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westwhere2022-01-03 07:56 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-01-03 07:56 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- avatar: zuko,
- dragon quest xi s: eleven,
- final fantasy vii: rufus shinra,
- harry potter: lily evans,
- interlude: ellethia,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- persona 5: akira,
- sarah connor chronicles: john connor,
- sword of frost: yun yifeng,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- tokyo ghoul: kaneki ken,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- watch_dogs: wrench,
- wheel of time: moiraine,
- witcher: yennefer
interlude: ellethia
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
■ 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.
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.
QUESTIONS
no subject
[He rounds the corner, fumbling his way out of his helmet. Having double-gloved hands is not helping things.]
Well good, a little help's all I can give. [And much as he's got some envy towards the long-haired people here, whoever this is demonstrates pretty well why Army regs didn't allow that.
Come to think of it, who is this?]
You're new, right? [His condolences.] Don't worry--it gets slightly better than this, sometimes.
no subject
[ She asks, still under a thick veil of hair. Soon enough, she can feel his fingers unhooking and unravelling hair. Sweet freedom was near. ]
Only slightly? You mean there's a place I can look forward to where I don't have to wear this... thing?
[ When the last hew strands are freed, she stands up straight and pushes it all back again. She's going to need to find something to use as a hair tie or suffer going through this every time she takes the helmet off. ]
But yes, it seems your leader has the useful talent of spotting people drowning in the pitch black of night. Almost as if he were waiting for me.
[ She shows off the gold pocket watch given to her as a communication device, which has yet to prove that function. ]
no subject
[And he only just learned what a horse was a few months ago.]
Yeah, that part's not typical. Otherwise I'd've started more riots by now. [As it was, he'd only provided people some professional advice and tactics on riot-starting, which was completely different.]
You landed in the water? [His expression darkens as suspicions start to sink in. He'd been told that getting dragged into this shit was something to do with the undead lords. It'd certainly seemed that way back in Sa Hareth, when he'd woken up in that prison. Maybe the creepy things in the water had something to do with it, but they didn't even seem sapient.
He was going to have to figure out how to pass this along to the others he trusted, without the comms devices around.
But that'd happen later. Right now he was dealing with a shiny new offworlder, probably with no supplies. With a sigh, he turns away to rummage in a satchel he's carrying, pulling out a knife at his belt to cut something loose.]
Here-- [He holds out a couple handspans of leather cord.] That's enough for the hair situation, right? My name's Slick, by the way.
no subject
She takes the cord, glancing up with a vague smile of appreciation. Not because she wasn't thankful, but because she was very much distracted now by why her landing in the water was so unsettling.
Her brows pinch curiously, knowing he knew something that she wanted to know, too.]
Or someone put me there. It would make sense since the rock I was holding is all over the ground here.
[ It was as bizarre as it sounded, and she was still trying to convince herself that it had everything to do with the fact that her injury was no longer a gaping hole in her stomach.
Belatedly, she gives her name in return.]
Yennefer. And thanks.
Sounds like you've had some experience with this place. How long exactly have you been here and why does my landing in water seem to surprise you?
no subject
Everything I've heard is that we were being snatched by hostile forces. Undead stuff. [He still wasn't sure how to even process that whole business.] And in the last couple cities, that kind of made sense. I got nabbed... fuck me, it's been half a year. [By the Galactic Standard Calendar, at least. He still had no idea how long a day actually was on this planet. Too fucking long, anyway.]
I showed up in a prison run by an undead lord. People back in Taravast mostly got the same treatment. Some of the locations seemed a bit random, but you showing up right near the boats? No. That's too much to just be lucky coincidence. [He sighs.] Unless you're secretly some kind of hallucination-monster that lures clueless shitheads off to get cursed, that's hit people a few times here. If you are, I wouldn't bother--whoever designed this suit's already got me covered on curses.
no subject
Her attention is pulled rather quickly at the name of the city that she happened to land in with her first attempt out via portal; an embarrassing story that she will keep to herself.
Yennefer, despite having a tiny knowing smile, shakes her head. ]
I'm capable of a lot of things but it takes a pretty special occasion for me to pull hallucinations and curses out. Neither of which I would do to myself.
[ Her arms lift to show the same red suit. ]
Taravast. Is that where all this undead stuff began for all of you?
no subject
No, there's been at least one other city. Sa-Hareth. That's where I showed up. By the time I escaped the prison, that Merchant guy had already started financing the rest of this lot. [And... Shit. He was discussing all this without proper security. That was sloppy.]
One more thing--the translators we're using? They act as... [Hells. How should he describe it? Barely anybody here knew what a commlink was. Or even a radio.] They're long-distance communications devices. And I haven't seen any evidence that they're really secured. So if you've ever got something to say that you can't risk others listening in on, everyone in the conversation's got to take them off and leave them somewhere out of range.
...And if nobody else here speaks your language, you're out of luck. I don't suppose you speak Basic, do you?
no subject
Do you mean this?
[ Tucked into the wide belt around her is a device resembling a gold pocket watch that she shows him. ]
You understand me, and I understand the people I heard through this. So, yes, I would say I do.
[ A thoughtful pause. ]
Why not just meet the people you want to talk to in person?
[ That would solve the privacy issue right there. ]
Or thought transference?
no subject
Well, if there's an emergenc--Wait, that's an option? [Thought transference? What?]
no subject
Where I'm from, yes. It's very useful between other mages and magic users.
[ Yennefer decides she will leave out the fact that she is also trained in mind-based magic, allowing her to be able to read minds, among other things. ]
Though I suppose it may not work here the same.
no subject
The Force, which he was also told clones couldn't mess with, but then Fox started teaching him magic, and it worked.]
...Could you teach a rookie who's still setting his own face on fire? [He hasn't done that recently, but it has happened.]
no subject
Sure, why not!
[ And then she catches what else he said. ]
Hold on... setting your face on fire?
no subject
So when I got smashed into a ceiling by one of the worst people I know, I reacted, and...[He mimes the blow-back over his face.
That was not a fun day.] My control's better now, though.
no subject
[ Yennefer winces. Fire magic was not a good way to start. ]
I'm glad because nothing I teach you will stick unless you have even a reasonable amount.
no subject
Besides, everyone's owed one really big mistake, and I've already gotten mine out of my system.
no subject
I'll teach you. We'll start in a day or two, once I've settled in.
[ Inside his head, he'll hear her voice. The message is short and quick, to make sure that, like her portal conjuring, hasn't been messed with.
She waits to see if her message went through. ]