logsinthenight | VISIT: THE NIGHT MARKET

Entry tags:

VISIT: THE NIGHT MARKET

characters: everyone.
location: the floating night market, docked at the harbor.
date/time: april 10-12.
content: the night market arrives.
warnings: n/a.

and i came down from the stars.

In the wee hours of April 10, strange blue lights appear just under the waves in the harbor, approaching the dock, until they finally surface entirely. They're submarines, glowing a dim blue now that they're up out of the water, and the fleet is four vessels strong. They've brought with them a floating bridge system to attach to the harbor's main dock to allow access to all four submarines, and they start to unpack...

By "morning", under the light of the full moon, the Night Market is open for business!

This time, it's four vendors that arrive:
Pluto, the Night Market's leader, who rolls out of her submarine in a custom-built wheelchair.

Catherine, a coy-eyed blonde with a bombshell choice of wardrobe, who appears to be somehow teeming with secrets.

Variks, the Loyal, a prison warden who deals in all variety of secrets.

John Silver, an opportunistic cook who spent his life aboard a space pirate ship.

They've brought a handful of helpers with them to set up the market and run the various booths and games. Though they have no torches among them, the docks are lit with the blue glow of the submarines, their lights rippling slowly in intricate patterns and shapes, reminiscent of carnival lights.

•••
Accepted currencies at the Night Market include: Building and scrap materials, old tablets, old lanterns, captured forest spirits, torches, information, and most importantly... Plutonium. Of course, attempting to barter is always an option... but these currencies are your best bet for dealing with the various vendors offered by the Night Market.

All purchases must be logged on the Night Market purchase page while the market is open! Backdated purchases won't be accepted. However, as long as transactions are started ICly while the market is open, you're welcome to belatedly submit those transactions to the purchase page. Please do your best to log the purchases as close to the window as possible, though!

Congratulations to Sydney and King who won our last AC lottery for a chance to play Night Market shopkeepers! Sydney is playing Variks and King's playing Silver! Be sure to hit up these awesome shopkeepers up under the NPC header below! And as a reminder, please direct all plot questions/topics to one of the mod NPCs, as our players and discord mods aren't given any plot info beyond what's already available in the game. This visit, Danielle is playing Catherine, so she can answer plot questions, along with Pluto. P is for plot!

Here are the vendors and their inventories for the current Night Market visit:
PLUTO
Special orders - Pluto can procure items just like Rastus, but she can get you specific goods from homeworlds. The more specific the request, the more it will cost. Items ordered through Pluto will arrive on the next ferry.

Heals - A borrowed gun-looking device allows Pluto to heal even the most grievous of injuries. This item doesn't belong to her, though, so... results may vary

CATHERINE
Confession - In the place of a standard vendor's stall is a small, modest confessional. Catherine keeps the door open on the priest's side, sitting inside it while she waits for her customers. Feel interested in airing out your grievances? Well, it might not be an official sort of purge, but hop into the curtained compartment and she'll give you a non-judgmental ear to listen. Just don't ask for advice; she's not here to give it. But if you want to pray to her, well, she won't object to being treated like a Goddess.

A brief reunion - Just want to see someone's face again? A friend, a family member, someone you miss more than anyone else you've ever known? It seems that this mysterious lady has a knack for sensing who it is you desire to see again the most. Exactly how this works, she's not inclined to share, and unfortunately there's no real way to provide you with who it is she's able to show you... but a few meaningful moments could mean some peace of mind for some people.

Adult toys - A padlocked trunk full of specialty toys and supplies (and apparent torture devices?) to tide over any individual who would consider themselves properly kinky (or perhaps just a tad adventurous in their intimate exploits). Anyone over the age of eighteen is free to browse the wares, but the stall's keeper will keep it locked for anyone who died before reaching a legal age of adulthood. Sorry, kids. Maybe when you've been dead for a few more years.

VARIKS, THE LOYAL
Restraints & prison supplies - Cages, shackles, handcuffs, chains, rope. Want to keep a forest spirit (or fellow resident) contained and restrained? He's got you covered. Maybe it's for their own good, he may be the Kell of the House of Judgement but he won't question your motives too hard. What he has on display is mostly person-sized restraints and smaller cages for trapping forest spirits to use as currency elsewhere in the Night Market. But if you need something specific he may be able to accommodate.

Lantern shells - Tired of carrying the same lantern around day after day? Change how it looks with a lantern shell. The "shell" looks like a shimmery 12-sided die in various colors but touch it to your lantern and it'll be absorbed and change your lantern into a specific color / shape / size, etc. They can be removed at will and return your lantern to it's default look. Get multiple shells and have a different lantern every day of the week! You're only as fashionable as your Ghost. Er. Lantern.

