⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 178 - B1: Day 6
Where: The Carnival and sometimes on top of the Heart of Stone.
What: Now that the Prince is dead and gone, there's a lot left to sort out. As the remaining servants are liberated and those captured by the Prince are tended to, it's time for recovery and goodbyes.
Warnings: Nothing in particular.

HOME GROUND↴ At long last, it is over. The Prince is dead, and all of his stolen Names have been restored - all that's left to do is treat the wounds and move on. For the first day or two, the Ringmaster will be arranging passage for the servants that are left, all of which have remembered their names for the first time in years. The earth elemental that had been trapped and forced to serve as the Prince's manor, the Heart of Stone, is happy to help for the moment. It appreciates the Ringmaster's mercy, and is free after untold eons of imprisonment. Yet, there are plenty of aspects that are far from simple. There are still servants left mad and transformed into beasts, with no easy way to change them back. The Prince's spells outlive him, and those bearing his poison and his curses will have a difficult road ahead of them. Though most of the bestial servants have been rounded up, and a large number that had been reduced to unmoving statues returned, even the Ringmaster can't return them to normal so simply. The next week is for rest and for settling remaining affairs. If you want to bid farewell to any particular NPCs, or assure care is given where it's needed, now is the time to do it. ► A CURE: The Ringmaster will tell everyone simply - there is no simple way to undo another fae's magic. The Prince's powers were essentially on par with hers, which means that those who have been transformed to stone and those that were cursed into beasts and driven insane are not something she can trivially fix. It will take the work of the carnival and a couple weeks of treatment to shed the curse of stone, and the maddened servants are an entirely separate matter. She will do what she can, but for the most part she is arranging for the Prince's servants to be cared for elsewhere. At least for now, the Ringmaster will be animating the stone portions of people's bodies with magic, though those portions will still be a bit clumsy and numb feeling. ► THE NEW HEARTSTONE: In the absence of the prince, the Heart of Stone will be taking over the remains of the Prince's realm and preventing it from collapsing into void. As it turns out, the manor had been an earth elemental all along - a form of Wyld Fae almost on par to the Prince and Ringmaster themselves. How the Heart of Stone was enslaved is a long story presumably, but the Ringmaster considers it to be a sign of the Prince's own depravity. The Heart will be allowing visitors for the first couple days of this period through the portal, but keep in mind you are essentially just walking around on its body. At least the realm has a floor, now, instead an endless abyss surrounding it.

Comments

⇨ INVESTIGATION THREADS

[ringleaders]

Not all locations will have much to investigate, necessarily, but this is the section where people can make investigation requests for if their character wants to learn more about a setting than is immediately apparent. This can also be used to cover the broad strokes of interacting with various available NPCS.

Like before, you must be specific about what your character is doing to find new information, and you must keep your requests to one or two actions per comment. No big laundry lists of things your character is doing - it is much easier to handle taking it one topic at a time.

[atouts]

With the Prince gone, the Heart of Stone freeing everyone, and names returned, Childermass and Cole will be offering to help Bunny find her Fox once more. Hopefully, searching the Heart of Stone will be far easier than searching the Prince's awful domain this time around.

[ringleaders]

Bunny is happy for the help - and it quickly become apparent that her fox friend was one of the people brought out on the Heart of Stone's massive hand. She goes running at the new group of people at about the same time that the fox girl is climbing down off the rocks. Once they see each other, the reaction is instant.

"You're alive!" the fox girl shouts, stumbling off the the pile of boulders left by the Heart's movement. She runs to embrace her.

"Alyss!" the bunny girl yells like it's a sudden epiphany. The fox girl pauses, looking stunned. "I mean... me! I'm Alyss! I remember now!"

The epiphany seems to be contagious, because as soon as Alyss has said it, the fox girl has the same reaction.

"Oh my god," she says. "I... I'm Reyna."

"You're Reyna!" Alyss yells, wrapping her arms around Reyna's waist and spinning her around. "Reyna!"

All around them, reunited friends and lovers are doing the same thing - calling out names, introducing themselves for the first time. The names are theirs to share.

[otoko]

Relatively late into the week, once he can finally be safely on his feet again, Gongenzaka will go to visit the Heart of Stone; he'll be quick, and note that he doesn't intend to overstay the visit-he just wanted to greet the other now that they were free, and more importantly, thank them for helping everyone where they could.

Also, since he knows the Carnival will leave soonish, he wanted to have a chance to say goodbye; in his words, the Heart of Stone has a strong spirit! It's one that he has a lot of respect for!

[ringleaders]

Even when freed, the Heart of Stone doesn't seem to have the easiest time communicating with such small people. All the same, it will rumble words deep from its core.

"THANK YOU," is probably what it's saying. It's been a lonely few eons.

[kingsroads]

Strange is going to seek out the bicorn lady he smooched out of horsey form during the Hunt (and then promptly managed to ignore for the next few days due to trying to come up with a battle plan + angsting over his fake wife, gj Strange).

If he finds her, he'll basically check up on her, see how she's doing, give her his name, & tell her that he really doesn't know what's gonna happen next but hey, if they run into each other in the multiverse then look him up.

[ringleaders]

He'll be able to find her after not too long. She's been getting swarmed by a number of other servants who A) were extremely concerned about her as she had been missing for months, and B) want to exchange names. Exchanging names is going to be a big thing with these people.

As such, she is extremely happy to see Strange, and will happily accept his name and introduce herself in turn.

"My name is L'sann," she says, tears in her eyes. "Thank you for bringing me back."

And she will kiss him on the cheek, because hey, he started it.

[kingsroads]

Strange turns an embarrassing shade of red as she kisses him and then awkwardly stammers something about how he'll let her get back to the rest of her friends, he's just glad L'sann's alright, isn't a horse, and has her name back.

[chronosynthesis]

Once Syrlya's passed the Blue Rose to the Ringmaster (again) and things have settled a little bit, he's be looking for LaFlamme--both to make sure he made it out of that ordeal alive and to thank him for his assistance in getting them to the Rose.

[ringleaders]

LeFlamme is alive! He seems to have been quite busy in the last little while, with much to attend to among his people. He's apparently had a lot of irons on the fire in his time here.

He will greet Syrlya with a bow, and introduce himself as "Andreas."

"I apologize for not being more help than I was, but I had more own concerns to attend to. Thank you for making the most out of the opportunity I could give you."

[chronosynthesis]

"Andreas," Syrlya repeats with a smile. Though he waves a hand to dismiss his concerns. "You did exactly what we needed of you. Thank you for trusting us, and I hope this will be a better future for you and everyone else."

[espigeon]

Julien's pretty poisoned but his human body will be a bit better at getting around. He'd like to find Curse and see what they'll be doing, see if the butlers are leading the freed people. Probably ask if they'd known he and the others were going to get pressed into service, and say thanks for helping.

[ringleaders]

'Curse' seems to be in a strange position in the group of former servants - most of the ones here were after their time. However, LeFlamme (or "Andreas") recognizes them, as apparently they were the butler while he was a regular servant. He's been introducing them around, which is helping the two generations to intermingle, even though the old butler is still pretty weird from years of torment.

They act very composed and unsurprised about everything, despite their unexpected freedom. However, they will be happy to see Julien still alive and will offer proper introductions.

"Morgaine Faunis Leandria," they say. "I have forgotten most other things of my life before this, but a Name will have to do."

[prazerbutterfly]

He's rather worse for wear but Tyki is hellbent on finding Curse, Cobweb and Princess again before he passes out. He has a feeling that when he finally sleeps he might not wake up in time to see them off.

It's hard to bow but he'll greet Curse with the best one he can give in his current condition. Cobweb as usual will get a light air kiss to the hand like the elegant Lady she is. Princess gets most of his attention with an actual hug/pat/rub/lotsofthings and he'll ask them if they at least feel a bit better and able to breathe. He seems the happiest he's been all week.

[ringleaders]

'Princess' is one of the few beasts tame enough to not need to be kept away from people at the moment. As soon as she was fed, she seemed to settle down, mostly staying by Cobweb's side.

The two of them will be happy (though it's harder to tell in Princess's case) to see him. They are having a little bit of trouble settling in because they are kind of horrifying looking and also very emotionally twisted by what they've gone through.

Cobweb will introduce herself as "Jennifer" and explain that Princess can't actually give a name at the moment, given her state. Jennifer seems a bit distraught about that, and will muse about whether Princess even remembers, and express concern for the beasts on a whole.

Curse, or "Morgaine Faunis Leandria" will give a bow in return and thank him for being a gentleman. They will talk about how they have rediscovered more of their magical abilities since being freed, and that they have a particular interest in seeing what can be restored of those that have lost their minds. They still seem about as weird and disquieting as usual though - but in a friendly way!

[flashover]

A day or so after ALL THE MESS GOES DOWN, Rin will address the Heart of Stone directly, with a bow and a nice pat on its... uh... wherever he's standing.

And politely ask for the Prince's cookware that he had in the kitchen. Especially that giant copper soup pot. He understands if you already ate it though, Mountain Guy. Or if it was a person.... awkward.

[sunflowerfields]

If Rin gets that pot he's officially un-grounded.

[ringleaders]

The Heart of Stone will consider this with a loud rumbling sound, and after a little while of that, a crack will open up in the rock ahead of Rin.

As assortment of random pots will fall out of it, in various states of ruin. It looks like they've mostly been crushed inside of his body, though. However, about three pots managed to survive with only a few scrapes or dings.

Sadly, the big copper pot was not one of them.

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is going to visit Heart of Stone to shout out greetings, relief that they're better now, and an offer: are they interested in trading any of his cool sand sculptures for the remains of the Prince's library? He can customize the sculptures if the offer sounds appealing!

[ringleaders]

The Heart's response, after some consideration, will be to rumble out the word "ONE".

Maybe that means one sand sculpture? What will Papyrus make?

[scientificist]

Not 100% on if cure investigation requests go here but...

Herbert is going to use the manticore venom weakened with anti-petrification potion from Rita on both live rats and enormous undead rats and attempt to extract antibodies before the veins and blood petrify.

[ringleaders]

Oh my god.

Yeah, he can do that.

[whattaprick]

A few brief things Lambert would seek out RM to ask about:

a. What happened to the crystal the Prince stored the Rose's power in?

b. Now that they have the Blue Rose, are they clear of the courts, or are they likelier to try and snatch it because the Carnival's arguably more vulnerable than the Prince walled in his fortress?

c. Finally, a bit stiffly -- considering he's going to be incapacitated from performing his duties for the foreseeable future, would she prefer to appoint a new Nightrider or does she expect him to assign someone else to take charge?

[ringleaders]

a. The Heart of Stone ate it, presumably.

b. UNCERTAIN SHRUG. She can put it under the same level of threat that the Prince could. She doesn't see why they would be any more willing to put it at risk with her than with him. They were worried about it being destroyed, but it can simultaneously be used to defend.

c. Her reaction is basically "?????? No, DUMBASS, don't be a baby." If he wants to appoint a deputy then he can but it isn't like this is some terminal prognosis. Get a hold of yourself, man.

[dontpokethat]

Ginko and Herbert are gonna be examining blood and tissue samples from the infected people for abnormalities; are there any abnormalities consistent among the infected blood/sweat/etc (that is to say besides... general fae nonsense, u know) that they may pick up on?