Act 8: Wonderlands, Toons, and Madness

--- Joshua ---

He wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from, but at the very least he was pretty sure as long as he built the cabaret up Avery wasn’t going to stab him in the back. (Which I was going to do either way, so, whatever.)

Everyone knew that the Wonderland was a source of a Wonderlander’s powers, even if the connection between the two was barely understood outside of a handful of interviews with the few sane Wonderlanders in the world.

He stopped mid-step. (Shit is that something I’m going to have to worry about now? Or am I old enough to side-step whatever causes that?)

By all accounts Wonderlanders got their powers fairly young compared to other Deviancies, with most first showing signs around the age of eight or nine, but not really realizing what they were capable of until their early teens. The fact that they were channelling so much madness at such a young age without knowing to pace themselves was the theoretical reason why so many went insane. (But I’m old enough to know when to stop, and my wonderland is already built, so that shouldn’t put anys stress on my mind.)

He’d feel a lot more sure of that answer if people knew as much about Wonderlanders and Madness as other Deviancies and their variants. (I mean I have an edge thanks to Chris using Madness, but I still know more about the Arcane and I’m not even interested in them!)

“Uh, Boss?” A voice asked cautiously, breaking into his thoughts.

“Sorry, had an… unpleasant thought.” He admitted, before looking around the Cabaret’s main hall from atop the stage. “So you were saying something about a tour of the place?”

“Oh, right, yes!” The Cabaret manager -(and I need to figure out what that entails)- nodded, before gesturing towards the hall. “L-like I told you before, a lot of our facilities are in need of repair so we, um, we can only really access the things directly attached to the main hall right now.”

Avery pointed towards the stairs and curtain Josh had entered the Cabaret from. “Over there is the, uh, foyer and entrance hall where we’d first welcome guests, and was mostly used to give us a bit of distance to vet them and build atmosphere. Given how things work that’s probably one of the last things we should set up.”

“No point in selling tickets without a show.” He agreed.

“Right, from there you have the seating and dining area which is where we’d seat guests for our show.” Avery continued.

“Again something we should probably hold off on fixing until this place is actually running.” He noted, before his eyes flickered towards the bar. “Though that does remind me, what’s with the bar. It looks like it’s in better shape than the rest of this place.”

He pretended not to notice the way Avery grimaced at that.

“Um, yeah… About that, I uh, sort of spent some of our resources on that.” The Cabaret manager winced as if he was expecting to be berated for that, though Josh was a little more interested in the how and why than the what.

“You can spend resources to build things?” He asked, because he didn’t know how to do that and had honestly been trying to ignore that fact since Avery mentioned fixing the Cabaret.

“Well, yes…” Avery nodded, rubbing his hands together nervously. “I know I shouldn’t have without your say so, but that is technically part of my job as manager, to take care of that stuff so you don’t have to spend all day building things yourself.”

“And the first thing you rebuilt was the bar?” He checked, more curious than accusing though it didn’t look like Avery was picking up that fact.

“W-well when you appeared in the middle of the Cabaret so beaten up the other day, I-I sort of panicked and spent some of the resources you’d gathered to turn the lights on and uh, rebuild the bar.” Avery told him looking like he expected Josh to beat him any moment.

“Okay…” He nodded, trying to keep his voice as even as possible for the timid man. “But that doesn’t explain why you built the bar specifically.”

“R-right, you wouldn’t know being uh, late to the show and everything.” Avery frowned before explaining that, “I was mostly going off of something my dad told me about how the old boss could use the drinks from the bar to make himself stronger for a few resources.”

“So you spent a resource to heal me.” He realized, before shrugging and giving the timid man a nod. “Well I can’t really be mad about that. So thanks for the save.”

“Oh, uh, no problem boss.” Avery smiled, looking immensely relieved about that.

(I guess he really was bending the rules of this place to fix me up after Zylah knocked me out.) He frowned to himself while giving Avery a half-grin. (Actually that reminds me…)

“Is there a way for you to know what’s going on outside of the Cabaret?”

“Uh, how do you mean?” Avery blinked. “Because outside of the Cabaret there isn’t much unless you’re going to another Wonderland… and I’ve never done that.”

“Well, no. I meant you’re the manager so I might need you to make an emergency adjustment to the Cabaret to bail me out again.” He elaborated. “And I figure to do that you need to know what’s happening with me in…” He stopped, realizing (I can’t refer to the real world as the real world, I mean from what I can gather this place is real to Avery and anyone else involved in this madness.)

