The White Swanfish Gala (Open to All, including party-crashers)

[creepycyclops]

The White Swanfish Gala is this evening - A VIP-only event where invitations are only sent to the likes of the heads of industry, Mover stars, avatars, and their guests. The host is Wil Zan (Slade's affable civilian alter ego), and he is dressed in a fine white and blue silk nehru, smiling broadly and chatting with what seems like every patron there, one at a time. He has brought in the finest chefs to provide an unlimited stream of fine food and drink, popular musicians provide entertainment and lively music to dance to, and this gala is sure to be an event worth talking about for years.

Interestingly, Zan has set up some rather unusual security measures. Though your average riff-raff will be kept out, he has intentionally left strategic security gaps that can be bypassed by the bold and the cunning. Zan actually has men covertly watching these gaps, but instead of stopping these party-crashers, their instructions are to inform Zan. (This serves as a sort of test for potential apprentices that Slade may try to recruit in the future.)

((NOTE: This is an event log, so not every reply has to be toward Slade. Feel free to write what your character is doing at the party or how they snuck in, etc. "Zan" is likely to give you his attention, but others can too.))

Comments

[lavamylife]

"Nabu?" Bolin says with a morbid curiosity. However, once Wan points her out, Bolin recognizes her... well, maybe not instantaneously because she wasn't wearing anything like this the only other time he'd seen her, but she was uncharacteristic enough in her facial features where it didn't take long. "Ooooooh yeah, her! She was at Yangchen's festival. Buried my kite in the sand after I lost control of it once." He almost sounds sad at that still, as if somehow she had killed a pet Fire Ferret or something. "But that's something. Good for you, W—I mean, buddy.

"But yeah, I'm kind of not used to parties like this either. I mean, it wasn't until a few months ago until I finally got invited to a few, after becoming a big mover star and all. Here's a hint: If you can't pronounce the name of the food on the card in front of it, it's probably not very tasty."

[raavashing]

"You can call me Wan," he said with a bit of a wry smile. "There are a thousand Wan's you know."

He crossed his arms and looked around for a pillar or wall to lean back against, "I'll keep that in mind. Though so far I haven't really been eating anything. Varrick keeps pushing drinks into my hands."

[lavamylife]

No code names? Bolin is slightly saddened by that, but only insofar that it would have been super cool to do some fun secret stuff. "Okay... Wan," Bolin says in a smooth voice, waggling his eyebrows at him with all the secrecy of a marching band playing at top volume. "So you've met Varrick too, huh? He's a pretty swell guy, am I right? Well, if you ignore that alleged kidnapping the president thing last year, but that charge got thrown out in the courts, really. But hey, he made me a mover star! And he tried to save Asami's company once! And..." Okay, maybe he tried to take over Asami's company, but Bolin couldn't help but like Varrick just a little bit.

[raavashing]

"He kidnapped the president?" This was not something Wan had actually learned in his library readings. He'd been focused on incidents surrounding the Avatar and the history of the known Avatars that could be found as well as the general history of how Republic City had been founded. He hadn't be paying attention to the president past the fact that he'd been elected as the first president of the United Republic.

[lavamylife]

"Allegedly kidnapped the president," says Bolin as he corrects Wan. "It was never actually proven in court since the witness' testimony was deemed unreliable." That is recited almost as if Varrick told him in exactly those words what happened. "Besides, he was never actually successful doing it. Even if it was because I stopped them. But hey, Varrick's a much nicer person that that makes him seem!"

[raavashing]

"So... he did try to kidnap the president?" Wan asked, still very confused by all this. The whole being proven in court thing was not exactly familiar to him. Judges that were not also the rulers of the city and jurys and the like were all very new concepts. Also, Bolin's defense of a man he had apparently had to stop was... odd. Wan felt like he was missing a lot of details.

[lavamylife]

What can he say? Bolin has a soft spot in his heart for Varrick no matter how hard anyone has ever tried to quash it.

"Well, yeeeesssssss, he did," Bolin says, though he's withholding his opinions. "Or at least someone said that he tried to do it. Because he didn't do it directly but supposedly paid someone off to do it. But secretly he was actually trying to help us defeat Unalaq, the Northern Water Tribe chief! You see, Unalaq was causing all of these Dark Spirits to appear and was attacking everyone with them, and Varrick was actually trying to help convince President Raiko that the United Republic should go to war so we could stop Unalaq and help fix all of the spirits. He's really good in the long run!"

[raavashing]

"So..." Wan drawled out again as he tried to make sense of this. "He tried to convince the President to go to war by kidnapping him to stop Unalaq and fix the problems with the spirits. A problem that, if I remember what I read correctly, was actually Unalaq trying to free Vaatu from where Iiiiiaaaaaaa a certain Avatar waaaaay in the past imprisoned him. Vaatu being the the Spirit of Darkness and Chaos, who gains power from emotions like anger and hatred. Which is what war brings. So if there was a war, Vaatu would have gained even more power and throw the balance even further askew."

He raised an eyebrow, "And through all of that, Varrick was trying to help. With war."

[lavamylife]

[Good save, Wan. Bolin won't notice at all.]

You pretty much nailed all the essentials yeah.

Though I suppose I forgot to add in the fact that Unalaq was being a jerk, took over the Southern Water Tribe, arrested Korra's dad and rigged a trial so that he would be executed.

[See? Varrick's less of a jerk than Unalaq, and that's proof.]

[raavashing]

That was not exactly what Wan had been getting at. Trying to incite a war via kidnapping was just as bad as this Unalaq person trying to get Korra's father killed with a false trial. Unalaq trying to bring Vaatu back, however, was something that did at least push him into the 'worse than Varrick' category.

"Riiiight," he said with a click of his tongue. "And what is Varrick doing now? What kind of business is he in? It's not the war business, is it?"

[lavamylife]

[What are you trying to do here, Wan? Use logic on Bolin? Who are you, and why are you suddenly Mako?]

Uhm... I, well, I don't actually know. He left Republic City for a while and got taken in by Suyin in Zaofu, and it looked like he was experimenting with science things. Metalworking or something? It didn't look like anything war-related though?

[Bolin's whole response just exudes dubiousness. It's not like he really didn't ask too many questions about it; he was too busy pursuing Opal, really.]

[raavashing]

"Not war-related is good." Though Wan still wasn't sure of Varrick, at least he wasn't trying to continue the war. "You said he made you a Mover Star?"

[lavamylife]

"Yup, bona fide, grade-A actor at your service," says Bolin with a hint of confidence. "Didn't even know I had it in me until Varrick saw it and threw me into a mover. Won't lie: one of the best things that's ever happened to me!"

[raavashing]

Wan nodded along slowly, "So... it was fun?"

[lavamylife]

Was it fun? That's kind of a silly question. "Of course it's fun!" he says with enthusiasm. "I mean, I got to pretend I was this master waterbender, making all of these waterbending moves. And I got to be Nuktuk, Hero of the South! So I was defending the South against the evil northerner Unalaq, who was trying to freeze the entire world using some horrible device! I mean, you don't get to do that in the real world."

He pauses for a little bit before adding, "Well, I mean, we did defeat Unalaq for real. Just... he was trying to do something different instead."