sand in your eyes

[groundrules]

And onwards, through the cursed desert. The mini-journey Arc covers 6-21 January and doubles as a test drive meme. Participants do not need an invite to apply this round. Have fun!

SAND IN YOUR EYES

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TEST DRIVE TOURISTS | ONE SAND WASHES THE OTHER
A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND | SOILMATES | A PYRAMID SCHEME

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A SANDING OVATION

Sand in your eyes, down your throat, stifling. You wake half-buried in high dunes, crawling towards helping hands. Thirst vanquishes you.

You are quickly offered a translation and communication pendant and introduced to the leader of the caravan that saved you — good Mazyar, who thanks the stars for your most incredible luck to be rescued by his generous and humble self. For he is not a man for idle praise, but he has sold salt to salt makers, he was courted by seven of the five great trade guilds and brought peace to the Stairs of Sighs…

Mazyar reveals you are in Akhuras, where undead lieges seek to weaponise you in their war for dominion. Mazyar’s good but less successful friend, the elusive Merchant ferries otherworlders east, where ancient beacons can transport them home.

Retire for now and regain your strength. Come morning, further otherworlders will arrive from Serthica — and your journey may begin.

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ONE SAND WASHES THE OTHER

The veteran party reunites with newcomers in the desert, and with the merchant Mazyar — who once guided them through the Stairs of Sighs. His caravan is protected by the Scavengers —deathly a tribe of hardened desert raiders. They bring water flasks, supplies, cooling suits and tents to share. Their snail-like carriage mounts can transport the weak.

You are bound for the seized citadel of Alem, swarmed on each side by undead battalions. To access it, you must obtain one of the enormous sand worms that trawl the deserts, which can be deployed to create underground passageways.

The Scavengers will lead the caravan through haunted dunes, the worms’ traditional hunting grounds and temple-fortress Uruksithar.

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A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND

The group first reaches the Valley of Unchaining, bordered by high cliffs and fang-like stones. Here and there, discover bloodied footprints, half-buried shackles and red chains. You might even stumble upon an eroded tombstone inscribed, H R SL EP THE UNCH IN D. At its feet are dulled dagger blades and rough calcar stone.

COULD DIE FROM LAUGHTER

You fool, never eat alone. Happen by the camp’s outskirts with your dinner, and you might glimpse the silhouettes of starved desert hyenas, their eyes glistening green. They will come close if you bear raw meat or bleeding wounds.

■ Scavengers say, if you see the hyenas, throw them food or a cloth drenched in fresh blood, then run without looking back until you no longer hear their cruel cries.

■ Some hyenas mimic rasped human voices, begging help or calling your name. One feeble hyena wears a chain of red shackles around its neck.

■ If you look back while chased, you find the green stare of the hyenas fixed upon you. You are gradually overcome by starvation, violence and the urge to dismember prey and feast on raw flesh. Player’s choice on whether characters can resist this compulsion, which disappears at dawns, or if they taste blood.

■ Scavengers will deny you entrance into the camp if you appear possessed in this way.

SANDIMENTAL VALUE

You walk the Valley, Scavengers say, and Mother Death walks with you. A once handsome crone might appear beside you, bare-footed and dressed in clean linens. She remains silent unless spoken to and flinches if you move suddenly, as if she fears being struck.

■ Treat the Crone kindly, and she entrusts you with a small pouch holding a fraction of her ashes, which she wants scattered from the hills.

■ Use rope and climbing hooks and take cover behind stone formations. Beware the violent sand whirlwinds that batter the cliffs, threatening to plunge you down or choke you with sand.

■ If you succeed, the Crone appears to watch her scattering ashes and bless you with good luck for the rest of your journey. Your kindness, she says, reminds her of her daughter.

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SOILMATES

The three-day walk to Uruksithar traverses the sand worms’ hunting grounds, where dunes shift periodically in sharp, tectonic waves. Watch your step and don’t be surprised if your tent sinks at night.

■ The Scavengers organise daily reconnaissance parties in the desert hills. Stay with them to unbury dune treasures.

■ The brave & brazen can try to catch sand worms. The massive creatures erupt overground periodically, catching prey in their large mouths, or crushing it beneath their heft as they plunge in the depths — creating large sinkholes in the process.

■ On its back, each sand worm has a few darker scales that draw the shape of a rune. To tame a sand worm, you must find its rune, then write the symbol on the worm’s back using blood from your hands. Report your catch by 23:59 on 17 January!

■ The sand worm bonds with you for three weeks until the next full moonrise, or until you draw the same rune on your cut hand.

■ Those who secure a sand worm find it grudgingly follows them underground for the rest of the journey. The creature can only be steered or ridden.

■ Some sand worms are vicious, old and sufficiently magical to retaliate by taking the link over and forcing their bonded humans to experience their lives — briefly sensitive to light and strong sounds, or unable to speak. Some might experience mild fevers. All symptoms disappear when the bond breaks.

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A PYRAMID SCHEME

At last, welcome to Uruksithar, former jewel of the desert — now reduced to rusted gates and tattered walls of wind-lashed stone.

The abandoned palace-fortress features a row of minor temples and barren gardens that surround a great, ruinous pit. The state of residential furnishings suggests the grounds were lived mere years prior. Walk north to find a a large pool of thickened black water that exudes a cold, unsettling presence. Veteran party members know what to expect.

Nail scratches on some temple walls read, we, who did not sleep or i ask the wind to grieve our chains. By the pit, a stone plate helpfully says, drop by drop, even base water turns to poison.

The Scavengers disperse to raid the temples, advising you to carry water everywhere. One raider mentions that the local Temple of Ra’esh stores silver waters that can woo sand worms.

OCTOPUS PRIME

Uruksithar’s great gong strikes every two hours, to groans and shudders from the abyssal pit. Scavengers immediately take cover behind walls, bind themselves to columns or rush into crumbling residences.

■ For five minutes, as the gong sounds a pathetic dirge, a bouquet of tentacles erupts from the pit, sweeping nearby streets to capture living things.

■ Throwing water on the tentacles forces them to retreat, while black liquid from the northern pool burns them down. Further tendrils emerge until the gong quiets.

■ Should you fall into the pit, use your climbing hooks to latch onto the walls and don’t look down. A grotesque, sharp-toothed mouth awaits below to devour you, amid the squelching sounds of the tissue and material it has been masticating for decades. It won’t give up its lunch easily.

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TOMB AND GLOOM

Ra’esh the Bright-maker, he who saw but peace beneath the skies. His humble temple is anonymous among numerous worship grounds. Scavengers say, four years ago, a wanderer sculpted an eye with a sun for a pupil on the entrance door. Take a torch and head in.

■ Long-stripped of its glory, the maze-like Temple of Ra’esh is now cold stone, stale window-less corridors and heavy doors that snap down from the ceiling.

■ Distant susurrations of water point you towards your destination.

■ As you walk in, pay attention to the engravings near the entryway of each temple room. Some depict arrows, forecasting spikes will burst up from floors tiles. Sculpted drops hint pouring water in this spot will open a door. Open a door with an engraving of large serpents, and… well. The engravings can help characters navigate the maze and completely avoid its traps. Feel free to make up your own engravings & traps, if you want!

■ The altar room contains a pool with pearlescent waters that surround a woman fully bandaged in gauze, her sight obscured. She is bound to a column with chains and shackles akin to those found in the desert. Rare peeks of her skin show it rotting or sickly pale.

■ She asks either if you are her mother, come for her at last. Do you engage?

■ Take water from the pool, and you can lure a sand worm to you once you have exited Uruksithar. Hazed, but sweet-tempered, it will follow you underground and allow you to ride it for the three weeks until the next full moonrise. These sand worms won’t give you a hard time during the bond period. Report your worm too by 23:59 on 17 January!

NOTES

■ Test driving & in-game characters can top level logs here — test driving characters can also put up network posts in this space c:

■ Feel free to investigate the mystery of the chains and shackles, but no pressure — it’s not critical to Arc V.

■ Hit up NPCs!

■ Navigation top.

QUESTIONS

Comments

[fixmyjukebox]

( Right.

Right, there's ways of putting it, then there's Edgar Allen Poeing your way in and out of skirmish. Don't gain nothing out of this world with bad booze or a worse attitude. Words to live by. He rasps'em: )

...easy, partner. You go any bleaker, you're gonna desaturate in front of me.

( Then again, she's already on that path, isn't she? Pale as them ghosts come. If they were real. Pale as a mutalisk's belly, flying on yonder. There. Better. Least mutations and freaks of alien nature have a decent probability of existing versus a possibility of deteriorating into legend before his sad, sun-blighted eyes.

It's the desert, isn't it? Getting his thoughts muddy and ruddy and raw. Blurring edges. He's entertaining a civ, and either a slight woman or a child, chitchatting nonsense. Should be marshalling the zone, figuring out its pros, its cons, where there's defensive weakness.

Instead, sand's sleeping thick on his back, weighing down his breaths. )

You start early with revenge, it's how you last your first ulcer. ( And wisely, like any bachelor: ) The rest o'them come with kids.

[woenderful]

I don't believe in serving revenge cold.

( Said calmly, offhand almost, turning her head to track the Scavengers that stride past, shuffling motion of their feet catching the sand in a way she suspects does cut down on the strain to the body to walk through it, even in this valley, partially protected. )

Or have present interest in pregnancy, children, or marriage. May as well get my ulcers while I can.

( Some can be truly fascinating. Maybe she'd end up with an interesting one, but she doubts it, instead twitching her fingers and determinedly not reaching out for the tombstone. Old enough that whatever it knows may be nothing helpful, may just leave her wrung out and dry. Now, if there were fresh blood anywhere... )

You haven't seen any chains when we've been walking through this valley, have you?

[fixmyjukebox]

Couple, here and there. ( It's slow to wheeze from him, half of an exhalation. Pained, nearly as if the thought of his negligence wounds him. He's seen'em, thick and red and meaty. Dangling, the sounds rust-harm. )

First, I figured they were chaining supply vehicles to each other. Bumpy road. Sinkers, here and there. ( There's stability in heft, slimmer odds of tumbling in and drowning. ) Then, I saw we're not in Kansas, and I figured, animals.

( But he's got all of three rings of a chain strung together, edges licked by rusting, and it's clear and plain how and why they ruptured, why they're sat hoarded and jingling in his back pocket. He holds it out for the girl's inspection, her wayward blessing. )

Truth of it, probably people. Or aliens. Whatever passes. Captives or slaves.

( You don't chain your friends along before you bring them round for supper. )

[woenderful]

( she hesitates for a beat, before reaching her hands out to the metal shackles, flecked by weathering and age to have rust here, in a land bereft of easy humidities. )

More moisture in the air than I expected.

( less shifting sands covering up the remains of slavery, captives kept in such or sent into the processing of most concepts of imprisonment she's aware of being essentially the same thing.

her fingers run over the metal, breathing calm. a second, and no vision strikes: she's spared for the time being. )

Think this valley was the battleground or simply the burial ground for those freed?

( no blink to the idea of people or aliens. by technicality, that's exactly what they are in equal parts. none of them supposedly brought through gateways and left to claw their way out of sand suffocation are native to this world, no matter if they looked equally human as members of the caravan.

she briefly wonders about genetic drift. stops caring soon after, filing it away as trivial curiosities. )

[fixmyjukebox]

Neither.

( Brisk, breezy. Mean, in the way of open and careless negligence. She's looking intent, like a sniper or an academic. The kind of mental acuity that can cut a man to bone.

Ain't wise, directing that unduly. When he's shrugging, half the desert's sand seems to shift with him. Figures. )

Think they went trotting and got lost. You see those storms? ( Pointing the one finger, thick and clumsy, but purposeful. Over yonder, up them hills, swirling, twirling, cruel. They could rip a man off the ground and crush his bones, then his spirit. He's seen the look of these petty hurricanes. It never ends well with'em. ) Could've eaten up a recon team. And these were what, civvies?

( The chuckle's half embittered, half cloying. Another shrug devastates the ground. )

Desert and the water, same trouble: you go deep enough, you forget where you came from and you drown. ( Doesn't make it kind, nor pretty. )

[woenderful]

( she doesn't like pausing, slowing, considering other thoughts before thoroughly considering her own. it's the trouble she's cultivated, and trouble has flavors to appreciate when they're the right ones, when they're the kind that stir her little black soul into appreciating a moment gasped around a mouthful of drowning sands.

yet. yet. tempered, she tries, with the frown made evident, not just the neutral line of lips that part for words and little else. )

Whose to say. They weren't Scavengers.

( or if they were, it was another era, when the ruins that lay somewhere ahead of them were yet to fall to ruins, neglected but not quite forgotten, all things considered. she views the area around them, the marker of a tomb that has a broad swath of meaning in its utter meaninglessness. )

Or prepared for much beyond death, if that's the case. Someone lived long enough to remember them. From their number, or not.

( winding, the pathway around, down a spiral: )

We follow their path in reverse. I wonder if we'll find any functioning shackles when we arrive where they departed?

( let a youth have her hopes, her paltry dreams. )

[fixmyjukebox]

( To hear the kid out, their danger's half on the road, half in her head. Ain't right, when young ones start pondering death early. Means someone's failed to keep them sheltered.

Means you never know what tricks they've picked up, what penchants for disaster. Least she's not carrying no weapon. Not one his bright eyes can see. )

Look, kid. Where there are shackles... there are some mean people who put those chains on.

( People who traffic in captivity, forced labor, tragedy. People who don't like their property going rogue. People who don't hesitate to substitute and replenish their forces.

Bad people. )

You want to keep walking the desert, I'll crawl after you. But don't be thinking you'll like what you find.

[woenderful]

A lack of answers is the most miserable finding. Attempted enslavement by the unwary and unwise would be interesting, but not helpful.

( She'd meet that violence with her own, albeit her largest weapon at present is the cello riding in its case on one of the snail wagons. Carrying it was senseless, but the sharpened dagger that she'd procured for herself rests up her sleeve, along her forearm, just in case.

Makes for slightly easier sawing through of bindings. One should learn from one's past mistakes. If you're going to get abducted by people who actually know knots she can't untie herself, appreciate their creativity and instruction, and have a way to cheat out of the situation. )

Has your listening at firesides been more productive than mine, and you've heard the Scavengers talk about what else stalks this road?

[fixmyjukebox]

You mean critters?

( They're stalking, all right. Mean, ugly, green-eyed things running rogue around encampment. He's seen'em. Listened to his betters and stayed the hell out of their way, like he's supposed to. )

Yeah, they were running their mouths about... hyenas. Something like that. Don't think it'd the work of a pack, not unless they're rampant. ( Would take dozens of them to accost and shred down a wave of people, however starved. Not unless those retreating are all children and cripples. ) You count the chains, too many of them to be just one-two folks animals can corner.

( He's glimpsed his share of'em, dozens to the count. )