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westwhere2023-07-02 05:47 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-07-02 05:47 pm
Entry tags:
- 911: evan 'buck' buckley,
- arcane: caitlyn,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- game of thrones: jon snow,
- harry potter: hermione granger,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- lockwood & co: anthony lockwood,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- star wars: cal kestis,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: wen ning,
- untamed: wen qing,
- warcraft: wrathion
the sunken | moonrise
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
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
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
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
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/hepossesses 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…!
caitlyn kiramman | arcane
boar's heart | ota
Every step through the forest is terrifying, the feeling of eyes on her a constant threat gnawing at the back of her mind, keeping the hairs on the back of her neck standing up straight. But she presses on ahead, every muscle in her body tense with nerves.
She hears the creature before she sees it, a rattling, whining sound that shakes the nearby ferns. Her first instinct is to pull her rifle from its case, extending it to its full length and snapping it to her shoulder. Her second instinct is to lower the gun and continue forward, because that was the sound of an animal not readying an attack, but of an animal in pain.
She still can't see it yet, but she crouches down by a tree and touches a dark, stick substance on the bark, bringing it to her nose to sniff before looking up at her companion.]
Blood. It must be injured.
:)
[ While Jesse is an empathetic soul, he feels that he gets more in the way than being of any help amongst the village healers. Still, when medicine and bandages are shoved into his hands, he does his best to help. Thankful for a pause in the chaos after the arrival of additional assistance, things seem to calm down enough for him to slink away unnoticed. He heads towards the outskirts of the village, finding himself in the forest. It's not so much that he has an agenda here as it is he's trying to stay out of sight lest he be snapped up and forced into treating more sickly patients. He's not a doctor for fuck's sake. He couldn't be further removed from that title if he tried.
But, he isn't used to the scenery of the woods. This is a guy who comes from the desert, where everything's flat and you can see exactly where you came from at all times. He's only been walking through the trees for a couple of minutes before that very fact dawns on him. He spins around in a slow circle and suddenly realizes that he has no idea what direction he came from, and that this is probably a terrible idea. He's certain he would rather be handling the sickly and injured than be lost out in the forest
Just when he's about to lose his mind (or maybe a little bit afterward--the cursing and panicked look on his face might be indicative of such), he spies a woman stalking through the forest. He calls out to her, but is interrupted by the nearby creature's sound. He stumbles backward, tripping over a tree root and falling on his ass. Somwhere in the panic, he's able to process Caitlyn's actions--the lowering of her gun and moving toward the sound rather than away from it. ]
Wait...what? Fuckin' kill it, yo! Before it kills us!
no subject
It's injured. [Caitlyn repeats herself as though that's going to explain everything about why she doesn't plan to kill the creature. Unless it becomes necessary, of course.
She makes her way over to Jesse, moving quickly and deliberately, to offer him a hand up. She's doesn't want to leave him on the ground - both because helping him up is the decent thing to do, and because he'd be an easy target for any creatures in these woods that might have a taste for human flesh.]
Are you alright? [she asks quietly.]
wake, unwakefully | ota
For the moment.
The quiet is pleasant. It's easy to think when there aren't any sounds but the soft lapping of water against a dock, and Caitlyn finds herself walking by the shore at first light, a concerned frown on her face as she ponders everything that's led up to this point, trying to corral her unruly thoughts into some semblance of order.
At the first sound of a commotion further into the village, her head snaps up, but her eye is caught by something in the water. Pulling out her torch, she peers into the murk, crouching down to get a closer look only to stand straight back up at the horrifying sight of dozens of corpses lying beneath the water. The light of the torch reflects off...]
Mirrors?
no subject
...pieces. ( He corrects, metallic at the edges of a voice strained, stymied by breaths ragged. Years in this cursed land have taught him this: a staggered heartbeat, a lessened cadence. Whispers and silence and the gentle sketch of movements, as if the hand that draws is sickly and trembled.
If discretion is a matter of virtue, then Lan Wangji, peering over the empire of deadened things, is a man unflawed. They seem restful, if somehow lively, for all the ungainly pallor that gnaws at their faces and the ripping and tears of their flesh in pockets and folds. There is a weariness to their bodies, a settling in of decay. Like boots worn in past the point where recovery can hope to remain flexible.
These waves, in ebb and tide, of corpses beneath the waters are dead — but do not linger so. Slowly, seeping, creeping, the fingers of one rich far too close to breaking water, drumming along and birthing spumes and slow, tender rippling. Lan Wangji, blade hovered past the spot, never touching the waters, only murmurs from Caitlyn's right: )
Caution.
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[By the sounds coming from further into the village, something's already begun.
She glances to where Lan Wangji's attention seems to be, and sees the fingers of a corpse breaking the surface of the water. All of a sudden, the quiet morning is anything but quiet, and Caitlyn's thoughts are forced to order themselves.]
Find someone to raise the alarm. [She shrugs off the rifle case on her back and lays it on the ground, all in one quick, efficient movement, and steps up to the edge of the dock.] I'm going after those mirror shards. [Is that dangerous, perhaps suicidally so? Most likely, yes. But the shards must be important. And she's not going to ask anyone else to do it.]
no subject
You are not.
