lostcarnival | ⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

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⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 92 - Day 99
Where: Shabondamashii Bathhouse
What: With the Silver Mirror claimed and the animals of Eden relocated, it's time for the carnival to kick back and enjoy an interdimensional bathhouse and the surrounding festival city. Meanwhile, the scattered shards of the Mirror have an unexpected effect.
Warnings: Dark/Light halves acting weird.

THE BIG CLEANSE↴

As the carnival recovers, the Ringmaster has brought it to the gates of a famous interdimensional bathhouse to rest. She won't be joining you for most of it, though she will be checking in frequently and available by radio. She's fixed a large portion of the Silver Mirror after it shattered, but it seems like pieces are missing. She doesn't want to rest until the missing shards are dealt with, and the Mirror itself is locked away safely.

► YOUR OTHER HALF: The shards missing from the Silver Mirror didn't just disappear - after breaking apart in Eden, fragments of the object embedded themselves in the spirits of those not already touched by its powers, and those that had been the most fae-touched. That means, your characters. The effect of this, explained in more detail on the plotting post, is that some characters will be splitting into two versions of themselves: the Light, and the Dark. This doesn't mean good and evil, of course, it's far more complicated than that.

Splits can start happening at any time after arriving in Shabon, and initially characters won't know how to rejoin with their twins. Later on, it will become apparent that they need to reconnect via the shard of the Mirror they share... of course, in order to rejoin, you have to have both halves, and not all twins will be as eager to go back to the way things were before. This plot point is optional.

► SPA DAY: When you're not engaging in metaphysical division, you are free to enjoy the many luxuries that Shabon offers. Things will mostly have an east-Asian bend, like what you would see in the movie Spirited Away, but as long as it doesn't affect the setting much, you can honestly have whatever spa-type services available that you want. Food is served both in restaurants and 'buffet' style. There are also well paid sex workers here, if that is your thing, but make sure to tip well.

► FESTIVAL TOWN: The city surrounding Shabondamashii is largely meant to catch the business of interdimensional tourists. There are frequent parades and other events held, and the architecture is very closely packed. It's easy to get lost if you leave the bathhouse, but it's definitely worth it if you like party. You can pick out a few outfits for yourself and some fun nick nacks, but nothing that would normally require mod approval.

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"Ugh, moss? Really, dude? That's gross, I'm not a troll or whatever." It's rhetorical, because though she can smell the hazing a mile away, she believes him. All the All the non-newbies are so strange to look at, but the rescuees were all pretty normal-looking. Except for the literal talking animals they dropped off.

"Feathers might be cool," Beau admits with a quick shrug, jerking her shoulders up in a movement that wouldn't be out-of-place on a bird. "Claws like yours, too. So long as, y'know, it doesn't mess with my balance. I'd hate if this transformation stuff fucked with doing my job here, though. I bet people don't just get reassigned if that happens, what with all your fighting, huh?"

At the mention of people being reassigned, Strange frowns a little. He desperately wants to say something slightly assholeish like 'no, they only reassign you for nonsensical reasons, like thinking a soldier shouldn't be a soldier' or 'they reassign you if your supervisor can't see past his own personal biases'.

But common sense wears out. It'd be good for a moment or two and Strange has a feeling that Beau would eventually join him in the team of right thinking people who believe that removing someone with actual military experience from the militia is super dumb...but that would involve explaining so much, and wouldn't really be worth it in the end.

So, the hazing continues. He drops the question of reassignment entirely and that frown shifts back into his huge shithead grin.

"Sometimes the magical changes linger when we change forms. Get turned into a chicken, grow feathers. Get turned into a merman, grow scales." Strange points to his neck: there are some goldfish scales growing on the side of his neck, visible in between his shirt and his messy hair. "There is a way we could try to game the system, as it were. If I turned you into a falcon, when you're turned back, you might have your feathers and claws."

Beau wouldn't be impressed by that policy, for sure. Not unless it was for reasons like 'the soldier is okay at soldiering but REALLY GOOD at whatever else we need', when there were enough other soldiers to help herd the noncombatants. Not having seen the scale of fighting they're in for.

Her eyes narrow at him when he frowns and completely evades the question, but fortunately for him - and his desire not to explain the whole thing - she jumps to the wrong conclusion. Magical contracts are serious and ironclad, as it were. They must not do reassignments, just leaving people wobbling on hooves or adapting to new limbs or whatever to adjust as quickly as possible.

"What, you've got the power to do that?" She finally settles for asking, raising her brows at him and snorting back a laugh. "I get it. I say yeah, and you go 'oops' and actually turn me into like... a frog, or something."

"Of course I have the power to do that," Strange scoffs. He wiggles his fingers in a slightly over the top fashion, something that was probably Strange going for 'magical' but ended up closer to 'doofy.'

