⇨ 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]

With the constant ebb and flow of the interference, it's hard to pick out changes when it's all always changing. But it's not difficult to notice the candle being set alight, seemingly with no human input.

He turns his gaze towards the candle. "Did you light that?"

He didn't think humans could do magic, but Lambert did say he was mutated by magic. Maybe there was some kind of transference?

"The interference around the candle increased just for a moment. But it's gone now."

Brief and fleeting, before dispersing.

[whattaprick]

It sure is frustrating having to imagine something he can't see and having to take it on faith that it's there. Lambert frowns, but nods, letting his hand drop back to his side.

"Yeah, I did." It's good to know, too, that his magic still feels like it works, more or less.

"I can do it too!" Proud to show off, the polecat turns a somersault in the air, and the candle Lambert just lit is extinguished, seemingly all on its own. This time, however, the source of the disturbance in the air is centered on the daemon, in a similar displacement of particles.

"Just seeing it doesn't tell us much," Lambert points out, frowning. "But if it doesn't seem dangerous, we might as well keep moving."

[dressedtothe]

Yeah, he's in agreement there. ...Well, even if he wasn't, he'd agree anyway.

But looking at all these people... Pod 153 and his floating sword stick out like a sore thumb. The Ringmaster's magic may have changed Lambert and himself to better suit the world, but it's clear that this world just doesn't have the technology to not bat an eyelid at Pod 153. And unfortunately, Pod 153's cloaking technology isn't much use here. It's only designed to fool machines -- after all, they're the only enemy that mattered -- and even then, it doesn't completely hide the presence of the robotic helper; without the presence of the androids they support, the pods would quickly come under fire themselves.

Buuut... while 9S doesn't have much knowledge and experience of magic, the demonstration from Syrlya, Strange's magic show, reading Rita's blastia, seeing Lambert and his animal's magic, as well as all the latent magic around the Carnival and the Ringmaster's spell over them... it's clear that magic's applications are incredibly malleable.

A brief moment of hesistation -- really, he's supposed to be assisting Lambert, not the other way around -- before 9S pushes his query to the forefront. "Before we go, can you do anything to hide my pod? It sticks out here." Asking for assistance like this feels wrong, but he tries not to let it show. "Otherwise, I'm gonna have to send it back to the Carnival."

[whattaprick]

Lambert frowns, looking at it like he's only really noticing the pod for the first time -- he had before, but now that 9S is drawing conscious attention to it...

"Not really." The only spell for stealth he has needs a consciousness to work ... and he imagines trying to get a box doesn't count. He'd assumed the glamour would disguise it as something, but that doesn't seem to be in effect, either. But 9S's instincts are right; the less attention they draw to themselves, the better.

"Send it back for now. We can figure something out with one of the other nightrunners later."

[dressedtothe]

Damn. Alright. Looking to Pod 153, he gives it his orders, floating his sword over to the boxy robot. Both sword and his right hand have a ring of light around them as he does so.

"Pod, take my weapon and return to the trailer." Because he doesn't know just how far they'll be travelling from the Carnival, he adds, "Once you arrive, enter sleep mode."

< Affirmative. Returning to Trailer #19 >

And with that, Pod 153 takes the sword -- similarly floating the weapon -- and returns the way they came.

He's not used to working with another person when scouting. Well, he worked with 2B, but that was different. Technically she was there to support him, so he generally got to lead the way.

But it's even more weird working with his boss. Who is. You know. A human. Usually Command just... kind of dump him on Earth and let him do whatever, as long as he got the job done. Maybe he should... defer to Lambert's judgement on where to go next. Yeah.

"Where to, sir?"