Your name is MITUNA CAPTOR and you HATE this fucking circus.

Ok actually you don't totally hate it. Sometimes it's pretty chill. These clowns really know how to party, and you appreciate a few good hijinks now and then. But the buffoonery and harlequin ass batshit unpredictability of the TARPHIVE COMMUNE you got culled into is soured by the smothering, nonstop PSYCHIC SUPPRESSION MIASMA emanated by all the adult trolls living around you.

Such is the fate of any SIGNIFICANTLY HAZARDOUS LOWBLOOD. You're on thought-guard 100% of the time and if you get caught ideating a little too hard you're going to get hilariously shot out of a cannon directly towards the nearest MINDFUCK TORTURE DEN and put on a forced grippy sock vacation til you forget how to hate. Which is bullshit because this hippie dippie ass tentorgy of telepathic niphuffers is the prime spawning location for suicidal loonies that want to take out as many people with them as possible. But you didn't just have that thought, no way. Who thought that? Wasn't you and they can't prove it!

So yeah you hate it here.

The bylaws of this place are very particular. You're afforded privacy based on how dangerous you are, and with your PSIONICS on lock down for the FORESEEABLE FUTURE, the jovial overlords afford you a bit of leniency. Part of it is also luck. The prefects and grubsitters can only really catch wind of about HALF your lingering thoughts, and after they determined you were all bark and no bite, they resolved to let you bark your little head off. Morons, all of them. (who thought that? wasn't you!)

Being trapped in a physical and mental mirthprison really wears on a guy. Kinda makes him wanna die. But you're not allowed to admit that, so you don't. You're not interested in mulling over the ethics of policing thought crime and how the hemo ladder is built to make sure that testy goldbloods like you dont aspire to be anything more than a SWEET, DUMB, HUSKCHARGER. The reality is this commune wants to be a big nasty HIVEMIND. The ACOLYTES and the MISSIONARIES and the GRAND VICARS OF VICE AND VENDETTA tend to echo each others religious devotion psychically until the capricious vibes are reverberating off of every distant jingle, honk, and rimshot.

You've read horror stories about people who lose their culled buddies to the CARNIVAL. Problem child gets sent to a place like this and within a season they're slathering grease paint on their faces and quoting Infinite Jesters. You honestly probably wouldn't mind the total personality reset if it actually fucking worked on you. But, alas, you are tormented by the howling, shrieking voices of the ETERNALLY DAMNED, and the clown voodos don't do shit to quell it. You're positive they're going to pick up on how fucked your pan is and send you to be lobotomised eventually. And you dont think the lobotomy is going to help either. When you get down to gold tacks, the dark carnival doesnt have anything beneficial to offer you.

Around these parts, the acolytes seldom speak to each other audibly. You can catch swathes of them clustered in groups, eyes glimmering indigo as they pass salacious secrets unspoken from one thinkpan to another. In your experience, psychic purplebloods don't ask for permission to dip into your unconscious mind; to them it's as casual as talking about the weather. You've felt it first-hand, the spine-tingling sensation of having some rando drop a thought into the front of your head, telepathic fingers carding through your emotions, daring you to get mad and revelling in your discomfort, bribing you into compliance with promises of joy and ease and irresponsible voracity. (Again, if the mindwipe worked, you'd welcome it. it's that bad in your head.) The point is these motherfuckers have all matched each others' freak to such a degree that everyone outside the circus ring stands out.

And so the only reason you know this nutjob's name is because they had to say it out loud.

"MAKARA," a clown decked out with so many ruffles he looked and sounded choked spoke suddenly. Scared the shit out of you since you'd started thinking some of these jokers couldn't talk at all. "Fuck's a seaside ninja like you doing this far inland?" His voice even cracked on the first syllable, like he wasn't used to speaking. You had been slinking between tarps and ropes and streamers trying not to get noticed when you clocked them. A dude with a load of deep purple and black and gold books tucked under his arm. His gimmick (they all have a fucking gimmick. you hate it here) was endoskeletons, embroidered outlines of bones on the ridiculous outfit he chose to wear, and when he stopped to answer his name being called it felt like you were looking at a still image. You'd never seen one of these weirdos stand that immobile. He looked like, if the shadows fell just right, he could vanish into the background.

The skeleton clown turned towards the group, gave them a creepy smile, a tilt of the head, and you realised in the following, incomprehensible conversation, that they weren't talking into his head per the usual. They couldn't.

Or they wouldn't.

And youre gonna find out exactly why.

DIG THROUGH THE CLOWN COFFERS →