lostcarnival | ⇨ SPACE OLYMPICS

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⇨ SPACE OLYMPICS

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 30 - Day 44
Where: The carnival, Zargon, and Olympic Spaceship
What: Things return back to normal as the carnival performs for aliens of all sorts at the Space Olympics. Or at least, as normal as it can be when you've got an underfunded and falling-apart spaceship hovering over a deadly planet.
Warnings: Sports and people's inability to do them.

REACH FOR THE STARS↴

At first glance, the Space Olympics seem marvelous. Aliens from all over the universe, of all shapes and sizes have joined together in an intergalactic display of teamwork and sportmanship. What could be more inspiring than that? It's only when you hang around for a bit that you notice things aren't exactly in tip-top shape.

► OLYMPIC SPACESHIP: This is where most of the events are held. It's a massive spaceship spanning hundreds of miles and consisting of multiple floors. Teleportation discs and space public transport can take you anywhere on the spaceship in a blink of an eye. It has almost every amenity an athlete can think of: multiple gyms, practice arenas, saunas, etc. Likewise, there are plenty of things for civilians and spectators: merchandise stands, shopping malls, grocery stores, and television screens everywhere so people can watch the event. Shuttles to and from Zargon arrive on a regular basis.

► ZARGON: Facility wise, Zargon itself is less impressive than Olympic Spaceship. The carnival and the athlete's village comprise most of the habitable areas. Both are concealed underneath a large biodome, the main thing making the area livable. Enterprising Zargonites have set up stands that let people explore outside of the biodome. Rent a spacesuit and you too can enjoy Zargon's natural wonders, such as the distant red plateaus and the stunning solar winds. Just try and stay away from the toxic mold, naturally occurring pockets of hallucinogenic gas, and ten foot tall Zargon Death Flytrap.

► 1980s TRAINING MONTAGE: Since carnival members can only attempt to medal in one event, why not try different sports to see what that one event is? There's equipment for all sorts of sports: gymnastics, swimming, biathalon, snowboarding, etc. They've even somehow brought space horses up here for Space Dressage! There's also equipment for sports that carnival members might not have even known existed: Space Gymkata, Space Pooh Sticks, Space Limbo Skating, etc. The sky's the limit!

► A BIT OF A BUDGET SNAFU: The Space Olympics is kind of falling apart. After performance week, the carnival is drafted to help out and keep the Space Olympics running as smoothly as possible. This means fixing buildings, breaking up fights, helping in the kitchen, trying to sell merch, etc. If there's a feasible problem, the carnival members will be drafted to help fix it. The biggest problem of all is the multiple mechanical failures: artificial gravity stops working, temperatures on the ship rapidly shift from hot to cold, and the snow machines for Space Slopestyle won't turn off.

► PERFORMANCE: Performance week will start early this stop, to try and get everyone back into the swing of things after the chaos of Wismuth. Athletes from the village roam the carnival, taking in the sights and sounds. A lot of them haven't ever seen anything like the magic of the carnival and it's workers and will proceed to ask question after question about how all of this works: turns out that sci-fi and fantasy don't crossover as much as one would think. Still, don't be alarmed when you turn the corner and there's a Hutt trying his hand at test your strength.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He does want something. Strange continues lingering near Rita, though he gives her a small little smile and nod.

"I did. I finished your book—I left an annotated copy on your bed." Don't mind the casual breaking and entering that comes with being friends with Strange. Though he's giving just a quick and dirty overview, it's obvious that Strange is bursting at the seams, ready to just talk nerdy and ask Rita so many more questions about blastia and her world and things like that.

"Ignoring a few exceptions, it was solid and informative—though your language could use a little softening." Says the person who wrote his book completely not like an academic text. "It's certainly going to be a necessary read for your world."

On her bed? "I hope you asked to be let in," Rita grumbles, knowing full well that he didn't.

Whatever. On to the critique.

A necessary read... That's what Rita intended, so she does feel some validation, maybe even a smidge of joy, at that comment. But what's wrong with her language? "You don't think I should have written it with all the meandering and embellishments your writing has, do you?"

"You can at least add a few embellishments. Your writing's so clinical at points! You're writing about magic, where's the joy and spark in your writing?"

Just ignore the fact that for a lot of the magicians here, Strange is the only one who writes like it's a poem or a novel, not an academic treatise. Obviously his way of writing is the right way!

"No matter what, you need to explain the math further. I'm good at sums and I still got tripped up."

"There's plenty of joy in there! It's just that there's also a level of professionalism expected of any academic text!" Rita huffs at him.

Right... the math, though. That gives her pause.

"Hmm... I suppose it could be a bit advanced for the average reader." The inclusion of formulas was largely meant for other magic experts, but considering how the rest of her book is written to be accessible to laymen, then maybe she should rework that a little. "...I'll take a look at the comments," she concedes on that front.

But consider this: professionalism is for losers.

Still, Strange knows that this is a bit of a difference of taste and that the professionalism vs. flowery language fight will end up going nowhere. So, he's happy to let that be for the moment (and probably argue about it with Rita again at some point.) Besides, there's something else that's interesting to talk about.

"Is all math that deals with blastia conversion that dense? English magic will become widely accessible, there's nothing so mathmatical in my magic." Which honestly, explains a lot of Strange's magical nonsense.

"For the most part, yeah. The only barriers to using magic are obtaining a blastia and learning those formulas. A lot of people get frustrated and give up, or they try to focus their studies on a very narrow range of spells so they only need to remember a small amount."

It's understandable for most commoners to lack the time and education to succeed in magic, but for those with the resources? Rita figures most of them are just too dumb or too lazy. After all, this stuff is easy if you put your mind to it.

Waving a hand, she adds, "That's why most magic-users in my world only know one or two spells, or they specialize in only one of the six elements."

That does make sense. If you've got limited time to study magic, you're going to study what's needed over anything else. Though all of this does sound a little depressing, especially when compared to English magic. Strange's magical theory can mostly be summed up as 'let's see if I can do this, oh shit I can/cannot.' To be limited to just one or two spells sounds awful.

But, he's not here to outright hate on Rita's magic (at least, not yet). Because her explaining the blastia has got him thinking a bit more.

"Do you think someone from the carnival could use a blastia? If you tweak the formula a bit, perhaps it could absorb the ambient magic of a faerie realm instead of aer."

"They could, yes," Rita confirms easily with a nod. "They'd have to learn the formulas, but if they can handle that, they can handle a blastia."

They don't exactly have any extra blastia lying around, though, which is probably the bigger problem.

"There is a formula I know of that can draw on a different sort of power for magic, but it's not widely known... for good reason. But with that in mind, it should be possible to make formulas that use other sources."

Strange can't help but smile. Good. That's precisely what he wants to hear. "Once you get that formula tweaked, I can think of a few people who might be interested in learning it—myself included, of course."

Because of course that's what you use a magical formula for. What else could you use it for except to teach people magic? Strange is blatantly ignoring the fact that Rita might not want the formula widely known or might be apprehensive about telling it to so many people.

"Learning it is one thing, but we don't exactly have a lot of blastia lying around." You know, the other necessary component for blastia magic, besides knowledge.

Rita holds a hand up to her neck, brushing the jewel of her blastia with her fingertips. "And for the record, this one isn't for loan."

Strange opens his mouth, like he's about to ask 'well what about your blastia' before he closes it again, frowning slightly. Thanks for shooting down that idea, you spoilsport.

Though hey, come to think of it... "Could someone use your blastia if they borrowed it? After all, it's just a tool. It's not like the blastia could have personalities or wills like some magical beings do." He says, not really knowing that Rita talks to her rocks in the first place. Still, the theory's sound.

The answer to his question is yes, they totally could, but that's beside the point because it's not going to happen. No chance in hell.

"She's not just a tool!" Rita barks at him, suddenly incensed. He's got some nerve, talking about the blastia that way. "I'm never taking her off, so deal with it!"

There wasn't any way Rita's book could prepare him for this sort of an answer. He thought the blastia were just an element used! Why was she acting so defensive about it? As such, when Rita yells at him, Strange just looks so damn confused.

"Not even for a moment? You'd obviously be supervising the magic. It's not like anything bad would happen."

