⇨ 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

[dressedtothe]

9S' personal archive of records doesn't stretch quite that far, but that would've been pretty long ago. Probably. Mankind had already advanced long past that when his records begin.

Wait.

Made colonies on other planets? She's from outer space?

"Hold on. You're an alien?"

[mirrortide]

"Yeah? From space and everything." She does give him A Look, but that probably doesn't mean much from Lapis. She gives everyone A Look.

[dressedtothe]

9S makes A Face. Mostly one of disgust.

"Ugh, really? I can't believe the Ringmaster would hire someone like you."

Sure, the aliens back home might be dead, but she had just said they'd come to Earth and had colonised other planets. Not exactly helping the 'invading force' image he's got right now.

"Why can't you stick to your own planet?"

[mirrortide]

Lapis is hardly taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor. Instead, she just raises an eyebrow. "Because we've used up most all the resources on our planet? It takes a lot of materials to make a Gem properly." The short answer is: To propagate the species.

"I don't have any plans to continue to help colonize Earth, if that's what you're worried about. I live there now." And she likes a handful of humans (Steven, Greg, Lars... And Andy, to a certain extent) that live there. Lapis points at him accusingly. "Peacefully, for the record."

[dressedtothe]

Using up all the resources on their planet and then going over to another to take theirs? That strikes him as incredibly short sighted and irresponsible!

"So you did come here to take over Earth!"

9S finds it hard to believe she's actually living there peacefully. An unlikely story! She's probably lying.

"Is Peridot one of you aliens, too?" The question is spoken with a borderline sneer.

[mirrortide]

"Yeah, like 6,000 years ago." She's not going to make it any secret that that's what Gems were going to do. Though it's less 'take over' and more 'make inhabitable for any organic life'. "And Of course she is."

His sneer, for the record, has very little effect on Lapis. She does stop walking though, because she isn't going to invite anyone over who might feel the need to trash their place.

Or be mean to Peridot.

[dressedtothe]

"Six thousand years ago?" 9S glares -- though the effect is lost when his eyes are covered -- balefully at Lapis. "That was when the aliens invaded us."

Closer to seven, actually, but who's counting when he's mad?

Ugh. He can't believe he has to work under an alien! What was the Ringmaster thinking? Why can't these ones be dead like the ones back home? "Looks like it doesn't matter what world you're from, you're all terrible."