the lighthouse & plot rolls

[groundrules]

Did someone say to… turn off the lights? Brace to explore Ellethia’s ghostly lighthouse — and help with a freshly baked plot roll. The below should tide us until 6 February.

If you’ve received a plot roll and want to rally the troops for assistance, feel free to top level for your search here, or do your own lostcompass post, hunt down a carrier pigeon…

Note: Ellethia is surprisingly fertile ground for plot opportunities, and there is "spare plot" for about four more character. If you missed the 'deadline' to ask for a roll but still want one, drop a line in one of the subsections! But don't feel pressured: the people who have received a plot roll will need a lot of support, and there're plenty of ways to get involved with their roll. Allocated, thank you!

THE LIGHTHOUSE

---

Crawling, clandestine or crumbling, you’ve made your way to the mist-drenched lighthouse of Ellethia-Hamsour — a gargantuan, converted tower that regularly flashes an eerie green light signal. Those who know MORSE code can recognise a strange mix of BEWARE, STAY AWAY, DANGER — and COME THIS WAY.

The compulsion to possess the lighthouse disappears when characters come in a 3km radius of it. In the tower surroundings, they can find sweet water wells, vegetable gardens, chicken coops and sheep, all seemingly well looked after and self-replenishing overnight. These plants and creatures are not subject to Ellethia’s life-death-rebirth cycles. Characters who stay within the aforementioned 3km range of the lighthouse can now safely remove their haute couture red gear, Enam reveals. He urges the party to reside at the lighthouse for the next three weeks, at the end of which one of the Merchant’s ships will collect them to travel east.

Characters can journey back and forth to Ellethia-Allayar over this period.

The tower spreads over 12 floors, featuring exceptionally high and vast rooms with emptied bookcases, sturdy tables, and scatterings of technological tools on the ground. On the walls, mindful visitors can spot discreet engravings of an eye with a sun instead of a pupil. A room on the ground and first floor each have cracked signs, spelling out IN TI T OF TE N LO and IBRAR O AR S, respectively. The 8th and 9th floor house well-used sleeping quarters, with bathing rooms located on the 6th floor. The 10th floor is all one large room, barren except for the wealth of very thin, crushed shards of various mirror types. The 5th floor hosts several long, ornate discussion tables — at night, those who travel it can hear ghostly whispers of vitriolic conversation, with speakers insulting each other and their impudence.

Those who spend time in the 1st to 4th floor past midnight will sometimes hear screams urging everyone to retreat, as “they come from above.” Sometimes, the long staircases will grow wet overnight with blood and decay, which disappear come morning. Across the various floors, the nightly ‘soundtrack’ includes panicked shouts, glass smashing, feral screams similar to those of the undead and running steps.

Image source.

The lighthouse keeper Zenobius takes little notice of his visitors, allowing them to make their quarters where they please and partake of his resources. Enam’s helpers supply Kaneki some lugged-around stale dead meat, or he can fish undead mermaids. Using a fluffy sheep as bait is always recommended.

Zenobius is often found on the 12th level, absentmindedly using mirrors, lantern lights and glass panes to flash MORSE indications. He is often rushed, distracted and unwilling to converse. Sometimes, he appears to forget the people he has already encountered; on other occasions, his own name eludes him.

Swarms of mermaids encircle the coastal area close to the lighthouse, furious, feral and trashing to crawl onto shore. Every few days, Zenobius brings broken glass pieces from the 12th floor and throws them in the water, briefly appeasing the creatures before their fury stokes once more.

Every day, Zenobius spends several hours on the 11th floor, whose main entrance is sternly locked and enchanted. Characters can still climb to the 12th floor — where Zenobius sleeps — without entering the 11th floor hallways. To the right of the 11th floor main hallway door is a mechanical device that requires a palm print, which Zenobius seems uses for entry. On the door, a sign asks, WHAT DO YOU WISH FOR? Scratched beneath it, possibly by human nails, TURN BACK. For each time they want to enter the 11th floor halls, characters must speak a different wish and face the consequences.

Inside the room sleep 10 men and women of various ages, seemingly comatose on stone slates. Some show signs of scratches or healed bite injury. Depending on the hour of entry, you might find Zenobius sponge washing their bodies, combing their hair, mending their clothes or massaging their limbs.

The Sleepers live.


PLOT ROLLS

■ Lily, Joker and Anduin

■ Five and Daenerys

■ Yennefer, Eleven and Moiraine

■ Lorna, Wrench and Marcos

■ Zuko and Slick

■ John Connor and Kaneki

■ Hermione and Jon Snow

Comments

QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

Let's try to keep questions for anything exploration-linked until 25 January, if possible - thank you!

MAKE A WISH

[groundrules]

Ah, that pesky ol' door.

Rules of engagement: character who make a wish will find it realised in a distorted way, as their price of passage.

Please submit a wish for every time you want the character to go in, for no more than three entries/character.

PLOT ROLLS

[groundrules]

While those who've requested the plot rolls are primarily responsible for the quests, anyone can join in and help out — don't hesitate to plot with the players, if they need an extra hand.

Plot roll recipients who get some juicy information: please try to spread the joy of the clues with the entire group (via network posts, logs, whatever you prefer)!

Thank you :)

LILY, JOKER AND ANDUIN

[groundrules]

One fine morning around 20 January, dear Zenobius enthusiastically — for a man so rickety, his joints squeaking — rushes up the lighthouse to the 12th floor. Perhaps Lily, Joker and Anduin are already there, enjoying the view, or they’re lured in by the bustle, or called over by Zenobius.

Regardless of how they join, they see Zenobius abuzz, neglecting his audience to flash the lighthouse signals. Using the lighthouse telescopes, the trio can see a large commercial ship at distance, caught in a storm. It is turning towards the lighthouse, after being summoned over, but remains at about an hour’s distance.

The damaged vessel has released smaller rowing boats into the water. These ships have set out for the lighthouse shore.

All is well, until the trio realise that Ellethia’s shoreline is highly mist-enshrouded, preventing visibility in a way that will endanger incomers — and that Zenobius’ light flashes have also attracted the legions of mermaids. The creatures stir, circling the lighthouse coast. Some even depart the region, attentively preparing to receive their prey.

Given the number of mermaids, the state of the incoming ship and the frailty of the small boats, it appears unlikely any arriving refugee will survive.

The previously exhilarated Zenobius suddenly awakens from his manic glee. He is confused at first, then struck, then weeping — unable to speak, and only shaking his head, before quietly retreating down in the lower lighthouse levels.

Never mind him. ‘Luckily,’ small row boats take longer to cross a distance than their XXL-sized ship counterpart, so you have two hours to stop their arrival.

Will the trio find a way to prevent the refugees from coming in?

Please pitch a way to make this happen — feel free to recruit others to help! — and you’ll get an outcome for your fine efforts, once you’ve threaded the successful rescue.

...and another outcome if that’s not possible!

FIVE AND DAENERYS

[groundrules]

Any point before 5 February: No time like the present to be a terrible guest. One fine morning, Daenerys’s companion Drogon returns to her his latest catch — a tattered grey coat that is more patches than garment, brought down from the 12th floor — the site of the lighthouse lanterns, and good Zenobius’ sleeping abode. It appears Drogon hasn’t helped the coat’s wear and tear, with its frayed edges now also showing signs of heavy burning. He brings down various items from Zenobius’s lair — all rags and debris, torn tools and trinkets, such as half-finished clocks and mechanical gear. Zenobius’s scent fascinates the dragon.

Drogon takes to following Zenobius around, often neglecting Daenerys’s calls or orders. He spends much of his time on the 10th floor — in a fortuitous turn of events for Five, who finds himself in the level’s hall of mirror shards, every time he seeks to teleport anywhere. Even when Five doesn’t, he is compelled to the floor, a part of him wishing to be close to the halls. The shards give him a feeling of distanced, eerie coldness, very similar to that of the mirror already inside of him.

At one point, when Five has been compelled to piece together some shards of a dark silver mirror, he sees the very pale blue eye of another man staring from within. To his luck (?), Drogon flies in, calling on Daenerys to follow him, and destroys the reconstructed mirror part.

One dragon can only do so much. Hereon, Five and Daenerys both feel called to restitch the dark silver mirror, one fine shard at a time. Every time they connect another shard, they briefly lose a memory, for something like a 6-hour span. The memory losses deepen the longer they spend gazing into their reconstruction, giving them an air not unlike that of poor, perpetually confused Zenobius.

The lost memories need not be the same ones every time, and it’s up to you whether they are minor or major. Sharing the work with others spread out the memory losses, but it will also condemn new participants to feeling compelled to piece back the mirror themselves. ( Five and Daenerys would not ICly know this. )

As pieces accrue, Five and Daenerys start to see a man wearing a white coat in the restitched mirror.

How much of the mirror do Five and Daenerys reconstruct?

YENNEFER, ELEVEN AND MOIRAINE

[groundrules]

Around late 27 January, Yennefer, Eleven and Moiraine are approached by a bright, if wild-eyed Zenobius, who appears in a rare state cohesion. He says they want their yearly ablutions, pointing to the large wooden baths he is struggling to carry, alongside salts, incense and other bathing instruments. He requests help with the proceedings, and lures the trio up to the 11th floor, where he offers his palm to the mechanical device and gains entry to the great Sleepers’ hall. He takes the three within.

There, Zenobius begins to reverently toil around each of the Sleepers. With the trio’s help, he lifts and deposits some of the Sleepers in the tubs and shows them how to carry out the washing, murmuring to the Sleepers that they are too stubborn, hasty and proud.

As they attend the bathing, each member of the trio will be suddenly grasped by a Sleeper and will succumb into an immediate sleep. They become spectators of what appears to be the memory-dreams of several Sleepers — flashed, violent glimpses, often incoherent.

They can witness as follows:

■ Yennefer: memory 1: a vibrantly red sunset through an open window on the ground floor — the collapsed viewer drags his bloodied arm to his chest, showing bites and scratches; memory 2: a woman of the Sleepers sees her reflection in several large round mirrors in the 10th floor hall; she pushes her short hair out of her face — her reflection in the mirror before her does exactly the same, while in one of the mirrors the reflection moves significantly more slowly, in another reflection she lacks the hand, in a third she is bald, in the fourth her hair is luscious, beautiful and long, and in the sixth, the hand of her reflection reaches physically out from the mirror to touch her hair.

■ Eleven: memory 1: feet, rushing down the stairwell, to an explosion of violence behind the viewer, just as he slips down; struck, he turns his head to see undead pursuers and scrambles up; memory 2: a hidden viewer peers through a cracked door into the discussion hall, where two other Sleepers gift a third man a white, better decorated version of their grey uniform coats; he hesitates to accept it, until one of the Sleepers says, ‘He resigned. Take us to the new era.’

■ Moiraine: memory 1: eight of the Sleepers and the viewer laugh as a man sheepishly reveals his dreadful haircut — screams erupt from higher up, and a woman running down the stairs tells the group to flee; memory 2: the viewer nudges a young man forward in the queue of at least half a dozen others, who are lined up to speak to a vast, dark mirror on the 10th floor. The young man nearest to the mirror excitedly murmurs something. Moments later, he bursts into a howling fit of panic at whatever he sees within.

■ Communally (the trio members can see each other as present in the dream memory, but cannot be seen by anyone else in the memory): memory 1: a very large group, including nine of the Sleepers and a more upbeat Zenobius, celebrates with drink in the Sleeper’s hall; the bright light peering in suggests the time is late morning or midday; memory 2: the same hall, its celebratory ornaments tattered, and the hour late evening; the viewer sees a woman’s hands, cut on the large piece of mirror glass she is still holding; ahead of her, nine Sleepers appear battered, anxious but resigned.

The trio can awaken by either:

■ Traversing into the dream of another random (regularly) sleeping party member and persuading that person to wake up, which will in turn wake up their ‘visitor’ in the Sleepers’ hall. The character would not be able to choose whose dream they visit. Please find a volunteer whose dream you can invade on your own!

■ Throwing themselves off of the dream-tower’s balconies — note that they would never die, but jolt awake. The compulsion to fling oneself from the tower starts to grow, the longer they spend in the dream.

Each of our fine adventurers wakes somehow knowing:

■ Yennefer: The Sleepers cannot ever wake.

■ Eleven: The Sleepers relieve their memories each night, to endless suffering.

■ Moiraine: The Sleepers beg to die.

Zenobius has already fled the halls, by the time the triad wakes. He has completely forgotten the episode, if he is asked about it later.

Yennefer, Eleven and Moiraine wake with a dark, gunmetal silver mark not unlike an ache-less burn print on their limbs, in the shape of the hand of the Sleeper who touched them. The mark remains until they leave Ellethia.

Note: once Moiraine, Eleven and Yennefer leave the 11th floor hall, they need to speak a wish to get back in, just as everyone else. Please try to share the dream memory info with the broader group.

Will one or all of the three euthanise the Sleepers?

( You can, of course, coerce someone else to help with the bloody cause. )

LORNA, WRENCH AND MARCOS

[groundrules]

Come nightfall around 30 January, our three good friends might be independently minding their own business in the lighthouse gardens or on the lower floors, when they find themselves… enthralled by a siren’s call.

Compelled, they walk the coastline to where they see a single, beautiful mermaid singing as she lies perched on a rock. She is addressing the sea, rather than the lighthouse, making Lorna, Wrench and Marcos involuntary ‘casualties’ of her music. A keen eye might spot her flesh is littered with scars bearing the marks of an eye with the sun as a pupil. The hooligans can spot other mermaids answering their leader’s call, all looking notably exhausted after a day of violently circling the lighthouse and keeping intruders at bay.

The trio should hide behind rocks and coast fixtures to avoid detection, or face the mermaids’ wrath for snooping. As the sirens rise to the surface, largely sprawling on rocks and the coast-side, anyone in the Wrench, Lorna and Marcos group who has ventured close enough to the creatures can spot they are in an ugly state of battering, their skin littered with many healed wounds, often missing teeth, claws, scales or even chunks of their fins.

The younger mermaids seem enthralled with the lighthouse, physically fighting their elders to reach the coast before being wrenched back. The leading mermaid addresses them in a chirpy, slick tongue that communicators cannot translate. It resembles the dulcet cooing of a bat. Gradually, some exhausted sirens assemble in groups to patrol the sea stretch between Ellethia-Hamsour and Ellethia-Allayar. They are visibly less dangerous now than during daylight. The trio can see some dead mermaids among them, hollow-eyed and drifting, but working alongside their living siblings.

The younger mermaids are meanwhile directed towards the narrow entrance to a cenote cave near the lighthouse. They will sleep in this cave pool all night. The area can be infiltrated, but is under the watchful eye of the leading mermaid.

What do Lorna, Wrench and Marcos do?

ZUKO AND SLICK

[groundrules]

After 23 January: An apple a day keeps the doctor away — and glass seems to satisfy mermaids. Every day, our friend Zenobius pays tribute to the sirens, who have gotten increasingly more incensed and agitated, the longer the travellers extend their visit.

As the shards of glass fail to pacify them, the mermaids become ravenous and violent, throwing themselves at coast rock, clawing their way up stone and attempting to come on land. They can survive a few minutes ashore easily, attempting to grab men and animals and to pull them back with them into the water. As they gradually start to scratch and tear at the lighthouse foundation, Zenobius decides to ‘upgrade’ his bribe to the creatures and drafts Zuko and Slick to assist him.

They are taken to the 10th floor, where a wealth of glass and mirror shards awaits. Zenobius instructs the duo to collect some ten-twelve shards of dark mirror glass and to crush it into a powder. Zenobius then coats rags and pieces of wood in molten candle wax, loosely applying the powder on top to create baits.

He instructs Slick and Zuko to go to the coastline and throw a bait into the sea, ideally at a mermaid, every few hours. Some three-four bait pieces should be thrust at the mermaids per day, for two days. If they assist, Zuko and Slick will find that:

■ They become the subject of a great deal of malign attention, with sirens trying to lure them out and cruelly tear them down

■ If they throw bait that falls in the distant sea without reaching a mermaid, the water in a small (100m) radius of the landing spot will turn a gunmetal grey, bubbling and sulphuric, before the strain disperses

■ If the bait falls in shallow water very close to shore, it sinks within sand, burrowing in. If sought or dug out after, the bait is completely devoid of any trace of powder

■ If a mermaid catches the bait, its entire body appears to briefly flash an oily, gunmetal grey. It holds on to the bait, seemingly entranced and enamoured with its capture — before other sirens swarm her, tearing her apart in a battle royale for the bait. About three-four mermaids die every time a bait is caught, and the fighting does not cease until the bait has dropped into the sea.

■ The mermaids appear frantic and anguished every time they have slain their fellows, starting a long song of mourning. They nevertheless cannot help themselves and resume squabbling for bait, whenever a new piece is thrown in.

■ Some of the more ‘socialised’ mermaids attempt to negotiate by mimicking human voices and repeating phrases they’ve heard the lighthouse occupants speak. Their grasp of the vocabulary is clearly crude, clumsy and foreign — like an animal performing a trick for a treat, more than a human being poorly using a new language.

How many bait pieces do Zuko and Slick throw in?

[lancifolium]

Thank you so much this is delicious! While we talk this all over, we're unclear as to why we need to stop the refugees from coming in? Is it a matter of helping them means being swarmed by mermaids and bringing them back to the lighthouse/certain death, or something else?

[groundrules]

Hi — you have a high level of mist and an entire swarm of mermaids hiding in it, in between the lighthouse and the boats.

Re: FIVE AND DAENERYS

[song_of_fire]

Omg this is amazing. I guess the obvious question is, how potent is dragon fire against the shards?

[groundrules]

So, glass requires a very high temperature to melt — something like 1,400-1,600 C (2,552 F to 2,912 F ). I'm afraid I don't know how strong Drogon's flame is.

[song_of_fire]

Jeez, thank you ASOIAF fanboys for giving me the numbers.

"Balerion's fire had temperature of around 3300°F/1800°C, which was enough to melt the stone walls of Harrenhal. Drogon's fire is much cooler (1500°F/800°C - 1800°F/1000°C)" - So maybe not melt it, but it can at least blast it apart, I would think?

[groundrules]

Well — based off that, yes.

But if you have Drogon do that, you're kind of ending your plot roll there. I'm happy to go with that, if that's what you guys want! But you're closing the door on your plotline.

[song_of_fire]

I'll hold that off then until the last possible minute. This will play out for awhile. We're still discussing things. So Drogon might save them in the end or might now, but he might knock apart the mirror whenever they get pretty far.

[groundrules]

Sure! You can use the excuse that he's still fascinated with and stalking Zenobius, whenever he's not around.

[violetchaos]

Such a wonderful plot to start with! One question (I think), would Yennefer be able to euthanize by way of magic given she has that ability? Or would she need a physical weapon?

.... you know, if she decides to do something like that.

[groundrules]

Godspeed to her, whatever weapon or magical recourse suits.

Just.

Turn Eleven around during it or something.

[song_of_fire]

So what if Drogon arrives a bit late and the mirror is finished? But eventually he shows up to be the hero.

[groundrules]

So, the mirror will never be truly finished, because there are some parts of it missing. ( As one of the other tl;dr plot rolls notes — sometimes Zenobius powders shards of it to produce baits that dilute the number of mermaids which swarm the lighthouse ).

If you got as far as near completion ( the 95% of completion that can be replicated, given the absence of pieces ), there would be an outcome — though you'd require at least two more people helping out. We're talking some very small shards that have to be pieced back in just the right order here. Huge puzzle.

I think as a first step, you guys should let me know how far down the mirror reconstruction path you want to go ( 20%? 50%? more? ). As a general heads up, the more of the mirror you patch up, the greater the lore reward — but also the higher the risk to your character.

The outcome won't be revealed until you guys let me know how far you want to go (though I'll always give you a courtesy heads up if an outcome ever involves physically impairing or killing characters, before producing it).

[bearshermark]

Once learning they yearn to die, Eleven would be fully willing to help grant their wish as mercifully as possible.

[groundrules]

Gasp! Eleven.

Since there's always a chance one of the three might... try to do that pesky honourable thing where they try to fight others for Life [TM] — if you guys can all let me know how you feel, or give me a collective position, appreciated!

[violetchaos]

Absolutely! Thank you!

[chosenbylight]

Still talking this over but another question! Anduin has another ability (surprise!) called Mind Vision which allows him to see through the eyes of another. WoW has limited it to them being on the same Continent but for the sake of REALITY I'm saying that they're within sight of him. He also has the ability to Mind Vision hop from target to target across distances, so long as they are within sight of each other.

I was THINKING that maybe he could use this to hop across the mermaids/mist to be able to see closer who might be on the boats/how many there are?

[groundrules]

I'm so sorry, I'm a bit confused what this ability is.

Can you tell me again?