lostcarnival | ⇨ THE CELEBRATION

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⇨ THE CELEBRATION

Who: Everyone, especially YOU.
When: Day 60 - Day 65
Where: The Celebration
What: The carnival workers are invited to spend the week within the realm of the Celebration, the grounds of a party that has been going on for centuries. Accommodations are luxurious, but those with keen instincts might notice something off about this whole arrangement... (Questions can go to the original setting post!)
Warnings: Booze, drugs, sex, and everything in between.

THE CELEBRATION↴

If you observe that the layout of the Celebration grounds seem inconsistent, then you would be correct. In reality, what lies at the end of each corridor depends largely on what the guests of the Celebration want at the time - if a few people find themselves craving a drink, a bar may appear. If a group finds themselves wanting to dance, a club will open up. This goes on at all hours of the night, and given how many dedicated partiers fill the building, the services are well used. It isn't instantaneous, and the Host has to consciously decide to provide that service, but the changes are fast none-the-less.

► ROOMS: Each trailer pair will be assigned a room to themselves - whether or not it has two double beds or a single king sized bed seems essentially random. Hopefully you aren't too sensitive about keeping that space to yourself. The curtains at the far side of the room don't actually lead outside, but instead to a walk-in closet filled with the Host's best guesses at the type of clothing you might like. They may not hit the nail on the head, but at the very least all the clothing will be in your size. The styles could be just about anything, from any universe, but they do tend to average out to clothing that is Earth-ish. Either that, or clothing that looks like they are meant for elves from a high fantasy novel to wear.

► SHOPPING: If none of your pre-picked outfits tickle your fancy, plenty of boutiques and clothing shops can also be found around the grounds - whatever you're thinking of, you'll probably be able to find a shop appropriate for it eventually. Though, maybe it doesn't really count as shopping if you don't have to pay for any of the things you take back to your room with you? Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, you won't be allowed to drag all of your haul back to the carnival with you, so you better enjoy it while you can.

► DINING: There is no daily schedule to follow, after you arrive. You are free to attend the dining room whenever you wish, and will be seated at large round tables with whoever else may be around at the time, and can either order from the menu or most dishes you may think of off the top of your head. If you don't like the fine dining experience, there are also a selection of smaller cafes and eateries that open and close at varying times of day - and, of course, you can always call for room service.

► ENTERTAINMENT: There is plenty of live music around the grounds (not that you can ever seem to remember who the performers were afterwards) whether it comes to harp music while you eat or a full set of DJs in the club you found. If you are inclined to look for them, you may also find some cozy lounges with big screen TVs, and access to a multi-universal quantity of films. What's there or isn't there is unpredictable, but if you come from a standard variety of Earth you probably recognize some of them.

► SUBSTANCES: You don't have to be coy about it - just ask one of your servers, and you'll be able to get whatever kind of vices you might be craving. Drugs, alcohol, ice cream... it's all good. If this sounds like a nightmare for potential addicts, you would be correct. It's not uncommon to see people clearly over-indulging in certain locations, though guests are usually escorted back to their rooms if they take ill - only to see them back at it again the next day.

► SPA DAY: If you'd like to take a swim, pools of various aesthetics are easy to find. So are hot tubs, and saunas, and Host servants who are willing to give you a massage or manicure. If the party crowd isn't your scene, there are plenty of more low-key opportunities to indulge.

► GREENSPACE: There is one park area on the grounds, which appears to be constructed on the rooftops of other parts of the complex. While there are trees and greenery, there is no real sky that you can see - only the illusion of one. It may start to occur to you over time that no window or rooftop actually leads to any kind of outdoors. The Celebration really is there only thing here.

These are really just examples, and you can get creative with what kind of services you find offered while here, when it comes to generally mundane comforts. It really feels like the Host wants to win you over, as if you staying just a little longer has some sort of intrinsic appeal.

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Joker was there to witness that whole little event with him and his lady no-longer-afriend, and, trust him, he's more than amused by it. That much is obvious by how he's laughing into his hand.

"I think I'm doin' a little better, considerin' I still have my shirt on and ain't on someone's bad side."

"You win some, you lose some." Lambert offers philosophically, shrugging and leaning back against the couch. As if summoned by thought, a new faceless servant approaches, tray in hand, bearing not only a small towel for himself to wipe himself off, but also a new shirt, a fresh bottle of wine, and two glasses.

He also recognizes that voice -- one that had been making fun of Childermass last he heard it, which automatically makes him like the guy on principle.

"Fancy a drink?" He nods at the tray while he wipes himself dry and starts to pull the shirt on; with no buttons and flouncy sleeves, the net effect is to make him look like something of a lost troubadour.

A true a statement as any, and Joker relaxes from where he is, only shifting at the offer of alcohol. “Was never much of a wine type, but liquor is liquor, innit?” So one really can’t complain about that sort of thing. Sure, he could get any booze he could think of here, but Joker is easy going- perhaps the Host can sense that and hasn’t been pressing on him too much.

"Gets you drunk either way, doesn't it? But if you don't want wine, you can always ask for something else," Lambert points out, but he pours them both out a glass and passes one to Joker anyway. If he doesn't want it, Lambert would always be happy to drink it.

“I could,” he agrees lazily, even as he accepts the glass anyway. “But with half the things that are around here, I wouldn’t know where ta start. This place really does have everythin’, doesn’t it?” Well. Everything that could be used in a party, at least.

"That, my friend, is grossly understating it," Lambert answers, finding a rare moment of over dramatic eloquence as he raises his glass to lightly clink it against Joker's.

"You think the drinks are bad, try actually walking around. Can't even go through the same set of rooms twice."

“Oh, trust me,” Joker says, eyes glittering in amusement, “I’ve taken a gander around. A person could probably spend their whole life goin’ through here and not come across the same thing or same person twice, if they cared ta.” It’s tempting, he has to admit. This is the kind of place perfect for running away from one’s problems or responsibilities. If he didn’t have so much to do, and a recent reminder of how much he has to do.

“Hope people don’t get too attached, or it’s gonna be hard ta focus on our next stop, ha.”

"If the ringmaster wanted us to focus, she shouldn't have brought us here in the first place," Lambert opines. "Speaking of, I haven't seen her around since we got here. You think she might be taking a break from us?"

It's an amusing idea, that's for sure. The ringmaster's left them to be babysat by a big party while she goes off and does whatever it is that she does when she's not trashing demons.

Now isn’t that a mystery? Even after all this time, Joker isn’t sure he could answer that one with any certainty behind it. He dodges the question for a moment, hiding it behind a shrug and a sip of his drink.

“With someone like her, ya never know,” he says. “I mean, time ain’t the same ta folks like her, so this ain’t even a drop in the bucket. For all we know, she’s chattin’ it up with whoever is most important in a place like this- like she was doin’ in Atlantis.”

Time isn't the same ... well, that sounds familiar enough to Lambert. Elves and the Wild Hunt aren't much different, from what he's heard. Something about all that immortality making time meaningless.

"Hopefully, it's something useful, and not losing the carnival to someone else at a card game." Would she bet all of that on something, though? Well, she'd certainly bet her life recently enough, who knows what she'll put on the line next!

A cackle breaks out of him at that. It does sound like something she might just do, and he can’t even deny it. “Well, if that’s how she’d want ta do it, I wouldn’t mind havin’ a round or two with her!” he says cheerfully, and he’s not even half lying there. A pity he has a feeling that whatever makes the carnival hop from place to place is a bit over his head, at least with how things are right now.

Swirling the wine around in his glass, he grins at Lambert. “Think ya could beat her in a game of cards?”

"Depends on the card game." Lambert grins. Most of the card games aren't familiar to him, though he's picked up the rules of quickly enough, but hardly enough to call himself a master of anything, so he wouldn't bet anything on those.

"You've been with the carnival a while, right? Must have some good stories by now." He's probably seen Joker around the performances, but there haven't been many of those since he got here and he didn't have a proper introduction -- so while he can place his face and his voice, he's not sure exactly sure what he does or what his name is. Whoops. He's a veteran, though, that much is obvious.

Edited (oops, changed my mind about the card game) 2017-03-01 22:38 (UTC)

Getting performance practice on track has been a bit difficult with recent trips as they are, but Joker doesn’t let himself be bothered. Better that everything is being sidetracked by too much fun instead of the alternatives, which he has plenty of stories about, but Joker isn’t fond of telling those. Instead, he chuckles.

“I’ve got a few from a couple of years, yeah,” he says, fingers rapping cleanly against the glass. “Wouldn’t half know where ta start, of course, there’s so many worlds… The one where music controlled magic, or the one filled with immortal children… List goes on, ha.”

"A world of immortal children sounds like a curse," Lambert will comment idly. Yeah, good to know the Carnival's always been about Keeping It Weird. "Was it just in body, or mind too?"

“In mind,” Joker confirms, the grin on his face at Lambert’s commentary. “I think some of our workers were a hair from just callin’ it quits on their contracts from that alone, ha! But I didn’t half mind it. Kids, they’re easy ta entertain. Just gotta make sure they didn’t sneak anywhere they weren’t supposed ta.”

"Or else they'd end up bound to the carnival," Lambert finishes. Yeah, he could see there'd be a problem with that. Morally, he supposes he should have more objection to how the Carnival can and does trick people into its service, but he also doesn't really care about a bunch of strangers foolish enough to get themselves into trouble, if he's not being paid to get them out of it.

Still, isn't it sort of the carnival's purpose to draw people in? That Joker would actively work against that is interesting.

"Glad I wasn't there for that one. I'm no good with kids."

To be fair- Joker doesn’t have a lot of morals in that particular area either, most of the time. In fact, more than once, depending on if he’d liked them or not, he’s deceived people into getting into debt for the Ringmaster. Hey, it makes him look good, right?

But kids, even immortal ones are…. No.

Lambert’s admission makes him laugh. “Well I’m great with ‘em!” He leans forward, grin splitting his face. “I’m the oldest brother of a big family myself, actually! Gotta be when yer like that, right?”

"I'm the youngest," Lambert offers in turn, with an equally broad grin. The School of the Wolf's witchers make an awkward family, but they're brothers all the same -- bound by the same cruel destiny and the trials they survived. There's a joke there he doesn't necessarily expect Joker to get, but the amusement is probably easy enough to pick up on. Vesemir can talk about a witcher's duty until the cows come home, but it doesn't change the fact that they're more like a squabbling, ill-fitted family rather than a noble order.

"Must be why I'm such a pain in the ass."

That was absolutely the wrong time to drink some of his wine, because just a liiiiittle of it goes up his nose at that last part, and he has to hastily handle the glass to an Attendant even as he’s laughing. “Maybe!” he cackles, flopping back again. “You shoulda been a girl, then- our youngest is, and I think we’ve spoiled her ta high heaven.”

His fingers tap along the couch cushions. “Probably woulda spoiled her more if we hadn’t been piss poor, ha. But I think that helped keep her humble, too.”

Joker might be snorting in his drink at the idea, but Lambert appears to be seriously mulling the thought over.

"There's an idea. Give me the right frock and I think I could pull it off," he declares. Is he joking, or isn't he? They'll have to wait until another drunken misadventure to find out. "If I had been a girl, I would have gotten away with more. Ciri did."

Now there's a name he hasn't thought of in a while. Ciri wasn't a proper witcher, of course -- more like Geralt's adopted daughter, and Lambert her trouble-making uncle -- but the couple of years she'd spent there had certainly made an impression. It wasn't often little girls ended up in Kaer Morhen, and it really wasn't the place for one with more magical ability than any witcher would ever have. He wonders, briefly, if Geralt's found her by now, then shrugs it off.

"Only thing being poor ever got me was 'miserable and starving,' so it sounds like you were luckier."

Whether he’s joking or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Joker is leaning closer, eyebrows quirked up conspiratorially. “Well, if ya ever wanna give it a go, I’m lookin’ after Wardrobe, so ya can drop on by and, frankly, no one there would judge much on account of seein’ a lot stranger.” God bless the carnival for that, at least- desensitization was a beautiful thing.

With that offer made- and he really does want to see if Lambert will seriously do it- Joker lazily leans back, and snorts a little into his drink, although at least this time it doesn’t go up his nose. “Oh, we were plenty miserable and starvin’, make no mistake about that. I think back then, ya could count every single one of my bones just by pokin’ at my skin. Lord knows there wasn’t much flesh there. But, eh, ya scramble up and out, or ya end up just another thing rottin’ in the gutters, right?”

Wardrobe, is it? Well, Lambert's not at all opposed to being a clothes horse when necessary, so he grins sharply. "I'll let you know if I decide to take you up on that." And he's just tipsy enough to give Joker a saucy wink to go with that pronouncement. Don't dare Lambert to do anything, it's just going to end in tears.

"Hah. I'd say I know how that is, but there weren't a lot of gutters where I grew up. Mostly swamps and ditches." Simple peasant folk, simple village life, and all the shit associated with it.

Okay, but so long as they're not Joker's tears, it's fine, and he grins wide at that wink. Oh, this is going to be a delight, he can just tell.

"Ah, the country," he reminisces, thinking about his own run ins with the great outdoors. Inbetween places, it's not so bad, but that's the good thing about traveling- you rarely have to stay in one place long enough for all the rubbish and bullshit to really sink in. "Well, same garbage, just different scenery, innit? In the end."

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⇨ THE CELEBRATION

Party Hard

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LATE AS HECK but this is such a cute thread so i couldn't not reply

IT'S FINE, I'M IN NO POSITION TO JUDGE

first thing he does as nightrider: gets drunk, gets in a dress, goes on adventures with joker

that sounds about right