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
Listlessness erodes grace. Blessed be the absence of the grandmaster, so he need not witness Wangji's fall. ]
Daozhang. [ Uncle, he knows, in trickles of gutting memory. Uncle and family to Wei Ying, no lesser than Sizhui and Jiang Cheng, more rust-red on his ledger. A loss, upcoming. He intuits in Xiao Xingchen, unheard, the same honeyed lull that staggers his heart. ] Wangji, sect Lan, greets you.
[ What use, their courtesy now? Coin of days and courts gone by. Carp Tower alone upheld the ornaments of wordplay, and though he plagues their days here, by right, Jin Guangyao has perished.
If there is ache, Xiao Xingchen has born it like a cup nearing brim. If there is a righteous path, his feet have unearthed, only to hurl back hard ground. Leave solace to flower houses and poets, and blighted death to Hanguang-Jun. Dissolving back to sit at ease beside Xiao Xingchen, he knows his part, plain.
Bile makes riot and ruin of his insides, coats and weighs his tongue. He intends to laugh, nearly chokes, coarse like snarled, caked gravel dripping down a chimney's throat: ]
'Too many words. We fight.'
[ The ancient battle call, familiar to the nephew. Perhaps the uncle also heeds it. ]
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Hanguang-jun.
[If he is affected, too, then that is truly unfortunate. He thinks back to an earlier conversation with Lan Sizhui and how the younger man had spoken so admiringly of the man who raised him. It breaks Xingchen's heart to think of how the disciple would undoubtedly suffer were anything to happen to Lan Wangji.
But what can he do? Wrapping a hand loosely around Shuanghua's hilt, Xingchen feels nothing. There's no comforting thrum deep in his body, no connection to the steel in his hands despite the two of them being partners, maybe even more than he and Song Lan had been, once. The blade is warm where his hands have held it for these long minutes, but still cold with a severed attachment. What can he do? If he were to draw Shuanghua from its sheath, wielding it would exhaust him far too quickly. He's disabled now, more than he has been, and he's sure he'd be more of a hindrance than a help were he to go out and offer his assistance in whatever cures are being hunted.
Lan Wangji speaks again with some difficulty and what he says is right. Someone has to do something and a few years ago Xingchen would have already set out to do it. He envies that version of himself, the man he'll never get to be again. But instead of explaining any of this to Lan Wangji, remembering the last conversation they had back in Sa-Hareth, he just takes his hand off the hilt of his sword and bows his head in acquiescence.]
no subject
The traffic of healers, peddling the same routine reassurances, vermin words of fine intent. Like poetry children learn for display before their assembled elders. For all the faults Wei Ying entombs at his feet, the grandmaster never succumbed to the vanity of parading his nephews' talents to the gasps of an awed crowd.
A healer missteps. A discordant note bruises the horizon, speck of dark, blemished contrast against the sterile, polished performance of her companions. An ant dizzied on the path to her nest.
She says, I'm sorry.
Then, I'm sorry, I have nothing to give you.
Emptied, the poisoned lady that suffers the scorch of her gaze, the interruption of her hand on her shoulder, recoils as if snake-bitten. ( You feel, the poison's already taken hold. )
All at once, he aches to be better — a compulsion, a stimulation, a vector not merely anchored, but directed. Propelled, slashing like storm. Blood is his mark, his covenant, his creature. If he must perish, let it be in the glory of red-rust and silhouette.
Let them be two in this. Touch finds him like a derangement, unwilling. He knows, marrow-deep, the taste of strength, electric. Knows gossip despite the whipping of precepts, knows the bright moon and gentle breeze, and if night is upon them, then — viper-fast, he clutches Xiao Xingchen's sword beneath the hilt, at the root of the blade, in an intimacy that defers, at the last moment, to the true owner. ]
Fight with me.
no subject
Something grasps his sword and Xingchen gasps, tightening his own grip on the weapon. He starts to tug against that hold, fiercely unwilling to offer up the last and only other piece of himself he has in this strange land, even if it is mostly useless to him now. And then Lan Wangji's voice - he must have reached for Shuanghua - asks, commands they fight together, as if they are not both dragging their feet toward Death's door.
Xingchen laughs, a sad, weak thing. His shoulders shake longer than his laughter survives as he starts to curl in on himself.]
And do what? I would only get in the way.
[As his breathing evens out, despite this initial response, he thinks about what Lan Wangji said. The other man is right, of course. They should fight this. They need to go out and look for these cures, no matter how impossible they may be or how useless they could turn out. If not for himself, then for the others who have been targeted by this cowardice.
If Xingchen thinks too much about this, looks too deep into his empty self, he might hear whispers of a younger man declaring his intent to save the world. That man, foolish as he may have been, wouldn't let this stop him. That man would be ashamed of Xingchen now.
Xingchen himself is ashamed of Xingchen now.
These aren't his best moments. Lan Wangji is here to witness them and Xingchen wouldn't be at all surprised if he received another scolding for not getting involved. He would deserve it. So, he straightens again and takes a breath.]
What can I do?
[He still feels hopeless and useless and his tone surely reflects that, but if Lan Wangji has any ideas...]
no subject
The body renounces itself. Each day, it signs its name to the same betrayal, writ in small feats: skin trades freshness, limbs stiffen, steps cripple. The senses lose their grip of the biological whetstone. Age makes fools of men, and Lan Wangji wears his years like his winters, broad-backed and steeled. What difference, then, now? Only to know the trickle of before has thickened into rivulet, and soon the stream will flood.
Beneath water, men can yet learn to breathe as fishes. Ambition seeds what nature denies. There is clatter between them: Wangji's certainty, stretching its legs, and the occasional startle of dropped cutlery and cups, nearby. Some waste time with feeding, paltry medicines, palliatives. They have heard the truth of their succour already, carved in their ears' bones. ]
If you lived poorly, die well. [ And if you perished like husk and parchment frail, let conviction fill you first, firm enough to stand. ] Die with salvation tight in hand, not strewn between fingertips.
[ He rises first. Lead, as in all things, however staggered — by example. It is, he has learned, in the nature of things: where Hanguang-Jun goes, his white ghosts follow. ]
no subject
He thought.
But he takes another breath and tries to shake himself of these thoughts. They're always going to weigh on him, but he has to square up his shoulders and carry that weight. Lan Wangji doesn't say these things to poke at Xingchen's regrets; he speaks wise words, good words. Xingchen doesn't care about his own legacy. He really would have been content enough living out the rest of his days in a quiet town with the only friends he had left in the world. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but it would have been enough. Yet, now that everything feels as if it's rolling rapidly downhill, Lan Wangji has a point. Instead of letting himself roll right along with everything, he should at least try to grab onto something to pull himself out of it. His life in retrospect may have been a mess, but he can die trying to do something better.
His shattered bonds still hurt and it's going to take time to recover from them, if he ever does. His trust has been wounded and Xingchen wants more than anything right now, outside of being poisoned, to just retreat inside of himself and...let the world pass him by. It would be easier. It wouldn't hurt as much.
The weight beside him on the couch disappears, though he can still track Lan Wangji by the rustling of his clothes. Xingchen stays put, however, having not been explicitly invited to go where Lan Wangji is going, but this conversation hasn't felt like it really ended. So.
Xingchen stands up, too.]
no subject
Then, onwards, past the great halls, where the people of the lady yet withdraw.
And further still, to the kitchens, where a roiling bees' nest of servant and attendants broker funerary arrangements for a man one of Macaluso's gentlemen spits down upon, in passing. Distantly, Lan Wangji sees only this: the red that spills on his limbs, the fetters in which they've bound him. He hears no different than he had anticipated, a grand and convenient discovery of the culprit, incidentally struck down by his own hand.
At least the onlookers share the wisdom to question the strategic coming in place of all the necessary parts, as Wangji himself takes upon his bones the burden of doubt, now. He remembers to murmur behind him to Xiao Xingchen, spared sight: ]
They have found their man of the poisons. [ And softened: ] They name him a demonstrator. Convenient.
no subject
He might disturb or collide. He probably disturbs or collides.
But at least this little concern proves to be enough to distract himself from falling entirely into his head again, though that desire won't go away any time soon, he's sure.
Another bout of activity and raised voices tells Xingchen before Lan Wangji can elaborate that they've passed something important. Something unfortunate, or perhaps relieving.]
Is he dead?
[Once, Xingchen would have been able to smell blood on a beaten man. Once, he did.
He should have worried first for his younger ward. He should have let the carrion birds deal with that wretched sack of skin and bones.
Swallowing back his regrets, he leans closer to Lan Wangji.]
You don't believe their verdict.