⇨ 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

OTA

[control_freak]

A. He's gonna kill that songbird if it doesn't shut up [Day 68-70]

Foster doesn't really "return" so much as he "collapses into his bed and barely moves for at three entire days." Anyone looking for him will have no trouble locating him, drooling into his pillow in a state mostly referred to as "unconscious," but he's just wiped out on every level. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally? Well, maybe not that one.

He didn't feel like this before.

Is it the change? The fact of being rescued?

He's supposed to feel relief. Gratitude. Happiness, freedom, something. But he doesn't feel any of those things. He just feels tired. On the edge of something miserable. It's like having a headache, but instead of his head hurting, it's just... stuffed with exhaustion. He doesn't want to see anyone or speak to them or interact with another living thing ever again. He wants to curl up inside a dark box and spend an eternity there. Every sound from outside--every voice, every singing bird--is an intrusion, and it makes him want to murder.

But that would involve getting out of bed.

Instead, he just goes back to sleep.

B. Give Me That Deathless Death

Foster, seated on the lake's edge--he's rolled up his pyjama pants and tied them below the knee so he can have his feet in the water, but has no inclination to go any further. He's supposed to be attempting to meditate, but...

"I can't do this." He sounds so tired, like he's physically exhausted of being told to try. He can't meditate. This isn't the first time he's been pressed into attempting it. And that was back when he was in better shape. It was tedious and frustrating then, and mostly involved the discovery that he's missing some intangible, essential part. Whatever emotional or personal essence people have that's required for enlightenment or peace or meaning. If he could really explore his 'inner self,' he... well. Honestly. What inner self is he supposed to be looking for? He has the emotional depth of a dead roach. There's no meditating on your inner self if your inner self is totally empty. You can explore an empty room all you want. Surprise! Nothing's there.

If there IS anything deeper inside (coiled in his gut or in the back of his mind, maybe, though how it's hidden, he can't fathom), it would surely be considered every bit as nasty and foul as the demon he's supposing to be extracting.

"Why can't I just do this the old fashioned way?"

C. Underwater? Underwater.

If you can't submerge yourself internally... externally will do.

Foster can't remember if he liked to swim. Maybe he did. Maybe that's why submerging himself held such a strong, instinctive appeal. An unconscious pull--like the tides of the sea, crashing against cliffs, or the currents hidden deep in the ocean's depths. Or maybe it's the desire for death all over again--drowning in darkness, engulfed in a weighted weightlessness. He can't be drowned, of course; vampires aren't alive. But he can still lose himself to the water, can still close his eyes and let his body sink, feel himself weightless and weighted, surrounded and solitary?

It's... freeing.

If he wants to, he can lie on the bottom of the lake, in the sand and rocks, and open his eyes to see the faintest movement of lights on the water's surface.

He's not finding any demons like this.

But it's meditation of a sort.

c, hell yeah let's have more threads

[kingsroads]

That meditation is straight up getting ruined by the fact that the sand and rocks around Foster suddenly start to rise, as if they're magically being lifted up from the bottom of the lake. But in Strange's defense, normally he doesn't need to check whether or not there's somebody on the bottom of the lake before he starts messing with the terrain.

Above the surface of the lake, it's a really quite impressive, as Strange knits the rocks, mud, and sand together to form a small bridge, spanning from one side of the lake towards the other. However, the bridge stops halfway across the lake. Strange frowns from the shore as he looks over at the bridge...and then more rocks and sand and mud shoot up from the bottom of the lake as Strange adds another section to the bridge.

Sorry Foster. This is probably going to keep happening.

Hell YEAH oh my god Strange why are you like this

[control_freak]

Guess Strange isn't much of a conservationist. So much for that ecosystem, huh?

Foster's immediate state upon opening his eyes is something akin to 'what the fuck.' He can't tell what's going on--the world, which last he checked, was the dark hold of water at the bottom of a lake, was now a moving column of sand and stone and water; direction and control are meaningless concepts, and he--

Makes an executive decision.

Scooping the rocks out of his pockets, he has two options, as he sees them: either he can follow the spiralling columns of sediment (up? to surface? down? into what?) or he can... not.

He opts to follow.

Breaking the surface of the water a few seconds later, he discovers not void but air and moonlight, no abyssal trench but instead....

...a partial bridge rising overhead? One that appears to be completing itself as earth from the lakebed erupts from the water to join--extend?--the structure. Uh.

What.

"........what the fuck."

driving the entire carnival to drink.....

[kingsroads]

Ha ha what ecosystem. Strange is the sort to mess up the coastline and then forget to fix what he messed up in the first place.

Strange continues to form the bridge. He's still standing on it, still creating the bridge as he walks across it but he pauses to look over at Foster when he hears the other man's head come up from the water. Well, that was unexpected.

"Oh! Hello there. I didn't know you were down there in the first place!"

