Penny

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

"And then they made me their chief," Jocasta continued, her voice somewhat muffled from within the confines of the refresher unit. She had to admit it was a nice one, probably the nicest thing in Neil's apartment. It was almost two square meters enclosed in transparent plex with four water jets, three of which were actually functional and spraying in water hot enough to steam in the conditioned air. Jocasta was naked in the shower, back arched as she scrubbed the roots of her hair with her fingers.

"Seriously?" Neil asked from the stool he was sitting on across the apartment, it was a single room, but the shower was steamy enough that he could only see Jocasta as a somewhat fuzzy silhouette except for when she accidentally brushed the plex as she scrubbed herself, revealing a momentary flash of skin. Two of her drones were hefting a long handed scrubbing brush which they inefficiently tried to apply to her back, their wings beating lazy eddies in the steam. A third drone perched on the edge of the refresher, doing a fairly decent impression of its mistress' bathing habit.

"Yes well, shortly after that the aliens decided they didn't want us to leave and we had to flee with nothing but the shirts on our backs," Jocasta continued.

"Not even your trousers?" Neil asked.

"Esspecially not our trousers," Jocasta confirmed, "We managed to get out of the system but not before they shot us through with more holes than Regulan cheese. We managed to make it here and ran straight into the Terran blockade." Jocasta made an irritated hurumphing sound at the indignity of that.

"We would have turned and left if we could, but the ship was basically a flying scrap yard at this point, and enough of the crew were wanted by the Terran's that we had to abandon ship. It took some pretty fancy flying to avoid being intercepted but we got down in the desert. We made it to the city by the skin of our sunburned backsides," Jocasta concluded, her left buttock brushing the plex as she bent down to scrub her toes. The crew had elected to go their separate ways at that point, the run of bad luck convincing them that they were better off on their own, an opinion with which Jocasta had to reluctantly agree. After all in a month they had been together they had seen two mutineys, a sentient black hole, been made royalty by an alien race, contracted Iotian hiccups, been driven out by those same aliens, crashed into a small asteroid, and been marooned on a blockaded desert planet. I mean... come on.

The refresher nozzles coughed and died and the drones lowered a towel down to their mistress who wrapped it around her body just ahead of the dissipating steam. The third drone produced a second towel which she wrapped around her vibrant green hair. The drones zipped away, freed from tasks for a moment and using the time to explore the nooks and crannies of the apartment.

"So now you have my story," she said, as though the random collection of improbable luck, mixed fortunes and chaotic disasters were a simple chronicle.

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

Humper drew two leather bags from the chest and tossed one to each of the wizards. Emmaline snatched both of them from the air with a grace she displayed in zero other aspects of her life, clutching them both to her bosom possessively. Her fingers began to unconsciously massage the bags, as though the clink of metal was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard. Malcador lowered his outstretched and still empty hand and peered at her for a moment.

"Why do you have so much gold?" Emmaline asked, glancing lustily towards the chest.

"None of your business Goldilocks!" Humper snapped.

"We didn't just hear about an assassin," Malcador said. Humper drew another pouch from the chest and moved it back and forth, deliberately drawaing Emmaline's rapt gaze, then tossed it to Malcador. Emmaline lurched towards it but was unable to catch it with both her hands occupied. The Celestial wizard snatched the pouch and quickly tucked it away.

"Well now we are warned it will be safe," Humper declared.

"Safe?" Clodfoot groaned from his bed, he sat upwards and glared at the humans.

"We won't be safe until this money is delivered to the Imperial Palace, it is for... sensitive diplomatic negotiations," the emissary declared, casting a glare at Malcador whom he now remembered had punched him in the face.

"Well we will just be going and leave you to..."

"Malcador," Emmaline scolded, "we can't just leave all that lovely gol... I mean these noble citizens of the Empire to their own devices.

"It is our duty as members of the... something something..." she trailed off, completely enraptured by gold fever.

The Namtar Cycle

“Isn’t there an easier way to get to this portal?” Beren asked as he struggled up the rocky path towards the top of the jungle peak. Calliope had no such difficulty, she didn’t quite float but she clearly had no difficulty with the ascent.

