Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda kept her eyes open as they moved through the city. The place was filthy beyond easy description. Trash of all description littered the street. Bars and other establishments kept the front of their premises clear, if not clean, by paying the homeless to remove the trash. Where it went from there was a mystery, but Sayeeda was willing to bet that at even more dilapidated levels of the city, rats, or whatever the local pests were, roasted above fires of burning trash.

Grafitti was almost as omnipresent as trash. Sayeeda counted half a dozen gang signs which she saw mirrored in more precise renditions on the flesh of the numerous toughs and thugs which lurked in front of the seedier bars and eateries. She wished that they had left Taya with the ship, not just because the girl was clearly overwhelmed but because she attracted attention with her neat features and stylish blonde hair. Attention that fell on Junebug quickly slid aside as they took in the pistol and the submachine gun. Part of her wished she had bought a rifle also, but there was no percentage in carrying a heavy weapon where sight lines were likely to be so short. Even if it all dropped in the pot, shots of over fifty meters would be exceedingly rare in this warren.

Sayeeda didn’t like cities. She had grown up in a city on clean well administered *BLANK* but her childhood fondness had been quickly replaced after she went off to war. Andor had only taken contracts that required city fighting with extreme reluctance. The strength of armored regiments lay in mobillity, moving quickly to surprise the enemy and disrupt his operations. In a city every apartment block was a potential ambush site and every street funneled men and vehicles into predictable firing lanes. Even leveling a city with artillery or direct fire didn’t help, as the rubble remaining was even better for snipers and irregulars than buildings were. They had occasionally had to do it, but it had been mainly close action work for infantry and losses had been exorbitantly high.

The air was a faintly acrid fug. Ejecta of various sorts rained down from above, although it was aresolized by the time it reached this level. The smell mixed with stale beer, decaying trash and the unpleasantly oily smell of cooking meat. It wasn’t a pretty place. Still by the look of some of the denizens, hard men in cheap suits they imagined were fashionable and carrying large obvious side arms, there was money to be made here. It would be the ideal place for a criminal to hide out, strangers were obvious avoiding them was as simple as moving to a different level.

The arrival of Sven took her by surprise. It seemed unlikely that anyone who knew Neil would be here, but then again they were looking for one of Neils contacts and webs of association worked both ways. The fellow’s beard and bearing were certainly impressive, used to violence certainly but probably not a military background Junebug decided. SHe glanced around, noting a few of the armed locals watching with some interest as the fellow approached Neil, exchanged a few words and then suddenly grabbed Neil and lifted him into the air.

“Whoa, easy boys,” she said in a flat tone. Sven glanced at her with a look of anger and flinched slightly. The submachine gun was still hanging from the attachment point on her chest armor, but the pressure of two fingers on the butt lifted the barrel so that, quite by apparent accident, it pointed at Sven’s knee cap. Her fingers weren’t in the trigger guard, but they drummed a slow beat against the ceramic chest armor beside it, in subtle warning.

“I won’t claim I don't understand the impulse, but I don’t want to walk out of here right?”
@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene flopped bonelessly onto the mattress, only to grunt in surprise as it nearly swallowed him. The mattress was a large bag of cotton fabric, judging from the unexpected give it was packed with some sort of loose cushioning, perhaps leaves or wool. He blinked for a moment in stunned surprise, it reminded him of an underfilled waterbed he had once played on as a child.

“Well,” he said in an ironically voice, “I suppose it has less in the way of interesting pharmaceuticals.” It wasn’t much of a joke but they both laughed relieved to be alone and alive. Rene struggled to the edge of the bed with some difficulty and stripped off his boot. Lasha had bathed Solae while she had been unconscious and Rene, waiting anxiously without other options, had sponged the worst of the dirt off himself. His hands were pitted with small red dots where he had scoured away the metal that muzzle blasts had redeposited on his skin.

Solae stripped down to her under clothes, an act which commanded Rene’s full and immediate attention. She let them fall to the ground, the faint hint of a wicked grin on her full beautiful lips. Without warning she leaped onto the bed, landing on it with her full weight. The counterforce flipped Rene out of the bed with a whoosh of escaping air, depositing him on his back on the floor with a crunch. He groaned in surprise and was rewarded with her silvery laughter.

“Is that anyway for a lady to behave?” he asked and dived (more carefully) back into the bed.

They found each other in the night, the natural impulse of the bed drawing them together as both of their bodies sought the lowest point. It was less frantic than it had been in the Park’s spare bedroom, enthusiasm trumped by the pain and fatigue of wounds and the exhaustion of battle. Still hunger for each other overcame natural caution and more than once the ecstasy of togetherness mingled with the pain of an awkwardly place leg or hand. Rene didn’t care for his own pain eager to feel Solae against him even if it came at a price. He wanted to explore every inch of her, eager to prove she was still alive after the scare her capture had given him. Sleep found him with an arm around her and her golden hair spilling over his torso, her head resting on his chest.

The Syshin had different biological rhythms than humans. Triurnal by nature, they tended to view the day as split into three segments. An early morning, a full sun period, and an evening night. The arrangement suited their social structure allowing both bonded pairs and twins a period of communion without depriving them of rest. There was no day and night in Amber Horizons in any case, the hull of the ship effectively cutting off all natural light. Inspite of that Rene was already beginning to stir when a polite but insistant knock sounded at the door. Groaning he slid out of bed, careful but unable to avoid Solae who was also rousing to the noise. He picked up his trousers and awkwardly tugged them on before opening the door a crack. Enro stood in the hallway beyond his face unreadable to Rene.

“We need to speak of the prisoner,” he said, with more urgency than the statement should have required. Rene’s lips compressed into a frown. Solae was moving behind him, he could hear her pulling on her own clothing, gifts from Oanh he supposed. Briefly he regretted not finding spare gear at the Rat Trap, but the only real choice would have been to strip the dead.

“Now?” Rene ask musily trying to kick his brain into action. The effects of his wounds and his exertions were clearly catching up to him. The backs of his hands burned and it was painful, and he was stiff besides, muscles protesting the abuse he was putting them through. Enro nodded in an exaggerated manner that Rene was coming to associate with the Syshin. Florid gestures seemed to be the norm among the creatures, he wondered if they found humans boring and restrained in their speech.

“Yeah… yeah ok give us a minute will you?” he asked, closing the door before the alien could reply. Solae was already dressed so Rene quickly pulled on a fresh shirt and a socks before snapping the battered plastic closures of his combat boots. He took Solae’s hand and squeezed it.

“Lets find out what this is about,” she said with a smile that held a slight unreadable quality to it.

When they arrived at the cell, it was immediately obvious that the prisoner was much worse off than he had been the night before. A sheen of sweat coated the man's cruely pinched face and he appeared to be shaking despite being wrapped in a warm cloth blanket, much like the one Rene and Solae had used last night. Rene reflected that it had been a mistake for the Shyshin to give him that. A dedicated man might have used it to fashion a noose.

“What is wrong with him?” Enro asked. Rene thought about the bridge, the plasma bolt, fragment bursting up from the bridge and spattering the fellow legs before pitching him back into the creek.

“He is septic,” Rene said in a voice too low to carry to the miserable prisoner.

“The wounds in his legs, Lasha treated them, but either she missed something or you don’t have antibiotics appropriate for humans,” he concluded. Even a skilled surgeon was likely to miss something and this wretch wasn’t even the same species as the healer. Rene couldn’t find any mercy in his heart for someone who was willing to buy and sell sentient beings so that they could be raped and tortured, but without antibiotics, the man was going to die a slow and agonized death.

Just came back and already stuck

Start as far forward in a story as you can. There are no gates if you start your story surrounded by orcs and about to die.

If...

Made up. Like God. Also like the works of Shakespeare so don't dispair.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene bowed his head in aquiecene, picking up a slice of bread and biting into it obediently. It was coarser than what humans would consider normal but it was still warm and strangely tasty. In an effort to combat the chalky texture he tried dipping it in a redish sauce which turned out to be some sort of fruit chutney, spicy and pleasantly sweet. Unconsciously his mind shifted to the dangers that lay ahead. His focus was on Solae but there was a bigger picture to consider. His jaw masticated the tough bread stoically as he thought.

“It isn’t just for you,” he said at last, referring to the risks he and others had run for her.

“If the Empire isn’t warned about what's happening in this sector, there will be more attacks like this. You are the only one who can do that,” the words crystallized in his mind as he spoke them. Solae represented a double edged sword. If the enemy took her, they could use her and her bloodline to utilize the PEA system. That would lengthen the war, inevitable once the Empire learned of the rebellion, by months or years. It was even an outside possibility that the existence of an organized and successful rebellion here would spark others and light a fuse that would bring the Stellar Empire down, paving the way for a second Collapse which might mean the end of humans as an intergalactic species. As a child Rene had read the surviving archives of the Collapse, a cataclysmic war which had spread famine and disease across human space and led to the death of trillions. It was only chance that humanity hadn’t stumbled into the darkness of extinction the first time around. The other side of the blade was that if Solae were able to get in contact with the Stellar Empire, over the PEA or in person, she would trigger a swift and decisive counterstrike. Only someone of her rank and position bypass the ponderous byzantine bureaucracy and galvanize the Imperial Leadership into action. In a perfect world that was the function of the nobility, to provide the exception to the rules that allowed the Empire to stomach crisis.

“When this is over, it will be your voice that speaks for New Concordia, maybe for the whole Eastern Cross. You can make it better for the Syshin, for everyone. The kind of attack that happened here will be happening everywhere the rebels are flying their banners. You can stop that. We can stop that.” Rene trailed off a little embarrassed to catch himself giving a speech. It occurred to him that escape through the Stars alone knew how many occupied jump points might not be the best move. The PEA on New Concordia had been destroyed in the attack on the embassy, but there were others. If he and Solae could reach one they could call for help and then hide out till reinforcements arrived. He swallowed the bread with an effort of will.

“You should eat, you need to keep your strength up,” he told her, taking a drink to wash the chalky taste from his throat. He plucked a mango from the platter and drew his knife. Rather than power the blade on he drew the steel over the peel in a long sinuous stroke. The greenish red peel curved away from the yellow heart of the fruit in a single long strip. As he finished the cut the peel curled up into the approximate shape of a rose, a little warped because of the not quite circular shape. Rene had learned to do it with an apple. It was the kind of gallantry which had been common at the Imperial court five years ago, though he doubted it was still current. Fashioned changed and he had been out of those circles for a long time. He passed the little rose to Solae with one hand and set the peeled mango down on her plate with the other, fingers tacky with the syrupy juice. Inspite of his training he grinned boyishly, pleased that he could call upon a skill which had lain dormant so long.

“And for the record, I think you would have made a great marine. Certainly you would have been a considerable boost to the morale of a certain Private First Class Quentain.”

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

Ok so that will be our plan then:

Go home with the intent of coming back for final preparations in the morning.

Discover that the manor isn’t safe. This can be in the form of a telephone call, a telegram or spotting that you are personally under surveillance. It can even be from another PC if you want to collaborate.

Characters should somehow get the word from the Baron (or Jack if you prefer an Australian accent) that the new plan is to meet at South Hampton at noon the next day to embark on the Steam Ship Demeter bound for Porto (Portugal) > Dakhar(Senegal) > Kinshasha (Congo).

How you get to the ship is up to you. If you want to have a brush with the Nazi’s (plain clothes gestapo types - actually Arhenerber operatives) you are welcome to do so. If you want to have an uneventful morning and do some shopping… knock yourself out.

Shoot me or post here if you have any questions/ideas.


@Amaranth Going to PM you.

Tombs & Treks: A Pulp Roleplay

I actually have a third idea. How about people head off with the intention of coming back in the morning but during the night or in the morning receive a telephone call or telegram warning them not to return to she mansion but instead report to the S.S Demeter in south Hampton. The idea is that the mansion is under surveillance and is no longer safe.

This will allow us to move the action forward and loop in the antagonists. One of the more action oriented characters could even be the one to spot it and put out the warning

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene reclined back on the grass. He took a piece of fruit he more or less recognised from the gardens and orchards of the peasants he had seen along his old patrol route. It was about the size of his clenched fist, bright red and covered with red tendrils that gave it a spikey aspect. None of the nearby Syshin were eating them so he took his best guess and bit into the fruit. The husk cracked beneath his teeth to give way to a translucent white flesh that was both tart and sweet in equal measure. Removing it from his mouth he peeled the thing and ate it, discovering a hard stone pit as he got to the center. It was always a good idea to take on calories when you could, particularly when you didn’t know when your next meal would be.

He wiped his hand on the grass and then reached up to take Solae’s smaller hand in his own, his eyes were sober and serious as he considered what she was saying. She was worried that he would get hurt because of her? Truely, Solae was not like the other noblewomen he had met. Cultured, erudite and beautiful they might be, but concern for others would have been an alien concept to them. He felt something in his chest he hadn’t in a long time, something that pained and thrilled him in equal parts.

“I got hurt,” he agreed, flexing his arm to reveal the bandage Lasha had placed over one of the vine burns he had picked up. His leg throbbed a little when he was thinking about it but truthfully he had been hurt worse in training and been expected to report the next day.

“But it wasn’t because of you,” he disagreed, looking directly into her eyes and trying to avoid being hypnotized by her lovely face.

“I could say it was my duty or whatever, which it is but truthfully I would have done the same thing for anyone who would risk their life to help these people,” he made a broad gesture to the Syshin as they feasted. Like most of the upper classes he had been bred to have a healthy suspicion of aliens but his fall from grace had provided him with educational opportunities his peers didn’t have. Or perhaps simply gave him more empathy for the downtrodden.

“Which is what you did Solae,” he assured the marqessa earnestly.

“You risked your life, more than your life, to save them. If it hadn’t been for you drawing them away the Stars know how many Syshin would be dead or enslaved now. Worse some of the others might have gotten away in the chaos and we would have an army here right now.” Every word he spoke was the truth, although it didn’t quite convey the whole story.

“I’ll trade a few bumps and bruises for that any day,” he paused considering his next words carefully.

“For a long time after… after I joined, I wished that they would assign me to combat,” he admitted. It felt like he was confessing a weakness which made him uncomfortable.

“I guess I hoped that… well you know, I could die gloriously on the field of battle,” he went on. It came out in a rush, an embarrassing, almost childish thing to admit to, but again the the truth. Unfortunately the marines made sure his assignments were in peaceful backwaters, no one wanted a disgraced aristocrat to have a chance to gain martial glory. Such men had led rebellions in the past, he was probably lucky he hadn’t gone out an airlock some dark night just to be sure.

“I don’t want that anymore Solae. I care for you. I want to live to get you to safety. The fact that you were willing to risk worse than death makes you special. To these people and to me,” he fell silent, wishing that all the oratorical lessons he had been forced to endure were of more use to him when he really needed them. To the void with it, sometimes clever words were no substitute for the truth.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla looked around in wide eyed awe at the landscape before them. From the warm plains of Tilea it was difficult to imagine that a place like this could even exist. Wavy grass seemed to extend off to the east in a vast sea that stretched to the horizon, in the west enormous peaks scraped the sky. She pulled her cloak around herself, suddenly feeling very small and very cold. Wind rippled constantly stirring the grass to dance in strangely hypnotic patterns. Her knowledge of geography this far north was rudimentary, most Imperial maps that even showed these regions were at best educated guesses, and at worst fanciful ones. Here be Monsters was the standard marking, although in Camilla’s experience monsters were a little too ubiquitous to use as landmarks.

“Maybe we should spend the night in the crevasse,” she suggested tentatively, though she didn’t have alot of enthusiasm for the notion of climbing down the vast chasm that ran across the land like a scar, much less climbing up again in the morning. Skaldi and Ivan both shook their heads.

“Za Linger Ve are Owut heree,” he said words seeming even more deeply accented than usual, “Za warse our Chinces.” Skaldi nodded his emphatic agreement as he ran his thumb over the edge of his axeblade. He was whispering to himself in Khazlid, repeated the same syllables over and over as though remembering some ancient grudge. Camilla shrugged unwilling to contest the point but viewing the sinking sun with concern. The long climb had dried her out but the bite of early evening promised a brutal night. Once again she promised herself that if she got out of this she would find some work in Araby or Ind or any cursed place that didn’t threaten immediate death by hypothermia. Dietricha remained silent, peering at the heavens in confusion. Even Yantz, normally to be depended upon for a wise crack, remained silent as though oppressed by the sheer scale of the sky.

“Well at least path finding wont be a problem,” Konrad said, sounding cheerful if a little forced. Camilla smiled at the greatsword causing him to suck in his chest and blush slightly.

“Right, head for the giant mountain,” she agreed, her hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her weapon.

The walked for hours in relative silence. Speech seemed a risk that no one wanted to take. The Empire was a land of forests where sight lines were bounded by trees or city walls. Tilea had its hills and manicured fields, and Skaldi, raised below ground had never seen anything like this place. Ivan, who might have been expected to deal with the vista better than the southerners, grew sullen. Camilla privately suspected that it might have been different had the Boyar been on horseback. The landscape itself was less uniform than it appeared, every now and then a shallow stream, only a few inches deep and with a pebble bottom split the landscape. Dietricha pronounced each fresh stream as clean of taint, whether anyone showed any inclination to drink. Once they saw a small hill off in the distance. Atop it rose a great standing stone carved with runes. Trees, the first they had seen, clung to the mound like skeletons, man sized objects hung suspended from ropes and ravens circled. The gave it as wide a berth as they could.

The sun fell quickly and the temperature plummeted. Camilla was hungry but they had no food to speak of and had seen no game bigger than a field mouse. The walked on into the night, illuminated by the gibbous moon and the strange auroral glow across the northern horizon. Breath steamed from their lips and each breath as a sharp discomfort to all save Ivan and possibly Skaldi. The mountain crept closer and the land began to gently rise.

They were about to call a halt when Camilla saw a slight flicker of movement on the horizon, she glanced around to see if any of her companions had caught it. No one appeared to have noticed. Cydric paused, looking down at her as she stiffened. She peered northawards against the gloomy half dark.

“Riders,” she breathed, her voice seeming to break a spell that had lain over the group through the endless afternoon. Skaldi peered in the direction of her out stretched finger.

“Well I’ll be buggered,” he muttered looking at Camilla with a new found respect, “You’ve the eyes of a dwarf, bless me if you ain’t”

“Looks like a few score of em, and riding hard.”

“Lay down,” Ivan suggested, suiting his actions to his words. They all crotched down in the waist high grass, watching the dark tide of horsemen boil up over a distant hilll, seemingly headed straight for them.

“We need better cover,” Konrad murmured, fingering the leather wrapped grip of his greatsword uneasily.

“Nyet, if ve move now dey see us sure,” Ivan replied. They pressed themselves lower into the grass willing themselves to be invisible. The riders came on, the thunder of their hooves audible as they approached. Camilla gripped her weapon and tried to hold her breath although there as no way the small horde could hear anything over the thunder of hooves. A horn split the half night, with a rending moan. Camilla saw another group of horsemen break from concealment and race towards the first. The chaos worshippers seemed to spring up out of the earth, but more likely they had been dismounted along a stream bed. War cries rang in the distance as both parties raced to intercept each other, the air darkening with arrows and hurled javelins. Even from nearly a mile away the impact was clear in the frosty northern air, horses screamed and men screamed as the two heretic forces tore into each other in what looked to Camilla like mindless and pointless slaughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Camilla said quietly, “the sooner we are out of this cursed place the better.”
@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The Highlander descended towards Dioni III in a gentle dive. Bracchus Prime was gradually eclipsed as the moon swelled to fill the viewport. The plot position board was alive with reports, dozen if not hundreds of craft were lifting and landing at any one moment, each one captured and plotted by the Highlander’s sensors. The glut of electronic information only became intelligible when Sayeeda had Lonney filter for likely threats based on power to weight ratios. Even so a dozen ships ranked as threats capable of engaging the Highlander and one group of a half dozen fighter sized vessel ranked as a possible if operating as a unit. More interestingly the sensor data registered a heavy ship, cruiser size or larger, partially concealed in the icy rings of Bracchus Seccundus, a large and otherwise uninspiring gas giant several light minutes out. Only the Terran’s and a few other of the major regional powers built such warships and its presence, if the sensor read was accurate, was concerning but not immediately worrying.

The communications board was lit up too and Taya typed in a continual stream. Several docking options appeared in a sidebar of Junebug’s console, conveniently tagged with estimated cost and services provided. Junebug quickly eliminated those which were unbelieveabley cheap and unreasonably expensive. The Highander was in fighting trim after its refit on Dar’mond so she swiped away those options which had extensive repair facilities. From the remaining list, still more than a dozen, she selected the third least expensive. Despite the presence of a fortune in rare minerals, they were cash poor. The repairs on Beckett’s node, seemingly a life time ago had been expensive. Similarly the cola shipment that they had jetisoned in favor of saving Aiden and his men was a loss. They were low on food and ammunition and had only a few thousand credits in various forms of exchange to batter with. Well she supposed she and Taya coud sell their dresses for something but they were still going to need to make this happen quickly.

The Highlander rocked slightly as it entered the atmosphere, friction heat making the forward shield glow momentarily before they punched into the air below. The moon was in a geostationary orbit and their destination was on the side facing the primary. The only illumination it received was reflected from the Prime. The sea of light below them blazed in defiance of the natural darkness. The entire moon was covered with construction, vast canyons existed between levels, the result of happenstance rather than good planning. Air cars, many of them older than Sayeeda herself, buzzed up and down. Casinos, lit up in neon, or topped with holoprojectors battled for attention with a constant barrage of noise and light. The lower levels contained bars, shops, repair facilities and, presumably, homes.

“Looks like a fun place,” Sayeeda commented to no one in particular. Although her voice was noncommittal she was more serious than not. After the glitz and media attention on Dar’mond she was rather looking forward to some anonymity. Part of her was concerned that they were only three days from Dar’mond and that it was such an obvious destination for them to choose. The jump had been hard across a RIP current though and if Lonney was correct a major current shift should take place in the next twelve to forty eight hours. Current changes within the RIP could alter navigational time tables by weeks or months. Unless the Dar’mond authorities were especially quick to launch their pursuit, they would find their quarry long gone by the time they reached the Smuggler’s Den.

The Highlander jinked suddenly. There was no feeling of motion with the grav pumps running but the shifting viewscreen and the sudden whine of the compensators gave it away. Junebug looked up at Neil who was settling them back onto course for one of the artificial canyons. His sudden swerve had been to evade a string of air bikes which had boiled up unexpectedly from a building. She doubted that any of them could have dented the shielding, but she would rather not rack up a body count before she even touched the ground.

“I guess areospace control is sort of crowd sourced,” she commented mildly, eliciting a snort from Neil.

A few minutes later the Highlander set down in a broad concrete floored hangar. Three other ships, also small freighters shared the bay, though none of them were in nearly as good condition as the Highlander. One of them, a battered Xylar had holes in its hull patched with plastic sheeting and rivets. It must have been temperature stable enough to survive re entry but it must have leaked air at a prodigious rate. More likely than no the hold itself was open to vacuum and only the cockpit and engineering sections were pressurised when it was beyond and atmosphere. A good way to get yourself killed in anyone's book. Stevedores moved between the ships and low slung cargo sleds, shifting boxes that might be anything from innocuous food stuffs to highly illegal nerve toxins.

Sayeeda walked down the ramp before the hydraulic extenders touched it to the ground. She was wearing her ceramic chest plate atop a tan PT shirt and a set of combat pants tucked into dark tan combat boots. A submachine gun hung from an attachment point on her chest, her helmet clipped to her belt on the right side. In contrast to her previous policy she hadn’t opted to cut her hair, letting it hang halfway to her shoulders. The interior of the docking bay smelled of plasma burns and ancient lubricant as well as the sharp tang of ozone from a recent weld. In places oils dripped from leaky hoses, running in sluggish streams to a central drain of rusted metal.

“Well, at least it isn’t a crash landing in a river,” she remarked to Neil as he clambered down the ramp. A grease stained man in filthy coveralls was striding across the floor towards them, avoiding the streams of oil with casual familiarity. He waved and smiled cheerfully, though Sayeeda didn’t doubt he had cracked a head or two with the heavy hydraulic spanner that hung from his utility belt. The man was completely bald, his shining pate spotted with patches of dark melanin that he certainly hadn’t picked up on this moon. She held up a mesh bag containing the agreed upon amount of credit chips. The fellows grin broadened, teeth surprisingly white against his grimy skin.

“Ok, it is your show,” she told Neil, gazing around at the freighters with interest. Being in a place like this was why she had poured her life savings into the Highlander. Excitement and adventure were a drug, one you kept taking regardless of how likely it was to get you killed.
@POOHEAD189