Meaner than a dockyard croc

Sated with tallow, the wretched professor crawled back into his coop, hoping that some fitful kip might encourage the calories to burn more slowly. His dreams perchance to sleep were sadly not to fruit, as the object of his disprized love was taking bets on how long the arrant knave could suffer their slings and arrows before emitting some feeble grunt or snarl of anger.

Chief among the abusers was “Poison” Ivy Harding, a vile streak of malice with a pedigree so cruel that even the most oblique reference to her would make hardened curs suck their teeth and change the subject.

As an apprentice with East India Company separatists, her probationary period had been prematurely curtailed when, on being taken off village-razing detail, she stowed aboard the company flagship, hogtied the Governor-General, and sunk said vessel with all hands.

Voyaging further towards the rising sun, she hungrily devoured the teachings of the Far East’s most seasoned sea-rats, learning everything the Orient had to offer vis-à-vis cruelty to man and beast. All good things must come to an end, however, and when she saw that her mentors could teach her no more, she thanked them all with arsenic and confiscated their assets.



Apothecary
“Poison” Ivy Harding
Likes: rap sheets
Dislikes: rap music

Achtung baby

Accompanying the wily she-devil was a wee lad she had picked up while despoiling the German hinterlands. More plaything than toy-boy, the fellow showed little evidence of wanderlust, largely due to the tight rein she kept on his choke collar (on the occasions he had leave from his cage).

That she had not previously discarded said shackled Saxon was surely due to her exceptional capacity for schadenfreude. Intellectual prowess being her pet hate, the matter of the young buck becoming a distinguished professor prior to the age of majority both got her goat and cooked her goose.

Seeing that he was wise of words but not of the world, that night she began her cruel seduction. And lo, by the time Dawn came with rosy fingers, the giant siren had the young academic, quite literally, in the palm of her hand.

Henceforth, via assorted vile schemes of insidious villainy she began crushing the stripling by slowly rotting his mind, body and soul. Within a week, the starry-eyed boy was a waif on a string.

Time had however mellowed her, and in her more tender moments, she would tease him with Teutonic coochie coos and let him suck the grease from her fingers.



Wiper
Professor Plum
Likes: in the ballroom
Dislikes: in the secret passage