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Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

The Namtar Cycle

Calliope clicked her tongue in irritation. She was really going to have to work on corrupting the buff idiot. Helping with run away carts, what was next? Rescuing kittens from canals? The introspection grew darker as she inhaled the scent of the city, dust, and sweat and distant latrines. Why did these people not burn sacrifices to the gods to give the air a proper savor? Surely they had prisoners of war they could spare, or perhaps some of the homeless vagabonds who seemed to liter the alley mouths? Before she could begin barbequing the indigant population a whip cracked above her head. Calliope, used to clamities and shocks far greater, turned her icy gaze around to find a pot bellied man with bulging eyes sitting astride a dillpidated cart pulled by a pair of diseased looking oxen. The cart appeared to be piled with copper ingots of various sizes. The driver held a whip in his hand and had a look of irritated self importance on his ugly little face.



“Get out of my path foreign cow!” he snapped, his nasal voice filled with self important vitriol. Calliope regarded him levely. She was not in the center of the street and it would have required no effort for him to avoid her, he merely liked ordering people about. The whip quivered in the air, drawn back and clearly ready to strike. Having met Calliope’s eyes he was, just as clearly, thinking the better of it. Calliope made a show of looking around.

“Do you see spirits fool? For you cannot have been addressing me in such a fashion,” she responded.



“I do address you, and I say again, cow and a whore, remove yourself from my path!” A crowd was beginning to gather now, draw but the amusement more than any real stake in the dispute. Calliope knew she would be branded a sorceress if the little toad were to enjoy the spontaneous combustion he so richly deserved. Well there couldn’t be that many people even in this overcrowded sewer. Once she killed enough of them, the rest would do the sensible thing and bow down and worship her. Inwardly Calliope sighed. No doubt Beren would forbid her to slaughter several thousand people and worse yet would do so after she started. Having to stop killing people mid massacre would be very inconvinent if the survivors were not yet appropriately reverential.



“I need not listen to the blathering of a fool who cannot even control his oxen,” Calliope said instead. The cartman, feeling the threat of violence leak out of the air, grinned triumphantly.

“Slime and a slattern, I could drive this team through the eye of a needle, I could…” the left most oxen screamed and bolted, it’s eyes wide with agony as a sandfly flew into it’s ear and stung. Both beasts whirled in their harness, jolting the cart violently and whipping it up on one wheel, the cheaply made axle squealing and smoking. For a moment it hung there and looked as though the cart might make the sharp turn afterall. The cartman was gripping desperately to his seat, his bug eyes fixed on Calliope. She raised her hand and blew a tiny kiss. It wasn’t much, the merest shiver of force, but it hit the cart at the perfect moment and toppled it. The cart crashed down onto its side, discourging an avalance of clinkin copper ingots into the dusty street, and pitched the cartman across into a pile of animal dung beneath a sign post. The crowd surged forward and began to snatch up ingots. Calliope waved jauntily to the cartman as he leaped to his feet and began slashing at the public with his whip.

“You haven’t heard the last of Ea-nasir!” he howled at her back as she sauntered away.

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Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils