stage iii

[groundrules]

THE ASHES

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Rathakku’s forces deepen their siege, with sharp-clawed harpies, fire-bearing catapults and archers raining hell upon Alem. The last two watch towers collapse, along with half the roof of the Keep. Several structural pillars dissolve and most windows shatter.

The Lord Who Waits has tired of patience.

HIGH CASTLE

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■ Attack is vicious and perpetual: Rathakku’s creatures descend from above, harpies make lairs in dark corners, and the fallen rise as undead enemies. Rathakku now necromances even the recently deceased, who retain a sense of personhood. Characters with mind control and necromantic abilities can take over these units. The recently resurrected have yet to decay substantially and hide they perished in order to infiltrate.

■ The dragon Irenia dips in to breathe frost onto Rathakku’s forces, but never lingers long. She disappears on March 20 but will return post-Arc.

■ Aware of his native Ellethia’s implicit role in raising Rathakku, Zenobius offers to teach you how to use the rare metals and saltpetre of Alem to create generous explosives — a set that triggers a very high blast, and a smaller shipment that can annihilate any magic — including death and summoning sorcery — in a 20-metre radius for two hours. Zenobius is a hard, curmudgeony taskmaster: expect to be worked and criticised to the bone.

■ Expect frequent quakes in the fortress, as catapults strike and the roof and pillars wobble. A hard winter is no longer contained by shattered doors and windows. Fire kindle and other supplies run scarce. Huddle together.

■ Paladins fall into zealotry, calling to sacrifice young princess Cle-Florens to ensure their success in battle. Deimar does not dissuade them, but lowers the number of guards protecting Cle-Florens’ quarters.

■ The voices that haunted Alem now multiply, increasingly likely to drag you into a dream-like state to descend into the glacier lakes underground. Spy thereabout at night, and you spot demonic fire sirens of golden scales, who gather in the fourth glacier lake’s cave to urgently complete their task before Alem falls. Their leader produces a purse of dark glass shards. A siren painfully transforms her tail into human legs by consuming such glass — she intends to infiltrate the fortress as a refugee. Sign up for a RNG thread to interrogate this mermaid.

■ With a few more shard crumbs, the sirens summon a ‘Jatharin’ — a fast dispersing silhouette that floats ethereally. They give it a white-silver string punish Prince Haiva for wronging a sister.

■ The Jatharin survives only two hours in the human realm. It lacks human consciousness and memory, remembering little of its target’s description and pursuing what ‘young men (with pale hair)’ it finds in the Wards. It is invisible to all who did not witness its birth — so keep your companions out of its way. It approaches a target and chains itself to them with a shadowy ‘umbilical chord,’ before sucking dry their life force. It can also deplete energy through... mouth-on-mouth action. Clean executions: Victims make no sound and barely shudder throughout their entrapment. Some say, these are painless deaths.

■ Sirens summon a Jatharin for three nights.

	HARPIES Fast, perpetually furious, prone to consuming human flesh. Deterred by loud noise and vibrations. Imbue their claws with poisons that prevent blood coagulation, extending bleed-outs.
	CATAPULTS Deliver projectiles of stone, fire and minor explosives. Rathakku’s most ferocious instrument, taking down Alem’s foundations. Manned by four undead apiece. Sturdy but slow, best targeted aerially.
	FIRE SIRENS Native to Hell. Deeply bound to ‘sisters’ and ‘family.’ Possess golden scales and shards of the previously encountered dark water mirrors. Their song is tinny but compelling. Their speaking voices are crackling and gravelly. Survive the glacier lakes’ cold by exuding flame. Skin burns to touch.
	JATHARIN Smokey, dispersing silhouette. Invisible to those who did not witness its birth. Kills by consuming life energy. Descended from the Motherless of Hell. Cannot be outright stopped, only avoided, enslaved or consumed. Can be distracted if you take an aspect similar to Haiva. Leaves a golden string on unintended victims.

THE DEPARTING

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■ King Deimar orders caravans to urgently evacuate, carrying refugees and provisions through mountain routes into a new settlement. Able men, guards, healers and merchants make preparations around the clock and will gladly accept, command or guilt your assistance. Help them.

■ Courtesy of Jimmy and Nacho, merchants Batthour and Eles provide some last-minute wagons and resources. An Alison-coached Deimar strikes a tenuous agreement for supplies.

■ Having received ‘healing’ flowers, Prince Haiva seems entirely recovered — far more confident, he menaces guards to assist the caravans. Deimar watches uneasily. Haiva asks the party to lead the refugees through the icy mountain passageways, where Rathakku’s immense bat demons loom.

■ The caravans journey to a well-warded settlement near the base of the mountain — former paladin monastery Hassir. Those who wish to avoid conflict can remain here. Prepare to kill any wandering pursuers, before they may alert Rathakku of the settlement's location.

	MOUNTAIN BATS Monstrous, blood-thirsting. To the size of 1.5-3 metres. Bulky, quicker to use their brawns than their speed. Stalk together, but compete for food and want to drag their prey to some great distance before consuming it, for privacy. Use that time to escape.
	HUNTSMEN Undead forces, typically old resurrections of Rathakku. Once human natives of Alem. Excellent knowledge of hiding spots and the mountain. Hostile, take perverse pleasure in the game. Will prolong a chase for sport and give their hungering hounds the chance to catch you. Unusual kinship with local animals, who sometimes obey them. Some scent blood.

COME HELL, THEN DARK WATER

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Hell is ruthless, but pragmatic — and must be sealed, before Rathakku controls Alem and weaponises it.

The growing cracks in Alem’s underground Room of Seals widen to reveal full-fledged stairs. More and more demons emerge as the rifts broaden. You have mere days to close Hell, ICly starting on 18 March.

■ Back/forward date your posts and logs as needed. Network access is spottier in Hell. Deimar’s paladins accompany the group.

■ To prevent the outpour of Hell, you must reach Level III and record disrupting at least three Motherless.

■ Each level of Hell shows shallow stains or streams of the familiar ‘dark water.’

LEVEL I

■ The Room of Seal leads into an underground stone passageway. Demons and skeletons are chained to stones or pillars, begging water. The dead are fickle: some offer directions, others answers to your questions. Most lie for their own gain.

■ The stairwell to Level II is behind locked gates, on a stone dais framed by a wall of flames. To reach it, cross a threadbare walkway of bones in a large hall room that has largely submerged into lava.

■ If the bridge ruptures, jump onto the nearby talking floating skeleton heads. Skeletal hands reach out to destabilise or drag you into the fire waters, as do demonic lava mermaids.

■ As you near the dais, the wall of flames might depict either the time when Thyvault’s people slaughtered the lava sirens, or your worst memory of betraying or failing someone. That same person is found shackled with long chains on the dais. If you never wronged anyone, this is someone to whom you are dearly indebted. At times plaintive, at others incensed, they appeal to your guilt or goodwill, bartering the gate key for their release. Their chains will only open if someone agrees to take their place in imprisonment.

■ You can steal their key, kill them — at which point, they return to their true form as a reptilian shapeshifter, or offer to take their place. Do so, and your character is stuck in Hell, suffering the intense heat and occasional clawing of mermaids, until Hell closes.

■ Up to you if anyone else can see your character’s memory in the flame wall. Please trigger warn adequately if you are describing sensitive memories.

LEVEL II

You descend deeper, into an underground urbanscape infested with flesh-like structures. Some stretches of land and stone are covered in membranous, dense, thick surfaces, letting you feel the faint, distant heartbeat of Hell. Other landmarks — lairs, adornments — are made of the remains of fallen demons.

■ Step lightly and rapidly. Flesh-eating demons roam these lands, as do hungering hell hounds and golems that chase you for parts to patch their limbs.

■ The next stairwell is guarded by a deathly groom or bride, their tentacles barring your path.

■ To proceed, you must gain the ring they are safe-keeping for a future ‘intended.’ You’ll need to persuade a local demon, assemble a passing corpse bride, sell a companion or offer yourself to betroth them — and negotiate a dowry.

■ The groom is crafty, cunning, eager to manipulate you into offering your soul as a dowry; the bride is cruel but irresistible, stirring you and your companion to violently compete for her hand.

LEVEL III

Behold true hell, an endless wasteland, its horizon fathomless and grey. Your mouth tastes of perpetual ash, bone dust scattered at your feet. You walk aimlessly for hours in fields of gravel, haunted by stone snakes and shapeless bone creations.

■ Demonic creatures rally as armies, fighting each other for crumbling territory or for overground dominion, as they prepare to invade Alem. Some drag rows of sullen, depressed or bellicose dead men behind them, whose souls you can liberate furtively when the demons make camp, or are assaulted by Deimar’s paladins. These captives did not all originate from Alem.

■ Some of the lesser demons may part with information, if you give them memories, important trinkets or a taste of your soul.

■ Most paladins are on this level and will shield you. You hear from them or from passing demons that Hell is now able to seep into Alem because of the Motherless — dark and flickering silhouettes, two-three times the size of a man, who float high above ground. They send down thick ropes like umbilical cords that consume the energy of whatever they attach to. They redeliver this energy as tectonic blows against Alem above.

■ Beyond a hatred of the Room of Seals, the Motherless lack conscience, speech or allegiance. They are drawn to the warmth of living things, or the purity of their spirit. Their ropes are broken easily — but the presence of a Motherless can quickly drain you.

■ The Motherless are briefly visible when they fling their ropes down, but otherwise roam invisibly and can only be recognised by the trails of barren land and aridity in their wake. You know a Motherless has stopped above you when you are suddenly paralysed by chilling fear — run, at all costs.

■ The Motherless swarm when endangered. They cannot be killed.

■ Deimar’s paladins share that, hundreds of years ago, their brethren committed ritual suicide, so their spirits could perpetually hunt the Motherless in Hell. You find ghostly paladins walking listlessly in lakes of dark water, seeming to remember nothing of their mission or their former selves. Try to remind them of their duties without entering the water and stranding yourself.

NOTES

■ Hell demons can recognise if your character is canonically connected to hell. Up to you if that’s a (dis)advantage!

■ Everyone should eventually make their way to the Hassir monastery.

■ Sign up for a RNG thread with an unexpected travel companion on the trek to Hassir.

NPC THREADS

QUESTIONS

Comments

[downswing]

( Merrin of Dathomir and her peace of trembled waters.

He watches her spare them the mercy of a few gasped swallows, bone jaws reaching to snap as the dead attempt to swallow in jugulars that will not hold liquid, with absent tongues that cannot lick. It is a waste of fluids, droplets spilling on the glistened white of their carcasses —

Yet it satisfies them, the purring groan of one such creature all but sparking its brothers to echo, to a choir, to hold the magnetic song. Lan Wangji drifts from awareness of his surroundings to animal hyperfixation on the skeletal figure that accepts Merrin's gift, on its fleeting, now lost humanity.

He stays the exchange, after two heartbeats, now more than a few drips of water shed. It cannot go wasted. To the bound dead, half of a bow, perfunctory. To Merrin, waving her to follow — )

There will be more. You have feasted one. The brothers will remember.

( And beg her, in passing, also. )

[silverneedles]

[ It was their war, although she tried to stay distant from it. It was of little use, too valuable to Wen Ruohan, too much a Wen to stay uninvolved. She wasn't on the front lines, fighting against the clans that rose up against the Wen clan, but she was in the chambers with Wen Ruohan and his madness, which damned her just as much as any fighting could have possibly done.

But then, even if she and Wen Ning had stayed in Yiling, peaceful and unprovoked, no Wei Wuxian and the Jiang siblings invading, they would have been damned.

I know how you dwindled them. Sword and spiritual weapon. [ He says it, sharp and cruel, and Wen Qing feels a stirring of anger, but there is little need to indulge, when there is so much anger all around her. She's not an angry person by nature. ] Did you find them and close their eyes, Hanguang-jun? Pray for them to find the bridge to the underworld?

[ She picks up another rock, and hurls it into the mass of warriors beneath them. ]

[beitangmoran]

Indeed, it seems so.

[Maybe surprisingly, when she says she doesn't want to talk about it, he just smiles and nods. He's still curious, he might even snoop around a bit later or try to find a way to convince her to tell him, but he has enough tact to understand and back off when told someone wants to avoid a subject.]

We should be safe for at least a few hours. Words will get out that the door is guarded.

[beitangmoran]

Would you mind taking the rear, daozhang?

[There are enough people to take care of what's coming, but the threat of pursuit is very real.]

It's very important that the convoy gets free of any interference and none of the combatants catch up to it

[beitangmoran]

[You would hate him saying it, Chu Wanning, but he knows your type, so of course he said it like this.

He'll sit as well, posture less rigid and leaning against the wall, and close his eyes for a moment. Unfortunately not long. After barely a few minutes, the symbol on his forehead appears and glows a silvery purple for a few seconds.]

We have more company coming. Foolish. I didn't think they'd dare come back so soon.

[scrapgege]

Hm. I'm sure he believes that. It might even be true.

[Given what they've seen down here, there are, indeed, malicious forces at play that should not be left out, although whether they are as apocalyptic as they have been led to believe is also a matter of opinion.]

But I don't think that's everything. He's hiding something too. And he didn't seem too bothered by potentially having to sacrifice a child to stop this.

[downswing]

( Hold the wards. Hold them. Brittle though they are, strained by the cloying, claustrophobic sorcery of the surroundings, hold them still —

He cannot move to Kanesada's aid, cannot offer Bichen's blade and her tender succour, not without transgressing against the equilibrium of the magic already cast. So, grip tight, jaw locked, the world around him screaming with the tinny beating of Kanesada's sword against an invisible, jarring heft —

He waits. And waits. And does not shiver when a brindled whirlwind drags sand to bruise his back and cheek, when Kanesada's attacks feel land-changing, seismic. When, finally, the grounds no longer wither, but liven again, and though he had not thought the wasteland could never rejuvenate — now he sees it.

And he calls to Kanesada, the proof of their victory, won: )

...settle. ( There is an animal within this man, a beast Lan Wangji had not glimpsed before. He speaks to it, tenderly: ) Settle your fury, it is done.

[scrapgege]

Don't worry about them. They're not real.

[Not only that, but even though it's not a fun time seeing that again, he's come to better terms with it now, so it doesn't feel as... awful as the first time he got reminded of it.

his left hand is still shaking a little, though, and he grabs it with his right to stop it.]

Just ignore them. We just need to find the key.

come hell, then dark water (cw: violence)

[vdovy]

In the flames, Yelena sees herself. She wields a knife, bloodied, the corresponding gash on her opponent's thigh. The woman she fights is well-trained, the pair evenly matched as they wrestle for the upper hand. Briefly, it looks as if Yelena will lose, brought to her knees and struggling against the other woman's grasp. Then she drops her knife, catches it with her free hand, and buries it in her opponent's gut. A horizontal slash carves across the abdomen, finishing her off. Yelena shoves the dying woman aside like garbage.

This isn't Yelena's first experience with such visions. She saw Natasha's final moments in Serthica's haunted tower. There is no threat of her falling for the same trick, but she watches her companion expectantly, clinging to hope that Emilia will see something else in the fire.

[blackscales]

[ Funny how that works, right? Wrathion gives a small, imperceptible nod. ]

This is not our city, I usually dislike making a decision on behalf of another people. However, there are already some here seeking justice for themselves.

[ So, you know. ]

If we mislike the creature they summon, perhaps we could make it so... they did not require it.

[ You know, not swing the blade themselves, just let the sirens get what they want without any more summoning of creatures who mow down innocents in their path. ]

[downswing]

"Fire," he agrees, voice husked, dissected. Unstitched and turned over, and its innards shown, belly up to the heavens. "Later."

Later, when he can yet prevail on the tender instinct to shield her, to hold her close, when nowsuspects Emilia will manifest it despite his pleas. And what can he do, to object to her? She has the right of it. A villain vanquished is one denied courtesies.

"She weighs as nothing. A small burden."

If he convinces her, if he can simply — he starts to walk, unwaiting. Let her stay him, if she must.

[jatharin]

Left behind.

( He echoes, softly, voice thinned with the strain of stillness, with the gentle tug of Yelena's hands. A wound, all the same. It takes hard toll of him. )

Is that what he did, I wonder? ( But it's polite, isn't it? Entirely conversational. ) He left us all behind.

wildcard — exeunt hell

[vdovy]

[ Relief floods when Yelena catches sight of Wangji some distance ahead, presumably making his exit from hell just like her. Hell has worn her down such that she doesn't run to catch up— not immediately, anyway. Not until she notices the blazing hands of lava mermaids reaching for his ankles. The crumbling bridge has narrowed and even a momentary loss of balance could prove fatal.

She breaks into a run, skipping over gaps and piled debris, and whips out her gun when once within range. A single shot pierces an outstretched forearm, causing the mermaids to retreat.

As she nears, the reason Wangji did not slice through them with his sword becomes clear. Yelena's brow furrows. ] What are you carrying?

[traumatology]

You're gonna be better to do the talking than me.

( but sure, let's go talk to them. bucky sighs, eyeing the paladins before he starts stomping his way over to them. he waits, letting wei wuxian step in front of him.

he's better at being the intimidating muscle. )

Ask them.

[techmaturgy]

Sorry.

[He doesn’t actually sound sorry, but he will help her with the children, at least, a perhaps unexpectedly gentle hand starting to usher the terrified family away from the imminent rockfall. He doesn’t know how long Emilia can keep that up, and he’s not terribly sure he wants to find out. What matters now is that they move, and he nods in agreement that it should be as a group.]

