Penny

No Good Deed

The wind off the eastern mountains grew increasingly chill as they trudged, in what Hannah judged, was a southerly direction. She had an uneasy sense that the wizard was assuming she knew something about what she was doing. Periodically they heard the howl of wolves, sometimes near, sometimes far off. They tried to keep concealed as best then can as they moved through the mass of low hills, following the rain choked stream. Hannah resisted the urge to curse the rain as she realized it was probably the only reason they hadn’t been caught and killed yet. That seemed like less of a bonus when you were freezing and starving of course. Night was also closing in quickly and Hannah was offput by the blackness. She had never left Altdorf before, save for a few day trips to various hamlets, and the idea that there were no torches or street lanterns for miles and miles was deeply unsettling.

“Shelter,” she said as the light died away almost completely. She extended a finger towards the base of a hill, where a great tree had partially toppled, its root bole ripping up out of the rocky earth. Exhausted the pair of them stumbled towards it and, as Hannah had hoped, the cavity beneath it provided some shelter from the rain. The inside was like a miniature cathedral built by a mad man, where the roots served as uneven buttresses.

“We need a fire,” she began, then her face fell as she realized that the light would certainly give them away to any prowling orcs.

“I think I can shield the light,” the wizard responded. Hannah nodded and gathered up a handful of leaf trash and small twigs. She opened her cartridge box sighed as she realized that the powder she had planned to use was sodden from the river and the rain. Unscrewing the flint from one of her pistols, she struck it along the barrel until sparks fell onto the dry leaves. The began to smoke, then, for a miracle, caught fire. Inexpertly she piled a few twigs on it and got a small blaze going while the wizard chanted in a weird language that made Hannah’s stomach turn. She turned away as though to avert her eyes and gasped.

The wizard looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the outburst. The back wall of the grotto was not dirt but ancient stonework. Stone lintels formed a door large enough for a man to walk through without bending and half again as wide. Odd runes had been carved into the stone.

“I think it is dwarven,” Hannah said, having spent enough time in old Hamek Hammercrow’s gun foundry to recognize the style.

“Oh and I’m Hannah, thank you so much for asking,” she added, a touch acidly.

Black Serpents: Warhammer RP

“Excellent, how long do you anticipate it will take you to move your men to the mine?” Calliope asked, gesturing towards the map with her chin.

“Three days, two and a half if we push,” Kayden answered without hesitation, proving he had already considered the logistics. Calliope nodded and stood up, unpinning the map and allowing it to roll up. Mesmer snatched it up and retied the twine which held it in its tube shape.

“Three days will be sufficient, four may even be better for my purposes,” Calliope replied. Kayden nodded his head.

“You have us for a month, you may have us march as quickly or as slowly as you like,” he told her, also coming to his feet.

“We shall return to your men in the morning, it is too late to travel and my knights are required here to defend me. In the morning we shall travel to your camp.”

“Otto, you and your men will accompany us and defend the strong box.” The knight made a gracious bow, though his face had not quite rid itself of its troubled expression.

“You understand that I will have final say on how my men are deployed of course, if you outline a task for us we will get it done but…” Kayden began but Calliope waved him to silence.

“Yes, yes, I have no designs on tactical command. I will need some of your men to remain to defend the mine once it is retaken, a smaller force to return me here, and a few of your… more colorful men for another task I shall explain later.”

“Defend the mine so you can take silver out of it or something?” Kayden queried.

“Or something,” Calliope agreed before changing the subject. “Johan, is dinner prepared?” The servant nodded his head.

“The stag was where you said it would be my Lady,” the squires have dressed and roasted it, I believe they found some vegetables in the old garden. Calliope made a face as though disappointed by food as plain as venison and vegetables.

“We shall have to see about renting out some of the land, once we are done with the masons,” Calliope said. Mesmer and Otto both nodded though the latter shook his head slightly and lifted his eyes as though his mistress were living in a fantasy land.

After dinner, which proved to be garnished liberal with roasted potatoes, carrots, and wild garlic, washed down with excellent wines. Calliope bade Kayden good night and provided both him and Morek with sleeping quarters, a pair of rather musty rooms not far from the base of the tower. She began to head up the stairs towards her own sanctum, eager to return to her own work now the business of the night was concluded. Otto accosted her at the bottom of the steps.

“My Lady, I must protest,” he began, casting a glance over his shoulder as though he suspected Kayden might be lurking. A raven fluttered in through one of the windows and landed on Calliope’s shoulder, tilting its head at the knight.

