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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Ahoy! Scallywags

Regulus had left his world through water and had arrived in this one drenched the same. When he’d breached the surface, it was a blinking few seconds before he’d counted the differences: the natural light of the sun, no cursed undead dragging him under, air in his lungs. The last was only achieved by copious amounts of coughing up water, but all the same, not something he would have accomplished in the circumstances of his departure.

To say he was thoroughly confused by this turn of events was an understatement and was really in no position to argue or bargain for something better when Karsa found him. He kept all objections or questions about anything—the conditions of his rescue, this funny communications device, his present state of alive-ness—to himself until well after being transferred to the larger vessels.

He kept his expression unreadable but ears pricked for information gathering as it was becoming quickly apparent to Regulus that things, for him, had gone awry.

It was finally on board that he made his first objection: manual labor? Him? Oh no, no, no, no. Polishing the deck or cleaning canons were simply not to be born for this high society, in-bred snob. . . until he’d sassed the wrong sailor and found that their anger resulted in extra-judicial imprisonment with no food or drink or comforts of any kind. And worse of all, somehow the negation of his magic.

How rude.

After one 24-hour stint, he sang a different tune- he assessed his situation and adapted. Repair sails? He knew how to mend fabric, even at great heights, the masts did not scare him. Count loot? He was excellent with numbers, he could make a game out of it. Banish seagulls? He had a spell for that. Read to the sailors? He didn’t even mind the trash they wanted to hear, why would he begrudge them salacious indulgences?

Guard the deck, however? He was dispassionate enough for that, but who was willing to put up with his nonsense to guard with him?

[OOC: Feel free to start up at any point in this section]

That Son of a Biscuit Eater

Regulus should have been prepared for the knife, given his newfound surroundings. And yet, when the assailant lunged for him, he was shocked- shocked! that he would be the target of an attempt on his life. Mainly because he was damn well certain he’d done nothing this time to deserve it! He hadn’t said anything (which was what usually landed him in hot water with most people he interacted with).

He jumped to the side just a little too late and the tip of the knife sliced his left upper arm.

He was more distraught over the tears in his clothing and the blood staining around the tears than the cut on his arm. Priorities!

“Look what you’ve done, you fucking bastard!” He gestured at his arm, thoroughly put out. Skin could mend, but-- “Do you know how hard it is to get blood stains out of a white cotton shirt?”

Regulus did, he was well practiced at it, after all, but the work he would need to do, even with magic.

His complaint phased his assailant a moment, but only for the sheer surprise it must be to injure someone who did not worry at the pain inflicted, but the rent clothing instead.

Insulted by his indignation, Regulus was slow to realize the wholesale assault now being launched on ship.

Mollywick

Regulus huffed in exasperation as the blueberry burst between his fingers, staining his skin further. This was not the first time this excursion that he had damaged the thing he was supposed to be gathering.

Oh, of course he’d tried using magic to pick the berries, but his rate of success was far more dismal with his wand than with his fingers.

And if he wasn’t accidentally pre-juicing the berries, he was scratching his arms on the branches.

It was carelessness and a lack of practice at anything close to manual labor.

He scrunched up his nose at the damaged mess between his fingers and dropped it into the bucket. Whoever worked with the contents of his bucket would just have to deal.

He inched over to the individual working nearest him to peer into their bucket to see how their levels measured against his.

( He's got the voice, the lad, the angels' own song burst of his young mouth to bring the true lush words of the great poem The Spirited Wife of Eight Men to life.

Truly, the legions of sailors have rallied below deck and they don't be heavin'im, good Lord gave'im the blessed spirit, and they pass him one book and the next, each more tattered and bruised. Gots them the coin for more, but what use, if there ain't no guarantee for a reader?

So, they make the boy read the same trinket once, once and again and the fifth time over, and you ask second-mate Mr. Eames, he only puts more soul into it at each turn. )

That part... always be makin' grown men cry.

Oh thank Merlin the man wasn't asking him to read the same thing a sixth time in a row.

Regulus was putting on an act, though, and if the crew demanded it again, he would do it. One night and day in that boat jail cell - he didn't know what you called it when it was on a boat - had planted a healthy fear in him. Do what the crew asked, or rather, find what something the crew wanted and that he was willing to compromise his aversion to work to do, and then do that, and stay out of that cell.

Right now, it meant reading this tawdry poem over and over again. Faster with more feeling.

And engaging with the audience meaningfully.

"How true," he said, pulling the words from a deep, manufactured well of sadness. "Sometimes, syphilis is a tragic, unavoidable fact of life." He shook his head slowly.

And him, not knowing!

( That poor wretched soul, Marius the Heft, no doubt so named for the grandeur of his heart and the monumental wealth of his disposition. 'tis a troubling tale, but the fate of husband #6 always connects Mr. Eames with his inner, most private grievances, and his eyes turn that pained sheen of wet now, just short of tears.

There's no helping a man who shares his woman so freely. It's the grave. Tragic, just tragic. Teaches you... teaches you, selfishness is a sin, but selflessness comes at great cost, in kind. )

Never knew he had it, til his days be dusted and done.

In some way, Regulus didn't really dislike the crew of this ship. He certainly didn't like cleaning the deck. Or working in general. But he understood the logic behind the rules here. The crew was just trying to... run a ship? Regulus didn't know how a ship really worked or the proper way to describe what the crew was doing. But it didn't matter. He at least understood the shape of the concepts here. And if he looked past his dislike of all things work-related, the crew weren't bad people, mostly; in some ways, they were a step above the last crowd he'd associated with.

