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westwhere2022-09-03 10:11 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-09-03 10:11 pm
plot roll | gulliver's travels
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS | EIDRIS
The dragons of Eidris remain agitated after Aiva hatches her eggs and her mate Ariste is allegedly wounded by a Minaras reconnaissance ship, the Relint. Outraged, Eidris aristocracy demands satisfaction, but war-wary king Thivar III soothes tempers until Minaras’ involvement is proven. Scouts report the Relint has crashed in the Sibilant Sands wasteland near Serthica, where dragons used to roam and mate. Dragon warlord Cain d’Ubiq organises a three-day flight expedition to recover the Relint, accepting companions.
✘ OBJECTIVE: locate and investigate the Relint.
■ Thirty dragons and riders, led by Cain d’Ubiq, leave once Eidris rises overground at 6:00am. Cain and two of his companions fly martial, fire-breathing dragons.
■ Every dragon rider is given three days of smoked meats for their dragons, food and water supplies for themselves, two blankets, binoculars and climbing hooks and gear. Riders are advised to wear warm full-body clothing and to cover their mouths.
■ Departing Eidris, you learn that you fly in the middle of the sandstorm season, amid deep reddish mists that rapidly exhaust you and vicious whirlwinds prone to unsaddle you. Don’t get lost and catch anyone who falls!
■ Through mental links, riders can sense their dragons are unnerved by the weather and the thought of confronting the Relint. Many transmit image glimpses of the Eidris-Minaras conflict, when dragons frequently battled warships.
■ Dragons are wilful and predatory creatures: try not to slip off when they suddenly pair up to play tag, hunt large birds or chase the flocks of nocturnal peaceful cloud whales.
■ The Sibilant Sands are a long, red, arid and withered stretch of land east of Serthica, littered by fog-drenched peaks and abyssal, sudden canyons. You may experience spells of inexplicable thirst, dizziness and listlessness.
■ Each night, the dragon party alights at watch points — very high plateaus, that host a few man-made caves. Cain d’Ubiq recommends sheltering your dragons. Squeeze in with them, or negotiate warmth with your fellow travellers: the Sibilant Sands are fiercely cold at night, and large fires can alert hungering man-sized hawks.
■ The stormy weather and recent events have left your dragons exceptionally skittish, prone to fits of anguish. Your physical presence — stroking, feeding, or grooming — reassures the dragons, as can your explicit efforts to send them happy, positive feelings. Think. Happy thoughts.
■ At long last, you reach the Relint: a small plane vessel that has crashed and remained stranded at a vast height between two steep cliffs that house several hawk nests.
■ Dragons are too large to fit in the space occupied by the Relint without being seen and attacked by the hawks — but you can leave your mounts behind and ascend with your climbing gear. Beware brutal hawks and storms.
■ Those who finally enter the Relint find no human remains — only two man-sized, straw-filled burlap mannequins, with a puddle of cold dark water at their feet. The mannequin ‘pilot’ wears a crudely painted fox face. The ‘navigator’ has a bear one.
■ Drop a line if your character plans to touch the dark water: you can get information, but please be aware there will be some unpleasant consequences.
■ The ship is very battered, showing Serthica markings: only RELINT remains visible from a distance, from the originally engraved AERIAL HEALING UNIT.
■ Dried blood is smeared on the back of the ship, where a fresh indentation has taken out the Relint’s engine. Any dragon that smells a sample can convey through images this is the blood of Ariste.
■ Grab whatever you need and fly home: the Relint creaks, rattles, and is at all times just about ready to fall.
NPC ACCESS: CAIN D'UBIQ
no subject
( Chrichter. A moment, and wheels and cogs ready and turn and there is no grease for them, no native appetite for political machination that might recommend him to understand this strategy. He sees the hand mere moments before it's played. Now, in retrospect, even Lan Wangji concludes: )
You suspect he conspired the dragon's siege.
( An injury that nearly cost the creature's mate her children. And how Lan Wangji remembers that, screams like flesh tearing from bone, the raw quality of shredded muscle, thinning.
