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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"Not yet."

His is a welcome presence, and the warmth that comes with it — with his closeness — no longer startles or frightens her. The depth with which she has come to embrace her love for him leaves no room for it.

Emilia looks up just in time to see the shadows bend to his will. Envy would say they are the balance to the underworld, and moments like these she can see it. The darkness that swirls around him in acknowledgement before skittering. The moon glow that covers her, radiating a soft glow down to her fingertips.

She has darkness too, though.

There is a bit of silence following her answer, the look of her suggesting this is a night of bittersweet contemplation. When she speaks again, it's quiet, glancing back up at the sky. "Of all the places to land."

Wrath admires the glow covering her - how it highlights her beauty, how it reminds him of who her mother is. Her mother remains in his House, of course. She saved Emilia the evening that Wrath made a reckless mistake in his hope to free Emilia of the curse, to let some of her memories return to him. He has made many mistakes though he is loathe to admit them, and he would not admit them to anyone else.

He remains quiet in the silence, reading it for what it is. They could have ended up anywhere in this world at all, but of all places, it's here.

"You mean that we have found ourselves once again with the refugees from Alem, with Deimar?"

He stood near Emilia when she threw Haiva to the sirens. He removed the royal prince's eyes and fed them to his hellhound. It was a necessity, but that does not necessarily make it any easier for her to encounter his people again. She has a mortal heart, and it is tangled in all of the complications that come with it. Though even Wrath has never had to dine and work alongside the loved ones of those he has condemned.

They exist in small pockets of lost time and space, entirely contained. Dare I say it, in... glamorised prisons.

The Merchant said this of the exiled tyrants they stumbled on in the House of Manouk. Her heart has been heavy ever since realising the same was done to her by Nonna. The Shifting Isles was her prison.

A beautiful prison. Blissfully ignorant and full of laughter and light. She might have never left it, had she not sought answers for her twin's disappearance. She understands now that was the point. Remembers, now, just how brutal she'd been in her righteous vengeance. Not unlike when she delivered Haiva to the sirens.

"What else would I mean?" she asks, the sigh all but soundless. She does not regret her choice. She would stand by it, if not the decision to allow these people to believe Haiva a savior when he was letting the jatharin kill them off one by one, so long as he could remain exempt of accountability.

"It feels wrong to be here." To accept their kindness.

Wrath watches her face. In a rare moment, he wears only a shirt without a jacket, and the shirt is white. The sleeves are rolled up, revealing more of his arms than would ordinarily be seen including both tattoos. He does not say anything at first. There is silence that fills the space between them, which comes with the proper weight that this moment requires. He may not fully understand, but he wants to try.

He sits beside her. His hand slides over her own, tracing the lines of the bones within her hands up along her fingers to each tip. Their tattoos meet as he presses their arms together, and his gaze darkens with contemplation. He can sense her emotions, but when the emotions become more complicated and tangled then it becomes more difficult in turn.

Guilt is an emotion he is familiar with despite being eternal (or perhaps because of it - countless time to make mistakes even if those mistakes are different than the kind a mortal might make).

"...you feel guilty."

Helplessly, her attention wanders back to him as he lowers to the ground beside her. He is a terribly arresting sight, even when her spirits are down. It's almost unfair how good he always looks.

"No. And yes."

Mortal feelings are complicated, in a mortal way she's aware he has no experience with. It was all so simple when she was only Fury. She regretted nothing of her actions. Until him.

"I don't believe I would make a different choice. It's the lie that doesn't sit well with me."

To become a real player in the Seven Circles, Emilia had to learn deception and cunning. Her first instinct is to charge at things head on. She is always, always negotiating her the volcanic nature of her temper. It frightens her, sometimes, to think of what she might be without this mortal heart.

His heart (and he does have one - demonic though it may be) fills with love for his wife that her issue is having to lie about her deed. He remembers the way she rushed up to him when he looked over the body of her dead sister without fear, with only the knowledge it was wrong that he should be there. She screamed as if she was feral. She rushed at him in all her fury, in her form which did not have access to so many of her powers. It was as if she could not handle the wrongness of it, and of course, she could not.

The goddess of fury and vengeance could do nothing else even if she could not remember it.

There is even a soft smile on his face as he looks at her, which briefly reveals his fondness for her reasoning.

"I wish you did not have to lie about it. It was the right choice to make, but you saved a young girl from having to make a sacrifice in his stead. Mortals truly become unreasonable when they hold too much faith in false miracles."

In false beliefs. Even in the Shifting Isles this was true - so much like life with its hatred and fear of witches, demons.

"Mm," is soft agreement that falls back to contemplation.

This she agrees with readily. Faith that never questions, faith with no sense of selfness ... it is dangerous to Emilia. Zealotry. She made what she believes was the least terrible choice in a sea of terrible choices, a feeling that is no longer new to her. She was ready to swallow its bitterness then.

And now.

After a slight pause, she speaks again, aware he has been giving her space and time to find the words. "I'm still ... learning to co-exist with the parts of me that are Emilia and the parts of me that are Fury."

They're both her. She will not pretend that Fury is merely the past, something she does not need to own as she would want to own that day in the gardens with Haiva. It's all her, good and bad and deadly.

Wrath had been looking up toward the moon. His hand remains in her own but his gaze falls when she does speak again. It rests upon her face, seeking their bond so he might feel what she does, but beyond all that, she does not hide it from him any longer. She is vulnerable. She is open, and he does not fail to appreciate that especially after all the time she could not trust him, had learned to not trust demons - the devil being the worst of them all.

"...it must be a difficult path to navigate. As Fury, you would not have felt any guilt at all. When you had only your mortal memories, I imagine you could not have imagined doing what you did."

They were both different before they met one another, before they fell in love with one another. They have changed each other, and even now more than before, they have been changed. He believes it is for the better through their relationship with one another, through all of the adversity they had stacked against them. They found their way here to one another even in another world all together, even with the curse, even with her made to hate him, even with his brothers and her sister.

"Gods, no."

Emilia would have not thought herself capable of hurting a fly, much less would she have chosen vengeance over mercy. Nonna taught her kindness and the true meaning of family. She also taught her shame and left her helpless. It may be that she will never not have complicated feelings about the woman. But despite the truths she's learning, she can't find it in her heart to hate the woman who became her grandmother.

She supposes that remains the strongest proof of how successful the curse was. Underneath it, she might still be a goddess. But she feels as mortals do, and there is no ignoring that.

It's a train of thought she would not like to follow, so Emilia halts it in its tracks. The next sigh to leave her does loosen her chest a bit, and she gives his fingers a light squeeze, thumb stroking the surface of his hand.

"I'll be glad when we leave."

There is a soft smile at her reaction - the gods, no as if she is not a goddess herself. Wrath does know she does not fully feel like one but she does feel mortal. It is in the guilt that she has. It is in the wonderful work she does in the kitchens and the kindness she shows to others, but there is Fury within her as well.

It is a difficult path to travel, and it is not one he can relate to, advise her on - though... perhaps. It has been some time since he thought of being the angel version of himself. It is not something he likes to speak of, and the experience is so different.

Still there is technically two versions of himself, but the navigation is such a different- such a different and less clear-cut version here for her with the curse having stolen so much, with the two sides merging. His gaze falls to the wonderful warmth of her hand as she touches him with such fondness, such softness.

"Mm. The accommodations certainly leave a great deal to be desired..."

Emilia catches the softness of that smile, and she's abruptly struck with a desire to be even closer. She wonders if he feels that, too, through their bond. She wonders if he ever marvels at the difference like she does.

Amusement crinkles the corners of her eyes, for all that they've been discussing something quite heavy.

"The king of demons is not accustomed to stone huts?"

She remembers his earnest outrage the day she brought him that godsawful suede blouse from the marketplace, though the fact he was trapped in her summoning circle in a cave likely also played a part, ahem.

