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Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

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Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

The quiet awoke Rene. It wasn’t true quiet, there was still the gentle clicks and hums of a thousand background systems running at idle but the omnipresent roar of the storm was gone. A day and a half had passed since their eventful landing and in all that time the roar of the storm had pressed against them so omnipresently as to become the norm. Now that it was gone Rene could feel its lack. Solae shifted under the covers, perhaps subconsciously noticing the lack of howling wind also. They had dispensed with setting watches, with only two of them it wasn’t very practical, a lone watchman was as good as no watchmen if the enemy were able to pick you off before you could raise the alarm and besides anything that could move through the storm would certainly be picked up by the Bonaventure’s sensors before it was picked up by the eyes and ears of two humans. Instead they had spent the time in pleasant domesticity, preparing meals, working on parts of the ship and talking of things that didn’t have to do with the rebellion or their immediate plans. They seemed to have arrived at an unspoken truce that no one would bring up the next stage until the storm had passed. Which, apparently, it had.

Solae sat up beside him blinking sleepily. Even with mused hair and peering owlishly into the darkness, she was heart stoppingly beautiful. Rene reached out a hand and lay it comfortingly against her cheek, feeling her vibrant warmth against his skin. Part of him wanted to stay here, just curl up and go back to sleep and forget everything that waited beyond the starships steel hull. It almost felt like he was tearing himself free of a tether to force his mouth to move.

“I’ll take a look outside,” he said, more regret slipping into his words than he had anticipated. Before he could talk himself out of it he stepped out of bed and pulled on his boots. He dressed in the simple clothes he had gotten from Min Ho, judging his uniform to be too dangerous. They had no specific wet weather gear, the Bonaventure clearly didn’t expect to do much of this kind of thing, so he pulled on one of the canvas ponchos tha the engineer had used as a shield when welding. It was heavy and stained with grease, but probably as water resistant a garment as they had aboard. Thus attired the collected one of the carbines from the tool storage bin he was using as an arms locker. It was a simple electrochemical model taken from the slavers, far simpler than his own weapons but, like a uniform, an Imperial side arm was likely to garner to much attention. Turning he found Solae standing in the hatch way pulling on her own clothing. She arched an eyebrow at his expression.

“Everything you said about keeping watch applies double to scouting around,” she said with a hint of tart in her voice.

“What if you are hurt and cant make it back?” Although the tone softened a little it clearly wasn’t a discussion. Rene could hardly blame her after days cooped up on the ship. Lifting his right palm in the courtly gesture of mock surrender he fished the pistol she had used back at Amber Horizon from the battered tool box, checked the load and safety, and passed it to her but first. It was clear that she didn’t like guns, but he didn’t want to scout even a deserted island without her having at least something. It was probably more of a security blanket for him than anything else.

“As my lady wishes,” he said with a grin. Besides he prefered to be in her company even if that entailed a little risk.

As the ramp descended into the still glowing water the sound of the wind rushed in. In his mind Rene had expected the storm to be completely passed, but he hadn’t accounted for the bulk of the Bonaventure’s hull, it was no longer howling but the wind still blew strong as the tail end of the storm dragged at the air. Moisture still misted in the air, although Rene couldn’t have said for sure whether it was true precipitation or just moisture picked up by the wind here in the Caldrea.

“Let’s move carefully,” he called over the wind, “We don’t know what's under the water!” Without waiting he sloshed into the thigh deep pool and began wading towards where some ancient fluke of geology had tumbled down some of the cinder cone, creating a breach in the caldera. Instinctively he raised the carbine above his head, keeping the weapon as dry as he could, despite the fact it was certainly sealed against moisture. The footing was treacherous, the caldrea must once have been a small forest of the coral like trees, but a combination of the storm and the ships back blast had flattened them. The thigh thick trunks covered the bottom of the pool and they had to move carefully to keep their footing. Despite the improvised garments they were both soaked and sparkling with phosphorescent motes by the time they reached the crumbled section.

The oceans of Panopontus were a peculiar shade of green, there was a grayish cast to the wavelets as they climbed up and out of the caldera. The island sloped gently away from the gutted hill of the ancient volcano. Small ferns whipped and waved in the wind, it seemed to Rene a miracle that the hurricane hadn’t stripped the small plants completely. Evidently the little plants were tougher than they appeared. There was a sand beach a hundred meters down the slope, jagged pieces of multicolored coral covered most of the beach doubtlessly torn up by the storm and the surging tides the winds drove against the beach. Eddies and sucking vortices in the gray green waters marked reefs or shoals hidden beneath the ocean. Rene was just about to comment on this when a small creature burst from the undergrowth swinging a stick at his head. It was so sudden and unexpected that he only barely managed to get his carbine between his skull and the blow. The shock of contact jarred his hand but he held onto the weapon, with instinct that would have made his close combat instructors proud he shoved of and drew the carbine back to deliver a crushing stroke to the things skull.

“No!” Solae shouted and the creature fell back, dropping its stick in terror. Rene checked his stroke. Stars above it was a child.

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

I know Ithanka has left the building so she is out. I'm thinking we will have a shipwreck of the coast of Dakar where we get separated.

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

The Future?!

Bullets bored into the fuselage like railroad spikes being driven through ancient sleepers, the sound so loud that the shattering of the cockpit glass seemed like an afterthought. The rush of air and the roar of the engine crashed over them now that the dam was broken. Glass and timber rattled around the interior of the cockpit or was swept out into the warm tropical sky by the onrushing air. Opportunity threw the aircraft into a steep side slip, dropping the nose and sacrificing precious altitude for more speed. Her pursuers roared passed, the nondescript grey biplanes still spitting gunfire, though their pilots had, for the moment, lost their chance at a kill.

Below them the green profusion of the Belgian Congo spread as far as the eye could see, broken only by the tapering muddy strip of the mighty river itself as it wound its way to the horizon. Though they were only a few hundred miles from Kinshasa, it wouldn’t be long before the trees closed over the tanin laden waters, concealing it from the air. Steam rose from the jungle in long rivulets stretching towards the brilliantly blue january sky like the tendrils of some great unseen beast was questing for their aircraft.

“Ms Knox,” came Alcander’s disapproving voice from the rearward passenger seat.

“If you get any closer to the treetops we are going to wish we had hired a boat!” the archaeologist shouted over the roar of the slipstream. His tone was deliberately light but his stress was apparent from the way he bit off his words, and from the way the back of her seat creaked under his grip. Opportunity pulled her goggles down to shield her eyes from the wind rush, her auburn hair flew backwards like a snapping pennant as she craned her head to watch the enemy scouts curling around for another pass.

“Can’t you outrun them or something?!” someone shouted from the passenger compartment. The treetops were nearly close enough to touch, streaking past in a green tide.

“That’s really not how engines work!” Opportunity shouted. Their aircraft was a DH.50, an old mail plane that Jack Buchannan had scared up from God alone knew where. The enemy was, she thought, a pair of aging Avros, a great war surplus scout that the Belgian’s, the Dutch, the British and damn near everyone else still had in service. Though they bore the markings of the Belgian air force it was a fair bet that they were in the pay of the mysterious Germans. They curved around in a long arc and began to close to firing range. Unladen, the DH.50 might have been slightly faster, but weighed down with the expedition, its gear, extra fuel, and floats to allow it to land on water, it wasn't close. The Arvo’s seemed to leap forward, orange flashes stabbing as their lewis guns spewed lines of tracer fire. Opportunity hauled back to the stick to lift them out of the hail of death. The heavy machine wallowed sickeningly as it shed airspeed and maneuverability. With a curse the young pilot slammed the mixture to full rich, averting a stall for a few heartbeats before she shoved the stick forward, yo-yoing the passengers with a chorus of shouted curses.

Both enemy scouts howled past, their guns falling silent as the shot was spoiled once again, though the DH’s airspeed was now dangerously low and the trick wouldn’t work a second time. A treetop slapped the undercarriage and Opportunity yelped, climbing as quickly as she dared but resisting the urge to haul back on the stick and send them into a lethal stall. Behind her rifles cracked as Lucien or perhaps Jack opened fire, the rapid click click of the bolt actions lost in the howl of the now open cockpit. Even the reports, normally painfully sharp, were washed out by the rushing air. It was a valiant effort, but the odds of a man in a bucking cockpit, moving at over a hundred miles an hour, scoring a hit at some critical point on another target moving away at the same rate were vanishingly slim.

The Arvos curved around in long graceful arcs lining up for the kill. Without speed or altitude the DH.50 was out of tricks and an easy target. The scouts closed quickly, holding their fire this time as they must be growing near to the end of their ammunition. Lucien and Jack continued their metronomic fusillade, the angle of attack made the shot a little easier when the enemy was closing, but not much.

