lostcarnival | ⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 1

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⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 1

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 1st - 7th, 2017
Where: Portland area, in the new reality.
What: Memories begin returning to the displaced as the fall gets chillier. How the hell did we end up here, again? Also, apparently, the fair is in town.
Warnings: Individually marked!

PORTLAND BY NIGHT↴

Memory regains will come into effect at the beginning of October, to whatever degree you've decided upon, and may be regained at whatever pace you desire from then on. For those with their full carnival memories, it will be like waking up in the body of someone else - for those with half and half, it will be like rapidly recalling sets of memories from a totally different life. Those with full amnesia will simply feel as if this is how it's always been.

Unfortunately for you, memories aren't the only thing you have to deal with. The supernatural community of Portland is bustling all of a sudden - could your presence and these events somehow be related?

► THE OUTER CIRCLE: As of the start of the month, the Portland Circle of Enlightenment will find itself starting to get swarmed with members from other chapters. Most notably, it would seem that a small cabal of top mages from the North American Enlightenment Council will be making their home in Portland's HQ. For anyone but the highest of ranks, the purpose behind their visit will be unclear, but it seems like something is definitely up on a metaphysical level. The Circle will be buzzing with rumours of unique planar activity and threatening omens. It seems that it all started with an unusual flare of activity in the planetary ley-lines, starting approximately a week ago. However, even if you would usually be the type to keep tabs on such things, you will find that you oddly have no memory of observing this phenomenon yourself.

► THE ANIMAL FAIR: Good news, the fair is in town! Or, at least, it would be good news... if this was a regular fair. Instead, what's being observed is a bunch of nearly identical flyers, spread all around Portland - each of which bears only the words "THE ANIMAL FAIR", a seemingly bloody paw-print of unknown origin, and the directions to a vague forested location outside of the city. It's dated for October 7th, and all instances of its posting having been discovered with a scattering of rose petals, crow feathers, and pre-burnt matches laying on the ground around them. Most are taking this to be some kind of bizarre viral marketing campaign, but others may know better.

► THE EARTH SPIRIT: If you have connections to The Pack or any of its many variations, you'll probably hear whispers of something very odd that occurred last week - according to the elders, it sounds as if the Earth Spirit, the magical and spiritual center of the planet, has suddenly taken a wound. It's not clear why or how, but there is a fair bit of concern among spiritual types, as it is werebeast belief and nebulous magical fact that the magical forces within the earth are the source of all magic here, as well as the source of life. While many werebeasts claim to have felt the Spirit succumb, you strangely have no memory of such an event occurring. Though things do feel strange, if you know how to tap into the Spirit yourself.

► THE WAR CRY: Though Anath's rain of terror across North America lasted for the first fifteen years or so of the Severing, most independent demons have had enough time to start taking the arch-demon's relative inactivity for granted. For that first while, the warrior queen had seemed determine to rebuild an army on earth by forcing her scattered brethren into service - only for her to gradually settle down in a fortress somewhere in Texas and dig in her heels. Of course, this was too good to last - it sounds as if she and her demonic legion have begun tearing their way up the west coast, their goals remaining a mystery. Their destination, however, is almost certainly Portland.

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Steven is. The common room is where he's been spending most of his time, taking comfort in the presence of others - a feeling he couldn't manage to maintain when alone in his room.

Of course, as soon as he sees the vines... he realizes that it never would have made a difference. Hope begins to crumble at a pace that is staggering, the second he sees those tangles of thorns start to creep around the corner. He knows he need to run, to warn someone, to do anything, but... he can't.

He feels paralyzed with fear, knowing what's coming, knowing that it's his fault. When Rita comes across him, he won't be responding to her shouts. Instead, he'll be crumpled onto the floor, staring a the vines creeping beneath the door ahead of him. He can't even breathe.

When she doesn't get an answer, Rita grabs a lamp, smashes it against the floor, and wedges its stand between the door handles. She doesn't know if it'll hold or not, but it's better than leaving it vulnerable to getting shoved open by the pursuing vines.

