Penny

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Jocasta pulled on the uniform with some difficulty despite the adjustable straps the flak vest fit poorly.

"It's a little tight across the chest," she complained, even though the vest was long enough that it gouged her legs if she bent the wrong way. Markus snorted and handed her a plasma rifle. It was a Wexler arms model but close enough to the UNSG Mars pattern that Jocasta had little difficulty figuring it out. She considered taking a shield but decided that it would make her stand out too much.

"Well I'm not normally a less is more guy," Markus admitted, "but keeping that chest tight might be good for our cover."

"You say the sweetest things," Jocasta enjoined as she draped herself with webbing belt and a bandolier to improve her disguise. She tucked the needler into an ammunition pouch and did her best to pull it closed without actually sealing it. She decided that the overall effect made her look hastily dressed, which was appropriate for the situation as the alarm claxons had change tone from fire to general alarm.

"Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown. Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown," an automated voice bleated over the PA system. The two mercenaries exchanged glances and stepped out into the hallway. Jocasta turned and touched the lock plate which turned red and then pixilated oddly as she corrupted the code, jamming the door closed. They hurried down the hallway, stepping aside to allow two more guards and a fire suppression team to pass them en route to the armory.

"Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown. Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown," the alarm blared on irritating repeat as Jocasta and Markus hurried back towards the gate. As the reached the entrance foyer however it became apparent that there was no way to get through. A dozen guards were already standing to, weapons pointed outwards as others methodically began to sweep for intruders.

"We could try the service entrance," Markus suggested.

"You two, where are you assigned," a jumpy looking trooper demanded, his plasma rifle not pointed but held ready.

"Your mother's ass," Markus growled, "and if you don't want me up yours you will get back to your fucking station!" The soldier flinched at the tone of NCOs the galaxy wide, then flushed, considered a response then turned to shout at someone else.

"Service entrance will be locked down ever harder," Jocasta argued, "but I have an idea."

They backtracked through the manor passing large gardens and luxurious apartments, each one sealed and electronically flagged as searched or unsearched. A fire in the armory was concerning but the compound must have been on heighted state of alert, probably because to the high profile prisoner they were holding here. At last the reached a more industrial area then finally a long tube that lead to a hatch, beyond through transperisteel viewports a ship could be seen, connected to the station by the docking tube.

"You! Freeze!" the leader of a quartet of guards at the end of the tube shouted. These men weren't in the flak armor of the household guard, but rather in more elaborate pearl armor. Jocasta realised they must be a guard of honor who crewed Galanis' yacht.

"We are conducting a..." Jocasta began but Markus shoved her to the side as the men opened fire, bolts of sun hot plasmas jetting down the tube towards them. An electronics panel exploded above them showering them with sparks. Markus returned fire leaping across the hallway to take cover behind a large console. Jocasta peeked around the corner, aimed her rifle and fired several times but the guards were in cover of their own in the ball like enlargement of the tube just before the airlock. No doubt they were already radioing for backup.

"We have to punch through to the yacht before we have every guard in the place down on us!" Jocasta called to Markus. She leaned out and squeezed off a shot, this one deflected of the wall of the docking tube and struck one of the guards in the shoulder, punching him off his feet. Judging by the volume of his cursing his armor had taken the brunt of the damage while sparing him serious injury. The air reeked of ozone sharp plasma discharge and burning electronics.

"Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown. Alert. Alert. Facility Lockdown," the monotonous voice droned on.

"Nothing like a ticking clock," Markus agreed.

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

The situation was rapidly deteriorating. Further conflict was temporarily averted as the Captain bellowed for all hands to get aloft and reef sail as he turned his ship more westerly to run before the storm. Glares and muttered imprecations were aimed at Zoya as the crew scurried up into the rigging. The wind on deck was now growing so strong that conversation was difficult, and the ship was heeling over and slicing through the waves, like a hobby horse, throwing up huge sprays of foam each time the bow hit the approaching swell. Davian and Zoya retreated below decks, a refuge from the spray if not the increasingly violent motion of the vessel.

"Did you do that?" Davian demanded, grim faced in the semi darkness below decks. No lights could be risked in such weather, not when a ship was made of so many tons of dried wood, pine tar, and other such incindieary materials. Zoya's nostrils flared with anger, the accusation akin to naming her a darkfriend. She mastered herself with obvious effort, reminding herself that the common folk were less familiar with the Oaths than the initiated.

"No." Zoya responded, distinctly and directly so as to give no wiggle room for Aes Sedai trickery. She wondered if one of the items she had taken from the Stone might have been indirectly responsible. She had made only cursory examination of the loot she had acquired. All had the feel of items of the power and one of them, the small figurine of a woman with a sword between her breasts wrought in what looked to be soap stone, was clearly an angreal, but the functions and powers of the others would take study and considerable risk to divine.

"That isn't going to stop me from being lynched by a bunch of woolheaded sailormen though," she cursed. The retreated to the small cabin where Zoya had been staying and she gathered up her little haul of items into a shoulder bag. The Captain had been willing to sell her basic provisions and she poured herself a half glass of sour resinous wine. The roll of the ship nearly sloshed the fluid over the edge of the mug and she gulped quickly to keep from spilling.

The sound of feet pounded on the planks outside and Davian threw himself across the doorway a second before horny fists began to pound on it.

"Come out here witch!"

"Throw her over the side!"

"She murdered Gil!"

Zoya grabbed a chair and thrust it against the door as a flimsy barricade, not that it would hold long against men with the heavy axes the crew used to cut away downed rigging.

"Do you have a plan?" Davian demanded. Zoya crossed her arms huffily.

"I am open to suggestions," she admitted tartly.

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

How we doing team?

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Why are you trying to kill me," Emmaline demanded, her voice quavering with the fear that roiled bile in her stomach. The Daemonette licked its lips, its tongue long and deerlike even in this more humanoid form. The Daemonette took a step forward and Emmaline raised her hands warningly, golden energy sparking between her finger tips.

"Isn't that what Daemons do?" the creature asked sibilantly, rolling it's hips in a slow rotation that tired to draw the eye to its genitals. Emmaline took a step back, bumping into Kasimir who cursed.

"You were a threat to us, the winds of Chaos spoke both your names to us when we embarked on this scheme. Now that you are here though I think we can find something more pleasurable than death for you..." the Daemon moaned. Emmaline backed another step before the advancing daemon, hopping over a root that had been worming its way through the loam towards her.

"You have potential girl, the man... just a man..." Roots exploded from the ground, coiling around Kasimir's legs and lower body. He howled in rage and shock as rootlets exploded from the main trunk, wrapping his wrists and elbows. Emmaline had time to be revolted by the fact that small mouths had opened in the wood and were mindlessly kissing and sucking at Kasimir as he was slowly bent backwards by the constricting mass. Something shivered beneath the earth and Emmaline was mortal certain she didn't want to know what it was that was attached to those questing tendrils. The Daemonette held up her hand and the rootlets froze, halting but not releasing their grip on the struggling Kasimir.

"Unless your fond of him? If you kneel before me I shall spare his life, even let you keep him. Does that please you Emmaline?" the creature asked with a cruel lilt in its voice.

"Emmaline?" Kasimir asked, apparently not completely out of his wits. The Daemonette laughed in a rich throaty contralto, somewhat ruined but the rustling sursurence of the chitinous claw as it opened and closed.

"Our little liar has many names, but that is her favorite," the Daemon mocked. Emmaline turned and grabbed Kasimir's hand. She bent her head close to his.

"Don't do it..." Kasimir grunted.

"I'm not going to do it you idiot," Emmaline responded in a whisper and then kissed Kasimir on forhead.

"What are ... no!" Kasimir screamed but his scream froze as his flesh turned to gray stone, spreading down from his head like blood tainting a pond until he was entirely solid. A perfect life sized statue of a brave, if rather annoying man, rendered in detail beyond the skill of even the greatest sculptor.

"How sweet of you to spare him damnation," the Daemonette crooned. The rootlets fell away uninterested in their now inert pray. "Fortunately we won't let the same thing happen to you..." The Daemonette charged, bounding across the gap between them, it's whip striking out. Emmaline screamed as it wrapped around her wrist and yanked her towards the creature but she kept her nerve, drawing arcane power into herself as she used the momentum to turn the fall into a leap a sheet of golden fire blasting out before her. She struck the Daemonette in the chest, rocking it backwards. Emmaline shouted another spell and spikes of granite erupted from the hill side like blades through a silk coat. The attack flung the Daemonette back but the creature was still laughing cruelly.

"Foolish mortal, you are cunning but this our lords domain afterall..." the creature swept its claw through the granite spikes shattering them like glass as it sauntered towards her.

"We painted everything here afterall and we will share our art, first with the court of this so called Elector Count and then with your whole foolish Empire," The Daemonette cooed, then stamped imperiously. The roots exploded out of the ground once more this time seizing Emmaline. It wrapped her hands and writs, coiling between her fingers to foil any spell craft. Slim tendrils, slid up her legs, turning around her and slipping beneath her dress. Mouth like leaves sucked at her exposed flesh and began working their way up her neck making her shiver in revulsion and a horrifying fission of guilty pleasure. Several of the bees emerged from the undergrowth, moaning in an unsettling human way as they began to circle her. Emmaline could smell the mix of hormones and perfumes, heady and spicy and making her head swell.

"I'm going to enjoy this," the Daemonette cooed, it's beautiful face split into a leer of desire that could never be satisfied.

"Not... as much... as I will..." Emmaline chocked out as she was pinned back and fully spread eagled.

"That is the..." the Daemonette wheeled around at a sound behind her. Kasimir howled a warcry as his sword came down in a vast over handed stroke. The chaos spawn's claw flew away from it in a spatter of dark purple ichor and the immortal being's eyes bulged with horror and disbelief. Kasimir was shedding dust from the thin crust of stone Emmaline had encased him in as his momentum carried him past the shocked daemon. It whirled after him and lashed out with the whip but Kasimir pulled his arms down and turned his head, presenting the flat of his body to the blow. The whip snapped across him drawing blood in a thin line but failing to wrap around him, instead he gripped the whip chord in a powerful hand and jerked the wounded Daemonette towards him. It stumbled forward on its hooves, its chest meeting the point of Kasimir's sword between breast and pectoral. The creatures huge eyes bulged as the point of the blade erupted from its back, its own weight impaling it to the hilt. The bees surged forward but Emmaline, free of the roots now that the Daemon's attention had been terminally diverted, sprang to her feet and whirled her arm around her head. The shattered shards of granite flew into the air whirling like a tornado of razor edged glass around the two humans, half a dozen bees flew apart into twitching pieces that flopped and struggled on the earth. Emmaline stumbled to Kasimir and closed her hands around his, then with a wrench they pulled the sword free. The Daemon tumbled back into the storm, losing definition like a sandcastle when the waves reach it. Emmaline yanked the sword sideways, flicking the dark purple blood aside like an artist spattering a canvas. Reality parted where the blood hissed through the air and Emmaline leaped through dragging Kasimir after her.

Lucien had been enjoying the show immensely. The backdrops in particular were magnificent. He could have sworn at times that he saw creatures, even people moving on the painted canvas, a simply masterful display of stage craft. The play was building towards its denouement, when suddenly, with no warning there was a tremendous ripping sound. The fabric of the backdrop tore open and two figures tumbled out.

"Ulric's blood it cant be..." but it was, it was the damned Count's bastard and that Brettonian woman to boot. There was a sudden scream that chilled the blood of everyone in the room, and suddenly the background repaired itself, like a pond closing over a stone. A great white hart suddenly stood out on the canvas its eyes red with fury. One of the stage hands screamed and thrust at Kasimir with a heavy pole. The whelp batted it away and slashed at the man who went down with a scream and a spray of blood.

"Tréachairy!" Eleanor screamed, "Chaos and pairfidy, get le count to saftey!" One of the actors produced a very real sword and charged at her. There was a crack and the man toppled over, shot through the head by the Witch hunter who was drawing a second pistol even as he tossed the first one aside. One of the players screamed and leaped into the backdrop sliding through it appear in cruder two dimensional relief with the image. The White Hart pounced on him, driving its hooves into his body over and over with stylized flashes of blood. The Witch Hunter shot another player, a woman who had produced a jagged knife from her bodice, sending her toppling from the stage into the court below. Men and women were screaming, some trying to flee, others drawing weapons and trying to rush the stage. In moments it was over, the players and stage hands cut down to a man. The White Hart paced the canvas in fury until Elanor seized a torch and thrust it into the fabric. The backdrop began to char, then burst into flames that were tinged an unhealthy purple as they consumed the linen. Men at arms kicked the backdrop down, knocking the fabric off the improvised stage and onto the stonework where it stood less chance of burning the palace down. Concerned they might be but no one who had seen the image of the white hart its limbs covered in blood, suggested putting the thing out until it had burned down to nothing more than soot and ashes.

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

Jocasta opened her mouth, a clever lie already forming on her lips. Unfortunately the guard closest to a panic button was already lurching toward it, either having recognized the prisoners, or simply too nervy to wait a few seconds for clarification. Quick as lighting Jocasta yanked the needler from its pouch, thrust it out one handed and fired. The miniaturized weapon made a whack, whack, whack, as it fired combining the air splitting report with the hum of the acceleration coils, sounding like the worlds most spiteful sewing machine. The man going for the alarm jerked and fell sideways, blood grouting from the joint between his chest plate and his helmet. Everything was suddenly happening at once. The guard closest to Jocasta tried to swing the barrel of his rifle to bear even as his lips twisted to shout for help. Jocasta cut her arm down, parrying the barrel away with her own weapon. The plasma rifle went off with a sun bright flare that made the hair stand up on everyone's neck. The ravening plasma bolt struck one of the ceramic riot shields and refracted splashing up over a number of cardboard containers which immediately began to burn. Jocasta fired her needler as she finished her parry, putting three needle sharp spikes into the boot and lower leg of her assailant. The man reeled back in time for his chin to meet Markus's pistol but as it came forward, cracking him back so hard the chin strap of his helmet broke and bounced free. The bloodied guard now unconscious crashed into his partner as he tried to clear his own weapon and he went down in a tangle of limbs.

An alarm began to shriek, a fire alarm ironically, and the roof erupted in a torrential downpour of fire suppressing foam. The stuff had a reeking chemical tang and somehow managed to be both slippery and clingy. Jocasta tried to back up to get room but her feet went out from under her and she crashed to the ground, her needler still shimmering with the waist heat. Markus fired into the pair of downed guards with a quick snap snap that made both bodies spasm and lay still.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Do your wizardly powers give you any idea which direction we should be going? Kasimir demanded. Emmaline looked around the strange landscape. The flowers were growing thicker and larger by the moment, not to mention considerably more alien. The air was heavy with pollen and perfume that made Emmaline want to sneeze.

"Actually they do," Emmaline admitted, stepping carefully around a wrist thick stamen that probe blindly for her.

"Mind sharing that information with me?" Kasimir asked.

"Left," she said pointing vaguely into he forest. Kasimir looked skeptical, turning slowly and keeping the point of his sword in a low guard. A pair of squirrels chittered from a nearby elm tree, their eyes massive and faintly luminescent. Everything about this place was beautiful and menacing.

"How do you know?" Kasimir pressed as Emmaline set off in the direction she had indicated. She looked back over her shoulder.

"We are in a theatrical backdrop, exit is always stage left."

______________

The landscape drew slowly steeper and bare rock emerged through the leaf mold. The rocks divided up into numerous small pools, in which lotus like flowers floated serenely. The trees here were of no type Emmaline had seen, large broad leaves of deep green with purplish veins. The trunks were covered with ambler sap which coated them like old honey or incipient amber. There were shapes beneath he sap, human shapes. Emmaline saw a naked Imperial woman, eyes staring wide in ecstatic pleasure in her syrupy psuedodeath. Another cascade of sap contained a handsome man with staring horrified eyes.

Emmaline... the wind seemed to whisper.

"Did you hear that?" Emmaline demanded, spinning rapidly around to try to find the source of the sound.

"All I hear is the wind," Kasimir said then paused... "and maybe surf, why what..."
"Would you be quiet, I'm trying to listen!" Emmaline hissed, exasperated. Kasimir rolled his eyes but fell silent for a moment while she listened. The sap continued to run from the trees, slowly growing too thick to make out the people trapped beneath, rending them dark shadows against the sticky amber slime.

"It's not surf," Emmaline said after a moment, "it's applause. The show must have started."

"That is hours away," Kasimir objected, then fell silent, "of course we are in an insane painting so why should time work normally."

Emmaline ... she spun around, catching a glimpse of the white hart at the edge of the treeline.

"Aureum Fulmen Lucis!" Emmaline shouted, thrusting out both hands with fingers interlocked and palms turned out. The hart bounded away a moment before a golden beam of light the thickness of Emmaline's forearm scythed through the woodland it had occupied a moment before. One of the trees touched by the beam exploded with a shattering crash and chunks of syrup, wood and the unfortunate victim it had entombed rained down, waking great splashes from the pond. Emmaline slewed her beam after the retreating hart but it had already vanished among the trees.

"We have to follow it," Emmaline decided, heading off after the hart.

"Oh sure lets follow the monster," Kasimir griped.

"Feel free to stay here," Emmaline called. Kasimir glared at her back but followed a moment later.

______

Nor did the landscape grow more pleasant as they moved up hill in the direction the hart had fled. The trees gave way to large thick trunked flowers. They were in riotous colors in every shade and pattern imaginable. Emmaline had the uncomfortable impression of of women with their head and shoulders planted in the soil, an impression uncomfortably amplified when a dozen bees, the size of large dogs emerged from a glade. Instead of stingers the insects bore very large but very human phallus, if human phallus had been ebony black. They began to 'pollinate' the flowers furiously and Emmaline felt a dull vibration beneath the earth, though whether it was screaming or moaning she couldn't fightly say.

It can be both Emmaline... the voice in her head promised.

They wouldn't come to the forest, so we have bought the forest to them...

"We are running out of time," Emmaline breathed, holding out both hands against a sudden rush by the bee things, though they seemed focused enough on their task.

"If we don't get out of here fast, I'm afraid something very bad is going to happen in the palace..."

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

"Well, if you insist on taking all the fun out of it, it's over there," Jocasta told him, hooking her thumb towards the refresher.

Twenty minutes later, Jocasta too was changed into a similar worker's uniform, though despite her best efforts, it clung to her more than was optimal. The fusion beamer, like Markus’ sword, had been confiscated when they had been captured, so she armed herself with a K-21 Argosy Needler — a weapon between a pistol and a submachine gun. Finished in bone-white polymer, it electromotively fired tiny metal darts. Each projectile was small, but at close to Mach 7, the little hollow points were more than capable of putting a man down.

"Not much penetrating power," Markus cautioned her as she checked the battery pack on the weapon.

"She might not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts," Jocasta riposted, reaching into her duffel and withdrawing a U-shaped attachment with three noticeably large caliber rounds, clipping it to the nose of the needler. A telltale light lit up and the underslung launcher made three clicks as it ran its diagnostic.

"Tungsten jacketed slugs, all the penetration a girl could ask for," Jocasta explained, tucking the weapon into a pouch on her belt that looked like it should contain a multitool or a vacuum wrench.

Markus eyed her preparations with a mixture of admiration and skepticism. "So now we can go kill the bastard?" he groused. Jocasta shoved her remaining clothing into her duffel and slung it over her shoulder. Markus stared at her for a moment in disbelief.

"That hardware must weigh 200 pounds," he objected. Jocasta bounced the bag as though it weighed nothing.

"Hey, maybe I really work out," she winked. People were familiar with counter grav when it was used in ships, but it really was amazing what you could do with it when you put your mind to it.

"But to your killing the bastards point, fear not, your manhood shall soon be restored to you!" she promised grandiosely.

"My manhood is just fine; it’s my sword I want," Markus growled.

"Potato, potago," she replied blithely, leading the way out of the hotel as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

______________

"Badge check!" Jocasta called to a file of workers as they headed towards the service entrance to Gallanis compound. Unlike the main entrance with its gates of wrought iron and force field generators, the service entrance was unprepossessing — little more than a set of security blast doors and a checkpoint. Like the front door, however, it was well defended; a duraplas pillbox squatted opposite the checkpoint, a heavy automatic weapon protruding ominously to cover the approach. It was located a level below at the end of a long axial corridor that connected it to the docks so that goods and personnel could be brought in without disturbing his Lordship's gardens. The workmen, garbed in more or less the same clothing as Markus and Jocasta, looked up with a combination of irritation and fear as Jocasta stepped forward, producing a handheld computer with a scanning wand.

