Oubliette
Count
"It was the most horrible thing I ever laid eyes on. That oozing viscera… shredded flesh dangling loose, dripping blood that glistened in the light. Horrible. Just horrible. I’m never eating in that pub again.
Now, where were we? Ah, yes… you know what I’m like for oddities, those peculiar people and truly bizarre happenings that leave, I suppose, an indistinct haze - the impression of something great and indefinite that lingers, even on the minds of men such as you and I, who have sailed to the darkest corners of the earth. Well, here was one of the most remarkable of tales that I have committed to my, how shall I say… my collection.
Remarkable, yes. He was truly a remarkable man, though I had only the fortune of meeting him the once. Many, many years ago. And it was only after this chance meeting that I realised I had forgotten to ask whether there were any other survivors. In my defence, I sat there much like one in a trance. It might have seemed that the events being described were impossible, and yet I did not doubt the pitiful creature for one second. Those unblinking swelling eyes and that trembling lip, as the shadow of the past climbed across his face… that was all the proof I needed. And so I listened with troubled curiosity, from the second he opened his mouth to the moment when the inn grew still, until only the cold dawn lay stretched before us.
Go to the furthest reaches of the Empire, go to the belly of Africa, or to the Far East, and you will find seamen who have forsaken everything. And for what price I ask? Let me tell you - always, they are hiding something, or possibly hiding from something themselves - something I know not what. And I have heard some say it is a high price to pay, but then, we will never know what secrets they keep, what shame trips them at every step, what haunting shadows terrorize them. But then… some I have also heard say that you can never escape your past. No, not completely.
The man of my tale, no - our tale - for this is the tale of a common man - he could have been any man, any of us. He sought to escape his past. Each time, he would fly to a new, isolated place; he cared not what work he would have to do, or what conditions he might have to live in, only that he might be able to waste away his remaining years in relative peace. Now, I am not personally a believer in fate, though we seamen are perhaps more predisposed to superstition, but each time he found a new hiding place, weeks would pass without disturbance. Then, unfailingly, there would be some uncanny mishap, some freak occurrence… accidental surely, but which seemed purposely designed to disturb memories of whatever he was trying to leave behind, and off he‘d go again, removing himself to another impenetrable wilderness. Countless times this happened, many more than I could hope to enumerate. And try as I might, I could not explain how this happened by rational means, but even to describe it as fate would fall short of the truth.
As a last resort he decided to return to the seas - to keep sailing no matter the direction, no matter the weather. Normally it might be enough that a story of this nature ended at sea - the man facing his past just as he is swallowed into the raging deep - but this was not to be, for it just so happened that the man cast in his lot on board a whale catcher, lead by one Captain Locke.
Coils of black smoke seared the sky, and beyond the vast expanse that lay between clouds were congregating on the horizon. With a dozen or so determined men, the captain pulled the ship from its moorings and ghosted out to sea. For several weeks they sailed the oceans, stopping at ports only when it was absolutely necessary. Very little whaling was done, and the crew soon began to wonder where Captain Locke was taking them. They knew they couldn’t have been pursuing some legendary whale, nor did they seem to be heading toward any fixed location, for the captain’s orders would change without warning, almost according to whim. A most mercurial temperament had he too, and it frightened the crew to see him buoyant one minute, savage the next. And when our hapless man mustered the courage to ask what course they were taking, the captain merely laughed to himself.
Endlessly onward they wound in this fashion for at least a month. All opportunities for anchorage were ignored, and all storms, even the most seemingly indomitable, were passed through with equal unflinching resolution. Fluttering in the wind like beaten sails, there was nearly nothing left of the crew’s spirits, though the man, having nothing definite in life to reach for, fared marginally better than most. Furthermore, he learned that all of the men onboard had suffered similar misfortunes as himself - some less severe, a few even worse - as though there was some vague quality to the whale catcher which had drawn these futureless men to operate it, instead of offering themselves to the hellish sea itself. And sure enough, each secretly knew that they should have died by this point - would have if they could have willed it themselves - but that they had traded the ends of their existences for a life-in-death.
The true import of Captain Locke’s journey only became clear one morning, long after the crew had lost count of day and month, when the crew awoke to find the ship fogbound and the air thick with the stench of whale blubber being rendered. Captain Locke was nowhere to be found, and two other seamen were also missing. The man had the impression that they must have been in the North Sea, though I could not quite follow his reasoning. This he discussed with the others with varying success, for a few could only mumble incoherently, while others seemed lost forever in numbing stupefaction. More time passed, though the world showed no sign of it, and Captain Locke failed to return. Finally, the man and one or two others made up their minds that they would try their luck in the only whaleboat rather than wait for Captain Locke. Thus resolved, it was perhaps fortunate that a fog had descended on most of the crew’s minds, for the whaleboat was only just large enough for the six able men who planned to escape, along with what meagre supplies and additional coverings they could find. They lowered the boat into the icy water, then got in themselves; they sat in a line, two taking up oars, while another held an oar over the stern to steer it. Then, bidding a solemn farewell, they left the remaining men to their fates and slowly began to pull away from the whale catcher. The ship quickly sank into the yawning maw of the fog, and with it, so their memories of the horror also began to slip, teetering like the kernel of a sickening dream which threatens to fall back into the subconscious… a nameless place into which the mind dares not follow.
When the catcher could no longer be seen they felt a weight had been lifted - one, I venture, that was the shame they had been carrying around their necks. Silent except for the tolling of the splash of the oars, they rowed on, aware of their blindness within the fog; they could have been near land or even other ships, and would never have known. Then, seemingly all around them, they heard a long shrill whistle, and dread knotted about their hearts. Where the ship lay in the distance, the fog began to glow eerily, and the whaleboat rocked as the men struggled to row faster. The whistle abruptly ended and the water turned a reddish hue, possibly from the glow, though no man doubted that they had just escaped from some hideous end. In every direction, a great ravenous baying rose up, as if from a hundred hounds. “Row!” someone shouted. “Row for your lives!”
And row they did, long into the night, until they succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep.
Morning came and the men woke to find that the fog had lifted. But they were met with something far graver than the limitless sea that surrounded them, for one of the men lay still, curled up in his blankets. To be accurate, I should say, he was dead. Sure, the mark of death even lay even upon his sickly face, all frozen in an expression of terror it was. There was dried mucus around his nose and mouth, and his hair was sodden, but the men could not tell how this poor man had met his maker. That was, until they unravelled the blankets which he had so tightly wrapped about himself. The corpse fell face-upwards with a thud. They saw - where his innards should have been - instead was a great gaping hole. Nothing remained of the flesh, or the entrails - it was as though he had been picked clean from the inside out. And right in the centre of the hollow, there was a rolled-up note tied with string. Our man reached in and took it.
He remembered what it said, word for word. At first his faculty for memory astonished me, but I suppose it is not so much a case of being able to remember, as being unable to forget. It read:
And so they turned to one another, at first perplexed by what they just read. Then they recalled the confused raving they had heard from those lost souls back on the whale catcher. They had talked of a game, and that when night came the wolf-men would catch them in their sleep. Had to find the wolf-man in the day, they claimed - it was the only way. He would be vulnerable in his human form, but could be anyone of them, even who they least expected. The nature of the present - they quickly assumed given what they had found in the morning - was that such a creature hid among them even now, on the whaleboat. So, heeding those lost souls, they would have to reach some kind of agreement during the day, a majority verdict, so to speak. It was the only way.
And thus on the first day, the five men came to deliberate, eventually to fight over their situation, and decide which one among them could not be trusted…"
Rules (courtesy of Locke)
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Players
Vasara
Gamerwiz
Agent Griff Alex Augmented
Ruthven
Captain Kris
Now, where were we? Ah, yes… you know what I’m like for oddities, those peculiar people and truly bizarre happenings that leave, I suppose, an indistinct haze - the impression of something great and indefinite that lingers, even on the minds of men such as you and I, who have sailed to the darkest corners of the earth. Well, here was one of the most remarkable of tales that I have committed to my, how shall I say… my collection.
Remarkable, yes. He was truly a remarkable man, though I had only the fortune of meeting him the once. Many, many years ago. And it was only after this chance meeting that I realised I had forgotten to ask whether there were any other survivors. In my defence, I sat there much like one in a trance. It might have seemed that the events being described were impossible, and yet I did not doubt the pitiful creature for one second. Those unblinking swelling eyes and that trembling lip, as the shadow of the past climbed across his face… that was all the proof I needed. And so I listened with troubled curiosity, from the second he opened his mouth to the moment when the inn grew still, until only the cold dawn lay stretched before us.
Go to the furthest reaches of the Empire, go to the belly of Africa, or to the Far East, and you will find seamen who have forsaken everything. And for what price I ask? Let me tell you - always, they are hiding something, or possibly hiding from something themselves - something I know not what. And I have heard some say it is a high price to pay, but then, we will never know what secrets they keep, what shame trips them at every step, what haunting shadows terrorize them. But then… some I have also heard say that you can never escape your past. No, not completely.
The man of my tale, no - our tale - for this is the tale of a common man - he could have been any man, any of us. He sought to escape his past. Each time, he would fly to a new, isolated place; he cared not what work he would have to do, or what conditions he might have to live in, only that he might be able to waste away his remaining years in relative peace. Now, I am not personally a believer in fate, though we seamen are perhaps more predisposed to superstition, but each time he found a new hiding place, weeks would pass without disturbance. Then, unfailingly, there would be some uncanny mishap, some freak occurrence… accidental surely, but which seemed purposely designed to disturb memories of whatever he was trying to leave behind, and off he‘d go again, removing himself to another impenetrable wilderness. Countless times this happened, many more than I could hope to enumerate. And try as I might, I could not explain how this happened by rational means, but even to describe it as fate would fall short of the truth.
As a last resort he decided to return to the seas - to keep sailing no matter the direction, no matter the weather. Normally it might be enough that a story of this nature ended at sea - the man facing his past just as he is swallowed into the raging deep - but this was not to be, for it just so happened that the man cast in his lot on board a whale catcher, lead by one Captain Locke.
Coils of black smoke seared the sky, and beyond the vast expanse that lay between clouds were congregating on the horizon. With a dozen or so determined men, the captain pulled the ship from its moorings and ghosted out to sea. For several weeks they sailed the oceans, stopping at ports only when it was absolutely necessary. Very little whaling was done, and the crew soon began to wonder where Captain Locke was taking them. They knew they couldn’t have been pursuing some legendary whale, nor did they seem to be heading toward any fixed location, for the captain’s orders would change without warning, almost according to whim. A most mercurial temperament had he too, and it frightened the crew to see him buoyant one minute, savage the next. And when our hapless man mustered the courage to ask what course they were taking, the captain merely laughed to himself.
Endlessly onward they wound in this fashion for at least a month. All opportunities for anchorage were ignored, and all storms, even the most seemingly indomitable, were passed through with equal unflinching resolution. Fluttering in the wind like beaten sails, there was nearly nothing left of the crew’s spirits, though the man, having nothing definite in life to reach for, fared marginally better than most. Furthermore, he learned that all of the men onboard had suffered similar misfortunes as himself - some less severe, a few even worse - as though there was some vague quality to the whale catcher which had drawn these futureless men to operate it, instead of offering themselves to the hellish sea itself. And sure enough, each secretly knew that they should have died by this point - would have if they could have willed it themselves - but that they had traded the ends of their existences for a life-in-death.
