Penny

The Namespace of the Rose

This is genius

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

“Eleanor. Eleanor open the door!” Emmaline struggled out of the bath she had been luxuriating in, splashing water all over the floor. She stepped out and immediately slipped on the dark wooden floor, comically pin wheeling her arms before landing on her rump in a crash.

“Lady Eleanor?! Are you ok?! Julian’s shrill voice came through the door, “are you ok.”

“Vhat are you goeng to do break down le doair?” she called back acidly as she scrambled to her feet and towleed herself off.

“What?” Jullian called back, unable to penetrate the accent through the thick timber door.

“Ould on a momon,” she called, pulling on a gown and stumbling into the main room. She turned they key and pulled the door open. Julian nearly fell into the room, all but scratching at the door. His earnest face was pale and his lips were visibly trembling. His eyes bulged at her state of relative undress and his pale face suffused with a blush so deep Emmaline worried he was about to pass out.

“Well? Why aré you breakeng down mon doair and intairrupteng mon bath?” she demanded. Julian opened and closed his mouth like a fish. Emmaline snapped her fingers repeatedly under the boy’s nose.

“Oh ahhh… men just arrived, men from my father,” he whined, all but wringing his hand. Emmaline manuvered him onto a couch and thrust a glass of schnapps into his hand. He swallowed it in a convulsive gulp then gasped as the liquor’s burn hit. Emmaline plucked the glass from his hand before he could drop it.

“Zo mén arrived from yur fathair…” Eleanor prompted, struggling to reign in her mounting frustration. Julian blinked and then seemed to return to himself.

“They are closeted with Colditz now,” he explained, “I think there is a priest with them.”

“A priest?” Eleanor asked then her eyes widened.

“Eez 'e haire to marry uz do you think?” she asked. Julian looked momentarily confused.

“I… I think he might have found out about… no, I wont let it happen!” he cried then leaped to his feet and rushed out of the room.

“Julian!” Emmaline yelled after him confused and starting to grow a little afraid. She looked down at the schnapps bottle in her hand and took a long drink, then quickly started dressing.

The screams came a half hour later once Emmaline was dressed and heading out in search of Julian. They seemed to come from the valley and what they portend Emmaline had no idea. She slipped from the room and to her surprise Colditz and his guards were no where to be found. Emmaline wasted only a few minutes to grab a few valuable items then headed for the stables, willing to take advantage of whatever breaks came her way. More screams came from the house as whe was pulling a saddle onto an expensive looking horse. There was something fell on the air and she could feel a knot of ice in her stomach. The need to get away from this place was a desperate throbbing thing. The buckles were just about in place when a hand fell on her shoulder. Emmaline screamed and tried to twist away but the fingers gripped like iron. She was whirled around and found herself face to face with Colditz. Or what was left of his face. Great bloody rents had been torn in it with what looked like claws and his palor was cold and dead. Witchfires burned in his eyes and though he had not yet the grey color of the grave the stink of dark sorcery poured off the cadaver. Other horrors, older fleshless skeletons stained with graveyard earth and moss joineed Colditz, hemming her in. Screaming she was dragged infront of the manor.

“It is ok Eleanor, it will be ok!” Julian was shouting, his eyes wide and wide with shock. Emmaline could pick out burst blood vessels in his face and dark magic coiled around him.

“I learned this at university, I know it looks bad but I promise I’ll keep you safe… I’ll let you….” he trailed off shooting her an agonized look as he realised that if he let her, or anyone else go the truth of what he was would get out. He was a necromancer. A wizard who tampered with the forces of life and death and was forever damned by the poison of dark magic.

“Look I’ll think of something,” he promised. One of the chambermaids stumbled from the manor and was struck down by a skeleton with a scythe. Julian whimpered then muttered something, the maid rose jerkily to join a growing perimeter around the house.

"Julian! Julian! You have to let me go!" Emmaline shrieked, momentarily forgetting her accent.

“I’ll think of something,” Julian promised as the zombie of Colditz dragged Emmaline screaming into the house.

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

“Why are you not training with the rest of your platoon Corporal?” Commissar Sobek seemed to appear from nowhere as Sel rounded a corner. She had her first pocket full of credits from the blackmarket deal and managed to avoid jumping out of her skin only by dint of the fact that this was the third such ambush in the two weeks since the fight. She still flinched but no guardsmen was so pure that the sudden appearance of a Commissar wouldn’t unsettle them.

“Sir!” Sel replied, stiffening to something like attention but not attempting a salute. The distant thump of boots on deck plates told her that the platoon was running the assault course in a nearby hold. Distant strains of cadence song echoed through the cavernous steel haulways.

“You ask my why I’m a guardsman,
Ask me why I sleep in a ditch,
It isn’t so much that I’m stupid,
It is just I don’t want to be rich.”

Sel brought her heart rate under control and straightened up, trying to ignore the roll of credit notes in her pocket which suddenly weighed about a thousand pounds. Sobek glared at her, eyebrow arched, awaiting explanation.

“It isn’t my unit Sir,” she explained, “I’m temporarily attached…”

“As a driver, yes I know,” Sobek interrupted. “So I can expect to see you training with your… sentinel pilots?” The words sounded like a curse. Sel ran her hand through her hair and affected an air of confusion.

“You’d have to ask Lieutenant Caradwalden sir, I’m supposed to be at his disposal,” Sel replied. Sobek glowered at her, his lip curling in contempt at the mention of Kayden’s name.

“Perhaps I should speak with him regarding finding you some duties?” Sobek suggested.

“Sir,” Sel responded, neither agreeing or disagreeing, while politely suggesting he get the frak on with. Sobek glared at her for a moment longer, balked by the lack of engagement, then stepped out of her way.

“Continue with… whatever it is you are doing Corporal Seldon,” Sobek ordered. Sel considered it a very bad sign that a member of the Commisariat knew her name but she merely clicked her ankles together and headed off down the oily smelling corridor. She turned a corner towards Kayden’s office and paused. Her eyes caught a flicker of movement in the shadows ahead. It might be rats, but her hive instincts found it easier to believe that a couple of Langeroth troopers with pipe wrenches or entrenching tools. Had Sobek been deliberately holding her in place while they got in position. It seemed far fetched but Sel hadn’t survived these past five years by taking an unnecessarily rosy view of the situation. There had been several fights already, jostling in mess lines, collisions in the showers, that kind of thing. Sel felt a sudden conviction that she should look in on her unit. She turned left and jogged down the hall. This was going to come to killing before the voyage was out or she was a Catachan.

Wealth and Warpstorms

Camilla led the way up the side of the depression, pulling down dust goggles and wrapping her face with a sand scarf before they reached the scouring winds at the top of the ravine. The desert stretched out before them, painted in a beautiful variety of earth tones which were kept eternally sharp by the low intensity storm of airborne grit. The sun was going down but there brillian moons were coming up to replace it, the illumination becoming both more diffuse and brighter as a result, seeming to cool the color tones.

"Yvrine already swept up here with auspex," Camilla half shouted as Alcander joined her, pulling the collar of his duster high in imperfect protection. His own personal unit was out and scanning but his keen eyes were sweeping the area as aggresively as the electronics.

"Maybe shae missed soomthin," he called, pointing to a beeping reading on his own handheld unit.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

One of the things that Emmaline had always loved about Altdorf is that it never slept. Even as the hour moved towards midnight the streets of the upper city still bustled with rowdy celebrants staggering from tavern to tavern. Students still gathered in the platz and shouted at each other in drunken debates. Pie sellers and street vendors still hawked their wares at the street corners with well practiced cries. Whores called out promises of exstacy from balconies and knockingshop doors. The fog gave all this a very strange aura, refracting voices and seeming to materialize people a few feet ahead and vanish them a few feet behind. Emmaline was sure that Altdorf's legion pickpockets was making full use of the unusual conditions as they approached the Tower of Blackhaven.

"They call that an iron works?" Neil whispered derisievly. The street droped closer to the Reik here, houses and shops giving way to a network of armorers, blacksmiths, swordsmiths, coopers, farriers, gunsmiths and bell founders which lay along this portion of the Reik. By ordanance of the city, these had to stop work after sundown so that the clamor of their anvils would not keep half the city awake. Smoke still drifted from the brick chimneys of many, as most artisans chose to keep the fires low rather than let them go out entirely. The paving here was new and fitted together so tightly a knife blade could not be passed between any two stones. This was a result of the numerous dwarves who lived in this quater. They had grown so frustrated with the work of 'manlings' and the constant delays caused by wagon breakdowns that they had clubbed together to create what the locals jokingly called 'Backfire Pass' owing to the fact that the good road led to twice as many wagons thronging it and actually making the conjestion worse.

