Culluket

The Absent King

Yeah, I love conflict, but do lets keep the IC bickering to the IC area and not the OOC one.

The Absent King

Thee fortress of Udny Pass we found choked with the refuse of Vicenna -- those whom had fled thee maraudinge Elfes of which we had heard much rumor. A dusty mass of men, women and even childrene, millinge about ragged tents in thee road, sorry and with nothinge to theyre name but thee clothes upon theyre backs.

Could they be trusted? we wondered. Woulde they accept Aretan rule, even in these laste days? There woulde be no returning to their homes now, and every arm woulde be needed in thee darke days ahead. But a hounde cornered and sore may gnash at even its master's hand extended in aid, yea, even as night descends and thee wisp and the djinn creep from theyre dens, thirsting for unwary soules.

Though beneath contempt and beyond thee reach of Aretan justice I confess I felt a silente anger at thee sight of it. Better for those who had done these thinges that they were swallowed along with thee Vicennan sands, and theyre next victims. For I woulde not be as merciful, shoulde we meet.

---

"Now to business," said Perrine. "I am told you have some urgent business with my house. Judging by the timing of this visit and the gate through which you entered, I believe you have news of Vicenna and I would very much like to hear it. I suspect our ends may be pointing in the same direction, here. But first," she eyed the mystery nobleman, "who's the man in my God damned chair?

"Alonso vas Aretaeus." Kolbe's ragged voice was like a rusted blade through the lavish courtesies of the dining room. "King of Areta." The helm inclined, grimly. "Your sovereign."

The statements hung there in the ensuing silence, like crows over a gibbet. Kolbe watched her expression a moment before continuing.

"...You are young. Minor lapse in courtesy, hnn?" he rasped. "Confident this oversight will not be held against your father."

The armored knight stepped slowly around the table, each step heavy with the jingle of metal. "Vicenna is gone." He said, the voice dry and implacable. "Not conquered. Not destroyed. Gone. Drunk by the earth, to its last drop. The work of demons. Demons..." the knight's hand reached behind him, the armor still caked with blood. "...And weapons such as this."

He drew the black scepter from a carried saddlebag, pressing it forcefully to the tabletop. The thud of the twisted substance sounding against wood seemed to reverberate in their minds, the aura of the thing making the ambient noise from outside suddenly muted and distant, as though miles of distance separated them from the next room. Kolbe's mailed fingertip remained atop the rod, as though a rash opportunist might try to snatch it up at any moment. His one clear eye moved from one face to the next behind his visor; watching. Weighing. Finally settling on Perinne.

"The darkness," he breathed, "is at your door."

The Absent King

Luckily it doesn't seem remotely out of character for Aust to quietly disappear for a few days for inscrutable reasons.

The Absent King

"Roight ye are, young mistress, roight ye are, can't be too careful in these dark days, thass what oi says. It's good fortune what you made it here, fer Word frum them three dozen Viceni refugees we got here in yon courtyard is there's a queer band of Elves goin' about murderin' folk and burnin' down they homes. You get in 'ere where it's safe!"

The Absent King

"Just a humble group of travelers," Juna said, covered in bloodied dirt and ichor, one party member beaten unconscious, the other close to death with his arm hanging off.

The Absent King

"...and I beheld a cow eating a golden goose, and lo, it began to move across the desert and walked into the sea, crying "here is the man who slew his mother's son!" I tell you that the black stars align! The Eye opens! The deceiver, that old serpent, Sothis, trembles, spitting forth his venom, for he knows the hour of his reckoning has come! The day of judgement! When all hellbound souls shall rise from the desert soil to make war upon the kingdoms of God! I see its gaze upon you, faithless harlot! And you, profligate fool! I see it upon... no. NO!!"

--Friar Caius Bacon, prior to his last, fatal seizure

---

Linus Kolbe rode in silence.

He had stared, expression invisible beneath the blank iron visor, as the nation of Vicenna had ceased to exist, as though dragged to the bottom of some hellish hourglass. Watched as the dust settled in a great, horizon-spanning cloud.

And then, with a creak of tortured metal, he had simply turned, mounted the panting mare that was once the plaything of a spoiled child, and ridden slowly away.

---

Of all the horrors Kolbe had seen, nothing approached the magnitude of what they had witnessed. Vicenna, the Opal Expanse, garden of the oases, warren of sorcerers. The second greatest civilization in the desert. Gone.

And he felt nothing.

There was bickering, as they rode, shock, numb silence. The boy, unworthy of Kolbe's scrutiny -- for now -- he had no one left to betray them to. His ragged brother, delirious from his ordeal, babbling, a deep and suspect obsession with whores. The captain, wrung as close to despair as the sorcerer. The King, a dark burden growing upon his shoulders. All agreed word must be carried to those who may next face the black foulness that wormed like a cancer through the desert's heart. But none of them, these men of valor, of majesty, of learning. None of them knew what to say.

But Kolbe had no doubts. Nay. It could be nothing else but the end of all things. Sothis was rising in the east. Surely the black star hung above them even now, drawing and goading his putrid offspring to muster for the last great war. The last days. There was a metallic creak as his fist tightened murderously on the reins. They would not find him wanting.

He straightened suddenly in his saddle, remembering something at the thought. He drew the black scepter from a saddlebag, held it horizontally in the palm of his hand, leaning slightly toward Gawain and Marcus, resisting the urge to break the foul thing and cast it away.

"Wizard," he grated, breath wheezing metallically through the helm, "Know you of such as this? Did your masters..." another dry breath hissed through the visor, "...hold such?"

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

Jean-Luc Bauta de la Mare (Arch-Militant)

---

Name: Jean-Luc Bauta de la Mare

Age: 42

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Appearance:
La Mare is a moderately tall man of a build both lean and hard, his posture good and his poise impeccable. His homeworld bequeathed him pale, almost waxy skin, with a long, aquiline face and shoulder length black hair topped by a sharp widow's peak, eyes a wan and distant shade of blue-grey. For a man so drenched in warfare, he has surprisingly few blemishes, and as yet no visible bionic prosthetics. His hair is partially shaved on the left side, showing a penal legion number and insignia tattooed onto the side of his skull.

He is most often seen clad in an armored bodysuit under a heavy longcoat, armored cavalier boots and gauntlets completing the ensemble, his elegantly customized power sword sheathed to one side. Two mismatched bolt pistols remain holstered behind his back, and various other glints of weaponry can be glimpsed concealed beneath his apparel -- as can a muted glimmer of light from some luminous amulet he wears on a chain around his neck, close to his chest.

Personality:
If Jean-Luc's disposition could be summarized in a single word, it would be a long, heavy sigh. Nothing excites him. Nothing seems to bring him pleasure. Though the very image of a perfect gentleman and possessed of a laconic sense of humor, he regards everything and everyone with jaded indifference, a cultured, courteous nihilist, and one can frequently find him by the viewing ports; his dead, bored eyes regarding the majesty of space with fathomless ennui.

Jean-Luc is known to have a taste for the finer things -- exotic teas, Imperial opera and fine wines -- but even these proclivities merely serve to pass the intervening time. Even in combat he remains detached and composed, like some murderous butler. Only in the most extreme theaters of overwhelming violence does the listless disinterest seem to disappear. Today. Tomorrow. None of it matters. At the beginning and end of it all, there is only war.

History:
Jean-Luc is a native of the Death World Samara, a predominantly oceanic world in the grip of a permanent, planet-spanning typhoon. It is a place of nightmares, wracked with electrical storms and infested with murderous plant and animal life, criss-crossed with a coral-studded network of cliffs and canals that provide the only shelter from the perpetual hurricane. Hideous things lurk in even the shallowest pools, and surging tidal waves, lethal enough in themselves, dump frenzied aquatic killers onto dry land with little to no notice, often in locations that seem almost calculated to spill the most blood.

Having survived to what passes for adulthood on a death world, a young La Mare was tithed into the 13th Samaran Tempest corps of the Imperial Guard, a semi-mechanized company of terror squads, specializing in hostile conditions and fast, brutal assaults. Despite the violence of their work and homeworld, the men of Samara had a code of tradition and courtesy which endured in the face of any and all adversary. By virtue of exemplary service (body count) Jean-Luc grew to Captain of his platoon in fair time, only lacking the necessary zeal for the higher echelons of command. It was for this reason that the eye of the Inquisition first passed over him, mercifully finding no disloyalty despite a moderate degree of torture and psychic intrusion. Though not presiding, the examination was attended by one Inquisitor Vonn of the Ordo Xenos, a grey and ageless man who took unsettlingly careful notes.

