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

Do plan on Five running into him, at some point! Either when he's scheming with Jesse, pushing his door-to-door fish cult, or being impressed at how he's shaking down someone for more money. (Obviously Five looks too young to pay taxes, who would even.)

Vague ideas, but do feel free to come at me with anything I'd love to explore them together. :>

Yes! Either of those would work.

Ooh, idea! Maybe Nacho can show him who to go after with his candle-selling for best effect, if you think that's something Five would want advice on. Like, "You wanna go over to that guy. He's obviously a rich idiot and you can tell because of xyz."

Or something else! I'm not picky.

Yes, this! It would be hilarious because Five is just over here, using his stupid assignment to get people to open their door to spy on them, and all of a sudden it turns into a money making venture. He’d be very “what do you think I’m doing here” and then be intrigued.

He’s a billionaire’s son who spent most of his life as the only person on earth, money and economics are as lost to him as socializing, but like… it’s interesting! Let him pad his savings, he likes having enough to throw around when he needs to hire someone to do something like taste his food for poison etc. Two birds!

AHAHA this sounds like a great idea!

Nacho will be the person who is actually better at socializing than someone for maybe the first time ever in his entire life. Beautiful.

lmao Five's true calling is having everyone he meets think, "at least I'm not as bad as this guy." Really just here for a confidence boost.

ARC VI: THE SUNKEN

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