lostcarnival | [open]

Who: Lambert and YOU
Where: The Carnival
When: During the downtime between Atlantis and their next world.
What: Any Witcher worth his salt knows the first thing you should do when you're in an unfamiliar environment: get the lay of the land.

1. not the nurse you're looking for
[ You might have come into the medical tent looking for supplies or something else. If you were looking for Zecora, prepare to be disappointed because there's a scarred man scowling heavily as he clatters around the place, not working on anything in particular.

He doesn't seem to register there's someone else around -- or is he just straight up ignoring you??? ]

2. by the woods

[ With the carnival no longer water-logged, Lambert's taken a walk of the perimeter, even stepped into the edge of the woods, but he hasn't tried to press any further, although he's stood and looked at it for some time.

There's no sense letting his skills get rusty, so he mostly spends the time-- night or day-- sparring invisible enemies, steel sword flashing as he weaves it through the air.

When he's not swinging a sword around, you'll find him sitting on the dirt, legs folded under him and eyes closed. ]

3. getting to know you?

[ Lambert doesn't normally care about getting to know people, but he also normally doesn't stay anywhere longer than a few months, either. And that's at Kaer Morhen, where he can always get blind drunk and fuck off into the woods and kill some drowners if he needs to let off some steam instead of dealing with the other Witcher.

If he's going to be here for a year and a day? He's going to at least need to know names.

So wherever you are, whatever you're up to, you might notice a newcomer watching you for a few moments before he speaks up. ]

So what do you do around here?

4. wildcard!
[ If we discussed a previous scenario or you just want to do something not covered here, go for it! I'll match whatever prose style you go with. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Repair work.

[He gestures at the motor of the carnival ride in whose guts he was elbow-deep just a moment ago.] Or, well, making sure everything's in working order. This one just needed a tune-up, nothing's really terribly wrong with it. Yet.

What about you? Are you new here too?

[ Lambert might have spent even longer than usual just because he was trying to figure out what the hell is going on there. It's more complicated than anything he's used to, that much is for certain, but at least he knows what it's for since he's seen merfolk using it over the last few days. Being underwater doesn't seem to have hurt its operation any, yet another of the carnival's mysteries. ]

No, I've been here for years and was just hiding under a rock this whole time. [ That's audibly sarcastic, but Lambert saunters closer, more interested in getting a look at its inner workings than anything else. ]

I'm work with the doctor and the nightrider. [ Who or whatever that is. ]

[The sarcasm gets a look that's somewhere between reproachful and reprimanding, as though Jamie cannot believe Lambert's manners and takes personal offense to them.] I just started here too, I dunno who's new and who isn't.

[The motor is a mess of gears, wires, and fiddly bits crammed inside a metal housing whose access hatch is lifted up out of the way and secured so it won't come slamming down while Jamie's working on it. It's also liberally coated with grease, as is Jamie. Maintaining machinery isn't tidy work.]

More doctors are always good, I guess. [He's not sure about this man's bedside manner, though.] What's a nightrider do?

Haven't figured that out yet. [ That at least is honest, because he hasn't really had a chance to figure out exactly what he needs to be doing. ''Mercenary" doesn't explain a whole lot of anything. ] Can't be that important right now or someone would've been looking for me by now.

[ Jamie's probably right about Lambert -- he's likelier to deliver tough love -- but unless he gets injured, it's not going to be a problem right? ]

Guess us new people ought to stick together. How long have you been here?

Just since we were in Atlantis. It's a lot easier to work with arms than with wing...fin...things with hands on the ends. [He just kinda...doesn't volunteer any more information than that.]

How 'bout you? Did you get to be turned into a fish or something?

Not much of a fish. [ If he notices or cares that Jamie's omitting any information, he doesn't show it. ] not sure I like the experience. Although I've never been underwater that long before, so that was a new one for me.

[ Oh, right. Now might be a good time to introduce themselves. ] I'm Lambert. What's your name?

Yeah, it was kinda weird, wasn't it? I can't even swim.

I'm Jamie. I'd shake hands, but I don't think you wanna get this stuff all over you. [He indicates the smudges of grease liberally covering his arms all the way up to his elbows.] Where're you from?

[ In its own way, it's good information, and something to be wary of at the same time. The carnival will adapt their bodies forcibly to whatever they're thrust into, whether they like it or not. ]

I'm a Witcher from Kaer Morhen. [ He doesn't expect the name will get any recognition, if only because no one has recognized what he is so far. ] What about you?

[Sure enough, Jamie looks up at Lambert with a scrunched-face expression of utter incomprehension.] I'm my Zoid team's strategist. I pilot sometimes too, but mostly - what's a Witcher?

[Forget his giant robot nonsense he needs to know what this is Right Now.]

[ At one point, he thought I'd be happier if nobody knew what he was. Now, Lamberts had to explain it in more times than he can count, and the novelty is wearing off. ]

Monster hunter. [ He supplies with a shrug. It's the most simple way to explain it, even if it leaves out a lot of the pertinent details. ]

What's a Zoid?

It's a multiton biomechanical combat unit. We use 'em in sporting competitions. You hunt monsters? Like what? Do you just do it for fun, or are they like, hurting people, or what?

[Seriously he's...so used to the idea of giant animal robots that they hardly even rate a decent explanation - it's like trying to describe a ballpoint pen or boxer shorts. Monster hunting is completely beyond his realm of experience and therefore much more interesting.]

[ Multiton ... what? ]

Is that some kind of siege engine? [ That's the best he can come up with from his world's limited technology, sorry... Also, that's a lot of questions at once, kid, so he holds up a hand and shakes his head. ]

Slow down, if you want me to actually answer anything.

Siege engine? [Jamie's expression suggests that the term makes some vague sort of sense to him; he considers it for a moment, realizing at last that he's going to have to put a little more effort into his explanations if he wants to not thoroughly confuse his new friend here.]

Okay, um...they're machines - things like this? [He gestures to the carnival ride and its still-exposed motor.] Really big, and they carry weapons. And they're alive, sort of, but not quite the way a person or an animal is. Even though they look like animals.

[There. That's a perfectly understandable introduction to the highly-advanced technological monstrosities that his culture takes for granted, right? Right.]

So - okay. Monsters. What are they like? [And that is a perfectly reasonable question to kick off with. Not broad or vague in the slightest, nope.]

[ Lambert frowns at that, crossing his arms. Sounds more like a golem, then, but ... mechanical instead of magical? He doesn't know what to make about the whole 'alive but not' thing either, but maybe he can get into that later.

The question, though, makes him snort. ]

There's a lot of monsters out there. And that's only the ones I know about. I'd say the one thing they have in common is that they're trouble. [ He pauses. ] As long as they mind their own business, I leave them alone But if one needs to be taken out, that's where I come in.

Edited ( ) 2017-02-14 07:16 (UTC)

Soooo you're kind of like a pest control guy. But with monsters.

[Jamie may or may not be envisioning a huge mousetrap with some kind of mangy, fanged horror caught in it. You'll never know, Lambert.]

Do they bother people a lot, or do most of 'em leave people alone? Hey, has anyone tried, like. Taming a monster?

[Because why wouldn't you? They must be able to do something useful.]

That's exactly what I am. [ The glamorous cavorting with sorceresses and kings, the stuff of ballads? That's for people like Geralt, not him. ]

They bother enough people for me to make a living out of it. [ At the idea of taming one though, he can only guffaw. ]

If they have, I haven't heard of anyone surviving it.

[open]

3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject