lostcarnival | ⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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⇨ 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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Strange bites down on the inside of his cheek, trying to stop himself from yelping out in pain or giving Rita the satisfaction of knowing that hey, her stomping on his foot really hurt.

And sure. Asking to avoid someone. Uh huh. Maybe it's because Strange spent part of Greysol teasing 9S about a crush that he 100% doesn't have, but Strange can't help but give Rita a look that's pure 'uh huh, suuuuure'. Of course she wants to know the rules so she can avoid people and not because she wants to particularly dance with someone. Strange ain't buying it.

He nods a bit as Rita straightens up, shifting into a more proper posture. "You're better at this when you stop worrying about it so much," he gently chides her. "Just follow the steps and relax." Of course, they haven't added music or started moving or done anything remotely complex yet but hey, Strange doesn't expect Rita to completely master the waltz in an hour. They're aiming for perfectly passable right about now.

"I'm not worrying about a damn thing. This is child's play," she huffs at him. He is right, though, even if she'd never admit it. Rita does best with this sort of thing when she stops overthinking it and lets the steps become a routine.

"Can't we move on to the real thing already?" Strange might not expect Rita to master the waltz in one session, but Rita still figures it can't be that hard. It's just a dumb, repetitive dance. Should be simple for her.

Strange can't help but raise an eyebrow at that. Move onto the real thing? Well fine then, if she insists. Maybe it'll convince Rita to stop complaining. He steps away from her, putting his hands to his side as he looks around.

"We'll need some music." Fortunately, there is a piano at the other end of the parlor room. There aren't any servants in the room, but it wouldn't surprise Strange if there were a few standing directly outside the door, partly to eavesdrop, partly to escort them as needed, partly to make certain the two of them don't run off. He starts walking towards the parlor's entrance, opens the door, and as expected, there are a few standing outside. Rita can overhear the conversation as Strange asks if anyone can play the piano, one responding that he can, and then Strange practically dragging the poor man back into the parlor. The servant looks like a bit of a nervous wreck as he sits down at the bench and Strange returns back to Rita.

"A waltz tempo, something moderately paced." And then, Strange turns back to Rita and offers her his hand. "Are you ready?"

Last chance to back out and ask for some more practice. Because you bet Strange is going to make this slightly difficult and add in a few superfluous turns into the dance as well, just to try and trip her up.

Back out? Rita? Never.

"I'm always ready," she retorts. She takes his hand and positions herself as she was for the practice. There's a creeping sense that she'll regret this, but she can't let that show. This is supposed to be easy, and the only way it's going to be easy is if she approaches it with full confidence.

As the music starts up, Strange leads Rita into a dance. This is a full tilt waltz as he moves all around the room, moving them in a circle, occasionally twirling as they move. Strange may be a whiner of a man who's absolutely abysmal at physical contact, but with this? He's moving expertly. Even if Rita steps on his feet or stumbles a bit, Strange manages to keep moving and keep to the rhythm and continue to drag her along the dance floor.

Somebody put plenty of points into posh nonsense.

He doesn't let go of Rita until the song ends, at which point Strange steps away, and gives her a bow. Just ignore the fact that he looks amazingly smug right now.

And so Rita gets dragged along, sometimes following, sometimes stumbling over his feet or hers, uttering the occasional oof or what the hell as they go. She manages to demonstrate rapid improvement, but not quite at a level befitting her earlier smugness. This isn't exactly easy for her, and it shows.

When it's over, Rita doesn't reciprocate the bow in any way. She simply turns her head away and humphs at him. "Was that a lesson, or did you just want to show off?" she grumbles.

"Can't it be both?" he answers, still looking amazingly smug. Because it is both. It's Strange showing off and also trying to knock Rita off her high horse a little bit. "For all your talk about how dancing should be easy and how this is child's play, you weren't that good."

He'll give her that much: Rita wasn't terrible. It was definitely more along the lines of taking someone who had minimal experience and throwing them into a dance than taking someone who couldn't dance in the slightest. But the fact remains that if she were on an actual dance floor, she'd barely manage to keep up.

"Now, shall we do this again or do you want to return to the basics?"

Frowning, Rita considers the question. She'd like to stop, or do something less intense (and, frankly, embarrassing) but she doesn't like leaving things half-finished. If she walks away from this without having learned the full dance, she'll have wasted her time. And the only way to really learn is by pushing forward and just doing it.

So, with some reluctance, she answers, "We'll do it again. But warn me before you do any more of that weird twirling crap." Or anything else that wasn't in the practice.

Strange's smug smile fades into a determined one. Good. At least she's ready to keep going and won't throw in the towel just yet.

"In this case, how about a simple waltz in a circle around the room. I'll give you advice as we go."

Granted, Strange has a feeling most of the advice will boil down to 'straighten up' and 'stop looking at your feet' but hey, hopefully Rita will get it drilled in her head if that's the case.

Rita nods in agreement, and before long, they're back to dancing. She manages to get used to the steps, enough that she no longer looks at her feet, though her posture still needs correction from time to time.

After a while of that, once she's comfortable enough that Strange's corrections grow sparse, she speaks suddenly. "By the way, there's something that's been bugging me for a while." Since their dancing puts them close together and keeps others from coming into their space, it's as good a time as any to talk candidly, so long as she keeps her voice down. "There's this weird magic around you that I don't recognize. What is that?" Strange must be aware of it, being able to perceive magic in the same way she does.

Weird magic? What is she—oh. Strange knows what she's talking about. He continues dancing but looks briefly guilty before he launches into an explanation.

"If you ask her, the Ringmaster can send you home for a period of time. I chose to do so—and don't worry, I was only missing from the carnival for a day or so. But in the time I was back in England, one of my fae cursed me."

Rita's probably going to ask him a billion questions about that. But, Strange can at least head off the most important one first and foremost. "It doesn't affect me in the carnival. I already know the faerie phrased the curse lazily, I believe he phrased it so lazily that it only affects my world and the parts of faerie that surround it."

"Cursed--?" Rita echoes in a sharp whisper as soon as he says it, but the surprise causes her to lag behind in the rhythm. While she forces herself to catch up her footing to match his, Strange gets the opportunity to explain. Okay, so she probably doesn't have to worry about it affecting her or anyone else. But that still leaves a lot of questions, such as...

"What kind of curse? And how the hell did that happen?" Those might be two questions with complex answers, but she blurts them both out practically at once. Seriously, how careless can one guy be? It's like he can't go anywhere without tripping and falling into some terrible trap laid by fae.

How on Earth is he supposed to answer both of those questions in a relatively brief manner? Strange pauses the conversation for a moment as he continues dancing, mostly to try and find a brief way to explain without dragging Rita into more of his world's nonsense.

"It's a dangerous curse, one that almost killed me. The death of the enchanter managed to stabilize it, but not remove it. And it happened because I went to the realm of faerie to try and save my wife. The fae that kidnapped her took my arrival badly." Which, granted, it is still kind of Strange's fault for getting cursed, but at least in his mind, that's a perfectly serviceable motive for dumb actions.

The death of the enchanter... He means a fae? Rita certainly wants to know how that happened, but with what else he's saying... well, even she has enough compassion to know what should be asked first.

Without making eye contact, she asks cautiously, "Your wife... is she...?" Dead? Safe? Still herself? There are a lot of ways a fae kidnapping can end, most of them not good.

A small little gentle smile spreads on Strange's face. "She's alive. Safe, back in Venice."

And he just sounds so happy, so relieved, so downright pleased about that fact. It's obvious from his tone of voice just how much Strange adores Arabella and how happy he is that she's safe in the first place. If she were to die or to be stuck there...he wouldn't know what to do.

"Right..." Rita tries to look mostly neutral about the whole thing, but her shoulders and wings sag just slightly in relief. She doesn't know the lady, so it's not like she cares on a personal level or anything. It's just uplifting to hear that struggling against the fae isn't hopeless. They can be beaten.

And on that note... "You said the fae who cursed you died. How?" She's going to go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't natural causes.

"It's complicated." And certainly wasn't natural causes. Strange pauses for a moment, thinking of how best to explain this without going off into a big nerdy rant. He's going to tell Rita the truth, of course. But phrasing it as 'we summoned the Raven King but then tried to give him all of English magic symbolically as a gift but instead shoved it in a butler who then proceeded to use said English magic to murder a faerie' raises way too many questions.

"Someone was used as a vessel for all of English magic. Once that happened, he was able to strike against the fae with the power and entirety of magic itself. Only that was enough to defeat the fiend once and for all."

Looks like Strange isn't kidding when he says it's complicated.

“All of English magic?” Rita echoes, a puzzled look on her face. “How do you... what does that even mean?” Is he referring to the quantity of magic energy, or something else...?

For a moment, there was a glimmer of hope that Strange had found a way to definitively defeat the fae, but that's already been crushed under a wave of doubt that it's anything resembling a repeatable process. Besides, if it was, Strange would probably be gloating a lot more.

"I mean all of English magic," Strange repeats, a bit annoyed. And for all of Strange's 'let's try not to explain it in a way that raises too many questions' that he thought just mere seconds earlier, he's going to have to explain this in a way that raises too many questions. What does that even mean, well it means all of English magic, well who was used as the vessel in the first place, it was supposed to be the Raven King, you summoned the Raven King, et cetera et cetera.

"Norrell and I summoned the Raven King, he left, we wanted to call him back so we used symbolic magic, offering up Norrell's library as a token to represent all of English magic. It...went oddly, but everything wound up right in the end."

Except for the whole being cursed thing.

Rita takes her hand away from his shoulder for a moment just to run it over her face, like. What the hell.

"You offered up his library... Isn't that a lot of irreplaceable knowledge?" There are only a few things Rita knows about Norrell, and his reputation for book-hoarding is one of them. But then, maybe that's exactly what's meant by all magic... It wouldn't be much of an offering if it didn't involve a genuine sacrifice. Still, Rita's heart aches for the loss of all those books. Imagine if that happened to Aspio's library!

... Oh, right. It kind of did.

"You said you used someone for a vessel. Are they... okay?" she asks after a pause, realizing that no variations of saying you did what will amount to anything productive, so she might as well ask about the technical aspects of the ritual.

"It is. But England is full of magic now. The new magicians will find a way to make something new and different from the ashes of what Norrell and I made—much like how the magicians of your world will make something new and different with the blastia removed."

Rita should be able to understand. Just because something was being removed and magic had to change didn't mean that everything was entirely lost. As terrible as it sounds for England to lose so much knowledge and so many books, part of Strange doesn't mind. After all, he and Norrell were...somewhere else now. It was up to men like Childermass, like the rest of the York Society of Magicians to take what they had done and build something new and exciting from it.

"But yes, to the best of my knowledge, they're fine."

Fun fact: Strange has only the slightest hint of a clue if Stephen Black (the guy who got magic shoved into him) is okay or not.

"I see... so your world's about to have a new start, too." The tension leaves Rita's expression as she lets that sink in. There's something hopeful and exciting about the prospect of rebuilding an entire system of magic from scratch. Perhaps there'll be even more overlap in their studies than previously thought...

Also, with Rita relaxing and focusing less on the dancing, she's actually improving, her movements becoming smoother now that she isn't overthinking them.

But there is one question remaining. "What are you going to do about the curse?"

"I'm going to try and find a way to break it." It's a simple enough answer. He's cursed, what's he going to do about it, he'll find a way to stop it. Strange refuses to be cooped up in that tower, shut away from Arabella and the rest of England forever. Besides, the more he stays here and the more he learns about the fae, the closer he'll get to breaking the curse in it's entirety.

At this point, the music comes to a stop. Strange takes a few steps away from Rita and bows. "Curtsy," he reminds her, before she can even attempt to curtsy or not.

"I figured that much," Rita retorts. Of course he'll try to break it. The question is how he'll try to do it.

Wait... curtsy? When they step away, Rita's first inclination is to mimic his bow, which she starts to do but quickly stops. Was that wrong? "You want me to what?" she asks, giving him a confused look. Even among nobles, curtsying isn't a thing in Terca Lumireis.

"Cursy," Strange repeats, as if Rita should know what he's saying. Since she doesn't...looks like he'll have to explain. Strange mimics a curtsy, which looks a bit awkward considering that he's a six foot tall stringbean who's not even wearing a skirt.

"You grab the edges of your skirt while you're doing so—your arms aren't sticking out in the middle of nowhere like mine are."

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