( This, snapped, cutting. Lightning in one strike, and his voice husked and hollowed after, tinny. He does not broker repetition. Does not require it. The girl volunteers her impulsiveness, and if Lan Wangji, sword trailing where the fingers drum and circle, has learned anything — if he has become a man of knowing anticipation at all — it is this:
The young should not be permitted their impunity. It does not salvage or flatter them. They do not pursue, armed with strategy or knowledge of circumvention, only with — hope.
The docks shudder and settle, flat board sighing out as Caitlyn's steps deliver her close. There is a swelling and an ache in them, a slow and petrified dilation. Too much water.
At his feet, beneath waves, the dead sleep restlessly. They have no time, he knows, and a woman's knee quakes, and a man's elbow jolts. They have no time. )
We take oars. Fishing rods. ( Instruments that can enter water without leaving them vulnerable and exposed. )
no subject
She scowls.]
I can do this. Besides, an oar can't catch a shard of mirror.
[Maybe makeshift instruments like those could be used to fish some of the shards out of the water, but it will require a lot more finesse and time than she feels could feasibly be devoted to the task.
The dead are rising, and they don't have any time to waste.
With a quick scan of the water, she locates the closest shard, the one that should be easiest to grab, and moves to jump off the edge of the dock.]
no subject
( — and she plunges.
Faster than Lan Wangji might have anticipated of her, a girl like a trinket, muscles lean, all thin sinew. Slower than Lan Wangji himself might have propelled himself in, if he were heeding the worst of his impulsive compulsions.
He cannot find in himself the appetite to judge her and find her wanting — only draws the wealth of his whites close, settles his sword in its sheath, and unabashedly, unbidden —
Follows.
Cold, explicably and expectedly. Putrid. The quiet, weighted feel of organic, unctuous matter, of decomposing parts that graze his swimming limbs. Caitlyn heads on first, and Lan Wangji is fast in pursuit of her, negligent of the task at hand: she swims to recover the shards, dark and glistened like bundles of sea weeds. He, vision hazed and eyes whipped by currents, aims to bat away any hands that search for her.
One such arm dives out, to catch her leg, another her flank. A third teases, but never quite latches on Lan Wangji's own shoulder. In his hands, the benediction of cutting wire, the assassination cord stands unspooled and ready, and he calls it close like a noose, twisting around the dead thing's arm, slashing through.
As he twists, gathering the cord to himself, they nearly collide. He mouths, mutely, Quickly.
They have only so little time, before they must break water and come up for air. )
no subject
A maze of grasping limbs greets her, and she does her best to navigate it, avoiding the fingers of one corpse only to feel something digging into her leg as another claws at her side. She twists, flailing in an effort to escape, as she sees Lan Wiangji behind her saw through a limb with a wire.
Her eyes go wide in surprise, even though she should be used to such things by now. She's been here long enough, she's seen enough death and decay and dismemberment. But still, it unnerves her, both the sight of it and the ease with which he does it.
She nods, acknowledging his urgency, as she turns back to her task. There's a corpse clasping a shard of mirror right in front of her, and she reaches out for it, trying to pry it out of the corpse's hands. It doesn't want to let go, so she yanks, prying at its fingers while bringing a knee up to brace against its chest and push it away.
Her efforts become more frantic as she realizes she has only a few moments before she'll need to breathe.]
no subject
( — then, their efforts are stymied. Heartbeats accrue, he waits, he waits and she does not return to him. The horizon, at depth, with bodies slamming riotously into their own, is a clutter, a madness. He sees little, gaze slanted — but then she comes into view, the grasp of the corpse denying her, and he understands enough.
They can struggle to coax the corpse's grip free, he supposes. Two persons might do what Caitlyn, fighting savagely and lone, did not. But then, there is the simpler solution, and this round, when he routes the spooling noose of his wire and rounds it, this time, on the creature's hand, at the wrist.
One tug, slight — the corpse's long, wrenched howl is like a guttering candle flame — and then Caitlyn may find herself clinging to the undead thing's severed hand, while Lan Wangji waves her to swim, swim up, swim up now. )
no subject
It takes a sudden crushing tightness in her chest to bring her back to the moment. She pushes away from the corpse, her knee driving it deeper into the water as it propels her upwards. And she does as Lan Wangji suggests: she swims upwards, she fast as she can, even as her vision starts to darken and her limbs weaken. She needs air.
Another corpse reaches for her, but its touch is almost... gentle. It looks almost as though it's falling asleep, its eyelids fluttering closed, its arms beginning to relax. It drifts away from her as she kicks upwards again, desperately making for the surface.]
no subject
( They go, together — Lan Wangji first trailblazing, then drifting behind, a silvered line in the wake of Caitlyn. His due, after all, as her guardian.
...it strikes him, as they come forward, breaking the surface in what should have been limpid waves but end up as cluttered, matter-infested lake waters, that they underestimated their enemies. They assumed the trouble would be the dive.
No, as they are swarmed each way, and Lan Wangji must draw out Bichen and rest her sword flattened against water, swinging in tired, lingered arcs that friction mutes when the blade enters the depths — the true hardship only starts now. )
Make haste. ( He hisses, and perhaps there is some fairness to this, that he too must prove himself now. ) I have your back.
( ...and flanks and trail. )
no subject
But all she can spare is a moment - and not even that, she realizes, as more corpses are surrounding them.
She rears back as far as she can in the water and tosses the shard of mirror with its attached corpse hand onto the dock, hearing it land with a sickening fleshy smack.
And then she does as he suggests. She makes haste. It's all she can do not to run directly into the grasping, greedy arms of a corpse, but she makes for the dock as quickly as she can, trusting that Lan Wangji will create a path.]
no subject
( The deed, then done. Once they have reached the docks, he breathes and ache singes his lungs, overfilling with clean, rushed air that was until mere blinks before exhausted.
Beneath their supine bodies, the pier wood slates stretch and contract, the tender groans of wood splintered like high birds, calling. )
...the shard?
( A wretched thing, that at the end of their toil and trouble, this should be what utmost concerns them. Yet they have learned through multiple assignments to prioritise practicality.
He turns, at last, in the direction where Caitlyn threw her charge — hastening, half crawling, half advancing on his elbows, to retrieve it. Grace is for another man, who can wait until his legs once more give him polite answer.
Hands trembled, rounded and cupped, he catches the blink of dark glass, answering his own question — and whispering to Caitlyn, after: )
The same cold tremors of death within it. ( They have encountered this before. )
no subject
A few deep breaths pass, and she rolls over onto her knees, finding her feet despite the pained objections of her oxygen-deprived muscles, hurrying after Lan Wangji towards the shard of glass.
She's still not sure what it is, exactly. But she knows that it's important. It's evidence.
She reaches out to help him up.]
Come on, we've got to warn the villagers. [Though they've most likely noticed the dead rising already.]
bait & beacon | closed to vanessa
After a certain age, her parents stopped insisting she do anything with her hair, and she was allowed to simply wear it down when she attended balls and galas. They stopped insisting on having someone do her makeup, and allowed her to do what she pleased. But now...
She frowns at Vanessa, uncomfortably adjusting her gown.]
Is all this really necessary?
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At least now, Vanessa doesn't smile, but it is tempting with how much Caitlyn fidgets. There's sympathy in her gaze as she reaches to gently still the young woman's hand. ]
If you wish to participate without drawing unwanted attention, then you must play the part. You know how.
[ Vanessa had witnessed as much through her memories, as fragmented as they had been. At least in this case, the ‘frivolity’ may serve a purpose. ]
no subject
She never was particularly good at playing the part. She invariably found herself bored, and inattentive, and more far interested in whatever Jayce was getting up to - or a pretty serving girl - than the guests her parents expected her to help entertain. But here and now, the Kiramman name doesn't mean anything, so she needs to convince everyone that she is the thing she rather wishes she weren't: a high society lady.]
Yes. I know.
[She sighs miserably, grateful, at least, for the grounding touch of Vanessa's hand on hers.
Now. How to play the part, exactly?
And with that, she finds herself asking a question she never thought she would. What would her mother do?]
We should look for the Master of Commerce. To greet him personally. And ask about. [She hurriedly thinks up something her mother would ask about.] Trade considerations.
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She's more than happy to let Caitlyn lead this investigation, especially after the trying day she's already had. Such things seemed to be Caitlyn's specialty when in Alem. Vanessa had kept her distance from it, but she had paid attention (when the voices didn't whisk her thoughts away).
She suspects Caitlyn won't be thrilled by the smalltalk of it all, either, but perhaps the drive for information will keep the both of them from falling asleep. ]
The food. First check where the finest food is.
[ Dropping her voice low, she leans over with a teasing whisper. ]
And the finest women.
no subject
Wh-- No, I-- [She splutters awkwardly, eyes wide with shock.] We need to focus on the mission! Not-- [Not pretty girls! And even if that weren't the case, even if they were here for purely recreational purposes, how could she possibly try to romance anyone when the only hand she wants to hold is wrapped in blood-stained bandages, and the only lips she wants to kiss are notched with a scar, and the only...
She hurriedly tries to force her thoughts into some semblance of order before Vanessa realizes that they've strayed towards something that is very much not the mission.]
Our first priority has to be finding the keys to the beacon room. We haven't got time to worry about anything else!
no subject
Miss Kiramman... I meant that we are most likely to find him where the food and women are.
[ But she will most certainly take notice of how Caitlyn's thoughts immediately strayed there. ]
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Yes. Of course. [And if her expression and body language fail to alert everyone within viewing distance of her embarrassment, the awkward way in which she barely manages to squeak out those three short words will surely tell everyone exactly how mortified she is.]
Yes.
[Caitlyn makes a valiant effort to re-center herself and to forcefully evict all thoughts of women - and one woman in particular - from her head. If she wants to get home to Vi, she'll have to focus on... not Vi. Nor any other woman.
So instead of noticing any of the nearby women, she starts stiffly making her way in the direction of what she hopes is food.]