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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[ Erik tries to come up with solutions, but he's thinking whoever's got them here must be a very powerful telepath, and that's more of Charles' thing. If not, then he doesn't know what else it might be, and they'll have to start looking for different avenues entirely. That's a scary prospect. ]

It's all right, Charles.

[ It's not. They have a few things to work out, clearly, but for the moment, they're just old friends, and they can hash out the rest of the details at some other time.

But when they drive, Erik doesn't need his hands to shift gears, and so he reaches out for Charles' hand, and gives it a reassuring squeeze. As long as they have each other, they're stronger than without. They've made it through worse.

There's nobody at the desk when they arrive, so Erik pilfers a set of keys and leaves some of the stolen money from the car in the till. He also changes the numbers on the license plate of the car, as well as some details that might make it seem more unique. And since it's unlikely that a car belonging to such a wealthy person would be at such a motel, he also changes the coat to be rusted, with a large lapse in its lamination.

Once he's satisfied that no one will look twice at the vehicle, he makes his way into the room, where thankfully it's just Charles.

He drops some snacks onto the table that he'd taken from the lobby vending machine. ]

I got that feeling too. That I belonged here, even though I don't know where we are. It comes and goes. I think whoever's got us here, they're trying to put us under an illusion.

( it's still raining heavily outside and charles looks relieved when he sees erik return. he closes the curtains to the motel before heading over to the man to help him out of his coat. the room is rather shabby, but there's no need to wet the carpets. he goes to hang erik's coat on the rack next to his. )

When I first encountered Emma the night we met, I felt her in my head. This isn't like that. But you're not wrong. An illusion, yes. Perhaps brought on by some kind of magic? ( he knows how ridiculous that sounds, except this whole situation they're in has had them dealing with one bizarre thing after another. they've both been experiencing things that can't be explained. )

I tried to look for a map at the front desk, but there doesn't seem to be one available. And I also think, no, I'm fairly sure we might be the only two people here. This motel seems abandoned, Erik. Frankly, I'm surprised the electricity's still running. ( and just like that, there's a flash of lightning, loud booming thunder and the lights go off, leaving them in pitch black darkness. )

Jinxed... ( oops? )

[ Oops indeed. ]

Well if there's no one here, I won't draw suspicion.

[ He gets a light to flicker on, that's easy. But the heat? He reaches for the mechanics of the heating system, but accidentally turns on the air conditioning instead. Considering how chilly it is from the rain, he stops messing with that. ]

I suppose that means there's only going to be cold water.

[ Which isn't a problem for Erik actually, since he can just heat up the pipes, but he's going to go ahead and assume that's a bit of a deal breaker for Charles taking a shower. ]

It'll be warmer in bed. We won't figure anything out out there tonight, anyway.

[ He toes his shoes off, and goes to find house slippers or a robe but it looks like this motel is way too cheap for either of those. Erik will be perfectly fine with his coat once it's dry, but considering how wet it is, he might just want to get under covers. ]

( charles had been about to tell erik that they could just look for the control switches, but decides that he doesn't feel like venturing around inside or outside of the building. and he certainly doesn't want erik going back out there on his own either. not with a thunderstorm raging outside. when erik mentions that the heater's gone, he simply lets out a bit of a shrug, like it's no big deal. so much for wanting to get cleaned up though, but it's fine. things could always be worse. at least, they've found somewhere safe to rest for the night. )

I don't think I can go to sleep. ( he's much too wired for that. ) But go ahead, Erik. Get some rest. At least one of us should. ( it makes no sense for the both of them to stay up. he opens the closet door and is glad to find extra blankets and pillows tucked in one corner and he brings it over to the bed for erik. )

I'm going to go get myself cleaned up a bit. ( he's still got dried blood caked on his hands so he'll go wash it off in the sink. the bathroom's small, but at least it's clean. or as clean as it can be. there's some suspicious stains on the wall and on the floor, but charles will ignore it. it's better than a tub stained with blood. he inhales sharply when the cold water hits his hands, but it's good to be able to wash up. he scrubs his hands clean and then he splashes water on his face. halfway through, charles decides he might as well just brave the cold shower. he really doesn't like the smell of blood on him and wants to get rid of it.

charles shuts the bathroom door, removes his clothes and he takes that quick shower, muttering a curse under his breath when the freezing cold water first hits his skin. it's worth it though. so worth it. thankfully, he finds a towel in the bathroom and quickly dries up, puts his clothes on back on, and fifteen minutes later, hair still wet, he's pacing the floor to keep warm, a blanket wrapped around his shoulder, teeth chattering slightly. the bedroom feels so much colder than being in the bathroom. it's ridiculous. )

[ Erik sets up all the blankets in the bed and makes a cozy nest for the two of them, and yes, he does make one for the two of them even though Charles says he won't sleep. It's cold, and rainy, and he can at least cuddle up.

When he comes back out, Erik gets up out of bed once he sees Charles pacing, and then goes to get the towel to properly dry his hair. ]

You'll get a cold.

[ Charles, even under the blanket, seems to be completely freezing from this cold shower, and Erik, who's been underneath several blankets, is a furnace in comparison. Once Charles' hair is dry - in severe need of styling, but dry - he wraps arms around him. ]

Come lie in bed.

[ If he's so chilled, Charles' hands and feet must be frigid, so Erik holds Charles' makeshift cloak closed and then closes his hand around his fingers in an attempt to pass on some body heat. ]

( charles thinks that erik is being ridiculous fussing over him. he's a grown man who can take care of himself, but when erik sets about drying his hair with the towel all charles can do is lean against him, his forehead pressed against erik's chest, taking in his warmth. the man feels exactly like the side of a warm toaster oven. it feels good to stand close to him. the moment erik stops towel-drying his hair though, charles almost makes a complaining sort of noise before he stops himself. he's glad for the warmth again when erik wraps his arms around him, deciding there and then that he's going to just shut up and not protest getting into bed.

charles doesn't say a word as he sits next to erik in bed, not until he's sure his teeth has stopped chattering. he squeezes erik's hand in thanks then, grateful for the help. taking a cold shower in this awful stormy weather was not his best move, clearly. )

Do you think the others might be here? ( somehow he doesn't think so because he hasn't heard from any of them, and he'd left a message through the communication device days ago. )

[ He is indeed ridiculous, but Erik's always been a ridiculous person and Charles has always been a stubborn one. He takes both of Charles' hands in his own, rubs them together to warm them up once they're laid in bed. Hopefully his feet will warm up quickly, too. ]

I haven't heard from them. But I'd only gotten in when I woke up in that bathtub.

[ Weird how they both did that but wound up in different parts of town? It's a very strange situation, to be honest. Especially since Charles didn't have a violent bone in his body and contrary to belief, Erik doesn't regularly attack anyone who he doesn't think deserves it. His list just happens to be a lot longer than Charles' because his criteria is less stringent. ]

I don't even remember it. What I did.

[ They lie together awfully close, but he wouldn't mind if Charles rested on his chest again, because it's warmer there enclosed in his embrace, but also because it's nice to have the weight of him over his heart. Even if Charles doesn't believe so, he is what Erik is fighting so hard for. ]

( it's still ridiculously cold so charles is glad for this. they're lying in bed under the covers with a couple of blankets piled on top of them and he's still shivering slightly. his breath feels cold. everything feels cold. it makes no sense considering it's not even wintertime, but they've been dealing with a lot of unexplainable things, so really, this shouldn't be too much of a surprise. he just hopes they won't end up freezing to death by morning. )

All I distinctly remember, Erik, is our little scuffle on the beach. ( with him trying to tug that awful helmet off of erik's head and he'd obviously failed at that. ) I really don't remember getting shot or letting Raven go and you leaving us. Which I still can't believe you did. I could've been bloody paralyzed and you just left me... ( he's definitely on a roll now. all the complaining, but then just as suddenly... )

I'm sorry. ( he's a bit disappointed, that's all. charles had been hoping for a more positive outcome, but perhaps he'd just been too naive. )

[ Erik just holds Charles close as he rants about him into his chest, but it's okay. He shouldn't have left. At the very least, he should have dropped Charles off at a hospital. But he's not sure if it would've been worse, Azazel showing up in the emergency room and just placing Charles into an ambulance. ]

There wasn't any blood. I checked, there wasn't any blood. I think Hank's suit stopped it. And you're fine.

[ He's glad for that. He'd feel very guilty if Charles had been paralyzed, cough cough. But at the time, he'd thought Charles would be just fine, and the rest of them needed to leave. Some of them couldn't afford to be present when the humans arrived to take care of them. He's assuming Hank got into a spot of trouble with whoever had rescued them in the end. ]

If there's no one around, will you still not be able to rest? I can try to quiet things down in here.

[ He means in his own head. It's usually loud, so he imagines that might be distracting, but he can't leave Charles right now. ]

( hearing erik tell him that hank's suit had worked, that it was really bulletproof makes sense. he probably just blacked out from the panic and forgot parts of what happened. his own memories will probably return to him sooner or later. at least, he'd seen it all through erik's mind for now. not that any of it is at all comforting considering the two people he cares about greatly had left him. )

You don't have to. It's fine, Erik. I can block it all out. ( he sucks in a breath, but he doesn't shift to move away from where he's lying down next to erik; against him even. it's just too bloody cold for him to want to move away. )

I just need to know something. Why did you put that helmet on? ( erik had claimed it wasn't because he didn't trust him. so why then? despite the fact he's never once taken control of his mind. if charles had wanted to, he could have stopped erik even before they'd even made it to cuba. he could have taken away the pain, the anger, all of it. make him forget his need for revenge. but he hadn't. charles would never take away a person's ability to choose and decide for themselves. he'd always known of erik's intention to kill shaw, but he had hoped that he would somehow be able to convince him otherwise. ) You knew I was inside of his mind. ( he'd taken possession of shaw to stop him from hurting erik. ) But did you know I felt everything? When you killed him, when you pushed that coin through his... ( he can't even bring himself to say it. ) I felt it. ( if erik had heard him screaming in agony, would he have stopped? or would he have kept at it? )

[ He tenses, sounding genuinely surprised to hear this. ]

I thought you let him go. Once I pushed the coin in, he was dead. I thought--

[ Why would Charles need to hold him down any longer than that? It wasn't like Shaw could do anything after the bullet pierced through his skull, Erik made very sure of that; he'd studied so many things in his seventeen years and one of those things was anatomy. It's not like he just pierced through his frontal cortex, he wanted for Shaw to suffer.

And that means that Charles suffered. He holds on tighter. ]

I'm so sorry, Charles.

[ For a lot of things. It was just a quick thing that had completely destroyed them, a realization that they hadn't wanted the same things at all. But Erik maintains that they do, but that he's willing to get his hands dirty to obtain it. For what Erik understands of the world, peace is forged through power. Those who are at the top are the ones who get to live their life without fear.

He had never meant to give Charles a reason to fear him.

He heaves a breath. ]

It's not that I didn't trust you, Charles, but I didn't want you reading what was inside my head. It was the ugliest it had been since last I saw him. Shaw.

( charles knows what he's been through and how much he's suffered. he doesn't blame erik for killing shaw. the man had done horrible things. and shaw was going to do even worse things. he had to be stopped. ) I know why you did what you did. I know why you felt you had to even. ( he doesn't condone murder, but what's done is done. he just hopes that it's over. that erik can move past it; that he no longer feels the need to seek revenge. charles knows that plenty of others have hurt him too. it wasn't just shaw. like erik had said, he'd been at the mercy of men just following orders. )

I don't want us to fight, Erik. ( charles shifts back a bit in order to look up at erik; to meet his gaze. from what he'd gathered, he knows they went their separate ways after cuba. ) Now, more than ever, we should stick together. You're still my friend. ( it's important that erik knows that. because despite what happened, he doesn't hate him. far from it even. )

[ No, it wasn't just Shaw who'd hurt him, but there were countless others who were hurt in the same way. And that's what Erik saw on that beach: he saw men in power trying to take away what little they and their group of kids had. He saw those who have all the privileges in the world, look at them in the face, and pull the trigger on all of them.

It's an ongoing fight, simply because there will always be people who deny Erik's -- his family's, his friends' -- right to exist. And he won't let anyone get away with it.

But he understands that Charles is idealistic, that he has lived a life of comfort, and for whatever he knows of Erik's past, and all he's seen, it isn't Charles' experience. His uncle Erich was like that, to the bitter end.

He brushes a lock of hair behind Charles' ear to get a better look at him. ]

Then let's not fight. I'll stay with you.

[ He holds Charles closer, because he feels so cold. ]

( through erik's mind he'd seen what had happened after he'd been shot. that erik had said he wanted him by his side, that they're a family, that they want the same things, but charles had had hurt erik with the truth when he'd told him that he was wrong about that. the fact is, they don't see eye to eye. charles is seeking peace. he doesn't want another fight. he doesn't want to start a war. he wants to be able to co-exist with the humans; for mutants to be accepted by the larger population. he doesn't like the idea of violence. he doesn't want more bloodshed. )

It's not like you have much of a choice here. ( where else would erik go anyways? charles shifts a little, tugging the blankets over both their heads in an attempt to keep the cold air out, and then he hesitates for just a brief moment before he slips his arm around erik, hoping to help keep him warm as well. ) If I'd asked you to stay, back on the beach in Cuba, to come with us instead, to go home, to give it all up, to just stop, you would've probably told me to piss off. ( he knew going into that fight that erik would seek revenge, but he hadn't imagined that they would part ways like that in the end. it hadn't crossed his mind at all that things would get so messed up. he'd thought the worst of it would be having to deal with shaw. not losing erik. )

You must think me a fool for wanting what I want. ( he's idealistic. hopeful. and he can't be anything but. he doesn't want to be. )

[ What matters now is that they stay together. He knows Charles said that they don't want the same things, but he says a lot of things he doesn't mean. Erik knows that. For a telepath, he really does put his foot in his mouth a lot. And so, anger abated, Erik no longer feels like he needs to cut and run immediately.

And, as Charles points out, he has very little choice on the matter. ]

We both want peace and quiet. We just have different ideas on how to fight for it.

And yes, I do think you a fool of ideals. But I don't think you understand how I wake up every day wishing you were right, that we live in the world you imagine.

[ But sensing that Charles is going to interject with a plea that he is right and Erik should give his way a chance, he continues: ]

No, I wouldn't have come with you. I thought it would be good to spend a little time apart, and I think we will part again, once we get out of here. That doesn't mean I don't think of you as a friend, or that I stopped caring about you.

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the unwinding

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