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!

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I do not trust him.

[ A few times, the vines creep towards her or impede her progress, and she calls upon her magick to push them aside—not with any spoken spells or incantations, just a casual wave of her hand and that smell of ozone and upturned earth as misty green ichor envelopes the vines and redirects them. ]

So you wish to use me as bait.

[ Not that she sounds upset or put off by this in the least, an amused half-smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. If anything, she respects the candor—most people aren't quite so upfront.

As they come upon the old man, Merrin doesn't approach him immediately, her eyebrows raising as the man ignores them and keeps muttering to himself. Oh, she knows all about manipulative old men who put up a front of insanity to get your guard down. Not that this man is faking it—she's being a little cautious.

Instead, she addresses her companion: ] Do you know this man?

"I was born here," he hisses out, but there's a smile burning the corner of his lips, keeping his interest livened. "Ignacio."

He's careful, with names. Perhaps a mark of his profession: pronouncing names and incantations and words so very attentively, for so often they mark power.

"I was born here, same as I was in Taravast. But I'll ruin it. You have my word. What little use that does you."

You always have seemed wise.

[Jacob steps a little further into the room, somewhat to the side of the knight, looking at the bathtub that had held his attention. There's no one in the bath. He looks back into the face of the knight, surprised to see the man is so much younger than he expected. Then he manages to gather himself and look once more at the bathtub.

It still seems empty to him. But when he replies, he isn't implying that there was no someone, but that he's keen to know what the young knight saw.]

No... no I didn't. But you did.

[Jacob glances around the room again, and gestures the young man to come to examine the bath more closely.]

He burned my face in Taravast. They did not tell you? Your little friends. What do you expect?

I do not control the dead. ( Ghosties, as it were. Remarkable manifestations, like insects in summer. Everywhere. Anywhere. For all he claims no dominion over them, he seems unperturbed by their presence — as if they have struck some manner of amnesty, each content to remain in their part of the grounds. )

But I'll release the dogs, once they've served their purpose. They are my dearest friends. But these books — ( Another one cast aside. ) ...don't find or bring themselves. We should all earn our keep.

What did I... what did... Manouk... do you know who Manouk is? Did you not... do they not still whisper his name in the dark, his house, they don't speak of it? The house of Manouk...

( It's a wild thing, bright and burning, a fit of laughter like a sickness. He carries on, impossibly shrill, nearly infectiously so — drumming his cane on the ground to the beat of it. )

We... we loved our Doxe. We loved him. And he wanted so small! So small a thing... so... we wanted... to give it to him... life. Life eternal. The best... for our Doxe.

Mm. [ It's a thoughtful sound, most of her attention focused on her task. ] I am not unfamiliar.

[ There's an underpinning of irony in her tone. Her people, the Nightsisters, have a long history of communing with spirits and raising the dead, though very few of them were actually powerful enough to successfully perform the latter—like herself. But they're witches, not necromancers—maybe that's just semantics. ]

You sound well acquainted with necromancy as well.

[ The heat around them starts to climb as again he refuses to look up, even when Five teleports directly in front of him. He clenches his jaw and swallows the implication that the spirits are singling him out. They simply targeted someone easily swayed by what he already thinks.

He should leave and continue looking for his own answers, but Lan Wangji is still busy proving that he knows more than he says. ]

What elder?

i should be happy to be alive huh?

the terrace

[ Propped upright against one of many pillars stands a black coffin with a geometric pattern carved on the door. Passersby may:

A. Attempt to pass the coffin by, unaware that its inhabitant is listening intently for footsteps. Venture close enough and a woman's voice will beckon from within: ] Hey! Hey you! Come here. I need to ask you something.

[ B. Try to pry the door open and seem, momentarily, to succeed, only for the door to be pulled shut with exceptional force. From inside, a woman's voice shouts: ] What do you think you're bloody doing?

[ C. Witness the coffin begin to creak open. A manicured hand curls around the door's edge and immediately begins sizzling, smoke pluming into the air as the woman within howls in pain. The hand retreats and the coffin door slams shut once more. From inside: ] Fucking hell! How long is this day going to last? I've been in here for hours!

the grounds

[ After escaping her coffin on the sunlit terrace, Nadja takes refuge in a windowless room. This is where she would finally catch her breath, if she needed to breathe. It's a good thing that she can go without, because mere seconds pass before a great bear manifests in the room. Nadja half jumps, half flies back until she hits the wall, which she immediately begins to climb. She is hanging from a corner of the ceiling when someone else approaches the entrance. ]

You really don't want to come in here! [ She shouts her warning down. ] There is a bloody big bear!

network - video

[ Centered in the frame: a pale, dark-haired woman with her legs crossed under her long skirt, her hands folded in her lap. She is dressed in a fashion that simultaneously seems from another time yet fits into no known historical era. As she speaks to the camera, it becomes increasingly clear that she is unaware the video is being broadcast. ]

So, it seems I have been abducted to another world by forces unknown. Evidently the camera crew did not follow me here so I will have to document the journey on this little device they have given me. So far I have nearly been burned to ashes, got chased by a huge fucking bear, and now I am traveling with a caravan of mostly humans.

Luring them away from the others to feed might be challenging, but it will be very much worth it. From what I can smell, a bloody lot of them are delicious virgins. It's like living at the buffet and I don't even have to share.

( ...another, stolen by the beacon, returned without memories. A part of Lan Wangji, shriveled and dark, thinks, Wrathion will ache for this. Thinks too, all life is lessening and hurt, and men rise above their grief. And it is better, still, to taste the unexpected thrills of a reunion, then to watch a cascade of wasteful decades of yearning.

It is not his place to burden. To speak the words first. And so, voice shedding an octave: )

Perhaps. ( Let is be the matter at hand, then: the girl, superfluous in these chambers, rising to sit half on the bathtub's rim, feet dangling. She appears — serene, gaze slanting and soft, absorbed by her own ethereality as if by silent consumption.

They have intruded, he suspects, in her territory like unwanted guests, like sharp-toothed vermin. She cannot answer their transgression with exile — but her blind eyes catch each of their faces at its time, and Lan Wangji sketches a starting nod, only in greeting. )

Spirits here are aged and settled. ( He feels them, malice dormant, their aches a lingering possibility, more than an inevitable eruption. )

She too intends no harm.

( Here, close, a deep shadow looming. Hardly log burns his tongue, but then, they not swing their daggers at one another on this day. After all, being the smaller, Five has the better odds of being missed.

And then, Lan Wangji's gaze rises, snags, catches on Five's familiar pallor, the shape of his equally known anger. Perpetual, simmering, impatient. Lan Wangji flirts, belatedly, with the plain temptation of denying him an answer, simply to be, for once, of an age.

Instead, measured: )

An elder walks these gardens. Crooked of back, malicious. Perhaps mad.

And you plan to defend or watch the other men die?

( Again, the quirked eyebrow. )

[ Five has become accustomed to reading into what's left unsaid when he finally raises his gaze. He should have expected the half-answer he gets. Why a perfectly reasonable question can be met with such distain is beyond him. ]

That's all relative, isn't it? [ There are certain people who would rather waste time on an obvious trap than work with the person in front of them. ]

What did the crazy man have to say?

( silence, for a moment. then she looks skyward. )

Light spare us, and how did you find a way to grant him eternal life. Completely removed from the Wheel —

( she grimaces, however, and shakes her head. no, the wheel is what they know; this place does not necessarily reflect or need to reflect anything familiar. very rarely has it bothered doing so before. )

Did you tell anyone else how to attempt to go against all sense and live forever? How afraid of dying was that man?

( having no idea, as it were, that he... persisted. for a very long time. doing exactly... this. )

The short end of every stick, love, same as any person lived long enough in the world on their own.

Not pleasant to hear about. No one mentioned it specific, I didn't know.

( He watches, skin twitching at the scent and display of magic; he's become acclimatised out of necessity and continuity of exposure, but he's not happy about it. The weather can't seem to decide on how it wants to be, at turns muggy, to chill, to misting. )

Happy to let you act the role if you're already planning to!

( Eventually, on reaching the old man, Licyn only shakes his head. He doesn't smell familiar, doesn't sound familiar, and has a taint of magic to him, but he thinks most things here would. )

Don't remember him from anything. You planning to chat him up?

He ducks his head under her hand for a second pet, taking advantage of the affection he appreciates when he can't speak anyway. His ears both cock forward, listening to the maze and the old man's rantings, but he doesn't know, and does his best to give an odd sort of shake with head and shoulders to try and communicate that much.

No idea, but it looks like the maze is shifting on them as he does. If the only man is doing that, or if the shifting has nothing to do with it, like he'd know.

As it is, there's not much for Hermione to see, only another cog-like device. Which is soon being cut off from view, as an area of wall to their left yawns open, and a dark slip of space on the ground offers a glimpse of... stairs? He scents something on the air, swinging his head around to look.

Then he leans into her side, a controlled body-check, and huffs out a breath. Something new to our left, love, take a look. She can't hear him, but he thinks the words regardless.

"Bedrooms, I could use a little rest. Or more, depending on how the place looks!"

Licyn doesn't sound like he's taking any of this seriously, pointedly because he doesn't want to be responsible for any of it. Letting Five partly dictate aspects is how he hopes to keep the ghosties, whatever ones lie even further in, distracted.

"What about you? Preferences for junk hunting?"

( Licyn pauses, crouched down and peering into the lower cabinet he'd moved on to. There's valid thoughts to that, and he smiles, not as carefree as he seems about all this. )

Then bargain with him, love, I won't stop you. Only I question why any men were left here, in this place, cut off from the rest of the world. The lovely Karsa works hard for us and herself in getting us out. What benefits do we have in here?

( He doesn't mind handing half a scroll over, either, because in the end: it doesn't matter to him. As long as he survives, and Karsa does, as the Merchant's contact. That he'd not wish for harm to come to a number of their party is more self preservation, in his view, than anything personal, surely. )

( A noise pulled involuntary from the depths of his throat, surprised inhalation, hint of a rumble that might turn toward a moan, given time and attention. Turning his face toward his husband, after the locked gazes in the mirror: the disconnect of reflection to what he wishes to see, the reality locked around his waist, pressed to his shoulder, decorating his front with hair dark as his own. )

I don't know, Lan Zhan. ( Said soft, said low, hint of roughness in his voice, the sly slide of one eye to take in the full of his husband's face from this angle. See in reflection the particulars of his smile: see the slow blossoming, the languorous stretch of plush lips into something teasing, knowing. ) I'm feeling somewhat appeased.

( Nothing to what they're truly speaking on, but the easiness of a moment leaning back into, welcoming without the permissive silence of the ghost who watches, blinking slow, from his bath perch. His eyes back to holding Lan Zhan's in the mirror, bright. Smile even more blatant, even more of a challenge, when he says: )

We can ask, but Lan Zhan. If they say no?

( Would you look at how efficiently Wen Kexing disarms that particular vine! Skipping over a vine like this is a nice day out on a simple pathway, Wei Wuxian smiles, no real humour in it. The chill to snow solidifies even as the path curves gently, avoiding harsh angles for now. )

Leaving is finding a gateway and a beacon to power it. Leaving is that beacon powering it for long enough you get through the gateway. Leaving is also not finding the gateway has, for no good reason, spat you back out without sending you home.

( He smacks another questing vine away with a careless flick of the flute he pulls free of his waistband, twirling it between fingers before tucking it away again. )

You've made it home before. You'll make it again.

( Said in confidence, and as if that's a very normal thing to say at all. )

Five's smile stays in place. Why they're humoring a room full of ghosts is anyone's guess. Scrolls from the company that left the waypoints that somehow break chains. Why the hell not? But if he thinks they're splitting up, he's got another thing coming.

"Not at all." Don't count on letting him rest when they get there, ghosts or no ghosts. "You know the way?"

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the house of manouk | test drive meme

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nadja | what we do in the shadows | tourist

pinches Anduin's cheek!!!

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