TheWizardLizard

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Yeah, I'll get a short one together quick-like.

Supervillainy 101

Oscar nodded quickly at the luchadoress as she grabbed the table and the two of them began to haul it towards the doorway, bullets pinging of the front of it and cards whizzing over his shoulder. The makeshift battering ram gradually picked up speed, and as he barreled towards the fortified position the enhanced thug heard the girl next to him shout some foreign insult at the soon to be doomed goons and grinned. "Goin' your way, motherfuckers!" Then, impact.

Oscar swung his arms wildly around the crowd of thugs, laying about him left and right and knocking them to the floor. He managed to get one thug in a headlock, crushing the man's windpipe while his other arm batted away another attacker. Oscar disentangled with the two of them just as more came charging from inside the lounge. Outside, he began to hear an unmistakable sound, one he'd heard many times in his old life: police sirens. "Oi, the cops are here! Everybody leg it for the back!"

There was a heavy iron lamp in front of him - Oscar grabbed it and swung it like a staff, the lightbulb at the end smashing into the face of a running goon. The situation had devolved from a battle to a melee - it seemed half the crowd of muscle was more trying to get out than still put up a fight. The rest, though, remained dedicated - whoever worked at this casino had an excellent hiring pool.

Oscar slammed the lamp into the prone man's face two more times and tossed it away just as another man clubbed him in the back of the head with something. Roaring, the thug turned and kicked low, obliterating the guard's kneecap before grabbing him by the ear and tossing him to the ground. The Thug raised his arm to cover his face as a gun was fired, crying out as the bullet took him in the bicep.

One hand went to the shooter's face in an attempt to gouge out his eyes as the other clumsily ripped the gun away. "Poor fuckin' bastard," he sneered as he pressed the barrel of the handgun up to the screaming man's temple and pulled the trigger.

Then, the Thug was firing all around the room with the appropriated weapon, causing guards to drop left and right, clutching ragged holes in their chests. The criminal tossed the spent gun away and bent down to rip the legs off a nearby chair, which he flailed about with as he fought his way towards the exit. "It's gettin' hot in here, freaks! Time to go!"

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Cool. The more the merrier!

Sadly, my MS paint skills leave much to be desired, but Emily is currently in Farsil, in the Borean lowlands - so, probably around the middle-ish of Borea? VoiD may have a better picture of it than I do.

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Post up. Emily and Ryan are en-route to Crimson Company land. I'll let VoiD decide if they arrive before the next GM post or not. I should also note that Emily is convinced that those are run-of-the-mill mutants she heard - I guess we'll see how wrong she is?

EDIT: Woops, did not realize I was doubleposting. My bad.

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Haltingly, Emily reached her hand to where she'd left on the pack and wrapped a hand around her crossbow. She'd heard the accusations and vague statements the crowd had made about the girl's 'witchcraft', but she'd written them off as lies told to justify the fearful townspeople's actions - the notion that the girl might actually be possessed of some power hadn't occured to her.

As the pale fire rose, the light seemed to bleach from the clearing. Emily's breath caught in her throat and a cold wind prickled her face, making her break out in gooseflesh in spite of the enormous fire. The dark laughter thumped in her chest and a dull buzzing sounded in her ears. Slowly, Emily brought her hand from her face to her chest in a gesture her father had taught her - to 'ward off evil in the woods'. She took a deep breath and clutched the crossbow, bringing it to bear on the flailing child.

Time froze for a second, as Ryan carried on screaming and kicking and Emily took aim at the girl's forehead with an increasingly shaky hand. Most of the girl's rambling meant nothing to her, save a few aspects - she was guilty. She was afraid. She'd lost people, 'Casey and Mama'. "I want them back!" she screamed again. "Bring them back!"

"I can't!" Emily replied, setting down the crossbow and walking cautiously over to the child. She pulled the girl up into a sitting position and sat down next to her, on hand awkwardly on the girl's shoulder. "Nothing can, Ryan. That's the first thing you have to realize, nothing can bring the people you love back."

This lead to a bout of crying that caused the fire to flare up even further, but Emily stayed resolute. "Hey. Hey, Ryan. This isn't going to help."

"I didn't mean to do it!"

"I know. I know you didn't, but that doesn't matter now. All that matters is what you're going to do next." Emily turned to stare into the child's eyes. "Casey and Mama are gone, Ryan. But do you think they'd be happy if they saw you like this?" The girl sniffled, and Emily continued. "All that you can do now is be brave. Don't you think they'd want you to be brave?"

