westwhere | the sunken

THE SUNKEN

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Welcome to the first log of Arc VI: the Sunken, which covers 15 May – 2 June and doubles as a test drive meme.

Back/forward date as needed! The calendar date suggestions are indicative.

The TDM is open to everyone! If you decide to apply to the game, you can get an invite from current players or the upcoming enabling meme — or participate in the test drive meme and get in touch @

groundrules to chat things over. We currently have 13 slots available for new players.

Test drivers can use this post for logs and network posts — old timers, please make your network posts at

eastbound.

LOST AT SEA | TEST DRIVE TOURISTS

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You wake, gasping, in a stormy sea, your thoughts slowed to a confused trickle. Skill, floating wood or a kindly stranger — who you can’t understand — help you to reach shore.

Villagers discover you collapsed on sand and provide critical (if rickety) communication and translation devices. They say you are in Sunken Yancai, a fishing village progressively overtaken by waters and cursed by the secretive ‘ladies of the lake’ to transit through time.

■ Rescuers group newcomers and supply questionable village couture, warm meals and accommodations in abandoned, half-flooded homes or spare small boats anchored in Yancai’s waterways. Huddle up, recover your strength and don’t think too hard on why your memories are hazy over the next three days.

■ Come morning, you visit village leader Quanze Tsaymien, then the sorceress Karsa — who explains you are otherworlders summoned into Akhuras by undead lords who wish to weaponise you in their battle against humans and one another. Karsa is an associate of the Merchant, who leads otherworlders towards ancient transport beacons east.

■ One such beacon rests dormant in Yancai. The group must infiltrate the village and wait a few weeks until it shifts to a point back in time when the beacon was active.

■ Newcomers are handed passport papers with their new identities in Yancai, where they may be known as a bankrupt merchant, perpetually drunk sailor, whale hunter, raft surveyor, mermaid who has just gained their legs, crab collector... feel free to invent a dutifully ~~hilarious~~ apt role for their seaside sojourn.

OLD TIMERS | THE DRIFTING

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You dragged yourself here in a haze. You arrived long ago, as if in a dream. You were born and bred in this village. In truth, your memories of reaching lively Yancai feel nebulous and alarmingly inconsequential.

Characters are facilitated new identities and dwellings by the Merchant, or believe they have had them all along.

■ A weary Karsa warns to say nothing to party members with altered memories, until the sorcery that affects them runs its course.

■ Memory-altered characters progressively regain their memories within three to five days (by 20 May). They have their memories partially or fully back at night ( midnight to 5 a.m.). Throughout the day, memory regains can trigger migraines, eerie confusion and paranoia.

■ Hauntings begin once characters have fully regained their memories.

■ Once everyone is ‘back to normal,’ Karsa explains that Yancai periodically transits through time. The memory alterations are a magical solution endorsed by the village council, which ensures locals mentally weather these shifts. Villagers continue to blithely accept you as part of the community.

(DON'T) HOLD YOUR BREATH

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Karsa reunites the existing party and newcomers, issuing first assignments. The Merchants’s information suggests the beacon of Yancai will be online once the village travels in time within weeks. A dubious Karsa asks the party to check on the beacon, located in the former House of Commerce of the largely inundated merchants’ district. Reach it by rowing boat.

■ Villagers say the Master of Commerce, a famous musician, took precautions against intruders.

■ All ground and lower floor entryways of the palatial House were boarded to restrict flooding. To enter, pick locks or climb the putrid stairwell towards upper balconies.

■ Inside, the hissing of running water — and, in the lower levels, of thin, slippery leeches whose bite numbs your limbs, while they attempt to feed. You seem to experience pronounced vertigo when entering any decaying rooms covered in black mould.

■ The beacon is located on a dais in the basement vault room, where water rises near 1 meter. Only a few scattered scrolls and golden decorations remain among decorations, while a large ceiling carving writes, greed deafens man to the cries of his conscience; music sets him free.

■ Some tiles of the marbled floor stand out as you wade — step on one, and all doors abruptly slam shut, while dozens of obscured holes in the wall start to rapidly spill water, threatening to fill the room to the ceiling within the hour. You hear the tinny, waning sound of a village song played from a hidden source.

■ To stop the pouring water and open the doors, sing the song you hear, or find the music box that produces it amid debris on the water-covered floors. Wind it, and it plays its song in reverse, revealing the voice of a laughing elderly man who says, Depressingly, Anurr was right to worry.

■ Don’t forget to check the beacon — and report back to Karsa that it looks structurally untarnished.

THEY SLEEP

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After surprising revelations at previous citadels, Karsa tasks you to investigate just how… permanent death is in Yancai. Villagers share that their dead are buried in a strange rite at sea — part of which will take place within days.

■ The dead are ‘entombed’ in one-man sarcophagi ships with carved and chained lids that depict their likeness. These burial boats are set at sea on the first day of each season and return three months later.

■ Join the harbours around 22 May, when mourners gather to receive the burial boats. Characters must pretend to be greatly anguished relatives, acquaintances or debt collectors to join the grieving.

■ The boats float towards you, seemingly of their own volition. Gaze afar and spot a boat carrying a man in black — the same who haunts some characters — who observes until the last burial ship has reached the piers, before he disappears.

■ Sailors draw up the boats and unpeel the untouched chains and lids, to reveal… no corpses. Peer closer and find neither biological signs (stench, liquids) of discomposure, nor the magical chillness of spaces where cadavers have lingered long. Scratch marks litter the inside of some boat lids.

■ Mourners seem grateful that the waters have ‘accepted’ the bodies. Some say that their relatives whose boats have yet to return must have been stolen by the ‘ladies of the lake,’ a villainous witch coven. Speak to mourners or sailors for clues.

■ Linger long near opened burial boats, and you feel tempted to throw yourself into the sea, slowly losing consciousness — until someone rescues you.

AMONG US

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On 25 May, village leader Quanze Tsaymien drags the chained and half feral mistress Miang-si to households and Yancai’s largest market square.

The young woman, he says, was seduced by the ladies of the lake — the furtive witch coven that condemned Yancai to time travel. Luckily, the village elders have… coaxed Miang-si back onto the righteous path.

■ Miang-si is brought door-to-door to point out her 'accomplices.' Ill at ease, villagers whisper of similar witch hunts leading to false accusations and blood-curdling repercussions.

■ Both men and women are suspected and brought before Miang-si. Perhaps she takes an eerie interest in you, getting especially close to catch your scent, touch or remark on (in)visible hurts, or even dotingly kiss you. If you whisper quickly while she’s near, you might be able to ask one question.

■ If you are patient and kind to Miang-si, she briefly squeezes your hand as she withdraws. Within the hour, you find blood writ on your palm that warns, Our fat moon rises red.

■ If you are agitated, or if Quanze rushes her during your visit, Miang-si erupts into sudden, side-splitting cackling — while you find yourself croaking like a toad, or transforming into one and retaining human speech. The spell dissolves after eight hours.

■ Quanze’s long-suffering men say this sorcery breaks faster if you kiss one of the curmudgeonly emerald toads that hide in some of Yancai’s lakes. Catch one such delightful, slime-spitting creature or barter it from merchants at a costly premium.

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

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A full moon is set to rise within days of Miang-si’s visit, on 27 May — just as Yancai shows signs of time shifting. Villagers are prone to stilling and staring askance, seeming lost or adrift.

The village itself evolves: one moment, the same house appears freshly new, then drowned, while waterways overfill with water, then seem barren. Overall, the village deteriorates.

■ That day, the sun suffers a midday eclipse, while droves of black birds circle the woods and village outskirts, attacking those who come close.

■ The waters increasingly thicken and darken, preventing boats from entering certain waterways.

■ An exceedingly bright moon and a diffuse lunar replica rise with nightfall. Come midnight, the village is alive with the sounds of ripping, structural collapse and shrieks. Tar-covered corpses emerge from the waters, clawing on and climbing up piers. They swarm, drawing passers-by into waters to drown them. Help them — and foremost, yourself.

■ Light and fire keep the dead at bay. On some waterways, wildfire now spells, WHAT IS WET WAS WRONGED

■ Weaker alone, fresh corpses climb into your rowing boat, pretending they are innocents who seek shelter. They betray themselves by speaking very slowly, struggling to keep track of the conversation or obliviously peppering it with details of their death. They stubbornly ask questions about you, repeating your answers, and become violent if you say they are dead. Push them into the water at first opportunity.

■ Quanze Tsaymien and other men of the village take arms, urging villagers to barricade in the nearest home, harbour or warehouse and weather the night. They advise to be silent and beware the dead who imitate living voices, warning not to touch any black mould or water that suddenly appear in your home — which alert the dead of your presence within.

■ Some dead try to tear you apart, while others seek to feed you a disgusting, tar-like black mould. A small taste of it makes you sluggish and feeble for two-three hours, while an entire fistful can kill.

■ If the undead infiltrate your house, hold your breath, do not move and keep from screaming. The dead have weak sight and olfactory senses and might pass you by, as long as you stay silent. It can be more efficient to fool than kill the dead.

■ By 5 a.m., houses start to replenish themselves, gaining a new appearance, while water and mould retreat. The dead withdraw into waterways. Outside doors have been marked with blood: vertical lines tell how many living people remain inside; horizontal ones count how many within died overnight.

■ You step to seize a brave new day — while Yancai enters a new time period (further details due in the next plot update).

NOTES

■ The game enabling meme goes up on 25 May.

■ Hit up available NPCs here or in their new inbox!

