#golem foundry

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Golem Foundry

Artist: Nic Klein TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[what-the-flux]

At long last, I can post the finished art! I had been sitting on it for some weeks, waiting for the inspiration to hit to write a short piece to accompany it. Definitely recommend full viewing.

oOo ----------------------------------------------------- oOo

Glittering motes of dust hung suspended in waning late afternoon light shining through the skylights. The upper levels of the City-Beneath-The-Cube were lighter and airier than outsiders realized, but the walls, planters and walkways of planed and etched stone that went down many stories made the whole of the place feel like some kind of precision-wrought canyon dotted with workshops, passages and arcades where the locals and laborers bustled.

(continued under the cut)

Lorr still knew this place well, despite the many years separating his former life and younger self from his current one. It hadn’t changed much, the smells and the noise were the same but he noted that there were new, more effective safety railings in the Public Commons and that the local favorite dive, Pi’s had updated their signage (finally).

The bounty hunter rubbed a hand across his face, closing his eyes momentarily as he let his ears take over, picking up all the sounds surrounding him. He would need to move further away from the Commons to better filter the urban background static. Lorr had just sent out his hawk Deputy to scope out the area in case they got lucky and found their mark momentarily out in the open. Both he and Deputy were already familiar with her, so that wouldn’t be difficult. Problem was, it also meant she’d immediately recognize the hawk for who he was and what it meant as well. A part of Lorr secretly hoped she’d get tipped off early.

Why did I agree to this? It wasn’t the money, not this time. Am I trying to make a point? She nearly got us killed and then ran for it. But I know her. Knew her. I can’t just erase all this history just because of one incident, one indiscretion can I? Maybe this is how I have to get through to her.

He sighed inwardly and braced against his spear as he rose from a crouch, the movement preternaturally smooth and deliberate, like a predatory animal. He looked down from his high vantage as he faced the section of the Undercube that was known to the denizens as the Plexus. It was a network of tunnels, access ‘ports, antechambers, quarries and dwellings that confounded natural senses of direction. Less public-facing, much more closed in and easier to hide. Or lose a pursuer.

The slim asura made his way down the ledge he was using to survey, walking along a catwalk only just wide enough to admit a mid-sized labor golem at most. His ears twitched and he sniffed, feeling the minute air currents of a service tunnel cleverly tucked behind a cleft in the worked stone. Still not certain this was were his mark had proceeded but knowing it would get him into the center of the Plexus quicker, he decided to go for it anyway. Forced to stow his spear in such close quarters, he kept a hand on his dagger as he stalked forward into the passage, the inside only dimly lit by a track of dim yellow quartz-lights along the floor.

Infrared imaging on his monocle made it easy for him to get an idea of the topography of the inner workings of the maze of service tunnels he found himself in, but he was careful to not rely on it solely. He stopped every so often, using his eyes and ears but also a generous amount of intuition to pick the correct course. Chambers became somewhat larger and more spacious as he passed golem foundries, making his way steadily downward. He was becoming more aware that he knew where he was going, it was like retracing steps from his childhood back to the colorful yet rundown living warrens and slums that he grew up in.

She wouldn’t go all the way back there, would she? Lorr was starting to think it wasn’t just him that was trying to make some kind of point.

The smells and noise were subtly changing and it wasn’t long before he found himself in the center of the Plexus. Part bazaar, part manufactory, it acted as the working class nerve center and was a riot of activity, industrial clamor and smells.

He was certain of where he was going now. He didn’t know why exactly she came all the way down here where they had all met in the early days before the nonsense with the Whispers and fighting dragons happened, but he was determined to find where this chase ended. He’d get answers, and if it meant having to fail his mission and come back to his current boss empty handed, then so be it.

[darkseraphscorner]

Seraph in the Unholy Crusade

HP: 252

MP: 50

LV: 18

AC: 18

Stats

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 16

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom:12

Charisma: 18

Seraph of the Forge, Master of Heavens foundrys.

Gear: Master crafted plate mail, Hammer of the Forges, Broad sword (angelic Steel) Soul Contract @hells-sirenqueen

Edit: needs more.

Skill: Time warp, Seraph can speed up time, the more strain he undergoes, the larger the area of effect.

Summon Forge, Seraph's link to craftsmanship, he can summon a forge where ever he is, along with bellows, anvil and crafting tools.

Forces: Seraph commands one hundred and one Angels of the forge and one Angelic Steel Golem. His forces are equipped with Angelic Steel full plate, armed with great shields and storm hammers.

[limpfisted]

@infiniteanalemma  that post is so long and I didn't want to make it longer even with a readmore LMAO however it is VERY interesting that if u Google magister baldurs gate, ONLY astarion comes up. This, plus the fact that there aren't really supposed to be many cemeteries in the city means that the game took a few creative liberties with astarion lmao. (I have yet to look at the map of baldurs gate from bg1 and 2, I'm still on part one of watching a lets play of it rip)

But in general it also puts into perspective wyll and ulder---ulder became grand Duke only 7 years ago, 3 years after parliament was formed. All dukes positions are supposedly elected and he was elected based off of the general good will and like, ppl thinking he would help the lower city, according to the lorebooks and he failed to meet expectations bc he had to make certain deals with the patriars that made him hypocritical, in the way wyll thinks many politicians are hypocritical

(In general tho I like to think that ulder does TRY to be good. The system is just so broken. I think he and florrick are team lower city tho along with the twelve representatives from the lower city and I go back and forth on whether gortash also was or wasn't, tho it would make more sense if he was as he is also from poverty and not a patriar and it would add texture to both gortash and ulder if he was sometimes on their side, sometimes not.)

Gortash was a councilor who worked up the ranks, while ulder said at least ten years ago that he was a sycophant---as a slave himself with criminal connections (nine fingers has a jounral entry that mentions him even), he would've been able to rise up the ranks the old-fashioned baldurian way with wealth and crime. Plus u know he was sleeping with noble women

In general guild connections and connections between noble families are SUPER important and u never want to lose face. Also important to note that some patriar families aren't that popular or rich and there is a lack of funds for some of them

Which is even more interesting bc the steel watch is made if adamatium and infernal engines, and adamatium golems can take up to 100k gold to make

So right now baldurs gate could potentially have wasted like. Lit3ral millions of the patriars gold on these steel watch and the foundry,which no one knows is made with slave labor except the gondonians

(Which will have devastating effects when it is revealed as the gondonians are a huge part of the baldurs gate infrastructure, there's a whole two famous  establishments in the city, the hall of the wonders and the high house of wonders, where trade workers can learn their crafts and make incredible inventions and sell them and help baldurs gate with it, like its a huge thing, some people come to baldurs gate JUST for that, and gortash decided to make gondonians slaves like yikes)

Two dukes are dead, no grand Duke, 20 patriars dead, we don't know how many of them were members of parliament, we don't know if they were ever ex proxies, we don't know how involved they were with the guild or if they were on "the side of the lower city" we don't know what happened to the ACTUAL watch, but now they can't use the steel watch, and the vanthampur plan to make the flaming fist look weak and bad worked because they're ALL ON GORTASHS SIDE. Now everyone knows the flaming fist are idiots. And there's thousands of flaming fist inside and outside the city.

There's also amn--- they hate baldurs gate and want them to be emerged from the council of lords, which gortash would have been added to, and which wyll would be added to, like his Father. The council of lords are extremely extremely powerful and everyone but especially amn is already like "WHY IS BALDURS GATE REPRESENTED AND NOT US? THEYRE PIRATE BASTARDS" etc, and this would only add more fuel to that fire

Not entirely sure what happens in the sewers bc its optional, but there's still the guild, and rebuilding, and all the crime thatd usually happening, the class tensions, etc

But before gortash reveals his evil hand, i genuinely think people liked him and thought he was saving him too just like he wanted, upper city AND lower city since baldurs mouth even likes him and in general they can be pretty anti-establishment

The flaming fist guy i randomly talked to was even like "I guess ill pour a drink out for him. I guess." When gortash was killed

The most well known politicians are known because they lead during times of great crisis and all that

But gortash severely fucked the patriars over, and especially like. How much coin the city has, and has for rebuilding

Gortash wouldn't have needed it if everything went the way he planned. But wyll/ulder will now that great googly moogly its all gone to shit lmao

(Or u know durgetash for the war crimes aus)

On the plus side, pretty good time to be a criminal. And a lot of folks in baldurs gate are criminals

Next game should be all about nine fingers nine and wyll and avernus tbh. If there is a next game LOL. And im not just saying that bc im. A wyll roleplay blog LMAO

[reginrokkr]

→ Study 𝐗𝐈𝐗: Timeline of befallen events in Sumeru —Schwanenritter and Knight Marshal Anfortas—.

It is known through non-collectable documents left in the interior of Ruin Golems scattered across various areas of Sumeru that in this country existed a group of Khaenri'ahn knights by the name of Schwanenritter led by Knight Marshal Anfortas who fought during the Cataclysm against the tide of the abyssal monsters to protect Sumeru using these Mechanical Wardens. However, this protection didn't come without its own struggles within the Schwanenritter such as the contraction of an unknown illness of one of its members (possibly Eleazar, the Curse of Immortality or both at the same time), the disappearance of Ynghildr amidst the combat and return to her post in the Ruin Golem as a transcendent one in the form of an abyssal Black Serpent Knight and Hadura's "betrayal" and death at the hand of Knight Marshal Anfortas.

