westwhere | storm at sea

Thar she blows — part II of the Storm at Sea travel arc, lasting until 5 August.

RELEASE THE KRAKEN

SUMMARY: as allied pirate ships Pariah and Queen Zanyra sail onwards, mad captain Quicksilver Sam uses the artefact of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company to call out to the notorious power of the haunted Crossing seas. He craves retribution from the crew of his former, drowned ship, the Storm at Sea — which rises up along other sunken vessels, all manned by undead sailors. With them is a vicious kraken. They attack, seeking Quicksilver Sam’s relic. So should you. Some characters dragged underwater reach a deserted dimension where time behaves aberrantly. To survive the two-three-day skirmish, keep your ship afloat and moving, hijack a few other vessels, fend off the undead and kraken, capture Quicksilver’s artefact — and breathe.

SAFE AT WA(TE)R | NAIL’EM TO THE MAST | STICKY FINGERS | THE STRANDING

Image source.

SAFE AT WA(TE)R

Quicksilver Sam’s Pariah continues into the black waters of the Crossing seas, escorted by ally Caladan Kreil’s Queen Zanyra and distantly pursued by Maximilian Hawk’s Concord of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company. Characters can cross between the Queen Zanyra and Pariah by rowboat, until great storms darken the skies. Afterwards, reckless fools can risk their necks in the growling winds and drumming rains and traverse the rattling, thick chain that binds the two ships.

Quicksilver Sam joins the deck of the Pariah with a small box he opens to reveal a cut-out, impeccably preserved and warded human tongue. Once unwarded, the artefact seems to intensify the storms, while Quicksilver shouts out:

”Two years be, when the seas, them… they… broke’n’sundered and… was then. Then, when all of you! All of… all of you dead under the briny deep, you watched, and you plotted, and you… was then! We all broke bread under the black flag, and we were brothers… brothers of the Storm at Sea. Was enough coin in the coffer for everyone, but you, you had the greed in you, thicker than blood of our covenant, or water of any womb! You turned! You put me out to die, and now, look where you are? You lily-livered scurvies, you wake up now, look around you! You put me to sea? Left me to die? Samuel Vane, you thought me, I was for drowning? You look me in the eye, and you tell me so again, because I’m here for you! I’ll be ruin for you, Storm at Sea, I’ll cleave you!”

■ The tongue artefact summons up dozens of sunken ships from the Crossing, which take under an hour to fully emerge. They are manned by reanimated sailors — many whom you may have encountered as cored bodies underwater.

■ The Storm at Sea also rises, staffed by Quicksilver Sam’s now revenant crew. The vessel spearheads the undead offensive and approaches the Pariah — leaving her within reach for infiltration. Wei Wuxian will report back after engaging undead first mate Augustus Silvering.

■ The tongue relic also calls up an immense kraken, whose tentacles can be recognised as the ‘coral’ strings that had bound the sunken ships. The kraken is neither living nor dead and composed of the coagulated dark water that characters have previously encountered. Kraken meat is comestible but not seafood. It unexpectedly tastes of succulent white fish, best paired with a Sauvignon blanc and served generously with lemon, rosemary and dill. Do not overcook on the bonfire of your sinking ship.

■ You may end up locked inside cabins or brigs, whether ‘for your safety’ or at the first sign of insubordination against the on-edge captains.

■ You’re in danger as long as you remain within the Crossing seas. To steer the boats, take occasional shifts from exhausted pirates and learn to helm your vessel with navigational help from your companions.

■ (Wisps of) agitated spirits linger in the Crossing — some maliciously seek to push you overboard, while others protect you. Most are petrified. These remaining spirits are more akin to afterthoughts of emotion, which you can calm down, exorcise or ignore.

Image source.

NAIL’EM TO THE MAST

When you can’t beat’em, try again with a torch, a harpoon and a better attitude:

■ The kraken and undead violently attempt to reach the tongue artefact and sink the Pariah, Queen Zanyra and nearby Concord. Your enemies have hardened skins that require extra hacking, but regular weapons still work. Fire is especially efficient.

■ The kraken slams and sweeps its tentacles across the deck to drag ships underwater — do use cannons and primitive explosives.

■ The undead mount rowboats or swim to climb onboard. Fortunately, the storms impede your attackers, earning you respite between fresh assaults. Assume one-two hours' rest between attacks.

■ Extensively touching the living kraken tentacles slowly depletes your stamina and/or magical strength.

■ Consider taking Viktor’s steampunk boat and setting up primitive dynamite to sink these ships before their undead crew can reach you. Beware the storms.

■ You can infiltrate undead ships at any point, but can only commandeer one if you group up to man it.

■ Use diving suits that let you breathe four hours underwater and light up white for alert, red for danger, yellow for the urgent need to return on land and green-blue otherwise.

■ Bad news for the Pariah: on top of the undead, the kraken and the mad pirate, you are dealing with the incensed Hawk and Caladan Kreil, both whom send men to stop Quicksilver Sam’s summons at all costs.

■ Magical communicators are prone to glitches or disruptions amid poor weather conditions.

■ A school of mermaids is drawn to the kraken and the Pariah — warn them off with lights or lure them away with baits of food or blood. Speaking with them reveals they want Quicksilver’s artefact.

■ Those wishing to avoid violence can head to the more distant Concord by rowboat, under a white flag. Maximilian Hawk believes you are refugees aboard the Pariah and Queen Zanyra and will offer sanctuary. The sleek, highly disciplined and martial Concord faces significantly less attack, and you can spend a more peaceful time below deck. Alternatively, pair up to persuade the crew to give up chasing the Pariah, and convince Hawk and first mate Lattimore the ‘ancient power’ pursued by the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company should arguably never be found.

Image source.

STICKY FINGERS

Moments after his speech, a rattled Quicksilver Sam retreats with the tongue relic in his heavily guarded and magically warded cabin.

■ Group up to capture the tongue with minimal damage to ship and crew. Ideally, some characters can distract the guards or attempt to lure Quicksilver out.

■ Helpful tips: despite his questionable sanity, Quicksilver Sam has shown high regard for manners, women and his ship. The pirate guards are loyal, but skittish before the supernatural.

■ During the diversion, lift the wards or forcibly infiltrate the cabin by breaking the door in. Careful, as Quicksilver appears to have purchased a Taravast special — a small caged white owl, which paralyses in place those who meet her gaze. Someone should distract the bird or cover her cage to break her trance.

■ Everyone can hunt, but Five and Wrathion get final joint custody of the tongue. They have decided to ward and box it. This will see the kraken and sinking ships gradually lose power, then submerge within two days. The tongue stays with the duo. Given Kirk’s previous reveal, the group could choose to trade the tongue in with Maximilian Hawk and the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company.

■ If the tongue is ever brought near the heart possessed by Kaneki Ken, the two artefacts will briefly thrum in synchrony.

Image source.

THE STRANDING

Some characters captured by the kraken’s tentacles and pulled underwater lose consciousness, only to mentally wake up in the dimension of a perfectly silent, deserted and seemingly interminable beach island.

■ Characters experience time differently here, shifting between younger and older states every few hours. Up to you whether these changes are mental, physical or both, and whether your character is aware this isn’t their natural form.

■ Several mute, humanoid tar figures roam aimlessly. They largely ignore newcomers, but peacefully stop them from entering the dark sea waters.

■ The island sky is despairingly grey. There are no animals or plants.

■ Characters find they lose more of their memories, the longer they linger — particularly if they start to be politely but incessantly followed by tar figures, which gradually assume their form.

■ You can occasionally find human footsteps and writing in wet beach sand. The writing spells out children’s limericks.

■ Time passes differently on the island — dealer’s choice whether faster or slower than in the real world for your character.

■ Characters can wake up into the real world, if their bodies are rescued from where they’ve sunken underwater, remaining alive for up to two days in the vicinity of the kraken.

■ Characters may initially experience light amnesia and a sense of listlessness and estrangement from their bodies, once they have left the island dimension. This dissipates within a day’s time.

■ You can only reach the island once. Characters can be brought underwater by the kraken without entering the beach dimension.

QUESTIONS

NPC CONTACT

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( They must — surely can, if it is negotiated, a deed orchestrated, a plan manned and executed and done — see that they cross paths under different circumstances.

Blood need not always wash them deeper than rains. Their bones need not shatter, their spittle need not join the fruit of gutting on hard floors. They can converse when they do not give or suffer chase, when cold sweat does not line and dig calluses on their foreheads.

They need only... discover such opportunities on a day that is clearly, tellingly not this — when Lan Wangji spears the rows of the riotous rabble, to find Five already geared for war, a crown of tentacles in his distant horizon. His hand stumbles on his sword's hilt, instinct begging that when this most elder of children steps forth, Lan Wangji should greet him steel-anointed. )

His cabins. Withdrawn to shelter. ( Under armed escort, but ugly truths want no introduction. He nods, politely, where the creature's tentacles flirt and canoodle, contorting in a spectacle behind Five. ) We are accompanied.

