⇨ HOME AGAIN

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone!
When: Day 68 - Day 72
Where: Carnival grounds.
What: Everyone makes it back to the carnival after their adventure in hell. The Ringmaster makes a new lake to celebrate, apparently.
Warnings: A notable absence of torture.

TO HELL AND BACK↴ The rescuers and the liberated captives will emerge from the portal like bats out of hell. Much like their previous return, this arrival will be met with a flurry of medical activity as everyone gets their injuries seen to, particularly those that had been held prisoner within Morningstar's hell fortress. It will still be night when they arrive, and the rest of Day 68 will be clouded over completely, for the benefit of the new vampires as they get settled in. After the immediate panic is dealt with, the Ringmaster will disappear into the forest until the morning of Day 69. It will be raining off and on during her absence. ► RECOVERY: Unlike the last time, the Ringmaster will be supplying the carnival workers with some healing potions from her private hoard, given that most of the healers are already wounded or spent. Damage caused by iron poisoning will not be cured by healing magic or healing items though, unfortunately, and those who have spent a lot of time in contact with iron will take at least a week to fully recover. However, regular healing remedies like bandages and herbs may help speed things along if the patient is suited to them. ► A BRAND NEW LAKE: On the morning of Day 69, the Ringmaster will return the forest to announce that she's built a new lake into the carnival grounds, only a short trail's distance from the backyard. Unlike most of the forest, this area won't just lead you in circles when explored, meaning that it can actually be modified and developed as the workers see fit. The water is always clean and just the right temperature for swimming, though it gets a bit cooler the deeper you swim. At the far side of the lake, there is a warm, stone pathway leading up the side of the mountain, that will eventually take you to some bangin' hot springs. Brought to you mostly because the Ringmaster doesn't know how to say sorry with actual words. At least it gives you something to play with while you try to shake off the trauma. ► FRUITS OF VICTORY: On Day 70, all the workers who came to hell for the rescue mission will be given a gift from the Ringmaster. Each of them will receive a bright green, glowing seed, about the size of your thumbnail. She will tell you that, when planted, the seeds will swiftly grow into a small citrus tree, which will grow fruits with regenerative properties. More details about these plants will be written up in a separate post, but for now your characters can ogle them and decide if they are going to plant them or not. ► TAKE ME TO CHURCH: Staring on Day 71, the Ringmaster will be starting to work on removing the vampirism from those infected with it, which apparently involves a lot of... meditation? She will take the newbie vampires out into a shady area of the forest and encourage them to look inside themselves and attempt to separate themselves spiritually from their demonic beasts. How well you character masters her teachings over time will determine whether or not she is ultimately capable of stripping out your demon soul and returning you to life. Of course, not all demons are made equal, and some will be more difficult to separate than others...

Comments

Jamie, OTA

[raynos]

A: Day 68, early morning
Once everyone is home, Jamie just kind of stands around for a little while, at a loss. He's not injured, aside from the whole undead thing; doesn't want to waste time and resources that someone else needs more, and he doesn't want to be poked and prodded right now anyway, so he heads back toward the trailers in a numb haze, unaware of anyone in his path until he nearly runs into them.

He's frayed enough that he wants to snap at them to move, but honestly that would require energy he doesn't have, so he merely mumbles an apology, eyes downcast, stepping aside to let them pass.

B: Day 68 or later
He doesn't realize just how long he's been indoors until he exits his trailer and turns his eyes up to the overcast sky. He needs that sky, in a way he can't understand, and he wanders into the forest as though hypnotized, standing amongst the tall, swaying trees with his head tipped back.

The branches of the forest canopy still make him feel closed in; subconsciously, he's unused to seeing a sky framed by trees, craves the familiarity of the open desert sky, and he feels a stab of frustration and loss at being denied it. The closest thing he can manage now is a higher point of view with fewer obstructions.

So he picks a tree - a smallish one - and tries to figure out how to climb it. He's never actually done so before, though, so after clambering up a rock nearby he just sort of throws himself at the trunk, scrabbles frantically trying to get a grip on it and then falls, landing hard on his back in the dead pine needles and other litter on the forest floor. And right at someone's feet.

He cranes his head back to look at them, upside-down. "I just...wanted to get higher," he says vaguely, as though this explains his current position.

C: Day 71 onward
He didn't know trying to be calm would be so stressful.

Jamie's not given to relaxing easily under the best of circumstances, and the knowledge that being able to do so now means the difference between being a normal person again and spending the rest of his existence with a demon living inside him lends the proceedings an urgency that isn't conducive to attaining the appropriate level of chill.

He moves restlessly around the carnival grounds, trying to find the right setting in which to search his soul, or whatever. These settings may include: behind your trailer, under your trailer, the adjacent seat of a table you just chose to sit at, or your work area. He also might be muttering to himself, less quietly than he thinks he is: "Who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I..."

D: Wildcard

A

[fragileandsoft]

A hand grips Jamie's shoulder, keeping him from stepping too far off. The grip is firm, but gentle, and is accompanied with a breathless and startled voice.

"Jamie."

He'd been dozing off in his trailer before hearing about the returning group, and thought to rush back to the cookhouse--can't heal, can't fight, but can make good on that promise to feed people. He'd sort of assumed everyone would still be holed up in the nurse's tent again, though, instead of wandering around.

"You made it back."

[raynos]

The contact and the voice make Jamie stiffen and his head snap up, eyes widening as his brow furrows apprehensively. He should have known this was coming. Truthfully he hadn't been sure he would ever get out of the place the vampires had taken him to, so he hasn't exactly planned for this, but he knows he has to say something to the man he attacked and whom Irvine tried to kill, because of him. So Jamie just kind of starts babbling.

"Mr. Universe, I - " He stammers a little, swallows and plunges on. "I know it doesn't fix anything but I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for what I did, I know you w-were hurt really bad and that's, it's my fault and I know you're probably mad especially 'cause S-Steven was there and he almost got hurt too, so I don't blame you for hating me but I'm. I'm really sorry. I'm s-so sorry."

And he cringes a little without really trying to get out of Greg's grip, because if Greg is planning to tell him off or give him a smacking around, well, he deserves it.

[fragileandsoft]

"Woah, woah, hang on." Predicting how Jamie would behave was a little difficult given his state at their last encounter, yet Greg hadn't quite expected this rapidfire shame and apology. Not that he can't get where it came from.

"I'm just glad you made it away from that guy." Irvine was a creep and a monster in every sense of the word. "Forget all about that other stuff. I'm fine, Steven is too. What about you, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

[raynos]

Jamie stares up at Greg, and it's possible the older man can't see because it's dark, but the idea that Greg is actually happy to see him, might actually have been worried about him is making Jamie's eyes tear up a little. Which...means they've got kind of a gross red film over them because everything is blood. So maybe it's actually better if Greg can't see.

"No, not...after..." He gestures at himself in a general sense, indicating the whole being-a-vampire thing. He's still wearing the same clothes he was at the masquerade, which in addition to being covered in his own blood have spots of someone (or something) else's here and there and are torn and grimy from being in the neonate pit. There's blood and ash and dirt smeared all over his face and matted in his hair and the fur on his ears. He's literally been through hell, and he looks it.

Which of course is why he says "I'm - I'm okay." Followed by a watery smile that does not look okay at all.

[fragileandsoft]

Jamie may be smeared in blood and ichor and all manner of filth, back from the darkest and most vile pit, Greg can only see how young Jamie looks in this moment. How tired, and scared, and small he is. He's literally been to hell and back.

Wordlessly, Greg pulls Jamie into a hug. He deserves better than this. Everyone who went down there does. None of them came back "okay," he knows that much for certain. But they made it back, and that alone is worth holding on to.

[raynos]

The hug takes him by surprise, and he goes tense and weirdly panicky for a split second - he's not a tactile person by nature and hugs outside of family aren't a thing he's used to, and he's a teenager, so he's not sure how to respond.

Ultimately he's too tired to fight it for very long, though. Greg is softer and lumpier than Jamie's dad, and doesn't have the same reassuring smells, but there's some factor that dad hugs must share in common across the multiverse, and it breaks down Jamie's awkward resistance like a wave eroding sand. He sags gradually against Greg, and his eyes spill over. It's probably difficult to tell that Jamie's actually crying, what with his not breathing and all, until his nose starts running and he sniffles.

And then hurriedly tries to disengage, because everything is blood. "I - sorry, it's gonna stain everything, sorry..." Poor Greg doesn't deserve vampire blood tears all over his clothes. Plus Jamie's all cold and clammy, like the dead thing he is, and nobody wants to hang on to something like that for very long, surely.

C

[whattaprick]

"Talking to yourself is usually a bad sign," Lambert helpfully offers from where he's sitting on his trailer steps, doing -- what else? -- buffing his sword. It's not the silver-and-iron one he'd wielded in hell, just steel, but it gives him something mindless to do with his hands now that it's too dark to work on the garden he'd started. He'd noted the Ringmaster dragging off the newly-turned vampires earlier, but hadn't paid it much heed; his interactions with them have mostly been short and brief. 'Sucks to be you' isn't the kind of sympathy anyone needs to hear right now, even he can recognize that much.

"What are you doing under there?" he'll pause long enough in what he's doing to lean over the steps and peer down at Jamie. Short golden horns are beginning to grow from his head, something that promises to be ram horns one day, but right now they really don't look like much.

[raynos]

"Meditating," Jamie answers, staring back out from the musty shadows of the trailer. His eyes are glowing dimly in the dark, which might look creepy to a less seasoned individual but is probably nothing new or startling to someone like Lambert. His ears flick forward in brief acknowledgment, then cant back nervously.

"Am I bugging you? I can leave." Lurking underneath someone else's living area is A-OK until it becomes annoying, apparently. Is this trauma logic or normal Jamie logic? It is a mystery.

[whattaprick]

"Meditating?" Lambert echoes, brows raised. "What for?" No, the eyes glowing in the dark aren't much of a surprise, but that part is. Lambert hadn't been a fan of learning how to do that when he was training in Kaer Morhen, and he doesn't imagine Jamie is much better. Asking a teenage boy to sit still and empty their mind for longer than ten minutes is like asking a flooding river to stop.

"It doesn't bother me. Just doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere with it."

[raynos]

Jamie crosses his arms and rests his chin on them, still ensconced underneath the trailer. "It's supposed to take care of the whole...vampire thing." He sighs a little, though why he needs to do this when he doesn't breathe is a mystery. "If we can separate what's us from what the vampire part is, the Ringmaster can get rid of it."

He pauses and then adds, just a little dubiously: "The vampire part, I mean." This...seems obvious, given her noted distaste for the vampiric species, but the Ringmaster is such a contradictory and nonsensical beast he wouldn't put it past her to leave the demon part in someone's body and eat their actual soul just for funsies.

Distractedly, he rakes his claws through the dirt and pebbles underneath the trailer. "I don't think I'm getting anywhere with it, either. It's...harder than I thought it would be." And he's not sure what to make of that.

[whattaprick]

"What, by eating it?" Jamie probably has no idea what Lambert is talking about there, but that wasn't a sight he's going to forget anytime soon. He, too, sounds skeptical of the Ringmaster's proposed method of curing vampirism, considering he's never heard of a problem successfully solved by just willing it away.

"Meditation's not for everyone. Can't manage more than an hour or two myself," Lambert shrugs like that's no big deal. He usually doesn't need more than that, thanks freaky witcher mutations. "I knew some witchers who could sit for almost a whole day."

[raynos]

"Probably." He might not get what Lambert's actually referencing, but he'd seen the Ringmaster eat that goat-woman's heart, so who knows what she actually plans to do with whatever she pulls out of people's souls.

"An hour or two?" Jamie looks, frankly, awed at this. He's a generally patient kid himself, but sitting around ~~looking inward~~ for that long sounds like a miraculous feat even to him. "How'd you manage that?"

He's not even sure it's physically possible for someone to do that for an entire day. What happens when you have to pee?

B

[pullingamiko]

Miko frowns and crouches down to peer at his face. She recognizes this kid from the pit, she's pretty sure, which was... marginally more depressing than the state he's in now.

...Not that she's got a whole lot of room to talk. But she didn't just fall out of a tree.

"Well, you're doing pretty bad at that."

Thanks for the encouragement, Miko.

[raynos]

"Yeah." Jamie doesn't bother to argue. He also doesn't bother to get up right away, just lying on his back in the detritus. Staring up at the sky through the trees.

He lays there for a long few moments, arms draped loosely over his stomach. He recognizes distantly that the familiar rise and fall of his chest is absent, and it's just-as-distantly upsetting, but it quickly fades from his awareness.

"It's nice to be outside again," he says at length. "To see the sky."

Maybe Miko will agree, maybe she won't, but it has to be said.

