faderift | Every old salt knows a song to sing

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Every old salt knows a song to sing

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura, Simon Ashlock, James Norrington, Helena, Rey, Korrin Ataash
WHAT: Exploring an eerie shipwreck locals have complained about that absolutely goes according to plan. Until it doesn't. Because of the ghost pirates.
WHEN: Mid-Bloomingtide; pre-Tourney, vaguely around the phylactery uproar
WHERE: Somewhere off the Kirkwall coastline
NOTES: ooc post, will warn if anything comes up but since we're doing puzzles I'm going to go ahead and say language, feel free to make your own starters for any travel shenanigans that you'd like if you'd like that

A small vessel takes them out of Kirkwall early in the morning, six of them packed in headed for where he reports came from; no sailors were willing to volunteer so it's this team themselves, and well, it's fortunate that half of them are from Naval Presence isn't it? A short trip, fair winds on the way there as Araceli explains what awaits them from the reports gathered from chatter about the docks or sent to her office:

Strange unnatural lights. Boats and ships crashing. Sailors not returning. Demons suspected of course.

Only that's when the fog rolls in once they're getting to where it's been reported on the maps by islands so small they don't even merit being on the big maps, only navigational charts to be steered about. Light through a fog could explain many things but there's something else, something that seems to whisper to each and every person on the boat.

And that's when they cut through the fog and the island itself - and something much larger - rise up out of the water.

No rift. No demons. But something that beckons all to come venture inside. Tie up the boat, you'll be needing that later after all, this one certainly isn't going anywhere.

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The hatch is heavy, much of it grown over with the only the hardy life that survives the salt battering it when the seas sweep up, yet the latch is surprisingly free of rust for all that there are barnacles studding the deck, seaweeds and kelps making parts of it slick underfoot, small tide pools formed where the waves have crept high enough. Araceli looks at all of them, draws one of her rapiers and gives a final tug before it swings loose and descends into the dark.

"Watch your step," she instructs quietly, "the stairs might be rotten."

And who knows what's down there.

[[ooc: Welcome to the Puzzle Dungeon! This is where we'll meet our spirit pals so we can skip this if you'd like and jump straight to the puzzles in the other threads if that's what you'd prefer.]]

In the kitchen three places are set, and at two of those places sit two spirits who are introduced by the one showing everyone through the door. Perhaps don't breathe in too deeply when the food has gone to mould and rot, a layer of slime spread across the water, the sickly-sweet stench of decay mingling with the brine of a wrecked ship so far out on the water.

"Alejandro." The one on the left raises a hand. "And Reina." A hand goes up from the one on the right.

"One of them lies, one of them tells the truth," the first spirit says, "and they can only answer yes or no. I'm sure there must be a question or two on your minds."

If you can work out who'll give you the right answer. But this is just the warm-up, it's all going to be fine, everything's going to be fine.

"We ask a question we know answer to," Helena suggests, though she's crouching down to look at the water, picking up a utensil and using it to poke at the scum and try to herd it across the water.

She has a suggestion in mind. "Are Templar armour skirts stupid lookings?"

Please now see one of said Templars turn slowly towards Helena, sword and shield in hand and the appropriate 'Oh Come The Fuck On' expression on his hawkish face.

"Really. This is the question we are using as a baseline to see if the spirits are lying. This is what we're going with." He shakes his head, looking to the rotted ceiling, "For the bloody love of the bloody Maker..."

"I have new question," Helena says, not looking towards the Templar, holding up her hand like a student that has an answer to the question, but also feels like just stretching the limb out is sufficient, rather than actually holding it up. "Is old man knight being oversensitive?"

Hand presses to her mouth for a moment to keep the laugh in, Araceli recovers her composure with a sharp little breath and a lot of blinking but she's still smiling very brightly when she does speak.

"James remove the hilt from your arse," Araceli mutters just loud enough to be heard, turning to half-face Helena with a little smirk on her face. "I know about running in dresses as long as those skirts, they're very stupid."

Alejandro, however, says 'no'.

Which could mean several things: they had terrible sartorial taste in life (very possible, not all pirates are known for their fashion sense), they don't think James is being upset (also possible because some people are dramatic), both, or they're lying.

So six of one, half dozen of the other.

"They are a bit stupid," Simon concedes, never one to defend the honor of the pretty pretty armorfrocks he has to spend ninety percent of his life in at the best of times. His skirt jingles as if in assent as he folds his arms and contemplatively shifts his weight.

"Anyway, it's no good if you're going to ask it a subjective thing. You can't lie about an opinion. What's two plus two?"

A sly smile at Araceli. Another one who is small and quick, she thinks. he nods an agreement with the other Templar. "I think they were only answering 'yes' or 'no.'"

But, the less-grumpy Templar makes good point, even if she feels the armour skirts are objectively terrible. "Is two plus two making four?"