At length, the girl nodded, and gradually the green fire began to die down. Emily gave Ryan a strip of cloth to wipe her face off with and stood some distance away while she did so, staring into the woods, lost in thought. Until she started to hear the howling some distance away.

The hunter whipped around and automatically began to throw her possessions back together and re-tie Able's saddlebags. She was halfway through loading her musket and slinging it around her shoulder when she saw Ryan staring at her in the middle of camp. "What are you doing?" the girl asked, and sniffled.

"I, um... there are people who need me. I'm the only one who can help them, so I have to go. You stay here, or... no, I guess you have to come with." Emily crouched down and put her hands on Ryan's shoulders. "This is going to be scary, Ryan. Very scary. I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?"

Ryan nodded, and Emily smiled and mussed her red hair. "That's my girl. Stay quiet, stay low, and if you see anything scary, find me and tell me where it is." She lifted the child onto Able and then hauled herself up, immediately galloping in the direction of the howls.

"Are we looking for those wolves I heard?" Ryan asked, and Emily shook her head.

"There are no wolves in Farsil."

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Yeah, I hope my artistic subtlety isn't making it hard for you guys to pick up on the clues to the larger story. If you're reading everyone's posts/replies, you should be drawing some connections by now.

@Dead Cruiser

Well, as far as I've gotten is 'there is some shit going down basically everywhere, the Old Gods are coming back and they aren't the nice kind of old like your grandmother, they're the angry "get off my lawn or your life will become demons" old.' Am I that far off?

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

@Dead Cruiser @VoiD

It seems to me like this is a decent opportunity to throw Emily and the Crimson Company together, as they're both in the Borean woods and the Company is having mutant-related problems (at least, that's how I read it).

Of course, that's wholly up to you guys and where you want the plot to go - I have absolute faith in our masterful GM's plot, so if he has something else in mind, I'll go along with it. Same goes for VoiD, of course.

In any case, this Ryan business is intriguing. I'll need to consider Emily's next move...

The End is Near: Zombie Apocalypse

Well, in perfect fairness, Nate never interacted with anybody and it would be very easy to pretend he never existed.

Johnny, meanwhile, can ride around as an NPC until he inevitably gets killed the first time trouble comes up. I was sort of looking forward to that happening, anyway.

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Turning from the well and affixing her waterskin back to the belt, Emily turned her eyes from the crowd to Able, stroking the horse's nose gently. "Shhhh. I'll just be a moment." She turned back from the animal and began marching towards the crowd, hood pulled over her face, fists already clenching in fury. No matter where you went, how far you wandered, one thing never changed - people would persecute anybody they thought beneath them, and in Borea one of their favorite targets was a girl unlucky enough to be 'touched by the North.' Emily knew.

The blowhard governor had just about wrapped up his speech when Emily reached the outskirts of the crowd. The people of the village had reached a fever pitch with their cries, all hollering and chanting abuse at the terrified girl before them. A portly man next to her attempted to throw a stone the size of his fist, and Emily almost casually ripped it out of his grasp and tossed it aside. Dramatically, the ringleader of this insane display spread out his hands. "The hour is nearly at hand. Are there any present that protest the proper end to this corruption? Speak now, before the mutant burns."

"I don't think she looks like a mutant!" Emily's shout was, perhaps unsurprisingly, totally lost in the storm of "Burn the heretic!" and "North-touched bitch!" and various other exclamations that followed. Sighing, the huntress unslung her musket from her shoulder and poured a handful of powder down the barrel. Standing in the middle of the feverish crowd, she calmly packed it in, put her dowsing rod away, raised the firearm to the sky, and pulled the trigger.

After the resulting gunshot, the whole crowd was silent, all hands frantically covering ears and all eyes turning to the source. "I don't think," Emily repeated steadily, slinging the weapon back onto her shoulder, "She looks like a mutant."

"What tha' bloody hell would you know! You ever even seen a mutant, girly?" The man whose rock she'd grabbed asked, rounding on her.

She stared the man in the eye and made a great effort to respond evenly, though she couldn't quite take the hard edge off her voice or the murder out of her eyes. "I've seen more of the monsters than you could ever know. They're huge, and fast, and evil, and wrong." She turned away from the man and began fording her way through the crowd, all of whom were eager to get out of her way as she moved towards the pyre. "What you have there is a scared little girl. Nothing more."

"On the contrary, my dear girl," said the governor in a condescending tone, stepping forward to look at her directly. "What we have hear is a witch, a vile heretic whose very existence is a sore in the eyes of our Ignis Divine. You, my dear, know not what she has done nor what she is capable of. Look," he said, taking a few strands of the girl's red hair and displaying it, causing her to redouble her futile struggling at her bonds. "She has been marked by the foul gods of the north! Only fire can cleanse this taint!"

Emily reached up and pulled her hood back, causing her head of red hair to spill out. "Marked like this, you mean?"

There was a general gasp of surprise from the crowd, followed by a few shouts of abuse. Emily casually swayed away from rock thrown at her head, and raised her eyebrows at the governor, who for his part had gone rather pale.

"I see," he said at length, "I had suspected that the forces of darkness might seek to challenge us." He stuck a wizened finger at her and shouted to the crowd, "This witch has come to protect her foul fledgling. Do not listen to her lies! It is when the blades of the holy are stilled that corruption will triumph." He grinned wickedly. "Bring up wood for a second pyre."

The crowd surged forward like a body of water, but Emily was faster. She charged at the governor, knocking him to the ground and putting her boot squarely on his chin. Her hands flew to her back and her crossbow was in her hands and pointed at the few armed guards that had begun to move towards her. The scene froze.

"I am Emily Gerhman, hunter of monsters, touched by the North, the Fire that will make this land clean. I know more of evil than you could invent, and I have slain more beasts than you have ever pictured looming just beyond the light from your fire. You know me." It was not a question - though she'd made no effort to spread her legend, she knew that it had spread far and wide - particularly in this region of Borea. She didn't seek the fame, but a tool was a tool, and notoriety often proved useful. From the looks of awe that filled the crowd, she was correct. "The girl leaves with me."

"Don't listen to her! You stupid bitch, that's a crossbow. You can only shoot one of my men before they're on you. Seize her!" The governor shouted from underneath her boot.

"He's right," Emily said coolly. "I can only kill the first man who makes a step towards me. Then I'll be in some trouble. But with that in mind, I think I might aim low. The stomach, or the bowels, give that brave first man a long and agonizing death of bleeding out while covered in his own filth. So. Anyone?" She brandished the crossbow at each of the men in turn. Nobody moved. "No? Thought so."

Holding the crossbow with one hand, Emily moved to the pyre and cut the girl's bindings swiftly with her blade. "We're leaving. Walk fast." One hand on the girl's shoulder, Emily pushed her through the crowd, still keeping the crossbow trained on the assembly, until finally they reached Able, still standing patiently by the well. Emily quickly lifted the hysterical girl up onto the horse before mounting him herself. As Able turned to leave, she spared one last look at the crowd. "There's a war on. Between everything good and pure in this world, and those blasted monsters out there. I know you're tired, and I know times are hard, but this business isn't going to solve anything. Get to work."

She rode for a while, leaving the rode and heading into the unknown wilderness - unknown, that is, to everyone except her and the rangers. Only when she was a mile or so into the woods did she halt and dismount, crouching down to speak to the still-crying girl more evenly. "Alright, kid. What's your name?"

She sniffled. "R-Ryan."

"Okay, Ryan. I'm going to be honest, I can't take you with me. I'm hunting something terrible, something dangerous, something only I can stop. I have to stop it or people are going to get hurt. Do you understand?"

The girl nodded silently.

"Good. Now, I can't bring you with me. I can't stop the monster if I have to look after you at the same time, so it's really important that we get you somewhere safe as soon as possible so I can get back to tracking it. Is there anywhere you can go, Ryan? Any family, father, mother, uncle's farm, anywhere there's someone who'll take you?"

The only response she got was another bout of tears, and Emily straightened up, somewhat guilty of her indelicate words. "Why don't you think about that while I make camp? Just, uh, stay here." Emily turned and set about the task of building a fire, trying her best to ignore the red-haired child seated in the dirt nearby.

𝛢GE ⊙F ÐAWN

Cool beans, working on my post now. Just two questions for the purpose of good-post making:

1) What's the girl's name?

2) What does 'touched by the North' mean? Is it something my character would know?

Thank you kindly.