lostcarnival | ⇨ THE WYLDLANDS

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⇨ THE WYLDLANDS

Who: Everyone pursuing the Huntsman.
When: Day 134 - Day 140
Where: The Wyldlands
What: Working as scouts from the Summer armies, the carnival makes a dangerous trek into the Wyldlands to find the Huntsman, defeat him, and save the Ringmaster from the Hunt. The day descriptions below are an outline, and details may change based on actions earlier in the week. Overall, though, it will keep the same general locations. You can make up encounters with Wylderkin at any time.
Warnings: Probably violence and gross Huntsman stuff.

HUNTING THE HUNTER↴

Upon first arriving in the Wyldlands, the carnival will find themselves in a scene much like the picture above - strange mountain ranges rise up around them, while thick forest cling to the land between. Every so often, giant silhouettes of Wyld Fae will fly overhead. Thankfully, the Summer Fae have picked an area with plenty of cover to hide in to begin their infiltration, and as the carnival is arriving via teleporation, there will be squadrons of Summerland and Summer Court Fae spreading out and concealing themselves within the trees. They will be following the carnival's trail as they move deeper into the Wyldlands, looking for their guidance to avoid the maw of the Hunt.

The carnival Supervisors will be given several golden scrolls that unfurl into small light elementals. These will transmit information between the Summer armies and the carnival at speeds similar to sending a text message. They takes various forms, but most of them are abstract motes of light with wings and tails. When delivering messages, they take the form and voice of whoever gave the message, like a custom hologram that disappears immediately after finishing.

After the carnival has been debriefed one more time, they will be sent off ahead to begin their scouting duties. Through a mixture of augury and expertise, the Summer Fae have narrowed down an area the Huntsman should be, as well as designated a general route that will mostly have ground cover. Who knows if it will stay that way, though, with how quickly the Wyldlands change. Much like in the Summer Court, time here is subjective - all sense of time varies between individuals, and the only solid way of knowing when a day is over is to have the light from the sky disappear. All time pieces will perform erratically while here.

The carnival will still need to eat and rest, as well, which means that they will have to figure out the best times to set up camp. They have sufficient rations, at least.

► DAY 134: The carnival heads deeper into the forest on the first day of their scouting mission, told to head for a giant tree that they can see on the horizon. Apparently, this tree is a landmark that will remain consistent for the time being. Someone will have to check above the canopy every so often to keep everyone on target, which risks gaining the attention of flying Wyld Fae. There are plenty of Wylderkin around (lesser Wyld Fae that behave more like standard fantasy animals) but overall the journey through this section will not be hugely perilous, as long as they remain cautious and hidden. There will be a Megathread on this day, dealing with some optional and only mildly important Summer Court NPC interactions.

► DAY 135: Early during the next day of travelling, the forest will begin to fill with more and more magical fungi until giant shrooms have almost completely replaced the trees. At first they will seem innocuous, but as their presence becomes more inescapable, it will gradually become apparent than many of the mushrooms are poisonous to the touch - and eating them will be far worse! Those with empathetic connections to plants may be able to determine which are poisonous and which aren't, while some fungi may even have beneficial effects, if they get lucky enough to find and identify them. Generally speaking, though, there are few non-plant creatures around here, due to the fact that everything is toxic, including the swampy water that covers large sections of the ground. There will be no mod directed interactions during this period, besides handling general investigations.

► DAY 136: During the middle of this day, the carnival will finally reach the giant tree. On one hand, the plant-life has become relatively safe again. On the other, the giant tree is the lair of several neutral Wyld Fae who probably won't like the carnival's presence. On the other other hand, maybe those Wyld Fae might be willing to help or offer them directions? It's up to the group to decide if they want to attempt diplomacy, or to stealth past the tree and find their own way. There will be a Megathread on this day, based on however the team decides to handle it.

