⇨ POLARIS

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Days 102 - 109
Where: Polaris
What: With the Ringmaster kidnapped and the rest of the carnival imprisoned, characters find themselves at the mercy of a Winter Fae called the Mother of Invention.
Warnings: Graphic experimentation in places.

TRIALS & TRIBULATION↴ After a day of cleansing and processing, where all the belongings and attire of their old lives are stripped away and replaced with something newer and more form fitting, the former members of the carnival will find themselves let loose into the Farm for the first time. A sizable green area, filled with orchards growing inorganic looking fruits and field ready for tending, the Farm is where they will be spending their days for the forseeable future. Food and drink are no longer needed, and so every day is an endless cycle of work. Technicians are seen only when necessary, and when being taken from your place of work to your lonesome cells at night. Every day, there are new postings on the "Production Board", where various dire sound scientific trials ask for subjects. The majority won't be forced, at least not yet, but the system is at work to push its participants to the brink and force their hand. After all, volunteers make the best subjects. ► PRODUCTIVITY: As explained elsewhere, characters will be forced to compete to attain enough Productivity Point to be considered Satisfactory. There are literally not enough points to go around for everyone to attain this, which means that at least some people will be deemed "Below Expectations" by the end of the first four-day cycle. What this means has yet to be discovered, but the Technicians have grimly warned against it. Productivity involves many tasks, including orchard picking, tilling, planting, harvesting, watering, maintenance, and more. Any task you can think of that would take place on a plantation is applicable here. Beyond that, the Production Board awaits you, offering precious Productivity Points in exchange for your cooperation. How you become Satisfactory is up to you, but it's every person for themselves. Only one person can turn in the credit for harvesting or preparing fields, and while you can certainly try to help others by letting them take credit for your work, it's a sure fire way to fall behind the herd, especially if you are already in a low Classification. Fruits and fields will miraculously grow overnight, and will be ready for a new day when you are. You've been told not to eat anything you harvest, but right now you aren't hungry anyway. ► POLARIS BY NIGHT: During the night, you are left alone to your thoughts and maybe an annoying roommate. Solo or in pairs, the entire night will be spent in small sleep pods, as shown on the locations post. Is it possible to sneak out? It doesn't seem like it is, but who is to say? The real question is if you want to dare to try. There is one hour of rest before and after seven hours of darkness. Even if you don't usually have to sleep, you'll find yourself oddly weary and inclined to rest. Supernaturally, almost. ► PARTICIPATION: Sometimes participation in experimental trials is manditory, sometimes it isn't. You are free to handwave your character having been pulled aside for minor examinations, such as blood tests or aura scans. Each time, you will be pulled into a separate part of the station and analyzed by a Technician and heavily automated machinery. Anymore more complex than basic check-up level tests will be posted about in a section called "TRIALS" in the body of the post below.

Comments

Herbert West

[scientificist]

OPEN TOP LEVELS

[scientificist]

Day 103
The previous day, other (former) Carnival members might have seen Herbert not particularly putting much effort into the work. Why bother asking him for his previous experience, he wondered, if they just intended to have him to do physical labour? He's disinterested and despite a vague awareness that compliance is what makes you look like a good patient, he couldn't bring himself to comply. In psychiatric wards, compliance looks more like endless stretches in rooms, like allowing yourself to be strapped down and shocked. Not gruntwork.

But today, their third day of captivity, Herbert is much more active. Possibly unnecessarily so. He's absolutely going to town tilling some soil, teeth gritted as he swings down again and again with a hoe. If anyone tries to interrupt for whatever reason, he swings around on them, snapping, "what?"


Day 105
Herbert disappears into a Trial for a great deal of Day 104, and when he comes back he's acting...honestly vaguely familiar to anyone who saw him in the Prince's Dungeons. This is the highly requested and anticipated return of Onion Guy.

Constantly running his hand through and grabbing at his hair, looking around wildly and occasionally chuckling to himself. Sometimes he remembers to pick some crop or another and put it in a basket he's dragging around with him but he has a random assortment of all the weird crops at this point because he keeps losing track of what he's doing.

Eventually he just ends up slumped down against a tree, looking up along the trunk and into the leaves. He's trembling gently.

