westwhere | the sunken

the sunken | moonrise

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

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[ He doesn't have to guess who the others are, but she's starting to sound like a broken record. She's not just convincing herself that what she's doing is right, but she actually believes it.

She must, if she ends up sacrificing herself for the cause. ]

Does it take all of you?

May... maybe it doesn't. Maybe one would do. Maybe... maybe double as many are needed. We've never done this before.

( They are so very new at this, untested and ragged by the expectations set upon their feeble shoulders. This woman is little learned, plain. If she were perhaps a veteran, a scholar —

But time is not their ally in this. Again and again, had they only the opportunity to perfect the spell before they cast it —

She shrugs, and it's an empty thing, resigned. )

It'll work. It has to.

[ So it’s not enough to take out one. The only assumption he can make is that they won’t start the ritual until she returns. Or at least delay it.

He sighs and regards the woman. Getting her to answer questions calmed her hysteria, but she’s still determined to do it. There’s a chance he could convince her otherwise, but it’s a stretch that she’d then have time to convince the others. The safest choice is the one he resents having to do, if the result is another ghost haunting him.

But then he saw things in the woods. One that doesn’t line up with the rest of their plan. ]

What do you want with Miang-Si? Is she part of it?

Edited 2023-07-10 11:18 (UTC)

She has so much power... if she helps us, we'll... she's only a girl, what do girls know? Nothing. Nothing, no one, never. We can't wait for her to wait and wizen, we have to act now. When she realises... she'll surely join us.

( Even spoiled, wretchedly begrudging children mature. This one will be no different. Miang-Si, she means to convey with an earnest, unblinking gaze, will want to join the cause. )

What we — ( Because surely they are in this together, or else why would this young man even be allowed here? ) Want is to keep Yancai safe.

[ It makes more sense why they tried to pull her into the lake, but they were already ghosts at that point. Did they know about her deal with the Huntress? ]

So you've said. [ Make things right, make things safe, while doing something so outrageously reckless. And that's only half of it. She might not remember haunting him, but she's made it clear what her intentions were. ]

How is she supposed to join you if you're already dead? Isn't that what happens, if you do the ritual?

( Ah, he is young. It must be this, young and hungering for knowledge. It must be why he behaves so ravenously, so stubbornly. The woman, whose patience had started to thin against the constant barrage of questions, thinks she now sees the truth of him.

She nods once, summoning once more her ability to wait. )

There can be more than one ritual. She can... participate after. They'll find a way, the sisters who do not go with us. They'll make this right.

( They must trust, one witch in another. They must hold the line. ) Our sacrifice will not be for nothing.

[ His questions aren't doing anything to shake her resolve, but they're making clear that preventing one ritual won't be enough. That leaves them in a position he'd rather not be in. ]

After. Meaning there's a limit to how long it can last. [ Assuming they know enough about time to be able to plan for it. ] ...You're restrained, by how far you can push time. That's why you won't save your son.

I... unfortunately. I was told — ( She shudders, seemingly overwhelmed by her own memories, by the thought of her son, discarded. )

It happened too long ago. We cannot turn time to that... we lack the power. As we are.

( It appears to have at once embittered her and left her with a private understanding that life is a cruel and wretched thing, and she must pay it her dues. That if they achieve this, it is against the odds. )

I know we are not as strong as many. But you know what we have suffered. You are one of us. You believe. So, believe now. Have faith in us.

[ He's familiar with limits; his own ability has rarely worked as he intended when he goes past a couple of minutes. But there are key differences in how they prepared, and this woman and her people seem to be hinging their entire plan on a wing and a prayer.

She wants him to have faith. He's been a lost son before, he's lost his own family to time. She has no idea who she's talking to. ]

I know what you're capable of. I've seen it. [ She seems to be harping on how weak she is, and he can't tell if it's only to throw him off. She's anything but harmless. ]

I've seen you. You're going to make a mistake you've already made, when you chose to haunt me. [ She doesn't see the threat, not in him and not in their reckless decisions. He could easily keep her from them, but she's made it frustratingly apparent that it wouldn't end with her. ] I know time. If you think you can walk off and bend it to your will, I can promise you'll be seeing me again.

...haunt you?

( This seems to still and startle her, the hand she was only just raising to nervously slip her hair aside stopping mid-air. She watches him, like a hunted animal, eyes bright and white and feral.

And suspicion finally begins to eat at her. )

what are you...? Who are you? You're not one of us, are you?

( No, he speaks so hatefully, so impatiently. He cannot be of their kind. )

[ He’d meant that as a threat, so it’s somewhat satisfying that she takes it as one. ]

I’m a time traveler here to make you see the error of your ways. [ Maybe the cult-speech started getting in his head; he smiles, half-amused and waiting to see if she’ll make a move. ] You have no idea what kind of havoc your selfish act of sacrifice is going to cause.

My... selfish act? ( When she looks at him, she feels raw, impotent, her hands breaking, her back bowed. As if she is a small and wretched thing, a person lessened. )

How... how am I... how are we selfish? ( In keeping a village alive, in securing everyone's welfare. Aren't they, if anything, Yancai's only champions? Has she not done enough? Would her son not approve? )

[ He doesn't pull back at her reaction. He's not wrong in calling it selfish, he just has the benefit of perspective. ]

You're arrogant enough to think you're the only ones who can save them. [ He realizes the irony of that statement; moves past it. ] Manipulating time to your will and forcing people to live as you choose, and to hell with the consequences. Even in death you hold a power over them.

For what? So they'll be grateful that you've doomed them to relive it over and over again?

What... other way? If you know. Since you know it.

( She is not opposed, has never been opposed. There is a desperate, wild quality to her stammering voice, as if she clings to the possibility that he puts forward. )

Tell me. What other way is there to save them? ( Because if not, this one at least works with some certainty. ) Better five years, relived, than... than nothing. Than death.

[ Only in theory, but he sees she's listening so he'll make it simple. ]

What you'll create isn't sustainable. There's too many chances of creating a paradox that could be more catastrophic than anything you're trying to prevent. Time will move on around you, people will come, and the whole thing will fall apart.

I was one of those people. We're survivors who have closed the gates of Hell to get here. We can beat them back, and if some still die, you can trust that it'll be better than what happens if we don't stop this before it starts.

But you're... you're just saying things. Empty things. You're not telling me anything — anything at all specific.

( 'Trust' and reasons that might recommend strangers, who seem to have no real understanding of Yancai. It frustrates her, a woman who lost enough already, to be told nothing will work, yet supplied no alternative. )

You don't have an answer. You're just putting down ours.

( At least they have one. )

[ She manages to zero in on a particularly sore spot. He could have lied or made false promises, but even if he had a solution, it might not save anyone. ]

Because it's not an answer. All you're doing is creating a bigger problem that will do more damage than the Huntress ever could. You break time, there's no do over. The world ends and takes everyone you tried to save with it.

You think you know regret, you're looking at someone who let time travel ruin their life. This will be yours unless you can convince the others not to go through with it.

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the sunken | moonrise

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