⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[atouts]

"If you'd call sticking stringy rabbit meat over a fire cooking, I suppose I must be," Childermass answers, looking up briefly from what he's doing to Rita, then back again. He's already progressed to the part where he's almost done, jackalope skinned and innards removed and set aside. Now he's just finishing removing what bits of fur cling on, which he can more or less rip off with his talons rather than needing a knife.

"If you want any of that for your cat..." He'll nod towards the pile beside him. "Help yourself. Baker's already had more than enough."

And likely the best parts, too, but they're all carnivores, right? Well. Maybe. Baker eats fruit just as happily as anything else.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita would, in fact, call that cooking. It's way more work than she's willing to put into food preparation.

She wrinkles her nose at the pile, glances back at Baker, and shrugs as she replies, "I guess he'd like that." It means she'll have to carry it back to her tent, though... but she can worry about that later.

For now, she'll start with one of the questions on her mind. "How's Lambert?"

[atouts]

Unfortunately for Rita, acknowledging Baker at all has him turning his big fluffy head to return the look, then tensing as if about to get up. It's something Childermass belays the inevitable curious dog plodding over to her, though, by pausing in his work to pluck an organ at random from the messy pile at his side and toss it to the arcanine.

That pulls Baker's attention away from Rita immediately and he moves to snatch the tidbit out of the air instead, then flops back down to chew on it. It won't last long, but it does the trick.

"Sleeping," Childermass answers after, nodding towards the tent behind them. It's closed up right now, giving the witcher some privacy and a thin buffer between himself and the noise of the outside world.

"Otherwise, well enough, so long as he doesn't go picking any other fights."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita tenses at the arcanine's reaction, then quickly turns her head away while Childermass offers the distraction.

"Good," she says, a bit too quickly. There's a pause then as she studies Childermass's face, seemingly considering saying more about that... but she decides against it, at least for now.

Part of her has to wonder, though... Are those two being less subtle than they used to be? Or did she completely overlook some obvious hints in the past? Hm...

In any case, there was something important she wanted to ask about. "I was told you had a copy of the Silver Mirror picture Zangetsu found in the library. I don't suppose you brought it here...?" Rita, of course, brought plenty of her notes to the campsite. Did Childermass do the same?

[atouts]

Rita would likely be glad to hear she hadn't overlooked anything in the past, unlike certain other magicians who definitely had much more blatant evidence shoved in their face without realizing it. This is new, not being shady or evasive about it, simply deciding to stay together and saying nothing else of it. Lambert needed the help, besides, and so... here he is, for what it's worth.

The actual question asked, however, is a far less complicated one to answer. He tilts his head slightly to one side, going over what he all brought out here with him. It doesn't take long to recall (as the answer is: not a whole lot).

"I did," he says, "Along with copies of what I found myself. I believe Mr. Shima has a few pictures of the written work on his phone but I made several copies of the chapter by hand as well. The picture is with those. Should I assume you would like to have them?"

[anti_nonsense]

Shima? That's right, he did mention something about the third miracle over the radio. Seemed like a valuable passage to examine, and Rita probably would have done so already if it wasn't for everything that happened since.

She nods eagerly. "Yeah." Hell yeah she wants them. "I've been using some of this time to organize the information we've collected into a few compilations, along with some summaries. The Silver Mirror, obviously, is a topic that's taking priority. I can give you a copy of the report when I'm done, if you want."

[atouts]

"I will," Childermass is quick to confirm that much. He can add it to his own notes, even if the largest part of them are back in his trailer. The ones from the library, however, he can retrieve just fine and he doesn't even have to move far to do so. "Just a moment, Ms. Mordio."

After which he sets aside the jackalope, makes a point to clean his claws and fingers off with a rag set out just for that purpose, and then turns to reach down into his own shadow. He definitely acts like he's rooting around for something, somewhere, and there's a quiet rustle from the tent to match the movement. Then, he's leaning back from his shadow, pulling his arm out, then his hand, and clutched in his talons carefully are one of his little notebooks, a polaroid picture and a few more larger, folder pieces of paper wedged between the smaller pages.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita raises an eyebrow as she watches him grope around in his own shadow for those notes... then her gaze drifts to the rustling in the tent. "Convenient," she comments simply. Really, it's a good use of his abilities.

Her eyes light up when he produces the documents, and she immediately reaches out to take and study the photograph.

"So this is it..." She tilts the photo in her hand as she examines it. "I wonder how big it is."

[atouts]

"Well, if I might make a guess or two," Childermass says, having made a point to pull the additional pages and picture out to offer to Rita before she can swoop in for the entire book. "Lilith uses it to check how pure a soul is, so I'd say large enough to view an entire body in or at least half that size, assuming one only needs to see a fair portion of someone to tell. It certainly won't be small."

