polylogs | Got the morbs.

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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...

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He likes to let the others get a few good hits in. It only seems fair when he knows how it's going to end. But that familiar voice at full volume pulls his attention enough that when the other man's knuckles collide with his nose it's not the least bit intentional.

"Ah fuck..." he mutters. The wet crunch of cartilage comes with the brief smell of blood. It's enough even to trickle from his nose during a fleeting moment of intense swelling. A good hit to say the least.

He spits a thick gob of blood and narrows his eyes at his combatant. A moose of a man with more mutton chops presently cradling a hand more injured than Logan's face. "Yer done..." he mutters. With a little clumsy dancing from the man cradling his own hand it only takes a swing or two to bring him down. A victory that sours no small portion of the crowd as Logan hops the ring to take a break and a drink.

"That's quite an outfit for a fight," he teases.

To say that Roxy's voice at full volume is distracting is an understatement, after years of being the lead singer in the church choir at Catholic school she's definitely got a set of pipes on her, but she hadn't been trying to distract Logan. She only wanted to cheer him on.
So when his opponent gets in a good hit to the face she winces, biting at her lower lip and eagerly watching to see what will happen next. To no surprise Logan takes the large brute out with two hits and when he hops down out of the ring and joins her she smiles.

"Hey don't blame me, whoever left this for me at the Temple must have known I had extravagant style." She says, smoothing some of the ruffles of her skirt. She then bats her eyelashes at him playfully.

"So...wanna buy a lady a drink?"

"Hey, it's a compliment," he assures holding up his open palms in a gesture of innocence. "You gotta be a brave sorta gal coming to a place like this lookin' like that."

He can't help but notice how many of these less-than-upstanding citizens keep throwing glances in her direction. Places like this don't see a lot of women. Let alone women as well put together as Roxy presently is.

"Course, I'm sure you can handle these goons. In fact, I'd put odds on your for it," he juts a thumb towards the ring and smirks.

"What are you drinkin' tonight, darlin?"

"Yeah well...I got thrown out of the art gallery so I figured I'd come somewhere a little more my style." She says with a grin, one that grows when he alludes to her getting in the ring.

"That's a bet you'd totally win." She says with a laugh, "Although I'd probably have to take half this dress off to do so, I already had one mishap in it the other night...damn layers are impossible to run in."

She links her arm through his and lets him lead them towards the bar, ignoring the stares they are getting. "I think it's stout. It's dark and thick...that's stout right?"

"What'd you do? Cheer the tour guide with your ringside voice?" he teases. Because he likes people who seem to know that his teasing is a kind of adoration.

He coughs out a laugh and shakes his head at her. "Darlin', if you keep sayin things that start with 'take this dress off' I'm gonna gonna have to punch someone who didn't show up for a match today," he warns. As much as he's certain she could manage her own affairs just fine, he still doesn't care for the way some of the riffraff keeps an eye on her. And language like that isn't helping.

"Most of the time," he nods and slaps a handful of shillings on the bartop. "A couple of stout."

"You ain't got enough hands."

"With four between us. We'll manage," he insists flatly. Smart mouthed as their bartender might be, he's not stupid enough to go on arguing himself out of a sale.

"I didn't realize when they handed out kit they were handin' out social status too," he says. Roxy would be the first time he's come across another traveller who looks like she's been integrated well above his station.

She giggles and wrinkles her nose playfully at him, "Nah I guess I was making too many loud comments to Kyle about how pornographic some of the paintings were. Y'know, making lewd hand gestures and laughing too much."

Her eyes open up a bit wider when he mentions having to punch people in the bar due to her way of speaking and she gives his arm a little squeeze. "Well it's a good thing a lady like me has someone who is so willing to fight for her honor. I can usually handle myself but I don't really feel like testing it tonight, especially after what happened last night."

She motions to a fairly nasty cut on her right cheek, "Some guy attacked me last night in an alley. I should have been able to fight him off but he caught me off guard and I got tangled up in this damn dress."

A dress that seems to have a certain class association that she hadn't even thought about, "If they're handing out clothes that are supposed to match our social status then I must have gotten the wrong dress. I grew up in a trailer park and aint no lady." She pauses and touches the luxurious fabric, "Although it's kind of nice to pretend for a while...."

"Harlot," he smirks.

"S'at what that is? Didn't seem right to ask," he confesses, but his brows furrow thoughtfully when she leaves him with that information. You can almost see the gears turning in the old man's head. "Where were you when that happened? What part of town?"

Her tone when she talks about pretending strikes a gentler chord than their conversations usually take but Logan's ears rarely miss it. "I was thinkin' more like somethin' to do with whatchu deserve," he smiles and passes her pint when it arrives. "Then they got it exactly right."

