Birthday Party

[peripheries]

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary



When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

Comments

[possessum]

( Spirits? If he were thinking about it more clearly, he might reason out that she's of course talking about alcohol, but Peter's first thought is— )

Right...? They're so creepy...

( He thinks she means the skeletons... which he is fully assuming to be some kind of haunted bullshit going on in this clearly haunted house. Peter runs his unsteady hands over his face before casting glassy eyes back up to her. )

I think I'm okay. Just got kind of dizzy there... Thank you, though. ( Peter manages a little smile, grateful for the offer, before he catches sight of the dog down below — and brightens. Peter's 100% a Dog Person, and still nursing the wounds of losing his own dog from home, when he'd come to Trench. )

There's a dog...!

( ...She knows, Peter. )

[dohaeris]

[spirits...creepy?? was he talking about ghosts?? but then there is lady, so she brightens.]

Oh, that's Lady. She's mine. I suppose she's come to look in on me. The skeletons are...concerning.

[oh!]

It would be better if they did have their own spirits in them, I think. I've been told that they move by someone else's will.

[lady lopes up the stairs, ears flattened. she whines; there is something deeply wrong here, and there is something in the boy that shouldn't be. sansa's senses it when she does, and her eyes widen, but there isn't a good way to tell someone they have two smells, and one of them isn't human.]

[possessum]

( There are few things that can cause his gloomy self to so quickly look visibly happy, but dogs? Dogs are one of them. Peter's smile warms as the girl says the dog is hers, and he's leaning forwards a little from where he's sitting on the step, voice softening. There is a dog at this party, this is not a drill. )

Hey there, Lady. You're really pretty.

( He starts to lift his hand to offer it out to her, but freezes at the way the dog's behaving, ears flat and whining. Peter's alarmed, looking up to the girl — but her words make sense. It must be the skeletons upsetting the poor dog. )

You don't like those things, huh, girl...? Me either. ( Peter glances up over his shoulder for a moment, towards the upper level of the home, barely suppressing a shudder. This place definitely gives him the creeps, and if someone's controlling the skeletons...? That's honestly horrifying. He'd much rather forget about those and talk more about dogs, looking back up to the girl. Now he does offer his hand out to Lady, but carefully, using just his fingertips. )

Did she come from your homeworld, or did you get her here?

[dohaeris]

[lady sniffs at his hand more than she might someone who didn't have anything concerning inside them, but it is no threat to sansa, and seems more curious than anything. she presses her nose against his hand, and allows him to pet her. sansa immediately relaxes.]

Yes, Lady came with me from the Seven Kingdoms.

[technically they arrived...separately, but that's hard to explain, and then she'd have to tell him how lady died, which is more information than she wants the mysterious presence inside him to have, at least until she figures out what it is. it's certainly not something she wants to discuss in front of the skeletons and who knows what else in this house.]

She's a very good girl, and clever. She was the one who thought to take in a blood hound.

[possessum]

( Peter's shy smile warms as the dog's nose meets his hand and he's allowed to instigate some pets. He's still careful about it — very gently brushing the top of her head with his fingers — but being accepted by a dog is probably the best thing in the world.

As he does, he's looking up at the girl, listening. Kingdoms? That word simply revs up the demon king's curiosity even more. Paimon, lost and ancient thing that he is, is always searching for more knowledge and information. Many terms and associations are on his radar, and people with connection to royalty are one of those. Immediately, he's wondering more about this girl with the strange aura. Is she something Other, too?

It's a subtle thing, but Paimon's fluttering waves of curiosity have Peter's eyelids fluttering too, some subconscious reaction to the powerful spirit within him. His head tilts slightly to the side, birdlike. )

Seven Kingdoms.... Is it from Earth?

( It's maybe a simple conversational question. But maybe it's echoes of Paimon seeping in, expressing that curiosity about her. )

[dohaeris]

[sansa's mouth turns up at the corner. she's almost tipsy enough to tell him the word 'earth' means dirt in the world, but she still feels it would be rude. she's heard earth, the planet, mentioned so many times that she has in fact looked it up, and found the continents to be different. there had never been any such place as westeros or essos, as long as humans had lived there.]

My planet has different lands to the Earth they write about in the Wikipedia. If anyone has given it a name, we haven't heard of it in Westeros.

[she pauses. this boy does seem very intoxicated...]

Westeros is the continent. Most of it is the Seven Kingdoms. It's just a name. It's all meant to be one country.