humiliatious | Cursed Night Market

Entry tags:

event,
night market

Cursed Night Market

Welcome

You’re not sure how you got here, but you don’t seem to mind. You feel a pervasive sense of calm with regard to your environment. You have entered what appears to be a night market. Perhaps the concept is familiar to you, or perhaps it isn’t. Colorful stalls, glowing with lantern light, line the path before you. You know what you need to do to return to where you came from. Investigate the various stalls - buy and sell what you have, until you’re able to purchase a path back. The merchants will take any currency that you have on hand. If you don’t have any, you will find some coins of an ambiguous nature in your pocket.

Rare Items

The first stall that you encounter boasts that you can buy and sell rare items. After trading a coin, the merchant hands you something - insists you take it. You don’t recognize the item, but the person behind you does. It is something extremely dear to them. If they check their person, they will find the item missing. If you attempt to return the item to them, you will find that you are unable to. Helpfully, the merchant offers that the person the item belongs to must tell the buyer a story about the item before it can be returned.

Fortunes

The second stall you encounter claims to buy and sell fortunes. Trading a coin, the merchant will relay to you a fortune, but, as you listen, you realize that it isn’t your fortune at all. With a cackle, the merchant explains that you must deliver the fortune with the person behind you. Neither of you can leave the booth until you have revealed to them their future.

Memories

The third stall you encounter claims to buy and sell memories. You can choose to sell the merchant a memory you would like to forget, or you can ask to buy someone else’s memory. Selling your memory will transfer it to the person behind you. In return, you will gain one of their memories. Buying a random memory will instead cause you to forget one of the people most important to you. In some instances, you might feel a great urgency to find someone, although you don't know who it is.

Dreams

The fourth stall you encounter claims to buy and sell dreams. Trading a coin at this stall will cause you and the person behind you to be transported into a shared dream. The dream may be about the highest point in your life or the lowest. It may also be about a close friend, there or gone. It may reveal your greatest desire or your greatest insecurity. Or any number of other things!

OOC notes

Suggestions on prompts: if you’re going to write one where someone will be seeing/receiving something from your character, it’s helpful to describe it in detail in the brackets in your TL. I know some of these prompts are probably a little confusing, but, I mean…it’s roleplay. Just fuck around. No one’s gonna police how you do things here.

Please feel free to top-level, tag in, and share this meme wherever you’d like - it is open to anyone. The four stalls mentioned are prompt suggestions, but you can go crazy and have any stall do basically anything you want. Please see/use subject line CWs. This musebox doesn’t have a dedicated rule list because it’s just for my personal shit, but please be kind, follow standard RP rules - just be nice! Do the right thing! If you have any questions, hit me up here.

code by Flyleaf ❖ inspired by event code by 10billionghosts ❖ background via unsplash

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hello, small, frail-looking boy. The person in front of you is another small, frail-looking boy—older, but not much taller.

[Ciel is already far more assertive, at any rate. Face pinched in gentle worry, Basil offers a small nod, and simply hands over—

[Well. He lets go, and the ring simply will not drop from his hand to Ciel’s.
[Oh dear.]

U-um… [Basil bobs his hand up and down, as if that might make the ring drop properly. It doesn’t. It’s as if some invisible magnet is embedded under the skin of his fingertips, forcing the ring to stick.] I-I’m sorry, it won’t… drop....

Wh-what is this?!

[It was then that the shopkeeper decided to add in that oh so helpful explanation, that should have honestly been mentioned at the time of purchase! Ciel was about to get indignant but then reality set in.

Oh. Oh no.]

A… story… about the ring.

[Oh. No.]

That’s… what it sounds like…!

[Slight, nervous laugh.]

It’s a lovely-looking ring… [Basil lets his hand hover, should the effect loosen at any point in the story. He pinches it, delicate, between pointer and thumb. Looks can be deceiving....]

[Ciel keep his hand aloft, he’d have to see if he could could get away with telling as little as he possibly could…]

That ring belongs to my family, the Phantomhives, it’s worn by the head of the house, and as the current Earl, it is mine.

[Yeah, nope. Not budging. Okay he’d have to continue- as much as he disliked bringing up his brother.]

There was an incident that lead to the death of my family, and my twin brother and I were kidnapped. He swallowed the ring to keep it away from our captors. It worked…

[STILL NOT BUDGING?! TO HELL WITH THIS ENTIRE PLACE.

No. Nope. Staying calm. Just pretend like it’s a normal everyday thing.]

Though they killed him in the end. I… retrieved the ring.

[Well, he tried to anyway. Someone else did it in the end, but that should be enough for the “story”.

Sorry for any secondhand trauma this causes, Other Kid.]

[Mostly, Basil keeps steady. He can be a good listener, he likes to think, and the ring is clearly very important to the boy. Its story isn’t happy....

[Basil frowns. Family death. A killed brother. The “retrieval” can’t have been pretty, metallic through—

[He kills the thought.] I– I’m sorry.... You’ve had to give up so much....

But… a-at least it’s back to you, where it belongs…? [The smile doesn’t quite make it. Basil looks away. Please fall, ring....]

[Small mercies, the ring does drop into Ciel’s hand before he’s forced to trauma dump more. He’s quick to put it back on his finger where it belongs, then proceeds to glare at it for a moment like the object caused this on purpose.

Then he smooths himself out like it was nothing beyond a mild bother. Don’t worry about it.]

It’s quite alright. It was three years ago now, and I have grown in my role as Earl. It’s fine.

[Just a really bad birthday and subsequent Christmas present.]

I will make it a point to keep a better eye on it, lest it find a way to abscond again.

[As soon as the ring drops, Basil lets out an audible sigh of relief, as if it might be his ring he’s kept tense about. Ciel smooths out, and Basil slumps. The ordeal is over…!

[…Well, maybe? Basil won’t push, but he finds his now-free hands wringing back together. He glances quickly over his shoulder, to see if the merchant’s eavesdropping.]

I-it wasn’t, um… [Hushed, just in case;] your fault, that it went missing....

[With Basil’s head ducked between his shoulders, he’s about eye level with Ciel, if not slightly lower.]

M-maybe we can talk… somewhere else…?

[Truth be told, he’d normally much rather go off on his own. This boy didn’t look particularly useful, but he was one demon short of a bulter, so if nothing else, this might be a case of beggars can’t be choosers. As much as Ciel hates to admit it, once his pistol was out of bullets, he was functionally useless.

So he put on his best “well adjusted member of society” face (a small, normal pleasant smile), and gave the other a small nod.]

Of course, lead the way.

[Lead him anywhere funny and he’ll shoot, though. He’ll probably miss, but it’s the thought that counts.]

[Basil’s not one for crowds, but even he would rather get lost in one than venture into the murky black beyond the market. So it’s just a short walk towards the middle of the market, maybe towards a food stand, away from these suspicious shops—on which note…]

Have you… noticed anything strange? About the stalls?

[Oh, so this one actually decided to observe, more than he expected of most people their age, but he was also rather cynical in that regard. Either way, this made their little meeting all the more fortunate.

He's have sooner jump into the dark void beyond if he'd wound stuck working with someone like that happy-go-lucky lunkhead, Soma.]

I have. They sell deal in things that they should not feasibly be able to.

[Granted he's seen the Grim Reapers separate memory from soul... perhaps these are Grim Reapers who have defected? Well, that's why he was here to investigate in the first place.]

O-oh… that, yes. [It’s not that Basil hadn’t considered it, but that is a new observation to him. He got a little caught up in the very strangeness of such a place, considering.] I was going to say, the big stalls affect everyone in line....

[His fingers weave among themselves. Once, he might have been bold, blithe enough to simply ask the shopkeep what’s happening. Conversations with strangers feel like landmines these days…

[But this boy isn’t so bad.]

Do you… have any idea why they’re doing this?

[Does he know what they’re doing? Technically no, but he has some ideas. Memories were the key to creating sentient undead, however the memories had to belong to the perished individual… as far as he knew.

Anyway, this place is shady and he’s not explaining so that to an innocent bystander.]

I have some ideas, but it’s only theories, and I would rather not jump to conclusions.

[But this boy had noticed something interesting that had escaped his noticed, focused on the objects themselves.]

So, you noticed that the large stalls are restricted to those in their lines… Do you think it’s the lines itself? Or is it based on proximity?

[Because one implied that there has to be an at least partially willing component to it.]

[Ideas, theories… It’s more than Basil has, and he nods. He’s not one to need to know the details, really. Just knowing where people stand is, can be enough for him…

[Literally, too, maybe.]

I’ve seen people turning around a lot, like how I got the ring that was yours… [His eyes flick to the memory booth. Sometimes, the second in line reacts with a start; to what, Basil hasn’t tried to guess. He can’t risk trifling with that one.]

It only seems to happen at those stalls. The item-seller, like we saw, and… stranger offers.

So the question is, what exactly do they gain by these transactions? They’re hardly charging anything, just being pests.

[It was rather far fetched that they’d go through so much trouble just to put other people in uncomfortable situations.

…

Okay, maybe it wasn’t. He knew a handful of people that would do just that. Probably better to focus on the supernatural aspect, he has a feeling learning the reasons behind it would just annoy him.]

And what if there’s only one person in line?

[Basil taps his fingertips together for a moment, thinking. It’s not an offer he’s eager to make, but…]

We can… [It’s better than standing around and letting his neuroses consume him. Then he’ll have to run off into the abyss. That helps no one.] …test it out? I-if you want.

[He notes the other boy's unease and offers his hand for the other to take. As much as it would be nice to be tall and strong, being small and adorable had its uses, in this case it was putting the other youth at ease.]

Let's take a look around together first. Maybe we can watch it happen to someone else while looking for the... least offensive option ourselves.

[It’s a little embarrassing to accept reassurance from someone who seems to be younger, but Basil takes the boy’s hand nonetheless. He hasn’t in so long....]

R-right. [Basil nods, trying to sound affirmative as he ever is—which isn’t much. His hands can grip tight, too tight—and to compensate, his grip is only barely curled.

[Tentatively, he starts walking back towards the stalls.]

Oh, and… what’s your name? Mine is Basil.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cursed Night Market

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The story of that ring is gruesome as a heads up!

I am completely canonblind and good with any content!

Well then big spoilers ahead too

delicious spoilers (on which note, implicit spoils for Basil’s canon here)

Already been spoiled to Omori, go ham!

o7

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