#Devh Trask

[entomancy]

(Fic) An Enterprising Endeavour

Trying to get out of the utter creativity hole that this writeup has wrought. So, having a little play with my lovely ladies. This will go well >:)

(Statesman ‘verse; no warnings)

Part 1: Setting the scene

The city itself was quite typical of State architectural design.  Walled, girded by several storeys of Y-shaped concrete slabs, its angular buildings in civic centuriation along a grid of streets.  The raised, dark midlines of vehicle roads cut down the centre of the footways, radiating outward from the squared spire of the central militia hub and linked in to the fenced-in space that hugged the outer walls.  Everything was planned.  Efficient.  Deliberate.

Or at least, it had been.

A lot of things had ended with Mother’s Fall.  The broken dome of the central power plant was testament to that: metal and plastic and artificial stone alike, torn open from within like a ruptured boil.  Shards the size of hanger doorways still jutted from the buckled skin of nearby buildings, and the force of the detonation had ripped into the structures themselves, cracking them open to reveal the blank, unfinished interiors.  Roads had buckled, cheap tarmac warping when the embedded power lines overloaded, and every window was a gaping, glassless gaze, ringed in fragments.

In truth, it had never been completed.  Mass-manufactured shells, just another link in a failing Chain, funded by frontier-hope and the desperate desire for renewal from something already dying.  Perhaps if the end had been less sudden, if the murder and fury in the City – the real City; the metal toothed monster that all these far-flung spores were but hollow copies of – had not ignited when it did, this place might have been somewhere more to lose.  But the shot had been taken, and the world had turned on an aching heartbeat.

And this city died, before it lived.

Devh Trask knew none of this.  Oh, sure, she could see it was a Statey build.  There was a look to everything them Motherfuckers shat out; couldn’t deny that.  But the whys and the wheres, and the rest of it, didn’t worry her so much.  What did – what did – and why she was sitting here, lurking in a Chargesdamn bush like a chokin’ peeper, in the rain – was that while this city might be dead, the little encampment of Bluelight wasn’t the only scavenger gettin’ settled on its outers.  

She shifted position again, swearing under her breath as she wiped greasy rain off her monocular lens, and peered out again at the humps of construction tents, lights and movement visible within even in this weather.  The place was almost directly on the other side of the walls, compared to where Jangles had set his first vans down, and was about as far out this side too.  Didn’t look like anyone wanted to get too close to the half-finished husk, and Devh had her theories on that, but right now she was wondering exactly who it was that was getting comfy out here.  The Bluelight broadcast sure got this far, so they knew that the fledgling trade post was there.  

Hadn’t even said hello. So she was getting’ real curious –

- and, as the meaty hand slammed down abrupt onto her shoulder, its heralding footsteps masked by the hammer of the rain, Devh realised she wasn’t the only one.

“Ehy, Trask.  Fancy seein’ you out ‘ere.”

…ah shit.

[entomancy]

Intro / character first  look: Endevour Trask

New character for the new trading hub neutral zone in the Fairco RP setting.

Endevour ‘Devh’ Trask; Dregland raider / monster-hunter.  Part of the Trask ‘Family’ (read: more like a mafia extended ‘family’ than actually relatives), who has taken a position trading with the spoils while she recovers from injuries recieved in her last big hunt.  Looking to make a name for herself, get a bit of personal recognition within the Family.  More detailed bio / shop description to follow, but here’s an introduction for flavour of my new lady :)

-

‘ – If y’are in need of a place to set down shop or seek refuge come to the coordinates of this broadcast – ’

The recruitment broadcast crackled out across hijacked airwaves, sending its rusted-siren signal out to tempt in passing souls.  It seemed to be working, too.  A few travellers had already traipsed their way through the ongoing-construction of the walls; some on foot, some with vehicles or animals, all looking around at their new surroundings with wary interest.  Most of them gave little away, but there was a definite sense of hopefulness scattered across the various faces.

Looking at the settlement’s backdrop, where the concrete corpses of broken buildings sagged and splintered further by the day, it wasn’t hard to see why Jangles’ message was being well received.

Sunlight flashed, reflecting off binocular lenses, as a figure atop one of the settlement’s lookout towers pushed up in her seat to better see over the mismatched railing.

“’Nother one coming up South.” The radio in her half-gloved hand hissed, an acknowledgement rattled out somewhere in the static, and Devh shook it idly before she shrugged and flopped back again.  The chair was old, poised in that comfortable point just before collapse, and the tall Dreglander woman wiggled her shoulderblades back against the creaking struts as she slung her boots up onto the rail.

It was looking… interesting. She stretched back, elbows brushing either side of the braided mohawk of dark hair that crowned her head, and yawned until the sunlight flashed again, this time on a half-dozen scattered metal teeth, set between their ivory cousins.  It sure looked more interesting than any of the other Raider trade hubs that she’d been through recently, anyways.  Gonna be a good place to dig in for a while.  A twinge of pain shot across her ribs and Devh frowned, loosing her stretch to rub at the offending lines of new, raised scarring that sat concealed beneath the straps of her vest and bandolier, still making their hidden presence known whenever she moved wrong.

Do a bit of trading, while hurts from the last big hunt got time to heal.  It paid to get your ear on the ground, anyway, and she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a real gleam of possibility in this far-flung knot of rust.  Picking over the wreckage of Statey cities was lucrative enough, but Endevour Trask had bigger ideas.

It was time she made an impact.

Though right in the now, she was getting curious about the little group of figures approaching the main gates.  She thumbed the radio again, as she stashed her binoculars back in their pouch.

“Right, takin’ a break.”

She didn’t bother to listen to the indistinct reply.  Clambering out of the chair’s creaking embrace, she made her way over to the welded ladder that led up to this nest and began to climb down.  There were already voices filtering through the multiply-plated walls and Devh let a broad grin slide onto her face as she rounded a hidden corner, slipping out between overlapped sheeting to emerge into the clear space beyond.

“Alright there?  Gettin’ nice and acquainted, are we?”

-

In terms of dress / face / hair, respectively, some indications:

(Assume that is a rocket launcher in the middle picture, for greater accuracy.)

Only with more brawl-scarring, broken / reset nose, deeper tan, freckles, dark hair, many more tattoos of the ‘skulls and sharp things’ variety (and a kill-count on the inside of her right forearm). Plus built like someone who is very, brutally active for a living, and owns at least one ludicrous bear-trap-on-a-chain weapon. At least one.