westwhere | the sunken

the sunken | part ii

THE SUNKEN | PART II

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Get your toes wet in Part II of The Sunken, stretching until 28 June.

THE MORNING AFTER

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Waking from Yancai’s undead attack, you find the village has gone three years back in time.

■ Yancai remains flooded, but there are fewer waterways and some dry grounds. You can safely transit by raft, alongside row boat, though the waters run more turbulent.

■ Houses are sturdier, less drenched, their paints and furniture less eroded. There are fewer piers and minimal mould. The dual moons appear less… bloodthirsty.

■ Most locals don’t recall the future. The elder council, including leader Quanze Tsaymien and Kuthuba, remember, but feel compelled to re-enact the past, like an itch they must scratch. Those dead in the undead attack are alive, feeling as if they never perished.

■ Telepaths can hear echoing screams from the undead attack over the two days that follow the time travel.

■ The House of Commerce is less sunken, its beacon offline and musical boobytrap unarmed. The Master of Commerce yet lives and may be contacted.

■ Some struggle with partial or full amnesia, or might undertake their assumed identities. These effects wane within 24 hours — but vertigo, nausea and a sense of displacement may persist.

LIVING FIRE (NEWCOMERS, OPT-IN)

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Spooked by the memory meddling, party witch Karsa rallies newcomers, who have least experienced Yancai’s magic, to assemble ingredients for an elixir that will help settle clouded minds. ( ”Minds? What minds? You learn to use them now? You’re too old. You only take your little drink to stop staring like fools.” )

■ You must locate red-eye root on the outskirts of the forests that border Yancai. The plant lives in ancient, immense trees that have been burning from the inside for decades.

■ The red-eye root grows within these endless fires.

■ Briefly stop, divert or enter the fire wall to collect the root — but beware that flames stoke, if you loiter nearby. You can also find the resident fire gnome, who’ll surrender a handful of roots — if you amuse them by fulfilling requests ranging from playful (songs, dances) to humiliating (pretending to be animals, sharing uncomfortable secrets) to cruel (asks for blood, punching a comrade… )

■ Dilute the red-eye root into a painfully bitter elixir, then distribute it and coax the reluctant to drink.

■ You can enlist anyone’s help with the quest!

HOME AT SEA

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Slowly, surely, Yancai sinks — a fresher reality for villagers who reward help to raise piers, wade through waterways to reach their families, or design new boats, infrastructure and safety mechanisms. Cash in on your good deeds here.

You overhear veteran fisherman Temiu mutter that mould dregs have knotted his nets — while newly arrived Captain Alia of the New Brigade wonders how Yancai can be so flooded, amid quiet seas. The population seems tender, weary.

FARE THEE WELL

Once more, the village observes a funerary rite — this time, setting dead bodies at sea. Hostile, sullen and silent embalmers contracted by the elder council prepare corpses for final farewells before laying them to rest in one-man casket-vessels. The ships are bound with thick, weighty chains, closed and set on water — destined to return empty after the dead are claimed.

Drifting distantly at sea, the Man in Black of hauntings awaits them on a ragged boat.

■ Some villagers murmur that many casket-ships have gone missing, leaving those dead without rest. They argue the wisdom of burying their dead at home — but superstitious family aggressively object.

■ Stay among the grieving to collect information on the dead. You can also inspect the bodies by… borrowing coarse, greyed robes, and painting your eyes and lips with wood ashes to mimic the embalmers.

■ You recognise a small minority of the bodies sent to sea as the undead who attacked in the future.

■ There are unused casket-ships, built for lovers who perished together. Partner up, descend into a casket and fake… perfect… stiffness, to experience the disappearance firsthand.

THE MOON, HOWLING

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A sight to be seen are the twin moons that steward Yancai, one true and one diffuse. In the future, they gleamed cold and waiting — here, those with a lunar or astral connection become increasingly and inexplicably convinced that these moons are… not real. No distraction, no reason, no proof convinces you. The true moon is captive.

In your moon-hunt, you are drawn to the dam-fenced, heavily flooded south-western district of Yancai — into the now deserted former seat of the elder’s council, the drowned but majestic palace-mansion of the Storm’s Stage.

■ Can’t hurt to tell other party members your suspicions and enlist help. Alternatively, they might follow you because of your strange behaviour.

■ Scale the great wooden dam, mindful of guards.

■ You find the district overwhelmingly submerged, with waters thick, unnaturally cool and darkened (but not black). Refugees have removed row boats, and remaining rafts are threadbare, forcing you to swim, leap or scale rooftops and balconies to advance. Beware deep rotting and crumbling architecture.

■ The Storm’s Stage is a flat, one-level building, where waters run 1.5-2m high. Its large, wide and labyrinthine corridors have made it a favourite hunting ground for Weepers: carnivorous 1m-long sea creatures with cruel teeth and human intelligence. They produce a sobbing, hiccupping sound — their cackle of enthusiasm, before they attack.

■ These obscene creatures spear the decaying bodies of their former human or animal prey in their teeth, propping them up and mimicking voices to lure you closer.

■ Make it far enough into the twisting building, and you may encounter a magically locked room, behind which, the sensitive are certain, lies the moon. Elders’ leader Quanze Tsaymien might have the key you require — or find a way to open the door yourself. Are you in yet?

THE LADIES & THEIR LAKE

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You hear that beautiful maid Miang-Si has come of age, and her rich merchant family now accepts marriage offers. Jubilant, modestly attired, kind and in good health — this Miang-Si is a far cry from the spiteful, sly creature you met before.

Yet, in a small village, murmurs abound: some of Miang-Si’s friends hint that her reputation won’t survive more sneaking out at night. Others say that Miang-Si appears… distracted, her appetite lessened. Others, still, say the girl has returned to her obsessive fixation with a beautiful woman glimpsed in the forest years prior.

Miang-Si could have information on her future accomplices — the allegedly ladies of the lake.

FOR RICHER OR FOR POORER

Miang-Si’s parents have exacting marital standards: you must be rich and publicly righteous, all genders welcome. An exotic gift might go far to gain you a private audience with Miang-Si.

■ Choose and present a potential suitor: dress them in the village finest, polish their manners, hire an entourage and commandeer a suitable courtship gift. Swat if they complain.

■ Raise the suitor’s odds along with their public profile by flaunting their feats and virtues in the marketplace.

■ Woo your would-be parents-in-law by capturing golden scales from a rare Mura-sirri lake fish. It spits slime on its pursuers, who instantly flee, irrationally startled.

■ To the seeming ignorance of Miang-Si’s parents, their dark, dusty, mausoleum-like house appears haunted: strange women appear in reflective surfaces, or run down corridors. Joining your hosts for tea, you feel inexplicably covetous of your ‘intended,’ certain that you must have Miang-Si at all costs and that jealous rivals oppose you. Invisible to others, a beautiful woman clings to you from behind and whispers you need only verbally or physically eviscerate everyone at this table to claim your bride. Hopefully, your wingwo/man can prevent bloodshed.

■ Sign up here for one of three RNG-drawn audiences to speak to Miang-Si or investigate her quarters.

AT NIGHT, WE DALLY

You can also trail after Miang-Si on one of the nights when she slips out of her dead silent house. She leaves when the main moon is full — while the twin moon feels disapproving. Follow Miang-Si to the outskirts of Yancai, to the Silver Lakes. Here, she tosses in a silver coin and wishes for safe passage, then takes a small boat.

■ If she discovers you following her, Miang-Si firmly tells you to go home. The twin moon seems at ease as you heed, however unwillingly.

■ If you also drop a silver coin in the Silver Lakes and wish for safe passage, your ship turns invisible for two hours.

■ Miang-Si stops her boat in the middle of the Silver Lake and touches the waters with her hand. She is answered by several skeletons, who swim to surface and gather by her boat or climbing in. The parts of their bodies that exit the water gain flesh, then skin and the likeness of beautiful women — the rest stay skeletal in the depths.

■ One such woman greets Miang-Si as queen of the night and kisses her on the mouth, about to drag her in. If you only follow, you notice she disappears for hours, then re-emerges with a look of dark conviction, before returning home.

■ If you seek to intervene, the skeletal women capsize your both then look to embrace and kiss you, also dragging you into water. The kiss allows you to breathe underwater, while your lips are locked — but steadily steals stamina. Your captor progressively decays back to bones, losing sentience, as you reach the bottom of the lake.

■ Here, you find dozens of skeletons and mismatched bones, webbed in wisps of familiar black water, along with rags of clothing — including shreds of a white shroud.

■ The waters hold no bodies, once Miang-Si leaves.

A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

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Village elder Kuthuba urges the crafty and the brave to a forest incursion after several lumberjacks are a week late returning. He fears the men lost. The village’s numerous piers, pillars and boats depend on timber, and Kuthuba seeks to retrieve both wood and any prospective casualties.

■ Two dozen people leave at dawns with daggers, bows, arrows. Some say they previously entered the forests before being driven out by vicious animals, but are not keen to speak further. The grounds are inhabited by woodland creatures, but eerily silent. Predators are scarce, thin and terrorised.

■ A thick mist drenches the forest, deepening until you struggle to see past 3 metres ahead, or to spot the waning sun in a grey sky. Network devices do not work, and torches are essential. You feel increasingly paranoid and hunted, distrusting your companions.

■ If lost in the woods, villagers say to set your dagger on hard ground and spin it. If the blade lands on you or your companion, wet it with your/their blood, until it no longer does so. If it points in a proper direction, head there. If it starts to cackle, bury it in dirt or flee — it has caught a taste for blood and will now seek out your throat.

■ The forests brim with diffuse whispers, women’s laughter, shrill growling and heavy steps — until amorphous many-bladed beasts descend from trees or burrow in soft ground. Aim between their carapace plates and run. Happily, rivulets abound and the creatures fear running water.

■ Deep in the forest, you find the resplendent vegetation thins into a small barren clearing where nothing grows. Here, even the earth has cracked, showing signs of black mould spores, while animals and birds avoid the region. You discover the belonging of the lumberjacks, but no bodies, along with a few scattered diary pages.

■ Take the belongings back to the lumberjacks’ families. The hunting party returns with sundown — only to realise three days have passed in Yancai.

NOTES

■ Feel free to investigate other regions of Yancai!

■ NPCs for this event!

■ QUESTIONS.

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( He is no man for pleasantries, for rigid politesse. The diplomacy of cloying banquets and wine-drenched evenings does not become him: it was known so, in the conversations of his betters and the conferences of gentlemen.

Before his brother, reduced perpetually to little more than the child who waited, gasping and forgotten and cold on his mother's steps — he will not pretend peace. His soul is stormed, savaged. He turns his head from the blade, facing the thickness of mist, impenetrable.

The blade turns, shrieking. Stays. He knows, before Lan Xichen need speak it, that he has stopped onto one of them again, and holds Bichen's blade a finger's width released from her fetters. He passes his thumb over it, then gives the dagger a few droplets' feed, gently dripped. )

I tire of the sacrifices of men who claim to love me.

[ Distracted by looking off into the smoke, by the time his gaze falls to the dagger it's too late to stop that drip of blood from touching it though he snatches at his brother's wrist all the same. ]

Wangji! You do as I instruct, not as I do.

[ The sect leader peels outward through his skin and the alarmed tone, born from concern. ]

Edited 2023-06-09 19:57 (UTC)

( A spin that might well stretch into a lifetime. He watches the blade shriek and scratch ground, catching on pebble — watches his brother, adverse to risk and ill taken chance.

Watches the abyss that gains shape between them, home to the truth that they are two men of divided, rival interests: in wanting each other safe, they imperil their own skins. It cannot be abided so. It cannot be done, elsewise. The crux of their challenge.

The danger catches pale sunlight once, as if speared. He blinks and sees only blinding light. Blinks once more.

The blade stills, pointing — and rising, his silks billow, flow and river down — )

East. ( How apt. )

[ He only releases Wangji so they can defend themselves if necessary, though his frown remains once the blade only acts like a compass. With an exhale that counts as a huff from a Lan, Xichen takes the lead through the forest with a ready mind to unsheathe Shuoyue if needs be, one ear always on his belligerent brother behind. ]

( Fist beating the small of his back, cage of his ribs tense, contracted. He walks like a pillar, a corpse stiffened by death, the caricature of a bureaucrat in a modern play parodying governmental officials.

Slowly, surely, comically indifferent to the waking world and to Xichen's own likely urgency and determination to make progress. Once upon a time, Wei Ying had cursed him his rhythm, as if the learnings of the clan are such feeble preoccupations that Wangji can afford to simply cast them aside. As if he does not know when the irritation he stews in others simmers, then catches boil.

No, as another branch creaks and the dirt beneath his food yields wetly, Lan Xichen can wait. )

[ The silent argument festers as they head east, though Xichen holds back branches here and there for Wangji. He isn't going to let them swing back and hit him, of course not (though he can hear their uncle Qiren grousing it might have knocked some sense into him). The quiet is actually beneficial and would have been there otherwise, lacking some of the attitude of the two, yet the effect is the same: the sound of whispers can be heard. Women, too, he thinks, and Xichen — ]

Stop.

[ He freezes, hackles up as he initially feels a spike of panic that this is the White Woman come to find him in his waking hours too. He holds still, glancing around as his sword-hand holds out Shuoyue in its sheath to stop Wangji advancing. ]

( He stays, stills, waits. Hears his brother's command and finds his blood curdled, the petty stirs of his stubborn pride quieted. They come too far in the woods, light diffused, visibility muted. Nothing but laughter, rippling, and the women's sounds, and he would think it a dream if not for the knowing that only his mother visits his nightmares, and she sleeps twice buried now.

Whatever greets them here is monstrous, artificial, strange. Lan Wangji's hand lingers, shivered, on Bichen, and he compels himself to — wait, eyes bright and wild and seeking his brother's tension-ridden form. )

Mere hauntings. ( Startling, but not quite so to stall advance, not in the face of veteran, learned exorcists. And murmured, helpless after: ) What gives grievance?

( It is more than this. Less. His brother's every moment of focus is borrowed from grief, and this is grand theft. )

[ When no spectre of Jin Guangyao pushes out of the treeline, Xichen barely relaxes. It's something though, allowing him to regain use of his faculties beyond the crippling tension that usually accompanies (and lingers long after) the White Woman's visits. He shakes his head, a sign It doesn't matter, Shuoyue sliding an inch from her sheath despite the way he tries to dismiss the strain in his posture. ]

Be careful.

[ Softly, he advances once again. ]

( His brother, ghosts' slayer. His sword renown. Their education, their training, their lives constructed around the certainty that they will strike at the heart of vicissitude, tame and temper the dead in their attempts against the living.

...now, startled by whispers and fissured fragments of sound. No. No, there is more to this, and Zewu-Jun dismisses the question as if it were another step in his diplomatic dances. I know your face too well to wish it shielded now.

He peels himself away from stupor, from questions. )

We cannot run. ( Entrapped by mist, he knows all too well they stand no chance. ) Why do they hide?

They are hunting us in return.

[ It isn't fear in the eaves of the fog, the sounds are too many for that. Clamouring softly, but unafraid to let themselves be heard, these ghosts are more than a simple spectre or two.

He tries to act as though he wasn't thoroughly spooked a moment ago, back to normal as he assesses the situation. Without looking up, he breathes to Wangji, ]

The canopies.

( He looks, the sin of curiosity woefully, unmistakable infectious. If they entertain human-minded pursuers, the betrayal of his unmitigated attention will go far to alert them that Xichen and Wangji both follow their positions.

More fool Lan Wangji, neglecting the old disciplines. Silence hangs over him like a spider's wet web, hunting his warmth, burdening his breath. He rallies himself into perfect, waiting stillness, the gentle rain of leaves from above frustrating him into slow shivers, while Bichen thrums with expectation.

Then, a crackle — he turns, furiously, blade brought in a swing — and nearly touches his brother with the angered tip of her, when a charm of sparrows dashes by. )

They toy. ( Perhaps his sword is slower to lower than he intends. )

[ He steps back when Bichen veers a little too close, surprised but not alarmed. ]

They do. Stand back to back, give them nowhere to hide.

[ Tracking the movements above them, Xichen keeps Shuoyue raised. ]

( Apologies, but his mouth rusts around the word, the instinct to hunt prevalent. He feels cleaved, divided from himself: on the one hand, brother's presence is a beacon of warmth, of kindness, of mercy, of compassion. Of all that which should incite peace.

On the other, hunger claws at him, the compulsion to claim and kill. His hand wavers on Bichen's hilt, hungry, weak.

He stalls to withdraw. Then, finally, pulls back only to defy his brother — his sect leader — and his instruction. )

If we defend, we dally. ( They have no such time. ) Better we make progress.

( Before the compulsion to hurt transforms, wicked and rueful. )

Wangji.

[ That is the second time his brother has openly defied him, leaving Xichen alarmed that he has nothing at his back as planned and countering by keeping Wangji in his view. He bites out the name, frustrated that they aren't working as a team, with a look that says this will be spoken of later.

It breaks when a beast drops from the branches above and Shuoyue sings, arcing in a silver line like moving moonlight. ]

( The wrong move, his strategy weak, folly. He had assumed, if they remove themselves from the clearing, if they escape the forest's thrall, perhaps Lan Wangji might shed the ache and lure to visit harm upon the blood of his blood and —

No matter. No time. A creature comes down, claws all but blades, and brother swings in, Shuoyue a glimmering, pale vision. He strikes high — Lan Wangji, slipping to one knee, covers the other basis, swerving low. The creature's wail is a hissed, low, shrill thing, like a crackling of growl, nearly muted. No time for it either to understand the horror of efficiency that befell it.

Blood smears Lan Wangji's cheek like dust bites and ink spatters. He does not think to waste moments with cleansing. )

Another?

( Breathless, heartbeat thunderous — just as another beast bursts up from trembling ground. )

[ The disgusting beast goes down heavily, a victim of dual blades. Xichen feels the rumbling beneath his feet as Wangji warns of the second and he spins away to give the creature room to break through the surface, regrouping at his brother's side. He takes note of the carapace's weaknesses and lunges for the edge between two shell pieces, mindful of the creature's limbs. ]

( ...and another, cut cleanly under brother's fast hand, and Bichen to follow: this time, spearing from above in a clean and mindful cut that pins the beast in place through its spine.

Between them, they still it, and Bichen pillars and anchors its squirming, menacing form down, as Lan Wangji hisses behind himself: )

The head — ( A clean decapitation, while Wangji holds it stilled. If... brother may... discern the head of such a vile deformity of nature. Certainly, it holds a certain likeness to its back end. )

[ Xichen acts on Wangji's suggestion without pause for thought, trusting him implicitly. Shuoyue carves through the carapace slats and. with a heft of spiritual power behind the thrust, cleaves the head cleanly from the monster's neck to go rolling and bounce off a nearby tree.

Straightening, he wrinkles his nose a little at the decapitated head staring back at them, uglier than ... he imagined. ]

There may be more of this spawn nearby, we should leave.

( Zewu-Jun is angered. A head falls, eyes dark glass and beady. It is done.

Lan Wangji, blood spattered on the front of his silks but quickly dispelling, given the sorcery Wei Ying had paid to place on his robes so many villages prior, rights himself. He passes Bichen with a flourish over the thickened, wax-glistened leaf of a nearby plant, and cleanses her of defilement. Blood, in the wake of the latest battle. Viscera.

He does not regret the bloodshed, only feels bittersweet acknowledgement of this world's profound senselessness. Death wins its perpetrators nothing here: not freedom, not the righteous defense of a cause. Not even personal satisfaction.

...it is like butcher's work. And now they must leave, unchanged, as they have come. )

As the knife suggested. ( Let something be won of their foolish sacrifice. Then, absently, as only a second son might: )

Pleasing, to fight once more alongside you.

Disruptive as the setting has been, [ with Wangji taking the initiative twice after Xichen tried to guard him from the dagger and again at his back, ] it is good to fight alongside you too. Strange to say it, given it has not been as long for me as it has for you, Wangji.

[ He cleans Shuoyue with a hard flick aside, then sheathes her. ]

Though the beasts may have more spawn, if we head back we may not come this far again.

( He hesitates, watchful for a moment, seeking out Xichen's gaze, his interest. As if the shrapnel of his brother's affection might quickly and methodically erupt, leaving him with naught but weathered nothing in his hands.

There is vanity in his question, as they start to walk, and the strangeness of it chains back the compulsion, the itch to turn his sword on his brother, to slay. It is the forest who wishes it so. He is not one with it. He is not one. )

I am... as you remember?

( No. He suspects the changes, likely a regression: his face gaunt, bones brittle, poise reduced. Much of himself, lessened or ragged. Hair and silks in disarray, and what created Hanguang-Jun, removed from itself. )

You are my brother. I would know you anywhere, any time, despite anything.

[ That is his answer, keeping a side-eye on Wangji as they make their way cautiously forward through the forest. Xichen minds the canopies and leaves the ground to Wangji's focus. He glances over, gaze softening even as he gives him a considering look. ]

You are changed but still yourself.

...I apologise.

( He feels the compulsion, the burning, embattled instinct to make himself smaller, lessened, to erase his presence from Zewu-Jun's vantage. It is his place to act as shadow to his brother and sect leader — more so, now.

He falls in step, barely trailing after Xichen, dispersing like a curse. Allowing his brother to shrug off his presence, come what may. )

You should not behold this. ( Him. The worst of himself. )

[ He turns, then, and plants a hand on Wangji's shoulder so he can't escape (he could, but). Xichen shakes his head, a patient gaze waiting for his brother to stop living in his own head and to see him. ]

I did not say any part of such a change was bad, only noticeable. Your independence has flourished. I'm glad to know it. [ Perhaps not to experience it today specifically, but those were more surprises than anything. ] You never have to apologise to me.

Independence.

( No. The word stings, brands, leaves behind the singeing red of a truth indelible. Once upon a time in Cloud Recesses, autonomy was anathema, the curse of prioritizing the self over the clan. Uncle would not speak of it. Xichen, practising it with care, would only weaponize his own liberties to benefit the sect.

He abandons the righteous path with pulses of indignity, with sketches of his head, raising. )

Uncle would disapprove. ( Brother may disapprove, also. )

the sunken | part ii

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