[Another drawn pause, between messages. And then...]
Actually, on the matter of Pirate Jenny--"Guabancex"? That must be her true name. Her visit was before your own arrival upon the ship, wasn't it? [Jade remembers them brushing over the matter briefly, once before some time back, but with the rest of this considered now...] How much do you know of her by now? I spoke with her directly for a brief bit of time, when she was here; I have a few thoughts, where her powers and nature and intentions are concerned. But I'd rather not rehash anything you might already know.
[If Skulduggery were the type of person to sit on a bed reading text messages, it's entirely likely that he would be sitting there with his legs kicking back and forth like a teenager talking to his BFF Jill Jade. He isn't, of course, so their conversation is likely happening as he's wandering around the ship or maybe sitting in Sand Dollars, watching other people get those foamy cups of coffee. He just doesn't get it, man. What's the point if most of the drink is foam???]
You'll have to thank Darcy. I had her come along to assist me in keeping track of what the Captain had to say. My previous messages have all been from memory, whereas this time, I had her notes to work off of. (I was a little worried about bringing her along, but I wanted to test her. She's picked multiple fights with the Captain, and I needed to know that she could approach him from a neutral position. Too many people are acting with outright aggression when it's clear this is going to take a slightly more needling approach.)
[He doesn't mention the other reasons, which are far too complex for a simple text. Maybe if they were talking face-to-face, or if the conversation were more about their mutual teenage wards than the Captain. For now, he's satisfied with the Fatherly Stamp of Approval he's given so far.]
It's imperative that we try not to repeat the same mistakes every other group has made in their escape attempts. Unfortunately, the only people who would be able to tell us about those mistakes are the Captain, a man who has forgotten every piece of bad news he's likely gotten for the last hundred-some years, and Friday, the construct he programmed to handle things as he became more and more unstable. You room with Natsuno, so he likely told you what he learned about Friday. She's protecting some part of the Captain, likely as a failsafe to prevent himself from completely disappearing. Maybe the same way we might? Ah. And see? When he orders something, there's no taking it back. So if he ordered her to hold close some important part of himself -- a memory, or an emotion, or maybe the soul that's meant to fill him -- he wouldn't be able to undo it. And she's programmed to follow his instructions, which adds another layer of security...
[It's a connection he's only just now making, but it's worth putting out there. Jade's officially the reasonable one between the two of them, now; if Skulduggery's being crazy, then he'll be the one to notice.]
I will confess, my biggest fear at the moment is that the information he's been forgetting is about a still-living master of some kind. There will be nothing stopping the Captain's ensuing rampage if that's the case. And for that matter, there's no stopping the creature that controlled him from reappearing here. Anything that the Captain is concerned about deeply worries me.
I think he's loosely experimented with other forms of emotional power, but it's much quicker to draw out pain than it is to build up joy, which will always be more fragile. It may be that it's the only thing he can experience for himself at this point. It would explain quite a bit about him, honestly.
In regards to Jenny, I've managed to piece together quite a bit from what I've heard, as well as through Ava and Venti. Storm goddess, pirate queen, arrived here shortly after the first passenger arrivals on her own ship. She asked for the emotions attached to memories in exchange for items from home, and used blood sigils to steal from the jewelry shop. She came looking for her brothers, whose souls are trapped here. When she confronted the bridge, she nearly destroyed the ship, but she left without doing so.
Of course, these are only the broad strokes -- any more information you could provide would be greatly helpful. I wonder, what was she like? Since you spoke to her personally, maybe you'd know.
[and then, a few minutes later:]
It was a very cute little bear and yes, he did drink it. There was foam in his mustache and everything. Absolutely wild, and another reason I'm grateful to have brought Darcy along.
I have a feeling he threw the waffle away because it had been at least thirty minutes since the maple syrup was applied. Very unappetizing, to be honest. I'm glad I don't have to worry about changing food textures or having preferences for sweet or black coffee. It seems a bit tedious, honestly.
[If only he knew what he was missing... but he doesn't. The last meal he had was meat, potatoes and milk, so that's what most food seems like it would taste like to him. Even knowing what sugar tasted like, he can't recall it at this point. The only thing he thinks he can remember clearly is the bitter, twice-brewed black sludge that was strong enough to rival espresso.]
[Alas, the cafe Jade's currently sitting at himself isn't actually Sand Dollars at the moment, or else there might have been a background comedy element of them both just barely missing each other in their respective corners of the shop or something--but it's a mildly fun coincidence that they've both ended up along the Promenade in some way overall, this morning. That aside, Jade surely wouldn't have any answers to offer himself, where the appeal of highly foamy coffees might concerned; the coffee he's nursing at the moment is about as plain and black as it gets, after all, and he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth anyway.
...To say nothing of how just imagining the captain's most frequent visage with foam on the mustache is, indeed, 'absolutely wild'. Honestly, if not for the dead seriousness of literally everything else about Skulduggery's series of replies here, Jade would be strongly wondering if his leg were getting pulled about now. ...Except, simultaneously, it still manages to also be infuriatingly on-brand of the captain all around. The longer one thinks about it, really......]
I don't even know why I get surprised at news like this anymore. Darcy has certainly had a hand in furthering the mystery, at the very least, where the captain's ridiculous unnecessary tastes in drinks might be concerned... [Literally why--ugh, whatever, no use trying to think on this too long either way.] So you brought her along as a scribe in this case, did you? As far as tests go, it does sound as if she managed to weather the encounter with flying colors...since it doesn't sound like a fight was picked at all, this time around. Quite the prescient decision on your part, too, to have a secondary party available to confirm your memories on these sorts of matters...
[Jade can easily take a guess why Skulduggery feels it necessary, yes, though it goes unsaid on both sides. And even besides Skulduggery's particularly unique mental case, Jade is of the opinion that confrontations with the captain might best be made with at least one other person as a form of backup at any given time anyhow. Dealing with the man sounds...very, very difficult, much less doing so alone.]
There are indeed many here that feel nothing but aggression towards the captain...and it's certainly not an unreasonable thing, for better or worse. Cruel deeds beget such responses in most anyone with a half-functioning sense of morality, and the man has been explicitly thriving on cruelty for far too long already. Personally, I'd be surprised if he indeed ever bothered with any other forms of emotional power besides pain to begin with...but, true, it's also possible he either grew too bored and impatient working with the other kinds, or can't relate to other feelings in general. An unhappy affair for us batteries, either way. ...The other batches of passengers fell into the aggression pitfall for very good reasons, and while I agree our best bet seems to be breaking the pattern...convincing everyone here is going to be far more easily said than done.
[But, huh, that is quite the connection just there--certainly not the craziest one to be made by far. Alas, it goes unheard, but Jade is making a thoughtfully approving hum to himself as he reads over the bit about Friday's role in the captain's affairs, and maybe it's somewhat tangible in the text all the same.]
Yes, Natsuno did tell me about this. It sounds like a very intrinsically programmed failsafe indeed; from what he informed me, she was on the verge of breaking down just from being pressed on the topic. [And we're very, very pointedly not going to think back to that time over a decade ago, in his own life, when Jade had just started dabbling in the external programming of human replicas himself--before things had rather abruptly come to a head on that whole stint of research, anyway. (This...is very unlikely to be anything similar to that, anyhow. Probably. ....Or so he very, very strongly hopes--)] I think you're on exactly the right track, where that connection is concerned. It seems very clear that Friday is a key component of the captain's existence here all around. Quite the juxtaposition, against how frequently and casually he seems to kill her for any manner of transgression...but I suppose when you're fully confident in your ability to put someone back together, it becomes more like a stress ball you occasionally hurl out the window. But always head out to retrieve, eventually, because you're still stressed all the same and it's all you have to work with...
[Or maybe he doesn't even remember making her a caretaker of some vital thing in the first place? Hmm. Much to think about all around. ...There isn't a lot more to say where the implications of the captain's previous master ever making an appearance might be concerned, either--it could indeed either pan out beneficial or disastrous, and would doubtless be a terribly volatile affair either way. Sure, such an entity would supposedly be able to potentially reign the captain back in...but there's still no reason to believe it would want to bother being any more benevolent to the passengers aboard the ship than the captain himself has been, either. They might very well just be qualified as useless toys hoarded by a disagreeable child, to be tossed out as part of punishment, if not some other even worse outcome...]
Ah, it does sound like you've collected a majority of all the most important broad strokes indeed, where Miss Jenny is concerned! [What was she like? Hmmm. Well...] Let's see. To describe what I saw of her myself. She made her entrance aboard the ship by greeting a gathering summoned in the atrium with a very theatric dipping kiss of Friday, before declaring herself a pirate and offering her services procuring items from our realities for a price. That price being emotions in memories, yes, from what I've heard. I didn't take her up on her offer myself; I prefer keeping all my own memories intact, for better or worse. But I believe there were a few who did; if I'm not mistaken, she utilizes the energy gained to cross between worlds with her ship.
At any rate, when I spoke to her she'd been aboard for a day or so, and I found her in Tauva. She was sitting on the floor and throwing full bottles of wine at a wall to watch them smash. ...She's a habit of confidence dervied from her nature, I think, but she also seemed extremely tired. Approaching her own limits in a sense, perhaps. This was not her first return visit to the ship, and apparently on multiple previous occasions she'd sink this entire vessel in pursuit of her brothers' freedom, to no avail. ...She gained her own freedom from the ship by garnering the captain's favor and attention--likely via murdering every other passenger on board with her at the time, as you say--and then challenging him to a game of blackjack. She was convinced he cheated the entire time, and intentionally let her lose all other hands for the freedom of her brothers, before winning her own personal freedom only on the very last round. While she might have the capability to do so now, she still refuses to return to her reality until she can bring her brothers with her.
