Penny

Penny's Interests

Bump

At The Edge of The World

To say I was unenthusiastic about leaving a warm bed to walk through the jungle was an understatement. If I'd had my way I'd have curled up and gone back to sleep. Beren, however, was too much of a pain in the ass, and by that I mean woodsman, to allow such sensible actions. He pointed out that the monsoon would be on us within a few weeks, and possibly a few days, and that any ground we could make while the sun was out, would be worth its weight in gold. I reluctantly agreed, more for a lack of interest in arguing than because I truly conceded the point, and we set out laden down with what provisions we could carry. Characteristically, there were no horses. The dense jungle isn't a place horses or any hoofed animal tolerates well, the rot tending to cripple them even if there are roads for riding on. The path was no road as civilized people understood it, merely a way worn through the jungle by the passage of countless feet over the ages. In places the verdant growth crowded in and markers were set up, often nothing more sophisticated than a partially hacked tree or arrangement of rocks. Fortunately jungle soil dosen't run to the kind of mud one finds on dirt roads after rain. Rainforest actually has very little in the way of subsoil, most of its nutrients coming from a build up of leaf mould and decaying organic matter. What soil there was was thickly braided with roots which formed little puddles as they gathered in water. Several streams were running, although I assumed they were dry except during monsoon or after heavy rain, and the forest was alive with the calls of birds and other animals as we started the long trek down towards Darkwater Crossing. We met no other travelers, presumably they had the sense the Gods give to everyone except Beren, and they stayed dry. The mosquitos were ferocious, but I had long ago learned a charm to keep them at bay. I rather enjoyed what I imagined their little faces looked like when they ran into my invisible barrier.

We walked till well after sundown. There was a fine moon which provided enough light to see by and we eventually pitched camp in a rocky outcrop a hundred yards or so off the trail. Beren built a small fire, apparently viewing the wildlife as more of a danger than other travelers who might catch a glimpse of the reflected glow or smell smoke on the air and we settled down to a meal of fresh bread and cheese. I drank a little wine, and was asleep before I knew it. I had strange dreams of the city of gold and its serpentine Goddess. She appeared to me as a woman clad in emerald mail, which on closer inspection was scales. She seemed to be trying to tell me something but her hissing speech remained unintelligible. I woke with a start, feeling as though something were slithering over my wrist. I reached down to touch the bracelet I had recovered from the ruin and felt it writhe beneath my touch. WIth a squeal I leaped into the air and shook my wrist furiously, trying to dislodge whatever it was. To my astonishment I saw a small green snake wrapped around my wrist clinging on for dear life and hissing in what I somehow knew to be terror.

"What the..." Beren demanded, swinging around from where he had been keeping watch. He lunged towards the snake whose little eyes bugged out for a moment before he raced up my arm and under my blouse. I cursed and grabbed at the fabric, pulling it open. Beren's eyes were wide as he saw my skin. Where moments ago had been my bare midrif, now stood an intricate tattoo of a small and obviously terrified snake.

"Ummmm..." I temporized, to utterly astonished to be afraid. I brushed my hand over that tattoo and found it smooth. As I pulled my hand away the head of it moved, and then emerged from my skin as though from a pool of water. Beren grabbed for it and it flattened into ink before his fingers could touch it.

"Back off," I suggested. He did so and I coaxed the snake out by rubbing it with my finger. It slowly emerged from my skin and coiled around my arm. A moment later it was the bracelet again, as though the whole experience had been some kind of shared delusion.

"That," I observed, "is very weird."

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Ill Met in Ostland

Natasha was forced to let Marius handle the fortifications. Cursing up a storm she managed to cut her blanket into strips and apply something like a bandage. Her hands were crusted with dried blood by the time she had finished and it still hurt like the Daemons of the North were gnawing on it. Mechanically she reloaded her carbine and then managed to pull on her mail and gamberson. Lightning struck outside to reveal several men cloaked against weather mulling around. They tried the door, rattling and banging against it, but Marius had wisely pushed a heavy table across the entry way.

"Open up!" of them shouted against the storm, rain slicking off his cloak and making his voice sound reedy and weak.

"Vat do you vant. I ez traying to slayep!" Natasha shouted back.

"We just want to talk!" her interlocutor shouted back, cupping his hands to make a trumpet.

"Ve are talking no da?" Natasha called back. There was a few moments of consultation between the assembled group outside.

"We have word that you are dangerous criminals, there is a bounty for you dead or alive," the leader bellowed.

"You are shet at talcking," Natasha observed. "How much did that Grinvold bisterd offer you?"

"What?!" the leader called back in obvious confusion, his own Riekspiel not sufficient to the task.

"Grinvold, how mach he pays you to keel as?" she rephrased.

"More than enough," the leader growled. "Open the doors and make it easy on yourself!"

"Nyet, I dont zink ve does zat," Natasha replied, she pulled herself to the window, lifted the shutter and fired. One of the men screamed and grabbed the side of his head, part of his ear taken off by the musket ball. Two of them produced pistols and tried to return fire but their powder was too wet. Natasha closed the window and sat down, beginning to reload the weapon. Before she could finish Marius returned.

"All the doors and ground floor windows are locked and barred," he reported, the horse pistol in his hand. "we should be safe now?" The merchant looked a little green around the gills, though for what reason Natasha wasn't certain. She reached over and shuttered the lantern, no point letting the enemy know where they were.

"Nyet, not safe," Natasha contradicted.

"Eveentually they get brains gods gave ass. Knock hole in walls weeth heemers, syet fears in timbers ayend barn us out. Maybee use piwder and blow hole," she explained.

"That ... dosen't sound good," Marius replied in a troubled tone.

"Not gut," she agreed.

"Bestmeen outside, assholes inside," she elaborated. "Vy does Grinvold vant us deed? Could have jist tald us had no piwder. I buy fram ather mirchents."

"No... he already sold the powder to someone else, sold more than he had probably, word gets out he isn't good for it and he will be ruined," Marius replied, clearly happy to be able to move to more familiar ground than being burned out of a besieged building.

"How seal more piwder than he has?" Natasha asked in puzzlement.

"Imagine you told a boyar you would sell him ten horses, he pays you..." Marius began.

"Vy vould he pay me vithout seeing hearses?" Natasha objected.

"He is buying them on credit," Marius explained.

"No beyar vould bee hearses he dydint exeeman," Natasha objected again. Marius ground his teeth trying to find words she would understand.

"Fine, imagine a merchant tells you he will come back next year and buy ten horses, you take some of his money to provide the horses but then a boyar comes and offers you ten times the amount and you sell him the horses, thinking you will have time to get ten more before the merchant comes back." Natasha frowned, struggling mightily to follow the logic.

"And if you cant provide the horses no one else will do business with you and you will be ruined. So rather than default where people can see, when the merchant returns the next year, you have him killed. That way no one can accuse you of breaking your word," Marius rushed. Natasha was almost cross eyed by this point.

"Sounds veery cimplicated," she admitted.

"Welcome to the Empire," Marius sighed. A shot rang out from the darkness and one of the windows shattered into fragments, letting in the storm outside.

Ill Met in Ostland

The surviving man lifted Natasha by the shirtfront, ignoring her clawing fingernails as she raked at his arms and threw her bodily at Marius. The went down in a pile of arms and legs, Natasha yowling in pain from the cut along her chest. The thug used his opportunity to pull out a heavy horse pistol and thumb back the hammer. Natasha rolled, hit the foot of the bed and grabbed the nearest object she could find and threw it with all her might. The boot knocked the pistol from the thugs hand and it fell to the floor, bounced once, then went off with a crash that seemed flat compared to the thunder outside. The report momentarily lit the face of the surprised thug, who turned and ran through the door and out into the night. The sound of the storm roaring as he threw open the door and vanished into the rain, the sudden blast of chill wind drawing curses from those in other rooms who had been unmoved by struggle or gunfire.

"Irsan Bawls," Natasha groaned as Marius got to his feet. He recovered the pistol and used the flint to light one of the oil lamps, filling the room with golden light. The thug on the floor was unconscious or dead though judging from the blood streaming from his ear, the latter was more likely. Natasha's cotton night shirt was soaked with blood from the armpits down.

"Are you hurt," Marius demanded.

"Nyet, jist bleeding for show," Natasha responded sourly. She peeled up her shirt and made a half hearted effort to brush away the blood. For a moment a long cut was visible stretching from her lower fibs down to her hip bone. Welling blood quickly concealed it again.

"Well it's quite a show," Marius responded nervously.

"Kit myself varse shaaving," Natasha responded, reaching over and pulling the bedclothes from the bed. She wadded up the blanket and pushed it against the wound, attempting to staunch the blood loss.

"May need... a fyaw steeches," she conceded breathlessly.

Ill Met in Ostland

It was too late in the day to return to Wolfenburg, by road because of the danger of beastmen, and by barge due to the threat of rocks and logs in the night. Instead they were given bunks in the barracks which served transient workers. Men who worked at Gunstadt usually began in the barracks and then built their own cottages and shacks as time and wages allowed. It was a draughty building of cracked timbers and mouldering thatch but it at least kept the rain off. Natasha dreamed of riding along a great plain while the sky screamed with unnatural lights. She woke to find lightning crashing outside as the storm intensified. For a moment she lay awake breathing deeply, lightning flashed again and this time there was a siloutte of a man a few feet away.

"Marius, go beyk to..." Natasha began and then chocked off as a hand clamped down over her mouth, choking off her shout before it could begin. Something flashed in the dark and Natasha instinctively drove up with her knee. She let out a muffled scream of pain as the point of the blade, aimed at her belly, glanced off a rib. A second man, unseen in the darkness cursed and grabbed at her leg. She rolled hard, dragging the blade along her skin as she fell from the bed and thumped on the ground. Lightning flashed again and illuminated her two attackers. She kicked out and connected with the shin of the knifeman. He cursed again, but without her boots it wasn't the crippling blow it might have been.

"Fucking stick her already!" the second man growled.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

The trip to Kamden took a little less than six weeks. The Prelate Voss' captain, a grey haired matronly woman named Lisel Rainer, boasted it could have been completed in four, but we had to maintain the illusion of running naval dispatches to a couple of ports along the way. Rainer, who's face had been replaced with augumetics after a shot gun blast had taken half of it in a boarding action, knew we were Ordos but maintained our cover, even going so far as to invite us to several dinners with her officers. At these dinners I was required to play the roll of Amaletta Sark. Hadrian had provided me with the Ordo files on her and I concocted several stories to tell at dinner. I even psychically simulated them based on the limited data I had, giving Hadrian and Strong a chance to add what they knew of hunting to my own knowledge to refine my cover and to provide us with shared memories. Hadrian and Clara were playing the role of gun hands, Selencia was my doctor, and Lazarus my Magos Biologos. I even styled my hair in a utilitarian bun and dressed in expensive but somber dress to better match my role. Worst of all Clara insisted that I learn to use a hunting rifle, a great monster Krigewald that was nearly as tall as I was and kicked like a mule. At least in Clara's opinion, it was too long for me to easily shoot myself by accident.

At Kamden, a world of scattered manufactorums and trading houses, we transshipped to the Grief Von Burlikean, a small sprint trader which worked the country trade between Kamden, Havenos and a half dozen other worlds that exported pelts, timber and other raw materials. It was a trim ship and a good deal more luxurious than the Prelate Voss. Judging by the cages in its hold it also ran beasts to the Imperial pits on Cronstdat when opportunity permitted. As luck would have it the ship was already planning to head for Havenos, not that such plans prevented the captain from bewailing disruption and demanding a steep fee for the privilege of accompanying us. I placed Lucius in a meditative trance for this leg of the voyage and we set him in a safe which the crew supposed contained luxury goods. Once thy attempted to break in, but fortunately Lazarus intervened before they could get inside and rouse the thunder warrior to what certainly would have been a bloody slaughter.

We arrived at Havenos the day after Candlemass 985M41. It was a picturesque place from orbit. A verdant world of green forests shot through with isolated mountain peaks. Uniquely there was almost no tectonic drift and so the mountains were exclusively the result of vulcanism, with tall cindercones dotted along cracks in the mantle. Imperial settlements were sparce and for the most part located in the fortified calderas of extinct volcanoes, whose walls provided excellent defenses and whose basalt plugs were ideal strata for atmospheric lighters to land. The population in these fortified outposts was perhaps 200,000 planet wide with three quarters of a billion savage natives spread out over the rest of the planet. Pelts, amber, and other goods, were brought to the outposts on designated festival days. Factors would establish large fairs outside the volcano settlements and ply the natives with joylic, crude iron tools and other trinkets in exchange for the bounty of the forest. Trade with the 'Star People' was as much ritual as commerce and attacks on the outposts were both rare and brutally repelled.

We landed at the imaginatively named Crossing Town via a chartered lighter. Our brief time on Kamden had revealed that an individual fitting Nagrip's description had been landed their by the rogue trader Proximae Innominae six months before, mirroring the intel sent by Hadrian's lost agent. I took a deep breath of this new world as we headed from the shuttle, finding the aromas surprisingly rural despite the aftermath of promethum fumes from the lighter. Crossing Town smelled of wood smoke and leather withyou the hint of pine from the gently rising inner slopes of the caldera. Other than the Administratum Building, which was of black volcanic stone, and the warehouses which seemed made of corrugated steel, most of the buildings were of two story timber construction with flat rooves which often held gardens. There was a central road which connected a geothermal powerplant to the main gate, a great blockhouse hewed out of the side of the mountain and reinforced with oozlite pilings.

"We should ask around at taverns and outfitters, if your agent or Nagrip left town, they had to have hired vehicles and local guides," I speculated.