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player plot | castaways!
WHO: Bastien, Benedict Artemaeus, Eli Ever, Jayce Talis, Lalla Vesperus, Laurent Vesperus, Peter Parker, Victor Vale
WHAT: Carnivale cruise vacation.
WHEN: Justinian 9:49
WHERE: A Sea
NOTES: This is a make-your-own-adventure log. General outline and prompts are below. Everyone is invited to the crystal post here and also free to make their own for other things too.
WHAT: Carnivale cruise vacation.
WHEN: Justinian 9:49
WHERE: A Sea
NOTES: This is a make-your-own-adventure log. General outline and prompts are below. Everyone is invited to the crystal post here and also free to make their own for other things too.
I. PROLOGUE
So what happens is: the Crossroads collapse.
Before that, the mission goes well. Lord Cardin Popelin and his expatriate Tevinter cousin Novia Traiana and their respective spouses are very charmed by, you know, the charm, and intrigued by the harmless hints of innovative magic-science, and some combination of money and collaboration is likely forthcoming once they've had some time to stew in their charmedness and intriguedness for a few days. And the shortcut that Riftwatch's envoy takes back through the Crossroads to avoid days in wagons or at sea goes as well as it possibly could, too, until the part where the path collapses.
(The cause of this collapse could be anything. A statue knocked in passing. The wrong stone tile stepped on at the wrong time. The last syllable of one Trade word and the first of the next forming a forgotten elven word that triggers a forgotten elven safeguard. There's room for no fewer than four people to be sure it's their fault.)
The pathway collapses, is the bottom line, and it drops them not into the endless twists of the Crossroads' mix-and-match gravity fields, but into one of the Crossroads' rivers. Sometimes these rivers end in waterfalls (or water-rises, depending on where you are). But this one, running through an ancient aqueduct tunnel that forces everyone entirely underwater, ends in an eluvian, forgotten and unlocked, blocked by debris but not so blocked that the sudden pressure of eight human bodies doesn't make the dam burst and deliver them through the mirror and into elsewhere.
II. ASEA
All of that happens quickly. The time they are underwater is brief. Thirty seconds, maybe, give or take the time it takes anyone particularly disoriented by suddenly being in deep open water to make their way (or be dragged) to the surface of the sea.
A sea. A warm one, fortunately, on a relatively calm and sunny day, as bright and cheerful a blue as a sea has ever been. Also fortunate: various pieces of debris, mostly ancient and apparently rot-proof wood, have emerged with them and floated to the surface. Several of these pieces of wood are large and flat enough to support a person or two on their own. Others are portions of logs, or scraps of ancient bookshelves and chairs, and one fully intact still-alive shrub.
That is about it for the good news. The bad news is that the eluvian is now unreachable, the current of water rushing out of it from the Crossroads making it impossible for even the strongest swimmer to go back the way they came. Additional bad news is that they are, again, in the middle of an unknown sea, and judging by the height of the sun, they have a good ten hours before they can attempt to use the stars to do anything. Also, someone might have lungs full of water, and someone else might have been struck by a log somewhere in this process, and—
It'll be fine.
III. ARAFT
At some point, somehow, using some people's genius engineering skills and long strips of some people's clothing, they have managed a raft. It is inarguably better than being in the water. (Is that a shark fin? It is a shark fin. But sharks are mostly harmless.) But it is not better than a lot of other things, such as, for example, being back in the Gallows. Especially considering it goes on for two days—two days during which they have to try to figure out water, something to eat, shelter from the skin-crisping sun, and what to do about the squall that suddenly swells up around them in the evening.
IV. ASHORE
The storm likely gets most of the credit for the fact that they do not have to stay on the raft. When the sky clears and the rain lifts enough for the island to be visible, it is already very close. The waves are rocking them steadily closer, but working out a way to row—or hopping into the water to propel the raft along with kicks, or swimming and leaving Laurent behind to die, whichever—will make it quicker.
The island is an uninhabited speck, easy to walk all the way around in an hour at most. No other islands, specks or otherwise, are visible in the distance from any side of its shore. It's too small to support any large animals, its foliage short and scrubby and grassy rather than tall or tropical. But there's fresh water! There is a cave, hidden in a hillside and awaiting discovery by whomever would like to save everyone else from having to built huts or tents. And there are rabbits who, in the absence of many natural predators (aside from a pair of eagles spotted overhead) and with an abundance of grass to eat, have done what rabbits do and become so numerous it would be hard not to catch one. Everything's coming up Team Castaways, unless/until someone tries some of the berries growing on the island (the rabbits are eating them too!) and discovers they're hallucinogenic.
Other than that, though. Huge improvement over the open water, not least because—
V. EPILOGUE
—being one static location for several days and nights makes it much simpler for them and their friends back in Kirkwall to pinpoint their location. In the end it is a combination of the constellations and the fact that the rabbits are of a particular Antivan domesticated breed, a beloved pair of which was famously set adrift in a lifeboat by their owner to save their lives when his ship was taken by pirates in the Northern Passage about five years ago, that allows Riftwatch to narrow the search radius enough for griffons to spot their campfire on a tiny island east of Par Vollen and get them out of there.
