Keeping Up with the Times

Well, this was an odd sensation. Cillian couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this alive. He snickered a bit at the terribleness of his own joke in his head, but it was true. He’d been to a lot of places in his lifetime but never to the Neutral Grounds. They were a fairly recent development, having only just cropped up in the last couple decades, and this was the first time he’d made the effort to head that directly. He’d heard rumors of how strong the anti-magic aura of the place was, but words were nothing in comparison to actually experiencing it.

Not having access to his magic was weird, but also kind of exciting. He strolled happily down the sidewalk making his way toward his destination: the warehouse that was manufacturing and giving out free iLacs. They were apparently the hip new device for communication these days, and it sounded like a useful tool to have so he figured he may as well get one while they were being offered at the five finger discount rate.

When he got into the building there was a ton of people. “Aw, man…” Cillian muttered, wincing a bit at the dull roar of everyone talking. He rubbed the back of his head and looked around, trying to figure out where he was supposed to start. A lady at a kiosk was taking names and putting people in a digital queue, which was probably what he should do sooner rather than later if he didn’t want to be waiting around all day. What a drag. Cillian put his name in and was told it would be about a twenty minute wait.

That was plenty of time for him to look around, at least. There were tables set up with displays to look at, and honestly there were quite a few options to choose from. The iLacs were available in different styles, sizes, and colors. There were also protective cases and little charms one could buy to customize them. All the waiting around was an absolute bore, and honestly by the time it was his turn to be helped he’d already gone through a thousand ideas in his head of things he could do to pass the time -- most of the ideas being ones that would have got him into a lot of trouble and probably put a lot of people at risk.

Thankfully, the attendant got to him before he got stir crazy enough to act on those thoughts. He’d already figured out what he’d wanted by then, and soon he was walking out of the building with his very own iLac. It had a wide screen that was still small enough to fit in his pocket, and it was protected by a glittery orange case. Dangling from the case was a small charm of a black cat with a mischievous little grin on its face. With one hand in his pocket, his crimson eyes were glued to the screen as he walked out of the building and headed toward the edge of town back into the magical parts of Fiore, carefully looking through all his customizing options the whole way.