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westwhere2022-10-22 07:42 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-10-22 07:42 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc iv,
- arc iv: serthica,
- arcane: caitlyn,
- arcane: vi,
- better call saul: jimmy mcgill,
- better call saul: kim wexler,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- hellblazer: john constantine,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- legend of fei: zhou fei,
- mcu: yelena,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- noragami: yato,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: licyn mansbane,
- original: red,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- shadowhunters: alec lightwood,
- shadowhunters: magnus bane,
- star trek: christopher pike,
- star wars: finn,
- the clock tower,
- the gifted: lorna dane,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- touken ranbu: kanesada,
- umbrella academy: five,
- umbrella academy: lila pitts,
- untamed: lan wangji,
- untamed: wei wuxian,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175
the clock tower
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!
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.
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.
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.
✘ 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 IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS | LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
no subject
"And if you could stop believing? Forget such ideas? Would you?"
She clutches at the leather strap with bloodless claws, wondering at the sacrifices made by a man who knew about those games and dismissed them even within the tower's infinite menace.
no subject
Something in him is pricked, and the wound wells with heart's blood.
"You can't, is the thing." He says, "like changing tiger's stripes, it is. Once you're in, that's... that's just the shape of the world."
no subject
"Mm. And so the night favors the hunters, but never in fairness. How can a tiger fight when trapped by a lion's pride? When beast consumes beast, that is true magic. It existed before idea or belief, when Need and Want spilled the blood of Solitude. That's the magic that beckons to us from this tower."
Cautious sympathy draws her closer, gripping the leather strap hanging just nearer so that she can catch his eyes with her own. They're wide, wild almost in what she's seen of herself and others, but not lost in the wilderness. There's a determination in the manner with which she sees him and wonders what other beasts he's consumed.
"Yet, I believe we will succeed. I choose to."
no subject
Something feels wrong. His gut-- he tends to trust it-- says there's ill intent. It's that feeling you get before the tables turn, before you get pushed down the stairs, before the jaws snap shut.
He hates it.
"You have it backward, though," he says, rueful. His brain buzzes with worry, trying to understand what he's feeling, what the source is, but he can still blather on about magical theory to distract. "Thought and idea came first. Dreaming. Magic dances to our tune."
no subject
Perhaps there's understanding that magic doesn't only come from God, and she's beginning to ascertain after today that it also goes beyond the Devil. More primal. But to give that kind of credit to the ideas of Man would be something of the old Vanessa. Perhaps if dreaming can be credited, then it's that of the old gods...should she believe in them.
Disappointment presses her lips pale. "Dances to our mad songs... It only tries to distract us from the ruin left in our wake."
On occasion she'll glance up or down, but her expectations are steady. It isn't if, but when hazard strikes. A broken thumbnail presses a jagged crescent into the leather strap.
"Do you wonder if beasts have dreams? Could an idea be the same as a feeling?"
no subject
That thought rings clear as a bell in his head, a mighty church bell, echoing. Why does she want his knowledge? Why is she so ignorant of the basic rules of magic? Is she really who she says she is? Paranoia flourishes like a fever in John's mind.
His hands find the bars of the elevator, shaking them lightly. "Everything that can think can dream," he murmurs. "What d'you dream of, then?"
no subject
It does so now, when her eyes slowly shut and her weight tilts back. What does she dream of now that the demons don't try to haunt her sleep?
"Beasts lost in their own dreams, I suppose."
Just barely, she can hear the flapping beyond where her gaze can reach, though the squeaking of the elevator fights for distraction. She knows they're there, gathering, and it feels like a reunion. Will they resent her for the ones that died? Will they seek a kiss and affirmation?
The sudden clang snaps her attention forward when one of the beasts from the shadows flaps by and knocks against the cage.
no subject
"You know 'em?" It's an accusation, and only in retrospect will he realize how nonsensical it is. "You've the Seven on your side, aye?"
no subject
A screech from one of the creatures carries up to the mass of brethren above the cage, and Vanessa can almost feel the song travel through her veins. She glowers, her patience cracked by his own interruption. What's he playing at? She's not going to humor it with an answer.
"What are you doing? We don't have the time to waste."
Vanessa may not worry too much about the demonic bats about to descend (they swarm just in the dark), but she's in no mood to have her progress halted by any means.
no subject
Panic floods John and, knowing his own capacity for betrayal, he assumes the worst. "You wanted to be first at the top, then? What's your sodding angle?"
He reaches forward, intending to push, to shove. A sign of a poor mental state; John never initiates physical confrontation, normally. He's a poor hand in a fight, his hold weak, his steps shaky.
no subject
Another one bumps the cage in passing just as John lurches at her, leaving Vanessa too unsteady to evade him. Pain pricks up her leg and into her very breath, her gasp something of a rattle from the pain of how easily she's winded from his shove, but she still reacts as quickly as she can. From her pocket, a small knife is freed. Normally much quicker when on the defensive, her movements now lag when she attempts to aim it for his throat. Only to warn, to keep at bay (but she could kill, she could and something in her wants to).
The beasts swarm the enclosure in a ravenous frenzy, blocking sight of anything beyond them, with their talons rattling at the chain-link fence. Maybe they hope to throw him onto her knife.
no subject
The flash of a knife is almost as bright as the clear expression, momentary, of pain over her features. Is she injured? Wounded? Some part of John, hidden deep within himself, wants to worry, to fuss.
The rest sees only an advantage, and his grip on her arms becomes a tug. He begins to drag her toward the door, ducking away from her attacks. "I see it now," he says, and later, he will hate how much he sounded like his father. "I see it."
no subject
It isn't shouted, but demanded, though there's alarm in the command. Mere assault wasn't his plan, after all. How far is this? Could she survive the fall? Would the bats shred her to pieces? Would they soften her fall? She doesn't know if any of these bats are the same that she summoned earlier, and the threat suddenly imposed leaves her less welcoming of their arrival.
Her fingers dig into the side of the cage until the wire bruises, though somehow the talons and fangs lashing against the elevator don't cut at her knuckles. He must be mad to ignore her knife. He must be mad. He can't see anything. Can he?
Can he see it? Can he hear it?
"Let go! Do not...force my hand!" The pull is ripping apart her insides, it feels, as worn as her frail little body is from the ascent. Frantic that he won't give in, Vanessa stamps (weakly) at his foot with the heel of her boot while slashing (awkwardly) at one of his hands. She's too restrained to do much else without resorting to the occult.
no subject
"Survived worse," he says, giving her another tug toward the door. He's not strong, but he's stronger than her, that much he can tell. The panicked adrenaline is on his side.
She cuts a rent in his tie, and he feels hot blood pool in his chest. Something in him says to ignore the pain, and he should recognize it as alien; he has a low threshold for pain, normally. But in this moment, he couldn't care. He pushes her, harsh, toward the door.
"Out with you, now. Out."
no subject
The knife is lost in the scuffle, but she'll claw with broken nails and even bite if she can reach any part of his flesh. No matter if mad or possessed, she won't die for the sake of it.
Unfortunately she's been too weakened to keep hold of any part of the elevator, and when he gets her close enough to the edge, her desperate attempts to shove him away shift to trying to grab him closer. Either she'll climb back in over him, or she'll take him with her. It's reactive. She didn't want the violence.
Her lips curl, and Vanessa rasps out the start of an ugly, ancient language. Out of her mouth growls the voice of Evil.
"Itsi redreyii en─"
no subject
And then the alien panic settles back in his marrow, and he shakes the woman-- he can't quite remember her name-- trying to force her further down the well. The shaft. The door.
What he's doing and why have escaped him completely. He only knows he must.
no subject
The bats and wyverns suddenly vanish, and only darkness looms beneath her. So much as it ever has been. If it's to be murder, then he'll join her. He's reeked of sin from the moment they met.
"Kailfernum igiirtekh!" Return to the fires of Hell!
no subject