no man's sea

[groundrules]

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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DEEP WATERS | SON OF A BISCUIT EATER | MOLLYWICK | | THE CROSSING | NOTES

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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

Comments

[homeostatic]

( The first look he trades Jim is skeptical, even disapproving, but as he fingers the material, solid without a pattern of fleet deltas like his own, he has to admit it isn't the same. Jim's sporting a sudden change in hairstyle, too, longer than the wild crop Bones recalls him having for as long as he's known him, and there are other additions: faint wrinkles in his handsome face, lines in his brow, crinkling gently beneath his eyes.

Bones lets his shirt go, suddenly uneasy. )

2258.

[winscenario]

I see.

[ He can almost physically feel Bones pulling away from him, and it hurts so suddenly, but he can't bring himself to stop it. He got a single moment of thinking he had someone here he was close to, but maybe they've just encountered the one gap between them that might make all this so very difficult for them to navigate.

Well, for him, at least. He can't imagine Bones being a fan of it either. ]

It's 2263, for me. I'm— Captain. Of the Enterprise.

[homeostatic]

( Bones travels right through about a dozen emotions then and there, ranging from shock and confusion to disbelief, to anger, even the faint lick of despair, and right around to pride, oddly enough. Three years of Jim busting his hump on a dare, of all things, and then saving their asses? )

...Well, Christ, what do I even say to that, ( he admits with a sigh. Time difference between them aside-- it's weird, it's fucking WEIRD but Bones is shockingly capable of picking his battles --Jim is still his best friend, still the man he hauled onto the Enterprise half a day ago because he couldn't stomach the guilt of leaving him behind, like so many others had before. )

Congratulations, Jim. You deserve it.

[winscenario]

[ Jim manages a small smile at least, even if a little awkward. It's still Bones after all, even if a little younger, maybe a little grumpier, still needing to soften up around the edges. Or maybe that's just Jim's own perspective coloring things. Maybe Bones has just become softer with him, but either way.

Looking now, at both his clothes and his hair, he can't believe he didn't notice before that it wasn't the same face he was so used to looking at. (God, that hair. His smile widens into something brighter, and he ducks his head a little bit. ]

Thanks. Actually— I was made Captain shortly after the Nero incident.

[ Since Bones mentioned Chris still recovering, Jim knows he's from right after that, but just before they got their ship. ]

And you're my Chief Medical Officer. So, early congratulations to you too.

[homeostatic]

( "The Nero incident". So that's what they'll call the past forty-eight hours. It's still so fresh for Bones, but five years ago for Jim, five years with his own ship, his own crew... Leonard manages a small smile, lost at that second, equally sudden bit of news.

Bones practically goggles at him, in fact, astonishment in his hazel eyes. Youngest captain in the fleet is an impressive achievement all its own, but Starfleet also isn't in the habit of passing out the position of CMO to younger physicians, and he's under no illusions that he was anything but still too low on the totem pole for something as important as that, and on the flagship, no less. Dr. Puri had years out in the black under his belt before his untimely passing; surely they'd pull in someone just as seasoned, maybe Dr. Boyce from SFM, to fill his shoes.

For Leonard, whose life felt like it was over only three years ago, who was satisfied enough for his sudden Enterprise posting when he was just there to be part of the medical team, it's staggering. )

...oh. That's... ( hang on, he has to let that sink in, feeling his face grow hot. )

God, that's amazing.

[winscenario]

[ It was only the first of their many such situations together, some better and some worse, and Jim doesn't linger on it. It's been a while for him, and it wasn't even the mission that's left the greatest marks on him, important and dangerous though it was.

He's more focused on Bones right now, particularly that astonished look he gives him, so quickly matched with a tinge of color to his cheeks. Jim's own smile turns more amused, lips pressing in like he's resisting the urge to tease Bones mercilessly about it. ]

It is. And you deserved it. [ Sure, maybe there were more experienced doctors who would've been perfect for the job, just like there were more seasoned officers with a list of commendations that would've usually been ideal to be Captain of the flagship. But that's just not how it's played out, something that now, Jim is very glad for. ]

Anyway, I wouldn't have it any other way. If I was gonna be Captain, you'd be my CMO. I'm not going anywhere without you.

[ Which is oddly fitting, in their current circumstances. ]

[homeostatic]

( I'm not going anywhere without you has him feeling some kind of way, especially in light of where he departed from, especially as he was so unwilling to leave Jim behind himself, but Bones just smiles through his red face, and takes it graciously. )

Thanks, Jim. ( Wetting his salt-chapped lips, he adds, because he needs to say it, ) You too.

( Back to the mind-boggling setting around them, he huffs with a kind of tired, dark amusement. )

Feels appropriate now, doesn't it. I must have lost my comm in the water, I had it on me before I left. Do you have yours?

[winscenario]

[ It's something that would have gone unsaid between them usually, but he knows this Bones hasn't known him for as long, and they haven't been through as much together. So it's something that bears being said out loud, so Bones knows that is where they stand, and that is where their relationship will go, always. ]

No, but I don't think it'd have made any difference anyway. We've come here from different times, and we don't even know where 'here' is, or how we were brought here. I seriously doubt there's a ship up there trying to find us.

[homeostatic]

( He makes a noise of dissatisfaction, low in his throat. )

I hate to admit it, but you're right. ( Bones adds, the sudden, deeply unsettling thought coming to mind, )

...you don't believe they're serious, do you? 'Undead' and all that?

[winscenario]

[ There's a moment where Jim looks pensive, then he eyes Bones and shakes his head. ]

No. Absolutely not. There's something to it, some reason why we were all brought here, and I refuse to believe we all just up and died in our worlds. I know you haven't. At the very least, you're alive in my time, so that throws that theory out the window.

[homeostatic]

( Bones... looks like he hadn't even considered the possibility that they were dead, as he blinks at Jim and scowls fiercely. )

You better not be dead either, or future!me is gonna drag you back kicking and screaming, ( he scolds mightily, as if possessed of the sure knowledge that he could tell God and Death and all the angels in Heaven to fuck right the Hell off. )

What I meant was- the undead that Karsa was talking about, the dead here; supposedly risen and fighting one another. A load of bullshit, or real?

dklgdf minor misunderstanding on my end, let's just breeze past that shall we

[winscenario]

[ Jim chuckles, his smile all soft and warm, full of affection and just a tinge of vague, aching amusement. Oh, if only Bones knew how very accurate that is, and how well Jim knows it to be true.

He decides against telling him. Just like he'll decide against telling him a whole lot of things. But he can at least share some of the good stuff, right? ]

Ah, I can't say. There do seem to be a lot of things in this world that we couldn't make sense of through the laws in our reality. Best not to make any assumptions or come into it with any preconceptions about what's possible or not. I believe we may just be starting to be proven wrong about a lot of things we always thought of as absolute truths.