westwhere | the unwinding

the unwinding

Heya! Let loose for Serthica’s Unwinding — our event spanning 24 September-15 October that doubles as a test drive.

This round’s test drive participants do not require an invite to apply. Applications open over 8-14 October. Enjoy!

THE UNWINDING

TEST DRIVE TOURISTS | OLD TIMERS | DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
SPILL THE TEA | DRIP BY DRIP | ALL A DREA —

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✘ NEWCOMERS | BARRELING IN

Soaring seagulls and splintered silence. You awaken on the shoreline of steampunk citadel Clockwork Serthica, recovered by the irritable witch Karsa.

She shares translation and communication devices, scarce healing and a rapid briefing: you have reached a world where undead forces seek to weaponise you in their battle for dominion. Karsa’s employer, the Merchant leads travel to beacons meant to return you home.

Other otherworlders have already infiltrated Serthica. Karsa steers newcomers into the impoverished underworld of the Mouse House, to board a rickety coal train serving the citadel.

■ Silver tongues can win you passage.

■ ...alternatively, hide in the obscenely large whiskey barrels the train also smuggles in.

■ Mid-voyage, the train quakes, slamming you into walls and windows. Around you, the stench of bleach, the warm crackle of embers and static magic that builds thick, nearly electric.

You feel faint and fainter, when you overhear Karsa’s murmured, “It’s too early” — “find” — “find” — “it’s like a drea” — “don’t unwind” — “all child’s play.”

And then you’re U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ OLD TIMERS | INHALE-EXHALE

Eidris, Minaras, the Neutral Zone: all abuzz with residential whispers of imminent Unwinding — an annual fixture natives dread without fully remembering.

■ In the two days leading to the Unwinding, characters struggle to tell apart or remember the physical features of natives.

■ Some locals steal you into dark alleys, where they become suddenly stiff, emitting a rusty, guttural Ke-ke-ke sound. They do not recall this after.

The Unwinding kicks off at 6am, when both Eidris and Minaras are overground. Jim Kirk’s fixed music box begins to play, its chipper rural tune overtaking your thoughts: “Up the mountain, in the grove, hand in hand to Ke-ke-ke — Ke-Waihu, fresh harvest’s a treasure trove, each fall we feast anew.”

Earth shatters seismically underfoot, magic depletes, the citadel’s clock tower strikes 6:00 — and an urgent communication from the Merchant is interrupted by static, “You can we-we-we-…-stand it, the white man come — remembrrrrrrrrrrrr live, you are alive, do not be convinsssss —ssss — ssssd otherwisssssss —”

But you’re already U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Down and down, you tumble, Alice — through a cavernous tunnel that widens and chokes arbitrarily. Sometimes you float and fly, sometimes you’re thrust sideways. Mostly, you keep falling.

■ Beware objects falling into you: from grand pianos to mystical balls of fire, stray beds, love letters and sharp-pointed weapons. Even a blood-spattered umbrella that shields against anything.

■ You’re dropped unceremoniously into an underground lair, as items keep falling down. Unclaimed, they disappear within minutes. Three jackalopes smoking opiate pipes point you indifferently towards a locked door. On its handle sit a bone dice and a note instructing, ROLL FOUR TO OPEN.

■ The dice can only be thrown every 10 minutes and feels too monstrously heavy to lift otherwise. Each roll makes the effect of the previous throw disappear. If you get:

one: gravity fades, the dice floats out of reach. ( The jackalopes enjoy the breeze. )

two: the floor, barring a few narrow steps at great jumping distance, is lava. ( The jackalopes check ‘hell’ off their vacation list.)

three: an irked dragon coils beside you. (The jackalopes prepare to tan.)

five: the thrower grows and grows and grows, until they must contort creatively to fit inside. ( The jackalopes charge rent. )

six: the room fills with water that nearly reaches the ceiling. (The jackalopes are competitive swimmers.)

seven: everything about your companion irritates you. They even breathe wrong. ( The jackalopes find this awkward. )

eight: The floor slowly expands into quicksand. ( The jackalopes hoverboard. )

■ Roll four and the door creaks merrily open. A second note slips loose, I’m sorry. Head in, your newfound possessions abandoned — and keep U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ SPILL THE TEA

You wake, dressed to the steampunk nines, at a tea party, alongside a companion and a slew of eerie guests: cog droids, faceless people and animated human-sized burlap mannequins. You only hear static and white noise when they speak.

When you leave the table, a fox butler passes you the empty kettle, asking you to, ”Make tea and finish here”.

■ You’re inevitably stuck in a decrepit dollhouse. Heavily boarded doors and windows ultimately open to show plague sickness in the streets. The fox butler closes them, reminding, ”He’ll make it go away.”

■ Travel a corridor of repeating rooms to reach the kitchens, and don’t dally. Every time the clock strikes a new hour, the partygoers grab their sharpest knife and stalk down the house to pursue you. The frenzy lasts 10 minutes before they return to their seats — barricade in deserted rooms, hide behind curtains or climb up the chimney…

■ For tea, the mannequin cook directs you to retrieve juniper and rosemary leaves from the greenhouse, where plant tendrils try to trap you, leaving marks of mould; rescue the milk container from a cat that’s running on the crumbling staircase, and sugar from a dish in the lavish nursery room, where ghostly hands might seek to drag you into walls and send you back down the rabbit hole.

■ Supplied, the huffing burlap cook prepares tea. Just as you’re about to taste the black brew at the party table, a man in white takes and spills your tea out in a plant pot. You only hear, ”You don’t need this yet” — before you’re U n w i n d i ng.

■ On exiting the Unwinding, your pockets burst with plants or leaves of juniper and rosemary. They can alleviate McCoy’s sickness.

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✘ DRIP BY DRIP

You wake up in bloodied clothes in a filled bathtub. You are hounded by urgency, as if you’re hunted. The unease never wanes, as you gather your bearings and join the bustling city streets, armed with a blood-spattered white umbrella. In your pocket, two paper notes: CHILDREN LIE and WHAT IS HIS NAME?(

Your memories are confused: half of you is certain you are a content citizen of Serthica. The other riots that you don’t belong. An excruciating migraine strikes when you try to remember how you arrived here.

Gravity’s a loose concept: you walk, or you float. The city is either perfectly still, or inundated with the screeching of hearses and criers. Locals — all faceless, or man-sized burlap mannequins — mill busily, despite the forlorn rain.

■ Hold on to your umbrella: linger uncovered in the rain, and your facial features slowly fade, while you desperately try to convince your teammate that you should stay here forever. You recover once dry.

■ The inhuman locals grow increasingly more hostile with time: carriages want to run you over, friendly burlap shopkeepers push you into a ditch. They chase if you ask their name.

■ Happily, this world is vulnerable to your desires: wish gravity undone, and you can walk on walls. Think a river into being, and it bursts ahead. Imagine buildings, and they pop up. Playing God comes at a price of bad luck: the staircase you envisage thins and breaks just as you cross it, your knife rusts after the first swing.

■ Your pursuers abandon you, when you reach a deserted marketplace and encounter a drenched, battered boy wearing a fox mask. He is playing with paper boats in the middle of a large black puddle. You feel deep and building hatred for him.

■ Seeing you, the child mentions one of you previously tried to kill him. He offers his name, in exchange for your umbrella:

a. Refuse or dally, and dark hands rise out of the puddle to pull you and your partner in, scratching you bloody. The last thing you see, before you wake up in the bathtub again (or out of the Unwinding), is a man in white who collects your umbrella. He holds it over the child, scolding, ”Did you forget again? This one never hurt you.”

b. To surrender the umbrella, step on the paper boats as you cross the puddle to the boy. Walking straight on water feels like stepping on knives. The child accepts your umbrella, whispering his name is ”Hyang-Won”, before you start to fade out of the Unwinding.

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✘ IT WAS ALL A DREA —

New or old, as the Unwinding ends, you wake up in Ma’am Mariol’s modest orphanage in the Mouse House. Mariol, the orphans and Serthica at large recall nothing about the Unwinding. Karsa, who dragged you in, is pale and exhausted, her memory patchy. She urges everyone to recuperate before heading back overground.

■ Your body shows only a fraction of any damage sustained in the Unwinding.

■ Ma’am Mariol’s labyrinthine home offers limited accommodations: share beds, floors, and household chores, while the orphans led by curious Gavroche, peer in.

NOTES

■ You can make network posts outside of the Unwinding.

■ Feel free to mark if you're a test drive tourist or an old timer in your top level!

■ The Unwinding is a shifting of realities not a dreamscape.

■ You can opt out of the Unwinding by keeping characters in the Mouse House. Here, nothing seems amiss.

■ QUESTIONS!

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i: Barrelling in

[Yuuri is far from silvertongued and while she, technically, has a way to get herself on that train easily she thought, surely she should try to ask first? Just in case that works!

It doesn't, in fact work, and she's unfortunately found a worker who wants to extort her for money. Alas. Sometimes that's how it is.]

B-but, I don't have any money...

[Help her??? She's going through her pockets trying to find something she can pay with but she's got nothing.]

ii: Drip by Drip

[She stands outside, frowning deeply from under her umbrella. She presses a hand to a nearby wall, thinks thoughts of soft, pliable pillows--and the brick gives under her fingers.

Her frown deepens, confused.]

...it's real though. [Is muttered like the conclusion to a long, complicated problem. In the back of her mind, there's a distant muttering, indistinct but constant. The other 'her' she had temporarily locked away. She pulled her hand back as she back away from the wall, watching the indent she pressed into it fill out again.] This doesn't make any sense, it shouldn't be--

[And that's when she backs into you and screams.]

Ah! [Then she stumbles forward and trips, trying not to face plant on the pavement while also trying not to drop her umbrella.]

iii: Is that a child I see before me?

[She knows it's bad to be in the rain without her umbrella, even so...she thinks it's even sadder that this little boy is without. And the paper did say, what is his name.

Still, what is most important to her is...

What would Kaoru-chan do?

So she hesitates for a second before tightening her grip on the umbrella and taking a step forward...but she jerks back when she feels pain when she steps on the first paper boat.]

Ow.

[ The Doctor also doesn’t have any money (it’s hard when you travel across time and space and currency becomes more of a burden than a necessity), and unfortunately for the both of them, his brain hasn’t quite connected all the proper synapses to remember that he has his psychic paper on him.

Instead of helping though he’s sighing a little loudly behind her. ]

No point in harrying her if she doesn’t have any money. Haven’t you ever just done something nice in your short human life?

[ The worker only seems to arch an eyebrow and glare at him which only results in a glare right back. …It’s entirely possible the Doctor is making the situation worse than he is better if the worker puffing up is any indication. ]

Edited 2022-09-25 05:36 (UTC)

[Her first impulse to hearing that sigh is to apologize for holding up the line. (What line, Yuuri? There is none...)

So she had half turned already but...oh.

Oh!

This person was trying to help. But it...doesn't seem to be working very well.]

Um...i-it's okay! [It's really not but...] I don't want you to get into trouble too.

[ Her insistence seems to fall on deaf ears unfortunately because the Doctor and the worker are now locked in some weird staring battle.

“Well I’m just going to charge you double now,” the worker huffs upon realizing that he isn’t going to win the staring contest. ]

There has to be some kind of father-daughter deal you can give us.

[ He motions towards her but it also looks like he’s trying to motion for her to...stoop down to look shorter? Hopefully the worker doesn’t notice. ] She’s practically a baby. Isn’t there a if you’re this tall you can ride for free rule?

Me?!

[This is going too fast! They're father and daughter now!? A-and...she's supposed to be really little!? She's thirteen, no matter how far she stoops she can't look like she's practically a baby!?

Yuuri was good in an actual crisis but this is the sort of situation that she does really poor in. But in her panic she errs on following the first person to give orders and this is to her benefit this time.

So she does try to stoop and make herself seem smaller. When the worker looked skeptical, Yuuri panicked more. And, even though she had tried to avoid it earlier, her eyes took on an unfocused quality for a second as she planted a small hypno suggestion in the worker's mind. Look, she's a kindergartener and always had been!!!

It works and the worker's gaze becomes angled down as if looking at a child much shorter than Yuuri is. No one else sees the illusion so maybe that will seem a little strange.

The worker frowns looking back up. "Well, even if she can ride for free you still need to pay!"]

[ The sharp exclamation prompts a look that very much says, 'Yes you pudding brain!' aimed towards her, but thankfully it doesn't look that much different from the glare he's giving the worker who by some miracle has somehow bought it.

The Doctor is quick to roll his eyes. ]

Or we could just do that thing that you humans seem to enjoy doing so much and we can file a complaint with your manager.

[ "Y-you humans?!" The worker can't help but splutter and stumble over the words and the Doctor sees his chance to just lay it on a little thicker. ]

I'll tell them you were trying to extort my daughter. I have a Scottish accent now, I can assure you I'll be grand at complaining and won't have to try very hard.

[Yuuri was saved from an unpleasant - and potentially ill-advised - spill on the floor by Andy snagging the back of her coat at the very last second.]

Whoa! That was close. [Andy carefully pulled Yuuri upright] Hey, are you ok...ay?

[He had to doubletake slightly when he caught sight of the lady's face. She bore such a strong resemblance to Yugiri that he had to blink and look again, wondering if this was just another messed up aspect of this- hypno hell thing he was trapped in. But... nah, it was probably his imagination. She was way older, for one, and her hair was less wild. Belatedly, he let go of her, realising he had been staring at her like an idiot for a few seconds too long]

[She was fully prepared to face plant on the concrete. It's fine, she'll just have to clean up the blood a little! It'll be fine, surely!

But then something snags her and she stops falling. She flails a little before she regains her footing.]

[Then she sighs a little in relief before turning her head to look at him.]

I'm okay. Um...

[...why was this person staring? And why is he still holding onto her coat.

She immediately pats at her own face, just to make sure there was nothing there before looking back up.

Maybe he's trying to rob her? She considers it in the vague, confused way of someone who would be a terrible target for a mugging both because she has nothing of value to steal but also because she's actually terrifying.

But then he lets go and she decides that's clearly not what's happening here.

Maybe she really did just have something on her face?]

[Well! Either way! She turns around properly and bows a little.]

Thank you...and sorry for bumping into you.

[Andy waves his hand a little at her bowing, adjusting his umbrella with the other to protect him better from the rain. Saving the lady from a faceplant had gotten the sleeve of his jacket a little wet, and he remembered the weird, disjointed feeling he got when too much of this creepy rain got on him. He doesn't wanna repeat of that, oh no.]

Don't worry about it. [He tucks his hand into his pocket] And, uh, sorry for staring there. You look so much like someone I know, it took me by surprise. Really, you two could be sisters...

Really?

[Her feelings about family is always complicated. But 'sister' is a word that is less complicated than 'brother'. Besides which...]

I actually have three younger sisters who recently started living with me. Before, well, um. All this. [Well, 'living' is more like, 'joined me while I am on the run to take down Black Phantom' at the moment.] What's her name? This person you know.

[Three younger sisters? That must be a lively household. Then again, his frame of reference for 'family' was PANDRA so...]

Ah, well.

[There was, of course, that split-second of hesitation. He could admit, ever since Yugiri joined Foundation and was ushered under his wing, he was more than a little protective of her - especially considering her links to Black Phantom and the other not-so-kind organisations interested in someone like her. However...

Well, Yugiri wasn't an uncommon name, and if this was some very convoluted Black Phantom hypno-plot to extract information from Andy, then they'd just be getting information they already knew: Yugiri's name and her association with Andy.]

Her name's Yugiri. [And, somewhat awkwardly, in an attempt to deflect focus back onto Yuuri;] What about you? Your name, I mean. I'm Andy.

[Ironically enough, her only frame of reference for a healthy family is also PANDRA.]

Yugiri...what a cute name!

[They hadn't had too much involvement in that incident and, at any rate, Yuuri was busy at the time with other things. So the name rings no bells.]

I'm Kumoi Yuuri. It's nice to meet you. [Andy, huh. When she heard the name Yugiri she thought maybe they were Japanese but...] Are you from Comerica? Or maybe Ingland?

[Andy relaxed slightly at the lack of recognition to Yugiri's name - granted, Yuuri could just be a really good actress, but, still.

(He couldn't help but think how weird it was, though, that not only did they look similar, but their names held similarities too. Yugiri and Yuuri... the coincidence of it all just stuck with him for reasons he couldn't quite place)]

Hah, that obvious? [He self-consciously ruffled his hair] Yeah, I'm Comcerican. Though, I guess it'd be more accurate to say I'm an ex-Comerican nowadays...

[Rogue agent and all that. He was legally a citizen of Monarch now, but he was aware there were some... very complicated snarls regarding the whole 'US agent defecting to an international terrorist organisation after several months undercover at said organisation' thing, never mind that his 'defection' to PANDRA could be counted in days, at most. As far as Comerica was concerned, Andy was a turncoat esper, and so had to go through the 'backdoors', so to speak, if he ever wanted to set foot on Comerican soil without getting arrested.

Not that that was an issue for him. Foundation had a legal front, and a not-so-legal front, and he excelled at the latter. Anyway!]

I mostly live in Monarch, now. Nice place. I recommend it if you ever wanna go abroad for a holiday. [What was he, a travel agent?] Granted, that depends on if we ever get out of... whatever this place is.

The name sounds like it'd be from there, that's all. [Because she didn't want him to feel self-concious.

Ex-Comerican, huh? She doesn't ask any questions but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't curious. But Monarch...]

I think I've heard of Monarch. [It was that country with increasingly strong esper protection laws, isn't it? And there were rumours that it was involved with the Foundation, as well. It was on her short list of safe places to send any clone children she might recover from Black Phantom.

[She had more to say but then there's a commotion and uh, wait. Is that a carriage barreling towards them!?]

[Who hasn't heard of Monarch? The tiny country had been making big waves internationally due to their progressive esper protection laws and links to Foundation. Out of all countries for Andy to seek asylum and employment in, he could admit he hit the jackpot (take that, Hyoubu! He told you he could find his own way in life!).

However, any kind of interesting conversation about Monarch was quickly put on pause when Andy's danger senses (honed to a fine edge from his short time on the Catastrophe (again, Hyoubu...)) sparked. The second he saw the carriage barrelling towards them with no intention on stopping, he acted!

Like a hero in a Comerican action film, Andy sprang forwards and tackled Yuuri out of the way of the rampaging carriage! His good instincts were the only thing that saved them both from getting crushed, though it didn't stop them from staggering into the nearby wall as the carriage went roaring past only a mere foot away. Andy felt it almost graze them, it had been so close!]

Fucking hell! [Andy fumbled with his umbrella, somehow managing to not drop it in the confusion. His heart was racing from that close call!] Hey, are you okay?!

[She squeaked but luckily had the presence of mind to imagine the wall they staggered into being soft...again.]

Y-yeah...I'm fine.

[That was...really quite terrifying. But even more so when she noticed...other people have stopped to stare at them. The moment one of them stepped towards them, Yuuri reached out with her hypno and obscured their vision. It left the mannequin turning their head around, trying to find them again.]

We should go.

[This was reminding Andy uncomfortably of a horror film in the making. A chill slithered down his spine at the people staring at them, and when one stepped forwards-

He felt the brief buzz of ESP, and the mannequin stopped and looked around, clearly suffering from some sort of visual impairment. Andy blinked, realising his companion was an Esper as well - but compartmentalised the realisation. They needed to get out of this situation first]

Right. C'mon.

[They quickly hurried away, and Andy nervously fidgeted with his limiter when he heard footsteps follow them. He had come to accept his powers, but... ugh! Sometimes he wished he had something useful like hypno or teleportation or something! Being able to nullify ESP was useless when his enemy didn't use ESP.]

What's the limit on your hypno? [Because his danger alarm was blaring like a klaxon, and he just envisioned them getting chased by a whole mob of these weirdoes] Because if a whole bunch of them rush us...

[She followed him though since she has to be moving it's a little difficult to use hypno in targeted ways, so she settled one over them, making them more difficult to be seen.]

Don't worry, even if it's a whole bunch of them--

[...wait.

She had answered on instinct but...how. Did he know she had hypno?!]

I-I mean. What hypno? I don't have hypno! I'm not an esper! Y-you've got the wrong person!

[...oh, right. Andy forgot most espers weren't as in tune, shall we say, to ESP waves like him. Damn, it really showed how rattled he was that he just outed an esper without thinking like that.]

Uh. [Still, what a reaction, though! How did you even reply to that? 'Lol you're lying' or just playing along? Andy floundered slightly] It's- okay? I mean, I'm an esper, so...

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the unwinding

Kumoi Yuuri | Zettai Karen Children | Newcomer

— barreling in

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drip by drip

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1/2 One day, they'll realize no one else here knows it as Comerica

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andy's gonna say he's a comerican to someone and they'll think he means a communist american

LOL

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