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.
no subject
The lesson, learned thrice over: he does not reach first. Awaits obediently, as with creatures that learn the sharpness of their teeth and the hard nature of their bite, for Five to yield himself first, in degrees. Men pour trust like water, first syphoned, then openly awarded as the calamity of deluge. Between them only well-walked marble and a thin, trembled rivulet.
"I have..." There is a slackness to this, to his thoughts, his desiccated lips. Poison streams, erodes, houses. Makes a canyon of his body, slows it in gentle steps. He reaches within himself to purify, first the thin frown of his brow, then his voice of tremors. "There is energy within me. That can transfer."
Qi, though whether it is sufficient in its current traffic between fending Wangji's own weakness and the natural depletion of fatigue, he cannot say. As for compatibility, only the attempt may seal it.
no subject
He meets his gaze, trying to determine how much he's willing to believe in this previously unknown ability. For one, he's surprised he has any energy to spare. Maybe he recognizes that he is the one most capable of solving their crisis, or at least someone he doesn't need to protect. It's that, or all this time he was waiting for a moment of weakness to strike back at him. That last possibility seems unlikely, which is hardly a solid foundation for trust, but it's more than he might have allowed him a few weeks ago. That he even offers a choice is different enough for Five to take notice.
The debate continues until he finally reaches out his hand. An unspoken warning remains in his posture, the knife in his sleeve within easy grasp. If this is the moment Lan Wangji decides to betray him, he'll end his suffering sooner rather than later. If not, he'll follow through with his intentions and begin his search.
no subject
Intervals and crevices in the stream of dormant energy present themselves. He chases, mind alight with wonder, until he trusts the union of force and flesh enough to intercede with the scattered, drowned fluidity of his magic. It scratches of him. Tears. Asks more than his golden core, the generator of his body, may freely give at this time of startled function. No matter. To the starved man, even half a morsel should do for feeding, and the chief cultivator's resources yet stand a feast. He thieves from himself, directs, rehomes —
And finds, in futility remembered, as with Wei Ying before. An overwhelming, startled silence. The absence of an anchor, energy only swirling within the child's body, seeking points of lower pressure to fill, an easy, uniform distribution. Enough to boost his resources, but — and Lan Wangji's touch dissipates, the transfer scant but sufficient so as to not overwhelm a novice recipient —
"Use swiftly." And was Wangji's voice so coarse before, his pallor so deepened? No matter, either. "There is nothing within you for it to latch."
The current highs of the donation will be succeeded by corresponding lows.
no subject
Back then it had all seemed to be part of a ritual, acting on superstitions that he knows now didn't help him avoid any consequences. This time he can tell as soon as he starts that something is happening. A sensation like a pulse of static or a rush of a current passes between them. His nerves spark to life and he's swiftly and alarmingly awake. What couldn't have been more than a minute seems to last in a suspended space of time, and he watches him intently as he tries to get a sense of how he's doing this.
When he finishes it's the best he's felt since magic was last used on him, forcing him to sleep for longer than he had in weeks, if he'd then gone on to down several pots of coffee. If he hadn't watched him do it, he would swear he'd given him some similar type of drug. There's still an underlaying anguish beneath it, but it no longer feels like suppressing it is taking all of his willpower. His natural limits are suddenly wiped clean.
Five nearly misses what Wangji says next and gives him a confused look, but doesn't ask for clarity. The man appears drained, more than he already did, and it's strange to think he willingly handed over what little reserves he had. If this is temporary, he can't waste time thinking about what he did and why, or what he owes him for the favor.
This time when he pulls on his powers, they respond easily. He takes a deep breath and nods, then disappears in the next instant in a flash of light.