the clock tower

[groundrules]

Happy Hallow-elevator! The clock tower event lasts between 22 October and 8 November. ICly, the tower incursion stretches around a week, and you’re welcome to have your character investigate something else, if they finish early!

THE CLOCK TOWER

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ALL IS AS ALL WAS| TRIAL & NO ERRORS | THE TOWER

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ALL IS AS ALL WAS

Play it cool, as Serthica’s customs officers pore over your passport papers, before grudgingly allowing you overground. Minaras, you hear, is hunting a delinquent.

Both it and Eidris fare well, with no sign of the damage that preceded the Unwinding. Locals no longer behave eerily, dragons and clockwork droids roam freely, and everyone hates taxes.

Yet perfect strangers insist they know you. Your assigned address leads to a different house. The roads, buildings and architecture look ‘lived in,’ but changed.

No one remembers the Unwinding.

■ Burlap mannequins sometimes watch from mirrors, windows and reflecting surfaces.

■ You might hear shifting and scratching in Eidris walls.

■ Minaras has doubled its bounty for a man not unlike Leonard McCoy.

■ Black fungal spores are found on the increasingly voluminous experiment vials, specimens and supplies thrown out by Minaras medical facilities.

■ Frail and confused, Ellethia survivor Zenobius finally awakens. A short thread is up for RNG grabs.

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TRIALS & NO ERRORS

The guard troops that Eidris and Minaras assign to the Neutral Zone now protect King Thivar and High Councillor Arabella during the annual Sanctuary Reckoning trials. Both adjudicate cases that violate the ceasefire.

Prolonging the trials buys time for your companions in the clock tower.

■ Create a distraction — flood the judgement hall rooms? Fire? Illusions?

■ Pose as trial participants: perhaps you are of Eidris, and you caught this wicked Minaraian raiding your home? Mayhap this wretched man of Eidris stole your girlfriend? Wait, you’re a Minaraian who wants to kill King Thivar?

■ …organise breakouts, if Thivar or Arabella have your jailed. You are first imprisoned in makeshift Sanctuary cells — all but poorly locked, glorified closets. Get a trial sentence!

■ Thivar and Arabella treat the trials as a box-ticking exercise.

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THE TOWER

As Eidris and Minaras play court, you can infiltrate the Neutral Zone clock tower of Vassarizhia.

■ Only token security remains. The door is unlocked.

■ Karsa supplies paper talismans that must be burned in the watch fire at the tower’s top level.

■ Each burned talisman amplifies the reveal spell that Karsa activates. Link a finished burning thread by 8 November to help the cause.

■ A November mod post will describe how much of Serthica’s ‘undeath’ characters can see.

■ Placing Magnus’ dragon eye before the tower’s telescope will allow characters to always see Serthica’s undeath, moving forward.

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✘ ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE

Imperfect stillness dominates Vassarizhia: your footsteps do not click, words die in your mouth. The tower’s rickety gear slither silently. Your heartbeat aligns with the clock’s tick… tock.
You have the growing, gnarly certainty that you have invaded something ancient and alive.

The tower’s entryway level is large, deserted, stacked with gears. At its core is a dilapidated open elevator shaft.

A large sign says to find and pull the floor lever, if elevators stop.

■ There are two elevators. Each narrow lift can hold up to four people, crammed. The upper half of the carriage is chain-link fence, while the floors contain hatches that sometimes open mid-travel for 30 seconds. Hold on to ceiling-bound leather straps.

■ The ropes holding the elevators are thick, but tattered.

■ The elevator’s creaking squeals can awaken swarms of 1m-tall bats and bat wyverns. They rattle the lift, but ultimately withdraw.

■ The elevator can stop at as many levels as you want (or none!).

■ Beyond the second level, you feel intensely paranoid and see your companions as the persons you most hate/fear for five to 10 minutes. Reaching the top, you are tempted to cut the lift ropes of those who follow. (The ropes and elevators recover, after crashing to the bottom. )

■ On each floor, as you exit the elevator, a nearby wall shows a different scratched instruction, signed by DAVID.

