lostcarnival | ⇨ ATLANTIS

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⇨ ATLANTIS

Who: Everyone!
When: The morning of D44 and onward.
Where: The ocean realm of Atlantis.
What: The carnival abruptly arrives at an underwater realm, and everyone is transfigured into merpeople just as suddenly.
Warnings: Body horror, I guess.

THE CITY OF ATLANTIS↴

The visit starts without much warning, but at least there is a full week of free time before performances start. In the meantime, your characters will be given ample opportunity to adjust their acts for an underwater audience, get used to their new fishy appendages, or just spend the whole time enjoying the sights and sounds of Atlantis city. King Triton will not be immediately seen, but it's possible to gain an audience with him if you get in contact with the ambassadors of the kingdom. Just, make sure that you're not wasting his time. He's a lot less patient with nonsense than the Ringmaster is.

► FISH FRIDAY: You fell asleep, whether or not that's something you usually do, and the next morning you wake up as one of the merfolk. A few last additions may grow in after you're awake, but for the most part everyone will have a method of swimming and a method of breathing underwater transfigured into them upon waking. Don't worry about your belongings - everything is waterproofed, and technology will work the same underwater as it does above it. That doesn't mean there won't be plenty to get used to, though.

► GREAT BLUE YONDER: The ocean realm where Atlantis resides is enormous, and the depths seem to be unending. Despite the fact that there doesn't seem to be any surface, sun glimmers all the way down to the ocean floor. Atlanteans use creatures like whales and dolphins as rides and beasts of burden, and they can be seen swimming in and out of the city as constantly as roadways filed with cars in earth civilization. Beyond that, there's everything you would expect to see on the ocean floor here - huge reefs of coral, both familiar and exotic, enormous ocean plants, deep ocean trenches, and all kinds of weird critters living in them. There are a mix of mythical and standard ocean creatures, and are likely a combined populations of many oceans worth of beings.

► THE ATLANTEAN MARKET: The Atlantean market (aka the "merket") is a long trench between rows of buildings in the middle of the city, lit with bio-luminescent plants and rocks, and filled with all kinds of weird mer stuff that you can buy. There are a great many individual booths, mostly with hand crafted wares and objects that have been salvaged from various sunken ships. The Ringmaster has already traded a large number of goods to the merfolk here, and has taken the profit to award each worker with 100 Atlantean Gold to spend as they please. One gold is worth roughly five USA dollars, for a comparison of how much that is. There is a top level set up below in which characters can make their purchases, and you can also handwave the purchase of random common, necessary items (food, drink, etc) at your convenience.

► TREASURE HUNTING: Right now, the only major salvage areas are a few left over sunken ships that have mostly been picked over by the merfolk. However, you are welcome to head over to them and explore, and see if fortune smiles on you when it comes to finding anything that hasn't been taken yet. The current options are three similar looking brigantine that all probably came from the same world. Merfolk do not seem to consider them to be anything extraordinary, though magical items and gold have allegedly been found within them. Whether or not anything is left, is the real question.

► LIMELIGHTING: Merfolk are curious and generally socially forward, as a species. This mean that they find the carnival's workers to be a fascinating novelty, and also are unafraid to make that fascination obvious. Given the opportunity, merfolk will demand your character's attention for bombardments of questions and for general socializing, especially if they are particularly unusual for some reason. Don't be surprised if you get invited to stay at total stranger's houses, or dragged off to a merfolk bar to surprise party with their friends. They'll let you say no, reluctantly, but they will also be pleased as punch to get up in your gill.

It's also possible to make some money, this way, if you're willing to do street performances, or are willing to sell your "skills" in a more private environment. Yes, there are opportunities to become a fish hooker if you are so inclined. Merfolk may also offer money to take you as arm candy to various public events, escort style. They don't consider this to be a particularly socially inappropriate thing to do, either.

You can ask general questions about this setting over on the event post. There are top levels below for buying Atlantean merch, and also for making dolla dolla, if your character is inclined to try.

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Peridot can literally count the number of times she has actually properly slept on one hand. As such, it's extra disorienting, going through the process of waking up when she doesn't even recall having laid down to sleep in the first place.

The real shock, though, comes at a one two punch. First, she's suddenly aware that everything is underwater. Second? Her entire lower half has been replaced with a set of unfamiliar stringy appendages, her tail and legs just. Inexplicably gone.

"Lapis?" she yells uncertainly, clonking around the trailer gracelessly. She needs to go find her roommate but she hasn't got a goddamned clue as to how to move with these things.

Peridot isn't the only one who is disoriented. Lapis can count the amount of times she's slept on one hand too, so waking up is. It's a thing, for certain. Coupled with waking up underwater, well.

There's a loud thunk of Lapis' head hitting the top of the trailer because she's suddenly floating and she's not exactly used to that either. Thankfully Peridots' voice keeps her from losing her shit too badly, though her voice still sounds a little shaky when she calls back.

"I'm here!" She just needs to. Get over to Peridot. Which is seriously hard with her new body, and is more or less just a bunch of graceless spinning and useless clawing at water. Which seems to be the most effective with her new webbed hands.

She knew that her form was supposed to change, but she, uh. Wasn't expecting everything at once.

Fortunately these new appendages that Peridot has found herself with aren't... entirely dissimilar from legs? With some creative effort, she manages to start an unsteady walk across the trailer floor following Lapis' voice, twisting at the waist to grab on to any handholds she passes.

When she clears the other room, she gets a good look at Lapis, eyes widening. "Alright, well, at least I'm not the only one with weird new changes," she says, bemused. "Are you OK?"

Lapis gives Peridot A Look. She's upside down, rotating counter clockwise slightly and her tail is touching the roof of the trailer. Her arms are crossed. Does she look okay to you?

"Fine."

WELL, LISTEN,,

What else is she supposed to say.

"You don't look fine," Peridot observes, brow furrowed. She is not going to let you give her the brush-off here, Lapis. "Couldn't you just like, do your water thing to manipulate the currents in here, so you can right yourself or something?"

"I didn't even think of that." And actually, that's. Not a bad idea. It also means that Lapis is finally righted in no time at all thanks to Peridot being clever.

"So why is the entire trailer flooded and why-" she motions down at the lower half of her torso. Fishbutt. "Am I like this?"

Peridot clicks her tongue thoughtfully. "Mm. Based off of past experience, I would surmise that the whole carnival has undergone a change to better adapt to the needs of its next audience."

Shrug.

"It does that sometimes. Being underwater is a new one on me, though."

"Just where I never wanted to go again." But she's here, and she doesn't have too much of a choice and now her body is wrong to boot.

At least she can change one of those things? Now that she's thinking about it anyway. The tail, fins and gills running along her sides disappear in a flash of blue, and Lapis, for now, has at least regained her normal leggy form.

"I don't think I can do too much of a performance underwater if my entire act is water."

Just for the briefest of seconds, Peridot scowls. She still hasn't totally gotten over that shapeshifting envy of hers.

"That... is a problem," Peridot agrees, tapping her chin. She glances up, looking strangely optimistic? "I guess we'll just have to collaborate and come up with something new for you to do then!"

Thankfully, Lapis misses the scowl. She's too busy checking to make sure all of her form is correct and hasn't been interfered with by fae magic.

"I'm not really sure what else there is for me to do. It's not like I can just change to flying either." Both of her abilities are kind of moot when she's underwater.

"You can still control the currents and stuff, though," Peridot points out. "We'll just have to think of a way to take advantage of that. And there's still plenty of time to figure it out before performance week rolls around, anyway."

"Well, yes, but what am I supposed to do? Move people around in their seats?" Come on, Peridot. Get with the program?

"Like I said, we have time to figure it out," Peridot says dismissively.

She pauses. Cocks her head and scratches an ear, looking uncomfortable. "Hey, listen... are you going to be... you know... okay down here?" The engineer jerks her head vaguely, seemingly indicating the whole 'being underwater' situation they're currently faced with. "I just want to make sure, considering the whole tomb thing and. Everything else."

Lapis wasn't going to bring it up, conceal, but Peridot brings it up and for a moment she looks a little surprised? She should have known that Peridot would have been concerned about her though.

"I'll be fine. I'd rather not be down here, but it's not like I can just escape unfortunately." Contract and all.

Peridot still looks rather concerned, but she decides it's best not to press the issue too hard. Besides which, Lapis is right. There isn't really anything to be done about it.

"Well... Alright. If you're sure," she says, folding her arms. "At least we know for sure that we only have to put up with it for about 14 Earth days. And besides...." She gives Lapis a big, goofy wink, grinning. "I'm way better company than you know who. So you've got that much going for you, at least."

Well, at the very least Peridot is great at cheering her up? Lapis cracks a lopsided grin herself. "That's true." It'll also be hilarious to see Peridot try and swim with her new appendages. Meanwhile Lapis gets to exercise her shape-shifting abilities for a change.

"You don't think that the Ringmaster would just let me take performance week off instead, do you?" She has a lot of nothing she could be doing.

"Not likely," Peridot says. "You're supposed to be working to pay off a debt, remember? Oh--!"

With a flash of inspiration, she snaps her clawed fingers and points. "Color! We could incorporate basic chromatic variations to differentiate your magic water from the rest of the water that's surrounding us!"

Dang, and here she thought she might have been able to get off of working due to being useless underwater. Well, performance wise, but Peridot seems to have figured it out.

"That should work." Lapis agrees with a nod. "Might take a little more work to control that though." Not that she can't, it'd just take a little more concentration. "Where would we get the colour from?"

"Eeeuuhhh... Hm. Dyes? Lights?" Her shoulders sag a little. "I haven't quite thought ahead that far yet," she admits. "But I'm sure we can figure something out. We can experiment a little!!"

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⇨ ATLANTIS

[CLOSED TO LAPIS]

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I thought i tagged this back WTF

how will i ever learn to love again,

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