lostcarnival | ⇨ THE MASQUERADE

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⇨ THE MASQUERADE

Who: Everyone! Attendance is mandatory.
When: Late Day 65
Where: The Celebration
What: The Masquerade arrives, and so does the carnival's enemies. For more info, check out the Draculas 101.
Warnings: Further party hell. Also, vampire violence, mind control, etc.

THE HOST & THE HORDE↴

The time of the Masquerade arrives. You've been given free reign of the place up till now, but a few hours before the party commences the Host will inform you that your presence will be required, and will assist you (forcibly, if need be) to sort out any last minute costuming concerns you might have if you've left it until now. When masks and outfits are sorted, you'll be left to your own devices until you are summoned on the evening of Day 65.

The Masquerade will start off normally - relative to everything else in this place, at least. Everyone in the Celebration will be called in for this event, centered in a grand hall with side rooms offered to those that need them for whatever reasons might come up. The food and drink is especially ambrosia-esque this evening, and the music will stir your soul, even if you're not usually a music person. Enjoy it if you can - the peace won't last.

► MASKS: Though the masks seemed only mundane before, once within the Masquerade atmosphere, they will magically begin obscuring people's identities beyond what a normal mask should be able to do. When a person is wearing one, it would be supernaturally difficult to figure out who they are - maybe you forget what their voice should sound like, or maybe the other details escape you. Of course, it's possible to figure out if you look for it, based on general shapes and personality traits, but unless you know someone well it could be a challenge. Of course, you can just take your mask off and remove the enchantment entirely - though the Host will hassle you if they notice you going without. Stop ruining the party!

► TEMPTATION: Though it's felt easy to be whisked away by the draw of pleasure and luxury during the rest of the week, that feeling will seem to come to a head at the actual party. If you are aware of what needs to be resisted then it's possible to fight back and ignore it, but more than ever it feels all too easy to just dance your life away. Nobody seems to be dying from it, at least, or 'burning out' any faster as a result - it's mostly just extremely distracting from other concerns. Like vampires, for instance.

VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE↴
It's during the latter half of the party that things will start to go bad. Though it will go unseen by the carnival, the Masquerade has gained an additional set of guests - the vampire's of the demon lord that has been chasing them for the last several months. The Host doesn't discriminate, and anyone is welcome to attend the Celebration, provided they don't start a fight.

Right. About that.

► THE KINDRED: The vampires don't like to play fair, which means that they are going to be attacking with stealth and trickery - taking advantage of the way that the party has dulled the alertness of many of the carnival's workers. They'll be using that lack of inhibition to lure individuals into places they can be attacked or turned in private - their primary goals are to capture the Supervisors and to turn as many of the Ringmaster's workers as possible before escaping back to their dimension. Some of their targets will be gone before anyone has a chance to notice.

Remembering that they will be avoiding big public confrontations, so if anyone starts one of those it will probably by the carnival members striking back. This is going to wear on the Host's patience extremely quickly.

► COLD IRON: Oh, right, and they are definitely bringing iron weapons - as pure as they could get. They'll have things like iron collars or shackles to try to trap people with, as well as iron daggers and guns with iron bullets. They'll have to be on the down low with, but they are going to exploit that weakeness as much as possible. Those that have only been in the carnival a few months will mostly just feel discomfort at the touch of it - as if they are touching something that is slightly too hot or too cold. Veterans that have been around for years will find its touch to be burningly cold - the type of temperature that would threaten to destroy flesh after prolonged contact. Those that have been here for up to three years will take it the worst. See the Transformations page for more details!

► TURNING THE TABLES: Being turned is a mixture of pleasure and pain, and is often hard for mortals to mentally reconcile as it happens to them. Being drained by these vampires is simultaneously impossibly satisfying and extremely terrifying - once they've started in on your, the way it overwhelms your mind and body can make it nearly impossible to stop them without help. Once you are dead or dying, they will feed you their blood - at which point your body will go through a painful transformation as the demon spirit takes its place inside of you and your dead body is violently resurrected.

As soon as you wake up, freshly changed, the bloodlust will set it - it will be extremely hard to control, and at first all you will think about is wanting to sate that hunger. Combined with your sire having direct control if your mind through your blood connection, new vampires will be mostly incapable of doing anything but following the whims of the rest of the vampire pack and seeking nourishment. This blood lust will begin to fade after they've fed. Killing isn't necessary to feed, but it can be hard to stop yourself, as a neonate vampire.

► CLOSING TIME: Before the party is officially over, the Host will have had enough. Before you can pursue all of the vampires or take back the people they've stolen, the lot of them will have escaped back to their dimension, and the Host will have kicked the entire carnival out for participating in so much violence. If you want to make any final moves before you go, this is the time.

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Dancing isn't quite Susan's thing, and so it was probably unsurprising when he (and his familiar, of course, also wearing a mask) slipped away into the crowd to eat and drink instead. It was more interesting than staying with his brother, after all.

But soon enough he comes back to where he left Lauren, taking longer than normal to find him, but finally recognizing him from his clothes and mask he heads towards him. He's surprised to see his brother dancing with someone, but that doesn't stop him from approaching - even when he sees her leaning into him intimately (although of course he makes a face at that) -

And then Lauren is falling, and the woman is catching him, and he charges forward, not sure yet if Lauren was attacked or if he's just suddenly ill, but either way he needs to be there. He sees her kiss him, and it only adds to his confusion, but at the same time it gives him the answer he needs - after all, if his brother was just ill, that would be an awfully strange thing to do. Not that it isn't strange if she attacked him, but it still makes more sense, somehow.

Soon enough he's there in front of them, immediately grabbing the woman by the arm with a shocking grasp spell.

"What did you do to him?!"

The vampire woman is caught off guard by the attack, and screams in pain as the electricity runs through her body. Her grip on Lauren's body loosens and he falls from her arms to the floor below. She wrenches her hand from Susan's grip, hissing a warning at him as she does so. She's like a cat, her back curved and her nails turned like claws in a threatening pose. She doesn't know what this boy thinks he's doing, but she's about to teach him a lesson for interfering with her business. Striking forward with impossible speed she tries to wrap her hand around his neck.

If he had any doubts before about her hurting Lauren, they disappear the second she drops his brother to the floor and turns to attack him. He doesn't want to hurt Lauren (or anyone else, but that's honestly more of an after thought at this point) with his magic, though, and so he has to be careful what spells to cast...

Before he gets out another spell though the woman is coming at him to grab his neck, and he belatedly dodges - he may be fast, but he's not at his best in close quarters. Still, he manages to cast the spell before he's grabbed, two bolts of lighting coming from his hands right towards the woman with a dual-witch bolt.

His dodge is much too late. Her fingers close around his neck just as he finishes casting his spell. When the attack hits her she screeches again. It's a scream of pain as much as it is rage. She couldn't be bested by a child, she simply would not allow it. Ignoring the pain she tightens her grip on the boys throat, starting to choke him. Soon her other hand joins the first around his neck.

Edited 2017-02-27 00:48 (UTC)

He can't breathe, and his eyes widen for a moment before he glares at her again, sending another shock of lighting at her through the witch bolts. He can't do anything else, but he has to stop her, he has to save Lauren, and this is the only thing he can do - he just hopes it's fast enough that he doesn't need to breathe.

Her grip tightens, her hands squeezing him hard enough to leave bruises. Lauren's body lays on the floor behind her, but it isn't still anymore. He twitches as though he's asleep, but he's not. His eyes are closed and his limbs are cold. He's dead, but despite this he is aware, not of the conscious world where Susan is fighting, but of a place inside himself. Though his heart has stopped he can feel a fire burning within him. It starts small, a hot flame in his stomach, but soon it grows, becoming impossibly warm. He grimaces in pain as it spreads. It moves up his arms down his legs throughout his entire body. It's engulfing him and he screams in pain. It hurts like nothing ever has before. He fells something dark in it, and as the fire moves to his heart the darkness settles deep inside of him. He shifts his hands clutching at his chest, clawing at himself as though trying to get at whats inside, buts its useless. Suddenly a ravenous hunger sets in, something inside of his head other than himself screaming at him to feed. He opens his eyes, tear stains mark his cheek from the pain of the change.

Edited 2017-02-27 02:53 (UTC)

Again he shocks her, his vision starting to go black - but then he can feel his magic growing out of his control, and he knows what's going to happen just before the fireball erupts on them both, hopefully loosening her grip as it knocks them back and down. It's going to take him more than a moment to catch his breath, after that, and the fireball itself doesn't help, but as long as Lauren is okay he can handle it.

From no where the flames erupt, centered on Susan and flaring out around him. The disperse into the crowd hurting some of the other guests as well as Susan, Lauren and the vampire herself. Screams can be heard as others draw back away from the scene. Lauren himself is fortunate for having been dropped to the floor before, as most of the fire passes over his head, but the heat is brutal and his face feels as though it's been burnt by the sun.

The vampire strangling Susan isn't so lucky. She's bowled over by the force of the blast, knocked to the ground by the force of the flames. The roll over her body as she falls, setting fire to her clothes and burning her skin. After everything else she's been hit with tonight its too much, and though she isn't dead, she stops fighting back. The fire clears and some of the crowd is watching, but Lauren doesn't notice any of them, all he feels is his hunger and a strong desire to feed.

His neck hurts where he was grabbed, his clothes are burnt and everything hurts, but after a long moment catching his breath Susan finally pulls himself to his feet, turning back to the woman. She may be on the ground and not fighting back, but it doesn't matter; she hurt Lauren, and she might hurt someone else.

His lightning spells were effective but the fireball was more effective it seemed, and so he doesn't think about it before casting another fire spell. The woman's body is suddenly covered in flames, the fire racing across her body and burning her all the while. He just wants this to stop and for Lauren to be okay.

As her body burns she's silent at first, her body using all it's energy to heal her own wounds, but as the flames grow hotter and progress further up her body her eyes suddenly open and an ear shattering scream echoes throughout the room. She writhes on the floor in pain. Lauren covers his ears with his hands and hides in on himself, whimpering. He can feel her pain as though it was his own body the flames were dancing over. The woman tries to struggle to her feet but her limbs crumble to ash beneath her. Her screams are joined by Lauren's own before the flames finally reach her heart killing her.

He only turns to Lauren after she's dead and he doesn't have to think about her any more. He rushes to his brother's side (Fluff finally coming closer as well), a look of worry on his face as he puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Lauren, are you okay?!" He's still worried, he has to make sure everything's fine - then he can figure out just what happened and if there's any other danger. Right now his brother is the most important.

The pain of her death is burned into his brain. He didn't even know her name, he can't understand the feelings going on inside of him. He doesn't know how he felt that or how he's even still alive when he felt death twice. As Susan comes closer though those thoughts are pushed to the side. He can smell Susan's blood, hear his heart beat. He's so hungry he can't believe it. There are tears from the overwhelming pain of everything and when he blinks the roll down his check. The hand on his shoulder is what breaks him. Fresh blood so close. He snarls at Susan, his fangs growing long. It would be so easy to do it too. So easy to sate this thirst.

But it's Susan. For some reason that simple thought stops him dead in his track. Susan... Susan was important because... He was his brother. But why was that important? Because it was! It's infuriating, it's like he's arguing with something inside of him, but he doesn't know which side is right. He curls back, in pain and confusion.

"Stay away from me!"

Susan pulls his hand back when Lauren snarls at him, looking hurt and more than a bit confused. He pulls back even further when Lauren says that, upset, but he's not willing to actually stay away like Lauren said.

"No, you're hurt, I want to make sure you're okay!"

The pain of his hunger lessens as Susan, pulls away, but it's still there clawing it's way up his throat. He has a startlingly clear realization at that moment. If he doesn't get away from Susan he could very well kill him. The pain and fear of that realization tear through him making him shudder, and he looks at Susan in shock as more tears roll down his face. Even more terrifying is there's another part of him that doesn't even care as long as it can get what it wants. He winces, sobbing before moving to his feet. As soon as he dies he start to run into the crowd. He had to get out of here, or at least away from Susan.

Susan has no idea what's going through Lauren's head, but he sees his brother stumble to his feet and he follows suit, worried about him. Before he can say another word though Lauren is running away and he chases after only a moment later, Fluff at his heels. But Lauren is always faster than him (although was he always this fast?), and the enchantment of the masks only make it harder for him to chase his brother through the crowd. Once he realizes he's completely lost sight of him he stops, trying to think of just what to do next.

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⇨ THE MASQUERADE

here comes the drama

llama llama duck

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cw: gross deaths

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