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

[aprescoup]

( They untangle, and it's a strange new world to step in, colder. He stiffens, the initial embarrassment that had guided him now melting into simple awkwardness, like the air of strained ignorance that comes with not knowing how to pose a free hand when asked.

There is too much of himself, and he has so little purpose.

Behind them, the dead complete offloading their burdens, some returning with second, third rounds. They are too clumsy to carry delicately, fragile burdens partly crushed or torn in their hands, but they've made their best attempt of things. It will do.

In the end, Matthias excuses them with a nod, a wave, a moment of frustrated whistling. He is supposed to leave the girl. Has yet to. )

Kamala, listen to me. I want you to listen very closely. The world is not a kind place. And it's often not simple. ( A pause, while he starts to deposit the wares he'd pulled out from his pockets when he'd searched for food. ) The man you're following... he is making a very complex matter into something palatable. Into an enemy you can feel right to vanquish.

( A pause, then another smile. This time, pained. He gathers the doll, tightly. ) Everyone has been nice to you, because no one in your... association has stopped to think that you are all being very cruel.

[cosplayqueen]

[To Kamala's credit, she listens. She takes every word into her heart and carefully reviews it in her mind. She's a starry-eyed girl who likes to see the best in things. The world she occupies is a more colorful and beautiful one than most see in reality. Her mother never let her escape completely into her fantasy world. When Matthias presents her with a hard reality she doesn't appear to be surprised. She looks deeply concerned and unusually focused. She accepts it as a real possibility.

Her arms cross over her chest. Kamala worries her lip as she wonders what their misstep could be. Better to ask the source, she realizes quickly.]

Okay so tell me how we've been cruel. From our perspective, people are being attacked. We're trying to keep them alive even though sometimes they can be kind of awful. Getting access to a way home is just a bonus. We would have protected them for free or at least most of us would.

[There's no defensiveness or denial. Kamala sincerely wants to know his answer.] Where did we go wrong?

[aprescoup]

Here... elsewhere. Think. ( Think deeply, quickly, fairly. His voice firms, gaze steel and slate. He might have disciplined his young girl too, just so, when the time came for lessons, for learning. ) All the dead things that your people want to put down... that you're working so hard to vanquish. Here, in Serthica, in Ke-Waihu... before that.

( A wave of his tired hand, and it might seem leaden, might seem slowed. Sa-Hareth, Taravast, the countless empty roads. All their encounters with the dead, what have they taught? )

Where do the dead go, when they've been destroyed again? When they can be uprooted and eliminated, but never... eradicated completely?

( There is no death for the undead. There is no succour. )

[cosplayqueen]

[Kamala is missing so much history here. What she has been a part of she hasn't fully understood. The teen does in fact think. She realizes quickly that she doesn't know the answer. Where do the dead go when they can't be completely destroyed?] I don't understand. Are you saying they weren't going to a better place when some of us destroyed their bodies? I thought that maybe they were setting their souls free.

[She shakes her head. Kamala's capacity for violence begins and ends with defending herself and the people around her against those who aim to kill. She leaves her opponents with bruises and nothing more.] I could never... but, I didn't think they did something wrong. Have they? Are we doing something bad?

[Her voice raises a little. The thought clearly grieves Kamala. For all her fantasies, that desire to do what is right is very much in reality.]

[aprescoup]

( He waits her out: her words, her process of reflection. It is a slow thing, the acknowledgement that you play a central part in a fairytale — that of the villain.

Throughout this, he holds on to the doll, dragging it closer to his chest, as if Kamala might think to snatch her away to retaliate for truths she might not be all too keen to hear. )

Listen to me. Undead things cannot die. They make house in dead bodies, because they want to live. ( And is it despair, the sudden warmth in his plaintive voice? Or a simple, quiet resolution? )

Destroying their flesh shells... doesn't extinguish them. It strands them. It leaves them... paralysed. Watching, waiting, stuck. For an eternity, during which they cannot die.

( A bitter, unkind, tormented fate, propagated by a group of miscreants who think the temporary solution of culling the undead benefits anyone beyond the men and women who monopolise these lands. )

I know what you thought: that they are torturing the living. You looked at them, and you saw wolves, and you stepped in to defend the rabbits. But there's a forest on this mountain, go see: even wolves have hungry young to feed. Your compassion doesn't right an injustice. It imbalances an ecosystem.

