Penny

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

Zoya followed Davian down a series of winding corridors, cutting through access corridors, empty barracks and storerooms. The Stone was an immense structure, the greatest fortress in the world; it could contain whole armies to garrison it. Fortunately for the fugitives, that very fact meant that much of it was empty during times of relative peace. What servants they did pass spared them curious glances, but didn’t offer comment or obstruction.

They were only a few stories above the ground when the air was split by the sound of a great gong. The sound resonated throughout the stone, startlingly flights of gulls from their nests in great clouds of feathers and tumultuous squawking. The had gotten further than Zoya had any right to hope before the alarm had been raised. A squad of Defenders, half dressed and scrambling, rushed around the corner to confront the pair.

“What are you standing around for!” Zoya shouted, “There are intruders in the building and the Highlords are in residence! Get up there and secure them!” The guards gave them a further confused glance and then the officer in charge nodded.

“Move!” he shouted and lead his men towards the stairs to the higher level.

“You’re lucky that worked,” Davian said, glancing at the departing squad. Zoya sniffed.

“Men usually respond to someone acting like they are in command,” Zoya replied. The clanking of boots alerted them that more soldiers were coming up from below. Davian grabbed the Aes Sedai and hauled her into one of the many turrets which studded the side of the stone and closed the door. The interior was dry and dusty, little more than a gallery with loopholes cut into the stone to allow archers to shoot down at besiegers. Through the loopholes the city of Tear sprawled out, tumbling gracelessly down to the river of the River Erinin.

“There is no way we will make it down without a fight,” Davian said, moving over to the loophole and looking out. Below them could be seen another projecting turret, and below that the slate roof of the stables. The drop between each was easily fifty yards.

“Any chance you know how to climb?” he asked. Zoya gave him a superior smile.

“I am a thief, afterall.”

Getting through the loophole was no easy feat, particularly for Zoya’s hips, but with a good deal of twisting she managed to force herself out. It had been many years since she had made her living as street waif in Tanchico, but she had climbed to the roofs many times. Davian followed her out, navigating the climb with ease. The wind tugged at her clothing and she focused on her hand holds rather than the dizzying drop below. Hand over hand she eased herself down the face of the Stone, pressing herself as flat as she could to minimize the area the wind could get at. Other gongs and bells were sounding in the city bellow as the alarm spread. Zoya reached the roof of the lower turret and slid down the roof to the edge. Davian landed lightly behind her.

“If I’d known I’d be doing this I’d have bought a rope,” he griped.

“If I’d known I’d be doing this, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Zoya retorted and gazed down at the fifty yard drop to the roof of the stables. The lowest section of the walls was the smoothest, there were no practicable hand holds that she could see. They could try to climb back into these loopholes, but that would have them running into the soldiers swarming into the Stone in response to the alarm.

“We will have to jump,” she decided. Davian’s eyes widened in alarm.

“It’s fifty yards!” Davian replied incredulously.

“Try to stay against the wall, the friction will help,” Zoya advised and then stepped off into nothing. Friction or no, she plunged like a catapult stone. Saidar filled her and she again wove flows of air, this time in a great gust that rushed up the front of the Stone sowing her fall markedly. She hit the slate roof of the stables, bending her knees to absorb the shock. Looking up she gestured at Davian. He mouthed an obscenity then jumped. Zoya sent a blast of air up to meet him, stronger than the one she had used for herself. He hit the roof with little more than a tap of boots on slate. Zoya sagged from the effort, not having yet recovered from her earlier exertions.

“What is the plan now?” Davian asked.

“We steal two horses and ride for the waterfront, there is a ship about to get underway, I saw her spreading her foresails. If we can get aboard, I can get us away.”

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

"I was having the most wonderful dream," Jocasta groaned as she sat up. Her hair slowly moved through a progression of colors as the cocktail of venom and anti-venom worked it's way through her system. She awkwardly sat up, steadying herself with an arm on the deck. Her eyes focused as she beheld the mutant, the snake man hissed as she staggered over to the controls before the pod.

"Just businesses, nothing personal!" the mutant cried. Jocasta reached up and took hold of the evacuation lever.

"Nooooo!!!" the snake man shrieked. Jocasta sighed and let go of the handle stepping away.

"Well," she sighed, "I suppose it is hard to be in a bad mood when you are about to become a quarter of a million dabluntz richer."

The snake man sagged back against the interior of the pod in relief. Jocasta took a seat in one of the console seats, paging idly through the shuttles internal systems.

"Speaking of which, we better get airborne before any surviving Mercs or Sharks catch up with us."

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

Zoya let out an explosive breath as she released her flows fighting the urge to simply collapse from exhaustion. It as one thing to weave or tie a flow, it was another to keep so many alive for so long. She had been ready to end the men's lives to save her own, but it would have taken all of her flagging strength.

"I've already sworn all the Oaths I plan to," Zoya replied, reaching out to touch the lock. The simple flow of Earth was a tremendous effort but the lock fell open with a click. She tried to walk out of the cell with her head held high but she was more than a little unsteady.

"None the less, I thank you for these men's lives," she replied, nudging one of the senseless defenders with her boot. "It would have been a pity to have to kill them." Davian looked her up and down, as though trying to decide whether she was joking. It was hard to joke when the Oath prevented you from telling an untruth.

"I wonder how they figured it out," Zoya mused as she edged towards the door. "I played everything perfectly."

"One of them recognized your name, I guess pigeons fly both ways," Davian replied.

"Bad luck then," Zoya decided. Her arms were growing heavy and she staggered slightly. Davian caught her and steadied her, making her simultaneously try to smile and scowl with an overall effect that looked like she had just eaten something unpleasant.

"Criminals often blame bad luck in my experience," Davian replied.

"I told you I hadn't stolen anything," Zoya insisted stubbornly. At the time she had told him that it had been true of course, and she didn't feel any need to bring him more up to date.

"Now we have to get out of here.. before... more Defenders... show up," she gasped. Davian was already leading her towards the door.

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

Zoya was feeling so self congratulatory that the first crossbowman stepping through the door caught her by surprise. The bearded Defender raised the weapon but hesitated a critical second as one of the guards, unaware of the situation steeped defensively in front of the door.

“Move you fool!” the Defender shouted “she is a damn witch!” Even as the words were leaving his mouth flows of air wrapped him, freezing him in place. A second crossbowman, then a third crowded into the chamber and were similarly immobilized. The two guards spun to face her eyes wide. The first she wrapped in air, the strain of so many weaves making sweat spring from her skin. She drank deeper of Saidar, pulling down a dangerous amount of power to weave the last man. She couldn’t quite manage to contain him completely; her flows enough to hold him in place but not totally immobilize him. With wide eyes and teeth gritted he forced his leveled pike forward, inch by inch as though driving it through a wooden wall by main strength.

Don’t make me kill you Zoya wanted to scream but the effort of maintaining so many weaves forced her teeth to clench in a riktus of effort. It was clear that her life was in danger, but killing a half dozen Defenders of the Stone would virtually guarantee she never left Tear alive, even if she managed it the High Lords would hound her till the end of her days. Wind stirred in the chamber; spill over from so many flows of air. The pike point came closer. A queasy feeling came over her. How would she do it? Strangle them? To slow. Fire? To much effort to weave another flow. Blades of Air… messy but her only realistic option. Zoya’s vision began to waver from the crushing strain and her bones seemed to burn from the amount of the Power she was wielding. It was now or never.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

It was only after the weight of the traitor marine's gaze left me that I was able to force my body to move. His will was as potent as it was ancient, and filled with the burning hatred of ten thousand years. I watched with morbid fascination as gold filigree swirled from his armor filling the gaps in it in a manner eerily reminiscent to sap oozing from a tree. Its swirling cloak seemed like a shimmering star field dancing with patters that I thought were maybe more than random light... I pulled my eyes away a moment and saw the companion who had ducked back into the room beyond reemerge. He was pointing a heavy caliber autogun of some kind right at Hadrian's back.

"No!" I shouted and my will reached out across the room. In retrospect I was glad I was forced to use it so unconsciously as I might not have dared to face the traitor marine again. One of the potted fruit trees burst from its vase, limbs twisting to grapple with the attacker. The autogun ripped out a long burst riddling the ceiling and raining a snow of shattered plaster down. I fumbled for a reload for my pistol and had just about managed to get the rounds seated when the doors to the outer chamber flung open to reveal a dozen men in breaching gear with shotguns. I screamed a shattering psykana scream which froze them in their tracks weapons half raised. I cast my handful of bullets into the air and sparked their percussion caps with my mind. Flame and smoke filled the air between me and the breaching team. Two or three of them went down, struck in the neck or head. One round struck a breachman's xythene tank and it went up in a brilliant white plume that rocketed across the room, miraculously passing between the chaos marines legs, bouncing off the floor, and flying over Hadrian's head. It cut the autogunner and my tree golem in half before smashing into the plexiglass view port and detonating. There was a sudden and tremendous roar as the chamber explosively decompressed, every piece of detritus from spent brass to pomegranate seeds whipping outwards in a great plum of gas and trash. Klaxons whined and I heard blast doors coming down in the hallway beyond. The breachers were sealing their suits even as their magnetic boots locked into place. The fallen astartes hardly slowed simply waded towards Hardrian, wielding his shadowy blade with both hands.

"Emma!" Clara shouted, the words already attenuating as we ran out of air. I unleashed my will and the flooring beneath us liquified. We dropped through the liquid but still cool metal likes stones sinking to the bottom of a pond, the rippling deckplates hardening behind us in unnatural frozen waves. We dropped onto a long mess table on the deck below. A score of ships officers in full dress uniform sat around glasses half raised as though they had been about to offer a toast. I landed on top of a roasted pheasant, scattering the bird and attendant vegetables in all directions. Clara landed chest first, sending a turine of soup spinning into the mess servants horrified faces. Hadrian landed, by some fluke on his feet a few inches from the end of the table, powersword blazing as he faced down the senior officer. Unfortunately that man was neither confused nor irresolute.

"Kill them!" he snapped and grabbed for his side arm a moment before Hadrian's blade took off his head. I shoved out both my hands and exerted my will once more. Knives and forks leaped up of their own accord and began stabbing and hacking at the screaming mass of officers and messmen. I saw one man get a saber drawn and slash at Clara who parried it with the stock of her weapon and fired a one handed shot that emptied the man's brain pan. Heavy naval pistols cracked and ricocheted wildly off the walls. A man grabbed my by the hair and yanked back to expose my neck. I grabbed him by the throat and poured my will into him. DEFEND ME. The man screamed and threw himself onto the ceremonial sword of another man poised to run me through, climbing up the blade to claw at his shocked companion with animal fury. An animate knife jumped onto the defenders shoulder and plunged its tip into the mans carotid artery in a spray of blood that slashed the ceiling. Whether by fate or some caprice of the Dark Gods the shadow sword of the Chaos Marine chose that moment to plunge through the roof and begins sawing a jagged hole in a half meter thick steel deck plate.

"We have to get out of here!" I screamed, patently obvious and completely useless in the insane melee. Clara rocked back howling with pain as shards of her ceramite plated flack jacket blew away under the strike of heavy 40 caliber naval pistol ball. Blood sprayed up over her face like war paint as she emptied her magazine into the melee. I think they would have run if they could, but there was no where to go and besides no one had the first clue what was going on. My defender was clawing his way across the table intent on using teeth and fingernails to rip apart his fellows. Hadrian was laying about himself with his blade, easily outclassing naval officers who wore swords as an affectation and not as a tool. The ceiling above us began to bow. My staff was hot in my hand, the psycoreactive crystal pushed close to failure by all I had been doing.

"Go!" Hadrian shouted, shoving me towards the door, I caught Clara and grabbed her helping her through the large brass doors at the end of the mess hall. Several servants were laying on the floor, praying to the emperor or vomiting. One was trying to push loops of entrails back into his chest cavity where a bullet, ours or theirs had ripped it open.

"Grenade!" Hadrian shouted and in a remarkable feat, struck it from the air with the blade of his powersword, thumbing it off a moment before impact to send it flying back towards whatever desperate fool had tossed it. I raised my hand and formed a square of force a foot across immediately behind the bomb. It went off like a great shot gun, scything down the remaining officers and staff into a ruin of chopped meat that blended with spilled wine and gravy. The ceiling above flexed again as a great blue fist seized it and peeled it back like a tin can. Hadrian slapped the autoclose and the great brass doors began to roll shut, two bodies were between the jaws and both were cut in half by the pressure of the hydraulics with a series of sickening crunches. The door boomed wetly shut and we all stood gasping. A crash like a great bell sounded from behind the door and I knew our pursuer had leaped from the deck above. Clara shoved herself to her feet, reloading her weapon with bloodied fingers. It was impossible to tell how badly she was hurt but the tremor in her arm didn't look promising.

"We have to get out of here," I gasped, sucking in great lung fulls of air. A psychic roar erupted behind the door and the brass began to quiver and melt under its force. A horrible sound came from behind the door, and I realized that the Marine was laughing.

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Rather fortunately for the mercenaries, the High Port wasn’t the kind of place where a heavily armed thug carrying an unconscious man across his shoulders gained more than a few speculative looks. Jocasta kept her fusion beamer unslung to dissuade any more serious curiosity, though the Black Lady knew what would happen if she fired it inside a pressurized tin can like this. Something that rhymed with sexplosive recompression she thought with a whimsical grin.

The hangar bay wasn’t far from the main elevator trunk. An expensive birth for a trader but hardly bank breaking for an outfit the size of the White Sharks. Or the size the White Sharks had been before a number of their members took retirement with extreme prejudice at any rate. She didn’t doubt that Markus was right that military grade weaponry would see off the hoard of bounty hunters who had been loosed on them, but they were likely to have taken so many casualties that the White Sharks as a group might never recover.

“Here we are,” Jocasta announced entering the code she had swiped from the computer terminal at the rendezvous. The hanger door opened to reveal the cavernous bay beyond. A Suytnet 22 armored transport squatted in the middle of the hanger like an angry toad, it’s body boxy with protruding sensor packages and weapon hard points. Fuel hoses and data lines had already been unhooked and lay in coiled heaps beside the big ship.

“Crew must already be aboard,” Markus observed. Jocasta nodded and they hurried across the deck to the ship. The temperature declined rapidly as they got closer, an artifact of the leakage all such bays had to the deep space beyond. They hurried up the ramp and Markus gratefully dumped the groaning form of their prisoner into one of the jump seats and knotted him in place with the restraint harness. Jocasta moved forward to look into the cockpit.

“There is no one here,” she called back.

“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” a voice hissed from the darkness. Something heavy fell on her from above. Jocasta managed to get her arms up to deflect a blow at her head. Pain tore at her but she rotated away from the blow, aiming a snap kick at the ribs of her assailant that drove them into the wall. She swung her fusion beamer up but the attacker kicked it up, then caught her wrist and twisted, the weapon clattered to the deck, mercifully not firing and cutting her in half. She charged at her attacker, deflected a blow at her midsection and then cracked him across the jaw with her elbow. Her arms burned and she could taste blood. Markus was shouting behind her but she couldn’t make anything out over the ringing in her ears.

“You!” she gasped, recognizing the snake mutant from the bar.

“You should have taken my advice,” the snake said, drawing back fangs from a bloodied mouth.

“Maybe next time,” Jocasta allowed and pulled her pistol from its holster. The movement seemed slow and suddenly the weapon seemed very heavy. She frowned and looked down at her arm. Two neat puncture wounds had appeared just above her wrist.

“Son of a…” Jocasta managed and then collapsed to the ground. The snake thing leaned down and picked her up. Jocasta vision was tunneling rapidly but as the snake came close she bit down hard on its hand causing it to recoil in outrage.

“Bitch,” she concluded as the darkness rushed up to swallow her.

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

“You have progressed from accosting women in wine shops to assaulting them in bath houses?” Zoya asked, her voice scathing with contempt. From a purely tactical standpoint, fear or anger might have been a better pose to adopt. The problem with dissembling was that you had to maintain the pose though, and for that reason something closer to the truth was to be preferred. She rose without hurry and toweled herself dry.

“If you are a thieftaker, and you work for the High Lords,” her voice dripped with doubt on both points, “I shall be happy to clear up whatever slander you have dreamed up.”


“So this is our thief?” Teodosin demanded. Zoya stood before the Highlords, her wrists shackled with irons that looked particularly incongruous in the sumptuously appointed audience chamber.

“My Lord, I don’t even know what I am supposed to have stolen,” Zoya protested, her voice now deferential and with a touch of fear appropriate for such lofty company.

“I’m merely visiting your city. My sister has recently died and I wanted to perform some acts of charity in her memory,” she pressed on. The words skirted perilously close to her Oath but didn’t actually infringe on it.

“You are of noble birth?” Teodosin demanded. Zoya nodded her head quickly, reminding herself that crabbing was an ancient and noble profession.

“From the Shadow Coast in southern Amadicia my lord,” she supplied quickly. “I don’t know why this man has accused me, I had never seen him before today when he accosted me while drinking in a wine shop and then forced his way into my bath house when I was in a state of undress.” The account was unflattering but technically truthful and she delivered it with scandalized disgust. The Highlord’s eyebrows raised at that. All eyes pivoted to Davian.

“Take her to the cells,” Teodosin ordered. “We will discuss the matter with the Thieftaker.

Two Defenders locked Zoya into the cell. It was clean if musty from disuse. Clearly this part of the Stone saw few visitors, willing or otherwise. Zoya felt the old thrill of excitement kindle in her. The same spark which she had always felt while climbing into some merchant’s townhouse back in Tanchico, or slipping into some Aes Sedai’s chamber as a novice. Weeks of planning were about to be put to the test. She hadn’t planned on Davian bringing her here, but here was where she had wanted to be. Saidar flowed into her and she reached out with Earth, unbinding the shackles. With her hands free she crept to the door. One of the Defenders had returned to the higher levels, leaving only one guard. Zoya wove flows of spirit in a complicated net that settled over the man. He slumped where he stood, sound asleep. She wove a web of air to keep him standing while he slept. Drawing her hairpins free she set to work on the lock, it took less than a minute to spring the lock, few heavy locks were particularly sophisticated, and then she was out the door.

Zoya reached the doors to the Great Holding in less then ten minutes. The plans she had found in the Tower Library did not lead her false. A pair of Defenders stood before the door, backs straight and with bored expressions on their mustachioed faces. Zoya repeated her sleep weave in duplicate, sweating from the effort of managing so many flows at once. Both men settled into the nets of air, eyes closed in somnolence. Zoya slipped passed the sleeping men and into the Great Holding itself. Her breath caught at once. Thousands of items were piled on shelves, scatted across the floor, or piled against the walls. They had been cleaned and organized recently, part of the inventory which had been taken when Zoya had spread rumors of theft. Tarien archivists had compared what they found in the Holding to ancient manuscripts which listed the contents. It had never occurred to them that someone might add items to those lists, items which, for reason of being purely imaginary, they had failed to find. Saraita Sedai’s lessons on caring for documents put to good, if unorthodox use.

“Where are you?” Zoya whispered, but she could already see her goal. A small puzzle box fashioned of gold, ivory and jet. Just as she had Foretold. She crossed the room and picked it up. It was surprisingly warm to her hand as she slipped it into a pocket sewn into the inside of her dress. She felt a surge of triumph ever since she had come to the White Tower she had dreamed of doing something, doing something important, and now here she was, where no Aes Sedai had stood in centuries, recovering a vital and priceless artifact. There were other artifacts, so many, and they would languish here unstudied and useless. Zoya started grabbing things. Small valuable looking things. A disc carved with the image of an owl, a small crystal rod, figurines wrought in cundilliar, several rings and other small pieces of jewelery. She pulled her bodice open, it was quilted on the inside and she began slicing the lining and slipping object into the spaces. Several items she wrapped in a cloth and tucked beneath her breasts, then hastily refastened her dress. There was so much more she could take, but nothing brought more necks to the rope than greed. She slipped out of the holding, releasing the weaves on the guards once she was out of sight. Both men started awake but remained silent out of embarrassment for having fallen asleep on watch, the penalty for which was severe. She made it back to her cell and slipped inside, relocking the door and refastening her chains, finally she woke the guard who turned to see her reclining against the back wall of the cell.

She had already been searched. All she had to do now was wait for the High Lords to throw her out on the street.

Penny's Pencils

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

Jocasta giggled both at Neil and at Cygi's performance. The AI clearly didn't like sharing the spotlight. It was inevitable, Cygi had begun life as a signals intelligence program, it was her nature to mistrust, particularly once someone had been tagged as enemy. The rest of Cygi's behavior was more difficult to rationalize.

"Su's very confident after narrowlys beatings me at pool," Jocasta slurred. She took another shot glass from the pool table and downed it with a quick gulp. It was extremely sour and made her lips pucker.

"It's important to be gracious in victory," Neil agreed with drunken solemnity.

"Fine, then it would be churlish of me to deny a victor a chaste victory make out," Jocasta agreed. Neil opened his mouth to laugh but before any noise could escape Jocasta leaped into his arm and planted a kiss on his lips. In his drunken state Neil staggered, stepped back, hit the edge of the pool table and the both tumbled onto the felt table top.