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westwhere2022-06-22 08:42 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-06-22 08:42 pm
the sunken
THE SUNKEN
The silent, dark, opaque seas briefly clear for a short stretch, as the Pariah and Queen Zanyra advance into the Crossing.Below sleeps a graveyard of sunken ships in various states of decay — including the beautifully preserved Vernalis.
Sailors say she was the crown jewel of an army fleet and the fear of every sea she traversed, sinking at least three pirate ships. One day, she disappeared. Caladan Kreil, who met and survived the Vernalis in battle, swears her leader Oscar Santorini was a spartan rule abider who would never have neglected the dutiful upkeeping of his captain’s logs.
A school of vicious mermaids has briefly blocked the paths of the Pariah and Queen Zanyra, orbiting around the sunken ships below. They will dispel naturally, sailors say, when the tides turn within three days. Until then, the ships only make slow advance — and Caladan Kreil sees an opportunity to settle one of the sea’s deepest mysteries.
✘ OBJECTIVE: search the Vernalis’ captain’s cabin for his logs.
■ Characters who accept Caladan’s mission are lowered down in lifeboats and supplied pale skin-tight suits that are membrane-thin, adhesive and transparent. They settle comfortably once the wearer hits water, feeling weightless and emanating light signals — red for danger or injury, white for alert or fear, yellow to broadcast the wearer must return to land, and a calm greenish-blue otherwise.
■ The suits protect wearers from temperature and pressure drops and enable them to fully breathe underwater for four hours at a time. Suits must dry for at least two hours between uses.
■ Suit lights are visible underwater. The green light does not attract other sea creatures, but the red and white lights repel nearby marine life, except for mermaids.
■ You can magically speak and be understood underwater, although in a short range, as sound carries with more difficulty here.
■ Mermaids patrol near the Queen Zanyra and Pariah and swarm the wrecks of the sunken ships below, including the Vernalis. Many lair up in the hulls or raided cabins of the downed vessels.
■ To safely enter the waters, spill a little blood on a bait or make a lure out of fish entrails, toss it, then dive when the mermaids give chase. Alternatively, wait until the midday sun is at zenith and the sirens have been lulled listless or asleep for an hour.
■ Careful: swift, sharp-toothed and long-clawed, mermaids have an exceptional sense of smell and will pursue anyone who scrapes or bleeds beneath water. Although not entirely blind, many have a diffused vision and respond quicker to sound than to sight.
■ The mermaids are largely starved and reactive. Some help guide strangers, if they are offered food or help from natural predators, such as sharks, unfriendly large octopuses and strange tendrils of dark water that appear more prominently, the deeper you sink down. Bring a knife.
■ The Vernalis sits about one-hour’s dive beneath water. It seems to have been caught in a net of dark coral-like matter, without reaching the ocean’s floor. Beware the tendrils of this strange ‘plant’: those trapped within will find their energy gradually depleted. Some of the strings of corals have snagged pieces of preserved parchment or cloth, littered with the names of sailors or the verses of sea chants.
■ Those who reach the Vernalis may notice the ship has only been deceptive preserved — many doors, hinges and pieces of furniture have rotted from within, threatening to collapse upon wanderers. All mirrors, pieces of glass and reflective or metallic surfaces have darkened and become opaque.
■ Those who enter the cabin or hull of the Vernalis will find the quarters eerily silent, but for a methodical, rhythmic pulse — like the drumming of an unnatural, but living heartbeat. Time passes much faster here — keep track that your costume doesn’t flash yellow, and help swim up with those who can no longer transport themselves.
■ The Vernalis affects visitors differently: some are entirely immune, others are overcome by a deep, animal and inexplicable and paralysing fear, or by the urgent wish to flee. Others still feel sluggish, lost and comfortable, for the first time in years, starting to fall in a deep, unstirring sleep (that breaks once they return to surface).
■ Searching the cabins will reveal there are no bodies or bones aboard the Vernalis. The door of the captain’s cabin locks after each entry, both in and out, and must be heavily forced open — once inside, rummage through Oscar Santorini’s wealth of books and correspondence to recover some of the loose pages of his torn captain’s log, then return with your discoveries on land. Drop a thread link with your characters’ good work to receive a summary of the contents of the page they’ve uncovered.
PLOTTING
eda
Today, they trapped her in braids of hard coral. Perhaps not the name. Cuts herself on the edge of it. They dress their slow-meandered creatures in it. The brown and the greys. In the water, she bled and her red nearly called a sister, whose starvation drove her to forget herself. They pulled her up before she could be swarmed.
And now she sits here, in a small round sleeve — "Shove'er in the barrel, aye!" — and she woos them with sweet blinks and song and the slow, coaxing flash of her generous tail. They say it is beautiful, that she is beautiful. It is fat and full and catches the light, and has only been bitten once at a corner, when a shark meant to have her, and the fin was not distorted.
Now, they one of of their two-legged vermin to her, and this — woman? — brings fish. She comes to the edge of her barrel, nearly lifting, mimicking the strange wide cleaving of the mouth they show her, when they mean her to be gentle. 'Smiles.' )
Feed? Feed. Why here? Feed? Feed.
no subject
Then she watches them shove the poor creature in a barrel, and yes, she feels kinda sorry for it. So she decides quickly to maybe make the creature more amenable to... not eating them all whenever she escapes and provide her with some food instead, so she dips into the kitchens to retrieve some of the fish stored there. Raw should be fine, right?
She then elbows her way through the crowd. ]
Hey there, get outta my way!
[ Finally, she approaches the mermaid and holds out a fish to her. The "smile" the creature gives her is impressively creepy, but well, coming form the Boiling Isles, Eda is pretty unfazed. ]
Yes, here's some food for you. You eat fish, right?
no subject
If she propels herself over, she'll topple the container — she knows, and so she does not. But her tail waves left-right, and the lightless beads of her eyes chase the shape of the waiting fish with unambiguous interest.
