limacharlie | DAY 173: PRE-BREAKFAST, SUPERVISOR CHANNEL

Oh~ I'll be right over~

[And she really Is right over, it's very easy for her to do that. It's almost a shame that this isn't actually about outfits, but HEY, she'll be knocking?]

[ Yeah, no. Sorry Carly, shit's fucked. Lambert opens the door with a stony expression completely at odds with his colorful outfit and waves at her to come inside. ]

[The obliviousness is grand.] Oohhhhhh....y...yikes...

D-Did they seriously go to put you in that.... [Well, she's coming in!] Well, I can definitely help find something way better, and-!

[And about two seconds after the door is closed again and she's looking around, she'll realize something's not quite right.] ..............................ah...

...What's going on?

[ And while Lambert goes to answer to door for Carly, the room will gain one additional magician via him stepping out of the shadows cast by the armoire. An armoire he immediately and casually leans against rather than walking further into the room. ]

Where did you even find something that gaudy?

[ Yes, he knows they aren't really hear to criticize what Lambert is wearing, yet here we are. ]

[Peridot shows up a moment later, which is sort of impressive when you consider she spent a few minutes after getting Lambert's message demanding into the radio to know why the heck he wants her advice on archaic earth fashions.

The tense atmosphere in the room is harder to misinterpret. She comes in without knocking and freezes in the doorway, looking over the group already present.]

Wwwwhat the heck is going on here? [She steps in and flicks the door shut with her tail.]

[Hey guys, don't close the door yet. A whistle bounces down the hall as a heads up before his foot gets shoved inbetween the door and the frame, with Joker poking his head in right behind Carley and Peridot. He's been faking a smile all the way here after getting helped dressed himself, and it'll get dropped the second he's out of the hall.... But for now, he raises an eyebrow at Lambert.]

Cor, mate, I think I'm a little jealous. Tradesies?

[And then comes Psi, looking pretty haggered and just not saying a word. Whatever Lambert wants to talk to them about he just wants to get this over with.]

[Just as wordlessly, Joker quietly steps besides him and presses his hand against his spine. He's here for you, baby.]

[Just after Joker says THAT bit-] ...............Please don't let anyone wear that. [Just saying. It's bad. It's real bad. She quickly sobers up not only when the smile drops however, but when Psi comes in in....That state.]

Ps....Psiionic..? [............Oh dear.]

[Zecora looks displeased as she stalks in.]

[To be fair, no one could be blamed for finding a grumpy zebra in a ball gown to be hilarious.]

I wish I could come faster.
I assume there's been disaster.

...That is not your sense of style.
Send those clothes to the trash pile. [She's just saying.]

[Psi relaxes into that touch, stress diminishing slightly. But still only slightly. He sighs as Zecora comes into the room.]

We're not really here to talk about clothes are we?

Will you all shut up about the clothes?! [ Thanks a lot, peanut gallery. Lambert manages not to yell, but only just, and as he hisses furiously a small lick of flame and smoke actually bursts from his mouth before he gets a hand over it, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to rein his temper in. He can lose it later: right now, there isn't much time.

After all, it can't be lost on the others ... that there's one supervisor notably missing from the room. He moves to stand with his back to the door, his lashing tail coming to a stop as visibly gathers himself. ]

The good news is, we're all still alive. [ He says, flatly. That's immediately followed by: ] The bad news is, the Prince now has three of our workers and the Warden.

[ He'll raise his voice over any immediate reaction to that, continuing. ] I don't know where they are, but they all disappeared after curfew, and they were out of their rooms. And now we get to go in there-- [ He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the way down to the breakfast hall. ] --and eat with him like everything's normal. Think you can manage that?

[ Even as the words come out of his mouth, it's pretty obvious he loathes the idea, fists clenched by his sides, but there's a grim, determined set to his jaw. ]

Edited 2017-10-12 16:19 (UTC)

[The good news is that Joker actually does in fact shut up, and, in fact, just gives a nod to Lambert's order. Most of his attention, frankly, is on Psi and Carly.]

[Psi already looks worn ragged, held together by strings, and Carly, well, Carly has always been high strung. They're the ones he's really worried about, although, in the back of his head, he knows Peridot is probably going to flip her shit too.]

[So that leaves... What? Lambert, Zecora, and him? Fuck.]

[Shit. Psi just lets his face fall into his hands as he takes that in. The Warden, Sans. Actually one of the few people here he thought was competent as a combatant. He'd been captured?]

Who are the others?

[The good news is, she doesn't 'flip her shit' as it were.

But her blood runs cold, and all the light in her wings and hair grows dull as it reaches cooler shades.]

....What.

[It's flat. Not loud, barely above speaking tone in fact. It was bad enough that others were going missing-but now Sans as well?

Sans was careful-Sans wasn't someone 'just sneaking around'. And as it stands it feels she's being thrown past her typical horizon zone for fun, games, and frantic fluster, into a very dangerous place for her mind to be in.]

...Tyki Mikk was the first one....but who were the other two then?!

[If Peridot IS flipping her shit, a lot of it is uncharacteristically internalized. She stares Lambert down the entire time he's talking, her expression looking increasingly nauseated. When he's done, she drops onto the floor to sit cross legged, arms folded, clenching her claws too hard against her own skin.

This whole situation had reminded her far too much of the Celebration already, and now... The image flashes in her head, of Sans next to her in shackles, in a dark cell lit only by the distant glow of magma...

She'll listen quietly for now, but there's a lot of internal screaming going on.]

It's almost as if, when they say,
"Don't anger the Prince", we should obey.

[Zecora's sympathies are at an all-time low right now. The Supervisors, especially, should have known better than to go breaking the rules around a powerful Fae. Of course, they didn't. Of course, now they endangered everypony else.]

The situation has not changed
Even if we feel still more estranged.
If we do not play by the rules
Then we will be the greater fools.
For now we should all trust
The Ringmaster will do what she must.
If we rebel I'm afraid
She will not be of aid.

The other two are Julien and Reira.

[ Lambert crosses his arms. Like Joker, he's waiting for the freaking out. So far, so good, but Carly's tone makes him tense up, too. ]

Sans said the two of them got grabbed by the Prince's wolves. I'm guessing he got caught trying to see what was going on.

[ He's visibly pissed about these developments, but it's hard to tell who it's directed at. Zecora's words only get a terse nod. He agrees, but it's hard to speak up in favor of sticking to the rules when he wants to smash something himself. (Seeing him ride Pig later is going to be terrifying.) ]

[And everything went better than expected.]

[...For reactions, at least. Joker is well aware that this is worse than he could have predicted or wanted. If he lets himself not focus on anything for too long, if he gets lost in his own thoughts, he knows he's not going to be of any use to anyone. So he gets lost, instead, in watching the others, trying to plan around this while also trying not to think.]

[It's a little harder than he'd like.]

So... Think we should just wait for her to figure out the missin' person at breakfast, then?

[Reira. The name makes him go stiff. She was one of his. He was supposed to be looking out for her, and he didn't. He looks up to Lambert, tone changing to the panic everyone was expecting before.]

Do we know where they are?

[ Reira, too? ]

At this rate, I won't have a department left. [ As always, he carries on sounding chronically bored in the midst of everyone else's worrying or anger, though he had straightened up from where he'd been leaning at the mention of them going missing. ] But that explains what all the yelling on the radio was last night.

Like I said, we don't know where. Only that they're alive.

[ Probably. But there's a long list of conditions between alive and dead they're best not dwelling on. As to Joker's question, though, he frowns. ]

The Prince might've told her already. A fae would brag about that kind of thing, wouldn't they? [ He tilts his head, to listen as best as he can for servants coming along the hallway. ]

I don't think he'd have to-but she'll definitely know as soon as we're eating, regardless.

...We can't say 'any fae' with The Prince though, [she half scolds, shaking her head.] All of our time here has already shown he thinks differently from that..!

[Still, though....] Julien.... ...he's in my department, [she murmurs gently, chewing her lip as she shakes.] I had heard him on the Radio, but I couldn't understand him....

Did he say anything else that anyone could understand..?

[So for all they knew this could be literal hell all over again. He's worried and scared and mad at the Ringmaster for putting them in this situation to begin with, but mostly he's tired. Being angry won't help, being worried won't help. There's literally nothing he can do to help without knowing what the Ringmaster's playing at here. Hell, even if he did know he probably still wouldn't be able to help. So he keeps his mouth shut, stopping himself from making any complaints no matter how much he wants to.

The only sign of his anger is the tense way he carries himself and the sparking flash of red and blue between his horns, psionic energy he is fighting to contain much as Lambert had with his flames.]

So we aren't going to do anything to find them. We're just going to act like everything's normal.

[Despite the accusation in his words, he sincerely tries to keep the anger from his voice. He isn't actually looking for a fight. He just wants to know the plan, because once he does he can go back to his room and scream into a pillow until he's all screamed out.]

The truth is they gave offenses
Knowing they might face consequences.
I know you think that we should
But it would do nopony good.
The Prince exceeds our combined might.
We cannot win a straight-out fight.
We must trust our own patron.

[Unlike some of the others, Zecora is perfectly calm and reasoned -- as she must be, she well knows, to say things nopony would like. She hopes that Joker, at least, will agree with her -- they have a fair amount of combined experience and, hopefully, respect between them to sway the others.]

[That being said, she also believes to her core that things will only get worse from here.]

We'll talk again before all is done.

[Psi pretty much said what Peridot was already feeling, but she's much, much more obviously angry about this. She sits up a little straighter before she cuts in; her ears are laid flat, and there's faint wisps of smoke curling from the corners of her mouth.]

Um, excuse me? No. You're all kidding me, right? We... We can't just not do anything about this!

Edited 2017-10-12 21:32 (UTC)

Just because we're not throwing ourselves into the Prince's teeth doesn't mean we're lying back to let him plough us either!

[ He snarls. Never in a million years did Lambert think he'd be the one arguing for rationality, but here we are. Unfortunately, Carly's question has to be brushed to the wayside as he speaks quietly but quickly, stabbing the air for emphasis. ]

No matter how human he tries to act, he's still fae. Remember what the Ringmaster said: he can't hurt you if you're playing by his rules. The more people break them, the more excuses you give him to stop pretending he cares. So first off, what you can do is make sure no one else gets caught. Including yourselves. [ A breath. ]

This whole place was built with his magic. If we want those people back? We have to make the Prince want to give them back.

[ Too bad he has no fucking clue how to do that! ]

Edited 2017-10-12 22:22 (UTC)

[Carly has....a guess? She ponders things to herself, crossing her arms.] ...The only thing the Prince 'enjoys' so far, it seems, is when people play along... ...and play along well, [She murmurs, chewing her lip.] At the very least, we have to find some way to keep everyone from sneaking out so much..!

[Peridot literally hisses at Lambert like an angry cat. Straight up. Like. Teeth bared, tail lashing. She shuts up long enough to let Carly get a word in, but then she's right back at it.]

I'm not saying we throw ourselves directly at his forces like a bunch of half-formed clods, but there has to be something we can do! At least make sure that the Ringmaster knows what's going on!

[The Ringmaster must not know yet, right? SURELY, she'd already be throwing down with the Prince if she DID know. RIGHT? HAHA. HA...]

I have remote surveillance equipment with me, I've been using that to keep an eye on the halls without leaving my room but, I don't know, maybe I can try to push it further to keep looking for them!

Wherever they are, Sans can't get out of it. [ Lambert snaps, baring teeth right back, but though smoke's curling from his lips, he manages to keep his voice taut and controlled. The implications of that are hopefully understood without him having to outline it.

He won't address the Ringmaster part, because he's pretty sure he already knows the answer to that. And because he already heard her all but admit she wouldn't be a match for the Prince in a fight ... doesn't seem the wisest thing to share at the moment. But surveillance? That could be useful. He'll say as much when he calms down and they're not counting down the minutes -- seconds -- until someone comes looking for them. ]

We don't have time to fight about this. [ He's already said more than he meant to. ] We all signed up for our jobs. Are we going to do them or not?

Edited (and then i used admit a million times) 2017-10-13 00:13 (UTC)

[No one signed up for capture, or playing this monster's stupid games. This place was dangerous, and they'd all known from the start, but the Ringmaster brought them here anyway.]

[Without another word the Psionic turns and leaves. If there was nothing they could, and there wasn't, then there wasn't anything else he needed to hear.]

[Carly for her part is quiet-and with a rather stoney tone, turns to nod before going herself.] ....I'll be doing my part, [She says.] ....We play the game until we see a way out.

....It's almost time for breakfast. ....We can't be late, [she adds, before floating through the room.]

[Peridot reluctantly hoists herself back to her feet and watches them both go. They're right, of course. They don't have time to do anything about this right now. But damn if she doesn't feel impotent! Along with a million other adjectives that all basically sum up to one thing: Pissed the heck off.

She snorts a puff of smoke an embers, collecting herself, before side-eyeing Lambert again.]

You said you know that they're all still alive. How?

Because Reira and Julien both left something they're connected to, and that connection hasn't been destroyed.

[ Now that some of the other supervisors have filed out, the corners of Lambert's mouth twist downward. ]

Besides, think about it. They're obviously more useful alive than dead.

[ Try to think like a shitty manchild obsessed with becoming human for a moment, Peridot. ]

[At that, Zecora has a small and very nasty thought: 'alive' covers a great number of states. Perhaps obviously, she isn't going to share that thought with Peridot.]

Though it's small consolation
From one of my station
They are probably more well
Than we were in Hell.

[It's not like Peridot hasn't thought of that. That 'alive' and 'well' don't always go hand in hand. Mainly she asks because she wants to know if Lambert was just lying to be reassuring, or if he actually had any evidence to back that claim up. Which as it turns out, he does... or at least, he had another lie ready to go, in case he was pressed.

Either way, she briefly flashes the zebra A Look, like she's not entirely convinced of that claim, but she can't exactly argue with it either. Then her attention is back on Lambert, staring the witcher down with a scrutinizing squint.]

Tch. Fine... But after we get through this meal, I want more information. I want to help. I can't just sit around while this is happening.

[Childermass gets the stare down for a moment as well. Yeah, that means you too. She hasn't forgotten about you over there, scruffy shadow man.]

[ Lambert can relate to that sentiment all too well, but the truth of the matter is, he's out of his depth. They all are, here. He can't direct efforts to assist when he doesn't have a damn clue where he should be directing them to. ]

You said you have surveillance, don't you? I need to figure a few things out, but that's something we can use.

[ Ah, but they're out of time. ]

... We need to go. Before people notice we're late.

Edited 2017-10-16 03:05 (UTC)

I am a zebra, you know.
They already thing my standards are low.

[Zecora is very aware of her treatment here, even as she pays it no mind whatsoever and continues to deliver her best. She, at least, will not have her behavior impeached at any part of this mess. To her, that is the best service she can give to her friends and the carnival as a whole.]

...Fine. We'll talk more later.

[She's obviously still not happy, but she also agrees they haven't really got the time to bicker over this right now. So without another word, or even acknowledgement of the other supervisors still present, Peridot turns around and stalks out of the room to go get ready for what will undoubtedly be the worst meal of the trip so far.]

She is right. I too must scat.

[Zecora turns for the door as well, a frown wrought deep on her face as she considers the ramifications of all of this. Though she doesn't get out it before she pauses, then looks over her shoulder at Lambert.]

...Seriously, do not wear that.

[Aaand she's off]

[ Childermass will actually wait, still more or less unmoved from the spot he appeared, still leaning against the armoire, arms still folded.

He didn't bother saying much during the meeting, as most of what he would have said had been said already, but he will raise his eyebrows at Lambert questioningly once the other supervisors hurry on their way to breakfast. Which, admittedly, is where he should be heading, too, but he can cheat. The castle is full of shadows and the dining hall may as well be a step away for the magician. ]

[ Well, that went about as well as Lambert could have hoped, which is not at all. Once everyone else has filed out of the room, he stays behind in that awful outfit he no longer has the time to change out of, the set of his shoulders sagging a little-- and snapping up again instantly once he remembers he isn't alone here. ]

What?

[ If there's a question he's supposed to be able to read in that expression? He can't. ]

[ There isn't. It's more for whether or not Lambert is going to tell him to get lost or not like the rest of the supervisors, now that the quick meet-up is over with. He doesn't, though, and so Childermass will just cut straight to the point. ]

I have a name for Strange to scry for. I thought you and your Nightrunners would all like to know.

[ It's something that could have gone on the map, but it feels like one of those things you don't want written proof of floating around. ]

[ And he couldn't tell him with the other supervisors around? Well, they're probably thinking he's not doing his job regardless, so it's not like that would change a thing.

Lambert straightens, nodding. ]

Tell me.

[ Hopefully shorter this time, because that was an awful lot of words. ]

LeFlamme.

[ That's it. There's not a whole lot of information to pass beyond that, assuming Lambert read his note about the more beastly of the Prince's servants already. ]

[ Lambert waits a beat or two, to see if there's anything more to go on than that, but when Childermass doesn't offer ... well, he knows better than to waste his breath asking. ]

Got it. [ Absently, he reaches up to adjust the toggle on his cape -- and he glances over towards the magician, expression turning wry. ]

It really does look shitty, doesn't it?

[ To that, Childermass just shrugs.

It does, but he's pretty sure that's already been implied. That's also the last Lambert will see of the magician until he reaches breakfast because, with that, he's gone, rudely not asking if Lambert wanted a shortcut to the dining hall and everything. ]

DAY 173: PRE-BREAKFAST, SUPERVISOR CHANNEL

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let's all do this big long single thread style!

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and whenever people actually disperse

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