username: haltham

[aprescoup]

( Audio: translated through the House of Dew quartz network. A man’s voice, fairly coarse, hesitant. )

...llo? Hello there? Right. Sorry. This is a fancy —

( Fumbling, as he hunts his words and the device settings. Try again: )

Greetings. This is Haltham. I met you. Some of you. At the jailhouse. I was the one who told you...? You remember? Tall? Green eyes? You remember. Come on. Most of you were, ahhh... a little... little rougher for your wear, but you remember. Sweated blood to get you out of… and Karsa, Up the mines? Well. Doesn’t matter now. I’ve got an hour. If you didn’t know me then, you’ll learn me now.

( And softer: ) I wish I could see you. See all of you. I’m told… Tamaiu sends me word every few days. Tells me you’re all right. Handful, but... what’s that about some of you starting the old trade? True, that? Well. Well, well. Just wish I could see you. First ones we’ve gotten out, and I can’t even see — ( Laughter, bittersweet. )

...you don’t care. Look, you’ll leave Sa-Hareth soon. The old man worked long for it. He promised. And I know you must have questions, and I’ll tell you right, I do too. I’m doing my bit, but he doesn’t let on much. Think he’s afraid, he says too much to one of us, we get captured, the entire work’s at stake. And maybe he’s right. Who’s to say, eh? Who’s to say. For now, you and I, we focus on our duties. Yours: get coin. We just need a bit, and — no, I won’t be lying, not me, it’s not a little. About 100,000 pieces. Give or take, what thirty good men make at the port each month. And it won’t all go to you, either, got some pockets to fill, if we want you out without... trouble. And we do. We all do.

We’ve got options: we take you out with the old spice caravan when it comes by the next full moonrise, or we find you a smuggling ship. Either way, won’t be cozy, but you’ll live. You’re the living sort.

( He seems to catch his wits back about himself, just as the channel is briefly disrupted by the half-purred, half-moaned communication of a courtesan wooing a patron into a booking. Haltham waits until she’s done completely: )

...ladies here, they’re something else, aren’t they? If I had that kind of coin, I wouldn’t say no, myself. Sorry. Sorry, we’ve got children with us. And look after the lil’uns, will you? The pink and the furred one. The girls? They’ve got a... people here, you get all sorts. Them’s good, and then there’s them with appetites. ( A pause, pregnant. Long. )

I’ve got some tips, in any case. Some... guidelines. Give it another sennight, the fat trade starts, and every big man east comes in with his ship, and they bring anything. Everything. So much gold. And then there’re the auctions, and they waste, fellows, friends, they’re pissing that money, then, they’ll buy and sell anything. Sell them rags and tell them it’s riches, and they’ll believe you. Anyway. Anyway, there’s salt to sell, if you want. Some... other things, I’m sure you’ve got your plenty. And I’m bringing them, by the way. Your old things? We rescued some. Has to be in turns, with the House’s laundry and spice and food parcels, and we bury them deep, but. Just cast yer eye, it’ll be there. All of it. If it’s yours, it’s not mine, and I’m no thief. None of us... we don’t want anything from you.

( His voice drops to an octave, a murmur. ) Look. Advice? If you take it? Keep your head low. Let the old man sort you. Don’t go anywhere alone. Trust no one, or as few as you can. Unhalad’s people, you can tell them apart, they’re everywhere, and they’re wild. And they go wilder, the colder it gets, has them running. Look... kill them. If you can, do it quick. But don’t try it with the red sleeved’uns, though. Stay out of their way. And if you can’t... the old queen had our pillars put in for the parades, and they’re are good iron. Strong. Could berth your boat against’em. Honest. Run. Run, head first, and meet the iron where your head’s soft on the sides. Do yourself with your own hands, it’s better than if red sleeves get you. You trust me.



( OOC: post open, threadjack amongst yourselves at will. Haltham will input here and there.

Character inventory items that weren’t with them when they escaped will be brought in over three House of Dew deliveries spanning the next few days. The first shipment will come with laundry, the second will comprise small items hidden beside apothecary bottles, and the third will come with the establishment’s food carts. Up to you which belongings your character gets back first, and whether they’re in pristine, lightly chipped or damaged conditions. )

Comments

[weifinder]

( A pause. )

They... fell on their own?

( Sounding contemplative, but to do that, means at some point having hunger outweigh sense, and they can have sense. )

The others, from this newest conquering force, they were more... instinctive. Fast to move, avoidant of whites, not talking. Still had some sense of order in the ones where we'd been chained, but not those down in the mines.

( Another pause. )

I'd have to observe them more closely to get a feel for what might be moving them, but at this point, I don't know that the means between the dead you witnessed and the dead I did are even the same. What made you finally realise they weren't living?

[jeoha]

Not another red-sleeve. One of the guards, the slower undead. The dumber ones. I killed it, grabbed the keys off it, and tossed it to them. By the time I looked back--

There hunger must have been great indeed.

[ An answering pause. ]

I realised when they started eating the creature. When they were in the light, when I could see their hollow faces, their crazed eyes. They move differently from the living.

I have seen their kind before. I know what fueled that plague. But they could never speak.

[weifinder]

Ah, well, the dumber ones move fast enough when they're motivated.

( Dryly spoken, but that's what it is, the hunger in the mines, and the pervasiveness of cold everywhere. )

Move differently in what way? I wish I were able to observe these kind too... what drives these walking dead, how they manage them, it's beyond anything I'd imagine back home.

( Being the guy who raises and manipulates spirits, and the occasional possession as you do, animating bodies that have truly died is not something their world has seen. )

[jeoha]

They move like they do not care about what happens to their limbs.

[ It was the only way he knew to accurately describe it, but a frown was starting to pull at his lips. ]

The plague also exists in your home, then?

JACKING TO SAVE A LIFE | un: heart-fluttering hummingbird

[downswing]

( That moment when your accomplice in every crime is the plague — )

It does not.

[jeoha]

[ He raises an eyebrow at the swift reply from a new voice, but then something else occurs to him: ]

You both come from the same place?

[downswing]

Where that old dog learned new tricks.

[weifinder]

( SCADALISED GASP

yes this tag is real )

Lan Zhan! I am not a dog!

[downswing]

( As master Wei says, to nearly mute laughter, and no further Lan comment. )

[jeoha]

[ He can’t help it. Even the nearly mute laughter is a sound so uncommon to him these days that he relaxes a little. ]

So the dog and the bird come together. I cannot tell if you are fortune or cursed.

Lan Zhan. I am Lee Chang.

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian now is the one laughing, and it can be heard: because yes, he calls Lan Zhan intimately, but now that's.

Hahahahaha.

THIS IS WHAT IS EARNED FOR CALLING HIM A DOG. )

Lee Chang, Lee Chang, please, he'll want you calling him Lan Wangji, by courtesy name.

( He's still sounding clearly amused, but it's just because he can exactly imagine what Lan Zhan's face looked like right then. )

[jeoha]

[ Ugh, he missed home, where he knew all the rules of how to address someone. ]

My apologies, Lan Wangji. I meant no slight.

[downswing]

( This, then. This is why one should not befriend evil. )

No grievance.

[jeoha]

[ He nods in thanks, completely invisible, because audio is a nightmare. After a moment: ]

I wasn't aware that anyone came from the same place to this world. Everyone I have so far talked to belongs to Kingdoms I've never known. May I ask where you both hail from?

[downswing]

( The peasant may assume the duties of conversation. He lacks his wheelie and requires exercise. )

[weifinder]

( Lan Zhan didn't get his nappy in so he is officially flouncing from this conversation, we see. )

Ah, not really a kingdom, but I can tell you Lan Wangji was likely in Gusu at the time before here, and is of Gusu Lan. I was on the road between larger regions, it'd be difficult to say, but I was originally of Yunmeng.

[downswing]

( Good peasant. )

[jeoha]

[ The sounds, at least, seem familiar, but the syllables strung together still carried no meaning for him, and he let out a sigh. ]

I see. I am afraid I do not know them. I am of Joseon, if that should mean something to you.

[weifinder]

( Ask the one with memory more dedicated to interesting (to him) factoids than anything else, and he's squinting at the sound of it... maybe? Maybe not? )

Nothing specific, but if it's a difference in how we say these things, I wouldn't know. Does your Joseon have cultivators?

making me do research...

[jeoha]

[ It takes him a minute to think, before saying slowly: ] You mean the mountain masters? I've heard of them, yes, though the practice is an old one, and I can't claim to have met one.

i love you and your research

[weifinder]

Hahaha, ah, is that so... we're cultivators, myself and Lan Zh... Lan Wangji.

[jeoha]

[ There's a slight smile in his voice when he replies: ]

I can believe it of Master Lan, he seems very succinct. You sound young to be a man of the mountains.

[weifinder]

( He laughs, and doesn't try to hold back: he's just as old, of course, even with sixteen years of darkness left as an inexplicable stretch of time between them. )

Immortals, not immortals, cultivators have longer lifespans, but few are truly ancient. We're of an age, but he is the man with the more richly experienced life.

( Sixteen years more of enriched experience, one might say. )

[downswing]

( You little bi — other old dog. )

[weifinder]

( What, is your little bird starving, Lan Zhan, he helped )