the sunken

[groundrules]

Image source.

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

Comments

[inferus]

Wrath can see the change in the suit's color - the light begins to turn to red. However, he already agreed to respect Wangji's request to not be treated as a child so he does not point it out. He will make his own decision about when is best for him to return to the surface.

The statements seem simplistic in nature. There are worlds where it appears some men do not die at all despite the very wrongness of that reality. There are monsters Wrath has seen perish, killed himself when necessary.

"Is this your way of saying you believe me to be a monster?"

He does not sound surprised nor upset. The mortal world has long since made up stories about the devil and what he does. They all believe him to be a monster. He is accustomed to it though rarely from someone who does not know his title. Does Wangji not come from a place with gods?

[downswing]

A man made monster. A monster, wearing the flesh of man. What difference make chronology, causality, consequence? Emilia would marry him.

He thinks, foolishly, there are worse grooms to lift a bride's sheer red veil. He thinks she will smile, hyena-like, and tear out Wrath's jugular, if he without care.

"You decide your nature. I do not envy you that choice," he offers by way of simply concession, tongue slack and the bite of his words drained of venom. Lethargy reduces him to something not unlike palatable peacemaking. A statesman is born every time a man slips in an abyss.

On his temples, great giants drum their fingers and push in and in and in, the pulse of their large thumbs all but stabbing in holes of migraine. Physical frailty. That Wrath is so careful to recall Wangji's limitations does not mean Lan Wangji wishes to recall them.

Until, finally, "I shall wait a few steps on high." Enough so that the pull of the depth lessens. "Take half the hour. No more, before the others are called."

By him, with haste.

[inferus]

"At least I have a choice to make," Wrath says as that is the reason he fell to start with, isn't it? He was made in a manner that gave him none at all - Angel of Death, General of War. It was all set in a stone so strong that it was supposed to be impossible to break free from. For too long, he knew only obeying. He gave up everything to become what he is now if only so he could have the ability to make choices of his own.

And he would do it again and again despite what it means for his existence now - wretched and cursed, but his.

He waits, sensing the lethargy in Wangji, feeling the pressure mount given the depths of which they have traveled.

There's a singular nod from Wrath in acceptance with this statement.

But he wastes no further time, time is precious if he is only to have thirty minutes before a group of mortals attempts some type of rescue. He sinks lower and lower still, following the path of the dark magic gushing upward.