lostcompass | ARC VI: THE SUNKEN

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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I feel like this is the time we should have these two casually talk (somewhere on their long, wild flip-flop journey between rivalry and friendship. Where will they be today? Spin the wheel!) and Wrathion can casually admit familiarity with time travel. How much he admits, and how incensed Five is we'll just find out! Either it will be fine and they'll bond briefly (briefly??) or war will begin anew!

Absolutely should happen. (Also up in the air how casual Five can be when time travel comes up. Get him a drink first!) He's here to be your wildcard CR buddy. You'd think people chilled out when they got older, but Five is forever a lot. Also might gravitate towards him since he's one of the few who also doesn't have false memories.

Remember that he still has a kraken-summoning tongue if this all goes to shit.

Oh yes, they're even by water now, why not just summon a kraken to improve matters?

(Do not do that, Five.)

Completely depends on how much he decides they Must Be Stopped, although it's not the only option. But it IS an option and he's very aware. He's not 100% sure how to get the box it's in open at this point since it's so heavily warded, but those are details that Wrathion doesn't need. (Likes to give the impression that people shouldn't piss him off, you know how it is.)

Yes, Five, that was part of the reason we all heavily enchanted this box.

As much to keep the tongue in as to keep you out.

He could have been trying much harder than he has, he's been completely responsible. Although it's probably for the best that he didn't throw it into Hell, because that was tempting for a time.

Anyway, plenty of topics to discuss. We'll revisit once we decide it's been too long since we destroyed a village.

FIVE...... AFTER HAVING A THROW DOWN FIGHT NEARLY WITH WRATHION OVER HOW MUCH YOU WANTED TO KEEP THE TONGUE.... you nearly threw it into hell?

To fight off demons when the gate was opening, geez. He thought they'd cancel each other out! He was also a little insane during that entire situation, but he's much better now. It's better to make these choices when you're completely in control of a situation.

The amount of things that don't happen because his best friend is the Devil and he talks him out of it... everyone is so very alive because of him.

ARC VI: THE SUNKEN

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