⇨ JAILHOUSE ROCKS

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone who IS imprisoned, brainwashed, or infiltrating.
When: Day 175, 11:30PM onward.
Where: The Prince's shiny new fortress.
What: Those that have been imprisoned by the Prince languish in their underground cell, while those that are under his control continue to do his nasty bidding. Also, Foster might be here? We'll see how that goes.
Warnings: General fuckery, maybe torture.

THE LAIR OF THE BEAST↴ As the fortress comes into being, the Prince has been reaching far across his realm, beckoning his servants back to him and corralling as many helpless hostages as he can manage. In the case of the unfortunate carnival members who made the mistake of crossing him during their stay, they are being locked away in the most secure inner sanctums, held as collateral against their former master. Those freshly captured haven't yet been bent to his will, but they can certainly be neutralized. Carted away by security and pulled deep underground, there feels like there is little hope of them escaping on their own. ► GROUNDED: The Prince's dungeon is a simple one - in place of cages and manacles, there is only natural stone. A claustrophobic cave somewhere deep in the earth, those within it will soon be completely cut off from the outside world. All the prisoners will have been injected with manticore venom at some point or another, which will be slowly turning parts of their bodies to stone, and if that wasn't enough they have also been partially encased in the stone walls and pillars, as if phased halfway into the rock and left there in various positions. It is an enclosed area, and all the prisoners are within talking distance of each other - which is a good thing, because there isn't a lot else to do with their powers mostly bound and their bodies becoming less and less capable of movement. ► CONTROLLED: Those of the brainwashed that manage to return to the fortress will be set to work guarding and attending to these hostages, along with the help of some of the long term Manor servants. They still need to eat, right, and that can be difficult when you arms are stuck in a cave wall. Otherwise, there may come a time when the Prince calls upon them to do something more specific - and there's also the chance that the new prisoners will fall victim to his power and succumb to his control as well. With the poison in their bodies, it's only a matter of time before they lose themselves.

Comments

[whattaprick]

Betrayal, or lack thereof, only matters if they get out of here or not -- and whether Foster helps or hinders any effort to do so. At the very least, him being trapped in the wall with the rest of them indicates the Prince doesn't trust him running loose, any more than he trusted Sans.

'Blue woman' matches the description of more than one individual in the Carnival, but the others, Lambert recognizes. They escaped triggers a wash of relief he hadn't even known he could have, tension uncoiling in him that he wasn't aware of carrying. He exhales, near-silently, as his shoulders drop slightly. Oh, they're in dire straits, that much is for certain, but Lambert's never had much of a care for his own self-preservation.

Predictably, though, he eventually scowls.

"Great. Just what I always wanted to be when I grew up." His tail, mostly petrified as it is, bashes restlessly against the wall. However, there's an important detail Foster hasn't expounded on to his satisfaction.

"Who was fighting? The Ringmaster and the Prince?" So much for the Ringmaster bragging that she could take him on if she had the right resources!

[whattaprick]

"If your parents are horse and a sphinx, that would explain it," Lambert comments dryly. In the Carnival, you can really never be too sure -- after all, a dog and a horse produced a donkey. There's probably some combination of something out there that would produce something like Gongenzaka even without fae changes to account for.

[whattaprick]

For better or worse, Strange hasn't seen fit to share with Lambert they've got a magical anomaly right under their noses. If they get out of here, whenever that is, he's going to have to remember to ask them to demonstrate sometime ... for now, the conversation's a way to pass the time, distract them from the fact that they're in a nasty hole in the ground. It doesn't particularly matter if he believes the extent of Susan's abilities, only that it works when it needs to.

Right now, for obvious reasons, it can't. So he'll just have to take their word for it. For now, since Lauren's asking...

"A source is just what the sorcerers call any person born with magic. Like I said, people usually need to learn how to use it in the first place. The ones with less of it, those are the pellars, wise women, soothsayers -- the sort of people you'd go to if your sheep got lost. On the other end, you've got sorceresses advising kings and hiding up in their towers with their books." He has to pause to cough raspily, shaking his head.

"The schools spend a lot of time looking for the strongest sources to train up. If they don't learn how to manage it, it can get messy."

aki says to go ahead and skip her!

[wild_magic]

"Messy how? Like... Explosions and teleporting and flying and unicorns and stuff?" You know, all the usual things that happen when his magic doesn't cooperate. He's pretty used to those kinda of mistakes, since they've followed him his whole life. It's the problem with understanding how to use magic like he does; he knows all about how to manipulate it to get what he wants, but doesn't know about what he's actually doing to avoid pulling the wrong thing out of place, and, well... That can definitely be a bad thing, even if the power it comes with is good.

