The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (1/30)

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Still up there, huh, Saffron?" Steph asked the lump of fur hunkering atop the shelves as a miniature plush owlbear went flying off of them. "Well, your dish is full, so whenever you decide to stop yelling about it, enjoy, okay?"

She honestly wasn't sure if Saffron was still mad about the vet or had just decided that this was going to be her new thing, but... well, she was just going to start pricing closed display cases for the mini collection in between gluing tiny snapped-off resin extremities and polearms back in place.

But she also had another tab open to HeroForge and was designing a bunch of new minis to go get printed over at Stark Industries sometime soon. Why? Because it was fun, that was why.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[throughaphase]

Kitty kept meaning to come in. She kept saying she was going to.

And hey! She was nice and came in through the actual door and everything.

"Been a while since I've been in here," she said.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph would have thought it was extremely cool if she'd phased through the door, but at least this way she could hear the door opening and stop scrolling through armor options for the hobgoblin cleric she was customizing.

"Kitty, hey!" she said, grinning as she shut her laptop. "Welcome to the nerd den."

[throughaphase]

"It's like coming home, in a way," she grinned. "How's it going?"

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Awesome. That's kind of the vibe I was going for," Steph said, pumping her fist dramatically. "Well, I can't be sure if my cat still hates me for bringing her to the vet a few days ago or if she's just decided she lives up on top of the shelves now, but at least she isn't jumping on me from up there so I'm calling it good. You?"

She didn't want to think about calculating Saffron's sneak attack damage.

"Can I help you find anything, or just visiting?"

[throughaphase]

"Visiting, but also asking if you have any nerdery appropriate for a first grader," she said.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph perked up visibly and darted out from behind the counter, clearly eager to do a little showcasing.

"I pride myself on having nerdery appropriate for all ages here, as a matter of fact. Any particular kind, or are you weighing options?"

[throughaphase]

"Weighing options, but I'm looking for something that'll hook a kid before she loses interest."

And before she wants her parents to buy her things relating to something she was going to lose interest in.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph grinned.

"There are a lot of pretty good tabletop games for kids that don't need a whole set of dice or minis or hell, even someone who needs to do all the prep work to run it," she said, taking a guess at what Kitty was thinking based on some conversations she'd had with other game store owners online. With a quick tilt of her head in invitation, she started toward the kids' games section, which had a handy recommendations list posted up next to it. "They're really a lot closer to just... structured make-believe playtime. It probably doesn't surprise you that I'm big on kids developing their imaginations, right?"

[throughaphase]

Kitty followed, checking out the list.

"Really? Shocking," she teased. "And that fits- it's like burst of imagination! Aaaand then she's bored."

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Apparently I was like that at that age," Steph said with a wry grin, like she couldn't believe it. "And then I got hooked on making up worlds and people and never looked back."

She made a humming noise, running her fingers along the spines of books until she pulled out a thin volume .

"This might be a good choice. The rules are pretty basic and you can just use any regular six sided dice you might already have around, plus it's super flexible even when kids come up with the most off the wall ideas. The book's mostly hints and suggestions."

[throughaphase]

Kitty looked over the book, deciding, "I'll try it, we'll see what she does. It's cool that they actually make these for kids."

Also note: Lexi was gonna learn the Kitty rules of RPGs and those rules were unhinged.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"There's so many for kids, so if it turns out she's into this kind of thing, I'm pretty sure she's set for life," Steph assured her. "If not, hey, you guys got to have some fun creative bonding experiences for a while."

While Steph ran a pretty tight ship with her games, she fully encouraged unhinged rules when the situation called for it, and frankly it did here.

[throughaphase]

Kitty grinned. "And if not I might make Clint play with me."

He probably wouldn't divorce her.

Seriously Tony had every right to want to thwap her.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Hell, go for it. Just because games are designed for kids doesn't mean they're not fun for adults to play too," Steph replied with a nod. "That's like... game design 101. Literally. I think my prof covered that first day."

Steph would probably want to thwap her after a while too, depending on what they were playing, but really. Could they if she didn't feel like letting them?