[open] come on, make a joyful sound

[light_mischief]

Who: Skulduggery Pleasant & anyone who wants to deal with him
What: you'd think after an announcement like that one, he'd be making himself scarce, but nope!
When: July, up until the excursion.
Where: Around the ship, by the pool, and also the Chatterbox, obviously. but NOT at Bobby B's. nope!!!!
Warnings: None at the moment, other than potential being-a-dickness from Skuls
Notes: with the Bobby B's prompt, if your character can see through magic invisibility, let me know :)


[AROUND THE SHIP] if you will believe in your heart
[Skulduggery can be found wandering the ship at any point during the day or night. to the untrained eye, it may look like he's pacing, but you couldn't be more wrong. this is simply idle exercise for an old man who is definitely not churning over a lot of thoughts about what his plans are for the future.

he won't stop to talk unless a familiar friend waves him down, but he's more than willing to Aaron Sorkin this shit if somebody decides to pull a walk-and-talk with him.]

[CHATTERBOX] and confess with your lips
[alternatively, Skulduggery can be found in the Chatterbox after midnight for his own private hour-long karaoke session. it isn't quite the same, now that the karaoke machine isn't inhabited by any ghosts that may or may not have ever existed in the first place, but he seems to be making the most of it.

actually, he's having a little too much fun. anyone who tries to have a conversation with him here may find themselves subjected to a musical response in lieu of a real one, and woe to anyone who tries to take the microphone out of his hand before his hour's up.]

[POOL] surely you will be saved one day
[and finally, Skulduggery can occasionally be found lounging on a deck chair with a book during the afternoons and early evenings. he's even dressed down on these occasions, with his shoes tucked under the chair and his jacket folded neatly over the back. he can't seem to stop humming the same few bars of Time after Time... that song is such an earworm!

if someone is looking to corner him, this is liable to be the best time, because he isn't inclined to start a fight in the middle of the day.]

[BOBBY B'S] don't see what the point is in even trying to fight
[there's no skeleton detective to be seen, which would make this a pretty terrible prompt for a roleplaying game. luckily, there is one thing that seems curiously out of place inside Bobby B's: an unattended ship-branded pad of paper and a pen, resting next to an ashtray with a half-smoked cigar stubbed out in it. written across the top of the page are the words: SKULLDUGGERY PLEASANT. underneath that is a list, written in seemingly several different fonts:

- can remove & replace limbs (head too?)
- senses movement thru air, flies
- latent necromancy?
- always armed (2 guns)
- charming (talks way out of problems)
- irrational & mentally unstable
- easy to anger? (no)
- death by car crash
- death by spike pit??? HOW

and then, at the bottom, hastily scrawled and underlined: how do u kill a skeleton?

huh. that sure is weird. it looks like mutliple people have added to this list with the same left-over pen. maybe somebody else has something to add?? or maybe they're trying to figure out why there's one less bar stool at the bar...]

[closed to Darcy] getting into knives
[the cloaking sphere isn't the only thing that Skulduggery picked up from the sundries shop. alongside two relics that would make extremely fitting gifts for a newlywed couple, he's also been given a deceptively simple item that he thinks is just perfect for Darcy. their birthday was... some time ago, which makes this rather belated, but he figures that there are enough extenuating circumstances to keep him from feeling too guilty about that.

he texts Darcy to meet up at Sand Dollars for a surprise (conveniently on his way to Bobby B's for a spot of enemy-watching), and even though he doesn't need to, he invites them to bring any of their million+ swords along. might as well ensure the gift works the way he suspects it will!]

[wildcard] look for the bigger picture when I close my eyes real tight

(Throw something up at random, or throw me a line on Discord to plan something!)

Comments

Pool

[knotawolf]

[Yufei is puzzling over a snowglobe that he found in Sundries, walking around while shaking the thing to make it sprinkle snow over a replica of the Serena Eterna. As he turns the corner he immediately startles, eyes wide, and he crouches down as if he can hide his bulk behind a folding chair.

It might look like he's afraid at seeing a skeleton, but honestly he hasn't connected that it's a skeleton at all. He sees those exposed legs getting some sun and the only thing going through his mind is:

bone bone chew chew chew chew bone bone bone chew

The snowglobe is set to the side where he can grab it later because this is a much better find!

He looks all around himself to make sure no one else is stalking this clearly picked clean corpse and then he makes his move: running in quicker than he should be able to (it actually looks like he might have lost a few frames of his animation as he moves) and trying to make off with a tibia.]

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery doesn't notice the guy getting ready to pounce on him, too busy taking an editor's pen to the tawdry romance novel he's picked up. but, just like in the novel, an exposed ankle is all he needs to attract a man. or, well, a wolf-man trapped in a sandbag body, who is currently leaping at him like a cartoon dog trying to steal a pie.]

What the -- [he instinctively kicks his leg out as if trying to fight off a feral dog, which is basically what this is.] Get off me! [since he doesn't have his guns, maybe a magic punch of air to the face will do the trick???]

don't see what the point is in even trying to fight

[decohere]

[she's here with her as of yet unopened bottle of rum that she plans to take to the pool deck, fishing around behind the bar for a glass, ice, and coke. spying the unattended paper, her curiosity takes over and she sets aside the bottle to take a closer look.

eyes narrow as she reads down the list, trying to make sense of this. who would be so stupid to leave this out? Ava glances around, the person responsible couldn't be too far. except the handwriting does suggest this was the work of several individuals. Ava picks up the pen, tapping it irritably in thought against the counter.

she could throw it out, but it's basic enough information that could easily be replicated and that doesn't stop the plot. she could bring it to Skulduggery, but he'd probably get a kick out of it. oh well, she adds in handwriting that's not quite her own:]

bones dissolve in seawater

[light_mischief]

[silence.

then, from some nebulous spot beside the bar:]

You'd turn me into soup??

u tryna fight? (driveby)

[skaikru]

( how do u kill a skeleton?

...huh. that sure is a question. an easy one, parsed out on serena eterna embossed paper, with seemingly no one around to actually answer to. still, it takes clarke a long time staring at that question before picking up the pen to scribble — )

Slowly.

( — in a neat blockprint. not entirely her own, not unrecognizable.

then, she leaves. no one's around to see that, right? )

[light_mischief]

[Skulduggery does his best to imitate the font as he appends Clarke's comment:]

-- CLARKE.

don't see what the point is in even trying to fight

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Sighs a little.

Writes 'has an ego bigger than some planets' at the bottom of the list.

Then 'has difficulty fitting his head through most doors'.

Har har Skulduggery nobody's gonna be dumb enough to buy that someone's plotting your demise out in the open. ]

[light_mischief]

[the bartending ghost (or the skeleton loitering in its place) manifests a ping pong ball that bonks Darcy right on the back of the head.]

I do see the point in fighting to try [probably just drive-by]

[mistertwister]

What in sam hell...?

[How do you kill a skeleton? Who's trying to kill Skully? Okie'd ask himself why, but he was offed by Baron Awful or whatever cartoon villain name he had, and while he's said and made his peace with Skully about it, it's hard to blame someone for a grudge.

Still, that's Darcy's dad and an alright guy, so why not help out a little, turn a couple signs the wrong way?]

Weak to... Iron crucifixes... And casual clothing... Power from suit... Question mark...? There! Good luck killin' the skeleton wizard, I guess. Not like he'll just wake back up in a day or three and be mad at you. Dumbasses.

[light_mischief]

[did Okie just narrate what he'd been writing out loud? that's adorable.

he comes around the other side of the table to get a look at the list now that it has some truly useless information on it, then clicks his imaginary tongue.]

Add "bound by salt circles" while you're at it.

but why are we fighting tho

[fonomena]

[This was probably an inevitable find, considering just how much Jade tends to favor the wines in this venue...especially rather of late....and so here he is, one fine evening, halfway to idly slipping behind the bar to search out a particular bottle in the absence of a ghost bartender to fetch one--

--Hmm? Hold on a second, on the bartop here...

Not at all immune to nosiness--especially with this thing seemingly completely unattended--Jade's naturally pausing to pluck up the sheet of paper and study the myriad scrawls upon it. From the misspelling of Skulduggery's name across the top, to the pastiche of notes in varying handwriting underneath it...what is this, then, a group effort? The single pen left behind, and the blatant positioning of the paper in general, seems to indicate some unspoken request for more crowdsourcing. Really......as murder planning goes, this sure is a step down only from outright running at the man with a knife in terms of subtlety, isn't it?

In the lack of any apparent nearby audience whatsoever, Jade's expression is impassive as he scans down the list, save for perhaps a slight arching of eyebrows as he reads along. At least, until he gets toward the bottom...at which point...his face gradually but surely begins to go through a bit of a journey--]

--Spike pit? [How indeed???] Where would there have been a...when was this?

[Asked to nobody in particular, of course, because as Skulduggery is now discovering Jade does actually have a bit of a habit of muttering to himself when he's on his own sometimes. But really though!! Spikes... (Somebody never did actually catch wind of the number of spike traps back in the labyrinth, it would seem--)]

[light_mischief]

[it's below "running at him with a knife" and above "running at him with a shovel," really...

Skulduggery watches Jade as he tries to make heads or tails of the list, swiveling idly back and forth on his equally invisible stool, which squeaks ever-so-softly as it moves. he would probably reveal himself to explain the spike pit situation, if only it weren't so terribly embarrassing...

also, he wants to see what, if anything, Jade might write! he's one of the few people who might actually have some insight in how Skulduggery can die, and truth be told, the sheet is as much a prank as it is a genuine attempt to figure out ways he can test his own mortality. if he's going to die on the next excursion, he might as well do it trying out some new methods.]

bobby b procession continues

[besixdouze]

[Voyager isn't planning on lingering in here for long, of course--not when the only actual amenities available in here are bottles of mysterious drinks that had almost gotten him struck by lightning from nowhere, the last time he'd tried to touch them! Yet still, he's taken to spending his more idle days checking upon all the places he can walk inside, because sometimes there's new things to discover in them! .....And also there's very nice leather chairs in Bobby B's, and he rather enjoys flopping onto them, or just drifting around running his hands over the soft leather to marvel at the sensation....

But, today! Today he's only harassed a couple of the nice leather chairs, before the white sheet of paper on the bar catches his eye. Very out of place, and definitely not something that was there yesterday; naturally, Voyager just has to investigate this, and clambers up onto one of the bar stools to do so. Perhaps this might be a mildly familiar face, to the skeleton man definitely-not-invisibly-lurking somewhere nearby. He was in a rather gaudier outfit during the prom, and swish-danced very enthusiastically with Fio for a time...! Though now he's back in a much simpler loose white tunic, long gold-foil scarf floating in an intangible breeze behind him, his personal glowing slightly more visible in the dimmer lighting of the bar.]

Sk--Skull-duggery...Pleasant...? Skullduggery. Ehehe, that's a fun word! [Though it's put together like a name! Maybe it is? It's unfamiliar, but Voyager peers at the rest of the contents very intently, the underlined question at the end earning a thoughtful hum.] Kill...a skeleton? ...Oh!

[Hold on, he knows a bit about this! There were animate skeletons in the simulator often, in Chaldea, as Voyager recalls upon thinking back to Fuyuki X-C bone-farming hell such encounters. Simple and mindless things...mages called them "constructs". So, to take them out, all you've got to do is--!

Voyager reaches for the pen! And starts to write! Very...painstakingly...oh, this might take a minute or so. Will the audience that's totally not here be willing to wait in suspense for him to finish?]

[light_mischief]

[Voyager is right, it is a fun word, which is one reason why it became Skulduggery's name. since he makes a point to watch Fio whenever she's in eyesight, he does recognize the boy currently writing a thesis on how to murder him; thankfully, he's looking for real answers as much as he is looking to dox the people who genuinely want him dead, and so he sees no reason to interrupt!

he does, however, want to know what's being written down, which means hopping off his stool and coming around to the other side of the bar. surely the glowing kid is too engrossed in writing to notice when the stool suddenly appears as if it was never gone, right???]

bobby b's driveby. i might go for some other prompt later...

[sabigoe]

[ Like the bar, Bobby B's is... one of the places that Fio hardly visits. But there are days where she doesn't want to spend playtime doing crafts or reading, so she roams various parts of the ship, imagining that she's on an adventure. Today's one of those days and the player just really wanted to do a driveby tag. Winding laps and circles around the many leather chairs, humming a tune as she lifts her arms out to the sides like a bird. Judith is strung along, following her owner as usual.

She never stays in areas mostly intended for adults for too long. Just passing through and out. Before she finishes her full round and leaves, she pauses, then backtracks to the pad of paper.

Two lines on that list are difficult to read or understand for her. (Necromancer? She heard about that "crow-mancer" word from Jade once. But she doesn't focus much on it.) What she understands is... this looks like someone's plotting something against her dad. A rare expression of annoyance crosses her face. She leans forward and takes the pen, writing very carefully. This looks like it's going to be a long answer...?

How do you kill a skeleton? Her answer, next to the question:

YOU DON'T!!

In full capital letters and two exclamation points to express how disappointed she feels at whoever wrote this list! Look, she even traced over her words a few times to make it nice and bold. (Never mind that she saw Skulduggery's name on the sign-up sheet which means he's guaranteed to get killed by something...)

She sets the pen back down roughly. Looks around, then briskly walks out of the establishment... she didn't do anything!!! ]

SHE'S SO CUTE 😭

[light_mischief]

[in his defense, he never imagined that Fio would come into Bobby's right when he had established his sting operation!!

it's... kind of cute, though, seeing her get so irritated about someone's poor master plan against him. he doesn't watch over her shoulder as she writes for one good reason: surprising Fio while she's upset guarantees he'll get hit by one of her many weapons, and he only barely avoided getting a knife in the skull with Darcy.

it's only after she scampers away in anger that he goes to check what she wrote, heartened by the way she's practically scratched through the paper in her vehemence. he leaves her name off of it, although he imagines anyone who knows their relationship will be able to guess who left such a note. he'll have to apologize for upsetting her later...]

trying to fight

[myagic]

[This might be one of the first times Rita's been in here since the early days of this voyage when she was still investigating places on the ship. After all, she has no interest in alcohol or cigars, and there's not exactly much else here. She does, however, have a new interest in procuring empty bottles (Zelos can complain all he wants; she will fill the entirety of cabin 110's mini fridge with blood for Natsuno and he can deal with it).

So she spots the notes, and with only so much to occupy their time these days, allows curiosity to get the better of her...before she scoffs. Who the hell was stupid enough to leave this out? And, wait--]

Charming? Him?! Please! In what universe?

[Yes, she is absolutely complaining about this out loud to herself. She picks up the pen and even crosses out charming, replacing it with a simple idiot, which could just as well be referring to either the skeleton himself or the owner of this list (because they couldn't be the same person or anything, right?)]

[light_mischief]

[aw, she talks to herself like Jade does!! adorable.

Skulduggery swivels on his very faintly squeaky, extremely invisible stool while she scribbles on his fake enemy's list. he has a few ping-pong balls in his pocket, but he's going to save that for after she's done adding to the list. probably when she looks like she's going to leave, just to spook her.]

the pool (probs a day after finding the list at bobby b)

[sabigoe]

[ The singing easily lures Fio, as she recalls that same tune that had lulled her to sleep on prom night. Along with her usual tote bag and floating Judith for company, she has a new, not-so magical stuffed rabbit in her arms: Lepus the bean bunny. Before she makes her way over to his side, she takes a cautious look around to make sure there's no suspicious-looking people scheming to ambush the skeleton detective.

After a quick inspection of the area, she decides all looks safe and shuffles over, pulling an empty deck chair close to be side by side with his own. Then she slumps silently into the seat, propping the stuffed rabbit in her lap. No effort is made to hide the pout on her face. There are two things she's likely upset about: the list she found at Bobby's. (Wow, whoever could have written that!) Second, the many names signed up for the excursion. Even if it's no surprise that he signed up... ]

noooo fio don't pout its gonna be okay 😭

[light_mischief]

[he's barely engrossed in his book, but he allows Fio to pull up her chair without comment, only tilting his head slightly to watch her sit down. her pout could be over many things, but his first assumption is that it has something to do with his enemy-fishing note the other day.

but first, something to soften her up before he draws her ire by admitting he the culprit... he closes his book and sets it aside, turning his head more fully to give her his undivided attention.]

Hello, Fio. I see you've brought your new friend around!

You can't give me back what you've taken, but you can give me something that's almost as good

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy's already at Sand Dollars, at one of the booths, nursing a cup of green tea the same way a grizzled detective might brood over a whiskey. One of the tea bags from the buffet, not the good stuff, not with the service the way it is right now. Of course, she perks up immediately to see Skully walk in, and she offers a small wave with her fingers, not moving to get up or anything.

He will also notice that Darcy isn't wearing a sword on her belt. Or a knife. Teenage rebellion and deliberate flouting of his instructions? Who knows. Only one way to find out.

"Am I right in guessing this isn't going to be a bad surprise?" Surely Skully wouldn't willingly sign up to get yelled at in public.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery saunters in without a care in the world, at least for the next few minutes, and slides into the bench opposite Darcy's. The lack of a blade is noted, and Skulduggery briefly wishes he'd bothered to bring the knife he'd been gifted. He hadn't thought it would be necessary, is all -- after all, when isn't Darcy armed with a sword??

"Oh, no. If it were a bad surprise, I would have warned you." Probably, maybe. Anyway! He digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out one uniform lump of something, rewrapped in the sundries gift paper and tied off with a bit of string. It's... well, he made an effort to rewrap it, okay? Sorry not everyone is as capable as Friday is when it comes to taping paper up!

"This," he says, plonking the present down in the middle of the table, "Is an extremely belated birthday surprise."

Resting These Bones [cabin]

[freedomsuitsme]

If there's one thing he can be grateful for in trading his old prison for a new one, it's that this one has very comfortable beds. Comfortable, and with no musky mammal smell or the weight of the guilt of wanton bunny murder, unlike the fur rolls from home. After a long day and quite a few wild conversations- how many people has he met, now?- he retires to his cabin, draws the blackout curtains shut, kicks off his shoes, and burrows under the covers in a decidedly undignified manner.

The feeling of the sheets on his skin is so pleasant- cool and crisp and comfortable- and he lets his glamour slip just a bit, long, clawed feet unfurling from beneath the confines of the illusions that normally bind them. He slips off his gloves, letting his fingers run along the softness of the blankets, as inky claws slip off their secrets and flicker into being. He doesn't like that form, but his real body can begin to feel tight and compressed under the weight of shadows and suggestions, and who's going to see him in this form, anyway?

[light_mischief]

About five minutes after Maxwell finds himself getting comfy and cozy in bed, the door to the cabin slams open, and the lights are unceremoniously flicked on.

"Good," the skeleton in the doorway drawls in an Irish accent, "You're here. Now we can talk." From the way he says it, this isn't actually a good thing. He's tall and thin enough that even his impeccably tailored suit can't hide it, and without a face, it's impossible to tell how he's taking he less-than-human appearance in front of him.

(It's like, not even a thing. He barely even notices inhuman features at this point.)

Around the Ship

[theweakhavepurpose]

[Deputy Pratt practically manifests out of nowhere, the faint smell of cigarettes and garlic mashed potatoes the only warning before he's walking next the skeleton, keeping pace with him.]

Any idea how fast you were walking there?

[He thinks he's hilarious.]

[light_mischief]

[it's enough of a surprise that Skulduggery invisibly tenses up, but he relaxes when he realizes who it is materializing next to him. as long as Pratt isn't wielding a shovel, they're completely sympatico!

[he lifts his hands out of his pockets,] My speedometer is broken. Also, I refuse to incriminate myself to an American cop. That leads to nothing but trouble.