Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[Gullara]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val stands there for a moment, looking dumbly at the sword and paint brush. Geez, the sword sure felt real. He guesses it'd be a pretty bad trick if it didn't, though. He doesn't really have any time to think about it, though. He moves toward the leftmost box. He places the point of the sword against it. He glances uncertainly back at Croupelt and then presses it in. Then he'll go to the rightmost one and mark it with the paint. He's really not sure what to expect from all this.

[Recaiden]

Sarina frowns. Rose isn’t back yet. She’s kind of important to the plan.
She doesn’t want to set CLO off just yet though. So she just raises an eyebrow at the little puppet and waits for Rose or it’s master to show up. But she also makes sure she doesn’t do any more magic with it watching.

The puppet's head flicks towards Sarina. It sees her, and approaches- definitely setting off a trap rune, which I imagine leaves it scorched and hanging limply from its strings.
Three minutes left

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Sarina, disgusted, picks up the puppet and tosses it into the brush where any magic left in it can’t see anything. She tugs at the threads again for Rose. She has to be here when the Queen passes or CLO will surely get the drop on them.

[Shadowcaller]

The boxes whirl and jump, faster and faster, swapping in their order every so often as they go. Then Belfidius finally sets them down, one at a time, clunk-clunk-clunk. Two of the crow-masked women step forward at Croupelt's gesture and offer two items to Valente. A large paintbrush dipped in heavy red grease-paint and an actual sword, gleaming with deadly promise. They look large and strange in the tiny performer's hands.

"Now for the game," breathes Croupelt. Louder, he tells Valente and the crowd, "Choose, my dear. Time to choose. Into one box thrust the blade. On the next, paint your mark. This marked box belongs to you, and you may keep whatever is captured within. The final box is ours, and its contents will remain here. With us."

The crowd is suddenly silenced, held in breathless anticipation. There are a few mutterings amongst the people who boarded from the street, but the strange people who came by air are utterly, eerily hushed.

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val stands there for a moment, looking dumbly at the sword and paint brush. Geez, the sword sure felt real. He guesses it'd be a pretty bad trick if it didn't, though. He doesn't really have any time to think about it, though. He moves toward the leftmost box. He places the point of the sword against it. He glances uncertainly back at Croupelt and then presses it in. Then he'll go to the rightmost one and mark it with the paint. He's really not sure what to expect from all this.

Steve takes a deep breath and says quietly "When I was a squire, I stole a coinpurse from a friend. While I prayed for forgiveness and performed penance, I never paid him back. He probably still thinks those 5 gold pieces are lost."

[Cloud Palace]

The dragons reaction to these secrets is difficult to gauge considering it has no human facial expression. There is a pregnant pause before the dragon nods its head. "If you say those are your deepest secrets, I have to believe you. But if you lied, things might go very wrong." She warns, looking between the two. "Either way, what is going to happen now is that I will manipulate your aspects a bit. So what sort of change do you want exactly? Its a very delicate process, so you need to be very specific of what you want. I could for instance take your affinity for animals and change it to machines. Or remove or add a concept to you. Like masculinity or anger for example.

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Astrana is in a box, this was the last place she would have wanted to end up. She didn't like this...

[Murkus]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

In the pregnant silence following Val's brush stroke, a dismal sound emerges from the leftmost box. A person retching in mortal agony, muffled disturbingly by the confines of the box. The door swings open, stuck sword and all, revealing the staggering form of a woman in a mask and dress resembling the form of a ragged peacock.

"Tsk," clucks Croupelt, his arms crossed as he half-turns to the audience with some exasperation. His voice seems to carry without effort. "They never even try to open a box first. Never even ask. But the resolve! The courage! It takes a stout will to take the stage, let alone participate blindly..." The painted box door swings open, seemingly of its own accord. Had Croupelt just snapped his fingers? "Let us hope our lovely volunteer can lose with as much dignity."

The painted box is empty.

"Applause, please! Applause for the attempt, and for the-- the-- oh, dear," says Croupelt, with some apparent dismay but no genuine emotion. The peacock-woman is wobbling forward, blood streaming down her dress to stain the stage. Though... it seems most of the wood is already tinted a very mild red.

She gives a wet cough that's almost a speech sound, a sort of bletch, and up from her lips comes a gobbet of blood. The sword must have pierced her a lung or her esophagus. With a thud, the delicate looking woman drops to her delicate knees, and then crumples face first into a growing pool of crimson.

As requested, a good portion of the crowd begins to clap uproariously, apparently unperturbed by what they've just seen. Croupelt shrugs and takes a bow. A pair of the acrobats start to move forward to collect the corpse on the stage amidst the multitudinous noise, never hesitating even once.

[8BitNinja]

[Cloud Palace]

The dragons reaction to these secrets is difficult to gauge considering it has no human facial expression. There is a pregnant pause before the dragon nods its head. "If you say those are your deepest secrets, I have to believe you. But if you lied, things might go very wrong." She warns, looking between the two. "Either way, what is going to happen now is that I will manipulate your aspects a bit. So what sort of change do you want exactly? Its a very delicate process, so you need to be very specific of what you want. I could for instance take your affinity for animals and change it to machines. Or remove or add a concept to you. Like masculinity or anger for example.

Steve says "I used to have abilities and powers of a paragon of righteousness. I was, and I believe I still am, as much of a champion of benevolence an easily corruptible human can be. In order to better help others and fight the forces of evil, I wish to have these powers back."

[Gullara]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val stands there, totally stunned. Why does it look so real, geez... It has to be fake, right? It takes him a second to snap out of it. "Where's Astrana?" He asks suddenly, as if the thought just penetrated the fog in his head right now. This is all a bit much.

[Recaiden]

Sarina, disgusted, picks up the puppet and tosses it into the brush where any magic left in it can’t see anything. She tugs at the threads again for Rose. She has to be here when the Queen passes or CLO will surely get the drop on them.

The puppet is tossed outside and flops into the undergrowth.
Reaching on the threads, Sarina will likely find that none of them seem to lead to Rose. Has something happened to her? Should Sarina try to go help her before things start? Or would leaving the headquarters web be too much of a risk?

[Green Elf]

[Cloud Palace]

The dragons reaction to these secrets is difficult to gauge considering it has no human facial expression. There is a pregnant pause before the dragon nods its head. "If you say those are your deepest secrets, I have to believe you. But if you lied, things might go very wrong." She warns, looking between the two. "Either way, what is going to happen now is that I will manipulate your aspects a bit. So what sort of change do you want exactly? Its a very delicate process, so you need to be very specific of what you want. I could for instance take your affinity for animals and change it to machines. Or remove or add a concept to you. Like masculinity or anger for example.

"First off, I was a guy." Says Luvon. "I also had some very cool hand crafted gear." Luvon wil then explain his equipment to the dragon in full detail. "I also had the powers of a Ranger, most commonly pertaining to the manipulation of nature and its creatures."

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Leaving the HQ is a risk, yes, especially with CLO arriving at any minute, surely. Sarina sends a little probe to where Rose had headed a while before, a small little shadow of herself down the timeline. Normally impossible for her but here, plugged into the unattended web of the Queen she can work things slightly above her usual power level.

[Recaiden]

Alternate!Sarina will quickly see that when Rose arrived at Swords's little web, CLO was already there and seemed to quickly surmise what was going on. Up to the present moment, the two were fighting, though not apparently putting much effort into it.

Swords herself is not in evidence. She rarely is, being a very busy spider who honestly isn't much for webs and traps.
Neither are there any signs of The Things That Lurk In Corners, so she's probably been away for a little while.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Alt!Sarina tries to slide up behind Rose to support her. This little shadow can't really do much on its own, but her sister need help! Clearly.

[Recaiden]

Which sister is it that needs the help, though?

The shadow helps Rose stand up when she might fall, and the little crab spider instead doesn't fall back. Her next spear is thrown where CLO is about to be, knocking his glasses from his face to break on the ground.
"So. Predictable. No offense, elder sister. But if I were you, I'd get out of here."
For a moment Rose has all the puppet strings grasped in her hands. She tugs one, and is back by Sarina at the headquarters, in proper time.

"Just in time, little sister. You know, I had wondered why he didn't warn me about you. But thinking it through a little, :3 I realized he'd have thought he didn't need any of us."
Rose lopes over towards the tight center of the web.
"Keep me safe now, okay? ♦"

[Murkus]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

The auditorium is silent.

"Why, she's inside the third box," says Croupelt, without inflection. "Why don't you look for yourself?"

If Valente does so, he will find that final chambre empty as well.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

"Warn? What do you mean warn? You know I'd never hurt you." Sarina insists sincerely, but she helps rose onto the center of the web regardless, standing pensively on the edge of the web.

[Recaiden]

And that's why Rose is going to be Queen. Sarina couldn't do what's necessary.

The hour is here. The Queen moves on from the mortal world, and the air of her land goes slack. Her crown appears in has always lain at the center of Headquarters. Her ring, well, it could be anywhere.
The crab spider princess sets the crown atop her head, takes hold of the silken strands of time, and starts to weave.

The trees shift and murmur and uproot themselves.
The Things That Lurk In Corners shriek and fight among themselves, wild ones stealing like wolves into 3+1 space to hunt while the spider organization is at its nadir.
Living distortions and paradoxes creep in at the edge of the woods, finding gaps.
One can see hellfire flashing in the northern depths of the forest.
CLO was defeated, but has she given up? Where and when were Swords?

The night is full of monsters.

See, here's one now, a vast elemental time-creature, a hundred-handed hole in the world, roaring up towards the headquarters web, intent on an end to history.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Don’t be silly, narrator. Hurting her adorable older sister couldn’t possibly be necessary for Sarina. Besides, she was shown that Rose will do fine.

She can’t leave Rose and deal with the other problems but she has one in front of her. One that just stepped on two magical land-mines and is promptly zapped by Sarina as best as a teenage sorceress can manage.

[Recaiden]

This is what we mean, Sarina. There's more to trustworthiness than being adorable. And people change in strange ways.

Shocking magic flashes across its attenuated being, slowed down so much that you can see it travel. It recoils, but only slightly.
Reaching out its rippling edges, the elemental tries to enfold Sarina in a bubble of slow time.

[Gullara]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

The auditorium is silent.

"Why, she's inside the third box," says Croupelt, without inflection. "Why don't you look for yourself?"

If Valente does so, he will find that final chambre empty as well.

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val does look, though he never really expected much. "What do I do now?" He asks uncertainly. He doesn't want to spoil the show by hanging around on stage asking questions, but he feels directionless. Surely he'd be meeting Astrana somewhere away from all these prying eyes... Why is it so quiet anyway? This is really preturbing.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

This really seems like something out of depth for a teenager. At least, that's what Sarina thinks.

The drider hops away, finding herself clinging to one of the trees supporting the web. Which is much less comfortable for a drider than a normal giant spider, as she has that human half with blood flowing awkwardly when upside-down and sideways.

She tries to freeze the moisture in the elemental and the air around it, as it's probably a bad idea to use fire in a forest.

[Shadowcaller]

Steve says "I used to have abilities and powers of a paragon of righteousness. I was, and I believe I still am, as much of a champion of benevolence an easily corruptible human can be. In order to better help others and fight the forces of evil, I wish to have these powers back."

"First off, I was a guy." Says Luvon. "I also had some very cool hand crafted gear." Luvon wil then explain his equipment to the dragon in full detail. "I also had the powers of a Ranger, most commonly pertaining to the manipulation of nature and its creatures."

[Cloud Palace]

The dragon is silent for a moment. "You are clearly from a different world, while I hoard knowledge I don't know the details of what you speak of. What about this, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings between us, will you allow lend me to view your thoughts? That way I can understand exactly what has been stolen from you and construct a replacement from your memories."

She suddenly floats her massive body above the floor and purple underneath her claws two shapes made of purple mist appears. They seem to resemble Steve and Luvon as they are now. "These will take those unwanted aspects, once I can find them in your minds."

[Murkus]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val does look, though he never really expected much. "What do I do now?" He asks uncertainly. He doesn't want to spoil the show by hanging around on stage asking questions, but he feels directionless. Surely he'd be meeting Astrana somewhere away from all these prying eyes... Why is it so quiet anyway? This is really preturbing.

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

A pair of the masked acrobats scurry forward toward the 'corpse' Val seems to have left upon the stage. Without preempt they take the dead girl by the arms and heave ho, once swing, two, then over the front of the stage she goes. The bloodied, ragged form hits the sand below and quickly begins to sink. Behind Val, Belfidius begins to move the boxes, and the other acrobats wind their red ropes around them again...

"Why, you have to take a bow!" crows Croupelt in answer, turning to his audience, extending his hands to either side before doing so himself. "Take a bow, my dear! Simply marvelous." And as he does so - whether Val joins him or not - the lights in the miniature colosseum go out.

A number of things begin to happen rather quickly. The entire room is thrown into darkness, absolute as the precipice of oblivion. The crowd can be heard as it begins to move, first with confused, dreamlike slowness, then rapidly rising panic and a number of joined voices crying out in shock. The only things that cast light in the room are dozens of paired pinpricks of light, scattered all throughout the audience. Not unlike the eyes of a pack of nocturnal predators, save solely for the fact that there is no light being cast which could reflect back from such sinister orbs.

