⇨ THE ATHENAEUM

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 47 - Day 58 ish
Where: The Athenaeum
What: The carnival arrives at book world. First week, they'll be performing for magical manifestations of book characters. Second week, it's time to hunt (for books, in the library.) Around Day 58 some stuff will occur.
Warnings: Reading is mandatory.

FAERIE TALES↴ Though the carnival will be performing for its guests in the first week, they are welcome to search the Athenaeum while they are off duty during that time. The manifestations of story characters will be out in full force during performance week, with animals, people, objects, and even locations growing out from various tales. Most are distracting at worst, and will be curious to check out the carnival. Some, however, can be as dangerous as they were in their stories of origin. You know what to do. ► IT'S TIME TO ROLEPLAY: The best way to deal with book ghosts is to follow their narrative to its logical conclusion - turn the tables, work the story so it ends in your favour! Naturalistic and narratively satisfying plotting will have the manifestations following your lead. However, push too hard and introduce too many plot holes, inconsistencies, or illogical plot twists, and they will reject your reality utterly, becoming quite aggressive in the process. You can also use your natural abilities and powers to fight them in a traditional sense, but in the Ringmaster's experience, it's best to fight reality benders by bending reality right back at them. If you aren't careful, it's possible to be dragged fully into a story's reality, and then things get really messed up. ► IT'S ALSO TIME TO READ: The carnival came here for a purpose, and that purpose is to research. Specifically, the Ringmaster is looking for information on the Queen's Miracles - the set of ancient fae artifacts that the Blue Rose is one of. The carnival needs these artifacts to defend itself, but nobody knows where they've been for thousands of years. That's what the books are for. However, nothing is stopping you from pursuing knowledge for personal reasons. The halls are open to your perusal, and only your heart can guide you to the book you truly seek. Check the plot post to see what's allowed, and sign up to find plot info or other important game information below.

Comments

Rita Mordio | OTA, will match formats

[anti_nonsense]

[a: just like home]

Surprising no one, Rita absolutely loves book world.

She can be found eagerly skimming the titles lining the bookshelves, occasionally popping out a volume and flipping through it. Maybe she's even grabbed a book relating to your character.

Other times, she'll be seen sitting on the floor with a stack of books next to her, so deeply engrossed in her reading that she doesn't even seem to notice people stepping around her.

And sometimes, she might even just stop and stare, practically starry-eyed, out at the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves with a rare look of fondness and nostalgia. This place is just like home, after all.

[b: uncomfortable truths]

While Rita can be seen to be in high spirits for most of the visit, there's a chance that one may stumble across her as she seems to have just read something disturbing. She sits on the floor with a book opened in her lap, staring at the open pages, but not appearing to even be reading them.

Time passes, and she doesn't move to turn the page. She also doesn't seem to notice your character approach until they either say something or come up close to her, at which point she suddenly gives a start and a yell.

"Gah!!" Conscious of her overreaction, she of course... blames the other person. "Don't sneak up on me like that, idiot!"

[c: wildcard!]

Feel free to hit me with your own starter, and/or to have your character find any of these stories about Rita and her friends!

b

[exaomori]

Shura only really recognizes the girl's face from seeing her around over the last month, but she's just attentive enough to keep a vague eye on the girl as she walks by the first time. No need to get up in her business if she's found something shocking or if her favorite character just got killed suddenly and horribly. Best to just let her process that on her own.

But when she passes by the second time a while later and the girl's still in the same spot as before, that's just concerning enough for Shura to check in on her, crouching a few feet away, just out of reach of any potential flailing limbs. It was best to be safe when coming up on someone like this even if Shura was doing her best not to startle her. The girl overreacts anyway, and what else is Shura supposed to do but poke fun at her?

"Sneak up on ya? Heh, you're the one sitting in middle of the floor like this. I'm surprised no one's stepped on you yet."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita's face reddens slightly. She quickly closes the book and rises to her feet. If she's looking, Shura might get a glimpse at the title, Progress and Calamity: A Story of a Blastia Researcher, as she tucks it under her arm.

"They won't if they just look where they're going!" she huffs. "The floor's just as good as any place for reading."

[exaomori]

Blastia? What was that, like a blastoma? Ah, well, Shura can stash that word away for possible reference later. Teasing this girl sounded like more fun that a dry text about blastia. Shura follows Rita as she rises up, setting her hands on her hips.

"And if they're just as focused as you were? Heh, you'd both in trouble then." Really, with as many nerds as this carnival seemed to have, it would be entirely likely that that it would happen.

[anti_nonsense]

The likelihood of that happening is... pretty high, if Rita were to consider this honestly.

"I'd live," Rita replies simply, "and then I'd make them sorry." Because it would definitely be the other party's fault, and they'd deserve it.

"Who are you, anyway?" she asks after a pause. "I've seen you around the carnival, but..." A name for the woman doesn't quite spring to mind.

[exaomori]

"Nyaha, that's a good spirit!" No, it's not. But it's funny to Shura, and it's an honest reply. Wrong, but honest.