I thought it best that I stay down by the forges, out of harm’s way. [Talking is a good distraction from what might be their imminent doom. Viktor is not fast, but he does his best to keep up, the rhythmic tapping of his crutch with every step maintaining some urgency. He does, at least, think it pertinent to note that he hasn’t exactly been looking for danger.] At least until that became. Untenable.

[cosplayqueen]

That makes a really scary amount of sense. The people from my world are some of the most powerful people in existence, like powerful enough that it takes literal cosmic forces to take them down. Their whole thing is trying to stop bad things from happening. Confronting just them head-on is crazy. That's not even counting everyone else.

[And there is she is as the perfect representation of the people they're trying to protect. Kamala feels cold once again as she thinks of the others might do for her sake. It really hits her, doll aside, why she's a good person to target with this. Is Dr. Strange going to wait to explain to Ammi and Abu she's an undead zombie now or is he gonna do something crazy to fix it? She thinks she knows the answer.]

I don't know enough about anything to contradict him anyways, but okay. Just go along with whatever he says so he doesn't murder me if he gets in touch. That I can do.

[rumorate]

I don't think that matters so much if they can eat their fill here.

[Kamikaze bats, basically. Sure they might die, but they'll die with a full belly, and she can't really fault them for that.]

They didn't seem inclined to carrying off food anyway with how they went after their friend there.

[growlies]

Maybe.

( Her expression is apologetic at least. )

It's not your friend, but I know that doesn't make it any easier. Just might be the only way to break the spell.

I can do it if you need me to.

[rumorate]

Something trying to kill us.

[She doesn't know anything more specific than that, but given how far she's traveled in this world, she doubts there's little out there that isn't trying to kill them.]

It's just a matter of if it's intentional or instinctual.

[inferus]

Wrath's gaze roams over her when she speaks those words: I'm all right. He needs another look before he is entirely assured of the truth she gives. She slumps against him, and his grip tightens against her back. He stares down at her with his jaw locking, and his body preparing again for war.

They are hardly finished here.

They both know it.

But he takes this moment regardless to reassure himself that she is alive, she is okay, she is here. She hasn't disintegrated within his hands moments after he's said I love you like what happened in the garden. He swallows through old raspy emotion and then nods in answer to her words.

"We will." His voice fills with certainty. His hand finds her own, grabbing hold tightly. "He will not fall." They are both aware of why it is so important that he doesn't.

[chromiums]

Yeah, that much is a given. [ and she's not sure which would be worse. enemies that operate on instinct don't tend to wear out, which means they take longer to defeat. if they can be defeated.

lorna sighs, looking back at the crowd as it continues filing by. ]

I hope we can get enough of them out in time.

[rumorate]

Me too. This is all such a mess.

[Not that it's any if their faults.

Except Havia. This is all Havia's fault, but Emilia and Wrath are taking care of that.]

[chromiums]

[ it's probably for the best that they are and that the others are left to focus on getting as many people out as they can. lorna's angry enough to want to focus her anger on fighting, but she also knows it's probably better for it not to burn out too quickly, especially when they don't know what's out there. and she's just as interested in getting people out safely as she is fighting. ]

Yeah, it is. Have you gotten to check in with anyone else?

[ their group keeps growing and it feels hard to keep track of everyone at times. ]

[weifinder]

( He glances to Wrathion, silent for a beat. For two. )

I don't rest easy knowing that's simplest. Or that in this case, it won't make anything right. It's thin justice, and it's due.

Violence begets violence. The victims had everything of them consumed. In my world, that'd be a violence beyond imagining.

[weifinder]

( with the paladin they'd sort of rescued trailing in after them, it's also easy for wei wuxian to spin this situation. he waves toward the paladins, and they tense, but the sight of a fellow in known armour turns threats to situational reports, and wei wuxian inserts himself into the conversation.

the sitrep isn't necessarily helpful in full, but in particulars, there's enough to work with. he glances to bucky and flashes a smile to the group, a much more coordinated and calm man than he was when he'd been shrieking and latching onto him earlier, asking to be saved.

there's less dog. he's much more in his own skin when not scared right bloody out of it.

he clasps a shoulder, nods, and aims a grim smile at bucky, who has heard most of the conversations, he presumes. lifting his flute, he likewise lifts his brows. )

Heard about our paladin souls stuck in mires? I know where I can help. Can you watch my back while I play them out of their stillness?