It sounds like chaos all around Val. The claustrophobic, noisy dark presses in all around him. And then, from far too close by his ear, Croupelt speaks one final time. "To answer your question. That concludes our show for the evening." He - or someone - tries to wrap a velvet-gloved hand around Val's wrist. "It's time to go, my dear. Your very own box is waiting. Look there, behind you!"

A candlelight appears. If Val does turn and look, he will be presented with the lit interior of another wooden show-box, the light glittering on the grain of the polished interior chamber. There is a tiny lit candle in a silver cup on the seat of the box.

Val will be able to see at least part of himself in the light of the candle, though feeble the light is. He will be able to see a few feet of the stage. And he can see the huge, rabbit-fur glove that's trying to hold his arm, just before it snakes backwards into the dark. Did that fur seem to writhe? Were those sets of small, beady black eyes opening and closing on the skin of the glove?

[Recaiden]

This really seems like something out of depth for a teenager. At least, that's what Sarina thinks.

The drider hops away, finding herself clinging to one of the trees supporting the web. Which is much less comfortable for a drider than a normal giant spider, as she has that human half with blood flowing awkwardly when upside-down and sideways.

She tries to freeze the moisture in the elemental and the air around it, as it's probably a bad idea to use fire in a forest.

It's more about what you've trained for than how old you are. As a spider princess one has a lot of responsibilities from a young age.

Hopefully her abdominal strength is up to the task of hanging onto the tree. Either way, the hop brings her out of the path of the time horror's trap. The ice she crystallizes is more effective than the shock still flickering in its endless depths. Being partly outside the elemental, it isn't able to shunt the attack into the future. It strains and cracks against its frozen prison, unable to strike back yet.

Are the sun and moon running in reverse, very quickly? Something odd is going on with the light, certainly.

[Gullara]

[The Fabulous Croupelt's Falling Circus]

Val recoils from Croupelt, tearing his hand away. He looks at the box uneasily for just one moment before promptly turning away from it. If he merely felt uneasy before, now he knows something is horribly wrong.

"Astrana!" He shouts, hoping that wherever she is she can hear him. Oh god, what happened to her? Is she even anywhere near here anymore?

First he needs to get somewhere he can see before he can do anything, though, and somewhere that isn't that box. He stumbles int he dark toward where he's sure the front of the stage is. He stoops over, feeling for the edge of it so he can carefully hop down. After that... well hopefully he can find somewhere a little more sane.

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

While it's stuck, Sarina spins a furious line of weaves. This elemental never got to the web. This elemental never got near the web. This elemental might think it's outside the nature of time, but it is not, which is why it was never ever anywhere near here.
Ever.

And if that doesn't work she can still shoot lasers at it or something.

[Recaiden]

What elemental?

The fight is over never happened.
With the web so slack as Rose takes control of things, it's no surprise things like this (fail to) happen.

As the Queen-to-be goes on the anomalies lessen, and cease. At the end of the infinite night the crown fits rightly on Rose's head and everything is stable.
"Good work, little sister. But there's so much to do and even now no time to do it!"

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Sarina smiles and skitters over to her sister. She would give her a hug, but she doesn't know if that's really proper or whatever. So she gives Rose a bow instead.
"Hail the Queen!" she declares cheerily. "Alright, what's our first orders of business, older sister?" she asks. She would hope it would be going back to bed after the night she's had, but she doubts that.

[Recaiden]

Rose brushes her eyes.
"Our first order of business isn't anything. I'm afraid this is where we part ways."
She waves to the southwest.
"If I were you, I wouldn't hang around the forest much more. The wider world needs you so much more."

[Deathkeeper]

[The Wode]

Sarina slumps, defeated. She had hoped this wouldn't happen, but it was likely when you get spiders involved.
"But, we did all of this so I wouldn't get exiled. What do you want me to do? And would you tolerate at least me moving my stuff?" she asks. Surely Rose is nice enough to not make her abandon her nice tree-house stuff.

[Recaiden]

"No we did all this because Oracle was going to make a mess of things."
"And by 'we', I mean 'I'."
Rose replies, laughing.
"Of course you can bring your things. You aren't being banished. Just...sent on vacation. Business travel, even. And would I throw you out without a winter coat?"

"The world out there is absolutely full of time machines, retcons, and other abuse. I need you out there cleaning it up. Plus, you still have a lot of growing up to do. A queendom like this is no place for a kid. "