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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If she yields to the kiss, he begins to lose himself in it. They have not spent a night together since leaving the villages. He has been taken from her twice: once here and then again in his return. He does not want to be parted from her again, but even tonight, he’ll be in a hammock and she’ll be in the ladies’ cabin.

“You have me. My body and my sword and my heart. You have my love.” He rests his forehead against hers, and breathes, and chuckles softly. “And a pretty necklace, whether you want it or not.”

She was eager to be with him, the length of time they spent apart made her hungrier. Her body warmed any time he was close to her. Not acting on her desires, pretending not to be affected, it was harder than she could manage. Her fingers curl in his hair as he pressed his brow to hers, her lips trembling, hoping for another kiss.

"I want all of it, I even want the necklace." She grinned, teasing him. "I will never dismiss a love token. All the better that we found it rather than had it made."

“All the better,” he agrees. He sounds a little fatuous, as lovers often do, but he doesn’t care; it’s all right if love makes a fool of him, if the love itself is as right as this.

Her mouth is just there, a small space from his, and swollen from kissing. He falls to kissing her again, his arms about her. This place is nearly private; they could lie in the sand or stand in the hole, and —

Eventually, he hears an insistent rustling in the box, and eventually, it distracts him enough to break the kiss and glance back at it.

“Did you hear that?”

She was a little less quick to pick up on the rustling noise, her heart hammering so loudly in her head that she couldn't quite sense anything else. So she stands, a little kiss dumb, waiting for her heart to slow so she could hear the noise.

When it was a bit more clear, she pulled from Jon's arms towards the box. She hadn't taken a very long look inside, distracted by the swords and then the necklace. Shifting some of the leather aside, she spotted something yellow/greenish inside.

She smiled, glancing the sky first for signs of Drogon. No dragon in sign made it safe to hold the creature up. "It's a turtle."

The turtle receives what can best be described as a skeptical look. They have had little and less chance to be alone in recent days, and they’ve been thwarted by a little creature that would, perhaps, best be an ingredient in a soup.

“How long has it been in there?” The words are hardly out of his mouth before he realizes that there’s no way she could know.

He peers into the box. “Anything else alive?”

What he sees are boots, and flasks, so he picks up a boot and is surprised to hear something rattling around in the toe.

She's more interested in the turtle to notice his expression. It didn't seem overly upset, so it was difficult to even say how long it was kept in the box. It seemed more put off by being stopped from his exploration than anything else. She stroked it gently on the head, the way she had her early hatchlings.

"He seems well fed." As far as she could tell. She set it down in the sand, giving its shell a small tap. Slowly, it started wandering away into the dunes.

"Something else?"

“Three boots… and not a pair between them,” he replies. “Don’t know what good that is to anybody, but…”

With a shrug, he bends over the linen shirt he’d laid out, and pours the contents of the boot out onto it, then makes a soft sound of surprise.

He had been expecting small shells, or beetles, or a few coins. What he did not expect is what comes shimmering out of the top of the derelict boot: a little waterfall of jewels pooling on the linen. Nothing in it that looks like a ruby or an emerald, but garnet and moonstone and amethyst and onyx and tourmaline.

She stared in a bit of shock. It wasn't the first time she had seen random gems, but normally it was accompanied by other gifts as well. She picked up the moonstone, turning it in her hands before setting it down and taking the amethyst. "Little surprise they were in the boot."

If you were going to try and protect something precious like this, where better to do it but in the boot?

It wasn't too great a surprise until they had first opened the chest, having found little by way of treasure. This was rather impressive. It would have been enough to buy a fine home in Pentos for both she and her brother. They may never have had to sell her mother's crown? Some things came too late.

"What should we do with them?"

He shrugs, but he’s looking down at the jewels with a troubled expression. While it’s not a king’s ransom in stones, it’s precious enough. If they need to travel on their own… if they can and if they must… a find like this might help them. If they need accommodations, they might be able to trade a stone or two away, or sell them. There’s enough to fill his fist, and more.

The trouble is that if they have the value he thinks, the pirates will probably be after them too.

“Tie them up in a square of cloth. Keep them hidden. Use them, if and when we need to. The handles of those swords” (more are visible in the box, now that they’ve nearly emptied it) “— they look tarnished to you? I think they might be silver.”

"I think they are." She turned the sword, dragging her thumb over the pommel. "It won't take very much to sharpen it and it would be wise for me to have a weapon." Meaning she wasn't about to sell at least one of those swords. The weight was good to her and she had found it along with Jon, that made it meaningful.

She nodded about the jewels. "I believe the former owner had the best idea. We should hide them somewhere that someone might not look." Especially the sailors. "We may have use for them." Her mind followed the same train of logic as his.

“One of the others might be able to sharpen it.” Some of them have strange powers, he knows, but just as easily, one of them might have a whetstone.

He turns his attention back to the box. Not much left in it but some flasks, but it might be that they have some sort of wine in them, or that they can be used. Scooping one up, he notes that it feels like something is in it, so he opens it and sniffs it. It’s a bit foul, so he pours it out onto the sand. It turns out to be an unpleasant muddy mixture, and not all of it will come out of the flask.

“We want these? They still might be of some use, if we can clean them.”

She watched him sort through some of the junk that was left in the chest. It was gratifying to see that Jon was willing to examine the things that others might throw away, considering whether they might need the items. A life on the run meant taking account what might be useful in the future.

"If we clean them well." First in salt water to cleanse it. Eventually, they would be on the move again. While she enjoyed traveling and seeing this world, she couldn't help but be taken back to her childhood. "It may not seem like a rich treasure, but there is a great deal there that we can use or sell."

And that was better than simple gems.

He nods slowly.

“Take it all, then. Keep the jewels tucked away, tied up in that shirt. The boots… we can see if anybody wants them. Keep the swords and the flasks wrapped in the velvet, other than what you keep.”

Then he glances back to her, and his look becomes more helpless, and he holds out his hand.

“We were interrupted…”

"You will learn frugality from me, Jon Snow." She grinned, kneeling for a moment to quickly secure the jewels in the shirt as he advised. When she stands, she sees his hand outstretched to her. Her heart swells as she gladly takes it, drawing closer.

Dany smiled sweetly, love clearly in the eyes. "We were."

She felt lovesick, like a swooning girl once again, living the stories that she had read in Meereen. Her handsome king and soldier, she his lady love. He would be the one to carry her off, as Rhaegar carried off his lady. With him, she could feel all of the adoration that was missing in her life before.

“Learn?” He makes a stab at pretending to take offense, at the same time that he’s pulling her closer. “I’m not a rich man, or a spendthrift. I only love you.”

And then he leans in to kiss her again, just as lovesick as she seems to be. Sometimes it pains him to look at her, with her big purple eyes and her bright short hair against the sky. When he is not kissing her, he misses kissing her. It has been long years since he wished that anyone would write a song about him — now he tends to wish that they wouldn’t. But it might be that she deserves a song.

She gives her heart so fully to him in these kisses, overwhelmed by her feelings. They had said it was fate and it certainly felt like it in these moments. While it struck her as strange that her eyes were different in his world or that some things didn't line up in her mind, she was willing to overlook it. She simply wanted to be with him, to have his love and spend her life with him. A simple girl with a good man.

One kiss is chased by another. Hands bury in his hair, loving his curls and how thick and rich his locks were. Her head is spinning, dizzy at his emotions. "You love a girl who enjoys getting dirty by eating charred meat with her dragon or riding her silver so relentlessly that there's dust all over her?" She grinned, even against his lips. "I only love you, Jon Snow."

He chuckles and leans his forehead against hers.

“That’s the right sort of girl for me. Not sure I’m the right sort of man for a queen, but… well, might be that you’re not that sort of queen. We suit each other.”

"The queen is a side of me, but I'm still a girl." She grinned caressing his cheek lovingly. "And I would rather have a stern Northern man at my side. I think you suit me quite well, queen or not."

If she was forced to bear the title, the duty expected of her, it would be easier with a man she loved supporting her.

"Kiss me again."

“Oh.” He leans in, kisses her with a twist of his head and a half-smile. “Am I stern?”

He is dubious about this. There are times when he must be stern, but it isn’t his natural state, only what he has chosen when the other option is to play the boy. If he does that, he isn’t the only one who may suffer.

A string of kisses follow the question, and his mouth eventually makes its way to her neck.

"You frowned so much around me. I had to tease and poke you to get you to smile."

Which she's delighted that she succeeded. Now it seemed that he preferred to smile around her. His arms naturally wrapped around her. Pulled close to them, Dany briefly reflected at how much had changed between them. Now, they were linked, bound by fate. It was a surreal thought.

His kisses distract her, the kisses to her neck made her shiver and gasp. She held him tighter, gripping his tunic.

“I wasn’t frowning,” he says against her throat, just below her ear. “— Was I?”

As she trembles and clutches at his shirt, he kisses her harder, then rests his head against her shoulder and holds her tightly.

“I miss every part of you. I miss holding you all night.”

Her breath is a bit more harsh with his mouth lingering against her throat. She was trembling against him, overwhelmed with long suppressed desires. His heat had always matched her own, making them burn all the more when they were together. It seemed only natural for it to engulf them, pushing them for more.

"I miss your kisses on me. I miss feeling all of you."

She grinned, giving his hair a little tug, encouraging him to continue kissing her there.

He continues kissing her there. Her skin is soft and smooth under his mouth, and he can feel her pulse when his lips touch the vein in her neck.

“Hard to not be with you every day.” A few more kisses, his body pressed and swaying against hers, and then, “How much longer do you think they’ll let us alone?”

That was the question, wasn't it? She had been sent out to find treasure and they had never expressly said when she should be back. There certainly would be a grace period, if she had someone dunced the entire thing up and got lost. Why not let them think that she wasn't nearly as smart as others. Being lost meant more time alone to do as she pleased.

They were off the ship, they break a few rules without eyes on them.

"I think they'll assume I couldn't follow directions. We can be alone."

“They can blame themselves, then. Didn’t seem like those directions were meant to be followed.”

He pulls away from her long enough to kneel in the sand, then holds out a hand to help her sink to the ground with him. After a moment’s thought, he reaches for the velvet mantle, too: something to put between them and the grit.

Edited 2022-07-28 07:19 (UTC)

no man's sea

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⚠️cw: sexual content for the remainder of this thread.⚠️

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cw super vague implied reference to risk of sexual assault

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I wonder how the whale feels about the fact that it’s now a sex whale.

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