westwhere | hale and whole

hale and whole

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wrathion hums in agreement, considering that.

"If it started here, that does give shape to such rumours. We do know the White Wanderer spent time in the Mouse House, at the orphanage."

So if he was involved in the starting of it, it would make sense. It could easily have spread quickly through the people here, so closely packed as they are, and then up into the city. His eyes rove their surroundings, wary, but settle back on Anduin and his frown.

"Once we see these anchor points dispelled, we will work on that cure."

Just to repeat that. He can see Anduin's cogs turning, his brain spinning around the lack of care, most likely, the suffering. A healer will always be called to heal, Wrathion would expect nothing less of him.

Anduin's expression softens slightly at that, though the frown does not entirely disappear from his face.

Wrathion is right of course, the cogs definitely are turning. Circling around and around the revelation of just how far the disease has spread already. Karsa has given them hope, revealed that not all is entirely lost. And yet...

Anduin glances away, uncertain he can meet Wrathion's gaze as he speaks his next thought. He doesn't particularly enjoy the feeling that accompanies voicing it.

"The Light does not heal the sickness," he explains. "I have already tried -- and failed. The best I can do is minimize their pain, for a time." Anduin chews on the inside of his lip for a moment, before he continues. "The disease has already claimed so many. I -- am worried, Wrathion."

Wrathion slows his footsteps at that, turns to Anduin with a frown.

"I understand," he offers gently.

He does. Anduin has held him as he grieved for the lives of small dragons, and now the scale is so much larger. Too much to process, even. How many lives are at stake here? Wrathion couldn't name a number. Still, they have had worse. He reaches out, rests a hand on Anduin's upper arm gently.

"But we are not beaten, there is still hope. So long as we have hope, we can work together to make many things possible. Is that not the lesson of Chi-Ji?"

Not that Wrathion learned it very well, the first time around, but time has helped him process it. He was not ready, then, to understand.

Anduin glances back at Wrathion. At the hand on his arm, at the gentleness in his words. He offers his companion a soft smile in return, reaching up to place a hand over Wrathion's in return.

"Live every day with hope in your heart," Anduin replies, reciting the lessons of their teacher aloud. He squeezes Wrathion's hand, taking in a deep breath and letting it out before turning back toward the path in front of them. "I will admit that some days I do find it more difficult than others. But -- you are right. There is still hope. For the survivors, at the very least. And for the rest of this world outside of Serthica."

He cuts a glance back at Wrathion as they press on. "There may be a chance that we can reverse it for the others as well, but. Perhaps we should prepare the city for the possibility otherwise."

For the possibility otherwise. Wrathion hesitates, turning that over. The possibility that those already long dead will not survive, that -- well, he supposes that however many of the population are mannequins simply... become inert.

It is a thought, of course, that quantity of people all simply dying would be a shock. At the same time, what could they even do to prepare? That's far too many to move to hospitals, assuming one could even identify them all in time. Assuming they were even believed. Who would believe anyone who assured them they were, in fact, an animated mannequin?

He frowns in thought, studying Anduin as he slowly begins to walk again.

"How would you have them prepare?"

Anduin takes in a breath, letting it out slowly as he considers the question. Considers what really would be the best course of action, given everything they know.

This city is not Stormwind, Wrathion's voice echoes in his head. Anduin understands that he is walking this fine line again. And yet...

"They should know," he replies, at last. "Perhaps... Not the entire city, there is enough chaos around us on the streets as it is. But someone should know." He casts a glance aside at Wrathion. "I would want to know myself. They have struggled enough as it is, losing the numbers they had before. So many all at once could prove -- catastrophic."

It would, indeed, be catastrophic. Yet what can even be done? What good would a warning do? Wrathion tilts his head, as if half in acceptance.

"You are correct," he allows. "What do you imagine they would do with the information? A stranger comes to you, claims over half the city is plagued and has been for years due to a curse. Would you believe them? Believe some of your own people might be mannequins, animated in an imitation of life? Say you do believe them. This stranger says there is a chance they can help, but they cannot promise it will work. Convenient, no? That the person who discovers this, offers a cure? So, then: a quarter of your people, they say, are well. How would you respond? Do you wait for this mystery cure that may not come? Say your city, in this instance, is one fuelled by paranoia, that fears sickness -- where the slightest hint of illness has you avoided. How do you keep this sickness from spreading to that limited number who have yet to catch it?"

He slows to a stop again, glances sideways at Anduin.

"How has the threat of plague been responded to in Azeroth, in the past?"

Anduin meets Wrathion's eyes for a long moment, before his gaze slides to the ground before them.

He knows very well how the threat of plague has been responded to, in Azeroth. With a Purge. Culling the entire town, to ensure the disease did not spread further. Even if these leaders were not to go quite so far... It is more than likely that Arabella would not spare the undead citizens, who -- as far as Anduin knows -- are unaware of their current circumstances. If they are to stand any chance of even trying to save them all, then... He knows they cannot.

Anduin's expression draws tight. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

"I would want to know," he replies. "But you are right. Yet again. It might just make this worse, and we cannot afford such a mistake. These people cannot."

He casts a glance aside at Wrathion before taking another step forward.

"What do we know of the cure?" he asks, deliberately changing the subject. It does all boil down to that, after all. The anchor they are headed toward is an important piece of the puzzle, but it is nothing if they cannot eradicate the people of the disease completely.

"We know some ingredients that those working on the cure can try using," Wrathion begins, turning to begin walking alongside Anduin. "It has been suggested that we might be able to find some in Serthica's outskirts, the Sibilant Sands as they call it. Some crashed ships apparently were carrying it, in sealed containers. The hope is they will still be good."

Can, thus, still be used in concocting some manner of cure.

"Of course, should that succeed, mass production and distribution will still need to be addressed..."

After all, creating something is one thing. Getting an entire city to accept it is another.

Distribution.

"How do you dose the entire population, when you cannot tell them why it is that they need the cure in the first place?" Anduin asks, continuing Wrathion's thought aloud. "Perhaps... There may be a way to put it in the water supply. Or."

Anduin glances aside at Wrathion. "Do you suppose that Arabella would distribute the cure for us? If we were to propose it to her as some sort of antidote? As we said, she is paranoid enough..."

He shakes his head, letting out a sigh. "I suppose we should take things one step at a time. Is that the place?"

He gestures to the building ahead of them.

Well, the building certainly looks neglected. If he had to guess which one of them was the 'haunted orphanage', this would be it.

"I'd say it's a good place to begin. Shall we?"

He begins to mount the steps, slowly. They creak beneath his feet, as if even his minimal weight is a strain. The building itself, despite its neglect, still feels grand -- as if it once had been quite a fine place. There's a familiarity to it, and as Wrathion pushes inside he realises why. The unwinding, that is where it is familiar from.

"If our powerful child came through this orphanage, I suppose that may be why it is an 'anchor'. A strong memory, a place of relevance in his story."

Wrathion isn't strictly sure how these things work, but its as good a theory as any other just then.

Anduin frowns as the stairs creak underneath Wrathion's weight and then his own. The building does not appear as though it will fall apart around them, but there is something about the sound that unsettles him.

"It could be," Anduin considers in return. "Although memories are made in both good and bad ways. It makes me wonder what this place might have been, for it to have become such a thing for him."

Anchored there as an imprint of happier days, before the disease began to spread? Or to mark the suffering, the loss that was no doubt suffered afterward.

Glancing around the building as he steps inside after Wrathion, Anduin shivers.

"I cannot help but feel as though we are being watched," he explains.

"We likely are."

By mannequins, ghosts, by the child, by locals as they enter this old building. He pauses in the entrance hall, gazing around at their options: side rooms, a stairway up, a hallway deeper into the ground floor.

"I have Karsa's wards," Wrathion offers, "although perhaps you might have something in your own --"

He cuts off, frowns as a butter knife shoots towards him and bounces off the wall beside him.

"... Toolkit," he finishes. Well, he did expect some resistance after all. It seems they will have it.

Anduin jumps slightly at the clang of the butter knife against the wall, casting a wary glance out across the hall in the direction the item had come and casting a hasty shield around the pair of them, Just In Case.

"I had thought," Anduin begins, in reply to Wrathion's original train of thought, "that I might be able to Purify it..."

He hesitates, glancing down at the butter knife on the floor before back up at Wrathion.

"I don't see anyone there."

Wrathion flinches back a half inch in surprise at the shimmer of magic, tension easing as he recognises Anduin as the source.

"This is powerful magic. If we could find the centre of the anchor it may be easier. How broad is your ability to purify?"

If they need to go room by room, the process will be slow, but anything to... speed things up would of course help matters. Especially if they are going to have objects thrown at them the entire time.

Anduin considers the question, holding the shield for a few moments longer just in case anything more dangerous is about to follow the butter knife.

"I... This house is not so big that my casting would not be able to reach the anchor, if we are able to pinpoint the source," he replies. "I may even be able to manage it from here, if we knew where to look. So long as there are no protections placed on it."

He glances aside at Wrathion, trying to follow his line of thought. Not only is the city on borrowed time, but this could be dangerous for the pair of them as well.

"We may only need to narrow it down," he suggests.

If they knew where to look, which they do not. However, as they progress perhaps the source will become... more obvious.

Wrathion digs in his pocket for one of Karsa's wards, steps to the side and affixes it to the wall of the hallway. One hand lifts to channel magic into it, strengthening its hold. Narrowing it down, in some manner, because perhaps this will not banish the entire presence here but it might lift the immediate haze in this room and allow them to select a new direction.

Anduin watches Wrathion as he sets the ward, the burn of draconic energy filling the air as he does, before it clears. The energy of the whole room lifts, brightens, and while the whole house is not cleansed by any means, Anduin certainly feels as though he can breathe easier. Get his bearings.

Anduin glances warily around the room, just in case there may be any more knives coming at them despite that -- butter or otherwise -- before he closes his eyes and reaches out, feeling for the anchor. The direction of its energy in the house.

After a moment he glances back to Wrathion and motions down the hallway, into a room beyond.

"That way," he says, not knowing quite how to describe what he's feeling. "I think it is back that way."

Wrathion nods, letting go of the ward and instead drawing his blade. Perhaps overkill for an orphanage where the ghosts throw butter knives, but at this point you never know what calamity is going to happen next.

"Towards the back of the building," he agrees. "Be on your guard, we are sure to be drawing increased attention."

Something that happens most places he goes, in truth, but now that they're beginning to press against this spell he expects it to fight back. The thrall over the city must have taken considerable effort, things of this scale usually refuse to go down without a fight.

Perhaps the child with the fox mask will even appear to stop them, or the man in white himself. That would be interesting.

The blade may be a little overkill, but Anduin isn't going to complain about it. Especially not if Wrathion ends up needing to use it against something more deadly than butter knives in this house.

He offers his companion a nod, stepping forward to lead Wrathion forward into the next room. As soon as his foot crosses the threshold from the warded room behind them, an ominous creaking begins.

Anduin has just enough time to glance up and realize what is happening before he reaches out and grabs Wrathion with his magic, tugging him through the doorway to his side before the entire frame collapses, blocking the path they had just come.

"Are you alright?" he asks, reaching out to steady his companion with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

The grab is somewhat... unceremonious. Wrathion feels the sharp rush of the magic yanking him across the room, and hears the collapse of wood behind him.

He suppresses a wave of irritation. Anduin is only trying to help, after all. Wrathion's pride is the only thing that protests it, there's no other real reason to object.

"It would take more than falling wood to do me harm, I assure you."

He straightens his coat, allowing the momentary unsteadiness from being unable to control his own movements to fade, then continues walking as if he might shrug it all off.

"This building is clearly in a state of disrepair. The collapse could have been natural, or it could be targeted."

Hard to tell after only one incident, but if it repeats they'll have a pattern.

Anduin holds his commentary at that, although he has the distinct sense that the collapse was anything but natural. Especially given the timing. Still, he lowers his hand and allows Wrathion to step away and compose himself.

"I suppose we should be mindful of the structure of the building either way. We should probably..."

He trails off, glancing around with a frown. That's strange, he could have sworn he heard laughter, voices. Children's voices? Wrathion's draconic senses tend to be stronger than his, perhaps he can make more sense of them.

"Did you hear that?" he asks, cautiously.

"We're certainly not alone."

Something that had been obvious after the butter knife, but which is becoming increasingly so. It had been an orphanage, after all, so child ghosts make sense. They are, however, somehow more disturbing than their adult counterparts. He couldn't quite say why, perhaps it is something about the expectation. You don't usually expect a small child to stab you in the back.

Draconic children aside.

Wrathion takes a step closer to Anduin, stick by him and beginning to move carefully ahead. He is the one with the weapon out, after all, perhaps better that he take point.

A small, spectral figure flits out of one doorway and crosses the hall ahead of them with a bright laugh. Wrathion freezes, waiting to see if it returns, then glances back at Anduin.

"They're toying with us."

Children do love games, he supposes.

Unlike some, Anduin has no issue with Wrathion stepping closer, being protective of him. Especially not when the spectral child appears in front of them.

He freezes with Wrathion, preparing himself to protect them as well, with magic, as the figure disappears with a laugh.

The laugh does make it somewhat more disturbing. Well, that and the fact that it is a child. The ghost of a child means that a child had to die in order to become a ghost. Logically, Anduin is aware of this having happened. But being aware of it and then being presented with the evidence of that are two very different things.

"I don't suppose that they get very many visitors...?" Anduin offers. The place is... well. Fairly terrible. He glances to Wrathion and then back out across the room ahead of them.

"How many of those wards do you have?" he asks, softly, lest the ghosts overhear, he supposes. Do they care enough to be listening in? Best not to find out.

"A handful," Wrathion says, and digs another out of his pocket. He narrows his eyes in thought, fingering the paper. "Although I cannot say if they discourage ghosts."

They were designed for the anchor, which may be an entirely separate issue to the haunting. He is not personally versed enough in this undead curse to say. Is this a hint that he should place another? It feels as if they've barely moved at all, but perhaps they really will have to go room by room.

A tiresome experience if every doorway will then collapse on them.

hale and whole

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)