Penny

The Sunday Group

Hi everyone, especially Penny. Sorry about my absence, I'm mostly back now. It's been a...well. It's been a not-great couple weeks.

@Naril

I just hope everything is ok :)

The Sunday Group

@POOHEAD189 Manny is probably in charge of logistics, such as arranging transport when we get there :)

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug refrained from looking up as the pebble struck her and managed to cover her flinch by stumbling momentarily on the uneven ground. The rough hands of her captors arrested her progress instantly and held her firm for a moment in case it were a faint of some sort. Part of her was impressed that Neil had managed to follow so closely without being observed, another part of her was just glad he hadn't come charging in guns blazing, that had seemed to be his style and would have been a very poor percentage for Sayeeda remaining unshot.

"Well sweetie, welcome to our humble home," the leader said with a grand gesture at the meager squalor of the camp.

"Your knew home too if you know what I'm sayin..." he leered, giving her a slight shove down into the center of the camp. Her eyes didn't rest long on the figure tied to a tree. Another prisoner and of little current help in dealing with the situation. She wished that Neil had a subdermal radio like the small unit she had installed in her mastoid bone. While she was at it she might as well wish she had a combat skimmer with a full crew. That thought made her smile as in her mind the clearing blazed with cyan flame, the men currently man handling her exploding into clouds of steam and burning clothing as plasma super-heated their fluids. Whatever the expression looked like on the outside made her captor momentarily flinch back and she realized it didn't line up well with the somewhat clueless persona she needed to survive.

"I bet we can find a tree to tie her to right Jorge?!" one of the other rebels called, thrusting his hips obnoxiously. The leader, Jorge apparently, appeared to recover his bravado.

"Well you wont' be paying any tolls with that on," he said, the swagger returning to his voice as he began to fumble with the catches to her body armor. There was a sudden hiss of pressurised air and Sayeeda winced as the armor's integral medunit shot her full of... something, she couldn't tell which of the colored med tabs he had pulled in his fumbling.

"Please, let me do it, I wont be no trouble," she said forcing herself to smile sheepishly. Jorge struggled with the armor for a moment and then, taking in her words nodded. He pulled an impractically large knife from his belt and then yanked her close to him, licking the side of her face as he reached behind her and severed the bonds. Sayeeda didn't cringe. She had been spattered with blood and worse than blood more times than she could count, though the revulsion still registered in the back of her mind. The toughs hooted and cheered their leader. Smiling vapidly she reached back and touched the release studs that snapped the armor open and stepped clear of the heavy ceramic. Beneath it she wore only her tan cotton shirt, still smeared with the blood of the dragon like creature Neil had shot. She had no idea how the men found it attractive but the cheered and hollared none the less.

Jorge stepped towards her and grabbed a handful of her firm breast, his other arm looping around her waist to draw her close. He smelled even worse close up, but she couldn't imagine what she smelled like covered in a fine mixture of blood, sweat and dust. The rebel mashed his lips against hers and she returned the kiss unentusiastically.

"Not here," she breathed, "Is there somewhere private?"

"The girl wants some privacy!" Jorge boomed, with a wink towards his men, "Well maybe just this one time!" There was general laughter from the assembled goons and Jorge half lead half dragged her towards a series of tents that had been in place so long that moss was growing in uneven gray patches upon the camoflage fabric. He thrust her inside the tent and followed her in, already unbuckling his trousers. Sayeeda lay back in what she imagined to be an enticing position and the Rebel came towards her laying atop her as he pulled his trousers down and fumbled with her belt.