LEVEL I: THE LABYRINTH| LEVEL II: THE ANCESTOR | LEVEL III: TAG! YOU’RE IT
LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS | LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)

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LEVEL I: THE LABYRINTH
CONTENT WARNING: MINOTAUR, BODY HORROR

Step into a jail maze, flooded to knee level. Confusing corridors narrow, widen and contort, while wall torches dim.

Intermittent howling reveals you’re not alone. Hiding, you see child-like chalk drawings of forest animals on walls — and a great minotaur. Keep silent.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY.

■ Collect some of the many discarded daggers or axes. Rope bundles float in water — use them to paralyse your captive or briefly force them under your control.

■ Don’t linger in one place: rotting, bodiless hands surface to restrain you.

■ Bad news, if you swallow water when the minotaur or dead hands try to drown you: your skin stretches and bursts, while your bones pop and extend. You mutate into a half human, half woodland creature, all bloodlust. ( Inspiration, anyone? ) Your companions should still recognise you; between hazy memories and constant pain, you might struggle to remember them and even attack.

■ Morphed characters can (painfully) return to normal within minutes of re-entering the elevator.

■ A smaller and distressed three-headed minotaur also roams the labyrinth. Two of its heads sob, while the third urges you to hide with it when brother approaches. It tries to throttle you with a noose to make brother happy, if you follow. David did say.

■ The minotaur and its sibling have poor sight. They cannot enter a corridor where you’ve drawn or laid down a line.

■ Pull the lever, and a straight corridor leads you to the elevator.

TOP | LEVEL II | LEVEL III | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

LEVEL II: THE ANCESTOR
CONTENT WARNING: GIANT SKELETON, BLOOD DRINKING

Here, only barren stone and thin rivulets of fresh water pouring from wall fountains with sharp-tipped ornaments — your spilled blood quickly infects the basins. Knives, pins and bowls have been abandoned nearby.

High pressure and vertigo overwhelm you. Follow a rhythmic heaving to where the upper half of an enormous skeleton — the Ancestor — has broken through a wall. White, silk thread fetters it. Dried blood rims its cracked mouth. Before it, the stone floor has been tarnished, up to a 5m radius.

The Ancestor appears dormant, a crown of iron thorns on its head. It clutches the lever tightly in its right hand. Above it, an engraving urges, SPILL WINE FOR YOUR ANCESTOR.

■ David S P’s elevator scrawl says, WATER TO WINE.

■ Dally staring and you feel dizzy, nauseous, depressed and compelled to share your close-death encounters. Before you know it, you are stepping into the Ancestor’s radius…

■ …where it plunges for you, if you don’t bear a filled cup. The silk ropes keep the Ancestor from reaching beyond 5m.

■ Two carvings under his fists read HONOUR THY FATHER and DISHONOUR THY MOTHER.

■ Quickly distract the Ancestor from crumbling his captives, tearing their arms or attempting to eat them.

■ The Ancestor is instinct-driven, consumed by thirst. It cannot see or smell, and only remembers taste. Sounds divert it.

■ Improvise: there is no actual wine here. Infuse water, spill blood, or vocally pretend you are delivering wine, and the Ancestor might spare you.

■ If sated, the Ancestor releases the lever.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL III | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

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LEVEL III: TAG! YOU’RE IT
CONTENT WARNING: SCARECROW, SKINNED CREATURES

Enjoy pitch dark, dread and bile spreading in your gut. Take a candle from near the elevator and roam through small, unlocked rooms that feature tattered beds, strips of tanning leather and blood or wax spilled on the floor.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, O CATCHES IT.

■ Ahead, you see candle-bearing mannequins that dance a hora to the same song played by Jim Kirk’s music box: “Up the mountain, in the grove, hand in hand to Ke-Waihu, fresh harvest’s a treasure trove, each fall we feast anew.”

