From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
08-05-2020, 04:51 PM (This post was last modified: 08-16-2020, 03:06 PM by Jack.)
JACK
see me falling yeah, down and lonely
Jack’s kind of done with shit going wrong, honestly. Doesn’t stop it from doing it anyway but he’s just throwing it out there at the universe. He’s done. Kay?
He’s at the stern of the ship, his knuckles white against the railing, piercing eyes on the wake that they’re leaving in the waves. The crew give him a wide berth in this mood - he’s been up there for nearly half an hour now, scanning, thinking, considering.
Then he hops down, putting fingers to lips to let out a piercing whistle - a call to gather all hands on deck. When he speaks his voice is low, as if almost worried someone might hear.
”There’s a ghost whale tailin’ us,” he informs them. ”You can see birds over the waves a ways back. We’re alright so long as those birds are there. Once they disappear, it means the thing’s takin’ a dive. And when it comes up, it’ll be to swallow us whole.” He pauses, but not necessarily for effect.
”Gonna need the cannons all locked an’ loaded, the sails up, an’ anyone with an insane idea, speak up now.”
All fun and games at the Ark! This PQ is open to crew members. Jack needs someone to deal with the cannons, two people to deal with the sails, and any bright ideas you might have!
Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
Well, Melita would have those stories and adventures she’d promised her family – she just doubted they’d be envious about them.
Nerves were high, clambering over her veins like pulsing waves, fractious, anxious, one of those frenzied moments. It made her restless, maneuvering along the planks, the deck, with too much energy. She should’ve been exhausted, but her mind was like a schism, broken up by the patterns of the sea around them, the bizarre outline of birds manifesting something formidable. Everything seemed that way out on the ocean, from storms and tempests, to animals lurking underneath fathoms; perhaps because they were so minute compared to its mass, its wake, its dominion.
Jack’s whistle, bringing attention to the issue, and subsequent proclamation didn’t help matters. A ghost whale coming closer and closer, and threatening to swallow them whole.
Gods, she’d dealt with enough monsters, and certainly had no intention of being annihilated, and devoured here.
Features rendered into malicious edges and ferocious fringes, she nodded, and ran to her cannons. Fangorn followed suit, dutifully poised behind her, while she manifested their armaments, weaponry, and whatever fire they’d require. Another notion sprung up, and she called over the rest of the crew. “I have some elemental arrows too! Electric, fire, and ice!” The vampire gourd received her next nod, and went to go retrieve the quiver – in case that swiftly became an option.
--
Melita goes to man the cannons and offers up using her arrows too!
if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step
Fuck you, me, and every cunt on this ship. Eloise thinks, not necessarily in Jack's direction, but loudly enough for him to hear. She too was done with this. It had been her call to slip into the stretch of current they were currently in, and though Jack hadn't argued, if a fucking ghost whale damaged his ship, she was pretty sure the last words she was ever going to hear before they were swallowed whole were going to be: some fucking navigator.
Tense and adrenaline-fueled, the illusionist dashes towards the sails barking orders at the crew as she went. "I swear I'll feed you to the fucking fish myself if any of you so much as lets a single foot of rope slip." And gods just now, small as she is, she looks like she means it.
"Y'know anything those whales dislike?" Eloise calls up to Jack, the implication, of course, being that she could make it see such a thing—if it existed—should the need arise to buy them some time.
Eloise goes to the sails.
i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back
At Jack's whistle, Saiden immediately banked the fire and covered the pot he'd been cooking. Grabbing a vial of the potion from his cauldron, he scrambled to the top deck and joined the group surrounding the captain. The Hali frowned at the other man's words. Glancing in the direction of the birds, Saiden scratched his head. "Huh." There was a nonplussed tone to the word.
Then he grinned at Jack. "How do they hunt? If it's using their physical senses, if the scaring off don't work, maybe Elo can hide us or distract it with an illusion, and I can prevent it from following our wake?" Suggestion made, he dashed over to the mast to assist Eloise with the sails.
Jack knows a lot of things - he’s been playing this game for a fair while - but really, the only thing he knows about ghost whales is to fucking avoid them. Still, his blue eyes are sharp and calculating as his crew gets to work, the smuggler nodding first to Melita and allowing her to run off to the cannons. He listens carefully to the suggestions fired off by both Saiden and Eloise, and an idea strikes suddenly.
”Fire at it behind us!”, he calls to Melita, before glancing at Saiden. ”Change of plan - need you to drop our sails, quick as you can.” As he speaks and the crew responds, he catches Eloise by the wrist to draw her away.
”I’m going to get us dead in the water,” he tells her slowly, carefully. ”Soon as we’re still, I need you to veil us with your illusions. Think you can handle it? If not the whole ship, then the parts of us that are in the water. Make it look like there’s nothin’ there.”
No post order!
Jack advises Melita to fire cannons back at the ghost whale, for Saiden to get the sails completely down and for Eloise to veil the ship!
Saiden didn't need to be told twice. Simply nodding at Jack's words, the cook smoothly stepped up to the sails. Glancing just once at Eloise, he gave her an encouraging look.
Then he turned towards the sailors gathered round. Barking orders, he told them in no uncertain terms to get the sails down now, without delay. He sank as much authority into his tone as he could manage.
Without even bothering to see if they were listening, he turned to the mainsail. With the skill and ease of a lifetime of practice, he began lowering the mainsail, doing it as quickly as he could without messing up.
Saiden orders the sailors to help him with the sails, and begins to lower the mainsail.
Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
Even if her suggestion wasn’t taken, the girl kept her quiver nearby. Other plans were enacted, and concocted, and she snagged at Fangorn, tucking him down by her side for safety. Thereafter, her concentration had to be honed in on the elements, on the danger, on the curl and foam of the tides. Brows furrowed, a single nod extended to the Captain, the youth redirected her cannons towards where the creature would be stirring. In quick, methodical, practiced strokes and measures, she lit the fuses, plugged her ears, and hissed under her breath; silent little pleas, fortified armaments. Intentions were for fire and brimstone, for power and prowess, for the whale to be sent off, gone, away, or vanquished.
if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step
Nodding towards Saiden, the illusionist lets her counterpart deal with the bulk of the work when it comes to the sails. If the ship just suddenly vanishes, depending on how clever ghost-whales are, that might be just as telling as having it remain where it is in the water. So instead she focuses her mind on gradually pulling the ship from view.
She thinks of the amount of light that is trickling down through the waves during the storm. It isn't much, but it's enough to make the ship visible in the frothing ocean. Slowly she melts it away, trying to bleed the hull of the Ark into the water and the surf as if she were no more than a bit of ink gradually being tossed around. Eloise replaces the stillness of the ship in the water with waves that most and undulate just like the rest of the sea does, trying to seamlessly blend her illusion into the world around.
As for the bits above water? That's easy. The illusion extends out and up, making the ship appear to be nothing more than a disgruntled patch of grey sky.
Eloise tries to hide the ship!
i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back
08-23-2020, 04:42 PM (This post was last modified: 08-31-2020, 05:04 PM by Jack.)
JACK
see me falling yeah, down and lonely
They all snap to their work, and Jack flits around all but Eloise (he couldn’t help her even if he wanted to, given the intimacy of her magic). But as the illusion blooms around them, he helps to lower the sails and with the cannons, blue eyes flicking to her quiver as if to keep it in mind, whatever happens. And damn but if his crew doesn’t work like a well-oiled machine.
Unfortunately, luck is not on their side. Really, really not on their side. (Thank you, dice).
The cannons fire wide, splashing into the water some distance from the ruckus above the waves, and one of them doesn’t quite fire at all, burning Melita’s hand as it goes off. And however good Eloise’s illusions are, they can’t stop a ghost whale for... doing what ghost whales do. All at once, the commotion of birds and other creatures... stops. The whale has taken a dive.
”Fuck,” Jack whispers under his breath. He... doesn’t know what to do. In this moment, he doesn’t honestly know. Then, because there’s nothing else, he nods to Melita. ”Get all that gunpowder together and bring it to the side rail,” he says. ”Eloise, keep it up! Saiden, churn up the water as far enough away from us as you can!”
The whale took a dive because I rolled like SHIT. Jack gives further instructions.
Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
What a betrayal. For all of Melita’s efforts, trainings, and concentration, it all comes to naught. The cannon went off, and she watched, watched, watched until it veered wildly off. Another backfired completely, and a series of curses sputtered from her lips, from her mouth, as the searing pain slashed across her skin. The disappointment, frustration, and pain spiraled against her, a veritable hiss in the back of her mind, along the etchings of her flesh and bone. She didn’t cry out, she didn’t mourn, but gods, did she bristle. Something to bite down, to hate, to menace about later.
Fangorn’s following grumbles went ignored for the moment, when Jack’s directions echoed. She nodded, wrapping her hand in some fabric, the youth would have to tend to it later, no time, no time at all to worry about the shooting, agonizing pain. Her arms gathered the gunpowder together, and Fangorn snagged at what he could with vines and mouth, racing across the deck to snag at the side rail.
--
Melita and Fangorn follow Jack’s directions and bring the gunpowder to the side rail.
08-24-2020, 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: 08-24-2020, 04:47 PM by Saiden.)
just take your time wherever you go
Thankfully, the crew managed to take down the sails. Unfortunately, Saiden wasn't able to relax, as Jack's next set of orders split the suddenly unnatural stillness and silence. The cook glanced at the captain for the briefest of moments.
Then the Hali sprang into motion. Dashing to the rail on the opposite side of the ship from Melita, he took a firm grip on the railing. Then he knelt, and stretched out his hand to the water below.
With every ounce of effort, he reached with his magic. Roiling the water, he tried to make it appear as if the wake of an entire ship was passing thirty feet away from them. He wasn't sure how successful he was, but his expression was fierce.
Saiden does as Jack orders, and makes the water roil on the opposite side of the ship from Melita.
Her teeth click together. Dropping to her knees, Eloise pushes her palms into the wood of the ship as if she might somehow bleed her magic right into the core of her. Her knees are new freckled with blood from the uneven boards but she hardly notices, so great is her attention to any and every detail which might ultimately save them from this.
Eloise thinks of the way the light reflects off of the water and how that looks from down below. How it sparkles and shines, and how the light bends through the ripples. With all that she has she tries to recreate those images so that from deep within the sea where the ghostwhale no doubt is about to charge at them, they appear like any other patch of ocean.
Sweat beads on her brow and her jaw threatens to cramp given how tightly clamped shut her jaw is.
Jack is at the port side with Melita, while Saiden creates a distraction at starboard. She brings the gunpowder and the captain tips her a wink, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. (He doesn’t). Still, he strikes at the matches in his back pocket, lights the fuse, and tosses the gunpowder overboard. A combination of oil and wax means the fuse won’t go out, but fuck if it isn’t a close one.
And when it goes off, fuck if it doesn’t make the Ark rock and roll. Jack loses his footing, elbows cracking against the deck as he falls. Melita and Eloise will find themselves similarly shaken, though Saiden keeps his sea legs well enough. Unfortunately, the disruption will wrench Eloise’s concentration away, and the Ark will flicker back into view.
However - it seems they have done enough. The distractions - and the sudden explosion - means that the ghost whale aborts its mission at the last second; the crew will watch with wide eyes as it breaches the surface of the water a short distance away from them, colossal and nightmare-inducing. The splash as it dives away again is enough to soak them all, and to sweep away a lot of their supplies. Splendid.
But there’s silence, afterwards. And a few long, held breaths. The whale does not return. ”Check the ship,” Jack calls from the deck, not bothering to get up. He doesn’t have the energy, honestly.
The ghost whale was distracted by the gunpowder and the waterworks from Saiden! However, the resulting explosion means the Ark has taken MODERATE DAMAGE, and is slowly taking on water.
Two thirds of the supplies have also been washed away out to sea. Hopefully there’s enough to limp home!
No post order - give a final wrap up detailing what your character does to try and straighten things out!
if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step
Slammed into the railing, Eloise loses hold of her illusions as her mind threatens to fall into unconsciousness. It takes a moment or two, but once she'd regained focus she grips the railing and heaves herself into a standing position, only to see many of their supplies drifting out to sea.
"Fuck!" She cries without thinking, stretching out her hands and trying to coax back as much as she can. "If you assholes want to eat, get over here with some nets!" Her telekinesis reaches out to snag the supplies that won't have been immediately damaged by being in the water. Trying to pull them back towards the ship where the crew can hopefully pull some aboard, Eloise does her best to lift what she can. Weak as she is, already her grip on her magic is wavering, but hopefully she can secure enough that they won't be forced to eat any of the crew. Har-har. Maybe.
Eloise uses upgraded telekinesis to try and get back some of the supplies.
i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back
