⇨ INTERLUDE: A Continuation

[ringleaders]

Who: The Ringmaster, all Supervisors, and any rule-breaker onlookers.
When: Twilight on D40
Where: The woods surrounding the grounds.
What: The Ringmaster found something threatening and has decided to share it with her supervisors.
Warnings: Wannabe satanism.

CATCH A FALLING STAR↴ The Ringmaster waits for all of the Supervisors to arrive before continuing onward. She doesn't say much about what they are doing as they wait for everyone to arrive, simply explaining that she has found something concerning that she needs to show them. Once everyone is together, she will lead the pack into the woods - with or without any snoops who may be trying to follow after, against her wishes. The forest is far more accommodating to her than it is to anyone else who tries to navigate it. Instead of getting wound in circles by its path, and running into dead ends, it's as if the trees have moved themselves to intentionally create an easy path for her to follow. It's stretching into the twilight hours as they travel, and various phosphorescent flowers and pods have begun glowing among the leaves with the shift to night, faintly illuminating the way. The sun is low in the sky when they arrive at the spot, still present but swiftly fading as its light cuts through the trees in beams. They reach an area that is not so much a clearing as it is a small space, tucked away between trunks and branches. In the center of that space lies a large, black mark, cut into the earth like a ritual sigil. The dirt and rock is blackened along its lines, and all plant-life within a few feet of its presence has died out completely. As the dark approaches, the black of the lines will seem to paradoxically glow, as if the void within it somehow creates a light of its own. The Ringmaster kicks a few last leaves off of the mark - it seems that she's been clearing away mess from this spot already today, and indicates the digit with a snarl of disgust. "I told you I was cursed!" she insists, putting her hands on her hips.

Comments

[lordofthering]

As Koel looks up and around watchfully, Ringmaster does as well. And once she has... well, it isn't hard to tell what's off. She gives Koel a look, as if to ask 'are they serious?' and then turns to the other supervisors.

"One moment."

And then she is leaping into the trees, roaring furiously, underbrush smacked out of the way and practically sizzling.

"GONGENZAKA? IS THAT YOU?"

[pipers_son]

Well. Shit.

Joker takes that all with grace as he holds out the crate of soda, sighing. "Anyone else want some while she's off, then?" he offers. "We might be here for a spell."

[cuckooed]

Oh, thank goodness, its just Gingenzaka...wait a second.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice is raised just enough for him to hear her. "You were told this meeting was Supervisors only, dear!"

She does take a can while she's at it.

"Thank you."

[periphrasing]

Psi gets a bit of A Look from Peridot when he makes that demand, but she's otherwise quiet up until the Ringmaster takes off. That bellowing gets a flinch out of her; aside from the fact that the Engineer just spooks easily, it's also easy for her to forget how terrifying that woman can be until she loses her cool.

Shaking off the urge to shudder, she glances at Joker.

"...I don't have a digestive system with which to process human confections," she says, like that's a totally normal thing that people bring up in conversation all the time.

[cuckooed]

"Doesn't stop me." Koel pops her can open and starts to drink with a sigh. "Once in a while at least."

She really is disappointed in Gongenzaka. Well, she won't be so much when she finds out he was trying to help, but for now... The frown says it all, and for a moment, her worry about the sigil is gone, at least.

[periphrasing]

"Wait," Peridot says, staring at Koel while she sips. "Seriously?"

She doesn't really wait for an answer, she just snatches up a can and stares at it uncertainly, a newfound curiosity glinting in her eyes. After a second, she pops the tab on it, giving a slight jolt of surprise when it hisses at her.

Everyone please ignore this dumb alien.

[cuckooed]

"Perhaps I'll explain later." Koel watches The Peridot Show as she sips. "This is all just empty calories for me."

[pipers_son]

"And even if they don't do anythin'," Joker says, taking a seat on the forest floor with a can of his own in hand, "sometimes the texture is fun, innit? Because of all the bubblin' in yer mouth."

Good thing wooden fingers are a little different than flesh ones, because it doesn't annoy him quite as much to open his can. As he takes a sip, he glances off to where the Ringmaster had run off to. "...I wonder if Sans knows two of his are in trouble. Again."

[periphrasing]

OK but Peridot doesn't even have an esophagus, Koel. Unfortunately, her curious tendencies are such that she's going to jump immediately on this new information that offers even the slightest chance that she might be able to partake in this corn syrup laden drink that everyone is so crazy about.

While they're waiting for the Ringmaster to come back, she holds the can up to her nose and sniffs it. Dare she...?

[dorkypantsuit]

Well if you're all going to drink some soda he wants some too. He maybe edges in close enough to grab one. He pops it open with a flick of his psionics before taking a sip.

"It's not going to hurt you." he says as he watches Peridot smell the can.

[periphrasing]

"I know that," she snaps defensively, hunching up and holding the soda to her chest.

