let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
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The sounds of ornery drunkards had been easy enough to tune out until the crowd seemed to migrate, the sounds of rabble-rousing growing closer and becoming angrier than just the harmless patter of rollicking drunks.
Lily didn’t like how close to Vannozza’s wing of the palace they sounded, and as she left her room to head towards the end of the corridor she kept a firm grip on her wand as the angry voices grew louder. Her heart sped as she listened to how close they sounded and drew her wand, locking the door to the lady’s wing of the palace before waiting for them to reach the knob with her breath caught in her throat.
She hoped her charm would hold, or - in a worst-case situation, that someone else staying in this part of the palace had heard the crowd’s approach and find themselves keen and able to defend.
2) in the night garden
The shape of the mansion situated on the hunting grounds was still visible beyond the line of dark woods. Between long looks upward at the trees, hoping for a sign of the owl she checked back with the shadow of the manor house on the grounds, using it as a landmark to try and keep from getting lost. Lily knew she was capable of transporting herself back to the Vannozza wing of the palace in less than a heartbeat, but she didn’t want to have to do that - she had come in with a group, and she intended to make sure she and everyone else could leave.
“Bit funny don’t you think?” She asked in a whisper to the group member beside her. “The lady believed Wen Qing to be using these grounds for sordid reasons, yet she neglected to mention how ill-fitting this place was for them.” Lily drew her wand and swished it slightly, illuminating the tip in a soft glow meant to serve in place of a torch, or a flashlight.
“Perhaps the lady is a believer in creepiness as an aphrodisiac,” Lily continued before the soft hooting sound of an owl made her fall silent, cutting the light from her wand in an instant as she squinted up at the trees, her eyes following the sound of rustling wings.
3) evasive maneuvers (for eleven)
Finding Eleven in the forest had been a surprise, but Lily was familiar enough with his abilities to know what a good ally he could be, so she stayed close to him while they looked for any sign of the owls.
While her original purpose in seeking access to the grounds had been for a different task, she was glad to be an extra set of eyes, especially for a task as important as finding a cure for those in their number who had been poisoned.
They had not been searching the forest long when the sound of hooves drumming against earth broke the eerie silence of the forest. She froze midstep and looked behind her, her stomach dropping as she caught sight of something moving fast in their direction.
“Quick,” Lily hissed in a panicked whisper before grabbing Eleven’s shoulder. Steering him back against the nearest tree as what she presumed was a mounted guard came closer she pressed herself against him, her hands coming to his cheeks as she kissed him hard, achieving that compromising position they had all agreed to assume should anyone come to investigate what was going on.
3 ofc
Oh.
Nerves flared, self-conscious about how convincing he could make such a ruse look. At least his hand on her waist was a good start, and his mouth settled for trying to match the ardent press of hers. Well enough that his mind was divorced from the soft press of her body, his ears strained for approaching footsteps, heart beating a rapid rhythm.
Goddess, but he prayed they were all right. She was too exposed, his swords tucked away between them- and he needed to breathe soon.
cackles
It was difficult not to panic and freeze in (highly awkward) fear, but she made herself focus on kissing Eleven even when the noise that had initially set her in motion appeared to be just behind them.
The moment it passed she broke that kiss off, stepping back from Eleven to look in the direction of the swiftly retreating deer. "I think we're–" on the verge of telling him that she believed they were safe Lily cut herself off when the sound of something else - something far larger could be heard crashing through the trees in the direction the deer had come from.
"That does not sound like another deer," she whispered, her voice thin with fear.
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His head snapped up, catching the edge in her voice, the cacophony of rustling leaves and snapping twigs, every instinct telling him they were about to be set upon by something large.
"Run," he said, seizing her wrist and pulling her away in an effort to goad her into a sprint just as a full-sized bear crashed through the foliage. For the second time in about as many minutes, Eleven's heart slammed into his throat to spread a second dose of clear-cut alarm through his blood.
Don't kill anything.
He grit his teeth, uncertain he could promise that much. These were hunting grounds- what sort of amorous atmosphere could abide these kinds of threats?
Eleven conjured up a flame in his hand, then tossed the Frizz back toward the bear's face. With luck, it would startle it enough to bide them time- or if the Goddess was with him, blind it temporarily. Worst case, he'd have to draw his blades and face it down.
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When the brilliance of the fire spell he used subsided, Lily leveled her wand at the bear - which, blessedly seemed to be falling behind them, its loping gait slowed by a face full of flame and cast the Jelly Legs Curse. She hoped to stall it further by removing its ability to work its legs, at least long enough for she and Eleven to escape.
"Come on," turning towards the mansion on the grounds Lily pulled Eleven after her. If nothing else, once she could see the place she could apparate them onto the nearest balcony, and hopefully out of harm's way.
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"Looks like.. that worked," he managed, still a touch out of breath as they ran. "Not what I was expecting tonight.."
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That didn't mean she had anticipated how dangerous the hunting grounds would be.
"We should hide. I can get us up there if you'll let me?" Lily inclined her head towards a large balcony. "It might help us spot the owl more easily as well."
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"Yes," he agreed swiftly, with only mild reservations about being spotted where they shouldn't be. But- "A good vantage point."
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Ducking down against the wall of the home she hid in its shadow, pulling Eleven out of sight along with her before letting his hand go. "Are you alright?" Apparition could make people sick if they weren't expecting the way it felt.
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"Yes," he insisted on a breath, straightening. "..I didn't know you could use Zoom like that."
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"In a pinch, however," she gestured around them. "Well, we're safe." Huffing out a breath as she felt the last of that rush of fear the bear had brought on dissipate she squinted out at the forest. "I don't know which is worse - guards on horseback, or bears."
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He looked out over the forest, a little enchanted by the silvery light over the treetops. It was a shame they weren't here for a more pleasant reason.
"We just need feathers. ..Maybe if we can find where they nest, there could be some fallen ones nearby."
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Crossing her arms across her chest Lily kept to the shadow, leaning over the side of the balcony. "Brilliant, where do owls like to nest, do you know? If you spot somewhere likely, I can try to get us there." Apparation without knowing where she was going precisely was difficult, but hopefully if he pointed out a spot among the treetops it would be enough of a lead.
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sort of wildcard
There's no rest for the dead, but he wonders: these. Similar and separate from those from Unhalad, but familiar, and why. What brought them back? Why these woods? Who does Vannozza court? If the Merchant wants her supported, it could not be the lords of death who had slaughtered his home, who had wrung from him everything that had mattered.
Not unless it was to the end of another such lord, and to that, ah, he could believe.
Still, what he listens for does not manifest, and he motions again for Lily to step forward.
"We'll settle these bones swiftly, so they may not be disturbed. You don't happen to have spellwork for digging holes, do you?" His wry smile is his long shot in asking, but it's better to speak when they have all been caught off-guard by the reality of their Lady's hunting grounds.
hurrah!
"A digging spell?" Lily let her wand hand fall, looking at the ground thoughtfully. There were quite a few spells that came to mind that would certainly blast a hole in the ground but muffled by magic or not, they weren't subtle magic.
"Partis Temporus," she said almost experimentally while aiming her wand at the ground. It was the sort of thing meant to part fire or smoke and she wasn't quite sure what it would do to solid ground and, after a moment a split in the soil where she had aimed her wand appeared. "A bit better than using a shovel, though not by much." If they kept the stone box small, it would do with a bit of finagling.
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"I only found a spade," he said, a confession that presages his pulling the instrument out of a lower pouch festooned into his half-skirt at his hip. "If you can even loosen the soil, I can manage the digging. If you'd keep an eye out for anything moving; animals and bodied dead alike."
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Reaching into the pocket she had added to her gown she withdrew the zippered bag where she ferried around everything and anything of importance, ducking into the opening until her head and an arm disappeared to find the stone box containing the remains they were meant to bury here.
