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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"Is it?" he replies gently, looking over the size of the tree in general and then down towards where Strange has started his enchantment. He activates his power to choose and begins to ascend into the air. About halfway up he'll slide his arm right through it and severe the tree where it stands. It splits from the base and he'll grab onto a branch to try to sustain it so it doesn't land on Strange itself. Only when it hits the ground with a heavy thud will he size it up.

There is now a base of the tree stuck in the ground and the other upper half is now settled against it, "That should cut it down to size." He looks up at Strange's question when he lowers himself back down to the ground, grabbing branches as he goes to ensure it doesn't tip over right away, "I could give it a push but then the water might rise for a moment." That is if the reflection didn't work how he was considering it would.

Strange just watches, eyebrow raised slightly as Tyki raises himself in the air and slides an arm through the tree. Well then. That might explain how he got the tree out of the ground, but it doesn't explain how he could carry it. Once again, Strange has ten billion questions that he's planning on asking Tyki when all of this is over.

But right now, they need to work on the reflection. "If it comes at it in an angular direction, that could work." And Strange gestures with his arms, showing a forty-five degree angle. He's a bit confident in his explanation, but it's obvious from his tone that this is a lot of maybes and what ifs. "Ideally, it would be best if the tree was pushed in vertically or dropped at once horizontally, but I doubt either of those will happen."

It's getting a little more intense in carnival and while Tyki had a full deck of abilities and powers, he wasn't inclined to share all of it. Having a few unknown abilities and magic came in handy. With Strange, that was simply another matter all together.

"Vertically might be easier than horizontally but I cannot stop the tree from swaying from above." He rubs his chin in thought, looking over the size of it now that it is half a tree, "Unless I stabilize it such a long length from the middle if we want to try horizontally."

"If you shove it in there fast enough, it shouldn't be any trouble," Strange hypothesizes, as he looks over at the tree again. Half a tree is still a really tall tree. But he's confident in his skills and confident in his magic that somehow they'll find a way to make this entirely dumb piece of showing off work.

"Of course, now I've found another problem. The way the magic works, the depth of the water shouldn't matter. After all, you're storing the tree in the reflection not the lake itself. But in order to get a large and stable enough reflection to do the trick, I suspect you'll have to get your feet wet."

While the lake doesn't really have tides, it does have various forest creatures who can lumber around and splash things and make it so the edges of the lake aren't as stable as they could be. Strange doesn't know what would happen if an item was only partially stored in a reflection and, truth be told, he doesn't really want to find out.

"Then would it work further out?" he asks with some thought into all of this while still taking in exactly what part of the lake Strange might have already prepped. The water is still enough for now but he was right, that could change any minute.

There's a flood of magic at his back as two long tentacles emerge with practiced ease. Strange will notice them much longer and thicker than before. They grasp around the trunk of the tree for stabilization as he turns it ever so slightly to angle it towards the water. They are listening to him without any hint of resistance. Even the spines flex to grasp and grip at the bark. "What's wrong? Don't want to trapeze across it while it is sinking into your reflection?" He looks down at the edge of the water and starts to walk into it, except he doesn't, instead walking on top of it.

Oh! It's Tyki's tentacles! And they've...grown? Strange looks at the tentacles with a little frown. That's something he'll have to ask him later. Did that happen on their own?

But right now, they're having fun with magic and reflections instead. Strange watches as Tyki walks out onto the lake. As he walks a bit in, Strange calls out, "That should be far enough." The spell reaches that far and a bit further, but Strange doesn't want to have to recast or extend the magic he currently has.

"Now simply lower it in!"

If Tyki does so, it's like the trick Strange pulled with the potato chip. The tree is pushed down into the reflection, not even breaking the water's surface itself. When it's pushed in all the way, it would look like Tyki was looking down at the tree, head on. The image remains stable, only shifting and rippling when the water shifts and ripples.

On the shore, Strange has his hands out, concentrating fiercely and murmuring all the while.

It's been a while since the Winter Solstice and their trip on the moon. He's practiced and fully controls them when he wants to. Still, it doesn't stop them from working with his subconscious in the middle of the night but it is easier given they won't pull on accident.

