westwhere | out you go, shoo

out you go, shoo

READY TO ROLL OUT

That awkward moment when even a brothel won’t have you.

Characters will end their sojourn at the House of Dew early morning, helmed by Haltham (and his murderous goat, chomping on his prosthetic wooden hand for splinter nutrients). Courtesans and attendants will send the group away with parting gifts: a few sacs of grains, handfuls of spice, a small barrel of brew, several of water, thin blankets and four fat chickens.

The decrepit farm stands an hour’s walk east of Sa-Hareth, bordering the forest at the foot of the mountain.

...and it has not wanted for company. Monstrously overgrown wolves prowl the region, with some of the pack settled inside the farm. The wolves are halfway between dead and living, instantly aggressive, sharper, faster, smarter and blue-eyed beyond natural expectation.

The wolves are drawn to heat and fire-bearers. They can be slain, or pushed back into the forest. If the brawl drags on, the wolves may receive reinforcements.

Distantly, characters can observe silhouettes of pale-eyed, humanoid creatures in the forest, covered in animal skins. They seem to speak to the wolves, though it is unclear if they soothe or set them to attack.

Once an elaborate woodsmen’s station, the 'farm' is a generous, sprawling outpost built, home to now-barren inner garden.

The farm spreads across kitchens, bathing rooms, hefty storage barns, a handful of isolated rest halls and broader communal areas. A study room has been crammed with accountancy tomes, papers and other books, many torn alongside glass shards on the floor. A shakily furnished barn was coarsely repurposed for banquets.

Set up, inspect, repurpose. There’s enough dust and mildew to go around, and several walls and roof stretches will need reinforcements.

“Ah,” characters say innocently, “Surely the cold will keep away vermin —” You have rats. Large, uncuddly, distinctly violent, prone to swarming once the sun’s downed. Enjoy that first night.

Haltham will provide some base construction supplies over a few deliveries, along with a personal gift: a herding dog, to watch over two fluffy sheep.

Flex those green thumbs: many moons ago, enchantments were set in place to warm the garden to a tolerable level that will allow the expedited harvest of an arctic patch. These spells will need to be activated and periodically recharged every few days by characters donating recoverable amounts of magic or physical stamina, by touching a nearby rune. But, hey: potatoes, turnips, kale, mmmmmmmmm, a balanced diet.

“Never open your doors at night,” Haltham says on parting. Lend him an ear — and, once the moon rises, hear the forest whispers. Some voices will beg rescue from the cold, others will tease and taunt, a few will imitate enemies or kin. Some will even disrupt dreams.

The voices will seek to lure characters out of their shelter. Those who heed will find themselves compelled to walk into the forest, entranced and ignorant of the cold that slowly envelops them. They will be vulnerable to the elements, tundra predators and the woodland creatures, growing increasingly feral.

Those who survive the night in the forest will wake to find themselves floating in a chilled, but strangely not-yet frozen lake in the morning. They can have faint recollections, as if they themselves lived any of the following events: a friend taking a dark path, the loss of a dear skill, years in a coffin, a close friend parted, a beloved reunion, a lost brother, a tender romance and rare bliss in poverty.

At the bottom of the lake, they may spot the still corpse of an undead that feels too heavy for anyone to lift. His arm has a tattooed red sleeve.

During the day, characters who visit the forest will find it eerily silent, with some trees showing signs of scratches and lingering rope. The lake can still be found, but entering it during daytime will not allow characters to experience foreign memories.

Karsa will reconfigure everyone’s quartz pieces to translate outside of the House of Dew and communicate in a private channel. Still nothing like individual inboxes at this time!

Up to player discretion if Karsa had the time and humour to change their usernames, or stranded them to their House of Dew identities a little longer.

Characters will also be able to access a secondary local fishermen’s network and listen in on their schedules, local gossip and daily weather updates.

Woodsmen, tradesmen and miners will be surprised to see anyone inhabiting the farm, with some men pulling away, calling the place cursed.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"He's still breathing, so not close enough," is the response given, but Gil's frustration seems to let out slowly. "The very idea he's still around and might go near the young master while I'm stuck here really pisses me off."

"Breath attack?" He seems even more intrigued now, gesturing vaguely toward his mouth. "What's that, their breath's so bad people keel over sick?"

A grin and a light laugh as he's not seriously believing as much, though there are notes on such creatures who do have that trait in the various books he's read over the years.

"Mah, who wants to go out searching for troublesome creatures? Until they're a danger to the livelihoods of others, there are times facing them is better than looking away."

Eleven huffs a laugh, because he isn't terribly far off.

"I mean they breathe fire, more often than not. But there are also those that breathe toxins that can immobilize a person for a time." Those are the most troublesome sorts of monsters, in his opinion.

He shrugs. "But I don't often see them near towns, and usually more trouble than they're worth to combat if we can avoid it."

Is that a bit of blush on Xie Lian's cheeks? His hand automatically goes to grab the crystal ring on a chain around his neck.

"... I call him San Lang."

He purses his lips in thought, still eying him.

"That's unfortunate." And he's back to tending to the coffee. The water is a little questionable, but there's enough to fill the pot. "'The young master'... are you a butler or something?"

The phrase he used reminds him more of Pogo, but he's not offering up free glimpses into his childhood by seeming familiar. And he's not sure he's ever heard Pogo curse, so the comparison sort of ends there.

If only he knew now what he learns later, but alas...

"He sounds close to you," he says, a nod to an obvious sort of association that doesn't have to carry anything more. In truth, while he can enjoy gossip, it only works when aware of everyone involved, and when its not malicious in nature. Sharing stories with people he's meeting now, is it so easy to open up?

Easier to smile, keep things light. "Might want to make a carrying case, too, for when we move again. To protect San Lang from the weather."

Five complaining, roundaboutly, slides off his back, but he's helped bring his focus to this moment and less off his internal panic. Just enough to be able to swallow against a dry mouth and answer the question he brings up. "People, and I felt there's truly dead out in the woods, but—"

Underneath them, the creaking groans of the roof made in a style he's less familiar with abruptly turns into a crack, the whole of the roof underneath them both dropping down a half hand at first, then further yawning and leaning, about to consume them both with the lack of regard all collapsing old buildings left to weather the elements have for burdens of snow and wind and suddenly appearing humans, possessed of adequate flesh and bone.

Wei Wuxian, eyes comically wide in surprise rather than fear, shoves down with his hands to lurch forward just as the roof fully gives out underneath their feet.

Five had barely turned back towards him, with genuine interest in what he's about to say, when the roof snaps. They both have seconds to know what's coming, but in the time it takes for him to try to grab hold of the other man, the rotted structure under their feet gives way.

The second teleport is sloppy. He pulls them mid-fall through the floor beneath before they can feel its impact, and winds up sprawled on his back the next level down. Dust and dirt fall around them, and he's content to let it. He looks up at the ceiling, watching it rattle like an earthquake as the collapsed pieces fall into the hole they created above. If anyone was sleeping, that probably woke them.

He belatedly turns his head to locate Wei Wuxian to see how he managed. Then just after he thinks it stopped, he hears one final distant crash. Either from the roof, or they managed to knock over a lamp somewhere.

Okay. So this one might be on him.

"Against what?" he says, not flippant, though he has been in the past. He's gone from a half false lounging into a slow and collected sit, until his legs are crossed and his hands rest on his knees and he's staring at the man playing guqin, moving from that regard for his fingers and his hands to his wrists, his chest, his chin. He eventually looks to Lan Zhan's eyes, not a protracted assault on visual stimuli as much as a measured way to work himself to the point of looking him eye to eye.

"What's at play in this world is different. Resentful energies... those listen. Maybe decaying ears make it harder for the bodied," he says, and it's with a faint twist of his lips, a jest that he doesn't find an explanation to the why, but amuses him nonetheless. "But here... Lan Zhan, you must wonder, too. The high ranked creatures, did you ever catch sight of them when..."

He rubs at his wrists, both shying away from their period of bondage and an older memory, a different set of chains, different salivating animals locked in rooms he could not escape. The haunt of the farm here, the herder of the two sheep with their tendency to ball snow in their fur when they inevitably escape their warmer holding, bah-bah to this place, bleating weakening reprimands before inevitably nipped and herded in close, shivering.

He, who makes binding or bonding an undecided name for twenty years, knows chaining as something else again. His expression tired, eyes a touch more sunken now when he doesn't smile to make the whole of his face at least look more warmly welcoming. He is not easy with this playing, but he's steady through it and the considerations, as he says, "I will need a blade," and he means, a common one, soulless, and he does not look pleased. "Bow and quiver, arrows to match. That, at least, I can make." A boyhood and training and the necessity of invention; a decent bow can be coaxed into existence, a decent sword does not simply spring forth of the lands and fall, gently rusted, at his feet.

"If I remember there are... there is no reason to pretend I am what I'm not," that he isn't half a wreck, that he is not the cultivator they once knew him to be, "Then I'm better armed, and defended, than when pretending for the sake of protecting the people I was desperate to save."

When the cultivation sects would have swarmed over him, feeding like locusts, stripping him down to fragments of bone far sooner than they had while they feared his power and his perversion, to turn away from the sword to walk the dark, narrow road brushing against the condemned, then slipping off entirely into that darkness. He is free of that pretense here, and months leaned into the knowing of his limits.

His fingers curl into his palms. He inhales, closes his eyes, exhales.

"I can convince these undead minds to listen, Lan Zhan, but I'm not sure we can survive their attention. Better a foot soldier than a general." Easily overlooked, versus the targeted figurehead, given what they were brought here for, and what dangling temptation before the starving, freezing cold will do.

"I'm defended, but not for what we've yet to see." Circling back to what he'd touched on before, the ones who drove the Unhalad foot soldiers, the haunts which were not quite as human seeming, if they'd ever been human at all. The mermaids, their obsession, is a fishy, cloying memory at the back of his tongue. "Nor are my defenses against the elements what yours are, but they're better yet than an army man's."

He pauses, fingers slow to relax, lips twitching into a frown and neutral to a smile, then to nothing again.

"Lan Zhan... How are you?"

Edited 2021-05-28 06:06 (UTC)

Does he really want to divulge?

"No, not since I was a child."

That's more than enough, Gil decides. Not that any further information is secret, but Gil knows that the majority of the world is not interested to hear random people's sob stories, even when they ask or seem content enough to listen.

Poor water quality is going too hurt the coffee, but they aren't in much of a position to be picky.

Edited 2021-05-29 00:21 (UTC)

...when. But their eyes bear into one another, baleful, and dark and the sun of early morning seeps too cold and resolute in pinches and stabs and washes over Wei Ying until the depth of his strain shows, the white of his knuckles incandescent. Too frail for storm and confrontation.

"You will have a blade," Lan Wangji speaks the words with the conviction of a man who has yet to earn his keep, but trusts inevitably in the forgery, direct and metaphorical, of others. Supine, coiled like a serpent's ring-bracelet, the boy Eleven's garotte wire hangs limp and light in the treasury of his sleeve. There is skill among them, opportunity. And if Wei Ying wishes a sword, there is also —

But she shivers for him, corrects him in faint turbulence. Bichen, deserted to the follies of her sheath, yet to be drawn out past the routine forms of training or swift, artless execution. Wait, wait.

And then — how is he. The entity that remains, shadow-like and diffused, when the crown is removed, the laced paraphernalia, the insignia of his silks. When the chief cultivator deftly excuses himself, when Hanguang-Jun absents from wars he cannot riddle for their rights and their wrongs once more. When Lan Wangji lacks trailing licks of dusk dark in his hand, bereft Yin iron.

Lan Zhan, beneath his layers, a stripped and relative unknown. A painful, electric necessity, a soft binding of particles. How is Lan Zhan, unasked since childhood, spared inquisition even from his brother's tongue?

"...eroded." Defenceless, hand thoughtless over the guqin, watching it watch him, finding its balance. His fingers dance the edge of it, and he releases the summon with an empty exhalation. "I wished, selfishly, for my son beside me. Now he is here."

Facing their hardships, the chills, the battles, the unknown. The dead and their sleeplessness.

He wavers, but, "Do not tell him so."

Edited 2021-05-29 00:56 (UTC)

A child butler? Probably some family thing, which is interesting. It makes a little more sense with how easily he agreed to run an errand for him. -- That would have been a rare ask, but that might change depending on how this coffee turns out. Everything in the market is annoying for him to get when he's not outright stealing, and they'll need to stock up before they move on.

Heating the water is a bit primitive, but he gets the stove burning without too much effort. He's gone back in time enough that it's not totally foreign to him.

Small talk, on the other hand, comes a bit more forced.

"Well, you never know. Either one of them could be around here someplace." Five for one, is very positive his siblings are here, but they were with him at the time. "You could still get your chance."

Well, they didn't look like they were fighting between themselves when we arrived, did they?

[Quite the opposite, in fact.]

I don't know that we'll be staying too long here anyway. I think they want us out of the region entirely so hopefully, we can give this place back to who it belongs.

"I thought I'd just roll it up... they don't seem to have any bamboo here, it's too cold."

Can we pretend not to address the 'he sounds close to you'? We're sure not going to address that.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll find something."

During the fight with the wolves. Just enough to dodge quite accurately.

[Sometimes, it's pretty useful in the moment, and not just grand visions of the glorious future.]

Apart from that... a battle of the Undead.

[He lost you once, and has had to live with the fact that he probably hasn't been a very good friend. He's not doing it again. You're not only the closest person to him, you're also the only one here he trusts completely.

At least you still listen to his orders when it matters, and Moran smiles.]

Good. Finish the tea, get something to eat. Once you've handed your list to someone, get a nap.

[ He looks down for a moment and nods. ]

Has the battle happened yet?

Eleven nods, examining the man's stance and how holds his blade. When it's clear he's waiting for a strike, he hums and shifts in place, recalling what he'd seen earlier.

In the end, it's a simple, controlled strike meant to be easily met to gauge reaction time and form, steadiness in stance and grip.

Yeah, let's definitely make a point to get out of here as soon as possible.

It's complicated, trust him.

"He's definitely not here," Gil states a matter of factly. "Not now, anyway."

A little too matter of factly. He may not be out to pry too far into his past, but he does like to know what abilities people might have. If that's what he's hinting at.

"How can you tell?"

I don't think so. But I can't tell you when it's going to happen either.

[So yeah, not super useful this time.]

I also did not see who won.

"My job back home is to hunt down powers like his. They are very distinct."

It's not the full truth, but none of it is a lie, either. Not that Gil isn't capable of lying or other shady things.

"What are you, a sorcerer or something? It's possible you would be able to detect it, too."

[ It's vague and probably could have been predicted otherwise, but he won't discount anything. ]

Nobody you recognized among them?

This just became extremely relevant. Five doesn't answer his question, but it may be obvious that this is the first time he's heard of this particular ability. After weeks of searching, it's hard not to get his hopes up.

"Could you detect mine, before you saw it?"

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