Penny

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

We retreated to our luxurious appartments shortly after we returned from the gardens. We got a few glances from the guards, knowing smiles and concealed grins. The rooms themselves were as palatial as the rest of the the building, a broad foyer flanked by servants quaters, then a parlor ahead of a pair of rooms the size of the master bedroom at the Hotel Imperial. The whole place was tiled with white marble veined with a pleasant green inclusion that matched the jade fitings of the furniture of antique wood. The parlor even had a small library, crammed with tomes on xenoarchaeology, sector history and a few works of Imperial philosophy. Emmaline wondered if the lack of any devotional work or hagiography, a normal inclusion in such a bibliography, was deliberate.

Urien and Bolskar were sitting in the foyer when we arrived, heavy swords across their laps as they tossed tarot cards to the floor where a pile of coins, jewels and other odds and ends were gathered. They cried out in triumph and despair according to some rules Emmaline didn't follow. I went into my room and stripped off my expensive, somewhat grass stained clothing. I splashed myself with water and then pulled on a a shift of diaphonous slightly green silk. It was almost translucent and seemed to settle around me as though secured by some kind of static charge. I examined myself in the mirror and then headed for Hadrian's room, a slight grin on my lips.

A Thousand Legends ~ Sundered Veil

Zolzaya Togtuun

Zolzaya Togtuun

Time is like an arrow. Its better if you have more and it hurts like a bitch when it hits you.

---

___________________________________ P R O F I L E Age: 23 ... Race: Folk ... Sex: Female ... Height: 5'6 ... Weight: 130 lb ... Level: 1 (All players start at level 1.) Health Points Constitution 24 ___________________________________ I N V E N T O R Y .. ____________________________________ E Q U I P M E N T - Recurve bow - Cavalry Sabre and whicker shield. Cavalry Spear - Leathers (If inapplicable leave blank or mark as NA.) ____________________________________ A T T R I B U T E S Points: 12 (These points are meant to be distributed among the six attributes below. This is to be removed from the CS after points have been distributed. Remember to account for racial bonuses. Do not forget to show your work next to each ability regarding points added and subtracted!) Might: 10 +1 + 2 13 Dexterity: 10 +1 + 4 15 Perception: 10 +1 + 2 13 Wisdom: 10 +1 11 Charisma: 10 +2 12 Constitution: 10 + 2 12

____________________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE A wirey muscular woman from the Huafen plain. Dark of hair and weathered from long seasons in the saddle on the unforgiving plains. She was considered a beauty once, but while young for a Folk, the hardship of tribal life has begun to steal the blush of youth from her cheeks. ____________________________________________________________________________ BACKSTORY Zolzaya was born into a generations long interncine struggle for control of her tribe. Her grandfather was a great chief who united most of the tribes by marriage and war. Unfortunately all those marriages left an awful lot of heirs when the old man finally died. His concern for keeping all of his various wives happy meant that no clear successor was evident when the Old Bandit finally rode off to the great wind in the sky. The tribal gathering to elect a new leader deadlocked endlessly and eventually broke down into a series of running battles which snowballed into nearly four years of tribal warfare. Zolzaya's tribe lost most of their male leaders in the blood bath of the collapsing tribal compact. Zolzaya's mother rallied the survivors and put her and her sisters in command of the tribes warriors. Over the next several seasons Zolzaya rose to promince as a commander, reknowned for leading lightning raids and audatious all or nothing gambits. Under her leadership her tribe has become the central power on the southern plains. With their heartland secure the time is right for a representitive of the tribe to come south and make formal alligence to the Emperor, a move which will vastly strengthen the tribe, both diplomatically and material in Imperial weapons and trade goods. ____________________________________________________________________________ PERSONALITY Zolzaya is firey and brash, almost reckless. She is overconfident, ambitious and ruthless. She has a concept of honor peculiar to horsethieves and steppe raiders. ____________________________________________________________________________ MOTIVATION AND OUTLOOK Zolzaya wants to make her submission to the Emperor and get back north as quickly as she can before the other tribes, or worse her sisters, get out of control. ____________________________________________________________________________ MISC ...

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I stood and took his hand. I felt a hint of irritation from Julius but ignored it. We stood and headed out into the gardens, passing through the impressive marble arches and out onto the lawns. We spoke for a few minutes about architecture and history, that is to say, Hadrian talked, I simply didn't know enough to contribute beyond a few appropriate noises. There was no doubt we were still in range of any number of vox sniffers and cameras but that couldn't be helped. We wove our way through one of the hedge mazes.

"It's not technically a maze," I said, for want of being able to contribute something.

"Hmmm," Hadrian enquired, pausing to look at the foliage around us.

"It's a labaryinth," I explained, "there is only a single path to the center. So long as we walk it we will arrive there." Hadrian nodded and I got the impression he was thinking beyond a simple feature of landscaping. I paused, laying a hand on his arm. He turned to face me and I leaned in close and pressed our lips together. Hadrian responded to the kiss, first hesitantly and then with more enthusiasim. I wrapped my arms around him and drew him downwards until we lay on the stoney path between the hedgerows. Then I used my psy. It was an old trick, maybe the oldest I knew and I could manage it with the merest flick of my will. If there were an alpha level psyker in the house they would have heard it, but if the enemy had an alpha level mind in there we were already sunk.

We stood in a wavy reflection of the of the chamber Jezebel had taken me to. The objects themselves were clear as I was expending more energy to focus on them.

"Jezebel at least is part of what is going on here," I thought\said. I hesitated for a moment. I didn't know how Hadrian might react to what I was going to say.

"For some reason Jezebel seems to think I am on her side, perhaps an agent of offworld associates," I told him, rushing a bit over an uncomfortable admission.

"I have no idea why, but I played along," I told him, pointing to artifact she had called the Account. It was rendered in almost exact precision, down to the way the light had fallen on the reflective material. Our imagined overhead lights changed to reflect what I had seen in the tablet.

"I told her they were missing a key, she got very interested and I told her I was looking for it, nothing more. She suspected you of being from the Ordos, I told her you were a Navy officer who had been tapped by the Arbites so she wouldn't kill you," I rushed along, conveying as much as I could in our brief mental link.

A Thousand Legends ~ Sundered Veil

Zolzaya Togtuun

Zolzaya Togtuun

Time is like an arrow. Its better if you have more and it hurts like a bitch when it hits you.

---

___________________________________ P R O F I L E Age: 23 ... Race: Folk ... Sex: Female ... Height: 5'6 ... Weight ... Level: 1 (All players start at level 1.) Health Points Constitution 24 ___________________________________ I N V E N T O R Y .. ____________________________________ E Q U I P M E N T - Recurve bow - Cavalry Sabre and whicker shield. Cavalry Spear - Leathers (If inapplicable leave blank or mark as NA.) ____________________________________ A T T R I B U T E S Points: 12 (These points are meant to be distributed among the six attributes below. This is to be removed from the CS after points have been distributed. Remember to account for racial bonuses. Do not forget to show your work next to each ability regarding points added and subtracted!) Might: 10 +1 + 2 13 Dexterity: 10 +1 + 4 15 Perception: 10 +1 + 2 13 Wisdom: 10 +1 11 Charisma: 10 +2 12 Constitution: 10 + 2 12

____________________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE A wirey muscular woman from the Huafen plain. Dark of hair and weathered from long seasons in the saddle on the unforgiving plains. She was considered a beauty once, but while young for a Folk, the hardship of tribal life has begun to steal the blush of youth from her cheeks. ____________________________________________________________________________ BACKSTORY Zolzaya was born into a generations long interncine struggle for control of her tribe. Her grandfather was a great chief who united most of the tribes by marriage and war. Unfortunately all those marriages left an awful lot of heirs when the old man finally died. His concern for keeping all of his various wives happy meant that no clear successor was evident when the Old Bandit finally rode off to the great wind in the sky. The tribal gathering to elect a new leader deadlocked endlessly and eventually broke down into a series of running battles which snowballed into nearly four years of tribal warfare. Zolzaya's tribe lost most of their male leaders in the blood bath of the collapsing tribal compact. Zolzaya's mother rallied the survivors and put her and her sisters in command of the tribes warriors. Over the next several seasons Zolzaya rose to promince as a commander, reknowned for leading lightning raids and audatious all or nothing gambits. Under her leadership her tribe has become the central power on the southern plains. With their heartland secure the time is right for a representitive of the tribe to come south and make formal alligence to the Emperor, a move which will vastly strengthen the tribe, both diplomatically and material in Imperial weapons and trade goods. ____________________________________________________________________________ PERSONALITY Zolzaya is firey and brash, almost reckless. She is overconfident, ambitious and ruthless. She has a concept of honor peculiar to horsethieves and steppe raiders. ____________________________________________________________________________ MOTIVATION AND OUTLOOK Zolzaya wants to make her submission to the Emperor and get back north as quickly as she can before the other tribes, or worse her sisters, get out of control. ____________________________________________________________________________ MISC ...

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Julius continued chattering to Hadrian as Jezebel fell into step beside me. She was somewhat taller than me and she had arressted her aging somewhat later than most. I wondered if that was an oversight, an accident of circumstance, or she had deliberately chosen to look older. She moved gracefully with all the assurance of a scion of the nobility.

"I suspect my brother was more interested in luring you out here than your ...friend," she said with a slight snicker. I offered a superior smile.

"With all due respect Lady Jezebel, there is nothing on this planent worth me putting myself at risk, either physical or social," I replied somewhat snootily. Jezebel smilke and lay a hand on my arm, slowing me down and allowing Hadrian and Julius to draw ahead.

"I admire a woman who knows her own worth, may I tell you something? It is a matter of pleasant fraternal confidence."

I was standing in a parlor. Artifact sat atop marble plinths, some of them suspended by suspensor fields, others wrapped in milky void shields. Jezebel was watching me with an arched eyebrow, looking at me with more respect than she had when we had met. I couldn't recall how I had gotten here and the stone in the necklace was cool against my skin.

"We don't have much time before we are missed," Jezebel said. Her accent was changed in some indefinable way. It was hard for me to track accents, I travelled so much that all Gothic kind of blended together in my mind.

"Queen Mab," I said, the words coming into my head unbidden. Jezebel smiled, very good, I doubt one in a hundred could have picked up the accent. I shrugged unable to process what was happening. Had Hadrian done something to me? I couldn't imagine it. Had Jezebel? Clearly but she couldn't have messed with my mind without me noticing the psionic residues. I felt very cold, I knew I was in danger.

"Is your minder with the Inquisition?" she asked so bluntly I nearly stumbled. I shook my head.

"Will it cause problems if I have him killed?" she pressed. My mind whirled in freeform, drawing loops that connected to nothing. Lacking any other option I fell back on my familiar instincts and told the first lie I could think of.

"Yes. He is a senior operative with the Adeptus Arbities, if he dies they will come looking for you, I didn't know what I was walking into," I temporized. Jezebel nodded as though that all made sense. I brought my heart rate down under control, a scam was something I could run, even if I didn't understand what was happening.

"You have come about the Account?" she asked. I nodded again, feeling the metaphorical quicksand growing deeper. She lead me over to one of the plinths. A piece of metal the size of a dinner plate sat atop it on a piece of red velvet. It was shiny and chrome and carved with the same strange runes I had seen on the artifact Hadrian had shown me. I glanced over it reading only gibberish. I pretended to read it. Jezebel was obviously waiting for me to say something but I studied it for a long minute. Inwardly I steeled myself.

"I take it you are missing the Key?" I asked. Her eyes widened slightly.

"By the warp you can read it? You really are an Adept then?" she asked.

"Just a dabbler," I replied with more truth and modesty than she could have imagined.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I had opted for a suit of soft leather in various shades of gray. It wasn't quite a body glove, but it seemed a good combination between the stylish and the practical. Each exposed edge was impressed with various verses of the prayer of Saint Euphratii in gold stitching. It was a common patron among academics, the woman who had documented the Crusade, the greatest expansion of human knowledge in history. The ensemble was finished off with a large floppy hat of woven fabric and a pair of jet black boots with heels that would have been a little impractical at a dig site. The jewelry Hadrian had prepared was secure. After a brief discussion we had decided that I should carry a compact snub. It was an elegant weapon, long and thin with a single powerpack that would exhaust after a half dozen shots, the kind of weapon a noblewoman might carry for personal defense. Given the unpleasantness at the ball, it seemed unlikely anyone would think twice about me taking precautions.

The flyer roared up into the mountains, the air growing cooler and the manicured agri-farms below giving way to wild forests of twisted pines. We headed up a long valley between spur like ranges with glistening caps of white snow. The Ignatius family owned vast swaths of land in the Seaward mountains, their ancestral seat high in the mountains surrounded by hundreds of miles of wilderness that formed a private hunting reserve. As we approached the top of the valley the forest thinned into manicured orchards of cherry and ploin trees. A great house stood at the peak where the two ranges met, four wings in a neo-gothic style around a central spire. The intersities of the cross were filled with complicated looking gardens of hedges and rock gardens. We called ahead on the vox and saw a guard of men in silver and sky blue armor tramp out of the main doors of the house to form an honor guard on either side of a field of crushed rock that served as a landing field. Urien goosed the throttle and brought us in at a sedate pace that was more worthy of a limosine driver than a backwater barbarian.

Ignatius himself stood on the steps as I climbed out of the flier, his long black and gold coat billowing in the reflected down draft of our lift fans. His radiant smile dimmed slightly as he saw Hadrian emerging behind me.

"Welcome Lady Von Morganstern," he called over the wind rush, "and... to you also... of course."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

The Next Day

"This is pre-xanthanite iconography based on the..." I stumbled, peering at the arcane text before me.

"Based on variations in straigraphic matrix," Lazarus prompted. I lay the book down and rubbed my eyes. The tech adept had been giving me a crash course in the world's xeno-archaology. Some of the material was actually interesting, but the goal of the exercise was to equip me with enough jargon that I could pass myself off as an Adept. Lazarus had secured me the marjor writings on the pre-xanthanite tombs and taken me through them in exhaustive detail. The human story was more interesting than the xenos one to my mind, the various archaeological authorities in this sub-sector seemed to hate each other with a passion only present on battlefields and in academic discourse. Bachman hated Tellus, Tellus hated Vorkosigan, Epienhiemer hated Vorkosigan, all arguing back and forth about the particulars of a civilization that had died before the Great Crusade began.

"Straigraphic matrix," I muttered, tucking the information away in my mind. It seemed unlikely I would be able to convince a real expert, but assuming I just dealt with amatuers, I could probably vomit enough buzzwords to sound credible.

"Do you think it will be a problem that my invitation is just for one?" I asked Hadrian. He snorted.

"Probably won't make him too happy, I'm sure he was looking to get the lovely Adept alone," the Inquisitor admitted. "But he can hardly complain if I properly chaperone you, not without making a scene anyway."

"And what exactly are we looking for?" I asked, my eyes scanning the dataslate one more time.

The Sunday Group

@PatientBean Feel better!

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Our lips met and I felt my body melting against his. Warmth flooded my body and fluttered at my heart as his hands tightened around my back gripping me closer. The smell of him filled my nostrils, an odd combination of sweat and leather. The earlier scent of cologne was gone, overwhelmed by the sharp tang of cordite. Our tongues twined and our steps faltered. My body tingled with excited energy and...

The door banged open and Lazarus marched in clutching a handful of dataslates and a number of bundled velum documents marched in. If he noticed the fact that Hadrian had me pushed up against the couch in a passionate embrace he didn't mention anything. He crossed to the table and dumped the arm load of files onto the dining room table with a clatter. Hadrian glared daggers at the former Skitarii and gently disentangled himself from me.

"I didn't realise your warning would be needed so soon," I said a trifle tartly.

"Your patent of nobility," Lazarus said, "apparently they have laws mandating that property won in duels passes quickly. The chief Arbitor is down there after the attack on the ball."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I laughed and set the ploin down on the table. Well it wasn't as though we were playing things safe as it was. I stood up and crossed to whre Hadrian stood, taking his offered hand.

"I know I'm not... you know, whatever you dangerous Inquisition types are used to," I told him. It wasn't as though I had ever done anything heretical but I didn't doubt that some of the psi-picting I had done for various clients perhaps pushed the limits. Ironically the most depraved of clients tended to the the Eclesiarchy itself, some of those private chapel rooms were really something.

"And I don't pretend to understand your mission," I told him, of course I understood the general mission of the Inquisition, or at least I thought I did at the time, lessons on that were in my future, but the exact nature of his investigation here was still a mystery to me. He laid his hand on my waist and I took up my position and began the steps of the dance to an imagined orchestra.

"But I promise I will do nothing to risk it, or risk you."