⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 3

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 15st - 22th, 2017
Where: Still in Portland
What: As all sides of the struggle gradually become informed, and the awareness of outsiders begins to spread, Portland faces a critical question - what should be done with them? And who gets to decide?
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE WOLVES AMONG US↴ ► WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS: It's fairly common knowledge that October is a special month - Halloween has always been an excitable time in the supernatural community, because its during this month that the magical energies of Earth seem to disproportionately swell in power. This peeks on the 31st, and has every year for as long as anyone can remember. The holiday of Halloween is a byproduct of this, because the magical phenomenon has gone on for ages past. It's also a pretty common time for wizards to attempt bullshit shenanigans, and also when the Severing first came into effect. ► TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL: Towards the end of the week, Prudence Jaeger will be asking her angelic contacts for a pretty huge favour - she wants them to help her and some of her associates break into the Circle stronghold that the visiting Council members are staying at. It seems that they have some kind of macguffin item that will be needed to crack the barrier cutting off the Earth from the cosmos - and, to that end, allow the angels and mysterious outsiders to return to wherever they call home. ► THE PATH TO HELL: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Team Heaven isn't the only group to clue into the fact that the Circle has what they need. On the same night that the angels go in, so will Anath's army, as the arch demon finally arrives in the city just in time to join the party. Whether the angels and demons fight each other all the way or cooperate to achieve a mutual goal is up to them. ► WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: The Circle and Torchlight aren't all bad, okay? It's entirely possible that they are just acting in the best interest of humanity - unfortunately, that has resulted in them being pretty massive pricks recently, and now the payback for that is arriving on their doorstep. If you're a member of the Circle, you may or may not realize that anything is coming in time for you to prepare. (That will depend on your threads up to the end of the week.) However, once the fight starts, you'll be charge with defending the Councillors whether you like it or not, and Torchlight is getting pulled in as an unexpected ally to ensure their safety as well. Are you going to heed their call? Or is it time to split from the pack? ► BLOOD OF ICE AND FIRE: It's been made no secret that the Rose Queen isn't the only fae trying to pull back her lost changelings - now the Winter Court appears to be doing it, as well. More than a handful of changelings have gone missing over the last couple weeks, lost to both the thorns and agents of the Count. Whatever they're doing, it's also in competition with each other - Winter and Summer will be biting at each other's heels far more than normal, to the degree that it becomes clear they must have some competing objective in mind. Unfortunately for everyone else, that objective happens to conflict with the desires of just about everyone else. Fae are, by nature, opportunists. - ✪ - These are the major conflicts that will be coming to a head towards the end of Week 3. In the meantime, your actions will decide how certain elements are set up, and what the likelihood of success is for each group. Dice rolling handily won the opinion poll where we asked for the preferred method of conflict resolution, so that will be coming into effect a bit later on to determine who actually wins and loses, with advantages based on the choices made.

Comments

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya's face contorts into a disgust that's almost childlike, like it's the first time his simple morality has been challenged. Because it's true, if they don't belong then it needs to be fixed, but why like this? Why are they the best option?

It isn't the first time, though. He remembers this feeling, but the recipient was much younger, much colder. He also thought, whoever got hurt, it was justified for the 'greater good'.

Slowly Yuya starts to deflate with a sullen expression.]

... Help me. [His tone is tight.] It doesn't have to be directly. I just need a--someone to contact, a book, a direction, something that'll work! If it is true we shouldn't be here... there's someone I still have to do something for first.

[Rita might be one of them, but he won't leave Axel behind either.] I won't tell anyone what you said.

[kingsroads]

[ There's a pause while Strange mulls things over. The main problem here is that he really likes Yuya. The kid's got fire. That drive to push ahead and get things done and damn the consequences is something Strange admires and slightly envies. Besides, what's one changeling in the grand scheme of things? The one the Rose Queen needs isn't even in there to begin with.

He sighs as if this is such a major inconvenience but, in the end, Strange relinquishes. Hopefully this is vague enough to not count as a betrayal of Nightshade's trust. After all, he's not telling Yuya how to do anything, he's just pointing him in a direction. ]

Obviously the getting in is the easy part. But as for getting out...people have done it but again, I don't know specifically how. A warlock named Greg Demayo. Two weres, Foster and Amethyst Van Denend. There's a demon and an angel as well, though I don't know their names. Talk to any of them about the rescue mission to retrieve Amethyst and the angel. Feel free to mention my name if they ask where you heard about them escaping her realm but don't mention my current allegiance.

