lostcarnival | ⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

Entry tags:

⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 7st - 14th, 2017
Where: Portland area, in the new reality.
What: The week begins as the time of the Animal Fair finally arrives! Meanwhile, the truth of this reality starts to be revealed, and forces both human and celestial alike attempt to take advantage of a rare opportunity.
Warnings: Individually marked!

BY ANY OTHER NAME↴

Tensions thicken as various supernaturally forces react to the events of the previous week. Something critical is afoot, and it's only a matter of time before things start coming to a head. It's time to find out more about what's happened to this world, and what will happen in its future.

► A NIGHT AT THE FAIR: From the night of the 7th to the morning of the 8th, the Animal Fair is officially in town. There is a top level down below with more information, though you can also RP content from this elsewhere if you wish. The host, who is very likely something called a Wyld Fae (if you discovered that ICly), will be present, but they will only be appearing to you of their own accord and attempting to track them down by force will be ineffective. Just kick back and relax! Fairs are supposed to be fun.

► THORNS IN YOUR SIDE: Culminating in a full fledged attack against the Sanctuary, it would seem that The Rose Queen is declaring war on the changeling population of Portland. Though the vicious attack of thorns against the safe house was eventually stopped, it wasn't without damage, and the black roses that caused it are still popping up around the city and threatening the places where homeless and lost changelings would be likely to congregate. It's obvious now that this is a serious threat - will it ever stop without an intervention?

► HELL ON EARTH: As Anath's march draws near, the first waves of her demons will be entering the city. Primarily acting as scouts and foot soldiers, these demons will be attempting to secure loyalty from the local demon populace, as well as taking out any angels they can manage to catch. It's a level of aggressiveness against heaven's forces that hasn't been seen for years, and it's a foreboding hint of things to come. These demons can be NPCed by anyone, and will mostly be thugs or manipulators who don't know much about Anath's plans but do know that you need to join their side. They are also rowdier than most of the demons in Portland, and are a threat to the innocent mortal populace as well, if they decide to try to get their kicks here.

► THE WIZARD POLICE: The Enlightenment Council seems to have demanded control of the local Circle chapter, and now backup has arrived. These mages are being sent out into the city as if they are a police force, and will be attempting to demand control of various common supernatural areas, as well as questioning community members that they run into. Whatever is going on, it seems to have resulted in the Council instituting what is essentially martial law... of course, not everyone sees any need to heed their demands. If you are a demon, warlock, or other rogue element, expect to be harassed or even attacked by them. These character can be NPCed, and if you need additional information you can ask the mods.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That causes Strange to frown a little as he pieces things through. Psychic...he was just talking with someone who had mentioned psychics. Strange frowns, casting his mind back to last week and all the myriad conversations and myriad nonsense that happened then.

Ah! There it was! His conversation with Joker in the library. Of course, Joker gave off the impression that he was psychic but if those two did know each other, he could understand why the angel would want Strange to think he was psychic and not this literal child. Strange doesn't know Joker's name to begin with, so that makes the conversation a bit harder.

"You don't happen to know a red haired guy with hair that sticks out all over the place, do you?"

Sora perks up at the mention. Did this guy know Joker? That could either be a good thing or a bad thing, but he's really hoping it's the former. Even if it was only a passing conversation between them, it could be helpful.

"With makeup under his eyes? Yeah! That's Joker," Sora answers excitedly. "He, uh, he takes care of me."

But, then again, he has no idea how much this guy knows about Joker, either. And it's not a lie, really.

"We've met before," Strange explains, with an excited little smile of his own. "Joker came to ask me about psychics--don't worry, he kept your name out of it."

As a matter of fact, Joker directed the conversation so that it seemed he was talking about himself, not Sora. Strange didn't even know Sora existed until now.

"And, before you ask, he came to ask me because I'm a mage."

"Oh, I see," Sora grins back. He can probably tell why Joker went looking for him, then. A mage might just be a ticket to answers about all the strange things going on.

"Well, I'm Sora. Joker probably wanted to see if you had any answers about my visions."

"I'm afraid I don't have any answers about, by the way." Since obviously Sora has questions about them if Joker went and bothered him, right? Right! "If this was a magical phenomenon I could easily sort it out but natural phenomena...well, obviously that's not my area of expertise." He's a mage, not a doctor. He doesn't have any idea why some humans have powers that aren't based in magic, but instead seem to be based in something else.

Strange looks Sora over, a little critically, as if someone would overlook a specimen in a lab, having completely forgotten about Sora's quest to find people now that he's confronted with someone weird he can try to piece out.

"If they bother you, though, I do have an herbal brew I use for centering myself before rituals. It might help calm your mind if the visions get too bad."

Just said very matter of factly as if there's no problem at all with giving the fourteen year old weird plant and drug concoctions.