Which Strange realizes is pretty much inviting something bad to happen, but still! There's no need to be so defensive!

Rita shakes her head. "Not even for a moment. It doesn't matter if nothing bad happens, it's just..." She trails off, hand over the blastia in a protective gesture.

Ugh. She'll probably sound like an idiot for saying this, but...

"She's like... a partner, or a part of me. I won't let anyone else handle her."

A part of Strange wants to point out that this is a literal rock, how on earth could a literal rock be a partner or a part of someone. But then again, this is the guy who decided that the best response to Childermass stealing his creepy wife gem is to throw a fuckin fireball at his face. Rita might have a point.

And Strange realizes she might have a point! So, he drops that fight. It'll probably get picked up again later, but now isn't the time. Instead, he turns right back to nosy questions, as he looks at Rita's blastia with a small frown.

"Do other mages in your world feel the same way about their blastia as you do?"

"...No," Rita answers, somewhat reluctantly. Her obsessive love for blastia was, in fact, one of the reasons she was treated like a freak and ostracized by her peers in Aspio. But rather than getting into the details of her lonely childhood, she opts for a less specific answer.

"Me and the other mages didn't see eye to eye on much, to be honest."

"I've found that when something like that happens, the best option is to simply get away from the other mages," Strange remarks, with a bit of a bitter tone in his voice. Says the man who once he decided England was set against him and he and Norrell would never see eye to eye, fucked off to Venice to be a crazy hobo. Do as he says, not as he does.

"It's easier to do what you need to when you don't have other people breathing over your shoulder or criticizing your every move."

Rita sighs, her shoulders heaving. "That's what I did, sort of. Got a house at the far edge of town, put a nice big keep out sign on the door, barely had anyone bother me for years."

Well... the knights did, sometimes. And she still had to go out into town and interact with people once in a while.

"I suppose I did get a lot of work done," she adds, more or less agreeing with Strange. "My research tended to be a few months ahead of the other mages." And now she's bragging.

There's a wry smile on Strange's face as he continues talking. "I went to a different country."

Granted, his was more like being left alone for a month and a bit instead of being alone for years, but the general idea is still the same. Though hey, now that they're talking about this, time to delve into a little bit of shit-talking other mages.

"Did you ever have any of the other mages try to spy on you and see what you're doing?" It's obvious from Strange's tone of voice that something like that happened to him.

"Had a few cases of people trying to steal my work... That stopped pretty quick after I started specializing in offensive magic. No surprise that anyone cowardly enough to try that would be deterred by a little risk." You know, the minor risk of being blown up or burned to death.

But Strange's example was awfully specific... "I take it something like that happened to you?"

And Strange nods. "When I was in my self-imposed exile, a magician from back home sent one of his cronies to spy on me. I don't know why he did that," Strange grumbles, sighing slightly. "It wasn't like I had anything to hide."

Strange was always annoyingly open about his plans and intentions. That didn't change even when he was bonkers. When had he ever done anything secret?

"I don't know what mages are typically like where you're from, but in Aspio, there's a certain amount of prestige that comes with being the first to discover something... or the first to publish it, anyway. Maybe they wanted to see if you had any findings they could snipe."

Rita's mind, of course, goes straight to the danger she's most familiar with: plagiarism.

And therein lies the difference between Rita's world that's full of mages and Strange's world where you can count all the English magicians on one hand. Strange and Norrell's focuses are so radically different that even if Norrell did spy on him for plagiarism purposes, no one would believe he willingly studied along the lines that Strange did.

Still, it's a valid hypothesis. Strange frowns for a moment, considering what Rita's saying, before shaking his head slightly. "Truth be told, I think the man was simply nosy."

Pot meet kettle.

Nosy?

"Like you?" Rita retorts, not missing a beat. Between the scrying and the way he keeps letting himself into people's trailers, she doesn't feel all that sympathetic.

Wait what. Strange pauses for a moment before scowling slightly at Rita. He can't really argue that and he knows he can't argue that and it pisses him off that he can't. "I am not nosy enough that I'd send someone else to spy for me."

He'd just do the spying himself!

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