Atrophy

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Vesta

It had been years since the woman had been to the Homestead. Back in those days Vesta, Joy then, was something else. She had made a name for herself fighting in the Arena as a gladiator; her steel had left a countless number of men and women maimed or dead. Things were simpler, easier back then; the woman fought to live and lived to drink. Sometimes she fought while she was drinking, and sometimes she fought in the Arena when she was drunk. That was the case in her last fight. She was completely hammered going into the fight and came out of the fight after getting hammered by a maul the size of her head. It was followed by bedridden weeks of getting hammered to ease the pain.

Vesta could feel her knee shattering all over again as the Arena came into view. She moved her flask away from her chapping lips; the pain effectively killing the buzz she no longer seemed interested in maintaining. Vesta slipped behind the rest of the group as they aimlessly entered the Arena. She doubted anybody would recognize her unless she drew her blade and flashed it through some poor sap, although it wouldn’t have been an issue anyway. With Cyril’s haphazard way of recruiting anybody he saw, able or otherwise, he knew that she wouldn’t have been turned away for being a gladiator. Hell, she would even let herself be convinced that the man would wait until after they had completed their mission to throw her away if he had found out about her banditry.

Still, being in this place filled her with unease, and the feeling doubled as she met eyes with the Direwolf. They had been contemporaries back in the days of Olain, although he was more often by the King’s side than she; even then Vesta had often wondered why Olain had made her Captain instead of the Direwolf. After the failed campaign West, the nights that did not end in a blackout were filled with endless tossing and turning as she thought more and more how Olain might have been saved from himself if the Direwolf was there instead of her. In her head, she could hear him blaming her. Whatever form of comradery that she had for the man was gone, replaced by just a lingering sour taste in her mouth. She lifted her hood over her head and leaned against the wall, trying to disappear.

Ennis

The ambassador was practically bouncing up and down as they walked through the halls of the Arena. Whatever aches that had been holding him down from that morning were now gone, healed by boyish enthusiasm and a few secret spells to keep his peculiarity at bay. As Cyril explained the situation to the Chiefs, Ennis nodded along approvingly. It was good to hear that disdain for Gartian had spread to Gurata. With their allegiance they could quickly dispose of Gartian and put a more suitable, levelheaded individual on the throne. H’kela had more important things to focus on than fighting a disastrous war, like—Wait, why did that gray woman say no? thought Ennis.

“If I may—” started the ambassador softly. Too softly; he was cut off. He tried again.

“I think that—” Again, interrupted.

“If we took a se—”

“I call for Decision by Combat!”

Ennis hung his head. “Oh, great, yes, let’s go ahead and not try to talk through things peacefully,” muttered the ambassador. He rapped his knuckles against his head. “Glad to see those years of taking blows to the skull have done none of us any questionable damage.”

He heard Vesta snort at the suggestion that many of them seemed like good fighters. The ambassador shrunk back away from the group and quietly put his fist in his mouth, chewing on his knuckle to keep himself from speaking out any further. He knew that the Guratans had a sort of backwards way of government, but just because they chose to be barbaric did not mean that more sensible people had to step down to their level. Damn it, Cyril. Pain shot through Ennis’s hand as he bit harder; he let out a soft yelp and shook his hand wildly.

He quickly straightened himself out in fear that perhaps the noise would be taken as some kind of volunteering gesture. Ennis wasn’t made for fighting. It made him sweaty, ruined his clothes, and he had to be extra careful when it came to dealing with mages; not to mention that the man could barely use a sword any better than a five-year-old playing soldier with a twig. No, these sorts of things were much better suited for the son of a bloodthirsty king, a talented wizard with a fine taste in animals and poor tolerance towards alcohol (He was drunk yesterday, yes? thought Ennis), the Paladin’s protege, and—

“A pirate,” said Vesta with a hoot, shaking her head and smiling knowingly.

—a pirate. Ennis couldn’t help but think how the man was far from any seas, let alone the southern ones. Then again, since he had chosen a career of piracy the ambassador couldn’t really hold it to the man to always pick the right path to follow. Still, he did appreciate the pirate for offering to take the spot for one of them. He mulled over the best way to capitalize on this prospect as even Lora volunteered her services.

