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

[allforthecause]

[ It will take a while for his head to wrap around the concept of a ghost - but then it is also grappling with the undead, and magic, and everything else. Best way forward is just to roll with it. ]

Better fortune than to not have, sure.[ He offers her a rueful look at that.] But good to meet you, officially. I’m Brasso.

[ He doesn’t offer a hand to shake, it isn’t custom where he’s from. Instead, he glances at the ashes now carefully wrapped back up in cloth. ]

Where did she want to be taken? It’s dangerous out here - better to go together than alone.

[starscollapse]

[ Their path forward is an uncertain one. Not only to scatter the ashes of the kindly old woman, but what lies beyond in the city of the dead. Better to have as many allies as possible, she thinks, and so she will accept the offered assistance for the chance to know him better. Challenging journeys have a way of revealing the character of others, after all. It is also why she refrains from mentioning that she could simply teleport to the top of the hill. Should the route prove perilous, she will reconsider, of course. ]

Up there, to be scattered from the hills. [ Merrin glances upward to the craggly rocks, the hills obscured by a tumult of sand. ]

I think it a peaceful place of rest, don't you? Overlooking the valley. [ Her Dathomirian accent is clipped, slightly halting, though she doesn't recognize his own accent well enough to place him, having barely ventured beyond Dathomir. ]

Should we die atop the hill, I'll be glad for the company. [ Merrin pauses for the count of three seconds before smirking. An attempt at humor. Surely her companion will appreciate it. ]

Our fortune turns again, Brasso, for our paths to cross here. A good omen, I think. I'm Merrin, from Dathomir.

[allforthecause]

[ It takes him a moment to recognize her joke, but when he does he gives her a bemused smile. He’s about to banter back when she continues.

He doesn’t recognize the name immediately, though something at the back of his mind tells him that it’s familiar. When it finally clicks, he blinks, coming to a halt to look at her. He’s still used to almost everyone here having been from somewhere far, far from home, but: ]

Dathomir? In the Outer Rim?

He’d never been there, knew almost nothing about it save as a word that sometimes appeared on star charts and sometimes didn’t - too remote and likely too obscure for most to care. And even then, he isn’t sure - maybe he heard wrong, or read wrong, but there’s a piece of him that desperately wants to be right. ]

I’m from Morlana One. In the Free Trade Sector.

[ He gestured to himself with a tense sort of excitement - Finn had been a wonder to find, but to find someone else - ]

Do you know it?

[starscollapse]

The Outer Rim, yes.

[ There is a look in the man's eyes that feels familiar, like a feeling she had known only recently when meeting Cal, Cere, Greez. Their journeys had all brought them together in mysterious ways, yet she had been thankful for the purpose and companionship that being with them had given her. She worries for them now, wonders what's happened and how she'd wound up here alone.

Perhaps Brasso will understand more, if the look in his eyes is any indication. So many others here have not understood her explanation of her home, have been from places not remotely familiar. He knows the Outer Rim, so that gives her hope, too. ]

I do not know of Morlana One, but I have known only Dathomir until recently.

[ So, there is much she has yet to learn. It also makes her perhaps more transparent and less secretive than she should be (her lack of being exposed to anything beyond the only home she's known), though she fully believes she has little to fear if the Empire finds them here. There are other dangers to confront. ]

I was traveling with...people. [ She hesitates on the word. Perhaps they would be friends. She thinks of them as such, but it is a foreign notion to her as well. ] On the Mantis. Do you know of the Empire?

[allforthecause]

[ His heart almost skips a beat with the sudden conflicting emotions. He forces himself to move his feet, to resume their solemn trudge upwards, if only to give him a moment to reply. He couldn’t tell by her voice how she felt about the Empire, and last thing he wanted was to get himself in hot water with an Imperial that didn’t have anywhere else to vent their frustration.

However, she clearly wasn’t human, so that already put her on the side of probably not Imperial. Still, it was best to be cautious.

He finally gave a rolling shrug in reply, hoping to come off as casual with a hint of wary instead of the intensely wary he actually felt. ]

I know it. We were just recently put back under direct imperial control.

[ There. A relatively neutral reply, he hoped. ]

The people you were travelling with - were you all heading deeper into the Empire? I would have thought the outer rim prefers to keep to itself.

[ Slightly less neutral, but oh well. ]

[starscollapse]

[ This man, then, knows of which she speaks. They have a shared knowledge that feels strangely comforting. On a distant world, this strange place, they are bound together by familiarity with a loathsome regime.

She continues to walk, though she glances over her shoulder briefly, eyes darkening with memories. ]

Yes. It does. I was raised to reject the rest of the galaxy and outsiders were considered dangerous to my people. But war came to us as it will to all. My family, my friends, they were slaughtered during the Clone Wars. I buried them and I was all that remained.

[ Her head turns forward again as they continue, and when she speaks of the massacre, it's with both a haunted softness and a measured detachment. She feels deeply for those she's lost, but it is a truth she will always carry and she has learned to bear the weight. She cannot escape the pain of it, but she imagines Brasso has his own pain, as do all who know of the Empire.

She is less neutral, of course, but her open disdain for the Empire comes from knowing (or believing, at least) that her magick would be strong enough to stand against them. ]

I could not remain on Dathomir any longer. I wish to know the galaxy and those who fight for it now.

[allforthecause]

[ He feels something in him relax, give way, even if she hasn’t outright said she hates the empire he can almost feel it. He’ll have to still be wary, but now at least he can show where he leans, a little bit. ]

My birth parents died during the Clone Wars too, [ He offers, though he was too young to understand what was going on at the time. ]

And we all suffer under the Empire now. But there are people who are fighting.

[ Even if a few days ago he wouldn’t have counted himself among them. ]