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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Camilla nods. Is that a touch of wistfulness in her expression? She seems to smile gently, her brows knitting together slightly. “The Warden’s good at calling the shots,” she says. “You just can’t let him get too cocky.”

By now, the entire skeleton has melted away, save for the creature’s pelvis, which sits at the middle of the room, slowly revealing a a small black box with a grey screen hidden within it. Crouching down beside it, she says, “You have? You’ll have to tell me about it, in case we run into something similar down here. Do you always wield an axe?”

On the mysterious box’s screen, a green status bar rises slowly: 15 percent, 26 percent, 83 percent. Then, with a click, it pops open.

There’s nothing inside.

Camilla leads the way back to the first room, where she pauses in front of the glass chamber’s locked door, and looks back at Cassandra. As always, her expression is terribly hard to read, but she appears calm and faintly curious.

As expected, the door slides open after a few moments as, presumably, Palamedes places his hand on the pedestal. “I’m going in,” Camilla calls, and then cocks her head at Cassandra. “What sort of weaponry do you have on you, aside from the dagger? And do you know how to use it?”

"A few more daggers," she says. "A rapier. Some items that aren't weapons but have potential applications in combat." A beat. "And yes. Do you think there's any point in one of us attempting to hold the door open?"

Palamedes expression remains concerned, even gentle, but there’s still a sense of remove in his eyes. He cares about this person because she is in distress, but it remains that he does not know her, cannot know her, in fact. And perhaps, too, the sheer emotional exhaustion of the day’s events and the nature of the bubble itself create an even further divide between himself and anything that could be considered deep emotion.

Yet he remains kind, terribly kind. Does he believe her? Palamedes isn’t even sure he can understand her, but clearly she believes what she is saying. “All right, all right,” he says gently. “Take a breath.” And he takes his own advice, too, because for all his outward calm, he can hardly see straight.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. And I understand that you do not wish to leave. I appreciate it, truly. But this room—I know it looks solid, but it’s as delicate as a soap bubble. The slightest bit of interference and it will pop, and we’ll both go tumbling into the River, and I—“ he falters, something of the hope, and fear, and despair he is holding back flickering across his face, “I cannot allow that to happen.”

He closes his eyes suddenly, wincing. “God, I have such a headache—well, not a headache, I suppose. Except in the metaphysical sense. Not without blood vessels to constrict or pain receptors to fire. But it sure fucking feels like it.”

"I think he can afford to be a little cocky," Wayne replies with a soft smirk. He pulls his gloves snug, just in case, hoping that they wouldn't end up getting jumped by some surprise fight they weren't expecting.

"Not always, it's just what I had with me when I came. Last time I went somewhere that turned dangerous I didn't have anything but the Gestures and that didn't exactly go well. I'm just glad it seems like this place isn't hospitable to things like poolmen. I don't know what the allotropes would do to people like you guys."

Wayne moves back toward the dissolving skeleton and crouching to see what it had left behind. He reaches to touch it, but thinks better of it when the status bar appears, then grows, then...

"Huh. Is it supposed to do that?"

Pal commands her to breathe, and Clarke tries. But it's easier said than done, all that she can manage at first is an ugly, shuttering half inhale that doesn't come close to filling her lungs. First attempt, abysmal. Second, painful. Third, a little easier. Fourth, just relieving enough that she can get back to herself a little. She's cried over boys before, but only ever allowed brief stints of shameless emotion before folding hurt over on itself and compartmentalizing.

It's harder this time, somehow. But is still done. She's reduced to a few wet hiccups, but finally manages to peel her hands off his wrists. Extricate herself from his personal bubble (of the personal space variety, not the only thing keeping them from plunging into an abyss variety) and step back. This was so, so selfish, and she ought to be ashamed for making his afterlife harder just because she hurt.

"Sorry."

It won't matter in the end, Clarke tries to remind herself. But god, in the present? The present is a nightmare.

"...sorry."

Give her a few moments longer to harden her resolve. To lift her hand and vigorously drag her sleeve across her eyes. To sniff once, then force herself to stop. It doesn't matter.

"I'll go."

Maybe being shoved into the River would actually be her ticket home anyways, but the fact of the matter remains that Clarke doesn't know how to try that and... really still doesn't want to leave him. Her eyes are still damp, and pinch around the corners at the prospect. How long is he fated to stay stuck here himself, alone?

Valdis slips into the seat across from him, no coffee, or tea, or anything else, because she didn't come upon him by accident.

"Having fun in memories, Palamedes Sextus?" Her isn't aggressive, but it's not quite conversational either.

“And do you consider yourself a great mind, Mister Curtiss?” While Jade’s back is turned, Palamedes grins faintly and shares a look with Cam. He is smart enough not to let his guard down, certainly not around someone he’s still half-convinced might be a spy, but he can’t deny that there’s something comfortingly familiar about the man’s too-clever-by-half good cheer.

Once Jade has crossed the threshold and called to them, Palamedes follows, with Camilla close behind, one of her short swords drawn. They step into the new room cautiously, each of their gazes swiveling from side to side.

“Well, this isn’t at all what I expected,” Pal observes. He approaches the pedestal in the middle of the room. “Interesting…”

The corner of Palamedes mouth turns up slightly. “I think we can all agree that it’s best to weigh all the evidence before leaping to any conclusions.”

Harrow doesn’t answer, her expression remaining as pinched as ever, but she also doesn’t send a skeleton army after Natsuno, so that’s probably as close to an agreement as they’re going to get.

Eventually, after snaking through the strange ruins of Canaan House, they arrive at the morgue. Palamedes has to poke around in a few closets before he finds two tables for the bodies, and then he has to find a rag and some ancient-looking cleaning fluid with which to wipe them down. Once they are clean, he gestures vaguely at the tables, indicating they should be set down, and then starts hunting through drawers for a scalpel.

Camilla nods. She doesn’t think the woman has any reason to lie, but if she is, for some reason, they will find out soon enough.

She draws her sword and steps lightly into the chamber, then looks back at her companion. “Probably not.” But because she isn’t Palamedes Sextus’ Hand for nothing, she takes a small. sharp knife out of her pocket and places it across the auto door’s threshold. Then she cocks her head to the side, as though to say to Cassandra, Coming?

Cassandra draws her own rapier, and nods to Camilla in a silent Yes, coming, and follows.

If they hear anything suggesting Palamedes is in danger, alone ... she tries to tell herself that surely he must have come through this successfully the first time, but it still feels a touch like turning her back on him.

Natsuno lays Abigail's body on the slab. If Palamedes is still looking for a scalpel, he'll offer one out of his pocket - he can take another one from the clinic once he's back to the ship.

When everyone is ready to start, Natsuno points at the corpse's stomach, where the scent is strongest.

“We don’t know what this place is hospitable to,” Camilla says, sitting on her haunches as the pelvis dissolves and the box appears. When he talks about Gestures, though, she looks up at him, eyes flickering with with interest. This strange, polite monster is like a necromancer and a cavalier rolled into one, and she has about a dozen questions, even if she isn’t as quick to voice them as Palamedes would be.

She doesn’t have the opportunity, anyway. The box snaps open, revealing its empty interior. “Warden!” Cam calls. “We were right. There’s only one key.” Cam rises to her feet and explains for Wayne’s sake, “Someone else completed the trial first. They got the key. Come on.”

As Wayne steps out of the chamber, the memory will fade.

Palamedes is taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose as she steps away. “No, no—goodness, don’t apologize. This—“ he gestures at the room, “is of my making, so it is reasonable to conclude that you are here because of my interference. When one plays fast and loose with reality, one most expect the unexpected.”

He returns his glasses to his face and looks at her gently. “Please, take a moment to collect yourself. It’s the least I can do, and it may, in fact, help you return from whence you came. There isn’t a traditional sort of exit, you see.”

The buffet is usually a good place to find Palamedes Sextus--not because he eats very much, but because he subsists on cup after cup of tea, and there are only so many places on the Serena Eterna where tea is available. In most instances, he wouldn't be particularly surprised to see Valdis come looking for him there.

But with the scents of home still fresh in his mind, he's a little startled when the woman suddenly makes herself known.

Abruptly, Pal sits at the table and picks up his tea. He sips it. It's still warm.

"...I don't know if I would use the word 'fun' to universally describe the experience, no," he answers after a beat. "You?"

Camilla rocks onto the balls of her feet in anticipation as the autodoor begins to close, behind them. When it reaches the knife, it opens again, and for a moment, it seems like nothing will happen. Then, suddenly, it closes with a force that shatters the blade.

"Damn," says Camilla.

As soon as the door slams shut, a strange, soupy mist fills the chamber. It swirls around the pair inside 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 towards them, its scythe-like arms swinging.

Pal looks briefly surprised as Natsuno hands him the scalpel. "Thank you," he says, bemused but certainly not complaining.

As the Ninth pair hangs back, each looking wary in their own way, Palamedes and Camilla approach Abigail's body and take a place at either side of the table. They move with efficency and, funnily enough, politeness as they first cut away the dead woman's shirt and clean her torso of dust and blood. Camilla takes a notebook and a pencil out of her pocket and writes as she begins to speak.

"Autopsy of Lady Abigail Pent, conducted by Master Warden Palamedes Sextus and Warden's Hand Camilla Hect. Cause of death: hypothesized to be a fall of approximately fifty feet. Potential foreign object lodged beneath skin of right abdomen." She offers Pal a nod, and he nods in return before sinking the scalpel into the skin.

Since Abigail is dead, it isn't very bloody, but it isn't pretty, either. Pal cuts an incision just big enough that he is able to slip two fingers and his thumb inside. Almost immediately, he goes still.

"Holy shit." A beat. "Cam, don't write that down."

Obviously, she writes down, Preliminary reaction: Master Warden says, 'Holy shit.'

<

The moment the skin is cut, the metallic scent grows stronger, so Natsuno is hardly surprised by Pal's reaction.

If it was the Palamedes he knows, Natsuno would sass out a told you, but this a different Palamedes, who probably won't be able to tell that the teen is wearing his told you lineface.

"So what it is?"

Cassandra is at Camilla's left shoulder; she slaps together the heels of her boots, and hurls two daggers at those glowing eyes.

Without waiting to see if they hit, she dodges left, hoping Camilla will dodge right. If she can get the creature between herself and Camilla, she'll have better odds of doing some serious damage.

The politeness of his rejection just continues to smack. Cold but not too cold; warm but not warm enough she could melt into it. A moment is offered in which to further compose herself and Clarke takes it; half turns away from him and exhales a ragged, rattling breath. Her eyes still burn, but the tears have been firmly locked away.

And it's then that she reminds herself how these memories usually come to an end. Another rift will open up, and touching it will drag her back through space and time, depositing her unceremoniously on a carpeted hallway of the Serena Eterna. If she could will one into existence right now, she would. Would paint it against the wall of his Bubble and willingly reach out, just to save them both the headache.

But at least for the moment, the room just looks like a room. Uninterrupted, whole. Flimsy maybe, but still a safe haven. It strikes her that she has no idea why or how this whole place was manifested in the afterlife.

"What are you going to do next? How do you plan to get out of this?"

She ignores the fact she startled him, he should be keeping a sharper eye out anyway. She's far from the most dangerous thing wandering the ship these days.

"Well, let's see, my memory self killed two of my friends, I had to watch a friend get tortured, I had to suffer through seeing the man I love be a slave and be completely helpless to stop it. Oh, and I died. So no, I have not had fun and I avoid the rifts wherever I can." She taps the table, "I've also had people mess with my memories which caused real life consequences. But, I have also learned some interesting things. And I know you did too."

'So spill' is left unsaid.

Edited 2023-04-16 18:50 (UTC)

Bouncing on her heels, Camilla feels Cassandra shift her weight ever-so-slightly and immediately understands the plan; she springs to the right as the construct charges forward. It may be fast, and it may be enormous, but it isn’t very smart, and seems baffled to find itself faced with two enemies on either side.

That’s all that Cam needs. While the construct hesitates, she twists round and charges back towards it, leaping with her two swords raised, bringing the blades down on two of the many appendages. She only manages one hit, but even that victory is short-lived, for the severed bone immediately begins to grow back.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Cam says under her breath, readying for another charge.

The object Palamedes pulls out of Abigail’s side is coated in blood and viscera, but its sharpe is unmistakeable: it’s a key.

“What,” says Harrow.

“The fuck,” says Gideon.

Palamedes speaks rapidly as Camilla writes. “One key. Silver and nickel alloy. Found within the stomach with no signs of hydrochloric acid degradation, so likely placed after death.” He presses his lips together so hard they go white, then exhales with a huff and shakes his head. “No, there’s too much interference. I can’t tell who touched it last.”

“Isn’t it obvious.” Harrow almost growls the words. “It was the Third. They’re the flesh magicians.”

The one of her daggers that hit seems to have half-severed the thing's jaw, but it grows back in the same way, even as her blades blink back to her belt.

"Keep it distracted," she calls, "let me try --"

And she tries two of her enchanted daggers this time, with their acid and lightning runes. Maybe it'll be more vulnerable to magic, or to anything that isn't just straightforward physical damage?

Natsuno thinks quickly: Pal is the Sixth, the pale teen's name indicates Eighth and the hysterical kids are probably not suspects. That makes the annoying blond trio the Third House.

They're dicks for sure, but if Natsuno's going to advance this memory to a conclusion it will to the correct one.

"I think Dulcinea Septimus is involved. She's controlling her cavalier's corpse, right?" Which apparently is not allowed. "She could've had it carry her out if it the 'soul siphoning' engendered her, but made it stop the summoning instead."

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In her sepulchre there by the sea

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25 and 13 to hit, whatever that means in this context

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