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

[blackscales]

[ Ah. Wrathion had been so focused on the concept of Anduin being in danger, of how he could tell from this if it was Anduin or not, that he hadn't even noticed the repetition.

He flexes his grip on his communicator, glancing down at it and back up at the door, then nods. ]

I just checked, he's in Eidris.

[ Titans, he's had enough nightmares about Anduin being in danger, he doesn't need these things mimicking it now. Wrathion pockets it and gestures to the sliding door behind them into the apartment proper, which is blessedly about 3/4 closed by now.

It really does take a very long time. ]

Let us put another door between us and them, muffle the sound and adds a barrier in case they manage to push this open. I also have tea.

[ For the nerves. ]

[makemeasong]

[ She shouldn't have put it past the mannequins to be able to do this, but it's unnerving to say the least. If she'd been alone, would she have realized the same thing, or would she have panicked immediately instead of pausing to consider Wration's stake in things? For now, she's simply glad they have one another.

Backing up with him into the room, there's at least some muffling happening already, for which she's grateful. ]

Tea sounds brilliant. I'm sorry I brought this to your door. But to be fair, things were going fine, and then chaos. Which has been a theme.

[blackscales]

A familiar theme. I have learned that if we do not find trouble first, it often finds us.

[ He busies himself preparing to make some tea: pulling down items and arranging them in the limited space of the small Minaras kitchen. Every few minutes, his eyes flick to the door. Just to make sure it is still, in fact, closing. That the one to outside is still holding, with the mannequins. ]

I hope herbal suits you, it has been my own preference.

[ It's been a stressful time, something soothing has tended to help. Its either that or alcohol, and alcohol tends to be frowned on early in the day. ]

[makemeasong]

My people take tea any way we can get it.

[ She has an air of teasing in her voice and looks at him with a small but warm smile. ]

Herbal is perfect. Can I do anything?

[ Tea isn't normally a two-person job, but she's a guest. She is still standing close to the door, watching it close and reassuring herself again that it wasn't really the Doctor out there. ]

[blackscales]

Keep an eye on the door, make nothing comes through before it closes.

[ Not that he doesn't keep anxiously looking up anyway, but his eyes aren't glued to it. He could miss something. He fills a pot with water, then touches a hand to it to begin heating it quickly. Cheating, he's sure, but sometimes you simply cannot be bothered to wait for water to boil the slow way. ]

You were curious about the child's family?

[ The original reason for her visit, before the whole mannequin situation. ]

[makemeasong]

[ There's no way she's taking her eyes off of the door, but it's closer to being shut. Tempting to look away, but she feels like it's a trap: if she looks away, the mannequins will be through the outer door. ]

I am, to figure out how I feel personally about the child. Should I be sympathetic, should I not? Is it too late to bring him back from the dark side of things?

[ Clara slips into Star Wars and shakes her head to get back on track. The point stands. ]

It's difficult to make decisions without having all of the pieces. I really don't understand the man in white's role in all of this. Is he family? Why does the child trust him?

[ Clara pauses, and when door finally closes with a satisfying latching sound, she looks back at Wrathion. ]

I know some of these are rhetorical, and I don't expect you to have all of the answers. But you were one of the few I spoke to who seemed to know more along the lines of how the child came to be.

[blackscales]

[ The door finally closes and Wrathion feels tension ease from his body. He takes a lets the water steep for a moment, unfastening and shrugging off his coat to hang up. It buys him a few moments to shrug off the brief alarm, and to consider her question. ]

I cannot tell you if you should be sympathetic or not.

[ He turns from the coat rack, considers Clara thoughtfully. ]

But, I can tell you I do feel pity myself. To wield a destructive power, one that prevents a normal life, and from such a young age -- it is... difficult.

[ He paces back over, begins pulling down some cups for the tea. ]

My understanding, which I must warn you is partly conjecture, is the man in white is a scientist. All evidence suggests he has a connection to the Institute of Technology in Ellethia, where they studied many magical advancements. One of which was the ability to... essentially, extend lifespans. To cheat death. To 'cure' the problem of mortality, as they put it.

[ Wrathion arranges the cups, then lifts his eyes back to Clara. ]

All of Ellethia has been destroyed. Most of its people are dead. Whatever they did there, and we have some small pieces but not a clear picture, it spectacularly backfired. Now our friend, The White Wanderer, appears to be a survivor. Everywhere he travels, we appear to find powerful undead and chaos. If he is specifically causing them, I am unclear, but he's certainly not related to this child. Perhaps he adopted him, formally or informally, after he escaped his parents. Perhaps he offered answers the child wanted to hear.

[makemeasong]

[ Clara listens quietly, not interrupting. She's a talker by nature but even she knows when to just be quiet and process. This is new information about the man in white in particular, and frowns at the idea of someone attempting to play God.

As she watches Wrathion prepare the tea, her head tilts to the side, trying to sort out plausible ideas from the outrageous—even for Serthica. ]

Are we certain the boy escaped? Could it be possible that the man in white saved him somehow? It would definitely build the sort of trust the child has in that particular adult. Especially after adults are the ones who caused him so much pain.

[ Did the child ever suffer and cry in pain or fear? Did he understand anything happening to him? He's been so stripped of personhood already that they don't even know his name for certain. ]

[blackscales]

I had considered the same.

[ He leans on the counter, drops his eyes to study the brewing tea as he thinks. ]

We know the man in white was in their village. We know that he spoke to the boys father, when he was overwhelmed with anger. We know that after that, his father became the Beastmaster. A burned, scarred undead man who can exert his will over creatures. What we are missing is the detail. Was that something the man in white did to his father? Did he attempt to enter the volcano, and the man in white saved him by turning him? Did the man in white go looking for the child himself? We know the child was in the house of ravens, and did initially survive some time. What state he was in then we don't know. Children do not normally survive in such places without food and water.

[makemeasong]

Assuming he was hurt, because under his mask are scars, then it would make sense he'd latch onto whoever saved him. Even if it was the same person who hurt him because who else does he have?

[ She doesn't think the man in white actually hurt him, and clara shakes her head to clear it. ]

What about the mother? Did she disappear? The Beastmaster was looking for her—what did you say her name is?

[blackscales]

Saving and hurting are not necessarily exclusive. The volcano attached to the House of Ravens was filled with powerful magic, and that may have been what gifted the boy his powers. Or, of course, his friend may have saved him by empowering him. Giving him a gift.

[ Making him a child who spreads sickness, disease, whose friends become puppets. Toys. Things he keeps alive in an undead state. Wrathion touches the teapot again, checking how hot it is. ]

Her birth name was Kye-geum. The man we call the Beastmaster, his birth name was Hyang-Won. Familiar, no? It seems when she married, it was tradition she take a new name. So she became Anui.

The Beastmaster was born in Ke-Waihu, Anui -- The Huntress -- in Ke-Waicai. Ke-Waicai is where the House of Ravens is, and has a... cult-like atmosphere. When I met her, she was returning to Ke-Waicai. She wanted to find out if her son was still alive. The House of Ravens, it seems, only opens at certain times. The last time it had was when her son had been sent in. She was hiding, because the Beastmaster had also returned for the same reason. There was a conflict as it reached the day of the ceremony. The locals were preparing to appease the volcano as it opened, with ritual sacrifice. Our party, strong willed as they are, apposed this. The Beastmaster was also a part of this conflict, fighting them and additionally us.

[ A pause here, Wrathion's hand sliding from the teapot again to rest on the counter. ]

We killed him, and I lost track of the Huntress in the conflict. I'm not certain if she went in or not. The chaos made it difficult. The volcano was on the brink of eruption, taking all the surrounding villages with it. We were directing our concerns towards that.

[makemeasong]

[ Clara nods slowly—he is saying familiar things by now—one arm crossed over her chest while the thumb of her opposite hand moves over her bottom lip. It make the nail easier to chew on as she thinks. A habit she's had since her first semester at uni. ]

Obviously tossing children into volcanoes doesn't work. It was done in my world centuries ago in some cultures. Guess what? Volcanoes still erupted except for that one singular time it didn't and thus, a ritual was born.

[ Clara thinks of Merry Gejelh, brainwashed into thinking she was so important, only her young, barely started life should be snuffed out. She thinks of the little Incan girl from Earth, curled up, likely drugged out of her mind and left at the edge of a volcano. When Clara was young, she'd cried for days over her, climbing in bed with her parents. Frowning, she shakes her head and looks at Wrathion. ]

There's one thing about this part specifically that I don't understand. Which parent didn't want him to be a ritual sacrifice? You'd think if one of them was trying to save the child, they'd work with all of you—us, now since I've graced you with my presence—to save him and then sort out who else they want to fight later. Obviously, I'm wrong, right?

[ooc: my apologies, could not tag and take tests at the same time. if you'd rather, we can leave this and do something fresh but I'll also backtag into forever, so I'm good either way! ]

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion tilts his head, considering that, then picks up the pot and begins pouring out some tea. ]

The Beastmaster didn't want his son to be sacrificed, but the Huntress took him anyway. She wanted her child to have survived, but she never believed what she did was wrong. Raised in a cult, you understand. She simply could not believe there was any other way.

I never spoke with the Beastmaster myself. What little communication we had was unpleasant for me.

[ It simply would not have been safe, for him or anyone else, for him to risk what might have happened had the Beastmaster taken control of him.

Not that he's going to say that, as that would lead to questions he's not ready to answer. Still, he sets down the teapot and slides one cup closer to himself. ]

It's possible, if we'd had enough information early on, that he might have worked with us. Things were complicated by history. A city we were in before we ever reached their home village was attacked by both the Huntress and the Beastmaster. At the time, we had no context for either character. All we knew was they surged through the city. The Beastmaster's creatures attached themselves to people and took control of them. The Huntress made people relive their horrors. Not things that make you sympathetic to a person, I'm sure you'd agree.

[makemeasong]

[ Once she has her tea and her hands are wrapped around it, Clara breathes in the fragrant steam and then sighs. ]

No, I'd be pretty low on sympathy at that point. My heart is for the kid, but— [ Clara looks back toward the large door that's now closed, picturing the mannequins outside pretending to be people they care about. ]

I don't want any more tower scenarios, either. There's no winning on either side of this, seems like. The answers we get are all just pieces of a puzzle and who knows when we'll be able to see the full picture? In all my travels with the Doctor, I've never been anywhere like this. [ She pauses, taking a sip of tea. ]

Neither has he, for that matter.

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion lets out a little hum of agreement, picking up his own cup of tea. The herbal scent is soothing, allows him to block out the distant muffled sounds of the buildings front door being jostled by mannequins. ]

Pieces of the puzzle, as you say.

[ No full picture. Sometimes, learning something only gives rise to more questions. He takes a sip of his tea, considers Clara with a tilt of his head. ]

You have travelled with him extensively?

[makemeasong]

Not yet, from his point of view, but it's been a while now for me.

[ Clara smiles a little, unsure what the future holds in that regard. He's gone now, regenerated into a man completely different from the one here with them now. ]

He does know me though, so there's that. It could've been worse. Keeping secrets from him isn't the easiest, even though it's for his own good.

[blackscales]

[ Interesting. Wrathion sets his tea down again, thoughtful. ]

He told me he's a 'Time Lord'.

[ Wrathion isn't strictly sure how much of a secret that is or isn't, so just advertising that fact now in case it needs to be said. He does know. ]

[makemeasong]

[ Clara waits for him to continue, but when she realizes that's it, she tilts her head. ]

You sound unsure about that. He is, for the record.

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion shifts to lean his hip against the counter, sipping his tea as she answers. ]

The title is an unfamiliar form. I only wondered your relationship with him.

[ Given he's a 'Time Lord' and all. ]

[makemeasong]

[ She's close to saying if he were the only one left of his entire species, it might take a while for word to get around about Wrathion, too, but she isn't sure if the Doctor told him that part. Even if he did, it isn't her place to go around mentioning he's the only one—or supposed to be, anyway. ]

I haven't met many people who know what a Time Lord is off the top of their head. The Universe is infinite and never stops. I'm sure there's a lot more you haven't heard of out there.

[ Her tone is gentle, and she did not, in fact, elaborate on their relationship. She's going to just skip over that. ]

[blackscales]

[ She's definitely avoiding his question, but no matter. Wrathion flicks a small, wry smile. ]

I said the title is in an unfamiliar form, not that the concept itself is unfamiliar.

[ People looking after timelines isn't unusual to him. ]

[makemeasong]

[ Her feelings about him and their relationship are messy and complicated, and for now unreciprocated because of the universe's big screw you to her. She begged for his life and it was granted, and then she was pulled here where he doesn't even know her yet. They could talk about that, but it's personal. Still, she allows for something. ]

He's my best friend. I'd do anything for him, and I know he'd do the same not just for me, but for anyone.

[ She's watched him accept the end of his own life as a means to save others more than once. ]

[blackscales]

[ He tilts his head, thoughtful. ]

I don't get the impression you share his role. Do correct me if I'm wrong here.

[ She hasn't mentioned it at all, only spoken about it with regard to him. Still worth clarifying, he thinks. ]

[makemeasong]

Oh, no. No, I'm not a Time Lord. Lady. Regular old human through and through.

[ She smiles a little. ] I guess technically now I'm a time traveller? But only because the Doctor asked me to.

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion nods in understanding, setting his tea back down carefully and glancing over towards the door. The distant, muffled thump of mannequins fighting to try and move through the building entrance is still just about audible. It doesn't sound like they've managed it yet. ]

He's an interesting figure. Makes friends easily, I would assume. Enthusiastic to learn about the world around him. The regeneration aspect is unusual, I've not known someone to change their entire personality along with their appearance when recovering.