02 . december catch-all

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord and you!
What: A necromancer enjoys Bone Season.
When: December.
Where: Throughout Trench.

Content Warnings: Will be marked as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

(1) recruitment: OTA.

There is a man in the Archives. He doesn't look like much: average height, average build, dressed in simple blacks. He chews his lip as he thumbs through some borrowed tome. There's an untidy stack of ancient books beside him, the titles Rituals of Trench: Remembering Our Pasts and Legends of Trench: Curses and Causations glinting in the lamplight. The one in his hands seems to be The Sleeper Condition. If you've come to do some research on the current issues plaguing town, you'll have to approach this plain and faintly rumpled-looking stranger.

He drums his fingers against the tabletop as he reads, and at the approach of any passerby, he looks up.

His eyes are oil-black and horribly, weightily inhuman.

"I don't suppose," he says, by way of greeting, "you've run across much explanation for the squidly reincarnation? All our esteemed authors seem to take the tentacles as a normal fact of life."

(2) recruitment: existing CR.

It is, by and large, a quiet day in Trench. The God of Necromancers can be found ambling from Gaze to the Blood Ministers' District and back again, sometimes with his facepainted attaché and sometimes not. You might even spot him down by the docks, standing out among the brawn and bustle of sailors.

Regardless, he brightens when he spots an even slightly familiar face, and raises a hand in hello.

"Remind me," he says, bracingly, "how you feel about sailing?"

(3) wildcard.

[ Happy to match formatting! ]

Comments

1

[hauntedsavior]

Anna's been doing more research on her own here, lately, after a productive session with Cloverfield and several late-night ponderings towards the Moon Presence. The thing is that tonight, most of the books she wants to pull that seem like they could give answers—about Pthumerians, about Trench, about the bridge between myth and reality that they seem to live between—aren't there.

The guy with all the books is pretty easy to spot, at least. She approaches him a little standoffishly, but relaxes once she realizes she recognizes him. "Hey, you're, uh. From the graveyard." Anna might not look very familiar with her new longcoat and missing eyepatch, and she's pretty sure she never gave him her name, but it's hard to forget this guy.

She puts a hand on the table and takes a look at the spines of some of the books, then at his eyes, which. Eesh. "You been at this a while?" Bold words for someone with a black-and-gold glass eye. "'Cause I haven't had a lot of luck since September either."

[necrolord]

Ah. It's the young woman whose soul he'd rather like to pick apart under a microscope. But, you know, in a friendly way.

The God of Necromancers looks up at the— girl, construct, necromantic marvel?— who'd commiserated with him over magic flowers. He makes no move to correct The guy from the graveyard as his working title, and just tips his head in hello.

"It doesn't seem there's much luck to be had." He flips his book shut, and gently sets it back upon the stack. "But I can at least point you in the direction of my latest failures, if you've come to look up something specific. Might save you a bit of time skimming."

[hauntedsavior]

"I mean, I'm more just looking for stuff on the gods instead of the squid stuff. One mystery at a time, yeah?" It's just that he's decided to approach a different one than her, it looks like. Still, she takes a closer look at the titles for things that might be of interest while she talks.

"I spent some time with Cloverfield in October, and I'm, like, still sorting out the right question to ask Never Mind when I meet with him." Not to mention her recent meeting with the Reckoning, her own patron. "I figure it probably can't hurt us to try to get in good with them. But I don't really know how to track some of them down. I was thinking of asking Never Mind how to get in touch with, like, Baus or Mariana or Dorothea. One of them's gotta know more about why we're all squids."

2

[deadboywalking]

Will's also down at the docks, sketchbook resting on his knees, trying to commit the strange ships and surly dockworkers to paper. He's found an out of the way corner to tuck himself into, bundled up against the wintry chill and balancing on a barrel that's fairly well encrusted with salt and grime. So far nobody's tried to take it or gotten irritated at him for sitting there, so he's let himself get raptly involved in his drawing.

When someone speaks, Will looks up, eyes wide, pulled out of his reverie by the question and momentarily disoriented. He blinks a couple times. Oh hey, it's that guy. The dead guy boat guy.

"I feel...fine about it?"

[necrolord]

"Well, that's a start." Dead guy boat guy ambles over and comes to a stop just in front of him. He regards Will's sketchbook with gentle curiosity and rubs at his chin. "I'm planning a bit of a voyage. If you know any interested sailors, I'll need all hands."

[deadboywalking]

Will resists the instinctive urge to clutch the sketchbook to his chest and hide it. It's just some roughly penciled out boats so far. And a couple cool-looking deck guys. Just a couple.

"A voyage? To...where?" He's still used to being in a place like Deerington, where once you travel too far from the town, you just get bounced back.

( 1, paul. )

[necrolord]

[ From here. ]

The boy stands carefully straight, carefully still. His eyes are not so careful, and John knows very well to watch the eyes.

Well, fair enough; he can see the sense in paranoia. It's the mark of a scholar who will live long enough to finish their notes. He inclines his head in agreement, though for a moment there is something grave and weary written across his face.

"Simple rituals," he agrees, tone still unremarkably soft. "We'll call it a gentle welcome. Warm-up exercises. Let's turn our attention now to the big leagues of blood magic, as that seems to be our intended domain."

He does not resume drumming his fingers. Instead he gestures to an open chair, an easy invitation.

"Though I would hate to take you from your own research, if you've come for something unrelated."

[terriblepurpose]

This is a test, Paul thinks - thinks, doesn't know, and that's the core of the problem, isn't it? He hadn't understood how much he had relied on knowing, the extent to which he had assumed his ability to immerse and understand would hold true anywhere he went. The stranger is an opacity to him, his face so perfectly pleasant it has to be a mask, the brief glimpse of emotion a way to draw Paul out - but does it? Is it? If it is, does it matter?

"But that's it," Paul says, flexing his right hand, the one with his teethmarks on all four fingers down to the bone under the glove, "It's all of a piece, isn't it?"

He sinks into the chair with an exhaustion he uses to mask over pain, his head dipped and his messy hair falling in front of him. He rests his fingers on his knees in raised tents, feels Sophia quivering unseen at the back of his neck.

"Simple rituals any stranger could perform, binding them together, to this place," softly, softly, "Gifts and enticements of power. Radical physical alterations to disrupt the continuity of the self, the immediate embrace of a new community. It's all the same thing, the same purpose."

He looks up from under his eyelashes, still wary, but it's not all focused on the other man, not by halves: "So. Our intended domain?"

[necrolord]

He watches the exhaustion, and watches the pain. It isn't surprising; he has spent his share of time alongside the Blood Ministers, easing crystals out of fingers and wrists. If anything, it's the boy's poker face that merits interest. He hasn't yet encountered a Sleeper this successfully stoic.

Or this paranoid, or this desperate for answers. Not outside the one he tends to keep at his right hand, anyway.

"A welcome," he repeats, more softly to suit to Paul's murmur. "An embrace that's getting to be a bit much, if you ask me."

Paul looks up to him, and he resettles, resumes tapping his fingers now along the wooden arm of his chair. The God of Necromancers tips his head in thought.

"Blood magic is the breath of this world," he says. "And we've arrived with an innate knack for it. But it's still a young world." Tap-tap, tap-tap. "Have you read up on the history? We're only a few millennia into the rebirth, a few centuries into the discovery of the art. All the nitty-gritty theory is ahead of us. Bit exciting, if you ask me, but a hell of a learning curve too."

His tone doesn't vary from something mild, thoughtfully level. It's all true, after all. He has lived it all before; just not from the role of a disciple.

"Maybe it's considered gauche to ask why of our hosts," he acknowledges. "But it's for the advancement of the art, the science, to ask how."

1

[frogfear]

Oh. He's here. Willow supposes she shouldn't be too surprised - it's not the first time she's run into him in this end of town. Fine. This is fine. Her eyes land on the books that happen to be the exact ones she's been looking for.

Of course.

"Umm, I never really looked into the whole, uh, 'Squiddening' thing. It's a thing that happens, doesn't seem dangerous, just a little weird. So, priorities." She shrugs a little, and shifts uncomfortably before gesturing to the pile of books. "Are you done with any of those?"

[necrolord]

"That seems to be the common approach," he says, pleasantly. "Somewhere lower on the to-do list than 'don't die by tentacles,' which seems bang on to me. But supposing one has a bit of free time, the question does arise: why squids?"

He closes the book, drums his fingers on the cover, and politely disregards her look of open discomfort.

"None of these seem interested in answering, so I could be convinced to part with one. I suppose you're on the trail of something more pressing?"

[frogfear]

"Priorities," Willow answers with a shrug. She hasn't really given much thought to why squids exactly, although it certainly wouldn't have been her first choice. "I guess the next person might ask, why not squids?"

Her main focus is still on the books on the table.

"I'm sure you've noticed a lot of people are acting kind of weird. Plus, rabbit prints all over town - that's kind of new too," she notes. It feels like there's probably a connection between the two.

1

[torpour]

The Erune looks up, ears twitching and tail raised, then he closes the tome he's perusing shut, a finger between the pages to easily return where he left off later. Because using dog ears is sacrilege.

"When a Sleeper dies in Trench, they repeat the cycle of becoming a squid and waking up at sea, and either heading to shore themselves or waiting to wash up on the beach." Is that a proper response? No, not really, but Nehan isn't quite done yet.

"This is a constant among the Sleepers who have died, so I would say that yes, it is a normal fact of life."

[necrolord]

Now there's an interesting look. He clocks the ears and tail, notes it as bizarre, then opts for politeness and carries on.

"So it is," he agrees. "And yet I've found very little speculation as to how or why. Theories seem to begin and end at 'Mariana does it.'"

[torpour]

Nehan shrugs. "They attribute many things to her, obviously. Death is an unknown, and so is she."

But of course he doesn't believe that. He wont believe that she's the one responsible for bringing all of them back when she hasn't shown that she gives a damn about them. The Moon Presence is a more likely suspect... but he also has to consider that the cycle of death and rebirth may be caused by something else.

"But those so-called theories were mostly made by Trenchies, and as far as I know, Sleepers are the only ones who sprout from squid. Thus, they cant test those stories."

writhes in here at last for 2

[megatheorem]

The Sixth are having by all accounts a perfectly ordinary day until God wanders up for a chat. Camilla, having finally decided Palamedes is trustworthy enough to be left alone for twenty minutes, has indeed left him alone right now, not quite on the docks themselves but perched cross-legged on a crate some sailors have yet to tell him to get off of. He's been talking about the River, see, and since this nasty squid-ocean has got to be similar — he's here, taking notes. Copious ones, carefully tidied into a journal balanced on his knee as much as his too-quick handwriting will allow.

He has also drawn a little squid, for reference. There are some well-placed question marks, and even a note about "squid brain???" It's a process. He's somewhat aware of God, actually walking around before literally God for real stops to say hello — or rather this thing about sailing, so:

"I can't swim," he says, without looking up until remembers to add the, "Lord."

But he is sitting right here visibly writing notes about Oceans and Squids and Rivers, so after another beat he puts down his pen; "Sailing. In a word, how I feel about sailing is... clueless. I don't know anything about ships. Why?"

[necrolord]

For a moment it looks like even odds the boy will be too deep in his notes to look up for God. They get there in the end, and he tips his head to regard the squid drawing, good-humored.

"With any luck, you won't have to." This with regards to swimming in the half-frozen ocean of magic squids. "I'm told that's the purpose of the boat."

He gestures, with some approval, to Palamedes's crowded notebook.

"I've been doing a bit of thinking," he says, which is the sort of statement that generally precedes an eager or anxious silence in the room at large, "about the best means to carry out some research. We may be limited in what we can learn from shore."

1

[arclightning]

"No," Mako says by way of answer, pausing on his way toward another shelf with several books already in his arms. He feels out of place here, always has in libraries: like at any moment a stiff-necked librarian will appear from the shelves and demand a card or tell him he's too dirty and to get lost. He isn't, of course, but those sense memories are hard to ignore.

Harder to ignore, though, is the slick sheen of this stranger's eyes and the pointedness of his question, particularly because that's exactly what Mako is here looking up. After talking with Dirk about it, he wants to know, and Raleigh said there was one place to start.

After a moment, he shifts out of his ready-to-run stance, watching the man in front of him carefully. "No, but I'm trying to... figure that out. The blood stuff, too. Got a couple working theories. Nothing sound. Nothing with evidence."

[necrolord]

He watches the young man's body language shift, watches the moment he gets himself under control. The God of Necromancers just quirks his eyebrows politely, all mild curiosity, and tips his head to his new acquaintance.

"Well, that makes me feel a bit better, as I'm in the same boat. Might be worth comparing notes."

( 1 )

[cryptograms]

[ Ford is actually looking for Rituals of Trench himself, and he's pretty sure it's... somewhere... in this general area. The Archives are always tricky to navigate, though, so he's mostly just enjoying his somewhat aimless wander through the stacks, letting himself be lead by whim and gut instinct in equal measure.

He actually doesn't recognize John as he approaches, and even once the other man looks up and addresses him it takes a second. There was an awful lot of pirate stuff around last time, but ultimately the eyes are unmistakable. Ford lights up, both to have run into someone interesting again and to have been asked an interesting question. He does not bother with niceties and catching up, instead opting to dive directly into an explanation. ]

Not a direct explanation, per se, but there's plenty of viable theories.

[ He shuffles the handful of books he's collected into one arm and slips his newly freed hand into his his coat. ]

To start, this dimension originally bore a strong resemblance to my home dimension, and in of dimensions of that 'type' there tends to be a strong correlation between eldritch entities and marine life.

[necrolord]

[ Of course the man lights up with the focused intensity of a Sixth adept asked to explain his thesis. It's wonderfully convenient, and a welcome diversion from an otherwise dull afternoon, which is about the shape of John's impression thus far. He waves a hand to the seat across from him and the open stretch of table, then leans forward on an elbow to rub his chin. ]

I may need you to back up to the different 'types' of dimension. Or perhaps to the past tense. Are we discussing the era before the dream?

1.

[necrosaint]

It's just Harrow, unfortunately, this time—hard to recruit someone he's already definitely got on board, no pun intended—but she might have an answer to that question! Kind of.

There is a look of frustrated consternation on her face as she says, "Supposedly there is a book that mentions its first occurrences. It is always missing. I am going to ask Sextus to find it—but I would think," she squints at the Necrolord Prime's current reading material, "that it would be in that one."

[necrolord]

He nods approval, still drumming absently at the tabletop.

"I'll admit," he says, "I am not turning up as much as I'd like. Plenty of folklore, not a lot of practical theory. We might progress more quickly if we got a bit more... hands-on."

This said as though he hasn't been spending most of his time working miracles in Lumenwood and frowning thoughtfully at blood crystals in various colors, which is more hands-on than anything he's done in the past few thousand years.

to see the marching band

[lipochrome]

[ So here's the thing: Gideon has been to plenty of functions that involved getting her face painted like a skull and praying for safety. But she's never been to one that's outside, so she supposes she could give this a try.

Also, the King Undying, Emperor of the Great Resurrection, and Gideon's father, has invited her. It's not like she can say no.

Gideon has applied only the most cursory of face paint: dark circles around the eyes, a couple slashes across the lips, a very fine layer of white. She's standing just off the street, which is apparently what you're supposed to do at these things. Black-and-white confetti rains from the sky, and Gideon catches some in her fist. ]

So, like. What's the point of all this, exactly?

[ Both what's the point of the parade and why did you, specifically bring me here? After nineteen years of no contact, it feels...weird, that he'd try to reach out now. Gideon has a hard time believing that actual God just really wants to be a good father. ]

[necrolord]

[ John has been to really a lot of parades. They kind of lose their spark, after a while. But he has never been to a parade with his daughter, so of course he swept Gideon off with apologies to Harrow— I'm taking her into the city, et cetera, the continued tragedy of his existence is that no one ever laughs when he is incredibly funny— and now here they stand with strangers jostling their shoulders and confetti in their hair.

Honestly best that he didn't bring Harrow, because God has deigned to accept his own black-and-white facepaint. It looks incredible. If asked, he will say cheerfully that it seems like a local tradition, best to play along; and also, mystifyingly, whoop whoop.

He is plainly not used to facepaint, having already smudged a line of black along his brow, but this does not seem to hamper his mood. God rocks on the balls of his feet and considers the bustle around them. ]

Oh, you know. Superstition, tradition, an excuse to eat fried things on sticks. If you spot anything promising, I'm buying.