⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[atouts]

NIGHT ONE: He'll note how the oddities are acting, but won't try to force any of the doors back open. Calls it a wrap for the evening once he's figured out the layout.

NIGHT TWO: He will observe the two cleaning girls for an additional one to two hours depending, the two hours depending on whether or not they seem like they're able to bypass the oddities. If they can and he's able to slip by them, too, then they're in for a creepy unseen watcher for some time.

[ringleaders]

NIGHT TWO: They'll probably remain mostly silent for the first hour or so, scrubbing everything in the dining hall down. Occasionally they will pass by each other and whisper things that aren't quite audible, occasionally resulting in a giggle. Once they've been at it for a while, however, the rabbit girl's guard begins to drop a little.

She'll move close to the other girl, and start whispering again, but with enough intensity that it can still be heard despite her intentionally low tones.

"What do you think we should do about them?"

The other girl continues mopping silently for a while before answering, apparently taking it quite seriously. Eventually, she replies:

"I don't know. We can't take anything for granted. He's treating them like guests, like anybody else."

The rabbit girl nods, pretending to wipe at a table even though it long-since stopped being necessary.

"Right... but it's strange, isn't it? They look just like us."

"I guess. I didn't see them much today." The fox girl seems a bit more reluctant to discuss this, but not completely unwilling. "Don't talk to them. You heard what LeFlamme said."

"I won't, yet..."

Any whispering grows too quiet to overhear again, eventually turning into giggles again. After about a minute of hushed whispers, the rabbit girl pecks the fox girl on the lips.

After that, they pack up their supplies and move into the kitchen to start cleaning that.

[atouts]

He'll note the rabbit seems more curious (or less fearful, perhaps) than the fox, maybe that'll come up later. He'll also leave them be for the night and shadowstep back to his own room. He will be making notes on the fancy "shared notes or whatever" map the Nightrunners are using (Lambert sent him a copy via 9S) regarding:

A. the Prince keeping his more beast-like servants out of sight until after curfew and
B. the "oddities" are working to keep people out of places they shouldn't be, not at random whim

I don't know if you want to do NIGHT THREE yet, since things happen, but the rough idea for that night will be Childermass waiting for the clean up crew to come back out — not necessarily the two from before, just any — and stalking them until they lead him either to wherever the servant's quarters are or to whatever they use to get around out of sight, because there's no way these people just sit around doing nothing all day long. If security is doubled due to other night two mischief, uh, he'll be going invisible crow for the sake of being tiny and lacking in footsteps.