Kingfisher

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Cool, I'll make some changes later tonight and rethink the demon companion concept. Thanks for having me!

@wildeyes

You're most welcome!

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

“This fucking city, man.”

Dallas Royce laughed aloud, as he slowly revved his harley down the narrow street, glove-clad hands resting on the slick handlebars.

“Give a dame a gram of dust and she’ll go down on you like a vacuum cleaner. Even if you’re a fucking zombie.”

The darkness concealed the rotten blotches on Dallas’ once handsome face, as threads of green ooze and peeling skin ran across his right cheek like a poorly drawn subway map.

“It's only cause yer one of them pretty zombies, man.” Johnny Feng called out, guiding his motorbike carefully behind Royce’s.

“You gotta stop trying to get in my pants, kid.” Royce said with a smirk, killing the engine and climbing off of the Iron 883 “You’re more than welcome to shag me, but I ain’t gettin’ you a promotion.”

“That’s a damn travesty,” Feng chuckled, as he pulled up behind Royce and dismounted “I might have to do some actual work, for once.”

Whereas Royce was fairly well-preserved, Feng was a peeling mess of paper-thin flesh and oozing pustules. His eyes were dark and sunken, and he looked as though he were a strong breeze away from crumbling into a pile of dust.

“Right…” Royce unfastened his sawn-off shotgun from its holster on the side of his bike ”Lets get to work.”

The pair moved through the night, heading down the road towards Sosa’s Emporium Of Procured Property.

Way back when, Royce had been part of the Reapers, under Mad Maddie Hollinghurst; the most psycho bitch in a city full of psycho bitches. When Maddie went full demon, the Reapers were history, and it wasn’t long before that creep Cicero took care of the Rotfaces. A man named Henning Maddirish had brought the former mortal enemies together, and those who’d resisted had gotten themselves zombified. Royce included.

Now he rolled with the Brotherhood of Rot, and spent his days relieving stress with his trusty 12 gauge.

“Yo! Sosa!” The door to the Pawnshop flew open with a powerful kick, as Royce and Feng strode confidently inside “The Big bad bikers are here to party!”

The small mexican man was stooped down behind the counter at the other end of the shop, past rows of second hand guitars and old stereos. The pair swaggered confidently towards him, sizing up to the older man.

“You boys got nowhere better to be at this time of night?” He scowled.

“Don’t you be getting cranky with us, little man,” Royce warned “we do not have time for your old guy bullshit.”

“You got time for my bullshit,punk?”

Royce stopped dead in his tracks. Turning as one, the pair came face-to-face with two suit-clad figures; one male, one female, both pointing giant fuck-off pythons squarely at the two bikers.

“Sosa, dude...not cool.” Royce hissed “You sold us out.”

“Not like we gave him much choice,” Agent Kunis smirked “hard to say no to this face.”

“I bet.” Royce gave her a quick once over. “You kids are all dressed up.You Bloodbloom’s?”

“Magical Regulation Bureau.” Agent Voss said plainly.

“No shit…” Feng grumbled.

“Sorry to disappoint you, officers,” Royce laughed dryly “but there ain’t nothin’ magical going on here. Just a good old fashioned business disagreement.”

Kunis nodded to the Biker’s weapon.

“You solve all your business disagreements with a sawn-off shotgun?”

“You do in Santa Somabra.”

In a lucid flash of movement, Royce jerked the shotgun upwards, before anyone could react, and smashed Kunis in the jaw with the butt of the weapon, knocking teeth loose and cracking bone. The young woman let out a sudden gasp as the weapon connected with her face, and she went stumbling backwards, giving Royce the opening he needed to pull the trigger.

The bellow of the shotgun ripped through Kunis’ chest, knocking her off her feet in a deafening blast of red gore, sending blood mist spurting out into the air.

“Motherfucker-”

Voss cocked back his Python and fired, blowing a hole clean through the living side of Royce’s face, and out the back of his neck.

The Biker swayed...and fell, crashing to the ground with a deep ‘THUD!’.

Before Feng could reach for his weapon, Voss had his arm behind his back, and was forcing him down into the carpet.

“Mister Sosa?”

“Si, Signore?”

“I suggest you make yourself scarce.”

“Si, Signore.”

Sosa left quickly out the back entrance.

“Listen up, scumbag,” Voss snarled, pressing the barrel of his python against the back of Feng’s rotten neck “You’re gonna tell me everything you know about your wretched fucking organization, and then I’m gonna paint this room with the inside of your head. Capiche?”

