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

Tess Servopoulos | The Last of Us

[dog_eat_dog]

PLAYER: Jenn
CONTACT INFO: discord victoryfanfare#4736

CHARACTER | CANON: Tess from The Last of Us (game)

WHO IS YOUR CHARACTER IN YANCAI? Tess is the happy and exceedingly well-respected matron of the former Peeling Petals brothel, which has recently closed. The whole thing has kind of gone tits up and she's largely fine with that; the stress of running it was a shitshow, what's left of the booze stores will dwindle more slowly with the girls sent packing, and right now her only worry is what her husband Joel is going to think when he gets back. In general an upstanding and happy contributor to the village and eager to start her next venture; she's an accomplished businesswoman, after all, there's always some new hustle that conveniently serves the needs of the people. To know her is to love her, and all.

She is living with Jimmy McGill, Pietro Maximoff, Licyn Mansbane, and Claire Fraser.

MEMORY STATUS: Lost in the sauce. The other life she periodically "imagines" is vile and joyless and troublesome, and she's not very interested in entertaining it as reality. She's a nice lady, okay!!

GENERAL PLANS:
- Please come to her ex-brothel and be as rowdy as you'd like so she has to throw you out >:)
- Wayward souls with ethical dilemmas, come to her in your hour of need for life advice.
- Mommymode Tess lol... not literally but I'd like to explore a more maternal version of her that would make her feel a little "oof" after.

[somebadnews]

I'd love another chance to cross paths with Tess. Five was in a bad way the last time he encountered her, so it'll be weird to see her in this completely different situation. Imagine a teenager coming to a formal brothel to pretend to peddle a fish god cult like he made up that excuse on the spot. We can just take it from there.

[nachocheese]

I really liked Nacho and Tess's last thread, and I'd love to have them interact again! He prob likes her because he has a soft spot for middle-aged people who are small business owners and community pillars and etc (but maybe also has a vague sense of trepidation about her bc she seems v. formidable)...... and actually you know what, he could def use some life advice from her now that I think about it.....

[matermali]

Let's forget about those vile and joyless 'other lives' for a few days, friend! Vanessa is the local seamstress and laundress who 'airs out everyone's dirty laundry', but really she would be the secret keeper. Successful business ladies need to stick together or...something. Maybe Vanessa can quietly offer support for Tess's next hustle, and offer a drinking partner to boot.

After memory recovery... she will probably still want a drink, lbr.