o1 . like an old enemy

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord and you!
What: A necromancer comes to town.
When: Early September.
Where: The docks, Gaze, and anywhere.

Content Warnings: Undead, implied murder of NPCs, and all the usual warnings of this character.

(1) ghost ship.

Maybe, in your wandering, you've come to the harbor. There are fishing boats and trading vessels here among the dark, choppy waves.

One of them looks like astonishingly bad news.

If at any point you got dredged up by pirates, you will recognize it immediately. The hull is dark and oily; the sails are tattered and grim; the crew are all horribly corrupted. They are scaled and tentacled and barely-human. But they seem to have lost all aggression: they move in rote, mechanical ways, taking no notice of their surroundings.

Only one man stands out from them. He looks remarkably average: dark clothes, dark hair, dressed in a captain's coat of black and gold. What might stop you, though, are his eyes. They are black from edge to edge, sclera and all, with an oily shimmer that feels wrong to look upon.

"What do you think," says the captain, to whoever has stopped to stare. "Corpses or skeletons? Skeletons are a classic, but I do hate to get rid of the tentacles; loses the novelty."

(2) weak and weary.

Gaze is absolutely drenched in ravens. Dripping ravens. He's pretty sure ravens don't flock, typically, unless they are scavenging the dead on a battlefield; so that's promising. Regardless: there is a man before you trying to coax one of the ravens onto his wrist.

It perches there, and he looks briefly, utterly delighted. He reaches out a few fingers to stroke its feathery breast, and the raven lets him. His voice drops low, soft, somber:

"Is there balm in Gilead?" he murmurs. "Tell me; tell me, I implore."

The raven considers this. It cocks its dark little head towards him. It leans forward, the shaggy feathers of its throat bristling, to speak.

FUCK OFF, croaks the raven. It pecks the Emperor Undying on the forehead, takes a shit, and smacks him with a wing on its way out.

The man, left in the wreckage of this situation, does something vaguely impressed with his eyebrows. He chews his lip. He says, "Welp."

Then he turns to you, the poor sap who witnessed this, and spreads his hands in defeat.

"Worth a shot," he says. "Did you know the collective term is an unkindness of ravens? I see why."

(3) wildcard.

[ Happy to match formatting! ]

Comments

2

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice watches the whole scene from a safe distance. She does not trust the birds, because they seem much too smart, and she does not trust this strange man, because there's a good chance someone with eyes that fucked-up could do some real damage.

In the end, the whole thing ends up being kind of pathetic. The strange man gestures; Eurydice shrugs. She doesn't say anything at first, instead opting to rummage through her bag and pull out a small cloth square. She always comes prepared.

Eurydice doesn't approach, but she does offer it out, one eyebrow slightly raised. ]

You want one of these? You can keep it.

[ First one's free. ]

[necrolord]

[ It got him on the arm, a little bit. Absolute tragedy. He nods his thanks and steps forward to collect the handkerchief. ]

Looks like I don't have much of a way with animals. Let's hope they don't all have a vocabulary like that one.

[howtheworldwas]

Never trust a talking animal.

[ Eurydice says, tone flat. It's unclear whether she's serious or joking -- probably a little bit of both.

At the handoff, Eurydice will offer a short, polite nod. ]

I'm Eurydice. Who're you? [ what is your deal, strange-eyed man who talks to birds... ]

[necrolord]

[ Whew. That is a name someone gave to their daughter, apparently. Rank it with Oops There Goes Gravity on the scale of 'unfortunate,' though admittedly trading hilarity for class. ]

A fan of music. [ He looks deeply, terribly amused. ] And a king very far from his kingdom.

1

[viciousmaukery]

The eyes barely give Molly a pause. He'd be something of a hypocrite if they did, because his own eyes are red from edge to edge, and paired with the horns, the tail and the lavender-ness of his entire being, would form an unsettling impression, if Molly didn't have his coat: a mess of colors and embroidery, with a rather large hole on the back like something tore through it.

The undead do give him pause, though, and something tickles in the back of his brain, screams wrong wrong wrong. But Molly knows who that tickle belongs to, so he stuffs it down.

"The tentacles are pretty unsettling, though," he ventures, recognizing he's walked into dangerous territory here. "All in all I'd rather have the skeletons instead. Easier on the eyes."

[necrolord]

He has never seen anything like this man before.

But maybe he should have expected as much, upon discovering tentacle-faced pirates. This is not his home system; this is, by all insistence and evidence, not his home universe. Why not have red-eyed demonic men who seem to think he's the weird one?

But it's impolite to stare, so he doesn't. The Emperor regards his undead thoughtfully and nods like this a wholly normal conversation to have.

"Unsettling might not be a negative, on a necromantic pirate ship," he notes. "It might be worth leaning in to 'unsettling.' But you do have a point; there is something very tidy about skeletons. I've always been a fan."

[viciousmaukery]

Hey, Molly's just a purple weirdo with red eyes and a love of tacky fashion, he doesn't have undead pirates obediently doing his bidding. Is this guy a lich? He doesn't look like a lich, but then again how the fuck would Molly know what a lich looks like, he's only ever heard stories about them and stories tend to get a little exaggerated in the telling.

Gods he really wishes someone else from the Nein was here, because it would be great having someone also a little thrown by the surreal quality of this entire interaction with him. But alas.

"Oh, if you're leaning into a theme, then," Molly says, a little sardonic. "I think it'd be a bit messy, though. They'd be dripping bits of themselves all over the place, not to mention the smell."

[necrolord]

The tone is a little funny, so he gamely pretends he does not see it.

"I'm not going to let them decompose," he says, eyebrows quirking up as though taken aback by the concept. "That would be horrific. Not in a useful way, either; you're entirely right about the smell."

He drums his fingers together in thought, then nods as though he's hit upon an idea.

"Perhaps we'll keep tentacles on a chosen few," he says. "To really make them pop. Those with scaled and barnacled bits may not make the cut."

1

[threelayers]

The woman greeting him was dressed in something like a steampunk's fantasy, if they had a fascination for combining pink and brown for some cockamamie reason. She was there for her own reasons. Watching for someone, something that she wasn't going to find. But none of that changed the fact that she was doing just that. She would come back here to wait, probably a little each day, even if it was forever. Like she was the widow at the lighthouse, keeping an old vigil.

Leaning on an elegant umbrella, she watched him step off. Pulling her omni out of her pocket, she tapped on it quickly before holding it up to serve as her communication.

Keep the tentacles.
Never waste novelty.
Especially intimidating novelty.

Did she look perturbed by the presence of the pirate ship? Nope. This one had a gift for the unflappable.

[necrolord]

The text-based communication is an interesting quirk. In the Nine Houses, any physical restriction on speech could be readily corrected from birth. But not everything is physical, is it, and this isn't one of his planets; he breezes past to the conversation at hand.

"Not bad advice," he agrees. "It does seem a bit more on-theme than scaling back to skeletons, doesn't it? A bit more nautical. I've even taken on the fashion to match."

He tugs the lapels of his new captain's coat, to emphasize the point. It is the only remotely interesting item he wears, over an outfit of plain black and more black.

[threelayers]

After as many years as she'd lived with the condition? She might have refused that sort of gift. She was pretty proud of who she was and how she interacted with the world. She nodded in response to him, pointing over at one of the others whose barnacles were actually reaching out from where they had crusted on their shoulderpads. Yeah, definitely very on point.

It's a very aquatic horror.
Anything else is a whole other kind of theme, wouldn't you say?

2

[frogfear]

Was she ever hoping to not run into the necromancer that brought her to shore a second time, but apparently he has also chosen to spend some time in Gaze, and it seems impossible to just walk away since he has no doubt already noticed her.

The raven's reaction is clearly not what he expected, and Willow ducks her head to hide her amusement as the bird makes a very obvious statement about what exactly it thinks of John and takes off.

"If I had to guess, I'd say you're not the first person who's quoted Edgar Allan Poe at these guys - they probably get sick of being expected to just say 'nevermore' after awhile."

[necrolord]

The first time someone had caught a reference— genuinely spotted the text he was quoting, as part of a shared cultural language that has been extinct for millennia— he had beamed in astonishment. Now, it feels crass; it feels as though the sacred has become mundane.

But that's the overall vibe, isn't it? Here is God with bird shit on his wrist.

He exhales a little hah of agreement, like it's funny. He does not quite smile, but even so: the expression does not reach his black eyes.

"I'd have taken a 'yes, actually,'" he says, "even if it didn't rhyme. Maybe I just don't have a way with animals."

[frogfear]

Willow has never had an easy time hiding her feelings, and she hasn't gotten any better at it in Trench either. She tries to keep a straight face, but the humour shows in her eyes.

Maybe even the ravens here, with their history of being associated with death, don't care much for beings who mess with necromancy. Maybe the birds prefer those who follow the natural order of the world instead.

She says none of these things. Nor does she mention that she managed to gain help from one of the ravens on her first exploration into Gaze to find the School of Mutter.

"Maybe they just have a particularly twisted sense of humour," she offers instead. "Or maybe they just offend easy."

2

[shiro2hero]

Don't laugh. Do not laugh. He's standing there, a bag of supplies slung over his shoulder, canvassing the city. Both on the lookout for his teammates, and getting the lay of the land. Getting mildly lost was part of the plan.

But... seeing someone vaguely familiar getting sassed by a raven wasn't part of said plan. What is he supposed to say to that? Or should he just turn around, walk away? Pretend nothing happened?

It sounds great up until the man turns to him.

"Maybe they take... bribes?"

[necrolord]

He sees the fixed look upon Shiro's face, the panic of a man who'd thought he might yet escape this conversation, which is at least a little funny. A meager balm for his pride.

The King Undying asks, bone-dry: "What do you recommend?"

[shiro2hero]

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. The robes are infinitely more accommodating than the borrowed shirt had been. Digging around in the bag he's carrying produces a hunk of... well.

It's bread.

"Birds back on Earth seemed to like it. Might not hurt to try."

( event prompts )

[necrolord]

(1) flowers.

Somewhere by the gates of Gaze, under the watchful eyes of way too many ravens, the Emperor Undying is in conversation with an eager disciple. Not one of his, but some white-robed nobody holding a flower.

"Just a drop of blood," coaxes the disciple. "And you can release all that is in your past, and move forward unburdened into your future."

There is a heavy beat.

"I'll pass," says the Emperor, utterly straight-faced. "I'm a bit squeamish."

(2) river. (cw: an absolutely ludicrous number of corpses incoming)

You are in a boat. You are not alone in the boat: here beside you is a man with eerie eyes and an expression of mild interest. If you had another passenger, perhaps this voyage would build gradually, presenting your victims one by one over the cool and somber waters.

As it is, the river has already turned to blood.

"Well," he says, very patiently, "this seems a bit on the nose."

(3) arena.

The arena is littered with shards of bone, smears of blood, unfortunate corpse-bits swept off into corners. The Emperor Undying notes this as he is encouraged onto the sandy floor. In what is becoming a fun new normal, he doesn't understand what power has forced his hand.

He is one affront away from killing every spectator in the stands just to get its attention.

But that would demand outcry from every local hero and their dog. That would not be the attention he's looking for. Patience is a virtue hard-learned over a myriad, and he is not so juvenile as to sweep in without intel and kill all the wrong people.

So! When you step onto the sand-- maybe willing and eager, maybe shoved panicking forward-- you find a man waiting politely in the center of the ring. He is utterly plain: average height, no muscle to speak of, dressed simply. The only unusual thing about him are the eyes, black from edge to edge and iridescent like oil.

He regards you from across the sand, apparently unbothered by the expectant roar of the crowd, and by the fact that he is wholly unarmed.

2

[frogfear]

Willow did not ask to be in a boat. She did not want to be in a boat. And this is quite possibly the very last person in Trench she would want to share one with.

When he speaks, she's distracted, weighing out the merits of trying to jump overboard and swim to shore. The only thing stopping her is the river already appears to be more blood than water, and staying put seems like a marginally better option.

She had been hoping Trench would prove to be less like Deerington than... whatever this is.

"Yeah. A little bit."

[necrolord]

His biggest fan can't get enough of spending time together, apparently. It's flattering.

John tries to look sympathetic, not amused.

"Does it do this often?"

He tips a casual hand to the reddening river, as though she might possibly know why their captors have decided on this imagery. She does not have the first idea, of course— it is plainly meant for him, and she is an unfortunate bystander— but he's curious at her response anyway.

1

[hauntedsavior]

"See, this guy's got the right idea."

Enter a five-ten girl who looks way too casual for the situation. She's got a white, gold-threaded eyepatch over her left eye, her hair is gently starting to blow, and she's more or less covered up in loose-fitting, almost frumpy clothes from her neck down. (But not enough to hide the visible black seam running across her throat.)

"We can't just go around bleeding on flowers. He's squeamish, and I have no idea what it's gonna do to the flower. Maybe it eats right through. That gonna release everything that's in our past? Or is it just gonna release some poison into the earth?" She crosses her arms and levels her eye at the disciple. "Beat it, dude."

[necrolord]

The King Undying turns to look at her, and he does something with his eyebrows. He goes huh. He goes wow, alright. Beneath it, he is sharply, acutely interested in what he is seeing.

She's a construct. He knows a soul melange when he sees one; he invented the concept. But there is a lot going on here, and he can't parse all of it in one glance, so he files away a longer look for later.

The disciple, plainly unnerved to have two Sleepers against him, bows nervously and goes off to spread the good news of bleeding on flowers somewhere else. John turns to his new companion, nodding as though they've just had a very nice talk.

"Does your blood generally eat right through the local flora," he asks, "or was that for his benefit? Apologies if it's impolite to ask. Mine doesn't seem to do anything more exciting than sparkle."

2

[falsify]

Eames raises his eyebrows at the blood river — surprised but not alarmed — and he looks over the edge of the boat with an amused breath through his nose.

"Seems like the tunnel has a bone to pick with you, doesn't it?"

cws for corpses and gore start here

[necrolord]

He spreads his hands in a gesture of what can you do, the picture of long-suffering patience.

"Seems so," he agrees, just as mild. Already the corpses are beginning to bob to the surface, bloated and grey, trailing bits of skin and fat. They throng like a school of uniquely unpleasant fish. Dead limbs bump up against the hull of their little boat. There are dozens; hundreds; probably thousands, packed so thickly together they take up the whole of the river.

The Emperor just says, "It's not the scenery I would have picked, but they really seem to be going for something, here."

3

[survivalthroughhate]

The opponent the Emperor next faces is that alien that had made a whole lot of enemies with his prickly personality on the network. Maul's already torn through a few opponents. With the damnable curse upon him that the three witches had cast back in Deerington, he can't kill anyone, and even injuring them is a literal pain for him. But he's got a naturally high pain tolerance as it stands and he's also a Vileblood, so he's been able to manage, leaving several broken and bloody. The pain he feels from hurting them has worn him down a little but he's still fresh enough for another opponent.

He regards the man in the middle of the sand. Looks almost human but the eyes tell a different story. There's no sign he possesses any weapons but Maul isn't stupid. Someone this unassuming must have a few tricks up their sleeve. Well, so does Maul. He pulls out his lightsaber, igniting both ends, flipping the weapon around so he's holding it like a staff. Then he grabs hold of the Force he can feel all around him and tries to yank the man forward towards him.