lostcarnival | ⇨ EDEN

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⇨ EDEN

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 79 - Day 85
Where: Eden
What: Everyone arrives in Eden with their new animals forms - unfortunately, the welcoming party is a bit more intense than expected, with a ritual called 'The Anointment.' Better get this place figured out before anything gets any crazier.
Warnings: Hopefully no ritual sacrifice!

FLAME OF INSPIRATION↴

So it begins. After everyone has been given their new animal form and have had about an hour to readjust to it, the Ringmaster begins the infiltration. You don't see a lot of the specifics of the magic - all you know is that Pru's sword, the Hand of God, is somehow involved. It alone can tear through the wardings of Eden's realm, and once that entrance is made, the teleportation is instant. Everyone will find themselves in an open grassland overlooking a dense forest, with buildings and lights poking up out of the leaves. Behind you, there is a darker place - the barrens, the Ringmaster has explained. It's were the Outcasts are sent after they're banished.

You are scattered across the area as if you've been dropped in with nothing. You've been given specific instructions - act as if you have no memory besides the vague life of being an animal. None of you know each other. You don't know how you got here, you've just been suddenly found yourself enlightened. Hopefully feigning ignorance will be what the residents are expecting, as what information the Ringmaster could find suggests it should be.

Before the beasts of Eden come to claim you, you'll see the Ringmaster once last time, in the form of a giant serpent. With a nod of her head, she slithers away towards the barrens - she'll be in touch.

► THE WELCOMING: It's not long until you're discovered. The first to find you is a pigeon, who seems rather surprised. She'll ask the first few new arrivals she sees a couple questions - 'did you just get here?' 'did you meet the great Lilith?' Regardless of your answers, she'll hurriedly say she's going to go get help, and will fly away back into the forest. A short while later, an entire welcoming party of different animals will have come to greet you, sweeping out to find every straggler and explaining that you are the newest of the chosen. After they are sure that nobody is being left behind, they will invite you into Eden.

► THE GARDEN: Eden is a beautiful place. Every street, every structure, is surrounded by flowers and vibrant plant life - every bit as idyllic as its mythos would imply. The architecture is ambitious and creative, as if the residents have been perfecting the art for thousands of years, which they almost certainly have. There is the sweet smell of perfumes and incense on the other animals are you are led into the city. This is your home now, the locals will explain. You have been chosen by the Creator to serve Her cause. You will become one of the Honorable, one of Her artisans working towards the Divine Clarity. But first, of course, you must be sanctified.

► THE ANOINTMENT: On that first night, everyone is brought to a vast cathedral, covered in unknowable writings in a shining script. You are brought in through several gorgeous hallways lit with shining crystals and blue flame torches, only to emerge in a great hall built around a circular, sparkling pool of water. There are several braziers around its circumference blazing with fire, with sets of tools hanging out of them, like iron pokers. All of the new arrivals are gathered into the grand hall, and scriptures are read in the background that you can't really make out the specifics of.

You will all be made to stand around the outside of the pool, and the local animals will gently explain to you what needs to be done. To become a new Honorable, you must be Anointed with the Flame of Inspiration - that is, they are going to brand you with the metal pokers they have heating up. If you go along with it, they will burn the mark into a highly visible part of your person (they have smaller brands for smaller animals), and then cool it off in the pool of water, where you are encouraged to bask until you are comfortable again.

There are obviously a couple concerns with this. The biggest one is that it's sketchy as hell. The second one is that the brand is definitely made of medium grade iron. While the painful difference it makes won't be super obvious from the outside, long-term veterans and those with superlative fae qualities will find it very uncomfortable, and it will blister for a fair while afterward, which is seen as unusual. If your character refuses, or tries to get around it somehow, please explain in reply to the post down below.

► THE DAYS AFTER: After everyone is branded (or isn't, as the case may be), you'll be given the opportunity to dry off and head back into town. All of the fancy structures here are communal, they will explain, and you can choose wherever you'd like to sleep. There are a few buildings that are mostly empty that newbies seem welcome to hole up in, though the locals assure everyone they will be nearby in case they need help.