"Um... No thanks," Sora answers. He's not desperate or stupid enough to drink something some guy on the street gives him, even if the guy is a mage.

"They don't... bother me, really. At least, not anymore than my regular visions do. I just... wanna find these people. And see what they know, y'know?"

There's a pause, as Strange mulls things over. It's less that he wants to help Sora and more that he wants to show off. And any good will he can accumulate with this kid might be able to be leveraged into a giant middle finger pointed directly at Joker (fuck you buddy, he's not incompetent in the slightest.) The problem here is, how can he show off to begin with? All he's got is a list of descriptions.

"If I knew their names, I could easily cast a scrying spell to find them. The problem is, that sort of spell doesn't work if there's just physical description." And, again, Sora doesn't even know their names.

"Oh."

Sora looks slightly crestfallen. What bits of names he does know, he doesn't even know if they're correct. Telling this guy that the demon they'd talked about earlier might have a name that starts with a 'P' is not that helpful here.

"Well, all I have is the descriptions... But thank you for offering," he replies politely, if sadly. Finally he thought he had a lead, but apparently not.

That crestfallen look doesn't really do anything for Strange. He just watches Sora with a frown. No, it's the fact that magic isn't solving this kid's problem that's pushing him onwards and making him consider new options over anything like 'empathy'.

Scrying might not work but mages did have varying skillsets and Strange had picked up the odd tracking spell or two over his years with the Circle. Plus, this gives him further opportunity to yammer about magic like a nerd.

"Tracking spells aren't my forte. But if you had a personal item from any of them, I might be able to make a spell to find them that way. If you just know what they look like...well, it'd be harder and I'd have to weed through most of the population of Portland if we're just going off of things like 'candy corn horns.'" Strange frowns, putting his hand to his chin in thought for a moment.

"Your best bet might be to find an oneiromancer," said as if Sora would logically know what the hell an oneiromancer is.

"A... one-what?"

Yeah, he has no idea what that is. And he literally doesn't have anything about the people on the list except their physical descriptions. How could he? He's never met them before, at least not in this life.

"I mean, I guess I can try?" Sora responds, but honestly, he's not sure how much hope he holds in it. At any rate, he'd want to wait for Joker before venturing off into unknown territory. For now, probably best to just stay in the streets.

"Someone who interprets dreams," Strange answers. "Visions aren't dreams but one would think they'd be close enough."

All of his suggestions are just the magical equivalent of throwing things to the wall and seeing what sticks. Because it's important that Sora remember these people...right? At least, Strange certainly feels it is, though he can't place why.

"Really, it's the best suggestion I've got for actually trying to figure out who those people are. Aside from 'wander around and look for strangers' which it seems you've got down pat."

"I... guess," Sora answers reluctantly. "I mean, I don't know that I need an interpretation, really... My visions aren't symbolic or whatever; they're events. Like, real events."

Sora doesn't even know what he needs to be doing. Maybe a one-romancer could help, but that's another person he'd have to tell. It was already a stretch telling Strange in the first place.

Well that's unexpected. Here Strange thought that they were more like prophetic dreams or omens that one had to decipher, not dreaming real events. He's definitely thrown by that bit of information and really doesn't know how to go about figuring out how that works.

"You see what's literally going to happen? That's...convenient, I guess."

Strange also doesn't even know what he can be doing to help.

"Not really," he sighs. "It's really random what I see, and when I see it."

Actually it kind of sucks. He'd probably give them up if he could. Although they have come in handy in the past.

That's rough, buddy. Sympathy isn't really one of Strange's strong points so he just kind of frowns as he tries to find a nice way to phrase 'sucks to be you,' before deciding there really isn't one.

"And you're sure there's no way to just stop it?"

"No? We've tried a lot of stuff, but they're just... part of me, I guess," Sora answers glumly. "I mean, I guess there's worse things out there than this."

"That's a stupid line of logic," Strange can't help but bluntly say, as he rolls his eyes slightly.

"Obviously there are worse things out there but the starving children in Africa or whatever aren't immediately inconveniencing you the way the visions are."

At no point in this conversation does it occur to him that he just indirectly called a teenager 'stupid.'

"I... I guess..." he says timidly. Sora rubs his arm awkwardly, not entirely sure how to respond to that. Strange is right, of course, but it was definitely a blunt way to put it.

"Look," Strange explains, with a sigh. "I'm a mage. If you want me to try and do something about the visions or come up with some spells that even have a slight chance of clarifying your list, give me a call. Otherwise, you're probably going to be wandering around here, hoping that by some crazy coincidence you just so happen to bump into someone on the list."

Of course, the world runs on crazy coincidences half the time to begin with. Strange thinks his point still stands, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject