westwhere | the house of manouk

the house of manouk | test drive meme

Hello, hello! Our latest event — doubling as a test drive meme and stretching until 12 August — is a one-off incursion in an uncharted time pocket dimension — the House of Manouk.

Anyone can hit up the test drive meme, but you will need an invite from an existing player to apply on 5 August. Have fun!

THE HOUSE OF MANOUK

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THE TERRACE

Old or new, you wake up on a white-stone terrace dominated by a twisting hedge maze that houses great columns, tattered statues, ponds, rivers, gazebos and pergolas — and high looming walls of thickly bound ivy, bloomed roses or thorny vines. Walking the Terrace somehow always brings you deeper into the maze, while a flushed, sunless sky stares down, unblinking.

You experience no thirst, hunger or language barriers here. Old translation & communication pendants can nevertheless be found scattered across the Terrace and Grounds.

New arrivals encounter the sorceress Karsa, who explains you were likely summoned by one of the undead lords who seeks control of Akhuras — and reached, along with the party she leads, a pocket dimension outside of time. Karsa’s associate, the Merchant, instructed to exit the time dimension by finding Ellethian waypoints — typically stone tokens engraved with the carvings of an eye with a sun for a pupil. Karsa may activate them for you to leave this place.

Your mission is to search the House and find the waypoints of Ellethia or of the rival Dawn’s Reach Trade Company without attracting the ire of the local exiled overlord(s).

■ Some of the statues you discover on the Terrace seem crudely carved, gaining the features of your loved ones, the longer you stare at them. Some seek to throttle. Escape them by having someone else stare at them, becoming their new target, or by leading them in a crowd of other statues.

■ Beware getting pricked by thorns: covetous vines can quickly ensnare and pull you into the maze’s green walls, or bind your hand to that of your companion.

■ The maze’s weather often mimics your mood: nice and balmy for contentment, cold for fear, torrential rain for sadness and a heatwave to answer anger. Smile.

■ Every now and then, you hear screams from other parts of the maze. Run, and you might find pairs of steel manacles or rusted chain on bloodied grounds, from where fresh rose bushes quickly rise up. Investigate.

■ Go deeper in the maze, and you find a heap of small stone tablets. Most list names, ages, occupations and include loving remarks, such as the finest husband or she smiled ever bright. Alarmingly, when your companion’s back is turned, you find tablets engraved with your handwriting, saying, don’t turn your back to them, blood reeks strong on them and that’s not their name. There are no waypoint tokens here.

■ Spend enough time in the maze, and you discover an old, red-eyed, white-haired and hunchbacked man with two chainless shackles on his wrists. He ignores you, muttering to himself about how the House must keep moving, moving. The House doesn’t like you. The House is awake. The House should sleep. The old man hits or trips you with his cane, or you might wake to find him hovering very closely over you. Engage him.

■ Now and then, he seems suddenly alert, if not outright fearful, shrieking that he comes and rushing to tinker with pulleys and stone mechanisms hidden within the maze vine walls. The maze’s architecture abruptly changes, with the ground quaking, walls shifting, while old plants wilt and fresh ones rise up within heartbeats. As the House changes, you might spot a long, spiralling staircase at short distance. Go down into…

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THE GROUNDS

The ground level of the House is splintered in dozens of decaying rooms, many locked. There are no windows here, dust thick in every corner, while faint scratches and canine footprints mar the floors — the marks of dozens of great skeletal hounds that haunt the corridors.

The dogs lead, chase or drag you towards a shuttered hall room, where a middle-aged, red-eyed and white-haired man furiously searches through haphazard mounds of tousled tomes. He too wears shackles. His manner is perfunctorily polite, as he calls back his dogs.

”…not from around here, are you? Must have broken time. Hooligan. Well, you’ve travelled centuries to be disappointed. There are no mysteries here, no epiphanies. All the great wells of myth and magic? Some other pigs have drunk them dry. Blame your luck, for bringing you to the shambling hut of — …the fine House of Manouk. Taravast’s greatest necromancer, til his mind turned to slaughter.

I was his disciple. Lisanther. Must’ve come from high on, did you? These cursed shackles… he senses everyone in his House through them. If he feels us on his scent, he works his little screws and wheels and moves the House stairs. Impressed? Don’t be. He’s a wreck, who feasts on time echoes of the anguished. That’s him. Paints a picture, doesn’t he? Stay out of his sights, or you’ll wear his chains soon too. Same as me, same as the dog he keeps in the dungeons. Dragged back every time he wanders.

If you want to make yourself useful, help me. I traded fairly with a caravan of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company. They say they left behind scrolls in these grounds, with the words to free me. They overcharge, but they don’t lie. Help me find them. Break my chains, and I’ll break us out. I can. I swear it. ”

Deeper into the claustrophobic Grounds, you find specters of men and women, chained just like Lisanther — their skin translucent, their gazes lethargic. They feel neither dead nor alive to the magically sensitive. They are either very present in the moment or barely recall their whereabouts. If asked about tokens, they say the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company left scrolls in the Grounds main quarters:

▶ Bathing quarters

At times pristine and delightful, at others blood-marked and torn. The waters abruptly run very hot, cold or silty. The spectre of a wo/man might appear in the tub, staring unblinkingly or murmuring that people do all sorts of wickedness in this bathroom: they have even witnessed stabbings, treasures being hidden beneath tile boards, and even a birthing!

▶ Kitchens

Sprawling and soot-laden, bursting with supplies of stale wheat, eccentric cakes, exotic fruit and spice jars, these kitchens were built for long service. A heavy cauldron bubbles and boils a green broth in a cold fireplace, where ash and stone drown wood. A circle of spectres troubleshoots how to improve the meal — just as the kitchens’ doors slam shut, and they cordially invite you to do the legwork for their recipe. They instruct you to chop, clean and prepare the most unusual ingredients: hair of a dog, salt, moulded thyme, arsenic, one of your finest love stories… they’ll tire of their creation and release you within the hour. Don’t dine, dash.

▶ Sleeping chambers

There’s rest for the wicked in these deserted sleeping quarters, which boast exceptionally well-stuffed cushions and pillows, blankets and ‘reading materials’ — torn pages from books of history and magic. Some speak of the desperate attempts of the rulers of Taravast to flee death. Others talk of using spells, the elements and even mass sacrifice to achieve immortality. Enjoy your rest, only perturbed by occasional distant screams —

…or perhaps by a large, feral white bear that bursts in to briefly chase you, before disappearing. Veteran travellers may recognise him as the creature of Anurr.

Some of the chain-breaking scrolls of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company can be found in each of the main rooms, along with some of the Company’s talismans, marked as waypoints, which should be brought to Karsa. See what your character finds.

Finish up here, or meander down a final stairwell to —

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THE DUNGEONS

Cold, deteriorating, crumbling — difficult to say if this is a tightly bound knot of underground tunnels, or a torturous weave of lost dungeons. Parts of the floor crumble to reveal abyssal depths below — or suddenly appear beneath your feet, to help your progress. Emptied, creaking bookcases abound. Here and there, you see your reflection in shattered wall-length mirrors, moving differently than you, or just slightly older or younger than you are.

■ Revived skeletons patrol the corridors, scantily armed with base blades, stones and torches. They largely ignore you, only blocking your path if you near a magically-locked stone door in the back of the Dungeons, from where you hear… human pleas.

■ Door engravings instruct to speak out the three truths of each day. Nearby, you find a mound of crumbled stone tablets, along with three golden ones raised on pedestals that read:

▶ with morning, my body is a weapon, sun-seeking, righteousness-bound

▶ by midday, my flesh has bent and battered, a shield of justice for young life to come

▶ come evening, I am blood and bone, a humble house to hope eternal

■ Tip bookcases into the narrow corridors to prevent the skeletal guards from reaching you, as you search diligently through the stone debris beneath the golden pedestals. You might even find Ellethian waypoint tokens: palm-wide, marked with a sun pupil. Take them to Karsa immediately… or open the now unlocked dungeon door as a man calls out.

■ Enter, and you discover an dimly lit dungeon alcove, with animate skeletal heads hanging on each wall. They cackle, Mind your step. Heed them and look for holes in the floor tiles — needle-thin spikes emerge from there periodically.

■ Go deeper, and you discover a large bare stone room, scantly livened by torches bearing green fire. A small hole — barely enough to fit a grown man standing and lying down — has been dug into one of the walls and secured. This inhumane prison’s bars crackle and sizzle with magical electricity. A skeletal hound waits by, with a set of keys fastened to its collar.

■ A white-haired, red-eyed twenty-something young man sprawls haphazardly in the prison: battered, swathed in rags, shackled and wild. He holds out his blood-tipped hand between the bars, but fails to lure the dog close — and calls out to you, instead:

”You must be mad to come to me. The old man sent you? Finally? Good. How wonderful. I’ll spit on you, and I’ll spit on his grave. He left me here to die. And now he’s remembered me? What does he want? …no. It doesn’t matter. Rip the keys off that mutt and get me out of here. ”

You can engage or release him, if you coax the key from the recalcitrant dog. Or leave him be and see Karsa with your waypoint token.

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NOTES:

■ There are multiple waypoint tokens to leave the time dimension: the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company talismans, hidden in the Ground rooms, and the Ellethian tokens, found in the dungeons. Bring whichever one you discover to Karsa.

■ You can optionally solve the mystery of Lisanther, the prisoner, Manouk and the spectres.

■ The House’s layout changes periodically, but characters can find the stairs to travel across the three levels every few hours.

■ Mention in your top level if you play an old timer or a test driving tourist. TDMers can make both logs and network prompts here!

■ QUESTIONS & NPC INBOX!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The beauty of truth is it doesn't need confirming. The strongest avenger is me. I am he. That is all.

You are jesting but also correct.

...troubling.

A fact agreed on by many who know me!

Either way, please take the bear. In all sincerity.

( He continues to give her a flat look, grumbling under his breath to words which make no real sense. Something about storms, lightning, changes. The magick, however, that he scents, along with the rest, his shoulders hunching before he forces them to relax.

She may sense it about him, his inimical magical nature and the magic that all but wafts off him, constantly generated and discarded as a horse run hard sweats and throws excess heat. Or she might not — enough different energies and magics across enough worlds. )

Handfuls of those I'm familiar with, all set on their own paths through. The maze shifts.

( He shrugs at that, even as he pauses, brow furrowing for reasons other than being surprised out of nowhere. He cants his head, listening. )

Huh. None of them should sound like that.

( Glancing toward the woman (?) who appeared out of the air, he gestures forward with a nod of his head. )

Chains, that way. Go toward, or avoid, love?

( He stares at her, slowly raising his eyebrows. )

You speak sense, then immediately gesture toward nonsense? If nothing good is ever behind a door like that, we should walk away. Not fight harder to get inside.

( He continues to be amazed people survive so many of their stupider impulses, especially when it proves again and again around here that they're utterly mad to follow those instincts, in his opinion. Instincts for trouble! There's no other word for it. )

Besides, fight to get to it, then what? There's no keyhole. Just that engraved nonsense!

( At first, he thinks the man a fool. Then, a poor musician.

In the end, it emerges he's simply a bad necromancer, all around. )

That's base. You're nothing more than an amateur.

( But one who has brought the mutt forward just enough so that, swiping once, twice, and again, the prisoner succeeds to capture the keys off its chain. Even better, the creature hardly spares him a glance, still attentively, obsessively concerned with the visitor's song.

Well, there's no accounting for bad taste. Besides, the prisoner has other priorities, hastening to try to bend and twist his hand and tease free the lock of his cell, only to find, failing to achieve the right angle — )

Damn it. I can't reach without breaking wrist bones. ( But he says it so explicitly, with such intense pronunciation that it's obvious and plain he's considering the possibility.

At the last moment, he favours his wrist with mercy and tosses his keys the stranger's way. )

Let me out.

I know it's not a necessity for the characters, since they don't feel hunger or thirst, but if someone was feeling the need for emotional support tea, could the supplies be found? Or is there only a well of sadness to be found in the kitchen?

Of course! Small stoneware jars containing (im)properly preserved tea leaves can be found on the numerous kitchen shelves. On offer:

— hibiscus, stale but still presenting some flavour
— mint, serviceable
— chamomile, rotten and slimy
— a bizarre cousin of darjeeling with a strong, peppery kick
— a blend with a remarkable aftertaste of marmite

...and some harmless fruit leaf teas.

\o/ Thank you!!

Lockwood will be, in turns, traumatized and grateful!

( Licyn stares at the much taller man with both brows lifted, lips pulling into a disbelieving smile. )

Scratch any harder and I'll be taking off slivers of bone. Explain to me why you want to let out a prisoner you know nothing about, behind a door that somehow stayed open after its ominous words while closed, guarded by a possessed skeleton of a dog clearly instructed to torment the poor fool in there by being just out of reach.

( Not that he stops his skull scritches, as the dog appears to find it pleasant, and if it finds it pleasant its not getting up to anything unpleasant.

The howl had been fine. Getting nippy, on the other hand, wouldn't be appreciated. Too easy to snap bones. )

I call everyone that.

( Said mildly, and while distracted. There's a fresher scent of herbs his nose has picked up, and he slides himself down the counter, arm extended toward the bottles juuuust out of his easy reach. )

Wen Kexing, love, seems a fine enough name. I'm Licyn Mansbane, and — ah!

( His fingers tap a bottle closer, then curl around its glass with a satisfying slide. The shelf nearly comes undone from the ceiling in the process, but he twists and leaps off the counter while the shelf swings and the remaining bottles on it clack and threaten to fall. None quite make it, though a few of the ghosts start attempting to berate him for the near thing, Licyn outright ignoring them as a manner of personal sanity. Since none could touch him, and none where in themselves magic, he felt fine enough playing see no evil with the haunts. )

Here we are. ( He holds up the bottle toward one of the light providing sconces on the walls, highlighting the cinnamon sticks within. Cinnamon sticks, and... interesting. He meanders his way toward the only other living being in the room, unworking the top of the lid (stuck, for a moment, and he carefully applies pressure to turn it off and not crack the glass itself), pouring the sticks out enough to grasp the slip of paper curled up with them. ) Spice and curled paper secrets. Or not so secret, it remains to be seen.

( He grins, holding up the slip of curled paper between two fingers while he tips the cinnamon sticks back into their holding jar. )

Feel like letting the horror sit for a moment to see what it is? I'm hoping for a salacious note. At least that'd be interesting.

( And not deadly or necromantic or whatever else has been happening lately, which is a blend of all three. )

Doesn't seem to play by anyone's understood rules.

( Said with the sense of irritation that comes with not knowing the new rules any better to try and make it make sense. With River by the sink, she heads toward the collapsing cabinet, trying first the swollen, stuck doors, revealing an abundance of dust and rot, but a stark lack of spider webbing. A fatigued moth takes wing, fluttering past drunkenly and into the room at large, before aiming in stuttering manner for the open door.

She watches it go, closing the cabinet doors behind it. It takes a moment's thought before she bends her knees and thinks to look under the cabinet, expecting to find little in the process. )

You've been outside time before. How?

( She knows better than to claim it nonsense with them presently out of time, and an awareness that the Wheel turns, but doesn't limit in and of itself too much of the weavings or unmakings of the weave in its turning. If time's circular in some aspect, as the Wheel implies, then there are ways to be within and without its influence. Or to cut across.

And that alone in her homeworld's logic. Probably. She doesn't know enough to say, and won't pretend there's anyone here to ask. Even if Moiraine had been here, Nynaeve knew herself well enough to recognise she wouldn't ask her. Not easily. )

( Wei Wuxian, watching the hound strain toward him against his order, but still reluctantly staying in place because of it, flits his gaze toward the prisoner only briefly. There's not much he sees, or can tell, from his current vantage, not with his heart still beating too hard and fear a sour tang on tongue and down his throat. Yet there are the keys, tossed toward him, and the prisoner, asking, and he has to recall:

The last prisoner they freed, hadn't that been Anurr?

... Also himself, if he's fair. He was more recently imprisoned, in Taravast. What else has it been since? Some people in the brig during that ill fated voyage across the seas, and yet... )

Why —

( He'd have asked more, normally, but the break alone for that question has the hound moving his way in a bound that means he can't even finish the question properly, the why are you here, the why is a necromancer keeping you prisoner, the why of anything becomes reduced to a single word before he's playing again, the song twining around the skeletal hound and coaxing it right back to sitting down, to laying down, to all but rolling over to expose its gaping lack of a belly. Still, the stub of bone that demarcates the tail wags furiously, unbothered by the lack of muscle and coat to keep it from cracking against any surface it strikes. )

( Sitting there with her hand still in the water, Nynaeve shoots an unimpressed glare in Marty's direction. She doesn't recgonise this young man, which says little beyond there being a number who'd woken up in their jumble of limbs and landings after the gateway failed to send them home, and instead sent them and others here. )

Some dead fool. Young man, have you seen any fresh water sources on this level?

( She, with her bucket, and the ongoing examination of the bath's watery contents. The ghost currently unseen by Marty kicks a foot at Nynaeve, disturbing none of the water, and meriting her leaning slightly to the side so it avoids her entirely. Her gaze, locked onto the ghost's, is as much glare as her tone is lecturing: )

Now you're the incomprehensibly rude one. If there was anything to be done for you, ghost, I'd do it, but I can't resurrect the dead.

( Probably. There's something strange about that liminal space where maybe, if it's soon enough, but... not the long dead. )

I. The Terrace

[ No matter what the weather was like just moments ago, there is a gradual shift to rain.

It starts light. Then, gradually, becomes steady. Eventually it develops into the sort of soaking downpour that even an deep Atlantic rain gear wouldn't be able to withstand.

Not long after the worst settles in, the slim figure of a young man, still in his adolescence appears. Despite being soaked through, his dark hair plastered to his pale forehead, his smile can only be described as megawatt. As if it contains the full warmth of the sun within. His voice, when he speaks, is low and posh but cheerful as he makes a genuine effort to be engaging; even with strangers. ]

Hello! Have you taken a wrong turn? I believe I may have done so about three turns back, this maze is quite tricky.

II. The Kitchen - Network/Action [OOC: THREADJACK ENCOURAGED!. Our lovely mod has provided a list of dubious tea experiences. Anyone interested in having an RNG experience of which tea they get? Because marmite tea. Yum ... yum? ]

[ It isn't as if he feels any physical urges for tea. It is strictly a self soothing habit to search out and then prepare tea. It is also a self soothing habit to offer tea to others.

There may be an argument to be made for Lockwood to have tasted each of the teas before he put them on offer. But that's probably going to be a lesson learned; after the fact. ]

Un: Lockwood I don't know about the rest of you, but I've always found that impossible situations seem less impossible over a cup of tea.

To this end. I've scrounged through the kitchen, and I've found a selection of tea leaves on offer.

If you're concerned about the ghosts and their odd demands, not to worry. Ghost hunting is my business back home. I know all the tricks to keep them at bay. Besides that, I think they've found me a bit boring to be honest. Too young to have any good love stories to share.

III. The Dungeons

[ It's no secret that Lockwood enjoys his own reflection. At least, that is the image he likes to project.

He has come down here with a purpose in mind, having heard others mention the young man incarcerated -at least last he heard- down here. The mirrors, however, have caught his attention.

Lockwood's expression is pensive, and there is a lost quality in his dark eye, as he watches an older version of himself -trapped within the reflective frame- stumble about. There is a half broken marionette quality to his reflection that seems to fascinate him in the present, and his usual brilliant smile is absent.

Without the animation of his habitual smile, his eye are deeply sunken in their sockets, the bruised shadows under his eyes highlighted by the hollows through his cheeks. It gives him the appearance of being more skeletal than the actually skeletons rattling around in the corridors. ]

Warder.

( Title to title, if they'll have it be such. She breathes out in a snort, giving one clear shake of her head. )

Tracks shift too much in here even if I were so inclined. Can't make it through the walls where they stop.

( She gestures to the bare hint of disturbed dust, indicating someone else's passage over to the side, and how it's cut off by the wall those imprints appear to lead toward. )

You've seen them move, haven't you?

( Or suspected, she implies. There's a clanking of metal nearby, and her head whips around, tracking the sound with narrowed eyes. Her hand is at her long knife, knees bent, already moving around the outside edge of the tumbled pile of tablets and their words. Whatever nonsense they might say, there was someone else nearby. Or something else. That sound was suspiciously close to links of chain jangling step by step.

Her gaze flicks to Lan, lips pressed into a thin line. Had he heard that too? )

As he should be! You're welcome to handwave finding most base ingredients in the kitchens, in various states ranging from pure freshness to decay. I'd steer clear of very modern items, but who knows, maybe necromancers like toasted strudels.

Be at ease, friend. I am here for you.

Where there is need, there will be help.

... Glue.

( Light help her. She briefly glances skyward, or at least at the ceiling, then returns her gaze to the... to them. This person. Who has a doctor, who uses glue. )

Will sap work in the meantime?

( She asks, with it being the closest thing to a binding agent she has on hand in her medical pouch. )

If you'll... fuse. ( She has to pause after that word. It's... so... dumb. Believable because of the absurdity of what she's seeing. Still sounds so dumb. ) Then we're putting the pieces together like a puzzle, so you can... fuse.

I mean, who doesn't like toasted strudels??

Right, well, if you need help distracting the dead, let me know. Aside from the bear, I have some skill in that area.

Just don't shoot me!

( he brings his arm up in front of him just in case some errant shot goes off since he knows the metal will deflect it but he'd rather just not get shot.

he drops his arm when he hears her go falling and comes to a stop near her, looking around for the bear. )

Where the hell did it go?

( The man... teases the prisoners, toys and has his fun. It must be so. Little else explains why they have circled the need to open the damned door, and a key has been provided, and the prisoner remains jailed, staring unblinkingly at the spectacle before him. )

...are you done playing>? You can take the dog with you. He's been here for... ( A pause, less for drama than a burning afterthought of care to be factual. He cannot say, not truly. Time is... indistinct here. ) ...either days or years. Either way, he must be tired of this.

( The dog, presumed male but likely unproven so, will surely make a fine gift for someone, anyone. )

Edited 2023-07-28 22:20 (UTC)

( The problem, with this overeager, horrifying, terrifying skeledogge, is it moves to stand each time Wei Wuxian breaks melody. Only because it does hold, albeit with the soulless sockets of a pleading skull and canine complacency and belief in some inevitable reward for its misplaced loyalty, he can shift tactics.

Somewhat.

He lowers his flute, and he hums. Allowing some sense of answering between notes. )

Why. Locked. In. There.

( Each pause merits the lifting of the dog's head, before it lowers again, sighing without lungs at the delay. )

( There are moments in time when screaming a burning truth from the top of your tormented lungs is not only tolerated for dramatic purposes, but actively encouraged. Now, Thor remarks with inklings of uncertainty, is not that hour.

He retreats close to the man, retaining just the right distance that the dog does no feel threatened, for all it follows Thor with a quiet, luminous gaze.

...distinctly, literally, its stare being hell fires, burning.

And then, Thor offers out, whispered: )

We have questions. He has answers. He will not give them, lest he believes he will be set free.

( ...as for whether they proceed with liberating the prisoner after, that matter is for a future yet to come. )

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the house of manouk | test drive meme

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sounds beautiful!

Anthony Lockwood | Lockwood and Co | Old Timer

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