Unhalad's knock knock knocking at your door...!

[groundrules]

Last few steps of the Sa-Hareth stretch come with Unhalad's mini 16-17 June siege event and the ensuing few days of marauding. Feel free to use that post as a log base, or do your own thing, and discuss any character plans here.

Many thanks to Kalyn, who is lending us Winnie as effective live bait over the event! She won't... regret it...

If you want to have characters severely wounded or killed, there will be more healers and necromancers available in both options for the upcoming arc — for a fee.

The sorceress Karsa will be available on premise once she enters the farmhouse, and you are welcome to NPC her helping your character's plans. To give you an idea, Karsa's primary offensive skillset is fire, so be careful what you have her do in closed quarters. She will not be able to teleport anyone out because the swarm of undead surrounding the farmhouse make it difficult to 'land' safely.

As a result of this... unfortunate domestic development, the Merchant won't be presenting his options on the 15th as initially scheduled, and this will have to be delayed to 17 June. But! Characters should still be out of Sa-Hareth by 21-22 June. Goodbye, winter wasteland. We barely knew ye.

QUESTIONS THREAD

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

What's up, bosses?

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[scrapgege]

Just one quick one : Will Xie Lian's Ruoye be able to form an adequate if smallish protection against the undead like it does in the ghost bride arc in canon?

The rooms are small so it won't work as well as outside, but if he can keep a few people safe while punching zombies through the roof.....

[beitangmoran]

So anyway, for anyone who thought Moran was just a bookworm with a bad attitude and a tendency to think most people are stupider than him... Well he is that, but he also, guess what, an actual army general! Who kills people! With a sword! And he's pretty good at it.

He will want to protect Xunxian above all, but I'm up for him slashing and cutting alongside others.

[scrapgege]

Likewise, Xie Lian looks a little scrawny under his robe,s btu he's actually a martial god who used to earn money lately by literally smashing boulders on his chest, haha. So yea, he can beat up zombies even with his power limited.

His immediate instinct will be to defend and protect the farm's inhabitants, and he won't be maiming too hard unless it becomes really necessary.

.... If someone is up to it, he might need to smooch a relatively powerful character with some sort of magical power to borrow it for a more complex spell, so hit me up if you want a handsome young god to smooch you mid-battle

[groundrules]

I'm so sorry — I forget what that protection did. I assume, it kept characters out of harm's way from what was happening? In a radius?

If so, sure. Just not extensively.

You have 24h of this, so pace yourselves.

[scrapgege]

basically the ribbon was forming a circle, and the undead could not get past the ribbon, that's pretty much it. So people inside the perimeter are safe as long as they don't step out

Obviously, with the space in the rooms, there wouldn't be enough space for more than maybe 2-3 people inside the ribbon protection at the most and at one time. The people inside can also step in and out at will, it's not a physical barrier.

[downswing]

Okay, there's a fucker on a horse, who wants to last stand dash for him?

I HAVE NO OTHER USE FOR MY TANK, he can try to roll towards Unhalad. Someone roll with him.

[groundrules]

Yes, sure, just don't make it too long of a period and bear in mind the drainage on Xie Lian's power. Stay alive, Xie Lian, you don't have the money for a resurrection and Mingyu is not rolling that.

[paperbutterflies]

SON WILL ROLL SON WILL ROLL ... if allowed.

[sergeant_slick]

Slick's been discussing making specific portions of the farmstead more defensible after he heard that there was an attack before he arrived: Specifically, reinforcing doors and window shutters, and preparing barricades so people can block off avenues of access within the farmhouse.

While he'd like to have metal reinforcements to doors and window shutters, he'd be getting a start with whatever he had, probably meaning wood. Would he be able to get some barricades made to provide fallback positions within the compound?

[soulsrob]

winnie isn't going to say i told you so but--

no who am i kidding she will ABSOLUTELY say I TOLD YOU SO.

she will also play the damsel in distress and bat her eyelashes and be Very Damsel and Very Distressed, but the handle of her parasol can come out. It's a stiletto blade! Huzzah! But she'll try to keep that hidden as much as possible and just carry the parasol around with her as is. She might pull it out to suddenly and dramatically save someone at the exact right time though. You know, for funsies.

She'll also absolutely refuse to part with the mirror. You want the mirror out or broken? Then you gotta cast her out too. And you probably really don't wanna do that.

Winnie's bedroom will be Room 20 on the farmhouse map.

[groundrules]

Yes! They'll give in after a point, but they'll offer a good delay. The farmhouse used to be a woodcutting station, so the lumber is well stocked (see map for where the storage is, just careful it means exposure to the outside to visit it.)

