Seaside 2: Rising Tides

[Earl of Purple]

Boardwalk Date

When she's happy she's cleaned Riley as much as she can, Agape will sit back down where she was. "There. That's much better, isn't it?" She smiles, and starts eating again.

[TechnoScrabble]

Boardwalk Date

"Y-yeah," Riley blushes and nods, smiling a little. He's a lot more careful with his sandwich now, managing to keep the mess contained on his face.

Open Sea

In the sparkling, calm waters of the sea, a mess of boards and debris float in the waning light of the setting sun. The orange glow dimly illuminates shattered and scorched boards and tattered ropes and sails drifting in the water, interspersed with a fair deal of blood and thrashing sea life. Despite the black scorch marks and unnatural green embers clinging to the wood, no smoke hangs in the air, and no other vessel can be seen...

[Aric Kale]

Open Sea

Three small sloops-of-war sail out of a nasty looking storm, their crew relieved to be alive. For now, they do not realize that they have entered foreign waters, although a lookout has spotted the...ship(?)...further out.

The captain signals for all three ships to head towards the nasty looking wreck, assuming it to have just come out of the same storm, and possibly needing assistance.

As for the ships themselves, they are clearly marked out to be a part of the British Armada. Two of the warships have a mere 16 guns each, with the third being slightly better armed with 18 guns. Their cannons are small, ranging from 8-12 pounds.

Nobody has any idea what they've gotten themselves into.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The crew will notice the smell of gunpowder, almost overcome by the stench of rotting sea life and sulfur. The wreckage is obviously recent, but the mix of scents smells like it could have happened a week ago.

If the crew of ships is perceptive, they may notice large shapes moving below the surface...somehow without disturbing the water. In any case, they will most certainly notice that the water around the center ship has quickly taken on a sickly green hue like tainted sumpwater and is reaching up in thick, writhing arms with a horrible fleshy sheen in attempts to wrap around the vessel and tear its sails!

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

The captain is of proud British stock and does not believe in seademons or other superstitions. Unfortunately, his crew does, enough so that one of the warsloops sails of a short distance away, preparing their cannons for a supporting role. The crew of the remaining sloops remain inside their vessels, but do not remain still.

The captain does not like the hue of the water, concerned that it may be oil, or something else flammable, and orders the crew to sail circles around the wreckage.

While they are doing so, he calls out to the burning mess, listening for signs of life.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

Continuing their advance, the arms the water formed expand into tentacles, reaching up and over the sides of the central sloop, swiping at knots and ropes, attempting to tear them loose!

The only response to the Captain's shouts is a deep, unearthly grown, complete with watery burble, and one of the dark shapes breaching near the surface, a slick dark torpedo of flesh barely breksing the surface as it passes.

Meanwhile, the nearest vessel may find itself rocked as it is tested and prodded by a Selachiform, a 40 meter long, many finned shark testing for prey!

[Aric Kale]

Open Sea

The captain frantically shouts out orders, commanding the crew to take up pikes and guns to "kill the giant squid" /_-

They will not likely pose much of a threat.

The lieutenant in charge of the shark-bait sloop has a more steadfast approach. The crew are swiftly and silently made to load up the cannons and fire on the unholy abomination of the sea (sharky thing).

Meanwhile, the distant sloop-of-war begins to fire it's heavier guns at the dark masses in the water.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

Indeed, pikes and guns only manage to cut up the dead fish and scattered limbs caught up in the tentacles'. Some grow larger and reach up, attempting to tear the masts, other sprout smaller tentacles that attempt to grab up crew and hold them tightly! Crew that are grabbed will find the tentacles attempting to cover their mouths and pull them into the water!

While the Selachiform is unharmed, cannonballs splashing around it and bouncing off its thick hide in some cases, some of the great plumes of water against other creatures are joined by splashes of blood and ichor! Two shapes retreat into the distance, trailing fluids.

In the distance, peaking over the horizon and the setting sun, another ship approaches, a sloop of war similar to these, albeit of a strange, gleaming black wood and featuring an armoured keel made in the visage of a snarling seabeast of jagged dark iron, its eyes glaring straight at the sloop firing at the dark shapes. The sails are black and etched with strange white and green drawings depicting a vibrant green sun trapped within a cage of bones. Despite sailing against the wind, the ship approaches at unnatural speeds!

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

The captain's crew have been rendered useless. All of them are dead or running around frantically. The captain himself has committed a dishonorable exit via pistol.

The distant sloop turns to face the new challenger, aiming to greet them with a broadside. 16 guns. Not much, but certainly not pleasant.

As for the remaining ship, the crew cheers and continues to fire the cannons. Some even take a few potshots at the shark with their rifles.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The men captured by the water find themselves dragged down to meet a horrible sight. Submerged beneath the wreckage is a massive, slick black and green bubble of amorphous tissue like a cancerous horror, drawing the unfortunate few into itself. Even the dead are gathered, who knows, maybe it can use the extra parts! The captain himself may find new life breathed into him while trapped in the fleshy confines, whether he likes it or not.

The Selachiform decides that food or not, the vessel is bothersome. The next prod comes with a bite. Not a nibble, but a massive, toothy chomp at the middle of the sheep's underkeel.

The approaching ship rocks as cannonballs bounce off the armoured prow and underkeel, the dents pushing themselves back off. The beast at the front howls in anger, revealing the ship to be a living demon and of itself, and it speeds towards its prey at ramming speed, crew visible on it as it approaches. Instead of men, it's crewed by horrible sharklike beasts, hulking monsters resembling giant mantis shrimp, women with the lower bodies of sea snakes and hair made of the same, and a small grouping of unnaturally attractive women with dark hair that drifts like it's underwater, intricate dark green tattoos, and water-damped dresses chanting at the helm.

On the prow of the sloop, holding a rope in one hand and an oversized black cutlass with the cracked visage of countless screaming faces on it in the other, impatiently waits the captain of the dsmned vessel, dressed in dark captain's leathers riddled with crude spikes over fine brown and white and red striped shirts and sashes and a breastplate of the same material as his sword. His face is predatory, his grin full of large fangs, and black smoked sunglasses sit over his eyes. Where his flesh is bare, writhing ink designs of a kraken twist and move, watching all.

[Earl of Purple]

Boardwalk Date

Agape smiles and eats her meal as she watches Riley. She'll wait until he's finished before pointing out the mess on his face.

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

As the men are drawn underwater, they enter your control. Keep in mind, the ships aren't large and the crews have been diminished by the storm.

Water starts rushing into the lower layers of the ship, drawing the crew's attention down below, leaving the sloop even more vulnerable.

The final sloop's morale has never been lower, but they realize that the speed of the demon ship is too great to out race. So...MOAR CANNONBALLS!

boom

[TechnoScrabble]

Boardwalk Date

Riley finishes his sandwich quickly, eager to try his hand at braille again.

"I think there might be a braille book in the library tower, too. All sorts of stuff in there."

Open Sea

The Captain is revived and constrained, but others drawn in are transformed, and rather painfully. Some are made into horrible sharkmen like the lot seen on the deck of the approaching ship, others have their legs turn into tails, their bodies expanded as they are turned into shark mermen, memories of their past life replaced with predatory instinct. An unlucky few are devoured alive, fueling the terrifying sea cancer.

The Selachiform bites again, thrashing at the sloop's shallow keel with hungry abandon! It takes a lot to fuel a fourty meter shark!

The cannonballs that strike the vessel do nothing, even those caught in the sails are forced back by the silksterl woven by anulhe hellspiders. One ball smashes through a sharkman, causing his fellows to fall upon him in cannibalistic frenzy. Moments before the armoured prow connects with the sloop, the mouth of the hellship opens, and out roars a destructive blast of smokeless green fire!

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

Poor devils. They never stood a chance.

As for the Selachiform, it should really be careful...it could get splinters. That ship is doomed.

As is the final war sloop. The crew were preparing to be boarded, when the side of the vessel was rammed and set ablaze...most of the men die on impact.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The ship being nommed by the massive shark will find sharkmen boarding their vessel through the holes in the bottom
..some of them wearing enough tattered clothes to be identified as former crew from the other vessels. The sharkmen arm themselves with weapons grabbed from the dead and splintered boards, but the scent of blood quickly drives them to using their claws and jaws in rabid attempts to devour their prey alive.

As the ships collide, the hellpirate's captain uses the momentum to swing across and board the unfortunate sloop, swinging the soulsteel cutlass at the nearest man in a wide arc that makes the trapped souls within moan with power. His crew leap over after him, these more experienced monsters being trained enough to try and take the survivors alive, especially any that seem important.

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

Shark sloop is done for, with its crew depleted, and rapidly sinking.

What is the crew to do? The hell pirate slices them down like butter. He should really meet Clegg. They might get along...

As for important crewmen? They're NPCs. Do what you will with them.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The wreckage and mess expands as one ship is wrecked by the Selachiform and another dragged down by the watery tentacles. The sharkmen can scour them for loot later, what matters now is the people.

The cancer-womb forces the Captain back out and deposits him on the deck of the hellship with the survivors as it backs away from the third sloop, leaving it to sink. The survivors are made to kneel as the Captain walks up and down the deck and takes his vibrantly feathered bicorne hat off with a flourish.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Actually, do we even have any ladies? These vessels bearin' that ugly flag never seem to have any women, tis a damn shame, t,be sure. How is a man to get his sea witches when all 'e has is men not fit fer shark chum, yaharr?"

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

Who the hell do you think you are? We are honest sailors of the British Navy!

The captain fumes, totally blown away by the whole situation.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The Captain laughs uproariously.

"I'm glad you asked!"

He kneels down in front of the British Captain, a strange mark appearing on his forehead beneath a few short threads of black hair, a black jolly roger with shark teeth, its mouth open and full of green fire.

"I am Thousand Burning Effigies, God-King of a burning sea, conquerer of all that touches the deep! And I am here to give you one choice! Join me, or DIE!"

He stands and holds his arms up triumphantly as he roars the last part, cackling madly. He quickly calms himself, though, clearing his throat.

"Actually, you'll probably die anyways, and either way, ye get experimented on, but th' willing way involves a lot less pain an' a much higher chance o' gettin' laid before the end comes, savvy?"

[Aric Kale]

Open Seas

The captain spits on the glowing mark. My crew and I will never serve the likes of you! Pirate scum.

English people...so bold. So foolish. At least two living crewmen try to make a run for it.

[TechnoScrabble]

Open Sea

The decks of the ship itself open up, yawning wide to swallow the men whole, depositing them somewhere in the ship's extra dimensional belly to have their bodies slowly digested and their souls forced into fierce agony so they may later be made into soulsteel.

The spit never reaches the mark, held in midair briefly before the Mind-Hand Manipulation technique flings it back at its source.

"I won't damn your men by assuming you actually speak for them, but you, sir, get no second chances."

Unless somehow immune, the captain now gets to experience his blood forcing its way out of his pores to form a tentacle that forces its way against his forehead, planting an egg in his skull. Over the next few moments, the egg will gestate, and some undoutedbly weak and craven demon form of the would-be suicide bursts from his skull in a bloody torrent!

"Now, for the rest of you, any takers? "

[Lady Serpentine]

[Ship of Ghosts]

From a distance, one might mistake this ship for a normal one. But as the (likely unfortunate, though, this being the Nexus, one can never really tell) observer approached, they would soon see that the sails were tattered, and no crew walked its decks, nor were there oars out - it drifts at the mercy of the tide, and, to a point, the wind, though the damage done to the sails makes that less of a factor.

Of course, this is unlikely to actually stop anyone from boarding. What sort of adventurer would be scared off by that? (A smart one, arguably, but really now. A smart adventurer? Blasphemy! Or, rather, one smart in that particular way - smart and reckless, or at the very least naive or overconfident? That's time-honored tradition.)

Regardless, though, anyone who does board might notice a feeling of being watched from the shadows, and hear odd noises from below...

[TechnoScrabble]

Ship of Ghosts

GhooOoooOOOOoOOooSt ShiiiiIiiIIIIIIIiiiip?

Well that's hardly an offer any real pirate can turn down, now, isn't it?

A dark shape rises up from the waters near the ghost ship, a boat rising from the waves! A solid mass of unnaturally smooth and organic looking black wood with an armoured prow in the shape of a roaring sea-demon, with black sails etched.with green and white blasphemies of fire! Atop the vessel hustles a crowd of horrid and irrevocably changed demonic sea-beastmen, captained by a tall, lithe man with a shifting kraken tattoo and a pearlescent feathered bicorne hat!

"Sea Witches at the ready! I don' have meself any ghost ships yet!"

[Lady Serpentine]

[Ship of Ghosts]

The wood of the ship... Opens, some sort of black pits in the sides caving inward, and lithe, thin, forms slipping into the water. And, as they move, they leave dark, oily, trails behind them, trails that hiss and smoke, eating away at the water and spreading a burning, choking, mist across the ocean. A mist that moves slowly towards the other vessel, as the strange things in the sea approach.

However, it's a safe bet that whatever these things are, the creatures swimming towards the ship now aren't the only ones on it, or probably the only type, as strange sounds fill the air, and the barest hints of movement can be glimpsed within.

[TechnoScrabble]

Ship of Ghosts

Whatever those beasts are, they will encounter a small school of massive shark mermen accompanying the demon-boat, all teeth and scarred grey-blue hide.

Two ballistae on the foredeck are loaded with a coinjoined bladed chain that appears to be made of black ash and burning green embers, sparking and hissing aa trio of Sea Witches annoint it with seawater. The sailcutter is fired at the central of the ghost ship's mast!

[Earl of Purple]

Boardwalk Date

"That sounds good, though first you need to clean your face. You've got quite a bit of food around it." Agape smiles as she gets ready to leave, picking up her sheep (BAAAAA).

[Lady Serpentine]

Ship of Ghosts

Whatever those beasts are, they will encounter a small school of massive shark mermen accompanying the demon-boat, all teeth and scarred grey-blue hide.

Two ballistae on the foredeck are loaded with a coinjoined bladed chain that appears to be made of black ash and burning green embers, sparking and hissing aa trio of Sea Witches annoint it with seawater. The sailcutter is fired at the central of the ghost ship's mast!

The sailcutter... Hits? Not that it does much, unless it's magical in some fashion. I mean, it does cut down the mast, but... Really, that doesn't do much, seeing as it was just drifting. Though depending on the tide and the winds, it might be making it a little easier or harder to hit, perhaps. Still, not necessarily the most efficient way to attack a ship that no-one is trying to steer.

That said, the fires might be a bit more of an issue - though as they burn away the wood, some kind of dark resin is revealed to have been laid underneath it, and that seems much more fire-resistant. As for burning souls? Well, something certainly seems upset, given the unearthly howl of rage and pain that's let loose from the depths of the vessel, but it's still hard to say what...

Meanwhile, the crew gets its first good look at the things! Sort of. They're, well, still surrounded by a cloud of thick black sludge-stuff, and that's pretty good at obscuring vision, especially since down here the nasty mist it's making is just sort of slowly spreading out around them. Though the clouds themselves are all between five and seven meters, which is likely a bit larger than whatever's producing them. It's probably not the best idea to go in after them - though on the other hand, the mermen might not have much choice, since a few moments after the creatures producing the stuff stop moving, there's a quiet clicking noise, followed by a series of bubbles shooting towards them like bullets - and potentially just as lethal, if not more so. Which also gives them their first glimpse of the actual creatures within the clouds of toxic gunk, since they blow it out of the way as they pass, revealing something vaguely insectoid for a few moments before the cloud restores itself.

[TechnoScrabble]

Ship of Ghosts

At Effigies' command, the hellboat starts powering forward at unnatural speeds, the armoured prow shifting and gnashing in hungered expectation.

The shark mermen beneath the waves are agile underwater, but not so Mich as to avoid lightning fast plasma. Several are struck, and the calvacade of heat and pressure causes them to rupture into bloody masses and start floating upwards. Similar bubbles, roiling with hot air and plasma, streak up from the seafloor at the attackers, battle being joined by the shrimpmen as they inexorably march forward, something large and dark waiting in the distance beneath the waves.

[Lady Serpentine]

[Ship of Ghosts]

A series of piercing wails ripples out from the center of the clouds, as the plasma bolts strike home - not quite as effectively as the ones that the things in the clouds fired, so far as can be told, since they're adapted to deal with the backblast from their own shots, but still, they did apparently injure them. Though the shrieks of pain are probably fairly disorienting to anything nearby...

Meanwhile, the resin shifts again, another rent appearing in the side of the ship, as a massive tentacle of some kind, made of what looks like splintered and reshaped bones coated in the same resin that the ship is filled with, ending in a scorpion-like stinger, lashes out with surprising speed, trying to shove itself down the throat of the oncoming ship; should it succeed, it will do its best to stab the tip of said stinger into it, injecting something into it if it can, though it's not immediately harmful if it does manage to.

[TechnoScrabble]

Ship of Ghosts

Supported by the shrimpmen's fire, the mermen rush at the clouds, aiming to tear the beasts within apart with their jagged weapons and vicious fangs!

The onrushing demon ship opens its iron mouth to roar, loosing a massive gout of smokeless green flame in a powerful eruption just before it can collide, hoping to soften up the ghost ship. If this fails to remove the tentacle as well, the stinger has a hard time making it through living malfean iron, but the ship roars in pain and snaps down on it all the same!