And now I'm gonna have to kill this clown [Giraffe!][M]

[nephero]

Warnings for language, blood, gore, body horror, clowns (evil), and lots of child endangerment

The air reeked of celebration.

It was an odd observation, to be sure, but it was an observation nonetheless. The air carried with it the telltale signs of something special happening - quick-fried foods, sugar, beasts of burden and considerable amounts of strewn straw. The general odor of crowds of bodies in an excited state. Sweat, lantern oil, and-- interestingly, paint. This all coincided, of course, with the other general signs of something Fun happening. There was laughter, a natural byproduct. Amused chatter cut by loud cries grabbing for anyone and everyone's attention. Music played on various instruments filled what little quiet that filled the ever-darkening evening air.

Admittedly, Shea Ru would not consider himself a particular expert on things such as local festivals - the Incident in Thanatos had made that much extremely clear. It was a gap in his learning that he didn't feel was particularly important to rectify completely within a short amount of time, but it was a gap that needed rectifying nonetheless. If he just so happened upon one, it was imperitive that he investigate. Devotion, after all, did not possess limitations.

It also didn't hurt that he quite literally had been walking the roads of Ravensway for days, and this was the first town he had come across since crossing the provincial border. While his mind remained perfectly alert, the body did require some form of rest, and he had not had time to prepare himself for a fresh start quite yet. A few nights' stay in a quaint little town would certainly not hurt him any - even if the bright, alarmingly-smiling visages painted on the sides of the wagons gave him something of a pause.

While there was plenty that could be said for artistic license, Shea Ru was very, very sure that no human possessed quite that many teeth. Or was ever that happy outside of a considerable psychological event.

Given that there were wagons, and the tents arranged on the outskirts of the small town had the look of being well-used and well-traveled, Shea was sure that this was not an exclusively local form of festivity, but rather more akin to a roving band of entertainers. He stepped along the pathways created by several smaller tents, each one advertising something different: feather candy, sweet dogs, candied apples, sticky corn, deep fried pies, games involving bottles and rings, balls and cans, tests of dexterity and strength. All of these were carefully monitored by blindingly colorful people - each one with their face painted and their mouths pulled into wider and wider smiles.

Shea Ru was familiar enough with the facsimile of smiling to know none of them actually meant it. A quick dart of the eyes here and there, and the motivation was clear - the games were not meant to be something most could win, and even the presentation of specialized foods was done with the intention of collecting as many coins as possible from the townsfolk.

The further he walked, the more the influence of magic became obvious. The lanterns towards the center all floated several feet above everyone's heads, each one twinkling between various bright colors, bathing all of them in veils of greens and blues and pinks that shifted smoothly from one to the other. The brightest lights were around the center tent, which was also the largest of all them, making sure everyone around the whole carnival could see and read the words even in the gathering night:

Happy Jack's Funhouse!

Shea stopped in his tracks to consider the tent, its doorway a huge mimicry of a clown's wide-open mouth. He couldn't quite see inside, and it took him a moment to recognize why - more magic, darkening the space beyond the clown's mouth, the only hint that passage was capable being the railway tracks that led directly inside, currently housing a cart that was being loaded with grinning, laughing townsfolk.

Once the cart was loaded and several metal bars were lowered to keep its passengers in place, the assortment of colorful clowns manning the front of the funhouse stepped away. Shea watched as the cart pulled back on the rails, before speeding forward, the delighted yells of the passengers disappearing into the mouth while a laughing, disembodied voice yelled "yum!" After that, Shea couldn't hear the passengers at all.

Curious.

The body needed sleep. But the mind needed to know where that passage led. As Shea considered his options, one of the clowns approached, boisterous and welcoming.

"Hey now, don't be shy! The next cart is coming, so step on up, and enjoy the ride!"

Very curious. Shea watched as another cart did, in fact, materialize onto the rails, empty of passengers and metal bars open to allow for a fresh batch to settle in.