"I've served directly under kings, generals, and three separate fae. I've rerouted rivers, brought magic to a magicless world, and, of course, turned people into animals. Aside from our fae, I am the most powerful wizard in the carnival and I can do anything I set my mind to."

Except heal, make shields, or give stat buffs. But really, those barely count, he can do almost anything he sets his mind to. He's definitely gloating and drumming himself up, but there's a grin on his face as he says so. This is Strange listing off his accomplishments because he can and also partly to be a shit.

Beau takes in his whole bragging with another snorted laugh, and waves down for another drink. There have got to be some gaps in his skillsets, given that he's here and nobody was surprised he got caught by the Mirror. Right now he sounds like every worked up description she's heard Nott make about Caleb, and it's just not realistic.

"Okay..... So, being as you're so badass," and she's not quite laughing at him, but in that middle area between skeptical and credulous, trying not to commit to believing anything. "How'd you wind up with the carnival? Kind of a far cry from working with royalty."

"It used to be that you could sign onto the carnival for a year and a day in exchange for something." Before everything went to shit, that is. "I signed on to learn about a particular spell. I didn't know how it was cast, I wanted to learn, and now I do."

He's being very circumspect, mostly because that particular spell is technically necromancy. If Beau wants to know the answer, he'll definitely tell her: there's something about this woman that Strange likes and he's enjoyed all his conversations with her so far. But again, necromancy. You don't drop that information in casual conversation.

Signing up to get real favors, with the kind of power the Ringmaster was throwing around above Eden? Now some of the people here make a little more sense. They weren't just rescued or tricked, they were bargaining for something. Then the rest of what Strange is saying sinks in.

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait. A year for one spell? What kind of magic is worth a whole year?" She's no mage, but that seems absurd, and under the disbelieve she really is dying to know.

After sending up a mental prayer to God or whoever to please let Beau not take this the wrong way or freak out on him, Strange answers.

"I wanted to learn how to bring back the dead. I can do some form of the spell but it's...rudimentary, at best. The person who I wanted to bring back is important to me: I didn't mind waiting a year at all."

"Huh." Her jaw shifts to the side, and she gives a low whistle as she sits back. "Not just talking for a few minutes, but like, really bringing them back?"

It's not unheard of, but not common by any means. Most healing magic stops people from dying right then and there; she's been brought back from the brink a couple times herself. But after a year - at least a year...

"Alright, maybe I can see how that one's worth it," Beau concedes with a nod, not freaking out.

Strange visibly relaxes now that Beau isn't freaking out and is just accepting the casual necromancy. This has made his mood go from 'a little nervous' to 'more calm and collected'.

"It is. Of course, circumstances happened and the person I thought was dead turned out to actually be alive," Strange's face plainly says that it's a LONG story, "but I don't regret signing on. Even if my reward turned out to be not needed, the experience I've gained and growth of my magic has made it worth the while."

"Doesn't that fuckin' figure." You just have to laugh at something like that. In a way, she feels better about her own contract. Signing up for a year to get out of the dissolving city, when no one else was offering a ride, isn't something to regret.

"Still... That's not all that bad," she considers, eyes going distant and mercenary as she considers what she might do with that power. "If you can do that just once a day, even once a week, bringing someone back? Lotta people have lost someone important to them. You could rake in some serious gratitude, whether it's money, or just... favors money can't buy."

No moral judgements? No complaining that it would be against God's will or what have you? Oh my God, Beau just keeps getting better and better.

"I could do that. But I won't." Strange starts to explain, before Beau can question his logic. "I've got money and favors enough. My world...well, we didn't have magic for a while, but now we do. During the period where we didn't have much magic, I was one of the few people who could do magic. In between teaching and possibly working for the government, I'll have enough favors and prestige for my liking."

That makes a lot more sense than Strange telling Beau the real reason why he wouldn't bring someone back from the dead that powerfully: he straight up can't do it. Even now, he still likes to seem like he can do more than he actually can.

If Strange ever fesses up that he still can't do the real spell, or uses the necromantic reanimation where she can see it, she'll muster a few moral judgements. That kind of disappointment's just one of the risks of hyping himself up. Even if there are a couple of skeletons working with the carnival, the undead are creepy.

For now, though she catches the tone of braggary, she assumes it's about his wealth and connections - and mostly earnest.

"You've just got your shit all figured out, then, huh?" Beau shakes her head, envious and not hiding it all that well. She brushes a hand through the air to change the subject. "Okay, so, talking about bringing back the dead... I heard the Ringmaster's got a deal for that. Involving eggs, for some reason?" Search her why. "From what you know, should I be like... is that worth doing, would your style take souls, what's the deal."

There's a small pause before Strange admits, "The Ringmaster is infinitely more powerful than I am. The eggs are...a bit unorthodox, but if you die in the carnival, they're the best method of being brought back."

A bit unorthodox is putting it mildly: it's being hatched from a fuckin egg. When Strange speaks again, it's in the tone of voice of someone veeeery deliberately choosing their words and trying their hardest to behave like dying didn't affect them at all, it's just business as usual.

"I did die in the carnival and was brought back via eggs once. I can tell you anything you want to know about it."

Nobody's surprised to hear the Ringmaster's more powerful; ancient fae who's made a whole little world here better be more powerful than her employees. Beau just nods along to that part.

And esoteric information like liches and phylacteries isn't exactly common fare, or even among the sorts of information that Beau gathers. That hasn't stopped her from fighting the stubbornly undead, or getting the sense that they're maelstrom echoes of pain that should have been long-departed. The Ringmaster said it wasn't anything like that - it's a spell for life, not undeath - but still. She could just be saying that.

"So... You feel like you got your soul back in one piece?" Beau starts with. "Could you even feel part of it was missing?"

There's a pause...before Strange just fuckin downs the rest of his drink in one gulp and waves the bartender over for a new one. He's not really confided some of these things to anybody but Beau seems cool, she seems perfectly willing to roll with shit, and (most importantly) she's less likely to go off the handle like Lambert or Childermass would be.

Still, no mater how cool Beau might seem, Strange knows that he wants to get even more wasted since the conversation's shifting to his death.

"I couldn't feel much after dying. It was just when my body was...regrowing, I assume, that I came into consciousness." Which is still intensely weird to think about. "From what I understand, my soul and most of my body were ferried over to the Ringmaster fairly fast. And to be honest, I'm more worried about my soul being changed due to being stuck in the Silver Mirror than I am actually dying."

Beau's eyebrows just hover, high, through his whole account, and by the end of it she follows suit in raising her hand at the bartender.

"Uh. That's pretty fucking intense," she concludes, a little blandly. "I just meant, could you feel part of it was out in the egg instead of in you, but that's... good to know, that was gonna be my next question."

She says it flatly, but she means it, because she had wondered about the whole egg process. How much did he remember, what did it feel like, was it worth it. "And now, instead of being stuck in the mirror, the mirror's stuck in you. In your soul? Your life is crazy."

He can't help but laugh a little at that. Strange knows his life is really crazy and, in all likelihood, is only going to get crazier from now on. But, that's why there's alcohol and that's why he drinks: to help deal with the craziness.

"The sad thing is, that's not the weirdest part of my life." He pauses for barely a moment before continuing. "What about you? What were you doing before you were kidnapped by a group of talking animals?"

The three constants in life; death, taxes, and crazy. And for some people, alcohol's involved in all three.

"Uh, you know, pretty normal." She spreads her hands in a wide shrug, to encompass how weird this situation has been in comparison. "More normal than this, anyway. Maybe not that normal," she admits, her voice dropping to a more defensive tone, before lightening again.

"I was traveling on a job for this... literally underground crime boss. We were this little... I don't know, brand new mercenary band, we were taking odd monster-slaying jobs from the government and whatever else caught our attention. It was going to be some pretty good money."

"Considering that my world doesn't have monsters, I'd say that isn't normal in the slightest." This is Strange teasing. He's got no qualms about the mercenary band killing things nature of Beau's work: he's a soldier, he's got to be fine with that sort of thing. He's just teasing her a little because he can and because he's got a feeling she'll find the monster-less state of his world so friggen weird.

"What sort of things did you kill?"

"What, none at all? No, uh, no manticores, no giant fucking spiders, no rats that explode into poisonous gas?"

Her teeth flash in a brief grin, because she catches the teasing tone but it's not like her to keep smiling for long. "None of those are normal, but they're... around."

It would be so weird. Nobody has any compunctions about killing some four-legged acid-spitting beast that's killing livestock, like many do about killing people. Monster slaying flies a lot better. Even if toting the remains around freaks out a lot of townsfolk.

Strange shakes his head as Beau rattles off a whole list of creatures. On the one hand, obviously it's a good idea to live in a world without rats exploding into poisonous gas. On the other hand...that would be so exciting. And Strange is always a sucker for the exciting and the possibly dangerous.

"Obviously it would be best if my world didn't have things like that. But even just the idea of seeing a real life manticore sounds so tempting."

There's a bit more novelty when you don't have to deal with the manticores, giant fucking spiders, or explodo rats every Thursday.

Fortnightly, at the most frequent, really is preferable. Gives you plenty of time for recreation and travel between getting beat all to hell.

"Hold on, wait a minute. You didn't have manticores, but you know what they are?"

Somebody mentioned the translation magic that makes it so it's like everyone's speaking Common, but she runs into occasional concepts that she's too unfamiliar with to parse - like the initial explanation of the radios, or the power behind the rides, or that kind of thing. So this gives her a little pause.

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⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

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