Welcome to The Circus of Whimsy!(Alice)

August 17, 2025

PlotLog

Date: 2025-08-16 18:19

(Welcome to The Circus of Whimsy!(Alice):Alice)

[Sat Aug 16 2025]

in the entrance to the Circus of Whimsy
Shocking color rules the day here as green and white striped canvas looms overhead, the high ceiling of this so-called lobby filled with clouds of swirling color which flash with occasional lightning. The ground underneath is soft grass and trodden dirt, packed down by many footsteps. Crowds of faeborn mill around, some coming in from flaps which lead out to Nissenia, and some stepping in through the mirror. Yet more seem to simply manifest from nothing, stepping down from the swirling color on invisible staircases or popping into existence as if by magic.

The west side of the lobby is dominated by a truly massive mirror, large enough for two grizzly bears standing on top of one another to enter without ducking. The entire surface has a polished silver sheen, and it is framed by a beautiful dark wood, every inch of the wood carved with knots and gaelic runes. To the north, the tent opens up further into the big top proper, too dark to see from here.

It is about 60/spanF(15C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At King and Blackstone/span

As you step through the mirror, your senses are immediately assaulted on the other side, roiling clouds of color and a cacophony of noise hammering you from all sides. You find yourselves standing in what is obviously a large tent with green and white striped canvas walls; your feet trod on dirt and grass below, the tent set up in a large clearing in Nissenia. The vast mirror behind you pulses after it lets you through, then grows still until it must deliver its next visitors.

Alice holds a hand over her mouth, fighting down the bile that threatens to make a fool of her, and is approached by a brightly-dressed attendant: a hot pink suit, oversized shoes, and a large, hyper-realistic boar mask hides his true shape, but marks him as a member of the Circus of Whimsy. “You must be Miss Renwick,” he intones in a deep baritone, before sardonically adding, “And guests,” with a vague gesture to Annabelle, Obadiah, Ambrose, Shay, and Rinwell. “I bid you welcome to the Circus of Whimsy. My masters will be pleased with your arrival.” He pauses, clasping his hands in front of him, and the boar head blinks one eye, then the other. “Most contestants have an endless barrage of questions. Please, begin yours, so we can get the games started sooner.”

Quease does not effect Ambrose, with digestion not a factor, nor disorientation. With him, it’s generally distraction, so when he follows Alice through the mirror, his shaded gaze wanders wide. Whilst the boar-masked fellow talks, he looks to the floating chalkboard that drifts along, skimming it. There are no questions from him.

Annabelle’s helmet wanders over to the THE RULES, taking what questions she might have over to the fine print first.

Fighting back against the assault on her senses, Rinwell/span steels her expression in a momentary colour if discomfort. It all quickly passes, especially as she is overtaken by the sights, alerted to the attendant’s presence by his greeting. As her decorum dictates,s he presses a hand over her heart and bows her head solemnly in greeting, otherwise happy to stay on the wayside and let the adults do all the talking.

Obadiah gives a quick scan over the rules then walks forward half a step next to Alice. “Sounds like pretty basic fae-game stuff. I am assuming the usual feats of strength, trials of courage, games of chance, and other general type stuff?” He grins and looks around at his compatriots, sea-green eyes lighting up with mischievousness before looking back to the attendant, “Is this a team sport or individual?”

Assailed thoroughly at his sensitive, gods-blessed senses, Shay nearly doubles over, his fall only halted when a hand comes up to prop himself against Rinwell’s shoulder. He steadies his posture with a firm foot planted onto the floor, heaving out a grunt. The brightly-dressed attendant is barely given acknowledgment while he’s trying to regain his composure, and he tries to will his senses to some normalcy, to hopefully avoid being stunned again like such. “Urgh…”

“How’s your day?” Annabelle decides to ask of their guide, of all the questions that come to her.

Alice swallows whatever queasiness was threatening to reveal her lunch for all to see, shuddering after yet another mirror trip leaves her sick to her stomach. Once she’s stable, she raises a hand, informing, “Yes, I’m Alice Renwick,” nodding. She, too, takes a look at the rules, blanching slightly at them, though none of them seem to give her true pause. “Um. The… we had a special deal, right?” she asks, trying to confirm.

The boar-masked servant rolls the eyes of his boar mask powerfully, and when he exhales in annoyance, steam bursts from the pig-head’s nose. “Of course, Miss Renwick,” he says in a measured tone. To Obadiah, he seems a bit less rude. “My good sir, the Circus of Whimsy is anything but ‘general type stuff’. You stand in the greatest form of entertainment known to the entirety of the Other. Two contestants will be selected for each challenge. In a showing of grace, my masters have decided you will select which two from your own ranks.” To Annabelle, he turns, the boar-head unblinking. “Glorious,” he answers.

Rinwell startles when Shay near doubles over, her hand darting instinctively to brace him, eyes wide with theatrical alarm. “Shay!” she breathes, her voice pitching that classic earnest worry a friend affords a pal. She leans in, steadying him by his arm and shoulder, glaring past the swirl of colours. “Hold fast,” she urges him. “Lean upon me until you senses come to.” To the proceedings transpiring nearby, she can only stare at them blankly, processing what she can without being one of those that the attendant might dread: One with too many questions.

Obadiah taps his fingertips together a la Mr. Burns and mutters, “Excellent,” to the attendant.

For the time, Ambrose is mostly silent, considering his companionship and the surroundings as much as he is the words of the guide. Watching Rinwell and Shay a beat, he looks back eventually, deciding evenly, “Ready for the glory, then.”

Annabelle shifts on one leg and then the other, accepting the boar-head’s mood with some physical challenge, but makes nothing of it. She quietly pulls down the visor of her helmet and goes radio silent.

A wisp of a smile graces Shay’s features for Rinwell, and it doesn’t take too long for him to recompose himself. With a clear of his throat, he tries to play it off coolly, his posture straightening back up and his propping hand slinking down to give the squire an encouraging squeeze around the wrist instead. “I’m fine, it’s fine,” he adds, voice a touch lower than usual while he’s now taking his time to assess their colorful surroundings, the sharp look of annoyance in his eyes fortunately obscured behind the tint of his glasses. His gaze lands on the chalkboard of rules, and choosing to be ‘that guy’ for the day, perks with a question: “Is that deliberate? The fact that the first rule has to be re-iterated on the second one?”

“Yes,” The servant answers to Shay, refusing to elaborate further. “Very good, then,” the boar-masked servant finally intones flatly, his patience at an end. He gestures to the north, where two flaps of the smaller tent are opening up into the much, much larger bigtop. Right at the entrance of those flaps is a wooden walkway, meant to guide contestants inside despite the crushing darkness. Despite his patience running out so quickly, his mood seems to have improved dramatically, no doubt as the excitement of the games to come infects him, too. “I’m certain you will be the best of the best out there, dear guests. It’s not often persons of your… caliber… agree so willingly to join us.”

Alice leads the way in with a grimace, no further questions to be asked, although she looks back at the guide with some worry. She presses that worry down, though, steps gingerly onto the wooden walkway, and pushes ahead into the deep shadows.

Rinwell sets a hand on Shay’s shoulders, wiggling him with a firm, but just hand, testing his balance before she relents and eases back towards the group proper, hand on her hip, listening attentively. When they begin to press on, trailing after Alice, she mirrors the woman’s expression, though her worry happens to be dedicated to her boots. “Ensure your laces are tied appropriately,” she urges her fellow Orderites. It is an oddly specific caution, but she seems deathly serious about ensuring the integrity of wayward shoelaces.

Alice nearly stumbles several times as she leads the way along the wooden gangplank into the darkness. It very quickly becomes oppressive, difficult to even see one’s hand in front of one’s face. She mumbles as she slows down, “Sorry, guys, I- can any of you see…?”

Annabelle takes the steps like Willy Wonka in his own factory, a strong arch of the heel as she surveys the shadows beyond less tepid than moments prior.

