westwhere | arc iii: house of ravens

arc iii: house of ravens | arrival

Hi, everyone! Our Arc III arrival event covers 20 Feb-11 March and doubles as a test drive. Participants don’t need an invite to apply by 11 March. Reserves live here. Try to label if you’re a test drive tourist or an old timer — and have fun!

COTTAGEVORE

TDM TOURISTS | OLD TIMERS | COMMON PROMPTS | NOTES

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TDM TOURISTS: THE SCENIC ROUTE

You flinch awake, hand weighed by a sharp stick, stone, or makeshift torch. Your clothes sit stiff, splattered with dried dirt and dusted leaves. Here and there, scratches and shallow wounds litter your limbs, the marks of days of dazed survival alone that you mistily remember. Your strength and supernatural powers are currently largely depleted, but should recover within two to three days.

As they journey, characters discover stretches of the eerily silent forests briefly transform into woodlands or recognisable spots of nature from their home worlds — perhaps they’re now seeing the meadows outside their home towns, their backyard orchard, or a fondly remembered lake pier. These images are short-lived illusions that other characters can also see.

Mind your steps: the mirages try to lure characters deep into the forest, where unfriendly animals and hidden pits wait.

A. THE MORE, THE MERRIER

Trailing through the labyrinthine woods, you stumble upon a group of heavily armed bandits who are already herding several captives. Depending on how agitated you are, expect shackles, leashes and tusk pendants that allow characters to speak and glean local tongues — including the thugs' barked instructions. The outlaws are on a three-day voyage to cursed village Ke-Waihu, where they intend to sell their prisoners to the Hok-Shinn criminal clan.

■ Ensure fellow captives survive the trek, avoiding leg-hold traps, snares and hunting nets.

■ Beatings continue, but morale never improves: help mouthy prisoners with their tasks or wounds.

■ Capture or forage food — and stop naïve captives from going deeper into the forest to follow glimpses of beautiful (wo)men or cries for help. There’s nobody there.

■ At night, prisoners are locked in stitched-shut tents — get friendly quickly.

B. JUST CRUISING

The bandits never saw you coming — but you’ve been watching them collect their prey. Perhaps you’ve even found others like you — also spared enslavement, but condemned to trail after the thugs towards Ke-Waihu. Characters can pick up discarded translation and communication tusk pendants, scraps of food and frail weapons.

■ Beware: superstitious thieves frequently patrol at night, while woodland predators are emboldened by the absence of fires.

■ Leave messages or instructions to the bandits’ captives (tree husk carvings, anyone?) and maybe try to rescue them.

■ ...or leave them for dead and trot on to Ke-Waihu. You savage.

» GO CAMPING, THEY SAID

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OLD TIMERS: CURSES FOR ONE, CURSES FOR ALL

After a bumpy ride aboard the Salamera II, the party arrive at idyllic village Ke-Waihu.

They are greeted by Hok-Shinn Weisi, the slippery mayor who officially helms Ke-Waihu, while his brother Sairen leads the clan’s heavy underground ventures. Weisi’s flippant and spoiled son Taksui is the Merchant’s local liaison. The botanist Enam and his apprentices set out to explore, taking the group's baggage along.

■ Weisi was told the party members are families of Taravast refugees, seeking finer fates in Ke-Waihu. Each family has been assigned a humble but serviceable dwelling — see what luck has in store for you.

■ Weisi officially welcomes the newcomers in Ke-Waihu’s main bustling marketplace. Every merchant, fishmonger and beggar stops to watch as foreigners are briefly stripped of their ostentatious jewels, clothes or weapons, soaked in iced water and told to embrace the village by accepting its old, its new, its ugliness and its truths.

■ To join the community, characters must absorb and redeem the wrongdoings of a deceased ancestor. They are served flasks of a thick, bitter brew that slides down mildly corrosive and cold.

■ The brew’s effects vary: some drinkers feel only a sudden, electric awareness of the story behind the curse they inherited. Others feel scalded from the inside, agonising for hours. The ancestral curse effects start to take hold that night.

■ Characters are sent off to their new homes in Ke-Waihu — but are contacted within hours by one of Enam’s anguished apprentices. His master and his peers were captured by bandits while inspecting the elusive forests for plant specimens. These wicked men took everything: your goods, your Ellethian high fashion, your extra weapons, even your Sleeping Zenobius. Go get’em — but beware the deadly illusions of Ke-Waihu’s forest.

