Penny

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The initial burst of excitement turned to frustration as Jocasta and Beren poked around the basis of various trees. The overnight dusting of snow hadn’t done them any favors, and figuring out which tree was ‘the third tree’ and what it referenced wasn’t easy. After twenty minutes of fruitless searching Jocasta called a halt and poked around until she found a forked yew branch.

“What are you going to do with that?” Beren asked.

“Watch and learn,” Jocasta told him and then plucked two hairs from Beren’s head.

“Ow!” he complained, rubbing at his scalp. Jocasta made a dismissive gesture and produced the assassins not, carefully wrapping it around the base of the branch and tying it in place with the hairs before inscribing several sigils on the bark with the tip of her thumb.

“There,” she said proudly, holding the stick out horizontal. Before Beren could ask what the stick was for the end began to twitch slightly to the left. Jocasta turned and allowed the soft, almost imperceptible tug to guide her to the base of a gnarled ash tree close to the statue. The tip of the twig pulled down hard and touched the soft packed snow. Jocasta crouched down and began to scrape away the icy cover to reveal loosely packed dirt beneath one humped root. She crowed in excitement.

“Enjoying yourself?” Beren asked with a smile. Jocasta nodded vigorously and dug at the dirt with her hand until she struck something solid. It was a few minutes work to reveal a simple wooden box wrapped in oiled cloth. She sat it on the snow and unwrapped it, examining the box carefully for any traps, arcane or otherwise. Unable to find any but unwilling to think that meant there were none to find, she drew her shortsword and used the tip to open the box from arms length. Inside was a bundle of red silk. She exchanged glances with Beren and then reached in and tugged at the fabric. Coins clinked inside and she lifted it free, spilling a handful of gold coins into the bottom half of the box. Her hand tingled against the silk as she shifted it to reveal a sarong.

“Our assassin would have looked just darling in this,” Jocasta observed dryly, “I bet…” She vanished from existence with a pop of inrushing air, only to rematerialise on a tree branch ten feet above. She let out a squawk of shock, overbalanced and then fell into a snowbank with a thump that shook enough snow from the tree above to fall and cover the hole she had made.

“Owww,” her muffled voice came from beneath the snow, unconsciously initiating Beren’s complaint of a few minutes before.

Maverick Malediction

“Well, well you do clean up nice,” Calliope approved as she glanced over Neil’s new attire. He looked every inch the dashing Imran Kaffir who was rumored to have gained the secret of magic for mankind by stealing the food of the Djinn.



“Shame the baths are segregated,” she teased and saw Neil smirk as though he had been having the same thought.

“Quick questions, who are these Seven Princes and are they going to kill us?” Neil asked. Calliope shrugged eloquently, her jewelry jingling slightly as she did so. Shrugging wasn’t a natural gesture to women of this region, to whom absolute control of their shoulders was taught as proper posture from birth.



“I think a cartel of local wizards, probably the greatest in the city. The sultan is in charge but there has to be some sort of hierarchy among the local mages,” she reasoned. The reading she had done had not covered politics in anything like so granular a fashion.

“As for wanting to kill us, I don’t imagine so, showing us a little charity establishes a pecking order,” she explained. It was a fairly common practice. If you accepted gifts from someone, you were effectively acknowledging their superiority to you. That might be a problem if Calliope wanted to marry into the Sultanate, but given her goal was simply to use the place for a base while she hunted for the tombs on their map, it didn’t seem likely to be an issue. Further discussion of political altruism was forestalled by Rashim’s return.

“Come, come, all is prepared,” he informed them. Calliope was hungry, but was ready to beg off attending a formal banquet in favor of something more intimate. Fortunately the issue didn’t arise.

“These are your rooms,” he informed them, opening a teak paneled door to reveal a large open room flanked by rows of stone columns. A bed chamber stood at the end with hanging silks cordening it off. The central section was dominated by a large table and several comfortable looking chairs. Both sides of the central room were flanked by smaller areas, set off by waist high balustrades of intricately carved timber but not by any wall that would block a line of sight to the center. A large table stood in the central room on which brass dishware was stacked, some were covered and clearly hot, others were open to reveal candied dates, fresh fruit, confections and other things Calliope couldn’t name. A large central basket of woven leaves held a heaping of golden rice. Pitchers of wine stood at the four corners of the table, each with the head of a different animal worked in cunning bronze.

“I will leave you now,” Rashid declared, “if you should require anything, you have but to ring.” He made a gesture to a silken rope which lead to a silver bell, and then turned and slipped from the room, closing the door as he went.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta’s face grew uncharacteristically solem in the firelight as she considered the question. For long seconds she didn’t speak merely staring into the flames. Then she let out a deep sigh.

“I have something to tell you too,” she admitted.



“I am the long lost daughter illigitimate of the King of Andred and Calli Black,” she informed him, spreading her arms portentously as she announced it.

“I was born under and ill fated star and my doom stalks me, my enemies hunt me even now. Whole armies are probably out looking for me, not to mention fair haired heroes determined to save me and carry me off to their castles to…” she cut off as Beren shoved her in exasperation.

“Can you be serious for one minute?!” he demanded.

“Unclear,” Jocasta snickered.

“You could get killed just being near me!” he tried again. Jocasta shrugged nonchalantly at the prospect.



“Please, one assassin shows up and it goes to your head. Its sheer dumb luck he didn’t show up to break my kneecaps for all the money I owe the Black Lotus,” she confided. Beren started slightly.

“Wait? What?” he interjected but she continued speaking as though she hadn’t heard.

“Since I’ve met you, I’ve nearly been ripped apart by a barrow wright, bisected by booby traps, crushed by an avalanche,” she began, counting the points off on her fingers.

“Wait that was your…”



“Molested by Mercenaries, which should count twice for alliteration, and fought off an assassin with enchanted furniture,” she continued. Beren’s frown deepened at the mention of the furniture. Jocasta waved dismissively.

“You were asleep for that bit,” she added helpfully, then paused. “I’m pretty sure there was something else…”



“You were almost beheaded by undead and or eaten by orcs?” Beren suggested.

“Damn, how could I forget about the orcs!” Jocasta exclaimed, snapping her fingers.



“Overall I’d say its been a pretty banner day,” she went on.

“Not to mention I made three silver lordlings,” she concluded, flourishing the coins like a street magician about to pull a trick. She rolled the coins across her knuckles for a moment and then the three coins began to bounce into the air and clank into each other in mock combat, the stamped faces mouthing soundless insults before she snatched them out of the air and stuffed them into a pouch.



“I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not going to let the world's smelliest assassin or the Kitty Litter spoil a good thing. “

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Fortunately for Jocasta she had already lost control of the spells animating her attack chairs by the time company arrived. Her scalp was sore and she rubbed her hairline resentfully. Luckily the assassin had mostly been aiming to get her out of the way rather than making a true effort to kill her. The only real risk had been when he had thrown her, and Beren had broken her fall.



“I’m fine,” she told Beren after patting herself down to make sure that was more or less true.

“Gods Below, he is dead!” the innkeeper gasped as he reached the door. Bonnie was close behind covering a gasp. Jocasta moved over to the assassin and lifted his head by the hair, the weight of his body pulling it to an extremely unnatural angle. Everyone collectively winced.

“What?” she asked, then dropped the head so it thudded on the floor eliciting another wince from all and sundry.



“It never hurts to check,” she huffed a little defensively.



“You have killed a man! I must summon the ….” the Innkeeper trailed off. Clearly he was about to say watch, and then realized that meant the Mortus Leo would get involved. His face pantomimed an agony of indecision.



“I think,” Jocasta began, “that maybe this is just a robbery gone wrong and we can chalk it up to natural causes?”

“Natural causes?! His neck is broken!” the landlord protested.

“Well, you know, natural in his line of work,” Jocasta amended. The Innkeeper still seemed inclined to argue but Bonnie just shook her head and steered the older man out of the room, shooting a surprisingly effective ‘take care of this mess’ over her shoulder as she went.



