lostcarnival | ⇨ THE MASQUERADE

Who: Everyone! Attendance is mandatory.
When: Late Day 65
Where: The Celebration
What: The Masquerade arrives, and so does the carnival's enemies. For more info, check out the Draculas 101.
Warnings: Further party hell. Also, vampire violence, mind control, etc.

THE HOST & THE HORDE↴

The time of the Masquerade arrives. You've been given free reign of the place up till now, but a few hours before the party commences the Host will inform you that your presence will be required, and will assist you (forcibly, if need be) to sort out any last minute costuming concerns you might have if you've left it until now. When masks and outfits are sorted, you'll be left to your own devices until you are summoned on the evening of Day 65.

The Masquerade will start off normally - relative to everything else in this place, at least. Everyone in the Celebration will be called in for this event, centered in a grand hall with side rooms offered to those that need them for whatever reasons might come up. The food and drink is especially ambrosia-esque this evening, and the music will stir your soul, even if you're not usually a music person. Enjoy it if you can - the peace won't last.

► MASKS: Though the masks seemed only mundane before, once within the Masquerade atmosphere, they will magically begin obscuring people's identities beyond what a normal mask should be able to do. When a person is wearing one, it would be supernaturally difficult to figure out who they are - maybe you forget what their voice should sound like, or maybe the other details escape you. Of course, it's possible to figure out if you look for it, based on general shapes and personality traits, but unless you know someone well it could be a challenge. Of course, you can just take your mask off and remove the enchantment entirely - though the Host will hassle you if they notice you going without. Stop ruining the party!

► TEMPTATION: Though it's felt easy to be whisked away by the draw of pleasure and luxury during the rest of the week, that feeling will seem to come to a head at the actual party. If you are aware of what needs to be resisted then it's possible to fight back and ignore it, but more than ever it feels all too easy to just dance your life away. Nobody seems to be dying from it, at least, or 'burning out' any faster as a result - it's mostly just extremely distracting from other concerns. Like vampires, for instance.

VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE↴
It's during the latter half of the party that things will start to go bad. Though it will go unseen by the carnival, the Masquerade has gained an additional set of guests - the vampire's of the demon lord that has been chasing them for the last several months. The Host doesn't discriminate, and anyone is welcome to attend the Celebration, provided they don't start a fight.

Right. About that.

► THE KINDRED: The vampires don't like to play fair, which means that they are going to be attacking with stealth and trickery - taking advantage of the way that the party has dulled the alertness of many of the carnival's workers. They'll be using that lack of inhibition to lure individuals into places they can be attacked or turned in private - their primary goals are to capture the Supervisors and to turn as many of the Ringmaster's workers as possible before escaping back to their dimension. Some of their targets will be gone before anyone has a chance to notice.

Remembering that they will be avoiding big public confrontations, so if anyone starts one of those it will probably by the carnival members striking back. This is going to wear on the Host's patience extremely quickly.

► COLD IRON: Oh, right, and they are definitely bringing iron weapons - as pure as they could get. They'll have things like iron collars or shackles to try to trap people with, as well as iron daggers and guns with iron bullets. They'll have to be on the down low with, but they are going to exploit that weakeness as much as possible. Those that have only been in the carnival a few months will mostly just feel discomfort at the touch of it - as if they are touching something that is slightly too hot or too cold. Veterans that have been around for years will find its touch to be burningly cold - the type of temperature that would threaten to destroy flesh after prolonged contact. Those that have been here for up to three years will take it the worst. See the Transformations page for more details!

► TURNING THE TABLES: Being turned is a mixture of pleasure and pain, and is often hard for mortals to mentally reconcile as it happens to them. Being drained by these vampires is simultaneously impossibly satisfying and extremely terrifying - once they've started in on your, the way it overwhelms your mind and body can make it nearly impossible to stop them without help. Once you are dead or dying, they will feed you their blood - at which point your body will go through a painful transformation as the demon spirit takes its place inside of you and your dead body is violently resurrected.

As soon as you wake up, freshly changed, the bloodlust will set it - it will be extremely hard to control, and at first all you will think about is wanting to sate that hunger. Combined with your sire having direct control if your mind through your blood connection, new vampires will be mostly incapable of doing anything but following the whims of the rest of the vampire pack and seeking nourishment. This blood lust will begin to fade after they've fed. Killing isn't necessary to feed, but it can be hard to stop yourself, as a neonate vampire.

► CLOSING TIME: Before the party is officially over, the Host will have had enough. Before you can pursue all of the vampires or take back the people they've stolen, the lot of them will have escaped back to their dimension, and the Host will have kicked the entire carnival out for participating in so much violence. If you want to make any final moves before you go, this is the time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Like maybe that's better than just assuming it's a lost cause from the get go? Sans barely even considered the idea of counter spelling the mask enchantments - he's seen too many realms with beings holding power far past his own for him to assume it's something he could hope to deal with on his own.

But giving up early is kind of his thing. It doesn't have to be Strange's.]

If you wanna give it a shot I wouldn't complain. But this is the Host's territory, not yours. Remember that if you're going to try to screw around with their magic.