Though he doubts it'll be pointlessly huge, either, considering it's just a mirror. A very special, mirror, yes, but even mirrors need to be functional.

[anti_nonsense]

"So long as it isn't so big we can't move it," Rita supposes with a shrug. Any guesses as to how much of a person needs to be reflected in order to measure their soul is pure conjecture at this point.

Rita takes the pages and gives them a glance before pulling out a notebook she kept slung against her lower back, tucking them under the cover, and putting it away. She'll bring it all back, along with the finished compilation, when she's done with it. With this, she has all she needs (except perhaps those jackalope bits), but since she's here, there's an opportunity to ask about something else she's been wondering about for a while.

"Hey... can I ask you something?" She figures his answer will depend on what the question is, so after a pause, she goes ahead and continues. "Why doesn't the Ringmaster have a problem with you carrying iron?"

[atouts]

Once he's able to put his own little notebook aside again, it's back to dealing with the jackalope, cutting it apart now into easier to cook portions. Childermass does pause at the question, however, at least taking a moment to think about it, as though the answer isn't readily apparent. He should probably thank Lambert again for bringing iron up so frivolously over the radio... That is, of course, assuming he hadn't outright warned Rita to watch out for it back in Wismuth.

"If you will allow me to answer that question with one of my own, Ms. Mordio," he begins and, naturally, doesn't give her the chance to decline him that right. "If you had iron, would you have used it on Ignatius back there? In the library?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita considers that for a moment. It's true that she hates Ignatius... and it's also true that she heard the Ringmaster reiterate the rule about iron being forbidden just the day before the confrontation. With both of those things in mind...

"No," she says, with an odd intonation suggesting she only just realized so herself. "You might not believe me, but I wouldn't have. We had other options, and besides, if I really wanted to, I probably could have used the Athenaeum to simulate iron."

Instead, she chose other, riskier methods. Because she respected the Ringmaster's wishes...? Rita wonders if that's it.

[atouts]

"Not the answer I expected, I must admit," Childermass says after a slight moment of silence. After all, Rita has as much a reason to shank Ignatius with iron as he does the Count. Still, he has his answer, so he owes her one in return. He'll go back to dealing with the Jackalope, quartering off another limb as he does, though.

"The Ringmaster doesn't have a problem with it because she is the one who gave me the iron in the first place." Although that alone doesn't answer everything. "And likely because I am not all that inclined to stab people in the first place."

[anti_nonsense]

There's a distinct flicker of surprise in Rita's expression. She gave it to him? After strictly forbidding everyone from having it?

"That explains why she didn't give it to someone else, maybe... but why give it to anyone at all, if she doesn't want anyone using it?" It doesn't make a lot of sense, unless there is, in fact, some purpose she envisioned Childermass using it for.

[atouts]

"Iron can be used to dispel faerie magic, not just brutalize them directly," he points out. "It was how I chased the vines of the Blue Rose back and away from Steven that one time. So perhaps they're meant to be akin to a lockpick, a spell-breaker, though if she had any deeper reasoning, I have not seen fit to ask her just yet."

[anti_nonsense]

That's a reasonable enough answer, and Rita does remember him using it that way... It was the first time she noticed him brandishing iron, though at the time, she only had a fleeting glance at it.

"'Perhaps'..." she echoes, looking mildly disturbed, because the implication seems to be, "So she didn't actually tell you what she had in mind?" With how concerned she seemed about iron, Rita thought the Ringmaster would have clearly laid out the rules... but then again, when has she ever done that?

[atouts]

"Do you regularly get marching orders to go along with the gifts you receive, Ms. Mordio?" Childermass does, at least, say that with a glint of humor in his eye. "I am not too worried about whether or not she had anything in particular on her mind when she dropped them off. What I do know is she'll take them back if I do abuse them."

Or let someone else take them. Close enough with Lambert pulling that stunt but he at least had the excuse of being out like a light then.

[anti_nonsense]

"That's not...!" Rita begins to protest, but as she realizes how pointless it would be to argue over it, she stops, ending with only an irritated scoff. She got her questions answered, and anything she says to Childermass now won't change the way things are.

So instead, she turns her attention back to the jackalope bits. "...You got something I can carry those back with?" she asks.

[atouts]

Maybe not the answer she wanted but it's the only answer he has for her. With the topic changing, Childermass glances over at the bits and pieces of jackalope.

"Hm. No, not really," he admits after a cursory look around the campsite. "I didn't actually take rabbit guts into account when packing, so you may need to get a plate from the kitchen's tent. Well, that or use your hands, but..."

He's pretty sure Rita isn't doing that.