The Fate Of The Argonautica(Paranormal, TG Entry)

[Unified Western States]

OOC: Ok. I've never actually done one of these before. This is a paranormal investigation thread, and I normally don't do these, so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty. The basic premise is that you (the salvager/s) take up the offer and head out to sea. You find the ship drifting in the middle of nowhere, and board it. Then, all of the spooky, gory, ghosty stuff happens. Most importantly, have a few expendable characters for me to maim/mangle. Oh, and as always, long and detailed posts are greatly appreciated. TG me for entry.

UWS Navy Gives Up Search For CCS Argonautica

Danica Gerstmeir, current Admiral of the UWS Navy, told reporters today that she has officialy ordered the active search for the Argonautica to be cancelled. The search, which was the largest of its kind and involved some 89 military ships, at least 100 aircraft and numerous civilian ships, has been searching for the past year for any sign of the 1200 foot long cruise liner, owned by Cascadia Cruise Lines Inc. However, no evidence of the ship has ever turned up, aside from a single flotation ring found drifting hundreds of miles from where the ship should have been. The ship, which was scheduled to sail from Honolulu to LA and then to Seattle, vanished somewhere on the first leg of the journey. Honolulu reported that they lost radio contact with the Argonautica about five hours after the cruise-liner left port on it's week long trip. Weather conditions that day were stormy and the crew of the ship had been warned about large waves. However, the Cascadian Weather Service told the Honolulu Star that the waves were not big enough to do any serious harm to the massive vessel.

The ship was carrying nearly 6,000 passengers when it vanished, and the cancellation of the search means that the government is officially pronouncing the passengers dead and the ship lost. President Collins declared today a day of mourning for the lives of those lost at sea. If the fate of the ship is not discovered, this event will remain the biggest unsolved naval disaster in UWS history. Admiral Gerstmeir said that passive searches would be periodically carried out over the next three years, but that no full search would likely be enacted again.

Many of the families of those missing have joined together and are offering a large sum of money to any private salvagers who can find the missing ship. The exact sum is not known, but a spokeswoman for the group, who call themselves "Families Of The Forgotten", said that they hoped it would be enough to entice the best salvagers in the world to help their cause.

Any salvagers wishing to take up the offer are instructed to contact write a letter to the group at the following address:

Families Of The Forgotten Foundation
2983 Angel Drive
Los Angeles, California

[Unified Western States]

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[Alexlantis]

OOC: Is it okay if I post here?

[Unified Western States]

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[The Fanboyists]

The Families of the Forgotten had offered a sum of money as reward large enough to entice the greatest salvagers and explorers in the world. That was certainly true. Many highly skilled, professional scavengers came from all over the world to search for the Argonautica.

The crew of the boat Gertrude was not a group of such salvagers.

On the contrary; rarely had a more amateur bunch set sail to search for treasure and plunder from the deep.

The Gertrude itself was little more than a re-outfitted shrimper. It still carried the smells and markings of its old trade, and to call it decrepit was an understatement. But it had come cheap, and in all fairness, it was still perfectly sea-worthy, if not the epitome of luxury or craftsmanship.

The crew was...interesting. Six people ran the pieced-together scavenger boat.

First, there was the Captain. He certainly looked the part. He had all the looks about him a New England lobsterman, the salty old sailor. He was close to bald, and he probably had more hair than fingers; his hands were mottled, calloused, and worn from decades of toil. He had lost at least three fingers in various accidents; such were the dangers of his trade. A scraggly iron-colored beard covered his face. He was certainly as salty and grumpy a captain as had ever been. Yet, because in a story like this character development in this manner is the norm, he had a heart of gold, and seemed to genuinely care about the rest of the rag-tag crew.

The first-mate was the Captain's grandson. Just shy of twenty-three, he was a strapping, blustery young man. He was possessed of a certain canniness, and definitely knew his way around the ship. But he was still a young man, precocious and a little cocky, and prone to youthful folly.

No crew could go at sea for long periods without a cook of some sort. The young lady was as good a chef as any, but had an unusual propensity for the creation of sandwiches of a tasty sort. She was a rather sensible young woman, with a good instinct for avoiding anything particularly likely to prove fatal, which tells you the approximate odds that she will survive this story.

The team's main history expert was a middle-aged man, who had once been a professor at university. He had a particular fondness for nautical history, which is why he was even in the crew. He was largely on the trip in search of adventure. It was to be a granted wish for his curious mind.

The two remaining crew members could be loosely described as the dumb muscle, but the first part of that description only really fit one of them. That worthy was a college student, in need of money to pay the rather stupidly-high tuition at his university. The other was a porter who also needed a buck, and was willing to take the job to keep his family fed.

This is their story, among others'.