Christmas is best spent together.

Just as last time, Faustein had been lured out of his lair of mad science by the promise of a tantalizing change of pace in the form of seasonal festivities, these ones being Christmas themed ones. He had taken part in the ones held last time as well for this event type, so needless to say, he was curious as to what the event organizers would come up with this time

Last time, it was snowman building contest and then a fight with a yeti as well as its minions. I wonder what it will be this time.

Faustein had mused silently as he dressed appropriately for the occasion with a thick weatherproof, jet black hooded overcoat overlaying his usual physician-scientist’s outfit. His head was covered in a second line of defense provided by a Christmas-colored fur-lined cap with ear guards while his neck was guarded by his thick heirloom scarf made of special, rare wool among other materials. He had applied a small amount of magic to it to change its color to one more apropos to the season before putting it on. Lastly, he had on matching colored Christmas-colored gloves made of the same special, rare wool as well as other components as his scarf. Now, personally, he would have just liked non-festive attire, but in his case, those were all he had in the way of those specific weather-resistant gear, so he had no choice but to use them.

After holstering the rest of his magic gear and other tools needed for his profession as a physician-scientist, he had headed off to participate in the festivities. Eventually, he had found out that the nearest locale which was still open was in Hosenka, and so he traveled there. It had taken a while to reach there due to the Christmas rush traffic, but he had managed to arrive in time. After that, he had entered the town and had made his way toward the booth with the buxom female elf and the young man who were apparently the clerks this time.

“I am here to participate in the Christmas events for today. It will just be me alone doing them.”

He had said in his usual somewhat concise manner while filling out the paperwork for the registration while enjoying the desperate antics of the young male clerk which were clearly in response to his well- endowed female elf coworker thoroughly. Several minutes later, he had been given his materials as well in a box just like all the other participants around him and then, he had headed off toward his lot. However, while in transit, he heard a familiar voice calling out his name loudly enough to turn heads, so he headed over and saw his most recent patient and experimental specimen, aka Teresa, waving at him frantically. As he approached, he gave her an unabashedly obvious once over albeit in his usual clinical manner and then smirked in his trademark smug, arrogant manner before remarking

“Well now, that is quite the intriguing attire ensemble you have on, though I do wonder if it would not be more appropriate for a nightclub’s bacchanalian orgy. Then again, it could be that you were trying to attract a potential mate, I suppose. Nevertheless, it is quite fortuitous to have encountered you here, Teresa, for now the evening’s workload will be half as light.”

With that, he fell silent set his box of ornaments and other decorations down besides hers and then looked around at the other lots in sight range before turning back to her

“So, Christmas tree decorating eh? It should be a quaint little diversion, methinks. Shall we get started?”

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Text Legend:

• Italics: Faustein’s silent thoughts
  
  
• Bold w/ Quotes: Faustein’s speech out loud
  
  
• Non-Italics, Non-Bold: Faustein’s action text
  
  
• Bold w/ Italics (No quotes): Faustein's whispered, covert speech
  

Appearance:

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The smirk that Faustein had playing on his thin, faintly cyanotic, and firm lips grew wider and more apparent as he beheld Teresa’s reaction to his remark about her wardrobe choice for the evening. So, he had waited to see what else she would do, but she had managed to regain control of herself and changed into attire which was more suited to the Christmas event and had asked him to forget that he had seen her in her previous attire choice to which he had chuckled and then stepped up close to her till he was a few inches away from her ears at which point, he spoke with his usual rich, baritone and melodious voice into her ears while placing a hand on her shoulder

“Alas, it is too late for that, for you see, my eidetic memory has already recorded the sight of you wearing your previous mate attracting outfit in HD clarity. Besides, I never said that it was a bad choice at all, merely that it was not suited to this current activity. I would also like to offer my condolences to you for you having missed a great opportunity to mingle with the opposite sex. That said, I am grateful to whomever it was that you had plans with today for giving me this godsend opportunity to have you all to myself.”


He had ended his remark with a brief, rumbling maniacal chuckle as befitting a mad physician-scientist and a split second afterward, he had teleported back to his original position in front of her with the box in between them via his “Xenosomectomy” spell. Then, he watched as Teresa opened the box only to reveal that their duo had received the short end of the stick when it came to the quality of the decorations therein.

Well now, this certainly makes things inconvenient for us.

Musing thus, he sighed briefly before being brought back by Teresa who asked him whether he had any insights into how to proceed with their tree decorating. He was silent for several moments after which he opened his eyes once more and gave his input

“Well, there are three options for us in this situation. The first is that we could stea…er, I mean appropriate replacements for the unusable decorations from other teams in the vicinity to ourselves. After all, as they say in the vernacular ”sharing is caring” and this is the season of charity and kindness towards others. That is where your magic could be useful.”

He paused for a moment to gauge her reaction and then continued

“The second option is that we can attempt to repair the broken parts of our decorations pile with my magic. The final option is that we can make a request of the festival committee to exchange our broken pieces for intact new replacements.”

After finishing, he looked from the box to her and then asked her

“So, which of these would you want to employ in this situation?”

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• Italics: Faustein’s silent thoughts
  
  
• Bold w/ Quotes: Faustein’s speech out loud
  
  
• Non-Italics, Non-Bold: Faustein’s action text
  
  
• Bold w/ Italics (No quotes): Faustein's whispered, covert speech
  

Appearance:

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Faustein smirked even more as he saw his hand being removed by Teresa and chuckled a little at the rebuke while retorting

“Who knows? Maybe these so called “Spirits of Christmas” have possessed me for the evening. Rest assured though, usually reticence is most certainly the norm for me otherwise.”

With that, the conversation was directed back to the work at hand, namely the challenge of making the best of their handicap of all the broken or otherwise useless and inappropriate decorations which they had found in their assigned box upon opening it. Faustein simply nodded as Teresa showed him the event flyer and the “No Magic Allowed” clause on it and sighed before remarking

“Well, that’s a shame indeed. However, if we are to stay here, we must abide by the rules so back to the drawing board it is for us, I suppose.”

After that, he fell silent and heeded Teresa’s call to help her with the candles and accordingly, he began to take each of them and cut them down to size and rearrange the wicks so they would still be usable, all without using magic. However, since they were not using magic, it did take them a fair bit of time to accomplish that, even with both working on it. After that, Faustein helped her gather the few decorations among their lot which were intact and helped her set up them up on their tree. The finishing touch in their case was the pickle stuck on the top in place of the usual star. Once that was over, Faustein stood, lit the candles, and stepped back along with Teresa to assess their handiwork.

“C'est fait. Now then, let us call the judges over so we can have our work judged and then continue with our tour of the evening’s festivities, shall we?”

Saying thus, he waved the judges over so they could look at their tree and they both received a mediocre score thanks to their handicap. After the judges left, Faustein turned to Teresa and remarked

“So, about that eggnog, there seems to be a stall over in that direction, so let us be off.”

He then fell silent again and together with Teresa, he headed over to the stall, acquired some eggnog, enjoyed it briefly and then led her over to the next set of activities. As they walked towards the next few festivities, he turned towards her and asked

“So, what shall we try our hand at next, you think?”

Then, he fell silent and wondered what her response would be to his query while trying to come up with an optimal route to take so they could make the most of their time there.

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OOC:
Text Legend:

• Italics: Faustein’s silent thoughts
  
  
• Bold w/ Quotes: Faustein’s speech out loud
  
  
• Non-Italics, Non-Bold: Faustein’s action text
  
  
• Bold w/ Italics (No quotes): Faustein's whispered, covert speech
  

Appearance:

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