ioduanlogs | [EVENT] THE FOG COMES

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[EVENT] THE FOG COMES - Ship's Return

Characters: ALL
Date: July 10
Location: Aifaran Harbour
Situation: The Narrakra has returned, but those aboard are not the same as when they left...
Warnings/Rating: Creepy descriptions of things?

The night of the Narrakra's return, fog poured into Aifaran's harbour. It was thick, soupy and cloying in the summer heat, swirling and shifting with every change in the air, but never dissipating. Many Dreamfolk may feel heavy tension in the air, an eerie stillness about the night that seems unnervingly familiar. But beyond the occasional, inexplicable power outage, nothing seems to be otherwise amiss.

The Narrakra limps into the dockyard port on a single engine in the early hours of the 10th, steering itself erratically toward the nearest berth. The dock workers, having not expected to see a Sentry ship sliding out of the pea-soup fog, are quick to raise the alarm, which is hurriedly passed to a runner to bring to the nearest Sentry outpost. Heavy pylons keep the Narrakra from outright running into the dock itself, as the engine sputters and dies, leaving the ship without steering.

The ship itself is in poor condition, metal hull dented and scarred as if it had been in combat with some great sea beast. Deep gouges, like something had hurled sharp points into the metal sides and pulled, some even deep enough that glimpses of the hull's structural support can be seen. In other places on the exterior, what appears to be an advanced stage of corrosion and rust have affected sections of the ship, but not in any uniform way. A handrail might be corroded to the point of the metal disintegrating at a touch, but the stairwell next to it still gleaming as if it had just been put into place.

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OOC Notes: This is the culmination event for the Ships in the Night plot that's been ongoing for the last few months, although the outcome will play into future metaplot. Characters can witness the Narrakra's not-so-triumphant return at the docks, speculate on where it's been and what could have caused its disappearance, question the crew (if they can get past the Sentry), or sneak aboard the ship to do some reconnaissance and potentially find things...

Links: OOC Questions | On The Docks | The Survivors | Sneaking Aboard

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Sentry is largely distracted with getting the surviving crew the medical attention they need, and the guards set up to keep rubberneckers at bay seem entirely too unnerved to do more than perfunctory tasks. There's a palpable air of confusion and fear, and the guards only go where the crowd is thickest. It wouldn't be terribly difficult, if one were so inclined, to slip the ropes and sneak aboard. After all, the Sentry don't seem to want to get any closer to the Narrakra than they have to.

The interior of the ship is in even worse shape than the outside. Everything looks as though it's been there for at least a decade - any cloth is worn ragged, bits and bobs have been repurposed into various makeshift tools, and there are haphazard repairs throughout. The cargo seems utterly spent - no cans of food remain and everything that could have been used for some function has been. There seems to be a decade's worth of decay as well - most metal surfaces show some signs of rust and very limited maintenance.

Aside from the decrepit living conditions, there are strange oily residues and fungi-like growths that cling to corners of doorways and shelves. Insect-like carapaces, dry and brittle, gather near lights had once been, crunch underfoot. In the center of one room there is a pile of bones and shreds of matted fur, the skeleton carcass of a strange, four-legged animal with hooves and long fangs that is not similar to anything found on the archipelago.

Where have these people been? What have they seen?

While he may had joined the Sentry and all that through Valdis's doing, Bastien is still a pirate at heart. So while the blokes are getting a handle on things, this slippery bastard sneaks off onto the vessel when the guards aren't looking. He uses the confusion and fear in the air to mask his approach as he slips into the cargo area of the ship in search of something to steal. If there's one thing Bastien loves, it's a five finger discount on shiny objects.

The ship's interior looks worse than it should. The stairs leading down are ragged and ravaged by decay making it hard for Bastien to keep his footing. While the pirate is pretty surefooted on normal days, he has a tough time keeping his balance here. All the rust and decay worries Bastien, especially since he rarely ever seen a ship in such a horrid state before. He tiptoes over a few of those nasty looking bugs scattering about and over the many rusted barrels in search of anything salvageable.

"Geez, talk about a dump..." He mutters quietly as he keeps tiptoeing around. "Mean to tell me these blokes brought nothin' back with 'em? Bull!" Bastien let's out an annoyed huff as he starts digging through all the rubbish.

Edited 2018-07-11 20:40 (UTC)

There was a snap and a flash from Alice's Yimo as she took a shot of the pirate pilfering the 'goods'.

"Caught red-handed," she said crossly.

"You're a sentry aren't you? Shouldn't you be keeping watch?"

That sudden flash of light completely catches poor Bastien by surprise. The pirate goes stumbling into a few filthy crates and barrels in hopes of scrambling away but it's too late. He's been caught, red handed at that by some little waif of a girl barely in her teens.

"What did you do that for!?" Bastien all but yells once he spots the child. "Ya got a death wish, sweetie? Hand over the Yimo!" Just when he was about to leap at the girl, Bastien is reminded of his current profession. Yes, his current profession. He's not a pirate anymore, at least not now. No, he's a guard. A sentry, no less.

"Ehehe..." A nervous chuckle escapes Bastien as he tries to think fast. This little vixen has him by the proverbial balls, doesn't she? He runs his hand over his face and sighs. "I am keepin' watch." So he claims. "I'm just patrollin', savvy?"

Alice jerked reflexively out of reach, holding the Yimo behind her back, and ready to make a run for it before Bastien seemed to recall he was a Sentry.

She bristles a little at the 'sweetie' however.

"I won't tell if you won't," she said, now taking pictures of the dilapidated cargo.

They were both where they shouldn't be after all. "My god, the state of things - you'd think the ship had been gone years and not just a few months."

Rutile has done more sneaking in the last couple of months than they have in the previous couple of centuries, but they don't think twice about their actions when they discover the Narrakra has docked. Stifling yawns - the fog wreaks havoc on their energy levels - they deftly duck around the Sentry and aboard the derelict ship.

They press a gloved hand to their mouth in horror when they find the organic debris that has grown and died throughout the vessel. Rutile had made peace weeks ago with the knowledge that living things were far more vile than the Lustrous, but what happened to the crew that they couldn't maintain basic cleanliness?

The horror passes. Time to get to work.

Rutile has been sneaking small jars from recycling bins at the Dreaming Bridge to store materials in; they pull some from their pocket and begin scraping samples from everything that looks vaguely curious. They won't be able to do much with them - biology was never their expertise - but the Academy will likely be grateful for samples procured before the Sentry ruins the site.

From outside the current chamber, there comes the sound of heavy booted footsteps on the rusted planking of the ship floor. Then someone trips in the dark, and, "ah, shit," before Kit comes trudging into view within one of the doorways. He stops short when he spots the outline of someone there, but Rutile does have a way of standing out; he relaxes.

"Fancy meeting you here." He cracks a smile, but it's a little grim, given the circumstances. His eyes wander around the dire state of the hold, and he gives his head a small shake. "Ancestors," he murmurs, "what happened here?"

Rutile twists their neck around in Kit's direction when they hear footsteps, but the soft echo of his cursing in the hall draws a somber smile to their lips. When he emerges, they almost laugh.

"Fancy meeting you here."

"I should say the same," they say, clasping a lid onto a jar and screwing it shut. They tuck it into their coat pocket. "Are you fond of dark enclosed places, I wonder?"

But the smile disappears with Kit's reaction to the rest of the room. "I'm no expert," Rutile qualifies, "but I daresay the Narrakra wasn't gone long enough to show this kind of wear. I would almost suspect some sort of aging chemical or extreme exposure for the metal, but... " They crouch down and gingerly pick up an insect between their fingers, and drop it into another jar. "That wouldn't explain everything. Maybe parts of it."

Sour words from an encounter a few days back come unbidden to Rutile's mind, reminding them that they haven't the slightest right to make conjectures here. They fall silent.

"Are you fond of dark enclosed places, I wonder?"

A pause followed by short laugh, and, "Yeah, I can see how you'd think that." First a city sewer, now the remains of a derelict ship. They really ought to orchestrate a better means of spending time together.

Kit takes a few slow steps further into the room, and while he doesn't avoid stepping on the bugs, precisely, he does glance down at them with a grimace as the brittle carapaces crack and crunch under his boots. "Like being in the Deep Roads again," he mumbles under his breath, probably an aside to himself, before he glances Rutile's way again, his attention catching on their words. "I know the ship hasn't been gone that long, but now that you mention it, my--visions," he begins, looking decidedly uncomfortable at having to discuss dreams at all, "--took a strange turn. The guy I dreamed of--Nerrin, I think--he seemed... old. Like years had passed for him, not just a month."

Having said the words, Kit grows quiet and chafes a palm against the beard on his chin, frowning. "...but I don't see how that could be possible."

Sneaking Aboard

In the name of Riches & Fame (Open)

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we have to stop meeting like this ▸ kit

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open

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for Zephyr!

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