⇨ SAY UNCLE

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone who isn't in jail!
When: Day 175, 11:30PM onward.
Where: The Realm that used to contain Heartstone Manor.
What: Team carnival has gotten what they came for, but in the meantime they have lost what they came with. With his ace in the hole gone, the Prince is tearing apart the Heartstone Manor and reshaping it into an impregnable fortress to lock away his new most precious commodities - the Ringmaster's captured followers. Welcome to a hostage situation, this could take a while.
Warnings: Violence, and etc.

AFTER THE BALL↴ Around 11:30PM is when everything starts changing - and for most in Heartstone Manor, the triggers will have remained unseen. In the ongoing thunderstorm it was easy to miss, and the Prince losing control over his realm only occured before a small group of workers intent on saving the carnival from a terrible fate. An ancient High Fae artifact called the Blue Rose was stolen from the Prince, and in reaction he is being forced to abandon his plans of controlling the Ringmaster, instead trying to hide away in his realm for the purposes of saving his own skin. His main bartering chip? The workers that he's been capturing up to this point. He knows that, unlike himself, the Ringmaster cares about mortals, and especially about the ones who follow her. He's willing to bet that she won't allow them to die for the sake of her own convenience, and he's right. Now that the Blue Rose is the carnival's, she's intent to take back what was stolen from her, as well as the lives of all the servants that the Prince has been stealing away for eons. By whatever means necessary. ► SPLIT THE EARTH: Characters all across the Manor will be treated with initial tremours that will soon escalate into a full-fledged earthquake, capable of collapsing buildings and rending the earth. The cause of this is simple: the Prince is using his powers of elemental earth to reshape his realm into something more suited to protect him. Specifically, he is changing what was a manor house into a fortress meant to defend, and allowing the rest to collapse into ruin. The Manor is still nothing but a castle floating in a void - as the earth breaks apart, it will be nothing but an endless freefall between the floating chunks of debris. Over the next twelve house that earthen debris will be reshaping and solidifying into a new layout, but having to be there while it happens is one hell of a ride! ► BREAK THE ILLUSION: It's as the world starts shaking that the last of the Prince's spell over the minds of his guests will begin to fade away. However, it may wear off more slowly than is helpful in an emergency earthquake situation. The ballroom trance may linger even as lives are threatened, and it will take a pointed effort to make sure that everyone gets out of the Manor's collapse safely. At the same time, the illusionary guests will begin to fade and disappear. The ones that remain are the ones that are real, but it may be a bit painful to realize which ones were simply a lie to begin with. ► SAVE WHO YOU CAN: Despite being knocked out by a surprisingly massive blast from the Prince's magic crystal, the Ringmaster will manage to gather herself up eventually. When she does, the last of the storm will finally come to an end. She'll be doing what she can to try to gather up both servants of the Prince and all of her workers, but it'll be impossible to get to all of them first. A large portion of the servants have undoubtedly been stolen away by the Prince into his newly built fortress, but with the effort of carnival members new and old, they can still save as many as possible. Of course, those held in the Prince's most secure prisons will remain out of reach... for now. ► WAKE THE SUN: As the worst of the earthquakes stop and the new islands of floating land begin to settle, the clouds from the thunderstorm will finally pass, as the Ringmaster seems to summon up a sun to light the realm for the first time since the carnival's arrival. In reality it's sometime in the early, early morning by the Manor's schedule, but whatever! It's easier to not die when the sun is out, don't you think? The Prince's security and gargoyle soldiers are still out and about, and they're clearly interested in capturing as many hostages as possible. ► SIGN A CONTRACT: This is when the Ringmaster will be taking those that were summoned to the Prince's ball aside to offer them contracts in order to free them from the Prince's influence. She'll do her best to explain that the only way to wipe out his control is to take on a new 'master', but they can take some time to think about it if necessary. The truth is, of course, that until they officially sign onto the Ringmaster's camp, there will still be the chance that the Prince will be able to control them. ► WALK THE RUINS: One Day 176 things will have settled completely, with the land now forming a massive fortress on the far side of several large floating islands. The ruins of the old buildings will scatter those islands, forming towers that will swiftly gain small colonies of gargoyles, ready to swoop down and attack carnival members. Further complicating matters is the fact that the rending of the landscape has resulted in bursting open the underground prisons that the Prince had been keeping his most bestial servants, which mean all kinds of mortals long since twisted into the forms of giant spiders, scorpions, monstrous beasts, and other terrifying creatures will now be running amock on the islands, desperate for food. Try not to hold it against them - they didn't ask to be this way. ► REGROUP: While the Ringmaster doesn't want everyone to just run back home (if they do that, the Prince will undoubtedly make them unable to enter again, or at least take over the landscape more fully) she will manage to open a portal back to the carnival in the afternoon of Day 176, formed between two freshly grown trees. This means that carnival members will be able to fetch new clothing, supplies, weapons, and whatever they need to prepare for the battle ahead. Right now, the chaos is still unfolding, but the battle to save the Prince's captives is still ahead. [OOC: Gargoyles and transformed servants from the underbelly can be NPC'd from this point onward. Gargoyles are the Prince's most deadly servants made of extremely durable rock and bearing scorpion tails with venom that can turn bodies into stone. They want to grab anyone they can, trap them, and then fly them off to the Prince's dungeons as collateral. Don't let them! Transformed servants are the beasts who were freed from the underground prison they were left in to rot. They are servants that were transformed into monsters by the Prince, and most of them have been driven insane with bestial hunger from months and years of starvation and atmospheric poison. The Ringmaster is interested in helping them, to see if there is way they can be changed back, so if you have the heart nonlethal methods are most appreciated.]