It's said in a very matter-of-fact tone as Strange bends down slightly, sitting down on the bridge to get a better look at Foster still in the water. "Out for a swim?"

Driving ME to need new icons for this nonsense, you mean

[control_freak]

Foster is looking a bit different from the last time they spoke. The red eyes, for example. The lack of gaping neck and hand wounds. You know. Little things. But he doesn't even notice Strange until the other speaks; at that point, he tilts his head back, craning to look upside down over his shoulder until he sees him. And then it makes a lot more sense.

"Oh, it's you."

Probably not the same tone of voice Strange usually hears that in.

"And no. I'm... meditating." Said in the same tone of voice that one might suggest picking lice. Just shy of disgusted... maybe bored.

"--or I was, anyway." So, you know. Before the entire lakebed rose up and became a bridge.

Honestly, such gratuitous displays of magic are really not very easy for humans where he's from. It's as disorienting (alarming?) as it is impressive.

none of them properly convey the "what the fuck is actually happening"

[kingsroads]

'Gratuitous displays of magic' is pretty much Strange's middle name. He's got a lot of show-offy power and not much finesse so if we're going to build a bridge, hell yeah we're going to build a bridge, and then accidentally drastically change the topography of the lake's floor once the bridge gets disassembled.

As Foster mentions meditating, Strange can't help but wince slightly. He's been spying on the vampires enough to know that for some reason, meditation is the Ringmaster's preferred way of de-vamping people. Of course, the red eyes kind of also gave that away but Strange's eyes are mirrors, he tries not to judge based on eye color or material. Still, the poor man. Who knows what he went through when he was stuck in hell?

Strange attempts to offer a sort of gentle smile. He still doesn't know whether Foster's an idiot or a genius, but no matter what, nobody deserved that hell nonsense. "Best of luck with the meditation. I'd offer some advice but I'm absolutely rubbish at that sort of thing in the first place."

Nobody is surprised.

C

[fourthscribe]

The further down Tanyuu ventures, the darker the water becomes. Not a complete blackness, but closer to a twilight; the shafts of light filtering down from the surface provide just enough illumination for her to make her way through the water. The faint glow of her scales makes it hard for her to sneak up on Foster, but in all fairness she hadn't realized he was there to be snuck up on.

Her long body carves a path through the water above Foster, creating a silhouette above him for a moment. One antennae twitches as she catches his odd 'scent' in the water, and Tanyuu drifts to a stop before looking around, and then down below her. Her first reaction is alarm, an she quickly swims down towards him, but she pulls herself to a stop a polite distance away when she notices the small signs of life, little movements than can't be accounted for any current.

[control_freak]

The light from her luminescent scales penetrates his darkness, just barely brighter than his eyelids' barrier, and blotting out the natural shimmer of the moon over the water's surface. He almost opts to wait it out, but by the time she's doubled back, his eyes are definitely open.

For a moment, there's an understandable vacancy of confusion; there's no mistaking her for an Atlantean, but her long silhouette and dramatic features make it difficult for him to distinguish anything human about her. At first, he thinks she's some kind of.... sea monster?

Identifying eyes doesn't help at all--it's only when he sees arms--and shoulders--that he can determine some kind of humanoid character and it clicks. Oh.

......

And so not even the bottom of the lake affords him privacy from other people.

[fourthscribe]

Tanyuu's brows furrow slightly; the non-reaction is a little troubling, but he doesn't seem sluggish. More annoyed than anything else. Speech, she's found, doesn't work the same way here as back in Atlantis, but she can at least mouth the words to him, and hold a hand out as an offer.

'Do you need any help?'

[control_freak]

Well, it's not like he needs to breathe. More to the point, he was deeply distant from a reactive state of mind when she swam over him. He's still not, really. Foster stares at her, and her hand.

Then, without a word--or even real eye contact--he reaches into his pockets, scooping out handfuls of stones. As sand billows from the lakebed, he kicks off--not just floating up, but swimming directly towards the surface.

Bye.

[fourthscribe]

...

Well. She supposes that's one way to answer.

Tanyuu watches Foster swim up to the surface for several moments, considering simply letting him be on his way before following him upward. She could easily outstrip his speed, but instead rises up in lazy circles through the water. Breaking through the surface of the water a few feet away from him, she sucks in a huge gasp of air to help force the water back out of her lungs before turning to face him.

"I apologize. I hadn't realized anyone else would be down there."

B

[whattaprick]

"I didn't know there was a new fashioned way." The voice that speaks up from behind Foster is only a vaguely familiar one, perhaps, remembered from the radios -- or as one of those whose mocking had so gloriously ticked off their demonic captor, if he'd been in any state to recognize it then. Things at the end of that whole mess were kind of a blur.