Rinwell holds her hand out before her, acting as her navigational guide amidst the darkness. Lacking the supernatural peepers some are gifted with, she probably bumps into more than one person from behind. “I did not pack a torch,” she complains, her tone self-chastising.

“I wear my sunglasses at night,” Obadiah starts to sing under his breath before rolling his hand upwards allowing a mote of light to rise up from his palm to shed a little light on the subject. “Be ready to smile.”

CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.

As if queued up by Obadiah’s light, one by one, massive spotlights turn on, each one bringing with it a section of other flashing illumination, all bright whites and intense yellows. Once they’re all on, they begin to flash and strobe as a brassy band plays out a catchy opening jingle, seemingly from nowhere. The horns dim a little as a booming male voice announces, “Hey, hey, hey! Welcome, one and all! It’s the best show in Nissenia! You know it! You love it! It’s the CIRCUS OF WHIMSYYYYY! Now, please give a round of applause for your hosts: The Ringmaster Twins!”

The crowd absolutely roars, and you get a better look now: you stand on a vast stage in the center of the big-top, surrounded on all sides by rows and rows of seats, each of those seats filled with a Fae or a Faeborn of some sort, all of whom are cheering, hooting, hollering, and clapping for the festivities about to begin.

From somewhere above, the twins descend; two blue-skinned creatures with shocking blonde hair, androgynous enough that the die could be cast either way and dressed in vibrant multi-colored three-piece suits. Big, pointy ears peek out from their styled and gelled hair, and each of them holds what looks like a flower in their hands, and they speak into that flower, which broadcasts their voices through the whole tent. “Oh, we love you! We love you too,” they say in sync. “Darlings, darlings! Oh, yes!” The crowd’s roars start to die down as the twins motion for quiet, and they turn to face the gathered team, circling in opposite directions, their feet never touching the stage.

“Oh, and isn’t this just delightful! Look at this, folks, we’ve got a whole team of new contestants today, and boy, do they look tough! Let’s get some introductions, yes? Tell us your names and your favorite animal,” they insist, still speaking in sync. They hold their flower-microphones out to each of you in turn, urging a greeting.

Annabelle gives a round of applause for her hosts: The Ringmaster Twins. Everyone else is doing it, so she jumps on the bandwagon, head only jerking left and then right from the sudden explosion of a crowd.

Somehow Ambrose expected this, and the revelation of the audience is no real shock. Still, his shaded gaze drifts along the faces in the crowd, neither aghast nor upset, no stage fright nor excitement; there’s a wrinkle of his nose for a moment before his attention falls on the Ringmaster Twins. Upon their approach, when the microphone’s pressed into his face, following the feedback comes an uninspiringly placid: “Ambrose Vasquez. Horse.”

Annabelle isn’t the last to stop clapping, but she’s still near the end to get the memo that her hands should cease. They dig into her pockets, and proudly, she announces, “I am Han Bon’able. My favorite animal is a Oneiroi.”

Shay settles in with discomfort evident on his expression yet again, mouth split into a nasty grimace when the spotlights come, a little too bright even with his glasses on. He reflexively darts his look away, no doubt grateful that he’s no longer relying on his supernatural senses – for now – after the little surprise that he got upon entrance into this Otherworldly venue. The noises only make it worse, but his mood has grown so foul that it can’t get any worse. With tightening lips, he scans the cheering crowd all around him, allowing the others to make their answers. “Aos si,” he murmurs.

Rinwell blinks rapidly at the dazzling twins, her eyes wide for reasonable reasons. A hand lifts to her chest, vying to steady her heart, the other moving down the front of her tunic in a self-conscious motion. Shaking off her stage fright quick like, she straightens her posture as the bloom is thrust onto her. With a flourish, she dips into a practiced, but quick curtsy. “The one that stands before you is Rinwell von Ludovika, Squire to the 21st Cadre. Of Her grand duchy! And my favoured beast…” she pauses, lips pursing in thought. “The noble courser,” she resolves. “For no swifter steed has ever borne a dreamer into glory!” That’s at least two for ponies.

Alice has to fight the urge to duck when the lights come on and the crowd starts to roar, the sensations overstimulating even to her limited sensory prowess. The fear quickly subsides, though, when the twins arrive and start shoving microphones in faces. The Warden straightens her back, putting on her best winning smile and offering, “Alice Renwick! Um, my favorite animal is a raccoon.” She gives a shy little wave, doing her wallflower bit.

Obadiah enters the area with his arms spread wide, “Obadiah Meeeerceeeer!” He cheers for himself, pumping up the crowd for his particular flavor of chaos, looking around as he does so, absorbing whatever adoration the crowd wants to pour out for him then says, “And of course, the Oooooctopuuuuuuus!”

The crowd absolutely ROARS for Obie and Anna, with some people throwing things onto the stage. An antique looking key that shatters. A half-eaten apple. A single right sock.

“Shay Kerrigan,” Shay finally speaks up, after a moment of studying the ringmasters. “The raven,” he chooses.

Annabelle goes over and, hands sanitized with disposable nitrile gloves, takes the sock and pulls it over a Reebok with a high kick and impeccable balance. She might be smiling behind the visor as she waves at the crowd cheerfully, hand a blur of short-spaced movement.

The crowd rises up in uproarious cheers and jeers each time one of the contestants introduces themselves, but eventually quiets down as a rainbow storm flashes in the clouds far overhead. The twins explain the rules, their voices echoing in perfect sync: “Some wonderful contestants with us tonight, folks! And can you believe it? Each and every one of them, pure as the driven snow! Give it up for the Order, folks, seriously, give it up. And let me tell you, we’ve got quite a show planned. We’ve got five wonderful games for you, that’s right, five!” Another round of applause.

Big spotlights hit the stage: one on the group of contestants, and another on the Wheel of Whimsy. The twins explain, “And for those who are having their first fun time with us, this is the Wheel! Of! Whimsyyyy!” They pause for another riotous round of applause. “As you know, when our contestants fail at one of our fair and balanced games, they’ll have to roll on the Wheel of Whimsy! And that’s where the fun begins!”

Annabelle holds up a hand, five! it displays to the announcer’s prompting, on her tiptoes so that the furthest of the crown can squint and count them.

Annabelle displays for the crowd*, even, perhaps and mayhaps.

For Ambrose’s/span part, there’s a long moment of consideration afforded to the wheel itself, before it’s back to the crowd. No crowdwork, little stage presence, and no commentary out of the man. A mild and bare smile. Gears turning behind his eyes.

“I’m sure you must all be wondering: BUT WHAT ARE THE GAMES TONIGHT?” One of the twins holds their microphone out to the crowd, who echo the sentiment, screaming TELL US! WHAT ARE THEY! I HOPE IT’S THE ONE WHERE THEY ALL HAVE TO GET NAKED!

“Oh, my darlings, my DARLINGS! Please, you know patience is the virtue that the Circus of Whimsy holds dearest.” They put a hand to their chest, fainting into their sibling’s arms. “For those of you who don’t know, this is a very special night. I’m afraid… I’m so sorry… there will be no bloodshed tonight.” The crowd lets out a deafening AWWWWWWWWW.

“But my lovelies, don’t worry! We’ve cranked up the difficulty of the games to compensate, because this might be the best group of contestants we’ve ever had! If you’ve ever been disappointed that a slave died too fast… well, worry not. Tonight’s YOUR night, babies.” The twins start to speak in tandem again, saying: “Each game will have TWO, yes TWO, fabulous contestants. Oh, my little heart can’t take it. Why don’t we just get started?”

