The sun gradually makes its way across the horizon, finally setting behind it as you journey ever closer to the mainland. Not sure what awaits you, you all find yourselves coping however you choose. Some perhaps asleep. Some reading. Some chatting or even staring at the ceiling and just listening to the groaning of the ship as it cuts a swath through the sea.

The groaning seems to intensify over the next few minutes. It's not just the creaking of the wood that you hear. It sounds as though the ocean is growling at you. It echoes faintly through the hull and makes your below deck quarters all the more eerie.

AJ, for her part, can hear something odd. A voice inside her head that hisses a warning. "Dead men tell no talessss...."

(OOC: You have all passed outside the border of the island. Powers or anything suppressed by the anti magic wards will now start to manifest. Let me know if you have any questions.)

In reply to Her Majesty (msg # 1):

AJ slithered up from the inky depths toward a silhouette cast by the moon above a ship. She stretched eel-like claw tipped tentacles with giant tooth ringed suckers all along them up toward the vessel. Her roar of hunger and dark blood soaked glee rattled the ocean and sent a fountain of bubbles ahead of her to froth the sea and quake the ship...

AJ woke up thrashing her arms like they were still those tentacles, roaring a battle cry like that bellow had been her own and for the first time since she was like three years old flipped herself out of bed.  Pain from her injuries cleared her head and the scream cut off as she looked wildly around.

She was in only a pair of loose draw string oriental fish patterned pj pants that sat nicely on her hips and a matching thin strapped crop-top. The bared mid-rift showed off not only the fact that she possessed a rather nice sixpack but also large mottled bruises and a criss cross of old pale scars in her bronze skin. She bounded back up from the floor to snatch her sword out of its scabbard where it hung on a peg near where her head had been in the hammock... and in the process bumped hard into Gi's Hammock which might flip her friend and Drizz the cat out of that one unceremoniously.

OOC: Not sure where Chance wants to have been sleeping but he is welcome to have been in the hammock with AJ. Only Sleeping though :-P

In the dead of night, Jack was not below decks.  His carefully laid-out bedroll had no occupant, except for a neatly folded coat.

He found himself on the deck, long after the others had taken to sleep, sitting on an emptied keg against the rail.  Tucked near the forecastle, away from the smothering sense of hostility that persisted even in dreams.  Beside him, his enigmatic suitcase rested, open, its contents bared.  In his lap, he held an instrument, bittersweet chords vanishing out over the passing waves.

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Spoiler for Music: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb6uwj-xl8k

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His playing stopped with a sudden, discordant jolt when he felt a shudder, as if a ghost had passed over him.  Or, perhaps, he had passed through a ghost.  He stood up, looking out over the water, his brow furrowing with worry.  Something seemed wrong.  The waves rippled in a strange, unnatural fashion.  Water droplets seemed to spiral into the air, launched by the ship's ever-pressing prow, with no intention of ever falling back into the sea.

He reached up, his hand tucking into the pocket of his vest, feeling the familiar pulsing tick of his gold watch, glancing down at it by pure reflex.  When he looked up, everything had returned to normal, the strange and unsettling dissonance seeming to have repaired itself in an instant.

He tugged off one of his gloves, rubbing over one eye, feeling suddenly feverish.  Maybe he could get seasick.

While he wasn't in her hammock, Chance wasn't far from, opting to avoid getting growled at by the 'Privateers' for any sort of being forward, by sleeping on a bedroll almost underneath AJ.  He wasn't initially woken by the outburst, but soon after... well, that's a different story.

He grumbles, still half asleep, "What the f..."

Q's crew were in their hammock's with the exception of Q, who was sitting on a set of crates he had pulled over from nearby; first watch and all that.  CK's ears perk up a bit but doesn't seem to move beyond that.  Ilsa groans and slightly lifts her head from the hammock.  Q?

"Go back to sleep Ils- Dock Rat just had a nightmare," Quinn replied offhandedly as he fidgeted with a match.  The young woman's head plopped back down and Quinn smirked.  "Ok there? Need me to tuck you in Dock Rat?"

Gi was in her own hammock, though not sleeping.  It wasn't that she wasn't tired;  she was, extremely so.  Her mother had guaranteed she was unable to rest the night before.  Several factors kept her from doing more than dozing in and out, though.  One was the sheer number of people, so she hardly felt safe enough to give in to the vulnerability of a deeper sleep.  Another was the fact she was naturally a light sleeper and each noise, foreign as the were, brought her to full wakefulness.  The biggest detractor, however, was her own pressing and restless thoughts and concerns.

AJs nightmares, though, were nothing new to her.  She'd crashed in AJ's cave more than once and both girls were often prone to them.  "AJ, you are okay," she said, soothingly, allowing her hammock to stop swaying so frantically before she shifted in it.  Unlike her friend, she didn't want to risk flipping out.  She'd had enough accidents for one day.  "We are on the ship, remember?  We are headed for the mainland."  Her words were gentle, soothing.  "Put down the sword.  It was only a nightmare," she added.  It wasn't that she thought AJ would rashly attack anyone without provocation - okay, at least not with a sword - but people were often unpredictable in the half-waking state.  Plus, Q seemed intent on provoking.  Then again, him acting normal might be just enough to help balance AJ out.

In reply to Gisela O'Cuinn (msg # 6):

Drizz Hissed at the sudden eruption and sank claws into Gi. He had been around both girls having nightmares before but the moment he came out of his nap on his persons chest... he smelled Fish. Not good yummy fish but rotten, dangerous, cat eating fish. Like that Shark Aj had proudly brought back to the cave one time.

