⇨ GREYSOL

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 155 - Day 169
Where: Greysol
What: The carnival resumes its tour, this time heading to Greysol, a city tied deeply into the fabric of the multiverse. Here, everyone has an animal companion from birth that is the second half of their soul - and thanks to the Ringmaster, so do you. (Remember, joysweeper is our guest event runner for this location, and location specific questions should go to them.)
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE CITY OF GREYSOL↴ The carnival arrives in a manicured park in the center of a big city that sprawls out along where the river reaches the ocean. It’s spring, early enough that nights are chilly, warm enough in the days that people and their souls savor the weather, and sometimes shelter together from the rain. Greysol was designed from the bottom up to accommodate the human-dæmon bond. Go out and see! ► THE SHAPE OF YOUR SOUL: The dæmon-forming spell kicks in at about four in the morning. Most characters will wake up with their souls in some small form, curled against them. Even if they were awake, they became dazed and unfocused while their souls were being drawn out of their bodies and have little memory of how it happened. Until that evening every character's dæmon is able to change shapes, and children and some teens will continue to do so. Most will settle on their permanent forms by evening. Characters without dæmons will just look on, and the few who are thousand-pound bears have to handle being really big. ► IT’S GOOD TO SETTLE: Elaine Tavis Aracari, sixteen-year-old daughter of two actors and a moving pictures sensation herself, just ‘settled’ - her dæmon Tavis stopped changing shape - as a stunning blue peacock. Settling is a major coming of age milestone and celebrated as such in different ways all over the world. She and her family are throwing a massive party in the central park and inviting the public to join in! Enjoy easy access to free catering, live music and showings of moving pictures, and displays of mostly trivial magic. There are also form readers from across the country setting up booths, happy to accept a small fee to inspect your dæmon’s settled or most favored forms and tell you what they mean. Is there anything to these analyses? Eh, maybe, but they’re flattering and fun. ► WITCHING HOURS: Characters who are clearly witches for this event will often be assumed to be in town for a lover, and people, witches and not, may want to know who that is. Humans usually regard them with wary respect and interest. Real witches living with their human families or on business quickly suspect that something’s up, but without clear and present danger take a relaxed wait-and-see attitude. Wait for long enough and any possible decision will come around again, they believe. There isn’t time to learn much witch magic, but witches, real and carnival-made, have an inherent power: the ability to fly using branches of “cloudpine”, an attractive soft-needled tree common in the park. Witches usually ride large branches as if they’re steeds but can use even short sprays, and you’ll probably see the few witches in the city coming to the park to do so. Why not try? ► BEAR PUN: Human-panserbjørn relations have historically been troubled, but have warmed in the past century. It’s the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Bertin, a much-mythologized time when Spectres flooded Greysol and a company of panserbjørn arrived and directed efforts to get the survivors out of the city. A statue is being erected and many florid accounts of the story are being told. If you’re in a panserbjørn shape for the duration of the visit you will probably get thanked and celebrated by people trying to hide their nervousness of you. Expect someone to ask if your dæmon would be a human - it’s a common supposition. ► KERNER ISLAND: From the harbor you can see a wooded island. Although there are no rocks to speak of it sports a tall lighthouse, and nearly all boat traffic avoids it carefully. On a clear day someone with binoculars or a particularly sharp-eyed soul can see loads of trash, birds and various other animals that don’t seem local, and… children? Adults and settled teenagers will see tall vague shapes moving about too. When asked about it the most important thing adults will tell other adults is don’t go there. They’ll hold their dæmons close and tell you that on that island are things that eat souls. They may also admit with mixed pride and shame that it’s been a source of wealth and innovation for the city. There’s a facility there that can open windows into other worlds, and the children who can reach it can cross through and bring things back. Many of the children are recruited by research and development teams on the lookout for items they can use, but there are also kids out to have adventures or who’ve run away. More on this later.

Comments

[whattaprick]

"Don't even think about it," Lambert answers instantly, but the polecat laughs, 'grinning' in that dopey, open-mouthed way animals do.