Benedict OTA
Gripping a piece of driftwood, with a generous rope of blood streaming from a wound on his scalp, Benedict is stunned (concussed?) into silence and looking about at his comrades with wild uncomprehension. What the fuck just happened? Are they dead? Are they dying?
He turns to the nearest person and tries to say something, but all that comes out is a little confused whimper.
II. Araft: TRY not to cry
It actually started when he panicked over the sight of a shark's fin, something Benedict recognized well enough from the warm waters of the Nocen Sea, but to which he's never been close enough for it to mean anything. His first instinct was, of course, to Mind Blast the shark (as anyone who has ever threatened him physically would know offhand), which propelled their makeshift raft a few feet or so with a lurch and a splash. The shark swam away, and now Benedict is sitting, legs drawn up to his chest, bare arms tucked around bare legs (his sleeves, robe, and lower trouser legs joined the construction effort), and stares at the ripples he just left. Maybe this is something. Is this something?
His face is still bleeding.
III. Ashore: CRY a lot
Never exactly the hopeful type, but at least thankful they've made it to land, Benedict foregoes excessive complaining long enough to try and build a fire. A signal fire? A cook fire? It's a fire, and that's a thing, isn't it? It has to be, because that's all he knows how to do.
Unfortunately, the rain has not made his job easy, and although he has constructed a serviceable pyre (taking way longer than a more outdoorsy person might, but shh), and he is fortunate enough to be able to light it with just his hands, the wood is too damp to catch.
So after all this, and with the notion fully in his mind that he might have endured exile and imprisonment and Marcoulf's weird mouth just to die badly dressed and dessicated on an ugly island, he has to struggle to stop himself from crying. He's failing.
I.
"Hey!" He calls out, waving to get his attention. Never mind that his nose is possibly broken and he potentially has a concussion of his own. That wound on Benedict looks more horrible than Peter feels, and he worries about him bleeding out.
"Can I make a bandage for that?" He gestures wildly, pointing to Benedict's wound and the blood streaming from it.
no subject
He thinks for far too long about his answer, then simply replies with an uncertain, "can you?" because he doesn't know. But he'd welcome it, he thinks.
no subject
He reaches for the end of his right sleeve, and pulls. He's grateful, in this moment, for his strength; he doesn't have to resort to using his teeth to tear at the fabric. He pulls apart what he hopes is a good size length of fabric to make use of as a bandage before turning back to the man.
"Do you want me to apply it or would you rather do it yourself?"
He doesn't want to assume, after all.
no subject
no subject
"Let me know if I wrap this too tight," he says, leaning forward and beginning the process of applying the makeshift bandage. He moves slowly and carefully, not wanting to injure him further.
no subject
"It's fine," he mumbles, letting Peter do his work, and waiting until after the bandage is on to speak again.
"What the fuck just happened."
no subject
"I think life just kicked us all in the face," he says, shaking his head and then immediately regretting doing so at the sudden, sharp pain in his nose. He winces but manages to compose himself. "And then laughed at us along the way."
"But in a more literal sense," he continues, "I think...we just fell into the ocean from the Crossroads."
no subject
"Fuck," he exclaims, "I didn't see what happened to the Eluvian." There's an edge of panic to the words; hopefully this doesn't mean the Eluvian is gone?
no subject
He feels bad, hearing the edge of panic in the other man's voice. "Would it have fallen through with us, maybe?"
Which means it might be floating around somewhere, or, probably more likely, he thinks, it's at the bottom of this particular sea.
arises, reborn
He floats there for a moment, lips pursed, glancing about and trying not to panic when he sees nothing on the horizon.
"We might die," he observes, working hard to keep the quaver out of his voice.
no subject
And there is that, Peter realizes. They all could definitely die. But dwelling on possibly dying isn't going to help right now. Peter frowns, glancing around. There's bits and pieces of debris floating around them, and he wonders if they might make use of said debris.
"Well, if we can't find land just yet, do you think we might be able to like, make a makeshift raft, or something?" Peter suggests. "Even if it's just a bunch of logs tied together. There has to be something we can do."
III.
That, and he doesn't care to put in the energy for it.
So unfortunately for Benny-boy here, who is taking the whole thing very hard, Victor takes one look at him in his sad, bedraggled, water-wounded, slumping state, and draws in a deep through his nose (hitching on salt-infused airways. gross.) and sighs hard through his mouth in the most put-upon manner he can muster.
"It could be worse. You could be a shark who got magic'd in the face when you're just trying to pick up lunch."
no subject
"I'm sure the shark's fine," he mumbles, snapping his fingers several times to create a spark, and holding the flame fruitlessly to the wood, when he abruptly remembers something.
"When you take away a person's fear of pain," he recites with an air of uncertainty, cutting his eyes to his companion, "you take away their fear of death. And then they're immortal."