Penny

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

“Is it just me, or are thieves and scoundrels a good deal less dashing than the holos lead me to believe?” Rene asked philosophically. Lis laughed uneasily but Solae’s smile was broad and genuine. There was precious little time but he reached over and squeezed Solae’s hand for comfort. It was hard to believe that they might soon be off New Concordia but as his father had been fond of saying: there was many a slip twixt cup and lip. The Syshin had paused in their activity during the call, they clearly knew something was about to happen and just as clearly wished to be far away when it did.

“I’ll check over the weapons,” Rene said judiciously. He had seen a few rifles that might serve and an areofoil mob gun that might be useful.

“I can gather medical supplies,” Lis put in unexpectedly. The fellow flinched back from Rene’s gaze as the Marine cocked an interrogative eyebrow. Lis held up both hands in a placating gesture.

“Just trying to be useful,” he all but squeaked. Rene hesitated for a moment and shared a glance with Solae before he nodded his head.

“Thank you,” Rene said in a neutral tone of voice. Lis turned to go but Rene caught him by the shoulder and held him.

“I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped your notice that even if we are killed when the ship touches down, that the captain of that ship will gut you for lying to him. I trust we can depend on your full cooperation.” The statement was a simple fact but his lack of inflection made it sound more terrifying than a shouted threat would have been. Lis visibly gulped and bowed his head.

“I’m a loyal servant of the Empress sir,” Lis replied in a quavering voice. Rene smiled sardonically.

“May she count herself fortunate to be able to call on such stalwarts,” he said with a hint of wry amusement. Lis fled the room without a backwards glance.

It was closer to forty minutes later when the Syshin, more sensitive than humans, detected the faint thrum of plasma motors far ahead. The noise grew steadily and a bright blue star came into view, sinking with a majestic grace through the wispy high altitude clouds. Solae had warned the Syshin not to look directly at the descending ship. At close range that star hot glow of the plasma drives could burn retinas. Most humans who grew up in proximity to star travel had learned it from birth but the rural Syshin were much less likely to have had the experience. Perhaps this group had, perhaps they had seen this very ship land before, carrying off their mothers and daughters, never to be seen again.

The thrum verged on the physically painful as the freighter continued its decent. What had once been a single bright blue glow was now clearly split into eight pencils of azure fire. The vessel was about forty meters long and perhaps twenty wide at its beamy center of mass. It looked like a vast spearpoint hammered into shape by some ancient smith with the nose at the point and the thrusters clustered around the socket. Its rate of decent slowed as the plasma output increased. It was less than a hundred meters above them and sinking in a slow controlled burn. Rene felt his skin prickle unpleasantly. He turned his head to Solae and flicked up the goggles he had donned against the glare.

“Ions from the plasma jets!” he yelled above the roar of the decending vessel. Civilians rarely came close to vessels during landing, it was dangerous and unpleasant, but Rene had done his share of drop and extractions with Marine assault boats. Comfort and saftey were not values that the corp put much stock it.

“No sweat!” he yelled trying to make himself heard over the tumult. Just in case he made a thumbs up gesture to Solae attempting to reassure her. Wind, backwash from the thrusters, whipped wildly around them. Trash and leaves from the edge of the cane field swirled up in a storm as the vessel overflew the green stalks. It angled in to what Rene had assumed was a plowed field awaiting planting. Dust fountained up as the jets, ten meters long, touched the tilled soil, filling the air with the scent of burning organics. Rene frowned, wondering how a vessel so heavy could intend to land in such soft earth and not sink to the point that lifting off would be impossible. The question was answered in short order as dirt blew away under the galeforce downthrust. What had appeared to be a plowed field was actually a conctrete pad, its dirty gray surface excavated by the blasting thrusters. THe owners, needing to keep their illegal trade secret, had spread a few inches of dirt atop the pad and plowed some furrows for show. Clever.

The ground shook as the vessel touched down. The jets of plasma stuttered for a minute and then cut out completely. The sudden silence was as shocking as a gunshot after the long rumbling decent. The vessel pinged loudly as plates of heat stressed metal cooled at slightly different rates. The landing pad itself glowed in places where trapped dirt had been melted to glowing glass in the final moments of the landing. Rene licked his suddenly dry lips. It would be a few minutes before the ground was cool enough to allow anyone to disembark.