Nevertheless, new information sheds light onto two matters: 1) the Schwanenritter were in Sumeru for more than just to fight abyssal monsters [Dev] and 2) they have fought another wave of Dev before the coming of the Cataclysm called Onslaught of Dark Beasts.

In Girdle of the Sands, there exists a Forge of the Abandoned Foundry that was used to manufacture Azosite energy blocks and Mechanical Wardens, and to also use as a battleground to test their efficacy before using them in the wilderness of Sumeru. However, while there is knowledge that Khaenri'ah used the abyssal energy to operate them, this forge in specific was using the power of elements crystallized in Azosite. The change from using pure elements to the Void thereafter suggests that Khaenri'ah didn't use always the latter and that its usage is a relatively recent thing in the story of Khaenri'ah [there is an event that took place in Tsurumi Island in which an "Anomalous" Model Ruin Grader kept sustaining itself with nearby Ley Lines. Furthermore, it is not so strange that the Khaenri'ahns would resort to change one energy for another, as it is known that they were looking after a perpetual energy which they achieved in the Abyss (if we're to recall the Caribert AQ, this would also give them a higher sense of power over the Abyss, as they believed that if they managed to control the Abyss, the gods would be no threat to them).

...Based on our projections, the Azosite concentration will exceed 60% after this round of smelting... ...Though it still fares poorly when compared with that newly-discovered so-called "perpetual" energy source, after these energy alloys form a matrix, they should suffice to break through the technical bottleneck in energy efficiency requirements imposed by the large-scale "Mechanical Wardens"... ...Not relying on some dogma from beyond the heavens, but only upon the wondrous achievements brought about by human intelligence. If we continue to explore this path, perhaps we shall one day be able to create a true perpetual machine...

                                                                   —Ancient Engineering Notes.

Something important to note is that Nasejuna —a man in the know of these things partly because of a man who became a transcendent one in the past, Klingsor— also mentions that Khaenri'ahns were able to use the power of impurity to master monsters, said monsters being none others than rifthounds created by Gold, alluded to having been created as if by mistake like one who makes absentminded sketches to be thrown away. Given the presence of rifthounds in this facility it's presumed that they might've been used in the proving grounds:

...We were attacked... The sudden rampage of the defense mechanisms from the previous set of ruins had already caused massive losses to our investigative team... Abyssal monsters that never should have been here appeared for some unknown reason... So many members of the team have vanished while trying to evacuate... Ever since the monsters appeared, we have lost track of Klingsor's whereabouts. [...]

                                        —Akademiya Investigation Team's Logs (IV).

Now, where does the discrepancy of whether the Schwanenritter fall in all of this? This falls in one place, arguably two:

The first one is that it is said that the Order of Skeptics have as per ancestors Khaenri'ahn knights that fought in Sumeru, said to be in the Cataclysm. But we know as per the Caribert AQ that children between pure Khaenri'ahn and any other of different nations are to become Hilichurls, yet this is not the case. This may be due to the fact that the progeny came before these Khaenri'ahn were cursed.

As for the second one, it's the fact that Knight Marshal Anfortas proclaimed that he will become a temporary Regent:

...In view of King Irmin's present indisposed state and the current unknown threats facing the Kingdom... ...Knight Marshal Anfortas has proclaimed that he will temporarily take up the post of Regent and lead the Regnum Concilium Ultimum until the Kingdom returns to a state of normalcy... All citizens... wait... will...

                                                                   —Barely-Legible Bulletin.

The discrepancy that occurs here is that there was once when the Schwanenritter fought Dev in Sumeru and they succeeded in defeating them to the last one as Knight Marshal Anfortas himself proclaims in an encrypted message that can only be accessed to its content by interacting with multiple Ruin Guards scattered in Sumeru. In view that timeline-wise this happened even before an Alberich member stepped in to become the Regent and it seems that King Irmin was still alive at the time, this paints the story as happening before the Cataclysm. But what happened in order for the Onslaught of Dark Beasts to take place in Sumeru? It seems like what the Khaenri'ahns were doing in this forge wasn't without its problems and detractors as a few documents suggest:

...Eminent Marshal... Of course, I am keenly aware that the four pillars of our kingdom have achieved the prosperity they have today precisely thanks to us spying upon secrets from beyond the skies, and thus have our mechanisms been able to throw off the shackles imposed by this world's laws... But that technology... It cannot be said to be perfect... The gods are untrustworthy and the demons, ineffable. If there is one thing that can pry open the corners of this hollow world, then it can only be human will... To this end, if you can petition the King to allow some machinery manufactured according to the old standards to be preserved under your ministry's purview, perhaps it may light a spark under the latent wills of countless future generations to devote themselves to exploring technology...

                                                                   —Someone's Abandoned Letter.

…It's beyond doubt that the elders of the Order of Skeptics are hiding something… Only while accompanying the investigation team from the rainforest was I finally able to resolve the doubts I have held for many years… the realm does not just belong to those of the blood of Khaenri'ah, but it is the homeland of all human beings… Holding fast to this maxim, my ancestor Hadura couldn't bear to see our people meet such a tragic end, and yet their dedication was rewarded with an unjust punishment, their reputation impugned and legacy stigmatized. I now understand the meaning of all this…

                                                                   —Records of Unknown Attribution (I).

...As the workshops and related areas are unsuited for large-scale combat operations as carried out by the Mechanical Wardens, I order you to activate the self-defense systems and then quickly evacuate the survivors to the surface before continuing to resist.. Schwanenritter Garrison Commander Hadura…

                                                                   —Soiled Orders.

These documents let on to the fact that 1) the Schwanenritter presence in Sumeru had an ulterior motive besides the aforementioned which is that of spying and in turn benefitting Khaenri'ah with what they learned and 2) Hadura couldn't agree with what was being done and against Knight Marshal Anfortas' will, they ordered the evacuation of the knights and to close the Mechanical Wardens (one of which broke as a result of this) and Anfortas, who didn't seem someone who cared about the negatives of what they were doing even at the cost of his knights' safety claimed this to be a "betrayal" and killed Hadura, losing his left eye in the strife.

What can be deduced by all this compiled information and deeds that the Schwanenritter committed in Sumeru is that there was an initial wave of Dev (Onslaught of Dark Beasts) that must've been inconsequential enough to not draw too much attention and that these knights took care of to completion (more like they were cleaning their own mess) and later on the Cataclysm happened, where the Schwanenritter also partook in to defeat these abyssal monsters and are treated as heroes whose history was erased for reasons unknown (although it calls for speculation that there was a valid reason behind this that I might address in another post if I remember). While in a way they were stationed in Sumeru for nefarious reasons to benefit Khaenri'ah, there were some of them with a noble heart that took the short end of the stick for going against what was being done or merely were collateral damage to what has befallen.

[intertexts-moving]

anyway hiii good evening..just spent two fucking hours how 2 figure out how to play this fucking urzalands deck (urzalands & retrieval stuff + myr retriever (costs 2 colorless + when it dies return an artifact frm graveyard to hand) + ashnods altar (sacrifice a creature: add two colorless mana) + golem foundry (whenever u artifact add a charge counter + remove 3 charge counters for a 3/3 token) (infinite loop)(brutal but also oh my god so fucking complicated. yugioh ass deck.)

[danco110]

Fic idea for future reference, maybe panned out over a few smaller bite-sized pieces and stringing together a few of the preexisting ones. Or, knowing me, probably to just sit here and gather dust for the foreseeable future.

(Potential MOM spoilers? Kinda?)

Bladehold has fallen to the Phyrexians. Although she mounted a valiant defense effort, Ria Ivor is compleated and joins the Orthodoxy, fused to her noble steed. Initially, she revels in her fellow Phyrexians’ cohesion, a unity that she had to lobby and argue for months to achieve from the Mirrans in defense of the city. But, Ria quickly comes to look past the facade. She sees that Norn rules the Fair Basilica with an iron fist, and those under her rule are no happier than they were prior to compleation.

Disillusioned, Ria defects during an infiltration mission to the Dross Pits, and sets out on a journey through Phyrexia, learning on her way that there are others who have similar doubts about Phyrexia’s mission. Also, several members of the defense force were compleated as well, scattered through the layers, and many of them share similar grievances. Ria’s travels reunite her with friends and teammates both new and old, and give them all the idea to all band together once more, in defiance of their praetors - Norn in particular.

But Ria is not the only source of dissent among Norn’s ranks. In the workshops in the corrupted city of Bladehold, several splicers have been in covert communication with other compleated artificers hailing from the Hunter’s Maze and Surgical Bay. Ironically, the splicers only wish to exchange information on specifications on how they build their golems, but Norn’s paranoia concerning the other praetors makes such correspondence a dangerous game.

Tensions come to a head when Norn decrees that the golem foundries are to be phased out and replaced with a lab for researching augmentations for Realmbreaker. The workshops will be closed, and the splicers recycled into their base components. Norn was surprised to discover, however, that the workers did not in fact eagerly anticipate their imminent demise. Rather, the splicers - now joined by their contacts from the other layers - have organized something of a revolt, with workers and golems occupying a modest portion of the city.

Ria and her group decide to strike back against those who had forcefully conscripted them. Coincidentally, they ride back to Bladehold to find it swarmed by angry workers and their creations. The two groups of rebellious Phyrexians join forces, and are met with heavy resistance from only Norn’s loyalist remnants, left behind to secure the city after the invasion. With Norn herself and most of her forces distracted with the planeswalker incursion, the loyalists lose a hard-fought battle to the rebels’ combined numbers.

Just a little catharsis to make up for the somewhat disappointing final chapters of the MOM story, is all.

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 9jan23 hex

Quick history lesson.

***

Back in the 8th century, the Umayyid caliphate conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, leaving a few Catholic kingdoms in the northern part. Rather unhappy with the state of affairs, these kingdoms waged a centuries-long war to expel the Muslims and Jews. In the real world, they succeeded, conquering the last remaining Moorish kingdoms in 1492 and formally expelling all non-Catholics from the peninsula and marked the start of the Spanish Catholics forcing all the remaining Muslims and Jews to choose between conversion or death (the Spanish Inquisition begins in 1478). But we're not in the real world. In our setting, the Kingdom of Granada, backed into a corner by the invading Catholics, discovered something profound, something that changed the face of warfare forever. They learned how to make golems. Beautiful, bronze creations adorned with exquisite calligraphy and imbued with an indefatigable will. The Granadans unleashed their new creations alongside their armies and routed the united Catholic troops, ultimately retaking the entire peninsula. The Pyrenees prevented the Granadans from pushing further into Europe, and they were content to hold the peninsula. This posed a rather profound dilemma for the Holy Roman Empire and other Christian kingdoms in Europe: how do the self-proclaimed representatives of God's will on Earth deal with a military technology they do not understand and cannot seem to use themselves? Fortunately, after a hundred years or so of relative stability between the Granadans and Holy Roman Empire, Granadan artificers were more than happy to move to the courts of Christian Europe to act as advisors and tutors, for a suitable fee. Catholic scholars had assembled their own constructs, built from gold and the bones of saints, but they were unsettling, and the resurrectionists who built them were unsavory types that always smelled of grave soil and ash. Courts competed over having the best Granadan artificers the same way they competed over having the best musicians and artists, and thus Granadans spread throughout Europe. When the Corruscation boiled the land and soured the seas, access to the Kingdom of Granada and Northern Africa was cut off, but the Granadans already there were stuck. With the rise of supernatural terrors in the darkening woods, their golems became highly prized, and the knowledge of how to craft them doubly so.

***

Okie, loredump over. Hex 5,5 is right next to a number of very prominent landmarks: the Ratusz, the Zamoyski Academy, and the gardens of Zamoyski Palace off to the West. As Zamoyski Academy is one of three centers of higher learning in all of Nowa Polska, artificers of all stripes gather here in the hopes of improving their craft. The workshops here, closed to the general public, are a combination of exhibition hall and clockwork foundry. Most of the constructs built here are priceless. Consequently, the workshops have the second-highest security of any placein Zamość after Zamoyski Palace.Player characters are unlikely to gain legal entry to the Golem Workshops without an arm and a leg of work. After passing exhaustive tests, pupils from the Academy may choose to apprentice as artificers, but entry to the Academy is reserved for the children of szlachta and wealthy burghers. There are no scholarships. Players who perform a great service for the Ordynat (ruler of Zamość) would likely get a tour of the workshop and perhaps a gift of something made there, but little else.Players disinterested in legal entry would find rather a lot of near-priceless treasure. Gold, gems, rare inks, exquisite clockwork contraptions, and possibly even a near-finished golem. Assuming they can bypass the many security mechanisms and successfully exfiltrate with the loot, their heist would be the crime of the century.See, I told you things would get spicy.

[horademagic]

Fundição de Golem/ Golem Foundry

Artefato de Gerar Ficha

Custo de mana: 3 incolores e/ou de quaisquer cores

Por que ela é interessante? Toda vez que conjurar uma mágica de artefato você vai poder colocar um marcador de carga alocado nesse artefato. Posteriormente poderá remover 3 marcadores dele para colocar em campo uma ficha de criatura artefato incolor do tipo Golem 3/3, ou seja, é uma geração de Golem para você.

Preço da carta: em torno de 5,50 até 11,50

Disponível em Português

"Essa carta tem algumas edições disponíveis, o preço pode variar a depender da edição que escolher adquirir"

Link: https://www.ligamagic.com.br/?view=cards%2Fsearch&card=Golem+foundry&tipo=1

Até a próxima postagem, Ulli e Thiago

[maguro13-2]

Darkness Reborn ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Final Chapter Pt.2 ~

[Evil Foundry Zone - Arabian Nights (Sonic World)]

[The Palace That Was Found - Rublebee, Kenichi Tokoi]

Seto : Hurry! This bomb will blow up any minute!

Grim (Metal Sonic) : If that happens, then this place blown into a billion pieces!

Moirai Albarn : So this is what I feel about running to the emergency exit!

Seto : No time to loose! But hey, the music's quite catchy and rocking!

Grim (Metal Sonic) : So this entire castle that the king said, is no ordinary castle. But a complex full of machinery and molten magma.

Moirai Albarn : I don't why this place is active, but this might be the work of Erazor Djinn or they were just totally fine with the working!

Hiro Hayashi : Don't push your luck to it! It's the problem that we need that bomb outside to the exit!

Sonic : Hey, need some help? Sounds like a you're a little rush to the exit!

Seto : Ah, Mr. Sonic. So glad that you're right on time!

Sonic : Toss that bomb over to me! I'm wide open! [Seto tosses the bomb to him] Got it!

Seto : I'll create the bridges to get across, will be able to pickup the pace. You steady cross over to slide on the walls and do not fall.

Sonic : Or you could do some speed break to do that.

Seto : Oh seems fair. But wait how de we get to the exit on this mission beat the clock?

Sonic : Easy! Just flip this entire background around! [flips background to where the exit]

Seto : That was quick. Cartoon logic.

Sonic : And now, for a home run! Do it!

Seto : Okay! Batter up! [swings sword to hit the ball out of the explosion]

*DBZ SFX : EXPLOSION*

Seto : Home run!

[the group cheering]

Seto : Heh! That was a pretty close one. Who knew that the Ifrit Golem had gifted me a bomb that would the destroy the factory and get us killed? That Mechanical idiot wasn't smart enough to destroy us. [a Red World Ring appears] Hmm? Hey, something dropped from the Ifrit. That's rage ain't it? That's one of the seven world rings, the Arabian equivalents to the Chaos Emeralds.

Sonic : Yep that's the ring all right.

Seto : What's it doing here anyway? How do you feel?

Sonic : I...I...I feel...

*DBZ : POWERING UP*

[Misgiving - Seirou Okamoto]

Sonic : Rage. The rage that built inside the ifrit, all that rage consumes a burning heart.

Seto : So the World Rings in the book are actually equivalent to the emeralds.

Grim (Metal Sonic) : Who knew that the Arabian Nights was a part of Sonic's world? The World rings are actually equivalent to the Emeralds? This should be very interesting. I heard that erazor was punished for those misdeeds, because those misdeeds were his crimes of putting the Arabian version of Mobius in genocide, the world rings were equivalent to the emeralds, apparently there was one teensy problem in sonic's world, villains like Erazor were genociders.

Sonic : Genociders. What are Genociders? [gasped in shocked] So what you're saying that negative powers of the emeralds was only conjured by Darkness was it. Maybe the ancients that arrived on Mobius had a meaning that the Emeralds were highly dangerous, and Chaos had them sour'd it when he destroyed Mobius along time ago. But Chaos wasn't the only one who destroyed Mobius, It was "The End" itself.

Grim (Metal Sonic) : Yes. It all began a long time ago, the Ancients or I like to call the visitors of mobius, were a race of intergalactic beings from another planet that was destroyed caused by the energy of the emeralds. They were a tribe that ruled the Starfall Islands before the birth of humankind in mobius. The civilization on the islands have created the via network system and we beings did not know that the Chaos Emeralds were highly active energy used for machinery. Eventually the ancients disappeared after their conflict with The End itself.

Seto : I get it. Now I get it, I finally found what made Knuckles Clan angered Chaos in the first place. The Mobians of Influence that you mentioned were selfishly arrogant and wanted to monopolize their civilzation. To monopolize the civilization on Angel Island, they had Pachacamac in charge of the clan after his mother's death. Not only that he violated Angel Island nor the Ancients' technology, they angered Chaos and made him destroy the world! Then around 200 years ago, The Black Arms arrived on mobius to colonize before Shadow was even born! And after that, villains began to use the negative energy of the emeralds for death and destruction. They were no gods nor were they monsters, they were mutans, demons, and machines trying to put the world in genocide! Only you, a Mobian Death God wanted sonic to have them dead, but the mobians influence, had stubbornly kept the truth out of the eye. By calling them the Gods and Machines of Mobius, they hid the truth from Tikal and the public eye! Spreading lies to the human race as we all know it!

Grim (Metal Sonic) : Is that so? Now I understand what's going on. That Echidna bastard, Pachacamac! He used the entire echidna tribe as puppets on a strings the entire time and nobody listened to me! That's the reason why Knuckles is the last echidna on Mobius, no wonder the Comic Book people saying that the Echidnas were a superior race, consider that non canon.

Seto : And don't forget, the cause of the Space Colony Ark's massacre was the fault of Gerald that he contacted the Black Arms in the first place, and the responsible for Maria's death, they did it. Black Arms did it to make Humans and mobians hating each other. The United Federation wanted to destroy all livings to hid the 50 year old truth and wanted to capture shadow in the monopolization of political power. That's the cause of Gerald's madness when he revealed that his granddaughter Maria died at the hands of that Mantis Platoon leader, the pilot of that mech called Heavy Dog.

Grim (Metal Sonic) : So you see Sonic. I had lived for so long in the afterlife to observe Mobius, and I even had to spread truth to all of those who lived on mobius for a long time period.

Sonic : Is that the reason Eggman was lonely in the first place.

Grim (Metal Sonic) : True, but it seems that he never really met his cousin, because he was afraid that he would her if the Black Arms were not on the Colony. That's the reason Black Doom was being a part in the family. Just to make Shadow a pain in the ass.

Moirai Albarn : Well I guess the Sonic Lore does kind make sense, but that's just dark, real dark. That explains why the Gizoids were created in the first place.

Seto : Because the Nocturnus clan that created them considered to be non-canon to due to copyright concerns. What was that name of the game that caused a major controversy

Sonic : Sonic Chronicles, a game for the Nintendo DS released in 2008, led to the trials of having no sequels, bad music, and of course, the Ken Penders lawsuit.

Seto : Yeah, I get it. Too bad that's part of delisted video game list, Sonic 06 could've been way better if you know what I mean, and I bet the Time Eater is responsible for bringing Crisis City after Solaris was destroyed and the game's events were reset all thanks, to the Time Stones' power. This was led to the birth of the chao-eating demon Ifrit and the Time Eater is what was left of Mephiles and the Ifrit is the relative to the Flames of Disaters, that's what led these monsters to destroy Mobius in the first place. So once we get all of that done, who should we worry next?

Moirai Albarn : Long enough to see this, I've found a photo of braided-black hair girl with megane glasses that is somehow conntected to the Time Eater, a related human to see this difference.

Sonic : Who that? [Moirai shows a photo of a braided-black hair girl wearing glasses what appears to be Homura Akemi]

Moirai Albarn : It's this girl in the photo, a middle school student in Japan that hasn't been around. They call her, Homura Akemi. We don't know who the parents but all we know is that she had been childhood friends with a pink-haired girl nowadays and she says that she's from a place called Plymouth. They calle her HomuHomu, or Homulily. That' all we know.

Sonic : That's quite a mystery to say how this Homura Akemi is related to the Time Eater. Let's all sink that in.

~ Seventy Eighth Scene : Lore of the Dark Past ~

[thegeo549]

One small story from my current D&D campaign

I play a masked variant tiefling bard named Fortune, now you'd think that I'd be geared towards support, but I always manage to find myself in the thick of combat (which isn't too taxing as not only do I have cure wounds but I also have Thunderclap, Vicious Mockery, and Thunderwave). But my ability to wind up in the middle of combat literally bit me in the ass once.

My party was exploring an extradimensional mansion belonging to a long dead author who hid its portal in one of their books. The mansion was complete with all you could want: a magically conscious broom, two small golem chefs, a horrific basement lab right next to the room with the demonic summoning pentagram that was housing a small bug demon that poisoned me and reduced me to half health in one swipe, the works.

After dealing with that mess, I healed myself and went upstairs as the two golems (Coriander and Cumin) were preparing dinner for us. Small problem: an extra chair had appeared in the corner of the room. Our entire party went to examine this chair, but even with our decent checks our DM kept remarking it was a normal chair. And as we were getting nowhere with the corner chair, one of the other party members told me to sit across the table from them, so I obliged.

Unfortunately, the moment I moved my token to a chair (we were using Foundry for our games), one of us rolled a high enough perception check for our DM to go "As you look at this chair, you realize it's quite similar to the one Fortune just sat down in", and we all had a split second of knowing just what exactly had happened before the DM continued with "Fortune, you find the chair under you shift as it reveals itself to be a mimic."

It immediately broke through my AC, and dealt me almost my entire health's worth of damage, and despite my best attempts to save face, our entire party agreed that it just bit me on the ass. Cue our entire party gang-rushing this diabolical chair, and as I laid sprawled on the table in front of it, I thrusted my rapier down on it, nearly dealing max damage, but it immediately retaliated by taking another bite out of me and sent me into death save territory as Fortune was left bleeding out on the table. Our Bugbear monk attacked it next, and our DM proudly proclaimed "and with that attack, it surprisingly dies after only having one hit point remaining."

TL;DR: Don't sit down for dinner if you suddenly find yourself with an extra chair laying around.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Golem Foundry

Artist: Nic Klein TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[caeora]

Hello everyone!

Here is the long-awaited free CR9 tokens from the D&D Monster Manual! These new tokens use the new sizes of 200px per square and the detail is much more better! (this is what KTech said anyway)

I put a ton of work into the colouring of these, spending ages doing the little details, the Fire Giant for example took me nearly 3 days but I think it's very much worth it in the end for such a huge and important-looking token for a game :D

Oh and the dragons that are part of this CR, the blue and silver dragons are included from our basic dragon's pack but are not on the display because they aren't exactly new tokens, also they don't use the new sizes and I want to redo dragons like that at some point in the future.

This pack is available for free over on patreon!

[boaaekin]

This is Yexxii the apprentice golemancer at the Jeztar Golem Foundry as well as a couple of her golem designs!

[dailycharacteroption]

Arcane Tinkerer (Arcanist Archetype)

(art by Waltercomics87 on DeviantArt)

 Perhaps the poster child of my problems with the Construct Handbook, today we’re looking at an archetype whose name suggests that they are good at crafting constructs. However, all of the special abilities of this archetype are geared towards destroying constructs instead. Not saying you can’t also build them to be construct crafters, but still, this focus on destroying or emulating constructs, with literally only one archetype geared towards making a single subset of them vexes me.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, I present the arcane tinkerer!

These arcanists, like all of their craft, dare to fiddle around with the laws of magic, testing them in ways considered dangerous by others. In particular, they focus on the exact inner workings of constructs, trying to understand exactly what makes them tick, from the creations of modern foundries to ancient guardians whose secret of creation has been long lost, and even the simple crafted servants of more rural areas.

While they may study these things in theory or to try and put them into practice creating their own, they can also use the secrets to unmake constructs with skill the surprises most other mages.

 More so than other spellcasters, these mystics have learned to see the energies manipulating constructs, and with a little energy of their own, try to arrest them. At first, they can only slow their attacks a little, but by training this ability, they can upgrade it to significantly slow them down, or even bring them to a helpless standstill for a few moments, making them easier for them and their allies to fight them.

The magic immunity of golems and golem-like constructs is what makes them a terror to most mages, who have to either work around them with indirect spells or those that allow no resistance. Arcane Tinkerers, however, learn the secrets of how to truly get around this immunity, treating it as a strong spell resistance instead, which grows weaker as they grow stronger. Certainly there is still a chance of failure, but the shock on their master’s face when a powerful spell pierces that defense is priceless.

A fairly simple archetype, whether you make them an anti-golem hunter or a master of creating their own, I definitely recommend exploits and feats that help them pierce spell resistance, as that is useful across the board, not just their interest in constructs. Beyond that, a variety of spells that cannot be all blocked out by the same type of defense is very useful here.

 Depending on their outlook, these arcanists might consider constructs their enemy, or be absolutely fascinated by them, and there is plenty to be said about character arcs involving the creation and perfection of construct design, perhaps creating sapient constructs in a bid to create their own form of life.

  They say that the very first constructs were made in the laboratory of Mystic Zhotal, which is now colloquially called the Golem Foundry in legend. A young arcanist hires the party to accompany her, claiming to have found its location.

 Seeing the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation as a sort of cosmic clock, Najier the samsaran has a long history across their past lives of a fascination with clockwork, even having invented a few innovations in the field in their past lives. As such, they left several vaults guarded by clockwork soldiers that in theory will allow them to enter and reclaim their lives’ work.

 The golem-killers of Tirkanan have long studied the arts of destroying the abominations of industrial Gurvra, but in order to pierce the immunity to magic, they need special powders and fetishes made from something with a sympathetic connection to penetration, in this case the wall-splitting beak of a kongamato dragon.

[pikapeppa]

Samson/f!Hawke angst and smut: Hurt

You know how Hawke's LI shows up at the mansion to comfort them after Leandra's death? This chapter shows how Samson does his best to comfort @schoute‘s distraught and dysfunctional Roman Hawke. 😭

Just to be on the safe side, I’m going to call this chapter dubcon. Very mild dubcon, though, I think. The usual tags apply for these two: some BDSM tones, pain kink, some spanking this time, and rough sex.

Also, CW for addiction issues - alcohol for Romie, and lyrium for Sammyboi. 😭

~8300 words; read on AO3 instead.

********************

- ROMAN -

Roman’s throat was sore. 

It was the screaming. She knew that was why her throat was hurting, and why it tasted like blood. At least the blood she was tasting was her own and not this sick fucker Quentin’s, thanks to Anders’s quick thinking.

Anders lowered his hands with a sigh. His barrier disappeared, and the suspended haze of blood that the barrier was holding back spattered to the ground. 

Roman curled her lip at the blood. It was all that remained of what had once been Quentin’s heart and rib cage. Fenris has nothing on me, she thought viciously, and she spat on the puddle of blood. 

“Maker,” Anders said softly. 

She rounded on him, prepared to tell him off if he said one fucking word about the irony of her using blood magic to kill the blood mage who’d killed her mother, but he wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were on the body crumpled on the ground — the body wearing the wedding dress. 

The body that was not her mother. 

Roman didn’t look at the body. She stared at the pool of blood on the floor and tried to ignore the nauseating thrumming of her heart. Two seconds ago, that thrum had been a loud and roaring beat: a bloody beat in her ears and on the inside of her left forearm where she’d drawn her power from. But that beat was gone now, leaving her with a faint and familiar sting of pain on the inside of her arm where she’d drawn her own blood, and an all-too familiar heavy ache in her chest that matched the ache from when Father and Bethany— 

No, she thought viciously. No, no, she wasn’t going to sink into this pit again, not again. It was too awful and it hurt too much, and she hadn’t been able to prevent it no matter how fucking hard she tried… 

“Hawke,” Aveline called.

She forced herself to look at Aveline, who was kneeling with Anders beside the body that was not Leandra Hawke. “What?” she said.

“She’s still alive,” Aveline said.

Roman’s entire body froze. She stared wordlessly at Aveline, whose expression made it clear that Leandra might be alive right now, but not for long. 

She stood there like a fucking golem until Varric came to stand in front of her. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Are you–”

“I’m fine,” Roman said automatically. Then she forced her wooden feet to approach the limp body in the wedding dress. 

She knelt in front of the body, and her stomach roiled. Quentin had stolen her mother’s face. Her mother’s face on this haphazard puzzle of other women’s bodies… 

A pulse of rage throbbed in her ears, so scorching and sudden that it was disorienting. Then Leandra’s mouth moved to speak. “You came,” she rasped, and then she seemed to run out of air. 

“Of course I came,” Roman said. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her mother’s face. “You went missing, for fuck’s sake. Of course I fucking came.”

Leandra winced at Roman’s rough language, and the expression was so very much her mother that Roman’s entire chest seemed to seize. Slowly and painfully, Leandra drew a breath into the lungs that didn’t belong to her, and Roman tensely waited for her mother to speak again. 

“Don’t be angry, love,” she whispered. “I’ll be all right. Don’t be angry.”

“Are you kidding me?” Roman burst out. “How can you tell me not to be angry? Look what he fucking did to you!”

Leandra didn’t reply. Her eyes were vacant and unfocused, and with a lightning bolt of shock, Roman realized that she was dead.

She sat there for a long moment without moving or breathing. Then Varric touched her shoulder. “Hawke–” 

She flinched from his hand and shoved herself to her feet. “Don’t touch me,” she said.

Anders stood up with her, and Aveline lifted the body into her arms as she rose. “I’ll take her to the Chantry,” she said. “The Grand Cleric—”

“No,” Roman snapped. “No fucking Chantry.”

Aveline’s lips tightened slightly. “She was a devout lady. She would have wanted—”

“I said no!” Roman roared. “She’s not going to the fucking Chantry!”

“I’ll take her,” Anders said loudly. “I’ll take her to the clinic and prepare her for… for whatever means you want to… send her off.” He raised his eyebrows at Roman. “Is that all right?”

She nodded brusquely, and Aveline carefully transferred the body to Anders. Anders looked at Roman. “You can come see her tomorrow, if you like.”

She nodded again. Then Aveline spoke up. “I’ll escort Anders back to his clinic to avoid any further incidents. Then I’ll go make a report.” She took a step toward Roman. “Are you sure you’ll–”

“I’m fine,” Roman said loudly. She turned on her heel and strode toward the nearest exit. 

She made her way through the dank and roughly-hewn stone halls of the abandoned foundry, barely paying attention to where she was going. For fuck’s sake, she could barely think. 

No, that was the problem — all she could do was think, and the thoughts she kept conjuring were horrible ones. Her mother had been abducted by a mage who wanted to reconstitute his dead wife? That’s what her mother had died for? For some fucking sad-sack asshole who couldn’t get over his fucking wife? 

The more she thought about it, the more her pulse seemed to beat in her ears. He did all this just to bring back his wife, she thought. Quentin had killed multiple women, waited for years, hid out in this disgusting fucking cave, and attempted some hack job necromancy shit that only Nevarrans knew how to do, all for the sake of bringing back his dead fucking wife?

If that’s what love turns people into, then all the more reason to avoid it like the fucking Blight, she thought. She climbed up a ladder and carefully shifted aside the manhole cover, then climbed back into the humid nighttime air of Lowtown. 

Before she could slide the manhole cover back in place, she heard Varric’s voice echoing up the shaft. “Hey, slow down,” he called. 

Roman slumped in exasperation, then waited impatiently until he clambered out of the sewer. Once they were both standing in the street again, Roman scowled at him. “I’m fine,” she said, and she turned away from him and began striding back to her house in Hightown. 

Varric caught up with her and continued to jog along beside her, and Roman shot him a filthy look. “I said I’m fucking fine. Go away.”

Varric glanced at her. “At least let me get you as far as your house.”

She glared at him with increasing frustration. She’d told him to go away and to leave her alone with her own shitty problems, so why wouldn’t he just do as she’d asked? And why was he looking at her like there was something wrong with her? 

Her chest and throat felt like they were burning, and her gut was roiling like a kettle ready to boil over. Before she could say something cruel to Varric that she’d really regret, she set off at a run.

She ran all the way back to Hightown, not stopping even when her lungs and her legs began to burn from the strain. The burn was good, in fact — it pulled her focus from the despicable spin of thoughts on her head. But as soon as she got to the mansion, the horrible reality of the night’s events returned.

Gamlen was in the house, pacing back and forth in the study. When Roman stepped into the doorway, he looked up, and the hope in his face made the twisting feeling in her gut grow stronger. 

Gamlen took a step toward her. “Did you find her?” he asked eagerly. “Is she – where…” He trailed off, and his face went pale as his eyes darted over her filthy clothes and the cut on her arm, which was crusted now with blood. 

Hie eyes darted back up to her face, and he froze. “No,” he whispered.

She could see the accusation in his face. Fuck, she thought, and she turned on her heel and went to the kitchen.  

She wrenched open the high cupboard over the oven pulled out one of the bottles of rum she hid there. As she pried off the cap, it occurred to her with a pang that she didn’t need to hide any of the booze anymore. Her mother wasn’t here to nag her about it. 

Her heart twisted as though a giant fist had gripped it. No, she told herself viciously, and she took a big gulp straight from the bottle. 

Gamlen shuffled into the kitchen. “What happened?” he said plaintively. “How did it… what happened?”

“She fucking died. It doesn’t matter how,” Roman grunted. For love, she thought angrily. Because some disgusting twisted asshole loved his wife so much that it ruined him, just like it ruins everyone. She took two more gulps from the bottle. 

“It was magic, wasn’t it?” Gamlen asked. “That’s why you’re not telling me. It was a mage who did this to her!”

A breathtaking rush of anger twisted in her chest and rippled through her limbs. “Get out,” she said in a hard voice, and she raised the bottle to her lips. 

Gamlen let out a dry sob. “A mage. A mage killed Leandra! Maker…” He sobbed again. “Maybe the Templars are right. Lock the mages up! Throw away the key!”

Roman spun toward him. “Get out!” she bellowed. “Get out of my fucking house!” 

Gamlen recoiled, his face twisted with tears. That was when Roman noticed that Varric was standing in the kitchen doorway. 

Her rib cage seemed to swell, and the swelling feeling was expanding to her throat and burning up toward her eyes. “Get him out of my house,” she said to Varric. She grabbed the bottle of rum from the counter and shoved past Varric and Gamlen both, then made for the stairs and took them two at a time.

She strode into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. In front of the fireplace, Monty yelped and sat upright, then gave Roman a worried look when she plopped down on the bed. 

She glared at the mabari. “She told me not to be angry,” she told him. “That’s the last fucking thing she said to me. ‘Don’t be angry’.” She put the bottle of rum on the bedside table and hauled off her boots and socks, then haphazardly shed her pouch belt and her staff and her vest.

Her mother wanted her not to be angry after she’d just been killed for the stupidest, most pointless reason in the world? Fine. There was only one way that Roman could dull this horrible fucking feeling in her gut that was threatening to turn into yet another raw and gaping wound. 

She picked up the bottle again and sat heavily on the carpet beside Monty. She uncapped the bottle once more and tossed it in the fire, then raised the bottle to her mabari. “Cheers,” she said, and she gulped a third of the rum down in one go. 

- SAMSON - 

“Move your useless arse. Now.”

A dull thump of pain shot through Samson’s hip. He grunted at the rude awakening, then pried open his gritty eyes and peered through the dark at his assailant. 

It was a city guardsman: one of the not-so-nice ones that the guard captain hadn’t sniffed out yet. Samson carefully rolled his tongue around in his mouth – Maker, his mouth was so bloody dry – then gave the guardsman a pitiful look. “Can’t a man get an honourable night’s rest in the street?”

“You wouldn’t know honour if it kicked you in the face,” the guardsman sneered.

Takes one to know one, Samson thought. An observant man could pick up all kinds of tidbits here in the slums if he listened hard enough, and Samson just happened to know that this particular guard had a sidepiece here in Lowtown that his lady wife certainly didn’t know about. 

But Samson didn’t say anything. That kind of information could turn into coin someday, after all, and coin was in short supply at the moment. 

He thought morosely of the nearly-empty little envelope in the inner pocket of his vest. Then the guard kicked Samson’s hip again. “Move your arse. I mean it. Unless you really want me to give you the boot.”

“All right, all right,” Samson grumbled. There was no point complaining that he hadn’t been bothering anyone, nor that there was hardly anyone around at this hour of night for him to bother. That would just earn him another kick or a cuff in the face, and getting struck didn’t quite glance off of him the way it used to when he had a Templar’s suit of armour to his name. 

He pushed himself upright, then ambled away in the opposite direction that the guardsman had been going. He turned a corner and slipped into an empty alley – empty aside from a few dilapidated crates and a broken barrel, at least – then leaned against the wall and sighed. 

Maker, he was jonesing. He had hoped to get at least one more full night of sleep before the shakes got him, but that blasted guard had ruined that. 

He stuck his hands in his pockets and tapped his foot. I can’t take it now, he thought. If I take it now, that’s it. No coin, no dust, nothing. He usually kept just enough powdered lyrium to tide him over until the next time he made a little coin, but he’d tried something different last week, and… 

Maker’s balls, he shouldn’t have bothered trying. He’d never heard of any Templars going off of lyrium and not losing their minds, so he didn’t know why he thought he’d be different. 

But still, he’d tried. Last week, he’d tucked his lyrium stash into his special hiding spot in Darktown and tried to go without. He’d spent his coin on food instead and had enjoyed a few days of meals that he’d paid for himself instead of scrounging from a bin or wheedling the cook at the Hanged Man into giving him. And when Roman came by with her usual sneer and a ‘leftover sandwich that I couldn’t fucking finish’ — a leftover sandwich she’d clearly made just for him — he was proud to tell her that he didn’t need it for once, since he’d already eaten that day. 

That pride hadn’t lasted long, though. Two days after trying to quit, the headache started, followed shortly by tremors and the sweats. The fourth day found him prying his lyrium stash out of its hidey-hole in Darktown and inhaling a third of it in one go. He woke up a day later while some urchin was stealing coin from the pouch on his belt, and he counted himself incredibly lucky that he hadn’t been robbed of his lyrium as well while he was out cold.

Ashamed but not surprised by his own failure, he’d taken some of his scant remaining coin to the bathhouse and paid for a rare bath, then changed into one of his two remaining clean-ish shirts and returned to his usual routine of taking a little bit of dust every day. Why break a routine when it worked, after all? Some people like Roman might have the balls to pull themselves out of the gutter and start over, but Samson clearly wasn’t that type of man – not when his balls were held in the iron grip of the tiny almost-empty envelope in the pocket of his vest. He didn’t know why he’d even bothered, really. 

He leaned his head back against the wall and thought of Roman’s pitch-dark eyes – eyes that seemed to hold all the darkness of a starless city night. Eyes that caught and held on his face instead of skipping over him like he wasn’t there. 

Damn Bird, he thought. He imagined the look she’d probably give him if she ever found him crumpled and shaking in a puddle of his own vomit and sweat: that snakelike, flat-eyed, non-judgmental stare with her dark, dark eyes.

It was that imagined look on her face that tipped him over. He was used to pity and disgust, but if Roman ever saw him looking that pitiful and disgusting, she’d never touch him again, and that would be a bloody shame.

Not that he cared particularly what Roman Hawke thought of him. She was a cranky bitch, after all. But she was a firecracker of a fuck, and he still couldn’t quite credit his luck that he was the one she kept coming back to. 

He sighed, then dug into his pocket and pulled out the precious envelope of powdered lyrium. Just as he was about to inhale it, he heard voices approaching. 

Two voices, both men. Samson sidled further into the shadows of the alley so as not to be disturbed, but then when one of the voices said her name, he paused to listen. 

“I’m telling you, the body was Hawke’s mother. That doctor and the big guard-captain one was carrying ‘er up from the sewers. The sewers, I tell ya! What d’you suppose they was doing down there?” 

“Merde. I can’t imagine,” the second voice said. “Wait a minute. The body? Was she dead?”

Samson’s shoulders tensed in surprise. “Dead as a doornail,” the first voice said. “Worse yet, she was wearing a wedding dress.”

“Wedding dress?” the second voice exclaimed. 

The first one hushed him, and Samson shifted slightly closer to the mouth of the alley to hear. “Keep your voice down! But yeh, a wedding dress, all right. The doctor said ‘e was going to ‘look after her’ for Hawke, but what d’you suppose that means? He’s a mage, isn’t he? You don’t think… blood magic–”

There was a dull thump and a yelp of pain. “Shut your mouth, idiot,” the Orlesian voice hissed. “That mage-doctor’s the only one who heals us without asking for nasty favours in return.” 

“All right, all right. You didn’t have to hit me, though.”

The two voices moved away. Samson stood in the alley chewing the inside of his cheek for a moment. Roman’s mother was dead? They found her in the sewers? Did Roman know about this? She must know about it, or else why would Anders and the guard-captain have Leandra’s body?

He thought hard for a minute. Then he set off to the Hanged Man. 

He quietly slipped inside of the boisterous tavern. A careful glance around the room told him that Roman wasn’t here. Instead, he spotted Varric sitting at a table at the center of the room, but Samson’s sense of foreboding only worsened at the sight of Varric’s expression.

He looks as grim as the bloody Gallows, Samson thought. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Varric Tethras wearing anything other than his usual ‘I’m-everybody’s-best-friend’ smile. 

Samson slowly sidled around the edge of the room to get closer to Varric’s table without being seen, and all the while, he berated himself about the fact that he was even here. What was he going to do — ask Roman’s best bloody friend for gossip based on some bullshit he’d heard while skulking around in a dark alleyway?

Asking Varric wouldn’t be the strangest thing in the world, he thought. It wasn’t like he and Varric had never spoken before the Hawke family had come to town; Varric had paid Samson for information a couple of times here and there. 

But this was different. This wasn’t the exchange of a tip or two for a silver; this was personal. But why was it personal? Why did Samson even care? It wasn’t like he and Roman even liked each other. Every time he saw her, they ended up in some sort of argument that ended more often than not in a fuck. Not that Samson was complaining about the fucking, but the fucking didn’t cover the fact that she thought he was scum, even though she kept on coming back to talk to him. It also didn’t make up for her being so bloody bitchy, even if she brought him food or coin or both every time she saw him. 

It didn’t cover up the fact that he was starting to wish he didn’t need the coin or the food, and that she would keep coming to see him anyway. 

Damn bloody Bird, he thought irately. He slumped down onto the unoccupied edge of a bench and tried to figure out what the fuck he was thinking by coming here.

A minute later, Isabela swanned over to Varric and leaned her elbows on the table, and Samson watched from the corner of his eye as she nudged Varric with her shoulder.  “Listen, I was just at the Rose, and Hawke’s uncle is there bawling his eyes out,” she said. “He was really carrying on. ‘Leandra’s dead, mages should be locked up, why didn’t Hawke stop it,’ blah blah… It was really souring the mood.”

Her tone was playful, but she looked worried — even more so when Varric sighed. “We probably shouldn’t talk about this right now,” he muttered.

The pirate’s eyes went wide. Then she sat beside him. “Is she all right?”

“Would you be?” Varric said dryly.

Isabela snorted and lifted Varric’s stein to her lips. “You’ve never met my mother.”

Varric smiled faintly and held up a finger for a waitress to bring another drink. Samson, meanwhile, had heard enough to get a broad picture of the situation. Roman’s mother was dead, her uncle was wailing about mages in the Blooming Rose, Anders and the guard-captain were looking after the body while Isabela and Varric were here…

She’s alone in the house, Samson thought. And when catastrophic things happened to Roman Hawke, there was only one way she knew how to cope. 

Samson stood from the bench and sidled toward the exit. Just before leaving the Hanged Man, he glanced back at Varric’s table. 

Varric was looking at him. When their eyes met, Varric nodded a subtle greeting.

Canny bastard, Samson thought ruefully. He nodded in return, then left the Hanged Man and made his way to Hightown.

He was careful to keep to the shadows as he entered the nicer part of the city. He knocked on the door to the Amell mansion, expecting the Hawkes’ little elven housekeeper to answer the door. 

Instead, the door was thrown wide by Roman herself. Her face fell into a look of shock, then twisted into a sneer. “What do you want?” she slurred. 

She was completely fucking plastered. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was a mostly-empty bottle of rum dangling loosely from her hand. The door was supporting most of her weight, yet she was still managing to sway in place. 

“What?” she barked.

He gathered himself and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I heard about your mum,” he said.

If possible, her face twisted even more. “How the fuck did you hear?”

He gave her a reproving look. “I live in Lowtown, Bird. People aren’t exactly quiet.”

She stared at him silently. And for the first time since he’d known her, the twisted look on her face started turning into something other than rage. 

Misery. She looked completely miserable, and a painful feeling wrenched inside of his chest. Then Roman shuffled away from the door. “Go away,” she spat, and she tried to slam the door in his face. 

Instead, her hand slipped on the edge of the door, and she tripped over her own feet and fell heavily onto her side. The bottle hit the floor beside her and toppled over, spilling the remainder of its contents on the carpet. 

“Fucking fuck,” she complained, and she tried to push herself upright. 

Samson stepped into the foyer and carefully closed the door behind him, then reached down and took her hand to pull her up. 

Naturally, she tried to fight him off. “Don’t touch me,” she railed. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Her waving fist and feet were feeble and uncoordinated, however. Samson pulled her up, then looped his arm around her waist. “Come on, you bloody wildcat,” he muttered. “You need to sleep this off.” With no small amount of effort, he hauled her toward the stairs. 

She was barely able to put one foot in front of the other. “Fuck you, Raleigh Samson,” she slurred. “See, I know your fucking firs’ name too. How d’you like that, you smug asshole?”

He grunted wordlessly. In truth, it had been so long since he’d gone by anything other than his surname that his given name barely sounded like it belonged to him anymore. 

By the time he managed to drag her uncoordinated body to the base of the stairs, he was breathing hard. He eyed the stairs with no small amount of bitterness. If he was still a Templar, he’d be strapping and strong, and carrying Roman up to her bedroom would barely be an effort. Hell, when he was a Templar, he would have been strong enough to carry her across half of Hightown without batting an eye. Now, however… 

No bloody choice, he thought. He blew out a sharp breath, then quickly scooped her up and started up the stairs. 

“Hey!” she blurted. “Put me down, you fucking — you shithead!” She wriggled in his arms and pushed his chest, and he stumbled against the bannister.

“Damn it, Bird, settle down,” he snapped. “You want me to break both our necks?”

“What if I do?” she shot back. 

He gave her a flat look, then shook his head and started up the stairs again as quickly as he could. Thankfully, she didn’t wiggle anymore, though she kept on cursing him and striking at his chest with her limp fists. By the time he was stumbling into her bedroom, she had pried open the loose neckline of his shirt and was digging her nails into his chest.

He clenched his jaw and dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed, then looked down at his chest; it was peppered with little half-moon marks from her nails. 

He scowled at her. “Next time I’ll leave you on the bloody floor,” he threatened. 

“Good,” she said belligerently. “I didn’t ask you to come here. I didn’t ask for your fucking help. Where’s my rum?”

“You spilled it when you fell over,” he said.

She glared at him. “I want it. I want my fucking rum!”

He wilted. “It’s spilled on the floor, Bird,” he said in exasperation. “You going to suck it out of the carpet?”

“Why not? It’s what you would do,” she said. Rather unkindly, in Samson’s opinion.

He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I would. But you’re better off than me.”

To his surprise, her face suddenly twisted with rage. “Shut the fuck up. I’m not better than you,” she yelled. “I’m not better than you!”

He recoiled slightly at her sudden temper. “That’s not what I said–”

“I’m not better!” she screamed. “I’m not better than you, and I need my fucking rum!”

“All right, all right, calm down,” he said loudly. “I’ll go get it. Maker’s fucking balls.” He turned away and trudged down the stairs with no clear idea what the fuck he was doing, either in an immediate sense — the rum really was gone — or in a longer-term, ‘why did I come to Hightown in the first place’ sense. Roman clearly didn’t want him here, and the last thing he needed was to be screamed at by a mean drunk. If he wanted to be treated like this, he could just go back to Lowtown and sit down across from the bloody Hanged Man.

He sighed and meandered into the kitchen. Maybe there was another bottle of rum here somewhere. He started going through the cupboards while vaguely hoping that none of the household staff would show up and throw him out like the vagrant that he actually was.  

A moment later, Monty wandered into the kitchen with his tail between his legs. Samson tensed for a second — Maker, this mabari was fucking big— then gave Monty a knowing look. “Where’s the booze, then, eh?” 

Monty cocked his head unhelpfully, and Samson sighed and continued his search. Eventually he found a half-empty bottle of whiskey at the back of the cupboard above the oven. He pulled the bottle out, then made his way back up the stairs to Roman’s bedroom with Monty in his wake.

She was passed out on the bed. One of her legs was dangling off the edge of the bed while the other foot was on a pillow, and her face was half-obscured by her long raven hair.

He eyed her for a moment with an odd heavy feeling in his rib cage. He put the bottle on the bedside table, then rearranged Roman’s body so she was lying on her side with her head on the pillow where it belonged. 

By the time he’d repositioned her, he was breathing hard again from hauling her dead weight around, and she was still completely unconscious. But at least now she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit, if she did end up vomiting. Samson had seen people who’d died that way after a heavy night out, and it was an ugly way to go.

He sat heavily on the edge of the bed beside her and sighed. He was exhausted, and the trembling in his hands and arms weren’t entirely from the need for lyrium. 

Now that Roman was asleep on her bed, he should probably leave. She’d told him she didn’t want him here, after all, and he wasn’t in the mood for any more of her shit. 

He sighed again and looked at her. Even in her sleep, she still looked like she was frowning; something about the sharp angle of her eyebrows or the pout of her full lips. She wasn’t what most people would call a beauty, especially with her sharp and lanky body that was all knees and shoulders and no tits to speak of. But Samson continued to gaze silently at her, marveling at how young and… oddly vulnerable she looked in her sleep. 

She was a pretty bird, lying so still and limp like a sparrow that had slammed into a windowpane. 

He gazed at her for a moment longer, then stood up. He made his way to the other side of the bed, then kicked off his shoes and lay down. Might as well take advantage of a bed while I’ve got the chance, he thought, and he closed his eyes. 

A moment later, a heavy weight bounced onto the bed beside him.

He jolted in alarm, then relaxed; it was just the bloody mabari settling in right between himself and Roman. 

Samson shot Monty a resentful look. “Just don’t breathe in my face, all right?” he whispered.

Monty let out a very quiet woof, then settled his chin on his paws, and Samson sighed before closing his eyes once more. 

A moment later, he fell asleep — and the unfinished envelope of lyrium dust in his pocket didn’t even cross his mind.

******************************

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

For the second time that night, Samson jolted awake at the sound of an abrasive voice. 

He sat up abruptly and peered at Roman. She was sitting upright in bed and glaring at him.

He sighed. “Say no more. I’m going.” He shifted toward the edge of the bed. 

“You don’t have to leave,” she said. “I just asked why the fuck you’re here.”

He paused and glanced at her. She really didn’t remember why he’d come? He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, given how much she’d drunk. “I heard that your mum died,” he said. He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck. “I know she carried on at you, but your mum’s your mum, so…”

Her face closed up. “I don’t need a fucking hug or a pat on the back. I’m fine on my own.”

All of a sudden, he’d had enough. He shoved himself to his feet and glared at her. “Fine. I’m off, then. You go crawl back into your bottle.” He waved angrily at the half-finished bottle of whiskey on the bedside table. “I brought it up for your ladyship, all right?” he said sarcastically. “Enjoy.”

Her lip curled. “Fuck you.”

“No, Bird, fuck you,” he retorted.

“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that!” she yelled.

“Then give it a rest for one night, eh?” he yelled back. “Just give it a rest! Aren’t you tired? I’m bloody tired, and my mum didn’t get murdered tonight.”

Her face puckered, and Samson immediately felt bad. He sighed and rubbed his face. “Look, Bird, I didn’t mean… Maker’s balls.”

“Come here,” she said quietly. 

He narrowed his eyes. She still looked angry, but at least she wasn’t yelling anymore. 

He slowly and warily approached the bed, then shoved his hands in his pockets. “What?”

She patted the bed beside her. “Sit here.”

He eyed her suspiciously, then sat beside her. “What–”

She suddenly slapped him across the face. Shocked, he brought his hand to his stinging cheek. “What the–”

She raised her hand again, and he snatched her wrist. “Keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll keep ‘em for you,” he threatened.

She leaned closer to him. “Try it, asshole,” she hissed. “Just try me.”

He growled in frustration, then shoved her back onto the bed and pinned her hands above her head. She bucked and kicked his shin, and he crawled on top of her and straddled her waist so she couldn’t kick.

“Stop it!” he yelled. 

“You can’t make me!” she railed. “You can’t do anything! You can’t protect anyone, you can’t keep anyone safe, you can’t — you can’t… Fuck you!”

He narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t convinced anymore that it was really him that she was insulting. “Tell me what happened tonight,” he said.

“No!” 

“Tell me!” he yelled.

“A mage turned my mother into a fucking rag doll made of other people’s body parts, all right?” she bellowed. “That’s what fucking happened. And now she’s dead, and I blew that asshole into a million pieces, so fuck you!”

Some of his frustration left him. No wonder Roman was such a mess right now. “She was killed with blood magic?” he asked.

“Is that all you give a shit about?” she shouted. “The only thing that you can think is that it was fucking blood magic?”

“That’s not–” He broke off. There was no point. She was looking at him now with so much rage that he might as well have killed her mother himself. 

He released her wrists and shifted off of the bed. “Look, Bird, if you just want someone to yell at, go pick a fucking fight at the Hanged Man. I’ve had enough.” He stalked toward her bedroom door, but before he could open it, she strode over to him and grabbed his arm. 

He twisted his arm out of her grip, and she grabbed the collar of his shirt in both hands. “Fuck me,” she said.

He gaped at her. “What?”

She lunged toward him and nipped the side of his neck, and he gasped and flinched. “Ow!” 

“Fuck me!” she insisted, and she reached down and rubbed her hand over his hard cock — wait, why in the Maker’s bloody name was he hard?

He stood there stupidly, unable to breathe from the pressure of her palm on his cock. She pulled insistently on the collar of his shirt. “Fuck me, Samson,” she said. “Just fuck me.”

He sighed loudly. “Bird–”

“Fuck me!” she yelled.

Frustrated now, he grabbed both of her wrists and hauled her back to the bed, then pushed her down. “You hit me and scream at me, and you think I should fuck you?” he said incredulously.

“Yes!” she snapped. She pulled her shirt off and threw it on the floor.

Maker’s balls, she wasn’t wearing a bra. Samson dragged his eyes from her nipples back up to her face. “Why would I fuck a mouthy bitch who bites me like a bloody wildcat for no reason?” he demanded.

“I don’t know!” she bellowed. “I don’t know why you keep coming here and spending time with me. Probably because you’re fucked in the head from lyrium. But you keep showing up here and hanging around like a bad rash, so while you’re here, you should fuck me.”

“I keep coming ‘ere because you keep asking me to come!” he shouted. But even as the words left his mouth, he knew this wasn’t true this time. This time, he’d shown up here of his own accord.

Sure enough, Roman latched onto this flaw in his reasoning. “I didn’t want you here for this!” she railed. “I don’t want anyone here for this! This is — I’m too — just—” She broke off and swallowed hard, then stood up and started unbuttoning her pants. “For fuck’s sake, will you just fuck me?”