"How will we get the boys back to the farms once they have seen Nuln," Emmaline joked as she lead the way through the back alleys towards the distant shape of Blackhaven. The tower had once been a turent in one of the earlier citywalls that had long since been swallowed by Altdorf's growth. It had partially collapsed as a result of people scavenging for stones but had been saved by a wizard who had moved in and constructed a private Tower. The job had been done with more enthusiasm than skill, so that a rickety series of half timbered floors had been piled ontop of the original tower until it nearly trebled in height. A great iron chimeny ran from the top of the old stonework to the peak of the tower carrying the smoke from several floors up beyond the conical tile roof.

"Looks like it might come down at any minute," Neil opined as he gazed at it skeptically across the empty courtyard that surrounded it. A wrought iron fence sectioned off some wild looking gardens that were overgrown and forboding in the fog.

"That is a cheery thought," Emmaline agreed, still slightly bugged from the Bugmans. She crossed quickly to the fence but laid a restraining hand on Neil's shoulder when he made to vault it. Emmaline muttered several syllables and then pulled two of the bars appart as though parting branches.

"Neat trick," Neil observed as he followed her through. It was always better to pass through barriers rather than break them when it came to magic. Much less chance of setting off countermeasures.

"You aren't the only thing that is putty in my hands," she assured him as they reached the base of the Tower. Neil laid a hand on the heavy fieldstone and mortar construction.

"Do you have a way through this?" he asked. Emmaline pointed towards a window several stories above.

"I'll stay here and keep watch, you can lower a rope to me when it is safe," she said sweetly.

Death and Desire: A Warhammer Fantasy RP

Long they strove with axe and sword
with might blows and corteous word
Comrades through blood and danger passed
To battle now til one breathed their last
Of such feats the bards do sing
such beauty in the axes swing
and poetry of knife and sword
that would the very god's have awed.

The sand which drank the oceans tears
shook with lusty blood mad cheers.
And though the lusty mamba led the dance
the Namir not from his purpose glanced
and ruse or trick could from fury take
the brutal blows that axe did rake
Until with tears of anguish in his eyes
Tiger smote the snake no more to rise

~Araybian Folk Song

The guards carried Calliope from the field, her limp body hanging between them. Blood soaked the front of her tunic in such volume that there could be no doubt she was dead, even if several thousand people hadn't watched Bahadir's axe hit her cleanly between the breasts. The crowd was roaring, some of them chanting Bahadir's name, others bemoaning the fortunes they had lost by wagering on the pirate. The guards themselves were muttering about this very thing as they hurled her body off a stone dock into the back of the corpse cart which waited, already loaded with bodies, to be driven out into the desert to dump the carrior for jackals and buzzards to dispose of.

_______________________

"This is the man," the vizier declared pointing at Bahadir through the bars of his cell. There was dissapointment in his eyes for he would have much prefered to butcher the pirate, but so long as she was dead it made little difference to him. Bahadir backed up in his cell as two mamlukes with pikes stepped forward, meaning to skewer him where he stood. Unfortunately the cell was large enough that if the slave kept himself pressed against the back wall, they couldn't quite reach him.

"Don't be tedious," the vizier sneered, "try to die with some dignity slave."

"Maybe an example would help?" someone whispered in his ear. THe vizier half turned an arm locked around his head and he felt naked steel at his throat. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Calliope and trembeled, momentarily beliving her to be a vengeful ghost.

"By Allah how..."

Calliope could have told him. She could have explained how she had kept the wineskin from the previous night, how she had patiently kept her wound flowing so that she could collect blood and mix it with the wine. She could have told him how she had placed the blood filled flask between her breasts before the fight, perhaps even explained how Bahadir had deliberately struck her just so, so that the wineskin would burst and she would appear to be slain. She might even have told him how she hid under the pile of corpses until dark, then stole a dagger. Why she had come back at all was harder for her to explain, though perhaps a promise to a ship mate, even the piss poor ships they made here, was worth something. She explained none of this, instead before he could speak another word she raked the blade across his throat so hard she felt it grind on bone. The vizier made a noiseless bubbling scream, his wind pipe no longer reaching his vocal cords. Calliope shoved him into the one of the guards, who staggered aside cursing. The other tried to withdraw his pike from the bars, only to have Bahadir snatch the weapon free, then drive the butt end into the soliders stomach. Calliope cut both their throats before they could recover themselves enough to scream. Blood was already pooling on the floor. Calliope took the key from the nearest guard and opened the cell.

"There is a cart filled with deadmen waiting to take us out of the city, and I think I've seen enough of its delights for the time being."

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

Sel caught up with Kolcek as he paused to try to decipher a crudely marked plackard which directed the troops around the mazelike internal compartments of the ship. They were all still new enough to the ship that unfamiliar areas, like officers country, could throw them. Kolcek glanced at her a little warily.

"Let's have a chat," she suggested, propeling the trooper into a side compartment by force of presence. Kolcek wasn't scared exactly but he wore the instinctive blank face that private soldiers had learned to turn on NCO's since before humans ever left Terra.

"The gun, where did you get it," she demanded, glancing down the hallway to make sure there was no chance of being overheard. Koleck looked around evasively, his eyes falling on arcane pipes and fuse boxes covered in Mechanicus prayer slips.

"Just... you know battlefield salvage," Kolcek answered, not at all convincingly. He had every appearance of a man whose lover is about to find him in bed with her sister.

"Kolcek, this is clearly an officer sidearm and it is brand new, do you know how I know?" Sel asked mildly.

"H..how?" Kolcek asked.

"Because I am not a frakking idiot!" Sel snapped tapping Kolcek three times on the head with the barrel of the unloaded gun.

"They'll kill me, Emperor's teeth Corporal I ..."

"They?" Sel interjected, "That is a promising start."

_____

E Company's billet was several decks down, close to the small Adeptus Mechanicus shrine which the regiments few actual Tech priests had claimed, or been granted some arcane visitors rights too. Many among the engineers were partiall to the cog boys and their strange rituals, a few even wore the hollow cog medallions of lay members. They were billted on a vehicle deck which dwarfed the present need, stretching so far away that the far walls were lost in the gloom, the luminators beyond the immediate are having been turned off to conserve power. A small island of human activity remained, centered around the scores of vehicles that the 2nd and perhaps some other regiments had embarked but the gloom beyond gave Sel an uncomfortable feeling that something hostile lurked just beyond reach. Old hive world instincts prickled and made her more queasy even then the smell of hot welding torches or the screaming whine of cutting tools at work on metal. Seargent Greer proved easy to find. He was sitting with a few of his men beside a flaming barrel filled with gravel and prometheum. There was a bottle being passed around but it vanished as Sel approached.

"You lost corporal?" he called in a nasal voice which put Sel in mind of a more than usually mean sump rat. Sel shook her head, coming to the edge of the firelight. Greer's face reinforced her impression, pinched and hungry looking it had been burned in the past by a flamer so that his right side had the look of a candle which had been held briefly to a hot griddle. The eye on that side was a crude augmetic which blazed in the firelight. He and his crew were some mean looking bastards no mistake.

"No, come to see a man about a gun," she told him. An icy chill went through her guts as the laughter and conversation ceased. Greer himself lifted a partially finished lho stick and tossed it into the barrel.

"Reckon that if your not lost coporal, you should get lost," he said with dangerous calm. There was a sound of wood scraping on the deck plates as several men stood up, clearly willing to enforce the order if she didn't obey.

"Trooper Kolcek told me that if I wanted a gun, you were the man to see," she tried with bright innocence.

"Trooper Kolcek better watch his step the next time he is walking alone, and you... well you are already alone aren't you?" Greer grinned. A man burst from the shadows, a pry bar cocked to strike. Sel whipped the pistol from her pocket and shove it into the man's eye, almost blacking out with pain from the sudden movement as it agravated her wound. The whole scene froze comically, Sel's stolen pistol a foot from the chest of her would be attacker, Greer and his mean stopped in their tracks.

"He better," Sel replied, struggling to keep her voice level through fear and pain.

"Because if he falls down a shaft one dark night, that note I put in his file will go to Commissar Sobek and who knows what might happen? Come to think of it I better watch out too, no telling who might hear what if I were to turn out to be terminally unlucky?" There was a diffuse growl of anger and Greer's features twisted with fury for a moment before resolving into cruel amusement.

"What is this, just wanted to take a look before you turn us over to your commissariat buddies?" Greer demanded. Sel felt a rush of relief that made her giddy as she realised they werent just going to kill her and take her chances.

"You know, that is the second time this week someone has accused me of being a Commisariat agent," she replied, lowering the pistol and thrusting it into her belt.

"I might almost feel offended, but as it happens, I want in."

____

"So how does it work, must be pretty slick to avoid all the Munitorum bean counters?" Sel asked as she took a mouthful of the joyliq that had been offered to her. Greer puffed on a fresh lho stick, blowing the acrid smoke out through his nose like a dragon of legend. Both the liquor and the smokes were of higher quality than was usually found in the regiment, which confirmed Sel's impression that there was money to be made on the black market.

"Well..." he began, his desire to keep secrets warring with his desire to show how very clever he was. It was a one sided battle, the Emperor save her from idiot men.

"We got a way of forging requisitions see, so we just ask for what we want, few extra crates arrive and they are delivered to my boys, once we get it, we take the stuff, pack them expendibles, smoke cyclinders, expended las packs, stuff like that, then send them back claiming there was delivery mistake. No one gets wise because we swap out orders with other legitimate cargos, maybe some administratum drone is looking, but if we do it just before we ship out some place, theyd have to chase us through time and space to actually check up on it, and once they get here..." Greer trailed of in a snicker, placing two hand across his chest in the sign of the Aquilla.

"We sent it back as soon as we saw the problem y'honor," he mocked, playing the part of a piebald innocent protesting in confusion and dismay. Sel had to admit that as fiddles went it was pretty smart. Nothing came out of regimental stores, because it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. How he was forging requistions was a more interesting question, blackmail likely, or another conspirator. It also meant that Greer wasn't really harming the regiment, it wasn't as though he were stealing food or ammunition that anyone would likely need, and she knew for a fact that guardsmen would pay for extras. Food, weapons, gear, any little extra that might make the difference between life and death, or might be traded to an enterprising local girl who would make life a little more worth living.

"Alright, so deal me in," Sel demanded, "ten percent cut." Greer sucked at his teeth, glancing at her sideways and considering how much cheaper it might be just to have her killed.

"A ten percent fee for you silence? he demanded. Sel laughed and took some more liquor.

"No ten percent fee on top of the ten percent for silence," she demanded. Greer's eyes widened in horror at this naked greed.

"What that other ten percent buys you is access to F companies requisitions," she hurriedly explained. Greer gave her a long look.

"Your B company arent you?" he demanded. Sel turned her collar inside out to show her scout insignia. The scouts were part of F company and so was she even if she was on secondment.

"F company is logistics, so they can get anything and no one bats and eye, it is going to look suspicious if a bunch of Engineers start ordering say pharma, or tech, but no one is going to bat an eye at the confusing mix of shit F has to order. You got so many specalties jammed together there, medical, scouts, training, everything."

Greer's eyes widened as understanding went through him then settled into a greedy smile as he calculated how much more he could get for such exotic items. The answer obviously pleased him and he clapped her on the back.

"It is a deal, but don't be having no real accidents before we get to the sharp end," he warned her.

"Glad to hear it," Sel gritted, the blow to her back making her wound throb in a way she hoped wasn't an omen of disaster to come.

Penny's Pencils

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

"Throne of Terra Kolcek were you born an idiot or did you do a rotation after basic!" Sel exploded once she was sure the commissar was out of earshot. Her back and ribs throbbed mightily and though she was aware that she was lucky to be breathing at all, that knowledge did little to cool her temper. Kolcek grimaced and gave her a rather sheepish look. Bad enough to get caught with a weapon that should have been in lockup, but he could have easily said he dropped the damn thing and it went off. Sobek had been temporarily molifed perhaps, by the Lieutenant's heroics and so he might get off with stoppage of liquor and extra watches, but he might just as easily have been shot for admitting to shooting her.

