we can watch the world devoured in its pain

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Who: Balthier, Nazca, Rodolphus, Dean, Sonja, Idle, Katniss, and a boat.
What: A mission to see if there's a way out of Baedal over the ocean.
Where: ... The Ocean.
When: Dawn on Tuesday Misdi ("This morning" for those of you in the western hemisphere) and continuing on for several days.
Notes: This is an experimental format, so bear with me here. It's going to be a bit like a party post with some structure. Different happenings (new days, important stuff) will appear in new comments with corresponding headers - please keep related threads under each of the base comments. ... It is possible there will be a second post later but for now we're going to try and do it this way to see if it works. lmao.

● DAY 1. (Free for all comments.)
● Nightfall. (Tag the base comment.)
● Trapped. (Free for all comments.)

Warnings: Eventual violence and disturbing imagery, possible triggers; will edit as needed.

Perhaps it's fate that they leave on a Misdi - "Mist Day", the day of mists and fog, the second day of Baedal's seven-day week. It's dull but clear, the white light not quite warm but not particularly cold, either. Empty, almost, like it's waiting to make up its mind.

The boat is, fortunately, not the downtrodden thing that Balthier won in a card game, but a proper research vessel outfitted with a power source of glowing stones. It has a collection of clockwork equipment, a small kitchen, a smaller bathroom, and a few bunks, though most of the thing is dedicated to workspaces. It'll be cozy, but not inhumanly cramped - unless you like your space, in which case, it's still going to be a headache. There are two life rafts, and an anchor with a mermaid carved onto it. It is called the Winged Lamp, and her owner doesn't think they're going to get anywhere, but has been talked into lending it, For Science.

Comments

DAY 1

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Once everyone has met, sorted their equipment (Balthier made sure to bring food and water, assuming everyone else was just going to bring weapons - fantastic forethought, that, but one cannot live off eating bullets), said hullo, and gotten squared away, the Winged Lamp set off, observed from shore by a collection of rubber-neckers, the stelanmancer who lent the craft, and a few folks taking bets on 'dead' or 'returned but crazy'.

All in all, not a bad send off.

The first hours tick by uneventfully, until they reach the edges of a great maze of limestone karsts (http://i.imgur.com/Yanv5.jpg), which makes navigation a bit trickier, and the water a bit less stable. There are other ships and boats in the water as they go, mostly those combing the water for bleed-through items. In the distance past the field of great rocks, there are buoys marked with red flags, warning greedy adventurers that the Fog has been known to creep in even that close.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Sonja makes sure "her" people (those she's decided she's going to look after a bit, anyway) are settled, but is mostly fairly relaxed, for now. She's used to communal living, so the close quarters don't faze her. She might be a little bit of an interesting experience, though, since one of the sartorial choices she makes involves a crop top (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=31269216) and she is insanely well-armed. She brought a few other miscellaneous items she thought they'd need, or at least that would function as supplies, but she knows they're going to end up fighting something, inevitably. Sonja's law of the universe. She's willing to help out with any sailing requirements, but mostly she is watching the water for the unexpected.

She passes herself off as a combat girl, too, so this is part of that. (No magic succubus witchy stuff here, no sir.)

For now, she's out on deck. She's sure she's not the only one, either, since there's considerably more space to roam up there.

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

As he tends to plan for the worst, Rodolphus has forgone the robe for this trip, reasoning that it will only help drown him if he falls overboard. This leaves him slightly uncomfortable in dark trousers and a gray button-up shirt, a makeshift sheath for his wand tied to his forearm.

While he doesn't make any significant attempt to stay apart from the others and exchanged greetings courteously enough (he limited it to his surname), his natural inclination is to stare off in the distance. He is listening, however. Whatever his opinions on the rather young collection of people he's found himself temporarily a part of, he is as interested in them as he can be.

[rhinemaid]

Along with her own weapons (...significantly less than her taller, more animated companion), Ilde brought some more water and first aid in the 'emergency purse' she habitually carries, stowed below decks now with her jacket while she acquaints herself with the Winged Lamp above decks. She's more comfortable up here, and quietly trying to make a few educated guesses about how salt water will treat her; she thinks she can live on it if she has to, but she can tell already it isn't quite right, and if this goes long enough...

...she's not sure how long it'll take to start sapping at her strength. Still- she'll manage, like always.

Ilde watches the other ships, blandly suspicious of them on principle.

[girlburning.livejournal.com]

Katniss brings food, actually, not having much else to offer in return for letting her tag along -- she caught some rabbits and shot a wild turkey in the woods she discovered while exploring the city. No one said how long this expedition ought to last but she knows to always plan for the worst and extra food is always a good idea. She brings water, too. Dehydration's not something she cares to experience again.

She left her CiD buried in those woods. She'll dig it up if she can find someone to anonymize it for her, but she doesn't want it on her if there's a tracker in it.

She stays mostly on deck, having been totally unsurprised by how anxious going below makes her. Her hands shake harder the closer they get to the fog. She compulsively goes through her weapons, just to know that she still has them -- bow, arrows (eight -- more than she needs for hunting, but...), giant-ass hunting knife. When that stops being helpful, she finger-combs her ridiculously long hair and rebraids it.

[ironshodboots]

Nazca explores the boat thoroughly, and seems well-satisfied with both its outfitting and its condition. (The clockworks, especially, draw her approval.)

That done, she settles herself on a rail for a bit, watching the ocean, and eventually making another round. She may also be listening to other conversations on deck, but it's hard to tell; she isn't, however, at all unapproachable.

Nightfall.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

They sail out and out, traveling at a brisk pace once they're past the rock formations jetting from the water. There's an inescapable sense of foreboding as they leave the protective ring of post-card scenery - no matter what they are, what they've experienced, and what they've brought in their bags of tricks, it's there, creeping up spines, coiling in the backs of minds.

It takes hours of skimming along the subtly shifting surface to reach the buoys that mark the fog tide; the flatness of the sea makes the distance frustratingly deceptive. The water isn't perfectly still, but no one pattern of movement can ever be defined - not roiling, not rolling, and no waves. It behaves as if it's a large living thing itself, breathing.

They pass the markers. Everyone is alerted - if they aren't all on deck to begin with.

Two hours of that same brisk pace past the markers, and the light begins to fade. It should be different, a colorful blinding gradient out over the horizon - but it's as if their whole world is one great camera lens, and the aperture is being lowered. An unsettling feeling twists through the salted air. A texture. The light is grainy, orange-grey and thick, and if they choose to look behind them, they can see the buoy markers light up with enchanted lanterns in their wake, preparing to hold their positions in even through the darkness.

Just before true night falls, there is a noise. It's dull at first - like a great, distant wet cloth being ripped in two. The water kicks up in a single swell, the first true deviation in the tide pattern they've experienced. It comes from their starboard side, but as nothing follows it, they sail on. Lanterns are lit inside the cabins, peeking out just barely from the intermittent curtains, but nothing on deck. Just in case.

In the inky blackness, an inhuman screaming begins, from somewhere far out there, directionless.

They suffer an hour of it, unseen, before it silences, gurgling into nothingness. But that's when the smell hits them, and great lumps of dismembered, bleeding, grey-fleshed thing begin to bump up against the boat, thudding lifelessly.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Sonja doesn't run up on deck--she's already there, but advancing to the side with careful caution is probably wise. She's got her sword out, though it's loose at her side, and though she doesn't look tense (she has the sinuously nonchalant look of someone who's waiting, coiled like a snake prepared to strike at the smallest hostile movement), she is.

The smell is strong. Very strong. She doesn't press anything to her mouth, but the temptation is there.

Fuck. She'd rather have been attacked directly than have something left (a warning, perhaps, I can do this, this place is not for you, this is what will become of you if you stay in my domain). Some part of her jumps to it as a conclusion, because that's what she'd do, too, if she were feeling fair at the time.

(She's not, always.)

"Well," she says, "there is definitely a predator in the water. Or will be."

Which will prod at her instincts if she starts to sense it acutely, but it's not impossible just yet. A ping, rather than an alarm.

[rhinemaid]

There's a gleam beside Sonja - Ilde, unwilling to split her focus or her power when she might need both of those, shines in the dark as the illusion fades and she gazes down into the water with her own too-wide eyes, sharp teeth pressed into her lower lip. Raw flesh in the water is-

-tempting sometimes, in other contexts, but not this one.

"Yes."

[girlburning.livejournal.com]

The screaming wears at Katniss' nerves, but ultimately she can deal with it. She's withstood screaming more unnerving than this before, too. When the smell comes, though, she almost immediately has an arrow drawn, ready to fire should anything leap out at them.

She leans over to get a better look -- but not too far, standing with as firm a stance as one can get on a moving boat. She's little and it wouldn't take much for something to knock her over if it wanted, which she's aware of. "What is this?" she asks of the dead flesh bumping along past them -- she can't see well enough from here to tell if it all used to be one thing, or... many things. "Or was, I guess."

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Balthier's nerves are run raw by the screaming. It makes him agitated and impatient; he hates not being able to see what they're up against. It feels like psychological warfare, but that's too paranoid a thought even for him, and he knows it. Something twists in him when he sees Ilde (that's better), and he just misses Fran all the more - she could sense it, sort it, know at once, and the aching emptiness of all just makes him even more annoyed.

With the others, he peers over the edge, not quite leaning - no, he's not quite bold enough to go offer up his head for something to leap out of the water and snatch off, either. He sighs a bit, makes a round trip to the cabin, and returns with one of the lanterns and a long wooden pole, one of the ones used to prod the boat through the shallows.

"This is a terrible idea," he observes in his lazy-sounding voice, but all the same, he does indeed attach the lantern to the end of the stick and hold it out over the water so they can see what it is. He stares at it for a moment - it looks like it might have been tentacles, wide around as his arms or more, in a smooth gray, now bleeding into the dark water. Fresh.

"Anyone feel like poking it?" He could stand to sound less chipper. It might help.

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

There is probably just enough light to make this super creepy, and Rodolphus hasn't yet learned that he shouldn't be using magic the same way he uses magic in his own world. The ball of light that pops out of his wand is deliberately not very strong — why send a beacon to anything that might be out there? — but it brings a shivery level of detail to the flesh floating below.

That is not 'poking it' really but after a few moments he gestures and the ball extinguishes itself.

[ironshodboots]

At Rodolphus' magic, she goes a bit still, but doesn't otherwise seem to react; all her observable attention is on the gore... the whatever-it-is outside the boat.

The calm was concerning, but the silence following the screaming is almost too well-calculated to unnerve them. She doesn't like it, and wonders who arranged it. Someone, she suspects, did.

[wearyheadtorest]

Dean's been silent since he appeared on the deck, not long after the bits of... whatever started thumping up against the hull. He's stood there at the rail, watching, gun lowered but ready.

He doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all. All that screaming had him on edge but the way everything went quiet after... it's like a bad horror movie. Set up to unnerve the audience as much as possible, and this unidentifiable stew in the water is just more of the same, like the way the plucky heroine's friend's flashlight has now run out of batteries but she goes down the basement stairs in the dark anyway. Meant to make you tense up and wonder what's coming next.

Dean's not one for being messed with.

For the millionth time he wishes Sam were here. Sam would probably be able to spout off some bit of lore or identify those things in the water on sight or something. But Sam's not here, and they need some answers.

"This boat got any fishing gear? I'm not bad with a hook and line."

It's not poking it, exactly, but it'll get them a closer look.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Sonja's head turns to watch Rodolphus use magic on the segment of flesh in the water, though she is otherwise still. So she's not the only magically inclined person on board--good, if it means she doesn't have to out herself, but a little problematic if he realizes he's got company and outs her. Since the man has been virtually silent since arrival, she sort of doubts it. Fishing gear she can't help with--she doesn't know every aspect of this boat, so she'll let Balthier handle that question.

While speaking, she takes a deliberate step away from the edge, and glances to make sure Ilde does, too. If something knocks hard into the boat, they don't need to go over the edge--Ilde is a river creature, so a water landing would normally not be a concern, but out here in the middle of the ocean, they don't know how sizable the other predators might be. Big enough to swallow a human-sized being whole, perhaps.

"It took a long time to die. Can you identify how big it might have been whole?"

As though its being dismembered is, while unpleasant, no particular big deal.

[rhinemaid]

It takes Ilde a moment longer to draw back as Sonja had (the glance prompts her, but doesn't immediately stir her into movement here) - but not so long she isn't swiftly back by Sonja's side before she'd need another nudge. She's silent now, noting each small detail of the moment as it happens but seeing no reason to respond, per se, at least not yet.

There are times when her hearing is almost useful, and being spared the raw nerves of listening to that hour's long death-cry (she heard it, but too dull and distant to make out precisely; she knew it for what it was by the reactions of the others) is probably one of them.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure there's some in the cabin," Balthier says, sounding resigned. He passes the stick with a lamp on it to whomever's nearest, and then proceeds to step up onto the side railing and swing one leg over so that he's straddling it. He slides the katana on his back out, peering over.

"Now just... watch the blasted surface tension."

This is, surely, the best idea he's ever had.

Reaching out with the end of his sword, Balthier gives the nearest bit of flesh a sharp jab, causing it to roll over in the dark water. It's a smooth column of solid, grey matter, almost dolphin-like, but far too thick and featureless to be anything that he can recognize. Another jab, pushing it to bob to display one end - and there's no tear marks on it, not even a little. It looks perfectly smooth, as if someone held it on a great cutting board and chopped right through with the sharpest knife imaginable.

[pureandstrange.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're all going to be like that. Rodolphus clears his throat at Balthier, a suggestion to get back on the damn boat or at least lean in, and gestures again. One of the smaller sections of flesh lifts out the water and floats over the railing to settle gently on the deck. People may have gotten dripped on a bit but he was pretty quick about it.

The smell is stronger now and undoubtedly there's some kind of spell for that but he'd not going to do something so frivolous right now. Just those two spells felt... odd, which may be entirely psychological given the circumstances, but he's noted it, at least.

[girlburning.livejournal.com]

Katniss watches the magic with curiosity, not really understanding it -- she dismisses it as him having had some kind of flashlight on him that she couldn't see. The levitation is harder to explain away, but honestly, the specifics of how anyone is doing anything weird will have to wait for later. She's focused more on what the hell sliced up something this big.

Fish and other ocean-dwelling creatures aren't her specialty -- Finnick would be so useful here! -- so she leaves examining the remains of... whatever to whoever wants to, keeping an eye on the water. She jerks when she sees a flash of movement, definitely too quick and deft to be one of the lumps of dead flesh left behind.

She steps back to get a more even footing. "Heads up," she says, sharply but quietly. "Something's moving in there." And it's way too close to them for her comfort.

[ironshodboots]

Nazca, very carefully putting her reactions to Rodolphus away and out of her mind, looks sharply where Katniss indicated. She's more concerned, for the moment, about what's still alive than the debris on the deck, though she isn't unaware of the latter. But with as many pairs of eyes as they have, they can split focus, slightly.

"Some sort of shark, do we think?" she asks, low.

[wearyheadtorest]

"Not a shark. I don't think so. They--" Dean gestures vaguely at the hunk of whatever with his gun. "Tear up their prey. They're all teeth and they bite and slash to cause blood loss, then they go back and maul their prey once it's weak from blood loss." Pause. "...Shark Week. Never miss it."

He glances around at the rest of the people gathered. "Anyway. This thing's cut up way too neat to have been a shark. And maybe I'm a pessimist but I'm kinda thinking whatever did this and a shark hanging out by this boat is too much of a coincidence."

And then his eyes are on the water, gun at the ready.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Though Balthier is quick enough to hop back on the boat proper, he manages to find time to spare Rodolphus a slightly withering look. He knows you're not mute, buddy.

Another twitch somewhere out in the water - far from where Katniss spotted it - then another, some yards away. He shifts his feet, wondering. "Maybe it's just drawing in scavengers," he says, even though he doesn't sound terribly convinced. "I don't think if another being killed this, it would have any cause to be modest."

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

"Maybe it was something...environmental," Sonja says. "We don't know what's out here."

As if to helpfully chime in--and provide a suggestion as to what might be out there--a noise kicks up. At first, it's faint, faraway, like perhaps it could be the wind howling (the way the wind can sound like a woman's screams)...but the air is so still, so that's not it. As it approaches, there are more of those intermittent ripples in water--something great in length, almost serpentine but not quite, flickers up and down. Catching sight of those nearest to the boat's ledges, maybe.

It's not a scream. It's keening. It sounds otherworldly, akin to metal being torn in half over and over and over. It's also incessant--no pause for breath.

Sonja is still, listening. Blood in the water. Of course there's something else now.

"...now would be a good time to stay away from the railings, everyone."

'Cause it would be just their luck if whatever that is knows how to jump.

[rhinemaid]

Even Ilde is bothered by the incessant nature of the new keening, as she moves back further from the railing - it's low and indistinct to her ears, but it just keeps going like her ears are ringing and ringing and ringing. She frowns, barely, an expression that the earlier death-cries hadn't managed to draw out of her-

"Not scavengers," she says, her voice a little loud (like she's misjudging how loud she needs to be). "Predators."

