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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Pike's honestly not sure if it would be possible either, or at least possible in anyway that lets her come back to Starfleet. Who knows what can happen if Command ever finds out about her alien status, they could send her back.]

I hope they haven't either. I'd love to see the stars that made you decide to become the best first officer in the fleet.

I remember them still, memorised really.

( a piece of home that she would always carry with her, etched forever in her mind that she could draw up when she closed her eyes )

If we had a sim I could show you them... the best representation you'd get.

( but it was a wishful dream and not a reality, a dream privy only to him )

Besides, you haven't given me enough of your 'best bits of Earth' yet. Nothing's yet convinced me to stay for a proper shore leave there.

I've invited you. You've never accepted.

[For almost a decade. Every time he's headed to Earth he invites her and every time she doesn't join him.]

Three months might be a little long, I'll give you that. But you can always stop by for a week or two.

[Not that this last shore leave would have been a good one to accompany him on. He was working through a lot, most of which he doesn't even think he got to address.]

You need more to offer than just your company.

( which is the biggest bullshit ever. una would go anywhere for him, go with him but she doesn't want something to feel awkward, not with him. she likes a plan, she likes something to do and not knowing the area or what his plans might be she's always found something else to do.

besides, spending a couple of weeks with him off duty for the entire time? it felt a little dangerous. they were domestic enough on the ship. even if thay did feel nice and comfortable )

Keep selling it, maybe it'll change.

[See this face? This face means he does not believe that it will ever change.]

Being stuck in that alien prison was the most downtime you've had in nine years, wasn't it?

I've taken some shore leave.

( in small pieces, smaller than the time they're ever given. but he's not wrong and they both know it )

Besides, Montana's too cold for me. I don't want to hike in the snow.

There's summer. During the day it's hot enough to swim in a pool, at night cool enough to sit outside with a light blanket. It just starts snowing in October.

[He did grow up in a desert after all.]

I'd invite you to Mojave, but then you'd have to meet my parents. M'Benga barely survived.

M'Benga isn't me.

( have you met una chin-riley? besides, she'd definitely go just for the embarrassing childhood stories )

I think I looked up Mojave, it's got some interesting places I could enjoy. You've made me miss out for nine years.

The spot where the parkland meets the desert is one of my favorite places in the whole universe, especially when the sun is setting.

[All the pinks and purples with the desert neutral colors, it's absolutely beautiful.]

Montana has some of the clearest night skies I have ever seen.

Invite me next shore leave.

( she'll probably still say no and they know it )

Which place do you prefer?

I always do.

[He knows, why break a nine year streak.]

Montana has the advantage of being a few thousand miles away from my stepmother, and it's nicer in the summer. The desert gets too hot during the day.

( normally she'd tease him about avoiding his stepmother but not this time )

I havent seen what the seasons are like here, though I think rather than seasons we might just have weather unique to each place.

( she'd said to someone else that each city felt more like its own planet )

[And he didn't even mention that his stepmother feels that he and Una should be dating, which he told her is not possible.]

That's fascinating. I mean weather changes are common, but not completely different.

( definitely don't mention that unless you want her to be the picture of a panicked expression )

It feels different. I've only been here a couple of months but I haven't heard anyone mention certain weathers.

( not that snow happened on every planet but this place reminded her strangely of earth even though it wasn't )

It isn't just the weather though but how differently constructed each city is. I mean, going from pirates to here? That's unusual.

Very.

[If it were Peter Pan it would be less of a jump.]

Unless it's something like Talos. We could not actually be going anywhere.

( that gets a very concerned look from her. it really wasn't something that she wanted to think about )

I hope you're wrong, Chris.

( because it really did feel like they were doing something, everything felt real. but then... so had talos. these are nightmares that she does not want again )

If you're not... ( she's got nothing )

Believe me, I hope I'm wrong too.

[Talos was not a good experience for him by any stretch of the imagination, and he was still angry he found out about both Una and Colt's thoughts about him that way. Honestly, if Spock's life wasn't in danger the last time he saw them there would have been unpleasantries exchanged.]

If I'm not, then we have other problems.

Do you think even they have enough power to create people from other universes?

( kirk and mccoy, but stretching even further than that the people from very different versions of earth.

though if it was the talosians she has a bad feeling that everything would be a lie and these people wouldn't even be here.

so she pauses, an uncomfortable feeling in her )

Why? Why us, why now?

( because she has to at least believe that chris is real )

I don't think so. But they did put Vina in my office on Discovery.

[And scared the shit out of him by doing so.]

She said that the further away we are from Talos, the weaker their projection gets. I wouldn't think it's them, but it could be someone like them. It's just a theory.

[And they had something going for them.]

If everything was an illusion, I doubt they'd let McCoy get sick.

( a hand rests on his arm, a comfort for what he'd seen in his office (he hadn't told her that part), for their shared experience... to reassure herself that he does feel real )

So some illusion, some truth. It makes it feel more like nothing we do here matters if we don't know what we're affecting.

( or not affecting )

I haven't seen McCoy in person since he got sick but Spock has, I believe Spock.

Or maybe everything matters except us knowing what effects we have.

[He smiles just a little when she touches his arm, both to thank her for that comfort and to try to assure her that he's real and he's here.]

I believe Spock too, I think with the three of us together, we can figure something out.

( she doesn't even question about kirk and mccoy, trusting their little team better than anything. spock had been on talos as well, not exposed in the same situations but he'd experienced their power. he was also telepathic, it could potentially help )

We will. We've faced worse odds.

( they'd gotten through talos once, they'd figure this out )

I've kept a record of my experiences, a shortened version of a log. I was given a notebook to work on some calculations and extended its purpose. When they let us out of here you can read it.

[He just doesn't know enough about Kirk or McCoy to be sure that he can trust them as much as he trusts his own crew. They were part of the senior staff of the Enterprise, so that was a point in their favor at least.]

At least I can be completely caught up then. Then I suppose, we go from there and hope we aren't stuck figuring out Wonderland riddles for months.

I'll ask around and see if there were any other riddles I missed.

( and whilst una doubts that she'd be able to find a copy of the book here she'd look for it. she's also unaware that spock is very familiar with the story. it's also habit for her to think of asking other people, reminding herself as she says it that they don't know what they can trust )

They might believe the riddles innocuous enough.

It's possible. Though in Wonderland almost everything has a double meaning. There's also one queen who's really into decapitating people. I hope we don't run into her either.

[Where they were is looking like the best choice of places to wait this whole thing out.]

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