[pullingamiko]

She stays where she is for a few seconds, frowning down at him. Then she sighs, turns, and sits down next to him, looking up through the trees.

"...Yeah. Better'n rocks and fire and crap."

She tries to keep her tone light, but... it doesn't work as well as usual. Not even Miko can deny that that sucked.

[raynos]

He goes silent again for a little while - a few nonexistent heartbeats or drawn breaths - listening to the wind soughing through the branches, tasting the smell of pines and rain and wet earth. There are a lot of things he wonders, things that gnaw at the back of his brain and that he wants to ask someone - what's going to happen now, are we ever going to go back to the way we were, what happens if those things come after us again - but he doesn't trust himself to get into that kind of discussion without embarrassing himself, and Miko probably couldn't give him any answers, anyway. So he broaches a safer topic.

"What's it like, where you're from? The sky." He waves one arm upward, turning his head to look at her. "D'you have a lot of trees and stuff like this that get in the way?"

[pullingamiko]

“Trees? Not really.” She gives a shrug, leaning back a little, her affected nonchalance not quite matching up with how tense she still is.

“I went to some places with trees, but… Tokyo was mostly buildings ‘n stuff, y’know? And Jasper was way out in the desert. ...Out there, it seemed like you could just see forever. Nothin' in the way but some rocks.”

[raynos]

He's about to ask about Tokyo - he thinks someone else mentioned being from there, maybe they know each other! - but then she mentions the desert and his attention is captured. The way she describes it is simple and brief, but it strikes a pang of homesickness in him anyway.

"Right? Everything's so...open. There's just ground and rocks and sky. Nothing to make you feel trapped." He sits up and draws his knees up to his chest, sitting more or less beside her now, and fixes a baleful, tired glare at the trees. "Not like this. Everything's closed in here and you can't get away from it."

He picks up a dead pine twig from the ground beside him, fidgeting with it in one hand, before listlessly tossing it away. "I hate it."

B

[wild_magic]

Susan was also out here to climb trees, as it so happened. He hadn't been turned into a vampire himself, or even gone on the rescue mission, but his worry over his brother (and later, anger at his brother) has him in a rather unbalanced emotional place right now, and climbing trees always helped him when he felt like that.

When he sees someone else climbing one though he stops quietly to watch - only to laugh when he falls, caught off guard by it and honestly really amused. He's been doing this as long as he can remember, so someone not being able to climb a tree just seems to ridiculous to him.

"Maybe you should just try a hill or something then, trees look too hard for you."

[raynos]

Jamie looks at indignant as he can while sprawled on the ground after falling off of a tree - off a tree, he didn't even get high enough up to fall out of it.

"I thought climbing a tree would be quicker. I just...didn't know it'd be so hard." Here he tries to cover his embarrassment by pushing himself up, climbing to his feet to brush the dead needles and dirt from the seat of his pants and stare reproachfully up at the tree.

[wild_magic]

"It's not too hard, you just have to figure out where the best places to grab and step are. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it!" Says the kid who's been climbing trees since he was five. He looks at the tree, giving it a once over, before looking back to Jamie.

"I can show you, if you want. Then you can do it too."

[raynos]

"Yeah?" He glances from the tree to Susan and back again, trying to gauge the trunk for hand- and footholds that are clearly hiding from him. In theory the process of tree-climbing doesn't sound that different from scaling Zoid armor, which Jamie's been doing for years himself.

He shrugs a little. "Okay, show me. What am I doing wrong?"

Please don't say "everything." Even if it's true.

[wild_magic]

Susan comes closer to the tree, looking it over again.

"So, if you look at it, you can try and see if there's a good branch to grab onto... Sometimes there's not, and then you should probably try a new tree, 'cause you're too short for that one. But you can't just jump onto the tree because if you do that then you won't be able to hold on well!" So, exactly what happened to Jamie the last time. With another glance up at the tree Susan grabs onto one of the lower branches, before starting to climb up.

[raynos]

Jamie watches the other boy closely, ears flicking back and forth, and then looks for another branch to start on so as not to crowd Susan. It takes him a couple of jumps and some wild flailing, but he finally grabs a low branch with his hands, digging in his claws for traction. By bracing against the trunk he manages to maneuver himself completely up onto the branch, clinging to it like a cat and looking both surprised and proud of himself.

"Hey - I did it!"

...he's maybe seven feet off the ground.