Comments

OTA | DAY 176 | REIRA & YUZU'S TRAILER

[soft_focus]

Eventually, she can't force herself to keep going. Whether because of various orders back to bed, or because of her own stubborn mind finally crumbling, she comes back to her trailer with a sigh and a swallow. The trailer wasn't quite 'customized' for herself yet. She and Yuzu were too new, barely here for a pair of weeks before they were wisked away to a whole new place after all. She opts not to lay on the bed for now, though. Instead she's on the couch-tea on a little box beside it, some sort of borrowed VHS playing on the tv.

(She has no idea what it is, or what is going on-but it's something about... Rainbows?? Teddybears???

They're firing lasers off their middles and she's not sure what's going on.)

There are better things to focus on, right now. She hates it after all, the whole matter of being stuck in her trailer, unable to actually do anything. She knows WHY it is-but it still upsets her. Being told to stay at the Carnival itself would have been fine. She could find a way to help from here. Find some way to do something, anything.

But she can't do anything here. Not at all.

She tries, in vain, to summon her Daemon. Maybe they can have some silent conversation-take some time to sort themselves, or decide what they can do 'next'. For the first few hours she's in there, she can't get anything however.

But occasionally, if she concentrates, she can get a flicker of that personal hallucination there, her Daemon rising just before her eyes, only for a moment.

Only a moment before she sighs, and it's gone.

The sound of sighing, perhaps, could lead someone in-through the door, unlocked, or even the window, or the walls. Perhaps instead it's coughing-she's still sick after all, and the venom does make it tricky to breathe occasionally, given how it feels through the stones along her body.

Or, more likely, someone overheard the ridiculous noises from the TV. There's nothing like coming back to recover for a battle with a control-freak of a fae only to hear 'CAREBEAR STAAAAAARE' after all.

[humanhope]

So after finally getting out of that place as it fell apart, it seemed now Morgana was going to be here for a while. It wasn't something he'd planned on, really, but it didn't seem so bad. After all, a Carnival that traveled between worlds and had all sorts of magic and transformation going on seemed like a great place to find a way to become human!

But he still had to get his bearings, and so after finding his trailer (with a little cat door, which he expressed his distaste for even as he used it anyway because it was so much more convenient than having to open the door with his paws), he ended up wandering around to see what else was around before heading back through the portal...

But it sounds like someone else is in the trailer next to his, something he clues into because of whatever that bear... staring? or whatever it is. Which means he should check it out, right? He doesn't actually have to, he's not really a cat so he really shouldn't be this curious about everything, but he just wants to see what's going on in there alright.

Which means that hey Reira guess what, there's a black cat jumping into your window to look around and see what's going on and maybe watch that TV too. A cat that definitely doesn't read like a cat to her empathy.

[soft_focus]

It may not have been planned, but things happen after all. Things like watching old VHS tapes that you especially don't recognize. A ping under the empathy absolutely catches her eye-before the cat is even in the window for that matter-but until he is at the window, she pays it no mind. Someone outside is being outside, that's all there is to it. Or at least that's how it felt.

Suddenly that someone was a lot closer though, and she turns almost immediately to frown.

