silco's bizarre adventures (open catchall)

[sink]

Who: Silco + anyone
What: Settling in. Open starters indexed behind the cut; closed starters on request.
When After 8/8, throughout August.
Where: All over the place.
Content Warnings: Will be included with comments or in subject lines.


Index:
• OPEN: Trench exploration - Cassandra.
• OPEN: Trench exploration - Lumenwood - Blood Bank.
• OPEN: Trench exploration - Cellar Door - Earworm
• OPEN: "we glow so dim" - Wreckage diving.

Comments

OPEN - We Glow So Dim

[sink]

Summary: August plot: WE GLOW SO DIM. Silco dives down to the wreckage with his octopus-shaped Omen, and has a minor panic attack on the way.
Content Warnings: Deep diving, fear of drowning, remembering past near-drowning, panic attack, tentactles.

It's his Omen's companionship that is truly helping Silco adjust to a world where he doesn't have a group of loyal people at his beck and call. Though Melita has, without speaking a word aloud, made it very clear that she will not answer to Sevika, or to any other name Silco tries to give her. She seems to be doing well enough out of water, propelling herself through the air like it's ocean with movements that make something primal in his new blood ache, but still, when he finally returns to the ocean to follow up a rumour about the glimmering ocean she seems happy to be swimming again. If he's honest, so is he.

Silco has spent plenty of time in rooms beneath the water, in the undercity where the buildings go deep beneath the canals, deep enough he could watch the sharks outside his window like an aquarium. But he's only been submerged like this a fee times: once recently, beaching himself and being woken (back?) to human form. And once a long time before that, held under the toxic water to choke and drown. As much as he tells himself that it was the best thing that ever happened to him, he can't deny that not all the feelings being underwater stirs up are pleasant.

He dives through the gleaming phospherance, lead by his Omen, bright as a lamplight herself, drawn by the possibility of finding some sort of treasure that will start him off on the right foot here. And when he inhales his lungs breathe the water like air, and yet somehow as he gets deeper they burn, and his chest squeezes tight, and his limbs feel weak in the cold water as it presses around him. There's so much of it, and he's too far down to hold his breath all the way back to the surface.

A comforting tentacle wraps around his wrist, and then another, Melita growing to blanket him like she can somehow save him from drowning. He thrashes against her mindlessly a moment but she's stronger than he is, and no threat besides, so once the brief madness passes he goes limp in her embrace. Panting into the water.

He's close enough to the wreck that he'll be able to explore it soon: perhaps there is already another down there taking stock of these strange ships. Though it might also be worth checking that he's okay after he emerges, wet, since for a moment he seemed to be struggling - with his Omen, with the water, with himself.

[disbanding]

Hector has no real interest in the ships. He has no real interest in the magic ocean, either, except for how it makes it easier for him to do what he's out here to do: find, come hell or high water, the creature he'd brought back to fight its fellows for him days before on this beach. Some pushy woman with a talking box and a sword had dragged him away from the lumbering sea beasts, which he'll acknowledge was a nice gesture that probably saved his life— but still. His creature is out there somewhere, and he's responsible for it.

So he takes to the sea. He doesn't swim all the way down to the ships at first, rather loiters up and down the shining path and squints into the darker waters beyond, trying to catch sight of either the bright blue glow of his magic out there, or- or a familiar lumpy beast corpse. Either way.

It's fundamentally a useless search, being confined to this path, and he gets tired of it after long enough and sloughs himself the rest of the way down to the ships. That's where he is now, picking around the sunken wrecks with, honestly? Disinterest. There's nothing for him down here, he has no interest in rusty old relics and barnacled trinkets, unless—

Unless he happened to find the similarly barnacled remains of a drowned crewmember down here, and happened to bring with him a set of rough-hewn silver coins, which still spark alive with blue magic when struck together down here under the water. It's not done anything yet, but at the sight of a shadow falling over his shoulder from the doorway he turns and raises an eyebrow, waiting to see if this exhausted-looking fellow is going to make this weird or just let him do his thing.

It's an awkward length of a pause before he speaks, still pretty water-distorted in the magic breathing water, "The treasures are in the other cabin."

[sink]

Perhaps so, but Silco gets the gist. Still, he neither turns to go nor makes this weird, just sort of lounges water-weightless in the askew door, feet not quite touching the barnacled floor but brushing the algae that stretches up from it, waving in the microcurrents their presence causes. His eye is bright underwater, the mutation not giving him any particular benefit to his sight but somehow more tolerable down here, which he didn't expect. It's fixed on Hector, curious about what he's doing with the corpse, but hardly seeming upset. Mostly he seems to expect a show, and if the pause goes too long he will gesture for the man to continue.

[disbanding]

Oh, so he's just going to linger, alright. Hector gives him a long look before he sighs, a thing that is desperately uncomfortable underwater, and waves a hand at him dismissively before he turns back to his work. Whatever, if he wants to watch, he can watch.

So, here's the work: it's Hector striking these coins together, each time sparking a blue light that arcs higher around his hands and the barnacled mass of dead sailor in front of him, until it finally seems to travel into the thing. An eye socket lights up, and slowly, haltingly, the corpse pries itself off the floor. It loses its other eye socket to the sea growths in the process, and a few of its fingers, but sure enough, there's an undead rattling upright in this cabin now, making a low sucking sound that would be a growl above water. Hector stands with it, silently putting a hand on its cheek-barnacles in a way that seems to calm it, and then he looks over his shoulder at his audience.

Just waiting for the vibe here, more or less.

[schoolingfish]

The waters here were weird. Sometimes, breathing them in, he feels strange and disoriented. Sometimes he feels wary knowing if he runs into any strange creatures out here, there are very few Sleepers who would be able to get out here and find him. On this occasion, however, the water feels welcoming.

Still, the sea was his home, so it's only natural that he explores the strange sea that exists here. When Luca finds the ship his curiosity grows and he swims out to explore. Once he gets close to the rotten boards of the deck he summons his omen, the small hermit crab skittering and exploring the surface of the ship alongside him.

Then he hears a sound above him and, looking up, he sees what appears to be a person struggling. Darting up through the water in the way only a sea creature can, Luca investigates to see if this person is all right.