The lights flick off with a loud CLACK, then they slam back on and the stage has changed: you now stand on a platform suspended over a deep pit, with visible bloody spikes at the bottom. A thin rope stretches from this platform to another in the distance. The Twins make their announcement, floating just off the platform as they declare: “The first game of the night is TIGHT! ROPE! TRUTHS!” They pause for cheers, and when those die down, they continue: “In this game, two contestants must walk across the tightrope! Simple, right? There are three lengths. At each length, they’ll be asked truth or dare. But it’s not that simple, folks! Truths only count if they’re shameful, or humiliating, or horrible to the ears! Can you dig deep enough to make it to the end? Oh, and don’t fall!”

Rinwell can only make a face that is apprehensive and mildly disconcerted, her brows knitting as the crowd cheers for cruelty denied them. “No bloodshed. But games made the more difficult?” she ruminates to herself, wide-eyed as worries start surging in that head of hers. She can only nod in encouragement for the two volunteers, holding a hand up in support. “You shan’t fail,” she affirms, bolstering the hopeful sentiment.

The Twins float down, feet never touching the boards, but they guide Annabelle and Ambrose out towards the tightrope, urging them on and out. They never go so far as to brush their hands physically against the contestants, but they make sure they move them along with a sense of urgency. “Oh, give it up for our brave, brave contestants, folks! Look at them go! Wow! Wouldn’t you just love to see them impaled? If you want them impaled, give me a cheer!”

The crowd roars.

Annabelle drops the board and, utterly calm, proceeds to press herself off as fast as she can muster towards the tight rope. just before the precipice, she kips the board into the air, spinning it 180 degrees and setting to land 50-50 to grind down the tight rope, balanced.

Annabelle uses a black skateboard: Master level trick: You are the master of the board. Combine a few tricks like a kickflip, hand stand, axel grind or something suitably impressive involving multiple maneuvers chained together.

Thusly led, Ambrose drifts along at the pace dictated by the Twins, following Annabelle to the edge of that pit. When she takes to the rope upon her skateboard, though, he just… watches. Silent. Impressed.

The Twins descend on Anna, clapping their hands to their cheeks and shrieking with delight. The crowd, too, goes absolutely bonkers crazy, throwing more things at the stage, though the vast majority of them fall down into the pit. You see an entire pumpkin go sailing right by Annabelle’s head, in fact, before it splatters on the spikes below.

As Annabelle moves across the pit, though, the Twins keep pace, and hold a microphone out to her. “Truth or dare, my dear, first of three. Truth or dare?”

“Anna-belle, Anna-belle,” Obadiah starts to chant, using his previous hyping of the crowd to attempt to get them to chant along with him, clapping his hands in time with the rhythm to both encourage the woman and get the crowd emotionally invested in the entertainment. It’s his mystery mouskatool.

“I’m an honest girl.” Annabelle opines above the hiss of rope on board, “but I dare to be perfect. Dare me.”

The crowd follows Obie’s chant, stomping and clapping in time and calling Annabelle’s name. The Twins give a happy little ‘oooooh’ when she picks dare, and the dare comes forth: “We dare you to take the next length on your hands, instead of on your feet. You can still use the board!”

Okay, maybe a little impressive; Ambrose just walks across like the floor simply did not shift to rope.

Obadiah is only slightly disappointed Ambrose didn’t moonwalk across the tightrope.

One of the Twins splits off from Annabelle, now, circling Ambrose instead as the crowd cheers. Not quite as massively, but… his suave coolness as he walks out onto the rope hits a certain segment of the crowd particularly nicely. “Oh, how cool, how composed, how debonair. Truth or Dare, my dear? Truth? Dare?”

Shay looks thoroughly impressed with Annabelle’s showing, lips pouting and shoulders shrugging lightly, his attention only briefly taken away by the crowd all around him, as if he trusts neither of them. But even more so, he’s surprised when the dare comes. They’re the Ringmasters for a reason, he supposes… and then Ambrose is next and Shay’s jaw just drops, stifling a chuckle while he turns to Rinwell. “Are you seeing this?! Holy shit.”

Rinwell is seeing it. Just everyone else, she’s pretty captivated by the impressive work done on the tightropes.

Duality of man and all, Ambrose looks from Annabelle to the other Twin that approaches, sending a placid and unnecessary blink his way. Contra to the nurse’s pick, he requests, “Truth.”

Annabelle looks down at her board, doing the math on how exactly she’s going to manage on her hands to the board. Her momentum has ceased, by this point. “I can do that.” She affirms, spidering her way in a squat and then lifting herself to her hands before grunting, hopping, and generally having a bad time of raising her legs behind her. Then, blinking, she presses both hands on either side of the board and begins to tic-tac forward, hopping. Sadly, her belly is shown to the audience as her shirt flops down.

“Am-brose, Anna-belle,” Obadiah resumes the chanting as the challenges are selected, stomping his feet now with his clapping, in a rhythm that sounds suspiciously familiar to any person who has gone to a major sporting event in the last 30 years. When Annabelle falters, a slight worry crosses his brow but he doesn’t stop, and redoubles his cheering.

“I’m stuck.” Annabelle announces to her teammate behind her between pants, sweat dripping onto the board. She can balance all day, maybe even in her sleep, but actually MOVING is an ordeal, by this point.

The Twins laugh as the crowd roars anew at Annabelle’s antics, cruel laughing echoing around the bigtop as she falls. To her credit, though, she impossibly keeps her balance on the rope, much to the disappointment of those who were hoping to see her dashed on the spikes below. “Truth or Dare, darling,” her Twin demands. “Do try not to fall, will you?”

Ambrose’s twin surges forward for the question, demanding of Ambrose, “Truth… truth… truth. Tell us your greatest regret, Ambrose, darling.” They thrust the microphone in his face, as if they were trying to make Ambrose fall.

The balance takes some effort out of Ambrose, now and then, and when he reaches Annabelle, he gives her a nudge along the slack of the line. The microphone doesn’t get any startle response out of him, or a jerk away; if they had pushed harder, they probably would have socked him with it. “I only know the names of some of the people I’ve killed,” he answers through some focus, though doesn’t specify whether he’d rather know all or none of them.

Far behind, Alice watches with her hands on her mouth, eyes wide. She’s completely forgotten that promise that no one would be hurt, and too nervous to help Obadiah cheer.

Annabelle keeps quiet for Ambrose’s truth, about to speak up, and then is nudged by Ambrose and gets to focusing on not-being-impaled

“We’re in the final stretch, folks! Both contestants seem to have met in the middle of the rope! The last time this happened, six contestants fell to their deaths! Remember that, darlings?” The Twins call out smarmily, before descending on the two as they make their way across the last stretch. This stretch is harder, because after the midpoint, the rope is going slightly ‘up’ towards the far platform – and they make their demands again. “Truth or Dare, my darlings. Don’t disappoint us.”

Shay is a silent spectator through all of this, though he waits with bated breath when Annabelle is nudged by Ambrose. He sidles up closer to Rinwell, offering the squire an uncertain look.

Annabelle collapses back onto the board, shuffling with relief as her abdomen is given reprieve. She spends a moment right there on her knees, and pants out, “Truth.”

The other side of the coin, Ambrose flipflops, with a placid request of, “Dare.”

Rinwell is far too engrossed with the situation on the tightrope to notice Shay, though when it looks like there will be no unfortunate tumbles to one’s demise, she shoots Shay a reassuring grin.

Obadiah continues his antics to keep the crowd worked up, and including gasping at Ambrose truth though, to himself and whomever is close enough to listen, he mutters, “Yeah that tracks.”

One Twin gets right up against Annabelle, just barely not touching the girl, skirting the limits of the deal with annoying insistence. Her Twin demands, “Tell us the worst thing you think about one of your friends back there on the platform. And it had better be spicy.” With the microphone, whatever Annabelle says will be broadcast to the entire tent.

Ambrose receives the other twin, who keeps their distance, not as close as the one harassing Annabelle. “I dare you to finish the last stretch hanging from your hands, instead of walking,” they decree.

Annabelle’s neck is a slow swivel behind her. She cocks her hips forward to counter balance the tilt of her head intuitively to give Ambrose the space to walk past, and Shay is the unfortunate splash zone of her gaze.

She looks a little sorry.

“I think Shay is an incompetent adulterer who swings his sword like a penis sometim- oh I hate this.” A hiss of breath through her teeth, and she continues, eyes scrunched, “..We fucked when I was two days old and the wretched notion of that will stay with me until I’m dead.”

Then, having sewn a horrible fate, she turns around, sets her board forward, and proceeds to awkwardly kick metal trucks forward along the rope.

Rinwell subconsciously moves to grip at Shay’s harm, the anticipation on her comrade’s success getting to her. If she had a seat, she’d be on the edge of it.

Ambrose manages to eke by like this were basic training, hand-over-hand, systematically taking to the line til he reaches the far end and hauls himself up. Once he does, it’s not to rest, but to look back toward Annabelle’s approach, and toward the rest of the gang beyond.

Shay shuts his eyes behind the frame of those glasses, jaws flexing tight, even as he does say, “… I knew that was coming.” To hide his shame, he turns his look away from the crowd, and opts to stare at his boots, because it’s the perfect time to check his shoelaces now. He holds onto Rinwell’s wrist when her grasp comes.

Obadiah has fallen silent, anticipation building as he flicks his eyes among Rinwell, Shay, and Annabelle at that spicy revelation. Perhaps it is the crowd, perhaps it is being in the Other, perhaps its the Games, but Obadiah is INVESTED, and giddy as a school boy.

The crowd goes insane when Annabelle delivers her truth, the delicious cruelty seeming to feed their excitement more than any showmanship has so far. They’re jeering, throwing things at the stage again, many of them direct towards Shay. And every single thing that is thrown cannot make it to Shay, of course, stopping at least three feet short before it could possibly get near, many of them ending up in the pit. But the jeering is loud and awful, with some of the fae in the crowd whistling to try and get his attention.

The Twins laugh, too, but then they lose their minds when Ambrose does the near-impossible, finishing the final stretch without failure. They clap, they cheer, and they float around the two in a big, lazy circle as they declare, “LOOK AT THAT, FOLKS! The first ever successful completion of Tight! Rope! Truths! We’re gonna have to make the rope longer for next time, aren’t we?” The crowd roars in agreement.

The lights flick off with a loud CLACK, then they slam back on and once more the stage has changed: it’s back to normal, for the most part, save for a raised dais on one end. Above that dais, a banner hangs from thin air, which reads: NISSENIA’S GOT TALENT. Annabelle and Ambrose find themselves returned to their party in a sudden rush of movement which they can feel when the lights go out, but the Twins announce right after: “Hey, folks! I’m sure you’re wondering: what ELSE can our lovely contestants do? Well, let’s find out on: NISSENIA’S! GOT! TALENT! Where two contestants will compete for the favor of our panel of judges: and hey, let’s meet those judges!”

Once the raucous applause dies down, the Twins float down to a table which wasn’t there a moment ago, behind which sits three of the ugliest creatures which may have ever existed. Portly, sickly green skin, and covered in warts, three troll-like monsters sit in dainty little seats that shouldn’t be able to hold their weight, wearing bulging, ripped suits and gala dresses and looking quite prim and proper at their table. “Wow, folks, just wow!” the Twins announce. “Tonight only, we’ve got the Swamp Lords right here in house: and we only had to feed them a few slaves! Trogg, Rogg, and Grogg are our celebrity judges tonight!” More applause. Whistles. Someone throws a sock on stage.

Annabelle tucks a small jet pendant of a cat deeper into her shirt, eyes cast down.

Annabelle sets her hands on either side of her head as the woosh returns her to the group, using Ambrose as a physical barrier between her and the source of her shame.

Alice grimaces, looking between Obadiah, Rinwell, Shay, and Ambrose, sparing Annabelle her gaze for now. “We have to impress trolls…? Um.” She pauses at Ambrose’s explanation, then offers, “I… have an idea. Obie, do you think you would be willing to, um, hit me?”

Shay appears neither vengeful nor angered, at the very least. He just doesn’t want to be here, like how he’s felt for the past thirty minutes or so now. “I can take on the next challenge if I have to, but I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t paint. Art’s not my strong suit,” he reveals, chewing on his inner cheek while he ponders. “Best I can do is shoot an arrow.”

Alice adds, “Or anyone strong enough, I guess, if Obie doesn’t want to…”

Shay says “I will.“

“Say less, fam,” Obadiah says to Alice, far too eager to hit the warden. Not in a way that indicates he has any malice towards Alice, just maybe that he enjoys physical comedy, but when Shay volunteers he defers to him instead.

Alice looks between the two, and decides to let them hash it out amongst themselves. She instead wanders up on stage, volunteering herself as tribute and waiting for her partners.

The Twins pounce on her timidity, circling her tightly, nearly blocking the redhead from view. “Well, well, well, the shrinking violet thinks she has any talent? We’ll see, won’t we, folks?” The crowd jeers.

Ambrose has no dog in this fight, having already participated once and not needing to let Alice catch these hands. Instead, he looks to Obadiah and Shay, and then out to the crowd, before his focus is back on the judges.

When he notices the look from Obadiah, Shay bobs his acknowledgment to the other man and shuffles away from Rinwell’s grasp, giving her a look that’s just as apologetic as before. Taking those steps forward, he eventually braces himself for the crowd while he steps up right next to Alice, drawing in a breath.

Rinwell folds her arms over her chest and lifts her chin a notch, staring past her compatriots resolutely. She looks deep in thought to the point that it looks like the act of using her brain is physically hurting her.

Alice casts one last glance at Ambrose once she’s on stage, apparently seeking some kind of reassurance, but then she turns to whisper conspiratorially with Shay. The Twins back off in their circling a little, giving the two a surprising amount of space. “Oh, they’re got a plan, everyone! Look at this! No one’s ever made the Swamp Lords laugh, isn’t that right, folks?” The crowd laughs.

Shay simply nods his assent to Alice, ready to follow along with what has been told to him, shifting his look back ahead to the panel of judges.

Obadiah braces for impact, as it were, and holds his breath. There is less cheering to do here so he just waits, patiently, for the show to begin.

Ambrose unfortunately does not give Alice any more reassurance, at least visually, than a spare and singular nod, watching her and Shay behind his own shades.

Annabelle dissociates, watching past Alice and Shay, collecting her helmet and slowly pulling it over her face to cocoon from the world.

grimaces when Shay nods. She narrows her eyes a little, conspiratorially wondering if that was, perhaps, a little too fast… nonetheless, she turns and gives a little wave to the judges, then a bigger wave to the crowd, who jeer again. “Hello, everyone! I’m Alice! Um, today, I’m going to tell a joke with my partner here.” She makes a big grin, then half-turns to Shay, making sure to still stage-present most of her front to the judges. “Say, pal. Why did the man miss the funeral?” she asks with a quiver in her voice, not waiting very long to deliver the answer. “He wasn’t a mourning person!” She strikes a pose when she says the least funny joke imaginable, suffering up there in the stage lights.

Alice grimaces when Shay nods. She narrows her eyes a little, conspiratorially wondering if that was, perhaps, a little too fast… nonetheless, she turns and gives a little wave to the judges, then a bigger wave to the crowd, who jeer again. “Hello, everyone! I’m Alice! Um, today, I’m going to tell a joke with my partner here.” She makes a big grin, then half-turns to Shay, making sure to still stage-present most of her front to the judges. “Say, pal. Why did the man miss the funeral?” she asks with a quiver in her voice, not waiting very long to deliver the answer. “He wasn’t a mourning person!” She strikes a pose when she says the least funny joke imaginable, suffering up there in the stage lights. (fix)

Even Rinwell can get that joke. A light chuckle sounds out from her, coupled with a quiet round of applause.

A split second as the pose is struck, and Shay’s statue-still posture rears around, almost supernaturally fast, driving a balled-up fist right through the fabric of Alice’s cream-colored sweater and into her gut. He grimaces, only looking somewhat apologetic for the briefest of moments, before he chooses to don a completely natural-looking poker face on his expression.

Any mirth from the corny joke is wiped from Rinwell’s countenance when Shay gets to the literal punchline. Her lips thin in a clear line of disapproval.

Alice wheels when Shay’s fist hits her, driving into her stomach without only token resistance, her own defenses fully lowered for this. She doubles over on the fist, eyes glazing over, then buckles, hitting her knees with a resounding thud. As she tries to suck in wind, she finds she can’t – and then something else comes up. The Twins are quick to provide a bucket from nowhere, and as Alice finally upchucks her lunch, it comes out looking like variegated, glowing rainbows, flooding into the bucket in a violent and painful-sounding torrent.

There’s dead silence for a moment, other than Alice’s unfortunate stomach issues. Then, the judges erupt in approval, clapping and hooting, quickly followed by the crowd all laughing, cheering, jeering, pointing, and generally exulting in the cruelty and resulting unpleasantness.

“The family should have scheduled it in the afternoon,” Obadiah says, being intentionally oblivious before laughing loudly at the joke

“The family should have scheduled it in the afternoon,” Obadiah says, being intentionally oblivious before laughing loudly at the punch.

The Twins don’t join in the cheering. Instead, they circle the pair with pure annoyance on their face, looking especially at Alice. “No one’s ever made the Swamp Lords laugh,” they repeat conspiratorially, but they move on, flitting back over to the rest of the group and looking over each one with serious suspicion. “You lot wouldn’t happen to be… cheating… would you? Cheaters have to spin the wheel,” they warn.

“I’m too honest to cheat, and far too talented to need to.” Annabelle declares without entertainment to the thought.

The Twins give up their suspicion once Alice has finished emptying her stomach, though, floating back over and taking the bucket away from her. One Twin ascends towards the upper reaches of the bigtop, disappearing from view after saying, “We’ll have to put this up for auction later.”

The remaining Twin works the crowd while the team gets their bearings again. “Hey now, folks, isn’t that nice? We’re barely halfway through and you’ve already gotten to see some bodily fluids! Let’s give three cheers for our contestants, yeah?”

“I never cheat,” Obadiah says in agreement with Annabelle

“Abiding by all rules to the letter and the spirit,” Ambrose assures, his own hands clasping behind his back as he placidly and patiently waits. There’s an empathetic look to Alice and Shay, and a wandering gaze toward the disappearing Twin, before it’s back to the one remaining.

CLACK. The lights shut off. And this time, it takes them a while to come back on, and when they do, it’s just one, a dim spotlight in the center of the stage. The stage itself hasn’t changed much, this time, just a big round wooden platform. The way the light is cast, though, you see your shadows elongated across the floor, and the Twins call out from the darkness: “Okay, folks! I hope you can see in the dark, because you won’t want to miss this NEXT game: SHADOOOOOW BOOOOOXIIIING!” Pause for effect and to let the cheers die down.

“Our contestants will be fighting their own shadows! Winner gets to keep the face!” They do not elaborate on what that means. Instead, they call for two contestants to step forward to face down their own shadow.

It seems like Shay is on the edge of saying something vile to the Ringmasters, by way of how his mouth is twisting into something outright ugly, but they’re too quick to move away from the point and that only leaves the man staring at them with clear disgust on his expression. But instead of keeping his focus onto the hosts, he ducks low to offer Alice a soothing hand brushing right under her nape. “Alice, you okay? Here, lemme help you up, I’ll carry you back.”

Alice accepts some of the help from Shay, standing up on shaky legs. “I’ll- I can walk, I think,” she manages, taking tender, testing steps with one hand rubbing her stomach, where a nasty bruise is no doubt forming. Something inside might be busted, too. “I don’t think I can fight a shadow like this, though.”

Obadiah nods a little, “I think I can do this one.” He bobs his head a little bit, then nods to Ambrose, “I think we can do it yeah.”

Obadiah looks to Rinwell, “Though maybe Rinwell and I should do it? We are the two left who haven’t done something.”

“I can participate if need be,” Rinwell nods.

The Twins look between each other, eyebrows raised, then move to urge Obadiah and Rinwell up, making the decision for them once they mention it. “Well, well! Looks like our little crew is shaken, no? They can barely decide who to face this fun, easy challenge! Let’s give them a hand to help them out, folks, shall we?” The crowd jeers and boos, having turned against the party by now.

Stepping into the spotlight, though, Obadiah and Rinwell see their shadows elongate even further, twisting and writhing on the ground as if in agony.

Obadiah dances out to the ring to his own little beat in his head, swaying to the music and making intimidating gestures at his elongating shadow. “You know… I alway knew nobody hated me more than I hate myself,” he says winking to the crowd then looks up to the twins, “Alright… What are we doing? Let’s go.”

“No, you’re not fighting at all after that, think I hit you a little too hard,” Shay declares with an awkward, sorry grimace on him, holding Alice where is permissible – supposedly her hand and arm. “C’mon, let’s walk you back. Hang on to my shoulders if you have to.” He gives a glance towards Obadiah and Rinwell, but has his focus mostly on their Warden still.

Heedless of the heckling afforded to her and Obadiah, Rinwell stoically makes her way forward with her head held high, a hand hovering over the hilt of her blade. Though as the terms have been laid out before the contestants, she reluctantly draws her hand away from the pommel.

Annabelle’s feet tap anxiously at Alice and Shay return, a self-made social barrier keeping her at distance for just a moment before she flees mentally and reduces herself to clinical procedure. She takes out a crumbled sheet of paper and spreads it across the back of her board like a clipboard. “Hey, Alice. What’s your pain feel like, one one to ten?” She moves over and listen for Alice’s breath for sounds of a damaged airway.

“Why, fighting, of course!” The Twins call to Obadiah, pointing at the shadows. As the shadows writhe, they start to rise off the floor, shaping themselves into dark simulacrums of Obadiah and Rinwell. Their faces twist and contort into sneers, and as they look at their opponents, they start to warp even further, darkness creeping in from all angles. It seems this battle happens more in the mind than on the stage.

Alice makes her way back over to the team with Shay’s help, dropping to sit on the ground and nurse her stomach. “Um, like, a six,” she lies to Annabelle.

“Are you not entertained?!” Obadiah shouts, spreading his arms wide at the jeering crowd. Apparently no, no they are not entertained. With a heavy sigh then he looks back to the shadow and takes up his boxing pose, getting ready to struggle with his inner demons.

Ambrose simply watches for a time, himself. The man’s eyes follow Rinwell and Obadiah, as well as their shadows, tracking through his shades and night vision alike. The rest of the conversation just sort of filters around him, unobserved for now.

It seems like the crowd isn’t having much of a fun time with Obadiah anymore. They’re more interested in his shadow stealing his face, it seems. And that shadow surges forward, mirroring the opposite of Obadiah’s confidence: looks fading, the shadow becomes a certified uggo, but undeniably and mistakably Obadiah Mercer, just without many of the things that make him such a rakish rogue. It reaches for his face, but he has time to turn the tables.

Rinwell observes the shadows manifesting before her and Obadiah with a blank slate of an expression. She’s uncharacteristically withdrawn, but seemingly up to the task. Planting her boots wide on the ground, knees bent, she slides one foot forward, adopting a stance ready to go. Left hand is flared out behind her for balance, fingers splayed in a flourish, while the opposite arm is cocked in front of her, ready to ward off any incoming strikes. Not all of her demeanour has diminished. Her chin is lifted a touch too high, lips pressed into a faint line, brow creased, the focus waning when the shadow belonging to Obadiah surges after him.

Obadiah stares into the abyss for a moment, struggling with whatever he sees there, squinting, narrowing his gaze, before throwing a couple of punches. He tries every trick he can think of to literally dispel the shadows before him, rather than deal with the darkness, ultimately, however, the struggles overcome him, and he is beat.

Obadiah’s shadow seems to get a slight upper hand on him, though it is forced to shy away from the lights he creates. It hisses, but finally reaches out and snatches his face right off his skull. It’s not a bloody affair, but a magical one: where his eyes, nose, and mouth should be, there’s just smooth flesh, slight indents showing what once was there. He can see. He can smell. He might even be able to speak… but his face is on the shadow, which grins back at him with his own heartthrob eyes, before moving to work the crowd at the edges of the arena. They cheer and laugh and clap, very happy with Obadiah – or rather, shadow Obie.

Rinwell’s shadow, meanwhile, seems to try desperately to best her in combat, matching her blow for blow. Her resolve seems to beat it back, though, and it loses one, two, three exchanges, her blade cutting through its shadowy flesh. Fake, shadowy blood spurts from where it’s been struck, as the battle becomes as real for it as it is for her.

The Twins erupt in laughter, clapping and hooting and hollering. “My, my! It seems we’ve got our first BIG, FAT, LOSER of the night, don’t we, folks?” The crowd roars in response, even as Rinwell’s shadow falls and begins to dissipate, giving one last reach towards her face before it perishes. “Mister Mercer, I think you’ll be our first spinner of the wheel, won’t you? Oh, can you even see where it is? Get on over there and give it a big, hefty pull, won’t you?” they jeer, descending to sit near the Wheel of Whimsy itself.

Annabelle glances up to whom she presumes to be her next patient, and the gaze of her visor is still on Obadiah.

Ambrose focuses more on Rinwell’s fight than on Obadiah’s, whether he had some mental hand in it playing out as well as it did or not — when he looks back toward the Mercer and Shadow Mercer, the man’s nose wrinkles at the former’s illusory facelessness.

Alice, meanwhile, takes the offered medicine with some concern on her face, looking to Annabelle with serious worry. “I, uh… I’ll… I’m gonna try not to take this. Isn’t it addictive?” she wonders with a strained voice.

Shay remains by Alice’s side, silent while he’s there ready to offer any physical support that’s needed for her, yet his attention is once again pried away at the roaring announcement of a ‘big, fat, loser’. He tips his chin up and immediately spins his head around, trying to locate Rinwell, only for the tension to dissipate from his shoulders when it’s Obadiah’s name that follows right after. He draws in a breath through his nose and, his curiosity getting the best of him, turns his look to try and find the Mercer instead.

Whether Rinwell’s victory was purely of her own or some small thread of assistance, she doesn’t dwell on it, her breathing steadying, and a modicum of her typical smile returning by way of a tug at the corner of her lips. She turns, only to regard Obadiah’s situation with a quiet click of her tongue, unaware of the helping hand she received, hand on her hip to relish in her victory.

Annabelle’s face slowly shifts back to something she can medically register. “Very low when given acutely for injuries. Dependence occurs with prolonged use. Once pain decreases, in a hospital, you’d be shifted to safer medications.”

Obadiah stumbles his way over to the wheel wearing a face that isn’t his own, or a faceless face but he finds his way nonetheless and spins the wheel

Obadiah uses a 616263T6975h8187e9392 5418W212021h2223e1711e05l o0511f1723 2221W202118h5492i9387m8175s6963y6261!: 61T62h63e 69w75he81e87l93 s92p54in18s21 20an21d22 s23p17i11ns05, colors f05l11as17h23i22ng21,20 u21n18t54il92 93it87 81l75an69d63s 62o61n: BOON!/b>The Twins’ faces fall almost immediately. “A… boon?” they ask, facades falling for a moment. “That’s no fun,” they mutter, away from the microphones. Then they’re back in full force, though, rising into the air to call out, “WELL, LOOKS LIKE THAT FAE LUCK HOLDS UP!” The crowd roars again, back on Obadiah’s side in a moment of capricious whimsy. “Mister Mercer, the next test you undertake, you’ll be getting some help from one of our lovely audience members! Isn’t that nice?” they ask, their voices dripping with venom. Then, “But ah! Let’s move along to the next game, shall we?”

CLACK. Once more, the lights all shut off, and just as quickly come back on. This time, the stage has changed significantly: it’s more of an arena, with raised walls and a dirt pit in the center. Inside the pit are various traps, such as spiked walls, bloody meat hooks hanging from shoddy wooden gallows, and wooden barricades bristling with razor-wire. “Whoops!” The Twins call out. “Those were supposed to be cleaned up! Sorry folks!”

Your vision goes blank for a moment, replaced with a blinding white image of the Twins wearing hard hats and carrying sledgehammers, with a little tagline that says, ‘Pardon our mess!’ It goes away quickly, though, and when you can see again, the traps in the arena are gone. “You know the drill, folks: Two contestants enter, one contestant leaves! But we’ve got a twist, this time: one contestant gets to become their faaaavoriiiiiite ANIMAL!”

gulps, looking from Annabelle over to the others as she slowly rises to her feet, wincing at the pain in her abdomen. “Is that why they asked us…? That means someone has to fight a… a horse, or a raccoon, or a… whatever Anna said. Or an octopus.”

Alice gulps, looking from Annabelle over to the others as she slowly rises to her feet, wincing at the pain in her abdomen. “Is that why they asked us…? That means someone has to fight a… a horse, or a raccoon, or a… whatever Anna said. Or an octopus.” (fix again)

“Raven,” Shay corrects. “I can go as the second contestant, then. I don’t know what the game’s gonna be about, though.”

“I cited an Oneiros as mine.” Annabelle tells the group above the scratches of her pen. “Which is basically a black, winged creature of myth that’s vaguely humanoid.”

Alice remarks to Shay, “It looks like some kind of… gladiator pit. So I guess it’s a fight.” She frowns, looking to Obadiah with concern. “Obie, does that… does that hurt?”

Obadiah’s shadow, for its part, meanders around the edges of the arena, sticking to areas without such bright lights, still wearing his face.

“Obie!” Shay calls out. “Think you can fight a raven? If it’s me who takes the L for it. I know I can fight an octopus.”

Obadiah apologize profusely

Alice looks between Shay, Ambrose, and Rinwell, then shakes her head. “Obie’s missing his face… let’s not make him go out there. Um. I’ll turn into a raccoon if I go out there, so… why don’t I just… why don’t I just do it? And then we can just win in an instant, right? And I can take the morphine.”

“Whatever works. I can go if we need,” Ambrose suggests, but he blinks placidly after a moment.

The Twins float boredly above the group as they deliberate, making ‘blah blah blah’ motions with their hands and mocking the crew below. Finally, they say, “One side must incapacitate the other in some way, shape, or form. When one side can no longer fight, the battle is over! Hurry up and pick two! Come on, come on!” They urge the group onward rudely, and the crowd joins in, jeering.

Alice winces, and just trudges herself into the arena, the jeering getting to her. She looks worried, but the Twins seem to cheer her on. “There, now, that’s the way!”

“No,” Shay sternly says to Alice. “You’re hurt. Let’s not make it any worse while we still have other options.” With that said, his face turns towards where Ambrose is instead. “Ambrose? Should we?”

With a look to Shay, Ambrose helplessly shrugs, and then turns to follow Alice into the arena himself.

Alice furrows her brow with serious worry as Ambrose approaches. “Uhm, I guess… I’ll get turned into a raccoon, right?” she asks softly, glancing between Ambrose and the twins. “You can catch a raccoon, right?”

Rinwell moves towards the end of the platform, canting her head forward for a better vantage of the fighting pit, and the two Orderites that have stepped inside.

Ambrose does not have his weapons out, and squares away toward Alice with a placid nod. “I am not terribly concerned. If I am turned into a horse, I am still me,” he informs the Warden across the way.

Shay grunts out his disapproval, but he doesn’t look like he wants to argue any further with Alice’s insistence. So he falls silent while remaining next to the Warden, ready to walk her further into the arena pit if he’s required for it.

The Twins prove Alice’s question correct. They alight upon her, careful not to touch, but when they point their microphones at her, there’s the horrible noise of sloughing flesh and twisting bone. She doesn’t scream, as it happens too fast, but the Alice that is the Warden of the Order vanishes rapidly, leaving only the Alice that is… a regular-looking, maybe-kind-of-tubby raccoon. Raccoonlice’s eyes widen, and she seems to act on raccoon instinct. That is, she immediately tries to bolt away, slowed by the hurt in her stomach.

Without work to distract her, Annabelle taps bloody black dots of ink onto the page, a veneer of plastic somehow looking forlorn as she watches the Warden and Master Scroll sally forth.

Obadiah seems to have been replaced in his time of need so just chills silently on the sidelines

One might expect Ambrose to take off instantly in pursuit of that trash bandit once-Warden, and he certainly could; it’s a half-second before he springs to action, apparently some degree of his concentration and focus upon squinting real hard at the thing instead of chasing.

The raccoon freezes, though its momentum carries it forward in an awkward roll until it hits one of the walls of the arena, where spikes used to be. It’s relatively easy for Ambrose to scoop it up after that, and a raccoon held such can do naught but screech, hiss, and claw, not much of which poses a great threat to the vampiric Master Scroll.

The Twins seem surprised, of course, that it ended so fast, but that surprise quickly gives way to anger. “What! That’s BORING!” they decree, pointing at the two as if they’re about to pass down an order… but the crowd has other ideas. The crowd roars, positively tickled by the anticlimactic ending, and the Twins exchange glances before they’re forced to go with the flow, beholden to the whims of the ratings. “Well, would you look at that, folks! Looks like a raccoon is a shitty favorite animal to have, no? I bet she’ll change her mind after that one!” They swoop down, spiraling around Ambrose and Alice, before they decide, “And I think we’ll just leave her that way for a little while. But she still has to spin!” The crowd roars again.

Shay’s eyes light up behind his aviators when he realizes what Ambrose is up to, but as recognition dawns, he wipes away the excitement that nearly bubbles up to his expression. Instead of keeping his focus on them though, something pulls at his attention over towards where Annabelle is.

Carrying the raccoonified apprentice by the scruff at arm’s length until it chills the fuck out, heedless of and clawings to his undead wrist and hand, Ambrose takes this news from the twins in placid stride. “So be it.” So it is he carries Alice along to the wheel, holding the unstasised critter out toward the wheel to let those claws technically do the spinnin’.

The raccoon seems to still be Alice, now that the initial panic has worn off. It makes that same ‘wet cat’ look she often has as it takes the opportunity to spin the wheel, wincing with every clack of the thing until it finally stops.

Alice uses a 616263T6975h8187e9392 5418W212021h2223e1711e05l o0511f1723 2221W202118h5492i9387m8175s6963y6261!: 61T62h63e 69w75he81e87l93 s92p54in18s21 20an21d22 s23p17i11ns05, colors f05l11as17h23i22ng21,20 u21n18t54il92 93it87 81l75an69d63s 62o61n: ANIMAL (PARTIAL)!/b>“BORING!” the Twins cry. “REDO!”

Alice uses a 616263T6975h8187e9392 5418W212021h2223e1711e05l o0511f1723 2221W202118h5492i9387m8175s6963y6261!: 61T62h63e 69w75he81e87l93 s92p54in18s21 20an21d22 s23p17i11ns05, colors f05l11as17h23i22ng21,20 u21n18t54il92 93it87 81l75an69d63s 62o61n: LOSE A SENSE!/b>“That’ll do!” The Twins cry, and pass their hands over Alice’s eyes. They become glassy almost in an instant, as the Twins rob her of her sight. She reaches up to her face with her grabby little raccoon hands, clawing at the air in front of her eyes, where just a moment ago, she could see. Raccoonly panic.

The Twins, for their part, seem to be growing tired of the shenanigans of the group, instead descending upon the shadow of Obadiah, grabbing it by the neck. “YOU have done your part, too,” they say cruelly to it, before snapping its neck. Its face – Obie’s face – melds into shadow, and his features return to him, more or less unchanged. He’s hot again! “The final game is upon us,” the Twins say, much of their enthusiasm replaced with venom.

After that brief look given to Annabelle, Shay decides that the Wheel of Whimsy becomes more interesting in the moment, but his stride takes him towards where he last saw Rinwell went, approaching the squire

CLACK CLACK. The lights flick off, and on again. This time, they light up in an array of rainbow colors, all surrounding a classic carnival game, a test of strength. A tall board with various numbers on it and a bell at the top, with a platform at the bottom for striking with a mallet. The mallet itself is a gaudy thing of gold and gems, and grossly oversized. The Twins explain: “It’s our last game of the evening, folks: Brokeback Mallet! Everyone’s favorite way to humble a new labor-slave, yes? Yessss!” The Twins ask each other and answer at the same time. “Lift the mallet with all your strength! It feeds on that, becoming heavier the stronger you are! But be careful! Strike TOO hard, and you’ll crack the bell! That’s a curse, you know!”

Rinwell is content to lose herself in all the flashing colours that come with the Wheel of Whismy spinning and spinning, clicking and clacking. Hardly of Fae blood, she can only watch on with a raised brow of concern for their poor Warden turned raccoon. Moved by the plight of an animal in distress, she slowly approaches, but in the end decides to keep her distance, turning her head at the whisper that seemed to have snuck up on her, offering its sender a meaningful smile.

Annabelle approaches the mallet, still guarded in her posture, looking from it to the top where the bell waits. “..Should we do this-” She takes a moment to sigh, trying to keep the torturous existence of Alice out of sight for five more minutes, mom. “..Should we do this in ascending order of strength? I’m pretty weak. I won’t break it.”

Alice is given a more creaturely ride for now, cradled toward Ambrose’s chest in a stiff arm, as though the creature were a child. Or a blind animal. A gentle nod toward Rinwell, and one toward Annabelle, considering, “I am middling.”

“..Start with Alice, maybe?” Annabelle suggests to the creature’s weak, frail arms.

“Not my game,” Obadiah says, still pouting about something. He rubs a hand over his face though, his actual face then pinches his nose a moment, making sure he can still give a sign of annoyance before looking at the team again, “Wait we all have to go?”

“Still has to get somewhere,” Ambrose contends to Annabelle. “Even hit the bell.”

Alice sits like a baby in Ambrose’s arms, blind, raccoonified, hurting, miserable. She cannot speak. She can only raccoon.

“I am no supernatural being,” Rinwell extends to her compatriots, hand on her heart. “Though I will lend my hand if need be,” she provides, breathing out a short sigh.

“Just two,” the Twins answer Obadiah, appearing almost out of nowhere right next to him. “You know, I bet that mallet would do great in your hands, Mercer, don’t you think?” they tease.

“Two, as always,” Ambrose echoes of the Twins.

“Oh.” Annabelle supposes, looking back up to the bell. “Well Alice and I probably won’t take it very far by hitting it. So. Maybe..” She takes her steps right back out.

“Then why were discussing ascending and descending order,” Obadiah looks even more confused and annoyed, “Likely Shay and either Ambrose or Rin have better strength than me.”

Annabelle says “..I got ahead of myself, ahem.“

“… because the point is middling strength to not break the bell,” Ambrose answers Obadiah again.

[OOC: Just for clarity, since this one is complex: the mallet is heavier if you’re stronger, so the strength stat plays a little bit less of a role than it normally would, though still some. 1 or 20 breaks the bell and causes the curse. ‘Failing’ this one normally merely nets you a spin.]

(OOC: Just for clarity, since this one is complex: the mallet is heavier if you’re stronger, so the strength stat plays a little bit less of a role than it normally would, though still some. 1 or 20 breaks the bell and causes the curse. ‘Failing’ this one normally merely nets you a spin. fix)

“I’m ready to step up if needed,” Shay tells the rest of the group. “I’ll go with whatever strategy we think is the smartest.”

“I think I should skip class on tests of strength.” Annabelle mutters, setting a hand to her still sore tummy. “I’m kinda wiped from the handstand anyway.”

Obadiah stares off to the middle distance a moment then just shakes his head. “Fine if it is middle strength I could try my hand at it. I can only bench about 175-200

The Twins hover overhead, ‘laying’ on their sides as if they’re bored, and slowly descending to become eye level with the group. “Well, my darlings, have you lost your nerve? It’s just a silly old mallet. I’m sure none of you will get cursed, right?”

Shay slips away from Rinwell’s side once more with a step forth. “C’mon Obie, I’ll go with you,” he tells the Mercer with a flick of his glasses up to offer him an amber wink.

For a moment, a foundational habit of her generation strikes Annabelle. She takes out her phone and is regaled with a techno-brick.

The Twins cheer as the contestants step up to the plate, moving to hover near the top of the bell, as if they’re hoping it gets rung. Surely not, right? “Look at that, folks! They haven’t lost their nerve after all! The contestants are ready to play!” They point down at the mallet, and declare, “First up, first up! Swing for the moon, and land amongst the stars!”

Ding! The bell rings ever so lightly as Obadiah finds that sweet spot he was seeking, and the ball screams up to just barely kiss the bell. The mallet still grows in weight in his hands – perhaps he’s stronger than he thinks? It’s no Mjolnir, but it takes some serious effort to heft.

The smallest of nods for Obadiah’s swing and a shift of Ambrose’s gaze to Shay, expectant and perhaps hopeful.

Shay gets damn near the heaviest mallet they can make – and when he brings it down, it slams into the lever with a resounding thud. The metal ball goes screaming up its bearings, slamming into the bell and shattering it into ghostly pieces, which vanish before they hit the ground. From inside the bell, a ghostly figure emerges, screaming like a banshee as it circles once, twice, thrice, before alighting on Shay, grabbing his head with two spindly-fingered hands and whispering something into his ear.

Annabelle cringes, hands clawing at the edges of her chalk-painted helm. She instinctively tried to drag the bell down from its shattering speed.

Obadiah blinks when the flaming spirit gets Shay and mutters, “Well. Shit.”

“Can’t you- I dunno, make it go away? Exorcise it?” Annabelle ushers the magical people.

The Twins cackle with glee as the bell shatters, and after a moment, it reforms itself – they point at Shay, and declare, “Ooooh, too bad! You get one more try! Fail this one, and you’ll be spinning on the wheel! Our last of the night, in fact,” they croon with happiness. The crowd, too, seems to exult in the withering curse applied to the demigod, and they start to clap their hands and chant. “A GAIN! A GAIN! A GAIN! A GAIN!”

Shay appears too stunned of his own strength that he can’t quite register that the screaming spectre is going right for him, only taking a step backwards before it lunges upon him, whispering those words in his ear. The mallet in his hand suddenly drops with a loud thud, and when he whips his head away to squat on his haunches, trying the mallet’s weight, he finds that he can’t quite handle it with the same confidence that he did. Fortunately, he’s still able to handle its heft while he prepares for one more attempt, though looking a bit more dazzled than before.

Obadiah slides away from osay to the edge of the stage. Not out of fear, but to get away from any mess. This is a nice jacket after all.

Annabelle sulks, thumb pressed to the chin of her helmet like the visor could chew on the nail.

The ball flies up this time, but stops before it reaches the halfway mark, and falls back down. Although Shay can feel his strength returning to him with startling rapidity, it’s too late: the Twins are laughing at him, the crowd is laughing at him… and they’re chanting, again. “SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!”

While they chant, the Twins address the crowd. “Hey now, folks, that was our last game! This spin is our last spin! And at the end, our lovely contestants will get their prize for getting through ALL! FIVE! GAMES!”

Shay’s only response to his sudden inadequacy is a grunt, having totally expected that one the same. Allowing the mallet to drop down onto the floor again, he lumbers away for his turn on the Wheel of Whimsy.

Shay uses a 616263T6975h8187e9392 5418W212021h2223e1711e05l o0511f1723 2221W202118h5492i9387m8175s6963y6261!: 61T62h63e 69w75he81e87l93 s92p54in18s21 20an21d22 s23p17i11ns05, colors f05l11as17h23i22ng21,20 u21n18t54il92 93it87 81l75an69d63s 62o61n: PUNK A FRIEND!/b>Focusing on hauling Alice around with himself for the time, Ambrose rejoins the group near the wheel, a little bit vacantly distracted by the crowd and noises for a while.

“Oh, my!” the Twins cry out, circling around Shay. “Pick a friend,” they say, “and hurt them.” One of them flips their microphone around, and it transforms into a wicked athame. They offer it to Shay, if he wants it.

Annabelle stares at what the wheel lands on, a little vacant herself. With some reluctance, she steps forward, fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve. “I haven’t hurt yet. It wouldn’t be alright but it’d be best.”

Obadiah looks at who remains and steps forward, volunteering if Shay is having trouble deciding between everyone. “We aren’t always friends… I can’t promise I won’t make it weird.”

Rinwell approaches the wheel, gazing up at where it landed. Confusion is rife over her features as she fixates on what task it has set for Shay. Scratching her head, she stares at the man with a plan to make, rubbing at the side of her head.

Shay is seemingly taken into an even bigger dilemma with both Annabelle and Obadiah stepping forth. Biting down on his lower lip, he takes more than just a few seconds to decide, while his look darts between the both of them. Finally, he decides to Obadiah. “Anna’s got a point. And she’s volunteering.” He turns to approach a step closer to the aforementioned woman now with his open palm lifted up, having entirely ignored the two Ringmasters and their offer of an athame. “You can slap me however many times you want after this,” he tells Annabelle, and before she can even think to respond, she gets probably one of the meanest backhands of her life. SMACK.

“I’m a pa-Kkkkpppf!!” Annabelle’s resolution is kindly faltered by a shattering knuckle. She’s wearing a helmet, a really-really good helmet, but bludgeoning was ever a can opener. She stumbles like a drugged spider, legs on an impossible equilibrium that races for the speed of her head.

Shay totally chose Annabelle because she’s wearing a helmet. Totally.

The Twins cackle at the additional cruelty wrought by their antics, circling the group in their floating pattern three more times as they ascend back towards the center of the tent. Once they reach that spot in the air, they announce, “Well, folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed what will go down in history as one of our best shows ever!” They throw their arms wide and fireworks launch from various hidden tubes around the arena, exploding in the massive space inside the bigtop with a fizzle, pop, and bang. Then they return to the group and begin their ministrations on Alice once more, the sickly pop of bones and grisly squelch of flesh to be heard as she is un-raccoonified as easily as she was transformed before, leaving the Warden whole… mostly.

“And that, folks, is our show,” they call out one last time. “Please pick up your chimeras on the way out, and join us next month for our annual clown rodeo! We’ll be roping and riding REAL clowns! You’ll just have to come out and see!” They grab each other’s hands and spin once, twice, thrice, then vanish in a puff of sparkling glitter… then the lights go out, leaving the place in darkness once more.

The crowd is gone. The Twins are gone. The Wheel remains, but has wreaked enough havoc for the night. The Order finds itself standing alone in the stage, to make their way out the way they came.

There, in the center of the stage, is a woman: Mai Chandler-Wei, the target they’d come here to retrieve all along. Alice rushes to her side, kneeling beside her and checking her over: alive. Whole. Physically, at least. Alice looks over her shoulder at the others, looking exhausted. Mission… complete?