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Ctenoid Soul Member

STATUS: I guess we post stuff here. 7 yrs ago
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7 yrs ago
Current I guess we post stuff here.

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For character#1 dialogue.
For character#2 dialogue.
For character#3 dialogue.

Most Recent Posts

In ✨Beyond The Veil✨ → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


In ✨Beyond The Veil✨ → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Second character. Warden shrink.



In ✨Beyond The Veil✨ → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Wulde Riddenhouse

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Location: North outskirts of Gutter’s End. Time:Early-to-mid evening

Interactions: N/A • Mentions: N/A

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Wulde perched, or more accurately lay, upon a rooftop, because apparently that was something Wardens did. This particular rooftop, he knew, was covered in recently-installed three-tab shingles, which cost about one-fifth as much as the architectural shingles the policyholder had listed on their insurance claim.

Said policyholder might soon be in the hands of a police-y holder once Wulde turned in his report. They would certainly want a good lawyer, and not the sort that those TV ads suggest one call to tell the insurance company You. Mean. Business.

But this was all day-job stuff. In the meantime, the sun once more had set, and Halcyon, as always, now turned its energies away from everyday human affairs to bend them towards everynight monster nonsense.

On this night, Wulde’s assigned piece of monster nonsense involved surveillance of the northern edge of Gutter’s End. Apparently, something was amiss these nights in lycanland, more so than usual. There were rumors of some sort of challenge to Iron Fang dominance, even of targeted killings of its members. Details were sparse, and it was unclear what the two Field Wardens were supposed to be looking for up here.

Yes, two. Wulde glanced over at his partner, who lay on the same roof about twenty feet away, peering through a pair night vision binoculars. He hardly knew the guy, nor had he worked with him before yesterday, when they had received this assignment together. The other warden’s last name was “Barton”. Wulde had written his first name down but not bothered to memorize it.

“Wake up, Riddenhouse,” rasped Barton, who probably didn’t know Wulde’s first name, either. “Take a look at this. Just outside that bar on the corner.” .

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Wulde rejoined with a similar rasp as he sat up. He looked for the bar in question before raising his own binoculars to his eyes. “What am I looking for?” he asked as he did, giving himself time to find the bar all over again in the device’s magnified field of view.

“Looks like two guys giving our dealer a hard time.” Barton was a few years older than Wulde, and had been a Field Warden for longer; he knew Gutter’s End well, and thus had spotted the dealer in question right away on their first stakeout.

Wulde zoomed out until his view was wide enough to see three figures on the sidewalk at the mouth of an alley next to the bar. Then, carefully, he adjusted his angle and zoomed back in. “Our” dealer was turned towards him, and the Warden could see his face. Dark hair and features; Wulde guessed him to be Latino. The two newcomers had their backs to him, and were wearing hoodies besides. Their clothes looked plain, and didn’t match each other. One wore high tops and the other boots.

“You spot any colors?” Wulde asked, as he switched on the record button.

“No, nothing I recognize, ” answered Barton. “No clue who these guys are. Could be anybody.”

Wulde silently agreed. With rumors afoot that the Iron Fangs were under siege, there would be a number of interested parties looking to test the water for blood.

The two hoodies certainly seemed to be testing the dealer. They loomed on either side of him, leaning in, crowding him. From their body language, it looked like Left Hoodie was doing all the talking, while Right Hoodie supplied the knuckle-cracking and menacing glower. The dealer was clearly unhappy, but was so far keeping his cool.

At some point, something attracted the hoodies’ attention, for they both started back and looked to their left, in the general direction of the bar entrance. Resisting the urge to traverse the binoculars, Wulde instead zoomed out while keeping the field of view centered on the trio.

Once he had pulled out far enough, he could see that two men, almost as imposing as the hoodies, had emerged from the bar. They both wore black, collared, short-sleeve shirts with some sort of lettering on them. Wulde didn’t have to zoom back in to guess that the lettering spelled “STAFF”.

For a while, the two groups gesticulated and shouted at each other, but eventually, perhaps disappointingly, the hoodies relented and began to walk away from the bar under the watchful glare of Staff One and Staff Two.

Wulde felt his phone vibate in his coat pocket, but ignored it, still watching the events unfold in front of the bar. Off to his side he heard the telltale rustles and clicks as Barton pulled out and examined his own phone. The other warden grunted and muttered an oath.

“Change of plan, Riddenhouse,” he announced. “Some kind of dust-up at a warehouse down Gutterbane ways. There’s an address.”

As Wulde reluctantly clicked off record and lowered his binoculars, Barton continued to read his phone and gave another grunt. “This address is one of our safehouses in that neighborhood, so we’re headed to a rally point. I guess we’ll get some sort of briefing there.”

Wulde put the binoculars back in their case and pulled out his phone. He had the same message as Barton, of course. The only detail the other Warden had left out was the gun icons at the end of the message, indicating that they were to come as well-armed as possible on short notice.

“Do you know how to get there?” Wulde asked. He was not looking forward to driving through potentially hostile territory with one eye on a navigation system.

“Yeah,” said Barton. “Tell you what: get whatever you need from your scooter and leave it here; we’ll go in my truck.”

“Deal,” agreed Wulde, as he began packing up his things. Discerning the activities and intentions of Left and Right Hoodie would have to await another evening. A few minutes later they were in Barton’s canopied pickup, threading their way among the industrial ruins that littered South Halcyon, towards the Wardens’ safehouse.

Safehouse, Wulde snorted mentally as he eyed the dreary hulks of factories and warehouses sliding past them. He was pretty sure any such designation around here was purely aspirational.
In ✨Beyond The Veil✨ → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
In Beyond the Veil → 1 yr ago Forum: General Interest Checks
Sounds like this could be a lot of fun. Might be interested in playing a warden (unless everybody else is playing a warden).
In Pigeon Spit: A medieval fantasy story. → 7 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Bork


In response to the clerk’s question Bork shrugged. Not his idea, not his fight. He would simply mention the Captain’s request to the abbot later. Andrew was Drom’s boss, after all. If he said she belonged in a hole in the ground tomorrow, she’d better grab a lamp and a mining helmet. And if he didn’t, well, the Captain would just have to deal with it. And Bork would be fine either way.

He would not, of course, tell the abbot more than he had to about the bowl, only that that the cat people had thought it important enough to their well-being to offer a bag of gems for it. Basically what Kriltra had told him. The two items interested him from the meeting were the fate of the glassblower and of the drug business. He had shown Andrew the plants, and apparently the abbot was alright with allowing the trade to go on. Perhaps that Wehrli lout would be more amenable to picking drug plants for his buddies than he would building a wall for the dwarf and the abbot? The only thing the engineer would want is to make sure that Pigeon Spit got its “cut”, the one Kriltra had offered him.

Why did the glassblower interest him so? His costume jewelry idea for one thing. But more importantly, he had plans for an oil press. And glass bottles were the best for oil; they could be reused and even repurposed, whereas a clay, wooden, or skin vessel that had once been used for oil could not be safely used for much else afterwards. And they sold better, too, because they looked better and because people could more easily see what they contained.

And all this gave him ideas for more designs: a lamp with a reusable glass reservoir, a bottle of a standard size, that fit into the base. And there could be a peg that one turned to adjust the length of the wick for the kind of oil being used at the time. This was followed by a sketch of stocks, and leg irons that attached to a staple bolted to a suitably solid stone wall. Although he did not actually draw it, he amused himself by picturing Werhli locked into them.
In Pigeon Spit: A medieval fantasy story. → 7 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Bork


Bork nodded as the Captain pointed out the pros and cons of his proposals. ”Yeah, I can see people not wanting to just let us in their houses,” he agreed. ”I still think we could make the rounds in the evening, checking whether front doors have locks and places for lights.” He shrugged. It was a brainstorm, not a cause. ”As to the stocks inside the constabulary, sure. Won’t be as much public shaming as if they were outside, but maybe that’s just as well.”

The engineer and the captain didn’t have much time to discuss matters further because Drom wanted to talk, apparently. He grumbled a bit, in spite of the free warm soup, since he was coming to prefer the captain’s company and way of thinking to the goblin’s, but the clerk sometimes had shown she could be useful, so listening to what she had to say might not be totally worthless. The dwarf listened to her proposal with a frown at first while he tried to puzzle out her cryptic references, then with a growing realization and an equally growing grin. By the time she had finished, he was nodding and almost laughing.

”That’s actually a good idea. I bet the abbot would love to make that deal, and he’d be good at it.” Best of all, they’d win practically every prize: a bunch of gems for a relatively low-value bowl, a rapproachement with some tough customers who might otherwise make trouble, and his own integrity and reputation would be intact; no one would be able to say they’d bought Bork Valding with those gems when he hadn’t even received them. And Pigeon Spit -and therefore himself, indirectly- could still benefit from their use. And apparently the elf actually still retained whatever leverage she needed to keep the cat people in check.

He was even more pleased with the note the clerk handed him. It’d be nice to have some farm lads about who weren’t afraid of honest work. He pocketed the note and thanked the clerk. He might actually have to rethink his opinion of Drom, he thought grudgingly.

And then it was back to the Captain. He groaned when the Captain mentioned taking him and the abbot’s taking the clerk with them to the mine tomorrow; not because he didn’t care for the idea, but because he had just finished talking to her not one minute ago. ”I’m fine with that if she is,” he said. ”Wish you’d told me that ten minutes ago, though.”

He shook his head disapprovingly at the Captain’s story about the girls. ”This town is too small to have those sorts of problems. That’s what comes of folk not having enough to do.” That might also spell trouble later: if people were *used* to not having much to do, they might not appreciate the work chances properly when they came; they might see opportunities and encouragement as whip-cracking or something. People could be fools.

As to his question about why the clerk took the younger girl? Maybe she needed an understudy or something. How was he supposed to know what the goblin had in mind?

Suddenly, he remembered the note Drom had handed him and pulled it out of his pocket to show the Captain. ”Speaking of giving young people something to do, Drom recommended these lads to me. What can you tell me about them?”
In Pigeon Spit: A medieval fantasy story. → 7 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Bork


Bork listened to the Captain pointing out the complications of his idea about seizing the gems. His throat emitted a slightly annoyed growl. People were so much messier than machines. After a moment he waved dismissively. ”Forget that idea, then. More trouble than it’s worth.”

As for the rest, law and order and such, the engineer had more to think about. He wasn’t going to have any trouble filling that book with drawings, provided he had time to make them. ”I’ve already got schemes for an oil press,” he told the captain. ”That means more lamp oil, and more light after dark. A proper jail might be premature. We don’t have the money nor the scale nor proper courts yet. But building a couple suitable sturdy rooms, with chains stapled to a wall for holding, might be workable for now. Some stocks might not be amiss, though, and some strongboxes for seized goods and collected fines.”

The dwarf’s thoughts ran to a whipping-post and a chopping-block as well. But one needed a proper knouter or headsman for those. Nothing uglier than a beheading botched by an amateur. Any guard could lock somebody into stocks.

He nodded. ”One thing this town will need is a proper locksmith. You and I, Captain, maybe one of the things we should do is survey the town’s physical security. Which houses have locks. Internal locks on secure rooms. Who has strongboxes, that sort of thing. What’s the lighting like at night. Which neighbors look out for each other. Which neighbors have it in for each other. Could a neighborhood watch be organized. I wasn’t looking for any of those things specifically when I went through yesterday, and you probably have a better eye for that than I do.”

More things to do. More things to see. Bork smiled. He liked having things to do. He glanced meaningfully around the inn. He understood why he was there, but that did not make the frustration of inactivity any less galling. ”If I’m going to be doing that with you, would I be safe enough in the open in your company, you think? Something I could do while we’re waiting for this…protective custody to be over?”
In Pigeon Spit: A medieval fantasy story. → 7 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Bork


Bork smirked. If there was one subject a dwarf didn’t need a lecture on, it was the possible uses for a bag of gems. ”Not gonna lie. That hurt to do that,” he answered. He nodded as Drom commented on the state of the town. ”A place has eight score people and at least two criminal outfits?” he asked rhetorically, ”Yeah, I’d say there are some problems that need to be fixed if Pigeon Spit is to prosper.”

Finally, he looked up at the Captain. ”I don’t think so,” he answered honestly. ”But I haven’t been to the mines yet to ask Rorik about that. His Grace and I were supposed to go up tomorrow, but I’m not sure that will happen on schedule thanks to this recent nonsense. Until it does, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what if any gems we *could* mine here.”

A thought occurred to him. ”I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at those gems, though, and asking Catlady where they came from. Perhaps we could simply confiscate them. I mean,” he gestured towards the clerk, ”you mentioned this Shadowclaw has committed treason, and she tried to extort something that would help him escape the consequences of it, right? I’m sure there’s some legal pretext for doing that, eh?” He looked back and forth between the Captain and Drom to see what they thought. Why negotiate for something they could rightfully just take?
In Pigeon Spit: A medieval fantasy story. → 7 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Bork


Bork’s forehead creased as he listened to Drom. The dwarf didn’t know much about magic; he hadn’t cared to learn, in spite of the fact that it would probably have made his life easier in all sorts of ways. ”So, are you saying that the bowl isn’t actually as valuable as Catlady and Silverclaw think it is?” he asked. He scratched his beard and thought. He was hanging by a thread here. These sorts of problems weren’t the kind he had come to Pigeon Spit to work on, yet they seemed to be piling unbidden into his lap.

”Treason, eh?” he asked. ”Seems a bit harsh.” He scratched a bit more. If Silverclaw had intended to harm him, that made him an enemy. Period. His reasons, and whether those reasons still held, were irrelevant. Working with him was out of the question. But did Bork want revenge? He didn’t feel that, as he had never actually seen the alleged attack. Nonetheless, this Silverclaw was bad news, and Bork preferred the idea that he still thought he was in danger.

Shaking his head, he pushed the bowl back to Drom. He heaved a regretful sigh as he did; Roswitha would have really liked those gems. ”I don’t want these people as allies,” he answered. ”I want them to go away, one way or another.” He shot the elf a grim look. ”I guess I’ll have to design a scaffold now.”

Nelthurin


Nelthurin shrugged. ”I’m all in favor of sitting down and talking. Not sure our engineer is a suitable principal, though. He neither knows nor is comfortable with this sort of business, from what I can tell. He’d probably also prefer to spend the time with his designs.” The elf smirked and shook his head. Bork could draw, he’d give him that. He hadn’t seen the dwarf build anything yet, but he was sure he could. He was a dwarf, right?
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