lostcarnival | ⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

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⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

Who: Everybody!
When: Day 64
Where: The Camping Grounds
What: While the Ringmaster attempts to purge the carnival of magical tracing spells and deal with the angry fire fae in her belly, everyone else is getting sent on an emergency camping trip with some unusual local fauna.
Warnings: Camping.

CRYPTIC CAMPGROUNDS↴

You're given about three hours to prepare, after the Ringmaster tells you her plans for the coming week. There is a vast selection of camping equipment at your disposal, and the means to take along enough food for the length of the stay. The wilderness of the planet you're left on is nearly idyllic, but some people just don't like the great outdoors.

► CRYPTOZOOLOGY: As it turns out, the carnival won't be alone here. There is a varied ecosystem of cryptids to be found as well, living in relative peace and mostly reacting to the newcomers with curiousity. More details can be found on the plotting post. You are free to NPC the cryptids as much as you need to, as long as you stick to the behaviours described.

► DREAMSHARING: There is a player plot going on which will allow characters to share dreams! These are specifically more dreams than nightmares, and the mushi-adept characters will be here to help.

► CHILLAX: There isn't any plot twist for this setting, so this is mostly an opportunity to decompress from the last plot and get ready for the future. The Ringmaster will show up occasionally to help with needed medical treatments and check on things, but won't stick around for long.

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It's at this point that Strange realizes well shit. He doesn't have a tent. So, he's been wandering around, looking at the various tents, trying to find someone who he can bum a blanket off of and who he can share a space with. For all of Strange's poncey upper classness, he has slept on some terrible surfaces before, most notably in the peninsula. And he's still tired enough that he thinks if he closes his eyes, he'll fall asleep.

The smell of jerky and smoked meat distracts him slightly as he wanders over towards Tyki. It's easy to spot Strange thanks to his new party trick called 'the ends of his hair are now permanently on fire'. It's less easy for Strange to spot Tyki, and he only realizes that Tyki's with the jerky smell until he's a few feet from the man.

"Ah," Strange simply remarks, as if he's surprised to see Tyki out here. "Hello there, Mister Mykk. Mind if I join you?" And without waiting for an answer, Strange sits down on the blanket as well, though he isn't laying down on it just yet.

There's something a bit different about Strange's posture. He sits up a little straighter, holds himself a little tenser, and seems like he's not relaxing as much as everybody else here. He's also wearing shorts and a loose cotton shirt, but that's mostly because Childermass is a shit and, to the best of Strange's knowledge, didn't bring him any trousers.

Don't worry, Strange. Tyki's barely holds anger or annoyance for long and he's more than willing to offer him a place to stay. He'll just have to contend with Rhys being in the tent as well. The poor baby was likely holded up inside afraid of bugs and other noises in the dark. Thankfully they have a big tent since Tyki enjoyed his comfort.

He's rather content right now especially on those first two nights, given he took a bite out of that golden apple the Ringmaster gave him, and when Strange approaches his Tease don't even buzz to alert him. They are use to Strange by now and he wasn't one to sneak up on someone. Except this time, he barely notices him and he makes note of that.

He pats the blanket regardless before it is set on his own stomach and he'll look at him with a raised brow at his hair. It's hard not to notice, just as much as it was hard for someone like Tyki not to read body language. "No, always welcomed, Mister Strange. Fire magic gone wrong?" He asks even if he's sure he knows a hint of why that is present. Tyki did gain manticore wings after his run in with the Prince.

Strange shakes his head, before looking up at the stars. "A parting gift from Ignatius. I've no idea how to turn it off or dim it, so if I'm ruining any stargazing, simply tell me and I'll move elsewhere."

Thankfully, his entire head isn't on fire, just the tips of his hair. Thanks to Strange's curls, the effect is more like Christmas lights instead of a straight line of fire, but it's still noticeable enough to partly be annoying.

"I don't think I mind it," Strange continues, with a frown, "though I'm afraid this means I won't be able to wear hats again."

"There will always be stars, Mister Strange. I cannot say the same for you with your track record. You are free to stay as long as you like. I never mind your company." Despite everything, Tyki was a little annoyed to hear him offer himself like that over the radio. Tyki just never felt a need to hold any sort of anger towards a friend for long. "it's alright to relax."

He looks down at his attire. It's an interesting choice in clothes, "No, certainly not. Yet with such a fashion statement you likely don't need a hat anyways."

A small smile plays on Strange's face, as he clarifies, "But I like hats."

Despite the fact that he rarely wears them, of course. There's not much opportunity at the carnival to wear a good top hat or one of the ridiculous floppy riding hats he owns.

"As for my clothes, I'm afraid I didn't get the chance to grab what I want to wear, what with being indisposed and all that." What with being dead. "I don't have a place to sleep either."

Normally he'd just force himself into Lambert's tent, but considering everything with regards to Ignatius...Strange doesn't really want to stay with Lambert at the moment.

He laughs softly even if the pup, which is Rhys, is sleeping right now. "So do I! I still have mine but I hardly ever get to wear it here." It had gotten a little damaged but it was still in working condition after Nui repaired it for him.

"Well, I'm not sure if we're the same build but I do have an extra pair of pants or two. Plus, I respect you as a colleague so I would always open my house to you if this was home. Be it as it may, my tent does have room should you not receive any other offers."

He thumbs over his shoulder towards the 4-man tent, "The only one I am sharing with is Mister Rhys. He's new."

Edited 2018-06-14 18:33 (UTC)

"I don't think I've met Rhys," Strange muses, as he looks over to the tent. He mulls it over for a second before deciding that he doesn't mind barging in on things and imposing on a relative stranger he's never met before! Sorry, Rhys.

"In that case, assuming he doesn't mind fire, I'd love to share a tent with the two of you." And if he does mind fire, well, Strange'll just bully someone else into sharing.

"He's fun," to mess with. The poor boy was out of his league here and just as full of himself as Strange was.

Tyki's eyes lift towards Strange's hair and the way it sits there at the tips. Yeah, he can see how that might be a problem to some especially with the way things liked to be most flammable, "Even if he does mind, we might get a kick out of it anyways. I sort of imposed on him anyways, one more won't hurt. And if we must sleep back to back to avoid you lighting anything on fire, then so be it."

The mention of sleeping back to back is interesting. Tormenting poor Rhys is going to fall to the wayside for the moment, as Strange decides to pester Tyki about his magic instead.

"I thought your power to choose was a conscious thing," Strange muses. He's obviously very interested and not even bothering to hide his nosiness as he asks, "Can you use it even while sleeping?"

Tyki opens a bag of sour cream potato crisps and slides one into his mouth with a satisfying crunch. It's one of his favorite snacks right now from Wismuth and he's going to be sad when they are gone. Strange is being nosy again and he wants to tease.

Tyki's grin starts to widen and he'll hold out one of his hands with a gesture, "Oh? I'm surprise you haven't figured that out yet. You are right but you're wrong too."

In Strange's mind, this is an invitation to guess. He reaches over to grab some of the potato crisps, assuming that of course Tyki's going to let him eat them.

"Perhaps it is a sustained state? Something that can metaphorically be turned 'on' or 'off,' not something you have to consciously control. It's certainly not something that's always on."

As if to prove his point, Strange reaches out with the hand that isn't holding potato crisps to give Tyki a playful poke in the side.

He's sure Strange is starving, if he hasn't had anything to eat all day, so he allows him to take what he wants. Maybe he'll hunt later to bring him something more substantial. He'll at least have breakfast in the morning.

Tyki nudges a few bottles of juices from orange, to grape, to pineapple next to him as well. Then again, there is water as well. He listens to Strange theorizing and snerks gently at him being right and yet wrong again.

"It certainly can't be something that is always on~" he repeats, mimicking Strange's words with a hint of sarcasm and tease as Strange's finger passes right through him.

As his fingers pass through Tyki, Strange's expression goes from confused to understanding in the blink of an eye. Well then. This certainly explains a lot. Now the sleeping back to back thing makes more sense.

With the hand that just phased through Tyki, Strange reaches over to take a bottle of juice..and almost physically recoils when he sees that the label says 'pineapple.' Urgh. No thank you. Why does Tyki have this anyway, he thought the man had taste! Instead, Strange grabs a bottle of grape juice.

"For lack of a better term, I thought it was a power to 'not touch.' Turns out it was a power to touch." And now he's got a billion nerdy questions. "Tell me, do you have to consciously think about this while walking? You might pass through the ground otherwise."

It is times like these that he enjoys watching Strange figure out everything on his own. He watches his expressions and gauges that understanding with a gleeful enthusiasm. There we good. Such a smart magician.

Note that he did not offer the apple juice. That was solely for him and he has it tucked against his side already opened. He lifts a brow at the pineapple juice but then remembers Wismuth. Ah, it goes much deeper does it?

"Since you've figured it out, perhaps, I can indulge you that it is my Power to Choose," he says more specifically. "No, I do not because I already subconsciously want to touch the ground when I walk. Do you remember the effects of Faerie Ale during The Cure from the Manor? I could barely stay standing on my own two feet. Sunk into the ground, missed a step here or there, started floating." He feels awfully sorry the night Childermass took care of him, even if Tyki is grateful that he did.

He lets out a little laugh at Tyki's story and the mental image of poor Tyki struggling to get back to his tent while falling through the ground every step of the way. Because hey, it's funny.

"So is that how you can breathe? Or how you can eat? You subconsciously want to do those things, so your body does them?" This is intensely interesting, and Strange just has nerdy question after nerdy question for Tyki. His Power to Choose...Strange had only a vague idea of what Tyki could do. Now that he's learning the full scope, he's downright impressed. This must be more powerful than Strange ever imagined.

He does have some of his faerie ale with him in a small container. He had left the bulk of it at home. He just hasn't had the real decision nor reason to use it just yet.

"For the most part," or so he figures. Tyki wasn't one to methodically break down his power or how his body worked. He wanted to breathe so he did. He plucks out a potato crisp out of the bag and wags it around in the air, "I could just feed this crisp directly into my stomach with my hands but there is more pleasure in eating it the normal way. Taste is often taken for granted." And being of nobility, he does have a rather refined palate. That being said, he could easily shove something hazardous into someone else's stomach as well. "In my world, I can manipulate just about anything with my power." The Ringmaster's Realm was another thing all together.

Whereas Strange desperately wants Tyki to methodically break down how his power or his body worked. This is something new and interesting and he wants to poke at it with a stick until he finds a way to figure out what it does.

He gets the taste thing, though. Good food and drink is something that most people take for granted.

"How does your power interact with other magic?" Strange's tone implies that he's got an idea brewing in his mind.

As he talks, he reaches up and undoes the top two buttons of his shirt, so that it's easier for him to access a large spot of mirrored coating on his shoulder. This also means that Tyki can get a glimpse of the mirror coated stab wound scar on Strange's chest, right near his heart.

He should know better and he kind of does. Strange was always going to pick and prod at magic when it came down to it. He had such a passion for it and he always found a way to dissect the smallest of things.

"I have a feeling you're going to see whether I tell you or not," he says casually with his eyes now on Strange now that he's opening his clothes. He's up to something and while Tyki did give him a manner of trust, it came with a heavy price of forwardness. Tyki was always up for any of Strange's schemes. He gestures for him to continue regardless. He notices the addition to his scars, having seen Strange's naked torso before months ago.

Strange picks up a potato chip and gives Tyki a worryingly wide grin. He's going to do something dumb with magic. "I've recently figured out a way to use reflections to store things—much like Childermass uses his shadows."

He murmurs a spell before placing the potato chip against the mirrored covering on his shoulder. It rests against the mirrors for a moment before Strange starts to push the chip into the mirror. The tips of his fingers slide in the mirror as well before Strange moves them out of the way. He unbuttons another button of his shirt so that Tyki can get a better look at his shoulder. It looks like someone placed the potato chip on top of Strange's mirrors. However, the potato chip is actually inside the reflection, just kind of hovering there and not touching anything.

"Try to remove the potato chip from my shoulder." Which honestly is a sentence that Strange never thought he'd say in his entire life.

Look, Tyki always assumes he's going to do something dumb with magic but Tyki indulges in him anyways because it is usually worth it. "Things, not people." He's been inside of Childermass' shadow. It was rather boring.

Not that he's putting any emphasis on the fact that Strange's magic was any less than his boss. It was likely far more grand than that. It's why when push came to shove he always told others that Strange was the better Magician. He watches with a quiet satisfaction as that potato crisp is pushed into his shoulder and his eyes narrow in scrutiny.

He's given permission to touch and Tyki does not hesitate. As he touches his shoulder, along the mirrored reflection, Strange will feel a tingle as his fingertips dip into his mirrored flesh. The general rule he gives to others is that if he can touch it, he can take it. He chooses to grab the potato chip, fingers ghosting along the bottom of it, and he pushes to lift it out of him. It's just, Strange's magic was always different and this realm always has estranged effects on his powers, "Hmm, interesting."

"Maybe people, maybe not. I haven't practiced with a large enough surface yet." This means that Strange is 100% going to try and trap someone in a puddle at some point. After all, he's got to know the limitations of his magic! This is simple practice!

As Tyki reaches into Strange's shoulder, the sensation is oddly cold. After all, the chip is stored in the reflection, not in the mirrored coating itself. Weird magic is going to be involved. But Tyki is able to lift it out of him: Strange's eyes widen with excitement as he sees the other man do so.

"I was working on this spell during the Athenaeum and only put the final touches on it when—" when Ignatius was training me to fight, Strange wants to say, but he cuts himself off "—during all that kidnapped business. Whatever's stored only makes the reflection a little bit heavier. The item can't be bigger than the reflection. However, depth isn't taken into account."

"I know I can use that to store a sword or something in the mirror on my chest. I'll just have to store it this way," and Strange pantomimes holding out a sword lengthwise, like he's going to stab himself in the chest with it, "instead of this way." And he pantomimes holding that sword upwards, like he's going to stab it into the ground.

"Just don't drown anyone on accident or get someone stuck in there for good," he says nonchalantly like he entirely endorse this horrible plan. He should use animals first and not people but who knows how quickly he'll seek to advance his magic.

He fingers the potato crisp in his fingers, weighing it as Strange speaks. He's not sure if it is still the intended potato crisp or not. Either way, he'll experimentally lick it for taste and quality. After all, magic like this didn't work if one couldn't return an object. Then again, it had been Tyki that pulled it and not Strange himself.

"I imagine you had a good while to yourself to figure it out," he comments without directly commenting on Ignatius's influence on Strange. He himself never wanted to talk about the Manor, not even now. He tilts his head at the example given and looks down at the mirrored chest of his. Scratching his chin in idle speculation, he nods along with that assessment, "That makes sense given how reflections can distort."

Strange lets out a little laugh at Tyki's warning. He 100% is going to straight up jump to people, but no need to worry Tyki about that. As for the potato chip, it is the exact same one that Strange magically shoved in his shoulder to begin with. It tastes salty, still fresh, but it's oddly cool, like someone had left it in the freezer for a minute or so.

"Apparently it was only two days or so," Strange explains, also obliquely commenting around the problem of Ignatius's influence on him. "It felt so much longer."

But back to the talk of mirrors. Strange idly taps a nail on the stab wound on his chest. "I've a larger expanse of mirrors on my back, but I can barely reach them. I can also store items in other reflections: ice, a hand mirror, the lake, and so forth. I've mostly been working with smaller objects but I'd love to try something large sometime soon."

Don't worry, Strange. Tyki isn't worried. It'll be a shame if someone is stuck in a puddle and sure, it'll be a wonder if said puddle vanished overnight. The Ringmaster could probably do something about that. He muses for a moment over the potato crisp and then just pops it right into his mouth to chew. He has to no. His curiosity overtakes him. There's a small reaction from the chill of it but it is no different from ordinary. "Hmmm."

While Tyki's poker face is usually undeniably functional 24/7, his eyes slit unnaturally, for a fraction of a second, when Strange talks momentarily about his experience. It's bringing up memories of the Manor, where time stalled and the scent of rot filled his nostrils. No food, no water, no fresh air, time dragging on and on without a clock or daylight to guide him. He would never had known how long he was in the Underbelly without someone informing him later. And while his ears don't bend back nor does his tail lash from that controlled poker face, he is grateful when the conversation returns to mirrors.

"May as well while we have this time on our hands. I can fell a tree or a boulder if necessary."

Edited 2018-06-23 14:05 (UTC)

That worryingly wide grin just grows even wider. If Tyki can fell a tree or a boulder then hell yes, Strange wants to test and see if he can store it in a reflection! This is a brilliant plan!

"The lake would be our best choice," Strange explains, as he gestures towards the lake. "I'll prepare the spell and prime the magic. We push the boulder into the lake, it stays trapped in the reflection for however long we want, and then when the spell's lasted long enough, I release it and it sinks to the bottom!"

It's a solid plan in Strange's mind. He obviously has no qualms changing the topography of this place and messing up the natural environment of camping world. After all, a lot of his time in the peninsula was spent trying to move forests and rivers and occasionally forgetting to put things back. He looks like he's ready to get up and do it, despite the fact that it's night outside and they probably shouldn't be felling trees in the dark.

"What do you think?"

evening!

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