And maybe it's just a part of this girl's personality. Of course, Shura might be seeing her bad side after startling her and teasing her. "Ah, my name? Kirigakure Shura. I guess you should tell me yours, since we're stuck together an' all~!"

b

[hippocarnival]

"Sorry!" Yuya holds his hands up in mock surrender, although his smile indicates he doesn't take her warning too close to heart. He circles around to her front and crouches down to her level, folding his arms over his knees. "You really like it here, don't you?"

He's seen her among the shelves a couple times, only brief glimpses from afar... but never once without her face turned down in some sort of book. For a scholarly person like Rita, this is probably heaven.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita continues to frown at him as he joins her, though it softens a little at his question. She's uncertain for a moment, considering the book in her lap... but ultimately, is there anything she'd be happier not knowing? No. It's always better to know. And here, there are still so many things she can learn...

"Y, yeah... I guess I do," she agrees, turning her head to gaze down the aisle. "It's a lot like the library back home in Aspio, actually... maybe a little bigger." It's definitely bigger.

[hippocarnival]

It's probably a lot bigger. Still, Yuya nods in agreement that all libraries are probably just about the same.

He points at the book in her lap with a bit of curiosity in his expression. Of course Yuya's interest is more in what's immediately in front of him than comparing the quality of libraries, and Rita might have something interesting to say about it. "What's that about?"

[anti_nonsense]

"It's..." Rita pauses, trying to think of how to describe it objectively. "It's about a blastia researcher; a man named Hermes. It's not easy to find information about him, but this seems to contain a lot about his later works and personal life."

It seems like the Scribe really does write about things unknown to virtually everyone. Rita had better write some of this down and bring it back with her...

[hippocarnival]

Ah, so it's blastia. Yuya shifts slightly to sit, more at her side than in front of her. It's only a slightly better angle for seeing the book anyway, but mostly he just wanted to get ore comfortable.

"I guess they don't really have to talk to who they're writing about. They just... know." That's a little eerie, but it's an isolated magic library and not something people can just walk into. So it's probably fine. "That's still a lot of stuff to write. It's lucky one of it was this, right?"

Although, Rita is replacing the blastia in her world. Still, it's something precious to her so she probably just wants the information for the sake of it. "Is he really important?"

c!

[hurtcomfort]

Solas isn't here. Lambert would yell at him. Childermass...he's not sure how Childermass would react. But Rita is here and Rita knows magic and Rita would be able to see what he was doing! And Rita would like what he was doing because Rita likes magic! It makes perfect sense in Cole's mind to show off the fun new spell he learned to Rita.

And so, he straight up finds her, tracing her thoughts until Cole finds Rita at one of the shelves. He then proceeds to straight up bother her.

"Rita! Rita, I can do magic now!" And it's cool and it's fun and it's amazing and he's so friggen stoked about it. Cole's practically bouncing with excitement, like a kid who's about to show off a cool trick.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita's just in the middle of sliding a book back into its place on a shelf (there's no clear rhyme or reason to its placement, but this is definitely where she found it) when she hears her name being called. With her hand still pressed over the spine of the book, she turns to see Cole approaching her.

"Magic?" That certainly has her attention. Her eyes widen with interest as she asks, "What kind of magic?"

[hurtcomfort]

"Summoning," Cole explains. And heck, Rita's here, the magic is small, why not go ahead and do it now? He takes a step back from Rita and closes his eyes. For a moment, there's a bright green glow around Cole's heart before the glow coalesces into a tiny pink nug, about the size of a beanie baby. Cole and her share the same weird fleshy ears.

He sticks out his hands to catch her as she falls. Nugs have hands for feet, and her tiny little hand feet cling onto Cole's hands as the nug blinks confusion out of her eyes.

"This is Nigella," Cole explains, still way too proud of himself. "She was my familiar in Wismuth. I missed her, so the Ringmaster taught me how to bring her back."

And surprise, the nug can talk here. In an intensely shrill and high-pitched voice, Nigella pipes up with, "Wait, you missed me?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita takes a step back, too, unsure of what the hell he could be summoning. Libraries tend not to be great places for that kind of magic... but it turns out that what he summons isn't nearly big enough to be a problem.

"Nigella?" Rita stares in surprise. "You learned magic just to bring back your talking rat?"

Not that anyone really needs a good reason to learn magic. Learning is its own reward! But Rita's about as surprised as Nigella sounds. Didn't she just kind of nag at him most of the time?

[hurtcomfort]

Carefully and gingerly, Cole lifts Nigella up so that she's sitting on his shoulder, draped over one of them like a scarf or a stuffed toy.

"She's a nug," Cole clarifies, as if this somehow makes a world of difference. "Just a smaller one."

"Does Rita even know what a nug is?" Nigella quickly sasses. Cole looks a bit surprised, like this literally just occurred to him. Oh, right! A lot of people here didn't know what nugs were and he doesn't really know what Solas or Lavellan told Rita about their world.

"They're animals back home," he explains. "They are pink and live in dark places and make tiny little squealing noises. We found a family of them once."

A! -links some change art for ref while i'm at it...-

[soft_focus]

The Athenaeum, considering the last place she saw this many was the Manor followed by the Moon (two very different experiences) is...Heaven. Or close to it anyway.

Reira knows how to read-in fact, she's been doing rather spectacularly with the school books that were obtained in Wismuth, or at least been interested enough to make it seem that way. What is perhaps more surprising about the frankly puny child, is which books she's grabbing. For the most part, she runs off of whim-what the Athenaeum seems to lead her to, she goes to.

A number of these books are...a bit beyond what one would expect her to be trying to read, but the fact is she wants to do that. Try. It's important-and sometimes if she works at it, she figures out a new word, or even a whole new 'thing' altogether.

Unfortunately there's one thing that's getting in her way a lot, so Rita will hear a very quiet, practically whispered noise behind her.

"...umnnh..."

She waits until she thinks she has the other's attention, if only slightly. "...C...can you get that book down..? ...I can't reach it..."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita pops another volume out of the shelf, flips through it... and looks around the edge of the book to see the tiny, weird-looking girl trying to get her attention.

She gives a short sigh, as if mildly inconvenienced by this, then follows the kid's gaze to the nearby shelf. "Which one?" she asks, lowering the book in her hand.

[soft_focus]

[[OOC - I FORGOT TO LINK HER EMPATHY INFO... It's over here at the bottom if you wanna fill it but basically. Empath. Stuff.]]

Well, mild inconvenience is better than absolute irritation, so it's easy enough for Reira to pay little attention to that sigh. She points up to a book not far from Rita's head, the title on the binding reading something about 'basic computers'. It doesn't feel like much for herself...but she spotted it, and when she thinks about it, it seems like something her brother would be interested in at least. "Um-! That one, please," she asks, nodding. "...I just need to take pictures of all the pages..."

It'll take a bit given it's with the polaroid, but hey, she'll have a copy of the book.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita pulls the book off the shelf, gives the title a look, then holds it out for the girl. As she does, however, she looks the girl up and down with a raised eyebrow.

"You're interested in computers?" she asks. It wouldn't be completely unheard of, considering how young Rita was when she started reading books about complex technologies. But it still isn't common, and she has to wonder if this kid would even understand what she's looking at.

[soft_focus]

"Mnh...my brother makes things like that," she answers, though she does furrow her brows. ".....I'm still learning about things I like though... ...So it's for him, but I'm going to try, I guess."

It's an odd way of looking at any kind of pursuit, certainly-but there is a grain of merit there. After all, one can't know what they enjoy until they try.

That said- "....Do you like them?" Maybe asking about the 'whys' of it could help figure that out quicker than taking pictures of this book.

B

[dressedtothe]

The library is almost a dream come true. There is just so much information contained within these walls that he almost forgets the time. If it weren't for the book he's carrying under his arm, he probably wouldn't have thought to get up and seek out Rita.

Could the Carnival stay here for longer?

He greets Rita with a small smile, not bothered at all by her overreaction. "Hey Rita." Plopping himself down next to Rita, he openly peers at the book she has. "What's written in there?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita frowns at the android as he seats himself, but she doesn't protest him joining her. When he asks about the book, she just gives a sigh of resignation at first. She would've preferred to have some time to let this sink in... but she was probably going to tell 9S sooner or later. Might as well do it now.

"Remember when we talked before, about... how I might not be completely human?" she begins, still obviously a little uncomfortable with that fact. "I think I've found the reason for that."

She doesn't hide the open page. The name Hermes may be familiar to 9S if he's read the book she was working on, or the loose bits of it that had been scattered around the trailer during the process. He's a blastia researcher, and the only scholar whose work Rita cited in her own writing. Clearly, she had some respect for him.

And here, mentioned very briefly as the text describes a visit Hermes made to the City of Blastia to test some prototypes, is a reference to a wife and daughter he had in that very city.

[dressedtothe]

9S makes no motion to hide the fact he's reading the open page as he leans over. If she really didn't want him to read the page, she would've shut the book.

"Hermes...? The same Hermes who made Juana?" The blastia Rita had let him examine on his first day in the Carnival. He puts a hand on his chin in thought. "Why would he be related to you not being completly human? Unless..."

He looks up from the page.

"You think he's your dad?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita looks up at 9S, a slight smile on her lips at hearing him use the name she gave to the thermo blastia. No one else does that.

Her gaze then returns to the book, and she nods solemnly. "Yeah." It's still hard to believe... but it's what all the evidence points to.

"He's Krityan. Lived in Aspio around the time I was born... died when I was little. He left some of his research notes in my house... I always thought it was a coincidence." She gives a light scoff, apparently annoyed at her past ignorance. "It probably wasn't a coincidence that Juana came into my possession, either..."

She presses her lips together tightly, sucks in a deep breath through her nose, then announces, "Turns out I have a sister."