Coatleque

(( This post contains some suggestive language, but I would not consider it NSFW. )) Continuing from here [align=center]III[/align] Coatleque sat in her office as was typical of her these days, going over incident reports from the Brass Blades. A new assignment she has been shirking as she preferred being out in the Palace or the training yard. The Captain had insisted, though, with the recent influx of recruits. She could not help but feel he was just pushing off his own work onto her though. There was a light rap on the door frame as a man quiently entered. She did not hear him approach, so engrossed was she in her work. "And there she is. Resplendent in silver'd mail, as rumor oft said." She almost started and looked up to see Jameson Taeros standing there. A quick exchange of smiles and she found herself suddenly worried about her appearance as she brushed her bangs out of her eyes only to have it fall forward immediately afterword. "Well, this is a first." She remarked as she felt her cheeks flush to match her hair. "Have you ever seen me in uniform even? I do not reacall..." He moved quickly around her desk and leaned closer to place a chaste kiss on her cheek, to which she smiled and leaned towards him even. "Oh, I've seen you. You just did not see me." "Hmm... sneaky." she quipped. "On occasion." he purred. Suddenly feeling quite inadequate in her these current surroundings, she gestured to the surrounding walls. "Sorry for the meager accommodations. I'm not quite that important for a full office." Jameson smirked faintly, remaining close to her. "I have every confidence that you will one day ascend to that imbecile Jenlyn's position. How can you not?" "Imbecile? Come now. He is my Captain after all. I'll not speak a word against him. I had a wonderful time at your Starlight party, even if it was all business." Jameson gently tugged at the fingers of his gloves, removing each one in turn with slow, exacting pulls. "I jest, of course. Jenlyns is naught but the most even-tempered, level-headed man on the Hustings." He said as they both shared a smile. She could not help but laugh at this. "Perhaps to you, but I report directly to him." Jameson fussed with her tabard seemingly to straighten it. Whether it was truly crooked she could not tell as there were no mirrors available. She only sighed contentedly and looked forward again to the report on her desk. She had been going over the recent events of a firefight in Pearl Lane just before Starlight that had put the entire palace in lockdown at the time. He murmured so as to avoid being overheard by the guard just around the corner in the hall. "You think little of yourself sometimes." His pale eyes flicked to hers. "And other times too much." He added with a smile. "Do not think I would have stepped into the public light with you had I not every conviction of your potential greatness." She slowly turned back to face him with her own soft smile. "Potential, Master Taeros? Is that all I have? ..." He brushed her cheek with his bare hand, growing bolder now that he was sure the guard could not see them. Scandalous to take such liberties while she was on duty! His voice remained low. "I would hope neither of us yet reached our full potential. We both began with so little, but perhaps you know most of that tale." His expression carried an odd look she had rarely seen yet. Coatleque lowered her own voice now to barely a whisper as she felt herself leaning into his touch. "Perhaps I do, of my own at least. My, but you have grown bold..." her eyes darted to the door as if to be sure nobody could see them now. "Bold? My carriage driver implied the same thing just three days ago." He turned away idly to glance over the papers on her desk but seemed rather disinterested in them as his hand continued to caress her. She shivered slightly at her own memory of that night. Turning her head away then, she tsked at him. "I hope he is paid well enough not to say so much to others." "I ensure that those in my employ are motivated most of all by the coin I can afford them. What would he have to gain by breaking silence? Well, most of them. Why just today I learned that Gideon --" he was cut off by a rather scoffing remark. "What indeed? there are those who would gladly try to ruin me simply for the sake of doing so." "Because they hate their betters, my dear.", he replied with odd amusement. She rolled her eyes with her own amused smile. "The world is filled with lazy, bloated fools who like nothing more than to make excuses for their personal failures, hating those who have risen above them. They hate us most of all. They understand a young lordling, silver spoon affixed to mewling mouth. This is the natural order of things to them." His keen gaze was fixed straight on hers now as she listened. "Perhaps. At least you are not charged with protecting such fools." His voice lowered once more with an intensity she did not expect. "They do not understand men like me, or women like you. We who are their betters. Protect, no. To guide. But I would not trade positions with you for all the coin in Ul'dah." He said shaking his head. Coatleque shifted slightly at his intensity and implication. "Y-yes... of course. But, there is a reason for that is there not?" "A reason?" Her eyes remained fixed on his, almost imploringly now. "Aye, a reason we have such station over them. That the Twelve placed us here with such a blessing." Jameson blinked once, no more, before a placid look drifted across his features. "The Twelve. Of course." He glanced away. "But which one? Surely not all thirteen in concert?" His expression slowly curled to one of amusement once again. "Are we blessed by Rhalgr? That sounds like fun." "We?" She asked curiously. "Hmm, perhaps Menphina? Though I've never had her favor for long in the past. You certainly do have enough enemies to catch Rhalgr's attention." With that she leaned into him playfully with her shoulder causing him to look down at her once more. "Did any answer your calls in the carriage? I wondered", he teased. Her eyes went wide. "Jameson!", she hissed before covering her mouth quickly hoping that nobody