come_sailaway | In her sepulchre there by the sea

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In her sepulchre there by the sea

Who: Palamedes Sextus and his cavalier, Camilla Hect, the rest of the House Heirs, a gaggle of spooky monks, some skeletons, a murderer, and you!
What: Memshare adventures! All memories are open to all.
When: Anytime in March
Where: Canaan House, Earth!
Warnings: Canon-typical blood, violence, and mild body horror
Notes: Below the cut you will find some scene-setting and descriptions/notes for each of the prompts. Prompts themselves are in the comments!

In general, characters will assume that you arrived with the other visitors to Canaan House a few weeks before any of the events described below, but they will have no idea who you are and why you’re there, and will be extremely suspicious of your presence.

Canaan House rises out of the sea like a castle, a tower, a crumbling mausoleum. Outside the small island on which it stands, the ocean stretches as far as the eye can see, sparkling under the bright rays of Dominicus. The building itself is clearly old, crumbling in places, windows cracked and bricks pitted; even on a thanergenic planet, where life must fight for its existence, nature is slowly overtaking one of the last symbols of humanity on the planet all people once called home.

Inside, the sense of grand decay continues. If you squint, you might notice the way it resembles a university building, some wings made up with wood floors and elaborate bannisters, fading paintings and rotting tapestries on the walls, while others are full of large, light-filled spaces, all glass, and steel, and concrete. There is a large courtyard with a dry fountain, broken elevators and flights of stairs that end halfway up, and dozens of doors with numbers above the threshold, each with its own unique lock, each requiring a key to open. Listen closely and you might hear an ambient hum of electricity, or the quiet clatter of bone from the dozens of otherwise-silent skeleton constructs that clean, and cook, and gather food for the planet’s first guests in nearly ten thousand years.

Welcome to the First House. Don’t stay any longer than you have to.

The Wind Came Out of the Cloud By Night
Investigate a murder scene! This is the best chance of meeting lots of other characters or exploring Canaan House more broadly.

The Demons Down Under the Sea
Solve a puzzle, fight a skeleton monster, hang out with Palamedes and Camilla

We Loved With a Love That Was More than Love
Experience Palamedes death! Please note that unless previously discussed, characters will not be able to interact with this memory, only observe.

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"It's a little like that. The place I came from is ..."

She finds that sometime in the last few moments, wholly without intending to, she's decided to tell him rather more of the truth than she initially planned.

"It's an artificial universe of sorts, a very small one, that's capable of connecting to many, many variations of reality. All of us who live there now were brought there from our own realities. And what's happening now appears to be that cracks are forming in the artificial universe, connecting to all those realities at different times, and ... one of those cracks is what brought me here."

His world is, and always has been, so strange to her. Necromancy, thanergy, thalergy — all the little bits that have slipped through in the time they've known each other, all the parts she'd committed to memory and tried to understand the practice of if not the actual concept. But truth of the matter is so much had been glossed over that she wasn't prepared for the magnitude of Canaan House, nor the full unveiling of events as the woman who is not Dulcinea spells them out. And this is a hell of a way in which to find out. The situation feels more dangerous than their calm discussion is appropriate for, the baby hairs on the back of Clarke's neck standing up just as the blood begins to drip from Pal's. Her teeth set and grinding as the muscles in the side of his jaw tighten. Goosebumps flare up across her arms and a shiver runs down her back that has nothing to do with the temperature of the hallway.

And then he says he's going to kill her. And Clarke's feet unglue, she wants to push into the room and help —

Only to be met with an invisible barrier right in the doorway. Which is confounding and infuriatingly horrifying all at once. It's not unlike any other door she'd encountered in life — something strong and impenetrable right in front of her; the bridge, the blast door of mount weather, the airlock glass behind which her father had been executed and her friends had almost been suffocated, the door in the bedroom at Polis after Lexa's body had been taken out and she and Murphy had been locked in. There have been many doors she's unable to open in Clarke Griffin's lifetime and this, like every single one before it, strike a chord of dread and desperation deep in her gut. Added insult to injury, this time she can see right into the room! It's like she ought to be able to walk through and be there, can even hear them talking and see the expressions wash over their features, but can't be seen or heard herself. It's like drowning in a frozen lake and pounding on the thick sheet of ice while you can see people walking across the top of it.

"Pal... Pal. Palamedes!"

She tries to push at it first, and when that fails, hits with a balled fist and kicks with the steel reinforced tip of her war boots. All to no avail, the two of them are in their own little world and it's one in which she doesn't exist. Has no business barging into or trying to change things, like she'd done with Natsuno and the shiki, or Skulduggery and the murder of his family.

Natsuno looks up at the bitchy barbie trio when the pale one speaks. Ah, so she's one of those people. Probably thinks she's the epitome of wit. Natsuno shrugs again and goes back to work.

He steps back wordlessly when instructed, opting to remain quiet and expressionless until something happens.

The wry cheer is familiar, and a heartening thing too. It tells Jade that the chances are at least decent, here...of the Palamedes before him now not being so far off in character from the Palamedes he knows on the Serena Eterna. (Not always the case with many passengers at certain past points in time, after all--as Jade would know, having rather unfortunately exhibited the worst case scenario himself in his own memories...) Even the dangerous glint in his eyes isn't entirely off-putting to behold, and it's met evenly with Jade's own unnaturally red ones; it is sensible, after all, to be wary of a stranger cropping up in a strange place. Jade has a sense that the general environment surrounding them currently is rather more hostile than not...and so there's certainly no fault to place upon the young lady for drawing her sword as she does, either. He doesn't flinch at the sight of it.

"My, have I been indeed? I can only hope it's the flattering kind of speculation, or at the least not anything too embarrassing." His own cheer remains, echoing that wryness in turn; they'd often match such a wavelength quite easily back on the ship. But Jade knows he can't exactly bank too hard upon that previous relation here and now...and that it might be outright unwise to do so. Some prudence would probably be beneficial, here.

He doesn't yet move from where he stands, hands still casually tucked in the pockets of his distinctive uniform. "Either way, though, I'm certainly not half so famous here as yourself. Palamedes Sextus, Heir to the House of the Sixth and Master Warden of the Library--yes?" ...As Pal had introduced himself, once before. It doesn't take any pretending at all, really, for the pleasant smile on Jade's face to take on a genuinely warm bent. Though it's a brief thing, there and gone, since he goes on to offer a slight polite nod to the young lady and her blade beside him. "A pleasure to meet you as well, Miss...?"

Edited (WORDS IDK edit spams you whoops) 2023-03-15 21:52 (UTC)

Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn. It takes Natsuno a moment before it clicks - the bodies at the bottom of the ladder. Palamedes discovered the murderer, not before she picked off more victims.

He listens on, caught in the story despite himself. A lot of it is still unfamiliar and confusing, but the important things are obvious enough. This Lyctor woman has a myriad-old grudge and she'll have her revenge at any cost, including the life of someone Palamedes clearly cared about.

Seeing the blood tricking down his friend's neck, Natsuno realizes he's planning something. The woman prattles on about Pal taking this sensibly and oh, for all the time she spent in disguise, killing and sowing confusion, she has no idea who Palamedes Sextus really is.

Natsuno doesn't call out, because he doesn't want to distract Pal, but what he thinks is: fuck her up.

Camilla follows him, parking herself in the doorway between the two rooms so that she can keep an eye on both the Master Warden and this surprisingly helpful yellow monster. When the door to the chamber whooshes shut, she unsheathes her sword, the movement almost exactly in time with Wayne’s grab for his own weapon. If Wayne happens to look back, he will see the girl looking inscrutable as ever, with only the slightest tightness around her mouth to show her concern.

“Warden, something’s happening,” she calls to Pal, who is making a grimace of concentration and doesn’t respond.

Meanwhile, a strange, soupy mist fills the chamber. It swirls around Wayne for a few moments, and then, just as it begins to dissipate, a skeletal monstrosity emerges from the darkness. With eyes that glow, it charges at Wayne, its scythe-like arms swinging.

“Warden!” Camilla calls again, more urgent now, rushing in to the pedestal room and bodily yanking Pal away from the glass panel. At the twitch of his wrist, the cage around his hand retracts. In the same moment, the mist in the chamber clears, the skeleton dissolves, and the door slides gently open.

Palamedes’ mouth makes a small ‘o’ as Cassandra explains. By the time she finishes, he has produced a notebook of flimsy from the depths of his pockets and is hastily scribbling in it. “An artificial universe? Emperor’s bones, of course. No wonder it’s breaking apart, if there’s continual movement between it and different realities—how many people are we talking about? And how long has it been in existence?”

Camilla clears his throat, but Pal ignores her.

“And who made it? I’ve never heard of a necromancer powerful enough to do such a thing.”

“Warden.”

Pal winces. “Sorry. Cam’s right. I do get away with myself sometimes. I suppose you would like our help getting back there.”

"Young Warden of the Sixth House, what have you done?"

"Tied the noose," says Palamedes Sextus. "You gave me the rope. You have severe blood cancer, just as Dulcinea did. Advanced, as hers was when she died. Static, because the Lyctor process begins radical cell renewal at the point of absorption. All this time we've been talking, I've been taking stock of everything that's wrong with you--your bacterial lung infection, the neoplasms in your skeletal structure--and I've pushed them along. You've been in a terrific amount of pain for the last myriad. I hope that pain is nothing to what your own body's about to do to you, Lyctor. You're going to die spewing your own lungs out of your nostrils, having failed at the finish line because you couldn't help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting. This is for the Fifth and the Fourth--for everyone who's died, directly or indirectly, due to you--and most personally, this is for Dulcinea Septimus."

Not-Dulcinea sounds impressed, but not particularly worried. "Oh, it's going to take a great deal more than that. You know what I am, and you know what I can do.”

"Yes," says Palamedes. "I also know you must have studied radical thanergenic fission, so you know what happens when a necromancer disperses their entire reserve of thanergy very, very quickly.”

“What?”

And that’s when Palamedes hears someone calling his name. His concentration briefly broken, his gaze snaps towards the doorway, expecting to see Gideon calling to him. Had his split concentration been too much? Had his friend gotten free of her necromatic bonds? For her sake, he hopes not.

But no, it’s not Gideon Nav crying out to him—it’s a girl he doesn’t know, and yet, through some strange work of the multiverse, somehow understands he should know. He looks straight at her and takes a breath, and there’s apology in his grey eyes that he wouldn’t be able to explain if asked.

Then he blinks and calls, “Gideon, tell Camilla—Oh, never mind. She knows what to do.”

The room explodes in cold, white light.

"Young Warden of the Sixth House, what have you done?"

"Tied the noose," says Palamedes Sextus. "You gave me the rope. You have severe blood cancer, just as Dulcinea did. Advanced, as hers was when she died. Static, because the Lyctor process begins radical cell renewal at the point of absorption. All this time we've been talking, I've been taking stock of everything that's wrong with you--your bacterial lung infection, the neoplasms in your skeletal structure--and I've pushed them along. You've been in a terrific amount of pain for the last myriad. I hope that pain is nothing to what your own body's about to do to you, Lyctor. You're going to die spewing your own lungs out of your nostrils, having failed at the finish line because you couldn't help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting. This is for the Fifth and the Fourth--for everyone who's died, directly or indirectly, due to you--and most personally, this is for Dulcinea Septimus."

Not-Dulcinea sounds impressed, but not particularly worried. "Oh, it's going to take a great deal more than that. You know what I am, and you know what I can do.”

"Yes," says Palamedes. "I also know you must have studied radical thanergenic fission, so you know what happens when a necromancer disperses their entire reserve of thanergy very, very quickly.”

“What?”

Pal raises his voice, but not to call out to the stranger in the doorway. "Gideon! Tell Camilla--Oh, never mind. She knows what to do."

The room explodes in cold, white light.

No one seems particularly happy to allow the Sixth House heir to take charge of the seance, but none of them protest, either, perhaps grasping, however so briefly, the seriousness of the situation. What follows will be familiar to Natsuno: Palamedes calls out to the spirits of Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn, begging them to return and share their blessed, vital knowledge with the rest. On cue, every necromancer slices their palm. The twins clasp bloody hands, and Silas presses his palms together in prayer, and Palamedes merely allows his blood to drip, drip, drip just inside the circle.

The florescent lights flicker, and for a moment it seems like something like happen.

But nothing does.

She can't quite suppress the smile at his enthusiasm, at least not until his last words.

"It's kind of you to offer," even though he hasn't exactly offered, "but for one thing, I'm not certain I want to go back, and for another, I think it may happen of itself if this continues. I don't wish to get in your way, though, especially if you're investigating a murder."

Valdis is greatly torn between putting this ancient crone in her place and not interfering with Palamedes memories, but her roommate is idiotically white-knighting for someone who is already dead.

"What is it with men and thinking they have all the answers." She rolls her eyes, "I like the other you better."

Heroes are the actual worst.

"Your pride is going to bite you someday and I certainly hope I get to see it. Or...hear about it later. But, you," her attention returns to the other woman, "I do know your fate, you will fall today and I have no intention of changing that fact."

“The most logical theory is that you are a Cohort spy, come to observe us and report on our activities,” Palamedes says conversationally. “Though if that is the case, you must be a particular secret—I believe that even Captain D— is puzzled by your presence.”

If Pal is all casual calm, Cam is the opposite. She remains alert, head erect, eyes narrowed slightly, looking ready to spring at the first opportunity. “Camilla Hect,” she answers.

“Cavalier Primary of the Sixth and Warden’s Hand,” Palamedes adds. “But surely you already knew that.” He arches a brow. “So, who are you, sir? Put those rumors to rest, by all means.”

Natsuno resists the urge to film the ritual. There's something ridiculously dramatic about all these necromancers slicing their palms. It's also disgustingly appetizing.

His raises his eyebrows when the lights flicker, but just like in Camp Aion, nothing happens. Natsuno clears his throat and remarks politely:

"When my friends failed a seance, it was because someone more powerful was binding the spirits."

He has no idea if it applies here as well, but maybe he can use some of his Serena Eterna knowledge to help.

Wayne makes a sound that could very well be interpreted as an 'oh not again' sort of groan as he shifts his footing, squaring his stance and preparing to pull a defensive Gesture. His hands are raised with the handle of his axe balanced on his wrist, until the skeleton dissolves in front of him.

"Uh...Warden?" He doesn't actually know Pal's name yet, but a title is better when they're not familiar with each other right? He straightens up, still watching the place where the skeleton disappeared. "What did you do?"

Camilla Hect. Jade's attention sharpens upon her for a brief moment, when she answers with this name and Pal attaches the according titles. Just based off the musing conversation they'd been having together before Jade interjected, a vague notion had already begun to form...but the flat confirmation sheds a new light all the same. Upon a certain memory, from countless months ago now--back on the ship. Himself and Palamedes, mutually trying to wind down from a terribly fraught conversation. Certain vulnerabilities they'd offered up to each other as apologies, in that time. 'If Camilla escapes Canaan House alive, and if she can find a spirit adept of enough skill...'

Spoken with a yearning for a dear friend. Ah, and this young lady here most certainly must be her. The new context aligns perfectly with the alertness of her bearing, a wary watchfulness at Pal's side.

"...Yes, it is sensible to hear," Jade agrees slowly, to the notion of already knowing who she is. A prompt respect is formed, but shelved. Pal's already going on to ask the rather more relevant question here, and Jade returns his attention to him, his own smile turning wry once more. "I suppose I probably ought to assuage at least a handful of those rumors, it's true. Not a spy of the 'Cohort' at all, I'm afraid. Hm, the best way to probably describe it...is that I don't believe I hold any affiliation to anyone else here whatsoever, at the moment."

Really, it's the tricky thing about these memory ventures--trying to weigh just how far the truth might get anyone, against the shrewdness of a given audience. And Palamedes Sextus is one of the most shrewd audiences one could possibly have, all things considered...which certainly adds an extra layer of difficulty here. With other memories he's dealt with before now, omitting the truth or outright lying has generally worked more or less in his favor. But here, in front of this particular person...yes, in the end, Jade decides the best path might be to dispense the truth in parts. Ideally keep gauge of the reactions as he goes...

"My name is Jade Curtiss. I am a Colonel of the Third Division, within Malkuth's Imperial Forces. ...But I'll be surprised if 'Malkuth' rings with any familiarity to you."

“Well, now I have about fifty additional questions—“

Cam pointedly clears her throat again. This time, Pal takes the hint.

“But you are correct in your assumption that we have more pressing matters to see to. Not about the murders, I’m afraid to say, but about,” he gestures towards the chamber behind him, a twinkle coming into his eyes, “this.” Palamedes watches Cassandra for a few moments, his gaze scrutinizing, but not unkind. “Camilla,” he says, sounding cheerful now, “was there anything in Teacher’s rules about accepting help from inter dimensional travelers?”

Cam arches a brow. “No, Warden.”

“Well, then.” He spreads his hands. “What do you say, Cassandra de Rolo?”

"Oh, and I suppose you have that written down somewhere in the Book of Death or some equally ominous-sounding tome? Emperor above, Anastasia would have adored you."

Cytherea begins to laugh at her own joke, but the laughter soon dissolves into wet, hacking coughs that shake her entire body. Her eyes still on Valdis, she says, "Young Master Warden, you've done something."

"I have," he answers. His gaze flickers to Valdis briefly--he does not trust this woman who seems to have strong opinions on his character without ever having met him. But here and now, they share a goal. "You have severe blood cancer, but it has remained static, because the Lyctor process begins radical cell renewal at the point of absorption. All this time we've been talking, I've been taking stock of everything that's wrong with you--your bacterial lung infection, the neoplasms in your skeletal structure--and I've pushed them along. You've been in a terrific amount of pain for the last myriad. I hope that pain is nothing to what your own body's about to do to you, Lyctor."

“The pet has opinions,” Ianthe drawls. Her sister giggles.

Almost in unison, Palamedes Sextus and Harrowhark Nonagesimus speak. “An interesting theory.” They lock eyes for a moment, and immediately agree never to speak of the moment. Pal does beckon Harrow over, and after a moment does the same to Natsuno.

In the background, Gideon stands, stretches, and drifts closer to her necromancer.

“Teacher warned us that something was down here,” Palamedes is saying.

“Teacher is a paranoid louse whose brain has been addled by solitude,” Harrow shoots back.

Pal shrugs. “Perhaps. But he’s probably also right. As is, I suspect, our new friend here.” Harrow purses her lips at this assertion and looks Natsuno over coolly, but doesn’t object. Pal turns to Natsuno. “Do you know very much about breaking wards?”

Both Palamedes and Camilla hurry back to the first room, only to find the door open and the monstrous construct gone. “I took my hand off the panel,” Palamedes says. “Of course. Naturally, if the dermal contact sets the trial in motion, then removing it will cause the trial to abort. Quick thinking, Cam. That was quite the beast in there.” Turning to Wayne he adds, “I am very sorry to have put you in danger, friend.”

Cam has gone still. “Warden?”

“…Yes?”

“How do you know what was in the chamber?”

Palamedes blinks and locks eyes with Wayne, realization dawning. Everything had happened so fast, he had barely had time to comprehend that he had been looking through Wayne's eyes. “I saw it.”

The empire of the Necrolord Prime isn’t a society that encourages a sense of trust. The House Heirs had arrived on the First with all their suspicions and prejudices intact, all built up over centuries of propaganda that told them that they were the true masters of necromantic arts, the rest of the Houses pretenders at best. They may have more in common with each other than not, but that does nothing to lessen their animosity.

But all of them maintain even less faith in the members of the human race that live beyond the House system. Even Palamedes, who has from time to time voiced his objections to the Empire’s wars of expansion, imagines those faraway people as victims at best, and threats at worst. And the man before him certainly doesn’t seem like a vicim of anything.

“I can’t say I have,” he answers carefully. “What is Malkuth when it’s at home, Colonel?”

Hmm, as reaction-gauging goes, this is not a positive one. Still not terribly surprising. Palamedes really is far too shrewd a person, to try evading about in a situation like this...

"Malkuth is one of three major nations upon the planet of Auldrant. Which I imagine to be very, very far from this place." This is entirely honest too, and Jade's prompt and firm answer denotes it as such. ...But he does follow the words with a slight and almost conceding tilt of his head.

"To judge by the caution of both your bearings, and the tension of the overall situation here--trust in strangers must be in terribly short supply, and I certainly don't fault either of you that. ...I could say that I'm not here of my own volition. That I have in fact been drawn here by some other force entirely outside my own understanding, and am still trying to find my bearing on these current circumstances. But when it barely sounds believable aloud in my own ears, I'm hardly about to demand that you take my word for it either."

Put himself in Pal's shoes. Clearly trying to solve a pressing issue in an imposing place, only to find a stranger cropping up with stranger answers to rather basic questions. ...Yes, if Jade were confronting a situation like this himself, from the other side...

"So, the real question now is probably how I ought to prove myself here, isn't it? I won't demand that you trust me at my word, but I'd rather not be run through with prejudice by your cavalier either." Here, a slight tilt of his head. "...How receptive might you be to an offer of assistance with the current situation, I wonder? The two of you did seem to be investigating something, before I quite rudely interrupted."

Looking between the two of them as they discuss, Wayne's brow furrows, then smooths as he starts connecting dots himself.

"But why? To separate your crew? If you have to fight this thing on your own, but...you saw it too... Did you see anything else?" he asks, looking from Cam to Palamedes. There has to be a reason that a mechanic like that was implemented into this trial, right? Nothing like that was ever accidental.

Corrupted Angels of Death have no need for tomes, or rules, or even the will of gods, but Palamedes' conversation with the woman is far more interesting than any petty retort she might come up with. She can feel the sensation of coming death grow stronger, but she's not entirely certain it's the woman's death that is coming. It...feels as if, no matter how clever Palamedes' plan may be, it is going to fail. But she's still loathe to interfere. It's too late to actually change what is going to happen.

Valdis takes a step back, "I wish you the best in your next life, Palamedes."

"I'm happy to be of assistance, but ... I'd like to know what 'this' is, before I offer. If it's anything to do with necromancy, I'm not sure how much help I can be."

She glances past him at Cam, trying to gauge how she feels about this possible arrangement.

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In her sepulchre there by the sea

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bless ianthe, always so charming

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Bros understand that sometimes you gotta make something go boom

She's a peach

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Ship!Palamedes is so proud of you, Natsuno

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