“Maasst you?” it cawed, as though attempting to mimic human speech. Otto twitched but didn’t recoil from the creature and the question it delivered on Calliope’s behalf.

“The gold you promised the sellsword… it is almost everything you have left,” he continued uncomfortably.

‘Yaaahs, tis,” the raven cawed. Otto’s face screwed up in frustration.

“How are you going to pay my men at the end of the month, we are loyal of course but we have expenses…”
Calliope reached out and laid a hand on Otto’s cheek. The knight flushed, unused to his mistress touching him but also excited by the novelty.

“I do not question your loyalty Otto…”

“Thank you my…” Calliope held up a hand, interrupting the knight.

“And I will thank you not to question my care for my household. I will see that you are paid, just as I will see myself restored to my rightful place.

“But how my Lady… how will you….”

“Goodnight Otto,” Calliope replied, her voice cold and firm. She turned and walked up the stairs without another word. The crow on her shoulder didn’t break eye contact with the knight until the stone work blocked its red eyed stare.

Dream RP?

I have various space navy/mil-fi ideas but it is a challenging space.

Black Serpents: Warhammer RP

It amused Calliope that Kayden appeared to be a cultured and erudite man. In her experience the best purveyors of violence tended to come from the lower strata of society but she had been watching Kayden since he arrived in the region and he and his company seemed as though they would suit her purposes.
“Heavy Cavalry will not be required for what I wish of you, not at first anyway,” she continued. As if on queue the door flew open and a heavily armored man tramped in, plate armor and chainmail clattering. He was tall and powerfully built, with a shaved head and heavy mustache. He wore a black enameled shield across his back, quartered with a crimson rose and three golden rings. A cape of silver trimmed black swished behind him. He bowed deeply to Calliope, a feat arousing much clattering.

“My lady,” he said in a deep gravely voice, then reached into the throat of his armor and produced a rolled scroll with a red wax seal. He passed it to Calliope who broke the seal and glanced over the contents.

“Very good Sir Knight,” she approved, and tucked the paper into a pouch.

“Kayden Caradwalden, this is Sir Otto Van Draken, the commander of my retainers,” she introduced. Van Draken performed a formal bow, his eyes speculative.

“A pleasure,” he replied with the clipped accent of a Riekland gentleman. Kayden stood and offered his own bow before turning to Calliope.

“Retainers, My Lady? We saw no one when we arrived, besides your man of course.” Calliope made an airy gesture to encompass Otto.

“I have eighteen knights with me, men who accompanied me when I was obliged to relocate here from Altdorf. They are just returning now from their own errand,” she explained.

“Is it altogether wise to leave yourself undefended in such perilous country?” Kayden asked. Otto chuckled slightly and Calliope smiled.

“I am in no danger here, and the errand was one which required my men. I trust there was no difficulty Otto?” Calliope asked, the knight shook his head and poured himself a glass of brandy.

“None lady, though there were some questions about it, legal questions,” he replied, cutting his eyes towards Kayden. Calliope made a negligent gesture as though this was of no import.

“Herr Rutiger made very certain to have everything sworn in front of the Temple Clark,” Otto continued. “He said that if the terms were not fulfilled he would invoke the secular and religious authorities.” Calliope’s smile, already satisfied, became downright predatory.

“Oh I am sure he will,” she agreed enigmatically.

“Now that we have sufficiently established our cultural pedigrees, I think we can move on to business,” she told the mercenary captain. She fixed Otto with a look and nodded for him to depart. Otto set his mouth in a frown but bowed and departed, brandy in hand.

“Knights, so you have your own cavalry then?” Kayden asked. Calliope shrugged as though this were of little import.

“Family retainers for the most part, enough to escort me and look after my needs, but not enough for what I need. I have several tasks that I require, the first of which is to retake a mine that belongs to my family. Silverhill, a rather uninspired name I know.” She snapped her fingers and Mesmer appeared and spread out a map on the table, pinning the edges with an inkwell and glasses. She traced her finger up a road on the map, following the curve of the valley until it mounted into some low hills.

“Greenskins apparently,” she explained, shaking her head in dissapointment at the universe.

No Good Deed

“No we need to…” Hannah trailed off as her mind registered his words. She had been about to convince him that they needed to get out of here, to talk him out of some heroic stand, but it seemed he was putting the wise in wizard. Now that she had accomplished that goal though, she was momentarily at a loss for what to do. The rain was really coming down now, lashing the battlefield so hard it was almost painful on the skin. Visibility was down to no more than a dozen feet. Hannah felt the rain running down her back, sluicing away the sweat and making her clammy. She looked at the pistols in her hands and despaired of the powder. There was an earth rattling boom and a flash of light visible through the curtain of rain as one of the powder wagons went up.

