Penny

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-341

Scum & Villainy: Invite Only RP

@Lauder@Penny@Dragoknighte

If you don't own dice,

@POOHEAD189

Then you are tedious and I have no desire to speak with you!

Scum & Villainy: Invite Only RP

Interested in playing the speaker!

Coelus Iter: From Infinity to Dawn

Awesome! And I honestly don't mind, unlike the apparent majority of people on this site, I appreciate that writing make believe stories might not always be everyone's top priority at any given time 😉

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

For people who were fugitives from the most powerful man in the sector things could have been a great deal worse. Rene contemplated the strange turn of events that had lead them to this place as he felt Solae’s naked body stir beside him. The morning light was already streaming through the bedroom window to reveal their hastily shucked clothing where it had been tossed in their rush to disrobe. Rene supposed that given it was the only uniform he had he ought to have been more carefully but in the heat of passion, that had not seemed like much of a priority. The sunlight was reassuring beyond the normal promise of dawn. The Kalderi might enjoy the spectacle of a ball under the sea but in the back of their minds the humans had been conscious of the countless tons of water above them, suspended by alien technology that at any moment might fail and crush or drown them. It was inconsistent of course, humans regularly traveled the stars in metal boxes which separated them from a far more violent death than drowning with only a few millimeters of steel to protect them from explosive decompression, but no one had ever said humans were consistent. A soft chime sounded and Solae stirred against him.

“Mmm?” she asked musily, her eyes flickering open.

“Lithyll has arrived and is requesting your presence for breakfast,” Mia’s sultry voice informed them. There was a mild edge of irritation in the synthesized voice, as there often was whenever events conspired to interrupt time that Solae and her beau might spend alone.

“Right,” Rene responded, a trifle wearily. As a soldier he had no expectation of rest while there was a war on, but he did wish that Solae might be given some respite from the constant stress of diplomatic duties. She didn’t complain of course, but he knew that the burden the Empress had laid upon her was a heavy one. He lifted her chin to his and gave her a lingering kiss.

“What was that for?” he asked. Rene smiled down at her.

“It is morning, and we are together.”

Dressed in informal clothing from the wardrobe provided by Ten they joined Lithyll on an outdoor terrace that overlooked the ocean far below. Servant, unseen by the slumbering couple had laid cool tea and sliced fruit as well as other less identifiable foods. Rene was confident that, as well informed about humanity as they were, the Kalderi would not serve anything immediately lethal to humans. Kalderi cuisine seemed to have a definite bias towards fruit and vegetables and lacked meat as humans would think of it, though there were several pastes that might have been animal derived but might, just as easily, have been seaweed or legumes before processing. Overall Rene found it more palatable than much of what he had eaten since he had fallen from grace. He did wish there was caffeine, as he and Solae had found activities other than sleep to occupy them long into the night, and even with his genetically enhanced metabolism he felt lethargic. Instead he sipped the tart fruit juice that had been provided while Lithyll briefed them on the upcoming interview.

“Andalyll will escort Totlya to speak with you,” Lithyll explained in her usual serene voice as she toyed with some candied seeds in a bowl of delicate porcelain.

“He speaks with the Voice of the Wronged,” the alien explained. Rene exchanged a glance with Solae before responding.

“Andalyll mentioned the voice of the wronged last night,” Rene observed, “but I’m not sure exactly what that means among your people.” Given Solae’s position as ambassador, it was more political for him to profess ignorance than her, though Rene had noticed that Solae seldom let such political calculation get in the way of obtaining the information she needed. Lithyll blinked both sets of eyelids for a moment before seeming to realise the problem.

“Ah, yes, when a member of the community is ‘Wronged’ it means he has been significantly wronged in a way that the normal process of consensus justice cannot provide a resolution,” she explained.

“Kalderi value consensus very much, far more so than humans who can persist indefinitely in states of disagreement. Unfortunately some situations do arise where the wrong is either so egregious, or so complicated that we cannot agree on how to address it but we all agree that a wrong has been done. In such a situation a Kalderi assumes the Voice of the Wronged until the complaint is resolved.”

