lostcarnival | ⇨ WYLD HUNT

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 100
Where: Shabondamashii
What: The Wyld Hunt unexpectedly crashes the Shabon's dimension, leaving chaos in its wake. Those that have been with the carnival for a while might recognize it as the personal army of a fae called the Huntsman - also known as one of the Ringmaster's age old rivals, whom she dethroned thousands of years ago. The last we heard of him, he was pursuing the carnival, and it turns out he found them faster than anyone thought.
Warnings: Violence, theoretical cannibalism.

THE AUTUMN MOON↴

There isn't any warning. You might not even notice what's happening at first, with the approach of the threat happening as spontaneously as a zombie uprising. You're minding your own business, enjoying Shabon, when a random alien charges you on foot with sudden and aggressive intent. Whether or not you can throw them off or defeat them, you'll soon find they weren't alone. An entire army is descending upon the city now, and the carnival is the target.

► THEY ARE LEGION: The Wyld Hunt comes in all shapes and sizes, with beasts and men from all kinds of different universes having been caught up in its sway. Those that have been in the Hunt for a long while have more or less completely lost themselves - they now function only as part of a pack, hunting whatever the Huntsman wishes and consuming what their prey leaves behind upon death. Some members of the Hunt are newer and more unsure, but they are all a part of a psychic hive mind that compels them to move as a unit. Everyone in the Wyld Hunt instinctively know what the Huntsman wants them to do, even if they never speak to him.

Their skills, powers, and physicalities are all over the board, but there are a notably large quantity of Wyld Fae among them, often being used as mounts by more powerful humanoids within the Hunt. When NPCing members of the Hunt for threading purposes there is a lot of flexibility to what you face, including entities and beasts from your own worlds - provided they are creatures capable of functioning independently.

► HUNT OR BE HUNTED: When set upon by the Hunt, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Unfortunately, in that situation, the only way to beat them is to join them. Beginning to hunt alongside the others will immediately pacify them against you. As soon as you start to follow, the thrum of the Huntsman's will will start to take over - the more you hunt, the harder it is to turn away from it. If you do stop, or successfully oppose the compulsion, they will be quick to set upon you again. Like the others, you will feel the craving to consume any individuals the Hunt has felled - you must resist this, because once you have eaten the prey of the Hunt, you'll be trapped within it indefinitely.

► WORN OUT WELCOME: The people of Shabon are used to crisis, but this is a bit beyond what even they are prepared to tolerate. The Hunt will be causing collateral, both of the human and the material sort. While the workers in Shabon have very well practiced escape procedures in the event of something like this, the other guests are not as fortunate. Plenty of them are capable of fighting back on their own, but they will not always be capable of avoiding the hordes. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. Eventually, the Shabon workers will realize who the Hunt is after and start actively trying to turn carnival members over to them in order to make it stop.

► IN TWO PARTS: Tragically, this turn of events and the realization that she's managed to put everyone in danger once again will be what finally causes the Ringmaster to split in two. One side will immediately become disinterested in using violence to counter this problem, while the other will be desperate and reckless. This will also completely screw her ability to get anyone back to the carnival in time. There will be at least one Megathread dealing with her actions during this.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a conflict the carnival is meant to survive, not win. The main point of this is to get the plot rolling in a new direction, so don't worry about figuring out how to defeat the Huntsman, because in this moment it basically won't be possible. Have fun threading out the crisis, and see where it leads. I wanted to be up front about that, as opposed to letting everyone grasp at straws to prevent a result that will be inevitable, even if the details will shift.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mnh-!" They'll keep each other as safe as they can for now, but for now is the operative word. There are creatures in the sky as well as on the ground, and while Joker can make it some distance it isn't long before Penuel shouts-

"ABOVE!" he yells, a distant screeching meeting the air as an eagle of some sort tears downward.

"Bird-!"

Damn. He had hoped that he would avoid some of the fliers, but his luck just isn't that good today! Gritting his teeth, Joker doesn't back down. There's nowhere to really run, after all. The best he can do is keep going upwards... And then, a split second before, push himself off to the side and flatten himself- with Reira at his front- against the side of a building.

He's a flyer. He knows how difficult it is to pull out of a dive, or change your course. With his flexibility hopefully keeping him out of the way, and the force of that dive-

Well. Hopefully he'll avoid this. He has faith they'll pull out of this sooner or later. They have to.

"HhhHHHHAAAHH-!" Well, it works for dodging at least! There is an irritated screech from the attacker as they avoid the strike, Reira's face muffled against cloth for the moment. Once she can move enough to speak again, she asks-

"...What about inside the buildings?" Well that's not a good idea unless it's that massive bath house, kiddo.

As for what she's asking- presumably it's about hiding.

Thanks for busting his eardrums, Reira. He appreciates it. At least he doesn't need his ears to fly, kicking himself off so that he can gain flight again. It'll take their pursuer a second to make the turn around, so that should give him some time...

"Better if I have room ta fly!" That's what he'll yell. What he'll say quieter, underneath the sound of his wings flapping frantically, is, "And they're too close on our tail for us ta lose 'em this way. We have ta gain some distance, first!"

"MNgh...how long are you going to be able to run though..!?" she shouts, somewhat panicked. While it certainly takes the enemy a second to turn, they spit something from their mouth after them. It doesn't look like fire, but it certainly doesn't look good.

"A while!" he yells back, head twisting to try and hell at her better... an action which, fortunately, allows him to see the way that particular pain in his ass turns to spit fire at them. Well, good as anything else, anyway. What matters is that he's able to avoid it, wings snapping close to him as he twists out of the way. Gritting his teeth, he grabs onto a window frame, thankfully open, and hauls himself into it even as he still feels how close that attack came.

"We'll figure somethin' out when they're not right on us!" And he'll just cut through this building, hoping that's enough to throw their pursuers off a little bit.

"Okay..?" She's really not sure about this but...well, no one's sure about anything.

She doesn't really want to think about if they...don't catch a break, so it might be best to just not talk for a bit in here.

Befitting a bunch of dicks who only think about hunting, it really isn't so easy to lose them. He can hear them- the ones who fit well enough anyway- clambering through the window after him even before he's making his way out the opposite side. There's nothing to do but keep flying and running. Ugh, if he was just in another part of town...

As he gets airborn once again, Joker tries to lose them before it occurs to him to ask something. "Reira! Can ya tell where we are in this city!?"

"Umnn..!" She's trying, she really is. It's a bit hard to tell though- "There's a temple that way...and..." And aha- she points. "That's where the bath house is, where everyone was staying..!!"

"Alright!" That's the place they'll head to, then! Joker can only hope that people haven't turned on them at the bathhouse, or at least that the way back to the carnival is there. Anything is better than being out here. And if the bath house is there...

"Hold on tight, alright?" He's going to make some sharp turns here.

"Okay!" She'll hold as tightly as she can- her daemon perhaps even tighter, not that Joker will notice. But Reira silences herself as well, her eyes only held open because of the third eyelid keeping the wind from scratching too hard against them.

Thatta girl. Gritting his teeth and hoping none of them get smashed out of his mouth, Joker twists his trajectory into a gap inbetween the buildings with his legs hitting the wall of the whole thing. It's a hit that makes him sudden, legs aching with the force of him propelling himself further, but he can hear some of their pursuers scrambling as they pass.

That should buy them a second or two....

"Ya don't have a sensitive nose or anythin', right, Reira?"

"Umm...sensitive nose..?" Reira doesn't at all get what he's asking but-

"...No?" Penuel chitters something about it, but that's an easy fix.

"Good!" That's all he needs to know. Because Joker knows for a fact that, in this vertical shitshow of a maze, there are more than a few stalls perched in precarious places, and with a bath house being the primary reason to visit...

And there it is, having long since been abandoned by its owner with everything that's been going on. Grinning with a wide kind of panicked adrenaline, Joker makes sure to adjust his flight so that he can ram his feet right into the fragile top of it...

Which means, as he continues moving past with no particular keenness on stopping, all the fragile bottles of perfumes and other such fragrances go crashing everywhere, some in a very impressive burst of smoke. He lets it linger behind him, hoping that's enough to at least confuse some of their pursuers for another good few moments.

His sneezing is a small price to pay for it.

"Blh." Boy does it smell in this room. Reira covers her nose best she can, and waits until they're out through the room to speak.

"..I don't think you need a sensitive nose to not like that," she pouts. As is. "...Where do we go next though..?"

Hopefully somewhere they can sit- this seems tiring, and she's not even the one doing the running around!

That admittedly makes him wheeze out something that's approximately a laugh, because she's not wrong. Still, a sensitive nose would make that a whole lot worse, and he's not an asshole. Well, not much of one, right now, with how he is. It doesn't matter.

"We'll keep goin' a little while longer, just ta make sure they're not too close." They need all they can get. But after that... "We'll take a stop, figure out where we are, and then get back ta the others. Sound good?"

"Mnh...Yeah! ...We can do that."

It's as good a plan as any, and it'll mean she can hopefully stash her backpack in the egg chamber or something while she's at it. Important things.

⇨ WYLD HUNT

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tie off/fade out?