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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Syrlya passed a quick whisper to Lambert at the start of their horse riding practice--"We found something of interest," though the tone that he says it in is tight, strained. Still, they have to at least create an illusion of participation to start, while the servants are milling, so he doesn't get the opportunity to do much more before they separate in the stables.

It's an activity Syrlya is more than happy to leave behind a little early, because he's tired of getting thrown off the damn beast and in general being disagreeable with his mount. He waits for at least 9S and Lambert to gather somewhere off from the stables, away from where the servants are assisting with putting the horses away and starting to line the other carnival members up to take them to lunch.

This was, perhaps, a little urgent to wait for free time over.

Edited 2017-10-11 05:56 (UTC)

9S, in contrast, loves the horseriding practice. It's something that he actually already has experience in, albeit with a bareback mount, and it's an opportunity to burn off all the extra energy that has been building up thanks to the multitude of meals he's unused to having.

But he's more than aware of Syr and Lambert's positions, and soon joins them. Notably, his pod is with him, when it has been curiously missing the past two days. The excuse to the servants is that today they're participating in activities he could get hurt, and his pod is the only one who can repair him. But that's not why it's here.

When Lambert appears, 9S greets him with a quiet, "Sir." No salute, though. He knows better than that here.

Lambert spent most of the time riding his own horse, at a remarkably sedate pace -- though that may have something to do with the faint tremor that every hoofbeat sends through the ground. Close by, racing and frolicking around the larger beast, is a bright orange donkey.

A press of a button returns donkey and horse both to their balls in a flash of light, and Lambert at 9S and Syrlya, before cocking his head to the side, raising his brows. By now, this is routine: scan the immediate area for servants before they start reporting anything, then further conceal themselves. If it's as important as Syrlya made it sound, he'll let him get right to it.

Syrlya glances over his shoulder once more to assure no one's looking before he waves a hand to put them all under a veil of stealth, did the servants don't get any ideas to come over here. He leans closet, keeping his voice hushed so they're as quiet as possible.

"We confirmed what the Acquisitioner found the night before, about his less human servants. None of them have extra appendages like tails, they..." He pauses, his expression darkening as he furrows his brow. "One of them was in pain fur to a wound at the tailbone. I suspect something was severed."

By herself or the Prince, he wasn't sure. But it looks like not all deviation is tolerated. "None of them could help her, until one with antlers carried her away through some secret passages-- they are hidden in the walls."

"Fuck." Lambert says, eloquently, but quietly, face twisting up in disgust and fury -- less at the specific outrage for the servant's plight, really, but more a general disgust at the Prince the Ringmaster's trying so hard to bargain with. He's starting to feel pretty sure it isn't worth it. The hidden walls aren't much of a surprise -- of course a manor would have them -- but there's little time before the hunt to decide what to do about this information. They certainly can't go knocking on walls, can they?

"She might have gotten her tail cut off and the other servants couldn't, or wouldn't help?" he asks. There's a difference, there. Though they're hidden now, he'll still glance around warily. "The Prince is already keeping them out of sight because they're not pretty enough. Why go that far?"

As he speaks, he's already pulling the map out of where it's been tucked into his doublet, unfolding it so he can take a look.

Edited 2017-10-11 21:59 (UTC)

9S desperately wants to ask about the mysterious disappearing horses Lambert owns, but now probably isn't a good time to get distracted. The secret passageway is indeed marked on the map, and if Lambert is familiar with the specific area, it would seem as though it is behind solid stone.

"It looked like this happens enough that it's normal for them. They're scared but... Their reaction is like as if the injured one has some disease. Who wants to go help someone with an incurable infection? When it's gone too far, best to isolate and... End it, maybe. It feels a bit like that."

Syrlya purses his lips. "The one with antlers changed their bandages, but nothing more. She tried to continue working until the pain became unbearable, but..."

He looks over his shoulder briefly. "You're right, he keeps them far out of sight. Perhaps he has a limit of tolerance, or... perhaps she did it to herself."

Trying to shed the most inhuman limb, either for survival in the castle or... "He clearly has no love lost for servants who cease to look how he pleases, no doubt due to the same magic that changes the members of the carnival."

Edited 2017-10-11 23:06 (UTC)

"Funny, because that's his fault." Lambert's lip curls. "Stay in a fae realm long enough, the fae's magic changes you. He can dress in whatever he wants, but he can't change being a Wyld Fae."

Sometimes, it's hard to remember what people do and don't know already, but Syrlya and 9S came into the Carnival after Portland, so he supposes they wouldn't know that. He's still keeping his voice low, keeping an ear out for approaching servants, but his body's tense, mind racing as he tries to fit this information into everything else we know about the Prince, which isn't much.

