Ace

Is this our OOC thread? 🤣 Where have I been...

Ugh I can't stop looking at this 😂

That piggy is so precious ;0;

Hello everyone! Been a while. The holidays hit me with a fun mix of seasonal and post-traumatic depression so, I apologize for the hiatus in my work! But I bring updates. ❤️ 🧡 Been refining the sketch for @-Lilium- 's (double) character portrait today, and I'm excited for how it's coming along! Oh mann. Look at this:

I thiiink I want to play the Cool? I feel like I’m always playing Dex and Int characters...

yes. Yes. Yes. YES!

“Yeah, I noticed it.” Regina muttered and crossed to the northwest corner of the room, where the partners had set up a cheap table with a tin coffee urn and a hot plate. Next to the table stood a rusted icebox about waist high, cast iron with a pea green enamel. She opened the door; it stuck a little, then swung forward and let a swirl of cold air out into the room. Regina bent down and reached inside, pulling out two green bottles that clinked together in her hand. She pried the cap off of each with the opened on the side of the icebox, laughing darkly. “What a farce.” She returned and offered Cole his beer, which had already misted over with condensation in this sticky summer heat. “How about we make it a Boilermaker?” Without pausing for an answer, the young detective sat herself on the edge of Cole’s desk and tossed back her hair from her neck, taking a long and relishing drink from the bottle. “Oh that’s good,” she sighed, setting the bottle beside her hip and following it with a sip of bourbon. As she tasted the whiskey, ice then fire on her tongue, Cole went on. “…Pierce had a receptionist, right?…” Gina was quiet for a beat, then quirked her brow in her partner’s direction. “So you… want to investigate this, then?” She didn’t add that no one had commissioned them for the job, or that they likely weren’t getting paid. This close to their house. It didn’t sit right. She felt it too: Some things, you just had to know. “Mmhm, there was a receptionist. Pictures still on her desk. We can ask around upstairs, see if anybody knew her. Building super might have an emergency number or an address, too — you’ll have to talk to him, though. Guy gives me the creeps.”

True Believer? What a queer way to address someone, especially considering Miavaris was not sure that she believed in anything. Not in that way. The half-elf's brow furrowed quizzically, but she would not have a chance to work through a sensible reply. The slow theatre that rolled over the man’s face,—subtle, perhaps, in physical change but starkly different in the emotional tone behind his eyes--his expression shifting from one scene to the next without explanation, brought her pause. Was he alright? “Ah…” The ranger began, her hand twitching subconsciously toward the bow at her back. She made no move to loose her weapon, of course, but sometimes the brain sent signals to the fingers that couldn't be helped. Fortunately for Mia, first Ernest and then Torie interceded, nullifying any need for her to come up with the words for this disconcerting moment. “Hello! I’m Torie…” The tiger’s voice rang like a bell, cheerful but projected with strength. Mia exhaled relief, content to let her colleague do the talking. She glanced to Torie and noticed that, despite the convincing friendliness in her voice, the fur at the back of the great beast’s neck stood a little thicker and stiffer than it had. Torie was wary of the newcomer as well. It was good, then, that the stranger seemed to respond to her with a kind of due respect. “I am Severick.” He replied, “A vhersi, a creature of might and magic. a one time servant of a sorcerer queen.” There was much about the world outside Mia’s forest that she did not know. Vhersi? Sorceror Queen? This was, most assuredly, one of those things.

A handful of proposals had been turning like gears in Lucilla’s head, but none of them had considered, even come close, to the offer that he presented. To be withheld, even voluntarily, on one’s enemy’s own land was dangerous in ordinary circumstances; but doubly so for one of the Bethory’s kind. His proposal offered vulnerability, a worthy term to bring to an enemy to earn their cooperation and yet, the presence of his kind in the castle came with dangers of its own. It would be a calculated risk. She appeared to retreat into her mind for a moment, browsing through the possible outcomes, sorting through the likely and unlikely, her manicured nails drumming a contemplative rhythm on the surface of the table. After a beat, Lucilla lowered her chin and tilted her head in a quiet nod. “Please, excuse me a moment.” She gave no explanation. He would not be left in the dark for long, and to offer explanation for her actions when one would come naturally was beneath her. The heavy posts that supported her chair scraped against the stone floor as she stood. One of the shiny, dark figures at the Viscountess’ feet hissed softly, surprised by the sudden movement, and the other seemed to reply to its sibling with an agitated bob of its massive, triangular head. Paying her pets no mind, Lucilla smoothed the front of her gown, layers of sumptuous vermillion and gold silk that formed an exotic shape on her figure. Though she lived in a place that was so often cold, grey and dark, she wore the decadent colors and unstructured, lightweight garb of a wilder, warmer clime. “Boy,” the lady addressed a serving boy who stood silently near the door, neither disdainfully nor kindly, but easily and tempered of voice. “Fill the glasses.” The Viscountess Aradyis left it at this and stepped from the table toward an opening on one side of the room, perhaps seven or eight feet wide, that led into a dark enclave. It appeared to be a passage for food service; where one might set up a tea buffet or find a trio of waiters standing shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting to be required. A door opened, its hinges creaking with the weight of it, and Kean would hear the lady’s voice again bidding to be attended by whomever waited outside. He would also hear the scrabbling, scratching sound of claws against stone as, put off by its mistress’ departure, one of the great lizards crawled on its belly from beneath the table. Its tail switched like a horse whip as it moved onto an antique rug laid out in front of the hearth, a thick, heavy appendage that could easily knock an unprepared man off his feet. The beasts’ eyes had whites and irises like any other, but their pupils were so large that they almost seemed to consume the rest of the organ, so that it looked as if they stared at you from orbs of pure, black glass. As Kean watched, this one's scaled eyelids slid inward from top and bottom and it regarded him with such a look, no human would have dared it. A glare at once so venomous and somehow indifferent, it left those it fell upon wishing for the return of blank obsidian, Finally, if he turned his preternatural perception away from the glaring dragon and back to the matter of the dragoness, Bethory would be able to hear the tone of the conversation taking place. First Lucilla spoke, quietly, almost a whisper. Then her voice climbed a note higher, ending a question. Two voices joined hers, tumbling over each other, until one ceded the other the floor. It was clear that the Viscountess had brought his proposal to her advisors, to seek counsel over its provisions, but as the discussion continued it sounded rather more like she was the one proffering ideas, not seeking out wisdom. Her tone was probing and self-assured. When Lucilla returned, it was with the two figures in tow. One of them, a woman in her mid-thirties, wore heavy bronzed armor and had long, straight black hair bound high on the crown of her skull and cascading downward in a sleek tail that shined like oil. The other was much older, a bald man in robes of dark lavender and gray, wearing an expression of ascetic quietude. “This is Jiadine, my Captain of the Guard,” Lucilla spoke to Kean, elegantly lifting a hand to introduce each of the attendants in turn “-and Emir. He was my father’s— hm…” She paused, her lips forming a plump, quizzical arch. “Master of Whispers, you might call it.” “I am prepared to accept your proposal, Count Bethory, for the good of both our houses. But I would ask only a few small amendments. First, I should think that your best war general be needed here at Caer Mo’er, to be involved with the planning of our defenses. Jiadine, also, is an accomplished tactician and should join us, but I propose to have her choose one from among her best to take your General’s place in the Shadow Realms, their duty to take up his mantle of protection in his absence.” “I would like to send this sentry, with your generosity, along with a moderate number of my most vulnerable tenants; Those too young yet to farm, or too elderly or infirm, for their safety. As you said, your lands are further from the danger, and some of my people will need refuge.' ‘And, as a gesture of my own good will, I would send Emir to accompany them so that you would know I had no counsel here to plot with in secret. I will be frank, Count Bethory: His charge will be to listen, and discover if any words of conquest and betrayal should circulate around your castle.’ ‘But—” Lucilla paused for effect. “… to take a cue from your fitting example, and assure you that I am not seeking to install a scheming serpent in your house while you are away from it, He and I shall have no contact except through you. … Unless, of course, he should discover something that compels him to return.” The Viscountess hoped this was a good offer. Both Emir and Jiadine had objected, but Lucilla chose this time to trust her instincts. The wisdom of counselors was precious to those in Lucilla’s position, but it was a poor leader who let this guidance replace their own reflection and command. Though inexperienced, she thought her terms balanced and judicious. With any luck, the next sound of note that would ring out in this dim, candlelit chamber would be the clinking of glasses; an accord struck. Lucilla moved closer to the table where Kean sat and raised her hands toward her temples, softly drawing back the crimson veil that framed her face. She looked crafted of the clearest porcelain, the firelight washing over her in flickering, dancing shades of amber. Lucilla’s forehead, ears and throat were adorned heavily in antique gold; pieces that looked a thousand years old, and almost tribal. But her eyes, they were amethyst. Strong, but also sanguine as they lifted to meet his. Standing a few inches away, she could almost feel the cold of his body in the air. She extended her open hand. “Are we agreed?”

Oh Lord, please. We suffered through 2020. We deserve fusion.

That would be.... HUGE

While they waited, the officers dutifully took Sharpe's and Ramos’ fingerprints for the forensic investigation and gathered up their pistols. Regina surrendered her gun without reluctance — like any private dick not wishing to lose their license, Regina knew the crime scene tango, and danced obediently when her number came up. At the same time, from the moment the sergeant took possession of their weapons, handling them carefully through the cover of a plain, creased handkerchief retrieved from his front trousers pocket, until he had sealed the evidence bags with a strip of opaque, white tape, she did not allow the officer’s hands to leave her sight. If her family had taught Regina anything, it was this: Never trust a cop. When it was done, Regina grimaced a sort of general complaint about the rotten stench that still choked the room. In her seventh grade science class, the young prodigy had once had to dissect a hog’s lungs and heart that had been sitting on the lab table, unrefrigerated, in August, for at least seven hours. This smell was even worse. “Officers…” She started, her voice strained with the prolonged suffering of disgust. “Our office is just one floor down. Would it be possible to wait for the detectives there?” The older sergeant narrowed his eyes and gave her a hard, scrutinizing look. She could guess the glimmers of skepticism running through his mind as he looked her over: What was she? White? Not quite, was she. Mexican? Could she be trusted not to run? “—you can even send a man down with us. Or come with us yourselves, if there’s nothing else left for you to do but wait.” “What number?” He grunted. “3F.” The patrolman thought for a moment, then lowered his chin in a curt nod and waved to her dismissively. Too relieved to glower inwardly at his cynicism, Regina gave her partner an immediate Let’s get out of here glance and led the pair of them back down the stairs, to their own suite, to wait for their next round of questioning.