blood & sand

[groundrules]

Hi folks! Welcome to Eastbound’s last test drive meme and the second event of the Ephes Arc, stretching until 25 October. Applications next open over 20-25 October, with invitations required for new players (but not returning ones). Individual cast and game caps are off.

Test driving characters can use this space for both network and log prompts, as well as play both the newcomer and shared prompts. Enjoy!

BLOOD & SAND

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NEWCOMERS-ONLY PROMPTS

You wake to the creaky swaying of a large wooden cage, in the back of a cart. Balmy sun pinches your cracked, dried skin. Haziness and nausea assail you, your legs weak. Your supernatural powers are muted, due to recover within 48 hours. Several other carts trot by. You share your cage with a dozen others — largely farmers — and sacks of freshly harvested wheat, their bottoms stained dark.

The farmers point you towards a heap of rusted pendants that allow you to speak and glean local tongues, and access a network. They say you were recovered following an earthquake at a Hive — one of the agricultural clusters feeding the extravagant Senate-led city of Ephes. The Ephes army, the elite Hand, was patrolling nearby and is taking you to the citadel for healing.

■ Gather your bearings and distribute the scant water that Hand soldiers dole out — the earthquake, you hear, has dried the Hive wells.

■ You quickly learn why the Hand encaged all of you, as one of the Hive farmers starts to jerk, growl and shake, weeping black water as he strikes at anyone around him. Fend for yourself, before the Hand soldiers come to remove him!

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You arrive at the main gate of Ephes, where crowds vie for passage. Your carts are inspected, and an irritable woman enters each cage, checking each passenger — before taking you and a handful of others for ‘further customs investigations.’

In the back of an alley, she introduces herself as the sorceress Karsa — and says you are otherworlders brought into the realm of Akhuras by undead lieges of the Brotherhood, who seek to weaponise you in their wars. Her patron, the Merchant, leads otherworlders to ancient transport beacons that can deliver you home.

One beacon sleeps in Ephes, where the rest of Karsa’s party is scattered. The citadel has mysteriously accrued an elite, nearly supernaturally strong army that the undead lady Messalina seeks to borrow from the Senate, in her quest to free her undead companions from the Brotherhood. The Senate is yet to vote on her request.

The black water that has touched you, Karsa says, has previously been found where the undead rally. For now, Karsa gives you a little coin, passport papers identifying you under various civilian roles (player’s choice, but keep it Ancient Rome-themed) and an iron pin of an eye with a sun for a pupil to identify other party members.

SHARED PROMPTS

Decadent Ephes is overrun by rumours, after several Senators who intended to support undead lady Messalina were mysteriously assassinated at the banquet of prominent Senator Maximus Faustus — who, Karsa informs, is one of Messalina’s shapeshifting creatures. Messalina offers her protegees demonic hound escorts.

Hand army recruits protect official buildings, while the rich hire gladiators to watch their homes. Both move freely.

The Senate fears further retaliation against those who champion the dead. Senate leader Caius Justus distantly mourns the Senatorial murders from seclusion at the temple of the Chained God.

Civilians face increased tensions and whispers of curfews in the market. Crowds frequently quarrel over undead allegiances

Following an exercise in divination, priests of the city’s patron, the Chained God, spread word that the deity holds strong despite his Chaining, and he still wishes to destroy and rebirth the world.

Karsa informs the existing party that more otherworlders joined Ephes and wear iron pins depicting an eye with a sun for a pupil. She gives the party similar pins for identification purposes. Newcomers and old timers can recognise each other by their pins or engage over the network!

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THE PROSCRIPTIONS
OBJECTIVE: procure proscription lists.

You hear from the city crowds that partial target lists are circulating with the names of politicians targeted for bounties. Karsa tasks the team to recover the lists, which can be used as political currency. Find them by either:

■ Infiltrating a tavern run by the ruthless city gang of Livius Decimus and packed with unscrupulous bounty hunters, thugs and professional assassins.
A local ‘delicacy’ drink of wine and pickle juice is often inflicted on strangers. Brawls erupt randomly. Coax shady patrons to share target lists.