» DUDE, WHERE’S MY COMATOSE SLEEPER?

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ALL TOGETHER NOW

The thugs, the old timers, the test drive prisoners and their creepy watchers collide in the mist-drowned forests of Ke-Waihu.

A. BANDIT BANE

■ Infiltrate the thug group in, kick some outlaws’ teeth on the way out.

■ Release and escort roughened-up newcomers to Ke-Waihu, picking up strays along the way.

■ One of the thugs snitches that the remaining stolen loot is hoarded in a nearby secluded cave, drowned under foliage. The entrance is watched by large, agitated boars with startlingly hard, but not impervious skin. With gold, gems, guns within reach, anyone for pork dinner?

■ After speaking with the new arrivals, party botanist and guide Enam confirms they have been summoned to serve as weapons in this world’s ongoing conflict between warring undead factions. The Merchant, Enam’s collaborator and the party’s patron, is leading otherworlders east, where forgotten beacons might return them home.

■ The villagers Ke-Waihu, Ke-Waiar and Ke-Waicai reportedly know the location of such a beacon. They will unveil it if the party breaks the curse of the House of Ravens.

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B. THE BLUSHING BRIDE

When the group returns, Ke-Waihu is celebrating the joyous procession of dozens of lavish 'weddings.' The (false) rites are carried out to commemorate the marriage of a huntsman and his fox bride...

■ The roads are awash with flower petals and rice, houses extend their hospitality freely, and the rich give away coin. Even Hok-Shinn clansmen don their finest garments and hand out gifts and favours, while lawmen grant pardons to captives held for minor offences.

■ Villagers pose as 'brides' and 'grooms' to play act public weddings. Characters are asked to participate as brides and grooms, or to join the wedding retinue of a NPC villager. Characters can unknowingly marry, but not become foxes.

■ The evening culminates in a grand market fete, with stalls offering sickly sweets and strong alcohols. Poets recite love songs, professional weepers wail to strangers that they lost their children to insidious in-laws, and petty clashes erupt among merrymakers.

■ Some of the NPC fox 'brides' seem to grow wide-eyed and alert, suspicious of the many hunting dogs that watchmen walk around the marketplace.

■ Come nightfall, 'wedded' pairs are escorted to suites in a large and extravagant inn. For each 'couple,' accommodations comprise one room for the retinue and a linked conjugal bedroom.

IF CHARACTERS MARRY A (FOX) 'SPOUSE':

■ They are handed three pieces of parchment before they are locked into the marital suite with their consort and their retinue.

■ Once alone in their 'marital quarter,' characters first enjoy polite conversation with their spouse, whose eyes start to glimmer golden, while their teeth and claws lengthen, their mouths distort to snouts and their hair reddens. The fox brides do not seem aware they are, in fact, foxes, but try to scratch, bite or maim their partners. Viciously quick, strong and prone to thralling their victims into spells of lethargy, these foxes could get the best of you — happily, the little parchment papers you received can share some survival tips.

■ Fool the fox spouse into thinking you are already married or pledged to someone in your retinue. Affronted, the fox bride will exile you out of the wedding room. Refresh the salt lines that surround the conjugal room, and gently steer the fox back if it flees overnight.

■ Your retinue and you should impersonate a hunting hound, down to howling, running on all-fours and sniffling. The fox will hurriedly isolate itself in the conjugal room, but will actively try to escape at night. Keep every inn door and window closed.

■ Become a widow(er). Call your retinue and make the best of your fists and a butter knife. You will need to kill the spouse a few times before they stay fully dead, each time reviving more and more fox-like in appearance.

AS A WEDDING RETINUE MEMBER:

■ Awkwardly hold watch outside the conjugal bedroom of the dashing NPC ~~cannon fodder~~ groom and his fox bride.

■ The NPC groom might request help as above — or might fall deathly silent. If that happens, villagers instruct, character must loudly ask if the wine pleases the couple. The flushed, visibly fox-like bride will then open the door to complain their new consort — clawed dead in the marital bed — won’t even share a wine cup with them. The fox does not seem to grasp they have killed their groom.

■ Defeat the fox at drinking — the fox bride can hold its cups, but slipping in some of the relaxing opiates on hand will help the cause. Sneak the NPC groom's corpse out with a buddy when the fox drops asleep.

■ Or prove you are a fairer marital prospect by verbally wooing the fox or doing battle with your retinue companion, to prove your worth. Your wingman may wish to throw the fight, feed lines, or generally smoulder. The fox bride will offer the NPC corpse as a betrothal gift.

Come morning, the villagers open the now-delapidated inn. Those who survive fox weddings receive braided bracelets of red, golden and tangerine rope, earning good will in the village. The murderous fox brides have disappeared — in their place, yellowed and dust-drenched bones 'sleep' in the marital beds, covered by withered and torn wedding clothes.

Villagers share the whole story: a huntsman encountered a fox goddess in the forest, when she had taken the shape of a beautiful woman. Lovestruck, he brought her back to Ke-Waihu as his wife — but the horrified villager slaughtered her and her husband on their wedding night. The fox god cursed the village to relieve yearly 'fox weddings,' during which the bones of those murdered during the previous 'conjugal' festivities rise as brides to terrorise new spouses.

Skipping the fox wedding rites, villagers say, shrivels their crops and depletes their food stocks for several seasons.

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C. A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

It’s all fun and wedding games, until one of the victims of the recent nuptials is the son of influential wine merchant Saguk Chaomin. He vengefully sponsors a a hunt to finally lift the foxes’ curse.

■ Saguk Chaomin assigns weapons — from knives, spears and sharpened sticks to bows, arrows and rifles operating on gun powder — alongside lanterns and climbing rope to the brave adventurers. The contingent splinters into smaller groups to avoid detection.

■ The forests now aggressively conspire to lead characters to their deaths: whether it’s through fostering illusions that trip them into gullies, or decrepit bridges that crumble, sending travellers into whirling river waters. Animals (excluding wolves) attack travellers fiercely. Keep a hunting hound close.

■ Characters with unusual physical features or suspicious behaviours — from supernatural powers to a fear of dogs — are accused of being shape-shifting foxes.

■ Fox spirits assume a mortal but resilient shape the day after the wedding — strong, large, feral and willy. They’re quick to bite, and their presence dulls the senses of hunters.

■ To exorcise the foxes, kill their mortal bodies or obliterate or repair their small, decaying forest altars. These are stone rings the size of one’s hand, often hidden at the root of ancient trees. Cleanse the altars of filth, vermin and predatory creatures, and replenish the stones with fresh river pieces. Beware rare fox spirits that come to protect altars or hide their young.

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D. WELL, WELL, WELL

In the wake of the weddings, characters head to their abodes, while test drivers are garrisoned in communal temporary shelters. Over the next few days, everyone may notice:

■ Villagers have a marrow-deep fear of the Hok-Shinn clan, whose members behave as if they are immune from repercussions.

■ Villagers tell eerie tales of strange encounters in their locked stables, abandoned houses or wells — they have seen a creature with the head of a beautiful woman, whose hair braids to form her snake-like body. 'She' slithers away once discovered.

■ Word spreads across the marketplace that dark waters have returned. A farmer’s well has dried, leaving only a thickened, tar-like liquid at the bottom. Another villager shamefully admits his well also dried a month ago, clogged by dark filth — the fount was old, and he assumed it had naturally depleted.

■ Horrified villagers speak no more of this, but superstitiously volunteer flower and food tributes for the Ka-Sanwon volcano. Mayor Hok-Shinn Weisi intercedes to reserve the resources for the upcoming return of the patron lord of the volcano’s three villages — the undead Beastmaster.

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QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. THE MORE, THE MERRIER

⦓ he should be dead. sort of. maybe not dead dead, but at least a little less than alive. whatever death is supposed to be like, when you battle a literal nightmare in a world you frequently walk when slumber overtakes you. truth be told, dreams and reality have somewhat blended together over the years, and anything less than ghastly is a luxury at this point. especially with the song. the tune stuck in his head, on repeat, no shuffling, unhinged and loud and hushed in the way that it just creeps up on him whenever he doesn’t have the mental strength to quiet it. not the kind of ear worm you want, but then again, anything he ever did want, he rarely had.

and he’s tired.