■ The creatures are patched abominations of wax, skinned flesh and burlap. In the middle of the hora is a wiry scarecrow, eyes blazing with candle fire as it points a large cleaver. In certain lights, the scarecrow’s face briefly contorts into that of your mother. It wears priestly robes that Arc III survivors may recognise from the House of Ravens.

■ As the dance finishes, you notice the lever in the middle of the circle, where flame spells out TAKE THEM, NOT ME. The game begins.

■ The abominations run, gleefully manic and screaming TAAAA~AAAAAG. YOU’RE IT! The scarecrow unflinchingly cuts them down while pursuing you. Hide in the abandoned rooms, or risk snuffing your candle to avoid detection.

■ Some abominations slap you, hold you, or alert the scarecrow. Others offer shelter. A few peel off wax skins from their limbs — showing black fungi beneath. They murmur, IT NEVER GOES AWAY.

■ Parchment strips fall from the scarecrow’s sleeves, reading, HAPPY NAME DAY, MOTHER KNOWS BEST, THE SIN RAN DEEPER THAN SKIN, IF YOU CAN BEAR IT, IT’S A GAME.

■ Bless David: draw the scarecrow into a drawn or makeshift circle to trap it.

■ Intense, paralysing fear arrests you, if the scarecrow catches you. The wax abominations chant, TAKE THEM, NOT ME. One might even take pity and move your numbed mouth to utter the words. Say them — and the scarecrow lands deep cuts on your arms, then pursues your companion.

■ If you betray someone, the abominations take the appearance of your worst version: whether physically mutated, with a temper that amplifies your worst features, or both.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL II | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

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LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS
CONTENT WARNING: MANIPULATION, MENTAL COERCION

You enter a quiet room. The lever sits on a table, beside rope and a dagger. As you approach, your surroundings transform: perhaps your dearest dead appear to warmly welcome you. Crowds of your doubters celebrate your success. Or you are in a calm oasis, where nothing hurts.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, THIS DREAM IS A NIGHTMARE.

■ Whatever your deepest wishes, the room’s vivid illusions provide. With time, your beautiful dreams deteriorate into horror. Sometimes, you hear whispers of, Make a wish.

■ The room increasingly drains your life force. Within half an hour, you have gaunt flesh, brittle bones and a hunched back. Or you might feel compelled to harm yourself, clawing your arms and face, or pulling your hair out.

■ The damage comes undone minutes after reaching the elevator.

■ The room focuses on one person: if someone joins you, they see fainter echoes of what the room shows you, but they are not enthralled. They must coax or drag you away.

■ If you are under the room’s influence, it forces you to make any later intruders stay.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL II | LEVEL III | LEVEL V

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LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)
CONTENT WARNING: PLAGUE, THE CHILD

At the tower’s open-sky top, fire crackles from a small stone pit, shielded by a familiar, immovable blood-spattered white umbrella. Nearby, discover an immense rusted telescope and other discarded astronomy tools.

You trip on rain-battered yellowed bones at every step. One skeletal hand holds a watch piece, engraved for Mr. David Sebastian Pumpkins.

■ David S P’s has only scrawled his signature.

■ You might reach the flame easily, or be overwhelmed by sickness, black fungal spores blooming on your fingers, while you cough blood and experience intense fever. The symptoms wane once you reach the fire.

■ Burn paper talismans and link finished threads to help Karsa’s spell.

■ The child with a fox mask from the Unwinding could appear. Sign up for one of three short threads, which must finalise by 3 November.

NOTES

■ Some of the bigger plot clues have been emphasised, to help navigate through the horror details.

■ You can hit up some NPCs during the trials.

■ Check out plotting posts for last-minute team-ups.

■ Back to the top.

QUESTIONS

Comments

[weifinder]

They can be. Was he her sole caretaker? No one around to watch for her health besides him?

