[MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Corn field next to the inn
WHEN: 31 October, all day and night
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn as appropriate in your subject lines
NOTES: Please make sure you have read and understand the event details! If you have questions, drop them here. RECOMMENDED BUT NOT REQUIRED: Put your SCRUBS COLOR in your OTA subject line for folks doing bingo. Time your OTA for the harvest feast, the masquerade, or both. Costume matches and details for folks who did not get matched are here.

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This morning, our intrepid villagers awoke to a surprise of the nicer kind: A bundle of clothing left at the foot of their bed, tied with a bow. There is also a note: Put on your new outfit and join the festivities in the corn field next to the inn.

You may be thinking, what corn field next to the inn? The one that sprung up fully-mature overnight, of course.

In the middle of the field, villagers will find an autumn feast: Tables piled with harvest time food and drink, warm and rustic decorations, the day's sunshine fending off any chill in the air.

Tuck in and enjoy, villagers, but take note: Things often look different in the dark, and you might be one of them.

Comments

[cryptoherpetology]

"Oh, yeah, don't worry, I'm a herpetoligst," he assures her. "And I've been doing wildlife rescue since I was a kid- wow, I think this guy's actually mammalian." He really can't help but keep getting distracted by the snake like bat in his hand. "He's definitely warm-blooded. Which is pretty fascinating since they are mildly venomous, or so I've read in the town hall records."

There is some unspoken apology in his posture, keeping the animal a bit closer to his own body, keeping its wings tucked in safely so it doesn't hurt itself struggling against him.

[digging]

There are a lot of town records, particularly since Mark moved copies of everything to a public place where everyone can add to them, and Karen is one of the people who keeps them in order. Even now, she's obsessed with looking for patterns in the chaos where she might find them, but her focus has almost entirely been on the people in the village, not the wildlife they encounter. Having had her own dubious run-ins with native species, she realizes now she should have known better.

"So when you say venom, what are we talking about?" she asks, because that thing had literally been in the corn she had just been walking through.

[cryptoherpetology]

"Temporary blindness- though apparently there's some kind of echolocation side effect? I can't say I've experienced it myself, but now that I've caught one, I can hopefully study it a bit more up-close. I'd like to figure out if these guys and the crocodile-dogs are true mammals, or something more like synapsids. The fact that the snakebats are venomous is pretty fascinating, not really a trait you find in many mammals. Not unheard of, but definitely rare."

He's cradling the little creature easily enough that it seems calm in his hands, while also keeping exposed skin as far from the business end of it as he can.

[digging]

"Wait— Echolocation?" Karen repeats, her eyebrows lifting. "Like seeing in the dark."

She's never really talked to Matt about how his powers worked, although she knows he could hear a pin drop five blocks away. If it was something like echolocation — Or hell, even if it wasn't — this could help him. It could be huge.

"How would a person like me get their hands on whatever it is that causes the blindness-echolocation combo from that guy there? The venom or whatever."

[cryptoherpetology]

"Well, assuming it's produced in their fangs, I should be able to milk them for venom- but venomous mammals are pretty rare, I'll have to have a better look at him to be really sure." There's a lot of unspoken curiosity in his eyes- something very akin to a journalist's drive for a story.

"If I had a microscope and a halfway decent lab setup, I could tell you more, maybe even isolate what it is in the venom that causes it."