“Can we get back?” She called to the wizard, stuffing her pistols into her sash, muzzles and frissons down. Ranald alone knew if that would keep the powder dry enough. She reached for her sword only to find it missing. Cursing she glanced around and by random chance saw that the sword Little Lord Wigendorf had tossed in his haste to flee lay in the dirt beside them. She bent down and picked it up, it was a fine weapon, much finer than any she had owned with a gilt wrapped hilt and several small stones set into the guard.

“The omens are not good,” the wizard replied. Hannah thought about it for a moment, the orcs were already through, she could hear their war cries all around but they were loudest in to the west. The howl of goblin wolf riders echoed in the distance as if to underscore the screams of dying Imperials.

“This way then,” Hannah decided tugging on the wizards robe until she was sure he was following, she headed east, seized by the idea that every orc in the mountains was furiously charging after what was left of the Empire, if they could just get away from here maybe they could circle… An orc loomed up out of the mist, huge and wrapped in leather armor that looked like it might have come from some kind of bison. Hannah snatched a pistol from her belt and fired. The weapon clicked uselessly, the powder soaked through. Yelling in frustration she threw the weapon at the orc, smacking it off the things face. It snarled and raised its axe to split her in two. The wizard thrust the splintered end of his branch into the thing's eyes in a move so spiteful that Hannah’s lips curled back in a bar fighter's appreciation. The orc reeled back, its arms springing wide. Hannah drove the tip of her looted sword into its belly between its britches and breastplate. The blade plunged deep, parting muscles and sinew. Remembering her lessons she twisted it and yanked it free, blood and entrails following it in a gush. She darted sideways and hamstrung the creature with a slash. The wizard seized her as he ran past and dragged her after him, leaving the mortally wounded brute to scream. The rain swallowed them.

Orcs were not tidy campers Hannah observed as they crept through the remains of the orc camp. Not for them the ordered lines of an Imperial war camp. Firepits lay at random complete with spits on which unidentified meat hung on spits. Hannah was hungry but not hungry enough to risk trying the questionable meat. There was dung, everywhere. They were both soaked to the bone but Hannah was too keyed up to shiver. Now and then they saw shapes moving in the misty darkness. Almost certainly orc and their goblin allies. She doubted they were sentries exactly, either wounded or late comers to the battle. She tried not to breathe, not to think, as though doing so would attract attention to them.

“Where are we going?” the wizard whispered in her ear.

“Away,” Hannah responded as they picked their way across a circle that looked like it had been used for some kind of gladiatorial combat, a type so rough and ready that the corpses of the losers were still piled haphazardly. Wolves howled again, closer this time. Hannah shivered and gripped her sword. All they had to do was move through the camp and… there was a weird snarling behind them. Hannah turned in time to see a reddish creature that was all teeth and slavering jaws come bounding at her. A goblin perched atop it very optimistically trying to exert some kind of control, a pitchfork in one hand and a net in the other.

“Run!” Hannah screamed, suiting action to words and bolting as fast as her legs would carry her. The wizard went past her, his own longer legs obviously having the same idea. The creature bounded over the top of them, the goblin lancing desperately as both fugitives split apart to avoid him, then instinctively closed together again out of fear of being left alone in this rain soaked nightmare. They were out of the camp now, scrambling through the thin scrub on the far side. The creature skidded and made another pass. The net whistled through the air but Hannah managed to duck and the spreading strands tangled on a larch branch. The goblin made an audible gulping sound and then was ripped from the saddle as the cord tied to his wrist went tight. If Hannah had breath she would have laughed but instead she charged onwards crashing through a bush and…

The ground went out from under her. She plummeted ten feet and plunged into an icy stream. A similar cry behind her suggested that her companion had met the same undignified fate. An hour earlier it had probably been a meandering stream but now, swollen with the hammering rainfall, it was a raging torrent. Hannah struggled for a second and looked around the wizard was in the water too. She waved her hand frantically and tried to swim to him but the current was too strong.

“Don’t fight it!” he shouted and she realized he was right, she turned to swim with the current, racing down the water course faster than a man could run. The noise of battle was either receding or simply subsumed by the rush of the icy water. As the torrent of water swept her down stream, she felt like laughing.

No Good Deed

I am about to be hit by a cart Hannah thought. Once, when she was about seven, she had darted out into Hammertong street to chase after a ball. The startled cry of her friends had made her look up in time to see an on rushing wagon and she had frozen in place, the exact sentiment of impending death clutching at her little heart. Unfortunately, this time, Frau Bessienhoss showed no signs of snatching her out of the way. And there were like, so many fucking carts. The greenskins surged up the hill bellowing their insane war cries, a living wall of rusted steel, broken fangs, and general upset.

“Fuck,” Hannah gasped, ducking down behind the wall. Unfortunately not looking at what was happening didn't help. She saw a goblin with rudimentary wings smash into one of the courtiers, impaling him on a spike on its helmet, its neck snapping. Little Lord Wiggendorf was shouting meaningless commands and waving his sword while his horse capered around in a circle. An iron fist seized her shoulder as one of the sergeants dragged her physically to her feet and pointed her at the onrushing orcs again. From the spittle flying from his mouth the sergeant had been shouting at her but she couldn’t hear anything over the thundering drum that had somehow gotten into her chest. Her mouth was dry and very bitter, tasting like metal or quicklime.

The nearest orcs were fifty yards away now. One of the smaller cannons roared and the air seemed to ripple. A dozen orcs went down in the spray of grapeshot but they came on, clambering over the dead with as much care as children rushing for the sweet vendors cart. There was a crack and hot sparks reigned over her. One of the men with a handgun had fired and was furiously trying to reload. Hannah watched for a moment bemused, and then realized that she was supposed to be doing something. Her eyes unwillingly turned back to the orc. With mechanical stiffness she drew her first pistol and thumbed back the hammer with a click she felt but could not hear. It was a poor weapon, but she had done what she could to improve it during the long march. Now she was finally here it seemed like a lot of wasted effort. Trembling, she tried to lift it but felt her hands wouldn’t work. This wouldn’t do. She turned her hand, thinking that maybe she ought to find something important to do back among the baggage train, or back in those trees, or back in Altdorf but just as she did so a slightly braver soul tried it. The old fisherman threw down his pike and turned to run. The sergeant ran him through the belly with his sword and screamed at them to hold the line or something equally heroic and implausible. With escape curtailed, Hannah turned back to the orcs, now only twenty paces away, close enough that their war cry was a literally pressure on the human defenders. Maybe if she tried to think of it as a duel?

For the last time may not you be reconciled? Clearly this orc had to answer for its insult!
No? Then on my signal you may exchange fire!

Hannah stood up straight, instinctively turning sideways to narrow her profile against the orc’s return fire. The orc had not produced a pistol, which was odd, instead he continued to wave an axe over his head. His second would surely be shamed by such behaviour. Perhaps that is why he was fighting this duel in the first place? Hannah extended her arm, making a straight line from shoulder to barrel. Someone grabbed Hannah and shook her, screaming incoherently. She disdainfully shoved the swordsman aside and resumed her stance. Then the word he had been screaming penetrated her disassociated consciousness.

Fire. Fire. Fire.

The hammer snapped closed and the powder in the frisson caught with a hiss. She had spent hours milling it in a mortar and pestle she had stolen so it burned quick and bright into the chamber. Hiss-crack! The pistol went off, gouting fire and smoke in a conical cloud. The orc slapped his free hand to his eye then pulled it away, revealing the empty left eye socket. The beast gave her a somewhat petulant look, then collapsed beneath the onrushing feet of its fellows. Hannah smiled and stood triumphant, realizing only belatedly that her friends were not rushing in to congratulate her. In fact, rather the opposite was happening. Before she could thrust the pistol into her sash the tidal waves of orcs hit the wall. Spears stabbed into green bodies and halberds slashed down to amputate arms. The ancient wall exploded inwards and Hannah was pitched onto her back. Greenskins and Imperials clashed above her. She saw a man opened from crown to crotch by an orc cleaver, then saw a pole axe stave in a greenskin skull. Flashes of violence, too overwhelming to make sense of, happened all around her.

“Ranald, Ranald get me out of this and I’ll…” Hannah prayed but trailed off, unable to think about what she might give the god of thieves and gamblers in exchange for such a favor. An orc kicked her and she screamed. It hadn’t been a deliberabe blow, just scrambling for footing. Hannah pulled her second pistol, thrust it into the crotch of an orc above her and pulled the trigger. The orc capered away, clutching a gaping wound between its legs as its loin cloth smouldered. The smell was indescribable. The sulfur reek of powder, unwashed bodies, the feral reek of the orcs, blood, horse shit, fear. Hannah tried to struggle to her feet. Hands grabbed her and pulled her back into the line. She drew her next pistol, cocked it, and shot another orc through the face, then pulled her short sword. It seemed a feeble weapon compared to the massive bulks of the greenskin. She really wanted to piss.

A bugle sounded somewhere and horsemen thundered forward into a mass of orcs riding some kind of boars. The beasts squealed and bleated as long steel tipped lances ripped into them, dropping dozens in the first few seconds. The lances bent and snapped like gunshots and the knights dropped the useless hafts and pulled swords and axes from their saddle bows. A large orc cut all four legs from beneath a horse and it went down screaming. The pressure on the free company slackened, not so much because the orcs had been turned back, but the melee with the knights seemed to suck them sideways into its swirling embrace. Hannah drew one of the empty pistols and took a cartridge from her pouch, biting the top off it and pouring some of the powder into the frisson, she closed it then dumped the rest of it into the barrel, working it down with the little ram rod. Maybe this was going…

There was a bright light and a lot of noise. Hannah was picking herself up off the ground, all the bells in the city were ringing, or maybe that was just her head? A dozen men were dead in front of her, obliterated by she knew not what. She had lost her ram rod. Ranald curse it, her father would thrash her if she lost her ram rod again. She patted the ground unhelpfully, looking down at the blood that covered her hands. That couldn’t be hers could it? She turned to see Little Lord Wigendorf a hundred yards down the line behind his household troops. The little idiot had lost his hat somehow, now he pitched away his sword and wheeled his horse, flogging it with the reins to drive it to a gallop. Leaning forward over the saddle, like a huntsman after the fox, he fled for the road. His men followed him, singly at first, their sergeants trying to shove them back into line, but then by handfuls, then in a mass. It was like watching the Riek sweep away a mud castle. Within seconds there was a fifty foot hole in the line. And greenskins surged into it. Hannah wasn’t a soldier but she knew for a fact that she was watching a disaster unfolding. The separated ends of the imperial line began to fragment and break apart. Orc were hacking men to pieces, howling and cheering in their brutal enthusiasm. A troop of goblins on slavering wolves raced past and Hannah put her pistol back into her sash, utterly at a loss for what to do.

“Ranald, I’ll do whatever you want if you get me…” There was a sudden crack of thunder and a rain drop hit Hannah on the bridge of the nose. She looked up with dumb incomprehension to see that the clouds that had been lowering all day were now black and heavy. Another drop of rain hit her, and a crack of lightning reverberated over the field. Then, abruptly, the heavens opened and rain began to pour down in driving sheets.

Black Serpents: Warhammer RP

Gallows End had never been a magnificent estate. These orc haunted marches grew few such, rearing instead a crop of keeps, fortified manors and walled towns. The Black Coach, a splendid construction of carved and lacquered wood and red velvet wound it’s way up into the foot hills, its iron bound wheels sparking on the flint packed road, drawing the mercenaries through a pair of ancient standing stones that had once been the lintels of great iron gates, recognizable only by the rust stains that marred the rock. A stream ran alongside the road, gurgling over a rocky bed, clear and cold out of the mountains. They passed overgrown orchards where towering cherries reached mournfully into the sky and through groves of overgrown apples with shriveled unwholesome looking fruit. There was no sign of habitation beyond the half tumbledown stone walls and an old mill half collapsing into the stream.

The coach driver, who had reluctantly identified himself as Johan Mesmer, was taciturn to the point of rudeness, answering in simple yes or no if a grunt would not suffice. Was he taking them to meet a prospective Patron? Yes. Was it far? No. Would they be there by nightfall? Yes. Would he tell them their host's name? No and other such anti-conversation. Mesmer had the look of a civilized man, perhaps a down on his heels nobleman or a burgher who took little pleasure in wealth. He dressed in black and had a shortsword and what looked to be a hunting rifle wrapped in an oilskin which he kept beside him on the drivers bench. The two black horses which drew the coach seemed to have little need of his instruction, for though he held the reigns he was never once observed to draw or snap them.

The sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains, casting long dagger shaped shadows by the time they reached the house itself. They approached along a paved pathway, enough disturbed by the action of grass and tree root to make even their modest pace bumpy and uncomfortable. Vast dead oaks flanked the path, each one bearing marks of having been struck by lightning in the distant past. Piles of branches to either side showed that the path had been cleared in more recent times, though no effort had been made to do more than toss the lumber into rough piles. The house itself had once been grand but like everything else it seemed to have fallen into a state of some decay. It had a long ivy covered frontage and a forecourt which held a statue of Sigmar, hammer razed, divine dignity somewhat diminished by the fact that time had robbed him of a nose. The statue had been intended as a fountain, though the basin was now filled with brackish rain water topped with floating leaves. The house had two main floors and had once had taller towers on each end. One of the towers was collapsed now, blackened and burned. This gave the other tower a more sinister air, as though it were that of a snake rearing up to scent its prey. A suggestion further exaggerated by the fact that the only light in the gathering darkness was from windows on the top floor of the tower that resembled faintly purple eyes.
“Whoa,” Mesmer announced as they coach reached a small stable by the side of the house. This, at last, showed signs of repair, its roof recently reshingled and its stalls repaired. Fresh hay had been stacked by the far wall. Two horses were in the stalls. A black stallion and a great warhorse of dark dappled grey. Both beasts watched the newcomers with flat, uninterested eyes. Mesmer covered the butt of the rifle with a flap of the cloth and climbed down to lower the stairs for the guests. Kayden and Morek stepped down, feeling the cold wind whip around them.

“Does the master of this place have no servants?” Kayden asked, no doubt concerned about the ability of anyone who lived in such a place to pay the fees he hoped to extract.

“She does not,” A voice said from the ornate, gargoyle flanked portico that marked the entrance. Kayden and Morek turned to see a striking woman in a black dress regarding them with dark eyes. By any standard she was beautiful, though perhaps a little thinner than was the fashion in the Imperial Capital, and she wore no make up to enhance the angular lines of her face. Her little cupids bow mouth was set in an expression of neutrality and her dark hair was pulled back into a severe braid that was coiled behind her head. The silk of her dress was fine and she wore a cape of what appeared to be crow or raven feathers. A necklace of thumb sized amethysts hung around her throat and bands of engraved silver encircled both her wrists. A ring of black stone encircled her left little finger, set with a piece of polished onyx instead of a gemstone.

Unbidden, Mesmer crossed to her and genuflected. She reached out a hand and placed it on his head. The air seemed to grow dry for a few seconds and starlight flashed off the gemstones in the woman’s necklace. Mesmer muttered something then stood. The pale unhealthy look had gone from his skin and he seemed a decade younger, somehow more vital.

“I am Calliope Blackwood and you are welcome in my house. I have heard much about you Captain, and I hope we may come to some arrangement, but let us talk of such things in comfort.”

_____________

Calliope led them through dusty rooms and abandoned parlors until they reached the base of the tower. Here at last were signs of repair. A large sitting room had been cleaned, and the furniture within gleamed. A respectable liquor cabinet sat against one wall and a massive portrait of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Calliope dominated another.

“You will have to forgive the state of things,” Calliope told Kayden as she took a seat on a settee chair. Mesmer crossed the cabinets and opened a bottle of wine, pouring glasses for his mistress and for the new comers which he presented on a silver tray.

“This seat has been in my family for many years, but the seat of our power is in Brannerburg in Averland,” she admitted, taking the drink and sipping dark rich wine from the goblet. Brannerburg was on the Sylvanian border, at the corner of Averland, The Moot, and the Cursed Province. A slight narrowing of Calliope’s eyes suggested this was a sensitive topic. Her worthless uncle had schemed to take the place, bullying and bribing the local clergy into recognising his fabricated claims and denouncing her to the Witch Hunters to prevent her from contesting it. She suspected that any legal right she had to Gallows End came from the fact that he had forgotten it even existed. Still, it had proved an adequate retreat to resettle too, far from the eyes of prying Witch Hunters.

“Your reputation precedes you Captain, but before we get to business have you dined? Mesmer here is a man of hidden talents, and I am sure we can provide you with whatever you might like?”

@POOHEAD189

No Good Deed

No Good Deed

When Hannah Fischer had drunkenly boasted she would rather die than leave Altdorf, it had not occurred to her that those two options might be linked. It had been nearly two months since she had been swept up out of an Altdorf jail cell and forcibly enrolled in the defense of the Empire as a conscript soldier in Lord Barnard Wegindorf’s free company. She didn’t have an objection to people defending the Empire, she just felt, and strongly felt, that this was a job for other people. Also couldn’t they defend a nice part of the Empire. There must be nice parts other than the capital city she reasoned, but the long march had only showed her trackless woods and dirty peasants. Certainly Ostermark wasn’t worth defending, sickly looking, cold, as far from a decent drink as it was possible to imagine getting. It was a perfect place to be miserable in, and Hannah was rising to its level. Her feet hurt from the endless marching, her stomach hurt from the mush that dared to call itself food, and her skin itched from the cloud of dust they were forced to march through. How could there possibly be this much dirt in the air and still enough under her feet to chafe her in her boots.

All these things were, without doubt, terrible, unforgivable, and personal attacks against Hannah’s person, psyche, and dignity. It was also true that every single one of them paled compared to the Orcs.

Thousands of greenskins, every one of them looking like they had never been within shouting distance of a decent tailor, were drawn up on the floor of the shallow valley. Hannah tried not to look at them as much as she could. The beasts were forming themselves into rough squares, in a process that looked more like a riot than a military deployment. Goblins dodged and scampered between their larger kindred, mostly avoiding the sweeps of axes and balled fists of their comrades. Rickety looking war machines were being dragged into place by the smaller greenskins, and bright poisonously looking bouncing animals were being led forward slavering and straining on chains, their clawed feet churning up the earth. Not looking was only marginally helpful, as the howls and clashing of weapons could be heard from, Hannah guessed, the moon.

“Courage men!” Little Lord Wegindorf called. The silk clad lord was riding behind the line, his hyperthyroid eyes bulging. He wore a suit of armor that had so much gold inlaid in it that Hannah doubted it would be much use in actual battle. His hair was perfectly quaffed and he wore a ridiculous sash of scarlet silk. He had emerged from his wagon exactly three times while the rest of them had been marching, preferring to stay with his wine and sweatmeats rather than dirty himself with the actual business of fighting. Hannah would have found this attitude completely understandable if she hadn’t been press ganged into this insane adventure for the purpose of burnishing Little Lord Wegindorf’s military credentials. Under other circumstances the flicker of fear in his eyes might have brought her a little satisfaction, but given she was one loud noise from pissing herself it was hard to savor the moment. The notional commander of their regiment rode on down the line. Half hearted cheers greeted him as he passed through the free company and into his pikemen. They were raised from his peasantry and had more practice at bootlicking than the scum he had rounded up in Altdorf to make up the numbers.

The Imperial line was shorter than the orc line, and much much thinner. It bent in an inverted C with strong points on several low hills. Hannah and her company were on one such hill drawn up behind a half collapsed stone wall. They were a motley crew, lacking uniforms or even a common weapon. Hannah had four pistols and a short sword that she had taken from the arms chest they had been presented with a few days out of Altdorf. Others held pikes, swords, axes, even the occasional musket, managing to look more like a gang of pirates than a military unit. They were up here on this hill because general Lutz Valhiem didn’t trust them to do anything other than cower behind a wall, a sentiment Hannah completely agreed with.

Somewhere down the line a cannon boomed, the sound echoing off the other side of the valley in a soft sibilance. Hannah slid down and put her back to the wall, trying to bring her breathing under control. The howling of orcs grew louder as they jeered the imperial gunners. More guns began to fire as the Imperials began trying to find the range.

“Fuck this for a game of soldiers,” she muttered to herself.

@POOHEAD189

Have At You!!! A Game of Swashbuckling Adventure

“Camilla Sforza,” Camilla replied, tipping her own drink back and draining it. Ale was not her drink nor, she suspected, would this ale have been a sterling example of its breed, but it was wet and far better than the sour greenish beer and harsh rum that had passed as drink aboard the Espri’d’mar. It wasn’t much of an alias, her mother had been a Sforza before marrying but it was unlikely that any alias would survive more than a few hours once Domenguez got ashore and rounded up a few bully boys.

“It does spark my interest,” she confessed, “I came to the New World searching for something, and I think this might be just the place to start.”

“And what skills will you be bringing to the enterprise,” Hasting asked with disarming neutrality. Camilla made an expressive Medici shrug, as though the question was of little import. Hastings was not one to let go once his teeth sunk into a bone.

“Can you sail?” Camilla shook her head.

“Can you navigate a ship in storm, or guide a ship of a lee shore?” he pressed. Camilla shook her head.

“Are you a purser? A cooper? A surgeon's mate?” Camilla shook her head again, though in truth she was probably better educated than any purser or surgeons mate in Free Sail

“A gunner, a topman, a crackerhash?” Camilla shook her head in blanket denial. Hastings leaned forward on clenched fists, his eyes flicking to his Captain who had yet to intervene.

“Then what, pray tell, can you add to our task?” he asked with heavy irony. Camilla smiled at him, exposing her neat white teeth.

“Why master Hastings, I can play the fiddle, I can dance a reel, and I can fight,” she replied putting an emphasis on the last word. Hasting snorted audible.