That kept his fur up even after it would normally have calmed down, "Someone make that SMELL go away.... Why is the Ocean growling at us?!? "

In reply to Drizz (Cat) (msg # 7):

AJ looks wildly around, waving the sword in arcs that are both crazed and skilled, at least until the voices of Q and Gi sink in.

"Ew you wish Q," She growls while getting her breathing under control again. Then She gulps and says, "I am comin...IT...it is coming to eat us. I ...IT..wants to tear this ship apart."

Then something even more nonsensical than her lame attempts to relay a warning gets through to her and she looks incredulously at Drizz, "Did you just fucking talk?!"

Even her nightmare is forgotten in that moment of weirdness!

"Ow, Drizz!" Gisela called out the sudden claws, immediately trying to extricate them.  More worried about the pinpricks, it took her another moment to realize that Drizz had spoken.  As it dawned on her, she stared for several long moments at the feline.  She'd had him for a long time.  He'd never spoken before.  Was he magical and just coming into it since they'd crossed the barrier?  No, that didn't make sense.  The other animals had been able to talk.

"Brat," she muttered, still in shock over the sudden ability of her pet to talk.  Great, now he would really think he was a person.  Cat entitlements had been bad enough.  At least she'd met more than one talking animal before, so it wasn't as shocking as it could have been.  "Get off," she muttered, pushing the fat cat off of her.

While she hadn't truly slept, Gi hadn't paid attention to much.  She'd known they had crossed the barrier, but had been ignoring the noises.  More accurately, she'd tuned them out.  With AJ and the cat reacting so strongly, though, she figured she'd at least see what was going on up on deck.  She climbed out of her hammock.  "It is likely nothing," Gisela says to Drizz and AJ, "but I am going to make certain.  Things can get weird this side of the barrier."  She looks over at Q.  "You wanted to know when we'd cross.  We did not too long ago."  She had known they did.  Everything just felt different, more alive.

The night had been all quiet. Heck, even most of the day had been. Alameth could tell when they crossed the barrier though. It wasn't the noises of the ship or the noises of the sea even. For him, it was just the sheer pain and agony as his body changed.

He rapidly changed from the quiet giant to quite literally, a quiet giant of roughly fifteen feet in height. It would have been hard to tell if it was that, the sudden dip as this side suddenly gained a large amount of weight, or somethin..else that threw the cart over the side of the ship, a loud clang as it hits the outside of the ship when the length of the chain runs out and the sizzle of the lava hitting the water. It's the only thing that happens before he drops to the ground. He hits the deck of the ship, hard, as he comes down. The look of pain on his face is one thing that might deter onlookers, but it could also be the noises as he falls...one, two, three...four loud bangs against the deck as he catches himself.

Off to the side, his ring is shining brightly as it seems to hovers a few inches off the deck.

In reply to Alameth (msg # 10):

Awoken by a loud bang, Alani shot up like a lightning bolt and attached to the first high point she saw. Securely she hung on with her claws satisfied that she was out of danger and no longer moving, she looked around and noticed the mast of the ship a little to the left of her.....
WHAT was she ON? looking down she realized her claws dug deep into familiar tanned skin.
"ALAMETH!!!"she yelled, She tried to desperately retract her claws but was stuck in his overly elaborate leather shirt. "What in the Hades is going on?" she could feel his agony and felt worse for causing him more pain. She tugged at the shirt with her teeth in the hopes of being untangled.

Quinn sighed at G, looking seriously non-surplussed; like he had just had a bad fig and couldn't get the taste out of his mouth.

A moment later he glanced at AJ.  "I'm sorry, is that weird Dock Rat?  For the cat to talk?  Cause the bunny," Q began with a smarmy look before he broke out into a full grin.  "Wait if the Cat can talk now does that mean Jack can't," he asked loudly with a sense of hope that was bursting at the seams with mockery.

In reply to Quinten Heart (msg # 12):

Below decks Drizz, unceremoniously dumped on the floor, coyly looks at his favorite humans and just says, "Meow?" It comes out in a tone that says it was clearly not expected to be believed.

He dashes off after Gi quickly enough to avoid getting something thrown at him by AJ.

In reply to Drizz (Cat) (msg # 13):

AJ still looks befuddled as she responds to Q's question, "Um ... I don't know. Maybe? I think he is upstairs." She quickly pulls on a thin seal leather overcoat from her backpack and straps her sword belt on around it before heading after Gi.  She would not be fighting half naked!

Eva sits up in her hammock, grinning ear to ear and looking far too much like her father in that moment. "We've passed beyond the ward..." she admires, standing to be at eye level with the looking glass shard. "Mirror mirror..." she begins, running a finger down its length. It responds with an eerie green glow. "Oh this will do just fine."

Morg looks over at Eva and grunts in disgust. "Great. She just got creepier than Phasma."

Phasma sits up and giggles in an almost disembodies fashion. "I smell death..." she whispers through an unsettling smile. Her white hair has begun to levitate unnaturally as though she was underwater. She looks more ghostly and ethereal than ever.

Missy seems to be taking it in with interest. Mostly the talking cat. "Talking kitty! We can be best friends!" she shouts giddily.

"Shut... up..." Shan says in annoyance as he rubs at his temples. He looks quite perturbed by being awakened at what is conceivably an ungodly hour by his standards.

"For once I agree with him," Javed chimes in. He's already slunk out of his bedroll. He stands crouched like a hunter before putting his ear to the floor. "Somethings out there."