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.

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Carly for her part, doesn't really pay much attention to Foster's arrival. On the one hand 'ah, why should she' is probably a thought but on the other it's largely because she's holding a scrap of paper against her chest yammering incoherently about not wanting to be 'purged' or similar.

Her marowak, nearby, simply frowns, stares, and then goes for Foster.

"Maar, Marro maro-" You. You there.

FIX THIS! Fix this now!

Foster backs up quickly, hooves lifting high off the floor to avoid the Marowak--

Whose Poke-language he incidentally does not speak, no matter how adamantly it's spoken to him.

He isn't interested in parlaying with it anyway, though--once he's good couple of steps back of it, he moves forward, getting in one good long stride of a canter before swerving around the Pokemon entirely.

He owes Carly, though, so he slows to a trot and stops as he pulls abreast of her--and reaching out, snags the slip of parchment with the tips of his claws, flipping it around to read.

Turns out he also doesn't speak 'incoherent babbling' either, you see.

Which is pretty fucking ironic.

"MAAAAR-!" Well fine, be that way-

But also, there goes the paper. "AH-!" Carly yelps, eyes wide. "H-Hey!! I was reading that!" Had. Read that. Had. "What are you doing!"

"Reading."

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer, apparently.

Of course, it's Foster, so you could have gotten a stupid answer with a smart question, too.

Good and evil... light and darkness. These are concepts Foster finds incredibly disinteresting--and by extension, tedious; in his experience, good and evil are concepts beyond his grasp, not to mention being aspirations and causes significantly above him.

Not unlike what he's found, there's both a lot going on here and... very little. Purging a soul... because it is both and dark? They... thought good and evil were the same? Implying it's not, then...? Is he supposed to know what that means, or care?

Ugh.

Well. Actually, none of this matters.

He glances up, regarding Carly sideways with his one lidded, narrow eye.

"Why would this mean you be purged?"

".....People normally ask before taking things from others for reading." Well fine if you're going to give a stupid answer she'll just judge you. Judge!!

As it is- "Wh-Why do you think..!? I'm pretty much nothing but light with some outside bits right now! And I've definitely been involved with the 'dark' since then!" And not just on a book note. What if the reason she didn't notice any lingering magic (her arrows, she was certain, did not count), what if the reason nothing...Seemed to change...

Was because she couldn't tell. "What if there's some sort of balance a person's soul just cracks at!? What if I'm ruining mine!"

Foster just.... gives Carly a look. It's a look that goes from tired to upbeat in about half a second, like he's just had an idea.

"I was born," he observes brightly, though with a somewhat acid smile; he does hand her script back to her in gesture, as a flourish.

"--sounds less like your soul will break and more like it will be wiped clean." Which is... appealing. Refreshing, in a way, to think about. Imagine being erased in soul and left clear and blank, a tabula rasa to be writ anew....!

And Carly in turn goes and pauses for a moment, before frowning. "....You're still talking, so I think there's a chance that a soul can break more..." She won't argue about how 'broken' he figures He is. She just won't. But that said.

"Being wiped clean can mean a lot of different things, but what I'm worried about is what on earth even warrants that..! You're still here, right? So obviously, neither of us are at 'that' point, but...MMnnnhhhh...!!"

She's already wringing her hands a bit. "I really, Really don't want to break, or start over, or at least not like that, it's not my fault eating shadows made this happen..."

Foster almost has a fit at her for even that much: it would be better for everyone if he weren't talking, and the fact that he can is more blight than blessing--

She's already going on about not wanting to break and eating shadows, though. Then she continues about about how whatever happened as a result isn't her fault--and he doesn't know the first thing about Carly, but he doubts that claim immensely.

"Did you eat them on purpose?" He wants to know.

"Obviously." Uh.

"...Iiiiit's more than that though..!" she hurriedly coughs. "...Before...mmmm, Greysol, I wasn't 'alone'. And....that 'someone' I had with me was causing...problems."

