polylogs | Carcosa, pt. 2

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Carcosa, pt. 2

✖ 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!

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.

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.

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

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I. THE TEMPLE

Grumpypants is indeed still here.

This time, no nosebleeds, but Harrow is attempting to get a different perspective on Carcosa. Which means that she is literally lying on her back on her bed with her head hanging over the edge, seriously contemplating the ceiling. This is the kind of thing she would never expect another person to interrupt, but she doesn't understand the majority of other people.

At least she has her normal skull facepaint, now.

II. PET SHOP

There's no appeal to a speakeasy for Harrow. The drinking at the masquerade was bad enough, and while she enjoyed the music more than she's going to admit, she is staying away from places with alcohol forevermore.

The front part, though? That's got her attention, both because it sells bones for dogs to chew on and them being smoked has not stopped her from collecting a few to experiment with later (the result will probably be cow skeletons that look like they've been smoked) and because the animals--

Well, they exist, and Harrow is staring squint-eyed with the academic curiosity of someone assessing a thing they have never before seen.

IV. OUT WALKING ...

Between the pet shop and the streets, Harrow has gotten a bit of human bone. Thank you to whomever shot someone; the littlest shard broke off, and Harrow was able to get her hands upon 100% genuine human bone. Who cares how small it is, this is the perfect opportunity to begin something.

She's not walking out there without protection, anyway. She has no cavalier, she has no ~~fucking possessed~~ sword, she has very little bone. But she does have one normal-sized human skeleton, approximately six feet tall, and also a very small cow skeleton (it's also brown, because it is made out of a dog treat and has been smoked) approximately the size of an Australian shepherd. Harrow does not know how big they should be, and after being smoked, the bones can't remember either. But she's out taking them for a walk: just a very short girl, her human-tall skeleton, and their dog-sized smoked cow. Veering in and out amongst the chaos.

She's also able to help the injured, and if you've broken a bone or something! she may stop to assist.

V. WILDCARD

[toss me anything you like!]

Edited 2021-06-09 16:53 (UTC)

[Clearly Harrow has never met Saxsice, who is possessed with a) irrepressible curiosity and b) the secure confidence that everyone wants to be her best friend. Therefore she plops down with her back against the bed, cross-legged on the ground, right up in Harrow's bubble and looks at the opposite wall for a long moment, intent.

Then, in an undertone:] What're we lookin' at?

[ Down to the way she moves, the way it's said, something flickers across Harrow's memory as this is familiar, though it isn't Saxsice herself that is familiar. However, it reminds Harrow enough of something someone else may or may not have done that she doesn't actually rudely jerk away.

Or even politely move away. Or sigh, which is her first instinct: she does not actually know, she may be finding a brilliant ally here. ]

Nothing in particular. We ... [ Okay, why not. Nav would be proud of her now. ] are thinking.

[Saxsice hums softly in agreement, slouching a little more against the bed and hugging one knee to her chest. Her foot taps a couple times, metronome-like.] Gotcha. Thinkin'.

[Tap. Taptap.] ...what're we thinkin' about?

I have been thinking about where to get more quality bone, and what it is we are meant to be learning from this place.

[ She is now watching Saxsice's foot move, because it draws her eyes, and because it's interesting. Her thalergy is interesting. There's something different about it. ]

You may be thinking about the second, as well, but perhaps not?

From dead things. [Saxsice says this promptly, like it's some sort of quiz and she's pleased to have the answer. Then she grimaces, the tapping foot pausing momentarily.] I'm thinkin' that I'm mad at havin' my life interrupted cause of someone else's need to play god.

[The tapping resumes.] But yeah, more or less.

Yes, very good -- [ Harrow had started, and then realizes mid-sentence that Saxsice really does have a point. She's helped her come to a realization. ]

Which seems to be happening in droves outside occasionally. All those people shooting. I should be able to find some then. Good idea. I ... suppose I have a different situation to most that my life was not interrupted.