"Uhhh... thank you sir," Sel said turning to nod her thanks to Kayden. It wasn't that he ever stopped acting like an Aristo, it was just that it seemed to flip between useful and dangerous with alarming regularity. Never the less, with her record and without the protection of a scout company commander a sentinel pilot could expect to be on the shit list from the Commissariat plenty without actually getting involved in brawls. She rubbed her eye and grimaced, she was developing a spectacular shiner where that Langeroth fraker had clocked her while she was still waking up.

"How did the fighting start Kolcek," Kayden asked after giving Sel a quick nod. Kolcek shrugged still smiling the same idot smile that Boffin was wearing.

"Those Langercocks came in and started throwing their weight around, saying that seeing we spent our last tour polishing our balls while they were really fighting. Said we didn't deserve such good quaters if we weren't actually going to fight. Some of the boy started talking about taking out those roks ourselves and how it was better than beating up on a few rebels...."

"... and it escalated from there," Sel finished. Simple resentments like this could escalate quickly, esspecially if they were emboldened by a Commissar like Sobek who might be looking for an excuse to unite his own men at the expense of other.

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

Zoya liked to think that every city had a single defining characteristic. Tar Valon had beauty, Tanchico had disorder, Caemlyn immensity, Cairhien hubris. Godan had it's characterist too. It reeked of money. It didn't dilute this with style, or grace, it's half timber houses rose two or three stories, leaning out over narrow streets like hastily stacked coins. Windows were barred, warehouses of limewashed planking patrolled. Fat men wandered the streets clutching their purses or loftily decrying orders to their lackeys. Even the beggars here seemed fat and Zoya didn't doubt that the cats ignorned mice for choicer pickings. The walls and towers were timbered, the boggy soil not able to support stone, but they blazed with the colors of dosens of up and comming merchants who styled themselves nobles. The flag of tear flew, tawdry and sullen over the main gate, overshadowed by upthrusting ambtion.

Godan was rich because it was the one port that the High Lords allowed to exist between Tear and the sea. It been founded as a place to allow river pilots to be put aboard ships for their passage up the winding fingers of the Dragon to the great city. That guild of Pilots still wielded great powers, though most of the members of the guild didn't know a haliyard from a hawsehole. Merchants found it expident to be members of the guild for the tax remissions and other perks, but the lowly job of actually sterring ships was parceled off to their clients. In theory no trade could take place in Godan, all dealings were to be conducted in Tear, again theory fell short of practice. Most merchants found it easier to tranship goods here and ship nothing more than paperwork up the Erinn. Such paperwork, arriving in Tear, would be stamped with the appropriate seals, pursuant to the appropriate bribes, and then sent back down river attesting to all the world the the High Lords laws were being obeyed. So long as no one looked to close.

And no one looked to close. Godan was too lucrative a deal for all involved. It's great harbor was filled with ships from every nation in the world. Scores of masts thrust skyward from the meanest fishing skiff to the mightiest raker, all eager to suckle on the teat of Godan. Streams of men walked endlessly, carrying supplies and offloading goods like so many ants while whores and street vendors tried to interest them in excesses of one kind or another. Zoya smiled faintly. She thought she might have liked Godan if she had visited in the days before she had been caught breaking into the Panarch's library. A skilled thief could likely do well here. The thought made her glance at Davian, she wondered if he had hunted thieves here before. It seemed likely, but she wasn't going to give the man the pleasure of asking after it.

"Where are we..."

"Follow me," Zoya cut him off and marched through the gates, ignoring the raised eyebrows of of the guards in their rust splotched mail and conical helms. They moved through the muddy streets towards the better part of town. Better in Godan meant that there were cordory roads where timbers had been lain to cover the mud as even stone pavers would merely sink into the mire beneath. The passed several streets until Zoya found what she was looking for. It was a neat shop front with a raised covered porch and a sign of a stylized scroll. Stepping inside Zoya moved through shelves which were piled high with blank scrolls, empty ledgers, pots of ink, bundles of quills and the other parapheneilia of a scribes trade. A fussy looking man in a fine doublet stood behind a desk, fixing the two bedraggled and mud stained wanderers with a lofty stair.

"This is a house of trade kindly remove..." he began but Zoya cut him off.

"My sister Balladare recommended I inquire here after my needs," she interjected. The clerk's eyes blazed and he opened his mouth to retort before his mind processed the words. With the quickness of a corpse dropping from a gibbet he clamped his mouth shut, his face going pale. For a moment he stammered unsure how to continue.

"It is quite alright Jasof," a cultured female voice called from a back room, "I know the family, well enough to excuse the scruffiness." A short round woman appeared from the side room, a messy bun of dark hair pinned up with quills. Though she was plain there was a certain grace to her that seemed endearing. Any attempt at gravitas was lost as her face split into a grin so wide, exposing dimples so large, that it seemed it must fold in on itself.

"Come on in!" the woman chirruped and lead them back into a private study. She closed the door and flung her arms around Zoya, squeezing her until her ribs ached. The other woman cast a glance at Davian and raised an eyebrow. Zoya nodded her head, indicating she could speak freely. The woman squeezed harder and practically hurled Zoya around in a circle of giddy delight.

"Oh Zoy it is so good to see you!" she gushed.

"You too Maddy," Zoya replied. Amaddyine Sarda had been a novice with Zoya, though enough older that their aquaintence was put on hold for a year when Maddy had become Accepted. After Zoya had passed through the Arches they had both been close friends, both seeking a Brown Shawl when that day finally came.

"And this is your... Friend?" Maddy asked, looking Davian up and down.

"A friend, but not my Friend," Zoya responded, covertly indicating that Davian was not her Warder.

"Well he is handsome, you should get on that," Maddy joked, making Zoya snort with amusement.

"But where are my manners! Sit sit!" she waved them into a pair of chairs then pulled open the study doors.

"Glick!" she bellowed in a voice that was surpsing coming from such an unpreposessing woman. The flustered clerk appeared a moment later looking wary.

"Fetch some basins for washing, some food and wine, and a change of clothing for the lady and her friend," Maddy ordered with a premptory snap of her fingers.

"Uh ma'am the kitchens have just finished serving and..." Maddy waved her hand dismissively.

"Bread and cheese is fine, you can run out to the tavern later, my clothes will do for my friend here, use your initiative to find something for the gentleman, quick now," she ordered. The harried clerk nodded his head and vanished behind the closing door. Zoya was quietly impressed to see her formerly unpreposessing friend snapping out orders. Maddy waited for a few moments then embraced saidar and made a vaugue guesture, laying a warding against eavesdropping with casual perfection. Maddy sank into her own hair and steepled her fingers.

"Now tell me everything!"

It took Zoya over two hours to relate the adventure. They were interuppted by the arrival of food and fresh clothing, a simple dress and pair of shoes for Zoya and a fine linen tunic and brown trousers for Davian along with a pair of dry boots. They also had to pause as Zoya produced the dozen or so small items she had taken from the great holding for her Sister's perusal. Like all Browns Maddy was fascinated by objects of the Power and examined them minutely.

"You stole all that?" Davian asked, perhaps not prevoiusly appreciating how much Zoya had walked out of Tear with.

"I didn't steal anything," Zoya objected, "these objects are our legacy, if they have been taken from us, they remain ours." Davian arched an eyebrow at this but let it pass. Zoya pointedly did not metion the Saddle Light, nor specifically mention the Horn of Valere, not due to a lack of trust but out of a concern for spreading information too widely.

"Quite the adventure Sister," Maddy said when she concluded the tale. She finished the second of the two bottles of wine which had arrived with the food and settled back in her chair.

"Given that your identity was discovered, it is likely that Mother will be angry with you," Maddy warned.

"Not angry enough to return the angreal I suspect," Zoya joked, brining a smile to Maddy's lips.

"Your disregard for Tower politics does you no credit Sister," Maddy replied in a professorial tone. "Hanging a Brown out to dry might be just the thing to get the Blues and the Reds from each others throats. It has happened before but perhaps let us not store up tomorrows trouble in advance. What do you need from me?"

"Funds," Zoya replied bluntly, "A place to stay for a few days while we prepare for a journey overland. If you have a way out of the city that wont attract attention that would be welcome also." Maddy waved a hand as though all of this would be no problem.

"The First Chair didn't send me here just because I beat her at Stones so regularly you know," Maddy replied, perhaps a little whistfully in light of the adventure Zoya had just related.

"I'll get you what you need."