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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
no subject
Looking at you curiously, Wrath.
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"Demon magic," Wrath answers simply as he moves forward toward the desk at the back of the Captain's Quarters, pulling out drawers to look through them for the logs they're meant to find.
It is, of course, more complicated than that, but that is the easiest way to explain it all without going into detail. He never makes any attempt to hide what he is - certainly not the demon portion. The rest becomes more complicated, generally, than it's worth explaining.
no subject
She decides to take a look around and swims to the walls of the cabin, but barely perceives what's in front of her as her attention is drawn to something niggling at the back of her mind, first quiet, then louder and louder, taking up more space in her. It's fear, and she imagines she can hear the Owl Beast roaring within her, or maybe she can --
And then she's in a familiar place: her gray, endless mindscape, getting darker in the distance, lost in infinity. She is as of yet alone, but who knows when that will change?
On the outside, she will look asleep as her curse overtakes her.
no subject
A curse, an entity within her... triggered by her fear. The ship itself appears to have some psychic effect over those who go near to it, but Wrath's mental wards means it has little affect over him.
The curse and entity within her appear to be one and the same.
He steps away from the desk, and then speaks, voice laced with magical command (the kind only a Prince of Hell can wield). "Return." It isn't meant to control but is more of a mental shove in hopes of pulling her out of the place she has been shoved into.
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This draws a groan from her. "Ugh, not again."
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"...what is happening?"
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Eda sighs. "It's my curse. Ever since I came here, it's been acting up again. But!" She reaches into the bag she brought, which is mainly filled with fish for the mermaids, and produces a bottle containging a shiny liquid. "I got some elixir on me."
But then she pauses and looks at it a bit awkwardly. "You know, I didn't think about how I'd actually drink this down here."
no subject
He sifts through papers.
"...an elixir to lessen the effects of the curse? It would be difficult to drink it without drinking saltwater as well. And whatever else exists in this water."
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And that does not help, as she feels more feathers sprout from her skin and threaten to pierce her diving suit. "Hnnngh, I don't think I can hold out much longer. I have to go up."