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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A smile quickly flickers across 9S' face. "Of course! Oh," a thought strikes him, "but that would be rude here, wouldn't it? Maybe when we get back to the Carnival?"

He's seen a range of magic, from Lambert's understated flicker of flame, to Strange's bombastic show, to Syr's reality bending portal magic. He can't help but wonder where Tyki falls on the scale.

It's nice to see magic that doesn't, you know, result in wiping out huge swaths of the human population.

"But of course. You're more than welcomed to attend one of my performances. I'm afraid I don't display my 'magic' otherwise."

Though he is reaching out as if he's moving to correct the way he's holding his cup. He doesn't as his fingers touch the top, adjust it in 9S's hand and then pulls it away. Oh look. The tea cup is now completely empty and he is free to sip an empty cup as if there was tea in it. Don't ask where it went. He won't tell.

Well then, time to hope that 9S doesn't get to see that destructive power from Tyki.

!!!

9S' eyes widen slightly. But how? Where did it go? 9S silently takes a 'sip' from his empty cup of tea before setting it back down on the saucer.

"Nice." And he's not talking about the tea. "Let me know when you're putting on a show and I'll definitely turn up. Oh, but would you mind if I recorded it for the androids back home?"

Okay, it went into a potted plant nearby but that was just transferring it to one side and another into a place it wouldn't be as noticed.

He has to refrain from making any loud noises when he starts to grin and thus almost laugh. It would be rude to do that kind of thing in a public place like this, "As you wish, Mister 9S. You can record if you wish. Don't be disappointed is all I ask." He'll find he's an escape artist when his actual performance happens.

9S lets out a quiet laugh.

"I'm sure I won't be. There aren't a whole lot of records about humanity back home, so whatever you can provide, everyone will be happy with."

It says something about what they have available to them when his Operator was happy when he uncovered broken toys and childrens' shoes.

"I mean, that's why I joined the Carnival. To bring back information and my experiences with humanity back home."

There's something of a quiet 'heh' when he mentions the lack of records on humanity. If the Noah get there way there won't be any humans to worry about.

"It'll at least keep everyone on their seats long enough until I am done with my performance. It's what I want with everything I do while performing."

He sets his tea down and cuts a scone in half before putting it on a small plate. "If you need that many experiences do you mind if I ask you just how many humans there are?"

If only 9S knew...

9S' gaze follows Tyki and his scone. What is that new food item...? It looks small and kind of untasty, if he's quite honest.

"Mmm... about a hundred thousand?"

A far cry from the billions that used to populate the planet.

"They're all living on the moon, so I haven't met any of them in person."

He's quite open about things, but he's learnt to not offer the information about, you know, the situation with human civilisation. Humans haven't reacted too well when he tells him about it, from past experience.

Yeah, if they physically get their way and find the Heart there will be nothing that can destroy them. The end goal for the Noah is to erase all of humanity.

It kind of is and he'll slide a bit of cream onto the edge of his plate. He dabs it then and slides it into the middle of the scone before taking a bite. Oh, now he's interested in the conversation, "Something must've happened to erase that many humans."

The moon? They finally made it to the moon. Interesting.

9S hesitates -- Rita had reacted rather poorly to the news -- but eventually decides, if Tyki asks, he deserves an answer. 9S nods. Yeah, he's right.

"At first, it was a disease. In my world, magic is deadly to humans."

Maybe because the magic originally came from another world. Humans exposed to it would die and turn into salt. They called it White Chlorination Syndrome.

"But after that, aliens invaded and waged war on Earth using their machines. All that's left of humanity fled to the moon, while we androids continue to fight the machines on their behalf."

He takes another sip of his tea because it is getting harder to not crack a grin any wider than he already is. It sounds so familiar and similar. It's the first world he's encountered other than his own that even mentions the eradication of humans.

"Magic has always been deadly to humans. Some just learned to harness it in other forms. There are of course consequences."

He should't pick. He shouldn't keep asking questions. Right now he was just an ordinary human with a predatory stride as best to those that picked it up, "If you have never met a human then how do you know they are still there?"

9S isn't quite sure what to make of that smile. Syrlya had a rather calm, practical approach to the revelation, but he isn't human, though he shares the world with humans, and humans had a large influence on his people. Curious, he scans Tyki, trying to determine if his physical make up is human with fae magic, or something else.

"One of the Operators is in charge of communications with them. We also receive correspondences from the Council of Humanity every now and again." The corner of 9S' mouth twitches. "They're about as dry as you'd expect, coming from a council."

But the Operator in charge of communications to the Council had mentioned that she's yet to hear back from them after she reported to them about those crazy naked machine men. Maybe they don't care any more? Those words echo in him.

Even when he's killing someone or fighting he's always cheerful. It's hard to break the usual grin off his face once he has it. His smile is wide and he's rather amused at the moment. It's the best possible outcome to something like this.

Scanning will show a basic human make up with a lot of strangeness to it. There's something darker lurking behind all of those genes, bones and flesh but unless he can directly sense that Dark Matter and awakened gene it won't reveal much at all.

"You'll forgive me if Council of Humanity seems like a strange name. I can imagine the dry feel already." His eyes settle on him once more as he's given a once over. He looks human enough but unless Tyki can see that soul within him he knows he's not. "You count on them either way."

So Tyki is human, just weird in a way he can't identify. Kind of like Lambert and his mutations in that regard. He'd ask about it, but this doesn't seem to be the right setting for it.

9S had once questioned whether androids like himself have a soul, not knowing for certain until he joined the Carnival. His soul might be similar to a human's, but it's quite apparent that he isn't the same as the human creators he's modelled after.

"Of course! We're working for them, after all." If you can't trust your superiors, who can you trust? "It sure would be nice to meet them in person, but that's probably only gonna happen once we've eradicated the machines from Earth."

No, right now he would be a little cross with him if he asked so publicly in front of a lot of servants. It was actually working for him properly right now that he looked more human.

Akuma were special and tied down by the machines inside of them to obey the orders of the Earl and Noah. They could not deny an order even if it risked their own life.

"Such blind faith but I won't begin to discuss that." Even the Black Order had a handful of Exorcists that blindly followed orders without realizing just how corrupt their inner circle was. "I wonder though what your reaction would be if you found out the opposite. Humans have such short lives."

Edited 2017-10-15 19:42 (UTC)

"Hey! Come on now! Of course they're still alive."

Why's a human being so cynical about this? He doesn't understand.

"Yeah, okay, you humans have short lives," says 9S, the three year old, "But you're biological, so you're always reproducing. There's always going to be a new generation of humans."

Y'all dirty fuckers, is what he's saying--

"I have just found in times of destruction, war, and hard times that proof is more concrete than faith."

Because humans will always crawl all over each other trying to win no matter the cost. It only takes one to make a huge mistake. Just one little fault to tear an entire nation down and his family excels at finding it.

"Oh? So it doesn't matter if our lives are short and pointless because we can keep spitting out more, good sir? The individual doesn't matter over the whole?" He's teasing and isn't' actually taking any offense.

"N-no! I didn't mean to imply that at all!"

If anything... that's what they androids are. All moving parts to a whole, all with specific roles and functions. They have their individuality, but 9S holds no illusions that he isn't replaceable. They all are, technically, replaced by themselves.

"I think your lives are special because you only get one. Humans get to choose what they want to do with it, so that's how things like culture and society get created."

He laughs softly at his reaction because he isn't trying to make a sense and yet all of his reactions were priceless.

"I jest, my good man. Don't fluster so."

But he's right and Tyki is grinning wide as he turns towards the boy, "Then do you think that one should live their life to the fullest? Invest, invent, replenish. Keep going. Indulge in your wants. Time is short."

He's not flustered! Absolutely not!

Nevermind that 9S huffs and briefly looks away, hunching slightly.

"Um... Well, I'm not sure what it means to 'live life to the fullest'." Without thinking, 9S stretches out his legs. "Us androids don't really get to do what we want."

And it's hard to imagine what life will be like without their mission.

"Sit up straight, please."

He has to sip his tea again to stop his lips from grinning and only after a moment will he calm his expression and raise his cup for more tea. He does admire the servants, so diligent and patient with him, and he'll wait for it to fill before continuing the conversation, "You joined a carnival, did you not? You aren't constrained by what rules you had before. Live, Mister 9S. Prepare if you must but live."

9S groans, making an annoyed noise at the back of his throat before he sits up. "Fiiine."

He never thought that doing all this human-ish stuff would make him so restless! Maybe because the Prince isn't really a human, so all this is just some imitation. All this sitting and not doing anything active is killing him!

Prepare...?

"I... guess? But we still have rules in the Carnival. And we gotta follow the rules here, too."

Sort of. Lambert pretty much did give the Nightrunners permission to discreetly break them.

"A gentleman doesn't slouch nor does he complain."

He understands his plight. Tyki was raised like this and it doesn't bother him nearly as much anymore. He had his own thoughts on the strictness of rules but he won't say them outloud with so many servants.

"Yes but I imagine they aren't nearly as strict as the ones at home if you aren't even allowed to 'do what you want'."

Just as Childermass said if he must wander to keep it to the rooms.

But he's not a gentleman, though?? And telling 9S not to complain is like telling the sun not to shine; it's never gonna happen. Truly, he is Whine S.

"It's kind of the same, actually."

It's both easier and harder in the Carnival. There's plenty of people for him to talk with, but he's used to having a lot more space to roam around and do things. And mission objectives to be met.

"I have missions back home, but how they let me figure out how to complete them. As long as I do my job, I can afford to uh. Take on side requests. It's kind of like that in the Carnival... just with less demand for other things, I guess."

And he always performs better than expected, which is why no one seems to mind too much when he gets sidetracked.

He is right now. Every male here was a gentleman or at least should act like one. He's quoting from his youth but it has the same effect. He just needs it repeated over and over and over and over.

"Well, it's different from my world. I have my orders from home but I can still choose what I do want to do. I can choose whether to listen or not."

He takes a bite of the scone and will chew delicately and not in a hurry. He's savoring the taste even if it isn't the best. He lives life to the fullest with every bite, gesture and desire. "Being human means to have choice. For better or worse. For good or evil."

9S goes quiet at that, thinking, his gaze dropping to his teacup.

"I..."

Humans have free will. That's part of what he admired about them. And androids... they have free will as well, don't they? That's what separates them from machines. The ability to choose.

But do they really choose?

11B made a choice to desert. Even if she hadn't died in the attempt, she would have been found and punished.
22B, 64B, and 8B... they were slain for desertion.
In the end, they're all leashed to YoRHa command. They're like ants, busily crawling over the surface of Earth in service to their queen. And when the queen is gone...

9S bites the bottom of his lip. It's different for androids. It's different. It must be. Otherwise they would be no different from the machines.

"That's free will, isn't it?" His voice is softer. "I know humans have warred with each other. They loved. They hated." So he knows they're not always benevolent. "I don't always understand why humans do the things they do... But you're always pushing the boundaries, aren't you?"

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