#thqadmin

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“Don’t stand up, Dowling. It’s only me. I come bearing news.”

Silence. In the space between the bottom of the floor and the door, Malachy’s silhouette shifts. 

“Too much of a coward to face me, Estrada?” Ragged voice tears through the air like a dagger, muffled through the door. “State your peace and leave.”

“Is that an order, captain?” A humorless, hollow laugh. “This is a gesture of goodwill, Dowling. I’d mind yourself until I’ve said what I’ve come to say.” He pauses. Perhaps to hide his own disbelief. Perhaps to spite Malachy. “We’ve fucking crossed it, Dowling. We think we’ve found the passage and we’ve found a way through. Hell, we might have already crossed it. We’ve got a city in sight and we’re making plans to dock in their harbor.”

A long pause. “No. No, that can’t be. It’s far too soon. A week, that’s not enough.”

“Say it as much as you want. By the time we lay anchor, you can come see for yourself. I reckon, see, that it won’t even be a day. As a truce, I’ll let you out—supervised, of course, and never too far from my sight. But freedom, Dowling. You’re to partake in it as well.”

“Thrilled, are you?” A soft thump on the other side of the door as Malachy leans against it. “How neatly this all transpires for you as soon as you seize the helm. Should’ve mutinied sooner, I bet you’re thinking.”

“Not here to question it. For your sake, I hope you don’t either.”

— 

Up close, the mist that cloaks the city shifts with every step taken. Appearing transparent once, then cloudy with a thin, greenish film next, then shimmering with an opalescent, abalone sheen. It is cold, but not cold enough for the thick coats that have proven imperative for standing outside in the Arctic. A strange humidity permeates the air - it is thin and thick, at once, and one feels a shortness and a swelling in every inhale - not painful, nor is it natural. The luster visible from the sea is procured from shells embedded into the foundation of every building, in between the stone and plaster - old and weathered, they glint in the light that parts through the mist. Perhaps the first thing that can be glimpsed, like a maroon carpet of colour, is the red sands on the eastward beach. Ground to a fine point, blanketing uniformly around the village until the paved streets begin to stretch on, it resembles a carpet of leaves or clipped gems as much as a natural phenomenon.

No other ships are docked at the silent harbor. Cobblestone lines the path up the crumbling seawall and into the city where townsfolk mill about in the marketplaces and town square, a vast space eclipsed by grand, towering edifices - a spindly cathedral demarcated by an unfamiliar brass symbol of the very tallest of its spires; an ancient, squat tavern; an inn with patrons streaming in and out like shoals; a surfeit of various shops of every variety, marked not by words or names, but by images painted into the overhanging signs. As the sun begins to dip below the horizon, one realizes there is an absence of gas lamps that dotted London in abundance. Instead, white wax candles spill over every ledge, every crook and cranny, their bases melted into the stone and bedrock and wood. 

Townsfolk cast strange, curious glances at these newcomers, but their gazes never linger long before they carry on with their businesses. The accents are implacable, though they speak English - not even a mishmash of any known dialects, but entirely unfamiliar. Not even the Promethean’s most well-traveled guests can narrow their tongue or the origin of their accents down. 

The shops and inns here refuse currency - one takes what they need, and they carry their debt with them until it's repaid, metaphorically or literally. 

— 

Malachy emerges from the boiler room a fragmented man, gaze trained on the multiple barrel ends that follow his every movement. Every breath he takes lifts his entire body in a heaving pulse-thrum. Hair unkempt and eyes wild with animal fury, his lips lift into a sneer as he finds Marcus in the crowd of muskets.

“Is this where I’m supposed to thank you for your mercy, Estrada?” He appraises the armed crew. “And your lackeys, for their restraint?” 

“Chin up, Dowling.” The vice-admiral’s lips curl into a grimace. “Even you cannot deny this good fortune. Certainly this justifies some of the trouble.”

“It justifies nothing. If you’re wise, you’ll not let me out of your sight.”

No more is exchanged between the two men before Malachy is ushered up the main ladderway, up to the upper deck and onto the dock, one armed escort in front and behind him. The rest of the crew begin to disembark, all who aligned with Malachy closely followed by another who wasn’t. 

The dock creaks beneath their feet, and the procession is slow, tentative, upon reaching this new port. Everything is familiar, and yet nothing is - not even the screech of a gull to announce their arrival.

Then, a scream, feral and hoarse. 

Behind them, Jules takes advantage of the momentary awe and sweeps the legs of her captor, knocks them into the harbor waters. A musket fires. The narrow dock doesn’t allow much in the way of room, and those who have not yet made it out of the ship clamber back on. Captors shout for their captives to STAND STILL, MOVE BACK down into the lower deck, but the chaos and the overlapping shouts overpower them. Smaller squabbles break out as the rest milk the opportunity given to them by Jules’ commotion. Ahead of them all, Malachy slams himself into the guard in front of them, tackling them both to the ground. His second escort scrambles for a clear shot, musket trembling - only to lurch back, struck in the shoulder. Behind him, Ephraim had broken free and wrestled the gun from his warden, his aim true then and now as he holds it steady on Malachy’s escort, who wordlessly surrenders his own weapon to Malachy. 

On the boat, chaos descends. Roi has easily overtaken his guard, pinning them to the side of the boat. Before he can hurl them into the water, Mariah throws himself onto his back, pinning the steward’s neck into the crook of his elbow. A flash of silver in his free palm - but then Laurents is on him, twisting their arm back until the knife drops to the ground with a clatter, and drives his fist into the mercenary’s gut, allowing Roi the chance to break free. Elias dives for the dagger and slashes at the ankles of Fahra’s guard, who had her wrists firmly in their grip. He cuts deep, cuts an unthinkable and irreparable gash over both calves; enough to maim, perhaps, if another one of Estrada’s hounds had not stepped in. The second man, bigger, wrangles the steward into a deathgrip. They both take the fall, tumbling several paces across the teak. In the somersault, the snowfall of movement and limbs, Ayla Dowling steps in with a lifeline. A physical rope, no time for metaphor, no time for anything but the hard gnashing of the present. The doe loops the rope around the guard’s neck, and, with a vicious tug that no one would’ve wagered on, pulls him off Elias and onto the planks. She waits no second before helping Elias up, and together they join Jack, the sergeant’s dagger blocking Violet’s aim on August.

Some paces away, Noemie leads the rest of the Agathe survivors through the skirmish and off the ship - they start down the docks, but Katja blocks their way, and it’s her musket to their none. She grabs Tristan by the arm, presses the musket to his stomach - if you want him alive, you’ll do as I say. A gun close by goes off, causing all of them to flinch. In that instant, Nyima breaks from the hostage group to lunge at Katja. The two scuffle, until Nyima gets a grip at the barrel of the musket, shoves it into the air - it goes off. Tristan tries to pin Katja down, and she hisses, points the gun at him - Nyima yanks the barrel back. It goes off again - whether by accident or as a result of the scuffle or by intention, it finds its mark. 

A wail cuts through the air, and for a moment, the bedlam stills. Nyima clutches a weeping wound on her chest, collapsing into Tristan’s arms. Ever the protectress, she is restless still even with her grievous wound, tries to force herself before the rest of the Agathe survivors as they fall to her side. This is one of the last attempts, the last slingshots of action in her muscles and spirit: to interpose between her friends and Katja. The translator backs away, wide-eyed, but still in possession of her wits - weapon poised to fire again if they tried to seek retribution. 

“Call Jonathan! Casimir! Help her!” Emma begs to no one in particular. She is quick to kneel, had already torn off half the scarves she was wearing, and is pressing dry palms, wet cloth, crimson sash to Nyima’s blooming chest. The petal spreads, swallows the entire front of the amulet’s dress. For all her time spent in gardens, for all that she turned stem and stalk to see the wonders of the world, this is a flower Emma cannot understand. Cannot weed out, or stall, or even conceive of. The blood flows, pours, goes over easy; a swell like the motion of waves, on what was once a ferocious, then a frozen, now an utterly becalmed sea. Nyima’s hand raises to Emma’s cheek, and, like the curl of a gentle claw, wraps around the jawline. Tristan falls to her other side. She whispers something to both of them, a voice that doesn’t carry, a wisp already flattened into velvet by the winds. Then she presses her own face into Tristan’s thigh. Her Judas, her Captain; it’s hardly appropriate, isn't’ it, that he’s the one that has been betrayed again—that he’s the one left behind. Perhaps this is why the cook smiles to him, last. To assure, as much as assuage. To promise there is another turn to this story, even as her own is already fading. 

By now, Malachy and his officers and Marcus and his loyalists have found the source of commotion and gathered, wordlessly. Jonathan weaves through to reach Nyima - there’s shifting, the subtle sounds of men taking aim,  and Ephraim immediately raises his gun to Marcus. It takes his own Captain’s voice to make him lower it, hip level, eyes murderous.

“Let them go. Let her…” Malachy pauses, swallowing through his hoarseness. There is no doubt as to the injury’s severity - the bleeding has not abetted, thick rivulets seeping through Emma’s fingers and pooling on the fallow ground. Malachy Dowling was a man of many wounds; some borne within, some hidden, but most of all witnessed. He knows what a death mark looks like. Nyima’s body is a canvass of carnage.

Not much for Jonathan to do, no, not much for anyone to do at all. Doing has led them here; the rough, loud, prideful fall of it. The impossible tally. The Captain, the former Captain, rises his voice once more. “Let them care for her in peace. You’ve had the upper hand, and now - now neither of us do.”

It’s Tristan’s cry that announces it; the death, the finality. Emma’s face is as white as the sky above them. Hands as rusty as the sands on this beach, on this strange place of salvation. Ayla and Noemie huddle closer to lift her up, lift her away from Nyima, but she won’t go. It seems no one is going anywhere, anymore — the whole possibility of it has been culled. Bones resting as slack as burlap; as unconscious as the flotsam left after a flood. 

Behind him, Edward and Jaya usher those they knew to be aligned with the old command off the docks and into the city. Marcus watches, impenetrable, his own musket held limp at his side, unmoving, unspeaking. 

Then he extends a hand to Katja, like a faraway tyrant, the stone hewn statue of one, calling home its acolytes. He waits until the thief, once-translator, now trembling toll paid in blood, comes into his shadow. Lays a hand on her shoulder, protective and proprietary all at once. Lays a gaze, then, like the snag of a chain; drags it over all of them that remained up deck. Only then he begins to speak.

“So that is how these things end: the pointless brutality of it. Man’s obsession to keep a code of honour that has long stopped serving. Has everyone seen it, looked their fill? Good. I am nothing if not prophetic, hm? Now. Now. Let us make sure no other prediction of mine will see the garrish, gruesome light of day. Have you all had enough of mutiny and cockfights? Are you ready to make something of your life?”

His body turns to the rest of the crew, a full recoil, almost a repose.

“Seems to me this is as good a place to start as any.” 

To his own, Malachy offers his own words. Exhaustion permeates his words, weighs them heavy as lead - the fight is over, all there is left to do is rest. Regroup. Loss, they all know by now, regardless of their alignment, is consumptive. It eats and it steals and it offers nothing in return. “Let us not forget the dangers that have led us here. Betrayals. Mutinies. Guns at our heads as we lived and slept. A beast that knows not of compassion nor mercy. Just because we are alive does not mean we are safe - do not let your guard down. Rest, and we will regather. Salvation, whether it be here, or home, awaits us in unity.”

OOC: We hope you enjoyed today’s plot drop, lovely members and lurkers! The Promethean has landed in strange new lands where nothing is at it seems, with tension aboard boiling over into a chaotic climax. The crew has mostly dispersed into the city, with each side of the mutiny looking to gain their bearings and regain control. 

A poll will be posted in the discord so that you can choose if your muses retreated with Malachy Dowling or stayed anchored with Marcus Estrada. Please remember that everyone who helped Mal/Jules stage the insurgency is no longer a crew member. However, if your character has motives for staying (a loved one, a status as double agent, suddenly undecided etc.) you are welcome to have them remain on the Promethean. Just be sure to keep us up to date if any major loyalties have shifted, and, as always, to have a blast writing & plotting through these little rats’s conflicts. 

There is, of course, much to explore in this nameless port city, including NEW LOCATIONS, listed below, and new NPCs with which to interact as sideblogs. These will be ran by the admin team: K., Venli, and Rhi, and will be strangers to the rest of the crew, each bringing their own motives, mysteries, and intricacies into the interaction. Keep an eye out for the follow post within the next few days! More locations will also be added as the plot and exploration of the area progresses. As of now, THE CAPTAIN is an active muse and may interact with the rest of the characters. Have fun, and happy writing!

AT HANGMAN’S TRINKETS.  

At the other end of the port, pushed far enough from the seaside that it almost looks like any other village, splays the tight, narrow venue of the store. If most buildings on the docks look comely, a peace that alludes to most corners of the world where the ocean laps the shore, this one has a marked touch to it. It draws the eye, the firm painted a gaudy russet, as red as the sands that litter the eastward beach. Despite its hue, the sign has been battered into something closer to dried blood by the gale, and the marks on it are illegible. Could be any human language, or not at all. Perhaps what makes the shop stand out even more is the absence resounding in the harbour. The maroon posts are entirely devoid of any other ship, not even small fishing vessels anchored at half-length on the wharf. It should make the Promethean loom, but instead it diminishes it; could be soothing, could be dangerous, the way the quiet waves knock it about, with very few inhabitants coming to stare at it, to help tie it to the pier, or even to barter. Yet there is plenty of bartering to be done further inland. The rest of the expanse might be barren, but the shop is bright and bundled up, like an old woman sat by the fire. A string of fairy lights are hung over it in a diagonal row, the sash of it lolling slack enough to catch a taller sailor’s head and dapple it with warmth. At the counter, a young, plucky clerk spreads their arms in welcome. Behind them, vials, jars, and tinkling bottles litter the entire front wall. It is such a kaleidoscope of size and color that any customer might be more dazzled than tempted to purchase. From camphor oil to whale teeth necklaces, from silk handkerchiefs  to beads of black glass, everything seems ready to be displayed, bartered, and doubted. The clerk is nothing but exhilarated to have someone to talk to at last. Their bronze face is dappled with the hanging lights, and a nose ring stretches from their septum to their ear. That golden chain makes them look both older and younger at once — as they chuckle and lapse into chatter, already ready to soak up all the information visitors might bestow, it becomes more and more difficult to gauge their age. Or their intentions…. How much will you share?

HIGHWAYMAN’S REST.

Perhaps the most striking front belongs to the port’s hotel, a polished three-tiered complex that occupies the main street. Oddly enough, despite the fact that the port seems all but deserted, the building has the most upkeep in the area. The outer walls are painted olive green, in a stark contrast with the houses’ cream-colored front and the greyed, saltwind-bitten outstretches of wood along the pier. The double doors allow a glimmer of light to cross the threshold, since its glass panels are painted with scenes that resemble the stained glass on churches and temples all over the world. Once inside, the vista opens on a waiting room decked with paintings and sculptures, with works of art that don’t seem to resemble anyone in particular. In order to ring the receptionist’s bell, you have to wrangle your hand through a number of small statutes. One bust on the receptionist’s counter, reads king sylvester stuart. Another, an effigy that seemed carved in filigree, depicts josephine robespierre.  On the usual, there is no one in the waiting room, and no noises pour from above. For all intents and purposes, it feels as if the entire establishment is deserted; or perhaps never used in the first place, simply spruced, polished, and displayed for the hollow beauty of it. On the fourth clanger of the bell, the receptionist finally walks into view. A door in the wall opens, and they step through with a merry gait, not allowing anything to be glimpsed behind them. At once, they are ready to sort the visitor with the best sets of chambers for their disposition. They try to strike up a conversation, one hand already on the ledger, and do not even presume to ask for money until after the end of the stay. Their demeanor might almost foster the sense of a homecoming; only their remarks, and the parental, proprietary style of their speech, makes it feel more like a transaction instead. For all the luxury that defines the hotel, a visitor may wonder if, in fact, they’re being sold something else underneath. However, after such a long journey of darkness and water, who can say no to even a few hours in an ivory bedroom—for a dalliance, a tumble into unconsciousness, or just to experience the decadent beauty of those who’ve had easier lives?

THE SIREN’S SORROW. 

Yet all is not as it should be. The reactions are delayed, sloughing, dragging on.

One pair on the island seems to be enveloped in conversation, bent as they are over a trail of running water. From this distance, there’s hardly a way for the others to know what they’re taken up with. It could be a scientific debate, some lover’s tiff, or a final plea to heed the rescue team’s call—and the call of reason. Their heads are bowed, and below, their fingers move quickly, parting out the silt. Every other second, they bring the water to their mouths. With fluid ease, they lather it over their heads.

They seem to be muttering something, but no one can make it out. The crewmen are not sure they want to.

From five feet apace, THE MARKED thinks she can see their hands bleeding. She wants to call out, but does not: the first warning shot is the Captain’s. She cannot speak against him. Her hand clutches in her pocket, around absence, around stolen tokens and blame. 

THE SHADOW nods to something in the dark.  

The military trifecta, SCION & IDOL & WILDCARD, exchange a glance. There is both fury and fierceness in it; there is the irritation of people who have grown too intimate with danger to tolerate these conspirator’s whims. But there is also panic, flailing about without coordination: the fear of people whose loved ones are channeling a storm. Of people whose loved ones have become lighting rods.

With a nod shared between them, the guards clamber from the plateau and onto the mainland. Their rifles are held at rest on their shoulders, and when they motion to THE CAPTAIN for permission to approach, Dowling gives a similar jerk of his head. 

No one seems wiling to disturb the night—sound waves have fallen as dead as the ocean waves under their feet. For all appearances, this might as well be a hidden skirmish between two tribes, an ambush at play. It looks as though each had selected this island as a vantage point, and are now about to quarrel for its seizing. Only blades are not drawn, and muskets are not cocked. The sets of gimlet eyes, when they roam about, blink uneasily, concerned rather than calculated.

They are not only fretting for their own safety, but also the safety of those uphill.

Despite the bluster, despite the army formation, this is a climb to save these madmen, not remove them from their seat of power. Loyalties were forged. Affections, too; and who can tell which one is dangerous? Who can tell what’s the better incentive?

Those on the Promethean have only one thought in mind: to see the would-be hunters delivered back on deck. The punishment will come later, if at all. That is Dowling’s domain. For now, everyone encroaching on the island wants this to be over with. They all remember the way the Boatswain’s body has been caved out, his flesh scooped like melon rinds in the sun.

Anticipation frazzles in the air, louder than the crackle their boots give out. More poignant than the scent of explosives laid out in the ice, which THE ICE MASTER & THE APOSTATE are ready to set off at the first signal. Get a move up, we have to go, the crewmen want to cry. The urgency is betrayed through their steps, through their grope on the crags and the soil as they try to reach the hunters uphill. But the sand makes it difficult to gain headway, and the pelted night renders visibility treacherous. The rescuers advance uneasily along the slope.

