Coffee Shop Mingle Log

[magisteriamods]

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☕ Coffee Shop Mingle Log

It’s a special day at the Bean & Berry, High Rise Village’s upscale coffee shop with full service AR/VR amenities! The shop is doing a special: two free drinks, a free pastry, and Otherworlders who haven’t claimed it yet are still eligible for their discount on the first drink! Unbeatable deals!

Some of the locals are also taking advantage of these awesome offerings, and Otherworlders are strongly encouraged to go mingle at the coffee shop. When they do, they will see a few familiar faces.

🧋 DRINKS MENU

Techno Tonic

- A clear, refreshing tonic infused with nanotechnology that enhances cybernetic interfaces. This drink is used as a booster by the augmented crowd, as it buffs cybergear, making it temporarily more durable and powerful.

Synapse Sparkler

- A fizzy, sparkling drink that contains microchips designed to boost synaptic activity: the microchips actually directly boost information into the brain, basically equipping users with knowledge about various technological interfaces in the city of Magisteria and how to operate them.

Clari-tea

- an enhanced version of a traditional chai. Beyond having a lovely, spiced-sweet flavour, it can promote relaxation, stress reduction, and mental clarity. Some use it to combat anxiety, even having it recommended by their doctors for some psychological conditions.

Holo-Hot Chocolate

- A hot chocolate mixed with holographic particles that interact with the brain’s visual cortex. Those who drink it will be able to create especially stunning and lifelike holographs. Just be warned: drink too much and you might be creating holographs even when you don't mean to, just by moving around!

Time in a Bottle

- a carbonated beverage that has been carefully infused to create a sensation of time dilation, making minutes feel like hours. People usually order it to take a break from the fast-paced world or to savor special moments. Plus, it has a refreshing lemon-mint flavour.

Creativi-tea

- favored by artists, writers, and innovators looking to tap into their imagination and push the boundaries of their creative endeavors, this floral, fruity tea encourages a small amount of inhibition loss and new connections to be made between ideas.

Icy Rainbows

- a smoothie - with or without popping boba bubbles - that no one can really pin down the flavour of, beyond ‘some sort of fruit’. It projects a stunning, three-dimensional light display when consumed and the night after is always known to be full of vivid dreams.

Glitch Glaze Frappe

-A cold frappe that shimmers with a glitchy effect, as if it's not entirely solid. Provides a temporary 'glitch' ability, allowing characters to phase in and out of electronic systems, bypassing security or moving through digital barriers.



🥐 PASTRIES MENU

• Byte Bites
- Small, crunchy cookies embedded with edible microchips. Provides a temporary boost to data processing speed and cognitive functions, granting a bonus to hacking and decryption tasks for one hour.

• Nano Nibbles
- Bite-sized pastries filled with a nanobot-infused cream. Repairs and optimizes cybernetic implants, restoring 20% of any damaged tech components and improving their efficiency for two hours. (Tech PCs are strongly encouraged to purchase a few of these before battles or high risk quests.)

• Firewall Fritters
Crispy fritters with a spicy kick that symbolizes their firewall-boosting properties. Effect: Temporarily strengthens the user’s digital defenses, granting a +2 bonus to resisting hacking attempts and protecting personal data for 90 minutes.

• Enchanted Éclairs
Éclairs filled with a shimmering cream that sparkles with magical energy. These treats can heighten magical energy and increase outputs.

• Mystic Macarons
Colorful macarons that change hues to reflect the magical energy within. Enhances the consumer’s Bios regeneration, allowing them to recover magical energy twice as fast for 90 minutes.

• Arcane Apple Tart
A tart made with enchanted apples that glow faintly in the dark. Increases the user's ability with divination magic and boosts cognition for spells.

Note: Below are various natives who also stopped by the coffee shop! As a reminder, while mods do not thread out NPC interactions per se, PCs can ask questions for the NPCs or handwave interaction in threads. If a player is unsure how a PC would react to certain things, that too can be a question. NPC comments are also there for world lore/hints, foreshadowing, and for intra-PC interactions as a point of discussion.

NPC: Malik Patel

Good work so far on the challenges! Ava and I hope you guys can come up with more cool and creative Bursterfly interactions and maybe learn enough from the Bursterfly tech to create your own inventions! Those are the goals.

For one thing, we’re looking to develop a surveillance system for High Rise Expo using the Bursterflies.

High Rise Expo is something you’ll soon be hearing a lot about: it’s an annual event in which the big movers and shakers come to show off the latest and greatest in technology. It’s definitely an event that is very urban and focused on technology, but visitors with ties to the Order of Mysterium will also be present, both as spectators and to rub elbows in general. This will be everyone’s chance to show off their abilities with technology, magic, and, perhaps especially, what you all can do with Synthesis in terms of innovation.

Malik Patel: Extra

On his employer: Our boss, the proprietor of Evergreen Terrace, will be present at the Expo. You’ll get to meet them. They’re a huge deal in this district in every way. They’re… well, all kinds of powerful, wealthy, and charismatic, and with a reputation for being a bit of a sensualist. I hesitate to mention that part because I don’t want y’all to get the wrong idea. I’m a guy who is all about thrills of every sort if you get my meaning, but I don’t mix business and pleasure. Me, Ava, and Atlas are all strictly about the business. But… you’ll find that not everyone at the complex thinks that way, and our employer has quite a few admirers. Well, I think we can leave it at that.

On his nature: You could say I'm something of a daredevil. Fast cars, racing, drift tracks, basejumps, VR and AR experiences. Both Ava and I are into climbing mountains, bungee jumping, sky diving. Magisteria isn't exactly a city of quiet people who aspire to humble lives. The nature of our citizenry inclines towards being kinda "Extra"... but there are some who are more Extra than Extra. Some of those will be at the Expo.

NPC: Rosalind Vireo

Not a bad showing! Of course, we’re all still ankle deep in the kiddie pool… but your little Synthesis demonstrations with the Vitalis Bloom have intrigued me a bit, at least. Excited for meatier fare? Ooohhh, so am I. Look, I am but a humble flower seller – and you all should come to my stall, Floral Convergence – but what’s the point in an indestructible android body if not to have a bit of fun?

Oh, right. That’s what I came here for! Heard some o’ you were wondering about why I thought my little guest might be tied to other goings-on in the district.

Well, that’s a simple one! When everything started acting up, the flowers and the birds, I scanned the code and I found null everywhere. Null symbols! Null bytes!

∅

It’s the calling card of an anarchist group: the Null Rebellion. Though… the authorities have been on those guys, so must’ve been one of ‘em slipped through the cracks. Maybe got a new gang. That’s what I’m thinking. Happens with the underground types around here sometimes.

Dunno what they want with me, though. Well, it had better not be boring! I mean… uh, you guys can help protect an innocent flower seller like me, right?

She’s totally not thinking of excitement or anything.
Rosalind, you just said that out loud.
Oh nooo, shhh, self. Ah, she’s still talking.

I mean. Uh. Ah. I’ll be selling my flowers, I guess. A woman must think first of business, second of pleasure. I hope they’re super dangerous ahhhh. ♥
Damn it, stop that.

[She sighs.] Well, clearly I have to go home to fine-tune my programming and remove extraneous distractions. I guess you all should go enjoy endure the stupid sexy dangerous dangerous work of seeking out cybercriminals. Don’t forget to shop at my properties, though!

NPC: Lila

I have to admit, you guys have me feeling a little bit self-conscious. Was the magic challenge really too easy? But if some of you have native magic, maybe you can become mentors to the others.

My sister wants to host the next two challenges, air and earth, so I’m letting her do so. I think it’ll be good for Lyra. The truth is…

[She is clearly fretting a bit.]

Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, but I suppose you’ll all find out about this soon enough, if you haven’t already, so I suppose I should just say it.

Different races have different names for it. We faeries call it “the perfumed haze.” It’s something people of different races go through in Magisteria, often as adolescents or teenagers. My sister Lyra is fifty now, which is pretty much the tween years for us fair folk… and well, it’s happening to her: the time when a girl can hardly think about anything except other girls.

It doesn’t happen to all of us. I’ve kept my wits about me. But my sister… lately all she talks about is glitter, and tiaras, and how smooth soing-so’s skin is and how plush soing-so’s lips are and then there’s another poster of some fae singer in her room and she’s talking about witches from Mysticaire District, and I think she’s even cavorting with tech girls despite her complainings about the digital flora and fauna. “That AI girl with the blue eyes! Oohhh, she’s so lovely, don’t you think!”

She goes out some nights and I suspect she’s deliberately going around areas with aphrodisiac so she can use it as an excuse to hook up with AI, android, cyborg, and other tech girls, and then pretend she was just too intoxicated to be bothered about the lines in the sand that she herself draws.

Don’t tell her I told you that detail, but don’t be surprised if, during your training, she starts randomly being girl-crazy. It’s a thing with at least a good some of our girls and women in this city – even some of the more stoic and duty-driven ones, like the leader of the Enforcers, have a different side wherein they get all gaga about some lady or ladies in general. The perfumed haze, the lavender intoxication -- happens all the time in this city-state, and to women of all races.

NPC: Seraphine Nova

Hello. Welcome. This is my family's coffee shop.

[ her voice is flat, and after a moment, she adds -- ]

There are some things I should probably tell you all. First of all... Minister Brennam Tyrgen is actually my father. It's not a secret, but our relationship is ...

