Spoiler: Wayne Castle - Dungeons
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The medusa sighed, and eventually shrugged. "Bedding and a pillow would be lovely. The food here's fine, strangely enough. That old knight you've got keeping the cells is oddly friendly. Where in the Hells are we, anyway?"


Spoiler: South Channel Island
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Oracle stalked the mob as they began to progress into the woods. Her scan cast over them, and she was able to start drawing in information quickly. Their minds were incredibly unguarded.

First, she felt a rush of thoughts. Then, the minds themselves began to take shape. Almost everyone here was either at middling or lower-than-average intelligence, nothing to write home about. A couple of quick wits in the crowd, but they were few and far between. Finally, their inner voices began to make their way to her ears. Some were simply excited to be part of a crowd -- a movement -- anything. She was almost overwhelmed the the staunch, entrenched misery and cynicism she felt from many of these people. These were peasants who'd never had anything, never would have anything, and for whom suffering had become a daily fact of life. They were happy to be out here because it was wrong, because it was different, because it somehow felt rebellious and risque and new and exciting all at the same time. They didn't really care much more than that.

Others were feeling transcendent, moved even. This group was different from the first -- just as miserable, to be sure. But the second group had something the first group lacked: hope. They felt this new community they'd found had given their life a purpose, that it might actually help them, lift them up. To her their unhinged passions felt sympathetic, but also wild and dangerous.

A smaller group was just plain nervous or scared. They were hoping that their new friends were a positive change, but much of what they were about -- South Channel Island, with it's ghosts and strange elven communities, worshiping illegal gods, and whatever else might come -- made them fearful. They weren't really sure what their new friends had in store for them, but like everyone else there, they were desperate.

But it was the smattering of individuals who appeared as out-of-work carnival performers who, unsurprisingly, stood out. They were a bit smarter than the peasants, though not necessarily always more dedicated. But they were all intensely excited. They loved their leaders -- worshiped them, even. But the source of this love was not that of lost, desperate souls looking for salvation. The fools wanted revenge. One man kept rolling a thought over and over in his head. "The Plan...the plan...just imagine the look on their highbrow faces when they witness the Plan. The Bards will see then...everyone in Gotham will see. They'll all be paying attention then."

Another was even more fanatical: "The beast...the beast is invincible...only with the Gods' servant can we throw down the false Lords. The beast...imagine all that power...."

None of it really made sense, but the overwhelming sense of grievance and malicious, trollish anger and glee she felt from the trolls seemed like a red flag. Whatever their leader asked these men (and one woman, she noticed) to do, they'd do.

She decided to keep following them, but didn't attack. After all, she hadn't really learned anything, and lots of men and Gotham were wicked and trollish. She needed more.

That's when the trees opened back up and they saw it for the first time: The Carnival Grounds. Like anyone in the city, Oracle had of course heard the stories of the Old Carnival. But, in fact, she'd actually been there before. When she was much younger, before the death of Lord Thomas Wayne, her father had taken her there as a child. That had to be one of the last years the Carnival was open before it'd collapsed, and she didn't remember very much of it, other than it was bright, and colorful, and spectactular.

No longer. Though many of the tents and statues and grand stands still stood, they were torn, ripped, molded, overgrown and neglected. The entire place was -- or should have been -- abandoned. Once festive jeering fool's faces now seemed menacing and forlorn, as the strange moonlight of South Channel island cast shadows over them and strings covered in decaying pendants flapped in the breeze. The ground was strewn with scattered trash, the attractions were all empty and decrepit, and the whole place seemed horribly, irrevocably haunted.

And yet, this was exactly the environment the crowd she was watching passed into. A couple of them carried colored lanterns, but the group mostly passed through the gloomy dark, making their way inexorably towards the center of the Carnival. As Oracle watched, she spotted a couple of other groups as well; she could only make them out by their own colored lanterns, but there was clearly another group coming from the northwest, and another from the south. THey were all headed towards the center of the grounds.

Oracle continued to follow her main group, until the grand circus loomed in the distance. This was the largest tent in the fair, massive even now as it sagged and was ripped, colored in incredible, once-bright stripes of color, it's entryway a massive caricatured clown's mouth. Wilted flags stuck out at regular intervals, secured as they were to the underlying tentpoles. There was light coming from inside. The groups of travelers all converged on the tent, passing through the fool's mouth, and joining the gathering within. Oracle thought she could hear music playing.