the priests

[groundrules]

Image source.

THE PRIESTS

Quicksilver Sam’s numerous hired priests aboard the Pariah are asked to earn their keep by appeasing some of the spirits that overtake the vessel. Hauntings intensify, from invisible presences that rattle hammocks and shake furniture, to ghostly attempts to push sailors overboard or under collapsing wooden barrels, sinister lullabies and inexplicable miniature explosions on deck, after someone unseen toys with gunpowder.

Those sensitive to ghosts will feel occasionally overwhelmed by the strength and volume of the spirits that surround the Queen Zanyra and the Pariah. Spells or items to keep the dead at bay will continue to work, but they will have a significantly reduced effect and only for limited periods of time. The Pariah appears especially vulnerable to deathly visits, and Quicksilver Sam can be often found in a state of incoherent anxiety on deck.

One of the priests signals the endlessly slate skies, pointing out ‘clouds’ that have covered the sun and comprise dark, roiling agglomerations of spiritual apparitions. The sun has been ‘eclipsed’ by ghosts, and the hauntings will stop when it reappears — whether naturally, within 36 hours, or with some help.

✘ OBJECTIVE: appease the spirits on deck. Make the sun pretty much rise.

■ The priests entrust characters with amulets that allow them to perceive the shadowy presence of the dead when worn, and to more easily understand their murmurs. (The amulets will amplify the gifts of those who already have similar death perception abilities, whether naturally or gained through the recent volcano event).

■ Wearing the amulets in turn allows the ghosts to see you. They will frequently rush towards the bearers, drawn to someone they believe can understand them. Most ghosts are only aggressively clingy and want to liaise. A handful of spirits are outright hostile, seeking to claw or possess amulet wearers for a few hours, before their powers run out.

■ Priests encourage characters to appease ghosts by speaking with them: many wish only to share their tales of death in the Crossing: typically lured out by the promise of an ‘unthinkable power’ lost at sea, or by the reward to recover this resource. Some perished when their vessels were suddenly, inexplicably stranded and fell prey to starvation. Some found their captains compelled to sabotage their ships and crash them into cliffs or other vessels. A few sailors were pulled in and drowned by mermaids, or killed by spirits. Far too many speak of reaching the heart of the Crossing, where ‘woken dead’ boarded their ships and culled them.

■ Ask a few specific questions of the dead here (no more than two-three/character, please.)

■ Carry out a spirit’s last wish – anything from having a strong drink on their behalf, enjoying a last kiss or sunrise, or punching a pirate who’s wronged them.

■ Publicly share (near-)death experiences, as a way to bond with the suffering of ghosts.

■ Physical rites can also appease spirits: evacuate sailors off decks at night, other than a skeleton crew required to keep the ship on course. Patrol the area with braziers burning a strong, stringent incense, or draw the elaborate protection wards priests teach on deck wood or doorways. Teasing ghosts will often try to ruin your work before you complete the ward circles.

■ Set down lines of pure wood ash before every door, and replenish them when they have thinned. Failure to do so will see the doors rattling and nightmare spirits shaped like black cats attempt to enter to torment sleepers. If a nightmare-spirit has already gone in, draw it out with shrill bells and throw ashes on it. Do not look a nightmare-cat in its dark eyes when you encounter it on deck, or find yourself paralysed in place until she passes.

■ Those who want to hasten the end of the ‘eclipse’ can help priests dip arrows in a mix of ashes, salt, incense and diluted blood, then set them on fire and shoot them repeatedly at the sun. The prowess of your archery skills is irrelevant: the sky’s big enough of a target that you’re unlikely to miss. Caution: shooting these arrows taxes your spirit, and you may find that you are helping clear the clouds at the expense of a temporary but growing feeling that leaves even the most stalwart character physically fragile, emotionally vulnerable and rattled for a handful of hours.

■ Those whose energies have been depleted can 'borrow' strength from another willing character by clasping their amulet. Those whose energy is fully exhausted fall in a two-day sleep and dream of dark, cold, impossibly silent water — and a yearning to be born with a shape.

QUESTIONS

PLOTTING

Comments

Xie Lian

[scrapgege]

A - GHOST ANONYMOUS

[Quite honestly, Xie Lian doesn't require any knick-knacks to hear ghosts quite clearly and for them to see him, but the priest insisted, and it felt rude to refuse. He's still going to carry it in his sleeve rather than wear it around his neck, but even without that he's a bright beacon to them and he's getting quite mobbed by ghosts clamoring to be heard.]

Alright, alright, one at a time, please! I can listen, but you're going to have to take turns and not talk all over each other, alright? come now, let's form an orderly line...

[You might be a bit surprised to see the ghosts actually responding and lining up to take their turn, even if there's a bit of pushing in the line.]


B - PUNCH A GHOST

[Of course, some spirits are more restless than others, and not content to wait to be heard. They'll start getting rowdy, and push, and sometimes outright attack.

For the ones that can still hear reason, usually tying them up with Ruoye will do the trick, for a little while, until a solution for helping them pass on can be found, but on occasion, stronger and swifter action needs to be taken.

That crash you heard was definitely Xie Lian punching a ghost into the deck.]


C - RITES

... How are we on the ocean, and there's no salt to be found for protection circles?

[The truth is, there probably is some salt. In the kitchen. From which Xie Lian is most definitely banned.]

I only have a few sticks of incense, so I guess they'll have to do.

a!

[downswing]

( Stricken and depleted from his underwater journeys, but enough of Lan Wangji prevails attentive to walk the decks, to haunt them — never alone, as ghosts gather and swarm, and restlessness prickles at his exhausted qi, grazes on his fingertips. In his belly, the yearning to claim his guqin and whisper phantasms back churns like a mill without water.

He wrestles himself, light-footed, back into control. Joins Xie Lian on the deck, where spatters of fresh rain compound mildew and the warm wet, all too pervasive. A stench of decay that never suns enough to settle.

So too, the dead of the region: drifting, parading their disgruntlement, hungry for attention. Xie Lian, who has never encountered trouble he will not exacerbate before Lan Wangji's own eyes, invites them close. And Lan Wangji, hand bent at the small of his back, fist rounding, intercedes: )

You host a conclave.

( If they were but cultivators, the matter of a conference would be afoot. )

[scrapgege]

Heh ?

[Xie Lian looks up from his little organized line of chattering ghosts, and of course, smiles encouragingly, because why would he not?]

Well, they need to be heard. It's the easiest way to help them pass on, but that doesn't mean they need to make a ruckus, right?

What about those ?

[He points towards the ghosts clinging around Lan Wangji.]

Are you going to do anything about them?

[downswing]

( These, his mourners, his champions, his laughing companions, his cheerful girls. The wisps of charcoal-nothing that catch Lan Wangji's hand and cling close, as if they yet possess the power to influence him.

Burning, like moths beside fire, their essence likely to drip and dissolve before Lan Wangji brokers another step, a handful more. Phantasms cannot accompany Hanguang-Jun. They do not dictate his course, do not construct his chaos.

He tolerates them, like light blooms dust — a pedestrian indulgence, a fond vulnerability. )

I would not eradicate them. ( Here, a wealth of ghosts seem to fill out, to swell, to expand in strength and volume of presence — as if some part of them had suspected Lan Wangji's tolerance of the dead extended not only as water, filling out a container to its brim, but far more, looking to spill past that measure. ) They seek their own purpose.

RITES

[chosenbylight]

Protection circles?

[Anduin casts a questioning glance aside at Xie Lian. He has an incense burner in his hands himself, from the priests on the ship, though being a priest himself he has been adding his own twist on the ritual as well.]

[scrapgege]

Hm! If you're ever in a pinch with a supernatural being, a salt circle around you is usually very effective as protection! For low-level ghosts and demons, at least. They can't get through.

[Of course, something more powerful wouldn't care much, but the ghost Xie Lian has seen so far do not seem to be of the kind that could ignore a salt circle.]

You can even live a small dish of salt in a room to purify it against small spirits. It works like a charm, if you don't have incense or someone who can say prayers for you or write talismans.

MY APOLOGIES it's hard to keep up with everything when there are suddenly SO MANY POSTS

[chosenbylight]

[Anduin quirks his head to the side, considering this advice, and the man who is giving it.]

Am I correct in the assumption that it is not the first time you have had the need to protect yourself against such things? Ghosts and demons, and other such supernatural beings.

wei wuxian

[weifinder]

amulets

He tosses his amulet up in the air, catching it easily as it falls back down.

"Fascinating," he says, smiling at one of his fellows, "How they're baiting us to lure them in. Look! That fellow's headed your way now!"

A thin sailor, bleeding from a long gash down his side, difficult to determine what, specifically, had caused it. He's coming in fast for a clinging hug, if he can get away with it.

last wishes, cw: peeing into the wind

Wei Wuxian stared down the spirit after his confession, the once broad-shouldered man giving off a shy-but-determined body language as he stared back at Wei Wuxian.

"Really?"

"Really." The spirit straightened up, gesturing to the prow.

Another long pause followed, before Wei Wuxian sighed. "I always imagined last wishes would be more dignified, warm, bloodthirsty, or just about anything than this. You really... nothing else?"

The spirit shook his head, firm.

Which is why Wei Wuxian ends up on the prow, taking careful aim so that while he's about to be peeing into the wind, he's... not going to end up covering himself or anyone else in... you know.

one shot, do not get a chance to blow

He knew folk tales that were like this, but his first instinct was to find Jiang Cheng, second to find his son if he was around. We are watching Erlang shoot six suns from the sky, we are in Yunmeng, and the kites fly true, but so do we.

The bow was familiar in hand, the draw the same strength he remembered from a lifetime of use; arm steady, he pulled back on the string, arrow notched and ready, waiting. There was no true sun they were striking, no true clouds to pierce, not when more of this was metaphor to handle curses and religious obscuration by those paid and faithful or faithless in their claims.

The bow pulled taunt. He held it, watched the heavy grey mass of the clouds, waited. Felt his qi roiling through him, a shallow puddle, but at least stronger than one who had no cultivation at all. A puddle that'd had its bottom dragged clean.

He held the bow, waiting, until the moment felt right. The string sang as the arrow flew away, breathless, the bow turning some in his grip with the force of its release.

The arrow flew, and flew, and fell, like arrows do, like skies do. The exhaustion that came on its feathered fletching was wrong, however, not how it should be. He wiped the back of one hand across his forehead, frowning.

"So what we're really doing is sacrificing enough energy to get things moving again, aren't we." Like so often.

wildcard

Hit me up in prose or action for whatever while handling ghostlies!

last wishes

[reparo]

The gifts bestowed upon her by the volcano experience have come in handy, now of all times, because she does hear the dead more clearly. These just wants favours, last wishes fulfilled. She ate a orange for one drowned sailor without teeth who never got to taste one.

She is not really in a hurry, per se, but she is walking briskly and spots Wei Wuxian from the back, standing on prow, looking deep in thought and pretty imposing, and thinks to go and tell him that she's handling this whole speaking to the dead thing rather well, right now.

He has time, right? Right.

She heads in that direction, the name already halfway on her lips. "Wei Wu-"

There is

wind

and

splatter.

"Oh my god are you peeing?!" she screeches out, and dashes to the side so the splatter (splatter!!!!) doesn't end up on her clothes; this proves to be a terrible idea because there it is. In his hand. There it is.

She slaps her hands over her eyes, sputtering for a moment before squeaking out: "Is - I - Is it over?"

[weifinder]

He has no hands to spare in this incredibly... delicate... process, though his eyes close when he hears her speaking, when he detects that she's about to—

"Miss Hermione, don't—"

The eagerness of youth makes no fault but for swift feet, and far more of himself than he's unwittingly shared since the bear chased him naked through camp or Taravast's palace. The ghost, standing side by side with him, merely laughs at Hermione and Wei Wuxian alike, then resumes his pantomime of what Wei Wuxian is doing in truth.

He sounds miserable, because he is, on the level of not actually being a man for indecent public exposure, saying, "I was trying to warn you not to come over..."

Far too late to do anything about it, so shakes and an ending stream mean he's properly tucked away and in want of water for washing his hands when he leaps back down from where he's been standing, clearing his throat and smiling in a pointedly airheaded way.

"Well, if you're asking if the spirit has been settled, then yes, he's moving on even now."

The spirit looks at him, laughing again, and nods, making a lewd gesture. Two shakes. Before he does, indeed, start fading.

[reparo]

This is mortifying. She can't tell what is more mortifying, actually, if it's the fact that she definitely saw a vague penis-shape before whirling around and covering her eyes, or the fact that she can hear the stream as it's fading.

It is possible to want to laugh and cry at the same time.

(Side note: she will never ever tell Sizhui about this.)

At the ceasing of sound, she dares a glance over her shoulder and turns back to face him looking red like a beet.

"I suppose I should be glad I didn't get that one."

Hermione Granger, pointing out the obvious. Would've been hard for her to pull that off without squatting and we're moving on now!

She pulls a face, regretting her words, then nods at him. "Please wash your hands."

one shot, do not get a chance to blow

[chosenbylight]

Anduin glances aside at Wei Wuxian, a frown writ across his own face.

"It would seem so..."

He lowers his bow, needing a moment to gather himself before he can reach for his next arrow. He has only shot a handful of them so far, but already he can feel the pull. The loss of his mana, and his energy with it. An aching in his bones. It is not something he can heal away -- mana takes time to recharge. But he can tell that it is making a difference in the shadows above, however small.

"Perhaps it is worth the risk?"

'cause opportunity comes once in a lifetime

[weifinder]

"No." No hesitation before he speaks. "Exhausting ourselves when we know what's coming will be as bad, if not worse, is dangerous. In your conversations with the spirits haunting us, have any described to you what the bodied dead in the heart are like?"

Yes, there is a difference now, but the priests are using them. Wei Wuxian isn't blind to it, or to how it's an uneven concept of justice or salvage, and that it isn't their bodies that should be toiling and exhausting to provide this solution.

Not when those bodies will need to do the same when the dead come raiding more fiercely, and more familiarly, in the days yet to come.

"Shoot the clouds from the skies, but attempt to hold back reserves. This is hardly our final stand, ah?"

[one-shot]

[scrapgege]

He's seen the people shooting the arrows but hasn't tried it directly himself. Honestly, he isn't quite sure how it would interfere with his curses, and it seems more reasonable not to try but seeing how it seems to deplete...

"We didn't really try it that was last time we exchanged energy, but... what if I give you some of mine?"

He still has a lot, even if his own limitations mean he can't use it the way he wants to. And at least Wei Wuxian is unlikely to siphon him dry.

[weifinder]

"Is this going to involve more kissing, because I don't think my husband's going to choke down that vinegar all that well," he says, lips twitching up into a wry smile and rubbing at his chest, which had been part of the whole being thrust bodily away and meeting a few trees in an unfortunate fashion, back in Sa-Hareth's cold, snow-laden mountains.

In a more serious tone, he frowns, considering.

"How good is your control, dear god? One problem I foresee is I cannot hold immense power, I haven't regrown a golden core since mine was, ah, extracted. Too much flowing through my meridians would collapse them."

A raised eyebrow to Xie Lian, not doubting ability, but outright asking for confirmation of Xie Lian's realistic understanding of his own abilities.

Anduin Wrynn

[chosenbylight]

LAST WISHES
Anduin glances aside at the ghost who has requested this last wish to be carried out and steels himself. In principle, it isn't all that difficult a wish to carry out. In reality... Anduin wonders whether he will in truth ever live this down.

Gently, he clears his throat, waiting until he has gathered the attention of the majority of the crew and those gathered.

"If you will excuse me, I have... A song, that I would like to share, on behalf of another who cannot sing for themselves tonight..."

Better just get this over with. He wets his lips before he begins...:

"Ohh the-- barman's lass has mighty fine ass
But you won't hear that from me--
'Cuz if he knows that I've been eye'n her up
There'll be no more drinks for me--

Ohhhh the-- barman's son is built like an oak
And I'd like to trim that tree--
But the barman better not hear 'bout that,
Or there'll be no more drinks for me--..."

And so it continues until the song has ended. Anduin's face may or may not be bright red by the end.

RITUAL
Anduin clutches the blue amulet that the priests have given him in one hand, a brazier of incense in the other. The protection wards that the priests have taught him to draw are foreign, and despite their kindness, as Anduin has learned from them, one priest to another, it feels wrong to pull from their magic when he has magic of his own to use.

