2020.05.24 Life and Death 2

Life and Death II
The investigators explore the SS Tamerlane
IC Date	2020-05-24
IC Time	8:30 PST
Players	Ann, Floyd (ST), Madame Zara, Sin-Eater
Location	The SS Tamerlane, North of Prospect
Prp/Tp	Life and Death
Spheres	Orpheus, Wraith
Theme Song	Up to suggestion

Recap

LAST TIME! ON EPISODE 1...

Those gathered were investigating the strangly emerged SS Tamerlane, an old decrepit cargo freighter that had crashed ashore north of Prospect. Through a combination of being dead and guile, all managed to sneak aboard bypassing local authorities keeping the general area off-limits. Ann's compatriots from Orpheus is keeping tabs on the highway, making sure no one comes down to get a sneak peek at what is going on and pulling a secretive perimeter sweep.

Close to a dozen bodies are found on board the Tamerlane. Two of them, found on the top deck, are old and vastly decayed (one in the cargo arm, another found outside the command unit). Inside the Utility area Ann discovered the lack of a life preserver and emergency oxygen tank. The Second deck, connected to the Utility Area, they found the outlines of where 4 victims were found. All recently deceased, all killed by gunshot to the back of the head. A forklift was driven into the side of the freighter with one of the forks coated in plasm, only seen in the Shadowlands.

The Third deck things got weird. There is a cargo container that is neither rusted nor old, in fact it is quite new. It is riddled with dark markings. The entrance to the container has been ripped open either by a Jaws of Life or through other means. Inside, an open box coated with blood rests empty. A tiny hole above the box drips blood, as it appears the blood from the victims uptop have begun to spill down into the hole.

Ann, recently found a young girl's Minney Mouse Jacket, tucked in a rusty hole that was difficult to spot just wandering, as if the jacket was hidden.

Scene

<WRAITH> Madame Zara stands with Sin-Eater, still gawking at the plasm that hangs from the lift. "These people were attacked by something from the shadowlands... or wore."

Ann sits off by a hole in the ship in a sob of she could cry in this form tears would be pouring from her eyes, she pulls gloves from her pocket and reaches out to grab the Minnie mouse jacket.

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater frowns and nods slowly, "Which is unusually, spectres tend not to care about the quick. So it maybe a rogue wraith. Or something else." She frowns as she continues to explore the cargo crate.

The Minnie Mouse jacket is hard to get out. It is stuck. It takes a good YANK to get the jacket free. The ripped hull of the ship seems to have caught it.

As Madame Zara eyes the forklift, she can notice that the levers controlling the forks have blood stains on them. The blood is not normal to wraith eyes, but have that eerie impression of death-marks that pre-empt an untimely demise.

Investigating the cargo-crate, there are black stones, almost like black glass, is found within the remains of the box as well as scattered pieces elsewhere in the cargo crate.

Ann loses one Magical Essence Ann loses one Magical Essence

<WRAITH> Madame Zara points to the controls, "Look, these deathmarks foretell the demise."

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater kneels down and picks up one of the dark stones to examine, "Why would there be these tones though. And I admit, I am confused why a Spectre would care about the living. So do you think it was a wraith under the control of his shadow, or perhaps just a really pissed off wraith?"

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "I thought some kind of monster."

Ann calms herself while they inspect the cargo container. When she finally gets a good hold to yank it free, she gets to work checking pockets and looking for a bloodstains or other markings.

<WRAITH> Madame Zara stops for a moment and closes her eyes, putting her arms out and spreading her fingers wide, "Wait... I'm feeling strong vibrations in the weave..." She removes her stack of tarot cards from her sleeves and draws one.

Madame Zara senses a disturbance in the For...er...Weave Madame Zara rolls Manipulation + Fatalism vs 7 for 1 successes. 1 2 3 6 +7 9 Madame Zara loses 2 Magical Essence Madame Zara loses 1 Willpower

The only thing inside the jacket is a crumbled batch of mexican dollars. Counting it out, it looks to be about 1,000 Mexican currency.

The stones are razor sharp along their edges and feel...lightweight. They reflect the doomed light of the shadowlands with a almost hungry sheen.

The vision that Madame Zara receives is incomplete, but still present in her thoughts. She sees the forklight, someone is sitting in it turning it on. You hear a foreign language shouting. "Run Maria!" You hear yourself say, agonized with almost painful terror as a man in jaguar skins and metal vambraces collides onto the forklift. "BUT PAPA!" The jaguar man lunges with a dagger that sends a sharp pain in Zara's chest. You feel yourself KICK and kick the man off of the Forklift into the wall. "RUN!" You hear yourself say, holding your wound as you hit the gas. You lift the forks and impale the man against the wall. The vision ends.

<WRAITH> Madame Zara grips her chest painfully, staggering back a few steps. He mouth silently mouth the word "RUN" a second time, after saying it... She looks back up at Sin-Eater, "Families here... Mexicans... there was a native wraith in jaguar skins going after the little girl... her father used the machine to save her..."

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater nods and looks over to Ann, "There is no child found dead on this boat is there?" She asks, looking to see what Ann is fiddling with. "And an old wraith, in jaguar skins, it was a wraith though? Not a spectre?"

Ann listens to Madame Zara and shows her the jacket. "Was she wearing this cause it hanging stuck in the hull..."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara looks at the garment and nods, "Yes, she was..."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "I hope she made it."

Ann's phone goes off. It is a text from a fellow operative. "When you are finished we found a body in the woods. Male. 40s. Hispanic. Beheaded."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara listens to the crackle of the radio... "More death."

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater says, "I see." She says with a frown, taking the small stone she found and heading out of the crate. "Did they find a dead child or not Ann? And was it a wraith, or a spectre, Madame Zara?""

Ann looks distracted then shakes her head. "What? Oh sorry yeah let me check." She pulls her phone but gets distracted by a text. "Fuck we got a body the woods Hispanic mid 40s beheaded. They want me there after this. Long night... What was I doing?... Oh right." She pulls up the police report to see if there were any children found.

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "WHatever it was had embodied on the other side of the shroud, so with mine eyes it seemed alive."

Ann shakes her head. "No Sin, no kids." She frowns

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater says, "Well there is that." She says softly, "But where did the child wind up than if the boat was not found with a dead child, and the wraith is obviously not from these lands, it came on the boat right. I wonder why it wants the child, or where the child is. Can you tell anything with the jacket and your magic foresight Madame Zara?""

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "Something about the bridge has called to me, but the crew quarters are along the way."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "Perhaps I could try if the item was a relic... but n its present state, no."

The Crew Quarters: SS Tamerlane

Setting

****************************** CREW QUARTERS ***********************************
This area of the ship has several very small bunks in three different rooms, obviously sleeping bunks, for the crew of the Tamerlane and smells like extreme death. The rest of this portion of the Tamerlane is reserved for the kitchens, with a propane stove, an old style refrigerator, cabinets for holding plates, cups and other amenities and a bathroom and shower. Most of the major furnishings in this room are bolted. The table is bolted to the floor, the fridge and the cabinet doors are lockable to keep them from clattering open and closed on the waves. Only the chairs are not bolted and are able to be moved around. In this case the chairs have toppled and fallen over but are in the vicinity of the table.

There is a spiral staircase that leads up to an ante-room that exits onto the bridge and the spiral stairwell that leads to the common area downstairs. Near the top of the spiral stairwell, heading up toward the bridge is a flag blazoned with a #7 on it. At the base of the stairs is a puddle of...something. Don't drink it.

Laid under a blanket labeled #7 to the side, as if it needed to be moved, is a body. Dessicated. A corpse two decades in the making. Half of it's skull is missing, to which bits and pieces of it have been placed next to it. The corpse has a knife in it's hand, blood on the blade. The blade is labeled #8B.
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Scene

The Team Investigates! Madame Zara rolls Perception + Alertness vs 6 for 3 successes. 1 2 +7 +9 +9 10 <------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============-------------> Ann rolls Perception + Investigation vs 6 for 3 successes. 2 5 +9 +9 +10 <-------------=============++++++++++++++++++++++++=============-------------> Sin-Eater rolls Perception + Alertness vs 6 for 6 successes. +7 +8 +8 +9 +9 +10

The group leaves the bottom decks, heading up back into the command unit. As you enter the utility area, you notice something you missed earlier: A shoe, small and covered with rust dust, is wedged between the stairwell and the the hull of the ship.

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater wanders through the halls, trying to make note of the things that might stand out, "Seems someone took an emergency air tank, someone may have tried to escape into the water, or perhaps they did. But they were injured perhaps, as their is blood nearby the missing tank. She comments as they walk through the halls and into the rooms." She than stops, looking at the new scene and frowning, "What could make a corpse age so quickly, I know of no wraith power that does such a thing..."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "What if it was a corpse on the ship?"

"Hmmm" Is all Ann says lost in thought looking through her phone. "Well if there is no wraith power that ages a body...Then I'm having a hard time piecing a timeline. We have a ship decommissioned thirty years that has never been in Prospect waters, some bodies that are old and rotting and some bodies that are brand new. The new bodies are a cult that exists in Prospect so some how they got on this ship and were attacked before the police got here... Plus now we have a girl and an older man that don't fit a timeline on a cargo ship at all..." Then she looks and is even more confused. "And this guy's knife has the pilot's blood on it who's body is in the Bridge "

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater nods her head and looks at the markers, and such. "And perhaps one person who requried oxygen who got away. So would this cult have captured people to use in a sacrifice perhaps? I am trying to sort out why a wrait would care about these people, if the wraith is as ancient as to be dressed in jaguar skins."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "This sip reminds me of something... don't you feel it? The whole thing is dead... the whole ship... it itself is a relic."

<WRAITH> Madame Zara says, "It has somehow sailed into the skinlands."

<WRAITH> Sin-Eater says, "To be a relic it needs to have been destroyed ye? Sunk, or something. I have not heard of many relics that are still in both lands." She shrugs, "Do they ahve a record of this boat being sunk or destroyed?"

Ann shrugs. "The notes say ot was only decommissioned. Not lost so it wasn't sunk..."

The Bridge

Setting

***************************** THE BRIDGE ***********************************
The bridge of the Tamerlane is a rustic display of antiquated naval equipment. As if one pulled straight from a Jaws movie, the helm is riddled with dials, knobs and the steerling column which is stuck. The throttle system of the Tamerlane, a large lever next to the wheel, has been broken off - the throttle pushed completely to one side. A CB radio is bolted to the roof.

The area is covered with blood. Arterial spray has covered the windows, the conrol panel and the walls of bridge. There is a body on the bridge. A Male in venerable years who is built like a bus. He is dressed freight worker garments with thick heavy fabrics and a coat. He is frozen in the onset of rigor mortis holding one hand to his neck and the other that looked to have been holding something that is no longer there. Next to the body is a flag: #8.

The bridge is a mess. Scatter looseleaf, notebooks and charts are sprawled across the floor. Hooks on the wall remain in place suggesting that whatever was on the wall is now on the floor somewhere. There is no power to the control panel, everything is dark and off in varying positions of wherever they were before the crash.

In the Shadowlands on the floor near the body is a pair of full-body manacles. Off to a corner as if cast aside is a Caul.
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