■ Visit the empty marketplaces just before dawns and raid the chained wooden submission boxes of news shouters, who receive anonymous tip-offs about fresh bounty lists. The boxes are pinned to the ground and tightly locked, but rusty from the cold seasons — allowing you to break them or pick their locks, while someone keeps watch. Tampering with a news shouter’s box is a jailable offence.

■ Turn in a finished thread to receive a clue!

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AT SEA
OBJECTIVE: investigate abandoned ships and rescue sailors.

One early morning (OOCly: Oct. 13), as you entertain sailors for gossip on the docks or fish breakfast, you witness the port authorities screaming for help as several small merchant ships appear abandoned at nearby sea for reasons unknown.

Lookouts spot no activity on board, while sailors organise rescues.

■ Row a small boat some 15-20 minutes to one of the merchant vessels. All merchant ships have roughly three hours afloat, as they slowly sink from numerous small erosion holes in their sides.

■ You find no crew on deck, and doorways to the cabins below are locked from within. Below deck, you find numerous sacks of wheat from the Ephes agricultural clusters, the Hives. A black liquid, thick and tar-like, is seeping out of the sacks — corroding the ship’s wood and creating leaking holes.

■ You find a handful of dazed sailors who claim a dark, slithering creature knocked them out. They were selected by Narula, leader of the elite Ephes army of the Hand, to transfer grain onto the vessels of the ‘merchant’ Matthias, much farther at sea. If you mention Matthias to Karsa later, she reveals he is a man (?) who potentially created the undead Brotherhood.

■ Seven sailors who did not know each other were chosen to man the ship. Eight men are in the room, meaning one ‘man’ is the assailing creature. You must decide who to release upstairs for evacuation.

■ Tips: the creature, disguised as a human sailor, has no pain receptors and isn’t afraid of typical dangers (fire, drowning). It does not bleed if hurt. It sometimes forgets to blink and increasingly, unwillingly, slowly morphs its features into yours, the longer it speaks with you. Lastly, the creature has a tattoo on its forearm identifying it as a soldier of the Hand.

■ Once found, the creature turns violent, dissolving into wisps of shadow and materialising once more to strike from behind you. The shadow creature cannot be outright killed — but you can lock it inside the ship.

■ Leave by small boat before the vessel sinks & claim a question if you saved sailors. Merchant vessels can be patched up, if successfully returned to port.

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THE RATTLING
OBJECTIVE: survive & explore the arena.

To stoke her popularity in Ephes, undead mistress Messalina organises a sumptuous gladiator game at the Colosseum (OOCly around Oct. 20), inviting plebes, patricians, politicians, soldiers — and you.

Gladiators may be hired (or coerced) to perform, while servants supply copious amounts of wines, oysters and honey pastries. A tiny mechanical golden mouse, passing by each seat, drops folded pieces of parchment with fortunes and riddles, ranging from teasing to morbid to philosophical or sweet. Pick up yours and make sense of it with your neighbour!

Politicians often interrupt the games to announce donations or make elaborate speeches. Toss peanuts to signal your discontent — or join in with your own speech.

■ The games start with matches between humans, but are building up to face-offs with reptilian demons, mounted rhinoceros and flying gargolyes whose voices thrall you frozen put.

■ During the games, you feel slight vibrations, and — if supernaturally sensitive — an undefined magical tension. By 15:00, this ramps up into earth tremors that worsen over 12 minutes — as columns and seats topple over, and the ground breaks in deep rifts, releasing black, chilled, tar-like water.

■ Crazed mobs rush for the exit, stampeding carelessly, while columns and decorations tumble down.

■ Dozens of the monsters brought to gladiate free themselves and hunt down spectators. Soldiers of the army of the Hand — disturbingly fast, strong and disciplined — intervene but it’s best you look after yourselves. Some spectators shout these Hand recruits practise some of the techniques performed by a recently missing gladiator — the Beast of Brenne.

■ Passing by the earthquake rifts, you see wisps of the tar-like liquid that gushes from them is gradually assuming the shadowy shape of humans. Stalking after you, they do not speak or bring you harm, but slowly steal your likeness and drain you of vigour and stamina. You get the sense that all they want is a shape. Encountering shadow creatures leaves you with a sense of bitter loneliness that only living company can soothe.

■ If you study the arena, you see the same black liquid is gathering around freshly downed corpses, slowly reanimating them. These newly-crafted undead struggle to walk and speak naturally and remember their lives, often unaware they died. Anguished, they beg help to escape, before inevitably succumbing to the instinct to harm you. Remind or convince them they are dead, and they withdraw.

■ The largest earthquake rift in the arena is overrun by the black liquid and by nearby undead. Within it, you notice a bloodless hand that seems to never sink — Enter a RNG draw to collect it and its clue.

■ As you gather your wits outside, you see followers of the Chained God rallying in the streets, comforting the traumatised crowd that all will be well now — for the Chained God’s destruction will be mercifully swift.

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THE QUIET HOUSE
OBJECTIVE: Explore the abandoned gladiator barracks.

NOTE: a Halloween special, this area is entirely opt-in and features several frights. Mind the warnings!

As chaos consumes the Colosseum, you notice the earthquake has destroyed a previously locked arena gate, revealing a decayed tunnel. The corridor leads inside a closed-off barrack whose doors and windows have been barred from the outside with wood planks and chains. Touch these restraints, and your unhurt hand leaves behind a fading blood print.

The barracks building is withered and clearly abandoned, with scarce furniture and a few weapons in a training room.

Several discarded torches stay alight on wall fixtures. Pre-prepared braziers have been filled with spirit-fending incense of sandalwood and sage. Explore for clues.

■ THE HALLWAYS ( cw: guilt haunting ): corridors flow into each other, often leading back where you started. You run into shifting wall engravings, some listing the name and ranks of Hand soldiers, or precepts such as GODS OF THE ARENA and BECOME AS STRONG / AS FAST, AS NIMBLE / AS GLADIATORS. A large portrait of Hand leader Narula is increasingly more scratched, every time you encounter it, while the painted man looks healthier, younger and stronger. Inevitably, you hear heavy steps — a deep-shadowed spectre, the Drillmaster, who starts to stalk you with slow persistence. Visible to you and your companions, the Drillmaster fluctuates between assuming the appearance of Narula and the distorted, monstrous figure of someone from your past, who heavily criticised or intimidated you. The corridor lighting changes depending on your proximity to the Drillmaster: green for safe passage, white to tread lightly, red to stop. You can make the Drillmaster disappear out of your way by facing or acknowledging whatever weakness (true or self-perceived) you have that has caused extensive criticism or self-doubt.

■ THE BATHS ( cw: doppelgangers): a long marble hall featuring a large swimming pool, now drained and filled with mould and debris. Steam overwhelms the room, except for a wall-length black mirror at the end of the hall. The more you look into the mirror, the more the black substance that covers it slips down, flooding the floors and also dripping from walls and the ceiling. As the mirror clears, you see your black-eyed reflection that suddenly screams out verbal abuse or plunges at you. Once you subdue the doppelganger (claim a clue), it dissolves into more black water, while the mirror shows scratched inscriptions of A RIGHTEOUS HAND SHAPES EACH OF ITS FINGERS.

■ THE DORMITORIES ( cw: membranous cocoons): hollow, empty, quiet, the dormitories sport strange membranous cocoons in the walls, from which shadowy hands reach out. You hear young wo/men, whimpering and murmuring that they aren’t afraid and want to change to make Brother Narula proud, before erupting into screams or laughter. Break the cocoons without getting trapped into their webs — only to find nothing inside, except stone dog tags, engraved with the names of Hand soldiers. On the floor, you find primitive tattoo needles and ink.

Luck strikes at sunset, when a previously barred door opens to release you from the house — back into Ephes.

NOTES:

■ QUESTIONS

■ NPC inbox (for test drivers)

■ Event title shamelessly pilfered from a gory gladiator show!

Comments

[nothinglikefather]

A little bit of a challenge always makes these things that touch more interesting, doesn't it? Not to say that fighting terrifying shadows with the power to take on humanoid shapes or even possess a body isn't interesting, but well. Jacob likes to make everything more challenging. It makes life worth living.

The nature of the corridor might overwhelm some. Their enemies are funnelled into a solid group, but Jacob likes that, he can slash and chop and always hit something. But the best thing is using those walls to run up, to twist and turn out of the way of a shadowy attack, bringing the blade down instead on the unsuspecting... whatever it is.

What is this? They aren't people, they aren't undead. It's something once more well beyond his understanding, and while he can fight and hack at them, they don't go down like mortal men. They keep pressing forward, and all he can do is try to keep out of the way. One touch might be all it takes, and he doesn't want to risk it. He can't risk it. He wants to get out of here.

"How many?" He calls, trying to keep his tone jovial, despite the fact he can't rightly say he's downed more than two, perhaps three. There are far more than that still standing.

[lonelydream]

"Two," he grunts, twisting out of the way of reaching claws and ducking down to stab the monster trying to grab him. "Three," he amends, then. "They don't stay down."

It is very annoying, really, and he doesn't have enough knowledge of these things to know whether or not injuries sustained from them would be toxic. Better safe than sorry, though, and Zishu does his best to avoid getting hurt at all.

"We should fall back, towards the doors," he calls out.

[nothinglikefather]

"I'd noticed-" He begins, slashing out again at the shadows, doing little good but keeping them from getting too close, "-they weren't dying."

Which is a problem, because he's sure that dying is something he might do if he's not careful. The other man looks like he's aware of the same failing on his part too. Neither of them wants to fall foul of the shadows.

"I think that's a very good idea!" The assassin shouts, and once more uses the walls of the corridor to help him avoid the shadows and head back, planting his feet hard against the stonework and pushing off, landing with a roll near the other man closer to the mouth of the corridor. He's back on his feet in the blink of an eye.

"There's more coming up through the cracks. Head to the roof."

[lonelydream]

Heading to the roof seems like a way to potentially get cornered. Zishu isn't terribly concerned about that for himself, but most normal people he knows aren't particularly capable of traveling through the skies with a light tap of their toes. On the other hand, his current ally doesn't seem to be at all a civilian. Also, his footwork, at least, is more similar to that of an assassin than a soldier's--like Zishu's own.

Clearing a space around himself with a wide sweep of his blade, Zishu takes the opportunity to jump up, practically bouncing up the walls to a small ledge he can look over the entire area on. "Do you need help?" he calls down.

[nothinglikefather]

The roof brings so many possibilities that other people don't embrace. Which is why its clear- in comparison- to the rest of the Arena. The crowds are flooding to the ground-level gates, the shadows follow them. The upper seating and entry to the rooftops seems almost empty.

The slash and jump are very impressive, if only Jacob could have paid better attention instead of having to lash out at more of the shadows, before following. His jump requires the help of another foothold en-route, but he makes it up with a bright grin.

"Not unless you make it harder to follow you." He replies. "Come on, because they follow."

[lonelydream]

"How sentient are they?" Zishu half-heartedly complains as he makes his way towards the roof, cutting down whatever they encounter. He isn't trying to make sure the monsters are dead so much as get them out of his way--trying to kill these things and ensure they stay down, he's found, is a waste of time and energy.

[nothinglikefather]

"No idea," Jacob admits as he follows suit, moving fast out of the way of a puddle of the ooze creeping up on them. "Do you want to stop and ask them?"

He is joking of course, but the amusement leaves his face as the stonework under their feet begins to shake and tremble again, a deep fissure beginning to split the floor in two right beneath them.

Jacob's running almost too fast to stop, and he glances back at the shadows following them, and then back to the abyss headed towards them, bricks and rubble falling away into the blackness. It's wider than a man is tall already, and still growing.

"Can you jump that?" He calls out - he knows he can't, but he has another option. And he needs to know now if he needs to grab the other man too.

[lonelydream]

Zishu eyes the gap, and then the other man speculatively. "Yes," he says without hesitation. "Can you?" Because he'll carry the other man if he needs to, but he can't fight at the same time and if the other man can't jump the gap, then he definitely doesn't have the training to know qinggong.

Quite an eventful introduction to a new city, this is.

[nothinglikefather]

"In my sleep!" Jacob laughs, although he doesn't make a move to jump yet, keeping his footing as best he can until the other man seems ready to jump. The shadows are still coming, the crevice is still growing, and the floor is still moving. Not idle conditions to fight in, and Jacob knows that they have to move.

So he bites the bullet and moves- left arm held up, pointing towards the beams across the gap and flexing his hand. The grappling hook fires, the sharpened metal digging into the solid wood and then the mechanism whirls, and Jacob jumps, letting the zipline carry him across.

It isn't qinggong, but Jacob wouldn't know where to begin with even saying that, never mind doing it.

[lonelydream]

Oh, good. Zishu watches with approval as the other man sails across the gap with the aid of a mechanical device. It's similar to some he's used before, as well as those his (once) subordinates used to use.

He takes one more glance behind himself before leaping forward, his martial ability sending him sailing weightlessly across the gap.

This might cut them off from pursuers, or cut them off from possible assistance, because with the abyss yawning ever wider and ever deeper, he doesn't see many people capable of crossing it any longer.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob has enough chance to watch that leap. Hells, it isn't a leap, it's not a jump. Sailing is the most accurate word Jacob can assign to it, it hardly looks like there's any energy being expended at all, and gravity doesn't even seem to be a concern. So he gawps, watching like an awed child until Zhou Zishu lands beside him.

"Bloody hell." He manages, "How did you do that?"

It's probably not the time and place to ask, in fact it certainly isn't, but Jacob's never been good at picking the right time.

[lonelydream]

"Training," he replies, which is the very, very short version of "a lifetime of hard work."

Zhou Zishu is one of the strongest and most skilled martial artists of his generation and he is well aware of it--but this isn't his home, and he doesn't know even half of what he should, here. He has no real understanding of the politics at play, the people of interest, or what a general standard of martial ability is. Thankfully, it looks like he's still more than capable of holding his own, even if he's fighting strange and unusual creatures.

"You made it across well enough yourself," he then allows, after a beat. He's not accustomed to being overly (or at all) generous with praise, but he's admittedly rather impressed with the other man's ability to keep up with him.

[nothinglikefather]

"You'll have to show me again another time." Jacob says conversationally, as if the ground isn't still shifting and falling away beneath their feet. They do need to keep moving, and so he tries to look for the best path forward and up, away from the destruction in the Arena.

Training the man had said. Jacob wonders if that's simply because they don't have the time or because telling him is against some sort of rules. He wouldn't be surprised it it was, after all the skills he has aren't meant to be shared.

Something to think about later, when they aren't trying to get out of a collapsing building.

"And thanks." He adds as they head on. "Training. But pretty different to yours it seems."

[lonelydream]

Zishu raises a hand to point out a path he noticed, "There," and then heads immediately that way without another word. It's only as they pull further away from the gaping maw of darkness behind them that he picks up the thread of conversation again.

"Nothing about this place is similar to where I'm from," he grouses, frowning. "Usually I have a better idea of why I'm being chased down, for one."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob follows, his own gaze sweeping over it and making a soft hum of approval. There were other routes, but this one seemed the most stable to take them out of here.

"I don't think it's personal." Jacob replies, "They're after anything alive. But there are things after us, in general." It's a little complicated, as far as Jacob understands, and he hasn't been here long enough himself to explain it well.

But he can at least prep this poor bastard a bit for what he's going to learn.

"Are there monsters in your world? Do the dead get up again?"

They don't where Jacob is from. There's no ghosts, hellhounds, vampires, faeries, werewolves or wizards. Magic is sleight of hand and that alone. He's still trying to get used to the fact it exists here. And he doesn't much like it.

[lonelydream]

"Not if they were properly killed." Sometimes, those that appear to be dead get back up. And sometimes, some people use living bodies to fight--but those aren't dead yet. "The worst monsters are humans."

There are far fewer creatures after them, here, but there's still the occasional one, Zishu taking a moment to cut one down with a swirl of his blade. "Be careful. The shadows are deep, here."

[nothinglikefather]

"They get back up here." He says, words short as he draws his blade again, but his new friend has this under control. The shadow falls back, although Jacob can see that there are others. He wishes they could knock them down and keep them down.

"Back home, if something was dead, that was it. Bury it, move on. Here, they get back up again and they form armies. There are undead kings, or lieges, gods? I'm not sure. But they're leading some of these undead in attacking the living. And we're stuck here, in the middle, trying to find... things to take us home."

It's very much the short of it, but as another shadow moves towards them and Jacob goes to meet it, using the short sword to distract it before using the Hidden Blade at his wrist to, for a short while, put it down.

[lonelydream]

"That's inconvenient," he says, falling back a few steps to give the other man space to fight. It's very interesting to see such a different style of combat; if they weren't in the middle of a life or death situation, Zishu would be interested in properly sparring with him. "I'll assume that, considering our difficulties in taking down these grunts, that their leaders would be even more impossible to remove from the equation."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob knows the shadow he'd just stabbed is not going to remain incapacitated long, and so he head back to the other man and gestures they keep going, at double pace this time.

"I'd imagine so. Not had the opportunity to try as yet, but personally, I'd give it a go."

Not only because assassination is his thing, but because in truth he really does not like what is going on here. Stopping the leaders sounds like a great idea.

[lonelydream]

He does wonder where exactly they're going, and if there's anywhere that'll actually be safe.

"I'd help," he says instead of asking. "It might solve some of these issues."

[nothinglikefather]

Thankfully, Jacob knows where he's going. He might not be able to sail over great fissures in the ground like their little puddles, but he has got one trick up his sleeve. He can see the invisible path of the corridor they're following, the ladder up to the roof outlined in gold only a few twists and turns ahead. He's aiming for that, his path confident.

"Good man." He says, smiling at Zishu. "It's good to get stuck in, sitting back and watching never helped anyone."

[lonelydream]

"At a certain point, it's the better option."

He still believes this, even as he runs. It's a little uncomfortable to so blindly trust the stranger not to lead him into a trap, but at the moment, it seems rather clear that they have the same goal: survival.

[nothinglikefather]

"That's what you say."

Jacob doesn't believe it personally. Maybe his sister would believe it, probably even practise it. She's like that, would rather find a peaceful way out than fight. Jacob's never understood that.

But that being said, they're close now. There are stairs upward, with several flights that lead up and up to the roof. And that's good news, because the building starts to tremble again, the walls cracking and the floor once more opening up like a gaping mouth.

[lonelydream]

They run, now more intent on getting out than fighting. "The building is going to come down," he says grimly. "What then? We can't fight them all." And he doesn't have anything on him that would work with these things, his poisons and sedatives irritatingly useless.

[nothinglikefather]

"Get out first, worry about surviving the day later," Jacob says, panting a little around the words and some of the good humour gone as he has to leap the gap that's opening up in the stone to get onto the first flight of stairs.

The truth is, he doesn't know. He hopes the Hand might turn up sooner rather than later, maybe there is some magic that can help. He just doesn't have the answers yet. He wishes he did.