Penny

Maverick Malediction

Calliope would have admitted to having her doubts about the Brass Lamp. Ibrahim’s suggestion for what constituted a nice place, might have been closer to a camel stable than a luxurious rooming house, his vision being limited by his upbringing. Fortunately this was not the case. The Brass Lamp was a marble shod building set back from the street by an elaborate garden of fragrant date palms and large tamarind trees interspaced with smaller shrubs and flowers. Colorful birds flitted from place to place, twittering as they went. A fence of stone pillars and bronze kept the public back, as did two large hermes, local statues with elephantine heads and colossal phalluses, overlain with charms to keep out scrying and other hostile magics. A pair of heavily muscled men, completely hairless with oiled muscles that looked like they could crack stone and certainly cold crack necks stood on guard. They wore nothing save loin clothes and stern expressions. At first it seemed they might not admit the two apparent vagabonds until Neil produced several gold coins from their horde and jingled the rest meaningfully. The two conferred in their own language, not the one the spell had wormed from Ibrahim’s mind, and then called back to the house. A few moments later a figure emerged dressed in gold accented white with a blood red sash. It was so androgynous that Calliope couldn’t assign a sex to it until it spoke.

“I am Rashim,” he said in a voice that suggested he might have been a eunuch, “I apologize for the delay, there are so many refugees in the city we cannot be too careful.”



“Will you be requiring a room patrons, or are you simply hoping to avail yourselves of the baths?” he asked tactfully, though it was clear that a bath was high on his priority list.

“We will take a room, a nice once,” Calliope told him, “and a bath sounds divine.”





As it happened Calliope found it was her sensibilities that were somewhat paraocial. The Brass Lamp had two wings, one for men and one for women, that were set aside for bathing. The baths consisted of large heated pool, thirty feet across at the widest points with steaming hot water pumped in from below. They were ingeniously engineered so that while the water at the center was almost painfully hot, it grew cooler as one moved to the edges. Beautiful mosaics of sporting nymphs and mermaids were picked out in bright tile, along with hunting scenes and what might have been some kind of religious art. Small submerged benches with palms around the lips provided private nooks in which to bathe and a wall surrounded the whole edifice to ward off prying eyes. Though it was open to the sky, Calliope suspected that it could be covered with canvas if threatened by the infrequent rains. It all smelled of green plants and clean water, with only the merest hint of soap and perfume. Several other women were bathing and chatted quite freely as they splashed. By both temperament and culture they gave her a wide berth.



Feeling much refreshed after a long hour in the water Calliope emerged and wrapped herself in a soft towel to find Rashim waiting for her, an identical obsequious smile on his face.

“I have taken the honor of preparing some clothing for you while your own is washed,” he told her. Calliope’s eyes cut to her pack where the spell book bulged in a side pouch. Protective spells or not she could feel it there, as yet undisturbed.

“I noted that you are a practitioner,” the eunuch said tactfully.



“Be comforted that none shall harm you or interfere with your possessions here. We are bonded by the Seven Princes to provide such service,” he told her. Calliope had no idea what the Seven Princes might be but nodded as though she understood before turning her attention to the clothing provided.

“Shall I have the servants dress you? I note that you are a foreigner and our garb might seem strange to you,” he said smoothly.

“Very well,” Calliope told him.

Half an hour later she was escorted into their palatial room. Wrapped from ankle to head in silk. Each layer of silk was of a purple so deep it was almost black and fringed with a slightly different pattern in cloth of gold, pinned in several places by bejeweled fasteners set with amethyst and other semi precious stones. She wore a veil and hood with a net of gold across her face hung with small moonstones that glittered in the light.



“This seems a little extravagant for what we are paying,” Calliope suggested as she examined herself in the mirror.

“The cost is significant,” Rashim disagreed, “but in truth to host a practitioner is both a duty and an honor, it will add luster to our house. We would not displease the Seven Princes for the sake of a few baubles.”

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Despite the crowding below the Crimson Wyrvern did have rooms to let. Most of the crowd, as Bonnie sonorously informed them, were locals who came to drink but had their own places to sleep. Given Beren’s meager supply of coins they opted for a single room which turned out to contain a down mattress a small table with a pair of stools and a somewhat lumpy looking couch. The window looked as though paint had closed the frame forever several generations back and dust had taken care of the rest. During her time at the Mythrim Jocasta had slept on a palette behind the counter at her small shop, so ironically this was something of an upgrade.



“I’ll take the couch,” Beren offered, eliciting a knowing snicker from Bonnie who, mercifully, didn’t wish them a goodnight. Jocasta clambered gratefully into bed and promptly fell asleep, the stress of a long day filled with almost lethal encounters obviously taking a toll, he soft snoring filling the room almost immediately.



Canithrid screamed his defiance as his brothers dragged him from the wooden hall of Omynith, spittle flying from his lips as his father glared imperiously down at him, the circlet of broken thigh bones making him look far more slender and far taller than a man should be, even with the Cloak of the Moon Bear around his shoulders. The old man had long favored his younger sons over his eldest, having despised his first wife as a seeress and witch woman he had been forced to marry due to clan politics. Canithrid was a constant reminder of the woman and her weird warnings that his ambitions would be as ash and his death would be an inglorious one. The young man had her look, the fine gold hair, the strong brow and the eyes of the icy north. The old man spoke the words, denying his son before the stars and the Blood Moon, cursing him to wander forever as a beggar as his brothers dragged him to the edge of the stream. The youngest brother Glynfian, only sixteen but already cruel and filled with hate, picked up the stone mallet that was customarily used from breaking open clams. Two of the older brothers stretched his right leg over the breaking stone, shards of clam shell cutting deep into the skin. Glyfian lifted the hammer and swung it down with all his might…


Jocasta awoke with a sneeze that cleared dust from her sinus and made her hiccup ever so slightly. She sat up to see if she had disturbed Beren but he remained supine upon the couch, the soft tremble of breath across his lips visible in the fraction of moonlight that managed to penetrate the window. Jocasta lay back and tried to go back to sleep, but found oblivion elusive as she tossed and turned. She wasn’t the type to sleep long hours, her mind too active to allow her to sleep deeply for more than a few hours at a stretch, even after a few cups of wine. She lay in bed staring at the rafters and thinking. Eventually she got up and headed down to the kitchen. It was lit only by the coals of the cook fire. The innkeeper was curled up on a platte beside a barrel of ale, snoring like an angry thunderstorm. There were more sounds of snoring coming from the common room beyond, where those who chose not to pay for a room slept where they could, under tables or against the walls. Jocasta found what she was looking for against the far wall. The apron which Bonnie had been wearing. Crossing over to it she examined it closely and removed three strawberry blonde hairs she found there. Her primary goal accomplished she took a small bottle of brandy from beneath the bar and lay one of her few coins in its place. Carefully she wrapped the hairs around the neck of the bottle and then thrust it into a pouch before creeping back up the stairs. Reaching the room she pushed open the door, frowning that she had forgotten to close the door when her precious manuscript was…



There was only a fraction of a second warning as something dark and solid whistled through the air. Jocasta epped and dived forward, the only direction her momentum would allow, past a shadowed figure whom she suddenly realized was in the room. The cudgel bounced of the ancient plasterboard with scarcely a sound. Jocasta grabbed her shortsword from beside the bed where she had left it. Irritatingly the scabbard clung to it and she swept it like a club at her attacker, who deflected it with his own weapon with a deft flick that sent it spinning from her hand. Desperately she grabbed one of the stools and swung it at the man with all her might. He caught one leg in his palm with a meaty slap.

“I’m only here for him, but I can do you too if you shout,” the stranger grated. He held the stool between them effortlessly.

“Rather a pathetic effort,” he sneered, sensing his superiority and drawing his club back. Three of the legs coiled around his arm like the tentacles of an octopus. He let out a shriek of disgust and realed back. The fourth leg struck him across the nose like a man disciplining a pup.

“What the fuck!” he shouted in horror, staggering back and trying to shake free the animate chair that was clinging to his arm and batting at his face. Incredible Beren was still sound asleep, untroubled by the ruckus going on around him.

“B…” Jocasta began to shout but was cut off as the intruder swung his arm, chair and all, like a club, she ducked under the blow and one leg of the chair grabbed at a rafter, momentarily pinning the thugs arm. Jocasta jumped onto his back, wrapping her arms around the intruders neck and her legs around his waist.



“I will fucking kill you!” the thug roared, ripping his arm away from the rafter with such force that the leg holding him to it ripped free. It waggled organically for a moment and then stiffened into inanimate wood once more.

“I hear that alot!” Jocasta shouted as the second stool jumped to its feet and charged across the room like a newborn foal. The intruder kicked it into the wall as he spun, trying to dislodge Jocasta. Lacking better options, she bit his neck as hard as she could. He roared in pain and grabbed for her with his free hand, getting a hold of her hair and yanking painfully, throwing her over his head just as the charging stool reached him. Somehow it had gotten a hold of the leg of the first stool and whacked the would-be assassin hard across the shin with its improvised weapon. Jocasta landed on Beren’s lap, driving one knee into his chest to break her fall and driving the air from his lungs.



“Give him one for me!” she shouted in breathless encouragement as the stool as it continued to bludgeon away with its baton.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

“Huh,” Jocasta said, giving Dirk the side eye as they coasted in to the beach with a crunch. She reminded herself there was a lot she didn’t know about her putative partner and his history with Neo-Mecca was far from uneventful. That might or might not be a problem, though this was hardly the time to think too deeply on it.



They were clearly getting closer to the heart of this hap hazard little party now. Jocasta had sent a drone to watch the port, which was separated from the communications island by about a kilometer of open water. That was a sensible security precaution as it made it difficult for someone to take control of the docks and the communications hub before the alarm was raised. These yahoos, whether by luck or good judgment, had obviously managed it. The feed from the port was a little problematic. A dark gray dragonfly drone, one of the small portion of her fleet hijacked by Cygi, was dog fighting with her own but the pair of them managed to make up a decent feed between them. Barges were beginning to arrive at the docks laden down with credit chips, liquor, jewelry, paintings, bedding, and anything else anyone might think of carrying off. Teams of men were hauling the loot from the boats to a docked luxury liner registered as The Lady Godiva. These men were not dressed in armor, but a mixture of clothing that ranged from the gaudy to the ridiculous. One man was dragging a marble statue while wearing a suit of white silk with a half dozen pea cock feathers sprouting from a kaftan. It was far too small for him and the seams at the arms had burst open. Another man wore a fantastic dress of nebula silk, its flaring red fabric really setting off his stubble and prison tattoos. Jocasta shook her head unable to credit it.



“It dosen’t look like our friends are planning on being here in…”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Dirk yelled and shoved her bodily over the side before diving on the beach after her. His armored form landed atop her, arms and knees bent so as not to crush her. A trail of smoke and fire ripped from a grove of palm trees and smashed into the airboat with a cataclysmic boom. Pieces of debris pinged musically off Dirks armor as the heat and overpressure passed them by. He stood up and started firing his blasters at the grove, which was now on fire as a result of the backblast of the missile which had evidently been concealed there Jocasta spat out some stand and started to run up the beach towards the cover of the expensive landscaping, her drones zipping along in front of her in a flying V. A man wearing an armored chest plate stepped out from behind a fountain and swung a rifle to bear. One of the drones cut past him, ducking its wings in as it went so that the molecules thin wing membranes cut across his cheeks like flying shrapnel. He yelled and swatted at his face before the blue beam of Jocasta’s pistol removed cut and face in a sizzling blast of energy. Across a manicured lawn she saw a half dozne men burst from the main communications building. One of them was piloting a suit of armor so heavy it might have qualified as a mech, each leg easily as thick as a full grown garamon tree and as wide across the chest as a dumpster. The air split as he fired the machine guns attached to each arm in the air, raining down flaming palm fronds and coconuts.



“huh…” Jocasta temporised, and then turned and ran back down the beach as fast as her legs could carry her.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

“Huh,” Jocasta said, giving Dirk the side eye as they coasted in to the beach with a crunch. She reminded herself there was a lot she didn’t know about her putative partner and his history with Neo-Mecca was far from uneventful. That might or might not be a problem, though this was hardly the time to think too deeply on it.



They were clearly getting closer to the heart of this hap hazard little party now. Jocasta had sent a drone to watch the port, which was separated from the communications island by about a kilometer of open water. That was a sensible security precaution as it made it difficult for someone to take control of the docks and the communications hub before the alarm was raised. These yahoos, whether by luck or good judgment, had obviously managed it. The feed from the port was a little problematic. A dark gray dragonfly drone, one of the small portion of her fleet hijacked by Cygi, was dog fighting with her own but the pair of them managed to make up a decent feed between them. Barges were beginning to arrive at the docks laden down with credit chips, liquor, jewelry, paintings, bedding, and anything else anyone might think of carrying off. Teams of men were hauling the loot from the boats to a docked luxury liner registered as The Lady Godiva. These men were not dressed in armor, but a mixture of clothing that ranged from the gaudy to the ridiculous. One man was dragging a marble statue while wearing a suit of white silk with a half dozen pea cock feathers sprouting from a kaftan. It was far too small for him and the seams at the arms had burst open. Another man wore a fantastic dress of nebula silk, its flaring red fabric really setting off his stubble and prison tattoos. Jocasta shook her head unable to credit it.



“It dosen’t look like our friends are planning on being here in…”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Dirk yelled and shoved her bodily over the side before diving on the beach after her. His armored form landed atop her, arms and knees bent so as not to crush her. A trail of smoke and fire ripped from a grove of palm trees and smashed into the airboat with a cataclysmic boom. Pieces of debris pinged musically off Dirks armor as the heat and overpressure passed them by. He stood up and started firing his blasters at the grove, which was now on fire as a result of the backblast of the missile which had evidently been concealed there Jocasta spat out some stand and started to run up the beach towards the cover of the expensive landscaping, her drones zipping along in front of her in a flying V. A man wearing an armored chest plate stepped out from behind a fountain and swung a rifle to bear. One of the drones cut past him, ducking its wings in as it went so that the molecules thin wing membranes cut across his cheeks like flying shrapnel. He yelled and swatted at his face before the blue beam of Jocasta’s pistol removed cut and face in a sizzling blast of energy. Across a manicured lawn she saw a half dozne men burst from the main communications building. One of them was piloting a suit of armor so heavy it might have qualified as a mech, each leg easily as thick as a full grown garamon tree and as wide across the chest as a dumpster. The air split as he fired the machine guns attached to each arm in the air, raining down flaming palm fronds and coconuts.



“Umm…” Jocasta temporised, and then turned and ran back down the beach as fast as her legs could carry her.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

“Beren the Cursed,” Jocasta murmured before popping on of the berries into her mouth. Bonnie’s assessment was correct, though they leaned hard towards the tartness that was just a counterpoint in a ripe strawberry.



“Or should it be Beren the Accursed?” she mused, “never quite sure which of those is grammatically correct. Beren didn’t dain to answer that, contenting himself instead by tucking in to the baked potato that had been served on a wooden board, slathered with butter, salt, chives and what was probably the scrapings of the morning’s bacon. The wine was sour and astringent but was no worse than Jocasta had drank elsewhere. She opened her notebook and began to review the inscription she had copied down, crabbing notes into the margins with a small stick of charcoal as she went. It appeared to be part of a saga relating to a young king who sought the aid of an ancient and powerful witch to regain his patrimony from his wicked brothers.

“Jocasta,” Beren said in the tone of someone repeating a name for the third or fourth time. A point that was underscored by the fact that he was snapping his fingers in front of her face.



“Whaa…” she mumbled around a mouthful of berries.

“You have to stop and chew at some point,” he pointed out. Jocasta looked down at her cheeks, crossing her eyes, and noticed they were puffed out like a chipmunks, so absorbed had she been in her study that she had simply been mechanically shoveling them into her mouth. She rubbed her nose, leaving a smut of charcoal on the very tip.

“Wrright,” she mumbled and made several deliberate efforts at chewing before swallowing the mouthful convulsively.

“Sorry,” she apologized, attempting to wipe the charcoal with the back of her hand but succeeding only in spreading the mark across her face. Several of the locals were watching them with interest, not all of it welcoming.

“I was asking you if you wanted any more food,” Beren segued neatly. Jocasta hadn’t touched her potato as yet so she picked it up and took several bites, remembering to chew this time. It was a little dry and stringy, but wonderfully filling. The innkeeper, a portly man in a greasy smock ambled up to the table with a pitcher of wine in his hand.

“Begging your pardons patrons, but would you be requiring lodging?” he asked uneasily, his eyes darting down to Jocasta’s book.

“And if I might suggest madam, you should put that away, folk round her don’t hold much with people messing with the fairy marks,” he whispered in a sotto voce that probably carried across half the tavern.



“Fairy marks?” Jocasta asked, perplexed, momentarily unable to connect the colloquial term with the ancient writing she was deciphering.

“These aren’t fairy marks. I found them in a t….” she cut off with a squawk as Beren slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent her from admitting to desecrating a tomb in front of a room full of superstitious villagers.

“Point taken, and if you have a room we will take it,” he said quickly, using his free hand to flip the book closed with a thump.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"You get the feeling," Jocasta asked as they passed through the street, ignoring the drifting flakes of snow, "that something bad is going on here?" The black tabarded mercenaries were clearly going out of their way to be seen. Two more of them stood outside a two story stone building with a roof of patchy tile, abrided by wind and weather to show the tar beneath. One man leaned on a halberd, the other was packing a pipe with tobacco that he lit with a taper from a shuttered lantern. Both gave Jocasta a speculative look and regarded Beren with more professional interest. The interior of the Crimison Wyrven was a bustling riot of noise and movement. A bard stood on a table before a fire place, strutting black and forth and belting out what might have been part of the Ballad of Black Cally, his long poulin shoes tipped with bells that the shook to questionable musical accompanyment. A group of sellswords were engaged in what might have been a knife fight or a card game depending on ones point of view, with curses and blows flying in a half dozen different tongues. A pair of farmers were locked in a chess game in the corner, their mastiffs so similar they might have come from the same litter. The bar was a single slab of polished wood with a large redish inclusion in the middle that closely resembled a dragon with its wings coiled around its body. Despite the fact that every nearby surfaces was piled with bottles, barrels and baskets of food and drink, not a single item was sat on the bar.

"Nice place," Jocasta commented in a determined neutral tone.

"I've been in worse," Beren replied.

"Like vountarily?" Jocasta quiered.

"What can I do you for," asked simply the most stunning woman Jocasta had ever seen, in a voice that sounded like someone was strangling a cat with a violin. The contrast was so violent that Jocasta was momentarily disoriented. The barmaid sighed and planted a fist on either side of her hips with a weary look.

"Happens all the time. I'm Bonnie, what can I do you two for?" she asked. The grating voice made Jocasta's eye twitch invoulntarily.

"Melve sent us?" Jocasta tried. The woman's beatuiful lips scowl grew deeper.

"That old drunk owes me two crowns," she carped.

"Sure," Jocasta agreed, making a placating guesture to word off further comment from the human squeezebox.

"Can we get some wine and food please?" she asked, then clapped Beren on the shoulder, "On my friend here."

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"I don't... you know... have any particular place in mind, not yet anyway. One place is more or less as good as another, at least until I get my bearings... or where my bearings would have been a few thousand years ago anyway," Jocasta explained. Beren nodded as though that made total sense. It was incredible to meet a real life dwarf friend, most humans who had close realtionships with the ancient dwarves seemed to inherit some of their laconic nature. She wondered if there were dwarven tomes on the ancient kingdoms. The fact that this barrow was locked behind a dwarf door suggested there might be.

"Iskura is a good place to find artifacts and rumors if nothing else," she continued, "assuming of course we can get out of here without being munched on by the hungry dead."

"You certainly have a gift for looking on the bright side," Beren replied sarcastically. Jocasta hopped up onto a raised slab of stone high enough that she could kick her booted feet and plucked one of the coins she had stolen from her pouch and examined it.

"Blood King Argante," she said, turning the coin so Beren could see the slope jawed profile.

"This coin is about six thousand years old, or course, who knows how long it was around before it ended up in this tomb?" she mused.

"Fascinating stuff, I don't suppose you have an idea about how to get out of here?" Beren asked. Jocasta looked around the chamber, her eyes following the intricate carvings on the walls. Some phrases she could half understand but it was clearly in some kind of archaic dialects.

"As a matter of fact I do, although it won't be quick."

Jocasta moved around the chamber clockwise while Beren went wittershins, each of them carried one of Jocasta's notebooks and a stick of charcoal, merticulously copying the inscriptions onto the pages of precious vellum. Jocasta muttered about the virtues of papyrii as she worked, but she hadn't exactly been given time to prepare for her expdition before fleeing Andred one step ahead of a long list of angry creditors.

"Did you hear that?" Beren asked, pausing to glance up one of the passageways from which a faint clicking sound was now audible. It was eerily reminiscent of bone rattling on bone.

"We are out of time," Jocasta declared as the sound began to grow louder. She stuffed her book into her pouch and went to the center of the room. She pulled a stick of white charcoal from her pouch and began to scratch a circle of sigils on the ancient flagstone.

"What do you want me to do with the book?" Beren asked as Jocasta sat cross legged in an expanding circle of sigils. She looked up at him in apparent confusion.

"Just put it in your pack or whatever," she instructed. It was Beren's turn to look confused.

"Don't you need it for whatever spell you are working?" he inquired, casting a wary look towards the tunnel from which the clacking of bones and the rattle of rusty weapons was growing louder. Jocasta shook her head.

"It's just for my research," she told him absently. Beren stared at her in amazement.

"YOu mean you had me spend six hours copying down inscriptions rather that trying to escape?!" he demanded.

"Well, it would be irresponsible otherwise," Jocasta replied defensively. She paused and observed her work, absently sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as as made a few last minute modifications. The marching tread of skeletal feet was joined by a foetid stench of the grave. Beren hefted his axe and stepped into position between Jocasta and the passageway. She stood up and began to chant, raising both hands above her head.

"Whatever you are doing you had better..." Beren began. As he spoke a phalanx of walking corpses errupted from the tunnel, wicked spears and rust billhooks brandished. Jocasta's voice grew panicked but her chant didn't waver even as Beren leaped forward and clove one of the archaic corpses in half, scattering bones and rotting cloth in all directions before being forced back in a series of desperate parries.

"I think we should..." he began to shout but he was drowned out as Jocasta shrieked the last word of her spell. The sigils light with green white light and leaped up into the celiing, vanishing rather anti-climactically. Beren cast a wild eyed look over his shoulder.

"That's it?!" he shouted, batting away an axe blade and breaking the jaw of one of the creatures in a spray of teeth.

"Well..." Jocasta began and then the roof exploded. Dust and stone blocks flew in all directions, shattering statues and crushing several of the draughr in the process. The survivors surged around their fallen foes, taking advantage of Beren's shock to exit the mouth of the tunnel and begin to encircle the warrior. Thick white roots, each the thickness of a man's trunk stabbed downwards out of the ongoing landslide like the fingers of a giant, each one driving a corpse into the ground in a spray of bone fragments. Before either Beren or Jocasta could do more than gawp the roots pulled tight around them and yanked them up into the crumbling ceiling, squishing them together as they were ripped upwards through the heart of the mountain. Rock and soil ground past outside the protective cocoon, half falling and half being pulled through the debris.

"Isthisagoodthing?!" Beren mubmled, his face squeezed tight against Jocasta's left breast in their undignified sprawl.

"Sort of!" Jocasta shouted. The spell had been cast, but it was well beyond her control at this point. Working magic within the magical echo chamber of the tomb had been a risky move, allowing her to tap into far more power than she had any hope of controling. With a shocking suddeness they burst into bright sunlight, the roots around them opening like a child tossing a ball. Jocasta tumbled end over end, clinging to Beren as they cartwheeled thought the air for long moments before she landed on top of her erstwhile partner a moment after he hit the snow cover. They slid down the snow in a heap as stones fell around them like rain, the rumble of the destruction behind them only growing. They hit a snow bank against a fallen elm tree with a crunch that shook a hundred pounds of snow from nearby trees. Jocasta pushed herself to her feet, spitting out snow. By chance she was facing towards the hill they had just tumbled down. The great tree at its crest was attempting to shove its roots back down into the hill, but the damage had been done. Snow and stone were slumping down the hill and gathering speed, developing into a full fledged avalance.

"Definitely coming down on the side of 'mixed blessing'," Jocasta said, making quotation marks with her fingers as the ruin of the hill and the barrow raced down on them like an unstopable tide.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta cleared her throat with embarssment. The idea of studying ancient magics seemed alot less problematic when one wasn't trapped in an ancient web of necromantic spells. It had to be admitted though, that despite their predicament, she was fascinated by the crumbling stonework around them. Her eyes tried to memorize every frieze and inscription she passed.

"I studied," she admitted carefully, "at the College of Magic in Andred." It was a crime to suggest you were a student at the Mythrim if you weren't offically on the student roles. Students had ancient rights included in the university charter, immunity from civil prosecution, immunity from pole tax, liscence to possess certain illicit texts and artifacts which would have been illegal for the lay man. Such rights were valuable enough that interlopes often pretended, and usually to their peril as none were more zealous in rooting out imposters than the College Provosts. Jocasta had endured her shares of run ins with them herself, though she was cunning enough and lucky enough to avoid being caught in her occasional lapses.

"They have some tomes on the history of the North. Vague rumors really of the Pale King and his seven Lost Knights. Stories about the Tower of a Thousand Teeth, the Circle of Twelve, the Pillars of Can Berath," she explained, her voice taking on the dreamy quality that it always did when recounting the old tales.

"The more I looked into it though the more I discovered that they didn't really know anything beyond folk tales. Even the magic they used up here is all but unknown. I found bits and pieces in ancient tomes and a surprising amount in the confessions of various hedgewitches but its pretty clear that no one has ever really studied it," she went on.

"I thought I'd be the first, who knows, maybe make my name and my fortune while I'm at it," she added with a giggle.

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils