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

[sorser]

WHO: Stephen, Ronan & Kylo
WHEN: Mid to late September.
WHERE: Thorne to Solvunn and back again.
WHAT: A supply run quest!
WARNINGS: Will add as needed.

((ooc; quest info here! various top levels for different points of the quest below.))

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THE RETURN TRIP (OOPS, A MONSTER)

[sorser]

[sorser]

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?

[nightwash]

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.

[photophobic]

"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."

[sorser]

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.

[nightwash]

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.

[photophobic]

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—"