There's a very long pause from the spirits before they answer Helena because, surely, the rules were explained. Perhaps for the best they have no features on their faces to make any expressions with unless anyone gets up close and personal with them when they look to one another.

Helpfully, at the same time:

"Yes," from Alejandro, and "No," from Reina.

So. Getting there.

Korrin completely ignores the talk of Templar skirts as much as it would be fun to tease them, staring at the two spirits with wary interest. All spirits are dangerous, of course, and that's not something she's likely to forget. Still, her mentor also taught her that they can be helpful if approached correctly.

"So, Reina's the liar. Good to know." Now they're getting...somewhere. Maybe. "Did you lure the ship here?"

James gives Helena another sideways glance, and a roll of the eyes, but Simon at least has a good point. He glances over to Reina, noting that she's probably the liar. Unless they were going to get into subjective mathematics.

Another look over to Korrin, waiting to see how the spirits answered before he tossed another question onto the pyre.

"Is that the right question to ask?" Because the thing is that yes, they were brought here with the rumours, but more pressingly, Araceli glances upward as she shifts here weight uncomfortably. "We can't get off the ship right now, can we?"

And she waits for the spirits to answer, to see if they will because that's sort of two questions or if anyone wants to slide in with more before they go further with this or what the line of questioning should be here.

For those who know how it feels, the hum of magic prickles across the skin and down the spine before anyone steps inside the well-stocked armoury thanks to the many barriers, too-bright in the dark of the ship. Maybe this is the source of the lights if not the spirits themselves, filling the room.

The floor feels wrong, uneven beneath the feet.

But it's a shipwreck. An unnatural shipwreck at that. It's probably nothing. Until when someone finally steps too heavily and the click precedes a gout of flame bursting from behind one of the barriers.

Korrin can feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand, provoked by the layers of magic in the area. That and the Veil is probably too damn thin anyway, so that only adds to the fun and excitement. She frowns uneasily and opens her mouth to speak, when that click gets her attention.

"Shit--" Reacting quickly, she places her large, imposing form between the flames and summons a Barrier spell to shield herself and her allies.

Stepping back as quickly as she can does Araceli no good. There's the barrier settling over her skin, still a touch prickly as she drops to her knees and removes her earrings with one hand, dagger in the other.

"How long can you keep that up? I need to check for some sort of mechanism, see if I can turn it off."

Hopefully Rey is of the same mindset because Araceli doesn't know what, if anything, is going to set off anything else.

Who's to say why some spirits take a liking to some and not others, it's best not to dwell on it really but while Araceli, Simon, and Rey are ushered off in the direction of the workshop, Korrin, Helena, and Norrington find themselves taken deeper into the ship.

The cold presses in on all sides somehow despite how close the air is elsewhere on the ship, same as the Kirkwall they left behind.

The first hand to touch the door might draw back in surprise when it isn't damp spreading across it but frost, and when the spirit bids they open, the floor is a great spread of ice. Huge hulking crates dot the floor, netting and rope nailed in place where supplies once were when the crew all lived. Perhaps you can see the problem set before your feet gang.

"There was a mishap. Alchemy supplies in here when we hit the rock," the spirit sighs, shrugging lazily. "We, well, you need to fetch a few things for us."

Korrin doesn't at all enjoy being separated from Araceli in the spooky puzzle ship of doom, but complaining about it won't get them anywhere. So she'll focus on what's head. The sooner they deal with their end, the sooner they can help the others. Right?

Taking point automatically, Korrin's hand recoils from the frosty door. She grimaces, but makes no comment, not until she's taken in the ice, the crates, and all else. "...yeah, I can see that. Let's see what we can do, hm?"

She glances over to her companions, one hand on her spirit blade hilt.

Helena is not loving this. Devil woman and tin man and a ghost. She exhales, mouth hanging slightly open in a way that denotes not caring rather than shock, and her breath mists the air.

"What good is getting things for ghosts? They still cannot pick up."

She shrugs, unconcerned, running her fingers along the wall.

James frowns as the cold seeps into his armor, down into his skin. He's still not entirely sure this spirit is not going to turn into some sort of Abomination ... but that's what Korrin is here for.

He gives Helena a dry look. He hasn't quite forgotten the whole 'stupid Templar skirt' thing. "I imagine that whatever these things are, we'll also have to combine them into what they need. Am I correct?"

"Probably, yeah." Korrin rests her hands on her hips, more or less expecting that part. "But first things first; there's a lot of ice and the supplies is trapped below. I could summon fire, but that might also run the risk of damaging what's needed. My spirit blade could be more precise, I think."

Edited 2018-05-17 15:01 (UTC)

Helena ignores the look, entirely unconcerned by it.

"Yes, we can sit and watch you do all work." It doesn't sound unappealing, truthfully, but Helena is restless, and starting to look around the room for clues, for whatever might have caused all this ice, based on what the spirit said.

