lostcarnival | ⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

Entry tags:

⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The carnival isn't exactly the most high tech place in the multiverse. As the engineer, Peridot compensates where she can, but her influence is somewhat limited when it comes to bringing the whole joint into a more modern century. The Ringmaster has a certain aesthetic that she likes to maintain, which means a lot of the things that could be automated here, aren't.

What it also means, though, is that in the areas where Peridot is allowed to make things a bit more high tech, she really goes the whole nine yards. All of her machines are carefully monitored, so when one of her lasers at the obstacle course starts flashing distress and then abruptly goes dead, she's out there to investigate in a matter of minutes.

She actually flies over in her bat form and drops down next to the busted laser, ready to give whoever's responsible this time a good tongue lashing:

"How many times do I have to tell you clods, you're supposed to dodge the lasers, not BREAK THEM!" the bat snarls, landing and then glaring at the perpetrator as she turns back into regular Peridot. "I'm-- O-Oh! 9S! I... didn't realize it was you!" she stammers, demeanor turning on a dime once she identifies the culprit.

Stupid cruddy bat eyesight. She would've come into this with a totally different approach if she'd known it was him!

After blowing up the laser, 9S decided to call it quits and quit the obstacle course, turning the difficulty back down to normal levels.

9S detects the bat's long before Peridot is within speaking distance, so he isn't surprised by her appearance. But he is mildly surprised by the bat being Peridot in the first place.

With everything that happened, 9S is too emotionally tired to muster being overtly antagonistic to her engineering boss. "Yeah, it's me." He waves a hand dismissively. "If you didn't want your lasers broken, then maybe you should give it better defences."

Not overtly antagonistic doesn't mean he still can't be a little shit, though.

It's the kind of comment that would ordinarily get Peridot's hackles up, but since she's trying real hard to make nice here, she just kind of forces an awkward laugh.

"HA HA! Yes! Well, I mean, they are just meant to be regular physical obstacles, not high-tech deterrent devices. Hardly the best example of my programming skills..."

This is the first chance they've really had to chat properly since they all got back... Peridot has been thinking about this moment, trying to plot how to handle it properly. She just wishes she'd had a little more control over when it would happen, instead of getting thrust into it unexpectedly like this. What were some of the ice breakers she was going to try out...?

"Um... H-Hey," she stammers, still trying her best to stay bright and casual. "You know, this actually reminds me... Um. You like taking apart alien technology, right?"

Then it's hardly his fault that he blew up a poorly constructed mechanical device, is it? If anything, he's doing her a favour! Yeah!

"I was made for it." Hacking into systems to disable or extract data, or simply taking them over.

So yes, he didn't have to blow up her laser. He just felt like it.

He looks suspicious -- or would if his eyes weren't covered by his visor -- but there's a hint of curiosity in his voice. "Why are you asking?"

'Made for it'. That particular phrasing... she knows 9S is an android but, man hearing him say that. He has more in common with gems than he realizes, she thinks.

The fact that he doesn't immediately brush her off is encouragement enough for her to keep the line of conversation going. "Well, seeing as I'm what you might call, an alien, I was thinking... I could show you some of my own personal tech sometime, if you'd like? Normally I don't like letting other people poke around my stuff, but, since it's a special interest of yours..."

9S squints suspiciously. This almost sounds like a trap. But... there's no harm in checking it out, right? If he knows the sorts of things at their disposal, then he can come up with countermeasures, or ideas on how to improve what they have back home.

And he's still wondering about that communication across galaxies...

"I hope it's more complex than what you have out here."

That's agreement, right?

Ouch.

Peridot just tries to shrug that jab off. "These? These are just simple turrets. Putting top of the line gear on a training course would just be asking for trouble. I've got tons of other stuff I can show you instead. Farming robots, surveillance drones, you name it. It's not exactly the best that I can do, given that the carnival doesn't exactly have the resources available that Homeworld does, but I'd say that I more than make do with what I've got."

"Yeah?"

If you really wanted to test something, put it in a training course! 9S may have made R&D both exasperated and ecstatic whenever he tests their latest developments...

9S tries to keep the interest out of his voice. "Let me see, and I'll be the judge of that." It doesn't work very well.

The trap is just too irresistible. He can't help himself!

Peridot looks a little bit taken aback, because it sounds like... "Uhhh, wait... You don't mean right now, right this second, do you? Because I kind of have to fix this laser that you broke, and also I should really tell Lapis if I'm going to be bringing guests back to the trailer--"

Also she's not mentally prepared for this at all??

