Penny

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Well that was..." Jocasta began but before she could finish her eyes tracked towards movement along one of the strands. A giant arachnid the size of a bear was scuttling towards them. The light seemed to increase as the webs vibrated, stimulating phosphorecent spores that burst from unhealthy looking yellowish fungus which clung to the walls in patchy clumps. The creature was a deep gleaming black with an ugly blaze of leperous white on its underbelly. It twisted as it came, seeming to rotate around the web as it skittered along. Its face was a dark gray with eight disturbingly human eyes and a flat swollen nose. Two hooked mandibles the size of daggers dripped with some foul venom.

"Oh shit..." Jocasta gasped and tried to squirm backwards only to find herself stuck fast by the webs. Beren let out a curse and also tried to move with a similar lack of success. The web quivered and flexed as he strained his muscles but it didn't let go.

"Can you use some magic or something?!" he demanded. The spider was only a foot or so away now, it reared back to strike, mandibles flashing. Beren kicked out with his boot, cracking it across the face and sending it skittering back one of its eyes bloodied.

"I left my scroll of spiderbane in my other pants!" Jocasta tried, "I cant just spout arcane syllables and make it explo..." The spiders swollen body exploded as though struck by a cannonball. Yellowish ichor sprayed out in a jet. The spider made a strange hissing sound, staggered, made a grab for its web with a suddenly unresponsive limb and then tumbled into the abyss below.

"I stand corrected?" Jocasta said, her heart thumping in her chest. Above them they heard the arch-troll howling. Jocasta realised that in his frustration the old beast had hurled a handful of rocks after his escaped prey. By sheer good fortune his parting blow had saved them. The light was begining to fade as the spores drifted down on the air but Jocasta thought she saw a jagged opening in the cave wall below them. She began to wriggle, smearing the mineral oil that coated her arms and thighs on the web until it began to let go.

"I think we can get out down there," she told Beren, making a guesture to the hole now that she had freed her hand and nearly tumbling off into the abyss for her troubles. Beren caught her by the shirt and hauled her back into contact with the web.

"How are you planning on..." he began, "Wait dont just..." Jocasta cut the web with the knife she had freed from her belt. They dropped like stones, the web swining them towards the crevase wall and the hole. Jagged stone rushed up to meet them but they cleared the top lip of the cave and began to curl upwards on their momentum. Jocasta cut the web on the other side and they sailed free, falling the five or so feet to the cave floor with a crash. She landed on Beren's lap, driving the wind from him as they rolled to a stop.

"Another happy landing," she observed.

Post a random fact about yourself.

But what if it makes white heteronormative baby Jesus sad ?!!!!!

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta tried not to look at Beren. That wasn't difficult seeing several hundred pounds of angry troll actively blocked her view. The cavern they were in was only an antechamber to the troll's true lair. On one side the floor dropped vertiginously into a chasm that plunged away far below. The distant roar of what might have been water or might have been wind could be hard from that black abyss.

"Tell!" the Qwarath roared, pounding his fist against the ground in frustration and spraying up pieces of crushed bone. Blood began to run from the troll's paw but other than licking at the minor wounds with his improbably long tongue he seemed to pay it no mind.

"Ok, ok, I'll tell," Jocasta said hurriedly, sucking in air through her bruised lungs. She searched her mind for some kind of lie that would prolong her life a few minutes.

"Thurgim Hammerson is dead, but the thing he stole from you was lain in his tomb," she said quickly. The ledgend was a very old one and while she had no idea how long dwarves lived, she supposed it wasn't thousands of years.

"Deeeaadd," Qwarath growled. He hopped around in an agitated circle, fortunately not noticing Beren.

"Where is this tomb she-man!" the troll demanded, then lifted his muzzle to the roof and howeled something that sounded like 'Grup' in a voice so loud it shook dust from the ceiling. It was only then Jocasta realized that the blood and the hopping hadn't simply been animal agitation. A presence took form in the room between Jocasta and Qwarath. It was shadowy and indistinct, but massive and vaguely troll shaped. Jocasta could taste the sent of bison on the air, feel the blood of the great beast in her mouth, hear the soft rustle of grass that camouflaged a troll before it pounced for the kill.

"Grup!" Qwarath roared, and two coals of fire seemed to spring into being in the head of the shadowy thing. It reared into immensity, roaring so loud that the force of it physically knocked Jocasta to the ground. It was Grup, the Troll God of the Hunt. It wasn't really the God, it was a shadow of the real entity, an avatar summoned to answer the priests call. At least Jocasta very much hoped that was the case. Even the shadow was enough to make her skin cold and her guts quiver. Qwarath pounded the floor again, bloodying his other knuckles.

"Grup says you speak the truth, tell me where this tomb cave can be found she-man, and I shall hunt for the Heart of Gnarr!"

"Yeah.... like... in the dwarf stronghold?" Jocasta said, her throat suddenly very dry.

"False scent..... and you are hunted foolis cub!" the god thing beside Qwarath roared in outrage. Jocasta had a moment to wonder how she could hear the Troll God speak in the Common tongue before Qwarath wheeled around to glare back at Beren. At the same time he flicked out one of his enormous arms and backhanded Jocasta. She just had time to begin to lift her hand when the blow landed. One of the charms she wore on a necklace burned hot as a spell designed to protect her from a blunt strike fired. It had originally been designed to prevent any of her creditors from cracking her with a kosh but the troll's open handed fist was orders of magnitudes more powerful. The spell disintegrated and the charm flew apart in chunks of glowing metal. Jocasta was lifted off her feet and flung across the cavern out over the abyss. Her flight turned her a half circle so she was upside down when she hit one of the vast stalactites which hung from the ceiling, an ancient core of metal and mineral salt that had resisted the millennia of erosion. By instinct her arms wrapped the stone as it drove the breath from her lungs.

"Beren!" she bleated in panic, as she began to slip down the rock, its surface coated with mineral oil and moisture. She made a last desperate grab and then plunged into the black abyss below.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The light was begining to fade when Jocasta admitted the obvious. She had absolutely no idea where she was. She climbed over a low woodfall and half climbed half slid down the embankment on the other side into another of the shallow gullies that seemed to ripple the woodlands. A crust of ice coated the bottom of the shallow depression with a scattering of snow, a few hardy snow berries thrust from between the rocks but Jocasta didn't know if they were edible. With Berry-en confusing any magical attempts the Lion's might use to track him, Beren would be safe but that did mean that she couldn't use her own arts to find him. She had a vauge plan that she should head towards Iskura. That was a laudible goal, but she had no idea where it was other than to the north. Which would have been useful information if she had any idea which direction north might be.

"You have a Campari crystal magicometer but no compass," she rebuked herself bitterly, blowing a leaf out of her hair. Her mind was about to turn itself to the problem of finding some kind of shelter for the night when she heard something crash through the undergrowth ahead of her. She froze in position and watched in horror as something roughly the size of a carriage crashed into the other end of the gully. It was misshapen, like a bear whose front arms were grotesquely long and covered in a long shaggy fur. It's jaw jutted out pugnatiously and its flat hairless face held eyes that glowed an angry green. It moved in an odd three limbed lope, both legs and one long arm, the other arm holding a club that looked to be most of an adolecent oak tree. It snartled something in a beastial language and then smashed its club into the ice, sending dirt and ice spraying in all directions.

Jocasta froze in place, her blood running cold. The thing glanced down the gulch, and for a moment its eyes slid over her. A sense of relief washed over her for about a second before the eyes swiviled back and pinned her in place. They narrowed and burned with brighter intensity. She had no doubt she had just come face to face with the arch-troll Qwarath.

