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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

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[ It was a long night. Five had barely made it back to the house before he passed out, and the entire time he'd expected Lan Wangji to come out of the woodwork the moment he closed his eyes. Leaving him there had been a risk, and he second guessed himself all the way until morning.

Somehow it didn't cross his tired mind how easy it would be to find him where he lived. Five backs up a step when he suddenly spots him there, just as he'd been cleaning up the last traces of their encounter before his siblings caught wind of it. Something Lan Wangji obviously hasn't had time to do. He balls his freshly-bandaged hands into fists, but words escape him as he bows in front of him.

For a full minute he doesn't know how to respond. Something was strange about the last night, but he hadn't questioned his motives. They made more sense than whatever is happening now. He halfway recognizes the gesture, and that only makes him more uncomfortable. ]

What are you doing? [ Stop that. ]

[ Atonement. Only, that suggests the method is certain, the outcome resolute. That he is correct in instinct and divination, and the drip of his back will drench southbound and that will be price enough, weighing down Five's hand. That it will suffice him.

There are no guarantees in this, between them. No certainties, no absolutes. He cannot presume. What has knelt one man need to raise patience within another. Wangji's hands bind, sternly splayed on hard ground, fit of his fingers turned claws — anchored. He thinks, he feels each spear of light that whispers obedience on his back, stirring the thought and silhouette of scars old, revelations new. ]

Asking adjudication.

[ Coaxing, if not Five's understanding, then — words whispered hard and thick, like blood slow to descend of a deep chest wound — then his justice. Let him choose, then, how he wishes this done between them: what amends will suit him, what words, what pledges.

The sinner cannot name the toll of the sin, cannot perform it unbidden. It is Five's to determine. ]

[ Adjudication. Five's mouth hangs open as it slowly becomes evident that he's asking him for punishment. Sought him out immediately, just to make peace for unsuccessfully trying to kill him. Who does that?

Worse is that he can feel that he's sincere, after months of getting used to that little shard of cursed glass inside him that picks up on his flavor of anguish. And it's absolutely baffling. They aren't friendly. As many times as they've worked towards a common goal, there are enough excuses to why he would have wanted Five gone that he wouldn't have wondered. That was something he could almost relate to. Then to turn around... just hours ago Five would have been happy to eliminate him as a threat without any great burden on his conscience.

That he hadn't meant to attack him has bigger implications. He hovers there, between wanting to ask what it was really about and suggesting something disproportionate that he can do to make it up to him. Both options give him a headache. What little sleep he got hadn't been enough. ]

I need coffee. [ He doesn't have the energy to blink directly into the kitchen, or he might have. Besides that, he doesn't really want to take his eye off of Lan Wangji after all the mixed signals he's been giving. ] ...If you're bleeding, try not to get it on the floor. I just cleaned up that spot.

[ And its stain only lingers, deepens, darkens. There are drips and trickles of Lan Wangji's wounds that manifest as stream, streams that cojoin, rivers that drag into lake. He feels the wet beneath him, an expansive universe of evidence that man is the sum and nuance of his failures, and Lan Wangji has won nothing off a night's revelries, past the shame that flushes the thin spread of cheek like a lamp's skins, brightened.

He would have sundered this child-elder from the ranks of the living. Wei Ying, before him. Himself, after. That they survived is testimony less to Lan Wangji's skill of discipline than to Wei Ying's starting ingenuity to imprison his strength, and Five's arduous, resilient chase.

One heartbeat. The next. The young fevers of his guilt compel him, animalistic. He tastes the connotations of his fault, acrid on tongue. Scratches line wood, half moons, rounded like timid exhalations — his nails fit the indentations, and he knows with the intimacy of men who have walked such quarters that this is where guests of poor nobility might have been received, where they sat their cups and drag-drag-dragged, and marks spilled broad.

Small hands, even for the boy's age. He sees this, raising like waters that crest, to shift to his knees, gaze pinned ahead like a flustered arrow. He breathes at Five's largesse. ]

A compulsion of the night. [ No beats, no pauses, no excuses. ] How do we proceed?

[ Cracked voice like weathered porcelain, for he knows the risks, knows the costs now, how they weigh his hands: a ruin sprawls bloodied between them. They cannot erase Lan Wangji's transgression, but must yet travel together, cooperate to sustain the whole of their contingent. ]

[ Five had meant to be dismissive, but the message seems to get lost on someone so stubbornly fixated on... what? Making things right between them?

Lan Wangji still refuses to fully get up from the floor, as if he's making a point not to tower over him in the middle of an apology, and the guilt radiating from him is surprisingly palpable. He has no idea how he expects him to react, but witnessing it feels more wrong than anything that occurred the night before.

This isn't the first time people have fallen to their knees in front of him. He shifts back when it calls on images of people begging for their lives, moments before he put a bullet in their brains or broken their necks like he'd tried to do to Lan Wangji just hours ago. He remembers them, but he doesn't even feel a fraction of the remorse he's displaying for failing to do what Five has done hundreds of times, to people far more innocent. He can try to understand, but it's impossible for him to relate.

Confirming that he was compelled makes his guilt all the more confusing. Five might have even preferred it if he had tried to murder him outright, but blaming it on magic should take away any sense of responsibility he has towards his actions. His sister might as well have rumored him into it, and yet he looks like he's tortured by the very thought of accidentally betraying him.

He clenches his jaw, suddenly wishing he had something stronger than coffee to get him through this conversation. ]

Are you asking how we get our revenge, or how we work together after you tried to kill me? [ He'd like to focus on the former, but it feels too awkward not to set the record straight. ] You're not the first.

[ Nor the last, but this is no time for acrid, sullen poison. Enough of their wounds fester. Lan Wangji's bruises will not soon sweeten gold, will not fade under the pressure of his dignity and its sombre immutability.

Snow hides dirt, snow does not erase it. Steadfastly, ice kills. They did not build empires in the mountains of Gusu Lan so faint-spirited, uneducated descendants of Lan Wangji's kin and kind might dread avalanche.

Under the pale eye of a half-woken sun, they may as well be stains and dappled smears, chaotically diffused. Where does Lan Wangji begin, and the quiet shape of Five's shoes begin? The liminal space between them tethers two distinct disasters: Wangji's guilt-laced uncertainty, Five's distrustful cruelty. He knows so, abstractly, in the way he dissects and disseminates the anatomy of crimes that exorcists must cautiously cauterise and purify thereafter. He can conclude the cause of their frequent clashes, for all he steadily ignores it.

The bow is incomplete when he raises his eyes, and he is briefly the tangle of his night-draggled hair and the cluster of wrinkles that crinkle his collar and the spatters of red like plum blossom that line his silks. An absurd thing, sum of his foibles, shameless. He holds Five's glance, wet and dark, and he is young once more, barely bare of the skins of his boyhood, spitting dark ripostes back at the grandmaster. ]

I am not your ghosts, to haunt you. [ Hissed, but crisp. ] I do not drink of their bloodthirst.

[ Give him the lone benefit of doubt that he has come, here and now, to make true amends. ]

[ He can never tell if it's him.

Five was removed from society for decades, so he can concede to himself that he sometimes misses the nuances of conversation. Maybe it's just easier for him to hear the hatred masked under an apology that would dare him not to confuse the two of them. As if he was so offended by the idea that he had to rush over so Five didn't leap to any conclusions that they might have something in common.

Spoiled, for the moment, of any genuine remorse when he meets his gaze. Does he see his ghosts, the way his brother can? Klaus never mentioned them, but he wouldn't be shocked to find out. It would explain some assumptions if he was being tailed by his morbid menagerie through time. ]

Is that why you came? [ He scoffs and shakes his head. If he wants to be that way, fine, he'll play along. ] I forgot what a pacifist you are.

[ Hissed mockery, plain ridicule. A mask of theatre, crassly painted, would show Five's derisiveness no less vulgar. He thinks, they would have been allies once, on a battlefield where duress married despair, and its children armed them against a common foe. Yet so often Five turns to spit in the face of a friend.

It wearies Lan Wangji, the stale, empty heat of the rooms shifting, and he breathes, he breathes, he listens, he tips his head back and briefly gazes where the mouth of the ceiling is hollow pallor, and nothingness winks back like a child learning to tease. White is for mourning, white is the death of possibility. A summer, sultry sickness.

White weeps in his silks, lost in Wei Ying's hands, for he wears Wei Ying's black robes instead, and he is not himself — only the monster the night has created, and as such, reedy: ]

I came for reparations. [ A pacifist, a fool, a fraud. A warrior, his weapons deserting him. He cannot do battle here. ] To bear my fault, absent excuses.

[ Lording his moral superiority over him does seem uncharacteristically petty when they've barely had time to get dry, but it'd still be easier to stomach than watching him beg for forgiveness. Five had tried to give him a break by showing just how little he has to feel guilty about, but that only seems to have made him double down on his apology. There's obviously more he's leaving unsaid to retain his dignity.

It bothers him that he can't pin down where this is coming from, and he doesn't like anything that comes to mind. If he's beside himself for trying to kill someone in the body of a child, or if he's afraid of what Five might do if he holds a grudge over this. Nowhere on that list is the possibility that he's upset that he attacked a friend. More likely it has nothing to do with him at all, which would be a nice blow to his ego. Five is never a random victim.

He'd almost rather have an enemy with motivations he can predict. Lan Wangji seems to revel in their ambiguity and refuses to spell anything out for him. It's beyond frustrating and he's too tired to figure out why he's so intent to make it up to him. ]

Well, fortunately for you, I'm not an idiot. [ He could elaborate on what he means by that, but he doesn't. Instead he stares for another moment longer, then sighs again and turns back towards the kitchen. ] You can stay for a drink if you want. There's towels in the washroom.

[ No eruption of anger, no gates open to flood of rancour. He watches Five retreat, first into the borrowed flesh of a child, then into his learned, well-practised forms of derision, and he does not ask if they are improved by an armistice they privately, intensely, inexorably misunderstand. If this were weiqi, he might say, he has whittled down his liberties. Loose-limbed, Five chokes him.

Yet they do not trade glances and entendres of malice and compromise above a board. He watches Five recede and collects himself, first in the form of Wei Ying's dark linens, called back to himself like shadows come twilight — then, gently, slipping back to stand, knowing when his shame has been paraded like the wares of an aged prostitute, bereft the favour of her clients, past the embarrassed indulgence of veteran patrons who shame themselves with guilt for no longer tasting her appeal.

This jail of a house, damp and plaster. In the space of it, he breathes and senses the displacement of air, the transgression against currents — the act of violence that is his presence, inflicted even through minor change. Houses survive in constancy. They outlive their makers, their keepers, their masters. Scorn keeps them alive. Then, dignity.

Five is a home to his distrust. And Lan Wangji knows, all at once, what to give him for amends. ]

I visited harm on the better half of my soul.

[ This is what Five wants, what men like him want: leverage. Reminders, however unstuble, that the world is as dire and merciless and perverted a place as the one their mind's eye imagines. Validation of their deepest, darkest fears. ]

[ The tension never fully breaks. Despite allowing him to stay, whatever is left unsettled between them is going to linger until they come to some kind of agreement over where they stand. Likely not until after Five has figured out how he'd fallen into an obvious trap in the first place. In that respect, Lan Wangji timed his visit well, when he hasn't decided how to interpret the night before and blame is still subjective.

He's already walking towards the far cabinets when sees the man gathering himself, and he subtly glances over to take note of how easily he gets back up. If he seems to favor one side over the other, it could clue him in on any specific injuries he sustained while Five had mostly been running from him. Places where he's vulnerable. It doesn't matter if he came to him on his knees, as often as he's failed to understand Lan Wangji, there's always a possibility that he misinterpreted his intentions.

Five stills when he mentions how damning it was to succumb to violence. He'd meant his line about pacifism as a joke, because they've always fought and killed to survive. Lan Wangji obviously has a different relationship to the dead, but he thought... Is it because he was compelled into it this time? ]

You're really determined to earn my forgiveness. [ He turns at the counter and crosses his arms. He can already feel fresh blood seeping through the bandages on his hands. ] You think if you do, that goes away?

[ He settles. Later, he will think, the house has stuttered in its breathing, that they should be so silent, so easily apparent to one another. Ghosts haunt the premise, Five said, yet Lan Wangji holds out a hand and senses only the wisps of time, the tremors of restlessness.

Nothing goes away. Only, as with energy, transforms. What could he achieve here, on his knees? Standing? Alert, a pillar of the world? Only the selfish, greedy sentiment that he has made attempt. If he persists, perhaps Five will indulge him, and some trinket of token gesture will be misinterpreted as Lan Wangji offsetting his transgression. And if not, his conscience may clear limpid that he has put himself forward to right all wrongs, but gone denied.

It is a simple thing, to beg forgiveness. Self-serving. Ancillary to the deed as done. His lips feel cracked and dry and torn, when he speaks — the inevitability: ]

Atonement is as snow. [ In Cloud Recesses, the mounds pale in exuberant abundance, and there's an ache in him for the cold, for a cure against the flush that damns his cheeks with silent fever. ] It hides the filth of wrongdoing. It cannot erase.

[ The lessons of a clan, reduced to painstaking revelation. The grandmaster will not thank him this. He finds himself hollowed for every exercise of sincerity. ]

I leave you, without troubling further.

[ There's that word again. Five has yet to appreciate what it means to 'atone', if the state of his hands are anything to go by. The mistake he dedicated his life to reversing is the only one he ever cared about, and he's been able to justify anything he had to do to reach that goal. Including whatever happens in this dimension, where he's not burdened with concerns of disrupting the timeline. And here is Lan Wangji, who actively seeks it for a transgression that doesn't have anything to do with a curse, for no reason other than it felt wrong.

It's been decades since he's held such an innocent view of the world. He's almost impressed that Lan Wangji can manage it at his age.

Those words unfortunately stick with him in the quiet that stretches after. He pointedly looks back to the counter and picks up a tin of tea, for lack of a better option, and frowns as the sides start to brown and dent around his fingertips. Then when he attempts to give him a dismissive wave, he spots the blood and catches himself. Everything is a goddamn problem. Who honestly has the time for guilt?

He studies him for a moment longer, wanting to say something more significant to mark the occasion. A threat or a promise to discuss this more later, but he can still feel his anguish and it's all he can do to stand there and watch him leave. ]

Sure thing. [ He keeps his voice passive, stubbornly unbothered by an attempt on his life. ] Thanks for stopping by.

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