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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 catches the extended hand, trying to find his footing and balance on the back of the whale, and makes a small waving gesture to tell Xunxian he can tell it to move... all the while calculating the distance and how and when might be the best moment to ensure he is the only one left on by the end of the journey.
He's not really paying attention to potentially cannibal mermaids or anything of the kind right, which of course he will absolutely regret later.]
no subject
The breeze should help with the smell, my lord, give it a few moments.
no subject
[Moran's whole attention is back on the lighthouse, on calculating the distance. he's already mostly forgotten about the smell, to be quite honest.
And once they are what he deems close enough, he will suddenly squint his eyes and point at some of the shapes in the water swimming along side the whale.]
What are those?
[And the moment Xunxian bends over to look, he will feel a rather firm push between his shoulder blades.]
no subject
[ Of course Su Xunxian leans over to see, and then. ]
My lord---
[ Oh.
It is a good thing he can swim.
It is not such a good thing that there is company...
He surfaces enough to tell the whale to safely leave the person on his back at the shore a little further, and then swim away to safety. It is too much to tell him to get Moran to the lighthouse, at this point.
Then he beelines for the shore himself, hoping he will make it in one piece.
He will probably... stay away from people as much as he can, at least for a couple of hours until he can put on a reasonable face. For all that it's behind a helmet. ]
no subject
And he is not one to shirk his responsibility. Hiking along the coast for Xunxian would be too dangerous, but he will be seating right next to the entrance to the lighthouse, and anxiously looking up every time the door opens. He has to believe Xunxian's powers protected him and they were close enough to shore that he could make it relatively unscathed.
There is no question at all of what he needs to do when Xunxian makes it here. When, not if. He refuses to believe any other alternative.]
no subject
My lord! Please make sure of your safety!
[ ... priorities. ]
no subject
... It's safe to take it off here, Xunxian.
[Yes, his voice is trembling a little.]
no subject
[ He's frowning at that trembling voice, but by the time he removes the helmet it's smoothed out-- and he turns his face away and covers his mouth and nose with a sneeze, before taking a deep breath and also a better look at Moran. Ah. Worried.
Himself.
Xunxian's face relaxes, and his voice is, while nasal, soft and relieved. ]
He set you safely an the shore, then? That did not work out as expected, but telling him to bring you all the way here was beyond what he could understand.
no subject
There is no two ways around it, and he is down on his knees before Xunxian could even think to stop it.]
You will be too lenient with me as you always are, but there really is no excuse for what i did.
no subject
[ Xunxian's voice cracks at the sight of Moran on his knees to apologize to him. And his heart cracks, too, because he has steeled it against more of how Moran had been back then, but not... not against this.
A moment, and he kneels in front of Moran, too, so they are on a level. ]
If you can tell me that you were yourself, and your thoughts were your own, then I would blame you. Then I would consider the need for excuses. But as I doubt you can, please be lenient with yourself, and direct your thoughts not at yourself but at whoever or whatever caused that.
There are always things more powerful than us, I've learned in this world. Even more powerful than what we truly mean. I know that. And so do you.
no subject
[Yes, the hands he brings up as he speaks is shaking too.]
Here I was proclaiming you were the one thing I needed above all else, and my mind gets a bit muddled and and all of my resolve gets wiped away? I could harm you with my own hands?
no subject
[ Though the words that Moran says, unsurprisingly, hit right in the heart of the matter. Not because Xunxian thinks that one gesture is so indicative of Moran's intention - he knows that Moran would not have meant that - but because a part of him fears that Moran can change his mind, some day.
He breathes out, then pulls off the mittens of the protective suit and wraps his fingers around Moran's. At least by now he's actually dried up, so his palms are warm enough. ]
It is a case in which your goals and wishes were subsumed by something else - I felt it's call too, though I believe weaker. Your wishes, I know, are that I stay safe and sound and by your side, and you need not question that I knew them, every moment. [ This, he is certain about, and yes, if Moran questions that - well, Xunxian made it here in one piece. ]
I knew before that happened that aught was not right, and still I humored you in your drive to arrive here. Which I would apologize for, had it not brought you here where you are back to yourself.
In short... to me it matters, your actions and your intentions both. As it ever has.
[ His thumbs rub over Moran's knuckles, and he tilts his head slightly, the smile he gives not tipping into the familiar, bitterness-tinged one. ]
As it ever will.
no subject
[He'll squeeze the hand holding his, a bit too tight.]
I will not want it to happen again, and I hate that this is all I can say.
no subject
I truly... meant to keep an eye on how things are and not let you do things that could not be undone while you were not quite you. And that is why I made sure to come back.
Neither of us can promise it won't happen again, to either of us. Not here. But we can do our best with what we have.
[ ... and Xunxian was lucky the mermaids thought the whale more appetizing than himself, but there are things outside his control and all he can do is try. ]
no subject
[It might be a euphemism, but it does leave a bad taste in his mouth. Looking back now he can still see how every action taken, every word said, seemed to make perfect sense, how coldly and calculatingly he included the fact that he needed to get rid of Xunxian at some point in this ill-fated trip and that his own feelings didn't seem to matter at all, beyond his need to possess this place.
A need which seems to have disappeared right now, he has noted.
He still is not getting up, but looking at Xunxian in his bits of suits, his lips twitch.]
Please take this off. This color is horrendous on you.
no subject
[ Beat. And then, after a sniffle, Xunxian's eyes brighten slightly. He does wish to look in a way that Moran likes, and that Moran is paying attention to that soothes him. It truly doesn't take much to please him, not when it comes to this man. ]
Of course. Could you show me to a place where I can do that?
[ He straightens up, offering a hand to Moran. He'll do as asked, without delay. ]
no subject
[But he'll lead the way deeper inside, where some privacy can be found.]
no subject
[ Of course he follows, and of course he'll keep the protective suit safe. He has absolutely no desire to face the consequences of being in the environment unprotected. ]
Were you waiting long?
no subject
[So the land seems to affect more than bodies, but minds as well. Wonderful, really.]