[ Giving up is for LOSERS says Jonathan Strange, the man who believes that he can do anything until he finds out that he actually can't do it. ]

I'm afraid I would already be on the Host's list of people not to invite back. I'm certain there's a rule about not using magic on the other guests.

[ said with a weak smile. It's Strange trying to tell a joke and trying not to show how rattled the vampire attack has made him. After all, he's a nightrunner, he's been in the peninsula, he shouldn't be as scared about vampires and getting shot as he actually is.

Strange takes another drink of his water to try and calm his nerves, hand trembling all the while. ]

[Sans watches him tremble, not sure what to say to help with that. Sans doesn't feel scared so much as he feels anxious and on edge - but he's been through this once already, and if there's one thing he's sure of it's his ability to escape danger if he really wants to.

It's not like that for everyone else.]

The carnival made it through this once... I'm gunna assume we can do it again. Maybe getting kicked out wouldn't be such a bad thing.

[There, he tried optimism. He's trying.]

[ Points for effort. Strange is just desperately trying to seem like he's got it under control, that he's totally fine with all of this. That weak little smile is still on his face as he continues to talk. ]

Getting kicked out of a party, the mess with those agents, Tamatoa...does the Carnival always have the habit of attracting trouble?

[ well Tamatoa was technically their fault, not the Carnival's but point stands. It's a rhetorical question anyway, more phrased as a joke than anything else. Of course the Carnival always attracts trouble, it's a faerie carnival, he should have realized the moment he signed on.

Strange looks over at Sans...and then frowns, as if he's just realizing who he's talking to for the first time. This is Sans. He's dealt with vampires before. And really, out of all the supervisors, he'd rather ask him about the creatures than one of the ones he works under. ]

I know vampires used to be human, but they aren't any more, correct?

[Ah... and that's such a human thing to ask, isn't it? "Are they human?" as if that's the most important feature of their being, as if that alone can decide how they are to be handled. Sans doesn't know why Strange is asking that question, but his knee jerk reaction is to assume it's following the logic he's expecting.

"Tell me they aren't human," they hope. "If they're not human, then we can kill them without feeling bad." So convenient, for it to be that simple.]

Depends on your definition of human.

[His response is tentative, as if he's putting it out there and watching for a reaction to see how to proceed.]

What's the different to you?

[ Sans is 100% right about that logic. After all, if a vampire's renounced it's humanity, then it isn't human, then Strange would feel so much less guilt killing it. But he's just going to go about explaining that logic in a different sort of way. ]

I turned one into a bird.

[ It's said in a very matter of fact tone, but with a little frown on his face. Strange obviously isn't proud of what he did. He had only done transfiguration magic on a human once before and that was with her consent. This...it was self-defense but it just felt wrong. ]

If it turns out that by becoming a vampire one's given up their humanity, then I'd feel much better. Otherwise that means I've trapped some poor soul as a bird for the rest of his life.

[ because he kiiiiiind of doesn't know how to turn someone back. Whoops. ]

[Unfortunately for Strange, this isn't really one of those subjects that Sans is known for making people feel better about. Minimizing the ethical failure of murder isn't really his thing. Is turning someone into a bird murder? He isn't sure - guess it depends on how the magic works. It super sucks, at any rate.]

Well. They were human. Then they got turned. Maybe they wanted to be turned, maybe they didn't. Maybe it just happened to them. They've still got the same personality, the same memories... maybe the same motives. They'd be the same person if it wasn't for the fact that they've got vampiric influences egging them on.

[He remembers some of the details from when they'd been the vampire world in the first place. It was ruled over by vampiric warlords, more or less... being turned messed with people's personalities, sure, but did it really changed who they were or who they used to be?]

Is that human to you?

I don't know.

[ He hates to admit that but look, it's true, he's no idea whether or not vampires count as humans or not and that's annoying him so much. It's so much easier to rationalize things away when you've got clear and distinct labels. Faeries don't count. Faeries are something else entirely. But vampires? Who knows, to be honest. ]

I suppose what matters is that they're targeting us and we shouldn't let them get hold of the other Carnival members.

[ Crippling questions about the nature of humanity can wait for later, when things aren't trying to rip his throat out. ]

[Sans snorts. Maybe that's not the most tonally appropriate gesture, but he can't help it.]

Probably the best way to go about it. In my experience, humans are just as likely to kill you as anything else.

[But maybe he's just bias. (He is.) He's not sure if Strange realizes how tone deaf it is to ask a non-human about this when it comes to ethical questions of murder.]

Our priority is the carnival, human or otherwise.

Even I know that much, [ he responds, with a weak smile. ] I've fought in a war before, plenty of people were trying to kill me in the peninsula.

[ But that was different...somehow. Strange isn't entirely sure how it was different, just that it was. It'll be later after Strange comes off his adrenaline/fear rush that he'll realize it's not so different to begin with. ]

You're right, though. We need to protect the carnival. I doubt I'll be able to use magic as strong as transformation for a while but I've plenty other spells at my disposal. I already know some basics about these vampires: hypnotism, the lust for blood, destroy the head or the heart to kill them fully, but what else can they do?

⇨ THE MASQUERADE

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