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

[By contrast, Julien's consistently getting arrows into the ground near the targets, or into said foliage, though they are at least marching closer to his target and are starting to clip it more often. He's not totally out of shape but the strain of holding the bow steady and pulling the cord back keeps surprising him, as does the cord striking his fancy leather armguards when he lets go. Archery looks so much easier in movies! This is work!

He glances right back and smiles.]

Then you win, maybe? Maybe it's like darts and you get points tallied up at the end. Nice going so far. [There's no sarcasm in that at all. He's happy to see that another carnie's getting better at this.]

There's points? [Yuya had just been fishing for a response of attention-- some sort of 'that'd be cool' or awe so he could either succeed or fail hilariously and maybe get them to smile. He wasn't happy here either, but everyone else was so much more dire and anxious. Except Julien, maybe.

But this might be actual competition and he's been goofing off.] Uh, thanks! I've never really played darts, honestly. It's pretty straight forward, right?

In video games! And in, like, cool fantasy books where the heroine has to show boys she's better than them.

[Julien's not immune to the tension of all this, but even aside from being inherently easygoing and mellow, he's got an advantage: while he's here, he's also lounging in the stable, with no one watching him or making demands. He has to pretend to be an animal for the stablehands, when they're nearby. That's it!

If that was all that was going on for him he'd be bored and angry, but as it stands, it's pretty easy for him to be less stressed than most of the other carnies.]

There's a ton of games involving dartboards and they can get pretty baroque. But it's also fun just to see who hits closer to the center more.

[He draws his bow again, arms trembling with the unfamiliar exertion. This time he does hit somewhere on the target, but the arrow glances off; he hadn't pulled back far enough, or positioned the arrow properly so that it flew true.]

Hmm. Wanna bet you get a bullseye before I get a halfway decent shot anywhere on the board?

But this isn't a video game. [Obviously. He also has absolutely no idea what 'Baroque' is. Julien challenges him before he can ask, however, and instead Yuya regards his shot carefully. He can see that tremble.]

... Is 'halfway decent' halfway to the middle? [They're going to need something more defined here.]

No, but they've probably got the idea from somewhere! Like, some dartboards have a points value attached to every little piece you could actually hit. Maybe this is like that.

Well. How about halfway decent is just getting it to hit and stick in the target, and it has to be anywhere with a ring? The unpainted edges wouldn't count.

[He grins lazily, like he hasn't a care in the world.]

Loser has to sing a song for the winner?

Uh, sure, but I'm not very good at singing... [Or at least he doesn't at all practice singing and assumes he's bad.

Oh well. It was Julien's challenge and he can set the reward. Punishment?]

All right, you're on! [He bounces back to life, turning back to the target and pulling his string back. He takes a few seconds to aim with a stern expression on his face... and then fires.

It just barely misses the bullseye, catching the edge of the next ring out.]

That's perfectly fine.

[Julien grits his teeth pulling the arrow back, trying to get it further this time. He's not at all used to this type of exertion, but he is still actually trying. This time, the arrow he fires leaves a scratch across the paint of his target, but ends up in the bushes. He laughs.]

Oh, I am going to looooose. Make sure you pick out a good one.

[There's a pause as Yuya considers that.] Maybe it'd be better if the loser picks a song they're familiar with.

[No need to complicate the results with things like 'necessary translation'. Yuya takes another shot--it ends up a little further away than the first arrow and he frowns to himself.]

Oh yeah, that's true! Wouldn't be much of a victory if the winner had to sing it first to show the way, huh?

[Julien knows a little bit of Japanese, but he's not fluent.

This shot takes a heroic effort, methodically doing everything step-by-step and trying to sight past the arrow. It actually hits and sticks this time... on unpainted wood, about a hair's breadth from the biggest ring.]

Aww, c'mon.

You almost got it! [But if Julien's trying his best then Yuya has to, too. Handing someone a victory they didn't earn isn't very fair unless it's like, a little kid.

He notches the next arrow and tilts the bow a little bit lower this time. He takes a deep breath and holds it before releasing the arrow.

It sails into the bullseye, slightly off center.] Eh--I did it?

Oh, hey! Congratulations, that's a bullseye.

[He chuckles and shakes his head. It occurs to him that while he wouldn't be bothered to sing in front of people, that might not be mannerly - but depending how he does it, he doesn't think he'd get more than a frown or two. It's not like that Prince character is present here.]

So do you want me to sing something now, or should I keep trying first?

Well, would you rather sing or shoot arrows? [He's not expecting Julien to put on a convert here, so he doesn't imagine it'll interrupt their archery much.] You were getting really close to the target.

I'm better at singing, mercifully. [Julien grins. Yuya's not as worked up about these things as some of the others, but it's still good to see he made someone happy and distracted, if only for a minute.] Tell you what, I'll try some more while I think of a song.

[He'll get a ring in his next couple shots.]

[Yuya nods, firing arrows at the sane time as Julien.

When he gets one, he stops and points.] Look, you got it!

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

Archery

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