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

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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

[callamities]

[ 'I don't know.' Calla swallows those words, not willing to admit to as much with a blade to his throat. He's clearly already testing this man's patience and pushing it further in such a position... Well, it seems ill-advised.

But all the appeasing words in the world won't matter if he can't actually stop the noise—and, whether he admits it or not, the fact remains that Calla doesn't know how to do that. Doesn't the man think he would stop it if he could?

'No,' that resentful, louder-than-ever voice mutters to itself. 'It's always about them.'

Calla shoves the traitorous thought aside to answer as politely as he can. ]

I believe it's a software error, [ Calla says, careful not to reveal too much. ] Likely caused by an interrupted update. It isn't uncommon for such errors to occur from time to time. [ Liar, and slanderer of those who gave him purpose beside. ] Perhaps it will be fixed in the next patch?

[downswing]

[ He speaks in tongues.

Of course. Panic. Smoke, chaos. Miasma, and fire, the rush of milling men. Sweat and blood and mildew. In the sting and chaos of it, minds will relieve their normal thoughts, will confuse themselves.

Civilian know nothing of the hardships of bloodshed. Cannot hope to withstand them without fracture. Lan Wangji, hand softened on Bichen's hilt, sweeps the blade back in a trembled arc, until she sits listless but unsheathed at his side.

His voice sheds an octave, voice the calm appeasement deployed against small, rattled animals to soothe them. ]

At ease. You will not know harm. [ Trust in the blood-drenched man with the long sword. ] You are... worn.

[callamities]

[ Finally, the man pulls the sword away from Calla's throat. It seems he understands that Calla isn't being non-compliant by choice. Calla sighs softly in relief as he's released from under the blade—an entirely expressive exhalation for a being that doesn't actually need to breathe. ]

Thank you, [ he says, ducking his head in gratitude. ] I apologize again for the inconvenience.

[ That ticking sound is still there. Yet, without the imminent threat of decapitation, it softens some, falling in volume and speed. ]

If you don't mind me asking, sir, ah... [ Calla winces. Hopefully, his question won't put him right back under the man's sword. ] ...Where are we supposed to go?

[downswing]

To safety. [ This, instinctive in the absent-minded way of a schoolboy reciting an ethical principle without thought to its substance, only mindful of the form. What safety can this place yet broker? Lan Wangji's gaze cuts the corridors, and spies only shapes and metaphors for carnage, prophecies of disaster awaiting flesh and fruition.

He is compelled, briefly, to laugh. His mouth does not recall the motions, never bloomed to learn instincts of humour. That, more than impulse, saves his dignity. ]

Apologies. [ There is no such delusion as 'shelter.' ] Outside wakes a dragon. Within, the dead roam. [ And men scream, and children beg desperate parents for succor. And Lan Wangji's back nearly breaks from the weight of holding on to scrapes of sanity for the past hour's pass. ] You hide.

[ And you pray, if the heavens yet listen. ] We shall find you weapon.

[callamities]

[ A dragon? As if the walking dead weren't ghastly enough. This really is a high-octane Sim-Res, isn't it? Calla is more than happy to hide if that's all that's required of him, but when the man offers to find him a weapon, his expression abruptly drops. ]

Ah, sir, that really won't be necessary! [ He says it with a startled little laugh, eyes wide. The man must be joking, right? Or, more likely, he takes Calla as one of the NPCs actually programmed for this world, complete with realistic combat subroutines for immersion. Calla silently and blasphemously curses whatever caffeine-addled programmer had mistakenly put him in this of all Sim-Resses. ]

I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but—I'm not from here. There's been a mistake. [ The words come in a nervous rush, Calla already taking a step back. ] Combat is completely outside the scope of my programming.

[downswing]

[ A foreigner, with inappropriate — ...programming. Mould and wet and stripes of red on hanged, looming walls, rusting corrosive, and yet this drowns Lan Wangji first, the slow anticipation of the boy's rushed exhalations. The next ill-folded foolishness to slither, aborted, from his mouth.

Twitching, Wangji's hand intends to grasp the sword — diverges from it in a tired arc, and the cold that ricochets off the walls, when the dragon dips and buffs the long intestine of the dimmed pipeline, lives in him, in the bow of his back. Burrows and spreads its roots, riotous. ]

You speak in tongues. [ Soft still, measured. The empty cadence of water, dripping in shallow pond. ] I do not grasp them.

[ If he refuses a weapon, if he cannot bear it — perhaps, and Lan Wangji's gaze trickles to his hand, the boy is crippled, or wounded. Weak of wrist or joints. ]

[callamities]

[ To his credit, Calla only twitches slightly when the man reaches for his sword again, though his restraint is more due to conflicting impulses than any real bravery. His programming says it would be rude to a fault to leave mid-conversation. The part of him that is all faultiness, wormed into him by an unknown operator, whispers run.

The ticking regains in volume and speed. ]

What I mean to say, sir, [ Calla says hastily. ] is that I'm not capable of violence. It's— [ A fluttering gesture to the glowing markings adorning his face. ] Beyond me. Not possible. Forbidden.

[ Surely, Calla thinks, one of those synonyms will be comprehensible to the man or suitably quaint for whatever fantasy he's choosing to engage in for the moment. One never can tell with humans whether the issue is stupidity or stubbornness.

Blasphemy again, though by now Calla is losing his patience to be scandalized by such things. ]