⇨ 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

[kingsroads]

"I don't think so," Strange explains, with a little frown. He takes one of his curls and rubs it between his fingers, as if that will somehow explain to him just how his fire hair actually works. It doesn't. And, considering that his method of viewing the magic more closely would produce more fire, Strange is just going to keep that in his back pocket for now.

"If it's anything like my smoke, I won't be able to turn it off without more practice." And obviously, a few hours isn't practice at all. With his free hand, Strange attempts to bat out any remaining small flames on his pillow. He can't hide the wince as he does so. Good news: the pillow's not on fire! Bad news: he burned a hole right through the pillowcase and into the pillow itself!

[scientificist]

Staring at the pillow, Herbert makes a sort of dismayed, tight-lipped expression. "Well you're not getting another one," he says. "It's not aesthetic. How are you touching it without burning yourself?" Apparently, it reacts normally to other stimuli if it set the pillow on fire and was put out by water. Perhaps this is an excuse to continuously dump buckets of water on top of Strange. Tempting.

[kingsroads]

At least in Strange's mind, Herbert's question is amazingly stupid. "It's magic fire," he says, with a tone of 'no duh' in his voice. Of course he's able to touch it without burning himself. It's magic fire coming from his head, what other explanation is needed?!

"Here, you try to touch it," Strange remarks, as he awkwardly gestures his head in Herbert's direction. If Herbert touches it, surprise, it's fire, he'd get burned.

[scientificist]

Herbert steps over the lip of the inner tent and walks up to Strange. He's not impulsive enough to stick his hand in apparent fire, however, he just hovers his hand close to it and feels the heat. Yep. That sure is fire alright.

"It should have magically decided to be the sort of magic fire that wouldn't burn anything," he grouses, and moves his hand away. "I'm going to the lake. Try and avoid setting the tent on fire."

[kingsroads]

"I won't set the tent on fire," Strange scoffs. "Honestly, you needn't worry about me."

He says that, but after Herbert leaves, it's less than five minutes before Strange sets the pillow on fire even worse to the point where about half of it is only recognizable as a pillow. So, Strange takes the tried and true strategy of 'hide the mess'. What burnt pillow, he doesn't see a burnt pillow, that's certainly not a burnt pillow that he's tried to hide behind a stack of bandages and camping supplies.

[scientificist]

The tent smells even worse of burnt fabric and feathers when Herbert comes back, which is really indication enough, even if Strange hadn't hidden it poorly. Herbert places the bucket of water he lugged back down by the table before going into the cot area and taking the pillow off the other cot before Strange can take it and burn that as well.

"You've lost your pillow privileges," he says, expression flat but sounding fairly amused with himself as he unzips the other half of the inner tent, throws in the pillow, and zips it up again. That done, he walks back over to the bucket, dunks a towel in it slowly so as not to spill it, squeezes it out fairly minimally to just below sodden, and then folds the resulting wet mess into a sort of pillow-shape and walks back over. "Yoooou sleep on this until you've worked out how to control your hair."

[kingsroads]

What?! No fair, what has he done to deserve this? Strange looks briefly affronted, like Herbert's asked him to do something much more inconvenient than sleep on a wet towel.

"I've only just revived, I'll catch a cold if I sleep on that!"

[scientificist]

"Your hair, will warm it up," Herbert points out, reasonably. "In no time at all. You can blame Ignatius if you want, or the Ringmaster, but you're not resting on anything flammable anymore without this in the way. Not until you find another solution." Impassively, he walks over and drops the towel at the head of the cot.

It goes plap.

[kingsroads]

He's looking at that towel with an intensely disgusted and affronted frown. It's not Strange's fault his hair keeps setting things on fire. Why should he sacrifice comfort and get a cold just because he's stuck with this change?

"Surely there's got to be a better way."

But hell if Strange can think of one at the moment.

[scientificist]

"Veeery probably," says Herbert, "but I'm the Doctor, not the Engineer. It's not my job to, solve your fire problem. If you catch a cold, I'll treat you, certainly but I doubt this is much worse than going to bed with wet hair from a shower. You'll be fine." He walks back out of the cot space and sits back in his chair again.

[kingsroads]

Strange lets out an audible and annoyed 'hmmph!' as Herbert walks back out of the cot space. He looks down at the towel, winces slightly, then attempts to use it as a pillow. This lasts all of five minutes before Strange finds the thing uncomfortable and throws it on the floor.

Unfortunately for him, the towel makes a veeery audible splat sort of noise as it hits the floor. As it splats on the floor, Strange realizes that oh hell, Herbert probably heard that.

[scientificist]

Herbert absolutely heard that, but he's not standing up unless he feels he has to. He didn't sign up to childmind.

"You don't have to use it," Herbert says loudly from his chair, "but you're not lying down unless you do--there are a limited number of cots, Strange. Should I tell the Ringmaster you're purposefully damaging Carnival equipment when she has so much else to deal with?"

[kingsroads]

Urrrrrrgh. Strange makes an aggravated sigh, from his spot on the cot. It's looking like the towel is his only option. Which again, absolutely sucks. Strange has at least one more option he can ask about before he gives up the ghost entirely.

"Don't you have a heavy coat or something I can lay over the pillow instead?"

[scientificist]

"We had three hours to leave the Carnival for a summer forest, no, I don't have a coat." Herbert leans forward in his chair so he can get an angle to give Strange his best withering expression. "With time, you'd probably burn through a fire blanket as well. If, I had one. Which I don't. Would you prefer a pillow of sand instead--I'm sure I can arrange that."

[kingsroads]

"Three hours?" Strange remarks, a bit confused. Turns out just how fast the carnival packed up shop is one of the things that's slipped through the cracks in everybody explaining things to Strange.

"Why so fast? And come to think of it, why can't we just go back to the carnival to begin with?"

[scientificist]

Oh. Well. Fair enough. Herbert actually stands up slightly to inch the chair itself to the better angle so he can stop leaning.

"I believe she was...anxious to clear out any lingering influence of the fae we came into contact with. She doesn't want us in the way of her. Spring cleaning. So. We're camping until she's done."

[kingsroads]

"Did any of the fae even come to the carnival?" Strange asks, with a frown. As far as he knows, all of the lingering influence of the fae would consist of himself and the other people who were kidnapped. Why would there be any influence on the carnival in the first place?

[scientificist]

It's not Herbert's particular interest, and he's been distracted by medical care, but--

"As far as I'm aware there was a sort of...Winter spy hitching a ride or tracking us--although not directly in the Carnival, no. Unless there's something in the Carnival that let them follow us--aaaa tracking device. A bug."

[kingsroads]

Thankfully, Strange has managed to pick up just what sort of bug Herbert's talking about: a stint in a digital world and a month in 2016 will help out with that. He looks briefly confused for a moment before Strange realize riiight, it's that sort of bug.

"I don't know why they'd bother with that sort of 'bug.' After all, the carnival tends to leave large areas of destruction wherever we go. You'd think that would be easy to track."

Seriously, it's a 50/50 chance whether the carnival will radically change and/or fuck up a world or whether they leave and everything's hunky dory. Following the carnage should be easy.

[scientificist]

Listen. Herbert knows some historical stuff but etymology isn't his forte. He shrugs in response.

"Maybe that seems normal to High Fae--I'm not the Ringmaster, I can only theorise about what she's doing."

[kingsroads]

Strange has no idea either. So, he falls back on an old standby: making a little joke in order to break up the mood or change the subject.

"Probably having a large drink considering all of this," said with a vague wave of his hand. "I'm certain she wasn't planning to lose carnival members and be accosted by multiple Court fae all in the span of a few hours."

[scientificist]

"No...it certainly has been. Eventful." He glances over at the book he traded for, sitting on the table near his chair. "Informative. How is it like, being reborn?"

A very sudden segue, yes, but if they're apparently chatting anyway, he wants to know.

"What was it like to be, dead?"

[kingsroads]

Herbert is real lucky that he asked one of the creepier fucks in the carnival about dying. Because Strange just stares at Herbert for a moment as he mulls over the answer.

"Honestly, I don't remember. It was during the revival that I became myself enough to remember. I don't know how long I was dead. I was aware of my body first, possibly because I didn't need to regrow one like Sans did." Mutilated and acid-burned as Strange's body was, it was still an actual body. "My mind came next. I became aware of the environment and of sensations before I remembered my actual memory."

He's mulling every thing over in a slightly distant tone. As much as he's blase about it and as much as Strange has played the 'I've been dead' card, describing the way his body revived and describing the sensation of being dead is an entirely different thing.

"I didn't make a move towards any form of afterlife—though I assume that's because the Ringmaster held onto my soul long enough to keep it from passing onwards."

[scientificist]

Politely, for Herbert, he limits his reaction to the notion of 'passing onwards' to a quick eye roll. Because every time he's asked anyone he's raised personally, they've either been too brain damaged to explain, or called him a bastard and knocked him unconscious, so he's actually fairly appreciative that Strange is willing to dish. And, because he's an awful gremlin and it's closer than getting up to grab one of his notebooks, he's been taking notes on the inside back cover of his book from the Athenaeum.

He didn't actually meet Sans previous to being egged, so he has no idea whether or not people come back identically, despite their body having gone missing. Possibly related to DNA somehow? A magical imprint? He wishes he understood a little more about the function of magic, even if he has a good foundation on the soul at this point. Strange won't be much help there, he presumes, being of the pop science field of 'it works, why question it'.

"Yes, I guess I am really asking what it felt like to be reborn, aren't I... I wish someone had saved a sample of the amniotic fluid--I'm sure it would have proven veeery useful." He taps his pencil on the paper of the book thoughtfully. "So, the soul does not have awareness in and of itself, then."

[kingsroads]

"Papyrus might still have some of the egg shell," Strange explains. "I don't think I want it myself, so feel free to use it."

Which he realizes is an intensely morbid statement...but isn't keeping a memento of when you died also intensely morbid? Strange doesn't want any of that egg, no thank you, he'll just settle for memories of how he died.

"As for the soul, I do not know. I've assumed that in my world, the soul does have awareness. With the blood magic I used, those who were formerly dead provided very...vivid descriptions of their time in hell." Though Strange is willing to talk about his necromancy, he doesn't particularly wish to dwell on it. So, he continues the topic elsewhere. "The soul probably has some awareness, though not as much as soul connected with body. When Sans died, there wasn't anything left of his body, but the Ringmaster was still able to revive him. Perhaps that is the 'soul.'"

This is all far too metaphysical for Strange, a man who only went to church to impress a girl he liked.