polylogs | Got the morbs.

Entry tags:

Got the morbs.

✖ VICTORIA'S SECRET

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The ferry pulls into port in the evening, when shadows are long and gas lamps burn through a veil of mist. Dozens of other ships are docked as well, with men unloading crates and boxes from their holds. Beyond the wet wood and lapping sound of the ocean, a city looms like a charcoal smudge on a purple sky. The air is smoggy and thick, and the river that flows from the sea into the city smells foul. Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.

In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!

Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.

Notes:
1. Unless this is your character’s first island, the High Temple and anything you may have stored there is off-limits this month.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The city greatly resembles Victorian London, and the technology and general way of life is all of that era. Feel free to explore the city! These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

4. Most food is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities. Most. Some of it’s going to be pretty gross or cooked improperly, so be careful.

5. The people in the city are normal humans unless otherwise indicated. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Have fun!

Ⅱ. SEANCE
CW: grief, past trauma.
Perhaps you overhear talk of it at a pub, or maybe you’re handed a small card as you push your way through the crowded city streets. Maybe you just wander in by accident. However it happens, you find yourself being ushered into the parlour of one Miss Mary Price: Spiritualist.

You and several other people are instructed to sit at a round table in a very dark and musty room. The walls are covered in thick black curtains, and maybe you’re the type to suspect that there’s someone hiding behind them somewhere. Once everyone is seated, Mary Price herself enters the room. The lights are all extinguished save for a single candle.

Mary calls out to the spirits. They communicate through a series of knocks, or the movement of a Ouija board. Someone at the table is put in contact with a deceased aunt who reveals the location of a family heirloom. Someone else is able to say goodbye to a son.

Mary Price looks at you with eyes so dark they look black, and asks, “What haunts you?”

Maybe you answer honestly. Maybe you don’t answer at all, but that doesn’t matter because the spirit tapping around the room is more than happy to narc on you and tell the whole room what or who it is that you cannot forget.

You can deny it all you like, but the spirits don’t have a reason to lie. And if you try to mess up the seance, you will spend a month being hounded by an angry poltergeist.

Notes:
1. The spirit can communicate through knocks, the Ouija, actually vocalising through the medium, or via ectoplasm.

2. What haunts your character does not have to be the memory of a dead person. It can be an event - maybe they’ve never gotten over losing that science fair in grade three. It is the feeling of being haunted that is important.

3. If you choose to trash the seance, the spirit will follow you for the rest of the month. It can range from annoying to actually dangerous.

Ⅲ. THE RIPPER
CW: murder, gore, violence.
You’re lost at night. Maybe you were in the pub too late, or maybe you were searching for more illicit fun - weren’t there opium dens around this time? - or maybe you just weren’t keeping an eye on the time. However it happened, you’re on the streets in the dark.

It’s very foggy; you can barely see a foot in front of you. The streetlamps look like dimly burning ghosts and when the odd person passes you they are felt more than seen, just a darker shadow in a world of shifting shades.

Very suddenly you hear a scream - short, and swallowed up quickly by the fog. Still, it’s enough to get you to turn and hurry down a narrow alleyway.

Sprawled on the ground amid a lake of blood is a body. It’s immediately apparent that this person is probably beyond help - their throat has been slashed ear to ear. Your appearance was not expected, however, and you can see that you’ve startled the killer: they’re running down the alley in the opposite direction.

You have a few choices: you can chase the killer and attempt to catch them, you can try to help the victim, you can get the authorities, or you can just walk away.

What will you do?

Notes:
1. The inspiration for this prompt is Jack the Ripper but you do not have to use that case as a basis for your killer.

2. You can get as involved with this as you would like. You can have your character catch the killer in a chase, or form your very own detective squad and hunt them down that way.

3. Naturally, walking away from a potential serial killer might not be great for your Scrywatch grading!

Ⅳ. RESURRECTION MEN
CW: dead bodies, grave robbing.
You’re not entirely clear on how you agreed to this. Maybe it was a barroom bet gone wrong. Maybe you’re broke enough that you need money fast. Or maybe you want to help some wannabe medical students. However it happened, you’re in the cemetery.

And you’ve got a shovel.

Time to rob some graves! You’ve convinced yourself somehow that this isn’t morally reprehensible, and so you and your partner are just going to get down to business! What corpse should you unearth? You feel like a kid in a candy store!

The problem comes once you’ve unearthed the body because it seems terribly familiar. Which is… creepy. Creepier still when it starts talking.

Maybe it’s a family member, or an old friend. Maybe an ex partner. Whoever it is, they immediately start telling your fellow grave robber about some incident from your past that you just. Can’t. Let. Go. Of. And even if you whack it with a shovel it won’t stop. Bad corpse! BAD Corpse!

Which of course is exactly what you have to try and do if you want this chatty Cathy of a corpse to shut the hell up.

Notes:
1. If you do NOT let go of this past event, the corpse will follow you the rest of the night singing Henry the Eighth I am, I am.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. The Temple

The era-appropriate dress she feels obligated to put on is much less uncomfortable than she would've anticipated, but that doesn't mean she's not still incredibly awkward in it, and misses her jeans and sensible shoes almost immediately.