"Just a bit."

She lifts her veil for him to get a better look, thankfully the wound hadn't been deep enough to need stitches and Carter had tended to it as best he could given the islands supplies. "Over by the pubs, I heard a woman scream and went to help but by the time I got there she was dead and this guy was running down the alley. I followed but got tripped up and he grabbed me, almost took out my eye but my friend Malcolm interrupted him and he ran off."

She looks up and gives him a grateful smile at his comment about things being what they deserve, "Thanks. I like your cap by the way, very fetching."

"Best ones always are."

His mouth pulls into a hard line when she uncovers her face. One part anger, one part sympathy. "Careful with that, eh? Not exactly London's most sanitary era," he says with the kind of salt in his words that only someone who'd lived it could swallow. "Malcom. Hm. I think met him over a body— you know what that's all about don'tcha? Least, what I think it is given the neighbourhood..."

"Heh, thank you," he says, knocking the brim politely. "I don't mind it. 'Til I catch my own reflection. Then it knocks somethin' loose in my head just about every time."

"You flirt."

She notes the change in his expression and nods, "Yeah don't worry. Carter is keeping an eye on it and keeping it clean, it's handy having a nurse on the island. Well....a nursing student but whatever." His comment on what the murders are about makes her pause and she raises an eyebrow.

"You think there's a reason behind it? I thought he was just a crazy asshole."

"I been called worse."

"Reason? Nah, that I don't know about. I just mean the time. The place. The deed. Strikes me like Whitechapel's most famous murderer. Don't they got Jack the Ripper in your dimension?"

"Would you rather I go back to calling you a dirty old man?" She asks with a grin.

Realization dawns on her face and she groans, "Omg like that movie with Johnny Depp! I didn't even think of that!"

History buff she is not.

"Potato, potahto," he smiles smugly.

"Johnny—" he chuckles. "If that's what it takes. Sure. I think I had a run in with same guy the other night." Which implies a kind of prolificness that makes Logan wonder if this place has warped the history of a killer into everything the legend made him out to be.

"You got yourself a weapon? Something to keep in hand when you're out on the street?"

"Okay, I'll call you a potahto then." This is said with a wink.

Her eyebrows go up when he mentions that he might have run into the same creepy as her, "No, no weapon. Guess I should remedy that huhn?"

"Just what I need, another nickname."

"I'd reckon. At least for a little while. What's a girl like you favour? I imagine anything resembling a discrete firearm is gonna be hard to come by around here."

"Sorry, I tend to give people I like nicknames."

She wrinkles her nose again and shakes her head, "No guns. I don't like them, been shot at too many times to ever really want to use one myself."

"You n'me both," he says with a guilty smile. "I ain't fussed darlin'. I always got room for another."

"Fair 'nuff." She wouldn't be the first on his list of allies who don't fuck with firearms. "You handy with a knife?"

She giggles, enjoying his guilty little smile.

"Uh I can probably stab someone okay but if you're asking if I can throw one or do anything fancy? Nope."

When he scratches his head it tips his cap up a little. "Yer powered at least ain'tcha? What is it you uhh.. do? Again?"

There's a nagging feeling that she's explain this to him and without ever having seen it in action it has yet to stick.

"Yeah, gravity manipulation." She says, and then sighs. "Not that it helped me much when I got surprised and choked out...."

He cocks his head like a dog hearing a noise it doesn't understand the source of. Confusion plain and simple.

"Not for nothin' darlin'. That sounds like some serious power you're packin'. You sayin' it didn't work, or just that he got the drop on you?"

"He got the drop on me." She admits with another sigh, obviously frustrated at herself. "I was following him, tried to fly and got tangled up in this dress and when I landed he grabbed me by my throat."

She takes a long sip of her stout. "It's hard to concentrate on gravity when you can't breathe."

"You were following him?" he asks with a look that shouts you-should-know-better without saying anything.

"Yeah, I'll bet that's tricky," he scoffs. "I guess a knife ain't gonna be much help if payin' attention's your real problem."

She shoots him a 'yeah duuuuh' look right back. "Of course I was! He just killed someone, I thought I could grab him."

A frown crosses her face and she folds her arms over her chest, pouting. "I can pay attention just fine thank you very much."

"Just grab him, eh? And then what?" he asks. The irritation in his question is minor compared to the legitimate curiosity as to what her plan was.

He huffs when she sulks at him and together they look like grump and grumpier. "Good. Then be careful and don't get yourself stuck. Some of us would miss your argumentative ass."

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