⇨ END OF EVENT LOG

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone participating in the Prince's challenge.
When: Day 178, Afternoon
Where: A Conjured Forest
What: The Carnival takes to the Hunt again, but this time, with the intention to win.
Warnings: Violence and death.

SACRIFICES↴ In a bid to definitively settle a victor and reclaim the captured carnival workers, the Ringmaster has challenged the Prince to another hunt. If the Prince wins this challenge, he can claim the Blue Rose the Carnival stole; if the Carnival wins, the Ringmaster will be allowed to claim one True Name in the Prince's possession. With the Manor reshaped as it is, there's no longer a courtyard to transform into a suitable hunting ground. Instead, the Prince's magic has turned one of the floating islands between the fortress and the Carnival into an overgrown forest. Being a fae contest, of course, each side's idea of victory is not as straightforward as it would appear, but for those participating in the hunt, there is only one objective that matters: to kill their prey in the time they're given. The captives who have been transformed into beasts will have little of their human sentience remaining, and will be set loose to wander the forest freely. Instinct will compel them to conceal themselves or attack hunters, depending on their individual disposition. Upon death, the beasts will remain in their bestial forms. IN HOT PURSUIT↴ To win this challenge, the hunters must bring all of the beasts down with weapons or innate strength within the time limit: an hour and one minute. No magic may be used to take any of the beasts down -- any use of supernatural or magical abilities to trap, track, or kill the creatures will result in a forfeit to the Prince, and this will be made explicitly clear to the hunters before the contest begins. Hunters are allowed to bring their own weapons and mounts, provided they are non-magical in nature (or their magical abilities are not being actively used). If they do not have their own, ordinary ones of any variety will be provided to them. To expedite the proceedings, rather than dragging the bodies back individually, each hunter will receive a token from the Prince: an enameled blue rose. To formally claim a kill, they must place the rose on the dead beast (ideally, in their mouth, though as long as it's touching it it will do) and activate the spell by reciting the following words: "I claim this life for thy Master's game." "A life surrendered to claim my prize." Using the rose in this way will cause its petals to instantly wilt and magically bring the dead beast, and any hunters touching it, back to the Prince. So, don't touch it if you want to stay in the forest for more hunting. A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE↴ The Prince and the Ringmaster will be waiting for the results of the hunt in a roughly-constructed marble amphitheatre on another floating bit of rock. Those whose stomachs are too weak to take up even just the appearance of hunting can stay at the Carnival or hang out in the amphitheater, with the caveat that any attempt to attack the Prince or use magic to aid the captured prey will instantly default the win to the Prince. Should they want something to do other than twiddle their thumbs, the non-fighting carnival workers can peer into the hand mirrors left on the seats, smaller versions of what the Prince is watching the hunt through. They will be unable to control what images are brought up in the mirror, and it essentially only shows whatever the Prince is looking at himself. There's no sound, but the images are in full color (all the better to see blood with). This is also the area that the hunters and prey will be brought to when the spell is activated (or when every creature has been hunted). So, expect for a pile of corpses to end up there. [ OOC: This log wraps up the end of the Heartstone Manor plot! It is up to hunters and prey to create their own toplevels and sort out who will be delivering the finishing blow (feel free to use the OOC post about this event to coordinate that), but OOCly, it's set that the Carnival will win the Prince's challenge. The hunt's conclusion will be posted as a separate comment for characters to respond to.]

Comments

[espigeon]

The daspletosaurus was listening and scenting, and only as he moved to also see - he has the sense that he shouldn't have to move so much to see, but doesn't understand that confusing bit of impulse - did they notice him.

He stands between two trees, small with distance and largely obscured by foliage but still visibly quite a lot larger than elf or steed, and once he's sure he's been spotted makes a dismaying deep, almost gurgling rumble that tapers into a hiss. It would absolutely ripple a cup of water, if not in the classic out-from-the-center way, and it's loud.

Having stated his case with all the eloquence and panache he's currently capable of, he draws back. If Taako rolled high enough on Perception he'll see the tyrannosaurid turn and stalk away, barely rustling the undergrowth. Otherwise he just seems to back up and vanish.

[motivenotfound]

Teaming up with Papyrus is actually kind of weird for Mari; it's not that she's iffy when it comes to teamwork... it's just that, you know, she's still iffy when it comes to teamwork. Which is her shortcoming, not his. Besides... he's her friend's brother. She doesn't owe him anything, but at the same time...

Well, it was convenient. And despite the gravity of it all... she kind of wants to see what she can do.

She's stopped long enough to speak--and only just, when they hear it.

"At this point, I don't--"

Uh.

.....

He eyes narrow. All of them.

That....

She can't even call that a roar. It's like the weird, resonant cry of an Angel; outside the normal vocabulary for such things, but immediately tapping some deep instinct, a primal sense of fear and awareness.

[spaghettimonster]

He's trailing along with Mari, who's apparently that missing-and-presumed-dead carnival friend of his brother's, with a good, solid bone in hand. The gravity of the situation is pretty immense, and that's without Papyrus pulling any tricks with gravity magic.

Perhaps it's especially grave because of that; he really doesn't have much experience fighting without his magic. Summoning waves of bones to push his opponent around is very different than flinging them by hand, or going at it face to face. And those are both surely lots different than fighting against an enraged and enchanted giant animal person?

And that's just fighting, killing is a whole other thing. Even before volunteering, he admitted as such. If there were enough people around, not-captured and not-poisoned, ready and experienced with this? If there was another plan that others said would work? He'd gladly have stepped out. But... there aren't, not to his estimation. And if ... his brother can do things like this, then Papyrus himself must be capable of it. Of knocking people out... a little more forcefully than usual, though they'll wake up in the end just the same. So it's fine.

He almost misses what Mari starts to say, in the middle of an internal monologue about how it's fine and it's going to be fine. The oddly chattery roar, though. That's pretty unmissable.

"Oh good!" Papyrus chirps after the sound fades. "I was beginning to worry, maybe they wouldn't be scary and violent after all? But that's settled. What a spine-chilling cry..."

[motivenotfound]

This is probably not the right time to decide that someone is the kind of person you wanna hang out with more in the future.

"You never know," Mari replies brightly--though the light of determination in her eyes prove her mood a bit otherwise. "That could just be the squirrels around here." But she doesn't waste any time about pretending otherwise. Even if that cry came from something the size of a frog, it's a frog that needs to die.

Because it's not a frog at all. It's a human.

Angels, like Evangelions, like their pilots, are all just another definition of 'human.'

Like whatever has become of their fellow Carnival members.

She doesn't wait for Papyrus, but grabs her bone spear and begins to sprint through the brush, hot in pursuit--running toward the sound.

[espigeon]

The daspletosaurus has moved, since calling out. Advertising his presence is important, that challenge mingled with a warning, but he's not going to just lead the hunters to his exact location. He can hear and smell the mammal well before seeing anything of it and waits. Waits, tensed in a crouch, breathing slowly and steadily.

His feathers camoflage him. He is a dark and dappled shape with dark, small eyes. He could wait longer, try to confuse them further, come out at an even better point or not at all. But that's a lot of glinting eyes in that pink shape, and his muscles decide for him. He springs.

Two tons of muscle overlaid with feathers explodes out from the underbrush, trying to just plow into Mari from the side. He's not biting yet, but his huge and heavy head is a battering ram, a very thin layer of feathers and scales over a lot of bone.

[motivenotfound]

Mari becomes aware of something off to her left just seconds before it matters--not even seconds, really, because there's just not enough time to change course or even turn more than halfway.

The tyrannosaurid's head erupts from the trees to strike Mari at full force, the impact flipping her into the air and into the canopies with a blunt, feathery whump.

"Whooaaaa--aaaaaaaa!!?"

[tacosgay]

Taako literally opens his mouth to ask Garyl if he heard that, too, just in time to see Mari go flying into the skyline. He stops his question short there.

"Uh. Huh."

"Yyyyeeeeeahhhh."

"It's... super too late to back out now, isn't it?"

Without answering, Garyl breaks into a gallop, pointed towards the source of the unidentified flying victim; she'll probably be fine, right? They need to focus on stopping this fuckin' hunt as soon as possible so everybody can just... get revived and they can go on with their shitty, magic lives.

[spaghettimonster]

It is definitely not squirrels. Papyrus figures that much out as he jumps back, lagging enough behind that he doesn't get hit too by the gigantic feathery mystery person. He reaches a hand out, meaning to catch her with blue magic - but catches himself from acting, because that's against the rules. And she has wings, and leaves to land in. It's probably fine.

This gives him the moment to look up, and up, and gulp. They're big, and heavy, and he's not. If he needs to stick to conventional sorts of fighting... the first thing is, keep them from ramming people like that.

"I'm sorry!"

He calls out, and rushes at the big feathery person's leg with the bone club, swinging at the most flexible part of their ankle.

[espigeon]

More enemies? The daspletosaurus should have waited!

The joint of his ankle is a touch under three feet up. Everything below it is covered in stone scales, but the point itself is vulnerable, if heavy and sturdy. The club whips in and it doesn't even hurt at first, but he makes an inarticulate protest as something gives. He'll be able to put some weight on it, but he knows immediately that he can't run.

Jerking back the daspletosaurus pivots around on his other foot, balancing heavy front end with heavy tail, and raises his injured foot up to sweep down and across at the white biped. All the while the feathers on his head and neck are raised out like spikes, making him look bigger, and he's putting out a horrible throbbing growl.

[motivenotfound]

Mari does catch herself. She has three arms, not counting the hand holding her bone spear--she snags the branches of a nearby pine and halts her impromptu 'flight' with her feet planted against the trunk, face towards the forest floor, body diagonal to the ground. It's accompanied by a violent shower of broken branches and pine needles, but she does it.

And she kicks off, launching herself back towards the posturing beast with an animal cry of her own--

Taako might want to duck.

[tacosgay]

Oh, Taako is definitely ducking. Actually, he's going to steer himself and Garyl so that they are good and far away from being between Mari and her prehistoric rival; he catches sight of Papyrus nearer to the beast, and that foot swinging down towards him, and he grabs the bow from where it's hung at his back and quickly knocks an arrow, aiming for what he hopes will be a sensitive enough spot to throw it off of smashing Papyrus to pieces, at least. He lets it fly, and immediately fires another in that direction, not stopping for long enough to watch it connect-- or fail to.

[spaghettimonster]

There's no time to celebrate his mild victory, with how the daspletosaurus seems to grow even bigger and stomp at him. Papyrus yelps, trying to jump out of the way of its leg without pulling on magic to do it. He's so used to enhancing his movements, though, that he doesn't move quite quickly enough; the injured foot catches his ribcage and sweeps him much more forcefully in the direction of his retreat. Instead of rolling to a stop in the bushes as he meant, his momentum carries him into a tree trunk.

[espigeon]

The arrows hit, one only penetrating as far as the head, the other sinking deep. He feels those all right, he shakes himself and doesn't manage to lay the white attacker out on the ground near him, but he's big and upset and each arrow is like a single one of his teeth but without his jaws behind them. It's going to take some precision with those to stop him.

Mouth closed he's making a sound like water boiling violently at the bottom of a deep pot; that shuddering of a growl, that fervent of a hiss, all resonating, and he doesn't stop when he hears the shriek of the first attacker.

Centering his weight as best he can - it's not good, he can only lean so much on this foot - he lunges forwards and does what Julien would call a heron strike. The daspletosaurus pulls his great head back on his powerful neck, and sights with both eyes down that big snout, and judging speed and distance in the unthinking way of someone who's practiced a long time the best ways to use pecking in a fight snaps his head forwards.

He's not as fast as he should be but he's strong, and if he can pummel her out of the air with his snout it's going to be time to finally open his jaws. There may be more flinging in the near future; his situational awareness isn't great but there's too many enemies to focus on where to bite to just kill.

[motivenotfound]

"Oorf--"

His big snout makes contact, all right, driving directly into her stomach and knocking the wind right out of her, but she was hoping for that. Well, maybe not that specific part, but a shot at his face. (Actually they're both lucky she didn't puke on him.)

She has four arms, after all.

Two of them--powerful Evangelion-esque arms with monstrous pawlike hands, dig their claws into his feathered flesh, seeking skin, attempting to find purchase. A third more humanlike hand flies up to grab her glasses, which are threatening to escape her face from the impact.

And a fourth, the one holding a bone spear, attempts to drive her weapon into his eye.

"HOLD STILL, FUCKHEAD!"

[espigeon]

Being grabbed doesn't really phase him; he's a tyrannosaurid, they bite each others' faces. His eyes are only about two and a half feet from the tip of his snout, the spear has to be bent back around. It splits the skin of his neck and is deflected by the brow ridge, but he's bleeding now, much more freely than from the arrows. He feels that all right.

The daspletosaurus does not hold still. The daspletosaurus whips his head back and forth like a dog worrying a small animal, tries to bash the hunter against trees, opens and closes his jaws trying to catch something between them. There's no saliva to speak of, just flung blood and hot breath. Hot breath that's got this blood plasma-yeast bread-sourness combination, at that; he hasn't had the chance to eat meat to taint it with.

His whole head is four or five feet long and this hunter would probably be almost as tall as him standing. Much of her height is elongated legs, and she's vertically aligned so she's smaller than she seems, but some of the muscles of his neck are slashed and she's still big and heavy enough that flailing his head carrying her is an effort, and not one he can keep up long. He is completely absorbed in trying to scrape off his attacker, utterly unaware of anything else going on.

[tacosgay]

Taako closes in-- given the thing seems pretty fucking distracted right now, he figures that's a safe bet, for the time being. He aims arrows at more of its softer points-- its neck, first off, though he realizes after a shot that Mari isn't in a great position to avoid being accidentally shot, so he switches his aim.

Instead, he rides up close, putting away his bow and drawing the sword he's been loaned instead; when he's within range, he jabs sharply at the soft tendons of the creatures previously uninjured leg, trying to drop it, or at least trip it for a moment.

[spaghettimonster]

"They probably don't understand you!" Papyrus yells out to Mari as he braces himself against the tree, and pushes himself back to his feet. "My brother, couldn't, when he was all big and four-legged and mind-controlled! So, let's coordinate!"

He winces as he stands, at the telltale signs of bruising along his spine. Fighting without using his magic is harder than he thought. At least this transformed friend doesn't seem to have any magic of their own, and they're just... gigantic enough, and toothy enough, and strong enough that it takes four people to have any chance here.

[espigeon]

The blade cuts through downy feathers and through surprisingly thin skin, into vital sinews. The daspletosaurus's eyes and nostrils were completely occupied with the facehugger hunter and even with the shouting on the ground, this takes him utterly by surprise. He stumbles, hissing, blood soaking into dark feathers, and still whipping his head, bashing it into tree trunks, his relatively petite feathered arms are extended and flapping like that will help.

This isn't working, he realizes, he's weakening (and there's something wrong with that; he should be able to fight and act for hours on end) and his belly is vulnerable. The daspletosaurus is spurred on to another reserve of energy. He stumbles again and rather than painfully correcting into and maintaining a stable stance he just starts thrashing wildly, all three tons and thirty feet of him. Head, feet, tail, whipping, throwing blood and loam everywhere, trying furiously to bite. You don't really want to get hit by the tail but it'd just knock you around, that's the least dangerous end.

This isn't something he can keep up for long. The leg is going to give and he's going to hit the ground and continue struggling, but he's starting to tire.