"Shit," Jocasta said. The beast at the end of the gully let out a roar and leaped forward with shocking speed. Jocasta stood frozen in place as death rushed down on her. At the very last minute, as the club raised above her, instinct finally kicked in. She dived between the things three limbs, tumbling awkwardly and coming up on her feet before scrambling up the side of the gully. Qwarath spun and charged after her as Jocasta had hoped, while capable of a prodigious turn of speed, the strange gait did not lend itself to rapid turns. She made it to the treeline before the beast caught up with her, howling and frothing at the mouth. The stink of the thing was incredible, liters of stale sweat and dead animals mixed with sweat and something metallic. Jocasta ducked behind a tree as the troll swung his club. It hammered the trunk with a spray of bark and a delgue of snow from the upper branches. She danced back around another tree as Qwarath tried to grab her, long arm seeming as liquid as a snake. She dodged sideways, wishing she had time to draw her sword but unable to spare that much concentration.

"Diiiiie," the troll howled, spraying spittle in a wide cone. That word reminded her that this wasn't just some mindless beast.

"Wait!" she shouted, skipping back as the club whistled over her head, shattering a sappling into leaves and debris. She tried to duck behind the next tree but the troll was ready for it. He caught her in his free paw and lifted her up off the ground, fingers squeezing tightly.

"Killlll!" Qwarath roared.

"I know where Thurgrim Hamerson is!" she screamed. The troll seemed to freeze and one of its eyes bugged out enermously. It jumped up and down, dumping tons of snow across several acres as it shook the ground before pounding the earth with its clove in good measure.

"You tell Qwarath! You tell!" the beast howled. Jocasta wished she could claim she passed out as part of some clever strategem, but the truth was the troll was just squeezing her so hard she couldn't breathe. In any case, darkness closed in.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

There were wizard and witches who could hurl fire from their fingertips, or call lighting down from clear sky to smite their enemies. Jocasta had never had much a knack for battle magic, it took alot of time, training and focus that always seemed better spent on running away. Sigilry, enchantments, and alchemy were where her modest talents lay, but her greatest talent was that she always thought outside the box. As she reappeared behind the line of mercenaries she was already reaching into her pouch.

“Don’t think that your tricks will save you, you think we are without wizards?” Verholt shouted, glancing towards one of the mercenaries who was already muttering and gesturing. Adjusting her aim to the handily pointed out mage she pulled a glass orb from her pouch and hurled it at the mans head. Werholdt swatted it aside with his shield instinctively. The glass exploded and greenish gas bloomed out of it like a lump of chalk hit by a hammer.

“Sorr…ry!” Jocasta concluded, reappearing by the treeline before the last syllable left her lips. The mage was shouting and retching, trying desperately to rub at his eyes. Werholdt was not much better, staggering away from the essence of skunk she had just doused them with. A pair of crossbow bolts whisked past her, close enough to pluck at her cloak. She let out an eep and vanished again, more by accident then design, appearing back behind the treeline. More crossbow bolts crashed through the trees, aimed more or less blindly, but no less lethal for that. Of Beren there was no sign, but she suspected she had sown enough confusion with her trick that he had been able to make it to the treeline on the opposite side of the road.



“Kill them! Kill them!” one of the mercenaries was shouting, which instruction did not predispose her to wait around while they pulled themselves together. More bolts whistled passed and she belatedly realized that useful as it was, a bright red sarong wasn’t exactly the best choice for blending into a snow dusted forest. She turned and ran deeper into the woods, each time she reached a tree or ticket that blocked her path she flickered through it, covering ground far faster than her pursuers could manage. The sounds of pursuit died away and she turned in what she thought was the direction of the road, instead she came across a small gulley with a partially frozen stream at the bottom. She clambered down the side and skipped across the icy rocks to the other side without incident. No road to be found and no Beren either. She must have gotten turned around at some point during her flight. She considered her options. She pulled a small brass sphere from a pouch and hung the charm around her neck. An intricate map was etched into its surface, made by a serf who had never left his masters estate in Vrettonia. Scrying attempts would invariably report the wearer as ‘by the windmill’ or ‘in the old trout pond’ somewhere far to the south. That would prevent the now skunk smelling mage from finding her, in the event he was able to work a spell and he had something of hers he could use to work it. Beren didn’t have any such protection however and it seemed reasonable that if he couldn’t find her he might try and find her companion.



“Hrmm,” she pondered, then knelt down by the side of the stream and scraped up a double handful of half frozen mud. She pulled one of the coins the Master had given them from her pouch and kneaded the mud around it into a roughly humanoid shape, then used a couple of dried berries from her pouch to fashion crude eyes before picking up a twig and making a number of small markings in the compacted mud. A clay poppet with ridiculously chiseled abs stood up and brandished a miniature axe made of a twig and a small shard of river stone. It took a couple of steps and planted itself between here and the way she had come as though ready to defend her from an army of giant sized mercenaries.

“Oh knock it off,” she scolded the miniature, then made a gesture along the river bank.

“Thata way,” she encouraged. The poppet gave her a disapproving look.



“I have a plan here Berry-en, so beat it,” she told the thing. It shrugged helplessly and then began to run along the riverbank in what she hoped was a more or less random direction. Tracking spells now thoroughly confused she looked around for landmarks and discovered she was, indeed, in a forest. This less than helpful datum established, she set off down the gully in the opposite direction to her decoy.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

“... and so when the third Thing broke up the twelve chieftains agreed to rebel against the Sorcerer King of Angerack, except for Kalavis who was secretly in league with him. Or so the legend says anyway most of that comes from an inscription found on the Stone of Tarn which isn’t corroborated in the …” Jocasta continued talking with an excited animation which hadn’t diminished in her nearly two hour long monologue. Beren nodded along, glassy eyes, making the occasional ‘uh-huh’ and ‘hmmm’ during the rare moments she appeared to stop to take a breath. The wind was picking up as the day wore on, and the clear sky of the morning was rapidly clouding. The road to Iskura lay in a shallow valley flanked on both side by modest hills. The slight difference in topography tended to channel the winds, which kept the road open for a month or so longer than would be the case if it were in the open. Even so, with winter deepening, it wouldn’t be long before the road was passable only by sleds or with snow shoes.

“Anyway, so I don’t think that Kalavis was…” Further discussion was cut off by a weird warbling cry that echoed from the hills. Black birds burst from the forest off to their left, cawing and clawing at the air as they beat their retreat.

“What was that?” Jocasta asked, resting her hand on her shortsword. Beren was scanning the woods, though he didn’t seem to be unduly alarmed.

“Qwarath,” Beren replied tightly as he resumed his walk, eyes troubled.

“Seriously?!” Jocasta asked, her eyes brightening all but hoping up and down with excitement. Beren gave her a sidelong glance.

“The Qwararth? The troll Qwarath?” she pressed. Beren shifted uneasily, more disturbed by her enthusiasm than by the eerie roar.

“Maybe,” he temporized, “there aren’t many trolls left, on account of the fact that they maintain huge ranges. A single troll will range over a couple of hundred miles. This is kind of far south for Qwarath, but if another had moved in I’d have heard about it.”

“Is it true he is looking for some ancient artifact?” Jocasta asked. Trolls were functionally immortal and famous trolls tended to feature in the legends as boey men and heels. Qwarath was often said to be searching the lands for something, though what exactly varied from story to story. Beren gave her a guarded look as though trying to decide something.



“What?” she asked, planting fists on her hips, “spill.” Beren shrugged his shoulders.

“The Dwarves say that back during the last age Thurgrim Hamerson, the greatest dwarven rune caller of his age, snuck into Qwarath’s horde in the Mountains of Hraflir. Qwarath confronted him but Thrugrim claimed he came only to gaze upon Qwarath’s horde, so great was it rumored to be that it was his wish to see it before he died. Qwarath agreed that he would show it to Thrugim, but that once he had seen it, Qwarath would kill him. Thrugrim paused at each gem and wonderous item, praising its every minute detail. It took so long that eventually Qwarath grew tired and fell to slumber, at which point the rune caller stole a gemstone of tremendous power and fled,” Beren related. Jocasta listened in rapt attention.

“Why didn’t he kill him and take the rest of the horde?” Jocasta asked, engaged with the tale.

“Some say Thrugrim didn’t want to transgress against guest rite, some say that Qwarath had invoked the Trollish gods and lain might spells across his horde so that the very mountain would collapse on it in the event of his death,” Beren replied.

“What do you think?” Jocasta asked.

“I think that we should probably focus on not being eaten by a hungry troll,” he replied dryly.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Of course," Jocasta agreed, so relived to not be facing charges of murder, horse theft, public indecency, or consorting with ye olde power of darkness that she was willing to agree to just about anything.

"We are going to Iskura anyway as we have made no secret of," she continued. It wasn't a secret though she honestly couldn't remember if they had actually mentioned it to anyone. The Master nodded his head thoughtfully, apparently considering this happy circumstance and trying to decide if he could trust them.

"Well judging from the horses you rode in on..." he began.

"Allegedly rode in on," Jocasta interjected, brushing clandestinely at a horse hair that was stuck to the gray fabric of her trousers. The Master gave her a long suffering look.

"Allegedly rode in on, you are no friends of the Leo Mortis. It seems I have to take what chances fate deals me," he sighed before reaching up and lifting a piece of paper. He dipped his quill and added a quick post script before sprinkling sand and blowing softly to finish drying it.

"I've asked Marius to give you a few coins for your troubles when you get there, I've no reason to think he won't do so," he said, rolling the paper and sealing it with some wax from a candle and a press of a seal. He passed it to Beren, evidently thinking better of entrusting it to the flighty scholar.

"If I can give you two pieces of advice," he suggested and, hearing no objection, went on. "Get out of town before your date crashers get back, if I try to protect you it might be just the provocation they need to seize control of the town." Jocasta nodded. That only made sense, though she had a stop to make before they left.

"What was the second piece of advice?" Beren asked solicitously.

"Keep her nose out of trouble and for goodness sake dont let the common folk know you are poking around old ruins, one apocalypse is enough for the year."

___

The lunch rush was just beginning as they reached the Crimson Wyrven. The smell of roasting pork was strong and the tables were beginning to fill up. Beren kept looking over his shoulder, heedful of the Master's advice that it was better to be gone and soon, than to linger.

"Bonnie!" Jocasta called waving the bar maid over. The beautiful young woman trotted over, a plate of empty mugs balanced on one hand.

"You are still in town?" she asked, glancing around nervously for any sign of Leo Mortis interest. It seemed the news of their animosity traveled fast.

"Just about to go," Jocasta assured her, and then reached into her pouch and withdrew the bottle she had stolen from the kitchen the night before. Shiny lead foil had been wrapped around it and soddered around the neck.

"I made this for you," Jocasta said proudly. Bonnie narrowed her eyes.

"You stole it you mean," she objected in here screeching voice but peered at it in interest.

"Take a drink," Jocasta suggested. Bonnie opened her mouth to object, but then shrugged and pulled the stopper free. She took a small sip, frowned to find it contained only water and then took another drink.

"You stole our vodka and replaced it with water?" she asked. Beren's mouth dropped open. Bonnie's voice sounded as clear and lovely as a bell.

"Something like that," Jocasta said with a grin, and then turned and hurried for the door.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I will admit that if I hadn’t been low key convinced I was going to die in the next few hours it might have been more intimidating to come face to face with a conclave worth of Inquisitors. As it was I was pleased to have taken Hadrian’s… advice is too soft a word, direction I suppose to dress more conservatively than was my wont. I had worn, at Lazurus’ suggestion, an armored body glove, one of the pair I had picked up in the few days between the affair at the manor and boarding the ship. It was the less ostentatious of the two, matte black with panels of navy blue ceramite attached at key points. I had worn a dress robe over the top of it, a conservative vaguely ecclesiastical cut that could be easily removed when the shooting started. My hair I had pulled into tight braids which were woven down my back to keep them out of the way and my head covered with a veil of lace which had been worked into scenes from the life of Saint Catherine. When you are a psyker it never hurts to appear like you might be a closet Emperor Botherer. Even so I got looks which ranged from loathing, to desire from the assembled company. Psykers are never well trusted, even in the Inquisition which houses more than any other imperial institution save the Astropathicus itself. The entire Imperium would collapse if it wasn’t for psykers, yet even here we are viewed with suspicion.





The only weapons I carried were the force staff and a las pistol, though Lazarus had assured me that he would have an extra riot gun with him when we made it to the ground. I felt very underdressed in the firearms department. The Inquisitors quibbled for a few minutes about arcane details of deployment which might as well have been tech priest babble as far as I was concerned, and then we split up and headed to separate shuttle craft, the better to spread the risk of destruction as for the tactical advantage it would provide. Remember initiates, don’t put all your Inquisitors in one basket.



I expected the decent to be somewhat similar to shuttle flights I had taken before, despite the long dagger shaped hulls and bulky gun pods of the assault shuttles. I was disabused of this immediately as I was slammed into my seat by several G’s worth of acceleration. I squealed in fright but everyone politely ignored me. The next ten minutes were a combination of crushing G force and sickening maneuver as we powered through the atmosphere and then dropped to the nap of the earth. The fleet had not detected any anti-air craft emplacements, but the surface of the planet gave off so much in the way of strange and unexplained readings, that the tatorium had no confidence that a failure to detect them ment they were absent all together. Our enemy had, afterall had a considerable amount of time and considerable resources to fortify the place. Later, much later, I learned that the Fleet Commander was as much concerned about the mysterious Necron technology as anything the heretics might bring to bear, despite Mechanicum assurances that it was dormant.



The ride was so miserable that when we finally hit the ground it was something of an anti climax. More than anything I was relieved not to have lost my breakfast of akenberry waffles over my nice new dress, stained with lubricant grease and old gun oil as it had become during the decent. I wobbled to my feet a half second before the rear ramp dropped with a clang that was all but obscured by the wind rush that blasted in, carrying with it a scouring cloud of sand and flying particulate. I pulled my hood down over my eyes in time to avoid any serious problem, and I wondered if Saint Catherine had any particular relevance to vision and forethought.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

As manor houses went it was about as underwhelming as the rest of the town. It might have been the twin of the Crimson Wyrven if that establishment had gotten a shade less neglect over the long years. The most interesting thing about it was the armed men who stood behind the walls, invariable looking tired and ill at ease. There weren’t very many of them either, not compared to their fellows out patrolling the town and certainly not compared to the Leo Mortis. Jocasta didn’t know much about fighting in the abstract, but she had a sense that this probably wasn’t the side one would want to pick if it came to blows.



The were escorted into the main building without fanfare, through a surprisingly neat reception area to a receiving room, where a grim faced man with a gold pin of office sat behind a desk. It was covered with neatly stacked papers, laid down with whatever heavy items were to hand, inkpots, knives, a broken plate and the like. Jocasta couldn’t imagine a place like this bred too much paperwork, but apparently she was wrong in that assumption.

“We didn’t kill anyone!” she blurted nervously at the same time that Beren began, “They started it they tried to…” The both fell silent as the man looked up from his paperwork and arched a bushy eyebrow. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief and set his quill aside folding his hands together and steepling his fingers together.

“Good to know I suppose,” he said in a half amused voice, “but that isn’t why I had you escorted here…”

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

“You mean me landing in your lap? It does seem to be happening alot,” Jocasta teased before blinking her eyelashes and vanishing in another puff of smoke, only to reappear a few feet away.

“Hey I wonder if I can…” *POOF* she materialized ten feet in the air, fell a few feet and then vanished again reappearing even higher before letting out a squawk and falling into some bushes.

“Were you just trying to fly?” Beren asked as he made his way over to her to make sure she was ok. Jocasta sat up and rubbed her rump, shaking broken twigs from her hair.

“Well, it was worth a try,” she admitted. It turned out focusing on where you were going was pretty difficult when you were in freefall and hadn’t had time to properly get your bearings. The range of the thing seemed to be fairly limited, but it was still an impressive piece of enchanting. Jocasta who had manufactured her fair share of enchanted trinkets over the years wasn’t even sure she would have known where to start, though she was optimistic that she could learn from studying the thing.

“Maybe if I…” she began but Beren held up a hand for silence, freezing Jocasta mid word.

“Someone is coming,” he said urgently, his senses evidently keener than hers when it came to the ways of the outdoors.



“There is no guarantee the mean us any harm,” Jocasta replied, attempting to convince herself as much as Beren.

“No guarantee they aren’t more assassins, or orcs for that matter,” Beren countered. The sound of horses in the distance was evident to Jocasta now as well and she looked around.

“Should we, hide or something?” she suggested but Beren shook his head.

“A blind man could track us in the snow,” he told her, making a gesture to the line of foot prints that terminated in the churned up area that they currently occupied.



“Ok… so do you have a plan?” she asked. Beren looked at her and then looked at the sarong, a slow smile coming to his face.

“Matter of fact, I do.”



Beren was standing in the open when the three horsemen came into view. They wore the tabards of the Leo Mortis and their mounts steamed in the chill air from hard riding. All three wore broad rimmed conical helms and all had crossbows across the pomels of their saddles, and shields slung from their backs. The way they hefted their weapons as they caught sight of Beren dispeled Jocasta’s hopeful theory that they were simply fellow travelers.



“Stop their foreigner,” the leader said in a raspy voice, “we got some questions for you. Don’t much like folk who pick fights with our brothers.”

“I’m not picking a fight with anyone,” Beren protested, but it seemed to make little difference.

“Where is the bitch?” the second rider asked. Beren recognised him as the drunken soldier he had confronted in the tavern, and any hope of a peaceful resolution swiftly drained away. Beren made in indistinct gesture towards the treeline, where a single set of footprints dinted the snow.

“Answering nature's call,” he replied with a helpless shrug. The leader casually pointed his crossbow at Beren.

“Maybe I’ll go answer it too,” the second rider leered, swinging down from his saddle and adjusting his belt lewdly.



*POOF*



“Sounds good,” Jocata said as she appeared on the back of his vacated horse out of thin air, shivering slightly from the covering of snow that had concealed her.

“Wha…” the mercenary began. The leader began to squeeze the trigger of his weapon but the flat of Jocasta’s sword, for once unsheathed, caught his horse a ringing blow across the rump. The horse reared back in shock, dumped its startled rider and bolted off down the scrubby trail at a flat gallop. The third merc tried to wheel around, but Beren bounded to his side, grabbed him by the leg and yanked him out of the saddle, twisting to turn the fall into a throw which hurled the confused lion into his dismounted comrades, sending all three men crashing to the snow in a jangling heap of armor, shields, and chainmail. With considerably more grace than Jocasta could have managed, Beren swung up into the saddle and wheeled the horse around.

“Enjoy the walk boys,” Jocasta waved, and kicked her heels against her steed’s flank, almost spoiling the moment of bravado by half falling out of the saddle as the beast lurched back down the trail. Grasping its neck she pulled herself upright and headed back towards the main road.