Penny

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

If she had been a harder woman Emmaline might have simply disposed of Neil with a spell. It would in many ways be simpler, but while she was a swindler she hadn't yet graduated to cold blooded killer. Besides, she might need him to get back inside the walls if he were telling the truth about that.

"I uhhh..." she began and then gave up.

"My name is Emmaline, I'm an apprentice with the Colleges of Magic," she confessed. She turned her hands palm up.

"I figured that I might convince Otto von Blockhead to buy me a few dinners and perhaps a few presents while I was in town," she went on, shading the truth somewhat. No noble would ever be openly involved with a wizard of course, though there were more than a few such liasons quietly conducted in the capital. It could never lead to marriage however.

"I thought I would slip away before anything too serious developed," she admitted, brushing vainly at her dress in an attempt to remove the dust from the ruined dress. She succeeded only in spreading the muck further and gave up with a defeated sigh.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

Jocasta smiled, taking a leather jacket from a hook and looping it around her shoulders. The interior of the ship was climate controlled and it was a little too cool for the exotic dancer outfit she was wearing. Her optical implants reported that all of her drones had been recovered or would be within the next two minutes, the little units flitting back to the Dragonfly like bees returning to a hive. Even at half the bounty she should make a reasonable profit on this run. The cargo bay narrowed as they moved forward, metal bulkheads off specialized manufacturing spaces and a sterile white medical bay. The prisoner she had interrogated lay unconscious on one of the tables, an IV drip keeping him sedated.

"Do me a favor an throw him out of the ramp, will you? I already have one extra set of lungs breathing my air."

At the end of the corridor between the specialized spaces was a medium sized power lift flanked by two ladders incased in roll cages. She sprang up one of the ladders and onto the A deck corridor which lead past the living spaces, three staterooms, the head and a small galley. The staterooms would have been officer country if the ship were carrying the normal crew of twenty, but the crew quaters had been canibalized for work spaces, the gym and other areas she had needed. Sophisticated autonomous systems, some of the shelf and others custom built made up for the lack of crew, though primarily the crew were necessary in action rather than in normal flight. The cockpit was a broad wedge shaped room similar to a serpents head. There were several stations available but the main area was a circular diaz surrounded by waist high holographic projectors across 270 degrees of arc. As Jocasta stepped onto the cirle of raised metal a curtain of coherent light sprang up around her like a halo, projecting control surfaces and data read outs in dizzying detail. Her hands began to move rapidly as she worked through the start up sequences, bringing the secondary reactor online and then firing up the ion pulse engines. A soft hum filled the ship as she did so. Internal holocams showed that Dirk had completed his task and sealed the hatch, so she touched both hands to the holo screen, spheres of light that represented her controls congealing around her hands, dozens of 'buttons' within finger flex. Raising both hands palm up she lifted the ship feeling the quiver of the engines through her feet, then she dropped one hand and pressed it back, pitching the nose towards the sky and lighting the main drive. There was a quiver as artifical gravity balanced the thrust and on her visual pick ups she saw a vast rooster tail of dust blast up as the ship boosted towards orbit. That probably wasn't comfortable for a prisoner they had just dumped outside, but he would probably live. Not that she was too concerned with that.

The Dragonfly shuddered up through the atmosphere and into the sudden smoothness of true space, the ion engines dying away to be relieve by the fission burn of the main drives. A holographic woman appeared at the navigational station, completely realistic save for a slight shimmer when she moved.

"Course plotted for jump point Alpha three six Jo," the hologram reported.

"Thank you Cygi," Jocasta responded, glancing at the count down till they reached a safe jump distance.

"Who is this?" Cygi asked turning in her chair to glance to the back of the bridge. Jocasta turned to see Dirk entering, still in his armor.

"This is Dirk," she told the hologram, "he is... lets say a bussiness partner for the next little while."

This isn't working out: Part 3

Sea Shanties!

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline fell heavily onto her rump in the dust. She looked down at her tattered and soiled dress, a hundred marks worth of investment that wouldn't fetch a penny now. She let the pebble she had been holding drop to the ground, the golden light flickering and vanishing to reveal a perfectly normal rock. Fortunately the damage the dress had taken had protected her from the worst of the cuts and scrapes she otherwise would have acrued during their flight though the mine.

"I'll be fine," she said after a moment. The secondary exit appeared to be a shaft which had been sunk to clear a cave in. Several sheds had collapsed and weeds and thigh high stalks of grass poked through the compacted earth. There was an ancient wooden trough which must once have carried earth away from the mine site but it had collapsed with rot.

By now Otto would be back in town, perhaps organizing help to come to the mine, but just as likely cowering in his townhouse trying to figure out how Margueritte Von Vissenbach had perished in his company. Perhaps she might take advantage of that somehow in the future, but that was for later.

"Well Neil," Emmaline said after a moment, "Its a long walk back to Nuln, and I don't propose to be out here after dark with greenskins still abroad..."

