headed straight for the witches' castle

[groundrules]

Welcome to the bashful event covering 17 September – 9 October, working double duty as a test drive meme (TDM).

Existing players can strut their stuff here, or make separate logs & network posts. Our TDMing guests are stranded in this playground, but can include network options among play prompts.

If you’re test driving a character, you can apply them until 8 October without a game invite. Apps stay open beyond that, but you might need an invite or please get in touch @ groundrules to figure something out..

SCALE THE TOWER

---

Cousins Macaluso and Vannozza Spina vie for the favour of the witches of Bessis, in their bid to succeed their grandfather Bonaccorso as liege of magical citadel Taravast. In exchange for their endorsement, the Bessis have asked both electoral candidates to present extraordinary sorcery at a fete commemorating the Bessis truce with fellow court witches of Attaryl.

On the day of the distasteful masque held in the upper levels of the Bessis tower, characters assigned to support Macaluso and Vannozza will split into two espionage missions — one upstairs alongside courtiers, charlatans and the Bessis, and another deep below, crossing abandoned aqueducts. Characters can participate in either effort, but should be discreet if they’re working against their patron.

It’s all fun and games if you’re enjoying Bessis hospitality upstairs — test drive characters might be rating their hotel stay a little less enthusiastically.

TDM TOURISTS | UPSTAIRS (TEAM MACALUSO) | DOWN BELOW (TEAM VANNOZZA) | COMMON TIMELINE | NOTES & MAP



TDM TOURISTS

Days ago, you woke up sequestered in an immense bird cage, chained near the ceiling of a tall, dark room that once served as a library or academic hall. Imprisoned with you are several strangers, equally warded from their supernatural powers and partly sedated — all the better to amuse the nearly two dozen (visibly) undead who roam the room, despite being loosely fettered to posts. They often swing for your cage, but fail to reach it.

■ Sorcerer sentries briefly release characters daily to feed or bathe in a repurposed nearby quarter with a large pool.

■ Characters receive basic devices that translate speech and writing, so they can understand their caretakers’ instructions. All along, the guards urge, Keep the animals distracted.

■ The undead reek of burning and wail their hurts. They are gifted in telepathy and often mentally share memories of carnage — two armies of sorcerers, one raining fire upon its enemies. At night, the undead seek to control the minds of caged characters, luring them to come down or harm others.

■ Necromancers sometimes visit to study the undead. The latest necromancer guest temporarily immobilises the creatures and throws three bundles of identical keys into the cage — he reveals he is employed by a Merchant, who wants the outsiders to travel east and return to their homes. They are currently in Taravast, captives of the witches of Bessis, who hold annual celebrations tonight. The keys will help with escaping the cage and accessing nearby tunnels.

■ The necromancer leaves behind rope, two daggers, and three potion vials that generate mist once smashed on the ground. Leave within an hour of your dinner, he says, before releasing the undead from his magic.

■ Get out. As soon as you can, running like hell from guards and the undead. If caught, the undead will rip you to bathe in your body’s waters and ease their burns.

■ The underground tower tunnels are patrolled by guards, who can be overpowered by groups. Characters will recover any supernatural powers within 40 minutes of leaving their prison. Escape tip? Steal the guards’ clothes.

■ The tunnels inevitably lead to the aqueducts, allowing you to meet Vannozza’s group.

» GET WET



UPSTAIRS

The halls of the Bessis sprawl over a pristine ivory tower, whose walls refract light in homage to the witches’ devotion to fire.

The tower receives guests today to celebrate the armistice between the sorcery schools of Bessis and Attaryl. The two groups futilely sought to slaughter each other many moons ago, with the Bessis notoriously gaining the upper hand — explaining the tense smiles of the Attaryl witches on premise.

The event is a standard Taravast masque: if there were coin to spare, someone poured it into the obscene dining displays and alcoholic fountains. Enjoy dimmed lights, the rare pickpocket or recreational narcotic — or test your luck at gambling tables, where winners can claim a forcibly extorted secret from losers over games of dice or cards.

Come masked and visibly unarmed — weapons are confiscated at the doors. Smuggle them in. Just outside the tower, take a walk through labyrinthine walled gardens surrounding a deep water moat and leading to abandoned aqueduct pipelines.

OF NOTE:

■ Magical sentries — armed with swords and fire spells — watch the banquet halls, stairs and outside grounds.

■ Bessis practitioners showcase fire, wind, water and air dances in the reception halls, along with performing token duels. Get involved, if you want.

■ Don Urbano, a respected Bessis sorcerer returned from abroad, announces his betrothal with Wen Qing, as orchestrated and financed by Beitang Moran.

■ Come sundown, Macaluso invites fete guests, Vannozza and the Bessis to join him on the balconies and behold the canal moats, where swims his recently captured white dragon. The creature is magnificent but tense, its ice power crackling.

ASSIGNMENTS:

■ Run recon of the halls. Keep track of guards, divert them from the aqueducts and alert your friends downstairs of their presence. Be obnoxious, loud and attention-grabbing when sentries get near the opened aqueduct entrance.

■ One of the night’s most profligate gamblers, Caterina Zalle, leads a coalition that produces magical weapons. She is allegedly in talks with forces abroad that fight their undead oppressors. Even tipsy, she only speaks with those who best her at the gambling table — pair up and figure out how to cheat improve your chances, then drop a line here to win donna Caterina’s answer(s).

» SMILE AND CARRY ON



DOWN BELOW

A jaded spirit, Vannozza knows Macaluso’s historical patronage of the Bessis makes them unlikely to favour her. Better to take advantage of leaked information: the Bessis hide a secret that’s required them to mysteriously invite necromancers each day. Learn what the Bessis are shrouding, so Vannozza can extort them later.

The lady offers her protegees — and anyone dragged along for the ride — a map to abandoned aqueducts accessible through the sentry-patrolled gardens that surround the tower of the Bessis. Guards will be thinner at the start of the evening festivities, but keep in touch with your counterparts upstairs, who can distract them while you infiltrate.

■ The aqueducts can be entered through a shielded gateway that will require characters to dig extensively for access. Divert the guards creatively: use magic, tricks, everyone is a hapless beggar or a drunk...

■ The intricate waterways once served Bessis sorcerers who specialise in water arts. The pipelines range from roomy and rusted to highly claustrophobic and slick with a coating of dark tar that gradually starts to follow you.

■ You find out quickly why the pipes were abandoned: the tar starts to accrue behind you, taking your shape and diplomatically doing its best to choke or drown you. Luckily, the creatures disperse after scant minutes — characters who traversed the Stairs of Sighs will recognise this is the same molten tar found in the rocky corridors.

■ Brace yourselves — for a short stretch, the canal dips into the moat surrounding the tower, home to Macaluso’s dragon. The creature is currently peaceful, but its constant chill has largely frozen the waters. Swim across the moat through ice pellets to re-enter the canals.

■ The aqueducts ease characters into pool quarters, which show signs of recent use for bathing. In the nearby corridors, guards are posted before a room that erupts in frequent howls. Get in, somehow —

■ ...and find a large study hall with an immense suspended cage, a series of freshly freed newcomers and undead witches, who use telepathy, levitation and light mind control to their advantage.

■ Now, you take your newcomer fools, choose between returning through the aqueducts or daring the heavily guarded tower corridors — and you run.

» UP WE GO



EVERYONE TOGETHER NOW

Nothing spices a party like nearly two dozen undead witches that seek to salve their burn wounds with the blood of the living. Some undead invade the banquet halls, others the gardens, while a few head into the aqueducts. They use telepathy, levitation and mind control diligently — and wear the decayed insignia of witches of Attaryl.

The chaos and the undead that enter the moat agitate the water dragon, who goes on hours of rampage, breathing sheets and walls of ice around the tower and effectively locking everyone within for two-three days.

...with the wandering undead. The witches of Bessis assist with fire magic and torches, but it’s every man for himself. Beware: the dragon starts with magical attacks, but quickly progresses to throwing itself bodily to topple the tower.

TO-DO LIST:

■ Calm or immobilise the berserk dragon to ease the ice storms
■ Capture the fire-fearing undead
■ Protect and evacuate Taravast’s useless 1%
■ Stay alive?

NOTES & MAP

■ Old timers: GO HERE to vote on the fates of the dragon and later, the undead! And ask any questions you might have.

■ TDMers: TDM events count as game canon if you app in! TDM questions here.

Comments

[soloritur]

[ Marcos notices what she's doing, and stays within reach. He never really wants to be far from her again, definitely not right now. They need each other to get through this. He doesn't want to think that Clarice and the rest are here somewhere too, in another bizarre holding cell, because it's too much to deal with. If they're here, they'll find out.

He shakes his head as he looks back at them. Most of them seem to be having just as hard of a time getting their bearings, but he wouldn't be surprised if they're mutants too. ]

We should find out. [ At least they can get their names, figure out where they're from. They're in this together and they'll get out together. ] I don't know how many of them have been in this type of... well, I guess we haven't exactly either, but we can help them.

[chromiums]

[ if they're not mutants, there's probably something unique about them. in her experience people don't tend to get rounded up and captured for no reason, there's always some sort of factor that they end up having in common. she's not sure how willing people will be to volunteer that kind of information, especially when they're already imprisoned, but it's worth a shot to find out. ]

Okay. [ she nods, still remaining close, but preparing to move. ] Okay, let's - ahhhh!

[ the pressure that's been building at her temples and the base of her skull suddenly intensifies, and lorna's mind is flooded with the images of the people below them, pain lacing through her mind and fire burning behind her eyelids. she sees all of it, how they died, what lead them to the undead state they're in, and she lets go of marcos's arm to clutch at her head, sinking to her knees. ]

[soloritur]

[ His eyebrows shoot up and he immediately grabs her shoulders when she screams. Whatever it is, it doesn't hit him at the same time, and he can only guess where it's coming from. ]

What is it? [ Panic rises in his chest and he sinks down with her. He wants to sound calm, but he can't... not when he's this helpless. ] Look at me, Lorna. Who's doing this? Tell me something.

[chromiums]

[ it takes her a little while before she's able to respond, the vision replaying in her mind until whatever sent it relents, having successfully gotten her to see what it wants her to. when she opens her eyes she's relieved to see his face again, although she's clearly still shaken by what the undead had forced her to see. ]

It's - I think it's them. [ she gestures vaguely at the zombies trying to reach for them, their limbs swinging wildly at the cage and making them sway. her eyes close again as her vision sways and her head throbs. ] I think they wanted to show me how they wound up here. It was like they shoved their memories into my head.

[soloritur]

[ Those few moments are agonizing, and Marcos is afraid to look away from her until she finally opens her eyes again. His relief that it stopped is short lived at her explanation. He glances beyond the cage, where the living corpses have taken to swaying the cage again, which does nothing for how disorienting this all is. ]

At least they're trying to communicate, but I don't know if we should take that as a warning or a threat. [ He refocuses on Lorna, plainly worried now that they know telepaths are involved, and he reaches for her again. ]

How did they? What did you see?

[chromiums]

[ she clings a little tighter to marcos as the cage begins to sway again and her head continues to throb. it helps; his presence is steadying and calming, just like it always has been. they can both be volatile, even towards each other (and at times, especially towards each other), but they also know each other and how to bring each other back.

it's selfish, she shouldn't want anyone else here with her. but she's glad that he is. ]

Fire. There was an army that fought with it, bringing it down on them. [ the cage sways again and she swallows back nausea, looking up at him. ] I can't tell which it was, it just felt...painful. Like they wanted us to feel what they felt.

[soloritur]

[ Marcos tries to be some kind of brace against the swaying that doesn't seem to let up. When she mentions fire, he tenses and his stomach flips, thinking of the burning landscape they barely got a glimpse of before following Clarice.

'...they wanted us to feel what they felt.' ]

Ah. [ He takes it in slowly, holding her and taking deep breaths, keeping his darker thoughts to himself as that settles over him. The smell is horrible, worse now that he knows what it is, and he can still hear them wailing just below them. They were burned alive. What army? Where are they? ]

Um. It's probably... [ He fights against whatever he was drugged with, straining to put two thoughts together as he swallows how unsettled he is. ] Someone else put us here, and they'll be back at some point. Maybe one of the others knows more. Maybe they saw something.

[chromiums]

[ she's trying to keep her own worries at bay, but it's difficult when she has no idea what's happening, why they're there, and she can't feel something that's so much a part of her. and none of that is even factoring in that there are creatures trying to attack them, only just out of reach. with every sway of the cage she wonders how steady their prison is, if they're only a few swipes away from crashing to the floor and getting devoured.

it makes her all the more nauseous, and she takes a second to cover her eyes and try to rub the pain lingering in her head away. ]

We should start there, yeah. See if anyone's been here longer. [ but if they've all been drugged the same way they are, she's not sure how much they'll be able to answer. she looks back up, trying to rise unsteadily to her feet. ]

[soloritur]

[ He rises with her, trying to steady her even as he sways back and struggles to keep his feet. There are several of them sprawled around the cage, mostly huddled on the floor, and he nods to them. ]

Okay. I'll take one end, and you...

[ The swaying gets worse and he stumbles back and tries to grab the bars behind him to balance. His head splits open in that same moment and he gets a first hand look at what Lorna was just describing. He shoves the palm of his hand into his eyes and loses his mind for a minute to horrific visions of burning bodies and howling pain.

When it stops he's on the floor again, and he doesn't try to get up. Frustration finally breaks and he says the least helpful thing he can manage. ]

What were we thinking? [ He takes a sharp breath and clenches and unclenches his fists, his voice low and tortured. ] We shouldn't be here.

[chromiums]

Marcos? Marcos!

[ she doesn't let go, arms wrapping around him and hands winding into his shirt to try to steady him the same way he'd been doing with her. it's less successful and they both collide against the bars, and eventually she sinks to the floor with him, knowing he must be seeing the same thing she had and that there's no way to stop it. she just holds him until it's over, her lips pressed against the top of his head until he moves.

when he does, she pulls back, but just enough to give him space to breathe, one hand curving over his wrist. ]

No. [ they should be wherever they were meant to go when clarice lead them through that portal. they should be at home with their daughter, finally together and safe. ] No, we shouldn't. I wish I knew how we are.

[soloritur]

[ He shouldn't have said that, but it was all he could think when the visions stopped. How wrong this is. His eyes are glassy when he looks at her, and he tries like hell to smile to let her know that he appreciates what she's doing. That it would be so much worse without her, but he can only nod grimly. This is wrong.

He clears his throat and seems to get a grip on the emotions that overtook him. They have to have faith that they'll figure this out. After everything, he needs Lorna to believe in him and know that he's not going to let her down. If he starts to think too much about the daughter they abandoned he won't be able to think of anything else. ]

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this happened.

[ He's quiet for a long moment as those nightmarish visions replay in his mind. What he saw... no one could live through that. The fact that the army was raining fire on telepaths doesn't give him any good feelings. ]

They're still suffering. You can't reason with something in that much pain.

[chromiums]

[ she smiles back, as much as she's capable of in spite of her fear. the two of them have weathered a lot, including her turning her back on what they'd built because she hadn't believed in it anymore, but she'd never stopped believing in him and his desire to make a world for themselves and their child that wouldn't be dangerous for them just because of how they were born. they're going to get through this. they're going to make it back and either find the rest of the underground to fix what clarice had been trying to warn them about or go back to their daughter.

they're going to, because they have to.

lorna's fingertips run through his hair a few times in an attempt to comfort, both him and herself. when he apologizes, she leans forward, kissing his cheek. ]

This isn't your fault. [ she'd meant it when she'd said that this was wrong, that them being here was wrong. they've been pulled into something for a purpose they hadn't agreed to. ]

No. [ he's right, whatever's attacking them and putting visions of their suffering in their heads can't be reasoned with; they just want to show how they suffered and who did it. part of her can relate, but she knows that's dangerous. ] I'd like to get some answers, once we can.

[soloritur]

[ Isn't it his fault? Both of them decided to jump into that portal. They didn't have any idea that this is where they'd end up, but they barely gave a second thought to what they were leaving behind.

He keeps that to himself, along with a possibility that he doesn't want to give a voice to. That the telepaths are dead, and whoever killed them somehow reanimated their corpses to use their powers. The Hound program was horrible enough.

Another breath and he refocuses on her, finally responding to her touch by leaning into it. ]

I do too. [ He wants them now, but rationally he knows they aren't in any hurry to give them. Hopefully by the time they do, the sedation will have worn off. Until then... he shakes his head and falls back on the only plan he can think of. ] We'll ask around, but stay close. If they can only hit us one at a time, that gives us a chance. We can try to pull each other out if they try something else.

[chromiums]

[ if it's his fault, it's hers too. lorna isn't interested in turning the blame on him or putting it on herself when she knows there has to be something bigger at play, something capable of not only pulling them and others through time and space, but reanimating the dead. that's something much bigger than them, or than anything they've encountered so far. it's as weirdly comforting as it is terrifying.

he leans into her and she curls against him, winding her arms around him and placing her hand on top of his. no one around them seems to know any more than they do, no one seems all that capable of answering the questions they want to ask and they're not really in any shape to ask them, so when he states the part of a plan he's managed to form, she nods. ]

Okay. [ she looks up at what she can see of his face. ] Maybe we can start to learn how to prepare for it.

[ she doesn't necessarily want to bring up the time she'd been gone, when she'd turned her back on marcos and kept him from their daughter. but it feels necessary, if she's going to teach him how to block their attacks. or attempt to block them, anyway. ]

[soloritur]

[ He seems content to stay with her for now, considering the last two times they tried to move away from each other they were attacked with visions. Maybe that's intentional, but he doesn't think that those living corpses have the capacity for anything other than sharing their pain. It's horrible to think about.

When Lorna suggests there's something they could learn how to fight it, of course he thinks back to one of the hardest things he's ever had to experience. Subconsciously he grabs her hand and tries not to get lost in the past. ]

The only time I was able to break a psychic hold... it took a lot out of me. [ He was so desperate to get her back, to save his family. He sounds uncertain to approach the subject, but he has to. ] But you were closer to telepaths. Did you learn anything?

[chromiums]

[ she hadn't wanted to bring it up, because she remembers where he'd been when he'd experienced another kind of attack like this. when he'd been brought in to save their daughter's life, when he'd met her only to be taken away from her again. she hadn't wanted to remind either of them of that (even though she's never let herself forget it, as much as she'd like to). ]

Yeah. [ it's all she says, because what else can she say? they both know what happened. it's something they should probably address, but not when they're both being held hostage above a pit of undead that are psychically attacking them. ] I kind of had to learn to tune them out and make my thoughts blank. If that makes any sense. Tried to create a lot of neutral thoughts to make a barrier between my thoughts and theirs.

[soloritur]

[ He doesn't want to dwell on their past trauma while they're in the middle of their current, but that wasn't that long ago and he hasn't fully had time to confront what they went through. To then find that everything they have and fought for is still so fragile.

He can feel some of those same emotions surface when he thinks about the risks she took, and how terrified he was of her being discovered... it amazes him that Lorna was able to stay undetected while living with three powerful telepaths. ]

I don't know how you managed that for so long. [ He doesn't say anything else for a moment, he just looks at her with concern, only eventually nodding at her advice. ]

So it's like meditation, except you could never let yourself slip. [ He's not sure how much that will help them now, but at least it's something productive they can focus on. ] It sounds exhausting.

[chromiums]

[ they're going to need to talk about it, sooner or later. she knows it's still bound to be on his mind, because it would definitely be on hers, but she exhales with relief when he doesn't mention it, some of the tension easing from her body. she nods at his assessment instead, because 'exhausting' is definitely the word for it.

her control had been a little less rigid at first, more focused on dawn and tending to her needs, especially after she'd gotten sick. but after esme had gone into her baby's head to calm her to sleep, she'd started getting becoming more alert to the possible signs and more wary of the possibility. ]

Yeah, I didn't say it was a simple solution. [ and she's not sure how well it's going to work against these things. but it's worth trying. ]

[soloritur]

[ He falls quiet, and it's clearly not because he's meditating but because he finds that solution completely impossible right now. Whatever he managed not to say is too prominent in his mind. Not once did he think that she'd finally get out of there and they'd still end up locked away from their daughter. He'd been naive enough to think that she'd never be without one of them ever again.

There's so much they don't know. Their friends could be out there, trying to get to them as they speak. They could also be somewhere worse off. They could be dead. Nothing feels right. ]

I don't think I can. [ The cage continues to sway and he looks towards the distant corpses reaching out to them. ] How are you supposed to block out that?