"If was Alchemy done, then could be Alchemy undone."

The spirit, listening to much of this because there's no reason for the spirit speaks sharply.

Or as sharply as a spirit can speak.

"No destruction!" The light where the eyes would be blazes brighter for an alarming moment, and if this spirit was the pirate they were in life? Probably wouldn't be someone you'd cross. "You won't be destroying the crates."

"We won't destroy them, promise." Korrin raises her hands in a placating fashion, not about to rile up a spirit if she can help it. "If we can start weakening the ice above, I can energize the crates up and out. Let me test...."

She'll test with the butt of her staff as to the thickness of the ice; even if it seems to be one solid mass, she knows to look for anything that might make a difference.

Helena looks between the spirit and Korrin, and in a crouch, starts to move across the ice, quick and spidery. Lightly, she pats the ice, to see if this magic ice feels different from normal ice, if it smells different. There is something feral in how she moves, starkly different from her sister Cosima.

Her fingers pat down the side of one of the crates and the net that had originally been holding it in place before the sweep of ice came, looking to see how tightly the crates are held, if the ice wraps over them or if they are just caught around the base.

"Are you needing crates, or what is inside? Could be easier to be bringing insides to you, without packages."

James's eyebrows went up, and his hand went to the hilt of his sword. The other women moved - both to test the ice and the weight it could carry.

Helena ... made an excellent point, and he decided to add to that, just for the expediency of time, "And if it is magical ice, may I simply ... dispel it without damaging the crates or the contents?"

Hand still on sword, though. He wasn't stupid.

"You can certainly try, though give us a moment to back out of range. You know, just in case." Korrin eyes Helena, silently approving of her methods. However strange this woman is, she seems to know what she's doing and results are what Korrin cares about.

"There are things that need fetching that you can't get to without the crates. What we need isn't in them. It's somewhere else. We might all need it." Can spirits sound smug? Maybe this one does.

Just a little.

You know, in the way one does when they think they've pulled a cheeky fast one on you with the sort of we they're meaning.

"What you need is up. But you can't get up by climbing alone. The ice cannot go. The boxes cannot go. You can't move alone on the ice." But there are three bodies, boxes, ice, the spirit's gaze travelling upward to the ceiling. Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps it's why two larger bodies and a smaller one were chosen for this, or a large one, a mage one, and a small one.

"You three," one of the crew calls as another leads Korrin, Helena, and Norrington away to somewhere deeper into the ship, "I have something for you, something exciting."

There's not much choice to it, is there? No way off the ship, the spirits of the crew to be dealt with, and this the only way to do it; spirits wish for something and they aren't demons at least. So time it is to go to a cluttered, disorganised space with papers scattered everywhere. Books burst at the spines. More water damage coming from somewhere to rust the tools, warp the wood of the workbenches; here they find themselves in the workshop with a strange arrangement of plinths dotted throughout the room some with a hammer or sacks with rusted points (caltrops? Nails?) sticking out.

The spirit doesn't follow them in, lingering at the doorway. "Our captain left something behind in here but we can't get to it. You can. If you can work it out." Another sigh, this one of frustration. "He was a master. And an utterly paranoid bastard."

Both halves of the key in place, the captain's cabin opens. None of the spirits ushering the party here and there, prompting, harrassing, 'helping', whatever anyone wants to call it, none of them are here. Instead the eerie spectre of a man before his grand desk, seated quite comfortably as if expecting them.

"You're late," he drawls, a thick Antivan accent that speaks to a life with the Armada before that life was stolen from him. "A captain hears all the chatter, but he doesn't wish to be kept waiting.

"How long it's been since anyone new appeared. Which of you is sharp of wit and keen of mind? I do mean truly keen. It'd be a terrible shame if you bored me now."

The captain is gone.

Here are the crew quarters, chests at the end of each bed, and a body laid out on each of those beds. A few tables space out the beds, cards and dice left where they were in living, a bottle or two of rum and plenty of empty glasses left to gather dust. Spirits met already and spirits not encountered hover by them, waiting for someone - anyone - to arrive.

"We've waited a long time, send us off the right way."

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Every old salt knows a song to sing

ʟᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴅᴇᴄᴋ;

ᴋɪᴛᴄʜᴇɴ;

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ᴀʀᴍᴏᴜʀʏ;

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ʜᴏʟᴅ; ᴋᴏʀʀɪɴ, ʜᴇʟᴇɴᴀ & ɴᴏʀʀɪɴɢᴛᴏɴ

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ᴡᴏʀᴋsʜᴏᴘ; ᴀʀᴀᴄᴇʟɪ, ʀᴇʏ & sɪᴍᴏɴ

ᴄᴀᴘᴛᴀɪɴ's ᴄᴀʙɪɴ;

ᴄʀᴇᴡ ǫᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀs;