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This log covers 7-25 April, drawing from previous discoveries. Feel free to tag in here or make your own posts/logs!

Sign-ups for NPC threads remain open until 23:59 GMT on 9 April.

THE LION’S DEN

WEN QING’S RESCUE | THE HUNTRESS’ CURES | THE HUNT | THE OLD MOUNTAIN

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SWEET HISSED NOTHINGS

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SNAKES, SERPENT CREATURES

Prior to the Huntress’ arrival, the group’s healer Wen Qing is captured by a feral half human, half serpent creature. Characters might overhear visiting woodsmen who say a woman was heaved into the woods at night by a large serpent.

After journeying through the illusion-casting forests of Ke-Waihu, prospective rescuers discover that traces of struggle lead them to a 20m-deep, wide pit on brittle pale soil, close to the Fortune fetters ruins:

■ If you cross the Fetters, local prophetesses cryptically advise you to shed torches or clothes and to run to cold streams, if you encounter danger. A distressed Hyang-Tai pleads kindness for ‘ancients’ and ‘children.’

■ The surroundings of the pit are eerily silent.

■ Rescuers can spot a sleeping Wen Qing at the bottom of the pit, patches of her bared skin covered in a slick shine and showing the start of growing scales. She is surrounded by dozens of dormant snakes and nagas, tightly and peacefully coiled around her.

■ Wooden stakes have been thrust into the pit walls — serving as challenging, but workable steps.

■ Some snakes are poisonous — with many cures available in the forest or back in Ke-Waihu — but most bite viciously without venom. Some nagas emit phlegm that briefly impairs the vision or blinds.

■ Watch your step! The creatures are drawn to warmth, fire magic and sound. They stir and climb the pit to attack if they feel threatened.
■ Rusted weapons and broken shields litter the bottom of the pit, dropped in by previous… visitors.

OBJECTIVES

■ Remove Wen Qing from her dire straits.

■ Wen Qing is left with serpentine sensitivities, instincts and scales. To cure her, healers advise a seven-day brew treatment of widow’s lace — an opiate plant found in large forest bushes.

■ Grab a few flowers at a time and store them well — collectors exposed extensively to widow’s lace experience four-six hours of light euphoria, paranoia or bizarre visions — swindling foxes and philosophical parrots are apparently commonly imagined.

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THE MAIDEN’S WATCH

The Huntress joins the group, deprived of her powers and absent her steed. She pointedly stares at the ground, but those who meet her gaze may revisit harrowing moments in their lives.

Following group conversations, her shelter is rotated between two locations: a shallow forest cave and the now deserted snake pit that previously hosted Wen Qing.

Take turns shielding her from the animals that seem drawn to besiege her. The Huntress spends her time in tears or penitence and speaks in a maddened tongue. Voice coarse and wet, she summons the composure to share her knowledge:

■ The Beastmaster and she both seek to witness the imminent eruption of the Ke-Sanwon volcano, expected within a month. The Beastmaster will become more human as that time draws.

■ Ravens excepted, local animals obey the Beastmaster and spy for him.

■ To avoid the pull of the Beastmaster and his Hunt, seek out:

THE SHRINE

Trek through Ke-Waihu’s haunted forests and find the village’s only shrine devoted to ravens, outside of the elusive House of Ravens.

■ Wear pebbles or wood splinters from the shrine to disrupt the Beastmaster’s thrall on you. These items must be replaced after three days.

■ Fox spirits have raised dozens of illusionary copies of the shrine. The stone of the original altar is marked for ravens in a small wooden carving, while copy shrines worship foxes.

■ Young fox spirits imitate ravens or play distant bells to distract travellers from finding the raven shrine.

■ Sometimes, fox spirits swarm, offering to show the way if visitors perform a small dare or tell them a meaningful secret.

■ If asked, Ke-Waihu locals share the shrine was raised by a wanderer, who spent a month in the village many years ago. He was disgusted with the arrogance of Ke-Waicai’s zealots, who insist ravens are sacred and can only be worshipped in the House of Ravens.

THE BRIDGE

Ke-Waihu has briefly reopened its gates to the nearby village of Ke-Waiar — to which it is connected by a fragile and narrow bridge high above a misted abyss.

■ Wind gusts shake the ropes of the rickety bridge, and several wooden steps are putrid, dangling or loose.

■ Ad you near the bridge’s end to Ke-Waiar, you may find a couple of fox spirits are purposefully rattling the ropes to unsaddle travellers. Plead or barter: you can offer anything from riddles to treats, a good performance, a poem, a favour, a shouted confession of true love…

■ The village gates open between sunrise and sunset. Characters who arrive early find many villagers sleep until late in the day. By sundown, some locals become frantic, alert, increasingly irritable.

■ Water can be freely taken from any of the wells within Ke-Waiar to satisfy the quest. Villagers offer it gladly — they too suffer from resurging drought and dark waters.

■ If you arrive at sunset or night, you can see villagers turning to werewolves in various stages of transformation, between humanoid and large wolf beast. They are lured out of Ke-Waiar, gates closing behind them, and released into the thick, vibrant woods — with you.

■ Take cover in the forest, to escape the pack of werewolves and wolves. Some might prove lenient if they catch you, while others feel compelled to draw blood.

■ To wait out the night: climb the forest’s sturdiest trees with help of the ropes purposefully bound from tall branches. Some trees even host rudimentary treehouses.

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THE HUNT

The Beastmaster, his xenomorphic creatures and mutated animals arrive in Ke-Waihu to behold the ‘imminent’ volcanic eruption.

The Beastmaster’s creatures possess sharpened senses and hearing, intense speed and hard carcasses that provide additional but imperfect protection from blows and missiles. They often hunt in packs, but behave themselves in Ke-Waihu during daytime.

The Beastmaster excuses himself from the underground Hok-Shinn clan’s attempts at a welcome celebration, taking residence with his beasts in his village hut. He may be encountered walking the village beside five or six of his creatures, inspecting the markets and even advising new huntsmen — his manner slow, speech rough in a way that suggests oral injury beneath his facial bandages.

THE TRIBUTES

The Hok-Shinn and an envoy of Ke-Waiar each present 10 distinguished but eerily listless youths of their village to the Beastmaster.

■ These tributes are then held in groups of five across four abandoned homes, each closely watched by six-seven men of the Hok-Shinn.

■ Team up, rescue some tributes — and get out alive.

■ For easier infiltration, try the forest-facing back of the houses, or the generously large, defective chimneys. Beware slippery or broken roof tiles

■ Hok-Shinn guards possess great brute force… and gratefully accept liquor.

■ Some tributes might fight their rescuers and attempt to alert the guards. Some claim it is their privilege to join the Beastmaster, while others say they should be sacrificed to the volcano Ke-Sanwon for their families.

■ You can hide the rescued tributes in the witches’ huts or the Fetters — gather them coin so they can book seats on the next ship out of Ke-Waihu.

THE HUNTING SEASON

The Beastmaster’s creatures are mannered during the day, but join the Hunting season that kicks off after the full moon:

■ Participation is (OOCly) optional.

■ For five nights, come moonrise, some characters feel compelled to flee into the forests and run, hide or avoid detection — alternatively, they join the Beastmaster’s creatures as hunters, chasing this quarry and forest animals.

■ You can chase each other or ‘pack’ up against a common target or enemy.

■ Anyone can ‘hunt’ or ‘be hunted.' Roles can swap across the five nights.

■ Characters can develop overnight instincts akin to an animal of hunt or prey of your choice, and they will be helped by these animals for the night. Snakes and ravens do not participate.

■ Hunting can be vicious (seeking to injure, kill or consume prey) or symbolic (just violently giving chase).

■ Certain characters feel especially compelled to join the hunt and to protect the Beastmaster outside of it. These include characters who are given to war, hunting, violence, wrath, gluttony or feral/animal characteristics. It also applies to those who previously turned xenomorphic during the Beastmaster's trip in Taravast, or whom he marked.

■ To avoid the hunt, stay out of the forest, apply the Huntress’ cures or lock yourself firmly indoors.

A couple of fun locations for hunt participants:

■ A tree enclosure where characters can hide for up to an hour, invisible to their pursuers. They can still be heard or scented.

■ A small lake, silvered at night, in whose waters you can breathe freely.

■ A fox spirit shrine, where a group of four-five vulpine friends defend you alongside their territory.

■ Abandoned wells and the forest streams previously touched by dark waters. The Beastmaster’s creatures seem very curious about the liquid, but ultimately pull back, as if obeying instructions.

■ Areas with strong fire or utter dark deter the Beastmaster's creatures.

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OLD MAN MOUNTAIN

Dormant volcano Ke-Sanwon shows signs of upcoming eruption: soil swells, increases in local temperature and small, low-grade earthquakes.

■ Characters with magical powers may find their strength sometimes fluctuates, suddenly swelling or briefly waning completely.

■ Dark waters fill out some of the ground cracks that follow earthquakes. The liquid is cold, settling as if it were iced. This dark water heals shallow wounds on any skin it touches, or gently revives vegetation over one-three days on any ground it is set on.

■ The strength of the dark water fades over a week’s time.

■ Digging through the ground cracks reveals thin rivulets of the dark water are present all around Ke-Sanwon.They are more numerous the closer you get to the volcano. Dark water also smears the mouths of hell.

THE JEWELLER

A few days after the earthquakes state (after 20 April, for network posts), characters wake to distant screams, as a group of 10 of Ke-Waihu's masked concerned citizens drag handsome young jeweller Dong-Yun out of Ke-Waihu.

■ The group is taking Dong-Yun through the predatory forests.

■ You can play out finding the captors’ convoy separately, or tag into the jeweller’s rescue here.

■ Bring the jeweller back to Ke-Waihu. Dong-Yun can share that his abductors intended to sacrifice him to the Ke-Sanwon volcano. One of the participants in the rescue: please share with the rest of the class!

”I’ve heard, but I’ve never — they used to, when my mother was young… she told, me even when she had me, all the mothers hid their young. She told me, they used to give them to Sanwon. The prettiest, the smartest, the most skilled. Give it all to Brother Sanwon, give it to… so it won’t take everything else. Give it our best, and it will leave us the rest. But this doesn’t happen anymore. The mountain doesn’t want it.”

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QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If it troubles you, we don't have to speak of it."

Though if he needed to talk of that business, something she could assume in part, she'd listen.

It doesn't take too long before they're back at the huts, Moiraine directing him to somewhere to sit.

"I'll get you some water."

"What's there to say?" But he's gruff with it, slow to negotiate his words. They seem, in part or whole, to burden him. At least he's for sitting, and soon enough for water. It shames him, a man grown, and she a woman striving to please and ease him. He should be better than a child.

But he isn't. Before this, none of them are. "We don't have to speak of anything. But it won't make the matter undone, won't it? Throwing out glass doesn't piece back a mirror. These children won't be for their homes again."

"It won't. And what has already come and what will come is an injustice."

A cruelty, children taken from their homes, given and disposed of, bargained. It isn't a life any child should ever come to know.

"But speaking of them remembers them. If you choose to."

He's silent longer than perhaps he himself expected.

"...I don't ask their names anymore." Then, slowly. "But I know them. They don't say them when they bring them, but that's the trouble, isn't it? When you see them grow. Know them since they were barely hanging off your hip."

They're a large village, but an agglomeration of thousands, all the same. Hardly a citadel of countless, empty faces. The pretty, the skilled, the accomplished earn a reputation.

And then they are culled.

"Used to be, we brought them for... you know what for. We all knew what for. Now we bring them to him." Bitterness weighs his tongue. "Spirits know what he does with them."

"How did it begin? If the history still exists, if you know it."

Moiraine doesn't, the excuse of being from out of town, from somewhere further away not a lie in this case, even if their 'family' wasn't quite truthful.

He appears, for a moment, indifferent before the question. Then vexed. At long last, settled, as if he has resigned himself to the inevitability of this being a truth in want of asking, one that he himself must answer.

"It started before I was born. Before my grandmother's grandmother was born. Grandfather Sanwon would breathe hard, and they'd know, it was time." It is time, by the look of the volcano, sweltering. "And then we'd hear the ravens calling, and you've noticed, haven't you? How they're never here? Only when their House opens. You see them. And you know."

To take the sacrifices to the house. "Then, a few years ago, he came to each village, after the last sacrifice. Now, they call him the Beastmaster. And his... master. He said, we'll keep Sanwon from bursting, but you'll send people to us, and they'll be fewer, but quality. First, we didn't believe him. Wanted to laugh." Did laugh, but that part's not worth telling. "Couple of jesters, fooling around. Only, they weren't."

And his face darkens, his shoulders sag. "They said, they'll keep Sanwon silent for a year, and then they'll want pay. And no one believed them, but... the year passed. And the mountain's been quiet. We've been paying them since. There was some trouble with the tribute last year, I hear he wasn't happy. Something about... I don't know. I think the Hok-Shinn might have shortchanged him. And now Sanwon's breathing hard again."

She's paused, wondering what might be stopping the volcano, whether it's a power like her channelling, a weave could certainly influence something like a volcano. Or if there's more to it.

And what are the children really for, why do they have to be sacrificed?

"Fewer he may have asked for but he could increase the demand still. Has anyone ask how they kept Sanwon silent? Why they offer to?"

Not why they do, that's obvious, but why they offer.

This, he might laugh at, if the truth of his answer didn't pain him so severely, if it didn't turn acrid on his tongue.

"You think they'd tell us their secrets? Him? His people?" He waves a hand as if to say, Look at him. Even absent, the Beastmaster's memory is enough to summon his erratic, exotic nature: a man covered in bandages, surrounded by beasts, seemingly at ease with them more than with fellow men. A strange thing, who growls and frowns and scents, more than he befriends or speaks.

"He doesn't increase the toll, in fairness to him. At least that much. We agreed: ten of each village. He only takes ten." As if that somehow improves things.

"If there is a way... we can find it. A way that would mean he took none."

It's a difficult balance -- if they can find a way where no children had to be given, where they could keep Sanwon silent themselves it would be wonderful. But what would this Beastmaster do in return? If his boon was no longer there?

"There is no quick solution. But something may be found."

"It's them," the envoy argues, nodding one last time towards the waiting Beastmaster and the Hok-Shinn contingent, "Or the other fools, who won't settle for ten. Oh, they say they only need the one, but they don't tell you, do they? How they leave the rest, after they've done their choosing."

Every aspect of this process stains, stings. He shutters his eyes against memories that appear to plague him. "They're husks of themselves. Hollowed."