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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Yuya nods encouragingly as Rita adjusts her arm to match his. He swivels the arrow back up so that it rests on his index finger pointing out, while he uses two fingers with his thumb to hold it in place against the string as he pulls his back.

He shifts his body to a proper stance, so Rita has a full picture to work with. "This is how they showed me to do it! Apparently it's the best way to stand so you can aim and not hit yourself with the string."

The best way to stand...? That gets Rita looking at his feet and realizing how far off her positioning is. She adjusts, lining up her feet with the target and then straightening her posture once more. "Like this...?"

She pulls back the string, aims, and lets the arrow fly. It hits the target this time, though it lands near the lower edge of it, far from the bullseye. "Hm." It's a clear improvement over her other attempts, but Rita doesn't sound satisfied just yet.

"Hey, you hit the target!" Yuya grins. Rita may not be satisfied yet, but Yuya's encouraging that she's going in the right direction. "It took me a few tries to get the hang of it too."

He looks back to his target, straightening his posture as he aims and then fires off the shot. It makes a nice, solid, satisfying thwump as it hits one of the inner rings cleanly, standing straight out.

Sighing, Rita grabs another arrow, then takes her time positioning herself once again, casting the occasional glance back at Yuya to remind herself of the proper form.

She mutters to herself as she takes aim. "I can do this... If Yuya can do it, and that stupid old man can do it, then there no way I can't do it." It's not clear who the old man she's referring to is, as there doesn't appear to be anyone like that in their immediate vicinity.

The arrow is released, with greater force than last time, and it lands on its target once again. It's still off-center, but it's closer than the last one.

Yuya scrunches his face. Is that a compliment or an insult...?

He glances around, but nobody in the carnival is particularly old to begin with--she must mean someone from her home. Still, he doesn't want to interrupt her with questions while she's still getting the hang of it--maybe once she's firing with full confidence.

"You're getting closer. Keep trying!"

The good news is that Rita's tactic of putting other people down to encourage herself is... sort of working. The next two arrows she fires find similar success, hitting the target but failing to find the middle.

She fires yet another... and finally, this one hits the bullseye, square in the center.

"Hah! Take that!" she shouts triumphantly at... the target, maybe? It's not clear who her supposed adversary is, but she takes on a smug, adversarial tone regardless.

Yuya tucks his bow under his arm so he can clap for her, since they have to act proper and restrained and everything. "You got it! See, you just have to practice," he says it with a smile.

"You know someone who does archery?"

"Hm? Yeah." She did say something like that. "This old man I used to travel with. Acted like a bumbling idiot most of the time. His aim's about the only reliable thing about him."

As usual, Rita can't praise someone without wording it in the most backhanded way possible. In a way, the most worrying thing about trying archery for herself is that she might actually develop an appreciation for his skills.

Yuya perks up at that. Travelling...? Rita talked as though she spent all her time locked up and studying. Maybe this is a recent thing, like having friends.

"Is he your friend? What were you travelling for?"

"Friend might be pushing it a little, but..." Of course, Rita would hesitate to call most of her friends, her friends. It's kind of embarrassing. "Before coming here, I spent most of the past year traveling around the world with a few other people, investigating magic anomalies. He sort of... forced his way into the group at some point." She waves a hand in a vague gesture.

"It was a dangerous journey, so we all had to watch each other's backs," she adds, seemingly feeling a need to justify putting up with such a person to begin with.

Yuya smiles a bit. Finding friends in pursuit of an important goal... he understands that. Although he regards his new friends more positively than Rita might, or says she does.

"You can show him how good you got at archery when you see him again," he offers, notching another arrow and taking aim. It shoots straight into the bullseye when he lets go.

"Hmph... maybe. He'd probably just make some dumb, patronizing comment." Or, you know, a supportive one. But when Yuya does it, it's more tolerable, since he tends to be sincere when he says nice things. In contrast, Rita's learned not to take anything the old man says at face value.

Rita lines up another shot and fires, landing an arrow somewhere off-center on the target. She's still doing better on average, but replicating that one perfect shot she made won't be easy for her.

"What about you?" she asks, glancing over to Yuya's target. "Seems like you're taking to this just fine. Done much archery before?"

Yuya laughs and shakes his head at the compliment. "Thanks, but this is my first time. Maybe I'll keep doing it, but I play a different game instead."

He fires off another arrow. "It's kind of a big hobby for me, because I want to be as good as my dad." So he hadn't really dedicated a lot of time to other hobbies, or sports outside of school curriculum.

"A different game?" That sounds familiar. Didn't Yuya mention something like that before? Some game he played back home, where he used acrobatics. Rita tries to recall as she nocks another arrow. Right, it was...

"You mean that Monster Duels thing?" Close enough.

Yuya nods, pleased she remembered. "Yeah, that's it! It's really big back home, like a sport, and I'm gonna be a pro."

At least when things stop going to hell around him, and assuming he's really able to go back to some semblance of 'normal' after it's all over. But that's not a thought Yuya dwells on for long, instead firing off another arrow. "It's a card game, but there's action cards you have to run around to get and they can change the whole direction of things."

"Never heard of a card game that makes you run around," Rita comments. She looses the arrow, which lands in one of the inner rings of the target.

"I'm guessing it's not exactly poker," she adds with a half-shrug. Complex card games aren't really a thing where she's from, so she doesn't have much of a frame of reference.

"You don't have to, but it's a lot more fun when you do!" At least, in Yuya's expert opinion: action duels are only an improvement over the original game.

"When we get back to the carnival I'll show you! Everyone here from my world plays it, but mostly we've been having duels in our trailers."

"Well... maybe if I have time," Rita says dismissively, as if she doesn't have plenty of time on her hands in the carnival.

But after a few moments and a bit of thought, she adds smugly, "I should warn you, though... I happen to be good at games that involve strategy."

Yuya grins. That's kind of an expected response out of Rita, but he also genuinely believes that. She seems to be smart. "That's a good thing, right? Because then it'll be a challenge. I can let you borrow my deck and I'll find someone we can play against. It'll be fun!"

Fun? Rita hesitates to agree.

"Well... we'll see when we're back there," she says vaguely, aiming another arrow and releasing it. It hits the bulls-eye, eliciting a flash of delight in Rita's eyes. That's two perfect shots now. She really can do this.

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⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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