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

"Zangetsu..." Tamaki wracks his brain for a moment, not as familiar with him as some other people at the Carnival. He mostly sees him around without really talking to him. Although, he remembers some things from Portland...

"Isn't that guy kinda scary?"

Maybe the servants will be too scared to turn him in.

"Oh, he's terrifying!" Strange remarks, far too brightly. After all, he almost got eaten, that was completely awful and let's not have it happen again.

"But I suppose the question now is, which do people value more: following orders or their own personal safety?"

Because Strange is just 100% certain that Zangetsu is going to slip up and try to punch, attack, or eat someone during the course of their stay. The man seemed tense—not in a tightly strung sort of way, but in a way like he could snap at any moment.

At least Strange agrees with him about Zangetsu being scary, even if he sounds way too cheerful about it.

"Probably safety..." Following orders is kind of boring, after all, and some people like to be rebels; Tamaki used to be included, but he's aware that disobeying orders could easily end with him dead while they're in a fae realm. "Unless they can get a reward, for following orders."

People do things, if given incentive.

"For most servants, the reward for following orders is 'steady employment' and 'a paycheck.'" He might sound like he's being sarcastic when, in reality, Strange is anything but. He still needs to connect the dots that the Prince's servants might be in the same sort of position of servitude that a few of the Ringmaster's servants were in: you're here because you made a mistake.

"Though, I do think that even the most stalwart of servants might have second thoughts upon dealing with some of our lot."

He thinks about this. If they break a rule, servants could have to be the ones to deal with them. And if they let it go, and the Prince finds out, they could be punished. But what if one of the people from their Carnival, like Zangetsu, attacks one of them? This whole situation seems the worst for the servants... as Steven was worried about.

Though he voices a different question:

"...Do servants get a paycheck?"

He's never gotten a paycheck for working for the Ringmaster! And anyway, he always assumed that "servant" was just a polite word for "slave." He doesn't pay enough attention to history to really know what exactly made a servant a servant, besides the obvious.

"I've always paid my servants," Strange responds, like it's the most obvious answer in the history of creation. And thus Tamaki learns that for all of Strange's batshit madman crazy magic, the man is secretly amazingly posh.

"They aren't slaves after all. England's outlawed slavery." Though, once again, Strange is reminded that they aren't in England. He can't let his English thoughts and English notions effect the way he thinks about the fae.

"Of course, a fae might have a different interpretation of the word than a human."

The way the fae seem to interpret it definitely feels more like slavery than just a job, but Tamaki is summarily distracted from the point by now.

"You have servants!?" Tamaki's eyes go so wide, they're about to pop out of his head. "Are you rich, Merlin?"

There is no tact to be had here.

"I suppose so?" Strange answers, as if this is the most obvious question and he's honestly confused as to why Tamaki is asking. "I've inherited a modest estate from my father and supplanted that with income from my writing and my work with the government."

Was that rich? There were certainly richer—Strange knew of men and women with far more financial status than he. But then again, Lambert grew up hand to mouth, Childermass worked as Norrell's man of business, Susan grew up in the woods, and the various aliens, skeletons, and gems probably had no concept of economics to begin with.

"It's hardly that rare. I'm certain others here have had servants as well."

"Rich guys always think it's more common than it is..."

Two of the people in his idol group are rich, and both of them seem confused about the mannerisms of "normal" people. They'd probably think having servants isn't a weird thing, either.

"But even if you always paid yours, maybe the Prince doesn't. In Portland, the fae kidnapped people, right?"

Those people were more or less kept as slaves, from what Rita told him.

Strange nods. Because yep, the Portland fae did kidnap people and did keep them as slaves. But as for the Prince? He honestly has no clue...though a part of him is worried he already know what the answer is (hint: he thinks it's kidnapping.)

"I've no idea how we'll find out if he does or doesn't, though. We can't ask the Prince directly and any conversation I've tried to have with his servants they simply redirect."

Which Strange is obviously put out about. His strategy's become gossip! People can't tell you information if they don't talk to you in the first place!

"Because they might be scared..."

This is getting complicated, isn't it? Do they help the servants, or just leave them be? They don't want to make too many waves, but can they really turn a blind eye if something bad is happening?

"Can I do anything?" He doesn't know how much help he can be, but he might as well offer.

Strange can't help but pause for a moment. He's honestly taking Tamaki's question into consideration, frowning slightly before he answers.

"I can't think of any way you could help right now," he admits, "but if I do think of something, I'll tell you right off."

There's another pause before Strange continues. "And Tamaki? Thank you for offering."

He grins, running a hand through his hair almost bashfully. "Yeah."

He walks back to his bed, flopping on it. "Then, I'm gonna go back to sleep." It's still a few hours before they have to be around for breakfast, after all. He rolls over, looking up at Strange with one eye already closed.

"You sleep some too. Okay?"

"I'll try," Strange remarks, with a smile and a nod. However, as he goes back to his scrying basin, it's pretty obvious to Tamaki that though Strange might say he'll try to get some sleep, it most likely won't happen.

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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