multiversallogs | we can watch the world devoured in its pain

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we can watch the world devoured in its pain

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.

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Presumably, Nazca's insight concerning boating has come in handy - Balthier knows the basics, and is genre savvy enough to get by, but there are gaps; he's used to flying, and he'll have said so.

He joins her at the close of her second round, amiable but quiet. No use overdoing it right away. A nod in hello. This all sort of sucks, doesn't it? Hm.

"They probably were. That stuff goes right over my head, though." She squints off at the fog, still, at this point, very far out in the distance, and frowns -- Katniss isn't one to fuss about things she can't do anything about, and she's used to long periods of waiting, but... this is different than stalking a buck. "I should have asked him how he does it, but we don't have much use for them anymore, anyway."

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.

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.

Edited 2011-05-12 09:43 (UTC)

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."

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."

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.

She returns the nod. After a moment, a bit of an offering, she says, "You're not doing too badly, for someone used to the air." She thinks they could use an actual sailor or two; Nazca knows boats, but she's never been out on the open ocean as more than a passenger before. Still, they'll make do with what they have.

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.

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.

"Air's not always intangible," he says, a shrug in his voice. "Skyseas, the jagd borders - up by the sky continents there's so many storms and anomalies made by the mist the magicite mines that currents are as real and torrential as any maelstrom."

He leans on the railing, watching out over the water, and the way it kicks up against the side of the boat as they skim along. "Gravity's the difference. Drawbacks and aids in each direction - on water you've got one up, one down, no worrying about dampeners, which way you're falling, that sort of thing. But then, there's nowhere to get out, either."

"I've never flown," she comments, "but I would like to try, someday, if I can." It sounded like an experience worth having, and the worst it could do was kill her. (Haha.)

"And it's strange - I haven't been out on the open sea for years. I used to regularly, but things happen. Get in the way." She shrugs. "I know boats more than the ocean."

Dean raises his hands slightly to show he means no harm. He feels bad; he hadn't meant to creep up on her. "Sorry," he says. "I was just checking the place out, didn't mean to scare you."

He lowers his hands and then offers one, smiling. "I'm Dean."

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.

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.

"Ilde," she returns, accepting and shaking his hand. Hers are cool to the touch, like she's just pulled them out of cold water (they're dry; the sensation is still oddly similar). By way of explanation, since it's dawning on her what just happened, "If I can't see you, I probably can't hear you. Stomp and I'll feel the vibration."

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.

It takes a moment before realization dawns.

...A long moment.

But it does dawn, and that's clear in his knowing nod. "Good to know. Thanks." Her cool touch doesn't give him a lot of pause up here, on the deck; it's damp, there's a breeze coming in over the water, she's probably just a little cold.

"You been here in this city long?"

The subject of her inconvenient physiology having passed, Ilde shakes her head briefly. "Not long." And not much longer, she hopes. Her gaze wanders away from him when he isn't speaking, though she's not actually disengaging the conversation; she's not unfriendly but distant, and sometimes disconcerting in the way she seems perceptibly out of step with the rest of the world around her. (When she is looking at him, it's almost too focused, still as she is; she's a worrying sort of a woman.) "I don't like the koolaid vibe." To repurpose Sonja's assessment.

"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.

"There's nothing like it." A little bit distant, that remark. Balthier hasn't flown in so long. It's like some part of him is slowly dying - gods, it's such a dramatic thought, but he can barely stand it, being trapped like this.

"Knowing boats at least is better than knowing nothing at all, at present." He gives her a smile, charming but not forced; he expresses himself in a subdued way, when he's being genuine, as if he's not used to being anything besides defensively flippant.

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.

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.

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.

She inclines her head, accepting his point. "Did you hear any rumors, before we set out? Any expectations as to what we may find?" Her bent for sarcasm is firmly tucked away for now, leaving clear-eyed intelligence behind it. Her gray eyes, behind her glasses, are focused and probing.

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we can watch the world devoured in its pain

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Nightfall.

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