interlude: ellethia

[groundrules]

ELLETHIA

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En route to their next destination, the Merchant detours the party through his home citadel of Ellethia — the first, haunted casualty of the undead, now divided into Ellethia-Allayar and Ellethia-Hamsour.

Feel free to tag into this log or make your own posts!

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ONE FOR THE ROAD

Macaluso Spina’s plans to escort the group out of Taravast are overturned by the Merchant’s transmission:

”It appears many of you remain indifferent to the stakes of our endeavour. So, you will see them. You go to Ellethia, jewel of innovation, the first cradle of the dead. My home.”

With the sorceress Karsa now gone, the party is entrusted to journey master and kindly-mannered biologist Enam.

Characters retain their bare essentials and what little can be carried on their backs. Magical storage is minimal. Everyone receives bags containing: three raw candles, a bundle of red clothes, a light blanket, two flasks of fresh water, a dagger, two bandage strips, two needles, strong thread, four textile patches, dried food, a pouch with two fistfuls of kiln-dried broken firewood and some flint. Supplies are replenished periodically.

Enam and his six assistants carry larger loads — with two aides transporting heavily bound humanoid forms. They’ve got you, Kaneki.

Ellethia requires delicate travel. The group first travels communally by ship, reaching the East Arakuthia Seas at sunset, meeting 25 small boats that can home between one and three passengers.

The group only travels at sea by night, when the depths are safest. The 3-17 January period covers two nights of seaborne travel, broken by journey on land across the two segments of Ellethia. Sea shipment will take characters from East Arakuthia to Ellethia-Allayar. A second voyage will later deliver them from Ellethia-Allayar to Ellethia-Hamsour. They spend roughly seven days at each land location.

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TROUBLE AT SEA

The small boats have been thralled to slowly progress through mist and water to their destination. Enam quickly discloses the rules of seaborne engagement:

■ Keep the light. Enam offers each traveller a lit candle brazier to wave periodically around the boat and “ward away evil.”

■ If your candle blows out, rush to it light back with help from your boat-mate or other vessels.

■ If all of a boat’s candle lights have been died, travellers have three minutes to light fresh candle flames. The vessel begins to sink, seized by hands of rotting flesh and shadow. Undead mermaids attempt to drown those who fall in.

■ Sunken characters can be rescued by other vessels but remain “marked,” experiencing a bitter, unrelenting cold that no fire can tame. The saviours’ ship are intensely targeted by mermaids that seek to capsize it and collect their lost prize. You are rattled but safe as long as your lights hold.

■ Perhaps you dozed off, or briefly looked away — no matter your distraction, a newcomer (?) has now climbed into your boat, teeth chattering and terrified. These undead visitors are unaware of their condition and beg to be delivered to shore. They are not violent, unless ignored and often spark conversations. Over time, they become paranoid that they will not be rescued.

■ Those who share their names with these creatures feel compelled to take them to ground, where they trigger immediate medium-scale explosions. Other boat-mates or vessels can stop this.

■ Forcibly push your stowaway into water, trick them in, or pose a riddle they cannot solve.

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AHOY, LAND

Ellethia has been cleaved into two — Allayar and Hamsour — by the Huntress, whose extended presence crumbled stone, decayed organic matter and eventually sunk districts and passageways. Crude bridges connect sectors of the citadel that have been partly submerged.

Although the tragedy of Ellethia occurred within the last decade, its ruins have been completely overrun by lush vegetation.

The following applies to both Ellethia-Allayar and Ellethia-Hamsour:

■ Characters must don their fashionable red gear once they reach land. Over 15 minutes of direct exposure to the crisp Ellethia air leads unprotected skin to erupt in a rash, then into gashes and tissue-deep decay. The wound fully regenerates within the hour.

■ Patch your party suit immediately, if it is torn.

■ Science-prone characters can notice no sign of radiation. Sorcerers feel no magic. Necromancers sense a complete absence of death.

■ There is no other human presence on land. Plants develop abundantly. Animals live an entire cycle of birth, growth, maturity and decay in the period between sunrise and sundown, reaching their prime around midday. Corpse remains patch back together into the creature’s new-born form at sunrise.

■ There are no human corpses anywhere.

TASKS

■ Forage or hunt. Replenish resources. Water from Ellethia’s canals is potable.

■ Help Enam find samples of the Widow’s Yearning. The plants grow in small fields whose scent woos travellers into a restful sleep they struggle to wake back from on their own. Widow’s Yearning can be ground into a potent hallucinogen.

■ Explore the pastoral surroundings.

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ELLETHIA-ALLAYAR

The party first reaches Ellethia-Allayar, which hosts the ruins of the citadel’s seats of banking, commerce and governance. Ellethia-Allayar has been deeply flooded, with many streets partly overcome by water.

■ Amid torn-down halls of rhetoric and administration, characters can find bright flags on public office buildings, and glitter debris and street cups on the ground.

■ Several decaying pamphlets remain in the main piazza, whose halls have been submerged 1 meter underwater. If recovered, the pamphlets bemoan: Toss a Bone to Your Taxman: He’s Already Got the Meat, Gristle and Fat, Dowries: Sense or Sentiment? Join Tonight’s March for Free Wedlock, Who Watches through Your Mirrors?, Selling: Minor Palace with Main Street View and Cat, 90 Days Since Conscription: Where Are Your Sons?, Taravast Was Our Fathers’ Question, We Are the Answer.

■ Fresher pamphlets littered on public streets announce extended burial grounds in the botanical garden.

■ Roads and buildings show signs of clawing and trampling, along with spattering of long-dried blood.

■ The carriages, streetlights and infrastructure of Ellethia suggest a technology level near the 1800s.

THE SILENCE GAME

Ellethia-Allayar’s impromptu “canals” have made it a prime target for mermaids, who only infiltrate at midday — the peak of the accelerated animal life cycle.

■ Enam urges retreating to the high ground of the peripheral residential areas, as midday draws near.

■ Between noon and 13:00 each day, swathes of vicious mermaids storm the Allayar canals, working in packs to draw unsuspecting animals or humans into water. Some mermaids are dead, some living. While they always circle Ellethia during the day, they only proactively hunt in this period.

■ The thick fogs of Ellethia throw a boon: if they are very silent and very still, characters can hide even on low ground. Beware: the mermaids’ hearing has evolved to compensate their weaker sight, helping them locate close-by characters who speak or heave.

■ Mermaids imitate the animal calls and human voices they have heard to lure out prey.

■ Most central and public buildings are on low land.

Enam directs characters to their boats again to head to Ellethia-Hamsour within the week.

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ELLETHIA-HAMSOUR

Unlike Allayar, Ellethia-Hamsour is a completely demolished territory, bordering a wasteland. Water infiltrations have been minimal.

The fog runs thicker than in Allayar, compounding the dangers of the collapsing, decayed roads and bridges.

The strong, vibrant greenery only breaks in coastal regions. Beneath the plant beds, you can find signs of the academic, science or technological districts. In some manicured gardens, flowers have overtaken hundreds of newer stone plates bearing local names and the marker, Truth Bows Only to the Sun.

Any remaining stone edifices display intense clawing and blood residue.

Characters are tasked to head to a distant lighthouse, lone in the horizon.

■ Characters become increasingly obsessed with reaching the lighthouse, often neglecting food, safety and sleep.

■ The single-minded focus leaves some vulnerable to being lured into steep pits or down cliff edges, into the sea.

■ Some characters become possessive of the lighthouse and plot to prevent their fellow travellers from reaching it. The lighthouse is not safe, if others get near it. It does not want them. Only you.

PLOTTING POST

QUESTIONS

Comments

[somebadnews]

Five's expression sours more, because how is that worse? They shouldn't have names, or numbers, or be here with them at all. It doesn't make sense, but that should just be a minor annoyance in a world of things that don't make sense.

What if they hadn't been there to protect his brother? They obviously had no trouble finding him. — Five scoffs and shakes his head, irritated for reasons he doesn't need to express.

"Taravast was a shitshow," he says instead, at first wanting to expand on that but deciding that says everything he needs to. He briefly meets Allison's eyes again, then shifts uncomfortably until he's bent over his candle. "But what do I know. He still managed to make money off of that ridiculous suitor thing."

[somebadnews]

[ He has more than one advantage really, but instead of answering his question he just keeps staring. ]

You've fought them?

[somebadnews]

[ He frowns, both because he doesn't give specific names and because there are potentially others in their group who already know what he's trying to find out. ]

It's not just one more thing. The mirrors only work until they're broken, but we can't break every mirror we come across. [ Or they risk doing what he did. ] ...The fact that they had to spread the word means they might not have realized what they were doing until it was too late.

[somebadnews]

Five had resigned himself to the tepid drink, now that he'd already squandered something he only has a finite amount of. But before he can take his helmet off, he spots someone approaching. It takes longer than it should for him to recognize her. The identical suits would make it so easy for anyone to infiltrate their group, and he really should come up with a way to tell them all apart.

At first he eyes her suspiciously for offering, and again for the way she reacts when she realizes what it is, but he shrugs when he can't figure out an ulterior motive to helping him. He'll give her a pass for any other assumptions that drew her over, simply because he's too tired to be offended.

"It's supposed to be." After a moment of debate, he hands the cup over. There isn't a lot she could do that would make it worse. "Have at it."

[somebadnews]

An illusion? He hadn't considered that it might not exist at all. That doesn't seem right though. It has some kind of pull he can't explain away with curiosity, and he's seen how the others are acting since they got closer.

"...So it's either being protected by something, or the undead made it, or it doesn't exist at all." Of those options, he can't decide which is their best option. Lily is right to be cautious. "Our guide is leading us this way. That doesn't mean it isn't a trap."

The only way to tell is to go there. He's still confident that he's the only one who can get there safely. At least, assuming he wouldn't be teleporting into midair, but she brings up a valid concern. If it ends up being the key to the destruction they've been seeing, he doesn't know what it might do to them.

"Where did you find this map? Was there anything else about lighthouses?"

[in_theworks]

"Oh, absolutely," Wrench agrees, at once. He's still hoping to find someone to teach him magic, for want of being a human flamethrower, himself. "But also a little more complicated than just a grenade. I'd have to invent napalm and gasoline, for a flamethrower."

Never mind the fact that he probably has the chemical formulas for both memorized.

[chosenbylight]

[Anduin hums in agreement with the other man. In truth, he can think of one person in particular who could benefit from some easier sleep, provided that the plant is safe. He doesn't know whether he exactly trusts anything that comes from such a place as this just yet, however.

The question startles him sightly though, as though he is surprised that his companion remembers their meeting. It had been rather chaotic back then.

He flashes him a soft half-smile, which is hopefully visible through his helmet.]

I did, alas. I can only hope the situation in Taravast will settle now, with a new leader in place.

[enucleation]

[ he has eaten them.

Not the ones being controlled by the big bad bosses, but the ones he manages to find along the way. And one that tried to crawl into his boat, earlier on. ]

if you could call it that, yes.

[enucleation]

[ it's fine. Without the suit is fine. All he has to do is to put it back on before his body rots away - and that's easy, he can do this. At least in his mind he can, because right now he has no other option. He either keeps the suit on and he will have no way of fighting back, or he takes it off and manages to get rid of them.

Honestly, the second option sounds a lot easier.

Kaneki takes the chance Zuko has given him to move again, now climbing after him. Higher ground, if they manage to get away from the water this will be easier.

But do you know what's easier? Just go full monster. he had no plan on showing the rest of the team what he can really do, but given these mermaids are stubborn and many, Kaneki realizes if he is going to allow the toxic air to affect him, he might as well make the best out of it. Thus four red tendrils suddenly sprout from kaneki's lower back; two move like bullets to stabbing one of the mermaids and slam it against a broken building afterwards, while two help Kaneki to climb giving him extra speed. it won't be long until he finally catches up to Zuko ]

It's fine! [ they will be done before 15 minutes ]

[enucleation]

Ah, he saw that expression and has to wonder. Can he ask? He should, all things considered, but-

"How were other places like?" Kaneki just arrived, he'd appreciate learning more about this whole place and what they have been through so far.

[enucleation]

No, I'm crazy.

And it hurts. [ everything hurts. The more Kaneki gives in to the madness inside his head, more it all hurts. The hunger spreads through his body like flame and gasoline, and it burns from within, leaving him in a worse state by the second. Ghoul hunger is hell, worst hell than any human can physically feel and that is what curses him.

Bichen goes ignored, Wangji does not. Neither does his smell. He smells so inciting, so good. Like the only thing that can truly stop the hell that spreads through kaneki's body and mangles it from within, the only thing that can stop that loud screaming inside Kaneki's head.

He should eat him.

How intimate would that be?

He begins to turn to the man, now set on a new course of action, set on tasting his skin and his muscle and his blood, set on chewing on his bones. No words are formed anymore for kaneki can no longer speak and all that pain takes over and drives him now. The thing that will save him from turning on a human is the small brittle undead who decides to move again and gently mentions "The shore is close". That was the last straw and Kaneki loses his mind right there, suddenly turning at a speed entirely inhuman, and jumping on the dead man with all of his body weight.

A bite is taken from its face and all the rotting flesh and muscle is pulled along by the teeth, and Kaneki's feast begins. Even if the undead fights back, there is little he can do against a ghoul's strength and little he can do against teeth sinking into his body.

Enjoy your new trauma, Wangji ]

[soloritur]

He wraps his arms around her as she shifts, careful to mind the candles, then looks down at her and hums in agreement.

"Absolutely we do." Taravast had some nice sights, sure, but they were colored by their first experience. As much as he hated to leave it that way, it feels good to be putting it behind them.

That's always been the way with them though, hasn't it? Little breaks from the constant trauma and chaos that surrounds them. He'd only just barely convinced Lorna they could find room for their family when they were torn away from it. This place isn't really helping his case.

"It's nice to have something normal for a change." He sighs into her hair as he watches the lights. He knows he needs to tell her what he learned, and this is probably the right time, but he still wants to ease into it. "...Too bad we won't remember this when we go back."

[soloritur]

He tilts his head at that answer. Of course he can't make any assumptions about her father, but it's strange to not know more about him. Still, he makes a noise like he understands.

"Is he... not around any more?" Fathers aren't his favorite subject. Marcos' was convinced that the devil gave him his powers, and he was ashamed of him up until the day he died, but he knows not everyone was as terrible as his. The least he can do is be sensitive.

[soloritur]

That gets a couple of raised eyebrows. This is the first time he's heard from someone with experience with the undead. A plague is at least something he could wrap his head around, but the way this place cycles through life and death makes even less sense than what he's seen.

"We didn't have undead where I'm from. This is all new to me." He watches him for a minute, still stuck on the word 'tactic'. How do they even prepare for something like this? "So you think this was intentional, or just a side effect of them... taking over?"

[soloritur]

They definitely aren't something he wants to get used to. Kaneki barely had time to adjust to the idea of being in an entirely different world before being dragged here. It's funny to think they were spoiled in Taravast just for being able to breathe freely. Hopefully it gets better wherever they're headed.

"Nobody wants to say what happened to cause it, but apparently they've done it enough times to have the suits ready for us." Their guide has barely said two words to him. Which is why he's willing to help him find his plant samples to see if he can get two more.

"...I can't tell if they picked this route to keep us from being followed, or if they're trying to make a point of what's at stake here."

[soloritur]

"Wow. And that's called firebending?" Marcos would much rather talk about family than mermaids, and he can't help but be curious. It isn't uncommon at all for X-Genes to run in families. It doesn't always mean that their powers will develop the same way, but it lends to the theory that it's genetic in Zuko's case.

"Mine work a little differently. I can start a fire, but I can't control it. And if there's not enough light to absorb, I can't do anything." He shows his hands, where the gloves are still held together by rushed stitching and gives a self-deprecating smile. "I probably should have left the mermaids to you."

Who knows, maybe he would have learned how to use his powers more effectively if he'd had a mentor. Instead he had a mother who died from repressing her powers, and a father who kicked him out for refusing to do the same.

"Was it just you and your grandfather?"

[soloritur]

[ He hears the wall falling, but once they're a safe enough distance he isn't as worried that they'll crawl out and grab them again. Although after that experience he doesn't let his guard down. Those things were vicious.

When she wants to see his wound, he hesitates for a moment, then carefully works off the glove and pulls up on the sleeve that's already singed from his very useful powers. There's still a bright trail emanating from his wrist where it was bit clean through the sleeve. It hurts like a bitch and the burns trickle down his hand, but he tries to keep it still. ]

Careful of the blood. [ It's already making more holes in the suit, and he holds it away so they fall to the ground. He's absolutely not going to panic. ] Sorry, this happens sometimes. Some duct tape would really come in handy about now.

[soloritur]

[ He looks empathetic the moment he admits to being on his own. It's more than a little relatable, and honestly he'd probably risk food poisoning if it helped him to feel useful. After living on the streets as a kid, he's not really one to complain.

His gaze drifts down when he brings up the mermaids again. That was a situation he could have avoided entirely if he'd just heeded their warnings. ]

They're... aggressive. I was out looking for any stragglers when they said we should move to higher ground, and ended up getting pulled in. [ He folds in on himself more, but manages to keep his voice level. ] I don't know what happened to them, but they must be starved.

[somebadnews]

[ Five's mind doesn't immediately jump to cannibalism, so he just gives him a confused look. He assumes he means he has some kind of hidden ability to deal with them, but he still asks. ]

What would you call it?

[cairhien]

Healing you may do more.

( she holds a hand out though doesn't touch him, waiting to see if she has permission before weaving her healing at him. though it doesn't clean the blood that's already there it does seal up the wound, keeping his suit from being further damaged.

sadly she can't currently do anything about the state of his suit )

[enucleation]

Oh.

Oh that person. Well, kaneki ate him, so it was certainly not a ghost; and undead, honestly. But he opts not to mention this because there would be questions.

"Were you all alright?"

[soloritur]

[ He doesn't object; after all that he trusts her to help. The bite marks close remarkably quickly, considering how long it usually takes for his blood to clot. Within minutes the remainder of his blood cools and turns a much more normal red.

When she's done, he flexes his hand and stares at his unbroken skin. Beats the hell out of duct tape. ]

Yeah, I'd say. [ He clears his throat, still a bit speechless over the whole thing. ] I take it you've done this before.

[cairhien]

It's become useful.

( not every aes sedai learned how to heal or could do so well but it was something that moiraine had become proficient in even as an accepted )

Though we should return before you become injured again.

[downswing]

( A blink of the eyes. The second.

And they erupt, together, in the thick, cloying wet of animal fats, of sweat, of skin slicked: Kaneki, a chaos of limbs, and the dead man squirming, screeching, until his throat crumbles useless or torn, and his eyes are empty sky, and moonlight washes his wounds dark. Red is not for midnight. Bloodshed abides no time.

Lan Wangji knows, the dead man could not reach the shore.

Knows, stench comes, and it goes, and the boy — Kaneki leaves behind so precious little.

Knows too, Lan Wangji cannot slay the boy. None of them can perish here. This is spoken, oft repeated. To terminate him is to scatter his flesh and its considerable strength in the hands of the death lords who but wait to seize them.

Slaughter comes. Slaughter passes. Interruption or indignation would make a mockery of the execution. Once, Lan Wangji was reproached the curse of silence, the art of absent compromise. Look where negotiations led him. The waste of time.

It ends with blank frankness, efficiently. A part of Lan Wangji remembers, an animal turned feral can bite his master's own hand. Then, instinct: to throw the talisman, nearly bereft of stoked qi — and to activate it, so a protective ward encircles Kaneki and his prey, yet offering them five steps' movement each way. So that he might — feast, but not cross into Lan Wangji's domain of their shared boat.

He waits. Rests outside the boundaries of the protective ward, arrogant and too certain in his safety. And rasped-slow, when Kaneki appears to have — completed his dining experience: )

What are you?

( No. He knows this. Sees the signs, as they are worn by Wen Ning, less in physicality than the predatory undertones of Kaneki's movements, how he possesses his body as if it were a well-learned, but foreign tongue. Before, he deceived the eye. Now, between shakes of his head, Lan Wangji cannot pretend that ignorance. )

You are as the dead. You are... ( Unnatural, in some way Lan Wangji cannot sense or decipher. Convulsions brittle his body, like wind clutches an autumn leaf. He turns to the side, wood splinters nailing the hard spread of his hands when he grasps it and heaves, for all filth lingers in his belly. Only acid, the suggestion of nausea.

Sweat trickles cold down his brow between darted breath. At his feet, his candle flame nearly eats of his skin. He thinks, kick it. Silence its fire. Condemn them both to the long sink, and who would yet blame him? What would there be to mourn? This — creature, a sum of nature's cruelties and instincts that offend his human form. And Lan Wangji, the man who allowed him the opportunity to feed.

No matter. There is something in him, nameless and small, like a livened creature, buried and chasing a lair. Something that senses a chance for safety, even in this moment: )

...if we perish. If I — ...you could do this.

[soloritur]

[ Marcos nods, not wanting to risk that after what he just put her through. The gloves are torn, as is the suit in a few places, but he puts them back on anyway. ]

Good idea. [ He starts to get up, and offers his hand if she wants it. He doesn't know how draining it was for her to do what she did. ] Just have to watch for the canals.