the scattering

[groundrules]

And now, hard siege during Alem’s first log event, covering 27 January to 12 February.

This Arc relies on information sharing and troubleshooting solutions, whether to keep the watch towers standing, find the Reaper, hold back Rathakku or evacuate civilians. Don’t be shy!

As a refresher, character have individual assignment & notes — but rest easily, they can largely go anywhere in Alem and play out any prompt below.

Click each header for scenarios!

THE SCATTERING

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Alem’s chilly welcome includes a gift of weapons, clothes and meagre food provisions. You are quickly given your posts and grudgingly tolerated by fortress natives, many of whom accuse you of collusion with Rathakku or the merchant guilds. Expect unkind tests or teasing from soldiers who want you to prove your worth.

■ SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS: rare beds and hard pallets in the Keep barracks, sharing broad rooms infantrymen. Alternatively, sleep in the Wards, with refugees or the sick.

■ ARSENAL: you receive serviceable weapons or inherited clothes — ragged, over/undersized and perhaps livened by fleas.

■ FOOD: scant, dry, hard and prioritised for the weak, young, sickly or actively fighting. Scarce additional resources, such as berries and deer meat, can be procured from the nearby forests on the lower half of the mountain.

■ ACCESS: characters can go to anywhere, except the Room of Seals. Entering the Watch Towers will be discouraged during attacks, unless you were assigned these posts.

■ Between 7-10 February, Rathakku will Claw — meaning necromancers, the dead and those who are incredibly sensitive to life and death are vulnerable to his thrall. They could be conscripted into his armies, if they exit the fortress or linger long outside. Ghosts might woo them to enter the mountain forests, and they will itch with wanderlust and a sense of incompletion. Comment here with an idea of what you'd like you character to do/a> if they are lured to Rathakku’s side.

■ NPCs: each fortress level has a designated NPC you can reach out to. Deimar will additionally be visiting the Watch Tower, following Stephen Strange’s taunts.

THE WATCH TOWERS

The first and most war-torn line of defence. The watch towers keep Alem standing — fend off their attackers.

       EASTERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Eastern Tower: Jinx, Vi, Hermione and Chu Wanning. Medic: Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy.

■ Harpies frequently charge here, using their blade-sharp claws and deep fangs. They are humanoid but carnivorous and expressly prey on tower watchers. The scent of blood lures them — so Bones should quickly bandage wounds.
■ Bad weather hides their attacks. Beware the mists of 29 January and the blizzards of 3-6 February.

■ Cut the harpies’ legs if they fly away with you — better to risk a hard fall into the mountain’s snowy than being dragged into their nests.

■ They are vulnerable to loud sounds and vibrations. Set off the great, rusted tower bells to sound the alarm and repel them.

       WESTERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Western Tower: Eleven, Xie Yun, Kahl and Eda. Medic: Sarah Bishop.

■ Flurries of arrows frequently rain down, plain, fire or poison-tipped. They are shot in two broad attacks (morning and evening) by orc archers.

■ Sarah receives a kit of local ointment antidotes, but must make haste — the sickness spreads quickly and paralyses limbs. (Effects disappear over 1-6 hours, once the antidote is applied).

■ A rare few arrows are tipped with hallucinogen substances that trigger paranoid visions.

■ Orcs may try to scale this tower, using climbing hooks. Push them down.

       SOUTHERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Southern Tower: Jon Snow, Stephen Strange, Red and Finn. Medic: Wen Qing.

■ Irenia, Frost’s Scourge, an ancient, extremely large but slow dragon stops first at the Southern Tower before proceeding to other watch posts. She will turn back, if she is stopped here.

■ The dragon breathes down frost that can paralyse you in place, or freeze limbs. Wen Qing must prioritise warming the affected.

■ A few anti-frost shields have been supplied, but their magic wanes after a few hours. Use them as a last resort.

■ Irenia’s hide is tough and leathery, but she can be deflected by continuous attack. She no longer seems to hear or see as sharply.

■ She largely flies by, breathes ice and tries to pick up watchers in her great maws, then crack their bones or throw them down on hard stone.

■ Repel her for three consecutive days and she will not return for a week.

       NORTHERN TOWER

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■ Assigned to the Northern Tower: Kamala Khan, Wanda Maximoff, Merrin and Jiang Cheng. Medic: Anduin.

■ Demons draw large catapults near the fortress walls and throw strong projectiles at this tower — stone, large steel balls or even human or demonic.

■ The worst missiles comprise stones alight with ‘living fire’ — an extraordinarily hot blaze that can quickly incinerate tissue. Anduin should immediately attend to burns.

■ The tower is exceptionally weathered and structurally unsound, marked by large, destabilising holes. Kerasstone asks you to fix the infrastructure or guard his repairmen.

■ The ongoing damage sometimes triggers quakes in the fragile tower — hold on and don’t fall crumbling to your deaths.

■ Use the one-man crossbows and range weapons available, or the fixed large tower crossbows to shoot back and destroy the catapults.

THE KEEP

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Life at court, when the knives come out: barracks, royal halls and Crown Prince Haiva’s medical quarters await.

KINGDOM COME

The court of Alem bustles with rival proposals: the supporters of Crown Prince Haiva want to surrender the citadel, while proponents of former Regent Thyvault seek to raise the remaining armed forces in a desperate last stand against Rathakku. King Deimar, mere months in his rule, has opted to evacuate convoys and resettle them, after sealing away any last chance of Rathakku accessing hell’s gates.

■ The supporters of Haiva, Thyvault and Deimar wage frequent wars of words that accuse Thyvault of Deimar of usurpring rule, and Haiva of being too weak to lead.

■ Thyvault’s men slyly wonder if Deimar killed the beautiful woman he was seen wooing mere months ago in the fortress grounds. Proof of her death or continued survival would benefit the three causes.

■ The woman was last seen chased by a fair-haired rider into the frosted forests that Rathakku has peopled with monstrous wolves and undead Alem huntsmen. Interrogate hunters & commoners or track her down.

■ Tempers boil over Jan. 29-Feb. 5, with arguments frequently devolving into fights and shallow stabbing. As ‘supporters’ of the three gentlemen, you should defend their cause — but do pull back blows before you kill each other.

■ Deimar punished brawlers with a few days of penitent confinement in the barracks, where you are expected to reflect on your sins and attitude, and certainly not join the cliques of heavily drinking men playing dares and cards. Hold your liquor, survive the exceptionally spicy Alem meals and take advantage of the general inebriation to ask your questions of the brass — without showing your horror when you hear them boast that Thyvault’s men drove the local ice mermaid population extinct.

IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?

The Haiva’s medics ( Bones, Sarah Bishop, Anduin and Wen Qing) are repeatedly called in to inspect his fits of sudden and elusive sickness. He exhibits a varied multitude of bizarre symptoms when his healers visit him:

■ Bones finds Haiva is a haemophiliac, his skin brittle like paper.

■ For Sarah Bishop, Haiva is overwhelmingly feverish, battling an unseen infection.

■ Wen Qing sees patches on Haiva’s skin that resemble decaying, moulding or gangrene.

■ Anduin notices Haiva’s skin feels clammy, his breathing stalled, as if his body were entering rigor mortis. He is very much alive.

Haiva is always weak, but gratefully and mysteriously cured of his symptoms within hours of his consultation. You can start a thread with him!

Info sharing with the medics’ club is caring!

THE CROSSING

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The bustling, stifling and overheated Crossing reunites the main ground-level gates and corridors of Alem’s castle. Merchants traverse the halls, volunteering their wares at exorbitant prices, while former Regent Thyvault leads the departing troops.

HAGGLE GAGGLE

■ Colluding merchants offer their less-than-stellar goods at heinous rates. You get 100 coins to haggle long, hard and to the bone for food, cloth and maps, amid war inflation. Offer your hair, your virtue, the ugly side of your fist as needed. No one will mind if you liberate a few wares.

■ Two of the most prominent merchants — boastful Batthour of the grains and stern Eles, vendor of maps, silks and steel — openly despise each other. Their apprentices frequently start brawling — stay out of their way or stoke the clashes…

■ Batthour and Eles are both open to trade, but seem distinctly disdainful of Alem, expressing pleasure from profiteering in its downfall. Group up to raise coin or other goods to trade, then put in your best offer. The next few Alem convoys require 500kg of wheat and at least three maps of eastward provinces to resettle.

THE WAR IN WORDS

■ WHEN IT GRAINS, RED POURS: Under Thyvault’s leadership, Alem’s scouts and infantry gather in the Crossing for final instructions then advance into Rathakku’s territory. You can join them on a mission to the Ivory plains at the bottom of the mountain, where a few frozen storage houses still have summer grains. Steal back the supplies, bypassing snow-buried traps and Rathakku’s lingering feral creatures.

■ King Deimar has prepared new missives for Rathakku. Multiple envoys can group up to ensure delivery down the mountain and into the warlord’s encampment in the Tattered Highlands. Your white flag buys limited patience from Rathakku’s demonic armies. Only two characters can directly interact with the warlord — Sign up for one of two spots by 23:55 GMT on 30 January. Note: Rathakku should be approached lightly.

THE WARDS

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The ill-lit Wards house the wounded, young, crippled or vulnerable of Alem, alongside those preparing to evacuate the fortress in upcoming convoys. Where there is sickness and overcrowding, expect poor provisions, the astringent scent of antiseptic, and a sense of residual decay. The lucky few sleep on pallets — while most dwellers take the hard ground and share dry bread. Soft-spoken Crown Prince Haiva visits regularly.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN

■ Weak civilians are often targeted by soldiers, who are frustrated by sharing their resources with ‘leeches’ who do not defend the citadel. Intervene to protect the vulnerable and redistribute any food that is unfairly confiscated. Prince Haiva will lend his scarce authority to correct any reported wrongdoings.

■ Learn to supply first aid, console orphaned children or widow(er)s and ease the spirits of those petrified by the recent murders.

■ A convoy prepares to leave on 9 Feb, with another due on 15 Feb. Pack the scant effects of the weak and plead for the gold or charity of the Keep’s gentry. Whatever resources you gain will greatly help the survival odds of those who resettle.

■ Inevitably, death visits some of the wounded. Professional grievers and coarse embalmers perform cleansing and mourning rites for survivors. Help them, or participate in the local habit of sharing tales of your most tragic sorrows, to distract them from their own.

WATSON ON DUTY

■ The investigative summary, as civilians can share them: five unrelated deaths took place over the past 11 weeks. Some speak superstitiously of a Reaper, who punishes the people of Alem for abandoning their fortress and sacred duty to protect the gate to hell.

■ The victims were all men aged 22-35 of diverse appearances and backgrounds. Some had minor injuries. They were all found without marks of wounding or sickness, bearing a white string bound to their wrists. One of the men was a foreign merchant.

■ Senior sorceress Althea searched the site and cleansed bodies, finding no evidence of magical interference.

■ Haiva has reinforced guards, but Deimar seems indifferent. Thyvault believes this is only an inevitably level of mundane crime.

■ Some nights, you might wake to the haunting song of a plangent woman. You enter a state of dreamy, confused hypnosis, drawn to a narrow, steep staircase you had not glimpsed before. You fumble towards the lake caves of the Gut’s Bind. Even the intrusive voices of Alem tell you to snap out of it and awaken — but your best bet is a companion’s help.

■ The staircase cannot be found again, come morning. The call is fainter for women, and does not affect the same person more than one-two nights.

■ Guards, sorcerers and civilians can answer your questions — but prepare your bribes and wooing.

THE GUT’S BIND

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It’s nice, dark and quiet in here, barring the comforting thrum of the forges. Paladins and sorcerers are hard at their elusive work, reinforcing the Room of Seals. Access to the Forges, mines and glacier lake caves remains liberal.

LAKES, MINES, MAYHEM

■ THE MINES: Characters deployed to find new escape routes find a series of corridors leading into the previously bustling gold mines, where ore resources remain well supplied. The territory is overwhelmingly shaky, with mine shafts and structures prone to collapse. They appear dusty, brittle, husked and far older than their actual age. Go deep enough and you can find sheets haphazardly strewn about and the remains of partly devoured demons.

■ THE LAKES: Saunter into a series of four interconnected ice lake caves, where the brutal cold is viciously wounding and pervasive. The first three caves give you no trouble, beyond ridiculously sharp icicles waiting to drop down. As you enter the fourth cave, you find gleaming stretches of golden, gleaming… scales that float on the lake waters. Grab one to study — but beware the starved creature that guards them.

■ THE FORGES: some entirely abandoned, some functional, all well-equipped at this time. Settle down alone, or in the company of Kerasstone’s people — the old blood that preceded even Alem’s settlement and holy seal in the mountains.

■ Keep an ear out for sudden sounds or unexpected steps behind you, as you travel the tighter and tighter passageways to find or shovel new exit routes through the mountain: some of Rathakku’s creatures appear to have… wandered in. They camouflage as stone and lay perfectly still in wait of their prey, before descending. They’re vulnerable to strong light and a jolly smiting.

LOCK YOUR DOORS

■ Paladins and sorcerers enter the heavily warded and barricaded Room of Seals every few hours. They emerge exhausted, their resources drained. Some also bear heavy gashes.

■ Characters are barred from entering and incarcerated for a day in one of the Keep’s jails or brought before Galatea’s judgement, if they attempt to sneak in.

■ Groans and screams can be occasionally heard from within, followed by spikes in the sense of deathliness of the place. Some paladins are never seen exiting.

■ You have one chance to enter, at midnight on 1 February, when the Gut’s Bind erupts into calls for healers to attend an emergency. Collapsed paladins are urgently pulled out, while sorcerers attempt to ward the room before ultimately fleeing to help their brethren. You can infiltrate and stay inside for 20 minutes before the stoked anger of the room completely overwhelms you, and you begin to bodily attack everyone and everything around you. This is a dangerous route: check in for one of three findings scenarios.

QUESTIONS

Comments

[westviews]

[Wanda lets her gaze linger on the soldier until it's clear he's backing away and leaving. It's a relief. There's enough fighting going on outside.

She assumes the question is for the boy, whose face is smudged with dirt, little fingers clutching his stale bread. He nods shyly and startles when Wanda crouches to be on his level. It's just so she can talk to him without anyone but Spike overhearing.]

Where's your mother?

[Expecting a sad tale, she's relieved to hear the boy quietly say she was trying to get more food from the merchants. He looks alarmed when Wanda reaches out towards him, but its just to urge him to tuck his ration into the inside of his thin coat. She holds a finger to her lips--keep it quiet--before slipping him some coins. She'd given the majority of what she had to Pietro so he could pester the merchants himself, but she can part with the rest now.]

Go directly to her.

[The boy stares, in too much such about these two strangers turning a very bad day into something less terrible to even mutter out a proper thank you. Hands kept around himself to keep both bread and coin safe, he skitters off.

Sighing as she stands, she gives Spike a small smile. He's not yet a pile of ash.]

Thanks.

[He didn't do much, but that he stepped in at all counts.]

[speechy]

( the entire exchange gets absorbed with quiet curiosity and tells him what he already knew about her, something he picked up after their awkward evening together, prisoner and warden. she has a good heart, underneath the many qualities that still remain a mystery to him. it’s enough to keep him lingering there while wanda does her best to prepare the boy for the sprint to his mother’s ( hopefully ) waiting arms. sons and mothers, spike reflects, have a special bond incomparable to a father’s love.

he keeps the two in his peripheral, clocking anyone wandering too close and looking for any signs of greed or watchfulness in another. the boy’s meant to keep the coin and his meal. be it wishful thinking or not.

spike lets his gaze follow the boy dashing away from them until he’s out of sight, only barely above a breath when he scoffs. ) Yeah, you’re bloody welcome.

( easily dropped because if wanda isn’t put off and she’s the one that went out of her way to mitigate, then he has no right to be. to her smile, he shrugs. )

I just backed your play. Anyone decent or bored would have done the same. ( downplaying the interruption is simple when he hadn't really put his neck on the chopping block. ) You're good with children.

[westviews]

[Decent or bored gets a lift of her brows, wondering which category he'd put himself in at the moment, but she can sense he doesn't want fuss. She's happy not to give it.]

I had a good mother. I just think of what she'd do.

