[Roman Turner] "Yessum."
He touched the brim of his hat, always polite though there for a moment he found himself gawking before he could get anything else out.
"I er, yessum. Need some tickets."
Heaven help him but she was old AND ewgly. His ma would of called that lipstick a Harlot's color for sure.
[Carousel] Her body still aches from the possession she suffered the other night. She walks underneath the clown-gate and down the midway, among the lights. Walks past the corn-dog stand and the Ribs Express place, and feels the tug of something underneath her skin, as if she had been hooked, see - as if she were a fish on a hook, barbs through her gills - there's something just outside of her that -
- no. She's fine. She is fine and she is standing on the midway among the lights. She was smiling; now she's not. She has a sudden, sure sense that the place has been painted over in blood. Over and over. The curve of the roller coaster against the darkling sky: not white-wash on the wooden beams. Blood. Whatever reached out to her she resisted, but the sense of wrongness lingers inside her like an infection, making her utterly ill at ease.
to Banshee
[Roman Turner] He was going to buy a string of tickets and high-tail it after Simon as quick as a whip because he was scared spitless the old Carney woman was going to try and sell kisses or something and there were just some things he wasn't willing to do in the name of politeness.
"Woah now! Where's the stampeded. Hold up Simon!" "Gotta go ma'am."
He touched the brim of his hat even as he shot through the gates like he was coming out the chute in a barrel race.
[Record of Ruin] Lee has company. Carnivals aren't really Robbie's thing. When you grow up in the tough blue-collar parts of the greater Boston metro, you get it hammered in you quick that that's the sort of thing only cunts and queers would go for. Robbie's neither. Robbie's not even properly human, though, so maybe that's why he's here after all. Maybe he's immune to those stereotypes now.
He's not carrying anything though. No camera, no bag. Just his own self, dressed in one of the grand total of two outfits he seems to own. He mixes and matches, though. Permutation makes it a grand total of four outfits. His hands are in his pockets; he looks at everything curiously, which means his head is turning to and fro as he walks.
Oh and: he didn't bring her a 'gift' last night. He came back two or three hours later, bloody and exhausted, barely looking at her before collapsing face-down in his bed. This morning, she was gone, and there was a flyer on his bedside table. Tonight, he seems to have forgotten that 2am encounter entirely.
[Banshee] Iona was taint free. Though her memories are coming back very slowly.But as she started moving past some of the food carts and she stumbled a bit. She looked around and for once, she saw red. Everywhere. Something was wrong, so wrong.
She touched her head, and moved to sit on a bench. She looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.
[Carousel] The midway, the games of chance. There's a test your strength booth and a milk-bottle booth; there's a frog-leap and a basketball game. One of the games - "Duck River" promises a prize to every participant, fifty cents per duck, Little kids crowd the booth, money in hand, clamoring to pull a yellow duck from the murky waters circling the barker's booth.
"Test your strength!" - an derelict looking man with stringy brown hair offers Simon, as Roman comes running up behind him, a string of tickets in hand. " - or have a go at the fucking duck pond," he continues, sneering, "if you don't think you've got what it takes."
--
Lee and Robbie come up to the ticket booth as Roman runs off; the pasty-faced woman turns her head and leans down toward them. She is garishly illuminated, all flourescent lights inside that glass enclosure, brilliant against the ribboned darkness outside. The low whir of a wheezing air conditioner - a window unit - is background white noise. "The Big Dipper's ten tickets, love. Eight if you tell them I sent you. Tickets are 10 for a dollar, or 60 for five dollars. You," her eyes are rapt on Liadin now, "can't buy admission to the freak show with tickets, though. How many?"
[Bone-Grinder] There was a challenge issued test his strength? I'm the strongest motherfucker at this goddamn carnival. How dare him question my strength. Try my luck at the duck pond my ass! Fuck the fucking duck pond! I will kick the duck pond guy's ass! or something to that effect goes through Simon's head as he approaches the man inviting him to test his strngth."How much?"He asks curiously. His hands folding over his chest as he sizes the man up. How dare this mother fucker challenge my masculinity! I got more balls in my finger than you got in your whole fucking body!.
He was proud and confident and not about to let this challenge beat him. Besides he really wanted to win a fucking bear!
[Roman Turner] He was folding his tickets up to a thick four ticket long wad that he could keep his hand on when the game caller started taunting Simon.
"I think that there fellow is calling ya yella, or offering you intercourse most fowl."
[Liadan Whelan] Lee was sleeping when Robbie returned from his hunt. She woke, barely, when the door to room 7 opened. A hazy image of the Galliard dropping face first into his bed comes to mind, too real to be a dream, too hazy to be a solid memory.
There is a car parked in a garage at the Alta, but Lee is not...adept at driving it. She hasn't had the time to learn and gain confidence. So she and Robbie met and rode the bus down to Bronzeville. Quietly, for the most part.
The woman in the box leans down toward her, and Lee reflexively rocks back and away, despite the glass between them. "Uh..."
She looks at Robbie, briefly, then back to the woman as she digs through her bag for her wallet. "How much is it for the freak show?" She pulls out a ten, but is reluctant to move toward the glass, toward the woman staring at her so intently.
[percept + emp: what'chu lookin' at me like that for? (risking scrutiny for the weird)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Carousel] "For you?" the carni grins a gap-toothed smile, tapping the butt-end of the sledgehammer with his fore and middle fingers, eyeing Bone-Grinder up and down speculatvely.
"One dollar if you want to win one'a them," he jerks his head back toward the wall beside the set up, topped as it was by a bell to be run only by the strongest, covered in cheap white teddy bears and stuffed unicorns, in varying sizes. The whole display is surmounted by pegasus with rainbow colored wings sagging in the center, its white pelt gone gray with age and grime. In the shifting lights of the midway, through, the thing just sparkles. " - with this here." Indicating the ordinary sledghammer in his hand.
"You really wanna test your luck, though, an' win the grand prize, I'll let you touch Big Bessie over there," He nods toward a slightly larger sledge, all black, heavier somehow, beside the larger of the two strong-man set-ups. "Five bucks, you kin win one'a each."
Then, he snorts, looking directly at Roman, "I'm calling him yella, you goddamned right." spitting a glob of tobacco juice at the kid's feet. "I ain't fuckin' him, boy. You best keep your mouth shut on that score."
[Carousel] [Creepy carni lady: manipulation + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Banshee] Slowly Iona got back to her feet. Looking around, she moved back to where she first felt it. And stood there, her eyes going over all she could see once more.
[Bone-Grinder] He smirks at the sound of Roman recognizing him and shrugging his shoulders."Man's about to be taught a lesson..."He says with a smirk, he had just killed an evil wolf think the other night with a Sledge. So his eyes wander over the smaller sledge then the bigger sledge. He reaches into his wallet and pulls out five dollars.
"Gimme Big Bessie... I'll show you how this shit is done."He says with a grin and a glance towards Roman."You should go after me!"
[Roman Turner] "I can tell ya fella, ya do look a little light in the loafers now that ya mentioned it, but he ain't interesting in rooting around in the field with you neither. Five bucks he could buy one of them little girl toys ya got there."
Ever so slowly he looked down to make sure his boots didn't get splashed before he looked up with a big ole friendly smile.
"Gonna catch more flies with honey mister, ain't no need to spit your vinegar my way. And as you can see, your bait'n done got ya a bite."
He indicated Simon's urgency to prove himself with a small cant of his head.
[Carousel] "Hey," Iona staggers to sit down on a bench. There are not many benches here. The carnival doesn't make money when you're sitting down. Still, she finds one, a decrepid old wooden one, half-way down the midway, between the funnel cake stand and the House of Mirrors, right in front of the Duck Pond. The speaker is a young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, rather plainfaced except for a scar that drags her mouth down at the corner. She's standing at one end of the duck pond, herding the wet yellow ducks through the constantly recycling water. As Iona starts walking away, the girl calls out after her, " - you okay?"
Not fifteen feet away, Simon and Roman stand in front of the stong-man booth; Simon demands Big Bessie and forks ovr five dollars for privilege. The carni grabs the bill and smiles an oily smile, gesturing toward the all-black sledghammer and the larger of the two strong-man tests. "Have at it, man."
Liadin studies the old woman rather longer than most of the fair-goers; and the woman stares right back, smiling this rather grotesque sort of smile that otherwise conceals most of her intent. It turns her into a mask, into a charicature, something out of a movie. "The freak show varies. It depends on the freaks. It depends on the clients. It depends, my dear, " - the cool rush of air conditioning outward from the little half-moon hole in the booth is a welcome counterpoint to the warm night air. In the near-distance, Liadin can see the Big Dipper, a wooden roller coaster, outlined against the smoke-gray sky. Some part of her must wonder how they got that damn thing in here.
" - on the mood of the emcee. I do hope you can make it, though. He will give you a very good price. Come in, come in. He will give you an excellent price, I know."
[Bone-Grinder] (Whatcha need me to roll?)
to Carousel
[Carousel] That woman recognizes Liadin. When she says: "I'm glad you're here." She means it.
to Liadan Whelan
[Carousel] Please roll WP to me privately, and then roll str + athletics for the game.
to Bone-Grinder
[Banshee] She hears someone and looks back. Her accent strong and enchanting a bit. "Aye, I think. Tis me first time at a carnival. Maybe I'm just ali'l ovawhelmed." She offered the woman a smile though.
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Carousel
[Bone-Grinder] He wasn't the strongest man in the universe but he was also a cheater and... Well not above making use of every edge he can to get his way. Such was the path of the Shadow Lord... Hell it wasn't the path it was the law! Cheat to win or die in the street like a dog! Simon was sure as fuck not a dog so Bessie was hefted up high and his eyes sparkled as he brought the hammer down on it's target with all the force he could muster.
[Wish I could do this in Crinos!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] For a moment he let his attention shift from Simon about to take the hammer and show his prowess to the Duck game. Duck game girl was talking to someone and of course his attention drifted along that line towards Iona. He knew that face. And if Iona glanced his way, Roman touched the brim of his hat with a polite cant of his head before his attention went back to Simon the Strong.
[Roman Turner] "Hang on to yer hats, that was just the warm up."
He assured anyone watching Simon.
[Liadan Whelan] She does wonder how they got the roller coaster in here. But, as though it is protected by the Delirium, she rationalizes it away. It looks bigger than it really is. The space is deceptively small. It's easy to look past it when she's having a staring contest with a strange woman in a booth, whose face is like a mask. Not in the figurative sense, not in the way that she would wear her own face, once upon a time. It looks like an actual mask, painted on or prosthetic. Unreal.
"Ah. Maybe," she says, and hands the woman the bill. "I guess we'll take sixty."
[Carousel] Simon swings Big Bessie with all his might. He has a strong grip on the black sledghammer, and the impact is resounding. The shuttlecock only rises one third of the way up the tower, just barely breaking the "puny" marker to hit "weakling." The carnie gives Simon a huge, black-mouthed grin. The scent of rot and ruin - and cheap whiskey - that rolls off the man in that moment is nearly overwhelming.
"I'll give you a free go," he tells Bone-Grinder, " - if you put you're fucking back into it. Just the warm up, eh?" continues, watching Roman now, close and shrewd. " - you got the balls to try?"
--
The girl looks at Iona uncertainly as she informs her that it is her first time at a carnival. With the scar on her mouth, her features seem mournful, her eyes limpid. She hesitates, the rake in her hand dripping wet from corralling and pulling back the yellow ducks, and then gives the stranger a faint shrug. "Well," the curl of a frown across her brow, as she darts a narrow litte glance toward the other woman in the booth, larger and meatier and two decades older, with a commanding barker's voice. " - okay. Hope you feel better?"
--
Liadin purchased 60 tickets. The ticket-seller pushes them out through the little half-moon hole and makes change, giving Liadin an old-fasioned five dollar bill and sixty tear-away tickets, all in a row. Her hand, as she pushes them out and through the booth, is unlined. "You have fun, shutterbug," she tells Liadin, her watery eyes dropping to the camera around he photographer's neck. "Come back to me if you need more tickets. Freak show's at the end of the midway, Hall of Mirrors is half-way through. I've heard tell we've got the best Elephant Ears this side of Rhodesia, mind you. Enjoy."
Then she sits back in the booth, looking expectantly toward the next customers.
[Banshee] She turned back around and headed over to the duck pond. "So what do ye do here? I mean, the game with the ducks an' ahl." She still felt a bit uneasy, but maybe it was just a side effect from the other night.
[Bone-Grinder] (You need another WP roll if Simon is going again?)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
to Carousel
[Roman Turner] "Yessir, I ain't no gelding, but because I know this for a fact, because I was in the shower making sure them there parts were nice and powder fresh before I came here and all? I don't find the need to prove it to ya. Though might I recommend a nice tartar control whitening toothpaste?"
He spoke nice and even, with a smile too. Then patted Simon on the shoulder for encouragement.
"He's just trying to rile ya up."
[Bone-Grinder] He knew it was a bad hit, not as much power as he had intended. He drew in a defensive breath and his eyes snapped at the other man, rage shimmering through for a moment before turning his attention towards it. Roman was right... Simon wanted a fucking Prize! A serious prize! Something that was so big it had to ride on his shoulders! He hands it to the man and begins to focus. He needed to get into a better position, he needed to make proper use of his weight because this wasn't entirely a feat of strength despite what it might imply!
Focus Simon, focus on the task at hand win your prize and go home a happy man with something to show for all your hard work and effort. It was strange, Simon wasn't big on collecting trophies on the battlefield... Most of his mementos were memories and reflections of battles since past. Yet bringing home a prize from a carnival game? That was serious business!
He couldn't not take up a free shot for putting his back into it and that is what he was going to do. Pour himself into this and hope that he could actually pull it off!
[New one +WP! Simon want's a fucking prize!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Banshee] (Forgot to add)
Before she joined the duck pond, she smiled to Roman when he tipped his hat. A touch of a blush to her cheeks since she wasn't close enough to feel the tinge of Rage off him.
[Liadan Whelan] She should ask. Lee should ask why the woman looks like she recognizes her from somewhere. As much as the Fianna kinswoman wants attention, there are times when it puts her off her stride. Unsettles her. She would say she felt...unbalanced.
"Thanks," she says, absently as she retrieves the tickets and her change. The tickets she folds up and slip into her pocket, the old fiver goes into her wallet, which in turn goes into one of the deeper pockets of her bag. As she and Robbie walk away from the booth, Lee watches the woman a little longer, stopping only when she'd need to contort herself to maintain the watch. Looking back before her, she shakes her head, and looks around. At the midway, the sign for the house of mirrors, or for the freak show at the end of the way. And the wooden roller coaster.
Bumping Robbie's arm with the back of her own, she nods at the Big Dipper, and heads in that direction first. And she tries to put the encounter with the ticket seller out of her mind for now.
[Carousel] The girl to whom Banshee speaks gives the former a guilty look, then glances back at the barker. "Listen," she's thin, stark, wearing a cotton dress that could be gray or black or navy, some drab color. Her eyes are huge in her plain face, but her lopsided mouth pulls back, making even her smiles wrong, somehow. "I - I really shouldn't talk, you know? I'll get in trouble. I just - "
She looks up, sharply, as the shuttlecock on the strong-man game flies up and up and up - past wimpy, past puny, past weak, all the way past strong, to the HE-MAN starbust at the top. The bell on the larger of the two towers is oddly dolorous, though - a deep, resounding tone more like the intonation of a church bell than the tinny ring of a cheap bicycle bell.
--
"Why don't you," the carni says to Roman, darkly, leaning forward, "why don't you have yourself a free go at the duckpond. On me. And let the real men play a real men's - "
- then Simon swings and the bell rings out and the carni turns away from Roman, crosses to Simon, pats him deliberately on the back, between the shoulder blades. "Well-well-well," he says, nearly conspiratorial, in the way he draws the latter in to him, deliberately excluding Roman from the setting. " - a man after all. You've won it. One of each."
One of each: a teddy bear with a rainbow stomach, a unicorn with a floppy bowtie, a pegasus with rainbow wings, one larger than the next. He starts pulling the prizes down from the wall with a long stick, topped my a rusty metal loop. "And a token." The token comes out of his pocket, all black, utterly opaque. He turns it over in his hand, and elbows Simon in the ribs, buddy-buddy, see: " - good if you want to get into the peep show or the parade of freaks. Tell the Emcee Laughing Johnny sent ya."
---
" - your friends," the girl to whom Banshee is speaking holds her breath, sharp. She doesn't look at the Fianna, now, concentrating on the ducks. "Your friends, miss, they shouldn't play that game. I have to get back to work. Please go."
[Banshee] Iona's smile vanished to a look of concern. She stepped in a bit closer to the girl so they could talk low. "There be something goin' on here, aye? I felt et. What kin ye tell me?"
[Roman Turner] The Barker started with him and he heard.
"Why don't you," the carni says to Roman, darkly, leaning forward, "why don't you have yourself a free go at the duckpond. On me. And let the real men play a real men's - "
And even as the guy registered the toning of the bell, Roman filled in the rest of what the guy had been saying.
"And let the real men play a real men's..that's right, I said play with a real man's dong, er, I mean, ring his chimes, er no wait, I meant, that takes the prize."
All this as the guy started all buddy buddy with Simon and started dumping stuffed toys in his arms.
"Snake oil salesman, one hundred in every carnival."
Where had they hid the cotton candy anyway? It just wasn't right to come and not at least go home with a blue tongue so he could tell Sparrow he'd been licking Smirfette all night.
[Bone-Grinder] He grins in satisfaction. His eyes following the shittlecock straight to the top and his satisfaction shows as the stuffed toys are pulled off for him. He grins at Roman."You wanna help me carry these?"He asks curiously with brilliantly glowing eyes/ He had proven himself... he didn't care about proving himself to this slimy man or anyone else really it was about proving himself to himself that is all that really matters right?
He takes the token and his eyes sparkle a little. Peep show? Is that legal? Freak shows were always huge disappointments so likely the peep show was too besides there was plenty around the carnival to satisfy his greedy eyes. Still the token seemed like a special invitation so he might as well visit right? Stuffing it into his pocket he turns to Roman."We gotta get you one of these tokens now too. Right?"He asks.
[Roman Turner] "Naw, I'm right as rain. Fine as shifted powdered sugar on the top of a chocolate cake at Sunday dinner. I got my mind on cotton candy and a ride on the tilt a whirl till I throw up."
He grinned at Simon shaking his head.
"Ya sure got yer self some fine trophies there. Might find all the pretty girls chasing ya now."
[Record of Ruin] Maybe it's a little embarrassing for the tall Fianna to stand there, hands in pocket, while the redhead he's ostensibly escorting to this here hoe-down pays his entrance fee. Maybe that's why, in those moments, he looks around with especial interest.
When they walk away from the ticket booth, though, he leans down to speak quietly to her. He wasn't so determinedly uninterested as to not notice the strange, extended exchange between them.
"What was that all about?"
[Carousel] Banshee step closer, maybe she leans over the trough of water full of yellow ducks. Behind the girl, bins of cheap prizes are arrayed against the colorful pegboard walls.
The barker looks over at the pair and frowns; the girl goes absolutely sheet white and refuses to look up at Iona. She does, however, say in a short, sharp whisper.
"I said, please go away." The air of desperation in her voice is impossible to miss.