In the days that follow, everyone will be welcome to explore Eden and find their bearings, and begin to discover what gifts the Anointment has bestowed on them. Whether or not you were good at a creative pursuit before, you will find yourself filled with inspiration for something - any artistic talent will do. It's like a creative talent will have been born in you overnight, or like an existing talent of yours has been boosted to near perfection. This effect will last as long as the characters are in Eden unless you are told otherwise.

You won't feel the need to eat, but there is breakfast available, if you'd like it. The locals are very courteous, though they seem a bit confused. Something about your entry seems to strike them as different than usual.

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Jasper has some assumptions about how societies work and even with the instruction to present themselves as if they don't know heck about shit, she kind of has the ingrained perception that those assumptions are, like, neutral. You know how it is.

Consequently, she wants to know more about the hierarchy here: who ranks between the Twelve and animals like herself? Who should she report to in order to be given specific tasks to maximise her usefulness to Eden? With increasing desperation: how is she supposed to know what to do with herself here??

"Aaauh. Nor would anyone, I fear," he adds- for indeed, he'd considered it as a method for...well. Anyone at all. Unfortunately just going out and figuratively shaking hands with souls is just a Bad Idea.

"...I, t... ...I shall simply have to work on my speech, then," he mutters, huffing as he holds the various herbs in his tentacles.

"Well it's too late now!" Herbert exclaims when he catches the look. "You've already made a suspicious nuisance of yourself, there's nothing we can do about that at this point--what would you even intend to do if you went back? Go to whatever passes for jail here when they call security? Do you want to help Ignatius...or make yourself feel like you're helping?" He sneers at Strange. It actually looks kind of adorable because he's a cat.

Already messed it up? Strange was in charge of watching Ignatius, so that means--

Peridot swears under her breath, picks the raven up in her little raccoon paws, and wobbles away from the crash site to find somewhere that they are less likely to be overheard in. She finds a shady tree to sit under and plops the bird down in front of her, and crouches on all four to look him directly in the eyes.

"It's Ignatius, isn't it. Is he still hospitalized?"

Rita flinches at the nip, then sighs and rubs a paw over her face.

Okay, brainstorming time.

"Can't you," she whirls a paw around, as if to illustrate a pool of water, "scry for him or something?" That seems like the most logical approach right now.

Rita lies down on her stomach as she watches the flower unfurl, propping a paw under her chin.

"So this is your art...?" It's not really clear if she liked it or not. "Does it still taste good?" That's the important thing about tea, as far as Rita's concerned.

Peridot's top priority when everyone was receiving their animal forms had been to memorize A) what her friends looked like, and B) what the other supervisors looked like. It had come as something of a relief when she'd noticed that she and Childermass had both been placed under the same architect. Even if there's no restriction on animals under different spiritual leaders interacting with one another, the connection makes it easier (at least by her logic) to justify approaching as soon as time allows. That's how you make 'new' friends in a new place, right? You find commonalities with one another and start by bonding over that.

So, while Childermass is in the middle of working, a little raccoon shows up to watch him work. She has to admit, his talent is certainly fascinating, and she gets caught up in observing for a few minutes before she can bring herself to interrupt.

"You're sure getting right into things," Peridot observes blandly.

Day 79 | Night | Pretending not to be a medical professional sucks
Herbert yelled during the branding, but really only a normal level. He hasn't been here long enough to really have the extra fae effect...but getting burned with hot metal still hurts. It isn't as if he's enough used to pain to be quiet and stoic about it.

In the aftermath, he walks stiffly into one of the empty buildings and ends up curled in a small black grumbling loop, investigating the burn as closely as he can, mostly by poking at it with his nose. It's irritating him that he can't do anything he'd normally do about this--no treatment, no bandaging. That pool had better be treated or magical somehow, as it's had several animals sit in it with fresh wounds. He wouldn't put it past this animal cult to think infected burns are somehow inspirational. Healing, after all, is apparently only offered to those who completely pass out.

