unkharil | event

[groundrules]

UNKHARIL

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Leaving the House of Manouk through waypoints, the party arrives back to the present time of Akhuras, in the jungle swathes of Unkharil. Those undergoing a canon update fleetingly detour into their home worlds. Old or new, you wake with a start, on high alert — body ablaze with static electricity. Some characters might struggle with vertigo, misted memories and dimmed powers for up to 48 hours, while their bodies readjust to no longer being lost in time.

You are in the care of a highly disciplined, if largely nomadic caravan — the refugees of most holy Alem, the kingdom built upon hell that succumbed to the undead. Karsa informs new recruits that the party assisted Alem’s king Deimar with evacuation efforts and with sealing the gates of hell, months prior. Their kingdom lost, Deimar has now taken his people to his mother’s ancestral grounds of Unkharil — a temple-fortress in a valley bordered by four tall mountains that serve as its protective walls.

Legend says the four mountains pillared the heavens, while snake god Kharil-asuk nested in the valley below to recover after birthing the world. So long was his sleep that cloud gods sent down the first bursts of lightning and thunder — frightening awake Kharil-asuk, who slithered into the jungle, never to be seen again. Since, sacred Unkharil has served as site of worship and coronations.

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King Deimar — whimsical, breezy, but cuttingly sharp — welcomes you in Unkharil, until the Merchant finalises your travel arrangements east. His people are weary, battle-worn and starved for kindness. Where applicable, some might optionally remember you under the false identity you wore in Arc V.

Seek out accommodations in the stone huts of the temple-fortress or the humble, often single-person cells that were dug bluntly into the mountain walls for hermit monks. Unkharil was deserted over the years as Kharil-asuk’s cult lost worship — but superstitious bandits have kept their looting away from temple grounds. You may still find furniture, pieces of clothing and worship, while refugees can spare clothes and food supplies.

TASKS

■ Assist with cleaning and reconstructing the destitute grounds of Unkharil, raising new stone columns and cleansing altars. Those with a connection to nature or the animals sense this is a quiet, revered territory.

■ Many survivors of Alem’s siege suffer from burns, cuts or trauma you can allay. The orphaned, widowed and wounded appreciate a kind word, company or help settling in.

■ Find a thin golden stream in the jungle, whose tepid waters may accelerate healing, improve your spirits or give you a day of staggering good luck. Bring back waters for recovering refugees.

■ Learn to use mountain scaling gear (rope-bound pairs encouraged) — or tame a 3-meter Kalioperus flier (useful for scouting and the Wailing below). Refugees and the few remaining temple monks may assist, but it’s learning by doing on the slippery mountain sides and with the thin-tempered fliers.

■ Largely warriors, Deimar’s people lost numerous troops defending Alem and now replenish their forces by teaching their youth weapons combat and light magic. Come dawns, join them in the courtyard to learn a skill or offer your own lessons. Alem instructors are strict, disciplined and martial — but fair. Characters who lack natural magic can learn to operate gem-triggered spheres that generate shields or a burst of fire/lightning. You may keep the gems after, but your character will need a few weeks of study to achieve mastery.

■ (Learn to) fish, hunt and forage to renew supplies. Beware flesh-eating fish in some jungle rivers. Ride an okapi?

■ Yet wary of traders, Deimar (grudgingly) invites merchants to revive their routes to Unkharil, with many caravans, errant scholars, priests, necromancers and sorcerers arriving to study his proposition. Some arrive all the way from magical jewel city Taravast — including an exuberant acolyte of old master Wrath! — and may offer exotic food and drink, or unique items. You may trade or earn coin by selling services or performances. Musical, art and thespian instruments can be found on the grounds.

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QUESTS

THE HEART(H) OF IT

”Rise and shine, lads! Heat of a jungle’s sun won’t be waning, no use waiting it out. The iron here’s rung cold too long. What little’s left of it. Shows the place was run by monks. They abandoned the smithy, once the fires guttered, and the mines, soon as the mouths collapsed only a little! Ha. Spoiled devils. Even left behind the ore already dug out. You go right in and fetch some iron… some copper, some silver… whatever yo find. We’ll get the blaze going. Time to forge. Don’t worry. We’ll make it worth your while.”

— Eitam, master forger

Deimar’s ironmongers revive the smithy of Unkharil but require precious ore and materials for manufacturing. Scale the steep mountain of Masida that walls in Unkharil to the east and infiltrate its abandoned mine to recover some previously discovered, but abandoned goods. Beware crumbling paths, rotten wood stairs and moulding ropes, as parts of the mines threaten collapse. Refugees supply golden fireworks that can shoot out to alert anyone within the mine you are in danger. Blacksmith rewards await.

PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

Visiting merchants are willing to resume trade, but have ongoing safety concerns.

■ Meet a first set of incoming grain-bearing caravans in the jungle and escort them on the last six-hour leg of their voyage to Unkharil. These are hefty and slow wagons, frequently targeted by bandits who dam their paths or pretend they are wounded, while their brothers attack from tree outposts.

■ Destroy the encampments of the vicious jungle-based Red Claws bandits. These outlaws typically attack in groups, share nightly meals and drink to strengthen their ties, providing excellent ambush opportunities. They cover their faces with a cinnabar or blood print of their leader’s palm.

■ Hold talks to appease the merchants Balthazar (easily impressed by shows and the arts) and Anathula (who wants a clear business pitch). Give diplomacy your best!

THE WAILING

”… they were so happy, so holy, then why do they shame themselves with tears now? You must be wondering. The truth does not honour us: first, Unkharil’s priesthood only accepted brothers from among those who survived snake’s poison. But the chosen were few, and the lands needed tending. Then, Unkharil accepted brothers from men of great skill, literacy and wisdom. But the learned were few, and the lands needed tending. Then, Unkharil accepted orphans, survivors of the jungle, men of the snake’s vision. But wanderers were few, and the lands needed tending. And soon, what recruits Kharil-asuk did not provide, in his mercy — his priesthood took… from the breasts of widows, from pillaged homes, from bandits. They kept even the most unwilling.”

— groundsmaster Kayik

Unkharil’s new residents soon find their beauty sleep disrupted by nightly wails, projected from several of the monk cells dug into Mount Nathadi, which walls in Unkharil from the south. These are the ghosts of former monks, whom you can appease by scaling the mountain and cleaning their cell, recovering their bones for burial (where applicable) or providing a minor service for the ghost (your choice of what the monk might desire: perhaps the recitation of a poem, an update on the weather outside, a good deed, etc.) Many of the monks were especially devoted to Kharil-asuk and to theories of reincarnation — for the lives of men are to the soul like a snake shedding its skin — and may impart you their wisdom.

WATER MY CROPS

Help Deimar’s people to revitalise local soil, seed gardens and crops, build dams and redirect jungle rivers. Water or lunar tide sorcery also work. Alem refugees were primarily warriors and will need you to illustrate the basics of gardening and land care.

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TO DAYS GONE BY

To welcome the start of their new lives, the refugees hold two nights of celebrations. During the day, you prepare tall bonfires or purify the lands with incense and sage-infused water, finding you are readily welcome in every home.

■ The first banquet night (OOCly on 25 August) pays homage to the lost: the survivors of Alem remember the siege and encourage you to speak of your own dead. Letters of penance, love or remembrance are written to the dead, read by the witness of your choosing and burned in bonfires. Heavy, syrupy and thick drink abounds.

■ The second banquet night (OOCly on 5 September) honours the living: everyone must show and express gratitude to someone alive, for any reason. Grit your teeth and offer thanks.

SERVANTS OF AFIRU (warning: snakes)

”There was no strength left in the bones of Kharil-asuk, after birthing the ground and the sky and the moon, and man and his mountains. And the first son of his likeness paid the price: brave white Afiru, small and feeble, but how proud he was! And the dozen men who caught him, not knowing his right divine, thought they did him a kindness to cull his pain young: to set him on a slate of stone and cut him in small parts, and eat of him for their dinner. Fools! Each bite of Afiru took root within them! Come morning, a dozen men woke in the image of Afiru: half snake, half human, beastly and cunning, their roiling bellies only quenched when they ate of their brothers. So, Afiru seeded his curse, and that same stone plate is now his altar: and just as he washed it with his life’s blood for men, so too must men now pay the price of bleeding.”

— old village tale

Within the jungle depths sleeps the minor, ruined temple of serpent god Afiru — malicious son of Kharil-asuk — whose mind-thralled servants abduct hapless innocents as sacrifices to the deity’s naga emissaries. Infiltrate the decayed temple to ruin Afiru’s altar — releasing his servants from their thrall and ending his worship. The naga priests are half beasts, half men, but deathly silent and possessed of fiercely sharp and venomous claws and fangs. If poisoned, your wounded limb swells, then numbs, then darkens as the toxin spreads through your body. You have 12 hours to get back to Unkharil, increasingly groggy and stiff, and drink a cure — or may pre-emptively carry a few doses, going in.

A HUNDRED MOUTHS (newcomers only)

Large stone gates carved into the northern mountain that walls in Unkharil hide an ancient granary whose wares could allay starvation… and interest visiting merchants. To open the doors, you must fit missing ruby beads back into the gate’s carvings. The gems, you learn, were picked out and dragged away by feral Kalioperus fliers — larger and more vicious than the ones you ride — and taken back to their nests at the very tip of Unkharil’s walling mountains. Report your ruby finds — rewards await.

ANOINTED (warning: snake)

”I saw him! With my mind clear, and my eyes shut, and my heart open. And he was beautiful! I ran in high grass, and my feet tore, and my dress ragged, and do not listen! I was not as the others are, greedy. I wanted nothing, nothing! He asked, ‘Daughter, what do you wish of me?’ And I said to him, ‘Only to see you.’ And he said, ‘So be it.’ And after mother Moon rose, and the good rain downed, and it was silence in this world he gave us, but for this breath, that was the murmur of the skies! No vastness greater than the drums of his heartbeat, and his sundered gaze: one eye, it was blood, and the other gold. And together, they saw me. He saw me. And he loved me! So he gave me the silk of his shed skin, to remember him by. In the morning, old women say, hunters found me in the jungle, stroking a piece of old, mouldy rope. But I know, it was him, it was the Father. And he saw me, as they do not see him”

— Laila, weaver

Deimar inherited his mother’s lands, but his uncles are likely to contest the claim of a pauper king with a feeble army. To legitimise his rule, Deimar wants the blessing of snake deity Kharil-asuk. The few remaining locals of Unkharil say the great serpent may be seen on stormy nights with lightning and thunder by those who wait at night in the jungle, after purifying themselves with meditation or partaking of ‘mind-cleansing’ asuk — a strong drug that triggers hallucinations and prophecy. The enormously large serpent body of Kharil-asuk — two-kilometres long, 100 meters wide — slithers before his chosen and must be chased into the depths of the jungles, no matter the animal and bandit dangers, before it disappears.

Inquisitive and untamed, but not necessarily malicious, Kharil-asuk often seeks to shrug off his pursuers, camouflaging in the landscape. He speaks as a voice in the heads of his pursuers, assessing them with questions about true worth and what entitles men to land, wisdom and nobility. He may attempt to drive those he deems unworthy for their past sins (betrayal, murder) in the path of mortal danger (cliffs, bandits, traps). Anyone can chase Kharil-asuk and speak with him. You can still sign up for a RNG to receive his blessing.

NOTES

■ Newcomers may be introduced to the large undead dragon, now bound to the party since Arc V. Formerly a tormentor of Alem, she keeps her distance and flies outside of Unkharil for now.

■ This downtime event lasts until 15 September and is followed by Arc VII. Pace yourselves and engage in as much or as little as you want, quests-wise!

QUESTIONS

NPC INBOX

Comments

[blackscales]

Is there? Wrathion considers that, fingers fidgeting with his own cup.

"We were close as children, but more recently... things came between us. It was only here that we reconciled."

Yet now, that is all undone. He can feel the edge of Anduin's discontent once more, his wariness, mistrust of Wrathion's intentions. All things he has earned, all deserved, yet things he had worked to undo.

Things he must now work to undo again. He blinks once, tilts his head as he looks up at Wangji.

"Telling someone their heart once changed will not make it so."

Telling Anduin he had forgiven him before will not make him forgive again. Is that the same as keeping secrets? Avoiding swaying someone unnaturally?

[downswing]

"I am told omission is deception."

But he speaks it with half of a mouth and arid, and so he drinks tenderly once more, settling his emptied cup before Wrathion with the air of tacit, foregone conclusion: fill it again. From wherever it is that Wrathion has compelled water, with small care for his burden to gain himself fresh reserves after.

"Wei Ying would disapprove." But Wei Ying is not a dark, languid shadow between them. His feelings are juvenile, superfluous, easy: the man owed secrets always thinks the telling facile. And Wei Ying's understanding of nuance only ever materialises with strange, strategic convenience, when it suits his purpose.

Perhaps hypocrisy may live freely in two houses.

[blackscales]

"You would not?"

He leans over, picks up his water containing and pours the last of it into Wangji's cup. Wrathion can go in search of a spring or stream again later, there is bound to be something. He hopes. It would be unfortunate if there were not.

"I would not lie to him, if he asked me directly, but I fear swaying him. I would prefer him to come to the same place of his own accord."

Rather than Wrathion pressing him with tales of how close they once were.

"Pressure can be... unpleasant."

He sets the empty container aside, leans back again as he thinks. Trying to directly cause an outcome with interference has backfired on him once before, and this... is too delicate a matter to interfere with.

[downswing]

And would he? Perhaps if he suffered, as Wei Ying has, the fruit of another's intervention. If he were the victim, and not the perpetrator — if omissions and subterfuge did not directly benefit him.

Nuance ever escapes those accustomed to see injustice in absolutes. Black and white exist — as does the liminal space in between them. He hesitates, accepting the cup, only to weigh it in a hesitant hand, littlest finger tickling the cup's underbelly.

I would not lie to him, if he asked directly. But then, Anduin would never know to speak the words. There is machination here, manipulation of the paltriest kind. Lan Wangji no more doubts than disputes it.

"Words and silence are choices. A price will be paid." If not today, then tomorrow. If not by Wrathion's hand, than by Anduin's own. "You understand this?"

[blackscales]

"I do," Wrathion says. "I will not ask anyone else to keep this from him, if they so wish."

He only will not reveal it himself, will not be the person to broach this topic.

For one, he wouldn't even know how to. It is a fraught thing, and of course his view of it is... coloured. He could not present a story free of bias, could not remain a neutral party in this. Could not speak to his own behaviour, or how Anduin may have acted when he was not present. How he may have spoken of him, any fears or concerns he may have kept to himself.

Perhaps he is overthinking. Perhaps it all may be much simpler than he fears, yet Wrathion is never one to simplify things. Even if he wishes it were simple, wishes they might just set aside these considerations and enjoy what time they had. Enjoy the scant few years Anduin had in this realm before mortal aging took him, while Wrathions yet lives on unchanged.

"The price is mine," he adds. "Not yours. Tell him if you disapprove."

[downswing]

"The words are not my own." The pass of his hand, flimsy, forgiving. Be at ease. Should harm come, it will not be born of Lan Wangji's slowed mouth. He has no place in this bizarre configuration of tempers and allegiances and secrets poorly guarded.

Allow him to live in the liminal space between moral superiority and strategic silence, where he need only punctuate his philosophical points with brief sips of more tepid water. A fine reprieve from heat that thickens, lingers.

After moments marked in the slow unpeeling of paints off stone walls, he nods ahead towards the table, where the bundle of cloth and thin weight sleep. "That is. Of the smithy. Now, yours."

...enjoy it: a proud, if exceptionally showy dagger, hilt carved to illustrate the serpent god. It is telling, perhaps, that the new forgemasters are yet learning: the blade was crafted crooked, unsharpened, brittle and gravelly at its edge, requiring effort to cut.

He has not presumed to test it past a first weighing for balance.

"My debt."

[blackscales]

His? Wrathion tilts his head curiously, reaches carefully for the bundle of cloth and unwraps it. Ah! His expression brightens in understanding, then one eyebrow raising curiously as he studies it.

"An elaborate piece."

Not quite perfect, but... he can make adjustments. Straighten it, and... perhaps sharpen it? The edge looks... dull.

A gift is a gift, still. He looks up, inclines his head in thanks.

"Your debt is paid."

Wrathion will just have to... work on this, so that inevitably the next time he needs to cut something Wangji doesn't ask him why he isn't using this blade. Far be it for him to seem ungrateful, he'd never hear the end of it.

[downswing]

As it happens, Wrathion and all similar ingrates would joyfully hear the end of it.

They would hear nothing, painstakingly, beyond silence and a stormed set of half-groaned, perpetually eyerolled sighs, because, truly. Gifts are for the giving and the receiving, no matter their caliber — with grace.

Lan Wangji but honours the debt extended towards him with ample and unsolicited reimbursement. Better men might in fact insist they require no such settling of scores, but at least, for his part, Wrathion respects the blade.

And so, Lan Wangji, never knowledgeable of the lesser blade — for what is a dagger but a hunting instrument, or the wretched tool of men who cannot sever bone or complete a kill on the first strike? — nods along, tickled by satisfaction. He has done well.

"It is not. Your dagger saved a life. This, so far, falls short." A nod, tender. "When it intercedes for you."

Then, only then, will they be at balance.

[blackscales]

If they're waiting for this dagger to save a life, then it will definitely need sharpening before the debt is paid. Thus far, he imagines his only choice would be to try and knock someone out using the hilt.

Something which might, in turn, damage it if it isn't up to surviving the impact.

"Very well," Wrathion says, and wraps the blade up once more. "For now, only gratitude."

A debt unpaid, until Wrathion can find a way to make this blade sharp enough. He moves his own, untouched cup of water closer to Lan Wangji just in case he still desires more.

"Heat does not suit you?"

[downswing]

"My people are of mountains." Hereby solemnly missed, Lan Wangji's longing marrow-deep, gaze glistened with the pangs of recollection. He looks away, as the dagger finds fresh home and Wrathion reimburses him with mouthfuls of water and refreshment.

Another cup, this time only accepted and held between Wangji's sweat-soured palms. He has consumed enough already. Without minor deprivation, his flesh will not acclimate. It has delayed too process, too readily indulged, once already.

"And our bodily cores churn hot."

Like forges, powering their energies, infinitely and mercilessly heated. Absenting any natural or artificial restraint, any counterpoint.

[blackscales]

Ah, mountains. High, cool peaks he imagines. Perhaps snow topped, like Kun-Lai? It would explain the aversion to heat.

"My family's home was built into a volcano," he offers in turn. "In a mountain range that ran between the Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. Both hot, dry lands where little grows thanks to heavy volcanic activity. Before that, long ago my people lived in the Waking Shores. It is equally filled with geysers, hot springs, and features regular volcanic activity but has much more in the way of plant life. The heat does not bother me, but colder temperatures do."

Especially sudden drops in temperature, like plunging into ice water. The shock to his system is unpleasant.