“Well that was fun,” Jocasta put in, casting an appreciative glance at the shirtless Beren, the effect slightly marred by the bruise that was spreading from where her knee had winded him during the fall.



“Any idea why someone would want to kill you? He said he was here to kill you specifically. Like what am I? Chopped liver?” she demanded. Beren shook his head in confusion or uncertainty she wasn’t sure.



“Well he is dead so we can’t ask him,” Beren said at last.

“Or can we?” Jocasta asked in a theatrically ghoulish voice.

“What?” Beren asked, brought back to attention by the tone rather than the content of her statement.

“What?” Jocasta repeated blinking her eyes innocently as though she hadn’t just suggested necromancy.

“I guess we should probably search his pockets before we toss him out into an alley? Just incase he has an valuable information on him, or better yet any money?”

Maverick Malediction

Calliope would have admitted to having her doubts about the Brass Lamp. Ibrahim’s suggestion for what constituted a nice place, might have been closer to a camel stable than a luxurious rooming house, his vision being limited by his upbringing. Fortunately this was not the case. The Brass Lamp was a marble shod building set back from the street by an elaborate garden of fragrant date palms and large tamarind trees interspaced with smaller shrubs and flowers. Colorful birds flitted from place to place, twittering as they went. A fence of stone pillars and bronze kept the public back, as did two large hermes, local statues with elephantine heads and colossal phalluses, overlain with charms to keep out scrying and other hostile magics. A pair of heavily muscled men, completely hairless with oiled muscles that looked like they could crack stone and certainly cold crack necks stood on guard. They wore nothing save loin clothes and stern expressions. At first it seemed they might not admit the two apparent vagabonds until Neil produced several gold coins from their horde and jingled the rest meaningfully. The two conferred in their own language, not the one the spell had wormed from Ibrahim’s mind, and then called back to the house. A few moments later a figure emerged dressed in gold accented white with a blood red sash. It was so androgynous that Calliope couldn’t assign a sex to it until it spoke.

“I am Rashim,” he said in a voice that suggested he might have been a eunuch, “I apologize for the delay, there are so many refugees in the city we cannot be too careful.”



“Will you be requiring a room patrons, or are you simply hoping to avail yourselves of the baths?” he asked tactfully, though it was clear that a bath was high on his priority list.

“We will take a room, a nice once,” Calliope told him, “and a bath sounds divine.”





As it happened Calliope found it was her sensibilities that were somewhat paraocial. The Brass Lamp had two wings, one for men and one for women, that were set aside for bathing. The baths consisted of large heated pool, thirty feet across at the widest points with steaming hot water pumped in from below. They were ingeniously engineered so that while the water at the center was almost painfully hot, it grew cooler as one moved to the edges. Beautiful mosaics of sporting nymphs and mermaids were picked out in bright tile, along with hunting scenes and what might have been some kind of religious art. Small submerged benches with palms around the lips provided private nooks in which to bathe and a wall surrounded the whole edifice to ward off prying eyes. Though it was open to the sky, Calliope suspected that it could be covered with canvas if threatened by the infrequent rains. It all smelled of green plants and clean water, with only the merest hint of soap and perfume. Several other women were bathing and chatted quite freely as they splashed. By both temperament and culture they gave her a wide berth.



Feeling much refreshed after a long hour in the water Calliope emerged and wrapped herself in a soft towel to find Rashim waiting for her, an identical obsequious smile on his face.

“I have taken the honor of preparing some clothing for you while your own is washed,” he told her. Calliope’s eyes cut to her pack where the spell book bulged in a side pouch. Protective spells or not she could feel it there, as yet undisturbed.

“I noted that you are a practitioner,” the eunuch said tactfully.



“Be comforted that none shall harm you or interfere with your possessions here. We are bonded by the Seven Princes to provide such service,” he told her. Calliope had no idea what the Seven Princes might be but nodded as though she understood before turning her attention to the clothing provided.

“Shall I have the servants dress you? I note that you are a foreigner and our garb might seem strange to you,” he said smoothly.

“Very well,” Calliope told him.

Half an hour later she was escorted into their palatial room. Wrapped from ankle to head in silk. Each layer of silk was of a purple so deep it was almost black and fringed with a slightly different pattern in cloth of gold, pinned in several places by bejeweled fasteners set with amethyst and other semi precious stones. She wore a veil and hood with a net of gold across her face hung with small moonstones that glittered in the light.



“This seems a little extravagant for what we are paying,” Calliope suggested as she examined herself in the mirror.

“The cost is significant,” Rashim disagreed, “but in truth to host a practitioner is both a duty and an honor, it will add luster to our house. We would not displease the Seven Princes for the sake of a few baubles.”

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Despite the crowding below the Crimson Wyrvern did have rooms to let. Most of the crowd, as Bonnie sonorously informed them, were locals who came to drink but had their own places to sleep. Given Beren’s meager supply of coins they opted for a single room which turned out to contain a down mattress a small table with a pair of stools and a somewhat lumpy looking couch. The window looked as though paint had closed the frame forever several generations back and dust had taken care of the rest. During her time at the Mythrim Jocasta had slept on a palette behind the counter at her small shop, so ironically this was something of an upgrade.



“I’ll take the couch,” Beren offered, eliciting a knowing snicker from Bonnie who, mercifully, didn’t wish them a goodnight. Jocasta clambered gratefully into bed and promptly fell asleep, the stress of a long day filled with almost lethal encounters obviously taking a toll, he soft snoring filling the room almost immediately.



Canithrid screamed his defiance as his brothers dragged him from the wooden hall of Omynith, spittle flying from his lips as his father glared imperiously down at him, the circlet of broken thigh bones making him look far more slender and far taller than a man should be, even with the Cloak of the Moon Bear around his shoulders. The old man had long favored his younger sons over his eldest, having despised his first wife as a seeress and witch woman he had been forced to marry due to clan politics. Canithrid was a constant reminder of the woman and her weird warnings that his ambitions would be as ash and his death would be an inglorious one. The young man had her look, the fine gold hair, the strong brow and the eyes of the icy north. The old man spoke the words, denying his son before the stars and the Blood Moon, cursing him to wander forever as a beggar as his brothers dragged him to the edge of the stream. The youngest brother Glynfian, only sixteen but already cruel and filled with hate, picked up the stone mallet that was customarily used from breaking open clams. Two of the older brothers stretched his right leg over the breaking stone, shards of clam shell cutting deep into the skin. Glyfian lifted the hammer and swung it down with all his might…


Jocasta awoke with a sneeze that cleared dust from her sinus and made her hiccup ever so slightly. She sat up to see if she had disturbed Beren but he remained supine upon the couch, the soft tremble of breath across his lips visible in the fraction of moonlight that managed to penetrate the window. Jocasta lay back and tried to go back to sleep, but found oblivion elusive as she tossed and turned. She wasn’t the type to sleep long hours, her mind too active to allow her to sleep deeply for more than a few hours at a stretch, even after a few cups of wine. She lay in bed staring at the rafters and thinking. Eventually she got up and headed down to the kitchen. It was lit only by the coals of the cook fire. The innkeeper was curled up on a platte beside a barrel of ale, snoring like an angry thunderstorm. There were more sounds of snoring coming from the common room beyond, where those who chose not to pay for a room slept where they could, under tables or against the walls. Jocasta found what she was looking for against the far wall. The apron which Bonnie had been wearing. Crossing over to it she examined it closely and removed three strawberry blonde hairs she found there. Her primary goal accomplished she took a small bottle of brandy from beneath the bar and lay one of her few coins in its place. Carefully she wrapped the hairs around the neck of the bottle and then thrust it into a pouch before creeping back up the stairs. Reaching the room she pushed open the door, frowning that she had forgotten to close the door when her precious manuscript was…



There was only a fraction of a second warning as something dark and solid whistled through the air. Jocasta epped and dived forward, the only direction her momentum would allow, past a shadowed figure whom she suddenly realized was in the room. The cudgel bounced of the ancient plasterboard with scarcely a sound. Jocasta grabbed her shortsword from beside the bed where she had left it. Irritatingly the scabbard clung to it and she swept it like a club at her attacker, who deflected it with his own weapon with a deft flick that sent it spinning from her hand. Desperately she grabbed one of the stools and swung it at the man with all her might. He caught one leg in his palm with a meaty slap.