Not that he was ready to admit this out loud to anyone yet. Or that anyone would care about his evolving opinions.

So reading to the crew like he enjoyed it, it was, as if this were normal in every way.

"A cautionary tale for all of us," he said, carrying on as before.

Heft - yes, surely that was referring to the man's intangible qualities.

"But Marius also lived," Regulus continued, doing his best to pull out words that sympathize with Mr. Eames - if not fully for Mr. Eames' sake, but to also not turn this moment on a spark of anger. "And he did not let hardship get in the way of his happiness."

Thassrite, is right...

( Is his voice wet...? No, surely not. For he is a seasoned man, strong like old leathers, his heart coal. So what if Marius the Heft had a good young life ahead of him, cut short by crippling? Means nothing to Mr. Eames, and it's only the... only the salt in the air, giving his eyes grief. Why, he keeps blinking. )

He was a good lad. A good lad. ( In comes a soft, fraternal punch to Regulus' arm, signalling companionship. One of the laaaaaaads. ) Lived with honour.

It takes Regulus everything he can to keep himself from jumping out of his skin when Mr. Eames extends that gesture of goodwill and camaraderie. Both because Regulus wasn't exactly accustomed to touch, even the friendly kind, especially from people he generally didn't know, but also because of the small pang of guilt over his pretenses.

He was just doing what he had to do to get by. And he wasn't used to genuine expressions of... well any kind of feeling besides hate and fear.

He pushed back against the ill-ease he was feeling so he pushed it aside and focused on the lie at hand.

"Y-yes," he stumbled a bit, trying to make it look like youthfulness.

"He lived with honor- like you. And, you know, everyone here."

And he just prayed that punch on his arm wouldn't turn into any grander physical gestures of belonging. Regulus wouldn't not know how to handle that.

( Like'im. Sure. Certainly. Certain. All is fine and all is certain, and would you look at the boy, learning the way of things. Fancy. All fancy. Maybe they be keepin'im, once he learns to like the salt in his boots and his lungs and in the air, broad and cloyed around'im.

They can feed'im. Doesn't look like he takes much, him. )

Should know the mates, you should. Aye? ( Agreeably, with gusto. Ayyyyyeeeee. ) You do yerself a kindness, put sweat and bleeding and some fat to oil the way, do the cap'n's God-loving work, and you've yourself a spot'ere. Eh? Sounds good? Right and proper?

"Not used to picking berries, are you."

Rey isn't trying to be judgmental, given that she had nearly as little experience with berries this abundant and juicy as anyone could. What meager desert fruits grew on Jakku were almost immediately picked away by animals, if they were edible at all. Still, she's been marginally more successful, if only because food is a precious commodity that she refuses to waste a single bite of, if she can help it.

Her bucket is not much more full than his, but the berries are largely whole and undamaged. (This might be because she'd eaten the first few that had broken, but who can blame her?)

Regulus hadn't seen the few berries Rey had sneaked so he wasn't a bit heartened by the small difference between their bucket levels. A matter of pride, of course.

"First time, uh, trying," he said, eyeing Rey to judge her reaction to that while he licked the juice of the berry off his fingers- he couldn't risk getting it on his white shirt. That would be a pain to get out, even with magic.

"You?"

He assumed she'd say she'd done this loads of times.

Rey smiles just a bit and shakes her head.

"We don't have these where I'm from, but if we did they'd be too precious to waste, even by accident."

She was a quick study when it came to food. Besides, it wasn't all that much different from fixing a small part of a ship's engine, or rewiring some old droid parts into something useable. It required a delicate touch.

Regulus’ eyes narrowed just a bit while taking that information in. These were just blueberries, nothing special about them.

He didn’t think she was a member of the crew because, well, he’d seen how the crew acted around women on the ships. He didn’t think they’d usually let a woman come aboard (he hadn’t yet quite worked out the circumstances of these few exceptions now.)

So… she was like him, a wayward soul, lost at sea. And home didn’t have ordinary blueberries.

“… Where are you from?” He didn’t yet know ‘home’ for some meant different planets or realities.

She takes his tone and odd look as judgment and bristles in self-consciousness. It can't be that easy to tell she's a scavenger, can it? And anyway, she's not one anymore. Now she's -- well, lost, mostly. She keeps thinking this is an odd dream and she'll wake up outside Master Skywalker's hut on Ahch-To.

Until then, though, she's just going to go along with it, judgy berry pickers and all.

"Jakku. You?"

She says the name of her home a touch defensively, already preparing for him to wrinkle his nose in distaste at the very idea.

What Rey got in return is confusion.

"Is that..." he tried to think back on the scant number of geography lessons he's had or the times he's looked at a world globe.

"In South America?" he took a stab at it, not knowing his guess was a complete failure.

Rey smiles vaguely, trying to look like someone who has any idea where South America might be. It doesn't go especially well, but she shakes her head. It's not surprising he doesn't know where Jakku is. He gives the impression of someone who hasn't had to struggle very often.

"It's in the Western Reaches. It's nowhere of consequence; you're not missing much."

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no man's sea

Regulus Black | Harry Potter | Tourist

scallywags

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Mollywick

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