"I already know what Strange can do," she says, plaintively. You don't need another excuse to show off, magician man! "I want to see you!" She prods a paw at the seal under her, which is about as effective as ... a tiny weasel poking four hundred pounds of blubber can be expected to be, which is not at all.

[kingsroads]

Siobhan gives the polecat a matching grin. To both Lambert and Strange's eventual annoyance, daemons share the magic that their owners do. Obviously Siobhan shares some of that douchebag spirit as well because she mutters something under her breath and slaps a flipper on the ground. Rather quickly, frost moves from the flipper across the beach to the lakefront, which starts to freeze over into ice. A chill starts to form in the air. And the fluffy polecat and the blubbered up seal might be fine but the skinny magician certainly isn't.

"You didn't have to take my suggestion," Strange complains, as he shivers slightly. But Siobhan isn't listening as she scoots backwards a bit.

"Hold on," she tells the polecat, grinning all the way. A moment or so later, she moves as fast as she can from the shore to the frozen over part of the lake, skidding on it and using her belly as a sled.

And, all right, Strange can't help but laugh at that. He recognizes that behavior, that desire to perform magic...and all in all, this is a bit cute. At least, it's a bit cute until Siobhan and the polecat get juuust enough out of range to yank witcher & magician over the ice as well.

Whoops.

[whattaprick]

"A little warning next time?" Lambert sounds distinctly bitchier than Strange does, his hatred for the cold out in full force today.

The trouble is that Lambert's daemon can't stray from him as far as Siobhan can get from Strange, which means they catch on even sooner that something's awry. Lambert's laughter at the daemons goofing around and showing Strange up quickly turns into him rolling to his feet and grabbing the magician's arm to yank him stumbling along towards their souls skidding away from them.

Of course, he might have given it a bit more thought than that, because ... that is a lake, and while the recently frozen surface might bear the weight of a four hundred pound seal flopping onto it, will it also carry a witcher and an English magician stumbling onto it? Time to find out!

[kingsroads]

"Lambert, what--" But nope, too late, Strange can't even offer up a word of confusion before Lambert grabs his arm and they're both yanked onto the ice. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the sense to get to his feet in the first place, so Lambert's dragging him along like a sack of potatoes. Every time Strange tries to get to his feet, he's yanked further and he's tripping on something so it's about halfway through that Strange decides 'screw it' and just lets himself get dragged along.

As the daemons skid to a stop, eventually do Lambert and Strange. And don't mind Strange, he's just going to kind of lay on the ice right now, out of breath, a little beat up, and plenty annoyed at everyone. "What the hell was that?"

The ice might bear a four hundred pound seal easily and it might bear a witcher and a magician easily, but the combined weight of seal, witcher, and magician in a relatively close area is enough for the ice to start dangerously cracking.

[whattaprick]

"Can't you feel it?" Lambert asks, annoyed ... but speaking of feeling? He's distracted by something else entirely, something that he hadn't noticed before now. Before, he'd shivered and complained about the cold, but it was reflexive to do so in response to the sight of ice forming over water. But he hadn't really paid attention to what he was feeling.

Right now, stretched over ice that should be chilling him to the bone, it's impossible for him to ignore: he can't feel the cold he knows he should be able to at all. It's perplexing enough that Lambert's frowning, opening his mouth to say something no doubt to the effect of "what the fuck?"

And then the ice chooses this time to crack apart and drop them all into the water.

[kingsroads]

Strange barely manages to let out a yelp before the ice cracks and he finds himself sinking in the lake. And this is a bit of a problem: Strange can't swim. The most he can do is flail in an attempt to push himself to the top and try to replicate whatever the hell he did in Atlantis.

Thankfully, his thoughts of distress spur Siobhan into action. Like a jet, the seal zooms over towards Strange, not really caring if she brushes up, knocks into, or splashes Lambert or the polecat in the first place. They knew how to swim, right? But they aren't her problem right now, not with her other half about to drown. Brushing up against Strange, she wriggles under his arm. Thankfully, the magician gets the message and holds on for dear life as Siobhan zooms up towards the surface.

Once they've breached the surface and Strange is actually able to get some air (albeit with a bit of coughing up water), that's when Siobhan turns her attention towards Lambert and his daemon. Did they make it up alright or does she have to go back down there to save two other people as well?

[whattaprick]

As soon as they hit the water, Lambert's only disoriented for a split second. Instinct kicks in after that, and sodden clothing is nothing on swimming in an ice cold lake with witcher armor on in the winter. The daemon knows this, too, which is why although everyone gets dumped in the drink and Siobhan goes to rescue her other half, she catches herself before she hits the water, hovering over the churning surface.

Lambert pops up to the surface like a cork, hair plastered wetly all over the place and stuck to his horns in odd whorls, and starts treading water. His expression's still more confused than put out, even with the relative inconvenience of being dumped in water so ungracefully, but...

"I can't feel the cold." This is directed at his daemon, with a touch of disbelief, before it occurs to him to glance over at Strange and Siobhan, expression shifting from perplexment to amusement. "You look like a drowned rat."

[kingsroads]

Strange really does look like a drowned rat, especially since his curls are now plastered to his face and kind of in his eyes. He shifts slightly, still keeping a grip on Siobhan with one hand while pushing his hair out of his face with the other. And how wonderful, everybody looks to be relatively fine except for him.

But even though Lambert's talking to his daemon, Strange picks up on that as well. He can't feel the cold? How...interesting. And certainly something he wants to test, although he knows that right now isn't the time or place.

"Can we continue this conversation when my feet are on solid ground?" he grumbles, downright sulking as he looks at everybody. He's wet! And it's cold! And he can't swim so all of this is annoying.

for the sake of sanity/continuity i officially declare this happens AFTER the witchy flying thread

[whattaprick]

Lambert rolls his eyes at the whining, but he nods, and starts to make his way toward land, the polecat trailing in his wake. It's weird, because even when he surfaces from the water -- when he knows the light breeze should generate a bit of chill, at least -- now that he's actively waiting for the sensation he realizes he doesn't feel cold at all. More weird and wonderful changes wrought by his stay in Greysol, then? This one, he doesn't mind so much.

Though when he's seated on the shore, dripping wet and waiting for Strange to surface, he can't help laughing at the look of him.

gotcha, gotcha!

[kingsroads]

Lambert's immune to the cold. The polecat is also possibly immune to the cold but also has a nice coat of fur. Siobhan is a seal and has blubber to help shield her from the cold. Strange is a normal human with absolutely nothing to shield him from the cold in the first place.

This really sucks. And, as Siobhan drags him to the shore and Strange steps out of the water, the light breeze feels like an arctic gale. He can't help it: Strange sneezes. Between this and making it rain the past few days, he's certainly going to come down with a cold.

Grumbling slightly, Strange mutters under his breath and casts a small fireball. Cupping it between his hands, he holds the flame close enough that it might warm him up but far enough away that it won't catch his clothes on fire—not that it could do that in the first place considering that he's sopping wet.

"Oh hush up," he grumbles at Lambert, more out of annoyance at this whole situation than anything else.

[whattaprick]

"Come on, you have to admit it's funny," Lambert counters, with a grin. He's sopping wet, and that's uncomfortable and ought to be remedied in a bit, but for now, well... there really isn't anything he can do about it. His daemon lands beside him, shaking her fur free of the bit of water that's clung to it. Lambert would tell Strange to make sure he doesn't set himself on fire, but there's little enough danger of that with how damp he is, so he won't bother.

"It's your own daemon's fault for being as much of a show off as you in the first place."

[kingsroads]

"It's your fault for egging her on to begin with!" But, for all his bitching and moaning, a small smile plays on Strange's face. He's still grumpy. And he's still pissed off about the whole soaking wet thing. But the heat of the fire's helping to warm him up and he knows he can only stay so mad at Lambert for so long...especially considering that yeah, it is his daemon's fault.

"Perhaps we should lobby for better behaved souls."