► DAY 137: Past the area surrounding the big tree, the lush foliage of the forest will begin degrading until nothing is left but dark naked trunks filled with glowing pods of various sizes. It's here that those with a connection to the Hunt will start to get a sense of the Huntsman's presence, and will be drawn in a vague direction. Unfortunately, this will also be their first major brush with the Hunt itself. Hunt patrols skirmish with neutral Wyld Fae in this forest, and the collateral damage of their warfare can be seen all over. The carnival will want to either map out a path through the trees that the fighting can be avoided for the sake of the Summer troops, or give them enough data to be able to handle the threat. How this portion goes will partly depend on the outcome of the previous day's Megathread.

► DAY 138: The forest will open up into the beginnings of a mountain range, with flowing water, luminescent plant life, and the occasional cluster of crystals sprouting from the earth. There are large parties of Hunt controlled Wyld Fae patrolling this area, and so making it through will require careful navigation. As the path becomes more and more mountainous, it will be possible to find routes that mostly avoid the patrols - this information will need to be communicated back to the Summer troops. There will be a Megathread here dealing with a Hunt patrol encounter.

► DAY 139: The mountains will continue to steepen, and the crystal formations will grow more huge and consistent. The air is always cloudy, and the air condition is bad, making it harder to breathe. Weather will become more and more unfavorable the higher into the mountains the carnival gets, with cold winds and lightning that frequently strikes the crystals and causes them to send out bursts of destructive energy. Paths will occasionally crumble. There is still a heavy Hunt presence, here, though they keep to safer trails - the best way to avoid them may indeed be taking the most dangerous routes. It's probably better than being mauled to death by beasts, though. Some distant mountain tops look like the might be volcanoes. There is almost no plant-life here, besides the most stubborn of brambles. By this point, the pull of the Huntsman has grown much stronger.

► DAY 140: The sky clears enough to show a deep red skyline. Barren cliffs are punctuated with rivers of lava, and paradoxically vibrant trees and foliage in erratic spurts. The those in the carnival with a connection to the Hunt will find themselves drawn to a valley in the center of the rocks, absolutely filled with Wyld Fae and other slaves gathered from around the multiverse. This will be the final encounter, and the carnival may have to trust in their Wyld Fae disguises to make it through. There will be multiple Megathreads here, detailing the encounter with the Huntsman and bringing this log to an end.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Being so abruptly pulled over to the Ringmaster — or what's left of her, anyway — startles Childermass out of his own little corner of thought, where he's mostly been trying to focus on not succumbing to the fog. It's as magical as anything else around them and, as ever, he's never had any luck at being resistant to most kinds of faerie magic. At least it earns a slightly more spirited glare out of him than the dull neutrality he's been wearing for most of everyone yelling at RM.

"And if you still cannot, I am leaving, prying your carnival back open, and taking all of your things," he grouches at her when it's finally his turn to speak. He isn't here to give a friendship speech. He actually isn't here to give a 'I'll steal your shit' speech, either, but it's just what comes to him first.

Admittedly, he will likely be dead before there's even a chance of that but it's a fairly good threat to level at a dragon, of all things.

Steven has been awash in his empathic connection to her, and everything that comes with it. It's not easy. The mixture of outpouring his own memories and receiving her pain is a lot to take, and with the fog gnawing at both halves of his body like this... he feels like something is about to short circuit within his complicated genetic makeup.

Still, he gets the idea of what's happening, though mostly from the Ringmaster's own chance in mental state. She's fighting back! And there everyone is, trying to help...

He lets himself float downward with a flap of his wings, wiping away some tears from his face and into his palm. He places it against her head as well, trying to heal her along with the others. Maybe if she can remember the Life side of things, too...

Both the empathic and the Miracle based connection resonates, jolting through him like something electric as they make contact. The decay of her aura hurts, but there's more to it than that...

Steven yelps out loud in pain and alarm, but he's too overwhelmed to voice it with words. The Huntsman is still here, too.

Gongenzaka stumbles- and the closer he gets to everyone else, the more it feels like perhaps he really should just fall over and accept the end. But he presses forward, closer, until he manages to get his hand not upon the Ringmaster- it's a bit too difficult for him to do that- but upon Yuuya. Sucking in a pained breath, he musters just enough of his energy to spur on the healing spell he spent so much time practicing with Yuuya to improve. Maybe, it'll help Yuuya with his own magic toward the Ringmaster.

