lostcarnival | ⇨ ATLANTIS

Entry tags:

⇨ ATLANTIS

Who: Everyone!
When: The morning of D44 and onward.
Where: The ocean realm of Atlantis.
What: The carnival abruptly arrives at an underwater realm, and everyone is transfigured into merpeople just as suddenly.
Warnings: Body horror, I guess.

THE CITY OF ATLANTIS↴

The visit starts without much warning, but at least there is a full week of free time before performances start. In the meantime, your characters will be given ample opportunity to adjust their acts for an underwater audience, get used to their new fishy appendages, or just spend the whole time enjoying the sights and sounds of Atlantis city. King Triton will not be immediately seen, but it's possible to gain an audience with him if you get in contact with the ambassadors of the kingdom. Just, make sure that you're not wasting his time. He's a lot less patient with nonsense than the Ringmaster is.

► FISH FRIDAY: You fell asleep, whether or not that's something you usually do, and the next morning you wake up as one of the merfolk. A few last additions may grow in after you're awake, but for the most part everyone will have a method of swimming and a method of breathing underwater transfigured into them upon waking. Don't worry about your belongings - everything is waterproofed, and technology will work the same underwater as it does above it. That doesn't mean there won't be plenty to get used to, though.

► GREAT BLUE YONDER: The ocean realm where Atlantis resides is enormous, and the depths seem to be unending. Despite the fact that there doesn't seem to be any surface, sun glimmers all the way down to the ocean floor. Atlanteans use creatures like whales and dolphins as rides and beasts of burden, and they can be seen swimming in and out of the city as constantly as roadways filed with cars in earth civilization. Beyond that, there's everything you would expect to see on the ocean floor here - huge reefs of coral, both familiar and exotic, enormous ocean plants, deep ocean trenches, and all kinds of weird critters living in them. There are a mix of mythical and standard ocean creatures, and are likely a combined populations of many oceans worth of beings.

► THE ATLANTEAN MARKET: The Atlantean market (aka the "merket") is a long trench between rows of buildings in the middle of the city, lit with bio-luminescent plants and rocks, and filled with all kinds of weird mer stuff that you can buy. There are a great many individual booths, mostly with hand crafted wares and objects that have been salvaged from various sunken ships. The Ringmaster has already traded a large number of goods to the merfolk here, and has taken the profit to award each worker with 100 Atlantean Gold to spend as they please. One gold is worth roughly five USA dollars, for a comparison of how much that is. There is a top level set up below in which characters can make their purchases, and you can also handwave the purchase of random common, necessary items (food, drink, etc) at your convenience.

► TREASURE HUNTING: Right now, the only major salvage areas are a few left over sunken ships that have mostly been picked over by the merfolk. However, you are welcome to head over to them and explore, and see if fortune smiles on you when it comes to finding anything that hasn't been taken yet. The current options are three similar looking brigantine that all probably came from the same world. Merfolk do not seem to consider them to be anything extraordinary, though magical items and gold have allegedly been found within them. Whether or not anything is left, is the real question.

► LIMELIGHTING: Merfolk are curious and generally socially forward, as a species. This mean that they find the carnival's workers to be a fascinating novelty, and also are unafraid to make that fascination obvious. Given the opportunity, merfolk will demand your character's attention for bombardments of questions and for general socializing, especially if they are particularly unusual for some reason. Don't be surprised if you get invited to stay at total stranger's houses, or dragged off to a merfolk bar to surprise party with their friends. They'll let you say no, reluctantly, but they will also be pleased as punch to get up in your gill.

It's also possible to make some money, this way, if you're willing to do street performances, or are willing to sell your "skills" in a more private environment. Yes, there are opportunities to become a fish hooker if you are so inclined. Merfolk may also offer money to take you as arm candy to various public events, escort style. They don't consider this to be a particularly socially inappropriate thing to do, either.

You can ask general questions about this setting over on the event post. There are top levels below for buying Atlantean merch, and also for making dolla dolla, if your character is inclined to try.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I would doubt that, too. I think we can assume, for now, that the sigil was placed back during those troubles and not recently enough for a vampire to still be around." Which means, yeah, he agrees. It must have been a carnival worker. "Though whether they heard everything or not doesn't help us. We can't exactly go asking around about it."

Because the problem is obvious. He may as well state it aloud, just in case. Childermass would hope Strange isn't foolish enough to try interrogating every other worker, but these days, it's a good idea to be absolutely sure.

"Did they do anything about the sigil itself?"

"They did. That little green person, the engineer, I believe?" After all, Strange hasn't met Peridot yet. "She made some sort of complex thing involving wires, bits and other sort of technological things." He sighs, a bit grumpily, before continuing.

"I haven't the faintest idea how she made the thing to begin with. First the cars, then the portable cameras Joker was talking to me about, now this...I didn't expect that the thing in Faerie that would confuse me the most would be technology."

Of course, Strange's derailing train of thought is also because they haven't gotten to the actual 'let's blow up the sigil' part in the sigil log and idek even if it'll work. So sorry Childermass, you get to deal with the magician with the attention span of...well, a goldfish, as he goes off about technology and kids these days with their cars and their cameras.

Thankfully, long and winding tangents aren't anything new and Childermass, who's lived way too long around magicians who do just that, can deal with it. The complaint is valid enough, even if he finds it funny enough to smirk about.

"But I thought we were meant to expect the unexpected in Faerie, Mr. Strange."

Yeah, there's a shark here that's being real cheeky right now.

Strange can't help but give Childermass a Look. Yeah, he gets what you're doing and that cheek is not appreciated. He rolls his eyes slightly as he continues to talk, gesturing vaguely in some random direction.

"You're correct. However, I expected a different sort of unexpected."

As though a Look is going to do anything to help you, Strange. Childermass readjusts his grip on the reef so he can throw an arm over the top of part of it instead and lean casually, as he often does, against it. That done, he'll raise his eyebrows and carry on as if he hasn't the faintest idea what that Look was even for.

"Well, you know, when something odd happens in Faerie, you shrug it off because ah, it's Faerie, that's to be expected."

Man, doesn't that just sound so familiar?

It does indeed sound so familiar, gee, Strange has no idea where he's heard that before, oh no wait he does, it is hardly fair to turn one's words against them but really, this is Childermass, it's to be expected. Doesn't mean he's got to like it, though.

That Look turns into a bit of a glower as Strange settles for pouting slightly while he sits on the reef.

"Even when some of the oddness happens outside of Faerie? After all, the Matrix had no magic."

Strange should take it as a compliment. It's not quite a mockery, just a bit of poking fun at. That's miles above the thinly veiled contempt Childermass has had for, well, most of London.

"Doesn't seem wise to exclude it," he replies, shrugging. He'll think more seriously about it now, dropping the rehash of their older conversation. "We're getting to all these places through Faerie, with magic from Faerie. It was faerie magic that put us into the Matrix and faerie magic that turned us all into..."

He waves around. At himself, at Strange.

"This."

"Into fish people?" Strange can't help but respond, that pout shifting to a wry little smile. There's no use dancing around the topic, Childermass. They're fish people. Strange is certain he's got gills and he definitely has fins. Childermass has fins as well and also...teeth? Whatever.

"And yes, faerie magic put us in the Matrix. And likewise, it took us out. But I still don't know if we can count the Matrix as faerie. After all, faerie magic can bring someone in and out of London but London certainly isn't the same as Faerie."

"Yes, into fish people."

God, fine. There. He said it. It's amazing and fucking absurd all at the same time, which can be somewhat difficult to parse. They're literally in the lost city of Atlantis. It's full of mermaids (and other mer-things). Except he's also a mer-thing now, which is something he's never actually considered.

He can't even claim it's like some kind of fairy tale since it seems they are literally stuck in one.

"And no, London isn't Faerie, but we both used England's connections to Faerie to get to the carnival in the first place."

"We did and I'm certain people from other worlds that have connections to Faerie did as well. And, I know that there are some people who work here because of a debt they incurred playing games. But there must be some people here from a world that isn't connected to Faerie that the Ringmaster still sought out to form a contract with."

Strange can't think of any off the top of his head, but he does have some suspicions. Psionic, for one. Definitely others, possibly his flatmate? Poor Lars seemed entirely ignorant about the world of Faerie.

"I honestly don't know if this thought means anything," he admits, "but it is certainly something to consider. Why seek certain people out?"

