Penny

The Sunday Group

It is the weekend! Phone rings. Penny we are going to need you to come in Sunday and cover pediatrics. *opens wrist*

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla leaned in an kissed Cydric passionately.

“We need more plans that start that way!”
Behind them she heard shouts of confusion which quickly transmuted to panic. A fat man burst from the Golden Huzzah blubbering in terror. He fled sightlessly past Cydric and Camilla, his tunic soaked with ale and spilled food. Behind him came a flood of other patrons. Whether it was the daemons or the cultists, someone was obviously giving chase.

“Best we scappa!” Camilla added. She didn’t have her sword and even if she did she didn’t care to try it against the seductive daemon women that had been summoned from the tapestry. She saw half naked cultists appearing in the door, hands and improvised weapons slicked with blood. One of the women a plain looking merchant's wife had blood around her mouth and was licking it away in obvious ecstasy. Without another word the pair of mercenaries turned and fled with the remaining patrons.

If the cultists pursued them they were quickly lost in the twisting streets of the city. After a few minutes they slowed and stepped into an alley, waiting and watching. The alarm bells began to clamor and soldiers rushed passed in the general direction of the tavern. Even against the sky Camillia could see a pall of smoke begining to rise.

“They must have set it on fire,” she concluded, shivering at the lengths cultists would go to to achive their horrifying aims.

“We need…” the thought was interrupted by the chiming of bells.

“Palle di Ranald! We need to be at the palace!” Camilla hissed, suddenly remembering Dietricha’s cryptic message. It could have been meant for today or tomorrow, but suddenly Camilla was overcome with the absolute certainty that it meant tonight.
@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

“Jesus Christ?” Sayeeda asked as she glanced down the trash filled alley. It was cleaner than most she had seen on the Smuggler's Moon, but that was hardly much of a compliment. The barrel of her pistol shimmered with the heat of rapid fire and her hand gripped the case with white knuckles. Junebug was used to risking her own life, but the prospect of losing millions of credits worth of merchandise was a new one .

“Is that its name?”

The wall beside them shrieked like a diamond saw biting into hull plating. A billowing cloud of dust exploded into the alley moments before the wall exploded outwards in a screaming gush of masonary. The muted screams and gunfire from inside the club redoubled in volume as a six foot hole was ripped in the wall by a combination of gunfire and brute strength. The Hex leaped through the settling dust with a roar that shook the world. Junebug shot it twice in the chest, but either its body armor was sufficient to stop the pistols light slug or the thing was simply too tough to care. It swung its fist at her with deceptive speed and she just had time to raise the case to block the blow. The metal ceramic case crumpled like a crushed soda can and the force of the blow lifted Junebug and smashed her into one of graffiti covered walls. Her breath exploded from her chest as she fell among the trash. The pistol and the case clattered to the ground in opposite directions.

The Hex screamed something that might or might not have been ‘Edwards!’ and leveled its gun at the pilot. Junebug distinctly heard the screech of the mechanism jamming, but the Hex didn’t hesitate. It leaped at Neil, intent on tearing him limb from limb.
@POOHEAD189

Beyond the Looking Glass: A CYOA Magical Girl Roleplay [Completed]

It is either an accident or petty vengeance or both.

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

The nocturnal chill plucked at Sophia’s smooth armpits as she half stepped, half stumbled out of the van, her legs warm with the heat of blood returning after long repose. The smell of the distillery crinckled her nose, the sour mash was redolent on the air, like old laundry that had been boiled with too little soap. Sofia rolled her shoulders to loosen them, a sinuous catlike motion that stretched the fabric of her top around her pointed scapula. The moon was already losing its lustrous fullness taking with it the promise of an entire month. Sophia grimaced and rubbed her aching her fingertips against the coarse weave of her jeans. Almost an entire month she had laboured polishing a silver mirror under the light of the ripening moon, buffing and rebuffing until her fingertips cracked and bled .Twenty eight nights with neither sleep nor rest, all for nothing because this God cursed spider had chosen this night of all nights to make its appearance. It was fair to say that her mood had been better.

The distillery looked like it might have started life as a warehouse but was fast succumbing to the gentrification that was rippling out from the city center like the shockwave of a bomb blast. The brutally functional building had been graced with a pale stucco facade complete with a steeply roofed portico. Pipes and exhaust ducting jutted out from the sides and above, giving the building a peculiarly overstuffed look. Sophia lifted her tracking construct and peered into it, even though Morgan’s conversation made it clear that such caution was unnecessary. When magic was involved there were plenty of things you couldn’t control, Bruja that lived to be crones tended to be the ones who took no chances. Those were few enough in all truth.

The construct, a vessel for a tracking spell, was a simple coca cola can. Held upside down so that the concavity at the bottom formed a shallow bowl, it was an ideal vessel. Sophia had used a paper clip to scratch runes and designs into the thin coating of red paint around the sides, the intricacies of the working visible as bare aluminum against the trademark red background. Inside the improvised bowl the severed leg of a regular house spider floated in a half inch of spring water. The hairy limb twitched in the direction of the distillery with a gentle insistence, waking ripples that were vaguely luminous in the moonlight. Sophia nodded her head in agreement and dropped the can to the gravel of the parking lot, crushing it flat beneath the heel of her brown leather hiking boot. *Blank* could lecture her about littering another time.

“If we could move this along?” she asked acidly, running her fingers through her lank and unwashed hair. It had been a long day, the scent of febreze tickled her sinuses and she blinked her eyes rapidly to avoid sneezing. Her main task had been to track the creature, and now that was done she was eager to be done with the job. In terms of combat experience she was a junior member on this team, most of her killing had been done from a safe distance with a drop of blood or a lock of hair. With studied nonchalance she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, hugging herself against the chill and wishing she had bought a jacket.

Even at this close range she couldn’t get a sense of the spider. It was unclear to her whether it was truly a magical being, the result of a spell, a demon, or some sort of arcane construct. They simply didn’t have enough data to tell. Assuming it would act like a regular spider might be a mistake but in the two months she had been with Priest and Hawthorne she had learned that Morgan and the others could pretty generally be relied upon to handle an unexpected reversal. Her hand slipped into her pocket to wrap the hilt of a slender obsidian blade she kept there. The athamae was a more reliable weapon than the automatic pistol tucked into the waistband of her jeans, currently concealed by her dark grey Slytherin t-shirt. The cold metal pressed against her hip, heavy with the promise of easy violence. She blew a breath out from between her lips and muttered to herself in Quetuha. Something told her that the night was just beginning….

Give Me Your Favorite Quote(s).

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

Sophia De La Fuente - Narco Bruja

Name: Sophia De La Fuente

Gender: Female

Race/Species: Human

Age: 27

Appearance: An olive skinned Latina with short raven hair and hard eyes. Although not unattractive, her features have a slightly feral look. Tattoos cover her arms and much of her body, though her face is unmarked. Many of the tattoos appear to be related to South and Central American religions of the Pre-columbian Period, although there are a number of gang related designs. She is slender and a little on the short side.

Personality: Sophia is passionate and intense. She is easily roused to anger, especially when she is frightened or confused. She is in the process of beginning to break down the walls that her previous life required her to build but remains a trifle aloof and perhaps a little awkward.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Sophia’s primary talent lay in the direction of ritual magic and thaumaturgy. After being extensively educated by her mother she traveled from her native El Salvador, absorbing various other traditions along the way. Years of involvement with gangs and narcotics trafficking have given her an insight into the criminal underworld, though it isn’t something she is eager to revisit. Sophia is also a naturally gifted sculptor and painter, though she lacks any kind of formal training.

Background:

The smell was the worst. Like greasy meat burned in an oven. It clung to her, coating her dark skin, sheening her black hair, an oily film at the back of her throat. Even when the flashing lights gave way to the quiet interrogation room and she was permitted a few minutes to ‘wash up’, swab her filthy body with a few wet wipes and rinse her mouth out with tepid tap water, it still clung to her. A change of clothes had been permitted her, an orange prison jumpsuit to replace the rags she had been arrested in, but the bright fabric did little but accentuate the filth that coated her. The detectives that came next wrinkled their noses, struggling to conceal their horror behind the blank face of professional detachment. They slapped a paper file down on the table between them and took their own seats.

Sophia looked up with them, her eyes dark and unreadable, the fluorescent light seemed to make tendrils of smoke dance in her irises. Neither of the detectives flinched but the younger of the pair shifted uneasily. He covered his unease by picking up the manila folder he had just slapped to the table and making a show of leafing through it.

“I’m going to be honest with you Miss De La Fuente, it doesn't look good for you. Four men burned alive… well California doesn't have a death penalty but if you don't cooperate there is no chance you will ever see the outside of a prison cell again.” It had the ring of a rehearsed statement, but that didn’t make it untrue.

“I was a prisoner there,” she said, her thick El Salvadoran accent rendering the final word as ‘dare’ rather than there. English was not her first, or even her second language but she spoke it well enough to be intelligible. The statement seemed to move the two policemen onto more familiar ground, a perp denying a crime was more intelligible than four men burned to carbonized husks. It helped that she spoke the way she did, it fit their comfortable preconceptions.

“Look girl, we got security footage of the place, no one in there but you, and you were the only one in the building,” the older, fatter one declared. Sophia spread her hands wide, the restraints that bound the ran through the eyebolt which secured her to the floor with a musical tinkle of metal on metal.

“So your theory is I overpowered four chera and set them on fire?” she asked with a skeptical quirk of her eyebrow. The younger thinner of the two gave her a malevolent grin, clearly aggravated by her apparent lack of reaction. He leaned across the table and grabbed her wrist. From arm to shoulder her skin was covered with tattoos of various kinds, curving serpents and strange sigils atop more prosaic ink.

“You think we don’t know gang ink when we see it? You think that any jury in the world won't take one look at those MS13 tats and…”

The metalized door swung open hard enough that the gasket hissed with the pressure of slowing its progress. A flustered looking junior officer slid into the room a only a footstep ahead of an elderly man dressed in a neat vest and wearing a bowler hat. The officer was trying to make a point of leading the newcomer into the room, but there was absolutely no evidence the older man would have waited for his theoretical escort. The man swept the room with his eyes and cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Uhh the chief says you are to give Mr Priest here a moment with the pris.. I mean suspect,” the escorting officer stammered. Both detectives stood up at once, their postures of angry beligerence so identical that the movement appeared rehearsed to Sophia’s eye. One of the cheap metal framed chairs toppled over with the suddenness of the movement. Priest regarded the detectives with a calm as cool and dry as the Atacama. Both men seemed to freeze for an instant in mid outburst, as though they had expected to find one more step in a long flight than was truly there. Angry words died on their lips in a moment of shock and confusion which transmuted to an anger for which their hesitation left them no outlet. Sofia saw the pulse throb in the heavier detectives neck. The moment passed and they stormed brusquely from the room but neither of them spoke.

The newcomer, Priest apparently, bent down and righted the toppled chair with quiet efficiency. This accomplished, he snapped open an antiquated looking case and withdrew a folded cloth which he unhurriedly spread on one of the recently vacated chairs. He sat down and adjusted the seat before tenting his fingers peering across at the chained, orange clad Sophia intently. There was something to his eyes, a keenness and weight to his gaze that she hadn't expected. She tossed her hair in half hearted defiance anyway, as a woman brought up in a brutal world of gangs and narcotics, it was an instinctive reaction.

“Miss De La Fuente was it?” he asked in culture Spanish. It was Castillian rather than South American in accent and idiom but perfectly understandable. It sounded exotic to her ear even elegant. She nodded her head, as powerless to prevent herself from moving as she would have been to stop a mudslide.

“That was quite an impressive piece of Thaumaturgy back there, what did you use for a flame?” The question was matter of fact and the point, the tone a man would use when asking which chisel one had selected for a particularly difficult cut. The shock moved quickly to a sense of panic. Were there police who could understand what had happened? What if she couldn’t… Priest lay a hand on hers, his hand was dry and slightly cooler than she imagined.

“No fear child, I just want to know how you did the working. Quite impressive, if a little gruesome. Now what did you use for a flame.” Sophia looked around as though afraid of hidden recording devices. Priest merely shook his head, dismissing the fear with unarguable certainty. His eyes bored into her as though trying to draw the answer from her mind with strength of will.

“The pilot light,” she said finally, “the stove had a pilot light, those cabrons were smart enough not to use it but they didn’t know about the light.” Priest sat back on his chair an appraising look in his eyes.

“It must have taken you days to gather enough power to use such a flimsy ignition source.”

“Four days,” Sophia said blankly, her eyes focusing on the near distance. By the way his gaze sharpened he clearly understood what such a task implied. The cartels knew how to hold a Brujha. An empowered circle was easy to create, even for a layman if they knew what they were doing, and even the mightiest practitioner could only do so much with what power remained within the mystical confinement. It would have been easy to waste it in useless fury, every mote of magic had been needed for what she had done, even then one of them might have lived if he hadn’t gone into shock.

“How did you create your links to them surely they were…” Priest trailed off as the answer to that particular question revealed itself in the asking, his face frowning with distaste. Sophia shrugged her shoulders as if to imply that it was nothing that concerned her. Priest withdrew his hand and sat back, his face considering.

“I will be frank Miss De La Fuente. My … firm you might call it, has an opening for someone of your particular skills. We consult on matters regarding the paranormal, take care of problems that sort of thing.” Sophia shifted against her restraints, rattling the chains.

“Senor if you can get me out of here, I don’t care if you are reanimating corpses for your friends to fuck.” Sophia’s voice was quiet and desperate, the profanity a habit rather than an effect of anger. If she were transferred to a prison, she wouldn’t last a day. Even a Brujah had to sleep sometime and the Narcocartels had a very short way with people like her, at least, once they slipped their leashes. Priest smiled as though he had expected nothing less.

“Splendid my dear, we will be happy to have you aboard.” Sophia glanced around the room, as though imagining some miraculous means of escape was about to present itself. No mystical portal opened, now transportation spell whisked her away, she merely sat, chained to the floor.

“So how are you going to get me out? Magic?” she asked Priest as he stood and began to fold his cloth, replacing it in his case with the same neat precision with which he had retrieved it. He gave her a slightly superior smile.

“Oh no my dear, a force much more powerful and diabolical than that.” As if on cue, the door opened to admit a man and a woman bedecked in sharp suits of severe and expensive cut.

“Lawyers.”

It was only after he left and the lawyers wrinkled their noses that Sophia realised that Priest had not so much as blinked at the smell of charred human corpses.

The Sunday Group

Not much of a post but I wanted to get us moving again.

The Sunday Group

Ellie gazed across the room at Morgan, the weight of the revealed secret settled across the group like a blanket. The flickering anger at the womans interference in her spell sputtered inside of her mind. Strange to find one such as her so self righteous. This was a poor time for such a revelation, when the job was already so complicated and dangerous, far more so than it had seemed when the group had agreed to take it own. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, letting the slight spike of pain focus her on the present situation, bringing her mind to meditative calm.

Malone cried out and collapsed into an ancient armchair, the impact of her body elicited a puff of dust which tickled Ellie’s sinuses. Madeline sneezed violently in response to the impulse, though whether due to bleed over from the link or merely a similar response to a similar sensation there was no way to be sure. Her body hung limply on the furnishing like a blanket, as though the very life had been snatched away, leaving her a nerveless boneless things. The subtle whiff of magic curled in the air like distant powder smoke.

Ellie was at Malone’s side in a moment. The former profilers skin was cool and dry to Ellie’s fingers as she probe for a pulse. It was there, erratic but strong and vibrant beneath the other woman’s skin. The wound in the other woman’s neck was serious but didn’t appear to life threatening. In any crisis situation there was always more information than you could process. It wasn’t so much a matter of what you saw or heard, but how much mental energy you could devote to sorting out a baffling tide of inputs.

“We need to regroup,” Ellie declared, her words putting her fragmented thoughts into the skeleton of a plan of action.

“Even if this place is secure we need supplies and food, get a team together and grab the basics. I’ll need an emergency first aid kit, as much as you can get without raising attention.” The wound in Malone’s neck shimmered slightly. There were pieces of the ensorcelled weapon still in the wound, she could sense them writhing and burrowing, trying to work their way deeper into Malone’s neck. Standing abruptly she rushed outside to the van to grab her hand bag, inadequate to the task though it may be.

“Get moving,” she directed as she uncapped her lipstick and began to scribe a circle around Malone and her chair, smearing the dark black pigment into the desired shape. The old carpet made the task difficult but not impossible. The rough fibers were a poor surface for such a task, but the sooner she was able to purge the magical taint from the wound the better it would be for everyone. Part or her didn’t want to attempt even the most basic magic here, there was something rank and oily that lurked behind the veil. SHe looked up at Morgan, what had the place been like in its prime? What was the other woman going through to even return here. Better they were gone and gone soon.