A Failure

You scream, raging against the merciless elements. Briny waters scourge the rocking boat. A mariner loses his grip, you try to hold him but he slips from your grasp. He is swept, screaming, overboard. He thrashes and then drowns, a bad **** under the icy waves. A rope snaps and threatens two more members of the crew with a watery ****. They are saved, {if A Heretic = 1} by the idiot mercy of the chains that bind {else} by the mercy of the Shattered Lord {endif} – or by dumb luck.

Days of gruesome toil follow. You get at most three hours of sleep each night, and often less. The wind tosses your ship over the dark and foaming churn. It demands all your attention to keep you from capsizing, and its howls keep you up at night.

Then there are the few moments of treacherous peace. Thick banks of fog quiet the raging storm. Fey whispers lure you to deck and tell you things no human should ever hear. The descending darkness swallows the false light of the Liar Stars and renders the Sundered Sun’s smile a distant memory.

You hold a lonely watch, standing alone with the rudder and the Sea, calm and cruel. The weak light of your Tar Lantern fails to penetrate farther than your foot, and misty tendrils swallow all sound. You are forsaken by all, surrounded only by black nothingness.

The hush of the lifeless air bites your ear. A sudden squall brings the taste of salt to your tongue and chills you to the bone. Renewed rain lashes the ship, and spray sweeps over the deck. The bow groans under the surging tide, and then a cable is torn asunder. Somewhere, a mariner screams. You stumble forwards, finding the shaking hand, and together you prevent the worst.

And after close to a scorenight of terror, you find {if A Tattooed Mariner = 1 }the {else} a {endif} Tattooed Mariner dead on deck. Pitch-like blood runs from the open veins on her arms, forming strange symbols and flowing down to mix with the salty sea. A suicide – for the other possibility is too gruesome to contemplate.

You have lost [2] Sanity

Your Sanity is now [2] – Nightmares