3rd Floor Common Room, Wednesday Morning

[not_every_mage]

Anders had gone to J,GOB's for breakfast and ordered one (1) donut.

The beleaguered young man behind the counter took the order, handed Anders his chocolate frosted -- and followed it with a box of assorted pastries so large it was awkward to handle.

"I didn't order this," Anders said, opening the box to poke at the contents. Not that he was opposed to free food, exactly, but it seemed unsporting to take it without some protest.

"I know," the clerk explained. "But the pizza and Chinese places keep giving away extra food, so my boss says we have to do the same to compete. Tell your friends."

"All ... right?" Anders said, and took the box back to the dorms before the baker could come to his senses. He started a pot of coffee in the common room kitchen, and, by way of a general announcement, shouted into the halls, "THEY GAVE ME FREE DONUTS IF ANYONE WANTS THEM."

That definitely counted as his good deed for the day, so he plopped down in front of the television, not paying much attention to what was on it, and began trying to make his way through as much of the box as he could manage. He didn't want them to go stale.

[OOC: open like a common room with food in it, yep!]

Comments

[seeks_truth]

"Must you make so much noise?"

There was free food, cranky Cassandra.

She marched into the common room squinting at Anders, irritably.

[not_every_mage]

"Not really, but if I'd been quieter we wouldn't be having this time together," Anders informed her cheerfully. (There was free food, Cassandra. It was going to take more than your irritability to bring Anders down.)

[seeks_truth]

"Ugh," Cassandra said succinctly. The food did draw her gaze now, however. "What is it?"

[not_every_mage]

"Some donuts, some muffins, a few little cakes I don't know the names for," Anders explained, gesturing to each in turn. "The boy at the shop told me his boss had decided to give things away. I wasn't about to argue."

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra picked up a donut and eyed it. "I find this suspicious," she said. "You take poisons class as well. Have you examined these?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders looked at her, surprised. "No one's trying to poison us, Cassandra."

That was a no.

[tigerundercover]

Raven was still at least a little bit in vacation mode (that was what happened when you had one class back and then two days off again), but if anything was going to get a teenager out of bed before noon when she didn't have to be up, it was free donuts.

"What'd you get free donuts for?" she asked as she came into the common room. "We're you the 1 millionth customer?"

[not_every_mage]

"The clerk said the pizza and Chinese places were always giving food away, so they'd decided the bakery should too," Anders explained. "I'm not sure I follow the logic, but I didn't complain. They're good."

[tigerundercover]

"How do businesses around here even stay open?" Raven asked, even as she quite happily grabbed one of the free donuts -- boston creme, if she wasn't mistaken, her favorite. "It's got to be magic, right?"

[not_every_mage]

"Maybe," Anders said, tilting his head to the side. "Or the owners don't care about money. The sign does say God of Biscuits. Maybe it's literal."

[tigerundercover]

". . . Huh," Raven said. "I never thought of it like that." She pretty much always assumed that any references to gods were pretty purely metaphorical. Fellow students claiming to be gods included.

[seeks_truth]

"That you know of," Cassandra noted.

[not_every_mage]

"Neither did I before just now," Anders told her. "But after everything else we've seen, an actual god running a bakery wouldn't be that strange."

Not that he thought Jeff was a proper god the way the Maker was. But some kind of being who honestly called itself a god? He could believe it.

[tigerundercover]

"I guess so," Raven said. "Though you think a god would have better things to do."

Ah, philosophical debates over baked goods. And they weren't even stoned.

[not_every_mage]

"That I know of," Anders granted. "But why in the Maker's name would anyone want to? Or are we assuming the bakery we've been going to for months is run by random crazy people who poison as a hobby now?"

[not_every_mage]

"Maybe he's a very minor god," Anders speculated. "Or maybe he got fired from godhood and this is his fallback. Wait, can gods get fired?"

Stoned, Anders would take this even more seriously.

[seeks_truth]

"I do not know," Cassandra said, rolling her eyes. "I am merely saying that one must be wary of sudden magnanimity such as this."

[not_every_mage]

Anders rolled his eyes right back at her. "I hate it when you're reasonable," he said, but leaned over the pastries to humor her. "I really don't think anything was done to them, though. The almond scent is from the almond pastries, not from cyanide. Also I've eaten about three and I'm not dead yet."

[seeks_truth]

"Yet?" Cassandra said. "We could sit here and wait. Now there would be an interesting experiment."

She was joking. Very, very dryly joking.

[not_every_mage]

"If we're assuming the people who own the bakery are poisoning maniacs, they might be poisoning maniacs clever enough to use a slow-acting poison," Anders said, equally dryly. "One can't be too careful."

[tigerundercover]

"I guess that depends on if you look at it as a job, or a state of being," Raven said. "If I were a waitress, I could get fired, but I can't get fired from being a shapeshifter."

[seeks_truth]

"Indeed, one cannot," Cassandra said, sitting down on the sofa, legs wide and taking up space. "I will wait until proper lunch time."

[not_every_mage]

"Right," Anders nodded. "So maybe the God of Biscuits can't accept sacrifices or grant boons anymore, but he still has the godly power of being an extraordinary baker. Which -- if you're a fallen god, that's not a bad one to have. At least you can support yourself with it."

[not_every_mage]

"What, sitting there and waiting for me to die?" Anders asked, not quite as confused as he was pretending to be. "I suppose I should be grateful you're clearing your busy schedule. You can even pick what's on the television."

It was currently showing a singing purple dinosaur. Anything Cassandra chose was bound to be an improvement.

[seveninchmotto]

"I heard something about donuts."

Look, there had been hollering about donuts. Isabelle was under no obligation to actually use a proper greeting when she came in to the common room.