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

[downswing]

( Baby birds might encounter lesser resistance, learning their waddling way to flight. Lan Wangji navigates defects of gravity with the stern sobriety of children who experience their first cold season's sickness and count themselves for the grave. He does not land on his feet, exactly, as much as he braces down, back a long line of curdling tension, eyes narrowed and alert and beady, focused on the slick, oiled deck floor.

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.

[reaction]

I figured there must be something icky down there. ( reasons why he didn't want to be a hero and do the deep diving thing. this might be a sort of afterlife for him because he's pretty sure he's dead back home, but it doesn't mean he's looking for a repeat, and that he's going to be all kinds of reckless with his life unless it's completely necessary. his brother isn't here and neither is his gal, or anyone else he knows from that one-horse town he's from, so he's got a lot less to be concerned about. also, at this point, he doesn't trust caladan. )

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.

[downswing]

( This man... speaks to excess.

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.