[ She has no idea why she's disclosing. There's something comfortable about the woman that Harrow has never experienced in a human. It's totally the way that introverts migrate to the family dog at a party surrounded by strangers, but she's also never met a dog before so isn't aware that's what she's doing on any level. ]

Oh, yeah, loads of bodies. Bones. Whatever. [Saxsice nods seriously, thumping her heels on the ground a couple times, still unsure of what this stranger's motivation might be for getting lots of dead things. To each their own, right?

Then she frowns, sympathetically, head tilted to one side.] Ohhh, didja die? [Tact is...not something she has in spades.]

That sure is a human skeleton just strolling by. And a cow. A small cow, but a cow; Kyle knows cows, he grew up around them so even without skin and muscle he recognises it for what it is.

He's in physical pain from having a bullet graze his arm but that is entirely forgotten for the moment because spooky scary skeletons.

"Uh," he says intelligently. "Excuse me. Sorry. Is... Are you aware there's skeletons following you?" Because if she's not, it's possible he's just lost it and started hallucinating.

Harrow does not grin, because that would be weird. But part of her is walking on air: she has her skeletons back, and people are noticing them.

On the other hand, people are noticing them.

"Yes," Harrow says fondly, looking back to make sure that it's just the ones she expected. "Those tw—what happened?"

Her tone is less concerned for his arm and more generally curious. "Are you aware that you are wounded."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. It's nothing serious, I just got shot at." He pauses. "And burnt, a little. There was an explosion..."

He moves a little closer as he speaks, staring at the skeletons.

"Are they yours? Well, not YOURS yours, I mean are you their owner or whatever. And how'd you find a cow so small?"

"Burnt and shot at. Of course, nothing serious at all. I am not the best with flesh magic, but if you would like your skin knit back together or your pain relieved—"

It is so strange to offer, so unlike her. But she is of the First House now, a Saint who should be offering. Sharing her ability for good, whether or not her ScryWatch agrees (presumably it would).

(Also, it's orange: maybe that makes it clear why she's stilted when offering.)

"Yes, they are mine. I made them—oh, is it small?" Harrow squints at Kyle, and then at the cow. "I've never seen one before, so I was guessing. I just had a single bone from the pet shop. How tall should it be?" If he wants to keep being shot at and burnt and exploded upon while explaining to her how to refine her cow, that's not something she'll argue with: it is a life choice. It may not be what she would consider the best choice, but it is a choice.

"I mean... you should have seen the other guy." Which isn't a boast so much as it is a fact. Comparatively, he's doing great. "But, I mean. Sure. You can do that?"

A bit of a stupid question when she can clearly animate dead things. It's not like this is some average person, clearly.

"Oh, yeah. Cows are pretty big, they're like... five feet tall probably? Wait, how'd you make a whole cow from one bone?" He pauses as it occurs to him that she got the human skeleton SOMEwhere. Oh dear.

She totally got it from the undead guys on the beach that she made double-dead with her elephant skeleton from Anne Bonny's ivory knife, but ... that's not important right now.

"I can make any whole skeleton from any part of it, so long as the part is bony tissue. So," because Harrow doesn't expect most people to know that, "bones or ligaments or, usually, teeth. For some animals apparently that is not the case." She concentrates on the cow and it grows. She's guessing five feet at the shoulders, which makes the whole cow five feet tall when it hangs its head, which is about right, at least.

The skelecow moves its jaw around as if it's chewing its cud. It looks like it should moo. It does not moo, because it doesn't have vocal chords.

"Does this look right? And like I said, my flesh magic is not good, but I am at least willing to try, if you will let me see the wound."

Since being abducted into this hellish game of supposed self improvement, Kyle has met several people that have powers. Be they genetic or magic or what, it's quickly become apparent that his fellow Travelers can do some pretty weird shit.

"Right, not cartilage or whatever," he says before staring as the cow skeleton grows.