He glared at her, and she shoved her pants and smallclothes off. “Come on, fuck me!” she taunted.

He stared stupidly at the damp patch of midnight-black curls between her legs. Maker’s bloody balls, she was wet already. This made no fucking sense. He opened his mouth to tell her so.

“Fine,” he said instead. “You know what, fine, I will.” He stalked toward her and wrapped her hair in his fist, then yanked her head back.

She gasped and grabbed his shirt, then dug her nails viciously into his chest, and he gasped as a rush of pain and pleasure spilled through his chest and down to his groin. “You drive me bloody nuts, you know that?” he snarled.

“Good,” she panted. “Maybe you’ll fuck me hard enough for once, then.” 

He curled his lip at her insult, then pulled her head back further and bit her throat, and she moaned and grabbed his throbbing cock through his pants. He gasped against her neck, then shoved her back into the bed, and a few frenzied heartbeats later, he was naked and she was on her hands and knees, and he was behind her and shoving her down even further onto the bed— 

“Get flat on your chest, Bird,” he ordered. “Lift that ass for me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, but still she did as she was told and laid her chest and her cheek on the bed. 

“You’re always telling me what to do,” he retorted. He put on a mocking high-pitched voice. “‘Get my rum, fuck me, get out of my house.’ Maybe it’s my turn now to give the orders, eh?” He pulled her hips up and suddenly spanked her. 

She yelped and jolted, and Samson squeezed her buttock. “You want me to fuck you?” he said. “Maybe you should be polite for once and say ‘please’.”

She scoffed. “I’m not going to beg you to fuck me, you piece of shit!”

“You’re not, are you?” he said snarkily, and he spanked her again. 

She cried out and arched her spine, and his cock pulsed at the lustful sound. Maker, she looked so damned good with her back all curved like a cat in heat and her pussy slick with how badly she wanted his cock, and Samson stared greedily at her for a moment before spanking her again, this time on the other buttock. 

She mewled and twisted her hips and clawed at the bed, and Samson bit back a groan. “Say ‘please’, Bird,” he taunted.

“No!” she snapped.

Her voice was breathy with lust. Samson gripped his cock and shifted closer to her, then slid his length teasingly along the slick cleft of her pussy. “Say it,” he threatened. 

She bucked her hips back toward him. “Never,” she moaned. “I’ll never fucking beg you for a f-fucking thing… ah!” She cried out once more as Samson’s palm met her butt with a sharp crack. 

“Say it!” he barked. 

“Fuck me!” she blurted. “I need you to fuck me!”

“That’s not what I want to hear,” he growled. He slowly rocked his hips toward her, and as her smooth heat coated his cock, he pressed his lips together hard to stop himself from moaning at how bloody good she felt. 

She mewled and arched her spine, trying to twist and take him in, but he gripped her hips firmly so she could only have what he was teasing her with. Roman panted and growled and clenched her fingers in the sheets, and Samson stared at her, enraptured by the sight of her devolving into a nearly feral state of lust. 

He kept sliding his cock through her folds until he was panting too, then spanked her once more, and she jolted. “Please!” she cried. “Just fuck me, please!” 

He gaped at her in surprise, then eagerly gripped the root of his cock and positioned himself behind her. “I knew you couldn’t hold out,” he gasped, and he slammed into her in a hard thrust.

“Yes!” she screamed, and Samson groaned in ecstasy; she was so bloody tight and wet. He held still for a moment to gather his wits, but Roman was already wiggling her hips.

“Samson, come on, make yourself useful and fuck me already!” she ordered.

He blew out a sharp breath. “Give a bloody minute, will you?” he panted. “I need a minute, or this’ll be over before I get you halfway there.” 

“Who cares? Just fuck me hard!” she snapped.

He eyed her in puzzlement. She didn’t want him to make her come?

“Fuck me!” she yelled. “Fuck me, fuck me–”

He drew back and slammed into her once more, then again and again until her bed was shaking with the force and speed of their fucking, but it still wasn’t enough for Roman; she pressed her chest more firmly into the bed and lifted her hips higher. “Harder!” she cried. “I need you to fuck me so hard it hurts!” 

He stilled at this. What the hell did she mean by that? Sure, he and Roman had always engaged in a certain degree of scratching and biting and the occasional slap during sex, but that was different. That felt… Maker, it felt strange to admit it, but that felt good.

The way she’d just said to hurt her… something about it gave him a chill.

Her voice interrupted his troubled thoughts. “Samson, for fuck’s sake–” 

He slammed into her once more, then held still. “You’re not the boss of me,” he said roughly. “I’m the boss, and I say you’re going to come on my cock if you want me to fuck you any faster.”

She whined and bucked back, but Samson dug his fingers into her hips and slowly withdrew from her. “Touch yourself,” he commanded. “Do it now.”

“Fuck you,” she gasped, but she slipped her hand down between her body and the bed and started caressing her clit. 

“That’s my pretty bird,” he taunted. “Make yourself come on my cock, or I won’t fuck you anymore.”

She gasped and tried to twist her hips in his grip, to no avail. “I hate you,” she moaned. 

He clicked his tongue. “Rude thing to say to the man who’s balls deep inside of you.” He drew back and slid inside of her slowly, and she let out a broken little cry of pleasure. A minute later, her breathing was coming in short sharp pants, and when she came, Samson felt it in the pulsing of her pussy around his cock.  

“Ahh, fuck, please!” she sobbed.

He drew back, then slammed into her and fell forward onto his palms so he was looming over her prostrate body. “Let’s make something clear,” he said in a hard voice. “I’m not hurtin’ you to punish you, Bird. I’m hurtin’ you because you bloody well like it. Understand?”

She clenched her jaw, then sobbed again. “Shut up and fuck me!”

He flexed his hips, and Roman gasped and arched back to meet him, and soon their bodies were striking together with a hard and rapid smack of his hips against her upraised ass. He dipped his head low and bit her shoulder, and she cried out his name, and Samson continued to nip her skin until the pulsing of pleasure in his own body was almost too much to bear. 

He gasped and pressed his forehead to her shoulder blade, then groaned and shuddered as his climax rippled through his abdomen and his limbs. For a long moment, he simply lay there with his sweaty forehead pressed to her skin as he gasped for air. 

In the stillness and silence of the aftermath, once he’d caught his breath, he spoke. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he said. 

He felt the slow expansion of her ribcage as she inhaled. “Don’t apologize,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”

She sounded calmer than she had all night, and Samson was so surprised by this that he didn’t reply. In the ensuing silence, he eventually realized something odd: Roman wasn’t shoving him off the way she usually did. She was just lying there, crushed to the mattress beneath him, and there was something passive about her pose that suddenly made him feel bad. 

He released her and sat back on his heels. “Can I sleep here?” he asked. “I’ve got a pain in my hip from getting kicked earlier tonight.”

She frowned as she pushed herself upright. “Who fucking kicked you? I’ll stab them.”

He gave her a knowing look. “What, you give a rat’s ass now what happens to the likes of me?”

Her frown deepened into a scowl. “No, I… fuck you.”

Her voice held no real anger, however. Samson smirked. “A real knight in shining armour, you are. Can I stay, then, or…?”

Roman scowled at him for a second longer, then shrugged. “Stay if you want. I don’t care.” She pushed back the rumpled blankets and slid beneath them, and Samson crawled under the blankets as well.

He flopped onto his back with a weary sigh. Roman rolled onto her side facing away from him, but as she settled onto her side, her foot brushed against his calf. 

Samson waited for her to move her foot away with some snarky comment that he was taking up too much space on her bed, but she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t move her foot.

He lay there for a minute just staring at the velvet canopy overhead, but his attention was on the warmth of Roman’s foot touching his leg. Then he sighed internally. Fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen? he thought. She kicks me in the balls and kicks me out? I’ve had worse things happen. Before he could think too much about the painful possibility that she might do just that, he rolled toward her, then shifted close and gathered her against his chest. 

Her whole body stiffened, but Samson wasn’t deterred; he pressed his chest against her spine and tucked his arm around her waist. 

She stayed stock-still and stiff for many long moments before speaking. “You smell.”

His heart squeezed. Was he imagining it, or did she suddenly sound a little like she had a head cold? “I know, all right?” he said quietly. “Some of us don’t have fancy Orlesian bathtubs.”

She sniffled very quietly, and his heart throbbed again. When she spoke again, her tone was snarky once more. “You should take a bath with me in the morning.”

A bath with her? His belly did a funny flip. “Fine,” he grunted. He settled his chin against her shoulder. 

“And you should shave,” Roman said. She shifted her shoulder irritably. “Your fucking whiskers are scratchy. They’re going to give me a rash.”

He sighed loudly. “Quit breaking my balls for one second, will you?”

To his surprise, she fell silent. Gradually, very gradually, her body relaxed, and Samson felt his own body relaxing along with hers. 

He was half-asleep when he heard her voice again – a soft murmur, so soft that he wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a dream. 

“Thanks for the fuck,” she said. 

“Anytime, pretty bird,” he mumbled.

“I’m not your pretty bird,” she retorted.

He tsked. “Go the fuck to sleep, Roman.”

She growled and shifted in his arms – shifted closer, so she was tucked tightly against his chest. Then she fell still again. Minutes later, her breathing was deep and calm, and he knew she was asleep. 

He closed his eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. Bloody bird, he thought. Then, with his pretty bird in his arms, Samson fell asleep as well.