“I’m only here for him, but I can do you too if you shout,” the stranger grated. He held the stool between them effortlessly.

“Rather a pathetic effort,” he sneered, sensing his superiority and drawing his club back. Three of the legs coiled around his arm like the tentacles of an octopus. He let out a shriek of disgust and realed back. The fourth leg struck him across the nose like a man disciplining a pup.

“What the fuck!” he shouted in horror, staggering back and trying to shake free the animate chair that was clinging to his arm and batting at his face. Incredible Beren was still sound asleep, untroubled by the ruckus going on around him.

“B…” Jocasta began to shout but was cut off as the intruder swung his arm, chair and all, like a club, she ducked under the blow and one leg of the chair grabbed at a rafter, momentarily pinning the thugs arm. Jocasta jumped onto his back, wrapping her arms around the intruders neck and her legs around his waist.



“I will fucking kill you!” the thug roared, ripping his arm away from the rafter with such force that the leg holding him to it ripped free. It waggled organically for a moment and then stiffened into inanimate wood once more.

“I hear that alot!” Jocasta shouted as the second stool jumped to its feet and charged across the room like a newborn foal. The intruder kicked it into the wall as he spun, trying to dislodge Jocasta. Lacking better options, she bit his neck as hard as she could. He roared in pain and grabbed for her with his free hand, getting a hold of her hair and yanking painfully, throwing her over his head just as the charging stool reached him. Somehow it had gotten a hold of the leg of the first stool and whacked the would-be assassin hard across the shin with its improvised weapon. Jocasta landed on Beren’s lap, driving one knee into his chest to break her fall and driving the air from his lungs.



“Give him one for me!” she shouted in breathless encouragement as the stool as it continued to bludgeon away with its baton.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

“Huh,” Jocasta said, giving Dirk the side eye as they coasted in to the beach with a crunch. She reminded herself there was a lot she didn’t know about her putative partner and his history with Neo-Mecca was far from uneventful. That might or might not be a problem, though this was hardly the time to think too deeply on it.



They were clearly getting closer to the heart of this hap hazard little party now. Jocasta had sent a drone to watch the port, which was separated from the communications island by about a kilometer of open water. That was a sensible security precaution as it made it difficult for someone to take control of the docks and the communications hub before the alarm was raised. These yahoos, whether by luck or good judgment, had obviously managed it. The feed from the port was a little problematic. A dark gray dragonfly drone, one of the small portion of her fleet hijacked by Cygi, was dog fighting with her own but the pair of them managed to make up a decent feed between them. Barges were beginning to arrive at the docks laden down with credit chips, liquor, jewelry, paintings, bedding, and anything else anyone might think of carrying off. Teams of men were hauling the loot from the boats to a docked luxury liner registered as The Lady Godiva. These men were not dressed in armor, but a mixture of clothing that ranged from the gaudy to the ridiculous. One man was dragging a marble statue while wearing a suit of white silk with a half dozen pea cock feathers sprouting from a kaftan. It was far too small for him and the seams at the arms had burst open. Another man wore a fantastic dress of nebula silk, its flaring red fabric really setting off his stubble and prison tattoos. Jocasta shook her head unable to credit it.



“It dosen’t look like our friends are planning on being here in…”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Dirk yelled and shoved her bodily over the side before diving on the beach after her. His armored form landed atop her, arms and knees bent so as not to crush her. A trail of smoke and fire ripped from a grove of palm trees and smashed into the airboat with a cataclysmic boom. Pieces of debris pinged musically off Dirks armor as the heat and overpressure passed them by. He stood up and started firing his blasters at the grove, which was now on fire as a result of the backblast of the missile which had evidently been concealed there Jocasta spat out some stand and started to run up the beach towards the cover of the expensive landscaping, her drones zipping along in front of her in a flying V. A man wearing an armored chest plate stepped out from behind a fountain and swung a rifle to bear. One of the drones cut past him, ducking its wings in as it went so that the molecules thin wing membranes cut across his cheeks like flying shrapnel. He yelled and swatted at his face before the blue beam of Jocasta’s pistol removed cut and face in a sizzling blast of energy. Across a manicured lawn she saw a half dozne men burst from the main communications building. One of them was piloting a suit of armor so heavy it might have qualified as a mech, each leg easily as thick as a full grown garamon tree and as wide across the chest as a dumpster. The air split as he fired the machine guns attached to each arm in the air, raining down flaming palm fronds and coconuts.



“huh…” Jocasta temporised, and then turned and ran back down the beach as fast as her legs could carry her.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

“Huh,” Jocasta said, giving Dirk the side eye as they coasted in to the beach with a crunch. She reminded herself there was a lot she didn’t know about her putative partner and his history with Neo-Mecca was far from uneventful. That might or might not be a problem, though this was hardly the time to think too deeply on it.



They were clearly getting closer to the heart of this hap hazard little party now. Jocasta had sent a drone to watch the port, which was separated from the communications island by about a kilometer of open water. That was a sensible security precaution as it made it difficult for someone to take control of the docks and the communications hub before the alarm was raised. These yahoos, whether by luck or good judgment, had obviously managed it. The feed from the port was a little problematic. A dark gray dragonfly drone, one of the small portion of her fleet hijacked by Cygi, was dog fighting with her own but the pair of them managed to make up a decent feed between them. Barges were beginning to arrive at the docks laden down with credit chips, liquor, jewelry, paintings, bedding, and anything else anyone might think of carrying off. Teams of men were hauling the loot from the boats to a docked luxury liner registered as The Lady Godiva. These men were not dressed in armor, but a mixture of clothing that ranged from the gaudy to the ridiculous. One man was dragging a marble statue while wearing a suit of white silk with a half dozen pea cock feathers sprouting from a kaftan. It was far too small for him and the seams at the arms had burst open. Another man wore a fantastic dress of nebula silk, its flaring red fabric really setting off his stubble and prison tattoos. Jocasta shook her head unable to credit it.



“It dosen’t look like our friends are planning on being here in…”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Dirk yelled and shoved her bodily over the side before diving on the beach after her. His armored form landed atop her, arms and knees bent so as not to crush her. A trail of smoke and fire ripped from a grove of palm trees and smashed into the airboat with a cataclysmic boom. Pieces of debris pinged musically off Dirks armor as the heat and overpressure passed them by. He stood up and started firing his blasters at the grove, which was now on fire as a result of the backblast of the missile which had evidently been concealed there Jocasta spat out some stand and started to run up the beach towards the cover of the expensive landscaping, her drones zipping along in front of her in a flying V. A man wearing an armored chest plate stepped out from behind a fountain and swung a rifle to bear. One of the drones cut past him, ducking its wings in as it went so that the molecules thin wing membranes cut across his cheeks like flying shrapnel. He yelled and swatted at his face before the blue beam of Jocasta’s pistol removed cut and face in a sizzling blast of energy. Across a manicured lawn she saw a half dozne men burst from the main communications building. One of them was piloting a suit of armor so heavy it might have qualified as a mech, each leg easily as thick as a full grown garamon tree and as wide across the chest as a dumpster. The air split as he fired the machine guns attached to each arm in the air, raining down flaming palm fronds and coconuts.



“Umm…” Jocasta temporised, and then turned and ran back down the beach as fast as her legs could carry her.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

“Beren the Cursed,” Jocasta murmured before popping on of the berries into her mouth. Bonnie’s assessment was correct, though they leaned hard towards the tartness that was just a counterpoint in a ripe strawberry.



“Or should it be Beren the Accursed?” she mused, “never quite sure which of those is grammatically correct. Beren didn’t dain to answer that, contenting himself instead by tucking in to the baked potato that had been served on a wooden board, slathered with butter, salt, chives and what was probably the scrapings of the morning’s bacon. The wine was sour and astringent but was no worse than Jocasta had drank elsewhere. She opened her notebook and began to review the inscription she had copied down, crabbing notes into the margins with a small stick of charcoal as she went. It appeared to be part of a saga relating to a young king who sought the aid of an ancient and powerful witch to regain his patrimony from his wicked brothers.