A webbed hand slowly creeps out, swatting at the fish. Closer. )
Yes? Yes. Yesss... yes! Yes... feed. ( Now, an hour ago, when the day was born. Always, she wants feeding. )
no subject
[ And Eda hands the fish over. There's something about the sheer desperation in the mermaid's voice... ]
You're... starving, aren't you?
no subject
She bites into it, raw and warm in the way of freshly dead things, grinning with sawing teeth. )
...good. Much... good. More? Is more? Good.
( There is within her the instinct to hoard feeding, for storms brew, tides turn, supplies can stop. This, at least, is a certainty of provisions. )
no subject
That good?
[ Then she thinks about the rumors of the ship, and the captain's logs. And, well, she is curious by nature. ]
I got a few questions. Maybe you got some answers?
no subject
( Speaking? Spoken to? Yes. Yes, but she eats now, fish corseted between her two hands, mouth red-rimmed and eager. She seems only distantly to understand the bird-woman's question enough to nod in retaliation, in between angry bites of the fish that sleeps in her reach.
Good. Very good. More would be even better. )
More fish? ( No. She must assert herself. Land people, it is always so: you do not ask, they do not listen. They do not give. ) Answer. But more fish.
( A sound tradeswoman and a deal well done. )
no subject
[ And another fish goes to the mermaid. ]
Now. Did you happen to see a sunken ship down there?
no subject
A question. She did promise — nods, enthusiastically: )
Many. Many. Tens? ( A moment, considering, and more bites for her trouble. Ah. ) Hundreds.
( So many, in fact, that they please both her and her people. ) Sleep there. Good. No sharks. No seal.
no subject
Did you happen to see any names on the hulls? We're looking for a ship called Vernalis. Something about the captain's logs.
no subject
She licks entrails off her claws with nearly feline satisfaction. Then, briefly stills, paralysed by the question. )
...eh? Name? See? How see name?
( After all, she cannot read. )
no subject
It should be on the outside of the hull, like --
[ She reaches into her hair and takes out some old glyph papers and a pen with a large sparkly crystal at the end. She writes the name "Vernalis" on one of the papers and holds it out to the mermaid. ]
See anything like that?
no subject
Then, calmly, she sinks down, until only her eyes and forehead remain, while she bubbles away in what appears to be a fit of frustration. Coming up, once more: )
Don't know. How know? Lines look lines. ( And there are so many of them, in so many distinct geometries in which lines are assembled on surfaces beneath water, is she meant to know and recall them all? ) More feed? You feed?
no subject
Okay, one sec, gotta get some more from the kitchen.
[ The pirates seem none to pleased about it and mumble something about Eda using up all their fish rations. ]
Oh, shush, we can catch more!
[ So she makes her way to the kitchens and stuffs a bag full of fish, then returns and takes out one to offer the mermaid. ]
There you go.
[ She sits down cross-legged, because she has more questions and it might be a while. ]
Do you know anything at all about what goes on above water?
no subject
Oh, but they look good, so very full and glistened. Their scales haven't so much as tattered. )
Know what? ( This, as she picks the proffered salmon between two claws, daintily, as if she isn't about to devour it with neither courtesy, nor shame. ) I know much. Many things. You have stick 'legs.' You make fire. Goes red. Many things. Many.
( But specificity has ever helped to anchor her whimsy nature. )
no subject
When'd you see fire?
no subject
What tricks! With her claws, she points to where candle-fuelled lanterns are scattered on the deck. )
There! Fire. ( And another, at a greater distance, carried by a pirate who searches the sails. ) There too! Everywhere. Days ago. Big fire.
( She may not know the name of the Concord, but she saw from the water how this boat put the sails of that one to flame. )
no subject
Right, yeah, the battle. I was there.
[ Eda taps her chin with her finger. It's a shot in the dark, but maybe there's a way to earn this mermaid's trust a little better. She crosses her arms in front of her body and turns into the harpy: her limbs, ears and hair grow longer, feathers sprout from her skin and large wings from her back, and her sclera turn black. ]
Now, from monster to monster. I just got a few more questions, hmm?
[ Steeples hands. ]
This place. The sailors call it The Crossing. It's special, right? Magical? Heard the sharks are especially vicious around here.
no subject
( To start.
Now, this place. Yes. These seas, which bore and housed her and give her endless joy. Unfamiliar territory for the humans, but then, what do they know? What do they love? )
Yes. No. Sharks? Not worse. Than usual. Big teeth. Biiiiiiiiig. ( Her hands spread to bracket a broad width between them. ) Big!
( Now that she has illustrated her point — )
Special. Yes. Home. Home is special. Magic... not more, not less. All sea is magic.
no subject
But yes. Home. I wanna go home, too. I'm not from this world, you see. Same goes for a bunch of people on this ship. But we've been told if we stick with these lousy pirates here... well, eventually we might go back where we came from. So, you got any tips on how to navigate these waters? You know, the easier you make this for us, the sooner we'll be out of your hair.
[ To underscore her point, she waves another fish in what she hopes is an enticing manner. ]
no subject
Her clawed hand reaches out to graze the fish's wet scales, but she holds back from claiming. Tips: )
Swim deep when it storms. ( Always, good sense. Don't get caught in algae! ) Do not... sharks. Do not swim with them. ( More good sense. ) Avoid... water. When it's black. Avoid. Swim the other way.
( She seems, all at once, apprehensive — not shaken, but agitated. This time, she claims the fish, and drags it with her in the barrel to eat underwater, only muttering in parting: )
Swim, swim, swim away. Before you can't resist it.