westwhere | a little dream of her

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This is the first of two logs covering the Dream county travel Arc — it stretches until 23 April OOCly and covers roughly one IC week. There is an entirely optional wedding mystery plot, which will depend heavily on information gathering, sharing and deduction, rather than on supernatural powers.

Boarding scenarios for existing and new characters are covered under the Old Timers and New Arrivals header, respectively. Click on the tabs for details!

OLD TIMERS

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Absorbing Wrath, Licyn and Yelena’s feedback, King Deimar of Alem decides against joining his brother Haiva in ‘noble sacrifice’ to hell. Good news for the party, who depends on royal savvy to reach Alem’s otherworld transport beacon, buried in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath crumbling Alem.

■ Deimar and his paladins guide small groups back to the beacon — but the keypoint’s war-drained energies only let a handful of party members out. Characters who have dropped or been swept by AC during Arc VI go home. You can also canon update your character now.

The party must heads onwards east, boarding a dreamy train at a station near Hassir. Here, find exotic stalls with wares once intended for Alem — from the latest travel fashions, to unlucky artefacts, heavy alcohol and narcotics. You can even purchase a domestic ghost.

Whether the Merchant supplies a ticket or false staff uniforms for you to proactively sneak aboard, don’t dally — this train runs like clockwork.

NEW ARRIVALS

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You wake up to claustrophobia, ash and gravel in your mouth — and a sense of urgency: run. Midway through a slovenly, rattling underground corridor, you meet an irritable woman, who leads you out, at the foot of a serene, smoke-topped mountain.

The woman passes you a pendant that allows you to understand her and to communicate with others like you. You are one of many otherworlders brought into Akhuras by undead lords who seek to weaponise you, as they battle humans and each other for dominion. Don’t believe her? Look up. The holy citadel Alem yet burns before the dead armies of Rahakku.

The woman is Karsa, an associate of the elusive Merchant, who collects and leads otherworlders east, where ancient beacons can transport them home.

Regrettably, you’re late — you arrived with the unexpected last gasps of Alem’s dying beacon and must now catch up with the others, who’ve departed on the Sandman train express.

WHY THE LONG FACE?

Karsa barters for a carriage led by two nightmare horses, along with several such steeds for confident riders. These are mercurial mounts and dizzyingly fast — your only shot to reach a train travelling through Dream county.

■ Karsa warns you must not fall asleep during travel. The horses will invade your nightmares, consuming your vital energy while you suffer asleep.

■ Talk at all times or sound the shrill silver bells Karsa provides to wake up any sleepers.

You reach the seaside village of Kyari, where you must board the incoming Sandman express. Regrettably, the horses have left Karsa with just enough coin for one ticket for the wounded Dean Winchester. Everyone else: make do.

You must also help Karsa sneak in fist-sized, forbidden dream boxes. Try to avoid the Sandman’s guards and their canine sentries, who scent newly boarding passengers for such contraband. Return the boxes to Karsa once on the train.

You’ve got 45 minutes to board, once the Sandman reaches its rustic station. Some options?

■ Play stowaway and break the rustier locks of the economy class cars.

■ Sweet talk the depressed Conductor. You bought, but just… forgot your ticket.

■ Distract the guards while your group boards, so they can sneak you on after.

■ Plant dream contraband on another would-be passenger, when the dogs draw close.

■ Ride one of those god-forsaken horses and jump on top of the train once it starts moving, then make your way in through ceiling hatches. God help.

A fully veiled young woman might lend you a hand.

THE SANDMAN

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All aboard… the Sandman, a majestic 100-car train that gallops on an emaciated railway across Dream county. Ghosts and dream residents wave as it passes by.

The Sandman stops once after leaving Alem, at seaside village Kyari, before crossing the abyss of the Cradle — the turbulent, storm-prone birthplace of dreams, where it is constantly night-time.

Some say the Cradle is only a cauldron for those who steal dreams or make them into living things. Others say the Cradle has its own mind.

To avoid igniting dream storms, passengers are strictly prohibited from carrying dream tokens and performing dream magic. Characters find their powers are significantly reduced while travelling on the Sandman.

New arrivals join the Sandman at Kyari with group caretaker Karsa, who introduces them to the old party.

■ The Sandman offers exquisite single-person compartments with en-suite bathrooms for First Class passengers, while Second Class travellers share generous cabins in pairs, and up to four voyagers can bunk up in… cozy Third Class cabins. Shared bathrooms and a small sauna cabin are also available.

■ You can hide in the staff, luggage or coal stock rooms.

■ You can decide your character’s First/Second/Third Class, staff or stowaway status. (Pick a job for staff!)

■ The LOST & FOUND booth contains an assortment of clothes and items forgotten by passengers, which you can raid (within reason). Latest findings: cigarettes, medical-grade opiate powders, a a beautiful green dress and pink striped men’s suit, all brought in after the Sandman leaves Kyari.

■ Amenities range from dining & bar carts to game, exercise and cinema halls where the (PG-13!) pleasant dreams you’ve gambled away can be viewed freely, or passengers can hold recitals or seminars.

■ You can gamble in regular currency or pleasant dreams (not memories).

■ Travellers are polite and social. You learn early on that you share a voyage with renown heroine and First Class passenger Firo, who, alongside her friends and sister party, picks up her bride Prassenze from Kyari.

■ Within two hours of leaving Kyari, the sky begins to darken, becoming pitch black and occasionally loudly stormed. It stays a starless night time throughout your journey over the Cradle.

■ For communal safety, windows and doors are locked and magically enforced shut after the train departs Kyari. The nightmare storms within the Cradle region crackle with highly chaotic energy that can (re)shape reality, endangering passengers. Deputy conductor Michel Bauc holds the window and door keys. An irritating, tinny, train-wide alarm sounds if anyone tries to force a window open.

■ You might sometimes find fellow passengers trying to exit the train or open the windows to join the storms, while they nap. Do wake up them up.

■ Whether you’re an insomniac or don’t typically need sleep, you find you fall instantly asleep at midnight and awaken refreshed by 8 a.m.

■ A skeletal crew serves the Sandman at night. The most authoritative figure is gloomy Conductor Rossakoff, who slinks silently across the train.

THE MENU

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Trot down to the dining carts for an unforgettable meal included with your ticket. Formal evening attire is expected during dinner. Some courses are lightly sparkled with stimulants that deepen certain aspects of diner’s emotions during the meal — this is not disclosed ICly, but visible to you OOCly in the menu. (ex: the Ham and Laughter Eggs triggers roaring laughter and a good disposition ).

BREAKFAST

SUPPER & DINNER

SNACKS & BEVERAGES

DREAM SMUGGLERS

The new arrivals helped Karsa bring contraband aboard, but they’ve steps to go to their final destination. The sorceress doles out fist-sized boxes containing precious dream fragments of happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, guilt or disgust — explicitly prohibited cargo that regains its magical properties once aboard the Sandman.

Each box comes with instructions for drop off under a dining hall table at midday, under a roulette table by 6 p.m. or in the coal room by 8 p.m. Karsa says the deliveries are an explicit favour from the Merchant to an old (dream thief) friend aboard the Sandman.

■ Pair up for your run! Those who hold dream boxes feel their emotions to a player-chosen degree of intensity, throughout their adventure.

■ Beware the vigilant guards of the Sandman, who run frequent searches for illicit dream artefacts. Some bring dream-catching dogs who catch the scent of the dreamed things.

■ You may feel unusually sleepy while holding dream boxes. Doze, and you wake up to find your dreams have summoned a wo/man, child or animal whose temperament embodies the box’s emotion. They can’t help drawing attention, but slowly disappear within 30-60 minutes — wait, are those the guards?

■ Caught smugglers are locked into ‘jail’ cabins, while their contraband is placed in the office of Conductor Rossakoff. First-time captives can be bailed out at ludicrous expense or in exchange for maid service, but repeat offenders are jailed
for the rest of the voyage. Liberate your dream box back from the Conductor’s strangely barren, otherwise untouched compartment.

■ Successfully delivered boxes feed into the mystery of the missing bride. You mysteriously fall asleep to a sweet dream if you wait to meet the collector — and wake up to a feeling of wrongness, as if reality is mute and diffuse around you, before your hearing and vision resettle.