“Jocasta,” Beren said in the tone of someone repeating a name for the third or fourth time. A point that was underscored by the fact that he was snapping his fingers in front of her face.



“Whaa…” she mumbled around a mouthful of berries.

“You have to stop and chew at some point,” he pointed out. Jocasta looked down at her cheeks, crossing her eyes, and noticed they were puffed out like a chipmunks, so absorbed had she been in her study that she had simply been mechanically shoveling them into her mouth. She rubbed her nose, leaving a smut of charcoal on the very tip.

“Wrright,” she mumbled and made several deliberate efforts at chewing before swallowing the mouthful convulsively.

“Sorry,” she apologized, attempting to wipe the charcoal with the back of her hand but succeeding only in spreading the mark across her face. Several of the locals were watching them with interest, not all of it welcoming.

“I was asking you if you wanted any more food,” Beren segued neatly. Jocasta hadn’t touched her potato as yet so she picked it up and took several bites, remembering to chew this time. It was a little dry and stringy, but wonderfully filling. The innkeeper, a portly man in a greasy smock ambled up to the table with a pitcher of wine in his hand.

“Begging your pardons patrons, but would you be requiring lodging?” he asked uneasily, his eyes darting down to Jocasta’s book.

“And if I might suggest madam, you should put that away, folk round her don’t hold much with people messing with the fairy marks,” he whispered in a sotto voce that probably carried across half the tavern.



“Fairy marks?” Jocasta asked, perplexed, momentarily unable to connect the colloquial term with the ancient writing she was deciphering.

“These aren’t fairy marks. I found them in a t….” she cut off with a squawk as Beren slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent her from admitting to desecrating a tomb in front of a room full of superstitious villagers.

“Point taken, and if you have a room we will take it,” he said quickly, using his free hand to flip the book closed with a thump.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"You get the feeling," Jocasta asked as they passed through the street, ignoring the drifting flakes of snow, "that something bad is going on here?" The black tabarded mercenaries were clearly going out of their way to be seen. Two more of them stood outside a two story stone building with a roof of patchy tile, abrided by wind and weather to show the tar beneath. One man leaned on a halberd, the other was packing a pipe with tobacco that he lit with a taper from a shuttered lantern. Both gave Jocasta a speculative look and regarded Beren with more professional interest. The interior of the Crimison Wyrven was a bustling riot of noise and movement. A bard stood on a table before a fire place, strutting black and forth and belting out what might have been part of the Ballad of Black Cally, his long poulin shoes tipped with bells that the shook to questionable musical accompanyment. A group of sellswords were engaged in what might have been a knife fight or a card game depending on ones point of view, with curses and blows flying in a half dozen different tongues. A pair of farmers were locked in a chess game in the corner, their mastiffs so similar they might have come from the same litter. The bar was a single slab of polished wood with a large redish inclusion in the middle that closely resembled a dragon with its wings coiled around its body. Despite the fact that every nearby surfaces was piled with bottles, barrels and baskets of food and drink, not a single item was sat on the bar.

"Nice place," Jocasta commented in a determined neutral tone.

"I've been in worse," Beren replied.

"Like vountarily?" Jocasta quiered.

"What can I do you for," asked simply the most stunning woman Jocasta had ever seen, in a voice that sounded like someone was strangling a cat with a violin. The contrast was so violent that Jocasta was momentarily disoriented. The barmaid sighed and planted a fist on either side of her hips with a weary look.

"Happens all the time. I'm Bonnie, what can I do you two for?" she asked. The grating voice made Jocasta's eye twitch invoulntarily.

"Melve sent us?" Jocasta tried. The woman's beatuiful lips scowl grew deeper.

"That old drunk owes me two crowns," she carped.

"Sure," Jocasta agreed, making a placating guesture to word off further comment from the human squeezebox.

"Can we get some wine and food please?" she asked, then clapped Beren on the shoulder, "On my friend here."