⇨ 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

[brightspot]

All of Five's lessons have only been within the last few months. She can and has taken people down before - by hand and with weapon - but it usually helps that people always underestimate her. That gives her the element of surprise in a way.

She can't help the mild look of disappointment on her face at the lack of firearms. Guns are so useful, and they've got an abundance of them on the Raza, Five's favorite being the big supersonic [??? possibly? idfk what they're called] ones because they packed a wallop without the gory mess that bullets can leave behind. But... She'll take a knife if she has to. She's sort of adaptable to weapons. It wasn't that long ago she'd stabbed a guy in the side of the head with a goddamn spoon.

With a small shrug, she answers his question with an air of uncertainty. "I guess just something small enough I can fit in my boot? That's what I had back home, anyway..."

[kingsroads]

Strange actually bends down slightly to look at Five's boot as if to confirm the size and shape of it. Look, people in the carnival have super weird feet, might as well see that Five has normal human feet and not tiny hooves or some huge floppy rabbit feet or something like that.

"We should have something that small. I'll get it and bring it to you sometime later today." There's a pause before Strange asks, "Is there anything else you'd like? Aside from better shoes, that is."

Strange does not know much about fashion. But what Strange knows is that the high heels that Five is wearing look super uncomfortable and kind of impractical.

[brightspot]

[/sticks leggy out????]

Five puts one foot forward for him to look but, indeed, she's in heels right now. At least for the moment. She's already taken them off several times within the past several hours and had to put them back on, it's a wonder she hasn't lost them. She's much more used to her boots. At least it makes it easy to see that she does, in fact, have normal human feet, though.

"Thanks. That would be good..." She's clearly still feeling a little lost and confused, even if she's determined to help in some way. She's still not sure what way, where she belongs here. She's tamping down rather hard on the urge to just go wandering, to find... some place small and quiet to huddle into.

"I guess there's not really many air vents around here, huh?" She asks jokingly, a small flicker of a smile passing her lips that's born not really out of amusement but more as an attempt at reassurance, to herself and to him, that she's okay and she's ready to do whatever is needed of her. She recalls the names he mentioned, who she should see and talk to about helping, and tightens her grip on her radio.

[kingsroads]

Who has two thumbs and has minimal experience with modern HVAC systems? Hint, it's Jonathan Strange. His brief experiences with the twenty-first century have taught him what a television, computer, and refrigerator are but concepts like air vents, air conditioning, or HVAC systems in general go straight over his 1810s head. As such, he can't help but look a little confused at Five's suggestion.

"Air vents? I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

Strange hasn't realized yet that Five doesn't exactly know when he's from. While normally his waistcoat, cravat, et cetera combo would give his time period away in an instant, it doesn't do anything now. After all, everybody managed to escape from a vaguely 1800s party, which he's still wearing the suit from.

[brightspot]

"Oh."

Well, so much for that attempt at levity, then.

"Um. It's not... important, just--" She frowns, tilts her head a little in a way that's probably familiar by now, curious and questioning. "You really don't know what they are?"

He hadn't known what space stations were either, now that she thinks about it. He'd equated it with ships on the sea docking at a port. Five isn't super familiar with the far distant past, but she knows that everything was invented at some point, even fire and the wheel. She just... doesn't know how long ago. Or if it's really even the past of her universe that he's from. He has magic, after all, and Five's pretty sure that's never existed in her universe, no matter how far back you went.

[kingsroads]

And Strange simply nods. Yep He really doesn't know what they are. Though, for any confusion Five may have, Strange is reacting with an idle shrug, as if not knowing things is something he's grown used to.

"You needn't worry about it," he responds, trying to keep his tone light. "I don't know what a lot of things are! Items like televisions, electronics, I only know how to use thanks to my time at the carnival." And even then, most of what Strange knows is how to turn things on and off. Still, he can use them and so that's what matters in the first place! Besides, magic could be used for half of the things one uses electronics for anyway.

[brightspot]

"I'd just... never met someone who didn't know what an air vent was before." Which is a little silly for her to get confused about, if she thinks about it, considering all of the other new things she's run into so far. Not knowing what an air vent is should be like... the least weird thing on the list.

She shrugs. "Uhm. They're just sort of... man-made metallic tunnels put into buildings to pump hot or cold air to different rooms? But the ones on my ship are big enough for me to crawl around in, and I like to go there when I want to be alone sometimes," she explains, not knowing exactly why she's even explaining this, except that she'd brought it up in the first place and it feels only fair.

[kingsroads]

As Five continues to explain, Strange looks a bit confused. He has so many more questions about this that he's not entirely sure Five can answer. Why do the vents need to be so big? How can you get inside them, are they on the floor or something like that? Where does the hot air come from in the first place and how exactly does one get the air to move?

Of course, the answer to the last question in Strange's mind is 'magic'. But it would be silly to have a magician for the sole purpose of heating a building.

He frowns for a moment, mulling over his questions, before Strange asks, "But wouldn't you be hot or cold yourself if you crawled around in the vents?"

[brightspot]

Later, Five would have no objection to drawing out a detailed diagram of the whole system for him, and have zero difficulty in doing so, if he really wanted her to. Right now though she knows is probably not the best time.

Still. He asks a legitimate question, one that she can answer, and a smile pulls at the corner of her lips for a second before she does.

"Well, the air's not moving all the time, so sometimes they're pretty much just tunnels. But it can get uncomfortable if you're in them for a while and the hot or cold is pumping through, yeah."

[kingsroads]

Her answer just brings up even more questions. Still, Strange realizes that this isn't the time or place so he simply nods.

"If you don't mind, I'd love to have an in-depth conversation about these air vents once we've gotten all this sorted out." 'This' is said with a little wave of his hand, as Strange tries to gesture to all aspects of the carnival's current situation. Chatting about air vents and spaceships can happen once everyone else has been rescued from the prince.

Still, it's nice to not think about that, if only for a moment or two.

[brightspot]

She gives a light laugh, and shrugs. "I don't mind. Might be a little less interesting than your magic, though," she admits.

When he waves his hand in an attempt to encompass everything around them and what's going on, well, Five just nods slowly, solemnly. Lip briefly bitten, gaze temporarily pulled to scan their surroundings. Clearly, she's still feeling kind of lost about... 'this.'