บท 155: 152 Walpurgis Banquet
A/N: I'll add a map, so don't worry about remembering who's where.
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Olympic Mountains, Washington, November 15th, 14:41.
The time has finally come.
It is finally, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 time to commence the first ever proper Clown meeting, pending a better name.
I'm the only one here right now, having been the one to call the meeting into order in the first place, which leaves me with plenty of time to admire the scenery.
Naturally, I decided that we should have a suitably dramatic meeting location, and since it is only for meetings, there are only two rooms, one to arrive in and a bigger one to actually hold the tea party in.
The most strikingly noticeable thing however, is the fact that the building is sitting thousands of feet up in the air, suspended between a few mountains by glass pillars that cause it to seem as if it is floating.
The main hall is a dodecagon in shape, with each of the twelve walls having large open arches that serve as windows to the amazing scenery, as well as open doors, should anyone feel like jumping.
The floor is a tan colour that has been polished to perfection, with twenty four identical and symmetrical markings of gold filigree, filled with swirls and aesthetic taste, that each lead to the massive, opulent round table in the centre of the room.
A chair sits alone inside each of the areas marked by gold, with the size of the hall allowing for plenty of space between each of them. Though, despite calling them chairs, it would be more accurate to call them thrones.
The thrones are ivory white, filled with sporadic engravings that don't seem to form any sort of pattern or meaning, yet still manage to look pleasing to the eye, with some more gold filigree trimming along the edges.
Like the floor and thrones, the table too is decorated with light engravings that remind one of a pretty garden, with only the centre of the table being filled with gold.
The arches match the theme, only with their engravings being more Nordic, to match the style of the arches in the first place, and the gold filigree leads up the walls and all the way to the ceiling, where it paints out a most confusing scene.
The mural itself doesn't seem to make any sense, as it shows a large battle between armies that takes up most of the space, except when you actually look closer, most of the 'fighters' are not fighting, instead they are dancing and dining, their weapons actually instruments of music, their spilled guts simply snacks for the apparent party.
It depicts a scene of madness, and in the centre of it all is a round table with sixteen beings sat around it sharing tea, none of them are human, being either simple animals, like a cat or a hare or even an alligator, but some are simply formless shapes or odd polygons, each merrily sipping a blood red liquid from their teacups.
Hanging down from the centre of the table is a beautiful chandelier filled with shining crystals, glowing with the heat of a dozen candles.
Then, as if to accentuate the madness of this scene instead of the majesty of the rest of the hall, there have been a number of colourful banners and buntings added to the room, even a cheap 'Happy Birthday' banner or two to go with all of the balloons and piñatas.
I even got one of those inflatable guys that you see outside car dealerships, then I painted it to resemble Alexandria, except I'm not a very good painter so it looks awful, but then the idea was stuck in my head so I got another two and painted them to look like Eidolon and Legend, except they still look like they were drawn by a toddler.
The idea behind the decorations is to show that while yes, we do have class and wealth and power, evidenced by the room itself, we are much more interested in simply having fun, as evidenced by everything else.
Obviously, that means that the table is also covered in various assortments of snack and teas, this 𝘪𝘴 a tea party after all. Some of the snacks even have human as the main ingredient, meaning I can eat them too, not that I plan on telling anyone that.
Though, on the subject of food, I have noticed that normal food doesn't smell quite so repugnant anymore. It still makes me ill, but at least it doesn't disgust me to just be around it anymore. My assumption is that I am simply adapting to it.
However, despite having had a luxurious and very large hall built in the sky right out in the open, I'm not worried about anyone coming to bother us, or even knowing about our presence for that matter.
It's amazing what you can get with a few Tinkers and a lot of money.
Though, I do want to get the hall set up in an entirely different dimension at some point, because that would be fucking awesome, but for that I need to wait for someone with he appropriate powers to come along.
I'm sure there will be some sort of dimensional Tinker eventually, or I could just bite the bullet and go pay Professor Haywire a visit? His specialty is interdimensional tech after all, but frankly I'm a bit worried he'll just shoot me into another dimension.
Maybe if I can carry a door with me without him noticing, then I can come back via Fast Travel?
Eh, thoughts for later, guests have finally arrived.
Unsurprisingly, the first to join me is none other than James and Riley, or rather, Negante and Chibi, as they were the only ones I gave proper forewarning to, and behind them walks Jack, looking very much like she's taking her kids for a bite to eat.
I'm not all that surprised, since I did say that anyone could bring 'retainers' and the like if they wanted to. Obviously, it's implied not to go over the top, but I sort of hope someone will come with like, fifty people, just so I can kill them all.
Someone has to test what happens if you fall out of the windows.
Negante and Chibi are both dressed up in matching chequered doctor's outfits of black and red with a frowning and smiling white mask respectively, which, combined with their small stature, makes them look like a really good pair, like something out of a movie.
Jack is wearing a maid outfit funnily enough, modified to be combat ready of course, but still, it's amusing.
"Welcome!~" I exclaim as they walk into the hall, raising my arms wide with a smile clear on my face.
I've stopped bothering with masks, everyone knows who I am anyway, and I can just change face if need be.
"What the fuck are you wearing?" Negante asks while Chibi just giggles with her hands over her mouth and Jack 'studies' the architecture.
Looking down at myself in confusion, I take in my long, billowing and deep red faux feather sheer robe, with it's fluffy ends covering the lower half of my body and the sheerness of the fabric failing to cover anything at all.
Luckily, I am wearing a Hello Kitty shirt, that is many sizes too small, resulting in my belly being clear to see, to protect my modesty along with a matching pair of Hello Kitty panties.
Though, it's not like I'm only in nightwear, as I also have on a large, noble red cloak, with more faux feather lining it's edges and three layers of fabric wrapped over my shoulders to make what looks like a sort of shoulder guard.
It even has a hood and is very big and comfy.
Done with my inspection of my apparel, I turn back to Negante with a confused expression. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I ask, opening my mouth again to reflexively make a joke about whether he would prefer I wear nothing, only to remember who I'm talking to and decide against it.
Many a fetish I may have, paedophilia is not one of them.
Now, I wanted the seating arrangement to be set up in order of who joined first, but it would feel criminal to split the two of them up, so as they go to sit, I gesture to the two seats on my right and they both hurry along on their little legs to sit down.
If they just held hands and started reciting a lullaby then they'd make those girls in The Shining jealous.
However, before I can strike up any conversation, the sound of the door opening once again interrupts me.
Once again it is two Clowns walking through the door, Harlequin and String Theory this time, both dressed casually with simple masks and already embroiled in conversation enough that they simply ignore the rest of us and take a seat next to each other a few spaces down to my left.
Fuck it then, guess there won't be any seating arrangements.
Decidedly not pouting, I grab a lovely cream scone, except the scone part is baked with sugared up blood, because glucose is basically flour anyway, and spinal fluid to replace the egg, with grey matter and mushed up eyeballs as the filling instead of jam and cream.
It doesn't really look great, but it also doesn't look horrible, which is actually something of a surprise to be honest, but I'm happy that my kitchen experiments are paying off somewhat.
It's only right as I shove the whole thing in my mouth, that the door opens again, startling me as I was so focused on the snack I didn't pay attention to my senses, resulting in myself choking on my food.
But as I am choking and coughing, Negante greets Fool and offers the seat to his right, Chibi sitting to his left and me further down.
By the time I've swallowed the offending snack, the two of them are already deep in conversation, leaving me to just sulk at being ignored.
Chibi leans over to pat me on the shoulder as I reach for another snack, but the distance between the chairs is enough that she can't reach me with her small little arms.
Life is so cruel.~
𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨!
Looking up at the sound of the door slamming open, I spy Cerberus plodding into the hall.
"Doggy!~" I exclaim with joy as I let some of my blood out to pick up the chair on my left and move it over to the open spot I left for him.
It's not like he can fit on a chair after all.
"Come here boy!~" I cheer out, and being the little trouble maker he is, Cerberus simply jumps at me, over the table full of things I spent hours preparing.
Luckily, I react fast enough as blood shoots out of my body, wraps around the chandelier and Cerberus both, making a short swing that allows his bulk to miss all of the treats and teas on the table.
Unfortunately however, the swing was not enough that he flew past me, meaning I have to suddenly deal with several tonnes of monster dog crashing into me with more speed than his size would suggest.
Fuckin... ow.
"C-boy," I wheeze out, "you're crushing me here."
Being a good dog, he immediately gets up off of me, but unfortunately he forgets his size sometimes and one of his paws dig into my stomach, but I'm tough enough that at least that didn't hurt.
When I get back to my feet, I notice a man at the door, seemingly watching with amusement as I pat myself down, the action making my cloak split enough to see the Hello Kitty shirt.
The man is wearing formal, boring grey clothes and a simple plain domino mask, but he put on a pink scarf with unicorns on it, so at least he's trying.
So, with one hand giving Cerberus some head scritches, I raise my other arm to give him a wave.
"Hey there!~ Nice ta meetcha!~ Have a seat and enjoy some snack while we wait for the rest,~" I say while my blood reshapes itself to pick up my chair and put it back, after which it returns to my body where it belongs.
"My, the feared Lusia Abel surely isn't what I'd expected," he says as he takes the seat between Cerberus and Harlequin.
"Oh?~" I return, "and what did you expect?~ Smaller boobs?~" My words cause him to glance down momentarily, following which he simply rolls his eyes and returns my smirk with one of his own.
"I thought you'd be taller."
"I thought you'd have more fangs." A course voice suddenly interrupts.
Startled once more, I turn back to the door to see another man standing there, this one dressed like some kind of ninja, covered in knives and everything from wire to what I can only assume is a smoke bomb.
"I'm still in my teething phase, as it were,~" I say with a toothy grin, some blood no doubt still staining my pearly whites, "I didn't here you come in, you must be a sneaky one eh?~"
"I'm not a Stranger if that's what your asking," he says as he takes a seat to Fool's right, "I was just trained well."
Nutcracker and Diversity Hire, hehe, come through the door, chatting amicably, and I take a moment to recognise that Diversity is back to looking like a healthy, human woman, but I do notice she's kept some of the more subtle modifications, including the ears, much to my joy.
Though, now that I think about it, that probably has something to do with the fact that Bonesaw cut her original ears off, so replacing them would have likely been a pain.
Ah well, seeing that they're occupying each other, I simply continue talking with Mr Ninja while they take a couple of seats to String Theory's left.
"Let me guess,~" I ponder with a finger tapping my chin, "you were trained in the arts of ninjutsu in a hidden monk temple, deep in the snowy mountains?~"
"No," he says tone still as level as when he entered, "I was mostly trained in Seattle."
Huh.
Didn't see that coming.
Another entrant distracts me from the confusion idea of there being ninjas in Seattle, and I look up to see March, who is joined by another, older woman who is probably a year or two younger than me.
March is still wearing that same marching band-esque outfit I got for her, with her bunny mask and feathered hat standing proud, whilst the woman with her is wearing a silver mask with blue highlights and a long coat with cobalt blue chains around the collar.
She even has some more blue feathers attached to a braid of hair coming down from her temple, and I must say, all the electric blue really contrasts well with her dark skin.
Would you look at that, dear little March is making friends.~
Though she tries to hide it, I can see that she is happy to see me, and also somewhat shy?
As it is, she moves to my right, leaving her hat on a seat between Mr Ninja and Fool as she keeps waling around the table until she is right next to me.
"Heya, long time no see,~" I greet with a smile, "did ya finish the jerky?~"
Her peppy mood suddenly evaporates and she responds by punching me in the face. How rude.
"NO! 𝘖𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 I didn't, what the fuck?!" She exclaims, much to the apparent surprise of her friend. Though she quickly takes a deep breath and starts over, simply choosing to pretend I didn't say anything, "this is Tori, Tori, this is Lusia. There, now you've met, let's go sit down."
D'aww, I upset her, how cute.~
As March stomp off towards her hat, I hear a soft sigh besides me and turn to the woman apparently names Tori offer my hand to shake, which she does amicably.
"I'm sorry about March, she's still a little bit upset about something that happened recently. It's nice to meet you though, March has spoken of you fondly, thank you for taking care of her, even if only for a short while."
What a nice young lady.
With a smile, I beckon her to come closer with a finger, and once she leans down to be closer to my head, since I'm still sitting, lightly grasp the front of her collar and pull her down so her ear is in front of my mouth.
"It's nice to see March making friends, and since you seem nice I'll give you fair warning. If you betray March, or otherwise cause her pain, then they're going to have to invent new words for the horrors I'm going to inflict upon you. We have an understanding?~"
My whispered words, combined with the now red, predatory glow of my eyes cause her own to dilate in fear, yet where there is fear, there is also resolve.
"I'd never betray her," she says, and I can hear the truth behind her words, so simply let her go with a smile on my face.
"Glad to hear it, go eat some breadsticks or something, one of these teapots has vodka in it somewhere if you feel like it.~"
Sensing the dismissal for what it is, Tori gives me a simple nod and walks back to March, who happens to be throwing grapes at the various trays and fine china, making them all bounce until they fly towards Harlequin, who is trying to catch them in her mouth.
Fast Travel comes in next, dressed as a mime this time, accompanied by some guy dressed up as a pirate.
It's ironic that the guy with the teleporting power is one of the last to arrive.
Fast Travel moves to sit next to Vendor, while the pirate moves between Diversity and Nutcracker and half crawls onto the table and I watch in amusement as he stretches forward to grab a teapot, identical to all the rest.
Without even going back to his seat, he just starts chugging away, eventually having to stop just to breathe.
"Ahhhh, it's no rum, but vodka is good too," is all he says before taking a seat on Diversities lap, pouring her drink onto the floor and filling the cup with vodka, which he then downs in one go.
What a guy.
With a laugh that is shared with a few others at his antics, I turn back to the door where another, uh, group? Of.. person? Enters the hall.
It's either I'm looking at triplets right now, or this guy has a cloning power of some sort.
He looks pretty plain, short brown hair, average features, a real John doe if you would. All three of him share a smile with Fool and swiftly move to the nearest available seat, leaving March between the two who apparently know each other.
That just leaves one.
It's only twenty minutes of idle chatting later that he finally decides to join us, a full half hour after the meeting time I gave. Not that I'm really bothered, everyone here is fun to talk to after all.
The newest arrival is wearing a very flowery kimono that is open enough to show off his muscular and scar ridden chest, and he has a full face mask depicting a beautiful pair of butterfly wings. He's even wearing those old style sandal shoe things that are just three blocks of wood, except his only has two blocks of wood, which makes me think he has some kind of physical power.
Kind of like how the pirate guy clearly has a Thinker power.
"Sorry I'm late!" he exclaims as he takes the two chairs opposite me and fashions them into a bigger chair, with him sitting on the connected armrests and resting his feet on the table, "I got caught up in someone.~"
Heh, I like this guy.
However before I can say anything in return I notice just how 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦 he smells.
Huh.
Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, I truly didn't expect.
He isn't even a cape.
𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
3.3k chapter cuz I didn't want to have two chapters of introductions, also a lot happened and I already can't remember a lot of it, so all I'll say is that first off, the title is jut a reference, but if I don't come up with/ am given a better name for their meetings, then imma just copy tensura.
Also, March. She's from Ward, which I haven't read and don't know much about, I've gone through wikis though and I know Tori shouldn't be here, so if you were gonna complain about that, don't, there's a reason.
If tori is OOC however, feel free to complain, cuz that'd actually be a mistake.
Also, in case it isn't clear, but I'm going for a mad hatter tea party kind of aesthetic here
Also, some of you cunts are really fast with reading my chaps when I post them, so I have to have a separate tab open just on webnovel just to be sure I can get the images in the para comments before you feckin come here, ever since I posted a chap promising an image and some dick asked "Where the pics" literally less than one minute after I posted it. He complained about it before my computer loaded the change from inkstone to webnovel.
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)
Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
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