Undiminished, Jean-Luc went back to killing. He killed orks. He killed Tau. He put down traitor squads and rebellious populations. He fought the spearhead of hive fleet Kraken at Babel's Dock, where his company was decimated. And then he put a las round through the head of a planetary governer's nephew and was sent to the penal legions, spared a more conventional execution by a shadow of ambiguity about the act. In his new, less civilized unit, La Mare remained alive through experience, determination, and ensuring his less competant fellow conscripts soaked up the more problematic enemy fire. Really, charging through muddy craters into the face of an Alpha Legion gun emplacement wasn't so different to living on Samara. You simply had less interesting company, and nothing worthwhile to drink.

He was eventually plucked from this blizzard of hellish warfare by the intervention of Inquisitor Vonn, who requisitioned him for his personal retinue during an investigation of some difficulty: A quest that required, nay, demanded a born and fated killer. La Mare's combination of lethal efficiency and understated good manners suited the Inquistor perfectly, and his survival of the punitive gauntlet only confirmed his practical worth. In addition to his duties as bodyguard and executioner, he now dealt with a different sort of battleground -- Imperial nobility, underworld labyrinths, hive kingpins and -- Emperor forefend -- non-hostile aliens (though mostly hostile ones). Long journeys with the Imperial Navy and an operation both of and above the law were now de rigueur.

Though the long pursuit was finally successful and the threat destroyed, the squad was obliterated, Vonn himself critically wounded at the hands of the Eldar, only La Mare remaining alive to drag his crippled body out of the wreckage. With his handler spending months recovering and his duties, perhaps, technically discharged, if one neglects to recall that to be an Inquisitor's servant is to serve for life, he has an opportunity to leave the unpleasantness of his debt to Imperial society behind him, and he intends to take it. He has left a polite note for the good Inquisitor explaining that he intends to 'take a spell of leave', and now seeks to earn his way out of the system.

Skills:
De la Mare is a killer. It is his raison d'être and his ne plus ultra. Beneath his bored exterior and underlying his numb, jaded soul is a perpetual tension, a man constantly listening, evaluating, bracing for the next surprise attack, calculating the most efficient way to murder every last living thing in sight. Any weapon is lethal in his hands, and anything in his hands becomes a weapon -- his gift for martial improvisation perhaps best demonstrated when he put down a Genestealer with a broken wine bottle during an official-function-cum-deathtrap he has since referred to as 'the second worst Imperial dinner I have ever attended'. He is patient and precise, disdainful of wasted ammunition or needlessly exerted energy, with no use for motion predictors or targetting aids. There is only, as he puts it, the man, the means, and the outcome.

Though most comfortable operating alone or in small groups, he has long experience with the Imperial Guard, an understanding of logistics, squad command and small-scale tactics, as well as the operation of heavy weapons and some Imperial war machines. Further, his time in the service of the Ordo Xenos has granted him some small knowledge of alien anatomical weaknesses and behavior in excess of what one can find on the Imperial battlefield.

Equipment:
Ceres-pattern bolt pistol
Garm-pattern bolt pistol (borrowed)
Power sword, custom
Flintlock, loaded with silver shot
Krakentooth dagger (Samaran)
A small assortment of grenades, crude, but sometimes necessary.
Armored body, Flak coat
Micro-bead

The Absent King

Glad I didn't bother to read any of that fluff beforehand.

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

Nearly finished my Archie, just refining the history section. Will hopefully be submitting the CS later tonight.

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

I would love a wise-cracking sero skull companion. You could even go bigger, I think. Gun servitor or even semi-autonomous robot thingy.

@Sarpedon

As for a wise-cracking Eddie-Murphy-voiced servo-skull-sidekick, you're more than welcome to go for that...

@Jbcool

Wait, seriously? I was kidding.

Damn, now I'm torn. This is so tempting I may need to go to the Emperor's confession.