lostcarnival | ⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

Entry tags:

⇨ 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

Strange wanting to leave a light on while he stayed up late to do... whatever it is he's up to (wizard stuff, Tamaki supposes) doesn't bother Tamaki in the slightest; in fact, it honestly made everything easier. His time as ghost has made Tamaki a bit more openminded toward them, but he also remembers that for every nice or lonely ghost that just wanted someone to lend an ear, there were about five more out there that wanted to kill and maim to feel better for a moment about their own demise. And frankly, he doesn't want even the friendly ones sneaking up on him in the dark, even if he hasn't felt any particular presences here since they arrived.

However, when Tamaki rolls over in what has to be the very early morning now and blinks awake to some small sound, he's surprised to Strange is still up, leaned over some kind of basin full of... Tamaki has no idea. Magic juice? Wizard punch? Very mysterious, indeed.

"Ne, Merlin..." He sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and fending off a yawn. "Aren't you gonna sleep?"

Thankfully for his own mental health, Strange didn't stay up the entire night. He scryed for a few hours, fell asleep for a few hours, and then woke up when he fell out of his chair, onto the floor, and discovered that he had been sleeping with his hand in the basin and now his shirt sleeve is all wet.

So, he's resuming scrying, muttering the spell to show him the Ringmaster, when Tamaki's voice interrupts him. He pauses, then looks over towards his roomie. Huh. He thought Tamaki was asleep. Was it falling to the floor that woke him up? Strange is just trying to look very dignified like he's an ace magician who didn't just fall out of a chair.

"I'm fine," he quietly remarks, giving Tamaki a little nod. "Go back to sleep—we've only got a few hours or so until breakfast." He might be fine, but he's also a total hypocrite.

Luckily for Strange, Tamaki doesn't quite realize he's just fallen out of a chair, although he is wondering what he's doing and why his sleeve is all wet. Strange is a funny guy, he already knew that much.

"You too," he says, still sounding half asleep. Despite this, he gets out of bed, dragging the entire blanket with him, keeping it pulled around his shoulders like a large shawl.

"What're you doing anyway?" He peers over Strange's shoulders; an easy task when you're seven feet tall.

As Tamaki peers over Strange's shoulders, he can see that displayed in the basin is an image of two people sleeping. It's hard to see who precisely those two people are, because of the fact that the room's dark, but there are unmistakably two sleeping people, which is good enough for Strange.

"Magic," Strange responds, with a yawn. This is obviously a cop-out answer and yet it's an answer Tamaki's getting. With a wave of his hand, the image in the basin vanishes. "What do you think I would be doing?"

Duh, Tamaki almost says, watching as the image is waved away. He didn't get to see who the two people are, but if it was two people sleeping, then...

"I dunno." Tamaki squints at Strange in the dim lighting, as though searching for some hidden motive on his face. His frown is a bit disapproving. "Are you a pervert, Merlin?"

He didn't really take Strange for a voyeur, but this is a bit suspicious.

"Of course not," Strange grumbles, "I'm married." It's said as if being married somehow magically excuses someone from being a pervert despite the fact that the two have pretty much nothing to do with each other. Thankfully, Strange knows that Tamaki would probably want a better explanation so he pauses before continuing.

"We're not to break curfew. As a nightrunner, it's my job to help police the rest of the carnival. Part of that involves checking up on people to see if they're breaking curfew to begin with. It's much easier to simply view their location than to go out in the castle and look for them myself."

Not a voyeur, just a person with zero sense of boundaries.

Tamaki opens his mouth after the comment about being married like he's ready to retort to that, but then Strange is smart enough to continue, cutting him off before he can accuse Strange of anything else scandalous. The explanation seems to make him relax a little, though. It might mean Strange has zero sense of boundaries, but at least it seems logical enough to Tamaki.

"So you've been watching everyone? All night?" He looks curiously at the basin again, as though he'll be able to see something in it, though of course he won't. "But no one left, right?"

"Someone might have left," Strange admits, with a little frown. "The spell can only target one person at a time. I tried to make a regular rotation to check in on everybody at least once, but they could have gone out, done something, then returned to their rooms before I noticed."

Though, he did spot a few people out and about with his magic. But as they're nightrunners and Childermass, Strange isn't going to throw them under the bus. He can keep that information to himself.

There's a pause before, "I can cast the spell to show you what scrying looks like, if you wish."

Cause he sees you looking at that basin, Tamaki.

"If they left, they're dumb..."

They're trying to get through this without anything bad happening, after all. The last thing anyone needs to do is anger the fae keeping them here. And he's been nice enough to open his home to them and give them food; it's just good manners.

But he is curious about the magic, so he nods readily enough. Being able to spy on people is a pretty cool ability, and he's interested to see more than he saw before.

"Yeah. Uh, please."

"Agreed," Strange can't help but remark, with a frown. If they left, they are dumb. How hard is it to just follow the Ringmaster's orders?

