groundrules: (Default)
let's set d o w n some ([personal profile] groundrules) wrote in [community profile] lostcompass2023-05-12 07:08 pm

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


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


matermali: (040)

[personal profile] matermali 2023-05-21 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Super late but since he has a pseudo-altered memory in thinking he's been there awhile, could be fun to think of alternate CR for them for the first few days if you're down for in it. Vanessa will be thinking she's always been there as the local seamstress and laundress, taking care of people's clothes and secrets. Any unusual history he may have had before Yancai wouldn't be questioned at all by her, and anything otherwise learned (look she's clairvoyant she can't always help it) would be well guarded.
traumatology: (gYtgvXu0)

[personal profile] traumatology 2023-05-21 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
oooooh, i'm all down for some alternate cr. bucky's a damn carp breeder so they could say they're longtime friends? something more? something less? i'm not sure but i'm open to everything.

he has hazy memories of his past so things might slip through that are a little odd about his assassin past and all that that could be fun to play with too.
matermali: (003)

[personal profile] matermali 2023-05-21 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Guarantee that some hot outsider showing up in the village with obvious trauma and a mysterious dangerous history and oooh he may also be a killer, you bet she would have crushed on him. With Vanessa that tends to involve genuine stalking sdjkfh she may have bumped into him more than was necessary at first to strike up a friendship, ~back when~
traumatology: (gYtgvXu0)

[personal profile] traumatology 2023-05-21 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
klf;lknf lmao i love this I LOVE IT okay i want it to happen plz stalk him. he'll notice and just let it happen not sure what to do about it.
matermali: (190)

[personal profile] matermali 2023-05-21 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)
well if he showed up awhile ago, or so he thinks, we can say that is how they 'met', maybe? it's pretty...par for the course for her, I feel, in any reality lol. If he didn't seem to oppose it she'd probably have attempted to invite him out on the occasional date, and/or given him discounts for doing his laundry or mending his clothes. Extra special care!

that way we can say they are already established CR by now, even if it is fake kadhj. but that's the fun of memory shenanigans. just an idea though! that would make it pretty easy to hit up one of his prompts.

warning: the real Vanessa has a complicated history with the 11th Doctor and he's suddenly showing up distracting Vanessa a bunch and making weird claims about fake memories during days 1-5, so that is something Bucky could feel free to notice if you wanted them to already 'know' one another.
traumatology: (3efjlay)

[personal profile] traumatology 2023-05-22 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
yes, this all sounds good to me. sorry, i fell asleep HARD last night and couldn't really make my brain work. but yes, i love the thought of established cr and then memories working through.

and i'm all down to notice her being somewhat distracted too!
matermali: (069)

[personal profile] matermali 2023-05-22 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Fake cuddle buddies working through memory relapses of horrible histories, what's not to love?