Unknown Seas Mods / NPCs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bathymetric) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
unknownseas2021-01-24 10:36 am
bathymetric) wrote in unknownseas2021-01-24 10:36 am
COMMENCE VOYAGE
Fun Fact: Did you know the Atlantic Ocean has a surface area of 41.1 million square miles? No reason.
...
There's something uneasy in the air as you come to.
Well, "come to" is an interesting word in this case. It implies waking up, which is not exactly what happens. None of you are in beds, nor are you really asleep in the traditional sense. One moment you're somewhere else, doing something else with your time, and the next? You're somewhere on board a massive cruise ship - maybe lounging on a deck chair by the pool, maybe getting some Gains in the exercise room, maybe enjoying the tasteful décor in the buffet - and you have no idea how you got here or how you might get back. This is not your beautiful house. If you have a beautiful wife, she isn't here.
What you do have, apart from 25 other unlucky souls, is a small smartphone-like device in your pocket with only a handful of things on it: a clock reading 11PM, a pdf of a ticket in your name on a special Atlantic Liners New Year's Eve Cruise, an app labeled Passenger Profiles with some basic information on your traveling companions, and a message:
Welcome aboard, passenger! Please feel free to partake of any of the facilities while you wait for the big event! Remember: when midnight comes, you better make your way to the theatre at the back of Level 1 for the main event! The Captain and the First Mate will be there to take care of you all personally, and to help you ring in the new year in style!
Well, that's a start. But what you do until then, it seems, is up to you!
...
There's something uneasy in the air as you come to.
Well, "come to" is an interesting word in this case. It implies waking up, which is not exactly what happens. None of you are in beds, nor are you really asleep in the traditional sense. One moment you're somewhere else, doing something else with your time, and the next? You're somewhere on board a massive cruise ship - maybe lounging on a deck chair by the pool, maybe getting some Gains in the exercise room, maybe enjoying the tasteful décor in the buffet - and you have no idea how you got here or how you might get back. This is not your beautiful house. If you have a beautiful wife, she isn't here.
What you do have, apart from 25 other unlucky souls, is a small smartphone-like device in your pocket with only a handful of things on it: a clock reading 11PM, a pdf of a ticket in your name on a special Atlantic Liners New Year's Eve Cruise, an app labeled Passenger Profiles with some basic information on your traveling companions, and a message:
Welcome aboard, passenger! Please feel free to partake of any of the facilities while you wait for the big event! Remember: when midnight comes, you better make your way to the theatre at the back of Level 1 for the main event! The Captain and the First Mate will be there to take care of you all personally, and to help you ring in the new year in style!
Well, that's a start. But what you do until then, it seems, is up to you!
no subject
What...
[...]
What are you even talking about? Have you all even figured out who he is yet, or are you simply throwing some wild guess?
[...]
It is not as though I... did not make it obvious, I suppose.
[He turns away in shame because hoooly shit, what did he expect, begging for his life like that? Why would he expect any mercy?
...
He had... hoped that...
...
...he feels a little sick, so he leans against the railing of the deck.]
no subject
No. As Jasper turns away, Sylvando inwardly asks himself what he was saying. Even if there wasn’t something strange going on with their memories here, that wasn’t the right thing for him to ask Jasper to get him to stop. In his last moments, he...
Tentatively, Sylvando joins Jasper at the railing.]
I’m sorry, Jasper. That was uncalled for on my part.
[Because even after everything Jasper did, he knows what led to it. He knows there was still some hope for him, if things hadn’t had to go they way they did.
That’s what makes this encounter so astonishing.]
Are you saying we don’t know yet, from what you last remember?
no subject
...it's nice to talk to someone who is actually offering help, even if it's the fucking clown, but what's his agenda, he's got to have...
...
What else does he have to lose.]
Yes. Well, perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you all actually managed to put two and two together. The...
[...fuck, he's too shaken to be smarmy about the whole DaAaAarkspawn thing...]
Your little leader seemed to suspect you were being followed, at the very least. Did you know, or...?
no subject
Are you talking about back at Yggdrasil? [He shakes his head.] No... We hadn't the faintest clue back then. You completely caught us off guard. That's when Mordegon revealed himself, and...
[He trails off. That really was their darkest day.]
Jasper, are you trying to say things went differently for you?
no subject
[...yeah, what the fuck is going on.]
"Back then."
[...okay. He'll just breathe a second.]
How long ago do you mean.
no subject
[Weeks? Months? What are JRPG timelines.]
Yet you speak of it like it just happened. Is that true?
no subject
[what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck]
You... you somehow overcame me, with some sort of...
[...he laughs in that haha, what the fuck, I don't kind of way...]
Well, the Darkspawn thing was really quite ironic, given whatever that greatsword he had was, but...
...you mean you remember me winning there, then.
no subject
Y-Yes! You had one of the orbs, and we couldn't even land a scratch on you!
[He just shakes his head in disbelief and offers the dark ocean waves a dazed stare.]
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The Luminary certainly didn't have a greatsword with him, let alone one that could defeat you.
This is- How have we experienced completely different events??
no subject
So... I was not...
[He stares out across the sea, completely...]
...I do not understand. How did he get that sword? More than anything, it looked like something that would genuinely belong to the Lord of Shadows. Did he just...
[...]
Did history go differently somehow?
no subject
[But wow, beating Jasper back there would have changed everything. Would they have defeated Mordegon as well, before the calamity could even happen?]
I suppose this must be the work of whoever brought us here...not that it makes this any less astonishing.
no subject
[...it's making a little sense on that end. but. he still sounds really drained when he says it, and even more so when he asks his next question.]
...
So what happened, then. Aside from the obvious.
no subject
[That day is still difficult to talk about, even now. So many lives lost...
At least he gets to follow it up with something positive.]
But it wasn't enough to stop the Luminary for good.
no subject
[GRUMBLE GRUMBLE.]
Can you not skip to what you brought up before? Everything is over already, is it not?
no subject
[But no, he'll skip to the end. Otherwise we'd be here explaining an entire act.]
It is, yes. We had defeated Mordegon not long before I found myself here. That is why I'm...very shocked to see you here, truthfully.
no subject
So in the end, things are the same for me. It merely takes longer in your end of things.
[Maybe the Luminary's gang killed him instead of Mordegon.
...
God he hopes it was just the Luminary and not Hendrik.]
no subject
I don't expect you to believe me, but I truly wish things could have gone differently with you. That you and Hendrik might have reconciled before it was far too late.
no subject
[He says it very sharply, as though the mere mention of Hendrik's name just set him off...]
In any case, he was not the only reason I made my decision. I thought...
[...he doesn't want to admit out loud that he wanted to think he actually believed Mordegon cared whether he lived or died to anyone, much less this fucking clown, so he shakes his head.]
...
It does not matter now.
no subject
...actually.]
Does it not? I mean...you're here now, aren't you?
[That has a lot of possible implications.]
no subject
...what even is there to go back to, really? Regardless of who is carrying it out, I am certain that all that awaits me is execution.
no subject
[He feels ridiculous for even saying that aloud. If anything, there is someone far more deserving of this opportunity than Jasper, and this Jasper has yet to even have that interaction with Hendrik that might have changed everything.
But still...]
Ugh, it really isn't me who should be having this conversation with you. But I know Hendrik would be thinking the same thing.
no subject
...
And you say that as though he thinks of me at all.
no subject
[A-Awkwardly letting that subject lie for now...]
He does think of you, though. And that's not just me making assumptions. He told you as much himself.
no subject
What... do you mean.
[He sounds very suspicious. Hendrik is too dumb, honest, and sincere to lie, but that doesn't mean the clown isn't lying.]
no subject
He was so torn up about what had become of you, because you spoke of surpassing him when he felt it was you who made him into everything that he is today. He called you his guiding light, Jasper.
[It doesn't get much more blatant than that, does it?]
I don't think he ever really realized just how much you were suffering until it was too late. [He lets out a frustrated huff.] You boys needed to be so much more open with your feelings.
no subject
...he... tries to shake it off. He doesn’t know what to believe here. Mordegon... well, of course Mordegon would lie. He also told Jasper what he wanted to... well, no. He reinforced what Jasper believed even if he didn’t really want it to be true...
...]
I do not have any reason to believe you... but I do know that Hendrik is too much of an honest idiot to lie in order to protect someone else’s feelings, so if I were to ask him I would likely get a trustworthy answer.
[...he shakes his head.]
Ugh. I cannot believe that man. I doubt he would notice if you stole the nose from his face.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)