[ Lord knows Greg certainly wouldn't want to help should Yuya mention that Strange's taking up the Rose Queen's cause. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Greg... Yuya knows Greg, although he hasn't really seen him since all this chaos started. But he's also not sure Greg will respond well in general to Yuya looking for ways to break into the Rose Queen's lair. That probably qualifies as "too dangerous".

Maybe he'll let Rita talk to him.

Still, that gives him what he needed--someone with experience and knowledge to help.]

... Thanks. I won't tell anyone who you're working for.

[He turns to leave--and stops, glancing back over his shoulder after a moment.]

Do you... know of any fae that runs a carnival?

[If that doesn't sound even remotely related, it's because it isn't--but he feels like, once he leaves, he can't ask Strange anything else until this is resolved. They're already testing loyalties now.]

[kingsroads]

[ Strange is about to scoff that no, of course he doesn't, why would he know any fae that run a carnival to begin with...before he pauses. That concept is damn familiar for some reason.

His face goes through a spectrum of emotions, disdain going to outright confusion. Why is that familiar? Certainly none of the Portland fae run a carnival. It's possible he read about it somewhere, but this is Yuya he's talking with. The likelihood that the kid and he had read the same texts was slim to none. ]

I don't think so? But the-- [ Nope, gotta take a pause while Strange has a small coughing fit. ] But the concept sounds oddly familiar. Do you know of any fae that do so?

[ Obviously, this is weirding him out. ]

[hippocarnival]

I think so. [Despite the mood a wry, crooked smile starts to pull at Yuya's lips. Everything about Yuya's knowledge and memories lately has been "I think". It's such a jumbled mess now he's having a hard time keeping track whether the running coast side is Portland or somewhere else, or who he knows, where he knows them...

He has to find it funny, because being so unsure of who he's been all his life is just unsettling.]

She agreed to help save someone important to me. But I don't remember her name.

[kingsroads]

[ That also sounds familiar. The idea of doing something desperate to save someone important to him plays in the back of Strange's mind like a familiar song. But who? And why? And why does this still sound so familiar?

Strange still looks confused, but he tries to play off the confusion with a little joke, in an attempt to try and make it seem like this entire conversation isn't weirding him out. ]

I'd warn you against joining a fae carnival, but it's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black now, isn't it.

[ says the person who willingly joined up with the Rose Queen's court. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya laughs at that. It probably is inadvisable to join a fairy carnival, but Strange doesn't exactly lead by example.]

It might be too late anyway. I think it's one of those memories.

[The new (old) invasive ones that fill his head in pieces. Weirdly, it's the only one that's involved actual fae.]

[kingsroads]

[ Strange can't help but frown, even more confused as Yuya mentions it's one of those memories (the implication of which he gets instantly.) ]

That's odd. Obviously my memories aren't as vivid as yours, but the idea does seem familiar to me as well--in a those memories sort of way, I mean.

[ Which is weird. Why would they both have traces of memories about a fairy carnival? And why would a fairy carnival pick up both a teenage esper and a middle aged magician? ]

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya turns back around when he says that. If Strange is confirming it's the same feeling, then it can't be anything from Portland. So they've had this kind of contact with fairies before?]

It doesn't really match the other memories I'm having... maybe it's part of what's happening to us now?

[kingsroads]

If that's the case, then the question still remains: why us?

[ It's not like they knew each other before a few weeks ago, after all. And, odd memories aside, there's nothing that connected these two to begin with...was there? ]

Fae carnival aside, what else have you been remembering?

[hippocarnival]

Maybe we... were all in the same place once? [Its a hesitant suggestion, but--]

There's some people here I already knew, from... not Portland. Uh, I've been remembering a lot of things that happened, but they're really confusing by themselves. [Like he knows what happened, but not why.]

[kingsroads]

[ Can't be as confusing as memories of trying to go mad, Strange can't help but think. ]

Perhaps they'll sound less confusing if you say them out loud. [ This is a terrible solution but hey, it's the only one Strange has off the top of his head. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Wanna bet on that.]

Okay. [Yuya takes a deep breath. He's honestly avoided saying any of his memories out loud until now, but if this many people really are going through the same thing... maybe they won't sound as crazy as he thinks they will?] You want me to just start... listing them off?

[kingsroads]

[ And thus Strange learns the true nonsense of children's card games. ]

I suppose so? [ the question mark is obvious in his tone because look, he's got no idea how to do this, this is 100% Strange still trying to seem like he's competent and knows how to do things and has all of this under control despite the fact that he really, really doesn't. ]

[hippocarnival]

Uh, well... There's someone I just met here, but I remember being really good friends with them. And I remember living with my mom, but my dad disappeared. And their names were definitely Yoko and Yusho. [He didn't forget! He just... remembered the wrong set of parents.

He furrows his brow. This is where the memories start being less clear, with less reminders to connect them to in Portland.] I remember playing a game with monsters, but there was something that made the monsters real. So some--someone used them to start an invasion.

[kingsroads]

[ Strange...just gives him a blank look. Sorry Yuya. None of those memories are any sort of familiar and aren't giving him any sort of deja vu. ]

Do any of them relate to you being an esper? All the flashes of memory I've gotten have something to do with magic.

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya shakes his head, pausing as he thinks that over more deeply.]

... I don't think there was anything like that, or magic, or vampires or anything that really existed. I just remember things being normal until--[Until there was someone with his face, but--] the invasion.

[If anything, talking about it is helping Yuya figure out the order these memories come in. He's sure that has to be how it went--all of the mundane ones, those are earlier than the... more violent, alarming ones.]

I think the carnival was really recent, I think that was the last place I was.

[kingsroads]

[ For the first time, Strange wishes that he actually had more of these memories. All he has is snippets, brief images, like a collection of individual frames snipped out of a film with absolutely zero context. ]

Well if you remember the carnival and I vaguely remember the carnival, then perhaps whatever magic that touched our minds and souls came from that carnival in the first place?

[ Maybe. It's a tentative hypothesis and Strange can't help but frown, like he's not entirely sure he believes what he's saying. ]

Of course, I still have no idea how these memories got here in the first place--the Summer Court doesn't know either, by the way. [ He can tell Yuya that much. ]

[hippocarnival]

But what did that magic do? They have to be real memories. [Yuya believes that so strongly. Maybe they aren't really his memories...? But they absolutely happened.] Do you think we both made a deal with that fairy?

[kingsroads]

[ Strange...isn't entirely sure. He'd like them to be real memories. Truth be told, he thinks he'd be happier as the other Jonathan Strange than he is now. But Nightshade's exact words were so vague, that he's still not willing to commit to anything definitive just yet. ]

Perhaps. But the fae are able to tell which court you belong to. [ And after last week, he knows that even certain changelings are able to track via court. ] When I made my deal with a Summer Court fae a few weeks ago, the specific fairy in question didn't make any mention of my soul being touched by fairy magic from another universe, just that it was touched by magic in general. And, most importantly, nothing's trying to drag me back or punish me for swapping alliances yet. [ Considering that he spent part of last week dealing with the Winter Court attempting to yank Childermass back to their team, Strange knows that's DEFINITELY a viable option. ]

If there is a carnival fairy in the first place and we did make a deal with it, it's either not here or just as muddled as we are.

[hippocarnival]

Well, that's what the Servering did, isn't it? Mess with all their magic? [But if fae don't share well, maybe it's just Yuya. Sure would be nice of he could remember the details about that agreement.]

Do you know why a spell would even mess with someone's memories like this?

[kingsroads]

Sort of? [ oh God, are they going to get into magical history. ] When the Severing was cast, twenty-five years ago, it cut off the realms of heaven, hell, and faerie from Earth. What's going on now is somebody messing with the fabric of the Severing for...some reason.

[ he's working on that part. ]

As for why our memories? Hell if I know. Best guess is that we all know something someone wants us to forget.

[hippocarnival]

[Something someone wants them to forget... that sounds so important. Yuya can't imagine what he knows, though.]

Okay, what makes the Summer Court so good at fixing this? What'd they tell you?

[kingsroads]

I'm afraid I can't pass on the specifics of that information. [ Because it involves kidnapping. ]

Needless to say, the Rose Queen is one of the most powerful magical beings in the Portland area. That's one of the reasons why they'll be the ones to fix this.

[hippocarnival]

[That's just the Rose Queen's M.O.

Yuya doesn't look satisfied with that answer. It's practical, but he still doesn't know what makes her so much more powerful than, say, the circle.

He makes a non-comittable sound in his throat.] I hope it ends up worth it.

[He tries not to sound judgemental... okay, maybe a little judgemental.] My memories probably won't be much more helpful.