lostcarnival | ⇨ POLARIS 3.0

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⇨ POLARIS 3.0

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115
Where: Polaris
What: On the morning of day 115, a couple hours before the technicians would come to pick up the test subjects, the escape plan will officially come into effect. If your character has been left out of the loop up till this point, feel free that someone hastily explains the plan during the initial phase! The meat of everything else will be played out via megathreads and any private toplevels people want to make.
Warnings: Probably violence.

PEER REVIEW↴

The plan starts with getting everyone out of their cells. Childermass is going to be using his Gilded Mark to enhance his shadow movement abilities, unabling him to teleport himself and other people out of containment. If your character has other ways of escaping they are free to pursue that, but on a base level, it can be assumed that everyone gets out thanks to Childermass. (Thanks Childermass!) Once everyone has been removed from their cells by some means or another, they will be forced to split into teams as swiftly as possible, as the moment people start breaking out, negative attention from the staff will start building. The area is poorly guarded at first, but as people become aware of the breakout, more will arrive.

Gild, speaking on behalf of her inside plant, will say that those that 1) want to get their stuff back, 2) want to find Ignatius, should get the assistance of their allied Deltas to access sector A5. From there, they will have to access Polaris's storage in A3, a neighbouring sector, and find access to C2, the station where Ignatius is being held. They should expect to be met with armed resistance, but with any luck allies will be there to assist them.

In general, characters will be most effective if they back one of these major objectives:

► TEAM LOOT: This team is trying to get back the items and pets that were confiscated when the group was brought into Polaris. Their objective, according to their allies on the inside, is to get to A5, and then make their way to A3. The important thing is being able to locate their stuff among a sea of other items, and to make it through security in order to reclaim it. Gild's plant has said that they will assist with this. After getting these items, Team Loot may wish to merge with Team Rescue.

► TEAM RESCUE: This team's primary focus is to get to A5 and then make their way to C2. If desired, they may wait for or join with Team Loot, or they may strike out ahead in order to take advantage of the element of surprise. The key factors are obtaining a way to access C2, as well as being prepared for armed conflict with the technicians guarding it, as well as possibly the Mother of Invention herself. Though, the ideal is that Gild will be distracting here at that time.

► TEAM DISTRACTION: This team can do their thing wherever they please, as their main intent is to sew general discord and distract the staff from the teams doing more important things. They should be prepared for armed resistance, but what tactics they pursue beyond that point are highly variable.

► TEAM FORTRESS: This team is attempting to set up a protective base of operations in the original sector in order to survive the conflict and protect their noncombatant comrades. How they accomplish this is also highly variable.

Other objectives may exist, of course, and can be made with their own separate top levels. Chunks of these megathreads will have to be played out in summary form, so when characters are simply trying to get from place to place and specifics aren't necessary, feel free to stick to that format. Assume that everyone is already out of their cells for the purpose of the megathreads.

Here is a shitty map of how the sectors connect, from a side view of the central Polaris hub.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I was, but I'm better now." And, very awkwardly and stiffly, Strange bends his arm at the elbow then straightens it again. "When we were in Shabon, I spent some time trying to piece out how to mend any cracks my mirrors might have—though truth be told, I didn't expect to spend so much time mending my wounds so quickly."

There's no way on Earth someone like West would know what to deal with a shattered interior mirrored covering. So, Strange spent the time figuring out and working on the magic himself. Besides, if this still persists when he goes back to England, he won't be able to rely on healing potions or magical spit or whatever nonsense the carnival can craft up to heal someone.

"What about you? How exactly did you hurt your arm like that?"

Ah, yes, like the broken nose when Lambert punched him. Yuya remember that--so he did figure out a way to take care of it after all.

"That's good." Although when Strange turns it back around on him, he looks down at his arm. "Oh, uh--I was helping shield people, but one of the Mother of Invention's weird octopus arms hit me."

Which, frankly, he's lucky didn't kill him. And the damage is worse than the sling really implies, but since it wasn't his legs he's still up and about. "Doctor West and Steven took care of me."

Strange frowns a little at Yuya's explanation. Those weird octopus arms are weird, aren't they. But he's not too pleased with the reality that Yuya got hurt.

"Well, as long as we're sitting around waiting for bones to heal and Ignatius to recover, perhaps we should work on strengthening your shield. If it was bigger or stronger, perhaps that would have lessened the damage somewhat."

What do you mean this is just a distraction mechanism to keep Strange from the little worrying thought in the back of his head that at this rate, he's never going home. This totally isn't a distraction mechanism!

"Uh--yeah, sure." It wasn't the first thought on Yuya's mind, but he can't really argue with it. He would like his shield to be stronger...

"What's the best way to do that?" It's based on his will, so does he need to want it more? Just be more magically powerful?

"The best way is to draw upon what you already know," Strange explains. He leans against a wall, arm dangling stiffly as he side, as he uses his other hand to talk.

"You're a proper magician now. Spend some time with your spells, dissect how they work, and then use some of those components to build up your other spells."

He's relaxing a bit the more he talks. This is pretty blatantly a distraction mechanism but it's at least one that's working. Talking about magic always helps calm Strange down and take the edge off a little.

Yuya smiles faintly, glancing down at his pendulum before reaching to roll it between his fingers. That's how he figured out traveling with mirrors, but he's not sure how that works in making himself more powerful.

"Was your magic always as strong as it is now?" He looks up. "Not what you could do with it, but how strong it is."

Strange shakes his head. "When I first started as a magician, I certainly couldn't manipulate magic to the extent that I can now."

Sure, he was probably pretty powerful, even in those early days. But Strange knows that fresh off the boat, fledgling magician Strange could never open all the mirrors and bring back English magic the way that current Strange could.

"Besides, one's magical strength doesn't matter. What matters is how you use or grow your magic. Take Lambert, for example. He has power. He's good at the four or so spells he knows. But because he never explores outside of those spells and never pushes himself to do something more or something different, his strength doesn't mean a damn thing."

Harsh? A little bit! But true? Absolutely.

"Well... it hit my shield. But that wasn't strong enough and she broke through." He gestures, with both hands before twitching and settling down.

"If I'm fighting someone stronger, then it has to be strong enough to stand up to them." He pauses, considering. "Can you build magic strength like physical strength?"

"I don't see why not," Strange says, with a little shrug. "Personally, I find drills and repeated practice to be boring as hell, but if you're looking for simple strength building, that might be your best bet."

And then, like they didn't just get out of a traumatic situation, Strange asks, "When do you want to start?"

"I want to start now," he starts, because Yuya never slows down. The pull of his sling when he moves forces him to stop, though, and he slumps a little sheepishly.

"But my bones aren't completely healed, so I'm not supposed to push myself yet." Line getting hit by attacks he fails to defend with his shield. Or dodging. Yuya's going to look like the biggest idiot if he manages to just put himself back in the infirmary.

And this is why it's a good and bad thing that Strange is Yuya's mentor: he also never slows down. Strange outright scoffs at the idea of 'not supposed to push yourself' because that is dumb and that's for quitters.

"Then we'll start slowly. The Huntsman won't care if you have broken bones or not. You need to be able to use your magic to it's fullest potential no matter what circumstances you're in."

Yuya rubs the back of his neck. That's true... and if Strange says they should start now, well, nobody can yell at him for listening to his instructor.

"Okay. Where should we practice? The farm?" Yuya hasn't seen how little remains of the farm yet.

"There wouldn't be much to work with. In all likelihood, the farm's a pile of ashes!" Strange cheerfully responds. He's still intensely bitter towards everyone involved (but mostly Syrlya) for not telling him about any sort of plan to rescue Ignatius...but setting the entire fucking farm on fire in retaliation felt real good.

Oh, we'll make Strange the distraction, nothing wrong can happen there, suck it assholes, he is just too good at his job.

"Still, it would be open, quiet, and I doubt anyone would bother us there. The farm might work!"

... Yeah, Yuya can see that happening.

"So you'll test my shield with your magic, right?" With nothing else, throw big rocks with magic.

Yuya starts forward, then, turning to make sure Strange is coming with him.

Big rocks or tiny fireballs. Either/or.

Strange starts to follow Yuya as he gives the kid a nod. "Considering that I can't punch anything, magic is the answer. We can get someone like Zangetsu in order to test the physical capabilities of the shield."

Yuya cringes when Strange suggests Zangetsu.

"Maybe we can ask Lambert when we need to teat that? He's really strong, too." Maybe not super human strong, not like Zangetsu. "Or you can just throw bigger rocks."

Rocks are the same, right? Try not to crush him.

"Lambert was in Theta," Strange reminds Yuya, accidentally ignoring Yuya's cringe about the matter. "He's probably broken himself to hell and back by now. Zangetsu's more sturdy and, as far as I know, didn't get stuck in any trials that physically weakened you the way that half the carnival did."

There's a pause before he admits, "Though I could easily throw bigger rocks if that's how you want to do this."

"I'd really rather you throw bigger rocks." Zangetsu is, frankly, kind of terrifying. Yuya's not interested in facing down the guy who ate his boyfriend's arm.

He turns his attention back to the farm as the approach the hole... and stops. Oh, they really did graze it to the ground.

There's a sad looking water area where people filled up their watering cans as well as numerous robot corpses. But trees, grass, any sort of plant life is some matter of burned.

"It's a pity that all of this was contained to the farm," Strange idly remarks, as he walks towards the center of what used to be a grove of trees, expecting Yuya to follow him. "I'd have enjoyed it if some of the carnage managed to make it's way down to Theta."

Yuya does follow, looking over the destruction. It's kind of sad, even if it was full of terrible memories. He might just have personal issues with absolute decimation, though.

He glances over to Strange. This isn't what they came for, but... "Do you... want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Strange asks, trying hard to keep his voice steady. He's not making eye contact with Yuya as he walks. Any small little robot parts are being kicked out of the way as he continues talking.

"If it's about Polaris, then there's nothing to talk about. I made a poor decision and paid the price for it—something that I've gotten used to over the past few months."

Yuya looks down at Strange's arms, perhaps pointedly.

"It was still torture. And they hurt you before that, too." He furrows his brow, before looking sideways with a shrug. "It's just... if you want to. It helps to talk about it, and not keep anything inside."

There's a pause...before Strange decides fuck it! Fuck it, fuck this, fuck everything and he just lets it all out.

"I hate it here. I hate being powerless, I hate the fact that no matter what I do, some fae or faerie artifact or all powerful super being is going to fuck it up and not let me help anybody." He just keeps talking, obviously on a roll, and obviously vocalizing so many things that he's kept to himself for a while. Strange puts a hand to his head as he rants and starts frantically pacing, trying to work out the manic, nervous energy of admitting all the things he hates and so many tiny little insecurities. He knows it's not fair to dump this all on Yuya but he's had an amazingly shitty past month and Strange has honestly stopped caring.

"I hate that we can't do anything without the fae and that...that we couldn't save Ignatius by ourselves! We should have saved him by ourselves but we couldn't do anything without his stupid sister. I changed all of magic in my world, I should have saved him by myself! And I know that people are going to want to keep going and pretend like none of this ever happened and go and try to save the Ringmaster, but I don't even want to save her! This is all her fault! I want to go home and see my wife and pretend like none of this ever existed."

Yuya, through the rant, just watches. With wide eyes, not having actually expected Strange to go off like that. Usually it takes prying, and a back and forth about each other's worries. So he's a little thrown off, but wasn't this what he wanted? For Strange to be honest with him and trust him?

Finally, as he putters out, Yuya moves forward to gently grab Strange's arm in his uninjured hand, to make him stop as Yuya looks up at him.

"I know." He starts, his breath catching dangerously close to tears. And then he leans in, moving to put his arm around Strange and hug him, or hug himself agaisnt him.

"I... I hate it, too. I hate these things hurting us. I hate being scared of what's going to happen to my friends, I hate that--no matter how hard I try, I'll never be strong enough to protect them on my own."

Admitting that makes something inside Yuya break, and he chokes on a shallow sob. His shield is never going to be good enough for something like that.

"I couldn't even save Yuzu from Academia." He couldn't save anyone from himself.

"Nobody's going to forget any of this. We can't."

Strange looks like he's about to go off on something else entirely when Yuya grabs him and Strange stops, looking over Yuya instead. And he pauses for a moment when Yuya hugs him. Admittedly, that's unexpected. But Strange isn't so heartless as to ignore the moment. Awkwardly (and stiffly, thanks to his still healing arm), he hugs Yuya back.

"I should be strong enough," Strange repeats. He's never fully adapted to the fact that in his world, it's a big fish in a small pond sort of scenario. He should be the person to save everybody. He should be the strong person who can whip magic up out of nowhere and come in and save the day. That's what he was back home, he managed to save Arabella, bring magic back to England, summon a long forgotten figure of English magic, and help kill the fae who kidnapped her in the first place! Why the hell can't he do that here?

"I just want to go home," he whines, more to himself than to Yuya. "I don't care about the Courts or the Ringmaster or any of this...this fae bullshit. I just want to see Arabella." It's a little pathetic to admit that but hey, there it is. And now it's his turn to try and choke back his emotions and try and keep from crying.

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