⇨ THE REALM OF DREAMS

[ringleaders]

Who: EVERYONE!
When: S1:D8 - S1:D18
Where: Visiting the Realm of Dreams.
What: The carnival arrives at a new location and has its first performance week with the new cast, as outlined here. This is a general mingling log for convenience purposes, but players are welcome to make as many other logs for this purpose as desired.
Warnings: Could be a lot of things, around these parts.

THE REALM OF DREAMS↴ As the carnival arrives at its first stop since its recruitment phase, and prepares to put its new band of workers to the test. In the meantime, there is a whole new world of dreams and nightmares to be explored, and threats to be faced on carnival turf. As of S1:D11, the carnival will be opening its doors to the creatures within, and the carnival will be open daily from noon to midnight, though the connection to the realm will be constant. This is an all purpose mingle log for the full duration of the stay, so please mark top levels with some estimate of what days they'll be occurring on. Please bring any mod questions to the original plotting post.

Comments

childermass, ota

[atouts]

dream hopping [D8-D10]

[ Sensible though he is, Childermass is still a magician and anything as fascinating at not only a different world, but a world of dreams, is going to draw him out through the front gates of the carnival, danger be damned. So when he isn't going over the steps of his own act a few more times, he's exploring.

One day, he can be found in a drastically foreign cityscape, one with blindingly lit skyscrapers that reach up, far out of sight, into a purple sky. Objects zip through the sky, forming long lines in very particular patterns, like they're all following the same set route, but Childermass wouldn't be able to tell you what they were, nor are any of the shadowy beings flitting around through the streets going to stop and tell you. Whatever they are, they're too tall to be human, though they're roughly similar in shape. He's trailing after the actual dreamer in this area, though never close enough to interact...

Another day, he'll be checking out an area that's decided to be an endless sea at sunset, having shifted into that as he strolled not even that far from the gates. The fun part, he's found, is he isn't even sinking into it. He's standing on the surface as though it's solid, in spite of the currents shifting the water below him into constant motion. He's actually paused here long enough to light his pipe and enjoy the view for a bit.

And yet another, he'll be seated on a tree that's decided to grow in sideways, more like a log, only without being dead. Here, he's trying to get down a few forms of a lingering phantasm, with very rough sketches in his little memo book. None of them are too detailed, since the creatures tend to add new parts or change or sometimes even vanish in a blink. This one is apparently some kind of giant tree frog with huge dragonfly wings. ]

no sleeping [during performance week]

[ Meanwhile, sleeping isn't exactly an issue for Childermass. He can stay away for a reasonably long time (within human standards, anyway) and he isn't going to ignore the warning about dreamcatchers and nightmares. However, he is still only human and his latest attempt to exist on as little sleep as possible is showing. Right now, he's staked out at the cookhouse with a cup of coffee one very early morning, before dawn even, to pad out some of his earlier notes. But the coffee has long since gone cold and he has begun to doze off, leaning into the hand he'd been propping his head up with before, just for a minute...

Not that it's too much to worry about. The cookhouse, thankfully, does sport a few dreamcatchers of its own. Still, not the best spot to take a nap. ]

practice makes perfect [before performance week, for Lauren]

A little more menace this time, if you will. The audience needs to think there's actual danger to this.

[ Which isn't said cruelly at all, just matter-of-fact. He is, as ever, very business-like.

While it took a little plotting, eventually Childermass settled on a fair enough way of wrapping up his act. Make a free-roaming creature disappear before it could get him. Of course, doing that with an actual free-roaming and dangerous creature seemed like a terrible idea, hence why he's since recruited Lauren. It's much easier to work with an animal when that animal is actually a druid in disguise. In preparation, he's since gone back to get a certain book, specifically to help describe what a hippogriff is, although he had reluctantly returned it once Lauren had the idea of it.

Now it was practice time, with Childermass working out the timing on the vanishing spell to certain steps. The initial plan is for him to set up the crowd, let the "hippogriff" out of its cage, and then they would go back and forth with him supposedly warding off the angry creature with a big red cape (kind of like a bull fighter) until it takes a leap at him. The cape itself is necessary to obscure Lauren with after that, misdirection to go hand-in-hand with the actual spell, and so on, and so on.

Of course, no act is without a few problems...

They're about to start round who even knows of trying this out. Let's see how it goes this time. ]

etc, etc

[ will probably be adding additional openers as we go, feel free to ask via any contact if you want to do something ]

no sleeping

[sweatysometimes]

[ It's early. Way, way too early for Pidge to be up but it's part of her new job to actually have to do that, so she's stumbled into the cookhouse after one of her all-nighters learnign to play card games with Yuugi. Beelining for the coffee, she's not doing all that well in the situational awareness department and the girl bumps right into Childermass's table. That gives it just enough of a joly to send that cold coffee spilling across the surface of the table. And probably onto that notepad if Childermass isn't quick enough to do something about it. ]

Oh quiznak--! Sorry!

[atouts]

[ The jolt Pidge's collision sends through the table is enough to snap him straight back to alertness. It's fueled more by a sudden surge of adrenaline than it is surprise, the second he realizes the coffee has reached the very edges of the little book, he doesn't quite throw himself on the spill, but he does shove an arm across it, forming an immediate barrier between the two.

First he got blood on one arm of his shirt, now coffee on this arm...

Maybe he should consider a new shirt. ]

Be more careful! [ Childermass can't help it, growling the words out as he looks up at her. He doesn't usually snap at people, but he isn't usually this sleep deprived, either, much less sleep deprived in a surrounding he can't easily predict. It wears on you. Sorry, Pidge. ] You'll knock an entire table over next if you don't watch where you're going.

[sweatysometimes]

[ Pidge winces as Childermass snaps at her. She deserves it, honestly. Here she is, wandering around in a sleep deprived haze and paying exactly zero attention to what's happening around her. She nods, doing her best to look apologetic (and privately glad that she hasn't ruined his book). ]

Sorry. I know, I just haven't...

[ She waves a hand vaguely. ]

Sorry. No sleep lately.

[atouts]

[ He's silent for a moment, letting the flash of irritation pass and looking at her again with an expression that slowly falls back to something neutral. Then, he breathes out a sigh and moves his arm, pushing the book away from the spill before picking it up. The edges are stained, the cover does drip a bit, but... ]

Well, it was already brown and yellow, anyhow. [ Whatever upset had been there has passed. He can see Pidge is just as tired. ] So no real harm done.

[ He gives the memo book a shake, then sets it safely aside, far from the coffee. ]

I thought the dreamcatchers were meant to help people sleep safely. Did you not keep yours?

[sweatysometimes]

No, I have mine I just--

[ Pidge frowns, trying to find the right words for what she's thinking. ]

I can't trust these people not to change my body without my permission.

[ The lion's ears atop her head twitch pointedly. ]

How am i supposed to trust anything else they tell me?

Re: childermass, ota

[mylastchance]

[He honestly thought this wasn't going to be too difficult. Although he didn't really like changing his form in front of people, if he had the choice between performing as himself and performing as an animal, he prefered the 'not him' option. At least this way no one would recognize him. Still, the actual performing part of the deal was something he really hadnt thought much of.]

[First was the fact that he hadn't known what a hippogrif was until two seconds ago. It was a horse and a bird and that had been different, and difficult to get right. He doubted he could actually fly like this, but at least it felt like he looked right. Now he just had to act like he actually wanted to harm someone. That was the even harder part. He was trying his best, but his best apparently wasn't good enough.]

[He was very tempted to just give up. Instead he waits in the cage for the routine to start again.]

[atouts]

[ Nothing worthwhile is easy, though Childermass isn't going to bother passing along that wisdom. The young rarely ever appreciate it and, honestly, he would think that much obvious about life. Then again, most people haven't had his life, so...

But it doesn't matter. They're set up to try again and it'll be a slow walkthrough, like before. While he isn't about to let Lauren give up, should he try to, he isn't going to be harsh, either. He is, if nothing else, a patient man. Even with the shapeshifting, he made little comment and was certain not to stare, bizarre though it was. ]

Alright. There will be the audience. [ He'll start from the top, stepping up to his own starting point and sweeping an arm out towards the thankfully empty stands of the Big Top. ] But we can skip over the explanation this time.

[ Winding up the crowd is a part of this game.

