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westwhere2023-05-15 05:49 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-05-15 05:49 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc vi,
- arcane: caitlyn,
- breaking bad: jesse pinkman,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- final fantasy xiv: stephanivien,
- harry potter: hermione granger,
- horizon: aloy,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- mcu: wanda maximoff,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: red,
- outlander: claire fraser,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- test drive,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan sizhui,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175,
- zettai karen children: kumoi yuuri
the sunken | part i
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
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 dutifullyhilariousapt role for their seaside sojourn.
OLD TIMERS | THE DRIFTING
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
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
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
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
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.
no subject
[He remembers, a few seconds later, to precise.]
... She's a ghost, so maybe you didn't.
no subject
No, I didn't.
But I've been hearing stuff. Have you been hearing things, too?
no subject
[How do you even begin to explain this? And to a child, too? But...
Xie Lian shivers, and his hands come down, arms circling his knees and fingers tugging absentmindedly at his robes.]
A very long time ago, I did some... very bad things. Really, really bad. Bad enough that almost became a Ghost King myself. I was so close to just giving in and becoming one.
This ghost, she came in and she... gave me the mask I was wearing at that time, and she kept saying this is who I really was. But I'm not. I'm not!
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I know you're not. At least, you're not that person, not anymore.
[She has truly barely known him all of 2 days, but that time spent as a family with fake memories might be coloring her outlook, for sure. But the person she knew was full of good intentions, even if he was terrible at cooking - and he never gave up.]
What is a Ghost King, exactly?
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[She really hasn't known him long, it's true, but she is warm and kind, and honestly, he can use hearing the words right now.
And she asks and he gives a small, shaky laugh.]
Oh yes, I guess you wouldn't know. In my world, ghosts are classified according to how much damage they can do to the world and to people. Ghost kings are also know as Calamities. They're the most powerful, and the most dangerous.
And yes, I was... well on my way to become one. It took one person to pull me back from it. If they hadn't been there...
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[America smiles gently in response. No matter what, she's putting trust in Xie Lian, for better or for worse.]
You still came back, right? In the end, that choice is still yours. Help or no help.
Glad someone was there to help you, though.
no subject
... I probably would have destroyed the country and everyone in it. I had enough power to. It would have been trivial. I could have just wiped the whole place from the map in an instant.
[He fumbles around to catch his bamboo hat and hold it up.]
He gave me this hat. And I've kept it with me ever since, as a reminder to myself. Some times, I feel like it's my most precious possession.
no subject
It is precious. It's from a very important moment in your life. From someone who turned things around, and you didn't even know who they were.
What did you do, instead of all of that stuff you could have done?
no subject
[Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but in essence, it's still true.]
And then... I asked the Heavenly Emperor to banish me from Heaven so I could live among the mortals and atone for what I had done.
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Does that really work? That kind of atonement?
Are you learning from mortals?
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And I think it worked, yes. It ended up getting me back into heaven after a good few hundred years, so I must have done something right. I hope?
And yes, I did learn a lot.
no subject
[She spends some time in silence, thinking over atonement.]
I guess if it worked, then.
Why are you thinking about all of this now?
no subject
[he gives a sigh at her question.]
it was a long time ago, but the ghost made it feel like I was back in that moment, where all I could feel was anger and despair.
no subject
[The sigh makes her consider that's enough, for now.]
You want some tea? [It wasn't something she did before, but during her brief brainwashing, she had tea regularly, and saw enough of the other adults do it when they were stressed, tired, sad, or just wanted something to go with a meal. It makes sense to make some, now.]
I'll boil the water for it.
no subject
[The offer brings a smile to his face again. What a warm, sweet child this young lady is.]
You know, tea would be really nice. Thank you.
no subject
[And those lessons of paying attention do not fail her here.]
I'll get it started. Come on. Let's go to the kitchen area.
no subject
[He has to laugh at her remark, because, well...]
We kind of are. We are supposed to protect our believers and answer their prayers, and fight demons and ghosts.
... And there's a lot of paperwork.
no subject
Paperwork? Even at that level you have to do paperwork? You don't get someone to maybe do it for you so you can focus on your believers? Sounds like you're a very good God, though. Taking care of them like that.
no subject
... Well I guess I still do, in a manner of speaking.
And I tried to be good but it turned out I wasn't that good at it.
[He takes a seat to look at the fire.]
I was seventeen when I ascended. I was arrogant and full of myself and convinced I knew better than everyone. And now I know that what happened was not entirely my fault, but it was my fault that I was too blind to see what was exactly happening.
no subject
That's part of being young, though, right?
So even gods are children once. Were you born a god, or was that something you decided to be?
no subject
They ascend to heaven through great deeds, or diligent cultivation. Some can ascend if called to heaven by another god too.
Before I ascended, I was raised by my parents, like most people.
no subject
[ This is fascinating! ]
[ When the water is hot enough, America pours it over the leaves (covered in linen to strain) to steep for a bit. ]
no subject
[He watches her as she steeps the tea. Looks like she learned how to do it well.]
I killed a demon, and the Heavenly Emperor saw it and decided to make me ascend.
no subject
That's kind of awesome! Didn't know you were a demon slayer.
no subject
That was my first one. I guess it was impressive.
[Of course, the truth of that encounter is... a bit more complicated now that he looks at it in hindsight, like everything in his life, but as superficial a truth as it is, it is still a truth of sorts.
As she finishes the tea, though, he is once again overcome with how kind and warm she is.]
You are a good child. The people who raised you did right by you.
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