Like I mentioned, the Captain had a few of us retrieve a lost object of his from a cursed temple on an island. A real place, not just one of his constructions. It was a memory, of what he was. And we've tried to hold that secret close, to prevent anyone from using it against him. Because as powerful of a magical being he is, he is one that's spent most of his life in servitude. Used as a source, neglected and locked away... until he killed his master and became free.
But I'm afraid that he's... maybe gone and done the same to himself. [sounds doubtful, as if she doesn't quite believe her own conclusions despite all the evidence pointing her that way. there has to be something else she's missing.] And then made himself forget, tasking Friday with protecting that secret and that part of himself that he sealed away.
...Security said something similar, at one point. That this place....becoming powerful, it was all so that he could never be controlled again. And I think he deserves his freedom, as much as anyone else does. No one deserves that kind of fate.
[she knows, she's avoiding the big question - what they should do now, though. what does it mean, to injure yourself like that?]
Yes, his intentions to become a god were never for glory or worship or divine justice. Just to prevent himself from being recaptured. I've always feared that he created a situation too complex and dangerous that even he could not escape what he's done, but I didn't imagine this.
I'm not quite sure how much of himself is sealed away, or for how much longer. Friday said she was holding onto the part of the Captain that used to be loved. Valdis said he's claimed to not have a soul, so maybe his own soul was the first to build this ship. But he's contacted Fio through her dreams, had her give him a name, asked her to remember him. And Friday warned her, warned Skulduggery that the Captain knowing could be the end of reality. I've tried to keep it secret, but right now it feels as if... well, Friday's jumped off the ship because Crabb admitted to her that she's interfered with the sigils, the Captain made himself forget all of this seemingly deliberately.
Wait - there's a lot you just said at once. He's contacting people via dreams, Miss Friday is holding onto a part of him, Miss Crabb changed sigils and Miss Friday leaving us all to what, fend for ourselves now?
[she's trying to keep up, she really is.
half mumbled:]
Patricia and Fiona would be so much better at this...
It's... a lot, I know. [apologetic, waiting for any questions she may clarify.]
Valdis believes Friday made a last attempt at stopping whatever we... I... might have unleashed. But there's more of those cracks forming. I don't know how much longer things can hold up before it... breaks.
[a small frown, knows what it's like to believe somebody else could handle any of this better.] Sometimes I wish I were anyone but me, that I've made any choices but the ones I make. But if this were meant to be easy, somebody else would have figured it out by now...
What do you mean, what you unleashed? Ava, please slow down - I don't know what any of that before means.
[she hates it, it's clear, because it makes her sound whiny, stupid. but she feels like she's trying to navigate an unfamiliar room without her cane and someone expects her to already know where the furniture is before they start telling her it's made of oakwood.]
I don't know what you mean by sigils, I don't know why Miss Friday's got the Captain's soul, I didn't know he was dreamwalking - I only got the information in the binder two months ago, and that now feels horrifically outdated. Please...assume I don't know what you're talking about.
[was this known, and she just missed it? has she been that idiotic this whole time? lord, but she would deserve a second death right here for that.]
Sorry... [she pauses to slow herself down, try to reorganize her scrambled thoughts.] I don't even remember what was and wasn't in the black binder.
I don't know much about sigils either, other than they're... some sort of magical spell that's drawn out. A specific intricate shape that somehow holds power. I've only seen Jenny use them, but the Captain does too. He's said before if he's killed, his sigils would fail and the magic holding this place together would collapse. Crabb went investigating... and came across some drawn on a wall, but she didn't know what sigils are either. She touched them, which caused the shape to smear. I can only guess that weakens the magic, if it's contained within that design.
Crabb tried to take pictures but it broke her phone. She tried to draw what she saw, but when I looked... we could only see strange spirals instead. When Crabb tried to get her phone fixed by Friday, Friday realized what had been done and she tossed herself overboard and has not returned.
I'm not entirely sure if it's his soul that Friday is holding, but she is holding a part of him by her own words. Valdis mentioned he believes he does not have a soul. Which is why I think... that might be what Friday is keeping. Sealed away somewhere on the ship, maybe as a power source... or maybe just to keep him safe from being discovered by anyone that wants to enslave him again. Keeping it secret from even himself.
If you don't know the answer, they can't torture it out of you.
[half murmured, but given the experiences she and others have been through, that makes more sense than anything else. instead, she's quiet for a moment, thinking about everything Ava just explained, feeling more pieces click into place, before-
she groans, leaning her head back.]
Is that why I haven't been sleeping in my cabin for weeks now.
With Security and Max. And they didn't kick me out, I made my own arrangements since I thought it'd be terrible if Miss Crabb didn't have a bed, and with her and Erin being girlfriends...
[the implications.]
They've been very, very kind to let me stay over for so long. It'll be a little strange when things revert to how they were.
[when she has to get used to sleeping in a bed alone again. but she taps her finger on the back of her hand, going back to the problem at hand. how she wishes she'd been bothersome enough to pester Patricia into talking about magic, despite the woman's caginess to let anyone in on the extent of what she could do.]
Anyway. Bearing in mind that my understanding of magic is severely limited and for the most part based off the books I've read, it sounds like maybe the sigils were always meant to do that. Something in them that prevents them from being replicated unless you saw them yourself. As for her phone...if our phones run off magic, since everything in this realm half does, then the magic of the sigils probably was just too intense for it.
Ah... so you thought it best to give them some space and privacy. [still, it seems rather invasive, but it's not Ava's place to criticize the arrangements when it sounds as if Helena has found one that suits her quite well.]
I think... knowing magic from books might actually be an advantage. The Captain seems to take inspiration from media. Books and movies. There might be a basis for how things work taken from another source. But yes, it sounds like those sigils were extremely important and powerful. Which makes it... all the more strange that Crabb was capable of simply smudging them away.
The video I tried taking of the spirit summoned in the bar... had magical interference as well. Much like when anyone attempts to take a photograph of the Captain. Doesn't work.
[Helena just frowns and shakes her head a little.]
The magic in our devices might not be terribly strong to begin with. And before I ask you what on earth you mean by summoning spirits in the bar...I think it's simple why Miss Crabb could smudge them. If they weren't supposed to be found, maybe they just weren't defended physically. Or maybe it was because she didn't know a thing about them, and thus, they couldn't do anything. She's not a magician, as far as I know, and if I had magic symbols, I'd be more worried about what other magicians could do versus nonmagical souls.
[but she shrugs, because this is all guessing. wild theorizing into the blue.]
Suppose that's true. But I was in the ah... business of bypassing security measures. So it seems like such an obvious thing to overlook... [all these ways to ward off against other sorts of magic, but simply touching it...]
Then again. The prior voyages, I think they were all too busy killing each other to ever go digging around for such things.
[that's not a term she's heard before, but she knows different worlds have all sorts of ways of referring to their local brand of magic.]
No, not that I've seen... She has these sorts of dreams often enough. Back from her own world. I think it allowed her to tap into what was being hidden away...
[and tension bleeds out of her, a worry she can't exactly define lest this conversation veer into a direction that she's not sure she wants to burden Ava with knowing.]
[she does wonder, of course, what Helena's experiences are with such a thing. but she'll put that on pause to answer her question.]
Ah. So. There once was a stubborn and gnarly little man named Izzy Hands. That happened upon the locations of Jenny's brothers after learning their names. Or at least where their souls were kept, in locations named after them. The bars. With intentions to somehow gain her alliance, since she used... to have her own ship, she would be his choice for helping taking control over this one.
Well. He took Deputy Pratt along with him, and managed to summon one of the brothers. A cat. And I was told this story, along with a request to investigate one of the other locations but found nothing.
Anyway, it happened that one of the newer passengers, Eleanor, had come across the corpse of a passenger that had vanished months prior. While she was diving in the waters...
That makes me far less inclined to ever go swimming anywhere that's not the pool.
[souls being kept in the bars, and one is a cat. why not, at this point. who knows why for anything. and having this place taken over...it was a risk, but hopefully not one that would have ended in the Captain's death. whatever his plan, Ava speaks of him in the past tense, and so Helena lets it lie.]
I don't really like to swim... the hot tub is nice though.
Anyway. In October, the ship had been overtaken by a series of possessions. Former passengers, ghosts, taking control of the bodies of the living. I thought... well, here I have a spare body. No decomposition. And I know where a trapped spirit is...
So Pratt and I went to one of the bars to summon one of Jenny's brothers. To see if we could get him inside the body? I wanted to know if it was possible to bring those that were stuck in the Nothing back...
[she will refrain from asking Ava where she planned to get enough spare bodies to get those in the Nothing out, should this be a viable strategy. likely the older woman already knows all this, and considered it.]
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[please don't go gray, Ava.]
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... [but everything feels increasingly impossible to keep herself calm. at least Helena is a grounding presence for her.]
But I wanted to share with you what I've found out. And what I think is going on.
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[what are they really up against? why is it impossible?]
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But I'm afraid that he's... maybe gone and done the same to himself. [sounds doubtful, as if she doesn't quite believe her own conclusions despite all the evidence pointing her that way. there has to be something else she's missing.] And then made himself forget, tasking Friday with protecting that secret and that part of himself that he sealed away.
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[she knows, she's avoiding the big question - what they should do now, though. what does it mean, to injure yourself like that?]
But if he's his own jailer...
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I'm not quite sure how much of himself is sealed away, or for how much longer. Friday said she was holding onto the part of the Captain that used to be loved. Valdis said he's claimed to not have a soul, so maybe his own soul was the first to build this ship. But he's contacted Fio through her dreams, had her give him a name, asked her to remember him. And Friday warned her, warned Skulduggery that the Captain knowing could be the end of reality. I've tried to keep it secret, but right now it feels as if... well, Friday's jumped off the ship because Crabb admitted to her that she's interfered with the sigils, the Captain made himself forget all of this seemingly deliberately.
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[she's trying to keep up, she really is.
half mumbled:]
Patricia and Fiona would be so much better at this...
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Valdis believes Friday made a last attempt at stopping whatever we... I... might have unleashed. But there's more of those cracks forming. I don't know how much longer things can hold up before it... breaks.
[a small frown, knows what it's like to believe somebody else could handle any of this better.] Sometimes I wish I were anyone but me, that I've made any choices but the ones I make. But if this were meant to be easy, somebody else would have figured it out by now...
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[she hates it, it's clear, because it makes her sound whiny, stupid. but she feels like she's trying to navigate an unfamiliar room without her cane and someone expects her to already know where the furniture is before they start telling her it's made of oakwood.]
I don't know what you mean by sigils, I don't know why Miss Friday's got the Captain's soul, I didn't know he was dreamwalking - I only got the information in the binder two months ago, and that now feels horrifically outdated. Please...assume I don't know what you're talking about.
[was this known, and she just missed it? has she been that idiotic this whole time? lord, but she would deserve a second death right here for that.]
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I don't know much about sigils either, other than they're... some sort of magical spell that's drawn out. A specific intricate shape that somehow holds power. I've only seen Jenny use them, but the Captain does too. He's said before if he's killed, his sigils would fail and the magic holding this place together would collapse. Crabb went investigating... and came across some drawn on a wall, but she didn't know what sigils are either. She touched them, which caused the shape to smear. I can only guess that weakens the magic, if it's contained within that design.
Crabb tried to take pictures but it broke her phone. She tried to draw what she saw, but when I looked... we could only see strange spirals instead. When Crabb tried to get her phone fixed by Friday, Friday realized what had been done and she tossed herself overboard and has not returned.
I'm not entirely sure if it's his soul that Friday is holding, but she is holding a part of him by her own words. Valdis mentioned he believes he does not have a soul. Which is why I think... that might be what Friday is keeping. Sealed away somewhere on the ship, maybe as a power source... or maybe just to keep him safe from being discovered by anyone that wants to enslave him again. Keeping it secret from even himself.
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[half murmured, but given the experiences she and others have been through, that makes more sense than anything else. instead, she's quiet for a moment, thinking about everything Ava just explained, feeling more pieces click into place, before-
she groans, leaning her head back.]
Is that why I haven't been sleeping in my cabin for weeks now.
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[which is definitely permission for Helena to discuss any of this with it.]
Ah, they really kicked you out, huh? Where have you been staying?
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[the implications.]
They've been very, very kind to let me stay over for so long. It'll be a little strange when things revert to how they were.
[when she has to get used to sleeping in a bed alone again. but she taps her finger on the back of her hand, going back to the problem at hand. how she wishes she'd been bothersome enough to pester Patricia into talking about magic, despite the woman's caginess to let anyone in on the extent of what she could do.]
Anyway. Bearing in mind that my understanding of magic is severely limited and for the most part based off the books I've read, it sounds like maybe the sigils were always meant to do that. Something in them that prevents them from being replicated unless you saw them yourself. As for her phone...if our phones run off magic, since everything in this realm half does, then the magic of the sigils probably was just too intense for it.
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I think... knowing magic from books might actually be an advantage. The Captain seems to take inspiration from media. Books and movies. There might be a basis for how things work taken from another source. But yes, it sounds like those sigils were extremely important and powerful. Which makes it... all the more strange that Crabb was capable of simply smudging them away.
The video I tried taking of the spirit summoned in the bar... had magical interference as well. Much like when anyone attempts to take a photograph of the Captain. Doesn't work.
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The magic in our devices might not be terribly strong to begin with. And before I ask you what on earth you mean by summoning spirits in the bar...I think it's simple why Miss Crabb could smudge them. If they weren't supposed to be found, maybe they just weren't defended physically. Or maybe it was because she didn't know a thing about them, and thus, they couldn't do anything. She's not a magician, as far as I know, and if I had magic symbols, I'd be more worried about what other magicians could do versus nonmagical souls.
[but she shrugs, because this is all guessing. wild theorizing into the blue.]
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Then again. The prior voyages, I think they were all too busy killing each other to ever go digging around for such things.
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[a tiny huff.]
...That dreamwalking you mentioned...Miss Fio didn't wake with any strange marks on her, did she?
[perhaps she's paranoid. perhaps she's projecting. but if something's acting like the witch marks, then there's a whole new problem to untangle.]
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No, not that I've seen... She has these sorts of dreams often enough. Back from her own world. I think it allowed her to tap into what was being hidden away...
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[and tension bleeds out of her, a worry she can't exactly define lest this conversation veer into a direction that she's not sure she wants to burden Ava with knowing.]
Dare I ask what you did in the bar?
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[she does wonder, of course, what Helena's experiences are with such a thing. but she'll put that on pause to answer her question.]
Ah. So. There once was a stubborn and gnarly little man named Izzy Hands. That happened upon the locations of Jenny's brothers after learning their names. Or at least where their souls were kept, in locations named after them. The bars. With intentions to somehow gain her alliance, since she used... to have her own ship, she would be his choice for helping taking control over this one.
Well. He took Deputy Pratt along with him, and managed to summon one of the brothers. A cat. And I was told this story, along with a request to investigate one of the other locations but found nothing.
Anyway, it happened that one of the newer passengers, Eleanor, had come across the corpse of a passenger that had vanished months prior. While she was diving in the waters...
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[souls being kept in the bars, and one is a cat. why not, at this point. who knows why for anything. and having this place taken over...it was a risk, but hopefully not one that would have ended in the Captain's death. whatever his plan, Ava speaks of him in the past tense, and so Helena lets it lie.]
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Anyway. In October, the ship had been overtaken by a series of possessions. Former passengers, ghosts, taking control of the bodies of the living. I thought... well, here I have a spare body. No decomposition. And I know where a trapped spirit is...
So Pratt and I went to one of the bars to summon one of Jenny's brothers. To see if we could get him inside the body? I wanted to know if it was possible to bring those that were stuck in the Nothing back...
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And...what happened then?
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But. Uh. It ripped the body apart and ate it.
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[she believes her, this is just...]
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