She only has one sword on today. It's safe around here. Artemeisia strolls into the briefing room like she owns the place. She pauses in the doorway and takes in the crowd. Her long coat is thrown back. Her right had rests on the Wilks laser pistol in a high positioned tooled leather holster, her other had is set on the hilt of what can best be described as an elegant chainsword. It may be a machismo stance, but she is non threatening, due to a large smile on her face. Her long black hair is gathered in a utilitarian ponytail. This leaves her broad face uncluttered, and her eyepatch prominent. Her skin is a medium brown and smooth like a teen or young twenty something. Her age is hard to determine, her bearing is not one of a youth. Looking closely there are numerous small scars, like nicks from a blade.
"Herra! Great! I am pleased to see you here today. I believe we will make a name for ourselves." She approaches her friend and give the ex-slave a pat on the back before leaning against the wall scanning the room again.
"Greetings! I am Artemeisia. I am honored to meet you all, for you will be like a family as we journey beyond these walls to make the world a better place. Greetings!"
NO HOME
Artemeisia has pride, she has confidence, but not too much to think she knows it all. The opposite is true. She sought out masters, those few people who were the apex of their field. For Artemeisia, that field was with fencing. She used the techniques of the Atlanteans resources to travel throughout the megaverse finding teachers. Her goal, she told herself, was to train to fight her people's enemies where ever she found them. The truth was that she loved the learning, the training. Over the years, she also realized she loved Earth. She kept coming back. The opportunity to come back at different times in Earth's history was a boon.
She spent 10 years in Japan before the Tokugawa government kicked out all the foreigners. No doubt the samurai were amazing swordsman. A handful of Italian masters had trained her as well over a period of years. The Florentine style was fascinating, but they didn't appreciate some of her more creative moves. She loved Europe, she discovered, spending some time in Greece was fascinating, the cultural similarities were a reminder of a home she actually never had. But their was nothing but false nostalgia in Greece. She decided that an earlier time might be more suited to her style. So she went back out into the universe for a while utilizing her skills in combat. She sought out minions of the Splugorth and vampires, and whatever other evil she could hunt down. But she knew she needed to go back.
Eventually she made her way back to England in 1424. It wasn't necessarily by accident, there's she had found some sketchy references to a English man teaching a German style of sword and buckler style. But what caught her eye was the reference to why he was a dark horse: he fought "without honor". Which was just her style.
She stood out like a sore thumb in medieval England, but that worked to her advantage. Clearly an outsider, she was not subject to many of the harsh rules of the time. The few who tried to wound up regretting it. Eventually she did find a man, Jacobi, or Master Jacobi, who fit the description. It was a process. First she had to overcome the inherent bigotry of the time period, the institutional misogyny, and the crankiness and contrarian attitude of the master himself. But she did, facing down a master vampire or a Kydian Overlord.
After a few months of convincing, Jacobi took her as a student. She learned very quickly that the mad master was not limited to the Chinese Taoist swordsmen or Gatka Gurus of the Subcontinent. It was a perfect combination. He used the
Fetchterbücher as the primary referencef for his teaching, but included the
Flos duellatorium written by an Italian upstart Fiore dei Liberi. The contrasting points of view between the older German books and the modern Italian manual. The focus on the sword and buckler techniques appealed to Artemeisia because she had been developing a style of her own utilizing a pistol in her off hand and a sword in her main hand. The buckler in this case was a stand in for the pistol.
They lived in an old manor house, not quite an ascetic life, but a simple one. They became a local legend over the years, Artemeisia towering over Jacobi as they would purchase supplies in the nearby village. She was in fact, significantly taller and stronger than almost everyone. The knights and lords of the time let them be, acknowledging them would mean dealing with them, and no one wanted to deal with them. Aberrance and outsiders that could not be dealt with easily were just ignored, they weren't bothering anything of the natural order.
Eventually, Artemesia's sense of honor eventually compelled to tell Jacobi who she really was. As, basically, a mad man, Jacobi did not find it much of a surprise. In fact, he demanded she show him the modified style she was developing. The chainsword he found to be a marvel, even though he could not lift it off the ground, much less fight with it. The laser pistol, a knock-off Naruni model from Center, was a different story all together. Jacobi at first could not comprehend what was going on. He could lift the light weight weapon, could see the mechanical function of it. But he could not grasp the concept of focused light. In the 15th century most natural phenomena were not explained with logic, science and alchemy considered the same thing. Eventually he was able to grasp the connection between pulling the trigger and the trees and rocks exploding hundreds of feet away. Once he finally accepted that, they sparred.
Years passed, and they practiced both the traditional styles and honed the sword-and-gun technique. They developed a fluid two handed style incorporating all the techniques Jacobi developed in his years and Artemesia's diverse training. They could only do so much training at the manor house. To fully explore the moves required actual firing of the weapon. They would go to the seashore, or the deep forest, anywhere they would be concealed. A laser is silent, and that was a boon. The chainsword made a whirring noise completely foreign to the medieval world.
It was that whirring that attracted a shepherd. First, it was the falling trees that attracted him. He would have stopped at a cursory glance however, if he hadn't heard the chainsword. Creeping through the woods he eventually found Jacobi and Artemeisia. She was slicing though hoary old trees no ax could bite. That was magic enough to damn the two of them, but then she pointed a crooked black wand and blew up a rock. It was like invisible lightning. Fearing for his life, lest the witch and her thrall find him, he crept out to the fields and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to the village.
The two swordmasters had no idea of what lay ahead of them. When they were a mile away from the manor, they could see the flames. They knew they had to run. They were cornered as they tried to escape by a scared, ignorant mob. Aretemeisia was a fighter, but not a murderer, she didn't kill the scared and helpless, not even to save her own life. She postured and threatened. Her imposing size and power held the crowd back for a moment, but soon the village priest managed to rouse them up. With torches, farm tools, kitchen knives and sticks they charged.
Jacobi turned to Artemeisia and just said, "Go". Then wielding only his buckler, he bashed and blooded the mob, holding them off while Artemeisia ran away. It pained her, broke her heart, crushed her spirit and forever scarred her. She made her way across the continent and to Egypt as fast as she could, getting off the planet without any of her customary sightseeing.
She didn't return to earth for decades, not until she decided to visit her true homeland.
