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westwhere2021-08-20 07:55 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2021-08-20 07:55 pm
feast and make merry
The following events should cover the span to 31 AUGUST. Feel free to make your own posts/logs, or use this one! Routes have been built based on previous plotting, but any last-minute questions can be asked here. Try to limit it to asking concrete outcomes for things you are definitely exploring in your tag-ins!
■ Don Macaluso has welcomed his suitors, including the party's very own Diego Hargreeves. And his wolves. He stretches Taravast's hospitality to a lavish masked fete, observed at the Palace of the Doxe. No expense spared, no opportunity to flaunt lost.
■ In attendance — sorcerers' schools, foreign dignitaries and suitors, prominent healers and academicians, artists and politicians, members of the Conclave and, somehow, the Merchant's hooligans. Good gossips, one and all. Show up or throw the gauntlet: those who do not come willing will be escorted in by guards.
■ Even Lady Vannozza and her supporters come to wish Macaluso well in his conjugal pursuit. She publicly gifts him a cryogenic rose, urging her cousin to award it to his intended. Macaluso calmly accepts the flower, then discards it on his table.
■ Out of respect for the nascent political contest, the supporters of Vannozza and Macaluso — yes, you — are seated at two different tables on each side of the fleetingly present Doxe Bonaccorso. The old man will appear in feeble health but firm dignity, excusing himself after a tremulous speech that ends, tenderly, "Citadels are for the living. They are for the gathering of means, of magic, for the making of families and legacies. They are not coin for commerce. I welcome you to my home."
■ For the grand finale, Macaluso's servants introduce a traditional fragile, sweet confection offered to his private guests. It can be refused. Those who consume the confection will find their strength and senses progressively deteriorate, threatening to kill them within five days.
■ A good showing by Fox, Mingyu, Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu, Xie Lian and Alina earned the Lady Odile more of Macaluso's favour. In gratitude, her servants send word to these characters only that there is poison afoot, without mentioning which dish.
■ Within the hour, Macaluso calls the celebration to its end, pained to announce it has been stained by sabotage and poison. Macaluso's guests, including the characters in his employ are drawn into private quarters and examined by physicians, who name the cause of the sickness — winter lily mist — but offer no clear antidote.
■ Frustrated, two healers will list two superstitious cures: the elusive, shady 'fire water' of the necromantic district's underground
■ Characters assigned to Macaluso will spend the night huddled together, with healers. Fearing her people will be unfairly faulted for the poisoning, Vannozza will lock her attendants in her palace wing. The atmosphere is tense, with Vannozza's people accusing characters and each other. Overnight, some of Macaluso's drunk supporters will try to enter Vannozza's palace wing and cause a brawl. Defend the lady?
■ Come morning, the poisoning is blamed on the ringleader of one of the recent protests objecting to Macaluso's marriage to a foreigner. Characters may circulate freely.
■ The necromantic district is a... literally and metaphorically shady congregation of small, run-down houses and the city's 'finest': criminals, thieves, the mates of your horsecar friend Caspar, actual necromancers and sellers of flesh parts.
■ Those who ask for 'fire water' will face a few days of exploration until an old beggar finally takes pity on their cause and, in exchange for wine, offers them an introduction to a secretive
■ The Watch are an eerie group of grotesquely deformed necromancers, some of whom have clearly been stirred back from death a number of times themselves. They explain that the 'fire water' is a brew that can be obtained from two sources: the blood of either a man who has killed many innocents ruthlessly (such as the many murderers and slavers who travel the darker corners of the district) or of a...
■ ...harpy, not unlike those encountered in the Stairs of Sighs corridor: winged creatures dripping tar and harrowing sorcery, that crowd in flocks at the periphery of Taravast. The harpies of Taravast are ancient defenders of the city, who have forgotten their purpose and turned feral. Their claws run sharp, causing cuts that bleed without healing properly for hours.
■ The harpies are best faced in pairs, but beware: if you speak too long, they will learn your voice and imitate it to lure in your companions. They will also attune to emotions and mimic the voices of people characters remember.
■ Retrieve two blood vials from either man or creature to the necromancers, along with two vials of your own blood, and the Watch will prepare two batches of antidote. One cup for you, the other for their own purposes.
■ Wen Qing has brokered access to the hunting grounds, for an easy entrance point. Those who wish to find an alternative route can try to have their characters infiltrate Vannozza's quar ters and steal her keys — but only theft such offensive can be carried out, so unite forces.
■ The Spina hunting grounds are a few hours' ride away, and carriage drivers seem unwilling to make the journey. Help the local economy: steal a horse.
■ The forests are a magnificent spread of everything dark and haunted, drenched in mist and sporting minimal visibility. There is a pronounced air of death and the stench of decay, with perfect, eerie stillness during the scant sunlight and a torture of creaking sounds, whispers and ghostly chills at night.
■ In addition to the typical violent forest fare — wolves, foxes, bears — the grounds also host the first sign of true undead: less well composed than some characters might remember the men of Anurr, lacking true awareness. Their garb and occasional garbled talk will reveal them as former sorcerers and witches of Attaryl and Bessis, killed during the confrontation between the two schools. Their spirits have been bound to protect the grounds — and they give vicious chase, calling on fire magic and wooing animals to help their hunt of invaders.
■ Run. Run fast.
■ Only two antidote owls emerge at night, drawn to drink from the forest's (shallow, broad) lake water. They are a mated pair, highly sensitive to sound, likely to escape on the first few attempts of capture and indifferent to magic. Farmhouse lesson: careful with the lake waters. The hands of bound spirits might seek to pull innocents in.
■ Owl feathers, ground and thinned with water, can create a highly potent cure that will take days to return a patient to full health — their hearts, eaten whole, can give one person instant recovery. Up to you, if you want to be that asshole.
no subject
[If only they had access to an actual communication array, with password, this would be so much easier. They don't know for now if they can be overheard.
He'll go and grab a knife from one of the table (and no one questions him; he's learned that if he does things with confidence and a smile, people tend to believe his legend and not bother to tell him he's not allowed to to do things.
He brings back his bounty, holding it out.]
I'm going to try and warn as many people on our side as I can, but it might be noticed if we really don't eat anything... although poison won't affect me, normally, so maybe I could...
no subject
No matter. Poison curdles Lan Wangji's blood, but has lived a long life already, festered in Xie Lian's mind. He takes the knife, weighs it in one hand perfunctorily, for balance. It will serve, however dulled the edge of the blade, in the way of instruments of sport and daily consumption. Asphyxiated in Lan Wangji's sheath, Bichen produces the first, critical cut, severing the fledgling binds of his sleeve silk. For the rest, the knife wears thin, tatters to freedom three contorted strips of cloth.
And after, the writing of it: broth speculated, but a second anchor to ignite the cloth to flight would still prove requisite. Better to call the deed done in one shorthand gesture. In this, Bichen wins easy precedence: he slips her free of her sheath beneath the table's cloth, coaxing the ends of his cut sleeve to rest distant from the wrist, and teasing a tender rivulet, from the elbow's span, south, red blooming on his skin. Shallow wounds bleed to an excess that betrays their inadequacy.
He sinks his nail in the wound and starts, alert, to write, alert, the first missive:
Poison.
|
蓝
忘
机
Unbidden, he turns — ]
Set to write.
[ — and patiently passes Xie Lian a silk square and the knife. Surely, he may mimic the demonstration shown. ]
no subject
... And yes, yes, he can write. After a glance at what Lan Wangji has written, he'll just bite his own finger and write the same. His calligraphy is elegant and flowing but he just doesn't sign his name, because, really, would people trust him about poison after that food incident?]
How do you plan on sending them?
[Making them fly across the room would be too visible.]
no subject
At the last moment, red wells sour and bright on Lan Wangji's fingertips, and he lets the recurring insolence of its sting flare thrive. A petty inconvenience. He will remember, when he gifts Bichen the last lick, before his fingers turn away.
For now, he signs his own name to Xie Lian's, a contrast of calligraphy but a persuasive addition. In Cloud Recesses, the groaning magnificence of their ancestral library would be besmirched by the negligent scattering of an heir's good name. What has reputation purchased Hanguang-Jun?
Only warmth behind his ribs where his scars knotted fresh tissue in wake of flaying, looks askance. Mercy, to cast the breaths of agony. A pretty, artless trick, to bind the ritual characters of flight and transport, to imbue his sorcery to parchment, until the noisy void of inanimate things floods with his will. The missives dash, unrolled and painfully indiscreet, but for the distraction of dimmed light and glaring sound beside them.
To Vannozza's tables. To Wei Ying, Sizhui. To whoever may yet capture them. ]
In the way of Wei Ying.
[ A cautious sigh, as if he might be exasperated with the concession. He will not hear the end of this and of yielding to the decadence of consuming the white sweets of his table earlier, he knows. ]
no subject
[It was the opposite of discreet, and it seems only the fact that most people are in their cups or engrossed in gossip made them miss it.]
I hope they get it in time. I need too make sure the others know as well. I can probably tell the people on this side of the room directly, but they might already have eaten some.
... Did you eat?
no subject
His gaze trails over Xie Lian, to the flight of his letters, their reunion with silhouettes Lan Wangji supposes he might sketch with certainty even in his fever dreams. Sizhui, a boy of fragile, pretty wonder. A man, soon becoming of glory. Wei Ying, a different creature, whimsical and strange.
He stares, briefly, at the knife lost in hand, its implication. Wishes it whetted, thrust in a beating heart.
And did he eat? Mere morsels. ]
As fools do. [ A pause, then, for all poison does not 'affect Xie Lian normally' — ] And you?
no subject
[Which is a shame, he never says not to free food, but...]
People kept interrupting me to ask me about Xiao-daozhang and in the end, I didn't get any time to get food...
no subject
If he is sought, then aught is amiss with his manner, this game they play, of... artistry. Acting. ]
Master Xiao Xingchen has drawn interest or ire?
[ These... parts they have been assigned, their natures twisted, questioning. Lan Wangji has studied his own, only to find its heart perverse, its purpose distant. How can he engage long enough to grasp it?
He need not even try. ]
no subject
[Xie Lian scratches his head, embarrassed.]
He's fine, and I don't think anyone has bothered him about it... but people keep coming to give me advice or commiserate, so it's hard to find a moment to actually eat something.
no subject
Xie Lian, a man possessed by such bizarre chance. His cookery. Before it, his luck with the strange cult keepers of Sa-Hareth. Now... ]
No stain should befall master Xiao Xingchen's honour.
[ He has earned better than this, more than any hand can grant in kindness. Yi city might burn and take root and rebuild and burn again five times over, and the debt owed to this one man will not be repaid.
As for Xie Lian...
...forgive Lan Wangji another moment's questioning glance. ]
Dissuade idle mouths and their gossip.
no subject
... I'm not sure about mine, but it doesn't really matter all that much.
[Xie Lian is used to being 'the joke of the Three Realms'. This is nothing.]
I've been trying to discourage people, but it's like it's he best story they've heard in ages.