Hmm, so I guess we get to meet all the popular people who are weird like us in the area. Or so Wallace implied before we left Athens. To Atlanta, we drove.
We were taken to this club thing called Glamour Shots to wait to meet a bunch of important folks.
We met Kevin Fourpaws first, the owner of the establishment. Then the processional followed, where we got to meet all the representatives of the political organizations around the area. This formality bored me, I'm not one much for parties or socializing really.
The people we met gave an overview of their “courts” as they're called, and introduced themselves.
I was really impressed by that Ahriman Khan guy. He seems to have made something of himself in the real world despite his experiences with the Gentry. That is quite admirable, I am very interested in how he managed it. When we were allowed to mingle, I talked to him for a little while. He's a very no-nonsense, stoic guy, but not overly friendly.
Meanwhile, Kevin Fourpaws was a strangely refreshing personality for me. I think perhaps he reminds me a lot of my brother, and it feels very familiar in a human sort of way to me. I like him despite his… overly flighty qualities.
While Wallace is cool and all, I was really turned off by Violet. I can't quite put my finger on why, though. Jennifer, the princess of the Winter Court seemed very friendly and nice, but I was too embarrassed to approach her to talk to her, looking like a dumpy fool that I was, not a penny or useful trait to my name at the moment.
After talking with Ahriman for a while and then Kevin for a long time after that, I just kind of sat out of the way and watched everyone else talk and mingle. I am just not much of a social person, and doing this kind of thing for a long time drains me terribly. And I'm so tired, my life is in shambles, and I don't know what I'm going to do about my degree anymore. And my replacement is making a fool of my name… oh man, what am I going to do?
The party wound down not too long after that, and we were shuffled off to hotels to stay the night. We were given a few sets of clothes to choose from. After we got up, we were brought back to Kevin's establishment to meet with him and to have him show us the ropes I guess. We were allowed to go buy our own clothes using $500 each.
Later that night while the club was open were allowed to mingle with the other changelings and humans. I guess we some how harvest human emotions and use that to fuel our powers that we had always just used in Faerie by default? Well anyway, I just kind of sat at a table and watched people all night, and even attempted a passive harvest while Jake and Tim were making fools of themselves against some wussy emo kid.
I also talked to Kevin for a long time that night. He came over to my table, concerned that I wasn't enjoying myself or that there was something wrong. He's a nice guy, but a little daft and slutty for my tastes. He really reminds me of Ilya now, though, heh! I like talking to him anyway.
Later Sylvan Roberts, the king of the Spring Court came by to ask us to do him a favor. Apparently, there have been some disappearances of the newly arrived changelings in the area of late, and he wants us to investigate it because we're in a good position to be, well, bait. I was not particularly happy about this, but what else am I going to do? And they've spent a lot of money on us, so it's the least we can do, I guess.