lostcarnival | ⇨ 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Despite using those same claws for their intended purpose frequently in Portland--back where it all started--Foster had more or less totally failed to realise their potential for damage except as applicable to necromancy.

Until now.

Now Herbert is saved mostly by the fact that Foster's arms are mobile only at the elbows--but he is also trapped by it, as Foster is more than able to reach across himself and menace(?) the man with those two inch-long claws.

"Hello!" He greets Herbert brightly.

"You made a promise," Herbert manages to get out before his mind tells him not to think about that. It means nothing. It's futile. It's pointless. He's here for a job.

"I brought an onion." Only one. Left the bowl over and away when he could have been using it as a makeshift shield. Foolish, shortsighted. "If you w-want it you're, going to have to let me out..." This is unfair. This man is the reason Herbert is here, not the other way around. If anything, Foster should be the one fending off claws, not him. How dare he.

"It's fine. You said 'my Ringmaster or me.'" He dismisses Herbert's accusation with a smile; he doesn't appear interested in un-menacing the man.

"Which is... interesting."

He's so desperate for food that he would absolutely eat that offered onion if it were placed in his paws. But as long as he doesn't actually have it, as long as it's out of his grasp, then it's not real and it can't be touched.

His eyelids shutter slightly.

"I never said that I served the Ringmaster at all."

"Ng," goes Herbert and claws at his head, chin digging into his chest. He wets his lips and looks back up at Foster, jaw somewhat clenched. "In that caaase...you have nooo Ringmaster. There'ssss, hah. Only you. Your p-promise is still broken!"

His lips curve upwards at the edges then, followed by a wave of incredible smugness as he realises something. Letting himself slide down along the rock wall, tailcoat rucking up as he goes until he's sitting on the floor he crawls away backwards from Foster and his outstretched arms. "I think I have the upper hand here now," he says, rushing through the words and staring up at Foster from where he rests on the ground, onion still in hand.

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?"

"There is nothing t-to believe in," Herbert snarls out, face swapping back to intense, angered, "there never was." He pushes up, clambering back to his feet so he can better froth directly into Foster's face. "There is only things that are and those do not require belief--a thing for shortsighted, fools that, hah, that think their belief will change fa-hacts when! In actuality all there is is science and yourself and what you can do with those facts! We are trapped here, you quixotic dunce and no amount of believing in, a f-fictitious or theoretical rescue will change the fact that 'the Prince' owns us."

He's breathing heavily, the hand not gripping the onion holding his glasses at the side as if they might fly off his face.

"Do you want. Your onion."

"Yes! Yes!" Foster's arms rotate at the wrists, claws spread wide, palms--and teeth--bared; the latter in a smile, but frightening.

"What is a fact?" He asks. "A lie, a truth you think you know? Belief is meaningless. False! Futile! Faith is the worthless currency of the desperate, the degenerate. And yet." He stops, the animal membrane in his eyes making them gleam in the dark--or maybe that's just the reflection off Herbert's glasses.

"Until--unless--the Ringmaster saves you, you have nothing."

His too-wide smile and wild-eyed condesencsion vanishes, replaced by a saliva-slick sour. "I don't deserve the onion."

And if Herbert tries to give it to him again, Foster will make sure he regrets it.

The one part of Herbert that is still functioning properly calmly assesses what's going on right now with 'brain damage' and the rest of him tells it he doesn't give a damn about analysing this idiot.

"Tha-hat's not quite true," he says, eyes only half as wild, but wider, magnified by his glasses. "I have an onion. You. Have nothing." He holds the onion a moment longer and then drops it to step on it, grinding it into the floor of the cave with his foot as best he can before walking purposefully off to pick up the bowl again.

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