/qu/ - Quests/Roll

[X] Entered an antique store on a whim. You'd had fresh cash burning a hole in your pocket and you figured you might pick up something nice to spruce up the apartment, or perhaps your illustrious self.

The store had called to you, the display loaded as it was with figurines and old clocks and silver-filigreed things you had no names for. Places like this often held treasures at outrageously low prices, your mother had taught you a decade ago, and even if they didn't, they were usually willing to haggle.

Making your way through a yellow-painted frame conspicuously missing a door, you spotted the shopkeeper - a wizened gnome of indeterminate gender lounging on a chair of dubious comfort behind a desk piled high with unidentifiable clutter, preoccupied with a small yellow book - and moved on, forging ahead into the depths of the store.

This place, you noted whilst ducking under a low-hanging bridal dress, could use a good dusting. The walls - faded cream paint and a design you couldn't make out - were barely visible behind the piles of clothes, purses, jewelry and old devices of indeterminate function. Stepping past a lion-pawed stool stacked taller than you with folded green blouses, a piece caught your eye, glittering on a board of rings on the back wall of the store.

It was a simple piece, a silver-wrought skull, but its luster was unique amidst the cast-off piles all around. To its sides, above and below, all were touched with oxidation, tarnished silver shining darkly. But this… The one piece, gleaming as bright as the day it was wrought. At once, you knew you must have it.

Making your way back through the stacks with your pick in hand, you dismissed the sense of foreboding as your stomach mourning the meals that might-have-been. Lasagna could wait, you chided. Mother, rest her soul, would skin you alive if she saw you squandering such an opportunity.

The raisin behind the register looked your purchase over, hemming and hawing as he glanced at the tag. "You sure you want that one, youngin'?" He - you made the assumption - asked. That voice was creakier than your Uncle Reggie's swing-set, and that had been known to frighten off wild coyotes. "I've got a mighty nice skull clock y'could have," he carried on, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder towards an unidentifiable, dust-caked rectangle. You assured him you wanted the ring, and he shook his head, gracing you with a frown that seemed to belong better carved on wood than on a human face. "Well, I ain't gonna argue more'n that. I didn't set up shop to not sell, after all. You should know, though, I have a strict no-returns policy."

That didn't seem like much of a problem at the time. Why would you ever give this sweet-ass ring back? It fit your finger like it was made for you; it wasn't cold, or warm, or tight or loose - after a moment, you could barely even tell it was there.

You kept right on being inordinately pleased with yourself right up until the black Lamborghini pulled up next to you, window rolling down, and the heavily-accented voice told you to "get in sports car".

What do?
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[x] RUN, COWARD

All day, you'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop - but this seemed less like a shoe and more like a colossal concrete donkey. The shifty-looking vehicle and the shiftier-sounding man driving it belonged as far away from you as physically possible.

Your cheeky side, the one responsible for your inability to ever get rid of the taste of your own foot, forced your mouth before you could even move. "Buddy, do I look like a hooker to you?" You find yourself saying, and then you pivot in place and skedaddle in the direction of a conveniently narrow alley.

Having some experience in the exact science of running away from angry men, you don't look over your shoulder at the sound of a car door opening - you pull your head down and run faster, turning the first corner you see and speeding past a startled homeless man. The sounds of pursuit aren't far behind, and to your dread seem to be gaining.

Your feet beat a frantic rhythm as you turn corner after corner, trying to get away from a guy you haven't even seen. With a grunt of effort you leap, snagging the lower rungs of a fire escape's ladder and dragging yourself up. By the time your pursuer rounds the corner you're half-way to the roof, but then the sounds of an inner city afternoon are briefly cut off by the loud roar of what can only be a very large gun. You don't hear the ricochet, but you certainly note the sparks where the bullet strikes the stairs ahead of you.

"Get over here, kurwa," the slavic frigidaire in business casual tells you, shoulders heaving with his breaths. The smoking gun in his hand makes a compelling argument.

[] You're perfectly happy with the number of holes you have at the moment, thank you. Get over there, kurwa.
[] The window next to you is open. Husky Russkie can get fucked, you're out.
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I spent a long-ass time looking for a good picture of a large Russian man in a suit and turned up nothing. My google-fu needs work.

[x] The window next to you is open. Husky Russkie can get fucked, you're out.

A part of you - a large part - wanted to treat the warning shot with the caution it deserves. It wanted to comply, get down there, see what this guy wanted, and pray to any deity who'd care to listen that you'd make it through the next hour. But you are your father's son.

"Smell you later, guy," you shouted, launching yourself backwards through the open window. Time seemed to slow, your pursuer's craggy, ugly mug contorting into a snarl as he spat out some slavic invective you didn't quite catch. His arm tracked, and you lost sight of the gun the moment it barked again.

You landed hard on your back, your jacket and the tacky rug on the floor not enough to stop the impact from knocking the breath from your lungs. But you didn't have time to lay there wheezing - you rolled sideways and oh god that hurts.

A shaking hand reached up to probe at your shoulder and came away wet and warm and red. He shot you. He shot you. That really shouldn't have come as a surprise, but he fucking shot you. That wasn't supposed to happen. That wasn't the plan! He was obviously cheating, somehow. Twisting to your other side, you managed to climb back to your feet and stumble towards the front door, your left arm hanging limply at your side and steadily dripping blood.

The door wasn't much of an obstacle from the inside, but the stairs swayed dangerously before your eyes as you stepped on to the landing, contemplating whether you should head towards the roof or back down to street level.

[] Go up. He'll never expect you to keep going the same direction, after the kind of twisty run you just pulled him through.
[] Go d-

Your left ring finger pulsed with agonizing pain, a band of searing metal constricting, seeming to burn through your flesh and into the bone beneath. You stumbled, slamming heavily against the guard-rail, and looked.

The ring.

The skull seemed sinister all of a sudden, its intricate details soaked in your freely-flowing blood. It pooled in its eye sockets, and it almost seemed like red eyes were staring up at you. The feeling of vertigo intensified, and you found yourself falling…

==HM. YES. THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. BETTER THAN I COULD REALLY EXPECT, ALL TOLD.
YOU'LL DO.==

Rain lashed viciously at the field about you, soaking through heavy mail and deep into your weary flesh. Weeks of forced march, months of fighting, and this was it. It had taken a great deal of doing, but Father finally forced the Necromancer into a stand-up fight.

From your vantage upon a solitary hill West of the main camp, you watched the battle unfold, men at arms in polished plate hacking at a seemingly endless army, no, a numberless swarm of shambling corpses with axe and hammer. It was noon, and yet the sun was nowhere to be seen - a foul cloud hung low in the sky, casting the land in deep shadow, chill and fog. The sounds of combat could barely reach you through the gods-forsaken downpour.

Not for the first time, you cursed your Father for his obstinacy. His force was steadily losing ground, and while your orders were to wait for the signal before leading the reserve into the enemy flank, you were concerned that by the time it came, there would be no force left for you to relieve.

[] Hold. Your Father is general for a reason; you must trust in his judgment and the strength of his men. He will signal your charge when the time is right.
[] To all the hells with the plan, they're getting slaughtered out there. He can strip you of command afterwards - he can disown you for all you care, but you won't let him die today.

[x] Hold. Your Father is general for a reason; you must trust in his judgment and the strength of his men. He will signal your charge when the time is right.

Sorry for no post yesterday, it was pizza and movie night. And now, our regularly scheduled spookies.
[X] Hold. Your Father is general for a reason; you must trust in his judgment and the strength of his men. He will signal your charge when the time is right.

You grit your teeth, for once thankful for the deafening downpour. Stefan, glorious fool that your second is, would no doubt try to offer words of encouragement if he heard the grinding of your jaws, and you hadn't the patience for it. Not today.

Bone-white forms streamed out of the woods in a never-ending stream, like a river of dead flowing into the fog-choked plain. They plodded ever forward through the mud, propelled by profane energies and the sheer mass of their fellows at their back, never slowing for a moment. The Necromancer himself was nowhere to be seen, but you knew he was nearby. There was no possibility of him directing this many dead from afar. All it meant is that he was still behind the tree line.

At the edge of your vision, at the foot of a hill, Father's men made their stand. Warded Rabenstadt plate gleamed even in this dreary gloom, catching what little light there was and gathering it into a protective screen that made the army visibly glow. Of course, it wasn't enough. They were outnumbered beyond counting, to the point where it hardly mattered if every man who fell took with him ten or a hundred. White steel erupted in spurts of vivid red with distressing regularity, wards turning the flesh of the fallen to ash at the moment of death so as to deny them to the enemy.

As the minutes dragged on, the nervous energy coiling in your gut, the discontent raging in your head, steadily built into anxiety. Where was the signal? Had it already been sent? Have you missed it, somehow? Mailed fingers whitened around the haft of your battle-staff. Father's banner, you saw, was still waving - you raised your horn to your lip, prepared. You would strike while he was still alive, signal or no, and damn the consequences-

The clouds above the army of Rabenstadt cleared, a pillar of sunlight splitting the darkness. The formation erupted in dazzling white power, and you could see the front ranks of the Necromancer's swarm crumble-

A beam of light splinters from the tower of radiance across the field, lancing into the enemy ranks. Your eyes follow, and land upon a figure garbed in black, surrounded by skeletons in armor. That was a signal, if ever you saw one; you sound the charge, then slam your visor down and lead.

The thunder of hooves and feet at your back was music to your ears, a rumbling, roaring drumbeat that finally drowned out that damned rain. Your men crashed into the enemy's flank like a mailed fist, cutting through the river of bone as a scythe parts wheat. Your staff was a whirling, striking rod of vengeance, splitting skulls and crushing spines with Stefan's hammer at your side. The world blurred into a tunnel of mud and steel, rain and splintered bone, witnessed through the narrow slits of your armet. Time stretched, flexing and twisting into chaotic knots of moments, still images bereft of context.

Clarity rushed back when you demolished a figure in pitted scale, the realization dawning that this was one of that core of armored troops that had surrounded the Necromancer. He was here. Not just on this field - he was within your reach. Your blood sang, rushing in your ears. You could end this. You could kill the Necromancer yourself.

[] Leave Stefan to command the force and take your personal guard to seek and destroy the Necromancer. As your second, he knows the plan as well as you do, and should manage the troops without difficulty.
[] Push through to Father's position. This wasn't in the plan, but his men have been fighting for hours and are direly need relief.
[] Leave the infantry with their captain, take the cavalry around for a second charge. The enemy has nothing that can match your mobility or slow you down on the charge - most of the skeletons aren't even armed. Trust in Father's original plan and see it through.
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