Up close the ship had a battered and used look. Its hull was composed of a patchwork of plates, some steel, others rainbow stressed sheets of iridium alloys. There were even a few pieces of what locked to be ceramic metal composites, the sort of thing one usually found on fleet interceptors or lightweight assault vehicles. Poorly maintained communications gear protruded like the spines of a cactus at several points. Rene could spot the curve of a ventral gun of some sort, though there was no way it could be depressed to fire at the ground. Faded gold lettering was splashed across the bow slope: Bonaventure, followed by a serial number that was meaningless to Rene. Several metallic pops sounded.

“They are opening the seals,” Rene explained, more to ease his own nervousness than because Solae might need the information.

“After a few weeks in space the air inside gets pretty rank,” he added, his hand rubbing the wooden gun stock of his borrowed rifle, subconsciously seeking empathy with the weapon. The red splotches of glass were cooling fading slowly towards black. Marines would have dropped the hatches and disembarked by now, but they would have been wearing battledress which would have protected them from the heat. Rene badly wished he had a suit of battledress right now. With a metallic groan a slit of light appeared as the main hatch began to grind open.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

The chaos dwarves seemed slow to pursue, perhaps understandably reluctant to follow where their servants had perished. Occasionally a sound like a brazen horn could be heard baying in the distance, echoing weirdly of the blackened landscape. The ground grew more level as they moved but it was rent with chasms and crevasse. They walked through packed ash and across plates of blackened volcanic basalt. Trees of a sort rose occasionally, though they seemed more like ancient petrified things, alive now due to the yellow brownish fungus that covered them.

There pace slowed as the morning wore on and no pursuit appeared save for the blasts of horns. The foul dwarves were raising the alarm but it was clear they didn’t expect an incursion into their lands from the east. Camilla didn’t doubt that given enough time they would overcome that limitation and the small party would be overwhelmed.

“Ok,” Camilla said as they took a few minutes rest in a shallow defile. Her stomach rumbled and she felt weak from lack of food but they were on the very last of their rations and were facing days or weeks across the barren volcanic wasteland.

“Maybe we should double back to the steppe,” the Tilean suggested as she took a sip from the nearly depleted water skin Cydric offered her.

“At least we can find food and water there, perhaps we could strike south and…”

“NO!” Dietricha hissed urgently. All eyes turned to the wizard, her dress, always a little threadbare was filthy and covered with ash. Not that any of them were in much better shape of course.

“We don’t have any other choice,” Konrad said, spitting to clear the taste of sulfur from his mouth.

“It is turn back or starve,” he said instently. Dietricha was shaking her head emphatically.

“We need to be in Praag before Hexensnacht, and they stars already run against us,” she said, her voice unusually serious and sombre. Yantz nodded his head, though he looked miserable at the pronouncement. Camilla place a balled fist on each hip.

“Hexensnact?!” Ivan exploded. His accent made the word sound like a multisyllabic sneeze. He looked incredulously at the wizard.

“By za Gods ve vouln’t make it if ve had flat plains and vinged horses!” Camilla found that she had no idea what the date was. It had been close to midwinter when they had left the Count’s warcamp to being the campaign against the Norscans, but the days and weeks had blurred into each other in this place of infernal night.

“What is Hexensnact?” she asked, “and why in the name of Shayalla’s tits do we need to be in Praag by then?”

“It is the first day of the new year, as you manlings reckon things,” Skaldi put in, clearly pleased to have a chance to jibe at an inferior and human way of doing things.

“A fell day,” Konrad amplified, “the dead can walk on Hexensnact they say.” Camilla nodded her head.

“Alright, so back to the why in Shyalla’s tits part of the question…”

Dietricha looked distinctly uncomfortable and began to wring her hands together. Camilla exchanged glances with Cydric completely at a loss. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and waited.

“It is written in the stars, you must understand I cannot say too much,” Dietricha explained.

“Can’t or wont?” Camilla asked, hunger making her more irritable than she might have normally been. Yantz stepped forward hands held palm out in a calming motion.

“She can’t talk much about the future, buggers me why, but bad things happen if you know too much,” he explained. The Imperial’s lip was trembling and Camilla realised, with a shock, that the was terrified. There was more fear in his eyes right at this moment then there had been fighting the dragon ogre. Camilla shared another guarded look with Cydric. Something in his eyes convinced her to listen.

