Penny

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

Emmaline felt her skin crawl slightly, though whether from the oily feel of the necormantically charged air, the nearness of the walking dead, or the presence of Kasimir, a man who she was pleased to see despite having very recently cursed him for getting her into the mess she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was having to keep up this ridiculous accent. Where on Taal green earth had he found a legitimate Brettonian knight? That presented her some real problems, but those problems would be solved too quickly if a zombie ripped out her heart and ate it so she decided not to look a gift griphon in the mouth.

“Wé should get oot of haire, befairé Julian recovairs,” she told the two men, leading the way towards a side door that opened towards the stables. She cursed herself for the fact that the two men would prevent her from doing a little light looting on the way but she supposed you had to sort out priorities at times like this.

“Julian?” Reynard asked as he brought up the rear sword raised in guard.

Le necromancair ai 'ow do you sai… l'a frappé au visage avec une bouteille,”she explained, switching to Brettonian as though forced to do so by the stress of the situation. She was close enough to fluent that any small mistakes might be excused, and demonstrating she spoke it would convince Reynard she was who she said she was. There was an agonized cry from behind them and Emmaline stepped quickly to the door and threw it open.

“ELEANOR!” Julian roared, his voice filled with a dark menace that overlay his youth weirdly.

“She is charm she is grace, most of all she needs to get the hell out of this place,” Kasimir observed wryly. Reynard gave him a look, as though slightly offended on Eleanor’s behalf. Further discussion was forestalled as a ring of figures emerged from the darkness. The reek of death, new and old preceded them like a bow wave. Some were ancient skeletons with witchfire eyes, others were grooms, servants, tenant farmers who just this morning had risen to their daily labors expecting nothing more than an average day of toil. Some held weapons, improvised peasant tools for the most part, and they moved in eerie unison, drawing tight like the string of a bag. Horses were screaming, spooked by the smell of death or the more metaphysical reek of dark magic on the air. The stable door exploded outwards and a half dozen horses bolted down the valley eyes wide an rolling. One of them came too close to an ancient moss encrusted skeleton which, according to whatever arcane logic animated it, hacked down with a rusty reaping blade. The grubby metal punched into the horses neck like a meathook going into a side of bacon. The horse screamed and flinched away, ripping the hook out of the skeletons bony grasp. It staggered a half dozen feet, shook its head furiously and managed to dislodge the weapon with a colossal spray of bright arterial blood. It staggered a few more feet, sank to its knees and then toppled dead, steaming in the chill air. Emmaline shut her gaping mouth and then closed the door with surprising calm.

“Zé 'airses might not be such a good plin,” she admitted, taking a step back from the door a moment before the rusty blade of a trench mattock punched through the thin timber.

“N'ayez pas peur, madame, je vous défendrai au péril de ma vie,” Reynard declared grandly, thrusting Emmaline back behind him, apparently in happy ignorance of the fact that at any moment Julian or more of his undead minions would be coming up behind them.

“Lets make our last stand somewhere else, closer to our own horses maybe,” Kasimir suggested, which was good because it would have been out of Eleanor’s character to offer tactical advice after such a chivalrous gesture.

“Eleanor!” Julian roared, appearing at the far end of the hallway with a swarm of zombies.

“All I wanted to do was keep you safe, we were friends!” he ranted, then he drew back his hand, dark energy gathering around it. Emmaline felt her body prickle and tried desperately to think of a counterspell.

“I can’t let you go, I can’t let you tell anyone, don’t you see what you have forced me to do!” he all but wailed, then, like a striking snake he whipped his hand forward and hurled a bolt of pure darkness at her. Emmaline had just enough time to scream before Reynard thrust her aside and gripping his shield with both hands parried the bolt. To everyone's surprise the spell reflected from the shield, smashing upwards into the roof. The plaster molding yellowed, blackened then fell into dust pouring down into the hallway in a chalky cloud. Julian roared with anger and hurled another bolt, which was similarly deflected. The smash of tools against the outer door reminded them that Julian didn’t need to kill them with his spells, merely hold them in position long enough for his minions to gather.

“For Ulric!” Kasimir shouted but instead of charging like a lunatic, he hacked into the plaster wall with all his might, carving a great gash into the plaster. Emmaline whispered a few words of her own and crooked a surreptitious finger. When Kasimir next struck a three foot section of wall exploded to powder, carving a hole into the adjacent hallway. Emmaline ducked through, climbing past the ancient wall timbers and into the drawing room on the other side. Kasimir was shouting at Reynard to follow, something he was more likely to do now that the noblewoman he had come to rescue was gone though Emmaline’s action had been more to save her own skin than to advance any such agenda. The knight backed out keeping his shield up to ward of spells as he came. Emmaline picked up a chair and hurled it through the window that lead out into a courtyard, following the shattered glass by only as long as it took her to brush away the jagged shards with the foot of a stool.

“Whaire do we go we cannot leavé zis veehlian aliv,” Reynard objected as he joined them, his eyes cutting back over his shoulders for any more spells being flung their way.

“The safety of Madmoiselle De Courcy is our paramount duty,” Kasimir said quickly, “We cannot put her in danger no matter how much we might wish to stay and fight.” Emmaline nodded in enthusiastic collaboration with this line of thinking.

“Oui aii supposé you aré righ,” Reynard admitted.

“We 'avé to go whaire are yur steeds?” Emmaline demanded, even as she headed out of the courtyard and into the apple orchard beyond.

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

Sel peered at the handcuffed troopers with a leery look. They glared at her but with no more venom than they had for Kayden and Morek. Had Commissar Sobek really been delaying her or was it simple chance? It seemed unlikely that a man as fanatical as the Commissar appeared would be involved in such a thing. Maybe he was just predictable enough that these troops had taken advantage.

"Uh yes sir," Sel agreed, falling in beside Kayden. Neither of them mentioned the Langeroth's as they walked the few hundred yards to the training bay. The cavernous cargo hold had been converted into an assault course in which shipping crates formed walls, rope climbs, and other obstacles over which the troops of second platoon were currently scrambling in full battle gear. It had clearly been going on for some time and the troops were haggard and exhausted. When they reached the end of the course, they unslung their las guns and fired across the bay at improvised targets made from discarded rubber tires. The troops had five rounds to score a hit, no easy feet with hands shaking and lungs heaving from the course. After they managed a hit, visible by a puff of black smoke, they slung their rifles and jogged back to the start of the course, a shipping container filled with cold water to improvised a bear pit.

Sergeant Crispin stood beside the container, screaming abuse and encouraging the troops with blows and curses. He grabbed a particularly laggardly soldier, one of the half dozen replacements they had been assigned, and physically pitched him into the water with copious and unflattering commentary on the unfortunate troopers parentage. As a replacement for Mattalow, Crispin was a definite improvement but he swung a little too far in the other direction. He was a disciplinarian, almost a martinette, always willing to pile on the punishment detail for the smallest infractions. Crispin seemed to view Sel as an irritation which had to be endured, which was close enough to how she felt about him as made no difference.

"Move you sorry bastards! I want you to cut ten seconds or we will be running this for the rest of the cycle!" he screamed, slapping another trooper over the head as he staggered past. Sel resisted the urge to reach for a lho stick deciding that on balance she would rather stay in to good graces of the common soldier. Crispin might win the respect of the troops before they got into action, but if he kept coming down on every infraction with the proverbial wrath of Macharius Sel was going to make a point of not standing near him when the bullets started flying.

"These Langeroth pricks are going to be a problem," Sel confided, leaning on a bollard as she watched the platoon run the assault course.

Gold & Glory: AU thread

Emmaline ran back towards the ship waving her arms and screaming. The sound of combat echoed around. Swords crunched into flesh, men screamed and ghouls howled. The cacophony spread, monkeys chittered and flights of brightly colored birds burst from the trees to the relative safety of the sky. By the time she reached the ship the men hauling it were beginning to slack on the cables. Unfortunately the men on the starboard watch, closer to the action, were doing so faster than there companions to port. The result was that the ship was already beginning to turn on her greased runners, and within a few seconds was likely to capsize.

“Keep pulling!” she screamed, grabbing the nearest crew member and shoving him back towards a rope he had just abandoned. The crewman snarled and lifted a fist to strike at her, then saw who it was and thought better of it

“What is happening?” he demanded, his hand on his cutlass and his eyes towards the sounds of the fighting.

“The ship is going to fall over if you dont…” there was a sudden grinding sound. Emmaline eeped and bolted back towards Markus as the ship began to tip over on its wooden rollers. It seemed slow at first, but accelerated as men screamed and ran from the ropes. A great shadow came down over Emmaline and she felt a pang of despair as she realised she wasn't going to make it. Uselessly she covered her head as thousands of pounds of wood smashed down atop her with a sound like the world ending.

Death took longer than Emmaline imagined. So long in fact that she opened one eye to see what was keeping it. To her surprise she was very much still alive. Against all odds the falling ship had come down in just such a way that one of the open gun ports had passed her through the hull. Timber all around her groaned and she shuddered to think of what had happened to the rigging, not to mention the members of the crew who hadn’t run fast enough. She was very lucky that all the guns and stores had already been unloaded or she would have been smashed to paste regardless. There was enough light that she could clamber along to the waist of the ship. The gratings were gone and she could see along the length of the mainmast now laying horizontal on the ground. All around her were the cries of wounded and dying men, some partially crushed, other torn by flying ropes or showers of splinters. And if all that wasn’t bad enough there were still ghouls out there.

“Great.” Emmaline sighed.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Julian! Julian you lét me oot of haire right now!" Emmaline shouted, pounding on the door with balled fists. Her skin crawled from where the corpse of Colditz had gripped her as he dragged her back to her rooms and locked her in. Judging from the dull return of her blows, the corpse was leaning against the door on the outside. She spread her arms behind her and screamed wordlessly, stamping her foot with frustration. The door remained unmoved. Emmaline stomped over to the window an threw up the sash. Iron bars had been set in the wall to cover the window and prevent escape. Beyond the bars evening was falling and tendrils of mist were coiling up out of the valley, giving the impression of a vast leviathan pulling itself free of the earth. The impression was deepend by the greenish glow of the rising moon which seemed to turn the mist luminous and sinister. Shapes seemed to move in the fog, to Emmaline's eye they were shambolic and threatening though she never made one out clearly. She made a mental note to retire the phrase: at least it can't get any worse.

"Well I suppose being eaten by beastmen isn't the worst thing," Emmaline muttered, considering the dozens of miles of wilderness between the valley and civilization. She gripped the bars for a moment, feeling the cold iron beneath her palms. No time like the present. Emmaline hurried over to her dresser and took a nail file and a bottle of brandy. She pulled the cork with her teeth and spat it away, taking a long swallow. That was doubtless a sin against good liquor but her nerves needed steadying. Etching the runes she needed into the iron bars was a frustrting task. Not for the first time Emmaline promised Ranald that if she survived she was going to pay more attention to her studies. When she was finally satisfied with the runes she splashed some brandy over the bars and took a step back.

"Eleanor?" Emmaline nearly jumped out of her skin as the door creaked open. She spun about, cursed at not shutting the window and endeavored to cover it as best she could with her stance. Julian stepped through the door with an appologetic look on his face. He looked awful. His usual lean face was haggard with unhealthy dark circles under his eyes, a slight tick tugged at his left eye every few seconds and his hands trembled.

"I'm sorry about all this," he said earnestly, as though he had ruined a ball rather than used black sorcery to kill an entire estate worth of people and animate thier corpses to do his bidding.

"Pléase you 'ave to let me go," Eleanor begged, she would have dropped to her knees and begged, if that wouldn't reveal what she had been doing at the window. Julian's eyes flicked to the bottle of brandy in her hand and, absurdly, Emmaline felt a little embarassed.

"You aren't planning to hit me with that are you?" Julian asked, his eyes cutting back towards the statue still corpse of Colditz. Emmaline hadn't considered it but suddenly wished she had. Instead she took another long slug and held the bottle out towards Julian. The necromancer shook his head.

"I need to stay clear headed," he said, maddeningly calm about the whole situation. He seemed to be determined to act as though this were no different from any of their other conversations, as though he hadn't revealed himself to be a monster.

"It all started at university," Julian explained, unasked. He flopped down onto a couch and patted the space beside him. Emmaline considered her options and stepped towards Julian, taking another theatrical swig to draw his attention away from the window. Brandy burned in her belly and she felt her cheeks flushing. She wanted to scream at him that she didn't care but she was too practised a con artist to give in to that emotion.

"Eet dosen't mattair ai know you are a good man et zat you would nevair 'urt me please let me go," she beeseched, taking his hand in her own. It might have been imagination but there seemed to be a slimy texture to the boy's flesh that hadn't been there before. He gripped her tightly, obviously pleased at the contact.

"At first it was just history," he confided, "I became fascinated with the Sylvanian wars." Emmaline knew only the vaugest legends of those invasions, mostly from sermons she had been forced to listen to when she was a girl. Priests liked telling stories about those dark times, each one seeming to think that the time of the Three Emperors was a fertile and original field for parables.

"But the university had all kinds of materials, some of them had... passages in them. I knew they were proscribed but I just wanted to learn," Julian explained. Emmaline had heard of such texts, books where spells lurked in code, in foot notes, even masqureading as childrens nursery rhymes. An educated man with talent and money might easily piece them together but to try such spells, incomplete and corrupt was as close to insanity as Emmaline could imagine.

"Sigmar save me how am I going to explain all this," Julian wailed, putting his head in hands.

"Well you could tell evairyoné zat a plagué came through and wé waire ze on-lee survivairs," Emmaline suggested, unable to turn off her devious mind even now. Julian looked up at her considering it, his eyes widened with sudden hope as he turned over the idea.

"That... that is a really good idea," Julian admitted. "But...I could never trust you not to reveal what I have done. Emmaline shrugged her shoulders.

"But I will be away in Brettonia, and who would believe a simple woman?" Emmaline suggested. Julian nodded eagerly and seemed ready to spring to his feet, just as suddenly his eyes narrowed.

"What happened to your accent madmo..." The brandy bottle crashed into Julian's head with a shattering impact that flung shards of glass and drops of brandy in all directions. The necromancer slumped on the couch in a daze. Emmaline leaped to her feet but the zombie Colditz was already comming through the door, obeying some command to defend Julian. Emmaline screamed in frustration, then darted for the window, her lips forming hurried arcane sylabbles. She leaped at the window and crashed through the iron bars, transmuted to glass by her hasty spell. She plunged six feet to the tile roof a floor below, then slid down the incline disloding a tide off wooden shingles. She made a desperate grab for the edge but the shingle came away in her hand and she fell, crashing down into a decorative shrub.

"Stop her!" Julian roared from the window, moping at the blood running from his scalp. Emmaline leaped to her feet, hiked up her robe and sprinted off into the darkness.

Death and Desire: A Warhammer Fantasy RP

“We can hope the Sultan’s men are a messy white smear somewhere,” Calliope said grimly. Their escape from Copher had not been unnoticed, despite the fact that they had struck out to the east, rather than running west towards Lashiek and the bay of corsairs. They had seen the dust on the horizon for an hour or so before the Roc struck and had planned to slip away during the chill of the desert night. That, at least, was no longer a problem.

“What is this place?” Calliope mused, striking a light to a torch from the handful of possessions they had been able to steal before they fled the city.

“I am no scholar,” Bahadir replied.

“And here I was thinking you were a Doktor of Historaia,” Calliope snarked, though Bahadir merely looked blank at the unfamiliar Reikspeil terms.

“I have heard legends that when the Great Kings ruled across the Sands these lands were their distant satrapys,” Bahadir said and it was Calliope’s turn to run into the language barrier. Satrapy? He continued and she didn’t have to reveal her ignorance.

“When their governors displeased them, it was said they were forbidden to return to their homeland in death as well as in life, and that they were entombed in the sands of Araby forever,”” Bahadir explained. Calliope grunted noncommittally as she edged into the tunnel. She reached her hand out into the column of falling sand and felt it run over her fingers for a few moments. Edging around it they found that the tunnel had been paved with large blocks of sandstones. Columns studded the walls supporting ancient almost illegible frescos. Dust from the sand fall billowed around their feet like fog and Calliope pulled her scarf around her face to stop it from tickling her nose. They pushed down the hallway into a large room. Idols of strange and forgotten gods sat on pedestals. Some were simple wood carvings, others were laced with gold or had eyes of semiprecious stones. Calliope leaned close to one that appeared to be a woman wrapped in a large snake. This idol looked newer and was considerably curvier than the other female deities present. The figures features looked almost Imperial, and its hair was highlighted with pale yellow chalk. Calliope looked upwards and saw that the roof was covered with faux constellations picked out in verdegied bronze.

“What is it that makes you southerners so eager to die? Too many dates? Lack of decent ale?” Calliope wondered.

The Namespace of the Rose

This is genius

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

“Eleanor. Eleanor open the door!” Emmaline struggled out of the bath she had been luxuriating in, splashing water all over the floor. She stepped out and immediately slipped on the dark wooden floor, comically pin wheeling her arms before landing on her rump in a crash.

“Lady Eleanor?! Are you ok?! Julian’s shrill voice came through the door, “are you ok.”

“Vhat are you goeng to do break down le doair?” she called back acidly as she scrambled to her feet and towleed herself off.

“What?” Jullian called back, unable to penetrate the accent through the thick timber door.

“Ould on a momon,” she called, pulling on a gown and stumbling into the main room. She turned they key and pulled the door open. Julian nearly fell into the room, all but scratching at the door. His earnest face was pale and his lips were visibly trembling. His eyes bulged at her state of relative undress and his pale face suffused with a blush so deep Emmaline worried he was about to pass out.

“Well? Why aré you breakeng down mon doair and intairrupteng mon bath?” she demanded. Julian opened and closed his mouth like a fish. Emmaline snapped her fingers repeatedly under the boy’s nose.

“Oh ahhh… men just arrived, men from my father,” he whined, all but wringing his hand. Emmaline manuvered him onto a couch and thrust a glass of schnapps into his hand. He swallowed it in a convulsive gulp then gasped as the liquor’s burn hit. Emmaline plucked the glass from his hand before he could drop it.

“Zo mén arrived from yur fathair…” Eleanor prompted, struggling to reign in her mounting frustration. Julian blinked and then seemed to return to himself.

“They are closeted with Colditz now,” he explained, “I think there is a priest with them.”

“A priest?” Eleanor asked then her eyes widened.

“Eez 'e haire to marry uz do you think?” she asked. Julian looked momentarily confused.

“I… I think he might have found out about… no, I wont let it happen!” he cried then leaped to his feet and rushed out of the room.

“Julian!” Emmaline yelled after him confused and starting to grow a little afraid. She looked down at the schnapps bottle in her hand and took a long drink, then quickly started dressing.

The screams came a half hour later once Emmaline was dressed and heading out in search of Julian. They seemed to come from the valley and what they portend Emmaline had no idea. She slipped from the room and to her surprise Colditz and his guards were no where to be found. Emmaline wasted only a few minutes to grab a few valuable items then headed for the stables, willing to take advantage of whatever breaks came her way. More screams came from the house as whe was pulling a saddle onto an expensive looking horse. There was something fell on the air and she could feel a knot of ice in her stomach. The need to get away from this place was a desperate throbbing thing. The buckles were just about in place when a hand fell on her shoulder. Emmaline screamed and tried to twist away but the fingers gripped like iron. She was whirled around and found herself face to face with Colditz. Or what was left of his face. Great bloody rents had been torn in it with what looked like claws and his palor was cold and dead. Witchfires burned in his eyes and though he had not yet the grey color of the grave the stink of dark sorcery poured off the cadaver. Other horrors, older fleshless skeletons stained with graveyard earth and moss joineed Colditz, hemming her in. Screaming she was dragged infront of the manor.

“It is ok Eleanor, it will be ok!” Julian was shouting, his eyes wide and wide with shock. Emmaline could pick out burst blood vessels in his face and dark magic coiled around him.

“I learned this at university, I know it looks bad but I promise I’ll keep you safe… I’ll let you….” he trailed off shooting her an agonized look as he realised that if he let her, or anyone else go the truth of what he was would get out. He was a necromancer. A wizard who tampered with the forces of life and death and was forever damned by the poison of dark magic.

“Look I’ll think of something,” he promised. One of the chambermaids stumbled from the manor and was struck down by a skeleton with a scythe. Julian whimpered then muttered something, the maid rose jerkily to join a growing perimeter around the house.

"Julian! Julian! You have to let me go!" Emmaline shrieked, momentarily forgetting her accent.

“I’ll think of something,” Julian promised as the zombie of Colditz dragged Emmaline screaming into the house.

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

“Why are you not training with the rest of your platoon Corporal?” Commissar Sobek seemed to appear from nowhere as Sel rounded a corner. She had her first pocket full of credits from the blackmarket deal and managed to avoid jumping out of her skin only by dint of the fact that this was the third such ambush in the two weeks since the fight. She still flinched but no guardsmen was so pure that the sudden appearance of a Commissar wouldn’t unsettle them.

“Sir!” Sel replied, stiffening to something like attention but not attempting a salute. The distant thump of boots on deck plates told her that the platoon was running the assault course in a nearby hold. Distant strains of cadence song echoed through the cavernous steel haulways.

“You ask my why I’m a guardsman,
Ask me why I sleep in a ditch,
It isn’t so much that I’m stupid,
It is just I don’t want to be rich.”

Sel brought her heart rate under control and straightened up, trying to ignore the roll of credit notes in her pocket which suddenly weighed about a thousand pounds. Sobek glared at her, eyebrow arched, awaiting explanation.

“It isn’t my unit Sir,” she explained, “I’m temporarily attached…”

“As a driver, yes I know,” Sobek interrupted. “So I can expect to see you training with your… sentinel pilots?” The words sounded like a curse. Sel ran her hand through her hair and affected an air of confusion.

“You’d have to ask Lieutenant Caradwalden sir, I’m supposed to be at his disposal,” Sel replied. Sobek glowered at her, his lip curling in contempt at the mention of Kayden’s name.

“Perhaps I should speak with him regarding finding you some duties?” Sobek suggested.

“Sir,” Sel responded, neither agreeing or disagreeing, while politely suggesting he get the frak on with. Sobek glared at her for a moment longer, balked by the lack of engagement, then stepped out of her way.

“Continue with… whatever it is you are doing Corporal Seldon,” Sobek ordered. Sel considered it a very bad sign that a member of the Commisariat knew her name but she merely clicked her ankles together and headed off down the oily smelling corridor. She turned a corner towards Kayden’s office and paused. Her eyes caught a flicker of movement in the shadows ahead. It might be rats, but her hive instincts found it easier to believe that a couple of Langeroth troopers with pipe wrenches or entrenching tools. Had Sobek been deliberately holding her in place while they got in position. It seemed far fetched but Sel hadn’t survived these past five years by taking an unnecessarily rosy view of the situation. There had been several fights already, jostling in mess lines, collisions in the showers, that kind of thing. Sel felt a sudden conviction that she should look in on her unit. She turned left and jogged down the hall. This was going to come to killing before the voyage was out or she was a Catachan.

Wealth and Warpstorms

Camilla led the way up the side of the depression, pulling down dust goggles and wrapping her face with a sand scarf before they reached the scouring winds at the top of the ravine. The desert stretched out before them, painted in a beautiful variety of earth tones which were kept eternally sharp by the low intensity storm of airborne grit. The sun was going down but there brillian moons were coming up to replace it, the illumination becoming both more diffuse and brighter as a result, seeming to cool the color tones.

"Yvrine already swept up here with auspex," Camilla half shouted as Alcander joined her, pulling the collar of his duster high in imperfect protection. His own personal unit was out and scanning but his keen eyes were sweeping the area as aggresively as the electronics.

"Maybe shae missed soomthin," he called, pointing to a beeping reading on his own handheld unit.