it’s the song, mostly. the calling. or it was, anyway, oddly subdued here in faint darkness, just enough of a glow to guess the visages of his newfound companions. the tent reeks. or maybe it’s the stench of half-death he carried with him, bloodied corpses, demons and all that. fun times. he’ll roll with it, though. with… whatever this is, because if he’s managed to preserve the inquisition, help his comrades and fellow wardens somehow, if the end of the line is this right here… well. it’s probably more than he deserves.

hunger is still a thing, though. if you’re trying to sleep—sorry. please don’t mind him as he rummages through the meager bits of food he managed to gather earlier in the day, none of which palatable-looking. crushed berries, slightly rotten. raw fish. an impressive variety of mushrooms, and—somehow—dry bread. could probably knock a few teeth out of a bandit’s mouth with it, too. if he wasn’t starving, anyway.

he sighs without meaning to, a mouthful he munches with surprising gusto, until he stops, mid-chew, squinting back at whoever’s staring. ⦔

…I’m Fereldan? ⦓ no frill, no pretense. though to be fair, he doubts even a mabari would have touched his ration. ⦔ Look, I know what you’re thinking… but beggars can’t be choosers. I’d even be inclined to share if you didn’t have that… whatever expression that’s on your face right now. Disgust? Oh, I've had worse... Trust me.

A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

Whooooo’s a good boy! Whooo’s a gooood boy? Who’s the beeeeest booooy.

⦓ give alistair a dog and this is what happens. even with the mangiest of all hounds. it’s no mabari, but it barks, and it smells, and it drools, and it’s wonderful. his probably temporary but already loyal furry companion stands proud next to him, a fluffle of dead rabbits scattered around him, near the landslide he'd somehow completely missed. listen. he knows what it looks like, and as he resumes scratching the dog’s ears, he looks up, slowly, fresh cuts on his face and hair a bit pell-mell, his whole expression the equivalent of a weary shrug. ⦔

What? You’ve clearly never heard of rats, and the things they can do to you. ⦓ a tiny roll of eyes, and a wave of his hand, unprompted, half-exasperated. ⦔ Yes, I know. These aren’t rats... but don’t let the fluff fool you. Have you seen their teeth? ⦓ he nearly died! again!!! ⦔

WELL, WELL, WELL

⦓ to be fair, they do sound quite eerie. the tales. but alistair finds himself unfazed. he stares unfocused into the flames of the fire crackling, elbows on his thighs, eyes a little distant. there are wrinkles there that weren’t there before, and the slight upturn of his lips reveal no humor. ⦔

Creepy… ⦓ he doesn’t say it to anyone in particular, a half-groan in his throat, chest rising full as his voice lowers. ⦔ It’s bad, isn’t it. To grow… desensitized. Not that I am. Not really. ⦓ a beat, brows furrowing. ⦔ I don’t know… It’s just, when you’ve stared death in the face more often than you ever should have… ⦓ his voice trails off. his eyes close. he sighs, blinking. and he says nothing more. ⦔

⦓ ooc: poke me @

pandaemonium if you'd like to plot something else or if you have anything specific in mind! ⦔

Edited 2022-02-23 03:59 (UTC)

( in all fairness, of which there was very little in general and currently only a degree born out of sheer stupidity rather than anything technically fair, ellana is still recovering from whatever general haze of disorientation has been lingering since she came to the vague realisation she was not, in fact, en route to tevinter and ambushed along the way. she was not presently feeling the brush of awareness speaking to magics she understood, and she had been both dehydrated and attempting to take stock of her situation, and the languages she didn't understand. not just failed to understand, but in the years with the inquisition and subsequent exposure to far more of thedas than she'd ever dreamed of studying under her keeper, languages she outright didn't know. hadn't heard spoken before at all.

then the tusk charm, that made words make sense, and she was still trying to figure out how it'd been enchanted, if that's indeed the case, but nothing looks familiar enough for her to know.

her one blessing, aside from the cessation of a lingering headache and the absence of anyone remarking on knife ears, was the belief that any person of shorter, slimmer comparative stature to an average human, especially a female one, with a prosthetic attachment to their arm was ... inconsequential. what a delightful backwards slide, which after an inexpert perusing of her mechanical hand, only resulted in the obvious knife being taken, and none of the rest of dagna's genius detected.

