Penny

Death's Edge: A Warhammer Story

Kian Cran'Darak didn't sound like much of an Imperial name to me, but then if they insisted on calling people Hollyman Von Strudeldorf who could be sure? I was on the verge of accepting his invitation to dinner when I heard a commotion outside. A moment later the door flew open and an angry looking man with a ramrod straight back and moustaches oiled to a point so fine they would probably have drawn blood. Guy Du Ponce was dressed in a silken tunic of green slashed with white, with red silk leggings and the pointed shoes that were currently the fashion. The Brettonian Ambassador drew a silken glove from his hand and tossed it to the ground, the soft fabric making rather less of an impact than he might have hoped for.

"I demand satisfaction!" he declared in barely intelligible Tilean. "My country and my king have been maligned and I shall not stand for it!"

I felt my stomach lurch, aware that I was bout to become party to a major diplomatic incident and Imelda was unlikely to vouch that I had been there on secret business for her. I gauged the Brettonian's mood and then bent down and picked up the glove, tucking it into the red cummerbund I was wearing. Guy's eyes bulged like a frog.

"I accept," I declared with a flourish. His eyes narrowed.

"The challenge is not meant for you ....signoritta," he sneered, making it clear signoritta wasn't the word he meant.

"Never the less it is accepted," I persisted, lifting my chin stubbornly.

"Knights of Brettonia do not fight trollops!" he snapped in exasperation, but I was ready for it and slapped him across the face with his own glove.

"So you are backing out of a challenge, that means I win?" I persisted. His face was beat red now and he glanced at Kian as though expecting some kind of help. Whatever he imagined wasn't forthcoming and the awkward seconds dragged on. With a hiss he spun on his heel and stalked out of the room.

"Pistols!" I called after him, then "No! Crossbows!" But the Knight had already vanished. I tapped his glove against my hand as I watched him go.

"Perhaps it is better that we eat outside of the palace tonight," I suggested.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Gravemire. What a shithole. Perhaps that is a little unfair. All Hive Worlds actually have nice parts, the guilded spires of the aristocracy, the glittering pleasure palaces of the merchant barons, the vast basilica presincts of the Eclesiarchy, it is just that the toiling multitudes never get to see them. Most of my time, I am fortunate to say, has been spent in the more rarified precints. We came down on the modified shuttle, though exactly how it had been modified was a little unclear to me.

"Nice dress," Selenica called as I headed up the ramp, following a cargo servitor that was loading crates of specialized equipment. I was dressed in a black leather storm coat over a red and gold body glove with long glossy black boots. My hair had been elaborately but severely braided, pulled back to the back of my head and held in place by a series of ruby studded pins.

"Not a dress, but thank you," I replied. She was dressed in the robes of a senior articifer a series of stained glass pendants around her neck marking her as glazier arcana. Our research on the three week voyage had not given us much to go on. Lazarus' analysis had narrowed the equipment used in the dig to one of the merchant manufactura in Hive Orcus. Unfortunately that didn't necessarily mean there was a connection. The gear might have been purchased legitamitely, there was no crime in selling construction equipment of course, but it was our only lead. There had been a spirited debate between following this lead and pursing the las guns. Ultimately the problem had been resolved by transit times. All three of the forge worlds which produced the unquie pattern weapons were more than six months transit. Peronally I was just glad to move on to an actionable lead. I had spent much of the past several weeks going over the transcripts of the xenos tongue. The recovered fragment was part of a mythic cycle that told the story of an ancient hero who had been on a quest to recover ancient words of power. It was steeped in disturbing allegory and grew more obtuse and disturbing as it went on. Id started to suspect that the gaps in it were partial translations of alien concepts that humans lacked and begun working them phoenitically, assembling combinations from the crammed together characters. I had begun to suffer from strange dreams. On the third day I had been awoken by Hadrian having been screaming in my sleep. On the forth day I had given myself a nose bleed and stopped my studies.

"Emmaline," Hadrian prompted and I came back from the reveriee I had been slipping into. I smiled at him in reassurance.

"I'm fine, just getting my head in the game," I told him. We had chosen to pose as purchasing agents for an off planet commercia. It was a comprimise which gave us access without the exposure that would come from posing as nobility. There would be less parties, but hopefully we would be able to get more done.

Penny's Pencils

Ill Met in Ostland

"So you think this Grunwald tried to have you killed over ... some kind of gunpowder insurance plot?" The Captain of the Guard was a battered looking man in late middle age. He wore a breast and backplate but eschewed a helm that would have concealed his thinning brown hair and the long scar that disfigured his cheek.

"Vat ez theenk? I know," Natasha grumbled.

"Well how do I know?" the Captain asked.

"I am tealing you da?" Natasha snapped, drumming her fingers on the table. They were in a guardhouse that obviously hadn't been used in some while. It had clearly been put into service when the news of the Norscan invasion broke. It still smelled of mildew, though with a strong scent of the vinegar that the guard was using to scrub the walls.

"Do you have any proof of this?" the Captain asked. Natasha seized the bottom of her tunic and yanked it up revealing the long livid cut that streaked up her ribs. The captain's eyes buldged at the sight of her bare chest, and several guardsmen dropped weapons and tools with a clatter.

"Well..." the Captain stammered, clearly at a loss for her to proceed.

"We are in danger of imminent attack madam and this is a civil matter," the Captain managed.

"You may file a complaint with a magistrate... If you can find one. I think they probably all lit off south when they heard a hundred thousand Norscans were on their way," the Captain admitted. Natasha made a disgusted sound and stood up.

"Neevar myind, ve vill take keer of it," Natasha promised. The Captain gave her a sharp look.

"I caution you about taking the law into your own hands madam," The Captain said, steel in his voice.

"I vouldn't vant you to have to ceel a migestreet," she sneered.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

"And then I drew both my pistols and turned to face them," Jocasta declared, "I drew both pistols and planted my feet. Bullets were wizzing all around me, blasting palm trees into sap and splinters! Laser bolt splashed off the sand burning little circles of black glass. The whole world was a roar of noise and explosions but I wasn't afraid!"

The listeners leaned in, intent either on the story, or at least intent on Jocasta's impassioned delivery which included a considerable amount of heaving bosom in her green and white flightsuit. Xiska smoke wafted up from ash trays and empty liquor bottles rattled as people adjusted their positions. A rough mud map of the beach had been created with bottle caps and protein sticks, a half crushed packet of smoke sticks represented the wrecked barge.

"I lifted my pistols," Jocasta continued, making little pantomime finger guns and pretending to squint down them.

"Then Bam. BAM. BAM!" she enthused slapping the table to empasise each theatrical shot. "Head shot, head shot, head shot!"

The listeners crowed and slapped the table with enthusiasum, some calling out in disbelief, others cheering and hooting. Jocasta made a slow half turn, finger guns sweeping the crowd.

"I cut through them like a laser knife through butter!" There were more cheers mixed with hoots of derision. It was clear however good the story there was some good natured skepticism about is veracity. Jocasta scooped a dart up off the table and threw it at the target on the far wall, a slab of cork with the portrait of an unpopular local politician taped onto it. The dart thudded into his left eye. It was less of a trick than it looked, considering she had a trio of drones perched around the spacers bar to give her all the angles. The feat momentarily stilled the disbelievers.

"What about the guy in the mech suit though, surely you couldn't have taken him down with a pistol," a scar faced smuggler objected.

"Oh yeah, that guy," Jocasta greed, thrusting her finger guns into imaginary holsters. "I had taken out all his goons, but he was still stomping down the beach, chain guns kicking up sand all around me. I hit him again and again with my pistols but to no avail. I thought I was finished, but Jocasta Ap'Gwyn never gives up!"

"I only had one chance, I saw that he was wearing a bandolier of grenades so I..." Jocasta snapped her fingers and her three drowns swooped in from all directions, seizing the pull tabs on several cans and ripping them free before soaring upwards and letting them fall to the table with a metallic clatter.

"Pulled the pins and then..." she slapped at her chest in imitation of a big clumsy man pawing at grenades that were suddenly hot.

"BOOM! bits of him raining down over half a kilometer of beach!" she crowed. The drunken spacers hooted and hollared, some clapping.

"And that," Jocasta concluded, "Is how I single handedly saved the resort from pirates."

"And what about chuckles over there," the smuggler asked, lifting his chin towards Dirk's armored form. Jocasta tossed her head as though it were of no account.

"I really couldn't say, I'm sure he was usefully occupied though."

Death's Edge: A Warhammer Story

"Ah, the Triumvur will be disappointed that the Ambassador will not be available to dine with her," I sighed, pleased to be able to get the credit for an invitation that need never be honored. I was not particularly loyal to Imelda, she was not as yet paying me, this was more along the lines of a job interview, but I was a professional and it seemed likely to be more profitable than posing for oil painting for an admittedly talented old perv.

"I will say you made quite the impression in the street," I agreed, perching on the edge of a desk and twirling a lock of hair around one finger.

"One might make a joke about it being bad form for ambassadors to lie down BEFORE they receive their bribes," I snickered.

"They tell me that you are a Warrior Priest," I continued, eager to prolong the conversation, my pretext for being here, and my possible access to the excellent wine which stocked the bar.

"We are told that the Priests of Sigmorr are all fiercesome warriors, is that true?" I continued, then laughed coquettishly.

"I am sorry, I have not introduced myself, I am Camilla de la Trantio," I told him, looking the handsome priest up and down appraisingly.

"I have not been told your name Senor Priest," I admitted.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

If you have never been shot, I commend you on your caution and good fortune. I myself have been shot on no fewer than seven occasions (at time of writing) and I have to say the experience doesn't improve with repetition. Fortunately for me the hunters jacket I had been wearing at the time had a layer of ballistic cloth woven into the leather and it managed to deflect the las bolt from my centerline. The filthy water had been more of a concern and I had endured a punishing regime of counterbiotics at Selenica's hands that made it impossible to eat or drink more than a few mouthfuls of water or nutrient broth. The fact that the water might have been tainted with more than bacteria occurred to me often and though he concealed the fact, I felt the brush of Hadrian's mind more than once as he inspected me for the taint of the enemy. I was his responsibility in that respect. Inquisitors are, to a degree, self policing, with various inqisitors keeping an eye on each other. They are expected to do the same for their own warbands, in much the same way as they are the rest of the Imperium. I don't like to think of what it might have meant to Hadrian to discover such a taint in me, but fortunately for both of us I remained pure. Or as pure as I ever was anyway.

By the time the Caledonia arrived I had recovered enough to move around. Selenica had done a remarkable job of healing the wound and within a month it would vanish completely not leaving so much as a scar. This was, I was to learn, one of the advantages of being hit by las fire rather than a hard round, though I admit to the vanity of having even that kind of scar tissue surgically corrected in my later career.

We lifted to the Caledonia without incident, two days before Candlemass 990.M41. Urien and his crew were pleased to see us, excited to hear the story of our recent adventure. I was still recovering though by now I was able to eat enough that the hunger in my stomach was a dull pain rather than an all consuming one. Selenica insisted on inspecting me daily, but it seemed the danger of infection had passed. Urien laughed the whole thing off, joking that it was too bad that their wasn't a scar because a scar on my lower back might be worth investigating, punctuating the remark with a good natured elbow at Hadrian's expense.

That night we were treated to a celebration in the feasting hall. Hadrian regaled the company with tales of our adventures, though he tactfully left out the fact that our opponent appeared to be an Inquisitor. Orbital control was non-existant on Havenos so we couldn't identify the ship which had brought our power armored opponent. Disconcertingly there were spikes of astropathic traffic after our escape that indicated that at least one ship had left the system after the reflooding of the excavation. Hadrian raised this point with Urien, asking what ships routinely frequented this out of the way place, but the Rogue Trader knew of none which regularly made the run. I was also surprised by a new mural which had been artistically rendered on the feast hall wall.

"It isn't a bad likeness," Hadrian admitted as he sipped his amasec and looked up at the larger than life rendition of a mostly naked blond woman dancing on a stylized table. I snickered, probably the first laugh I had uttered since I had been shot. The exaggeration of my assets was considerable and the cock of my hips positively scandalous but I choose to look upon it as an honor.

"I suppose there are worse things to be remembered for," I agreed.

That night we retired to Hadrian's anteroom and began the first large scale dig into what we had recovered. I started by making psy-picts of what we had seen. Starting with our unseen adversary. Hadrian had shown me the technique during our convalescence at Agesula. We both conjured images of what we had seen, though the stella themselves were stubbornly resistant. We were able to create the images but within moments the plates blackened and curled until they were illegible.

Lazarus, upon beholding the picts began to swear fluently in binaric, his human eye widening in fury.

"This is heretechal!" he snarled. I exchanged a cautious glance with Hadrian.

"You are just figuring that?" I asked, perplexed as to why this was only just occurring to him.

"Heretech," he corrected, glowering at me, "those servitors have been perverted, their cortexes have been wired to cogitators that would restore their ability to feel pain, to access their higher reasoning!"

"Why would they do that? How would it even be done?" I asked, but he was already lost in a reverie of buzzing clicks which I had learned to interpret as him accessing internal data storage to compressed to be readily brought to mind.

Hadrian was reading over the transcripts which we had escaped with, or trying to do so. There was some translation to Gothic, but large portions of it were nonsense symbols or multiple letters printed over the top of each other. I lifted one up and began reading. It appeared to be some kind of religious drama, though what the Gods were and what the characters were doing was opaque to me. It was clear that understanding them would take more than an evenings work.

"Gravemire," Lazarus declared sitting suddenly upright. We all turned to him.

"Analysis of crate serial numbers suggests that eleven different pieces of equipment were transshipped through the Hiveworld of Gravemire."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Las bolts sizzled and spattered on the mud behind us, blasting fist sized globes of the silty muck into shards of glass and burning organic debris. A claxon was sounding somewhere, oddly reminiscent of flood warning alarms I had heard on Bonaventure. I didn’t see how we were possibly going to survive. There was no way we could climb the levy without presenting ourselves to the full fury of the now aroused defenders of this hellish place. Said defenders were spilling from the barracks and other arches which lead deeper into the sunken city. Luckily for us a good number of them appeared to be local recruits, whose lack of accuracy had not quite been made up for by their numbers.

“Flood it?” I asked, already reaching out with my mind before I fully took Hadrian’s meaning. Lucius was easy to find, his mind a hard ball of barely restrained fury. I tried to convey the idea of flooding the city, but it was too abstract a concept for him to grasp at this distance. I altered my thought simply to ‘break’ and felt my connection snap. A roar of fury erupted from the distant wall as Lucius Raj stood, then drove a fist into the joint between two levy panel, his post human musculature and his ancient armor delivering enough force to send spidering cracks through the panel on which he stood. His arm flashed back and struck again, shattering ferrocrete and fiberglass supports both. With a roar he dropped into the hole he had made and vanished from my sight. I watched in fascinated horror as the levy wall groaned, and jets of water burst from the straining joint. By inches they grew until, with a groan, a ten foot panel twisted inwards and came away, carried into the enclosure on a crashing tide of muddy water. I saw Lazarus running along the top of the levy as a dozen panels bowed inwards. He fired on the move at something I couldn’t see, lifting a fireball ten meters tall from the interior of the compound. A black tidal wave of water and mud poured in from the breached wall, crashing downwards as the swamp rushed in. It swept over the slave barracks, picking up men and material in its wake, churning into a frothy tide as the dissolved cellulose in the swamp water tumbled and rebounded.

“Frack,” I muttered, then stumbled as something slapped me in the back.

“Emma!” Selenica was calling. I tried to straighten but there was something wrong with my legs. Hadrian caught me around the waist and hauled me along. He seemed to be whispering even though his lips moved like he was shouting. I had a confused impression of being hauled up onto the loading barge. Laying on the metal deck as Clara and Hadrian fired over the edge down into the maelstrom below. Dark water surged up around us but the barge broke free of its rails. I had a sudden and terrible impression that we were about to be swept into the fungal city and whatever warp borne horrors lurked within. I tried to cry out but my voice wouldn’t come. Selenica was suddenly standing over me, her shadow blocking out the anemic sun. Her hands were slicked with blood as she fussed with my belly, the medicae pack on her belt torn open. There was an unpleasant coppery taste in my mouth as I was shoved up unto my side, Selenica’s hands tearing at the back of my hunting jacket. In this new position I got a good view of the former excavation, now a shallow whirlpool of sucking and gurgling mud water filled with flotsam, some of it human. I watched the body of a fur clad tribesman circle around, dipping into the maelstrom. At the center of it all I could see the stella of the sunken city, curiously visible despite the opacity of the water rushing in to cover it. I could just make out the slight phosphorescence of giant fungal flowers, glimmering beneath the black water.

“Frack,” I tried to repeat, though the only sound I made was a glug as blood spurted from my lips. Selenica shoved something hard against my back and then the world went dark.

Death's Edge: A Warhammer Story

Thes Imperials had such fantastic names. Haughtyman Stilts? I ask you? This one spoke Tilean poorly, all guteral sounds and awkward glottal stops. It was much more the common Tilean sterotype of Imperials than the surpringly eloquent priest. I wondered why he had been apointed the ambassador, when he had a much better linquist to hand. Perhaps it was simply a matter of birth such accomadations were not unknown in Tilea. I had afterall returned from an embassy myself in which the Ambassador's chief qualification had been a burning need to get an embarassing relative out of the city.

"The people of Remas stand ready, as always, to defend both our own citizens and all Tilea from the depredations of both Greenskin and Brettonian alike," Alfeo Romeo replied, earning grins from many in the hall.

"We shall dispatch troops as soon as they become available, perhaps the White Shield company, or Orfeo's Pike," he suggested. Both Imelda and Marco immediately began to object strenously, citing reasons both creative and entirely immaterial to the problem. Neither of them wished their own condotiarii to be sent away from the city, thus weakening their position. Debate on the point raged for a few minutes before winding down.

"Is it agreed," Marco suggested, cutting through the debate, "that we may settle this matter once the Luccini arrive to conclude our treaty with Trantio? At that point we will be better able to dispatch troops freed up from the conflict." There was a slight pause as the other Triumvir's nodded. The court scribe took down the decision on a wax tablet, preperatory to being chisled on stone and presented to the people.

Imelda guestured me over to her with the crook of a finger.

"You are a courtesan yes?" she asked. I nodded my head.

"Camilla de la Trantio, Eminence," I introduced myself. She nodded, though clearly she didn't recognise my name.

"Well Camilla, it would be in my interest if one of the other Condottieri were sent on this Imperial errand," she whispered. I nodded understanding her position.

"You know which troops are loyal to me?" she asked.

"The Golden Bow and Orfeo's pike Eminence," I confirmed, having long ago made enquiries as to who served with who and under what terms. There were three other mercanry companies who might have secret understandings with Imelda, but it would have been impolite to suggest so in an open council chamber.

"Good, see that someone else is sent and I shall see you are properly rewarded," she told me before turning her attention to the next delgation presenting itself, a complaint about sub standard tile glazing. I nodded my head in understanding. It was a tall order but perhaps, with tact, it might be accomplished. I drifted away from the throne, looking for the Priest who had spoken so eloquently. Perhaps that was the place to start.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I pulled my thousander from my belt and squeezed a pair of shots. One struck the power armored man and ricochet away. If anyone had time to pay attention they might have been shocked that I managed it. Las bolts were streaking in all directions vaporizing chunks of the prefab structure. The surviving servitors were still scribing, though without the servo skulls they simply output a continuous line. I was tempted to reach out with my powers again but the peril of the Warp felt all together too close. Hadrian shoved me down a moment before a bolt shell detonated above my head. Clara wedged herself into the doorway, her las carbine stuttering a burst that shattered a servo-skull before driving one of the enemy gunmen into cover behind one of the fallen blocks of masonary.

The power armored figure was screaming commands, redploying his men to form a base of fire. They were good, possibly ex-millitarum, wherever their current loyalties lay. Hadrian managed to flush one from cover and I snapped off a shot. Clara cut him down with two shots to center mass. He went up in a dirty orange flash as one of his frag grenades touched off under the lash of the las fire.

"We have to go before they flank us!" Hadrian shouted. I glanced back to see Selenica. Her knuckles were white and her gun was unfired, her eyes wide and staring.

"Selenica!" I yelled, then ducked back to grab her arm. Her eyes locked on me.

"We are going, grab the case!" I shouted, guesturing with my pistol to the nearest void shielded container. Her eyes blinked into focus.

"Right, casket," she breathed and grabbed up the nearest case.

"Emm get moving!" Hadrian shouted, as he and Clara started to lay down covering fire. It was not effective. The power armored inquisitor let out a bellowing warcry and charged forward, wading through las fire as though it was summer rain. He dropped his bolt pistol and drew a two handed chain sword, its blades whining to life as he rushed at Hadrian, aiming a savage cross cut at him. I shoved Selenica out towards the arch that led out the other side of the plaza. Where it lead I had no idea but we couldn't stay here. Clara was moving backward, darting from cover to cover. SHe flattened herself against a stone and produced two grenades from her belt. She tossed them both into the plaza where they burst spewing copious amounts of yellowish smoke that obscured the gunmen.

"Go!" Clara yelled and then staggered backwards as a lasbolt struck her in the hip, pitching her to the ground. She was up in a moment, limping away and spraying fire into the increasingly thick curtain of smoke. Hadrian had his powersword lit now, fending off blows from our mysterious assailant. I shaoved Selenica head of me, forcing her out towards the arch. I tracked the melee with my pistol but there was no hope of shooting accurately into the swirling sword duel. Clara limped past me, blood staining her fatigue pants below her cracked armor.

"Emm! Move!" she screamed but I wasn't listening.

"Take care of Selenica!" I shouted then ran back towards Hadrian. The power armored figure saw me coming and twisted sideways, opening some space between himself and Hadrian, clearly reluctant to engage two foes at once. If he knew how inept I was, he might have been less worried. I clicked my thousander to its underslung, planted my feet and fired the breeching round. It hit him in the chest from less than twenty feet, the kick nearly breaking my wrist. The blast knocked him from his feet, sending him scrambling back into the smoke. Hadrian stared after him, clearly of a mind to pursue, at least until he saw armored figures coming through the smoke.

"Go!" He yelled, turning and grabbing my arm, dragging me out towards the arch.