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peacockstop2024-10-15 09:00 pm
TDM 06
【 Thank you for choosing the Golden Peacock, 5-star resort and casino. You are currently registered as a WILDCARD in our system.
On behalf of the house and resort, we would like to advise all Game 52 players to exercise caution around the Golden Peacock for the next few weeks. The veil between 'what is' and 'what has been' grows thin and the threads of fate have tangled in unexpected ways. We are currently observing how these two phenomena behave when they occur simultaneously and act in concert.
We advise that all guests monitor their physical states until the veil thickens once again and the threads of fate return to running parallel. If you find yourself undergoing any strange transformations, please report to the Broken Wing clinic for observation. We will do our utmost to make sure you are comfortable during this time.
You may also notice other strange phenomena around the Golden Peacock while the veil is thin. Please continue to exercise caution. New wayward spirits have joined us during this time. While spirits are crossing, it is possible for guests to get swept along into the ghostly realm.
As always, please let us know if there is anything we can do to improve your stay. 】
HEADS
TAILS
MAIN LOBBY
BACK HALLWAYS & STAIRS
MONSTER MASH
THE VALE
SMOKED EGG
BALANCE RETURNS
OOC NOTES
▶ All characters on the TDM are WILDCARDS, which means they have not yet been assigned a card value. Suits will not manifest until characters are accepted into the game.
▶ All TDMs are game canon. This TDM acts as the game's October event. Changes to the above locations will ICly be present from October 15th - November 3rd. All supernatural phenomenon will increase in strength over time, culminating in peak activity on All Hallows' Eve. The days following Halloween will relax, leading into eventual normalcy. Some locations are spared the supernatural frenzy, so players can play as normal if they wish to avoid these tropes/prompts. Players may assume that the supernatural come and go in the above specifically incorporated locations.
▶ Current characters may top level on the TDM. Any current characters posting to the TDM should note they are current in their subject header.
▶ The top level directory is for new characters only. We want to make sure new characters are prioritized and receive attention! If you would be interested in a game invitation, you can note that in your comment header.
▶ If you aren't satisfied with these prompts, please feel free to check out our LOCATIONS to explore more of the resort!
▶ Smut threads that take place on this TDM can be used for rewards. If both parties in the smut thread join the game, you may retroactively apply the character's initial card values to your 52 bank. If one character does not join the game the thread will not be applicable toward rewards (as that character would not have a card value). The character that does join would still receive a small payout for the encounter. Hopefully it was a fun thread regardless!
▶ We ask you to kindly add content warnings to your threads as appropriate. This TDM in particular has the potential to get real wild, so we want to emphasize this request!
▶ If you do not currently have permissions and kinks listed in your character’s journal we suggest leaving a note in your top level of any limits or boundaries for other players to reference.
▶ Go forth and let your freak flag fly!
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There is little mistaking the way his eyes light up for anything short of interested, even enthusiastic, when the doctor suggests something sweet.
"Dessert before the meal?
"You rebel," he chides in jest, as though he isn't already turning the slim menu over to peek at the bottom, eyeing off a small rotating list of sweets. One finger hovering over the lines of text, he reads aloud.
"They have... 'rustic and crumbly almond cookies', 'ginger milk curd', and... I don't know how to pronounce that one," he says, brow creasing. The puppet sets down the menu, looking at Baizhu curiously: "I thought milk was usually thrown out when it curdles." Doesn't that mean it's gone bad? Then why is it listed as a dessert?
...Now he's just more curious. "Have you a preference?"
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He really is too honest for his own good.
“Why don’t we try all of them?”
What does any of that have to do with studying that prosthesis? Don’t worry about it. He can already tell that this is going to be a very fun experiment indeed—
“That way you’ll be able to see for yourself.”
See what? The milk curd? Sneaking in sweets before dinner? The shock he’s going to get from their tab later on? Does it matter? The way Pinocchio lights up is more than enough for him, and already he’s flagging down a server to pretty much order all the desserts as threatened.
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That it should strike him as odd that a doctor is encouraging indulging in so many sweets doesn't occur to him. This is the privilege of the manufactured; he doesn't have to worry about things like cavities or disease. Doesn't have first-hand experience with the services of a doctor, can't picture the priorities one might have.
The server asks if they're sure, eyeing off the two men — slim, not what one might expect of a big eater — before setting off. Pinocchio breaks the following silence, nudging him with the tip of his shoe under the table.
"I believe you promised me a story, good doctor," he might seem coy, with that tip of his head, but it's only his curiosity urging him along. They haven't been served yet, but he can't resist, lacing his fingers — seeming flesh and metal — under his chin, gazing expectantly at his company.