A pause. "....Unnecessary problems. The kind that no one really needs or ever gains anything from." So not even the RIGHT kinds of problems. "So I asked the Ringmaster-who apparently was waiting for me to ask," she mutters, frowning a bit and moving on, "...Well, I asked the Ringmaster to help; using their power, I'd done a lot to help the Carnival in the past...It'd be a waste to just scatter it right? Even if it meant getting rid of...him...." she mutters, still frowning.

"The Ringmaster?" That gets Foster's attention. Rather immediately, actually.

But he remembers what the Ringmaster does with her enemies--he remembers it often, with an almost religious passion and and intensity.

But Carly--

Carly has earned the benefit of the Ringmaster's power? Carly, who--quite frankly, Foster cannot remember the last time Carly did anything remotely useful outside her job, he can't--well, of course he can't remember, he can't remember anything except that which the Ringmaster bid him to, he can't remember anything except what he can't forget--

"Yes! I needed someone to sort of...guide me through it. She's eaten other fae loads of times, so...eating the thing I was carrying around, she could probably help me do that right? And that way, I'd keep all the power I'd taken from him, AND he'd be gone~" she half sings, ignoring Foster for the moment.

And then she deflates. "...Anyway, after I took all his power I exploded into this."

"Of course it did," Foster looks at her in disgust for what is not even an entire second, before it's replaced with a genuine ardour that swells with every following word.

"That's the point of it--the act of eating. What you devour becomes you... it is absorbed by its very consumption, by its essential nature into yours...! If what possessed you was once shadow, then by its essential absence reflected you become light!"

Despite his zeal, he still manages it to make it sound like this is the most basic thing in the world--and like he thinks she's truly stupid for needing it explained.

Carly stares for quite a long time. Not arguing-in a...Very strange, very bizarre way, that actually made sense. But rather-

"That doesn't answer the question about what happens if I put too much 'darkness' BACK, Foster..!"

Foster is silent for a moment, staring at her. Gradually his impassive stare turns more into a frown, or something like it. It's more the downturn of the mouth rather than any degree of furrowed brow, so perhaps it's pensive rather than displeased, but it's a change of expression either way.

"When... did you do that?"

Did he miss something? He feels a lot like he missed something.

If eating the shadow(s) made you turn into light, where are you adding more shadows from?

"Ahhhhhh..." Shoot. She had been thinking about a few different things, but it's hitting rather abruptly that among those things is something she sort of wants on the down low.

The solution, naturally, is to immediately blow up the Other point. "W-Well...! I wasn't exactly 'lit up' when I was a Harbringer after all..! And..." She quiets, chewing her lip. "...Nothing looks different, but..."

She just can't shake this...Feeling.

Foster doesn't...

....well.

He knows fairly well how they felt then, in the grip of the Void's abyssal enlightenment... but he doesn't know how they feel now. He can well assume, however, that it would leave a mark... what has been seen cannot be unseen, no matter how briefly it was glimpsed or flimsy the veneer through which it was sighted.

"The Void isn't shadow. It's the absence of all things--light or shadow, birth or rot."

"Well if it's 'absence', it's doing a good job of making me feel like it left something behind then! Same with a lot of others!" she adds, scowling. ...Even if 'a lot' is, well, Papyrus and maybe Childermass.

"And that..." She frowns. "...What's literal, what's not literal...it feels like if anything could corrupt something 'alive', it would be that..."

It's a lie. At least partly a lie.

But now both things are worrying her, and she shakes on the spot, holding her arms close.

"....I need to talk to the Ringmaster," she says-more to herself, than anything. If Foster doesn't say anything, or do anything, she may take a few moments pause before floating off to do just that.

"Papyrus?" Foster is startled into laughter--

It doesn't last long, but.

Papyrus--

He won't argue with her about the Void's taint, as the Ringmaster calls it--he knows quite well how tainted it can leave life. In fact, he'll confirm it--!

Or he would, but she seems to have figured out an actually useful course, so he just watches her go in passive silence, his eyes tracking her every inch until she's gone.

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⇨ THE ATHENAEUM

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