lostcarnival | ⇨ POLARIS AFTERMATH

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⇨ POLARIS AFTERMATH

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115-118
Where: Polaris/Wyldlands
What: After killing the Mother of Invention, the majority of the carnival has decided to take some time and sort out the Polaris refugees before heading to the Summerlands. This log covers miscellaneous post-Mother Polaris drama, as well as some light camping in the Wyldlands down below.
Warnings: Idk, stuff, I guess.

ADAPTATION↴

After the battle, the majority of carnival members will opt to remain in the secured section to Polaris, hoping to spend some time making sure that the rest of Polaris is liberated. Many of the staff are not capable of coming to grips with the fact that the Mother is dead so quickly, and the remaining Alphas are doing their best to keep Polaris under their sway. It will be a busy few days of changing minds and exploring the remains of the station. Thankfully, with everyone's powers intact and allies at their side, they finally have the advantage.

► SHIFTING STATES: Right off the bat, about 10% of the staff will immediately change sides upon hearing whats become of the Mother. They are actively eager to get away from Polaris, and will do whatever they can assist the carnival. This is mostly Gammas and a few Betas, who were working primarily under duress. Over the next day or two, those numbers will grow to at least 30%, with some of the staff managing to convince their colleagues to join them. About two days after starting, one of the Alphas will surrender to the carnival, encouraging those beneath her to support their cause. That leaves four Alphas remaining, and staff cooperation at 50%.

► CAPTIVE ATTENTION: The loyalist staff's main tactics are trying to create defensive points within the various test group areas, using the prisoners as hostages. Luckily, the carnival (and the staff on their side) will be in a position where it's possible to push them out with a mixture of convincing and force. Once prisoners start being freed, there will be even more force backing the carnival's efforts, meaning that it will essentially become a matter of cleaning up the remaining staff rather than any uphill battles. Most of this is being left vague intentionally, as most of this action is being handwaved. However, you can play out parts of it if you want and NPC technicians and rescuees. Other test groups can be filled with basically whatever kind of residents you like, since they are grabbed from across the multiverse. Most of the test areas are similar to B7.

► THE JACKPOT: Alongside cleaning up the staff, some members of the carnival have expressed interest in convincing the staff to help them with armoury issues as well as hunting down some of the Mother's most private loot. This will be handled in investigations, mostly through summary, because I don't have it in me for another megathread right now. Post your plans, and I will respond! However, know that I also don't have time to generate five million special items, so loot drops will be limited to my availability. Also, the techs aren't really blacksmiths so they generally won't really be able creating weapons from scratch or anything.

Meanwhile, Ignatius is going to set up a camp ground outside of Polaris, mostly because he doesn't want to be there anymore. He'll keep a fire going and they can drag things from Polaris down there for camping purposes, and mostly Ignatius is just going to be chilling and making sure that the campground doesn't get assaulted by magical creatures. The Gilded Mark will create a portal between the campground and the station so that people can go back and forth as required. It also creates a handy escape route.

You can even see Polaris from here, floating up there in the sky. How picturesque.

► WYLDERKIN: Apparently not everything in the Wyld Lands is a full Wyld Fae - there are also a lot of less powerful creatures called 'wylderkin' - apparently lesser forms of the Wyld Fae, who are more akin to animal level intelligence. They can be a variety of expected fantasy type creatures, such as flower sprites, weird bugs, and general prey animals they probably spend most of their time getting eaten by bigger dudes. All of them are sort of weird and fantastical, and none of them are exactly like earth varieties, though they may resemble them. They are more of a pest than a major threat in this part of the Wyld Lands, and Ignatius will scare away any that cause too many problems.

► FLORA AND FLUID: There are some plants that you can eat down here, that Ignatius will tell you about. Mostly weird berries and roots. There is also some pools of clear water, thought hey are filled with weird fish. Try not to bitten by any weird leeches. You can safely make up some of the creatures you find as long as they fit the general theme of lesser faerie creatures. This is just a rest stop.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Strange nods! Yep, not an illusion. It's literally fire.

