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

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth starts awake at the sound of buzzing so close to his ear, and even before his eyes are open, his left hand snatches reflexively to grab the offending-- book?

His gaze follows his hand and he looks at it, momentarily puzzled. Was he having some kind of dream, and his mind interpreted the noise incorrectly? Why would a falling or thrown book be... hovering?

At last he looks around, spotting Maleficent nearby.]

...really? [Did she just magic a book at him?]

[medeiun]

[ He grasps the book so quickly, even before being consciously aware of it — a fact Maleficent won't soon forget. She's... still under the assumption he's hardly human himself, though she still isn't quite certain what he is. Clearly, he has frightful reflexes.

There's a smile that she doesn't suppress, one that's impish, and more than a little mean-spirited. She's amused, watching him spot her, casting her smile right to her victim (at least it's only something as harmless as a rude awakening....) ]

Did I interrupt a pleasant dream? [ She drawls in the same cool tone as when she'd first met him. She's being a shit, but sometimes one must. ]

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth's expression softens into a faint amusement--but less at her little joke and more because of a private irony at her question. Pleasant dreams? What are those?]

I don't know. It's been banished by the thought of insects swarming.

[He closes the book to glance at its cover, in case it's one he might actually want to read later. ... No, he's already read it.

He stands then, intent on returning it to its rightful place, though there's a slight hesitation before he steps away from the chair. He's constantly encountering new magic here, more varied and nuanced than he knows. Even this aimless display of... what, telekinesis? It's unfamiliar.]

[medeiun]

How unfortunate. [ Maleficent says, as though she doesn't find it unfortunate at all. Ruffling the feathers of people she's still not too familiar with may be a dangerous thing, but it's really all a harmless bit of (rude) fun.

....Besides, she's bored, and he's one of the few in this place whose company she finds useful; he's been someone to actually provide helpful information. His experience with strange technology, the shared viewpoint that no one here should quite be trusted... Maleficent doesn't have to worry about this one wandering off into one of this place's various traps and sticking his hands into it the way many of the hapless humans she's encountered have. He has some goddamn sense. ]

Was the book that uneventful so as to put you to sleep? [ ...Is her way of asking about what he's been reading. ]

[unkindled_madness]

[To be fair to the hapless humans, he did attempt to stab one of the traps which was about as successful as sticking one's hand in it. But she doesn't have to know about that as long as Saxsice keeps her mouth shut.

Placing the book back in its place, he turns back to her and shakes his head.]

I simply find this place more... appealing than either of the temples. [To sleep in, and in general.]

There are some dull volumes, but even they typically have some redeeming information.

[medeiun]

[ She's read her fair share of books here, but hasn't found much in terms of information on this place or its rules. And certainly no spell books or anything of that nature. They mostly seem to be fictional: novels, stories, the sorts of things humans read. ]

Have any of them taught you anything helpful about our situation here? [ She wonders, crossing her arms lightly over her chest, moving a little further into the room. Quietly, but with that sweeping gesture that accompanies her by default, when one has a large pair of wings behind one's back.

....At least this time there are no swirling, dancing bodies around to work to avoid. The quiet stillness is nice; it's almost easy to forget that this place is all essentially a prison. ]

[unkindled_madness]

...no. Not really.

[That was what he was hoping for when he first came here. Information on the Ancient, on the island, and yes, perhaps even spell books, if there are other ways to do magic. But on any of those subjects, he's come up empty-handed.]

However, if I'm to be surrounded by people from Earth, then I'd prefer to know something about it. They have helped with that.

[medeiun]

And what have you learned of people from Earth? [ She lifts her hand to a nearby shelf then, and with another swirl of magic, draws the closest book from it. Despite its noticeable bulk, it glides smoothly to her hand, and she examines its cover as she listens.

A directory, it seems, of words and terms.... a dictionary. Useful, perhaps, in understand certain terminology around here — but not what she was hoping for. She is not a scholar, does not have any need to learn for the sake of knowledge. It must have a use, and for her, power is use. It's why she continues to use her own abilities, even if carefully. ]

[unkindled_madness]

[He watches that magic very closely, as though he might learn how to do it himself. He doesn't really think so, but... why not study it?]

...that their world is rather larger than mine, with many more nations to wage war against each other. Magic is largely disbelieved, and the only history is human history. They seem to know nothing of the life of their own planet.