( had he ignored it, what he didn't think would do as it did, or not? grief for a child is a very powerful thing. )

[weifinder]

( There are no words: not yet. There's the adrenaline, the fear, the sharp edges, the consummation of purpose, the invention. A lack of pride, but a sense of what's been achieved.

Hollow, as marrow dried bones. His husband calls to him like a dog, and Wei Wuxian stills.

Moves after. Moves equal to. Moves to drop his retrieved talisman into the flames, still quiet. )

As ever, Hanguang-jun, in the heart of darkness.

( The depths of chaos, a cutting light.

He turns away, and to the edge he moves, walking with purpose. Easy to the lip, and without pause, he leaps. A strong arc, outward, hair streaming as banner, arms out, no fall. No giving in. A choice, soaring outward, at the peak caught in dive by the wyvern, struggling to lift them higher.

They come to rest at the highest point of the roof. He who leapt, and the beast who fell.

The paper already consumed before he'd reached the edge. )

[bravelyrunsaway]

( The searing child plays with dolls. The dollhouse that is them, is this city, the underlying sickness that isn't simple, is designed in the sense of it's cruelty.

He hates it, visceral in response, but to her, he offers a chin set to rest in her upturned palm. An exhalation like an unhappy grunt.

He could shift to talk about this, but naked bodies were complicated by others, so instead he stays like this, deeply unnerved, deeply unhappy He can't even bother to ape dog enough to wag his tail in one lazy sweep. Instead, he holds still. )

not passing up that offer ~

[somebadnews]

[ Burning the talisman was never Five's reason for coming to the tower. He went through hell to get here, to find him. But he knew he was taking a stab in the dark; pushed past the edge of rational thought. It was just as likely that they'd continue to mock him with mannequins and bloody umbrellas. With visions of things he should never have conjured if they didn't expect to face the consequences.

When the boy does appear, still wearing the same mask, it's obvious that he doesn't see a threat standing in front of him. The familiar feeling of time distortion does nothing to put him at ease. He could have attacked him outright with little remorse, but that would leave him without answers.

After he speaks, Five works his jaw and stares him down before responding. ]

Was it you?

[spoilers]

River casts another sideways glance his direction. "Funny. I was never any good at that. I do well enough running and fighting for the both of us, though. We'll both play to our strengths, shall we?"

And she has a feeling they're about to have their opportunity. She can hear the creature getting closer, sense the shift in the way the water rolls around her legs.

"Look, sweetie, if you happen to get a shot at the lift, assuming we ever find our way out of here, don't wait for me. I'll be right behind you."

[thedreamer]

Far away. Promise.

[ Though he can see everything she’s seeing, he’s not under the influence of it the way River is, so he’s able, at least, to pull her out of this. He can’t take away the pain of what she’s seen, but this one thing, he can do. It’s both a mercy and a cruelty, it feels like, because it’s real enough for her, but he won’t linger a moment longer and risk her hurting any more than she is. To walk away from what her heart most wants, to have the presence of mind and the strength to ask, well – he’s not entirely sure he'd have such strength himself. She’s always been so much stronger than him. It strikes him then, even in the midst of all of this – why has she had to be so strong? For her life, for his sake. It feels like another cruelty that he wishes he could spare her.

All these thoughts churn in his mind, but he doesn’t delay moving; they don’t have the time to spare. The moment the words are spoken, the Doctor’s arms wrap around her and he very nearly carries her, bearing her weight as he tucks her close to his shoulder, trying in some way to shield her from what still lingers around them. He moves towards the lever; he can see it more clearly now, with River making the choice to be removed from here. With one arm still protectively around her waist, he pulls the lever with his other hand, and then begins to lead her back towards the lift, still doing his best to hold her close to him. It’s the closest they’ve been for any length of time since being here in this world together and he finds himself reluctant to put any sort of distance between them again, at least for the moment. ]

[clavesregni]

[Something buried deep in Caitlyn remembers that Kahl's an ally, that he saved her from the hands only moments ago. But his words seem distant, meaningless, she can barely hear him through the red haze of agony that's blotting out her ability to think. Every bone, every muscle, feels like it's tearing itself apart, and the overwhelming cacophany of sounds, the pounding of her heart, the rush of blood in Kahl's veins, the water swirling around their feet, the blood--

She needs it. There's a hunger gnawing away at her gut unlike anything she's ever known. From childhood she was taught to control herself; stand up straight, enunciate, don't chew with your mouth open, don't be too angry or sad or emotional. That self-control is broken now.

She snarls again, a sound halfway between agonized and vicious. As he starts trying to pull her towards the elevator, she lunges, claws trying to rend at his armor, teeth snapping at his face, just trying to find an exposed bit of flesh that she can bite into.]

[spoilers]

[ She doesn't have the energy to fight him, even if she'd wanted. She's tired, weak, and why hadn't she noticed that before?

But she doesn't want to fight him. The solid presence of him surrounding her is the only thing she's properly convinced is real. They've taunted her with him before, too, but not like this. He wasn't alive, but then she hadn't been either. Is she alive now? Oh, she just isn't sure anymore.

With her head resting on his shoulder, pressed close against him, she can faintly feel his hearts, synced to the same eerie ticking as her own, as if they're both mechanical toys. The sound that leaves her throat, muffled against the fabric of his jacket, is something between a laugh and a sob. And so she lets him half carry, half drag her away from the room and its whispers, the promises she knows it can't keep. ]

She doesn't need me. But she's still just a little girl.

[ A little girl who had been just as lost and lonely and afraid as River ever had in her own life, a little girl who needed someone. ]

[makemeasong]

[ There's been so much horror, that it was the only thing that came to mind. Making a soft sound in the back of her throat, she rubs a hand over her face and lets out a soft breath. ]

My mum, she was perfect. She loved to travel, and we were gonna go so many places together. [ But then she was killed and Clara momentarily lost her drive to explore. ] I remember she used to play pretend with me. She used to make up the best stories. [ A faint smile touches her lips. Normally she's so careful to make sure Kahl understands everything she's saying, but her exhaustion and emotions are making it difficult. ]

Then I met Sabine. She was my roommate at uni, and she loved going new places. We were on the rugby team together; she made me want to travel again, and we went to so many different countries. [ She's a little in love with her, but they were best friends, and always stayed that way. ] We always had so much fun together.

[ Clara looks over at Kahl, giving him another small smile. ]

We had amazing adventures together, me and Sabine.

[slippin]

Constantine, from where Jimmy's standing, has already caved. There's not really a need to work his ego like a speed bag. But Kim unfailingly has the sharper eye for this kind of thing—and while he may not want to watch it happen, Jimmy does want to see how it plays out.

He throws a glance Constantine's way, then lowers his gaze politely to the floor.

[thedreamer]

[ The loss of Amy and Rory had broken him in ways that felt beyond repair for a long time. So broken was he then that he forgot his own promise to himself, to the universe, caught up within the darkness of his own pain. River had lost just as much - more even - but because it was a loss they'd both felt, naturally the Doctor's own pain had eclipsed hers. This is the first time he's been with his wife and had a moment to step outside of his own pain to actually comfort her. He's never done it before, and she's more than deserved it. Call it old age, weariness, an accumulation of pain upon pain, his hearts scarred sometimes beyond his own understanding, but now it's just made him...a bit more reflective than he's been in the time she's known him.

And when a man like him reflects, well, it's not that he's ever lacked the awareness of just how dreadful he is and can be sometimes, but he struggles to take that awareness and make it into something useful. Losing Amy and Rory changed a lot of that in him, he thinks, he hopes. Something good had to come from that, and from losing River. Could it make him kinder, as Amy had once remarked? Make him more loving? What does that word mean, loving. Is it this? Is it just being close to his wife and holding her through the pain? Could it be as simple as that? Has he run all this time from the simplest of moments, trying to stall the pain that's going to come. What a ridiculous notion, really. There's no stalling it, no delaying it. It will come because everything ends. All that he's done is made the choice for both of them and deprived them of so many good things.