“Hold on,” Feng spluttered “I gots me a get out of jail free card.”

“You fuckers killed my partner of Six Years,” Voss roared “And you think I’m gonna let you just...walk away?!”

“I’m with the Obstacle!”

Voss loosened his hold on Feng, considered that for a moment, and then let him stand up.

“So you guys are real, huh?” Voss asked numbly, as Feng began to dust himself off.

“Not as far as this cities concerned.” The zombie gave a shrug “best to keep it that way, for now. Need to know basis and all that.”

“And the Bureau ain’t in the know?”

“Only selectively.”

Feng gave the agent one last nod as he began to walk away.

“Keep up the good work.”

“And you…” Said Voss, as he gazed sadly down at the corpse of his friend.

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@Atrophy I'd say that's a respectable level of fucks to give.

@wildeyes Welcome to the guild! All in all the CS looks solid, but I've got just a few pointers;

1) Summoning a single demon into the world is bloody hard, and trying to control one is like riding a tiger. If possible, I'd rather Felicity had only a single demon at her disposal, which would still be a force to reckon with. Also, their relationship should be more of a mutually beneficial one, as opposed to her controlling said demon.

2) The Martovaani family aren't active anymore, so she couldn't be buffing their soldiers with demonic magics and such, simply because they don't have any.

Beyond that, Felicity is very much in-line with the sort of characters that fit the setting perfectly. Just make those few changes, then all should be well :)

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@Atrophy

Elves Hate Him: Man Claims To Hold Secret For Longer Life

Been a long time since I genuinely laughed aloud at a post, but that got me good.

By Way Of The Leaning Gale [Space Western RP]

Right 'o, this next post will take a bit of time to conjure up, but we should be underway soon.

====EDIT====

So, I've just recently found out that we're moving house a lot sooner than anticipated, and it looks like the next few weeks are going to be a frantic mess. Regrettably, I don't have enough free time to maintain this at a standard I'd be happy with.

I'm deeply sorry, and you guys will be the first to know if this starts up again.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

“Come on now, friend! Be reasonable!” Kaebos Morales shrieked as he swung back and forth in the air like a frenzied marionette, dangled from the Bronze Vault Bridge by a groaning tether of frayed rope.

“Where’ za ruby?” Chengrizz said for the fifth time, his attention fixed on making sure his shortsword got a decent coating of cleaning oil. He ran the cloth back and forth over its steely blade, feeling the cold metal against his gnarled green flesh.

“R-ruby?!” Kaebos spluttered helplessly, as he swooped beneath the bridge, the wind muffling his words “I promise you, good sir, I don’t know anything about a ruby!”

“Then yer no use to me, blighta’.” The goblin shrugged his shoulders, sheathed his sword, and made his way over to the spiral of rope which bound Kaebos to the bridge.

“No! Wait! Please!” The dark-skinned man wailed, as Chengrizz pressed the sharp-edge of his blade against the rope “The Ruby...I sold it to a merchant named Argumant! He lives out in Guilmuer; that haunted castle!”

“Spirits don’t frighten me, Blighta’.” Chengrizz smirked “Can’t be that tough if they managed to get ‘emselves killed.”

The hobgoblin rose to his feet.

“Maybe someone’ll come along and save ya’?” He called down to Kaebos, as he turned and walked away, leaving the man to bellow insults and obscenities up at him, whilst he continued to swing back and forth beneath the bridge.

---

Chengrizz fought and bit and bullied his way to the man called Argumant, until he found him hiding out in a small shack on the verges of the ruined castle’s borders.

The man had been disagreeable at first, but once Chengrizz started taking fingers, he suddenly became that much more amicable. Not only did he return the hobgoblin’s ruby, but he also mentioned that the noble Duardo de Palanza de Fallucci de Trantio was looking for mercenaries.

Something that would interest an esteemed sellsword such as yourself, no? GAAAAH! Please! No more flaying!

The Hobgoblin arrived at the drawbridge but a few hours later, clad in the armour of his craft.

“This betta’ pay well.” He grumbled under his breath.

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

@BCTheEntity Most likely JBs been caught up with some IRL shenanigans. He's usually pretty good at resurfacing.

By Way Of The Leaning Gale [Space Western RP]

Excellent posts, everyone. Just as a heads up; I'll be getting the first mission underway pretty speedy-like. Don't want us to be spending a week sitting around the kitchen table.