At.....................a cat.

There is a bit of silence, as she squints from in her pile of blankets. "...................'r you a monster-cat, or a fairy-cat..?"

Duel monsters and fairies look like Things but feel like People (sometimes) right??? Yes.

[humanhope]

He was being so quiet, but somehow she noticed him. He's not really sure how, but he at least pretends to take it in stride, except -

"I'm not any kind of cat!" It takes a minute to get anything else other than that from him, the reaction immediate. Even though now he kind of is a cat, since this is his new body now, he still doesn't like being called a cat.

Even though it's true.

Still, after a moment he calms down and just looks her over before looking to the TV.

"I just thought I'd see what all the noise is, since everyone else is being so quiet."

[soft_focus]

Reira just frowns, quiet heavily, as the cat announces he is not a cat. "....You look like one," she mutters, frowning at him. "....You don't feel like an animal type of cat, but you look like some kind of cat," she rather weakly protests. The girl frowns at the TV, apparently not impressed with it. "....Someone had things called 'tapes' that were supposed to help while I'm sick."

There is a pause.

"....they're not. I don't understand them."

[humanhope]

"This form is just temporary. I'm going to be human."

She hasn't told him to go away or anything, so Morgana takes that as invitation to jump down into the room, stretching his legs before coming to sit in front of the TV himself, and look up at it.

"I've seen a lot of movies, but this one doesn't look familiar." 'A lot' is probably actually only about 10 in his entire life but still, it's enough to make him some kind of movie expert. "Maybe you just need to watch it longer, to get a better understanding?"

[soft_focus]

"...But that makes it the one you have now, doesn't it?" she asks, frowning. And she looks to the screen, shaking her head. "....I watched it five times," she murmurs, clearly upset about the matter.

"........It's still weird." Anyway. Morgana clearly didn't like being called a Cat, even if he's definitely a cat, so she focuses on him again. "....if you're not human right now, but you don't want to be a cat, what are you now?"

[humanhope]

He's still trying to figure out exactly what this show is (it's nothing like he ever saw with Akira, but maybe it's still good?), but then Reira is asking again about him and he turns his attention to her instead.

"Well... I guess you could say I'm a cat right now. But that's only my appearance! Inside, I know I'm really supposed to be human." Even though he knows that he was created. It's complicated. Either way there's no problem with saying he should be human, you can have some greater purpose than what you're made for!

...Probably, at least.

[soft_focus]

He probably definitely didn't see this sort of show with Akira. Definitely. But that's hardly the point.

The point is... "..............that didn't answer anything though..." If you should be human, there's still the question of how you know that, Morgana. And that didn't tell her this.

[fusionactuallysuitsher]

Yuzu let out a soft sigh as she made her way back to the trailer. Despite trying to get back into things, she was still worried about Reira, especially with her trying to go out and about in her state. As she did, she opened the door, noticing Reira watching a cartoon of sorts.

“...hey, Reira. Feeling better?” She asked, concerned.

[soft_focus]

She isn't much of a fan of this cartoon, honestly. She might have been if she understood it more, of course-but frankly she is more lost than ever, so this isn't really working. Reira looks to Yuzu from the couch with what seems caught between a pout, and a miserable stare of agreement, before apparently mumbling something under her breath.

"....no," she mutters, sounding quite displeased indeed. "....still hurts a lot."

[fusionactuallysuitsher]

"...I know it does." Yuzu said, moving to join the younger girl. "I'm just glad you're safe now."

Gently, she tried to see if she wanted to be held.

[soft_focus]

She doesn't protest at least, so getting into a hug can happen rather easily. The girl is, as she appears, rather littered with rocks, even under the night-clothes. They're patchy and scattered-though on her left arm, a set of four gems that weren't there before are sitting as well.

...One looks practically identical to the stone from Yuzu's bracelet, actually. "....People still got hurt though," she mutters, clearly still upset. "...and they're still gone."

[fusionactuallysuitsher]

Yuzu does pull Reira into the hug, though she does notice the stones on her arm, including the one that resembles the one on her bracelet. Another time, perhaps?

"It's not your fault, Reira." she tried to reassure.

[soft_focus]

"...That's what everyone says," Reira whispers, frowning against the other. She closes her eyes, grimacing.

"....Why is it bad. ...If it's my fault?" she finally asks.

[fusionactuallysuitsher]

“Why do you think you’re at fault?” Yuzu asked. “As far as I can see, your actions were only because of the Prince.”

[soft_focus]

She shakes her head, frowning.

".......Before that. .........When I got caught outside the room. ....That was my fault."

[tacosgay]

Taako, well... he's actually on a personal mission when he goes to talk to Reira, even though he's only vaguely aware of who she even is. Foster doesn't ask Taako to do things often, so when he does, those requests are taken seriously, as weird as they may seem. Returning a bird to a little girl shouldn't be that hard, right?

He knocks at the door, calling out: "Hey, uh, Reira? Are you in there, darling?"

oh right do you want me to link her empathy info post-

[soft_focus]

She doesn't know this voice-but she's at the door when Taako arrives, and even opens it as soon as he's spoken. It spooks people if you open doors before they do 'something', she knows that much. She's probably opened it a bit too quickly, however.

The child doesn't look healthy, suffice to say-her stone changes, complete with green crystal roses at her left scalp, would possibly be fine on their own, but the bags under her eyes and the somehow more deathly pallor to her skin speak of illness. She's a long ways from recovery-but that's what being in the trailer is for, after all.

She doesn't really care about that right now though. What matters is...

"........................who are you..?"

OK COMMENTED IN THERE

[tacosgay]

... yeesh. Poor kid. Pity isn't a common thing for Taako to genuinely express, but he sure feels it right now as he looks down at her, something chilled sitting heavy in his gut when he realizes everyone trapped by the Prince must feel that way. What the hell was he doing to them?

"Uh. Hi, I'm Taako, and, uh-- Foster... I guess he knows you somehow, uh, he's my roommate, and he told me to bring you this?" Taako catches the bird from where it's been hanging out in his hair, and he bends down to offer it to Reira, smiling weakly.

She might notice a wild mix of emotions when he mention's Foster's name; he's got complicated feelings towards the man, it seems, though chief among them at this moment is actually concern. (Just beneath that, however? Exasperation.)

THUMBS UP-!

[soft_focus]

"...Foster?" Taako is about to realize something that perhaps makes the entire situation with this bird even more baffling; while Reira picks up on the emotions and studies him for a moment, her eyes land on the bird quickly-and widen once it's being handed over. It's 'her' bird after all, the same one. But she's never known anyone by the name Foster.

Certainly no one she told about the bird, so...

Passing over the mixture of feelings for a moment (who knows who he's feeling such a mess about, after all), she blinks. "....How did he know about the bird..?" It'd gone missing while she was 'working'. She didn't care about it at that time but...

...Well, she had been talking to the bear guy, at least. So. "...I thought the bear-person had it..."

Hah.

[tacosgay]

"... yeah, that's... who Foster is, for sure," Taako says with a smirk; he's trying hard not to be mean to this obviously ill child, but his amusement at her not even knowing who Foster is in light of all this is still very, very clear. She doesn't even need her empathy to be able to pick up on it. "The skinny dude with bear arms. He's, uh... mmmmmmm."

Taako sighs.

"Look, I'll be honest, I have no idea what it is he's doing, but he told me this bird goes back to you, so here it is."

[soft_focus]

It's out of the way at least. She blinks-so bear-arms IS Foster? ....Something to file away then. But her attention is on the bird. She takes it in her hands, and it chirps excitedly-short, happy peeps as she finally breaks into a smile of her own.

"Ah..." Gently, she pets the little bird's head. "....they're happy again," she murmurs despite herself, letting the little thing swoop into her hair to hide and 'nest'. It soon pokes her head up out nearer the top, cheeping a little and diving back down. "....Umnh... ...I don't know either, but... ....If you had them, but he didn't come here, I guess he can't come, can he..."

[tacosgay]

Taako sighs, and again, a cocktail of feelings about the bear-person in question drifts over his consciousness-- worry and annoyance chief among them. One would never know, however, to look at his face; he just shrugs, his expression on the smug side of plain, the face of a lazy cat.

"Yeah, I don't know... he just took off and told me to bring the bird back to you. Your guess is as good as mine."

[soft_focus]

"Mmnh. ...." She stares for a moment-that worry and annoyance stands out among the others, given the slight sting the latter leaves-but she looks back to the bird. "...He gave me this, when we were in the Summerlands. But...." Hmm. She promised not to tell anyone he had feelings, so...

"...I... ...guess he wants to do something for this place, now. ...Instead of not." The child chews her lip, frowning. "....I don't know if that's good..."