Got the morbs.

[polymods]

✖ 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

Comments

[neverwither]

( Having expected Sephiroth to be entirely skeptical, finding he wasn't proved enough to a draw to join him at the seance. A cursory claim of scientific curiosity had been made for both their comfort, of course.

All appears to be going reasonably well, until the spectacle seems to give way to something more real. She makes very hasty apologies as she's on her way out the door to chase after Sephiroth. Maybe he'll just want to be alone, but she can at least give him the option to not be.

Looks like her apologetic ways have come in handy as if she'd appeared a moment before, she probably would have gotten a fireball to the face. And Sephiroth can create fireballs now? Has he always been able to create fireballs? She would have thought he'd mention something like that, if only as a point of pride.

There's a lot to unpick here.

Instead of outright asking if he's alright, she goes with:)

Would it be time to make another effigy?

[unkindled_madness]

[She certainly might recall that when they did burn effigies, he used a match. So this is definitely new, for the islands.

He doesn't ask if she's all right either, he's sure the fire didn't reach her, but he does give her a quick glance over, still frowning.]

...that was meant for the ghost.

[neverwither]

...Ghost?

( Okay, add that to the 'there's a lot going on here' pile. Though they were at a seance so his... not exactly respectful behaviour could have angered something? )

[unkindled_madness]

I assume it followed me from that "seance."

[Yes, he's throwing scorn on it, even though he clearly believes the woman successfully summoned a ghost of some kind.]

...that, or it's some manner of curse.

[neverwither]

Either option is plausible, all things considered. ( She gestures vaguely around them as if to say 'that's magical island life for you.' )

And, well, I hate to state the obvious but... we do have some sort of idea as to how these things tend to go...

[unkindled_madness]

Yes, I'm sure it wants something from me to leave me be, but sometimes violence works just as well.

[He scans the street around them, looking for some indication of where the ghost might be, but it's quiet for now.]

[neverwither]

( Chloe looks a… little skeptical about the efficacy of violence, as Chloe is wont to do. )

Can one actually fight a ghost?

[unkindled_madness]

Yes.

If they manifest, they are weak to fire.

[This is a factual statement about ghosts.]

[neverwither]

( Chloe is no Ghostbuster and with his world being different to her own, the factual statement could absolutely ring true. It’s just… kind of not the point. )

If I may make an unpopular suggestion, I think there are only so many things you can burn, Sephiroth.

[unkindled_madness]

What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?

[Has she maybe picked up on his tendency to suggest arson, even if most of those suggestions have been in jest until now?]

[neverwither]

Just… ( Wherever the thought was going, she opts not to finish it. )

We both saw what was being spelled out.

[unkindled_madness]

And? It can stay there. It's nothing to me.

[Extremely convincing given his storming out.]

[neverwither]

I’m not really sure if it has stayed there, though, given the fact you’ve apparently acquired a ghost.

[unkindled_madness]

A temporary situation, surely. They always are.

[neverwither]

…I don’t think that’s exactly the point, is it?

( Such stubbornness from Sephiroth is expected, of course, but Chloe has a little air of ‘really now?’ to her. )

[unkindled_madness]

You know I don't much care for the "lessons" the Ancient tries to push on us.

[neverwither]

( Sephiroth, brace yourself for some tough love from Chloe. Super tough. Once she takes a breath and prepares herself to get the words out. )

What happens when there are no more ghosts, no more effigies, no more enemies left to burn? Keeping it all locked up tight when there isn’t anything to fight… It isn’t being strong. It shows the power it’s all able to hold over you. I think you could run the risk of always fighting ghosts.

[unkindled_madness]

[You tell him, Chloe.

He is, predictably, not appreciative. He lets out a low growl.]

That man has no power over me. He is an irrelevant waste of time.

[A shutter comes loose from a nearby window, crashing into the street. Clearly the ghost agrees this is a very true statement.]

[neverwither]

( Just as predictably, she looks as though she’s going to falter and back down.

The ghost’s actions make her jump, blinking at the fallen shutter for a moment. Nope. Not going to be afraid. Not of spirits or fire balls or anything else. For once, she’s going to see something through.

Because sometimes being a friend means telling someone what they don’t want to hear. )

Then just say his name. Even that… you’re letting him have the power. You’re giving it to him.

( It’s something she knows. She does the exact same thing. )

[unkindled_madness]

What, by refusing to acknowledge him?

Hojo. Are you satisfied? [Not "Professor" Hojo anymore now, ten years older. He says the name with contempt.]

[neverwither]

( Oh dear. Looks like Chloe’s on a roll. Sorry, Sephiroth. )

I know how you value being autonomous, but is this really how you want to be? Shinra wanted you to fight, didn’t they? To be a soldier? So now you fight everything? Is that being your own man? Or could it be surviving the only way you know how?

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth bristles.]

They didn't raise me to fight them. A soldier is meant to comply, to follow orders without question.

[That was how he survived, so this- this is different. This is asserting himself. Isn't it?]

[neverwither]

They didn’t. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they may not have foreseen the possibility that you might. And even if you aren’t following orders, it seems to me that it’s following a way of life. Different shades of the same colour are still the same colour.

( Chloe gradually softens, though she isn’t entirely relenting. )

Being your own person doesn’t mean having to go against everything. Or standing completely by yourself.

[unkindled_madness]

I cannot change what I am at my core.

And whatever allies I make here may be of little use in the future, when I return to my world.

[neverwither]

( What he is and not who he is? It's an interesting word choice. Or perhaps she's reading too much into it. )

And what would you say you are, at your core?