hale and whole

[groundrules]

HALE AND WHOLE

---

BEHIND YOU | MAGICAL SERIES OF EVENTS | THE SCENIC SCIENCE ROUTE | SPREAD YOUR JOY

Image source.

Talismans burned, Serthica’s undeath reveals itself:

■ The dragon eye allows indefinite access to the undeath-sight pendant feature. Use it 15 minutes at a time, with a 45-minute cooldown.

■ Those who delivered talismans or the eye have residual immunity: they cannot be sensed by mannequins or by undead linked to the curse-sickness. This is transferrable once.

The Merchant presents the Serthica findings, recommending evacuation. Outvoted, he agrees to sponsor the group until the beacon’s annual start-up. To heal Serthica, the party must destroy the magical anchors of the curse-sickness, develop its science/herbal cure, then distribute it across the overground citadels.

BEHIND YOU

Courtesy of Five Hargreeves, the Child of the Unwinding you slayed his father, the undead lord Beastmaster. The burlap mannequins released from Remembrance actively hunt you.

■ They are constantly watching, stalking, hunting. You always hear the deep asynchrony of their footsteps. Some mannequins bear an uncanny human likeness: staring extensively chills you.

■ Most mannequins cover up in excess clothing and swarm you in crowded spaces to stab. They borrow your appearance, if they touch you. Some devolve into eldritch forms, mimicking voices or puppeteering husked corpses to lure you.

■ Each mannequin has a one-word code on its nape or right calf — once spoken, the creature glitches, letting you run.

Image source.

A MAGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

The corrosive magic that spreads throughout Serthica is anchored in two areas: a port dock and a former Mouse House shelter. Cleanse it through exorcism, purification, healing spells, or by planting wards borrowed from Karsa.

This magic feels hot, asphyxiating, aggressively proliferating, intrusive. Uncontained, it gradually feeds off your power. It might drive you to anger, bitterness, doubt or violence.

To Arc III survivors, it feels like the overwhelming power native to the Ke-Sanwon volcano (not dark water).

■ Once you’ve destroyed both magical anchors, inhuman-looking mannequins deactivate. Human-presenting ones seem sluggish and inattentive.

■ Finn’s mannequin remains alive when supplied life or magical force (think 5% of someone’s reserves) — either through weekly transfers or a rewiring of the magic that sustains her (by a party magic user, or Finn can learn the skills in later travel.)

Image source.

✘ WET OF THE DOCK'S WET

At first, locals don’t remember the putrid inactive dock exists as a distant extension of Serthica’s port, located past a familiar deserted marketplace. Here, rotten wood, a stench of perpetual moulding, torn ropes and rusted chains.

■ Thinking extensively about the dock before finding it incurs nausea, vertigo and the animal instinct to flee.

■ Persist, and you learn this dock was once used to smuggle in illegal arrivals from Ke-Waihu. Later, it loaded the bodies of the plagued that were burned at sea.

■ Rotten wood planks can break, dropping you into paralysing waters. The dead might reach out from the depths to drag you in.

■ You hear alluring, wind-born whispers of, How chilly it is, while the cold abruptly intensifies, and, It’s warm in the waters.. Won’t you… jump in?

■ Ships no longer call here — yet a small boat stops for you. You might feel compelled or curious to join the lone passenger — a man in white, whose features you forget after. As the boat drifts, attracting the swimming undead that seek to climb in, the man offers safe return, if you answer: What do you most want? Where would you stop to obtain it? Lie, and the boat capsizes, leaving you to swim back amid undead. Answer honestly to return unharmed.

Image source.

✘ (UN)SHELTERED

Visit the impoverished, underground Mouse House and avoid breathing in the thick, memory clouding sedative infusions. The grandiose shelter is familiar, its recalling the ruined mansion of the Unwinding. Locals say the house — which preceded Ma’am Mariol’s shelter as an orphanage — is haunted. The coal sickness spread overground after a child was adopted from here.

■ Spirits jump to throttle you or trip you down stairs, throw knives or lock you in claustrophobic rooms. Stair steps, window sills and roof beams readily collapse.

