Newcomers arrived ahead of the remaining, seaborne party, securing passport papers into Clockwork Serthica — a citadel divided in two adversarial halves: dragon and magic-loving Eidris and disciplinarian, tech-geared Minaras. Everything in Serthica feels alive, including the recently dead. Serthica was splintered by a now-gone plague, who killed all those whom it infected, the Doctor learned. Currently, Eidris emerges from the underground depths over 6:00-18:00, while Minaras surfaces nocturnally between 18:00-6:00. The two citadel halves meet overground over 6:00-7:00 and 18:00-19:00, with natives occupying spaces in the Neutral Zone bridges and Sanctuary.
The party joined a trade summit at the Sanctuary, where attendants from which side briefly... glitched for a series of moments of jarring, puppet-like behaviour. The terrorist group Remembrance attempted to kidnap Minaras' high councillor Arabella. Escorting her to safety, Wrathion, Licyn and Beitang Moran found a key pointing towards the inherited factories of Eidris dragon warlord Cain d'Ubiq and to Serthica's impoverished underground world, the Mouse House. Wrath and Emilia read out an anonymous note Arabella received, which triggered her into possessed behaviour.
Party members were assigned a stay in one of the two halves of Serthica: in Eidris, a dragon went berserk and the party helped recover her hatching eggs, following injury to her mate — at the presumed hands of a Minaras scout ship, whose reconnaissance work was decommissioned days before the incident. In Minaras, the local indoctrination centre sought to cure the rot of citizens. Meanwhile, Kaneki Ken discovered some Minaras morgue corpses have a strange, unexpected 'rot'-like sickness inside their bodies.
SEPTEMBER: More signs of strangeness surfaced in wake of the summit: dragons often go listless, while some droids do not recognise theirs masters. In Minaras, several factories and facilities abruptly ceased to function, with cogs and gears showing signs of poor maintenance and repairs at the hands of Mouse House substances. Investigating a medical facility, McCoy contracted the seemingly resurrected 'coal sick.' An Eidris flight reconnaissance mission revealed the plane that injured a dragon — suspected of Minaras allegiance — was manned by burlap mannequins and part of a decommissioned Serthica healing squad, which preceded the 'coal sick.' The Remembrance group became more public and aggressive in its recruitment, conscripting captives. Finn and Jim Kirk broke their way into a hidden room of the organisation's headquarters, recovering an animate burlap mannequin and a music box that, once fixed, referenced Arc III location Ke-Waihu and produced the noise imitated by 'glitching' citizens. Wrath, Xiao Xingchen, Magnus Bane and Zhou Fei found 'womb walls' behind which such mannequin creatures seem to gain human likeness and awareness — while bathing into dark waters.
OCTOBER: The party was drawn into the annual U n w i n d i n g — a drop into shifting planes of reality shaped by a child's mind, which bore several marks reminiscent of Arc III location Ke-Waihu. The child — a boy bearing a fox mask — introduced himself as slain undead liege Hyang-Won, the Beastmaster. Warnings scattered across the U n w i n d i n g warn children lie, while the white wanderer of the undead-savaged Ellethia resurfaced.
After the U n w i n d i n g, the party was approached by skittish dragon warlord Cain d'Ubiq, while recovering in the underground citadel of the Mouse House. D'Ubiq urged them to retrieve dragon scales and artefacts from the Sibilant Sands where he conducted Eidris' last attack against Minaras during Serthica's civil conflict. Several party members rescued scales, which signal when their holders are physically near undeath. The dragon eye in Magnus Bane's possession shows decay and dying.
Above ground, Serthica now appears renewed by the U n w i n d i n g, with natives exhibiting no further aberrant behaviour. However, local architecture has tellingly changed and Minaras has bolstered attempts to cure the 'coal sick.' Fearing much of Serthica has been corrupted, the Merchant tasked the group to infiltrate the Neutral Zone clock tower and help activate the sorceress Karsa's spell that will briefly reveal the extent of undeath present in the citadel. The party might the decide to await the beacon's yearly start-up, or exit. Within the tower, the group encountered further animated mannequins, woodland creatures and priestly robes not unlike those of Ke-Waihu — and the child again, who accused Serthica of deathly sickness.
In a final push, the party devised creative methods to simultaneously cure the magical and scientific aspects of the curse-sickness triggered by the Child, on arrival in Serthica after somehow surviving the trauma of sacrifice in Ke-Waihu. The Child's presence — and ongoing abilities — seeded the curse-sickness by perpetually decaying bodies and particles around him. The White Wanderer succeeded to contain the spread to Serthica. A pathetic Cain d'Ubiq and grudging Chrichter confirmed that upon returning from one of the final clashes between Eidris and Minaras after the sickness sparked, nearly 3/4 of the population of Serthica had been killed by the plague. Overwhelmed, they agreed to the Child's ploy to use custom-grown mannequins that copied the likeness of the dead and amnesia-triggering sedative gases to deceive survivors and the Mouse House that the city remained well. The yearly Unwinding reset this magic. Remembrance stoked conflict between Eidris and Minaras to distract the people from the uncanny proceedings.
The Child agreed to Wration restrain his powers of decay while the party worked. Using herbs retrieved from the Sibilant Sands, hijacking medical academy laboratories and taking down two magical anchors that had coagulated the curse, the group succeeded to remove the plague — and, unexpectedly, revive the population ofSerthica, including its dragons.
ARC IV: CLOCKWORK SERTHICA
Newcomers arrived ahead of the remaining, seaborne party, securing passport papers into Clockwork Serthica — a citadel divided in two adversarial halves: dragon and magic-loving Eidris and disciplinarian, tech-geared Minaras. Everything in Serthica feels alive, including the recently dead. Serthica was splintered by a now-gone plague, who killed all those whom it infected, the Doctor learned. Currently, Eidris emerges from the underground depths over 6:00-18:00, while Minaras surfaces nocturnally between 18:00-6:00. The two citadel halves meet overground over 6:00-7:00 and 18:00-19:00, with natives occupying spaces in the Neutral Zone bridges and Sanctuary.
The party joined a trade summit at the Sanctuary, where attendants from which side briefly... glitched for a series of moments of jarring, puppet-like behaviour. The terrorist group Remembrance attempted to kidnap Minaras' high councillor Arabella. Escorting her to safety, Wrathion, Licyn and Beitang Moran found a key pointing towards the inherited factories of Eidris dragon warlord Cain d'Ubiq and to Serthica's impoverished underground world, the Mouse House. Wrath and Emilia read out an anonymous note Arabella received, which triggered her into possessed behaviour.
Party members were assigned a stay in one of the two halves of Serthica: in Eidris, a dragon went berserk and the party helped recover her hatching eggs, following injury to her mate — at the presumed hands of a Minaras scout ship, whose reconnaissance work was decommissioned days before the incident. In Minaras, the local indoctrination centre sought to cure the rot of citizens. Meanwhile, Kaneki Ken discovered some Minaras morgue corpses have a strange, unexpected 'rot'-like sickness inside their bodies.
SEPTEMBER: More signs of strangeness surfaced in wake of the summit: dragons often go listless, while some droids do not recognise theirs masters. In Minaras, several factories and facilities abruptly ceased to function, with cogs and gears showing signs of poor maintenance and repairs at the hands of Mouse House substances. Investigating a medical facility, McCoy contracted the seemingly resurrected 'coal sick.' An Eidris flight reconnaissance mission revealed the plane that injured a dragon — suspected of Minaras allegiance — was manned by burlap mannequins and part of a decommissioned Serthica healing squad, which preceded the 'coal sick.' The Remembrance group became more public and aggressive in its recruitment, conscripting captives. Finn and Jim Kirk broke their way into a hidden room of the organisation's headquarters, recovering an animate burlap mannequin and a music box that, once fixed, referenced Arc III location Ke-Waihu and produced the noise imitated by 'glitching' citizens. Wrath, Xiao Xingchen, Magnus Bane and Zhou Fei found 'womb walls' behind which such mannequin creatures seem to gain human likeness and awareness — while bathing into dark waters.
OCTOBER: The party was drawn into the annual U n w i n d i n g — a drop into shifting planes of reality shaped by a child's mind, which bore several marks reminiscent of Arc III location Ke-Waihu. The child — a boy bearing a fox mask — introduced himself as slain undead liege Hyang-Won, the Beastmaster. Warnings scattered across the U n w i n d i n g warn children lie, while the white wanderer of the undead-savaged Ellethia resurfaced.
After the U n w i n d i n g, the party was approached by skittish dragon warlord Cain d'Ubiq, while recovering in the underground citadel of the Mouse House. D'Ubiq urged them to retrieve dragon scales and artefacts from the Sibilant Sands where he conducted Eidris' last attack against Minaras during Serthica's civil conflict. Several party members rescued scales, which signal when their holders are physically near undeath. The dragon eye in Magnus Bane's possession shows decay and dying.
Above ground, Serthica now appears renewed by the U n w i n d i n g, with natives exhibiting no further aberrant behaviour. However, local architecture has tellingly changed and Minaras has bolstered attempts to cure the 'coal sick.' Fearing much of Serthica has been corrupted, the Merchant tasked the group to infiltrate the Neutral Zone clock tower and help activate the sorceress Karsa's spell that will briefly reveal the extent of undeath present in the citadel. The party might the decide to await the beacon's yearly start-up, or exit. Within the tower, the group encountered further animated mannequins, woodland creatures and priestly robes not unlike those of Ke-Waihu — and the child again, who accused Serthica of deathly sickness.
In a final push, the party devised creative methods to simultaneously cure the magical and scientific aspects of the curse-sickness triggered by the Child, on arrival in Serthica after somehow surviving the trauma of sacrifice in Ke-Waihu. The Child's presence — and ongoing abilities — seeded the curse-sickness by perpetually decaying bodies and particles around him. The White Wanderer succeeded to contain the spread to Serthica. A pathetic Cain d'Ubiq and grudging Chrichter confirmed that upon returning from one of the final clashes between Eidris and Minaras after the sickness sparked, nearly 3/4 of the population of Serthica had been killed by the plague. Overwhelmed, they agreed to the Child's ploy to use custom-grown mannequins that copied the likeness of the dead and amnesia-triggering sedative gases to deceive survivors and the Mouse House that the city remained well. The yearly Unwinding reset this magic. Remembrance stoked conflict between Eidris and Minaras to distract the people from the uncanny proceedings.
The Child agreed to Wration restrain his powers of decay while the party worked. Using herbs retrieved from the Sibilant Sands, hijacking medical academy laboratories and taking down two magical anchors that had coagulated the curse, the group succeeded to remove the plague — and, unexpectedly, revive the population of Serthica, including its dragons.
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