the sunken | moonrise

[groundrules]

THE SUNKEN | MOONRISE

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The final Arc VI event lasts three days ICly and until 23 July OOCly. Yancai goes back another two years in time to the Huntress’ visit, Miang-Si’s corruption and the memory-meddling rite of the ladies of the lake.

The party can choose to stay neutral, only heading to the House of Commerce to access its now-active beacon — or they can inevitably get mixed up in the affairs of Yancai and endanger the village’s time loop.

For a quick catch-up: the latest clues | everything about Arc VI.

BOAR’S HEART

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Rattled, on high alert, feeling watched and skin prickling from static electricity, characters wake to find Yancai has gone back another two years in time. It is now nearly dry, barring rare waterways. Mould is absent. The village bustles with activity: a heavy influx of new arrivals comes by sea, and frequent fishermen’s and merchants’ markets set up in the open road — enjoy fresh fish delicacies, discounted pearls, rare cloth textiles and dyes that include the unique Yancai green!

■ No more hauntings take place, and only one moon loiters above the village. Villagers still remember the party under their false identities.

■ Word has spread of the conflict between elder Quanze Tsaymien’s council and a beautiful woman who has taken up in the forests at the village’s outskirts. Gossipmongers say she wastes away in the woods weeping — while ground cracks beneath her feet, grass wilts, waters poison and animals drop dead nearby. Young men are drawn to her and are later forcibly recovered in a state of rambling, feverish exhaustion. Village healers gladly accept your nursing help.

■ Village elders have given the woman — correctly identified by the party as the Huntress — until the following sunrise to leave Yancai on pain of death. You have 24h to encounter her.

■ The forests are livelier than in previous iterations of Yancai, but you feel perpetually… watched, as if sharp eyes follow your progress. These heavy gazes may belong to the young men bewitched to protect the Huntress, or to razor-clawed venom-spitting creatures that hunt her.

■ You may find some of the aforementioned creatures bleeding on the forest path. They possess slightly above canine intelligence, cannot communicate in human tongues, and hesitate to let you approach — but nursing one might reward you.

■ The death-touched (necromancers, those who died or revived, or otherwise marked) may optionally feel compelled to join the Huntress. Physical distance dwindles her pull, as can your own magic or solutions.

■ Luck (?) leads you to a silent and bloodied forest clearing, come sunset. Here, two dozens of Yancai’s recent dead have risen alive and surround the Huntress, some battling the creatures that assail her, while she speaks to 16-year-old village beauty Miang-Si. There is a gaping, if regenerating hole in the Huntress’ chest; in one hand, she holds her yet-beating heart she cuts in several parts she wraps in parchment. She asks Miang-Si to bury these pouches near Yancai to ‘hold her power close,’ in exchange for permanent and ever-blossoming beauty.

■ Wait as the Huntress and her forces retreat — then catch up to Miang-Si, capture her, or find the pouches. The ground where they are buried is desaturated, brittle, nearly pulverised. Hawks and ravens circle above and plunge down to claw at intruders, or attempt to pick up children or feebler adults. To the magically or death-sensitive, the pouches emanate a revolting aura of withering death.

■ Beware if heart pouches were buried beneath aged, thick trees — their roots burst out like nooses and writhing spiders’ legs, looking to either slam you against the tree trunks or entrap you within.

■ Finding at least two heart pouches prevents the dead from rising in Yancai in the years to come! Keep the heart cuts fettered — touching these parts directly can overwhelm you with the need to consume this or other hearts, to compensate for the sudden and unfeeling… coldness in your chest.

WAKE, UNWAKEFULLY

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Sunrise finds the Huntress gone from Yancai — while waves of the dead rise from the sea to attack the village. Some come chained, or dragging pieces from the casket-ships in which they were set for water burial.

This is the first undead attack witnessed by Yancai villagers, who are largely clumsy, slow and petrified. Some sentimentally believe their revived relatives never died and plead not to kill them. Many are caught in undefended areas, such as open port harbours, fishing boats, markets — and need help to travel to their families. The Huntress’ spell starts dissolving by midday, with the dead largely pulling back into sea and lake waters

■ Beware the village waterways: touching the water replenishes the strength of the dead and saps yours. Look closely at the bottom of the waterways, and you find them lined with dozens of resting corpses. Some wake slowly, as they clutch shards of glistening black mirror — best to… use a very long oar… or plunge very quickly to recover shards.

■ Carrying a mirror shard puts the dead around you to blissful sleep. Those who possess a cut of the Huntress’ heart can take control of up to 20 of the risen dead. Necromancers can control up to 10, even without such a token.

MOTHER MOON

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Come midday of Day II, Yancai villagers start to move freely and reunite with loved ones. Waters begin to gently rise and flood the grounds, while the first spores of black mould appear on walls.

The first to help the injured are the washerwomen of Yancai, who favour the young and magically sensitive. You notice they work in perfect synchrony and have developed a hand sign language they can teach you. Keep an ear out, and one might entrust they are hedge witches, the so-called ‘ladies’ of the lake.

■ Join them, either invited or unseen, when they gather at one of Yancai’s three great lakes. Each lady picks up one of the silver coins tossed in the water for luck-bearing. Take one yourself, and you will be able to breathe and speak underwater, following as the ladies dive and swim through thin underwater passageways. Beware countless skeletal remains that line the lakes and sinister fish — both burst out to shackle your limbs, or sound the alarm about intruders.

■ You find the ladies have begun to shelter and ward the dead in lake caves, to avoid their rising up again. The ladies re-emerge in the forest, speaking of a protection rite they agreed with the elders’ council. They are not strong enough to break the Huntress’ lingering spell, but hope to later recruit nascent witch Miang-Si, who teases she has power from the Huntress. For now, the ladies have decided to create a five-year time loop, moving Yancai back and forth in time whenever the dead attack.

■ To achieve their rite, the ladies use large pieces of black mirror confiscated from the Huntress’ dead and the energy of the hunter’s moon that shines down a bloody red tonight. Those with a lunar connection feel the moon aches, disgusted by this violation. Even those unaffiliated with the moon feel irascible and prone to violence while under its gaze.

■ Interrupting the rite rescues the moon, earning you a reward, and breaks villagers from the five-year loop, allowing them to live their true lives. It also exposes Yancai to the dead, unless you remove the heart cuts. Co-ordinate and choose wisely.

■ The ladies conduct their chanting, rune-painting and summons throughout the night of Day III in the forest. You have a wealth of options to break their spell: interfere with the magic flows, disrupt the guarded ash circle of convened witches, summon irate villagers to raid, persuade Miang-Si to intervene, break or steal the rite’s black mirror pieces… You can also reach out to the coven’s strongest witches, who agreed to sacrifice themselves to become overseers in the time flux — the Lumberjack, Red Lady, White Woman, Man in Black and the Milk-Toothed Babes. You can still sign up for a RNG draw to chat.

BAIT & BEACON

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To take attention off the ladies of the lake, Yancai’s council organises a sumptuous masked banquet and charity auction for the victims of the undead attack at the lavish House of Commerce. The House has been thoroughly cleansed by the time of your arrival, with only faint, clumsy traces of blood, decay and debris lingering from the previous offensive.

On site, servants are still jittery from the undead assault, while openly armed guards walk the grounds and answer any small provocation. Be kind to the staff or offer sympathy for their likely recent losses, and they might let you in unnoticed, or offer a hand.

■ Anyone who brings an item for the auction or who can pretend s/he possesses massive wealth can join the banquet. Show up with anything you can brazenly talk up as elite, exquisite or one-of-a-kind — or perhaps auction your services?

■ The House of Commerce contains a locked room with the village’s now fully active beacon. The Master of Commerce has the only key-tokens to access this quarter, somewhere in his study room — pick a lock, sweettalk the staff, or work your magic to get inside the study and grab one of the rune-inscribed tokens. The study room brims with scrolls, globes, letters to and from the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company and maps of… Arc I’s Sa-Hareth in the west, where hand-written news reports say the dead are rising.

■ Back at the banquet, the richest wine and… relaxing herbs and powders are offered freely or sometimes slipped into food to ease spirits. Aiming for levity, participants don comical animal masks or play a local game of ‘bait or hook,’ whereby they approach you with the aforementioned fishing bait or fish hook in closed fists, asking you to pick one. Depending on your choice, you must ‘bait’ the audience with a song or dance, or ‘hook’ them in with a joke or anecdote.

■ Around midnight, attendants are invited to an increasingly competitive auction, punctuated by elbowing, loud voices, crowding and the occasional threat. Beautiful concubines might stick to your arms, asking to be purchased this or that (exorbitant) small nothing as a gift. Participate to keep up your cover, but beware landing in hard debt!

■ Most banquet goers pretend they are indifferent to the undead attack, but some question whether the woman of the forest was to blame — while others mention that the mysterious, far too independent coven of the ladies of the lake is meeting even now, and might be cursing Yancai.

