[memshare] you (or your memory)

[light_mischief]

Who: You and the memory of Skulduggery Pleasant
What: Memory-share prompts! 1 closed, 2 by appointment, and 3 completely open! Plus a general prompt for anyone who wants to catch him IRL
When: All over March
Where: All over the ship!
Warnings: Torture, death, family death, child death, dismemberment, child endangerment (she's a teenage sidekick it's fine). Character death/torture is a possibility in most of the memories, but if you want to avoid something specific, we can work that out, just let me know.
Notes: please give me a heads up if you want to experience a semi-open prompt (unless you replied to the plotting post and don't need sailsduggery with you, then you're good to go). open prompts are essentially CYO adventures; when necessary, I'll roll straight d20 checks to determine outcomes.
unless otherwise requested, sail!duggery will not be included. let me know if you want him to accompany your character, and we can figure out how they wound up in the memory together. honestly tho if you have any questions or whatever just come to me, i am so down to do whatever.

[a rift has formed in the air outside of the chatterbox.]
The Death of Skulduggery Pleasant, I & II (closed: I. Ava & Max, II. Darcy)
I. [Skulduggery has just enough common sense to know that this is a bad idea. but everyone else has been poking around the cracks in reality already, and he's curious to know what it's like. Ava and Max have already been "experimenting," so to speak, which means he doesn't have to give them any more of a song and dance than he went through over text. he has no idea what they're going to find on the other side of this particular fissure, but it's the first one he noticed and so, it's the first one he wants to experience.

he waits until Ava and Max arrive before tucking his phone away in his pocket. they'll be happy (or at least amused?) to see he's got a tropical scarf and some shades on.]

Ready to find out what happens when a few of us try to go through together?


II. [the experiment with Darcy is two-fold: first, to test whether or not the same memory can be accessed from the same point twice; second, to see what happens when the whole premise of the memory changes. now that he knows what to expect, it'll be easier to subvert it. ...mostly, though, he just wants to punch Serpine in the face.

so here's here again, in a musty, dimly-lit stone corridor, torches illuminating a bend further down the hall. nobody is around, just like before, leaving Darcy and him to stick out against the 18th-century dungeon. of course, that's the least of their worries.]

Remember, Serpine's right hand causes an agonizing death if he points it at you. So... stay to his left.

[a hairline crack has appeared along the pool's edge.]
The Death of the Pleasant Family, (semi-open)
[you stand in a narrow field of tall, deep green grass, flanked on either side by old, healthy trees. it's right around twilight, and you can smell a fire somewhere nearby. light flickers just beyond the eastern treeline, but there is no sound to indicate if this is a comforting campfire or something else. the sound of crickets chirruping cuts itself off intermittently, as if disturbed by something unseen.]


[a strange fracture is partially hidden behind a book in the library.]
Misadventures in Babysitting, (open)
[you abruptly find yourself in a contemporary setting. a dark street somewhere in a large city, with cool night air and the sound of lively nightlife in the distance. when you look around, you see one of three notable landmarks:
a. the roof of a large art gallery, with a decent view of a city skyline. people familiar with the area might recognize Dublin, or maybe they don't. what they will see is an open skylight and a winch system, which has currently descended to the interior of the main exhibit hall.
b. Skulduggery's Bentley, parked outside an entirely nondescript building that could be for offices or apartments, so long as they're miserable enough. it looks like a sketchy area, with very little foot traffic. the front doors of the building are unlocked, and the lobby is dingy but lit.
c. a waxworks museum. despite the evening hour and the operation hours listed on the window, the lights are still on inside. it looks like the sort of place kids would come on school trips, if their school was particularly hard up for places to take their students.]


[an oddly shaped tear extends down the hallway outside the dining hall.]
Time on an Alien Planet, (open)
[you are standing on dirt under an alien sun. what looks like it was once a bustling village square has been left empty for some time now, with crumbling storefronts and dilapidated stands covered in long-rotten food. it is a dusty, lonely spot, although something in the far, far distance gleams and shifts in the light. it's hard to make out from here, and hurts your eyes if you look at it for very long. you should probably look around your immediate surroundings instead.]


[a dark bullet hole located on the surface of the pool.]
The River, (open)
[you are under water. you should probably do something about that.]


[a small fissure has developed above the lockers in the morgue.]
The Death of Lord Vile, (semi-open)
[a green, rolling field is spread out around you. the air is filled with the sound of frenzied battle, and the people around you are too busy fighting to notice your sudden appearance. a dozen people to one side fall abruptly, their lives literally ripped from them as a figure in black armor makes its appearance. its presence alone is enough to cause some people to run, but not all of them; nearby is a tall, burly man with a bald head lined in hideous scars, and his attention is fully set on the distant but fast-approaching figure.]


[a skeleton is in the arcade.]
The Normal Prompt, (open)
[no, he isn't sabotaging the pinball machines. instead, he's playing the cheap knock-off TimeCrisis arcade game, seemingly pretty heated about the crappy aim on the cheap plastic gun. oddly enough, the game cabinets to either side have been pulled back from the walls and left in their new positions. it's fine! promise.]

Comments

II.

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Darcy's dressed in the armour she got a few months ago- and she would be outright lying if she said that going through a torch-lit dungeon in magical armour to slay a necromancer wasn't a good 80% of her childhood dreams. The veridian cloak over the armour and hooded over her head does a lot to mask her probably inappropriate excitement. Her sword is still sheathed, but she has her misericorde in hand just in case. ]

Mhm, right hand bad. I've got this. Worry about yourself, ehn?

[light_mischief]

[Inappropriate or not, Skulduggery is too jittery with his own excitement to really notice. His excitement is mostly nerves and anxiety, but the weight of his considerably-modern sidearms and Darcy's (possibly unearned) confidence is enough to keep him from calling the whole thing off.

(Talking to yourself is supposed to be a bad thing. He really shouldn't be doing this!)

He begins leading his teenage accomplice down the hall to the room he was tortured to death in, staunchly ignoring the "bad idea" alarm going off.]

We have about ten minutes or so before he gets bored. Let's see if we can't catch him entirely unaware.

The Bentley

[theweakhavepurpose]

[Pratt has a bag of Doritos (Nacho Cheese) in one hand,and is poking through the library books with the other, leaving cheesy prints wherever he goes and in clear violation of standard library regulations being that the crinkling of a chip bag in a library is approximately 100 decibels. He doesn't even realize there's a freaky fissure in reality until he's accidentally touched it and is standing in the middle of a dimly lit street.]

Oh damn. Holodeck stuff. [He digs for another chip, shaking the bag and looking in the bottom of it before pouring it directly into his mouth. He wipes his fingers on his pants and gives a good look around.] Oh fuck, that is a sickass car.

[
> approach Bentley
> touch car with cheesy fingers
]

[light_mischief]

[the Bentley's alarm, fine-tuned to pick up on any potentially-paint-damaging bumps or ill-prepared thieves, comes alive.]

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-

[it's difficult to make out any other sounds over the cacophony, but nobody, say, bursts out of an upper story window at the racket.]

The River

[breakaleginhalf]

[Gil's just glad he can still swim.

But the water is unexpected, and he doesn't get a chance to hold his breath before he comes in, and immediately he is freezing and weighed down by the water pressure.

So he'll start swimming. In a direction that is, he knows instinctively, up.]

[light_mischief]

[the water is far colder than it should be in a reality of eternal summer. that mystery is solved when Gil's head breaks the surface: this is not the Serena Eterna, but one of the longest rivers in Ireland. it's a cold night in the early spring, and the shore is a little over 25 meters in either direction. thankfully, the deceptively deep river is as calm as can be, and the night sky is clear and full of stars.

he is, apparently, the only living thing beyond the night insects that fill the silence.]

Alien planet

[neverleave]

[Natsuno knows this memory is going to suck the moment he inhales and gets hit with the stench of rot and dust. The faraway glint is hurting his eyes, and the immediate surroundings don't look much better - he's half expecting something to jump out of one the ruins to attack him.

He looks around, searching for the highest spot - something he can climb on to get the lay of the land. Can he hear or smell anything of note?]

[light_mischief]

[the only sound he can pick up beyond what he creates as he climbs a pile of house-shaped rubble is a distant, unnaturally high wind from the direction of the faint glint of light.

at least, at first. but then, after a moment of remaining still, he might recognize the sound of rubble moving somewhere nearby, down a semi-shaded side street.]

Time on an Alien Planet

[busball]

Klaus looks around themself, frowning a little. Is this what the apocalypse looks like? Have they found themselves in the apocalypse?

There's something moving in the distance and they're not sure they exactly want to find out what it is, but it hurts to look at anyway. So he starts walking to the nearest shop, trying to figure out where he is and whether it really is the apocalypse.

Is this how Five felt when he time traveled to the post-apocalyptic part of our existence and had to find anyone? Maybe I can find myself a mannequin to devote myself to.

[light_mischief]

This is what an apocalypse looks like. There are plenty more where this one comes from, although thankfully, this is the only one remembered. It's a deadly silent, empty alien landscape that Klaus has found themselves in. There aren't even corpses on the ground to indicate how long this village has been abandoned.

But then --

"So many dreams have flown, so many nights alone, I guess I should have known...♪ "

b for bentley

[sabigoe]

[ The Bentley parked outside is a glimmer of hope for Fio. Not that she's unable to launch a magic lantern or shoot someone with Judith at any sort of danger in a sketchy-looking place. Still, being all alone, in a dark street is scary for a little girl with only a teddy bear! ]

Daddy!

[ She blurts out happily, followed by a gasp, one hand clasping over her mouth as the other arm securely holds onto Judith. By now, after venturing through a few memories, she should know better than to say that out loud. If this is like any of the other memories she visited so far, it's highly unlikely that he'll recognize her...

Adding a skip to her steps, she goes to peek into the windows of the car. Just leaning forward as close and as carefully as she can, without touching it. She knows better than to start slathering her hands all over the vehicle. She has watched Skulduggery and Maximilien with their cars enough to know it has to be treated like a very special treasure! ]

[light_mischief]

[There's, unfortunately, nobody inside the Bentley, nor is there any indication that anyone heard her excited shout.

She's left with two obvious choices: wait here and see if Skulduggery shows up, or wander into the bland apartment building lobby and see if she can hunt him down herself. Or maybe there's a third, cooler choice that only an eight-year-old girl could think of!]

I. The Death of Skulduggery

[makesomedeals]

Max has not accessorized with tiny umbrellas or flip flops, but he does have his rifle on his back and is wearing the suit that Skulduggery had gifted him. He'd actually considered bringing Jinx's ridiculously painted mini-gun, mostly because he hasn't gotten a chance to fire it yet, but it's cumbersome to walk around with so he opted for just the rifle. And the smaller hand gun that shoots actual bullets tucked into his jacket.

It might be an experiment but never know if there might be things to shoot. He's simply being prepared.

"Festive. Do you have an appropriately themed change of clothes should we go through this and find ourselves in Antarctica?"

[decohere]

Ava is unsurprisingly dressed in her usual slouchy loungewear, with plenty of pockets packed with snacks and a pad of paper and pencil. Things to feel prepared, obviously.

She has no idea what to make of Skulduggery's outfit as attention is drawn to it, eyebrows raised. "That's a terrible disguise," she tells him fondly, because she imagines it might be weird for him to show up somewhere and immediately get yelled at for being a skeleton. Maximilien, of course, does not have the same concerns. She'll kick anyone that gives him trouble for being a robot. Before he fills them with bullet holes, by the way he's prepared.

"I really hope you get to shoot somebody this time," she tells him. Max deserves it for the way their last mission went. "So far I've ended up at a waterfall, and some renaissance fair market..."

what a pleasant family death

[myagic]

[Maybe she shouldn't be moving around much in order to avoid these disturbing memory-dives--she really doesn't feel the need to invade other people's minds, thanks!--she'd spotted one formed in her own cabin anyway, and decided to relocate to working poolside.

She has her magic book with her, ready to workshop some more sigils to replace her old spells, but first...a test, to make sure everything's working correctly...]

Invoke... Meow!

[Look, meow is a perfectly good incanctation! Short and to the point. And fitting, too, because a large cat paw materializes from seemingly nowhere, and the striped leg extends unnaturally long with a far-reaching swipe. As usual, she's not really focused on who might be nearby to witness it...or get accidentally swatted.]

[light_mischief]

[it's less about avoiding the memories for Skulduggery, and more about picking the ones that might be most useful. he's been keeping an eye out for any magical abnormalities inside the ones he's already visited, although he hasn't found so much as a suspicious rune carved onto a tree. it's a combination of looking for an off switch and hoping to find some way to Inception even deeper, past their own memories and into the ones of the creature causing all of this.

it's because of that focus that Skulduggery notices something speeding towards him out of the corner of his eye. well, that and his year of being chased by evil gods. he manages to quite literally drop to the ground before the massive paw gets a chance to knock him into the pool; it's a surprisingly graceful move, although he remains with his hand over his hat for just a second or two longer than necessary.]

What the hell was that?!

[the death of the pleasant family]

[prince_of_beasts]

[ Dimitri is getting really damn sick of these portals.

... this one might be a little bit his own fault.

Maybe he was drawn over by the sound of crickets, the faint smell of evening grass cutting through the salt and chlorine. Maybe he'd gone searching for the barely-visibly fracture. Maybe he'd been weighing the risk of what he might find and his better nature not to pry into someone else's past against his desperate, homesick yearning for solid earth and greenery.

But he hadn't meant to actually --

Ugh.

It seems peaceful. For the moment. The wary silence of the crickets keeps Dimitri's nerves from settling. The smoke scratches at the back of his throat, at a dark place in his memory; it might be real, or it might be his traumatized imagination. His hand hovers by the hilt of his sword. Once again he regrets losing his lance to Daisy.

He doesn't have to pry. He could stay right here in the meadow, and not get involved.

Right. Ha ha. Funny joke.

Dimitri sets off towards the distant flames. ]

[light_mischief]

[the source of the fire is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a building. the hut, made of wattle and daub with a heavily thatched roof, may not seem like much more than a hunter's seasonal cabin, but for Skulduggery Pleasant's family, it's the last in a long line of safe-houses designed to keep them out of danger.

as Dimitri gets close enough through the trees to get a good look, he will notice that it has failed in that most important task.

only a fraction of the roof remains, smoldering against the darkening sky. part of the wall sags heavily without its usual support, slumping in defeat, the front door left hanging by a single hinge.

standing in the decimated remains of a vegetable garden, a tall, thin man, dressed in black and red examines his gloved right hand. he seems bored, but there's a funny little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. it grows as something crashes inside the ruined hut; the firelight glints off his teeth when a figure lurches into the door frame. this man, also tall and thin, has his hand wrapped around the hilt of a dagger, which gleams in the light much like the other man's teeth.

Nefarian Serpine rubs his hands together and speaks, his voice brimming with glee.]

You didn't really think they would survive this, did you? Come now, Skulduggery. You had to know where that wishful thinking would get them.

[the good(?) news is: neither of these two men seem to notice Dimitri.]

The River

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ Do they need to do something about this? Well, they may be waterproof and decently pressure-resistant, but they don't want to get stuck in something or swept out to sea. They take a look around. ]

[light_mischief]

[it's dark, it's cold, it's the scenic bottom of the river Barrows! there are fish, probably. so that's cool. but otherwise, nothing immediately visible of note. it will take a moment of peering through the murk to catch a glimpse of something white moving through the muddy riverbed.]

death of the family

[skaikru]

( it feels like it's always the hallway outside of the library for these two. an open walkway, easy to turn around or just breeze past and ignore each other. but since they'd last spoken, clarke had learned a great deal more about the nature of the captain, the playful proclivities of the vector ghosts that haunt the bars on board, and — of middling to most importance — she'd gotten a fancy new headband. slimmed and molded by necromancy; thinner than an average rib, with a row of teeth meant to keep it anchored in her hair. it's glossier and smoother than normal bone, but still recognizable. and call her vindictively curious, but she wonders what skulduggery might say about it. he had asked to see the finished product, albeit under a specific sort of emotional duress.

so instead of giving him a wide berth, she stops right in front of him. )

Morning, Skulduggery. How ( — have you been? — is the captain? — are you liking your month? — 's it coming on my protection sigils?

but the cracks in reality, though quiet in their formation, hold a special sort of ominous aura. the hairs on her arms stand up when one starts to split air directly between them, and clarke's wholly distracted watching the world splinter into a thin black void in front of her. it kicks in a second too late that she should probably take a step back; like a flimsy pane of glass, the crack spreads at odd, unpredictable angles, and the rift seems to pulsate — ripping wide enough to touch them both.

it's a super aggressive invitation to the field of tall green grass, which clarke trips into still halfway through trying to step backwards. she wobbles and freezes, half expecting to end up in the middle of another battlefield, but — it's all relatively quiet and peaceful. a hint of smoke on the breeze, and where there's fire there's people. but she doesn't have to venture anywhere to find company, skulduggery's right fucking there too.

this is not how she'd imagined this meeting ending, and with still no surefire way to extricate herself from a memory, the lack of being able to walk away when she wanted to smacks. but clarke sighs hard — they're in this now — and straightens. alternates between looking at the skeleton and watching the shadowy spaces between the trees. she doesn't expect a real answer when asking: )

Any idea where we are?

[light_mischief]

[seeing her wearing part of him like a trophy makes him sick; it conjures up recently-relived memories of dark dungeons and burning houses, and it drives home what he'd told Ava at the beginning of the month: they cannot trust Clarke, or anybody who sides with her. they will wear his bones as jewelry while dragging their enslaved jinn prisoner around, and honestly, if she says even one word to him he might haul off and punch her.

he doesn't, though. of course not. not when he can feel the air tingling, seeing the crack spiderwebbing toward them with unconscious malice. he doesn't even think about it when he reaches out to grab her, to pull her away from whoever's memory she might ruin --

and again, he finds himself standing in a familiar field at twilight, the smell of his house burning in the air, and Clarke Griffin asking him if he knows where they are.

he could lie. should lie. he could start a fight with her, drag it out to keep her distracted from the matter at hand.

instead, he says:]

Ireland. It's late summer in the 18th century. [he lifts one hand and points towards the hint of firelight.] My wife and child are over there.

The Death of the Pleasant Family

[not_the_last]

The grass, the trees, the quiet evening noises; it's a soothing setting, and she doesn't trust it for one moment. Too many moments like this have gone sideways for her in these memories.

She glances up at Skulduggery, who seems to have been pulled in with her. "Do you recognize any of this?" she asks -- keeping her voice very low, in case something should overhear.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery is about 7 years too early to know that he's emulating Ben Affleck right now as he stands once more in the same clearing. Rita and Clarke had been enough to dull him to this new torture, and he only lets out a weary sigh at first.

"I do," he says after a moment. "It's my memory. My family is dead behind the treeline. Please be quiet if you decide to run over to witness it. The man who murdered them is still there, gloating."

[end of march] - Ava & 6

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery meets with Ava and Smith after Fio's text and a follow-up text to Ava, and brings them to the only place he can think of that might actually help them.

China Sorrows' library may look like a rundown apartment building from the outside, but much like everything else these days, its appearance is deceiving. Inside the building and up the stairs is a floor full of rooms without numbers; Skulduggery leads the way through one of these doors, revealing an expansive library full of long aisles of books that extend across the entire floor. Nobody is immediately around, and Skulduggery turns to Ava and Peter. All three of them should have their leis.]

Alright. A few ground rules: do not say its name in here. Do not say your names to anyone you might come across in the stacks. We only try to communicate with it once we're ready, and all three of us should be together when we do.

[He points towards the stacks.] I want to try looking up some information before we get into it. No idea how many of the books here are actually filled, but it's worth a shot. We won't get many chances to peruse a vast wealth of magical knowledge.

[decohere]

[places that don't look like much are always prime locations to hide away the most interesting secrets, and in this case a library full of them... Ava keeps her hands to herself, in anticipation of a book snapping at her, as if it might sense somebody like her has no business handling magical objects.

she glances toward 6, giving him the lightest nudge at the second rule because clearly he's already ahead of the game hiding behind an alias. she's glad he insisted coming along, helping her feel less anxious. and providing an extra perspective.

but looking around, she has no idea where to begin. she hopes China Sorrows has a more logical organizational system than the ship library.]

So we'd most likely be looking for anything of Middle Eastern or Islamic origin, right? Or... is our focus more on. Splitting souls?