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?

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"RUN, RUN, THE MONKEY HAS A GUN!!!!"

(That was impressively Doctor Seuss of us.)

"I really should get into writing children's books." A bullet wings past his ear. "HEY YOU STUPID MONKEY STOP SHOOTING AT ME I WAS YOUR FRIEND!!!"

The monkey screeches back after them. If anyone understood monkey, it would be saying that monkeys have no friends, only targets. Who knew monkeys were so mercenary? Who knew they were such jerks?

"This isn't the first monkey to do me dirty," he mutters under Kyle's arm. Kyle doesn't know it, but he's remembering Hit-Monkey, the most terrifying monkey of them all.

"Hey, why do you hate me? I thought we were buds. I've now been more personal with your armpit than literally anybody else, unless you had a girlfriend at some point with a very weird armpit fetish. Which...okay, given your life is possible, I guess."

(Alternately, you could sing it to the tune of Janie's Got A Gun.)

There's a couple of chimp victims who could have told them. (Even if those are apes. Whatever.)

"How the fuck do you even keep meeting monkeys? I think I've seen one outside of a zoo like, once. And it sucked."

He turns Deadpool's head so he can look at it properly. "You shot at me! And then your monkey shot at me! And you almost got me exploded! Unlike YOU, I can't survive as just a head!" He frowns thunderously. "And we're not discussing my romantic life, thank you very much."

(Okay now we basically have to get Aerosmith as a cover band for this shindig.)

"Well, the other major one was a guy named Hit Monkey. He's the best hitman in the entire world. If he's hired to come after you, you are fuuuuuuuucked. But at least you get to see a monkey in a little three piece suit with sunglasses before you die, so there is a silver lining."

Unfortunately, being just a head with a mask means Deadpool can't emote very much. This is probably for the best, as he'd probably just make things worse by shrugging.

"I mean, are you sure about that? Have you tested it? We are on a mystical island where you're supposed to learn lessons and shit. Do you think those ancient types would let you die? I keep trying to test it, but I'm not exactly the best person for this kind of science."

Deadpool blinks. "oooooooh, you developed a thing for Stan's girl at some point after the events of your show, didn't you? It was a super awkward teenage test of your friendship and you carry that awful weight with you to this day, don't you? And she was totally into armpits. I knew it!!"

"Hit Monkey." The description is both utterly ridiculous and actually pretty hilarious. The name is even pretty good.

"I'm pretty sure people like me could die, yes," Kyle replies dryly. "Considering how much pain I'm currently in."

Kyle stops walking at once and stares down at the head in his hands. "WHAT?!" he shrieks. He never did develop a voice that doesn't sound a little like a buzzsaw; he's his mother's son. "NO! How do you even--! AAAGHHH!" He drops Deadpool's head and kicks it. Years and years of kick-the-baby means he's actually a pretty good shot, and Deadpool's head goes flying through the air before hitting the sidewalk.

He walks over, brushing himself off and straightening his shirt in such a way that it's clear he's just trying to calm down. Scowling, he picks Deadpool's head up again. "Nobody I know is into armpits," he says. "That I know of, anyway."

"Oh yeah. Literally a monkey hit man. Because anything can happen in Imaginaaaaationland!" Deadpool literally sings the last bit. He either kept forgetting that his knowledge of Kyle's cartoon really freaked the guy out or he was just terrible about not caring. Look, Deadpool was very fond of being a friend, but also pretty bad at it.

Case in point. The reason he is suddenly punted. "GAH!!!" He feels the jolt and flies through the air, grunting as he rolls along the sidewalk. If his face wasn't already fucked up, that road rash would be pretty bad. "Hey man, be careful!!! The neck is still an open wound, and I just gooshed all over your shoe!!" Never mind that being an open wound, it was also a bunch of raw nerve endings. But it said something about how used to pain Deadpool was that he didn't think to mention that part.

He's quiet for a few moments, and then, "It's all good. I've been there too. It's rough, buddy. And I am 100% certain that Wendy grew up hot." And here he is trying to be a friend in the worst way possible...which was still somehow better than Cartman actually being a friend in the worst way possible.

If he hadn't kicked him for the crack about armpits, he would have for mentioning Imaginationland. He's spent YEARS trying to repress that.

Kyle sighs down at Deadpool's head. "She did," he admits. "Like... smoking hot. So did Stan. It was really annoying. I don't know HOW you know this shit, but I'm just going to Not Think About It." Kyle does a lot of that.

"So will your body grow back? Or do we need more parts?"

"I told you! Or did I tell you? I can't remember if I told you. Well either way, your childhood is a cartoon where I'm from. Super fun stuff. Kanye is a dolphin, and Barbara Streisand is a kaiju, and Cartman gave you AIDS one time so you'd help him cure his own AIDS using the blood of that NBA player, and..."

There are honestly so many classics he could run through. But he ends with just shouting "CHEF!!" And then he has a sad because Chef's tenure on the show ended really early on because Scientology.

"It'll grow back. Eventually. It'll take a little while. Having the parts helps it go a lot faster, but I kind of fucked that up when I asploded them."

"I want you to know that I am horrified that you somehow know all about my childhood," he says, striving for an even tone. He doesn't quite make it. "But it is weirdly relieving to know that at least you'll believe me when I say shit. 'I was HIV positive but don't worry I got better!' is not something that helps you on Tinder, let me tell you."

Kyle misses Chef, too. In fact, when he found the High Temple had a chef he had really, really hoped it would somehow be his.

"Well, fuck. Okay, let's get you somewhere relatively safe, I guess. There's one of the temples, or we could just find... I dunno, a library or something." He considers the head. "Although you're a little loud for that."

"Oh yeah. Well, I stopped watching after a certain point. Your show is like the Simpsons; it just keeps going and going and going. There's the classics from when it started, and I'm sure it's good now, but now it's defining somebody else's childhood. But yeah, I got you. We're friends. I understand where you come from. And if Cartman is grew up to be a sociopath that is hunting you while calling himself The Coon, I'll kick his ass for you. That's how buds do."

Deadpool blinks. "Uh. I kinda tried to kill some of the Temple helper dudes. I dunno how they'll react to seeing me again."

"Actually, I dunno WHERE he is these days. Butters and Kenny probably do, but I never asked." He sounds just a tiny bit guilty about that.

Kyle stares at Deadpool's head. "Are you kidding me?! At the NICE temple or the creepy one?"

"Yeah, but that's not the question. The question is if he knows where you are. Seriously, I'm worried for you man. Cartman's the kind of guy who grows up to be a serial killer. Sure he was funny as a kid but..."

Deadpool screws up his face in thought. "You mean they aren't both creepy?"

"Of course he doesn't, I'm not stupid enough to tell him. Besides, he SURE doesn't know now."

Kyle snorts. "One's significantly less so."

A whisper on the wind, imagination or truth? The magic of the island, or nefariousness? A taste of characters created to come, or just Deadpool's narration being a little shit?

Yeesss, yeessss, you just keep thinking that Kyle, that's just what The Coon wants you to think. Yessss..

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you're totally right. Yep."

His head wobbles a little under Kyle's arm as if he's shrugging. How does he do that without muscles? Mysteries upon mysteries. "Well, I tried to kill one of the little guardian dudes. Those are creepy to me."

Probably the last one.

A suspicious glare, but it's best not to talk about that stuff. He's spent years not talking about that stuff.

"In the spooky stick-figure temple? Then we'll go to the big one."

What? Me? Be a little shit? How dare! I am an upstanding member of the narration community, I'll have you know! Not a troll at all!

"Is the big one the less creepy one? I dunno. All temples look alike to me, man. That's right. I'm a temple racist. It makes it okay if you admit it out loud. That's what the Trump era taught me. All temples looked alike to him, too. Wait, can we get political on this island? Or will it zap you for that kinda shit?"

We recognise our own.

"Yeah, it's definitely less creepy," Kyle says. The rest he rolls his eyes at. "I don't see why it would. It might do something to your watch thing, I dunno."

"The watch!!! I think that got blown up. Oops. But I think some kinda pamphlet thing said it would come back. Hey, can you do me a favor and check to see if I'm wearing it as some kinda collar right now? I bet the island is into that. Remember those opening sex parties?"

"I didn't see one..." But je turns Deadpool's head upside down to check. Disturbingly, there's a little stub of neck there, and there is indeed a Scrywatch around it.

"Oh my god, that's fucking creepy. And I didn't really check out the sex party."

"I KNEW IT!!! See, I've got a theory. Everyone's all, we've been kidnapped to this island to become better people, right? The Ancient One just wants us to improve our Scrywatch color coding, right? Me, I don't buy it. I think this is a weird sex cult and the color coding is somehow tied to that."

(You just want it to be a weird sex cult.)

"Well yeah. But there IS evidence! I mean, look at all the sex parties."

(...You know....)

"Anyways, I bet my Scrycollar turned orange briefly as I mentioned Trump. Or maybe it's just red now if I blew up a bunch of people. At least then it'd match my color scheme."

"If it's a weird sex cult, they're doing a terrible job at it," Kyle mutters.

He looks again. "Yeah, it's very red, dude." Not that that's terribly surprising. Kyle's own has been sitting steadily at yellow since he arrived.

"Awesome. I DO love to accessorize. I've got a brand to maintain. Merchandising, you know."

He pauses for a moment. "I wonder if this means they won't let me into the temple though..."

Abandoning that train of thought for the more fun one, "Yeah, I'll say. I haven't had a smut thread YET."

"I dunno, it doesn't seem picky? Unless you keep killing its workers and shit, you dingus."

Even with Deadpool's odd phrasing, Kyle gets his point. "If you keep blowing your dick off you're not likely to, either."

"Well....I wasn't exactly able to kill one. I passed out and woke up at a party. They're pretty powerful little shits. But I gotta test my boundaries, you know? Everyone else is busy just being confused or meeting people or trying to figure out the riddles THEY want us to be thinking about. But me, I learn more by pushing. You can learn a lot by figuring out what they DON'T want you to say and do instead of playing by the rules they set out. Like did you know you can't send video through the Scrycollar? It will blow your hand off. I've done that twice. The first to learn and the second...because I forgot. Look, I'm really spoiled by smartphones, okay?"

His lips twist up in wry acknowledgement. "See this is why you're my friend. You make the important points."

Kyle considers tucking Deadpool into his armpit to stifle his voice, but that would just encourage him to think he has an armpit fetish.

Which he does not.

But more importantly, the guy actually has a point.

"Alright, you're actually not wrong - refusal to test boundaries does mean we might blindly obey things we don't have to."

He snorts. "You might be a lunatic but I wouldn't begrudge you getting laid, dude."

"It's not even about the obeying...although there is that. I just don't trust mysterious wizards of Oz behind their curtains. And I definitely don't trust anyone who says they can make me better." He actually almost seems grumbly. "Who gets to define what's better anyway? I don't mind being called a lunatic because I am, but being judged? That makes me cranky."

Also, not knowing everything. And not being in control. But that would take therapy to figure out.

"Thanks man. Even lunatics need to get some. But right now all I can do is...give head."

He fully expects to be punted again. That was awful and he knows it.

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