Penny

A Chartered Course: Medieval Trading League RP

"Step forward prisoner," the nasaly voice of the clerk whinnied. The voice grated on Inez’ aching head, but she suspected it would grate less than a blow to the back of the head from one of her jailors. Perhaps a grate deal less. The pun made her smile as she obediently she shuffled forward, the chains that bound her to a line of prisoners, every one of them as miserable looking as she felt, rattled as she did so. The clerk looked at her from behind his desk. It was a nice desk, of a dark wood that had been hand tooled with scenes of mythology that Inze didn't recognize, least whiles through the headache that pounded behind her dark eyes. Bloody potato merchants and their bloody wood. It was a jarringly nice desk for the chilly, dank, prison and the clerk seemed to think himself a great man despite his apparently menial post. He was a sour faced man with an outsized nose and pock marks on his cheeks. Inez decided that his name was Weaselface.



"What is her crime?" the Weaselface demanded of one of the jailors, a pudgy man with a lazy eye and an apparent itch in his crotch that he seemed perfectly happy to scratch in public. The guard scowled, as though he hadn't been asked exactly this same question for each of the thirteen unwashed prisoners who had proceeded her and glanced down at his own parchment.



"Assault of one of the Leagues excisemen, drunk and disorderly conduct, assault of a League guardsman, arson, property damage, lewd acts in public, defacement of League property, assault of a Guilded Merchant, carrying an illegal weapon, besmirtching the name of..." The clerk waved him to silence and Inez intially low opinion of the quill pusher raised a notch. That still kept him somewhere between the dung one couldn't get of one’s boot and the slime that accumulated at the corner of your mouth when you were really thirsty, but it was SOME improvement.



"Lets just mark it as assault shall we?" he simpered. Scritch scratch. Twitch Twitch. Inez felt her pulse in her temples. Just a few drinks Ruiz had said, it would be fun he said. Well in the unlike event the old Calaverdian pirate wasn’t dead with a knife in his back in some alley, Inez swore she would kill him. Even if he was dead she would kill him, just see if she wouldn’t!

“What is the damage?” Weaselface demanded of the guard. Crotch-itch scratched himself as he peered at the parchment, clearly at the limits of his ability to read.

“Well she burned half of Genavan’s tavern, drove a magistrates coach into a…”



“In coin, if you please,” the clerk demanded wearily. Crotch-itch frowned and peered harder.

“One thousand marks yer honors,” he replied sarcastically. The clerk sucked his lips against his teeth, evidently impressed by the bender in spite of his own best efforts to remain non-chalant. Had there been a carriage? The wine fumes in her head clung like mist of a summer glacier over her memories of the previous night. She seemed to recall tumbling off something tall and further evidence was provided by bruises on her rump. There had been something about burning down the Burgermiesters hall to show the potato eaters the proper respect for the south. Evidently she hadn’t succeeded, which, given the situation, was probably to the good.



“Well?” demanded the clerk, leaning forward to peer down his beakish nose at her. Inez was of the blood of old Estania had fought many great battles in her time, some for gold, some for honor, still others for love, she was too proud to vomit on her boots infront of this cretin. Just.



“Well what?” she demanded attempting to put her hands on her hips only to be snugged up by the chains that manacled her.



“Do. You. Have. A. thousand. Marks,” the clerk responded, speaking very slowly the way one might speak to a child.



“I appear to have left my coin purse in my other pants,” Inez responded with sarcasm enough to transcend the cultural divide. Several of the prisoners snickered and even Crotch-itch smiled. Hawknose, however, did not seem amused. In the manner of minor bureaucrats everywhere, he considered himself an important man, and while he was happy to indulge in mockery when it was at the expense of others, he was unable to tolerate it when it was aimed at his own august personage. His beedy eyes harden and his lips curled in a sneer of contempt.



“Then you will be relieved to learn the council of Alderman allows the payment of such debts by a period of indentured labor,” he snapped, biting off the syllables like winter soured apples.



“Rather a long period to pay off such a sum I fear,” he sneered, clearly relishing the prospect of passing sentence on a woman who had dared to mouth off to him. Inez stifled a groan that she felt reasonably confident would end in her puking up a gallon of terrible northern wine.



“There are several brothels that I’m sure would be happy to have you, once we scrub off the grime,” Weaselface leered, “probably the quickest way to clear your debts.” Inez drew herself up to her full, if somewhat unimpressive height of five feet and six inches, tossing her dark hair back in a defiant gesture that held all the pride of Estania. She was a lithe woman, all trim muscle and wiry strength. She had the build of a very athletic dancer, and if there were any fat on her it wouldn’t have filled a milliners thimble. In retrospect that probably hadn’t helped with the drinking.

“I piss on your brothel shop keeper!” she snapped in her clipped Estanian accent. Weaselface’s eyes bulged in outrage and he pounded his fist on his desk like a judge in a courtroom.

“How dare you?!” Weasleface demanded, veins standing out on the side of his neck and eyes bugging out like he was about to scumb to the apoplexy.



“How dare I?” Inez demanded, her firey temper, always willing to pick a foolish fight, flaring to full life.

“How dare I? I am Inez y Carmen de Calavria! I was first through the breach at Validia, I drove the Duke of Pyra from the field with only five hundred men, I cut my way free of the siege at Aratino and….”

“She burned down half of Meadrow and feel drunk on her ass,” Crotch-itch put in helpfully. Laughter rolled up and down the line of prisoners but it didn’t touch Weaselface’s eyes. Scritch scratch scratch went his quill as he made some note on the parchment before him.

“You are a fighter then?” Weaselface asked, a hard and ugly look coming to his eyes. Inez nodded defiantly, the adrenaline pumped into her system doing more than an icebath to clear away the hangover. She tried to lounge dangerously but the effect was, admittedly, spoiled by the chains.

“Take her to the trials,” Weaselface declared with a snap of his fingers, after she is given a proper thrashing, give her a couple of years in a quarry to teach her some respect. Two malodorous guards stepped forward and began removing her shackles with quick deft hammer blows. Then, seizing her by both arms began to drag her out of the line and up some stairs towards the surface.

“I piss on your quarry, and I piss on you inkfucker!” she shouted back, earning snickers from the guards even as they hauled her away.

SANDSTRIDERS: A Lost Land

Kashvi The Navigator

Kashvi The Navigator

All rivers flow to the same sea

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[ ___________________________________ P R O F I L E Age 30 Race Human Sex Female Height 5’4 Weight 130 lb Alignment Chaotic Good Class Mystic Monk Level (All players start at level 1.) Planar Lineage Air Health Points 20 ___________________________________ I N V E N T O R Y Compass Astrolabe Quill Ink vials Parchment Charcoal Sample jars Bedroll Flint and Tinder Lock picks Knife Rope and hook ____________________________________ E Q U I P M E N T - Hands and Feet - Shortsword and sword breaker - Bow and arrow - Leathers (If inapplicable leave blank or mark as NA.) ____________________________________ A T T R I B U T E S Athletics: 14 Dexterity: 14 Intelligence: 14 Wisdom: 11 Charisma: 12 Constitution: 10 ___________________________________ S K I L L S (A) Strength: 0 (A) Agility: 1 (D) Stealth: 1 (D) Acrobatics: 2 (D) Trickery: 1 (I) History: 1 (I) Nature: 1 (I) Arcana: 2 (I) Religion: 0 (W) Perception: 0 (W) Medicine: 0 (W) Survival: 0 (C) Persuasion: 0 (C) Deception: 1 (C) Intimidation: 0 (C) Performance: 0

____________________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE A small neat looking woman with dark brown skin and glossy black hair. She has the sharp classical features of a religious statue with bright lively eyes. Years of hard travel in exotic locations have given her skin a warm golden glow. Though not a tall woman she is lithe and powerful with lean hard muscles toned by toil and travel. ____________________________________________________________________________ BACKSTORY Born into one of the dynastic families of Baneghora, Kashvi’s early life was one of wealth and privilege. She received an excellent education in history and the arts as befitted a young aristocrat. With five older brothers and a tradition of military service she received a smattering of martial training almost by accident. As she grew older her parents , or more accurately the servants in charge of raising her, disapproved of such masculine pursuits and forbade her to continue training, forcing her instead to focus on needle point and other more appropriate skills. Fortunately for Kashvi one of her history tutors, an old Nekhi monk Shrisni Vastu, saw her unhappiness and introduced her to mallapatyyu, an ancient martial art practiced by monastic orders. Under the guise of religious instruction, he arranged for her to be trained and she soon excelled in both its physical and mystical components. During these years Shrini Vastu became more than a wise sage and something of a father figure to the young Kashvi. His life before becoming a tutor had been an active one and he told her many tales of his life, as a soldier, a brigand, and an explorer. He had been badly wounded in a skirmish at sea which had forced him to seek employment as a tutor. Despite being kept close to home by his infirmity, he regularly received letters from other wanderers who had formed something of a society of adventurers. The work of Shrisni Vastu’s life, apart from educating his upstart young pupil, was to compile the contents of these letters, maps, sketches and descriptions of far away places into a great codex which he hoped one day to present to the Queen. Infrequently, these correspondents visited Shrisni Vastu and they would sit up long into the night swapping stories and gossip, while a rapt Kashvi pretended not to be paying attention. These tales fired the young girls zeal, both for her historical studies and her martial training, as well as instilling a desire to see far off places and strange sights. Like most aristocratic girls her parents arranged a marriage for her when she was an infant and as the date approached she began to grow increasingly resentful of being condemned to the role of wife to some empty headed princeling, her only role to smile politely at dinner and pop out the occasional heir. Her parents were not ignorant of this desire, and watched her as carefully as they could without actually imprisoning her. Despite their efforts, the night before her wedding, she cut her hair short, dressed herself as a commoner and climbed over the palace wall, sneaking down to the docks and stowing away aboard a trading dhow that sailed with the morning tide. When she was discovered she pretended to be a boy and was granted passage in exchange for her labor. For the next ten years she traveled, exploring and adventuring, sending letters back to Shrisni Vastu to add to his Codex of the Known World. ____________________________________________________________________________ PERSONALITY Kashvi is an energetic and outgoing person. Always ready to lend a hand to those who need it, always on the lookout for some new adventure or sight to see. She can be overly exuberant and long periods alone have imbued her with the tendency to talk to herself even in the presence of others. Despite years of wandering, she tends to assume the best about people and follows the Nekhish tenets of being truthful, honest and loyal. ____________________________________________________________________________ MOTIVATION AND OUTLOOK Wanderlust is a defining feature of Kashvi’s outlook. She is always keen to see the other side of the hill, the other shore of an ocean, or another strange temple. ____________________________________________________________________________ MISC ...

I am Kashvi Prinkani Suva Singh

Penny's Pencils

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

It probably said something about the last couple of years that rather than reacting to the sudden flurry of gunfire she merely peered around in confusions.

"What do they want from us," she asked, color slowly returning to her face as the effects of the cryosleep drugs continued to burn off. Junebug peered out into the corridor, finding it clear.

"Worry later, get out of here now," Junebug told her, not wanting to open the can of worms right now. Taya leaned down and scooped up a shotgun from one of the corpses, stepping awkwardly around the spreading pool of blood.

"Right," she murmured, shaking her head to clear it. Despite the fact that she had been training Taya for several months, Sayeeda would have been happier if she hadn't picked up the weapon. A blast from that in these tight quarters might accidentally clip her, or Neil, or both. It was an uncomfortably familiar feeling, local allies were usually not to the standard of the mercs they hired, but you had to live with it. Or not of course, but you couldn't think that way.

"Let's move," Junebug declared, leading the way out into the hallway. While the interior of the ship was a warren, it was a simple fact of finding a companionway and heading upwards towards the surface. The ship was big enough that if there were other colonists aboard they couldn't form a clear picture of what was going on. Unfortunately by the the ship only had two exit ports that were easily accessible. One of them had been welded shut, the other had been dressed in the fake stone of the cathedral. A group of confused and nervous looking men, a dozen or so, stood infront of it. They were armed but clearly unsure of what to do. Sayeeda looked speculatively at her pistol and then across at Neil, who screwed up his face in an expression that read: Maybe but Maybe not.

"We can wait for them to try to come in," Junebug suggested, at close range there was a chance that the three of them could take a bunch untrained rustics. Given the shotguns though, there was a fair chance one or all of them would wind up dead.

"Maybe we should go back and try to use the old man as a hostage," Taya suggested. Junebug shook her head.

"Religious types are always willing to die for the cause," she explained. She tapped a finger to her temple.

"Saxon, are you reading me?" she asked through her mastoid implant. There was no response. Stars above where was the lizard? She couldn't imagine these rubes storming the Highlander and taking down the Hex. Perhaps some kind of jamming equipment was at play.

"We need a distraction," she said, eyes flicking to Neil for inspiration.

Swords and Sorcery and Starships

Dark dreams lay heavy in Andromeda's mind. It had been that way since her curiosity had caused her to open the Tome of Blinding shadows. It had seemed an innocent enough curiosity at the time, a crime to be sure, the Forbidden Tomes were, by definition, forbidden, but where was the harm. The content of the book itself had seemed innocuous at the time, dense and turgid perhaps but not evil per se. It was only now, in her dreams, that her mind seemed to be able to unpack the layers of metaphor and allegory. In her dream she walked amidst towering pages that stretched up to the heavens. The sky above crackled with purplish flashes, like distant heat lightning, the letters on the pages, each four feet tall, seemed to glisten as though the ink had just been laid down, shimmering slightly with the odd wyrd light. She tried to make sense of the words, but although some part of her felt understanding, the full implications of the words seemed to twist elusively away. Andromeda trudged between the immense pages, dressed in a formal black robe marked out with all the sigils of a Librarian Extrodinarii, the heavy hood billowing in the arcane wind. She wasn't sure where she was going, though she had the disquieting sense, that whichever way she turned, she was headed deeper into the book, deeper into its secrets. Suddenly the world seemed to shudder, like a grav quake. The pages ripped free of the ground, like trees being uprooted by some vast storm, she flew into the air, in the midst of a storm of paper and swirling letters.

With a scream she tumbled out of her bed, hitting the floor hard and rolling into a nightstand. The impact of her body knocked its contents down on her in a shower of brickerbrack. She gasped for air, her sleep addled mind registering the presence of another figure, a big grim figure in torn and battered armor. Fear surged in her and she reached for her magic, intent on blasting her attacker into pieces only to come away empty, stymied by the effects of the Towers ancient enchantments. She made a decidedly unwizardly shriek of panic and then grabbed a heavy candle stick, brandishing it infront of her like a club.

"Who in the Hells are you!?" she demanded.

Hard Nights, Dark Streets

Are we still waiting on any debts?

Swords and Sorcery and Starships

For a long moment there was silence, punctuated only by the soft whisper of wind. It seemed to rise up from the chasm, carrying with it a soft vaguely volcanic grit the scraped the exposed skin. After a few moments the grit began to swirl, growing darker and more dense by the moment. With a suddenness which belied the slow build up the dust seemed to congeal into a tall menacing figure. By slow degrees, as though a painter were adding details to a figure, the outlines of armor began to appear, rough and then with increasing definition until a black armored knight stood on the narrow bridge which separated the tower from the mainland. Though the figure was clearly visible, the face of the strange knight was concealed in deep shadows, save for the faint greenish blue glow that came from deep within its helmet.

"Sir Knight..." the figure spoke in a sepulchral voice, carrying with it a faint charnel house reek, like distant graves or a day old battlefield.

"The prisoner in this tower has been remainded here by the word of the Assembly of Wizards. She is to be held here until the suns fade," the eldritch knight explained, drawing a blade from his scabbard. Rather than steel the blade was shimmering darkness.

"Turn back, Sir Knight," the dark warrior declared, settling into a relaxed if archaic fighting stance.

"Turn back, lest ye die," the knight warned.

Swords and Sorcery and Starships

As prisons went the Tower was, at least, a large one. The Twelve Towers had been built in a time before recorded history. Each of them stood on the seventh moon of the seventh world in a binary system. Quite what they had been built for was a subject of futile if spirited academic debate, but as they existed in, or created, pockets in which magic did not function, they made ideal goals for recalcitrant mages. Kendus Priori, the infamous Butcher of Blenin, had languished in one for over to centuries before finally passing on, penning his famous Gallicus Ultimus in his gilded cage. Prisons were useful because by Assembly Law no wizard could kill another save in a properly constituted duel on pain of death, and the took the command, like most of their petty rules, very seriously indeed. Several wizards had challenged Andromeda to such duels after she had been arrested, young fire eaters looking to make a name for themselves by bringing down a famous, or more accurately infamous wizard. Unfortunately for them, Andromeda, like all the Black family, had been trained to duel from a young age at her family estate on Calperni, a fact that her would be opponents hadn't learned before their smoking corpses littered the dueling square.

Unfortunately the Tower now prevented her from anything more complicated than a card trick. It had taken her several days to explore the tower. There were twelve accessible floors, with rooms ranging from bed rooms to libraries, but they only reached down to something like a quarter of the towers height. The remaining three quarters was inaccessible, stranding an inmate at the top unless a void ship should arrive. Andromeda had of course tried to find material to fashion a rope or other means to scale the side of the tower, but nothing from inside the tower seemed to be able to survive in the rest of the universe. The sheets she had tied together in an improvised rope had flown to dust when she threw them out the window of one of the lower chambers. Even more annoyingly, they appeared to have returned to their proper places afterwards. Even the libraries themselves were of limited use, those books she could read, perhaps a third of the total volumes, seemed to concern themselves with philosophy, natural history and other subject of interest to absolutely nobody that Andromeda wanted to meet.

"There has got to be a way out of here," she muttered, trying not to think of how many mages had spent the entire remendairs of their lives thinking that exact thought.

Food, at least, was no problem. Three times a day a chime would sound and foods in no pattern that Andromeda could discover, appeared on the table of the main hall. Frustratingly she wasn't able to witness this as the chime only sounded when she looked away and seemed to wait till she left the hall if she tried to out wait it. Sometimes at night she though she heard things moving in the lower level of the tower but she was never able to be too sure. The only other way she could thing to escape the tower was to leap from the window and hope that she could travel far enough to escape the anti-magic effect and then hope to cast a spell that would prevent her from being dashed to pieces on the ground below. As with most plans which began with 'first throw yourself from a thirty story tower' she was not much inclined to try it.

Swords and Sorcery and Starships

The void ship coasted in towards the black tower, the darkness of space and the brightness of the stars clinging to the bubble of shimmering atmosphere which surrounded it. While it lacked the majesty of the vast palace ships which carried the great and good of the Celestial Empire or the star galleons of the Feudal States, even a modest void ship was an impressive sight. It's star keel was made of polished timbers fashioned around the three massive arcanula, magical crystals which lined the keel and from attachment points for the masts and glittering solar sails. A golden figurehead glinted at the bow and an intricate series of armorcrystal windows and gilt finish shone in the light of the distant star.

On the deck of the prison ship, the Charon, as she was grandly named, a young woman sat cross legged. Her features were sharp and angular with the high cheekbones and wide eyes of gallic ancestry. She was swathed in a simple black robe which made her curly red hair shine like fire. Three other woman, dressed in the white and gold robes of The Assembly, stood around her, six feet away and in a perfect equilateral triangle. Armsmen flanked them on both sides in neat files. Burnished armor half concealed beneath tabards which had been hung artfully to leave their rune blades free. There were even a few ray pistols in bejewled holsters, although such things were frowned upon in the exalted company of the Assembly.

The surface of the moon rose below them, the tower of black metal grew larger and larger even as the void ship slowed, there was a shimmer as the atmosphere bubble which surrounded the ship merged with the atmosphere that surrounded the tower. Below them blackened trees of no variety which ever pierced the earth of Holy Terra scrabbled towards the sky. The tower had no obvious entry at ground level, but a long air dock stretched out from a point three quarters of the way towards its pointed bulbus top. The solar sails furled as the ship coasted in to the dock, settling into place with expert skill. Sailors rushed forth, throwing ropes to tie off against the bollards that snugged the ship to the tower.

"Andromeda Clarissa Black," one of the white robes declared, lifting her palm upwards in a commanding guesture. The black robed woman stood jerkily, the immobilization charm lifting after hours of confinment.

"For the crime of delving into forbidden lore, you have been sentenced by a Quartet of the Senior Assembly to be imprisoned in the Ebony Tower. Have you anything to say before your sentence is carried out?" the pinchy faced white robe demanded. Andromeda flexed her arms, settling her black robe around her body. She cleared her throat portentously, back straight with regal pride.

"The service on this flight has been terrible, and I would like to speak with a manager," she declared in a thick gallic accent. The white robes pinched face grew white with rage and she snapped her fingers. A pair of burly armsmen stepped forward grabbing her by both arms and dragging her towards the Tower.

"Seriously!" she yelled over her shoulder, "One star! Would not recommend!"

@POOHEAD189

Hard Nights, Dark Streets

Yes, I'm currently moving jobs which will free up a significant amount of time