logsinthenight | 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

VISIT: THE NIGHT MARKET

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

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