“As eager as I am to help, I would not be able to live with myself if I knew that I prevented a man from repaying a debt, nor would I want any of the Sentinels to feel left out of the opportunity to prove themselves to their Prince any further. You may have my spot, Dalious,” said Ennis as if he was doing the man a favor. “I will try and find out what I can about our opponents, and you will all have my unbridled support from the stands.”

“Nobody expected or wanted you to fight anyway, Cade, but at least you had the decency of waiting for some sacrificial lamb to step forward instead of throwing your own onto the chopping block like Damon,” said Vesta, picking herself up off of the wall. He shot her an annoyed look that she seemed to ignore as she pushed her way towards Cyril. To Ennis’s surprise, she walked right by him. He could barely make out her words, her shoulders slumping as she sighed.

“I guess one person who can actually fight will have to join you tomorrow if you want to win this,” she said. “I’ll see you at noon.”

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Valorie stared at the black card that Kurtz had given her, flipping it over and over in her hand as if she was expecting it to somehow transform or disappear like an illusionist’s trick. It was heavy for its size, made out of some kind of metal, and was engraved with the same fancy ivory font that said “B&W”. She had already checked it with an ATM, and was surprised to not only find her payment for the job available for withdrawal but an extra bonus of twenty grand thrown in there by Kurtz out of good measure. Sure, it wasn’t as fun as a briefcase full of money, but it certainly was more practical—and she had taken the opportunity at the ATM to pull out a nice stack of twenties.

She put the card away into her new purse (designer, expensive as all hell) and walked out of the bathroom with her new heels clacking (also designer, expensive as all fucking hell. They were the first victims of what would become the mass spending streak of that she had set in motion. Kurtz had made it appear that all jobs would pay this well. In Valorie’s mind, that was code for “go absolutely nuts”. She had almost been killed by a psychopathic elf, herself, a corrupt cop, a bunch of ghosts, and a mannequin in less than a week. She earned a night of hedonism and frivolity.

Already she had sent a picture to Cain, dressed to the nines in the black dress and a black—what was it called, a blazer? Fancy shit, she thought— jacket as a fan of cash hid her mischevious smile and her bloodshot eyes but not the fact that she was subtly flipping him the bird. Kurtz had supplied it to her. The clothes, that is, not her middle finger or the joint that she had smoked afterwards. He thought it would be a bad idea to walk out of his office in bloody clothes. She was shocked by how well it all fit, although she couldn’t help but feel like a little girl playing dress up. Valorie may have thought herself to now be part of the nouveau riche, but she wasn’t about to go through one of those complete makeover nonsense. Still, she took the opportunity to play with Cain a little bit, and to give an excuse as to why she would probably not be in for the night. Her text read:

”Ahh, they turned me into a yuppie!”
“Jokes. If I ever talk to you about the
color of business cards then I give
you permission to set me on fire.”
“I am going to live out my life long
dream of drinking champagne on
some fancy hotel’s private VIP only
rooftop and maybe trash a room. I’d
invite you along but then they’d just”
“Think that you’re a dirty old man
and that I’m some kind of call girl,
and I wouldn’t want them to get the
wrong idea about me. Laters!”

Getting an idea, she took a few more photos and sent it to Cain, tagging it with a heart emote: “So you don’t get lonely tonight, Francis.”

And then she turned her phone off.

Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the dingy surroundings of the photo taken from within the women’s room of the Dirty Bath, the dive bar slash “Rat hole” that she had slept in only a few nights ago. Only today she was not here to escape from the effects of some drugs gone bad; she was here to buy some, and the person she was buying from was none other than her dear friend Quinn who she had been pushing off for almost an entire week. Truth be told, she was excited to see her for three reasons. One, Valorie honestly considered the woman to be both her best friend and somewhat of a bad-influence mentor during her time in the Rats. Two, Quinn always had access to the best shit there was. Three, meeting with Quinn violated Cain’s no drug rule and Kurtz’s no Rat rule: it was totally stupid, completely wrong, and absolutely thrilling.

“Jeeezus, take your time princess,” said Quinn as Valorie rejoined her at the booth.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Valorie, waving her hand dismissively.

“No, no, it’s cool man. Not like you haven’t been snubbing me all week already,” said Quinn, folding her arms across her chest. “What’s another ten minutes.”

“It was not ten minutes!” said Valorie with a huff.

“Ten fucking minutes,” whispered Quinn, leaning her elbows against the table.

The woman was, in Valorie’s opinion, disgustingly attractive. She was tall and lean like a supermodel, but without their emaciated skeletal appearance and unfairly blessed with all the right curves. Her skin was a smooth caramel and free of blemishes—a truly impressive feat, doubly so because the woman was perhaps the biggest junkie Valorie had ever met. Her hair was dyed blue with pink highlights and shaped into a lazy kind of mohawk, a sleeve of tattoos ran up her arm, and she somehow managed to make a body interlaced with piercings looks good. On a normal day Valorie looked sort of odd hanging next to her; today they could not appear to be farther apart, one looking like a businesswoman trying to hid the bruises from her nosy coworkers while the other dressed like a punk princess.

“I’m worth the wait,” said Valorie smugly, before dropping the guise. “Sorry for being a shitty friend this week. Things were kind of crazy.”

“I’d say,” said Quinn. “Looks like you went corporate. What, did the business venture with the Fifth Street Losers not pan out so well?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Ehhhh,” Quinn shrugged. “I heard a lot of stuff. I wanna know the details. Is it true that bitch Tory got completely gutted by that grim reaper freak?” Valorie nodded. Quinn smacked the table and grabbed her beer. Her phone vibrated. “Serves her right. I fucking hated her. So, you ran away and just laid low for the past couple of days or what?”

“Nah, I ditched them before any of that shit even happened,” said Valorie. “I ran into an old friend of mine and stayed with him for a while just in case anyone thought I was involved with that bullshit.” Quinn raised an eyebrow and made an interested noise. “Not like that,” lied Valorie. “Francis is old and a friend. He knew my dad from something and hooked me up with some intern position for some firm or whatever. He’s okay, but I couldn’t really do anything fun with him watching. Wouldn’t want daddy to find out something awful about his little girl.”

“Yeah, like how she’s sending his friend nudes, or how she too stupid to make sure that she isn’t also accidentally sexting her friend as well. Holy shit jackpot,” said Quinn, turning her phone around so Valorie could see the other photos she had sent Cain (and, clearly, her friend). Valorie felt her buzz take a backseat as she turned red in the face and snatched at the phone. However, Quinn had already moved the mobile out of the way. “No way, I’m keeping these. Shit, your camera is quality.” She nodded approving as she kept swiping her phone. “When you said you wanted to get weird with me tonight I wasn’t really expecting this.”

“Dude...”

“Hmm. Have you considered waxing?” said Quinn, tilting her head inquisitively.

“Dude.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s cute.”

“Dude!”

“Okay, okay, I’m done,” said Quinn, sipping her drink. “And they’re deleted.”

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” said Valorie.

“What? That you sent me nudes on accident, or that you’re screwing your dad’s old golfing buddy or whatever?”

“Both. Let’s drop it, let’s drop it, okay?” asked Valorie. “It’s already weird enough as it is, let’s drop it.”

“Okay, it’s dropped, it’s dropped,” said Quinn, pocketing her phone and then rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “So! What do you need? I was able to borrow a whole shitload of stuff; they know I’m good for it. You, er, do have cash right? I’d rather not get yelled at for skimming from the supplies again.”

“Yeah. What you got,” she said, nodding to the backpack.

“Look, I know this place is kind of a shit hole,” said Quinn, “but I still probably shouldn’t start listing off names or flashing this junk around. Never know who could be a snitch around here.”

“Right,” said Valorie. “Oh, but it wasn’t a question. I’ll take what you got.”

She was handing her friend something in the shadows beneath the table. Valorie watched as Quinn looked down, her mouth almost hitting the floor as she saw the wad of money. The woman quickly grabbed the stack of cash and shoved it into her leather jacket.

“Holy shit, where did you get all of that?” asked Quinn. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh gross, you gold digging slut!” she said, playfully punching Valorie on her wounded shoulder. The necromancer winced and gave Quinn a pained look. It only reinforced her misconception. She laughed. “I did not know you had it in you. Wow. Way to go.”

“You got it so goddamn—” Oh, fuck it, it wasn’t like her friend was going to be judging her; Quinn had already told Valorie about the time she had been a call girl. Several times, in fact. Now she kept herself mostly to camshows when she wasn’t nodding off in some dust dream. Besides, letting Quinn convince herself of where she had gotten the money was a lot easier than trying to craft her own lie, and there was no way in hell Valorie was going to tell her about her work for the firm. “—right. I believe you were the one who told me it’s stupid to give something away for free?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you actually listened to me. Look, I gotta run this back to the big guy, okay? You know how Tony is. I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go too hard before I get back here, okay?” asked Quinn.

“Uh huh.”

“For real, Vals. I’m not going to play babysitter, and if you start that biting shit again I will—”

“I got it, man,” said Valorie. “I’ll be a good kid. Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe that.”

Quinn downed her drink and got up from the booth; Valorie followed her up to her feet. The two hugged, and Valorie could smell the scent of the walking dead typical of a junkie on Quinn, lingering down below a masking of scented lotion and perfume. Valorie pulled away from her friend and gave her a forced smile, noticing for the first time the lifelessness behind her friend’s eyes. It was like looking into an empty being composed of nothing but a desire for drugs, sex, and alcohol. It was pitiful to see her friend wasting herself. Was this the kind of shit Cain felt? Did he also feel guilty and disgusting for pitying her like Valorie did for Quinn?

She raised a hand to say bye as her friend pushed past the ogre bouncer, leaving her alone in the bar except for the elven bartender, an old couple in the corner, and a backpack full of drugs. She grabbed the bag and slipped into a private side room, leaving the door unlocked for Quinn whenever she came back. Maybe she could somehow get her friend clean, check her into a rehab or learn a spell that would force her to go sober. Quinn would need more than simple motivation to give up. Not like Valorie, who believed she could give up any minute as she unzipped the backpack of narcotics.

Tonight’s the last time and then I’m clean for good, she thought, dumping the contents of the bag out onto a table. There was enough junk in the bag to supply a small rave, minus the glow sticks and bad playlists, or make Hunter S. Thompson shit his pants in fear and excitement. A slow smile crept over her face as she gazed into the pile, her eyes vacant and lifeless. It’s easy. Cold turkey. A clean break. I deserve a break.

“I deserve a break,” she repeated aloud, as if it would reassure her guilt.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Should begin working on a post today or tomorrow!

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Good job. I'm working on a solo post o get Val ready for the super ultra great secret plan.

Chase the Night

@Atrophy Just a clarification point. With Blank's ability, will he still remain visible to those with IR and X-Ray vision?

@NuttsnBolts

That's a good question. I was under the impression that modern day Spooks would have technology that creates an almost absolute camouflage around them that prevents them from being seen, but Blank isn't not a modern day Spook. I don't feel like a perfect camo would really make sense (or really be fun; ~5 minutes is a lotta time to be invisible).

I'm going to pretend that I understand the electromagnetic spectrum and that it hasn't been nearly a decade since I last thought about it or that I am now feverishly reading Wikipedia. Perhaps it would be best to have Blank completely invisible to anything on the lower energy side of the spectrum, so he would not be detectable by the naked eye, infrared, radio waves, but he would be detectable by types of vision that use UV, X-Rays, or Gamma Rays. In other words, every day Enforcers, the average civilian, and some Divers would not see him since he's invisible to more typically used alternative vision (radar, thermal) while more cybered up Divers and Spooks would be able to see him by using their less common alternative vision (X-Ray, UV).

But really, I rather do what works best for the group. Let's see what @Hexaflexagon has to say on the nature of cloaking.

Chase the Night

For everyone's sake, Blank drafted Gorgon to keep her away from the fragile, squishy civilians. Sorry, @Traitor. We'll have to let ol' Gorgy go on a blending spree some other time.

_{But we will be having civvie smoothies sooner or later.}

Chase the Night

Blank cracked open his drink and put the rim to his lips. He gave an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction as he wiped his lips clean with the back of his glove. He actually didn’t really care for light beer. He generally preferred his drinks to be a lot darker, a lot stiffer, or a combination of the two. He lazily eyed the others from underneath his hat, casually lifting the can to his mouth. He didn’t really feel personally hurt by those who had set down his drink, although it would refrain from him mockingly acting insulted later on. Perhaps they were teetotalers. Blank could see someone boasting about how their body was a temple and alcohol was a poison, all the while splicing themselves with further and further unstable augments.

Still, sharing a drink was a sign of camaraderie; the least they could do was be like him and pretend to drink the pisswater. Pretending was Blank’s new pastime. From his voice to the smile on his face, nodding along as Gorgon pseudo-promised to protect Gaze, everything was just like his augmentations—artificial and barely more than skin deep. Toasting to their health and calling the ragtag group of C-Freaks friends? Yeah, to call it a little superficial would have been an understatement. It’s not that he didn’t like them, he did (well, most of them). He just wouldn’t be going to their funeral unless they offered a baller buffet and promised to speed through the rosary.

He pondered Gaze’s point: some of them wouldn’t come back alive. It was good to see that he wasn’t the only one who noticed that perhaps Kybuashi actually knew of some likely trouble instead of just being an overprotective investor. Scratch that, some of us wouldn’t come back alive, thought Blank, not putting his chances of survival above the others. He probably had more experience than most of the team, but experience meant jackshit when somebody could install an augment that allowed them to shoot a coin out of the air from over a mile away while running. He knew more than anyone that the only reason he made it so long was because of a hot streak when it came to rolling dice, and they were slowly being loaded against him.

Although he wasn’t above cheating if his luck did run out.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” said Blank after Phantasm offered a sound reason as to why there were so many of them. He didn’t know much about the woman, but he could appreciate someone who put in the effort to remain unknown. It was a good quality in a Diver. He glanced over at the quiet man, Jag, as he shifted back and forth like he was fiending hard for some Neurotop. There was a chime.

“Time to go,” said Jag.

““I’m sure our biggest threat will be boredom. Should’ve brought cards,” said Blank, discretely placing his full beer into a trash can. Former corporate killer or not, he didn’t like littering. Perhaps his nanny did raise him right; more likely it was a force of habit from covering his tracks while on a job that had just become second nature.

Following the others into the train, Blank made a conscious decision not to sit next to Crash. It wasn’t that the man didn’t appreciate the Diver. Sure, they had completely different styles from what Blank could find out, but whatever got the job done, right? The reason was a much simpler one. If he was going to be on a train for over half a day then he wanted to have a window seat, and taking the one next to the big guy meant he was at best giving up his armrest and at worst having a metallic elbow dig into his gut for the entire trip. Sliding his satchel carefully below a seat in the front of the railcar, he casually kicked his foot up on the seat across from himself and leaned against the window as the maglev kicked on and the city turned into a blur.

After meeting the Divers early, Blank had dug through whatever resources he had to find out information on them. It was an old habit, back from the days when he took large jobs that split the pay between the remaining Divers as opposed to individually paying each an agreed upon sum. It was a recipe for disaster, and more than once had Blank found himself at the end of a “friend’s” gun for his share of the pay. Fortunately, the practice had fallen out of favor a few years back, and Blank had double checked with Kybuashi Enterprises just in case—their payments were freezed until the mission was complete, and any assets owed to deceased Divers would instead be returned to the Corp.

Still, finding out about his comrades had proven to be a daunting task (he once thought about creating a company that licensed and catalogued Divers, before realizing that it would exclusively be used by Corps), but scanning some of their hardware awarded with at least some basic knowledge about what they could bring to the table. He tried his hand at quickly categorizing the group—loud or quiet, tactical or instinctive, lethal or nonlethal—and tried to think of who he would mesh the best with if, no, when things derailed. He pulled himself out of his thoughts as Crash walked past him and stepped into the room with the box. I’m sure it’s not going anywhere, he thought as he leaned out of his seat and looked into the room. Yup, same old box.

“You think they’ll show us what’s in the box when we’re done?” asked Blank to his neighbor across the aisle. “I bet it’s going to actually be some p—shit!”

Blank jerked his head out of the way of getting smashed to bits by Crash, appropriately enough, crashing through the door. He didn’t need to hear the big guy to know what was going on; the Oracle Eye had just picked up the loud engines followed by a good number of signs of life. Footsteps overhead confirmed it, and explosions from the front and rear confirmed that they weren’t just some cybered out hobos hopping on a train to avoid buying a ticket.

Not exactly the way I would start the assault, but I gotta give them some credit, thought Blank.

“Not to be that guy, but I told you it’s bad luck not to share a drink,” said Blank loudly, smiling. Part of him was glad that things had so quickly gone awry; easy jobs were nice, but they just lacked that special something. He pulled his submachine gun and his baton from his satchel, leaving behind some of his heavier ordnance. Blank did not know what an EMP would do to a maglev train, but he didn’t want to risk sending them off course at several hundred miles per hour.

There was screaming from the car behind them, loud and shrill. His smile faded as Crash bolted towards the car full of civvies. He didn’t like the idea of collateral damage any more than the next man, but Blank had been hired on by Kybuashi Enterprises to protect a box—not publicly play bodyguard to help guard their PR. The feeling of doing a good deed did not put a roof over his head, buy him dinner, or provide him with intel and gadgets; if the package got grabbed when he was off playing hero then he was screwed.

Still, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t assist Crash, and they would have to take out all of the interlopers anyway. Blank turned his comms on, knowing from experience that plenty of runs had gone sideways because a lack of coordination between unfamiliar Divers. Sure, some knew how to move around other Divers like a talented dancer can avoid getting their toes stepped on by a nervous partner, but some sure as hell didn’t. Blank wasn’t going to simply hope that everyone knew what they were doing. He would have to hope, however, that none of his new friends had an ego; or if they did, at least knew when and where to flex it.

“The bastards are split into two groups; we should do the same and push back before they completely pincer us in here. Alpha can push back the pricks in the passenger car, Bravo can guard the box,” he said calmly over the comms, quickly running the numbers. There were eight of them, so two teams of four.

“I need three people to go with Crash. Preferably people who are good shots; I don’t want to have to throw any more bodies overboard than we need to. Gorgon, you and two others come with me. Call out your team over comms and keep this channel open. We don’t want a clusterfuck,” he said.

He would normally have picked Crash serve as his bullet sponge just on size alone, but the man had already incidentally volunteered himself to lead team Alpha. Gorgon would serve as a fine, if not even a better, alternative. His radar informed him that none of their attackers had entered the car holding their package yet. Good, that gave them time to set up an ambush. Tossing a piece of gum in his mouth, Blank gripped his Overloader as his mouth filled with the taste of cinnamon. He wrinkled his nose at the gross taste. It was a necessary evil as the chip in his mind vanished him from the sights of his allies. He had until the taste disappeared to be hidden; pushing anything beyond that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

“Stunning the first guy who comes through. We’ll want to know if they have anything else planned for us later,” said Blank over comms as he sidled up to the door at the far end of the almost empty cargo car. “Don’t shoot until he’s out of the way, and try not to get any bullet holes in their damn box.” Blips on his radar from the next cargo car moved closer to them. "Okay, here they come."

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

@The Darklight ProjectOh, Vesta loves the arena. Yeah, no hard feelings there whatsoever. Still, she'd probably force Cyril to let her help. And yeah, as for Ennis, eh, he'll cheer from the sidelines and...maybe help people cheat...

Good thing I've been playing plenty of the new Street Fighter to get ready for some combat!

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Ennis

It had been a rough morning for the Ambassador. It had taken more than a few knocks to stir the man out of his restless sleep, and even then his body was too stiff to move. He never did find that bathhouse; most of his evening had been spent trying to keep an eye out for any trouble within the group. Vesta had, luckily, backed down from challenging that paladin (after Ennis had discretely cast a spell on her that made her words sound like mush). Realizing almost instantly what had happened, his “bodyguard” had stormed off—the reaction Ennis had hoped for but hadn’t been a hundred percent sure he would get. Fortune smiled on him, thankfully. He didn’t see her for the rest of the night; likely, she was off venting her frustrations on some poor bottle of liquor.

Eventually he did clamber out of bed and into his travelling clothes, although urges from the Sentinels that he hurries up prevented him from taking his usual time to groom himself. Hair sticking every-which-way and his eyes deeply set within two dark sockets, Ennis looked more as if he had walked out of a war zone than had spent a day riding at a steady pace. Vesta was already ready with his horse by the time he had joined the others, although the woman said no word to him as she handed him the reins. In fact, she had said no word to anyone since the paladin had chastised her and Ennis had temporarily snipped her venomous tongue. Even as they rode the woman was silent, occasionally separating from the group to either scout ahead or to avoid the others. Ennis knew that is was probably both. The woman was vigilant, but she was also beyond stubborn.

Vesta

And, more importantly, she was hiding her drinking. Vesta had started that morning and had no intention on stopping until they either made camp or she fell off of her horse as drunk as a lord. She didn’t even know why she was hiding it. She cared little if they found out about her vice, let alone if they left her to freeze on the Guratan wastes; she would still follow Cyril as he, like that bastard paladin said, led children into battle. It was her duty to protect Olain’s children, even if they were arrogant, self-righteous idiots who surrounded themselves with sycophants, serpents, and strangers—not to mention cowardly drunks.

She was riding on their flank right now, her bow drawn as if she was keeping her eyes out for any wandering miscreants. Not that it mattered, for Vesta knew that if they stumbled upon a bandit, rogue, or pirate that Cyril would wave his hands around, declare an imperial decree, and draft the cutthroat into his merry band of riffraff. The man’s unrelenting idealism was almost impressive. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but she could almost see Cyril going up to Gartian, shaking his hand, and asking him to join their cause to stop his own damn army. She spat at the thought. Her eyes flashed back towards the group; they were stopping for some reason.

She spurred her horse and rejoined the others as they crowded around the crumpled figure. A corpse; so what? Through the haze of her vision, however, she could see the dead body’s chest rise and fall. She sighed. It was a hindrance, but even the reformed bandit wasn’t low enough to leave an injured man out in the field. In her mind, it was the same as being the one who had inflicted the wound in the first place. Slowly dismounting from her her horse, she hovered behind Lora as the woman revealed his shoulder injury. Vesta had seen her fair share of wounds in her day, and could immediately determine what she was looking at. She shook her head disparagingly. What idiot pulls out an arrow without having someone around to help heal the wound?

“Poor lad,” said Ennis.

“He’s a dumbass,” said Vesta, steadying herself with both hands on her makeshift cane. Lora had said that the wound was old. That meant he either felt no need to get it patched up or felt like he could trust no one to patch it up. Vesta knew from experience that even most magic couldn’t heal a wound that had been given too much time to improperly heal. It was the very reason why she no longer put money on bar bets that required her to race somebody. She couldn’t help but empathize with the wounded man; part of her even hoped they were not too late for the fellow, idiot or not.

Another part of her was on high alert.

“We should do something,” said Ennis, ignoring Vesta’s correction and offering no solutions on to what something would actually be.

Yeah, I get it.

“Lora, unless you know any healing magic then get out of the way,” she said, stepping a few more feet away from the man herself. Her voice was stern and steady, but wasn’t necessarily harsh. She tucked her sheath into her belt and drew her bow. “A common tactic among bandits is to use a wounded individual as bait to force travelers to lower their guard. Cyril, command your men to set up a perimeter around the area just in case.” She glared at Diane. “You, Lady Laues: despite what Damon says cripples are not completely dependent on Divines or babysitters. More importantly, Ayano is not a child; you can stop doting on her for a minute. Surely, that staff is not just for show. Heal this man; I’ll cover you if he turns out to just be a good actor.”

“Now,” she said firmly as she notched an arrow.

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

<Snipped quote by Atrophy>

Seconded, but that's maybe not surprising coming from the dude RPing a wendigo.

@Flagg

Well, it's only not surprising because Kurtz happens to be a classy man of wealth and taste.

Medium steak. F'ing hell.