"Uh. Yeah, yeah, wow. That's about perfect." Something occurs to him belatedly. "You've never seen a cow?"

Does he dare risk creepy magic? Fuck it, he's done stupider. "Yeah, sure, uh, I gotta take my shirt off, is that okay?" Like his pasty flesh might be blinding.

"Cartilage can fall under bone for my purpose but rarely does," explains the once-bone adept, who is now a bone adept plus and technically could form cartilage just as easily as she can form ligaments, but ... she doesn't like to. It's weird and something that Mercymorn the First should be doing, if only she were there to.

Harrow never thought she'd miss the awful woman, but sometimes, here and there ...

"Right, though. Not muscles and so on. This is the first cow I have ever seen, so thank you for elucidating for me. I have seen skin before," she adds. Lots of it, in fact. Even been wrapped in it. "You won't traumatize me, though I can understand being uncomfortable with any level of nudity."

Since Harrow would never take her shirt off outside, but she is also not injured.

Sometimes in life, you form attachments to people you probably shouldn't. Kyle would knwo all about that.

"Do you have cows where you're from? Like at all?" he asks as he starts working out of his era-appropriate clothes. What he wouldn't give for just jeans and a t-shirt.

There's a wound along his upper left arm where a bullet grazed him - he has it wrapped in bandages but it still smarts. His back has some bandages as well, underneath which are blisters from the explosion. His arms have some minor abrasions and cuts as well, mostly from the fall after said explosion.

He's had a rough month.

With Harrow, it's like, everyone—she hates them all equally and loves so many of them equally, but won't say that. She's learning. Slowly.

"No," is her simple answer, as she surveys the damage. She's not looking just physically; she's busy looking necromantically. Her form of necromancy can be used to heal as well as it can harm. As a Lyctor, she can now find injuries and ... encourage them to knit back together. How well it works is going to depend on her level of focus and Kyle's body's level of responsiveness, but she's trying.

Anything minor should clear up pretty quickly, and the deeper wound, well, the lower levels should heal, leaving it still seeping fluid but greatly decreasing discomfort and increasing mobility.

"Other Houses—planets, in this case it means planets, I keep forgetting how people hear that—other Houses might have cows. Mine does not."

Kyle's immune system has never been the greatest, so it proved a little resistant at first before succumbing to the powers working at healing it. The feeling is extremely strange, so Kyle tries to focus on conversation instead.

"What's it like there? You don't seem too phased by the buildings and stuff so I'm guessing it's not THAT far off from this place."

Clarke is just out exploring when she sees the girl approaching from the opposite direction with -- yup, those are definitely skeletons. A human and a ... calf, she supposes? She can't help but stare. That sure isn't normal.

She realizes she's stopped and is staring as the girl gets within greeting range. It's a little too late to just turn and walk the other way with extreme prejudice, and besides, she's curious.

"How'd you get them to do that?"

The answer Harrow wants to give is how does no one know the answer to that, but as of yet no individual has deserved enough of (read: any) of her ire to actually get that answer. She considers Clarke with a complete lack of external expression, and the human skeleton tilts its head at the identical angle that Harrow is doing.

The tiny cow doesn't, but it does swing its tiny tail vertebrae.

"I told them to walk with me," she says, finally, after that moment of deciding if she was going to answer the question at all. Some people did genuinely want to learn. It was close enough to an answer that made sense, as she hadn't used words.

"Huh."

It takes a lot to faze Clarke these days. She wouldn't say she's scared of animated skeletons, but it's unsettling enough that it takes her a good long moment to come up with a followup remark.

"They don't do that where I'm from."

Dead things didn't listen -- except when they were implanted into a person's head -- and people didn't actually command the dead, no matter what own her title had been among the Grounders.

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Carcosa, pt. 2

harrowhark nonagesimus 💀 ota

i. temple

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Walkabout

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iv

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