Well, I grew up in the Aetherium District. That's where I live and where I'm aiming to go to college. My father works in the Government district, and much of his work is top secret and requires special clearance. He has always visited me regularly since I was a child, but I've been raised in a sort of boarding school for AI and partially AI children, and...

... I don't know.

I'm sorry. I'm sort of a private person, and I still don't know you all. But, I feel like I might want to talk to you about some things, soon, if any of you would be willing to listen...

For now, though, I advise that you take those enhancement drinks: Selena Voss and Titan-7 are going to be investigating a mysterious "ghost signal" which they believe might be connected to a cybercriminal group. They intend to invite you... and there's a good chance weapons and cyberware will be involved.

There's a lot I don't know anymore about than you all do, but I ... I think things are going to get far, far more intense...

Seraphine Nova: Extra

If you want the truth, I have always wished I were fully an AI. I calculate equations in my mind. When I encounter technology, I feel like we speak the same language. Skin, sweat... puberty... it's all... "gross" sounds pat, but some part of me finds it repulsive.

I want to show you all VPlane, the Magisteria virtual world. I always feel comfortable and at home there, in the virtual realm.

Comments

[nightmare_fuel]

Sakura never imagined she would be living the magical girl life in reality... i.e. not in some dubious dream world that bordered on being a nightmare, but in the actual world. And yet, that's kind of what the ambience of some of the places within this city felt like, particularly when the coffee shop contained such magical fare. Currently, she has a cup of Creativi-tea, as well as an Icy Rainbows smoothie and a plate of Enchanted Eclairs. Supposedly, the eclairs can heighten magical output, and wasn't this smoothie supposed to produce vivid dreams? She wonders if the dreams could even be of a clairvoyant nature. Considering how magical this world was in other ways, it wouldn't exactly be surprising.

"I think I'm starting to get used to some of the enchantment in this place," she observes. Sure, in her world, there were mages, but the whimsical nature of magic which added a sparkle even to the food and drink here? That was something different... and Sakura was finding that she was coming to enjoy it. The unique beauty of the food and drinks and their special properties. There was something... well, to say "magical" about it all might be a bit obvious, but at times, parts of the world felt like something from a fairytale, or a story. In a good way.

[lunardreaming]

One table over, Lucy's looking out the window sipping on her own Icy Rainbows. They'd offered her more free stuff, but Lucy hadn't taken the deal. Free shit is deeply dubious. Besides, she's been consuming the food and drink here with a lot more caution ever since the muffin glitter incident.

Being talked to has her lifting her head, flat gaze flicking over to the girl who spoke. After a long moment, Lucy makes a faint noise that might almost be a laugh, one corner of her mouth ticking upward in a reluctant little smile.

"Same."

Magic wasn't real in Night City, but it sure is real here, though Lucy's only just beginning to admit that to herself.

"Some of it's really pretty, I gotta say." Even the food and drinks here are picture perfect, her smoothie looking like it's come straight off social media, and apparently when it's finished it even gives off a light show.

[actually should put a CN: non-explicit abuse reference here]

[nightmare_fuel]

"They really seem to put a lot of effort into everything."

It was impressive, Sakura had to acknowledge. Certainly, with the magic the people in this world possessed, and the advanced technology -- those two things, especially taken together, no doubt made it easier to produce such extraordinary fare, but technology and even magic did not come from nowhere; to hone either craft to such levels of delicate perfection must have taken untold generations and millennia. Once upon a time, was Medeas a simpler world? Or had it been superlative from the beginning? Sakura takes another bite of her eclair, considering. She kept thinking about her own world, the mage society that had co-existed alongside the development of human civilization, and the gods who were supposedly on the other side of the world.

There was certainly a lot to consider -- a lot which, honestly, somewhat intimidated her, as a mage who was just finding her feet properly in this new world -- but for now, there is also something else, a bit of a more down to Earth consideration which Sakura has found herself thinking about, and since they are speaking anyway, she decides to bring it up to the other woman.

"That girl... Seraphine Nova." The one who had been their guide, and who had appeared here, noting that this was her family's coffee shop. "I --"

Sakura starts to say "I'm concerned," but she stops herself, expression turning a bit contemplative. No, that was not it, exactly.

She thinks of herself, of the girl she had been until not very long ago. She thinks of the way she had walked through life dragging her heels, hunching her shoulders, making herself smaller. She thinks of how no one knew, no one saw, no one imagined the suffering she had been enduring in the basement for all those years. To them, she was just a sullen and reserved high school girl, shy and self-effacing. Sakura had never contemplated this with any exteriority, not like she does now. She had no frame of reference for doing so. But now, looking at that girl...

... but, while perhaps she was wrong, she did not get the sense that this was a case of secret abuse (as hers had been), or something similar. Seraphine had mentioned her father was somewhat estranged. But every time they have encountered one another, the girl's demeanor has been guarded, a little suspicious and a bit curious. It seemed to fall short of asking for help, but...

"There's something bothering her."

Sakura settles on that. Maybe she was not being abused or hurt, but something, in some way, was amiss. Sakura saw too much in that demeanor.

[lunardreaming]

[ Seraphine had actually been on Lucy's mind, too, but for different reasons.

The girl had expressed a disgust with the human form, and something in Lucy had kind of-- echoed in sympathy. She's fully human, unlike Seraphine, who seems to be partly machine, and not in the kind of fully-decked-out-with-cybergear way some in her world were. That disgust had made Lucy think of the long weeks spent in the cyberworld in her childhood; the clean lines of the digital, far beyond sweat and dirt and tears and waste. It made her think of long hacking sessions for her edgerunner group, the shocking cold of the ice bath she'd been submerged in entirely forgotten in the face of white angles and crisp text and the way her body was reduced to being a ghost in the machine and nothing more.

Sakura noticed something entirely different, though, and Lucy knows exactly what she means. Her guarded nature, her mentioning something about wanting to speak more if they'd be willing to listen. Lucy hadn't clocked it at the time, because, well... she'd been exactly the same at Seraphine's age. Reclusive, guarded, flat affect. ]

Mm. She also said we're going to get pulled along on some investigation into cybercriminals. But it doesn't sound like that was what she wanted to talk about.

[ Lucy takes a thoughtful sip of her drink. ]

If her dad's a Minister, maybe she saw something she wasn't supposed to.

[nightmare_fuel]

[ Maybe something in the enchanted food and drinks makes Sakura feel bolder. Maybe it's even a byproduct of the inhibition loss from the Creativi-tea, for all she knows, but Sakura finds that her mind keeps circling back to the issue. Is she being rude? She and Lucy have really only just met, after all, and thus she barely knows anything about her. Only that the other woman outwardly had a good bearing. Calm, sensible-looking. Mature? An adult, at any rate. And they were all strangers to one another here, but Sakura finds herself thinking that's all the more reason for them to try to... seek answers together, if that was possible. ]

I think we should... reach out to her. Somehow.

[ Sakura has thoughts. maybe sending her a gift basket, or some sign of good will? though, with Seraphine's family owning a coffee shop, food/drink might not be the most reasonable offering. but some kind of token that they were people whom she could speak with, if it turned out she did indeed wish to follow up with them, as she had hinted. ]

If her father is the minister, he would know things others wouldn't. Even if... there are things she doesn't know... but maybe you're right. Maybe she saw something.

[ Sakura is, a bit eerily, reminded of mage families in her own world. secretive. Seraphine Nova had indicated, in their first meeting, that there were things she herself did not know, did not understand, and was curious about. there was... there was definitely something afoot here. she just wasn't sure what the shape of it was, yet. ]

I'm sorry. I never introduced myself, did I? [ Sakura pauses, shaking her head. ] My name is Sakura Matou. I'm learning magic here, I guess.

[lunardreaming]

Lucy. Tech.

[ It's abrupt and a little chilly, but not in an unkind way. Mostly just in the I'm a Night City native and I'm used to texting more than speaking kind of way. ]

There's a reason she wants to talk to us. Don't know what it is yet, but it's worth figuring out. If we reach out to her-- it should be some way via tech. She made it sound like she was more at home with VR and numbers, so that's the way she'll respond the best.

[ Being here is making her feel a little like a detective, but it's... nice, actually. In Night City, all she ever did was try to keep herself as hidden as possible, except for the last few months there, when she was hunting down Arasaka execs. Here, she feels... bolder. Like she can engage. ]

And if we show her she can trust us, she might tell us whatever's on her mind, right?

[nightmare_fuel]

That's good thinking.

[ Sakura considers. Lucy has a point: Seraphine had expressed a particular fondness for technology, and she seemed to even be part technological, so that needed to factor in with whatever they did, going forward. but as that goes, Lucy would obviously have the advantage in ideas, between the two of them. ]

You might have better ideas there than I would. [ she makes a little hm sound, considering. ] Is it possible to make -- a package, or a card maybe, but digital?

[ she's pretty sure they can create something like a digital card. even the technology of her era allowed phones/computers to create simple versions of these. Magisteria's technology could presumably allow for a far more advanced version. but maybe Lucy would have another idea for something they could try. ]

[lunardreaming]

How about...

[ Lucy leans back in her chair, head tipped back, thinking. The question is hilariously tech-naive, so Lucy's thinking she's yet another person from a world not particularly advanced, or at least not as advanced as Lucy's. ]

Place like this has gotta have memory downloading tech somewhere. Maybe you could give her a handful of your memories, something to show her that you can be trusted. Something to show her you're willing to be vulnerable with her, so she can be vulnerable back.

[ She takes a sip of her drink, and tilts her hand in a so-so motion. ]

Failing that, could just make a nice little digital card and write something heartfelt in it.