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westwhere2022-09-03 10:23 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-09-03 10:23 pm
Entry tags:
plot roll | they walk among us
THEY WALK AMONG US | THE NEUTRAL ZONE
Neutral Zone bridges connect Eidris and Minaras in the two one-hour intervals of each day — 6:00-7:00 and 18:00-19:00 — when both citadel halves are overground. These are safe and shielded spaces — until protesters linked to the Remembrance resistance join the milling crowds.
Protestors rent ’eyes,’ paying exorbitantly to possess the bodies of willing strangers. They are difficult to spot until they’re right beside you, trying to lure or abduct you into the cause of forcibly reuniting Serthica. Both Eidris and Minaras offer bounties for Remembrance members. Remembrance lieutenants are meanwhile actively recruiting, asking an act of fealty to join their ranks.
✘ OBJECTIVE: capture Remembrance members or play spy within the group.
- ■ Shallow inquiries reveal Remembrance members have been infiltrating the Neutral Zone crowds for a week prior. The Eidris and Minaras administration offer 50,000 coin for every member of Remembrance brought in.
■ The job is encumbered by the use of ‘eyes’: Remembrance members make their getaway by abandoning their rented bodies when they face trouble. To avoid this, Minaras and Eidris loan out miniature hand-held body-lock gear that will keep someone’s awareness in the body they occupy for six hours. To activate the lock, touch the bracelet to the subject’s nape. Each body-lock gear can only be used five times.
■ Remembrance members typically wait until you’ve reached a narrow and crowded part of the bridges, before slipping beside you to whisper their pitch: ”Don’t you miss your family? Was only one citadel, once, our Serthica. Could walk free to our mines, then, to our factories, our dragons. What’s division done for you, except make rich people richer?”
■ They withdraw into the crowd at the first sign of hostility, but will entertain whispered conversation, if you appear interested. Some speak of their leader Chrichter — an allegedly honest, stalwart man of the people — as Serthica’s true hope for the future.
■ Remembrance members work in groups, with a scout alerting the others when constables walk by.
■ Characters sensitive to life forces might feel the ‘eyes’ have multiple spirits inside them, or the spirit that occupies the body is very blurred and undefined (because of regular substitution).
■ As Remembrance seeks political leverage, the easiest way for new conscripts to prove their loyalty is to bring a captive or coerced member of the Eidris or Minaras aristocracy or a person ofpassablestanding — …who may be an unlucky NPC, or one of your allies, finally polishing their acting skills.
■ Keep up the act: Remembrance has zero tolerance for those who belittle or question the cause.
■ Some members of Remembrance might abduct you, using chloroform and brute force, and pretending you are their good friend who has taken drunk or ill in the crowd. If you have been kidnapped or are joining Remembrance freely, prepare to be blindfolded and led down a winding path through the Neutral Zone — and into the impoverished underworld of the Mouse House.
■ The headquarters of Remembrance is in a large, now destitute train station. It would have once served the coal train that traverses the Mouse House daily. High-standing Remembrance lieutenants access the station with large, peculiarly shaped keys.
■ Everyone in the group wears a mask — you receive one as you head in, both for privacy and to fend off the stench of pestilential wet and mould.
■ The Remembrance base is dusty, chaotic, brimming with scraps and random tech projects. Here and there, find dissected or repurposed droids, along with several man-sized burlap mannequins and mislaid toys. No child is ever present. On the walls, colourful graffiti writes, OPEN THE WALLS, PLAY WITH YOUR DOLLS, TWO PENCE A POP, WHERE HAVE YOUR DRAGONS GONE?, BRING OUT YOUR DEAD…
■ Remembrance reunites a motley crowd of desperate men and women. Their households were either destroyed by the ‘coal sickness,’ or divided when work obligations confined some to Eidris, others to Minaras. Several group members are tinkerers, devising new protest weapons and gear — including the terror bullets witnessed during the trade summit. Many members work honest jobs overground, with a minority serving the Neutral Zone. They have minimal interaction with the Mouse House.
■ Remembrance offers the train station as a crude, but functional shelter. Best avoid sleeping here overnight — in your wretched dreams, your dark-fingered hands go to your throat, and decay haunts your body, as you attempt to flee a sinister mountain at all costs.
■ Remembrance leader Chrichter is a frequent (masked) sight, seen speaking and planning with his lieutenants. There is word of a coming attack during the ‘Unwinding.’ It is unclear if Remembrance expects to attack or be attacked.
■ Now and then, the headquarters activity shuts down, and you should hide as overground constables conduct Mouse House raids .They never enter the train station — and Chrichter and his men often prepare bribes. But you’re fair game if you’re captured for your own negligence.
■ A locked back room in the Remembrance headquarters leaks rare rivulets of blood or blackened water. Sometimes, you hear fists banging on the door or animal-like howling for a scant few seconds. Everyone studiously ignores these incidents. The door only opens once — when a furious Chrichter exits, kicking a lifeless burlap mannequin off his clawed, bleeding back.
■ You can enter the headquarters freely if you supply the passcode, WAKE UP. You might want to release the forced Remembrance captives on your way out.
NPC ACCESS: CHRICHTER
no subject
"Ready yourself didi," it's breathed in the quietest whisper she can manage, giving him about a second's worth of time before her hip checks his so he falters and she has to stoop to help him right himself, using the task of fumbling over her 'little brother' to mask the way she's liberating a scrap of fabric from the doll.
When they're both righted again she lets the fabric she's stolen disappear up her shirt's sleeve.
"Disgusting." The mask is a boon. Nobody can see the face she's making while she exhales the word under her breath.
no subject
Fei cuts the fabric, and he feels it - the burlap doll releases a feeling of hurt to accompany it being torn into. Yet it was entirely dead. There is no reason for it to feel that way.
"...thank you."
If nothing else, they will be able to examine the fabric later away from the prying eyes of the group. He is already seeing another item within the mess surrounding them - a trap he would like to grab hold of.
"The graffiti may provide its own questions to be solved, and I see another item I would like to take. It may help us later."
no subject
But then he thinks about a certain cloak in possession of their party that has a spirit attached. It's probably not the same thing, but surely it's worth bringing up -
Ah, but then his dear older sister gives him a warning. For what? Xingchen doesn't have time to ponder it, only has the time to anticipate...something. And that something comes rather quickly, bumping into his unsuspecting hip, and down he goes, catching himself on a knee and a hand.
Oh. Oh. He was the distraction! Right. Got it. As she 'helps' him up, he dutifully plays along. "Thank you, A-Jie. I'm so clumsy today."
Then, in a quieter voice meant for this mismatched party, "Could the dolls be possessed in some way?"
no subject
"If they are, it is not by a specific spirit," he says, but he agrees with Xingchen. These dolls are more than what they appear to be. They are not simply burlap sacks, but something else.
However, if it was one specific spirit, things would be different. They could communicate with it, learn more. He's grateful Fei was able to gain a bit of the burlap so they could later study it.
The dolls appear quite dead, and yet-
"I felt its hurt when she carved into it. It should not be possible if it as dead as we believe it to be."
no subject
"Did any of you notice a similar presence when we were being recruited for the Remembrance? Could it be the same kind of situation?"
no subject
Wrath has to breathe in again through the icy rage that threatens to rise up inside of his chest. He killed the one who attempted to hijack his own without regret. He gave up too much for his freedom of choice to have a mortal with a device steal it from him for even a moment.
"It felt different to me, but there is something about these burlap dolls - something not right as you've sensed."