Destination: Carcosa

[polymods]

✖ 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

Comments

Harrowhark Nonagesimus ☠ The Locked Tomb ☠ OTA

[necrosaint]

Ⅰ. THE TEMPLE

The beds are all in view of one another; Harrow hasn't found someplace she can sleep yet where she's simply able to completely hide. As of right now, nor is she trying to find anywhere to hide, because instead she is sitting on the bed she's claimed.

And actively trying to staunch a nosebleed. Head bent forward, handkerchief collecting the blood, pinching firmly at the bridge of her nose. She's stuck like this for another few minutes at least, so if you are someone who for any reason wants to bother either her or anyone at all victim to listening to you talk: here is Harrow. Bloody nose and all. There's a little bit of blood leaking out of her eyeballs, too, but not more than one might have watery eyes.

Ⅱ. THE MASQUERADE

Somehow, Harrowhark doesn't bolt immediately. It's either compulsion by the forces that control and lead the Travelers the same way they find the temple, or it's a miracle. She hates parties. She hates parties.

But she's at a party, and she's ready for it. She has gloves, which at least makes her feel safer. The mask is a partial relief—it is like her normal face paint, and it is covering her face, but it is also abhorrently filled with sparkles. The dress is also offensive due to its knee-length status.

She has so much skin showing and she looks sparkly. It is shameful. It is inspiring bolting through the crowd to get a glass of really, just water as quickly as possible.

Ⅱ. THE PLAY

Shit, Harrow. Why did you do it? Later she'll reflect on it and realize she has no idea why she was so tempted to touch that mask. It makes her vulnerable. She realizes later, too, that this was the point; she will write in her diary about Carcosa, This room with the stage was put there to make me break. I don't think the Ancient is very understanding. Or perhaps at least one aspect of it/them has ill will toward us all.

But that is then; this is now. This is now, where she walks around to explore, the place almost but not entirely empty. When she first walks in, there is no one. When she first curiously lets her fingertips brush over that mask, it's Harrow alone, and then suddenly, hitting her like a wall of bricks in the chest, it feels like she isn't alone anymore. Like she isn't alone again.

"I loved you," she whispers, hoarse. "The thing is, I knew you knew—you'd essentially said as much but I never told you—and you always wanted to hear. You always wanted ... praise, for us to be proud of you the same way I wished to be beheld by you, the same way I wished my parents would offer me any affection at all, even if I did not know that was—"

It's hard for her to find words. It's hard for her to do anything but ball her fists so tight her palms crack open with blood.

"I'm sorry I lost your sword."

She turns her head to look at where she wants Gideon Nav to be, though it is not where she is. It's someone else.

IV. LOST CARCOSA

Oh, someplace normal. Something normal.

Harrow's take on the beach is that she's going to scour it for bone shards, because the sand looks like it's someplace she might find them. She doesn't get quite that far, though, before she meets the jeweled skull. Something even more normal.

Would anyone have guessed that prickly Harrowhark, porcupine spikes on a human soul, could sing? Likely very few: but she can. She can sing and she can declaim and orate. Now she's doing it softly, but she still is inspired by the presence of such a skull to offer poetry and hymnal. It's part of book six of the Noniad first. She can't help it. It's catchy. She has it memorized despite herself. Then it's soft songs of how to handle loss, how to welcome death, how to grieve—prayers she's given to many others over time, because whatever she may not have been, the Reverend Daughter was a good religious leader.

(Amidst it all, a single tearful, "The Tomb I will serve till the end of my days, and then see me buried in two hundred graves" wins out, but she pushes it aside. She is not one inclined toward sharing. She is inclined toward speech for this skull that she instantly delights in, but she is not speaking of herself.)

If anyone joins her phyiscal space during any of her recitations, she will finish her line, then stop and consider them.

V. WILDCARD

[ surprise me! feel free to plurk alexipharmaca or pm this journal! ]

Ⅰ. THE TEMPLE

[medeiun]

Maleficent can find no peace in this place. There are too many people, too much closeness. Mostly she lingers in shadow like a lurking creature: watching and waiting.

But eventually even she too must rest, though she is wary to become vulnerable here for even an instant. The dark fey moves quietly along the row of beds stretching out from the structure's center, in pursuit of a nesting spot that feels as comfortable as it possibly can. She's a tall, imposing figure: large horns curving upwards from her head, and long feathered wings sweeping behind her. But she steps lightly on bare feet, making hardly a sound.

She is passing near a bed when she catches the scent of blood, and quickly turns her head towards it — there, leaned over, is a young woman. A cloth is pressed to her face, and her eyes water with blood as well. The fey tenses, sharp gaze glancing quickly around to see if any others will assist the girl, but they are further way from her position; perhaps they have not noticed.

After a long moment of hesitation, Maleficent moves a little closer, coming to stand in front of the girl's bed.

"Are you in pain?" She announces her presence in a quiet voice, but one that is not warm: cold to the touch, like the side of a stone kept in shadow, not exposed to the sun's rays.

[necrosaint]

Harrow manages not to startle, as she heard footfalls; her eyes widen briefly, momentarily and almost imperceptibly, when she looks up to see who is speaking to her. That sort of cold sharp edge is the only manner of address that Harrow would ever expect turned toward her—warmth or kindness would have been far more disturbing.

Have been far more disturbing.

This is almost nice, and Harrow even half-smiles to herself for a moment that is longer than the widening of her eyes in reaction to the stature of the invader of her little space.

"No," she says, softly but curtly. "I am merely inconvenienced."

[medeiun]

Maleficent is fully expecting a reaction of fear from the girl — she looks young, human from the surface, at least. It's the natural assumption and one she's at a sort of ease with after all of these years: to be looked at with fear. Yet while there might be that ever-so-slight widening of the eyes, the girl does not openly balk, does not gasp or scream or flinch back. 'I am merely inconvenienced.'

Maleficent purses her lips slightly, curiosity further piqued by the response. Is it a wound? Or something she's used to, some medical condition, perhaps? Maleficent knows humans have their various ailments; their bodies are so soft. So easily broken. ...But she isn't sure how to take this. She has never seen someone bleed from their eyes before.

Like the work of a curse, something in her whispers, and she wonders.

The dark fey stares for a moment longer, and then lifts her hand quietly into the air. With a flicker of shimmering gold magic, a piece of her own robe splits at the end, and drifts to her hand. Maleficent then holds it out towards the girl: more cloth, to clean herself with, to catch more blood.

"Here."

[necrosaint]

"Oh," says Harrow, and she blinks at the offered cloth, and blinks at Maleficent herself and where it had come from. It takes her a second to accept it and use it to dab at her eyes, to wipe away the blood that spilt from them. No more comes forth, at least. "Thank you," she finally remembers to say.

She does not look that appreciative, but her tone is softly such. Her expression still gives away nothing, stoic and emotionless.

"I am sorry to have necessitated damage to your robes."

[medeiun]

"No matter," Maleficent brushes off the apology with her own stoicism; she thinks nothing of damaging the clothing. She can simply craft new with her magic, once she finds cloth somewhere else. ...Or steals it.

"Do you require medical attention? Perhaps there is someone here. A.... doctor, I believe they are called."

The fey is not used to the term, but she's picked up a few things here and there from the humans around her. Of course, in her own land, she would simply heal any surface wounds with her abilities; there was no need for human medicine.

....Theoretically, she could try healing the girl herself, but this ailment, or whatever it is, is.... an uncertainty. It would not be wise to tamper with something she doesn't understand, not just yet.

[necrosaint]

Harrowhark shakes her head; it takes her a second to recall that most people expect words. Words she reserves for those she holds at arm's length, msot of the time—because in her case, anyone else is kept at even further length.

But this woman ... creature? has been kind to her, and she owes, perhaps, the simplest of explanations.

"No, I am—will be— fine. It is an effect of overuse of my necromancy; I have been trying to ward the bed so I can rest and the wards aren't taking is all." Clearly her new companion understands the use of magic, so she may as well be frank. "Thank you, though," is soft and polite. Harrow does have good manners. She is an excellent Reverend Daughter; she was raised properly. (She was not raised properly, but she was raised to be proper.)

[medeiun]

The term is unfamiliar to Maleficent — necromancy. Perhaps others of her kind would know of it, but the fey has only so recently even learned of her own identity. There are certain magics she knows at the very core of her, but there are others she has not learned of.

Certainly, it is a type of magic, though. Something involving wards, enchantment.

The soft sentiment of gratitude is unexpected, and Maleficent's blood-red mouth parts slightly, as though she means to say something — but a beat later she simply shifts back to the information she was offered.

"Is this a typical occurrence for you? Or is this place affecting your magic? ...Weakening it?" She's curious, as she's had some experience with that herself, and she's heard of others.

iv.

[kneecaptain]

Bucky ignores the skull.

Well, it's more like: he pretends not to see it. Because it's with a girl, small and dark and singing a sad song, but not performing, exactly. The songs are all morbid and flowery and he assumes they aren't meant for him to hear. To look at her, really look, would be like catching a lady before she puts her face on. So he pretends she's transparent, for the sake of politeness, staring out at the black water that seems like it could reach back into forever.

So when the fog starts to roll in, he notices. It'll start clinging to them soon. He fidgets, awkwardly. Should he interrupt? How many words can possibly rhyme with tomb? He holds himself for a moment in awkward, noticed silence.

[necrosaint]

However many words there are that rhyme with tomb, Harrow knows all of them. So it may take her a bit to get through it, but she does, eventually, conclude. Or else, she's choosing to conclude, because the hairs on the back of her neck (and the instincts of her Lyctorhood, perhaps) sense another before she properly sees them.

Only after she's ceased speaking does Harrow turn her head over her shoulder to note Bucky, and nod once. It's unlikely he actually wanted her attention specifically, only so much to try to get her to be quiet, or -- the weather does seem to be encroaching, doesn't it?

Harrow reaches a fingertip to the skull's forehead, to thank it for its time, and then is looking to get a better read of the man alongside her. He looks like a cavalier, but can't be, unless he's left his necromancer somewhere far behind.

[kneecaptain]

"You think we should maybe be heading back?" Something about the fog disturbs him, but he can't put a finger on what. An instinct, maybe, born from the war, or a tendency to see the demons in the shadows, from the same place. Either way, his muscles tense.

Bucky isn't a cavalier, but he's trying to be a shield. So he isn't planning on leaving a stranger alone on the beach. Even if her songs are really creepy. (Doom, gloom, womb, consume. Jesus.)

[necrosaint]

She considers Bucky, then holds up a finger as if to sample the fog. She's actually just trying to concentrate and see if she can sense anything spirtually amiss, the way Augustine wanted her to know how to do. The way she had wanted herself to know how to do, and had left herself a strongly-worded letter to that effect.

And yet: nothing. Harrow has failed again. The broken Lyctor.

But even a broken Lyctor can sense the growth of thanergy nearby, and can sense how this approach is going to go. "It might be wise," she says.

[kneecaptain]

He nods, not understanding what Harrow is doing, but thankful this isn't gonna get any more awkward. This place is already creepy enough.

As he gets ready to leave, though, the skull catches his eye— a glint in the sand, reflecting a light that isn't there. He stops, hesitates just long enough for something with limbs to stumble out of that fog.