"Just a shil, and you'll be on your way!" the clown insisted, one gloved hand held out expectantly. Ah, yes. Shils, those were one of the (admittedly numerous) coins used in the borders of Serendipity. Shea pulled a small purse out of his satchel, and considered the contents for a long moment, before recognizing which of the various forms of currency were appropriate for the environment. He pressed the coin into the clown's hand, and returned his smile. The clown, however, did not seem to be prepared to be met this way, and his own painted smile faltered just a bit upon meeting Shea's eye.

Still, payment received, and he quickly waved Shea on board the cart, before turning his attention back to the other carnival-goers in the hopes of finding another passenger.

"Step right up for a wild ride! Just one shil!"

[wandering_giraffe]

Valerian couldn't believe she'd taken this job. Sure it was a lot of money...but a carnival? As a general rule vampires don't go to carnivals. It ruins the whole vampire aesthetic. But here she was, in a carnival, in Serendipity of all places. She shuddered. She just needed to get into wherever the hell this "fun house" was, find her target, and leave. There were way too many tents full of yelling vendors and the smells...ugh the smells. Valerian curled her lip in disgust, drawing her cape tighter around her. She was ready for some blood. She'd gone without it for too long.
"Step up right for a wild ride! Just one shil!"
She noticed the sign for the funhouse and smirked to herself. One step closer to getting her money and getting the hell out of this carnival.
She tossed the maniacally grinning clown a shil, and got into the cart, sitting next to a rather mysterious looking man. She surmised that the trip through the funhouse would be rather short, and she could either sneak back in the rear entrance or kill her target inside. Gods she was ready for blood.

[nephero]

Shea looked curiously to the side to the woman who had just boarded the cart beside him. Here was another person who seemed thoroughly out of place amidst a local, small-town festival. Even more out of place, still, was her choice to sit directly next to him. In his overall experience of sharing transportation with others, most tended to keep to themselves, only filling in the closer places the more crowded it became.

More importantly, her eyes were the most violent shade of red.

It made Shea want to know more. So, as was typically custom in these lands, he gave a quick and easy smile and a nod of his head in acknowledgment of the woman beside him. His attention, however, was pulled away as another body -- this time of a young boy, no older than twelve winters by Shea's estimate -- settled into the cart just behind Shea and the pale woman.

The child also drew attention in his own oddity -- while the fairgrounds were awash with laughter and delighted yells and packs of young friends running this way and that, the boy was alone, sitting quietly and politely in the center of the cart seat behind Shea. He certainly wasn't lost in the joy of the carnival, but instead looked completely lost in his own thoughts.

Also very interesting. So here they were, three people who clearly had no business sitting on a painted cart about to go through some quick, fleeting thrill ride, sitting on a painted cart nonetheless.

The clowns about them seemed to feel much the same way, and rather than try to fill the cart more, began the process of pulling down safety levers that (while providing only the barest of security, if one were to truly test it) did succeed in making sure Shea couldn't just decide to stand up all of a sudden.

"Hold on tight, friends!" said the clown who had taken Shea's money, and Shea noted that his addition of 'friends' was not at all genuine, even in the most shallow sense. The clown looked to a blue haired lady clown stood to the side of the funhouse entrance, her hand on a much larger lever. They exchanged a hand signal, and she pulled hard down on the lever.

The effect was instantaneous. Later, Shea would most certainly want to consider the mechanics of such a thing, as the cart rocketed forward without any sign of any kind of propulsion system. They shot through the darkness of the funhouse gate, passing through the huge painted mouth, and the last he heard of the carnival outside was another laughing "yum!".

They continued in darkness for a moment, before the cart suddenly veered to the right, the small boy in the back making a soft 'oof' underneath the blaring music that came from apparently nowhere at all. Once the turn was made, the darkness gave way to bright, glowing lights, mapping out images of fireworks and dancing beasts and more clowns. Shea found the fact that the beasts were smiling just as wide as the clowns to be the most unpleasant part of it.

Still, the cart carried on, with sharp rises and steep drops, and more turns than he could keep count with. The entirety of the mechanism genuinely could not have been within the tent itself - as large as it was, it wasn't that large. The music playing, as loud as it was, also couldn't completely mask the fact that there was no sound of life outside of their little cart. This space was well beyond where the fairgrounds were. Quite a robust application of magic, Shea thought, even if it was being used on a circus.

Eventually the rails straightened out, and they passed through several open clown and beast mouths, one after the other, until darkness took them again. The cart slowed, and as it did they passed through one final gate, slowing to a crawl and then a stop right by a wooden dock. Once the cart stopped, their safety levers lifted, presumably to allow them to leave the cart and step out onto the dock itself.

Shea gathered himself and rose up out of the cart, stepping down the stairs onto the ground below. He didn't pay his fellow riders much mind, at first -- no, there was something else going on, something profoundly incorrect about this place. It was quiet, and dusty, and had none of the trappings of a vibrant lively festive place.

And Shea still couldn't hear the carnival.

[wandering_giraffe]

The cart stopped with a creak and a jerk. During the ride, her eyes had adjusted pretty well to the darkness. Eerie, psychotic grins flashed by. And from what she could tell, the blood on the walls was real. She should have eaten before she came here. Every time she got a whiff of blood she was getting angrier. She was amoody ready to just attack the poor man sitting next to her. Even for her, the ride was rather unsettling. It wasn't...supposed to be normal for lowly mortals to get a kick out of this stuff.
As soon as the ride stopped, she got out, cursing up a storm and desperately trying to forget about the people that were with her. All she could hear were people's heartbeats...actually she could only hear one normal heartbeat...and that was the young boy. Never mind that. She had to get away. Before she lost control. She couldn't blow her cover here.
"Excuse me," she apologized, her voice coming out as a feral growl, which she did not mean to do, it just happened. That wasn't a good sign...her eyes were going to change next.
She found a spot concealed, or so she thought, by some wooden crates, and crouched down, clutching her head.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck not now! Control yourself damn it!" She could feel her fangs lengthening.
She angrily punched the wooden crate next to her, the crate practically disintegrating from the force of her punch.

[nephero]

The boy, bless his heart, had stepped after the young woman the moment she had gotten off the cart in seeming distress. Shea had only barely had his attention pulled from an ancient-looking poster half-peeling from the wooden walls as the woman punched a crate in a fit of what seemed to be hysterical swearing.

The boy, bless his heart, decided very much against continuing any attempts to assist the woman, and instead stepped back and around Shea's leg to put more distance between himself and the woman. A generally poor decision, on the level of putting a crocodile between oneself and a raging bear.

Shea glanced at the child, before regarding the woman with far more attention than he had previously. The swearing, hysterical or otherwise, did not seem to be brought on by their present predicament in any manner. Indeed, this was not the typical behavior of a human being suddenly discovering they were trapped in a shed at the end of a carnival ride. No, the vast majority of people in such a predicament tended to start beating at walls and doors while screaming for help. They didn't tend to start boxing the furniture.

A very interesting anomaly, that.

"Where's the exit?" asked the boy, scanning the walls in quick glances while still hiding behind him.

Shea took a cursory look as well, before putting it bluntly, "I don't believe this is designed to have one."

He looked back to the woman, and eyed the shards of wood littering the space where the crate had once been.

"Madam, if you would kindly attempt the same strike a bit up and to your left, please." Shea requested, gesturing at the wooden wall beside a set of cabinets stuffed with cobwebs and rolled scrolls.

[wandering_giraffe]

Shea's words cut through her haze like a light through the dark.
She punched where he indicated. Her eyes had changed by this point, her fangs had lengthened fully.
"Get...the boy...out..." she said, breathing heavily, trying to think of anything but the very strong urge to eat both of them.
And then...an eerie, high pitched laugh echoed through the place.