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

Steven calms, his worry being overcome with confusion and curiosity. He doesn't know anybody who is an owl, does he? He looks back at the sword, mostly because that's what the owl is doing, but then looks back to his shoulder.

"Um... I know you, right? You just don't... look like anyone I know, right now."

He's never encountered anyone who was lucid in their dreams without his provocation, so that's new. More lucid than Steven was, in fact.

"You do. It's Syrlya." The owl says it warmly, lifting out a wing in emphasis. "You could say the effects of our visit to Greysol have lingered."

At least that a part of Syrlya has decided to remain an owl.

"Ohhh... right!" Steven says, smacking his fist into his palm in recognition. "Your daemon!"

Steven hadn't had a real daemon, but that was okay. He'd basically had enough personal exploration for a while, and he already had his Pokepals.

"Um... should I take this?" He gestures at the sword. It just seems like the sort of thing you should do when you see a sword stuck in the ground, right?

That's what every video game would tell you. The owl falls quiet for a moment, it's head tilting back and forth as it considers that.

"That is Caladbolg," it says with a certain air of gravity. "It is a blade of heroes, carried down by my people for the sake of championing for the innocent, and the life of our world."

The owl pulls it's wings back. "You may take it, but it is not to be taken lightly." It nods it's head. " Do you think you have the heart for such noble conviction?"

To be a hero?

Take this, it's not safe to go alone.

He makes it sound really serious, though, and in this context Steven has no idea how to gauge that. He frowns uncertainly. He's pretty sure that he already is sort of a hero... but what if it's in a different way than the owl means?

"Is... is it..." He tries to ask. "...Is it a real dream sword or is it a dream version of a magic sword you know from somewhere else?"

One of those seems more weighty than the other.

"I mean, I'm not from your planet or anything, so I don't want to impose!"

That makes the owl chuckle, ruffling against Steven's shoulder as it laughs.

"The latter. The real sword is in Tyria--I didn't bring it with me." It watches Steven thoughtfully. "You have a kind and thoughtful heart and you desire to help people. I doubt you would misuse it."

Besides, this is not a dream so deep in Syrlya's being that any real harm can be done. It isn't that powerful, so the owl isn't worried at all.

Steven blushes a little, though he smiles gratefully for that reassurance. He steps towards the sword, looking at it more closely. He's very curious admittedly.

"Thanks... I guess I can try, right?" He wraps his hand around the handle, and tugs the blade out of the ground without much effort - he could lift a big sword with ease even if he wasn't dreaming.

Steven won't have any trouble lifting it at all. It's only a memory of the real blade, but Steven can still feel the inter of its power--an encouragement to his strongest personality traits to be more intense. He'll easily be able to wave this feeling off, or he can ride the wave of emotional influence.

Also, there are pretty butterflies floating around it.

"You can choose either path. They will both lead you to Syrlya." This is, after all, his dream.

Steven takes the sword and slings it over his shoulder because he doesn't know what else to do with it for now. He pauses for a moment to consider it.

"...How do you guys already know that you're dreaming and stuff? Usually, when this happens, the other person doesn't realize unless I tell them... Do you go into people's dreams, too?"

They didn't seem very surprised to see him turn up in the first place.

"Not like you do." The owl seems to consider that. "Perhaps I have always been more inclined to recognize my dreams. I became aware before my proper Awakening, after all."

The owl turns his head, certain that won't make a ton of sense to Steven. He's not Sylvari, after all, and Syrlya hasn't gotten around to explaining it. "Are only dream walkers such as you aware of such things, where you come from?"

"I... don't know," Steven says, after a moment. His other hand grips at the swords handle again, with a slight note of tension. "I'm the only one I know who can do this. I... I don't even know if my mom could. No one ever talked about it."

He's quiet for a moment, and then bows his head in a little nod.

"I think humans can realize they're sleeping sometimes, but it's usually... kind of hard. And confusing. But my power is because of my gem parts."

"Gem parts?" The owl turns its head. "I have never asked about your particular race. Are your gem parts more natural to you than your plant ones?"

Its tone is a little teasing. If Steven isn't human, that's just another to the lot of them--Syrlya has no place to talk about being inhuman.

"I'm half human and half gem," he explains. "Gems are magical people from space... like Lapis and Peridot! They're full gems, but my dad is a human." Whom Syr has already heard about before.

"The plant thing is sort of new? But kind of not, too. I could bring plants to life before I came here, but... they never grew on me like this before."

He frowns, hesitating again for a moment.

"...But now it's even more complicated, because my fake mom was a fae in Portland, and now I'm part Summer Fae too? Now I'm really not like anyone, anywhere."

And the way he phrases it, it doesn't sound like that's necessarily a good thing.

"Or you are like many people," the owl moves to stroke its chin with a wing, for effect. Whether or not an owl should physically be able to do that doesn't seem to be a concern. "Able to share and understand more than one experience because you live a little bit of each. Although whatever one's race, our hearts are all the same."

The owl eyes Steven. "But I've been told any changes that resulted from the carnival should reverse themselves once you leave. So you may return to being simply human and gem."

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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