The true import of Captain Locke’s journey only became clear one morning, long after the crew had lost count of day and month, when the crew awoke to find the ship fogbound and the air thick with the stench of whale blubber being rendered. Captain Locke was nowhere to be found, and two other seamen were also missing. The man had the impression that they must have been in the North Sea, though I could not quite follow his reasoning. This he discussed with the others with varying success, for a few could only mumble incoherently, while others seemed lost forever in numbing stupefaction. More time passed, though the world showed no sign of it, and Captain Locke failed to return. Finally, the man and one or two others made up their minds that they would try their luck in the only whaleboat rather than wait for Captain Locke. Thus resolved, it was perhaps fortunate that a fog had descended on most of the crew’s minds, for the whaleboat was only just large enough for the six able men who planned to escape, along with what meagre supplies and additional coverings they could find. They lowered the boat into the icy water, then got in themselves; they sat in a line, two taking up oars, while another held an oar over the stern to steer it. Then, bidding a solemn farewell, they left the remaining men to their fates and slowly began to pull away from the whale catcher. The ship quickly sank into the yawning maw of the fog, and with it, so their memories of the horror also began to slip, teetering like the kernel of a sickening dream which threatens to fall back into the subconscious… a nameless place into which the mind dares not follow.
When the catcher could no longer be seen they felt a weight had been lifted - one, I venture, that was the shame they had been carrying around their necks. Silent except for the tolling of the splash of the oars, they rowed on, aware of their blindness within the fog; they could have been near land or even other ships, and would never have known. Then, seemingly all around them, they heard a long shrill whistle, and dread knotted about their hearts. Where the ship lay in the distance, the fog began to glow eerily, and the whaleboat rocked as the men struggled to row faster. The whistle abruptly ended and the water turned a reddish hue, possibly from the glow, though no man doubted that they had just escaped from some hideous end. In every direction, a great ravenous baying rose up, as if from a hundred hounds. “Row!” someone shouted. “Row for your lives!”
And row they did, long into the night, until they succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep.
Morning came and the men woke to find that the fog had lifted. But they were met with something far graver than the limitless sea that surrounded them, for one of the men lay still, curled up in his blankets. To be accurate, I should say, he was dead. Sure, the mark of death even lay even upon his sickly face, all frozen in an expression of terror it was. There was dried mucus around his nose and mouth, and his hair was sodden, but the men could not tell how this poor man had met his maker. That was, until they unravelled the blankets which he had so tightly wrapped about himself. The corpse fell face-upwards with a thud. They saw - where his innards should have been - instead was a great gaping hole. Nothing remained of the flesh, or the entrails - it was as though he had been picked clean from the inside out. And right in the centre of the hollow, there was a rolled-up note tied with string. Our man reached in and took it.
He remembered what it said, word for word. At first his faculty for memory astonished me, but I suppose it is not so much a case of being able to remember, as being unable to forget. It read:
And so they turned to one another, at first perplexed by what they just read. Then they recalled the confused raving they had heard from those lost souls back on the whale catcher. They had talked of a game, and that when night came the wolf-men would catch them in their sleep. Had to find the wolf-man in the day, they claimed - it was the only way. He would be vulnerable in his human form, but could be anyone of them, even who they least expected. The nature of the present - they quickly assumed given what they had found in the morning - was that such a creature hid among them even now, on the whaleboat. So, heeding those lost souls, they would have to reach some kind of agreement during the day, a majority verdict, so to speak. It was the only way.
And thus on the first day, the five men came to deliberate, eventually to fight over their situation, and decide which one among them could not be trusted…"
Rules (courtesy of Locke)
To vote for someone, write 'Vote: [Player Name]' in bolded black. To un-vote, simply write 'Unvote' in bold. If you are already voting someone, make sure to un-vote them before placing a new vote.
Do not edit your posts.
Do not PM, or communicate by any other means with other players.
Do not talk about the game outside of this thread.
Do not post screenshots. Posting screenshots of PMs is strictly forbidden. If you break this rule, you will be banished outright.
Do not speak or communicate with the players in any way if you have died.
You must post once a day. If you miss a day, make up for it on the next. If you are not going to post for more than two days in a row, then contact me, and I can consider whether you need replacing or not.
If you need reminding of how to play, please refer to the sign-up thread.
Players
Vasara
Captain Kris