not that she knew where she was, in any coherent way, but as a former inquisitor, that felt like a tuesday. one with aching bones to grace her mornings, with how carelessly their tents are arranged over the landscape when camping. she's mildly surprised they've any tents at all, opting not to say so except in passing to those stuck in her same situation, with the same murmured question: where are we?

really, she'd been napping to conserve energy for an attempt to unabuct herself this evening when one of the people shoved into her tent right before 'bed' had gotten it into their mind to be properly industrious. which was wise, eating while he could, but when she'd sat up to observe him, and she'd continued staring, it was with all the dumbstruck confusion of ... who knew? meeting hakkon, having an idiot who also happened to be ancient take off her arm as a parting "it's not you, it's me, and my genocidal agenda", or anything really that came up during the last handful of years?

no, this counts as another kind of strange, beyond the glimpse of familiar places she's since pinned down as illusions in a whole new, confusing way. either she's hallucinating him, and truly her dreams even here were of a far different sort than this, or she really was seeing the warden she thought she was. )

Oh, I think we all have, but I'm a little... surprised. Not at the eating, keep up your strength and all, we all should, but I'm going to sound very confused for a moment.

( a pause. it's hardly portentous, but when she lifts her fleshy hand, it's in a sort of open palmed apology. )

Are you Warden Alistair?

( and so he does really need to change his name after all. it’s almost funny. he’s literally just been asked, mere days ago, before the truth revealed the kind of horror he wasn’t particularly prepared for. and he’s seen things. it’s just, this one hit home pretty fast, tore open the kind of sore spot that never seems to scab over.

it’s there in the lopsided smile he offers, stretched a bit bleary as his vision slowly adjusts and focuses on his unknown companion. ) Hm? What gave it away? ( he’s not even sure they’re in thedas anymore, faint remnants of misty vestiges of the fade chilling his bones. ) The armor? The nose, maaaybe. ( his lips widen briefly nostalgic, and then he nods, noting the pointy ears of his interlocutor and the odd contraption in lieu of one arm.

he tries not to stare. ) Yes, I’m Alistair… and my eyes aren’t what they used to be. You look familiar. ( or feel familiar, rather. an odd thing. ) Have we met?

( she holds up her arm, the prosthetic brought to the forefront: not so much used to it (though she was, had been learning for months) as used to being stared at for dozens of less striking reasons over the years. )

I would say so, some years before I ended up with Dagna applying her brilliant, and devious mind too this particular solution. Only...

( and here she pauses, shifts to come closer around the sleeping body of a companion captive. looking to his eyes, and allowing herself to frown. )

As I said, the last time was years ago, chased down by a Nightmare. Which should make this impossible, but that's all I've been running into since heading to that doomed conference.

( so it is him? alive, changed, and who isn't after the things seen in the fade, memories that flood back like something sour on her tongue. lucid dreams within the sleeping Fade is not anything like walking it in body. )

I was called Inquisitor then. These days, it's simply Ellana.

[ can't a man enjoy his porridge and piss-ale at a campfire without things getting so existential... sheesh... ]

[ the only one to hear a would-be king's groaning at the fireside is a fellow soldier doomed to die being consumed by what was put inside of him. it's like that, he supposes — before a fight, after a fight, anytime war and uncertainty plague the horizon: hard not to feel the weight of the journey taken to get there. Cloud can practically breathe in the wet tropics and cool mountains of Wutai's countryside as he chews over the words and the congealed bran of his bowl. ]

[ his last memory of war not his own, his undertaken war at home forcefully abandoned, his looming choice to make someone else's war his own. only for the right price, he reminds himself, and scrapes the sides of his bowl with a wooden spoon. SOLDIER no more — a mercenary now. cold, ruthless Gil commandeers his motives again; things are easier that way. ]

Is it? [ he finally asks in return, low, well after it had seemed like he'd let the topic go unanswered. Cloud's new at making rallying speeches, and he doesn't especially know this man, but the kinship of one pawn to another is instantaneous. cautious, but earnest: ]

Seen that face once, you'll probably see it again. That's just how it is.

[ becoming desensitized is... well, survival. it's just good math. ]

( he might have jumped before. now he just flinches, a little taken aback—he wasn’t really expecting an answer, voicing his concerns to the winds, not even quite realizing he’s actually spoken. you’ll probably see it again. of that he has no doubt, though he’d really rather not to. death, undeath. seen through his eyes, bubbling cold in his blood. and so many corpses left in his wake.

he sighs, a sidelong glance offered. ) A bit grim, aren’t we. ( or realistic. he doesn’t know anymore. ) Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it looked prettier. ( corypheus, at least, had some sense of fashion. the thought is quick to make his stomach churn; he smiles for good measure, swallowing back the growing nausea. ) I’m Alistair. Are you with the Inquisition?

I'm a realist, [ a correction that confirms his bias, but despite its firmness doesn't sound offended. only someone made of this much weathered steel could carry the conversation anyway. the man moves on with a social ease that Cloud can only passively observe, left to wonder if his attempt at solidarity even resonated at all. ]

[ doesn't matter, probably. surviving is other faces to look at while death's is away. ]

Cloud. [ he uses the wooden spoon to wave. ] Mm, no. AVALANCHE.

[ to confirm it at all is a little foreign on his tongue — especially now, where there is no AVALANCHE. no ShinRa. no more contract or current responsibility. none of this he seems to consider necessary elaborating, of course; "inquisition" is a far more thought-provoking word than a natural disaster to anyone who hasn't been in one. Cloud has a concept of it: a long and daunting task, an exhaustive sleuth into misdeeds, an abrupt conquering. it sounds... holy somehow, or at least the word has a tang of religion on the tongue when he mouths it through his ignorance. he may have spent a lot of time in a church lately, but he's not an especially devout man so it drums up no emotion in particular. ]

What are you "inquisiting"? [ aw look at him, completely naive of the can of worms he's attempting to open. ]

You're a soldier.

[This is not a question coming from this man, who looks... well, quite bizarrely, he looks a little like he belongs int he place, from both his appearance - rich blue silk covering him - to his posture - quiet and regal in some way.

And, maybe, in the way his back stands ramrod straight, one can see a hint of the military man he also is himself.]

There comes a point, on the battlefield, where you have to shield your own heart to hope to come out alive. Is it good or bad, I cannot tell. It's human.

( is he though? there’s just so much that’s lost meaning. it’s hard to know where he stands, where he’s stood, one foot in the grave, as it were. should be two now, really, and yet he still breathes, even in the bloated air, and it almost feels like a second chance.

the man beside him seems very… solemn, but it’s hardly enough to deter him, a hint of humor, the same disguise he’s worn for decades. ) That sounded like wisdom. ( to come out alive or to remain sane. both have been rather difficult lately. ) Apparently that tends to fly right over my head… ( he huffs through his nose, aborted laughter. ) I’m going to take a wild guess here and assume you’re a warrior?

Edited 2022-02-24 20:40 (UTC)

I wish I had wisdom to impart. Maybe I do, but people rarely listen to it.

[A small shrug, and the huff of laughter is met with a smile.]

Army general. Not that it matters much here as I am quite unfortunately bereft of said army.

[Hunger has been a maddening constant in his life for two centuries. Even with the unexpected freedom of the past few days, he'd still barely been able to hunt down enough in the night, when he was supposed to be on watch. And now, thrown again into unfamiliar lands by yet more mysterious forces? It was straight back to starvation. He'd snuck a few mouthfuls of animal blood while no one had been watching him today, but it wasn't enough. Barely a snack. And now here he was, with a real chance to finally bite a thinking creature.

...And this man seemed to be doing everything he could to make that idea thoroughly unappetizing.] No, I think I've been put off my supper for now. [Why did elves have to be cursed with better night vision than humans? He could see everything.] I'm sure it's... an acquired taste.

( yes, good. you see, alistair has never been particularly inclined to become a meal. he’s almost been cooked, once! or twice. or more, if you consider all the time he’s spent with morrigan—zap, frog time. he’ll never know, and it’s just as well.

picky eater here, aren’t we? or drinker. ) Sure… acquired. ( to be fair, it kind of is. ) And here I was fondly reminiscing about the good ol’ days of darkspawn blood. Ahhh. ( when everything, oddly enough, seemed much simpler. he shrugs, biting into yet another hard piece of bread. ) I’ve seen hares hopping around, if you’d rather. But you’ll have to wait until morning. ( or whenever they’re free to leave the tent, anyway. )

Yes, of course. Or maybe... [His voice drops to a more conspiratorial murmur. A knife appears from his sleeve, the blade glinting dully in the gloom.] We set our own agenda. Wait for the bandits to start nodding off on their watch, and cut loose. Free to go drink as much darkspawn blood as you want.