Who isn't offering to fix the thing he broke? This guy.

9S flaps his hand dismissively. "You don't have to fix it now, do you? Besides, not having the laser there would be a surprise to the people who run the course all the time."

Yeah.

And really, who cares about Lapis!!

Peridot cares about Lapis!! :(

But Peridot is also a total doormat when she's trying to get on someone's good side. CASE AND POINT...

"I guess... It can wait," the gem concedes reluctantly. It's no big deal, right? As long as it gets fixed at some point today? Yeah. "Alright then. To the Gem Cave V2!" Peridot announces, pointing in the vague direction of the supervisor's grove and marching ahead. Chop chop 9S, keep up!

Gem Cave V2? Ugh Peridot do you have to be such an alien? Not that he knows what the dead aliens back home were like but he imagines they would be like her right now.

Nevermind that he would probably name things by a similar convention.

He keeps up, easily. "We're heading towards the Supervisor's Grove," he observes. "It's not an actual cave?"

"No, that's what we call our trailer," Peridot says cheerily. "Well. It's what I call our trailer. Lapis doesn't like it when I call it that, but all the good command centers have catchy names so why shouldn't ours?"

Lapis...

He heard about what had happened to her when it was broadcasted all over the public radio channel. Even though she's a Gem, an alien, he can't help but feel a stab of sympathy for what she went through.

It won't last long.

"A good command centre should have a name that accurately describes its role or function," 9S argues back.

Naming it a cave when it isn't a cave is just downright inaccurate.

"You know, further back, I would have agreed with you on that, one-hundred percent," Peridot replies, undeterred. "But now I think it's actually kind of important to have fun with these sorts of things. Besides, it's named after our old place back home, and that was named after a human term for a relaxing retreat or personal sanctuary. I just gem-ified it to fit us better."

It's a human term? 9S mentally recoils in horror. Not just at the idea of an alien integrating human culture into their own, but the fact that he didn't know that about humans!

"You're using a human term?" There's an accusatory tone in his voice.

"Um-- Yes?" she replies, shrinking back a little. What in the heck did she say wrong this time!? "I lived on Earth for the better part of a year, you pick up on some of the vocabulary after a while."

"After the invasion?" Not the words Lapis had used, but that's what 9S had equated them to. "I'm surprised there are even any humans for you to learn from."

Who's made a lot of assumptions about what happened? Certainly not 9S!!

Peridot stops walking abruptly and turns to look at him, her brow furrowed. For the first time in this conversation she actually looks kind of annoyed?

"Invasion? What are you talking about, I never took part in any invasion. Not unless you count three gems in one ship to be an invading force, which, it isn't," the engineer huffs.

Maybe not an invading force, then. "So a scouting team?"

He folds his arms, defensive. Any decent invading force will have smaller teams deployed on the field first, for information gathering and for subterfuge. Unless they're just so overwhelmingly powerful... or overconfident idiots.

"How much damage was caused by your arrival?"

She folds her arms and levels a scowl at him, recalling the night they'd landed there. "Plenty of damage occurred overall, but it was sustained almost entirely by our ship, which wound up destroyed," she growls. "But I assume you're specifically asking about damage to the Earth, and that was in fact, minimal. Actually, if anything, my arrival did negative damage, because I went on to help save the whole planet from EXPLODING."

9S scowls right back.

"Oh yeah? Why was it exploding in the first place?"

An alien saving Earth? A likely story!!

Peridot opens her mouth to retort, but cuts off with a stammer. The real answer is that it was set to explode because of the cluster planted there that she was supposed to be checking up on the progress of, but uh. That doesn't sound real good.

"Well-- It was set to explode because of the geo-weapon that was incubating inside the mantle," Peridot huffs. "I don't see why it matters to you anyway, I mean it's not your version of Earth."

Yeah, he thought so. The stammer is enough to tell him that Peridot isn't being entirely truthful in her response.

But it's true; it's not his Earth. 9S looks away.

"It's just another case of aliens messing things up," he grumbles.

Are they there yet?

"But I didn't mess up," Peridot says loudly, stepping in front of him to keep his attention, desperate to make him understand. "If anything I did the opposite of mess up, the whole Earth in my world would be in a billion pieces if it wasn't for me!"

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I could've sworn I tagged this on Wednesday wtf