In any case, he seems to think Foster is talking about something else entirely. The witcher's much better for having a proper night's rest (and then some) and access to running way, so he's clean of soot and blood as he stands by the water.

[control_freak]

Foster has a vague idea of who Lambert is; he looks familiar, anyway. Actually pinpointing why is... hard. He has a hazy idea that it was recent, though. That tells him... something. He doesn't remember seeing this guy in the pit...

He blinks, catlike, back at him.

"There usually is." He pulls his feet out of the water, considers crossing his legs and thinks better of it. He's a little slow with people; as far as he's concerned, they're still talking about the same thing.

"Build a better mousetrap and all that." Returning to the same problem over and over... reinvention, innovation, all that kind of thing. "But--the point of a mouse trap is to kill mice."

assuming this is night-time, just because vampire!

[whattaprick]

Lambert blinks back, his own slit pupils dilated in the dim light (not that it makes a difference -- he can see Foster perfectly well, regardless).

"What? Weren't you talking about swimming?" If only it was so mundane, right? In any case, he's not sure what he's going on about traps for, but he'll shrug and drop down to sit next to him. Nothing better to do, for the moment. There's mud streaking his pants, though it cuts off at a certain point, like he'd been wearing boots before and just discarded them back ... somewhere.

"Depends on the mouse trap," he'll add, like the conversation still has a hope of making sense. "Heard mages sometimes try to catch them alive, so they can use 'em for their experiments."

Yeah, Foster's not big on the sun these days.... and tw for mention of animal death???

[control_freak]

"Were you talking about swimming?" Foster was not, but apparently he is now. Or he's supposed to be?

He didn't really talk to people a whole lot before he was contracted into this carnival against his will, and maybe it's a little obvious. But on that topic--

"You can just buy mice if you need them alive. At the point where you have to trap them, you're either desperate or... well, anyway, you can just buy them if you need them alive, haha!"

Foster had actually just trapped the mice he used to practice, but the mice were going to have to be dead anyway before he could do anything with them. He did end up with one mouse that was alive, but he'd had to take its head off in order to kill it humanely.

[whattaprick]

The question turned back on him just makes this all the more confusing, so Lambert shrugs. That little laugh at the end of that pronouncement might be a little concerning under other circumstances, but honestly, they just got out of hell and his sense of what he should and shouldn't be worried about is skewed so much right now he probably isn't the best judge of that.

"Who knows? Maybe they just didn't want to spend the money." Not that mages are short of it, but those with the most wealth can also be the most selfish with it, in his experience ... so it's not as much of a surprise as it maybe ought to be.

At any rate, it's obvious this guy is a vampire, and Lambert's already heard a little bit about the efforts some of the other turned carnival workers were up to, so he's going to take a wild guess...

"Were you trying to meditate?"

A

[detonarrator]

[She comes by Foster's trailer...several times actually. He doesn't look good. Like, even MORE SO than usual. And he's dead (ayyy) asleep and she's been furious and horrified and. Well distraught is a strong word, but look she has strong feelings about some things okay. Recently her strongest feelings are all about Foster. Getting turned, needing to drink blood. She knows that very well might have broken him. She wanted to be the one to find and rescue him. Selfish stupid hero complex. She's glad he's back, she's thankful he got saved, but she is in no way really prepared to try and...help him back to his feet after all this. She might have been more ready with her Foster. MIGHT have been.

Horrible disgusting unwanted feelings aside, they had gotten closer during the year they'd lived together. They'd talked, and worked, and lived (ayyyx2) side by side. She'd grown to understand him more. Knew him better, and vice versa. This Foster had none of that. And while that understanding was important it was also The Problem. He didn't LIKE affection, he couldn't stand compassion directed at him. He tolerated her presence because she was one of a very very limited group of people who didn't try to contradict his opinion of himself. And being worried, being scared, wanting to know if he's okay, is all directly counter to that. It's going to make things worse. She can feel it but. She has to know how bad it is for him. She's the only person who even might be able to help depending on how far gone he is.

So despite the awful gnawing in her gut, she checks on him. Just walks in, (literally, she can phase through walls now and rarely bothers with doors anymore), and waits. The first several times he sleeps heavily and completely the whole time she's there. Granted she can never really make herself stay that long between a combination of chickening out and her general dislike of stillness.

But eventually her persistence pays off, and she comes across him while he's awake. Good. Yeah, sure. "Good." She....should not have come she regrets this already. But walking right back out is hardly an option so she just stands.]

Hi.

[control_freak]

[Knowing everything she does, it hopefully isn't too much of a shock that Foster would prefer to sleep. When he's sleeping, he's not hungry. When he's sleeping, he doesn't have to think about his hunger. When he's sleeping, he doesn't have to think.

But asleep or awake, Foster definitely... looks different. Waiting for him to rouse on his own, she's had plenty of time to notice the little details. Like how much darker and less ashy his skin is, even though he's still paler than he was when 'alive. Or the fact that his opened neck is now healed, the stitches pulled out.

And when he finally does lift his head... well, his eyes aren't blue any more.

He stares at her, uncomprehending and bleary, for several seconds.

At first, all he can really think is that this... isn't his roommate. And he can't figure out why it's anyone else. Then he... at least twigs onto her identity, if not her exact purpose.]

.... uh.

Sophie.

[Why... the fuck is Sophie here. His first assumption is that he fucked something up, somehow--

He's been asleep, but that doesn't mean--?

He already wants her to leave.]

[detonarrator]

[The change that she notices immediately is the lack of his neckwound. She's shocked at first. Was he from even farther back than she remembered? But no, no it makes sense. Vampirism came with at least some healing powers. Just one more thing on her list of 'things Foster is going to be struggling with, probably badly'.

It occurs to her that maybe she should have planned out what she wanted to say before she came here. She kicks herself. Well, opportunity missed. So she's gotta improvise. ]

So you're-[Don't say alive, don't say alive.]-back.

[The words felt untrue somehow. Like she might have said 'back from vacation'. Like he'd gone somewhere voluntarily and returned. Like it meant 'I missed you'. The thought felt like a punch to the gut.]

[control_freak]

[When Foster first saw Sophie--when he first woke up--he'd felt... "fine" wasn't the right word at all, but 'alive' enough to interact, at least until he knew what she wanted.

Now, very suddenly, he feels very much like he does not have the energy for that at all.

He closes his eyes in response, letting his head fall back into the pillow. He isn't going to tell her to leave, but he's not really feeling up to explaining. He doesn't have the strength. He just... can't muster it. Anything she wants from him, she's going to have to ask for.

Because while it may not be a conscious realisation, he does understand on some level that that's exactly what this is going to be. ]

[detonarrator]

[Yeah....she should have expected that. God this is so fucked up. He shouldn't even be able, like! It didn't make SENSE he could get turned. Unfair wasn't the right word. Unfair applied to plenty of people and what they were going through here, but she's pretty sure the two of them deserve whatever they get themselves into.

But this was....excessive, or particularly cruel, or something. It was one of the only things that could happen to him that would really actually negatively affect him, and it was fucked up that these vampires just so happened to thread that needle.]

The Ringmaster'll fix this.

[She doesn't see a reason why it would be out of the scope of her magic, and on top of that she knows RM probably has some strong feelings about her toys employees getting all bent out of shape by someone other than her. But even so, this kind of magic bull fuckery tends to take time. Time that Foster inevitably will not handle well.]

So you have to not starve before she can do that.

[Oof. There it is. It's an order. That'll help maybe. There's so many things to fucking...dodge here. She's got to take care of him, get him through this, but any hint of actual concern for his well being is just going to spiral and implode. This is a nightmare.]

all these people in this gd lake

[dontpokethat]

Ginko rarely swam back home - only when he really had to, honestly. Maybe he'd have an easier time getting used to it with hooves if he had done it more before... though he had enough trouble with walking and climbing, maybe not.

He'd be more reluctant to try in this deep of water if it weren't for his "souvenir" from Atlantis, the deep gills carved along his ribs on each side. When he finds himself tired out from trying to kick back to the surface, he ends up just letting himself sink to the bottom.

He lets out a frustrated huff through his gills, kicking at the silt under his hooves. He hasn't even noticed Foster yet, distracted by his own problems.

Surprise, motherfucker

[control_freak]

Foster, lying on his back on the lake bed with his eyes closed, feels... something touch his face. A light something--scattered, thin, speckling. Gritty? Soft?

He opens his eyes.

And gets sand in them for his trouble.

He also sees Ginko, though, before he has to shut them against the falling sediment--or rather, he sees two tall shapes, and white, and a hazy figure, and that's all he needs in order to reach out and grab one of those long, deerlike legs with one hand.

gdi foster

[dontpokethat]

Ginko isn't really sure if there's supposed to be anything living in this lake. Maybe fish, maybe frogs... probably not anything with hands capable of grabbing his leg.

It's... a really good thing that he has gills now, honestly. It doesn't stop him from swallowing a mouthful of lake water, but it does mean that he can force himself to going back to breathing "normally" afterward.

He kicks out blindly in the water, trying to get free of whatever it is while trying to keep himself from coughing or gagging under the water. That's gonna have to wait until he's in the open air again.

[control_freak]

Ginko's hoof connects with something solid, and the hand that was holding him lets go.

Foster, in turn, feels something crack against the side of his face--something hard. Something strong. Something painful. He feels something give under the force of impact, blooming all the way across bone to the other side.

He lets go involuntarily, and what Ginko sees first may not be Foster at all, but the thin, vaporous curl of blood in the water, red dissipating like smoke into the dark and clear and blue.