At the very least, he's there to support them all with what he has left.

In the background to this, Herbert, who had been napping on Jasper's back again on the trip over, has been staring into the fog at the sound of people crying all over this rotten version of the Ringmaster with a decent amount of disdain. Why would that ever work? She's clearly unwell. No amount of pleading with people in comas makes them wake up.

Bothering Jasper gets him dumped off her back again and he opens the tent realm at the very edge of the room, faced as away from the smoke as he can manage. The Ringmaster is full of decay and, he presumes, mainly expressing one half of her person...or however it is that the Miracles work. They're definitely not his field. But one thing is, and that is the defeat of death, the creation of new life. He knows what he needs to do.

In the tent, he puts together a syringe, and carefully fills it with his regenerative reagent from the barrel of it he left in this space over a month ago. He's not fool enough to believe that it will serve to completely defeat whatever it is the Huntsman did to her, but he feels confident it will be enough to tip the scales in the Ringmaster's favour. He steps out and closes the tent door behind him, bracing himself before walking through the fog towards the dragon, syringe at the ready.

This is it. This is his time.

Was it working at all? It’s so hard to tell. By now, the proximity to the fog and Rin’s regeneration have made for nasty oozing ulcers on his skin, and frank blood from his nose and mouth. It won’t be long before they all look just like the poor Ringmaster.

He doesn’t have any more words to say. So instead, he finds one of those bony paws, and just throws his arms around it, hugging as tight as he can. Reddish tears fall from his eyes.

Please... save us one more time, Ringmaster.

Back near the entrance way, a distance from this scene, those that have held back will hear a quiet voice. To some, it may be familiar, but from what may feel like a long time ago.

"Peh," the voice says. "This is taking too long."

It's a quiet remark, made to one's self, but without the care to fully conceal himself from those present. It won't make a difference, he thinks, because in the next moment he's already zipping away from his hiding place in the bones and appearing in the arena, looking down on such a touching display with a look of amused contempt.

"Hope as you may," says Frost, footman of the Winter Queen, "my Queen's thirst for revenge will not be quenched so easily!"

His attack is already prepared. Several shards of ice, black with death, float before him - and as he speaks they will be launched towards everyone who has gotten close to console the Ringmaster. They are already weakened, he thinks.

Should be easy prey.

[OOC: Each black ice shard has a potent death spell on it, and will kill whoever they strike within a minute or two even if the wound itself is not fatal. If it hits a vital area, the death may be instant. You are free to dodge or avoid this (blocking will not work, as it will cut through most spells) but you can also get hit if that appeals to you - plot stuff will enable your character to be saved during this scene.

You may have a wild guess how.]

Of all the things to be right about, an ambush definitely wasn't the best. Zangetsu has been doing his level best to chip away at the ice (with varying levels of success, despite his and Nosh's efforts) when Frost appears and zooms on by.

Zangetsu tears off after him, sliding to a stop at the edge of the arena.

"OI!! FROST IS HERE!"

He only barely manages to get the words out before Frost announces himself anyway.

Cheeky little fucker.

It all happens in mere moments, yet it feels like an eternity. While Carly lays dying, a spec of healing glow upon the Ringmaster, Gongenzaka turns his head to the sound of a chillingly familiar voice.

And then there are the shards of ice.

"NO-"

Gongenzaka's voice is a hoarse whisper- a show of weakness, his legs already buckled to bring him to the ground, and his hand only barely able to cling stubbornly to his friend. A hand is no shield- all he can do is shout-

"YUUYA-!"

Shout and hope, that the stronger of them, can protect them.

Yuya gives Ignatius a grateful look when he helps wrestle the Ringmaster down, because Yuya's certainly too small to not be thrown off if he wasn't. Especially the way that his spell drains him, leaves him weary as he shares his energy with the Ringmaster--for what little good it does. Everyone's calling out to her, but he's already losing his focus on their words. Maybe... he should have practiced more...