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“Well, you might find it a bit of a sad story,” he says with a little chuckle as their tea is finally brought over, and Baizhu starts pouring them each a cup—Pinocchio’s first, before his own. He takes a deep breath, the pleasant floral aroma of that tea bringing his mind back to all those flowers he’d left at a certain gravesite for years…
“It all started with a plague a long, long time ago, and a particularly desperate doctor who traveled quite a long way to find a cure…”
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"You?" he guesses naively; it isn't that Pinocchio has no appreciation of time as much as he has a distorted perception of it. Krat was a terribly long time ago for him, despite it only being ten months ago, and he has an even longer time, perhaps forever, stretched out before him. Baizhu might be talking of some predecessor, a teacher and mentor, or even an inspiration that set him on his current path.
It's rude to interrupt, though, and as he remembers himself, he makes a gesture by pinching index finger and thumb together and dragging it across his mouth, like with a zipper. A twist of the wrist, and he's tossing the invisible key he'd used to lock up over his shoulder. He'll be good! (Or he'll try.)
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Not that Baizhu needs to tell him everything, of course—
“But he’s the founder of the path of healing I follow. Or the co-founder, I should say, as his journey led him to seek out a god of healing, only to find…well…”
With his eyes still on Pinocchio—for he’d never really relented in his observations of him—he gestures with his hand, and an illusory green snake bursts forth from his fingers, twirling and floating in the air between them before promptly vanishing.
Hopefully Pinocchio isn’t afraid of snakes—
no subject
As he listens in rapt attention, he puts his steel hand around a cup that's assuredly a little too hot, only to pull it away with a shake. It doesn't break his concentration, however; when the green snake erupts into being in a seeming act of prestidigitation, Pinocchio doesn't give a start but his eyes go round with wonder.
Amazed but unafraid, he lifts his other hand to reach for it, like he means to catch its small, rounded head between thumb and forefinger. It'd likely get him bitten if this were a real (and venomous) snake. He's bold — but in an unknowing sort of way — and as it vanishes he draws his hand back. That's more like a startle. Give him a moment to sort out the meaning of his magic trick — Pinocchio's had the ability to parse allegory for about... 5 months (those spent as a statue don't count).
"He found a serpent?"
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He mentally files those thoughts away for another time.
“That’s right. Her name is Changsheng, and she possesses not only an extensive knowledge of the healing arts, but also the power of healing itself. This, she has bestowed upon the founder in the form of a contract.”
Then Baizhu points upward, toward his eyes, finally getting to point—“And every successor to Changsheng’s arts exchange eyes with her as proof of our contract.”
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"How is it you can still see?" he asks, "If you've changed out your eyes?"
It never seemed so simple for those who were afflicted with Petrification Disease, if all it took was replacing them with someone else's parts, then he has no doubt people would have done it. After all, those who could have rarely had qualms about taking from those who didn't, whether it was Ergo, labor, food...
The cookies arrive. So engrossed is he in their conversation, he doesn't even mark their arrival.
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“Who can say? Perhaps it was simply...magic.”
There’s another word to gauge Pinocchio’s reaction with, for he’d found that people here have mixed feelings about gods and snakes and, well, magic. But if a man is willing to accept that a snake can pass on the healing arts, then...
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So... not a skeptic, but perhaps not terribly familiar with the concept. At the very least, not possessing any special abilities to perceive anything like that.
Sophia's power could have been called magic. He has touched the Arm of God and seen firsthand its monstrous power in Simon Manus. But these things were observed with a new consciousness unbiased by experience, accepted as readily as everything else. To him, the possibilities are truly endless. Or he's just super gullible.
It's a little of both.
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“It certainly is. Though I suppose the very concept of magic can be hard to fine, given the sort of world we currently reside in.”
And the resort has something that’s confounding to him despite his vast knowledge—technology, and really advanced technology, which can accomplish much the same thing as some of his magic.
But he figures that bringing that up might be a tad overwhelming for someone so unused to the concept of magic to begin with.
“Is this really your first encounter with it?”
no subject
"...I'm not sure," he confesses. "I heard that magic is whatever normal people can't do. It's all very mysterious, isn't it?"
Pinocchio tastes the treat. It's not too sweet, which seems strange to him for a dessert. As the recipe is Chinese, turns out this is exactly how sweet it's supposed to be. But it's not biscotti, he's probably not supposed to be dipping it into his tea like he is (and losing half of the crumbly treat into his drink in the process).
no subject
He’s not going to be disapproving of Pinocchio’s eating habits anytime soon. Far be it for him to discourage someone else from experimenting with something new, after all. And Baizhu, for his part, takes his own cookie and gently lifts the almond embedded therein, holding it up to Pinocchio as he lets another surge of elemental power flow into it.
The almond swells, buds. Sprouts into a lovely pale blossom, while Baizhu casually takes a bite out of the remains of his own cookie.
no subject
Pinocchio again reaches out, stroking its pale blossom with a metal fingertip. While he investigates, he gives his thoughts.
"You give life," he observes, "Can you give anything life?"
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Pinocchio's not wrong, though. In fact, he might be closer to the truth of Baizhu's powers than he realizes.
"But I'm afraid there are caveats to this power."
He glances over to Pinocchio's fascinating mechanical arm, before giving him an apologetic look.
"Most of my regenerative powers are restricted to nature. While I can heal some flesh-and-blood wounds, I cannot grow a new limb for you."
no subject
"No," Pinocchio says quietly, lowering it into his lap, "I suppose that's impossible."
There's more he could say, shapeless and opaque behind his silence. His doubts about the efficacy of life magic on something that's always been a mechanical arm need no further discussion, it's a moot point. "You're curious," he concludes. He keeps catching him looking at his arm, and after he's been so thoroughly indulged, Pinocchio supposes it's only polite to allow him a turn.
"What do you want to know?"
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It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Oh, many things, given how little I know of machinery. But I suppose it’s best to start with something simple.”
Then his expression grows somber.
“…Does it hurt?”
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He expects something like the questions Stiles had asked while they sat together on the four-poster bed with Pinocchio's Legion Arm stretched out between their knees. He doesn't expect to be asked if it hurts.
Geppetto never asked this. Eugenie and Venigni, when they had him try a new prosthesis with a new set of capabilities, would ask how he liked it, would look for his approval in the work of their hands. But no one ever asked him if it hurt. Nearly everyone in Krat believed puppets were unfeeling tools governed by the Grand Covenant.
The look on Pinocchio's face is less 'what do you think' and more 'why wouldn't it?', but his answer is immediate.
"All the time."
no subject
Which means that he must have suffered for quite a long time…
“…That certainly won’t do. If you would allow me take a closer look at that arm, then perhaps I might be able to find some way of numbing the pain.”
Never mind that he’s quite in the dark as to the true nature of Pinocchio’s entire body, but that’s an issue for another time.
no subject
Baizhu cares that he's in pain. Surely, it's because he's convinced that he's just like everyone else here. While Pinocchio sees himself as human, he's also aware that his body is like a thing arrested mid-chrysalis — he's been evolving, changing, into something almost human, but clockwork still churns in his chest and in his head, he still hears his springs creak when he moves. These ever-present reminders keep his otherness rooted in his awareness, and he has a wealth of examples of how people react to that.
He glances down at his arm, a little wary, "It's all right. I'm used to it."
Perhaps he doesn't trust him enough. It is, after all, attached to him.
no subject
He thinks back to Daan, to the heavy stone arm laid out across the table between them, and shudders.
“But my offer still stands, whenever you have a mind to take it. I’ll leave that choice up to you.”
The most tragic of patients, he thinks, are the ones who’ve already admitted defeat, who finally choose death over suffering, even if it means that they’ll be torn away from their loved ones. He wonders at the people who must certainly be waiting for Pinocchio back home, worried and scared and waiting to gather him up in a loving embrace…
But for the moment Baizhu knows he cannot help him.
no subject
Feeling a little indebted, like he should at least give him something, he starts to speak again, when something that looks a bit like creme brulee without a burnt sugar coating, the curd drizzled with some kind of pale yellowish sauce.
"Legion Arms come in many shapes and designs, for their uses are Legion," he explains, "Krat had lots of them manufactured by different workshops and were coming up with new ones all the time until the disaster stopped production."
He tells it almost exactly the way Venigni had patiently explained to him, once the brilliant entrepreneur had him captive as an audience, waiting on his new arm to be installed. He had been a man who loved to talk, and Pinocchio loved to listen to him. Interested in the dish that arrived, he leans forward, "...Is that the curdled milk?"
Puppet drops a bomb of a word like 'disaster' and stops to be curious about a new dessert? It tracks.
no subject
All he knows now is that, with a production facility likely incapacitated, there would be no further repairs to that arm. No more relief from pain unless someone steps in to help.
But, like with children, he can’t help but issue a challenge—
“Would you like to find out? I can even feed you myself, if you prefer.”
no subject
Staring him down like Baizhu had casually suggested feeding him his left hand, the puppet maintains steady eye contact and, without aggression, he calmly reaches across the table, taking hold of the spoon set in the dish. A sizable chunk of curd wobbles in the bowl of the spoon, glistening and glossy under the lights of the eatery.
He spoons it onto Baizhu's plate.
A second spoonful lands into his own plate. He puts both the curd and its serving spoon between them, taking up his tea in the other hand.
"You first, good doctor."
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