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

[weifinder]

( He yelps, shoving further back against the stone behind him. )

It did?!

( There's a certainty the horrible creature wants to tear into him, with all those shining bright teeth. The slower realisation filtering through since his first glimpse of white bone settles in the back of his mind, reminding: dead.

A dog made of bones is dead.

Wei Wuxian gasps, fumbling for Chenqing, pulling the flute out in shaking hands before he brings it to his lips. The first attempt to play is breathy, notes failing to catch. The bone hound cants its head, tail stump going still as it leans forward, as if it listens intently. When the music flows, finally, a too strong demand for the situation, the ordering of the dog toward the jail's bars, Wei Wuxian nearly loses his breath at the shivering from the dog, the whine that rises like wind through a winter forest, rattling empty branches against each other. Everything in the bone hound's posture shows a yearning, not to move toward the bars as directed, but toward the source of that haunting, beautiful, eerie music: toward Wei Wuxian. The stump of its tail wags with a ferocity only matched by water tumbling over a cliff's edge; Wei Wuxian stares, unblinking, feeling closer and closer to losing his breath as the reluctant steps the bone hound takes bring it to the bars of the prisoner, ignoring the prisoner still in favour of eyeless adoration cast back Wei Wuxian's way. )

[aprescoup]

( 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.

[weifinder]

( 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. )

[aprescoup]

( 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. )

[weifinder]

( 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. )

[aprescoup]

( Dear gods above, those who heed and those who wait, but he grows tired of observing this, perpetually held back by his bars. He makes attempt, while his saviour negotiates the basic skill of... breathing... to swipe his hands, to claim the hound's attention.

It barely pays him any mind. Disgusting. )

The old man thought me a nuisance. Because I don't agree with every word that drools out of his mouth. Because I'm not a worshipping slave to his commands.

[weifinder]

( The next, halting and squeaked as the hound, each skip in humming, edges forward on its nonexistent belly, tail wagging ceaselessly. )

You're... also! A nec... necromancer? Stopstopstopstopwhyyyy

( He gives up on speaking again for the moment to hum more pointedly at the dog, which settles fully on the ground after it'd started rising, hind bones bending as if it were about to leap forward in joy of the terrifying hunt it clearly wished to pursue against the personage of Wei Wuxian, alone. )

[aprescoup]

I am. ( This part, spoken with snapped, hard and bearing certainty, as if he waits upon the stranger to attempt to dispute it.

Perhaps he does not seem the part, ragged and struggling to evade such primitive confines, but he has been reduced to this. This is not his natural state. He will rise above it, he will triumph and —

For now, he settles back, to wait. )

I have no control over this mutt. The old man holds him. I can't fight his sway from here.

[weifinder]

Who are you?

( Tiny now, this question and his voice, as he squirms around another object so the dog, sad as it is, cannot easily continue it's desperate, yearning crawls toward him unimpeded. The humming helps, a buzz like frantic bees, and oh, no, he's going to need to breathe again soon, and what, this can be fought from elsewhere?

Who is he? WHY IS THIS DOG HERE? WHY WEREN'T THEY JUST IN THE HALLS! He fumbles for his device, but fails to capture it for the moment, fingers thick and uncooperative. Maybe he really wouldn't have been able to keep playing his flute... or it had been truly horrid playing. Huh. )

[aprescoup]

Deckarius —

( He hisses, and the pathetic sight of the man dissolving before him seems to compel the prisoner — Deckarius — to spring into action. Few alternatives are open to him in such a sad, small space, but he searches the ground for any sign of stone or gravel and picks up the barest few, throwing them out between the bars to target the hound.

Most miss, but one stone hits, and the dog turns its attention back onto the prisoner, closing in on the jail space to bark. There, at least his unlikely saviour is spared. )

Get out. Go away, you pestering mutt. Scram. I'll have your bones, I'll drink your marrow. I'll eat you alive, scram! ( And to the petrified man: ) Leave! I'll hold him. Leave.

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian sees the path open in the distraction of the bones and vibrating eagerness of the hound: he blinks once, then scrambles and bolts as requested, the words tossed behind him breathy, too high pitched, but audible, clear: )

We'll be back, Deckarius!

( We, because he's not so fool as to enter alone again. One must learn. )