"Idents out, move along," Jocasta called, scanning the chip of each workman as they passed. Each time, her scanner lit green and bleeped its approval. One of the workers stepped close with an appreciative glance.

"What’s all this about?" he asked, giving her a bit of a leer for good measure. Jocasta didn’t look up from the holographic display on her scanner.

"I don’t know, something about a pair of dangerous and attractive mercenaries escaping his nibs' clutches," Jocasta replied with blithe disinterest that made Markus wince. She scanned the worker's chip and was rewarded with another approving bleep.

"Did Clem send you?" the man asked, apparently idly. Jocasta didn’t look up.

"Clem? Is this some sort of lower echelon joke I’m too well paid to understand?" she asked in a bored voice. The worker glared at her, glanced at Markus, who gave him a 'what can you do' shrug, and then returned to the line.

"So you scanned their IDs," Markus noted, "can you make up false ones to get us in?"

"Already have," Jocasta replied. There was a whirring as her scanner produced a plastic label. Jocasta slapped it across Markus’s right breast; it adhered to the fabric to form a name tag: Watson. She repeated the process, labeling herself Holmes.

"Watson and Holmes?" he asked.

"Just something a random name generator threw up," Jocasta replied innocently.

"So now we just bluff our way in?" he asked. Jocasta giggled.

"Of course not; they are expecting us!" She assured him.

"How can they be expecting us if you just faked these IDs?" he asked.

"Well, if you insist on knowing how the sausage is made, I broke up an appointment file into bits and uploaded it to each of those worker IDs. When the guards scan them, it goes into the mainframe; it just looks like junk. Except once it is in there, it will reassemble, and voilà, we are invited guests."

"Don’t they do genetic testing?"

"Of course, but we are already in their database," she chuckled, "I just relabeled our arrest files." Markus shook his head and set off towards the checkpoint. Two armed security troopers approached them with wands and scanned them. Despite the fact they were both heavily armed, the scanners made no complaint.

"In and out, Commissioner Holmes," the guard cautioned as he stepped back and waved the door open.
"Are you certain you need your secretary?" he asked, eyeing Markus up and down.

"The Starry Lady alone knows it’s better than him wandering around by himself," she replied in a put-upon voice. The guard nodded and let them through the door.

"Secretary?" Markus asked in a low growl.

"Hey, you want to pick the covers, you got to come to the meetings," Jocasta replied as they headed deeper into the compound.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Why eez evairyone een zis citay tryeng to keehl me?" Eleanor complained bitterly as Kasimir led her away by the arm. Attention seemed to be largely focused on the ongoing melee, cheers half-drowning out the crash of steel in the gardens behind them.

"I think they might have been trying to kill me that time," Kasimir objected.

"Oui, cairtain-lee, but you are vairy annoyeng, et zat peoplé would went to keehl you eez... 'Ow do you sai... On-lee natural," Eleanor replied, unable, even in her fear, to resist jibing at the Middenlander.

"Nice," Kasimir replied, shaking his head in disbelief at the woman. He continued to drag her deeper into the castle towards her chambers.

"But me, ai would névair 'urt a f-lee, on-lee come to try et raize lé ransom fair mon dair papa..."

"Ulric’s teeth!" Kasimir exploded. "Is there anyone left in the city you haven’t swindled with your story or your hip…"

Eleanor stopped dead as they passed the archway leading to the grand ballroom. Her sudden resistance broke Kasimir’s grip, and he stumbled. Eleanor ducked into the ballroom, and Kasimir followed.

"What is wrong with you, woman? We need…" He fell silent as he saw that the interior of the ballroom was filled with theatrical props: velvet curtains, beautifully painted backdrops, racks of clothing, mirrors, and masks. Men and women in expensive motley were hurrying about, setting up for the play later in the evening. A large sign had been hoisted above a makeshift stage. It read in large gilt lettering: Selkirk Theatrical Company.

"Kasimir!" Emmaline called urgently, bile churning in her stomach as she spun in time to see a giant of a man in what looked like half an acre of motley swing a heavy wooden serving table at the Middenlander. He whipped around at her warning, taking the blow across the shoulders instead of having his skull stove in. Kasimir flew through the air, crashing into Emmaline and sending the pair of them careening into a gorgeously painted backdrop of a forest complete with a white hart with a slender, almost beautiful face.

Emmaline landed on soft loamy earth, the sweet smell of woodland in late spring filling her nostrils. There was something else in the air, but she was prevented from savoring it by Kasimir’s limp body landing atop her and driving the air from her lungs. She punched and kicked at him in blind panic until finally she was able to roll free, panting to fill her panicked lungs. Kasimir lay limp in the dirt, and she snatched up his sword, gripping it with both hands. She was in a forest; of the troupe of performers, there was no sign, nor any sign of the ballroom they had been in mere seconds before. The sky could be glimpsed through the canopy above, a gorgeous riot of orange and gold clouds underlit by a setting sun. Emmaline became aware of a myriad of small flowers ranging from bright red to pale pink, some no larger than her thumbnail. All of them seemed to be turning to face her with the slow, inevitable logic of plants. The birdsong was languid, almost choral, yet it held a hint of menace all the same. Icy fear gripped Emmaline’s guts and brought a coppery taste to her lips. Wherever they were, it wasn’t Middenheim, and it was no natural place.

"Kasimir!" Emmaline hissed, "Kasimir!" The bastard son of the Count of Middenheim wasn’t stirring, though his chest rose and fell. A trickle of blood ran out of his right ear, dripping to the ground where an enterprising honeysuckle plant dipped its gorgeous flowers to sample the vitae. Emmaline kicked him hard in the ribs, eliciting a grunt but no more.

"Oh, for Ranald’s sake!" she cursed and thrust the point of the blade into the dirt. Emmaline was no Jade Wizard who could mend ruptured organs and knit shattered bones, but she knew a few basic cantrips, mostly for use on herself after too much ale. She placed both hands on Kasimir’s face and spoke the incantation. The magic came greasy and unpleasant, but strong for all that. Kasimir shuddered, and his face twitched as the spell began to take effect. A sudden crashing through the undergrowth startled her, and she pulled the sword free from the dirt just in time to see a gorgeous white hart bound into the clearing. At least it looked gorgeous at first, sixteen hands tall with fur as white as midwinter snow. The longer the eye lingered, however, the less wholesome it appeared. As the beast circled, Emmaline noticed that its feet were not hoofed but rather ended in slender blades which punctured the earth. Its lips were oddly human-like, as were its lavender eyes, for all that they were the size of a doe’s. Despite the pleasant day, its breath seemed to steam from its lips. It had a heady scent, animalistic and hot, which set Emmaline’s heart pounding and loins twitching. Despite appearing to be a doe, it was very clearly also in possession of certain masculine traits. She tracked it with the point of her sword, turning slow circles in the leaf mold above Kasimir’s prostrate form.

"Shoo!" she called out, her voice an uncomfortable croak. The deer-thing made an undulating noise that had something of laughter to it. Kasimir too began to chuckle, but it cut off in a wracking cough. The deer took a step towards Emmaline, but she yelped a spell, and the blade of the sword erupted in flame. The arcane light lit the trees and leaves a brilliant white gold, and the flowers and leaves shivered as though trying to move away. The deer took a mincing step backwards and then turned and crashed away through the underbrush. Emmaline held the sword aloft for another few moments and then lowered it, the flame extinguishing. With disgust, she yanked her shoes away from flowers which had been trying to wrap themselves around her.

"I was right, you’re as much Brettonian as I am an orc," Kasimir crowed, his voice pained.

"To be fair, there are certain resemblances to an orc you can trade on: dim wits, bad manners, a certain smell," Emmaline replied tartly.

"I was right!" Kasimir crowed, then yelped in pain as Emmaline half-helped, half-hauled him to his feet.

"YOui, you are buku clevair," she responded in her Eleanor voice. She lashed out with the sword, chopping two inches off an oak branch that had been in the process of slowly trying to grasp Kasimir.

"Perhaps you can use your doubtlessly prodigious talents to help figure out a way out of this place."

Space Dogs: Hired Guns in a Crumbling Empire

They docked in a considerably more disreputable part of God's Eye than they had previously visited. The automated grain freighter hit the docking ring with enough force to start a shower of rust from its ill maintained frame. Fortunately the unloading process as also largely automated, and while there was a workman in charge of keeping an eye on the machinery, he had his feet propped on his console while he perused a pornographic holocube. Jocasta and Markus slipped past without any difficulty. The industrial areas of God's Eye were thinly manned, consisting largely of transshipment facilities in which raw materials from the planet below were loaded into bulk freighters that weren't able to enter a proper gravity well.

"We are going to need someway to blend in," Markus pointed out as Jocasta led the way out of the industrial area and into the more populous working class sections. Fortunately it was nearly dawn station time and there were few people abroad save for the very drunk or the destitute and drug addled. Jocasta didn't reply but led the way to a slightly nicer looking hotel. She produced a data syringe that opened one of the rear doors and took a maintenance elevator several floors up. Jocasta peeked around the door before stepping into a plushy carpeted hallway and hurrying several doors down. The door opened at her touch and she gestured Markus in.

"Casa dolce casa," she said as she flopped onto a large bed in the center of the room. There were several outfits, more or less equivalent to her longue singer dress hung in a closet as well as a spacers duffel containing some weapons, technical equipment and several thousand dablunz in plastic transport cases.

"A safe house?" Markus asked.

"What else?" Jocasta replied, "this is where I prepped to infiltrate that meeting. I was going to come back here once the job was done to get my stuff but..."

"And no one traced it?" Markus asked skeptically.

"Who would even bother to look?" she scoffed, "besides I hired someone to pay cash for it, no way to link it to me."

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Eet does sound seeh-l" Elanor agreed, a smile on her lips to show she was joking. In truth she could sympathize with Kasimir. Most of her short adult life had been spent in service to one scam or another, with only a few months in the College when Albrecht was away or two sick to invent new mischief for her. She supposed it might be different for her because she knew that at some point the scam would end and so all things were temporary. On the field below a pair of nobles were taking the field, both wielding swords. This was a duel between men who had quarreled over a woman, using the days spectacle to settle a score. In Altdorf this would have been settled with pistols, or with knives in an alley, but the taste for such blood sport was less acute this far north.

"An électair counts son, even a bastard un, must 'ave many oppairtunitees much risk much ruard," she observed as the two men below began to hack away with their blades. Emmaline was no judge, but they seemed to have more enthusiasm than skill. She wondered idly if she might pretend to be the bastard daughter of an Elector count at some point, it would have the advantage of not compelling her to adopt such a ridiculous accent.

"What about you? Are you happy here?" Kasimir asked. Eleanor tittered with amusement.

"Given zat mon lovair 'as already been keehled, ét zumone 'as tried to keehl mé twice, ai cannot sai ai am exact-lee 'appy," she giggled, a touch of nervous hysteria in her voice. She felt she should tell Kasimir that the cultists had mentioned killing him too, but she couldn't figure a way to do it without destroying her pose.

"Tryeng to gathair ransom eez exhausténg when ai 'ave nothéng to tradé but coy glancés, and ai miss mon 'omeland," she expanded, the sentiment true, though she was thinking of the taverns and play houses of Altdorf rather than the drafty keeps of Brettonia. She had gathered considerable wealth by her own standards, mostly in jewelry and other small gifts. She even had a few promissory notes for gold which in theory she could draft on banks. True wealth had been offered to her, but only in exchange for marriage and land. This she would have promised, though not delivered, but any actual moves in that direction would reveal her fraud. She was starting to feel the prickling in her palms that meant that this seem had nearly been mined dry. She thought about the arrogant Lucien Shroder. Maybe not quite mined try. One more score. One more and then she would be out of this flee infested nest of provincials if she had to ski over the winter snows. One of the nobles screamed as his opponent hacked down into his neck with a spray of arterial blood. The crowd howled their approval.

"Eez la mélee abut to bégin?"