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

[ Is it not a normal way to ask? Is not a quiet place away from the villagers what she desires? To... somehow dry his clothes? He lets go of his wet curls, flicking water off his fingers before reaching to scrunch up some the other side. ]

Wherever suits you.

[ He says, beginning to move toward the houses.

Yes, Hermione, do slip into a dark alleyway between houses with him. That will look completely fine. There's nothing suspicious about it. ]

[There is absolutely no way anyone in the village could ever think that there is something clandestine and untoward happening over here. At all.

They're just walking towards that cluster of houses over there, and when the alleyway pops into view, they're going to dip into it. The initiations, whatever they are, are still happening in the main part of the village (if it can be called a square), so she can only hope the others are distracted.]

So, what are you? [Very bluntly, with just a pause afterwards, before she clarifies:] I mean, in the sense that you seemed deeply uncomfortable with being subjected to that cold bath. You can't be that posh here, you know? We're meant to blend in.

[As much as people running from Taravast would blend.

The truth is, she does want to know what he is. The red eyes, the growling, the strangely elevated body temperature. Wrathion can't be entirely human. Maybe he isn't. She is dying to know, because she likes to Know Things, but she won't push it. (Today.)

Quickly, without waiting for him to answer her, she performs her spells. Leaves him dry as the desert. (But perhaps the hair's left with some static electricity in it.)]

Edited 2022-02-26 19:38 (UTC)

[ He frowns at the question, and his expression turns briefly irritable -- about to protest before she just barrels onwards.

Blend in? He huffs, reassembles his answer, and is about to answer again when a flurry of magic hits him.

He blinks, feeling his shirt warily and then lifting his hand to his hair. It's instinct for someone this vain to check, and the desire to check is proven wise. He sighs and begins winding it around his fingers to try and tame it. ]

You're telling me I should enjoy being plunged into ice water?

[ Yes, he's well aware this isn't an answer. ]

Of course not, who'd enjoy that? [Well, some cultures make a habit of holding entire festivals around running into an ice-cold lake. But this isn't there.]

I'm sorry about the hair, I've not mastered a seamless drying spell yet.

So explain to me how acting comfortable would have been blending in?

[ Since they've established nobody would enjoy it.

He's not even going to acknowledge the comment about his hair. He's just going to keep winding it, slowly, until it's acceptable. He's dry now and he's feeling better, slowly, for it -- so on balance it seems worth it. ]

I don't know. [She doesn't throw her arms up out of frustration by pure miracle. The initiation process was just bad. That potion they were fed, it felt like...dust, and sour grapes, and anger. It's left her adrift.

Yes, that must be it. She's just disquieted by the whole thing.]

I'm sorry - whatever it is I'm feeling after the cold bath, I've tried to take it out on you. That wasn't fair of me.

[ Hmmm.

He winds a few more strands of hair into more acceptable curls then leans back against the wall of the building behind him, folds his arms thoughtfully. ]

It's naturally to find being asked to accept a curse disquieting.

[ Seriously, who does that? These people are... peculiar. ]

Everything about everything here is disquieting. [And she doesn't seem pleased about it.] The places the Merchant keeps taking us through are...

[She sighs.] Sometimes I wonder how much better off we'd be if we veered off the path, out of his control and manipulation, and just. Figured this out on our own. If we could.

We'd need an alternative guide, so save ourselves being at a disadvantage. One who understood our... predicament.

[ And one who was sympathetic about it. Wrathion pauses, thoughtful. ]

I have wondered if the Merchant is invested in our fate due to his previous... association with the research in Ellethia. I wonder if the mirrors relate to all that is happening in more ways than we understand.

[ If so, it would be detrimental to lose him as a source of information. Unfortunately. ]

[He's orchestrated himself a very useful situation, the Merchant. Where they depend on him, their benevolent and scolding guide, and where he can use that and use them however he sees fit.

It's not a far stretch, to remember a benevolent old headmaster, who pulled his students into a war without giving them tools to fight it, without giving them information. Or with it being fed drip by drip to them.

She's been thinking about Dumbledore a lot, while here. Harry would not be proud.]

What did you learn in Elletheia? [She hasn't forgotten someone made a wish, here.]

Much.

[ He frowns slowly. ]

They suffered.

[ He remembers it, the sensation of overwhelming terror. The desperation, to survive. To live. ]

The sleepers?

[Who else? The whole ghost place reeked of suffering. All the ruins, the mermaids, the undead. Undeath is such a thing here, she's almost hoping that Tom Riddle never sets foot here.]

Then...was ending their sleep a mercy?

All of them.

[ Not just the sleepers. Everyone in Ellethia, in that tower. Wrathion tips his head back against the wall, a tired sort of weight settling on him as he turns over her question.

Was it a mercy? To end their suffering? ]

I have thought before that there was only one solution, that there was no way to undo the suffering inflicted on someone. I was proven wrong, years later. It was too late by then. I often wonder if, had I set myself on the right path back then, I would have been able to devise a solution in time to save them.

[Does she notice that he's leaning against the wall of a house like a brooding, sad, Byronic hero?

Of course no, she's frowning for other reasons. The conversation is riveting enough, and she's not easily distracted by a pretty face.

Not that she's got an opinion on the face. She doesn't, because she's busy.]

There should always be a way to undo the suffering done onto someone. I'm not sure what happened, in your home, but...

Some people are capable of redeeming themselves, Wrathion. Some don't want to.

[An unsure shrug.] I'm going based on personal experience here, so I know it doesn't come with an understanding of all circumstances. But there is never a bad time to set yourself on the right path.

[ That hits Wrathion awkwardly. He thinks about Medivh, what he told him:

I can never change the actions of my past, but I can forge a new legacy to leave behind.

His eyes slide down to settle on her, thoughtful, and linger in silence. ]

You're right.

[ He says finally. Of course Hermione is right! About which part, though? ]

My body temperature is higher than yours. The icy water dropped it too quickly.

[ Is this the right path? He doesn't know. Yet allowing at least a little trust, he has learned, helps people to trust you in turn. ]

[As much as her gaze has wandered away in the meantime, and she's contemplated her own notion of redemption and what would make a person good, that hint brings her attention back with a snap.

She meets his unsettlingly red eyes, breath held for a moment, and she nods.

Noted.]

Did the spells help?

[ He considers that a long moment, then nods. ]

Yes. The cold does not normally bother me so much, it was the shock I suspect.

[ The abrupt difference in temperature between his own and the ice water. ]

Eyes like mine are not entirely uncommon in my home. Elves who are exposed to strong sources of magic for extended periods of time often development a permanent glow to their eyes.

[ Since he knows that's her other criticism. How the fuck are glowing eyes blending in, eh? ]

I didn't think to hide them in Taravast. It seems more an admission of guilt to do so after people have seen them.

[ Yes, he can hide it. ]

[Elves, he mentions, and she wonders if that's what he is. Fundamentally, it doesn't change anything to know, other than the fact that she likes knowing.

Maybe by knowing, next time something like this happens, she'll recall his body temperature runs higher and know what is flamboyance and what is real stress.]

It's proof of how biased and human-centric my world is, in comparison. Humans rule it, especially the magical part of it, and witches and wizards seem to believe that any living being that is not fully human is a creature, and lesser.

[Werewolves, giants, Veelas to name a few, but she's had centaur professors, she's rescued hippogriffs and dragons. Liberated House Elves.]

That's not a mentality I agree with, by the way.

I'd hope not.

[ Being inhuman is not, after all, to be lesser in Azeroth. Wrathion would argue plenty of races are, in fact, greater than humans in many ways.

That's probably rude, though, and he can resist mentioning it.

Still, the fact that her world is human-centric does explain a little of her reactions to him. ]

Do I frighten you?

[ She always seems a little nervous. Is that it? Is she less used to non-humans? ]

[That makes her falter a bit - frighten her? Is that what impression he got?]

What? No - not at all. It's just, I like knowing things. [Which is probably something to call her out on. She knows, she's not the best equipped to handle the strangeness of this world, or the others. She adapts well, by dint of necessity and survival, but she's still a curious, nosy little know-it-all at heart.]

And I didn't want to be rude and just ask, at the same time.

[ She likes knowing things.

A smile flickers faintly over Wrathion's expression. He can understand that. ]

I've had my reasons for keeping it to myself. It can be dangerous for people to know.

[ As if saying that has literally ever discouraged anyone. ]

[She purses her lips, and nods, after a sigh.]

I understand. And if you don't feel it's safe for you to share what you are, it's your right not to, but... It is good to have allies here.

[finally, a little smile.] We've gathered herbs together, that should count as an alliance. And you did get me a book.

I do consider you an ally.

[ It isn't that he doesn't. He does.

Wrathion thinks a moment, weighing up his options. ]

I hope you... consider me the same. If there is anything you require, you need only ask.

[There, another crack of a smile.] I do.

[Anything she needs? He did mention a book on astronomy, though there won't be time very soon for idle hobbies. She misses the Library at Hogwarts so much, in times like these.

She doesn't offer this with any deeper motivation beyond wanting to.]

Maybe we can try being friends, even.

[ Friendship? In this economy?

It's more likely than you think. Considering how much he seems to frustrate her, he's flattered she'd suggest it. ]

I have not had many people call me that.

[ Big surprise, he's quite sure, given his... temperament. He inclines his head a little in acceptance. ]

It would be an honour. I will do my best to live up to the high standard I have no doubt you set as an example.

[ Hermione will clearly be much better at the friend thing, he has no delusions about it. ]

arc iii: house of ravens | arrival

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