Carcosa, pt. 2

[polymods]

✖ Carcosa

Ⅰ. CARCOSA
You Are Still Here.

Another month, and you’re still in the city of Carcosa! Isn’t that just wonderful?

You still have access to the city’s temple and the High Temple.

The side effects you may have suffered from throughout the month of May are now at an end - if you had a pesky mask glued to your face the whole time it will now fall off. You might need a little moisturizer, but otherwise you’ll be just fine.

You could sit around inside the relative safety of the temples, of course, but why not get out there and explore the city some more? Come on, grumpypants!

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Ⅱ. SPEAK EASY
CW: Optional alcohol consumption.
What kind of pet shop is filled with rambunctious yahoos and hot jazz music at 1 AM? That's right - the best damn pet shop in town! Sidle up to the back door of Curly's Pet Shop and a panel will open enough to reveal a pair of eyes. "What's the password?" you'll be asked. Whatever word first comes to your mind, well, that apparently is correct because you're let in at once.

The front of the building definitely does indeed house fish and birds and kittens, but the back room is definitely not a good place to find a new animal companion; you find yourself in a crowded little room with low lighting and a small bar crammed into one corner. There's seats and some tables, and most importantly there's a band playing jazz music across from the bar.

Why not take a seat and have a drink? It's probably not paint thinner. Probably. Maybe you'll spot some of your fellow Travelers and you can sit and have a chat. Make a new friend who can hold your hair back if you party too hard.

And you better hope that the place doesn’t get raided!

Notes:
1. The drinks are all era-appropriate - you’re not getting Redbull with vodka here - and even if your character has non-human physiology they will work the same as they would on a baseline human. That’s right, your magic or your healing-factor or your vampire blood is no match for these Gin Rickeys!

2. If Curly’s does get raided while you’re there, you can run and hide or choose to engage with the police, who are armed and not too shy about opening fire if you go on the offensive. As with the rest of the regular residents of Carcosa, the officers are human and can be killed. Killing them may affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation. (Is it beneficial to personal growth to kill in order to save someone else, for example? You tell me!)

3. Did you want a pet from the front of the building? Well, just remember that baby turtles and alligators might SEEM like a good idea, but they grow up! Also any animal you take will not travel with you to the next island. So sorry.

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Ⅲ. EXPRESSIONISM YOURSELF
CW: Optional paranoia, hallucinations.
If you wander the streets at night, you may find yourself getting turned around. You'll find that the streets have lost their many lights, and the beautiful and delicate art deco architecture has given way to something much more stark and heavy. The buildings are block-like, but they curve in exaggerated ways that hurt the eye if looked at too long. All are in blacks and whites and greys. Nothing looks quite real, but you can walk along just fine. Probably better not to go off alone, though.


Periodically you will encounter that pesky sign of some sort painted on the walls. If you follow the sigils, you will eventually be led to a long staircase that winds down and down until it finally terminates in a large white room lit by a few electric lanterns. There's black paint there, with brushes. Maybe you're feeling creative?

Notes:
1. You’re pretty sick of this stupid sigil, aren’t you? In fact, you consider yourself QUITE the detective and have been searching after its meaning! Or maybe you played Call of Cthulhu a lot in college, you nerd!

Painting the sigil on the wall will cause you to feel disoriented and paranoid until you leave the white room. From that point on you can discover a copy of a play entitled The King In Yellow anywhere in the city you choose. Reading the first act of the play has no effect on you, however if you choose to read beyond the first line of the second act you will spend the rest of the month suffering from periodic hallucinations, often of a tall man in a pallid mask.

2. While there is no compulsion to paint, choosing to work out any of your character’s issues through art therapy can be reflected in your Scrywatch colour if it is significant enough.

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Ⅳ. AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER
CW: Optional gun violence, injury.
Art? Theatre? Music? BAH! Boring!

Maybe your tastes are a little more on the dangerous side? Whatever this island may be, it seems to offer plenty of opportunities to get into the seedy underbelly. Maybe you feel the need to steal a car, rob a bank, transport some illegal hooch for a smiling fellow in a yellow fedora. Grab your tommy guns, kids, it's time to outrun the Feds!

Naturally, you could wind up injured having all of this fun, but surely you could get some help from your fellow Travelers, either directly or by having them haul you to some sort of underground doctor. These doctors do exist, although it might take a while to get referred to one by a local.

You might also find yourself under arrest and stuck in an old-timey jail cell for a month. What fun!

Notes:
1. As was stated in the first prompt, the regular residents of Carcosa are normal humans. Killing them is possible and may affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation. Any weapons you find are era-appropriate.

2. You can break out of jail if you’re resourceful enough.

3. The underground doctors aren’t working in a real hospital for a reason. In fact, some of them might be less doctors and more, well. Vets.

You still jamming to that Carcosa playlist?

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Comments

ii

[aviate]

[Hal is nursing an ale which has worked out far better for him. He's had better, but he's also had worse.]

Wine's harder to pull off when you're stuck in the prohibition era.

And when in Rome... [He gestures around the room where most people seem to be holding an ale.]

[cryptsleeper]

[Well there's a new word. Alucard pauses very, very pointedly when it is said. The differences of time between himself and others tossed into this nonsense had not been a surprise, but inquiry would be useful at this point.]

I hope I never live to see it properly.

[Ale though. Ugh. The dhampir's nose wrinkles. He's not Trevor Belmont for god's sake, he has some self respect.]

[aviate]

Yeah, it probably sounds better than actually living it. [He does, however hold up his drink.] Although this holds up better than I thought it would.

[cryptsleeper]

I imagine it is some time in my future, thankfully.

[Buddy y'all ain't even gotten to the right landmass yet back in 1476.]

What are the contents?

[aviate]

Uh, no alcohol allowed anywhere so everyone ends up making it in their backyards with [He shoots a meaningful look at Alucard's glass.] varying levels of success.

What year is it for you?

[cryptsleeper]

1476. [And, as a point of clarification, as it seems rather pertinent.] In Wallachia. The Ottomans are mostly getting their way with turning the country into a vassal state.

[aviate]

[He has no idea where Wallachia is meant to be.]

Well good news. You're about 500 years too early and that sounds you're somewhere in Europe so wrong country too.

[cryptsleeper]

[Romania, but it'll be a few centuries before that yet.]

--500 years sounds like a fair enough lead time.  [thank god.]  On the Balkan peninsula, near the Black Sea.  I presume there's been a name change or two since then.

[aviate]

Alright, so definitely Europe I just have no idea what it would be called now other than not Turkey.

[Is it really his fault, he's more familiar with space rather than Earth geography?]

[cryptsleeper]

[Turkey? Alucard sighs, that name is far less interesting.]

I suppose geographic knowledge wasn't a requirement for most people back home either.

[What 1400s peasant even needed that information?]

[aviate]

At least I know how to read and write.

[He's not sure he likes the education comparison with people who lived hundreds of years ago.]

[cryptsleeper]

There is that, but the way you say it makes it feel a little underwhelming, giving the importance of education.

[So you know, give yourself a little credit.]

[aviate]

It's a little hard to when stuff like electricity would probably be considered magic in your time.

[He has an excuse!!]

[cryptsleeper]

For most. [There's a light enough shrug.] My father as a polymath and four centuries old, I grew up with it.

[aviate]

[Squinting.] Are you supposed to be a god too?

[cryptsleeper]

[There's a wrinkle of the nose, along with a shake of the head to the question.]

A dhampir, nothing more grandiose than that.

[aviate]

You're saying that like I'm supposed to know what that means.