⇨ THE MASQUERADE

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[atouts]

Gagging is exactly what she's trying to do once she realizes his blood is the absolute opposite of what she wants. Arietta gurgles, her scream muffled by Lambert's arm, though she still tries struggling wildly as the poison drains away her strength bit by bit until she can only lay exhausted and sickened on the floor. Between that and the silver jammed up against her face, she'll find herself in a bind soon enough (quite literally).

As for what Childermass is up to, the sound muffled makes it easier to convince the neonates finally getting back to their feet that their sire is nowhere in sight. Nor are the two they were after, at that. It's tougher since they have other powerful senses, but sight has always been the most believable in humans. These vampires used to be human, so they do eventually fall for into the same folly. Even the one blinded from the shotgun round that caught part of her face is, despite protests (no, they have to still be there!), inevitably grabbed and dragged along.

It gives the hallway to them and them alone for a moment, but how long that'll last...

Childermass will hold the spell while he can, but he does have to say harshly, though also very quietly, "We can't remain here forever. Stop playing with her, Lambert, we don't have the time for it."

[whattaprick]

"Shut up," Lambert answers automatically, staring down at the vampire with narrowed eyes, weighing something in his mind. The neonates scurrying away gives him some room to think, but there are too many questions to ask. As Childermass has astutely pointed out, they don't have that much time. Since Sans and the supervisors seem not at all surprised that vampires are attacking them in the first place, he discards those questions at once, focusing on the ones that will yield them actual useful information.

Eventually, he decides, and when he does he begins speaking softly and deliberately, keeping his voice low the way the magician is -- realizing whatever he's using to keep them concealed, it does depend on a lack of sound.

"I've got questions for you," he tells the vampire "Do anything but answer them, and I'm shoving this silver right down your throat. That clear?" He actually doesn't care if she affirms it or not, because he knows what he's doing when they're done; the important thing is that she thinks she has a chance to get out of it.

"First, how'd you find us here?" Only then will he yank his arm out of her mouth, freeing her to speak. "Why are you taking the supervisors?"

[atouts]

If Lambert wants to fast track himself onto just how much Childermass does not like him, well, he is definitely on the road to that. Of course, considering past trespasses, this is really only adding to a list that already exists. He frowns back at the man, especially once he realizes what he's up to. An interrogation? Here? The man expects him to keep that disguised from plain sight?

But back to the vampire, the first thing she does once the arm is out of her mouth is, of course, spit Lambert's own blood back out at him with a vicious snarl.

It doesn't matter! You're all going to suffer! Maybe if you beg, I'll spare you what Lord Morningstar is going to do to the whole lot of you miserable freaks!

She's hardly in the place to be the one making threats, but she also isn't the sort to start spilling her guts without a little false bravado beforehand.

i guess this should have gotten cw for violence a while ago

[whattaprick]

Lambert has a pounding headache, he just let a vampire bite down on his arm, and he's seriously done with this day, on top of having his own blood spit at him. So he'll squeeze his fist to drip more blood across her mouth, then use the same hand to move through a short, jerky series of gestures.

"Tell us what you know," he grates out, putting as much force behind Axii as he dares. It's uncertain if it'll work or not, under the circumstances, but he really doesn't want to bother having to do this dance any longer than he needs to.

cw for being jerks to asshole vampires

[atouts]

Yeah, she doesn't typically expect humans to have mind control powers (despite the fact that Lambert is not actually all human, but like she cares enough to differentiate). When Lambert goes through his series of motions, her own tirade of threats trail off and she can't help but furrow her brow in confusion as Axii settles in.

There are a few false starts, as though she's trying to find the right thing to say but needs a few tries to get it, opening her mouth to talk, stopping, opening it again. Eventually, she'll get there.

We were tracking the carnival through magic before, but lost it a few days ago, she starts with his first original question. Someone else came along after, someone who knew where you'd all be. I don't know who she was.

[whattaprick]

Time and directness is of the essence, because Axii's no refined spell for extracting information -- it's a hard mental nudge, at best, to direct someone into stunned compliance or to take a thought process and give it a jerk in another direction. Going from don't tell them to tell them is a pretty big leap of cohesive thought to make.

"What did she look like?" He'll prompt her, instead.

[atouts]

And it's going to be wearing off a lot sooner than expected on an undead target, but he does get this much more out of her first.

Oh, the most beautiful woman, the one with white hair. Not as beautiful as our lord, but... Even so, Arietta sighs just thinking of her. Seriously, it's a shame they let her walk right back out of there, but she supposes you can't just go around biting the master's contacts. Though it's about that point that Axii is fading and she suddenly frowns again, eyes narrow. She had it out for you disgusting fools, too, just like everyone— Wait. Why am I telling you you anything?!

