Verity Alice Price

The dragon's eyes were a luminous pumpkin orange, like giant jack-o-lanterns burning in the face of the largest lizard the world had ever seen. He was still mostly prone, but his head was raised like the head of a snake getting ready to strike. The few remaining cultists cheered, apparently thinking he'd finally woken up at their command, and would now be happy to do their bidding. ( Verity wasn't completely sure they were wrong. )

[AND WE'RE DONE! Thanks to everyone who read along and even more thanks to rockstar babe firstofitskind, not just for all her preplaying and coding, but the encouragement and cheerleading all through this, as well as her AMAZING PATIENCE. Adapted from Chapters 25 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon. First post | Previous post. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

With Piyusha dead, there was one last avenue Verity knew she could go to for good information: Dave. Bogeymen collected information the way dragon princesses hoarded gold and were just as cutthroat about parting with it. But Verity had her own information to trade--( and other options as well if Dave decided he didn't want to play nice. )

[Adapted from Chapters 22 & 23 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon, preplayed with and coded by wonder magician firstofitskind. First post | Previous post | Next Post. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

After saving her from the Sleestacks--pardon, the servitors--Candy had first dragged Verity onto the Metro and then back off not far from the warehouse district. The dragon princess had informed Verity that she was being brought home with her; there were too many unanswered questions that they needed to discuss before Verity hared off and got herself killed. Verity would have liked to protest that, but considering Candy had just saved her ass from what would probably have been a very gruesome murder by Sleestack, she was willing to let it go.

Going through a maze of blind alleys and sudden turns--and even through a cramped and dirty bodega run by another dragon princess named Priscilla who'd looked at Verity like she held the last hope of the world in her hands--they ended up in front of a squat, ugly building. The building had started life as a slaughterhouse, and didn't appear to have changed much since. The alley door led into what had once been the holding pen for sheep or cattle; the floor was concrete, with spilled-wine bloodstains worked deep into the stone. A few of the low holding walls were gone, replaced by empty space. Overhead, the walkways and management offices hung in the gloom like spiderwebs, gray and sterile. ( The light was uniformly low, and an air of decay hung over the entire place, like no one had been there for years. )

[Adapted from Chapter 19 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with wonderful coding help from my fave, firstofitskind. WARNING FOR NPC DEATH. First post is here, and here is the previous post. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

JGOB was good, but Verity had woken up with a craving for frosted Madhura-baked gingerbread, even though it meant heading all the way into Baltimore for breakfast. Still, the chance to catch up with Piyusha, maybe convince her to head out of town until the snake cult that was chasing virgins was stopped, and score some delicious gingerbread was too much temptation to bear, so after her morning shower, Verity headed for the Causeway and the city beyond.

It took her the better part of an hour to reach the small bakery and she was very surprised to find it closed when she arrived. According to the hours in the window, Gingerbread Pudding was open from seven AM to nine PM every day. According to her watch, it was almost ten. ( So why were the doors still locked? )

[Adapted from Chapter 17 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with wonderful coding help from the A++++ firstofitskind. First post is here, comes after this post and goes directly to this one. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

The first out-of-the-way manhole cover they could find was located on the edge of a small park, about a block and a half away from Sarah's hotel. It was mostly hidden in the middle of one of those little seating areas that spring up around the city like mushrooms after a hard rain. The few people who did walk by pretty much ignored them. "I love big city life," Verity said quietly, looking around.

Liam had removed his jacket and shirt before taking the crowbar Sarah somehow managed to wheedle out of the hotel manager--when a cuckoo got involved, it was better not to ask exactly how they accomplished things--and setting to work. Sarah was back at the hotel, gulping Tylenol and keeping a telepathic 'eye' on the area. She would let them know if she saw trouble coming.

In the meanwhile, Verity was absorbed with the all-important task of checking her weapons, including the emergency throwing knives and smoke grenades she'd retrieved from Sarah's closet. Well, that, and watching the way the muscles of Liam's back moved every time he strained to get a better degree of leverage on the manhole cover.

Look, they were about to descend into a sewer and possibly discover a dragon. Verity felt no shame in ogling Liam a bit.

( At least until he shoved the manhole cover off to one side, releasing an unpleasant gust of sewer smell. )

[Adapted from Chapter 12 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with amazing preplay AND coding help from firstofitskind, who wins at everything forever. First post is here, the previous post is here, and the next post is here. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

It was nine-thirty in the morning and Verity--or, rather, the red-haired Valerie Pryor, who had never lived on a crazy island and couldn't even fathom the idea that monsters existed--was trying not to freeze to death in a dress consisting entirely of fringe, sequins, strategically-placed strips of lace, and even more strategically-placed pieces of double-sided tape. The hall rented for the Maryland State Argentinian Tango Open was packed to the point of comedy, but even all the bodies jostling together weren't enough to keep it warm, especially up here on the stage where the crowds of the hall itself had given way to just the ten couples of group seventeen.

Well, nine couples and 'Valerie'. Her partner, James, was nowhere to be seen. She had seen him earlier in the hall, talking to his boyfriend, but that had been soon after he'd arrived and checked in, so well over two hours ago. After that, he'd been swallowed up by the crowds, not that Verity had been worried. This event had a two hundred dollar non-refundable buy-in and the top twenty would be going to regionals and she trusted James to have his priorities in order.

But now with the judges saying, "Positions, please," through the speakers, Verity was starting to worry. Couples entered as couples, and there were no substitutions allowed once the event program had been printed. There definitely weren't any substitutions allowed after you were on the floor.

The other nine couples had fallen into ready position, leaving her all-too-visibly alone in the middle of the floor. She barely managed to keep from wincing as the speakers clicked on again. ( Number one hundred eighty-four, please join your partner. )


[Adapted from Chapters 9 & 10 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon with amazing preplay AND coding help from the adoration-worthy firstofitskind. Parts one, two, three, four, and five, along with post seven. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

Fireworks for the Fourth lit up the night sky, but neither Verity nor Liam were in a mood to celebrate. "Well, this is going to be a whole lot of not fun," Verity sighed, standing outside of Dave's Fish and Strips, an unimposing building that was surprisingly hard to find unless you knew exactly where to look for it. It was a 'gentleman's club' that included live dancers who got down to absolutely nothing on the front stage. That didn't make it special; any city of size included at least a few of the same kinds of places. But Dave's was the only one that Verity knew of (in Baltimore anyway), that catered specifically to the cryptid set. Both the staff and the patrons were majority cryptid, if not exclusively so.

But hey, everybody had to make a living. In another life, Verity could easily see herself waitressing here. Just waitressing--( she hadn't been kidding about her grandma's reaction. )

[Adapted from Chapter 7 of Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire and preplayed with (and coded by) the resplendent firstofitskind. Next post is here! Part one, two, three. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

Living on the island didn't give Verity much of an opportunity to indulge in her other-other favorite pastime: free running. She loved free running, dashing across the open rooftops of Baltimore, darting over walls and along structures. It was like a form of dance, and her partner was the environment itself. It took the best elements of tumbling, gymnastics, and being a professional superhero and mixed them into one incredibly rewarding, incredibly fun package.

She had been dubbed the Arboreal Priestess for a reason.

The harpy family that Verity collected the mail for had mentioned that they'd seen an ahool flying nearby, which had sent Verity to this particular rooftop once the appropriate goodbyes had been said. Ahool were like the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz, who brought down prey by means of the bacteria swarming in their filthy little mouths. A hungry ahool would take a chunk out of a person and wait for them to die before beginning to feed. Since they were cooperative hunters, a non-hungry ahool would do the same thing and leave the corpse lying around in case another member of its pack was hungry later. Either way, that added up to dead humans, which was something Verity tried to prevent at all costs.

Her eyes were scanning likely places for an ahool to nest and not on the rooftop under her feet, which was how she missed the snare until she was stepped in it. The rope snapped taut, the loop closed around her ankle, and all she had time to think before the deadweight hit the side of her head was ( how much Alex was going to laugh at her for this one. )

[So it continues! Adapted from Chapter 5 of Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire and and coded by the amazing firstofitskind. Part one and next post here. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]