the harp(y) was a big winged lyre | event + test drive meme

[groundrules]

Hello, hello! Fresh out of the box is the action spanning 14-31 July, also serving as our second test drive meme (TDM). The event is broken in three parts: one exclusive to TDM participants, one that's for the existing crew, and a communal section, as... sparks literally fly, when characters cross paths.

OOC planning & questions are HERE. Existing players can use this log to party, or you can alternatively make your own logs & network posts. Our TDMers are stuck in this playground only, but — to replicate the game experience more faithfully, they can ask questions and briefly interact with NPCS HERE.

Tiny reminder: eastbound is an invite-only game for size control, but if you found yourself here, love the setting or the playerbase but don't know anyone — PM @ groundrules, we'll figure something out. You're welcome to make a note in your top-level comment title, if you're a TDMing newb, shiny and chrome!

TDM TOURISTS | OLD TIMERS | COMMON TIMELINE | NOTES

TDM TOURISTS

A great day to be alive, chipping manicures and clawing out of a salt mine just in time for a befuddled undead cavalry to whisk their visitors away, one by one as they're recovered.

TDM characters receive quartz stones that function as translation and (network) communication devices, before they are presented to Haltham.

Cursing his luck, Haltham informs newcomers they are in the frozen citadel of Sa-Hareth, controlled by undead warlord Anurr. Characters were wrenched free from the mines of deposed death king Unhalad and... two weeks behind the eastbound caravan that is the Merchant's troupe — their one ticket home.

IS THERE AN ACCOMPLICE IN THE HOUSE?

As Haltham brokers their getaway, newcomers are foisted on Caspar and the Lucky Hands, a gang of thieves set to hijack a port delivery of silvered powder. The Hands handle the theft on D-day, but pairs of newcomers are each saddled with a stolen pouch to transport furtively across Sa-Hareth.

They must escape frequent sentinel searches and other petty thieves to rendez-vous within a day at the dark, dusty and overpriced Hog & Mead tavern in the Merchants' Arena.

Anyone caught by local enforcement can spend a few hours imprisoned in a converted fishermen's warehouse, guarded by three underpaid officers, before breaking or talking themselves out. Thank your predecessors, who ruined the only decent jailhouse.

ALL ABOARD

The travel hell punishment fits the larceny crime: after rendez-vous, Caspar, Haltham, two undead and the TDM tourists join some noble passengers, who seek refuge in Taravast after vocally supporting Unhalad.

They board a seven-wagon streetcar pulled by twelve mechanical horses, heading out of Sa-Hareth down the haunted Stairs of Sighs passageway.

To keep the peace, newcomers must pretend to also be disgruntled Unhalad supporters — and to know nothing about the many bags of exotic opiates that Caspar has dragged aboard.

As they advance down the Stairs canyon, characters may observe each night brings a full moon and blood rains that disappear without trace, come morning. They can also hear the melancholic, indecipherable song of a woman — and find themselves dreaming nightly of burning alive, or being buried under hot tar. They will wake alert and increasingly distrustful of their companions.

At one point, the express train horsecar will pass by a galloping arctic bear, which will stop to salute. Do not feed it.

Characters receive a red helleborus brand on their left wrist to identify each other. It disappears within a week's time.

Test drive questions HERE.

» THE NEXT STOP

EXISTING PARTY

THE WAR IN WORDS

The recent emergence of the dark tar-like creatures gradually unsettles Lord Arha and his ghostly armies into violent outbursts. Throughout the day, the legions become progressively corporeal, no longer flickering out of existence and retaining their memories. They remain dead.

The following morning, the harpies throw down their usual homages of splintered aged bone, now alongside withered parchment. The strips feature excerpts from the letters of Arha and the Lady Hatisse — which Mazyar and his people can translate.

After reading one such parchment, a soured Arha takes unasked command of Mazyar's caravan, imposing benevolent but firmly enforced curfews. Grim-faced ghost soldiers start to keep watch of characters at all times. Some will accuse caravan travellers of being witches or spies of Taravast's Attaryl school.

Those crafty enough to pick up Arha's discarded letter can see his hands have smeared it bloodied. Translated, the missive encourages Arha to turn back with his armies from Taravast.

DON'T HARP ON ABOUT IT

All hell breaks loose as Allison, Lily, Wei Wuxian and Five follow tar harpies inside their makeshift "nest" — going down a steep pit into one of the canyon mountains, and reaching the cavernous and shifting corridors of a stone temple. The passageways lead to small chambers that host stone tombs, many opened and still holding the remains of bones and drips of tar.

Angered by the intrusion, the laired harpies turn aggressive and exit into the canyon, starting an attack spree. They throw rocks, claw or fly down and pick up stray animals and humans. Arha and his army can help you defend against the creatures.

With their main entryway compromised, some harpies will leave the lair through the fissured canyon wall, creating a crude and claustrophobic opening. The sorcery contained within the temple will seep out, with magically sensitive characters finding they can no longer quite tell the difference between the living and the dead. (All) characters can now sometimes briefly see the flickered figures of people they deeply miss around them.

Existing character questions HERE.

» AND THEN YOU GET VISITORS.

OLD TIMERS & TDM TROOPS

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BU—

Gone rogue, some harpies will target a rapidly incoming seven-wagon streetcar, destroying or flying away with eight of its 12 mechanical horses, and the sad coachmen. The remaining steeds are completely unmanned.

The existing crew can wave their handkerchiefs as the train horsecar speeds by the caravan, set to crash into a canyon wall — or lend a hand to evacuate our TDMers, more Sa-Hareth refugees, and... our good friend Haltham and two of his creatures. Also, opium.

TDMers can meanwhile (haphazardly) board off or try to take control of the mechanical horses.

Write your starters as you will, or plan out the fate of the train horsecar HERE.

FRIENDS & FAMILY PROGRAMME

Following their unlikely survival, newcomers can join the existing party as part of smuggler merchant Mazyar's prosperous caravan. They will receive food, decent clothes and a donkey, horse or elk mount — a rare upside from the ongoing blood rain weather forecast, and the tar-drenched harpies that throw down aged bone.

They will also notice that Mazyar's caravan has been escorted by a ghost army led by the Lord Arha. He travels to free his lover, the oracle Hatisse from her alleged imprisonment by the witches of Taravast. All characters will experience a blood-curdling dread whenever they think to tell Arha or his men that they are dead — but speaking the words is now possible. Report HERE, if you'd like to break the bad news.

As the caravan stops for a few days, the existing party and newcomers can make merry, recover or raid the open haunted temple — where they may find several untouched stone tombs, including one engraved with a sculpture of Lord Arha. It will prove highly difficult to remove that lid without a group effort... but for that, or any other tomb questions, GO HERE.

NOTES

FRESH MEAT GONNA EAT

TDM events count as game canon, if you app in.

You can do network-style posts & log starters. Invent a username for communicators — but you're stuck with it after!

You can use the two allied NPC undead during the train horsecar disaster portion. Deploy them as you see fit to keep your character alive. The undead come with higher strength, speed, hunting instincts and a... disturbingly cold presence.

Haltham can make last-stand miracles happen for you, but at a heavy price. Inquire here.

OLD TIMERS, THINE WRINKLES SWEET

Existing characters won't be able to tell whether the newcomers or each other are living, dead, memories or ghosts, as a result of the (temporary) temple magic.

...yes, any leftover opiates are up for grabs. Hooligans.

You're welcome to respond to network posts from TDMers — but please keep your network posts in eastbound, think of Ye Olde AC.

Comments

[downswing]

No sense of the number of passengers, no advantage in quick deliberation to flee the horsecar or stop the steeds in their wild step. Lan Wangji considers the man, their... gelid, nearly drooling companions, plainly of the realm they have barely abandoned. The dark, yawning corridor casting deep incision in the carts chained on.

And he lives for one, but decides for two in this moment, nod controlled, then aborted. "You wish to assist, then."

If the man is no damsel, and the creatures threaten him no harm, and true danger yet awaits in the iminent collision — then, they can proceed in tender alliance, see the rescue deed done. Together, salvage those buried in their wagons. "Acceptable."

And if Lan Wangji should start to drip miniature droplets of glass as he stirs forward, well, what man can blame him?

[softheartedshizun]

No, no he doesn't want to be a player in this scenario! At least someone give him an upgrade, a sword, something? All he had were the clothes offered to him before going on this horrible journey!

"As a warning, I am currently limited in what I can do..." but he would help where he could at the very least. How did you stop something like this anyway? Shouldn't everyone just try and jump off or something?

Though while he thought of ways to escape that wouldn't potentially kill him he couldn't help but watch the glass. This man in front of him was definitely trouble.

[downswing]

The passenger, his... guests, the inscrutable depth of the wagon, the nebulous numbers of the others, entrapped. On his temple, ache dances quick steps and stalls when his fingers press down, rounding.

One of the dead crawls close, as if to catch his scent. Scowl carved, he raises Bichen, yet sheathed, drawing the barrier between his body and the creature's reach. Allied in this matter, brokering tolerance — but no kinship born of their ties.

"Can you yet walk?" This, to the man, with a nod sketched tight and even. If he is currently limited, perhaps there is injury Lan Wangji does not spy, inconvenience. "Wangji, sect Lan."

Let them share names, if they are the last persons they will cross eyes with in this lifetime.

[softheartedshizun]

"Of course I can," brutal! Sir you are brutal!

At the introduction, he was a bit thrown off, Wangji? Wangji what? Oh, a name. Make an introduction properly if you're going to do so brat! He supposed he was expected to give a name and before he really thought about it in a serious matter he proclaimed the first thing to come to mind. "Peerless Cucumber," no no, let's not have that mess again. "Shen Qingqiu of Cang Qiong Mountain," he corrected. Though, wasn't that a complicated state? In this sort of world shouldn't he drop that and just be Shen Yuan?

Well, whatever, he's already said it.

[downswing]

Peerless... Cu...

...ah. A fool, then. And a madman. Secluded with the dead, perhaps for the safety of the remaining passengers, for their health and wealth and fortune. The man, mind estranged — Shen Qingqiu — corrects the burden of his name, and Lan Wangji mimes understanding and approval, a short and empty concession. He bears an appellative, for all it fits tight and gloved like layers on a shrivelled onion. For all Lan Wangji watches over him, and finds only a confusion of a man, bound by his shell.

No matter. The first step his, assuming command of their four-man convoy, calling Bichen like a white prey bird at his side, starting their pace. He walks, and the dead... seem to take dictation, and the triad only pause to glimpse behind, so that their young charge Qingqiu might follow. On his way, he taps cart doors, as the dead howl, and the horsecar's wheels shriek, striking pebbled ground.

"Masters." Whatever their names, the passengers. His only announcement: "Leave your quarters. Flee he cart." And behind himself, moving forward, as he cannot wait on screams and fumbling, "You saw children? Elderly? The sick?"

[softheartedshizun]

How were runaway trains handled in movies? Usually, you unhitch the passenger cars from the rest, right? This man seemed to be a cultivator, at least he couldn't imagine such a man crawling through a window with a sword and be this... composed as anything else!

"Did you see the outside? Do you think you could cut the cars away from the front?" what were you suggesting people do here?

[downswing]

Perhaps it would serve master Shen Qingqiu to equip himself with diligence and mimic Lan Wangji's progress with doors tapped and passengers bid welcome out, like lines of crawled ants in rare frenzy, when their hill has gone trampled.

Even the dead, a placid two enlightened by imitation, replace Bichen's work with their feet, kicking at the bottom of doors until they rattle like chattering teeth, and alert those sleeping within.

"Unnecessary," this, with the academic flair of a man imparting the virtue of the precepts to starting disciples. "They may flee to the last cart to take jump."

Caution arms each cart and wagon with back exits. Surely, a steep fall is preferred to a plunge unto death.

[softheartedshizun]

He really did not want to jump out of a moving vehicle!

But they were all going to have to jump out of the moving vehicle, weren't they?

Fuck!

Dejected he started working on getting people up and moving, a reticent calm overtaking him. What could he do? Nothing. Just accept it and go with what's there. If he had Xiu Ya and everything was fine, he would climb to the top, jump to the front, cut them all free and slow down the cars. That's the sort of exciting and cinematic resolution this situation needs!

[downswing]

Act II of this drama continues unfolding to a sedate, mildew-accruing pace: taps and knocks and the dead growling in synchrony with Lan Wangji's invitation for their dear passengers to kindly, so kindly consider — please and thank you, the muttering of the undead — evacuation.

It strikes him, spied between the sugary threads of his distraction and hesitations, to turn on the man Shen Qingqiu, and bless his shoulder with his sheathed blade. A call, sweet and dulled as can be, to belated attention.

"Be at ease." Tension vibrates off him darker steeped than the frenzy of the travellers who burst free of their wagon quarters. Be at ease, trust in Wangji's guidance.

[softheartedshizun]

At ease? At ease!? He doesn't want to be in an action movie thank you!

"This master would be more at ease if he had his sword," or a sword, any sword. Though his sword would be nice.

[downswing]

This master would be at greatest ease of all if only the heavens broke and rained down liang of sense and sensibility upon the minuscule bones of Shen Qingqiu, but does Lan Wangji complain of the world's misgivings?

With a sigh damp and deeper than the pit of the temple caves Wangji has visited, cavernous and unending in the canyon walls, he calls upon the parting patience to resolve this request, also. To walk to the next door, and the one after, and the third in row, practising the rites of his greeting, his warning, the few steps back to allow the galloping flocks of startled passengers their exit — before he finds a wagon quarter lived by an aristocrat married but in name to the martial arts, one quicker to remember his coin purse than his sword.

An easy exchange, apologies muttered in a sheet of sworn shame, for he takes that which a warrior should name his most precious — and passes the borrowed blade, absent a soul for serviceable, to Shen Qingqiu. "You are served."

[softheartedshizun]

...

Are you mocking him? Are you making fun of him?

Fine! It will do! Not that he could imbed it with any spiritual power to make it halfway useful.

If he had a fan he would lift it to his face to cover it and scowl, but he did not, so instead, he sighed.

"Thank you of venerable Wangji of Sect Lan," brat! little brat! "This old man will remember your kindness."

[downswing]

"Unnecessary." Let there be no debts between them, no nuisance of ledgers red and tallies remembered. The man, Shen Qingqiu may earn his gift by restituting the chance to live unto all their plain-faced, staggered companions. Earlier, he muttered of cultivation. Then, he must know the way, and if not the precepts, the precursory forms of the cultivators' disposition. The call to protect. He will serve in the way of their dead allies, as a curious but sharp-tipped instrument, a parting resort.

Another stretch of taps and knocks and the same bright future of collision heralded, and Lan Wangji's step soft and his advance nearly danced, as if he merely entertains himself with alerting the passengers of incoming carnage. As if the urgency of death is but the unpleasant acrimony of overly steeped tea, an unfortunate but negligible evil.

As if, once the last door has been touched, and they have crossed the stretch of the horsecar to the back end after, he is only performing the New Year's greetings of sect Gusu Lan. Shen Qingqiu, then.

"Elder," 'Old man,' by his own account, "You may wish to break window and jump."

[softheartedshizun]

Cheeky, this guy was cheeky! He could already feel it, if he were his disciple he would be sending him to run!

"We really can't break the car off and slow it down?" he was sure he was going to break an arm if he just jumps out the window right now. Give him a break! He just wants to live! He just wants to live comfortably!

[downswing]

For one heartbeat (nearly stilled), he deigns to consider, eyes lost and trailing the wagon cart before settling, unambiguously, on the connecting chain between wagons — hard and thickened like the girth of an oxen's neck, and this man, who means to sever it.

Seldom has Lan Wangji been accused of practicality, and yet here he stands, aggrieved and bereft, staring from the span of Bichen to that of the chain, riddling the possibilities. Yes. If he might so strain himself, qi infusing metal, the blade violated, fractured ungainly and torn.

...but to what purpose? How can they slow the cart's passage after, without risking derailing it, and compromising their landing even further? The shake of his head comes even, slow, nearly imperceptible. Startled.

"We cannot." And then, Lan Wangji does them both the service of staring at the window most balefully. Ah. "You fear of heights?"

[softheartedshizun]

You're a cultivator, right? Right!? Why can't you do something so simple! He would expect even that much of his qi refining disciples once they have a sword! Perhaps slowing the train would be a harder accomplishment....

Fuck Fuck Fuck! What was this? Why did he have to be here without Xiu Ya and without the time to deal with his current state.

"You have enough cultivation to jump out of a train without worry of your physical being, but not enough to generate enough sword flare to cut the metal...?" what sort of cheap nonsense was this? Did you come from a world written by an even more incompetent hack than Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky? Or are you just some low budget TV drama that can't show anything cool because money constraints!?

"As a warning this master has no access to his cultivation at the moment and is a bit fragile," but a broken arm was probably better than absolute death.

[downswing]

Did I not ask, but his mouth will not speak the poison, if you may yet stand?

...forgive him, heavens and grandmaster and the convulsive pulse that livens his long-challenged brow, for he thinks each word. And he breathes, strong exhale drawing a hiss beside it and the eye of the dead, judging severely, when he sets Bichen before him — directs her to lie prone, barely hovered over the level horsecar platform, waiting.

"This elder may mount first." A wretched thing, to fly with strangers. And yet, as Lan Wangji seeks to release the latches and open the last door — what is his choice?

( It will strike him, later, that he offered not a thought to the undead. )

[softheartedshizun]

IF YOU COULD FLY WITH YOUR SWORD WHY DID YOU NOT JUST DO THAT!?

This man, this man was ridiculous!

But without a second thought, and all the regality he didn't deserve, he took a step forward and on. At this moment, despite how he was dressed and every moment before, he embodied everything of an immortal master, aloof and slightly cold, a scholar of the ages, doing simply what was a given.

"This master gives his thanks," for not being forced to fling himself to the hard rocky ground at ridiculous speeds!

[downswing]

Rust and the old bones of metal, brittle and yielding at the slow push of a tentative hand: the door flings itself, to groans from passengers of another cart who look down the aisle to find this last one, bare to the road.

Shen Qingqiu steps first, and Lan Wangji joins behind him, one arm braced at distance in front and before his waist — enough to capture and balance him, should he fall forward, but avoiding touch for the time. They are not yet wedded, never to be bedded, and no other perversion of immodesty need entertain itself between them.

The rest is but routine, a frivolous injection of qi from the wealthy reservoir of his core, propelling the sword to raise itself with fresh weight, and driving it forward at the speed of swallows and littler birds — enough to gain and sustain momentum, never to give the elder reason for sickness.

Finally, cold, harsh sheets of wind scratching his back and nape and the healed cuts that sit his spine, he remembers. "We have left your companions behind." The dead, he means, as Bichen starts her descent. "I shall bring them, alongside the others, on return."

He must head back to the horsecar, after all. If one fool could not negotiate his evacuation, how can the others?

[softheartedshizun]

Please! So much care, he had practiced enough to be more than proficient at sword flying, he wasn't going to fall off, or get sick, again.

"They're not my companions, acquainted only through circumstances," though, did the dead need to worry? Couldn't they just jump off without issue? He really hadn't dwelled on it too much. "But, they may need help. So at your leave."