Rasped, raw, his voice is leaves twisting underfoot — a secret. Theirs, under the watchful gaze of men who misunderstand why he lingers, and he indulges them, taking a step too close to Emilia, allowing his hand to linger on the warm, spasming flank of her dragon, as she negotiates the winding down. A hard flight, the descent in turbulence. Ferrying death on her back.
Let them think he is perhaps the vulgar paramour of a beautiful rider, come to take advantage of his intended's need to see her dragon attended. Let them presume. )
Your... betrothed refused cleansing. I ask.
no subject
Anguish that lingers since the night those eggs hatched.
It froths in Emilia's throat, this sense of wrongness. How it still longs to scrape her from the inside out. Enough of her selfness has been taken. What remains will not be lost so easily. She understands why Wrath refused, understands the rawness of the wound left by the Huntress.
But she looks to Lan Wangji and she gives a nod, heavy with the weight of this darkness. )
I'll need make my own offerings. To my goddesses.
( She clears her throat, touches it with too-cold fingers. ) Somewhere close to the water.
no subject
( Against belief and hurt and conviction. Against that which holds Emilia's spine upright, serpent turned steel and her hackles raised, the turn of her voice shifting, leaden. He anticipates opposition — it comes, not in open rejection but in the measured, spartan increments in which she gives herself, her concession.
It spills like sand between fingertips, or light dappled and tarry that drips down at the dragon's feet. Unbidden, he nears Opal again, touch light and fingers drumming, until she pays him obeisance of her own volition and drops her head to catch the scent of his nails, of blood buried dark beneath.
Certain animals fear the kill. Dragons, he finds, hunger for it. )
We soothe the spirits you disrupt. Those who in turn disrupt you.
( Balance restored, world tipped back unto balance. He does not ask her to follow, only nods on and starts them in step. )
no subject
She doesn't have a candle at hand, and then chastises herself for that thought. You can summon fire, a reminder, one that stings. They didn't tell her that, did they? No, they made her fear it, fear the pyres as they made her fear the Wicked. Raised her to know nothing else, to believe nothing else. )
What do you need from me?
( Lan Wangji has suggested ablution before. Has been at work with spirits in her presence before, though not quite like this.
Not with her as the death-touched thing, the dark water having attempted to fill her shape. )
no subject
( The creature will not have her, the air's bruised by her presence, reeks of metal and rejection. There is a part of Emilia now that is stale wrongness, poison for all that which immerses it. He murmurs: )
Stillness.
( When two of his fingers touch the soft span of her inner wrist, the crackle's electric, like Wen Qing's needles stabbing in too deep — past the point where pain still flirts with pleasure, then discomfort, then bearable sensation, and into the petty, dull agony that can last.
Her pulse lives. He does not linger. Better apart and his foundation, the core of him health, than that the twain shall meet in confused, diffuse disaster. )
Come. Let us find sanctuary. ( True haven, and no shelter of alleged, but crumbling armistice. ) We settle spirits through music. I may play for you.
( A simple negotiation, transgressing only against that which is dead enough to hear. Wei Ying lamented his extended subjection to the treatment, but then, he was a stubborn, fire-eyed fool, and Emilia at least concedes to wisdom.
Around them, the moment's changed from the reverence of anticipation to child-like, jovial bustle. A nod later, a second attendant intercedes to take custody of Opal's care, and Lan Wangji cuts them an efficient corridor through the crowds, seeking escape. )
Do you sense difference within you?
no subject
A betrayal to the one strategy she's relied on, that her grief may not catch up to her. The same grief that carved her in half until fury honed the pieces into a weapon. If she keeps moving, if she keeps seeking, then what is behind has not a chance to advance on her where she is vulnerable.
She draws in a long breath to relent all the same, exhaling too-hot air in the process.
Her steps are quick and efficient, unnervingly focused that no one dare intercept. She only brings herself to a stop once sanctuary has been found, hoping it is indeed close to the water. She looks to Lan Wangji, and gives the terse shake of her head, lifting her hand between them once more. )
No, not any longer. At first — I felt pain, as though hundreds of needles had been set upon my skin. It only lasted hours, something inside my hand attempting to assume shape from within. I must've fought it back.