THE GROUNDHOG WEDDING: A MYSTERY

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Firo’s bride Prassenze boards the Sandman from Kyari. She comes alone, veiled head to toe, and only brings a modest case. She is short, thin, pale and shy, prone to silence and retiring to her cabin at the earliest opportunity — a far cry from boisterous Firo.

…so much so that Firo’s sister Lita and friends Dulcinea, Maiza and Attru tell anyone who’ll listen that Firo is marrying this girl after courting her for six months through correspondence. Even bashful Hugo admits the pair is… perhaps a little mismatched. This is their first in-person encounter.

■ The wedding party members plead or offer coin for you to coerce the loving pair to delay their marriage — or to sabotage the wedding, due to take place in two days.

■ An enthusiastic Firo meanwhile asks if you can help with celebratory clothing or wedding ornaments.

■ Shortly after, Lita appears lost in her thoughts and altogether not there, clutching a letter in hand, the day after the Sandman departs Kyari.

HERE COMES THE BRIDE... AGAIN

1.0

No one forgets their wedding night — least of all brave Firo, who, vows performed, makes merry with her group and timid bride over a magnificent feast in the dining halls. Everyone is invited.

The blushing bride is visibly infatuated with Firo, but overwhelmed by the loud, relentless social activity. She hardly speaks to anyone, other than Firo, whose friends complain increasingly loudly that Prassenze is aloof, a cold fish, and thinks herself above them.

Prassenze excuses herself to freshen up in her cabin. Nearly an hour’s absence later, a worried Firo checks up on her — finding the bride’s compartment locked from the inside. Once the door is forced open, the partygoers — and you? — discover the inside stormed, bridal veils discarded on the floors, and windows widely open as the Cradle’s nightmare tempests rage.

The bride has vanished.

Terrified, Firo questions everyone in earnest, accepting your assistance to find Prassenze.

2.0.

You wake up next morning to find everyone reliving the same wedding day, which only fellow otherworlders recall. Squinting outside, you see new landscape — suggesting the Sandman has covered a day’s journey.

The bride Prassenze is present again, but sharply different in appearance and manner. Now, she is closer to Firo in size, her build athletic. Her manner is brusque, assertive, commanding. Some in Firo’s group are put off, others frightened. Firo appears a little taken aback by her bride’s domineering nature.

During the second wedding, a drunk Maiza and Dulcinea quarrel with Prassenze, who doesn’t back down. A frustrated Firo tries to break the fight, verbally lashing out at her friends for drinking and at Prassenze for stooping to their intoxicated level.

Prassenze storms to her cabin. She is once more found missing, when searched. As before, her compartment was locked from the inside, the window is wide open, and her veils have been abandoned.

3.0.

You wake up to a third wedding day, with only party otherworlders recalling the past two days. Prassenze looks and acts differently from the first and second wedding day — now she is of average build and height, with an especially jovial, overly friendly manner, prone to laughter and pranks. This time, she drinks with Firo’s friends, plays (and wins!) at many of their card and dice games, humours their stories and even flirts — but is so devoted to Firo’s group that she accidentally neglects Firo herself throughout the day. Firo repeatedly tries to coax her to spend time together, but fails, and abandons her during the wedding feast — perhaps meeting you for a drink instead?

Realising she has driven Fire away, a distressed Prassenze once more withdraws into her compartment at the end of the (third) wedding night — and disappears, leaving the same clues behind as on the first and second wedding day.

There are no further repetitions and time passes regularly after the third wedding day. The morning after, apothecary passenger Rigolante mentions asks Conductor Rossakoff to conduct a search, as some of his herbs and measuring tools have gone missing.

■ Player characters can change events and investigate during the second and third ~~groundhog~~ wedding days. Regrettably, Prassenze still disappears.

■ Non-PC characters and the Sandman’s crew only recall the third wedding day.

■ Conductor Rossakoff says the number of dreamers whose dreams help propel the Sandman during the obligatory midnight-8 a.m. nap — what do you know, you were helping all along! — has stayed the same since leaving Kyari, meaning the bride is alive on board. No one seems able to find her… help a distraught Firo find her missing wife!