Edited 2017-01-18 15:11 (UTC)

"Or there are roads into Faerie no matter where you go," Childermass suggests instead. If England could have them, there's no way to be sure other places in the world do not, or even other worlds altogether.

"Although if she does seek very particular people out, then we're again faced with having to decide how a faerie's mind must work. We already know they don't think like we do, not exactly."

"You're right, Strange adds, with a sigh. "After all, one would think that the people she'd seek out would have useful skills to benefit the carnival."

There's an unspoken 'however...' in that uncomfortable pause after his sentence, where Strange just looks a little bit off to the side. It's not really a secret. Both Strange and Childermass know that there's a few people in the carnival who aren't exactly the most skilled sort of person to begin with. Hopefully they came onto the carnival by accident but Strange honestly doesn't know if they did or didn't.

Which is the part where they would need to think like a faerie. Childermass cannot, he knows that. It doesn't mean he can't give it a fair shot, though, because Strange isn't wrong. There's a number of workers ill-suited for the situation they're in. Sometimes it's for lack of skill, others for lack of will.

"One would think it. However, that is not always true," he finishes for Strange. "It could very well be that she enjoys collecting whatever mortal she can get away with taking. Either that or she takes some enjoyment out of watching the less fortunate ones struggle. They would be the most likely to add on to their years through yet another accident, somewhere down the line."

Even if the latter option would be decidedly cruel, it isn't one he can put beyond any faerie, even the Ringmaster.

"There's one thing we can be certain of: she's certainly not offering us these contracts out of the goodness of her heart." Strange had originally thought that he summoned the Ringmaster. But now? The more he learned about this place? He certainly hadn't summoned her. No, in all likelihood, the Ringmaster had specifically chosen him.

It fits in with Childermass's theory. Offer a contract to someone ill-prepared for Faerie, trap someone in the land with one of the carnival games, and to someone who would be prepared, offer that contract in a fit of madness. Watch them all adapt, watch them all struggle. These are all so interestingly deliberate choices.

"If it was solely collecting, however, then shouldn't there should be more of us? You said that the vampires decimated the carnival's staff, but there's..." A pause, as Strange does some mental addition. "There's no more than fifty of us tops."

"Perhaps the vampires did a thorough job," Childermass says after a moment of pausing to look up through the water, thoughtfully, then back to Strange. "And that there are rules to what she can and cannot do. Enough people pass through the carnival without getting caught up in it, after all. They never realize what they've wandered into and they never cause enough trouble to earn a debt, nor are they looking to make any deals, so why should she offer them a contract?"

That almost makes it sound as though the Ringmaster only collects troublemakers, but even that could be true. They're here, after all.

Edited 2017-01-20 06:18 (UTC)

Strange knows that he's a troublemaker so yeah, makes sense. He'll grant Childermass that much.

"So what we have is a faerie who wants people to be under her contract and occasionally seeks out disruptive influences for that purpose, but can only take on so many people to begin with. Oh, and who currently has an ongoing feud with the vampires to the point where the vampires created a sigil with seemingly no way to remove that they planted in the Ringmaster's domain."

Oh yeah, he straight up didn't mention that 'no way to remove' part to Childermass, did he.

"And how many ways have they tried so far?"

Everyone heard that explosion. He just didn't know the actual outcome of it. Sigil aside, he can't really commit to Strange's summary of the discussion thus far. One angry drunk, a handful of terrified people stuck under contract, and no real way of knowing what the Ringmaster is thinking — it's a lot of guesswork and very little evidence.

"I do want to get the vampires confirmed by someone a little more sober before we assume too much. I would have already done so, but..."

Of course, he's going to gesture to basically everything around them right now. This has all been very distracting. Does he even have to say that to get it across?

"Just the one that I know of. Of course, I assume the Ringmaster first used magic to attempt to remove the sigil." Partly because if he was in her shoes, that's the sort of thing Strange would do first: there is something that was placed magically, try and remove it by magic.

And yeah. Strange reads that gesture wide and clear. It's hard to ask people about the past when you spend half a day trying to relearn how to swim. He nods slightly at Childermass's statement of confirmation.

"We should each ask a different supervisor about it as well, simply to get a broader range of opinions."

"We could do that," Childermass agrees. It would form a larger narrative, at the very least. "Though do we include the parts that involve spying on their supposedly secret meeting? It may come up. Different supervisors may also mean more risk of finding trouble."

Which isn't something he's afraid of, mind, but still something to keep in mind. If the topic remains strictly vampire-related, it may be less a chance, but then they won't get answers regarding the sigil either.

"Again, we weren't the only people who were spying on the meeting. We're not the only members of the carnival with magic and the meeting was told on a public channel—surely some of the supervisors expected spying?"

Maybe. Hopefully. Strange is taking it at a given that other people are as nosy as he is. Besides, various supervisors know of Strange's magic, especially those he accidentally summoned into his trailer. It wouldn't really come as a surprise that he had magic that could spy on the meeting nor that he would spy on the meeting in the first place.

"Perhaps I ask about the sigil and you ask about the vampires." After all, he's got a sneaking suspicion that Childermass might want to stay as under the radar as possible.

"No, we weren't, but the only difference is we didn't get caught."

Who knows what happened to the ones who did. Nothing terrible, he would assume, since no one seemed to be immediately missing after the fact, but still. He's not sure how much fate they should be tempting here.

"I am not so sure splitting up is the best way to go. Though if we do, it might be better if that were the other way around. I can ask about the sigil." As right as Strange actually is, how he would prefer to not draw too much attention to himself, his answer is very much the opposite. If someone has to risk trouble, Childermass apparently thinks it should be himself. "And you, the vampires."

That's a bit unexpected. Strange gives Childermass a brief look, questioning if he's sure, before he simply accepts the other man must be. Perhaps Childermass wants to keep the knowledge that Strange can spy a secret? He didn't see how much good that could do. He hasn't bragged about that magic as much as he has others (shut up about your damn mirrors, Strange) but it's not really a secret.

It could be useful if it was, though. Perhaps he should consider secrecy as a legitimate option.

"If you think that's the best way we should go about it, then I suppose I'll agree." Strange's tone isn't a hundred percent convinced. However, Childermass was the sort of person know more about the best strategies to sneakily find out information—how else could the man have learned magic under Norrell's nose?

"Perhaps your cards could give us a good idea of which road to take?" It's said in a friendly yet joking tone, as Strange gives Childermass a small quirk of a smile.

It's as good a reason as any other, even if Childermass's actual worries lay elsewhere. Though whether or not it's the best way, he can only shrug. If he had to choose, he would not split up at all, but that had more to do with making sure Strange didn't go off on completely unrelated tangents over getting what they wanted to know.

How much can the man be trusted? He did go out of his way to inform him of the rest of the meeting, what he'd missed, in spite of their argument. If anything, that would be what Childermass would use his cards for, if he could. If a mad man could be trusted instead of whether or not they should ask questions that needed to be asked regardless.

It's with that in mind that he gives Strange a resigned look, clearly not caring for the joke. His deck has been the butt of enough jokes as it is, he didn't need Strange of all people adding to that.

"I think this one is better left to us," he says. "Besides, it would be useless to try even if I cared to."

Entirely unaware of Childermass's mental battle of whether to trust Strange or not, Strange gives the other man a quizzical frown. Not at the joke, so much—he had a feeling that even if he joked about the deck in the lightest terms, Childermass wouldn't appreciate it (which, of course, made Strange want to do it even more. Childermass had plenty of legitimate grievances with this world and this place, a few petty ones would hardly add to the stack).

No, it's Childermass calling the cards useless that confuses Strange. That's...unexpected.

"Useless how? Our magic works in Atlantis," And Childermass knew that, having seen Strange show off only minutes earlier...and potentially all afternoon, depending on if Childermass had been hiding in the shadows. The problem with detecting that sort of magic was that it was harder to do when one was distracted.

That and he's used to it. A joke about the cards may not be appreciated, but it's also something he'll let slide off of him like so many other (and far worse) insults. The only reason he reacted at all would be the one he's now stuck admitting to when Strange questions their supposed uselessness.

"It isn't about whether or not magic works here," Childermass replies and this time he makes an effort not to sound troubled over it. As far as concerns go, this one shouldn't rank very high, even if it is very personal to him. "Any reading done with an incomplete deck can't be trusted."

⇨ ATLANTIS

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