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westwhere2021-04-26 07:49 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2021-04-26 07:49 pm
sa-hareth | the imperious
But you’re short on time for belly shaving. In a brief window of weather opportunity, the long-stalled, majestic vessel Imperious has approached the port citadel of Sa-Hareth for discharge, bringing along the dregs of her reputation in slave trafficking. She docks at 00:49 of the morning, with the captain, a two-man delegation, the chief of vessel trade and several guards heading to customs to declare her merchandise, then liaise with high merchant Torsten.
Onboard the Imperius, they leave behind an ancient treasure Torsten’s eastern partners have commissioned for delivery to reinforce local undead warlord Unhalad — along with several captives, fit for sustenance.
And in the roiling sea, circling the vessel, restless ripples as ice storms stoke.
NEW CHARACTERS | HERE COMES THE FRESH (FISH) MEAT
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• New characters find themselves aboard the vessel Imperious, in the last five to seven-day stretch of its voyage at sea. They come awake before a mirror in an otherwise wastefully deserted hall in the ship’s hull, to the sound of dying whispers. • Captives are temporarily drained and missing abilities or memories. Players can use this to cap powers as much as needed so they don’t sink the ship! They will recover their bearings in two and four days, but may be brought back to feed the mirror periodically. • Characters targeted to fuel the mirror again will spend a restless night of nightmares and hellish whispers prior. Memories of interacting with the mirror are nebulous. Those who recently faced it are given white masks during their recovery, which put them at ease. Those due to visit the mirror are offered red masks. • At sea, characters are kept unarmed and captive. They reside communally and must wash the decks, sew sails, or cleanse and gut the fish catch. • Sorcery aboard the Imperious allows characters to understand each other freely. |
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• While on deck, characters will notice a swarm of fishy pursuers — mermaids or their creature companions, who will attempt to hypnotically woo onlookers to bring them the mirror. Careful: they all have sharp fangs and appetites. • Two days before scheduled docking, vicious snow storms engulf Sa-Hareth and ice the seas, delaying the Imperious’ discharge. The mermaids fall increasingly sick as they circle the vessel in the cold. • After a time, the sea creatures return undead, feral and exclusively focused on the mirror, with some bodily throwing themselves against the ship in an attempt to submerge it to reach their target. • Finally, the Imperious docks, with some crew and sentinels exiting for formalities. Within the hour, explosions can be heard outside, and parts of the Imperious catch fire, sending most guards to investigate and leaving captives less closely monitored. • Run, fight your way out, find your dashing saviours, beware the fire and a sudden raid of (yes) humanoid undead aboard the vessel, jump into Sa-Hareths’ freezing embrace — just don’t fall overboard. • Characters will need to steal or receive thralled translation quartz pieces to understand each other once they’re off the Imperious. Guards have some; rescuers will bring more. • Inventory items can be recovered from the captain’s cabin. • Head here with all your mod questions! |
EXISTING PARTY | YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF... FIRE
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| • Word of the Imperious’ voyage spreads, but the vessel is delayed from docking by worsening weather conditions. • Ahead of the vessel’s discharge, characters may observe strange rippling in the water: mermaids and other sea creatures, circling the Imperious. They are alert, agitated, ready to hiss and claw if onlookers come near them. They speak incoherently of a coveted mirror. • Private guards are trotting around the port at Torsten’s behest, wary of a second robbery. Heist participants scouting the port should cloak and shield themselves as much as possible. • As the storms strike, the mermaids perish and return as undead. They grow exponentially violent as they hunt the mirror, actively trying to pull those who walk the piers into the water and shred them to pieces, to coat themselves in their living warmth. • The storms let off enough for the Imperious to dock. Seagulls alert Su Xunxian of its discharge past midnight, with Karsa also sending word. Her people use the party’s 13,000 coins to set off minor explosions and fireworks in front the Imperious, starting small fires aboard the vessel. • Characters can infiltrate the Imperious to rescue the captives in the cargo hull — an exhausted, confused and masked lot, who will need Karsa’s quartz pieces. Guards and slaves mention captives’ possessions are in the captain’s cabin. • It’s about to get crowded on the Imperious. Sighted, now and then: Unhalad’s undead, Karsa and her cloaked people, Haltham and even some of Anurr’s deathless factions — recognisable because of their red sleeve arm tattoos. In the water, mermaids start brutally attacking the Imperious. • Those who search the ship will find an eerie, raided hall, with a large shattered mirror. • Return the captives to the House of Dew. The final fate of the Imperious is in your hands. Consider damage to the port! • Go here with any mod questions! |
OLD & NEW (AND MAYBE BLUE) CHARACTERS
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Congratulations, you’re off the floating death trap. Characters can trot through the freezing Sa-Hareth, but beware the effects of long-term exposure to the magical cold: listlessness, fatigue, the urge to walk out into the mountains, and to burrow oneself in warmth. Head back to the luxurious, if declining House of Dew brothel that has been offering sanctuary to arrivals so far. For now, mistress Tamaiu also welcomes newcomers into the decrepit servants’ quarters. Old and arriving characters will have to share dinner, hot beverages and blankets for a few days, while further accommodations are arranged. The sorceress Karsa will rally newcomers to briefly explain the status quo: captives are in the frozen western citadel of Sa-Hareth. They have been rescued from the undead forces of reining warlord Unhalad, who faces new pressure to defend his territory from his deposed, but resurging rival, Anurr. Unhalad and his brethren use otherworld arrivals as an exotic resource, to absorb their skills or vital strength. The land’s only hope is to evacuate these strangers through long-lost eastern portals — a voyage in the works under the stewardship of her master, the Merchant. The long-unused portals might return everyone home, but the trip requires discretion and finance, and the weather’s an enemy now. Karsa will withdraw shortly, probably in a foul temper. She has not found her mirror. This isn’t a party, but celebrate staying alive. |
OOC HOUSEKEEPING
- • The event is optional, but counts as game canon if you participate.
• Applications opens at 00:01 GMT @ 3 May. If you think you’d like to throw one in, dropping a comment on the reserve / notice list helps give a heads up on how many apps to prepare for! Thank you in advance!
• Participating in the Test Drive Meme is not mandatory to apply, but all new characters accepted in this session will have been brought in as captives aboard the Imperious.
jiang cheng | the untamed
The others complain of nightmares in the wake of their mirror visits. Jiang Cheng hears the whispers, feels the edges of the haze in his mind, but he is well used to restless sleep. There was respite, briefly in the years directly after, where his nephew was so small, so needy, kept him so sleepless what sleep he did find was near to oblivion.
But Jin Ling is grown now.
Jiang Cheng has not slept well in recent memory.
He dreams of walking endless, empty halls. The distant whisper of people, never to be found. He's lost in a forest but no one comes. His parents stand on a boat, sailing away. They don't look back. No one ever looks back.
Jiang Cheng wakes to a thick, acrid copper filling his lungs, of Lotus Pier awash with blood, the cry of "Mom—" upon his lips.
to work
The lurch of the ship brings him back to the present and Jiang Cheng sits up in his cot, grimacing, mopping a hand over his tired face.
'Your tired face?' Wei Wuxian chirps in his mind, and he can almost feel where Wei Wuxian would shove a bony elbow into his ribs. 'That's just your face! Just say 'your face' and save time, we can all picture your sour expression fine.'
Jiang Cheng pushes the distant echo of a man long lost from his mind, though he knows it won't stay gone. He hunts rumors of Wei Wuxian's survival because he does not know how to hunt the ghosts in his mind, has not had a day pass where he hasn't felt the impulse to turn and see Wei Wuxian's reaction to something.
But no one is there.
No one will be again.
The work is, at least, familiar if not particularly pleasant. Growing up in the rivers of Yunmeng, Jiang Cheng is well practiced with the preparation of fish. He busies himself with it to have something to occupy his hands with, if not his mind, but even that comes with the unpleasant memories. Of his sister practicing different dishes with their catches. Of Wei Wuxian slipping bait into his clothes. Of bursting into tears from sheer disgust and having Wei Wuxian, now sheepish, promise him the biggest fish of the day if he would just stop crying.
Jiang Cheng stares so hard into that memory he doesn't notice himself slice into his own palm.
to fight
The chaos that descends upon the ship proves effective at bringing the sect leader out of Jiang Wanyin. His strength has recovered, even if he is unarmed, and he does not hesitate to put himself at the center of the action. He demands answers, learns that this is supposed to be a rescue. His very skin crawls without Zidian upon his hand, so that is his first order of business. Learning where their personal effects are being kept, that becomes his first priority.
"Make yourself useful," he tells the first person unfortunate enough to make eye contact with him. "Find something that will pass for a weapon if you don't have one and follow me."
to swim...?
[ Please wildcard me if you happen to be a castmate, cast adjacent, or aren't attracted to any of the existing prompts!! Jiang Cheng is going to get his shit back and then blush himself to death once inside the brothel, but I didn't want to put him in the House of Dew until I figured out if he's run into anybody he knows yet. And I know Wangji has a to-do list. Ahem. ]
to dream
Instead of being taken to the mirror, she tends to watch for those that have. She may help lighten their load or offer an ear or just lend an eye should they need help. She's no one special, not by any stretch of the imagination. So she uses that to her advantage to help others.
So when she wakes to the call of 'mom' Candy immediately looks for the one taken to the mirror most recently. A beautiful, elegant man made tired by travel and mirrors. She crawls across the floor to where he sleeps nearby and rests close on her knees near him. "Are you all right? You're awake now, I'm sorry."
no subject
"It's relative, isn't it?" he sighs instead, mopping a hand over his perpetually pinched, weary expression. "Being 'all right'."
Lips thinning, he looks over their surroundings with withering contempt.
"I'm not sure being awake is an improvement."
After all, losing everyone and everything he loved into perpetuity is painful, of course, but doesn't involve having to be in social situations he doesn't want to be in with complete strangers, constantly. The sects back home at least had the decency to schedule when they intended to converge to try his patience. No offense, Candy. You're just not the first and he sincerely doubts you will be the last.
work first, and then????
Xie Lian's eyes widen a bit, and he puts down his knife to grab the man's wrist.]
Ah! Careful! You cut quite deep, you need to bandage this!
[There's not much clean on hand, unfortunately, and with a sigh, Xie Lian unties the white bandage around his neck, revealing a tattoo of thorny vines encircling his neck. A curse mark.]
no subject
Ah, Jiang Cheng's age old enemy: Jiang Cheng.
Cursing softly under his breath, he moves to dunk his hand in a nearby bucket of water to clean it and rinse out the blood, turning his head to address the stranger—
When he's suddenly distracted by the marks on the man's neck. He figured the bandages were for, you know, a wound, but that's definitely not— ]
Are you sure you don't need it, for your, erm. ...situation?
no subject
[And surely, he can find another bandage somewhere, at some point, when there isn't an emergency.
He's already catching Jiang Cheng's hand to wrap the bandage around it.]
Be careful with the knives, they're very sharp. I'm even surprise they're letting us touch them, to be honest.
wild... cardin' along...
Fettered to Yunmeng, where men cosset the act of doing — not the results of Qinghe, the appearance of Lanling, the legacy of Cloud Recesses. Where they walk to caper, speak to yowl, breathe to live, with reckless, self-satisfied abandon. In the chaos of the Imperious, that manner is enough. Among wisps and smoke and shadow, twined, and the loud viscera of arson paints — the pain and panic and rustle, of wood, knelt down.
Up, Hanguang-Jun, in the night, go up: to the captain's rooms, where personal effects went looted. Recover them, for the captives given their liberty. An easy enough task; he struggles. Wrist deep in blood-letting, the oils of tumbled braziers, the syrupy, ashen brew of salt water and fish drippings. Hand, easy and gliding on the rail — grip staggered, when he rises on deck, moon cataracted and shapes smeared in bated dark, but for the striking, gelid difference of silvered scales, glistened eyes.
Sirens descend on the ship, as much as they swim. One crawls, over the deck.
What good are eyes, then? Burn them. He sees: a man of Wei Ying's posture, his pace, the breadth of his narrow back, open to the sudden swipe of siren claws. Instinct, then Bichen, then the swing. By the time Lan Wangji recovers balance, raises his sword from where she's struck, returns weight to his back leg, he knows the scent wrong. Canine — never speak the word — even in fire, in drench of salt. The siren falls fairly: bisected, diagonally, from the obscene mound of her bare breast down below where her pelvis should have ended. A clean strike. Were this the training grounds, Lan Wangji would watch the clear, mechanical tumble of her body, halved, rolled at his feet, and absorb the thrum of well-earned satisfaction that two parts so surgically divided could, with the proper stitch work, marry again in a post-mortem whole.
Blessings unto Gusu Lan: Lan Wangji slaughters well.
You wreck senseless carnage even better, don't you? He breathes, but the dead only speak the qin's clever tongue, and impatience courses him, river-wide, electric. Beady, the siren's stare comes empty from the floor. He takes the knee, eel-slick, and eases the iced translucence of her lids shut, tongue clicks of splashing water licking at the swaying vessel, while somewhere, around and below, and by the piers, each man is urged to faster movement.
And he sees again: firm cut of the jaw, stab of the cheek. Gaze, owlish and long, like a benison sword. So many nuances of difference could never paint Wei Ying. Wangji need not look again to know him — draws up, whites beside him, Bichen pointed to the remains of the mermaid assailant. ]
A bride for Jiang Wanyin. [ And has Lan Wangji, chief cultivator, not done well? Found a woman, the one alone, who'll have this wretch of a man and splayed her at his feet? Dead, but they have this debt between them. Honoured, honoured well. ] May your union last a hundred years.
[ He finds he is, unexpectedly, shivered. Ache of it all, of strain and poorly tamed frustration — to know decades come, and gone, and this confusion still lingers, this likeness between the man who deserved the world and the one who was gifted it, that Lan Wangji's intimate knowledge of both cannot erode.
You move alike. One breath, and he curses both. Wei Ying will learn. Better to walk as a beggar than as his brother. Better he cripple himself. Better Jiang Wanyin lose the leg first. ]
no subject
Bile is what faces him now, blood and ichor, entrails strewn, the hem of his robes blooming blood. The ghost of Lan Wangji before him, speaking in a voice Jiang Cheng has not heard in close quarters since that day. It echoes, that awful scream.
'Wei Ying!'
More familiar than Jiang Cheng ever spoke, raised under the same roof, fed on the same memories, promising each other this life and the next. Every oath dashed upon Gusu Lan's finest jade.
Jiang Cheng does not miss the barb of Lan Wangji's words, old grudges laid plain. He sneers in return, lip curling in displeasure at the man whose very existence brought Jiang Cheng's life to cinder and bone ash. ]
And what has the incomparable Hanguang-jun in such a joyous mood that he remembers his manners? It would appear chaos and carnage continue to agree with you.
no subject
Literal, the blood between them, dark ache and the decks given to drink. He thought, the mermaid's eyes closed, Lan Wangji's duties might complete themselves; he lingers, instead, to pass a hand over the air of her, to feel out the ridges and bone and pores of her energy, to taste flavours that might overwhelm his palate, where Wei Ying thrives on discerning each nuance. Spice, of a kind. Alcohol. One day, it will wound him to understand how sensitive he is to all manners of excess, external stimulation.
And then, nearby, sits the most virulent allergen. ]
You do not wear your sword.
[ Ah, and does master Jiang remember? They spurned a man once, for this bloodless cause. Lan Wangji shared a roof with him, ghost reduced, and the troubled, confused eye of the cultivation world turned and blinked and missed him.
But Jiang Wanyin — Jiang Cheng, no? If they were classmates, once, colleagues of a generation? Wanyin, courtesy be blessed. Jiang Wanyin lacks, and the storms spool and roar, and there is everywhere the scratched whipping of hard, heaviness shifting, of sirens thrashing and throwing themselves at the vessel, climbing to deck.
He breathes with sudden, empty, corrosive understanding that brother chose well in Wangji — that he will wear his obligations handsomely. An arc waved: he turns Bichen, left to right, listening for a moment, between the gasps of wet wind, for the testimony of energies, violent. Monsters, absent their form. ]
Take rearguard.
[ The honoured place of emperors and cripples and women, to the humiliation of their pride. No matter. Jiang Wanyin delivers himself like a babe, defenceless. He will be afforded that courtesy. In war, before — ...ah, but they shared a war once, where their blades weren't turned on each other. ]
I shall escort you.
We wildcard like Nies in here
Instead, he stayed behind to take stock of what they have, make sure they have enough resources to share - he remembers only too well how destitute they were on arrival and maybe they can take a bit of burden off their hosts this way. Karsa anticipated about ten people, which will be a tight fit but doable.
Once that's done, he takes residence in the main room with his guqin, providing a bit of musical accompaniment to the girls who are about to start entertaining for the evening. Most likely their new companions will be spirited in through the back. Might as well make the front of the house look like it's all perfectly normal.]
no subject
Hearing someone playing the choice instrument of his least favorite person sours his mood further immediately, though at least he doesn't think that will literally be Lan Wangji when he turns the corner as Lan Wangji appears deathly allergic to being sociable in any way and playing for a room full of people for entertainment definitely falls under that category.
So. He'll just walk in, walk past and see about—
That face.
Jiang Cheng stops dead in his tracks, Zidian crackling on his hand in answer to that immediate flush of anger, of cold, disbelieving fury.
But it can't be. The body language is wrong, and no matter how unpalatably close Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji grew, Wei Wuxian's instrument of choice remained the flute. It's a horrible coincidence, or—
...or Jiang Cheng just doesn't remember Wei Wuxian's face as well as he thinks he does anymore, after all these years chasing rumors and ghosts.
All their faces are going away, their voices, the smell of their clothes.
Every day, Jiang Cheng loses them a little more.
He stands there staring, unable to move.
Finally, he clears his throat a little, grip on Zidian white-knuckled. ]
...excuse me. Have we met?
no subject
The face greeting him is not known to him, but by now he knows where the confusion is probably coming from. Which means...]
No, we have not. You are newly arrived, from the ship, I assume? Have you been given some food yet?
[He sets the guqin aside and gives the girls around him a small smile, making his excuses and promising he'll be back later as he stands to greet the stranger.]
You were looking for Master Wei, I suppose. I think he was with the team who went to board the ship, and I am not sure he is back yet.
fight fight fight
"Xiaoge! Careful!"
He moves at the teasing echo of a voice, throwing himself towards a stumbling creature that was fish and dead flesh, catching the outstretched arm, swinging himself under while tossing the undead thing to the deck. Stiffening his extra long fingers, he jabs them into the throat and twists,jerking back at the spray of dark blood. Another coming up to him and he was picking the one he killed up, using it to batter the next one until he had a clear line to the creature's skull. His fingers easily pierce through the skull and he rips the head off.
"Which way."
His memories were uncertain and he was pretty sure he has no idea where he was, but he does know that someone around here should know what they were doing. Congratulations Jiang Cheng, he made you in charge of his fists.
no subject
"Our personal effects are this way, or so I heard," he explains, glancing over his shoulder in between keeping an eye out for trouble ahead. He might not be able to punch through people, but he has enough martial training to get by without his sword. He's picked up a broken plank of wood himself, swinging it at something that lunges from the shadows, striking it to the ground before driving the heel of his foot into its skull.
He keeps walking.
"I'm Jiang Wanyin, Yunmeng Jiang Sect Leader. You are...?"
no subject
"Call me whatever you want," he finally said, voice soft and low. "I don't have a name."
The mirror didn't take his memories because there wasn't any to take. He had never worn a red mask, had never had any memories appear save for those of the ship. Even in dreams, the only thing he could call his own was that of the sickly jade green glow and the taste of copper.
Glancing back, he noted the way Jiang Wanyin held the piece of wood, and then started running, gaining enough momentum to scale up the wall, hooking his arm around another shuffling form, twisting off and flipping them down before he hit them with his knees.