--
Lee's eyes track to the wooden rollercoaster in the background, illuminated if only just against the sky. The structure - sparse and wooden - stands at the far end of the carnival. Between them: the carousel and the haunted house, the spider and the tilt-a-whirl. The whip, and the House of Mirrors. Closest to the ticket booth, the strong-man set-up, the milk-jug toss, the duck pond. There are darts to be whipped off a ballons and games with fake rifles promising a fine prize to the person with an "Eagle Eye." Elephant ears and snow cones, cotton candy and candy apples, lemonade and chili corn are all for sale at the booths lining the midway.
There are posters, too - on the sides of the booths that seem antique. The Bearded Lady. The Mermaid.
Vampire Boy.
Wolfman.
They seem like set-dressings, really - backgrounded against the brilliant lights of the carnival, mawkish allusions to some antiqued past. There are other posters, too: for the Big Dipper. The House of Mirrors.
The House of Horrors.
- and snow cones. "Buy them!" the poster says, over an illustration of a man in a Good Humor-style uniform and cap and a too-white smile, serving one to a small boy in overalls. "They're great!"
Catchy slogan, that.
--
When Simon suggests that Roman needs a token - the carnie behind them smiles, wide. "You can try the duck pond," he tells Simon, his wretched mouth twisted in a wide smirk. "if you're thinkin' on finding him a token. Then again, you two together, and Laughing Johnny's name oughtta get you in anywhere. Anywhere you want to go. Every fucking goddamned door opened to your fucking beck and your goddamned call."
The observant would note that the carni does not touch Big Bessie. Simon is consumed with his prizes, glowing-eyed, an armful of soft stuffed animals, downy, far finer than he might've expected from a place like this.
[Liadan Whelan] "I've never seen her before," Lee says, leaning closer to Robbie, keeping her voice down, "but she seemed to recognize me."
Either she's not bothered, or the exchange with the woman at the ticket booth had unsettled her enough to overcome any distaste she might have had paying for her male companion. She's leading him toward the wooden roller coaster, when the commotion at the strong man game catches her attention. "I know him," she says, indicating the Shadow Lord. "He's like you."
[Banshee] She eyes the barker, and narrows her eyes. A soft whisper to the girl. "Just be noddin' yes o' no. Ahr we in danger here?"
[Bone-Grinder] He grins back to Roman."Fuck the girls these are my trophies! I earned them!"He nods his head as he walks with Roman."They want trophies they can win 'em themselves. Though I might give Mila a stuffed unicorn since girls like that kinda shit and she technically payed for this trip."He laughs to himself but he keeps close to Roman. The place wasn't nearly as fun by yourself so he fully intended to at least hang out with the kid. Besides what if Roman got into trouble? Having a Full Moon around would make him feel safe! Especially one as strong as Simon!
Most of all it was a reason just to have someone to enjoy the company of. He was a Shadow Lord so he had to justify his reasons for hanging out with people lest they suspect he is soft hearted and actually likes people.
Then he heard the Carnie and his smile grew."Looks like I can get us both in."He says with a nod."Wanna go see the show with me?"He asks with a smile. His eyes at the same time falling on Iona as he walks away giving the carny a wave of his hand."Thanks Laughing Johnny!"He says with a grin. However when they are well out of ear shot he whispers softly to Roman."Was it just me or was Laughing Johnny really creepy?"
[Roman Turner] He was more than happy to leave the Barker behind and when Simon asked was the guy creepy, Roman let him know exactly how he felt.
"Laughing Johnny is one of those rare creatures. You my friend just had an entire conversation and up close personal moment with a braying jackass who likes to touch other men because he had his hands all over ya. And notice how he kept trying to get me to play with the Duck? Code. That was pure code for, I'm in to boys, wanna sit on ole uncle jackass's lap?"
He shuddered.
"I just hope he didn't molest them there toys he gave ya."
[Record of Ruin] Robbie's glass-green eyes rest briefly on Simon, then move on to Banshee. "So's she," he says. A small pause. "I think I tried to kill her in the alley. With the dogs. And stuff."
Unhesitatingly, he heads toward the Garou. When he's within earshot he calls to them, the flatness of his new englander accent somehow exacerbated by the volume.
"Hey. I think we oughta go look at the freak show."
...only in a carnival would it be all right to shout such a thing.
[Roman Turner] He didn't know Robbie, nor the woman with him. Though the call had him looking that way and even as the others all seemed to gravitate together, he had to open his mouth and mutter.
"I think we just left it friend. Simon here cleared it out."
He indicated the Strong Man game and the prizes Simon held.
[Carousel] The children have drifted away from the duck pond, leaving the barker at loose ends. She is standing there, her hands wet, her gray-streaked brown hair pulled away from her face nto a sharp bun, watching Simon and Roman across the way. She does not miss the air of desperation around he girl, though. She pivots after a moment and walks up behind the girl with the scarred mouth, touching her on the left shoulder and right elbow in a manner that is almost maternal, except for the way the girl stands straight through the spine. Stiff.
"Is this woman bothering you?" the barker asks the girl, all soft. The girl swallows hard and nods, once. She is white as a sheet, now. Whiter. She is spiritual-incarnation of white, stark as a ghost. "Well then, Miss." the barker tells Iona. "I think that you should play my game.
"Or you should go."
[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
to Banshee
[Carousel] Iona would really, really enjoy playing the duck pond game. Hey! Look at that sign. It says that everyone is a winner. All she has to do is pay fifty cents and pick a duck out of the water. Really, it's not like the strong-man thing, and look at all the prizes.
In short: Iona would like to play the duck game.
to Banshee
[Banshee] (WP spent)
Iona pulls herself away, reluctantly, and heads over to where Simon and Roman are. And it was a quick pace to get there as well. When she makes it to them, she pauses, growling a bit when she sees Robbie, then turns to Roman, and Simon. "We need tae be leavin'. There is something vera wrong here. I had a vision. This carnival was covered in blood. The lass there..." pointing to the girl at the pond. "She confirmed we be in danger here."
[Bone-Grinder] He tries to steer towards Iona with a smile on his face. Proud still,of course, and ignoring the comments from Roman."Naw he was just trying to rile me up... So I would blow all my money on his damn game."He chuckles."He just didn't expect me to win after only two tries."He says with a nod of his head.
He walks up Near Iona and offers a little smile before looking at Roman."You know her? Maybe we should invite her with?"He asks with a grin before turning to spot a figure who he... Does not recognize... Two of them but they, just like Iona, also capture his attention. He watches them quietly, are they coming closer? Well he's not gonna try to steer away.
When Iona moves to join them he grins a little."Leave? But I got a token!"
[Banshee] She shook her head. "Lis'en tae me, damn it! Do ye nah feel et? There is something here. Something...just bad."
[Liadan Whelan] She recognizes Iona from the alley, and the dogs, and the gurgling shadow deeper within. When Robbie strides off to join the others, trying to draw them together, Líadan hesitates. She looks at the roller coaster in the distance in a way that could be described as longing, but might not be. If two of the three others are shifters, odds are the third is as well. Lee has no great desire to be surrounded by rage.
Still, it's that or the strangeness of the strangers running this carnival, and she likes the idea of that even less. She trails after the other Fiann, reading the posters that she passes. She's following after Robbie, but she looks in Iona's direction, and at the girl with the scarred mouth, white as a sheet. Before she can look much closer, the Ragabash rises and moves to join the males.
Lee steps up near them. Simon appears to have forgotten her, which doesn't appear to bother the tall redhead. In her mind, at least, she's easily forgotten, cast aside, left behind.
"What kind of token?" she asks, curious.
[Roman Turner] He answered Simon first. "Her name is Iona, same moon as me."
And then he spoke to Iona.
"Help me here Miss Iona. What kind of danger are we in? Cause we done figured we are in danger of losing our wallets and heaven forbid, but I'm worry Simon here done lost his innocence. He's carrying the evidence of the deed. Look at all the prizes he done got. Boy howdy did he get a rise out of that Laughing Johnny when he showed his strength."
When Liadan and Robbie drew near he touched the brim of his hat with a nod of his head to the pair.
"Howdy."
[Record of Ruin] "Leave at the first sign of trouble? Is that what we should do?"
Robbie just ... throws that out there, expressionlessly.
[Roman Turner] Liadan had his attention for several long dreamy moments. She was pretty, he could sense the breeding and she had red hair. Red hair just like his Goddess, Miss Doctor Slaughter the woman who loved and desired him though she hid it behind things like "bleeding Idiot". The woman of his dreams, Cougar though she was. The future mother of his children and boy howdy wouldn't his ma just chew nails and fart bullets when he came home with that one?
"Well, we ain't seen no trouble yet. Just ask Simon here, he is in hog heaven, ain'tcha Simon?"
[Banshee] She waves a hand. "Nah. Maybe wait til tha carnival is closed fo' the nigh'. Buh there is something here. I had tae just figh' meself tae get away from the game there. An' earlier, I was passing an area, an' I goh a vision I think. I saw the carnival covered in blood. Evera thing was covered in blood. Something is nah righ'. An' we should check et out. Buh nah with ahl the humans here."
[Bone-Grinder] His arms were stretched around his winnings and he reached awkwardly into his pocket to pull the token out. He holds it out to Liadan."He said it will get us into the Peep Show or the Freak Show or... Both or something. Well me and Roman... I figure why not invite more? I mean worst case they turn us back right?"He asks with a grin.
Iona's ominous warning gets a smile before he shrugs his shoulders."Sounds like maybe we should look into the matter and where better than the freak show right?"He asks her with a grin to soothe her nerves. The thing about being a Full Moon was... Well he wasn't about to shy away from the threat of a possible conflict."I'll take care of you promise!"He says with a nod and a wink.
He looks back to Roman."You're just jealous you aren't as strong as me. Did you see that thing? Straight to the bell! Toughest motherfucker in this whole goddamn Carnival!"He nods his head.
Liadan was familiar though... He couldn't place where she was familiar from or why. Which was a curious thing cause she was cute and he tended to note that fact.
[Carousel] The others look back toward the pair in the duck-pond booth - a mother and daughter, the resemblance seems obvious, seems clear, seems perfect. The former is lecturing the latter, the latter is looking up at the former, her scarred mouth pulled downward into a frown. Liadin sees from a distance how white the girl, the sharp gesture the mother makes as she sends the girl away - somewhere back behind the curtains at the back of the booth.
The night is warm and pleasant. The scent of deep-fried food on the wind is heady, delicious, billowing out of a handful of the rusting white metal trucks lined up along the weed-strewn path that marked the center of the alley way. The noise of the barkers at the games up and down the midway is like a syncopated chorus, like jazz, this constantly changing beat, just off - a certain elegant patois in their taunts and challenges and jeers.
Liadin glances toward the roller-coaster. Is it her imagination, or can she hear the crink-crink-clank of the back-stop mechanism that keeps the coaster from falling back down the slope as it climbs the hill. Crink-crink-clank crink-crink-clank - even from a distance. The ride looks elegant, standing out alone against the fog-banked sky, two little cars outlined at the top of the highest hill, a singular moment of anticipation before -
- fwoosh, they disappear down the largest of the hills.
"Step right up!" they hear, " -step right up."
Step right up. Test your strength. Test your courage. Test your accuracy. Test your manhood. Test your -
- ability to pick a duck out of metal trough full of water.
[Roman Turner] He gave Simon a good natured smile.
"Yessir, I'm jealous as a cat who missed out on the milking. Yet at the same time, I feel safe and protected, assured. Like when I use Sparrow's Secret on my underarms before going out. Ya know, that fresh feeling with all the protection but clear so it don't show on the insides of my pits?"
[Liadan Whelan] [manip + subt: I'm totally not looking at you, lady]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [but really, I am: percept + emp]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Carousel] [Per + Alertness: I SEEZ YOU LOOKING. ]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] Step right up. Test your strength. Test your courage. Test your accuracy. Test your manhood. Test your -
- ability to pick a duck out of metal trough full of water.
Ok that made him have to turn his head towards Laughing Jackass for just a moment. And if Jackass looked at him, he was going to politely touch the brim of his hat and look away. Kill them with kindness his mama always said.
[Record of Ruin] [Do I see you seeing her looking? spec: sharp eyes!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Bone-Grinder] [Simon sees things too! Like...]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 2 (Botch x 2 at target 6)
[Carousel] The woman is deeply angry. The girl is scared witless. While Liadin watches surreptiously, the girl - who is physically trembling as if in anticipation of a blow - disappears behind the curtain. The woman takes a long moment to compose herself, and then turns back to the midway, watching, smiling now. Underneath it, there's a sort of - satisfaction, cheshire-cat style, as she studies the Garou.
to Liadan Whelan
[Bone-Grinder] He smiles and looks around at everyone."We all wanna do something? Or are we gonna take our profits and run?"
[Carousel] Simon looks and sees: that woman is totally hot for him. She can hardly stop herself from jumping over the metal trough of ducks and charging for him.
to Bone-Grinder
[Liadan Whelan] While the Garou are discussing danger, leaving it, going into it, Lee looks like she's listening to them. She's not part of this conversation, though, and she knows it. Just like she knows they, the shifters at least, will go into the freak show and investigate. It's what they do. While they talk, snap, or joke, Lee's body language reads as engaged in their conversation, but her eyes...
Her eyes are on the woman.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, like they do this all the time, like it's right, she threads her arm through Robbie's and leans close enough to whisper. "I don't like the way that woman's watching us."
[Roman Turner] "I gotta have cotton candy, wherever we go next. And heck, it wouldn't do no harm to see what a peek show looks like, right? I mean, Simon done won a free pass. Might even see something we ain't never seen before."
[Carousel] The woman is deeply angry. The girl is scared witless. While Liadin watches surreptiously, the girl - who is physically trembling as if in anticipation of a blow - disappears behind the curtain. The woman takes a long moment to compose herself, and then turns back to the midway, watching, smiling now. Underneath it, there's a sort of - satisfaction, cheshire-cat style, as she studies the Garou.
--
Her mouth is moving, too. He can barely see it. It almost looks like animation.
to Record of Ruin
[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
to Banshee
[Banshee] "I wan' tae be knowing what is going' on here. Buh I keep thinking something will go wrong. We dinnah need the humans aroun' here hurt." She thought for a moment. "Seems we ahr bein' led tae the Show. Leh's check et out. An' we cover each otha's arses."
[Roman Turner] "Well miss."
He was all honey and sincerity when he spoke to Liadan.
"It's your beauty. Right now that poor woman is thinking, I wish I had pretty red hair like that. Mine's all graying. And I wish my skin was so fair and unblemished. And how long has it been since I had a firm young girl's figure other than in my dreams?"
[Carousel] "Come play my game." It's not that she hears it, precisely. Maybe it's running through her mind: the whole of the situation. Maybe she's remembering it. Really. Still: that game is so easy. Pick a duck out of the water. If they need another token for the roller coaster or the House of Mirrors or something, she can probably win it. She really should play the duck game.
to Banshee
[Banshee] Then Iona just suddenly seems calm. She turns her back on her allies, and heads over to the duck pond. She wasn't sure why she was here, but she put 50 cents down on the counter.
[Bone-Grinder] He shakes his head when Liadan speaks."She's not lookin' at you she's lookin' at me. Don't worry about it I get that a lot."He says with a reassuring nod of his head."Let's go see this show since everyone is in agreement. Laughing Johnny recommended it to me and well... He seems to think I'll get a kick outta it. Worst case Scenario we... I am not going to finish that because I'll just jinx us."He nods his head.
His eyes going back to the Duck pond and the woman, he grins and offers a little wave of his hand. Before watching Iona in confusion. What was she up to?
to Carousel
[Bone-Grinder] He shakes his head when Liadan speaks."She's not lookin' at you she's lookin' at me. Don't worry about it I get that a lot."He says with a reassuring nod of his head."Let's go see this show since everyone is in agreement. Laughing Johnny recommended it to me and well... He seems to think I'll get a kick outta it. Worst case Scenario we... I am not going to finish that because I'll just jinx us."He nods his head.
His eyes going back to the Duck pond and the woman, he grins and offers a little wave of his hand. Before watching Iona in confusion. What was she up to?
[Record of Ruin] Robbie had been turning toward the freak show when Liadan stops. Gives the woman and the girl -- her daughter perhaps -- a long, careful look.
Robbie looks too. His clear eyes narrow. When Liadan comes up beside him and slides her arm through his, he starts, head snapping around and down, quick as an animal. His pupils are wide and black. He stares at her without a shred of human recognition ... but only for an instant. Then he laughs, a little nervously.
"Is this a date now?"
He leans down. It's not a sweet nothing he murmurs in her ear. It's: "She saw ya looking."
Robbie's hand finds Liadan's. Their fingers thread. His are long and hard, knuckles bony, grip strong. He pulls her along with him, closing on the other Garou as Banshee abruptly heads for the ducks.
"Lee and I are gonna check out the freak show," he says. "Texas, why don't ya come with us. Simon, I know you won a free ticket, but I think something's going on behind that curtain there, and she," he nods at Banshee, "might need a little backup.
"Let's try to meet back out here in, let's say fifteen minutes. Yah?"
[Carousel] Iona plucks down her fifty cents. A pair of quarters. The barker woman smiles at her magnanimously, then, scooping up the coins and nodding at the trough of water. There's a strong scent like a storm here - that combination of metal and water - and this close to the booth, atthe proper end, Iona can see the hose tucked into the end, an ordnary garden hose that gives he an inexplicable sense of security. Right?
"Pick a duck, dearie."
- the older woman encouraged, smiling now, motherly, intent. They bob along on the artificial current, the features worn, smiles painted and molded onto their plastc bills. "Any duck."
[Roman Turner] "Kansas, but it's all flat once ya get pass Oklahoma."
He was willing enough to go look at the freaks and he knew Simon was strong and could handle himself as long as he didn't lose his dolls.
"Don't ya go running off to see them Honky Tonk women without me Simon."
[Banshee]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Banshee] Iona looks over the bobbing plastic ducks and finally picks one.
[Bone-Grinder] He looks back at the others and shrugs his shoulders."I don't think we should be splitting up but sure whatever..."He really didn't honestly appear to care. He wasn't here to fight stuff he was here to win stuff, and he eyed his Token curiously before looking back at Roman.
"I will come find you as soon as... What's her face is done."He looks at Iona curiously. Wondering what in the hell she was doing and why he was stuck watching her.
[Liadan Whelan] There is a moment, when the teen starts laying out an explanation for the woman's look, where she almost looks pleased. Lee cants her head in his direction, curious and not quite believing him. Whatever her expression might have become, it remains placid when Simon interjects.
To Robbie, she just smiles, and the smile is not lopsided as it usually is as she twines her fingers with his. He asks if this is a date, and she huffs a small laugh, but doesn't answer.
She lets him lead her closer to the group. Which is splitting up. They're going to the freak show. Fantastic. Lee just tries to keep her eyes peeled, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. "So what do we do if we find something in there? Weirder than a woman with a beard, I mean."
[Roman Turner] "Ya better. I ain't gonna letcha go look at them Honky Tonk women without me."
He saluted Simon with a touch to the brim of his hat, then wiggled his brows at Robbie and Liadan.
"Well howdy, I bet when ya came ya weren't expecting a threesome. Ya know, we could go in the house of horrors as a group and see if anything is as scary as my cousin with bed hair and no make up in the middle of the night."
[Record of Ruin] "We'll figure that out if we find something."
They're a veritable smorgasbord of accents here. Or they could be, if Liadan ever used her real accent; if Robbie's weren't relegated to a certain flatness of his vowels, a dropped 'r' here and there. Hand still gripping Liadan's rather relentlessly, he heads toward the freakshow.
If they want more money, she'll have to pay for him again. This time he won't stand there looking aside. He'll watch the ticketmaster, eyes sharp.
[Roman Turner] "If I get scared, will ya hold my hand too?"
He came up on Robbie's other side with that question. Though he looked back a time or two where they left Simon and Iona.
"Ya think that Miss Iona might be out to molest them ducks or were ya afraid she might dive in the little water trough and drown herself?"
[Carousel] The duck has the number 6 written on the bottom in water resistant Sharpie. The barker reaches out gently and plucks the duck from Iona's hand, turning it over, nodding as she reads the number. "Six." she says. "Six. That's a good one. Six is the number of the stars in the sky at the moment our lord passed from one world to the next, didn't you know that? Six six six - " all the idle patter, as the woman turns and count out the bins fixed onto the pegboard, under her breath. The curtain behind the booth ripples with movement, but soon enough the barker finds the bin conveniently marked six, and pulls out two prizes: a tiny yellow koosh ball and a red kazoo.
Ceremoniously, the woman places both into Banshee's hands. "You'll want to keep those," she says, quietly, to Iona. "Six is a lucky number." Then, she reaches into her right front pocket and pulls out an all-black disc, utterly matte, just a shade smaller than a quarter, handing it over to Banshee, looking up as Simon comes close. Her look is almost conspiratorial.
"Good for entry into the House of Mirrors, the House of Horrors," the barker tells Iona, " - the Freak Show. Even the Tunnel of Love. I recommend that one. Find someone you want and take them in there. They'll never let you go."
--
Liadin, Robbie and Roman, meanwhile, turn and disappear down the corridor of the midway. They pass the House of Mirrors, a bored teenager in the ticket-house smacking her gum. They pass the House of Horrors. Dark, that, the ticket booth empty, a preternatural chill emanating from the interior. They pass a corn dog stand, and for god's sake, the corn dogs smell divine. A couple comes away from the candy-apple stand sharing one out between them, holding hands, laughing. The candy coating is red-as-blood.
--
The Freak Show of the Unfair is near the end of the midway, nearly dark, set up from the ground in what the more astute of them might guess is an eighteen-wheeler, bordered by a deck, the frame covered in tarps and curtains painted with old-fashioned impressions of carnival Freaks, as if the same curtains had been in use for a half century or more. There is a bored-looking kid at the window, resting his cheek in the palm of his hand, chewing gum as he reads a magazine. The rides are going around them, but there's no one else in line here.
They come close and climb up the decking, weave through the crowd-control measures meant for bigger crowds, longer lines. The boy watches them, blowing an idle bubble as the approach. "Five dollars each for the Hall of Wonders," he announces to whoever approaches the counter. " - which doesn't include Vampire Boy, Wolf-Man or the Human Blob, have to ask them Emcee if they're doing a show, after, if that's what you're here to see."
[Carousel] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
to Banshee
[Carousel] She would like to keep the prizes. She doesn't want Simon to have them. She could just tuck them in her pocket and then no one would take them.
--
Note: she doesn't feel that way about the token, just the prizes. She does not want to share those.
to Banshee
[Banshee] Iona took the prizes, and pushed them into her shorts pocket. She then turned to Simon as he walked up, all smiles. "Aye, look!" Holding up a token. "Where do ye wan' tae be goin' next?" Iona was different now, getting into the carnival rather than worrying about danger. That alone spells danger.
[Record of Ruin] Robbie mutters a laugh. Then, by way of answer, he holds his hand out to Roman. Maybe he just wants to see if he'll actually take it.
If he does, they'll make a fine set, walking up to the Hall of Wonders. The boy as the window speaks. Robbie listens, head cocked at a slight, feral angle.
"We're here to see everything," he promptly replies.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon remains near Iona with a smile on his face when she wins."It's a decent prize..."He says considering all she had to do was pick up a duck. What a lame ass game! He then looks at the women and back to Iona."Well I told them we'd go see the freak show as soon as you were finished here... You don't seem so worried anymore."He says with a smile as he turns to guide her away or at least head in the direction the others had already headed.
He was amused that the Tunnel of love was suggested... A mistake on their part but it made him chuckle slightly as they headed in the direction of the Freak show.
[Liadan Whelan] Lee pulls her hand free of Robbie's so she can retrieve her wallet once more. She glances at Roman, then Robbie, confirming their number. And she pulls out a twenty.
"Three, please."
[Roman Turner] He was Ragabash, he was from small town Kansas, he was as homophobic as they came. Still he steeled his nerve and laced fingers with Robbie with a happy sigh and bat of his lashes.
"Now one..two..three..four...We're here to see the Wizard, the Great and Wonderful Oz."
[Banshee] She smiled wide. "I dinnah know why I was so worried. tis a strange thing. Buh the Freak Show sounds intaresting." She followed his lead as they headed for the Show.
[Record of Ruin] Great. Now Lee's pulled free of the little daisychain, leaving Roman and Robbie holding hands. The lanky Fianna -- very subtly, mind you -- pulls his hand free and sticks it back in his pocket.
Small town Kansas. Blue collar Boston shoreline. Neither of them are particularly open-minded in certain aspects.
He answers Roman after their fare is paid and they're walking in, though: "The mom back there? She looked pissed as hell. And the girl was scared. Then 'mom' pushes her into the back and gets this ... smug gloating look on her face. Swore I saw her lips moving weird too."
[Carousel] "Everything?" the boy stills and sharpens. Look: like this, like a human-faced fish surfacing from the water, looking right back at you. That sort of animal stillness, that suggestion of feral-under-human flesh is all wrong on him, but he answers with it, inhaling.
The cool breeze of from the interior of the booth - the humming air conditioning - carries the faint odor of salt water.
Liadin offers a $20 and he takes it from her, pushing back her change, a old-fashioned $5 where Lincoln is in a perfectly symmetric little oval, and all is right with the world.
"Her too?" This is sharp, cast over Liadin's shoulder toward Robbie and Roman where they stand holding... hands, if only tentatively. Their hands must be below the boy's line of sight, but then he leans forward to look at them -
- and drops out of sight. Five seconds later, they see why: the boy is perhaps 4'6", though his shoulders and head and even his arms show no sign of dwarfism. With a grim little flourish, he pulls back the curtains to let them into the Hall of Wonders.
--
Down the midway, Iona and Simon walk past the corn dog stand, the candy-apple stand - god they look delicious, glistening red like the perfect iteration of the fruit, - past the House of Mirrors and the House of Horrors, cold drifting out from the interior like threads of chilly water pouring into a warm lake from glacier-fed stream.
Beyond, the Big Dipper goes crink-crink-[b]clank[/i] as it turns around and climbs the hill again.
[Carousel] The Big Dipper actually goes crink-crinkclank, but who's counting?
Simon and Iona come into view of the Freak Show of the Unfair in time to see the curtain swishing closed behind Robbie, Roman and Liadin.
[Roman Turner] He had ever so casually found a need to make sure the back of his shirt was tucked in as an excuse to wipe his hand off after holding hands with another man. He wasn't in to Broke Back Mountain when that came out and that hadn't changed a lick.
"Maybe it was chew? Maybe the ma had chew in her mouth and that's why her lips were moving? Or maybe she was asking God, why did I have such a kid, what did I do wrong? Or maybe she was listing just what she was going to chew her ear over for later?"
Then he got a good look at the kid when the kid leaned up and saw it wasn't really a kid it was a....
"Well I'll be hanged, did ya see that? He's one of them Munchins from that movie. Oh Lordy, we ain't in Kansas no more Toto."
[Bone-Grinder] He grins and looks at the Candy Apples and then back to Iona. He gestured towards it and then eyed Iona."You want a candy apple?"He asked her softly as he began to inch his way towards the stand. he had already fed himself but for some reason they looked so very delicious. And healthy! Or... A little healthy anyway!
He then catches sight of the other three disappearing into the Freak show."Shit they already went in."
[Liadan Whelan] Past the curtain, Lee walks close to the other two, but she doesn't move to take the Galliard's hand again. She pulls her ancient manual over her head, carefully wraps the strap around it before setting it gently, reverently into her bag. It's not the best solution for it, but it will have to do. And she takes out a PowerShot, a much smaller digital, with a faster flash setting. One never knew what sorts of weapons they needed at their disposal.
Pushing her ponytail back past her shoulder, letting her hair drop down her back, she says, "I saw that, too. This whole place is weird."
[Banshee] She gave a quick nod. "Aye, thah would be nice." But he sees the other 3 heading into the show. "We kin geh an apple on the out."
[Record of Ruin] [percep/emp on boy!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] [hurr. manip+subt.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Carousel] [Everyone stares at me! are you different?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Bone-Grinder] He nods back to her."Let's catch up."He says with a nod of his head before speeding up, clutching his stuffed toys tightly, you would have to kill him to take his prizes away.
[Banshee] She grabbed onto the waist of his pants and followed right behind, keeping up pace with him as they try to catch up to the other 3.
[Carousel] [You don't knoooooooooow me.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] When asked if he really wants to see everything, Robbie stares right back at the boy, but by some accident of fate and luck he manages to look laconic rather than,
well,
intense. A beat later he glances at the door and nods. He doesn't bother answering that second question, or the first one for that matter. The fact that they all walk in is answer enough.
The curtain falls behind them. "Not just weird," the Fianna muses. "Unreal. I mean. Un-real. Not real. Everything feels just a little off. Or something."
[Carousel] The boy counted them. One two three. He was looking for four five. He knows that Robbie and Roman are alike. He knows that Liadin is different. Not because she's a chick, either. That wasn't sexism, there.
to Record of Ruin
[Record of Ruin] [by request: wits+ancestors, diff 8!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Bone-Grinder] He moved quickly his rage helping to chase others away as he cuts through the crowd, smirking a little as she grasps his pants. It was how kids tended to keep from getting separated, so why shouldn't it work with adults. Soon enough they were at the entrance his eyes wide with excitement before glancing back at her."Save your token I got this!"He says with a nod of his head.
[Roman Turner] "Carnivals are always weird. It's why they only open at dark, so they can hide some of the wrongness behind illusion. Besides, ya gotta wonder with the whole Invisible Circus production and the fun of the unfair on the flyer? It's a conundrum."
The word of the day had been Conundrum and he finally found a place to use it.
[Record of Ruin] There's a brief pause - a hitch in the Galliard's step. He frowns slightly, gives his head a single quick shake, and then moves on.
"Also," he adds quietly, "the kid in the ticketbooth knew what we were. I think. He knows five of us are here together."
[Banshee] She blushed a bit as he decided to take care of the entrance fee. "Only if I be gettin' the next one, dearie." She panted a bit as she caught her breathe.
[Roman Turner] That whisper from Robbie had Roman looking back at the curtain that closed behind them.
"Oh yeah? I don't reckon I like that much."
[Liadan Whelan] "Everyone here seems to know who we are, though. Or what. The woman at the entrance seemed to know who I was, too." Lee also tries to keep her voice down.
[Bone-Grinder] He catches the blush then pulls out his token. He had wanted to make use of the damn thing, and while the Peep show might be fun this is where everyone else was and that meant they needed to follow so he did as he was ordered as soon as they got up in front he presented the token and grinned."Laughing Johnny sent me."He says with a nod of his head. It was obvious by the sheer number of Stuffed animals he carried that Simon had won at something. He then handed a couple of stuffed animals to Iona and gave her the look that implied he might kill her if she lost them! Then slung his arm around her shoulder."He said me and my guest should be able to get in or something."
[Roman Turner] "And it weren't no kid, didn't ya see it? It was one of them Lollipop Kids from the Wizard of Oz, I'm telling ya, I am sure I seen him on it. Ya know, with the curl here."
He touched his forehead just beneath the hat.
"He just needed them funny looking short pants."
Then Liadan was whispering and that had him whispering right back to them.
"If they know, then they got a way of telling and it means it's cause they are watching for our sort and I don't take kindly to that. Maybe I should try to take advantage of this here dark and see if I can spot something we ain't gonna like?"
He was already eying the area they had entered.
[Carousel] The freaks displayed in the Hall of Wonders are kept on little individual stages, behind a half-wall of glass.. It is rather like attending a macabre zoo. At each station, there is a huge red button that one presses to illuminate the stage. Floodlights come on, and incandescent bulbs light up around the glass like footlights.
And music comes on, this distant music like the wheezing of a bellows, like a dying pipe-organ in the center of a malfunctioning Carousel. The lights stay on only as long as they hold down the big red button, then disappear, leaving the stage and hall dark except for the dim glow of lights lining the passageway and the afterburn of incandescence against their retinas.
There is the bearded lady, reclining on a blood-red velvet divan. They press the lights, and she comes to light, shimmying and turning in slow rotation, half-dressed, in that.
Here is the snake charmer; entirely naked, an albino python slithering around her body the only concession she makes to modesty.
It isn’t much of one. Not the way she’s holding that snake.
Next is the strong-man, a freak so grotesque that it seems as if his body exploded outwards, balloons inserted beneath his skin.
The mermaid swims along in the cold waters of a dark tank. If and when they press the button to illuminate her, she is visible only when she presses her face against the glass or rises above the surface of the musky waters. Her teeth, her teeth, her teeth are razor sharp, and her fingers seem tipped in curling claws. She opens her mouth, yawning into a smile and – and – and – so on.
Some of the freaks are simply sad, pathetic. A pair of twin seven-year-olds joined at the chest, staring out sidelong when they lights come on. Amazing what you can do with latex and spirit gum, really. They begin to tap dance, tired, desultory when the light comes on, then stop again.
--
Outside, Simon and Iona are charged five dollars each by the bored teenager in the ticket booth. The transaction is almost a mirror of the first, except the boy’s expectance gaze on them, intense.
“You’re the ones with tokens, right?” he says, all smiles as he jumps down from his stool and waddles around to open the curtain and direct them in. It’s dark inside. Down the hall –
(how long is this hall?)
- the light is going on at the mermaid’s enclosure, the mermaid is rising to the surface of her water, leaning over the half-glass frame.
Liadin and Roman and Robbie can see – now – at the end of the hall, the Emcee. He is sitting at a simple metal desk, his face illuminated by the light from below – his face is painted and his eyes are dark and his clothing is velvet and spangled and garish, but his concentration on his accounts is absolute.
Until and unless he sees them looking at him, and then he looks up, all sharp-shark’s-smile.
[Record of Ruin] [percep+alert: do the 'freaks' all look alive/real-people-ish?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Carousel] Oh yes they do.
to Record of Ruin
[Liadan Whelan] [i'm not looking at you, pff: manip + subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Roman Turner] "Holy Mother of God, look at them teeth! I think I caught that fish's cousin in the river and I ain't never gonna eat fish again. I mean really, who wants to choke on a fish bone anyway? Future cat food right there. Get back down you devil fish!"
Yeah that had scared the shit out of him with the face had come up to the glass out of the dark like that.
"Nine Lives, that's your name! Meow, meow, here them calling your name? I think Little Fiskies is next in line, best run fishy."
[Bone-Grinder] He begins down the hall his arm eventually sliding off Iona. A nod of his head when asked about the token. His eyes looking around as they enter. He doesn't say much and while he does pause to look at the freaks they pass his primary objective here was to catch up with the others. He was, as far as he knew, the only Ahroun around tonight and as a result he needed to make sure not to get too far from the others in case they needed him.
[Carousel] [Are you looking at me little girl?
Are you trying to figure out what I am thinking?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [well does she notice anything?: percept + emp on emcee]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Robbie pushes buttons.
He pushes them even though two or three exhibitions in he feels faintly queasy, faintly sullied by the whole experience. He keeps going, though, stage after stage, display after display. Soon he's not keeping lights on for more than a second or two. The twins barely get to start their tapdance routine before the lights flash off again, leaving only a fading afterimage in Robbie's field of vision.
They're close to the end of the hall, then, and the emcee is waiting for them. Lights turn on. Lights go off. In the dimness, Robbie whispers to Roman, "Maybe you oughta do that take advantage of the darkness thing now. I think they'll know you're missing, but maybe they won't know where to."
[Roman Turner] Just like any dumbass kid, when he figured out someone was coming down the dark corridor towards them, he looked and as soon as he figured out it was Simon he heehawed like a Jackass.
"Ya gotta see this fish! I swear it is the ugly cousin mix of a catfish and a toady frog!"
Just like that he had taken Robbie's cue and started stomping off back towards where Simon was coming from. And in that space he tried his best to gather his freaking self and grab hold of that Gift that some times helped him sneak out at night back home.
Blur
man+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 8) [WP]
[Record of Ruin] [WTF KAHSEENO]
[Roman Turner] In his head the theme from Mission Impossible started and he was on his tippy toes, creeping back by Robbie and Liadan. Sure as shit that he was so invisible that no one would ever know he was there. And grinning like a fool to boot.
[Roman Turner] I am so invisible. Dang I am good. They will never know I passed them if I never tell them. Man this is great. Look how clueless they look.
All of it was going through his little bean head.
Dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Carousel] [Apparently - you weren't. Ahem. Carry on.]
Get back down you devil fish! - proclaims Roman, and the mermaid opens her mouth and hisses at him. There is a distinctive odor of fsh in the room, close to her, sharper when she opens her mouth.
Her teeth are sharp;
oh, my dears, there is a double-row of sharp teeth.
--
Simon slips his arm from Iona's, and the Fianna ducks out. Quite frankly, she doesn't want to share her kazoo and her koosh ball with him. So: "I'm going to head out," she says, repeating her warning about blood, " - keep an eye on your from without," she tells him, in her Irish accent that the storyteller cannot replicate.
No matter; he has regained the group. Ahead, Robbie pushes a button, the twins begin to dance; then lets it go. Darkness again, except where the lights run along the bottom of the aisle. Simon comes up behind. Roman circles back, working to sneak into the shadows.
The emcee continues working on his paperwork He doesn't see anyone studying him; doesn' look up until they are one-stage-away from the dusty black velvet curtain at the end of the very long hall.
[Carousel] [III SEE YOU!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He catches up to the group with a smile on his face. Stealing back his stuffed animals bitch can't have my trophies! When he reaches the others he looks around and smiles."So umm... I don't see what is so bad about the place. I mean freak shows are just that right?"He asks as he looks around. Curious, friendly, and oblivious to whatever the others have been going through. Still Iona's warning did have him tensed just a little.
[Record of Ruin] They've made it through a hall of grotesqueries. One after another, monsters and freaks light up; some genuinely chilling, some merely sad. Some looked rather visibly patched-together. Some looked startlingly real.
All looked alive. There. Waiting in the darkness, all night. Irreverently and irrelevantly, Robbie wonders how the fuck they go to the bathroom. Were there understudies? Body doubles?
"The kid out front," he says to Simon, low, as the Ahroun rejoins them, "knows we're in here. He knows there's five of us. I think he knows what we are. Lee says the woman at the gate knew too. So either they've been watching us all along, or worse, they just know."
They're at the last display. Robbie draws a short breath and pushes the button.
[Roman Turner] He intended to use the distraction of seeing the others for his chance to sneak for that dusty curtain back there. Wanting to get a look so they knew what they were walking in to. If he had a totem connection with someone, they would of been insane by now with the Mission Impossible theme playing the same lines over and over in his head.
[Liadan Whelan] Robbie presses buttons, bringing the sad creatures into focus for a few seconds before losing them to the darkness once more. Lee looks around, looks at the beings on display. She tries to get a good look at the emcee, working on his paperwork, but the lights are too dim and even with glasses she's too near-sighted.
At the last display, Lee keeps herself a little behind and to the side of Robbie, surreptitiously placing him between herself and the man at the desk. And she watches for the final exhibit to light up.
[Carousel] “What happened,” the Emcee says, rising from his desk when they are close. His eyes are black. This is to say: they are black, entirely, from pupil to iris, as if they are been constructed from obsidian. His eyes are black and they are fixed upon Simon and he’s smiling, now. “ – to your girlfriend.” He’s smiling. Which is to say, he’s showing teeth.
“I thought you might go to the Tunnel of Love.”
--
And Simon is covered in stuffed animals. They’re lovely. They are soft and fine, not some strange scratchy synthetic made from petroleum and stitched together at half-pay in some obscure Chinese province. Dusty as they are, they are soft and fine. They feel good in his arms.
--
Liadin sees nothing when she studies the Emcee. She cannot read him; there’s something impenetrable about him. Perhaps it is the costuming, the frippery, the huge starched collar dusted with glitter. Perhaps it is something else – the way his face is painted to be dead white.
That’s paint, right? It has to be.
--
The last display is this: a boy, who is no more than ten, no younger than seven, sits on a narrow throne that has been painted an already flaking gold. The lights come on and he looks up. His features are pasty, and there are dark rings under his eyes like deep abiding bruises, black as soot. His eyes are lovely, though – so heavily lashed they remind one of a woman’s, fine and alert and distinct.
He wears a sheet over his body, twisted up to his chin, tucked in. When the lights come on, he begins to unwind it as if it were a winding cloth.
Underneath: there is a heart. This is to say, the skin of his chest has been peeled back in precise surgical fashion, in precise culinary fashion, even, the way some expert chef might carve a radish into a rose – to reveal the architecture of his ribs and sternum. Neat little stitches hold the skin back. Blood vessels worm up through the ribs, around the sternum, attached to a narrow little thing the size of a child’s fist, - it must be paste and mirrors, right? – except that the heart, which is on top of rather than under the sternum, contracts visibly in perfectly doubled time with their own heartbeats.
They can heart it. da-dum, da-dum. da-dum.
---
“Vampire boy,” the Emcee tells them, quiet now, hushed from the delight of the mystery of it. “Will tell your fortune, if you’d like to join me for the show. I’m afraid we have lost our wolfman, though. I hope you won’t be too disappointed.”
[Record of Ruin] Garish light floods the small stage. The boy unwraps his sheet and shows them his heart. Words flash into Robbie's mind,
in this profound silence I feel the stars slipping though the dark.
The Universe is beating its life through my heart.
gleaned somewhere from some dusty book or other, someone else's borrowed words, some library-copy of wisdom, studied, pored over because what Robbie lacks in raw intelligence he made up for in diligence. What he lacks in raw creativity he does not lack, but can never make up for, in genuine appreciation of those who have it.
Before, anyway. Before the Change, all that.
Now it's after the Change. Now, when he sees that, it's too much for him. He lets go the red button and the lights go dark; it's the darkness now, the Emcee quiet in it, his voice hushed as that of some priest, some acolyte of a most divine mystery. He gets as far as we have lost our wolfman when this wolfman wheels of him, teeth flashing in the dimness as he spits the words out:
"Fix that." He stabs a finger at the stage, the boy in the dark. He's incoherent with outrage, on the verge of stammering. "Fix him. Now."
[Roman Turner] He had come to the Carnival with the thought of cotton candy and having his fortune told. It was all for fun, he knew it wasn't true, but it was fun. And now here he was in the dark, working his way off behind the Emcee's area if he could. All in the middle of this, he could hear the heart and thought it was his own, but he was sure his was racing faster. He heard the words "Fortune, Vampire, Wolfman." He heard Robbie's outrage and the little spark of rage in him was snuffed down tighter to keep the beast in him from breaking free in answer to that outrage.
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + emp on the boy!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He eyes the creepy man with a tilt of his head, this shit was fuckin' weird! Who the hell is this guy and how did he know about Iona? Whatever the case he shrugged his shoulder."I don't really know what we are gonna do after here and I really don't think it's any of your business asshole!"He said stepping right up to the clown in the manner one might expect of an ahroun. The guy was fucking creepy as hell! He didn't like clowns and that showed when he looked at the man as if he was sizing up a potential target. Proud and powerful and frighteningly protective of his trophies. He wasn't gonna let anyone have them."I think you scared her off you creepy ass fuck. Maybe you should drop the Chimo look and go for something a little less creepy?"He looked like he was bugged by this man extremely. The Ahroun found himself placing himself between Emcee and the others in a defensive posture.
Whatever the hell was going on in this place he wasn't gonna let this creepy ass dude near anyone else. Besides something scared Iona off and he was suspicious that it was something in here from the beginning.
It might be startling to the man, certainly if the entire thing was in fact legitimate to have himself face to face with a defensive Ahroun. But Simon does manage to step back. His defensive posture shifting when he realizes he might actually be overreacting. This entire place had him a little on edge, and then there was this creepy ass dude might just be doing his job... He blinks a few times and looks around."I'm sorry dude... You scared the shit outta me! I didn't mean that!"He laughs a little to break the ice after that. Strangely, however, he keeps himself between the Emcee and the others despite that. The Ahroun had heard the New Moon's warning and he wasn't about to shrug it off. Something was wrong with this carnival and he knew it had something to do with his stuffed animals. Fuckers are not getting my stuffed animals!
[Liadan Whelan] The lights come up to illuminate the boy. One might expect the woman in their group, the kinfolk, to recoil in outraged horror. Or to at least show a shred of maternal instinct, a desire to help the boy out. Instead, Lee is reminded of high school Biology. Only more grotesque.
Frowning slightly, she looks at the heart, beating above the boy's exposed chest.
She starts when the lights go dark, and the boy disappears. In the semi-darkness, Robbie snarls. Now Lee recoils, steps back and away, instinctive.
"What did you do to him?"
[Carousel] Simon comes charging forward, cursing, puffs himself up, and the Emcee gives him a curt, direct - up and down, top to toe - " -well," he says when Simon apologizes at the end, his mouth twisting wide. "I accept your apology. I assure you, we would have made your night very, very special.”
--
Liadin asks what he did; the Emcee turns to look at her, hawk-eyed. Right in the eyes. He doesn’t look at her the way he does them men, up and down, a hint of covetousness in his eyes and posture. “My dear young woman,” he tells her, “ – he was born that way, from his mother’s womb into the great dark world. We saved his life.
--
Then: Robbie, reflexively furious, wheels on him and demands – Fix him.
Fix him.
"What - " the Emcee returns harshly; his voice is abidingly deep, suddenly. He seems rooted here, entirely in command. His mouth - which is well-made and painted black - peels sneeringly back from his teeth, which are whole and intact and white as his lead-painted skin.
The harsh note disappears as quickly as it arose. "What would you have me do, then? Stitch back his skin, is that what you want? Smother his heart, choke him until he dies for want of blood - "
The Emcee is standing now, the black velvet curtain at his back, the long, long hallway dark. There's a whisper of movement from behind the curtains, the slow wheezing of the dying Carousel. He leans closer to Robbie, sneering -quiet, "smothered because his skin will not change to accommodate him." This is so low that no one else is likely to hear it.
--
If he is not attacked by the charged, furious Galliard right then and there, he turns his back on them, the Garou and their kin, unafraid, apparently, of claws in his back. Sweeps open the curtains, casting a sly invitation of a look over his shoulder.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Sweeping back the curtains, I have a show to do.”
[Record of Ruin] Beside Liadan, behind Simon, Robbie is rigid with fury and revulsion. He bares his teeth when the Emcee's voice snaps and booms; snaps at the air when he leans close. Every muscle is tensed, every joint locked. It seems to take a great deal of willpower for the Galliard to hold himself in check, hold himself in place.
He does, though. He holds on, holds still, holds his ground, and then the Emcee is turning his back to them, proceeding toward this final stage.
When the lights come on -- and Record of Ruin has no doubt that they will come on to bathe whatever final freakshow might emerge -- their reflected light will show Robbie's face taut with strain, blanched with anger, patches of color in his cheeks. His hands are clenched at his sides, his lean, wasteless forearms ridged and corded with the flexion in every muscle and tendon.
[Record of Ruin] WP!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He blinks when he tries to make sense of that little threat. Why the hell would he want a special night with Iona? He didn't even know the girl! But he says nothing, obviously he had been over reacting as had she. It was Robbie, however, who appears infuriated. Simon looks at Robbie and he smiles just a little. They were walking a precarious line between the dangerous and the misunderstood. He glanced around at the others and then back towards Robbie."Let's finish the show and get the hell out of here... I really don't know if I like this guy at all... I sure as fuck don't trust him."He says softly."I think we should just finish the show and get the hell outta here."
[Roman Turner] He had gone, he had slipped off to nose around, to work his way head of the others, behind the Emcee. He wanted to know what lay ahead for them and he wanted to be behind the Emcee if the others had to fight from that end. He made sure he had a hiding spot when all the talking started, just in case.
WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] The Garou are furious. So furious that they might overlook something. Something that could be important.
Lee does not feel much protective instinct for the boy behind the glass. Seeing him in there, cut open and on display the same as all the other creatures they've seen tonight, does not infuriate her. What inspires her desire to protect, however, is the threat to them, the Garou. She doesn't know them well, not yet, maybe not ever. But she, so weak by comparison, just a kinfolk, just a little more than human, would lay down her life for them.
She steps beside Robbie, but she doesn't touch him. That. Would be suicide. But she says, her voice low for his ears only, "Be careful. They're missing a wolf-man and they know what you are."
The emcee goes to open the curtains, and the kinfolk knows she should run. Simon is right, though. They've come this far. They have to finish this.
[WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Carousel] The velvet curtain is heavy, moth-eaten and old. It brings up great clouds of dust as it is swept back. On the other side: an impression of space, as if they had entered a tent – a circus tent, of course. Beneath them, the floor has changed from metal squares to wooden decking. There are shadows underfoot, bleeding cold air, and a certain heavy, humid smell in the air. It is hard to place, not quite the scent of blood – but close to it, thick and fleshy somehow. There are a dozen slatternly looking wooden benches arrayed in front of a stage, and a huge black caldron set to the side. It is fully five feet tall and five feet wide, a great, squat sphere, the metal sheened over with the soft glistening of grease boiled over.
The stagelights here are soft, and a handful of lanterns swing from the great sweep of the ceiling as if in a breeze. Candles flicker and wax drips onto the boards below. There’s a sort of – mist in the air, a drifting fog, where the cold air from the shadows below the decking meets the hot, humid air of the tent.
Other than the way they came in, there’s no visible way out. The stage is low and it is empty. “Have a seat.” he instructs them, Simon and Robbie and Liadin, for Roman is hidden amongst the shadows at the corners of the room, “oh, anywhere, anywhere you like. I had hoped for a female this time, but really, Jefferson, I’ll take what I can get. Hard times. Hard times my friend.”
There is an answering gurgle from the cauldron. The Emcee picks his way through the benches heading toward the stage, not-quite mincing as he goes, steps up onto it. The stage is a foot higher than the floor, a dusty red curtain backgrounding him. He looks back at those who remain in the little seating area, visible, expectant.
- waiting.
Watching them silently for a good fifteen seconds. Nothing happens, and a frisson of irritation breaks through his mask.
“Well then,” he recovers, “on with the show.”
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Per+Primal Urge]
[Record of Ruin] [no applicable spec!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] per+PU
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] [percep + emp! applicable spec!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat from a human being. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner.
to Bone-Grinder
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner.
to Record of Ruin
[Roman Turner] per+emp if needed
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat from a human being. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner. It is not rotten/dead, and the scent makes him somehat sleepy, though he's resisted it. So has everyone else.
to Roman Turner
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
to Carousel
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out.
to Roman Turner
[Carousel] It feels as if they are deep in some labyrinth. There's no clear way out. The velvet walls of the tent are opaque and muffle any sound. Liadin, though, hears crink-crink-clank and crink-crink-clank of the roller coaster she was longing for. It's close - just outside the canvas/velvet walls?
to Liadan Whelan
[Record of Ruin] [FIANNA DON'T FAIL!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out. He waits everyone out. Everyone succumbs, eventually.
to Record of Ruin
[Roman Turner] Oh he had a really bad feeling. He didn't like the smell, it kept tugging at his senses, telling him to just relax and take a nap. And there was something really fishy here, like a special offer that the store didn't want to make good on.
He waited till he was sure the Emcee wasn't looking where he hid before he shifted a little closer to that red curtain behind the cauldron.
[Liadan Whelan] [ack!: percept + emp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He finds himself breathing in the scent of human flesh. Suddenly he realizes that there was no over-reaction this was, in fact some kind of fucked up scheme or plan. The smell of human flesh boiling in the cauldron, that is what got to Simon that is what helped him to realize that this was in no way just a show. The act of boiling human flesh... Would be illegal and no carnival would willingly put themselves in that position. Even for a show they would lie... Even if it was illegal they would cheat and purchase something cheaper. There was no explanation in his head that could justify what was in that cauldron. So his eyes narrowed and his body tensed, but he did not leap onto the stage. Instead he watched, readying himself.
He glanced at the others to see if they knew what was up. Well the other Garou, specifically Robbie, a glance from his eyes was all that Robbie would need to imply the intentions of the full moon. They needed to get out of here but first Emcee would need to be dealt with.
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out.
to Liadan Whelan
[Liadan Whelan] Lee's attention momentarily shifts to the curtain behind the emcee. She cocks her head slightly, unconsciously imitating Robbie's movements, perhaps, more animal than human. She frowns.
And then her gaze slides to the emcee himself. Waiting for them so that he can start the show.
"You don't want to do this," she says, like she's only just figuring it out, the idea's just come to her. "Why are you doing this if you don't want to?" she asks, implores almost. There's more, as the Fianna kinswoman tries to persuade the man to step back, leave this, leave them.
It's just a matter of how convincing she is.
[omg can't think of words: manip + subt: DON'T DO IT, BRO! GO HOME]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Record of Ruin] Earlier, the kinswoman had tried to warn him. He'd only looked at her. They know what he is. He knows they know. It's too late; he's in too deep. He had to stay and see.
Now, Liadan isn't speaking to him, but she may as well be. Robbie doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to be here, smelling that awful stench of rendered fat, of boiled flesh. He doesn't want to see what the Emcee has in store for them, but --
but he has to. It's important. In a way, it's his job. It's his entire reason for existence. Robbie is not a very good Galliard. He can't sing. He can't play instruments. He can't compose poetry. He can't even howl very well. He's not a genius; he's not even particularly smart. He's not creative.
All that's left to him is -- well. Reflected in his name. To be a record. To record the truth, the fact, the evidence as it is laid down. He's not here to fight, though his rage runs high; though he's angry. He's here to see, to here, to remember, to record, and to be able to be accountable to anyone who might ask him,
What really happened that night?
So he watches. Grim-faced, breathing in shallow, quick sips, he watches; waits.
[Bone-Grinder] [Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] From behind the Cauldron, behind the Emcee, right up there on the stage came a voice and there stood Roman with one hand on his hat to keep it from falling in the Cauldron.
"Well will ya look at that. That big ole slug from Starwars? He done left his ugly pink brother in this here pot. And I'll be danged if he ain't looking at me. Boy howdy."
[Liadan Whelan] [attack 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 7)
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 1 Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] Snap to Warform attacking shadows!
1st attack roll
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st dam
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [damage 1: sorry whoever just got kicked!: str +1 +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [attack 2: kick again, the first was a kick]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7) [WP]
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 1 Reroll Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] 2nd attack roll
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] 2nd damn
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [damage 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [soak 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [soak 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Damage 1 Str+Totem+Crinos+1+2 = 110
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [WP: -2 for spending]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [WP 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 2 Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 2nd soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Second bite (Last Bite -1)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 2nd WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [WP1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [WP2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Attack 1!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Bone-Grinder] [Soak 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Soak 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Attack 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Record of Ruin] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] WP1!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] WP2!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Soak 1!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Soak 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Carousel] Robbie is here to record, and Liadin is looking up at the Emcee, who is tired. It is late and he was hoping for a female. It is late and he was hoping that his skilled employees would find him a female. They had one picked out, and now she’s gone. He’s not interested in going on with the show, but he will, and Liadin calls out to him, hey, leave it man – and he smiles are her, like this again, all teeth and god, they are sharper than they were before, and brighter and wider and whiter and wrong, filling his mouth like needles, like straight-razors except bone-white and monstrous and there is that wheezing organ-sound again, something shuffling behind the waving curtain, and then –
Roman appears on the stage, his hat-in-hand, standing over the cauldron that the Emcee addressed as Jefferson, which gurgled in response, remarking – rather pointedly – on its contents.
The room erupts into chaos; the cold from below, a half-dozen shadow arms wave from the darkness underneath the decking, fixed and static but hungry – the thing in the cauldron – emerges from the cauldron, this shivering conglomeration of boiling fat and flesh, no definition left to it, glistening with grease, the suggestion of a mouth emerging from the veil of its skin as it thunders and roars and –
- the Emcee, smiling, disappears behind the curtain.
Liadin knocks one of the shadow arms to the ground; Roman severs two more that are waving up, blind, like cilia, in one great bite. Simon and Robbie surge, snarling at the blob. The boiling flesh burns their mouths and tongues, goes down like acid and splashes back at them, leaving with burned flesh the vague, grotesque taste of human-bacon in the back of their throats, and so on.
The room is full of smoke now – smoke or mist, obscuring the directions and filling their nostrils – tempting them even in the middle of battle, to lay down, to lay down, how do they even know where to go?
The shadowarms are fixed, but the Emcee is behind the curtain and there is this terrible, high keening, this background beating of a heart-they-cannot hear.
Roman turns and joins Robbie and Simon as they savage the blob, tearing away at the huge mountain of flesh until it comes away in quivering chunks, but there’s this red film behind their eyes, and – and – and –
The curtains from the Hall of Wonders are moving. There are how many freaks there? How many other things to come through?
There is no way out except the way they came in.
- except that Liadin finds it; pulls a knife from her camera bag or a railroad spike from the floor and cuts through the heavy canvas-velvet curtain, bringing in cool-fresh air. Outside, they can all hear the crink-crink clank of the Big Dipper now as it climbs its hill, see its lights in front of them and the city beyond. They retreat like a pack, a tight knot of wounded, seething werewolves surrounding their kinswoman, hackles raised, flesh blistered and burning. They escape into an alley, beyond the confines of the carnival, chased by a pair of vicious dogs the last 75 feet. The dogs stop underneath the last pylon of the roller coaster, barking savagely. They go no further, as if there were some invisible barrier barring them from the city proper. There’s a faint pop as they explode from within – familiar to the Garou, alien to Liadin, except for this: like the change in altitude when one flies, when one pops one’s ears to relieve the sudden change in pressure.
--
They are wounded, broken. They do not see Iona, but if they send word they discover that she emerged from the carnival uninjured, without ever discovering its dark secrets. If they return in the morning –
- they cannot return in the morning. Where was that address? Can anyone remember? When they do, though – an empty lot, filled with detritus and trash, trampled over by a half-thousand feet overnight, every other sign gone.
[Carousel] [Tally: three shadows + 1 Blob, dead. Robbie: 6 agg (OWIE) mostly on the snout, also on his back left leg.; Liadin: 3 agg (cold/burn around her ankle! she be limping, it goes to the bone); Simon: 4 agg (OWIE. face and throat); Roman: 4 agg -( left shoulder and face and tongue).
Also: simon has his stuffed animals still. For serious. :) ]
He touched the brim of his hat, always polite though there for a moment he found himself gawking before he could get anything else out.
"I er, yessum. Need some tickets."
Heaven help him but she was old AND ewgly. His ma would of called that lipstick a Harlot's color for sure.
[Carousel] Her body still aches from the possession she suffered the other night. She walks underneath the clown-gate and down the midway, among the lights. Walks past the corn-dog stand and the Ribs Express place, and feels the tug of something underneath her skin, as if she had been hooked, see - as if she were a fish on a hook, barbs through her gills - there's something just outside of her that -
- no. She's fine. She is fine and she is standing on the midway among the lights. She was smiling; now she's not. She has a sudden, sure sense that the place has been painted over in blood. Over and over. The curve of the roller coaster against the darkling sky: not white-wash on the wooden beams. Blood. Whatever reached out to her she resisted, but the sense of wrongness lingers inside her like an infection, making her utterly ill at ease.
to Banshee
[Roman Turner] He was going to buy a string of tickets and high-tail it after Simon as quick as a whip because he was scared spitless the old Carney woman was going to try and sell kisses or something and there were just some things he wasn't willing to do in the name of politeness.
"Woah now! Where's the stampeded. Hold up Simon!" "Gotta go ma'am."
He touched the brim of his hat even as he shot through the gates like he was coming out the chute in a barrel race.
[Record of Ruin] Lee has company. Carnivals aren't really Robbie's thing. When you grow up in the tough blue-collar parts of the greater Boston metro, you get it hammered in you quick that that's the sort of thing only cunts and queers would go for. Robbie's neither. Robbie's not even properly human, though, so maybe that's why he's here after all. Maybe he's immune to those stereotypes now.
He's not carrying anything though. No camera, no bag. Just his own self, dressed in one of the grand total of two outfits he seems to own. He mixes and matches, though. Permutation makes it a grand total of four outfits. His hands are in his pockets; he looks at everything curiously, which means his head is turning to and fro as he walks.
Oh and: he didn't bring her a 'gift' last night. He came back two or three hours later, bloody and exhausted, barely looking at her before collapsing face-down in his bed. This morning, she was gone, and there was a flyer on his bedside table. Tonight, he seems to have forgotten that 2am encounter entirely.
[Banshee] Iona was taint free. Though her memories are coming back very slowly.But as she started moving past some of the food carts and she stumbled a bit. She looked around and for once, she saw red. Everywhere. Something was wrong, so wrong.
She touched her head, and moved to sit on a bench. She looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.
[Carousel] The midway, the games of chance. There's a test your strength booth and a milk-bottle booth; there's a frog-leap and a basketball game. One of the games - "Duck River" promises a prize to every participant, fifty cents per duck, Little kids crowd the booth, money in hand, clamoring to pull a yellow duck from the murky waters circling the barker's booth.
"Test your strength!" - an derelict looking man with stringy brown hair offers Simon, as Roman comes running up behind him, a string of tickets in hand. " - or have a go at the fucking duck pond," he continues, sneering, "if you don't think you've got what it takes."
--
Lee and Robbie come up to the ticket booth as Roman runs off; the pasty-faced woman turns her head and leans down toward them. She is garishly illuminated, all flourescent lights inside that glass enclosure, brilliant against the ribboned darkness outside. The low whir of a wheezing air conditioner - a window unit - is background white noise. "The Big Dipper's ten tickets, love. Eight if you tell them I sent you. Tickets are 10 for a dollar, or 60 for five dollars. You," her eyes are rapt on Liadin now, "can't buy admission to the freak show with tickets, though. How many?"
[Bone-Grinder] There was a challenge issued test his strength? I'm the strongest motherfucker at this goddamn carnival. How dare him question my strength. Try my luck at the duck pond my ass! Fuck the fucking duck pond! I will kick the duck pond guy's ass! or something to that effect goes through Simon's head as he approaches the man inviting him to test his strngth."How much?"He asks curiously. His hands folding over his chest as he sizes the man up. How dare this mother fucker challenge my masculinity! I got more balls in my finger than you got in your whole fucking body!.
He was proud and confident and not about to let this challenge beat him. Besides he really wanted to win a fucking bear!
[Roman Turner] He was folding his tickets up to a thick four ticket long wad that he could keep his hand on when the game caller started taunting Simon.
"I think that there fellow is calling ya yella, or offering you intercourse most fowl."
[Liadan Whelan] Lee was sleeping when Robbie returned from his hunt. She woke, barely, when the door to room 7 opened. A hazy image of the Galliard dropping face first into his bed comes to mind, too real to be a dream, too hazy to be a solid memory.
There is a car parked in a garage at the Alta, but Lee is not...adept at driving it. She hasn't had the time to learn and gain confidence. So she and Robbie met and rode the bus down to Bronzeville. Quietly, for the most part.
The woman in the box leans down toward her, and Lee reflexively rocks back and away, despite the glass between them. "Uh..."
She looks at Robbie, briefly, then back to the woman as she digs through her bag for her wallet. "How much is it for the freak show?" She pulls out a ten, but is reluctant to move toward the glass, toward the woman staring at her so intently.
[percept + emp: what'chu lookin' at me like that for? (risking scrutiny for the weird)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Carousel] "For you?" the carni grins a gap-toothed smile, tapping the butt-end of the sledgehammer with his fore and middle fingers, eyeing Bone-Grinder up and down speculatvely.
"One dollar if you want to win one'a them," he jerks his head back toward the wall beside the set up, topped as it was by a bell to be run only by the strongest, covered in cheap white teddy bears and stuffed unicorns, in varying sizes. The whole display is surmounted by pegasus with rainbow colored wings sagging in the center, its white pelt gone gray with age and grime. In the shifting lights of the midway, through, the thing just sparkles. " - with this here." Indicating the ordinary sledghammer in his hand.
"You really wanna test your luck, though, an' win the grand prize, I'll let you touch Big Bessie over there," He nods toward a slightly larger sledge, all black, heavier somehow, beside the larger of the two strong-man set-ups. "Five bucks, you kin win one'a each."
Then, he snorts, looking directly at Roman, "I'm calling him yella, you goddamned right." spitting a glob of tobacco juice at the kid's feet. "I ain't fuckin' him, boy. You best keep your mouth shut on that score."
[Carousel] [Creepy carni lady: manipulation + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Banshee] Slowly Iona got back to her feet. Looking around, she moved back to where she first felt it. And stood there, her eyes going over all she could see once more.
[Bone-Grinder] He smirks at the sound of Roman recognizing him and shrugging his shoulders."Man's about to be taught a lesson..."He says with a smirk, he had just killed an evil wolf think the other night with a Sledge. So his eyes wander over the smaller sledge then the bigger sledge. He reaches into his wallet and pulls out five dollars.
"Gimme Big Bessie... I'll show you how this shit is done."He says with a grin and a glance towards Roman."You should go after me!"
[Roman Turner] "I can tell ya fella, ya do look a little light in the loafers now that ya mentioned it, but he ain't interesting in rooting around in the field with you neither. Five bucks he could buy one of them little girl toys ya got there."
Ever so slowly he looked down to make sure his boots didn't get splashed before he looked up with a big ole friendly smile.
"Gonna catch more flies with honey mister, ain't no need to spit your vinegar my way. And as you can see, your bait'n done got ya a bite."
He indicated Simon's urgency to prove himself with a small cant of his head.
[Carousel] "Hey," Iona staggers to sit down on a bench. There are not many benches here. The carnival doesn't make money when you're sitting down. Still, she finds one, a decrepid old wooden one, half-way down the midway, between the funnel cake stand and the House of Mirrors, right in front of the Duck Pond. The speaker is a young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, rather plainfaced except for a scar that drags her mouth down at the corner. She's standing at one end of the duck pond, herding the wet yellow ducks through the constantly recycling water. As Iona starts walking away, the girl calls out after her, " - you okay?"
Not fifteen feet away, Simon and Roman stand in front of the stong-man booth; Simon demands Big Bessie and forks ovr five dollars for privilege. The carni grabs the bill and smiles an oily smile, gesturing toward the all-black sledghammer and the larger of the two strong-man tests. "Have at it, man."
Liadin studies the old woman rather longer than most of the fair-goers; and the woman stares right back, smiling this rather grotesque sort of smile that otherwise conceals most of her intent. It turns her into a mask, into a charicature, something out of a movie. "The freak show varies. It depends on the freaks. It depends on the clients. It depends, my dear, " - the cool rush of air conditioning outward from the little half-moon hole in the booth is a welcome counterpoint to the warm night air. In the near-distance, Liadin can see the Big Dipper, a wooden roller coaster, outlined against the smoke-gray sky. Some part of her must wonder how they got that damn thing in here.
" - on the mood of the emcee. I do hope you can make it, though. He will give you a very good price. Come in, come in. He will give you an excellent price, I know."
[Bone-Grinder] (Whatcha need me to roll?)
to Carousel
[Carousel] That woman recognizes Liadin. When she says: "I'm glad you're here." She means it.
to Liadan Whelan
[Carousel] Please roll WP to me privately, and then roll str + athletics for the game.
to Bone-Grinder
[Banshee] She hears someone and looks back. Her accent strong and enchanting a bit. "Aye, I think. Tis me first time at a carnival. Maybe I'm just ali'l ovawhelmed." She offered the woman a smile though.
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Carousel
[Bone-Grinder] He wasn't the strongest man in the universe but he was also a cheater and... Well not above making use of every edge he can to get his way. Such was the path of the Shadow Lord... Hell it wasn't the path it was the law! Cheat to win or die in the street like a dog! Simon was sure as fuck not a dog so Bessie was hefted up high and his eyes sparkled as he brought the hammer down on it's target with all the force he could muster.
[Wish I could do this in Crinos!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] For a moment he let his attention shift from Simon about to take the hammer and show his prowess to the Duck game. Duck game girl was talking to someone and of course his attention drifted along that line towards Iona. He knew that face. And if Iona glanced his way, Roman touched the brim of his hat with a polite cant of his head before his attention went back to Simon the Strong.
[Roman Turner] "Hang on to yer hats, that was just the warm up."
He assured anyone watching Simon.
[Liadan Whelan] She does wonder how they got the roller coaster in here. But, as though it is protected by the Delirium, she rationalizes it away. It looks bigger than it really is. The space is deceptively small. It's easy to look past it when she's having a staring contest with a strange woman in a booth, whose face is like a mask. Not in the figurative sense, not in the way that she would wear her own face, once upon a time. It looks like an actual mask, painted on or prosthetic. Unreal.
"Ah. Maybe," she says, and hands the woman the bill. "I guess we'll take sixty."
[Carousel] Simon swings Big Bessie with all his might. He has a strong grip on the black sledghammer, and the impact is resounding. The shuttlecock only rises one third of the way up the tower, just barely breaking the "puny" marker to hit "weakling." The carnie gives Simon a huge, black-mouthed grin. The scent of rot and ruin - and cheap whiskey - that rolls off the man in that moment is nearly overwhelming.
"I'll give you a free go," he tells Bone-Grinder, " - if you put you're fucking back into it. Just the warm up, eh?" continues, watching Roman now, close and shrewd. " - you got the balls to try?"
--
The girl looks at Iona uncertainly as she informs her that it is her first time at a carnival. With the scar on her mouth, her features seem mournful, her eyes limpid. She hesitates, the rake in her hand dripping wet from corralling and pulling back the yellow ducks, and then gives the stranger a faint shrug. "Well," the curl of a frown across her brow, as she darts a narrow litte glance toward the other woman in the booth, larger and meatier and two decades older, with a commanding barker's voice. " - okay. Hope you feel better?"
--
Liadin purchased 60 tickets. The ticket-seller pushes them out through the little half-moon hole and makes change, giving Liadin an old-fasioned five dollar bill and sixty tear-away tickets, all in a row. Her hand, as she pushes them out and through the booth, is unlined. "You have fun, shutterbug," she tells Liadin, her watery eyes dropping to the camera around he photographer's neck. "Come back to me if you need more tickets. Freak show's at the end of the midway, Hall of Mirrors is half-way through. I've heard tell we've got the best Elephant Ears this side of Rhodesia, mind you. Enjoy."
Then she sits back in the booth, looking expectantly toward the next customers.
[Banshee] She turned back around and headed over to the duck pond. "So what do ye do here? I mean, the game with the ducks an' ahl." She still felt a bit uneasy, but maybe it was just a side effect from the other night.
[Bone-Grinder] (You need another WP roll if Simon is going again?)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
to Carousel
[Roman Turner] "Yessir, I ain't no gelding, but because I know this for a fact, because I was in the shower making sure them there parts were nice and powder fresh before I came here and all? I don't find the need to prove it to ya. Though might I recommend a nice tartar control whitening toothpaste?"
He spoke nice and even, with a smile too. Then patted Simon on the shoulder for encouragement.
"He's just trying to rile ya up."
[Bone-Grinder] He knew it was a bad hit, not as much power as he had intended. He drew in a defensive breath and his eyes snapped at the other man, rage shimmering through for a moment before turning his attention towards it. Roman was right... Simon wanted a fucking Prize! A serious prize! Something that was so big it had to ride on his shoulders! He hands it to the man and begins to focus. He needed to get into a better position, he needed to make proper use of his weight because this wasn't entirely a feat of strength despite what it might imply!
Focus Simon, focus on the task at hand win your prize and go home a happy man with something to show for all your hard work and effort. It was strange, Simon wasn't big on collecting trophies on the battlefield... Most of his mementos were memories and reflections of battles since past. Yet bringing home a prize from a carnival game? That was serious business!
He couldn't not take up a free shot for putting his back into it and that is what he was going to do. Pour himself into this and hope that he could actually pull it off!
[New one +WP! Simon want's a fucking prize!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Banshee] (Forgot to add)
Before she joined the duck pond, she smiled to Roman when he tipped his hat. A touch of a blush to her cheeks since she wasn't close enough to feel the tinge of Rage off him.
[Liadan Whelan] She should ask. Lee should ask why the woman looks like she recognizes her from somewhere. As much as the Fianna kinswoman wants attention, there are times when it puts her off her stride. Unsettles her. She would say she felt...unbalanced.
"Thanks," she says, absently as she retrieves the tickets and her change. The tickets she folds up and slip into her pocket, the old fiver goes into her wallet, which in turn goes into one of the deeper pockets of her bag. As she and Robbie walk away from the booth, Lee watches the woman a little longer, stopping only when she'd need to contort herself to maintain the watch. Looking back before her, she shakes her head, and looks around. At the midway, the sign for the house of mirrors, or for the freak show at the end of the way. And the wooden roller coaster.
Bumping Robbie's arm with the back of her own, she nods at the Big Dipper, and heads in that direction first. And she tries to put the encounter with the ticket seller out of her mind for now.
[Carousel] The girl to whom Banshee speaks gives the former a guilty look, then glances back at the barker. "Listen," she's thin, stark, wearing a cotton dress that could be gray or black or navy, some drab color. Her eyes are huge in her plain face, but her lopsided mouth pulls back, making even her smiles wrong, somehow. "I - I really shouldn't talk, you know? I'll get in trouble. I just - "
She looks up, sharply, as the shuttlecock on the strong-man game flies up and up and up - past wimpy, past puny, past weak, all the way past strong, to the HE-MAN starbust at the top. The bell on the larger of the two towers is oddly dolorous, though - a deep, resounding tone more like the intonation of a church bell than the tinny ring of a cheap bicycle bell.
--
"Why don't you," the carni says to Roman, darkly, leaning forward, "why don't you have yourself a free go at the duckpond. On me. And let the real men play a real men's - "
- then Simon swings and the bell rings out and the carni turns away from Roman, crosses to Simon, pats him deliberately on the back, between the shoulder blades. "Well-well-well," he says, nearly conspiratorial, in the way he draws the latter in to him, deliberately excluding Roman from the setting. " - a man after all. You've won it. One of each."
One of each: a teddy bear with a rainbow stomach, a unicorn with a floppy bowtie, a pegasus with rainbow wings, one larger than the next. He starts pulling the prizes down from the wall with a long stick, topped my a rusty metal loop. "And a token." The token comes out of his pocket, all black, utterly opaque. He turns it over in his hand, and elbows Simon in the ribs, buddy-buddy, see: " - good if you want to get into the peep show or the parade of freaks. Tell the Emcee Laughing Johnny sent ya."
---
" - your friends," the girl to whom Banshee is speaking holds her breath, sharp. She doesn't look at the Fianna, now, concentrating on the ducks. "Your friends, miss, they shouldn't play that game. I have to get back to work. Please go."
[Banshee] Iona's smile vanished to a look of concern. She stepped in a bit closer to the girl so they could talk low. "There be something goin' on here, aye? I felt et. What kin ye tell me?"
[Roman Turner] The Barker started with him and he heard.
"Why don't you," the carni says to Roman, darkly, leaning forward, "why don't you have yourself a free go at the duckpond. On me. And let the real men play a real men's - "
And even as the guy registered the toning of the bell, Roman filled in the rest of what the guy had been saying.
"And let the real men play a real men's..that's right, I said play with a real man's dong, er, I mean, ring his chimes, er no wait, I meant, that takes the prize."
All this as the guy started all buddy buddy with Simon and started dumping stuffed toys in his arms.
"Snake oil salesman, one hundred in every carnival."
Where had they hid the cotton candy anyway? It just wasn't right to come and not at least go home with a blue tongue so he could tell Sparrow he'd been licking Smirfette all night.
[Bone-Grinder] He grins in satisfaction. His eyes following the shittlecock straight to the top and his satisfaction shows as the stuffed toys are pulled off for him. He grins at Roman."You wanna help me carry these?"He asks curiously with brilliantly glowing eyes/ He had proven himself... he didn't care about proving himself to this slimy man or anyone else really it was about proving himself to himself that is all that really matters right?
He takes the token and his eyes sparkle a little. Peep show? Is that legal? Freak shows were always huge disappointments so likely the peep show was too besides there was plenty around the carnival to satisfy his greedy eyes. Still the token seemed like a special invitation so he might as well visit right? Stuffing it into his pocket he turns to Roman."We gotta get you one of these tokens now too. Right?"He asks.
[Roman Turner] "Naw, I'm right as rain. Fine as shifted powdered sugar on the top of a chocolate cake at Sunday dinner. I got my mind on cotton candy and a ride on the tilt a whirl till I throw up."
He grinned at Simon shaking his head.
"Ya sure got yer self some fine trophies there. Might find all the pretty girls chasing ya now."
[Record of Ruin] Maybe it's a little embarrassing for the tall Fianna to stand there, hands in pocket, while the redhead he's ostensibly escorting to this here hoe-down pays his entrance fee. Maybe that's why, in those moments, he looks around with especial interest.
When they walk away from the ticket booth, though, he leans down to speak quietly to her. He wasn't so determinedly uninterested as to not notice the strange, extended exchange between them.
"What was that all about?"
[Carousel] Banshee step closer, maybe she leans over the trough of water full of yellow ducks. Behind the girl, bins of cheap prizes are arrayed against the colorful pegboard walls.
The barker looks over at the pair and frowns; the girl goes absolutely sheet white and refuses to look up at Iona. She does, however, say in a short, sharp whisper.
"I said, please go away." The air of desperation in her voice is impossible to miss.
--
Lee's eyes track to the wooden rollercoaster in the background, illuminated if only just against the sky. The structure - sparse and wooden - stands at the far end of the carnival. Between them: the carousel and the haunted house, the spider and the tilt-a-whirl. The whip, and the House of Mirrors. Closest to the ticket booth, the strong-man set-up, the milk-jug toss, the duck pond. There are darts to be whipped off a ballons and games with fake rifles promising a fine prize to the person with an "Eagle Eye." Elephant ears and snow cones, cotton candy and candy apples, lemonade and chili corn are all for sale at the booths lining the midway.
There are posters, too - on the sides of the booths that seem antique. The Bearded Lady. The Mermaid.
Vampire Boy.
Wolfman.
They seem like set-dressings, really - backgrounded against the brilliant lights of the carnival, mawkish allusions to some antiqued past. There are other posters, too: for the Big Dipper. The House of Mirrors.
The House of Horrors.
- and snow cones. "Buy them!" the poster says, over an illustration of a man in a Good Humor-style uniform and cap and a too-white smile, serving one to a small boy in overalls. "They're great!"
Catchy slogan, that.
--
When Simon suggests that Roman needs a token - the carnie behind them smiles, wide. "You can try the duck pond," he tells Simon, his wretched mouth twisted in a wide smirk. "if you're thinkin' on finding him a token. Then again, you two together, and Laughing Johnny's name oughtta get you in anywhere. Anywhere you want to go. Every fucking goddamned door opened to your fucking beck and your goddamned call."
The observant would note that the carni does not touch Big Bessie. Simon is consumed with his prizes, glowing-eyed, an armful of soft stuffed animals, downy, far finer than he might've expected from a place like this.
[Liadan Whelan] "I've never seen her before," Lee says, leaning closer to Robbie, keeping her voice down, "but she seemed to recognize me."
Either she's not bothered, or the exchange with the woman at the ticket booth had unsettled her enough to overcome any distaste she might have had paying for her male companion. She's leading him toward the wooden roller coaster, when the commotion at the strong man game catches her attention. "I know him," she says, indicating the Shadow Lord. "He's like you."
[Banshee] She eyes the barker, and narrows her eyes. A soft whisper to the girl. "Just be noddin' yes o' no. Ahr we in danger here?"
[Bone-Grinder] He grins back to Roman."Fuck the girls these are my trophies! I earned them!"He nods his head as he walks with Roman."They want trophies they can win 'em themselves. Though I might give Mila a stuffed unicorn since girls like that kinda shit and she technically payed for this trip."He laughs to himself but he keeps close to Roman. The place wasn't nearly as fun by yourself so he fully intended to at least hang out with the kid. Besides what if Roman got into trouble? Having a Full Moon around would make him feel safe! Especially one as strong as Simon!
Most of all it was a reason just to have someone to enjoy the company of. He was a Shadow Lord so he had to justify his reasons for hanging out with people lest they suspect he is soft hearted and actually likes people.
Then he heard the Carnie and his smile grew."Looks like I can get us both in."He says with a nod."Wanna go see the show with me?"He asks with a smile. His eyes at the same time falling on Iona as he walks away giving the carny a wave of his hand."Thanks Laughing Johnny!"He says with a grin. However when they are well out of ear shot he whispers softly to Roman."Was it just me or was Laughing Johnny really creepy?"
[Roman Turner] He was more than happy to leave the Barker behind and when Simon asked was the guy creepy, Roman let him know exactly how he felt.
"Laughing Johnny is one of those rare creatures. You my friend just had an entire conversation and up close personal moment with a braying jackass who likes to touch other men because he had his hands all over ya. And notice how he kept trying to get me to play with the Duck? Code. That was pure code for, I'm in to boys, wanna sit on ole uncle jackass's lap?"
He shuddered.
"I just hope he didn't molest them there toys he gave ya."
[Record of Ruin] Robbie's glass-green eyes rest briefly on Simon, then move on to Banshee. "So's she," he says. A small pause. "I think I tried to kill her in the alley. With the dogs. And stuff."
Unhesitatingly, he heads toward the Garou. When he's within earshot he calls to them, the flatness of his new englander accent somehow exacerbated by the volume.
"Hey. I think we oughta go look at the freak show."
...only in a carnival would it be all right to shout such a thing.
[Roman Turner] He didn't know Robbie, nor the woman with him. Though the call had him looking that way and even as the others all seemed to gravitate together, he had to open his mouth and mutter.
"I think we just left it friend. Simon here cleared it out."
He indicated the Strong Man game and the prizes Simon held.
[Carousel] The children have drifted away from the duck pond, leaving the barker at loose ends. She is standing there, her hands wet, her gray-streaked brown hair pulled away from her face nto a sharp bun, watching Simon and Roman across the way. She does not miss the air of desperation around he girl, though. She pivots after a moment and walks up behind the girl with the scarred mouth, touching her on the left shoulder and right elbow in a manner that is almost maternal, except for the way the girl stands straight through the spine. Stiff.
"Is this woman bothering you?" the barker asks the girl, all soft. The girl swallows hard and nods, once. She is white as a sheet, now. Whiter. She is spiritual-incarnation of white, stark as a ghost. "Well then, Miss." the barker tells Iona. "I think that you should play my game.
"Or you should go."
[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
to Banshee
[Carousel] Iona would really, really enjoy playing the duck pond game. Hey! Look at that sign. It says that everyone is a winner. All she has to do is pay fifty cents and pick a duck out of the water. Really, it's not like the strong-man thing, and look at all the prizes.
In short: Iona would like to play the duck game.
to Banshee
[Banshee] (WP spent)
Iona pulls herself away, reluctantly, and heads over to where Simon and Roman are. And it was a quick pace to get there as well. When she makes it to them, she pauses, growling a bit when she sees Robbie, then turns to Roman, and Simon. "We need tae be leavin'. There is something vera wrong here. I had a vision. This carnival was covered in blood. The lass there..." pointing to the girl at the pond. "She confirmed we be in danger here."
[Bone-Grinder] He tries to steer towards Iona with a smile on his face. Proud still,of course, and ignoring the comments from Roman."Naw he was just trying to rile me up... So I would blow all my money on his damn game."He chuckles."He just didn't expect me to win after only two tries."He says with a nod of his head.
He walks up Near Iona and offers a little smile before looking at Roman."You know her? Maybe we should invite her with?"He asks with a grin before turning to spot a figure who he... Does not recognize... Two of them but they, just like Iona, also capture his attention. He watches them quietly, are they coming closer? Well he's not gonna try to steer away.
When Iona moves to join them he grins a little."Leave? But I got a token!"
[Banshee] She shook her head. "Lis'en tae me, damn it! Do ye nah feel et? There is something here. Something...just bad."
[Liadan Whelan] She recognizes Iona from the alley, and the dogs, and the gurgling shadow deeper within. When Robbie strides off to join the others, trying to draw them together, Líadan hesitates. She looks at the roller coaster in the distance in a way that could be described as longing, but might not be. If two of the three others are shifters, odds are the third is as well. Lee has no great desire to be surrounded by rage.
Still, it's that or the strangeness of the strangers running this carnival, and she likes the idea of that even less. She trails after the other Fiann, reading the posters that she passes. She's following after Robbie, but she looks in Iona's direction, and at the girl with the scarred mouth, white as a sheet. Before she can look much closer, the Ragabash rises and moves to join the males.
Lee steps up near them. Simon appears to have forgotten her, which doesn't appear to bother the tall redhead. In her mind, at least, she's easily forgotten, cast aside, left behind.
"What kind of token?" she asks, curious.
[Roman Turner] He answered Simon first. "Her name is Iona, same moon as me."
And then he spoke to Iona.
"Help me here Miss Iona. What kind of danger are we in? Cause we done figured we are in danger of losing our wallets and heaven forbid, but I'm worry Simon here done lost his innocence. He's carrying the evidence of the deed. Look at all the prizes he done got. Boy howdy did he get a rise out of that Laughing Johnny when he showed his strength."
When Liadan and Robbie drew near he touched the brim of his hat with a nod of his head to the pair.
"Howdy."
[Record of Ruin] "Leave at the first sign of trouble? Is that what we should do?"
Robbie just ... throws that out there, expressionlessly.
[Roman Turner] Liadan had his attention for several long dreamy moments. She was pretty, he could sense the breeding and she had red hair. Red hair just like his Goddess, Miss Doctor Slaughter the woman who loved and desired him though she hid it behind things like "bleeding Idiot". The woman of his dreams, Cougar though she was. The future mother of his children and boy howdy wouldn't his ma just chew nails and fart bullets when he came home with that one?
"Well, we ain't seen no trouble yet. Just ask Simon here, he is in hog heaven, ain'tcha Simon?"
[Banshee] She waves a hand. "Nah. Maybe wait til tha carnival is closed fo' the nigh'. Buh there is something here. I had tae just figh' meself tae get away from the game there. An' earlier, I was passing an area, an' I goh a vision I think. I saw the carnival covered in blood. Evera thing was covered in blood. Something is nah righ'. An' we should check et out. Buh nah with ahl the humans here."
[Bone-Grinder] His arms were stretched around his winnings and he reached awkwardly into his pocket to pull the token out. He holds it out to Liadan."He said it will get us into the Peep Show or the Freak Show or... Both or something. Well me and Roman... I figure why not invite more? I mean worst case they turn us back right?"He asks with a grin.
Iona's ominous warning gets a smile before he shrugs his shoulders."Sounds like maybe we should look into the matter and where better than the freak show right?"He asks her with a grin to soothe her nerves. The thing about being a Full Moon was... Well he wasn't about to shy away from the threat of a possible conflict."I'll take care of you promise!"He says with a nod and a wink.
He looks back to Roman."You're just jealous you aren't as strong as me. Did you see that thing? Straight to the bell! Toughest motherfucker in this whole goddamn Carnival!"He nods his head.
Liadan was familiar though... He couldn't place where she was familiar from or why. Which was a curious thing cause she was cute and he tended to note that fact.
[Carousel] The others look back toward the pair in the duck-pond booth - a mother and daughter, the resemblance seems obvious, seems clear, seems perfect. The former is lecturing the latter, the latter is looking up at the former, her scarred mouth pulled downward into a frown. Liadin sees from a distance how white the girl, the sharp gesture the mother makes as she sends the girl away - somewhere back behind the curtains at the back of the booth.
The night is warm and pleasant. The scent of deep-fried food on the wind is heady, delicious, billowing out of a handful of the rusting white metal trucks lined up along the weed-strewn path that marked the center of the alley way. The noise of the barkers at the games up and down the midway is like a syncopated chorus, like jazz, this constantly changing beat, just off - a certain elegant patois in their taunts and challenges and jeers.
Liadin glances toward the roller-coaster. Is it her imagination, or can she hear the crink-crink-clank of the back-stop mechanism that keeps the coaster from falling back down the slope as it climbs the hill. Crink-crink-clank crink-crink-clank - even from a distance. The ride looks elegant, standing out alone against the fog-banked sky, two little cars outlined at the top of the highest hill, a singular moment of anticipation before -
- fwoosh, they disappear down the largest of the hills.
"Step right up!" they hear, " -step right up."
Step right up. Test your strength. Test your courage. Test your accuracy. Test your manhood. Test your -
- ability to pick a duck out of metal trough full of water.
[Roman Turner] He gave Simon a good natured smile.
"Yessir, I'm jealous as a cat who missed out on the milking. Yet at the same time, I feel safe and protected, assured. Like when I use Sparrow's Secret on my underarms before going out. Ya know, that fresh feeling with all the protection but clear so it don't show on the insides of my pits?"
[Liadan Whelan] [manip + subt: I'm totally not looking at you, lady]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [but really, I am: percept + emp]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Carousel] [Per + Alertness: I SEEZ YOU LOOKING. ]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] Step right up. Test your strength. Test your courage. Test your accuracy. Test your manhood. Test your -
- ability to pick a duck out of metal trough full of water.
Ok that made him have to turn his head towards Laughing Jackass for just a moment. And if Jackass looked at him, he was going to politely touch the brim of his hat and look away. Kill them with kindness his mama always said.
[Record of Ruin] [Do I see you seeing her looking? spec: sharp eyes!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Bone-Grinder] [Simon sees things too! Like...]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 2 (Botch x 2 at target 6)
[Carousel] The woman is deeply angry. The girl is scared witless. While Liadin watches surreptiously, the girl - who is physically trembling as if in anticipation of a blow - disappears behind the curtain. The woman takes a long moment to compose herself, and then turns back to the midway, watching, smiling now. Underneath it, there's a sort of - satisfaction, cheshire-cat style, as she studies the Garou.
to Liadan Whelan
[Bone-Grinder] He smiles and looks around at everyone."We all wanna do something? Or are we gonna take our profits and run?"
[Carousel] Simon looks and sees: that woman is totally hot for him. She can hardly stop herself from jumping over the metal trough of ducks and charging for him.
to Bone-Grinder
[Liadan Whelan] While the Garou are discussing danger, leaving it, going into it, Lee looks like she's listening to them. She's not part of this conversation, though, and she knows it. Just like she knows they, the shifters at least, will go into the freak show and investigate. It's what they do. While they talk, snap, or joke, Lee's body language reads as engaged in their conversation, but her eyes...
Her eyes are on the woman.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, like they do this all the time, like it's right, she threads her arm through Robbie's and leans close enough to whisper. "I don't like the way that woman's watching us."
[Roman Turner] "I gotta have cotton candy, wherever we go next. And heck, it wouldn't do no harm to see what a peek show looks like, right? I mean, Simon done won a free pass. Might even see something we ain't never seen before."
[Carousel] The woman is deeply angry. The girl is scared witless. While Liadin watches surreptiously, the girl - who is physically trembling as if in anticipation of a blow - disappears behind the curtain. The woman takes a long moment to compose herself, and then turns back to the midway, watching, smiling now. Underneath it, there's a sort of - satisfaction, cheshire-cat style, as she studies the Garou.
--
Her mouth is moving, too. He can barely see it. It almost looks like animation.
to Record of Ruin
[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
to Banshee
[Banshee] "I wan' tae be knowing what is going' on here. Buh I keep thinking something will go wrong. We dinnah need the humans aroun' here hurt." She thought for a moment. "Seems we ahr bein' led tae the Show. Leh's check et out. An' we cover each otha's arses."
[Roman Turner] "Well miss."
He was all honey and sincerity when he spoke to Liadan.
"It's your beauty. Right now that poor woman is thinking, I wish I had pretty red hair like that. Mine's all graying. And I wish my skin was so fair and unblemished. And how long has it been since I had a firm young girl's figure other than in my dreams?"
[Carousel] "Come play my game." It's not that she hears it, precisely. Maybe it's running through her mind: the whole of the situation. Maybe she's remembering it. Really. Still: that game is so easy. Pick a duck out of the water. If they need another token for the roller coaster or the House of Mirrors or something, she can probably win it. She really should play the duck game.
to Banshee
[Banshee] Then Iona just suddenly seems calm. She turns her back on her allies, and heads over to the duck pond. She wasn't sure why she was here, but she put 50 cents down on the counter.
[Bone-Grinder] He shakes his head when Liadan speaks."She's not lookin' at you she's lookin' at me. Don't worry about it I get that a lot."He says with a reassuring nod of his head."Let's go see this show since everyone is in agreement. Laughing Johnny recommended it to me and well... He seems to think I'll get a kick outta it. Worst case Scenario we... I am not going to finish that because I'll just jinx us."He nods his head.
His eyes going back to the Duck pond and the woman, he grins and offers a little wave of his hand. Before watching Iona in confusion. What was she up to?
to Carousel
[Bone-Grinder] He shakes his head when Liadan speaks."She's not lookin' at you she's lookin' at me. Don't worry about it I get that a lot."He says with a reassuring nod of his head."Let's go see this show since everyone is in agreement. Laughing Johnny recommended it to me and well... He seems to think I'll get a kick outta it. Worst case Scenario we... I am not going to finish that because I'll just jinx us."He nods his head.
His eyes going back to the Duck pond and the woman, he grins and offers a little wave of his hand. Before watching Iona in confusion. What was she up to?
[Record of Ruin] Robbie had been turning toward the freak show when Liadan stops. Gives the woman and the girl -- her daughter perhaps -- a long, careful look.
Robbie looks too. His clear eyes narrow. When Liadan comes up beside him and slides her arm through his, he starts, head snapping around and down, quick as an animal. His pupils are wide and black. He stares at her without a shred of human recognition ... but only for an instant. Then he laughs, a little nervously.
"Is this a date now?"
He leans down. It's not a sweet nothing he murmurs in her ear. It's: "She saw ya looking."
Robbie's hand finds Liadan's. Their fingers thread. His are long and hard, knuckles bony, grip strong. He pulls her along with him, closing on the other Garou as Banshee abruptly heads for the ducks.
"Lee and I are gonna check out the freak show," he says. "Texas, why don't ya come with us. Simon, I know you won a free ticket, but I think something's going on behind that curtain there, and she," he nods at Banshee, "might need a little backup.
"Let's try to meet back out here in, let's say fifteen minutes. Yah?"
[Carousel] Iona plucks down her fifty cents. A pair of quarters. The barker woman smiles at her magnanimously, then, scooping up the coins and nodding at the trough of water. There's a strong scent like a storm here - that combination of metal and water - and this close to the booth, atthe proper end, Iona can see the hose tucked into the end, an ordnary garden hose that gives he an inexplicable sense of security. Right?
"Pick a duck, dearie."
- the older woman encouraged, smiling now, motherly, intent. They bob along on the artificial current, the features worn, smiles painted and molded onto their plastc bills. "Any duck."
[Roman Turner] "Kansas, but it's all flat once ya get pass Oklahoma."
He was willing enough to go look at the freaks and he knew Simon was strong and could handle himself as long as he didn't lose his dolls.
"Don't ya go running off to see them Honky Tonk women without me Simon."
[Banshee]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Banshee] Iona looks over the bobbing plastic ducks and finally picks one.
[Bone-Grinder] He looks back at the others and shrugs his shoulders."I don't think we should be splitting up but sure whatever..."He really didn't honestly appear to care. He wasn't here to fight stuff he was here to win stuff, and he eyed his Token curiously before looking back at Roman.
"I will come find you as soon as... What's her face is done."He looks at Iona curiously. Wondering what in the hell she was doing and why he was stuck watching her.
[Liadan Whelan] There is a moment, when the teen starts laying out an explanation for the woman's look, where she almost looks pleased. Lee cants her head in his direction, curious and not quite believing him. Whatever her expression might have become, it remains placid when Simon interjects.
To Robbie, she just smiles, and the smile is not lopsided as it usually is as she twines her fingers with his. He asks if this is a date, and she huffs a small laugh, but doesn't answer.
She lets him lead her closer to the group. Which is splitting up. They're going to the freak show. Fantastic. Lee just tries to keep her eyes peeled, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. "So what do we do if we find something in there? Weirder than a woman with a beard, I mean."
[Roman Turner] "Ya better. I ain't gonna letcha go look at them Honky Tonk women without me."
He saluted Simon with a touch to the brim of his hat, then wiggled his brows at Robbie and Liadan.
"Well howdy, I bet when ya came ya weren't expecting a threesome. Ya know, we could go in the house of horrors as a group and see if anything is as scary as my cousin with bed hair and no make up in the middle of the night."
[Record of Ruin] "We'll figure that out if we find something."
They're a veritable smorgasbord of accents here. Or they could be, if Liadan ever used her real accent; if Robbie's weren't relegated to a certain flatness of his vowels, a dropped 'r' here and there. Hand still gripping Liadan's rather relentlessly, he heads toward the freakshow.
If they want more money, she'll have to pay for him again. This time he won't stand there looking aside. He'll watch the ticketmaster, eyes sharp.
[Roman Turner] "If I get scared, will ya hold my hand too?"
He came up on Robbie's other side with that question. Though he looked back a time or two where they left Simon and Iona.