Still, Tamaki wants to see magic, so he'll do so. Strange doesn't really know who's asleep and who's awake at the moment and he doesn't want to throw anybody under the bus if they are out and about. So, it seems the answer is scrying on Tamaki despite the fact that he's in the same room as Strange.

Muttering something under his breath, Strange traces his hand over the basin, dividing it into four quarters. The lines he traced faintly glow in the water as he does so. A moment later, the reflection shifts. Instead of just their faces, looking in the water, it's an overhead view of Strange and Tamaki, as if looking down on the two from the ceiling. The spell is centered on Tamaki: if he moves around, the magic will shift to best view him.

"The magic does have it's limits. I can only view people if they are in the same realm as I am. For instance, I can not view anyone in Portland or at Greysol."

Tamaki watches in quiet awe as Strange works the spell. It's pretty weird, seeing himself in the basin as though a camera is watching him, and he wishes he could move around the room to see how the spell followed him, but that would mean moving where he can't see the basin as well. To make up for it, he moves around in place a bit, waving his arms and swaying back and forth, watching the image of him do the same in time.

"Eh, still pretty cool, though..."

He thinks over what Strange just said, about it not being able to reach across realms, when something else comes to mind. Though it might seem a bit out of nowhere when he suddenly asks, "Could you do that to people in the Matrix? When we were there."

It's a world he would honestly rather forget forever, but for some reason he feels like he needs to ask. Childermass was kidnapped at that time, too, so Strange must have tried, right?

At the mention of the Matrix, Strange shifts uncomfortably. "It depends. If I'm in the carnival, I can view people on carnival grounds. But I cannot view them if I remain on carnival grounds and they leave carnival grounds. If a realm naturally has magic, then I can cast the spell while visiting the realm to view people in the realm. The problem here is that the Matrix did not have magic. It had something like magic, but I could never figure out just how to work that in ways my magic could."

Strange wasn't all that good at fun Matrix powers and being 'the one.' He arrived halfway through the Matrix and only managed to get close to slightly adept during the last part of their stay. So no, not really, he couldn't have seen where Childermass was—a fact which bothers him more than he wants to admit. Because if he could have saved Childermass, Strange would like to think he'd do so, even if he was a bit bonkers for those first few months.

"Besides, I was mad when I first arrived. Even if there was a way to make that force work the way I wanted, I might not have been able to find it."

"Mm. Okay."

Tamaki doesn't really seem content or upset with this answer. His face is mostly blank while he attempts to process it; it's a lot of technical talk about magic, and he's not sure how much of it he understands. But what he's getting from all this is that no, at the time, Strange couldn't look for them.

And even if he could, who knows if it would have made a difference in the end.

"At least, you can use it here."

"I can, and I will. I plan to scry on the carnival members on a regular basis, to see what's happening and who our most likely troublemakers are." As well as creep on the Ringmaster but Strange is keeping that little detail close to the chest.

"We need to be on our best behavior. I know you're smart enough to listen, but it's some of the others that I worry about the most."

Looking directly at you, small children. The gems and nonhumans would bungle it all up with regards to social interactions, but if anyone's going to sneak out and try to explore, Strange has a feeling it would be the kids.

Tamaki's chest swells a bit at being told he's "smart enough to listen." That's right, he can be trustworthy here. He just has to do as he's told, and not do anything to attract the wrath of the Prince and his servants. He can do that.

"Some people are gonna stick their nose into everything. So you have to watch out for them."

The last thing he wants is for someone to get hurt, or for some of them to get carted off again, like they did at the Celebration.

As a person who often sticks his nose into everything, Strange can't help but sigh a little at Tamaki's words. "You've no reason to remind me of that," he teases, giving the other man a small smile. "I'm usually the first in line."

Now that he's demonstrated the magic, Strange waves his hand over the basin and the image of him and Tamaki vanishes from view.

"I do wonder who'll be the first to get in trouble. If this weren't such a worrisome situation, I'd start a bet!"

"Hmm..." He thinks about that, weighing over everything that he knows about his fellow carnies. Most of them don't seem eager to break the rules and incur the wrath of a powerful fae, especially from what they know of what the fae could do in Portland (information Tamaki mostly has secondhand). It would take someone with a goal in mind, a strong conviction, more courage than fear, and/or some stupidity to break the rules.

And given conversations that happened before they all came here...

"My money's on Stevicchi."

Well it's not a terrible bet. Still, Strange isn't too sure. Steven's scared to death of the fae. The person who's most likely going to get in trouble is someone who would flout authority, isn't as scared of the fae as they should be, is a bit reckless, and probably has enough conviction to believe they won't get caught.

Which all still describes him! Damn, he'll really have to be on his best behavior just to prove everyone wrong.

"I can see that. Though I do wonder if Steven's fear of the fae will override his empathy for the servants. As for me, I'll place money on Zangetsu."

After all, before their trip to the manor, Zangetsu did literally try to eat Strange. That's a pretty big point against him.

"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.

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

Closed to Strange

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