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12 days ago
Current think I got a postage mixup on my hands here. the fuck am i supposed to do with this live goat that was intended for a new orleans address?
5 likes
2 mos ago
got thrown out the party for keeping it too real. saw that ball drop last year man who cares they just put that shit back up but nobody is ready for the truth when i say it.this country is under attac
2 likes
2 mos ago
My new years resolution will be one of great intent and genteel manner. No more status bar tomfoolery. No more games of the mind. I will be a serious man of serious bearing, no longer in silly mishaps
1 like
3 mos ago
so does anybody know what conditioners aren't too rough on chlorophyll
4 mos ago
trying to find the "golden ratio" of weed and ozempic to cause my appetite to stack overflow and reactivate the long-dormant photosynthesis gene from that 50% of DNA we share with plants. will update
3 likes

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Gerard Segremors

@The Otter

A grunt heralded narrowed eyes and a low, simmering knot to the brow, as the newly polychromatic knight quietly made an effort to adjust to the new distractions in his field of view— the eyes knew how to filter out the blurry, dark lines of black lashes more than well enough after twenty-one years' practice, but the sudden phosphorescence that had been laid onto them was wreaking havoc on his saccades. From the sound of things, that peripheral vision would need to be back up to snuff as quickly as it could.

"The Midnight Hunt." he repeated dryly, testing to see if slicking his bangs back would provide a little relief from the burgeoning headache of his eyes forcing themselves to figure out relative brightnesses all over again. "If I heard that one a year ago I would have damn near lost my mind, let alone hoped to recover another's."

Her tone had given away the error in his approach— it was less sore that she no longer had somebody in the role of herald, or witness, or whatever, but more... well. If someone he'd met four seconds ago had implied they could replace one of his friends just by doing the same things, he was certain he'd also react poorly. Granted, he didn't have the ability to turn every single hair on their head into a rainbow, but he'd probably just deck them and then swing a few more times until he felt better.

In realizing that? This was far from the worst he could have gotten off when stepping onto a rake of that proportion— and he'd at least learned the value system a little more completely than the admittedly mostly blind guess he'd gone in with. To be honest, he was largely basing things off of the vibe he'd gotten from her Sister—

It's getting really annoying making references through relational abstraction like that. When we get out of this, I need to find a way to get that lady's name without pissing her off like I did this one. Maybe if she offers up a small boon for retrieving the token of authority. I'd take that.

A glance to the side, eyeing the pinkest man he'd seen in his life so far.

"You always told me you managed to nick one of their helmets, Fionn. If you were screwing with me, I'd better know before I ask for advice."

In Shilage, the Midnight Hunt was a bedtime story you told kids that you were angry enough with to wish nightmares upon. You rarely heard anything more about surviving, let alone defeating them, than "you'd need Reon herself to step in and put her finger on the scales to pull that off, little shit".
Oh, don’t threaten him with a good time.
LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN "COMMIE"



Panting as he ripped his flight helmet free upon the Shrike's return, Kilmer took a moment to wick away the sweat that had built up near his brows before slicking back his straight blonde hair, letting the recycled air refresh and fill the cabin, then his lungs. He sat there for a moment, letting the various aches and pains of high-g aftermath settle in across his frame— luckily, a quick patdown told him that he'd not pushed himself super hard. Some sorties, he came back spewing up a little more crimson than Vulture ever appreciated.

Given this was a multi-phase assault, good thing he'd avoided that old bit, this time. Satisfied, he clambered out of the cockpit in short order, standing at attention as the Captain and Commander both gave their quick debriefs. He declined to comment on Sab's pushups— she was here long enough to know that Vulture never let you get away with 27 or 28 forever when he'd demanded 30. On his end, instead, he just folded his arms.

"Three hours." he chuffed with a shrug. "Just enough time to grab a Barq's and sit through my earful from the Boeing rep. I'll be helping the ground teams fine tune some stuff down here if I'm needed."

Offering the others a nod, he ambled away, intent on finding just where the hell they'd stashed his jacket.



A hand rose.

"What air cover are we expecting to run into for the descent? Standard fare?"

Kilmer was hardly worried about the typical flak nets, SAMs, and so forth. The book had been written on them before manned spaceflight, but there was no way the mass drop wouldn't muster heavy orbital opposition. If they were peeling away, he had an inkling that he might get his pound of flesh after all, after having missed out on the Fafnir earlier.
Rudolf Sagramore


For his part, Rudolf had largely kept to himself and his thoughts, mainly focusing on contributing to the effort to source food with largely fruitless sojourns inward for the first day, save a couple birds. On the second, however, he'd come across a promising set of tracks, and let them take him deeper into the bush than he'd gone before. His passenger seemed to have grown similarly silent, in the daytime, but he seemed to be having his share of trouble resting once night fell.

Regardless, he departed quietly the second morning.







"Oh good, Goug and the birds got out." a hoarse grunt sounded from inland, a few seconds after Miina had made her answer. Ahead of it was the now-familiar green hues of one of Esben's fairies, shepherding the voice's owner back out of the treeline and into the cove—

And he looked like he'd walked right out of a nightmare, coated in a glaze of bright crimson from his head down to most of his bared torso. He'd left with a shirt, but now it seemed to be repurposed. Tressed up with the fabric behind him, upon a sapling he'd propped up onto his shoulders, was the source of the drying blood. Not his own, as Eos was quick to reassure, but rather his kill's. His "promising tracks" were evidently a bear— for all his insistence that he was from a village of swordsmen first, he'd gone and brought home a monster, anyway. And after dragging it at least a mile through the brush...

"Hey, can I get a hand here? This thing's heavy as sin even after being mostly bled down. Probably gonna need the cart after we pack it out. And a lot of sharp knives in doing that, but at least we'll have a lot of meat to work with once we're done."

... He honestly didn't care to try and die on that hill this time. He had too much sticky red stuff in his hair; felt like it was gonna be stained forever, at this rate. Supposedly, the Sagramori tribe had earned their red and wild locks by anointing themselves with blood and fire both, as fealty to Himstus. The blaze of their souls fanned from the spark he gave all warriors, the blood of mighty man and beast alike they spilled in his name anointing them as that much closer to his divine prowess.

By contrast, Rudi was just pretty exhausted, and pretty sure he was gonna... be kinda pinkish for a bit. Nothing nearly so bold as the old legends, for sure, but he could live with it so long as he at least got to get clean. even so, Drana being as warm and wet as it was, he was up against clock with the meat, and hide if they could get away with it— seeing as he didn't like his chances trying to break it down properly as one man with one knife, he needed to haul the thing off to the others. May as well do what he could to extend that shelf life by bleeding it en route. That was the thinking.

"And Esben," he grunted as he finally staggered over, onto the sands, dropping the carcass back-first as he was content to drag it the rest of the short distance to their coveside camp. "Eos was a big help. She told me to tell you that."

Whatever protestations the little pixie had would go largely ignored, as he trudged off to search for his other, better-for-butchery knives.
We love throwaway details around these parts
There's "subtle", and then there's "fun". A job like this really demands enjoyment from the practitioner. After all, if we're not having a good time with it, how will La Principessa?

Amerigo Spadoni

Nordor, Golden Grape Fields
@AWildSquirtle@Estylwen




"Ah, were we so obvious?" a breezy smirk asked in response, stemming from the taller of the two men on horseback, mop of silver hair touched lightly by threads of wine-scented wind as he rode close quite well enough. The two representatives had been given their favor to do with all urgency the good Countess had left to muster, and left swiftly that night, the barely-contained scarlet blaze still at their backs. "We were in quite a hurry after all the time at sea, that much is to be sure. How does this day find you, my friend?"

In truth, the fast tracks they'd made had probably not been the best for Aubri's condition— the older man from the Republic hadn't said much on the way, at least by Amerigo's measure. Part of him had believed that the bearer of the Letter was simply settling into the new air in his lungs, but maybe he was putting on a braver face than the swordsman had first believed.

What a shame that was, too... the rolling hills and verdant fields of wine country this time of year were some of the most storied landscapes to find one's way through that any country had to offer, let alone one so ravaged by war and upheaval as this one. The golden grapes of Nordor had a reputation that preceded them well, the sweet taste on the sun-kissed wind sparking a dreamlike glow to the fields and a playful, creative mind's eye— ample precursor to the boons of drinking the wine they bore. Between that and the picturesque, pristine vistas one rode through in getting here, and Amerigo found it little surprise that these fields were so treasured by patrons of the arts.

Even in the Republic, in the captain's quarters of many a ship he'd sworn protection to for a voyage, there was never a canvas awash in the greens of the vine, the golds of the grapes, and the vibrant blues of the open Nordor sky very far from view. Perhaps it spoke in part to their mission here that their employers sought slices of such splendor from afar— and their interest in keeping an eye on where they were forged, in keeping such a relationship fruitful.

Pardoning the pun.

He eased his horse to a stop, reaching over to Aubri's reins to ensure his steed wouldn't stray too far while they spoke to the sharp-eyed farmhand. With his free hand, covered his heart and inclined his head, almost passing for genteel in spite of humor in his eyes— that of a child coyly letting you in on a secret joke.

"Charmed, sir, either way. Ma chiamo Amerigo. We're on our way to meet a friend of a friend— a mutual acquaintance of ours told us she's been having trouble with a rough crowd recently— hoped we could see to it that she knows she's safe, while we're out here seeing the sights."

The sword on his hip gleamed hungrily in the sheath, having never been quite so far from the sea in its life before. Brief pleasantries were fine for the better rider of the two to handle, most likely, and as the hired protection there was ssome assumed level of being the one who handled day-to-day interactions with common folk—

But Amerigo was also no fool, despite how he allowed the man with the hoe what likely amounted to a wink-and-nudge as his cover story. At the very least, he would draw this out until he had given Aubri ample time to collect himself and set the tone for what they truly wanted to give away.

As the man with the diplomatic schooling, surely his charge had also read the quick identification, knowing wink, and sure feet the man before them had offered as well as Amerigo himself— whatever had seen him take this role in this place, the man they beheld was far from common. His gaze was too sharp, his mind too schooled. Just as he could taste a wonderful fantasy on the passing wind, Amerigo could taste the poise from this figure before him—

He did not hail from so small a world as his tool suggested.

"Tell me. Has there been much trouble about the fields these days?"
Gerard Segremors

@Octo

"Oh, hey, she does a little Csárdás. That's cute." an idle observation floated in from behind, in the undertone of the others who stepped forward and said their piece. Fundamentally, the Moonlit Queen's implicit demand for intrigue crashed against the iron wall of Gerard's own self-concept and summation of his time beneath Reon's Light— his prized humble origins working as a grand detriment against him, in a way he had forgotten they could. "I didn't know you could breathe animus into little dolls this way, too. I'd figured it was just blasting things with shooting stars."

His words were cloaked in no facetious slime, nor anything that could be believed artifice— he had even now only a piecemeal knowledge of how magic worked and what one could do with it, beyond "grand and terrifying marvels"— but one of the pieces of truth he had managed to glean, in some respect, was that most practitioners did have their special niches they tended to stick to. Having seen the breadth between this tiny little wonder and the overt destruction the false maid could wreak in battle, the former mercenary, current knight, and eternal oaf found himself locking the memory away, for the next time he thought he had her or anyone here completely figured out.

He closed his eyes, and exhaled through the nose. Even if he had little to offer, they couldn't risk a potential insult that came in holding silence. And what was more... there was a way to phrase what he could speak to that just might have piqued the interest of someone with the Moonlit Queen's personality, as he had heard it spoken and seen in action.

When a lull allowing it appeared, the scarred knight spoke evenly, some warmth upon him.
 
"As my friend said just a moment ago, I too hold a lifetime on the battlefield as the main locus of my skillset. It was once my trade, and is still my craft. Before that I was a peasant boy from the fields to the west, and you surely have seen scores of men like me in that regard. If I were to put this to words..."

