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

It still doesn't sit right with him that they don't have any information about it, or that the Merchant doesn't deem it necessary to explain why he needs whatever it is. Kaneki doesn't seem to think it's an issue though, so he only gives a reluctant nod.

"Yeah." His tone isn't overly enthusiastic. Of course he wants to get home, but he isn't thrilled about the mentality of doing whatever it takes after some of the things he's seen.

"I guess I don't love the thought of being at their mercy. Right now it seems like they could trick us into doing whatever they need." Like risking their lives to retrieve valuable herbs. "Maybe it's better that you still have it. If it's worth something to him, you can use it for your own leverage when the time comes."

A lot of things don't sit right with Kaneki, but he is more comfortable keeping the heart than to give it away, exactly because he doesn't know what it does and what can bring to the table. Certainly, it could also be dangerous, but Kaneki believes he is powerful enough to face that directly than to face someone else using the heart for something else.

He hums softly. "Do you distrust all of this, Marcos-san?" their journey, finding the beacons, wandering into broken cities and see damage left by a war they can not relate to...

It's funny how he's come to talk about this more with Kaneki than anyone. How much he doesn't trust the things he's seen. Usually he would discuss it with Lorna, but they've been in such a fragile place. Both of them are trying their best not to shake the other's hope that everything will turn out alright. He appreciates being able to tell someone that he has doubts.

"I think we need to be careful," is what he settles with. It feels like things could change the instant they let their guard down. "Until we know what all this means, we should probably assume it could be used against us. No matter what anyone else says about it."

Kaneki glances ahead, towards the others following their journey. "The Merchant sent his men to aid us. I don't think they'd be sacrificial lambs so easily, so they seem to trust the man too." and they are carrying a dead body for Kaneki to munch on, he can also appreciate that.

"Perhaps if we stick close to them there will be less danger." perhaps. Or perhaps they are all fools.

He doesn't mean to sound so pessimistic. To be honest, he hadn't planned on sharing that much of his opinion on the subject, but he's been angry for a while and Kaneki happens to be a good listener. It helps to have someone like him around to keep him from letting his emotions get the better of him.

"The alternative is going out on our own, and I don't know if we'd have a fighting chance against what we've seen." They've talked about that before, but that doesn't mean he's any less unhappy about it. Marcos has no idea what else is out there, but the invasion of Taravast gave enough of a glimpse. He also has no idea how to get the beacons to work on his own, and without Clarice around, that's their only option of getting home.

"I didn't mean anything by that. You're right, I just want to make sure you're watching you back."

Kaneki doesn't mind listening; he is a good listener. But that doesn't mean he is in any way the best person to give advice. In fact, he might be one of the worst, although his often calm and quiet demeanor seems to be the opposite of that. But that's not something Marcos knows or has yet realized about that.

"You didn't mean anything by that." he repeats but offers a small smile after "I don't think I'm someone you should worry about, Marcos-san." kaneki shakes his head "I don't mean it in a condescending way, it's just-" well. Kaneki has just about zero self-preservation. That's what it is. So it's better that other people don't worry about him.

"There are others who probably don't have abilities or even training to survive any of this."

He nods in agreement, even if that comment might have been a polite way to tell him that he's hovering over him too much. Which could be fair. Back in the heyday of the Mutant Underground, everyone watched over everyone else, so he got used to keeping track of where everyone was. They were still betrayed by their own people in the end, but it's a hard habit to break.

Maybe he's waiting to see that happen again. Whatever leadership qualities he once thought he had, he's not nearly as confident as he used to be.

"It's not that I'm worried about you," he states, just for the record. "Well, I'm worried about everyone, but I've been with groups who had a lot less experience. We wouldn't have made it here together if everyone didn't have their own talents."

Amazingly, they haven't suffered casualties within their group that he's aware of. He doesn't know what everyone can do, but they're obviously good at surviving. At the same time, it's easy for them to overlook what people are suffering through when they're so focused on staying alive. Marcos looks at Kaneki for a long moment, like he's making sure of something, then shrugs.

"I'll let you get back to what you were doing." He smiles and takes a step back. "And hey... You know where to find me, alright?"

Rather, it's just that Kaneki would prefer if other people did not risk themselves for him. He is not so much upset about the hoovering, and rather he doesn't want someone to be in danger because for some reason they think protecting Kaneki is important. He is not important, he is just some guy.

Ken smiles a little and nods his head after. He isn't sure what marcos was looking for, but he's sure it will be fine somehow. "I do. Thank you, Marcos-san. You also know where to find me if you need me." Kaneki nods his head - a small little polite bow, in fact.

interlude: ellethia

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