To go with your crew...

[highseasmods]

Who: Everyone who is fighting in the battle to kill the witch.
Where: The Black Fortress in the East
When: Jan 24th-25th
What: The grand battle to get back what you have lost, get revenge for what was taken, and avert disaster.
Warnings: Language. Death. Victory. Defeat. True love. Miracles.
Style: Text or prose
Status: Open to all



The black fortress ripples with shimmering iridescent energy, the piles of black coral heaped on roped together barges around it, bobbing in the waves. On the largest barge stands a slender man with a copper belt, wearing a face mask, orange red hair flecked with black from ash or dust. As the dawn slowly folds over the ocean, he'll look up, as if hearing some hidden voice.

At the top of the fortress, a figure climbs into vision, a woman, dressed in gray, features obscured by a hood with impenetrable darkness behind it. She staggers a moment as if she is weary, then straightens to her full height. As she speaks, her voice comes out of the journals, echoing over the water, low but clear.

"This is no small task ye do. She that rots within'll do anythin' ta stop ye. Don't hesitate to kill what ye find. If they were human once, they hain't no more. Watch out for her golems, too, or they'll drain ye dry quicker'n a wink. But if ye can get rid of 'em, it'll weaken her." She hesitates, cants her head to the side. "And if ye lot aren't as much of a bunch'a idiots as usual, ye might come out alive through this."

That said, she raises her hands. After a moment so does the man on the barge. For a moment, nothing seems to happen and then iridescent light shimmers over the coral, seeming to match that which surrounds the fortress. It crackles and dances like a fire, and then without warning bursts into a furious life, slamming against the energy of the fortress. There is the sound like thunder and light snaps and crackles, zipping with energy. Then with a woosh the light flies upward, taking the figure with it. The man on the barge lets out a cry like a seagull and dives into the water as if intending to swim after her.

For the boats that remain, a part of the fortress will crumble away into the sea, revealing a small harbor and an open doorway. Enter all ye who dare.


[If things become too crowded, feel free to make another thread outside of these. Just put where you are in the header.]

Comments

[theartofboom]

She turned to regard him, and gave him a mocking little grin. The mana in her body still had her in a mood, every emotion exaggerated, including pride. Not that she wasn't overconfident about nearly everything to begin with.

"Skilled doesn't begin to describe me, Captain. I'm a fucking volcano! Just point me at whatever you want gone, and consider it slag."

[hiken]

"Eh? We're finally recruitin' cheeky people, now?" Ace laughed at the thought, advancing a few steps. The undead crawled up from the burning rubble and Ace ignored them as they took bites out of him. Each one fell away, burning as they tried to devour his flesh turned to fire. Leaving crispy corpses behind, Ace drew his right hand back and then slammed it straight into the next lining of wall--taking it down so the main entrance way was fully exposed.

Ace gestured with two blackened fingers towards the halls.

"A river of fire. Make a moat around this spot--but, until we're ready to pull everybody out, I don't want any of the crew's magic to go past that line."

[theartofboom]

A few of the ghouls rushed Chandra as she moved along beside him, not content to just leave Ace as their sole target. Without so much as a blink, the air around the young Planeswalker simply superheats, turning her attackers to ash and melting some of the stone she hadn't already blown apart.

"River of fire? Can do." She knelt and traced a ring in the ground and unleashed more will. Stone moved aside, forming a trench where he'd indicated as the earth magic unmade the structure.

"You want this to be a secure point, don't you?" she asked simply, before waving a hand and conjuring a wall of flame in the furrow she'd created.

[hiken]

Ace watched as Chandra did this--as he admittedly made the order specific just so he could see how she'd carry it out. She didn't do things like Korra or Ikki. Somehow, he expected her to just stomp a hole in the ground like he would rather than use a gesture like that. Still, Ace had no understanding of those things despite his curiosity and asking her how she did it would be best suited for a calmer moment.

Instead, Ace breathed in and began to listen to the 'voices' inside the fortress once more, still looking at Chandra.

"As secure as it can be. We've got three people in there that I've lost. They might still be collared and missin' their abilities, so I'm gonna have to be gentle in finding 'em. After that, we're all gonna break this place so nobody can ever use it again."

[theartofboom]

Being looked at like that, she was fairly used to it by now. Most people had never seen her particular brand of magic, and a lot of the motions she'd learned from someone with a much gentler hand. Fire was natural to her, but Earth and Lightning and every other kind of magic she'd had to work at. And that meant being taught, and being taught meant picking up other people's habits. The Kephalian mages she'd learned how to manipulate the earth from were obsessed with circles, so that had found it's way into her magic, and provided endless amusement for Chandra by defying expectations.

She nods sharply, light in her eyes. A captain that went looking and took care of his own was a captain she could work with.

"That's what the golems are there for. They'll obey you, they're just extensions of my will. The wall won't let anything dead pass, and it'll keep on burning even if I'm gone, so don't worry about that. I'll start clearing the halls to make the search go easier. As for the fortress, just tell me when you want it gone and I'll finish it. Those golems'll be a real bang when I tell them to."

[hiken]

He was still going to have to ask plenty of questions the next time they were in a raid like that. 'Not understanding magic' seemed to be a natural thing for him, while understanding the reliability of his crew had been the easier thing for him. Still, he had one thing to ask, which he wanted to know if only to sate his curiosity. Ace turned back to look at Chandra, even as the ghouls tried to assail him and ended up curling on the ground aflame. It was an odd way to end a 'hello', really.

"I'll trust you to that. And--who was the one who recruited you?"

[theartofboom]

That's an easy enough question to answer, and it comes immediately, as she steps forward to unleash a burst of flame at a ghoul. This wasn't all that unusual, given how she'd met most of her friends throughout the Multiverse. And Ace seemed like her kind of person, he'd probably get it.

"Yuuki. The little vampire. Had nothing but glowing things to say about you. And I guess Namur invited me as well. And apparently it was all okayed by Thatch and Marco. Hopefully you don't need an interview after all this."

[hiken]

That surprised Ace. The fact that Natsuno had actually acquired a crewmate who could rival Ace in being destructive, malicious and fiery all in one go. Either Natsuno had developed his own sort of stride in conversations or it was blind luck. Either way, he felt like he respected the young man a bit more.

"Nah, it looks like they picked up somebody who's my type," Ace grinned, shrugging. "In the long run, I trust their judgement. A Captain should consider themselves lucky to have such a thoughtful crew!"

[theartofboom]

Chandra laughs and gives Ace a pat on the shoulder as she steps through the ring of fire, completely unscathed.

"When this is over, you'll have to tell me more about your type. For now, let's wreck up the place. It's been a while since I got to turn something into a crater."

[hiken]

"Then, enjoy it," Ace reached up to pull his hat string from his neck and fix his hat on his head. In the next moment, he was jumping up and looking back to Chandra. As he came down, he laughed and punched a hole into the bottom floor, which he dropped into.

"Do it in my name!"