She then runs deeper into the room, where the cowering changeling catches her eye. "Steven!?" Rita runs over to his side. She thought he might be targeted, but she didn't expect to find him in this state. "What are you doing? We have to get out of here!" Her gaze flicks over her shoulder, following his stare. The vines are coming from over there, too!? They'll be surrounded if they don't start moving soon.

"I-I'm sorry," he babbles, tears running down his cheeks as he continues staring at the doorway, apparently having some kind of complete breakdown. "This is all my fault. She's coming after me."

His voice breaks, and his wings hunch behind his back, his entire body shivering. This has to be some kind of nightmare.

That's... probably true. It's hard to ignore the fact that this all started right around when Steven escaped.

A gentler person might try to tell him otherwise, but Rita doesn't mince words. "So what if it is? Are you just going to give her what she wants? Because that's not what I plan to do." Turning back to the door, Rita conjures a row of flames and shoots them at the creeping vines. It might not be as effective as she'd like, but it should buy them some time.

Honestly? In this case, her approach might just be the right one. There's no convincing him its not his fault, given the circumstances. It's really just a matter of showing him that he has to act, regardless.

It feels so slow, trying to pull himself back together, his panic and horror making him nearly incapable of functioning. Yet, as Rita pulls ahead to hurl flames at the vines, he finally manages to break his gaze away from the vines long enough to think.

He flinches back, covering his face as the flare briefly overwhelms his vision. He staggers, and starts trying to get to his feet, his wings spreading and helping him to balance.

"I don't... I don't know what to do," he says, though his voice is a little more focused this time. He can't beat his mom. She's always been so much more powerful than him. But... Rita has at least reminded him that he needs to try.

"Then follow me." With that, Rita holds a hand out for him to take.

In truth, Rita's never been the altruistic type. She doesn't entirely know why she wants to protect him; it could be guilt over how she treated him before, because he's a runaway changeling like her, or maybe just to stick it to the Rose Queen. Whatever the reason, she doesn't want to leave him behind.

"We just have to focus on one thing at a time... and right now, that one thing is getting to somewhere safe." Her eyes scan the room for some means of escape. For now, she wants to get Steven away from that door. But the door she came through is just as dangerous... They'll probably have to get out through a window.

For a moment, Steven just stares at her... but then, he reaches out to take her hand, squeezing it for comfort as his expression solidifies into something a bit more determined. She's right, some part of him says. They can still fight it. They just have to... they have to keep trying.

His nervous expression wavers, and eventually settled, and he swallows that lump of anxiety and nods. He looks around, trying to figure out what he can do - she's right about the window, even though she hasn't said it yet, and he gets the same idea. And he actually thinks he has a way he can help.

"We... We can go to the window. I think I can help," he says, and will dash with her in that direction if she's ready.

Even though Rita's the one who extended her hand, the moment Steven takes it, she pauses. Something feels familiar... like she can remember someone holding her hand like this before. Someone who reached out to her in friendship... Who was it...?

Steven's suggestion pulls her away from those thoughts, and that vaguely confused look on her face fades in an instant. Right... she needs to focus. It looks like Steven's finally ready to act, too. She nods, tightens her grip on his hand, and starts running to a window in the middle of the room. The vines creeping in from under the door follow, spreading across the floor and the walls, with black flowers budding and blossoming along the way.

Letting go of his hand, Rita turns to face the encroaching plants. "Think you can break that window? I'll hold off the vines." Through a mixture of chanting and gestures, she conjures more flames, directing them at the nearest vines and the emerging flowers, one after another, like a conductor guiding an orchestra.

Steven swallows, and then nods. Approaching the window with a look of apprehension, he glances back at Rita one more time... before slowly closing his eyes, and beginning to concentrate. Three fresh rose vines begin to crow from ostensibly nothing, springing up around his feet, only to climb up the wall towards the window - the tendrils of thorns seem to dig between the panes of glass, slowly pushing and twisting until wood, stone, and glass all gives way at once, wrenching the window apart and leaving only an empty gap its is wake.

The vines begin to bloom with pink roses, in time for Steven to stop long enough to look at her. There is an edge of shame in his expression, like he knows how revolting the similarity to the Queens own attacks it must be.

"They're... these ones are mine. It's okay, I promise," he manages.

Rita keeps flinging fire at the plants, her eyes focused on the threat closing in on them. It's only when the sound of cracking turns to a loud crash that she whirls around to see Steven's handiwork, just in time to catch that look from him. Her eyes widen for a moment; she figured he was going to find something to smash against the window. But instead, he was able to manage this, with his own power?

"Hmph," she huffs, her surprise fading as she takes on a more natural, haughty tone. "Not bad, for a runt." Here she thought he was just a weakling. Maybe he's got potential, if he actually grows a backbone sometime.

The similarity of his power to the Rose Queen's... well, it's not unexpected. Rita's own power is a reflection of the Lord of Conflagration's. In fact, he always seemed to consider it a mere extension of his power, rather than anything she owned for herself. But once Rita decided to take control of her life, she also took ownership over everything he instilled in her. Her philosophy's always been that if something's useful, it should be used.

She backs up close to the window (or what's left of it), still blasting fire wherever it's needed. "We're getting out. You first."

Her compliment is both sort of nice and sort of hard to deal with, at the moment, but he thinks that he appreciates the sentiment. He doesn't really like being called a runt, but at the same time, that might be factually accurate. At least she isn't disgusted.

He nods, pressing his lips together as he tries to bolster his own courage. He gets be can get both of them out of that window with the use of his vines - the thorns on the vines he's created are notably tiny, as if minimized to be as non-violent as possibly.

He reaches out to the plants he's started, and they wrap around his waist a couple times, allowing him to crawl out of the window with their support. He can see the Queen's vines creeping around the ground beneath him, as his own plant hold him aloft. He's not really sure where he should be trying to go.

"They're out here, too!" he calls in to her, more of his own vines slipping out the window to add to his support.

"What!?" Urgently, Rita turns around to look out the window, and sure enough... they're everywhere. But they're everywhere behind them, too, so... damn it, they just have to take their chances with the courtyard!

Grabbing on to Steven's vines for support, Rita climbs up into the gap that was once a window. "We just have to keep going. There has to be a way through--" She stops suddenly as she feels something wrap around her arm, digging its long thorns into her skin. Before she can do anything to react, it pulls, and with a cry of surprise, Rita is torn away from the window and dragged back into the room.

As Rita struggles, flashes of fire erupting from deeper inside, the black-flowered vines start to close in on the window.

Steven is just about to start willing his vines to gently curl around Rita for some additional support, intending on slowly lowering the two of them to the courtyard, where they can figure it out from there. However, Rita never quite gets the chance.

"RITA!" Steven screams after her, desperately climbing down his own vines to try to get to the window. His own vines struggle and tangle with the blackened ones that have begun to grow over - he tries to force his hand through them, to wrench them apart, but its no use. All that happens is that they start curling around his hands instead, trying to draw him in. The thorns still can't seem to cut him, but the pressure of the vines themselves are enough to make him yelp in pain.

"Rita... Rita I can't get in!" he keeps calling, breaking down into helpless tears again. He can't bear to leave her behind. But the vines are crushing his wrists, and if he lets them draw him in any further he won't be able to escape.

The vines holding him up start to waver, smothered out by the Queen's thorns. Suddenly, his weight is being supported by his hands, jerking the rose's coils down with him until the point that he slips free.

His own vine coils around his fingers, just barely catching him as everything begins to slip. He thuds into the side of the building, but there's no use climbing. His eyes are still set on that window as his vine drops him down into the courtyard.

When she finally frees herself from the vines, Rita runs back to the window... but it's too late. The light from outside is almost completely blotted out, and she can't see Steven, even though she heard him screaming just seconds ago. She can't get out this way... and even staying near the window is a risk in itself.

"Just run! Don't stop!" she yells at the wall of vines, unsure if her voice will even be heard. "I'll find another way!" There's no time to wait for a response. She's already surrounded.

From that moment on, all that can be perceived from outside the room are the roars of flame, flashes of light, and after a while... silence.

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⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 1

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