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

---

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

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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

[westviews]

[The more she tries to distance herself from the past (no matter how recent), the more it seems determined to haunt her. For someone who, so far, has been considerably calm regarding ghosts and strange creatures and nearly drowning in an icy lake, the sight of Stephen Strange stops Wanda in her tracks and drains the color from her face.

There's no avoiding this. Him.

And so, Wanda approaches, slowly, carefully--and puts her hands up in front of her when she knows he'll see her. Her, and fingertips no longer burned black by the Dakrhold.]

Stephen.

[rehandle]

[ —Oh.

There's been something on the edge of his awareness since the Scavengers first sighted the veteran party making their approach. Nothing he could put his finger on, just a sense. An itch. He'd tuned it out, a problem for later if it's even a problem at all.

And now here it is. Not so very long later. And not an it but a who.

If Stephen looks for a moment like he's seen a ghost that shouldn't come as any surprise. His breath catches at the sight of her, freezing in place, thoughts flying but landing at least on those raised hands: peace. ]

... Wanda.

[ His hands stay at his sides but beneath the light layers of his desert suit his whole body is tense. They've done this dance before. She the apple farmer, he the idiot.

But her hands are clean. It can't mean nothing. ]

[westviews]

[Her feet come to a stop in the sand, leaving a comfortable distance between them. As comfortable as it can be, given that they could both blast one another from more distance than this. And they have. She remembers all of it very clearly.]

It's me.

[Just plain Wanda Maximoff, not the Scarlet Witch, not a liar listening to the Darkhold.]

I'm not... I don't mean any harm. I promise.

[A beat, and she grimaces.]

Whatever my promises are worth these days.

[He has no reason to believe anything she says, and she realizes how much that makes her gut churn. No such thing as a fresh start here, now.]

[rehandle]

[ I promise, she says, and for all some bitter part of him remembers what it had meant once to trust her without thought... he doesn't distrust her now. He'd trusted her then for good reason. Had gone to her for help because he'd known she would give it, if she could. Wanda Maximoff would help him to protect a child.

Just like Wanda Maximoff would destroy her own hope for the good of the multiverse, and disappear into the crumbling ruins of the poisoned chalice that had set them at odds to begin with.

His forehead aches as the stain he hasn't shed wakes and strains to open, to seek out truth (the absence of a specialist physician does as much harm as the presence of the poison, doesn't it, Stephen, when the worst of the damage is not yet done?) But only two eyes stare at Wanda across the scant space between them.

There's no answer to unspoken questions. Instead, a question of his own. ]

How long have you been here?

[westviews]

[She expects it all. Distrust, scrutiny, suspicion, anger. Even if she brought down the Darkhold castle in the end, it doesn't erase the terror and the violence she inflicted across universes.]

A month.

[And I've helped people, she wants to say, but there's no point. What matters is the here and now. This moment, and what he wants to do.]

I didn't plan to be here.

[rehandle]

[ A month. Longer than it's been since Mount Wundagore if not by much. His eyes narrow slightly at the implications, trying to layer them up: all it confirms is that time is no obstacle to the mechanism of their arrival. Just another dimension to reach through for access. ]

I know.

[ He doesn't, not for sure. But if she had somehow acquired the power to go anywhere this isn't where she'd have ended up. And he certainly wouldn't have been invited to the party. ]

... What do you want to do, Wanda?

[ He's here now, there's no helping it. But she was here first, and he doesn't need to close the distance to tell that his presence here is a problem she hadn't anticipated. He's burst a bubble. One way or another, they're going to have to come to terms. ]

[westviews]

No one here knows what I've done.

[Even Kamala, who knows who she is, might only have heard about her taking Westview hostage. After what followed, those days seem almost innocent.

She takes a steadying breath. What does she want to do? Good question.]

We were never friends. Even before America Chavez came into the picture. [Allies, at best.] I don't want to be enemies. But I understand what I put you through. It's...

[Complicated.]

I don't want to fight. I want peace. I know that doesn't imply trust.

[rehandle]

[ No, never friends. He'd never made the effort for that, not before Westview and certainly not after. Neither of the times when it would've been most kind to reach out beyond the limits of his own life and offer something - presence, if not solace.

Now there are too many deaths between them. Too much blood in the water. How much of that could have been prevented? ]

It doesn't need to. Though it would be easier if it could.

[ And maybe, if he weren't wired the way he is, he could give her his trust without complication. He wants to. Wants to take what he know of her losses, take his sympathy and his regret and the reality of her choice and the person she's proven herself to be in the past and make the sum of those parts a line drawn under the whole thing.

But people still suffered. Died. And for as much as he knows that isn't who she is it's still who she was for a time. He can't discount it any more than he'd really expect all the people who knew other versions of himself to forget the harm he's done and believe wholesale in the person he could be, if he'd just made better choices.

True trust might be a step too far, too soon. But the benefit of the doubt? He can do that. ]

Peace, then. And quiet.

[ He won't tell her secrets. For as long as peace holds, he won't be the one to break it, whatever that offer is worth in the absence of trust. ]

[westviews]

And quiet.

[She repeats the words, looking somewhere between relieved and uneasy. Nothing about this is simple or easy or clear. Nothing undoes the fact that she would have killed him, once, had she the opportunity.

She's done her best here to be unassuming. She's shared her magic with some, shown them some of what she can do, and it's so far been met with awe and open curiosity. No terror. No one knows about the cruelty of the Scarlet Witch beyond the man standing before her.]

If it gives you some peace of mind, my magic is different, here. [Some of it, at least.] Weaker, in some ways. I don't know if it'll be the same for you.

[rehandle]

[ She doesn't know, but Stephen has a sense. It's already become apparent in some ways - his connection to certain dimensions weak, others entirely new. Figuring out his dynamic with the energy here is going to take time.

Not entirely reassuring to know this place can alter even the capabilities of the one time Scarlet Witch. But at least if they're to be changed here, they're both changed. She outgunned him then and maybe that's still true, but with any luck it hasn't been made any worse. Here's hoping they'll never need to test that new balance. ]

We'll see. [ It's too early to give her anything concrete. Even if he could, talking power implies she has any reason to be concerned he'll use it against her. He'd like to hope that's not the kind of threat he poses to her here. ] I'll give you room.

[ And he goes to turn to leave - ] But— [ and catches himself, turning half back to her. ] Wanda.

If you need to call on me, do.

[ Not friends. But in the end she did the multiverse an unfathomable service where she could have brought it to its knees, and he has mistakes to learn from. ]