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.

---

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

[howlett]

"Yeah?" his eyebrow cocks up curiously at that, looking a bit like some kind of big cat. Heavy in body unwilling to move for much but always turning an ear towards interesting noises. "The middle of what do you figure?" He's heard a few of these theories by now— some similar, some different— but he's always got time to hear one more.

For the question though, he shrugs. "Not for long," he assures. The nightlife around here can take its toll on someone, it turns out, but frankly he's glad to know this place hasn't changed some things for him.

[nightschool]

No matter what the water line hides from view, from his angle leaning against the side of the pool Kit sees what Logan's half-clothed entrance (not to mention the state of the clothes he'd discarded) make plain: the man has the build of a warrior of some kind. Doubtless a man who's seen battle. Perhaps even killed in battle, as warriors do. He has plenty of theories about the nature of those chosen, and what the darker hue of his assigned color says about him, but none he's steeled to prove one way or another.

"That would depend how you feel about redemption and if you believe our host on the matter. Does it seem accurate to you?"

His gaze goes to the bundle of dirtied attire and back again. He wants to ask what that means, given the impossibly broad range of possibilities in this impossible place. Even briefly considers scratching that itch. In the end, he falls back on acceptance, keeping a moratorium on further invasive lines of inquiry. If there's a lesson he ought to learn to acquit his failings, it's to leave things be. He redirects the question instead. "What caused it?"

[howlett]

The thoughtful pinch that briefly crosses his expression answers some part of that question before he finds words for it. Redemption is carrot he's seen held in front of him before. Maybe that's where his reluctance starts. "How do you figure they measure that sorta thing?" he asks because he's done nothing but ask other's that since he's arrived here. Even if it's not painted the clearest picture of their captors, it's been uniquely informative about his peers here.

"Bullets," he says. For a man who doesn't exactly present the impression of an eager conversationalist his answers are easy and candid. "I hate bullets. They get stuck under the skin like splinters."

He nods in this man's direction. "Whatchu readin' there?" The fact that it's not the infamous Yellow book that so may others have picked up is interesting already.

[nightschool]

Bullets. What manner of creature besides a wearh could grimace at theology but dismiss bullet wounds? And... besides one other. The thought proves it's possible to be a cup filled with competing emotions; he trembles on the edge of curiosity even as guilt blooms like a bruise under his skin.

"If there's scripture to study and sermons to attend to put us on the desired path, I may have missed the announcement while unconscious on the ship." Calmly uttered, it's only a little caustic. As someone who's only ever seen sticks instead of carrots, Kit nurses conflicted feelings over the overarching mystery of their being here and what is required of them to stay or go. "I don't know. I used to believe if a god existed to judge the color of my soul, it would be the one they shaded it at birth."

Black. A daemon's color, through and through.

He pauses before continuing. Water splashes softly as he shifts, turning to face his lounging companion more fully. "An answer for an answer, then? I'll tell you, and you tell me how you soak away bullet holes."