westwhere | stage iii

stage iii

THE ASHES

Image source.

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

Image source.

■ 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

Image source.

■ 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

Image source.

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hell was... well, it was hell, but honestly this battlefield is not much better.

Xie Lian has seen battlefields before some as bad as this one. he's been the cause of battlefields such as this one before. Once, he was almost in the same place as Rathakku, bent on destroying the country that had abandoned him.

But, this is the past. Right now, the most pressing matter is the cultivator who is expanding waaaaaaay too much of what little power he has to control so many undead. And Xie Lian knows he can't really give power to Wei Wuxian - they tried before, it didn't end well - but he can, at the very least hack and slash at a few undead bodies.

And it turns out, sharing power ends up being the least of his worries because as soon as he reaches Wei Wuxian's vicinity, he can see the man's legs buckle and he's only just in time to prevent him from hitting the ground rather hard. It takes a little bit of fumbling to catch the flute before it rolls away.

... Well then. It doesn't look like more can be done here, for now, so he might as well get the man to safety and he hoists him up into his arms. There's a lull in this part of the battlefield, so that's just as well, it allows him to slip away towards the path the caravan have taken.

And he'll only have to stop once or twice to skewer a slightly too persistent zombie.]

( his collapse is the inevitability of his exertion, just as his eventual return to consciousness follows with a bone deep exhaustion making him slow to understand what's happening. braced in arms, moving. carried, the fight in dredges that suck at their feet like rancid mud, eager to consume.

xie lian. it takes too long for that to register, even as he makes a small, bitten off sound in warning when xie lian is already twisting, sword cleaving one more stray dead husk. he tries to reach out, chapped lips made to whistle, but he's spent. beyond spent, and dizzy with his helpers progress. )

How long?

( he asks, but for what specifically, even he's not sure. has he been out? has xie lian been returned from hell? )

Those... creatures. That devour life itself. Did you disrupt them?

( asked while struggling to hold his head up. it's so tiring. his head is unaccountably heavy. everything is so heavy. )

Edited 2023-03-10 07:35 (UTC)

[Well that first question isn't very clear, but Xie Lian will answer it anyway.]

I picked you up about half an hour ago, I think?

[The hold on Weu Wuxian tightens a little, so that he won't fall just because he's suddenly aware and wriggling a bit.]

We did our best. I hope that'll be enough. I guess we'll know soon if it was.

Don't exert yourself too much. You need rest.

( he tries at first to rouse himself in some manner, free from xie lian's hold, but all he manages is the tired flick of heavy fingers and the strength to keep his chin from resting against his chest. he subsides near immediately, more resigned than generous in his appreciation of assistance. lan zhan's carried him through support, side to side, before, and once on his back, but this is simply... )

Behind, to your left.

( one of the middlingly coordinated dead, with a flail, eyes mismatched and flail coming up in a swipe at xie lian's backside. )

[Xie Lian doesn't even look back and simply thrusts the sword backwards ight into the head of the undead following them, cleaning it clean in two.

Which, yes, means he's carrying Wei Wuxian with one arm, although to be fair, he hardly weighs anything.]

Any news on their warlord? I know most of the city has evacuated now, but he's been calling everyone who fell on the battlefield... You've fought a hard battle to wrestle control of them from him.

( he simply wheezes as he's jostled and carried one armed, wondering if he ever had regained enough dignity to be losing it now. unlikely, he decides. a nice thought though. )

Still scuttles. Far as I can tell.

( he coughs, wiping at his mouth, ignoring the trickle of blood that follows. bad blood, not lung impact, for which he hopes lan zhan doesn't become aware regardless. he's Fine. )

Very difficult for me to feel right now.

( he's that drained. this time an undead soldier lumbers at them from the side, visible enough he says nothing, though the ice bat that follows almost gets a meep out of him. )

I wonder if we can manage to get to him like we did the Beastmaster...

[Not the priority right now, of course, protecting the evacuees comes first but leaving such a force behind seems unwise.

Xie Lian just flicks his arm at the undead and Ruoye unravels, caching limbs and tearing them off. If he's sensed the presence of the bat, he's ignoring it for now.]

Maybe one day, we'll leave a city and not live a battlefield behind? We don't have a very good track record.

Hey, we left Serthica better than we found it!

For once.

( the last muttered, wei wuxian now resigned to actively holding on to xie lian's robes to keep himself from feeling too much like a sack of flour carted by the god as he went on and on. )

Ratkinkuu isn't weakened, the Beastmaster was. Very... strong? Not overwhelming.

( his brain flips between considerations, exhaustion catching up all over again. this being carried and xie lian having to fight on isn't helping either. )

Ah, I guess we did. That was an uncomfortable time being there, though.

[Xie Lian mumbles to himself slightly.]

If only I didn't have the cursed shackles, this would be so much easier. That undead really isn't that powerful compare to a Calamity. Ah, but that's wishful thinking for now.

[Please allow him to .... stop and put you down for just a second, with a reassuring smile.]

I'll be right back.

[And already, he's jumped several feet in the air and, apparently forgetting for a second that he has a sword in hand, landed a massive punch square in the middle of the gian bat's face.]

( the worst part is he finds he flops somewhat bonelessly over, watching xie lian be ridiculously cultivator like, but knowing it's more his innate... selfhood. godhood? cultivation, too, isn't he one? a cultivator?

his mind is slipping again, exhaustion leaving him blinking blearily at bats and not even able to drum up a reaction to the dazed one that slams down near to where he flops. he lifts his wrist, waving his boneless fingers at the bat, which wheezes and expires. )

Bye-bye.

( goes the bat, hahahaha...ha... )

Gonna work harder on those curses, oh god!

[There, he is back to pick you up and then... go a little faster, half running and half flying. He can't use arrays or teleport here, so it'll have to do.]

Hold tight. I don't want to waste time killing everything we cross, so I'm going to go a bit faster.

'M fine! Fine...

( that's his yes, he'll hold on, and he does, fingers clawed into xie lian's sleeve like the enfeebled do, when exhausted and lacking energy to blink aggressively. meaning he still relies on his god-express to not be tossed around too much, grunting with any impacts along the way.

slay him, how long is it to... where are they going? he tries to lift his head, look back to the wreck, the ruin, of alem, and finds he can't quite manage the angle. )

Everyone's out?

Most of the civilians, as far as I can tell. The ones left are mostly soldiers, and Deimar. I'll be going back after I drop you off.

[He is more useful in the middle of that battle than with the refugees, no matter how much he'd like to make sure everyone is alright.]

When you get there, get some food and drink in you, alright? And try to rest for at least a few hours. It's too dangerous for me to try and give you qi with how much energy you've spent, so you'll have to do this the usual way.

( all this, by the end, has him wheezing. it might have been sardonic laughter. mostly it sounds like he's developed a sudden, understandable breathing problem. )

I think... it's too dangerous for me to take your qi... even in good condition... not to mention. Your method. My vinegar jar husband wouldn't understand.

( the wheezing continues, in such a way that it's pretty obvious he's attempting to laugh. )

I'm fine! Fine... will be. Fine.

I'm sure you will be.

[And soon they are in view of the refugees, camping around the monastery, a sea of tents and chariots, and Xie Lian is looking for a place to leave his charge in good hands.]

Do you see anyone you know? Lady Wen maybe, she must have evacuated.

( he flicks his fingers, about the energy he can summon right now. )

Yes, yes. Somewhere. Set me... there. There, that bit of wall. Looks nice. Cosy.

[Alright, fine, he'll set you down there, but don't think he's not going to go find someone to take care of you too and before he leaves, he makes sure someone is by Wei Wuxian's side with some water and food and a blanket.]

Alright, I'm going back.

( he waves xie lian on, chatting slowly but with the tired appearance of you know. good humour. )

Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

( ... he'd do near anything. have fun. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

stage iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject