lostcarnival | ⇨ SAY UNCLE

Entry tags:

⇨ SAY UNCLE

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... 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.)

"...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.

"... 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."

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..."

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."

"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..."

Taako almost snorts at that, folding his arms across his chest.

"Foster? Yeah, uh, that's not very likely-- sorry, darling." He doesn't mean it as an insult; honestly, he's not much better than Foster, himself, as far as he can tell, but still. It's incredibly hard for Taako to believe that Foster would ever do something purely for the Carnival's good; the dude hardly does things for his own good most of the time, much less anyone else's.

Honestly, he's very confused by the idea of Foster giving a little girl a bird; he can't help but wonder exactly what his game with that was. It's not like Foster to behave unselfishly, or to want to be around kids for any longer than he absolutely has to, much less to give them things. Out of the two of them, Taako has always been the softer one, and that's not saying a whole lot, really.

"I do wonder, like... what's his motivation lately, you know? What's this guy getting at?" It's more to himself than to Reira; he glances back at her, and then seems to suddenly realize that he's talking to a sick child. "Mmmmaaaaaaybe you don't worry too much about that right now, though, huh? You look like you should definitely be in bed, or, like, the emergency room or something."

"...." Reira's answer is...blunt. She looks to him with a rather dry expression. "..............That's why it's probably for this place. ....He doesn't do things like that, so if he isn't here to do it, then he actually wants to do something this time." It's really the only thing that makes sense. He might hate himself A Lot, but he doesn't seem to really be capable of. Acting on it.

"...I'm probably going to be worried even in bed, so it's okay. ...You're worried too, anyway." Among Many other things, but the worry is still there.

Also. "............I thought emergency rooms were for emergencies........."

-- !

Uh!

Being called out so suddenly clearly takes Taako by surprise, his ears picking up suddenly, freckled face actually flushing lightly at having his own emotions so easily picked up on.

"I-- well, you know, you get used to having somebody around, and when they just-- up and disappear, it's weird, right?" Though he can't help but feel like defending himself here is kind of useless, given this girl basically all-but just stated that she's an empath. He's 100% sure he was doing an excellent job of keeping a straight face; he's had hundreds of years of practice, after all. "But, uh... a-anyway, hey, if I saw you and didn't already know you were super poisoned or whatever, I'd definitely call your situation an emergency, because... I mean, not to be rude or anything, but you look rough, bubbale."

...Whoooops. He was doing pretty good on the face though. Probably as good as her brother.

...Probably better, since her brother's poker face doesn't fake any other emotion. But, regardless, she grimaces. "....I guess," she decides, choosing not to ask what a bubbale is.

Is it a bubble??? A stuttered bale of hay??? It's a mystery.

She looks back to the trailer though, and sighs. "....It's really empty, I guess." Which is about the best way she can-or even knows-how to admit to being sort of lonely now that she actually knows what being lonely is like.

Edited 2017-11-07 01:37 (UTC)

"... yeah," comes Taako's brief response; he knows what she's getting at, because he's been avoiding talking about the exact same sensation himself lately. He hasn't lived on his own for a long while now, and being alone in the trailer is honestly a little bit grating for just how quiet it can be.

He hasn't spent much time sitting in the trailer since Foster ran off.

"Hey. We're gonna get everybody back, like... you know that, right?" It's unbelievably rare for Taako to speak so earnestly, but... well. He's got a soft spot for kids, anyway.

"Yeah." She's confident in that much, at least. Really, it's not even that aspect of things that has her...Worried. If anything just knowing Foster (It's taking a bit to get used to that) is somewhere in the Prince's castle, possibly, that has her a bit worried.

That and...well. "....It's my fault we have to get them though."

How many people keep telling her otherwise, when she notes this part. "...And... ....Even if I wasn't told I had to stay at the Carnival, I wouldn't be able to do a lot to help, this time."

"Uh... I mean, I'm pretty sure that's fake, but, you know, mind if I ask why you think that?" Taako sinks to a crouch to be closer to her eye level as they talk; having a chat this serious while he towers over her doesn't feel right somehow.

...Wow. Just a bit of frowning while she looks him dead in the eye. The Slightest Frown.

FROWNING. "...I left the room," she says flatly.

"...That got Julien caught. ....But it also meant that Sans got caught, when he came for me," she adds, frowning. "...And then others who looked for him, got caught. ...And because we got caught, the dance happened the way it did-and more people were taken..!" she insists, shaking her head.

"...So I did cause a lot..! Even if not everyone getting caught was my fault, most of them were!"

"You know nobody who went after you had to, right?" He tilts his head at her, an odd, sad sort of almost-smile playing across his face. "It's not like you had a gun to their head or something. If you ask me, it's kind of their own dumb faults, really. I mean, I can't speak for some of the people down there because I have no idea who they even are, but, like... you know."

"....It's probably a Warden's job."

She's like. 99% certain it was Sans' job. ...And besides. "...Even if I didn't tell someone to do it, they still did it though. And they did it to try and help. So...that does make it my fault," she explains, frowning.

"....It makes it something I can't let happen ever again."

"... no, I'm pretty sure it's still their fault," Taako says, and he sounds pretty damned certain. "Like, I have no idea what Sans's job is besides to vaguely threaten me on occasion, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that 'definitely throw yourself into fae hell if Reira disappears' isn't anywhere in his contract."

Taako doesn't know anything about Sans, besides that he's Papyrus's brother and that he doesn't like it when Taako implies he might break a rule somehow, and he arguably knows even less about what the Warden's job is, but he does know that Sans is a person-- skeleton?-- with the ability to choose what he does, for the most part.

"Besides, it's not like you got caught on purpose."

"....His job is to keep people safe, and help if people are in danger." She knows this because Yuuya Told Her. "...And I still did the wrong thing."

Anyway. "...I left on purpose. That's definitely breaking a rule on purpose." It's exactly why she's not leaving the carnival, given she's been told Not to do that, suffice to say.

She pauses...and finds herself adding... "....I'm not... ...sad, about it, I guess. ...About being the reason, I mean. ....I don't like that I did it, and it happened, but I'm not going to be sad if someone says that to me," she clarifies, chewing her lip. It feels like, after so many have run the round of 'no, you aren't the one at fault', that there just might be a reason that track keeps being run.

"... huh." Well. That's interesting, and clearly puzzles Taako for a beat. A long ear quirks up. "Yeah, I mean, fair enough, but, like... it's still objectively not your fault? Maybe Sans, okay, sure, if it makes you feel any better, for some reason, we can call that one your fault, but, uh, anybody else just kind of fell in of their own accord, know what I'm saying?"

He ends up just sitting down on her doorstep, a much more comfortable position to chat in; it seems like he might be here for a while, and she hasn't exactly invited him in. Not that he's upset that a child hasn't invited a strange, grown elf into her house-- that makes perfect sense, honestly, and good on her for it.

"...The one I got caught with did," she notes, frowning. "...The things after it happened because of what happened though. It's like how one move in a duel changes all the other moves." She stares as the other sits, glancing back inside, and then to Taako. For her...she didn't invite him in because moving hadn't really come to mind. She's sort of used to just standing in places and talking.

She supposes she should go inside, in this case though. "....do you want to sit on a pillow instead of the stairs?"

"The one you got caught with?" Taako echoes her words in clear confusion, shifting a bit where he's sitting. "What do you mean?"

... a duel? That's... what kind of duel is she talking about? And how would a little kid know anything about duels in the first place? But Taako doesn't have long enough to be properly concerned about that before she's asking him a question.

"Uh. Yeah, actually, that's... not a bad idea," he responds, giggling a bit sheepishly.

"...We used a portal to go to the stables, so I could sleep there. ...Since they were with me, they got caught," she adds. She...could explain that technically they had two bodies and WERE the portal, but....

...that probably makes it obvious who it was, and she would really rather they not be blamed for things. As it is, she goes back inside to find a pillow, letting him come inside. Taako seems...pretty confused at least. Or briefly confused.

So she'll explain. "...Duel monsters. ....You use cards."

Taako hesitates for a beat, glancing in; so she's letting a stranger inside after all?

... then again, if she's an empath, she would know if he were some kind of creeper, so there's that. He shrugs his shoulders, and climbs to his feet, strolling inside and stretching his legs a bit.

"Oh, so it's a card game, huh?" He breaks into a smirk. "That's a pretty melodramatic name for a card game, I gotta say. Duel monsters."

As for her former statement about who else she got into trouble... well, he pretty much already knows, now that he thinks about it. Reira was with Julien in the rooms, as far as he can remember-- he was told to go check on their shared room, after all, and that's where he found Julien's comatose human body. So that means...

... well. He still doesn't really blame her, she's just a kid. He might have a talk with Julien after all this is said and done, though, because what kind of goofy idea is sending a kid off by herself to the stables in some weird fae manor?

"....Melodramatic..?" She frowns, and squints a little. Errr...she's not really sure what to make of that. "...It's because the cards have monsters..." And you know. You're dueling with them. It made plenty of sense.

Also that's exactly what she was trying to prevent Taako, stop that-stop getting weird thoughts she can't completely judge. All she can do is squint and frown thanks to that-it isn't, after all, far from what the last person who found out about Julien's involvement was feeling...

As it is. She holds out the pillow. "....The chairs are too hard otherwise."

"Oh. Huh. So it's one of those nerd card games where you collect all these fancy themed cards, then, that's..." He hums a bit, thinking on that; and then he shrugs, smirking lightly at her. "I mean, hey, if that's what you're into. We've all gotta have hobbies, I guess."

He accepts that pillow, glances at it... and then gives another half-shrug, and goes to place it on the seat of a chair nearby, carefully sinking down onto it to make sure it doesn't just slide out from under him. That would definitely ruin the whole tone of this visit, maybe. Or, hell, maybe it would liven this poor kid's day up a little. Then again, she doesn't seem like the type who's into slapstick.

"So, uh... can I ask what your plan was? With the whole... sneaking out at night thing? Because, like, they were pretty clear on how bad an idea that was." It's not really judgemental, given the fact that she's a little kid and they all pretty equally hated obeying the Prince's demands; hell, he's a grownass elf and he also disobeyed that particular order. Still, it'd been made abundantly obvious that breaking rules could put their very lives in danger. She had to know.

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