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

[rehandle]

[ Not even close. It's already been made clear to them that being here is a circumstance only to be remedied by a long trek across an often hostile world, but that doesn't make the growing bank of evidence any more welcome. Still, of the two of them, he's not the one who's had to live with that for... a while. Shift your focus, Strange. ]

Sorry to hear that.

[ It's nobody's favorite thing to get stolen across universes. Stephen's smile is light, bordering on rueful, trying to ease some of the inevitable tension of first meetings in strange places. ]

It's not my first rodeo either. Though I usually get at least a little warning before waking up half buried in another world.

[reparo]

[ The pause is brief, because she picks up on it quickly. A bit hard to believe - you see, everyone ends up here looking lost and confused, but not this man - so she raises one eyebrow. ]

You're used to jumping between worlds, are you?

[rehandle]

Being aggressively hurled between worlds, more often than not, but yeah.

[ If he looks a little wry, that's because life is long and full of being sent careening through the multiverse without the remotest ability to navigate. ]

I can't do it myself, I'm limited to interdimensional travel, but that somehow hasn't spared me the experience.

[reparo]

[ He doesn't sound like he's joking. ] You're not...joking?

[ And is it so unfathomable? After all, there's people among them who are thousands of years old, there's the Doctor, there's...a lot of things that are suspicious about Wei Wuxian in a can't-put-my-finger-on-it kind of way, and there are also - of course, let's not forget - witches. And time travellers. ]

Ha - [ It slips out in a moment of pure histeria, a what else, world? kind of vibe. She slaps her hand over her mouth, and coughs to disguise it. ] I mean - That sounds like a shame. Instead of being hurled aggressively back to your world, you're possibly stuck with all of us instead. I have to warn you, we tend to walk more than we hurl around.

[rehandle]

[ If he catches the reaction before it's covered with a hasty cough, all it does is stretch his smile out to the side. It's nice to still be in some way a novelty, even to a young woman who's been stranded in a world away from home with strangers from worlds beyond that for an as yet undefined while. ]

I've been getting that impression. Fortunately for me, I have a cheat for when my feet get tired.

[ He doesn't demonstrate, exactly, but the breeze picks up his cloak and ruffles through it, lifting it subtly around his legs. Perfectly normal. Only there was no breeze at that particular moment and his smile is pinched like he's trying half-heartedly to hide to hide it. ]

[reparo]

[ There it is again! His cloak is absolutely moving, and she did not halucinate that. ]

I was going to ask if it's a broom, but your cloak's moving. Was that a hint?

[rehandle]

[ Sorry, we're going to have to put a pin in that because - ]

A broom?

[ Excuse him if he looks a little incredulous. The last time anyone made any of those kind of references, they were absolutely intended as an insult. Now he's got to weigh up if he's being mocked by a stranger or, somehow almost more disconcerting, broom is a genuine thought she had. ]

[reparo]

[ With all due respect, unpin that. ]

Yes, for flying. [ She waves off the comment and points to the exact corner of the cloak she saw move. ] There, it was fluttering there - but there's no wind!

[ Hold on. Hold up. Wait a minute.

She sucks in a breath, leans in closer and whispers: ] Are you a wizard?

[rehandle]

A sorcerer, actually.

[ Matter-of-fact, not bothering to lower his voice to match her caution at all. Metaphorical pin stabbed back in the cloak, given that she seems to actually be familiar with the concept of flying brooms... ]

You really use those?

[reparo]

[ More than caution, it was perhaps excitement? Meeting a fellow-wizard - might've been interesting! A sorcerer, on the other hand, she has no idea how to rehandle.

And she slips, too. Matter-of-fact right back at him: ] Generally, yes, but mostly for sport. I prefer Apparition, but that's because brooms are terrible and they resist me.

[rehandle]

[ Huh. Well, that's that then. Flying broomsticks. Stephen blinks, folding that into his reality, and straightens a little. Apparition he can ask after later, but for now he seems to be frowning his way into getting taller.

Or, more accurately, lifting a foot or so off of the ground as the cloak levitates him into the air. It's only fair - she'd answered his question, he's answering hers. ]

[reparo]

[ She's read about people who walk in the desert suffering from hallucinations, and maybe this is what this is, because the man grows taller before her very eyes and -

Oh, he's floating. She does a double take, expression turning into a smile. He's floating! ]

You - ah! Is that the cloak? Or is that you?

[rehandle]

[ A little smile as she gets the picture. He can't help but enjoy when others get a kick out of magic, even if this particular display isn't his own.

With a glance over his shoulder at the collar of the garment, Cloak takes his hint and detaches itself from him, leaving him to drop the small distance to the ground while the fabric remains aloft. It lifts one corner of itself into something vaguely hand-like, managing a wave. ]

The Cloak of Levitation. Useful friend to have.

[reparo]

[ She does slip in her composure and lets out a gasp when the cloak not only levitates without him, but also waves at her. Harry's Cloak of Invisibility didn't have a personality, it was just cloth!

You see that expression, my guy? Your cloak is 100% the most interesting thing here right now.] Is it sentient? [ Is she going to wave to a piece of fabric? You bet! ] Hello...

[rehandle]

[ Well would you look at that. Catch Stephen Strange making a concerted effort to not look too smug. The Cloak, meanwhile, answers the question by imitating a nice little bow where it floats. ]

Yes. It's sentient, for my sins.

