npc inbox: sa-hareth + stairs of sighs

[groundrules]

NPC INBOX: SA-HARETH

Reach out to your (not-so-)favourite NPC here, putting their name in the comment header. Try to keep it to just quick text/audio/written exchanges or inquiries that can accept summarised answers, please!

CURRENTLY WITH THE PARTY

	THE MERCHANT username: raven master The patron saint of etiquette and the eastbound getaway expedition. Seems to largely trade information alongside wares. Appreciates spices, strategy and collaboration. Has an eerie and overly cautious manner. Committed. Defends the benefit of the many, to the detriment of the few.
	KARSA username: lady of the willow tree Sorceress, young (?). Employed by the Merchant and deferential to him. Talented but fiery and frequently impatient, intolerant of fools. She will get today's job done yesterday. Struggles to sympathise with men, objections and those who cannot absorb information quickly. Enchanted the group's translation devices.
	ASGEIRR The ghost of a scholar monk. Haunts the tattered execution cloak that the party stole from the La Rea bank in Sa-Hareth. Once a champion of equality and freedom, he faced ire for converting his followers against the regionally profitable trade of slavery. Soft-spoken but wise and just, slow to regain his strength. Will speak to those who visit his cloak in brief interludes. Favours necromancers.
	MAZYAR Charlatan, crook or wise man, Mazyar has worn all the names. Once an exceptionally skilled smuggler, now an equally apt tradesman and caravan master, allied with the Merchant. Less cryptic than his 'associate,' if more prone to riddles and keen on items with value.
	GHOST ARMY OF ARHA A maudlin, marauding and eerily fixated army led by the young lord Arha through the Stairs of Sighs. They seek to rescue Arha's oracle lover Hatisse from Taravast.
	OUHRSSON Guys, it's a bear.

SA-HARETH

	"HALTHAM" | ANURR username: Haltham | illiterate The undead warlord Anurr, previously posing as gentle-mannered giant Haltham. An embodiment of Sa-Hareth's cold storms and wind, who regained his territory from contender Unhalad with the inadvertent help of the party in Arc I. Frostily rational and amenable to some negotiation.
	THE (NOT-SO) GOOD PEOPLE From distressed locals to busy-bee merchants, guards, enchanters, tradesmen, politicians and looser-tongued courtesans — never underestimate the value of indiscretion in a citadel built on commerce, rumour and stubbornly choosing to ignore the expanding rule of the undead. Not every piece of gossip or legend's worth your time, but beggars can't be choosers.

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Comments

un: anglicized - to haltham

[descendency]

My good friend Haltham, are you available?

I'd like to ask you for your type.

un: haltham | perma audio

[aprescoup]

...ello? Hello? Hi. Hello? This is Haltham. Hello, my friend. It is good to hear you.

What type're you... what's you talking about?

That lady from the fabric shop [Audio]

[beitangmoran]

Hello, I should be back soon to finish paying off for that blue fabric I had you set aside.

And I was wondering... My companion was a bit impatient last time, my apologies for it, but I heard there was a sort of local legend about the red sleeves? Someone as world-wise as you surely has heard of it. Would you mind telling me when I next come pick up the wares? I'm very curious.

[groundrules]

The girl can tell the legend if Beitang Moran later shares it with his companions. Is this agreeable?

[pulvisetumbra]

( Days after the heist, following this conversation, the Merchant will be reaching out to Winnie over an exclusive, quieter channel. )

Madam.


( Pick up, Winnie. )

[soulsrob]

[Look whatever it is, she's innocent! Probably. The quieter channel is certainly intriguing and he'd have her undivided attention from that alone if he hadn't already gained it. There's a faint curiosity.

But her tone is warm and friendly when she speaks]

Oh, good day, Sir Raven! Lord Raven? [Master...Raven??] To what do I owe the pleasant surprise of having you reach out to me?

tamaiu | audio

[weifinder]

( In the hours following talking to Karsa: )

Dear, wonderful madam Tamaiu, might this humble one trouble you for less than an incense stick's worth of your time?

[groundrules]

As it happens, despite the multitude of duties that command her attention, such as picking between distinct shades of pastel blue and azure for the pre-pre-storm and pre-storm robes her beautiful courtesans should honour by wearing — Tamaiu has the time.

She does not measure time in incense sticks, but you should never deny a handsome man.

Merchant; written

[bearshermark]

Karsa tells of a ship with more captives approaching that will hold more like us. Would they also share your hospitality if freed?

[aprescoup]

Sorry... I can't, uh... can't... with the writing.



( ooc: all messages to the Merchant must pass through Haltham unless the Merchant himself initiates, at this time c: )

archeval | audio

[pulvisetumbra]

( The day after the ship rescue. )

Good morning.

[darkeststars]

[ There's a moment of pointed silence before a low, sardonic voice finally issues from the other end of the line. ]

Is it? Feels debatable in this weather.

And what brings you to me today, merchant? [ voice kept neutral now. he's not a completely unreasonable human being, so he won't start straight off with anything too snide. Not until it's been earned, anyway. ]

audio; un: xunxian, to: raven_master

[topoiran]

[ Since it was not known that he would be reached via proxy, Su Xunxian is going to try for the user name directly, but at the same time cautiously. ]

Master Merchant? If I may, when would be a good time for a few more questions? It is nothing urgent.

audio | username: haltham

[aprescoup]

Ummmm. Right. He... llo? Hello? Can you hear me? This. Is. Haltham.

Old man don't speak easy. Standards! You know? I don't. But he does. And he's... he's. Particular. What's this all about, now? I'll pass on. I will! Won't forget a word.

un: silhouette among silk spreads - Haltham / Merchant

[foxable]

Um - hey, Haltham? I was told you could pass on a message for me?

Basically, ah-- Okay, well, you know I do magic, right? Enchantments. Thralling, I think you called it. Anyway, I don't want to draw too much attention to myself - to all of us - so I was wondering it maybe there was a way that I could, uh, set up through his network? Um... Like, if I had someone pretend to be the mage but then I do the actual magic necessary, yeah? They can get a cut for their help, or whatever, but, ah.. I need a way to make some coin. A lot of coin? I need a way to make more coin than a courtesan can.

[aprescoup]

Hello, little fox friend! Old man says, he'd want forty per... purrr... out of every hundred coins, he wants forty.

tamaiu | gifted

[weifinder]

( He'll casually be asking if the madam of the establishment is presently busy, then sending along with one of the more trustworthy of those working in the lower levels:

a length of silk in purple;
a painting of an 'exotic' landscape, familiar to him and those who've seen yunmeng, with an overall air of sedate contemplation;
a nicely calligraphic thank you in the characters he knows;
the, uh, return of a certain quartz, named "old dog turning new tricks."

In gratitude, for having hosted those of us, who have troubled you. )

[groundrules]

A handsome gift, from a handsome man. Tamaiu accepts and vows to owe a favour!

Haltham

[bearshermark]

[Cheer, though with a frisson of nerves]

Haltham, how are you? Were you able to pick up my gift from the House of Dew?

[aprescoup]

Hello... this is Haltham! How are you? You've been good? I've been good! The goat's been good.

I have all my gifts, thank you. You're very good. You and my friend Gabriel.

visiting upon tamaiu

[descendency]

[ Mingyu drops by wherever Tamaiu might receive him, after finishing with all his clients for the night and picking up his earnings. ]

Dear Mistress, [ he murmurs, offering her a smooth smile and sweeping bow. ]

Have you a moment...? I thought to ask on my... performance for your esteemed house as of late.

[ And he'll put a closed door between them and the rest of the house, if he can. ]

[groundrules]

Mistress Tamaiu is ever pleased to receive one of her best regarded, least fastidious and most profitable assets. She does not often extend the courtesy of sweets and wine unto her own courtesans, but certain accommodations must be made for those who own their freedom and may yet withdraw their employment.

Of course, she welcomes Mingyu well, whispering a bounty of compliments — what fair, porcelain skin he has, and how honeyed his tongue, and these hands, of course, the grip on them — no wonder some of the clientele is so enamoured. And of course she is nothing if not earnestly pleased with his performance. Why, she even asks one of the younger courtesans in training to showcase her dance talents for Mingyu's entertainment.

This is a house of renown, after all — a beacon of the arts, within and outside the sheets.

interrogating Haltham (with Five)

[descendency]

Mingyu and Five intend to corner Haltham if possible and ask the following:

1) Why have you been lying to us?
2) Who are you, really?
3) What are your motives?/What do you want?
4) Why should we believe you now?
5) Why did you set us up?
6) Give us one good reason not to fuck you over for all the deceit.

Mingyu will be doing a very hurt and betrayed friend thing which is, to his dismay, only halfway an act. Five will be agitated paranoid bad cop.

[aprescoup]

Just to confirm — would Mingyu and Five disclose that they believe Haltham to be Anurr?

Calling in a Favour (for Anurr)

[jeoha]

[ After giving a crystal to the forest man Five had been keeping, and with him and Mingyu in the room, Lee Chang instructs the man to pass a message to Anurr, in the most direct way possible. ]

Tell him that the man sending him word is Lee Chang.

Tell him I wish to speak to him, if he considers his freedom worth the right to parley.

[groundrules]

The house swarmed by undead and his own welfare at stake, the free man — ironically fettered — is keen to help on this matter and takes the quartz stone greedily. He requires some help at first to learn how to manhandle the device, but seems to have been taught by heart a certain name to seek — Arne Olsen.

In petty privacy no better than the corner of the room, he swaps words with his master, and returns to ask Lee Chang on Anurr's behalf: was the man Lee Chang at the jailhouse, once? Anurr asks for Lee Chang's likeness. Can the woods' man describe him? Did he look the same then, as he does now?

Asgeirr

[binghua]

[Xingchen has met Wei Wuxian in the garden to discuss potentially confidential information, but has also been introduced to a certain death-soaked cloak. And since he's been given a moment to try and call out to the spirit attached to said cloak, Xingchen does just that.

He still doesn't reach out to touch the cloak, but stands close enough, or so he hopes, and calls out to the ghost.]

Master Asgeirr? My name is Xiao Xingchen. Wei Wuxian has told me about you.

[groundrules]

The cloak is a wretched thing, drenched red-dark at its frayed rims, breaking. It holds stubbornly, out of sheer stubbornness that coalesces now and then into the wispy, bent-backed form of an aged, oblivious scholar.

He takes his time to notice Xiao Xingchen, seemingly at wits' end over the anguishing matter of the dwindling life span of the arctic butterfly, once a titan with 100 full days before expiry, now lessened before the third sundown.

These things, they are tragic.

In the end, he acknowledges Xiao Xingchen enough to ask what help he can lend.

[Haltham/Post-siege]

[scrapgege]

Helping clean up post-siege means Xie Lian will mostly be hauling most of the corpses out of the house to build some sort of funeral pyre with them a little way away from the house. Better to burn and disperse the ashes, make sure nothing remains.

The undead felt like low level ghosts to him, and he hasn't been quite close enough to Unhalad to feel what he's like, but while carrying a corpse slung on each shoulder, he'll feel a rather more imposing presence in the woods.

One that feels.... somewhat familiar. Not exactly the same of course, but not completely alien either.

[aprescoup]

And then he comes: still wearing his flesh suit, the borrowed limbs a man dead long before. Arne, but he has surpassed him. It, rounded in new purpose.

The foreigners were a gamble freely taken. The merchant retrieved them, Anurr reaped his advantage, offered protection. In this, and returning triumphant from the mines with four of his lieutenants beside him, he is satisfied.

Let Unhalad make his pass now. Let him send brothers — and children, if, to look at this pyre, he has any yet to spare.

He remembers the friendly manner of the man he consumed soon after his escape. Thinks, briefly, if there is worth in imitating it, when he is so clearly shielded by the dead, then assumes the old habit:

"Hello there! Hey-ho."

