lostcarnival | ⇨ FOURTH WALL EVENT! (OPEN TO ALL)

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⇨ FOURTH WALL EVENT! (OPEN TO ALL)

Who: Everyone and the 4th Wall Visitors!
When: Day 175
Where: Heartstone Manor
What: THE 4TH WALL BALL BEGINS! This is where unapped visitors can post and roleplay. Please read the rules and setting info below. For more information and visuals refs, read this. Questions can be asked over here.
Warnings: Individually marked! Could be a lot of things.

THE GRAND BALL↴

Heartstone Manor is a giant, spooky castle floating in the middle of a twilight filled void. It is the home of a Wyld Fae calling himself The Prince - and despite his name, he is a bestial creature crammed into a gentleman's clothing, completely obsessed with replicating the ideals of old timey human society, much like the 1800's. The Prince and his many servants all dress in a manner appropriate to to the 1500's - 1800's, and decorum and beauty are held sacred above all else. All the workers of the carnival are currently staying there, in the hope of enabling a successful diplomatic venture between the Ringmaster and the Prince. The Grand Ball is being thrown by the Prince to honour these guests, but his manner of doing this is going to come as a bit of a surprise.

THE RULES↴

Powers are all partially nerfed for 4th Wallers. They can be used in small to moderate ways for the sake of RP and narrative flavour, but 4th Wallers shouldn’t generally be using any powers in a super disruptive manner. No using powers for fighting with NPCs (yet), causing general chaos, or otherwise making your character a burden to the Prince. If they try, they’ll find themselves unable to do so.
Your character isn’t sure how they got here but they think they’re okay with it. Your character won’t remember how they were captured by the Prince at the start of the ball. They’re just kind of here and in formal wear, and something tells them it’s probably fine to just enjoy the ball. They are wrong.
In-game characters won’t initially remember how they all ended up at the ball either thanks to a temporary amnesia effect, but they will be able to be concerned about the fact that other people (possibly people they know) have shown up, and the fact that those other people are probably the Prince’s captives. Weren’t they doing something else at the castle before this, though? It’s hard to remember. This is all very confusing.
4th Wall character who aren’t apping in were possibly never the real deal in the first place. There are a mixture of genuine captives and spooky replications created with magic – this is to provide some flexibility regarding 4th wall character’s states in game, as well to allow more than one of each character to be played. If there are multiple people playing the same character, then whichever one has an app accepted will have been the real one.
No doubles of in game characters. (Taken list here.) No AUs, no CRAUs, and nothing else besides characters that have full source canons or are original characters/fandom OCs with no bearing on the canon plot. If you tag in with a character who breaks these rules we reserve the right to remove them.

THE SETUP: 4TH WALLERS↴

With incredibly foggy memories of their recent past, your character will find themselves at a grand ballroom dance, filled with a mixture of normal humans and odd looking humanoids that have strange features like wings, horns, tails, fur, and the like. They have vague memories of being dressed for the occasion, but are not sure by who or why. Most disturbingly, they will find that, at first at least, they don’t really care about the details. It seems like a pleasant event, doesn’t it? Why not enjoy it.
This effect is definitely some kind of mind control, so you can feel free to have your characters be a bit confused and conflicted about it. Ultimately, they have been charmed to participate in the dance, so they will feel like riding the wave is the best thing to do even if that wouldn’t normally be their cup of tea. If your character has resistances to some forms of mind control, they are still overruled in this circumstance.
They may discover people they recognize (castmates) or even duplicates of themselves (somehow?), and these can all be treated as canonly occurring and played out as such. This event is canon for Lost Carnival, so it should be played seriously and respectfully – not that silly shenanigans aren’t also bound to happen.
All characters are required to dress in formal attire appropriate to a period area – specifically anywhere from the 1500s to 1800s. The Prince prefers if people are heteronormative in their clothing choices, but if you want you can probably get away with your ladies wearing suits or men wearing dresses as long as they look presentable otherwise.

THE SETUP: MANOR GUESTS↴

You find yourself at the Grand Ball without really remembering how you got here. The last few days are a foggy blur, and though you can remember some of the important stuff you were dealing with, it will feel less important right at the start. Of course, as the night goes on, memories of how the carnival reached this event will become more and more clear – as well as the inevitable worry and stress that comes with it.
For most people, there will have absolutely no memory of anything that happened after the morning of Day 175. Did the boating trip ever happen? Possibly not. Even as the night progresses, they will still have no recollection of how most of Day 175 went, which is probably disturbing. The Mod has contacted those that are exceptions to this privately to tell them what they will remember.
The people lost to the Manor’s security earlier in the week will be here too, but not as guests. In fact, all of them will be dressed in the black attire of a Heartstone Manor servant and will seem pretty okay with that fact. There are parts of them that look changed – and their dispositions are definitely one of them. How else could they possibly be working for the Prince now?
Updates to the event situation will be posted down in this section below. People can react to these posts as the circumstances change, and may new top levels based on them. It is possible to try to sneak away from the ball, but Manor Security will be trying to hunt you down. There is no mandatory outcome planed to this event, so character decisions can and will have a major effect in where the plot goes from here.

THE ACCOMODATIONS↴

MUSIC AND DANCING: There will be music playing the whole night, and most of it is so good you feel practically compelled to dance to it. It's possible to resist, but why would you want to do that, you party pooper?
FOOD AND DRINK: There are circle tables set up with fine silverware, and upon sitting down you will soon have a waiter come back to ask for an order. You can request basically any European cusine and it will be made for you. You will also be given drinks, most of which are alcohol, no matter your age. Fae don't care about children.
BALCONY STARGAZING: There are balconies that are connected to the ballroom in multiple locations that you can step out onto to get some fresh air. You'll see the courtyard of the Manor down below you, but everything beyond that is black, as if the castle is floating within a twilight void. (Because it is.) One small change is that there are stars out tonight, probably added to the sky for the occasion.
ALL NIGHT LONG: The ball will go on far into the early morning. Or, at least, until everyone fucks it up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Childermass shakes his head and looks up again, at where the light is filtering in from. Where Papyrus is, too. If they can't get in through here—

"Taako," he turns away from the crystal again, "I think it's time to see if we can't join our friends up there. Ask the manor for stairs to the next floor up."

"I'm on it, bromigo."

And, with that, Taako clears his throat, and he focuses on the mirror again, trying to think of how to word this request.

"Give me stairs to the next floor."

Plain, but hopefully effective.

Similar to before, a stairway made of floating chunks of rock will descend from the ceiling, opening a path to the floor with the giant floating crystal. Also, to Papyrus.

That done, Childermass starts that way, walking towards the stairs. As he goes, however, he does continue talking.

"Good. See if you can find anything else down here," he says, then adds, again to Taako, "Including you. You may as well try knocking on everything as long as you're the Prince."

Seriously, just start knocking on everything, people. He's running out of ideas here save for getting a look at the sun crystal up above.

"--And there were stairs after all! But what kind of puzzle leaves the solution on the wrong side???" Papyrus is saying, like he's been ranting about the architecture and design of the building for a while.

Don't mind the broken windows that's filled with summoned bones like makeshift bars to keep gargoyles out, guys.

Foster glances at Childermass, but... he does make a somewhat detached attempt to investigate things, pointedly moving closer to Taako and further away from Papyrus in the process.

Taako quietly does notice Foster sticking closer to him, and makes a note to tease him about that later, when they aren't busy with way more important stuff.

For now, he does indeed start knocking on things-- walls, the floor, etc., but he makes his way over to what seems like the most important surface to knock on: the dome surrounding the Rose.

He knocks at it gently, and then presses his palm flat against it, curious to see if anything happens.

Starting from the place where Taako knocks, the crystal surface will begin folding open, one facet at a time, until it has revealed a shining gateway. The air from inside the chamber feels like running on a cold night, or enjoying hot springs in winter, except all melded into one. Hot and cold, both equally vivid.

It's not enough to hurt, but the air alone feels a bit overwhelming. With a gateway through the crystal opened, all there is between you and the Blue Rose is a stretch of nearly transparent thorns.

Bunny gasps in appreciation and wonder.

"How did you even get up there--"

Which is what Childermass is in the midst of asking Papyrus as he makes his way up the stairs, but he stops halfway, the movement below, the sudden change in temperature, grabs his attention back down to the other floor.

"Ah." So, there it is. An open door. "That did it..."

Sorry, Papyrus, he's reversing direction back down. Feel free to follow.

Syrlya leans over to peer into the chamber, a little awed even if it makes total sense given the way the servants move about the Manor.

