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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.
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[Just as he ripped off the planks of wood like they were nothing, he picks her up as if she weighed no more than a slightly wet kitten, and cradles her against his chest carefully as he wades away from the black mold and towards the stairs that go down.
It takes a few minutes for the oppressive feelings to finally give way, and he looks back suspiciously.]
... Are you alright? That... That looks like something we've seen before, doesn't it?
no subject
Yes, it is reminiscent of the mould from Serthica, isn't it?
[How odd that it should be here, as well.]
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Maybe the man in white and the child came here too.
[Obviously they must have, given what they're seeing. But was that before or after Serthica? Xie Lian thinks probably 'before', but before is all relative here.]
How are you feeling?
no subject
[She stretches her legs out, reaching for the floor. She'd really rather not be carried any more than strictly necessary.]
You can set me down now, thank you.
no subject
[As soon as she starts moving, he carefully sets her down, making sure she gets her footing in the water before letting go.]
Let's cry and keep clear of that thing for now.
... Which way was it to the basement again?
[He opens his palm and the blue flame comes again obediently, flashing a bit brighter.]
no subject
This way, I think.
[Moving slowly, in case too-quick movements would bring on another wave of dizziness, she pulls her rifle from its case and starts in the direction that she thinks the basement is.]
no subject
[The trek down the stairs is a bit wobbly, but safe enough, but there's a lot more water downstairs, almost waist-high. It's more wading than walking really.]
... Do you think anyone in the village even remembers this is here?
no subject
As she sloshes her way down into the basement proper, the beacon comes into view, along with a few golden trinkets scattered about and...]
Greed deafens man to the cries of his conscience. Music sets him free. [She reads the inscription aloud, head tilted up to the ceiling as she continues moving, not paying attention to where she's stepping.] What do you suppose it means?
[Not paying attention, that is, until she hears the grinding of stone and the tile beneath her heel clicks and the sudden slamming of doors echoes through the room.]
no subject
[That's a strange motto to display so prominently, so it must mean something it is true.
But any pondering is interrupted as doors suddenly start slamming shut. To her credit, the water is quite deep and it would have been hard to notice anything, but...]
Did you touch anything?
no subject
[She lifts her foot up immediately, but it's too late. The doors are all shut, and she can hear the ominous trickling of water flowing in. Lifting her foot doesn't reverse whatever she did.
She hurries back to the door they came through and slams her shoulder against it, but it doesn't budge. The hinges are on the other side, and it's heavy enough that shooting it probably wouldn't do much good.
They're well and truly trapped, unless they can find another exit.]
no subject
With his strength, he probably could punch through the door... and then risk bringing the whole building on both of their heads as a result and risk damaging the beacon, so that's definitely not an option. But this room must have a way of emptying, because it wasn't full when they got down there, and the water didn't leave by going up.
His eyes fall on the engraved motto again.]
'Greed deafens man to the cries of his conscience. Music sets him free.'
... Can you hear anything? Anything that's not the water?
no subject
Caitlyn tamps down the panic rising in her chest and closes her eyes, trying to focus.
Music. Is there...]
Yes. [It's soft and tinny, and she can't tell exactly where it's coming from, but she can hear a song beneath the rush of water.] Help me look.
[She wades deeper into the room, doing her best to figure out where the sound is coming from.]
no subject
[Which is very dark, and now covered in even more water, and he can't ask the ghost fire, fluttering above the water, to come under it, or that would extinguish it and he doesn't want that. But...]
How well can you swim?
no subject
[Her swimming ability has never been tested by anything more strenuous than an enjoyable afternoon in her private pool, but she's not a weak swimmer.]
no subject
[And... hold... whatever you're carrying that might be weighing you down? he doesn't really know what most of these things are.]
no subject
Take my rifle case. [She folds the rifle and slips it into the case, holding it out to him.] Try to keep it above water, if you can.
no subject
And then give a nod to the little ghost fire, who comes down to the water surface and valiantly starts to emit more light.]
There. I hope that'll be enough.
no subject
She takes a deep breath and dives under the water.
At first, it stings her eyes, but she blinks rapidly, unused to having her eyes open underwater. The flickering light is just bright enough to see by, casting strange, wavering shadows that change as she disturbs the water with her movement.
The sound is much more difficult to pinpoint now, but she starts hunting for the source among the rubble and random trinkets scattered across the floor. She's just starting to feel a burn in her lungs when she spots the golden music box, lodged beneath broken, fallen stone. With the last of her strength before she'll need to surface, she pushes at the stone, but it doesn't budge.
With a sputtering gasp, she breaks the surface - it's nearing her chest now, which doesn't inspire confidence that they aren't going to drown.]
It's a music box. There's debris over top it, I can't move it.
no subject
[He's still holding the rifle case up, the water now creeping towards mid chest height. There's still room under the ceiling, though.]
What does it look like ?
no subject
[She points out where the music box is before taking her rifle case back, holding it up over her head.]
It's small, made of gold. There's filigree around the edges and gems inlaid on the lid, I couldn't see the color.
no subject
(he whispers something to the little ghost fire, who tries again to give more light and hovers just over the water surface, before he dives.
It takes him a minute to locate the box, and juts like he made short work of the board, the heavy debris isn't much for him to remove, and he soon emerges again carrying the box.]
This... I'm not sure how this works. I've never seen anything like it before.
no subject
There should be a crank or a wheel to turn. To wind it.
[She'd show him, but her hands are rather occupied making sure her rifle stays dry. The ammunition would be ruined if it got wet, and she'd have to take the gun apart and clean it once they got out of here.
...If they get out of here.]
no subject
[Allow him to fiddle a bit and then he goes 'ah!' and starts turning a piece and...]
The music changed! ... Wait, it's not music.
[The voice echoes suddenly.]
'Depressingly, Anurr was right to worry.'
... Anurr? Why would anyone here know him? And what was he worried about?
no subject
There's a faint click and she realizes that the water seems to have stopped rising.]
I think the music box stopped it.
no subject
[In fact, the water leve now seems to be slowly going down.
... And Xie Lian is wearing all white, albeit several layers.]
... Anurr is the first undead lord we crossed path with, more than two years ago but he's not... with the others. I'm not going to say he's a good person, but he's not on the side of the ones we've been killing since then and he's helped us a few times. He catches up with us occasionally.
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