105

[reflash]

Yukio is moving slowly and cautiously, leaning fairly heavily on a hoe as he struggles through his work. He's not limping, exactly, but he is struggling with movement. Gaining his tail was entirely uneventful, like his brain was prewired to accept the additional limb, and now he's struggling with the loss and its impact on his balance.

"Dr. West?" The man looks... like he's not doing well, and Yukio has a moment to check in on him. "Are you feeling all right?"

[scientificist]

"Why don't you, make a diagnosis, Okumuuuura," Herbert drawls, and rolls his head down to face Yukio. He doesn't appear to like having done that much: the pressure was nice on the top of his head.

"Theeere's been. Some chemical imbalance--some REbalance--I should've known. Signing up for their death trials. But how could I have--ah! Do you know what this means!?" He stares intently at Yukio, his eyes a little glazed-over and mad.

[reflash]

Demonic possession. That's Yukio's first instinct, before the more rational, less instantly reactive side reasserts itself. Drugs, possibly, or... Dr. West has been on one particular drug for the entire time Yukio's known him. Is this what the withdrawal looks like?

"What does it mean, Dr. West?"

[scientificist]

"It means my reagent is more effective than I could have dreamed!" he announces, triumphant. "They tried, to kill me and it had no...permanent, effect...nnnnot until they removed my reagent, of course. Iii....was. Already immortal!"

His wings flare in punctuation as he half-smiles at Yukio until he abruptly has to tuck his chin into his chest while he clutches at his head.

"Not nooow..." he mutters, "not now they've. Taken it."

[reflash]

He was immortal. The fae couldn't kill him. If this is the price he has to pay for that power, it's probably worth it. West just didn't have enough reagent with him to keep from happening, but if Yukio could somehow figure out how to make it more easily, or... if the Ringmaster ever gets them back, he might ask her for a favor. If he could make the reagent magically, this wouldn't happen to him.

"You'll make more once we're out of here," he says, sort of trying to be reassuring. "Until then, what can I do to assist you?"

[scientificist]

"O-ho, I have more," he says, looking up again sharply, hand still threaded in his hair. "I just...can't...access it." Suddenly, he slumps, his tenseness flooding away. He looks tired and very young.

"There's nothing any of us can do," he says, "not now. We have to, wait them out, be useful. That's all there is. It aaall ends eventually..."

[reflash]

He's so sick of playing the waiting game. It was worse at home, but this is bad too. There's nothing to do but put his head down and keep working, and sign up for more trials.

"Will you be able to be useful?"

[scientificist]

Herbert chuckles as ghoulishly as usual, though it doesn't last for very long. At least his tension is back, as he struggles himself upwards along the tree trunk.

"You know it doesn't matter, surely," he says, and tries to rake his hair somewhat back into place before bracing himself on the tree. "Only the trials are, relevant. Theeey should have thought. Of my, productivity before sending me into withdrawal."

[reflash]

"They might want to study your productivity without the reagent." Yukio offers. He'll just let West lean on that tree, because there's no way that he'd be able to help lead the other man anywhere. "If you're useless without it, they won't have a reason to keep you around."

[scientificist]

"Doubtful," says Herbert, "withdrawal isn't myyyy, baseline. This is. Poor procedure! I doubt it ma-atters anyway, trials are the sole form of judgement. This, weakness will pass and I'll take a trial. That will be enough." Removing one hand from bracing himself on the tree and curling his tail around instead, he gestures at Yukio's metal attachment.

"Diiid they say if they were, giving that back?"

[reflash]

"How long will the withdrawal last? What will your mental state be like afterwards?" Will it be enough? Yukio isn't exactly fond of Herbert, but he would rather not lose the man. After all, Yukio isn't really cut out for the supervisor position.

But the doctor is aware enough to notice Yukio's missing tail, at least, and Yukio shifts position slightly.

"They didn't say. I would like it returned, if only because of the impact it has on my balance."

NIGHT 107 | its time for brat

[soft_focus]

[Another day of work, another day no trials. This particular evening Reira is rather irritated in fact- not only did her Technical Boss hold her back from the board, but she had Yuusei hold her back long enough for the woman to sign up instead. And took hold again, while others (including Yuusei-!) took the last two slots.