“You are very pretty I grant you but fight…” he drew his cutlass as if to underscore his point. Camilla whipped her pistol from her sash and fired in a single fluid motion. There was a metallic clang and Hasting’s sword flew free of his hand. The sword landed point first in the wooden flooring, quivering like a struck bell. Hastings cursed and shook his jarred hand. Camilla blew the powder smoke away as though dispelling pipe smoke in a drawing room. She lowered the pistol and set it on the table, cocking an eyebrow at Sir Edmund who was softly chuckling.

“Well, it always helps to have someone on hand who can dance a reel,” he admitted, his twinkling eyes laughing in delight.

A Hard Rain - Urban Fantasy RP

@POOHEAD189
The bodies lay cooling on the warm asphalt of the alley, crimson lakes of blood spreading out around them in irregular ripples on the rough ground. The radios of the two dead precinct men squawked querulously with demands for updates and suggestions of back up. Asher was pulling herself to her feet, leaving bloody fingerprints on the red brick walls with her right hand, the left stuck the tacky bullet torn shirt.

“I am in your debt Sir Knight,” she announced with a gravitas that contrasted with her manic pixie dream girl image. There was a slight chill in the air, as though someone nearby had opened a walk in freezer, when a member of the fae acknowledged a debt, it was more than just idle words. She bent down and picked up the fallen shotgun, safing it and using it as an improvised crutch.

“I could use a doctor, because… you know… I got shot,” she said with an indifference that the slight grimace in her face did not wholly convey.

“But it can’t be a hospital, there will be reporters and cops everywhere, with the whole who wore whose entrails best thing going on.”

“Can’t be my people either, they might hand me over just to avoid an incident.” Physically powerful and imposing the mortal champions of the Fae might be, but they were barely pawns in the arcane calculus of the Fairy Courts.

Synopsis

Kelly acknowledges she is in your debt and asks you to find her unconventional medical help. She suggests she cant trust the Winter Court.

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@Fetzen
The vampire landed behind Balthazar. In two separate pieces. He had passed through the Demon’s arcane attack and had been neatly bisected by it. Already the corpse was beginning to smoulder, breaking up into black ash that seemed to scatter on the wind of the screaming survivor’s passage. The tide of humanity was beginning to thin, here and there a reporter was taking photos, and the first responders, beat cops and EMTs who had happened to be in the area were pressing in, trying in vain to find somewhere to start in this whole mess.

The female vampire, covered from mouth to feet in the blood she had gouged herself on, and having managed to lose the piece of rebar that had transfixed her body, drew a high powered automatic pistol from her ruined dress, though where she had been concealing such a thing was a mystery. She glared at Balthazar for a long moment, cut her eyes to the approaching cops, then bounded away into the panicked crowd.

“Sir, Sir, are you ok?” an approaching policeman asked, unhelpfully shining his flashlight into Balthazar’s eyes. As he looked down he felt a signet ring that had been rolling across the concrete hit his shoe. The kind of signet that only the highest ranking vampire nobility wore. The vampire he had cut in half was, almost certainly, a favorite son or nephew of Duke Vitorrio Cassalaro, the most powerful vampire in Corvus Bay. The orb inside Balthazar’s jackets seemed to vibrate, almost as though it were chuckling…

Synopsis

You kill a powerful vampire noble. Absoutely no consequences there! The orb you recovered acts strangely.

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@Ducksworth

“No spells? No ‘You are meddling with powers you couldn’t possibly comprehend’? Nothing?” Jack asked. He thrust a finger into his ear and scratched for a moment before flicking the resulting wax away to impact the refrigerator with a soft splat.

“Bit of a disappointment," Jack continued drawing chuckles from his remaining goons. He sighed and evidently decided he would get no more drama out of the situation. He stood up, looming over the apprentice wizard.

“Well down to business Harry, seems your master… Ellen something? Had himself a vault for all his wizardly secrets and such. Everybody is all in a tizzy to get something that is inside, and I says to myself, Jack I says: I bet you if anyone can get inside it is his poor bereaved butt boy!” Jack’s mouth split into a wide grin that displayed his more than human dentition in grotesque detail.

“That is all we want, get us into the vault, and you and your little pet get to go back to arts and crafts or whatever it was you was doing before we got here. What’d’ya say?”

Synopsis

Jack knows that Elandros is dead. It seems your master had some kind of secret magical repository that is secured behind magical defenses. Jack wants you to help him get inside and steal something before anyone else in the magical community gets wise. He figures that his apprentice might be able to make that more survivable.