westwhere | the sunken

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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

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( They catch her starving. The weak succumb, the strong triumph. She knows, her teeth know. Tried them on rope and the hard belly of the great, slow beasts that drift. They come from them, the two-legged fiends, come and throw glinting hardness down and catch her or her sisters in the sharp edges.

Today, they trapped her in braids of hard coral. Perhaps not the name. Cuts herself on the edge of it. They dress their slow-meandered creatures in it. The brown and the greys. In the water, she bled and her red nearly called a sister, whose starvation drove her to forget herself. They pulled her up before she could be swarmed.

And now she sits here, in a small round sleeve — "Shove'er in the barrel, aye!" — and she woos them with sweet blinks and song and the slow, coaxing flash of her generous tail. They say it is beautiful, that she is beautiful. It is fat and full and catches the light, and has only been bitten once at a corner, when a shark meant to have her, and the fin was not distorted.

Now, they one of of their two-legged vermin to her, and this — woman? — brings fish. She comes to the edge of her barrel, nearly lifting, mimicking the strange wide cleaving of the mouth they show her, when they mean her to be gentle. 'Smiles.' )

Feed? Feed. Why here? Feed? Feed.

Edited 2022-06-23 00:51 (UTC)

[ Eda is looking out at the sea when she hears the commotion and quickly turns toward it to see what's going on. She watches as the pirates heave something big on board -- oh, hey, whoa, that's a mermaid. For a bunch of men so afraid of human women, that's pretty gutsy, she's got to give them that.

Then she watches them shove the poor creature in a barrel, and yes, she feels kinda sorry for it. So she decides quickly to maybe make the creature more amenable to... not eating them all whenever she escapes and provide her with some food instead, so she dips into the kitchens to retrieve some of the fish stored there. Raw should be fine, right?

She then elbows her way through the crowd. ]

Hey there, get outta my way!

[ Finally, she approaches the mermaid and holds out a fish to her. The "smile" the creature gives her is impressively creepy, but well, coming form the Boiling Isles, Eda is pretty unfazed. ]

Yes, here's some food for you. You eat fish, right?

( Raw is fine. Strong stench, good, cutting. She catches the scent of it from where she swirls in the barrel's depths and crawls closer to the edge, claws hooked on the rim.

If she propels herself over, she'll topple the container — she knows, and so she does not. But her tail waves left-right, and the lightless beads of her eyes chase the shape of the waiting fish with unambiguous interest.

A webbed hand slowly creeps out, swatting at the fish. Closer. )

Yes? Yes. Yesss... yes! Yes... feed. ( Now, an hour ago, when the day was born. Always, she wants feeding. )

A

Wrath sinks down into the depths of the ocean without fear. Little can effect him, and so he does not worry as he slides further into the depths of the water. He does watch out for those who exist within his team. There are many traps within, and he is ready to assist any who are vulnerable to it whether it is a physical trap or the trap of the ship below.

He leans forward, grips hold, speaks in the commanding tone of the devil, difficult if not impossible to ignore.

He's calling you out of whatever mental control has attempted to wrap around your mind. The devil is stronger.

B

Within the ship itself, Wrath has been careful not to disturb anything that might fall to pieces. He takes a chunk from a mirror nearby if only because mirrors have been a recurring theme throughout their stay. However, his main focus is the captain's quarters where they've been told a secret may await them - the answers to years old questions.

His dark gaze zeroes in on the door as he levels his fist toward it.

C

Wrath can sense the magic is more at the root of this coral. He intends to go deeper still, but few mortals can withstand it. It's his second trip down, and he stares down at the length of it.

His gaze turns up toward the person nearest to him.

"There's more to discover below, but you won't survive it." Feel free to disagree with him, but that is Wrath's impression. "Stay or head above and wait for my return."

Okay, okay! Here, you can have it.

[ And Eda hands the fish over. There's something about the sheer desperation in the mermaid's voice... ]

You're... starving, aren't you?

( 'Starving.' What is it, to starve? To die? Not to feed. Feed, always. Feed now, hands greedy over the fish she collects and savages, claws adroit and jealous of the glistened, fatty flesh before her.

She bites into it, raw and warm in the way of freshly dead things, grinning with sawing teeth. )

...good. Much... good. More? Is more? Good.

( There is within her the instinct to hoard feeding, for storms brew, tides turn, supplies can stop. This, at least, is a certainty of provisions. )

[ Luckily, Eda brought a few fish with her. She gives the mermaid another. ]

That good?

[ Then she thinks about the rumors of the ship, and the captain's logs. And, well, she is curious by nature. ]

I got a few questions. Maybe you got some answers?

i. ahoy, vernalis

( Beneath, water whispers him tame, easy. As if, limbs like lead, inertia lulls him with listless inevitability. Water roils thick, fricative. When he breathes, the costume’s membranous skins nearly choke him — then he settles, between artless dives, body forgetting the natural paranoia, the instinct to drown.

When the sirens abandon their posts for the distant blood-bathed bait, he heads for the Vernalis.

You’re an animal thing, aren’t you? Magic suspends priorities of physics and order, but biology remembers. Hand drifted to his throat, to his temples — above him, water spumes and coils. Beside him the wreckages of ships sprawls like an empire of hungry mouths and scoured rib cages. He breathes in shallow, measured heartbeats.

Beside him, his day’s companion is a burst of diffuse light, the pale greened jade of proper functions. This, from night hunts, he remembers — there is strategic advantage in two persons pursuing the task of one. Caution and efficiency are both satisfied.

He accepts person as his shadow and seeks, sinking down, to make no nuisance of himself, when they dissect the old bones of ruined vessels in their path, then make a corridor between a galleon’s crossed masts, then stumble, at long last upon the Vernalis — where Lan Wangji nudges, and a cabin door howls and creaks loose, rust-ridden and strong, before it nearly topples over.

He dashes back, blind to his companion behind him, to the force of his own retreat, to his shoulder striking a nearby wall —

To the cabin spilling dust, rattling, threatening disintegration —

To the mermaids that swarm, then erupt out of it, evacuating the premise with such haste and conviction that they spare Lan Wangji not a beady glance —

While the entire cabin starts to gently, patiently crumble beneath their eyes, Wangji’s hand hovering by the knob. The rest of the door may or may not have nictated into ashes, infesting the water beside them.

...well, then. )

The path is clear.

ii. there goes the shark neighbourhood

( There is a shark.

Statistically, the apparition sits — drifts — in the liminal space between marine inevitability and an extraordinary spectacle of Lan Wangji’s particular misfortune. It shimmies, gallantly cutting through water with the natural grace of any sharp-toothed menace who has decided to make its next meal your purgatory.

The trouble isn’t the shark’s daily excursion to bask in its territory, the latest catch of the currents, the braids and nets of coral that have dexterously shielded Lan Wangji from animal threat so far.

It’s just that this shark is so very, overwhelmingly… pathetic.

Too slim, to start. Angular and unwieldy, its eyes mismatched. Maws fully armed, but the back of its teeth lame. Its colours splendiferously… beige. The fish it petrifies out of its path appear comically complicit, like a veteran courtesan coaxing a fresh patron that she is a virgin suited for the bridal veils.

As it prowls, the shark appears to sneeze.

It’s… heart-breaking to watch.

Lan Wangji, who has never encountered an animal he would not draw to his chest, feels at once compelled to flee as a matter of the shark’s dignity, embarrassed to witness its floppy advances, and privately confident that to end its ungainly life now would be to do it a kindness. Even the Vernalis, a house of ruins below and behind him, seems belittled by the shark’s presence, like a tavern’s reputation destroyed by vocal drunks.

Gaze either thunderous or cataracted, the shark dashes towards the general vicinity of where Lan Wangji and his nearest, dearest companion are hidden —

And nearly blunts its nose against the coral net, sparking the pulses of the plant’s magic and depleting itself of vigour. It seems even more tragically foolish and wayward than before, now.

And Lan Wangji, shame-bound to behold this: )

Its... life is yet struggle.

( Look at this shark. Heavens above, it’s somehow alive, but floating miserably on its back now. )

iii. the deck meet-cute interlude

( After, he is a dragged thing, tattered and torn and ruined. He knows himself — an agglomeration of silks and bruises, stuffed and corseted in the glistened, sidereal skin of the membranous suit. He divests it no sooner than he has writhed back on deck, like a fish cleaved from stormed waters.

Perhaps he is.

Imprecations greet him, the roiling zest of tempers run ragged and thin, their ends fraying. Captain Kreil metabolises the sight of him with a smile all red-ready teeth, then spits him out with clunky, callous instructions to strip him of any paper he carries, then of the diver’s garments.

Sailors scavenge him: the suit, his parchment. The crew would even claim the trinkets born of Wangji’s negligent exploration, but Caladan Kreil sees the dewy swell of fat fresh pearl in his hand, the catch of snagged reddened coral, the roof of abalone, its shell oily and dark, and rounds Lan Wangji’s fist around them. He keeps his loot.

Then, they abandon him, alone on the deck like a homely courtesan or the babe of a misalliance.

When he falters, prey to the sudden, imminent sickness of understanding what they witnessed below, at the Vernalis — when his pearls and sea findings spill from his hand to spatter on the deck like constellations — he’s slow to stay their course.

Too slow, by far, and dazedly lethargic to collect them on his knees, when they roll beneath the step of a passer-by and nearly trip them. )

Apologies.

At this depth, the maws of the nether-sea's pressures tighten and clench and grind around him, pressure like prickling that fissures the inner linings of his lungs. He thinks it foolish — nothing has changed, but the instinctive, coring certainty that to slip steps or heartbeats farther southbound is to propel himself into the orbit of disaster.

Below, he cannot see more to discover.

Below, he blinks and thins his gaze, and the cracked round gasp of his surprise is a mute, sketched disturbance. He watches. Something watches back, in the way of predators that slither and prowl at the forest's edge, before their violence seeps over your skin like an oil's spill. He feels light-headed, as if the membrane of the suit has entombed him — as if he has far too long not been hunted before.

And this strange abstraction of power made man, Wrath, wishing to head alone. Lan Wangji remembers, distantly, a king among his blood-drenched creatures. Remembers Emilia pronouncing no fear of him. Remembers he is an observer, a companion, a stranger — superfluous. Do not barter in gossip.

"Half an hour's escort down." A simple compromise. Past that, he cannot lay claim to venture. This, he can offer — must offer. And to sweeten the agreement, "Emilia would wish it done."

1. talking to herself

[ So one thing Eda has found out is that the water has mermaids, and the mermaids are hungry. Therefore, it might be beneficial to bring some fish on her journey into the waters below. Might make the mermaids less troublesome.

Which means that she's sitting on deck now, eyes closed brows furrowed in deep concentration, as she tries to convince her inner Owl Beast to help her catch some fish. ]

What? No? [ A pause. A flurry of expressions plays on her face. ] Can't you make an exception?

[ And the same happens again, this time shorter. Finally, Eda's eyes shoot open and she groans. ]

Fine, I guess I'll get a fishing net.

2. a many-legged friend. or foe.

[ Okay, so this diving suit thing is kinda cool. She guesses. The lights are certainly something. She actually spends some time just swimming around and exploring, because she's never been under the sea. The sea in the Boiling Isles is, well, also boiling. Even the steam can give you burns.

Which means she's gonna be taking a bit of advantage of this opportunity to sea what the ocean is like, okay. So she will be seen drifting among corals, wide-eyed, admiring their beauty.

Until, that is, she is rudely disturbed by a mermaid zipping by in a rush, closely followed by a giant octopus. She is obviously being chased. And, well, maybe Eda has developed a bit of a soft spot for the mermaids, or maybe she just wants revenge for being disturbed -- either way, she swims after them and takes her staff out, which she then promptly swings into the octopus's side. ]

Take that, tentacle boy! ... or girl. Or other gender. Can't tell what you are and don't care.

[ Except, uh oh. The octopus is angry now. But hey, it's quite distracted from the mermaid. That counts for something, right? ]

3. the living room

[ Eventually, though, Eda makes it to ship. She swims along the outside, nothing the dilapidated state everything finds itself in, until she finds an entrance that seems just about stable enough and swims inside.

Behind her, some wooden planks fall and crumble, but she's safe for now.

Then she hears it.

The drumming sound, quite similar to a heartbeat. As if the ship was alive. ]

Wow, it's just like home.

[ Okay, Eda. Don't let the homesickness hit you. Not too hard at least. Still, for a moment, she just stays there and listens. ]

( Speaking? Spoken to? Yes. Yes, but she eats now, fish corseted between her two hands, mouth red-rimmed and eager. She seems only distantly to understand the bird-woman's question enough to nod in retaliation, in between angry bites of the fish that sleeps in her reach.

Good. Very good. More would be even better. )

More fish? ( No. She must assert herself. Land people, it is always so: you do not ask, they do not listen. They do not give. ) Answer. But more fish.

( A sound tradeswoman and a deal well done. )

Alrighty. Geez, you're hungry.

[ And another fish goes to the mermaid. ]

Now. Did you happen to see a sunken ship down there?

[ And Eda is there to behold the creature with him. It truly is a unique sight.

Or, well. Truthfully, Eda doesn't know. She's not exactly too familiar with marine life. But hey, you know what? Eda is a weirdo, and an outcast, and if there's one thing she respects, it's creatures who are the odd ones out.

Which... means that she has the compulsion to defend the shark's honor. ]

I don't know, is it? Maybe you're just assuming that.