[What did that even mean, anyway, darkspawn? Tieflings? Drow?]

[It's meant to be a sombre affair, and honestly said, she doesn't know what prompted her to come join the hunt. She's not skilled with a physical weapon, and in hindsight of the fox spirits haunting this village, the inhabitants might not take all that nicely to a woman who can practice magic.

But - maybe she feels some sort of duty for it. She escaped a wedding (and death) to a fox spirit, on a lie. And in this place, it feels like everyone has something to atone for.

So she was ready to be sombre and all, except: behold, a dog person.]

I feel like dogs have sharper teeth than rabbits. [Slight amusement.] Anyway, should you be dawdling on hare hunting? I thought we were meant to focus on...something else.

( Hounds howling and the moon’s long blind eye cataracted, and sun-tepid gravel twisting beneath his feet. He thinks, they are bodies of water and bodies of wells, in a mute symbiosis of form and function. Thinks, these wells have lessened like bird-boned elders with hollowed backs, and he looks at the remains of them, crawling in funerary procession. Three stumps, the fourth hardly a step — but for how a kitchen girl, snarling, trips her foot into its dirt-drowned mouth and pulls it silt-bronzed after.

Poverty sleeps here like nails gathered tight in the temples of martyrs. For his crown, village maidens crowd Lan Wangji; children chase butterflies around his sky silks. He trades alms for their stories. Listens —

And so, finds himself watchful and serpentine tonight, coiled in wait of the creature they claim as a head and body of braids. Drunks name her fair. But midnight hours silver every base metal into a mirror.

Hunt is wait is lethargy. The night yawns indifferent and moist like summer fists that clutch rain, withholding. Nothing drips past the hiccupped staccato of nightingales and the churned goading of two watch guards, walking, and the slow, pained cacophony of this young fool, coaxing his melancholy like beads loose from a shattered string.

Later, Lan Wangji will remember he hesitated. Now, with the silence spell crackling between them, Wangji watches less the man than the hunched back of the well behind him. Anticipates the candle-flickered breeze of the man’s stitched breath, but neglects it — )

Consider. ( You, stranger. Scratched wax, bending over bones. ) Vigilance.

( Of the distant stirring of nearby movement. He releases the silence spell — releases himself of tension — and nods at the well and the thing that peers back from it. Boo. )

[Alistair catches his eye as he dotes on the dog, and Akira can't help but smile as he watches him. He doesn't mean to be caught staring, and he blinks, shaking his head and waving a hand in apology.]

I wasn't, I mean... Considering what happened with the... foxes? It's probably better to be safe.

[He's still a little shaken by the fact that a woman turned into a fox and killed someone right in front of him. He wouldn't be surprised if the rabbits tried to kill them, too.]

[ Cleo isn't a natural pick to join the hunt. She looks like she'd much rather be sleeping back in the cursed village; but instead she's here, watching the hunting dogs and the unfamiliar people with them. Everyone was so afraid of the foxes, and fear makes them dangerous. They've been so gruff with her that she hasn't decided who she is helping, or if she even wants to. But she sees this man, charmed by his new furry pet, and thinks they must not all be so bad.

That is until she overhears him badmouthing rats. She has no idea how she keeps being paired with men who are so touchy, but he is fortunate that it reminds her of someone she's fond of. And she's fairly sure she brought DuBois around on the subject eventually.

All things have a purpose. He doesn't need to tell her what rats can do, she's seen it. They've also protected her all her life. Sometimes the most remarkable creatures have the worst reputations. ]

Why do you speak of rats? Do you have some childhood trauma you are coping with?

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arc iii: house of ravens | arrival

alistair theirin | dragon age | TDM tourist & voice-testing ;;

a! no need to recognise her as the inquisitor he knew, please do as you like!

winging this in true alistair fashion fff

truly there is no better way

omg an alistair... well well well!!

a cloud!!!! ;;

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Well, well, well

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A!

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hunting (he's so precious omg)

well, well, weeeeeeeeeell | 295!!!!

A-Hunting We Will Go

A-Hunting