“There has got to be some bloody thing you can do!” Alcander shouted into her ear, but Opportunity wasn’t listening, her attention completely focused on the incoming Arvos. They were close enough now that she could make out the helmeted head of the pilots, their glasses catching the mid morning sun in erratic flashes.

“For what we are about to receive,” she muttered inaudible and both enemy machines opened up within a heartbeat of each other. Bullets chewed into the fuselage like horde of angry woodpeckers and rounds spanged of the engine cowling like hail on a tin roof. Smoke fountained from the manifold, oily black, and reeking of burning castor oil, choking the passengers and pilot before being whipped away by the slip stream. The DH.50 staggered like a whipped horse and just when it seemed they must be torn apart by the bombardment, Opportunity threw the aircraft on its side and the slipped below the level of the trees, the tip of the left wing touching the muddy brown Congo river for a instant before she leveled off, sliding into the few feet of clearance the vast flow carved through the jungle. One of the enemy machines, in an effort to keep its guns aligned, dipped too low. It’s undercarriage caught the canopy and, like an origami puppet, the machine vanished into the jungle with a booming crash of shattering timbers and rending metal. The second Arvo, realizing its peril, pulled up but too eagerly. The machine wallowed for a critical half second, offering an almost zero deflection shot to the rifle men in the rear of the compartment. Lucien shouted in triumph as the figure in the gunner’s seat of the second machine slumped sideways and tumbled from his cockpit, the body performing a slow half rotation before vanishing among the trees. The surviving fighter was gone in an eyeblink streaking away over the treetops, toothless and impotent.

“We made it!” Alcander crowed in jubilant relief.

“No we didn’t,” Opportunity shouted back, wiping a the oil that coated her face and goggles. Bright orange flames stuttered to life around the engine which had developed a jarring thumping note. Instinctively she cut the fuel line and dropped the nose, smothering the flames better to risk a crash than to burn. For a moment there was silence save for the whistling wind before a sheet of brown muddy spray obliterated the world.

Sound off if you are interested in continuing with a bit of a time skip. Also introducing a new character, fearless aviatrix, Opportunity Knox. Also I apologize to those whose characters I hijacked (Except @POOHEAD189) , this is just conceptual.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla made an elegant curtsey to the Duke and his entourage. Not for the first time, she wished she had some idea what Dietricha was playing it. It had occurred to her that perhaps the wizard was simply insane, but Yantz’s steadfast, if somewhat reluctant, faith in the woman seemed at odds with that interpretation.

“Ah this is the Herr Richter I have heard so much about,” Enrik said, with a slight sardonic humor to his voice. Camilla had the feeling that the Duke knew exactly who his guests were.

“And the lovely Gabriella,” he said, taking Camilla’s hand in his own and kissing it in appropriate Imperial fashion.

“We are honored to have such guests with us tonight. May I introduce, Gilvinus, Coriliene and Indendre, not their real names Im sure but as close as we poor humans might hope to come,” the Duke went on guesturing to the immaculate elves with a wave of his hand. Once again Camilla got the sense that the Duke was mocking, though this time it was the haughty elves who were the target of his subtle humor. The elves all offered graceful bows though they were very slight, perhaps the minimum courtesy dictated. Indendre’s eyes widened slightly as he drew close to Camila, a tiny gesture, noticeable only because of the flawless calm it disturbed. To the surprise of everyone, including, apparently, his companions, the elf leaned forward and kissed her hand as the Duke had done. He pulled back eyes thoughtful and calculating.

“YOu have the look of a military man Herr Richter,” the Duke was saying, apparently oblivious to the byplay, “what is your assessment of the military threat. Need we merely wait of General Winter to win this battle for us?”
@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The Highlander plunged downwards with only the occasional feathering of the maneuvering jets to keep it level. Wind howled through the open landing bay doors as the cityscape rushed up to meet them. The Highlander wasn’t an assault ship with proper hatches for this kind of work but she was sturdy enough and had enough power to weight ratio that flying with an open bay wasn’t a huge problem. Sayeed’s expression was hidden behind the opaque visor of her helmet, but her lips were pressed into a disapproving frown, her usual expression when circumstances were beyond her control. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t trust Taya’s piloting, although she wouldn’t have agreed to it without Neil's pre programing the course and Lonny’s assistance, it was just she would much rather have had Neil at the controls for such a maneuver. The altimeter on her holographic display spun downwards in a blur. Their exit vector had been computed to look as though they were fleeing the system but suffered some catastrophic failure, a ruse designed to conceal their landing, but simulating a systems failure was a dangerous bussiness.

“Brace for a jolt!” she yelled by instinct and tightened her grip on the bulkhead stanchion. The Highlander’s plasma thrusters kicked on, driving the deck up through her boots as the sudden plummet was arrested. Neil was already moving, the mech stomping down the ramp before jumping the few meters to the ground. On que the ship rose and pivoted in a slow circle. Junebug leaped from the hatch as her HUD threw up her deployment point, she tucked and rolled into place, curling up into a ball as the plasma thrusters swept overhead, the rotation carrying Saxon and Sven to their position on the opposite roof. Rising she ran to the edge of her position overlooking the wrecked alley. There was a low concrete wall that rose to her waist providing good cover for an overwatching sniper. She rested the heavy plasma rifle on the wall, unsnapping a bipod with a flexible rotator mount to give her optimum stability.

Below her, Neil’s mech was already tearing through the crushed concrete and construction girders, digging for the box that was, hopefully, still buried somewhere beneath. A gaggle of people gawked and pointed at the sudden commotion. Sayeeda unslung her rifle though her helmet was yet to identify any prospective targets. If this went well, they would have the aesteimobium and be on their way before anyone could react. As though summoned by the thought a red carrot flashed on her HUD, she swung her weapon to the threat, lifting her weapon till a scarred human filled the holographic sight picture. He was drawing a heavy calibre pistol which he pointed at Neil’s mech. Junebug squeezed the trigger and the man was flung back as a bolt of blue plasma converted his chest to a gaseous explosion, the pistol sailed off to the right still gripped in the man's severed arm. The crowd of spectators surged backwards in a panic.

“Neil if you could hurry this up, it won't be long till Gnorlac or one of his criminal buddies figures out what we are doing here,” she said, sweeping the expanse of cityscape with her weapon, eyes keen for any further sign of trouble.

Firebase Whitenoise (Inspiration from Oats Studios short film and SCP Fiction|Open/Applicable)

Delta Green remembers, and drinks to forget.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene smiled wanly before putting his hand to his heart and bowing in courtly fashion. Relationships among the hyperstatus sensitive nobility often had power differentials which seemed arcane to the outsider but the language of the court was nothing if not nuanced. The gesture conveyed both affection an aquience to authority.

“As you command your excellency,” Rene said, his grin broadening. Just as being the only surviving member of the garrison on New Concordia technically made him the acting Captain-General, Solae’s diplomatic rank made her the ambassador plenipotentiary to Panopontus. Most worlds this insignificant lacked any formal representation in the diplomatic corp with duties handled either by local officials or even merchants with connections to the core systems who were breveted authority in lieu of paid professional diplomats.

“As for what I wanted to show you…” Rene led Solae back to the boarding ramp. It was still open and the howling wind whipped rain droplets inside in a steady spray. Rivulets of water were beginning to run back towards the cargo bay as the heavier rear of the ship was slightly lower than the bow as sediment had given way. Even so, the storm driven air smelled so fresh and alive after the recycled stink of the Bonaventure’s atmosphere that Rene would have been unwilling to close the hatch for anything short of actual flooding.

The rain whipped water glowed and sparkled even more intensely than it had when Rene had exited the ship a few minutes prior. The reflected wake of the Bonaventure’s landing had faded but the wind still drove the shallow pool westward, particularly intense streaks of phosphorescence blossomed where the current rippled in broad V’s around the landing struts. The driving rain dappled the water in an ever shifting pattern that looked oddly ethereal due to the highlights of color.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Rene admitted, half shouting to be heard over the tumult of the wind and the hiss of rain on water. Biology was a part of education of course and though an interest in natural history and xenobiology weren appropriate eccentricities for a gentleman, it had never been a particular interest of Rene’s. Indigenous life forms at the microscopic level were rarely dangerous to humans save through ingestion, the biology too different to make infection a particular danger and though xenologic infections were not unheard of, they almost never occured on planets which had undergone even basic terraforming.

Rene squeezed Solae’s hand, it seemed even more dreamlike to be taking in the sight with his love by his side. For a moment he was able to put the rebellion and the dangerous tasks ahead out of his mind, simply enjoying the rippling play of light with Solae by his side.

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FGSbgeuwhU

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

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