Penny

Word association Game!

Arctic

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

Jocasta set a shotglass on the edge of the table, one at each pocket. She filled them indiscriminatley with liquor from bottles, barely glancing at the labels. She shot the cuffs of her jacket and racked the balls with quick efficient motions. Small electromechanical charges in the balls adjusted their positions slightly so that they were perfectly positioned. She dropped back and took one of the ques, telescoping it out with a flick of her wrist before snagging a slice of pizza.

"I suppose we will need to bolt it to the deck if we keep it," she mused, running a hand across the edge of the table.

"Might make getting vehicles in here harder," she pondered, looking regretfully at the space where the speeder had sat. The vehicle had been sold to fund the mech purchase. The mech itself was suspended from working rig in the far corner of the hanger back, looking decidedly worse for wear after its outing. Cygi appeared against the holo projector dressed as a news anchor in a button down red blazer. A moment later the holo lit up with some clips of Neil's fight. Two men with overdeveloped physiques and ear pieces were enthusiatically breaking down the action. Cygi looked dissaproving and then vanished, reappearing a moment later to pick up a holographic copy of one of the liquor bottles and taking an imaginary pull.

"Hey," Jocasta called to Neil, snapping his fingers to draw his attention.

"We watching, or we playing?" she asked.

At The Edge of The World

I stood frozen between the two treasures, mezmerised by each for their own aspects. It was something like a trace because I couldn't pull my eyes away. I was dimly aware of a squirming sensation from the snake tattoo I had aquired back in the temple but it seemed distant and unimportant at the present moment. That I have a weakness for jewels I will not deny and to find two in such an odd arangment in the middle of a jungle was positively thrilling.

I reached out my hand, hearing the jungle go quiet all around me as though holding its breath. I leaned forward and lifted the glowing diamond from the statue. It was heavier than I thought and the sound of the silver chain on the stone idol was as loud as a violin bow in the dark. There was a sudden hissing sound as the second idol began to disolve, folding in on itself and sinking down into the forest floor. I stood amazed as it faded away, like a stain being rinsed from fine linen. The last thing to go was the red and black stone glaring malevolently at me like an eye benath the ground before finally vanishing beneath the leaf mould.

"Emmaline?" Beren called behind me and I turned suddenly to face him, the glittering jewel hanging from the chain in my fist.

"Uhhh..." I replied uncertainly.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

“Did you just have this laying around?” I asked Hadrian as Lazarus fiddled with the seals of the Sororitas power armor. It was very impressive, grayed ceramite with gold and red highlights and intricate traceries in gold and silver. I flexed my arm, listening to the slight whir of servos as I opened and closed my fist. My hair had been treated with a platinum/white dye and then pulled back into a severe braid that coiled around the back of my skull to keep it out of the way. Clara was artfully applying a black fleur-de-lis tattoo to my right cheek to better disguise my face while my left eye was covered with a combat view finder with a red glass lens. I had to admit I looked nothing like the mopy noblewoman I had been portraying till this point.

“I try to plan for a number of contingencies,” Hadrian replied blandly. We were sitting in one of the shuttles which connected us to the Caledonia. The sturdy vehicle would supply me the privacy to change as well as a short hop across the city, hopefully bypassing any unpleasantness that might have attended a direct route.

“Sure, I bet he has one of those leather death cult outfits for you in case the ‘contingency’ arises,” Clara snickered, making bunyip ears with her fingers at the word contingency. Hadrian shot her a look that quieted her laughter, even if it didn’t quite banish it from her eyes.

“I hope at least it has been deconsecrated,” Lazarus said, slapping a hand against my chestplate as he spoke the ritual of percussive maintenance. The view finder lit up with unintelligible runes and I felt the faint rush of environmental cooling systems against the plastec body glove I was wearing underneath it.

“There is nothing more holy than the work of the Inquisition,” Hadrian countered, avoiding a direct answer. A blat of binaric from Lazarus suggested the point had not passed him over either. Lazarus withdrew a slender parchment and placed it against my left breast. He let out another string of binaric and then produced a slender gun which spurted red wax over the top of the paper. He fumbled in his robes and withdrew a chain on which a number of brass seals hung like hab keys. Finding the appropriate symbol he pressed it into the wax to create a neat seal.

“Stand,” Lazarus instructed and I complied feeling the power of the servo assist as I did so. Clara passed behind me and fastened a short cape around my shoulders before lifting an ornate bolt gun from the engraved case which had held the armor. She wafted the incense over the gun, using both hands to bear its considerable weight.
“For Terra’s sake Em, don’t try to actually fire this thing,” she cautioned as she slung the weapon over my shoulder. I lifted the weapons experimentally, finding that with the power assist it had almost no weight at all.

“Your confidence in me is touching,” I told her, earning a quirked smile.

“I’m more worried about the holes you might put in me with it if you do,” Clara retorted. I slid the strap of the weapon around to keep it in place beside my thigh.

“If I’m a Sister of Battle shouldn’t I get a flamer or something?” I asked. There was a collective wince.
“Em, we love you, but I’m giving you a bolter only under protest,” Clara said gently. Lazarus nodded vigorously and made the cogwheel sign of the Omnissiah with his hands. I rolled my eyes and tried to make a rude gesture, the extra foot of height I picked up from the armored boots banged my fist against the low ceiling of the shuttle to the considerable amusement of the party.

___

Pentecostal Rememberence proved to be several square miles in size. It was ringed by a high parapeted wall, complete with baroque gatehouses encrusted with gargoyles. In more settled times the gates were opened at certain hours to allow pilgrims access to the gardens within, assuming of course they made an appropriate donation. Now the great wooden gates were closed and armed militia men walked the walls, pikes and las guns on obvious display. I strode forward at the head of our little party. We had left a score of our escort to secure the shuttle in the alms park a few blocks away, retaining a dozen of the blue smocked Caledonian’s for show. Clara, Elektra and Hadrian formed the other three points of a diamond with me, Lazarus having been left behind to command the men at the shuttle. Partially, this was because he was a seasoned soldier and attuned to the shuttle, partially it was to ease any potential theological difficulties between the two Imperial cults.

“Approach no further!” a voice called from the wall, “This precinct is closed while the Primate is in meditation.”

“Authority is not given to you to defy the will of the Most Holy Emperor of Mankind!” I called back, touching my words slightly with my psychic gift so that they echoed off the wall despite my lack of amplification equipment.

“Open your gates or He will see them opened,” I commanded. There was a long silence and then, just as I thought they were going to call my bluff, the gateway swung open. Fraternus militia stood on the other side in a wall to block passage. They were dressed in white robes which were more than a little grubby with dirt and gun oil. Most had las guns across their chest at something like porte arms. I strode forward with absolute confidence.
“I am Sister-Palatine Eudoxia of the Order of the Eternal Rose, I have come to deliver Lord Deckard, the duly appointed Ecclesiarcical Envoy to his Holiness,” I announced, glossing over the exact source of Deckard’s appointment. The leader of the militia stared at me for a moment before his eyes hardened.

“I am afraid I cannot allow…” I struck him full across the face with my armored gauntlet. I had meant it as a chastening slap, but the servo assisted armor struck him with the force of a scumball bat. His jaw snapped shut and he was hurled into the masonry of the gatehouse with a bruising crunch before dropping to the ground in a boneless heap.

“Frak,” I heard Clara say but I raise both my hands as though appealing to the heavens, not slowing my stride.

“Alas, your brother has sinned by impeding our progress. To impede the Holy Emperor’s work, even in error is a grave sin, for does not all heresy draw its strength first from error? Pray brothers and sisters, pray that such sin does not enter your own hearts, for should you sin again, having thus seen the Emperor’s Will made clear, you will stray from the shame of error into the abyss of heresy. Fall to your knees and pray that such heresy, and such need for chastisement, should never be needed in this holy place!” I patted my bolter for emphasis on ‘chastisement’ before continuing in a resonant voice: “For to be thrice mistaken is to be thrice damned, and condemned to the fires of perdition!” I pronounced, my face upturned as though in conversation with the Emperor as I strode past. One by one the Militia fell to their knees dropping their weapons and clasping their hands in prayer. We strode past them into the gardens, my face shining with a light which wasn’t exactly holy.

“Throne above Emmaline,” Hadrian hissed through clenched, “ease up on the whammy.” I let the psychic force I had been projecting fade to a background hum, the feeling of sanctity dissipating in my companions. All of them were trembling in the aftermath of my display, despite in Hadrian and Clara’s cases, being hardened by training against it.

“For fraks sake, your face was glowing, and for a second it looked like you had wings of light,” Clara muttered, making the sign of the Aquilla in the direction of the cathedral. Elektra was staring at me wide eyed in a disturbingly reverential fashion.

“Sorry, I got a little carried away,” I explained. It was easy to do in a place like this awash with the psychic background of Faith. Clara muttered something uncomplimentary as we continued on along a winding path that lead through the gardens. Gardens was perhaps a bit of a misnomer, it was more like an ornamental forest, complete with carefully tended groves, ponds and streams. It was laid out in an elaborate spiral that pilgrims were expected to walk before approaching the baroque cathedral that rose like a needle from its heart. Now and then agricultural servitors, gilding in the forms of praying saints, trundled past intent on their tasks. We ignored the circuitous root and marched across country as it were, arriving at the gates of the cathedral in time to be greeted by a trio of robed clerics.

“Envoy Deckard, Sister-Palatine,” the leader greeted us in a colourless voice, “His Holiness is expecting you.” We were lead through a series of halls and back passages to, of all things, a bed chamber. It was dominated by a vast four poster bed in which a frail man reclined in an absurd combination of bed clothes and a primates jeweled miter. His face was lined with great age and a pair of half moon spectacles had been surgically attached to the bridge of his nose. His face had an unhealthy pallor from the several pict screens around the room, some of which showed data that was meaningless to me and some of which showed video feeds of various sermons and reports.

“Ah, the Lord Deckard of which we have heard so much so recently,” he declared in a peevish voice. I performed a genuflection, my knee thumping a little harder than desired into the plush carpeting.

“And Sister-Palatine Eudoxia, yes welcome child,” he cooed.

“I am Primate Fulstes, which of course you know, and if you are here regarding my vote…” before Fulstes could continue one of the vid feeds enlarged with the flashing emblem of the Ministorum and then faded to show an aquiline man in his late middle years.
“My children,” the man, whom I recognised from picts as Primate Hildebrand, began.
“It is with great regret that I come before you today, so soon after the Ascension of Blessed Ratsini to his eternal reward.” He had a practiced oratorical voice, honed on years of sermonizing and theological debate.

“I would not violate the period of morning so appropriate for my departed brother without the gravest of justifications and I fear, these are graver than any we have heard in many years.”

“Heresy must never be far from the mind of the faithful and we must be ever vigilant for its stench, but to watch for heresy, and to discover it in our own institutions are too very different things. Therefore it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you of treachery so base that it is difficult even for me to believe.”

“Oh frak,” Clara muttered in the background.

“I have been shown incontrovertible evidence, that the murder of Blessed Ratsini was conducted by none other than agents of the false Primate Osten Von Mandelbrot! I call on all true sons of the Emperor to subdue this false prince so he may be questioned and punished.”

“I know this truth will be difficult to accept for we held this viper to our breasts as our very brother, but should any doubt the veracity of these claims…” The pict pivoted slightly to a silk covered cushion, with a theatrical whisk the Primate pulled the silk free to reveal a familiar object, the black and silver skull of the Inquisitorial Rosette.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta took a live and let live attitude towards the God's. She had made her annual tithe to Aulor in exchange for residence in the university and made the occasional offering to Zjarina under the dark moon when she was trying something particularly risky or unwise. Zealots and priests of all kinds made her a little uncomfortable. No one could doubt the existance of the gods, but only a fool would attract their attention.

The dwarves gathered around the rune door, kneeling in the dust around Otar who was busily scratching runes into the dirt. Beren joined them apparently familiar with dwarven rites. Jocasta stood awkwardly, arms slick to the elbow with dragon blood. She considered wether their might be time to cut out one of the beasts venom sacks, but she gave it up as a bad bargin. It might disrespectful if she spilled a hundred pounds of dragon entrails onto the cavern floor while they were praying.

Otar stood and began to chant, calling out to his god or gods. Jocasta felt her hackles raise as something began to happen. It wasn't magic as she understood it and it was subliminally irksome that she couldn't sense what was happening. The runes began to glow as the priest prayed, his hand raised in supplication. Jocasta felt a sharp sting in the shape of the mark the demon had left on her. She gritted her teeth and stepped a little further back. Otar's voice swelled, becoming deeper and more resonanant until it seemed less like a voice and more like the grinding of stones, or the fall of water from a great height. With a booming command and a sharp guesture the dwarf sent red gold light surging up into the door, lighting the runes like lava through shallow channels. For a moment nothing happened, then there was a concussive boom that started a shower of rocks and grit down from above. A series of smaller booms began to echo and reverberate as the great door began to sink into the floor on some ancient counterweight system concealed in the wall. A sepulcral blast of dusty air errupted out into the cavern, glowing like a muzzle flash with the light of the runes.

"Behold!" Otar boomed, a touch of the gravitas of moments before lingering in his voice.

Pirates - Ye Be Warned

Jessica's finger twitched at the mention of the Map of Algorab. The hammer snapped fowrward and ignited the pan, she flicked her wrist aside in the heartbeat before the main charge went off. The musket cracked in a cloud of smoke. Galt flinched back as specks of burning power sprayed across his face. Splinters flew from the bulkhead as the musket ball buried itself in the timber with a crack. Jess took another pull of rum as one of her sailors stuck his head into the cabin to make sure she was ok. Jess arched her eyebrow at the sailor who beat a hasty retreat. Jess tossed the spent musket onto her hammock.

"The Map of Algorab?" she asked. The legend of the map was well known among the thieves and pirates of the Metramaic Sea and beyond. It's exact nature was malleable, used in stories and tall tales to add spice and adventure.

"I suppose this means that you don't actually have the map?" Jess asked, "which conviently keeps me from just taking it and throwing you over the side."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

"Surely Lord Deckard, more comfortable accommodations can be found for your wife while you undertake this scared duty?" Salavere objected. Hadrian made a brushing gesture with his hand, body language current on Gudrun but not widely spread beyond.

"You will forgive me Cleric Salavere, if given what I have seen of your security, I prefer to undertake my wife's protection myself," he spoke coldly. Salavere flushed and Osten grimaced at the rebuke implicit in the words but neither contradicted them.

"If your Excellencies will excuse us we will see about rounding up your stray Primates."

_____

"I don't like this," I told Hadrian as we headed out into the street once more. Urien's troops were deployed in rough columns to either side of us with Clara and Lazarus forming the advance party. Between weapon's master and the skitarii there seemed little chance of us blundering into anything unprotected.

"Which aspect?" Hadrian asked, "the politics, the fraternus militia, the bombing?" I shrugged my shoulders and pulled the grey cloak Clara had given me to conceal myself around me.

"All of it, none of it, I don't know," I temporized, trying to find the words to describe what I was feeling.

"Who cares who wears which pretty hat, we came here to find heretics and now we are collecting votes?" I asked. Hadrian's lips pursed slightly at my words, he knew that the time I had spent with Lucius Raj had eroded my faith in the Emperor to a degree that was best not openly voiced but for him the God Emperor and His Church remained as fixed and immovable as the stars.

"We know that the heretics had something to do with the assassination, so we pull at this thread until we learn more," Hadrian replied. He hesitated as though considering what to say next, and then went on.

"My old Master taught me that Inquisitors act like the anti-bodies of the Imperium, seeking out wrongs and corruptions of all kinds, and that in that pursuit we will inevitably find the enemies of Man at work. We will find something, trust me."

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Where are?" Jocasta asked, climbing reluctantly out of Beren's lap and checking her own limbs to make sure nothing was broken. She peered around a vast cavern, lit only by the body of the wyrm. There was a tunnel that lead upwards, though it was much too steep for man or dwarf to climb. They had rode the avalance of debris down the tunnel that the dragon had used to reach the surface, it was a miracle that none of them had been killed in the fall and there was no likelyhood they could climb back up. Jocasta stood and walked over to the crumpled form of Martinus Morelocke lay burned and broken upon the ground. His right arm was burned to a withered stump and a smile was on his lips. Jocasta quirked a smile to realise the old man had died a dragon slayer. She walked across to the dragon and rummaged in her satchel, tossing away pieces of debris that had accumulated from the fall.

"What are you doing?" Beren asked as Jocasta produced a short knife and plunged it into the dragons body.

"Stop that!" Varin hissed, but Jocasta ignored him.

"Waste not," she replied, tongue peaking from the corner of her mouth. "Want not," she concluded as she pulled free a dragon scale and stuffed it into her pouch. She took a phial from her pouch and felt along the palid flesh below, then made another quick stroke of her knife. Brackish blood began to flow and she began collecting it in the flask.

"This would be worth a fortune back at the university," she explained, plucking away several more scales in a similar fashion.

"Look here!" Radsvir shouted, lifting a dwarven cave lantern to one of the cavern walls. It was no wall at all, but masonry fashioned in the strange fashion of the dwarves. A vast door of some dull metal was sat into it, carved with runes that reflected the lantern light.

"It's a hold door," Otar breathed in amazment, "The beast was trapped between a dwarven door and a humans curse."

"What does it say?" Jocasta called over her shoulder, still engaged in her grizzly salvage. Otar moved to the door and peered up at the runes in reverence.

"Speak friend and enter," Otar reported.

"What does that mean?" Beren asked.

"It's a riddle," Buri declared. "We just say the dwarvish word for friend and the door will open."

"Yalshi," Otar called out in a commanding voice. Nothing happened.

"Well that was a stuipd idea," Jocasta observed tartly.

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

The Company retreated through hell. The attackers must have been through in a dozen places, and the city was well and truly burning. Black Ryann’s storm, if the tempest was the wizards work and not a cruel mockery on the part of uncaring gods, was making things worse. The intermittent rain drops were nothing compared to the high winds which fanned flames into blazing infernos and blizzard ash through the streets. Fanatics burst from alleyways and corners at irregular intervals, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes by the score, throwing themselves on the swords of the retreating mercenaries with no regard for their own lives. Some were literally frothing at the mouth with insane frenzy. At one point a dozen Norgard had come charging out of a side street, aborting their rush at the last minute as the recognized friends, or at least not enemies. Bianca had allowed them to join the formation, at least until they found more of their own kind, if any such still lived.

Bianca, used to commanding small detached groups of scouts, found herself taxed to the breaking point, rushing back and forth between the front, where men had become disorientated in the blizzarding ash, and the rear, where men stopped to fight rather than continuing the retreat. Her legs throbbed but she chived her makeshift command along, pointing them towards easy to follow land marks and tugging men backward when they didn’t move quickly enough. At one point they were forced to open a gap between the men and a burning brewery, so intense was the heat and the enemy tried to rush around the flank, trusting their indifference to pain to carry them through. The Norgard took unreasonable delight in simply batting them into the flames with their heavy shields. The awkward rearguard continued.
“Bianca!” Hessel was shouting at her as she tried to push him forward. Her eyes focused for the first time in what seemed like forever. She wiped her face and her hand came away black. They all stank of burning hair. They had reached the entrance to the aqueduct and she could see troopers heading down into the tunnel. Other troopers, the rest of the Company she dared to hope.
“For her Dark Majesty!” someone screamed and a score of fanatics charged out of the smoke. Bianca lifted one of her pistols and cursed as it clicked empty. The shields locked and the bodies slammed into them like hail on a rooftop. Exhausted men thrust low through the gaps, ripping open groins and guts to leave a barricade of howling maimed men. One of the troopers went down, his helmet split open by a heavy axe blow that sprayed grey muck a half dozen feet in all directions. A Norgard stepped into he breach, his own axe lashing out to disembowel the fanatic before locking his shield int place.
“The Captain says you are the last unit, we need to disengage!” Hessel was shouting, his voice a plea. They could all feel how precarious the citation was, at any moment this cold disintegrate in a rout that lead to whole sale slaughter.

“Disengage,” she breathed forcing her eyes to focus for what seemed the first time in an age.

“Grenados,” she said but Hessel was already shaking his head.

“None left, used’m at the tower,” he explained. Bianca could only vaguely recall flashes in the smoke as the abandoned the tower, a subjective lifetime ago.
“Right,” she said, a place holder while she gathered her thoughts, she glanced around at the rickety building that concealed the entrance to the aqueduct.

“Right, get everyone inside, then fire the building,” she ordered. Hessel blanched.

“Fire it… after we are inside?” he asked. Bianca nodded vigorously acutely conscious of something her uncle once said: Indecision buries more men than stupidity.
“Do it, we can move down the tunnel as the flames force us back. Wrap scarves around your faces so you can breathe.” Hessel looked unconvinced but nodded turning to yell orders to the others. In short order Bianca found herself hustled into the aqueduct, feeling an instinctive sense of security steal over her. Flames crackled up behind her and she felt the air being sucked through the tunnel around her as she fell back. The aqueduct was packed with men moving forward as quickly as their numbers allowed. By her guess most of the company had made it, and a score or so of Norgard as well. Bianca pulled her canteen from her belt and gulped down great mouthfuls before sluicing her face clean.

“Bianca! The Captain wants you!” someone shouted and she pushed herself to her feet, forcing herself wearily through the packed ranks towards the front.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta’s eyes widened as the crack spread and opened like a yawning mouth. One of the dwarves scooped he up and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. With an eerie unison the dwarves and Beren leaped sideways pressing themselves close to the wall. The stonework there had humped strangely, and Jocasta realized that it must be some feature of dwarven architecture to guard against being crushed during cave ins. The human architecture did not fare so well. Sarcophagi and their cargos of ancient bones slide down into the expanding rift like a charnel avalanche and the dwarves were suddenly wading against a tide of rubble. For a moment Jocasta thought they would make it to safety, when a sudden blast of dusty air exploded upwards from beneath the rumbling floor. It stank of mould and old death and then a vast dagger shaped head emerged from the dust, ice blue orbs glowed with malevolent light as dust ran in rivers off scales the color of late season snow.

One of the dwarves, perhaps several, shouted a word in their own language Jocasta had never head it before, but it seemed somehow seared deep into her memory, like an ancient primordial truth never truly forgotten.

Dragon.

The dwarf caring her dropped her without ceremony and she landed on her rump. She twisted around to keep her eyes on the beast now blocking the way back to the house even as it continued to shoulder its way upwards, crumbling stone work and ancient timber around it. Great foreclaws appeared now , clutching at the edges of the crevice, half obscured by the billowing dusk. The beast opened its mouth in a mockery of a smile revealing fangs of yellowed ivory the size of daggers. They were laid out in rows like some great marine predators, jagged and crosswise like a lamprey.

“At last,” the dragon rumbled, its voice a primal force of nature which would have driven Jocasta to her knees had she not already been there.

“Long have I lain imprisoned in this place, a great wyrm bound by the blood magic of a petty human rat,” it rumbled.The dialect was a human one, though very old and hard to parse.

“Kar gaz chul, largarama kel svar!” Otar snarled in his own tongue. The dragon made a sound that Jocasta recognized as laughter only by context.

“No stone skin runs will stand between and my freedom. I was cursed to lay bound till the last of the House of Morelocke has passed away… and now I shall see it done. Come forward mewling beast and meet your end!”

To Jocasta’s horror she saw Martinus crabbing forward along the wall, drawing closer to the dragon as the dwarves readied their weapons. Beren looked as though he wanted to make a grab for the old man but there wasn’t room for him to get past Otar and Varin.
“I am the last,” Martinus said, his voice strong and dignified with none of the quavering weakness he had displayed earlier.
“I have heard of you Frimssarr, heard how my ancestor damned you with his death curse, have you truely lain trapped beneath the earth all these years on the strength of a humans word?” there was pride and a hint of mockery in Martinus’ voice, which was either total embrace of the inevitable or insane stupidity.

“No longer human,” Frimssarr gloated a great greyish tongue curling in glee. Jocasta stared at Martinus in horror as she saw that the old man was clutching a jagged piece of stone behind his back. At once she fathomed his intent but she knew he was never going to make it. The dragon’s head slid back, its maw opening to reveal a bluish glow of hellfire deep in its gullet. She acted without thinking.

“Wait!” she shouted in what came out more of a squeak than the bellow she had intended.

“He lies! He is a faithful servant only! I am the last Morelocke!” she shouted. Martinus let out an anguished sound and the dragon whipped its head around to face Jocasta. A jet of flame so blue it seared her retina jetted towards her. She ducked behind the sarcophagus, gripping the stone and channeling all the warding energy she could into the solid rock. Alot of things happened at once. The flame struck the warded stone, shattering it to powder and hurling Jocasta back into the billowing dust. The dwarves surged forward eager to reach their ancient enemies. The fireblast divided by Jocasta’s spell craft blasted out horizontally, smashing deep into the sides of the ancient crypt, pulverizing stone like a wave washing over a childs sand castle. Martinus struck, with what proved to be the broken tip of a stone sword, salvaged from one the tombs. He struck with all the force he could muster, plunging the sharp rock into the wyrm's left eye, which exploded in a gout of flame that burned off Martinus’ hand and set his dressing gown on fire. The beast roared and went berserk, thrashing wildly and sending hellfire in all directions. Support joists exploded, there was dust everywhere. The beasts great limbs spasmed in wild disharmony, shredding the earth beneath them like tissue paper. The entire crypt simply gave way, dropping everyone into a void of roiling dust, screaming stone, and thrashing dragon. Jocasta’s last thought before something struck the side of her head and dropped her into unconsciousness was that, just this once, she should have kept her mouth shut.