westwhere | no man's sea

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no man's sea

Avast ye — sprawling til 18 June is part I of the Storm at Sea travel arc, which doubles as a test drive. Participants don’t need an invite to reserve or apply over 10-17 June.

Try to label if you’re a test drive tourist or an old timer — and don’t hesitate to leave an OOC note to opt out of random NPC piraaaaaaaargh interaction. Test drivers can post both log and network prompts. Have fun!

NO MAN’S SEA

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AHOY! SCALLYWAGS

Departing Ke-Waihu, the existing party joins paranoid pirate king, turned stalwart saint Samuel Vane — the feared Quicksilver Sam — aboard the Pariah.

Test drivers awaken anguishing at sea, floating on rafts, or on minuscule patches of deserted land. They are collected by two pirates and the recalcitrant sorceress Karsa — who supplies translation and communication devices. She explains the newcomers were summoned into the land of Akhuras by warring undead factions. Karsa’s master, the elusive Merchant, ferries newcomers east to beacons hoped to return them home. He has secured them passage on the pirate vessel Queen Zanyra of ’Wet Rope’ Caladan Kreil, an associate of Quicksilver Sam.

The Pariah and Zanyra meet at sea, a day’s travel away from Ke-Waihu:

■ Characters overhear that Quicksilver Sam seeks to reach the haunted Crossing Seas and ‘settle an old score.’ Long-term ally Caladan Kreil supports his cause.

■ The two vessels make daily supply and crew exchanges by rowboat. The Pariah’s passengers must give the passcode: flaunted like gold to board the Queen Zanyra. Staff of the Queen Zanyra must speak the words before the blind man to access the Pariah. Forget your passcode and fall at the mercy of whoever patrols the decks!

■ Tasks await all passengers: diligently clean and polish decks, climb tall masts to sew torn sails, banish a preposterous number of seagulls, fish, read post or… dubious novels to sailors, count loot, guard the decks, clean cannons or serve as boat lure for shark fishing. Medics and cooks can practise their natural trades, while musicians and entertainers should amuse the crew.

■ By all means, grab thematic garments from crew coffers. Also available: daggers, swords and rare pistols.

■ Characters may notice both ship crews are spirited, but grow weary when Quicksilver Sam fitfully orders his five on-call priests to carry out protection rites, or to ‘exorcise’ evil from random staff — through ineffective bitter potions, shrill chants and requests to sit in unusual luck-incurring poses, or to commit some mundane, repetitive task. Let’s bore the devil away.

■ Treat senior crew with respect: some pirates are equally drunk on rum and fleetingly authority and reward perceived slights with a 24h-stay in the brig. These fine accommodations fit two and annul powers while there. No dinner.

■ Sleep where you can: hammocks and rotting mattresses can be found in great common halls beneath decks. The sick and women (naturally, ill omens at sea) can share the four private cabins of each ship. Sumeragi Subaru has his own cabin aboard the Pariah.

■ Each night, expect drinking beneath the halls and a pirate’s greatest hobby: gambling. Conmen might lure you into an ‘innocent game’ that sinks you deep into debt, winning your valuables, favours, or kidney!

■ Ladies are afforded a wide, begrudging berth and some authority over the crew.

■ Accommodations: fresh potions are readily available to ward off sea sickness, and magically resilient oranges are on hand to counter scurvy. As woe would have it, the long-serving Mr. Ishmael has passed, and his earthly remains have been retained aboard the Pariah for Kaneki Ken. Viktor receives a leashed emotional support albatross — a large, loud but docile bird that flies above him counter-current to balance him, whenever the ship’s sway threatens his footing.

OBJECTIVES

■ Discover why good Quicksilver Sam is intent on his haunted travels. The captain declines audiences, but try to get information from the two crews.

■ Please share the information gained via network…!

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THAT SON OF A BISCUIT EATER

Trouble starts to brew, within days at sea:

■ Be on the lookout while on watch duty: on a handful of occasions, new faces appear aboard. They fail to offer the passcode — and attempt to injure characters, throw them overboard, or to enter the captains’ lodgings. Sound the alarm or seize intruders!

■ After interrogating an infiltrator, Caladan Kreil sends word that the assailants hail from the Concord, a war vessel of the Dawns’ Reach Trade Company that is pursuing the pirate ships at distance under the command of Maximilian Hawk. A credit to his name, Wet Rope Caladan has the spy hanged.

■ Prepare to get drafted for double watch duty, as both Caladan Kreil and Quicksilver Sam bolster defences. Tensions escalate, with pirate crew questioning the loyalties of newer recruits.

■ A few days later, at dawns, the silent, swift and massive Concord approaches close enough to fire its cannons at both ships and send vicious militia to climb aboard. Defend your ship!

■ The Concord withdraws by midday, after lightly damaging its opponents. Help with repairs and enjoy some rum — you’ve survived your first sea scuffle!

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MOLLYWICK

Just short of entering the Crossing, where the seas are dark and highly opaque, the Queen Zanyra and Pariah encounter a stretch of vibrant, lushly forested land.

■ Both vessels send crew over for a few hours, with captains urging quick incursions. Pair up to collect berries, scant mushrooms and sweet water. Curiously, no animals are found.

■ Veteran sailors say this is the Neverflight isle of myth, where sea kings have buried their treasures. Pirates share legendary coordinates of long lost loot, archived as riddles or poems. Grab a shovel and a-digging you go!

■ …ah, but don’t linger too long. What pranksters your sailor friends are. Within hours of the island’s appearance, the earth beneath your feet crumbles and quakes, and the land starts to sink. Evacuate or call for help to get out of here — as the great white whale Mollywick submerges in the waters with the Neverflight island it carries on its back. Hopefully, you don’t go under with them.

■ If you’ve threaded out a treasure dig, drop a line to receive some especially deplorable loot. You deserve it.

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THE CROSSING

The Pariah and Queen Zanyra — frequently chained together to avoid separation — creep into the Crossing : a stretch of eerily silent waters, dark and volatile.

■

■ Slowly, a thick, nearly impregnable fog dawns during the day, covering the sun and leaving the skies a desolate slate. Dreadful storms spark at night.

■ Strange, talking carps jump on board, offering to tell you your future. Caution: they only make bad luck readings (request yours) that turn true. They appear wherever their target flees and are exceptionally annoying, until either the moon rises, or you apply the superstitious cure of throwing salt on them.

■ Nightmares haunt you — your own, or glimpsed memories of ships crashing, sinking, falling to storm. Note: only your character suffers these memories/nightmares, but everyone else can experience their exhausted grumpiness, come morning.

■ Be wary, when pairing to cross over to the other pirate ship: you may find another rowboat beside yours, its sailor begging for an oar or ladle. If you give him one, he shovels water into your boat with inhuman speed — desert your vessel and swim quickly to a pirate ship, before undead hands pull you into the sea.

■ While alone on deck, characters might hear sweet, coaxing voices that urge them to walk the plank into the water. Break your brethren from this spell, or watch them fall into the arms of man-eating mermaids.

■ Now and then, the ships are shaken by long, whips of something lashing from the depths.

■ Pirates become increasingly skittish and on edge. Priests perform countless protection rites and exorcisms on both ships.

■ At night, a handful of undead men climb aboard. They lack awareness and are in a clear state of discomposure, looking to catch the living and drown them. With toothless, rotting mouths, some rasp, This is kinder.

■ As you officially enter the Crossing, beams of light erupt in the horizon, showing the distant silhouettes of several ghost ships.

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NOTES

TEST DRIVE QUESTIONS

OLD-TIMER QUESTIONS

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I doubt most people here are.

( and that's one of the problems )

We travel through the stars.

Hm. Wrathion lofts an eyebrow, hesitates. It's a much more direct question, in truth, than he knows how to answer. What is he even supposed to say?

"I am with you," he says finally, "that is all that matters."

Which is the truth. The process may be difficult, here, but they are together. So long as they are together, then any obstacles can be overcome.

( For a moment, the world trembles.

Then, wood crackles — a railing, torn and splintered and sundering, while bursts of flame erupt on deck, and Lan Wangji hears the thunderous rumble of Emilia's instruction. Heeds it. Abandons the man at Emilia's side and stabs the night like lightning or knife's blade on oiled surface, feet skidding.

The spark of flame must spread. Bichen, steady and quick-drawn, serves him as the foot of a torch, while he straps tatters of abandoned sail cloth, stranded on the deck for its holes, then drenches it in the oils of braziers — in fire, after.

Then, he dallies, hastens to deliver Emilia's truer, stronger flame from one edge of the deck to the next, until he's traversed it seamlessly, and the pirates who see the shadow of him — nothing unto the nothing of the deck's inked dark, barely needle-stabbed by rain — do not give chase. Instead, the fire: it flickers, blooms. They scream. Strange, how, victims of hazard, men devolve into their animal skins in the hour when wit would best serve them.

He dissipates before they may think to wonder if the white of him, at distance, were a man's silks or the absent sky's stars, scattered. When he rejoins Emilia, breath laboured like the droning of a metronome, the crew has already been diverted to the twin, opposite half of the deck.

He does not think, We may have ruined their vessel, their one means of wealth. Does not apologise. )

How... ( Perhaps, aggrieved by strain, even Hanguang-Jun can succumb to exhaustion. ) What... help... yet required?

( Emilia knows better than to call attention to this thaw she senses within his answer. But not so cautious that she'll fail to push the envelope a bit further, slinking over to him as though she is the serpent. Making herself a home on his lap, fingers finding purchase on his shoulders. )

You're all civility, demon.

( Until it serves him best to remind others his true domain, of course.

Her head cants to the side, assessing him from this vantage point. )

What else might we do? ( If they were not trapped. If they were home, as though she truly knows what that means. )

( And so their hunt for treasure begins.

Emilia does not forsake their task for the day, gathering what edible berries and mushrooms she finds as they make sense of these coordinates together. A wisp of rue touches her lips, a weighted sorrow burrowing in her chest. ) As do I. I searched for him. For him and Lily both.

( Her cold determination to reach the depths of the volcano meant she missed a great deal, including their departures. It was important, and she could have done nothing else. But she does regret not getting to see them one last time. )

It's the not knowing. ( The lack of certainty or closure. It gnaws at the bone. )

[She nods. It might have been easier if her own siblings had disappeared through the beacon, rather than just at random. Things would have been easier with Five, that's for sure.]

Hopefully if they are out there somewhere, we'll find them again.

[Allison, on the other hand, is also gathering where Allison indicates, but is keeping an eye out for anything strange, that might be an indicator of their treasure.]

Allison and Emilia doing some treasure hunting.

[ He raises his eyebrows and hovers closer, looking at the one in her hand longer than he might have if he wasn't still shaking off the dregs of a nightmare during what little sleep he managed to get. It doesn't look particularly impressive, but that's the annoying thing about magic objects, isn't it?

He feels entirely too gullible that it's so easy for him to just accept what she's telling him. But he's been out of coffee for far too long. Maybe it's time he looked into creative alternatives. ]

You don't say. [ Just so happens to be exactly what he needs. ] ...How long does it last? Do you have to stay near it, or is lighting it the only thing you need to do to activate it?

[ He's clearly dying for a demonstration, but he's tired enough to think he's being entirely casual about this line of questioning. ]

( Wrath's gaze draws over her as she makes herself at home on his lap, as her fingers grip to his shoulder. He remains still and steady at her words as if he could possibly remain so still to never move at all.

His gaze draws over her neck from up close and then up to her lips, and finally, his hand rises. The palm of it presses tot he low of her back and then into the fabric of what she wears. )

Plot the slow demise of our enemies for one?

( A low murmur, a tiny smirk )

Enjoy a meal only you made, share a bed that is ours- ( His voice cuts off as the last time they did she poisoned him after all - His dark gaze lifts to her face ) Would you want that?

( Would she choose it? Choose him? )

Edited 2022-06-30 03:44 (UTC)

( a hint of mirth touches her lips, fondness in her otherwise resolute demeanor. she sets down a knife and some herbs before him. ) They are some of my very first memories with my own family. I practically grew up in a kitchen, really.

( she learned to break down a chicken carcass under three minutes by the age of ten, so her own knife skills aren't bad.

but it's nice to have the company. )

No, I —

( She knows it to be an illusion now. ) I meant the lashings. Whatever shook the ship. Did you feel it, too? ( Goddess forbid she's imagining the rest, as well. It frightens her to think so when it felt real. )

( She is alone when Lan Wangji returns to her.

Half as breathless, her own tongue stayed for apology. Fingers reddened by her hastened work with rope, and her urgency. She gives a slow shake of her head, gaze drawn to the diversion they've created. Attempts to focus on the flame itself, to help contain it even from this distance. )

He's on his way.

( Emilia could spare details, the steps of her haphazard plan, plan formed in the moment to send the man back where he belongs. But that is not the language Lan Wangji speaks. She cuts through the superfluous, and delivers him the heart of the matter: he is no longer on-board. Alive.

She moves to stand beside Lan Wangji, culprits of a different kind. )

Did they suspect? ( Already, she thinks of tracks they might need to cover. )

( He is the most casual man alive... !

Emilia recalls what Celestia one said: arcane symbols increase the potency of a spell. Witches often use them to enhance their source of power. Since returning her cornicello to Wrath, she has not needed much supplementation. Her source simply exists, an endless well in her very core.

With a swish of her hand, the candle is lit. Energy radiates from it and toward them, renewing. )

It lasts for as long as the candle burns. The radius is five feet, so as to not disturb those who do wish to sleep. ( She doesn't know that she'd trust to keep her eyes closed, but she also has trust issuesTM. )

( Emilia nods her own agreement. She's aware this is something the Hargreeves already have in their agenda: find the rest of their siblings. If Vittoria was alive, Emilia would stop at nothing to find her, so she is nothing if not supportive. )

Is it selfish to say I'm glad if we must be stuck here, it is together?

( The goal is for them to return to their homes, but it does make her sad to think she'd forget Allison. )

That depends.

( Emilia moves against him honey-slow, the curve of her molding to the stillness of him, stomach to stomach. Chest to chest. Her half-lidded gaze takes him in, him and all his stillness. She was fooled by it once, and is not any longer. He will not remain unmoving. It's the war in him.

A demon that refuses to surrender, and a witch that will not yield. What an eternity they may have. )

You once said to me — you once said I should, under no circumstances, bargain with the devil. 'What's his is his.'

( Her hand slides from his shoulder down to his chest, over the steady thrum of his heartbeat. )

Was that true?

( On his way. Two recourses: alive, or culled from inconvenience.

He wishes himself the better man, the one who would not incriminate Emilia of murder. He wishes her the better woman, the one who would not incur stained hands. Red riots on her skin like benison. Blooms from the arid depths of her heart, as it does from Wei Ying's. Blood and its letting suit them.

It's a misaligned thing, to peer through the horizon and see ink spatters on mahogany wood, a young disciple's negligence with his instruments of calligraphy. In a sea blacker than rot, Lan Wangji cannot glimpse a boat.

He's on his way. There must be one. What is it, this flicker of nothing like seeds anchored to the dandelion's head, this young sliver of hope? He tires of faith. It exhausts him to deny or extend it. Trapped on the railing, sustaining both vertical and lateral inertia, his hands clench.

He will not fall. He will not wander. When waters next crest, he thinks he spies a pale silhouette aboard a distant boat. )

That we perpetuate only our gains among them, guests in their opened home? ( This ship. The villages before them. Taravast. The canyon. The frozen Sa-Hareth. ) They never suspect.

As for their loot... eighteen golden coins, chipped and out of date. A particularly buxom corset. Two broken keys. The arm-length tooth of some enormous creature, carved into a dull, but ornamental blade. A bundle of tangled laces. Two shirts, filled with holes. A resilient black coat, emblazoned for the Dawn's Reach Trade Company. Three socks, each of a different make and size. A sea shell that squeals like a little pig when you hold it to your ear and listen.

( The steps to this dance he must know by heart. Wangji, of ruthless meaning and fewer words, and those who understand and misunderstand alike, rebuking in offense. But Emilia knows that if they could wear their misdeeds on the outside, the honorable Lan's robes would not be so white.

Knows that she looks at him not from below, but at eye level, always. Her spine as straight. The only difference is clear sight: she owns these choices, aware of the dreadful things she will do in the pursuit of her twin's justice, and to secure herself a way home.

She looks to him. His meaning. And lets it exist where it must. )

We are not their guests. We are a transaction.

( Quicksilver did not ask for coin, no. But he asked for protection. He wanted brute force and talents. When the time comes and they have reached the heart of the wretched Crossing, it will be them alongside these sailors, risking life for what little they can save, for what ruin they can unmake.

Again. )

Did you pay steeply?

( You did not pay. Hand wavering, neither did Lan Wangji. The railing crackles, tears. Wet rot and strength of a man rebuilt from memory of graces, divorced from etiquettes.

Sumeragi Subaru paid the coin of their passage. Others sustain their worth on deck. For how he sniffs and prowls by masts and sails' cloth, Wei Ying too chases phantasms to bind, to break, to marry, to take for children. Unsophisticated, Sizhui accepts every exorcism he can complete kindly. Xie Lian, no doubt, breaks his morning meal with ghosts. )

Were you shortchanged?

( The high-pitched moaning of a grey, unseen sea bird thrills and excruciates him. His skin pebbles, back bowed like a spattered arc of wave spumes. And behind him —

'Fire stalled?'

'Aaaaaaaaaaye, siiiiiiir!'

— Emilia's madness of skill, deployed at Lan Wangji's own instruction. )

( Emilia does not deign to give an answer to either of his questions. What does he know of what she has and has not payed? Only one who is a shadow at her back would know, and an answer is justification, of which he will find none. He scrabbles for a foothold, for some righteousness to a deed done.

She will not be the step upon which he wrongly climbs, will not affirm his posturing.

Has gained very little by letting this man live, in fact, if only for a truth. )

You faltered.

( It is not an accusation, but she, too, is not always understood. )

[Viktor’s eyes widen. Yes, now he sees why this would be a problem. Despite more-or-less inventing teleportation over land, the concept of space travel is something he hasn’t yet conceived of.]

That’s…such a thing is impossible, where I’m from. We simply don't have the technology.

[Viktor's only ever encountered one system of magic, so of course he's immediately curious. An object used to channel or focus arcane energies makes sense to him, though of course he wants to know more about the exact particularities.]

I'm familiar with a runic system, myself. How does this work?

( There was a perch under powdered snow, his mother took her rest on it. He remembers, distantly, what it means to be a creature of broken balance — to inhabit steps larger than your scattered life and tremble in your footing.

He was a child, then. He faltered, now.

In a remote land, the hot currents of laughter desiccate him. Smile dies a fraught brittle death at the edge of his torn mouth. There was a shape to it, to him, like perdition. )

When, in particular?

( He has wavered so often, to such feats of ruin — in the strength of his character and that of his arm, if not his allegiance. The moment of suspension, like a gasped breath, defines him. )

[ He bobs his head while he mentally notes those simple instructions, and lifts his gaze to her when the candle lights up, probably looking far too much like a kid witnessing a magic trick.

After a slight hesitation, he steps closer, until he could reach out and grab it if he tried. She didn't say where the magic comes from, if it's something to do with the light, or the heat, or a fragrance. Something else. He can't decide, but he keeps near and thinks... he can feel it. Fascinating. ]

...I kind of wish I knew about this sooner.

[ That eerily sounded like a compliment, but she didn't have to explain it to him. He's distracting her from her work. ]

Are these all for you?

Wrathion's words are unexpectedly tender, enough to make Anduin's heart ache for him.

That is all that matters.

Anduin takes a few tentative steps forward to close the distance between them, reaching for Wrathion's hand. It is foolish to feel self-conscious of such a gesture, considering how much more forward he has been with his affections as it is, and yet.

"You are," he agrees, softly, and gently squeezes Wrathion's fingers in his own. "And I with you."

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