There is, however, something else glaringly obvious to him, and he presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, scowling.

"We know he's an ass." But that's par for the course with fae. "We know his servants are scared to shit -- even if I haven't seen him do more than mope around. But we still don't know why he wanted the Ringmaster to bring us here." He sounds increasingly frustrated as he goes on, pulling his hand away from his face. "Seems like the only thing he's really interested in is looking human ... and even with all his magic, he can't. If us being here is supposed to change that, I don't know how."

And more importantly, he's not sure what the Ringmaster hopes to get out of him! Being in the dark sure is fun, huh? But he trails off, glancing down at the map with a frown. Hold on, there's something that wasn't there before.

9S' experience with magic amounts to a grand total of zero, if you don't count what people have shown him at the Carnival. So he doesn't have much input on that. He does, however, have something to say about the new words, after taking it his own and glancing over it.

"A ball? What's that?"

Somehow, he gets the feeling it isn't a spherical object.

"Something is probably going to happen then, right? What? And why wait until then?"

"Oh, thorns," Syrlya hisses as he reads Strange's memo. They hadn't had any luck finding anything on where Tyki disappeared to, and now they're missing more carnival employees?! "I've suspected we may only be here as collateral, and what he wants it actually something from her but... it is only a guess."

Either there's some deeper want that even his servants aren't aware of, or the Ringmaster specifically has the ability to grant it for him. An exchange. But in his territory, he has all the power to put them on the line...

"Whatever she intends to obtain from the Prince must have been worth the risk, or wouldn't she have turned him down?"

He's not even concerned about the ball just yet, failing to explain that to 9S at all.

"A ball is a formal dance," Lambert says, with more grimness than that news probably merits. Syrlya might not be that concerned, but he sure is, considering past experiences.

"Do you have a pen?" That question is addressed at 9S, holding a hand out, as he continues on, lips twitching downward. He'd been visibly preoccupied at breakfast, and then with the servants and everyone else around he hadn't had a chance to get into it, but ...

"Strange's count is missing one," he continues. Assuming he gets the pen, he's going to begin writing on the map as he speaks. "The Warden's also gone."

Edited 2017-10-12 05:40 (UTC)

Of course he has a pen, after learning he had to draw the map by hand thanks to everyone being unable to receive digital map data. 9S hands it over silently.

And swears quietly at the next bit of news. "Shit."

One of the supervisors?

"Should we try and find them? People are gonna notice and probably start looking for their friends."

The last thing they need is more people going missing. Three in one night is a lot to take in. At least they actually have tools at their disposal for it. Some of the other members... probably not. At the very least they know the meaning of caution.

Edited 2017-10-12 09:47 (UTC)

Syrlya strangles down a sound before it can get too loud, staring at Lambert with wide eyes. missing now, seriously?! And it's a Supervisor--there's no missing that empty spot at the head of the table, Syrlya had certainly seen his absence at breakfast. If he keeps not showing up.

Syrlya pinches the bridge of his nose, pursing his lips for a moment. "They will panic. They will see us getting picked off and when a member of leadership goes missing they will panic." It's a strategy he's familiar with from battle, and most of the carnival is civilians. They have no sense not to act on their emotions.

"We need to buy time. Time, and a plan, and a way to break the news without them all running off--" He flexes his hand in the air, grasping for ideas. And then stops as he considers something.

Lambert is glad Syrlya is quick on the uptake and is so willing to voice it; he hasn't known 9S for long, but it saves time on the explanations.

"Time's the one thing they're making sure we don't have." He has to wonder if that's what the schedule is deliberately designed around. How much more time do they even have, right now? He glances around them, frowning. They'll be coming up on another mealtime, meaning more opportunities to notice missing people...

"The supervisors know they're gone. Sans has a brother, Papyrus..." Lambert grimaces, not immediately noticing Syrlya landing on an idea. "... hard to say how he'll take it." Either be aggressively cheerful, or... he doesn't know.

Yeah if it's one thing he's learnt very quickly about the Carnival, it's the fact they're kind of bad at dealing with pressure. No offense.

...Right. Papyrus had mentioned he had a brother when they met. The skeleton had seemed a little... simple? Maybe he won't notice.

Who's he kidding, he'd totally notice his brother going missing.

9S shoots Syrlya a sidelong glance. "Do you have an idea?"

Syrlya absolutely expects that someone would notice their brother missing (god, he has a brother), let alone everyone else. It's sort of obvious.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I could... I could cast an illusion at meal times to take his place. Just until we are able to talk to the rest of the carnival and emphasize the importance of them behaving. We cannot afford to lose more people because they don't understand the risks or--or think they can fix anything themselves."

He looks up at Lambert. "Ideally, no one will be trying to engage him more than necessary there, where the Prince is looking." The hunt could also provide cover, since they'll all be scattered.

"You can do that?" Lambert asks, crossing his arms. "What do you need to cast it?"

Honestly, this sounds like a pretty stupid idea to him, but he absolutely doesn't have anything better. And Syrlya's right; they need to buy time and figure out what to say. Though 'what to say' really boils down to 'can you all stop fucking up?'

9S can think of a million ways this can go wrong. Will the Prince even say anything? The guy didn't say anything over breakfast and prooobably already knows he's got his paws on several of their members, so...

But, like Lambert, he honestly doesn't have any better ideas. Well, other than blowing up the place and leaving maybe.

Blowing up the place seems like a bad idea.

9S doesn't say anything for now, letting the mesmer explain.

Syrlya absolutely expects the Prince knows--and the Ringmaster too, because there are empty seats at the table and how do you miss that? Especially over multiple days. So--terrible plans it is.

"Nothing. I craft the illusion out of magic directly." He waves his hand, but he's not going to cast it here. "The only problem might be if someone tries to speak to it, as... I do not know the Warden very well."

He eyes Lambert at that. He's assuming the Nightrider knows him better and can clue him in on Sans's disposition and habits. Quirks. Anything to make the act convincing.

... Is he supposed to fill in something, here? Syrlya looks like he's waiting for something. After a moment of staring back, Lambert shrugs, shifting his weight.

"As far as I can tell, nobody really knows Sans that well. Naps a lot, keeps to himself mostly -- he'll call you 'pal,' but never says what's on his mind. Unless he's drunk." Which he wouldn't be, given the situation.

"If he doesn't want to deal with something, he can always just teleport out." A smirk, here. "And he'll take any chance he can get to make a pun. So I hope you've got a good sense of humor."

"I will keep that in mind." But preferably he won't have to try and mimic all his behavior at all. The 'teleport when he doesn't want to deal with something' is something he will pointedly remember.

"Once we have our hour of freedom, we should tell them--directly, and emphasize the need to cooperate lest we lose anyone else." Cooperate with the Prince and the Nightrunners. If they don't endanger themselves, it gives the Nightrunners more time to spend looking for the lost instead.

What is there to even say? Lambert doesn't know, but he supposes that's what they're trying to buy time for -- to figure it out.

"It's going to have to come from someone who isn't me," is what he'll settle on, finally, looking away. "We already told them what the Prince was about, and you heard how that turned out. I don't think they're going to listen again. Do what you need to do, and I'll see if I can get one of the other supervisors to play along.."

Of course, they don't realize it yet, but the hunt and its aftermath will completely derail those plans. Ah, well. For now, Lambert frowns, turning to address 9S.

"You said your pod could replay memories. Show me the servants." If nothing else, he'll have their faces, as unlikely as it is that he'll see them if the Prince keeps them hidden away.

Edited 2017-10-22 00:09 (UTC)

That, 9S agrees on. Having more people disappear is something they vehemently want to avoid. They know of the secret passages now. Maybe they can figure out where the missing people have gone, hopefully without needing to go on a big rescue mission.

"Hm? Oh, yeah." 9S glances over to where Pod 153 is hovering by his shoulder. "Pod, replay Memory 0172 from point 0257 at one and half speed." They don't have time to view everything in normal speed, after all.

The only reason Pod 153 doesn't say its usual confirmation message is because 9S instructed it to stay silent for now.

The memory is projected out from Pod 153 in a small holographic screen, with 9S skipping out on the segments where there was nothing interesting to see. You know how this goes.

Lambert's expression doesn't betray much more than what he already showed earlier. He's not inclined to be inherently sympathetic or kind to servants except in the vague principle no one should spend the rest of their life cleaning up after dicks. When they're finished, he nods in affirmation, turning to the other two.

"Looks like a pretty bad injury, all right." Strange that she kept trying to work through it. With the Prince shutting them away from sight anyway, was there really a point there?

"Interesting that they're visible at night. If the Prince hates them so much, you'd think he'd get rid of them altogether." Ha ha ha. As he speaks, he rummages through the pouches of his belt, eventually producing two potion bottles that he offers to each of them.

"Here. If you run into anyone else injured like that, or have a chance to get one of those you saw alone, see if they'll take this. It's a potion to speed up curing wounds-- packs a hell of a punch, but if they're that changed by magic already, they should be fine."

Lambert shrugs. "Maybe fixing them up'll convince them we're not on the Prince's side here." Lambert has a vague grasp of human relations, but favors generally work, don't they?

Edited 2017-10-23 07:09 (UTC)

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⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

Day 173

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sorry, the ball happened and everything exploded

lol it's cool

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