“Ok… so lets assume that what you are saying is true. How are we supposed to cross hundreds of miles of ash choked wasteland with no horses, no food and a whole nation of evil dwarves out to kill us?” she asked in disgust. Skaldi began to grumble something about evil dwarves but Camilla silenced him with a fiery glare. Dietricha straightened, clearly relieved that she wasn’t going to be pressed any further on the point.

“If you can get me to a temple of the Bull God, I can do the rest.” It might have just been coincidence that the earth grumbled violently at that exact moment.

@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Within: Warhammer 40K RP

“Yes, Leopold my eldest,” Volantus replied, a slightly pained look crossing his aristocratic visage. A slight tinge of grief and hopelessness slipped from his mind like a vapor from a closing refrigeration unit. The walked through a hall flanked by large statues of various saints.

“Is that why you are here?” Lady Sarkonad asked, her voice brittle with hope she knew to be oh so fragile. Her eyes flicked to Silvana as she spoke, the slight pressure of her regard obvious to the astropath in the same way a guardsman might feel the eyes of an enemy upon him.

“I am Sister Silvana,” she said with a demure bow to the grieving noblewoman. Lady Sarkonad’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Adeptus Sororitas?” she asked slightly incredulously. The Sororitas was a broad organisation, though the Battle Sisters were the most recognisable arm they had many other functions. Over the years Silvana had found it to be the best cover for her to use, providing easy explanation for her tendency to cover her face and eye sockets.

“I am a Magos Medicae Pathologika,” she expanded nodding her head towards Hironomoys.

“You study the insane sister?” Volantus asked, his tone cooling several degrees at the notion. Silvana nodded her head placidly.

“In simple terms my lord,” she responded.

“Are you implying that my boy was mad?” he asked, teeth clenched and evidently upset. Silvana shook her head in calm contradiction.

“No lord Sarkonad, but whoever kidnapped him may have been. I understand there has been no demand for ransom as yet,” she inquired politely. The emotional temperature in the room fell to more comfortable levels and the Lord’s tone grew more contrite.

“Ah, forgive me, of course,” he apologised. It was a simple trick used to inspire cooperation, deliberately leading a subject to a conclusion that would make angry and then undercutting that anger with good and pure intentions. When it came to emotional manipulation, subtlety was the watchword.

“Sometimes in cases as strange as this, the Administratum seeks counsel from specialists, the right piece of data can often be overlooked in the course of a normal investigation,” Hieronymus chimed in amplifying her statement and drawing a sage nod from Volantus.

“Where was your son last seen my Lady?” Silvana asked. They were entering an indoor garden in which a marble fountain gushed fresh water. Exotic shrubs about the size of a man rippled with color, chemical changes in the leaves triggered by the minute variations in sound.

“He retired to his room after dinner,” Lady Sarkonad informed her, voice trembling as though on the verge of tears.

“In the morning he was gone, no one saw him leave, at first we thought he had just snuck away for some privacy but not a single security picter or servant saw him.”

“May I see his room please?” Silvana asked. She made a clandestine gesture to Hieronymus indicating that he should go on with Lord Volantus. There would doubtless be valuable information to be gained there and what she intended to do was best done alone. The signalling system was something all of Alrik’s adepts learned. Silvana could have spoken directly to the Interrogators mind, but such things were not usually done without the permission of the other party and there was no time to ask.

“Of course Sister,” Lady Sarkonad replied, “we will leave you gentlemen to your discussions.”

Leopold Sarkonad had evidently had pretensions to artistic talent. His quarters, a dozen rooms and galleries, all sealed with Arbites crime streamers, were filled with paintings and sculptures many of them only partially completed. Silvana dismissed the mother with a vauge comment about needing time and solitude to work. She was starting to regret that decision as she moved from room to room. Her psychic vision was adequate for most tasks but it was a poor choice in an environment so visual. Perhaps she would need to ask Blademar for his opinion on the pieces which were propped up on various easels and hanging from the walls. Leopold’s enthusiasm and creativity were much more real to her than the actual brush strokes were.

In the main bedroom, a chamber large enough to rival the great state rooms aboard the corvette which had conveyed them, she found a single painting. It was a massive thing, six feet tall and four wide, it stood out to her for the attention that had been lavished upon it. She reached out with her fingertips to brush the canvas. There was nothing there, her fingers passed through empty air. She frowned perplexed. That something so vivid in her minds eye was absent was unusual. Normally sensations and feeling clung to the physical object, not the space it had occupied. Something tickled the back of her throat unpleasantly and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. The smell of paint and pigments swelled suddenly and then dyed away. Something was very wrong here.

For a minute or two she considered her options. The smart move was to call Hieronymus, although what was the Interrogator going to be able to contribute to the situation? There were no security picters in this room to have recorded what transpired nor were there likely any witnesses that he could speak to. His best chance of uncovering information was elsewhere, speaking to Lord Volantus and the rest of the household. Her best chance was here. Crossing back to the entry chambers she methodically sealed several doors against unwelcome intrusions.

With privacy assured she drew several small items from her satchel and set to work.

@POOHEAD189

The Enemy Within: Warhammer 40K RP

The estate of the Sarkonad family was only a short drive by ground car. The governor provided them with one of the official vehicles, reflective black but otherwise nondescript. Two of the palace guards, plain clothed men of a severe and military bearing, accompanied them. There minds were brighter than the governor’s had been their desires simple and primal. Get off shift, get drunk, get laid. They hadn’t had training to protect their thoughts, lacked the discipline to stop the mental leakage that made them easy marks.

The estate itself was a towering stone edifice surrounded by carefully constructed gardens. Vast glow lamps hung from the hive superstructure to provide a simulacrum of daylight. Spires and flared arches reached skyward, glittering with points of light. The whole complex was surrounded by a stone wall interspaced with pillars and topped with razor sharp fluer de lys wrought in beaten black metal. Two enormous gargoyles stood empty eyed vigil at the front gate, itself a triumphal arch that many a rural world would have killed for. More practically a pair of arbite patrol cars were parked across the entry way. Four officers reclined against the vehicle cradling riot guns and looking bored. It appeared that the govenor or the local arbites intended to firmly bolt the door now that the grox had well and truly bolted.

A flash of the palace guards ID was all it required to win passage. Silvana felt that to be very lax but was just as pleased that Hieronymus was able to keep his Rosette in his pocket. Alrik had always held that it was better to avoid such notice if it were at all possible. The Inquisitorial badge was an ace in the hole, guarded against need.

A pair of nobles were gathered on the cobblestone steps flanked by servants and guards. They looked nervous and haggard amid their expensive finery. Silvana touched Hieronymus, seated across the way from her, on the knee. As the Interrogator looked up she reached out with her mind and gently discouraged the attention of the guards. It didn’t make the conversation inaudible but it made it so boring that neither man would recall a word of it later.

“How do you want to play this,” she asked and then paused before adding, “and what would you prefer I call you when Interrogator isn’t appropriate?” She might have prefered to be leading her own team, but Alrik and the Emperor would find no fault in her service.

@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

In the darkness Rene dreamed. It was at first a kalediscopic thing. Flashes of real events, plasma fire flickering out into the darkness, Solae’s hair catching the sunlight, the smell of blood at the berm of the rat trap. Older memories too, somehow glassy and disconnected, riding at Caralia Major, his family estate, swimming in the cold mountain stream till his lips turned blue. Then there were things that he didn’t think had happened, though his dreaming mind registered them as just as real. He saw himself in the uniform of a fleet admiral, commanding a firing party to execute a criminal. He was the criminal facing the guns, determined to go game and make his last words something witty. Blue waters of some tropical ocean gave way as he plunged into them from a steep cliff dive, rising with a triumphant whoop above the cerulian wavelets. He was an older man, clutching a railing in the Imperial palace as he looked out over the burning city beyond. He was seated on the Imperial Throne in the Hall of Crystal as rank after rank of nobles bent their knees to swear fealty. He tried to shake his head, willing himself to wake from what he now knew to be a dream.

