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?

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[what_fourth_wall]

"IF I KILL YOUSH I GETS MOAR MOVIES!!!"

Okay, so he's being kind of a belligerent drunk at this point, but to be fair it isn't every day you're confronted with the face you wanted for YOUR movie that kept you from having that movie for a decade.

The leg works to force them apart, sending Deadpool rolling off to the side. He lands near one of his tommy guns, which he picks up and immediately starts firing in Hal's direction. The aim is extremely wild, though, and several bystanders are hit. There is the usual screaming and pandemonium that comes with people getting shot.

Welp. Looks like his Scry Watch might be shifting towards more red this month. Oops. Well, he tried.

[aviate]

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Hal doesn't get much of an opportunity to consider if the drunk guy is just yelling things or if there's something coherent in there before he's up and shooting wildly, forcing Hal to duck for cover. He swears under his breath and once again tries to summon his ring from whatever corner of the galaxy it was left in.

It doesn't work.

Right, it was going to be up to him and his wits to stop the number of civilian casualties from escalating. He peeks over the car he hid behind and shouts over, hoping to get his attention again.

"Hey, asshole! How about you pick on someone who can shoot back?"

[what_fourth_wall]

"BAD MOOOOOVIES!!!" It really makes no sense unless you're inside Deadpool's head, which is not a place anyone wants to be, and also exactly what you'd expect from someone so hammered.

Fortunately, Hal's situational awareness has him dodging and ducking in a direction that where there are less civilians to accidentally hit. Unfortunately, Deadpool does not really care about if anyone can shoot back or not.

"Thish is REVENGE, you stupid shpace lepercon!!! It's easier if you DON'T have a gun!!!" And he keeps firing. Wildly. Missing a whole lot. One of the guns jams and he just throws it at Hal before firing the one he has left. "There you can have that one. I hate you. You made me kill people."

Or at least severely hurt with bullets. Some civvies sure aren't looking great.

"Ashole." His tone is downright petulant.

[aviate]

Alright, he gets the gist that this guy knows what Hal's day job is and is holding a grudge against him. Is he some minor villain he stopped once? He doesn't know how everyone handles their Rogues gallery. There were so many things to keep track of.

"I didn't make you do anything! You were shooting before I even got here!"

Hal reaches out for the discarded with the intention of keeping it out of the way except that poop throwing monkey has made a reappearance and runs off with it. That wouldn't come back to become an issue, right? The gun was jammed.

[what_fourth_wall]

"At the SHKY!!!!!" It seemed an important distinction. And perhaps it was - you couldn't kill the sky. Normally. This game had some pretty Cthulu undertones, so maybe that was less true here.

Somewhere, the monkey is shrieking in triumph and excitement. The monkey has a gun! The monkey has a gun! But it won't fire, so the monkey pauses and just kind of bashes it on the ground.

"You're jush jealous because I have movies now and you DON'T" He pauses. "Exschept some shtupid Shneider outtake. That's rough, buddy."

[aviate]

"Feel free to keep shooting at the sky then!" He really doesn't want any sort of movie involving him and now he's wondering if anyone tried making one about the League. Sometimes he's glad he doesn't spend too much time on Earth.

The monkey bashing the gun on the ground seems to unjam it somehow and a few shots are sent their way as it bashes the gun. Hal hasn't moved from where he's been taking shelter so any that comes his way is mercifully blocked. He wouldn't be able to live it down if he had to explain he got shot by a monkey.

[what_fourth_wall]

"I CAN'T BECAUSE I SHTOLE YOUR FACE AN' I WANNA KEEP IT!!"

Although really, given his aim, he was pretty much shooting at the sky constantly here. The monkey has better aim, in point of fact, but it's aiming at whatever amuses it. So...Hal, Deadpool, gangsters, and any bystanders dumb enough to still be bystanders.

"OW. THE MONKEY SHOT ME!!!" Deadpool hops around, holding the foot the monkey had shot, waving his gun with his free hand. "YOU WERE SHPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE!!!"

Oh, but the monkey was on his own side. And was having entirely too much fun shooting at anything that moved to stop.

[aviate]

"You're wearing a mask, no one's even looking at your face!"

Maybe just maybe, going along with whatever insanity will distract this guy long enough to shut this all down. It's either that or wait until they run out of bullets and dragging this out any more than strictly necessary was putting way too many people at risk.

The monkey screeches back at Deadpool's indignation. It's unclear whether it's in response to what he's saying or the noise is just upsetting the poor thing.

[what_fourth_wall]

"That'sh not the POINT!!" He pulls off the Deadpool mask so that Hal can see the Ryan Reynolds mask-face beneath. "SEE!! MY FACE NOW!!"

In the background, the gangsters had just gotten on to robbing the store. After all, they were pros at this and what they had in the guy they'd picked up from the bar was a bonafide distraction. Hell, it was the best distraction they'd ever had. They'd pay him a good cut, assuming he stopped distracting himself in time to jump on the getaway car when they were done.

"Where's your RING, anyway, huh? Where's youR SEQUEL!!!"

[aviate]

Is that some random celebrity's face he's wearing as a mask? Hal doesn't spend enough time on Earth to recognise the celebrity in question, but he doesn't think he looks anything like that (he has better hair).

"I don't look anything like that! You can have it!"

He's definitely not going to respond to that shot about his ring. Let him think whatever he wanted, it wasn't charged, he'd lent it to someone, etc. There was nothing to be gained from making it clear he doesn't have it at all.

By now it's clear humouring the guy isn't going to do anything. He's clearly insane and a fist to the face was the way to go. Hal's fearless, but even he knows better than to run straight at someone with a gun so instead he grabs someone's grocery bag that was abandoned when this all started and swings it a couple of times from the behind the safety of his current barrier before poking over the edge to let it throw it straight towards the crazy man.

Shoot that, asshole.

[what_fourth_wall]

For a moment, Deadpool is confused. His meta vision, especially when drunk, had him seeing Hal as Ryan Reynolds, albeit over a decade younger. But this guy was saying he didn't look like Ryan Reynolds?

"YOU NEED TO GO TO A MOOVIE!"

A bag of groceries comes flying at him, and sure enough, he does shoot at it. And he actually hits it!! And...jug of milk explodes and sprays him with white fluid.

"GAH! YOU JUST GAVE ME A HAL FACIAL!!" He drops the gun and starts pawing at the liquid all over his face as if he can get it off. He can't, but he sure tries.

[aviate]

This time round Hal is better prepared as the first thing he does is to get the gun away from them as far as possible. He's also learnt his lesson and is going to ignore most of what this lunatic says as it seems to either be nonsense or insulting.

Now that they're on a more even footing, he can actually try to do something here. Ideally he'd get him restrained until whatever local authority could take him in or failing that at least get him to leave before more people could get caught up in this mess.

"Yeah yeah, keep crying about it."

And then he's aiming a punch at his head.

[what_fourth_wall]

"If crying is your kink, I won't shame it!!"

Punching Deadpool in the head is not hard right now. He is entirely too drunk to be very skilled at much. In fact, he just squirms under Hal uselessly, so if Hal wants to keep punching, he won't find much resistance.