What she coveted, regardless of the tacit relationship between the object and true value, were things that signified the grandeur of her station and title. The moonlit queen was most covetous of symbols— that which projected her image of strength, wonder, and dominion. He had a guess that it was why she had taken the Duke's rationality only after he had, if he was hearing this right, brushed off her summons. He'd cited his duties as being of more import, in so many words. To offer collateral against that demanded attention, then maybe... the part of him he refused to let go, so mundane in the world of man, might hit the mark of what the Moonlit Queen sought.

"I would say I am set apart most from everyone here in how I behold them. I am a humble man, of humble means, hailing from a humble home. I have been blessed to bear witness to wondrous things each day, and am routinely amazed by what company I keep. At times I can hardly believe myself as standing among them in my own right, rather than watching from below a high pedestal."

A little florid, especially for somebody like him, but a sentiment that still rang true enough. If the Moonlit Queen wanted her greatness to not go unacknowledged, then the best idea Gerard could muster was to invoke a core part of the man he'd become, the one his friends within the Order had rightly tried to see him pare back—

"I know quality when I see it. And I think the world of these people. I apologize it is so meager in the face of them, but I could at least offer you captive audience for your words and deeds. That which Duke Thedric couldn't manage."

He was effusive with complimenting those around him, and stingy with complimenting himself.

For a fae that had been slighted by being considered second fiddle to anything, there was a chance this could resonate.
Busy weekend, many drinks and sporting events after work— with UFC and what japan allowed me to see of K-1 cleared out i’ll be trying to get my post out too you and a couple others before the game today

sorry for the delay!
Rudolf Sagramore

@Psyker Landshark

Silence...

And then pandemonium.

The sinking feeling in his gut, wrenching and cold, had proven itself right— and with the moment's passing, Rudolf felt some small part of him die. By the time Eliane's bullets were loosed, and Isolde ordered their capture... he couldn't even let out the frustrated snarl that had been building at the back of his throat. He had to bring his blades to bear and step past the crumpled remains of that vain hope that they could avoid this. One it seemed not even Robin had been willing to hold. Normally, he'd have blamed that on her boiling everything down to easy and thoughtless trope instead of muddy reality. But time after time, that same simple way of looking at it all seemed to keep her eyes clearer.

His vision was getting hazy.

Sparks flew, as steel edges collided and his exhausted frame screamed in protest as he wrenched the hasted thrust of a longsword to the side, and he put all his might into a one-handed swing of the greatsword. On the wrong end of the speed dynamic he had just minutes ago enjoyed like this, he was dismayed but far from shocked to watch the white-robed Templar fade back behind the line of his peers, two men bearing spear and shield that barely felt the impact upon the barriers surrounding their frames, let alone any mar upon their iron curtain.

It was probably always inevitable, anyway. He had been careless... and he had already seen the lesson he learned in action only a few days before, when they thought that Isolde was at least one Grovemaster still on their side. He knew how any negotiation involving Drana Asnaeu and Skael on opposite ends of the board went— they'd done a dry run already in Brightlam and made a complete mess of it. He didn't know where the hell Eliane had gotten it into her big empty head that a glorified guard had any authority to declare war, but they'd foolishly gone and given her the biggest gun they could find and a majority vote in favor of using it.

"Ngh." His eyes flashed as he saw the instant their torsos shifted, throwing himself back as a pair of spears blinked into existence in the space that had been his kneecap a second ago. Behind's no good— a familiar voice called, almost soon enough to prepare him for the jarring shield bash to the back of his skull from a knight he'd not seen get around his guard—

Hell with it. The gun, the beam of light, the threats preceding, they'd all just happened. Didn't matter. Here they were. Maybe he had no leg to stand on.

That they were in this situation at all was every bit as much proof that he was no sterling judge of character, or the hand he was trying to play at the table. Irresponsible gambler, shocked that he'd burned a hole through his pocket once again, tale old as time. It was all fucked. They just needed to push their way through it now. No time or energy for anything else. Just focus on twenty four Galahad-level problems in front of you, twice as fast as probably still faster than you. Wield my armaments. Make openings. Get us out. That's already more than I'm ready for. Focus goes there. Burn what it takes.1

Blood flew from his mouth, the inside of his cheek or tongue bitten open by the sudden jarring collision. The sharp pain and taste of copper was a small blessing in that it kept his head from swimming— enough to plant his boot onto the sturdy point where the two hafts hafts crossed, push off, and leap clear overhead of the two knights, in the direction of Izayoi. Twisting through the air to try and game a couple extra feet out of the momentum, he swung down with the greatsword as his body rose higher, willing a curtain of black flame through the arc to screen their vision that extra second—

You're on your own there. I'm not risking it.

And instead was treated to the horrifying silence of a good five feet of blade bouncing harmlessly off of a top-class magical barrier. He landed and surged ahead, mind racing, into the space where she had managed to force a gap in their tight group. He was lucky, in a small respect, that he already was really familiar with how damned useless the thing was. It meant he could plan around it much more quickly, leverage what little strengths it had. Even a rubber Montante still took up space, and this one at least looked like steel. He could dissuade approach.

He swung wide, forcing a few helmeted men back, holding the gap she'd made— but hasted as they were, the Templars were quick to adjust after a few words between them all blurred together. That was another problem. They communicated well. While he had a hard time making out the words, especially in the rush of desperate combat, he had caught the directionality— the two behind.

The templars forced back in almost immediately, redoubled confidence behind the nearest one's mace. They had to have told eachother that it couldn't get through the barrier, he realized, barely catching the ringing blow on the flat, braced against his shoulder— strong as his body was, he still felt the ground crack beneath his heels with that one, and his joint nearly dislocate. He shoved the larger man away, filling the space in his wake with another forceful, vicious-looking swing—

Sure enough, a second and third came in behind his arc, practically on top of him an instant later and finding the point of his knife rammed into his eye as the faux-sagramori spun through fully, and his sturdy sabertooth dagger proved far better at piercing their bestowed defenses (at least when they unexpectingly ran into it). Wrenching it free, his right side blossomed in pain as he registered impact— the hammer end of a pollaxe had slipped past his guard. His teeth grit, and he ripped another line of long steel through the space around him, desperate to rebuild momentum and initiative—

"THESHORTBLADEISTHETRUEDANGERBROTHERSHEWILLWEARHIMSELFDOWNIFWEKEEPLETTINGHIMSWING"

And his ears just about made out the words of the man he had relieved of an optic nerve not even a second ago, Regen and Reraise leaving him no worse for wear in the slightest. This was impossible against opponents of this number and caliber. They were too fast, too unkillable, too observant and coordinated to even have a hope of dealing with fresh. The numbers alone had been against them— this wasn't stacking the deck so much as holding a crossbow to the brow demanding all the chips outright. He'd hold this opening as well as he could, but they needed to be decisive if they wanted to pull a win or even escape out of this.

His heart hammered. His muscles screamed. His bones creaked. His head swam. His vision dimmed. His sword barely scratched anything on a good day. He was certain he was two steps from falling apart. How many bones had he already given up? How much blood?

His knife, that too-often relied upon last resort, punched through, at least. But...

The next Templar it bit into grinned, and grabbed Rudolf by the wrist for a mere instant, as he saw the wound it gave begin to close around the blade before his eyes. He bought himself a moment with a headbutt to the nose, and wrenched the handle while bumping a shoulder to the breastplate and kicking the man's leg out from under him—

... It wouldn't be enough to get anything more done, and they were already wise to needing to take it from him. He was not a siege engine to punch through the gate, so much as a lone soldier trying to wedge his back into a gap in the portcullis.

Hopefully, at least, the others would fare better and be able to use that gap to get out of here before they were all overrun. He was done even pretending he ever liked his odds on anything. Let alone this. I may as well be in Hell already.

He struggled on, buying what time and space he could.




  • 1. Not. Happening. After that dispel, I'm taking no chances. She still wants you alive. She may get what's going on in here, but when one of these upjumped zealots catches even a whiff of what I do they're going to claim we were an "incidental casualty" at the very best. They do not play about blasphemy. They aren't here because they believe in people like you pulling yourself out of a hole the way she does. I'm an accessory to murder, not to suicide.
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