heard from out in the hall. He laughed. "See? Clearly that was Rhalgr." All she could do was blink as she considered the ramifications of the god of destruction watching them that night. Her hand slowly lowered. "No... certainly not!" While Jameson was seemingly unconcerned over any gods' regard for him, Coatleque grabbed one of the folios off her desk to fan herself and regain some of her composure. "Surely there was a reason you came all this way so late? It could not have been just to see me here." She leaned forward and away from him slightly to try and peek out into the hallway. "If the Captain catches you here..." "I was at the Royal Apothecary, actually. Ambassador Summerford has been mewling again about the cost of various alchemical exports, so I needed to do some fact-checking of my own. I've no other feet this day. Which reminds me, I don't suppose you've seen my valet?" "Mister North? No, I've not seen him since..." She paused suddenly as she remembered their promise not to bring up the card game they were both tricked into attending. She cleared her throat. "... since your Starlight Party." Jameson slipped a hand around her back. "Alas, Captain, you know not what you miss." His fingertips traced the spine of her armor, though she could not feel it through the thick scales, his hand's journey was still apparent. She gripped the edge of her desk with one hand. "Ah, a little birdie told me he was seen galavanting at the Mandercrown Manse just last night. Imagine." He continued with a smirk. Coatleque managed a smile finally, albeit a strained one this time. "Was he? Trading services with Lord Mandercrown perhaps? That servant girl of his could use a break I think." Jameson pursed his lips. "Yes, I do not quite recall her name, but it appears she suffers the fate of girls much more attractice. To have their lord's hands upon them, I mean. Shrewish thing." His hand continued its journey as she found herself admiring his amber eyes briefly before stealing another glance out the door. "How ever does she manage? I could not imagine." "The oafish fool sometimes makes me rue my Monetarist loyalties. He approached me for a joint business venture. I could tell in half a sentence it was doomed." He tsked. "But they affix themselves to their cousins' hips like a suckling pig to teat. I don't imagine it thrills the Mandervilles either. Though..." "Mmm... hopefully not something involving pant." Jameson seemed lost in thought for a moment before murmuring. "With that family-- Well put. he claims to have once been a great warrior. I rather doubt it." "The Lord is quite forward about a great many things when deep in his cups. I was worried to leave your side all night." Jameson laughed. "Am I his type, you think?" His voice lowered again. "I suppose anything is." She blinked in slight disbelief before tsking him. "Honestly! You recall his proposition at the ball?" "I can't say that it did thoroughly blend with every other proposition flung at me wholesale and happenstance that eve. What was it again?" "Suffice to say I'll na'er let him touch me. Not that you would consider such a trade." He laughed once more. Her voice took on a rather worried yet stern tone. "... correct?" Jameson looked at her with what could have been seen as fondness before reaching his hand up and brushing that lock of hair out of her eyes once more. "Those days are no more for you, Coatleque. Never again. They are all beneath you now." She relaxed greatly at his words before her own sly grin finaly returned. "Good, because I've no intention of sharing you with another." His brows both raised at that notion. "I see. Marking our territory are we? I was told at a young age that noblewomen did as their noblemen bid, and that noblemen did whatever they willed. Are you boldly challenging that fine tradition?" he asked her amusedly. "Far be it from me to deny tradition, though I am not entirely yours yet to do with as you please, am I?" He returned a sly look as he considered his response. She continued to retain a modicum of pride, though just barely. Eventually he simply smiled. "We shall see indeed where this journey takes us. Our first hurdle was leapt, and finely so. Let us not assume that all will be tolerant of the Monetarist and the Sultansworn. I look forward to see what challenges arise." he replied with some eagerness. Cupping her cheek one more time, she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand before he turned and made for the door. Her eyes opened and she watched him step away. "Look forward to? Is it wise to invite such challenge openly?" He murmured back to her. "I have not always made wise decisions. My choice in valet for one. I assumed it was a stellar one, but I have... questions for the man." Coatleque sighed then before speaking up. "Have you spoken to Miss Callae?" "I've not, no. Perhaps I will summon her forth. She does not reside with me however. And anyway, I doubt she could answer my most recent question. Surely he can." He moved to leave once more. Coatleque set her jaw for a moment before standing quickly almost knocking her chair back. "Jameson? I would speak to her first." He glanced back one last time with a smile just short of predatory. "I assure you, she will not know. This involves a sum of money that has... flown to greener pastures, so to speak. Brynnalia Callae has not been in my larder." She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it once more. Jameson bowed to her slightly before turning once more and was gone. Coatleque sighed before taking her seat again in thought. She could not let Mister North take the blame for what she had done, but this was not the place for such a confession. Her gaze fell to the corner of her desk where something had appeared that was not there before. A silvery key which matched a set she had seen him use before. Curiously she stared at it as the weight of his words sunk in before slowly picking it up. Leaning back in her chair she twirled the stem between her fingers, watching the bow spin. After a moment she pushed her thoughts off and pocketed it for safekeeping before attempting to focus on her reports once again.

So has any official word been released yet on what is being planned? I keep hearing negative rumors in my linkshell but nobody can quote me a source to confirm.

No. You are NOT allowed to do this. It's ... it's too much.

((Note, this occurs the night of Starlight itself.)) The sound of drunken laughter echoed through the halls of the estate's top floor. No door was able to stop the loud bellowing as the man proceeded back towards the main hall where the party was being held. Within a large office, however, a certain fiery haired woman sat behind a large oaken desk. She exhaled slowly through her mouth as the noise died down and quietly raised the parchment she had snatched a moment before back to the surface. She perused the document once more to be sure there were no mistakes. Her mouth moved silently as she read it over, then quickly made out the amount of one hundred-thousand gil to be paid to the orphanage from the estate of Jameson Taeros. The crack of a dying fire in the hearth opposite her caused a panicked jump once more. Staring at the door for another moment she could hear no one from the hall, so she returned the quill to the inkwell. Taking the key she managed to swipe earlier while he was distracted by preparations, she unlocked the drawer to her right with a soft *click*, and opened it to reveal an assortment of business-related items. The most important of which was an engraved seal of gold with a mahogany handle. Taking the wax she had prepared, she pooled a small amount at the bottom of the document then quickly smushed the seal into it before returning it to the drawer, closing and locking it once more. The sound of footsteps outside had her quickly roll up the document as she sprang from the desk and around the corner to a small dressing area. She sat in front of a vanity and quickly hid the document under the rest of her things before taking up a hair brush and trying her best to look busy. She only hoped he would not notice her shortness of breath. Jameson came around the corner half a moment later and smiled at her. "Still getting ready? Come now, you must greet Lord Mandercrown before he decides to... lose his pants again." He moved in quickly and leaned down to kiss the side of her neck as her head turned away instinctively. "You look stunning tonight." "Mmm... must I? Please tell me he is not inebriated already? I pity that maidservant of his." He stood upright again and offered his arm to which she also rose and took with hers. "I do apologize, but it is business after all. Fear not, there will be plenty of... distraction once my guests have left." "You are positively incorrigible!", she replied as he led her off to the party. She looked back briefly as the door closed. Plenty of time to come up with an excuse, or some kind of cover should he even notice the paltry sum missing. For all her risk, Coatleque hoped she could at least give a few children a happy Starlight this year.

Initiating crash-course in basic RAID setup... Luckily with the latest boards from Intel, their integrated controller is sufficient for any home use application. After you have everything hooked up and you boot the computer, go into your BIOS and find the IDE Drive controller settings. Change it to RAID mode (not IDE or AHCI). When you reboot, hit Ctrl+I when it prompts (during the controller's boot-up sequence). From there you just follow the on-screen instructions. Pick the drives you want to add, create the array, and give it a name. There are really only two modes to concern yourself with. RAID 0 - This is a disk stripe. It has no redundancy, so if one drive dies you lose EVERYTHING. The benefit here is that all disks will read/write at the same time, in sync, so you get VERY fast speeds in this configuration. All drive space is combined as well, so you have full storage capacity. RAID 1 - This is a mirror. Both drives have the exact same data written to each, so if one drive dies the system kicks over to the functional one. You gain no performance in this setup, just data redundancy. You also lose the storage capacity of the 2nd drive since they are both used for the same data. Any other configuration requires 3+ drives. After the array is setup all you need to do is reboot and install windows. It should see the array as one hard drive. Depending on how new your motherboard is you -may- need drivers for the chipset before Windows recognizes the array. If that is the case, setup will prompt you that it cannot find a suitable drive. Just have your Motherboard drives ready beforehand on a flash drive. One other thing of note, the Intel on-board SATA controller will automatically down-clock your SATA 3 ports if you combine drives from the SATA 2 bus into a RAID array. If you only use drives on the SATA 3 bus, it will run at full speed. So if you have 3 drives and the first 2 are a mirror on SATA 3, it will run at full speed while the 3rd drive will run at its own speed as a second drive.