“Certainly, if you ask me to I would be pleased to fly us to the top in a blink,” Calliope replied sweetly. Beren scowled but continued climbing. At least the view was worth it. The jungle spread away in all directions like a carpet of emeralds. Here and there steam rose and colorful birds cawed and flashed in the tree top. It took nearly an hour to approach the peak, the path growing narrower and narrower as the mountain tapered to its rocky pinnacle. Ahead of the a stone doorway appeared. It was twelve feet high and half that wide, three vast stones stood in a lintel atop a natural diaz of granite.

“How do we activate…” Beren said but before he could finish the thought the vines begant to writhe and then seemed to pour into the doorway until it was filled with writhing green. Abruptly the curtain parted and something stepped out of the gateway. It was huge, ten feet tall and covered in coarse brown fur. It’s mouth was huge and filled with yellowed fangs in uneven rows, like a lamprey and its eyes were pits of cold starlight. Two curved horns curled from its skull, one behind he other like a crest. The icy eyes pivoted to fix on Calliope and Beren.

“Profane One,” the beast rasped in the Firbolg tongue. Calliope realized she might be the only person alive who spoke it.

“Let us pass, in the name of Iskandrin,” Calliope responded in the same tongue, or her best approximation of it. The beast a Firbolg, a denizen of the deep earth threw back it’s head a laughed with a sound like boulders cracking.

“You dare speak the name of that dead wizardling? His spells lost their potency years ago, first I shall consume you and with your power I will open the gates and lead my people to feast on this plane once again!”

Calliope narrowed her eyes. These creatures should have been bound by Iskandrin’s spells to serve him. How could those spells have failed and yet the geas that bound her still be in effect. There was no time to ponder it. The creature charged at them, spreading its clawed paws wide to rend her limb from limb. Calliope lifted a hand and spoke the Aklo word for wind. A hammer blow of air smashed into the creature, hurling it through the air. It crashed against the portal and rolled into a heap. Shaking itself like a dog the Firbolg clambered to it’s feet. It spat out a word in its own language and hundreds of vines speared towards Calliope. She lifted her hand and spoke another word in Aklo. The tips of the vines flared into white fire, burning inch by inch as they reached for her, never able to close the distance. The air filled with a smell of burning greenery and smouldering leaves. The firbolg roared and charged at Beren while Calliope was distracted, eager to rend him limb from limb.

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

"We can't go back! If we leave before we pay off the Count..." the halfling began. Emmaline threw up her and and there was a bright golden flash a crossbow bolt intersected with her shielding spell.

"Sounds like we can file that under your problem," Emmaline called. Several cloaked men were trying to force their way through the brawl, clearly with murdeer on their minds.

"Time to go," Emmaline urged, tugging on Malcador's sleeve.

"You are wizards, help me get his Excellency to saftey and you will be well rewarded!"

Emmaline glanced back at the closing assassins, she very much doubted they would let them just walk out. There was a whisper of magic in the air that made her ring throb. Someone was using one of the darker winds, Shadow or Death magic, to keep the tavern isolated from the rest of the City. There was no way tthey could keep that up for long, the assassination had been botched and help would come sooner or later.

"Let's get him up the stairs at least," Emmaline urged.

"I note you aren't trying to lift him," Malcador observed archly as he grabbed on of Clodfoot's arms and started hauling the halfling up the stairs.

"I'm the rearguard!" Emmaline snapped.

"Well it is a fine rear," Malcador observed.

"Very fine," the Halfling guard agreed as they got Clodfoot to the top of the stairs and out of immediate danger. Emmaline lay her hands on the iron handrail aand muttered a spell. The wrought iron began to writhe beneath her hands and then began to hiss as it transformed into a metallic snake which began to sweep its head back and forth, discouraging anyone else from trying the stairs. They dragged Clodfoot into a well appointed room in which another halfling sat upon a locked chest the size of a man, a blunderbuss looking huge in his hands.

