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

[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?

[traumatology]

I have.

( yeah, he remembers that guy from earlier. from when he'd heard about wei wuxian grabbing some scales. )

Confusing guy.

[rumorate]

Our world is a confusing place.

[Though honestly confusing is one of the more charitable ways you could describe Five.]

But I'd rather be here with him than have him be alone. He doesn't do well on his own.

[traumatology]

So, you get along?

( or at least got along enough not to kill each other? that's what it sounds like, at least. he hadn't had that kind of relationship with anyone but steve for awhile.

and now steve's gone and he's just kind of...on his own. sam would probably argue but it's different. )

[rumorate]

On the Hargreeves scale? Yeah, we get along well enough.

[She smirks as she considers.]

Other people probably wouldn't assume that though.

[Because they fight. A lot. But they don't want to kill each other, which is where the getting along comes in.]

In my family, picking fights is our love language.

[traumatology]

Guess as long as you guys aren't actually stabbing each other, it's good.

( what's a little blood between siblings? )

How many of you are there?

[rumorate]

Seven. We're all adopted.

[Not that that isn't obvious given Five vs. Allison, but always good to be clear.]

We were all born on the same day at the same time to women who weren't previously pregnant and he tried to adopt as many of us as he could get. Which is funny, because he wasn't particularly inclined to children. He just wanted us for our powers.

[traumatology]

That's...something.

( he would have asked for more details but she gives them and talks about this man wanting them for their powers.

that sounds familiar. )

So, he's a dick?

[rumorate]

Oh, yeah.

[Especially the one she just dealt with. Part of her wonders if her father was softer, if he would have followed through with sacrificing them to the Bells the way that the Sparrows' father did. Did losing Five and Ben soften him? Or was the looming apocalypse the bigger problem?

Not that he wasn't still terrible, using one child against the other. But she'd like to think that the father who died might have been better than the father who lived. Or maybe that's still the child in her, not wanting to rationalize why her father didn't love her.]

But he's dead now.

[Both of them.]

[traumatology]

Yeah.

( well, he's not going to touch that because dick or not, it might still be touchy. and he doesn't really do comfort well. not that he thinks she'll expect it. )

Doesn't look like you need him or anyone to keep your shit together anyway.

( that's a compliment. )

[rumorate]

Thanks.

[They make their way to the top, back to relative safety, and there's nothing left of the two undead she rumored but they made it safe and sound - that should be the part that matters.]

That worked better than I thought it would.

[traumatology]

Yeah, that was definitely handy.

( and telling. he's just going to be sure to keep on her good side. )

And using that, it doesn't affect you in any negative way?

[rumorate]

Physically? No.

[She could do it all day if she really wanted to.]

But make too many wishes that always come true and you learn that if you want something that's real, you have to do it the hard way. And sometimes you do things that you can't take back.

[traumatology]

Yeah.

( oh, that hits close to home. that hits really close to home. he pauses and takes a slow breath. )

And then you just gotta live with it.

( and it sucks. )

Not easy to do.

[rumorate]

No, it's not.

[She's made more than her fair share of mistakes.]

But times like this, at least it feels straightforward enough. If it's live or die, I'd rather live.

[traumatology]

Yeah.

( he'd wanted the other way for a long, long time but he's climbed out of that hole. )

Looks like you're doing a pretty good job of it.

[rumorate]

I've gotten lucky.

[She's had people looking out for her, if she's honest. But she's doing her best.]

Hopefully I'll keep getting lucky. Hopefully we all will.

[traumatology]

Hopefully.

( he keeps feeling like his luck's gonna run out but...not yet. )

I've still got some stuff I gotta take care of back home so I'd like to get back there at some point.

[rumorate]

Me too.

[Hopefully this ends in a way where they all make it home, for better or worse.]

But right now, we just gotta get out of all of this in one piece.

[traumatology]

Easier said than done, right?

( but they've done a pretty good job so far. )

I think we've got what it takes.

[rumorate]

Me too. Maybe this time the beacon will actually work.

[It won't, but she can't find herself ready to give up hope just yet.]

[traumatology]

Let's hope.

( he doesn't think it will either. )

Otherwise, guess we'll be having another conversation sometime in the future, huh?