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And the votes are in...!

Characters by and large voted to save the miners and not get involved, with some minor differences on whether the captives should be released into the wilderness or taken home.

The results of this beautiful endeavour:

The tides of fortune and a highly questionable array smile upon us! Characters succeed to reach the miners and set them free. The miners’ immediate instinct is to slowly, groggily scatter, attracting attention.

Unhalad’s forces will focus on recapturing the miners. Anurr’s faction will take advantage to slaughter them. Some of Anurr’s people will spot the party and half the contingent will initially set out to pursue them, before withdrawing when they encounter Lee Chang, Xiao Xingchen or Xie Lian. At this point, folks, run home fast. Anyone staying behind will likely be heavily injured or killed.

Of the eight miners, three are slain by Anurr’s men, three run into the forest and two... join characters home.

Sadly, Archeval’s suspicions prove right: the two minors who arrive at the farmhouse progress in their transition to undeath. The transformation can be slowed down by keeping them warm at all times and giving them high volumes of food and water.

The two miners will be terrorised by the nightly voices and repeatedly attempt to escape into the mountains. They will struggle to speak coherently, and will scream violently if they are left in the dark.

In the end, the transition will finalise and the two miners will become fully undead.

The miners held at the farmhouse will be particularly distressed if they are subjected to strong light, or if they see or sense Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen nearby. Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen will meanwhile feel an itch to kill them — the intensity of this compulsion is up to the players.

Five can have one of the forest people to teleport home. Please respond here if you’d like it to be a human forest dweller, or a semi-undead one. Also choose whether this captive is male, female, young or middle/old-aged. This will play into the type of information the captive will have available.

The forest captive will try to track down and kill the transitioning miners.

This outcome fell ~~completely~~ a tiny bit out of the mod forecast, so the May calendar has been revised accordingly. As Karsa’s post signals, there are now a bunch of in-character assignments that will need some muscling through, and sign-ups are listed below.

SIGN-UP BASICS: quests are up for grabs, but can only have one character officially signed up as lead/anchor for the assignment. Other characters can still help with the task — ideally, there should be at least two characters helping out with each assignment. Quest leads can ICly make organisation posts or logs to carry out their tasks, and should pretty-please share their findings with the class ICly.

In the spirit of fairness, let’s ask players to only have one of their characters lead a quest. Please propose how your character would try to go about completing the assignment, and you’ll get mod feedback on the price/result!

Available quests:

Interrogate the miners

Interrogate the lone forest person

Find out the farmhouse origins

Investigate the body in the lake

Snoop among Anurr’s followers to figure out anything further about his plans

Get more of that c-c-c-coin

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It sounds as if this is one for Gil and Jiang Cheng, how do you guys want to go about it?

As a reminder: this body is at the bottom of a lake and cannot be lifted.

In the past, Vanya's had some success of buying people time to ogle it by, er.

...dismissing the water around it.

Perhaps one to ask her on, if no other option is found?

Re: the body, here and here are some previous questions/answers on it.

I'm too lazy to log in on my phone under the correct account, Jiang Cheng can presumably hold his breath for a long time due to being a Yunmeng baby and has a golden core for the cold. Swim several trips down and find out what he can, report back?

What have you got, Gilly?

Uh hmmm. Gil can record what he finds and they can they discuss it. If further needed, I guess they could even have Jian Cheng swim to the bottom of the lake and then have Vanya move the water for him to get a longer look (assuming Vanya is abvailable to assist)?

I mean, Raven could theoretically evaporate the lake, but they need that lake for water, right? And Gil isn't into doing mundane things with Raven unless it seems like that's a last resort.

Would Raven be able to find anything concerning the corpse in terms of supernatural type stuff? I'm super cool with waiting until threading is done for details, but it would be good to know if Raven could potentially contribute anything.

Either way, I think Gil would want to take the info they both get and go search for any missing persons that may known about if it seems promising that he could be identified that way.

Jiang Cheng would have to fill Gil in a bit on things, such as who Annur is and why he matters, because Gil hasn't yet truly realized the necessity to understand all the variables in their situation as of yet.

In fact, he would probably want to have the ones planning to go visit Annur's troops and question them about if they are missing someone? If that's like a possible thing to work timing wise?

What're you looking to have Raven do, supernatural-wise?

You can absolutely talk to the people looking to investigate Anurr's groupies, sure!

Would he be able to tell if it's worth investing time into, even if not exactly why or how? Like it seems malicious (ghost or otherwise) or worth paying attention to because for some other reason that may cause danger for the group they weren't aware of (even if Raven can't/won't say topic specifics other than get your ass in gear with your new friends, Gil).

...or, you know, if it's just a drunk guy who drowned himself that happened to just be near that mirror on the ship, too, and Gil, just let this guy rest in peace and go back to your waiting cat-friend.

Ahhhhh, I am not sure how to answer that, since I don't know what qualifies as "worth investing time into" for Raven...

It's in a lake that haunts those who enter it at night with stolen memories, and it itself has the aura of a previously encountered ~~cursed~~ magical mirror, if that helps? I'd... say it's worth it, personally, unless Raven has a very, very narrow definition of interest?

Yes, okay he will find that worth investigating and make Gilbert not pussy out.

I'm trying to think of anything more specific, but atm my head is saying "WELL IT DEPENDS ON WHAT HAPPENS..."

Sure! If I'm reading right, the plan is to reach out to Vanya's player and arrange another water dislocation episode. Once the cadaver is fully available for further study, Jiang Cheng & Gil will get every clue written down — please see the links above for visible descriptors of the corpse, but let me know if there are any types of additional things Jiang Cheng and Gilbert's unique abilities would make them likelier to sense or look into (and I'll provide that info!)

I assume, afterwards, they'll go asking around if there's any missing dude fitting the aforementioned description. Where would they want to go or whom would they be likeliest to ask?

Or, well. Gil is apparently asking, and Jiang Cheng is... stalking after him. With a dog.

Sounds great. At least it is not a cat.

I think they will first give the info to the person or group going to see Annur's groupies, but then head into town.

It's there a map of town of whom is available to ask or what's in town (like a church, a market etc.)

Uh... Is the ship captain still around...

So, head on the navigation bar, and you'll find everything you need — locations are here, and there's a npc inbox if you want to ask some Qs too.

Edited 2021-05-21 21:57 (UTC)

Okay!! Sorry for the delay in replying. Gil will first focus on the Ports (hell be looking for the ship the captain your he's still around, but will basically ask about a missing missing and if there are any new sailor stories of cursed items at area or etc since sailors are generally very superstitious in their manners.)

If he gets a particular intriguing story about the mirror or sounds like an object similar to the mirror (or something cursed that does something like the lake fries to people are night), hell want to know where they are from and particularly all around to find people from that area in the Merchants Area. If not, her will focus on any merchants that are claiming to sell magical or otherwise potentially suspect items (read: merchants most likely out to probably swindle people).

Finally, he will hit La Brea, spend a good amount of time eavesdropping on random conversations of passerbys, but I think even if he overhears anything of interest he will not try and push further, just make notes and if he catches a name/writes a description of the two conversationalists.

I will head to npc inboxes soon c: !

Edited 2021-05-24 13:16 (UTC)

It's totally fine! Happy to answer here too, in short, rather than thread out things on this occasion — as there's a lot being asked by everyone.

I guess maybe make your questions more specific? Otherwise, it's a bit too easy to go with just, "Tell me everything" or "What would he hear that's interesting?" :)))

As regards the sailors: they'll be able to report there have been no new disappearances, past the inevitable casualties to the weather and the storms. A sailor broke an arm when the terminals had to close down rapidly, and he was stuck bringing in the smaller ships. No objects have gone missing, since the dreadful heist of La Rea bank — you just can't trust people in this citadel anymore, can you?

Oh, even better! I'll get to specific questions for the Merchants after asking the sailors, is that ok ?

Why did the terminals have to close down so quickly? Did something go wrong?

As for that, the sailors will point out to the storms — it's unsafe to load or discharge vessels during this dreadful winter weather. It's stranded commerce and in and outflows.

Are storms like this uncommon for this time of year? (Help be thinking they seem to know about protocol, but it seems the storms were very sudden and unexpected to them if someone broke their arm in the response.)

Gil will also say he heard a rumour (he didn't actually) there were some ships that had supposedly "unsettling" objects--- specifically like they were haunted or cursed. Is that something they have heard as well?

Edited (Sorry thought of extra question) 2021-05-24 18:13 (UTC)

The sailors have happily been in their posts long enough to confirm that storms here can strike quite abruptly and hard, given the harsh winters — but that the recent increase in the frequency of snowfalls hasn't been seasonal.

They're less helpful with the second question: Sa-Hareth is a renown trade citadel, with a reputation for finding buyers for everything. Cursed or haunted items are simply exotic merchandise and no where as rare as the young man might think.

They'll be wanting to be plied with warm drink for this, by the way, Gil. Consider that some 100-120 coins offloaded for your trouble. ( The Bank of Five or Mingyu have some loose coin, apparently. )

Consider it done. Gil happened to get paid by Five recently for some errands... should be able to cover it. With that, Gil will be making his way to the merchant area.

All right. since Gil has been informed that cursed objects are not exactly rare items, he wants to ask Raven if he can sense anything at the ports that is giving off the same feeling as the dead body. He'll also ask of him to do the same in the Merchants area because they don't have time to scour all the merchant shops.

Will Raven be able to locate anything at that request? Or will nothing be out of the ordinary? Or something else?

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Raven might be able to sniff out remains of power similar to the body, from where the vessel Imperious that carried a certain, how shattered-mirror was docked. The ship has since moved (and pursuing it would be a wild goose chase, though I am happy to give you the instructions for Gil to do that, if you want him to!).

Otherwise — they would not have the same feeling as the dead body in the lake, but there are sufficient undead among Unhalad's forces milling around the merchants' arena that Raven might be momentarily intrigued!

One of you folks better put together the findings for the group somehow btw!

I'll work on this for sharing C:!

Undead...hm, are they shopping? Gil wants to observe a few of them, if possible, just to see their activities in the area. Can ... Gil talk to them?

Sadly, no real scope for conversation, but Gil can observe: Unhalad's undead are more animalistic and silent, less physically expressive — as if they've forgotten how to emote. They grunt, but sometimes manage words. Their lieutenants are typically more vocal, but still eerie presences that seem to haunt and patrol the citadel, more than live it. They never truly stop to engage with humans, unless they're assigned a duty, and seem largely content to wander.

How do the humans respond to their presence in the Citadel? Gil is interested in particular if they are indifferent to them and whether they acknowledge their presence versus pretending they don't exist at all.

They appear strangely, if jadedly apathetic — as if whatever novelty the undead may have posed once has completely worn off. They give the undead a wide berth, though no more than what would be expected of a regular sentry. It is almost as if they coexist with the undead.

sticks leggy up

Vanya will definitely help out move the water around for them! just throwing it in officially so everyone knows. She's been practicing!!

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