[Now, at least. Her mother would have done anything for her and Pietro, but not at the cost of inflicting terror and death. Or so she'd like to believe. What Wanda's done for the sake of trying to be with her boys is far beyond what her own mother could ever imagine.

And if that soldier had not backed down... well. She would have given him little choice in the matter.

Crossing her arms, Wanda turns her head to take in the sight of more hungry children, more worried, sick mothers. This situation is a drop in the pond.]

... but I don't think even my mother would be able to handle all of this, down here. It's a nightmare.

[speechy]

( if he scrapes the bottom of the well, it’s that he has plenty to make amends for after a century. much like she doesn’t read into his sweeping generalization, he’s happy to take her comments at face value without trying to blow the dust away from them.

spike thins his lips out in neutrality, scanning the same sight she’s taking in — the true cost of war. he’s seen enough ransacked villages and cities in his time to know what happens to the civilians that don’t escape early. he’s been the thing that does them in ( or at least on the side of the fearsome four that was terrorizing ) and two out of four were more willing than others to go after the vulnerable. )

My mum was a saint and even she wouldn’t know what to make of this. Put on tea and porridge the way the English do. Don’t think we’re going to find resources to make either down here.

[westviews]

[It's fine for her to look amused at the stereotype if he's the one that said it.]

My mother raised us during civil unrest. Sometimes she'd let the kettle whistle longer than it should to drown out the noise of gunfire.

[Not that Wanda realized what was going on at the time. Most here in the wards might not even have homes to try to give their children some sense of normalcy--if even such a thing was possible, a year into this hell.

Now that there's not the threat of the sun, she inclines her head, a quiet invitation for Spike to walk alongside her.]

How are you settling in? Siege aside.

[speechy]

She was sweet, your mother. For trying to protect you.

( he thinks his mother would have tried to protect him from the cruelness of society, had she known of his struggles to fit in. but, it was such a long time ago now that reflecting on the time period feels unusual. somehow, being laughed out of social gatherings due to being a colossal failure of a poet and growing up during a rebellion are so dissimilar that spike doesn't bother trying to relate verbally.

he has no such reluctance with falling into step beside wanda, although he snorts at her question. )

Ask me again when we haven't been buried under rubble. ( which is to say he isn't. not in the normal sense of being settled. ) Chaos isn't new to me. I can adjust.

( to the situation; not to the fact that everyone he has ever known is missing. )

What about you? How are things in your neck of the woods?

[westviews]

She was.

[And now Wanda will pick up where she left off, keeping Pietro safe. Protecting him. She won't fail again.

Despite her thoughts, the amused smile stays on her lips for a little longer. Buried under rubble. Chaos. He really knows how to choose his words, but there's no way he could know why she finds them amusing, grim as it might be.

A familiarity with chaos might be why she likes talking to him.

Or, maybe it's because he's not going out of his way to be nice like so many others. He's simply what he is.]

Busier than anticipated. My brother was one of the people that joined the party when you did, along with a few familiar faces from home. I didn't expect... any of that. Not here.

[The amusement is no longer on her face when she says that, because familiar faces means more to worry about in this seemingly doomed citadel.]

Great timing.

[speechy]

( admittedly, no. spike has no way of connecting dots a to b and figuring how they spell out c. hell if he's the kind of man to look a gifthorse in the mouth when a lady is prone to smiling. he yielded one in as little as a comment, didn't even have to get thrown through a brick wall to summon that joy. he'll take it in such dismal surroundings. absently, he acknowledges that wanda looks good when she smiles - not that she looked horrendous before.

he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket and makes like strolling through the masses of hungry, coughing people is normal. )

Oh? What's he look like?

( in the event that he's happened upon him or that he can do anything for the sod. he can see as much as shift the change in tone. he owes her a favor, doesn't he? )

Your brother, that is. I don't imagine the others are on the same level of importance.

[westviews]

[My twin, she almost begins, but perhaps that would bring too many questions were Spike to meet him. The years have been kind to Wanda in regards to aging, the ten years not overtly apparent, but they're there when she stands beside her brother and he looks so young.]

The grown out bleached hair is probably what you'll notice first.

[Said with the hint of a laugh. Spike, please teach Pietro your ways.]