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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[Caitlyn listens, rapt, to everything he says, mentally sorting and filing it. A task. History that makes the task more difficult. And a rather familiar story.]

Sounds like home. [Said with a rueful little smile. A city at odds with itself, people convinced that everyone on the other side of the river is the enemy. Not unlike Piltover.

Her expression immediately becomes serious again as she considers what he's told her.] Is there no way to tell the undead from the living? No signs or symptoms of being undead, nothing... the undead might react strongly to?

[Something else occurs to her.]

When you say each side doesn't believe the other is human, do you mean that literally?

You'd think, wouldn't you? Sort out the dead from the living, oh couldn't be more than a day or two, right? Here we are, weeks later. Months? Something like that.

[ For a Time Lord, he does strangely lose track of time, particularly when he's forced to move through linear time and everything seems so much longer than it is or should be. ]

Ah, yes. Well. Suffice it to say, there have been a number of disturbances above ground recently. Mannequins come to life, creatures seemingly controlled by a puppet master of sorts. We've even observed what you might think of as "glitches" in the system, people who don't seem to be people at all, at least as we know them, falling into a sort of traumatized trance when the lights would go out. A few of them dragged a friend and I into their home, while in a trance, and wept in their beds while we stood there. They were completely unaware that we were there and didn't react to any stimulus when we tried to pull them out of it. Either it was elaborate mind control, or they're not entirely human.

Months? [He's been here for months, and there are others who have been here longer? She's absolutely horrified by the prospect of being trapped in this world that long. Her parents must already be worried sick about her. The only clue to what happened to her will be a ransacked bathroom, probably a few streaks of blood left by her injured leg hitting the counter, and her missing uniform. They'll be dredging the river for her corpse by the end of the week.

And Jayce... Vi said he hadn't had the stomach for a fight, in the end. But if he thinks she's dead, if he thinks Jinx killed her, he might find the stomach after all. And if he starts a war with the undercity over her 'murder,' her mother will almost certainly support him.

The rest of what the Doctor says sounds more like static than words. She picks up a few pieces of information - mannequins coming to life, people falling into trances - and she scowls as she tries to process it. She can't obsess about what's going on at home, can't even think about it, really, or she'll drive herself mad. She has to focus on the here and now, solve the mystery, get home, deal with the fallout once she gets there.

She wants to ask why they've been tasked with this, why they can't simply be sent home through these beacons now. What is the Merchant's stake in this? But she also knows that if the people here need help, she would't walk away, even if she could be sent home now.]

If there is a puppet master, what are they accomplishing by bringing mannequins to life or causing these 'glitches?' [She's barely talking to the Doctor, more just asking questions outloud to herself in a effort to avoid thinking about other questions, like how will her dad cope if he thinks she's dead and Jayce and her mother are off warmongering?] Or if there is no puppet master, what could be the source of the problem? Is it random, or is there a pattern that could be traced?

Oh, I like you. Have I said that already? It bears repeating. You ask the right questions, good questions, nearly all the questions I've kept track of myself. Bit further away from the answers than I'd like to be, but we keep going, eh? Never stop asking the questions! When we find your Vi, let's have a sit down, the pair of us, or the three of us if Vi's the sleuthing sort, and see what we come up with.

[ He understands it, the way she gets lost in thinking out loud. Something he does often, so it's familiar. He's generally used to having all the answers, too, so this whole situation is pretty dumb, in his very mature and not at all childish opinion. ]

[The Doctor's enthusiasm startles Caitlyn out of the reverie she'd begun to fall into.]

Y-yes. Yes.

[She stumbles over her words at first, and her smile is somewhat faint, worried as she is about Vi and her parents and what's going on at home - or what will be going on at home the longer she's trapped here. But she feels a surge of enthusiasm herself at the prospect of having someone who actually wants to sit down with her and work through a mystery. She's never had that before.]

I'd like that very much.

[She's not sure how much Vi would enjoy it, but she knows better than to discount Vi's intelligence or her experience.]

Vi's not really the sleuthing sort, but she may have some valuable insights.

At the very least, she can help us find clues and then stand by telling us how clever we are at the sleuthing.

[ He teases with a grin, because he managed to pull a faint smile from Caitlyn, maybe he can make it a brighter one.

Of course, banter aside, he continues to scan the crowd for her friend. It doesn't help they're in tight quarters here, everyone nearly on top of one another, faces blending in together. They're nearly outside at this point, and it's entirely possible she went out there to get some fresher air. For Caitlyn's sake, he hopes they'll find her soon. For his own pride as well; he doesn't like making promises he can't keep, even though he doesn't always have the best track record in that regard. ]

[ If anyone's having trouble identifying Vi, it might be because she has been restrained by a few children who are determined to discover if the muscles are just for show, and while she had tried humoring them with push-ups in the beginning, it only seemed to egg them on. Having had enough of getting stuck outside the building, she's forced to drag along three children towards the entrance, each snickering from a limb. A tinier fourth parasite lumps onto her last free limb just as she thinks she hears Caitlyn's voice, and there are tiny shrieks of excitement as Vi tries to elbow her way through people without crushing a child. ]

I told you, I'll play more later!

[ Right when she turns to look to where she thought she heard Caitlyn's voice, the youngest one dangling from one of her arms scrambles onto her back and then drapes over her shoulder. 'But I'm not playing, I'm hunting. I'm a sea monster. A leviathan.'

Vi drags the kid off her shoulder, first with a yank of his shirt, then catching him by the ankle before he can tumble to the ground. Letting him dangle by his foot while he growls up at her, she growls back with a twinkle of mirth in her eye. ]

Well, I hunt leviathans. So you better help me or scram.

[ When he claws at the children dragging at her ankles, she just gives him a little bounce so that his teeth chatter, and a child giggles. ]

[Caitlyn's smile does brighten a little at the thought of Vi praising their cleverness, before falling into something like fond reminiscence. She remembers Vi's reaction to the map with all her case notes, the first time anyone had really acknowledged her work. The first time anyone had looked at it without rolling their eyes. You did all this on your own? Vi had said. The moment had been overshadowed by grief and exhaustion, and everything that Vi had gone through in the preceding days and hours was so much more important. But it had still meant a lot to Caitlyn.

Her smile truly brightens when they step outside and she hears a familiar voice. Caitlyn eagerly turns to the Doctor.]

That's her!

[She runs for Vi, flinging her arms around Vi's shoulders, not minding that she's competing with several very clingy children.]

I was afraid I'd lost you again.

[ Oh, now this, this is what he likes to see. This is one of his favorite things; two people reunited, especially after the bit of bother they've had with this Unwinding. He would have been equally distressed to be separated from those he cares about most. He has been. There's nothing you want more than to put your eyes on someone after that, to see and know that they're okay.

I was afraid I'd lost you again.

Well, that's also dreadfully familiar. ]

Vi! There you are, excellent. You have no idea who I am, that's okay, I'm the Doctor so there we are. We've been looking for you, oh it seemed ages, probably just a few minutes. This one's been dreadfully worried. So worried, in fact, she didn't let me fix up her leg, so I expect you'll give her the affectionate but concerned scolding she's due.

[ Oh, right. They're doing a hugging thing. He should give them space, right? They were together, they were separated, Caitlyn was worried, they're together again. From what he's observed with human behavior, this is about the time he should be stepping far back.

He claps his hands together once, lightly, and does take that step back. ]

Right, okay, I'll leave you to it. Happy reunion times, I love those. I'll just be...here, about five paces away, if you need me.

[ Vi spots Caitlyn just in time to sweep the dangling kid out of the way, a soft 'oof' let out as she stands there momentarily stunned. She hadn't expected to find Caitlyn so easily (if trying to shake off a pack of feral kids counted as easy), and surprise leaves her almost silent in the moment it takes her to lower the boy down to his hands, where he balances for a moment before tumbling over. Not wanting to fight Vi for a grown woman's attention, the other kids abandon Vi to either pile on the fallen boy or go to the man (doctor?) Caitlyn was walking with.

Vi's glance to him is momentary and quizzical, but she's far more focused on the fact that Caitlyn is in fact right here. Having still been uncertain if what she just experienced was a dream, she couldn't even trust if the train ride was real, so to see that Caitlyn's actually here, and also alive, Vi holds her with a ferocity she couldn't quite muster the last time, pulling back just so she can glance her over for any new injuries, her fingertips gently running over Caitlyn's arms to feel through the sleeves. ]

Can't get rid of me that easy. I'm still not sure what even happened. Are you okay?

[Caitlyn's arms tighten around Vi as she takes a moment to simply breathe in the scent of her, relief flooding through her at having Vi here and alive and whole in her arms again.]

I'm alright.

[As Vi pulls back, she offers her a bit of a wan smile. The Doctor was telling the truth about her leg; the bandage needs changing, if nothing else. She takes the opportunity to look at Vi in her entirety, making sure she truly is all in one piece. Her eyes momentarily catch on the scar across Vi's lip before drifting back up to meet Vi's gaze.]

You're okay too?

[She could easily lose herself, staring into Vi's eyes, but she can't forget the Doctor. She manages to tear herself away from Vi to look over to him.] Thank you, Doctor, for helping me find her.

[ The children here are well acquainted with him, so he's more than happy to catch them up in his arms when they notice his presence. He gives a little nod to Caitlyn, a soft smile, though he's dismissive of his actual role in this reunion. He didn't do much at all, or rather, he did what anyone else would have done, he thinks. Nothing warranting her gratitude. In a way that he wouldn't be able to explain easily, he was more grateful to Caitlyn, and even Vi, by extension. To have the company for a little while, to see hope persisting in the shadow of a darkness that seems ever present here. If people who love each other can still find one another, there's always reason to hope. ]

Oh, you found each other, I was just tagging along. And I'm looking forward to sleuthing with you both later!

[ With a parting smile, he manages to somehow carry three of the children back inside with him, already playing a new game with them that he's just invented. ]

I'm good.

[ Relieved that Caitlyn doesn't seem to have any fresh injuries, Vi wonders at the luck of it. A lot of it's hazy, but it feels like something neither of them should have survived unscathed.

The leg injury isn't new, but Vi doesn't know about ignoring it. They finally have a moment to breathe, and when was the last time it was looked at? Caitlyn's been through a lot since...she saw her mom.

Swallowing thickly, Vi traces Caitlyn's profile when she turns to thank the doctor. Right, the doctor. Who is leaving. ]

You should have him check your leg. Can't be that many doctors running around, and we don't know what's coming next.

[ Not if it's anything like Zaun.

She wants to chase him down, but she doesn't want to leave Caitlyn behind. Still circling her wrist with a protective grip, like she's afraid Caitlyn might get pulled away in the chaos of the orphanage, Vi raises her voice. ]

Hey! Doctor! She definitely needs the leg looked at.

It's really--

[The leg was bandaged, even if it's aching and the bandage is itchy. There are so many more pressing things to be done, and most likely people who are more in need of a doctor's services. Having to sit still for however long it would take to re-bandage or poke at the wound, or, in the worst case, stitch it up... There's too much that needs doing.

But Vi's already calling the Doctor back.]

Honestly, I'll be alright. We ought to be focusing on making sure everyone else here is okay, and figuring out what our next steps to getting home are.

Oh - what? Right, yes! Okay! Such a lovely reunion, didn't want to interrupt the hugging and the not-yet-but-maybe-eventual kissing. Hang on, give me a moment!

[ Children are presently using one raggedy Doctor as a sort of climbing obstacle course, which he takes in stride, though he's not sure he can do his best work like this. Admittedly, he can't do very much at all, but what he can do, he will do with gusto. He does come back a few moments later, as promised, and he has a few things in his hand that look like medical supplies. Basic ones, but they'll do. ]

You know, you are really quite stubborn, Caitlyn, honestly. We'll have to keep an eye on you. Vi, I've got your back on this - can't let her get away with this 'I'll be fine, don't worry about me' rubbish. I believe we're all quite talented here. [ He does actually make himself useful as he rambles, bending a bit to examine the wound, then gesturing for her to sit. ]

So talented, in fact, that we can do two things at once, more than two things even. We can worry about you, take care of you, and help the others. All it takes is a bit of prioritizing and a sprinkle or two of time, and time is my business.

Now - let's have a look. [ If she actually does sit, he'll get up close to look and see if it's something that really needs stitches, or could be managed with a simple dressing. ]

[ Any mention of eventual-kissing just gets a bit of a dead stare, because what? Is he being another standard pervert, or did Caitlyn say something to him? Should she regret calling him back over? He's already rambling about something else, and she just stands there, sliding her hands into her jacket pockets when he tries to get Caitlyn to sit.

She hovers, watching whatever he does with those hands, ready to knock him across the entire Mouse House if he gets weird. He could be lying about being a doctor, after all, she didn't even really get his name. ]

How is time your business? Thought you were a doctor.

[At the mention of maybe-eventual-kissing, Caitlyn freezes like a deer caught in a bright light. She manages to stammer out some sort of response to whatever it is he's saying, but she's not processing any of it because all she can think about is Vi's lips and Vi's arm around her waist and Vi's lips. How does the Doctor know she's thought about kissing Vi? She hasn't said anything, has she? Has she done something? This is... She really shouldn't be...

This is embarrassing.]

Yes, it's. I'll be. It's alright, really. My father's already tended to it.

[Somehow she finds herself seated with her hem of her skirt pulled up enough for the Doctor to examine the wound. The bandage that was formerly wrapped around it is in poor condition, easily pulled off and not doing much to hold the wound closed anymore. In hindsight she probably should have heeded her father's warning and not showered with the bandage on.

The wound itself, barely more than a day old at this point, is still red and swollen, the flesh mangled from the sheer number of very small and twisted metal fragments that had been embedded in it, albeit over a relatively small area on her thigh. At least the metal's been removed and it's mostly stopped bleeding.

She's far too embarrassed to look at Vi - what would she do were they to make eye contact? Instead she's just looking awkwardly sideways at the Doctor as he looks over the wound.]

[ Quite unfortunately, for all their sakes in this moment, the Doctor doesn't catch on that his words, said in amiable jest and with a lack of awareness regarding social cues and boundaries, struck a bit closer to the actual truth. Hopeful reunions sort of invite hugging and kissing as a standard, don't they? He's sure he's seen so many of his favorite humans do it, especially after moments of great tribulation and separation. He's even done it himself, though admittedly it's been a while. Caitlyn would have stopped at nothing to find Vi; there's an intensity of connection there that seems to naturally demand an abundance of affection.

Luckily (?) for Caitlyn and Vi, the Doctor has a task at hand that demands his focus. ]

The Doctor! Doctor of time and space, and time-and-space travel, philosophy, cheese-making, wine-making - though I never touch the stuff myself. What else - oh, why limit myself? Doctor of nearly everything, really.

[ Not to worry, of course; despite his rambling, he's observing Caitlyn's wound and focusing on what he can do to clean it up. Closer observation has him even more impressed that she kept walking this long on it. It's been a long time since he actually did anything like this at all, though his touch is careful, measured, gentle, as he works first to clean it, dabbing at it, then dressing it with what appears to be some type of gauze he managed to find. When it's dressed, he does place his palm over top of the gauze covering the wound - again, lightly, carefully. ]

I don't sense an infection and I'd be able to tell, promise. [ He does mean that truly. He can sense injuries, illness, things lurking beneath the surface. ] Credit to your father!

Edited (what are words) 2022-11-15 02:31 (UTC)

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the unwinding

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