[Moriva System] Carinval Of Doom

[Deziarra]

((OOC: Deziarra is obviously my character, but the others are NPCs created for this plot. Feel free to use any of them, even the seldom seen owners, or add your own. Yori means servant to the public.))

Even during the fiercest wars, people had a need for entertainment. Even during the fiercest wars, there were people capable of taking advantage of the situation and making money off of it. Such wars provided the inspiration for The Traveling Carnival. Currently they had set up camp on a abandoned asteroid in the Moriva system. This location gave them access to many different species throughout the galaxy. They had been there for about six weeks and would stay there for about six more when they would pack up and move to a still undecided location.

The founders of the carnival, an old man and woman of unknown species, had been married for nearly fifty years. Little was known about them because they seldom appeared in public. They lived in a luxurious section of rooms in a restricted part of the carnival where their share of the profits was delivered once a week. They were very rich but it was not known what they actually did with the money.

Yori, a blue skinned Nekovalkyrja walked through the crowd. She was tall and curvaceous with blond hair and dark gold eyes. Her ears were long and catlike and her lips were a bright red. She walked gracefully through the crowd, hardly making a sound. Her outfit consisted of a matching white bikini top, white short skirt, and white high heeled sandals. She was clearly one of the performers.

As she ignored the whistles and cat calls around her, she wondered how she ended up with a job like this. What made her think The Travelling Carnival would be better than joining Star Army of Yamatai? Be it good or bad, her choice was made and she would have to stick to it, at least until she payed back what she owed for her training. At last she reached the recently opened gate near the ticket booths where the morning crowd was just starting to enter.

"Welcome to The Travelling Carnival! My name is Yori!" she announced to anyone bothering to listen. "We have many spectacular events to suit many different types of tastes! Can you withstand the horrors of our haunted house? Submerge yourself in our underwater adventure! Feel the pull of our artificial gravity room! Ride our very own Carnival Express! See artifacts from all over the galaxy or watch acrobats of many different species performing together! The Cave of Wonders can show you many different worlds from many different times, all without leaving the safety of the carnival! Plus much, much more! Absolutely nothing could go wrong!"

That last sentence sounded like just the sentence people say just before something actually did go wrong, but Yori was required to say it so she said it. Still, it gave her an uneasy feeling every time she did.

Without saying a word, Deziarra showed her ticket to Yori an entered the carnival. She had the feeling coming here might have been a mistake.

 

[Floodwaters]

As Deziarra walked through the turnstile, one of the weird-looking decorative plants along the entrance seemed to move of its own accord, spurring itself to life. Once she was over the initial surprise, she noticed that the "decoration" was in fact a living being. It was over two meters tall and covered in a thick, rubbery hide that had an earthy, brownish-green hue to it. It was shaped like a strange, pentagonal barrel that bowed out to its thickest in the middle, and tapered off slightly at the top and bottom. Spindly legs unfolded from its base and skittered across the paved ground with an unnatural gait; the speed at which the little legs whipped and scraped at the ground seemed as if they should be moving the radially symmetric creature much faster than they actually were. Sprouting from the top were five long, mutli-jointed, spindly arms that looked like the legs of an oversized insect, all covered in short, rigid hairs that waved and twitched like feelers.

The creature rotated, moving one of the arms that held a small video screen. Approaching Deziarra, the screen hummed for a second, flickered with static, and then flashed a shaky image of a nondescript, androgynous white humanoid face. The arm next to it held a device that appeared to be a video recorder, or a camera of some kind. The other arms held exotic-looking souvenirs and trinkets, none of which looked the least bit familiar to Deziarra.

The face on the video screen buzzed and flickered again, then with matching facial animation, droned with a monotone, synthesized voice: "A PHOTO OR VIDEO TO COMMEMORATE YOUR TRIP, MADAM?"

 

[Deziarra]

Just Outside The Main Gates

"No thank you," Deziarra repied taking another look at the unusual creature holding the unusual souvenirs and trinkets before heading on.

The later part of her day was already planned out. She would watch her old classmate, Yori, perform her acrobatics show but she had not yet decided what to do until then. The haunted house sounded interesting but haunted houses were common and The Travelling Carnival did not advertise anything that made their haunted house different from any other haunted house.

The Cave of Wonders on the other hand was their main feature. They said it could show many different worlds from many different times. Although mature, she only had the life experience of a human toddler. Reading about ancient cultures just did not seem the same as watching recreations of them. She wondered how it would be done. Would they use holograms, actors, or perhaps both? It was settled. She would head to the Cave of Wonders.


Acrobats Tent

After greeting the customers for awhile, Yori returned to her tent to get ready for her performance. She had risked her life twice a day every day for the better part of a year, today was not going to be any different, and she would have to risk her life another 500 times or so before she payed for all her training. The space explorers risked their lives daily too but it was for a purpose far more noble than simple entertainment. Although mature, she only had the life experience of a human toddler. She had been scammed and the worst thing about it was she could not prove it was a scam.

"Do you ever get tired of doing the same thing over and over again?" she asked the other acrobats.