lostcarnival | ⇨ THE HUNT

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⇨ THE HUNT

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 173, the Afternoon
Where: Heartstone Manor Courtyard
What: Everyone goes into the forest with arrows, swords, and horses and is told to hunt and the kill the biggest beast they can find. Best kills win a prize! Or, if you'd rather not, you can wander around the forest and pretend to hunt instead.
Warnings: Violence and ethical quandaries.

BEASTS OF BURDEN↴

Come the day of the Hunt, everyone will be brought to the courtyard forest and provided with arrows, bows, and blades as requested. Magic and other weaponry can be used to hunt, but it is suggested by the Prince that the best kill is the one done in a gentlemanly manner, which probably means he will be most impressed by those using the tools provided.

The "Best Kill" will be determined from a mixture or whatever beast the Prince decides is best, and the method in which it was killed. The less damage done to the body the better - tearing the body apart will receive poor grades.

The corpses are not yours to eat or keep, and all must be returned to the Prince at the end of the day for judgment.

The servants are especially nervous, tense, and solemn today, and unless they have no choice, most of them will be trying to give the courtyard a wide berth. Those that have to serve will have stony expressions, or at best will be trying to put on a cheerful face.

If casually asked why they are upset, most of them will say something vague about the Hunt making them nervous, and how dangerous it is to participate.

OOC: Those who make top levels will have a chance to be randomly selected for a couple particular plot events, so be prepared for that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The smoke drifts closer, still wary, but when Strange doesn't move, it hesitates. Well, as much as smoke can emote, at any rate; Lambert's just guessing about most of this. However, while it doesn't appear to register Strange as a threat now, it also doesn't seem to inclined to linger. Curiosity satisfied, it begins to drift away, dispersing back into the forest.

Or it would, if a witcher wasn't suddenly standing in its way.

"Strange, now!" Lambert shouts, already throwing his hand down towards the ground, the purple light of the magic trap flaring to life underfoot. With a heavy thump, the bicorn drops to the ground, forced into corporeality again, and it looks distinctly unhappy about the proceedings. Diamond-hard hooves gouge at the ground as it scrambles to get back to its feet, and its limbs flail out to smash anything that comes into range as its eyes roll wildly.

As he jumps out of the way of Lambert's sign, Strange slips the creepy wife gem back into his pocket. The bicorn starts to flail and one hoof shoots directly towards Strange's head. Without hesitation, he scrunches up his eyes and poofs into smoke, as the hoof passes harmlessly through where his head used to be. He floats back a foot or so and reforms into his normal self, kneeling on the ground.

Obviously Strange can't do much magic inside the magic-blocking circle. But he can at least do some things around it. Placing one hand on the ground, Strange quickly mutters an incantation. A few pillars of earth start to shoot up around the magic circle, trying to block the bicorn and keep it from jumping out of the circle.

The bicorn slams against the stone from the inside, but it's clear it wasn't expecting to be caught like this, nor hemmed in by the earth itself. As one of the pillars shoots up from the ground, Lambert leaps up onto it, catching a quick ride up on the shuddering rock. For now, at least, he hasn't drawn his sword, though he does have one hand one it...

He's not a sorceror, able to cast spells in quick succession, so there isn't much to do except get ready to knock the bicorn down with the flat of his sword if it tries to leap up. As soon as he can feel the magic gather itself again, though, he he reaches out with a hand, forming a sign Strange is probably all too familiar with by now.

"Calm down. We're not here to kill you."

In the stone arena Strange has created, the bicorn's thrashing stops as though its strings have been cut, though its flanks are still heaving, body shaking. Lambert frowns, glancing over his shoulder and offering Strange a hand so he can haul him up.

"Get up here." He's not about to ask him to dispel the rocks just yet, not until they're sure it's not about to bolt again.

As Lambert jumps up onto one of the pillars, Strange remains on the ground and continues his magic, calling up more and more rocks and more and more earth to surround the bicorn. He doesn't want to smother the thing completely, just box it in so there aren't as many bicorn shaped holes that the creature could jolt through.

