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

[daughterheir]

It wouldn't be wise to draw any attention to what I am. [Heir to the throne of the most powerful nation in the world, and a novice of the White Tower. Either of those would make her a very valuable - or very dangerous - hostage.

She doesn't need to look at her hands to confirm that there's not a blemish on them. There's only so much she can do, absent a pair of gloves, to hide them, but she folds them neatly, palms down, in her lap.

Quietly, so no one but him can hear, she continues:] I would be able to get us out of here, normally, but I can't touch the Source. I don't know whether it's due to something they did to me or a side effect of however I ended up here. But we should plan for the worst; if they can block channeling, they likely have channelers among them.

[catherding]

I... ( He's frowning, not gaping, the very picturing of silent awe. Quizzically, enthusiastically spectating her and every word that drips down from her pretty mouth. Extraordinary. Not a single sentence aligns into sense. It has been quite some time since such a perfect storm of... nonsense.

But then, she seems clever and kind and mostly obedient, and it's hardly as if he's achieved much better, besides. So, the attempt, then, to translate the bulk of it: )

You're either a tunnel digger who can't dig into a seal channel now... or a sorceress who cannot commune with her source. Which is it?

( ...to be fair, both seem equally probable. )

[daughterheir]

[A sharp turn of her head and a quizzical look give away how baffled she is before she returns to gazing out over the passing countryside. Everyone, from the most powerful nobility to the lowliest peasant, knows what channeling means, and who channelers are. But not this man. How strange.

And to think she'd been concerned that even her simple white frock would give away her status as a novice of the Tower. But it seems even if she were wearing the serpent ring of a full-fledged Aes Sedai, that might not give her away.]

The latter. Though 'sorceress' is not a term I'd use.

[One of the farmers towards the back of the cage begins to shake and groan. A sudden bout of illness, Elayne assumes, but without her power, there's precious little she can do for him.] We ought to share our water with him.

[catherding]

He's sick. ( Spoken in the wistful, absurdly clinical tone of every practitioner who's had to perform surgery — even upon the dead. The man before them is wilting, jittery, clearly epileptic, lacking fundamental control of his footing and his limbs.

It doesn't take the wealth of Hector's experience to combine that with the aridity of the stinging sun and reach his inevitable conclusion. )

You give him the water, you can't reclaim it, after. ( It will be contaminated with whatever weakness has claimed him, to whatever end. But still, Hector's lubricating his stubborn joints with thoughts of the one good deed that will hopefully grease open the gates of heaven, for his final count. Unlikely, but he drags along his waterskin, muttering behind him: )

Stay behind me. ( Stay there would be far too obviously ignored. )

[daughterheir]

[Stay behind me is barely even acknowledged. Elayne stands - a more laborious process than she would like, her limbs still tired and weak from whatever brought her to this place - one hand holding the side of the cage as she once again, experimentally, reaches for the Source.

She can sense it, just out of reach, and if she were only a little stronger... if she could reach a little further...

But no, not quite.

She swallows her disappointment and focuses instead on the sick man.]

Are you a physician?

[catherding]

I'm — ( A living thing, carving the meat of dead men. A surgeon of calamities. A man, his smile unctuous, placidly servile. Like an inn keeper who will buy and sell his patrons for a glance, a wave, a treat.

He is nothing, except: ) In need of a weapon.

( One that he would likely fail to use, illiterate in all learnings that matter. Curse the man who becomes a scholar, sooner than a swordsman. All the same, he... takes a good, long look at the pendant in his hand and commits its weight — evenly balanced — to memory.

Stones to the head work. Why not this? ) I don't suppose you have one.

[daughterheir]

[A simple 'no' would have sufficed, and the fact that he didn't give her one means there's something about her question he doesn't want to answer.

A curiosity, for now, while there are more pressing issues to deal with. But something to return to, perhaps.]

I haven't. [She frowns.] If you're uncomfortable giving him the water, I'll do it. [She comes up behind him, holding out her hand for the waterskin.]