For simplicity's sake, she had left the boxes of bones and relics shrunk down, and she held this one carefully in her hand as she straightened back out of her bag. "You don't think we ought to make it big again, do you?" They would definitely need a larger hole for that and it would be terribly impractical, but she yielded to Wei Wuxian's knowledge when it came to not offending the souls they were responsible for bringing peace to.
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Bones were to be buried as they'd been carried in life, not compressed down for convenience. He smiled, knowing it wasn't the convenient answer, but they weren't out here for the sake of convenience. Not for themselves, and certainly not for this poor soul, trusting their remains to strangers for the burying in a place like this.
Stalked by twice living, populated by beasts honed to hunting and hunger and anger, by circumstance.
He reached into his own pocket, secured under his half-skirt, and offered her a small, doll-like shovel.
"Could you make this larger, by any chance?" He didn't mind doing the work, but otherwise all he had was a hand spade. Surprisingly difficult to sneak a better burying device out when out for a night of wanton sex out in a murderous forest.
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That rather somber train of thought was derailed speedily when Wei Wuxian produced the shovel he had managed to smuggle into the hunting grounds. Her eyebrows rose when he asked after changing its size and Lily gave a nod, lifting it out of his grasp.
"I think we might be able to make this really useful," she said, turning her focus back towards the split in the dirt in front of them she had made with her wand. Lily planted the little spade in the soil before stepping back with her wand out, moving it wordlessly, first to make it grow a good idea, and then, after some scrutinizing, she tried another spell on it.
She wasn't sure what setting the shovel into motion would do, but with a muttered 'Piertotum Locomotor' it sprang to life, hopping up and down on the dirt, stabbing rather than digging.
"Er, I'll perfect it by the next body, promise. At least it's making things a bit more loose for us?"
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"Loosening the dirt up helps. We'd be wanting to go two metres down if burial is the choice here, and with the tombs, I think it might. Not sure we have time or the luxury of finding enough stones to pile over it. Unless you can make pebbles larger, do you think?"
He returned his attention to the perimeter, looking for any movement other than the wind. A tree creaked ominously, but studying it provided... nothing, as of yet.
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"Go gather some, I'll be able to change their size. Hopefully,` the remains being so old means they won't attract attention from whatever lives in this forest." Lily shuddered at the thought. It was an appalling notion to entertain and more so terrible to think of their efforts being all for nothing.
"Will you play for them when we're finally finished, or will they just let go and be at peace?"
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He glances to her, frowning.
"You'll need to be aware and ready to defend yourself if for some forsaken reason I have to go out of line of sight to find pebbles."
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"I'll be ready," she replied with a firm nod, angling herself so that her back faced the bush they were behind instead of the open air. "Come back quickly alright? Be careful." Trying her best to look stalwart and encouraging about the whole matter Lily gave him a quick smile before taking up the small shovel and returning to work once more.
By the time he returned she hadn't made a good deal of progress exactly, but a dent was certainly being made. "Next time," Lily repeated, looking up at Wei Wuxian, "I will have learned how to make this easier."
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He's learned the worst can come to pass.
He smiles, holding his hands out to Lily when he returns. Taking his time when even he, half a wreck of a cultivator, has far more brute strength to use in this situation, to unbury the earth, simply to bury one beneath it. The rocks he'd collected, handfuls of pebbles, are held out in two gloves stuffed full of them, an exchange of one duty between them for another.
"Not sure if they'll all work, and there's leaves and dirt in there too." Then he sets to digging, doing fairly decent work to go down, setting to it like a man who's been in this situation before.
(Either grave digging, or simply physical toil that once upon a time, he wouldn't have readily imagined.)
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"This will work." While he settled in to dig it was her turn to look around, checking to make sure they remained undiscovered before she knelt on the ground again and set the rocks she was meant to charm down.
"Shall you tell me a story about your life while we work? I would offer to tell you one of mine but something tells me you're the one with better stories." Whatever Wei Wuxian got into before arriving here, Lily would wager it was nothing short of interesting.
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