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polymods ([personal profile] polymods) wrote in [community profile] polylogs2021-05-01 03:00 pm

Destination: Carcosa

POLYMYTHOS: CARCOSA

Carcosa


Ⅰ. THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The island's harbour is full of other ships, although not a single one of them seems to actually have a human being aboard. (You could certainly try to steal one, but doing so is an exercise in futility - you will find that even if you set off into the ocean you will wind up right back in the harbour again after spending a few hours lost in the fog.) Beyond the harbour is a glittering city of glass and gold. Curving arches and sharp geometric lines are the hallmarks of the architecture - an art deco paradise that whispers of decadence and hope for the future.

The people who crowd the streets wear suits and hats, drop-waist dresses and furs. Their faces are all blank smiles. It's the roaring twenties, darling, why do you look so concerned?

If it is your first experience of the Endless Isles, you have access to the High Temple. Should you wish, you may also seek out the island's own temple as well, which is located inside the city, in a district mostly forgotten by the residents. Don’t worry - your feet will carry you there.

The building is not large, and it is old and neglected. It has a domed ceiling, with panels of glass crisscrossed with metal painted gold curving upward. Whatever fine pattern may have formed there is lost to time; the glass at the centerpoint of the dome is gone, letting in the smell of the sea.

There are rooms equipped with beds spreading out like a spiderweb from the middle of the building. The temple proper is of course in the exact center, below the broken dome. In the middle of this circular room you will find dead branches gathered together to make a vaguely humanoid shape. This crude figure has been haphazardly painted yellow. A slab of concrete sits in front of it. There is not much to explore here; it is very quiet.

Either temple is a good place to simply rest, or meet some of your fellow Travelers. The High Temple of course has the Temple Chef and its usual Guardians, Flock, and Lantern.

The Island Temple has its own Guardians, which are small, pale humanoids with perfectly blank faces and small antlers like young deer. They will leave you alone unless you try to meddle with the central room. Doing so will result in one of them approaching you, and you will find yourself falling unconscious on the floor.



Ⅱ. THE MASQUERADE
Through happenstance, you find yourself in an enormous ballroom. Low couches are dotted everywhere, and a live band plays somewhere at the end of the massive space. A long bar takes up one side of the room, bottles sparkling under the light cast from the many cut-glass chandeliers hanging overhead. Champagne flows freely, and the scent of gin pervades the air.

All of the attendees are wearing masks.

You're dressed for the occasion, of course - you will find yourself wearing something reminiscent of 1920s America, with a small yellow sigil of some sort pinned to your breast. Ask any of the guests about it and they will tell you, "ah, it's a secret." You too, of course, are wearing a mask. You did not pick this mask, but if you look in the mirror hung over the bar you will find that it nonetheless hints at some aspect of your personality.

Which would be all well and good, except that you can't take the bloody thing off.

Moving around the ballroom, you will discover that a few other people also have the yellow sigil pinned to their clothing. It probably shouldn't surprise you that these people are all other Travelers, equally unable to take their mask off.

No, you can't unmask until you share something with your new-found friend: a secret. A REAL one, the sort you'd never speak aloud.

Of course, you can choose not to share. If you choose that route, however, you'll find that the mask is fusing with your skin. Leave it on past midnight when the cries of "UNMASK! UNMASK!" begin, and it will simply become your new face for the duration of the month.



Ⅲ. THE PLAY
Maybe parties aren't your style. No fear, there's plenty more to do and see in such a wondrous city. There's a theatre - the Meliora Grand as a matter of fact - and perhaps you're just the sort of person who would like to take in the arts.

The theatre has plush seats, and fabulous electric sconces lining the wall. Once you take your seat you'll find yourself looking at the stage, where a blood-red velvet curtain hangs. The theatre doesn't seem to fill up - indeed, it really seems that there's only you and one or two other people there. Curious.


The lights go down and the curtain is drawn open, revealing... well. Not much.

There are two chairs on the stage, a table between them. On the table lays a pallid face: a mask. Just a mask. Why not go on up and take a closer look?

Should you choose to touch the mask, you will feel a deep urge to speak to whoever else is in the theatre. You will, in fact, feel the desire to act out some sort of emotional trauma with them. Perhaps they suddenly look like your mother, your father, a lover who left you. Why don't you tell them how you really feel?

Naturally, you can both just sit in awkward silence instead. You'll be waiting until the morning to be let out, if that's the case.



Ⅳ. LOST CARCOSA
CW: the undead.
You find yourself walking along the beach at night. Along the shore the cloud-waves break, and black stars rise above you.

You can't quite pinpoint when you realise you are no longer alone. Maybe there is only one other person on the beach with you, or perhaps a few; you move as one down the expanse of sand until you realise there is something laying up ahead of you.

There is a heap of yellow cloth there, dry and tattered with age. It smells faintly of spices. Nestled among it is a jewel-encrusted human skull. Its empty sockets compel you to sit down in the cool, bone-white sand, to sit and speak to those around you about loss.

Everyone has lost something important to them. A person, a thing, a place, an aspect of the self. Something that's gone and you're never getting back. The skull grins endlessly, endlessly, encouraging you to speak about something you may not have laid to rest.

You can resist this compulsion. Maybe you were never good at sharing. Refuse the skull's silent request and you may continue down along the beach, or perhaps head back the way you came. As you walk, however, you will notice that there is a fog rolling in. It comes in off the sea/sky, obscuring the beach until you can barely see.

It's a terribly handy cover for the corpses that are shambling out of the surf. Wet, bloated, with eyes that glow a dim gold, they head for you silently. They wish to drag you back with them, into the depths. Better hope you can outrun or outfight them.

Bonus: What's that? You want a Carcosa playlist? You've got it, babes!


Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

dothelokimotion: (Here's your cuttlefish card)

[personal profile] dothelokimotion 2021-05-18 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
Isn't that what swords are for?

[ loki is from a warrior culture, but that doesn't mean he subscribed to it overly much. ]
nightschool: (🖋️ 23)

[personal profile] nightschool 2021-05-18 09:35 am (UTC)(link)
[One might argue how well he's truly handling his transition to explorer of alternate worlds beneath both his masks, the literal and the public one below that. He might argue the refreshingly banal urge to roll his eyes is a break from strangeness, a reminder that magic, no matter how much it puts the shine of sequins to shame with its dark glint, doesn't always alchemically who it belongs to.

People are still people at their base element. Sometimes exasperating.]


I'm sure you didn't mean the face powder.

[She has enough going on in that area.]

The other I would call the tonic for what troubles you. [He glances at the center of her chest, looking for the glaem again, but it's gone, chased from his otherworldly sight by the dazzling electric lights and back behind her ribs. Then his gaze cuts to his left--at a stool and the black jacket tossed over it, left behind by the wearer now on the dance floor, given over to one of the intriguingly disordered group dances.] Or perhaps this would be more to your liking.

[Taking the jacket, he offers it, holding it open to put on. Kindness, as a general rule, is not always a jacket that fits him well. But she's young yet, and he doubts she intended to arrive looking as she is any more than he had.]
Edited 2021-05-18 09:36 (UTC)
northerndragon: (Default)

[personal profile] northerndragon 2021-05-18 10:17 am (UTC)(link)
Creeping in late to ask what happens if some obnoxious do-gooder decides to try to give the skull a proper burial... OR A PROPER CREMATION?

(Sigh. Did you really want to give Jon Snow matches and leave him around the remains of a giant?)

Zombies again, or is there maybe a feeling to begin with that it should be left as you found it?
northerndragon: (Default)

Jon Snow ✥ Game of Thrones

[personal profile] northerndragon 2021-05-18 11:17 am (UTC)(link)
[I am so very late that I stuck my top levels over here!]
suckonthis: (definitely lying)

[personal profile] suckonthis 2021-05-18 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Ryo looks coolly amused at the sudden stammering. Why so skittish, Simon? Miki was right in calling him pretty. He doesn't seem like he's going to lurch forward and attack him or anything. In fact, he shrugs. ]

I was just never really interested in girls. Statistically speaking...

[ The act might garner Simon a little pity, at least enough for Ryo to try and not look like the big bad wolf he was back home. ]

I'm not who I will be, according to him. You can relax, you know?

Congratulations on the mask, by the way. I'd hate to see what would have happened if it hadn't come free by midnight.

[ Is he casually passing his to a confused server? Yes. You might not have to run, Simon. He looks like he's about done with this whole thing. ]
kyley_b: https://mcnuggyy.tumblr.com/ (hey)

[personal profile] kyley_b 2021-05-18 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Kyle scowls at Wade-As-Ryan-Reynolds. Isn't Reynolds Canadian? No wonder he's so strange.

"...thanks."

He turns his head suddenly, as if hearing a phantom voice, and shudders. No. He doesn't hear anything. Nope.

"I'll look out for you, too."
bonnylass: (pic#14716446)

[personal profile] bonnylass 2021-05-19 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ They exist in a unique state of both knowing what the other is thinking and, at least on Anne's half, being relieved not to hear Jack actually say it. She doesn't want or need to hear how hopelessly out of their element they are. Not out loud. Not when they have no other avenue in front of them but to try. She can see that it's on the verge of freezing him up and she steps close enough to touch him, weakened fingers curling into his sleeve just to brace the both of them.

But she sees the way he looks at her when the fog comes on and she's glad she knows exactly what to do. ]


I'll do it.

[ She makes her careful way to the bow and sits so she can lean out over the water, eyes cutting through the fog as best they can to keep watch for the rocks that could end their journey before it begins. ]

We better not get caught, then. 'Cause they're sure to do it the second time. Yeah?
bonnylass: (pic#14716450)

[personal profile] bonnylass 2021-05-19 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Anne snaps her head around properly to look at her a second time and her face contorts in a look of: 'what the fuck did you just say?' Anne is not an imaginative woman, nor was she ever one to believe folktales, even when she was a child (as short a time as that had felt). Nothing she'd said just made sense. Except for...

If she needs a knife, it means the girl is unarmed. That is a predicament that Anne understands. Normally she wouldn't care and would never give up one of her own weapons to arm someone else, but since the enemy is almost upon them and she needs someone to watch her back, she grunts in frustration and tosses one of her stolen blades to Harrow so it skids to a halt in front of her in the sand. ]


You best be able to use it, girl.

[ To fight with, Anne means. She doesn't have the experiences to expect anything else. ]
bonnylass: (pic#14820050)

[personal profile] bonnylass 2021-05-19 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Can't tell what in the hell you are.

[ There aren't many roles that Anne has seen women fall into and this one seems to fit into none of them. Perhaps she reminds her of Eleanor Guthrie, but perhaps it's just the blonde hair and the fact that she looks at home in a tavern that makes Anne think that. Still, she sounded less poisonous and more genuine when she admitted it.

Anne watches when the bartender comes up to assert his own space, silent and assessing. She doesn't throw herself into fights that aren't her own, but she's curious what will happen regardless. ]
bonnylass: (pic#14820048)

[personal profile] bonnylass 2021-05-19 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ Anne shrugs, hand unconsciously moving closer to her hip where one of her stolen knives is strapped. They're certainly nothing special but she couldn't just travel around the city without a pair. ]

If we ain't tried, then we don't know.

[ But her lips purse hard when he finishes. She considers not telling him a thing, but then the urge to put heads together prevails. ]

Yeah. They ain't kiddin' about that one. Tried it, an' the boat ended up back here. Twice.
bonnylass: (pic#14820050)

[personal profile] bonnylass 2021-05-19 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
They're all in on it.

[ Anne says it with poison in her voice and can't help sending another glare around the room at every servant and barkeep and patron who hasn't been marked just like she and this girl have. She'd kill them all, if only there'd be a point to it. Even Anne can recognize that that would be the worse kind of futile and only land her in more trouble. ]

It's all one big fuckin' secret. Why we're all here. What the fuck this place is.

[ Her temper is rising and Anne suddenly feels the need for another drink. Fast. ]
libertalia: (15 - UePCQY1)

[personal profile] libertalia 2021-05-19 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
( you know, he can respect a woman who threatens to carve his face off. and maybe it's also a little bit of a turn on, but no one needs to know that. just means she's a strong-willed woman who ain't afraid of no man, which is certainly something to be admired. it also means he should probably stop hitting on her, but threats of violence have never stopped him before.

if he realizes the mistake, he doesn't correct it. he doesn't quite laugh it off, either, but there is an almost impressed look that crosses his face. does he actually believe she'll carve his face off? that's debatable. but he's smart enough to consider his next words wisely here. he should probably take her at least a little seriously.
)

Whoa, before we even get to know each other? Seems a little intimate. ( okay, maybe he's not that smart. ) Why don't we start with names first, huh? ( he gestures for another drink, then to himself. ) Samuel Drake.
libertalia: (34 - Je7xOjA)

[personal profile] libertalia 2021-05-19 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
( sam sniffs a laugh, shaking his head. )

Guarantee whatever you dish out I've heard before.

( he existed with rafe for two years, most of that time spent in new york (a place he'd never really spent much time in before that beyond a family trip he doesn't really remember). whatever bitchy comments about boston or his accent there are to make were definitely made as frequently as possible. )

Long as you're not a Yankees fan, we're kosher.
evocation: (LM12turtleduck)

[personal profile] evocation 2021-05-19 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
["Doing okay" is kind of relative at this point. While she wouldn't exactly dive into her deepest feelings right now anyway, the oddity of that question is probably clear in the way her mouth quirks up.]

Uh... Nothing's tried to eat me yet? Sometimes that happens, so, you know.

[At least that's a plus.]
evocation: (LM112turtleduck)

[personal profile] evocation 2021-05-19 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, [She draws the syllable out, singsong and teasing.] What if I am? You're never gonna speak to me again and leave me at this weird ass party all by myself?

[Which, you know. She'd probably find someone else's ear to talk off pretty quickly, but she says it like it would be tragic.]
evocation: (051)

[personal profile] evocation 2021-05-19 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
Uh, maybe. I don't know. How much of this shit do you think is all linked? And, like, do you think there are gonna be tests catered to us or something?

[Impulsively, she reaches for the mask, fingers a hair from touching it.]

God, I'm totally overthinking this, huh?
queenking: ([down] don't wanna hear it)

[personal profile] queenking 2021-05-19 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
I am not drunk-- [Saxsice starts to protest this, but cuts herself off at the mention of hot dogs, brightening visibly at the idea and grinning. She loves hot dogs. It'd almost be enough to see them safely past the dead, creeping things, if she hadn't stumbled, falling behind half a step, enough to feel a decaying hand clutch at her ankle.

With a stifled yelp, she bolts a couple steps ahead, then whirls around, wide-eyed.
] That was definitely not a crab!
queenking: ([up] double eyebrow arch)

[personal profile] queenking 2021-05-19 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
[On the reassuring side, she seems oblivious enough that she might genuinely forget about his past, which is...good? Good.]

Gesundheit. [Saxsice straightens up, tiptoeing around the fallen mask, seemingly unaware that she'd been given his name, not a bizarre sneeze.] I'm Saxsice, by the way.
queenking: ([up] on the sidelines)

[personal profile] queenking 2021-05-19 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh yeah," Saxsice nods seriously, following after him to flop down, cross-legged, at the stage's edge. "Rice-a-roni is seriously overrated, and the hills are just brutal. You're better off in San Diego or somethin'."

Then she grimaces, leaning back on her hands, looking up at where the curtain disappears above them. "Yeah, can't say I'm a fan. It's been safe stuff so far, but what if it pushes me to reveal the really nitty-gritty stuff? No thanks."

At the question, she gives Kyle an arched eyebrow. "Not as a person. But it gets a little fuzzy when I'm...y'know, in the grips of moon madness." A pause. "Wanna see?"
queenking: ([neutral] red lips)

[personal profile] queenking 2021-05-19 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
[Saxsice nods, seemingly satisfied with herself, still ignoring the bartender who's getting steadily more irritated beside her.] That's all by design, sugar. Gotta keep 'em guessin'.

[Here's where the beleaguered bartender reaches out, grasping the blonde woman's upper arm firmly, as if he means to physically steer her out from behind the bar. Saxsice reacts quickly, going stiff and twisting her arm up and out of the man's grasp, jabbing downwards with her elbow into his stomach.

Then, as he doubles over, gasping, she huffs, levering herself back onto the bar.
] All right, all right, I'm goin'.
unkindled_madness: (confused)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2021-05-19 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
[He nods stiffly, still uncomfortable given what just happened. Unfortunately, he won't be forgetting it.

He's not going to comment on the name, because he of all people can't really remark on strange names, but--]


"Gesundheit"? What does that mean?
incelligent: (171)

[personal profile] incelligent 2021-05-19 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Simon nods casually at that, as if to acknowledge Ryo's admission. It could be argued that a good portion of the train gremlin's questionable decisions could be traced back to his not-so-secret feelings for a girl, but that's neither here nor there. In fact, Ryo's story is quite easy to understand, once the apocalypse has been removed from it. He's in a pissy mood because his best friend, who he happens to also be in love with, is icing him out currently for a crime he has yet to commit.]

You planning on telling him that any time soon?

[He ignores the spiteful manner with which that morsel of information is delivered.]

Although, I guess it's really none of my business...

[And, truth be told, he doesn't really care.]

Would you happen to know the way outta here?
bookerlesigh: (pensive)

[personal profile] bookerlesigh 2021-05-19 03:48 am (UTC)(link)

Booker nods once; food is important, and grocery shopping is something you can't escape, no matter how long you live.

"Ah," Booker nods again, and this time he glances around the street to see if Nicky's nearby. The tentative stalemate they reached when Booker first came here is just that - tentative. "I know."

sketchbookings: (Default)

[personal profile] sketchbookings 2021-05-19 04:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ Benedict chokes on his drink again. It's very evident they come from very different walks of life. Yes, Benedict's found that with most people, but with Jack it seems particularly apparent. ]

I'm not certain that you will.