“Reintegration 70 percent,” a dark and distant part of the universe stated to no one in particular. Rene’s eyes fluttered open in the darkness. His limbs didn’t respond to his commands, even his eyes seemed disconnected from his mind, blinking in steady five second intervals as though his body were animated by a metronome. High tech medical facilities didn’t use chemical analgesic. Neural disruptors were used to disconnect the systems responsible for reporting pain or any other sensation. It allowed for procedures to be carried out faster and with a much higher rate of feedback than chemicals would have allowed but it did tend to fragment the patient's consciousness for a few minutes following reconnection. The air tasted overwhelmingly of antiseptic, the first sensation of which he was aware. Others followed rapidly, he realised he was cold, he remembered he was naked, he was in a rev chamber. He felt great. That surprised him. Dozens of minor pains and discomforts he had been carrying were gone, evident by their lack in a way they hadn’t been in his keyed up adrenaline soaked state. He didn’t think he recalled ever feeling this good. Artificial hormones and endocrine complexes had been added to his system, giving him a feeling of rest, of sharpness and rejuvenation, no less welcome for being completely artificially induced.

He sat up as the top of the chamber slid aside. The room was empty save for a neatly folded set of clothes. Awkwardly, as his muscles were still unsure of whether they should respond, Rene swung his legs over the side and clambered down. He took the dark gray pants and white shirt and began to dress, his fingers growing more familiar with each task. The fact he didn’t have a weapon disturbed him, though he could now remember giving it to Solae. The name bought him fully back to the world of the living. He had been injured and had gone into the Rev chamber, she had been managing the estate. Right.

“Argon, where is Solae?” he asked tersely.

“She is in the formal dining room Master Quentain,” the computer responded. He pulled on his boots, the only article of clothing that was his own and snapped closed the seals then stood and headed for the elevator.

To Rene’s surprise the formal dining room was a wash of activity. Syshin were gathering up parcels of food and other provisions. Electronics and other trade goods were being stacked neatly for transport. There were a number of weapons, evidently looted from the building’s armory stacked at one end of a large formal dining table. Two Syshin stood over them with cane knifes in their hands and uncomfortable looks on their faces. Rene wondered if the liberated slaves would be more willing to use them than the rank and file at Amber Horizions had been. Lis was in one corner, doing his best to look inconspicuous, the Syshin shot him occasional hostile glances but evidently hadn’t decided to murder the former butler just yet.

“This you,” a Syshin voice rumbled, Rene turned to see the big Syshin who had attacked him thrusting Armon’s sword towards him hilt first.

“Kalrio,” the alien growled. Rene blinked in confusion but closed his hand around the hilt of the blade. He wasn’t wearing a scabbard so he thrust it through his belt as best he could.

“I don’t speak…”

“My name. Kalrio. I thank you for...free people,” the Syshin went on, clearly struggling with the Imperial.

“Kalrio,” Rene said as understanding came to him.

“You are welcome I am…”

“Solae of the Empire has told us what you are,” Kalrio responded and turned and walked away without another word. Rene noticed that his burned back was sticky with some sort of ointment or salve that glistened under the artificial light. He frowned at the aliens puzzling reactions but could only shrug his shoulders. His heart rose as he finally spotted a flash of golden hair. Solae was in a corner working on something at a terminal. He moved quickly across the floor to her, the noise of his approach causing her to turn her eyes widening in surprise.

“Your treatment was completed twenty minutes ahead of the initial estimate master Quentain, this may account for the Mistress’ surprise,” Argon interjected but Rene wasn’t listening. Part of his mind had been terrified something had happened while he was out, even though he knew Argon would have told him. He swept Solae up into his arms and kissed her, a broad smile breaking across his face.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

“Testico de Ranald,” Camilla breathed as she stumbled into the light and saw the gigantic skeleton. The cold mountain air whipped up to meet them, she desperately needed a warmer cloak, her slight frame shed the heat quickly, but like many other things that was going to have to wait.

“Gawp later, run now,” Skaldi instructed. The began to skid and slide down the steep slope knocking loose a small torrent of stones and pebbles. Camilla, light on her feet and trained in a variety of acrobatic techniques, skipped from tree to three, catching hold of their twisted trunks to break her momentum. Yantz tried to follow her example but was slowed by the fact that he held Dietricha like a living anchor. The sorceresses face was disapproving but not panicked. Above them came bestial shouts and Camilla looked up in time to see brutish greenskin faces appearing from the cave opening. An arrow streaked past and lodged in a tree a few inches from Camilla’s hand. Yantz, improbabley, pulled his cavalry pistol from his belt and, still sliding and holding his mistress by the collar, fired one handed back up the slope. A greenskin roared and pitched forward, tumbling down the mountain side in a growing cloud of dust. More arrows flicked past though the shots were blind for the pall.

The slope began to shallow and Camilla saw a four foot crevasse ahead.

“Jump! Jump!” she yelled and suited action to words, gathering her feet and springing across the small defile. Cydric stumbled at the last minute but his long legs carried him over the gap with only a stumble. Yantz yelled an improbable obscenity as he hit the edge, throwing Dietricha clear with one hand. The wizard hit the other side of the ledge and rocked back teetering on the brink of the plunge. Camilla grabbed her by the front of her dress and yanked her forward to collapse in a heap against a large boulder. Yantz, his momentum spent, slid over the edge with a scream, twisting and grabbing at the ledge with his finger tips. Ivan seized his forearm and heaved propelling the Imperial up and over the gap before launching himself across in a great ursine bound. More arrows flew past, a dozen greenskins were out of the cave now, firing down with an enthusiasm which fortunately wasn’t matched by skill. Konrad and Skaldi jumped across with less effort, forewarned by the struggles of the rest of the group.

Suddenly the greenskins were rushing down the slope at a heedless charge, their feet somehow finding purchase. Camilla cursed the fact that she had lost her pistols when the Norscan’s had kidnapped her and whipped the curved blade free of its scabbard.

“Attento! Preparatii!!” she yelled. Cydric already had his sword drawn and ready while the others scrambled to their feet. A pair of greenskins went down on the uncertain footing but the rest made the bottom of the slope and leaped across the crevasse. Camilla slid sideways to avoid an arcing sabre and then cut back savagely, the curved elven blade slicing into the thick tendons at the back of the beasts knees. The greenskin let out a scream of pain and Camilla spun around and drove her elbow into the things sternum. The greenskin toppled back on its mutilated legs and tumbled screaming into the crevasse. Cydric was recovering his blade, already slick with blood and Kondrad was on his feet, unlimbering his great sword. More greenskins were leaping the chasm, wicked blades swinging. Yantz was on the ground shield gripped in both hands as two of the goblin like things hacked down at it, in great showers of sparks. A goblin with vast tusks rose behind Cydric and drew back a hatchet. Camilla slipped under a saber cut severed the weapon hand at the wrist. The thing screamed and staggered back into a disembowling stroke of Cydrics sword.

More greenskins were getting across now, maybe as many as a score. Camilla swept a blade aside with a flick of her wrist and drove one of the greenskins back. She saw Ivan seize one by the neck and pitch it into the crevasse, the thing caught the ledge of rock with its fingertips for a moment before the Kislivite gleefully bought his boot down on the boney digits and sent the thing plummeting to its death. There was so much dust now that it was difficult to see. A pistol boomed with a yellow flash and someone screamed a curse. Suddenly two goblins leaped from the pall of dirt one going high and the other low. Camilla’s sword swept in a graceful figure eight sending sparks flying as her feet danced back across the broken ground ahead of the onslaught.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

A hush settled across the crowd as the import of Neil’s words began to register on the crowd. Junebug could feel the shappening of the gazes as a room full of hungry predators turned their attention to the crew of the Highlander. She grinned beneath the reflective mirror of her face shield. It wasn’t an expression that had anything human in it, it had more in common with an animal baring her teeth.

The Formian smacked his jowls together in an odd wet sound. It was only after nervous titters of laughter began to spread that Junebug realised it was laughter. The droid zipped closer, an articulated lens zooming in on Neils face with a series of whirring clicks. It drifted to Sayeeda and repeated the motion before moving on to Taya.

“Kul trana suc xhua, prada carak sul nor,” Gnorlaac rumbled.

“If you are lying to me boy, we will feed your bones to the gnawers,” the droid translated in its static mechanical voice. Sayeeda winced at the impudent expression that stole across her pilots face.

“We got the goods, you can bet your ass,” Neil quipped. Gnorlaac began to laugh again although this time there was a harder nastier edge to it. The music swelled up again as the Formian turned away, evidently done with the face to face portion of this interview. Sayeeda relaxed slightly, shifting out of her stance of imminent violence. A black skinned human woman, her head shaved smooth and tattooed with dozen of unrecognisable designs approached.

“I am Yrla, I am Gnorlaac’s right hand,” she said, her voice assured but not disrespectful.

