Week 1

[bathymetric]

Good morning, New Rapture. A new day is dawning.

There may not be much light to differentiate the days here, but the lights of the part of the city you're in change enough by the clock that you can almost believe there's a sun somewhere. It looks like Mayor Fontaine has no intention of going back on his deal, and for the time being? You're all stuck here. But there's plenty to do, and... maybe not plenty to see, but there's enough. There's something, at any rate.

Especially if you're willing to look beyond the surface.

And if you spend enough time around others, you might find something neat!

No matter what, it's time to start getting to know your fellow captives. You might be here a while.




MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to the first week of Unknown Seas Round 3! We're very excited to have you. Please make sure to mark any investigation toplevels accordingly, and you can reach either Mayor Fontaine or Eleanor for conversations! ]

Comments

[kninja]

[God bless, Brett. He's literally the first person to ask directly.]

...His Highness Zen Wisteria, Prince of Clarines.

[Obi smiles helplessly.]

I wouldn't say, but his name's already on that profile of me. If they heard him say that, they know who he is to me.

[inaclearing]

[Brett smiles, more in response to Obi smiling than anything else.]

Are you two close? Like - personally?

[kninja]

I wonder. Now, how did he put it last week?

[Eyes closed, he tilts his face up towards New Rapture's dark ceiling, still smiling.]

"It's hard to give him--" meaning me, of course, "--a single label, but I'd call him my perfectly candid, eccentric friend." That's what Master said about me.

[Then his grin widens.]

'Course, the first time we met, he threw me off a second-story balcony and had me arrested, but I can't really blame him for that.

[inaclearing]

[He laughs.]

Wow, what did you do? Dodge all his bodyguards?

[kninja]

Yeah, more or less. Exposed a couple other glaring holes in palace security while I was at it.

[He raises his hands as if to flap all that away.]

Water under the bridge! Now I'm one of those very guards, though my place is at My Lady's side rather than his. Or, no, rather than rather than...

[Obi leans back on his hands again, humming as he thinks.]

It's my place to be with her when he can't be, and to take care of her as he would if he were there. That's the type of knight I've agreed to be for those two.

[inaclearing]

You need people to test the security every now and again. Better than getting complacent.

[It's too easy to get complacent - to assume that just because nothing bad has happened so far, that it won't.]

He must trust you a lot.

[kninja]

I like to think so. I worked hard to earn it.

[After a pause, he laughs a little.]

Man, I miss them like crazy. If that's how I feel, I dunno how you can stand it, being apart from someone you love that much.

[inaclearing]

I'm glad you have friends like that. That's nice.

[AND MAYBE SOMETHING MORE??? But Brett's not quite sure how to broach that.]

Luca and I both travel a lot for work. This isn't the longest we've been apart at all. But we talk almost every day, and I was - I was really looking forward to him coming out to the cottage. He's never been, but I've spent a lot of time in Whitetail. I wanted to introduce him to everyone there - make it a part of both our lives, instead of just mine.

[And now he won't be there.]

He's going to think something awful happened to me. I mean, it has, but...people go missing in those woods. And if they've been gone this long...

[kninja]

...Right. I see what you're saying.

[Oof. Poor Luca. Poor Brett. It's not quite the same, but Obi can't ignore a pang in his own chest at the thought that Zen and Shirayuki might think he just ran off without a word. He doesn't think they will, not after all this time, but it still... hurts, imagining they could believe he'd abandon them.]

We both got a lot of explaining ahead of us when we get back.

[inaclearing]

It was the middle of winter, too.

[The worst time to get lost in those woods. Everyone knows that he wouldn't just wander out there on a whim; Brett knows better, they all do by now. But accidents happen. That's been a fact of his world for a very long time.

"When we get back", though. That's a cheering thought. Brett turns to look sidelong at Obi.]

What do you think you'll say?

[kninja]

[He takes a moment to think that over.]

...Haa. Not like I can just go, "Hey, I wanted to give you two some space to catch up, so I made myself scarce for a week without saying anything."

I'll prolly have to tell them both most of it. This is too big a secret to keep, and too much of it is just too strange. If I talk about any of it, I'm gonna have to explain it all.

[inaclearing]

You don't think it'll sound too weird?

[Maybe not. Obi's from a different world than Brett.]

This isn't the kind of thing most people would believe, where I'm from. I'd tell Luca anyway, of course, there's...nothing else I could say. But I don't know what I'd say to everybody else.

[kninja]

So much of it is beyond belief, I think they'll know I'm not lying. Not that I can really lie to them, anyway.

[He rubs the back of his head.]

I wouldn't tell anyone else, except maybe Master's other two aides. It's not strange for me to come and go, otherwise. Master can probably cook up some excuse.

Maybe you and Luca can work on a story together.

[inaclearing]

Easier when you've got royalty backing you up, huh?

[He smiles, though it's brief.]

I guess we could. It'd have to be a good story. There's been...too many people lost in Whitetail, lately.

[And now Brett's putting them all through that again. He wonders if there's been search parties - if the kids delayed returning to college to help. He hopes they don't spend too long on something so futile.]

[kninja]

...That sounds like a story itself.

[Obi lays it down gently, an invitation to speak further or let it alone, as Brett wishes.]

[inaclearing]

...there was Jacob Wells, a year before I arrived there. He was just a high school kid. He got lost in the woods one night and never found his way back out. And then Howl, a few months back. He was...someone I knew.

[Maybe. And maybe, if Brett had acted differently, someone who didn't need to end up lost at all.]

I've gotten close with the Wells family. Peregrine, Jacob's sister - god, I can't imagine what this will do to her. She was one of the last people to see me.

[What must she think? She was already worried about being some kind of curse, having led Howl to his fate. There's no logical reason she could blame herself for Brett vanishing into thin air, but logic doesn't always play a factor.]

[kninja]

[Oof. It is a story.]

She's a kid, too? Peregrine.

[inaclearing]

Yeah. Eighteen, now. Same age Jacob was.

[He's barely even really told the story. Even the bare bones of it are a lot.]

She was very close with Howl, too. She told me once that she felt like it was a curse - that everyone she loved would leave her that way. It might not have helped much, but I almost wish they'd taken me before she visited. So she wouldn't have to feel like it was all somehow connected, again.

[kninja]

...That's a hard thing to move past.

[And it deserves its moment of gravity. He allows it before taking another breath.]

We'll just have to get you back home. Prove that feeling of hers wrong.

[inaclearing]

I told her it wasn't like that, of course. But you can't logic your way out of thoughts like that.

[He gets it. He was a kid once, too, trying to imagine how he might have turned aside something far beyond his power. He still thinks about it, sometimes.]

...yeah. Yeah. We'll all get home.