[Network] Collecting Information

[bloodalwaystells]

Who: Andrew Jaeger
Username: a.jaeger
Warnings: CW: Body horror, burns, mass burning deaths, human sacrifice. More will be added as needed



Good evening, all. For those I haven't met yet, my name is Andrew Jaeger and I'm looking to compile the information gathered in light of tonight's rather disturbing events. After several discussions, it seems like some of us have different information and I'm looking to put it all in one place, discuss it, and if possible, decide on a course of action.

I'll start by reviewing what I've been able to discover about the carnival over the course of this week:

* The Funhouse seems to have some sort of disorienting effect for those that go through it. I suffered this myself as well as witnessing others affected. I...found myself chasing someone that wasn't there, and when I came to, I was very confused and upset. I had been chasing an innocent bystander instead.

[That's hard to admit, but he does anyway. It's important that all the details are there for people, even the ones that hurt.]

* Photographs of the building reveal nothing concrete, though I did find some distortion around the ticket booth when I took shots of that. More on that later.

[He'll enclose those photographs here: there is some blurriness and warping around the ticket booth. Maybe he just took some bad pictures? Maybe, but the ones he took of the Funhouse look perfectly fine.]

* A psychic investigation of the ticket booth confirms that the train jumped the rails and crashed into a wall at the trainyard, then burned with people trapped inside.

I did catch something interesting before the fire, however, from the people in the car before the crash: "The end that will be a new beginning". This is a theme that seems to recur with the circus, so I thought it was worth noting.

* I don't believe that Pyre is human. If he is, he's possessed of some kind of unnatural power. He apparently has some sort of criminal history, possibly arson, that Fenix helped him out of, and he started out at the circus doing technical work before he began his show. He seems very loyal to Fenix, and very enamored with the idea of fire in general. "Wax poetic" in his own words...

I also witnessed him melt his hand down to the bone, and then regenerate it. He did this right in front of me, inside his private tent while we talked. I didn't see any signs of accelerant or pyrotechnics, he just snapped his fingers and his hand burned.

[Yes, that last bit gets added casually, because isn't that the sort of thing that happens all the time? Of course it does.]

* If the circus is drawing power from the fear they inflict during their shows, I'm worried about the possibility of a mass-casualty event. If the train wreck was some kind of offering or sacrificial rite, then another certainly isn't out of the question. I hope I'm reaching, here, but I'm not sure that I am.

I'm available to talk publicly or privately about any of these details, if it helps anything, but I would very much like to hear from anyone who talked to the other employees of the circus or found anything else of note. I haven't shared the information given to me by other ADI investigators, I'll leave it to those individuals to jump in with what they have.

Thank you for your time, and I hope this helps us form a clearer picture of exactly what's going on and what we're meant to do about it.

Comments

un: jelica

[musicdied]

"Wax poetic"? Was he overly fond of puns, did you notice?

[bloodalwaystells]

He made a couple of comments that seemed to amuse him a great deal. He talked about "waxing poetic". That he "rose above" his fear of doing the act for the first time. And that he "reshaped" himself for his new life at the circus.

Honestly, he sounded a bit drunk during some of the conversation. High on adrenaline, perhaps, or just very excitable, but he seemed to find a great deal of things entertaining.

[musicdied]

I wasn't able to see as much of their train as I would have liked, but the cars I did see were covered in candles. Beeswax, I think, by the smell. Fire and melting things are an obsession for more than just him.

I don't know if it would be useful, but I have one.

un: shiroe - open to threadjacking!

[guildmastermind]

There's a little more to speak of, regarding Pyre. He's a new addition to the circus, having joined them late this year. He's been in the background most of the time, and this was his first public performance. I spoke to Pyre after his show, and 'provoked' him sufficiently that he attacked me--when he hit me, his hand was made of molten wax that burned my skin.

Now, the circus did not have a stop in Gloucester scheduled, but they chose to make one now, 100 years after the other circus train derailed. That, combined with the above about Pyre's performance seems like they were trying to make some sort of point here. We know there are greater entities feeding on fear. If they got a small dose of it here, I don't want to imagine what they'll get further north, when they stop in Boston.

Fenix Down's name and Pyre's act both speak to a theme of rebirth. In video games (notably the Final Fantasy series), a "Phoenix Down" is a revival item that can be used when a member of your party is defeated in battle. Pyre the Phoenix rose from his own ashes. While a direct connection can't be drawn (to my knowledge) between this and the derailment, coming back 100 years later feels like a cycle coming back to the start/endpoint.

It's interesting to note Jaeger mentioning the snap Pyre used to return his hand to normal, above. We saw Fenix snap at the end of Pyre's performance, before he stood up again--back to normal. A somatic component to whatever's going on, possibly. Something to pay attention to in the future. If someone had prevented either of them from snapping, would the burning simply have continued?

[bloodalwaystells]

I personally can vouch for the burns, and that they were indeed made by molten wax. And I hope you're feeling a little better.

That's an interesting question. Magic in my world doesn't tend to require gestures, some people simply use them to help focus. So I can't speak with any authority about that, but it is an interesting "tell" to watch for.

I'm still learning how magic in this world functions. ADI told us some, but it still leaves a lot of details and nuances.

I find it very curious that they decided to stop here. Did they know about ADI's presence here? I'm still not certain that the train crash was a sacrifice, but I have to admit it lines up in disturbing ways.

[There are a lot of questions that Jaeger still can't answer. And it's bothering him a great deal.]

un: aberration

[aelwyn_aberration]

I talked to Pyre too. He got very offended when I insinuated that people actually got hurt and that he fed on pain. He was very adamant that it was all a smokeshow and that they got their power by feeding off of what people thought would happen rather than any actually suffering infilicted.

Of course, when I did the exact same thing to him and pretended that I was aspiring to avatarhood and threatened to kill him as a way to feed whichever God I'd be feeding, he got very upset and angry. So methinks he's not particularly good at taking it.

I don't know how true his claims of cruelty free fear feeding is, but at the very least he seems to believe it. That being said, he was painfully stupid.

[guildmastermind]

I'm not sure if I'd call him stupid, but certainly naive, lonely and easy for Fenix to manipulate. Desperate for attention and validation. I can see just how it happened...

It makes me wonder if there are other people with powers who could be so easily picked up by groups like the circus, turned to the cause of spreading fears.

Re: un: aberration

[bloodalwaystells]

Well, it seems the direct approach was informative, then.

[You like dangerous games, don't you, Aelwyn?]

But he knew what you were talking about. That they *are* gaining power from the shows. And when he burned his hand in front of me, he seemed disappointed that I wasn't frightened.

He seems very much in Fenix's thrall, if nothing else. And caught up in his own power.

un: cupkate

[bossyboiler]

No one's mentioned the fliers yet but they were paying people a hundred-dollars to put them up. [ Look. A hundred-dollars is a hundred-dollars. It was supposed to have been easy money but no! ]

I'm not sure how far into it when it started. It may have been halfway, I'm not sure. At any rate, I started to feel as though I had to put as many as I could up. [ And with Kate that meant putting them up perfectly level and secured with more than one piece of tape because she's like that. ] I didn't notice it though until I was out of fliers.

I wonder if the residents of Gloucester felt any compulsion from them to visit the fair. If the goal was to feed off of fear, then it would stand to reason that they would want as many people as possible to attend.

[bloodalwaystells]

That's an interesting point as well. Putting up fliers isn't something I'd usually take the time to do, but I was doing it too.

[Well, a hundred dollars is nice, but still.]

With the circus pretty much over, it might be difficult to investigate at this point but it's worth adding to the file at the very least. Perhaps pick up a couple from the walls just to see if there's any traces of anything unusual about them.

[bossyboiler]

I remember where I put them up. I wonder if they're still there. I mean, they couldn't have all been removed overnight.

[ She remembers where she started anyway. ]

un: strange

[sorser]

Regarding the derailment that this all seems to be connected to, I think it’s time to start questioning ADI about their potential involvement in the incident.

[You reading this, ADI? Well, Stephen doesn’t appear to care.]

As insinuated not-so-subtly by one Mr. Fenix Down.

[aelwyn_aberration]

[Oh, we're being open about how suspicious we find them now?]

Probably not a bad idea, but I think developing a plan of action away from where they'll be watching is probably for the best.

Still, live your life. The direct approach can also work.

[sorser]

Well, I’m definitely not going to tell someone how they should spearhead their own investigation. Just getting the word out.

[The word that ADI is sure to notice, one way or another. That’s the idea.]

Alternately, I’m also just screaming into the figurative void with the hopes that someone will climb down from the upper rungs of the ADI ladder and speak on this matter. The direct approach is worth the effort.

un: shiroe

[guildmastermind]

Oh, that's an interesting thought, and it would give Fenix and his circus a reason to stop here. 100 years later, for the sake of revenge. And if the other circus was anything like this one--which is possible from its name, Smoke and Mirrors Acting Troupe--perhaps ADI would have had a reason for the derailment, wanting to ensure they didn't reach the bigger cities.

[sorser]

A conclusion that we could have drawn sooner if ADI, assuming it’s true, had been transparent about the derailment in the first place.

It feels redundant to send us in to investigate, unless they’re using us to verify the circus’ bad intentions. And if that’s the case, the next thing we should be asking is “what now?”

un: cupkate

[bossyboiler]

Penny stated that they stopped here almost at the last minute.

un: jelica

[musicdied]

There were rumors that the owner of the Smoke and Mirrors Troupe was involved in the occult.

If Fenix Down was not just trying to sow discord to put us at each other's throats instead of his, maybe the ADI one hundred years ago was more direct in dealing with magical things.

[sorser]

Of course there were.

[Dry. Should he even be surprised at this point?]

That might be the case, but even if ADI doesn’t subscribe to “the ends justify the means” anymore, I’d still like to know why they didn’t bother to mention any of this in their briefings.

Not exactly a small detail you leave out and hope no one discovers it. There’s more to this story.

[bloodalwaystells]

Misdirection and chaos certainly seems to be part of Fenix's act, I wouldn't put it past him. He's a showman at heart, that type of personality tends to thrive on what they create.

I agree that we need more information about this, preferably from ADI themselves.

un: alexreagan

[11calls]

He insinuated it to me as well. Fenix told me that a "Mr. Charles Moore" was the one who had witnessed 'Apex Detectives' around the day before the derailment. Moore was apparently a performer from the 1910 circus--a magician-- who wasn't on the train. When I asked about the age gap between them, Fenix said that he was very young and Moore was very old. He was very cagey about where Moore may have lived or been buried but he Fenix did mention his own stomping grounds in Maine.

[Stephen King country, not really all that reassuring.]

Something else to consider: he definitely made a mention to circus folks being "slippery as seals." Given everything that happened last month with the selkies I really don't think it was a coincidence given his other choices of word play.

un: max

[carmesi]

About the Fun House.

There was a mirror at the center of the maze. It felt strange, so I tried to move it or get a read on it of sorts. I wasn't able to move it entirely, but I felt the magic I used being reflected back to me. (I know, it's a mirror. Funny.) There is no reason why I should have been affected by it.

When I exited the maze I experienced similar hallucinations as you—and what I can assume others, as well—did.

[bloodalwaystells]

Mirrors can be used in all sorts of magic where I'm from, so I wouldn't be surprised to find something attached to it. If those who didn't complete the maze weren't affected by the confusion, it seems like that last mirror at the end might have had something to do with it. It certainly stands out.

Thank you for the information. I trust you're feeling better now?

un: freakscene

[cacophonish]

i was talking to some of the guys who work there and they said fenix drug tests everyone
he's really strict about it
its like a one strike your out thing

that's weird right? i mean i've never heard of anyone drug testing carneys before

[ Okay, so maybe it looks like he's contributing nothing but a silly detail, but it COULD be relevant to something. Drugs might interfere with some of the magic here, or they need everyone to have clear heads to properly collect their fear or...

(Or maybe Fenix is just really serious about potential liabilities.)

Maybe somebody smarter than Jeff can do something with this tidbit. ]

[bloodalwaystells]

I haven't spent enough times around carnivals to know if that's normal, but it's worth nothing in any case. It *does* sound very strict, but it's also the kind of line of work where you don't want your employees compromised in any way. Too many chances for accidents, I suppose?

But thank you for the information. I'll add it to the file.