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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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Her cheeks go a little pink and she can't hold back the smile that spreads across her lips, "It's actually going really great....you're probably the only person I can say this to without them looking at me like I'm insane but he's so damn sweet to me! And gentle and kind...and fuck. So far he's treated me better than any of my ex-boyfriends."

She laughs and shakes her rump at him, "Nope. I was going to get the exact cutie pie art but then I thought that was too dorky so I got the artist to change it a bit. It's cute though right?"

"Good! And like, he better. You've got friends in high places. High powered that is," he points out. "It's weird for me to think of Deadpool as... well, any of those things really. For mutants my age he really brings that weird uncle vibe. But I have heard he's kind of intense when it comes to relationships. Historically speaking."

He looks at her with narrow eyes a moment and bobbles his head around like he's reluctant to say the word. "It's cute! It's cute!" he caves, throwing up his hands.

"Get in," he suggests. "I'll add more hot water and stoke the stove before I join you," he promises.

Edited 2022-01-25 04:52 (UTC)

She pauses to look at him for a second, touched by his protectiveness of her. She hasn't had a lot of that in her life and if she weren't totally naked she'd throw her arms around him in a big hug. "I guess he does kind of have that weird uncle vibe, I know he's a lot older than me but I dunno...it works between us. And holy shit does he know how to make love to a woman, I nearly broke that Tunnel of Love when we went through there."

"I knew you'd like it." She exclaims with a laugh and then heads over to the tub, dipping a toe in to test the temperature. Slowly she slides in, sighing as her skin hits the hot clean water.

"Ooooooooooooohmygawd Quentin this feels amazing, yer gonna love it."

Quentin's too fickle to be called loyal, but there's always a handful people he's more determined to look out for then he'd let on.

"I don't think powered people, mutants and the generally weird get to hold too fast to human hang-ups about age differences. I've literally time travelled so much I have no idea how old my cells actually are anymore. And like, does age reset with every mutant resurrection? Because if it does I have some uncomfortable news for Kyle..." He blathers as he strips down while another basin of water heats.

"Make room," he says shamelessly, adding another few litres of hot water to the other end of the bath before he winces through the initial hum of his skin and dips into the bath until his fair skin turns pink.

"Fuuuck. How did people not put all their time and resources into plumbing until that was sorted out?"

She giggles as he blathers on, not really understanding what he's talking about when he mentions mutant resurrection but happy to let him talk. She shifts over enough to make room for him in the tub and then grins as he exclaims over how good it feels.

"I have no idea, but I do know that everyone is stupid but us." She says and lets herself sink down further, enjoying the way the hot water is slowly relaxing all her muscles. There's a soft knock on the door and then the muffled voice of the man who greeted them, "Excuse me miss? But I decided to take your advice and have helped myself to some of the master's wine, would you care for a bottle as well?"

Roxy squeals, "YES! Just leave it by the door please!" She calls back and when she hears his footsteps retreat she nods at Quentin. "You wanna use your brain powers to grab that for us babe?"

Edited 2022-01-30 20:06 (UTC)

"Agreed," he says closing his eyes and letting his glasses fog up in the steam of the bath. He'll always concede to that point.

He lifts his head quickly, clearly still a little anxious, at least until the interloper makes himself known.

Quentin snorts at that request. It's somehow both reductive and flattering. "Is that what I am to you? A breathing reacher-grabber?" complain as he always does, he still doing exactly what's been requested of him as the door peels open just enough to deliver them that bottle. On a tray with a couple of glasses no less. Before it shuts heavily behind him.

"They sure love to do things all proper huh?"

Roxy just smiles, knowing that Quentin is just bitching for the sake of bitching and wants to sink into full luxury with a bit of wine just as much as she does. Once he's moved the drinks over to them she takes the tray and puts it on the floor next to the tub, pouring each of them a hearty amount of wine.

"They really do, look at these wine glasses. So fancy!" She says and passes him a glass, "Cheers Pinkie!" She clinks the rim of her glass against his before sinking back against the tub.

"This feels....so good."

"Cheers," he smiles smugly. He's not much of a wine guy. Especially while visiting an era with so few standards. But combined with all else it does feel luxurious in a way he's missed immensely.

"Yeah. It sure as hell does," he sighs. Sticking his feet up on the edge of the tub. "I don't think I'm going to be able to go back," he admits. "This place doesn't even have hot water on tap but it's still so fucking beyond anything in the city, there's no way I can go back to some slum."

"And you didn't even have to brainwash anyone," She says as she downs half her glass of wine. "All it took was a little southern charm."

Her eyes flicker to his and her face grows serious for a moment, "I'm sorry about that by the way. It was kind of rude of me to assume you'd be down for that, it's probably a good thing that you're trying to not do that as much. Like...I'm proud of you and junk. Way to be have some personal growth."

He snorts and looks a little bashful about all that. Only about as comfortable with earnest sincerity as most young men.

"Don't worry about it. It's not rude. And I AM down for that shit. Like pretty much always. I want first dibs on all your unlawful plans, ok? I'm just like... a little worried lately. About things with Kyle," he shrugs.

Roxy's brows instantly knit together in concern and she puts a comforting hand on Quentin's leg.

"What do you mean? I thought you two were doing great? Fully in love and devoted to each other."

"Oh, no. We ARE great. We're the fucking best together and I'm absolutely insufferable about the whole relationship," he assures.

"That's kind of what's freaking me out, you know? I still don't exactly know what this place wants with us. Or what we're supposed to trust around here. And I don't know what ultimately happens to us, or this little island hopping adventure they've got us on. And I can't stop thinking about like. What if it has enough of us? What happens to us then? Will it split us up just like we were before? What if we don't do whatever the stupid Scrywatch wants? What if it decides we're not the right color? Every time me and Kyle get more comfortable together I feel like maybe we're getting dependant on this amazing thing this place could just cancel on us."

Roxy nods because Quentin's worries echo some of her own, not that she's let herself really think about them, she's much happier to just shove such thoughts to the back of her head instead of obsess over them like Quentin does.

"I wish I had answers for you darlin, but I don't." She says softly, "And I'd try to tell you to not worry about it but that's kind of impossible for you I'm sure."

Her eyes look into his and she tries to give him a small smile of encouragement, "But something that might help is a reminder that if these islands suddenly decided they were done with us... between you, me, Wade, David, Kyle and Carter, I'm sure we could figure out some way to stay together."

He snorts a little. In part because she's making fun of him, and in part because his first response to optimism is always dismissiveness.

"I can shut it off!" he insists. "As an agent of chaos myself, I enjoy a significant amount of unpredictability in my life. Keeps things fresh. But the longer were here. The more we stand to lose.

"What makes you so sure of us anyway?"

She snorts and tops up her wine as well as his, "Uh because we kick ass that's why."

"Gravity is my bitch, you and Carter are both like super mega mutant telepaths, David and Kyle are both Smarty-pants, and my boyfriend is a super killing machine that does not die. If push comes to shove and something was gonna try and pull us all apart, that's not a list of people I'd want pissed off at me."

"Well. Yeah. We are pretty great," he concedes. It's perhaps not as much as bringing him to outright optimism about their odds in a place that's so well managed to hold them captive. But there's certainly no shortage of fire power amongst them.

Maybe he should reconsider their odds.

"Ok. Ok. I'll try to hold out hope for our little rag-tag bunch of misfits," he smiles through his wine glass.

Roxy grins and pokes his side with her foot playfully, "Thatta boy! Now pass me that soap, I'll get your back if you get mine."

A bottle of wine and much scrubbing later Roxy exits the tub with a happy squeal, her skin is pink and soft and for once she finally feels fully clean. She wobbles a little before grabbing a towel and wrapping herself up in it, grinning at Quentin. She's not drunk but the combination of hot water, a small breakfast and a bottle of wine has certainly made her tipsy.

He does as requested, despite getting a little sidetracked by some old timey bath tools along the way. "Look at this scrubby thing. I'm pretty sure the handle's made of ivory."

He snorts when she wobbles and drapes his arms over the edge of the tub, not yet prepared to part with the hot water.

"We're going to have to do this again. As soon as Kyle finds out we scored a free bath he's going to be super jealous."

"Oh we totally have to do it again, we can have sexy tub times with our boyfriends..." She says and then notices a door across from them that looks like it might lead to the joined bedroom.

"One second, I wanna see if the room through there has any nice perfume." She says and gives him a little wave as she opens the door and walks through. The connected room is dark, heavy curtains are hung up but Roxy immediately identifies it as a bedroom. She takes a few steps further into it, her skin suddenly breaking out in goosebumps but surely that must be from being fresh out of the bath, and nothing more. She has no reason to be afraid....right?

She turns her head and notices something glinting on the far dresser and as she approaches it her body temperature drops even lower and when she gets close enough she gasps, because sitting on the dresser is the long blade that she was threatened with the night before.

"Quentin I-!" She starts to say but it's cut short when a hand suddenly shoots out from the dark and clamps over her mouth.

"By the time I get enough corpse cash we'll all be back at the big temple," he grumbles. It's turning into a real kick in the nuts that his first effort at honest work might have been in vain.

While Roxy explores, Quentin climbs out of the tub and ties a towel around his waist. A fluffy spa robe would be nice, he thinks. But in lieu of that he slings on a silky smoking jacket hanging on the nearby garment rack. Only the bougiest bathrooms have garment racks.

"What?" he barks back. Synching the little robe around his waist. "If you're kicking it Jeeves, I swear to God..."

When nothing else follows his paranoia kicks in. A psionic shotgun materializes in his hand but his brain reaches out for her first.

If you're fucking with me in a dusty old mansion probably chockablock with grisly stories about creepy dead little victorian girls...

Thankfully this time Roxy doesn't have to fight with a huge purple gown and the second she hears her attacker whisper "I've missed you pretty eyes....." She uses her powers to propel her and the man grabbing her against the nearest wall. They hit with a loud crash and thankfully the hand over her mouth falls away.

"Quentin!! Help!" She cries and tries to scramble away.

At the sound of the crash Quentin stops asking questions. He flings open the door and trains his weapon on the first thing that moves.

A scrawny dude in a towel and a smoking jacket doesn't exactly strike fear into the heart of anyone, but he's got a lot of confidence for a guy in so few clothes.

"Who the fuck is this dude?!" It's the last question he asks before unloading a round from his gun. The crack it makes it only audible in the mind of its target. So too is the spray of searing pink buckshot that peppers their intruder. Embedding in the man some horrible sensation Quentin pulls off the top of his head— the smouldering sizzling feeling of ones skin burning in lye.

Roxy grabs at the towel around her in an effort to cover herself and lunges towards Quentin, her eyes are wide and panicked. "He's the Ripper!" She says, "He attacked me last night!"

The man makes a gurgling sound and Roxy looks at him angrily, "Yeah but you're in the shit house now pal!"

The screaming and flailing of the pained man makes for such chaos and then suddenly, swiftly he goes still and silently.

"I can't stand here and listen to that," Quentin says with the dismissive gesture towards their no catatonic friend. "What did you say? THIS dude? This fucking fancy boy is your Ripper??"

His brow knits tightly together. "Do you think his butler knows that? Because Jeeves is on his way up here right now to figure out what all the commotion is and he's gonna end up like little Lord Fauntleroy here."

"Yeah, last night I stumbled across a woman he killed in an alley and then he attacked me and tried to take out one of my eyes." She explains and then motions at the slash across her right cheek that is still healing. "Thankfully all he did was this to me because Malcolm showed up and scared him off."

"As for the butler, your guess is as good as mine. Should we go find him and ask? Or do you want to just check his brain?"

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cw: violence

cw: violence

cw: violence

cw: violence

cw: violence