Eda swims along, taking in their surroundings with curiosity. She's been on ships before, sure -- mostly to rob them -- but a shipwreck is new. Not that there's that much to see. Mostly stuff you'd find on a regular ship, just falling apart and overgrown with sea life. She does note the mirrors, and before they entered, she snagged some pieces of parchment from the coral.

When they reach the captain's quarters and the guy next to her seems to want to punch it open... well. "You sure you wanna do that? You're gonna catch splinters."

( Hungry. Yes. Yes. It is she, and she eats greedily, messily, without thought to the residue that spills beyond her barrel's rim. When her teeth catch on scale, or her lips bleed for a snag, she grins, but carries on further.

A question. She did promise — nods, enthusiastically: )

Many. Many. Tens? ( A moment, considering, and more bites for her trouble. Ah. ) Hundreds.

( So many, in fact, that they please both her and her people. ) Sleep there. Good. No sharks. No seal.

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!

( Do not gossip. Do not speak with malice. Do not assume ugliness of truth or heart, where ignorance and misunderstanding may have painted a matter in false colours.

Of course, he may be mistaken.

But then, the shark majestically rolls over halfway, until it appears to drift on its side, as if neither gravity, nor the currents, nor common sense can prevail upon it to resume the motor functions that do credit to its biology.

A school of rattled fish swarms, seemingly troubled that the shark might have fallen into catatonia. It shivers a fin in their direction, either urging them to scatter, or to push it over. They flee, perturbed.

Lan Wangji, astounded, drags a hand to shield his mouth from the temptations of vocal horror. )

...perhaps. ( He could sound less dubious, if he made attempt. )

[ Eda just shrugs. ]

As long as it's not attacking us, who cares.

[ Eda winces a little and makes a disgusted sound when some fish goop flies her way, but doesn't further comment. ]

Did you happen to see any names on the hulls? We're looking for a ship called Vernalis. Something about the captain's logs.

( This draws his brows slanted deep, his eyes dark and dulled. There is a difficulty in drawing distance beneath hard waters, but he recoils an arm's length, as if introducing physical barriers suffices to alienate himself from ill-shaped thought.

The failure of one reverberates in a community. For all that animals lack accountability, the inability to perform their role — to kill, to diminish the numbers of complacent fish in the depths, retaining them listless and unafraid — impacts more than the existence of one. )

The waters suffer without a choice predator. ( All should care. For, by the heavens that do not reach down their light, this shark is... no pride of its species. )

( It is good fish, fresh, fat. This is why they come here, despite the nets and the vicious land people, the fish grow more readily.

She licks entrails off her claws with nearly feline satisfaction. Then, briefly stills, paralysed by the question. )

...eh? Name? See? How see name?

( After all, she cannot read. )

[ Huh. Looks like this needs more explanation. ]

It should be on the outside of the hull, like --

[ She reaches into her hair and takes out some old glyph papers and a pen with a large sparkly crystal at the end. She writes the name "Vernalis" on one of the papers and holds it out to the mermaid. ]

See anything like that?

[ Eda tries to wave her hand in a dismissive gesture, but it doesn't quite come across with the water resistance. ]

Nah, there are enough others around. I'm just assuming. At least the mermaids seem to need hiding from predators, so I'm pretty sure we're good here.

( For the scant little it's worth, she pays the woman notice — stares and widens her eyes, watching the lines and squiggles take shape, and she does not hold back from that first instinct of bewilderment, hands gripping the barrel's rim tight.

Then, calmly, she sinks down, until only her eyes and forehead remain, while she bubbles away in what appears to be a fit of frustration. Coming up, once more: )

Don't know. How know? Lines look lines. ( And there are so many of them, in so many distinct geometries in which lines are assembled on surfaces beneath water, is she meant to know and recall them all? ) More feed? You feed?

( The shark......... bubbles now.

If not for its stubborn persistence beside them, Lan Wangji might speculate it's on its algae-braided death's bed, but no, the creature continues on, fins flapping mightily as it... drifts... by, mouth partly agape.

Fish wander in, then out. Those who snag against teeth become an accidental, foolish dinner. Perhaps this is how the shark thrives and survives, through a series of distinct and bizarre accidents.

Lan Wangji feels overcome with a warmth of sentiment best described as 'embarrassed kindness.' But they have an assignment here that surpasses cheap sympathy, and he starts to swim behind the coral's curtain, movements syncopate. )

Let us seize the ship. The... ( Most pathetic sea shark known to man and monster. ) Creature will not pursue.

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the sunken

eda

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Eda Clawthorne | The Owl House

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Spock | Star Trek

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