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...

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

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"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."

"And then, I dunno....make his balls weight ten pounds to hold him to the ground till the cops came."

Okay so maybe it wasn't the best plan which is one of the reasons why Roxy was never team leader, but you have to give her points for creativity. When he huffs she glances at him and the corners of her mouth twitch up into a smile.

"......Did you just admit to liking my ass?"

That pulls a bark of a laugh out of him. Points for creativity? Absolutely. At least until it sort of makes him wince to think about. "As uncomfortable as that sounds, I'm glad to hear it," he says. "As long as you're powered enough to take care of yourself a man won't hafta worry about you runnin' around unarmed."

He shrugs and smiles obnoxiously, neither confirming nor denying that accusation. "It ain't half bad. Doesn't get in my way so it fares better than most."

Her smile grows even more and she leans in to kiss his cheek, "Awwwww does that mean you'd worry about little ol' me? You're sweet."

His comment about her ass makes her laugh and she glances over her shoulder at her own rump, "Obviously you haven't looked at it enough then, it always gets in people's way. I've got an ample booty and now with all these layers it looks even bigger."

"Somethin' like that," he mumbles. There's a kind of glower he gives that isn't really a glower at all and those who know him well enough can spot it for what it is— the bashful smile of a man who lives like the universe will take him to task for giving a shit about people.

"How could anybody know what you're hidin' under there? You could curtain Buckingham palace with that much fabric." Needless mockery is his love language.

Roxy may not be the smartest girl when it comes to things like science or math but she knows people and she easily spots the difference between Logan's glower and his bashful smile, she returns it and moves her chair a little closer to his.

"Oh sure, you mock me now but where else are you gonna find someone this pretty and fancy to hang on your arm and your every word all night?" She teases back and then lifts her glass of stout.

"Shall we toast to your victory in the ring?"

For Logan the best kind of people are the kind of people who understand when a frown is a smile and a shot in the arm is as good as a hug.

"Not in this fuckin' place, that's for sure," he says, wincing at the sight of the motley crowd about them.

He knocks his drink gently against hers. "Hope you put your money on me."

Roxy giggles and is about to respond with a clever remark when a large, beefy man puts his glass down at their table and leans into their conversation.

"Speaking of money, how much you charging tonight hon?" He breathes at her and she wrinkles her nose in displeasure.

"For me to kick your ass? Oh I'll do that for free, now kindly fuck off." She snaps back, moving her chair closer to Logan's.

"Oh she's a smart mouthed little one is she?"

It takes a moment for the initial offence of being eaves-dropped upon to wear off and what really shakes him from insult to amusement is how quickly Roxy claps back at the fool. He chuckles when the man addresses him like her keeper.

"S'a brazen tact to take, bub," he warns and stretches his arm around the back of her chair. Right where she needs him, if she wants him. But knowing what he knows now about the extent of her powers he's in no hurry to defend the honour of a woman who could so easily dispatch this fellow herself.

He leans towards the man a little and lowers his voice. "You seen me in the ring, fella. If you make me get up and hitcha you know what you're in for. You make her take a shot at you though... yer in for a terrible surprise."

The man looks warily at Logan for a moment but the asshole allure of harassing a woman is just hard wired into some people and so he clamps a large hand onto Roxy's wrist and yanks her out of her seat.

"I've got a surprise fer her..."

It's all he's able to get out before Roxy grabs the glass of stout she had been drinking and slams it into his face, her usually sweet and cheerful smile a snarl as the glass shatters and cuts his face.

"I told you to FUCK OFF." She growls and a second later the man is being pushed away by an unseen force. He falls back against one of the tables, spilling the drinks of whoever is seated there. Which unfortunately is a group of unsavory types who probably don't take very well to having their evening interrupted.

Bar room brawl anyone?

When his warning isn't heeded Logan narrows his eyes. He makes a move for the man's arm when he grabs at her, but unsurprisingly Roxy has an answer of her own for this.

The schadenfreude tickles him, laughing as the big idiot staggers a bit only to end up on the floor to deal with his face.

When the interrupted table rises to sort out the cause of this little interruption they look to the pair of them and Logan looks angry about it.

"Now don't start nothin' won't be nothin' fellas," he starts in at them. "If he kept his hands to himself he wouldn't have a face like he's been Frenching a box grater."

As a negotiation tactic it doesn't get far, but at least he can say he tried, Logan thinks when someone lobs a bottle. He ducks. And the smash shatters that moment of tension for the whole pub.

The first few lob themselves right at him. A few more lob themselves at their attackers. It's hard to know who to hit until they're swinging at you, but swing he does. Claws neatly in his fists. Content to lay them out with whatever objects he can swing instead of the blades in his hands.

Edited 2022-01-21 06:42 (UTC)

It's not her first time being in a bar fight, but it is the first time she's ever done it in such a fancy gown. The dress impedes her movement for sure but that doesn't mean she's helpless, especially not when she can use her powers to help push or flip anyone who is dumb enough to try and grab her. She's careful to not use them outright though, trying to at least sort of keep up the illusion that she's normal.

She glances over at Logan and sees that he is dispatching goons almost as fast as they are launching themselves at him and she smirks, knowing that those poor idiots are gonna be hurting tomorrow. She takes a step back so she can get a bit closer to Logan now that there's a bit of space around them, throwing him a smile.

"You wanna go a few more rounds with these losers or shall we make a hasty retreat?"

Despite the heavy way he throws a debilitating haymaker, Logan too has been careful of giving away the farm. Even if the way knuckles crunch upon contact with his skull confuses those who come at him, his claws have stayed neatly in his fists. Rumour is one thing but evidence is quite another.

He smiles back when there's a moment to breathe. "I think we're gonna have to find a new place for a drink, whether or not we level the place," he chuckles.

He grabs a bottle of the bartop and passes it across the face of the next guy that grabs a handful of his shirt. When the man hits the floor he looks at the bottle. Surprised that it didn't break. "Let's get outta here. They ain't gonna put me back in the ring after this."

Roxy laughs and grabs Logan's other hand, tugging him towards the front door. A few goons try to step in her way but with a flick of her wrist they seemingly slip and tumble to the floor, gravity is a bitch after all. Once they emerge from the bar she smooths down her dress and adjusts her veil and hat a little, still chuckling to herself.

"Shit I haven't been in a bar fight in years, you certainly know how to show a lady a fun time." She says, "Sorry I kind of ruined your easy money ring fighting though."

While he doesn't think he can say the same, he's certain this is the first one in a while that's so thoroughly amused his company.

"Don't worry about it," he says, dusting something off his shirt that will definitely not come off. Probably not even with soap. "I ain't the first of their pitbulls to bite someone outside the ring," he shrugs off his guilty smile.

"S'at what brought you out here tonight? A chance to rearrange some dockworker's face?"

Edited 2022-01-24 15:14 (UTC)

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cw: disrespect of sex workers, propositioning

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