⇨ 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

[periphrasing]

The multiverse definitely means something to Peridot, and it's obvious in the way her eyes widen. She's studied the concept off and on for a while now in connection with her fractured memories. More recently, she's studied it more aggressively than usual, in connection with the strange vision she had at the start of the week.

The idea that she may have been touched by the multiverse somehow, that she may be connected to it, and that there's harder evidence to back that idea up? That is incredibly exciting to her, the sort of validation that she's been looking for her entire perceived life in this realm.

Apparently 'Nightrider' means something to her too, because when Lambert asks that question, shakes her head and glances up at him. "Nightrider? That's easy. That's one of the supervisor positions at the carnival."

It's just kind of out of her mouth before she really thinks about it? She doesn't even know where that information came from, it just slips out, and after she says it she looks incredibly baffled and scratches her head with one of her little bat thumbs, perplexed.

[ringleaders]

The Beast stares at her and Lambert blankly for a long few moments, and it's not clear whether she is shocked, disinterested, disgusted, or any number of other possible things she could be at that outburst. Instead, she seems a little bit dazed... only to look exaggeratedly thoughtful, as if entertaining a clever bit of philosophy.

"The carnival?" she asks, loftily, and with a little bit of a nod, as if to say yes, good point. Please go on.

[whattaprick]

The Beast's not the only one giving Peridot a strange reaction, he'll just kind of stare at his sister for a moment, like he's never seen her before. Because honestly, it kind of feels like he barely knows her at all right now. But since she looks just as confused...

"I've never worked for a carnival in my life," he'll say, after a moment, but she's not the first one to bring it up, so he'll go on. "But someone did come to the cat cafe and said I used to be their boss."

[periphrasing]

Peridot feels a bit put on the spot with them both staring at her expectantly like that. Peridot... is going to hunker down into Lambert's arms a little bit, with her ears held flat.

It's not just the stares that have her anxious. It's the information that she just blurted out without thinking twice about it, like it's a topic that she lectures other people about all the time. She's spent ages, it feels like, trying to contextualize the fragmented flashes of memories she's been experiencing, but now that it feels like she's on the cusp of understanding them, she's terrified of what she might find.

"A-Are you sure you didn't?! Because... Why do I feel like you did then!?" Peridot fidgets uncomfortably, straining to remember. Some other things are coming back to her now; not clear moments of her past, or specific memories, or anything like that... Just. Vague bits of information, relevant facts that she 100%, without a doubt, knows are true, without really knowing why.

"The Carnival... it has something to do with the multiverse. It travels from place to place, or... It's a pocket dimension?" She scrunches her snout up a bit. "I can't remember why or what forces of magic move it, though."

[npcarnival]

"A fae, obviously," the Beast says as if that information is already clear as day. There's a bit of a dismissive snort, as if to ask 'what else could pilot a carnival through dimensions?'

"An entertaining diversion, I'd think. Unfortunate that you somehow managed to crash into this cosmological dead zone. It's not really that much fun around here... as hilarious as the Court's halted progress has been to observe. It really was clever, cutting them off like that."

She smirks to herself, despite the fact that it has inconvenienced her quite a bit as well. There is no evidence of her drawing a connection between these two things.

[whattaprick]

Lambert doesn't know why Peridot has weird memories, all right, but he's also not about to engage in heartfelt discussions in front of an incredibly weird, incredibly capricious supernatural being. So while he'll hold Peridot a little closer, letting her hide against him as much as she wants, he frowns at the Beast.

"You mean the Circle and the Severing?" Look, Peridot, even more things your brother has apparently found out about in the past few weeks without talking to you, isn't this charming! "Doesn't that cut you off from where you come from, too? You sound like you admire them for it."

[periphrasing]

Peridot perks up a little bit again at the mention of the circle. "Wait. What about the Circle?" Her fuzzy little brow is furrowed with concern.

[npcarnival]

God, Peridot, it's like you don't know anything about this scheme!

"It does... and I can't say I particularly enjoy it, except for the joy of having those fools trapped in here with me. But prey outsmarting, no - overpowering their predators? That I have to respect. They've put off the colonization of their world for perhaps a whole generation, at least."

Isn't it just neat?

[whattaprick]

"I'll explain later. I promise," he adds. Right now, though, the Beast is successfully confusing Lambert more than enlightening him, but that's just typical fae for you.

"Colonization? What are you talking about?" he frowns. That sounds more like a science fiction plot than anything else.

[npcarnival]

"Oh," she says, and then blinks at him. "Is that something that was supposed to be a secret? I'm never sure..."

Infuriatingly, she doesn't elaborate unprompted.

[periphrasing]

Peridot stares at her in silence, expecting her to go on... And then she doesn't, and the bat says loudly:

"An explanation, maybe? PLEASE?"

[whattaprick]

"Preferably in the smallest words possible," Lambert suggests, dryly.

[npcarnival]

"...Well, they were going to annex this entire universe, eventually. What else would they have come here, for?" the Beast says, a little bit dismissively. Isn't they obvious? They were fae.

"I mean, they certainly didn't show up for the scenery... not someone like the Rose Queen and her ilk."

[periphrasing]

"...WHAT!?"

That's Peridot's super helpful contribution. She's even more loud this time, her voice echoing off of the surrounding trees. She has about a million follow-up questions, but she can't articulate any of them until she gets over her initial shock.

[whattaprick]

Yet Lambert has a question of his own, that suddenly feels a lot more urgent in the light of this new information.

"So what does that imply for the Severing?" he asks abruptly, cutting in after Peridot's question without giving the Beast a chance to respond. "If someone undid that, would they just pick up where they left off?"

[npcarnival]

The Beast just shrugs, both because she doesn't know and also because she's sort of indifferent. Does she look like she's part of the Courts? Actually, maybe she does, she's not sure.

"I suppose they'd get back to it sooner or later..." she says. "Everyone in Arcadia has probably forgotten about this place at the moment. I just figured it would be a laugh to take some of them out while they couldn't call for backup... the Courts really do seem to enjoy swarming things."

[periphrasing]

"Alright, hold on just a damn second," Peridot interrupts. She's squirming out of Lambert's arms while she talks, in order to clamber up onto his shoulder; it's a little bit more dignified (at least in her mind), and it puts her at, uh... well, at least slightly closer to eye-level with The Beast?

"You said annex. The whole universe? How? To what end, for what purpose? And where exactly does that place you in this whole picture? You're fae too, aren't you? And what the hell is Arcadia?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert is just kind of going to suffer through being used as a glorified bat-tree, because Peridot's questions are more or less the same as his own. Anyway, at least he's used to this.

[npcarnival]

"To consume and repurpose it for the glory of Arcadia of course," she says, though she rolls her eyes a little, like she personally isn't that into the idea. "You are familiar with changelings, aren't you? Imagine a fae making a changeling... but the changeling is a galaxy and everything in it."

She gestures vaguely up at the sky.

"Universes like this are always filled to the brim with empty space and dead weight. Most of it would probably be discarded or destroyed in the process. Like refining wheat into flour to make something more ambitious..."

She shrugs.

"The Wyld Fae have never had much interest in this kind of thing."

[periphrasing]

"For glory," Peridot repeats flatly, clearly unimpressed. "Not even for resources, or anything like that? They just do it because it's fun or something?" Chalk this topic under the THIS IS SOUNDING UPSETTINGLY FAMILIAR IN A WAY I CAN'T FIGURE OUT category.

[whattaprick]

Multiple universes, huh? Lambert can't say he's ever paid much attention to theories like that. He is less interested in a lecture on faerie court culture as he is in other practical matters, though.

"You said they'd be forgotten -- is that part of how the spell works? Twenty-five years is a long time to forget about a whole world of people..." Though to the immortal fae, that's probably not even a breath.

"Where do the--" He is making the most unbelievably pained expression saying this, like it hurts to have these words pass his lips. "--angels and demons fit into all this? Are they trying to take over too?"

[npcarnival]

"You have so many questions!" she remarks. Thankfully, her patience doesn't seem to be quite running out, but it's always a possibility. "But the Court's goals are a way to pass the time, I suppose..."

"And you're thinking like a mortal. If you send your human mate to fetch something from the store, there would be some time before you become concerned about their absence. As for the angels and demons, they care mostly about the economy of mortal souls. I don't think outright ruling the universe is a requirement, though they do come from outside of it."

"Hardly a sniff compared to the real thing, though. Neither are them are the original source of their breed. They're both derivatives at the end of the day."

[periphrasing]

"So, just to ascertain that my facts are lined up correctly: This court," Peridot says like the word is unfamiliar to her, "shows up from across the multiverse one day with some grand plan to take over this realm because... glory. And you're both saying that the Severing was an effort made-- presumably by a mortal-- to neuter that plan, and cut this invasion force off from your... Homeworld or whatever. Am I on the right track here so far?"

[npcarnival]

"Yes," the Beast says, watching her with amusement.

[periphrasing]

"And where do you fit into this, exactly?" she asks bluntly. "You're just some random unaffiliated fae trapped here by circumstance?"