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

People tend to name those which they fear, which they hear about in the news, which excite them with acts of atrocity and violence:

Jack the Ripper.

The Zodiac Killer.

The Somabra Slayer.

In a city like this, it took a special kind of mysterious and brutal to even make the news, but once it hit, once a pattern seemed to emerge, the journalists were all over it and everybody whispered in latent fear and gleeful anticipation of the next kill. In this world of moral delusions and false idols, the people cried out for a true god; a being to fear and to worship. The Slayer was all that and more. The Slayer was the truth in the darkness, the thing which went bump in the night, and the blade of furious retribution which would cleave flesh from bone, and drown these sordid streets in blood.

The Slayer would slice through skin and sinew, and cut deep into the very soul of this forsaken city.

And here, now, the Slayer watched the newest addition to the victim line-up: Margarete Becker.

Or at least that was her pseudonym for the bank account. It was unlikely that an elf would bear a birthname like this for over a century and given how agitated Mrs Becker glanced over her shoulder every few steps as she walked down the street, no one would have doubted that she looked like the kind of woman who would appreciate a fake identity right about now.

Margarete Becker knew she would be a target. Most of the Slayer's victims, at least the last seven of them, had been aware of their connection to the others, the secret they shared, a bond they so desperately tried to hide from the rest of the world, one the police didn't see, couldn't see. But they didn't know why somebody was after them.

No, that wasn't right: They could name a plethora of reasons, Margarete had one of them right in her pocket, but none that narrowed it down. They were fish in a barrel, aware of the impending doom but incapable of striking back or escaping, silently cursing their ancestors for thrusting a bloody target upon them.

Mrs Becker had been watched for weeks, followed whenever she dared to leave her not-so-secret refuge, but tonight, her hunt would be over. Her murderer would overwhelm her when she felt safe. She would endure hours of torture and mutilation, questioning and silence, and then she would die, her final moments as drawn-out and painful as all the ones leading up to it combined.

What the city didn't understand was that the murders weren't the product of a sick mind, a compulsive act to scratch a twisted itch. They had no idea what kind of person was really behind all this. The truth was that whoever would be accused of being the Slayer would become the Slayer and pay the price, innocent or not.

Life, after all, isn’t fair.

---

Every Time you reach your limits, the world keeps on finding new ways to bend your mind further and further towards breaking.

Kevin Mitchell gazed down at the mutilated body of the elf, lying in a pool of dried blood and urine. Her face was contorted in fear, yet a twisted grin of cuts and scars had been hacked into her narrow cheeks, making her look like some kind of jagged clown. The rest of her was ripped open, revealing parts of the body that Mitchell would really rather he never saw, as they flowed out in a mess of splatters and tangles.

“This shits fucked up…” Officer Matthews grumbeled from over his shoulder, as he gazed down at the hacked up remains of the currently nameless elf.

“Nah,” Mitchell shook his head “This is just the tip of the god damn iceberg. You know what's fucked up? Say we catch the piece of shit who did this; he’ll probably plead insanity, and spend the rest of his days getting marriage proposals and sleeping all cushdy in a nice little cell. Us heroes of the SSPD will be getting death threats and flaming shit jammed through our letterbox.”

“Sounds like you’re talking from experience, Captain.” Matthews said sadly.

“You remember the Southwind Strangler?” Mitchell asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the dead elf.

“Yeah, man.” Matthews nodded “That shit was all over the news when I was at college. Abraham Amber, right?”

“Abraham Amber” Mitchell hissed, blowing air out through his teeth “Deadbeat dusthead who could only get hard if he heard little girls scream, and felt their flesh turning cold in his hands. Literal human garbage. Should’ve gotten the needle, but instead he’s doing interviews for authors and psychology professors. You know the man who caught him?”

“Nope.” Matthews admitted with a shrug.

Mitchell laughed dryly.

“Joseph Huapaya.” Mitchell frowned “Nothing but internet warriors blowing up his inbox with bullshit harassment. Fucking pig. Worthless scum bag. Oppressor. Before the Strangler, Huapaya was happily married. Three months after the case was closed his wife left him. A month later he killed himself.”

“Christ.” Was all Matthews could manage.

“The heroes get forgotten, kid.” Mitchell said plainly “It's the demons who get remembered. The demons...and the psychos.”

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Anyone have any suggestions on how Lorelai gets into the Bloodbloom syndicate? Or what they might have the near millenia old vampiric nightmare murderous shit do first?

@Meiyuki

Once Nyx is done being arrested we can set something up :)