■ QUESTIONS.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nacho approaches slowly, while Temiu is fishing. Temiu doesn't directly recall either his father or Mike, but there's something about old men that just makes him comfortable regardless.

He waits until they make eye contact before he offers a small smile -- hoping to show that he's not trying to be intimidating -- and says, softly, "Hey." A breath. He's quick to clarify, "I'm, uh, not here to take your money."

To say that Temiu is profoundly undisturbed is an understatement. He seems, for a moment, either frozen or defunct, hardly sparing so much as a glance from his fishing rod. Then, finally, he answers the man's smile, honeyed and gentle.

"Good... good... there isn't any. He... he he he he, you hear that?" And slapping his knee, as if he's told such a fine joke. "Not one silver piece."

Nacho exhales through his nose a little harder than he normally would. He has a soft spot for old man jokes, okay. "Sorry to hear that," he says. Voice mostly flat, but there's a little bit of sincere sympathy if you care to listen.

"Can I sit with you?"

"The lake's big enough for one... it's big enough for ten!" He says amiably, in between more spells of laughter, as he waves the man on over. The pier's long, the boats are generous. Plenty of fish in this nearby sea.

With a gentle hand, he points out the additional rods and bait available. "Y'know how, do you? How can I help?"

"I was hoping you could teach me to fish. Seems like you're good at it..." Nacho gives him a small shrug, and whatever passes, for Nacho, for a sheepish smile.

Then he goes on, "I was hoping you might have a good story for me, too. Seems like people tell you a lot of them. But nobody ever wants to tell the tax collector." Oh, woe, woe is he.

He starts the process of it, the winding of the thread, the choosing of the bait from a series of deadened things displayed out. He seems to stay away from worms, choosing a shiny grasshopper and putting it on for Nacho, showcasing the steps along the way.

"Yes, yes... let me about sheep? About worms? What do you want to hear about?"

For an amused little old man, he seems to have his cunning. "Be clear."

Nacho watches the steps intently, genuinely intrigued and interested. He's never felt the need to go fishing before. It's not like there's a ton of opportunities for it in New Mexico, and anyway, even if there were, he's always associated it with old people. The man he's sitting beside does little to dissuade this notion, but it doesn't matter, because Nacho has always enjoyed watching someone do something simple with care and attention.

"May I?" he asks, holding out his hands, to try it for himself.

When asked what kind of story he wants to hear about, Nacho takes a deep breath. "Witches," he says. Quickly, he adds, "Doesn't have to be true. It could just be a scary story."

"Only learn a trade with your two hands!" He offers: first the words, then the rod, nurture Nacho into the right pose and posture to woo fish in without straining his bending back. It'll be a long wait.

Then, the story: about witches, as he was asked, and scary. This one has witches that lure small children into the woods, with promises of sweets and sugars, only to capture and cook them in a great cauldron. How savage! But then, siblings broke the cycle, trapping the witch instead.

"...always good to have a happy ending."

Nacho smiles faintly. "My dad used to say something kinda like that," he admits. He doesn't feel any nibbles, even after a while, but that's okay.

He listens to the story, occasionally looking up from the fishing pole. The story sounds vaguely familiar — Hansel and Gretel? — but that's okay, too.

"I like happy endings," Nacho agrees. "Wish we had more of them in real life."

"They come when you least expect'em! Heh! Ha haha, they do!" Like the fish, watch, the fish that bite in and pull his rod's wire taut, the fish that pulls.

"Theeeeere she's biting, there's biting —" Only the wire sheds its tension, and the fish is lost. Well then.

There she's gone. "Another one'll come."

Nacho smiles a little, very softly, despite himself.

"Uh, yeah..." he says. "So. Uh. Witches. Real ones. What do you make of 'em? All this 'ladies of the lake' shit? What's your opinion, man?" His eyes glint. "You gotta hear some good gossip, right?"

He feels a faint tug on his line, but then it's gone. Just a nibble. Oh, well. Like the man says. Another one'll come.

"It's no gossip... he... ha, you think I'm like a little Missus, ehhhhh? Ehhhh? Me?" Him? For shame, to look at him, still struggling to choose a new fishing ground, when he bring his rod wire up, and sets fresh bait in. Finally, he throws it out again.

"We loved with'em long enough, eh? Was quiet, mostly? Little bit of trouble, here and there, but that's just life and loving, heh? Ha... hahahhhaaa..."

Another moment, so the elderly man can enjoy his own joke. "Now all of a sudden... they're cursing us? Well? Well, if better man say so! They're so high and so up, heh? Must be they... they've got a good view! Seeing all I'm not! Used to be one of them ladies brought me goat milk every... every day! Best milk I've ever had! Best goat, too! You think... you? A bad witch would have a mean old goat, wouldn't she?"

The smile, far too pleasant, seems almost rehearsed. A man who is trying not to criticise, but perhaps failing.

the sunken | part i

TEMIU

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happy to take your lead on Qs!

Sweet!

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