[PRP] Gettin' Buggy (Chiara & Ephias)

[Green Minuet]

When: Late night, prior to Superstar Autority
Where: Degras Tysson's office

Big Sister is listening...

 

[Micillia]

Chiara stormed into the office she had set up for Ephias, or Degras Tysson as she knew him. It was looking like the entire first floor of her house was being converted for her buisness, which she was fine with. She really didn't need the large empty mansion that she had been ocupying since she was a wiggler, but she did have to take out the trap doors and the sliding floors, which was a little annoying. She liked those traps. "Can you ******** believe it Grass?!" The blueblood growled, letting her faint respect of the juggalo religion enter her speach. Also, she had decided to nickname her new co-manager Grass, it just seemed to fit him more than his full name. "THis event! Like, look at it! Have you even been reading th papers? There is some sort of... show or, competition for celebrities or whatever." The blueblood sat on her co-manager's desk, right on top of the papers he had organized just so, and fumed. "This better not mean i get more competition for the danmed dance battle buisness!" Chiara wanted more compedators to fight zin and stuff, but she did not want more managers getting their hands on her good tallent. With this sort of thing it would be just so easy for managers to pick up the stars that were doing well and then get in on the buisness she had essentially built from scratch. "I hope this thing STAYS its own thing. I do NOT want more competition in the dance battle buisness." Chiara had the market essentially manopolized, and she liked it that way.  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

Ephias jolted in his seat when the blueblood came storming into his office. He had gotten used to her sudden and dramatic entrances at this point, however he was never quite prepared for what came after them. The blueblood was full of surprises, not all of the pleasant. No matter how he braced himself she always caught him off guard.

This time however, her reason for bursting through his door was tamer than usual. Ephias straightened his back and flipped his tie down from over his shoulder, as Chiara seated herself on his desk. Ephias tried not to frown as she dislodged a stack of papers in the process. He failed and his mouth spread in a wide grimace. There was nothing to be done though. Chiara was in one of her moods.

“It looks like it's royally sanctioned...” Ephias said, picking up the flyer she had deposited on his desk. He skimmed down the document. “The empress is probaby looking for some new public puppets since figures like Awassi and Schrad have disappeared from the spotlight.”  

[Micillia]

Chiara shook her head and grumbled, "Figures, what are those two, like ancient?! Its about time she let the geezers go." Chiara glared at an imaginary Andies as well. He wasnt old, but he was competition, and Chiara didnt want any of that uless she could swing it black. Chiara sighed and leaned back, careless of weather she was pushing yet more papers around.

"I guess it could be an opertunity." Chiara said in exasperation. She was pretty sure a bunch of the dance battle stars she managed would want to enter this thing. She was just worried they would have a new way to fame and fortune that didnt go through her. She could loose a lot of opertunities if any one of them decided to cut out the middle man, her. "Well, lets gather some more info on this thing, and make sure to send a letter to all the dance battlers that i insist on being their main sponsor."

Chiara bit her lower lip, thinking, then slowly turned to Ephias and raised an eyebrow. He was more than he let others see, she was sure, there was a scheemer in that redblood's think pan, and chiara wanted to bait it out. "Humm, how can we swing this to make it work for us..." The blueblood mused. She had been pushing the "us" and "we" hard around Ephias, she wanted him to feel like a real partner, get him invested, intrested.  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

“Well...” Ephias mused. He turned over the flyer; the back however was blank. Setting it aside, he propped his elbows up on his desk, and rested his chin over his fingers. “Aside from the obvious advertising and recru-recruitment opportunity... there's potential allies I guess?” He lifted his eyes to meet Chiara's gaze. He had spent enough time with the blueblood to pick up on some of her ambitious nature.

“A celebrity can have a large influence on p-particular demographics, depending on who they cater to. Like uh...” Ephias wracked his brains. Only one celebrity came to mind. “Bilnye Sciguy is pretty popular with kids and even older trolls invested in the sciences and... w-well anyway, if you earn their support, you're earning the support of h-hundreds more. Provided you don't piss off the empress at the same time.” The redblood shrugged.  

[Micillia]

Chiara waved her hand around, waving off the mention of the empress. "Oh Pshhh, shes got bigger fish to fry than a meddeling blueblood." Chiara said, hoping it was true. Sure, getting drama with the empress would be fun, but also dangersous, and she had made sure to become "friends" with lorata just to avoid such danger. She kinda missed it tho, the danger, the excitement, but she would just have to make do.

"Thats a good angle tho," Chiara continued, refering ot the influence a celebrity could have, "Lets see," She picked up her folder of puppet- er, clients, and looked through them, frowning. So many redbloods, why was she collecting redbloods? "Fellah is gonna enter, all he talks about is "making it big", probably Zindel as well.... and those two are just beef, i cant see being able to spin either of them as anything close to "intilectuals"." She looked at Ephias, "What would be a good idea tho, is to find out in advanced who else is going to sponsor." She tapped her foot against the desk she was sitting on, musing out loud.  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

Ephias studied the blueblood from behind his hands, sceptical. “Why's that?” he asked, tilting his head. His brow furrowed. “Unless you're planning an alliance or sabotage—which I do not recommend—you should be focussing on the competitors. Or... do you have some-something else in mind?”  

[Micillia]

"Some something else indeed." Chiara said. She was teasing his stutter, but she also found it adorable. All of Ephias was adorable, his grumpy exterior, his shut-in personality, his constantly messy hair, adorable and so much fun to poke. "Some something outside the box... Everyone else is gonna be looking right at all this superstar blah blah blah. It's the perfect time to sneak something underneath everyone's noses." A sly grin grew on her face as ideas flashed in her mind.  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

Chiara's mockery caused the redblood to bristle. His mouth closed with a snap and his scowl deepened. He did not rise to the provocation however. It would only encourage her to tease him more. Besides, he needed to find out what she had planned; where Chiara was concerned he needed to always be on guard.

“And what would this 'something' be?” Ephias asked, after taking a moment to recompose himself. He regarded her with steely lookstubs.  

[Micillia]

The grin danced on Chiara's face, Ephias was intrigued, and that was always a good sign, meant she was going in the right direction. "Well, Each contestant will need merchandise, merchendice supplied by their sponsors, which means an easy way to get something spread out through a lot of trolls." She paused, thinking of what her merchandise would be. Had to be something trolls would find cute at first, then not notice again when they had out it in their hives. "Some item that we could easily hide recording devices inside..."  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

For a long moment after Chiara finished, Ephias stared at her in silence, face as cold and motionless as stone. His furrowed brow and tight scowl gave him a look of severe displeasure. It was the kind of expression that was more often seen on reproving lusii than trolls. Ephias took in a breath. A lecture was imminent.

“Not a bad idea,” Ephias said at last. He lowered his hands from in front of his face and folded them over his desk. He leaned back in his seat. “Taking advantage of a large scale event funded by... by the empire, you can establish a surveillance network with little risk, while maximising your area of observation. People tend t-to... have a tendency for consummerism, and novelty items are almost guaranteed to sell given the hype s-surrounding the contest...” The redblood grabbed a notebook from one of his drawers and began writing.

“Of course you would-would want something easy to... easy to disguise. A d-device, so as... so-so as not to raise suspicion... the bug could be... the bug could be part of it.” Ephias was less speaking to the blueblood at this point and more muttering to himself. He jotted notes down the page in heavy, sloppy scrawl.

“Most trolls won't question certain... certain technological components unless th-they're... they have an engineering background but if you... but if you hide it well enough ev-even they won't notice. But still it needs... it needs to be some-something people won't think about. Something everyone will... everyone will forget about after a week and... and leave sitting some place. Depending on b-b-battery life, you could have... could have spongeclots a-across Alternia for-for weeks or maybe even months. In places of p-power too...”

Ephias stopped. He tapped his pen against his lip and then glanced up at Chiara. “If you're going to do this right, you need to make sure you get some into the homes of all the contestants. Like a personal gift.”  

[Micillia]

Chiara's grin grew as she listend to Ephias. Excellent, this was gonna be great. "Ide have to go individual if i wanted to make it personal." She put her hand on her chin as she thought. "Which is fine but it needs to appeal to lots of trolls." She grinned, there was something silly she had in mind. "Have you seen those dancing quack beast tory?" She figured the redblood had in fact not seen them. "Cute little things, do a silly song, dance and light show when you push a button."

"But the point is, its cute enough to put on a shelf, but also small enough to easily forget. So, perfect camera." She winked. "Ill get you a not bugged one. They are adorable, trust me!"  

[Green Minuet]

Ephias Sagine

“You don't make that very easy,” Ephias muttered under his breath, as he scribbled down a note about a dancing quackbeast. What a ridiculous concept. Still, Chiara had a better idea of what would appeal to the public than he ever would.

He cleared his throat. “Get me the dimensions and I'll see if I can order some parts. We'll have to manu-ma... assemble them ourselves. You know that right?” He looked up from the notebook to give the blueblood a weary look.  

[Micillia]

"Yeah Yeah sure," Chiara said dismissively. Ephias could do it, she could supervise and make sure it all went according to plan. Easy easy. "Well, let's get those parts ordered so we can work on manuall assembly." She watched Ephias for a reaction before clapping her hands and calling it good.

"Gonna be a good gig, this thing." She said with a wink as she left the redblood to do the grunt work.