lostcarnival | ⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 170 - Day ???
Where: Heartstone Manor
What: The carnival arrives at the Heartstone Manor. Do your best to play along, and try not to get too far ahead of the schedule with threading if you can avoid it, in case something that would affect your character happens early on.
Warnings: Individually marked! Could be a lot of things.

BEAUTIES AND THE BEAST↴

When the carnival arrives at the Manor, everyone will be taken into the Throne Room to greet the Prince for the first time. He will be lounging on his throne, and will take a look at the guests that the Ringmaster has brought before eventually dismissing everyone so that he can talk to her alone. After that, they will be given a brief tour of the Manor by some of the servants, and then brought to their rooms to start picking out clothes for tomorrow. On the first night they will be permitted to wear regular clothes, but starting the next morning the dress code will be enforced.

There will be a number of servants helping guests with clothing, and making alterations to suit the non-humanoid features they may have. The tailors work with fabric by hand, but their stitching is impossibly quick and accurate, with changes being made to complex clothing at unbelievable speed. Some guests may note while working with them that one of the seamstresses has wooden mannequin-esque hands instead of human ones, and another has two sets of arms. The arms are one of the most obviously inhuman traits that they'll see while first touring the building.

Come the morning of Day 171, the daily routine will begin.

⇨ THE DAILY SCHEDULE ⇦

► FIVE MEALS A DAY: Between breakfast, lunch, tea, supper, and evening drinks, the meals you are required to attend are frequent and long. Each meal (except drinks and tea) will have multiple rounds, and use all of the fancy cutlery. It will be difficult to keep up for those that are untrained. The food will vary greatly, but will generally to be palatable to those that are into whatever kind of food it might be. Some of them are odd delicacies that are very much an acquired taste, however. People who cannot eat will be given a pass once the Ringmaster explains it, but will be looked down on for it.

► DAILY ACTIVITIES: There are scheduled activities for every morning and afternoon,
and everyone is required to attend. Descriptions of each activity are provided on the "Event Descriptions" tab of the spreadsheet linked up above. There is only one hour of free time scheduled per day, after supper, and beyond that the servants will almost constantly have you on the go. The Prince and Ringmaster will not be present for most of the activities, but they will be there for every meal. If you character refuses to follow the schedule or makes a huge mess out of proceedings, make sure to report it here.

► AFTER CURFEW: At 11PM, everyone is expected to return to their quarters and spend the rest of the night there. Wandering after curfew is unacceptable by the Prince's rules, and if you do it there will be the chance of discover. Based on your character's stealth abilities, there will be dice rolling to determine if they are discovered or not, and by whom. Make sure you report any after curfew activity to the mod post here. This can also take place as an investigation if they are actually looking for something instead of just farting around.

► ROOM AND BOARD: The servants will remain upbeat for most of the time the guests are here, unless something is done to provoke them. They will be present at every activity, and there will be a variety of different individuals. One frequently spotted character will be the butler, a man with dark hair and small, sharp horns. He seems to be the main organizer of things.

► ODDITIES: Even beyond the obvious, there is something off about the Manor. Doors, windows, and other household objects will sometimes move seemingly without cause, and other times there will be banging sounds in the walls, or mysterious voices heard at a distance. It feels like you're being haunted. If you have a moment to wander the corridors, then you'll sometimes see open doors abruptly slam shut the moment you lay eyes on them, and wall sconces turn off or on. It's weird, man.

► THE HUNT: The Hunt activity will have its own event post, and some sign ups for those that will participate meaningfully. There will be some dice rolling to determine who hunts the most impressive game, and rewards handed out accordingly. Before that post goes up, however, you can do some investigations for the start of the event, if your character is interested in looking into the specifics of the contest and overall context.

MAKE SURE THAT ALL DECORUM VIOLATIONS ARE REPORTED HERE.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Taako breaks into very unkind laughter, an ugly kind of giggle in the back of his throat.

"What? No-- no, uh, I mean, clearly, there are elves there, but we're not the only things on the planet." He waves a hand, an illustrative gesture as he glances from Foster to Miko. "We have humans and dwarves and all kinds of other races there with us. And, uh, Foster, to answer your question, yes we have elephants. I mean, not on Faerun or anything, I've never actually, uh, been around one, but I've heard about them before, sure."

These people sure are uneducated about other worlds, given they live in a carnival with ready access to, apparently, all of them! They could at least learn to ask questions before making assumptions.

Being laughed at is fine. Being laughed at is something he appreciates, and deserves! He knows he's ridiculous and pathetic--he's just not a big fan of it being used as part of a parlour game? He hates games. He really hates them.

Foster regards Taako sceptically through slitted eyes. "After that abomination you rode in on back in Portland--"

But if Taako is done being critical of a teenage girl and a man with brain damage, it's actually his turn.

Okay, wait, no, sorry, now she needs to interrupt again. Man, the more she hears the more she regrets not being around when crap went down in Portland.

"The what? What abomination?"

"Okay, uh, first off:" Taako leans in very close to Foster, narrowing his eyes. "Garyl is a beautiful gift that I have given the world and I'll fuckin' thank you not to insult him. He's not even around to defend himself, so hey, good form on that one, Foster!"

And then he sits back and gives Miko an insincere smile.

"Garyl is a magic binicorn I made, and can still make but that seems like a bad idea right now. For some reason, Foster has some beef with him that I don't totally get, but whatever, Foster can eat my entire ass, Garyl is a treasure."

"You're not even into that," is his immediate response, delivered with absolutely zero sense of restraint--time, place, or audience. Then again, if Miko figures out what part of that he's referring to, she probably knew that before this conversation anyway.

It is for Miko's sake that he says anything further, though--after all, it's only fair to warn her. "It talks, and it's hideous," he informs her helpfully.

Honestly, Miko needs to get away from these bad influences before they teach her something really bad.

Honestly, if she noticed, she doesn't say anything. Which might mean she didn't pick up on it or might just mean she's more focused on the actual topic of the conversation, which is in fact very interesting to her.

"Seriously?! Oh man, you've got to show me that later!" Sorry Foster but that sounds cool as hell to her.

"At least somebody's got some fuckin' taste around here," Taako mumbles, pointing a condescending smirk at Foster; and then he turns to Miko, though his smug look remains firmly in place. "Well, in that case, I'll simply have to conjure him up later for you. Remind me sometime when we're not, uh... here."

Foster just meets Taako's stare with a stare of his own, cast in the most ambivalent deadpan.

Then he tunes out as Taako keeps talking about 'Garyl,' disconnecting from the situation entirely--at which point he sees the other groups again, and after a couple of seconds, realises what they're supposed to be doing.

He reaches out urgently to wave a paw between Taako and Miko, frowning.

"....whose turn is it?"

"Totally!" Miko may have a tendency to forget about stuff, but that's stuff she doesn't care about. She definitely cares about seeing a talking magic binicorn.

...Foster does make a good point though. Crap. Miko frowns and stares thoughtfully at the center of the circle. "Uuh... you just went, so... did we decide who goes after Foster?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna be real, I checked out pretty much immediately after my turn, so I have no idea." Taako shrugs, perching his chin in his hands. "Can we just, like, pick somebody at random now and go with it?"

If he were someone else, he could fob it off on Taako--mostly because Taako had been the one to guess the last round correctly.... but that's because someone else would have actually remembered that. He has no idea who guessed the last round. He doesn't even remember who acted the last round.

"I hate... games," is all Foster has to say, sourness and disgust in his voice.

"I mean... y'know, we got a fifty-fifty chance of being right, anyway, so why not?"

She blinks and looks up at Foster, her ears flicking. "What?"

"He's a grump, ignore him," Taako says, waving his hand. "So, hey, I guess I could go next, huh? Unless you're super eager to get in there and mix it up."

He's looking right at you, Miko.

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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