[catherding]

( Comfortable. Neither of them should be, addressing that — ...person, whom Hector only grudgingly graduates from 'thing.' Sallow, now convulsing, coughing and weeping black — there's no beginning or end to the state of him.

But the girl wishes him helped, and Hector apparently wishes himself dead. With a sigh likely replicated by every man on the continent who has ever taken a wife or raised an obstinate daughter, Hector clutches the waterskin and, pointedly heading first, plants himself neatly before the suffering fool, murmuring: )

Here. We thought you might —

( — slap the waterskin so forcibly out of Hector's hand that his entire wrist nearly turns and breaks with it. Yes. That'll do it, as Hector jolts back, ill at ease, taking another few steps in strategic retreat. The man watches him, eyes black and beady and predatory. No, no. No. )

I don't think it's him who needs help. ( No, as the man thuds forward, that's entirely Hector. )

[daughterheir]

[The man isn't merely ill, clearly, his glazed black eyes suddenly intent, predatory, and focused. The other farmers are scrambling back, tripping over each other in their haste to get away as the sick man shuffles to his feet, jerky and uncoordinated at first, like a puppet with its strings all tangled. But his movement becomes more assured all too quickly as he starts thrashing violently. One poor farmer, caught unexpectedly by a flailing arm, hits the floor of the wagon with a thud and a cry of pain.

Unable to reach for the Source, Elayne reaches for the next best thing: a hefty bag of wheat. She swings it with all her might, landing a blow square beneath the man's chin, causing his head to snap back from the force of it.]

[catherding]

( It's in the way of violence to bloom, to spread, to crest. They're still in the stage of expansion, and, by the look of both Hector and his latest ally, they're only doomed to fail if brutality erupts.

He hasn't got the appetite for another beating. He's already consumed enough for a lifetime.

The bag of wheat goes out and — splendid idea, barring the part where it attracts attention to them — Hector dashes forward, hand shackling the woman's, dragging her with him and behind a barely standing mount of wheat sacks. It doesn't quiver or threaten to topple over, but the numerous gashes in its sides mean the grains inside bleed out rigorously. )

Get some in hand. ( The wheat, which he packs in a punchful, just as their pursuer begins to come around. ) I'll toss at his feet, you at his eyes.

( One of them needs to either blind or trip him. Let luck win. )

[daughterheir]

[Elayne yanks her hand free. She's unused to anyone manhandling her, let alone a stranger. And, trained as she's been from birth to one day be a Queen, she is also very unused to anyone giving her orders. Especially ones that leave the outcome more to luck than strategy.]

A chance at blinding him isn't worth taking if that's all we do.

[She peers around the pile of wheat bags at the man lurching towards them.]

I'll throw it at his eyes. You circle around and hit him from behind.

[catherding]

With what —

( But then, there is no time for quarrel, and the girl seems even less likely to become armed than Hector. In the grand scheme of things, he still possesses some modicum of advantage, even bereft of a finger. Gritting his teeth, he nods once. )

Buy me time. I know it's frightening. But wait until he's near.

( It'll give Hector the precious fraction of a minute to... pick up a wheat sack, or rescue a trowel. Anything, as he dashes past the woman, making his way behind walls of sacks and waiting for the thudding, rattling pace of the madman, who plunges towards his former location.

All the gods he's never believed in favour him. It isn't a shovel or wheat he stumbles upon, in a feverish search, fingers blunting on wood and catching splinters. It's — stone. Hard, honest rocks beneath the hey, diligently unburied — previously set to support the balance of the wheat sacks and divide them.

From a distance, he looks the woman in the eye, hoping she catches his cue. Now. )

[daughterheir]

[Elayne knows better than to react, given the circumstances, but once again she's receiving orders when she's used to being the one giving them. It's... unusual. Frustrating.

She snatches up a handful of the wheat, clutching it tightly as she waits for the shambling farmer to approach her. Nothing remotely like this has ever happened to her, and she finds her heart beginning to pound faster even as outwardly she remains calm.

She catches her companion's gaze, and darts out from behind the sacks, tossing the wheat at the farmer's eyes.]