Penny

Scum and Villainy [Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars Inspired, Forged in the Dark]

@meri Ironically I was bemoaning that I didnt have a good brush for shading dots!

Heroes of The Guard: A Warhammer 40K RP

Sel cursed and ducked behind the heavy rubberized wheel of the cargo four. Las bolts snapped at them from across the street from at least a half dozen shooters. One of the tires on the far side took a hit and blew out with a spray-hiss of escaping air and a stink of volcanism. The vehicle rocked, ringing like a struck anvil as bolts punished the far side in a continual fusilade. Tactical mindset returned like a bath of cool water but it wasn’t any of the guard scenarios that came to mind. It took her back to the lean and hungry days of her youth in Glarian hive. Sel had run with a gang then, you had to in order to survive. The J-hooks they had called themselves because the came an ancient and crumbling annex to the even more ancient and crumbling tenement J. It had been a hard life, violent, hungry and filled with sudden terrors. There were magistratum sweeps which took people away never to be seen again, left to rot in prison or sold to the Ad-mech as servitor meat. There were raids, skirmishes fought over territory, food, or clean water, children as young as ten armed with sharpened lengths of industrial tubing, or hand bows made out of suspension springs. Sel could even remember seeing a black powder pistol once, remember being amazed by the power of such a simple thing. It had been a hard way to grow up but the innate paranoia it bred was surprisingly useful for a soldier.

“Behind!” Sel shouted, spinning around to see the sash of a second story window being thrown open above them. The ferocrete habs rose above them in a solid wall, half sunken into the street; their steel cored doors were reached by stone stairways with handrails of rusted wrought iron. It was certainly no coincidence that they functioned as block houses, offering no cover for a dash for cover inside. Sel was an adequate shot with a carbine, you used a carbine when things got hairy in a sentinel, but the pistol you saved for yourself in case of a flame out or worse. This grim philosophy did not equate to a lot of time spent at the range but her target was framed by the window and Sel opened fire spraying half her power pack up into the window in a flurry of shots just as one of the ambushers leaned out to toss an incendiary. One of Sel’s bolts carved a trough through his left arm and he screamed, dropping his improvised grenade. A bottle filled with promethium and stuffed with a burning rag fell from the window in apparent slow motion, turning end over end and leaving a trail of greasy smoke. Sel tried to force herself to move but she knew she wasn’t going to be fast enough to escape the bursting flames.. Kayden reached out and casually caught the improvised explosive, set his feet and then pitched it back into the window with a speed and precision that would have done a scrumball player proud. It sailed through the window and shattered on the hab ceiling, detonating with a whump of igniting prometheum. Screams and broken glass exploded from the window and Sel ducked even lower, raising her arm to ward off the drizzle of burning fuel that spattered down. A burning figure tumbled from the window, turning a half circle in the air before cracking their spine across one of the iron railings with a noise like the pop of a whip. His screams were deafening until Kayden burst his head with a single bolt from his pistol. The body slumped and continued to smoulder.

“Base 1, Base 1, this is Bravo 2 actual,” Sel called as she pressed her commbead, wrinkling her nose against the assaulting odor of petrochems and burned flesh.

“We are pinned down on the main drag, taking fire, estimate enemy is in squad strength,” she voxed. Kayden stood up and fired a three round burst at something across the street, the pop pop pop of his bolts echoing and reflecting of the hab fronts. Someone screamed and Kayden cracked out another shot before ducking back before the blistering las fire could find him.

“Base 1, do you copy?” Sel demanded there was a crackle of jamming and Sel cursed the fact the Cargo 4 didn’t have a powerful vox for her to link to the way a chimera or a sentinel did. There was no guarantee that short range vox bead, meant for squad communication, would get through.
“They will respond to the firing, but we can't stay here, we are pinned down and soon they will flank us,” Kayden said as he ducked back behind the cover of the car. The battered cargo 4 continued to ring with impacts, and glass shattered as something, probably a mirror, caught a bolt. Sel glanced up at the building behind them, no hope of getting inside without being cut to pieces by the enemy gunmen.

“Alright, well I got half a magazine left, dress uniform and all,” she apologized. It didn’t help that she had sprayed off half the mag in something close to panic, but it was true that she hadn’t come dressed for a fight.

“We need cover,” Kayden replied. Sel nodded, then rolled up and into the cargo 4. The right hand bodywork was glowing with the impact of so many las rounds and the stink of hot metal and burning upholstery stung her nose. She hit the ignition stud and the vehicle came to life with a scream and a knocking of misaligned pistons. Sel pulled her garrison cap off and shoved it under the accelerator before rolling back over the side. The vehicle began to creep along at walking pace, keeping their bodies behind it as a shield against their attackers.

“Good thinking,” Kayden approved as they crab walked along beside the mobile shield. The flat tires slapped the pavement and the knocking was getting much worse, at this rate it would only be a few minutes before the engine tore itself to bits, but if she could be assured she would be alive in a few minutes Sel would cheerfully have taken a las cannon to the vehicle herself. The las fire slackened as they got out of the kill box, but doubtlessly the enemy was redeploying. Sel was forced to try to watch all directions at once even as she kept low to avoid those shooters who still had an angle. Judging by the smoke and the stink, the cargo 4’s interior was on fire now, las fire having ignited everything flammable in the vehicle. Sel tried not to think about what hits to the fuel tank might do, though realistically this was unlikely. With a crunch the cargo 4 mounted the curb and trundled into the glass window of a bakery. With a tremendous crash the window exploded inwards in a storm of glass. The cargo 4 bounced off the wall and continued to grind against the ferocreate. Kayden and Sel leaped inside, clambering over the ruins of a display shelf, crushed pastries and pies tacky beneath their boots, the sweet smell of sugar and spices cloying their noses. The interior of the store was lined with similar, if undestroyed, display cases filled with baked goods and confections of all kinds. Possessed by some imp of the perverse Sel plucked a peppermint stick from a jar and stuck it between her teeth like a lho stick.

“Looting Corporal?” Kayden asked, trying to scrap chocolate cake off his dress boots.

“Bolstering the morale of the Emperor’s troops sir,” Sel replied around the peppermint stick.

Las fire crackled in from the street as several gunmen broke from their concealment, apparently willing to risk a rush. If Sel was expecting screaming cultists she was disappointed, they came on firing, lookinging way too professional for her liking. They wore no body armor but carried what looked like standard Astra Millitarum pattern las guns, and thank the Throne they had no grenades or heavy weapons! Sel ducked down behind the counter and checked the power gauge on her pistol in the vain hope that it had been miraculously refilled. Unfortunately it seemed the emperor had other plans.

“Brace yourself!” Kayden shouted as the enemy rushed in guns blazing.

Penny's Pencils

Scum and Villainy [Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars Inspired, Forged in the Dark]

Molly Neptune - Ace Pilot!

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The landscape could not have been more different from the frozen northlands they had left mere hours ago. A sea of waving sand stretched out before them, flat save for a low ridge off to the east. The sun was setting but beating down hard enough to make the landscape shimmer with heat haze. As Beren paused to take in the strange sight, the rumbling began to grow worse, so badly it seemed that the sand beyond seemed to shake. Dust drifted down from the ceiling and Beren and Jocasta leaped down onto the hot sands. The structure they had emerged from was a simple columaded doorway with a flat roof that seemed to protrude from the side of a huge sand dune.

“I can still feel…” Jocasta began but Beren held up a hand, then squatted to place his hand flat against the sand.

“It is like an earthquake,” he mused.

“Beren,” Jocasta interrupted, but he waved her down.

“Almost like…”

“Beren!” Jocasta shouted, grabbing his head and lifting his chin to the sand in front of him. A low spot had appeared a hundred feet infront of them and was sinking fast. It looked for all the word like water running down an unseen drain. The depression raced out towards them and there was a sudden feeling of sand rushing past their feet. Jocasta spun to see the entire dune behind them beginning to slump towards the depression, now over thirty feet deep and grown rapidly. Millions of tons of sand was pouring towards the hole at a pace so fast it seemed a dream.

“Get back!” Beren shouted but the ground was already gone from beneath their feet and they tumbled down into the yawning pit, rolling down the incline and struggling like swimmers to stay atop of the cascading waves of sand. The sand sucked at them as though trying to draw them under and Jocasta kicked and thrashed wildly. Beren, heavier by far was having a harder time, his powerful body serving only to dig him in deeper as they carrened deeper. Cursing in several languages (deliberately excluding Old Pharonic) Jocasta extended her hand and shouted a few arcane syllables, a wall of fire burst from her palm and fused a ten foot section of sand into dark glass, with a yell she threw herself onto it, yelping with the heat it still projected. Beren managed to grab the edge which broke off in jagged shards, then burst from the sand like a man kicking himself free of a frozen pond. The pane of glass rode atop the sand like a raft, albeit a raft careening into a whirlpool.

“Up here!” Jocasta shouted and Beren managed to crawl to her, the cooling glass now painful but not actually causing burns. Jocasta shifted her weight and the glass sheet changed direction, turning slightly as though to circle. By carefully managing their weight they managed to begin circling the declivity, whirling around it like suds in a draining sink.

“Gods above,” Jocasta exclaimed as they made their third circuit. It was difficult to see the door they had emerged from in all the flying dust but she could just make it out, no longer in a dune but at the top of a massive pyramid of sandstone, the sand from which the whirling sandpool was clearing.

“Swing out wide and…” but Beren had already seen it, the cut wide towards the pyramid and at the last moment both leaped from the glass raft to impact on the side. Beren caught hold of the rock and braced himself against the sand still pouring down from above. Jocasta managed to grab hold of Beren’s leg and cling on for dear life. After a minute or so they were above the falling sand level and Jocasta was able to uneasily find purchase of her own. Far below them the sand drain was nearing its end. As it did so more structures, smaller pyramids and temples, partially ruined by uncounted eons beneath the sand, began to emerge. Impressive statues of half men half beasts, some thirty feet tall were exposed. Great obelisks of black marble, carved with inscriptions in Old Pharonic emerged like the rootlets of some vast plant. It was like watching the desert bury them but in reverse. They both stared in fascination as the last of the alluvial sand vanished into a great fissure at the center of the complex. Jocasta wasn’t sure how, but was entirely certain that it had been designed to do exactly what it had just done. The engineering and mystical expertise it must have taken were staggering. Abruptly everything was silent.

“Well, you don’t see that coming down the road from Bloomsberry fair,” Jocasta commented inanely.

“What is it?” Beren asked in wonder.

“An ancient city, filled with treasures and arcane knowledge beyond worth,” Jocasta said dryly. An ominous sound that might have been part of the excavation spell but sounded for all the world like an evil chuckle echoed around them.

“You want to get out of here?” Beren asked.

“I thought you would never ask.”

Scum and Villainy [Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars Inspired, Forged in the Dark]

I like discord but it isn't a necessity for me.

De Trop Disgrace: Warhammer Fantasy RP

The rain didn’t so much fall as hang in the air. It had been this way for most of the previous day and both Emmaline and Kasimir were, if not soaked, damp to the bone. The sight of the mutants had banished any thought of diverting off the road to find shelter and Kasimir at least believed that the enemy's outriders and scouts might have reached this far. Or at least he said he did, Emmaline wouldn’t have put it past him to have made that last part up just to spite her.

Taalagad did not sneak up on them. It’s presence was advertised hours in advance by a long stream of refugees. Trails of dirty, soaked, peasants stumbled along the widening road, many carrying their possessions in carts or simply on their backs. They were dull eyed and hopeless, some leading infants, others carrying the elderly in improvised rickshaws or stretchers. Emmaline could see no wounds but reaping hooks, scythes and hunting bows were much in evidence. One man had an old blunderbuss that must have been old when Helborg was a boy, its double hammers wrapped in a piece of oilcloth and two corks pressed into its barrels to keep the powder dry. They might easily be a mob if they weren’t so cold and hungry, and it wouldn’t take much to push them there regardless. Emmaline took an apple from the saddlebag and tossed it to a hungry looking girl of perhaps seven summers. The girl caught it by reflex and stared wide eyed.

“What? Emmaline aske, “You’ve never been hungry before?” The Bastard of Middenheim didn’t respond, merely touched his heels to his steed to move it along. Not too much later the river came into view, it was foggy, seeming to radiate mist in retaliation to the continual drizzle that dappled its sluggish surface. River craft of all sorts were in evidence, merchant captains trying to get timber and hides down river on high sterened river barges shook their fists at fishing smacks and cargo lighters forcing their way up the river. There were even a few row boats containing refugees, pulling up stream or racing down river depending on where their idea of safety laid. Both groups kept to the center of the river to avoid the risk of a sudden rush by the stream of humanity heading into Taalagad. The precaution was probably a wise one but it increased the congestion terribly. Even as Emmaline watched she saw a grain barge collide side on with a timber carrier with a ringing crack. Rope parted and the piled up timber rolled into the river in a series of prodigious splashes, prompting shouts and threats.

“Doesn’t bode well for our chances of getting a ship,” Emmaline observed. Kasimir rolled his shoulders and made a non-committal sound. The real danger was that Taalagad might simply shut its gates, not wishing to be overrun by peasants seeking shelter when a siege was possible. Sigmar knew where these poor people would go of that happened, the crater mountains perhaps, but that was a best a slow death by starvation and at worst a quick one by beastman axes.

“We will find something, so long as we don’t tarry too long,” Kasimir said, seeming distracted.

“What is it?” Emmaline asked, giving the man a searching look. Kasimir looked uncomfortable but finally shrugged his shoulders.

“I feel like we are being watched,” he admitted. Emmaline glanced around at the dull eyed refugees. A few eyes were on them because of their horses but no more than might be expected.

“I don’t see anything,” she replied, cursing the man for infecting her with his jumpiness.

“It is more of a feeling.”

Wealth and Warpstorms

Camilla sat ramrod straight upon the command throne, as the ceremonial power sword and the orb were placed in her hands. The sword, a wondrous thing with a hilt of woven gold wire set with a constellation of gemstones, symbolized her right as Shipmistress to the service of all aboard her ship and the right to punish them, even unto death, if they failed to render it. The orb, worked with an antique view of the stars as seen from the surface of Holy Terra, symbolized her right to chart the stars, as well as to petition the Navis Nobilitae for their services. Both items dated back to pre unification Terra and were only removed from their suspensor fields and void shields for the once every few generation spectacle of the elevation of a new captain.

For all their splendor they were but symbols. They were certainly precious beyond imagining, but the next item that was presented was literally priceless. The Warrant of Trade was carried forth in a casket six feet tall and four feet wide. Intricate cherubs, Imperial saints and fantastic void beasts decorated the vast majority of it, but in the center, a piece of parchment the size of a man’s chest was kept behind a void shield so fine that it barely shimmered. The document was festooned with seals and ribbons, brilliantly illuminated with gold leaf and vibrant pigments. Dragons and knights battled fancifully in the marginalia and the capital letters were wrought into beautifully cunning designs. The writing was perfectly rendered in calligraphic High Gothic but the signature and seal at the bottom of the page, a simple flourish of ink, burned into Camilla’s mind. This was the mark of the Emperor of Mankind Himself, the text touched by His hand and studied by His eye. Camilla was not a particularly devoted attendant of chapel, but the sanctity of it was palpable. How many cardinals in their continent spanning Cathedrals ever dreamed of beholding something that the Emperor of Mankind had touched, much less something that had been issued to one of their ancestors, no matter how distant in time. The Warrant exuded something else. A concentrated freedom which could be found nowhere else in the Imperium. That elegant ancient text exempted Camilla from the strictures of a system that gripped every facet of human life across the entire galaxy. Armed with it she could voyage beyond the bounds of the Imperium, she could trade with Xenos, or handle technology that would see her executed otherwise. She could go places and see things no other human, beyond a tiny community of Rogue Traders, could ever hope to experience. Even the Holy Inquisition would tread carefully around her, though it was no shield from open heresy or Chaos Taint. To be presented with such a thing was almost overwhelming.

