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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"Close enough that I can see you," Rhys says and that's just a creepy statement no matter what size he is. He tries to sigh but it just comes out as some chitter and he curses inwardly. This isn't fun, this isn't cool. Sure, it's something that no one else back on Hyperion's done but it's still not what he wants.

He moves close enough that she'll be able to see him and then shrugs. Or whatever his stupid body does.

"What are you doing out?"

"...Lots of things can see from all kinds of places though, can't they?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. She's definitely pretty sure that's something she'd know by now, and if it wasn't then too bad.

"..I'm not 'out' anywhere. ...I think so, at least." She can't exactly see where the roof ends, and the doorway begins, and so on with ease; she just sort of started fumbling around.

"It's just -- " Rhys doesn't even know what it was. He hates that he can't shrug. Shrugging would make this all so much easier because it's such a flexible expression.

"It's an expression," Rhys says glumly. He hates being like this. "What are you doing? Is it something entertaining because I need ideas to occupy my time here."

Fortunately, with children one can at least tell themselves that 'kids don't get it'.

Whatever 'it' may be. "Oh," is all Reira has to say initially. An expression. Alright then. She wonders about asking what the expression is meant to mean, but decides not to push. "...I just can't sleep," Reira admits, sitting awkwardly in place. "...I don't know why. I just can't."

Mostly it's nerves.

"This place is weird," Rhys agrees, looking around. "It makes it hard to sleep even when you want to. You never know what you're going to open your eyes to. Some other weird animal or something that could eat you or what."

One day he'd like to go to sleep and wake up of his own accord to a nice fall day with breakfast already made and nothing on his agenda. Doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon here.

"You tried counting sheep?"

She does agree, it's a rather weird place. But she has to frown a bit at Rhys' reasons, grimacing the more he goes.

"...I don't think we're supposed to say things like that... ...if we're supposed to be animals," she adds quietly, but her curiosity in the end is too much to leave it at that. "...why would I count sheep?"

"You've never heard of that?" Rhys asks, frowning. "Everything about this place is weird."

And he's still a weasel. What a rip off.

"It's just -- it's something monotonous for your mind to do," Rhys tells her. "You count things, sheep or whatever, and you don't think about everything else on your mind. It's supposed to help you fall asleep."

"....why would not hearing that make this place weirder," she mutters. There's plenty of things she doesn't know.

Anyway.

"....Oh, boring things," she realizes, taking a moment to figure out what on earth 'monotonous' even means. "...I guess I can find a boring thing..." Counting sheep doesn't seem very boring so.

"Not just this place," Rhys clarifies with a shake of his head. "Everything about this world and this carnival. This place is weird but everything else is too."

He wanted to go home and be a bigshot and give orders. He doesn't want to be a damn weasel but guess he doesn't really have much choice in the matter.

"Anyway, I was just trying to help," Rhys tells her. "I sometimes sing songs. That doesn't always work though because then I just wanna get up and sing."

"Mnh...I don't think where I was from was weird... ...I just don't know a lot of things from anywhere," she mutters, blinking slowly.

Of course, her world really IS quite weird, she just has no idea. But regardless. "...Mnh...what kinds of songs? ...Would they be songs about things we're not supposed to know?"

"Probably but that's why I sing them in my head and not out loud so unless someone's reading my mind, then I'm fine."

He really hopes no one's up there, reading his mind. Considering Jack's presence, they were bound to get some really weird shit if they tried. He'd let 9S up there once and that had been enough.

"They're songs about, I don't know, love and stuff," Rhys admits.

"Oh..." The bat pauses a moment, humming as she considers her words. Mostly when people mention mind reading, it's because she's mentioned reading feelings, and they've decided it's the same thing.

She sort of feels the need to make sure that suspicion never comes up here either. "...Umn, I can feel feelings, but I definitely can't read your mind, so you're definitely fine," she decides, nodding.

"...'Stuff' can be a lot of things though." Love at least is precise! But Stuff? That could be Anything.

"You can read feelings?" Rhys asks, forgetting about the whole song thing because this was more important. He frowns (or something like it) and wonders if she's ever done that to him before. He hopes not.

"Like if someone is happy or sad? Feelings like that?" Rhys asks.

"Umn, yes!" She's quite used to it- not so much announcing it, but enough that she's decided she should probably just tell everyone that's her Thing so that no one stares if she calls them out on their actual heart's desire or something.

"...Yeah, I guess... ...Sometimes I don't know the word for it," she explains, blinking. "...There's lots of words I don't know, so... ...I just know that I can feel all of that, whenever someone is where I cam."

So in other words, she has Totally Been Doing That, The Whole Time.

"That's...a lot," Rhys says, trying to figure out what he'd feel if he could do that. He doesn't necessarily want to feel everyone's feelings. He doesn't care. He'd want to know what they were thinking to give him a possible leg up but that's about it.

"Does feeling what they feel influence you at all?" Rhys wonders. "Do you get sad when you feel someone else is sad?"

"I guess so." It's hard to say 'a lot' when you've never really known otherwise. Though she can answer his question quite easily at least.

This is a very nice change, she finds. "Um- no," Reira insists, shaking her head. "...I just know they're sad. ...It used to hurt, if someone was angry, or...if they hated something," she supposes as an after thought, "...But I've been practicing to not feel hurt by those things. It's just sort of scary when they're like that, now."

And frankly, if someone is near her and feeling especially loathsome and angry, it's probably better she be scared enough to run than to fear nothing and stick around at this point.

"Huh. I don't really know if I'd want to feel what someone else was feeling," Rhys says, making a face. "That's definitely not as bad as being able to read their mind but also not as handy either. If you could read their mind, you could figure out what bad stuff they might be about to do."

Or, in Rhys' case, the dumb stuff.

"Is there anything beneficial about the feelings thing?"

"Mnhh.... ...I guess, but..." She frowns. "What if you don't understand what they're thinking? ...I know some words that people don't think I should know...but a lot of words they think are normal, I definitely don't.

"If all I heard were words like that...I wouldn't understand at all." Feelings were the lowest point of communication- something that a scared, growing child could absolutely understand.

It makes sense when survival is applied to it, in that regard.

"...maybe," Rhys says though he thinks he'd understand all the words just fine. But, now that he knew there were so many worlds out there, maybe not.

"Have you always been able to do that? Feel emotions? Or did you like get that from somewhere?" Like an ability store. Sure, Rhys.

Rhys is also an adult.

But then again, not a lot of people really consider that particular issue of 'understanding words'. Reira again has to think in any case, before shrugging- an impressive feat given what her arms look like right now.

"...It's been like that for...as long as I remember. ...But there's lots of things I don't remember, so..."

So the guess is as good as anything. Probably not a store though, sorry Rhys.

"Well, guess I'll give my dreams of learning how to do it too," Rhys says though he's not really serious. He doesn't really want to know about the feelings of other people because then he'd have to ask about them and then people would tell them why they were feeling that way and he's just not that concerned, really.

"Suppose I'll have to stick to the things that I can already do."

"Why?"

It's such an innocent question, but Reira shuffles as close as she dares so that she can make sure no one really hears her question. "...I couldn't do other magic before I tried learning, here...so why can't you? That's how magic works- you have to focus and really believe it, and you get there. I did magic like that, and now I can make a big shield, and...and I'm not able to turn into the wind yet, but I'm getting closer," she insists, nodding.

"So why wouldn't you be able to do it?" A big answer would be he doesn't want to.

But on the other hand, doors to things he Might Want may have just opened here-

"I don't know, just can't see something like that happening to me," Rhys admits with a shrug of his shoulder. His luck was fairly crappy and anything he tried to learn was either given up because he didn't get it immediately or he was pulled away from it because of something or other.

"I don't have a magical bone in my body," he tells her with a shake of his head. "Never have. I can carry a gun. That's something magically cool but not in the same way as we're talking."

"Hnn..." Well, she's certainly not going to force it. And...

"...I know what a gun is..." she mutters, frowning. She doesn't really like those. "...I don't think people get to keep things like that normally..." Reira doesn't quite realize that it's a matter of which weapons have iron in them, however.

"...'m not sure 'guns' are cool..." she mutters more quietly.

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⇨ EDEN

Re: his cover, saved by being an asshole,

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this is actually partly how learning magic in the carnival works it's great (faster w. teacher tho)

Re: this is actually partly how learning magic in the carnival works it's great (faster w. teacher t

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