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

[damnable]

Excuse you. ( Red's gaze narrows in her direction even though there's a fond little smirk on her face still. ) You are in fact incredibly useful - nothing wrong with needing a bit of saving now and then.

( Damsel isn't how she'd think of Clara at all. She is out there being adventurous, discovering what needs to be discovered. Even without a bunch of ancient super powers. There is a pause following the question before she nods - feels like a lifetime or two ago, but she's right. )

Yeah. In Serthica. They made you sit at their fucked up table and spill personal stories for their appeasement.

[brightestmoon]

[ Honestly, Xiao Xingchen hadn't caught her name, but he assumes that Karsa must be the woman who had approached him when he woke up here. He hadn't really listened much to what she had to say, too out of it as he'd been. ]

Yes. Admittedly, I did not listen as well as I should have to what she said. [ He tenses just a little hearing that. ] I know. I could feel it. [ He lets out a humorless little laugh. ] I don't think I much like this place.

[nachocheese]

"Yeah. The guys upstairs. And him." He shrugs at the bone hound. "The dog?"

It tugs at Nacho's heartstrings, to see someone trapped. Helpless. Like he was.

He wonders if this person is like he was, bad but the victim of someone far worse. If he deserves compassion for that. Or if, perhaps, it's all a lie.

Or perhaps it's true, and it means nothing. Maybe Nacho doesn't deserve compassion, either. Bad is still bad, someone worse behind you or not.

"So there's nothing we can do?" he asks. "Look, I don't know how this 'magic' stuff works... Not like some people here. But I have to think there's gotta be a way to — " He stops. Something occurs to him.

"Wait. 'After' your time. What does that mean? When you say 'after?' All of this happened after you got locked up down here?"

Nacho swallows. "What about the other thing? When you kill the other two, and you leave, where will you go after that? How do I know I won't have just released something terrible onto the multiverse or whatever?"

He stares at the prisoner. Hands up to the bars. "But if I don't, there's no other way out for you. Is there?" Stuck in a dungeon forever. No way out. Does anyone deserve that?

Well, yeah. Maybe some people do, if the alternative is what an unhinged necromancer might do on the loose.

[groundrules]

No, unfortunately — they're not even bound to the necromancers, they're bound to the House.

Unless... you somehow find a way to take the House with you? Pocket a pocket dimension?

[aprescoup]

"There is nothing you or I or anyone can do. You can't release them. They're not here. They're not tied to people, they're bound to the house."

And the house, he need not continue disdainfully, is not going anywhere, for all he rattles his bars and bares his teeth and he tries, does so try, to inflict horror upon it and its other two occupants.

As for the rest, "There's no way to know what I'll do, after. But it'll please you to know, my first port of call will be a very warm inn, with a hot bath, and men grateful for my services. Where I'm treated as a skilled man of sorcery, and not a... a dog."

This, hissing towards the skeletal beast who watches him. "I'm better than this. And I'll make sure the world knows it."

[rehandle]

[ Ooh, an answering threat. She's good. He's veiling half a grin in a couple of pages lifted from the bedroom floor when she catches his sleeve, and once he notices the parchment he lets one page drop to the floor to instead reach out for it to take a closer look.

He skims the incantation first, turns the parchment to check the back— ]

... you pay for three.

[ Huh. Leaving that to hang around in his head for a while, Stephen looks back up to America. ]

Well. I think it's safe to say you found something.

[nachocheese]

That's all he needs to hear. Maybe it's the insult to the hound that tips him over the edge, or maybe it's just that 'make sure the world knows it' is exactly not the kind of thing that he was hoping to hear.

For a moment, Nacho stares. Dumb as hell, he thinks! Can't even lie right! Can't even pretend to be humble.

In a move that will haunt him for whatever becomes of the rest of his existence, Nacho slides the key into his pocket. He rubs his temple, before staring back at the prisoner and snorting.

"Thanks," he says. He turns, in disgust, form the man in the cellar, and turns back to comfort the dog. To pet its ears.

But he doesn't give it back the key. If he gives it back the key, someone else can take the key from it, just as he did. He swallows hard. "Good dog," he coos once more, before he's gone.

[downswing]

( ...a blade. Words chosen breezily, yet he thinks, not without purpose. That is his likeness, then: an instrument of hate and hacking, of tearing and ripping and blood. He does not ask if Wei Ying thinks the better of him, or is satisfied with his use — if all these turns when they orbited each other, and his husband sought his back or his sleeve were tender trust or even more fragile manipulation.

If it makes a difference to him in the barest, the slightest. Beside him, the spirit encircles Wei Ying's waist like a sealing ring, ravenous with greed, consumed by burning sympathy for the creature who understands him. A necromancer and the dregs of his pet, and who is Lan Wangji to begrudge them their union?

His mouth feels ashen, dry, drenched in saline blandness. Metal stings its back. It strikes him, teeth dragging wet from his lip, that he has bitten in.

He recoils, withdrawing into himself. Steps, clacking, away from WeiYing. )

They have none of the enemies who exiled them. Therefore, make new of each other.

( Laying blame at whatever feet. The young man they briefly encountered in the dungeons, crying for the chance to slaughter his elders. The necromancer of their age, withering beneath the weight of his learning, disdaining the others. The elder, petrified of his pursuers. )

Unafraid of spirits. Knowing them — ( Tame. ) Subdued.

[downswing]

( He has heard this before: blatant, bland, shallow criticism. A stone thrown in the lake of his stability. As if it should startle or shatter him, as if it must obliterate or correct some part of his person.

As if, eyes bright and wide and staring, he finds any harm in the implications. He speaks as children do, mouth wide, words rounded. With a drawling calm that suggests only contentment with the answer. )

...why? ( What have the living done to deserve such right of precedence in his concern? )

[nachocheese]

So, uh! This is a weird question, and I understand if I'm too late or if this isn't viable with other threads happening, which in either case is totally cool! Since he did get the key but didn't free the prisoner, is it cool to say that Nacho still has the key?

What he intends to do with it, I am not sure. We'll figure something out.

[pepsifree]

Marty's got to get this guy-- this Jacob Frye-- to give him pointers on in-the-moment first-aid, among other things. Back home he'd always had the luxury of preparedness for even the most bizarre, if only due to Doc's incredible foresight, and what little he knows otherwise is based on pop culture knowledge alone.

He's pretty sure Clint Eastwood movies aren't the greatest gauge for real world scenarios.

"Cold water soak," he repeats quietly, having bent low some to allow Jacob better use of his other hand, "I'll remember that. Thanks."

This close, he considers his companion's features as he continues to apply pressure to the wound on his calve. Jacob isn't much older than him at all, and yet it feels like they're worlds apart. Then again, Marty was born over a hundred years after Jacob's present day.

"I'm Marty," he finally says, offering a smile. "Marty McFly.

"Sorry we had to meet for the first time like this." He laughs sheepishly, shaking his head. "Never thought 'nearly get eaten by evil plants' would be a life experience I'd ever need.

"But this place has been crazy since I woke up here, anyway..." Marty trails off, suddenly realising: "This isn't your home, is it?"

[pacificator]

May I remind you that you didn't fight the bear? You ran just like I did.

[ Look, she won't hold it against him. It was a bear. Wynonna pushes into the sleeping areas, then grimaces at the sight of a bunch of ruined books and tattered scrolls, all of which detail horrifying things happening to people she doesn't know and history she doesn't care about. ]

You know what, I think we've taken a wrong turn.

[pacificator]

Yikes.

[ She draws it out – 'eeeeeyikes' – as she shoulders open a door. It creaks, reluctant, but lets her through, into a room with several beds. Papers and ruined books lie scattered over the floor; she toes one onto its back and studies the writing, then looks around. ]

Nothing here looks that helpful, if I'm being honest.

[pacificator]

Lady, I don't even know who you are, let alone 'us.'

[ That knife looks like it means business. And, unlike Peacemaker, it'll probably work just fine. It's not like a knife can stop working, right? ]

Fine, yeah, I can fight. I'd prefer not to, though; I did just do my nails. Wouldn't want to mess them up on some ghoulies face before I got the chance to enjoy them.

[somebadnews]

[ Now that's a revelation he just stumbled onto. Five is speechless until he breaks out a loud scoff. Suddenly it all makes sense.

And they call him callous. ]

Because our survival depends on it. You can be the champion of the dead when we aren't outnumbered.

[rumorate]

Helpful isn't always obvious.

[She starts shuffling through the papers, trying to see if she can make out any of the text.]

In this place, it tends to be the little things that pile up.

[mashiara]

( She just looks at Wynona, slowly lifting her eyebrows. All the nonsense banter wasn't a fit for her general mood: at least the weather's chilled a bit, not unpleasantly so. )

That woman Karsa didn't speak to you?

[weifinder]

... A literal pocket dimension house wild be great, can we somehow connive to shove it into a qiankun pouch while leaving viyugcufc

[mashiara]

( She resists an urge to help him with the grotesque mess of the scroll, knowing help was a step away from taking over. Instead she makes herself look at the pipe, at how the trickling of blood... not sensible, this has to be haunted too, slows too a drip.

The man in the tub, ghost that he is, watches all of this. He even soundlessly applauds Marty in his successful half retention of a really gross scroll.

A useful, gross scroll, as it turns out: standing she can see what's written, and frown at the familiar shape of that wax seal. )

By the look of it, yes, I believe you're right. This symbol? It's for the Dawn's Reach Trading Company, which is apparently far older than I ever heard. What are they competing towards against the man funding our travels?

( She almost tugs at the end of her braids, catching herself and instead curling her hands into fists. )

What's this piece down here?

( Leaning in to read the smaller attached, still legible enough paper, her frown grows. )

A court summons. For that Manouk, for dark things. Light help us and spare is from the arrogance of men!

( It's not personal, Marty, it's reading about how the house owner death experimented on people, probably even on his Doxe's orders, and thinks he did nothing, nothing wrong. )

[bravelyrunsaway]

I know better than to stop anyone from pursuing their ideas, for good and bad.

( For one, no one usually listens, and for another, no one's truly, genuinely pack here for him. Changes the nature of how he relates, when they're all sanity saving by proximity, and not deeply bound. )

Hah! Conversation didn't go well!

( Is his response when she teleports to where he'd stayed on the fringe of where the old man was waving his cane. Now where he was threatening a wall, and the vines - Licyn sidles off down a different avenue just as the vines start to die swiftly and the walls being to move. )

Storm take it all!

( Because he did run then, and right into the shifting area where a dark gap in the ground shows stairs, descending. It doesn't stink of rot, but he hesitates again, holding position there. )

[weifinder]

( He is left clutched and abandoned, petting the hair of a ghost that is only kinder than the ones he survived in the midst of, only sweeter than sixteen dark years left with nothing but his own mind for company. He doesn't see it in himself, when his husband's withdrawal, when his words, dim Wei Wuxian's eyes. Doesn't note the ways he begins shutting down, the moment his empathy and sympathy cool, when the mask slides in place. Doesn't pause to reflect on the words that come easily, conversant: )

It's possible I could facilitate a permanent, final change in that perception.

( Almost a murmur, and the Adonis curled against him all but squirms in pleasant distress with his haunted yes. )

Right before we leave. To test how much their sway holds against another kind, giving them what they want.

( Conversing so evenly, so logically, over things he's witnessed, things he's leveraged, things the dead wish more fiercely that he. He dies in inches, moments like these, and for all he's found parts of himself, scarred and healing and stronger and weaker than his youth, the unwavering hopes of that time, he has his brother's chosen silences, he has his brother-in-law's love of convention, he has a world with a history of convenient hate, and he has the heavy demands of this world, to all point toward death.

Wei Wuxian and the dead. Fit companions, for the willingness to listen, the eagerness to be heard.

Gentle, firm extraction of the arms wrapped around him. The lack of any look to Lan Zhan. The blooming shadows beneath his eyes, as he aims to lead the ghost out of the bathroom, to test the breaking of traumatic binding. The ghost's, and not his own. )

[downswing]

( He should not make it a matter of himself, of his cares, his losses. Breath strangled, watching Wei Ying reconstruct himself against the tattered shapes of a decision.

The spirit seems — appeased, a child who plays at being a lover, and the innocence of before like snow on thickened mud. He used me, he knows suddenly, inexorably, And now he has found another champion, stronger.

All the same, he cannot bring himself to grudge. Ever, the weak will seek out their defenders. Wei Ying stepped first. )

...what will it cost you? ( Sweat, blood. the metallic sheen of a talisman now lost to memory and ether. He remembers: the Yin amulet, grace of the viscera it submerged in, thin coat and wet shine. Wei Ying's dripped hand on it, claws, then the grave. )

[downswing]

( He would laugh, were it not an ugly thing, embittered. If it did not stain his mouth. Why is it the living feel so privileged, so allied? So offended by the possibility of another's priority?

He looks at stone tablets and names glisten and glare back, fragments of fissured people. Someone's father, mother, son. A beautiful daughter. )

You have so many champions. ( Mouth-bearing, headstrong. ) Permit them one.

[nothinglikefather]

"Pleasures all mine, Marty." Jacob replies, and it's true. He's had a decent scrap because of Marty, with an enemy he'd never have fought at home. Got the blood pumping and whatever little scrapes and bruises they've walked away with aren't dangerous.

"Nor I, truth be told. I normally only get to fight people. It's a nice change." He says and, because he's finished working on the man's leg, and their tied arms are making this whole thing difficult, he shifts up to sit on the bench next to him.

"Bloody hell no. I woke up here today, no fucking idea how or what I got here." He pauses, glancing over the other man's unusual clothes, "What about you?"

[groundrules]

Hello! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm my only concern here is whether it'll break timeline for all the other threads happening — always the risk with open-opportunity prompts like this, I suppose. If you do think you'll want him to use it, shout and I'll have a second think on the spot for you. If not - maybe let's wait til this part of the event is over (12th) and if no one has reported any devious prisoner-releasing plans by then (shouldn't be the case), he can have it?