■ The last entries of house logs, found open on a library desk, mention seven freshly arrived children — six native to the Mouse House, including Gavroche, and one heavily burned boy from Ke-Waihu.

■ The ghosts of orphanage caretakers are enjoying a tea party. They ask if you are a servant or a guest. Answer ‘servant,’ and you must pour tea, as attendants stab you with cutlery when you’re within reach. You are dismissed once you finish pouring. Answer ‘guest’, and you must join them at the table and perform whatever they ask: slap yourself, dress up as a doll, answer inconvenient questions, etc. You can leave once someone else has poured tea.

■ Find the dark magic source in the house greenhouse that has been overrun by ruinous mould. While physically unharmed, you feel overcome by crippling fear, loneliness, abandonment or futility. Talking about it helps soothe it.

THE SCENIC SCIENCE ROUTE

The science-based cure requires retrieving resources and researching an answer. Godspeed.

Image source.

✘ THE SEED & THE STORM

The Unwinding revealed strands of juniper and rosemary that cure the sickness. Cain d’Ubiq confirms quantities of each plant remain cryogenically intact aboard the Serthica Aerial Healing Unit ships that were caught in the crossfire of the Sibilant Sands, when Eidris and Minaras fought their last battle. Find the vessels to retrieve the goods.

■ Take your transport flier or one of Cain d’Ubiq’s martial, fire-breathing dragons to traverse the Sibilant Sands, roughly one day’s flight each way of Serthica. Expect a hard ride, amid the growing howl of winds whipping your face and the accelerating pulse of a breaking storm.

■ Martial dragons challenge inexperienced riders, but fly sturdily through intermittent sandstorms and whirlwinds.

■ The ships can be found near dragon bones and human skeletons, in stages of burial or disrepair, stranded between rocks, or threatening to collapse once rattled.

■ Beware serpentine barbed wire animated by dark water, which jumps up from the sands. Just as vile are buried vermin-like creatures that send their razor-blade-ended tentacles to strike out from below ground.

■ Members of protest group Remembrance are also unearthing ships. They plan to board mannequins on the vessels, pass them as Minaraian and attack Eidris once more.

■ Their volatile leader Chrichter is personally fixing a ship.

Image source.

✘ THINK, TANK

Time to liberate a lab. Minaras’ foremost medical unit is the Conclave Healing Academy, comprising research labs, libraries, equipment rooms and sample collections, including some of the coal sickness.

■ The Academy connects to the centre that treatsZenobius and brims with healing apprentices. Bring juniper and rosemary samples, pose as a bright-eyed novice healer or a concerned relative of Zenobius, or barge in.

■ The Academy is cold, sterile, clean and swarmed by practising medics and academicians. Some even debate resurrection and immortality. Access is barred below, where you can hear occasional, sharp… growls.

■ Several basement laboratories are marked to study the coal sickness. Steal the entry codes from guards or tease them from a lowly medical intern — but don’t linger on the corridors long. Large clockwork hounds patrol and are attracted to sweat, a heightened or rapid pulse, shortness of breath or other biological signs of fear.

■ Take over a lab to concoct a cure elixir from the herbal strands. Test it against the coal sickness samples. Work safely, or the start of a blood cough might announce you’ve taken sick.

■ Hold the fort until your cure’s done, while guards and hounds try to enter your lab through air vents, windows or ram the door. Fight back, distract them or persuade the Academy protective droids they’re the enemy.

■ Anyone affected with the sickness can drink the cure without waiting to destroy the magical anchors. Symptoms fully disappear within 24-72h. Characters remain sensitive to the un/dead.

Image source.

SPREAD YOUR JOY

Mass-production time: take over the former underground Remembrance headquarters, one of Cain d’Ubiq’s factories, or make potions in your back yard. The cure can be drunk or absorbed through skin and must be spread overground.

You can pursue your own ideas, but some suggestions on the house:

■ Take your dragon or hijack a Minaras airship and a diffuser to spray down an incense mix that contains the cure. Minaras airships sleep in secured bays you’ll have to infiltrate. Careful taking a dragon into Minaras or an airship to Eidris — local authorities may perceive this as a security breach.

■ Reprogram or con hapless droids to feed the cure as ‘novel vitamins’ to their owners.

■ Commandeer the Mouse House train that ferries supplies from the Serthica ports and spray the cure on produce and grains.

■ Minaras High Councillor Arabella has been previously targeted by Remembrance and could be subtly persuaded to help by her rescuers.

■ Vanessa’s contact, crime boss Artemius Bale, might also have his people sneak the cure into waterways — if you cut a deal.

■ …lemonade stand?

NOTES:

■ We need one finished thread of breaking the anchors and supplying, making and distributing the cure to get the Very Best Ending, but there are multiple other finale options too — link your threads by 29 November!

■ Thanks to Finn and the Doctor’s efforts to help Ma’am Mariol’s orphanage, enjoy tips, information and help with legwork from her street-smart urchins.

■ You can ask for Artemius Bale & others here or at the NPC inbox!

■ BACK TO THE TOP.

QUESTIONS

Comments

vanessa ives | penny dreadful

[matermali]

[ unless otherwise specified, prompts are open. if you crave something else, gimme a wildcard or hit my plotting post. ]

DOCKS } the man in white drops us off at the edge

[matermali]

After sharing wishes and fears that she never thought she could admit aloud, no less to a stranger, Vanessa is left feeling adrift even even after returning to the docks. Never ready to be left behind. She had bared her heart to the man in white, and now what?

If she was with someone else when on the boat, she seems to momentarily forget their presence, staring deep into the waters that beckon once the man in white has departed. She knows she can't ever get such a wish granted, not in the way she wants. To be loved for what I am. If God could not deliver such a miracle, then who could stand a chance?

The waters would be so much warmer than the chill permeating the air. It breathes through her heavy skirts and gloves to prick at raw skin. The sea has always called to Vanessa. The ocean's depths have seemed sweet to sink into since she was young, but the pull just now is beyond even her dark yearnings of youth, back when she thought of being one with everything. What, now, of being one with nothing? Of joining the undead that beckon from the depths?

She takes a step.

[clavesregni]

Caitlyn had answered the boatman truthfully. Why shouldn't she have? She has nothing to hide when it comes to her desires. Well, not really.

There are lots of things she wants. Everyday sorts of things. She wants to hold Vi gently and know that she'll never have to let her go, she wants to show Vi every tenderness she's ever been denied. She wants Vi to pin her to a wall again and stare at her with that smoulder in her eyes. She wants her mother to tell her that she was wrong, that Caitlyn clearly was meant to be a detective and she should follow her dreams. She wants to hug her dad again, to let him know that she's alright. She wants Jayce to look at her and see her as the grown woman she is, not the child she was.

But when she'd sat in that gently rocking boat above the black water with the man in white looming over her, she'd felt like she was that child again, and a memory had come back to her of standing on a balcony in the countryside overlooking Piltover. And when he'd asked what she wanted most, the question she'd heard was What are you shooting for? So she hadn't said anything about Vi or her parents or Jayce. She'd said, "To protect the people of my city."

Now she's back on the docks with the other woman who was in the boat, and she rubs her arms awkwardly against the cold.

"We should keep moving." She says it gently, because she's fairly certain that the other woman admitted something rather more personal. She starts to turn away when she realizes her companion isn't following. Rather, she's moving back towards the water.

Caitlyn reaches for her, trying to take hold of her arm.

"Be careful. You'll fall in."

[matermali]

What if she's tired of being careful? There's a limit on how much one can fight and fail to exert control. To give into someone else's desire might be freedom of a different name, and the water desires her. Isn't the point to fall in, when she steps out in the hopes that she can leave this eternal chill behind? But someone stops her, interrupting that call from the deep with a very human touch, and Vanessa nearly flinches from the earnest wish of it. A much gentler calling, but enough to momentarily break her spell.

Of course, someone who had made a wish for the sake of an entire city would be the type to be sincere in her heroism, but Vanessa still feels bittersweet about the disruption. Someone who makes such selfless wishes would be better helping those who are not yet lost to the cause.

"Was that real?" Vanessa has more reason than most to question if she really was just in a boat sharing her deepest desire with the man in white.

[clavesregni]

Caitlyn keeps a hand on the woman's arm, steadying her, waiting to make sure that she won't slip - or step - off the edge.

"I think so."

It's not an unreasonable question. So much of what she's experienced since arriving in this world has given Caitlyn reason to doubt her perceptions. Perhaps the man in white and the boat weren't real at all, and they're both going mad. But Caitlyn's gotten this far by trusting what her eyes and ears tell her, and she'd rather that than lose herself to doubt.

[makemeasong]

Clara's answer gives her safe passage, riding back in the boat with Vanessa. Now that they've shared the same single-question interrogation, she wonders what the other woman might think later, once she's settled her own private thoughts. What had she answered? Exactly what she told the Doctor when she leaped into his time stream: to be remembered by him. As for what she'd do, her answer is belated but given. She would die a million deaths across time and space. She already has.

Vanessa's answer to the same question makes Clara's heart break in a peculiar way. Not pity, but caring. She knows nothing about her, the Doctor hasn't done anything to betray her confidence, but Clara has the sense that this woman is profoundly sad, and it's all tucked away to be found in the same place she can see the Doctor's — in her eyes.

On the dock, Clara once again feels exposed and vulnerable, raw in a way she's come to hate. Her eyes fall to the water as well, but when she sees Vanessa take a step, her own desire to slip into the warmth is overridden by instinct. One hand reaches out to lightly wrap around her arm.

"Don't. It's a trick. I've learned whatever this place tells us, whatever it whispers in our ears, it's not real. It's the opposite of whatever it's trying to convince us of. Come on, we need to go, we need to get back to where other people are."

[matermali]

Although she'd been vaguely aware of the company of another while in the boat, she had been so mesmerized by the man in white that it still doesn't quite sink in that she ever even moved from the docks to begin with. She might have just imagined it all, in which case this could also be like falling into a dream. A better one.

Someone's small hand grabbing for her arm is enough to introduce momentary panic, that this even this choice will be taken from her. She grasps at the hand of the other woman, but in defiance, as if readying to draw her in alongside. Wouldn't it be better to have another companion in the depths?

The wood creaks at the motion, though, and Vanessa comes to enough to freeze in her uncertainty. When she glances to see who it is that's stopped her, Vanessa stares. It isn't the first time she's seen the young woman, though the first time had been through the Doctor's eyes. Clara had dared to sacrifice a precious memory for the sake of others. How could she ever think she herself might not be remembered?

"...I've not yet finished." Vanessa has no desire to return to where other people are, no matter how much these docks try to sicken her senses. "You may go, I will promise to keep from the edge."

[makemeasong]

Clara lets go immediately, not keen on holding on when it isn't wanted. But if Vanessa thinks Clara is leaving completely, she has another thing coming. "I'm sorry, but I can't leave you here. I'll back up and give you privacy, but I'm not leaving you, Vanessa."

Her voice is firm; she means it, she'll back up enough that there's no way she could even hear Vanessa if she decides to speak into the waters. But if she slips, if the voices that haunt this place wrap around her mind, she'll put her running skills to good use. Whether or not this is acceptable to the other woman, Clara steps away from the dock and onto the grassy bank, standing under a tree. She can still make out Vanessa's silhouette and for now, that's enough.

The dangers of this place are ever-present and always somewhere on the spectrum of terrifying; to the point it's turned Clara into a pint-sized extension of the Doctor, keeping a watchful eye on everyone.

[matermali]

Vanessa is no stranger to keeping all kinds of shadows, whether benevolent or malevolent, but to this one she sees no purpose. What Vanessa has picked up on is that Clara isn't one to be easily turned aside, however, so she won't bother. Too weary for even such meager conflict, and she has nothing against the woman's company in specificity. It does raise some suspicion, but she would hope that the Doctor wouldn't send someone else to watch over her on her excursions.

Keeping away from the water and still musing over what just occurred with the man in the boat, Vanessa's heartfelt shame being so exposed is enough to force a strange pang in the physical distance she allows between her and Clara.

Too much too soon, but isn't that how all the most tender friendships begin?

With her bag clutched tight, Karsa's ward secure inside, Vanessa continues her search for the source of the putrid air. It isn't the rot of the undead in the water, she can manage that just fine. The sense of the anchor crawls under her skin.

"You needn't act as my shadow, Miss Oswald. If you wish to join me, then you may. I cannot promise for fair company, is my only regret."

[makemeasong]

She's met plenty of people since arriving in Serthica she tries to look out for in the same fashion, but in the last few weeks, in the downtime at home, the Doctor's mentioned Vanessa's name in passing. Not odd at all unless you know him: he never speaks of anyone he's known. There've been dozens and dozens of companions on the TARDIS over time, and it was only in the moments before Trenzelore that Clara even knew 'Professor Song' was River and his wife. So, to hear him ramble and reference a specific person more than once means they must be important.

Which means, by extension and without prompting, Clara is going to worry—though dialed back (probably)—from the Doctor's way of fussing at the very least.

At the invitation, she does eagerly go with Vanessa so she won't be alone, trying to flash a smile that conveys how fine everything is. "You mean being forced to reveal something personal doesn't make you feel sociable afterward? Glad it isn't just me, then."

The magic is sticky and oppressive to Clara, like a wet blanket trying to smother out the good and logic that currently seems to be thriving. "I hated group therapy. I like sharing, but not on assignment. And not a forced topic. Also probably not to someone who doesn't have any such thing as 'best interests' in mind."

[matermali]

Perhaps it's habit instilled from young age that Vanessa bothers to smile in return, but it's so forced that she can feel it crack before even looking away. If she's to be frigid, she'd rather be so without any niceties, but none of her sore feelings are for Clara herself. No matter how suspicious she's been in her ominous remarks towards the beginning, Vanessa can only believe that the other woman wants to see as many people succeed in their way as possible.

Exactly why she ought to turn around now, but she seems the type to need proof. Vanessa hopes that it doesn't come too soon.

She can still appreciate the dark humor, even if she only stares into the darkness at the reminder of being forced to share something that she herself doesn't like to acknowledge. That is, until a remark on group therapy again turns her head, eliciting a puzzled stare most unusual to her normal composure.

Vanessa knows so very well about 'therapy', though she never experienced it in a group setting. For her to now imagine the man in white as something of one of the doctors of her past leaves her paler than before, if such a thing is possible. Was it crueler or kinder than any of her former psychotherapies?

Though curious about Clara's relation to group therapy, she isn't ready to share why it would strike a chord with her. Unlike Clara, Vanessa doesn't like sharing. Instead, it's better to focus on the perpetrator of their little excursion.

"...Not even the Child's best interests?"

[makemeasong]

"Do you think the Man in White cares about the Child?"

Gaining information isn't why Clara shares (most of the time); she doesn't mind being a little vulnerable if it helps even one person feel like they aren't alone. The look at the mention of therapy is noted, but they've moved on and she continues her thought. If she realized there was a gap there, she would've stopped to fill it in.

"I'm not sure I think that. Most days I don't know what to think, but I know I didn't feel good just now on the boat with him. What do personal questions asked by that man have to do with the Child?"

[matermali]

"I cannot fathom how our private considerations could help the Child in any way... But he did talk of the man in white as rather benevolent towards him. He gave the boy the umbrella. He claimed that the man in white made Serthica just for him. Given how displeased the Child was before disappearing, I had near expected a frightful visit from his friend soon after."

Of course, Vanessa has good reason to live the life of the paranoid, and it has nothing to do with the trials presented by Serthica.

"Nothing quite like this, though. It's almost...worse. Yet...strange that he wouldn't try to stop us, if the Child did not want us to proceed."

Again, perhaps her paranoia, but she is tired of the incessant way that the rot of this place continues to unfurl behind her eyes. The mirrors are all covered in shadow. So much here haunts her in a familiar fashion, yet it makes so much less sense than it ever did.

[makemeasong]

Clara's quiet as they walk, as Vanessa talks, thinking and turning over what she's said and what they know. She doesn't mean to contradict herself; new information is given to her and theories change. Currently, she isn't sure where she sits on everything in play.

"Let's go back a little. We know the Child has no idea how to control his abilities. We also know we were brought here for him to play with." She hates that sentence the moment it leaves her mouth. "Who else are we supposed to blame then, but the Child when things go very wrong? Is the man in white a friend, or is he orchestrating something bigger, using the Child as a distraction or a convenient excuse?"

Never has Clara been a conspiracy theorist, but Serthica's done a good job doing exactly what it wants: getting into her head.

"Kids trust adults who're nice and give them things. It's just what they do."

[matermali]

Vanessa still can't say for certain if the Child can or cannot control his abilities, but there's little point in arguing pure conjecture. Everything that Clara notes on speaks to a menace that has previously occurred to Vanessa, but there is something quite off about such a thought after tonight.

"Too, I worried over his possible manipulations of the Child, but...consider what just happened. He compelled us as if it were nothing. If he has such an ability, then I doubt he would need to go to so much trouble merely to dress up a sacrificial lamb."

Which isn't to say it can't be that and something more, but Vanessa is still undecided upon the role that the man in white is meant to play in this realm.

[makemeasong]

"One way or another, at some point, I have a feeling we'll find out everything we've wanted to know. Whether or not we like the answers remains to be seen."

Clara can't commit to any single explanation, it's all too much. "I have to admit, I've never been so challenged by a specific location. Figuring out ghosts that aren't ghosts and Cybermen on a moon—the Doctor's gotten me into some situations. But even he hasn't ever been any place like this, and I think that scares me more than anything else."

He's lived over a thousand years, he's been all over time and space, and Serthica has never even been a blip on the TARDIS's radar. "How could something so dark and so awful be brewing, large enough to cross into alternate versions of Earth, yet no one else in the universe the Doctor has ever encountered has ever bothered to at least mention it? Even the worst of the worst have the capacity for self-preservation."

[matermali]

Impressive that Clara feels certain they will learn everything. Vanessa's never been so lucky. Even with the answers only bringing more pain, she's always sought them out and rarely found them. Then again, she hasn't been lucky enough to travel with someone quite like the Doctor, who's had much more experience than her friends in London at solving such puzzles.

"We already know that they can alter our memory, even compel us... The Doctor is not immune to such powers. Perhaps he did once know, but forgot. Perhaps those he spoke to once knew, but forgot."

A moment's glance is offered, a sort of sympathy in acknowledging the fear that creates for Clara, but she won't linger on it. Everyone ought to be scared. Even the Doctor. Especially Vanessa.

She pauses when some boards creek more loudly beneath her feet, and Vanessa wisely keeps a wide birth to the left. It isn't easy, however, because she needs to find her way around the right of some rotting crates to the front of a warehouse. There's a sickening pull from that direction.

"Has he ever stood against anything similar to this, can you recall?"

[makemeasong]

Clara pauses, watching her step and then following in Vanessa's footsteps, hands sweating.

"The Doctor's been here before, apparently. He just doesn't remember." So, points to Vanessa. There's a snap, but nothing gives; she does freeze for a second before continuing slowly. Thinking about Vanessa's question, she makes a noise in the back of her throat.

"Which part? There are Cybermen, they're the closest to the droids. But they're also hell-bent on taking over the universe and assimilating everyone, stripping away all emotion and parts that make us human. And there was the time I was turned into a living doll, but I couldn't move. I was stuck, in my head. But nothing controlled me, nothing made me think things or compelled me to do anything."

[matermali]

Should a realm like this feed on fear, Vanessa can imagine why it might refuse to give up a creature like the Doctor.

Any considerations for that idea, or for the nightmarish desires of Cybermen, are momentarily left aside when Clara shares a nightmare of a far more personal nature. At that, Vanessa doesn't only glance, but she stares. Her brow is furrowed, but in place of soft sympathy is sharp fear. To lose control of oneself, even without being compelled, it cutting to the core. To be trapped within a doll is a thought that brings nausea.

"You─ That must have been frightening."

Her gaze falls away, back to the warehouse and a better path inside. Behind, perhaps? Only, another building over has collapsed, and the debris stacks high with rotten wood jutting out in menace. They may have to go round the front, but Vanessa feels a sense of foreboding at the thought.

"Who did such a thing? How were you freed?"

[makemeasong]

Clara glances up at Vanessa, answering the second question first. "The Doctor. Always the Doctor." Never mind the fact that he's the one who takes her to these places. Looking at the path, she's wary of her footfalls.

"I remember being caught up, but between that and the Doctor finding me, I don't remember anything. Just being really, really scared." She isn't sure why it's all a blank, maybe it's a way her mind protects itself.

"The idea was thought up by a creature from long ago that should've died after it crashed into our planet. But it found a host, over and over again until it finally found one willing to make something aesthetically perfect with it. We could be posed, on display under glass." She remembers listening to the Doctor explain it all once they were safely back in the TARDIS, floating in the time vortex. "Something was done to all of us on display, like we were dipped in some sort of wax."

When they make it to the warehouse, Clara actually stops walking, frowning ahead.

"This feels like—" She pauses, trying to find the word but can only come up with one. "Like knowing we're walking into a trap." Her gaze drifts back to Vanessa.

"Which must mean we're in the right place."

[matermali]

Always the Doctor. So assuredly, as if he's been there protecting her all her life. Perhaps he has in his own ways, acting as the guardian angel Vanessa used to fear. There's little understanding what that must feel like, that easy reliance on protection. The only angel ever to reach out to Vanessa throughout her former life had been Fallen.

She can't imagine how long she might have lasted through the same ordeal as Clara. To be so distinctly trapped as she described, only for some otherworldly monster's amusement... An even more shallow entrapment than Lucifer's. She might have truly gone mad. Even with Clara's faith in the Doctor, it must have been something that haunts the dreams.

Any sympathy is to be temporarily traded for pragmatism when Clara speaks up about Vanessa's very concern.

"It often does," she murmurs, turning back to the stack of rotting crates that are determined to force them towards the center of the dock's path before they can enter the warehouse. Despite the collapsed building just behind, Vanessa's going to quietly part from Clara without explanation, off to see if she can discover any small path through the rubble behind the warehouse.

She won't, but it's worth a try.

[makemeasong]

If only Vanessa knew the opposite was just as true. For as many times as the Doctor has indeed saved Clara, she broke herself apart for him so that she could save him all throughout time and space. Not that he knows yet. No one but Red and River know what Clara's done and only because one had the ability to sense it, and the other was there when she jumped. Otherwise, if it were up to her, no one would know. The problem is, Serthica probably won't allow that for long, if the previous mind games are anything to go by.

Used to the Doctor simply walking away—sometimes mid-sentence, even—Clara doesn't do more than glance over when she realizes Vanessa's walking away with purpose. Divide and conquer, she hopes.

The dock is the path forward, the dread in her gut like the needle of a compass. When she walks, her footfalls are light, she stays close to where the edges seem the sturdiest, and that works for a few steps. It's always in those last moments when one's closest to safety that the worst seems to happen; the sound of more than one board snapping at once ricochets through the air. With a surprised shout, she manages to get out Vane—before greedy hands attempt to pull her under.

[matermali]

The crack of wood is stark enough to whip her attention around just in time to see Clara there, then gone with a cry and a splash. The damp wood groans loudly in threat with each frantic step as Vanessa races over, but she ignores it for the sake of hope. As if she can outrun the rot.

Dropping to her knees, Vanessa grabs carelessly at splintered edges and half flings herself into the water to stretch her other hand for Clara's. She finds the woman's wrist, but another also has a grip on Clara, leaving Vanessa to struggle and pull as the wood continues to creak. Through the murky waters and in the depths past Clara's shoulder is the the snarling face of the undead, and as she hovers inches from the little splashes that ensue in the tug-of-war, Vanessa bares her teeth down at it and snarls back.

Just as its grip weakens, just as Vanessa tries letting go of the edge of the jagged edge with a (now bloodied) palm so that she can stretch for Clara with both hands, the boards beneath her give in and snap, dropping her down into the struggle before she can catch her breath.

(UN)SHELTERED } a little friendly neighborhood possession

[matermali]

The spirits haunting the former orphanage haven't made progress simple, whether any helpful souls have come alone or with a partner. Anyone having made it upstairs might find themselves locked into the library once they begin investigating the house logs. The doors slam shut of their own accord, seemingly jammed. Not long after, someone's footsteps begin creaking their way down the hall. A woman's voice, strained as if from a long run, is counting down with each clip of her boot. (Miss Ives? Couldn't be...)

"5...4..." Creak, pause. "3...2...?" Creak. Just outside the library doors, the flicker of a weak lamp sends shadows to peek through the crack at the bottom. There's a hushed whisper, as if shushing someone behind her, before a childish lilt teases from the other side of the doors. Vanessa (is it possibly?) taps incessantly at the doorframe with her nails. "I know that you're hiding in there... You always hide in there. Come out."

...

BANG. A burst of howls and thumps are unleashed against the doors with a ferocity that makes them shudder, and the decrepit frame groans with its own fear as Vanessa's onslaught lasts for several seconds. The doorknob seems like it may fall off from the force at which it rattles and twists, but it holds.

The assault ends as abruptly as it began.

Stillness. Quiet enough to hear the pounding of one's heart. The shadow underneath the door flickers in the dim light of a shaky lamp. A moment later, another little creak tests the floors. A whisper, a whine.

"...Please? I hate this game."

(UN)SHELTERED } tea party with charles (closed)

[matermali]

She doesn't know why she answers 'guest', or how anyone could answer 'servant', but it seems compulsion has been a common theme of late. Given the deeds she's committed in the name of her brand of justice, might this not seem a fitting punishment? To be devoid of control is a fear that this world has exploited a much as her own, and it's all she can do to keep from screaming when she's made to sit at an all-too-familiar table for tea.

The Unwinding had once had its way with her sanity, denying her the right to agency and the knowing of her own soul as the rain had melted away her very being. To question her reality has long been a curse of Vanessa's, and the Unwinding had deepened that curse. Here she is now, being reminded, and then there he is. Another who must have been shaped in part by the uncertainties laid bare by the Unwinding.

One of the guests, a ghost with a shrill laugh, asks Vanessa where her husband is. Will he be joining us, dear? "No, I, I have no husband." But you are promised to someone, aren't you? Such a lovely thing, you must have a man on your arm. "It's, well it's─" You do! Tell us the name of your beloved. You must. Who are you promised to? She shakes her head, eyes darting between the apparitions and reaching to scratch under her sleeve. Her silk gloves soften any attempts to distract herself from their compulsion. "He has many names."

She flinches with a jerk of her chin in defiance at the notion. Could she mean Ethan? It should be Ethan (he has his own secret lives, doesn't he?). They aren't promised to one another, but neither does she think herself promised to Amun-Ra or any of his incarnations.

It's the curse of this place. Everything stokes the Evil.

Another one of the ghostly caretakers laughs out How mysterious! Do you also have other names, Miss Ives? while brandishing a knife when Charles comes near with the tea. Vanessa lurches forward to take it from her, but they request her to Please, sit! You're being incredibly rude, you haven't answered the question. and so she stays rooted, unable to stop anything they might do to him. All she can do is answer the question, though she resists to the point of keeping honest without being blatant. "What others call me, yes. Isn't that so for everyone?"

Disappointed chatter follows. They may need to be more forceful with their questions, she's so evasive!