⇨ 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

[scientificist]

That's not exactly what he meant but Herbert will leave it, because he'd rather think about this new idea than argue with Strange over Christian delusion. Of course, Strange wouldn't know of DNA, so he'd have no reason to think that the information required was in the blood rather than the soul, but that must be it. A DNA sample to rebuild from, with the soul to provide that essential electric-like substance that everything is formed around.

He'd made the suggestion on the assumption that it would make sense for an occasional dragon to lay giant eggs, rather than create them from nothing, but then that she, perhaps, injected them with DNA and soul. "That's not--" --how egg fertilisation works, he wants to say, but. It's. He has no idea how dragons function. He frowns a bit wild-eyed and vaguely at his notes. "I don't-- No, she couldn't have, she'd already eaten Ignatius at the time. She was keeping him in her stomach. Or crop." What even is a dragon. "Either way there'd be no room to process you."

[kingsroads]

Oh! Well that's reassuring. Strange looks a little cheered up at the idea of not being eaten.

He has no idea that Zangetsu practically ate his body to get it back to the Ringmaster in remotely one piece.

"I suppose we won't find out until we ask the Ringmaster herself," he muses. "With her not camping,I'm certain we'll have plenty of time to find a way to ask it delicately." Because you don't just ask someone hey, how does the laying eggs thing work.

[scientificist]

Neither does Herbert have any idea! By the time he saw Strange again after the Ignatius confrontation, he was in an egg.

"Yeeees, she seemed oddly guarded in relation to her, physiology and anatomy...out of character for her, I thought." The Ringmaster's usual mode of operation seems to be Does Not Give A Fuck in Herbert's so far admittedly limited experience. "You've been here longer--how would you go about asking?"

[kingsroads]

"At the risk of pointing out the obvious, apparently she ate Ignatius but kept him alive enough that he could be, erm, removed later." Don't say vomited up, don't say vomited up. Strange was keeping up with the radio chatter while Herbert went to get some water, so he's got a vague idea of what's going on. Alas, a vague idea doesn't solve any of their specifics.

"I imagine it's a delicate matter. Most of the enemies I've seen her eat, she simply devoured. As for how I'd go about asking, I'd wait until the Ignatius matter is dealt with." However the hell she'll deal with it. Is she just going to vomit up a fae? Gross.

[scientificist]

"I'm aware of that, I made sure she stayed hydrated considering she had an outside source of fire trapped inside of her." He brought it. There is a barrel of remaining Dragon Gatorade in the opposite corner of the med tent. Anyway, Herbert thinks it likely she might vomit him up. Presumably she's keeping him out of any digestive processes somehow, and evicting Ignatius the other direction would likely shove him through those to some extent.

"Iiii've...never seen her...embarrassed. Before." He's not sure if that's the right word. Honestly, he looks kind of puzzled about it.

[kingsroads]

Strange might be a self-absorbed magician with no regard for his own safety and the world's worst impulse control. But unlike Herbert, he knows how to talk to and deal with girls. So while Herbert looks puzzled about the Ringmaster being embarrassed, Strange can't help but chime in with,

"Of course she'd be embarrassed about all this," said with a vague hand gesture to encompass the giant Ignatius clusterfuck that the word 'this' implies. "You saw her at...I wouldn't say a moment of weakness, but perhaps a moment of vulnerability. If she had the choice, I'm certain she wouldn't have let anyone see her, not until she's dealt with the Ignatius matter."

The answer to him is obvious. RM's embarrassed because her cool, confident, 'I'm the Great Beast and I'm amazing' front got a few rather large holes poked in it.

[scientificist]

"That. Would make sense," Herbert admits, sounding almost surprised that Strange is capable of analytical thought. "Strange, that she has vulnerability to care about." Herbert believed the front! He didn't see a reason not to!

[kingsroads]

Whereas Strange is just going to continue talking like this is all normal. He's got a wry little smile on his face as he continues to explain,

"Most people have some little part of themselves that they're embarrassed of. For the Ringmaster, I assume it's the whole 'keeping people in her stomach' business. Perhaps she's got a second stomach that she's ashamed of or there are parts of her where the dragon and phoenix bits have trouble working in tandem."

[scientificist]

"Dragon and phoenix?" Herbert asks. He didn't find the research particularly interesting until very recently, and now he's having to play catch-up. "What part of her is phoenix?"