"I can speak also," he clarifies, with a little shrug. "Don't ask how that can happen. I think it's because I have elemental forms instead of animal forms. The members who can turn into animals are limited by the vocal chords they have, where as my elemental forms are held together by pure magic, it's all a little more flexible."

The food question, however, gives him a little pause. Just because it is literally something he's never thought about before and also what kind of question is that. "I assume it gets changed along with me? I can turn my clothes into fire or smoke as well, any food inside me probably gets changed like they do."

"What the fuck," Beau repeats, shaking her head. "Magic is bullshit. Who needs to know how anything works? Just wave your hands and say some words, maybe rub a gem or smear some sticky shit around, and bam, things happen."

It's increasingly clear that Strange's mix of uncertainty and confidence, shown when he outlined what he knew back in that underground pool, is just the standard operating procedure. The whole carnival is just flying around by the seat of their pants.

On the one hand, anyway. On the other hand, obviously magicians have to do experiments to get things to work how they want. And if she wants to make this thing happen, she's going to need to face the fire a few more times.

"Alright. So do you think you can you do, like, one of my elbows?" She shrugs a little, showing how not-yet-burnt they are. "Or does it have to be my hands?"

"I know how English magic works," Strange defensively points out. "I wrote an entire book on it. But shifting forms like this is faerie magic and, admittedly, I don't have that pieced out as much as I would like."

He knows how his magic works! Just not other magic. "And of course I can set one of your elbows on fire," Strange grumbles, as he looks over at Beau. "Though again, I'm tinkering with the spell's framework. I'm not sure how burnt or not burnt your elbows might be."

"Yeah yeah yeah, I get that, don't get all huffy at me." Beau rolls her eyes, losing her grip on the part where she's supposed to emphasize how curious and grateful she is in exchange for the favor. "Shit's weird, you're figuring it out, expect some mistakes. I'm not saying you suck at this."

She flexes a hand again, testing the tightness, and yeah, she's going to need something cool for that soon. "I just mean, while you're figuring it out, how about we spread the burning out a little? Little burn here, little burn there, so it doesn't add up in any one spot."

Unsurprisingly, Strange is looking a little apprehensive at setting more of Beau on fire. Sure, just the hands were okay. But now her elbows? He doesn't want to completely burn her, come on Beau! Still, he does want to piece out and teach her this spell, and he's not going to do so unless he gets in more practice.

"Alright," Strange says, with a little nod. "Which elbow do you want to be burned first?"

"Mmm... Let's go with my right." With clothes being a little bit at a premium, as their more mundane belongings went missing (got destroyed), Beau's in one of the technician outfits. It's thankfully sleeveless, with a billowy mini-coat effect, and not the worst thing she's ever worn. It's easy enough to finish pulling the wrappings off and make her elbow a nice easy target.

But, just in case, she has to ask: "You know I'm kidding about the burning, right? Tone the spell down a little this time."

"I know you're kidding," Strange grumbles in return, as he places his hands in front of him. "But there's no delicate way to ask 'which part of you am I going to set on fire.'"

And then, Strange pretty much sets Beau's elbow on fire. There's a lot less fire than there was on her hand, but the flame is noticeably weaker. It almost feels like the fire's hovering juuuuust above the elbow, though Strange's concentration wavers and occasionally the fire dips down to brush against Beau's skin.

All the while, he's muttering under his breath and creepily staring at her elbow.

Is there a good time to walk in on Strange setting someone on fire? Probably not. All Shura wanted to do was take a walk, maybe take out some of her frustration on some poor fruit tree or whatever was left after their revolt, but nooo. She has to walk in on Strange attempting to set her once-trailermate on fire.

Since suddenly calling out or interrupting seems like a bad idea right at this second, Shura won't do anything obvious to make her presence known. Instead, she'll just casually come to a stop ten feet away from them, standing with a hand on her hip and and exasperated expression on her face. Come on, Beau, this better be for something good.

Whether it's for anything good is an entirely subjective question, honestly. They're spending time on this that could be spent gathering resources or info, to experiment with teaching Beau - not a mage - how to punch magic fire. It's something one of the fae could offer instead, and maybe more easily if she swears to them. Ultimately, it's mostly for fun, and having something where they feel, if not quite competent, in control.

Beau's the first to notice Shura's arrival, since she's not busy staring and muttering at elbows, and she greets the other woman with a bit of a flex. The fire flickers harder into her elbow as she moves, and she winces a tiny bit.

"What do you think," she asks with a slightly forced smile as her eye twitches. "Do I look hot with this fire on me?"

"If that's Lambert or Childermass, tell them to piss off," Strange bluntly responds, as he still focuses on Beau's elbow. The spell gets a little easier the more he fiddles with it and continues to cast it...but that doesn't change the fact that it was damn hard to begin with. All his concentration is focused on Beau's elbow and keeping the spell together, to the point where he's not even looking at the new arrival.

But he hopes it isn't Lambert or Childermass. The last thing he wants right now is a lecture, of all things.

The longer the fire floats around Beau's elbow, the less frequently it touches her arm. Strange is slowly getting the hang of this.

"You expectin' a lecture or somethin'?" Why else would he be afraid of those two in particular? But since Beau seems to be okay with the entire elbow on fire thing, Shura can't really say much. Two consenting adults could do whatever weird stuff they wanted.

Since it's better to talk to Beau, Shura will happily disregard any of Strange's potential complaints for the moment as she steps closer. "Hot? Nyehe, smokin' hot is more like it. Can't say I've ever heard of this kind of spa treatment, though."

With Shura speaking up, there's no need to reassure Strange that it's not one of the supervisors come to scold them for wasting time injuring people in experiments. But that's the kind of thought that leads to letting her guard down, and she glances around their surroundings, just to doublecheck that neither of them's coming by before she gets too confident. When the coast looks clear, she reverts to posing for Shura.

"It's, uh, the latest thing. Burn your dried skin away, you know." She bites at her lip, because the fire itself isn't tickling her skin as much as it had with her hands, but the heated air so close for so long is still having some impact. "Little bit sweltering... Hey, do you think it'd work on my feet? Fire kicks would be pretty hard core."

And with boots on, she might get a little extra insulation against the burns.

Oh good, the person is Shura, almost instantly Strange is a little relieved.

"You know Shura, if you're interested I can set you on fire as well," Strange jokes, expression shifting to a shithead grin. If Beau wants to keep the true purpose of setting her body parts on fire a secret, Strange can work with that. After all, it's no use bragging about potential spells you don't even know how to cast yet.

But moving to her feet? Heck yeah, he can give that a try. "As for your feet, I suppose it would all depend on what your shoes are made of," Strange explains, as he snuffs out the flames on Beau's elbow. "The more flammable the material, the harder it would be to maintain the spell."

Edited 2018-12-21 04:58 (UTC)

"So generous! But fire ain't my thing, so I gotta pass on that." Shura demurs, hands in the air. She had Rin for that if she really wanted to play with fire. But fire kicks?

"This some kind of new technique or somethin'?" That's what it looks like, though she can't quite imagine what sort of elbow-based techniques would be that effective with fire, but this isn't an unfamiliar scene. Usually involved an actual demon and not just a overconfident mirror-man. "The technicians here probably have somethin' that's fire resistant if that's what you're actually wantin' to do." Even if it was some makeshift, ugly boots, it was better than nothing.

"Ehhh. Not yet. Maybe later, when we figure this out." Beau shifts to one foot and lifts the other to examine her current footwear. It's not leather, or anything familiar from Wildemount. It's some unknown material, a synthetic magic future boot.

