Is There Going To Be Garnish
There seems to be no noticeable Event of Charming the Moon’s Mask. You just look away for a moment, and when you look back it is blanketed by a vast rainforest.
Velle seems impressed and as if an intense curiosity has been satisfied, but not necessarily pleased.
Anise: “Is this good?”
Velle: “It’s a success in pursuit of Säve’s Theory. It’s difficult to say whether the Theory itself is good, and it sort of doesn’t matter anyway as long as we are all bound by the Contract. Until Nolle and Y can find a way to amend it, all anyone can do is work to advance it.”
Anise: “They’re working to amend it?”
Velle: “They are, and it is an impressive effort of wanting two conflicting things simultaneously. They of course want to pursue Säve’s Theory, because they are bound to do so by the Contract. But they found a way to also want this Theory’s Turn to be over.”
Anise: “How did they… choose… to want something different!”
Velle: “There are cracks, it turns out, in even the most foundational motivations. Nolle and Y knew from early on that they weren’t so sure about pursuing Säve’s Theory so fully, and they seem to have sort of kept a finger on those cracks, in case they could find a way to wiggle in and exploit them. Loopholes within the loopholes, if you will.”
Anise, staring off: “I suppose I will.”
Velle: “The mind is compartmentalized. Compart… mental… ized.”
Anise: “…”
Velle: “You can genuinely want something in the forefront of your consciousness, and in your outward interactions, while subconsciously wanting several other conflicting things. It’s easy. It’s more common than not doing so. They got good at it.”
Anise: “!”
Velle: “By another, smaller dash of random Fate within the aforementioned dash of random Fate, we met another House, occupied by just a pair of Cræfters, Winsome and Zsofia, who were not especially susceptible to the earnest campaign to pursue Säve’s Theory. They immediately recognized the cracks in Nolle and Y’s will, which our Housemates sort of hinted at obliquely, without violating the Contract’s insistence that they consciously want to pursue the Theory. Winsome and Zsofia got to work on a Charmed item to exploit the cracks.”