Illustrious Illustrations by Poo

I find it comes and goes in spurts myself

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline stumbled through the darkness after Neil. The darkness reeked of orcs but it seemed that the whole pack had rushed to attack the humans who had unexpectedly entered their domain. Even this close to the city of Nuln small bands of greenskins were not unknown, particularly in abandoned areas like this.

"Well that is good news," Emmaline agreed. She had noticed that there was an exit marked back in Gunther's office, but there was no guarantee the passage hadn't collapsed and she had no idea how to find it. Outside they could hear the triumphant roars of the orcs outside, indicating that the brief battle had concluded in their favor. Realising she still held the bottle she pulled the cork with her teeth and took a drink to steady her nerves. Reaching down she grapsed around until she found a pebble and lifted it up.

"Don't panic or anything," Emmaline warned as she wrapped both her hands around the stone and began to whisper. After a moment a slight golden glow began to radiate from her hands, growing brighter as she opened her hands to reveal the glowing pebble. It would work as a makeshift lantern at least.

"Lets get the hells out of here," she encouraged.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline stared agog as Otto cracked the whip over the rumps of the horses. The wagon lurched into motion and rattled off down the road. The beasts were at least as scared of the orcs as they were the whip and they hauled at their harnesses with far more effort than they had expended on the trip here. Neil helped Emmaline to her feet and she grabbed a bottle of wine from the abortive picture. The guards had just enough time to form a ragged line before the orcs hit them. The greenskins howled their war cries as the smashed into the line, pitching men off their feet with the impact of their hundreds of pounds of angry green muscle. Everything was a mass of flashing steel, screaming men and bellowing orcs. One of the creatures was down, its skull cleaved by a halberd, a second was pinned on a spear and being hacked to death by two of the guards. A wounded orc staggered close to Emmaline and she smashed the bottle down over its head. The heavy glass didn't break and although there was a satisfying 'chunk' the creature didn't fall. Rather it shook its head and staggered towards her. Neil yanked her out of the way and towards the other wagon. She had a momentary surge of hope before a brutish orc in armor of beaten iron plates leaped to the wagon. Its axe slashed down, beheading on of the beasts in a single slash that sprayed blood into the air. The other horse screamed and bolted, trying to drag away its companion as well as the wagon before a back hand blow took the throat out of the second horse.

"Shiz!" Emmaline cursed backing up and turning towards the woods, prepared to make a break for the trees, just in time to see another half dozen orcs, carrying a dead deer across their shoulders emerged from the wood. They took one look at the small battle, dropped their kill and charged towards the humans with an ear shattering 'WAAARRRRGH!' There was no escape.

"Run for the mine!" Emmaline yelled, her voice high and tiny with panic

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

It felt rather strange to actually see the mine. Having spent the last several weeks working on a scheme to defraud a mine owner, she had learned a little but this was the first time she had actually seen one. It wasn't tremendously impressive to look at There was a large cave carved into the side of a cliffside at a steep downward angle. Rusted iron rails protruded from it like the tongue of a great monster. Wooden works, half rotted now were clustered around large piles of spoil and several run down looking sheds. A wooden fence, still mostly intact circled the area and a large sign of painted timber could barely be interpreted to read: Sawgrass Mine - Nuln Exploration Company.

"Well it isn't very impressive to look at," Emmaline commented, somewhat impoliticly. Otto stiffened at the percieved insult and then regained his control.

"You must imagine it not as it is, but as it will be, as soon as my friend Pendergast, brings his supplies and hires workmen, it will be a river of silver," he declared confidently. 'Pendergast' was almost certainly on a barge up river by now, which was where Emmaline wished she was now, though after all Otto's groping she wished she could stick around to watch his humiliation.

"Alright boy make your inspection," he ordered Neil.

"Lady Von Vissenbach, I have taken the liberty of packing a picnic for us, my men will lay it out for us."

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline wondered if the scam would still work if Otto burst a blood vessel and died of apoplexy right here. She supposed it would, but it might be a different matter if a noble wound up dead than if he lost a few thousand marks to a con artist. The wagons were slowing now as the horses began to hall them up the stepper incline. The pace was still slow to allow the foot troops to keep up, but even the guards were leaning into their kit.

"We won't find any silver right away boy," Otto declared loftily, "We will process tin ore for the residual silver." The nobles voice was smug and superior for all he was parroting nonsense that ALbrecht had poured into his head. If Neil knew anything about metallurgy he would know that tin and silver were often found together, but that the concentration of the latter was usually quite low.

"It must be so exciting working at the gunnery school," Emmaline broke in, her voice breathless with injected excitement.

"All those big long cannons, and big bangs!" she continued, ignoring the fact that Otto's face had frozen into a rictus of embarrassment.

"Just imagine all that heavy iron," she continued. Nothing in her voice was improper, but anyone looking for it might taste the slight hint of innuendo she applied. Otto clearly did because his face was beginning to darken dangerously.

This isn't working out: Part 3

<Snipped quote by Penny>
What I'd most care about is if they're

• Do they like Indiana Jones?
• Fun
• Smart
• Likes what I like
• I think they're cute

@POOHEAD189