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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[ I dont know if she can get me or not, Red says, and Hermione's heart lurches up to her throat. She reaches out, hand grabbing Red's arm to call her attention. She looks grim now, so damn grim.]

She can. If you're connected to the dead in any way, like I was when I helped ease the build-up in the volcano in Ke-Waicai, she will find her way into your head and you'll be hers and you'll hurt people if she tells you to hurt people.

[There's a bangle around her wrist, put there by Wrathion after she all but desperately begged for one. As much faith as she puts in his powers, she doesn't want to risk being around her friends when and if the Huntress catches her again.

After a moment of dry mouth, she clears her throat and says:] I want to find more of her anchors. I want to...to wreck [spat out, with vitriol] whatever control she has over this place and these people. If your - [In hindsight, Fluffy is a terrible name both for a cerberus pup, and for that monstrosity the just rescued).] If they can track even one...

( Red turns when Hermione grabs her arm. Concern is clear in her expression as she explains, and shit. She reaches out to wrap a hand around her own, tightening her hold on her as if wanting to anchor her to this moment and not whatever she experienced when she was here before.

Who did she have to hurt? It's something Red knows so well - losing control, being manipulated like that, but it's nothing she'd wish on anyone else (least of all someone she cares so much about). It's hard to think of that happening to her. )

Fuck.

Hermione, are you okay? ( It's not the time to ask but it's there on her tongue anyway, burning with a need to know, and that same angry, protective feeling rises up inside of her like her inner, ancient hackles are rising too. Her hand still remains locked around Hermione's arm, and she gets this part too - the anger, the need to destroy, and they're going to. )

I can find an anchor. Maybe the monster can too, but I can sense them even now. We'll grab one, and we'll stop her. ( She tugs at her arm. ) C'mon. Walk and talk.

[ Is she okay? Her voice is uneasily high pitched now: ] Oh yeah, I'm fine!

[ So fine that she clutches at Red's arm and stares deliberately ahead. ] I just have to keep it all very compartmentalised right now because it feels like we're racing against a clock and if I stop to think about it I'm going to end up breaking. Or crying! Or both.

[ Fluffy seems to know where he's going, so they just follow the monstrosity - the same kind of beast that almost attacked her, she remembers, when she was attacking Lan Wangji. And what did she do? In her controlled mind, running was the only option, so she'd ran. Disappeared right off that battlefield.

And at some point, ran at Wrathion. She adds, for Red's reassurance: ] It's fine if I'm not in her reach. And if I am, honestly, if I attack you knock me out. Drag me somewhere far away. Wrathion made me a talisman but I'm not sure how long it'll be useful for, but...

( Red doesn't call her on it at the moment - they do have a monster to follow, but her expression shows she doesn't quite believe her when she says she's fine. How could she be? )

Shit, yeah. We can talk about it after. Or drink about it after.

( Compartmentalizing is a skill that people pick up. She picked it up over the last couple of decades of understanding the emotions that come with being alive, living in the world. She keeps pace with the beast ahead, glancing over at Hermione while they move through the forest.

Something clenches in her chest to think she'd have to knock her out. )

I'll figure something out, okay? I don't want you to worry. ( And she doesn't want to knock her out so maybe there's something- something else she can do? ) Did you feel it at all before it hit, or did it just grab you?

[ She is very serious about this, look at her serious face! Look at it, Red. ] All at once, Red, and the next thing I remember is attacking Lan Wangji pretty viciously.

I mean it. I'm good with the wand, but physically I'm weak. So you know, knock me out and drag me far - her hold doesn't last past a certain distance, thankfully.

[ She brings her free hand up. Jangles her bangle. ]

This should still work, though.

( Red makes a face at the idea of having to knock her out, but she also understands the necessity of it. She releases a breath. )

Yeah, I'll make sure you don't hurt anybody else. I just don't fuckin' like having to hurt you to do it.

( But she also knows how much more harmful it will be for Hermione to be taken like that again. She tenses her muscles, but before she can ask anymore the monster stops and starts to uncover something. Red leans down and picks it up, holding it out to Hermione. )

A ring. Must be the Huntress'.

What's Kathul? [ She's not familiar with the name on the box, but what if it's a person?

She frowns, leaning closer. Her eyes widen. ]

That energy - feels familiar. Open it.

( Red shakes her head in answer to the question. She doesn't know what that is, but they can ask around when they get back to the village.

She presses at the compartment, and eventually, it pops open... to reveal the hair inside.

Gross. )

...do you recognize it?

[ She frowns, focusing in on the hair. Carefully: ] It's...hard to say on just a lock of hair, but it could be - uhm. Her child? It feels familiar, like...the volcano.

[ She shakes her head. ]

Let's not waste time - keep it, let's keep going. It might prove useful to have something against her.

( Red nods but then hands the ring over to Hermione for the time being - her clothing magically transforms with her, and she doesn't want to take any chances when it comes to this ring.

They need to keep it. )

Okay. You hold on to it.

I'm gonna shift. I'll be better able to watch your back like that, and there's a heart near.

( She can sense it. )

[ Not thinking too deeply about it, she shoves the box - ring and hair lock and all - inside her extended bag, and decides to give it back to Red later. She should not be trying to keep things that belong to the Huntress, either. Just in case she'll want them back.

In her rush, she's distracted and barely registers what Red's offering to transform into exactly, simply nodding with her permission. ] Good idea, whatever you think is best - I trust you.

( There's a soft smile at that trust given so readily before she breathes in sharp, and then nods, and decides to shift into medium-sized Cerberus. No reason to get too big and then have difficulty navigating this place.

She's about the size of a horse with three heads, fire at the back of her mouth as she does so, sniffing at the air, pointing all three of the heads in the direction of this piece of heart.

Her claws dig into the ground at her feat even as she starts to move toward the feeling of that piece of the heart, staying near Hermione, protecting her. That was the one thought as she shifted: protect Hermione. The second thought: get the heart. )

[ And then she realises - ah, that's what she means by shifting - because it's been easy to forget. She's known Red for a while, even lived with her for some time, and she has known about this side of her since...Alem. Which hasn't been long for her, but it must've been years and years for Red, considering that she came back older. (Still beautiful, but older and more undescipherable.)

Her surprise is short-lived. Her heart leaps into her throat, a moment to panic and think oh god, a Cerberus before she re-tells herself this is her friend. This is her friend. ]

...you're never allowed to call me impressive again, have you seen yourself?!

[ And it's right back to yes, wonder and not measuring her words. ] Are you breathing fire? Would you believe this is the first time I've seen you shift up close?

[ Up ahead, the beast they've helped together seems to catch something in the air, a scent similar to what Red did - and starts running. ] Right, let's follow Fluffy.

( The memory comes later, after. Logically she was aware this was the first time even if Hermione is one of the few people she openly admitted all of this too. She'd never actually seen her like this before, but the world she lived in, the life she led over the last couple of decades got her more experience shifting into this form. She has learned to feel more control, and it's even more so here where the Doctor helped put those controls in place to begin with.

Then Hermione goes on to say that she's impressive. She huffs out a breath that is so heated with the hint of the fire she could unleash if she should wish to that it is likely an answer to Hermione's question alone.

It's a beautiful reaction from someone she cares so much about, and she's going to have a lot of feelings about that once they find this heart, but for now-

There's following Fluffy, and so Red does, taking up the rear, protecting Hermione from behind while the monster leads on. )

[ She's a bit of a fool, smiling like a madwoman while chasing after a strange creature with Red on her tail, but her reaction was very...cute? Can she call it cute? She's calling it cute.

Her spirits lifted, the chase is easier. They come upon another clearning soon after, similar to before. The birds perched on branches of trees - surely not the same birds that tried to attack her and Wrathion, that would be illogical - and the ground disturbed and barren-looking. ]

I think this is it. We should be careful digging - the birds may attack, and the trees...also.

( The useful part of having three heads is that one head can be focused on the digging while the other two do other things like watch for birds and tree rots and bite and set on fire. Just a bit. It won't do good if the whole forest goes up, but a little burn here or there will get the roots to back off.

Red pushes herself toward the center where she feels the heart is buried and then starts to dig.

Birds fly down and the left head chomps them into bits, the right sears with heated teeth into the root trying to hold her down, and the middle head focuses in on clawing and digging and digging. )

[ Scratch that - not just impressive but formidable. She gets so lost in watching Red do the thing, all three of her heads at work, that she forgets for a moment that the heart is pure damn evil. ]

Wait - don't touch it with your bare anything, be careful. It's - there's something wrong with it, it's cursed.

[ Cursed is the simplest explanation she can give. She can't explain how wrong holding it had felt, before, but this is the very reason she brough a box this time. She pulls it out of her bag while Red digs, not larger than a ring box similar to the one they found, only she enlarges it and turns it into metal. A safety deposit box, if you will. ]

Stop when you get to it, I'll levitate it in here.

( Red does absolutely register what Hermione is saying, and she is doing her best to not touch the sliver of heart at all, but she is also just aggressively digging. It's hard to be precise with paws and claws so large, which means in a swoop of her paw following Hermione's warning, the pouch is opened - the piece of heart split in half, paw in the midst of all of it.

Cold. Gods, it's cold.

And there's just the desire to consume, overwhelming.

Her heart is missing. The coldness in her chest is spreading, emptiness settles where her heart should be. It's gone - her own heart. Cerberus' heart is missing. She is going to die (~~she is going to die, be destroyed, defective as she is~~ - she thought she was okay with it, but now? No.). That is the way it feels, and she has to devour the heart to fill up the space.

The two other heads are the ones that take a bite out of each half of the hearts before anything else can happen, moving with a speed to it, swallowing it all down.

...oops. )

[The sound she makes is inhuman. An outraged squeak, pure indignation, pure what did I just say, eyes wide and mouth gaping and - ]

Red - don't you -

[swallow it, she wants to say but she notices that one of the heads' throat moves and yes, undeniably. She's swallowed the heart sliver.

This calls for a very special occasion:]

...for fuck's sake.

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the sunken | moonrise

ok ive decided to retcon this to post-possession heh

omg love it

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