lostcarnival | ⇨ SPACE OLYMPICS

Entry tags:

⇨ 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

"That war? Hmph..." Rita would like to say she doesn't know anything about that, but unfortunately she knows all too much, thanks to Lambert lending her whatever reading material he had handy back when she was recovering from poison.

"It's just not my style!" she eventually offers as a counterpoint. Yeah, sure, it's useful and convenient, but also, who wants to be more like Strange? Not Rita.

"Anyway," she adds, forcefully segueing to another topic, "I was meaning to ask you about something. I heard you're working on another book?"

Thankfully, the conversation shifts to something both of them won't argue about: books. Strange perks up as Rita mentions his work in progress book. He nods, before launching into an explanation.

"I am! It's a memoir, to be precise. I've written chapters up to our visit in hell and I've started to draft the chapters on Alola and the Mainframe. I'm honestly dreading writing about Portland, that will be a nightmare and a half to explain."

Any grumpiness about Rita's disinterest in scrying is starting to fade away as Strange continues talking. He's just yammering away as if he expects Rita to actually give a damn about the contents of his memoir.

So it is a memoir, like he said he'd write some time ago; one that includes his experiences in the carnival.

And luckily for Strange, Rita does give a damn about this memoir, because...

"The Alola visit was when I came to the carnival. To be honest, I don't know much of what went on before then." Something about vampires...? That's about it, really. "I'd be interested in taking a look at what you've written."

And Strange just brightens up. There's a wide smile on his face as Rita mentions her interest. Because honestly, that's perfect! He trusts Rita's opinion and he needs someone who wasn't there to read things over and make certain he's explaining things properly. This would be wonderful!

"I'd be happy to lend you the drafts," he remarks, grinning still. "Though, if you want a concise summary of what happened, I can give that to you here and now."

"...I suppose I've got time," Rita says after giving it a little thought. It'd be nice to sit down for this, though... She scans the area briefly, and her gaze settles on a bench nestled between a few food stands. Its current occupants, a pair of long-necked aliens, happen to be standing up to leave.

Rita gives the now-available seat a nod, then starts walking over to claim it before someone else beats them to the punch. "How long have you been with the carnival, anyway?" If he mentioned already, she doesn't remember. And besides...

When she thinks about it, Rita's a little over halfway through her contract. Strange was here before her, so how much longer could he have...?

And Strange will gladly take any time to sit around and talk. Here is a man who adores the sound of his own voice and will happily chatter along for as long as Rita listens.

"Closer to eight months than seven," Strange muses, as he sits down on the bench, next to Rita. "Truth be told, I don't remember exactly how long I've been here. I went back to England for a while when we were in the middle of Greysol—that's messed up my calendar a bit."

It doesn't help that when he did go back to England, he got cursed almost instantly after returning. Nothing messes up your internal calendar like being trapped in a pillar of neverending darkness.

"Just a bit before me..." Rita muses as she settles into her seat. Doesn't seem like it'd be enough time for a whole lot to happen, but considering how all of Portland happened in a single month, that probably isn't a safe assumption. Also, considering the mention of a visit to hell, there's probably a worthwhile story or two in there.

She's curious about this visit he made to England too, but it's probably best to stay on topic, lest she end up listening to some long-winded rambling.

"Let's hear it, then. What happened in that month or two between you joining and the Alola visit?"

"When I arrived at the carnival, we were stationed in a world called the Matrix. It was another digital world, much like the Mainframe, though the residents there did not realize they were in a digital world. That world had no magic, but you could tap into a force from the Matrix to do things like magic. The world was policed by people called Agents. The Agents had this way of enthralling people, warping them to their side and changing their thought process entirely. The bastards enthralled a few carnival members and, during an attack on the carnival, one of our number shot me."

It was Childermass who shot him but Rita doesn't need to know that much, does she. As he mentions being shot, Strange reaches up to idly scratch at his shoulder, where one of his mirrored coverings would be if he was himself and not a fuzzy cat person.

Based on Strange's tone of voice, he still thinks the Matrix absolutely sucks. It was a terrible introduction and he's got no love lost for that world. The Matrix was awful, confusing, ridiculous, and he'd really not like to see or hear of it ever again.

"And don't ask me how they enthralled people without magic," Strange butts in. "I wasn't entirely sane that first month. And even if I was, the culture shock of going from my world to a faerie carnival to a different world entirely all in the span of a week or so would be enough to confuse anyone."

"Great. So there was brainwashing even before Portland, and even without fae involvement," Rita grumbles.