Another pause. She glances at it again.

Fine. Yeah. OK. She's gonna fuckin' do it.

With both hands on the can, she throws back a big swig of this sugary delight, filling her horrible purple mouth with it.

Peridot lowers the can. Now she's just standing there with a mouthful of soda, cheeks puffed out slightly? She looks conflicted about what the carbonation is doing to her mouth. Her face is all screwed up like just sniffed something rotten.

She just keeps standing there. Nothing changes, except for her cheeks slowly turning a teal color. When the hell is the Ringmaster going to come back.

[lordofthering]

Right now, apparently. The yelling and violence in the trees is mostly brief, and after some feelings and faces are hurt, the Ringmaster comes back, looking a bit more calm. Though her impatience spikes again when she sees Peridot standing there with a face full of soda.

"Peridot!" she snaps, raising her hands indignantly. "Why aren't you setting things up yet! Don't just stand there!"

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"If you must, could you berate
More quietly? I must concentrate."

Zecora muttered this as she tried to ease the sharp obsidian edge of her hoof between the pull tab and the top of her soda can. As she'd been doing for several minutes now. This was as far from easy as possible for a shape-altered ungulate.

[periphrasing]

Peridot looks mortified, eyes going as wide as saucers. When the Ringmaster says her name she jolts, fumbling her half-filled soda can in her claws and dropping it. It hits the forest floor and fizzes quietly as its contents spill out onto the ground. The contents of Peridot's mouth soon follow it there, when she opens up to blurt out a frenzied apology and winds up blurting out a bunch of sugar water instead.

"Forgive me Ringmaster, I thought you meant for us to wait!" Peridot splutters, reflexively throwing up the Diamond salute because. That's just what you do? When you're a lesser gem and you're getting chewed out by an all-powerful authority figure??

...The effort of her apology is kind of undercut by the amount of soda currently dribbling down her chin.

[pipers_son]

"We were waitin' ta see if ya needed us ta clean up a punishment," Joker adds idly as he reaches over to try and help Zecora with her soda. Despite his name, he is somehow, against all odds, managing to not burst out cackling at basically everything about this scenario. "But it looks like it's all been settled, so no need ta worry, huh?"

God, he loves working at this place. Even when they almost die.

[lordofthering]

That's objectively hilarious, but the Ringmaster pretty much doesn't react to it. The soda, that is. She sort of reacts to the apology, though she mostly just exhales harshly and then gestures towards the sigil. Joker's comment just seems to make her more annoyed.

"I don't see what that has to do with anything! Discipline is my business, and this this is yours!" She looks back Peridot, impatiently.

"Well, could you begin? I already gave my order. If this doesn't work, I need to begin formulating an alternative..."

[motivenotfound]

Mari took a can, but didn't open it. She'd just sort of it between her two more humanly-propotioned hands, grinning like mischief while she watched Zecora and Peridot struggle.

The instant the Ring Master returns, though, her smile... well, it doesn't actually leave for long. But it does vanish for a moment. And it comes back a lot less toothy.

Wordlessly, she pulls the tab with a loud psshhhhhhts, at least one eye allocated to each other supervisors. Two are on the RM.

The rest focus on her pop.

...she can feel the carbonation in her nose even without drinking it.

[periphrasing]

"Right! Yes, yes," Peridot babbles. She scrambles around for her bag, glances around nervously at everyone else in the group, wipes her chin off on her sleeve... aaaand scampers over to the sigil to get right to work.

It will take some time, especially with Peridot as flustered as she is right now... But after a little while she successfully gets an IED set up, complete with a remote detonator. And I am not going to describe how she accomplishes this because I don't know shit about bomb making and I'm not about to subject myself to looking that up. Suffice to say, it's a crude looking device, and she looks leery of her own creation as soon as she steps back to take a look at it.

"We should... probably get pretty well clear," she mutters, ears flattened against the side of her head.

[lordofthering]

"Good idea. All of you, disperse!" she says to the others, and then takes the remote detonator from Peridot. She's not concerned about herself after all. "I'll take it from here."

The Ringmaster will wait for the other supervisors to get out of the way before raising her arms theatrically. The trees around the sigil grow and twist and spin together, creating a shield of wood between the blast area and everything else, leaves spiraling up into the sky. She puts a hand on her hip, satisfied with her work, and then looks at the detonator.

"Boom," she says, and presses the button.

It is quite loud.

The trees shudder and crack from the force of the blast, and once ground zero moment has passed, small chunks of wood will rain from the sky for a while. The Ringmaster will step through the rubble of burnt trees, waving away smoke with a gust of wind onto to see the sigil still there - its lines now burning like embers on the blackened ground. The torn earth means nothing - the sigil is burned straight through the dirt, who knows how deep.

"Well... Worth a shot," she says, climbing back out over the smoldering wood.