“You will tell me where your ship is and we will arrange for an assayer to confirm what you claim. I warn you if this is some game, it won’t end well for you.”
@POOHEAD189

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world! [REBOOTED] [FULL]

I'm interested. I'm thinking of a barber surgeon who has become a devotee of Morr, or a disgraced wizard who works as a healer.

Mordheim Roleplay?

Interested

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

“Diagnostic reports Revitalization chamber at ninety eight percent capacity,” Argon replied in response to a small affirmative gesture from Solae. Rene exchanged a long glance with Solae.

“It is a shame it can’t be calibrated for Syshin,” Rene observed blowing a breath out between his teeth. That would certainly have simplified things but it stood to reason. Rev chambers were state of the art medical engineering and, like any high precision instrument, it was to specialized to be very flexible.

“Yes but that isn’t who I intended to go inside of it,” Solae said with a dry smile. Rene was about to object but the slight hardening around her lips convinced him not to bother.

“Well I can at least wait until after we get the…” he began.

“Now Rene,” Solae declared, planting her hands on her hips.

The Rev chamber was in a small medical bay on the below ground level. Down here the mansions vulgar luxury gave way to the utilitarian. Store room and electrical generators competed for space with pipework and the small living places that Rene presumed must belong to the maids and the butler. They were little more than cots with tiny ensuite refresher units and closets. Even so they were more luxurious than most of the quarters that Marines had assigned. Lis led the way, apparently eager to ingratiate himself with his captors and potential benefactors. Rene found it hard to find sympathy for the man. Despite his privileged birth ate had given Rene a choice between being executed for a time he didn’t commit, or enlisting in a service that would almost certainly kill him. If the choice had been between starvation and working for slavers, he liked to think he would have happily gone hungry.

The med bay itself was larger than Rene expected. There was a small auto diagnosis unit and several wire shelves piled high with medical supplies of various kinds. It was mostly the sort of standard equipment one might keep on hand in case of agricultural injury but Rene also spied nasogastric feeding tubes and paralyzing sedatives bunded together in small kits. Of course, how better to ship a slave than in a chemical coma. His lip curled in disgust, the slaves couldn’t even starve themselves to escape their fates. The Rev chamber sat on a small pedestal in one corner, banks of monitors connected to it through a forest of wires and tubes. More tubes ran away from it into the floor or into the walls, bringing in chemicals and carrying away waste products. The chamber was the size of a large coffin. It was slightly egg shaped with a number of irregular bulges which mounted integrated monitors. The whole place smelled of antiseptic and another slightly astringent odor which Rene had to assume was related to the medications. A low electric hum emanated from the various consoles and monitors.

“Mr Lis, please give us a moment,” Rene said, his words coming out colder than he had intended. The butler flinched slightly but stepped out into the hallway. Rene moved close to Solae and whispered into her ear.

“Please be careful, if he is going to try anything it will be while I am under,” he told her. Leaning forward he kissed her on the lips. Instinctively he closed his arms around her waist hugging her close to him. Pain rippled up his back, reminding him that she was right about needing medical attention. With a slow movement he clandestinely slid his plasma pistol into her hand so she could tuck it away. The weapon was more complicated and more dangerous than the simple auto pistol she already had, but he didn’t want to leave a weapon out where it could be found. Reluctantly he stepped away from her.

“Alright Argon, how do we use this thing?”

The lid closed with a hiss and for a moment Rene was in darkness. He had stripped naked as instructed, an embarrassing experience with Lis still watching from the hallway and climbed into the dark padded interior of the capsule. Argon indicated that showering was not necessary because cleaning was part of the sterilizing function of the unit. For a moment there was complete darkness and then a bluishish display sprang to life. A dizzying number of digits flashed into existence as a beam swept over him. The simplest figures were recognisable as blood pressure and heart rate. A disembodied voice, cold and clinical began speaking.

“Male subject, Human, Cappelean. Injuries include severe contusions to the anterior plane, muscle tears, microperforation with indigenous stone and residual blunt force trauma with partially successful first aid applications.” It was extremely disconcerting to have the past several days reduced to a staccato list of injuries.

“Estimated repair time Two hundred and eleven minutes. Initiating.” Rene felt something prick his wrist and a moment later a cold sensation flowing up his right arm. A moment later everything faded to black.