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

"Um..." Sora starts. Yes, technically he does, but he probably shouldn't just come out and say it.

"Sorry."

That's all he can manage before his instincts get the better of him, and he grabs Foster by the front of his shirt and yanks him down to his level. Before Foster can try to pull away or react, Sora lunges forward and bites into his neck.

But out of all the victims Sora could have chosen, Foster is probably the worst. He's dead, and has been dead for a few months now. His blood, like his flesh, is dead. Stagnant and clotted, denatured and deoxygenated.

Foster doesn't have time to react--or he does, but only in the brief moments before the attack, during which he's not reacting but listening.

He has only a moment to be confused, and then Sora's got him by the front, jerking him down, teeth sinking deep into his neck. It--

It hurts.

It's almost a shock--it hurts, not like a needle but like a knife, slicing, like stitches being pulled through and against skin, like--

Like--

He drops to his knees.

Foster tastes disgusting, if Sora is quite honest with himself, but he's so thirsty, it feels like he's bordering on dehydration. But when you're dying of thirst in the desert, you take what you can get, even if it's old and gross. If he were at all in his right mind, the thought of drinking blood would be disgusting anyway.

When Foster starts to slip away, Sora bites down harder, instinctively not wanting to lose his meal, and goes down with him.

He hadn't been intending to drain him dry, just sate his thirst, but it seems like that won't be the case.

Normally pain is a welcome experience for Foster. And it is; it feels bad--worse than a knife, much worse, but instead of satisfying him emotionally, it also gratifies him physically. It's... a kind of pleasure. Of release. It's fulfilling. It's... good. He wants more and he wants it to stop; he wants to shove this vampire off of him, he wants Sora to drain him dry; he wants, he wants, he wants--

He doesn't understand. He should have been immune.

His hand closes over Sora's arm in a desperate, viselike grip, but whatever stagnant, rotted blood his body contains will be Sora's with little resistance.

Edited 2017-03-04 03:45 (UTC)

Any shoving is ineffectual; even without vampire powers, Sora is much stronger than he looks. Now? He's easily twice as strong. Strong enough to not let go of Foster until he's drained every drop of old blood from him.

It's only when he's empty that Sora comes to his senses, and drops Foster to the ground, bemoaning his lack of self control. He stares down at the (dead?) body, too shocked to even register the blood that's still on his lips and dribbling down his chin. It happened -again-.

"Best turn him if you don't want him dead, little one," Xabat reminds Sora from behind him.

It takes another few seconds, but Sora springs into action, and drops down beside Foster. He chomps down on his thumb, hard, and shoves the blood clumsily against Foster's lips, hands shaking.

The feeling of dying is... familiar. Painful, as the body goes through its final throes, the last secret vestiges of life relinquishing their hold only with great reluctance. But it ends, piecemeal, and there is a kind of relief at its last.

Rising, still dead, was not very much fun, but mostly from a sort of psychological violence and disorientation rather than any kind of bodily pain.

This, on the other hand...

'Agony' doesn't quite describe it. It's something better. Worse. A violent kind of ecstasy, seizing him in the void and wracking his body in the guise of true agony. And it tastes like blood. He jerks--spasms, his mouth closing over Sora's thumb--but instead of biting down, he swallows, in the process ingesting whatever minor amount of what Sora has given him that's gotten mixed with his saliva.

He isn't dead. Not any more.

And it feels--

Like epiphany.

It's inside of him--here, finally, his punishment. His ecstasy, his agony, a form of absolute destruction, everything he deserves. A tearing, penetrating pain that he hadn't known possible, a torturous form of death he'd only ever flirted with before, and it's so ^bad_good

His eyes open again.

After he's sure Foster's swallowed some blood, only then does Sora take his hand back, and wipes it on his already dirty pants. He watches nervously as Foster shakes and goes through the motions of turning, and it's not the first time he's seen it, but it doesn't get any less upsetting. The feeling of dread never quite goes away.

He wants to back away, wants to not watch, but Xabat is right behind him, now, and he can't just leave Foster alone. Foster's eyes open again, thankfully, but he can see the hunger in them, and he doesn't know what to do. He can't even bring himself to open his mouth to say anything.

[As he turns, some of the colour comes back to Foster's skin--even bloodless, he's more 'alive' than he has been in months, and some of the ashy, dark look to his flesh evaporates. But while Sora watches, helpless, his features also shift visibly, and his new face is sunken and hungry, his eyes no longer detached and surface-cold but instead penetrating and predatory--red instead of blue.

He's so disoriented that he can't even think to form words. And the feeling of starvation is immediate, filling him with emptiness; it hits with the full force of that _agony^ecstasy of change, but there's nothing good about it.

But it's Sora who does it in the end. Sora--and the feeling of Sora, the presence of him; he's never felt another human being's presence to clearly before--

And he hates it.]

.... hHHhhh.... get... out of my head.

"W-what?" Sora asks, confused and slightly anxious. His... head?

He watches Foster move through the changes, sitting up and looking around and curling up in pain. Was he in pain? Should he be in pain? He can't remember.

"Are... are you...?"

Xabat crouches down behind Sora, and claps his hand on the boy's shoulder, watching Foster as well.

"Looks like a bit of an odd one, eh?"

⇨ THE MASQUERADE

Xabat is also an asshole

I hope this is worth it, Sora.

It's not. It's really not.

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