Walking out to the darkened center of the deck of the ship, Anduin closes his eyes and begins to murmur a prayer to the Light underneath his breath. In response to his words, a soft glow starts to radiate from Anduin himself, filling the deck around him with warm light, and anyone nearby with the sense of...

Peace.

SHOT IN THE DARK
Anduin trained in archery before he trained in -- pretty much anything else. Even before he became a priest, for that matter. So when the priests offer that one of the ways that he can assist them would be to shoot arrows, dipped in this mixture they have prepared, of course he accepts.

Anduin has always been willing to assist, where help is needed.

The priests instruct him to light the arrow on fire and then shoot it toward the sun, which seems simple enough. Setting his own arrow aflame, Anduin does just that. Aiming towards the sky, he sets his arrow loose, firing off several more before he frowns. It was only three arrows, but he feels as though he has just fought a great battle, and when he reaches for his mana...

Anduin staggers slightly, reaching for the rail of the boat to steady himself. Something is not right.

LAST WISHES must be witnessed

[reparo]

She was busy finding an orange to eat, for the last request of a ghost who is quite shy by all accounts, when that happens.

The worst part is that she listens. Stands on deck, and listens, as Anduin sings through the list of all the objects of his ghost's affections. By the end of it, she is visibly biting her lips to not burst out laughing, it's a whole effort and all.

She takes out her device, and sends him a quick text message so as to not shout across the ship:

That was one horny sailor.

IT MUST

[chosenbylight]

Anduin senses the spirit moving on or whatever it is that happens after their last wish is fulfilled, which is the only reason that this whole thing had been worth it. Quickly excusing himself to a quiet corner, he does his best to wish himself invisible -- which is when he notices that he has a new message waiting for him.

From Hermione.

He glances up, casting a quick, embarrassed glance around the deck before their eyes meet and Anduin's face grows, if possible, an even deeper shade of red.

That was not one of my finest moments.

last wishes

[binghua]

The massive influx of ghosts is definitely something to take seriously and Xingchen does his best despite his abilities having been...altered. Damaged? He's still not entirely sure what the spirits in the volcano have done to him.

But when there's a clear voice announcing a performance, he stops worrying about any of that and listens. And what a song! It's lewd, it's crude, it's not anything he would willingly sing. It's also far more creative than anything he could come up with and despite its less-than-civilized nature, Xingchen finds himself smiling and laughing genuinely.

It's fun. They all need some of that.

When the song reaches its conclusion he is still laughing, but applauds the performance. "Well done, well done!"

[chosenbylight]

Anduin is whole-heartly embarrassed by the song itself, but in the end the only harm it does is to his pride. Therefore, for the sake of the spirit's undead life, he can swallow that down and give this performance for him, in an effort to help him move on.

It is with a feeling of relief that he does move on, however. Anduin does not know if he could take a second such performance.

"Ah, thank you, my friend," he says, flushing with embarrassment and wishing it were possible to disappear in plain sight. "Though you should really be applauding the man who wrote it. I was just performing it for him, I suppose you might say..." If a performance that could be called...

leonard mccoy

[biomed]

amulets

( the swarm had come as a surprise, the rush of bodies, the clutching of hands to his sleeves, his shirt. he did his best to accommodate them, but too soon their faces began to blur, and they looked too familiar, the faces of those they lost on the Enterprise only weeks ago.

it's suddenly too much.

he holds the amulet away from himself where he sits, but its effects still hold: there are ghostly hands on his shoulders, because he can't leave them even now, even as miserable as he feels. at someone's approach, he straightens quickly, his eyes red and too bright. )

Oh. Can I help you with somethin'? ( he scrubs the heel of his palm over his eyes, and takes a stilling breath, grinning sharply and so fake it pulls unpleasantly at the corners of his mouth, )

I'm gonna need a minute.

last wishes

( recovered from his grief, bright-eyed and determined, he's read to a few of the dead, drafted messages to take to families beyond the Crossing, or simply sat and listened to them speak, holding waterlogged hands and sharing a few tales of his own. many of the requests are heartbreakingly simple, simple pleasures, simple joys...

...and then there's this one, that has him frowning in consternation, which is just how he approaches a fellow passenger: )

I understand how this sounds, ( and, Lord, will he prevaricate if given half the chance, ignoring the grinning specter in his peripheral, ) But, as a last request for the recently departed... may I kiss you?

nightmares

( there's a bell going off in your ear. sorry if you were sleeping serenely-- the bearer of the offensive bell in question stands just inside the doorway, his attention on the roiling black shape in the center of the room, darker than the other shadows. )

Go on, get-- ( he scolds her, adding sharply, )

Don't look at it. ( difficult, possibly, when the nightmare cat turns her head to seek out the dreamer he's trying to protect, her glowing eyes seeking theirs, a ripple of motion like the fluffing of fur gliding down her back. )

wildcard

( like it says on the tin! )

last wishes

[downswing]

( Wet on brazier oil smears a rain-clad deck like viscera. He has learned the look of it, sharp: how soot-salt-ash arcs on the anemic railing, and smokes up the sails, where wisps of dead tarnish it like finger-dragged charcoal. He has observed the forms of physical deterioration on a ship earnestly haunted.

Now, he sees the devolution of men, stranded in the roiling clutches of the same phenomenon. Adrift on the watch, morning rain yet to whisper itself dry on his back, Lan Wangji does not anticipate the overture. There is a way in the step of men with boons to beg, and he had expected this man — face fresh, a tenderly negotiated addition to their questionable company — to request Lan Wangji's services in securing warm drink for his feverish skins. A blanket. Perhaps a diversion to excuse himself below deck and removed from his rites.

He did not anticipate —

But then, red skin of his mouth breaking under the catch of his teeth, their grit-grinding avoiding a gasp, who might have anticipated this...? )

Apologies. ( Rasped, gutted from him. An excuse, by any other name — and is etiquette falsehood, then? Should the precepts prohibit it? Name a gentleman who trades in truth without omission. ) I wear a pledge.

( A curse, or a matrimony, as one wishes to ink the definition. No matter. A last request of the recently departed. Ahead, the dead wail with desperate, animal surrender; he knows, this is of knowing. Exorcism is both a beginning here and a foregone conclusion. )

Let us court you a different consort.

( Why, look at this range of toothless, bald or profoundly unhinged sailors behind them. A catch, one and all. )

[biomed]

( His hand lifts; the man needn't explain himself at all. )

My apologies.

( Understanding and a kind of relief dart across his face, replaced swiftly by a look of carefully-marshaled distaste, as his gaze slides over the other man's shoulder and onto the crew behind him.

Beggars can't be choosers, but the spirit who set him to this task, a young man who tugs imperiously at his sleeve again, will need to be patient. )

I think I may try my luck with more of us Outworlders. We, ah, have less of an aversion to soap.

amulets

[valeas]

( somewhere in the multiversal ether, Nonna Maria di Carlo's razor-sharp eye twitches: she'd always cautioned Emilia against using items touched by death, or indeed anything meant to seek it. argued that things rotting deep within the soil break down into something else. something other.

she is inclined to agree, but also knows she holds in her power an amulet that will help appease the spirits. knows if she does not help, they will not see sunrise. a woman of strategy, she approaches Leonard not only with concern, but a plan — potentially. )

That's all right.

( if needs a minute, he should take that minute. knowing one's limitations is a strength, and this is too important to charge ahead foolishly. )

I was given this talisman by a friend well-versed in spirits. It should help with the overwhelm. We can take turns using it? ( she lifts Wei Wuxian's talisman for appraisal. it's not a perfect solution, but it should give them some space from the spirits, reduce their shouts to whispers. )

nightmares

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian blinks, looking away from where he'd been making talismans, seeing the cat and looking vaguely surprised, as if the whole fact of it hadn't registered earlier. It hadn't, not when he's distracted and working out of the winds to prepare before their progress brings them to the heart of the Crossing, but the nightmare cats.. )

Are these the not-cats that tend to freeze you in place?

( Asked while pointedly looking at Leonard, reaching his hand out to neatly slide it across the actual sleeper's eyes. An old man, hair white, looking younger and older than his features would indicate were he awake. Not that Zenobius often wakes, but he could, and it would be cruel to have his moment of awareness turned into body locked nightmare all over again. )

He doesn't usually wake, and not with clarity yet.