He'd told Clara only recently that he wished he could be better at not running out on the people he cares about (loves). Can he put that sentiment into action? Can he be what his wife needs most? He hasn't done so far, not even close. He's not sure he could ever be what she deserves, because she deserves so much better than him. There he goes again, lost in his own inner turmoil.

For once - for maybe the first time - it can and must be about her. Not him.

And so, what does she need from him? Words? Hope? Truth? Touch? All of it or none of it. How does he do this?

With her head still against his shoulder, the Doctor acts with his first thought, which is to cradle the back of her head, pressing his own face a little bit closer.

River was a little girl stolen from her parents, her whole life written for her. Alone, abandoned. He thinks back to her rot - solitude - and his fingers curl into her hair a bit, in a way that might almost be soothing. He's comforted so many friends just like this. Why is it with River that he questions himself? He knows; she's so important, he'll muck it up somehow, he always does, so he fears himself with her sometimes. But she deserves better than that, too. She deserves him trying. ]

We all need someone, no matter who or what we are. What happened in there, it was a trick. [ On some level, he knows she understands. It's not to patronize her, but to reinforce that it wasn't real. ] You are her mother, River, she knows that, you know that. Nothing can take that away from either of you.

[ It's important, because that part is real. What she feels for Charlotte is real and will always be. ]

[traaaaaash]

[ Alas, Eda's not home right now. She's in her own mind, staring into an endless expanse of gray, cursing not again to herself.

Meanwhile, her Owl Beast body blinks at Yato and opens its mouth to reveal some very pointy teeth. It takes a few steps forward. ]

[vdovy]

[ Yelena cocks her head in consideration. She was ready to attack the beast on sight but her companion raises a fair question. Perhaps the part of her trained to kill is more easily triggered than she assumed, even without Dreykov pulling her strings.

She runs through their options: retreat is out, as he warned her of entrapments in the other directions, but sneaking past seems nigh impossible with three pairs of eyes to avoid. Yelena gives the floodwaters a thoughtful look. They are just deep enough to conceal, if one were to swim close to the ground and not make a splash. ] Do you know how to swim?

[vdovy]

No, it sure didn't, [ Yelena says dryly, wrinkling her nose at Mr. Pumpkins' remains. She takes another step forward, careful to balance their combined weights. Tumbling down onto a pile of old bones would be the cherry on top of this tower adventure. ] Perhaps he knew his fate was sealed and left clues to give us a fighting chance. Really shitty clues, but I guess he tried.

[makemeasong]

[ She hadn't realized she was holding the knife defensively while facing Wangji. Clara doesn't remember holding it in that way before. Was she always? It isn't that she wants to hurt him, she just wants him to stay.

There's no time for them to argue again before a sound catches Clara's attention. Her eyes widen and both hands drop to her sides. Around the corner, a Dalek; she remembers Oswin, slowly losing her humanity to save the Doctor. It enters the room and sets its sights on Clara.

You are incorrect. You will be exterminated.

Before she can do anything at all, the Dalek turns its eye on her mother and in an instant she's gone, her body flaming all at once before turning to a pile of dust. Exterminate! Exterminate! Sabine, bleeding from her head and now her chest, is still smiling when the Dalek kills her, illuminating her skeleton through flesh before she too, is dust. The words leaving Clara's mouth are choked out. ]

No. No.

[ The Doctor is next, and Clara turns to him. He's as old as he was on Trenzelore, hunched and shaky. But she watches as he rises as tall as he can, facing a death that never happened. He straightens his bowtie.

Oswin Oswald was a sacrifice. You will be exterminated.

There's a significant pause before five more words come from the Dalek. They're slow and seemingly said with great difficulty.

Why. did. you. leave. me?

One beat later, The Doctor becomes an explosion of golden dust and Clara hears a scream. It takes a long while for her to stop, breathing heavily with sobs that won't leave her chest. The knife has been long dropped, forgotten by her. She doesn't seem to realize she's now as bent and aged as the Doctor was, sinking to her knees weakly. ]

You can't leave. Watch. I made her, I made all of them just to die.

[ Her voice is raspy, shaking with effort, and one boney hand grasps his wrist. The Dalek has turned toward them both. If she dies, maybe the echoes will cease to exist.

Echo. Echo. You will not save the Doctor. You save no one. You will be exterminated. ]

[vdovy]

Oh, smaller than the giant scarecrow but not exactly little, [ Yelena clarifies. She wrinkles her nose and adds, ] Although a few of them were child-sized, because being patched together from flesh and burlap wasn't creepy enough.

[ She pauses to take stock of their advantages and disadvantages. Despite being grossly outnumbered, they have a chance to strategize. If they play it right, that can make all the difference. ] Okay, that's a start. I was worried you were like one-hundred percent tapped out. So how do your powers work, exactly?

[spoilers]

[ She'd said something to another little girl once, a long time ago now. It isn't fear in the end that haunts you. It's loneliness.

In a way, Charlotte had been loved as River had, quietly and with so much pain it blinded those who loved her to her reality. In their inability to let her go, they'd condemned her to never-ending childhood. Alone.

Of course River hadn't been insulated by happy memories or fairy tales. She'd been alone in the dark, surrounded by madness. And when they told her stories, she woke crying from nightmares. But she felt no less sympathy for Charlotte, for her daughter. ]

I'm fine, Doctor.

[ It's a reflex, to reassure him, even as her words fall flat between them.

The moment she'd found herself again in the Library, all she could think about was the Doctor. How he was still her husband, would always be her husband, and she would wait as long as it took for him to come back. Now he's here, right in front of her, and what she's missing most is being dead. Someone else should certainly appreciate the irony of that. But River can only let the tears fall. Even as her tears slow, stop completely, she clings to him no less tightly.

He's always loved hugs, this one, but he's rarely held her. His affection is reserved for others. She's an exception to the rule in a completely opposite sense for his future self, and the reminder makes her eyes sting all over again.

As long as they're like this, she knows she's safe, she's alive, breathing in the familiar scent of him. It's funny how he can be so different and still always the same. It doesn't matter if he's wearing celery on his lapel or going around calling himself professor, desperately running from the war or living in the shadow of its end. She's been with him in so many of his lives, loved him through all of them.

Had he been anyone else, she isn't sure she could have pulled herself away, to leave Charlotte again, to leave the family she knew was indisputably hers. ]

I am, you know. It wasn't intentional.

[ But it is something she'd wanted, once upon a time, being a mother. She'd even thought about asking him once. She'd been younger then, still working out what it meant to love him when all she'd ever been taught was how to hate him. ]

We should go, Sweetie. It isn't a good idea to linger.

[ Her mind is clearer now, but it will take much longer for the deep longing in chest to fade. ]

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda takes the container with affected reverence, taking a thoughtful whiff. ]

Hmmm... this is good, but do you think settling for good is enough for our kind sir here?

[traaaaaash]

The lever. Right.

[ It takes a moment for Eda to remember while the illusion is still trying to pull her under, showing her Luz's face going pale and melting, King's skull cracking. Eda steels herself against it with a sharp intake of breath.

She knows this, knows what it's like to be trapped in her own mind with the worst it could possibly show her.

With a grunt, she dashes toward the lever and pulls it hard. ]

[sansdoute]

( One child, confronted with another. When the fox-masked one holds out his umbrella, at least he needn't rise to the tip of his toes, needn't strain himself.

He's silent, for the longest time. )

...no? I don't know? ( And softer: ) Was... what?

