lostcarnival | ⇨ 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

Well isn't that a lovely thought. Jimmy looks down at his tentacles, all happily sifting through the sand and piling up that handful of odd beads he'd found. Those worked well, oddly enough, they were larger, so he could focus on gripping and manipulating them. Since he was stuck with them, he might as well learn how to use them. Even if he really, really didn't like them.

"Uhm, sure?" Physically, he's fine. It's just the associations that make him nervous and get the tentacles twisting and kicking up small clouds of sand.

Sherlock's quite pleased and swims closer. He's careful not to crash into him, minding the currents and using his tail to get the distance just right. Sherlock Holmes was many things, and graceful was certainly one of them, if he wasn't turned into a chameleon, that is.

He gently tried to pick up the very end of one of the tentacles on the side, attempting to lift it up to peer closer and examine the texture of it.

"Are you controlling them when they're doing that?" He nods his heads towards the beads.

The tentacle is purple-ish underneath, with a double row of suckers running down its length. It tries to curl around Sherlock's fingers as he picks it up, making Jimmy pale and the other tentacles continue to writhe in the sand. ".... no. Not really. I was kind of working with it, but it's.... slow going."

Sherlock's not even bothered, he just finds the whole thing a big exciting, scientific curiosity. He tries to poke a finger at one of the suckers of the tentacle to see what would happen.

"Fascinating."

He, of course, was not really that great on picking up on other people's uncomfortableness unless he was actively deducing them, so he didn't quite get Jimmy's.

"Ngh. Don't." Said with far more distress than the inquiry probably warranted, the tentacle is yanked out of Sherlock's fingers and they all bunch up under Jimmy for a moment before burying him almost up to his waist in sand. The tentacle curling around Sherlock's finger was just close enough to.... to... what he'd fled that it had terrified him.

A cloud of silt blooms up from the movement, making Jimmy cough and try to fan it away, before he looks back up at Sherlock. "Sorry... Sorry. It's... complicated." Complicated, with a side order of convincing Sherlock that he is as crazy as the doctor said he was.

Sherlock's bewhildered by the reaction. He quickly lets go as soon as the tentacle yanks itself back.

"I...I apologize," he said, but it sounded more like a question. "Are you in any pain?"

"No, no. It's just... it felt really bizarre and a..... a lot of old, unpleasant memories." Not that old, if he was being honest with himself. And seeing shiny black anything (he still had no idea why they were black) moving around and trying to grab hold of someone was just unpleasant. Jimmy's still buried almost up to his waist in sand, though.

Sherlock studies him, trying to deduce the reason from his body language and not just his words. Well, upper body language. He had no data on octopi, and he was half-buried anyway.

"Understandable. After all our brains are not used to this sensory input. I know it's probably got to do with magic but I'm surprised any of us adjusted adequately to all of this," he waves a hand at the ocean above and towards his own tail, which he used to bob against the current gently so he wasn't carried away.

Old unpleasant memories? "Have you encountered something like this before?"

Edited 2017-01-25 03:52 (UTC)

There's no way he can explain any of what happened without sounding like he needs to go have another long series of talks with Doctor Rasmussen, and has he been taking his pills? Angels descending into madness, extra-dimensional body snatchers, and don't forget the dying. Even with the extenuating circumstances of the Carnival, it's still a lot to buy into.

A wary glance at Sherlock before Jimmy looks away, the tentacles are still seething under the sand, reacting to Jimmy's obvious distress. And Jimmy is pointedly not looking anywhere near where he might catch sight of them."It's.... It's nothing. I made a mistake. Don't worry about it."

Right, he thought. Sure. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see his distress.

But he's got just enough tact to not press the subject further.

"If you're sure," he says, brows furrowing.

Jimmy nods, putting on his best 'I am totally fine, but please don't call me on it' face. "yeah. It's just.... Can we talk about something else?" His smile is very strained, and whatever Jimmy's not talking about is upsetting him a great deal.

Definitely something going on. Sherlock, being a detective, had a notorious nosy streak. He had little to go on with his deductions other than Jimmy's general behavior.

"If you're sure. But if you do need to..." he trailed off. Sherlock wasn't the best at dealing with things like this but he wanted to help, if he could. At one point he would have dismissed Jimmy as pathetic, how could he have such an emotional response to something so silly? But he was trying to be a better person, trying to be who John wanted him to be.

"No, no. I'm good. Probably. Just... Things I'm not quite up to discussing right now." And now he's drifted to flat out lying. Jimmy doesn't want to talk about it right now. Maybe not ever. Sherlock probably wouldn't want to stop talking to him for being crazy, but he probably would try and 'help'.

And Jimmy's had enough of that, thank you.

"What... what brings you out here?" Under other circumstances, that subject change was so painfully obvious that Jimmy would have been morbidly embarrassed, now he's just desperate.

⇨ ATLANTIS

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