⇨ 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

THAT'LL DO

[whattaprick]

It's a little trying that the space they have for themselves is so small -- Lambert's usually got a castle to put between him and anyone he wants to avoid -- but luckily for both of them, there hasn't been much cause for fireballs in the trailer of late. Going to Hell will do that. They've managed to avoid having any really serious discussions about what happened down there, though, because the memory of Sans that fragile and vulnerable while Papyrus desperately called out to him is something even Lambert's unwilling to make fun of.

If nothing else, he understands what being a brother is like.

However, he definitely doesn't understand how the fuck fights are supposed to work in Papyrus' world.

"So I'm just supposed to wait for you to attack me?" He asks, just to make sure he's got the concept right. From his tone of voice, his feelings about it are that it's deeply suspect, at best. "What if I want to attack first?"

[spaghettimonster]

When Papyrus thinks about his irritation with the limited space of the trailer, he compares it to the castle he'd inherited. The vast, nearly empty, grief-haunted castle. A thought well worth shuddering about. Better this cramped space, for a year or three, as an inconvenience while he fixes things back home, so he can go back to having a perfectly normal bedroom. In the meantime, having few personal belongings and rarely sleeping means he's rarely in there anyway.

No doubt the skeleton brothers aren't helping with confusion about fights in their world, given the widely differing views that they hold about appropriate fighting methods. And lots of other things. They are brothers, after all, bickering over the few things they don't have in common with an intensity to make up for all their similarities.

"Starting the fight... that is taking the first turn. Imagine attacking someone who doesn't even know you're there," Papyrus shakes his head at the very question. "Somebody could get seriously hurt if they're taken by surprise like that. It's only fair to let them have the first turn!"

[whattaprick]

Sans hadn't seemed to care about things like turns or fairness either as a skeleton attacking vampires or as a wolf attacking them, but pointing that out is likely to get Papyrus huffy.

"But that would be a really short fight. Isn't that the point?" Lambert asks dryly. And because he doesn't much care whether Papyrus gets huffy or not, he'll take this moment to add:

"Sans got the jump on us back there. Are the rules different when you're a wolf, or does he just not care?

[spaghettimonster]

The question of wanting fights to be short flummoxes Papyrus a little, but he scowls at the second question.

"Sans. Ugh. Don't ask me to explain my brother. Who," Papyrus immediately launches into an explanatory tone of voice,"as soon as he recovered, at least enough to leave the medical tent... went right back to his disappearing act! He's wasted as the Warden. They should have him as a stage magician. I'm... surprised, that's not what he's doing."

He rubs at his face, unable to pinch the bridge of a nose he doesn't have.

"No, you're right! He wasn't doing any of that. I think he was just trying to kill you all."

[whattaprick]

A happy Papyrus is a disturbing enough sight; scowling Papyrus is truly alarming, but perhaps Lambert is inured at this point. Just part and parcel of having a skeletal roommate. He isn't particularly interested in unpacking skeleton family drama, either, since Papyrus's tone of voice is enough to tell him he doesn't want to get into it.

"Does he do that a lot? Disappear?"

[spaghettimonster]

At first it sounds like Lambert's asking a very different question. Papyrus freezes, then relaxes with a slight wheeze at the last word.

"Oh my god, I thought... Yes, yes he does! So much so that I used to set my watch by it." He gestures to the air beside him, and mimes something quietly exploding. "You've seen how literally he does."

[whattaprick]

Lambert doesn't get why Papyrus is so worked up, for half a second, before he snorts and shrugs. They're certainly off the topic of fighting now, though they'll no doubt wander their way back to it eventually...

"What, you thought I was asking if he usually goes around trying to kill his coworkers?" It is a good question, but ... "I figured that was a one-time thing." Hopefully. If it wasn't, well, Lambert can defend himself. And like he hasn't just casually brought up the idea of a little friendly, murder, he moves on ...

"Doesn't that kind of magic take a lot out of you?"

[spaghettimonster]

Considering how Sans is the warden here, and what that entails... Maybe it's a valid concern. That's a worrying thought, one he'd rather let trickle out of his skull rightquick. Papyrus lets silence sound like agreement, and moves on.

"Hmmm. I'd think so, but he uses it pretty often. Even before here, I mean." He doesn't want to give away its use in spacetime pranks, just in case... Time for the second subject change in as many minutes.

"But Sans' stamina is weird! Mine's much more well-balanced. I can keep up with Undyne, and take more than a few blows before I need to sit out!"

[whattaprick]

Lambert doesn't seem to mind the subject change too much, given he'd been just as abrupt himself.

"He doesn't look like he gets lot of exercise," the witcher says agreeably. This is a joke, though, because even if Sans was getting exercise, how's he supposed to tell with no muscle tone to speak of? The only difference in Sans and Papyrus's physiology seems to be a matter of height.

"Weird, though. Werewolves are supposed to regenerate." Assuming that's what Sans is -- something which Lambert hasn't bother to confirm and assumes Papyrus would correct him on -- but with no evident fear of silver to be seen, perhaps that's a shaky prognosis. Then again, vampires they've encountered don't follow all the rules from back home, either...

[spaghettimonster]

"Yes, you get it!" Skeletons have some other way of telling, it seems, because Papyrus nods emphatically. "We hardly look related, he's so much rounder and sweatier than me... he's naturally big-boned, and short. That doesn't help. Those are difficult to change."

Difficult, but not impossible. With hope, hard work, and mysterious alien magics that do things like turn people into birds, anything is possible!

"But... he's not a 'werewolf. More like a 'when'wolf. I asked him about it! It's a spell, he learned to do it here." The rest of what Sans said about it, well... that's a little too recent and uncomfortable to repeat.

[whattaprick]

Lambert can't say he's ever seen Sans sweat except metaphorically, and he doesn't think he ever wants to see that literally, so he has no idea what Papyrus is talking about. That's actually a statement that's true for almost everything that does come out of Papyrus's mouth, though, so it's hardly a surprise. Anyway, nobody wants to think about skeleton sweat glands, so let's leave it at that.

"He wanted to turn into that?" the witcher asks, skeptically. It's at least a little more understandable mechanics-wise than getting cursed, but there are still unanswered questions ... like how normally if you kill the wolf a magician turns into, that usually also kills the magician, not poofs them into a naked version of themselves. He idly wonders how Sans and the other magicians must get along or if they all mutually conspire to confound everyone with magic bullshit.

"You seemed surprised when I said the wolf was him, though. He didn't tell you about it before?"

[spaghettimonster]

Surprised, yes, that was a word. Confused, incredulous, astonished... He could understand it, a little, looking back. Who wouldn't want to have a secret identity, to walk around without anybody recognizing you, from time to time? Not that it was all that secret. Anybody who looked at the giant bone canine recognized the similarity to Sans' smaller companions. The way all their skulls resembled the blasters, the way they were skeletons. So maybe that wasn't Sans' reason.

"...Sans doesn't tell anybody a lot of things," Papyrus finally replies. "And he's just gotten worse, in the time he's... been here. Thinking I was dead."

Or as good as dead. Trapped in a loop in time with everybody else, where sometimes he died and sometimes he ruled and sometimes he got to keep hanging out with friends, and none of it got to last. Even the people Papyrus left behind, alive, don't quite feel real to him. Not with knowing that he'll eventually go back to a time they don't remember.

He shakes his head, and hastily adds, "b-but he told me now. And I'm sure he'll tell me more, as he's able to. So nevermind that stuff!"

[whattaprick]

"That seems a pretty big mistake to make." Howe does that even happen? Papyrus is certainly anything but dead, appearances otherwise. He's far too annoying to be deceased. The distant memory of a conversation they've had before tickles at the back of his mind, something he'd almost forgotten. Something about a time loop, though Lambert had been more concerned with teasing Papyrus than getting answers out of him back then.

"Doesn't sound like waiting for him to tell you anything has worked out for you," is what he comments, leveling his sword at Papyrus speculatively. "Maybe you should just beat it out of him again instead."

He's joking. Mostly. While Lambert doesn't have anything against Sans, he also has to say he has no worries about inciting people to violence when the situation calls for it. Speaking of which...

"Show me what you got."

[spaghettimonster]

"Well," he hesitates over what to say. Sans is an expert in rebuffing Papyrus' questions with awful, maddening jokes and just straight-up disappearing if they're too inconvenient. Time travel crap makes the matter of his supposed death very difficult to explain, even to people who seem to know something about magic. And Lambert doesn't seem interested enough to go into the details. Better to just drop those things as funny if awful misunderstandings.

"I'm sure that would go over worse!" Papyrus finally announces, and steps back into a cool fighting pose. He considers Lambert's sword, and the resultant likelihood they'll be fighting without the kind of magic he's used to, and summons a bone to wield as an occasional club.

"Let's see... You've seen me throwing bones around, so I won't just show you those... but did you see my special attack?" Bones shimmer into existence around them, a barrage of blue bones to too big to dodge. The trick; if one doesn't move as they pass through, they're intangible. Newtonian fluid bones, except more like a mysterious Newtonian gas.

idk enough about undertale physics weeps let me know if this works

[whattaprick]

It's a conversation they'll revisit in the not-so-distant future, but for now, so close on the heels of Hell? It's probably better for everyone to focus on something simpler, like the clean, uncomplicated rush of adrenaline that comes with a fight.

"Not really," Lambert starts to say, but when the bones materialize in the air and move towards him, he flicks a hand and the same orange shield Papyrus has seen him use before flickers to life again, a bubble ensconcing his form. It's meant to repel kinetic force, but considering the bones don't actually have force behind them? Lambert stiffens in surprise as the simply slide right on through the shield and through him.

Seeing a blue bone slip through your chest is, for the record? A rather unsettling experience.

"That looks a little different from what you showed me at the Celebration," he says, instead. Papyrus had really only mostly showed him the skull, no attacks involved.

i think that works. it's always a puzzle how magic styles interact, but w/blue bones...

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus holds off on the dramatic flourish of targeting Lambert's soul, because that's not the reaction he'd been expecting, and thinks back. Lambert was very busy back in Hell, with fighting and not dying. No time to stop and admire the bone constructs, or the effects the various things he did had. Nothing a quick explanation can't fix. But what did he show Lambert at Celebration...?

"Oh! Nyeh heh heh, yes, of course! That was my special attack. For ending fights! It's not much for conversation."

Whether he means that the skull doesn't talk much, or that using that attack interrupts trying to talk during a fight, he doesn't bother to specify.

"That's why, instead, I'm demonstrating the regular kinds of special attack! These are nearly regular bones. You've already sussed out the trick to them: don't move, and they don't hurt. How insightful..."