<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ccff">"The Comedian"<br/>
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<i>'So many mysteries to solve, I feel like I'm in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, except spirits and magic are real.'  </i>thought Toby.  <i>'But I think, maybe I know the language they're speaking, laugh out loud."</i></span><br/><i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ccff"></span></i><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ccff">Toby sat down at the table, speaking first with Josey (<a class="username" data-user-id="5865" data-username="@Josey" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" href="https://blackdahliaroleplaying.com/members/5865/">@Josey</a>), "May I join you?"<br/>
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Josey nodded the affirmative while he ate and drank.<br/>
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Toby helped himself to the different types of food that had been laid out, until his plate was nearly full.  Despite his size, he believed he wasn't really a glutton, even though there was a time in his life when he was one, he just didn't exercise much and it was very hard for him to lose weight.  He whispered a prayer to his goddess, wishing he was with her, and then joined in the eating and drinking.  He found the meal to his liking, better than most earthly food and not quite as good as the food at Dion's.  The flavors were both different and pleasant, foreign food was always being different but not always enjoyable.  He ate leisurely.<br/>
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To Cassie (<a class="username" data-user-id="6169" data-username="@Purplefairydust" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" href="https://blackdahliaroleplaying.com/members/6169/">@Purplefairydust</a>), replied Toby to her earlier question, "Breaking the Laws of Hospitality, Cassie, either by harming an acknowledged guest or insulting or committing a crime against a host, is a serious matter among faeries.  If you commit a rude act, a host can throw you out into whatever, be it nothing spectacular or a pack of monsters.  If you commit a crime, it's just like back on Earth but much more 'eye for an eye' style justice and they have slavery here, too.  Even if the faeries in this tree don't look like much, they might have magic that we might not be able to fight.  If they're too weak for that, they can appeal to their nobles and even their royalty who will be honor-bound to help their subjects and those faeries will be very very powerful."<br/>
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After a few more unhurried bites of food, Toby said to Carla (<a class="username" data-user-id="2453" data-username="@Zulma" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" href="https://blackdahliaroleplaying.com/members/2453/">@Zulma</a>), "Our hosts aren't panicking, so I think we shouldn't be overly frightened unless that changes.  I'm not going to stuff myself here at the table, but I'm not going to let myself get weak with hunger."<br/>
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"On another matter," he said, "I think I know their language, although speaking it is a bit tricky.  It's English, spoken backwards."<br/>
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While the others looked at Toby like he was mad or wondered how he came to his conclusion, he had another bite of food and drank some more water.<br/>
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"Cassie," continued Toby, "you're probably too young to know this and maybe Carla and Josey know, but maybe not,  It sounds like 'backmasking'.  In the nineteen-sixties and senventies, recording engineers were accused of planting secret and sublimimnal messages on vinyl records by playing a prerecorded backwards message when making a normal master recording.  The legend was that if you had the record-player's needle on the record and manually spun the vinyl disc backward then you could hear the secret message.  Also, in comic books, there was a magician character whose 'magic words' were simply normal words but spoken backwards.  We can probably communicate with words, but it won't be easy.  I'd suggest using small words and really thinking hard about how to say short sentences backwards."<br/>
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Toby turned to their host and did his best to annunciate clearly to him, "ee-ti-hi-lhat-tip-soh ruoy rof ouy knaht."</span>