[sansdoute]

( He's straining, thinking, mulling over — swishing saliva in his mouth, when the water's gone. He waves for more. What'll he do within the hour? Piss himself silly, he supposes. )

Must have been a governess of some kind. Man of Matthias' coin. Liked to throw it on things. Most men would get another wife, but he never did, after the missus died.

( Here, his brows seem to perch and wriggle, tellingly. ) He wasn't one the women would have rushed to claim.

[downswing]

( ...protect it, a creature that seems, for all it's slight bent, as if it might summon the height and width and brawn of a cart or a monster, once it unravels. Lan Wangji trickles slower than the girl, sword teased back into its sheath, fettered strong.

They have no time to barter his cooperation, not if the minotaur truly comes, and there is the heft of drumming, storming steps, the urgency for cover. He waves the girl and her — companion to shield themselves in the alcove, rushing to join them, while the minotaur's shadow spills dark and long like burnt, cloying tea leaf.

If it were to look, to peer, to catch the scent of them — if it were to flinch and stare right. Only it doesn't. It walks, not stomping, not vigilantly, not with purpose, but with a shallow lack of any care beyond a perfunctory watch. And he passes them by.

Lan Wangji prepares to assault, to jump, to seize him. Draws a long bind of diamond-dusted cord from his sleeve and anticipates, hairs raising on his nape, when he might jump and throttle — only to find his wrist held by the three-headed beast. He gazes down at the claw, how broken and coarse it is, how ruined. As if it exerts itself with crushing and slamming and hard hits, often. He hisses, more for the girl's sake: )

Release me.

( And the creature's three mouths all glisten in a grin. )

[downswing]

( He trusts too readily. Assumes their winter done, and does not ask, if it is crisp drip of ashes underfoot or the powder of ground bones. Crackling, tumbling, distorting, the flames consume and spread out Wei Ying's paper, joined by the unbound ribbon of Lan Wangji's talisman. He watches flame, fire, like the hungering mouths of a hundred fresh-born bird babes.

And then he feels steps like a stripping of his skin, false wind coursing through his hair. Turns, ripped from himself, and there is Wei Ying like a flinched ink's stain in water, advancing and dissolving the trace of himself, and he does not think —

Is it trust, when your every next thought is not your last, is not your worst? Does not predict the leap, the throw, how he is paralysed again at the heart of the tower, limbs and fingers loose and lax and slow, unrooted. )

Wei Yi —

( He means to scream. It comes out ragged gossamer, tearing, bubbles of coarse, throttled silence infecting his lungs-throat whole. He cannot move or breathe or sink down. Lashes connect and stay peeled, connected in pooling water. Tears — not grieved, but for the want of blinks.

And then, Wei Ying rises again, master riding his make, spearing the skies like the storm-clouded tip of a long claw. He is wind, and he is wild, and he is beautiful —

Lan Wangji's crippled knee gives first, the one once broken. Weakness remembers itself. The second follows, for company, for the habit of optimising his movements. He crushes a man's sternum, breaks his fall, palm cold-sweated on the round swell of a skull.

It is not the same. They are not equal in this. It is not the same. He heaves, chokes, and drags himself up by his own strings, back first to rise — as if he were a puppet, accepting every pinch and pull to climb to verticality. As if his own gravity is a conversation that excludes him.

He has a blade readied for flight, the experience and ability to hike or leap or conquer such a slight distance. His limbs refuse him. )

Please come down.

[blackscales]

Hey! So the Merchant originally said the Beacon is within the grounds of Vassarizhia -- Is it actually nowhere within the clocktower? Wrathion would keep an eye out of it while climbing the Tower of Terror, since that was... at least PART of the original mission as he understood it...

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda lets out a groan when the lady who's stuck in this room with her says those words, because she knows magical tricks and knows this is going to get ugly for her. Which she is not a fan of.

Time to get to work, then. ]

Alright.

[ She taps the glyph, and thick vines grow out of the ground in front of her as the Scarecrow rapidly races toward her. The vines manage to entrap it -- for now. ]

Now let's find that lever!