapless adventuring party atop one of the center display shelves.

Also, a sign that said "CAT IS CURSED, DO NOT PET" was propped up beside one of Saffron's favorite sleeping spots. That was because she'd shamelessly stolen her own idea from Ethan's LARP back in Haven Springs, and possibly unnecessary because Saffron let no one but Vi pet her, ever. But hey, it went with the decor.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[pocketpretzels]

As promised, sometime in the afternoon there was a Watts, carrying a small bag in one hand. His hat (still with the dark blue feather he’d ‘liberated’ from the Hargreeves wedding tucked into the band) went on the beholder tentacle as usual, and he made a beeline for the dice, selecting one of each colour to roll together in his palm.

“Good afternoon, Miss Gingrich.”

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Mr. Watts," Steph returned easily, with a slight flash of a smile at how she'd guessed he'd go for the dice right away. She was in the middle of carving a lich's head jack o'lantern, which involved an X-acto knife and was a lot fiddlier than she probably should have expected, and regretting her choices just a bit. The floor was clean, at least; Little Bot was being very diligent about picking up seeds and stray chunks and the stringy bits. "It's a little pumpkin-y in here today, sorry. What's up?"

[pocketpretzels]

Was he that predictable?

(When it came to having something to fiddle with, yes.)

He grimaced a little at the pumpkin carving; not because of the mess, more because of the reminder of his own poor attempts at same.

He held up the bag he'd brought with him. "The item I mentioned yesterday," he said, handing the bag over.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Well, Steph did tend to keep an eye on how interested people were in the dice, and he had a solid track record there, so.

She wiped her hands off on a bunch of wadded up paper towels and reached out for the bag.

"No way," she said as she pulled out the CD and flipped it over to look at the track list basically immediately. (Not that she could make much sense of it, but details.) "You seriously didn't have to do this, but thank you so much. This is awesome."

[pocketpretzels]

“You have such a keen interest in music, and I was someplace with a unique traditional style, I naturally thought of you,” Watts said with a slight shrug. “Steven assured me you would most likely have a way to play the recording.” His own education regarding recorded music had gone straight from phonographs to purely digital streaming music, after all.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"I do, yeah. No worries there," Steph assured him. CDs weren't her favorite medium, vinyl-loving snob that she was, but she wouldn't turn them down. "I can't wait to check this out. Seriously, thank you so much for thinking of me while you were on vacation."

[pocketpretzels]

“You’re welcome,” Watts said with a rare, non-Steven-adjacent smile.

He then turned his attention to the pumpkins. “I see you are among those with some skill in the art of pumpkin carving,” he said, sounding somewhat resigned.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Totally bullshitting my way through it," Steph admitted, and waved toward her phone, where a pumpkin carving tutorial video was playing. "I've made props and things for games and back in my theater tech days, but working with pumpkins is... a challenge."

[pocketpretzels]

“An understatement,” Watts rolled his eyes. “I ought to show you my most recent attempt at doing so.”

[drumsticksandd20s]

"I'm assuming from that phrasing that it did not go well," Steph said, grimacing in sympathy.

[pocketpretzels]

"Hmm," Watts nodded. And then: "Please try not to laugh too much," as he pulled out his mobile telephone and scrolled through the photos until he reached the one he'd been looking for.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph, to her credit, didn't laugh. She didn't even look like she was struggling not to laugh.

There was a definite smile twitching the corners of her mouth though.

"A valiant first attempt," was all she said. "When was this? At the Parents' Weekend picnic?"

[pocketpretzels]

"This was, in fact, my fourth," Watts informed her woefully. "I initiated a jack-o-lantern carving contest at my Station House last year, and then sadly had to bow out of my own competition as my two entries were- laughable, compared to those completed by others. And then, yes, at the picnic I tried my hand at it again a couple more times."

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Ouch," Steph said, sincerely. "To be fair, the whole leadup to actually having a hollowed out pumpkin all ready to carve is pretty damn exhausting by itself."

Had she enlisted Little Bot's help? Maybe.

[pocketpretzels]

“I do appreciate the attempt to assuage my feelings on the matter,” Watts said.

It was going to take a lot more practice before he was even passably good at the activity.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph held up her hands. "I try my best to avoid discouraging people from their creative endeavors. Mostly."

Unless you were, say, doing karaoke in your driveway on a nightly basis.

[pocketpretzels]

Anyone doing nightly driveway karaoke deserves public shame if anything, but for the fact that they’re doing driveway karaoke would probably make them immune to such attempts.

“What exactly are you carving?” Watts asked. “I do recognize my friend here,” he nodded at the beholder pumpkin and then at the standee that had become his makeshift hat stand.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Tragically true.

"The plan," said Steph, "was to do a bunch of different fantasy monsters, but I think my hand will fall off if I keep going with that for all these pumpkins."

She'd done the beholder already, and there were still eight or nine pumpkins left after she finished this one.

"This dude is a lich," she said, turning the half-finished pumpkin so the design was visible: a grinning skull in an ornate sort of headdress, though she'd only carved the main part of the skull so far and the rest was just outlined in marker. "He's sort of an undead wizard. All the really powerful spells, and hard to hit because he's held together by magic basically."

She would 100% have roped George into a game of D&D if they'd met last month.

[pocketpretzels]

"The friend I was telling you about yesterday," Watts said, "This sort of thing is right up his alley."

Watts didn't know if he'd ever give the actual games a try himself, but the dice were, well. Nice.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Damn, now my player is I'm really sorry I didn't get a chance to meet him," Steph said, frowning. "I could've had the chance to get people into this form of tabletop gaming way before it was even created."

Hey, some of the fancier dice these days were an art form in and of themselves, she'd argue, even if they never got rolled in an actual game!

[pocketpretzels]

"Well, if there's another chance for the two of you to meet, I'll make sure it happens," Watts told her.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"I would, seriously, love that," Steph replied. "Unrelated, mostly, I think I might just end up doing dice shapes on the rest of the pumpkins after this one, so I don't make myself hate pumpkins for the rest of my life."

[pocketpretzels]

"Probably for the best," Watts said. "Still on theme, and yet not likely to have you carving until all hours of the night."

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Even if I am cheating horribly," Steph agreed wryly. "There's a point where it's not fun any more, and I would like to turn around before I get there."

[pocketpretzels]

"See, I could just say, then why not stop altogether after you finish your current design, but somehow I suspect that would be going too far when it comes to taking the easy way out."

[drumsticksandd20s]

"I could," allowed Steph. "But I still do have all these pumpkins, and I have this serious need to make the Halloweening intensify as we get closer to it."

She paused.

"Unless maybe Stark has like a need to make pumpkin pie?"

[pocketpretzels]

"I don't know about Stark," Watts admitted. "But I was considering making an attempt myself."

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph's eyebrows went up, just for a second. "Huh. Didn't have you tagged for a baking type, but cool. I mean, you're totally welcome to a couple of them if you want. I didn't -- they were just here this morning when I got here."

[pocketpretzels]

"Oh, I'm not yet," Watts assured her. "But I do like eating pumpkin pie, and the topic of what to do with the innards of a pumpkin seems to keep coming up in conversation..."

[drumsticksandd20s]

"'tis the season for pumpkin talk," Steph said with a laugh. "And I feel pretty guilty about gutting them all, and then throwing them all out after they get seriously gross and sketchy inside."

[pocketpretzels]

“Well, I’ll gladly take a couple off your hands, then,” Watts told her. “And I can even bring you some pie in return- though I promise only to do so if it turns out well. So long as you don’t mind vegan?”

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Not a problem at all," Steph assured him. "I'm pretty used to vegan food, god knows I lived in Seattle long enough."

[pocketpretzels]

"Oh? Is it fairly common, there?" Watts asked. In true Canadian fashion, he'd been to Europe multiple times but never to the opposite end of the continent he actually lived on.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Maybe not quite as common as Portland," but there's a pretty wide selection," Steph confirmed. Because the Pacific Northwest was gonna Pacific Northwest. "Vegan dive bars, even. My old band used to play a few gigs at some of them."