⇨ 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

Miko Nakadai | OTA

[pullingamiko]

Okay, cool, time to be plunged into fancy-people hell. That’s just… great.

Miko may not know a lot about this place’s specific rules, but she understands how the basics with things like this usually work. Stay still, be quiet, do what you’re told, and so on. The problem is, she… kind of hates doing all those things. She moved to Nevada to minimize how many people would know her and her parents and therefore expect her to do those things.

Apparently, boring rules are inescapable.

To her credit, she does more or less try to stick to the rules. Mostly. She’s not throwing food or yelling out complaints for the whole world to hear, at least. But… she’s definitely spending a lot of time fidgeting with her dress, and she will definitely complain quietly and discreetly to anyone who will listen.

(( Feel free to tag her here during free time or meals; prompts for other activities are below! ))

DAY 171

[pullingamiko]

Archery

Miko, frankly, is always up for shooting things. She’s not particularly good at it, as it turns out, but at least it’s something.

She huffs and lowers her bow after another arrow thunks into an outer ring of the target. “Man, this is tougher than it looks! I’m pretty sure I’m holding it right ‘n stuff… I guess aiming it right is just a pain.”

Charades

Fortunately, as much as she may dislike some of the stuff here, she is not too concerned with embarrassing herself in stupid party games. Sure, she can think of more fun things to do, but there are worse things, too.

She looks at the card she’s picked up for a moment, raising her eyebrows slightly, then moves to the middle of the circle, where she just… tugs her skirt out of the way enough to kick at the air. Then she sets her foot back on the ground and shrugs expansively. That’s it, that’s all she can do with this one, apparently.

Archery

[amusicaladventure]

"There's a sort of trick to it!" Ash piped up, idly rubbing at her left forearm as she did. Even with protective gear, the string still tended to snap rather uncomfortably. "You've just always got to do it the same way. That's what you're practicing to do. Once you can hit about the same spot every time, then it's just adjusting your sight."

[pullingamiko]

Miko makes a face at that. She is not a huge fan of repetition like that. "Eww. How long's it gonna take to get the hang of that? It's not like we've got all day here."

[amusicaladventure]

"So just try to get as better as you can in the time you've got. What's wrong with learning?" Ash resolutely stuck to the philosophy of 'make the best of it', and really... what else could you do? They were stuck, she reasoned. They had to do it. Scrape up what consolation you can.

[pullingamiko]

"It's boring, is what's wrong." Miko sighs, and looks to the target, then lifts the bow again. "...At least I guess this'll be good for something if people get better at it. So it's not a total waste of time."

That puts it a few miles above most of high school, in her opinion.

[amusicaladventure]

"It's not how I'd choose to spend my time, but you know, there's something to being able to just practice and get better at a skill." Ash looked down at her own bow contemplatively. "Might as well be something useful like you said, right? I'd sure take this over cards or another damn feast."

Charades

[whattaprick]

Lambert has no idea what Miko could even be going for here, but it's either guess or sit here being bored out of his mind.

"Let me guess: you're a dog marking his territory," he offers, chin propped on one hand. He only has the barest grasp of the rules of the game, so mayyybe that's a little off.

[pullingamiko]

Miko lets out a snort of laughter, then glances away to make sure that didn't piss off any servants. She shakes her head, then crosses her arms and thinks for a moment before holding up one finger.

Archery

[wild_magic]

Susan... Well, to put it nicely, hasn't been having very much luck with archery. He's shot a crossbow many times before, but with a crossbow you don't actually have to have the strength to draw it back. Even with an appropriately sized bow, drawing back the arrow is too hard for him, meaning that they're basically only going a few feet in front of him, not even close to the targets.

Not that he's too bothered, as at least he can watch other people. Other people who are apparently better at this than he is.

"At least yours is hitting part of the target."

[pullingamiko]

Miko looks over the arrangement of arrows stuck in the ground in front of Susan, and sort of just... raises her eyebrows. And snorts a little bit. It's not an outright laugh, at least.

"Guess that's better'n nothing, huh. Do they not have any, like... extra extra small bows?"

[wild_magic]

"I don't know, I didn't ask. If it's smaller, can it even shoot the arrow very far...?" At least it might go straighter than right now, since he'd be able to balance it better and draw back the string. He looks at his pathetic pile of arrows in front of him with a shrug.

"It's okay if I'm not good, anyway. I don't ever have to use one again."

[pullingamiko]

“I mean. Not like it can get any worse.” She shrugs. Sorry, Susan, but that is pretty pathetic.

She raises her eyebrows at that. “You sound pretty sure of that, huh.” Though she’s not actually gonna argue. What is she, a teacher in some useless required subject?

[wild_magic]

"Well, I don't need a bow when I have magic. And I have a crossbow if I ever do need one, so... This is kind of stupid." He shrugs after that, still looking at his dumb nearby arrow pile.

"I wish I could just burn the targets. It'd be more fun."

DAY 172

[pullingamiko]

Reading

This… might be one of the most boring ‘scheduled entertainment activities’ she’s ever heard of. It’s like detention, but she can’t sneak her phone in or climb out a window and escape. It’s just… books and reading and being quiet for three hours.

Apparently, Miko has settled for slouching as far down in her seat as she can, keeping a book - which appears to be about the history of harps - propped up on the table in front of her. Whether she’s actually reading it is anyone’s guess.

[puddingemote]

At the very least, she's doing better than Tamaki, seated at the same table. He has a book of poems in front of him, though his eyes are glazed over and he hasn't turned a page in a few minutes. He'd started out hoping he could at least hum some sort of tune to the poems and make a game out of this, but he was shushed by one of the supervisors, so he's been trying to read quietly since then.

It hasn't been going very well. The poems are so boring, and the room is so quiet and a bit warm...

His head droops down, then lands on the table with a soft thunk. His eyes are closed. He's definitely asleep.

[pullingamiko]

Miko leans around her book to look at him when she hears his head drop. She glances around, making sure nobody caught him. Then she leans over, pinches a lock of hair between her fingers, and tugs at it.

[puddingemote]

"Gah!"

The hair tug is enough to startle Tamaki into waking back up, and he jerks upright in his seat, looking around in blurry confusion before his eyes rest on Miko.

"What was that for!?" he hisses, a bit louder than he should be in a library.

[pullingamiko]

Miko shushes him, also perhaps louder than is wise. “You fell asleep! If you started snorin’ or something you’d get us in trouble.”

[puddingemote]

Tamaki blinks at her twice, and then his brain seems to kick back into gear and he looks appropriately apologetic.

"Ah, sorry..."

He tries to look back at the book, then sighs. "It's just... this is boring."

WILDCARD

[dorkypantsuit]

As he's visually kept track of his crew members during meals he's noticed Miko's bored expression and constant fidgeting. So, when he has a moment after lunch, he comes up to her with an odd paper something in hand.

"Here." he says, offering it to her.

[pullingamiko]

Miko blinks and looks first at Psi, then at the paper object, then back up at Psi.

"...A fortune teller? What am I s'posed to do with this?"

[dorkypantsuit]

"Stop fidgeting with your dress." Is what she is supposed to do, though it may take her a second to parse that sentence. He knows it's a dumb thing to make, but really, just please stop fidgeting with your clothes.

"If you get in trouble I don't want it to be over something stupid like that."

[pullingamiko]

She slouches further and pouts up at him. "Wouldn't I still get in trouble for fidgeting with this?"

She's JUST SAYING.

[dorkypantsuit]

"It's okay to ruin paper, not clothes given to us by our gracious host."