westwhere | interlude: ellethia

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.

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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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There was a small bundle of branches nearby, the best she could do for firewood. It was instinct for her now to build one. Magic, other technology, she was not so used to that yet. It was likely the wood would not be needed, but she was bringing it just in case. Let it be used for weapons, if it must.

She handed him an armful, quickly stuffing the food she had found into the bag they were each given.]

Higher ground seems the better idea. [It hadn't escaped her notice that Drogon didn't want to be too low in this place. That he only remained on the ground for a minute or two before flying high again.] We will get a bit further from the mermaids.

[ He takes the bundle with a kind smile. She's the only one he's seen out here, so it's a good time to settle into camp and check in. Lorna is probably done with her sweep and is already waiting for him to get back. ]

...And anything else out here that we haven't seen yet. [ He hasn't run into the mermaids yet, but there was an incident on his boat that he'd rather not be reminded of. Once she's got her things, he nods in the direction he came. ] I'm Marcos, by the way. I've seen you around, but I never got the chance to talk.

[He was the only one she had seen since she set off to explore. He wasn't wrong though. The longer she spent out here alone, the more danger she was inviting. As much as she didn't want to retreat, it was better to regroup with the others.

Perhaps the others found something else.]

Given everything that has happened, there hasn't been much time to make introductions. [Pulling her bag over her shoulder to compensate for its heaviness, she stepped close, nodding in place of a handshake.] I'm Daenerys Stormborn.

Do you know if everyone else has made it back to camp?

[ It strikes him how polite and responsible she's being for someone so young; he gets the impression she's not unfamiliar with this type of caravan. He nods in agreement and starts walking once she's ready. ]

That's why I'm out here. I'm not even sure how many of us there are supposed to be, but it's easy to lose someone in the fog. [ If John were here that would be a whole lot easier. His tracking abilities were a lot more useful than his flashlight hands. ]

You're the first one I've come across. Is there someone you're looking for?

No, no one in particular. I was trying to get a sense about how far others might have wandered.

[She had gone a bit further than she should have, but she was curious about the land and eager to keep Drogon in her sight line, even as he flew higher and higher into the sky.]

So far, it seems the greatest threats are in the water. I have yet to see anything threatening this far inland.

[ Marcos keeps close to her, even as he tries to remember which direction leads them back to camp. He keeps his hands at the ready in front of him, emitting a soft glow as they walk. ]

You can never be too careful. We already had one undead follow us to shore and blow up the minute we reached land.

[ Still no explanation to how or why that happened. ]

I don't know about you, but I'll be glad once we're out of here.

[It's remarkable to see the glow. He didn't seem to be a man that she would expect to see magic from, but even in admitting that to herself, she wasn't sure what a mage should look like. They came in many forms in this world.]

I heard that they were able to call our names. My boat didn't stop, so we never saw what they looked like.

[He got a smile from that, not that the suit showed that.]

It would be good to leave. There is something wrong with this place. Almost as though it's infected.

[ He agrees with that. The ground around them is uneven, so he's careful to walk slowly and keep an eye on her as they go. ]

I'm glad you didn't have to deal with that. After I heard about this place being conquered by the undead I expected to see more than one.

[ Not that he's complaining. It's hard enough not thinking about how desperate that undead was to come here. ]

Maybe whatever they did here that poisoned the air was meant to keep them out.

No, my adventure involved falling into the water and being infected with a cold that wouldn't abate.

[Not until much, much later.]

Magic didn't even cure it.

[The undead she had seen were strange but unnerving. Though, it terms of strategy, it seemed unlikely they would remain. Not in a place they already conquered.]

It's possible that once they claimed this place, they wished to conquer others. They likely saw no need to leave anyone to oversee it.

[ His sympathetic look is hidden by the mask, so he follows it up with a nod. Their boat hadn't been close enough for him to see her fall into the water, and he's unsettled thinking of how worse that could have gone. ]

Did it wear off eventually? [ If not, he's probably the best person here to offer warmth. ] ...We can't be sure about anything here, but it's hard to think that this was what they had in mind when they overtook this place.

It did, but it took time. [And there were still moments where she could swear that she felt that cold again. It might have been the wind catching her in the wrong decision or perhaps a bit of her worry, but she could still feel it in the blood sometimes.] Had I stayed in the water any longer, I might have seen the mermaids.

[Instead, the only way she saw them was Drogon claiming dinner.]

You are right. It is speculation, but I wonder... So much of these dead go against what I would have thought. Simply conquering land is beyond my experience.

[ He looks at her with concern when she mentions how long it took. Who knows what else is in that water if it's full of mermaids and undead. Meanwhile the land is... oddly peaceful, despite everything. ]

Mine too. Back home we were just trying to survive, and we didn't even have the undead roaming around. [ Is that what it would take to solve human/mutant relations? Or would they stubbornly still try to pin them on mutants? He has to wonder. ]

I think there's more to it than we know. It happened since the Merchant has been around, so it should be recent history. You'd think we would have heard it by now.

I imagine that he is only telling us what he feels we need to know for now. There are times where he provides us what we need or something to help us in the future. [But it was all with a riddle. Apparently that was the way for anyone possessing a great deal of knowledge and magic.

Riddles were simpler than answers.]

I know little about the other lands he took us to. I only arrived near the end of our stay at Taravast.

I can't say much about who the Merchant is otherwise. I never met him before now.

interlude: ellethia

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Sorry about lateness

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