westwhere | sand in your eyes

sand in your eyes

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

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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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( The trouble with lying prone, comatose and distinctly aromatic in the desert is the swarm of vultures that first preside with courteous distance, then sidle closer with starved interest, before finally drifting down to circle.

And they might not have drawn near enough to peck this excuse of a potato sack, but forgive ol' Jim Raynor, veteran of one too many desert encampment and token loather of wasteland pigeons for stepping in — by way of a rock's throw, brutal when it nearly smites a vulture, within range.

God damn it, sun stealing his eyes. Would have shot himself in the foot if he missed this brutally in target practice.

By the time all the birds bid their paranoid farewell, abandoning their prospective meal, while Raynor saunters close, mouth all drawled, off-tune whistle — and crouches by the man. )

You gonna treat'em to supper, you should throw in the gravy. Ain't good hospitality, just offering the sad pale biscuit.

( Not to say the man's on the side of doughy and underdone, but Jim's seen corpses look crisp and sweeter. Better done at their edges. His hand draws out, hoping to drag up the dregs of this sad excuse of a conscript than to signal the hour's set for going. )

Up we go. C'mon, trooper. Sun's up, guns ain't out.

Yeah, yeah.

( awhile ago, he might have been fine just laying there, letting the sun bake him and letting everything just fade away. but he knows there's stuff to do, people that would be pissed off if he just gave up so the unfamiliar voice at least makes him sit up.

he squints, the sun making spots appear in front of his eyes. his unfamiliar savor seems to be in better shape than him so he's gonna trust that he knows what he's doing. )

Couldn't just let me take a nap, huh?

( Chuckling's cheap and mean and precious, as if somehow in a game where Jim Raynor sorely misunderstands each stake, he can afford to pretend he's above it all. The sound's choked for it, reedy.

He does big boy here the kindness of wrenching out the rag from the back of his belt, same that's carried nice and folded along to spare for his grossly oversized kerchief. Was a ragged man's sheath once, Jim glimpsed the dagger gleam.

But it was offered, nice and unassuming. He took it. Now he's paying it forward, stretching it out, gauze and holes, as a makeshift towel to sit on the man's heat. No good comes out of loitering when the sun's glaring. Jim'll be damned if the odds don't whistle this poor, miserable asshole into a sunstroke. )

I'm bleedin', you're bleeding. Like in marriage.

( And to think he never heard himself say no vows. )

Come on. Whatever the hell it is, walk it off.

Yeah, yeah.

( whatever injuries he has, they won't last, he knows. still doesn't mean it doesn't ache and that he's not pissed off about it happening in the first plac.e

but, he takes the rag, raising in gratitude and dabs at a few cuts and gashes that are on his real arm. he shakes his metal one out, letting dirt fall off of it. )

Guess that means we're bonded, then? In blood? That sounds like a greeting card. Or something.

( but he does start walking. )

Might could.

( Meaning, in any proper neck of the woods that ain't this or Mar Sara, hell to the no, good brother. But they're meant to be friendly, all hail the team, and all that other sunshine — look up yonder — and daises the good people who've bribed them into toil keep spewing.

He doesn't ask for the rag back. You see am an with a greater need, you let'im keep the linen. Jim's hands are already busied somehow attracting his weight in sand, like flies to the honey.

He could say, it'll better in the stretch of spartan, ill-geared camp, where basic conditions seem to imply 'thank the good Lord you've got a lavatory.' And don't count on it long, either.

But he's no liar today. )

Gonna topple over if we get some feeding in you, corpse boy? Or that just your morning stunt?

It's Bucky.

( he's not dead yet, thank you. been there, done that, don't want to do it again. he shoves the rag into his back pocket and rubs the heel of his hand against his eyes. )

I only let my friends call me Corpse Boy and we ain't there yet, buddy.

( but he appreciates the help. )

You from this place?

Nope.

( Chipper, really, nighty darn pleased with himself. What's abduction if not a travel and/or professional opportunity? And they say he ain't one for smiling sweet or thinking bright.

Shows the ship med what she knows. )

Got dragged in like leftovers on a hangovers morning.

( Noodles, maybe. Extra chewy, gummy. Pleasantly stale. That sense of familiarity with a terrible, proximate and low-risk bad choice. That's Jimmy.

Ahead, a splendour of crammed campfires announce the quickest route to breakfast might involve carnage. Sure. Long as the bacon's worth its salt, he'll play the violence game. Carbs and squabble sound all decent. )

I'm guessing you're not the crop of the natives. ( Either that, or running berserk to let the sun shower down on you and deep fry your sweet brain's a local given. )

You guessed right.

( and the whole thing of how he got here, why he's here, why he doesn't remember something happening is really bothering him. but, he's choosing to have his breakdown in a little while.

nice that not everyone's not having issues with it. )

Never seen this place before in my life.

Yeah? Well. You ain't in Kansas no more.

( And Oz is lean, mean and desiccated. Now and then, the good folk of the canteen hall blitz in and out of their tents, and Jim's frowning, assessing, counting his blessings and sending a prayer to the good Lord above, be listening, that he saw wrong just now — was the heat, all of it — and the brown thickened thing in the pot that just blitzed by wasn't moving.

He asks so little out of life. No guns shot between 3-6am. Alcohol that's only half water. Moderate hygiene, but he ain't no fussy sort. And food that's understood its purpose in life isn't a one-slime world marathon.

Christ. )

Food looks busted. ( You know, in case his partner in hereby crime needs the pick-me-up to solidify his impulse to go lie down on hard ground and bury his head in sand again. ) I'm Jim. Jim Raynor. You're, uh... you've got all your marbles back?

Nope.

( he lost his marbles a long, long time ago and there was no getting those back.

but — )

Bucky and I'm fine. I don't need all my marbles to deal with this. Probably better that I don't have them.

( since he'd rather not panic and freak out over something he can't control. he might not know what the hell's going on but at least he's calm.

ish. )

...right.

( Tall, dark and suicidal isn't anyone's cup of tea, but at least Bucky-boy's removed himself from the probability of cooked-through to gently seared on both sides. The sun's a fierce beast, teeth shining. He feels that bone-deep compulsion to glare up and grin back.

He's got this. They both do.

And the line's absorbing them, one of the — Scavengers, one hell of a shining and glorious alliance prospect, with a name like that, butting in. Stares are exchanged. Moderate grunting. The Scavenger woman points to a child. Raynor feels simultaneously impelled to champion the sanctity of an orderly queue and concede in the name of sunburn-free infancy.

He pulls back. The kid stomps on his foot.

Should have let the little asshole go overboard on vit. D. )

You ever get the feeling you were put on this earth cause God wanted a comedy night?

( that's — yeah. that makes him laugh because he agrees more than he would like to. he crosses his arms, fingers tapping against his bicep and he nods. )

Every goddamn day of my life.

( and sometimes twice on the weekends. )

Honestly thought I was done with shit like this but here we are. Thought I'd earned a vacation or something.

Try the next life.

( This one's got entitled mothers and spoiled children, the resilient and dependable fixtures of every version of hell Jim Raynor has briefly mulled, inhabited or sauntered through.

And it don't look pretty, none of it. The kid wags his tongue at'im, twice his pathetic size in shadowed silhouette. Figures. )

...you think I'm gonna start some kinda diplomatic war, if I tell this brat to go —

( Nope. Nooooooooope. Not starting it. Not with children, not with women, not with cripple. Nope. Gotta be the better man. Gotta... God damn'em. )

I don't know what they want us for. Seems to me, they got their war running just fine on their own.

It's always a war.

( in the forties, when he'd come back, when he'd been recovering in wakanda and now. there was always some sort of war on and somehow, he ended up in the middle of them. )

You picked up on what the war's about?

Something, something, dead things. ( A beat. ) Death things, come alive.

( Dead things that need a kick up their asses for a reminder that the best recourse in life is lying low. That they've overstayed their welcome. )

Same old, right? Feud and territory. Maybe both. Someone played at some tomfoolery with someone else's sister on the lawn. ( ...the lawn, in this case, being sand he's kicking for a point he wasn't sure he was committed to making. )

Except now they're dead. ( Which means, with a scratch of the back of his head: ) So I suppose the lawn's overgrown, and the sister's mighty ugly. Bless her heart.

Edited 2023-01-13 21:06 (UTC)

Right.

( bucky doesn't know how he's able to follow along but he figures out, mostly, what the guy's saying, what he's alluding to.

someone didn't like someone else, there was a fight, and now everyone's gone. guess that fight didn't go too well.

he frowns. )

And now we're what? The friends of the sister meant to take revenge?

Now we're the good ol' boys who know better than to get all wrapped up in someone else's family drama.

( Forgive an old(er) man his carefree, vacant indifference. If not for the damned child now aggressively turning around to wag his tongue at'im, he'd be whistling and grinning through that happy piece of wisdom.

Instead, he's mean, back-strained, sighing. )

They're saying, what? Go east? Get out? Sure. That's the mission. ( And roger that. ) Don't hear nothing in it about no man's war agenda.

( But it's the small print, isn't it? Inaction is still choice, and for all their little heads know, they're feeding right into some bigger asshole's strategy to repurpose them for a war effort.

No such thing as a freebie. Hitting the road is still costs of transport. They'll pay for'em some point. The bill always hits you. )

There's always something.

( call it by any name but he knows that the illusion of peace is just that. the illusion. this isn't going to last and if there was some kind of fight somewhere, he was going to end up in the middle.

that was how his luck was. )

And this — ( he glances around, gestures with his hand. ) — isn't going to last. There's something. I don't have to have been here for awhile to know that.

Cool. But it ain't our fight.

( You learn the whiff of them, the stench of justice-prone warriors who never learn to put down the axe, the sword, the zergling sucker, the Kalashnikov, the big daddy tank cannons.

They've got a gravity, a sense of pondering immutability. They look normal, feel just that littlest bit deranged. And you pick up their tells real damn quick, before they nudge you into their trouble.

Jim Raynor's no coward, but he's comfortably taking back a step. He's learned what he's learned. )

We don't gotta get involved.

Hey, if I had my choice, I wouldn't get involved either.

( but sometimes, you didn't get a choice. sometimes, shit just chose you or you had a stupid friend who had to save the world and that just meant you had to help.

he sighs. )

But I'm not just gonna stand back and watch everything else burn around me. Not if I can help it.

...right. You're one o' those.

( There's a point and purpose to heroes in this life, Raynor's been told. Just never damn well learned it. Martyrs die. Cults bow their heads, words remember them. It's all done and dusted within days. And then, what are you left with? Tassadar, deified but wasted. The better men, gone down.

When he shrugs, it's an absent thing, studiedly indifferent. Upstairs, they might call this 'composure.' Yeah, whatever. )

Can't leave well alone when it's staring you in the eye, can you?

I'm not one of anything.

( his tone turns a little sharper at the sudden judgment. it's pointless and he should just roll his eyes, walk away but it's not like he has anywhere to go to.

just turn, walk into the desert and get lost. end up dying of thirst? stupid. no, he'll just confront the whole thing. )

I was a soldier, I fought in wars. That doesn't mean I want to keep doing it. But sometimes there's no choice.

...ain't that the truth.

( Muttered, grudging but far from despairing. Coarse though his manner and their circumstances, the truth is, soldier boys don't crawl out of hell just to give the next entry to purgatory a clean wave, once-over, and pass it by.

They're designed to answer. Even Raynor's feeling the ugly bite of the call. Doesn't mean, back tense like a mean cat, he can't pretend he's deaf for a hot second. )

You, uh. Came out of something ugly, right before this?

( Might explain the instinct to get his brains fried under the midday desert sun. )

Something like that.

( it felt like one thing after another after another. he hadn't really had the time to process it all despite the brief stop off to therapy.

but, he does remember some of the coping strategies he'd learned there so maybe it had done its job. or maybe he just memorized everything to get the therapist off his back. )

Not that I expected a vacation or anything for it. But, I at least expected more shit to happen somewhere I'm familiar with.

Cheer up. We'll throw together the next apocalypse in your backyard.

( There's a wolfish edge to the gleaming teeth of his grin, a private, rueful understanding that permanent and complete annihilation is a routine prospect an honest man should consider with his monthly schedule.

Pencil it in between tackling ammo inventory and the laundry stack. Besides — and here it comes, the inevitable, overly friendly, unsolicited pat on the back, warm and ready — this here boy looks in need of some uplifting. )

We'll even light some fireworks for it, huh?

sand in your eyes

sanding ovation

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