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

[rumorate]

Thanks. My father would be so pleased that I've found a productive use of my skills.

[Especially since he had things to say when she ran off to be an actress. But she's also mostly being sarcastic.]

How's it going up there?

[traumatology]

Oh, it's going.

( he can't really tell exactly how it's going but there's a lot of fighting and noise and that's all too familiar. )

No one's retreating yet so I guess no one's ready to give it up.

[rumorate]

I don't see these guys giving up anytime soon.

[But hopefully the merchants hold up their end of the bargain. Deimar's been doing okay, but even his best is not great.]

They kind of have that unable to die thing going for them.

[traumatology]

Known a few people like that. You think they're gone and they just keep turning up like a bad penny. Or a cockroach.

( either or. he sighs. )

That's not something you can do, I'm guessing?

[rumorate]

Not die? No, I'm very killable.

[Which is unfortunate, given the situation that they're in.]

Unfortunately immortality went to a different member of the family.

[Which is probably for the best because Klaus is well. Klaus.]

[traumatology]

Damn.

( not that he wants her to die to try and test immortality but it might have been handy for a few reasons. he's hard to kill but he's definitely killable and this is a situation that seems to be begging for it.

he winces. )

I don't think I have any special skills to really stop it either. Unless we just hide behind my arm and hope that it doesn't give out under the onslaught.

[rumorate]

[That doesn't seem like a viable plan. It's moments like this when she wishes she had one of the more offensive powers, because she's not sure if it will work on the group of undead advancing towards them.

But maybe trying would be worth a shot? Maybe trying would be enough to at least get them back to somewhere safe.

Some of the undead look fresher than others - as in probably just killed fresh.]

I have an idea. Might not stop us dying, but could at least buy us some time?

[traumatology]

Those are about the odds I'm used to so —

( he nods, agreeing with whatever plan she's got. )

Go for it, I can watch your back.

( least he can do. )

[rumorate]

[She nods, before stepping forward, trying her best to focus her power on the approaching undead. Here goes nothing:]

Fight for me.

[Her eyes glow yellow, and the command reverberates out towards them, and it doesn't seem to slow the ones that have been dead longer. They keep advancing, regardless. But before they get too far, the two more recently undead turn on their teammates, slicing them down before they can get to Allison and Bucky.]

[traumatology]

( when she says the words, he thinks to ask her what the hell she's talking about but then he notices the two undead that actually...listen.

his eyes widen and he looks at her, watching her and stepping closer just in case any of these things get too close to her. he can protect her, at least. )

[rumorate]

[She steps back as he moves in, before her eyes start to scan over the area around them. They need to cut a path out, and this isn't the kinds of tactics she's been trained for.

Reginald trained them for street fights not military battles.]

Which way do you think is the best way out of here?

[traumatology]

Uh.

( good question. he curls his fingers into a fist, metal against metal and starts walking, gesturing her with him. )

Come on. I'll make a way out of here if I have to.

[rumorate]

[Allison nods, and once her rumored undead take down the group they came with, she issues another order:]

Take out anything that gets in our way.

[They move ahead of them, starting to slice through the undead that come at them, and Allison moves to follow behind Bucky.]

[traumatology]

( if there's one thing that he knows how to do and do well, it's take out anything that gets in the way. so, he nods and he stands in front of her, walking with a purpose but not running so they can keep together.

he catches something coming at them out of the corner of his eye and he pivots, catching it against him and driving his metal fist into its gut before tossing it aside and resuming walking, glancing back at her. )

[rumorate]

[She follows as close as she can on his heels, sword out and slicing through if necessary, but the two rumored undead flank their sides so fend off some of the others trying to crush in. It's a meat shield, and a temporary one as she sees one of them start to flag against the onslaught, but hopefully it will buy them some time.

It's also likely cruel, if you're the type to see the undead as people, but Allison has never been the type to prioritize the survival of herself and the people on her team over other people. The Swedes learned that the hard way.]

[traumatology]

You still good?

( she hasn't stopped moving so he assumes so but he checks in, looks back and makes sure anyway. )

No weird tentacle creatures showing up from behind?

[rumorate]

[She snorts, but shakes her head.]

Nope. Just the usual zombie fare.

[She's not going to try and jinx it though by saying that they're probably too far out for those creatures from the temple. That's exactly when said creatures would show up to cause more problems.]

[traumatology]

Hate that that's a normal thing for me now.

( but he's glad there's no weird slithering creatures trying to make their presence known. he makes a face. )

Guess it's a comfort that there's nothing new trying to kill us right now.

[rumorate]

Always a bonus.

[At least around here, you never know what's coming down the bend. Something new will come along to kill them soon enough.]

I have to say, around here at least the undead is a familiar constant.

[traumatology]

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

( but it's definitely a thing. he makes a face. )

Guess at least they're not trying to eat brains?

[rumorate]

Not in my experience?

[Which isn't to say that they aren't trying to steal your life, but at least sometimes they're people that you can reason with? At least in theory.]

But most of the ones I've met are warlords or harbingers of doom, so I can't really say that's much better.

[traumatology]

My experience is a bunch of horrible movies.

( so, you know, not very trustworthy. )

You keep about as good of company as I do, you know.

[rumorate]

My experience is mostly here.

[But she's been here a while, so that tracks. She does raise an eyebrow at that though because she doesn't know if he's met any of her siblings to make that assessment.]

Do you have a family that seems to act as a giant chaos magnet too?

[traumatology]

No, nothing like that.

( his finally is long gone, dead and buried. at peace. he doesn't know if he'll ever get there. )

I have some pretty close friends, I guess, that seem to get in the middle of everything but none of them are here.

[rumorate]

I only have my brother. He's pain in the ass enough.

[She pauses to slash down an undead attempting to get in their way, before continuing to push forward.]

Have you met Five?