Rene pondered that for a long moment though he couldn’t exactly find a human analogue for the situation. In human society it could be acknowledge that an injustice had been done to someone even if it wasn’t technically illegal, but beyond the support and sympathy of an immediate circle, there was no formalized community response.

“And what does the Voice of the Wronged allow a Kalderi to do?” he pressed.

“Primarily he or she is able to seek help and redress from outside the community, such an action is unpleasant for all concerned,” Lithyll explained.

“I see, and how often does this happen?” Rene asked, trying his best to wrap his mind around the alien concepts involved.

“Rarely,” Lithyll admitted, “few problems cannot be solved by the community, and those that do tend to involve outsiders.” Lithyll drooped her wings, which Rene had learned was a placating gesture, something along the lines of ‘I mean no offense’.
“And what happens if we can’t solve the problem?” Rene asked, filling a slight premonition of danger as the words left his lips.

“Totlya will be free to seek justice from other outsiders,” Lithyll admitted. Rene pursed his lips.

“Such as the warships in orbit?” he asked, imagining what effect it might have if Kalderi warships entered human space to recover Totlya’s mate by force. Such an incursion could serve as a rallying point to bring the entire sector behind Duke Tan, or worse yet provoke a disastrous conflict between humanity and the Kalderi.

“Exactly, or he could travel to the Homeworlds and seek aid from there,” Lithyll agreed. It was easy enough to imagine the previous such appeal which had brought the Jeweled Armarda to deal with the upstart human interlopers.

“Well, I suppose we must be sure not to disappoint,” Rene observed dryly.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

“Who’d bloody heel are yae?” the pugnacious looking man, apparent Laird McDougal, demanded without waiting for his underling to answer. He was a well muscled man, ruddy and vital looking despite the fact he looked to be in his forties.

“We were shipwrecked,” Emmaline explained and McDougal’s head swiveld to her, clearly surprised that she had spoken.

“Ah lassie among ye too I see,” he said, giving her a deliberate glance up and down. Though he was clearly noting her sex, it seemed more like the kind of glance a herdsman gives a promising looking cow.

“M’perial’s by the sound of ya,” he noted. Emmaline decided that exact geographic distinctions were unimportant and nodded.

“Yes I’m from Altdorf,” she said, nodding her had.

“Whaeva the bloody heel that is,” McDougal grumped. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and the riders melted away to their own business, some dismounting and leading their horses into low stables built as lean-tos against the side of their rude houses.

“I take it from the fact that you speak Reikspiel that you have met other Imperials, is there somewhere we can find a ship?” she asked hopefully. Emmalne had heard only vague rumors of Albion, and what little she had heard was both lurid and unpleasant.

“Oh aye, they show up every year to cheat us with trinkets and baubles,” McDougal said. He sounded disgusted, but Emmaline was forming the opinion that he always sounded disgusted.

“They maeke good steel I gran ya,” he conceded, patting the battle axe slung over his shoulder. Even an indifferent alchemist like Emmaline could tell that the axe was not made of good steel. It was little more than pig iron with far too much coke added, brittle and likely to shatter. No soldier of the Empire would be comfortable with such a shoddy weapon but there seemed little reason to contradict the man and it was likely far better than anything locally produced.

“So we could find a ship?” Emmaline pressed. McDougal shook his head and a calculating look and sly smile seemed to cross his face for an instant before it returned to its normal scowl of disapproval.

“Nay lassie, the fancy men dinae show themselves till the season turns, and any ships will be scared off by the greenskin invasion fleet dinna you ken.”

City in the Dark - An Urban Shadows RP

The bullet struck the dumpster and ricotched wildly, striking sparks from a fire escape before lifting a teaspoon full of red brick dust from the alley wall. Sophia De La Fuente stuck her glock blindly around the side of her stinking metal refuge and fired blindly down the alley, more or less to keep her attackers honest.

“Don’t be holding out on us Soph! We know you know something!” Martinez yelled, several more gunshots slamming into the dumpster to emphasize the point. The gang bangers were not individually brave, nor competent, but there were a half dozen of them and numbers counted for something. When six people were shooting at you in a blind alley, probability could be a bitch.

“Do I look like a fucking alderman?” she demanded, thumbing the catch and dropping her empty magazine to the ground. Briefly she considered retrieving it, but at this point she was going to have to ditch the gun anyway, so destroying the other evidence was probably pointless.

“Now Sophia,” Martinez said in Spanish, “Everyone knows the Mayor’s wife is involved in this and she is a brujah. You are a brujah so just tell me what you know and I’ll let you live.”

Sophia risked a glance over the dumpster. The thugs hadn’t advanced down the alley, but they sure were covering it. She glanced upwards towards the fire escape and judged her chances of climbing to the rooftop. Close to zero, even if these idiots insisted on holding their pistols sideways like this was a bad rap video.

“What, you think its a fucking book club or something?” The Campleone family was rumored to contain magical adepts, but they weren’t exactly on her side of the tracks and she had done her best to stay off their radar.

“Well if you don’t know anything it probably make good sense to kill you, you know, just so you don’t put a curse on me or something…” Martinez called with the playful tone of a cat tormenting a mouse. Sophia considered a magical solution. While several things came to mind, dropping six bodies where someone had been shouting her name wasn’t the sort of thing that would keep her off the radar.

“Are you open to a suggestion?” she called, firing another few blind rounds down the alley.

“I’m listening,” Martinez replied.

“Like I said, I don’t know anything, but I can ask around and let you know,” she shouted back at him, working her jaw to try to dispel the ringing that gunfire in a tight space had induced.

“Sounds risky,” Martinez said dubiously but she could tell he was interested. Even in this part of town the distant wail of sirens meant that the police were not far off. He had to either make a deal or finish her off.

“No more so than seeing how many of your boys I can kill before you still get exactly zero information,” she called back. There was a long considerate pause.

“24 hours pendeha, after that… well I know where you live.” There was the sound of running feet punctuated by a long silence. Sophia risked another look but the mouth of the alley was empty. Still no point in taking chances. Bunchng herself she leaped the few feet up to catch the lowest rung of the fire escape and began to pull herself up hand over hand. She could get off the roof without being seen. In the mean time she had to see if she could track down an oracle she knew and ask about this missing big wig. Whether she told Martinez or not, if he came calling others might have the same idea.

[Move: Hitting the Streets - Looking for the Forecaster, a crazy Ron Burgundy figure who appears mysteriously to dispense cryptic predictions and inaccurate weather reports.]

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-337

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

Or right behind so he can see how uncomfortable he is folded up in cattle class!

Also and this is generally true if you want to introduce plot relevant NPCs go ahead just note it in your synopsis. @POOHEAD189@Fetzen

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Emmaline exchanged glances with Amal as the savage looking horsemen approached. The craftsmen ship on their weapons and saddlery was crude but looked effective. The fact the men spoke Riekspiel in addition to what was apparently their native dialect meant they must have come into contact with the men of the Empire at some point and that buoyed Emmaline's spirits considerably.

"We were ship wrecked," Emmaline called to them, I am Emmaline and these are my friends Amal and ... Brenly," she said, omitting his knighthood after a slight hesitation. She didn't know what an Errantry War was, but if Brettonian's were enemies of these people there was little point in drawing attention to it.

"Shipwrecked? How did you climb the cliffs?" the leader asked suspicously.

"We came ashore..." Emmaline made a vauge guesture but all directions were essentially the same with the fog and the trees.

"That way somewhere? We wandered after that, we don't have any notion of where we are," she explained. The leader said something in his own language and his companions roared with laughter. Though she couldn't understand the jest Emmaline's face colored slightly.

"You will come with us, you will be in a giants belly before morning if you are out here when the sun goes down," the leader pronounced patting his horse. Emmaline exchanged looks with her companions and then climbed up into the saddle, sitting forward of the leader so she could grip the horses neck with her arms. Her companions did the same with the other horsemen and a moment later they were cantering off the grassland and onto a well worn trail into the woods.

"Best to be behind warding stones before the sun goes down," the leader said, seemingly watching in all directions as they rode.