As someone who's wanted to see these trials, she's fairly irritated. She doesn't care if it hurts (she thinks), she doesn't care WHAT it does (she thinks), if trials and success is the way out and above she's going to do it!

And at the very least she's pretty sure everyone with Green marks in the Green zone is having a much better experience here! (So she thinks)

Once she's in her cell, Reira takes a deep breath, and lets it all out in one frustrated sigh. She then proceeds to climb up to her bed until her cellmate reminds her that People Exist.]

[scientificist]

[Past the worst, first three days, Herbert is a little less incoherent than he used to be, but still not doing particularly well. The technicians actually found him staring into his basket intently outside and had to ferry him into his cell so he arrives shortly after, just as Reira is climbing up.

Which is good, because otherwise he probably wouldn't have noticed she was there.

As the techs close the door behind him he stands there and watches, and then grabs off his glasses to drag a hand heavily over his face.]

You...

[And then he loses track. There was something about Reira he wanted to note today but he can't really follow what it is. Or what he was talking about. So he just stops, blinking, glasses clutched in one hand.]

[soft_focus]

[.....Reira turns, just at that moment, squinting at Herbert.] ....ummmm...

....me.. ..?

[scientificist]

Yes... [He stares myopically at the Reira-blur for a moment before he remembers he's holding his glasses and puts them back on.]

You're still trying to sign up.

[soft_focus]

[Oh yes, trials.]

Everyone said it's the only way 'up', [She replies, blinking. And y'know. It is. But anyway.]

'n that they'll happen anyway.

[Might as well put it on their own terms right?]

[scientificist]

Then take those ones--do take them, we all saw what, happened, with Steven but there's no sense in taking more. [He scoffs, a sort of disbelieving smirk crawling twitchily across his face.] And what would yoooou do with "up" anyway--you're no scientist, you're a child.

[He staggers over and sits on the bedside table, flattening his bent wings backwards against the wall for support.] There's no, sense in you being anywhere but the farm.

[soft_focus]

[She just frowns.]

So you think I should just pick apples all day, and never learn anything, or do anything, and just wait for someone to say 'we're going to hurt you'.

[She's perhaps, a bit too aware of what's going on, by now.]

[scientificist]

You-hou won't learn anything anyway! I only learned what I know now in spite of these technicians--wait at least until you're pubescent before hurting yourself pointlessly: have you seen any child technicians?--veeeery doubtful you'd be, anything more than a lab rat.

[That was a lot of talking. He grunts, and presses his fingers into his head, tucking his chin down, sounding strangled when he speaks again.]

No sense in you, volunteering for slicing off parts of yourself--I'd study your mind if I were them and I doubt they'd take, nmh, care with that surgery, slicing into your right supramarginal gyrus, nnh, I'd think, taking samples. Causing Wernicke's aphasia or at the very least, mm, I've no doubt barely using the proper amount of anaesthetic.

[He lets go of his head and raises it, staring blearily at Reira again.]

Have you ever had awake craniotomy.

[soft_focus]

[Unsurprisingly, Reira didn't understand almost All of that. Also, that 'no child technicians' thing was a low blow, in her opinion.]

...You aren't making any sense...! [she protests, moving to climb up to the second bunk.] I didn't decide this alone, either!

[She asked Very Good Sources. Like Strange. Yes.]

[scientificist]

Brain surgery. Awake. [He stops staring at her and turns his head to press the side of it firmly into the wall. The pressure is good, even if he still feels a bit like vomiting.] Why do you want to advance.

[soft_focus]

Because I can't do anything here.

[It's honest, but more importantly-] ...And...

...I don't think they would ask people outside the farm to do 'trials'. Everyone keeps trying to give me their stuff, so that I do alright- and even though I'm saying 'no', I think they're giving it to other people still.

...So maybe if I'm gone, they can look after themselves.

[Also, more honestly, she super just wants a green ranking it feels great. But she can't actually identify that part of her feelings.]

[scientificist]

No, no the farmwork is meaningless. [He says, after trying to convince her to continue doing just that. He's really scattered right now.] They're wasting time, they should be doing trials--you'd be, taking trials from people who could truly benefit from them, more likely?

Besides. I. Hm. I don't think you need more trauma.