⇨ 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]

"You know I can hear you, right?" Lambert asks, out loud, because he's an asshole. To be fair, he at least waited for Gongenzaka to get all of that out before he actually said anything, and he's mostly keeping an ear out for any possible intruders. If this actually works ... well, he doesn't know if it'll help, but it's a start.

[betheman]

"....If you can hear my mutterings, Lambert, your hearing is perhaps as impressive as my own then," he replies dryly-though curiously, it takes a moment before he does so, as if he were briefly focused on something else.

As it is. "...If you will excuse me... ...I, the man Gongenzaka, shall continue attempting to focus on what is before us."

Which is a very, Very vaguely put way of saying that he's trying to listen to the house, thanks.

[whattaprick]

"Not the kind of thing you usually want to find out," Lambert answers dryly, though he'll pause before he continues. He's more interested in a different kind of feeling, or lack of it.

"How stuck in the rock are you?" Not for the first time, his position irritates him. He mostly faces with his back to the rest of the captives, tail lashing irritably at the confinement.

[wild_magic]

Susan glances to his brother before speaking; with the position Lauren is in it's possible he hasn't had a good look at Susan's own stuckness and he doesn't want him to worry more about him. But it's important for everyone to know, and so after a moment he responds anyway.

"It's not as much as some of you... My hand, and one leg and foot. And my other shoulder is... It's the one, turning to stone." It's hard to keep his voice level, but he tries anyway. It's hard not to panic when he really thinks about the situation they're in.

[mylastchance]

Lauren's watching him when he talks, clearly concerned. In his case it's only his ankles and the bottom of his calves that have begun to change. He isn't nearly as concerned about that as he is about Susan though. He wants to take Susan's free hand in some attempt to be comforting, but he knows Susan will just get mad and embarrassed if he does so he doesn't looking away instead and leaving the two of them to their conversation. (Though he's definitely still listening.)

[whattaprick]

Lambert can tell he's young -- he's heard this voice on the radio before, may have even spoken a few times, but nothing that sticks in the memory -- and obviously trying to put a good face on it. That's a good sign. He doesn't need criers, or rather, he doesn't need anyone who can do things except cry. It's the brother he remembers better, from performances and the like, though he doesn't have a solid impression of his personality, either.

"That question was for both of you, you know." Nonetheless, whether Lauren answers or not, he'll continue on. "What did you do to end up here?"

[wild_magic]

Susan just shakes his head at his brother staying silent. It seems things never change, even in these kinds of situations. He would answer for his brother, but he'd rather not dwell on the current situation if he can help it. Talking about what happened before is definitely easier and less distressing.

"There was this girl from the Carnival, Reira, and we were trying to save her from working for the Prince. We snuck into the servant area with her but then we got caught." Actually they got caught hiding under a table, but he doesn't mention that part. It's too silly, this way it at least sounds cooler.

[mylastchance]

He's not looking at them, but he shakes his head. He hardly sees why his answer would be relevant. No matter which parts of him are turning to stone, there's nothing Lambert can do about it, but he doesn't want to argue in the jail. It will only make all of them uncomfortable. So he keeps his thoughts to himself, and just answers the question, even if Susan's already launched into the "how comes" and "whys" of how they got here.

"Just my feet."

He's definitely not as bad off as Lambert. Frankly he thinks the old man should just worry about himself.

[whattaprick]

"I'm a witcher," Lambert says, like that should explain everything. "But I'll leave you to it."

He's more interested in keeping an ear on the Warden regaining lucidity, anyway, as vanishingly small a possibility as that seems right now.

[whattaprick]

"It's not okay," Lambert answers. "But if you don't laugh about it, someone else will. Might as well beat them to it."

But Sans isn't entirely here anymore, so it doesn't really matter what he says. It's just a miracle Sans is conscious at all; he's been in worse condition than Lambert is, for longer. And even in that state, he'd beaten Lambert in a fight ... he'd like to blame it on having a body that wasn't his own alone, but of course, it's not all that. If the Prince hadn't been around or Sans on orders not to kill him... that could have been the end of him.

For now, though, he'll leave it at that. He is tired. Listening to Sans is worryingly like listening to what his future might sound like, and he doesn't want it to get there.

[betheman]

There is, only briefly, yet another pause as Gongenzaka turns an ear back to Lambert again. What. A what???

What?

"....What is a 'Witcher'?" EXPLAIN

[whattaprick]

So he's the least bound and the most mobile, given he hasn't been planted into a wall or something like it. Lambert will tuck that information away for now, but continue:

"How did you sneak in there?" Because it wasn't exactly something the nightrunners could do. If they could, they'd have a lot more of the pieces sooner than later, that's for sure.

[wild_magic]

He cheers up at the new question, always eager to talk about how cool magic is.

"We used magic! We just turned into rats and followed after her, but then I guess she saw us... Maybe we should have been something even smaller." It would have been less likely they'd get caught at least... Still, he thought it was a good plan overall, even if it led to this. It just had a few wrinkles.

[mylastchance]

"She didn't see us." Lauren corrects grumpily. "She just kept looking around, like she knew we were there.."

He still doesn't know how she did it to be honest. Anyone watching them should have just seen normal rats. She knew they were there even before seeing the rats that were tailing her. Somehow she knew it was them.

"We didn't even do anything, just looked around and left."

He wouldn't mind being thrown in jail if he'd actually managed to accomplish something. Instead they ended up getting security called on them for nothing.