[ Up straightens the cloak, turning to him with a droop of its collar and an outward stretch of its bottom corners. For your sins? Excuse you. ]

[reparo]

[ Stephen, you're hurting the Cloak's feelings, clear as day. But also, the Cloak bowed and it was delightful and Hermione wants to know everything. How was it made, why does it have sentience, why does it have a personality, does it feel - important things to discuss at night in the desert. ]

Figure of speech, I hope? [ Look, it's not like she expects a life story, they've barely just met.

Actually - now that she thinks about it - introductions haven't even happened.

She holds one hand out for shaking. ] Hermione Granger.

[rehandle]

[ Figure of speech, I hope? Ha. It's only as she offers her name and her hand that it occurs to him they haven't yet got this far. ]

Dr. Stephen Strange. [ His shake is firm and brief, efficient, the scars sketching a rough skeleton over the back of his hand still prominent even now. ] And yes, figure of speech. Mostly.

[ Just to put her mind at ease that she hasn't shaken the hand of a secret megalomaniac. ]

[reparo]

[ Another doctor! But a sorceror, as well. She has to wonder if his PhD is in sorcery or that's just a side-job. She wonders a lot of things in the span of that handshake - American accent, but when from? why the scars? and what do they mean? - but it's quick and firm and efficient.

Put a pin in those thoughts, then? Right. ]

That's very...reassurring. [ Hand retrieved, she shifts from one foot to another - a moment of awkwardness. Doctor Strange is very strange. ]

So is it doctor in sorcery?

[rehandle]

Neuroscience.

[ Maybe sometime over the course of the next few minutes he'll stop being on the permanent brink of a self-satisfied grin. For the time being, it's a novelty to be able to surprise anyone, let alone with his doctorate. ]

MD, PhD. I was a surgeon before I was a sorcerer. And now I'm in a desert chasing giant worms that want to eat me. Funny how life works.

[ Not funny ha ha, funny weird. ]

[reparo]

[ Neuroscience - she'd whistle under her breath, but something tells her that it would be taken to heart and there would be ego and...she's not trying to make enemies here, she's making friends! His Cloak definitely likes her, she's decided. ]

Funny, yes - you could almost call it strange.

[ Get it? Because -

She pulls a face, sheepish and apologetic. ] Let's ignore that, move past it. It was terrible. I am sure that you'll find reasons for using your sorcery in this place. Hopefully not the doctor part, though - there's hardly a way to sanitise incision tools. Or...incision tools.

[rehandle]

[ His smile softens into something wry. He'd tell her it's okay, he's only heard that one a few thousand times, but they're moving past it. And maybe he needs to stop making a habit of being rude to out-of-their-world young people he met five minutes ago. ]

Mm. The absence of a sterile bone saw would make things a little difficult.

[ Developing a habit of quipping at displaced young people: 1. Intention to stop developing a habit of quipping at displaced young people: 0. ]

You mentioned earlier you prefer Apparition to broom travel. Care to elaborate?

[ And here they are, about time, arriving at the moment to start talking shop. He is after all almost definitely in the company of a witch. ]

[reparo]

[By all means, develop the habit of having a sense of humour - it's useful in this place! She wouldn't know, hers is thin most of the time (in this place), but at least explaining magic and talking shop to a sorcerer (whatever that means) is up her alley.

She's visibly excited to explain it.]

Well, if what you do is travelling through worlds - so time and space - and what time travellers do - we have some of those around, by the way - is travel through time, Apparition covers the space part.

It's a spell. It transports the user of the spell, with some more people if said person is adept at taking passengers, across certain distances instantly.

[A pause.] But before you ask, no, it doesn't work if you don't know the destination. So I can't just Apparate my way to whatever end the Merchant has in sight for us.

[rehandle]

[ Time travellers? That's something to log for later. But the description of her spell is more interesting, the first real details of other off-world magic he's heard since landing here. And actually, it sounds not hugely unlike...

A threat of mischief at the corner of his mouth as he tucks his hands into a concealed pocket in his desert suit and takes the beginnings of a step forward - then pauses mid-action as he thinks to preface with: ]

Mind if I show you something?

[reparo]

[It's not often that she explains the magic and is not met with a blank stare, and it tends to be rare that Apparition as a concept does not come off as weird. She knows it's weird, just to be clear; the first time she practiced it successfully, re-materialising in a different room, had felt nothing short of strange. But she's very fond of its practicality.

It also tends to leave her with a stupid sense of competence, that manifests with thoughts such as 1. I can get myself out of any trouble by Apparating, because nobody here can, and 2. This means it's fine to take more risks than others and nothing can go wrong.

She doesn't really move back, as Stephen moves, since she's still curious.]

Mind? Not at all - by all means.

[rehandle]

[ Which is just as well, because with permission granted he's moving to stand next to her, turning to face the spot where he was just stood. Then out comes his hand from his pocket, this time wearing an old, tarnished two-finger ring, and both hands raise out in front of him.

The ringed hand stays still, an anchor, while he moves the other in a circle in front of himself. Just like that, sparks of amber leap out of the open air and spiral under his direction, cutting a circle out of reality. It's a window of sorts. Through it things are largely unchanged. The same approximate landscape, same approximate light, though there's a brightness to it that hadn't been there before, an orange glow. Perhaps the most notable difference in the view though is that Hermione will be able to see her own back, standing right there in front of herself.

The fizzing sound of the portal opening behind them at the same time as one opened in front may have spoiled the surprise a bit, but there's still a more pronounced half-smile on Stephen's face by the time he lowers his hands, casting a sidelong glance at his fellow practitioner to catch her reaction. ]