Oh please. This question has already been answered so many times. You want the meaning of life? Just skip to the very end and find out. Here:

"What I suggest, Miss Primrose, is that your charity be made with the understanding that no amount of gil will solve all of their problems. Neither will thrusting the burden of leadership upon those whom are not destined for it make their situation any better. Would that there was enough to go around for all, but in these situations my duty belongs to our own citizenry. It is their responsibility to share what excess they may have. And if they chose not to, who are we to demand what they do with their own things? Nald'Thal will see all accounts reconciled in the end. For your own part, Oschon surely smiles upon your generosity as much as Thaliak would for your teaching. How effective they have made you is yet to be seen." The dim light flickered just then and Coatleque raised one hand up to tightly grip the handrail above her head as a reflex.

Coatleque scoffed once more at being called 'wretch' before backing off to the opposite corner. She also slid down against the wall to sit and draped one arm over a knee as she regarded the woman across from her. "Perhaps not all that you hear is true. In the same way not all that you are told is false either. How much of your precious learning were you given by someone whom you were told to believe without question as if they were infallible in their own presumptions? What has happened is that the Twelve gave me clarity of purpose when I had nothing else in this world. There was a time when I was no better off than those outside the walls. I had resigned myself to death yet it would not come. It was in those darker days that I discovered the true talents Rhalgr and Halone had blessed me with and devoted my life to the service of another. I do not sneer at the less fortunate as you think I do. I sneer at you, and those like you. Those who think blind charity and well meaning words with enough false hope will truly change anything for them. I had none of those when I was in their position, yet I suffered through it just the same. And when Nymeia and Althyk conspired that it was enough, that is when my torment ended - not a moment sooner. You would do well to learn such humility yourself, I think. Perhaps that is why they saw fit to cast you from your 'clouds' as it were to our little shite-hole, as you so called it." With that she closed her eyes, resting her head back in the corner where the walls met and awaited the inevitable angry rebuttal.

I would also recommend this for anyone who's overly concerned with not losing data, or who does not have a secondary drive for storage. Personally I have nothing saved on the SSD that I need to keep. If it dies, I just replace and reload the OS fresh (which is why I have them striped rather than mirrored). I do that every 3 months anyway so it's not really a big deal in my case.

You kind of look like a young Sir Ian McKellan

You will find more in-game for sure. There is quite a bit on the forums as well, but usually as a side-story or to fill in a specific plot hole. Some also take part as a ways to fill in breaks at work.

MSI GeForce GTX 980 GAMING 4G, 256-Bit GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0 x16 Times 3 And a lot of other personal gifts from family.

What a classic line: Merry Christmas to all, and To all a good night

Coatleque slowly released the woman and took a step back with a snort and a smirk. "My, my. I never expected such a high and noble woman of Ishgard to be so... poorly versed in things of a spiritual nature. Though with your tongue I should find it as no surprise really." She merely shook her head at this. "It's called faith, Miss Primrose. I'd say you could do with some yourself."

"I NEVER MADE SUCH A CLAIM!" She spat back with equal rage, meeting the woman's crazed stare. "STOP PUTTING WORDS INTO MY MOUTH!" "STOP ... IT!"

"STOP DOING THAT!" She screamed as she dashed across the small space to try and pin the woman to the opposite wall by her shoulders. If she insisted on jumping, then Coatleque would insist on holding her in place.

For Eorzea of course. For the rights of all freedom loving people to govern themselves as they see fit.

The first "revolt" also wasn't really a revolt. It was a paid skirmish. They wouldn't have done anything if they weren't handed money and weapons then told to go make a fuss.

What a lot of people are conveniently forgetting (or perhaps overlooking) is that the refugees outside Ul'dah are NOT Ul'dahn citizens. If they chose to revolt, the Flames have a duty to kill every last one of them to protect national sovereignty. If SE writes in that the refugees actually carry out a successful revolt on the city, that is not only abysmal writing but speaks volumes about just how effective the Blades, Flames, and Sworn are combined as a fighting force.

I think the world "Fall" here is being misinterpreted. The title is merely stating that 2.5 will be out before next September.

Challenge Accepted. Today we look at what may have happend had Coatleque not kept Spahro's little present before the Starlight Ball...

Coatleque gripped the side rails as her eyes widened. "What are you doing? Are you daft? You said yourself the lift could be unstable!" She stared at Evangeline with bated breath, gauging her next move.

I need a good image of Melodia. No time to go through 300 pages of the screenshot thread.

Coatleque believes in true love much like Roen described. However in her life so far she has had half of her lovers be killed, and the current one dangerously close to the knife as well. I think she's going to develop a reputation soon.

C'eleni and Melodia. It is done. /sagenod