Rather than asking Strange about the enthrallment, however, Rita offers up a hypothesis of her own. "...It's conceivable that someone could control a person without magic, if they had the right technology. Scientifically, our minds operate by sending small electrical signals throughout the brain. If someone could manipulate those signals, they could change the way we think and perceive the world." It's not a nice thing to think about, but it's plausible nonetheless.

Tapping into a technological force to use magic, though... It sounds similar to how blastia operate. It's kind of a shame Rita didn't get to see that.

Strange gives Rita a dubious look. He knows that technology that could control someone without magic exists: after all, he was in the Matrix. But hearing her explain all of that so matter of factly feels...odd, somehow. Probably because Mr. 1810s over here hasn't really thought about how the technological things could do what they did, he's just been writing most of it off as 'that's a thing.'

Anyway, the peanut gallery has nothing to contribute to Rita's theories about manipulating electrical signals so Strange continues to explain what happened before Rita's arrival. "There were a few days in between the Matrix and our next location while we recovered. During that time, the Ringmaster called the supervisors to examine a demonic sigil placed on the outskirts of the carnival. Of course, I know all of this because I saw the meeting with my scrying."

And he can't help but be a little smug about that. Ha, points for scrying, take that Rita. And here lies the proof that Strange was always a nosy shit, he's just become even more nosy the longer he remains at the carnival.

Rita would roll her eyes if she had any right now. "You would."

Yeah, that's not so much a point for scrying as it is a point for Strange being goddamn nosy.

"All right, so what was the deal with the sigil? Sounds like an enemy's doing."

"It was. The sigil was placed by the vampires, a demonic race that plagued us until we went to hell. However, we didn't deal with the vampires just yet, as our next stop was in Atlantis. We became merfolk there."

It's just said as if it's perfectly normal. Growing gills and a tail, no biggie, hanging out underwater, these things happen.

"My scales on my neck and hands are left-over from our time there. I had an orange, black and white coloring as a merman." He had a goldfish tail, though it was a fancyass goldfish that Strange never really recognized as a goldfish. "Adjusting my magic for an underwater performance was interesting, but I made it work."

"Merfolk? Ugh." Rita makes a noise of mild disgust. "Hope they aren't anything like the ones where I'm from."

On a brighter note, what he's describing does seem to align with the bits and pieces Rita's heard before. It helps to have a bit of a timeline and a big-picture understanding of the events.

"Did that part go smoothly, at least?" He said the vampires plagued the carnival until they went to hell, suggesting there must have been an incident, or multiple incidents, before that point.

This is the carnival. There are always incidents. At Rita's question, Strange shrugs. "For the most part, it did. Some of us went to fight a giant crab and I bought a cursed potion, but aside from that, nothing too worrying happened."

Though, Rita mentioning merfolk has gotten Strange's attention. The conversation is sidelined for a moment as he looks over to ask,

"What are the merfolk you know like?"

"Gross, primitive, hostile... to put it concisely. They've developed enough to work in groups and even make simple weapons and tools, but they've never really tried to communicate with humans. They just attack us on sight." They're more of a nuisance than anything, in Rita's mind.

"... Dare I ask if you drank said potion?" Because let's be real, drinking a cursed potion is completely the sort of thing Strange could be expected to do.

He straight up drunk the potion. And Strange knows that Rita knows that he drunk said potion, so he gives her a 'you've got to be kidding me' sort of look before it shifts to something a bit sheepish.

"Were you in Alola when the freak snowstorm happened? That was my doing. Drinking the potion boosted my magic, to the point that I could summon a faerie within the carnival. I was attempting to summon the faerie that had cursed me and kidnapped Arabella but I...erm...summoned the wrong one."

Even now, that's still a bit embarrassing to admit. He'll still blame part of it on the potion itself, but Strange knows he can't blame all of it. He fucked up, he'll own up to that.

"That was your fault!?" Rita cries in surprise. Yeah, she remembers the snow. It was so shortly after she joined the carnival that she didn't know what to make of it and simply chalked it up to 'faerie carnival weirdness', then went back to focusing on herself, her new job, and the weird new world the carnival put her in contact with.

"Wait... what kind of faerie?" she asks after letting those facts sink in. "Were they court-affiliated?"

A freak snowstorm suggests the Winter Court, of course, but there's always the chance they were independent.

"His name was Frost. He's small, pale, winged, and a spy for the Winter Court. He's an opportunist, which is why he most likely accepted the summoning, but the Ringmaster was confused as to why he was close enough for me to summon him in the first place."

Strange is trying to sound his normal level of cocky, like the fact that he accidentally summoned the wrong faerie doesn't bother him in the slightest. However, he's jamming his hands in his pockets, frowning slightly, and trying to shift his facial expression somewhere away from regretful. This bothers him more than he wants to admit.

"Childermass and I dispelled him. And before you ask, I cannot use that method to dispel any other faerie. It only works with the terms of the summoning."

"A spy?" Rita furrows her brow. "The Ringmaster did mention that she was already on the Courts' bad side, even before Portland... Seems to me like his proximity might not have been a coincidence."

It's a good choice on Strange's part to clarify the conditions of the faerie's banishment, as Rita definitely would have jumped on that if she had the chance. Now, with that hope dashed before it could get too high, she turns her attention back to the main subject at hand.

"Right... anyway, sounds like that about covers Atlantis. What happened after that?"

"I agree," Strange nods. "It would be silly to think otherwise." Which means that even before Portland, before all of this nonsense, the Courts had their attention on the Ringmaster somewhat. It's...a troubling implication.

But that's enough about Atlantis. Time to continue the story.

"In Atlantis, the Ringmaster obtained a set of magical daggers. In the days between Atlantis and our next stop, the Ringmaster used the daggers to open a portal to a different realm and, for the lack of a better term, firebomb it. This was retaliation for the vampires placing the sigil in the carnival to begin with. And no, I didn't spy on that meeting," Strange quickly adds in. He's got a feeling 'how do you know' would be the next question. "The Ringmaster asked some of the carnival's magicians to help with the ritual. I'm certain you'd be included if you were here at the time."

Strange still thinks he's one of the best magicians the carnival has to offer. But Rita's up there in the top five as well.

Rita's shoulders stiffen and for a few seconds, she just stares. She can't make any facial expressions, but her tone probably says it all. "She what?"

Just... firebombed somebody's realm? That sounds extreme. Maybe it's a you-had-to-be-there kind of thing.

Thinking about it, though... if these vampires were anything like the fae pursuing them now, maybe it was necessary. After all, if someone could open up a portal to wherever the Rose Queen and her cohorts are now, you bet Rita would toss some fireballs in there.

She sighs, shaking her head. "...I take it that didn't exactly do the trick." Assuming the goal was to get the vampires off their backs.

Look, it was super cool and the magic was super impressive and it definitely had to be a you-had-to-be-there kind of thing. It's hard to describe magic in the first place, it's even harder to describe it when you barely know what someone's doing.

At Rita's question, however, Strange shook his head. "Our next destination was a pleasure world called the Celebration. That world was set up as an eternal party, where all of your whims were catered to. The vampires attacked the carnival during a masquerade ball, stealing the supervisors and some other carnival members away."

There was a whole host of personal drama that went on at the Celebration as well, but Strange isn't mentioning it. It's not keeping secrets! If she asked, he'd tell her, but that doesn't change the fact that he really doesn't want to tell her in the first place.

"A party world? Sounds like a pain... with or without the vampires," comments Rita, party pooper extraordinaire.

It's hard not to feel a vague sense of deja vu at this story, however... It sounds a bit similar to what happened in the Count's manor, with the masquerade, and people being abducted...

But while the fae are known to abduct people to enslave or torture them, these aren't fae. In fact, Rita can't say she knows much of anything about vampires, or what their nature or goals might be. Which makes her wonder... "Why take them when they could've killed them instead? Where'd they bring them?"

Jonathan 'mild alcoholic' Strange gives Rita an odd look as she disparages the Celebration. It was awesome, okay. Just ignore the vampires. And the fact that people's inhibitions got stripped away. And the fact that he ended up having a big fight with Childermass halfway through.

But they're not talking about that, are they. Nope, they're talking about vampires. "They brought them to a hell-like world, the one the Ringmaster attacked earlier. Some of the carnival members were turned into vampires themselves, while the supervisors were strung up and tortured. We staged a rescue mission and snuck in to save those captured. Once all were freed, we faced the leader of the vampires herself, a demon named Morningstar."

And here's where it gets a little anticlimactic. Strange pauses for a moment, frowns, then awkwardly continues with, "The Ringmaster ate her."

Welcome to the carnival, problems will be solved by putting them in your mouth.

Tortured...?

Rita feels a chill run through her body. Suddenly, it makes sense that people were unwilling to give any details about the vampire attacks.

But somehow, the next thing out of Strange's mouth manages to be even more outrageous.

"Ate her. You mean... literally?"

⇨ SPACE OLYMPICS

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