lostcarnival | ⇨ THE ATHENAEUM

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⇨ THE ATHENAEUM

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

"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...

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?"

Rita nods. "Yeah... He developed a formula for energy conversion that was going to revolutionize technology across the world. People thought he was going to bring about a new golden age for blastia."

Just like what the ancients once had... and it was going to go horribly wrong, just like it did for them.

"But... his formulas dramatically exacerbated the problems caused by blastia use. Aggressive monsters, destruction of the environment... his blastia would have brought about the end of the world."

"... Oh. So his work is what you're trying to fix, right?" By replacing it with less destructive magic entirely. Sometimes a drastic solutionia necessary.

Yuya leans back a bit, looking at the bottom shelf and glancing over the titles. He wonders if a lot of books about blastia and Rita's home are here. One title catches his eye, and he wedges it out from between the books. "So you wanted to know more about him?"

"Right," Rita confirms. "When I first heard about him, I thought he must've been some overzealous idiot, an average mage recklessly pushing inadequately-tested theories..." Rita's never been known to have a lot of respect for her fellow mages, but she has a special level of disdain for those whose research is actually harmful.

"...But he wasn't. Hermes was an upright mage, and his theories were brilliant even by my standards. When he realized the harm his blastia would do, he worked tirelessly to try and stop it. Maybe if he'd lived longer, he would have been the one proposing spirit conversion instead of me, or..." Her voice wavers slightly, as if strained with emotion. "Maybe we would have been working together..."

Yuya looks up at that, a little surprised. Not that Rita's holding back emotion, but that she feels strongly enough about this Hermes to experience it in the first place.

Yuya rests the book he grabbed in his lap--The Scholar and the Princess--and offers her a reassuring look.

"I bet he would have liked that, working with you."

Edited 2018-04-28 21:08 (UTC)

Rita's silent for a moment, seemingly mulling over Yuya's words. Maybe it's just his usual dumb optimism, but given what she knows... it's plausible. "You might be right," she says in a quiet voice.

"Maybe that's why he left me those notes... What a moron. He couldn't have known..."

"Notes? He left something for you?" That gets Yuya's attention, because Rita made it sound like she didn't know Hermes personally at all. And yet, he gave her something? Or was he just hoping it was going to fall into the right hands?

"There was a book of research notes in my house, written in a cipher. I thought it was a coincidence, that the last person who lived there must have left it. The first page said... 'I dedicate this to my daughter. Try and read it.'"

She pauses, finding her mouth suddenly dry, and swallows.

"I think he meant for me to have it."

Yuya stares blankly at her conflicted expression. It takes him a moment before it clicks. Oh. Ooh.

He leans a little closer. "He's your dad?" Yuya remembers Rita telling him once that her father left when she was an infant. Did she never know who he was? Did nobody tell her?

Rita nods, staring down at a spot on the floor.

"...It feels weird, finding out about it now, when he's already long dead," she mutters. "I never knew him. Never had a father. So it's not like I lost anything, right...?"

Did she lose something? It could definitely be said that she lost her chance to be raised with loving parents when he left to begin with. The thought crosses Yuya's mind, but he decides that thinking about it that way isn't very helpful at all. It isn't like dwelling on what she didn't have will give it to her. And something she can't make up for, if he's dead.

Yuya falls into a thoughtful silence, his gaze drifting down and then back up. Finally he shifts a little closer, fixing Rita with a sympathetic expression. "No, but... he's still your family, and that's something different now, right? It's like you gained something instead."

Maybe not something she wanted, or makes her happy, but she gained it nonetheless.

"Hmph. It was easier when I figured my dad was some useless deadbeat, or a soldier who died in the war." That was the leading cause of orphanhood right about when she was little, anyway. It seemed plausible. She sighs. "But I guess I didn't become a researcher so I could be satisfied with easy answers..."

Yuya says she gained something, and... he's right. After another delay, she speaks up again.

"...I have a sister."

Yuya perks up at that. Okay, maybe her parents were dead but she could still connect with her sister. "Who is she? Are you going to find her?"

He asks, assuming she hasn't even met her yet. Rita sounds like she was so alone, and only recently started finding friends. And if it took reading a book in a magic library to learn who her father was, she's probably disconnected from all of them.

It's kind of sad, but Yuya keeps his focus on the positive aspects of it.

"I know her already. She's... a friend." As always, Rita's reluctant to use the word. "Someone I was traveling with before coming here."

It's funny. Judith was already something of a sister figure to her, despite their differences. But...

"She must have known," Rita mutters, her voice heavy with frustration. "Why the hell didn't she say anything!?"

"Maybe she didn't know!" Yuya tries to ease her immediately when that frustration flares. They can't know what her sister was or wasn't thinking, so Rita probably shouldn't get attached to her anger.

"Or maybe... maybe she didn't have any proof. Would you have believedit if she couldn't prove it?"

Rita, is someone who takes facts and logic over faith, after all.

"She could've tried saying something! She's always keeping things to herself..."

But after that outburst, Rita frowns and takes a moment to consider how she might have taken it. "...I don't know, maybe it would've been hard to believe. We don't look anything alike." And not just in the usual way that siblings can be unalike. "Hermes wasn't human."

Yuya scratches his cheek sheepishly. He definitely understands keeping hard truths from someone who might not be ready to stomach them.

"Eh? He's not?" That surprises Yuya, mostly because he didn't realize her world had anyone besides humans anyway. But Rita looks totally human.

It probably helps her to talk about this though, as least to unpack it. So Yuya keeps the questions coming. "What was he?"

"Krityan," Rita replies simply, but she knows that'll need some explanation. She hasn't seen a single Krityan in any of the worlds they've visited, after all. "They're a race similar to humans, but with a few differences. They've got long pointed ears and these long... antennae, you could call them. They have some kind of telepathic abilities, too, though they tend to be reclusive and don't share a whole lot about how they work."

It's probably not too hard to tell that Rita has none of these traits. Well, besides being reclusive.

Yuya is pretty obviously looking over Rita for any of those traits... but despite all the alterations caused by fae magic, they're not present.

"So... I guess your mom was human?" He taps the side of his head. "Do you have telepathy too?"

Obviously that's what's important here. Although, if she did, she'd probably master it as much as her blastia and would have talked about it by now.

Rita nods at his first guess, then makes a face at the follow-up question.

"Hell no. If I did, it wouldn't be such a mystery." Because Rita would have studied the hell out of it and published some very scientific theories on the subject.

"It's impossible, besides. It's those antennae that give them the ability to do that sort of stuff." Still, it's weird to think that the only reason Rita doesn't have those is by some genetic fluke. Or are Krityan traits naturally recessive...?

"Oh." He supposes she's right, but also too bad. From his brief stint with telepathy, it's pretty cool.

He leans back a bit, tilting his head to the book in her lap. "Are you going to try and keep that? I think they'll trade stories, or you can make a copy..."

Frowning, Rita looks back to the book. "Yeah... I'll be taking down notes. I don't know what I'll do with this information, but it's better to have it than not."

With a sigh, she snaps the book shut and sets it aside. "Later, though. I think I'd rather focus on something else for a while."

A revelation like this is going to take a while to work through.

Yuya nods in confirmation. He can understand, it's notan easy thing to find out you don't completely come from where you thought... or are what you thought.

So Yuya turns back to the Scholar and Princess book in his lap and cracks it open to a random page with no consideration fot understanding it before he gets the first of what it's about.

Ther first thinghe notices, of course, is the term 'blastia'. His expression slips slightly in surprise. It's not the only thing familiar about it, but he ends up accidentally engrossed in the chapter because of it.

"Huh, this sounds like..."

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