ARC VI: THE SUNKEN

[groundrules]

Happy Friday! Curtains are drawing on the Dream a little dream of her... travel arc, with the conclusion one cut away — warning for spoilers, if you're still threading out the mystery

IT WAS ALL A DREAM

As the team has been piecing together, there is something amiss with good Firo, and the numerous suggestions in answer to his ransom offer push M. le Bagade to accuse the renown heroine that she might be... a living dream. The Conductor threatens her expulsion, to the anguish of her sister Lita, who takes full responsibility. Firo, she says, was unaware — Lita, also a living dream, has been secretly feeding her stolen sedative herbs to induce sleep and make Firo think herself a 'normal' person.

Seeing her spouse mired in conflict, Prassenze emerges from where she has been changing appearance in the passenger crowd. A blank slate more than a person, she confesses she is also living dream, forged as a companion to Firo. As the party suspected, she has been using a dream thief to recreate herself on each wedding day and better suit beloved Firo and her companions. Sadly, Prassenze and the dream thief ran out of dream tokens to power their efforts, and Prassenze chose to hide away. Hugo — Natasha has learned, of the Merchant's homeland Ellethia — bashfully admits he is the dream thief, who created the perfect hero (Firo), her stalwart sister (Lita) and the blushing bride (Prassenze).

While the Conductor should remove living dreams from the train, Hugo patiently reminds him of the many years when he and his team allowed dream thieves to continue their work undeterred on the Sandman, for a price. To protect the train's reputation, the Conductor calls the incident closed. The group retires to their compartments — Firo and Prassenze agreeing to talk, Lita a little shattered, and Hugo... telling the Merchant's party that, if he had known what trouble they would cause, he would not have procured their tickets.

Betting results: 40,000 coins to Wei Wuxian and Dean each, 20,000 to Beitang Moran and Lan Sizhui each, 30,000 to Five.

ARC VI

We officially enter Arc VI on 15 May, when the group arrives in sunken village Yancai during a first log event — which doubles as a test drive meme.

■ Yancai location details are now live!

■ Courtesy of the Merchant, characters are assigned false identities/occupations and dwellings while in Yancai. Unrelated to the Merchant, they might be haunted. CTRL+F your character's name to learn their fate. The haunting & atonement are entirely optional — feel free to ignore or tweak.

■ A new NPC inbox will follow shortly.

■ Characters are coming into Arc VI with varying levels of false memories of being native to Yancai. These false memories are temporary and will dispel within days of arrival. During this period, characters can still sense they have a connection with their CR (as deeply or shallowly as you want), even if they have a diffuse sense of how it was formed. Ex: character A might know they love B, even if they don't recall B is their spouse of 50 years. They would (and should) be startled by this discrepancy in their memories.

■ the first Arc VI log will cover: a few days of acclimating to the village (and fully recovering character memories, where applicable), getting optionally haunted, exploring the lakes and and searching sunken territories for clues about the time-warping decay.

■ QUESTIONS

To line up some excellent rural CR, fill out the below and spam to your hearts' content:

<b><small>PLAYER</small>:</b> <b><small>CONTACT INFO</small>:</b> <b><small>CHARACTER | CANON</small>:</b> <b>WHO IS YOUR CHARACTER IN YANCAI?</b> ...and how will they cope with it? <b><small>MEMORY STATUS</small>:</b> <b><small>GENERAL PLANS</small>:</b>

Comments

lan wangji | the untamed

[downswing]

PLAYER: ruxi
CONTACT INFO: PM! Or exar

CHARACTER | CANON: Lan Wangji | the Untamed

WHO IS YOUR CHARACTER IN YANCAI? ...a diver for shiny things.

MEMORY STATUS: he'll be thinking he's a village native and slowly coming back to himself. He might be... nicer, or more affable as a rural innocent. Perhaps... less of a clawing cat.

GENERAL PLANS:

— ...improving the literal cave he lives in. Vanessa/Yelena, as people with standards, pls input, what do we do here? Weave straws? Discover fire?

— joke Lan Wangji will be the one sleeping by the cave hole to protecc at night, everyone is welcome. He's bringing two rabbits, by the way. Because that's what the cave needs.

— fishing, largely for seaweed. May need to learn to fish for actual creatures, to feed his son and cave-family. Please teach.

— his haunting is effectively watching a variant of Wei Wuxian throw himself off a rooftop, which historically does not go well for him and freezes him in place. If you want to arrange something, let me know — I don't think I have more than two threads on this in me, but I'd also be interested in making amends, so maybe... talking about it in a very oblique way that tells pretty much nothing to no one? A good time.

— we're going in these sunken homes. Because, have I mentioned Lan Wangji can swim.

— trying to understand why these poor witches cursed this even poorer place, what the —

[makemeasong]

He might be... nicer, or more affable as a rural innocent. Perhaps... less of a clawing cat.

but will he finally smile???

[downswing]

..........you ask much of him. Nay, the impossible.

[makemeasong]

one day.

[downswing]

One day.............................................. more.

[downswing]

Ahem.

[makemeasong]

Quite frankly, I would have been disappointed if this hadn't happened.

[somebadnews]

Five fondly remembers the last time they went swimming together, clearly they need a callback.

He's going to be very weird about his memories being off. If he treats him like a kid again, it'll be a situation, so maybe he needs to push him into the water to wake him up.

[downswing]

HELLO I am here hi thank you for waiting for me, they absolutely need a check-in after the Dolores Reveal, oh my God

[somebadnews]

That’s right. Show some respect to his imaginary wife.

[matermali]

Vanessa's standards go way down when it comes to cave living, I feel like Wangji will make it much fancier than she ever could. She does not know how to/care to decorate, unless you count her weird witchy windchimes in her area (don't mind the animal bones).

She will appreciate the rabbits from a distance, because they'd probably be afraid of her. She's not great with prey animals!