eswareinmal | Action: Come one, come all!

Entry tags:

Action: Come one, come all!

Characters: ALL THE PEOPLE
Open? Yes.
Where: The Palace
When: The night of the 3RD
What: A masquerade ball and a very deep sleep.
Warnings: Part of a comm-wide plot!

The Prince Sif has felled an unknown beast, and presented its stuffed head to the King. This would be reason enough for a ball, but there are victories to celebrate. More heroes arrive every day. The kingdom was aptly defended when the forest wall fell. No one has tried to assassinate the king in several days.

All told, a good night for a party. The theme of the ball is a masquerade, and shops in town have been surprisingly (almost suspiciously) able to provide gowns and masks in ready supply.

The palace has been opened to heroes and townspeople alike, provided they can present themselves appropriately. The heroes have been strongly encouraged to attend, and those who do not come voluntarily may well be greeted with royal retainers at their doorstep, outfit and dance card in hand. Expect a very full dance card, heroes.

The banquet table is stacked full of food – roasts and cheeses, summer fruits and vegetables, rivers of wine and more ornate desserts than should be permitted in a time or war. This evening is about success – best to enjoy it.

In the center of the ball sits the beast’s head. A scaly, purple thing. Its eyes have been taken out and replaced with rubies, its mouth twisted in the same sort of anguished look on its face as when Sif killed it. There has never been a beast like this in Schwanheim before – if you like, come closer and take a look. The king is very generous with his gifts.

[ooc: The party is a LIE. Well. No, it isn’t! Enjoy the party. Your characters will be expected to wear full masquerade gear, or they will be shunted aside and dressed properly.

After the attendees go home, they will be plagued with dreams more tangible than they have ever felt. More information here]

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The ghost's reaction made that tiny, dying ember of an ego within JW flicker and swell. If only for a moment. And here he'd thought the fairytale land had stamped it out!

The skull mask's toothy grin warped into a ponderous frown as JW leaned closer to the ugly dead thing. "Looks kinda like Barney the Dinosaur's messed up cousin. I don't get out a lot. What's so special about it?"

He wondered if anyone would miss those rubies...

"From, um, what I've managed to gather, what's 'special' about it is that someone actually managed to kill it, which is more than the rest of us who went into the woods that night managed. Sif and Alanna were, um, the only ones to actually bring anything back that night, a-and apparently Sif decided it would make a lovely centerpiece."

JW rubbed his mask's chin. "So that's what all that about the woods was..."

He wondered why those squirrels had been so easy to catch. They practically leaped into his hat to get out of those woods.

"So how's it they let you stand over here and look at this head without shoving you towards the nearest woman?"

James hadn't quite noticed that it was unlikely anyone would be shoving Giles anywhere.

"Oh, um, I'm sure they'd like to. I'm quite sure they'd have enjoyed dressing me up like a small dog, besides, but, um, it's not really an option, with me."

Giles helpfully demonstrates by reaching out towards the head, and passing his hand up to the wrist straight through it.

"I, um, I suppose there are advantages to it," he adds, considering this night to be proof of that.

It was James's turn to be startled. His skullmask's jaws gaped enough to reveal his surprised face. A ghost!

"O-oh! Ahahaha, I guess...damn." He felt kind of bad. It meant somebody had bumped the guy off. JW stuffed his hands into opposite sleeves and tried to mind his manners. Tried.

Indeed, someone had bumped Giles' off. Twice, actually, although only the first one had stuck.

He takes pity. James' reaction is one he's gotten used to, after all. "You, um, you have nothing to look so apologetic over. This, um, this place saw fit to, um, bring me in as a ghost, instead of...well, absolutely anything else. Considering...well, considering home, I suppose it was only a matter of time until I wound up like this in any case."

JW had to clamp his mask's jaws shut with his own hands. "Guess it coulda been worse, huh?"

As much as he hated the place, James was suddenly very thankful that he'd showed up with all his arms and legs. And none extra.

"It certainly could have. I, um, I might have had to dress up." Or there could be a few more monsters that could rip a ghost to pieces. "I don't begrudge the citizenry a party, of course, I just, um, I wish it hadn't been our only chance to see this thing." He indicates the beast's head.

"I see you, um, got yourself fairly well into the spirit of things, at least."

He approves of the costume choice, even if it did scare the hell out of him to start with.

"What? Why th' hell would you wanna see it when it was alive? It was probably twice as ugly before they prettied it up with them gems." He wrinkled his nose. "You're weird, ghost-man, but you're alright."

He drew himself up when Giles mentioned his costume. "Recycled!"