"Oh your going to be..." Sayeeda hit him, hard with her fist held with blade like rigidity. It was a killing stroke, practiced and perfected in viscous street fighting on more worlds than she cared to remember. All of her considerable strength went into a single well timed strike. The cartilage in his neck popped with a snap she feared might be heard out in the camp. By way of camouflage she prepared to moan in simulated passion, her dark eyes glinting viciously at Jorge as he choked for air, unable to breath, unable to breath through his collapsed airway. Continuing to moan theatrically she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him to her, rolling atop him with ease as she pinned his hands, preventing him from going for either the knife of the electromotive pistol he had in an impractical leather holster. His bulged for lack of air and she continue to moan atop him as she delivered a second blow, this time to his carotid artery, in a similarly brutal fashion. His body stilled quickly beneath her. Continuing to moan and rock for the benefit of any outside listeners she slipped the pistol from the holster and checked the load. It wasn't a model she was familiar with but it was simple enough in all truth. Next she slipped the knife from the sheath and, nothing if not thorough, thrust it under one of the ribs and up into the stricken rebels heart. The twitches ceased immediately. After wiping the blade on the dead mans tunic she cut a vertical slice in the side of the tent away from the others and began to tiger crawl out into the jungle.

Sayeeda saw Neil almost immediately, the glint of his rifle obvious to her from this angle, although apparently not to the rebel who seemed to be talking excitedly and drinking some sort of local liquor. They had only moments before they realized her simulated exstacy had ceased and there was no way she was leaving her gear and body armor in any event. She made a field signal to her pilot indicating he should open fire, realising only belatedly that he wouldn't understand the field signals current in Andor's Armored. Fortunately it was easy enough to point her stolen pistol back at the camp and pantomime opening fire.

@POOHEAD189

The Sunday Group

Im assuming not, but if she proves me wrong ill sub her back in.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug cursed herself for a fool as the rebels emerged from the woods behind her. In her mind she had assumed it had been their target who had camouflaged the car, but even if that were true there was no reason for her to assume that others might not be watching it. Briefly she considered shooting it out, using the car as cover, but that was a losing battle against so many, even if they were as incompetent as she suspected they were the odds of one of them putting her down by accident were high. You could win against the odds if you had firepower, but one person, no matter how effective wouldn't be effective enough to overawe so many attackers. Glumly she raised her hands.

"My name is Sayeeda Cyckali," she said, keeping her voice calm. Panicing was what prey did, and it was important she not be considered as prey.

"I'm looking for someone," she went on and then she gave the leader a wink, "And sure we can talk about tolls." The rebel leader grinned broadly, his teeth surprisingly white against his dark skin. Members of his - squad? gang- snickered and stepped forward. They stripped her of her weapons, one man taking her rifle, another, a younger man barely older than a teenager unhooked her sub machinegun. By luck or ignorance they ignored the several grenades on her belt.

"Well lets talk about that back at camp," the leader leered, he stepped behind her and made a desultory attempt to grope her, the body armor didn't make that very practical and so he settled for tying her hands behind her back with plastic ties. All of the men smelled of jungle life and maybe some sort of local narcotic but they had a confusing mix of weapons which seemed too advanced for rebels but too poor for military. Surplus maybe. The leader lifted her helmet off her head and smiled with pleasure at her revealed face.

"Lets get her back to camp boys!"

@POOHEAD189

The Sunday Group

Does anyone have anything they want to accomplish in the office or on the plane? Or shall we cut straight to Maine?

The Sunday Group

Business class, Morgan thought, I wonder if she’ll ever realize that trains exist. Then again, she had to admit that putting the crew in a confined space with the general public had never worked out all that well. Maybe the idea of a plane wasn’t so bad. Closer quarters, but much less time spent there, and the endless droning of the engines might distract everyone enough to make the trip bearable. On the other hand, if something did happen…well, at least trains weren’t so high off the ground.

She shook her head and stood, watching the others do the same. Long practice had prepared her for trips like this - she had little to gather, and what she did have could wait a few minutes. Morgan’s eyes tracked Cassandra’s path out of the room, Malone following after a moment. Her loss and pain, bewilderment, her anger and need to do something, anything, even if it was to engage what were obviously a bunch of charlatans, were written in every stiff-legged step, every brittle movement past a piece of furniture. Morgan blew out a sigh - this woman had nothing to hide, and somehow that made everything that much worse.

Tragellan’s voice interrupted Morgan’s thoughts halfway out of her chair. She finished standing and turned, eyes carefully not meeting the other woman’s. Again, she couldn’t help but notice the spots of color on her cheeks, the way her pupils were open further than they should be, and even that awareness washed through Morgan in an almost dizzying wave. She closed her eyes, cleared her throat, and followed Kennedy around the table, moving soundlessly.

“You may wish to be careful with that kind of request,” Morgan said, coming close to Tragellan, “If she were…twisted far enough, what’s left of Ms. Holt may not be something whose attention you want.” She cleared her throat, took a long breath, “What can I do for you, Eleanor?”

Ellie nodded to Morgan and gestured Kennedy back. The medium gave her a confused look but stepped away from the older woman, leaving the two of them in at least the semblance of privacy. Ellie’s eyes slid over Morgan and she struggled to bring herself to complete focus a slight shiver ran down her but then her body stilled. Holding up a slender hand she crooked a finger beckoning the younger woman close. Morgan smelled faintly of some exotic spice which could not be readily identified. It hung in the air like the whisper of a distant grove, familiar yet elusive. Ellie forced her nostrils not to flare. Inside her pocket she traced a miniscule circle with her index finger and then released her will. Magic surged through her, the raw energy of creation channeled by human will into a useful form as around them a ward sprung up. The ward was one of a series of prepared spells which Ellie used without the need of lengthy incantations or rituals. It was a simple enough thing in all truth, it simply made Morgan and Ellie very uninteresting. In theory everyone in the room could see and hear them, but their conscious minds would dismiss the too women as unimportant resulting in practical invisibility and near perfect privacy. It wasn’t necessarily that Ellie didn’t trust her team, but there were things that were dangerous to even think about if you didn’t take precautions.

“This cult you mentioned, it wasn’t…” she trailed of seeking a proper key word that they could both reference, “Not the Sleeping or the Black Pyramid?” The words themselves buzzed against her mental defences trying to sleep free into the magical ether.

“I don’t read any geas on the client, but do we need to take steps to protect the others?”

One of Morgan's dark eyebrows rose in a delicate arch, "Now that you mention it, they weren't all that far off. The Lachallan Society was something...different, though. More ambition than the former, more subtlety than the latter, but no less dangerous. Something gave the Society...well, if not the same kind of power that the Pyramid had, the same depth." She sighed, "I would say that it's been so long since then, but what's time to an immortal, hm?"

Truth to tell, Morgan had no idea if she really was immortal. Time seemed to lay a light finger on her, if it touched her at all, and the face that looked back in the mirror was one that had remained substantially similar for almost a century. She had seen friends grow old and wither and pass, and each one had taken at least one secret with them beyond. Still, she had no answer to her own question.

"We'll want to do something for Malone," Morgan said after a moment, "Leon, too. If something grabbed him by the brain, he'd be dangerous. There's no sense in excluding the others, but I don't know how much time you want to spend enchanting earrings and pendants."

She smirked, the faint tug of one side of her lips, "And what about you, Eleanor? You're distracted, yes? Exciting evening after the morgue?" She managed, with difficulty, to refrain from making an "eros and thanatos" quip, but she watched Tragellan carefully all the same.

One of Ellie’s sculpted eyebrows rose archly at that. Despite her best efforts a little colour crept into her cheeks. Morgan had a way of getting under her skin and in a way that was maddeningly difficult to define.

“Oh you would be surprised,” Ellie said, keeping her tone deliberately amused and drawing a curtain over the matter.

“If this Cult worshiped or had some connection to the Elder Gods, that would explain some things. They always seem to survive, like cockroaches. I can probably handle things on the Thaumaturgical end. If we do end up needing talismans… well we can burn that bridge when we get to it.”

She quirked her little finger inside her pocket and shivered with faint pleasure as the ward she had so subtlety constructed faded to a prickly sensation in the back of her throat. Ellie glanced at the clock, mentally calculating how long it would take to reach the airport. Tempus Fugit and all that.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Were you expecting an apology from me about the way I speak

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

No.