steps of sighs

[groundrules]

JOURNEY TO TARAVAST

And ‘lo, the people have spoken! To ancient magical city Taravast we go. Come 26 June, at dawns, the party will be gently herded under the care of Mazyar, a former smuggler respectable merchant who collaborates with our very own Merchant.

The party will have one day’s notice and will receive fresh quartz translation and communication pieces that Karsa — who will join the group alongside Five’s woodland friend — will thrall to now also allow personal character inboxes. You can grab a quick OOC code, if you need one. Haltham-Anurr remains in Sa-Hareth, which is open for characters to return to, given their... inadvertent support in deposing Unhalad.

Yennefer, Five and the Harry Potter crew can blitz back to Sa-Hareth easily; more travel challenged characters may have to procure some of Taravast’s renown teleportation trinkets.

ADMININ’ WE GO

The journey arc is intended as a make-your-own-adventure month-long endeavour to give characters the chance to know each other or take things at their own pace.

The mystery of the ghost army is entirely optional to resolve, though world lore and some opportunities become available, if characters run their own investigation. A second plot/event write-up will be up mid-July.

A Test Drive Meme might be injected in mid/second-half July — drop your thoughts here on whether you’d like one!

The NPC inbox now reflects the new characters available for outreach. The Locations page will be updated once characters reach Taravast.

Plot & plan to your black hearts' content!

If your character struggle to participate in the mystery investigation and you cruelly really want them to, drop a line here, and we can maverick a plot nugget their way.

STAIRS OF SIGHS

Characters join Mazyar’s caravan on 26 June, come dawns — a well-equipped convoy featuring horses, carts, oxen, silks, agricultural goods, jewellery and furniture. Mazyar’s group includes another thirty-so people, half of whom escape east because their previous involvement with Unhalad disqualifies them from staying in Sa-Hareth under Anurr. The party will have access to food & water provisions, two carts for their wares and players’ pick of a horse, large elk or sullen donkey for a ride. Mazyar leads the caravan through the elusive Cat’s Gate — steering away from the longer main road, down the typically barred but currently accessible Stairs of Sighs passage. Mazyar gives fair warning: stay with the caravan at all times and sign up for night watches. Keep fire beside you, speak as little as you can, and trust no one — least of all your eyes. Ominously, he adds the caravan will likely be escorted shortly, as the Stairs of Sighs only open once a year for their visitors. The caravan is merely taking advantage.

The Stairs of Sighs are a steep and perpetually mist-drenched pathway, traversing barren mountain stone roads or stretches of eerily silent, lifeless forests. Characters should beware treacherous cliff slopes, fragile bridges and trees whose roots reach to entangle with their legs and immobilise them. The caravan alights each night of travel in more secure plains or mountain territory, setting up camp beneath an unyielding full Hunter’s moon. As they progress, characters can sometimes hear the indistinguishable, haunting whispers or song of a woman in the night. One of the caravan refugees notes these are the chants of Taravast witches. Karsa seems ill impressed. As of 3 July, the caravan goes up on a canyon road, bracketed by high mountain walls that are sometimes decorated with panels featuring sculptures of warriors and gods. Now and then, these panels move, with some sculptures attempting to pull caravan members into stone. Drop a line here if you want your character drawn in! ETA, 26 June: because of higher-than-expected interest in this option, let's aim for only two more sign-ups for this, please! For the rest of the journey, droves of harpies will sometimes fly by, sinking down to steal animals, or sometimes throwing down stones or time-yellowed bone.

After the first night of travel, the caravan camp is joined by an army of nearly 150-200 horsemen, primarily armed with swords and bows, barring the rare elemental sorcerer. They are led by the young Lord Arha, who offers escort on the road to Taravast. He travels there with his men to rescue his lover, the oracle Hatisse, who has been imprisoned and weaponised in the disputes of regional sorcery clans. Over the next few days, characters may notice Arha and his men are sometimes listless, never taking food or drink, and struggling to retain memories of the present. They (dis)appear often, and sometimes manifest in different states of clean or bloodied dress, never recalling the reason. Arha and his men are fierce and generous warriors, able to lend a hand against the harpies and to assist in case of emergencies. Characters sensitive to spirits may realise instantly that this is an army of ghosts, while others are welcome to deduce it over time. Despite their revelation, characters will find they cannot speak, write or otherwise directly inform Arha or his men that they are dead. Those who attempt this repeatedly will find themselves mute for the entirety of the next day. As the journey advances (after 10 July), Arha will become increasingly more fixated with reaching Taravast and freeing his lover. At night, for long hours, the roads will be washed by rains of blood. The blood disappears, come morning.

Ever in the distance, one of Anurr’s arctic bears starts to gallop after the caravan.

Comments

STONE ENCOUNTERS

[groundrules]

Some people like their first dates with abductions.

[lancifolium]

Heck yes.

[groundrules]

Stupendous! A wise choice. Never one to be regretted instantly.


Once caught by the arms of the carving, Lily will be drawn through the stone wall and into a tight, dusty and clearly long-unlived hall room. There, she will encounter several stone tombs, carved to illustrate the dead within: men, women, children. If she prevails to move the impressively heavy tomb lids, she will find they still hold old bones, along with some memorabilia for the deceased. By one of the tombs, she may find a ten-page booklet of romantic poetry in beautiful calligraphy — the dedication on the first page reads,


"Bright, shine you on me, as the moon over the starless sky."

Once within the hall room, Lily cannot hear or speak with the convoy outside, though she may use her quartz piece. After some time, the walls will once more grab her and release her into the canyon. It will be impossibly to Apparate in or out of the hall room.

[lancifolium]

Great, good, and terrific. After the initial shock and fear wear off Lily will be taking notes about everything, which is going to be tedious because she's got to hold her wand for light but she is going to jot down observations about the walls, the room, the tombs, if she can she's going to copy as much of the poetry book as possible.

After she copies it she will use magic to slide the lid of the tomb it was near open just enough to slip the book into it and close it again.

[groundrules]

Lily may notice that, once the booklet is place within the tomb, blood starts to pool very slowly at the base of its stone coffin. This does not stop until and unless the book is removed.

[lancifolium]

She will absolutely be removing that via magic when she notices, before gently setting the booklet back down where she found it, she will not touch the book to do so, more note-taking will follow.

[groundrules]

Attagirl!

[bearshermark]

Gods, huh. Yeah, I can definitely see this shenanigan occurring.

[groundrules]

The sculpture pulls Eleven in another hall of stone, from which he cannot teleport — nor will he be able to return to it, later. Unlike the room Lily encounters, this one is broad and scantly furnished or decorated, with the exception of a handful of blessings for peace, glory and contentment sculpted on the walls.

There is a single, large stone coffin in the middle of the hall, its lid already pulled aside. In addition to webs and heavy dust, Eleven may find a few layers of time-frayed undershirts and armour. Their wearer, dead or alive, is absent. On the ground, Eleven might find several strips of soft paper, each bearing the drawing of an eye with a sun instead of a pupil.

At some point, the wall hands will grab Eleven again and return him on the other side of the wall, into the canyon.

[bearshermark]

Can he take one of the strips of paper with him?

[groundrules]

One should be fine, sure! Be tender with it — the cloth is very old.

Re: STONE ENCOUNTERS

[royal_venant]

Oh yes, please! Can Patricia come along with him?

[groundrules]

No Patricia this time!

Is that still okay?

[royal_venant]

That is perfectly alright.

[groundrules]

Unlike his companions, Regulus isn't pulled into a single room, but through the wall and into the corridor of a large, abandoned temple. He too cannot Apparate out of the area or return to it, once he has exited it.

Walking through the temple, he may find several linked rooms brimming with stone coffins, some already shut and showing signs of entombment, some clearly once shut and now raided. Near several of the open tombs, he will find dark feathers that are sticky at one end, as if they were coated in tar. If he encounters the harpies later, Regulus might be able to see a similarity with their feathers. In some rooms, he can also find glistening-wet footsteps and droplets, both of blood — as if someone dragged themselves blood-drenched down the corridor.

At some point, he will be grabbed by another stone plaque carving and delivered back into the canyon.

[royal_venant]

Can he take one of the feathers with him?

[groundrules]

Sure!

[paperbutterflies]

... how about like. Second dates?

[groundrules]

Would you like Sizhui to be drawn into the walls twice?

[paperbutterflies]

No, I just meant that he's been kidnapped before.. once would be fine ;)

[groundrules]

Since it might be funnier more academically enlightening like this: Lan Sizhui and Catra will be dragged into the same stony area at two different times of the day and by two different sculptures. It is up to you both if you want the characters to find each other in this space, or whether they will investigate alone.

This particular region is a very deep stone temple pit, bordered by a circular stairwell. The space is poorly lit by dying torches, some quick to flicker out. Every part of the pit wall has been carved, depicting scenes of war: some of armies clashing, some of magic users deploying their skills, some of defeat, some of victory. Interspaced are carvings of the moon at various phases, a day with two suns, a barren forest, as well as depictions of a city ​that can be easily recognised as Taravast, once we reach the destination — alternatively, if Sizhui or Catra remember some of the telltale fixtures ( a twin tower, a waterway and its ten bridges, a circle with five equidistant points Xed in the outline ), one of the other caravan members could identify it as Taravast.

The initially very broad perimeter of the pit tightens as one goes down. It will take hours to reach the bottom, and the narrow, old stairwell, its crumbling or missing steps, and various critters (nothing more immediately dangerous than spiders, rodents and vermin) could startle the two into slipping — possibly a good idea to try to keep each other alive. They can still access the outside world through their communication devices in this period, but not teleport out in any way.

Once fully down, Catra and Sizhui will find the bottom of the pit fully and heavily covered in pale petals of white rose and magnolia, some spattered with red — blood, inevitably. Careful: three poisonous, large white snakes are coiled in the middle of the pit, surrounding a stone pedestal that holds an opened book. They will hiss and threaten to bite, if Catra and Sizhui move too abruptly or violently, but will allow them to come near, if they move slowly and with care.

If they reach the book, they will hear the same song that haunts them at night, the first few verses now clear, with the rest still indistinct:

"Stitch by stitch,
The love of a witch
Will unravel

Dusk to dawn
Each morning to mourn
With blood and gravel"

They will only be able to read the first page of the book before they are pulled down by stone hands and released outside into the canyon. They can learn that Taravast, ancient seat of magic, could not bear to be outpaced in sorcery by beautiful Ellethia. The magical institutions of Taravast were financed to flourish, with three leading schools becoming prominent. As is the way of things, soon, these three schools began to compete with each other more than with Ellethia, leading to conflict.

If they do not reach the bottom of the pit, assume Catra and Sizhui are pulled by the stone hands and delivered back into the canyon through the pit walls.

Perhaps you can both agree on a day in the 3rd-10th period for this to happen and let me know? :O ! You're getting a meatier hint that the others as this is a dual adventure, so please consider sharing with the other party members!

[paperbutterflies]

OH OH OH this is beautiful. I will be up for them running into each other! Sizhui can go first and be exploring the walls by the glow of a fire talisman, or he can come in later, both are good.

[paperbutterflies]

... because Wei Wuxian brought up the possibility of an opening up. Would there be an opening? What might Sizhui find if he tries to fly up on his sword?

(Or do I pick how to not let him fly up.)

[plentystrong]

do your worst

[groundrules]

Challenge accepted!