let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2023-11-01 05:35 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-11-01 05:35 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- ephes,
- event,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- lockwood & co: anthony lockwood,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: bucky barnes,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- mcu: yelena,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- one piece: luffy,
- one piece: nami,
- one piece: sanji,
- one piece: zoro,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: ben,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- wheel of time: elayne trakand
the channeling
WEALTH WHISPERS
Assignment: the Merchant fears that Matthias, alleged father of the undead Brotherhood, might be the ‘merchant’ who was due to receive dark water-infused grains by sea from the Hand. Chasing information, the Merchant routes party members towards the docks-side underworld district of Tibras, in the outskirts of Ephes. The Hand keeps grain warehouses nearby.
In Tibras, short and decayed houses are like parasitic growths toppling each other, plaster peels falling into rivulets of bloodshed. Tension thrives. Petrified, natives overwhelmingly number beggars, pleasure workers, crude bounty hunters and thieves, who look to cut throats or purse strings. Occasional bodies drift by the docks.
■ Just outside of Tibras is the abode of the merchants’ syndicate — a ring of warehouses, private clubs and houses of currency. Merchants here are protected via steep fees and travel freely. Inside the syndicate house, doorways are barred by inextinguishable living fire — which you can cross unharmed, if you rearrange the runes marked N, W, S, E on a nearby wall in a cardinal-point formation. You can also pretend to be a servant, a merchant or quality inspector to get to the Hand warehouses. Ask a clue.
Alternatively, the Merchant forewarns that a notable guest will join the syndicate for three nights: Captain Maximilian Hawk of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company, which deals in magical artefacts. Hold him at knifepoint, seduce him, do your worst for knowledge!
■ By the entrance to Tibras is the shop of Apollonius, noted collector of supernatural artefacts and information broker. Crafty and sly, he will cooperate, in exchange for a pair of ‘eyes’ from the ghost Tykhe, who haunts the nearby anonymous burial grounds. Come midnight, Tykhe’s spirit — whose sight was gouged — appears and picks out and bewitches a pair of marbles, buttons or stones to act as her ‘eyes.’ With them in hand, she searches the graveyard for her dead sister, Cassandra. You can steal the orbs, or she’ll give them freely, if you escort her from tomb to tomb to reunite with the mute ghost of Cassandra. Return to Apollonius.
■ Deeper within Tibras is a gambling nest of sailors who were cursed by a scorned sea witch to assume the appearance of sea creatures. Led by the giant octopus Crassus, they charge protection fees from commercial merchant ships and even intimidate pirates, gleaning information from sailors and recovering drowned bodies. This illustrious group adores games of chance — as long as you can cover your losses.
You can decide or RNG how many tries it takes for your character to win — submit a finished thread to get a question! The higher the stakes, the better the information.
- — a scantly informed junior goldfish throws dice. Lose, and you must share a highly embarrassing secret.
— a moderately informed catfish, offering Baccarat. Lose, and he steals your good luck for 24 hours.
— a composed, well-informed whale plays roulette. Lose, and you must share one of your most precious memories.
— a highly-knowledgeable shark, Aurelius Longus, plays a mean hand of poker. Lose, and he asks blood or a pledge to save his life one day.
THE FLOORS
Senate leader Caius Justus exits his seclusion, ending weeks of prayer to convey the message of Ephes’ divine patron, the Chained God of chaos. And he says in a public speech:
Friends, Ephesians, countrymen…
”Friends, Ephesians, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to speak for the Chained Father, not to praise him. The victory men reap lives after them; but cowardice is often buried with their bones. So let it be with Ephes. The noble Senate tells you, the Chained Father wishes only Ephes’ destruction. If it were so, it is a grievous fault, and grievously has the Father answered for it. Here, under leave of Messalina and the Senate – for Messalina is an honourable speaker; so they are all, all honourable speakers – come I to speak of the Chained Father’s wishes. He was my maker, faithful and just to us: but Messalina says, turn away from him. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. He has brought many territories under the heel of Ephes. In his name did the Hand rise: did this in the Chained Father seem unworthy? When now you weep asking empire, the Chained Father answers: tells you to be made of sterner stuff. Yet Messalina says the Father is unworthy. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. You all did see that I withdrew to his temple, where he spoke to me: Ephes, seize your path alone — was that unworthy? Yet Messalina says to turn away from him. And sure, Messalina is an honourable speak. I speak not to disprove what Messalina spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know: you are all children of Chaos, not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to use the Hand yourselves? O, ambition! You have fled to brutish citadels. And men have lost their courage. Bear with me: my heart is in the temple, there with the Chained God, and I must pause and beg the Senate to vote against Messalina, til it comes back to me. ”
Returning to public life, Caius Justus advises the Senate to refuse Messalina’s proposal, but defers to a vote. Citing recent civil unrest, he imposes citadel-wide 10 p.m. curfews, bans congregations of more than eight people in the streets and sends the Hand to confiscate any visible weapons and to quiet or pre-empt unrest. Hand members — forced to present in large numbers — appear erratic, prone to violent outbursts and to taking out their anger on civilians. Hand leader Narula is excessively smug.
Newscasters are careful with their words, speeches decrying Messalina abound, and senators are‘escorted’ by Hand delegations, also for their protection. Caius Justus announces he will run again for Senate leadership — to begrudged murmurs among Senators, given his previous pledge to retire.
Assignment: lure Senators toward the position that the party supports. After Caius Justus’ return:
- ■ 51 Senators back Caius Justus to refuse Messalina’s proposal.
■ Maximus Faustus convinces 53 Senators to accept Messalina’s proposal
■ Caelius Silvanus persuades 47 Senators to vote to postpone a decision on Messalina’s proposal for another season.
Following the party’s previous interventions, Senators are open to considering Messalina’s cause. Many are skittish, fearing their careers or lives will end with disobeying Caius Justus. Optionally, party members previously assigned a political role might receive threats from Caius Justus’ supporters.
■ Persuade, bribe, threaten or blackmail a minor Senator to switch votes. Perhaps you can offer coin or rally supporters in the marketplace for their next election, or heal their donkey or get rid of that pesky boy mooning after their daughter. Or maybe prove their corruption streak, or place a polite knife at their throats. Hold the whole Senate floor hostage, if you want, of blockade Senators from entering the Senate on voting day!
■ Ask for a RNGed Senator if you want or submit threads of swaying votes. A final tally will be taken on 19 November
INCENSE
Priests of the Chained God whisper that the god shows signs of awakening to trigger an apocalypse. Chained and warded twelve times to prevent the end of the world, the Chained God allegedly rests in the Halls of the Sleeper, in the underground belly of his main temple in Ephes. Above ground, the temple is silent, rife with milling priests, hummed prayers and cloying hallucinogenic incense that encourages lethargy. Access is unrestricted, but monitored.
To progress downstairs, you may need to convince guards that you are one of the groups of ferociously devout pilgrim worshippers, or a priest. Below, you feel overcome by creeping, paralysing dread.
■ You are haunted by sinister, saccharine voices murmuring intrusive thoughts only you hear, diminishing your worth and paranoically asking if your companion means you harm. You are more irritable and prone to violence.
■ The halls increasingly resemble narrow subterranean corridors with limited and overheated air reserves. You reach locked stone gates, covered in loose chains and crudely carved with the inscription, the Sleeper awakes. Instructions state the Chained God demands sacrifice and proof of chaos.
■ To enter the Sleeper’s Hall, instructions say, you must commit an act of betrayal, by: drawing your companion’s blood and smearing it over the inscription (lean into the corruption!), which prevents them from entering the halls with you; or chaining them to the door with the gate shackles, condemning them to watch as you enter; or pushing your companion away, verbally eviscerating or attacking them until they flee. With player approval, your character could get a sense of what theirs is emotionally or physically vulnerable to, then exploit it. Acts of betrayal cannot be faked.
■ The Sleeper’s Hall is narrow, nearly spherical and lit by thin rivers of flowing magma that cross cracked floors. Amid swelter, you hear the periodic gulps and quakes of stone trembling around you. The supernaturally sensitive feel the presence of great, if constrained power.
■ The black water previously associated with the undead also gushes from rifts in the ground. It has a cold, sinister aura.
■ Search the room for clues — and leave urgently, before corruption consumes you.
■ Towards the middle of the room is a large, nebulously shaped creature, fully fettered and covered in magical wards, chains and blood-painted runes. Anyone in the Chained God’s presence may feel overcome by emotional or physical agony, claustrophobia and bloodlust — but the divinity only speaks with the RNG winner.
NOTES:
■ Some players have asked about potentially
■ NPC inbox, if you need anyone!
■ QUESTIONS
no subject
Light take me, where are you from?
( There's no other world that's had people with the same sense of the way the One Power moves through those of their world, at least not when she's allowed she may well see it, may well be attuned to it. Yet that's not for the here and now, and instead the door finally gives under their combined efforts.
It also, in its not so helpful way, isn't ready to let them and the guard through, because there's no way she's ready to let a younger woman thrust herself first into danger; she's not that far gone from the lifetime of responsibility she'd been adopted into in the Two Rivers.
(One day, she might reflect in near delirium on how she, Egwene, and the Elayne she'll know are at heart leaders of different and complementary types, none inclined to bowing heads or truly caving before the painful demands of the world. This day, she simply is a woman stuck holding a man with another, younger woman.)
She grunts, hefting him more to her side and a step away from the door, opening up access for Elayne. )
Fine! Just be quick about it.
( Because lingering is inviting trouble, and she's had enough uninvited trouble to last her several turnings of the Wheel, and she's not even in the timeline where their world is threatened into unmaking depending on how the Dragon Reborn moves within the world they've been reborn into. )
no subject
But she answers the question, her tone clipped and efficient, because they haven't got time to waste on pleasantries right now.]
I'm from the city of Caemlyn in a country called Andor. [Even if they had time to go into detail, Elayne doesn't see the point: no one here knows where Caemlyn or Andor are, or what it might mean were she to elaborate on her title. But the woman's tone... Does she recognize that Elayne is channeling? Unlike everyone else that Elayne has met so far in this world, is this stranger familiar with the One Power?
She peers around the doorframe, quickly scanning both it and the space beyond for anything that looks like a trap before she steps through, bracing to weave herself a protective shield should the need arise. But no trap is sprung, and everything here seems quiet.]
It's safe. Bring him through. [She turns back to help with carrying the guard.]
no subject
( The truism, that those of the Two Rivers largely don't seem to realise they're part of Andor by the drawing of boundaries they have nothing to do with... holds true.
Nynaeve squints a touch, but more of it sources to the weight of the guard, then the hefting of him through. If she could simply bully an unconscious man through, she likely would, but as that's not practical, and it's not in the end in her nature to be entirely bereft of kindness when one poses no more threat to those she's watching over.
Which is to say, once he's through the door, she helps lower him to the floor and checks his breath and pulse, nodding grimly to herself, expression back to its mix of not quite worried and not quite irritated. It's efficient, before she looks back at the stacked grain, at the scent of the room. Still crouched, she says: )
He'll wake. This is a warehouse for grain?
( Graineries a bit different than she's used to, but the scent: something in it has the unpleasant taste of familiarity. Nynaeve rises, moving once more on quiet feet as she can make it on the wood plank flooring, reaching for the knife at her hip. There's something almost... damp, about the sacks of grain as she approaches. A pool of dark near her feet might even be shadow, but she stops before it, gesturing back in case the young woman from Caemlyn is following close behind. )
It's gone off. This scent, whatever is here on the ground... I've seen this before in this world. A deathly kind of magic.
( A small pause, before she adds: )
Nothing like the One Power. As far as I've learned, there's no weaving when it comes to the magics of this realm.
( Ignoring, willfully, that she has no skill or knowledge of weaving, only the word and the familiarity of it, once truly understood. )
no subject
I've seen it too. I woke up in a cage in a cart being brought to the city. There were sacks of grain, stained dark like this. One of the farmers in the cage seemed to go mad, an his eyes were leaking dark water... [The same dark water she found in the abandoned baths. It's everywhere here, it seems.
She pulls out the vial with the sample of dark water she took from the baths, comparing it to the puddle on the floor. It appears to be the same stuff.
Elayne can't help the smug look that crosses her face. So she was right, this woman is familiar with the One Power.]
You're the first person I've met here who knows of the One Power. You can see my weaves, can't you?
no subject
It takes hold, the waters. Fills a person, tries to become a person. So I've heard, and seen.
( She looks back to where Elayne holds a vial of dark water, and frowns, stepping closer while avoiding the slow spreading, viscous fluid at their feet. Feels the flicker of annoyance and lets it warm her belly when Elayne manages to look smug over something that is, in and of itself, extremely annoying. )
It hardly matters.
( She lifts her gaze, lips thinning. )
The forces we face here are unconcerned with the One Power, tainted or clean. It's something entirely different. Not limited in who can learn.
( Something far more equal, from the woman who chooses not to think about her own display of overwhelming power that had saved all but one from dying of the wounds that should have seen them all good for little but the next turning of the Wheel.
She flicks her fingers to the vial: )
The magic that makes this doesn't need weaving. It purposes itself.
no subject
All information is useful information, even if it doesn't make sense yet. There's something here that Elayne just can't see yet, a pattern she can't quite figure out, but she will. She's confident she will. And so each piece of information that Nynaeve gives her is carefully added to her collection of dark water knowledge.]
I've been experimenting with the water. If I can figure out how it works, we'll know how to stop it. But so far, it's resisted all my efforts. Almost as though it has a mind of its own.
[She steps around the pool of spreading water to peer more closely at the grain itself. These ones are drenched, the sacks themselves so saturated with the water that it's leaking. But on another pallet are piled sacks not nearly so steeped in water.]
They're labeled differently, look.