CAST & CREW

	FIRO Good-humoured, sincere and just heroine, renown for her many feats of bravery — from rescuing villages to outwitting sphinxes and challenging immortals. Loud and prone to laughter. Quick to tell everyone about her beloved Prassenze.
	CONTESSA LITA Doting older sister of Firo, married to a Count who prefers a quiet life at his countryside estate. Preposterously wealthy and fashionable. Life of every party.
	MAIZA Once a gifted mathematician, Maiza quickly realized there is more money for the modern man to make from his brawns than his brains. After retraining as a barbarian, he served as muscle (and accountant) during many of Firo’s adventures..
	ATTRU The prince of a distant land, some say descended from wolves. Walks among men to learn their ways. Looks young, but will mention at least three wives and five children in the first five minutes of conversation. Smooth.
	DULCINEA Redeemed mercenary, who once used to sell her sword to anyone with the coin to spare — some say, even the dead! Turned an honest leaf after meeting Firo, of whom she is very protective. At times still sinister at her edges.
	HUGO A pilot turned priest, or a priest turned pilot. Met Firo during his many travels. Soft-spoken, mild-mannered, but jittery, with the kind of thin nerves that suggest he has survived numerous fraught circumstances.
	RIGOLANTE An apothecary of exotic drugs and herbs. He had hoped to make his fortune in Alem, but arrived just as the fortress crumbled, before he could sell enough of his wares. Prays he will find better fortune east.
	CONDUCTOR ROSSAKOFF The gloom and doom of the Sandman, eerily tall, slinking and silent. Passengers prefer to deal with deputy conductor Michael Bauc because of Rossakoff’s intimidating and discouraging presence. Takes a hard stand on smuggling or passenger misbehaviour and all but worships the Sandman.
	PRASSENZE The all-veiled bride of Firo, boarding at Kyari. Not once, not twice, but thrice disappeared.

IC TIMELINE

Day 01: Boarding at Hassir/Alem (morning)

Day 03: Boarding at Kyari (midday); within two hours of departing, the Sandman starts journeying on the railway above the abyssal Cradle — the sky is pitch black at all hours, nightmare storms rattle the train.

Day 04: Lita begins to behave airily, as if she’s not quite present.

Day 05: First wedding (16:00) and wedding feast (19:00)

Day 06: Second wedding (16:00) and wedding feast (19:00)

Day 07: Third wedding (16:00) and wedding feast (19:00).

Day 08: Rigolante asks Conductor Rossakoff to enforce a search for his missing herbs and recipients.

QUESTIONS

NPC THREADS

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"Every da —"

A distorted concession, forgotten as soon as Prassenze storms by, and they fumble upright, bound hands ridiculing their attempts at brokered balance. He nudges Wei Ying close, apologetic when he releases his husband's wrist of the ribbon, then perfunctorily it slaps it on his forehead, smear of white stretched long on fresh-kissed skin.

Trust in Firo, or attempt espionage. The option is civil, plain. Firo could yet proceed to persuade her bride and restore whatever equilibrium was broken in the previous matrimony. All could be as should be, come tomorrow.

But there is a pulse of instinct in him, an animal certainty, all encompassing. He watches Wei Ying, the dust motes dancing in wake of Prassenze and the swaying door.

"Slip paper." Trust no one. Assume failure. Think nothing of Lan Wangji already displacing the waters of his sleeve silks to produce fresh parchment and pass it for his husband to make weapon. The better talisman maker, of the two. It does not shame him to admit it.

Whatever precipice of extraordinary domesticity looms underfoot, the admission to mutually contrived sleeping habits, of waking to familiar faces and embraces (that may be a future conversation, but a man dreams, smaller then bigger, when a man has the inclination) to the nudging informalities of necessary movement. He keeps his balance, briefly leans in closer, leans back again as Lan Zhan frees his ribbon, ties himself down to the moment they part.

He takes the paper with a half smile and a nod, expression turning toward serious. The brush he pulls from his waistband at the side is, miraculously for the evening and the contortions they've made carving spaces for each other on the bench. Lathing his tongue across the webbing between his thumb and the rest of his fingers, he pauses to tap two fingers, injected with minimal qi. The vague humanoid shape stays clutched between his fingers while the rest sloughs away, drifting to the floor. He's already shifting the brush around, dragging through his saliva, rehydrating the purposefully dried ink there just enough to make the looping script take to the paper.

He's already moving down the hall after Prassenze, trusting Lan Zhan is as in step with him, tucking brush away, red streak on his hand one more mark of the evening's trials.

"I feel a swoon coming on," he says, flashing a sly sort of smile, where this can be a jest between them, an avenue of information chased with the safety of his person in Lan Zhan's arms. The safety of his spirit, of everything else, would rely on him.

"Catch me?"

This is ill done. But Wei Ying never heeds him, silhouette ghostly and ghastly and trickling, hunting down Prassenze's steps at a careful hound's distance. They wait, and she enters, storming, the great heft of her door thundering as it slams.

Then, Wei Ying does — swoon, Lan Wangji careful to collect him like a flower, wilting, an arm under his back and another near his head, then both dragging him on the nearest bench. Roles reversed, Wei Ying's head a sturdy weight on his thighs, downing his lap. He cards fingers through the ink smears of his hair and whispers, unbidden, all the fine and precious answers unspoken during Wei Ying's attempts to engage him throughout his isolation.

Never mind their recipient once more cannot heart, that every passer-by assumes Lan Wangji is a distraught lover anguishing over his drunken soulmate who has enjoyed himself perhaps a trifle too much at the wedding proceedings.

They know themselves. When the time rounds right, Wangji too knows to help Wei Ying through his jittery stirrings, awake and sound.

"You are held." Safe, he need not say, but lets it linger between them. Do not shift abruptly, do not topple over. "She lives?"

The bride.

The fascinating oddity of sending something so fragile and so enduring as the spirit into something as frail and as strong as paper, guarded by chance and luck and qi to be the vehicle of his consciousness chasing after answers. These ones, with all the gratitude in his heart, not dire, degrading, dark in intention and meaning. Instead one woman, changed, her face a poor match to her physique, frustration and impatience leading to a torn up room, a search, a finding, of what another's left. More than once, he suspects, but he does not know.

The paper slips free, returning to Lan Zhan, curling around his ankle and higher before it flutters into quiescence and Wei Wuxian's lashes flutter into returning awareness.

The exhaustion hits, and he licks his lips as his eyes open halfway, a hand twitching and lifting to find whatever hold it can on his husband. Reassurance in the warmth beneath his head, in the words, the nudge to hold still and not rock himself over into action. The answer, past lips parting for another kind of succor: "She lives."

His eyes open wider, titling his chin up, seeking Lan Zhan's face. There's repetition in their marriage in a way that speaks to them, to insecurities, to certainties, to acceptance and adjustments and the journeys they take together. Part of him wonders when this bride will realise she too must confess.

That there's no perfect union, only imperfect silences masquerading as illuminating truths.

"She's frustrated. Tearing up everything in her room looking for where a slim box was hidden 'this time.' It looked... I'm not sure." His brow furrowed, but the niggling sensation, the reminder of erstwhile concerns.

"Lan Zhan, did you see what Karsa had people smuggle on board? I didn't, I only heard about it. If they're small, they might be the same thing."

His eyes have been closing as he speaks, and he wrinkles his nose as they finally make their peace in joining lashes with lashes, dark butterflies perched and breathless, kissing his eyelids goodnight. "Might need help standing, this was more tiring than it should be, ah?"

He does not try, not yet. For the sanctuary of honesty he wishes to hold closer to, he allows himself his boneless moment, allows himself his deadweight in his husband's lap. Clutching fingers remember themselves only now, and he lets go, little by little, breathing in with expectation of the smiling sigh that follows.

"She's not doing this alone. Yet the person she should be turning to, she runs away from."

A story sounding familiar, as he finally makes to push himself up, to half slip, half rise from the bench towards his feet. That he tips too far is unintentional, careening towards the wall when the bench betrays his knees.

a little dream of her | part i

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