ACCEPTED CURRENCIES - He'll take all the basics, with a preference for lanterns or lantern pieces, and also secrets. Secrets can be about yourself, others, places, the Wild Hunt... The juicier the secret the more valuable it is to him. He probably won't tell Pluto. Probably.

JOHN SILVER
Ready-made meals - This extremely personable vendor will greet you jovially and invite you up in a very thick, very pirate-y accent— though it's probably not him that draws you up so much as the mouth-watering smell of cooking food. He has a number of ready-made meals, but he can also whip up something special if you have a specific request. And when he says specific, he MEANS specific... looking at those of you with Certain Dietary Requirements.

Bonza Beast Stew: What's a Bonza Beast? Who knows! Where did he find one on this planet? You'll never find out, because it's a secret recipe. Have a bowl of this hearty stew, though, and you'll find that you'll be pleasantly warm and happy for a good long while.

Wild Rosemary Quiche: Vegetarian and beautifully fragrant. Consuming this will make you particularly nimble for a while.

Fish & Chips: What is says on the tin and possibly the best you've ever had. Wonder what that fish is...? The only side effect is that you have an almost insatiable desire to go swimming. Might want to be careful with that one...

Steamed Buns: A meaty option and the veggie option. Both buns will increase good fortune for a limited period of time.

Apple Rose Puffs: Sweet and delicate, they will also leave you smelling sweetly of flowers for hours afterward.

Baklava: Nutty and sweet, after eating this you feel compelled to say whatever kind things you've been feeling or have been on your mind.

Moonshine: No side effects, unless you count getting completely blasted very quickly.

You can also purchase ready-made packages of ingredients with a written recipe included to take home and cook for later! Except the Moonshine. That you'll have to buy directly.

Poisons - Ask the right questions, and you can get access to Silver's under-the-counter stash of goods. "Poisons" here is used loosely, as it includes concentrated doses of all sorts of concoctions. This includes: deadly poisons of varying intensities, poisons that induce sleep, poisons that will warm you from the inside or that will give you a bone-deep chill, poisons that are actually venom you can put on a blade, etc. All poisons are good for 2 doses, so use them wisely.

Repairs - Nothing too complicated, mind! Silver is good with mechanical fixes, but not with anything too delicate.

ACCEPTED CURRENCIES - Silver accepts all the regular kinds of currencies, but he does have a preference for gossip (which he loves), information, and building/scrap materials. He will also gleefully take recipes your character might know and ingredients that have been foraged or brought from the ferry as a form of payment. Keep in mind that the more you ask for, the more you will have to pay— and those poisons don't come cheap.

DR. SCHICKSAL'S HINT-O-MATIC
AMA - Does your character have any burning questions they just need to have answered? Dr. Schicksal's Hint-O-Matic is a phonebooth-looking device with a screen prompting the user to input a question. When a question is asked, Dr. Schicksal's Hint-O-Matic will spout out an answer! Questions can be typed in via keypad or spoken aloud, and answers will be automatically read aloud for characters that can't read the screen. These answers are always true, no matter what the question, but this information comes at a cost—your character will be blessed with a random status effect for the remainder of the month. We will check permissions posts before issuing a status effect, and please keep in mind that these effects stack! 😃 Each question you ask it (or say at it, rhetorically or otherwise) will "cost" one status effect. And, yes, you can literally ask anything.

Finally, please use the Night Market Purchases page for all transactions! We're changing this up from how we did it last time so that we can better keep track of what's going where. You're still welcome to thread out purchases on this log, though! Just be sure to note it on the purchase page, as well.
•••
Other than the vendors, the Night Market has brought with them the following attractions:
COFFEE CART - The coffee cart offers every variety of hot drink a person could fathom, and it's complimentary! A few small tables have been set up in front of the cart around an outdoor heater, glowing happily as it warms this little section of dock.

CANDY SHOP - Sweet treats offered at the candy shop are also free for the taking, but be careful—some treats carry with them a random status effect that will last for the next hour. The treats and resulting status effects are left entirely up to you players, so feel free to create your own hijinx! This is us trusting you not to break the game, so don't abuse this privilege, and feel free to ask us if you're unsure about limitations! Not all treats will produce an effect, but those that do will have no tells, meaning characters will not be able to strategize when eating the candy. (In meta terms: if you want your character to engage in wacky bullshit, but they're a party pooper and hate fun and wouldn't willingly indulge, this is your opportunity to trick them into shenanigans.)

CARNIVAL GAMES - The small section of carnival games includes ring toss, skeeball, balloon darts, a shooting gallery, a fishing game, a plinko game, and an RC racing game with toy vehicles. The rules are all somewhat nebulous, but feel free to play out your characters interacting with these games on your own! They're all free to play, and prizes include knitted forest spirit plushies, wind-up goldfish that float through the air, and buckets of those plastic spider rings and finger topper guys that cost like one ticket apiece at Swings-N-Things.

WHACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MEN - They are also here, and they have a jukebox with them with an unfathomably large selection of songs. This area of the dock is probably meant for dancing.

QUICKNAV
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"Right," he says with a nod. "Sun goes around a whole turn, that's a day. And the world's definitely a sphere. I've never sailed all the way around it myself, that's pretty hard to do, but it's obvious it all connects up or none of our navigation tools would work."

Poor guy must have come from a world without the sort of knowledge he takes for granted and is having it all thrown at him at once. But Rosinante is happy to explain as much as he can, even if that isn't really all that much. Having been on Ephrim's end in a dozen conversations just like this since his own arrival, he can completely sympathize.

Ephrim breathes in, breathes out. "And this... 'planet' we are on, you and I, revolved around the sun when it was here."

He's had about two weeks to absorb that he was on some equivalent of a ball, with a mysterious force called "gravity" that sticks him to its surface, without getting revolutions and day cycles mixed up in it all, but he's... managing. The very rules of the universe differ so much from his own, but the fundamentals of how the stars, the sun, and the moon work here is necessary, he thinks. At least for the purposes of how "normal" works here, and what signs one might look for when returning to the quo.

"The suns were not stars, where I come from. When we had a sun, or a few suns, they traveled around us. Lanterns guided by the will of their creator." He closes his eyes, begins to recite. "'We float on nothing. There is no foundation, there is no fundament, there is only us.'" He opens his eyes again. "There was no roundness to Hieron. The concept is... difficult to grasp. Forgive me if I ask the obvious of you."

This planet revolved around the sun? Really? News to him, but again, he's heard so many strange things here by now that while it comes as a surprise, it's not more of a surprise than magic or returning from the dead.

The rest is interesting too, in its own mysterious way that stories of people's worlds often are here. Interesting, and well beyond his understanding of how worlds are supposed to work. "A flat world? I can't even imagine what that's like," he says, puzzled. "How does the water keep from falling off?"

Because of course that's the first thing he thinks of.

The first thing Ephrim did when he got to Beacon was hide in the library, find as many books about Earth and the Milky Way as he could, and study. He was an excellent pupil as a young man, enjoys learning in a way that he enjoys very little else in life. He probably should have been a researcher or some sort of archivist. Samothes had other plans for him.

Ephrim looks back at Rosinante, level. This isn't going into personal territory, not yet, and Ephrim would prefer to keep it that way, but it's an earnest question, and it feels as though Rosinante's done him a good turn at some point.

"Gods." It's not a sufficient answer, seeing as how that some Beaconites have no religion at all. Ephrim organizes his thoughts. "There was... a wall between the realm of reality and what lay beyond. The realm that we called Hieron was physical. Material. What lay beyond was nothing. The two rejected each other, like... perhaps two magnets. The ocean, being a material thing, was inclined to stay within the boundary. It broke, eventually, but that was the idea, as far as I understand it." That was long ago, though. Hieron's oceans haven't existed for at least four years.

"We... the church taught that the goddess Severea bound the waters to the oceans against the God-King Samothes' will." Ephrim pauses. He doesn't have it in him to still be angry about this, so he trudges on, toneless. "She was more of a hobbyist. I don't doubt that she shifted the waters of Hieron here and there over the last several millennia, but there was no need to keep it bound. It simply was. Materiality - how and why things were the way they were - were another god's realm."

He's trying to keep up, really he is, but the names of so many people and places and gods (apparently) end up being dropped in that it's hard to follow all of it. The magnet analogy sticks, but it makes him frown. A flat land, adjoined by another flat land, with a sort of repellent barrier between the two? Worlds shaped by the whims of gods, which he is always skeptical about, for in his life such apparent divine magnificence is the result of cruelty and extreme narcissism, such as Marie Geoise's spectacular moving walkways operated by slaves hidden underground.

Other worlds don't have to follow the rules he expects them to and maybe in some places there are beings that could perhaps acceptably be called gods, but he'll take the label with a grain of salt.

"I... can't say I completely follow," he admits. "But I won't assume to know better. I've learned so far in this place that the universe where all our worlds reside is much more varied than I would ever have imagined."

Ephrim doesn't expect it to make much sense upon the first pass. He realized that the initial explanation didn't involve any gods and didn't want that part to come off as tangential. The image that Rosinante has is inaccurate, but close enough that Ephrim wouldn't be too bothered about any confusion on Rosinante's part. It's not important, anyway.

Ephrim wouldn't mind Rosinante not believing much in gods. He's met them, of course, but pedantry about believing in the tangible versus the imaginary aside, they were as prone to despair and bad decisions as anyone else. A lack of certainty isn't a particularly god-like quality, he thinks. What was the point of having the power to create and destroy reality when they were too caught up in their doubts to save their own creations? Cruelty is one thing, complacency verging on self-destruction is another. No. Ephrim doesn't believe in gods, either.

Ephrim is back to looking at the stars again. "We were in a jar, then. The jar kept the nothing out, and that which was reality in. There was an edge to the oceans, of course, but we were discouraged from trying to find it." Simple as that. (Not really, but expanding the metaphor is pretty worthless right now.) "I am also hesitant to believe that our universes were one in the same, but perhaps your oceans came from a time when Severea was strong."

A jar, huh. All right. At least it's easier to picture - not as a literal jar, but a world with a clear boundary, stuck in some sort of metaphysical container. Sounds awful, but perhaps if it was where he grew up and didn't know any better, it would be acceptable enough.

The second part of Ephrim's comment is something he's thought about here from time to time, though he still doesn't have a great answer for it. These topics are too big and too above him. "Why do you say they couldn't be in the same universe? It sounds like universes are enormous places. Lots of worlds all across that sky up there. We have our ocean sphere, you have your jar, and they might be years apart from each other."

It was quite a large jar. And people did love Samothes, trusted the word of his church. Very few people realized anything was wrong at all.

"Were we all in the same universe," Ephrim says, slowly; not out of fear that Rosinante won't understand, but out of putting words to thoughts he hadn't considered saying out loud before, "your world would have been in another jar. Trapped, surrounded by nothing." He pauses, thinking. "Perhaps it was. A jar with planets floating within." It's not entirely out of the question.

But. "If that is so, perhaps I would amend my statement. I... would hope that we did not float in the same nothing. That there is no jar containing your universe. I would not wish that upon your oceans."

"Do all worlds in a universe have to follow the same rules? Why not jars over there, spheres over there?" he asks, indicating each "there" with a hand pointing at different parts of the sky.

It's not like he's insistent that they're part of the same universe exactly, just confused. Enough people have suggested there is more than one universe, just like there is more than one world. The latter seems obvious, but the former not so much. If there are more worlds than there are stars in the sky, why does there need to be more room for all of them than what's up there? Isn't all that a lot already?

It's not a matter of what's necessary to sustain life, it's a matter of what is and what isn't. Or, in Ephrim's case, what came to be as a part of the universe's balance, or what came as a result of a freak accident, doomed to a slow death.

A silence as Ephrim processes that. "It seems as though you would tell me that your planet of oceans and my world in a jar could exist out there," he says, finally. He nods toward the heavens. "That if one could take some space-worthy vessel and travel far enough, in precisely in the right direction, we would arrive at our former homes. Do I understand you correctly?"

"Right, that's how I understand it. Or how I thought I did. I know some people here say there might be more than one universe too, but to me it sounds like that just makes things more complicated. Lots of space up there already."

In his mind that's just simpler, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the suggestions of multiple parallel universes are likely given he's the only one who seems to think it's unlikely, and what does he know about any of this?

Still, Ephrim seems to be asking about the nature of the void and the worlds in it in a way he understands somewhat intuitively. "It's like islands in an ocean. Lots of places different from each other out there. You just have to know the right way to go."

Ephrim is silent. This explains a great deal about Rosinante in ways that were puzzling to Ephrim before. He finally looks down at the water again, watching the starlight warp along the waves.

"I shall not disavow you of your beliefs, and I would hope that your world still exists," Ephrim says, "but my home is certainly not among these stars. Or if it is, it's so far away that, should I choose to find it, I most certainly wouldn't remember the purpose of my search by the time I arrived, nor why it was of any importance." He shakes his head. "And that would truly make thoughts of my own world truly irrelevant, would it not?"

Would it? Maybe. Rosinante doesn't exactly have a direct answer for a question like that, but instead looks down at Ephrim while Ephrim looks out at the lake. What a strange, strange place he must come from if he's so certain of these facts.

"So what do make of a place like this, then? A spherical world. No gods, no jar. Stuck somewhere between life and death."

Broad question. Ephrim picks it over in his head, decides on first the intent, and then how he'd like to answer. What would give him the advantage, what would impress or dismay Rosinante. What puts him in a position of strength.

Then again, this is no court, no diplomatic foray. Perhaps he doesn't have to think quite so hard.

"Unnatural," is what he goes with, finally. "It does not agree with me. I would prefer death in my world than death here." He would have been in good company. With those he'd found... agreeable, over time.

He doesn't look back at Rosinante, pauses to pick over his words again. Yes, he doesn't have to be careful, but that doesn't mean he has to be overly familiar. "Knowing where I was going was... a great comfort to me, in the days leading to the end. Had I the choice, I would not stay here."

It's not a completely unexpected reply. Rosinante himself had been unsure when arriving here as to how to proceed and what to make of his second shot at life. If he didn't have someone at home to continue to protect, he has little doubt he would still be struggling with this same question. He had lived his life; had accepted the decisions he made in it, for better or for worse, and had given up his own dreams and aspirations in order to ensure another's survival. That was fine with him. He didn't need more, let alone a more encased in eternal darkness and frequent misery.

But he has new dreams, now. Not better ones, just more of them, including some things he even wants for himself for the first time instead of others only. Beacon has given him that, and for that it deserves some credit.

"I understand," he says. "I mean that. But give it time. You might find something worth holding onto here."

If not, Ephrim wouldn't be the first to wander off into the woods and leave his lantern behind.

Odd to think that the pursuit of his own wildly selfish dreams, and achieving those dreams, and living a life filled with grandeur and wonder, landed him here. One armed, alone, far from the place he put over a decade of his life into making his home. A home now vanished.

Tired. Soul and bone, tired.

He looks down, finally, puts his coffee cup on the wood next to him and takes up the strap for his lantern.

"If I must persist, then perhaps I will." He loops the strap over his head and settles it on his shoulder. He was never much good at letting a bad solution go unchallenged, after all. Not when he can do better. "I do not doubt that Beacon is a worthy home for some." He doubts it is for him, but he's sure he doesn't have to say that.

"What have you promised to yourself, then? A chance to sail back to your oceans somewhere in the stars?" Ephrim doesn't look up at Rosinante as he says that, busying himself with his preparations to leave.

"I don't expect I can go back, not like this." Maybe it's easier for him to remember he's dead, though. Most of the others haven't been marked by Beacon the way he has been. If faced with too much sunlight, would he, too, disperse into gemstones?

"But because I know the world eaters are out there, I want to stay and figure out how to kill the one here. If we can do that, we can try and send the solution out to those stars and their worlds. Help everyone up there fight back against them before every world turns dark. We can save more than just Beacon."

He rises and dusts himself off as Rosinante speaks. There are places in Hieron with no sun to speak of, he thinks. Somewhere deep within the twisted, broken remains of the Rhizome, in the deepest pits of Adularia. That is closer to home than here. And the Queen would be there, and Hella Varal with her. And Hella would tell Hadrian to meet him there sometimes, and then...

And then. Ephrim shakes his head once, firmly. There is no "and then".

"It's a kind thing to say, Rosinante." Ephrim doesn't look at him as he says it, stoops down to take his cup up by its rim. It's not an accusatory tone, and Ephrim is careful not to make it so. If anything, it's more like a quiet warning. Or a question. "One might say too kind. The sort of kindness that may falter in the face of impossible decisions."

"You're not the first to accuse me of that," he says, making no move to follow as he turns his gaze back to the stars and has a look around for whichever spot needs targeting next.

"But so far, here, it's served us well. I'd rather err on the side of too kind over too cruel, if it's going to be one or the other."

It's never so black and white, and he's done his share of unkindnesses anyway. But here, people take him for some kind of gentle optimist, and if that's how they see him it doesn't do any of them any harm. It's a useful way to be perceived when you do truly want everyone to work together - or at least listen when you ask them to do so.

"Have a good night, Ephrim."

Perhaps Ephrim is growing complacent, or perhaps he truly doesn't feel the need to lead this conversation, both of which mean he is growing far too tired. Not of this conversation, although he does want to make his way home, to bed, and then to whatever waits in the morning. Just tired.

It would be so easy. No one is so altruistic without reason. There's something to use here. Find it.

"And you, Rosinante," Ephrim says instead, bowing his head and walking back toward the bonfire.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

VISIT: THE NIGHT MARKET

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thank fucking christ this tag has been missing physically from this thread for like two days

omg?? why dw

dreamwidth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3abPnEEGE

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