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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…!
no subject
When we break this time loop in Yancai, I wonder about scouting ahead to one or both locations. If it's even possible.
[ He recalls small transportation beacons being used before, but he's not fully aware of the mechanics behind them, of course. ]
The closer we get, I worry about the whole of our group. And if either location holds key information, briefly separating keeps everyone safe for the time being.
no subject
Pledged land. That does make it seem like it's where she's trying to get to
( A longer pause then as she takes in a deep breath. This is shit she's been thinking about since the Merchant, and. )
What are your thoughts about our group fucking up this world? We do not technically belong here, and so sure, we help out but...
I don't know. The Merchant is worried about our staying too long.
no subject
On a smaller scale...if you saw a child fall to the ground and cry out in pain, what would you do? If you ran to help the child and picked it up, without knowing everything wrong that made it fall, you're risking further injury. If you do nothing, you're risking further injury. Do you leave or do you try?
[ It's not so simple, he knows. ]
Things were bad here before we arrived. Maybe we've made some things worse, maybe we won't know for sure. But if we left now, would what plagues this world stay here or go further, spread far and wide? The darkest and most terrible things rarely contain themselves to one place.
no subject
Sometimes the Merchant seems to want them to help, sometimes he gets angry at them for interfering at all. This is his world, but they're not bound to him - to what he would have them do. )
That is what the Merchant implied would happen if we stayed too long though I don't think there's any way he can know it for certain.
He thought if we stayed then we'd take that Undead with us back into our own worlds. It would spread into those other worlds. We wouldn't be able to contain it then.
It's why he wants us to go back so badly so we're not controlled, used by the Undead here, forced to join their army... which fair. They've definitely been trying - everywhere we go.
no subject
[ But then, as much as the Doctor presents with an air of optimism and hope, he knows the pendulum can swing the other direction, he's not blind to it. ]
So he wants to largely ensure we're able to leave through the beacons. Those who summoned us here assumed we'd all easily fall to the fate of the undead hordes and grow their army. They weren't counting on their repeated failures. If we left through the beacons now, what's to stop the malevolent forces summoning more innocent people? Even if we escaped and destroyed the beacons on our way out, I wouldn't trust them not to rebuild and continue what they've started.
no subject
It's not like they're doing a great job of fighting against the dead without us.
We've fucked them up and rerouted them again and again. I've seen plenty of examples of fate but I've also seen examples of screwing with fate and it working out in the end.
I also don't actually understand what he means when he says we don't have to break time? It's already fuckin' broken here.
no subject
In all the universe, nowhere have I ever witnessed forces at work tampering with and manipulating a continuous time loop - even with good intentions - ending well for anyone.
no subject
You okay? Other than the impending time pockets...
no subject
[ Bullshit. That word he can't quite say on his own tongue. ]
I'm peachy keen, to borrow your turn of phrase! And I've just come into possession of a piece of the Huntress' heart. You're alright?
no subject
They were trying this honesty thing together, and so in the hopes that he too will share with her if he ever goes through some shit, she'll maybe bring that up. Yep. She's fucking got this. )
Right, yeah. The heart pieces.
I found one too. I just ate it.
no subject
Are you okay? Ill effects?
[ He does appreciate the honesty, yes. Very much so. But consuming a tether of the Huntress' power, well, he'll worry even more than usual. ]
no subject
But uh, yeah? I think so. It felt like hell eating it. Then I could sense where she was - how close, could feel her emotions, can identify the undead that are hers, but she's on her way out so that's all calmed down.
no subject
[ He'd only briefly examined it, but then they'd heard creatures returning and even the Doctor didn't care to risk it, particularly if the Huntress had been among them. ]
It's given you a connection with her now, from the sound of it. A connection rather than being controlled by her.
[ At least, he hopes. Which makes sense — it's a part of the Huntress, so having consumed it, Red becomes an extension of her, in a manner of speaking. ]
no subject
Technically, she probably already could've controlled me cause I'm really fucking associated with death. Then again I always figured Hades put in some fail-safes against anyone else taking me for a spin so probably wouldn't be the easiest thing. I went through the forest okay.
Do you think this means eating undead organs is actually a way to gain advantages, or is these anchor-heart pieces specifically? ;) I'm kidding. I'm not eating any more organs.
no subject
...also kidding!
But if she'd tried to control you, I would have come for you.
[ Excluding, of course, he wouldn't have known, at least, not instantly. But depending on the manner of control, the how and the when and the what, he would have. Somehow. Whatever it took. ]
I had a chat with our Man in Black as well. Interesting fellow! Great conversationalist. Lovely pipe. Stellar company.
no subject
( If the positions had been reversed. But it means a fucking lot that he would have. She hasn't had much of that in her life, but she knows he would, and she'd do the same. )
You're getting around, huh? Unsurprising. He have anything interesting to share? Clues or something?
no subject
Not the most transparent fellow, though he did share that he'd had family once and he'd lost them long ago. His sacrifice seemed to him to be inevitable, almost wanted, because all those he'd loved had come and gone. He'd lost them to illness. In fact, I had a theory perhaps the Man in Black is a later version of our White Wanderer. Come to the end of his life, through a pocket in time gone wrong.
audio.
Seems like a sound theory. ...did you relate to him?
( Sounds like they have some things in common - what with living so long, with having powers, with being ready and willing to sacrifice especially after losing so much. )
no subject
[ Honestly, it was an eerie conversation, like looking at himself in a mirror. It didn't help that the man had, in reality, actually haunted the Doctor in the future time loop they'd created. ]
Called me nephew for reasons I had yet to ascertain before we were interrupted.
[ It's entirely possible that was simply a quirk of his character. ]
no subject
Maybe he sensed a kindred spirit in you too, Doc. Either way you were probably the best person to talk to him since you two related so much.