POOHEAD189

Damned to the Depths

"And where do you hail from, Lord Markus...?" The Lord Malon asked, having introduced himself as a wealthy landowner with a penchant for trading silks from as far as Ragba Shahir. His wife was a petite blonde wearing a white gown, silver gleaming from the earrings she wore.

"I am a landless man of small means, though originally I'm from a barony amongst border kingdoms along the valelands. The highway of men, they call it." Markus said casually, his eyes subtly moving to his left and right to watch his men get into position. A guardsman with an arquebas had disappeared behind a curtain, one second there and the other second gone from sight. The squat, soft merchant lord regarded him with a mild contempt. Even if Markus weren't a bastard, a duke of the border kingdoms would amount to little more than a baronet in other, more spacious areas of the human realms. A baron was little more than an upjumped gentleman to his mind, apparently. Ironic, considering it sees more trade than most of the inland kingdoms combined.

"I see, well then what bring you here, sir?" The lord's wife asked, fanning herself. She clearly thought Markus was fetching, and he had to hide a smirk. She wouldn't have the chance to ask him to 'escort her to see the gardens' while her husband talked business. Even as he pondered how to answer, another guard was gone from sight, and he could have sworn he saw a flailing hand disappear behind a large vase. Markus smiled.

"Gold, madam. I'm a soldier of fortune, truth be told. Some have called me a ne'er-do-well and a rogue, but I prefer to think of myself as simply more honest than the average lord or lady, who takes the gold from the poor through taxes and corrupt laws. Oh, speaking of which..." He said wryly as Calliope approached, barely suppressing a wicked little smile on her lovely face. She inclined her head to the Lord Malon and the Lady Heatherfin, placing a hand on Markus' chest and looking up at him. He placed his hand on the small of her back, giving her a wink.

"Fun party," Calliope said, nostrils flaring as if smoke would pour out of them like some wyrm of the great north. "Is it time for the crescendo?"

"The governor has not yet addressed the party. I will believe it will be in an hour." The squat lord said, raising an eyebrow in confusion at this entire interaction. The wife looked crestfallen at 'Callypsa's' familiarity with the rakish Markus. For his part, Markus laughed. It wasn't a chuckle, but a full blown cackle that drew attention from the closest lords and ladies around.

"The governor will address everyone shortly, believe me." Markus said. A capslock pistol fell out from his coat sleeve, slid easily into his hand, and he pressed the barrel of the gun to the lord's head before giving any warning to his intentions. The man was aghast, his mustache floundering as he tried to form words. Markus almost pulled the trigger, but he wasn't that cruel. Gunshots rang out and there was a wail of pain as Sketti broke an arm across the banquet hall.

As if wished out of nothing, the captain's off-hand now held Bledwydyr, the dark blade. He lifted it and pointed it at the crowd behind him to hold them back as the crowd began to panic and his men swept into the room with axes, swords and guns.

Here with my homies.

Nice to meet you! Welcome to the site

All about role plays maps (world, town, dungeon)

I'm not very good at making maps, but man I love them. I wish I had the map making mind but it eludes me.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Lasbolts flew wildly across the landscape, though the attack was from so far from my position that even if they were well-trained karskins they would have likely flown wide of the mark. For those familiar with lasguns like any good soldier, I needn't tell you how they work. But for the layman or autogun enthusiast, there is no arc to the laser that is discharged from a lasgun. It will continue on until the beam fires past the curvature of the planet and dissipates into the cold nothingness of the void. It makes the guns accurate if you're accurate, but any degree off-point and it will increase the margin of error.

I unholstered my autogun pistol and dove behind a rise in the sand just at the cusp of the beach. Selencia hustled over to my position and knelt beside me in a crouch, a needle gun in her hands. She gave a quick bead on the enemy and fired a shot. I had found a small curve in the sand and unloaded four slugs from the autogun, killing two of the barbarians. Even as I watched, more charged into my line of sight. There had to be dozens, shooting haphazardly and carrying crude bludgeoning weapons.

"Coincidence?" Selencia asked with a curious nonchalance.

"Doubtful, but I don't think they would have had the skill to hit Samara as we found her." I reasoned, raising myself from a prone position to a knee and firing another four shots. The heavy caliber gun reverberated the sand by my feet as the muzzle flashed. Three more dead, their blood splattering the forest floor and covering the local fungi.

Selencia's needle pistol dispatched a particularly large, thuggish brute who had decided to rampage toward our position. He hadn't even had a lasgun, just a crude looking piece of steel that vaguely resembled a sword. He almost looked confused when his heart was pierced, tripping and falling into death mere feet from their position. "Well there's enough of the bastards to kill us, much less Samara."

"True," I said absentmindedly. I looked over near the ten's where the locals had made a defensive perimeter, two of them already taken down by the mob that charged at them. Lucious was easy to spot, the thunder warrior swinging his arm like a club and sending a man flying into his fellows like he had been hit by a terran bull. I wondered where Emmaline was, but even as the thought crossed my mind, a savage crested the small rise we hid behind and raised an axe to brain me. I lifted my arm to halt the percussive blow by halting the momentum of the weapon's haft, and the two of us went tumbling into the sand. I knocked his arm with the axe behind my own arm and wrapped his other arm up in my legs to keep it immobilized. Selencia slid over to us, and she grabbed the screaming man's head and with a quick twist, snapped his neck. I had forgotten how seriously she took her close combat training.

"The lady Emmaline is fine." She said as if she read my thoughts. "In fact I'm envious of her. She has the big astartes and I only have you." She quipped coquettishly, offering her hand and helping me stand up.

Things You Are Excited About

I'll be going to florida in two weeks for some R&R

Rise to The Top: Medieval Intrigue RP

"I appreciate it, my lord. But if it's all the same to you, let's focus on the bow today. Maybe if it's a success I'll come back for more formal training with the sword or spear." Galt remarked. Luckily these last weeks have given him plenty of opportunity to practice his accent, chipping away at the small low-born idiosyncrasies to sound positively posh. Silke wasn't fooled, of course, but most others would be. If you wanted to be a thief, sometimes you had to act, and that required some voice training.

The next few hours were less stressful than Galt would have thought. Once he actually got passed the basics of holding a bow and what fingers to use when firing, he found it was actually a fun experience. Experimenting on arcs and gauging a target with his keen eye. Vincept wasn't overtly hostile. In fact, he was a fine teacher, passionate on the art of war as a good noble should be. He made a few jokes at Galt's expense, and at one point called him a 'blasted cheeky fellow' but otherwise, Galt found he and Vincent got on fairly well. Of course, when Vincent brought up Silke, bluntly trying to pry on if Galt had any intentions with her, Galt maneuvered out of that line of questioning as quickly as possible.

"You're catching on swiftly. Silke said you were a quick study." Vincent congratulated. He stood watching as Galt drew another arrow from his quiver to line up a shot.

"I'm flattered she would mention me," Galt replied, honestly. It brought a small thrill to his chest, but he did well to hide it.

"You should be, she keeps her cards very close to her chest." Vincent replied. "I'm certain you appreciate many of her assets."

Galt nearly fumbled his shot, but made sure to halt on firing for a moment. After giving Vincent a questioning look, he took the shot and managed to get within a foot of the bulls-eye. Not too bad, though Vincent could certainly do better. Galt dropped the bow from his eyeline and went to grab another arrow. "She's been very helpful these past weeks. I'm quite grateful."

"I am as well, to have her as a sister. Though she often bites off more than she can chew, though she'll deny it. Try not to take up too much of her time."

Galt agreed halfheartedly and with a noncommittal response, and they continued for another few hours until Galt's arms were about to fall off. By that point, it was early afternoon and they grabbed a quick bite to eat before Vincent gave Galt a farewell and an encouraging word (in his manner) before letting Galt meet with Silke by the stables. The ex-thief found her there next to a nobleman, one he had never seen before. The articulate man and woman were discussing marriage, and at first he was intensely suspicious until he heard exactly what they were speaking of and his heart raced with...anxiety? Dread? He gave the lord a bow as he took his leave, trying to hide his fretful thoughts.

"Well, that was not so bad. I'll feel it in the morning, but I think I am getting the hang of the bow." He told her, rubbing his shoulder. "Worst part is the endurance. But we can talk on it when we're off. As well as other things."

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Noon the next day...

Kneeling down, I removed my glove and wiped away the sand to reveal a warped, glass-like object. My fingers curled around it and lifted it off the beach easily, examining the crystalline material. It was no piece of technology, just the coagulation that occurs when a lasbolt strikes sand. Judging by the arc of the burnt sand, they had fired from the treeline and not on some vessel. I tossed it to the side and sighed, lifting my eyes off the beach to look at the gnarled corpse that had once been Samara Bandir.

Her clothes had been torn and picked at by some avian creatures, and her body had been mostly stripped of flesh. In life she had been a lovely but brutal woman of dusky-brown skin and a severity to her manner that Hadrian could only hope to match. He made a silent prayer for the Emperor's Peace upon her, but he had been prepared for this moment after having received the vision from Emmaline. At his left stood Selencia Aethil, who stood with a stony visage that only Hadrian could see past to the flickers of pain behind her eyes. The Magos Biologis and the agent had been long time friends. It was a small mercy that an autopsy wouldn't need to be performed.

Emmaline and Lucius were keeping the locals busy, the psyker making a show of ordering myself to check the corpse so she needn't be bothered, and then performing some theatrics of investigation elsewhere and making up some nonesense about an arbites being able to 'sniff-out' their quarry from some bioenhancement that did not exist. It gave us a scant few minutes to have some time with Samara and give our condolences, as well as investigate in peace. I would have to thank her for that later.

I suspected a few effects had been taken off her, but from a quick search I found an auspex scanner that had unfortunately not served her well, a small compartment in her belt that held a index digi-weapon, and a pack of the lho-sticks she was always so fond of. Even now I could see her leaning on a railing back in the pacitus hanger, smoking and teasing me after a scolding Kronus had elected to discipline me with. The late inquisitor often liked to prepare his rants, and I had quickly become accustomed to all of them. At that particular time, it had been his 'Penal Legion' scolding, which he often used if I disobeyed his orders. Brushing the memory aside, I realized what I could not find on Samara's body was her rosary, her data-slate, any overt forms of weaponry, or the necklace Selencia had given her seven standard years ago. I slid off her remaining boot and retrieved my knife, sliding the keen blade under the sole and popping it off with a 'click.'

"We're dealing with amateurs." I said off-handedly. Any professional would have searched her far more thoroughly. I plucked out her miniature vox-recorder, which had a microscale tracking device installed, and a counterseptic for emergencies just beside it.

"Perhaps they were just expecting some arbites and not a member of the inquisition." Selencia reasoned as I handed her the recorder to be listened to later. She took it and then glanced at the small rippling waves that licked the shoreline. Havenos was populated by small, freshwater seas due to a celestial anomaly like a meteor shower that had melted great glaciers and formed basins from the impact craters.

"True," I admitted, placing the boot back on. "They might not have known whom she was working for. Only that she was on their trail a bit too hard. Either way, it's good news for us. Either they're unprepared because of incompetence, or because they don't who's wrath they have incurred."

Ill Met in Ostland

"I'll have words with Valmir von Raukov himself!" Marius yelled furiously. He pointed up at the city watchman who had ordered them to leave. "I'll have you know I know his bastard! I'll get Boris von Raukov and I'll go back to Nuln and have him marching back here with the entire 4th! I'll have you strung up! I'll..." He stopped to catch his breath.

The day had been spent in the cold and wet, without rest or even a moment of respite to eat. The two had ridden hard back to Wolfenburg to escape any chance of being waylaid by beastmen or accosted by those fucking Grunwald bastards. The horses were near collapsed, and even Natasha looked a bit weathered and irritable. By the hammer, she must have been made of steel. All that riding and fighting and explosions and even if he was well rested he knew she could knock him out with a well-placed punch. Regardless, the blonde would-be merchant and the boyarina were in the middle of a throng of the helpless and the destitute, trying to make it into the city. Something had happened while they were gone, evidently. Something that was driving all the nearby villagers or local laborers to find protection in Wolfenburg's walls, and just their luck they had arrived right when the gates had been closed for the day.

"Meyebie vwe can finte some food and bed in vone of the abandoned villages, da?" Natasha wondered. Marius had heard life was hard in troll country, and some of the more remote tribes still raided and pillaged one another as a matter of life and material. Taking someone's home while they were begging at the gate looked pretty tame compared to that, likely. Marius was tired enough to consider it. But some fool clutching a babe elbowed him, trying to get past the merchant at the front, and he felt a new surge of anger sweep over him.

"No! We must get into the city!" He told her. "I'll have words with Grunwald and squeeze him for all he's worth, and I can't think without the knowledge I'll not be set upon tonight. A keen mind needs some security and I'm tired of beastmen."

He felt like he was complaining like a petulant child, but Natasha heroically decided to stand upon her horse so as to get the watchman's attention. A few of the men above ceased their shouting to go home and turned to look at this warrior woman out of the wild north.

"I am Natasha Andropolovskya, dughter of de march warden of troll kuntry! I hef come for busyness! Will you let me and paratner stay out of city?"

It sounded like a very wild claim, and the men were silent for a moment. They looked at one another, and the entire thing made Marius unreasonably angry. He could usually talk himself through any situation. If this worked, he would be jealous, though he knew it was his exhaustion making him so. He did have to admit Natasha looked every inch what she claimed to be.

"Bold claim! How do we know you are who you say you are?" A broad-faced man asked from under his helm. His question ended in a very unmanly squeak as a spear sailed over his head with incredible speed and struck the small ceiling above the archway to keep the elements off the guards. It quivered there, and crossbows and guns were drawn on Natasha. It was like she had reversed the polarity of her own magnetism, as men and women surged away from her position automatically. Marius was too dumbfounded to even move.

"De seejul of my house is awn lance, and it is made from the Koroskinya tree. Only in de mountains aboof praag keyen you get it." She said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow in a superior look. "I expect lance beck vwen we get in."

Marius's mouth dropped to the floor when the door was opened and left slightly ajar, with ostland halberdiers marching out and lowering their weapons to keep the crowd from rampaging through. None really had the heart to, however, and both Marius and Natasha were escorted inside the walls by a retinue of wolfenburg's finest. As stupified as he was, Marius did have the frame of mind to ask one of the soldiers. "Herr Halberdier, what has led all these refugees to the city?"

The large man, his winged goatee as red as an early morning sun, looked at Marius incredulously. He huffed a small laugh and said. "I don't know where you've been sir, but the Norscans are invading Nordland. Almost a hundred thousand of the bastards, with their accursed monsters to boot."

Ill Met in Ostland

"You could have given me more warning than that," Marius said after they both slumped back into ruin. They seemed to have fled for now, but he still felt a calamitous thundering in his breast. He didn't mean to be stand-offish but they were both so tired, every words they sound had a tired quality to it that could sound snippish. Her eyes had a steely edge to them for a moment, before she gripped her stomach from the wound and sat down and became a bit less severe.

"Eyen citee, toulking is wvat can safe your liyaf. In woods, silence. You should liyasten to me until vwe get bak." She said. Marius' lips thinned as he looked at her, disagreement blossoming within him, but he just realized how much of it was from their trying circumstances than any sort of willingness to argue. The idea made him very tired, and he sat down.

"Fair enough, fraulien. Now let me take a look at that wound." He said, rolling up his sleeves. She didn't seem enthused by the prospect, but she capitulated and Marius got to work. His hands were soft like a man born to the desk, but they knew their business. Within a scant few minutes, she was patched up with as little pain as possible. He took his leave and sat down, amazed at how muscled and slim her stomach was. He couldn't fathom how much hard riding and sword training it had taken to have the physique of a blade.

"Tank you," she remarked, pulling her top back down over her bandaged waist.

"We're partners," He said, and the woman looked up at that pronouncement. Marius gave her a smile, and it was contagious because she returned the favor. The camraderie was short lived, unfortunately. A crude arrow flew in from outside to strike a barrel, thumping on impact and quivering from the sudden halt of momentum. The two shared looks, and once again they climbed atop a stack of crates to see through the window in the stone. There were seven beastman on the treeline, and different one fired a second arrow as the first nocked another.

"By the balls of sigmar and the tits of myrmida, are we not going to catch a fucking break!?" Marius lamented.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

There was a terse silence, followed by a slow, faint clapping that swelled into a moderately supportive chorus of clapping. Nobles weren't exactly the most brave sort, at least when they did not really know whether what had just occurred was socially acceptable or would later make them a subject of scorn. Only one rotund man with a thick red mustache guffawed and hooted, an island of exuberance in a sea of laodicean support. The good baron Marius did look relieved that the crisis had been solved, though Beren imagined he would be less excited to aid them in the future if they were to cause problems at every social gathering. It was well known the two of them stayed at his residence by way of prior service.

Jocasta took Beren by the arm, and she smiled up at him and whispered "victory!" with a grin.

"Poor girl, she had no idea who she was messing with," He replied with a posh accent.

"Now let us all go back inside and enjoy our refreshments," Marius said. Across the crowd, the Duke gave a nod in approval, before he cleared his throat and ushered everyone back inside with a call that dessert had been served. The lords and ladies filtered out one by one, chatting amongst themselves and trying to hide their amusement or glee, and in some cases, horror, at the scenario they had just witnessed. As they fled the balcony like sand tumbling down an hourglass, Beren glanced behind them over the gardens far below, illuminated by the full moon.

"So when do you think we should leave?" Beren asked.

"The city or the party?" Jocasta asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"We'll bounce from here whenever you want baby," Beren joked with a voice like liquid gold. "But I mean, with the Dwarves."

"Whenever they get the paper work ready." She shrugged. "I think the bitch might try and weasel her way out of it, but hopefully within the week. We'll talk to the baron of it, later."

"If she tries to get out of it you could always joust her," Beren shrugged.

"You can be my squire." She said imperiously, patting his bicep as if she were doing him a great favor. "Of course you'll have to feed the horse and fetch my things, but it's an honorable station. A man of low birth can only rise so high."

"And yet you two seem to be doing quite well for yourselves." A voice said, drawing their attentions to the curtain. A tall man with a hawkish nose had decided to remain, concealing himself by the shadows of the drapes but stepping out now that the last of his peers were gone. He was well groomed, with a red coat embroidered with gold and long white breeches. His hair was cut rakishly short, and he bore handsome grey streaks along his temples. "What do you plan on doing now that you two are bona-fide adventurers?"

"I'm sorry, my lord. Have we met before?" Beren temporized, trying to remain polite though the mood had grown a bit soured. The man tried to hide a smirk.

"I am lord Vandenhartd, one of the proprietors of the city. Forgive me, I merely saw the commotion from earlier and your theatrics here and it piqued by curiosity. Have you been in Iskura long?" It was a harmless, innocuous question. Though there was a weight of intrigue behind it Beren didn't like.

"We have simply fallen in love with your lavish city. They say it was built by giants long ago, is there any truth to that?" Jocasta asked with a thespian flair so thick it was almost stilted. Beren wasn't slow on the uptake. Her question for a question was bypassing his query without engaging in it. Lord Vandenhartd's face was unreadable, but eventually he gestured passed the balustrade with a manicured hand.

"Yes, so the sages say. Though rumor has it men were enslaved by such beings millennia ago. I suppose human workers still might have had a hand in making this bastion of the north." He explained with a nonchalance. "Perhaps now that you can go into the wilderness with a letter of marque, you can find out just how many secrets this land has to offer. Just be careful. There have been many who have marched past Torm's Gate to find their fortune and instead were left in unmarked graves."

"Thank you for the warning, my lord. Now if you would excuse us, I believe the Duke himself would be sorely missed of your presence." Beren said.

It wasn't clever, but Jocasta placed a hand over her mouth and Vanderhartd looked taken aback. To asked to be excused was one thing, but Beren telling him to go himself was something else. Anger briefly flashed in the lord's eyes, but it was replaced by a vile mirth that he seemed to always have in abundant supply. "As you say. I leave you to your mingling. Perhaps we will have a chance to meet again soon." Beren and Jocasta watched him make his leave after that, and he glanced over his shoulder one last time before disappearing into the ballroom.

"Well that was ominous." Beren observed, crossing his arms.

"I would say he sicced the redhead on us, but maybe that's too obvious." Jocasta reasoned, rubbing her chin and pinching her lower lip as she considered the idea.

"Well, even if she was his, it backfired on him at least."

As fate would have it, the two were interrupted once again. Sudden bursts of sound that reverberated off the walls of the stone spun Jocasta around and had Beren about to leap on her for cover, thinking it was stolen dwarven artillery. Instead, dazzling flashes of coruscating colors erupted across the sky arrays polychromatic light. Red, green, blue, yellow, all of the colors of the rainbow light up the darkness above the city, illuminating every shadow for brief flashes of an instant. Beren and Jocasta placed their hands on the balustrade and watched as firework after firework launched up into the air in sizzling arcs before exploding in a cacophony of dazzling colors.