entrancelogs | [NYE Party] happy new year and lots of fun

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[NYE Party] happy new year and lots of fun

Who: EVERYONE, but especially you!
Where: Wonderland Ballroom
When: New Year's Eve
Rating: PG - PG13 (will change if applicable)
Summary: New Year's Eve Party
The Story:

[ Previously in the month all residents received an invitation to a formal event: a black tie affair to ring in the New Year. The ballroom and adjacent areas are decked out for the party starting at eight o'clock sharp, meticulously planned and executed, glittering décor to match the no doubt glittering attire as music pours into the halls from the dance floor.

Bars flank each side, service for all manner of alcohol unless a minor requests something, and the primary setting stage features an enormous clock for the countdown. ]

[ Where will you be when the clock strikes midnight? ]

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[As a relatively well-known local figure to whom many people are referred, Evelyn is not unused to complete strangers approaching her and using her name, but it is sometimes still (briefly) surprising when they do. She supposes she did put herself on the invitation, after all. Residents frequently come to her looking for information, as knowledge is the currency of this realm and it tends to make her one of its wealthiest denizens.]

I am, yes.

[There is no saccharine sweetness in her introduction, but a barely veiled interest in identity under the mantle she has adopted for this fête.]

But I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, as I don't know you.

[ truthfully her name was given to him before he saw the invitation - and for tat very purpose. he intended to seek her out, but then he was made aware of her party.

the arrow is a great interrogator, but oliver queen knows how to befriend people, get them talking more naturally. and in this instance, it seems like the smarter route to take. she's not a criminal, after all, she's a victim same as him. ]

Oliver Queen - [ he offers his hand ] I'm afraid it's the only disadvantage I've had you at, I'm new. Hope the invitation applies to people arriving after it. [ though it would hardly be the first party he's crashed if it doesn't. ]

[Wise of him, not to lean on interrogation. There are a number of rather muscular fellows with itchy trigger fingers in residence who are dedicated to her welfare and anything out of the ordinary might send them into a blood frenzy, or something equally ridiculous.

She takes his hand genteelly, shaking.]

You're more than welcome, the invitation was extended to everyone. But I have a notion that as someone new, you aren't just making introductions for pleasantries' sake.

[He wouldn't be the first Wonderland greenhorn to seek her out.]

Shall we speak over a drink?

[ honestly, it's not an entirely unappealing consequence to him. he's got a lot of anger he would love to work off violently.

but it's impractical and the mission - getting home - is more important (not to mention the fact that an interrogation should be saved as a last resort if the person in question has done nothing wrong). felicity was wrong, he doesn't get to have feelings.

he smiles pleasantly and nods. perceptive. that's good in an information source, though he'd expect anyone to come to that conclusion after being here so long. ]

That'd be great.

[What a serious mien he has behind that polite smile. Evelyn has the suspicion that he would like to be pointed toward the nearest convenient exit from this place, as if residents were permitted to come and go as they-]

Please.

[She gestures to one of the nearby bars, quieter than the others, and indicates that the personnel behind the counter retrieve a glass of champagne for her before she looks to her new acquaintance.]

What's your poison, Mr. Queen?

[ convenience is preferable but not necessary. any exit would do.

he looks at the bar. what he would really like is the strongest vodka wonderland has to offer, but that's out of the question. he has to be alert tonight - he's expecting trouble, and he's gathering information. once again, he's on his own, he doesn't have a team to watch his back. ]

Champagne's fine, thanks. [ he'd take water if he could get away with it without looking strange, or nothing at all. nothing at all would be his preference.

he accepts the glass and nods at the bartender. ]

Shall we sit? [ he knows he can't take her away from her guests for a long time, but he'd like to have as long a conversation as he can get away with. ]

[To business, then.

He is a man who knows precisely what he wants and is currently at a loss as to how he can acquire it. Evelyn moves with purpose to a table at the edge, sensing that Oliver Queen neither wishes to dawdle nor wade through verbal frippery. It is a straightforwardness she can respect.]

So.

[She seats herself with the upright attentiveness bred into aristocratic stock and looks at him over her glass, assessing.]

You have questions.

[ he sits, and puts the glass down, its content still untouched. he nods, appreciating both the practicality - and the willingness to satisfy his curiosity. this job probably got old years ago. ]

Only about a million [ he offers a little smile to try and bring a bit of a social aspect to his inquiry ] but I'll stick to the main points - the closets - does using them accelerate memory loss? [ it's difficult to measure on yourself but as someone who's been there a while, he's sure she's witnessed both people who refused to use the closets unless absolutely necessary and those who dove in head first and got everything they could get their hands on. he's sure there's a risk, he's sure there's a cost - but if it's not noticeable - it could be worse, or it could be safe enough for at least short term. ]

[It is fair to say that Evelyn has spent a considerable amount of her time informing and reassuring new residents in a multitude of ways, and while aspects of the self-assigned duty may certainly grow stale, the duty itself is far too important for her to shirk. If she neglected it, the guilt would eat away at her for all that she wasn't saying to people.]

The short answer is no, they don't.

[Not to her knowledge of the wider population, and not within her personal experience.]

In my residency I have determined that the primary means of memory loss are events themselves and ill-advised transactions with the outdoor vendors. If an event is built off of your own lived experiences, you are more likely to forget something with its conclusion than others.

[She would tell him what she forgot during her own event, but alas. Forgetting makes remembering rather difficult.]

If you don't mind my asking, who referred you to me?

[ a trait they happen to share. in oliver's mind, if he doesn't get the right information and someone gets hurt because he didn't know to help them - the person he'll blame most is himself. oh, he'll blame the hell out of the people who didn't supply him with the information outwardly, but inwardly? every stop is guiltropolis.

well, at least there's some good news. that is, if they haven't simply all of them forgotten that the closets take away their memories, but he'll be here all year if he lingers on that thought. asked and answered, on to the next one. ]

Miss Carter. [ he doesn't think she would mind him answering that question, and considering the fact he's here to get his own answered, it's the least he can do to garner some good will. ]

She was very informative but low on specifics.

Ah.

[Evelyn's second conversation with Peggy Carter was a substantial improvement from her first, but Evelyn is also fairly certain that the impression she made regardless was not a very good one. Disappointing, but not altogether unavoidable. Interesting, but not especially surprising, that Peggy would pass people along to her for more information. Evelyn says no more on the matter.]

Were you made aware of the length of my- [Here she huffs a laugh, edging on self-deprecating.] Tenure?

She said six years. [ he nods, which leads to another question that has been gnawing at his mind. ] Were you the first here?

[ he can't get a clear answer of how long this has been going on, and that's troubling. but more than that, there's a lot to be learned about an adversary's weaknesses from their past. that is, if they haven't wiped those memories.

if he had the ability, it'd be his first move. it's just good strategy. ]

No.

[The answer is immediate, definitive, and plain. Evelyn is fond of fact without flourish on a good day, although this particular question might be the first of its kind ever spoken to her - she considers it in a more lengthy fashion in the moments after her reply.]

When I arrived, others had been in residency for at least a year before. Some people had been there before them, and departed in their own time. Unfortunately, I can only base my theory off of anecdotal information, but it is abundantly clear that this place has existed and taken people for at least ten years.

[Give or take.]

[ it falls in line with the intel the talking skeleton gave him; corroboration is an important part of the information gathering process. ]

Any idea what happened ten years ago?

[Evelyn lifts one shoulder in half of a shrug, apologetic. It isn't often she likes to be caught out about not knowing, but there weren't any reliable record-keepers in residence that started at the very beginning.]

I'm sorry, I don't. We have supposition and vague theories, but neither of those things are the hard facts you desire.

[ he didn't expect it to be that easy, but he had to try. ]

I'll take those, if you don't mind - [ suppositions and vague theories are better than nothing. ]

[Evelyn supposes she should have expected him to want those answers, as insubstantial as they may be with regards to concrete evidence. Sometimes theories are better than nothing, and she has personally found more with less. She blinks at him, takes a healthy sip of her drink, and continues.]

This place...acts as something of a pocket dimension, as I am sure you are aware. It takes people in for indeterminate, seemingly arbitrary amounts of time. A trend in people from the same world will fluctuate on occasion, and some worlds are more popular than others when it comes to their residents being held here involuntarily. There isn't a reasoning behind the selection, and I've been keeping track of it as best I can since I got here. Wonderland returns people at equally arbitrary times, brings them back again afterward or not at all. Sometimes it brings people back and they don't remember their time here.

[Old friends looking through you. The loss of everything there was.]

As best I can tell - theoretically, of course - this place is the actual Wonderland. The one that Lewis Carroll wrote about. Perhaps he was brought here himself, or perhaps he knew a girl named Alice who came and went and told him.

And despite the multitude of universes, everyone seems familiar with the same tale and the same author.

[ at least, everyone he's met. it's curious to say the least.

very curious. ]

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

More or less. There are some universes where the canon is not present - or some residents from time periods prior to Mr. Carroll's.

[It is a sticking point for her, that many of Wonderland's involuntary denizens are unaware of the particular travails of the temporal minority.]

I myself am from 1935, though I have known residents here to be from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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[NYE Party] happy new year and lots of fun

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