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groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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
iii. the deck meet-cute interlude
None needed. ( he'd stepped on the pearl on purpose to stop it from rolling away. damon crouches down in front of the ninja looking person, dropping what passes off as a blanket over his shoulder. it's clean. he sweeps his hand across the floor, collecting a few more of the pearls before depositing it back in the man's hand, making sure that he's not going to drop it again before he lets go. ) You look wrecked. ( totally not an exaggeration even. ) Was it worth it? I'm thinking, maybe a few more, and you might be able to make a bracelet for an infant.
( he's been watching the dive efforts, occasionally helping to pull people out of the water, assist with distracting those pesky mermaids; just trying to listen in on conversations and things like that, but honestly, he's not getting much information from anyone. still, this beats taking on another shift in the galley. )
please sir, help this men find his balls
No need. He thanks with a mute mouth, gaze diffuse — pressure finally released of his lungs, each breath a calculated progression. The slow drip of water from his hanging hair fits the gauges and ravines of old deck boards, foot-battered.
One of the pearls slips back into a wooden crevice. He looks up, and — ...ah. No. In his hands, now. )
Retain them. ( Rasped, fighting its way out of him. ) They were... residue. Not the cause of submersion. Hundreds of dead sleep below.
( To the victor go the spoils, and there's blood with this gain, for all Lan Wangji's hands come impossibly, impertinently clean. Fingers curl, white knuckled, around the pearls Damon had positioned in his hands. Fists release. He feels like an immaculate ghost of himself, solicitously beholding the music box gears of his body winding, unwinding. He does not own this flesh. It screams at him unanswering.
When he clutches what he can catch of Damon's limbs beside him — an arm, the joint of a knee, indifferent — it is to anchor himself in rise and speculate, at the last moment, that the mean, ached sway of the ship, fighting fresh currents, will not break his footing.
A fool's gamble. One, dead weight, fell seamlessly. This round, he seems intent to also coax Damon down. )
finders keepers -- for now
Okay, buddy. I've got you. ( the perks of being a vampire. he's fast and strong. as for whatever random things the little mermaid here has collected? the pearls, the coral, etc -- damon will use compulsion to get a passing crew member to help pick it all up and deposit it into his jacket pocket. easy peasy, lemon squeezy. )
Oh, what am I gonna do with you now... ( he murmurs the words out as he stands there for a moment, glancing around to see if there's anyone on the deck who knows who this guy is. any concerned humans about? a doctor? friends? family? no? guess they're on their own then. luckily for the stranger, damon's already had his fill of blood or it'd be all too easy for him to feed and toss this body overboard. he decides to play nice. time to head below deck where it's warm and toasty. )
no subject
But he rests awake and commanding enough of his senses that his cheek bruises to a feverish flush, gaze first unsharpened, then regaining focus. Mild, his hand clutches Damon's arm again, spasmodic — a shoulder. Very well. If he is to be... salvaged from the dregs of his indignity, he will at least make use of the human crutch provided to slip himself back to his feet.
Next Wrath suggests he should retreat from long the long dive before pressure and breathlessness decay him, he might, perhaps, consider obedience.
...before declining once more. )
You will set me down. ( A pleasant start, perfectly civil. Like Lan Wangji's teeth, all vicious, canine fang. Grit and grin and show the bite of them. He does kick, though his leg twitches. )
Apo — ( No. Denied once, before. And the repetition of misdeed rejects the root of gratitude. If Lan Wangji cared to be excused, he would perhaps not have persisted in making a nuisance of himself. ) You gave no name.
( As if, between bouts of swooning, Lan Wangji completed his end of the greeting formalities. )
no subject
Yes. I gave you no name. ( he studies the man's face, keeping his gaze on him, trying to see if he can even focus on what he's even saying right now. ) Didn't seem necessary at the time. Look, let me just help get you to somewhere where you can rest, hm? You're hurt. I'm Damon. ( there. a name. is he going to continue to kick up a fuss here? they're currently standing on the stairs, halfway between decks. it's not really the best place to be hanging out, considering there's human traffic and not a whole lot of space. )
no subject
The man — belatedly, Damon — is an accessory in this journey, a crutch made tender when Lan Wangji seeks to shrug off the hand that presumes on his shoulder, only to catch Damon's upper arm instead. More of his weight can redistribute at each step, if he has the affixed point of certainty.
A slow, trembled walk. An octogenarian would greet him proudly. Might even ask of him why he races on his path. )
Wangji, clan Lan. ( Absent-minded, tongue slack. Habit, more than the manicured forms of introduction. ) At ease. My health will remember itself.
( No need for the fussing of a healer, for Wen Qing glowering down like a winter storm. ) Below water, a... plant leeches strength.
no subject
Let's talk more about that when we're properly below deck and you're not going to break your neck if you fall. ( he's taken his hand off of wangji's shoulder, but he's staying close, letting him use his arm for support purposes. ) Think you can make it? It's just a few baby steps. ( he glances over at the guy. ) Oh, I know, I know. Your health will remember itself and you don't need any help whatsoever, and blah blah blah. Let's just pretend none of this ever happened, okay? You came out of that water in perfect form and did not fall over like a dead tree. My lips are sealed.
no subject
The whirling of Lan Wangji's simmered thoughts stills, eerily, on this lone conclusion, and he hesitates, mouth dried and gaze soft, before he nods on instinct — to quiet down words that swirl and roil and do not naturally settle.
He thinks, each step a barter between slip and balance and the looming warmth of the man's nearby presence, if he were a child learning his walk, he would not be so diligently fathered. Perhaps there should be shame in it, and not the curious, gutting reassurance that, if he surrenders to fall down the narrow, corseted stairway that leads below deck — he will be salvaged.
Slow going, trickling. He does not shame himself with injury, but not doubt his newfound friend regrets the misfortune of their acquaintance. Stench of swill saturates their skin, astringent. Whatever the hour, the men of the ship drink. )
My people do not lie. ( Earlier, let's just pretend — ) You salvaged my dignity. I recognise so.