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]

[Well, if she's going to explain, then he's taking advantage.]

...how long do they last? Your constructs. They follow your command or do they have some autonomy without you?

[necrosaint]

They're lasting as long as I want them to last; most are permanent. They will follow commands that include being able to make some specific or basic decisions. Most of the constructs I make that I don't shrink down again are farmers. They tend fields. That they can do autonomously.

[ Harrow is trying to learn to be nice. She can answer questions about necromancy all day, too. ]

Essentially they do the task for which they are constructed. Farming, or defending me in battle — the latter will wear on me, though, as they aren't very intelligent so I have to direct them necromantically to some extent.

[unkindled_madness]

Hm. Impressive.

[Sephiroth is not trying to learn to be nice, though it's true he rarely gives genuine compliments.]

But, I suppose they don't know anything of what they once were.

[necrosaint]

No, [ Harrow agrees, with a single curt nod, ] Mine are not ensouled. I do not have souls to put in them, and the souls are long gone from the bone.

I have seen them ensouled, but they needed souls to place there. If you have a spare soul, I might put it in a skeleton, but unless you had both parts it would not be its own.

[unkindled_madness]

A spare soul... [He shakes his head, amused by the concept, before he's back to business:]

I had wondered if there was anything to be learned from the undead on the beach. I assume you encountered them?

[necrosaint]

I didn't exactly stop to chat, I threw a skeletal construct at them since they were bent on attacking other people I was trying to converse with.

[ Now, Harrow smiles proudly. ]

It turns out if you stab them in the head with tusks—apparently the skeleton was called an "elephant," if you know those—they die again.

No souls to speak of there either. I did get a couple of phalanges though.

[unkindled_madness]

No, I'm not familiar with elephants.

[He pauses for a moment, thoughtful.]

Can you discern any difference between the bones of those undead, and those of the inhabitants of this city?

[necrosaint]

I didn't examine that closely, but — no. They seemed to just be people. Who had then become undead, through means which I cannot identify; no necromancer did that.

The water may have, it could have been infectious.

[ Harrow may have no idea where they came from, but it didn't stop her from keeping some of their bones. Just in case! It might be useful someday. And it makes her feel whole again, to have a collection. ]

[unkindled_madness]

Hm.

Or at the least, it was a necromancy unfamiliar to you. None of the magic I've seen here is what I know.

[necrosaint]

[ Harrow bristles a little at the idea there might be necromancy she doesn't know. But that is, at least, not his fault. ]

It seems that 'it takes all kinds' is a truth.

[unkindled_madness]

[Inadvertantly insulting her necromancy skills again!]

...I suppose. The universe is certainly more varied than I imagined.

[necrosaint]

[ But him she'll forgive because he doesn't have any reason to know better, and has been Not Awful to her. In a way she can relate to. It's all good. ]

I would prefer not to meet other necromancers, I think.

[ They might challenge her ego. ]

Other types, rather; others from the Nine Houses would be fine.

[unkindled_madness]

Oh?

Do you imagine you would find yourself unable to learn from them?

[necrosaint]

[ That's a good point Harrow can't argue against. ]

No, I was concerned about the types who people apparently think evil who would just keep trying to challenge me to duels. I find dueling tiring, and my cavaliers aren't even here. Exchanging information would be enjoyable.

[unkindled_madness]

I suppose if one's opponent is no challenge, it can become... tiresome.

But, I wonder if the Ancient would see fit to bring such a person here.

[necrosaint]

Someone who thought others of us evil? Me, at least, and I'm sure a few others—it's easy to see the argument in both directions. [ Oh no, it's pedantic lecture mode Harrow again: ] It would cause that needed growth in the right direction, the thing we are meant to be so inspired to, for them to have to see that necromancy does not have an inherent moral.

Unless you ask the Eighth House, then it does, but that's the same as saying being able to do anything has an inherent moral: some believe that every act is to do good. I use my necromancy neutral to positively, but I am certain there are some who do not.

[unkindled_madness]

[He um. starts to look amused, listening to all of that.]

Actually, I simply meant someone who didn't present any challenge. Our abductor seems to favor those with unique or unusual abilities.

The morality of necromancy... [He shrugs.] I expect it's as subjective as anything else.

[necrosaint]

Right.

[ That's okay too! Just trust Harrow to lecture before she's sure about what she's talking about ... ]

I would agree. Oh, is that a cat? Someone compared me to a feral one.

[ It's not a cat. It's a ferret. ]

[unkindled_madness]

No, that... is some sort of large rodent.

[He is also wrong, but at least he knows it isn't a cat.]

The cats are this way. [He'll lead her towards a somewhat larger area which is mostly full of kittens. They're adorable, if you're into that. Sephiroth appears unmoved.]

It usually seems to be an insult, being compared to a cat. [Which has definitely happened to him, especially with those weird eyes of his.]

[necrosaint]

Is it? My research was unclear. I think it was the hissing, though.

Oh no. [ Harrow has processed the kittens. ] They're cute. Maybe it was not the hissing, maybe it was my size--did someone mean to call me cute? The nerve.

[unkindled_madness]

[Oh, that's amusing, that it bothers her.]

...I imagine it was the hissing. I doubt anyone has ever compared me to a cat for my size.

They're generally thought of as solitary and standoffish. ...but also cute, I suppose.

[necrosaint]

I am small. [ She's five foot two and skin and bones. Calling her 98 pounds soaking wet would be a gift. ] But I am also solitary and standoffish. I am used to simply having a cavalier, and without even that ... well.

[ Well, it bothers her to be called cute! ]

[unkindled_madness]

[He's noticed. He could probably throw her pretty far. She's tiny.]

You've mentioned cavaliers several times. They are your subordinates?

[necrosaint]

Sort of. They are something of a right hand to a necromancer, or perhaps a right and left, for those who have a primary and secondary.

[ It hurts her to not say like me. She has neither. Technically, she never had both of her cavaliers at once. She's not allowed to think about that. ]

The brawn to the necromancer's brains, essentially. I've ... had two of them. Now I am but myself. [ She's a Lyctor now. She is necromancer -- but she is not cavalier, and she is certainly no one's vengeance. Harrowhark the First is but a broken fist, a meaningless gesture. ]

[unkindled_madness]

I see.

[He isn't really picking up on her sense of loss. Perhaps he's had and lost too many men for it to register.]

Well, you're at little disadvantage now. Regardless of our previous attachments, very few of us arrived here with allies.