"I don't suppose anyone in the city would sell me a pair of pants?" she mutters, almost to herself, as she adjusts the skirts again.

In another part of the temple, she might be found staring almost absently at a beautiful stained glass window. It appears to depict - well, a demon, or devil of some sort. He's red, he's got wings, horns, a tail. Chloe frowns, almost scowling at it, oblivious for the moment to the rest of her surroundings.

II. Seance (cw: grief, trauma)

Even a couple of years ago, Chloe would've said this sort of thing is all bunk. She still mostly thinks that, but that doesn't mean she's not a little bit curious about it. Especially here. After all, in these strange worlds they keep being brought to, just about anything is possible, right?

She was only intending to be a spectator, not a participant. So when a question is addressed to her - what haunts you? - she's somewhat taken aback.

"What? I don't -"

"Mommy, tell me Daddy's going to get better. Tell me he's coming home."

A child's voice rings from the medium's throat, and Chloe looks stricken.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice shaking. "I'm so sorry."

"He's dead! He's dead and it's your fault!"

III. Ripper (cw: blood/gore)

Chloe isn't really a fan of walking around this city alone, especially at night, but for whatever reason, here she is. It's dark, foggy and creepy, and the streets and alleys are narrow and winding - it's really nothing like LA, and she's starting to get worried she'll get lost when she hears it - something like a scream, cut off abruptly.

"Hello?" she calls, and turns down a dark alley, all alert for any signs of trouble. If she has to, she'll rip her dress up to fight or run. "Hello?"

There's a choking sort of gurgle, and Chloe turns toward it, only seeing the person as she's about to step in the blood trailing from the wound in her neck. "Oh my god -"

A shadowy figure darts down the alley, and she yells, "Hey!" after him, but she doesn't go chasing him. His victim is still alive, if only for a few moments, and even if she's going to die, Chloe would never leave someone to bleed out alone in a dark alley. She kneels, putting her hands over the wound, doing what she can to staunch the bleeding. "Help!" she yells. "Help! I need medical help!"

IV. wildcard

[ Got any other ideas? Toss me a starter or shoot me a plurk at

frodabaggins! ]

Malcolm had been having a late evening dinner at a pub and was walking back to the temple when he heard the screams. He runs through the narrow alleys, following the sound of Chloe's voice until he finds her crouched over a woman bleeding out in the street.

"I'll get help!" he tells her before running in the direction of the local hospital. He fires off a quick voice message over the ScryWatch network, just in case any of the Travelers is a doctor. Not having phones is really a disadvantage in a time like this.

"Hurry," she manages, the warm blood already making her hands sticky and her dress tacky. The poor woman makes another choking noise and Chloe rips at the cloth of her dress to try and bind the wound, but she's fighting a losing battle.

She's dealt with injured people before, she knows how to keep her cool and call for help, even knows some basic first aid. But the memory of Dan, bleeding out in her arms, is so close, she almost can't distinguish this woman from that mental image.

"Goddammit, stay with me!" she says, feeling her voice suddenly thick with tears. She doesn't know this person - she's a total stranger to her. But all she can see is Dan.

He can barely speak by the time he gets to the nearest hospital, he's panting so hard. Between gasps of air, Malcolm manages to convey the urgency and some doctors make haste as quickly as they can. He hops on the hospital's ambulance - a horse-drawn carriage - as he shows them the way to the scene. Here's yet another missing technological advance. Malcolm is pretty sure that they aren't going to make it. The victim's jugular was cut.

They find Chloe in the dim light of the alley, leaning over the woman and trying to staunch her bleeding. Malcolm hangs back, watching to see if there's anything that the doctors can do.

Chloe can tell that it's far, far too late. There's nothing she can do, no way to stop the blood from pouring out, over her hands. She could chase after the assailant, but he's long gone, so she does the only thing she can - she stays with the poor woman, so she doesn't just die alone in this dingy back alley.

That's how Malcolm and the medics will find them - Chloe, cradling the dead woman's body, blood all over her and tears streaking her cheeks, though she's relatively calm for all that. She gets up, to allow the medics to examine the body, taking a shaky breath and staring blankly at the blood on her hands.

"I'm pretty sure it was a man," she says straightforwardly to Malcolm. "Tall, six foot one or so, tall hat, big dark cloak, but I didn't see his face."

If her voice is a little shaky, well, that's her own business.

Having lost victims before, Malcolm gets it. It's an awful feeling, and you blame yourself, even though it isn't your fault. Chloe's a seasons homicide investigator though, and while Malcolm expects some empathy from her, he doesn't expect the shaky voice. That puts his antenna up.

He nods at her description. "Sounds like a standard Victorian boogeyman," Malcolm says. "After the medics finish, we'll have to look at the crime scene." He turns slightly towards Chloe. "Did you know her?"

Perhaps they met in the brief time that the Travelers have been on this island.

Chloe Decker | Lucifer | OTA

III.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

II

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i.

no subject

no subject

no subject