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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
And the dragons are the husbands of this Valyr, the wives, the blessed children. They share their backs and their sorcery, their prophecies, the sharp instruments of their claw-blades. To hear the girl speak, unflinching, the winged creature's blood beats her heart, pulses her veins, keeps here here, now, upright beside Lan Wangji. Piercing the joylessly pristine horizon, as her companion dives deep and coal-slumped into the seas, but escapes collision at the last moment, wings tickling waves to stir thick foam.
Like a child at play. I have a son, and once he meandered so. Only, the mouth of Sizhui's fears snapped cold and sharp-fanged, and he was mute for weeks, timid. Never so simply, exquisitely tempted by water and free roaming until his elder years, when he knew his step and his status certain. There is, comparatively, a purity and confidence in the dragon that betrays and belongs to equals. )
A soulmate. ( He speaks it softly, with a tardy nod. ) You are blessed with one.
( And marriages, to hear her speak. A girl of greed. )
no subject
[She fought the urge to touch her stomach. No, those moments had passed now. She might cry herself to sleep at night with longing, but she would not break here and now. 'If I look back, I'm lost.' Instead, she forced a smile to her face, steering her thoughts to her children and only of them.]
There are two others. Rhaegal and Viserion. Rhaegal is bronze and green. Viserion is gold and cream. Drogon can be aggressive and dominate his brothers, but Rhaegal is fierce and fights back. Viserion prefers to stay with me and be lazy.
[It warmed her to speak of them, to think of her dragons. More than anything, she wished she could see Rhaegal and Drogon playing, biting and hissing at each other as they tumbled in the air. Meanwhile, to feel the heat from Viserion's scales around her neck. She wanted that more than anything now.]
I hope they are well and don't know I'm gone.
no subject
He remembers this moment, its midnight hour, its questions: how he sought the stuttered laughter of Wei Ying, the unflinching, mad dark beam of his gaze, how he buried his own grief in the familiar signs of another's confidence. How he would speak, He is well, then, We must not speak of the alternative, and, What difference, to wonder?
But thoughts stabbed and strained him, and nights sprawled bitter, gossamer and long. Doubt choked him. )
They are well. ( No. ) You must not speak of the alternative. ( No. ) What difference, to wonder?
no subject
Her dragons might sense her absence, but they must know she'd return. She always would.]
Your son...is he back in your home? You must miss him.
[She could understand that loneliness. He bore it well, if it was so. He was certainly stoic and kind to her, despite some misconceptions of her character. It was not something she could truly blame him for. Even in Essos, there were a number of rumors about her that she did not prefer, but they could not be stopped.
He was at least willing to listen, which showed his wisdom and compassion.]
Do you know how to use a sword?
no subject
( The better for Wangji's heart, satisfying the cruel animal inclination to know his cub close. The worse for Sizhui's private wear, reduced by insults and injuries and domestic nuisance, a boy swelling in hurts, a drifting bruise.
But then, they do not speak of Sizhui now, not with the girl's purpose clear. He softens incrementally, offers a long glance thawed by the visor's diffuse vision. Then, weighted: )
I wield the sword as a hand. An arm. ( Natural, an instinct shaped by instinct and instruction. ) To what end?
( He thinks, unasked, for all this is ever the reason, as plain as blight of sun's light, come the midday hour, Would I kill for you? A stranger, a girl. A companion of chance. Why else would she ask? )
no subject
[She likely had met him then. It was a bit embarrassing that she hadn't gathered just yet who was related to who. She had simply assumed that everyone came from different realms. Despite Jon Snow coming from her world, he seemed to know a future that she had yet to experience. Something that raised its own questions.
The others, she should have asked more about their homes and experiences. Other things occupied her mind at the time.]
I wish to learn.
[She would not ask a stranger to kill for her, nor should she rely on him as a protector. There were no armies here, no Ser Barristan. She needed to look to herself and not become caught up in a situation like Travaste again. If violence came, she needed to know what to do.]
no subject
( His fingers itch with the startled ache of need, of desire, caressing the starved and narrow curve of his sword's hilt on instinct. Strange, to bear Bichen so distant from his body, an instrument more than an extension casting firm weight and long shadow on the red of his suit. There was familiarity in the knowing of her, of her warmth close. Sundered, they slither like two separate animals, bristling each other with friction.
It will fade, he knows, when he can draw her once more. When the time is ripe. )
He wields the sword, also. ( Gentler, he need not say. The better for a girl's schooling, untried in war. ) He is young.
Matchmaking?
[It was interesting that he chose to mention Sizhui's ability with the sword, that he was young. Perhaps it was a suggestion, and certainly not a bad one. He might be able to hold back a bit more to compensate for lack of ability.]
Do you think I should ask him for help in training?
n o !!!
( Soft yielding, with an edge of gladness. To share the beauty of his son with the world is to leave it a better place. If Lan Wangji dies today, he has left this one improvement, suckled poison from the well of hatred and futility and pettiness that swells fat with fount for each embittered generation.
Lan Sizhui is a gift, and Wangji offers it again, with open hands. )
He does not refuse those in need. ( Absent, but implicit in the sharp silence after, the cut of it expectant: Sizhui is bound. They are all bound. To disrespect those who ask a kindness or a boon is to spit in the face of their forefathers and their vows, to take a dagger to the wall of their knot-tangled, engraved precepts and carve madness.
His gaze falls down to her hands, so small, for her barely blossomed proportions. A wife a few times over, he remembers this much. ) You have natural aptitude?
( Or perhaps only the romantic visions that so often burden the young, who think adventure is aught but gamble, necessity or inconvenience — who would arm themselves, quite literally, to cause as much as deflect threat. )
Suuuuure
She picked up a dead branch near by, imagining it to be a blade. Her hand shifted the weight, turning it over and over. It likely wouldn't be so heavy, not after her time in mail and armor. She had her fair share of muscles.]
I can't say. I imagine you would have a better idea if you ever saw me.
Perhaps not? I'm rather good at strategy and judging troop numbers, but I have yet to learn how to handle a blade.