The oldest of the bunch, the most weathered, being to realize they won’t be out of it as easy as they supposed. This bloody mess, this landlubber’s mess, the thought goes, unrestrained in the silence. THE WOLFHOUND is the first to cock his rifle. Other men, men with their heads on their shoulders and their paycheck stored away, are quick to follow. Their own fault if it comes to it, the meaning stands. But it is never spoken into being.

THE CAPTAIN gives a shout, an unwavering command. He bids the islanders to approach.

At once, the hunters straighten in unison. No—there’s not six of them, just five.

Somebody is missing; what they thought were pairs a few moments ago, is in fact a jagged pentagram. Was someone caught by the creature? Did a trekker mean to make it back to ship and got lost in the smog? They see it now, a frame on the edge of the circle. It’s collapsed in a heap, a furrow of dress and petticoat strewn around it. THE NOBLE, they catch it by the headdress of red curls, illuminated in a halo. The lantern has collapsed by her side. Is she dead, then? Did they sacrifice the lass? The crewmen shy back. 

THE PURSER cries out to the islanders. His voice is authoritative, yet there’s a tremor to it when he asks about casualties. The words are bent over by the darkness, their consonants whittled. 

Not one of the five answers back.

They stand to attention—only there is no sense of awareness to them. 

It is almost as if their bones are latched together, packed with twine and tugged in the right directions. Aligned to a higher order, a louder call. Not one of them steps out of row. They are entranced; flexible to whatever molds them, whatever hand laid itself on the scruff of their necks. They respond to neither Dowling nor sense of danger. God help them, nothing else can be seen in the darkness, no one knows what still waits there, except this: they are under some sort of spell. Is it like THE LOVER’s song, then, which led her to the ice like a mother to a cradle?

THE IDOL’s shout rings out again. His foot draws a burrow in the sand, a yardstick of his own making. “Come towards us”, he calls out, “and approach slowly. When you get at this line, tell me my name. I’ll only say this once more before I fire.” 

Five pairs of eyes rake over the guns. They stare down the iron and fire, and they do not blink. 

The conversation has long stopped between the islanders. Only the crewmen begin to whisper their doubts. Had they really heard talking at all, when they were drawing near? Were the trekkers talking, or was that chanting instead? Were those human words at all?

THE MARKED snaps her arm to the side, a blockade in the path of those behind. It lands on THE ROMANTIC’s chest. “Don’t”, comes her warning. “Don’t move any closer.” The steward peers forward. His eyes are seeking something, as desperate as they are earnest, something that the night would not impart. He picks up on the absence. He picks up on far more besides. With the same gesture as hers, he stops those at his back from following.

The entire rescue team halts not ten feet away from those they meant to rescue. 

They are close enough to spot the silhouettes, the heedless listeners, the blind voices. Yet they are too far to parse the details—their faces, but, worst of all, their eyes. They cannot predict whether they will be met by pitch black pupils, by empty sockets gaping back at them, like the horrid sight of that woman on deck. They cannot rule it out. Though perhaps they do not have to. The momentum shifts. The rifles change hands.

The saviours become judges. It is plain, is it not, that whoever is there on that island, it’s not the same people they dined, and laughed, and fought alongside in these last months.

It’s not the people they came here to save. Above all, it’s not the people they said they would die for, if need be. Who can vouch they even are people, now? Who can call out to the humanity in them, and still stick close enough to hear the answer?

Everyone awaits their Captain’s decision. Malachy Dowling looks to the sky. A quiet communion, a quiet reproach between a man and the Gods that left him. His throat is pale. The line of it trembles when he swallows. Then his head bows. His mouth opens to give the order, the rifles pitch up, triggers half-pulled, and        .

THE DOCTOR steps forward. 

Jonathan Bhavsar walks like a man who forgot to move. A man who forgot he was ever a man. He doesn’t stumble, no, but lurches through the night. His body angles backwards, careens forward, joint-less, boneless, as though carried by hidden currents. His muscles seem caught in pockets of air. Within less than a minute, a long and convulsive minute, he is down the slope of the island. He begins making his way through the crew ranks.

It’s instinct, the reason everyone parts for him. They call it instinct now. It could just as well be fear—what is cowardice but the rules of your own flesh against you? What is cowardice but the natural order? Those on the left flank stands out of his path, down to the last man.

At the back of the salvage team, a strange light flares. The night is no longer night. A gap, wide as an ellipse and twice the length of a man’s body, shimmers on the horizon. It looks like a mouth, a fish mouth’s on the cooking coals. It looks like a hole in a kitchen girl’s skirts. Red and white and putrid yellow. It looks like so many things, and all of them senseless, wordless—all of them struggling to put reality against reason, reason against reality, and failing short.