"Ah--wait." Before anyone gets too excited, he cranes his neck to peer along the pathway. "There's thorns, of course."

Because it's a rose. But not that they have a clear path...

Syrlya focuses on the ground right beside the rose, just past the thorns, and focuses his magic s second time to teleport straight across the way.

He'll have to teleport into the thorns, more or less, because with the thorns coming from the rose there's nowhere that isn't thorns in there, but he can do it in a manner where he doesn't scratch himself up too badly. Though, the few scratches he does manage to gain flash hot and cold in an alarming manner.

Then, the Blue Rose is before him. It's attached to its stem.

"We climbed! It's a long story with a lot of derring do and tragic sacrifice," and he follows along after, figuring Scout will come with too.

"Do these stairs go all the way down? If you've uncovered how to talk to the house, that's why we were here. And I can shift tasks! To, rescuing some captives?"

They climbed...

Of course they did.

"No," Childermass answers Papyrus, reaching the floor with the terrarium once more. "That will come later, but only after the Ringmaster has the rose."

Speaking of which, he'll cross back over to the new path to the rose that their false 'Prince' has opened, though he stops at the entrance, not willing to interrupt what Syrlya is doing.

"Are you able to pick it?"

Syrlya lets out a hiss as some of the thorns scratch through his clothes--he's less fond of the cold than the heat, but no risk, no reward. He's going to need a lot of recovery after this, but better than all of them getting mutilated.

He reaches both hand out, though the injured one is unsteady and mostly there to cradle the rose as he puts his fingers to the base of the stem of the rose itself. He's going to be careful this time, and only gently presses the stem at first.

He's hoping that his ability to sense and influence other plant will still apply to this rose. If he can just use that connection to encourage it to let him break the stem (or at least, encourage the vines to not grow and twist and lash out)... well, that would make things easier.

Or the rose could just not care, that'd be optimal.

The stem of the rose will break with a surprising amount of ease, leaving the flower portion resting against Syrlya's charred hand. However, before much else can be done, the stem of the Blue Rose will begin spreading into vines again - but now latching onto that charred arm. It happens very quickly, the growth spreading like roots across his numb arm.

It doesn't hurt, and as it moves he can feel its power. The power of water and fire, mingled into one perfect symmetry. As that fresh life floods through his damaged limb, he will feel its strength at his literal fingertips - power even greater than the Bloodstone he wished for from the Ringmaster all those weeks ago.

All at once, the crystalline vines will begin to shatter.

"I was looking for you," Scout says conversationally in Childermass's direction, picking her way down the stairs with the caution of someone who half expects to end up falling down them. Her ballgown is soaked and torn in several places, strategic and not, and she's conspiciously absent her lightsaber. She gives Taako a sidelong glance, but he feels like another carnie, not the fae lord they're quietly, desperately trying to subvert.

She flinches as the vines start to go to pieces and looks around. It can't be as simple as grabbing the plant and going, can it?

Syrlya's impulse when his arm is gripped by vines is to jerk back, as if that would really save him... but then it doesn't hurt. Doesn't attack.

It takes a moment, but Syrlya realizes immediately what magical power this is going through him. At once it's terrifying, that even an attempt to cast a spell might cause the magic to pull him apart from the inside--and absolutely, incredibly amazing.

He turns slowly as the vines shatter, holding the rose close to his chest with wide eyes. And then he runs back down the path, careful not to run into anyone as he moves to escape the dome.

"I have it."

"From up there?" Childermass is distracted momentarily by Scout, her explanation earning a quirk of an eyebrow. At best, he's skeptical, but whatever. He'll question it more closely later.

What's important now is they have the rose at last.

Back to Syrlya as he returns, he takes a step away from the pathway, gaze caught on the rose itself for a moment. There's too much power there and, quite honestly, he doesn't like it, but he's always been sensitive to that sort of magic. The magician frowns at it, then looks up at Syr again.

"Good. We're leaving." Obviously. No 'how are you' or 'what does that feel like'. Not this time. Though looking at them all, they've gained another two people. "I can try moving all of us through the shadows, but I do not know if I can with this many at once."

It would have been impossible to see the events that lead up to what happens next. Some distance realizations perhaps - maybe an alarm set off by the Rose's removal. Or, maybe it's just that any High Fae worth their salt can recognize a power like this once it's been set free.

No matter the cause, Childermass will barely have enough time to start planning an escape before a chain of events begins to unfold. The first, is a crash and shattering of glass that causes the entire tower to shake - and then, what can be seen as the Prince's silhouette stepping onto the crystal ceiling, looking down below with a dark light in his eyes. Behind him stretch a pair of enormous, bat-like wings.

"You," his voice rumbles, enough to be heard downstairs without issue. There sheer outrage in his voice is unimaginable. However, before he can act, he is interrupted by another explosion. Fire floods through the room with floating crystal, and it's for the best that Papyrus and Scout are no longer up there.

"HA HA HA HA!" the Ringmaster bellows, plowing straight through the room and colliding with the Prince, sending them both rocketing out through the wall that the Prince just smashed in. There is the sound of stone cracking, and in rapid succession the Ringmaster has appeared again, looking through the glass ceiling with an expression of sheer glee.

"You did it!" she exclaims, slapping at the crystal floor with her hands and giving them a double thumbs up out of raw enthusiasm. "You guys are the best!"

Scout flinches from the sound and fury and yells up "He's not dead yet! Later!"

Trying to think quickly she turns towards Taako, not that she knows who he is unless he's dropped the illusion.

"You! You can command the house? Tell it it can respond fully to servants and guests instead of just the Prince, won't you? And release all the captives?" She doesn't know if the Ringmaster's going to do her signature move soon, but she can't rely on a total victory fixing all these mistakes. And if they have to leave the people here and the Prince alive, things don't have to be exactly how they were before.

There's a lot going on all at once--suspense, success, a sign, a shockwave of smoke and stone debris. The denigrated prince, begotten he.

Then, the Ringmaster--!

Foster reacts to his Ringmaster's arrival, with its hail of rubble and storm of fire, the same way he did the mass poisoning that morning:

He bursts out laughing.

Loud, obnoxious, but slightly more appropriate laughter, or at least it seems so. Triumph, accomplishment. Happiness?

It's just a good thing no one was probably paying attention to him before then, because he had gotten excited first at the Prince's arrival--wide eyes; stiff, eager posture; the saliva he'd been wiping on the back of his damp paw now starting to run down his chin.

It just wasn't until the Ringmaster literally exploded onto the scene that he started to laugh at her subversion of their fate.

She slams into the Prince like a fucking mack truck, and he looks near to overload, some kind of catastrophic esctasy.

At least this time he's not laughing alone.

Holy shit. For a second, Taako is almost too caught up in what just happened to realize he's being addressed-- this is the first time he's ever been this glad to see the Ringmaster, for sure, or this amused by something she's done.

But, before he can address her about either of these things, someone is giving him another thing to do with his currently Princely face, and he gives her a quick nod, turning his attention to the mirror.

"Uh-- you'll now let the servants and guests command you, and not just me, and also release all of the captives!"

This had super better work.

Nothing will obviously change based on Taako's commands. Maybe it doesn't work that way...?

Unfortunately, the Manor still isn't talking.

Well, that didn't work. That means it's time to crowdsource! Papyrus leans in to offer his own suggestions.

"If you don't want to, that's your choice! But I'm sure you don't want to be working for him. He seems like... a jerk! A very unkind boss! And, also, he's a rude host."

He looks up, pointedly, in search of wherever the heck the Prince went after the Ringmaster rammed him through the wall. Tricky rules without so much as an instruction ahead of time, kidnapping people for going out of bounds, instead of doing the kidnapping at the end, after just scolding them and putting them back where they should be... and all that rushing! No savoring the experiences at all.

Although... It isn't like the Prince is mannerless. He's got rules a-plenty, and most of them are about some kind of formal politeness. If knocking was the solution at one point, maybe asking politely is the solution at the next.

"Uh... Pretty please?"

Syrlya, in the middle of the crowd, is initially only attentive of the Price, tense and ready to fight or flight--at least until the Ringmaster blasts them through the wall, to at least buy the group time.

He's a little stunned, honestly, and glances around the group as they take the moment to try and convince the house to work with them. That was admittedly part of what he was hoping they could ask it before, but--could it tell the real Prince was around, now?

"I don't believe--oh, nevermind. Keep the mirror, but let us deliver this to the Ringmaster first!" He gestures to the rose still attached to his home. You know, before the Prince tries to take it back.

⇨ FOURTH WALL EVENT! (OPEN TO ALL)

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