"Gold..." Emmaline breathed, staring at the chest as though the gun didn't even exist.

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

Malcador finished his first drink and ordered a second before he judged the time to be right. Emmaline stood up and picked up a drink tray from the bar while the barman looked the other way, then sauntered over to the table as though she belonged. Horatio Clodfoot was tall for a halfling, just over four feet with impressive blond mustaches which drooped down to his breast bone. He was dressed in a doublet of gold and cream with a large feathered cap on his head. Three other halflings were drinking with him, two appeared to be body guards while the third might have been a secretary or an advisor, given his round glasses and advanced age.

"We didn't order any drinks," Clodfoot stated in a surprisingly deep and melodic voice as Emmaline closed in.

"They are on the house," she lied and set the tray down.

"By the Moot look at the size of them melons!" one of the bodyguards said with a leer. He reached out to grab Emmaline and she slapped at his hand. The paper note she had tucked up her sleeve slid free and fluttered to the table top.

You are in danger, beware of assassins.

All three halflings read the paper at once and their eyes widened like tea cups.

"Assassins!" one of the bodyguards roared and leaped to his feet overturning the table. He knocked the old conseler over and the halfling crashed into a burly looking human who spun just in time to see Clodfoot jumping to his feet.

"You stunted little klutz!" the human yelled, jumping immediately to the wrong conclusion, then slugged the Emissary across the face with a punch that sent him reeling back into Emmaline. Off balance and startled, Emmaline promptly toppled over and landed on the bodyguard who had tried to grope her. Clodfoot yelled in fury and punched the human in the groin, doubling him over.

Within seconds the tavern descended into chaos. Halflings and humans were throwing punches at each other, but the violence quickly spread to intra-species as well. Emmaline struggled to stand up, the halfling pinned under her rump tried to shove her off but that was just making things worse. The bodyguard tried to scream but was muffled by her bottom. A noble laid out a serving wench with a thrown elbow and was rewarded with a bottle of wine to the face from the incensed barkeeper. Punches, bread, and flagons of ale flew in every direction.

"You are coming with me," Clodfoot declared, grabbing Emmaline by the arm and pulling her to her feet. She ducked a roast chicken and kicked a chair at an onrushing fisherman that sent him crashing the ground. One of the Halflings slapped her across the rump and she whirled to find the one she had sat on grinning at her.

"We will sort it out later," Clodfoot said as he dragged her towards the stairs at the corner of the tavern.

"Look out!" Emmaline yelled and snatched up a serving tray which she thrust out like a shield. A crossbow bolt smacked into it, splitting the wood in two. The crossbowman, a cloaked figure near the door, snarled and began to reload the cumbersome weapon. One of the halfling body guards produced a short bow and began trying to string it, but was cut short when a drunken dwarf crashed into him, sending them both sprawling into a knot of drunken clerks.

"Malcador!" she yelled as she was half escorted, half dragged up the stairs.

The Namtar Cycle

At least his Xerbian was improving, though he still sounded like a barley farmer from Tel-Koltan. Calliope looked around her, she had no idea what part of the world she was in. Somewhere far to the south certainly, the jungle made that clear or did it? Could the world have changed so much since she had taken her unwilling break from it? She needed more information, perhaps the idiot had woken her up by his own arts maybe…

Calliope cried out and gripped her head. Waves of searing pain rolled through her and she fell to her knees. The idiot was beside her in a second, a look of concern on his face

"Are you a coconut?" he asked, though he probably meant 'ok', the words were similar. Calliope gritted her teeth and forced herself to her feet.

"Ten thousand years gives you quite a crick in the neck," she lied. The reality was that Iskandarin's geas was reminding her that it was still in place. She was compelled to work towards his liberation and her own schemes were not to be tolerated. The pain was a reminder from her ancient and undying master that she already had one mission and she shouldn't begin another.

"We should get moving," Beren suggested, skepticism clear in his voice.

"It isn't safe in this jungle after dark." Calliope snorted derisively.

"Where are we headed?" she asked.

"There is a city about a half day from here, I should inform the king there of the fate of our expedition."

"Does it have Temples? Libraries?" Calliope asked. Beren looked a little confused.

"Well yeah, it is a city," he replied. Calliope nodded, that sounded like a good place to start, not that she had any choice but to accompany Beren.

"We won't make it all the way by nightfall," Beren commented. Calliope looked out over the lush jungle.

"We could travel faster," she suggested, "if you wish." Beren gave her a long look before sighing and trudging off towards the east.

The Namtar Cycle

It spoke, the Xerbian was stiff and heavily and hard to understand. He was a seeker of coconuts? No he must have been trying to say knowledge or maybe parsley? Also what was a Sanguken Monk, she had known a Sangu back in her own day, a charlatan prone to spouting platitudes and sleeping with his disciples wives, but the two things were probably unrelated. She needed to get things back into the canal this was, after all, a big moment for her.

Calliope drew herself up to her full majesty, somewhat unsteadily as she was still remembering how to use her legs after Tara only knew how long. She had rehearsed this moment endlessly in her mind, but in those mental fantasies she had been surrounded by her cultists as they woke her with proper ceremony and sacrifice. She stumbled over her prepared lines as several things occurred to her.

“Wait what?” she asked, eyeing the man, this ‘Beren’ apparently.



“How could you have woken me and not know my name? Isn’t that kind of the point of a temple?” she demanded, then deflated somewhat as she realized that he wasn’t following her words, or at least not completely. She felt tremendously thirsty, as though she hadn’t taken a drink in hundreds of years and the last place she had been before was some kind of apocalyptic battle beyond space and time that none the less managed to be damn dusty.

Fortunately, this Beren seemed not to be a complete idiot. He restated some of what she had said in halting Xerbian, leaving gaps at the parts he did not understand. She tried Taraic and Samodean, even the Temple Cant of Anu-Ishara, though in fairness he would have been put to death if he spoke a word of it. None of these languages seemed any better, though judging by the way his eyes bulged when she spoke the liquid semi-hiss, he was at least familiar with Taraic, or he didn’t like snakes.



“As a cultist you leave something to be desired,” Calliope grumbled, giving up on the theatrics and glancing around this place. They appeared to be in some kind of a cavern beneath the earth, though there were no obvious exits the fact that the space was scattered with pottery shards and coins suggested there must be a way out. Unless people had simply been casting offerings down from above of course.



“A.. cultist of who?” Beren replied. His pronunciation already improving as he gathered in her words and added to his knowledge.



“I was called Calliope of the Black Star,” she told him. Beren’s mouth dropped open as he stepped back and raised his staff, his eyes wide. He tried to say something, failed, then turned and fled, scrambling away over the uneven ground.

Well, Calliope thought that was more like it.

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

If Pie Week in the Colleges of Magic was a riot, the Street of a Thousand Taverns declared it a war. Enthusiastic crowds caroused up and down the street, swilling ale from tankards that were refilled at tapped kegs Infront of taverns. Tavern boys sat by the kegs with buckets into which the revelers tossed a few copper coins before filling their mugs, long sticks lay across their laps to knock the drinks from the hands of those who tried to fill without paying. The smell of hot pies and roasting meat wafted from the doors of every tavern, making the mouth water and drawing the hungry in for a slice or two. The happy buzz of conversation was punctuated with whoops and cheers as men tossed dice or played cards at tables or simply on clear patches of cobble stones. Street musicians strummed lutes and banged drums, somewhere a dwarven bag pipe was wailing away. It should have been discordant but somehow it melded with the noise of the crowd to create a vaguely pleasant whole. The only thing missing were the firebrand preachers, though they were never as popular in the Street as they were in the rest of the city. Normally people went to the Sigmarplatz for that kind of entertainment before their evening beer. That wasn’t to say religion was entirely absent, a few optimistic doom sayers stood on improvised platforms made from wine crates to rhapsodize about the coming end of the world. Pickpockets were also at work, having an easy time with the crowded streets and the general level of intoxication. Twice someone tried to cut Emmaline’s purse, only to find her enchantments turned the blades with a noisy clink.



“How are we going to find our man in all this?” Malcador asked as he swatted an innocent looking urchin who had made a grab for his own coin purse. The kid darted off into the crowd in search of easier pray. Malcador was dressed in a coat of dark blue silk over a white cotton shirt and dark grey pants of fine Sutherland wool. He looked like a minor aristocrat out for an evenings entertainment, and several other such people gave him cautious nods or speculative looks. More than a few women cast him approving glances, which made Emmaline feel a little jealous.



“Well, I hadn’t really thought of that,” Emmaline confessed.

“Lemon!” a voice called and Emmaline spun to find a gaggle of duelists dressed in silk and wearing polished breastplates. A lithe looking brunette steered the pack of them toward them, cutting a path through the crowd on swagger alone. The newcomer wore a pair of pistols at her right hip and had a simple but well made fencing foil at her left. A bright red dueling rosette was affixed to her left breast.



“Hannah,” Emmaline called out, clasping the other woman’s hand. Hannah yanked her into an embrace and planted a loud kiss on her cheek.

“S’good to see you out of your Tower,” Bianca enthused before turning to Malcador, “s’friend kinda cute.” Hannah Fischer had clearly been drinking, which was a bit like saying ‘winter is cold’ or ‘dwarves hold grudges’, but though liquor made her questionable judgement much worse, it never threw her aim off. Emmaline had known Hannah since childhood, when they had both grown up semi-wild in the sprawling tenements down on Dockside and they were firm friends.



“This is Malcador of the Celestial College,” Emmaline introduced. It sounded a bit pompous but last names weren’t frequently used in the Colleges.



“Malcador, this is Hannah Fischer an old friend of mine.

“S’charmed,” Hannah managed, taking Malcador’s outstretched hand and kissing it like a Brettonian might.

“Hannah, any chance you know where we might find a Halfling Bigwig named Clodfot?” Emmaline asked, Hannah was a fixture of the Altdorf tavern scene and knew everyone who was anyone.

“Clodfot? he and his boys is down at the Stumpy Cock,” Hannah supplied.

“Why you need some halflingus?” Hannah snickered, then tried to elbow her companions to share the joke, only to find that they had wandered off into the crowd. She peered owlishly at the empty air for a moment then turned back and frowned.

“S’friends of yours?” she asked, gesturing with her chin towards two apprentices trying to force their way through the crowd. It was Heinrich and Gunter, annoyed no doubt, at once again having been stood up by Malcador. Emmaline sighed, they didn’t have time to deal with the two melodramatic wizards right now.

“Sort of, think you can distract them for a few minutes?” Emmaline asked. Hannah snickered.

“What are their names?” she asked conspiratorially.

“Henrich and Gunter,” Malcador supplied. Hannah was already striding towards them, bulling her way through the crowd like a war galley.

“Henrich! You haven’t even come to see the baby! How could you promise to marry me and then abandon me so” she screamed at the top of her considerable theatrical range. Emmaline snickered, caught Malcador’s hand, and hurried down the street towards the Stumpy Cock.

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

It was difficult to focus on chores, with the multiple distractions of Malcador, a potential murderous conspiracy, and … wait a minute had someone mentioned gold? A warm glow kept stealing over her at the thought of piles of coins stamped with the heraldry of the Moot. It was one of only three mints in the Empire that held an Imperial warrant to produce coin, a jealously guarded concession. It was said that the mint was one of the bribes Karl Franz had used to convince the elector of the Moot to cast his vote in his favor, though other stories suggested it was a life time supply of Carlsburg sausages, so who could say. Emmaline was fuzzy on the politics and doubly so when gold was involved. She wondered if she might get a look at his gold… Malcador’s hand closed around her arm and pulled her back gently but firmly, just in time to avoid her from tumbling down a flight of stairs. He shook his head in mute wonder that she managed to avoid breaking her neck on the way to the privy.



“Wait here,” he told her. Here was a landing the Celestial College towers. Doors opened off in the four cardinal directions while a stairway rose through its center with steps made of polished brass. Emmaline could tell they were actually polished rather than kept shiny with enchantments, which must have been the absolutely despair of the Celestial apprentices.



“Are we in time?” Emmaline asked. Malcador nodded his head and flourished the scepter like a field marshals baton.

“I have five minutes to spare,” he announced proudly. Emmaline peered at him.

“How do you know?” she asked. Malcador gave her a faintly pittying look.

“I’m a Celestial Wizard,” he supplied, generously leaving out the implied ‘you idiot’.

“Oh,” Emmaline replied with a blush.

“Just stay here and don’t touch anything,” Malcador instructed, guiding her behind a statue of a man with a long beard peering up towards the heavens. He took a few step towards a door and lifted his hand to knock, only to have the door swing open so his fist swished through empty air. A wizened old man in a dressing gown and slippers stood there.

“Your arrival has been foretold,” the old man declared in a weedy piping voice.

“I uhhh, I am returning your scep…”

“Foretold!” the old man squeaked and snatched the scepter from Malcador’s hand.

“My master extends his..”

“Foretold!” the old wizard thundered. Then he peered at Malcador for a moment.

“Your in for a very interesting week young man,” the old codger opined. Malcador opened his mouth to say something but with a final ‘FORETOLD!’ the wizard slammed the door in Malcador’s face.



“Does uhhh… that happen a lot?” Emmaline asked as Malcador rejoined her.



“Almost every day,” the young wizard replied with a world weary sigh that made Emmaline giggle.



It took another hour to finish delivering the scrolls and Emmaline’s legs were well and truly ready to complain about it. The temptation just to pitch them into a firepit was strong but she resisted heroically. Albrecht was well able to make her life miserable, particularly during pie week when the all night revelry kept him up and aggravated both his hangovers and his gout.



“I va stawies,” Emmaline said around a mouthful of cherry pie, “we could twel a fwiendly pwiest.” She took a moment to swallow and then took drink from a bottle of white wine. They were sitting in a corner of the common square at the center of the Colleges Magic, watching as a quartet of children jousted at each other atop ostriches who squawked indignantly. One of the paper and paste lances struck a shield and shattered, raining colorful sugar plums to the floor. Children rushed in from all sides to gather up the treats to the delight of crowd and the continued indignation of the overburdened birds. Malcador made an incredulous sound.



“Even if we knew a priest, can you imagine? Assassination plot hatched in the Colleges of Magic! Burn the Witch!” Malcador declaimed impressively, drawing the eyes of several nearby servants.

“You make a good point,” Emmaline conceded. The Colleges of Magic were a part of Altdorf society, and the Church was forced by the Emperor to keep its denunciations somewhat veiled, the populace was never too far away from riot when magic was brought up. Whatever the outcome the Magisters would not look kindly on apprentices who stirred up that kind of heat.

“We could…” further discussion was cut off as Gunter, an indifferent Gold apprentice appeared before them, cheeks red and flushed with excitement.



“Emmaline did you…” he trailed off as he registered Malcador’s presence then barreled on, “did you hear? They are searching the Gold quarters, apparently someone stole some artifact from the Jade College!” Malcador and Emmaline exchanged glances.

They made it back to Albrecht’s tower only minutes ahead of a group of senior wizards, utilizing a series of unfrequented galleries and disused libraries known to Emmaline. The old wizard himself was snoring drunkenly, so they hurried down into Emmaline’s quarters. Nothing appeared amiss except… Emmaline snatched up the ring that she and Malcador had enchanted the previous night. She had left it on the windowsill to expose it to the sky as he had told her. A booming knock sounded from the door above which made Emmaline jump almost out of her skin.

“Shit,” she said eloquently and looked around in a panic. Malcador’s eyes widened too, no doubt aware that being caught here wasn’t going to be a good thing. For want of a convenient pocket, Emmaline slipped the ring onto her finger, the lusty thrill of gold on flesh tantalizing her. Then she froze. One of her books was out of place. She stepped over to it and pulled it from the shelf. It was a fat volume about some forgotten war, something she had certainly never bothered to read, but behind it was a torc of gold and green jade that hummed faintly with arcane energy.



“Shit,” she repeated. The banging upstairs was becoming more insistent and she could hear Albrecht beginning to stir and shout her name. Someone had planted this in her room, and it was about to be discovered. Emmaline snatched up the artifact and shoved it into Malcador’s hands, the other apprentice’s eyes widened as though he were handling a live snake. She pulled her flask from her pouch, took a drink, then stuffed it back into the book shelf in place of the torc, then put the book back into place.

“Alright, very clever, but there is still the fact that…” Malcador began.

“Put it in your pouch,” she directed, gesturing at the torc, then stand up against the wall.” Malcador looked like he would rather jump from the window but he did as he was instructed. Emmaline spread her hands wide and chanted, drawing on the power of the ring as she did so.



“What is the meaning of this?!” Albrecht demanded as he stumbled to the door and threw it open. The three wizards outside recoiled from his naked body and his fetid breath, but they were magisters and they rallied quickly.

“Master Albrecht,” the leader, an ethereal and somewhat androgenous mage from the Light College began, “there has been a theft, and we are searching for the culprit.”



“Good luck with that,” Albrecht replied sourly and then slammed the door in their faces. The knocking resumed. In due course the three wizards informed him that they had a letter of authority from the arch-mage himself and Albrecht reluctantly opened the door with much complaining about the rights and dignity of a wizard being violated. That dignity was unquestionably improved by his adoption of a somewhat stained robe, that mostly hid his naked body.

The three wizards searched the upper chambers than, with Albrecht in tow came down to Emmaline’s abode. Emmaline was on her bed, legs crossed behind her while she read from a book, the very picture of a Reikland idyll to innocence.

“Miss… Morganstern?” the Light wizard asked, glancing down at a scrap of parchment.

“It is Von Morganstern actually,” Emmaline replied sunnily.

“They are looking for some stolen property,” Albrecht interjected, “of course no apprentice of mine would be so stupid as to resort to thievery.” The silent ‘and get caught’ hung threateningly in the air. Emmaline opened her mouth in a moo of surprise. The Gray Wizard, an adept of the Lore of Death and so far silent, glanced around the room before his eyes alighted on the book shelf.

“The dust is disturbed,” he croaked. He was a handsome man in a middle aged kind of way, pale and with dark hair that included an elegantly trimmed mustache and beard. His robes were of a fine black silk embroided with silver thread. Large amethysts hung from his neck and both wrists in intricate settings of gold and electrum.

“We aren’t here to dust Blackwood,” the third wizard a brawny looking Amber with an incredibly bushy beard snapped, but the darkly handsome Blackwood ignored him as he crossed to the shelf.

“Von Kellerman’s Account of the Vampire Wars? Odd reading for an aspiring Alchemist?” Blackwood suggested. Behind the trio of wizards Albrecht mouthed ‘what the fuck’, his face looking increasingly worried. Blackwood plucked the book from the shelf with a single flick of his wrist.

“Well… what have we here?” he reached in and plucked out the flask, the triumph on his face turning to confusion.

“Uhhh… for my… you know… nerves,” Emmaline said, blushing to the roots of her hair in feigned embarrassment. Blackwood glared at her and then tossed the flask to the ground. He began to grab books and throw them to the floor, emptying the shelves in the matter of a few moments.

“See here!” Albrecht roared, “you come into my home, accuse my apprentice of theft, and now destroy my property, I demand recompense for the damages!” The Hierophant placed a restraining arm on Blackwood’s, and the Gray Wizard shrugged it off angrily then seemed to realize he had gone too far.



“Ah.. yes, I apologize, I am frustrated that such a theft has occurred in our sacred College,” he said somewhat lamely. Emmaline looked down at the scattered books with the heart broken expression of a kicked puppy. Blackwood made a sound of disgust then wheeled and stalked away, drawing the other wizards in his wake.

Once the door had closed Albrecht stared cooly at Emmaline for several long minutes. His eyes tracked sideways to a suit of cavalry armor that stood, as though on display, in one corner. He turned back to her and shook his head.

“Clean this up,” he instructed, “I need a drink.”



Emmaline crossed to the suit of armor and laid her hands on the cold steel, exhaling a long breath. The metal shimmered and formed into Malcador who sucked in a deep breath and shuddered.

“Damn,” he wheezed as he pulled the torc from his pouch, “you really do know how to get a man hard.”

The Namtar Cycle

Iskandrin had prophesied the the power of the ancient seal, the dragon who became the heavens, would drive Calliope mad in time. He had been right, the spell that encased her body in stone had left her mind free to wrestle with what she had done, and what she had taken into herself. She had become unmoored, adrift with powers and ideas that no human mind was meant to comprehend. It had driven her quite insane but, as a wise man once said, eternity is a long time, esspecially towards the end. She did not know how long had passed, could not have known even if her shattered mind hadn't spent long decade recongealing, like dissolved salt emerging from a drying tidal pool. Sanity, of a sort, had returned to her only to be threatened again by the fact of her apparently eternal confinement. Without her hands or her tongue she could do no magics save those that originated in her own mind. With no spell books to teach her and no feedback to go on she had worked blindly, day by day trying to invent mental magics from scratch. It was an impossible task for a mortal, but she had the time. Slowly, ever so slowly, she had learned to reach out, to feel what was going on around her. Iskandrin had not hurled her blindly from the Plain of the Ziggurat, he intended her to wake one day and free him from what she now understood to be a hellish half life, torn between the mortal and the divine, bearing a wound that could never heal, and she couldn't do that if she awoke at the bottom of the ocean and immediately drowned or was crushed in the black depths. Slowly, ever so slowly she had felt herself in some warm place, years passed before she felt others around her and decades before she could so much as brush their minds. Even then it was the work of decades to influence them, to place in their minds the image of her, to draw them to worship her as they did their own feeble gods. Slowly, ever so slowly, she cracked open her own well of power to release a trickle that they had been able to shape, proof they thought, of her divinity.

Generations had passed. They were slow and stupid. But she was patient. She didn't have any other options afterall. They didn't know how to write, so she taught them, they didn't know how to forge tools, so she sent them dreams, they couldn't speak her words, so she had them carve them into the stone. All done as a blind woman might craft a chest of draws, with infinite frustration at how much easier it might have been if she had but a moment outside of her marble prison. At last she felt like the day had come, like they might finally work her liberation, felt it so strongly she could have sworn she felt her heart beat again, though she could no more swear than she could move. Then... nothing. It was as if a poor sexual partner had brought her close to release and then suddenly leaped from the marriage bed and vanished. The nothing endured, the eternal cold of her stony existence and the creeping thought that all she thought she had accomplished was just another trick her mind had played upon her...

The scream that had begun ages ago tore from her throat as she toppled to the ground in an undignified heap. She twitched violently, unable to bring to mind any of the once familiar rituals of operating a body. She came very close to dying simply because her heart forgot to beat, but a spike of adrenaline and fury at the thought were enough to make that desicated organ spasm violently, and the old poison began to pump through her veins. Her breath, foolishly expended in her scream, suddenly sucked in and she sat up, blinking one eye at a time in awkward rememberence. A man was standing before her. His garb was strange and his eyes were shocked. She extended her hand and spoke an arcane word of unmaking that should have blasted him out of existance. Nothing happened, though the man shivered slightly as though a cold breeze had blown down from a mountain. Calliope frowned and repeated the exercise, this time directing her ire at a nearby boulder. It compliently exploded into gravel. The man had freed her before her time she realized. She owed him for awakening her and by ancient covenants could not destroy him until she first repaid him. She extended her hands and drew darkness in around her until it swirled into a shift of midnight silk. The same magic lifted her to her feet, not so much for dramatic effect but because she wasn't sure she could operate all her muscles at once.

"Who," she demanded in the ancient Temple tounge. "Are you?"