Penny

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Of course," Jocasta agreed, so relived to not be facing charges of murder, horse theft, public indecency, or consorting with ye olde power of darkness that she was willing to agree to just about anything.

"We are going to Iskura anyway as we have made no secret of," she continued. It wasn't a secret though she honestly couldn't remember if they had actually mentioned it to anyone. The Master nodded his head thoughtfully, apparently considering this happy circumstance and trying to decide if he could trust them.

"Well judging from the horses you rode in on..." he began.

"Allegedly rode in on," Jocasta interjected, brushing clandestinely at a horse hair that was stuck to the gray fabric of her trousers. The Master gave her a long suffering look.

"Allegedly rode in on, you are no friends of the Leo Mortis. It seems I have to take what chances fate deals me," he sighed before reaching up and lifting a piece of paper. He dipped his quill and added a quick post script before sprinkling sand and blowing softly to finish drying it.

"I've asked Marius to give you a few coins for your troubles when you get there, I've no reason to think he won't do so," he said, rolling the paper and sealing it with some wax from a candle and a press of a seal. He passed it to Beren, evidently thinking better of entrusting it to the flighty scholar.

"If I can give you two pieces of advice," he suggested and, hearing no objection, went on. "Get out of town before your date crashers get back, if I try to protect you it might be just the provocation they need to seize control of the town." Jocasta nodded. That only made sense, though she had a stop to make before they left.

"What was the second piece of advice?" Beren asked solicitously.

"Keep her nose out of trouble and for goodness sake dont let the common folk know you are poking around old ruins, one apocalypse is enough for the year."

___

The lunch rush was just beginning as they reached the Crimson Wyrven. The smell of roasting pork was strong and the tables were beginning to fill up. Beren kept looking over his shoulder, heedful of the Master's advice that it was better to be gone and soon, than to linger.

"Bonnie!" Jocasta called waving the bar maid over. The beautiful young woman trotted over, a plate of empty mugs balanced on one hand.

"You are still in town?" she asked, glancing around nervously for any sign of Leo Mortis interest. It seemed the news of their animosity traveled fast.

"Just about to go," Jocasta assured her, and then reached into her pouch and withdrew the bottle she had stolen from the kitchen the night before. Shiny lead foil had been wrapped around it and soddered around the neck.

"I made this for you," Jocasta said proudly. Bonnie narrowed her eyes.

"You stole it you mean," she objected in here screeching voice but peered at it in interest.

"Take a drink," Jocasta suggested. Bonnie opened her mouth to object, but then shrugged and pulled the stopper free. She took a small sip, frowned to find it contained only water and then took another drink.

"You stole our vodka and replaced it with water?" she asked. Beren's mouth dropped open. Bonnie's voice sounded as clear and lovely as a bell.

"Something like that," Jocasta said with a grin, and then turned and hurried for the door.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I will admit that if I hadn’t been low key convinced I was going to die in the next few hours it might have been more intimidating to come face to face with a conclave worth of Inquisitors. As it was I was pleased to have taken Hadrian’s… advice is too soft a word, direction I suppose to dress more conservatively than was my wont. I had worn, at Lazurus’ suggestion, an armored body glove, one of the pair I had picked up in the few days between the affair at the manor and boarding the ship. It was the less ostentatious of the two, matte black with panels of navy blue ceramite attached at key points. I had worn a dress robe over the top of it, a conservative vaguely ecclesiastical cut that could be easily removed when the shooting started. My hair I had pulled into tight braids which were woven down my back to keep them out of the way and my head covered with a veil of lace which had been worked into scenes from the life of Saint Catherine. When you are a psyker it never hurts to appear like you might be a closet Emperor Botherer. Even so I got looks which ranged from loathing, to desire from the assembled company. Psykers are never well trusted, even in the Inquisition which houses more than any other imperial institution save the Astropathicus itself. The entire Imperium would collapse if it wasn’t for psykers, yet even here we are viewed with suspicion.





The only weapons I carried were the force staff and a las pistol, though Lazarus had assured me that he would have an extra riot gun with him when we made it to the ground. I felt very underdressed in the firearms department. The Inquisitors quibbled for a few minutes about arcane details of deployment which might as well have been tech priest babble as far as I was concerned, and then we split up and headed to separate shuttle craft, the better to spread the risk of destruction as for the tactical advantage it would provide. Remember initiates, don’t put all your Inquisitors in one basket.



I expected the decent to be somewhat similar to shuttle flights I had taken before, despite the long dagger shaped hulls and bulky gun pods of the assault shuttles. I was disabused of this immediately as I was slammed into my seat by several G’s worth of acceleration. I squealed in fright but everyone politely ignored me. The next ten minutes were a combination of crushing G force and sickening maneuver as we powered through the atmosphere and then dropped to the nap of the earth. The fleet had not detected any anti-air craft emplacements, but the surface of the planet gave off so much in the way of strange and unexplained readings, that the tatorium had no confidence that a failure to detect them ment they were absent all together. Our enemy had, afterall had a considerable amount of time and considerable resources to fortify the place. Later, much later, I learned that the Fleet Commander was as much concerned about the mysterious Necron technology as anything the heretics might bring to bear, despite Mechanicum assurances that it was dormant.



The ride was so miserable that when we finally hit the ground it was something of an anti climax. More than anything I was relieved not to have lost my breakfast of akenberry waffles over my nice new dress, stained with lubricant grease and old gun oil as it had become during the decent. I wobbled to my feet a half second before the rear ramp dropped with a clang that was all but obscured by the wind rush that blasted in, carrying with it a scouring cloud of sand and flying particulate. I pulled my hood down over my eyes in time to avoid any serious problem, and I wondered if Saint Catherine had any particular relevance to vision and forethought.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

As manor houses went it was about as underwhelming as the rest of the town. It might have been the twin of the Crimson Wyrven if that establishment had gotten a shade less neglect over the long years. The most interesting thing about it was the armed men who stood behind the walls, invariable looking tired and ill at ease. There weren’t very many of them either, not compared to their fellows out patrolling the town and certainly not compared to the Leo Mortis. Jocasta didn’t know much about fighting in the abstract, but she had a sense that this probably wasn’t the side one would want to pick if it came to blows.



The were escorted into the main building without fanfare, through a surprisingly neat reception area to a receiving room, where a grim faced man with a gold pin of office sat behind a desk. It was covered with neatly stacked papers, laid down with whatever heavy items were to hand, inkpots, knives, a broken plate and the like. Jocasta couldn’t imagine a place like this bred too much paperwork, but apparently she was wrong in that assumption.

“We didn’t kill anyone!” she blurted nervously at the same time that Beren began, “They started it they tried to…” The both fell silent as the man looked up from his paperwork and arched a bushy eyebrow. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief and set his quill aside folding his hands together and steepling his fingers together.

“Good to know I suppose,” he said in a half amused voice, “but that isn’t why I had you escorted here…”

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

“You mean me landing in your lap? It does seem to be happening alot,” Jocasta teased before blinking her eyelashes and vanishing in another puff of smoke, only to reappear a few feet away.

“Hey I wonder if I can…” *POOF* she materialized ten feet in the air, fell a few feet and then vanished again reappearing even higher before letting out a squawk and falling into some bushes.

“Were you just trying to fly?” Beren asked as he made his way over to her to make sure she was ok. Jocasta sat up and rubbed her rump, shaking broken twigs from her hair.

“Well, it was worth a try,” she admitted. It turned out focusing on where you were going was pretty difficult when you were in freefall and hadn’t had time to properly get your bearings. The range of the thing seemed to be fairly limited, but it was still an impressive piece of enchanting. Jocasta who had manufactured her fair share of enchanted trinkets over the years wasn’t even sure she would have known where to start, though she was optimistic that she could learn from studying the thing.

“Maybe if I…” she began but Beren held up a hand for silence, freezing Jocasta mid word.

“Someone is coming,” he said urgently, his senses evidently keener than hers when it came to the ways of the outdoors.



“There is no guarantee the mean us any harm,” Jocasta replied, attempting to convince herself as much as Beren.

“No guarantee they aren’t more assassins, or orcs for that matter,” Beren countered. The sound of horses in the distance was evident to Jocasta now as well and she looked around.

“Should we, hide or something?” she suggested but Beren shook his head.

“A blind man could track us in the snow,” he told her, making a gesture to the line of foot prints that terminated in the churned up area that they currently occupied.



“Ok… so do you have a plan?” she asked. Beren looked at her and then looked at the sarong, a slow smile coming to his face.

“Matter of fact, I do.”



Beren was standing in the open when the three horsemen came into view. They wore the tabards of the Leo Mortis and their mounts steamed in the chill air from hard riding. All three wore broad rimmed conical helms and all had crossbows across the pomels of their saddles, and shields slung from their backs. The way they hefted their weapons as they caught sight of Beren dispeled Jocasta’s hopeful theory that they were simply fellow travelers.



“Stop their foreigner,” the leader said in a raspy voice, “we got some questions for you. Don’t much like folk who pick fights with our brothers.”

“I’m not picking a fight with anyone,” Beren protested, but it seemed to make little difference.

“Where is the bitch?” the second rider asked. Beren recognised him as the drunken soldier he had confronted in the tavern, and any hope of a peaceful resolution swiftly drained away. Beren made in indistinct gesture towards the treeline, where a single set of footprints dinted the snow.

“Answering nature's call,” he replied with a helpless shrug. The leader casually pointed his crossbow at Beren.

“Maybe I’ll go answer it too,” the second rider leered, swinging down from his saddle and adjusting his belt lewdly.



*POOF*



“Sounds good,” Jocata said as she appeared on the back of his vacated horse out of thin air, shivering slightly from the covering of snow that had concealed her.

“Wha…” the mercenary began. The leader began to squeeze the trigger of his weapon but the flat of Jocasta’s sword, for once unsheathed, caught his horse a ringing blow across the rump. The horse reared back in shock, dumped its startled rider and bolted off down the scrubby trail at a flat gallop. The third merc tried to wheel around, but Beren bounded to his side, grabbed him by the leg and yanked him out of the saddle, twisting to turn the fall into a throw which hurled the confused lion into his dismounted comrades, sending all three men crashing to the snow in a jangling heap of armor, shields, and chainmail. With considerably more grace than Jocasta could have managed, Beren swung up into the saddle and wheeled the horse around.

“Enjoy the walk boys,” Jocasta waved, and kicked her heels against her steed’s flank, almost spoiling the moment of bravado by half falling out of the saddle as the beast lurched back down the trail. Grasping its neck she pulled herself upright and headed back towards the main road.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The initial burst of excitement turned to frustration as Jocasta and Beren poked around the basis of various trees. The overnight dusting of snow hadn’t done them any favors, and figuring out which tree was ‘the third tree’ and what it referenced wasn’t easy. After twenty minutes of fruitless searching Jocasta called a halt and poked around until she found a forked yew branch.

“What are you going to do with that?” Beren asked.

“Watch and learn,” Jocasta told him and then plucked two hairs from Beren’s head.

“Ow!” he complained, rubbing at his scalp. Jocasta made a dismissive gesture and produced the assassins not, carefully wrapping it around the base of the branch and tying it in place with the hairs before inscribing several sigils on the bark with the tip of her thumb.

“There,” she said proudly, holding the stick out horizontal. Before Beren could ask what the stick was for the end began to twitch slightly to the left. Jocasta turned and allowed the soft, almost imperceptible tug to guide her to the base of a gnarled ash tree close to the statue. The tip of the twig pulled down hard and touched the soft packed snow. Jocasta crouched down and began to scrape away the icy cover to reveal loosely packed dirt beneath one humped root. She crowed in excitement.

“Enjoying yourself?” Beren asked with a smile. Jocasta nodded vigorously and dug at the dirt with her hand until she struck something solid. It was a few minutes work to reveal a simple wooden box wrapped in oiled cloth. She sat it on the snow and unwrapped it, examining the box carefully for any traps, arcane or otherwise. Unable to find any but unwilling to think that meant there were none to find, she drew her shortsword and used the tip to open the box from arms length. Inside was a bundle of red silk. She exchanged glances with Beren and then reached in and tugged at the fabric. Coins clinked inside and she lifted it free, spilling a handful of gold coins into the bottom half of the box. Her hand tingled against the silk as she shifted it to reveal a sarong.

“Our assassin would have looked just darling in this,” Jocasta observed dryly, “I bet…” She vanished from existence with a pop of inrushing air, only to rematerialise on a tree branch ten feet above. She let out a squawk of shock, overbalanced and then fell into a snowbank with a thump that shook enough snow from the tree above to fall and cover the hole she had made.

“Owww,” her muffled voice came from beneath the snow, unconsciously initiating Beren’s complaint of a few minutes before.

Maverick Malediction

“Well, well you do clean up nice,” Calliope approved as she glanced over Neil’s new attire. He looked every inch the dashing Imran Kaffir who was rumored to have gained the secret of magic for mankind by stealing the food of the Djinn.



“Shame the baths are segregated,” she teased and saw Neil smirk as though he had been having the same thought.

“Quick questions, who are these Seven Princes and are they going to kill us?” Neil asked. Calliope shrugged eloquently, her jewelry jingling slightly as she did so. Shrugging wasn’t a natural gesture to women of this region, to whom absolute control of their shoulders was taught as proper posture from birth.



“I think a cartel of local wizards, probably the greatest in the city. The sultan is in charge but there has to be some sort of hierarchy among the local mages,” she reasoned. The reading she had done had not covered politics in anything like so granular a fashion.

“As for wanting to kill us, I don’t imagine so, showing us a little charity establishes a pecking order,” she explained. It was a fairly common practice. If you accepted gifts from someone, you were effectively acknowledging their superiority to you. That might be a problem if Calliope wanted to marry into the Sultanate, but given her goal was simply to use the place for a base while she hunted for the tombs on their map, it didn’t seem likely to be an issue. Further discussion of political altruism was forestalled by Rashim’s return.

“Come, come, all is prepared,” he informed them. Calliope was hungry, but was ready to beg off attending a formal banquet in favor of something more intimate. Fortunately the issue didn’t arise.

“These are your rooms,” he informed them, opening a teak paneled door to reveal a large open room flanked by rows of stone columns. A bed chamber stood at the end with hanging silks cordening it off. The central section was dominated by a large table and several comfortable looking chairs. Both sides of the central room were flanked by smaller areas, set off by waist high balustrades of intricately carved timber but not by any wall that would block a line of sight to the center. A large table stood in the central room on which brass dishware was stacked, some were covered and clearly hot, others were open to reveal candied dates, fresh fruit, confections and other things Calliope couldn’t name. A large central basket of woven leaves held a heaping of golden rice. Pitchers of wine stood at the four corners of the table, each with the head of a different animal worked in cunning bronze.

“I will leave you now,” Rashid declared, “if you should require anything, you have but to ring.” He made a gesture to a silken rope which lead to a silver bell, and then turned and slipped from the room, closing the door as he went.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta’s face grew uncharacteristically solem in the firelight as she considered the question. For long seconds she didn’t speak merely staring into the flames. Then she let out a deep sigh.

“I have something to tell you too,” she admitted.



“I am the long lost daughter illigitimate of the King of Andred and Calli Black,” she informed him, spreading her arms portentously as she announced it.

“I was born under and ill fated star and my doom stalks me, my enemies hunt me even now. Whole armies are probably out looking for me, not to mention fair haired heroes determined to save me and carry me off to their castles to…” she cut off as Beren shoved her in exasperation.

“Can you be serious for one minute?!” he demanded.

“Unclear,” Jocasta snickered.

“You could get killed just being near me!” he tried again. Jocasta shrugged nonchalantly at the prospect.



“Please, one assassin shows up and it goes to your head. Its sheer dumb luck he didn’t show up to break my kneecaps for all the money I owe the Black Lotus,” she confided. Beren started slightly.

“Wait? What?” he interjected but she continued speaking as though she hadn’t heard.

“Since I’ve met you, I’ve nearly been ripped apart by a barrow wright, bisected by booby traps, crushed by an avalanche,” she began, counting the points off on her fingers.

“Wait that was your…”



“Molested by Mercenaries, which should count twice for alliteration, and fought off an assassin with enchanted furniture,” she continued. Beren’s frown deepened at the mention of the furniture. Jocasta waved dismissively.

“You were asleep for that bit,” she added helpfully, then paused. “I’m pretty sure there was something else…”



“You were almost beheaded by undead and or eaten by orcs?” Beren suggested.

“Damn, how could I forget about the orcs!” Jocasta exclaimed, snapping her fingers.



“Overall I’d say its been a pretty banner day,” she went on.

“Not to mention I made three silver lordlings,” she concluded, flourishing the coins like a street magician about to pull a trick. She rolled the coins across her knuckles for a moment and then the three coins began to bounce into the air and clank into each other in mock combat, the stamped faces mouthing soundless insults before she snatched them out of the air and stuffed them into a pouch.



“I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not going to let the world's smelliest assassin or the Kitty Litter spoil a good thing. “

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Fortunately for Jocasta she had already lost control of the spells animating her attack chairs by the time company arrived. Her scalp was sore and she rubbed her hairline resentfully. Luckily the assassin had mostly been aiming to get her out of the way rather than making a true effort to kill her. The only real risk had been when he had thrown her, and Beren had broken her fall.



“I’m fine,” she told Beren after patting herself down to make sure that was more or less true.

“Gods Below, he is dead!” the innkeeper gasped as he reached the door. Bonnie was close behind covering a gasp. Jocasta moved over to the assassin and lifted his head by the hair, the weight of his body pulling it to an extremely unnatural angle. Everyone collectively winced.

“What?” she asked, then dropped the head so it thudded on the floor eliciting another wince from all and sundry.



“It never hurts to check,” she huffed a little defensively.



“You have killed a man! I must summon the ….” the Innkeeper trailed off. Clearly he was about to say watch, and then realized that meant the Mortus Leo would get involved. His face pantomimed an agony of indecision.



“I think,” Jocasta began, “that maybe this is just a robbery gone wrong and we can chalk it up to natural causes?”

“Natural causes?! His neck is broken!” the landlord protested.

“Well, you know, natural in his line of work,” Jocasta amended. The Innkeeper still seemed inclined to argue but Bonnie just shook her head and steered the older man out of the room, shooting a surprisingly effective ‘take care of this mess’ over her shoulder as she went.



“Well that was fun,” Jocasta put in, casting an appreciative glance at the shirtless Beren, the effect slightly marred by the bruise that was spreading from where her knee had winded him during the fall.



“Any idea why someone would want to kill you? He said he was here to kill you specifically. Like what am I? Chopped liver?” she demanded. Beren shook his head in confusion or uncertainty she wasn’t sure.



“Well he is dead so we can’t ask him,” Beren said at last.

“Or can we?” Jocasta asked in a theatrically ghoulish voice.

“What?” Beren asked, brought back to attention by the tone rather than the content of her statement.

“What?” Jocasta repeated blinking her eyes innocently as though she hadn’t just suggested necromancy.

“I guess we should probably search his pockets before we toss him out into an alley? Just incase he has an valuable information on him, or better yet any money?”

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.