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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a. the terrace / statues.

( Wen Kexing is having a very bad day.

Oh, he was having a bad day before all of this, but at least it was the kind he knew how to handle. It didn't involve sorceresses, or undead lords, or time dimensions. It certainly didn't involve crumbling, ugly little statues that became more and more familiar the more he looked. ) You're very annoying.

( Yes, he is talking to it, thank you very much for noticing. It's doing nothing to soothe him, the talking, not if the irritated way he slips a fan from a blue sleeve to snap in front of his face is anything to go by. It flutters just a beat too fast to be easy, short sharp little movements that belie the icy expression on his features. The wooden bones creak closed just as suddenly, Wen Kexing cocking his head to the side as though catching wind of someone else's approach. Still, he doesn't look away from the statue, and it's eroding, achingly sweet brow. ) Who does this look like to you?

b. the grounds / bathing quarters

( There's blood staining the tile just beyond his foot. Wen Kexing pays it no mind, choosing instead to level his gaze on the ghost in the bathtub. He doesn't react when the bathroom door opens, but his voice carries across the room conversationally. )

Oh, don't mind her. She comes with the place, I think. She was muttering about wickedness a little while ago, I thought she'd have something more entertaining to tell me. ( He leans over to flick the tap on behind the muttering woman, the water runs dark behind her, visible through her skin. ) Which house hasn't seen a stabbing or two?

c: the grounds / kitchens

( Here Wen Kexing is, hair frazzled by the steam of the soup pot, billowing sleeves tied expertly back, fingers stained green with herbs. The spectres are noisily barking instructions his way, but the man himself only hisses through his teeth. ) I do know how to do this, thank you very much. Nobody likes a back saddle chef!

( He looks up as the door closes, a smile, weary. )

I hope you have a lovestory to spare? They didn't like my one about the Capital courtesan.

( Kitchens are a simple space of companionship, welcome and soothing — of yang and flame and strength. And Lan Wangji's fingertips unflinching and taut, stringing silence like a noose, between careful, calculated taps — here, where soot rises thick and unctuous, slickened by humidity and time; there, where desiccated spices have dripped to shape constellations. He touches the wall, the tables, the carvings on each door's frame.

A cold hearth and a warm crowd. The man who unwittingly bides the time for Lan Wangji's unhastened inspection appears, at long last, at wit's end over how to further entertain their spectators.

For his part, Lan Wangji concedes nothing past rasped, unstitching murmurs, as he takes the knee in gentle descent, the white waters of his silks unspooling over cracked tile. He searches, palm hovered, for turbulence in what little qi still spreads out from the ground. Nothing, so far. )

One of death, despair, parting. ( His story. A spectre politely groans. Three rolls their eyes. A few, in the back, wave him away from proceeding. It appears their audience is discriminating enough to pronounce Lan Wangji's contribution as lacking. ) Perhaps revisit the courtesan.

( There's something newly curious in Wen Kexing's gaze as he watches Lan Wangji's slow progression through the kitchen. The spectres don't seem all that invested in wrangling a new person, instead the nearest makes another move to corral him into adding more spice. He throws it a warning gaze that might be more daring than it should, but then he's obediently adding it either way. )

Isn't that the way for all good love stories?

( His own is certainly hinged on parting, one that goes on the longer he's playing sous chef to a bunch of ridiculous creatures. )

But no, I'd rather not revisit the courtesan. ( As if letting Lan Wangji in on some joke. ) He had a jealous streak. If I'd lingered I might have ended up with some poison in my cups.

Earned. ( Yet breezy, carefree. Delightedly absent, as if the world of this kitchen is Lan Wangji's to explore in idle, gelid scrutiny, without care of urgency. As if he gains and loses nothing from extending his companion's sacrifice, as a cutting blade for a swarm of spirits rattled from their senses.

The cookery develops at trickling pace, scents coagulating warm. He notches them in the private annals of his discoveries here, just as he might a pale of wind, a scattering of dust and snow, scantly powdered.

Nothing lives here, beyond — and now he crouches, silks unspooling like sea's foam, to stroke the door's frame and see if life yet breathes from long-dead wood — they two. )

Vice and restlessness wander a man to flower houses. ( A man who purchases affection cannot be distressed by the shape in which it is given. )

( A single scrape of a spoon against metal, and then Wen Kexing is making a noise akin to delight. Is he being judged? Does he care? Either way he keeps half his attention on Lan Wangji at all times, the cooking easy to ignore when he's used to it. )

Ah, would I have warranted the poison, if that were the case? How do you know he and I weren't childhood sweethearts? Maybe we were, until he was stolen away by some enterprising Madame. Ah. ( A dramatic sigh. ) But you've already cast me as some flower thief. My good standing shall suffer.

( He's being dramatic, just for the sake of it. But he thinks he's allowed to be, if he's being assessed by some young master stroking doorframes. )

What are you doing?

wen kexing ( word of honor / tourist )

kitchens!!!!

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the terrace

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kitchens

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bathing quarters

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kitchennn.

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