A less familiar voice breaks among them, and Yuya tilts his head, glancing around and then--up. At frost. At the ice, pointed, and he knows exactly what's about to happen.

Yuya takes a sharp breath and pulls himself up, twisting to angle himself between the Ringmaster's face and Frost as he covers her. Yuya squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out his shield and thinks only about maintaining the magic, whatever power he's found in himself in all these months needs to come now--

Something shatters. There's a blinding pain in Yuya's back, angled through his waist, and at once he feels hot and freezing, biting cold. He chokes, his throat clogging until her cough and spills blood out of his mouth.

There's no shield, and the light in his fingers starts to fade as well.

While he's not clinging to the Ringmaster, Herbert is close enough to get hit, even if he's still moving and the ice hits him in the shoulder. It hurts, but nothing is more important to him in the moment than his irritation.

"You are interrupting my work--not to mention scientific procedure!" he snaps hoarsely, glaring up at Frost. He tucks the syringe into his pocket so he can toe off one of his dumb cat paw shoes and pick it up with his good arm to huck it at Frost.

He's not very good at throwing, especially when depleted by two kinds of death magic, so it doesn't even reach Frost but he thinks it communicates his point anyway.

Syrlya was mostly letting people who knew the Ringmaster better appeal to her while he braced himself against the death magic--so he's not close enough to the scene that's having ice rained on it.

But he's just as quick to act, dashing around to get Frost in view as he waves his hand, weaving a fireball into the air over it. And then he throws it with speed and precision, watching for the results of his attempt to roast the damn pixie.

Childermass is already whirling around at the sound of Frost's voice, raising a wind in front of himself and Lambert both the second he catches the glint of ice sent flying through the air. It's a pointless effort, an attempt to knock the ice off target.

"Everyone, get down—!" is as much as he gets out before he takes a shard of ice in the shoulder, cutting through his magic as if it were nothing. He staggers back against the Ringmaster and Lambert both.

Edited 2019-02-19 04:03 (UTC)

"What?!" Rin says in a harsh and raspy voice. Frost?! So Winter was here!

But he doesn't have the time to move before one of the ice shards hits him in the gut, the dark death magic seeping into his body. It hurts, it hurts so much, and again he can't turn his regeneration off. It fights back against the potent magic, a losing battle, and only serves to make it hurt more.

"Frost... you son of a bitch!"

Scuttling what energy he has left, he snatches Kurikara from nearby. His body blazes bright blue, especially the open ulcers from the Ringmaster's miasma, and he pours what remains of his life force on the flames like gasoline. With a pained scream, he directs it all toward Frost.

If he's going to die, he's going to go out with a bang.

Amethyst isn't in range when Frost lets his shards of cursed ice fly, but Steven is, and he's too distracted and too weak to summon his shield. She doesn't think about what she's doing, just bounds towards him to put herself between his body and the projectile.

The ice strikes her gem, and she lands on the ground, flickering.

"--nevets-S--"

She really needs to know that he's OK, but the gem damage is making her attempts to speak come out backwards.

Peridot's reaction almost isn't fast enough. The ice misses her by mere millimeters as she lurches back out of the way, the sound of Frost's voice enough of a warning to make her jump back in alarm.

That's when she sees Amethyst take the hit. And then, at that point, she basically feels like that ice has skewered her anyway.

"Amethyst?" she whispers hoarsely, horrified. Her form flickers again. The projectile-- it hit her gem? This can't be happening, no-- Steven. Steven can fix it, can't he? Her mind reels, completely overwhelmed by the decay of her physical form, and by her own dismay. It's one of those moments that feels like a lifetime, time stretching to match the depths of the despair she feels.

Then all at once, she snaps her attention to Frost. Steven can fix Amethyst. He has to. She flat out refuses to think about the alternative. She hasn't got the strength left to use her dragon spell, but there's one power that she knows she can still use. Peridot charges forward, teeth gritted, gauntlet glowing, and calls forth the Vorpal Blade. It appears, hovering by her open palm, and then she whips it forward and flings it at Frost with her metallokinesis, steering it towards him like a pixie-seeking missile.

Steven wouldn't have seen it coming. His thoughts are almost completely outside his body, trying to guide the Ringmaster through this. The rest of his strength is going onto using his healing capabilities - he'd raised the dead before, maybe he could bring back the Life in her somehow. He tries not to think about how much this hurts, and in some ways, it's easy. When there's so much pain all around him he can't really internalize what part of it belongs uniquely to him.

It's actually through the Ringmaster's emotions that he becomes truly aware of what just happened. There's a surge of confusion and defensiveness - and then loss and dismay. Something has just slipped away from them, and they didn't do anything to stop it.

Steven opens his eyes, trying to bring himself back into the real world - but the moment he does, his legs give out under him, and he slips to the ground right next to where Amethyst fell. He hears her speak, and it's a found he couldn't forget. It's the sound of a cracking gem.

He doesn't know what happened. Someone... attacked them? Frost attacked them. Frost. Frost did. Frost, that fucking bastard-

Those thoughts aren't his own. His own thoughts are completely focused on Amethyst, even as his vision swims. He crawls to her side and tries to lift her up, to cradle where her broken gem is... finding tears, this time, is not difficult.

"Amethyst..." he blearily looks around him, and he can see she isn't the only one. Yuya, Gongenzaka, Childermass... "Guys?" What just happened? He can't take it. He can't heal everyone - even now, his own strength is fading more quickly than he can give it away.

"Guys..."

Zangetsu misses the shower of deathly ice shards by virtue of being a distance away. He can only watch as the people he's grown close to these past months go down, one by one -- all because of that stupid pixie, and the stupid Huntsman, and Winter's stupid goddamn meddling.

Besides that, he still needs the Ringmaster. He needs her alive, to help save his world. He wants his stuff back. But more than all that, he wants to make Frost suffer for how he's made his friends suffer. He feels their souls flicker, beginning to fade. He kicks off the ground, cloaking his blade in dark energy. He raises it high above his head, red-edged blackness swirling around it.

"Getsuga--!"

He slashes downward.

"TENSHOU!"

A crescent-shaped arc of pure soul energy surges toward Frost at incredible speed, joining the volley of attacks on the pixie.

Amethyst weakly lifts a hand when she hears Peridot's voice, but her arm just sort of unspools onto the ground. When Steven tries to lift her up her head falls onto the floor. It's goofy as shit but it does mean she is dying; it takes an effort for her to burble out, "KO uoy era, nevetS..."

Childermass staggers into Lambert, and it's a miniscule difference that black ice slams into the gap between bones instead of through Lambert's neck. The witcher whirls, in time to see the shard protruding from Childermass's shoulder, and his eyes widen.

He's too well-trained to drop the light he's holding on to, but it's a near thing. He grabs Childermass as best as he can, supporting his weight and struggling to keep him to his feet. If it's any kin to the magic the Hunstman used on the Ringmaster, he already knows, it's over. Childermass isn't the embodiment of life and death, isn't a miracle. He's the man Lambert loves, and he's dying, with no guarantee that magic held in the shells lying dormant in a pocket dimension will bring them back.

"No." Lambert doesn't scream or shout his denial, ears pinning back against his head as he tries to brace Childermass with one arm, offering the only support he can, because he's got fuck-all to fix this and his voice is choking with useless rage and tears. "No, not like this--"

They'd been so fucking close.

Edited 2019-02-19 05:31 (UTC)

Shoe of principle thrown, Herbert slips off the other one to improve his balance and hunches for a moment. Considering it was just ice, it really is incredibly painful. Draining. He really could have used it hitting his arm, really, glancing off void metal.

But he has better things to do than yell at a pixie. Clenching his jaw, he straightens and walks the rest of the way to the Ringmaster, checking for whatever part of her is the most fleshy. And then, unless she or someone else actively stops him, he goes to inject her with reagent.

Childermass manages to keep his legs under him with the support from Lambert, though he does lean heavily against the witcher just to do so. For something so simple looking, the chill it causes to spread through him from his shoulder is startling. He shouldn't be bothered by the cold. He's gotten so used to it by now and then this happens? How can he freeze to death after everything that's happened, everything that's been changed about him? Isn't that unfair?