Once the animal's calmed down, that's only when Strange gets to his feet. When Lambert offers him a hand, he takes it, helping to hoist himself up over so he can stand on the pillar as well.

"I'm only seeing the Prince's magic," Strange explains, with a frown. "A bit odd, as you'd think the bicorn would have magic itself, but then again, everything here feels like the Prince's magic."

"The trap's not going to last forever," Lambert warns, frowning. The beast remains docile for now, but who knows how long that's going to last, either? His medallion's tugging at his neck, humming against his skin, and he grits his teeth, trying to think it through.

"Whatever it is, it's strong stuff. Could be a compulsion, an illusion, or an enchantment ... unless you know a spell to talk to beasts, we're going to need some other way to figure that out."

"I can try to piece out the magic," Strange suggests, looking down at the bicorn, as if staring at it would somehow be enough. "Given my experiences, I might be able to recognize a compulsion. And I've broken enchantments before."

He's broken enchantments twice. One of them, returning Arabella's memories and agency to her when they visited faerie. Another, taking Norrell's labyrinth spell, manipulating and working it so that he could break it and possibly disorient the man himself as well. Still, this is Jonathan Strange and if he's good with one thing, it's ego and thinking he can do stuff. Bending down to look at the bicorn, Strange starts muttering under his breath, occasionally adding in odd hand gestures as he does so.

This also means that he's stopped paying attention to Lambert for a minute or so. Sorry, bud.

Whatever Strange is doing, Lambert has nothing to contribute, so he's happy to leave him to it. He keeps a sharp eye on the forest and the creature below them, instead, knowing Strange is certainly in no position to do so. The influence of the witcher's magic is laid over on top of whatever spell the Prince has cast over this creature, but it's simple, almost painfully simple: a set of threads loosely braided together set against the complex tapestry woven around the bicorn's essence.

If they're lucky, though, Strange might be able to find the right place to pull to make it all come undone. Lambert does have to re-cast the confusion to keep the bicorn docile, but he'll hold off on another round of the magic ward for now, to better not interfere with Strange's work.

It feels like it should be working, like it's almost working, but it's just not connecting properly. Like trying to thread a needle, but the thread keeps slipping to the side. Strange casts any spell he can think of, improvising off already established ones and creating a few things wholesale just to try and see if he can break the enchantment. He can feel the attempts get closer and closer, but nothing's breaking it yet.

It's then that Strange remembers that the last time he broke an enchantment, there was a physical trigger: the act of kissing Arabella. This is obviously different but...well, look, it was worth a shot. There's something there. Both he and Lambert know it. And Strange is just too damn sure of himself to accept the fact that he might not be able to break this magic.

"Hold it still for another minute or so as I lower us to the ground. I need to touch the horse for this next bit of magic." There's an awkward pause before, "It's unorthodox, but it might work."

He's gonna smooch a horse.

"Unorthodox is all we have right now. Might as well give it a shot."

Lambert has no idea what Strange is about to do, but he suspects it's going to be incredibly stupid. Nonetheless, he'll nod, bracing himself for Strange to lower them down. It's a good idea in principle, anyway; magic is stronger when you have a conduit like a physical connection to run it through.

His idea is incredibly stupid. As Strange lowers the pillar of earth down, he's muttering something else under his breath. The bicorn looks at Strange, curious as to what's going on. The muttering stops as Strange places a hand on the horse's neck.

"Let the words serve as the instructions given. Let the magic serve as the tools used. And let the gestures serve as the actions taken. Return to what you once were."

And then, Strange leans over and straight up kisses that horse, giving the bicorn a little kiss on it's snout, right above it's nose. If Lambert's medallion was humming before, now it's humming like nobody's business. There is an astonishing amount of magic around the bicorn, due to the enchantment itself as well as Strange's spell. There's a tension in the air like something's about to snap. Strange moves away from the front of the horse, hand remaining on it's neck.

"Now you kiss it also while I repeat the spell."

"What the fuck," Lambert says, because Strange, what the fuck.

Strange sighs like Lambert is majorly inconveniencing him and this is somehow perfectly normal despite the fact that it really, really isn't.

