westwhere | the sunken

the sunken | part i

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

[ He is going to carry Wangji out of here if needs be, and his brother can enjoy the indignity of it because Xichen will not care. He gives him a soft pat on the head when he hears that, sterner for reading between the lines, the cues his brother gives off. ]

We watch each other's.

[ With that said, he attends the new surge of movement rising out of the docks and Shuoyue gleams in the moonlight. ]

Brother's spans broader.

( ...forgive him, blood of his blood, for he has sinned. Two years of sojourn in the great undead abroad have foisted upon him the questionable gift of Wei Ying's wit. To have the last word, he has learned from every Yunmeng brotherly spat he has witnessed, is a final victory.

But he assumes the part, rusty in remembering synchrony with his brother in ways that sting — he is the tenth of a heartbeat too slow to parry on Xichen's left, because his brother leans deeper than Wei Ying. They nearly collide hands as they both strike at a cadaver, because Xichen's arm comes longer than Lan Wangji expected. Their footing almost fumbles.

He rights himself in increments, relearning the shapes and habits of his brother's defenses, how to serve his blind side. Patience. Patience. In the scant moments between fencing, stabbing and recovering their footing — )

How long since Zewu-Jun commenced seclusion?

Wangji.

[ No, is in his tone with faint surprise (he doesn't know from where, it is not as though Wangji has never been disobedient before but this is battle). It is reminiscent of when they trained together as boys, with Wangji narrowly avoiding a cross-blend of blades and accommodating Xichen's larger figure. It makes him wonder, briefly, how often and with whom he has been keeping these undead beasts at bay to have forgotten how to move in sync with his own family.

He almost mis-steps from being asked such a question, sending an arm into the air as the bloated corpse topples into the depths, banished from approaching Xichen's brother. This is really not the time. ]

Three months.

( And yet, no time the better. Conversation is scarce in these parts, strategic. At least, now — pray, excuse him as he sinks down to a crouch to release diamond-powdered cutting wire in a noose and tighten it around the legs of incomers, severing them at the ankle — he is ensured the complete span of his brother's attention.

He rises up, dancing back against Xichen. They can juggle their scant talk and their tasks accordingly. )

A season. ( It chills him to know, to envision. Mere days, last he glimpsed his brother. An eternity, survived by his brother. ) You...

( Thrive? No. Never. Even the sturdiest plant falls before negligence. )

Are at ease?

Wangji, [ noting his brother cutting down the corpses with wire, he takes the high ground and lets the undead get in closer on his side so they can be diced down to their parts, at least until the next wave hits, ] I am quite capable.

[ Mainly because Wangji is here to protect. Not even his hollow shell of a body could ignore danger when Xichen's sibling is in the thick of it, instead moving smoothly to cut down the effective hoard.

In any case: he is not going to be a liability right now. ]

How long will they take to thin?

( A pretty lie, the estimate: the tenth of a shi, mere blinks and heartbeats. The time they take to unsheathe and cull once. Another eight rounds. No time at all. An infinity, spread wide between them.

Now, gasped as the spray of blood from Xichen's strike cascades down from corpses struck above, the truth: ) If they thin.

( They have no certainty, no reassurance. No space to haunt as they pull back. But at least they may take cover behind barricades. ) Woods, houses. Once we tire, retreat.

Who is controlling them all?

[ It would not be Wei Wuxian but this many corpses targeting a village? That is an errant mischief of the dark kind, the sheer volume of bodies assaulting the piers makes the waters look like churning stew, bubbling over with greying limbs.

He still feels sick, unable to eat. Maybe tomorrow. ]

Pull back, use the roofs.

[ Exhausting themselves will do no one any good and, besides, he wants to speak with his brother in-depth without claws arching for their faces. ]

Lords of death. ( Necromancers, by any other name, themselves deceased. He had not thought such combinations possible, and yet, time has taught irredeemably. ) Their successors or parting curses.

( An inheritance of rot and tarnish, sickness and resurgence. They have no time for explanations, the next wave of deadened things threatening deluge, until, retreating, the spears of Lan Wangji's ribs nearly stab Xichen from behind.