[groundrules]

Most wonderful! Let me know if the mirror smashes at any point, as this will affect something...

[sergeant_slick]

Alright! Slick's only got a knife (pending a request to Eleven), but he's spent his entire life training for war and he's got shiny white space armor, so he'll be making use of whatever's to hand.

He's been spending a few days reinforcing doors and window shutters around the farmstead, starting around the wood shed and moving outward from there. There will also be materials set up to barricade interior doorways as necessary. This won't stop the undead, but it'll slow them down a bit.

Slick will be staying on the move, attacking targets of opportunity and assisting non-combatants, instructing them on potential avenues of escape. He'll be working off of a map that Lily made, and his own scouting around the area.

He's also got a roster that Archeval shared with him, so if possible he's going to be doing a head count and figuring out how many people might be in harms' way, so they don't abandon anybody. If somebody's not accounted for, he'll try and contact them over the network and ascertain their situation.

[sergeant_slick]

Great! Slick will be spending a portion of each day up until the attack working on those reinforcements, cutting wood outside, then moving in for the evening to set things up as best as he can.

[weifinder]

I see you're last dashing with your tank there Ruxi SO HOW ABOUT AN OUTSIDE PINCHER ATTACK

But really, remember way back when I asked about Wei Wuxian going around getting in touch with all the resentful energies in the citadel? Also how he goes to the citadel pretty much daily for supply reasons and for information, and that this could reasonably mean a delay of a night if he's out too late and doesn't want to be hauling back.

Anyway... a. could he end up seeing the trailing end of this happening?

b. can he get in touch with Karsa? and

c. can he summon up those resentful energies as his own spirit army at the end of this (possibly after doing some guerilla warfare from the fringes) because that is an undead army attacking where his son and possibly bae is (I was going to offer if Lan Zhan also wanted to be dragged to town to help play haul the supplies back to the farmhouse and help haul the extra produce down to the citadel, then he'd potentially be on the outside for this too, but that was more to give you another option if you liked), and we know how much he likes people going after his loved ones, let alone his friends (which now number pretty high inside). He's not going to have the sheer storage capacity etc that having any of the yin iron once allowed him, so it'd be using/Pied Pipering these energies and then releasing them again/sending them on if they're so inclined, but he's guessing they have very good reasons to be not happy with Unhalad's forces, in particular.

[darkeststars]

Yeah we're doing this. Arche's headed straight for that fucker the second he shows his face and he'd definitely welcome being side by side with Wangji for it.

Actually, question in that vein too, but I'll hit you up in the mod thread for that...

[groundrules]

You done good, Slick! I'm afk for a moment but will edit the write-up to alert players there are some wood reinforcements.

[darkeststars]

So, Unhalad is some kind of restless undead. When we stick several pointy objects and other assorted things through him, presumably he's then a bodiless restless undead spirit.

Do you think Arche could Force walk and grab that to gobble up? :D The ultimate indignity of doing to Unhalad what he tried to do all of us, lol, shackle him to use his power.

I understand if not, or if it just doesn't work that way, but thought it would be fun to ask lol!

[groundrules]

a. Yes.

b. The quartz pieces remain fully functional, so yes!

c. You can have an undead energy army, but towards the end, please, and Wei Wuxian better be hammered after.

[groundrules]

To confirm: you're asking if, once the flesh shell of Unhalad is destroyed or briefly killed, Archeval can consume the thing that possesses him?

If so: yes. But it will try to consume him back over time. I'm happy to start Arche on that arc, and to give him later ways out of it, but you have to be aware there would be severe consequences &mdssh; and he'd probably be attacked til the day he is out of Sa-Hareth by any forest people that see him for feeling too much like Unhalad.

He will effectively become a human mirror.

Have a think if you want to set him down this path and lmk!

[weifinder]

Oh he'd be totally hammered, I actually plan that he'd not be aware enough to lend any uh... help saying where they're going after, he won't be functional until they're physically leaving, as you do! Also definitely the end, I figure it can be the last section of the siege and with quartz working, he can keep up with Lan Zhan to coordinate a when.

Unless Lan Zhan doesn't have his quartz in which case he's playing telephone with others until he does get in touch with him, whoops

[darkeststars]

Ohhhhh, interesting.

Yeah I'll consider it and get back to you by tomorrow!

[groundrules]

I'll put Arche down as having dibs on the killing blow, though please prepare a party. He's earned this.

[darkeststars]

Looks like we've got a good start with him and Wangji and Sizhui so far!