"Ya think that Miss Iona might be out to molest them ducks or were ya afraid she might dive in the little water trough and drown herself?"
[Carousel] The duck has the number 6 written on the bottom in water resistant Sharpie. The barker reaches out gently and plucks the duck from Iona's hand, turning it over, nodding as she reads the number. "Six." she says. "Six. That's a good one. Six is the number of the stars in the sky at the moment our lord passed from one world to the next, didn't you know that? Six six six - " all the idle patter, as the woman turns and count out the bins fixed onto the pegboard, under her breath. The curtain behind the booth ripples with movement, but soon enough the barker finds the bin conveniently marked six, and pulls out two prizes: a tiny yellow koosh ball and a red kazoo.
Ceremoniously, the woman places both into Banshee's hands. "You'll want to keep those," she says, quietly, to Iona. "Six is a lucky number." Then, she reaches into her right front pocket and pulls out an all-black disc, utterly matte, just a shade smaller than a quarter, handing it over to Banshee, looking up as Simon comes close. Her look is almost conspiratorial.
"Good for entry into the House of Mirrors, the House of Horrors," the barker tells Iona, " - the Freak Show. Even the Tunnel of Love. I recommend that one. Find someone you want and take them in there. They'll never let you go."
--
Liadin, Robbie and Roman, meanwhile, turn and disappear down the corridor of the midway. They pass the House of Mirrors, a bored teenager in the ticket-house smacking her gum. They pass the House of Horrors. Dark, that, the ticket booth empty, a preternatural chill emanating from the interior. They pass a corn dog stand, and for god's sake, the corn dogs smell divine. A couple comes away from the candy-apple stand sharing one out between them, holding hands, laughing. The candy coating is red-as-blood.
--
The Freak Show of the Unfair is near the end of the midway, nearly dark, set up from the ground in what the more astute of them might guess is an eighteen-wheeler, bordered by a deck, the frame covered in tarps and curtains painted with old-fashioned impressions of carnival Freaks, as if the same curtains had been in use for a half century or more. There is a bored-looking kid at the window, resting his cheek in the palm of his hand, chewing gum as he reads a magazine. The rides are going around them, but there's no one else in line here.
They come close and climb up the decking, weave through the crowd-control measures meant for bigger crowds, longer lines. The boy watches them, blowing an idle bubble as the approach. "Five dollars each for the Hall of Wonders," he announces to whoever approaches the counter. " - which doesn't include Vampire Boy, Wolf-Man or the Human Blob, have to ask them Emcee if they're doing a show, after, if that's what you're here to see."
[Carousel] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
to Banshee
[Carousel] She would like to keep the prizes. She doesn't want Simon to have them. She could just tuck them in her pocket and then no one would take them.
--
Note: she doesn't feel that way about the token, just the prizes. She does not want to share those.
to Banshee
[Banshee] Iona took the prizes, and pushed them into her shorts pocket. She then turned to Simon as he walked up, all smiles. "Aye, look!" Holding up a token. "Where do ye wan' tae be goin' next?" Iona was different now, getting into the carnival rather than worrying about danger. That alone spells danger.
[Record of Ruin] Robbie mutters a laugh. Then, by way of answer, he holds his hand out to Roman. Maybe he just wants to see if he'll actually take it.
If he does, they'll make a fine set, walking up to the Hall of Wonders. The boy as the window speaks. Robbie listens, head cocked at a slight, feral angle.
"We're here to see everything," he promptly replies.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon remains near Iona with a smile on his face when she wins."It's a decent prize..."He says considering all she had to do was pick up a duck. What a lame ass game! He then looks at the women and back to Iona."Well I told them we'd go see the freak show as soon as you were finished here... You don't seem so worried anymore."He says with a smile as he turns to guide her away or at least head in the direction the others had already headed.
He was amused that the Tunnel of love was suggested... A mistake on their part but it made him chuckle slightly as they headed in the direction of the Freak show.
[Liadan Whelan] Lee pulls her hand free of Robbie's so she can retrieve her wallet once more. She glances at Roman, then Robbie, confirming their number. And she pulls out a twenty.
"Three, please."
[Roman Turner] He was Ragabash, he was from small town Kansas, he was as homophobic as they came. Still he steeled his nerve and laced fingers with Robbie with a happy sigh and bat of his lashes.
"Now one..two..three..four...We're here to see the Wizard, the Great and Wonderful Oz."
[Banshee] She smiled wide. "I dinnah know why I was so worried. tis a strange thing. Buh the Freak Show sounds intaresting." She followed his lead as they headed for the Show.
[Record of Ruin] Great. Now Lee's pulled free of the little daisychain, leaving Roman and Robbie holding hands. The lanky Fianna -- very subtly, mind you -- pulls his hand free and sticks it back in his pocket.
Small town Kansas. Blue collar Boston shoreline. Neither of them are particularly open-minded in certain aspects.
He answers Roman after their fare is paid and they're walking in, though: "The mom back there? She looked pissed as hell. And the girl was scared. Then 'mom' pushes her into the back and gets this ... smug gloating look on her face. Swore I saw her lips moving weird too."
[Carousel] "Everything?" the boy stills and sharpens. Look: like this, like a human-faced fish surfacing from the water, looking right back at you. That sort of animal stillness, that suggestion of feral-under-human flesh is all wrong on him, but he answers with it, inhaling.
The cool breeze of from the interior of the booth - the humming air conditioning - carries the faint odor of salt water.
Liadin offers a $20 and he takes it from her, pushing back her change, a old-fashioned $5 where Lincoln is in a perfectly symmetric little oval, and all is right with the world.
"Her too?" This is sharp, cast over Liadin's shoulder toward Robbie and Roman where they stand holding... hands, if only tentatively. Their hands must be below the boy's line of sight, but then he leans forward to look at them -
- and drops out of sight. Five seconds later, they see why: the boy is perhaps 4'6", though his shoulders and head and even his arms show no sign of dwarfism. With a grim little flourish, he pulls back the curtains to let them into the Hall of Wonders.
--
Down the midway, Iona and Simon walk past the corn dog stand, the candy-apple stand - god they look delicious, glistening red like the perfect iteration of the fruit, - past the House of Mirrors and the House of Horrors, cold drifting out from the interior like threads of chilly water pouring into a warm lake from glacier-fed stream.
Beyond, the Big Dipper goes crink-crink-[b]clank[/i] as it turns around and climbs the hill again.
[Carousel] The Big Dipper actually goes crink-crinkclank, but who's counting?
Simon and Iona come into view of the Freak Show of the Unfair in time to see the curtain swishing closed behind Robbie, Roman and Liadin.
[Roman Turner] He had ever so casually found a need to make sure the back of his shirt was tucked in as an excuse to wipe his hand off after holding hands with another man. He wasn't in to Broke Back Mountain when that came out and that hadn't changed a lick.
"Maybe it was chew? Maybe the ma had chew in her mouth and that's why her lips were moving? Or maybe she was asking God, why did I have such a kid, what did I do wrong? Or maybe she was listing just what she was going to chew her ear over for later?"
Then he got a good look at the kid when the kid leaned up and saw it wasn't really a kid it was a....
"Well I'll be hanged, did ya see that? He's one of them Munchins from that movie. Oh Lordy, we ain't in Kansas no more Toto."
[Bone-Grinder] He grins and looks at the Candy Apples and then back to Iona. He gestured towards it and then eyed Iona."You want a candy apple?"He asked her softly as he began to inch his way towards the stand. he had already fed himself but for some reason they looked so very delicious. And healthy! Or... A little healthy anyway!
He then catches sight of the other three disappearing into the Freak show."Shit they already went in."
[Liadan Whelan] Past the curtain, Lee walks close to the other two, but she doesn't move to take the Galliard's hand again. She pulls her ancient manual over her head, carefully wraps the strap around it before setting it gently, reverently into her bag. It's not the best solution for it, but it will have to do. And she takes out a PowerShot, a much smaller digital, with a faster flash setting. One never knew what sorts of weapons they needed at their disposal.
Pushing her ponytail back past her shoulder, letting her hair drop down her back, she says, "I saw that, too. This whole place is weird."
[Banshee] She gave a quick nod. "Aye, thah would be nice." But he sees the other 3 heading into the show. "We kin geh an apple on the out."
[Record of Ruin] [percep/emp on boy!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] [hurr. manip+subt.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Carousel] [Everyone stares at me! are you different?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Bone-Grinder] He nods back to her."Let's catch up."He says with a nod of his head before speeding up, clutching his stuffed toys tightly, you would have to kill him to take his prizes away.
[Banshee] She grabbed onto the waist of his pants and followed right behind, keeping up pace with him as they try to catch up to the other 3.
[Carousel] [You don't knoooooooooow me.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] When asked if he really wants to see everything, Robbie stares right back at the boy, but by some accident of fate and luck he manages to look laconic rather than,
well,
intense. A beat later he glances at the door and nods. He doesn't bother answering that second question, or the first one for that matter. The fact that they all walk in is answer enough.
The curtain falls behind them. "Not just weird," the Fianna muses. "Unreal. I mean. Un-real. Not real. Everything feels just a little off. Or something."
[Carousel] The boy counted them. One two three. He was looking for four five. He knows that Robbie and Roman are alike. He knows that Liadin is different. Not because she's a chick, either. That wasn't sexism, there.
to Record of Ruin
[Record of Ruin] [by request: wits+ancestors, diff 8!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Bone-Grinder] He moved quickly his rage helping to chase others away as he cuts through the crowd, smirking a little as she grasps his pants. It was how kids tended to keep from getting separated, so why shouldn't it work with adults. Soon enough they were at the entrance his eyes wide with excitement before glancing back at her."Save your token I got this!"He says with a nod of his head.
[Roman Turner] "Carnivals are always weird. It's why they only open at dark, so they can hide some of the wrongness behind illusion. Besides, ya gotta wonder with the whole Invisible Circus production and the fun of the unfair on the flyer? It's a conundrum."
The word of the day had been Conundrum and he finally found a place to use it.
[Record of Ruin] There's a brief pause - a hitch in the Galliard's step. He frowns slightly, gives his head a single quick shake, and then moves on.
"Also," he adds quietly, "the kid in the ticketbooth knew what we were. I think. He knows five of us are here together."
[Banshee] She blushed a bit as he decided to take care of the entrance fee. "Only if I be gettin' the next one, dearie." She panted a bit as she caught her breathe.
[Roman Turner] That whisper from Robbie had Roman looking back at the curtain that closed behind them.
"Oh yeah? I don't reckon I like that much."
[Liadan Whelan] "Everyone here seems to know who we are, though. Or what. The woman at the entrance seemed to know who I was, too." Lee also tries to keep her voice down.
[Bone-Grinder] He catches the blush then pulls out his token. He had wanted to make use of the damn thing, and while the Peep show might be fun this is where everyone else was and that meant they needed to follow so he did as he was ordered as soon as they got up in front he presented the token and grinned."Laughing Johnny sent me."He says with a nod of his head. It was obvious by the sheer number of Stuffed animals he carried that Simon had won at something. He then handed a couple of stuffed animals to Iona and gave her the look that implied he might kill her if she lost them! Then slung his arm around her shoulder."He said me and my guest should be able to get in or something."
[Roman Turner] "And it weren't no kid, didn't ya see it? It was one of them Lollipop Kids from the Wizard of Oz, I'm telling ya, I am sure I seen him on it. Ya know, with the curl here."
He touched his forehead just beneath the hat.
"He just needed them funny looking short pants."
Then Liadan was whispering and that had him whispering right back to them.
"If they know, then they got a way of telling and it means it's cause they are watching for our sort and I don't take kindly to that. Maybe I should try to take advantage of this here dark and see if I can spot something we ain't gonna like?"
He was already eying the area they had entered.
[Carousel] The freaks displayed in the Hall of Wonders are kept on little individual stages, behind a half-wall of glass.. It is rather like attending a macabre zoo. At each station, there is a huge red button that one presses to illuminate the stage. Floodlights come on, and incandescent bulbs light up around the glass like footlights.
And music comes on, this distant music like the wheezing of a bellows, like a dying pipe-organ in the center of a malfunctioning Carousel. The lights stay on only as long as they hold down the big red button, then disappear, leaving the stage and hall dark except for the dim glow of lights lining the passageway and the afterburn of incandescence against their retinas.
There is the bearded lady, reclining on a blood-red velvet divan. They press the lights, and she comes to light, shimmying and turning in slow rotation, half-dressed, in that.
Here is the snake charmer; entirely naked, an albino python slithering around her body the only concession she makes to modesty.
It isn’t much of one. Not the way she’s holding that snake.
Next is the strong-man, a freak so grotesque that it seems as if his body exploded outwards, balloons inserted beneath his skin.
The mermaid swims along in the cold waters of a dark tank. If and when they press the button to illuminate her, she is visible only when she presses her face against the glass or rises above the surface of the musky waters. Her teeth, her teeth, her teeth are razor sharp, and her fingers seem tipped in curling claws. She opens her mouth, yawning into a smile and – and – and – so on.
Some of the freaks are simply sad, pathetic. A pair of twin seven-year-olds joined at the chest, staring out sidelong when they lights come on. Amazing what you can do with latex and spirit gum, really. They begin to tap dance, tired, desultory when the light comes on, then stop again.
--
Outside, Simon and Iona are charged five dollars each by the bored teenager in the ticket booth. The transaction is almost a mirror of the first, except the boy’s expectance gaze on them, intense.
“You’re the ones with tokens, right?” he says, all smiles as he jumps down from his stool and waddles around to open the curtain and direct them in. It’s dark inside. Down the hall –
(how long is this hall?)
- the light is going on at the mermaid’s enclosure, the mermaid is rising to the surface of her water, leaning over the half-glass frame.
Liadin and Roman and Robbie can see – now – at the end of the hall, the Emcee. He is sitting at a simple metal desk, his face illuminated by the light from below – his face is painted and his eyes are dark and his clothing is velvet and spangled and garish, but his concentration on his accounts is absolute.
Until and unless he sees them looking at him, and then he looks up, all sharp-shark’s-smile.
[Record of Ruin] [percep+alert: do the 'freaks' all look alive/real-people-ish?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Carousel] Oh yes they do.
to Record of Ruin
[Liadan Whelan] [i'm not looking at you, pff: manip + subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Roman Turner] "Holy Mother of God, look at them teeth! I think I caught that fish's cousin in the river and I ain't never gonna eat fish again. I mean really, who wants to choke on a fish bone anyway? Future cat food right there. Get back down you devil fish!"
Yeah that had scared the shit out of him with the face had come up to the glass out of the dark like that.
"Nine Lives, that's your name! Meow, meow, here them calling your name? I think Little Fiskies is next in line, best run fishy."
[Bone-Grinder] He begins down the hall his arm eventually sliding off Iona. A nod of his head when asked about the token. His eyes looking around as they enter. He doesn't say much and while he does pause to look at the freaks they pass his primary objective here was to catch up with the others. He was, as far as he knew, the only Ahroun around tonight and as a result he needed to make sure not to get too far from the others in case they needed him.
[Carousel] [Are you looking at me little girl?
Are you trying to figure out what I am thinking?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [well does she notice anything?: percept + emp on emcee]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Robbie pushes buttons.
He pushes them even though two or three exhibitions in he feels faintly queasy, faintly sullied by the whole experience. He keeps going, though, stage after stage, display after display. Soon he's not keeping lights on for more than a second or two. The twins barely get to start their tapdance routine before the lights flash off again, leaving only a fading afterimage in Robbie's field of vision.
They're close to the end of the hall, then, and the emcee is waiting for them. Lights turn on. Lights go off. In the dimness, Robbie whispers to Roman, "Maybe you oughta do that take advantage of the darkness thing now. I think they'll know you're missing, but maybe they won't know where to."
[Roman Turner] Just like any dumbass kid, when he figured out someone was coming down the dark corridor towards them, he looked and as soon as he figured out it was Simon he heehawed like a Jackass.
"Ya gotta see this fish! I swear it is the ugly cousin mix of a catfish and a toady frog!"
Just like that he had taken Robbie's cue and started stomping off back towards where Simon was coming from. And in that space he tried his best to gather his freaking self and grab hold of that Gift that some times helped him sneak out at night back home.
Blur
man+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 8) [WP]
[Record of Ruin] [WTF KAHSEENO]
[Roman Turner] In his head the theme from Mission Impossible started and he was on his tippy toes, creeping back by Robbie and Liadan. Sure as shit that he was so invisible that no one would ever know he was there. And grinning like a fool to boot.
[Roman Turner] I am so invisible. Dang I am good. They will never know I passed them if I never tell them. Man this is great. Look how clueless they look.
All of it was going through his little bean head.
Dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Carousel] [Apparently - you weren't. Ahem. Carry on.]
Get back down you devil fish! - proclaims Roman, and the mermaid opens her mouth and hisses at him. There is a distinctive odor of fsh in the room, close to her, sharper when she opens her mouth.
Her teeth are sharp;
oh, my dears, there is a double-row of sharp teeth.
--
Simon slips his arm from Iona's, and the Fianna ducks out. Quite frankly, she doesn't want to share her kazoo and her koosh ball with him. So: "I'm going to head out," she says, repeating her warning about blood, " - keep an eye on your from without," she tells him, in her Irish accent that the storyteller cannot replicate.
No matter; he has regained the group. Ahead, Robbie pushes a button, the twins begin to dance; then lets it go. Darkness again, except where the lights run along the bottom of the aisle. Simon comes up behind. Roman circles back, working to sneak into the shadows.
The emcee continues working on his paperwork He doesn't see anyone studying him; doesn' look up until they are one-stage-away from the dusty black velvet curtain at the end of the very long hall.
[Carousel] [III SEE YOU!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He catches up to the group with a smile on his face. Stealing back his stuffed animals bitch can't have my trophies! When he reaches the others he looks around and smiles."So umm... I don't see what is so bad about the place. I mean freak shows are just that right?"He asks as he looks around. Curious, friendly, and oblivious to whatever the others have been going through. Still Iona's warning did have him tensed just a little.
[Record of Ruin] They've made it through a hall of grotesqueries. One after another, monsters and freaks light up; some genuinely chilling, some merely sad. Some looked rather visibly patched-together. Some looked startlingly real.
All looked alive. There. Waiting in the darkness, all night. Irreverently and irrelevantly, Robbie wonders how the fuck they go to the bathroom. Were there understudies? Body doubles?
"The kid out front," he says to Simon, low, as the Ahroun rejoins them, "knows we're in here. He knows there's five of us. I think he knows what we are. Lee says the woman at the gate knew too. So either they've been watching us all along, or worse, they just know."
They're at the last display. Robbie draws a short breath and pushes the button.
[Roman Turner] He intended to use the distraction of seeing the others for his chance to sneak for that dusty curtain back there. Wanting to get a look so they knew what they were walking in to. If he had a totem connection with someone, they would of been insane by now with the Mission Impossible theme playing the same lines over and over in his head.
[Liadan Whelan] Robbie presses buttons, bringing the sad creatures into focus for a few seconds before losing them to the darkness once more. Lee looks around, looks at the beings on display. She tries to get a good look at the emcee, working on his paperwork, but the lights are too dim and even with glasses she's too near-sighted.
At the last display, Lee keeps herself a little behind and to the side of Robbie, surreptitiously placing him between herself and the man at the desk. And she watches for the final exhibit to light up.
[Carousel] “What happened,” the Emcee says, rising from his desk when they are close. His eyes are black. This is to say: they are black, entirely, from pupil to iris, as if they are been constructed from obsidian. His eyes are black and they are fixed upon Simon and he’s smiling, now. “ – to your girlfriend.” He’s smiling. Which is to say, he’s showing teeth.
“I thought you might go to the Tunnel of Love.”
--
And Simon is covered in stuffed animals. They’re lovely. They are soft and fine, not some strange scratchy synthetic made from petroleum and stitched together at half-pay in some obscure Chinese province. Dusty as they are, they are soft and fine. They feel good in his arms.
--
Liadin sees nothing when she studies the Emcee. She cannot read him; there’s something impenetrable about him. Perhaps it is the costuming, the frippery, the huge starched collar dusted with glitter. Perhaps it is something else – the way his face is painted to be dead white.
That’s paint, right? It has to be.
--
The last display is this: a boy, who is no more than ten, no younger than seven, sits on a narrow throne that has been painted an already flaking gold. The lights come on and he looks up. His features are pasty, and there are dark rings under his eyes like deep abiding bruises, black as soot. His eyes are lovely, though – so heavily lashed they remind one of a woman’s, fine and alert and distinct.
He wears a sheet over his body, twisted up to his chin, tucked in. When the lights come on, he begins to unwind it as if it were a winding cloth.
Underneath: there is a heart. This is to say, the skin of his chest has been peeled back in precise surgical fashion, in precise culinary fashion, even, the way some expert chef might carve a radish into a rose – to reveal the architecture of his ribs and sternum. Neat little stitches hold the skin back. Blood vessels worm up through the ribs, around the sternum, attached to a narrow little thing the size of a child’s fist, - it must be paste and mirrors, right? – except that the heart, which is on top of rather than under the sternum, contracts visibly in perfectly doubled time with their own heartbeats.
They can heart it. da-dum, da-dum. da-dum.
---
“Vampire boy,” the Emcee tells them, quiet now, hushed from the delight of the mystery of it. “Will tell your fortune, if you’d like to join me for the show. I’m afraid we have lost our wolfman, though. I hope you won’t be too disappointed.”
[Record of Ruin] Garish light floods the small stage. The boy unwraps his sheet and shows them his heart. Words flash into Robbie's mind,
in this profound silence I feel the stars slipping though the dark.
The Universe is beating its life through my heart.
gleaned somewhere from some dusty book or other, someone else's borrowed words, some library-copy of wisdom, studied, pored over because what Robbie lacks in raw intelligence he made up for in diligence. What he lacks in raw creativity he does not lack, but can never make up for, in genuine appreciation of those who have it.
Before, anyway. Before the Change, all that.
Now it's after the Change. Now, when he sees that, it's too much for him. He lets go the red button and the lights go dark; it's the darkness now, the Emcee quiet in it, his voice hushed as that of some priest, some acolyte of a most divine mystery. He gets as far as we have lost our wolfman when this wolfman wheels of him, teeth flashing in the dimness as he spits the words out:
"Fix that." He stabs a finger at the stage, the boy in the dark. He's incoherent with outrage, on the verge of stammering. "Fix him. Now."
[Roman Turner] He had come to the Carnival with the thought of cotton candy and having his fortune told. It was all for fun, he knew it wasn't true, but it was fun. And now here he was in the dark, working his way off behind the Emcee's area if he could. All in the middle of this, he could hear the heart and thought it was his own, but he was sure his was racing faster. He heard the words "Fortune, Vampire, Wolfman." He heard Robbie's outrage and the little spark of rage in him was snuffed down tighter to keep the beast in him from breaking free in answer to that outrage.
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + emp on the boy!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He eyes the creepy man with a tilt of his head, this shit was fuckin' weird! Who the hell is this guy and how did he know about Iona? Whatever the case he shrugged his shoulder."I don't really know what we are gonna do after here and I really don't think it's any of your business asshole!"He said stepping right up to the clown in the manner one might expect of an ahroun. The guy was fucking creepy as hell! He didn't like clowns and that showed when he looked at the man as if he was sizing up a potential target. Proud and powerful and frighteningly protective of his trophies. He wasn't gonna let anyone have them."I think you scared her off you creepy ass fuck. Maybe you should drop the Chimo look and go for something a little less creepy?"He looked like he was bugged by this man extremely. The Ahroun found himself placing himself between Emcee and the others in a defensive posture.
Whatever the hell was going on in this place he wasn't gonna let this creepy ass dude near anyone else. Besides something scared Iona off and he was suspicious that it was something in here from the beginning.
It might be startling to the man, certainly if the entire thing was in fact legitimate to have himself face to face with a defensive Ahroun. But Simon does manage to step back. His defensive posture shifting when he realizes he might actually be overreacting. This entire place had him a little on edge, and then there was this creepy ass dude might just be doing his job... He blinks a few times and looks around."I'm sorry dude... You scared the shit outta me! I didn't mean that!"He laughs a little to break the ice after that. Strangely, however, he keeps himself between the Emcee and the others despite that. The Ahroun had heard the New Moon's warning and he wasn't about to shrug it off. Something was wrong with this carnival and he knew it had something to do with his stuffed animals. Fuckers are not getting my stuffed animals!
[Liadan Whelan] The lights come up to illuminate the boy. One might expect the woman in their group, the kinfolk, to recoil in outraged horror. Or to at least show a shred of maternal instinct, a desire to help the boy out. Instead, Lee is reminded of high school Biology. Only more grotesque.
Frowning slightly, she looks at the heart, beating above the boy's exposed chest.
She starts when the lights go dark, and the boy disappears. In the semi-darkness, Robbie snarls. Now Lee recoils, steps back and away, instinctive.
"What did you do to him?"
[Carousel] Simon comes charging forward, cursing, puffs himself up, and the Emcee gives him a curt, direct - up and down, top to toe - " -well," he says when Simon apologizes at the end, his mouth twisting wide. "I accept your apology. I assure you, we would have made your night very, very special.”
--
Liadin asks what he did; the Emcee turns to look at her, hawk-eyed. Right in the eyes. He doesn’t look at her the way he does them men, up and down, a hint of covetousness in his eyes and posture. “My dear young woman,” he tells her, “ – he was born that way, from his mother’s womb into the great dark world. We saved his life.
--
Then: Robbie, reflexively furious, wheels on him and demands – Fix him.
Fix him.
"What - " the Emcee returns harshly; his voice is abidingly deep, suddenly. He seems rooted here, entirely in command. His mouth - which is well-made and painted black - peels sneeringly back from his teeth, which are whole and intact and white as his lead-painted skin.
The harsh note disappears as quickly as it arose. "What would you have me do, then? Stitch back his skin, is that what you want? Smother his heart, choke him until he dies for want of blood - "
The Emcee is standing now, the black velvet curtain at his back, the long, long hallway dark. There's a whisper of movement from behind the curtains, the slow wheezing of the dying Carousel. He leans closer to Robbie, sneering -quiet, "smothered because his skin will not change to accommodate him." This is so low that no one else is likely to hear it.
--
If he is not attacked by the charged, furious Galliard right then and there, he turns his back on them, the Garou and their kin, unafraid, apparently, of claws in his back. Sweeps open the curtains, casting a sly invitation of a look over his shoulder.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Sweeping back the curtains, I have a show to do.”
[Record of Ruin] Beside Liadan, behind Simon, Robbie is rigid with fury and revulsion. He bares his teeth when the Emcee's voice snaps and booms; snaps at the air when he leans close. Every muscle is tensed, every joint locked. It seems to take a great deal of willpower for the Galliard to hold himself in check, hold himself in place.
He does, though. He holds on, holds still, holds his ground, and then the Emcee is turning his back to them, proceeding toward this final stage.
When the lights come on -- and Record of Ruin has no doubt that they will come on to bathe whatever final freakshow might emerge -- their reflected light will show Robbie's face taut with strain, blanched with anger, patches of color in his cheeks. His hands are clenched at his sides, his lean, wasteless forearms ridged and corded with the flexion in every muscle and tendon.
[Record of Ruin] WP!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He blinks when he tries to make sense of that little threat. Why the hell would he want a special night with Iona? He didn't even know the girl! But he says nothing, obviously he had been over reacting as had she. It was Robbie, however, who appears infuriated. Simon looks at Robbie and he smiles just a little. They were walking a precarious line between the dangerous and the misunderstood. He glanced around at the others and then back towards Robbie."Let's finish the show and get the hell out of here... I really don't know if I like this guy at all... I sure as fuck don't trust him."He says softly."I think we should just finish the show and get the hell outta here."
[Roman Turner] He had gone, he had slipped off to nose around, to work his way head of the others, behind the Emcee. He wanted to know what lay ahead for them and he wanted to be behind the Emcee if the others had to fight from that end. He made sure he had a hiding spot when all the talking started, just in case.
WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] The Garou are furious. So furious that they might overlook something. Something that could be important.
Lee does not feel much protective instinct for the boy behind the glass. Seeing him in there, cut open and on display the same as all the other creatures they've seen tonight, does not infuriate her. What inspires her desire to protect, however, is the threat to them, the Garou. She doesn't know them well, not yet, maybe not ever. But she, so weak by comparison, just a kinfolk, just a little more than human, would lay down her life for them.
She steps beside Robbie, but she doesn't touch him. That. Would be suicide. But she says, her voice low for his ears only, "Be careful. They're missing a wolf-man and they know what you are."
The emcee goes to open the curtains, and the kinfolk knows she should run. Simon is right, though. They've come this far. They have to finish this.
[WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Carousel] The velvet curtain is heavy, moth-eaten and old. It brings up great clouds of dust as it is swept back. On the other side: an impression of space, as if they had entered a tent – a circus tent, of course. Beneath them, the floor has changed from metal squares to wooden decking. There are shadows underfoot, bleeding cold air, and a certain heavy, humid smell in the air. It is hard to place, not quite the scent of blood – but close to it, thick and fleshy somehow. There are a dozen slatternly looking wooden benches arrayed in front of a stage, and a huge black caldron set to the side. It is fully five feet tall and five feet wide, a great, squat sphere, the metal sheened over with the soft glistening of grease boiled over.
The stagelights here are soft, and a handful of lanterns swing from the great sweep of the ceiling as if in a breeze. Candles flicker and wax drips onto the boards below. There’s a sort of – mist in the air, a drifting fog, where the cold air from the shadows below the decking meets the hot, humid air of the tent.
Other than the way they came in, there’s no visible way out. The stage is low and it is empty. “Have a seat.” he instructs them, Simon and Robbie and Liadin, for Roman is hidden amongst the shadows at the corners of the room, “oh, anywhere, anywhere you like. I had hoped for a female this time, but really, Jefferson, I’ll take what I can get. Hard times. Hard times my friend.”
There is an answering gurgle from the cauldron. The Emcee picks his way through the benches heading toward the stage, not-quite mincing as he goes, steps up onto it. The stage is a foot higher than the floor, a dusty red curtain backgrounding him. He looks back at those who remain in the little seating area, visible, expectant.
- waiting.
Watching them silently for a good fifteen seconds. Nothing happens, and a frisson of irritation breaks through his mask.
“Well then,” he recovers, “on with the show.”
[Bone-Grinder]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Per+Primal Urge]
[Record of Ruin] [no applicable spec!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] per+PU
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] [percep + emp! applicable spec!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat from a human being. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner.
to Bone-Grinder
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner.
to Record of Ruin
[Roman Turner] per+emp if needed
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Carousel] The scent is the rendered fat from a human being. It emanates from the cauldron in the corner. It is not rotten/dead, and the scent makes him somehat sleepy, though he's resisted it. So has everyone else.
to Roman Turner
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
to Carousel
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out.
to Roman Turner
[Carousel] It feels as if they are deep in some labyrinth. There's no clear way out. The velvet walls of the tent are opaque and muffle any sound. Liadin, though, hears crink-crink-clank and crink-crink-clank of the roller coaster she was longing for. It's close - just outside the canvas/velvet walls?
to Liadan Whelan
[Record of Ruin] [FIANNA DON'T FAIL!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out. He waits everyone out. Everyone succumbs, eventually.
to Record of Ruin
[Roman Turner] Oh he had a really bad feeling. He didn't like the smell, it kept tugging at his senses, telling him to just relax and take a nap. And there was something really fishy here, like a special offer that the store didn't want to make good on.
He waited till he was sure the Emcee wasn't looking where he hid before he shifted a little closer to that red curtain behind the cauldron.
[Liadan Whelan] [ack!: percept + emp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] He finds himself breathing in the scent of human flesh. Suddenly he realizes that there was no over-reaction this was, in fact some kind of fucked up scheme or plan. The smell of human flesh boiling in the cauldron, that is what got to Simon that is what helped him to realize that this was in no way just a show. The act of boiling human flesh... Would be illegal and no carnival would willingly put themselves in that position. Even for a show they would lie... Even if it was illegal they would cheat and purchase something cheaper. There was no explanation in his head that could justify what was in that cauldron. So his eyes narrowed and his body tensed, but he did not leap onto the stage. Instead he watched, readying himself.
He glanced at the others to see if they knew what was up. Well the other Garou, specifically Robbie, a glance from his eyes was all that Robbie would need to imply the intentions of the full moon. They needed to get out of here but first Emcee would need to be dealt with.
[Carousel] The Emcee was hoping he wouldn't have to do the show. He is resigned to it. He can wait them out.
to Liadan Whelan
[Liadan Whelan] Lee's attention momentarily shifts to the curtain behind the emcee. She cocks her head slightly, unconsciously imitating Robbie's movements, perhaps, more animal than human. She frowns.
And then her gaze slides to the emcee himself. Waiting for them so that he can start the show.
"You don't want to do this," she says, like she's only just figuring it out, the idea's just come to her. "Why are you doing this if you don't want to?" she asks, implores almost. There's more, as the Fianna kinswoman tries to persuade the man to step back, leave this, leave them.
It's just a matter of how convincing she is.
[omg can't think of words: manip + subt: DON'T DO IT, BRO! GO HOME]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Record of Ruin] Earlier, the kinswoman had tried to warn him. He'd only looked at her. They know what he is. He knows they know. It's too late; he's in too deep. He had to stay and see.
Now, Liadan isn't speaking to him, but she may as well be. Robbie doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to be here, smelling that awful stench of rendered fat, of boiled flesh. He doesn't want to see what the Emcee has in store for them, but --
but he has to. It's important. In a way, it's his job. It's his entire reason for existence. Robbie is not a very good Galliard. He can't sing. He can't play instruments. He can't compose poetry. He can't even howl very well. He's not a genius; he's not even particularly smart. He's not creative.
All that's left to him is -- well. Reflected in his name. To be a record. To record the truth, the fact, the evidence as it is laid down. He's not here to fight, though his rage runs high; though he's angry. He's here to see, to here, to remember, to record, and to be able to be accountable to anyone who might ask him,
What really happened that night?
So he watches. Grim-faced, breathing in shallow, quick sips, he watches; waits.
[Bone-Grinder] [Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] From behind the Cauldron, behind the Emcee, right up there on the stage came a voice and there stood Roman with one hand on his hat to keep it from falling in the Cauldron.
"Well will ya look at that. That big ole slug from Starwars? He done left his ugly pink brother in this here pot. And I'll be danged if he ain't looking at me. Boy howdy."
[Liadan Whelan] [attack 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 7)
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 1 Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] Snap to Warform attacking shadows!
1st attack roll
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st dam
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [damage 1: sorry whoever just got kicked!: str +1 +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [attack 2: kick again, the first was a kick]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7) [WP]
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 1 Reroll Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] 2nd attack roll
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] 2nd damn
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [damage 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [soak 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [soak 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Damage 1 Str+Totem+Crinos+1+2 = 110
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [WP: -2 for spending]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [WP 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Attack 2 Dex+Totem+Brawl+Crinos(cause I can't drop my stuffed animals) Bite!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 2nd soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Second bite (Last Bite -1)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1st WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 2nd WP roll
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [WP1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [WP2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Attack 1!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Bone-Grinder] [Soak 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Bone-Grinder] [Soak 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Attack 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Record of Ruin] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] WP1!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] WP2!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Soak 1!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Record of Ruin] Soak 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Carousel] Robbie is here to record, and Liadin is looking up at the Emcee, who is tired. It is late and he was hoping for a female. It is late and he was hoping that his skilled employees would find him a female. They had one picked out, and now she’s gone. He’s not interested in going on with the show, but he will, and Liadin calls out to him, hey, leave it man – and he smiles are her, like this again, all teeth and god, they are sharper than they were before, and brighter and wider and whiter and wrong, filling his mouth like needles, like straight-razors except bone-white and monstrous and there is that wheezing organ-sound again, something shuffling behind the waving curtain, and then –
Roman appears on the stage, his hat-in-hand, standing over the cauldron that the Emcee addressed as Jefferson, which gurgled in response, remarking – rather pointedly – on its contents.
The room erupts into chaos; the cold from below, a half-dozen shadow arms wave from the darkness underneath the decking, fixed and static but hungry – the thing in the cauldron – emerges from the cauldron, this shivering conglomeration of boiling fat and flesh, no definition left to it, glistening with grease, the suggestion of a mouth emerging from the veil of its skin as it thunders and roars and –
- the Emcee, smiling, disappears behind the curtain.
Liadin knocks one of the shadow arms to the ground; Roman severs two more that are waving up, blind, like cilia, in one great bite. Simon and Robbie surge, snarling at the blob. The boiling flesh burns their mouths and tongues, goes down like acid and splashes back at them, leaving with burned flesh the vague, grotesque taste of human-bacon in the back of their throats, and so on.
The room is full of smoke now – smoke or mist, obscuring the directions and filling their nostrils – tempting them even in the middle of battle, to lay down, to lay down, how do they even know where to go?
The shadowarms are fixed, but the Emcee is behind the curtain and there is this terrible, high keening, this background beating of a heart-they-cannot hear.
Roman turns and joins Robbie and Simon as they savage the blob, tearing away at the huge mountain of flesh until it comes away in quivering chunks, but there’s this red film behind their eyes, and – and – and –
The curtains from the Hall of Wonders are moving. There are how many freaks there? How many other things to come through?
There is no way out except the way they came in.
- except that Liadin finds it; pulls a knife from her camera bag or a railroad spike from the floor and cuts through the heavy canvas-velvet curtain, bringing in cool-fresh air. Outside, they can all hear the crink-crink clank of the Big Dipper now as it climbs its hill, see its lights in front of them and the city beyond. They retreat like a pack, a tight knot of wounded, seething werewolves surrounding their kinswoman, hackles raised, flesh blistered and burning. They escape into an alley, beyond the confines of the carnival, chased by a pair of vicious dogs the last 75 feet. The dogs stop underneath the last pylon of the roller coaster, barking savagely. They go no further, as if there were some invisible barrier barring them from the city proper. There’s a faint pop as they explode from within – familiar to the Garou, alien to Liadin, except for this: like the change in altitude when one flies, when one pops one’s ears to relieve the sudden change in pressure.
--
They are wounded, broken. They do not see Iona, but if they send word they discover that she emerged from the carnival uninjured, without ever discovering its dark secrets. If they return in the morning –
- they cannot return in the morning. Where was that address? Can anyone remember? When they do, though – an empty lot, filled with detritus and trash, trampled over by a half-thousand feet overnight, every other sign gone.
[Carousel] [Tally: three shadows + 1 Blob, dead. Robbie: 6 agg (OWIE) mostly on the snout, also on his back left leg.; Liadin: 3 agg (cold/burn around her ankle! she be limping, it goes to the bone); Simon: 4 agg (OWIE. face and throat); Roman: 4 agg -( left shoulder and face and tongue).
Also: simon has his stuffed animals still. For serious. :) ]
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