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.

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Darkness swirls around Strange's dream. He's in a grand library, though the library itself is in a state of disarray and devoid of any books. Instead, it's full of birds: twenty or so ravens perch on the bookshelves, scattered throughout the library. Occasionally they caw, flitting from shelf to shelf. Broken shards of mirrors litter the floor—which is odd as there aren't any empty mirror frames to be seen.

And, as stated before, it's dark. Outside of the windows is blackness. The darkness writhes, almost like a living thing as it moves throughout the room, staying on the edges. It covers a bookshelf but withdraws shortly afterwards. It reaches up to try and swallow one of the birds, but it flies away just in time. Despite the fact that it is immensely dark, all the details of the room are still visible (because dreams are dumb that way). Occasionally, muffled voices come from the darkness. Most of them are unfamiliar: a pleading and sad woman's voice, the authoritarian voice of a man used to command, a middle-aged man who just sounds so tired. But one of those muffled voices is familiar to Steven: it's Childermass's.

In the middle of it all is Strange, without his carnival changes and looking more like his pre-castle scruffy, unshaven hobo self. In his hands, he's holding a candle, the only source of light in the room. He's holding it far too close to himself, cupping the flame with his other hand to keep it burning. And, as he hears someone enter, in true Strange fashion, he starts complaining.

"It took you long enough! Honestly, Norrell, I cannot keep this lit under my own—" Hang on a second, that tiny person is not Gilbert Norrell. Strange pauses, looks at Steven, and then comes to the conclusion that huh, this is weird! Perhaps Norrell sent him? But Norrell doesn't know Steven, does he? Dream logic smooths all that out as Strange looks at Steven with a frown. "Well? Do you have another candle?"

Edited (it helps if I finish sentences) 2017-10-07 03:58 (UTC)

Oh, well, this is weird. Honestly, large amounts of blackness isn't totally unfamiliar territory when it comes to astral projecting, or whatever it is that he's doing. He just needs to wait for it to fade into another scene.

Which, it sort of does. Steven feels vaguely like he's in some kind of spooky movie set when he enters the library, and Strange's behaviour doesn't really disprove that theory. Steven is dressed in normal clothes, at some mid-point between his carnival self and his regular self. His wings are still there, but more pink and fluffy like clouds rather than rose petals.

"No..." Steven admits, adapting to this scenario more easily than he would while waking. "But my thumb is a lighter! Does that work?"

As promised, Steven raises his thumb and makes a clicking noise, which causes its tip to set alight.

His thumb's a lighter, that is a perfectly normal thing that Strange is not questioning. Except it isn't helpful in the slightest, as Strange just groans slightly, before shaking his head.

"I'm afraid it doesn't. We need more light and we need it to continuously burn. I'm not going to let you keep your thumb lit for the next who knows how long. We need candles," he repeats, insistently, trying to get Steven to understand this much.

Though Steven doesn't realize it, this is Norrell's library in Norrell's house. Ergo, Norrell would know where the candles are so he was send off to find them while Strange kept the candle from being snuffed out by the darkness. And the darkness in question moves towards Steven, covering some of the broken mirror shards as it inches closer towards him.

Steven hasn't totally noticed the darkness closing in on them yet. Mostly, he's focused on this lighting problem. He looks at his thumb lighter, trying to think of what could replace candles.

"Well, I don't have any of those..." he starts, mulling it over. "But... We could try burning something else instead, right?"

There's gotta be all kinds of stuff they could burn in this place! That will totally burn for a long time! Perfect.

"What could we burn?" Strange sighs. He starts to mull it over as well, looking over the room. There's a few things that are wooden: chairs, desks, the bookshelves themselves. But if they set one of those on fire, what's to keep it from burning the whole place down? Obviously keeping the library intact is important, not just because it's the room where they're standing in, but because of other, less specified dream-reasons.

"There's furniture, but that's about it. All the books have vanished."

The darkness seems to be avoiding Strange, keeping a safe distance from the candle. But it continues to encroach on Steven, now mere inches from the kid. Steven can feel utter cold and a sense of loss and longing.

"Yeee-" Steven cringes, fluttering away from the darkness and closer to Strange, so that he's basically floating over his shoulder. He looks at the shadows like he's just been burnt by them (like he sort of has) and then looks at Strange a bit more frantically.

"What is that stuff?! It feels... really bad..."

He doesn't really process the part where the books are gone. The spooky darkness has taken priority.

"It's the faerie's curse," Strange remarks, as if it's completely obvious. "You knew I was cursed, didn't you?"

No Strange, Steven didn't know you were cursed, because you've literally told two people in the carnival about being cursed. Still, Strange looks from Steven to the darkness and back again. It shouldn't be acting like that. Steven is neither English nor a magician and now that the faerie who cast the curse is dead, the curse stabilized into something workable.

Then again, this is a dream. And, as such, while he still doesn't know how to fix the darkness, Strange knows how to make it easier. Maybe. He hopes. "I can't get rid of it but I can try to make it less. That's what the other candles are supposed to be for."

Steven... doesn't get that. He assumes that Strange means one of the faeries that they are all familiar with, not one from back home. He hesitates, trying to make sense of it.

"What... kind of curse...?" he asks slowly, looking increasingly concerned. Faerie curses are not at all something he's familiar with yet.

Strange is just having a hard time wrapping his head around Steven's confusion. Why would he ask what curse, he's here, he should know what curse he's talking about! (Except Steven's not supposed to be here, a voice in Strange's head points out. Which is silly, because he is here, so how can that happen in the first place?)

"A curse that the faerie laid down, the one with thistledown hair and a coat the color of leaves. Norrell and I are trapped here, in this pillar of darkness, away from England and traveling off who knows where."

And again, Steven shouldn't be here. So Strange is just looking at him with an increasingly concerned look. A few of the ravens on the bookshelf mirror that look as well, staring at Steven. How did he get here?

So that's... not Nightshade, is it? It doesn't sound like Nightshade. Steven gapes, and then glances around the room, it finally dawning on him. Oh right! Dreaming! Right. That's what he's doing.

"You're dreaming!" he blurts out, all while making a few wrong assumptions. "It's okay! I think I accidentally floated into your dream, but none of this is really happening, so it's okay, right?"

Thought the darkness certainly felt more real than a dream normally would for him. Not that he's done this a lot...

Strange...just looks at Steven with a quizzical frown. Dreaming? He...yes, he is dreaming. He's at the carnival. Well, technically at Hearthstone, but it still counts. That frown vanishes a moment later, replaced by a small smile, as Strange connects the dots and it all snaps into place.

"That does explain some things," Strange remarks, with a little laugh. Steven's not supposed to be here. And, now that he realizes he's dreaming, he realizes a few other things aren't supposed to be here as well.

"You'll have to give me a moment—some of the details aren't right." And if this is his dream, he should be able to fix it. Closing his eyes, Strange mutters something under his breath. For one brief moment, the flame on the candle shoots up, burning brighter. The darkness stops pulsing and the mirror shards vanish from the floor. There's one brief moment when all the voices muffled by the darkness are loud, as if ten or so people speaking all at once, before they vanish as well, leaving the room silent as the grave.

But that doesn't change the fact that they're still in a library, there's still no books, that feeling of wrongness lingers, and the room is still shrouded in darkness. The birds are still there also. Despite all the indicators of 'bad shit', Strange looks over the new scene with an appreciatory smile. "There we go! Back to normal." A raven caws. "Well, almost back to normal. You should be back in England by now! Shoo!"

Steven is still frowning. He's not so reassured. This dream is way spookier than any he's been to before!

"Is this... normal?" Steven asks, eyeing that darkness uncertainly. His brow creases as his worries begin to accumulate. "I've never seen this kind of thing before! Not... that I've seen many dreams at all. I try really hard not to do this... I know it's rude and invasive and it's not my place, so I'm sorry that I intruded."

His shoulders slacken, him only now remembering the state of mine that caused him to drift off into the astral plane in the first place.

"I guess I was just... freaked out. And didn't want to deal with stuff for a while."

It only makes sense that Steven was freaked out. After all, the argument about the fae was only a few days ago, the poor boy's probably still got that on the mind. But really, if Steven decides to cope by traveling through dreams...well, Strange can't judge. At least he's trying to cope and at least he apologized.

"Normally I'd consider a man's dreams his own private business," Strange can't help but gently chide. "However, I don't mind sharing this one with you. Though since you're here, we should change it to something more fun! I highly doubt you'd want to spend all your time with a stuffy magician inside a stuffy curse."

After all, this is his dream! And if someone can change and shift his dream to something else entirely, then of course it was going to be Jonathan Strange! Who else could do something like that in the first place?

Besides, Steven's freaked out already. The last place he needs to be is inside the mind of someone dreaming about a faerie's curse. He doesn't want to scare Steven any more than he already is.

Steven gives Strange basically the worst kind of puppy face - that is, the sad puppy face. Because that wording implies that the curse he mentioned wasn't such part of the dream. Either way, Steven feels like it needs to know.

"Does that mean... the curse is real? You weren't just dreaming it?"

What Strange just said was so sweet, and what that curse felt like was so horrible - Steven feels awful that it could be something Strange actually has to deal with. Why are fae always like this? He doesn't get it.

Aw geez that is one sad puppy face. But Strange isn't going to lie and he's not going to try and sugar-coat the truth. Steven wants to know, so Steven will be told what happened. It's just a damn pity he couldn't distract Steven by talking about dreaming something better.

"The curse is real, though it doesn't affect me at the carnival. I don't mind it though. The alternative was worse and I know I'll break the curse someday."

He's got to. He's already been away from Arabella for far too long. He knows she's safe and he knows she's perfectly fine back in Venice, but that doesn't change the fact that he misses her like hell.

Steven folds his ears back, taking that in. He guesses he can't act like he doesn't have a bunch of crazy stuff going on back home, either. Thought, at least his most recent disaster was just getting resolved... hopefully. He never actually saw the fore sure end result, or what could have happened when he was gone.

He'd just abruptly found himself back at the carnival, then. Which... maybe was for the best. For both of them.

"What are you going to do? Are you just... going to go back, when you're done with your contract?"

Strange's hope for the future has allowed Steven to ease up a bit - he knows that he would want to look at it the same way.

"I am," he explains, with a nod. In a matter of fact tone of voice, he continues. "I've already gained what I made my contract for, so I plan on spending the rest of my time here learning about the fae. Hopefully some piece of that information will help."

And, to Strange's credit, he's picked up some information on the fae that doesn't boil down entirely to 'they suck.' Weaknesses to iron, magical capabilities, capabilities of the threshold, the importance of one's true name, all scraps of texts and hundred year old theories that Strange found an answer to. There's some possibly useful stuff in there that either he or Norrell could use to help break the curse.

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⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

night of day 171!

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