Trapped.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Navigating through unstable water and not knowing how large, magic-eating sea creatures will take to having their current source of entertainment slip away (and possibly nudge them about in the water) is somewhat nerve wracking, but that's just the way life goes. The speed at which they travel takes them away from the gore floating alongside them, but the creatures keep pace, only appearing every so often to keen or shriek, as if entertained.

It's not comforting.

Tension mounts in the air, the water stirring in an increasingly choppy fashion, until quite suddenly, it evens out - even the wind falls to complete stillness, leaving the boat and their unsightly companions to make the only sounds, as if the blackness of the sky and the water is some kind of void that they exist in without true substance.

Without warning, a great, deafening noise thunders from ahead of them - like a terrible groaning explosion somewhere deep in the water, so powerful that not even the depths can contain the noise. The water shudders and then spasms into violent, ringing waves that strike the boat with such force that it seems impossible for anyone to have kept on their feet for its start.

The stone-powered engine coughs, lurches, and dies, as if frightened to death. A tense feeling gathers in the pit of Balthier's stomach and he pulls out his CiD - dead. He's about to call out, Heads up! or some other utterly pointless warning to herald the impending feeling of Oh this is not good at all, but the words never make it anywhere audible.

Before them - close enough to be terrifying in its scope but far enough away not to crush them immediately - a massive, pointed object bursts through the water's surface. For one horrible moment it seems there in the dark it might be a monster the size of a building, and that's it, party's over - but the moonlight casts just enough fuzzy illumination for half a moment to reveal that it actually is a building. Enormous, not of Earth, and big enough to sink the boat in one rectangle window, it pushes up and up out of the water, as if it has roots in the seafloor itself, causing a torrent of unstable water. Further off, another horrible too-loud sound breaks out, but this one is followed by the ear-scarring sound of twisting, snapping metal.

All around them, the smooth, reflective surface of the water drags in things from other worlds - broken, huge things that can't find a place in the city. It's a torrential storm of fog and chaos, and they're in the middle.

In the midst of the birth of all these things, something throws itself at the back of the boat. And clings.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Eye of the storm, Sonja thinks. They've gotten to the dead zone. Even if that were a monster rising from the middle of the depths, Sonja would give attacking it a go, judging by her stance, but buildings....they just have to figure out a way to navigate around. Admittedly it'll take a good amount of time.

Especially since that dull smack of something hitting the edge of the boat is accompanied by one-two-three-four--countless more. She stands on deck, feet flat on the ground, ready. And through all this noise of groaning skyscrapers sliding up from the depths, there's a sound like a keen, a metallic scraping cry, and she knows that the waiting is over.

Anyone near enough will see the worst thing about her reaction: the satisfaction in her eyes. And the distant pride; clever little monsters. Not sapient level intelligence, but they're good at being beasts, and she appreciates that quality even if it won't stop her from doing what she does.

Which is to say, 'kill'.

Sonja's posture is loose, not tense, in her habitual misdirect of building fight-related anticipation. She lifts her chin. She hears something slither and then the wet slap of that black blood splattering across the deck's floorboards; she does not turn her head, but she knows something is approaching. She waits. Patiently.

And then just before anything can touch her, she whirls with the snakelike speed she occasionally demonstrates, and slams her sword through the eel that was seconds from striking. The blow pins it to the the wooden wall she was near the corner of, and up close, she can get a better look at its face. It has innumerable glittering eyes that make up a circular pattern on each side of its face, giving the impression, from afar, of only two. It also has rows and rows of sharp, sharp white teeth, at least three that she can see, with a fourth developing in back. It's grown about a hundred pairs of tiny low arms for the purpose of travel on land, making it not so much of a proper eel any more and more some kind of demented flesh-eating sea millipede, but she's less interested in its classification than killing the fuck out of it right now.

It's dying, but not totally dead yet. Might as well take the opportunity to watch. Sonja's expression is intent, but otherwise difficult to read. She slowly tilts her head with an unnerving kind of calm, meeting the eel's many many eyes as it begins to list to the side.

Then in one brutal jerk, she twists the blade. The thing she stabbed sputters in one last whimpering keening sound of animal desperation, and dies. Sonja pulls her sword back, exhaling.

"We've got company!"

For such an ordinarily soft-spoken person, she can yell like a drill sergeant.