The box containing the Warrant was set before Camilla to the soaring strains of De Mulsher’s Terra Triumphant throbbing with the latent psy of the astropaths. Camilla stood regally and approached it. She made a show of reading it over, though in truth she had memorized every word years ago. She allowed her hand to rest on the wood, feeling the grain beneath her finger tips. On queue the music faded as she stepped before the warrant, sweeping her cloak back. Tech priests stepped to her, splashing her with holy unquents and crackling in binaric as they invoked the Omnissiah’s blessing on her and her circuitry. Great brass gongs began to sound, shimmering the air and silencing even the breath of the hundreds of people present. Camilla cleared her throat.

“I Camilla Seraphina Lucretzia Fiamenta Belladona de Trantio, on this the three hundred day of M41.998 as recorded in the ships log of the lawfully authorized and consecrated Rogue Trader Navarre, do solemnly accept the charge laid upon myself and my ancestors by the Emperor of Mankind himself. In keeping with this charge I shall voyage without fear into the stars which are the rightful inheritance of Man. I shall travel beyond the light of His Imperium into the dark, carrying with me that spark which heralds His coming. I shall conduct commerce such that His Glory be made manifest and such that His Imperium shall be made stronger. I will carry out the charge of my ancestors to explore without censure or limit, the very edge of the galaxy and to do my part in making manifest that grand design in which we are all engaged!”

A profound silence settled across the bridge as overhead servo-skulls and servitor cherubim rained rose petals down upon them in a soft rain. The room was so silent that the patter of them landing sounded like distant snow.

“Master of Records!” Camellia boomed, her trained voice carrying well but amplified by vox pickups so that the entire bridge could hear. “You may enter it in the log!” The ancient robbed figure of the master of records dutifully scratched the entry into the Navarre’s daybook, a massive leather bound volume that hung open on a lectern, then applied a seal and pray ribbon that had been prepared by a priest, making her command of the Navarre official in the only record that mattered.

There was only one thing left to do. Camilla drew the sword from its scabbard and ignited it. The ancient blade hissed to life, rose petals curling away burning as they touched its glowing edge.

“ Per te vel alios no fallitur. Tuos bonos fines respice inquit! She yelled, invoking the house words of the ancient spacefaring house of Belchite of which she could claim at least to be a bastard member, then she sat back on the throne. This time it was different. The chair crackled with energy as it was activated and the ancient systems began to sync with her circuitry. The experience was incredible. She had worked various stations before and linked with the ship in a limited way, directing guns or controling shields, but this was the first time she had used the captains link. She felt the warship come alive around her, she could feel its vast engines in her nerve engines, the destructive power of her batteries at her fingertips, even the shimmer of void shields waiting to be lit. It all came to her at once and she gritted her teeth to keep from gasping as electricity arced and prickled over her arms as they gripped the command throne. She could feel it all, the entirety of the ship, her ship, deep in her soul. Her mouth opened wide to laugh with wonder when suddenly she sensed something else. It came from deep in the ship, an ancient and crumbling data annex long neglected by the tech priests and their code purges. It swam up towards her red and pulsing with malice. She tried to pull away from it but she was too deep into the authorization sequences which were still running to bond her to her new command. It crashed into her like a blow to the sternum and she would have screamed if it left her any breath to do so. Red light arced over her implants and pain flared from her brain to her fingertips as the malicious code geas burned into her. Yvraine stepped closer to her and activated something on her ceremonial and a void shield flared into existence sealing the throne and the warrant within its milky translucence.

“Yv…Yvvv,” Camilla tried to say, her muscles twitching under the strain of the virus. Yvraine held up her hand as though to ask for silence. Camilla tried to speak again, to ask her friend to help her but before she could form the words the world beyond the shield exploded. A series of detonations ran across the assembly, bursting in clouds of smoke shot through with yellow and red. The void shield sizzled as blood and body parts impacted it, traceries of smoke coiling away from the points of impact. Camilla screamed and tried desperately to pull herself free but her entire body was immobilized by the code geas. She didn’t know what was happening but it was clear that her ship and her home were under attack. Her people were dying for thrones sake and she was just sitting here. Rage and hate built in her, she imagined how the Old Man would react if he were here and his contempt if she allowed mere cogitator code to stop her from helping.

“Yvraine!” she screamed, every fibre of her being howling in agony with the effort. The Seneschal turned to look at her, surprise on her face. Camilla’s confusion deepened, Yvraine should be furious, desperate, afraid, anything but surprised that she had managed to speak. Tumblers fell home in Camilla’s mind and Yvraine grinned, reading comprehension in the younger woman’s eyes.

“You figured it out… not quick enough but good for you!” the Seneshal said with a laugh. Men were appearing on the balcony above, men armored in the livery of the ships infantry. The began to fire into the churning confusion of the survivors, scything them down without mercy. Camilla saw helmsmen Mckenna take two rounds to the chest and one to the head with a pair of heartbeats.

“Whhhhyyy,” Camilla ground out, her eyes bulging with the effort of resisting the code flowing through her implants. She managed to raise the tip of her right finger with an incredible effort.

“Why?!” Yvraine rounded on her, the woman’s face a mask of anger and hurt. “Why?! It was supposed to be me you stupid chit! I was supposed to take the chair after Orthelleo. Yvraine one day all of this will be yours he would say,” Yvraine screamed, her eyes mad with pain and hatred. Las bolts pattered of the shield like hail on a frozen pond, reflecting away at crazy angles. Above them one of the banners was burning as it fluttered down towards the deck.

“Then you came and ruined everything, just waltzed in and took over. You think you are all that, that he liked you because your some natural criffing talent?” Yvraine snarled.

“Let me tell you, the only reason he even picked you up from your fucking nunnery is because he found out that he squirted you into your mother’s cunt!” Yvraine howled raving with the injustice of it all. Camilla flinched from the words. Orthelleo was her uncle which meant…

“That is right princess, your blood is so royal you got it from both sides apparently,” Yvraine snarled. She thrust her finger into Camilla’s chest and recoiled as a spark of static leaped between them, sending Yvraine stumbling back. Camilla’s arm came free and she brought it round to slam the orb into Yvraine’s face there was a crunch of cartilage and the seneschal stumbled back, clutching her bloodied nose. Yvraine pulled a las pistol from her holster and pointed it at Camilla, for a moment her eyes were so filled with rage that Camilla was sure she was going to shoot, but as Yvraine saw that Camilla still couldn’t rise from the throne she lowered the weapon.

“No, I’m going to need you alive so they can cut those pretty implants out of you…”

Scum and Villainy [Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars Inspired, Forged in the Dark]

Cerberus and Stardancer both appeal to me.

Roguish Anomaly: A Warhammer 40K RP

I know what it sounds like. To be completely honest at the time I never even questioned it, it was only later when I dicovered exactly what Neil Edwards was that I looked back and wondered if I hadn't been kicked in the head during the earlier fight. His crew members looked stupified, too stunned by the turn of events to do more than gawp like landed afrotrout.

"You can't just offer some random a job like that!" the one called Orm demanded, not quite pointing his gun at me.

"Why because my exhaustive search worked out so well?" Neil asked putting a boot on his former seneshals head and turning the unseeing gaze to face Orm. He thrust out both hands in a 'ta-da' motion, like a carnvival magician announcing a trick. The bounty hunter scracthed his forhead with the barrel of his gun.

"NO, no, he has a point," he admited to the wounded halfling. The ratling could only scream as I yanked the strap on the dressing tight by placing her knee on his stomach and hauling with all my might.

"Ah my frakin' ribs you bloody blond bint!" the ratling yowled.

"Yeah, yeah thank me later," I retorted, though to be completely honest I maybe had heard something crack. Sue me its not a prosecutorial court. I stood up, my mind belatedly processing the fact that Neil was a Rogue Trader, a number of pieces of information fell into place, though the picture was far from complete. A sudden clatter of automatic fire echoed out from a nearby tunnel, proof that the arbites, or cultists or indeed both hadn't yet given up.

"Well I accept, and as my first action as seneshal suggest we get the Holy Throne out of here."