■ However you spend your night, the witch Karsa asks you to infiltrate the House of Commerce by dawns and attempt to leave through the beacon. This will only be possible if at least one person has picked up a key-token…!

QUESTIONS

Comments

[thedreamer]

Then we're where we need to be.

[ The dead have been all around them in one form or another since they arrived in Yancai, certainly, but the pull of death specifically now tells him they're closer than they've ever been to hopefully ascertaining the source of the time loops. How they've done it.

Thankful that she silently allows him to lead, the Doctor's abilities certainly aid them as they follow. Able to see a great distance ahead, they can trail significantly behind the witches and remain unseen while still not losing sight of them entirely. He can also hear the vibrations of other creatures around them, so as they swim and seem to near the end of a passageway, the Doctor suddenly reaches his hand back to halt her. They linger there, with the Doctor not daring to move yet. At last, nearly thirty seconds pass before the cause of his sudden stop reveals itself when a large shadow passes by; they've avoided one treacherous looking fish, though he's thrilled at being able to see it from here. He twists a bit, carefully, and presses and flattens his body up against the side of the tunnel, so Vanessa can see it as it passes by, a grin on his face for a moment. ]

[matermali]

[ Well now, isn't that a sight? Something so close to what they spoke of at the snowy inn. The vision of such an otherworldly predator ought to strike fear in her heart, but that rush of adrenaline keeps her alive and captivated.

Stunning.

She does have a knife tied to her waist, but it would be difficult to wield against the water's resistance, especially against creatures born to hunt in the lake's depths. Something about that makes her want to call to it even more, but of course Vanessa remains silent, clutching at the Doctor's arm while peering at the fanged fish while it passes. ]

[thedreamer]

[ It's absolutely as stunning as it is hideous, and really, all the more stunning for its features others might recoil at. It could hurt them, kill them, alert the witches to their presence, yes, but it's a fish just living its life down here in the darkest depths and it's a captivating moment that ends all too quickly.

When it's safe, when the vibrations are far enough away, the Doctor tugs gently on Vanessa's wrist. Time to go. Only a moment later, they're out of the passageway, swimming deeper still towards a series of caves where it seems the witches are harboring the dead. ]

You were right. Death is near.

[ Again, he's fascinated as he notes the way they seem to all be barricaded, slumbering almost peacefully. ]

They're holding them back?

[matermali]

[ A thousand ideas have been considered since learning of the missing bodies, but this isn't quite what she had pictured. Attempting to puzzle it out in her mind, swims lower to get a better look at how it is that they stay down, but then pauses before getting too close.

If the witches have warded the bodies, then Vanessa has no desire to disrupt anything. The villagers may want their dead back, but attempting anything here would be a waste of time at best, and dangerous at worst. Enough experience with the undead keeps her at bay while she observes. ]

To keep them for their own gain?

[ Somewhat different than blood magic, but anything is possible. It's in her nature to assume the worst of covens, after all. ]

[thedreamer]

One possibility, of course. Or to protect Yancai from what's happened. If they have any sway at all over the dead, that is.

[ He'd opt for it being a protective measure, considering they keep going back in time. They appear to be running away, in his approximation. And why not, considering what's happened as the dead continue to rise from the water.

He's more curious than anything and of course, has no desire to do anything at all with the dead other than take note of what they've seen. ]

[matermali]

[ It is difficult to give covens as much credit as he is, but she is willing to consider the possibility with an incline of her head. She cannot believe they are having this conversation...underwater. How she wishes she could take a moment to marvel.

The draw to investigate the dead within the cave is powerful as well, but Vanessa knows they have no time to linger. The only way to discover the answers to their curiosities is to follow the witches in question. It is difficult to again let him take the lead, but she knows his eyesight to be better.

Too busy looking forward, though, at least in Vanessa's case. A flurry of bubbles ripple from her cry of surprise when she feels a bony hand grab her ankle, and it yanks at her kicking form before she can grab for her knife. How often now has she been imminently close to a watery grave? The curse never ends. ]

Doctor!

[thedreamer]

[ So intently was he watching up ahead and looking for more shadows to indicate those treacherous fish were swimming closer, that he missed the possibility one of the skeletons might reanimate and attempt to grab one of them. His reflexes are quick, at least, and when he hears Vanessa call to him, his hand is almost instantly on her wrist.

Kicking his feet to propel him further back, the Doctor tugs on her wrist, trying to anchor and pull her away from the long dead seeking to overcome her. Not today, not ever. ]

Really? A waste of your time, honestly. You won't have her.

[ As if...a skeleton can be reasoned with. Allow him his moment of posturing, though. He does have the upper hand. Two upper hands, in fact. Handy, that Time Lord strength. He is by no means as strong as he is shortly after a regeneration, but he's no weakling, to be sure. ]

[matermali]

[ Normally his success might be swifter, but with only the water to propel off of it's about to be a losing battle. They rise, but the skeleton rises with them, and then it begins to pull back down. It's been anchored by another, and another, their hold on one another providing more resistance than mere water can offer. ]

My knife!

[ Her shoulders ache, and they don't have time to waste. She's kicking at the skeleton, but even with a skull knocked off it's persistent. Like this, she can't easily reach the weapon. He needs to let go so that she can try to use it, or he can. He would have a better chance, she suspects. ]

[thedreamer]

[ The weapon he always overlooks. Of course. His strength alone should have been enough, but the skeleton is stronger than he'd anticipated, the water offering too much resistance in turn.

Recalling where she stashes it, the Doctor makes a quick maneuver to grab for it, pulling it loose and reaching out to slash at the skeleton's hands and wrists, his grip still as tight on Vanessa as he can manage. ]

[matermali]

[ He might have an easier time if he let her go, which she is about to demand, but one good knock of the hilt breaks apart one of the arms and sends the rest tumbling away.

If they had dragged her down she might have had to consider more dire options, and Vanessa is doing all she can to avoid drawing too much attention to herself with her magics. She stills knows nothing of the one that has granted the witches their knowledge. It certainly did not come from any moons.

Relieved beyond measure, she swims up as quickly as she can to get away from where the skeletons line the lake. She can thank him and they can tie the knife back around her waist once they get a moment of peace. ]

[thedreamer]

[ Reluctant to relinquish even the slightest grip on her, it doesn't occur to the Doctor whatsoever and he's more than relieved when the skeletons finally let go. Not the sort of altercation he'd envisioned having when they dove into the water, though, what could one truly expect in a lake filled with the dead? They're lucky enough not to be suffering ill effects yet from the water, it seems, but he worries that might set in sooner rather than later. ]

We need to move quickly. The water, it's — had odd effects on people. You're feeling alright? Well, apart from nearly being drowned by skeletons.

[ Not to delay them further, the question is asked while he's moving again, expecting her to keep up, but keeping a watchful eye to ensure that she is. ]

[matermali]

[ Already well aware of the water's effects due to her own encounter earlier, she nods calmly enough for one who just had to shake a skeleton off her leg. That stocking is torn now, but she won't miss it. ]

Do not worry for me.

[ She isn't immune to it and this will submerge her for much longer than before, but Vanessa can handle a supernatural hit quite a bit better than the average human. Perhaps she has a lot more energy to drain? Or is it that thing inside of her being stubborn?

It doesn't mean it isn't affecting her and won't end up endangering their cause if she ends up struggling to keep up with him, so Vanessa was already swimming as fast as she could away from the skeletons once she got the chance. Sorry Doctor, she's more eager to reach dry land than she is to hold hands. The wonder of this waterway has definitely faded. ]

Can you feel anything?

[ He usually has fascinating resilience to the elements, but this is something different. Does it affect him, as well? ]

[thedreamer]

I taste it, something different in the water, its chemical composition. It affected a friend of mine earlier, it has the ability to weaken others.

[ And it's just barely begun to affect him as well, but he need not admit that. Just...casually side-stepping. It's not enough of an effect to actually harm him unless he were to stay for hours; his own physiology, of course, far more resistant to the water's effects. ]

You should know by now I always worry for you, though.

[ As much as he's talking, he's also swimming as quickly as possible. They can't delay and risk losing sight of the witches. ]

[matermali]

[ While Vanessa can feel that the waters are cursed simply by how they slowly drain her, she can't say it tastes anything other than...well, it doesn't taste good. Of course it wouldn't, not with the dead lining the lakebed.

Of course she assumes it to be affecting him as well, but given that he isn't human she hopes its effects aren't as strong on him. The only reason she doesn't still have any shards with her is that she was too afraid of the witches stealing her belongings if they happened to be caught. ]

I know.

[ A response to both statements, really, but now isn't the time for sentiment or getting emotional. Level heads are all that will find them success. They also need to stop talking if they have any chance of sneaking up on the witches. ]