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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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?"

"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?"

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?

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."

"Right..." Rita murmurs, not looking particularly interested in nugs. They do seem kind of like miniature rappigs, she guesses... but she doesn't care much about those, either.

"Other than a nug..." Rita turns her attention to Nigella. "What are you, exactly? My understanding was that you were some sort of manifestation of the Creation power Cole possessed... and a guide of sorts." Could that still be the case even now, when they're no longer Guardians? Or is this Nigella different from the one she met before?

"I was," Nigella squeaks as she looks over at Rita. "But I can't do that anymore. My connection to Creation's gone and now I'm just part of Cole or something like that."

The nug frowns a little as she contemplates the meaning of her existence. This does not bother Cole in the slightest. He looks over towards Rita and clarifies, "She can still guide. Just not as much before."

Offering personal advice sort of guiding over dictating what creation wants him to do sort of guiding.

"Hmm... well, I suppose that's a good thing. You sure seem like you could use the guidance." Considering how helpless, not to mention clueless, Cole is most of the time... As weird as his choice of spell is, this might actually have some use to him.

"Anyway, have you been making use of the library here?" she asks, hoping to find out if Cole's found anything of interest. Rita doesn't know if the spirit is much of a reader, but so long as they're here, it would only make sense for everybody to try reading a few things.

"He does," Nigella chirps before Cole can say otherwise. Which...that's a bit rude, he thinks he can do perfectly fine without the guidance (though he won't say no to it.)

At Rita's question, however, Cole frowns. "I'm trying to find the things she wants. But it's not working!" He's terrible at searching and terrible at finding things. Cole's found some things about himself and about his world but aside from that, it's a whole lot of nothing.

"The things she wants...?" Rita echoes, furrowing her brow as she tries to work out who that is. "You mean the Ringmaster?"

She shrugs. "For what it's worth, the way this place is organized is total nonsense. I haven't found anything to that effect, either." Yet. Rita's still confident that she will, though so far she's mostly only found things about herself... and her dad, which her mind's still reeling over.

Cole nods. Yep, he does mean the Ringmaster and he does mean information on the Miracles. Cole ain't found shit and it's annoying him more than he wants to admit. Still, if Rita hasn't found anything, then that makes him feel better.

"Have you found anything else?"

Because Cole found some interesting things about his world, confirming the hurts he picked up from Lavellan and Solas's mind. What did Rita find?

"Just some weird stories, general information about fae that confirms what I already knew or suspected... and a few things related to my blastia research."

The latter is a bit of a stretch. It relates to her blastia research in that it turns out the one researcher Rita kind-of-sort-of respected was actually her dad, something Rita still feels massively conflicted over. It was a lot simpler when she figured her dad was some useless deadbeat. Couldn't someone have told her sooner!?

But she doesn't show that externally, and instead goes on about the books. "I've got a stack going of books that seem useful, but a lot of them lack context. Trying to make sense of them is like putting together a puzzle with a bunch of missing pieces..." She sounds annoyed as she says it, but that's not entirely honest. Rita loves those kinds of puzzles.

"I can help, if you want." Who knows how much help Cole would be considering his everything but hey, he's willing to try.

He looks over at Rita, a bit expectantly, before picking up on something in her mind. Rita forgets that Cole's an infomodding creep. Worried about her dad, hurt that she didn't know. Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't Judith tell me? Do they want me to look silly?

"They must have had their reasons," Cole mutters, looking over at Rita. "They would have told you otherwise."

Rita nods at his offer to help. She's not sure he's much of a researcher, but it can't hurt to have two sets of eyes skimming these shelves. Three, if Nigella counts.

She reaches for the shelf to pull out another book at random, but pauses at that reassurance. "What do you mean?" she asks, looking vaguely unsure. That sure came out of the blue, not that that's unusual for Cole.

But there's a part of Rita that immediately wonders if he could be responding to that...

"Your father," Cole answers as if it's obvious.

Nigella, who had been draped on Cole's shoulder, listening to the conversation, suddenly turns to Cole and gives his ear a hard yank. "Oww..." Cole complains, with a frown.

"You're doing it again! Rita didn't mention her dad, so don't bring it up!" she squeaks, just tearing into Cole as she gives him a tiny little frown. "Don't mention things people haven't talked about!"

"But it worries her..." Cole starts, as if this is a perfectly sound reason to be a creep and mention things she's thinking about to Rita.

Looks like Nigella's already coming in handy as a voice of reason. Unfortunately, Cole's concern manages to grate on Rita anyway.

"I'm not worried," she protests, indignant. "Don't be ridiculous. I didn't even know the guy, so... it doesn't even matter!" It shouldn't matter. It's not like she lost anything.

But it feels like she might have.

Reading about Hermes, it sounds like he had a lot of things in common with Rita. Eccentric, an outcast in his society, passionate about his research... If he'd lived, would they have been close? Would he have brought Rita and Judith together, so they could all be a family?

"Of course it matters," Nigella chirps, as she continues to yank on Cole's ear. Cole mostly responds by looking intensely put-upon. "Cole's weird and creepy and doesn't know social norms, but he wouldn't mention it if it didn't matter."

Having said her piece, she lets go of Cole's ear before laying back down and readjusting herself on Cole's shoulder. Cole rubs his ear a little bit because ouch, that hurt, stop that.

"Things that didn't happen can still matter. The what-ifs matter as much as the what happened."

Whose side is Nigella on, anyway!?

"Th-that's absurd," Rita stammers, pulling out a book and practically hiding her face behind it as she skims through it. "Of course things that happened matter more than things that didn't happen. You're not even talking sense." As if talking sense is something Cole normally does.

Cole shakes his head. No, he's pretty sure on this one, and is about to explain why to Rita. "If a what-if is large enough, it matters more than the what-haves. What if I did something differently? What if I chose a different path? What if I knew my father?"

He adjusts his position slightly, shifting from putting his weight on one foot to another. "It isn't bad. It just is."

People will always wonder about what could have happened. That's just a way of life.

Ugh... It's actually really annoying how accurately Cole can read her, sometimes.

"...Would've been nice to at least know I wasn't completely human," she admits in a grumble.

Which is something that carries plenty of its own what-ifs. What if some aspects of her personality and life could be attributed to that? Krityans are known for their scholars, and Hermes was especially brilliant... What if Rita's only a genius because of her genes? What if her inability to fit into human society was because, deep down, she wasn't fully human?

But that feels like an excuse. Rita's accomplishments and her struggles... she wants to believe they're her own.

"You and him both," Nigella chirps, as she looks up at Cole. Cole, in response, blushes slightly. Rita knows about him having an identity crisis and thinking he wasn't real (and then learning he was). What she's going through is kind of like that but obviously different. After all, Rita won't change like he did.

"It's...odd, learning you're something you're not. But it becomes you in the end."

The whole 'realizing you're a spirit and then becoming a spirit' thing was intensely odd and slightly difficult, but Cole likes to think he pieced it out eventually.

Rita's eyes widen. She genuinely hadn't considered that she and Cole might be similar in this regard. But it's true... he was caught between a human and spirit identity. He might actually understand in a more concrete way than his usual use of creepy mindreading.

"I know..." she says after some hesitation. "What I am, it's been a part of me all along... so of course it shouldn't change anything." That should be obvious. She feels like an idiot for ever doubting it.

Actually, this whole conversation is making her feel like an idiot. So as her face steadily grows redder, she blurts out, "...argh! Just forget it. Stop trying to make me feel better!"

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Cole takes Rita's suggestion seriously. Why would she want him to forget it? That doesn't make any sense, isn't him knowing about Rita's dad a good thing? Still, if it makes Rita happy... "I can forget it, if you want. I can make myself do that."

Nigella's still here though, and she sits herself up on Cole's shoulder to tug his ear again. "She doesn't mean it like THAT!" she squeaks.

And Cole looks back over at Rita with an expression of absolute confusion.

"I mean forget it as in shut up about it!" Rita clarifies, still indignant as she echoes Nigella. "Don't actually forget it. Then we might just have the same weird conversation all over again." And that would be the worst.

Besides, despite Rita's complaining, she actually does feel a bit better. She just also feels annoyed and embarrassed in addition to that.

Ahhhh okay. That makes a lot more sense. Cole nods and lets out a small 'mmhmm' of agreement. If it makes Rita uncomfortable, he'll stop talking about it.

Still, she knows she's not alone. She knows that other people have experienced what she has. That's what matters the most.

"Honestly, he's hopeless sometimes," Nigella chirps, as she looks over at Rita. "He doesn't TRY to be, but I think it's some spirit thing. That's why it's good he's got me now!"

If Cole's bothered by his familiar shittalking him, he doesn't say. The most he does is give Nigella a mildly annoyed look.

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⇨ THE ATHENAEUM

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