Karsa, in person, during the trek

[foxable]

[ Fox appears as he always does - somehow right beside you, when you swear he wasn't there a moment ago. He lowers his hood and gives Karsa and imploring look. ]

What am I going to have to bribe you with to talk through some magic theory with me? We've got time now - we're not, like, currently under seige with zombies, and I think I could really help you out if I had an idea of how to work my magic with yours.

I even had an idea for layering enchantments over your thralling, yeah? Kind of like an emergency broadcast system in case someone wanders off and gets lost and then almost fucking dies or something. It's not a bad idea, right?

[aprescoup]

Good or ill isn't the trouble — requests to share her life's work and her only trade damned Karsa's cooperation. But the road stretches idle and long, and if the boy is serious, she accepts to see either his plans or a sample of workmanship.

→

[groundrules]

It is not often for master Asgeirr to manifest willingly, without invitation, but next Xiao Xingchen drifts by the cart holding the group's bearings, including a certain mantle, he might find himself... accompanied.

"My friend, who visits me. You will understand. I must ask a great burden of you. Our guests here. Is it true they are led by the Lord Arha?"

[binghua]

Xingchen has no need to be near the cart, but it seems to be fate that leads him there at this exact moment regardless. Upon hearing the familiar voice, he turns in approximation toward it. "Master Asgeirr, it is no burden to speak with you."

But hadn't Wei Wuxian said Asgeirr may not always appear when called upon? To manifest on his own must denote a great burden indeed. So Xingchen listens dutifully. He is the old scholar's disciple of sorts, after all. "I have been told as much, though I have not spoken to the man myself. Do you know him?"

An Ghost, in person, during the trek through harpyland

[sergeant_slick]

He's been avoiding the ghosts. Look, the locals have been weird and creepy before, but this was just too much.

But after a while, the sheer fatigue over the whole situation wore him down. Sure. Ghosts. That was a thing now. And they might be extremely dead, but they still were an army. They were moving with purpose, and with a logic to their organization that made sense to him.

Wait, was he really considering talking to ghosts because he was homesick for the army? He shouldn't be. The army was literally the worst thing that ever happened to him.

...But he was going to talk to one of them anyway. He was on watch right now, and bored as all hells.

He'd been observing long enough to figure out one of them was an infantry sergeant, or whatever the local equivalent might be. He waited until a moment when the ghost was off-duty. Well, closer to off-duty than the whole "grimly marching on" or "fighting weird goo birds" or "staring mutely into the void" parts of their schedule.

"Sky's quiet for now. I suppose you lot have dealt with these things before?"

Because the practical stuff always comes first. It's a better introduction than "Hi, I see we've both got a tragic army backstory" or something.

[aprescoup]

Flickered and dancing the knife's edge between absent and corporeal, but the ghosts remember enough of themselves to perform their past function, their duties. They served as infantry and cavalry to the Sukhl, nomads given to fast conquest, to the minimal drag of resources on their journey. They are meant to be light, nimble.

...the caravan is steady but slow, ever visible, a waiting target. If this were the plains, Arha's people would seize the convoy. But the Lord has demanded they provide escort, and so the deed is done.

The man Slick approaches is a lieutenant, ranked. He accepts Slick to fall in step with him, even honouring him by providing shield cover when another harpy drops down dregs of tar and bone.

"Damned creatures never leave us be. Don't know what they want with us. Must be the road. Few critters here to feed'em. Must be Taravast, also. Witches, eh? What can you expect. No honest work, like sword and bow."

Anurr, your friend is here

[scrapgege]

Xie Lian hasn't exactly been on the lookout for Anurr ever since learning he's around there - their big caravan just got a lot bigger, there's monsters, it's busy all the time - but the moment he actually catches sight of him, he's just going to wave happily.

"Hi! I dind't think we'd see you again so soon."

He actually looks happy to see him, too.

[aprescoup]

Anurr and his two undead companion — worse for the wear of travel after the horsecar's explosion — have been idling at a respectful distance away from the caravan's encampment, all the better to avoid startling the living travellers.

Even Arha's people appear to give them a wide berth, and so, when Xie Lian draws near, the borrowed face of Anurr's Haltham body brightens in a lopsided approximation of a smile.

"We BrOu GhT yo uR fRiEn Ds."