"Look, I'll explain my reasoning later, when I'm not holding a powerful spell together. Just kiss the damn horse!"

The horse in question is just watching both Strange and Lambert with a horsey frown, like it also has no clue what the fuck is going on here.

That makes two of you, horse. Lambert gives Strange one last look of intense misgiving -- is this really, seriously going to work? -- and scrunches his nose up before he leans forward to plant a kiss on the bicorn's snout, to the left of where Strange kissed it. He doesn't even kiss Pig, Strange, this feels like it's cheating somehow. Committing horse infidelity is not what he expected to be doing today.

Task done, he steps back and frowns. Nothing seems to have changed: still a lot of magic in the air, still a dazed horse in front of them. With a frown, he turns to Strange.

"Well, that didn't w--"

The spell shatters.

As Lambert leans in to kiss the horse, Strange repeats the incantation he said earlier, focusing all his attention and all his concentration on the bicorn, keeping his hand firmly placed on the bicorn's neck. Lambert's frown is met with silence from Strange, who's still focusing all his attention and power on the horse.

And then, the spell breaks. Though both Strange and Lambert feel the enchantment snap (so can anyone magically sensitive who's watching this from the bushes), the transformation doesn't happen all at once. The back half of the bicorn starts to fade away as the front half reshapes itself. Snout fades into a human face, the horse's chest fades, revealing a human's chest underneath. Parts of the bicorn stay no matter what. Her horns remain and the horse's front legs remain as well, despite everything fading around them. It only takes around ten or so seconds for the spell to fully vanish, as the bicorn exterior has completely vanished and a willowy woman stands in it's place.

The magic vanishes as well, as Lambert's medallion stops humming. Strange looks like he's going to bust out into joyous laughter then and there, he's just that excited. The woman looks like she's about to pass out. Thankfully, Strange is right there. The part that was the horse's neck roughly corresponds to the woman's shoulder, and he's able to quickly grab and help support her as her horse legs practically buckle underneath her.

She's also buckass naked, a fact that Strange only realizes when he gets an eyeful of boob and straight up blushes.

Edited 2017-10-29 20:17 (UTC)

Lambert does not blush. Lambert swears, loudly, and reaches out to support the bicorn on the other side, nodding at Strange.

"Help me get her on the ground." And since the woman still seems to be quickly fading out of consciousness, he addresses her sharply as they do that, leaning over her.

"Who are you? What's your name?" he demands. There's no real time to be gentle about asking, but the woman's eyes flutter weakly as she tries to shake her head.

"I don't know..." She manages to get out that much before she passes right out.

"What the hell did you just do!?"

The outburst comes from some nearby bushes, where Rita bursts out from her cover, stomping ahead to meet Strange and Lambert. Her bow is slung over her shoulder along with a quiver; originally, she and 9S had planned to wait in hiding in case the bicorn escaped their rivals' grasp, giving them the opportunity to claim it for themselves. What they didn't expect was to witness two grown men kissing a horse, or for that horse to turn into a woman.

No... it was always a woman. "A transformation spell... you... but how--" Agitated, she looks between the men and the unconscious woman. Rita has a lot of questions on her mind, but before that... "Would you quit gawking!? Give her something to cover up with! I'll examine her." If Rita were in this woman's position, the last thing she'd want is a bunch of men crowding around her.

9S comes out of the same bushes, following after Rita now that she's blown their cover. Like, wow, that was... something. Human kisses sure are powerful, aren't they?

"Uh," he says very eloquently. 9S is absolutely very definitely staring at the naked horse woman.

It's not as though he hasn't seen a naked woman before -- there are many, many explicit videos that managed to survive the ravages of time -- but he hasn't seen an actual real life naked woman, even if she also has horse parts, too.

So if he's maybe watching her too intently, he's just collecting data on the human(?) female form to bring back home.

...Yeah.

Oh, Rita and 9S are here? That's...wait, why are Rita and 9S here? Strange can't help but give the two of them a confused look before he decides it doesn't matter, he can still brag about his success in front of them.

"It's the power of English magic," Strange gloats, as he starts to take off his coat to give to the horse woman. Of course, despite Strange saying that it's English magic, this is also part witcher magic, fae magic, and sheer dumb luck on Strange's part. But he's never admitted that he's gotten lucky before, he's certainly not going to admit he got lucky now! "I recognized the magic, Lambert and I captured the horse, and then I broke the spell—with his help, of course."

Strange can't deny the fact that Lambert kissed a horse as well. He's also going to be a bro and not call 9S out on the fact that he too was kind of staring at this poor woman's chest.

Lambert reaches out to press his fingers lightly to the woman's neck while Strange covers her up -- the pulse is weak, but steady, and he's satisfied enough to step back and let Rita fuss over her however she wants. Tuning Strange out, he's going to frown and address 9S directly.

"How long have you been there?" And then, looking around like he expects Scout or Syrlya to leap out of the bush any moment, "Do you know where the other nightrunners are?"

Rita kneels by the woman, waving a hand to shoo 9S's ogling stare away, and giving Lambert an impatient look while he takes the woman's pulse. But it's not long until he backs off, and Strange's coat is draped over the woman, and Rita sets about examining her physical and magical condition. After a short amount of time, she reports, "Shock and exhaustion... other than that, she's stable."

At one point, she pauses, the blood draining from her face as she looks over the woman's neck. Not long ago, she was close to putting an arrow through there...

Looking up at Strange, she urgently asks, "When did you realize she was under a spell?"

But Rita, he wasn't done yet!

Fiiine.

As for Lambert's question... "No, but I can find them. They'll be easier to detect out here. Want me to fetch the others?"

However, even though they had started out with horses, there's a distinct lack of horses accompanying Rita and 9S. One's busy feeding the flies right now.

Lambert and 9S can discuss 'semantics' and 'what to do next' all they want, Strange has magic he needs to talk with Rita about.

"I suspected something when we first saw her. I only fully realized she was enchanted when Lambert and I cornered her and I got a better look," said as he nods towards the half-assed horse pen that had been constructed out of earth.

Oh yeah, speaking of that, he had better get rid of those pillars. Gesturing towards the remaining earthen pillars that constituted bootleg horse jail, Strange quickly mutters an incantation. Slowly, they start to lower themselves back into the ground.

Lambert will let Strange deal with Rita while he issues orders to 9S -- he's not as interested in discussing the semantics so much as dealing with the very visibly unconscious woman before the Prince calls an end to the Hunt.

"Yeah, bring whoever's closest first. We need to keep her out of sight." And themselves, as well. He frowns, seeming to realize 9S and Rita are horseless -- what happened to those? -- before he shakes his head, drawing a Pokeball out of a pocket.

"Can you ride without a saddle? Take Butcher, it'll be faster." A pop and flash of light, and an extremely goofy-looking orange donkey stands before 9S inquisitively, pawing the ground and pricking its ears at the commotion. Lambert takes the Mudbray by the chin, shaking his head.

"None of that. Here, like we practiced -- hold still and listen to Nines." Nobody give him shit for talking to the donkey like it can actually understand him, okay?!

Rita sighs. So they really couldn't have known until they had a proper look at her... If the hunt went as planned, that might not have happened until after they killed her from a distance. "I can't believe that freak's got us hunting people," she mutters through gritted teeth. And the Ringmaster wants an alliance with this guy? Hell no. It's not going to happen.

But there's no use sitting around and feeling guilty. When she's done looking over the woman, Rita moves to sit at her feet, propping them onto her lap to elevate them. "It doesn't look like anything else is wrong with her. She should come to after some of the blood gets back to her head." Hopefully, if the shock isn't too severe.

Keep out of sight, huh? Then Syr would probably be the better choice, though Scout has some cloaking, too. Though in the end, it'll just be whoever he finds first.

When something's called Butcher, 9S had expected something more menacing. Not... whatever that thing is. What the heck is that? It looks weird! And it totally clashes with the cool image he has of Lambert!

"Yeah, I can ride without a saddle, but..." 9S gives Butcher -- seriously? -- a dubious look. "Are you sure it can take me?" Look at the thing! It's tiny! "I'm heavier than I look."

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