hale and whole

[groundrules]

HALE AND WHOLE

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

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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.

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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.)

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✘ 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.

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✘ (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.

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✘ 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.

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✘ 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.

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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

[makemeasong]

[ She'd been able to push away the thoughts brought on by the magic in the house, she'd dealt with the feelings of uselessness and loneliness like a champ — with Red's help. But it's this, two words and then a string of them all in a row that make Clara finally stumble. When Red pulls back, she isn't the only one with tears in her eyes. ]

We forget?

[ Her voice catches and she stares at Red unblinking, until a tear finally slips down the apple of her cheek. ]

I'm—I'll forget all the extra time I've had with the Doctor?

[ That was the only thing that made any of this worth it. She hated being in Serthica until she realized it was time with him. Extra time to make memories to take back with her, fortification to help that new face through the regeneration process. Time to say all of the things she should've and never did because she'd been too afraid before. Again, she'd had a little bit of happiness after an ocean of grief, and once more, the tide has come back in. ]

So I'll lose him all over again.

[ Clara's voice is flat, already trying to put this information in a box with all the rest of her sadness. ]

[growlies]

( Red swallows as she sees the realization hit Clara - maybe she shouldn't have said, but she would have learned at some point. There aren't a lot of people in the group who have been through the beacon and then spat back here, but there are a handful of them. Still her heart aches, knowing how much loss Clara expressed to her that first time they talked - all she struggled and wrestled with, how hard she fought to find the Doctor again.

Her head ducks, red hair drifting in front of her face. )

...I'm sorry.

It might not be that way for everyone - just what happened to someone I know before they ended up back here again, and the Doctor thinks the TARDIS will find him here then I bet it- it wouldn't be like that.

( It would be like whatever a trip with that blue box is actually like. No mention of memory loss any time the Doctor or Clara has talked about their adventures at least not where the TARDIS is concerned. )

[makemeasong]

You don't have to apologize for anything. I think you're right, that's all. Someone told me he was here before, but the Doctor would've said it. I think he would've told me if he had been, which means he doesn't remember. I didn't—I forgot until just now, can't even remember who told me anymore.

[ It's too much, and she reaches out for Red again to hug her tightly since it seemed okay the first time. Before letting go, she murmurs quietly. ]

I'm glad I know. Even if it feels absolutely shitty, we can share that together, at least. And I don't think anything can every really be forgotten anyway. How people've made you feel, I think that stays in your bones.

[growlies]

( Red softens even as she sinks into the hug, understanding Clara means what she says. God, hugs really are amazing though, wonderful really. She would have found out one way or another - already did. Red didn't know the Doctor was here before. Her arms tighten around her, and she swallows through the emotion of it, pulling back slow.

She clears her throat. Her hand rests on Clara's arm. )

...so how've you been since we last like talked? I know the Tower was shittier than the Unwinding even.

( almost impressively shittier. )

[makemeasong]

[ Hugs are, verifiably, an amazing comfort. Clara's always been tactile; touch grounds her, makes her feel less like she isn't endlessly falling. Meeting Red's gaze once they pull back, she lets out a soft breath. ]

Somehow, I needed saving again. Twice. Please say you did better than me.

[ Clara remembers the Doctor insisting he had to go back inside. She'd wanted to tell him not to, that he couldn't go back. She hadn't because her friends were in there too. He'd run back into the tower, and she remembers seeing him later, limping; now Clara wonders if Red saw him inside—she asked the Doctor what happened, and he'd artfully avoided the topic. ]

[growlies]

I think that's what the Tower was all about - everyone needed saving at some point, y'know?

( Red doesn't know that she could count the number of times she had to be saved or she was able to save someone else. Her time in the Labyrinth especially is a blur that's difficult to piece together. )

Including me, but I don't know how much or- ( She shrugs and swallows, loosely folding her arms across her chest. ) It was all shit.

[makemeasong]

Everything about it. [ There's an easy agreement. ]

Listen, if you ever need anything, even if it's not Serthica related, I'm around. As long as I'm here—and I know I can't promise anything—but as long as I'm here, you've got me.

[ Clara gives Red a soft smile, small but warm and reaching her eyes. ]

[growlies]

( Red lifts her gaze toward Clara. She's still not entirely used to this - the kindness of the people in their group along with their bravery, their recklessness. She can tell she means it though. )

Yeah. Same here.

If you ever need anything...

( She'd do what she can. ) For now we should probably get out of this gas and shit, huh? ( Cause as far as she knows the Mouse House area is still getting that gas. Gotta love Serthica. )

[makemeasong]

[ Clara smiles a little bit more at Red, enough that her dimples show. ]

Let's go. Before the Doctor sends out a search and rescue for me. He hates that I dare to help. Be careful, he'll start getting fussy over you too, if he hasn't already.

[ She'll walk with Red until they each need to go their separate ways. ]