Next, he moves on to do a circuit around the cage itself, which isn't locked. Even when showtime does arrive, there'll still only be an easy to access latch. Before Childermass opens that, however, he'll wrap the red cape around his arm, but he won't do anything else with it yet. ]

Keep an eye on me as I go around, then when I reach for the latch the first time, take a snap at me through the bars. Put enough weight into it to rattle the cage some. Ready? One... two... and now.

[ Slowly reaching for the door as he counted down, he lays a hand on the latch on the final word. ]

[mylastchance]

[He's kind of worried about actually hurting the other man, but if he doesn't make this look real they'll be stuck practicing forever. He tries to calm down and focus, channelling his energy into acting like a wild animal actually would. He knows a wild animal would hate being confined. The animal would feel threatened by another creature's approach. Fight or flight instincts activate and if flight was impossible, so obviously the thing to do would be to attack. As Childermass reaches for the door Lauren does snap at him, the wings on his back unfold with the movement as he screeches at the man, trying to scare the other away.]

[Not really though, for pretend. But still.]

[atouts]

[ And Childermass jerks his hand away from the latch, leaning back, away, similarly acting as though startled, if only for a few seconds. It's his role to remain fearless in the face of danger for the audience, but it's more convincing this way. Likewise, he's not actually worried about being hurt.

He adds a, ] That was good. You're doing fine. [ for Lauren's sake, before making a second move for the latch, to throw it open and jump back, letting the red cape unfurl as he goes. ]

Then we'll have a bit of a stand-off, I think. I'll back up some, you follow, maybe make a false charge or two, if you feel comfortable with it.

[mylastchance]

[And he really needs the encouragement, even if the fact that Childermass feels like he has to give Lauren compliments makes the half-elf feel like some dumb little kid. Maybe he was starting to get the hang of this routine? Of course the being in the cage bit was actually the easiest part of the whole thing.

As the door opens he jumps out of the cage in a show of ferocity (he hopes). It's only a moment after landing that he rears back on his hind legs, wings outstretched and flapping. After all, what's scarier than a giant animal making itself look as large as possible? Well, something was probably scarier, but he couldn't think of what that would be just now, so he figured this was good enough.

As he lands on all fours again he watches the other man carefully, pawing at the ground as though he's considering a charge. Was this good so far? He really couldn't tell.]

Dreaaaaaaaams...

[fortuneglass]

[Among all the floating around and costuming for the carnival since the end of her trek as scout, Carly has found the dream world is quite the source of inspiration herself. It has been very odd to traverse, all the same-sometimes flying upside down, or backward, the world would flip and twist and turn in impossible geometries that in those moments couldn't have made more sense.

As lingering phantasms float by, she herself is already in a bit of a slight dream high, giggling to herself in the form of a hummingbird as she spins around through the air.] WheeeeEEEEeeeeeee..~

[Well that's at least something that could work for the sketches. It's a fairly good sized hummingbird after all, being the size of a man's hand.]

[atouts]

[ A hummingbird is, unfortunately, something he has seen before in his own world, albeit they had been tiny little flits of color and certainly did not go whee. He'll look up, distracted, for a moment, though he's just as content to go back to adding details to the dragonfly-frog (possibly not a frog at all, since it appears to have scales, but he's not sure what else to call it).

Or could be, had the hand-sized hummingbird not startled it into suddenly turning and leaping. At him! Or more so in his direction. He's quick to duck out of the way. ]

Ah... [ Well, there it goes. Childermass can't help but frown when he turns back to eye the hummingbird. ] Do you mind? I wasn't done with that one.

[ Assuming a giggling hummingbird can answer, which, anywhere else, is a notion he would find absurd, but here? ]

[fortuneglass]

Hahh? Mind what?

[WhhheeeeEEEeeeeeeee...the bird continues spinning idly about, and it's not certain what exactly is controlling the direction.

Actually-] I'm not actually steering right now, so I can't help you~!

[Ah]

[atouts]

[ An out of control hummingbird. Of all the things... ]

Then aren't you worried about "not actually steering" straight into something's jaws?

[fortuneglass]

Something's jaws..?

[Ohhhh...that's a good question. But!] If that happens I'll just have to eat them first! I'm pretty hungry right now~!

[DREAM LOGIC]

NO. SLEEPING.

[babbylon]

[Perhaps not, no, but it does grant Gilgamesh the opportunity to harass the poor man while he slips into unsteady slumber by way of chucking empty coffee cups at him. And occasionally heavier objects, just to keep him on his toes. This is clearly a mature and effective method for ensuring he stays awake for the big show.

Not that Gilgamesh particularly cares for his health, but he was promised something, and he will have it.]

Quit idling, you mongrel. You're needed in the tent.

[Whether or not he is or isn't, Gilgamesh will persist in this until he garners a response. What an annoyance.]

[atouts]

[ Well, mongrel's certainly a new one to add to the list of names he's been called in the past.

Unsurprisingly, it isn't until Gilgamesh actually says something (you know, something like mongrel) instead of throwing yet another coffee cup that he'll finally respond. Before that, he would have been stubbornly ignoring the attempts to harass, even when they would jolt him back out of dozing off (especially the heavier items, which he would need to duck). If anything, there's some small boon to it, because he's more keen on keeping his eyes open, which means finishing up more notes in the little book.

In all honestly, he was hoping he could hold out until the head cook happened out of the kitchen to see such a ridiculous scene, but that's not to be... ]

I am not. [ Childermass replies, refocusing on the page he's been staring at blankly for the last ten or so minutes first, then sparing Gilgamesh a brief glance. ] The show isn't until the evening.

[babbylon]

No.

[Chucks cup.]

It's right now.

[Chucks fork.]

Right now.

[Chucks plate.]

Get up already, I wish to see the trick!!

[...nope, he hadn't forgotten about that. Be careful, friend, he can find lots more to throw.]

[atouts]

[ How many innocent pieces of ceramic are going to be sacrificed this morning?

One less, anyway, since Childermass abandons note-writing to grab the plate before it goes whirling by. That, he sets down on the table a little too firmly to call it calm, even if his expression doesn't change all that much.

Someone's getting a very disapproving look from the magician now and that someone happens to look like a dragon. ]

Do you really plan on doing this until we've run out of cups and plates? Because I'm not too sure the head cook will like that at all.

[babbylon]

[Gilgamesh fumes, but ceases to toss dishware. Small victories.]

How much longer must I wait?! Your show must be awfully good to keep me in such suspense!

[Is he... oh no. Oh no. Now he's moseying over to sit beside Childermass, uninvited. As expected, he looks like a big pouty baby being told he can't have cookies for breakfast. Which, to be fair, he may have actually asked said head chef if he could. He's really that obnoxious and seriously that shameless.

Big pouty baby face in Childermass' space is go.]

What are you doing in here dozing, anyway? At least find a proper bed.

dream hopping

[anti_altruisms]

[ The changing scenery has, admittedly, been one of the more interesting facets of the dream world. The phantasms have also been curiosities, though he'd found the nightmares less pleasant.

He's on the lookout for them, in fact, when he happens across a man attempting sketches of a few phantasms.

Archer watches for a moment before approaching quietly. ]

Any luck?

[ With the drawings, that is. ]

[atouts]

Some.

[ He glances up briefly, once over at Archer, if only to see who it is. Not a dreamer, he can tell that much right off the bat, but there's something else that draws a second, longer look, one accompanied by a frown.

He won't comment on it, though, instead turning his attention back to the phantasm he's trying to get down on paper. ]

This one isn't too active, but most, I've found, have a bad habit of changing what they are on a whim.

[anti_altruisms]

[ If he's aware of the scrutiny, he doesn't show it.

Instead, he eyes the phantasm itself, a creature that seems very much like a living, breathing blot of color. He can see how it could be disorienting if stared at for too long, particularly in the midst of rapid, frequent changes, but really, there's no harm in the thing.

The nightmares, of course, are another matter. ]

I would expect a more conceptual entity to behave as such.

[ The phantasm makes a bizarre croaking sound and then changes colors. ]

Have you seen any of their counterparts?

[atouts]

The nightmares?

[ He's been out into the realm a few times now, even if he's never gone very far. It's been easier and safer, thus far, to stick to recording the better dreams and the phantasms that don't seem inclined to try and eat him. That in mind... ]

As much as I would like to observe one, I've never gone far enough into a bad dream to find any. I know better than to think I could handle one. If they were more human, perhaps then, but the only thing even remotely human-like here are the dreamers.