There we go, she's beginning to put up a fight again, pulling against the silver necklace around her wrists in spite of the pain.

Unhand me, you stupid oaf! Let me up! I demand it!

[whattaprick]

With that, unfortunately, Arietta's outlived her usefulness in Lambert's eyes, and he shakes his head, even as he reaches over for the knife.

"Not gonna happen." The stab to the heart is swift and brutal, completing the job he couldn't finish earlier between all the grappling and the biting. His fingers and arms are sticky with blood, mostly his own, and his medallion's seared into her skin; with a grimace, he'll untangle the chain and pull it free, though he takes a look at how gore-covered it is and decides against wrapping it back around his neck, shoving it into a pocket instead.

Only then will he glance up and look at Childermass, frowning. "Why aren't you in the dining hall with the others?" A sharp wriggle of his wrist brings the knife sliding back out of Arietta, and he wipes it off on her dress before offering it back to him, hilt-first.

[atouts]

Childermass hasn't been watching the entire time, more drawn to keeping an eye out for any other inhuman attackers, but he is looking back their way when Lambert made those signs in the air, when Lambert finally offs the vampire with a sharp jab to the heart. She doesn't even have the time to scream once more before falling limp against the floor.

Considering how close she had been to snapping his own neck (and he's sure he'll have some interesting bruises there now, too), he can't really pretend to find any fault in it. That isn't the reason he furrows his brow and purses his lips, regarding the witcher in a far less friendly manner than he has the past few days.

"You seem to know how to use it better than I," Childermass says when the dagger is offered back, rising up to his own feet and slowly lowering his arms. The spell remains in place, the world around them seeming muffled, muted. "Besides, you already have a habit of taking my things..." But not to dwell on that, even if he is finding himself increasingly angry here. "Now, why would the others be in the dining hall? Because of the vampires?"

Because he's guessing vampires here, even if he's running on basically zero intel right now. Seriously, if he'd known Lambert was being chased by vampires, does the witcher really think he would have tried intervening like that?

[whattaprick]

While Childermass refuses the dagger, Lambert's using his other hand to unhook another potion from his belt, flicking the top -- held to the bottle by a bit of twine -- open so he can chug its bright orange contents. So soon after another potion, it makes his veins throb with the toxin flooding his system, but it's not enough to overdose, and Swallow does its work, slowing the blood to a manageable trickle.

He'll shrug when Childermass rejects the knife, sliding it into his bet for safekeeping -- and ignoring the comment about taking stuff, because to be frank, he'd even forgotten he did that, though he'll remember it later, when he finds the necklace among his things. For now, he fiddles with getting the bottle to where he needs it, jammed up against one of the holes he's cut into her. Without a heartbeat, nothing's pumping the flow, so he'll press the heel of his hand right to her sternum and begins rhythmically pressing down to send the blood into the bottle.

"Didn't hear any of the supervisors? That's where the Warden and the Foreman told the rest of us to go," he'll say as he works. "It's also got silver, which tends to be pretty effective against this kind of thing."

[atouts]

"I did not."

If Childermass ever did have his radio in this place, chances are he lost it or left it behind days ago. Yet another regret, but that one he can at least get over quickly. He'll watch impassively while Lambert goes about his business of forcing dead blood out of the vampire's corpse for a moment, but in the end? He decides looking away and keeping an eye out for anyone else entering the hallway. The spell is hardly foolproof and there's no telling if some of the vampires can and will figure it out.

"Though I had been wondering what all the commotion was about," he adds thoughtfully. He should have investigated sooner. Why hadn't he? Oh, he knows why. It's because of this damn party, that's why. If there's danger, however, there's something else he should be doing...

What was it?

"Strange." He says the name abruptly, like just remembering that, ah, yes, that's important. Childermass turns to glance back at the witcher again, sharper this time. "Have you seen him? Is he already there?"

[whattaprick]

The man's name makes Lambert's mouth twist wryly, something apparently funny about the situation and Childermass's inquiry that inspires amusement where there should be none.

"Oh, I saw him. Whether he stayed put is a different story." He corks the bottle, then works on filling another the same way. "He said he'd be looking in the mirrors."

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, down the opposite end of the corridor from where the vampires disappeared to. "There was one in the room down that way. You should go and use that spell of yours to hide whoever made it there." Instead of cramping Lambert's style by getting jumped from behind.