[ There is something Five... 'appreciates' is a strong word, but something he's come to expect when all inevitable hell breaks loose. Lan Wangji is often the first person he finds, and for all his criticisms, he's a reliable constant in any crisis. Useful.

He also happens to have the benefit of height. Where Five was straining to see over the gathered crowd, Lan Wangji must have had a full view of exactly what was going on before Vane summoned a goddamn eldritch monster. Five acknowledges the issue with a quick glance and grips a stolen sword in his hand, forcefully staying on task. ]

He retreated. [ He shakes his head in exasperation and spares time to ask. ] Did you see what he was holding?

( Instinct, salted on his mouth, Apologies.

Then the lightning of memory strikes him: this is Five, who commits himself servant to no master or cause, to no justice simple or contorted. Who sees no gentle gain in morals, compromise or courtesy, whom several have accused of unrighteous intent. It must storm Allison Hargreeves like pox and pustules each day to bear the sickness of shared blood with such an undisciplined creature.

Whatever gasped instinct first visits him, a haunting between glaze-eyed pirates, it dies an expedient death. He rights himself, back to damp wall, the slow, trickled spattering of rain weighing down his mouth, the thick of his lashes. )

Only a box. Wards unfettered. Sorcery. ( And a nod, where shadows gather and spumes disperse to bring up the great languishing shapes of vessels — ) He may have played part.

[ He frowns at that. It would have been nice to know what was in the box, but if it was used to cast a spell, it should still be with him. As long as that monster he called forth doesn't get to him first. ]

The timing is suspect. [ But why? From what he caught of his speech, it sounded like he wants revenge, so why isn't he out here watching his plan unfold?

At the nod, his attention is drawn to the ships emerging from the water, surrounding them. The deck beneath them shudders; he has to right his balance before it sends him toppling and he gives Lan Wangji a sharp look. They could have prevented this if they'd found that artifact sooner.

They'll be under attack in minutes, and the ship won't stand a chance surrounded like this. He doesn't know if summoning Anurr would do them a lot of good all the way out here, and the only alternative is getting whatever is inside that box. ]

How do we stop it? If we ward it again, does all this go away?

( A simple, elegant solution. The assumption is romantic, juvenile: that which unleashes must also in turn fetter, the world succumbing to a perfect elasticity of energy.

Only, to birth is not to eradicate, to release is not to constrain. That which agonises through depletion cannot necessarily give shape. Inversed processes are not as instinctive as the turning of a blade.

Lan Wangji's mouth thins, sours, watchful of Five, of the light tremors of his breathing, of what it means for a man so decrepit to occupy a body so young. And he says, finally: )

...perhaps. ( Excuse the tentative, glass notes of his voice turned shallow, limpid, academic. As if a stone's throw or a gentle tumble might shatter it, shatter him. ) The spell of the wards may have surrendered strength.
l
( Many, after all, only retain the power for one casting, were created to bind and hold but not endure. And then, carefully: )

It may only have sufficed to hold the bind, not to initiate it.

( They might lack the sharpness of purpose to ward again. Therefore, with a breath as harsh as nails scraping paint off wood: )

You will know on attempt.

( Until then, no luck of certainty. )

[ Five stays close enough to not miss any advice he can use, but it's mostly vague and not horribly encouraging. If it was just a matter of killing Vane, he'd already have this handled. His experience with magic objects doesn't really fill him with confidence, and Lan Wangji must be thinking the same. What does he do if the wards are broken beyond repair? He doesn't know how he'll be able to tell, but Lan Wangji seems to think it'll be obvious.

The alternative is to see if he can control the object himself. The captain didn't seem to be some powerful warlock, so it's possible. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Ships continue to break the surface and the incoming threat makes it clear how little time they have to make up their mind. He looks at the other man focusing his energy for battle and feels the tension gathering in the air. He wouldn't have expected Lan Wangji to entrust him with the task of stopping it, but that seems to be the implication, despite every reason he has not to.

The options are to stay and help him fight, or to leave and put an end to this before it starts. ]

Alright. Guess we'll find out.

[ He's seen Lan Wangji handle worse before. A legion of demons and undead. He should be fine on his own, if Five is quick enough and the ship doesn't crumble around them. So he takes just a moment to make eye contact and nod, before blinking away to find the captain. ]

storm at sea | part ii

i.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject