westwhere | 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.

QUESTIONS

PLOTTING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do the Panic
[ Though diving poses dangers no worse than a space-walk in a suit, this is quite different. Technology is something Spock can understand and he can therefore trust in the statistics of its likelihood not to fail him. These suits are something else and Spock finds himself uneasy even as he swims through the water towards the wreckage below. It appears to be working, but he cannot help the skepticism he feels.

It's once he gets into the wreckage that he feels something wash over him. It's fear like he's never felt before, heart pounding at his side and suddenly he wonders if the suit has failed him. Is he breathing water now?

In a panic, he gets turned around in the fallen ship, swimming deeper rather than back the way he came as he slaps and punches at the wood of a door only to find it's a long-pilfered storage area. ]

Turn the Page
[ He can still feel his heart pounding as he as he works to pry open the cabin door and he's using every ounce of Vulcan control he has to not let it overwhelm him. He's found a few pages and once the door is once again open, he takes a moment to steady himself before he makes his way out of the wreck. He's careful of the dangerous plants outside, mindful of the local wildlife, but the mermaids are faster than he is in the water and before he knows it, one of them has caught up to him as he ascends, lured by the smell of blood from a scrape he hadn't noticed along one of his knuckles.

There's another light approaching, but Spock can't warn them until they're close enough to hear him and as he kicks away the mermaid that has tried to latch onto him, the light is only growing closer. ]

Look out!

[ Wrath is aware of the mermaid even from a great distance. He watches as it rushes forward, and he can smell the blood in the water himself, knowing it is what draws them near to the individual trying to return aboveground. He moves supernaturally fast even within the water, and then takes hold of the mermaids hand in a vice grip, followed by her hair as she attempts to lean forward to bite him.

His grip on her hand tightens, and the mermaid screeches out in pain as her claws crunch beneath his grip. She may be a monster, but so is he, and he is far worse than her, worse than the sharks that pursue her. He lifts his gaze toward the individual near. ]

There are entrails in my bag. Grab some and toss it as far as you can. [ It would be easy to kill the mermaid, but he does not, for the moment unless she proves to be a continued threat - a creature of hunger and violence which knows little better. ]

[ Spock is not particularly interested in violence and the force he's used so far is more about his own escape than hurting the mermaid, so he doesn't hide the way his eyes harden at the sight of the mermaid's scream.

He steels himself against any sort of reaction and reaches for man's bag, though, pulling out entrails and throwing them with all of his Vulcan strength. It's better for them all that the creature gets away to eat and lick its wounds away from them and then they can escape. ]

Release her.

( Wrath does not release the mermaid immediately upon the words of the other. He waits until the mermaid appears to be launching toward the fresh meat instead of toward the individual beside him. She reaches out with her long arms and claws in the direction it falls.

Then he does release her, and then his gaze lifts upward, raising an eyebrow. )

That had, obviously, been my intention. ( Otherwise, he would not have bothered with the entrails at all. )

I do not understand the logic of injuring her.

[ Spock's face is impassive. Though that creature might have gone for his throat moments ago, it seems like no threat at all now that it's left and Spock is used to handling himself in more danger than that, anyway. ]

( Wrath's expression does not shift at all from what it had been before. He scans the water using his other senses to keep alert for further danger. )

So she could not use her claws against you. Would you have preferred injury instead?

I do not believe it would have been fatal for me.

[ Which is really the closest he's going to give to a thank you. ]

However, we should vacate to the surface before anything else attempts the same.

Perhaps not.

( Most individuals seem entirely fragile to Wrath, but some of them are not as fragile as he imagines them to be especially among this particular group from other worlds. )

Agreed. The ocean is teaming with volatile creatures as well as dangerous magic. ( He starts to swim upward )

[ Spock kicks his feet, swimming after him. He's not used to serving on a crew with such mixed morals. In Starfleet, there may be differing opinions, but they all swore the same oaths of service.

This will be something new to navigate. ]

the sunken

Spock | Star Trek

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