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

[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?

[necrolord]

He snaps his fingers and nods like she's solved it.

"The usual theme, I will confess," he says, "is bones and black. We favor a certain aesthetic, in my kingdom, and it pays to stay on-brand. But I can do that with decor; we don't need to throw away all the interesting tentacles just to get some bones on this boat."

He drums his fingers on his arm and adds: "I wonder whether there are any massive and terrible sea monsters menacing these waters. If the kraken has a skeleton, I'd like to see that."

[threelayers]

Oh, this guy definitely had a theme going. Full on necromantic undead shit. She could dig it, for no other reason than the last evil overlord she'd worked for had a thing for tentacled flying orbs floating along the corridors of a giant living whale. Everyone had their thing. Her? Ice cream. Keep it simple. Keep it colorful.

She pondered and nodded before typing again. The implied question had an easy answer. No proof, but she knew the answer.

If I were a betting girl there's absolutely a Kraken down there.
Monsters were always a thing before, so why wouldn't there be one here as well?
No clue on them having skeletons.
They don't seem very bony.

[necrolord]

The Necrolord Prime can confess to a great many horrifying aesthetic moves, but 'living whale-ship' has never been among them.

"'Before,'" he notes, as he leans back from the screen again to nod agreement. "I take it you are a veteran of the Nightmare? I've heard great and terrible things. I think you're right about the squid, though; all tentacles, no skeleton, just like my dilemma here."

[threelayers]

It was definitely a thing. Salem had a weird aesthetic.

She tapped her lips and nodded to his question. She wasn't quite sure she'd use the phrase 'veteran of the nightmare' to describe her status, but she had been there over a year, so she supposed that she knew her way around it to an extent.

I've seen a few things, yes.
What did you want to know besides squid stuff?

[necrolord]

"Whatever you're willing to share."

He says it quite seriously, almost somber. Then he turns to look out over the water, as though hoping to spot whatever had drawn her out here. The ocean remains barren and stormy as ever.

"But I hope I'm not keeping you from anything vital," he adds, politely. "Waiting for a ship to come in?"

[threelayers]

She looked out towards the water. was he keeping her from something? She'd waited and tried to poke at so many squids who just went back into the water. Her ring hand was itching, burning. It was driving her mad. But at the same time, was she willing to just say 'I'm waiting for my wife to show up but I don't think she is yet?' To a stranger?

Hell no.

Emerald would come or wouldn't today. There would be people to greet her if need be. She'd be fine, so she could put on appearances. A quick shake of her head and she was typing again.

Nothing vital.
I'm not the sort to know what to volunteer though.
So ask a question and I'll answer if I know it.

...and felt like answering as well.

[necrolord]

He watches her decide not to tell him about her obvious baggage, and files it away in case it's ever relevant. If he intends to keep the ship, she may yet be his neighbor on the docks. The Emperor simply nods and carries on.

He drums his fingers again, considering, and decides on: "You mentioned monsters. What sorts? Anything particularly nasty?"

[threelayers]

Now, monsters she knew. Monsters she could talk about. She typed quietly and went over a few thoughts. There were a whole menagerie back in the nightmare, so she wasn't entirely sure how to list them all, so best to keep it simple

A whole zoo's worth, honestly.
Most of them are very physical by nature, so not too much magic power.
Much more speed, claws, fangs, brute strength.

but there are exceptions.

[necrolord]

"Exceptions to 'monsters don't have magic'?" His eyebrows quirk up, and this time the surprise is utterly genuine. "I feel like I could recognize and intuit, say, a werewolf. A dragon. A giant floating head. If the floating head also shoots lasers, that's something I'd want to be clued in on."

[threelayers]

Snap of the fingers and a finger gun were followed by a wink. There, he had it in one. Giant floating heads were physical threats. Giant floating heads with magic eye laser beams were something else. You could get mostly the one, but you'd definitely get the latter along with.

Things are still fresh out the gate
So some of this isn't set in stone but that's about the size of it.
And always watch out if people start getting cursed.

Your neighbors can be more dangerous than the monsters if they go temporarily crazy.

[necrolord]

No one has done finger guns at God in thousand and thousands of years. He likes her immediately.

"That's what I hear." He says it like they're agreeing about a weather forecast. "That Beasthood poses a constant risk. I'd not realized the other world was shadowed by the same threat."

[threelayers]

Beasthood. She'd heard the term. She'd also heard corruption. Both were apparently a risk in the ranks of the Hunters, who she had joined, and she was at the best of times not the most mentally stable woman on any planet. They weren't exactly clinical about it all, so she hadn't gotten the exact low-down, which made her less than pleased. Corruption had caused her problems in Deerington, a lot of them.

One step at a time. She nodded.

In the nightmare, our minds got muddled sometimes.
It's only safe to assume the risk is as great here, as is that of turning into a monster.
Your world had that too, I take it?

[necrolord]

"Men who become monsters? Of course." He returns to drumming his fingers thoughtfully. "But it's usually metaphorical."

Of course, when the soul is displaced from the body, something else can take hold. This sounds very much like that: gnashing teeth and tentacles and black ichor, all the staples of horror beyond even his control. If transformations of that sort are common here...

"I'll keep an eye out," he concludes, and looks back to his new friend. "Thank you."

[threelayers]

Usually more literal in my experience here.
But I'm pretty sure that you're picking that up all too quickly.
Those folks used to be regular people at one point I think.

She gestured in the direction of the tentacles and ichor. Definitely, it was making her assume that it was going to be a thing here, and folks were talking about 'beast' whatnot, so she was going to have to be ready for that.

No problem
Some information is basically free after all.
what's your name?

Neopolitan.