the house of manouk | test drive meme

[groundrules]

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!

Comments

[aprescoup]

This isn't a time for metaphor. Talk. More talk. You want something, you do.

[lanclan]

[ Isn't off-food a type of poison too, really? This venerable one smelled Xie Lian's cooking once ...

He moves a little closer to the ghosts, who seem a pitiful lot whereas they had once been forceful and goading. The pristine xiao shakes at them a little as Xichen scolds, ]

Stop trapping people in this room. If I hear you have done it to anyone else after this warning, I'll purify the whole kitchen.

[ He won't vanquish them; worse, he will make their whole home smell like cultivator qi! What a devious man. Xichen plucks a couple of cakes off the table, wraps them in a napkin, and slides them in a sleeve so he doesn't need to return here unless prompted. He turns to Wen Kexing with a smile hitching back up, gesturing to the now opened door. ]

There are sleeping quarters not far from here, if you would like to know where.

[aprescoup]

( Rattling his chains now, in a fit of madness, seemingly infuriated and at once amused by her outrage: )

With beautiful! Beautiful gifts of bracelets! Look at our Doxe gave us! Until we could not bear them and... and I... I... became we to focus on... on the bearing of the... to bear the... until! Look how beautiful our bracelets are, he loved us!

( But he dissolves in a fit of mad chatter as she's pulled away, lost to a world where he makes sense unto himself. )

[aprescoup]

"...the ghosts?" He needs a moment to think, eyes slanting. "You mean... the ones upstairs? I've seen them. Before they put me here."

But he eases away from the bars, softened. "They can't be freed. They're haunting their killer. It isn't me. That was long after my time. They're just faint little dregs, wanting to be remembered."

[downswing]

You intend harm.

[moonsounds]

Hm. [She doesn't sound too convinced at that, but she also doesn't seem to take offense to it either.] I do have a good notebook that I write everything down in. Suppose that might be useful.

[She wanders to another cabinet, looking idly at the contents] And I can see ghosts, but they seem to like making themselves visible to everyone, so it doesn't seem to matter. I suppose my music could be helpful, if I could ever find a piano...

[She really needs to learn a more portable instrument, dammit. She wanders to the tub, looking quietly at the woman, who ignores her as Ruka sticks her hand fearlessly into the murky water that fills it to feel around.]

Hmm, I'm not sure... Not recently, anyhow.

[justreckless]

[ that smile is how he gets away with so much, making lucy's brain go a little fuzzy. luckily she's so disoriented already she doesn't take the full force of it. ]

Wouldn't you have fixed time? 'cause you stopped the witches.

[ insane, to be saying witches like it's normal. ]

[downswing]

Agreed. The water lures. ( Cold and limpid, devoid of the putrefaction that otherwise hangs and clings like ivy, strangling, across walls tall and wood tattered. He hesitates, hand lingered over the door's frame, drifting onto the bathtub's lip, searching the perimeter for debris and residue of spirits broken, or waiting, or unheard.

No more present themselves, the world of this room deafeningly silent. He struggles to breathe for it. Walks on. )

You sense danger? ( His own ears feel clogged, linen-filled, with that strange overstimulation of the senses that follows a reckoning with spirits. ) You are... a warrior?

( Betrayed by build, by instincts. All the same, many are the peacemakers who come broad of back and cunningly armed. )

[downswing]

( It is... a kindly thing, this moment, dissolving before Lan Wangji's own eyes like snow under fire-warmed touch. The spirit speaks, bidden without compulsion, and it is Lan Wangji who teeters on the cusp of making a nuisance of himself — he had pledged to search the room.

Instead, he watches and waits and stewards the exchange, grip tight but knowing on his sword's hilt, prepared for the draw that's never required. Fury does not poison the well of this spirit's plain confession.

He pulls away, at last sinking to a knee, then a feeble crouch, to hunt sight of tiles and scratches deep and lines of wood tattered. )

She lacks... the passion that so often sustains the dead. That binds them. ( A pause, then: ) If not that, places. Memories.

( Spirits drift, aimless and lost to the swarming confusion that so readily embroils. They require an — anchor. )

[justreckless]

[ well it's hard to fight against what feels like getting her way and that in itself is a little frustrating. everything about this is frustrating to lucy though so no change there.

ah, teenagers. ]

Fine, [ she grumbles, digging her hands into her pockets. all she has is a sprig of lavender which is of little comfort, but at the very least she can hear if any ghosts are near.

lockwood is going to be... something, if she alienates everyone he's ever met in this place, but he is the friendly one! he knows this. she threatened to beat up george the first time they met and lockwood still asked her to join lockwood & co. she doesn't ask if anyone knows lockwood so she can feign innocence later when she has undoubtedly made a terrible first impression. ]

[justreckless]

I didn't see it!

[ probably lucy would be this frazzled in the face of a real birth right in front of her though; she was the last of the seven carlyle sisters she doesn't know piss about babies and birthing. ]

Apparently bathrooms have loads of gossip.

[justreckless]

I met a ghost in a bath.

[ lucy communed with a ghost in a bath like a true psychopath and probably would have drowned if lockwood hadn't called her name, even if annabel ward wasn't being particularly malevolent to lucy herself.

as if realizing how ridiculous that sounds, lucy hastens to add: ] Cuts off the senses, you know, makes it easier to hear.

[justreckless]

Oh, I'm Lucy.

[ she shakes, but there's an awkwardness to it. she's clearly not great at meeting people. though, when she met george she threatened to beat him up so she's doing better this time! ]

Nice to meet you.

