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.
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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. |
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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. |
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“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. |
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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. |
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westwhere2021-05-10 08:56 pm
D
Gasped breath hot against the dead man's limbs, urgency spelled in condensation. Another day, another hour, when the waters have not just parted for his passing, Lan Wangji might beg pardon for neglecting his female companion. Later. Now, unstitched, knelt on silt and slick residue, and polished ice shrapnel, he hesitates: first, recognising the body in parts, more than their whole, in the negative spaces that should inform its — his, by the cordy stretch of his muscle, the flatness of his chest, the lingering breadth of his worked shoulders — countenance.
He learns what the eye would learn, sight surgical — the bones are of more interest than the minutiae. Eroded features, indistinct heritage, the red ink. The stench and cold dregs of the man, some part his dead umbrage, some part plain, stale water. And the woman serves her reedy warning already, withdraw, but he cannot. In war, that call begs blood or surrender. Lan Wangji moves before he remembers himself: flight of the hand once, before him, and the muscle of his magic exerts itself in a quiet pulse to summon his guqin zither — the rest is gravity, pulling, an orbit finding place. He guides sound, bleeds in strength, shapes the question, Who are you?
And where are his manners? To court the dead, first you greet. You leave name and introduction, pledge intention. Purification is only the exorcist's flirtation, the proof of his virginal designs. He gives nothing here, only assaults with questions that sorcery vibrates once, again, transposing into music that builds and builds and builds —
And crests, falling to disaster, deafened by the wet slosh of coming water, churning and roiling and forsaking him. He does not fight the wave. Braces, air singeing his lungs, while he dismisses the guqin in a whisper of flickered sorcery, and lets the lake water entomb him. Hold when it lashes, burrows in pricklings of old hurt in the coarse scar tissue that softens his back. Hold, when the cold numbs like the dappling light of a first spring day's wakeful sun. Hold, until he is enveloped completely, and he does not fight the onslaught, but drifts with it, darting up, to swim to shore, where he is... inexcusable.
Pale, dressed in his whites, walled in thawed ice, seeping. Coming out to meet the woman — a newcomer, he has seen her, they have all prowled around one another, how could they not? — he blinks away pearls of snow. ]
Thank you. [ Etiquette, at last remembered. He might be obscene in his wetness, but he will not shortchange his uncle's name. ] The cadaver will not speak.
[ It holds its silence, in news... that appear to surprise at least this one man. Inquiry should not fail him so. Not a prodigy of the Lan. Not a master. ]
no subject
[There's a familiar, crushing weight of failure, that she's done something wrong, and she can hear Reginald's dismissive, disappointed voice in the back of her mind.
She has a blanket, which isn't the same thing as a towel, but it's dry and something. She holds it out for him. The idea of speaking to spirits is, thankfully, not at all a weird to her. She wonders briefly if Klaus would have any better luck]
I can keep trying, until I can hold it up longer? I... I'll keep practicing. I'm not really-- It's all sort of new.
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[ The conditions for Inquiry were precarious, but satisfied. If there was failure, it manifested in the strength and focus of Lan Wangji's hand, the precision of his language. Qin music is already a translation — to go from the native tongue to Wangji's own, then crepuscules of sound is a tenuous proposition, straddling madness and ambition. A better scholar might —
But he is all that they have, and he stands alone, armed and defended in weathered, drenched whites and burdened by his weight in gelid water. He shifts, and the slosh of his feet in biting snow mimics the rippling lake waves, like a snake coiling to find his final shape. Beneath silks, limbs, and these limbs laden. He sees too much of himself, of his flesh prison, until he takes the woman's wools, draping them onto his shoulders. ]
You may shield eyes for your modesty. [ A man in whites that now betray the silhouette of his body. Surely, he offends her sensibilities. ] I take no insult.
no subject
blanket. [Mostly in case she herself had ended up soaked too] Do you want it? We can dry them out later.
[She really doesn't want him getting sick. The last thing they need is someone developing pneumonia out here.]
That, uh... [She has no idea what kind of instrument it was, not really able to see it so much as hear it when her concentration had been elsewhere] That instrument you were playing? It was for the-- body? The ghost? My brother talks to ghosts. Probably would like it more if it was with music.
[She quirks a little smile; she imagines Klaus would've played things a little less...classic, though.]
no subject
He does not hasten to correct her — straightens his back, to show the mending steel of his spine, the futility of a second blanket. A pity she does not look, following counsel: inside him burns the wretched ache of sophisticated poison, a worked core. It will salve and provide, or it will be corrected — no use in the swordsman's body for muscles that do not perform. ]
...most men do not converse with the dead.
[ And those who do wear the name of Wei Ying's profession, blasphemers and aberrations against the righteous path. He has met, over time, three skilled necromancers — killed the one with both hands, willing.
This woman does not carry the stench of a fourth. It lives, acrid like the trail of embers, in her brother. ]
They heed your brother?
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She also doesn't know so much about 'heeding' him. Vanya crosses her arms over her chest, rubbing her arms a little as if to ward against the cold. Her tell-all book had revealed a lot abut all their lives, but it still feels odd o try and talk about it out loud.]
Sort of. He was getting better at it. I think he was... scared. It was pretty scary, for a kid, you know? He, um... Didn't cope with it well. But he's been getting better at it. Our, uh.... Our other brother was killed, when we were kids. I guess being able to talk to him helped somewhat, but maybe he could do something more with our lake guy, if we ever find him.
[She glances towards the lake, pensive. She likes having Five around and is grateful for it, but she'd feel even more comfortable if the others showed up too.]
no subject
And the story weaves itself: a boy, alone, scared, mishandling his ability. A young necromancer, deprived the physical presence of a brother he alone could communicate with. Helped somewhat, negotiating his fragments of care and comfort, wrenched from the claws of the dead.
This is not Wei Ying's story of abandon. Less so Sizhui's, particular in his heritage of sorcery, but drowned in the enthusiastic company of his peers. This — is the hermit's way, the wandering cultivator, plight of the practitioner buried in ignorance and seclusion. Abandoned to his ways and isolated from the communal path.
Still, the flinch of his spine, like flint ricocheting off the open road, or a cat stirred from slumber by passing foot. The revulsion of the speed with which Lan Wangji returns her belongings, ostensibly to heal her chills. ]
You left a child to fend for himself against the phantasm of your brother?
[ Woman, you are a monster, as is your family. ]
no subject
First of all, he never told us Ben was hanging around. Secondly, 'trial by fire' we our father's idea, not ours'. [She crosses her arms over her chest, half-hugging herself defensively.]
And there was nothing to fend himself from, Ben never would've hurt any of us. [Of that she was absolutely sure. Maybe smack Klaus around a few times but honestly, who wouldn't? Ben just living all their best lives.]