[betheman]

If Gongenzaka could properly give Lambert a scowl, he would. Unfortunately, his head can't quite turn that direction, so all he can manage is an awkward narrowed stare over his arm, one which is likely only effective thanks to the glow in his eyes. As it is, he huffs. "I, the man Gongenzaka, was assuredly not speaking of any height gained through my stay with the Carnival. That, naturally, was all magic. As a typical human, I, the man Gongenzaka, stood at 5'8''," he explains; not that the number lines up with his age as it is.

"It is... ....Hmm. Without my animal, and plant features, my upper body looks quite the same as it did before," he explains-and quite likely, he makes it worse. The man does have to chuckle however. While the comments are certainly something he has grown used to after all, well. "....I, the man Gongenzaka, have never heard myself compared to a 'sphinx' before," he observes, smiling a little. "...It is typically a bear, or a hound at best. Considering how my ears were before the largest of changes however, I, the man Gongenzaka, am fairly certain much of these came of foxes..."

It's not exactly relevant but...well.

[betheman]

"Hmm! I, the man Gongenzaka... should think you quite included within our number," the beast growls, but he is quickly silenced by Lambert's own remarks. Once again, Gongenzaka is left to listen, and observe-to consider what is being revealed between the two of them, between the matter of those involved, of the fight... Plants would be Syrlya, no doubt. He had mentioned looking for...someone. And he knows who Taako is. Blue could mean...Blue Diamond? But that doesn't sound like her sort of thing. If anything, Blue Diamond seemed quite at home at the dance, last he had glimpsed her.

And of course, he doesn't know the Acquisitioner. ...Still. Clearly, they escaped. That's what matters. Not to mention, he thinks, the rest of what there is. "There is no helping the matter... ...We knew the risks...when we chose to fight... ....At the very least, a greater goal was achieved..." The trouble is being 'rescued', now. Or if they can be, for that matter.

Hmm!

[criticallyfucked]

The look Gongenzaka receives from Foster, and the sound of contempt, of disgust--

The Man Gongenzaka has an even shorter memory than he does.

He cannot lift his head (or move it at all), but does not need to--he is perfectly positioned to look down on the dark shape in the floor.

"Shut up," he says, and immediately regrets it--because he hastens to provide answers.

"Yes." Whether it's meant to answer Lambert's guess or Gongenzaka's assessment of greater goals is unclear, but functionally, it answers both.

"I think...." he trails off; his eyes lose focus. He's miserable and ill and has still not eaten enough for one day in the past seven. Organising himself is hard. He knows there's an answer he wants to give. He knows there's an answer he needs to give--!

"No. I. I know, I know, I know, I know. They fffff... felt when the Rose, when the Rose... changed hands." His claws dig into his scalp, his face twisted with... something. Frustration, maybe.

[criticallyfucked]

Foster watches Herbert struggle--watches him writhe, and crawl, and... scoot along the floor on his ass, in turns.

He is.... confused. Annoyed? Mostly confused. He roughly follows Herbert's accusation--that the Ringmaster, right now, is absent from the equation. Which is not unreasonable, considering the renewed ambiguity of his allegiance, and even less unreasonable, considering Herbert's... lack of choice. So he watches, and weighs which of them truly holds the winning hand.

"You would sooner believe in nothing?"

[whattaprick]

"Is that what happens to you?" Lambert can't help snickering a little, probably imagining how the stuffy sorcerers back home would have reacted to that, but his tone gets a bit more serious when he continues.

"Most of the time, a source that doesn't learn to get a handle on their magic goes just crazy. 'Course, even they do learn how to control it, they might still go crazy anyway." For different reasons, but power corrupts and all that. "Explosions can still happen, though."

[whattaprick]

Lambert really does have to try to turn and take a look at Julien at that, catlike eyes narrowed in the dim light. There is one thing, though, that is eminently clear.

"He hasn't taken yours yet," he guesses, and even feeling out the name in his head, he knows that's correct. There's none of that yawning, empty void where the skeleton's name was in his head, no blank space where there should be an identity. The bird may be brainwashed and poisoned, but he's still whole -- but considering they were taken the same night, subjected to the same punishment, how close is he riding the edge? Is there something about being a monster that made it easier for the Warden to succumb, or something about having two bodies that made it more difficult to break someone's will?

"Julien," the witcher says, slowly. "What else shouldn't you do?"

[whattaprick]

Telling Foster to focus is going to do jack shit, based on previous experience, but he's audibly fraying, and that's just no good if Lambert wants to get as much information as he can out of him as he can.

"Fae seem like they keep pretty good track of their belongings. Like a kid who gets their toys taken away from them," Lambert says dryly. That could apply to the Ringmaster and the Prince both in equal measure right now, though the "toys" in question are markedly different. His most important questions have been answered, he supposes; there's nothing he can imagine Foster has to contribute that would change his plans (or lack thereof) significantly.

"Take your time, Foster. It's not like we're in a rush." Since the man's so obviously struggling with ... whatever. Sleep deprivation, Lambert guesses, among everything else that's just ... him.

[espigeon]

His head is swimming. He shouldn't be here, maybe he can tell himself they're neutralized and harmless but he knows he shouldn't talk to any of these people, he's going to be caught, he's going to-

A deep breath escapes him when he hears his name, and his pupils go very quickly from tiny pinpoints to gaping and back a few times. It hasn't been taken yet but he's taken a lot of poison by now. There's this weird, painful-happy shock of recognition when he hears it out loud.

"I shouldn't interfere with the other servants. I shouldn't contradict my master or his wisdom and benevolence, or his inevitable victory. I shouldn't talk to the enemy, unless it's to try to goad them. I shouldn't even get close unless, again, goading, or if I attack them. I shouldn't think about... I shouldn't question why I'm...." The feathers on his neck bristling, he mutters a stream of words that don't make any sense in context, lined up and rattled off in rapid sequence, when I go for a drive I like to pull off by the side of the road turn out the lights get out and look up at the sky and I do this to remind me that I'm really really tiny, until it's been enough of an interruption of the thought. If this body sweated, he'd be pouring with it. "Loyal, so loyal."

He can think around the fact that he's being controlled and has to serve pretty well by now, after all the poking he's done. He just can't actually think it or say it. Of course he has reasons to be here, to do this. Of course they're real reasons.

"But actually there's shouldn't and there's can't and it's not... there's only so much flex. And I can't let you out or allow you to go if you were out, even if I knew how to... um, unchip. Maybe if you were in cement or hardwood." Woodpecker attributes. Julien's not all pigeon. "I was kinda hoping for more traditional jail here? But he's wiser than I, of course."

[pipers_son]

"Well, why don't ya show me?" He tilts his head to the side, and only partially because moving his neck at least helps him feel not so stiff for the time being. "I know angelic, so they could be similar, couldn't they? Or at least I know odd languages now, ha!"

Funny, the kind of knowledge that stays with you.

"I'm a good listener, at least."

[pipers_son]

"I think me and Susan can definitely manage that," Joker says, adding himself into that little area of responsibility. What he doesn't say is that this all relies on them being conscious and not completely sick... But hopefully things work out for them.

If anything else, it's better than sitting around waiting for nonsense. He has to agree with Lambert on that one.

[pipers_son]

"She had a lot of faith in us," Joker drawls, sarcasm heavily coating every single syllable. It was obviously going to be a mess from the start. The only question had been of "when". "Still, no use cryin' over spilled milk."

Partially because if they start now, Joker isn't sure they'll ever stop. This place is gloomy enough just on its own merits. They don't need to add to it.

"So how did ya get caught?" He was kind of busy being fucked up by a gargoyle himself, so, you know.

[otoko]

It may not be a short memory, but there is at least a sort of 'innocent ignorance' at play, not at all unlike when he was dealing with Sherlock. Why would someone be imprisoned as a traitor, why would a 'traitor' have helped obtain such an item for the Carnival-in his own mind the answer is that they aren't a traitor so much as one who failed enough that being a traitor is a fitting punishment, but Gongenzaka wisely keeps from going down that path as the other snaps.

Instead, for now, the best option is to agree with Lambert, to continue getting answers...eventually. "Aauh. It is as they have said... ....If you need, perhaps sleep, or even food when it comes...is better than explanations..." Do they have the time, the luxury for such things? Probably not. But a scattered answer is just as bad as none, really.

[mylastchance]

Lauren hesitates to speak as his mind puts all that together. It seemed in Lambert's world even the number of people who could cast simple spells were rare. Then that must mean, "Sources are the only ones who can do magic where you're from."

He doesn't bother even asking for confirmation, assuming he's right. That must have been why Lambert seemed confused when Lauren didn't call himself a sorcerer. Normal people couldn't learn magic on his world. Only people like Susan, born with a natural gift would have been able to cast any spells at all.

"In Faerun anyone can learn magic. It just takes time. And dedication."

That was how he learned. And that was why he didn't need to worry about things going wrong in his casting.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita sighs. It's kind of embarrassing to talk about her own failures, but...

"Gargoyle got me. We were flying up to the tower and one of them just... latched on. Grabbed me in mid-air." She shivers at the memory. At the time, Rita thought she was going to fall. The ground was so damn far, and she was off-balance and trying to fend off that thing, and... ugh. It was awful.