He stops at Strange's bidding and uses his hands and the tentacles to lower the giant tree in. He's watching with the way Strange is already murmuring, knowing those telltale signs of him casting his magic, and he'll let go of it completely to see if it sinks into the water or stills. He's not sure what to expect at all even if the potato chip was suspended in his shoulder earlier.

He doesn't want to be disappointed right now, his tail swaying behind him in a curious manner. Like usual, he wants to touch but doesn't.

It's easy for Tyki to sink the tree into it's reflection. Once a good chunk of the tree is in the lake's reflection, it remains relatively stable and harder to wiggle. And once there's not enough space for the tentacles to grab onto, a simple push will trap it fully.

The tree sinks into the reflection itself. It doesn't look like it's going into the lake and there's no signs of the tree hitting the bottom, disturbing the water, or anything like that. It simply passes into the reflection, much like Strange himself passes into mirrors when he's traveling between them. Once the tree is entirely in the reflection, it can be viewed head-on. Looking down on the tree looks exactly like what would happen if Tyki were looking down on the tree from above.

In the lake, a few fish swim underneath the reflection. The tree trapped in the water's reflection is still technically trapped in water. Any ripples briefly change the shape of the tree, but it returns it's normal appearance once the ripples disperse.

Strange, still on the shoreline, is super curious to see what it looks like. The main problem here is the fact that he sinks. So, he turns himself into smoke and lets a breeze drift him across the lake, until he's floating next to Tyki, near the reflection.

His tentacles grasp and snake upwards along the log the further it sinks in. He's using them mostly because if they get trapped he could easily de-summon them since they are mostly a subconscious spell instead of part of his body. They fold upwards near the top and when they become useless, he leans down and pushes the tree in the rest of the way.

It's an odd look and view from up above. Anything in the water usually had some movement but the tree was oddly still. He plays with his bottom lip gently as he examines it. There's a need to want to poke it but he doesn't, favoring instead a candy bon bon from his pocket and letting that drop into the water. The fish seem to be doing that all on their own as well providing him an interesting perspective.

When Strange joins him, his head tilts to the side with his usual grin, "Looks stable."

Strange is still in smoke form as he floats around Tyki, taking care to float beneath the man's shoulders and away from his mouth or nose. Though he doesn't really have eyes right now, he's definitely looking down at the tree, trapped in the reflection.

He wants to offer up so much more commentary, yammer on about magic, and thank Tyki for his help, but it's so intensely disconcerting talking in smoke form that Strange doesn't want to say more than a few sentences at a time. He kind of wants to solidify. But he also knows that if he solidifies, he's going to sink.

"Can they hold me if I turn human?" And Strange floats towards the tentacles instead, weaving around them as he approaches.

Tyki still has some secrets. Strange's poison wasn't threat to him unless he was actively using it against him. Not that he'll ever say such thing out loud. He enjoyed it more when others figured out his power or he showed off.

In idle mode his tentacles sway behind him in the air as if content. It's his own wonder and curiosity bleeding into them as he watches the reflection down below in the water in the form of that tree. At Strange's prompt he'll find them sliding upwards towards the smoke with a brush. For a moment, Strange can almost feel them as they wisp through that smoke until they come to a stall around him, "Yes, they are much stronger than before. Likely thick enough you could stand on it."

"Good," Strange responds, with a little tone of relief in his voice. He's trusting you, Tyki! Don't let him down! Because a second or two after he starts talking, Strange solidifies and turns back into his human self.

He doesn't know what Tyki's tentacles will do (grab him? provide a ledge?) but Strange is quickly grabbing at one as he starts to fall towards the water.

It's tempting to let him fall into the water. Yet he knows better than to foul magic and while he realizes Strange could likely get himself out of his own created reflection, he's not going to test that theory. He's had enough trouble lately in his opinion.

The thick tentacles snake outwards towards Strange, with his reflexes at attention given how he was controlling them, to wrap around his waist just under his arms. The other set slip right under his feet against his shoes and push upwards. There is no swaying like last time nor any unsteadiness. Not even the usual squeeze is present from the earlier confrontation back on the moon. Strange would have to piss him off to voke that kind of subconscious reaction. Even the texture under Strange's hands have thicken around the flexible spines.

"I won't drop you," he says casually.

Thank God for those tentacles. Strange relaxes a bit as he feels the tentacles wrap around his waist and slide under his feet. Tyki has gotten better with these and, possibly, the tentacles have gotten thicker as well. Understandably, Strange doesn't know enough about Tyki's tentacles for comparison's sake.

"I wouldn't have turned solid if I thought you would," Strange returns, with a wry little smile on his face. And now that he's solid and it's not weird to talk, time to yammer about magic.

"Since the tree's trapped in the reflection, it wouldn't do any damage to the tree or myself if I were to fall in the water. After all, once I move out of the way, the reflection would stabilize. I simply don't want to get wet."

He's not exactly going to tell anyone else just yet what else he plans to do with these tentacles or else people would never allow him to get close enough. It paid to have a few cards hidden in his deck of odd powers.

"I don't know if I should be pleased you trust me that much or delighted," he says with every bit of amusement in his voice. His eyes lower to the water again and he squats down above the surface. Strange's words give him a little bit of confidence and he pokes the water with the tip of his finger to watch it ripple across the reflection.

"Mostly I wouldn't want to have to explain any mishaps to the Ringmaster. Still, I am impressed as usual by your magical prowess. How long do you think you could keep it in there? Indefinitely?"

"Probably not indefinitely," Strange admits. "I have a similar spell that I use for storing my pens and pencils and I need to refresh that one every week or so. Since the tree is much larger, I suspect it would last a few days at the most before the spell dissipates and we end up with a large tree in the lake."

Coincidentally, the spell's going to fall when everybody goes back to the carnival. But Strange doesn't know that.

He leans slightly on Tyki's tentacles as he moves to get a better look at Tyki poking the water. When it ripples, Strange smiles. There we go. A practically perfect spell.

"Huh, if I were to put someone or something in a wall they would stay that way until I decided otherwise. I suppose a reflection is simply more complex because of what it is," he muses. It makes him wonder quite a lot of the potential. He didn't have to maintain a spell or object once he let go of it. What was done was done.

His tentacles grow a little more taunt to ensure he doesn't plop into the water unnecessarily yet bend at his yielding reflexively. If Strange wants a better look, Tyki has no qualms about offering it.

"And, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, your power to choose is quite different from my magic." Strange magic requires building up spells, trying new things and changing arrangements until he finds something that works. To the best of his knowledge, Tyki's power doesn't do that.

He leans towards the water, getting that better view, before Strange turns back towards Tyki. "So! Shall we go back to solid ground now?"

Strange is not even thinking about removing the tree from the reflection. It's fiiiine, what's the worst that can happen when the spell breaks?

"Despite coming from generally the same time and place. It's interesting how much magic flourishes. It's welcomed in your world and yet you barely have any of it. It's blossoms in mine and yet it is shunned among just about everyone but those who have it." Both the Order and the Noah hid from the world unless they simply had a big mouth.

"Well, I do want to eventually turn back towards the camp, so that is advisable."

If Strange wants to keep the tree inside, he doesn't object nor try to persuade him otherwise. Not like it'll displace water or cause damage as it is. He just begins to walk back towards the shoreline on top of the water.

"Then we should head back," Strange says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. "And—" but before he can finish the sentence, he catches himself in a wide yawn. Strange looks a little embarrassed as he continues. "And probably get a little rest as well."

After all, it's late to begin with and only getting later. And though he won't admit it, doing an impressive feat of magic like trapping a tree in a reflection has made Strange a little bit tired.

"Yes, a good idea. You look like you can use a good rest. You've been through a lot lately," and a peace of mind could do him some good. He won't let Strange burn the tent down either so at least for one night he wouldn't have to worry about that.

Once on the shoreline he'll unwrap the tentacle from around Strange's waist and will keep the other steady so he can step off of it. There's one use of his power to choose that he hasn't used yet in all of carnival, not even to test it out. It's a danger and there is no way to use it without someone dying from it if caught in its path. From what he's seen, large uses of power like that drain energy quickly. "Let's put you to bed."

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⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

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hmu if any of this doesn't make any sense, lmao

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