[ yeah, she's killing it actually. ]

[pacificator]

You think this place is listening to us?

[ Would that be weirder? She's not actually sure it would be weirder. Wynonna glances at the Dolls statue, then deliberately turns her back on it. ]

Okay. But if he starts jabbing at us, I'm ducking behind you. I got enough of that from the thorns.

[pacificator]

Well, that's great. So useful. Although in my experience with magic-users, they're not usually all that helpful.

[ She eyes him, the way he holds himself. Like Dolls, she thinks; like he's prepared for things to go south at any given second. ]

You look like you can handle yourself. Wanna team up?

[ Better than her trying to navigate this on her own. ]

[massrez]

[ No word of response from the man, but now really isn't the time for pleasantries or introductions, is it?

Anduin glances back the way he'd come, the drifting fog parting. Perhaps that's a sign of his renewed focus, or perhaps he's overthinking things. Either way, he quickly pursues the path the stranger had taken. ]

[massrez]

Easy.

[ Anduin holds up a hand before Jacob can do anything too rash. From what he can tell, the woman isn't hostile, isn't poised to attack. She doesn't look particularly friendly, but none of them have thus far.

He'll take the lack of violence and be grateful for it. ]

[downswing]

( Can it? Speaks Wen Kexing with clarity, with certainty, as if the world trades him alone her secrets. Perhaps it is within his grasp, better than that of Lan Wangji — a limpid, imminent escape.

Unbidden, generosity blooms in him like a sickness. Hope rots within him. He raises his gaze and meets Wen Kexing's stormed anger, and he does not flinch. Zhou Zishu's absence is a nightmare, sprawling. To think of life devoid of Wei Ying tatters his bones. )

It can. ( Do not lie. ) It will. ( There is no obligation between them to appease, to satisfy. He owes Wen Kexing nothing but the courtesy of his soulmate's acquaintance. And yet. )

These spirits are imprisoned here. Not the living.

[makemeasong]

Same, Lucy.

[ Luckily, Clara is a fantastic talker, and she's a teacher so, she's used to doing the heavy lifting. ]

You sound like you live not that far from where I do. At leat adjacent-too. This might be a weird question—actually, it is a weird question—but what planet are you from?

[downswing]

( This is a strange game, and Wei Ying plays it poorly — to slaughter, as soon as kill.

Lured, and Chenqing silent, the spirit situates himself between them, a specter of reckless doubt, seduced like a moth to Wei Ying's fire, turning his head towards his captor, to pay him silver-eyed, molten worship. And more fool Lan Wangji, consumed by both care and jealousy, who thinks, Another life, together, you would have made beautiful lovers.

They are startling together, in perfect and artificial harmony, like candied pieces woven in silk of spun sugar — cut resolutely to the same size, whatever their nature. They do not belong in this life, least of all together.

He finds his hand hooked and sinking in Wei Ying's arm, finds himself drawing his husband close. And just like that, the dam breaks. The spirit speaks.

Blood. Death. Justice. The necromancers. And end to pain. Words indistinct, like beads on a cut string. Lan Wangji, breathless but heeding, barely knows them, the tremors of the spirit's voice a chilled distortion.

After, when it is done — when the spirit turns to him, but Wangji waves once in cruel dismissal — after, he should have words. Does not, protractedly. )

...what use for me in this world? ( Selfish, to speak words so stained, so gelid. ) Where all is hurt, devoid of appeasement.

( He is worthless, mere extension of his sword. Too much pain walks this land. )

[downswing]

...who warns? ( He speaks as if to himself, as if the world merely reshapes around his thoughts, dark and amorphous. As if he has grown so accustomed to solitude that it does not strike him as strange to neglect Five's presence, if not his question.

His gaze slants, thins. Spirits, of course. Ever present, his confidants. But — ) This is a petty ploy. If the dead are unsettled, why do they not rise?

( Discretion, modesty and silence suit spirits less than crass demonstrations and rage. This manipulation of stones and messages and conspiracy is... departed from their methods, an aimless contrivance. )

[somebadnews]

[ That doesn't sound like questions for him, or ones that he's at all able to answer. It doesn't particularly matter to him either way. ]

Is that what you've been doing? [ Trying to call them for answers is one thing, but he's heard those objections before. ] You know, at some point, you might want to be more concerned about the living.

[pepsifree]

"Oh, ha," Marty huffs, somehow managing to sound sarcastic even in his breathlessness. "I don't even know" -- pant -- "what got them all crazy like that!"

But as his wound's pointed out, his head dips, and he blinks as if he's only just processed its existence.

"Ah..." Marty grimaces. "Shit."

The trail of blood he sees behind him is incredibly humbling. "You don't think plants can smell blood, can they?"

Marty catches a bench nearby, thank goodness. So he heads towards it, only to be surprised at the feel of a sudden tug on his left arm. A sense of dread builds in his stomach, and for a millisecond he's concerned the evil plants from hell have caught up. Fortunately, looking down only shows that he and Jacob are tied together by vine at their forearms. The guy's decidedly a better thing to be stuck to than a monster from an environmentalist B-movie.

"Do you, uh... still have your knife?"

[rumorate]

It's not always like this. We move around a lot. But yeah, I've been here about two years.

[Which is way longer than she would have preferred.]

[rumorate]

I'll do you one better?

[She reaches down into her boot and pulls out her blade. She then brings it closer, holding the blade at the space between her wrists.]

Pull back and don't move.