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westwhere2023-07-26 05:56 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-07-26 05:56 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: jacob frye,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- back to the future: marty mcfly,
- better call saul: jimmy mcgill,
- better call saul: nacho varga,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- last case of benedict fox: benedict fox,
- lockwood & co: anthony lockwood,
- lockwood & co: lucy carlyle,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: bucky barnes,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- star wars: cal kestis,
- test drive,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan sizhui,
- untamed: lan xichen,
- warcraft: wrathion
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 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…
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. ”
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 —
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.
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!
no subject
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?"
no subject
"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?"
no subject
"I just got here, too," he admits. "To be honest, I still don't know if I dreamed all this up." A beat. "And you, too. No offence.
"Kind of leaning towards it not being a dream, though. I don't think my brain could pull off your accent."
He purses his lips, brows furrowed. "Did you see that lady before you found me? The one who talked about... um, tokens." Marty knows she said more, but he doesn't remember all the names she'd listed. There was something about zombies, certainly, but the undead sound more absurd than tokens-- better to ask about something a little more sane.
(did you app? are you in??? )
"Nightmare, more like. But I think we have to assume it's real until we wake up home and in our beds." He says with a lopsided, apologetic smile. It's a lot to deal with, a lot to take in. "And I'll take that as a compliment."
He nods in reply to Marty's question. "Something that will help us leave this place, yeah? Stone... tokens, with eyes on." He remains that, amongst the sea of information. But thankfully, there's something familiar about this. It's like a mission, go find the thing, kill the target, bring it back, go for a pint. He can do this.
"Do you want to stick together? Two heads, better than one." Not that Jacob tends to work with people he just met, but it seems a good way to keep Marty from getting snatched by another tree. Besides, he's intrigued. He's never met someone who dresses like that or talks the way Marty does. Not even Ned, another American.
yes and yes!! and i'm down to make this game canon if you are 😎
So, quite enthusiastically, he says, "Jesus, yeah, I wanna stick by you.
"And not even 'cause we're cemented together." He lifts their joined forearms with a short chuckle, then sets them down again. "But soon as we're outta this maze, we can probably find some kinda rock or something to break this with, anyway." The imminent dangers of hammering something atop their arms with a relatively heavy object doesn't even occur to him.
Marty sticks his free hand out, his fingers curled into a fist. It's as much a gesture of camaraderie as any, even if he fails to realise such a thing probably has no meaning in Jacob's place in time.
"I'll watch your back." And then, bolstered by the fact he doesn't have to go at this alone, Marty grins. "I owe you one, anyway."
Fantastic! And yes please, that'd be great!
"I was thinking there's probably something we can use. Probably best to get rid of that sooner than later, I've never had to fight while literally having a hand tied behind my back. But for the moment... you think you can stand?"
They should move on, rather than linger here much longer.
"Do you have any idea where we should head? Apart from to the middle which I suppose is the point." They are in a maze after all.
🥰
Having rested some, feeling his calve muscle go tense as he rests his weight on it makes Marty wince on instinct. But it's an easy enough pain to get used to, and one that a quick shake of the head is quick to dismiss. He's going to be fine.
"I kinda thought gettin' out of the maze was the point," he muses, but he doesn't argue Jacob's suggestion. "But if you're talking directions..." Marty looks down at the grass and where his blood had trailed behind him-- if nothing else, it tells them where not to go-- and then starts walking in the opposite direction. The first few feet they travel doesn't seem to offer any threats of peril, and with each turn they make, Marty vandalises the corresponding corner of leaves formed between their originating path and their new one. A big, hand-shaped hole should be easy enough for them to spot in case they go around in circles.
Curiously, and after their relative peace hasn't been disturbed in a while, Marty poses, "Have you seen anyone else in here besides me? Y'know, besides that lady with the token spiel."
<3
But just to be sure, he flexes his wrist again, letting the hidden blade slide free, and scratches a mark into the uneven flagstones underfoot. "Just in case those bushes grow back somehow, I don't think I trust any of the plants around here."
"Really? I always thought the point was finding the middle. Getting out is easy then." After all, every way you go on the way out takes you further from the centre. But that's getting a little philosophical. "I've heard screaming. Seen people in the distance when I was on higher ground. But not meet anyone, save you and her. You?"
no subject
For obvious reasons, he doesn't much care for a repeat experience.
"Where's this maze even get off, bein' all weird like this?" The question's rhetorical, but not any less exasperated. Watching Jacob make another mark has Marty thinking he's got to start taking more knives with him in case he really is stuck here. "If this is anything like a movie, I bet'cha we're gonna see one of three things.
"One, a minotaur. Classic maze creature." And one Marty really wouldn't look forward to fighting, so he knocks on wood (er, hedge). "Two, some hot lookin' chick, but she's dressed in either a flowy nature-like dress or like she climbs every mountain, fords every stream...
"Finally" -- and probably the most middle ground-esque of his three possibilities -- "a creepy old person. Probably insane. Probably talkin' to themself. But also probably knowin' way more than they let on."
no subject
"We might find all three. Hopefully not, but if we do, can you fight?"
He doesn't assume that Marty can, or that he can fight to Jacob's standard. Hopefully Marty had a normal childhood and wasn't taught to kill people from the age of six. But if he was, Jacob won't complain right now.
They head onwards, deeper and deeper, Jacob making the choices about which way to go- listening intently to the sounds around them as well as his instincts.
It isn't long until they come to the piles of stone tablets, left abandoned in what seems like a little clearing in the maze, and Jacob nudges Marty in the side.
"Jackpot," He murmurs, assuming that these are the things they've been sent for.
no subject
But whether he's as cool as Jacob is at it is another matter entirely. Considering their different backgrounds, though, he doesn't dwell too long on any irrational feelings of insecurity (or at least he tries-- it'd suck if Jacob needed his help and he dropped the ball, and the sentiment lingers in the back of his mind like a bad smell).
The tablets, once found, confuse him, but so does Jacob's declaration of success. He assumes that this discovery's got to be a good thing-- Jacob's expression certainly implies as much-- but why it's a good thing is out of his hands.
"Jackpot," he echoes, pumping his fist up lightly. "Yeah! Uh...
"What are these things?"
Upon closer inspection and some reading, the messages on each tablet resemble the kinds of things you'd read in an obituary. Reading an inscription out loud has him muttering phrases like "beloved brother" and "a warm-hearted mother", and the whole thing makes Marty's skin crawl.
"...I got a bad feeling about this."
Were people buried here?
no subject
"You were listening right? These stone things are meant to get us home."
Of course, as they set to examining them, there's writing on the tablets rather than the image of the eye they've been told to look for. Jacob feels his initial buzz of triumph begin to wane as Marty reads the stones.
They do sound like memorials, but they're not grave markers, surely? There no obvious graves here. Then again, maybe the plants don't leave much behind to bury.
"Er-" He begins, as Marty says those fateful worlds, and Jacob turns away slightly, the scratchings on one stone looking remarkably like his companion's name. He reaches forward to pick it up, but they're still tied together, and he doesn't want to make it obvious what he's doing.
"You never did tell me when you were from." He says, conversationally, craning his neck. Yes, he's sure it says Marty. But the rest is still obscured by the stones piled haphazardly on top.
no subject
"Hm?" He turns when Jacob speaks up, none the wiser to his plight. "Oh, uh..." There's a moment's hesitation as he considers telling Jacob when he's from, but hey-- they're a team now, and Jacob had been more than forthcoming about his own situation. If this is a dream, then there aren't any consequences; if this isn't a dream, then maybe Doc'll make an exception if they're both out of their respective time periods.
So, free hand rubbing lightly at the side of his neck, Marty admits, "I'm from 1986. Sorry. I probably should've said so sooner, huh?"
no subject
Okay okay, he was round about Pearl, but he's not wrong about Henry, or Roth, or any of the rest of them.
And he's good enough to know that Marty is hiding something. He just radiates it right now, and Jacob cocks his brow.
Then Marty says it. Over a hundred years. That's a bloody long time. That's why it was hard to picture him as an American, despite the accent. A hundred years! Everything has changed in that time. The American war is probably, hopefully over. The fashion for top hats probably is too, mores the pity. It's almost unbelievable...
And its enough to make you want to hold back on telling someone. Jacob let's his own tension fade and he laughs, patting Marty on the shoulder.
"I can see why you thought you had to keep that to yourself. It's a long time. Don't worry. It's... it's alright. I won't ask about anything. Messing up the future, right? Anything you tell me, I might try to change, blah blah blah the end of the world? Something along those lines."
no subject
"I... I don't know about the end of the world," he says honestly, "but I got a friend who once said it could 'threaten your very existence' knowing too much about your own future.
"But for what it's worth, I've never met or heard of a Jacob Frye." Not that he can recall immediately, at least. Besides, Jacob would probably be dead by 1986, wouldn't he? "So it's not like I can tell you much, anyway."
He smiles, lips pulled into a crooked little tilt, and then turns back to read through tablets again in the hopes a token might magically pop up.
Once he's moved the tablet he'd last been looking at, Marty's head tilts. The one just beneath it looks... startlingly like he'd written it himself. "Uh...
"Uh, what got you askin' about my time?"
no subject
If you know about what future events, you might try and somehow benefit them, or even stop them. That's certainly what the Assassins would do if they knew about Templar plans. But doing that will no doubt have an impact on the future, change things, and that probably wouldn't be good for the people from that future.
"That's the way it should be." Jacob says when Marty says hes never heard of him. Despite the fact he shouldn't care, he does. He runs the best gang in London, he crashed the English economy, none of that gets rememebered? Of course it doesn't. Work in the shadows to serve the light. That's what assassins do.
He mentally shakes himself- he didn't pick this life, he just has to live it. Evie does too. So does Henry. They all just have to do the job that's in front of them, and he knows that. He tells himself he's made his peace with it. He goes back to the conversation, his own eyes still looking over the tablets.
"You asked first. Said I had to be from some crazy timeline. It isn't that crazy to me, but 1986? Thats crazy. I'll be lucky if I make it to 1886." He'd be forty-two if he did. An old man, by assassins standards.
"Does everyone dress like that, when you're from? Bright colours and... whatever that fabric is." He means the jeans. He's never seen anything like that before.
no subject
"I..." He's distracted and it's obvious as hell, but Marty shakes his head as he picks the tablet up. He might as well show it to Jacob himself, because surely this has to be some kind of trick. "I like to think I got my own style. But bright colours? Yeah. And my pants? Double."
A beat.
"Did you find any stones with--"
But the moment Marty holds the offending tablet out, he notices its contents seem to have changed. It isn't Jacob's name and details on there, and what might have been his handwriting is replaced with something far more fanciful: Elizabeth Corduroy, it reads, age 43, and the contents are so different he blinks profusely as he turns the tablet around. Marty tilts his head like a new angle might change it, like it might be a trick of the light, but...
"...with your name-- this had your name on it." He looks up, meeting Jacob's gaze with furrowed brows. "I could'a sworn it did."
no subject
Jacob blinks, letting Marty try and find the words he wants to use, brows raising as he begins to make some sense. Although really they don't make any sense at all.
"My name?" He repeats, perplexed, and looks at the stone. It doesn't have his name on it, at all. But Marty is looking at it woth such confusion that Jacob believes him. It was there, now it isn't.
"There was a stone with your name on it. It said something but I didn't get a good look. But it wasn't something nice, I'll bet. That stone say something bad about me?"
He's sure it says something hideous.
i imagine we can end this w/ them finding the old guy who makes the house appear before walking in?
Christ's sake. Now the tablets are lying to him? Marty tosses it back into the pile with a quiet clatter, scowling all the while. "I don't think these're our 'tokens', J.
"Fact, I don't think we should trust 'em at all." The arm unlatched to Jacob's moves to set its hand on Marty's hip as he looks around for another route to take. "Or anything in this god damn maze besides us.
"We should keep movin', or... or something."
perfect!
Although possibly lying to his father about going out at night drinking and playing cards with thieves, cut-purses and thugs might have been. Certainly, his father thought so. But Ethan Frye is not here, even if his shadow lingers.
"But you're right. This place is trying to get into our heads. We need to work together and find what we're looking for. These things aren't helping." He agrees, looking at Marty and gesturing towards the paths out of this little clearing. "Which way?"