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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
If the fire does nothing at all, neither of them will be worse off than they are now, because it ends the same way for the Doctor, regardless: Clara dies. Again. Why??? He wants to roar and shout it, to no one, to everyone. Why does she have to keep dying, why does he have to watch it every time? Why do so many die and he can't fix it?
He can't hide the worry on his face, but he betrays nothing else. Kissing her forehead and smoothing her rain-soaked hair back from her eyes, the Doctor smiles and wordlessly moves to lift her up into his arms, carrying her now. ]
Oh, I remember everything. You know me. [ Said with such ease. ]
I'll tell you a story. [ This, evidently, is how he's going to answer her question, Doctor, am I gonna die?
He's breaking a rule, a very big rule, but if he's wrong and this is their last moment, he needs her to know how important she is, what she's meant to him already, even if he doesn't fully understand who she is and why he keeps finding her. ]
I traveled about for a very long time, all across the universe, across time. Sometimes people needed help and I didn't walk away. [ The saver of worlds; he doesn't like calling himself that, he doesn't like making a big deal out of what he's done. It's nothing, really, nothing at all. For all his bluster and ego on the surface, he never really thinks he deserves the praise. ]
And then it was too much, I lost too much. I was done, with all of it. Retired; I wanted a simple, quiet, lonely life in a cloud, where I couldn't possibly lose anyone else. And there you were, Clara Oswald, the governess who wouldn't leave me alone, who insisted I help. Drove me mad, even more because I knew you were right. Ridiculous, like you always have been. But you followed me into that cloud, Clara, and you forced me back down. You saved me and I couldn't save you and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, again.
[ It won't make any sense to her, he thinks. But he's half-hoping she's delirious enough with fever not to comprehend or question much anyway. ]
Will you remember me? Clara - promise you'll remember.
[ So they can find one another again. ]
no subject
She can't tell how long has passed by the time she can give him an answer. Finally, she tries, each word its own small sentence. ]
Always. Always. Doctor.
[ She'll find him, and somehow, next time, she'll know who he is, she won't waste time. She wills every part of her that's been split into ghosts across the universe to know the Doctor, to always be able to look into those sad eyes and know him.
The heat of the fire feels cool in comparison to the burning of her body, but it's how she realizes they're close. She coughs, her entire body seizing with it, blood spraying across his arm. ]
Talisman—
[ It's too much to say more, taking a deep breath that rattles in her chest. ]
no subject
A lie, to comfort him.
Things said between people don't always have to be true to be important and necessary.
He knows how it goes by now: Clara dies and they find each other again, but she never remembers him. It gives him hope, though, to recall that something still draws them to one another, against all the odds. It's impossible, or it should be, but that's what she's always been, his impossible girl. ]
Right, the talismans...and yours would be... [ He's not asking, just talking to himself out loud because he must, because Clara's blood is splattered across his arm and she's dying again. So, he speaks because he can't bear the quiet as she drifts away from him.
Her pocket, of course. It wouldn't be anywhere else. His hand snakes down, searching her pockets until at last he finds it, clutching it in his palm as they near the fire. ]
You know, after this, I think we've earned a day off at the very least. A day off, a quiet adventure, you baking me a soufflé, eh? What do you say? Cheese and chocolate - can you combine them? Of course you can. It's probably never been attempted before, but that's what we do, Clara, the mad and the weird and the utterly perfect.
[ He smiles because he must, though he doesn't expect an answer. Lips pressing to her forehead, he lets out a shaky breath, and finally closes the distance between them and the fire. He tosses Clara's talisman into the flames first, then his own. With that done, his hold on her tightens, his cheek pressing to hers. If she's going away now, he's going to make sure she's not alone for it, that she feels him close.
Thank you, Clara. Thank you for everything that you were to me.
He so desperately wants to be right, though, that she'll be okay now. The universe owes him this.
Please. ]
no subject
Clara knows this, so she lets herself go because she's tired, she just wants to sleep. As he tosses the talisman away, Clara's head tips back, one arm hanging down when she goes slack. The only respite from the grief is that once the crackling of burning begins in earnest, Clara's feverish eyes open again. They aren't as glassy, and her skin isn't quite has hot, but she's still too weak to move much behind the minuscule movement of her head.
Even while he's standing, she tries to curl herself up with her head resting against his shoulder. ]
I'm so tired, Doctor.
[ Her voice is a wisp of a thing, words mumbled. ]