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

"I... what?" Foster looks absolutely blank for a moment. Once he'd taken his swing, seen it connect--once he'd had the petty satisfaction of seeing the success of his interference--he had immediately ceased to think about the game, or even pay the remotest amount of attention to it.

"Oh! Haha!" He has had this conversation with several other people at this point of the game. There's a pretty good chance he's sincerely that stupid and incompetent--if it weren't for the servants, there is absolutely no way he'd be able to make his way to and from the bathrooms, for example--but there's still the fact that it's interfering with the progression of the game itself.

"Mmmm...." He considers the field. "Mine was green, right?"

9S can be patient! Sometimes! This is one of those times! Maybe it's because at least the 'interference' is on the field, not body shots.

"Yeah, that's right."

9S casually leans on the handle of his mallet, the head in the grass. Yep, this is so much less stressful than his previous game.

"Wait... did you forget which one's yours?"

"I wasn't paying attention," Foster replies in such an offhand way that it's clear he's still not considering this to be an issue of much importance.

In fairness, it's only a game of croquet, but...

He considers the field for a moment more, distractedly taking in the positions of the balls and wickets.

Okay.

"It was green, right? Well. I guess we'll find out."

It's not a terribly complicated move--he takes his own mallet (honestly he was surprised to be given one, he'd half expected them to have more sense than that) and pauses just a moment before giving the green ball a solid whack.

A really solid whack.

In the wrong direction.

"Wow."

9S tracks the ball's trajectory with a low whistle.

"Uh. Nice shot," no that was an awful shot, it didn't even land in the field, "but that was in totally the wrong direction."

...And because he's so nice -- mostly because this guy's a human -- 9S says, "You wanna try that again?"

"Mmmmm." Foster looks after his lost ball, his face fairly unreadable. He honestly has no real attachment to this game; if anything, whether or not he succeeds or fails is just a (meaningless) reflection on his own incompetence.

"It's fine where it is," he decides, apparently satisfied with its placement anyway. "So it's your turn!"

And he's not taking any argument, so you might as well.

Well... Okay, then. He's not gonna argue the point.

"Alright, if you say so."

So he stops leaning on his mallet and wanders over to where his own ball is on the field.

"You know, it's kinda relaxing playing this game with you. My last partner was really bad."

9S swings and sends his ball just short of going through the nearest hoop.

Foster watches 9S's ball path cleanly towards the wicket without much expression--his investment in this game is fluctuating to begin with, and his ability to care about the actions of others is really low. His job is as his job has always been--to work around what others put in place and not to complain but to solve.

.... not that he's committed to solving much on this croquet pitch. He actually looks stunned for a moment, then bursts out laughing.

Relaxing?

Worse than him?

You're hilarious...!

The burst of laughter takes 9S completely off guard. Uhhh??? His attention immediately snaps to his croquet partner.

"What?" he sounds more bewildered than annoyed. "What's so funny?"

Did he say something weird!?!?

"Who were you playing with?" Foster asks instead of answering. Maybe it's almost like an answer--if you read between the lines. At the very least his laughter didn't last long enough for him to drool on himself to any significant degree; it's a little gross, sure, but not like it could have been.

"Papyrus?"

Don't worry. That's a joke.

~~Or is it?~~

"No? Why? Is he that bad at croquet?" 9S hums thoughtfully. "When I met him, he did seem kinda weird..."

Heck, 9S spent most of that conversation trying to come up with a name for him and his daemon that would satisfy them! In the end, they had (reluctantly?) accepted Papyrus-the-skeleton and Papyrus-the-daemon.

"Anyway, it was Lapis. The first thing she did was hit the ball into me!"

'Kinda weird' doesn't even begin to describe Papyrus. Foster will openly admit to bias about the skeleton, but 'kinda weird' is still an understatement.

The only thing preventing this conversation from taking a sharp turn into how much Foster wishes Papyrus would just get eaten by the Rat King is 9S' confession that he was openly attacked with sporting goods.

He is immediately envious--that sounds like a much more satisfying game. Easier to play, too.

"But what did she do after?"

9S scowls. He'd much rather not revisit those recent memories of his croquet game with Lapis.

"Do I really have to go into the details?" Petty bickering and name calling, that sort of thing. "Besides, she quit after a while."

And 9S considers that a victory.

⇨ HEARTSTONE MANOR

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