All the same, to tease him is irresistible.

Wrath does feel that she wishes to be closer, and he answers the desire by winding his arm around her waist and drawing her into his lap so he might be incredibly close to him. He smiles at her as he meets her gaze, noting that amusement that crinkles her eyes, the color of them as they remain this close.

He flashes her a grin that is damned predatory.

"Gods, no."

Yes, this is purposefully quoting her words from moments before - the very ones that made him smile so softly at her.

"My understanding is if there were not stone huts, we would be forced to dwell in holes in the mountain walls." The smile is lost as he grimaces instead. Truly deplorable. "What I wouldn't give for a stay similar to Taravast for once - the accommodations were far better, and you had access to a kitchen."

Seamless and natural, her arms slip around his neck to keep herself in place. He smiles again, and her heart lurches in her chest a bit. There's an ease to him tonight, contentment, and it's terribly arresting.

And she's well aware it has nothing to do with this jungle.

"Goodness, not the mountain walls."

Taravast was something else, though. It reminded her so much of Venice. The palace of the Doxe alone carried such splendor, for all that its owner was rotten. It would've been worth burning it to the ground.

She summons an orange blossom, but instead of weaving it into her hair like she always does, she tucks it behind his ear instead. "Stop pouting. Actual Alem was far worse."

Wrath raises an eyebrow at her as she places that flower behind his ear. Excuse you. No one else in any realm in any version of any world would be able to do that, but there is a contentment to him tonight with her on his lap, with her arms wrapped around his neck, with the reality of how much he missed her and felt he may never see her again.

There's a huff of a sound - haughty like the demon king he is, but also, half amused. The amusement is harder to pick out.

"I do not pout."

He is the devil. He does many things but pouting is not among them (neither is wearing a flower behind his ear, but he makes no attempt to remove it at the moment).

"Alem was terrible as far as accommodations go, but it was a war." So that was understandable. He is accustomed to wars (naturally). "The train may have been my favorite."

Wrath can make himself an implacable wall if he wishes, so that no one may read him. Anger is his domain, and one might expect an explosive temper because of it — and certainly, a lethal danger lurks beneath the civility he shows to the world, to their group. But he also has control of it, in a way she still struggles with at times.

It means he can be stoic to the point of obfuscation. Very little rattles him. The amusement may be difficult to detect, but Emilia has gotten much better at learning his little tells.

She has amused him, perhaps in spite of himself, and it makes her smile.

"The train was indeed memorable."

A hint of warmth splashes on her cheeks as she recalls how they spent the bulk of their time in the Sandman ... once she recovered from Alem, of course. "Sometimes it feels like we'll see every corner of this world."

Wrath notes the beautiful flush upon her cheeks at her memory of their time spent on the train. They finally had the opportunity to truly indulge in one another as well as have some true recovery time in the lap of luxury - more so than the rest of what this world has shown them.

He lets a fingertip trace over her cheek, trace over her blush. She is always incredibly warm - more so now that she has remembered more, but Fury would never blush. Wrath finds he enjoys the sight of it on her face as much as he enjoys the way she truly has embraced finding and experiencing pleasure.

There is a pause following her statement. A quiet falls over him in contemplation of what she's said.

"We may." They have been a great deal of places already during their stay in this world. For so long they were on opposite sides of what he is about to ask her about - naturally. She wanted to return, to find her sister's killer, and he wanted more time with her, more chances to solve the curse that she did not know about. "...do you still want to find a beacon, to activate it to return?"

Quietly, she leans into the touch of his fingertip, pressing a kiss to the tip of it before his hand falls away. This was already on her mind, along with everything else that brought her to contemplation.

"Vittoria wants a war. I thought I did, too."

Her mission had been all-consuming, and nothing could have stood in the way of it. She held on to it so tightly, like if she didn't, her grief would break her. Now she knows the truth about Vittoria and her schemes, about their past. She's learned her true enemies were once allies. Loved ones.

"I want to be with you. I want us both to be whole."

Emilia hadn't been able to give him a certain answer in the past, not with so many holes in her memory, not with her grief — it was real, however orchestrated the rest — choking at her, spurring her toward righteous vengeance.

There is still much to figure out, and she doesn't know what will happen with her twin or their realm. Neither of them can forsake their duty. But she does know her heart, far more than before, and she knows they've made bigger strides in Akhuras than their home, where the curse is concerned.

Wrath slides his hand over her own again as she speaks, and his gaze rests upon her without expectation or judgement. He understands why they have been on different sides when it came to the beacon. She believed her sister was murdered, and her life, her focus became about finding justice for her. There was no way for her to know the truth - that her sister manipulated the entire situation to try to bring Fury out, to get her to remember.

The feelings she had were no less real though. Her determination for justice was valid and important.

Then Emilia answers, and his eyes have an answering understanding within them. There's a determination there. For so long, he has been trying to break this curse alone, and he believes he will be far better doing so with her at his side. His hand lifts to cradle the side of her face, to drink it in even as he meets her gaze.

"I am grateful this is a challenge we can tackle together." There is a pause. "I want this too. We will be whole - both here and in our own world. I do believe the moon has our answers."

And there would be something almost poetic about that being what helps them especially given who her mother is.

Once he takes hold of her hand, Emilia laces their fingers together.

They've always worked well as a team, even back when she thought him her enemy. She'd missed all their detective work and unplanned moments of connection they had in Palermo. Now she can't help wondering what thoughts were racing through his mind during some of those moments, knowing who she was to him.

Being unable to tell her.

This curse has taken so much from them.

"The moon is not full yet ..." her voice trails off, mouth tugging into a faint smile as her gaze searches his face, takes in his features. The shades of gold in his eyes, speckled with black that they are.

The hand he isn't holding on to smooths over the side of his face. She shifts on his lap, closer still. Her thumb strokes his cheek, palm smoothing down to his chest, fingertips grazing the bare skin his shirt reveals. And when she leans in to kiss him, she kisses him unhurried, syrupy and red-warm all at once.

Wrath meets her gaze even as he takes in the way her mouth has pulled into a beautiful smile at the same time. It is arresting, and she has been in such pain and grief for most of the time since he found her again. He has hated to see her suffering, and so seeing her smiling, seeing her happy is an altogether different and wonderful experience.

Surprising still that he might be the cause of it: her happiness, her smiles - no matter how they tried to poison her against him.

Love is the most powerful magic.

He leans into her touch as her hand slips up to stroke his cheek, and he kisses the bottom of her palm before it falls. His own arms wind more fully, more snugly around her, and Wrath is there to meet her, leaning in when she does, kissing her in a similar way. Their first kiss after they had re-met had been so intense and rushed like a battle almost.

Now they can take their time with it. He lets his fingers trail up her back as they kiss, slow and dreamy and wonderful. There is even a pleased, soft sigh pulled from his lips into her mouth.

The first time she kissed him — the first time she could remember kissing him — she'd been wrestling with competing motives. She'd thought him a traitor, and had been consumed with so much grief and rage it leaked into everything she did. Every kiss traded truly had felt like a blow neither one of them a victor.

Not with the secrets between them. Not with the curse at its most vicious and effective. And her need, her all-consuming need, to set right a terrible wrong. The mistaken wrong.

And now, now Emilia kisses him like she has discovered a pot of honey, and deciding to keep it all to herself, savors every drop that lands on her tongue. It isn't without the intensity that once earned her the moniker Fury, but the fire of it is softer in its warmth, the rest of it lingering behind like a promise of more to come.

She breaks away from the kiss, breathless and a little bit wrecked. Her lips are plump from such extensive use, but they curve into another smile at the sight of him, flower and all. Their hut feels so far away, though it isn't. She's just never wanted to move less, not with how he feels underneath her, legs flanking his sides.

"You know what to do," she whispers, feather-light if not for the longing encased in her voice. The wanting.

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the sunken | moonrise

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