a raffle;

[heirring]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Val & Wysteria
RECIPIENT: Riftwatch
NOTES: Val is in red. Wysteria is in blue. If you comment on this post, in any form, your character is automatically entered in the raffle to win Thedas' first medieval bike. The winner will be randomized at the end of the month.

[What's the one thing all but guaranteed to send a shiver up the spine? An ominous whiff of smoke on the air? The faint stirring of dread? The breath of a spirit across the back of the neck?

No! It's a familiar prim clearing of the throat followed by—]

Good afternoon, Riftwatch! This is Wysteria Poppe—er de Foncé speaking along with—Monsieur de Foncé as well.

[Poorly done. But onward!:]

We would like to announce a contest. And yes, before you ask, there is a prize.

To begin with: notoriety. This is good for a man’s name, and good for a man’s career--or a woman’s, of course! But one cannot subsist upon mere notoriety, even if it does facilitate the linings of one’s purse or pockets by furnishing future opportunities. And so for those materials of desire, we are pleased to say that there is something more, something physical that one will gain from participation in this contest. Something entirely unique. Think of it! You will be the envy of all society, the talk of all parties that you attend, the name whispered in drawing rooms and salons and parlors--notoriety!--and then the something! Further reward.

By now you cannot resist this temptation.

Yes! The prize is of an extremely physical nature. And happily, there is only a very modest requirement for entering this contest. One need only make an appearance in the main courtyard this afternoon and attempt to mount and ride the something. It is a prototype which requires testing, you see. And so the winner of the contest will be able to boast of having the first ever of this particular creation before it becomes wildly popular abroad in all the fine cities and various courts.

Valentine, you've ridden it. Tell them how pleasurable the experience is.

In a word: beyond. If you are suffering under the belief that you yourself have experienced the pleasure of a ride? You have not. Not until you have taken a turn upon the something. This experience is akin to nothing else. Smooth, easy, entirely lacking in the occasionally uncomfortable quivering one might experience during--ah, no, there are not words with which to describe it, not truly. One must simply experience.

Which is precisely why you—the general you; I am addressing you all in Riftwatch once more—really must come. Also because I would be very personally appreciative. But mostly on account of the prize. Once more, that is to the main courtyard this afternoon if you wish to have a chance to win the something.

[Her voice becomes tinny; Wysteria must have turned her face toward her accomplice and away from the crystal. 'It really does need a proper name. Maybe that should have been one of the prizes—']