...The ship she uses to travel between realities is not her own, I think. I'm almost certain, as well, that the sigils she uses to collect emotions and power it are not sourced from her own native abilities either. Her natural state is as a 'storm goddess' indeed, going by how the weather was reacting when she tried breaking into the bridge; it reminded me very strongly of Sylph's reported features. [...Oh, right, should probably be more specific--] Sylph being the aggregate sentience of the third fonon, in my reality. [...Wait, that probably still needs to be more specific--] The third fonon manifests the element of Wind, and an aggregate sentience is a collective consciousness manifested from a given element. ...I think they would qualify as 'gods' of some sort, by what I've gathered of the usage of the term in other worlds. Point being: control of wind and storm is likely the true purview of Guabancex. But the captain must have supplemented her with both the ship and the knowledge of his favored system of sigils, when he cast her free from the bounds of this place...
[Alas, no awkward face-to-face meetings to be had at the moment; really, though, if they were to be in the same cafe at the same time, it's entirely likely this conversation would still remain for text, if only for referential benefit. Just imagine, the two of them sitting silently across from each other at a table, buried in their phones...]
The Captain started the conversation by asking her if she recalled the last time they met, when he stabbed her for trying to hug him. She responded, "yeah, yeah, we're even now," and that... worked. So yes, Darcy passed with more than flying colors.
[...Or maybe it's better that this is over text solely so Jade doesn't hear the fondness Skulduggery had for Fio mirrored in his praises towards Darcy.]
Friday makes for a resilient chew toy, that much is certain. But given her importance to his survival, you would think he'd show some sort of restraint. Well, knowing what I know of him, he likely is showing restraint by only killing her on occasion.
As far as Jenny goes...
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Captain purposefully lost hands to make the win all the more ironically tragic. I don't know where she would have gotten her own ship, but I can imagine that the magic she's using was either taught to her by the Captain himself, or else something that was intuitive enough to pick up on with only a few lackadaisical details.
I learned recently that the Captain has referred to his ship as an "astral chamber," and that he can't just build the ship from scratch. It could be, maybe, that Jenny's ship was once the Captain's, and this one happens to be an improved version of hers? Otherwise, where would she have gotten one? From who?
[Two grown men attending to Extremely Important Things on their phones at the dining table.....clearly this would just be how true friendship looks in this technological day and age, right? The future is here ok!!]
A truly impressive amount of improvement, compared to that first go-round of attempted stabbing she had with him! Ah, with a success story like this, perhaps there's still hope for all the other reckless teens yet...
[Probably, maybe. At this rate Skulduggery may very well become a truly formidable Feral Teen Whisperer, at this rate...!
But anyhow. Let's not linger overtly-long on thoughts about just how many times and ways Friday has probably been murdered in her likely very long tenure with the captain by this point...right, more pertinently--]
For someone set on drawing power from suffering, I've no doubt Miss Jenny's despair in the moment immediately after that game of blackjack must have kept the captain aglow for a few months at least 💀
As far as her ship is concerned, though...considering she sought to collect memories and emotions before departing once again, and based off what others found inside that ship's hull, it seems to function very similarly to the Serena Eterna. I'd personally guess it is highly likely a work of the captain's in some form, whether produced from the ether or converted from a more normal vessel. Must have been made only when he freed her; I haven't seen any passengers here arriving with vessels of their own, after all. Jenny's ship as it is now is still not quite identical in nature to the captain's, either. A lesser instance, as soul-sucking ships go? It at least doesn't self-repair, the way some things do here; I chopped a spoke off the wheel at the helm while I was investigating, [you know! for science!! as you do!!!] and I think she still had to take that spoke back before she departed.
"Astral chamber"...I'm afraid this term is unfamiliar to me. But there may be different types of chambers, in varying ranges of complexity? It wouldn't surprise me if the captain has invested a great deal of power and intricacy into the Serena Eterna--even if he were still capable of creating lesser versions, it could be that rebuilding this ship from scratch would be another immense undertaking that he'd rather not repeat if possible.
[Here, Jade might be leaning a bit upon his own experiences with "creating" things with artes--not that any of it could begin to compare to the scale the captain's employing here, but. It's a form of perspective that isn't so hard to employ, really...]
Hmm, it's curious, though. Jenny explicitly stated she drowned this ship in the sea multiple times over, doubtless by battering it to pieces in storm. Witnessing her power while she confronted the bridge, I fully believe she nearly did it again on the last visit too. But the captain never did come out to address her...and didn't stop her from leveling such destruction the times before, apparently. [...Hm....] Perhaps he's more concerned about a different sort of damage. Beyond physical?
[A slight pause, after this, in which the mulling is probably nearly tangible. At length, though...]
For that matter. The only reason she didn't actually sink the ship last time...a passenger was able to talk her down. I was acquainted with him: Flynn Scifo. [Ah....] Did you ever meet him? He was present when you arrived, but...
It doesn't regenerate? Interesting... I wonder what part of the Eterna manages that? The ghosts, the Captain, or our souls? If it's the latter, we may want to campaign for more care around the ship...
I wonder if the bridge was actually ever destroyed in Jenny's pursuits. After all, it isn't a standard physical location. Friday and the Captain both say living things cannot enter it, but I think what they mean is that creatures with souls cannot enter. Maybe there's a sigil somewhere that would allow us access... still, I don't know if I want to begin messing with things that I don't understand. Generally, I'm all for it, but in this particular case, it puts more than my own life at risk.
I suppose I could always ask...
Ah. The name is familiar, but no, I didn't meet him. I assume that he's one of the ones who's disappeared, then? What did he say to Jenny to placate her?
It does make one wonder, doesn't it? In a situation where our souls are apparently already being worked upon constantly, perhaps it's all a bit moot anyhow...but then again, I suppose any small measure to not accelerate our collective demise ought to be considered all the same...
That's another interesting question, though, about the bridge. Well, this strays into matters rather beyond my own expertise, but if what you say about the nature of the bridge is true...actually, that doesn't at all surprise me. I suppose this would imply the bridge is an "intangible" sort of space in the same way the captain is selectively intangible to incoming attacks of the physical sort, yes? It would explain how even sinking the entire ship in a storm would do little to actually disrupt anything--if the actual essential components of this 'astral chamber' are generally stored in...a different plane, of some sort?
Hm, if such a sigil did exist...you're not wrong, going in there blind would probably be the worst course of action. Ought to at least have a rough idea what to expect, lest you either destroy yourself or...yes, even worse: inadvertently destroy something actually fundamental to the workings of this vessel, while we're all still on it. ...I wonder if the captain's ever actually invited any soul-having person inside that bridge before? Assuming it's a place he could make habitable for brief periods, if he were so inclined. I'm not sure if Miss Jenny ever had such a privilege even during that blackjack game...
[Something to ask her the next time she returns, perhaps? Or...well, right--]
You do seem to have something of a strong track record of asking questions and actually garnering interesting answers from the captain, true! You might want to write this down, then. Or add it to your list, if you've already made one. You know, of things to ask the captain the next time you pay a friendly visit to the bridge door.
[Since you two seem to hang out! So frequently of late!! Not that there's anything too judgmental about it on Jade's end (yet), considering just how much useful information Skulduggery's ventures with the captain have yielded so far. But...it sure does seem to be kind of a thing they have going?? But anyway.]
Where Flynn is concerned...yes, that is so. He was present during the camping excursion, but afterwards he could no longer be found, in similar fashion to others who have disappeared here. [At least through text, Jade's sigh to himself as he writes this out about here goes unheard. Even several weeks later it's still an unhappy thing, irrelevant as such semantics might be to this conversation; he'd have been inclined to declare Flynn something of a friend, in the time they'd gotten to know each other. But...that's still beside the point, all the same.] From what I recall of what he reported after the fact, he appealed to her pursuit of her brothers--that sinking the ship would produce no newer of a result than all the last times she'd tried. He also promised to her that we would all collectively try our best, to help her free their souls from this ship.
Flynn also mentioned she has been forgetting more and more about her siblings, however, even despite the strength of the goal that keeps bringing her back here. Between the influence of the captain's power over this place, and likely also the impact of crossing realities as she does. She told Flynn she'd be searching anew for any other entities that might be willing to aid us, when she departed, as she still fully intends to return for her brothers someday...we ought to prepare for such an occasion, but I do wonder what state Miss Jenny will be in the next time around. Negotiating with her again may be more difficult, between this and the fact that Flynn is no longer here. We'll have to uphold his promise to her in his place. Jenny's devotion to her brothers may very well be the only thing keeping her from becoming a being even more similar to the captain, as you fear...
I don't think he'd want people tracking mud through his astral chamber. Or... emotions, or whatever we supposedly leak that makes us so reprehensible.
My entire life is littered with "track records" with maniacs, as they are unfortunately a dime a dozen where I'm from. I'm a detective who specializes in magical doomsday events and maniacal sorcerers with delusions of grandeur. The Captain really had no idea what he was doing when he swept me out of the timeline. His mistake! 💀
There's a man you'll likely run into at some point, short, graying hair, one of the pirates. His name is Izzy Hands. I gave your name to him because he's interested in learning more about Jenny and the possibility of helping her find her brothers. Even if Flynn can't be the one to extend the olive branch again, we'll have someone else.
Of course, if she's descended into a similar madness as the Captain has, we'll have more than our share of work cut out for us. All the more reason to see if the effects can't be reversed -- not just for our sakes, but now Jenny as well.
And the Captain. But something tells him that trying to include their captor in the list of people to save won't go over well with... well, anybody. A bit of a private goal, then...]
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come_sailaway
3/3
Actually, on the matter of Pirate Jenny--"Guabancex"? That must be her true name. Her visit was before your own arrival upon the ship, wasn't it? [Jade remembers them brushing over the matter briefly, once before some time back, but with the rest of this considered now...] How much do you know of her by now? I spoke with her directly for a brief bit of time, when she was here; I have a few thoughts, where her powers and nature and intentions are concerned. But I'd rather not rehash anything you might already know.
1/2
JillJade. He isn't, of course, so their conversation is likely happening as he's wandering around the ship or maybe sitting in Sand Dollars, watching other people get those foamy cups of coffee. He just doesn't get it, man. What's the point if most of the drink is foam???]You'll have to thank Darcy. I had her come along to assist me in keeping track of what
the Captain had to say. My previous messages have all been from memory, whereas this time,
I had her notes to work off of. (I was a little worried about bringing her along, but
I wanted to test her. She's picked multiple fights with the Captain, and I needed to
know that she could approach him from a neutral position. Too many people are acting
with outright aggression when it's clear this is going to take a slightly more needling
approach.)
[He doesn't mention the other reasons, which are far too complex for a simple text. Maybe if they were talking face-to-face, or if the conversation were more about their mutual teenage wards than the Captain. For now, he's satisfied with the
FatherlyStamp of Approval he's given so far.]It's imperative that we try not to repeat the same mistakes every other group has made
in their escape attempts. Unfortunately, the only people who would be able to tell us
about those mistakes are the Captain, a man who has forgotten every piece of bad news
he's likely gotten for the last hundred-some years, and Friday, the construct he programmed
to handle things as he became more and more unstable. You room with Natsuno, so he likely
told you what he learned about Friday. She's protecting some part of the Captain, likely
as a failsafe to prevent himself from completely disappearing. Maybe the same way we might?
Ah. And see? When he orders something, there's no taking it back. So if he ordered her
to hold close some important part of himself -- a memory, or an emotion, or maybe the
soul that's meant to fill him -- he wouldn't be able to undo it. And she's programmed
to follow his instructions, which adds another layer of security...
[It's a connection he's only just now making, but it's worth putting out there. Jade's officially the reasonable one between the two of them, now; if Skulduggery's being crazy, then he'll be the one to notice.]
I will confess, my biggest fear at the moment is that the information he's been
forgetting is about a still-living master of some kind. There will be nothing stopping
the Captain's ensuing rampage if that's the case. And for that matter, there's no stopping
the creature that controlled him from reappearing here. Anything that the Captain is
concerned about deeply worries me.
I think he's loosely experimented with other forms of emotional power, but it's much
quicker to draw out pain than it is to build up joy, which will always be more fragile.
It may be that it's the only thing he can experience for himself at this point. It would
explain quite a bit about him, honestly.
2/2
In regards to Jenny, I've managed to piece together quite a bit from what I've heard, as well as through Ava and Venti. Storm goddess, pirate queen, arrived here shortly after the first passenger arrivals on her own ship. She asked for the emotions attached to memories in exchange for items from home, and used blood sigils to steal from the jewelry shop. She came looking for her brothers, whose souls are trapped here. When she confronted the bridge, she nearly destroyed the ship, but she left without doing so.
[and then, a few minutes later:]Of course, these are only the broad strokes -- any more information you could provide would be greatly helpful. I wonder, what was she like? Since you spoke to her personally, maybe you'd know.
It was a very cute little bear and yes, he did drink it. There was foam in his mustache and everything. Absolutely wild, and another reason I'm grateful to have brought Darcy along.
[If only he knew what he was missing... but he doesn't. The last meal he had was meat, potatoes and milk, so that's what most food seems like it would taste like to him. Even knowing what sugar tasted like, he can't recall it at this point. The only thing he thinks he can remember clearly is the bitter, twice-brewed black sludge that was strong enough to rival espresso.]I have a feeling he threw the waffle away because it had been at least thirty minutes since the maple syrup was applied. Very unappetizing, to be honest. I'm glad I don't have to worry about changing food textures or having preferences for sweet or black coffee. It seems a bit tedious, honestly.
1/2
...To say nothing of how just imagining the captain's most frequent visage with foam on the mustache is, indeed, 'absolutely wild'. Honestly, if not for the dead seriousness of literally everything else about Skulduggery's series of replies here, Jade would be strongly wondering if his leg were getting pulled about now. ...Except, simultaneously, it still manages to also be infuriatingly on-brand of the captain all around. The longer one thinks about it, really......]
I don't even know why I get surprised at news like this anymore. Darcy has certainly had a hand in furthering the mystery, at the very least, where the captain's ridiculous unnecessary tastes in drinks might be concerned... [Literally why--ugh, whatever, no use trying to think on this too long either way.] So you brought her along as a scribe in this case, did you? As far as tests go, it does sound as if she managed to weather the encounter with flying colors...since it doesn't sound like a fight was picked at all, this time around. Quite the prescient decision on your part, too, to have a secondary party available to confirm your memories on these sorts of matters...
[Jade can easily take a guess why Skulduggery feels it necessary, yes, though it goes unsaid on both sides. And even besides Skulduggery's particularly unique mental case, Jade is of the opinion that confrontations with the captain might best be made with at least one other person as a form of backup at any given time anyhow. Dealing with the man sounds...very, very difficult, much less doing so alone.]
There are indeed many here that feel nothing but aggression towards the captain...and it's certainly not an unreasonable thing, for better or worse. Cruel deeds beget such responses in most anyone with a half-functioning sense of morality, and the man has been explicitly thriving on cruelty for far too long already. Personally, I'd be surprised if he indeed ever bothered with any other forms of emotional power besides pain to begin with...but, true, it's also possible he either grew too bored and impatient working with the other kinds, or can't relate to other feelings in general. An unhappy affair for us batteries, either way. ...The other batches of passengers fell into the aggression pitfall for very good reasons, and while I agree our best bet seems to be breaking the pattern...convincing everyone here is going to be far more easily said than done.
[But, huh, that is quite the connection just there--certainly not the craziest one to be made by far. Alas, it goes unheard, but Jade is making a thoughtfully approving hum to himself as he reads over the bit about Friday's role in the captain's affairs, and maybe it's somewhat tangible in the text all the same.]
Yes, Natsuno did tell me about this. It sounds like a very intrinsically programmed failsafe indeed; from what he informed me, she was on the verge of breaking down just from being pressed on the topic. [And we're very, very pointedly not going to think back to that time over a decade ago, in his own life, when Jade had just started dabbling in the external programming of human replicas himself--before things had rather abruptly come to a head on that whole stint of research, anyway. (This...is very unlikely to be anything similar to that, anyhow. Probably.
....Or so he very, very strongly hopes--)] I think you're on exactly the right track, where that connection is concerned. It seems very clear that Friday is a key component of the captain's existence here all around. Quite the juxtaposition, against how frequently and casually he seems to kill her for any manner of transgression...but I suppose when you're fully confident in your ability to put someone back together, it becomes more like a stress ball you occasionally hurl out the window. But always head out to retrieve, eventually, because you're still stressed all the same and it's all you have to work with...[Or maybe he doesn't even remember making her a caretaker of some vital thing in the first place? Hmm. Much to think about all around. ...There isn't a lot more to say where the implications of the captain's previous master ever making an appearance might be concerned, either--it could indeed either pan out beneficial or disastrous, and would doubtless be a terribly volatile affair either way. Sure, such an entity would supposedly be able to potentially reign the captain back in...but there's still no reason to believe it would want to bother being any more benevolent to the passengers aboard the ship than the captain himself has been, either. They might very well just be qualified as useless toys hoarded by a disagreeable child, to be tossed out as part of punishment, if not some other even worse outcome...]
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Ah, it does sound like you've collected a majority of all the most important broad strokes indeed, where Miss Jenny is concerned! [What was she like? Hmmm. Well...] Let's see. To describe what I saw of her myself. She made her entrance aboard the ship by greeting a gathering summoned in the atrium with a very theatric dipping kiss of Friday, before declaring herself a pirate and offering her services procuring items from our realities for a price. That price being emotions in memories, yes, from what I've heard. I didn't take her up on her offer myself; I prefer keeping all my own memories intact, for better or worse. But I believe there were a few who did; if I'm not mistaken, she utilizes the energy gained to cross between worlds with her ship.
At any rate, when I spoke to her she'd been aboard for a day or so, and I found her in Tauva. She was sitting on the floor and throwing full bottles of wine at a wall to watch them smash. ...She's a habit of confidence dervied from her nature, I think, but she also seemed extremely tired. Approaching her own limits in a sense, perhaps. This was not her first return visit to the ship, and apparently on multiple previous occasions she'd sink this entire vessel in pursuit of her brothers' freedom, to no avail. ...She gained her own freedom from the ship by garnering the captain's favor and attention--likely via murdering every other passenger on board with her at the time, as you say--and then challenging him to a game of blackjack. She was convinced he cheated the entire time, and intentionally let her lose all other hands for the freedom of her brothers, before winning her own personal freedom only on the very last round. While she might have the capability to do so now, she still refuses to return to her reality until she can bring her brothers with her.
...The ship she uses to travel between realities is not her own, I think. I'm almost certain, as well, that the sigils she uses to collect emotions and power it are not sourced from her own native abilities either. Her natural state is as a 'storm goddess' indeed, going by how the weather was reacting when she tried breaking into the bridge; it reminded me very strongly of Sylph's reported features. [...Oh, right, should probably be more specific--] Sylph being the aggregate sentience of the third fonon, in my reality. [...Wait, that probably still needs to be more specific--] The third fonon manifests the element of Wind, and an aggregate sentience is a collective consciousness manifested from a given element. ...I think they would qualify as 'gods' of some sort, by what I've gathered of the usage of the term in other worlds. Point being: control of wind and storm is likely the true purview of Guabancex. But the captain must have supplemented her with both the ship and the knowledge of his favored system of sigils, when he cast her free from the bounds of this place...
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The Captain started the conversation by asking her if she recalled the last time they met, when he stabbed her for trying to hug him. She responded, "yeah, yeah, we're even now," and that... worked. So yes, Darcy passed with more than flying colors.
[...Or maybe it's better that this is over text solely so Jade doesn't hear the fondness Skulduggery had for Fio mirrored in his praises towards Darcy.]Friday makes for a resilient chew toy, that much is certain. But given her importance to his survival, you would think he'd show some sort of restraint. Well, knowing what I know of him, he likely is showing restraint by only killing her on occasion.
As far as Jenny goes...
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Captain purposefully lost hands to make the win all the more ironically tragic. I don't know where she would have gotten her own ship, but I can imagine that the magic she's using was either taught to her by the Captain himself, or else something that was intuitive enough to pick up on with only a few lackadaisical details.
I learned recently that the Captain has referred to his ship as an "astral chamber," and that he can't just build the ship from scratch. It could be, maybe, that Jenny's ship was once the Captain's, and this one happens to be an improved version of hers? Otherwise, where would she have gotten one? From who?
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A truly impressive amount of improvement, compared to that first go-round of attempted stabbing she had with him! Ah, with a success story like this, perhaps there's still hope for all the other reckless teens yet...
[Probably, maybe. At this rate Skulduggery may very well become a truly formidable Feral Teen Whisperer, at this rate...!
But anyhow. Let's not linger overtly-long on thoughts about just how many times and ways Friday has probably been murdered in her likely very long tenure with the captain by this point...right, more pertinently--]
For someone set on drawing power from suffering, I've no doubt Miss Jenny's despair in the moment immediately after that game of blackjack must have kept the captain aglow for a few months at least 💀
As far as her ship is concerned, though...considering she sought to collect memories and emotions before departing once again, and based off what others found inside that ship's hull, it seems to function very similarly to the Serena Eterna. I'd personally guess it is highly likely a work of the captain's in some form, whether produced from the ether or converted from a more normal vessel. Must have been made only when he freed her; I haven't seen any passengers here arriving with vessels of their own, after all. Jenny's ship as it is now is still not quite identical in nature to the captain's, either. A lesser instance, as soul-sucking ships go? It at least doesn't self-repair, the way some things do here; I chopped a spoke off the wheel at the helm while I was investigating, [you know! for science!! as you do!!!] and I think she still had to take that spoke back before she departed.
"Astral chamber"...I'm afraid this term is unfamiliar to me. But there may be different types of chambers, in varying ranges of complexity? It wouldn't surprise me if the captain has invested a great deal of power and intricacy into the Serena Eterna--even if he were still capable of creating lesser versions, it could be that rebuilding this ship from scratch would be another immense undertaking that he'd rather not repeat if possible.
[Here, Jade might be leaning a bit upon his own experiences with "creating" things with artes--not that any of it could begin to compare to the scale the captain's employing here, but. It's a form of perspective that isn't so hard to employ, really...]
Hmm, it's curious, though. Jenny explicitly stated she drowned this ship in the sea multiple times over, doubtless by battering it to pieces in storm. Witnessing her power while she confronted the bridge, I fully believe she nearly did it again on the last visit too. But the captain never did come out to address her...and didn't stop her from leveling such destruction the times before, apparently. [...Hm....] Perhaps he's more concerned about a different sort of damage. Beyond physical?
[A slight pause, after this, in which the mulling is probably nearly tangible. At length, though...]
For that matter. The only reason she didn't actually sink the ship last time...a passenger was able to talk her down. I was acquainted with him: Flynn Scifo. [Ah....] Did you ever meet him? He was present when you arrived, but...
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It doesn't regenerate? Interesting... I wonder what part of the Eterna manages that? The ghosts, the Captain, or our souls? If it's the latter, we may want to campaign for more care around the ship...
I wonder if the bridge was actually ever destroyed in Jenny's pursuits. After all, it isn't a standard physical location. Friday and the Captain both say living things cannot enter it, but I think what they mean is that creatures with souls cannot enter. Maybe there's a sigil somewhere that would allow us access... still, I don't know if I want to begin messing with things that I don't understand. Generally, I'm all for it, but in this particular case, it puts more than my own life at risk.
I suppose I could always ask...
Ah. The name is familiar, but no, I didn't meet him. I assume that he's one of the ones who's disappeared, then? What did he say to Jenny to placate her?
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That's another interesting question, though, about the bridge. Well, this strays into matters rather beyond my own expertise, but if what you say about the nature of the bridge is true...actually, that doesn't at all surprise me. I suppose this would imply the bridge is an "intangible" sort of space in the same way the captain is selectively intangible to incoming attacks of the physical sort, yes? It would explain how even sinking the entire ship in a storm would do little to actually disrupt anything--if the actual essential components of this 'astral chamber' are generally stored in...a different plane, of some sort?
Hm, if such a sigil did exist...you're not wrong, going in there blind would probably be the worst course of action. Ought to at least have a rough idea what to expect, lest you either destroy yourself or...yes, even worse: inadvertently destroy something actually fundamental to the workings of this vessel, while we're all still on it. ...I wonder if the captain's ever actually invited any soul-having person inside that bridge before? Assuming it's a place he could make habitable for brief periods, if he were so inclined. I'm not sure if Miss Jenny ever had such a privilege even during that blackjack game...
[Something to ask her the next time she returns, perhaps? Or...well, right--]
You do seem to have something of a strong track record of asking questions and actually garnering interesting answers from the captain, true! You might want to write this down, then. Or add it to your list, if you've already made one. You know, of things to ask the captain the next time you pay a friendly visit to the bridge door.
[Since you two seem to hang out! So frequently of late!! Not that there's anything too judgmental about it on Jade's end (yet), considering just how much useful information Skulduggery's ventures with the captain have yielded so far. But...it sure does seem to be kind of a thing they have going?? But anyway.]
Where Flynn is concerned...yes, that is so. He was present during the camping excursion, but afterwards he could no longer be found, in similar fashion to others who have disappeared here. [At least through text, Jade's sigh to himself as he writes this out about here goes unheard. Even several weeks later it's still an unhappy thing, irrelevant as such semantics might be to this conversation; he'd have been inclined to declare Flynn something of a friend, in the time they'd gotten to know each other. But...that's still beside the point, all the same.] From what I recall of what he reported after the fact, he appealed to her pursuit of her brothers--that sinking the ship would produce no newer of a result than all the last times she'd tried. He also promised to her that we would all collectively try our best, to help her free their souls from this ship.
Flynn also mentioned she has been forgetting more and more about her siblings, however, even despite the strength of the goal that keeps bringing her back here. Between the influence of the captain's power over this place, and likely also the impact of crossing realities as she does. She told Flynn she'd be searching anew for any other entities that might be willing to aid us, when she departed, as she still fully intends to return for her brothers someday...we ought to prepare for such an occasion, but I do wonder what state Miss Jenny will be in the next time around. Negotiating with her again may be more difficult, between this and the fact that Flynn is no longer here. We'll have to uphold his promise to her in his place. Jenny's devotion to her brothers may very well be the only thing keeping her from becoming a being even more similar to the captain, as you fear...
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I don't think he'd want people tracking mud through his astral chamber. Or... emotions, or whatever we supposedly leak that makes us so reprehensible.
And the Captain. But something tells him that trying to include their captor in the list of people to save won't go over well with... well, anybody. A bit of a private goal, then...]My entire life is littered with "track records" with maniacs, as they are unfortunately a dime a dozen where I'm from. I'm a detective who specializes in magical doomsday events and maniacal sorcerers with delusions of grandeur. The Captain really had no idea what he was doing when he swept me out of the timeline. His mistake! 💀
There's a man you'll likely run into at some point, short, graying hair, one of the pirates. His name is Izzy Hands. I gave your name to him because he's interested in learning more about Jenny and the possibility of helping her find her brothers. Even if Flynn can't be the one to extend the olive branch again, we'll have someone else.
Of course, if she's descended into a similar madness as the Captain has, we'll have more than our share of work cut out for us. All the more reason to see if the effects can't be reversed -- not just for our sakes, but now Jenny as well.