The roofs. His gaze flies each way, landing on the first spread of rooftile that sprawls without hint of hole or fissure, or rot that might lead to collapse. He nods, then — hesitantly: )

Northwest. Lead. ( They know all too well Lan Wangji cannot leave the sect leader exposed. )

[ If fleeing in a hurry means Wangji follows in one too, he's all for it. Xichen keeps a weather eye on his brother as they navigate the less rotted rooftops to head northwest, looking for somewhere relatively safe where they can drop to the ground; he leaves that call to Wangji who knows this place better. Which, really, begs the question as they travel ... ]

How long have you been here?

[ To know it so well. ]

Days within the village. ( This, rasped, wind lashing his cheek, the sea's eerie quiet making a farce of the battle above. Xichen leads — he gives chase, qi lubricating his speed, his agility. Tiles crack, snap and break upon landing. He tries his footing, precarious but settled.

Here, then, their shelter. A moon careless and cold, smiling large above. Her sister, grinning bloody. He feels as they are, a mere spectator of carnage. )

Two years, this world whole. ( His heart is the mould that covered the dead below, is the fissures of the rooftop. ) You are as remembered.

Two years? I saw you days ago!

[ The alarm is genuine, moving closer to lay a hand on Wangji's arm to check he is real, not another imagined slice of madness. This realm hardly feels real, save for the fact he can touch and see and smell it (which could be an elaborate illusion, but his brother is not). Quite aside from his own distress, he tries to soften what he can sense. ]

I am here now, Wangji. I am here.

( He seems, for a moment, a man broken and stitched back poorly, like a fraying blanket braided once more by an artless hand. There are parts of Lan Wangji that he may offer his brother as tribute: his sword, his allegiance, his attention.

Now, Xichen demands the whole.

Touch-starved, bloodied, tender-footed on a rooftop, Bichen gleaming in dead things' rot, he cannot say if there is enough of him left to give. Only the hollowed husks. Only what Wei Ying has pieced back together, a pale face and an ill crafted nod. )

I do not doubt you. ( Not now, not ever. ) I do not know how.

[ Sweet faith.

He is so tired. The fighting, the dissonant realm itself, everything is not as it should be and he wants to go home ... it must be infinitely worse for Wangji. It is not their custom to overburden each other with physical affection but, for now, Xichen steps forward to wrap the arm holding Shuoyue around his brother and tilt him toward his own shoulder, his grip on an arm remaining to provide some stability. ]

I will not leave you here.

( ...there. The warmth, depth of sandalwood. The crisp notes of river, of cold, of stream. His brother's scent. Home. Clawing at him, stripping his skins. He shutters his eyes and his forehead collides with the graveyard of Xichen's collarbone, knocks into his shoulder. It aches to breathe, to be. To stay so close. To persevere.

Only now, feasting like a man two years starved, does he remember the debilitating hurts of deprivation. He was not intended to persist without his brother close, without his family, his sect near. Why did he linger, after Wei Ying's demise? To raise a son, yes. But also. )

I shall not release your sleeve. ( Like a child, shadowing a guardian. Like Sizhui must have, raised by brother and Uncle, never so much the product of Wangji's early care. He clings, fingers tight like the pressed metal arcs of a music box. )

Sizhui, Wei Ying, sect leader Jiang are present. And... daozhang Xiao Xingchen. Mistress Wen Qing.

( Their living, troubled. And their dead, troubling. )

[ He holds onto Wangji for as long as his little brother needs it, unwilling to let him go when he can feel the tension gutting him from the inside. ]

Stay, it's alright.

[ His robes flutter around them, enveloping his sibling as Xichen muses the oddities of this land that it can bring the dead back to life. ]

I will speak with all of them later, if they have the time. Wangji, [ his tone softens, the tilt of Xichen's head resting it against another's for a moment, ] I am proud of you.

...for?

( It seems a cruel thing, to beg the kindness of his brother's attention, to bid he explains himself. Pride is an oddity, a prohibited luxury. Lan Wangji, undeserving, a dog feasting on scraps, should not ask for meat and obne.

He lingers, inevitably, and thinks —

If this is a moon's fever, a dream, let it kindly not break.

If this is an illusion, gaining brother's face, let it kill him with swift cunning.

If this is madness, then — )

Weeks prior, a demon borrowed mother's likeness. ( He does not say, I watched her culled. Burrows like an animal hurting. ) I did not recall her face.

For surviving and keeping the others safe.

[ Surviving is the hardest part, it requires the impetus to try; Xichen knows a lot about the yen to give up. He is sure the others have drawn strength from his brother's stoic bravery, wounded and chipped though Wangji may be inside.

He holds him tighter than their mother is mentioned, the cruelty of this realm a ball of grief he cannot swallow around in his throat. ]

It's alright not to remember. [ It was a long time ago, Wangji was very young. Xichen thinks it might be better if whatever monster Wangji faced did not look familiar. ] I am sorry I was not here, you can be mad with me.

This is no part brother's guilt.

( Not his fault, his blood stain to bear. Nothing he knew to fend from. They are alone, neglected, night-shrouded. He feels, for the first time, and he a son of Gusu Lan, a chill cradle and encircle him.

How young is he, to be held so? A man so slight, doubtlessly prone in seclusion to inedia, yet his brother's strength spreads unwavering. Tightens. He clutches once, fingers coming to fist to crush the silks gathered at brother's bank, on his flank. )

You wake to carnage, from confinement. I pity you.

( Like a hunting hound, is Zewu-Jun, stirred from respite to madness. )

[ Having been here some days, his clothes still smell like the hanshi at Cloud Recesses, lingerings of sandalwood and wildflowers from the gardens. A cool sweetness, low and woody as it wraps around Wangji where it also belongs and shrouds him in its own sensory comfort, lost in long billowing robes. Xichen brings his hand on an arm up to cup the back of his brother's head and briefly hold him there as they hugged when boys, a reminder that Wangji is safe when Xichen feels the fist behind his clothes. ]

I am not sorry to be where Wangji has need of me, nor should he be.

[ His hold eases slightly, letting him regain his composure or break away if he wishes. Xichen smiles with a slow, knowing blink. ]

Wei Wuxian is here, you say. Has he been attending you?

( Attending him, as if Lan Wangji were an errant king, a despot, a master entitled to service. As if Wei Ying were not the perennially injured party between them, deprived of earned amends. He flinches, arc of his back uncurling, flattening, straightening out.

Pulling back, he is himself: living wound, cultivated rancor, sculpted jade. A face like a mask, brittle. Under this moonlight, he remembers, all is pale, all is dark. No nuance. No requirement for such compromise. )

He is in health. ( Not the answer to a question ill posed, not one Xichen will dispute him. Wei Ying's condition, like that of a sickly elder or a woman carrying child, is not to be discussed publicly or at length — only affirmed, between careful nods, and accepted with finality. )

At times, the dead things here aim to seize him.

We ought to make sure that never happens, then.

[ We, because Wei Wuxian is family now, and even if he weren't Xichen would still be aware of how desperately Wangji loves the man. We, because Wangji is no longer alone in this realm of horrors. ]

Is there somewhere safe people can retire to?

( We. An army, a legion, all the hands that took steel and imprecations against Wei Ying and wore them true, wore them well, who turned tiger's eyes on him, who showed fang, who lusted for his meats, the crackle, thin, of his bones, unwinding. And how many legions sprawled like fungi in soiled waters by moonlight, at Nightless City?

He remembers, his brother, armed. Shielded. Remembers, Lan Wangji too, indifferent and undecided. Flinches, but does not speak the truth of memories like prickling nettle needles. )

Newly arrived. A first attack. ( Apologies, little information known. But: ) Four of us share a lair. Brother may adjoin.

Which four?

[ Are there not more here he mentioned? He cocks his head inquiringly, wondering which grouped together. ]

We were assigned quarters.

( As if they were disciples again, finding their place in barracks, and not men grown. As if it does not offend to be settled into sleeping arrangements for the convenience of others, like cattle. )

Wei Ying. Wangji. ( His mouth, slowly wet, glistened. Beneath moonlight, every sin seems stark. ) The woman Yelena. The witch Vanessa.

( A pause, and careful: ) No perversion. No indignity. ( Two men do not corrupt the honour of these women. )

Wangji, [ he hardly keeps his smile at bay, ] I assumed none.

[ Besides, as crazy as Wangji is for Wei Wuxian, Xichen somehow doubts his protective little brother would splash around the intimacy of their relationship in front of anyone, let alone strangers. ]

The 'witch' ... ?

[ That can't be good, surely. ]

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