[cosplayqueen]

[It goes against everything she believes to hear those words. Kamala isn't even upset at the way he's clearly expecting reprisal for bursting her bubble. It had not been that long since Najima and her crew showed up to murder her whole family because she dared to do the same. Despite his flaws, Kamala knows who she is in this scenario: she's Kamran. She's the one who learns the hard truth about what's going on and decides to do the right thing regardless of the cost.

Unpopular or not, she can't listen to this man advocate for these people and not advocate for them in return. Her heart sinks as for the millionth time she wishes she could talk to Nakia. She's so good at speaking up for others. The same is true of her new sister Tyesha.

All they have is her. Kamala doesn't look angry about that. She looks devastated. Her entire life people have reminded her of her shortcomings: too scattered brain, never takes things seriously enough, needs to work harder, be more like the other girls, etc. It mostly came from a place of love and concern. Right now it just wounds her.

A few stray tears fall, but Kamala quickly wipes them away and looks sheepish about it.] Sorry. I don't get to be part of the problem and then cry when someone tells me about it. I don't need to know how this is possible. This is your reality. I just have to accept it.

[Kamala says aloud partially to herself. She can talk to the Iman about it later. Now is the time for getting what she needs to make things right.

She takes a deep, cleansing breath and checks to make sure she's got this down correctly. Nakia always has the story straight. She should too.] If I'm hearing you right, we've been screwing up the ecosystem of this place and a lot of other places. The undead and the living need to figure out how to coexist without a bunch of random people coming in to try to play the hero while we look for a way back home. Whether we like it or not, these are the lives the undead have been given.

[She stares at Matthias a moment. Kamala doesn't know if it's right to ask. She also knows Nakia would ask to help frame her argument. Tyesha too.] The life you've been given?

[aprescoup]

( He listens, again, and it seems a learned habit — to digest what is given to him, to absorb knowledge and only act on it thereafter, with measure, with discipline.

Kamala speaks, and something seems to break in her. A responsible man might reach out, might draw her close. Awkwardly, one hand still bound to the doll at his chest — he is a father, was a father, cannot deny the call to comfort — he fetters an arm over her shoulders. )

No. I don't share their burdens. I could pass for what you are. I could be untroubled with their hardships. It could be that simple.

( A squeeze, tender. ) But you know the truth of it. Once you see pain, you cannot ignore it. You're a kind girl. ( It is plain, even on first encounter. ) I can only hope your people share your sentiments.

( Then, gently, he releases her. ) I should leave. I only wanted... it felt wrong, to not at least try to urge you. To beg you to consider. It felt wrong.

[cosplayqueen]

[She offers a small, grateful smile at the comfort he offers. Kamala thinks he must have been a good father like hers. He just made mistakes like the rest of them. She hopes the doll will at least remind him of the things he did right.

Kamala nods at the mention of going. She knows they've held each other up at this point. She's so glad they did. Even if not a single soul listens to her, at least it gives these people a chance to be heard. No one can say they didn't know better after today.]

You did the right thing. We can't do better if we don't know we're hurting people in the first place. [Someone smarter like Nakia would argue they should have known. She isn't here so it goes unsaid.]

I can't promise they'll listen to me, but I'll make sure everyone knows. [Determination colors her features. She is going to try no matter how lacking she is.] Thank you, Matthias. If you ever need anything else, find me. For whatever it's worth? Kamala Khan will have your back.

[She makes a peace sign with her fingers and tries to leave him with a smile. This was a lot of a lot, but she doesn't want to leave things on a totally depressing note. The future will work itself out one way or another.]

[aprescoup]

( One moment, one moment more. She hastens to honour his signal, but — )

Thank you. ( And there's the dark wisping energy that seeps from his hands, that winds and caresses her pendant, where it's hidden. That shifts and shapes. ) Call on me, if you must. You alone, I'll answer.

( But then — blink and miss him. Blink, and he is gone. Blink, and perhaps he never was, only the cries of great Irenia in distant flight above, there to betray his departure. )