abraxaslogs | [closed quest] i won't pretend that i make it

The waves are a gentle murmur beneath the ship, buoying the vessel up and down as Stephen looks out towards the gulf, grasping at the side of starboard. It isn't the first time he's been on a seafaring vessel, but it is the first time it isn't pleasure cruise, or a thirty-minute zip around the bay with tourists couched all around him. The deckhands call for all the mages to prepare themselves for departure, that the weather is clear and it should make for smooth sailing, and Stephen can't help but think, Let's not jinx us, all right?

But he keeps that tamped down, instead glancing towards his fellow Summoned companions, arching his brow.

"So how are your sea legs?"

The breeze cascades along the water, catching at the edges of his cloak. The sails above them, not yet fully unfurled, shudder gently in anticipation.

Edited 2022-09-18 18:09 (UTC)

Starkly black-clad and seemingly immovable until addressed, Kylo turns to fix his eyes on Stephen's face as he's spoken to. The background colour of his expression is the usual over-intensity in shades of sullen irritation, but the crease and pinch of his brow suggests mild confusion, for reasons that become a little clearer as his gaze slides downwards. He draws a blank as he inspects Stephen's legs for signs that there's anything notably different about them today.

"I wasn't told I needed to secure any," he mutters.

Ronan, despite being named for a sea creature, hasn't had much opportunity to explore the ocean. He doesn't look particularly comfortable now that they've set off, though he doesn't look especially green, either. He's just been staring off at the water with narrowed eyes, suspicious, as if he's already anticipating trouble.

Then Kylo speaks and Ronan's expression cracks. He looks over with his mouth pressed tight, fighting to suppress laughter. Some people might assume Kylo's making a very dry joke. Ronan knows him well enough to know he isn't.

"Good thing I packed extra."

Okay. That’s not the response he expected from Kylo, and Stephen’s mouth twists to keep from sputtering out a laugh, surprised. Unfortunately, Ronan pipes up and nearly destroys that valiant effort altogether, and the sorcerer raises a closed hand to his mouth, clearing his throat to try to gain some composure. He may not know the other quite that well, but something tells him that statement was less witty joke and more seriousness.

“Oh good, we came prepared,” he adds to Ronan’s remark. But in an attempt to be vaguely more helpful, he figures he should ease Kylo’s confusion before they set out.

“What I mean is, neither of you are going to turn green with motion sickness by the time we reach Solvunn, right?”

Stephen might have packed a basic tincture or two if this did become a problem, but better to know beforehand than to wait until it’s too late.

Fortunately, this isn't Kylo's first time being caught in ignorance of some idiom or other from a world beyond his experience, and it helps that nobody is outright laughing at him— he can breeze past blithely as if he'd intended to be mildly amusing all along.

Which he does. His expression adjusts slightly as he grasps what Stephen is actually saying, mouth tugging at the corners as if it can't decide which kind of curve it wants to pull into. He doesn't even attempt to hide his dismissive contempt for the perils of seafaring.

"Unless our journey to Solvunn requires a cold jump to hyperspace or complex, multiaxial maneuvers at sublight speeds, I won't be turning green. No. I don't experience motion sickness in realspace."

That said, he glances back towards Ronan. Thrillseeking in a fast car isn't exactly equivalent to lurches in roll, pitch and yaw.

Ronan is doing his very best to not look as if he finds every word out of Kylo's mouth extremely sexy, but goddamn that space nerd shit is hot. He whips his wind-blown hair out of his face and returns his gaze to the waves, playing it cool.

"I don't need a spaceship to fly," he reminds Kylo. Ronan's raven form isn't exactly public knowledge, yet it's not quite a secret, either. If he really must, he'll take to the air. In fact, he kind of wants to do it right now, just for fun.

Searching for an excuse, he asks Stephen, "Is there anything we should be looking out for? I can scout."

He takes Kylo’s reply in stride, even if the only thing he really understands in that retort is hyperspace, or at least the idea of it in a grand, read-a-similar-term-in-a-sci-fi-book kind of way. The rest glides right over him, but he’ll take him at his word. So, no seasickness or motion sickness to be worried about.

“All right, well. If something changes, let me know.”

Like he said, he came prepared, but with any luck, they won’t need anything to keep them from feeling queasy. At Ronan’s ask, Stephen looks askance at him.

“Can you?” Scout? Fly? The latter’s news to him, but not all that surprising, in the grand scheme of things. “Looks like smooth sailing so far, but if you wanted to see if there was really anything churning beneath these waters further up ahead, I don’t think anyone would want to stop you.”

Ronan flashes a grin at Stephen. He's always eager to show off what he can do — especially now that he can do it while conscious.

"Can't hurt to have a look."

Though it looks like it could potentially hurt to have a look, as the next thing Ronan does is hop up onto the railing that's the only barrier between the sailors and the sea. He catches hold of a rope to steady himself for just a moment, judging the direction of the wind, and then he leaps.

Ronan disappears instantly, a human tumbling gracelessly toward the churning water, before being replaced by a raven, catching the air current and soaring back toward the sky.

[having arrived just right on time to the tertiary settlement, wanda is glad that the hardest part of this supply run is over. the journey back is always the shortest, after all, and it'll help if the caravans are empty and easier for their mules and horses to pull. as it were, said animals are taking their deserved rest by the provided ranch.

wanda, for her part, splits off from the group for a moment, making way to have a look at the delegation from thorne.

of course, she knows they'd be here, as she had communicated with stephen prior to the fact. it's still fascinating, though, to have a glance at actual thorne mages, standing there, as if supervising. last time she had seen them had been at the summit, but even so—]

Careful with those.

[—her attention is driven away from her observations as one young man from the tertiary settlement stumbles on his feet, nearly dropping the precious cargo of supplies (grains, most likely) that would be nigh impossible to sort back into its crate.

a wisp of scarlet magic, and she's holding the row of crates upright while more individuals come over to avoid disaster. wanda, for her part, simply just—fixes it.]

It'd be easier to cart it all with magic.

[she says out loud; clearly meant for others to hear. who can she talk to to get those mages working?]

[Ronan, or Kylo, would probably get some of these mages into gear. Or this guy, too -- a familiar face that approaches Wanda, cutting an equally familiar figure, squinting against the sun that shines overhead. Stephen's cloak whips behind him in the breeze, and he reaches out with a hand to cast a few flourishing motions in the air. Amber magic--mandala-esque, as she would also recognize--blossoms from his fingertips, then appears as a crest on some of the crates.]

That should help.

[Make them lighter. Make them easier to manage. Float a little, even, if the poor kids helping out with the cargo are really struggling. Stephen drops his hand in the next moment, letting the magic on his end fade. Too much and-- well, let's just say that he doesn't want a third eye cropping up on his forehead just yet. Makes for awkward conversation.

Instead:]

Weird, isn't it? Seeing mages here.

Edited 2022-10-13 13:15 (UTC)

[there he is—stephen. wanda had been awfully aware that they would cross paths, as they had previously discussed. it was only a matter of figuring out when this exchange would happen and, at the very least, they have reason to make it seem unplanned. just two magically-adept individuals helping with making sure the hand-off of supplies goes as smoothly as possible.

satisfied at the fact that the solvunnites bearing the grunt of the work get to have their load eased and make it quite easier and more expedite, she turns to stephen properly now.]

Even stranger to see you in Solvunn. [though they aren't really in the heart of it, it's still... something else.] It's not quite as humid in Thorne as it is here, is it?

[wanda had taken note of the clothes worn by the mages, how heavy the material seemed. for all that she wishes they'd help a bit more, she can't help but note the way they sweat in their garbs. the breeze can be rather pleasant further in, but the coastline is proving a little less forgiving.]

Did it take you long to cross the sea?

[Just two magically-adept individuals with no baggage or history trailing behind them. They can manage that, right?]

No. I like it, actually. A change of weather and scenery is nice.

[He feels safe admitting to that. It's no secret that those who reside in the Castle are restricted to living within its boundaries and the castle town just beyond it. There isn't a lot of sightseeing to be had even around Thorne, and Stephen is one of the few afforded to travel in the past.]

A little sweat's no harm.

[Easy to say when he's not lifting up the boxes himself, physically. But he can't with hands like these, and he is able to use what magic he can to help.]

The ship ride over went pretty smoothly, actually. We made good time, and no one got seasick. [A lopsided grin.] I'm sure I just jinxed myself.

[no secret, indeed. wanda has heard far too many horrible things about thorne from those who used to live there, and finds herself not wanting to have fate pull her there. while solvunn may lack in having things to do, at least the summoned here are free to do with their time what they desire—go where they like, without fear of being supervised or told where they can or cannot go.

in her experience, anyway.]

Good thing you're a doctor, then.

[and a magical one at that. seasickness should not be an issue. she raises a brow over his shoulder, turning on her heel as she starts walking away from the docks.]

We had some unusual guests in the woods, but nothing we couldn't handle. I imagine our trip back will be easier than yours.

[no precious cargo to worry about; wanda could just fly her way back to the primary settlement.]

I've never come this far in Solvunn before, though. It's — quite different from what I'm used to.

[the people, the settlement, the closeness to the coast.]

How are things in the castle? [she knows she was warned to not talk ill of the queen, or anything like it, but it's fine for her to ask about the well-being of those there, isn't it?] How is Yennefer?

[Unusual things? Monsters or people, he wonders? But Wanda carries the conversation onwards, and Stephen decides that he needn't be too nosy or worried; she's obviously in one piece, and if she were more concerned, she would have lingered on the topic.

Instead, she asks after Yennefer, and he scoffs a little.]

Pissed. [But, a little more helpfully-] She's been recovering just fine, but it was a slow and painful process. She didn't have a lot of patience for the castle mages trying to tend to her.

[To say the least. He still recalls the harried faces of the young mages in the infirmary making a quick retreat as he strode in to visit her.]

I can't really blame her, though. Things at the castle are... tense.

[as stephen wonders, his thoughts are so openly loud to her. it draws amusement from her—but she keeps those little solvunn secrets to herself. he would be right to assume that there is nothing worth worrying about; the creatures in this world, so far, are far more friendly than the ones she ever had an opportunity to subdue with her witchcraft.

getting to talk about yennefer is better, either way.]

I imagine more so after the Free Cities retaliated.

[—what else was expected? nothing at all? wanda sighs.]

Send her my regards.

[for one, wanda is not afraid to admit that she gets on just fine with the sorceress—her fellow witch sister—though stephen would have to ask yennefer what is the extent of their acquaintanceship. she motions on over to the path ahead, closing the distance towards the tertiary settlement's homes.]

...would you like to see what the settlements look like here?

At some point, he made the mistake of thinking this would be an uneventful trip. Travel across the gulf, pick up some supplies without issue, swiftly return with the wind in the ship's swollen sails, bring it all to the Castle and call it a day. And maybe it was the moment that Stephen even considered it that fate decided to be contrary, that the waters started to churn beneath their ship, waves battering the hull, a little turbulence (what was the marine equivalent of the term?) that turned into something a bit more...

...worrisome.

"The cargo!"

Stephen barks out his main concern as the ship pitches hard on the starboard side. He's stumbled to the deck--it's night, and hard to see--slipping on seawater that's spilled over the side of the ship each time a long, dark, and serpentine figure sluices and whips too close to their vessel. The crates were secured as best as they could be, but there's only so much they can endure the sudden, jarring torque of the ship tilting hard to one side when a damnable sea monster tries to use them as a battering ram. He's afraid their supplies are going to tilt straight into the sea.

His eyes cast around for Kylo and Ronan. Where are they?

Edited 2022-10-13 13:14 (UTC)

Ronan, far too used to the intrusion of monsters on an otherwise pleasant evening, hasn't let his guard down. When he feels the ship begin to cast in a way that's out of sync with the rhythmic swaying it's been dancing for most of the night, he's on his feet.

Then something rams the ship so hard it nearly rolls onto its side, and Ronan goes tumbling, too. His back slams onto a post and he snarls a curse before righting himself. He'll be lucky if he didn't break a rib or a five, but there's no time to worry about that now.

Somewhere just out of sight, Stephen's yelling about the cargo, and Ronan agrees that's the first priority, so he scrambles in the direction of the supplies. Rummaging blindly through his pouch of dreams, his fingers close around a wooden ninja star. Though it's not what he was looking for, it'll do well enough until Kylo's telekinesis can take over the job.

He throws the ninja star toward the floorboards just beside the pile of crates, and the second the wooden point connects with the wooden floor, the star begins to rapidly rearrange itself. The points stretch like arms, out and out and out. Roots sink firmly into the floor. Branches sprout and spread. The trunk of the dreamt star-tree grows wide and fat in an instant, a solid wall half-hugging the crates. The roots don't have much to hold onto, floorboards already creaking in protest, but at least it's some kind of barrier.

Ronan doesn't have to call for Kylo. Like an extension of his own body, he knows Kylo's already making the next move.

"Our hosts never warned us about the possibility of creatures," Kylo bites out irritably as he crashes his way towards the cargo crates, slamming his willpower into the task of keeping his feet firmly planted on the careening deck— and then, holding the precious cargo down. The strange splay and curl of Kylo's outstretched fingers resembles the shape of Ronan's dreamthing star, though the effort he's exerting to keep the supplies from tumbling free while so thoroughly distracted has his extremities trembling ever so slightly. Vibrating. He sets his jaw.

"It's big," he grinds out in warning, possibly unnecessarily. Those tendrils, fins, spines... whatever they are, clearly belong to a beast more than capable of capsizing the ship, if it chooses. But beyond what parts of the creature can be seen glinting in the moonlight is the mass and motion that Kylo can feel, gliding in the dark.

"Destroying it could cost us the ship."

They sure didn’t, Stephen thinks, but there’s no time to bemoan the lack of warning about sea monsters when they’re being tossed to and fro like a toy boat in a bathtub. His companions soon make themselves known, both Ronan and Kylo utilizing their unusual abilities to ensure the cargo doesn’t go flying off the ship. The wide trunk of a tree growing into a makeshift wall, branches entangling. An invisible force keeping the boxes fixed in place.

Stephen stumbles to his feet. His hands form quick, practiced casting gestures, energy glowing at his palms, and then he lashes out with an arm. Red bands of magic unfurl and whip forward, then loop around the tree trunk and boxes, another added layer of security.

“I don’t know if we can destroy it,” he yells over the ruckus. Seawater, flung upwards from the leviathan’s lashing tail, splatters down upon them all like rain. He sputters. “Did we piss it off, or—“

Was this just terrible timing? No time to finish his sentence. The ship keels hard, collided into the creature again.

Ronan, lacking the benefit of telekinesis, goes flying again as the creature whips at the ship. This time, at least, he catches himself on a swinging net before he can tumble and fall overboard. He tangles his left arm up in the ropes and prays the next lurch doesn't dislocate his shoulder.

"We'd need a whole navy to kill it," Ronan yells back. "It'd be a stupid fucking idea to try." Considering they're barely keeping hold of the precious cargo.

His right hand goes digging into his pouch again, seeking out the dream he'd been trying to find before. It's a fairly simple dream. The same concept as Burrito, his invisible car back home. It was a car that wasn't truly un-visible, but almost impossible to perceive. A confusion of the senses, universal across species and technologies. Back then, Ronan had dreamt the car itself that way, but here, he's dreamt something a little more adaptive.

There it is. He tugs the canister from the bag and releases the pin.

"Don't freak out," he warns the others, because the dream is about to affect their senses just as much as it'll affect the leviathan's. "Just hold still. It only lasts a few hours."

White smoke hisses from the bomb as Ronan tosses it. Careening across the deck, it releases an entire storm of disorientation. And as the cloud sweeps over the ship, it takes the ship with it. The cargo. The sails. The lanterns. The sailors. Everything becomes invisible, including themselves, and leaves them all with the sensation of hovering in mid-air above the churning sea.

Kylo barely resists the urge to offer a retort or indeed evidence that nobody needs a whole navy when they have one very confident and practiced god-slayer right here— but with Ronan being tossed about so thoroughly and his magical sword untested on sea monster flesh, perhaps now isn't the best time to throw himself into the beast's mouth in an attempt to slice it up from the inside.

And then, Ronan's perception bomb goes off, and all Kylo can really think about is how exceptionally unpleasant an experience it is. He sucks in air, sharp, and vainly attempts to find something anchoring to hold onto— not just physically, but—

"I can't— I don't feel it at all," he hisses.

He sounds furious, as he always does when caught in a position of vulnerability.

"Anything. I can't—"

[closed quest] i won't pretend that i make it

LEAVING PORT / CROSSING HYRDA GULF

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GATHERING/LOADING SUPPLIES AT THE TERTIARY SETTLEMENT

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THE RETURN TRIP (OOPS, A MONSTER)

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