lostcarnival | ⇨ 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

"I'm not really sure what, if anything, this place has in common with a carnvial. But then I haven't actually been to a carnival. I think the boardwalk in Beach City might be pretty close? There's a lot of features that seem to be in common with the popular conception of 'carnivals.'"

She remembered something fondly. "Me and Steven and my dad all went on an undercover hunt to find a trouble maker in the boardwalk one time. We solved it, although it turned out to be rather anticlimactic at the end."

"Was Beach City where you lived?" She spoke of it like it was someplace familiar and thought of it like it was someplace familiar. Maybe thinking about nice things was another way to help combat being scared.

She shook her head. "No, I never lived there, Steven did. My dad just worked there sometimes and then later I would visit Steven there."

Her visits to beach city were brief and far in between. It took months before she even got to visit the boardwalk.

Steven. Cole hasn't met him yet, but he can tell from Connie's thoughts that Steven's important. He's bright, shining through her presence like a star.

"The two of you are friends. How did you and Steven meet?"

Maybe just talking will keep her mind off of being scared. That works sometimes, doesn't it?

Good call! Her face brightens up to match.

"Well!"

She fluffs her hair back and gets into her Storytelling Mode.

"It all started when I was sitting on the beach! I'd found an isolated spot to sit and read while I waited for my dad to come back from work. I'd already resigned myself to a life of spinsterhood, most likely involving cohabitation with not less than a dozen domestic felines."

She said it with great casual matter-of-factedness.

"I was elbows deep in the fishing bylaws section of 'Chapman Piloting and Seamanship' when I was distracted by a commotion nearby! A boy had fallen off of his bike, and I realized somewhat belatedly that they might have been trying to talk to me, possibly for several minutes prior. But before I could make contact he ran away!"

She dramatically embellished her emotions, holding up her fists in despair.

Oh, this is better already. He can feel the fear fade, the sadness slip as Connie continues her story. She's thinking about something else. About someone else. This is good. So, he will listen.

Cole nods as if he understands Connie's story (even though he doesn't. Why a dozen cats? Surely that would be too many!)

"Did you meet him again?"

It's an honest question, Cole doesn't really understand things like 'narrative sensibilities.'

It was totally fine, in Connie's opinion, audience interaction meant audience engagement, which could only benefit a one-on-one storytelling environment like this one.

She nodded. "Just when I'd finished silently berating myself for my social ineptitude, a feral, primordial schriek resonated across the beach, initiating a seismic shift in the accompanying cliffside! A decorative sculpture carved into the mountain broke off and started to plummet straight for me, and I was heroically rescued by Steven diving towards me and encasing us both in a protective magical bubble."

Cole's just listening so intently, leaning forward slightly as if that would help him hear Connie's story better, despite the fact that he's right next to her. He's not questioning protective magical bubble because video game mechanics, protective barrier spells were something he was used to and knew people could do.

"And then you talked? You should talk then!"

"Yeah!" she said, leaning just as closely back to Cole, excited by his excitement.

"Although, I didn't make a great impression... I was still pretty rocked by the 'almost dying' part, and I had no idea what to make of this kid who can make magic bubbles! I was also super nervous, so nervous that when he mentioned he was part of planetary defense force I told him that my dead was a cop, which was definitely not factually correct."

"As long as you apologized afterwards, that's what matters. People say silly things when scared." Cole's saying this in a matter of fact tone, as if reciting something he knows is correct and something he knows to be true.

Though, planetary defense force? He doesn't really know what that means, but it's a question to ask later.

⇨ SAY UNCLE

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