"That skeleton freak tried to save me, but he ended up falling instead. He's... probably fine." He's not here, and his abilities should have protected him from falling to his death.

[anti_nonsense]

"I'll hold you to that." She sounds confident, despite having little reason to be. "Nobody keeps Rita Mordio locked up for long."

Is she fooling herself, denying the helplessness of her situation? Maybe, sort of. But holding on to her pride has more meaning than just saving face. If the Prince wants them to succumb to despair and desperation, make their minds vulnerable to his influence, then Rita's going to do everything she can to make that difficult for him.

[wild_magic]

"And being really boring, and talking to trees." Those are the important steps that Lauren is clearly neglecting to mention here. He knows first-hand about all of the very boring things that Lauren had to do to become a druid, although admittedly some of it was just what he imagined went on at their secret druid meetings or whatever.

[scientificist]

Herbert initially wonders if this is just an extravagant way for Lambert to reject the onion by impaling and then spitting on it.

The fire doesn't quell that impression at first, but Herbert understands the purpose not too soon after the onion is charred. What he doesn't understand is how a prisoner is being allowed to get away with this. This entire system of captivity absolutely doesn't have safety in mind.

"Why were you permitted fire?" he asks sharply, taking a step back. He can't be sure of Lambert's reach.

[whattaprick]

The compulsion to serve the Prince can be resisted, then, if not explicitly. Lambert knew that much already, in some sense -- the rabbit girl, the bicorn, even the butler, they've all found ways to slip his rules and give them answers, but maybe the Prince has the arrogance and confidence that holding their names makes rebellion a trivial concern. Fishes trying to slip off a hook already pierced through their vitals. Here and now, where there's still a mind to fight against, the enchantment must be more heavy-handed. And clumsy.

Not for the first time, Lambert wishes he was smarter. Word games, loopholes in contracts, he's not good at those, not as fast as he should be. So it takes him some time to come up with an answer, turning his head away again, staring at the wall. This feels like a farce, but there's not much room to be embarrassed at this point in time, is there?

"Nobody's talking to anyone," he says, staring at the wall, frowning. Is it intent that matters, or the performance of it, he wonders? "Just thinking out loud. That's all we can do down here." For now, anyway. Ugh. If Julien was can tell the Warden's been recaptured (reclaimed?) by the Carnival, that must mean he was somewhere he could see it.

Outside.

"If I could fly," he murmurs. "I wonder what I'd see out there, right now."

[anti_nonsense]

"Fine by me," Rita replies smugly. Yep, she's real proud of herself. She won't give in to anything - not the Prince, not the venom, and not these stupid onions.

But... there is something she's curious about. "What's with you, anyway?" she asks after a pause, but before he can walk away. Of course, if he does walk away instead of answering, it's not like she can stop him. "You're not like the other servants. You new or something?"

[criticallyfucked]

"Food?" Foster echoes. "Food?"

He tries to swallow and fails.

"That went so well for you, didn't it? Eating." He starts to laugh. Then he suddenly reverses his position with a viciousness. "Fuck food. I don't--I don't deserve to eat, to... to live." He's so vehement that speaking produces a large bubble of spit, thankfully much less visible inside of a dark cave than it would have been otherwise.

He goes quiet for a minute or two after this. It's a measure of time that restores a bit of organisation to him, internally--time during which he starts to recall all the things he didn't say, the details he wanted but couldn't recover because he was trying to think and speak and cohere.

Every thought is heavier now, though. He's starting to lose his rush, his wakefulness. On the one hand, that means the has pressure ebbed, and those impenetrable doors inside of him unlock again. On the other...

"....toys. Haha. Yes.... too bad." Too bad for the Prince, and too bad for the Ringmaster. His audience, however, was lucky to be such toys. To be so privileged, and yet so ungrateful.

It only now occurs to him to describe it, what he saw. This is just about the first chance he's had to really go back over what happened--in a way, his imprisonment forcing him to stop, to slow down, is giving things that he already grasped intangibly a chance to solidify.

"But still the Rose wasn't in the Ringmaster's hands... not in the Prince's, but also not hers... it was quick. He used something... other against her, a crystal." It's... pensive, but with censorious tone--like he's scolding them for not listening, maybe.

But he will not be rewarded for his worthless role, and he will not be allowed to rest, either--not until he finishes purging these thoughts, and fills every possible hole. Then he can finally sleep, and ultimately die.

[whattaprick]

"More or less. Priestesses and druids claim to get their powers from spirits or the gods, but if I had to guess they just have their own ways of training kids with the potential." He snickers, slightly. "They've got some pretty different views about how magic ought to be used. Personally, I try to stay out of it. Don't have the time to listen to stuck-up women and old men in robes talk my ear off about they think magic ought to be used."