Giles gives the antler-headed man a bow, at that. "You flatter me." As far as reactions to him normally go, that's basically a compliment. And, well, then he's happy to turn the conversation back to the subject of James' costume. The man does seem proud of it, after all.

"Dare I ask out of what?"

"A goat or something, I guess. I found it behind the slaughter house. Cleaned it up, worked a little magic and--tada!"

It was shamefully obvious that James's favorite topic was himself.

Shamefully so. Fortunately, well, he was hardly the first such sort of person that Giles had ever come across. And at least he had the decency to be interesting about it.

"I do hope you didn't mention that to anyone you've shaken hands with tonight."

Which is to say, Giles hopes that he has, and wishes he could have been around to see the reaction.

"Nobody's really asked." Those gears in his head started turning though. It might be a good way to keep the townsfolk from pestering him the way they seemed to do that poor white-haired kid. "You some kinda scientist?"

JW wished he'd been a little sneakier when approaching Giles before. He didn't get a very good look at what he'd been writing. Nosy.

Giles hadn't been writing anything. He'd just been thinking very hard about whether or not to write something. Or, specifically, draw something. But, well, Giles has the drawing skills of a toddler, and hadn't been sure whether he should waste the paper.

"I, um, I was. Well...nothing quite so, um, scientific, but I, I-I was...well, a sort of researcher." Then, attempting to turn the conversation around again, "And what was it you did?"

James narrowed his eyes a little. Sounded like a high-educated so and so...but he hadn't made fun of his drawl yet, so he didn't go on the hate list.

"Little bit of everything...raked yards, bagged groceries, killed monsters. I wasn't no damn wizard, that's what I wasn't. I came here and they stuck me in a pointy hat."

Yes, James, you can make flowers grow out of nothing, your life is so hard.

Hey, when you spent some of your school days ducking bullies who wanted to kick the stutter out of you, and when your high-educated accent is a long practiced affectation, you really have no room to judge guys with drawls. Giles tries to avoid adding hypocrisy to his list of character faults.

"So, um, you didn't know any magic at all? That's, um, th-that's...very odd. I mean, um, I know another man who was set up as a wizard, but he was one in his own world as well. Did you get any powers when you arrived, then?"

The thin man shook his head. "Not a lick...they gave me a book and I've figured a few things out..." He pointed to his mask. "I haven't found anything about going home in it though...you'd think if magic brought us here, it could send us back."

"There are different sorts of magic. Some that, um, tend to react badly t-to interference by human beings." Even if you aren't entirely human yourself, which he gathers is the case with James. "I'm, I'm not entirely certain that the ones who intended to bring us here can control the magics they called on. It would explain a great deal, including why more of us keep coming."

Giles takes off his glasses to massage away the memory of a headache, sighing in sudden frustration. "I'd, um, I'd ask to take a look at your books, but..." Here he passes his hand through the table again.

Jame's brows drifted upwards. "So you can't throw vases around or knock pictures off the wall?"

Some ghost! Though his shoulders went a little slack at learning that. He'd met a few nasty ghosts and though Giles didn't seem nasty at all, it meant he didn't have to walk on eggshells should the guy turn on him.

A ghost was still a human and humans were wont to do that.

"That's a shame. I'd pay a man to transcribe me a Plain English version."

"Not ordinarily, no. When cursed by a particularly territorial witch, though...well, um, that's another matter. By and large, though, I can only give the illusion of affecting the physical world - standing on the ground, leaning against things, a-and the like. I'm, um, not a poltergeist. And I'm quite glad of it."

Giles is already leery enough of being a ghost as it is. It's a small mercy that he's a sane and rational ghost, and the ability to differentiate himself from a poltergeist is almost, almost worth the burden of not being able to affect the physical world at all.

"I'm afraid my ability to do that would, um, would depend on what language it was in to start with. Do you know that much, at least?"

If worst came to worst, he could always get permission, possess James, and read it that way.

"English, I guess. I can read the words in it...but it's worded in and out and bass-ackwards and just about stupid." JW threw his hands in the air in frustration. Why did everything in this stupid place have to be so complicated?

"...'bass-ackwards'?"

Giles wonders for a minute if they don't have more translation difficulties than just a matter of time of writing. England is a prolific country, when it comes to swears, but that's a new one on him, and it throws him for a second.

"...a-anyway. Um, a great many of the books I used to deal with...yes, those that were in English tended to be written in a style most would find, um, rather obtuse. I could probably make sense of it, given time."

...with a certain kind of assistance from James.

"Yeah, bass-ackwards and every which way," James repeated and nodded sourly. He squinted a little at Giles. He didn't know what obtuse meant...but it probably meant stupid and hard to read. The ghost sounded like just the guy he needed.

"What d'you charge?"

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Action: Come one, come all!

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