“The land of the waken?” Avery finished for him sounding like he was thinking about the answer rather than noticing Josh’s slip-up.

(Huh, I guess if the wonderland is the land of dreams and dreamers than that would make the real world the land of the waken.) He mused, as Avery pondered his question.

“In that case you might want to work on the projector.” Avery eventually answered, pointing at an old theater projector hanging from the ceiling with two film reels beneath it. “It was one of our biggest attractions back in the day, it might need a few adjustments beyond the initial repairs but we used to use it to play reruns of the old boss’s adventures.”

“You have recordings of your old boss?” He asked, because that seemed like the kind of thing that could be a huge boon to a new wonderlander. (The chance to compare notes, to watch a master actor on his own personal stage!)

“Yes and no?” Avery grimaced. “We have them, but they’re in the old offices which…”

“-we don’t have.” He guessed with a sigh.

“Y-yeah, the Old Offices are in a part of the Cabaret that’s not really… stable right now.” Avery tried to explain, before shaking his head. “We’re going to have to build things up if you want to reclaim those.”

“Right…” He nodded, before looking around the hall. “There anything else in here we should work on?”

“Well there’s the stage?” Avery suggested. “Without any performers or film reels it’s not worth much to the Cabaret just yet, but I remember my granddad mentioning it used to help the old boss keep people distracted in the land of the waken.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“So another Wonderlander power as well as a Cabaret advantage.” He figured, seeing a value in both abilities of the stage.

(Besides what is a star without a venue to perform upon?!)

“Um, after that there’s the dressing room behind the stage, like the stage it’s something more for the performers, but there was something there for the old boss too.” Avery told him, seemingly trying to remember something from years past as muttered, “Something about ‘always being dressed for the occasion’?”

“Always important.” If he was going to take a serious try at the mask thing, that definitely sounded like something he’d have to look at.

“R-right, then, um, the last thing we can work on now is the storage in the basement.” Avery continued, before frowning. “Though given how big it is you might have to invest a lot to get that open, especially since we also keep the stills down there.”

“The stills?” He repeated, “Like those old moonshine stills?” That would definitely fit the whole speakeasy vibe of the Cabaret thus far.

“I guess?” Avery agreed a little unsurely. “That was something they put in so we could make a lot of the more interesting drinks for the bar, my granddad told me it was because the old boss had some kind of competition going for ‘best bar’ with ‘The Bone Daddy.’ Whoever that is.”

“Something to look into, but not an immediate priority.” He admitted, before a more important question came to mind. “Uh, any ideas on how to gather the resources for all of this?”

“Um… Outside of the Cabaret?” Avery grimaced in a way that told him all he needed to know, even before the timid manager told him, “Not really…”

“Damn.” He cursed. (I’d kind of been hedging on him knowing the answer to that.)

“B-but wait, you um, you managed to gather two ‘Joyful’ resources over the last week as well as this… really weird resource.” Avery told him. “That must mean you’ve been doing something right, er, right?”

“I suppose it does.” He sighed, not liking a ‘hope for the best’ approach. (Fat lot of good that’s done me over the years.)

He frowned as he caught something else Avery had said there. “What do you mean a ‘really weird resource’?”

“Oh, um, it’s…” Avery frowned, before giving a surprising growl of frustration. “Residents of a Wonderland, can always understand a resource when we see it, but this thing I just, I can’t understand it. Hold on, let me get it for you and you can see.”

Avery made his way off of the stage and behind the bar, Josh following him and watching as the usually timid manager practically dumped a glowing sphere of black the size of a volleyball on the counter.

“I don’t know what this is.” Avery told him with a scowl. “I mean I know I can use it as a resource for the Cabaret, even if it’s a bit weaker than the usual resources but it also doesn’t act like other resources, almost like it’s more malleable than the rest.”

“How do you mean?” He asked, feeling something familiar about the sphere as he peered into its light-eating glow.

“Well certain resources are better suited to creating certain things, such as ‘Joy’ with healing and production, or ‘Excitement’ with entertainment.” Avery explained with frustration. “This thing however I could use it for any of that, but I’d need a bunch of it to do what one of those other resources could, unless I was using a resource that didn’t fit the job.”

“So it’s a ‘neutral’ resource?” He figured, reminded of the morale resource from the Deviant’s Masquerade card game. “Not as good as the normal stuff, but better for filling in the blanks?”

“I guess.” Avery frowned. “But… I don’t know a lot about resources outside of using them for the Cabaret, but that stuff… it’s weird.”

(Says the grandson of a person born in someone else’s dream of a ‘Cartoon Cabaret’.) He chuckled to himself, before finally placing what about the sphere was so familiar. “Malice.”

“Uh, what-iss?” Avery blinked.

“Malice, it’s… It’s complicated, but if I were to get you more of this stuff would you be willing to use it?” He asked, pretty sure that this stuff was a residue of sorts left by the few Malice vials he’d consumed.

“Um, it’s a resource, so yeah?” Avery nodded looking a little unsure. “It-it’ll be a bit weird, but if this stuff works the way I think it does, I should be able to.”

“Alright, well even if I haven’t figured out how to make the good resources, I think I can get us more of this as a start-up resource.”

Scene Consequences

-List of unlockable facilities now available on the Cabaret Menu.

-Malice Vials can now be consumed to send resources to the Cabaret. (Note: Once consumed vials will not be refunded. )

---

After sorting things out with Avery he was forced out of the Cabaret by Chris getting up for school since he’d apparently slept through his alarm for the day.

(Which makes sense I guess, if that stuff about a Wonderland existing in its Wonderlander’s dreams is true.) He supposed, contemplating the nature of a wonderland’s existence while eating his lunch alone, knowing Annette tended to avoid the cafeteria on the days she felt her bullies would make a public scene.

(At least with mine I only have to worry about them beating me up or insulting me.) Female bullies were much more vicious than that. (Especially since they’re a lot more organized than the guys are.)

Shivering at that idea, and thankfully for the few breaks in his life, he continued tearing pages out of one of his notebooks before tossing them towards the cafeteria trash bins -(since the school apparently can’t be bothered to recycle)- ten paces away from him.

The reason he was doing this was in an attempt to use the bare minimum amount of power into his Rube Goldberg Field, the idea being that if he used as little power as possible he could ignore any negative backlash while also developing something closer to his brother’s ‘Rule of Cool’.

(Not that I’m making much progress on that front.) He sighed, staring at the dozen or so pages that had missed both due to his lack of skill as well as power. (Alright this is starting to depress me.)

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Rube Goldberg Field

--Currently: Lv. 2 (1/6)

---

By the time school let out for the day he decided to skip out on going to the ‘special training’ -(that would’ve more than likely involved Zylah kicking my ass again)- and instead made his way to the little park clearing he’d taken to practicing his powers in.

After discovering that he was a Wonderlander now, and that his Wonderland was the Cartoon Cabaret, he had a few ideas on just what his powers and his ink could do if he pushed them a bit. Which is why he was currently eyeing his case of Malice vials, knowing that they spiked his power level enough to make training and discovering his powers significantly easier than normal. (And if I’m lucky they’ll also give me more resources to work with back in the Cabaret.)

He was still a little iffy on how that part worked, but he doubted more vials would decrease how many resources he got out of them. Which is why he plucked three vials from the case before storing the rest away in his backpack.

(Alright, the Doc said as long as I don’t take more than three of these in a day if I shouldn’t be able to overdose.) Of course, he doubted the man had meant three at once, but he only had a few days until his ‘final test’ and he wanted to make sure he had something worth showing off.

And with that thought in mind he downed all three vials of coppery strawberries before shivering as a warm feeling rushed through his veins, and spiked his heart rate to the point he could feel it dancing away to the sweet symphony of swing playing in the back of his head.

Tapping his foot, he grabbed the top of his head before pushing it one way and pulling it the other, an audible crack coming with each action. “Alright. Act eight, scene three: The ink and the plant, take two.”

If he was going for new and impressive then that was the potential power that seemed the most interesting, given how supposedly all test subjects had physical enhancements, (while my Ink is my own original act!)

Running on an odd instinct he’d begun to notice bound itself to his malice enhanced powers, he plucked a flower off the ground gently applying a thin coating of ink to it before sticking its stem back into the ground a few paces away with a small pool of ink anchoring it to the ground.

Feeling a connection between him and the ink surrounding the flower, he reached out and twisted the ink coated flower, watching in fascination as the ink thickened and wrapped around the flower in a bubble before popping and leaving it in monochrome.

Now on its own that wasn’t all that interesting.

What made him smile a mad man’s grin however was the fact that the monochrome flower was dancing to the same song he was tapping along to.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Scene Consequences

-Due to using a harder method of learning a power than standard: Unlocked Toonification at Lv. 2.

--Can be used to ‘Toonify’ objects or creatures for various effects, with Ink cost and duration changing for creatures.

-For using 3 Vials of Malice on a single action 1 Malicious Madness has been added to the Cartoon Cabaret.