He reaches up, hand hovering over where it the shard is stuck. Black ice to go with black blood and black clothing, he supposes. He doesn't touch it, though, thinking better of it even as he answers Lambert's choked words with his own fading voice, "It's only my shoulder. I've had worse. This... this won't even leave a scar, I'm sure..."

Ignatius hates the fact that he wasn't anticipating this. He got too distracted with everything else. The idea of all the carnival members wasting away in here had preoccupied his thoughts, to the point that he didn't keep an eye out for an ambush.

He can't help but feel like he should have done better.

One of the ice shards strikes him in the side, though the ribs, and the feeling is immediately familiar. It's the kind of thing that is rare but expected on the battlefield. He received a wound similar to this a long time ago, before being captured by the Winter Court. The associations are immediately unpleasant.

The ice part doesn't bite as hard as it might have in the past, though. That part he has some control over. As for the rest... he doesn't scream or panic. After feeling the hit, he just exhales as calmly as he can imagine, and lets go of the Ringmaster so that he can take a knee on the ground.

He visually confirms that Rita hasn't been hit. Then, he siphons some of his own strength through the connection in their Hearts.

"Rita," he manages, his voice a bit muffled by the tar-like fae blood that's now in his mouth. He is clearly focusing very hard on staying calm. "Do something about him, could you?"

He doesn't trust himself to control his own magic after taking a hit like this, so he funnels what he can to Rita instead

As the shards fly towards those nearest to the Ringmaster, Rita lunges forward, hoping to share in the protection of Yuya's shield, as she has before. She doesn't make it there in time, but she gets close enough to clearly see the black shard pierce through the boy.

"Yuya--!" she chokes out in horror, stopping dead in her tracks.

That magic... Death... And he isn't the only one struck with it. Childermass, and... As she spots Ignatius, her gaze is transfixed on that shard in his side, her fists tightening so hard her knuckles turn white. It's all she can do to keep from shaking. She looks up at Frost with rage in her eyes, opens her mouth to yell something...

But she stops as Ignatius speaks. Do something about him? She would have thought he'd tell her to get away. Of course she wants to rip that little freak to shreds, but his encouragement is unexpected. That is, until she feels a surge of power in her heart, and immediately, she understands.

"You're dead!" she shrieks at Frost, seemingly having lost whatever other words she was trying to muster up a moment earlier. In an instant, her body erupts into pale white flames, and it's in this elemental form that she launches herself into the air and charges at Frost. She conjures in one hand a whip made of more of the same flames, and as Rin's own fire flies at him, she moves at a different trajectory before lashing out with the blazing weapon, hoping to catch Frost should he try to evade that first attack.

Yuusei's further proximity from the Ringmaster allows him to avoid becoming a target to Frost's strike, and he can thusly only watch in horror as the shards of ice shoot forward toward those giving a more productive effort. He can only hope that everyone will make it out alright. It's hard to tell from here, but the magic emanating from the strikes feels stiflingly cold and heavy.

Being closer to the back, however, puts him closer to Frost himself. He's never encountered this pixie himself before, but it was obvious from the beginning he was nothing but trouble to show up. With the culmination of everyone's rage, right now...

Yuusei lunges at Frost himself, intending to grab him and hold him still with two sets of arms while the pixie anticipates the others' attacks, hoping that his own lack of magic will keep attention off of him. The least he can do is help everyone stay on target with the little bastard.

Yugo stayed further behind as well, working to ignore the nagging will of the Huntsman. As much as he felt the urge to similarly encourage the Ringmaster with raw and heartfelt words, self-doubt reared up its ugly head again.

But then eventually Frost appears, making what's already gone to a slow and agonizing hell thanks to that fog of death. One by one the carnival seems to begin to fall...

"Yuya...!!!" It's bad enough when he can see that Carly won't last much longer, he has to get over there!

And so he moves to do exactly that. There's nothing of use in his skillset, but emotion rules over logic.

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