But THE DOCTOR still walks. From the chasm, a hand stretches out. 

THE IDOL fires his musket, a jab of smoke, a jab of loud sulfur. It shoots past Jonathan, only an arrow of powder. It stains the night, burnt orange and useless, but does nothing against the darkness that began to boil. The mouth continues to stretch, gaping at the edges. A wineskin pulled askance by two adept fingers. And THE DOCTOR still walks. The hand grows a palm, and a flower sprouts from it, a stem of purple. The palm grows an eye.

It happens in a second. Time is dead, here, time is a thing carved from wood and light. It has no purpose in a place devoid of either.

THE IDOL gives a start, but THE WILDCARD’s rifle is quicker. The butt of it catches the Sergeant in the ribs. Private Yamatov uses this leverage, the momentary slip of pain and astonishment, to push his superior to the side. He mutters something, mutters two separate things. One of them to his right, so intent, so quiet it scarcely reaches anyone else. Sorry, a stark syllable, this one to the sergeant. This one everyone hears. The other one is lost. I serve you, some sailors will later recount. Though why he would say such a thing to the soldier in red, the soldier still standing, with his fingers pulling at Vladimir Yamatov’s wrist like a creature gone rabid, is not very clear to any of them. One of them can swear he heard: You saved me. 

THE WILDCARD darts forward, a footfall against the frozen ground.

He runs, quicksilver, relentless, until he catches THE DOCTOR from behind. With a grip, he yanks Jonathan backwards. The smaller man tumbles, slumps like a puppet of sodden straws. Inertia keeps his body sliding across the ice for several feet, a wide and painful stretch that counts ten heartbeats too many, so that by the time he’s shaken awake— 

“VLADIMIR!”

THE DOCTOR’S scream welds together with THE SCION’s. They warp together, drowning out the sounds that start to pour from the doorway. Inside it, the hand buckles into a fist. Its fingers of mist quiver, recoil. They sputter, with the rattling speed of a snake’s tongue, and lash out against flesh. They lick at the soldier’s hand, fog against skin, the nameless and the unspeakable.

“VLADIMIR!”

THE WILDCARD blinks. There’s a flash of something alive in his eyes, bristling animal panic, and then it’s gone. A smile—human and sad.

The mouth in the darkness gives a last shake. The soldier is pulled inwards.

There is a howl, an awful and harrowing burst of pain. It crashes against the silence that waits on the ocean. There is the smell of burnt, signed flesh. There is a whisper, but nobody can tell which side it came from      if the hurt inside it belonged to this world or the next. Then there is nothing.

The living chasm, for all the flesh it lacks, folds into itself like a tongue. Its mouth closes.

Slowly, ever so tentative, the night begins to peel off. The darkness detaches from the sky, and hangs down like molten skins. The islanders shake out of their trance, all down to THE NOBLE, who is still unconscious. Some break into sobs. Some run to their saviours. The living become living once more. In these moments, where humanity pours back into them like a forge, like a forgery, the essence of it is betrayed. Friendship, infatuation, weakness. The best, the worst of it.

THE DOE-HEARTED rushes to THE SCION.

THE APOSTATE leaves his post to find THE SUNFLOWER.

THE MARKED surges ahead, just in time to catch THE ENIGMA from falling.

THE ARCANE lifts THE NOBLE’s form. Limping, he carries it downhill, away from the running water, away from the rivulets and the undergrowth. Wordlessly, THE ROMANTIC meets him halfway, and takes the body over.

At the end of all of this, most people look up, then down. The darkness has cleared.

Jonathan and Emma manage to collect a few soil & vegetation samples. Iskender takes a moment to chastise them both, while he is quick to write down as much as he can from the physical impressions of the party.

Ayla and Pippa are scattering lamplight every which way, working to illuminate the path of the other three. Jaya has her guns cocked, and her feral frown down pat. Everything is in place. Now all they have to do is wait for this creature, or one of its manifestations, to make its demands known, to make contact.

What happened instead is that, ever so slowly, in the seamless mapping of one’s own dreams and fears, the crew starts to experience slips of visions. Or so they called them, because one must call the unspeakable something. Yet they were not external; they were not projections coming from without. Rather, this was an immersion to something inward, something always waiting but never trodden before. A realm and a shoreline. Some of the trekkers can later be heard claiming they were actually transported. That the sightings were born from their own selves, and no other possessed them. That it led them to different places, gaps in the fabric of the earth and sky.

They were awake for all of it... and yet they were not, because all their senses, anything they might wield to engage with the other world, existed in another place. 

Jonathan saw: A creature trapped in this place, hungering for help, its head nested in a bed of soft flowers. In his mind, he was approaching to save it, to save them all; the stillness of a statue was actually the urgency of a child in a meadow.

Ayla saw: Green rolling hills, an endless undulation of grass and movement, that when they tried to touch it withered below their feet. Seaglass skies, seaglass human faces. They try to stick their own mouths to them, but only meet death and dearth instead.

Emma saw: A savage garden teeming with thorns, with plants that have grown not only teeth, but claws, pincers, and mouths, all crooning in the voices of dead friends. Is this what led her to walk to Philippa? To lead all of them by the brook, the river of soot?

Iskender saw: Stepping through a valley of sand, a valley of dead kings, and wading in a river. He knew the river was blood that belonged to him, to people like him. Its warmth had more of home than he’d ever felt before. He remembered wanting to go under.

Jaya saw: A finger floating in a barrel of brine, a pair of eyes torn from their sockets. The inside of ship’s hull, no hatch for its closings, no stairs for the exit. The trapping of wood, of salt, of things that have grown stale and untouched inside the darkness.

Philippa saw: A furl of white dress, linen on a round shoulder. She had the weight of a hand in hers: nothing has ever carried so much presence for her, such tangibility. She thought it was a child’s hand - the child she once was, the child she’ll never have.

The dreams spool on, the closest thing to endless the mind can endure.

Emma kills Philippa by the small stream. Her eyes are focused, attuned, turning sharp over the bones. Bending down in her blood, she begins to watch. 

Iskender and Ayla kneel for the ritual, kneel for the things that wait in the sky.

Jonathan speaks to creatures that have never needed forgiveness, never needed song. He is begging them to come here, come back. At one point, he begins to cry out apologies, cry out to names both human and inhuman. It lasts for hours before everything falls silent. 

The miles back feel short and yet neverending. The ship’s silhouette appears against the skyline just as dawn breaks, the sun a halo behind the masts and the sails. Relief surges through the party - at least, the unending night has ended, and home awaits their return. Punishment awaits the island party for their dereliction and recklessness, as Malachy avoids any of their gazes, bidding his time to pronounce.

Perhaps their anguish, this loss of life, is enough.

Perhaps nothing will be enough. 

As they near, Captain Dowling notices the upper deck is devoid of anyone standing guard. They climb aboard, one by one, and descend down the main stairway to the welcoming warmth of the lower deck - and are met with muskets, one trained on each and every person who returns. Those who hold them may be guests or crew, all who have but one thing in common - they wish to continue through the passage and will not allow otherwise.

Those in the rescue and island parties are forced to turn over their weapons, laying them flat on the ground for the mutineers to seize.

“What is the meaning of this?” Malachy asks, a spit of venom.

Two men, a guest and a deckhand, take him by the arms, rough as they separate from the rest. The crowd of muskets parts for one only emerging from the way of the Great Cabin - vice-admiral Marcus Estrada. Hands folded behind his back in some mock deference, face creased in unreadable riddle, he boasts the freedom and abandon of an usurper, but a vestigial sadness clings to him as a shadow during midday.

“I’m sorry, Malachy.”

A loose shrug, the painless downturn of lips. “We’ve had our heart to heart, you know I can’t bear the blame of my own ship. But the blame isn’t mine to account for. Nothing worth a damn waits for us back home. Many of us share this sentiment: that a return is not necessarily an escape. This is not worth the blood we paid. Nothing is, not even the promises the Admiralty could offer me in exchange for their leash. Took a lot for me to see it, you could say. Some might even say it’s not much, in the way of epiphanies     only a drowned woman. But the means matter more than the end. And as for the end, Dowling, I want an end anywhere but fucking England.” He pauses before turning his back. “You’ll wait in the boiler room until then.”

Estrada moves to address the rest of the ship, voice even and hoarse. No need for volume when method will do. “The rest of you who find sympathy with him will walk free, albeit under armed supervision.” This much is clear for any fool to see: those with muskets outnumber those without. “No need for a gaggle of martyrs conspiring—we’ve seen where that leads us.”

The vice-admiral turned Captain, turned usurper, begins to pace before the rows of men.

“We have to leave this place. I think on that, we all agree. But the way to leave is forward. Not just for safety, but also for sense. We asked ourselves enough questions, fussed over them in the dark like scarred mice. It’s time to go find ourselves some answers. We sail on.”

There is clamor as Malachy is forced down the stairway. His head is pushed down through the hatch, and his body is flanked into the boiler room. All protest is quelled at the threat of a bullet through the head. Quietly, lost, those who align themselves with the captain’s leadership disperse under the watchful eye of the mutineers.

During the arduous trek back to the ship, being carried in turns by both THE ROMANTIC and THE ARCANE, the lifeline THE NOBLE clung to is sheared in half. With a sigh, with a tightening of her fist around the professor’s coat, the girl expires.THE ARCANE makes his way to the infirmary, her body slung over his shoulder. In a voice without inflection, without humanity or pain, he tells the surgeon's aide that they have a burial to prepare.

“Tell THE CHAPLAIN to prepare two services. See if we can find out their faith. See if we can gather their friends. Thank you. No, no—not now. Go to Jonathan.”

The Promethean passengers, those who have lost as well as those who have stayed, are torn away from their own fears. Its guests are told to remain subdued, at liberty to walk about, but instructed to keep to small circles. The crew begin to ready the ship to set sail, again, under the fixed eyes of pistol and rifle. All those who have duties are expected to attend to them. Soldiers die, ghosts walk among men; night skies open and shutter back closed. The world still spins. The sea still moves beneath them, and the Passage awaits.

In the Great Cabin, Marcus watches the horizon, alone. Perhaps it opens itself to him in an embrace for those brave enough to cross it, as the ice had for the woman he’ll always remember. Perhaps it opens itself to him and speaks of forgiveness, or vengeance, or chances finally seized. Perhaps it opens itself to caution him: what will happen if they don’t find the passage? How long will the supplies hold? It doesn’t matter. He knows the choice to go on was the right one. He knows there is no love for traitors and deserters.

But where they’re going, love won’t have room to breathe at all.

ADMIN NOTE: Thank you for reading, beloved members and lurkers! With this turning of events, the Promethean is now free to sail—but under the command of an usurper and those in league with him. As mentioned, those knowingly loyal to Malachy are free to roam the ship, though under constant supervision, and any talk of mutiny (Mutiny-ception? Mutception?) will be immediately punishable.

Malachy will be held in the guarded boiler room and will hold NPC status—for now. Aside from this, THE NOBLE is now a deceased character and their role is permanently closed.

Those who align themselves with THE INTREPID are the only muses permitted to handle weapons, and are now tasked with keeping a close eye on those who are loyal to Malachy. It bears repeating that the loyalties aboard The Promethean are now spliced in two directions: those who wish to go back, and may support Malachy because of it, versus those who wish to press forward. It is less about the figureheads of these sides, be they men or murderers, and more about the final outcome your muses might want.

All the lamps are lit aboard, by direct orders of the highest degree. The candles are hoisted from the ship’s messes and strewn over the starboard, from aft to stern, marring the ship like teeth of gold in the maw of obscurity.

In this molten black, where neither clouds nor stars can shine, six people collude for one last time. Yet no one is looking at them, not yet. All eyes are drawn upon the silhouette that walks down the ladder.

It is a woman, the moment supplies. A realization that sparks uncertainty, the more they watch her trek onto the ice.

Yes, she is one of the passengers — Pantea Mazandarani. She was most often seen in the officer’s mess, lips stained with sherry or bourbon, a knowing smile piping the edge of her mouth. There is no smile, now. Clad in what was once crimson, with nothing left of it in the dim light, she walks as if towards a pyre. Her skirts brush past candles, past the limbs and shoes of onlookers - she doesn’t answer to neither name, nor title. Only once, before descending the stairs, she cranes her neck to the two men that have followed her this far. One of them tries to stop her; the other steps back when she turns.

Her eyes are dark as beads of jade. Nothing, not even the whites of the irises, can be seen inside them. They look not dead, but worse: alive with inhuman longing.

It will be debated, later, what it was that she spoke. Some say it was a prayer. Others say it was a grand, romantic verse, a call to salvation, a confession of the damned. A carnal, visceral thing plucked from a sonnet. Lady Shallot and her doom; they will say this, insist on it, in order to give shape to the chaos. The crewmen can only watch her lips move.

I have to go to them. They are there, over the ice. They are waiting for me.

She climbs down the ladder-way, and for a few minutes nothing else can be glimpsed.

Then the sky flashes in a sputter of lighting. Like a mouth opening to sneer, to howl, to breathe, everything becomes a center of silver — they all see her, perfectly, this great and terrible beauty. This creature already gone from them.

She is sitting in the middle of the ocean, arms spread open to the skies above. It looks like she is speaking to them - it looks like she is singing to the lighting. It all lasts only a moment. The ice cracks, splinters like a kiss on the cheek, and the woman is swallowed in its embrace.

Pantea Mazandarani is never seen again.

Hello, members !! We are here with a devious new plot drop, this time a character-centered one. The skeleton of THE LOVER has now been declared DECEASED, and thus an NPC. You are welcome to reference this in all your threads, as well as speculate upon whatever your muses might think, feel, and suspect about the manner of her death.

As for the members involved in our last plot drop, the conspirators of THE HUNT, this is the pivotal moment of your decision - if your conspiring characters intend to slip away and look for the creature either before or after the death of THE LOVER, they are free to do so !!

Please remember that, for the duration of this plot drop and until the admins notify you of a change, there is currently a total period of darkness on the Promethean and its surrounding areas. This darkness continues during daytime with no change in either the sky (starless) or the land around (spooky). This means that visibility will be impacted, both below deck and above; it also means that your characters might have to use a whole deal more portable lanterns and lamplight than before.