lostcarnival | ⇨ JAILHOUSE ROCKS

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⇨ JAILHOUSE ROCKS

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.

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"Wings. Feet. Left arm. In other words, all my limbs besides the one arm. The shoulder's mostly petrified, though. I only have mobility from the elbow down." Rita's not sure the information will do him any good, but she answers as clearly as possible, anyway.

Is it going to be important, or isn't it? Lambert has no way of knowing. But every advantage, no matter how little, helps.

"Can you feel anything in the restrained limbs at all?" He continues quizzing. If Rita's attempting to cast magic even in this condition, her ability must not be contingent on having the use of both hands. That's something, even if her attempts are clearly failing. The question is, is their magic being bound a result of the poison, or the location they're in, or something the Prince itself has imposed on them.

Lambert himself can tell his odds of extracting himself from this place are vanishingly small. But if the rest of Rita's limbs are still functional, then it could just be a matter of breaking her out of the stone.

Not for the first time, Rita squirms in place, tugging at her arm and feet. There's still no sign of them moving, but...

"Yeah. They're not petrified, just stuck. I've been trying to use earth magic to mess with the wall behind me, but..." She probably doesn't need to explain for Lambert to guess that it's going about as well as her other magic attempts.

If only the rock could be turned to sand, or transmuted into liquid, or Rita herself could be turned insubstantial. Brute force can't do it, and when he tries to reach for his own shapeshifting himself -- or even just the spell to summon his daemon to get a better assessment of the situation -- there's nothing there.

"Waiting for other people to help you is shit," he grumbles, head thunking gently against the wall. This isn't a human prison, where he'd be expected to sit tight and behave lest he be mowed down unarmed by a bunch of guards. What was the point learning new magic if he doesn't change a damn thing in the end, he wonders...

"Gotta figure out what's messing with our magic," is what he'll continue with despite himself. He was stubborn enough to live through turning into a witcher, he's stubborn enough not to lay down and die here. "Damn ... Strange could see magic. That'd help right about now."

He's completely ignorant that the girl he's speaking to might very well have something in the same department, because Jonathan Strange's huge ego means he never hinted anyone else might have gotten the same ability out of Portland.

Rita groans her agreement with his complaint. She hates relying on others, especially when she can't see what they're doing. Ironically, that's basically the reason she's here now.

But when Lambert brings up Strange and his magic perception, she lets out a sound like a snort, like he just said something unexpectedly funny. "Hah! And I bet the idiot started gloating and preening like he's the only one who can do that." Lambert doesn't have to tell her. She knows she's right.

"Don't underestimate me. My eyes are every bit as good as his - better, even." Rita doesn't have much evidence to support that last assertion, other than the fact that Strange is closer to old age and its related afflictions than she is.

It comes as a surprise, but then again, it shouldn't really. Lambert can't say she's wrong about how Strange crowed about his new abilities either -- but if has them now, and if they're still working, then it's an advantage they can ill afford to pass up.

"That so?" His voice is a challenge. Are you up to it, Rita? "Then tell me what you can see."

Is she up for it? Of course. Rita never lets a challenge go unanswered.

She's been slowly working out a theory while testing her magic, not wanting to say anything until she's certain... but he's asking, so she might as well go ahead and say what she thinks. The evidence is strong enough that she's probably on the right track, at the very least. "As far as I can tell... this rock we're stuck in is acting as a magic insulator. It dampens and distorts magic energy in close proximity to it. The effect is potent enough that most magic is effectively snuffed out before it can even manifest. What little can be conjured comes out weak and unstable."

"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?"

"No... It's right here." And thank goodness for that, because Rita would be throwing a fit if anyone messed with her blastia. Fortunately, it looks like an ordinary accessory, and one that's very difficult to pry from her neck.

It goes without saying that her blastia magic is subject to the rock's insulation effect, but other than that... "I could try reconfiguring its input and output to compensate for the interference... or to attempt to draw from a different magic source entirely..." Both of those are long shots, but when you're trapped in a wall, every idea's bound to be a stretch. Rita sighs. "It would mess up my perfectly optimized formula, though..."

"What would that do?" The conversation's carried on for longer than Lambert's really got the energy for just now, nap or not, but leaning against the cool wall of the cave helps. "Hypothetically, obviously."

"Ideally, it could let me work around the block, allowing me to use magic." That's an optimistic take on it, anyway. There's a good chance it wouldn't work and all, and besides that... "But it's risky. Adjusting the input to match an unknown variable is tricky, and worst case scenario, it could destabilize the whole thing, maybe even cause an explosion..." She trails off, belatedly realizing what she's saying as she says it. "Ah."

Magic or no, she could cause an explosion...

"Hm." Good to know. Lambert's clearly thinking about it. If only explosions could solve all their problems ...

"How long would it take you to do something like that?"

"For me, adjusting the formula takes less than a minute." A rookie mage might take longer, but Rita's a pro among pros.

"Finding the right balance... or alternatively, overloading the blastia, would take some time, though. If all magic energy is dampened here, then even recklessly absorbing large volumes would go much slower than it normally would. I'd give it between ten and thirty minutes." It's a very rough, broad estimate, but there's really no way to narrow it down. "That's a last resort, though. I'm not putting her through that unless it's absolutely necessary."

"I'll keep that in mind. How much power do you think that kind of explosion would have?" If the Prince has any smarts, which he has more of than the Ringmaster apparently, he probably stuck them somewhere far, far underground, but the servants are entering from somewhere and the Manor can't be making an entirely new tunnel into the earth every time. An explosion would be risky and draw attention, but there's value in making a lot of noise, depending on when they make it.

However, even as he's thinking about that, something about Rita's phrasing catches his attention, and he frowns, turning his head. "Who's 'her'?"

"Small scale. Enough to seriously hurt a person or destroy something small. Wouldn't make a dent in these walls, if that's what you're hoping." That's the answer to his first question, but...

His next question apparently strikes a nerve, and Rita's tone suddenly sharpens. "The blastia, you dolt, I mean the blastia! Going through with something like that would leave her severely damaged. After everything she's done for me, it's not something I can do lightly." Why doesn't anyone ever think of the blastia's feelings?

Lambert can't turn enough to give Rita a blank stare of incomprehension, but there's certainly at least a hefty pause there while he first tries to comprehend that. And then he remembers 9S saying something about Rita giving her blastia names and genders, and snorts quietly against the stone.

"You know, for a mage, that's pretty sappy," he teases. "Nines was right. You are sentimental."

That's not exactly what the android said, but close enough!

Edited 2017-11-02 16:04 (UTC)

"Well excuse me for being..." she begins, defensively, then stops. "Wait, Nines? 9S said that!?" That she's a sentimental sap? Making her out to be some kind of idiot!?

She groans. "We are so having a talk after this." About lots of things, really.

"Yeah, he did." Lambert pauses to think about it for a moment, trying to pull up the specific memory, before he grins and launches right into it.

"'Rita names her blastia and assigns them genders. Are all humans like this?'" If his voice wasn't cracked and hoarse from breathing fire and exhaustion, it might be a halfway decent impression, but as it is, his laugh at the end turns into deep, raspy coughs as another spasm of pain rips through him. It's not as bad as when he first transformed and suddenly had to deal with all the poison catching up to him, but this one caught him off guard.

"Ugh!" There's the sound of struggling. Maybe some part of Rita hoped she'd find the strength to break out of the stone through sheer irritation. "Yeah, real funny. You don't even sound like him!" He sounds a little like him. Sadly for Lambert, Rita probably wouldn't appreciate a good impression, anyway.

But that coughing of his sounds rough, so she adds, "Hey, try not to keel over before I get the chance to punch you in your smartass mouth, old man."

If one could compress all of Rita's irritation and convert it into fuel for blastia, that'd be quite the explosion, wouldn't it? Too bad it's an idea that's never going to be realized. Breathing hard, Lambert leans against the wall.

"If you can find a way to break out of that rock, little girl, you can punch me as many times as you want." It's a joke that might be too on point for their situation right now, but ... well. It's true. He would.

"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.

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⇨ JAILHOUSE ROCKS

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