Day 81 | Post-naming | Art Part 1
Herbert's never really had that much time for the arts. He's a fan of literature to a certain extent, yes, but everything else seems like things for other people to waste time on. Here, he'd much rather be learning the local magic or mission-relevant facts, but completely avoiding artistic pursuits would be suspicious, that's clear enough. He just hates being forced to work on unimportant things. What's the point of talents that are magically given to you? A waste of his real intelligence for the foolish goal of an absent god-figure. Typical, really.

For a day, he does manage to avoid pretty much everything besides getting his bearings and trying to work out how to do things as a quadruped. But the next day, given a new, frankly awful name by a feline shadow and sent back out, Herbert crankily and begrudgingly gathers some supplies, leaves them in the building he's been resting intermittently in, and wanders out around Eden to stare long and creepily at various Honorables. It's his x-ray vision, new from the Ringmaster, but he's certainly not explaining that.

He's just staring.

Art Part 2
When he finally begins, he brings his supplies to a well-lit area outside and props himself up at a table. Even now, doing textile sculpture, he's managed to find a pair of hemostats (designed by some animal for crafting, naturally) and is still manipulating the needle using them. Because he's an eternal dork. At least the rest of his sewing seems fairly traditional...until you see it begin to come together.

It looks like flayed open muscle in parts, occasional visible thread-veins and tendons. Whatever it is, it's not complete, he's working on it in segments, but it looks like some sort of peeled Frankenstein of an animal with the wrong assortment of limbs, laid out as he completes each inside-out, limp, unstuffed piece. The colours are accurate, but too vivid, gross and unsettling. The segment he's slowly assembling at the moment is a large, doglike hind leg, split open around a bone he already completed and firmly stuffed. Various layers of simulated fabric fat are intended to splay out around the opening--he's stitching those carefully to the top layer of fuzzy brown for the outer skin and fur. Despite his earlier irritation, he's honestly begun to have fun.

If you didn't know this cat was Herbert, it would probably be a safe guess at this point.

Chances are Childermass would have been fairly easy to figure out regardless; black-furred dog, the sort with a long crooked nose and gangly as all heck limbs. Gangly limbs he's currently using to sketch out horses in shadow, though he does pause when Peridot finally says something. He had known he had a little audience, he just didn't bother acknowledging her until now.

"Would be a bit odd to ignore it," he replies, looking up at what he's set down to the wall for now, then turning to glance back at Peridot, taking one forepaw off the wall as he twists about to look at her. "Don't you think?"

Jasper is a natural loomer, but now that she's an immense draft horse and a lot of the people around her are, for example, the size Herbert currently is, her loom game has been upped significantly. Her shadow engulfs both him and his artwork in progress as she picks her way over with her plate-sized hooves.

"What is that," she says critically, cocking her head to one side and squinting down at him. She could probably lower her head to get a better look, but she wasn't in the habit of leaning down to look at things when she had two legs and she's not about to start now. From where she's standing, what he's making looks... vaguely leg-like, but... the stuff bursting out of it is a mystery. Some kind of bizarre abstract sculpture?

"You'll do fine," and Yuya says that partly because he believes it, aand partly because they have to. He remembers the last time they couldn't play along.

He lifts his head, sniffing as he navigates deeper into the garden. Luckily he knows what tea smells like, so if he can just...

"There it is!" He twists and bounces between a couple bushes to follow the scent.

As does he- it went poorly indeed, and is certainly a very, Very strong encouraging factor.

As it is, he swims along after the fox, somehow managing to do so without actually losing the plants. "Hm! Good- we should lay some of these out to flatten soon..."

Honestly, it doesn't even feel that much different. Jasper being intimidatingly huge to him is fairly par for the course.

"What?" He looks at the part he's working on. It's perfect, he knows it is. He stared intently at a dog for about 20 minutes until she left for some reason. "It's a leg." Unless she's just judging what he's doing, in which case: "It's textile sculpture. Fabric."

"I suppose so," the raccoon says with a noncommittal jerk of her head. "Personally I've been too busy familiarizing myself with how this place works."

Actually she's been ignoring the call of her talent and it's killing her a bit, but she's trying to focus on the whole reason why they're here and at least try to track down a few leads first. MISTER ACQUISITIONER.

"My name is Salathi, by the way," Peridot adds, looking sort of pained when she says the name. "And you? What name did the wise Saraqael bestow upon you?"

Yuya watches Rita through the teapot, waiting for any sort of interest. He can't help it, especially with the forced passion, that part of him wants to see her like it.

"Uh--I hope so? We can try it... are there cups?" He thought he saw some, but he's not going to root through everyone else's fragile projects like he owns the place.

She snorts, a little more nostril-havingly than usual.

"I can tell it's a leg, I meant," she gestures with one front hoof, "all of that stuff."

"I could," Strange responds. "But then what? I wouldn't be able to get to the healing temple that quickly if he takes a bad turn or something odd happens with the brand."

Because at the end of the day, Strange still doesn't really know how iron would interact with a fae turned skink who had a lot of his fae-ness removed already. Ignatius is just a puzzle of complications and Strange has absolutely no idea how it would turn out.

Edited 2018-07-11 02:04 (UTC)

And then Strange waits. And waits. He's been waiting for a good thirty seconds, doing a little awkward 'hop back and forth on your feet' sort of nervous raven dance before he asks Gon.

"Have you found anything yet?"

Patience is a virtue that Strange doesn't have.

Congrats, you're being flicked with a tentacle.

"It is not an 'on or off' matter, sir," he grumbles lowly. "I- am peering over the spirits of everyone within this land, as far as I can reach. Feeling their energies, and what makes them unique."

And with quite the frown... "....hmn."

That's not a good sound.

"....For the most part....I believe everyone from 'our arrival' is here, somewhere, but..."

That's a big but.

He gets an affirmative response as Yuya tries not to trample the garden getting to tea leaves.

Supply preparation, at least, isn't consuming when they only need cloth and string after. There are open rooms of workbenches, and that's where Gongenzaka and Yuya get to work peeling leaves, sewing bundles, weaving flowers and sea grass... with two people working it's pretty fast. Yuya smell-tests every bundle while Gongenzaka provides the quiet opinions of what he knows based on taste. They have to sit and dry, so it'll be a while before they'll be able to truly gauge their joint crafting...

It doesn't stop Yuya, though, and he's bundling leaves to make the base for a lily. He's actually enjoying this, and the little pile fills him with excitement.

Well. He's not surprised Jasper has a total lack of knowledge of anatomy but--no, hang on. Hang on she's made of light! Putting down his project and the needle-holding-hemostat, Herbert steps up onto the table, turns around, and starts using his x-ray vision. Moments later, he looks absolutely tickled and thrilled.

"That 'stuff'," he says, sounding like he's seconds away from bursting into laughter, "is what's inside you right now." If telling Jasper about this is what breaks his cover, he'll be Cast Out happy.

As far as Herbert's concerned, either Ignatius will get healed and let out, or he's already compromised and they should cut their losses. But Strange won't go for that.

"Can't you, scry near the temple?"

Gongenzaka is quick to make himself rather at home in the process of helping Yuuya. Between setting various plants to flatten or dry, he himself is able to weave his own cords and things, which he considers making into some sort of blanket or similar in the long run. Outside that, he is delicate with the assistance in arrangement of plants- the appearance and structure is of Yuuya's design and choice, after all, and in this particular scenario he is merely there to offer physical aid.

"Have you considered," he says after they finish wrapping one in cloth, "Perhaps drawing ideas for particular arrangements..?" In particular, Gongenzaka wonders if some Ikebana could work here- the image of some more well known floral arrangements appearing through the link. It's a girl's art traditionally, yes, but he absolutely saw plenty of it from his mother's hand for that exact reason.

And plenty of those flowers could be tea flowers... "You could perhaps convey a message, hm?"

Jasper stares down at him in confusion, shifting abruptly to offended disgust.

"What?"

Yuya pauses. He is, suddenly, aware that all this flower arranging is pretty girly... but he's also enjoying it, so as long as nobody teases him he waves the thought away.

"Like flower meanings?" He looks down at the lily. He's no expert, but Yuzu's always had a fondness for them so he's picked up some scattered trivia about flower messages. "You mean as a gift to someone?"

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⇨ EDEN

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shadow arts!

Herbert West ("Eia")

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art part 2

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'ones missing' :'D

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