"Look, I have no goddamn idea if this thing is flammable." She rolls her eyes and looks between Shura and Strange. "Is there an actual boot storage we can go to, or what. Because we could just try this, and tear these off if they catch on fire."

As Strange is fresh out of the 1800s, he also has no idea what the unknown material of Beau's boot is. But he's not letting something like not knowing what the material is stop him. Strange frowns a little, looking down at her feet, then shrugs.

"There has to be storage around here somewhere. Those Deltas had actual clothes, where the hell would they get them from if not a storage closet?"

"If it's not made of the right material, it might melt," Shura offers, being so very helpful. "Better to not take that risk if you're not sure about it." Should she try to be helpful? She had helped Rin learn to control his flames, but this was something else entirely. Probably best for her to stay (mostly) out of it.

Beau imagines her shoes melting around her feet, and her face goes on a journey of discomfort and disgust. "O..kay.. Yeah, okay, fine, fuck it, let's go on a journey to find some fucking shoes. I guess."

If nothing else, the warning's plenty helpful, given the combined impatience and trouble-making tendencies in this group.

Strange also winces as Shura mentions melting shoes. That sounds painful as hell. He frowns a little, still thinking of melted shoes, before offering up a second choice.

"Of course, there is another option. Take a shoe off and I'll try to set it on fire. If it melts, we won't use it, but if it stays firm, we can go ahead and practice.

The main problem with that option is obvious: Beau would be missing a shoe. Still, Strange feels he should at least vocalize this before they go on wild goose chases to find shoe storage.

Oh, that's good, they listened. Shura being the most sensible person in a group was never a good sign, but it could probably be worse.

Testing one of Beau's boots while she wasn't wearing it isn't a bad idea. "You're going to be trying to chase down another set of shoes either way, so you might as well try that first."

"That sounds... great. The idea is, getting it so it doesn't burn," Beau grumbles as she yanks one of her shoes off. "But let's do this, sure. Better off me than on me."

It takes a little extra tugging, as snug as it is, but she gets it off and places it a few feet away on the floor. This won't be the first time she's gone barefoot, and at least most of Polaris doesn't have rough stones and shattered glass and animal droppings filling the pathways. Walking shoeless on these clean flat floors sounds almost pleasant.

"The two of you will have to check to see if it melts," Strange points out, as he takes a few steps away from Beau's shoe. "I'll try and keep the flame small so I can just pinpoint a spot." That way, if the shoe does melt, at least there might be part of a useable shoe left. Maybe.

Tiny, narrow, fiddly bits of magic aren't Strange's specialty. So it takes a lot of concentration as he stares at a point on the shoe and starts murmuring something under his breath. A tiny little flame springs up on the front of the shoe. Strange honestly can't tell if it's melting the shoe or not: he's focused on keeping the flame small and not setting everything on fire.

Fiddly magic or not, just why was he having to focus so hard on such a small flame?? Who taught him magic and didn't teach him how to control a small thing like this before showing him more powerful spells? Shura frowns for the briefest second, but she'll keep an eye on the shoe as requested. "Right, right, whatever."

"What, you can't shoot fire and look at the same time?" Beau wonders, in that casually needling way. "Seems like that'd make it hard to aim."

She crouches down as she teases, and starts checking the shoe for signs of burning, bubbling, melting, or any other things she doesn't want happening on top of her foot. So far, so good; they're borrowed - stolen - from some technician, which means they're a flame-resistant material good for experiments involving high temperature exposure and for cleaning up when people turn themselves on fire and wander into the vents. As much as that regularly happens.

"Of course I can shoot fire and look at the same time!" Strange grumbles back, in a needlessly defensive way. "I'm simply better at big things than small things and don't want to melt your entire shoe."

But he manages to hold the flame for a little while longer before snuffing it out with a wave of his hand. Now to check on the shoe...and oh! It's not melted! Strange looks over at the two women with a slightly smug expression despite the fact that it was the shoe that didn't melt and not due to any thing in his own control.

"Now, shall we try this again with the shoe on your foot?"

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