[whattaprick]

That does sound like a pretty dumb way to get caught, though Lambert won't waste the breath on telling them so -- it sounds like they're well aware of that much. However, he can helpfully shed some light on what the wrinkle in their plan might have been, assuming there wasn't more than one 'Reira' around ...

"She told me she could feel feelings, before. Anything living, anyway." Maybe anything dead, too? That part he didn't ask about so much. "Must've been how she noticed."

Still, shapeshifting would have been a useful skill to know about ... oh, a while ago. Now that their magic is locked down, it's more an interesting fact than a useful application.

"How good at magic are you? What else can you do?"

[wild_magic]

That definitely would have been useful to know before following after her, but it was too late now. Susan vaguely remembers her mentioning something about how the animals he helped her catch when she was new were feeling scared or whatever... That must have been what that was.

But he's always happy to talk about his magic, and will never turn down a chance to talk, so Susan is more than ready to answer that.

"Well, most of my magic is like, fire and lightning stuff. Really powerful spells, too. But I can do other things too, like turn into animals or move things around without touching them or charm people so they calm down or do what I want. And I can talk in people's heads, too." He pauses as he thinks about whether he should add the next part, but he continues anyway.

"Sometimes it doesn't do what I want it to though, and it gets too strong and kind of does its own thing. Mostly fire. And explosions. And fiery explosions?"

after ___ is taken; night of the 176th

[whattaprick]

In the wake of the Prince's exit, taking the skeleton with him to do whatever the hell it is he plans to do with him, the quiet lasts for all of one minute before Lambert speaks up, his face lit by the flames he can't entirely suppress curl around his lips.

"All right." In the dim light of the cavern, with the mud finally drying and flaking off his skin, the fae marks that drape over his body like a chain of letters hung over his shoulders are a steady, golden glow peeking through the cracks. The petrification's progress seems to have stopped, finally, but he's tired and angry and just had to watch someone's name get ripped from them. He's not in a pleasant mood.

"I don't know about the rest of you," he continues, "But I'm not interested in staying here and being a bargaining chip." Because there's no doubt in his mind: that's all they are, right now. Not everyone here stepped into this with that in mind, but they deserve to know at least part of the reason they're even in this mess to start with.

"We're here because the Prince wanted to get the Ringmaster to grant him a favor. Marrying him, apparently." He looks at the ceiling, frowning. "I get the feeling he wouldn't shut up if we were in for some happy nuptials, so I don't think he got what he wanted. But we need a better plan than waiting until we turn into garden sculptures, so let's start thinking."

[ ooc; this basically exists as a spot for lambert to catch characters up on plot and noodle out potential escape routes. :|b feel free to tag in any order or threadjack as appropriate. ]

[mylastchance]

Lauren smiles, just a bit. 'Sometimes it doesn't do what I want' isn't even the half of it, but Lauren will let Susan explain it how he wants. At least Susan seemed happy now, actually talking about something he liked and not just focusing on the fact that they were trapped.

"Mostly I can just mess with the whether." Honestly, he had a lot more abilities than just weather spells, but the most powerful ones were all focused on calling up some sort of storm. He's pretty sure Lambert wasn't asking about his magic this time, but since apparently excluding himself last time was a big deal he'll mention it just to be safe.

[mylastchance]

Lauren realizes Lambert is trying to be calm and rational and make a plan for all this, but unfortunately at the exact moment all of Lauren's calm has flown out the window.

"I'm sorry, but what the fuck just happened?"

He's still a little hung up on the whole magic identity destroying skeleton man in intense pain ritual.

[whattaprick]

"Does it matter?" Lambert asks, directly. He isn't so much 'calm' as he is 'calmly murderous,' though it's not particularly directed at Lauren.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita nods her agreement with Lambert's original sentiment (she sure as hell didn't sign up to be some pathetic damsel in distress), but when Lauren pipes up, she has to admit she's equally in the dark.

"I'd like to know that, too. That spell... even with my magic perception, I couldn't fully make out what he was doing. How can taking someone's name have such an effect on someone?"

[mylastchance]

"I don't even remember what he was called." Lauren tacks on, a quiet waver to his voice that's either both anger and anxiety.

"Could he do that to us?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert wishes, for once, he remembered more of what Portland's Lambert did. It seems like the kind of thing he would know, or at least have theories on. But he only has bits and pieces of the whole, only what the servants have told him and recollections of conversations where he wasn't even himself. Given no one seems inclined to start talking about anything else until this gets addressed, he'll speak, somewhat impatiently.

"If the Prince could do it to anyone he wanted, don't you think he would have done it to all of us by now?" He exhales. "Names ... matter to fae. In Portland, Strange used Childermass's name against him when he was a changeling. I don't know how it works," he adds, irritably, to forestall any questions he can't answer. "It's supposed to be connected to souls or feelings or whatever, but he couldn't answer that either. But it was important enough to protect."

[whattaprick]

"Explains a lot." Witcher magic wasn't that strong as far as firepower went; strategic application in conjunction with a sword stab in the gut was what it owed most of its effectiveness to. Experimentally, he concentrates, focusing on the fire that always feels like it's ticking in his belly these days.

A puff of flame gusts out from between his teeth, briefly lighting the air, and he snorts. Well, at least that's something.

"Did they take away your blastia?"

[whattaprick]

Not this again ... still, Lambert's explained this enough times that it's mostly automatic by now.

"I'm a mutant," Lambert explains. "Created to hunt monsters. Obviously, to be good at that, they had to change a few things around."