westwhere | blood & sand

Entry tags:

blood & sand

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

NEWCOMERS
cw: death and dehydration
Can you hug me as I go. It's been a long time -

Ben is not necessarily ready to go into the light, even now. Whether he goes to Heaven - or somewhere else - he hasn't even had a chance to talk to Luther, Five or Allison, yet, but it seems it doesn't matter. He is no longer able to hold on, so one last conversation with Vanya - who will be Viktor later, but Ben does not know that, yet - and saving them (and by extension, the world) by calming Vanya down, will have to do.

He can even almost feel Vanya's arms around him as he starts to fade into brilliant blue sparks. Ben closes his eyes and waits to open them in wherever he ends up, only to feel heat seconds later.

"What...." Ben opens his eyes, a little slack jawed. He knows this feeling, he thinks. It's been seventeen years, but this doesn't feel like when he possessed Klaus, doesn't feel like walking around in Vanya's mind, and he definitely isn't a spirit. He thinks.

He pats the solid form he's in, and looks down. Black hoodie - not Klaus' body. Quickly, he pulls at his jeans and double checks. No, definitely not Klaus' body. And his hoodie is so stifling hot in this heat. HEAT! He feels heat. Sun on his skin as he removes the hoodie, skin cracked and dry. There's a wave of nausea and he smiles.

"This can't be Heaven," he mutters, but does not sound disappointed, mostly because Ben doesn't think it's Hell. Unless Hell is just dehydration? He doubts. His joy slowly tappers off as the feelings of being in a human body once more take over him, the lethargy that comes from with dehydration, for example. He takes a pendant and feels it in his hands, obsessively, letting his fingers hit every bump and indent.

Then he realizes - there are other people here!

"You can hear me?" he asks, Ben's giddiness returning.

This doesn't abate, even when one of the Hive farmers lashes out, aimed in Ben's direction. He dodges and laughs.

"He can see me!" Chuckle. "He's trying to kill me. But he can see me!"

THE PROSCRIPTIONS
"I'll keep watch," Ben ensures the person he teams up with, who seems able and ready to pick the lock, or is able to bash it open.

He's on lookout! Involved in something. He misses that attachment to Klaus for moments like this, but he can communicate for himself, and that makes it great. Of course, Ben is accustomed to not being seen, so he just stands there out in the open. He can be more distracting this way if anyone comes near.

THE QUIET HOUSE - THE BATHS
cw: doppelganger, abusive language and violence, possible stomach tentacles
It doesn't occur to Ben to take someone with him, not at first. He takes a few steps, and people are welcome to join him, but he might also backtrack and offer, "Want to come with me?" just because he can.

The first thing Ben really notices when he enters the bath area is the scent - he can smell something moldy and old - feel the mugginess against his skin. The air here is damp, and he should hate it, but he doesn't, not completely. It's a mild discomfort, and one he hasn't truly felt for seventeen years. It still hasn't lost its novelty, though it will, eventually.

He feels the walls as he passes, fingers taking in the texture, no matter what it's covered in.

Other things Ben should probably not be so into? Looking into mirrors. But he has a reflection! The mirrors see him, and the face looking back is his own, not Klaus'. Even if mirrors feel empty without Klaus there, by his side, Ben is still intent on enjoying every moment of this.

To the point the black mirror found in the bathing area confuses him. It's black. No reflection, yet. But the goo starts to drip. Part of his mind thinks he should probably back away, but the reflective surface of the mirror can be seen as the black goo falls away.

"What did you think? You could just get your life back, just like that? You putrid, clingy shit!"

Ben backs away from the mirror as the reflection opens it's mouth, speaks, then seems to step forward, to leave the mirror.

"What the hell!" For anyone there with him, this might get confusing, very fast, aside from the black eyes the doppelganger has.

Wildcard - here for anything that comes to mind. He's new to me and I'm all over exploring possibilities with him. Good with doing an AT SEA, THE RATTLING or other THE QUIET HOUSE parts here if you have a starter in mind, if not, we can discuss.

[OOC: Will do [, (, past, present, prose, whichever is most comfortable - I will follow. Feel free to contact me on plurk

metaljean, on this journal, or discord midknightcat to discuss ideas.]

Gladiators aren't exactly given a free pass to roam, but Allison's made enough fans at this point that she gets purchased away from the coliseum on a fairly regular basis. She travels through the streets, watched by Laetio's trusted men, but she's never really been one to resist - at least, until a familiar face catches out of the corner of her eye. She draws her retinue to a stop, turning after face and feels her heartbeat start to catch.

"Ben?"

She knows there are two options. It's either her Ben, which she isn't sure she wants to hope for, or asshole Sparrow Ben, which ... while not great, is at least better than no Ben at all. But she's not going to know for sure until he chooses to turn and engage with her.

The hair might give him away, when he turns.

He hadn't even seen Allison, and when he hears her voice call him, he almost doesn't react, because why would Allison be here? How/why would he ever get to see his siblings ever again?

Ben turns slowly, and recognition starts to light up his face. Maybe this is Heaven!

"Allison! You see me? Hear me?" Could there be a better gift?

"Oh my god."

Joy splits her face as she smiles in a way she feels like she hasn't in so long. At first she's just stunned, unsure what to do, but she quickly snaps out of it. "Oh my god."

She immediately breaks free of the men and almost runs towards him. As soon as she's close enough she throws her arms around him, pulling him close. She hasn't held Ben in so long she's probably not going to let him go anytime soon, but she has a feeling he doesn't have a problem with that.

He knows exactly what to do - Ben heads in Allison's direction, so he meets her in the middle. Allison hugs him, and he hugs her right back, squeezing a little. They can hug! It's a real hug, too, not like when his spirit was being hugged as it faded.

Ben has exactly zero problem with it, not ready to let Allison go yet, either.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, still holding on.

"Me and Five have been here a while." Don't ask her to specify how long a while is. Two years is much longer than she'd care to admit to. "Diego was here for a bit, and so were Viktor and Klaus, but it's been a long time since it was more than just the two of us."

Eventually she does tip back just a bit so she can look at him, her hands cupping his cheeks as she looks at him. "Holy shit. I can't believe you're here."

Ben Hargreeves | The Umbrella Academy | Voice testing test driver

wildcard | lemme know if this doesn't work

it's perfect!

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the proscriptions

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the quiet house

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Ben just, "I will now die for this child"

crying Ben no!!!

proscriptions

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the baths.

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