THE GRAND ARMADA
RESPONSE LEVEL: 3
Redana has disturbed the natural order by setting out to steal from a god.
There is not yet additional response generated by the fight in the air.



Redana!

The two old guards stand to look at the distant fires and pick up their weapons - like spears, but with strange loops of something like rope instead of points. Some sort of farming, animal handling tool and not a weapon of war, but there is still something just so about the way they hold them...



You shiver. Warriors to overthrow an empire indeed.

"We're going to be busy," growled Sands. "Take the brainsquid." He unlocks a metal door near the gate while Leon tenses as if looking to catch someone trying to flee. Sands pulls the door open in a sudden gesture and an enormous bulk that had been pressed right up against the door falls and impacts on the ground in an amorphous mess and...

"Greetings, noble princess, in the name of the mother of storms!" burbled the octopus as the complicated mass of tentacles sorted themselves out. It's voice contained no hint of embarrassment at being caught evesdropping, and its orange and purple skin colours pulsed and shifted strangely. It was huge. "I am Godol, Assistant Secretary of Shame, Guilt and Self Awareness, I am charmed to meet you -" a tentacle tried idly to grasp your hand but the octopus seemed to pay it no mind. It pulled itself up, standing on the tips of its tentacles, taller than Bella and many times as bulky. "I of course will serve you in any way you demand! My function is to assist! And secretary!" It chortled at its own joke.

Vasilia!

Combat is not normally done in shuttles like this on the Imperial side. Normally there's a proper ship nearby that can just clear them away with a sweep of its ELF weaponry, or they're landing unopposed on a ship that's had its ELF weapons disabled. The idea of fighting in-atmosphere with them is completely alien to Imperial thought though it's the sort of thing that happens in resource scarce frontier territories all the time. You are by far the most experienced person here.

What you need to watch out for is the Imperial shuttles getting close. They're defaulting to what they know, which is to ram and board - and that's the sort of thing that's actually still very dangerous in this situation. But you start looking at this place as more than just a wonder, start looking at it as a battlefield and...

"There is life here," said Artemis, pointing. "And where there's life there is danger."

And you see it. Those deeps hold more life than the trees. Those shapes are not rocks, they're life. This place is filled with the strange and dangerous aspects of the Eater of Worlds, and you could provoke them into terrible response.

King Jas'o is focused entirely on the prize like a bloodhound. His ship hard burns directly towards the town on the hill-top, but it's not an attack position - he's flying proud and regal, looking to land and announce himself to the local ruler. And that stirs an idea...

"He doesn't have loyalty to his men," murmured Artemis, huntress' mind razor sharp alongside your own, focused on the weaknesses of your foe. "He thinks they've failed him and wants to switch them out for whatever local allies he can rally. Prevent him from winning over the locals and he'll have thrown away his army for nothing."

Bella!

The Codexia runs.

It's startling how fast she goes - she's not an olympic champion like you, but she's doing this in full armour. She's keeping pace and even gaining on the shuttle as it thrashes through the launch bay, Athena at her side like a storm cloud, winds flowing underneath every footfall. You're still getting your grip on the controls when you see her tearing along the catwalk at a dead sprint, leaping into the air with a battlecry, raised spear coming down to tear right through the transparent steel of the viewscreen...

There's a faint click, like the impact of marbles, and with a massive jolt the ship kicks forwards. The Codexia glances off the back and rolls all the way along the back to land in a heap on the hangar floor behind you. She's on her feet in seconds again and racing again but you're clear free into the black before she can gain enough speed. You're in the black, amidst the brutal spear-shapes of the Armada, on your way to the wrecks.

Ivory Smile, sitting next to the engine amidst a scattering of cards and a hastily written prayer strip stuck to the golden machinery, lets out a long, shaking exhale of relief.

Princess Redana has had context for everything thus far: parley with a god, a daring feat of piloting, the discovery of a paradise inside a beast caster than worlds. All of that was understandable; all of that fit inside her understanding of the cosmos. There is no context for a brainsquid, and so her brain tries to provide one: is it a Servitor made in octopoid form, or a child of the gods, or a creature of the ecosystem tamed by the Ceronians? She latches on to the title: Assistant Secretaries might still be outside her experience, but she knows of them. So she offers a nod of acknowledgement, not offering insult by either ignoring the introduction or treating the Assistant Secretary as an equal[1].

“A pleasure, Assistant Secretary,” she says, and for a moment her voice is her mother’s, centuries past, her diction elevated and her inflection precise. The effect is uncanny. She doesn’t have the walk down, though, that stride that eats distance and sets her apart from the unworthy masses. She’s too eager, head forward, sneaking glances at the undulating Servitor(?). “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s an... well, it’s kind of an unusual department.” Here it comes, the magic words: “Tell me more!”

***

[1]: if you treat the Assistant Secretary as an equal, you bestow more expectations on them than they have accepted, and expect them to know more than they do and make decisions they have no authority to make. If they have to explain that they are unable to meet your expectations, the shame will destroy them. Therefore: never treat a bureaucrat with unearned rank.

The ship that carried Bella this far into space was a drab and dingy thing. The hull groaned like a dying monster as it hurtled across the stars, and the sounds of every fresh impact with a meteor or other piece of celestial garbage reverberated deep into her personal quarters. Every one of them made her flinch as they pushed little visions of her death inside of her skull. The whole of it was undecorated, barely furnished, and permanently smelled of dust that she was constantly forcing herself not to clean.

She'd give almost anything to back there right now.

Space does not need monsters. Space is a monster. Bella stares wide eyed into the open maw of the roaring, roiling sea of stars, and realizes she must know better than to exhale with relief. Poseidon's grand kingdom exists for no other reason than to remind people how small and utterly pathetic they really are. And then, having done that, its secondary purpose is to kill them.

There's no emotion her heart can conjure right now beyond terror. On a proper ship, you pray, point your engines, and then pray again while the ship and the gods handle everything else. But on this shuttle, every twitch of the controls sends an unpleasant swooping sensation down Bella's spine that settles in her stomach. She growls constantly, feathering the flight stick first one way and then another, rocking the plush cruiser this way and that in what little flecks of empty space she still has to find her bearings in. An errant fleck of rock or steel or... something else knocks against the side of the transport, and the entire thing rattles horribly. The plating on this thing is so thin it might as well not exist. She has no weapons. The only point of this shuttle to begin with is to stroke Odoacer's ego as she pops from ship to ship in the relative safety of the space between one of her blockades.

Her claws tighten around the controls in a death grip. Bella shakes her head. It is essential she master this, and now. Just ahead of her the cockpit fills with the awe-inspiring sight of the World Eater's sapphires. The merest drop of its frozen blood is enough to tear her to shreds. There would not even be enough left of her to commune to the gods and whatever resting place Hera would leave for her. The sound of her growling now fills the entire shuttle.

She pushes down on the controls and dives under the first sapphire with surprising grace. It's several agonizing seconds before she can see anything else. Seconds where all she has to contemplate is the horror of Poseidon's most terrifying pet. Such power, frozen here. If she were braver, bolder, and more foolhardy... no. She mustn't dwell on it. And yet, wouldn't even the merest fraction of this crystal be enough to grant her powers undreamed of? And if she dug even deeper and cracked open the core of an arterial clot...

Her window fills with colors beyond the ghastly blue, and the line of thought ceases immediately. What she sees is enough to make her heart drop into her stomach anew. The Princess has been here, there's no doubting that. The sheer number of mines floating in front of her now would be laughable for any other target. But it's just as clear they don't have her yet, or there wouldn't be the tiny flares of plovers flitting about from spot to spot in obvious search. It's suicide to go in there. She'll be spotted for sure.

No. The real suicide would be to delay. Another minute to the minefield. Maybe thirty seconds beyond that until she's spotted, and from there, just moments before word reaches Odoacer's ears. She's going to be furious. The only things keeping Bella alive right are the possibility of retrieving the Princess and securing the Empress' permanent protection, and the simple hubris of the Armada. But neither will last long. If she's lucky, she'll make it halfway to the leviathan's corpse before ELF weapons render this thing a barely mobile (if especially fancy) tub. Or worse. They could do much worse. They will do much worse.

Bella turns up the throttle on the shuttle and darts toward death at utterly reckless speeds. Soon, Redana, soon. It must be soon, before it's never.

“No. No. Stop that. On your feet, you’re going to put a crick in my neck.” Vasilia waved her up impatiently. “And no, it certainly does not please me. We’re too few to start making heroic sacrifices just yet. Besides, if the shuttles spread out their landings at all, you won’t stop more than one. Right now, all I’d like from all of you?”

She braced herself at the helm.

“Is to hang on.”

And sent the shuttle into a nosedive.

“Dolce, my dear?~” She sang out, knuckles white on the throttle. “Would you find us something dangerous?”

“There’s a boulder that’s not a boulder, at…” He blinked, staring through the foliage whipping against the viewscreen. “10 o’clock. Fifty five degrees portside.”

“Wonderful!” She cackled, and they were off. Flitting through the trees, engines burning as hot as they could, and buzzing creature after creature by a hands-breadth. By the time the sleepy monstrosities had gotten themselves upright, their shuttle was long gone, and all they could see were the Imperial shuttles high above, firing loudly and flying in a straight line.

[Rolling to Overcome the nonsense from the forest: 5 + 5 + 2 = 12]

Alexa jumps upright like there's springs in her heels. Honestly, she should have anticipated that Vasilia wouldn't be the kind to appreciate servants that scrape and crawl. She is a commander, a captain. And while, yes, Alexa has served under those who felt an extra stripe merited licking their boots, Vasilia is better than that. Nothing but the best for the captain. Parade rest, all the way.

Even if she does misunderstand, occasionally. It is not a heroic sacrifice, Captain. It is a one-man skirmishing mission. You eliminate the phalanx before it forms, thus making it simpler and safer for those who follow. She is simply the only one fit to perform this function, unfortunately.

But that is alright. The captain has a plan, she is sure. One which requires them to tear a tunnel of destruction through an untamed wood, provoking uncounted numbers of nasties, and painting a line directly to their landing craft once all is said and done. She just needs to brace, one hand against the console and two suctioned against the wall, as requested.

Honestly, it's kind of a relief. No fighting sounds nice.

THE GRAND ARMADA
RESPONSE LEVEL: 4
The beasts of the jungle have been enraged by the presence of the Imperial Shuttles



Redana!

"Of course, Princess!" said Assistant Secretary Godal with apparent relish as it started its chaotic and unpredictable path up the hill slope. "Under prior circumstances I was one of the administrators of the 'Eater of Worlds', holding an office of some distinction in the Palace of Thought." it pointed up at the enormous crystalline brain above - though it was hard to look directly at it with the small sun of the Engine at its heart. "A creature the size of the Eater of Worlds could not be administered through mere meat like you or I, and so Poseidon, in his wisdom, cultivated our society within its depths. I don't imagine this will be unfamiliar to you, from what I've heard your own ships and planets are maintained with similar social structures, it's simply what is practical for steering an entity of this size. Unfortunately," and here the Assistant Secretary of Shame almost seemed to be gloating, "the administrative caste of our society was optimized for intelligence and harmony. This meant my colleagues, Hades rest them, were not superlative warriors like the administrative cast of your society. The immuneoforms did what they could, Hades rest them, but the system broke down in remarkably short order once the Palace was breached."

It seemed so smug about this. Like this was the most satisfying thing that could possibly have happened to it.

"Myself and my surviving colleagues either surrendered or fled," Godal went on. "The Cerons were delighted to make use of my residual administrative functions. The atmospheric bubble, the triggering of the digestive reflux action to bring fertile soil up into the skull area - our work," it preened itself, pleasantly pink-maroon patterns moving across its skin. "Some others, of course, are out there trying to rally the immunoforms to attain some sad postmortem vengeance, but Lord Hades favours the Ceronians and the immunoforms have mostly - and rightly! - identified them as cancerous, and dealt with them as such."

Godal gave a happy little burble-sigh, as though the spreading of this tale of defeat and failure was the reason he was born. Perhaps it was!

As the brainsquid continues to natter its way through the shameful history, it's leading you up the hill through the Ceronian town. Everything is so spaced out here; houses have front gardens, streets are lined with flowers, running water flows downhill in spiral channels. It's idyllic, even as the signs of mobilization start to show everywhere. Old warriors step outside and squint at the distance, hands naturally filling with heavy, bladed farming tools. They move by instinct, flowing together, ones and twos and then in masses, coming down in the opposite direction from you. You alone move against the flow of ancient muscle stirring.

The temples here are all to Hades. This is shocking - no society you've ever heard of has ever shown as such monolithic devotion to a single member of the Pantheon. Perhaps it makes sense if they believe that they are dead and in the underworld, and thus Hades is the only one relevant to them - but it still sends shivers down your spine in the same way seeing a house perched on the edge of a volcano might, no matter how solid its foundations.

Vasilia! Alexa!

The Imperial Shuttles follow you down, cutting through the trees with their massive bulks, caring nothing for anything in their path. King Jas'o had taught them well: eyes on the prize. Don't accept distractions. Attack relentlessly and heedlessly.

A lesson for kings or fools about to be devoured by swarms of consuming sea life.

The immune response of the Eater of Worlds is shocking. Enormous killer whale creatures breach the water, orange and blue, snapping shuttles out of the air with their crushing jaws. Prismatic crabs raise their heads and claws above the surface, snapping shockwaves of such intense force that it knocks ships from the air. A grand school of flying fish moves over the surface of the water like a silver blanket, each of them generating an ELF pulse that rips into the sky like claws of lighting.

Suffice to say you lose your pursuers.

You scorch ahead to touch down not long after King Jas'o's shuttle scorches a massive, burned swathe through the fields as it comes to a stop. You come down the ramp just in time to see him and his remaining soldiers forming up at the bottom of the ramp. The King hasn't put a Thunderbolt to his bowstring yet but there is no doubt he will as soon as he sees a target come out into the open

Bella!

You cut through the storm.

The glowing lights of the Armada shine mistily behind you, still forming up into a defensive formation that will cut them through all of this, the most politically vulnerable ships forced to the wings. You're going forwards, the tub of a ship rolling and jarring with each cosmic wind, with every crack of technicolour lightning that leaves pink and green fires flashing all along the prow of your ship. You see dead ships drift into each other, the impacts of titans. The way ahead is lit with fires and chaos as mines slam into each other and into dead ships, carried by Poseidon's mad winds. The dead pour from breaches in slain ships and your path is paved in bone and blood.

Hades is behind you, eyes such a terrible blue. The storm screams and it screams in every other colour, a bruise in space.

And you cut through it all, driven by something more terrible than death and nightmare.

You plunge into the maw of the Eater of Worlds.

Even now it was impossible to feel certain the monster was really dead. No, that wasn't quite true. Not 'even here', the truth was that the closer she got the more impossible the thought became. The World Eater was... is too big to be killed, least of all by something as pathetic as a starship (could she still remember when seeing one of those felt impossibly vast and grand, too much thing for her little servitor brain to comprehend all at once? No. Not here, maybe never again).

Bella had been expecting teeth. Massive saws in multilayered rows, each the size of the grand castle on Tellus. Or maybe a great spiraling fan of them drawing ever inward toward a rotting gullet, with a huge tongue like a leaf to scoop up whole continents and grind them to dust on those sharp, quivering protrusions. She's had time to imagine all the ways this place would be shaped to kill her. It hadn't occurred to her she might simply glide past the open beak and find no fresh instruments of death beyond it.

Call it a lack of imagination. She hadn't fully appreciated the scale such a monster must think at, if indeed it ever thought at all. Inside, everything is vast and impersonal, calcified walls of something passing for flesh that stretch far beyond the boundaries of her sight and do not care in the slightest if they kill her here or not.

The fur on her arms and tail bristles with dread. It is not a comforting thought in the least. There must have been, in the old days, entire kingdoms that got swallowed up in a single nightmarish morning and dragged screaming into this thing's stomach so they could wait to be digested. Maybe it took years? Years of feebly trying to hold their laws together, of offering more and more desperate prayers and sacrifices to the merciless Poseidon, begging to be spared, begging to be forgiven, begging to be spat up before it was too late. And then, when it was? Begging to die.

Suddenly all of those songs and stories about Poseidon make a lot more sense. The miserable, spiteful bastard couldn't be satisfied through worship or piety or any other stupid thing. He wanted everyone to realize how utterly small and beneath him they truly were. When the Empire and all of its trash heap outposts all wake up feeling like remorae desperately clinging to the side of a shark the size of creation, when they all understood their utter insignificance, that's when he would smile and start to love them like his children. She shudders. Make no mistake about it, the Empress intended this mission as--

Her reverie is interrupted by a deafening rumble. Bella's eyes shrink to slits and her skin turns paler than the dead. Impossible, utterly impossible, to think this beast could ever die. The shuttle itself is quivering. It takes her a moment to realize that's because her arms are so taut they're twitching of their own accord. She chances a long, slow banking maneuver. It would leave her exposed to Imperial pursuit. But she has to know.

And she sees it. Where the tongue should be, though it must have hardened itself into a mountain range by now, stray clumps of old dirt that maybe once were cities are coming loose from their years long balancing act and colliding with one another. Good job, Princess. See what you've done? The earth churns against itself like gladiators wrestling over a thrown sword. Grass gives way to soil, and out of that like corpses spills chunks of stone and steel large enough to crush her shuttle into nothing, and then beneath that the flashes of crystalline blue that must mean the World Eater had gone silent bleeding from its gums. Maybe it still was? Who knew how this thing worked.

Bella lets out a deep, shuddering sigh. She is supremely careful as she lifts first one hand and then the other off of her controls so that she can smooth her hair and fur. She flicks the bells on her arms, then reaches to her neck to trace the contours of her collar. Her next sigh is... not calmer. But more subdued.

"I can't wait to get free of this place. What kind of insane moron would come here willingly?"

A pang of guilt uncoils inside Redana. How could you take someone away from something this beautiful? “It’s lovely here.” Yes, that’s right: and if you convince Epistia to leave with you, you’re putting it all in danger. Look closely at the houses, princess: see the stones set about the mantel? Opals the size of your fist, rubies shaped like pomegranates, diamonds for door-knockers. Flowers bloom everywhere, the sound of rushing water is all around, and even if she can’t stay... “Hades, Keeper of Stones, your blessings are grand. The work of your hands is that which men remember.” A simple prayer, an offering of praise. If this is what Elysium will be like, she can understand why the Ceronians would risk their lives in battle. This is a paradise.

But no paradise can survive a locked door. And there are so many things that she hasn’t seen, and Epistia never has! Her heart settles back into its course, grateful that she does not have to consider turning aside and risking the violation of her oath.

When she offers freedom, Epistia will smile. When she does that, she has to follow through, or what good is she? She has to let Epistia see the stars[1].

And also she needs to let Epistia learn about other gods. This is disastrous. How do the Ceronians have good counsel if they do not offer praise to Zeus? How can they see their relationships thrive without the eye of Aphrodite and Hera? And Athena... well, a situation like this is exactly why you need to sacrifice to Athena regularly.

Jas’o. Down the hill, over her shoulder, she can see his squat, ugly shuttle at the end of a trail of ruined, smouldering crops. “Can we hurry? Your story is lovely,” she says, reaching out and brushing her fingers against the Assistant Secretary’s slick skin, “But the longer I’m here, the more danger everyone is in from the peacock who just showed up. I’m sure an accomplished public servant like yourself knows how to do things quickly, so please... let’s hurry and meet Epistia!”

***

[1]: a thought she has the good sense to bury whispers to her that Poseidon’s stars shine brighter than the greatest of Hades’ jewels. A thought like that never ends well.

Jas'o.

The sound of his voice should not make shivers crawl down the granite of her spine, should not make her diamond-edged teeth grind like a millstone. He is a military commander, much like any other. Hidebound, with Molech's masterpiece shoved so far up his ass that shit comes out in formation. Loyal to the promises made by his masters and, much like the master themselves, disloyal to those below him.

But most commanders at least have the decency to pretend they view you as more than expendable cogs. As Jas'o orders his troops into formation--predictably standard Masteries of Battle approved, she notices--the disdain and frustration dripping off every word sends a curl through her lip that is… disgust? Revulsion? Disdain? Her eyes narrow in appraisal.

He was going to make her a decoration.

She can feel Galnius's eyes bore a hole in her neck as she kneels, but the phalanx commander doesn't have to ask what she's doing. The offering to Athena is universal to any soldier worth their salt.

And it is always an offering. Generals offer grand, elaborate auguries before going to battle. Generals determine whether Athena will bless them with glory and grand victory. Soldiers care much more about "let me be alive at the end of the day."

Alexa might have even stopped there. It is a good want, a good ask. They are outnumbered, facing a fully-formed phalanx protecting a commander practiced with a Thunderbolt, and she is all too keenly aware of the sundered Aegis strapped to one arm. It is still in the process of rebuilding itself, but it probably will not be ready in time for this fight.

But.…Well, let us be honest. She is going to survive this fight. It is what she does. She is not worried about that. But the rest of them… She closes her eyes and nods. "She Who Fights In Front, we face today a foe wielding a spark of your father. It shall be yours, dedicated to you, an offering, if you you but protect those behind me."

Right. She dares to hope, but for now, she must put action to words.

"It is a poor commander who does not keep the loyalty of his men," she calls, injecting the perfect amount of jeer. "But even poorer a commander who is disloyal to his men, who would trade them away as if worn out and in need of replacement."

Then she steps out fully, leveling a spear at the king, and stands exposed, eyes locked with Jas'o's. Shoot her, if you dare. "She who stands before you is the creation direct of The Brighteyed and the Warsage. She knows your formations before you order them, for she had a hand in their creation. She stands in your way, and you dare not leave to seek your true target, for to turn your back is to invite destruction. Stand and face destruction, or yield and live. These men, and she whom you seek, are mine. And you shall not have them."

Vasilia bit back a stream of deeply unladylike and entirely appropriate expletive.

Did you know? Interrupting a prayer was the worst kind of poor manners; the kind that could get you smote or worse. Who are you, to knowingly interfere with the gods' conversation? The dealings of Olympus? Are you so bold as to assume that Athena does not wish to hear this prayer? Do you presume to make a decision for her?

Fine. Fine! This is how they were to fight, then. She flipped her glaive off of her back and twirled it to a ready position. “Back her up, as best as you can.” She ordered Galnius. “We’ll keep the phalanx from swallowing you up. Dolce?”

“With you.” His sword was already in his hand.

As one, the two of them darted from the shuttle, taking a wide arc through the surrounding orchards, behind fences and hedges, flitting from cover to cover as they made their approach.

Redana!

You have trained with some of the greatest warriors of the Imperium, and part of that was learning to see anything as a weapon. A footstool, a dessert spoon, convenient chandeliers - the expectation being that when violence emerges it will be an unexpected assassination attempt so you must make do with whatever comes to hand. So you are no stranger to strange weapons - but at the end of the day all of those improvised weapons are tools to keep you alive until you can arm yourself with a proper sword or spear. That was how real fighting was done, after all.

And now you're seeing someone train with a scythe.

It's alien. Everything you've seen here today is familiar - it's marvelous, but it exists within the Imperial context. But what the princess is doing with that scythe is like nothing you've ever imagined. The motions are methodical and industrial, but then jarring and wild - weight and counterweight, sometimes she's swinging the blade and sometimes she's using it to catapult herself forwards. When one half is still the other is in motion. A sword is an extension of the arm; that scythe is like a dance partner.

"Your grace! You have a guest!" said Assistant Secretary Godal, slithering onto the practice field without even the slightest care about the whirlwind of blades he was moving towards. Epistia barely caught herself before she cut the brainsquid in half, he seemed not to notice and immediately went about fixing her hair - wild and flattened with sweat, oblivious to his interruption. "Princess Redana has come a long way to see you, you know, you should at least make a few concessions to appearances."

"Princess who?" said Epistia, trying to slap away the octopus' corrective tentacles as her breath and adrenaline still pounded, deeply disoriented by the sudden interruption.

Alexa!

This is how things are done between warriors.

The phalanx glides up behind you, spears lowered, shields raised. Galnius and his soldiers, for all their misgivings, stand alongside you on the field of war. They can do no less. They can conduct themselves with such pride because when the battle is joined they will hold the line. You are fewer, but you are not lesser.

King Jas'o stands against you across the field, bow held low against the ground. He still has not strung it - cautious, so cautious. If he places a Thunderbolt to that string then he is declaring in the sight of all the gods that he is worthy of wielding the power of Zeus. You cannot simply release your grip and put the arrow back in your quiver after such a statement. You can see the strain it leaves on him, overcoming his own reckless nature - hands shaking, eyes focused with hawklike precision.

The two of you lock eyes across the field as a strange breathlike wind sends the amber waves of grain rippling between you. The phalanxes stamp, stamp, stamp, each crash of heavy armour into the dirt an expression of their valour. Athena stands upon the battlefield, watching as the strange world fades away.

Then King Jas'o looks away. His vision falls on the Ceronians as they make their way out onto the field as a third side. His bloodhound mind sees the true prize and oh, how he wants to escape from this confrontation and go after the princess.

Roll to Keep Them Busy, Alexa. You're not distracting King Jas'o but rather his soldiers - is your voice strong enough, are your insults sharp enough to prevent the King from sending forth a champion in his place? Can you hold his attention while Vasilia and Dolce sneak away to conduct those negotiations?

(The answer will, of course, be yes - but the results of your roll will tell you how good a shot King Jas'o is with that bow when you pierce the thin film of his patience)

Vasilia!

Your fate is in Alexa's hands as you move through the vineyards and orchards, cutting your way around the staring armies in the greatest traditions of the Starsong. Ahead of you are - ah! Ceronians! You know them!

The location of Ceron itself is, of course, a secret known only to the Empress and her successor, but you've met more than enough of their roaming mercenary companies in the void of space. As far as soldiers go there are none finer, and as sisters go there are none closer. They fight as though they are telepathic, able to conduct the most complex operations with perfect timing and moving as though they are pushed and pulled by the hand of Athena herself. Were you to convince them to join you the warriors of King Jas'o would not be able to stand against them.

But as you're nearing the lupine warriors you're cut off. A golden shuttle crashes through the orchard in front of you, gilt and gems tumbling from its already damaged ornamentation like Hades' rain. The great ramp slams down, and from the personal shuttle of the Admiral of the Grand Armada emerges...

Bella!

It's hot.

It's wet.

You smell canines.

You walk down the ramp into the green hell. You feel the wash of thermal radiation from the malfunctioning engine core above on your face. You feel the moist ground squish under your feet, soft enough to absorb footfalls and making it impossible to tell who is where. You look around at the scene of destruction, at the plumes of toxic black smoke in the distance from where the Imperial shuttles were smashed open and left to burn. You see armies, weapons drawn, murder in their eyes.

You pass under your shuttle, still stained pink and grey from the monsters that threw themselves blindly into your path and died for it. You step out into the most horrifyingly open area you've ever experienced in your life. Your world was the boundaries and dimensions of the Imperial Palace, rooms that while large have nothing on the enormity of this place. It crushes down on you. The fact that there are houses at all makes it all worse because it means you're in the most wasteful, indulgent suburb of all of Tellus.

And in front of you, in your way, stands a lion and a sheep.

The greatest traditions of the Starsong typically didn’t involve getting sidelined by a crashing shuttle bent on vehicular manslaughter, but most would chalk that up to opponents who weren’t trying hard enough. This one? Imperial as they were, this one was new.

Vasilia slowed to a halt just beyond the landing ramp. What greeted her was not the sight of another wave of phalanxes crashing down upon them, or the impossible workings of an esoteric to tilt the field of battle, but a single cat, collared and chained.

Definitely new.

She sheathed her glaive and drew her saber, adopting a fencer’s ready stance, which conveniently concealed her other hand as it drifted to her pistol. “You know, I think you’ve missed some of the finer points of arriving…” She paused pointedly to consider the garish wreck. ”Fashionably late?”

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

Dolce emerged at Vasilia’s side, covering her as she exchanged gear and barbs. He tried to take in the shuttle, the sole member of the landing party, any alternate angles of approach, the forming Ceronians, his wife, a bit of the sky while he was at it, but there was just...it was the bells, you see. His eyes kept darting back to the bells. So many of them, all over her, on every limb. Impossible to move without a cacophony of ringing. What was she being punished for? Was sending her in alone a part of it? And if she was sent against them, then…

A terrible, aching pang echoed through his heart. And he hoped - oh, how he hoped he was wrong. That perhaps they could all leave together safely, and this cat could go home in glory, and that would be that. Shouldn’t he know of a god to pray to? Wasn’t there someone who could make it so?

But no names came to Dolce that day. No prayers passed his lips.

All he could do was stand beside Vasilia, and await the worst.

“That’s amazing,” Redana breathes. She stares in delighted awe at the princess, beaming like a fool. “You’re using a farming implement as a weapon? What am I saying, of course that makes sense, your father used to be worshipped as a god of the harvest on Ceron, taking on his iconography is a fantastic way to honor him! Your style isn’t like anything I’m familiar with, it’s not even Ceronian, did you pick it up from the Assistant Secretary? I know his people weren’t valiant, but his fluid motion seems to be an inspiration, I think. Have you tried using sickles as a sidearm? I think, with their moon-shaped edge—“

There’s another crash far below, and Redana sobers. Her smile fades and is replaced with determination as she collects herself and then drops to one knee, lowering her head. She looks more like a disheveled sailor than an Imperial princess, but when she speaks, it’s with a natural gravitas.

“Your royal highness, I implore you to suffer my presence in the name of my father, Zeus Xenios, the hospitable one. I am Princess Redana Claudius of Tellus, bound by sacred oath to the service of your father, Hades Rusor, to whom all things return. I have pledged myself to win a smile from you.”

She offers her hand, still knelt at Epistia’s feet. “And I know nothing better for a smile than to see the shining stars and the billowing of the waves. You have lived a life here in paradise, but if you are like me, you cannot bear a cage long. You want to know what lies beyond the jaws of the leviathan we abide within, this very moment. If it would please you... come with me. Take my hand, and it is yours.”

A soft breeze dusts her golden hair with radiant droplets of water, reflecting the light of the caged sun. Her face is noble, crowned with her father’s blessing, and yet carefully vulnerable. Her lips are parted, ever so slightly, and her coat clings to her frame. To see her in this moment is to be struck by the god’s son, the merry archer who carries the darts of gold and lead[1], whose wings carry him careless wheresoever he will.

“We don’t have much time,” she adds, quietly. “The longer I’m here, the more danger I bring to your doorstep. I’m sorry. But please. Come with me.”

***

[1]: the first of Eros’s arrows inspires furious desire and longing, stirring the heart into sudden fire; the second fills the unfortunate with fear and revulsion, and the desire to flee. It is said, too, that Eros is blind, and cannot distinguish one from the other; but that may just be a foolish story. The gods do as they will. It is not for us to declare our understanding of the will of Aphrodite’s child.

***

[Redana is Talking Sense, but she only achieves an 11 if she has touched Epistia’s desires and maidenly heart. It’s an 8, if instead her words are judged on their reason; Epistia’s ability to squeeze a favor out of Redana depends entirely on how hard and fast she falls for her.]

Bella's spin is rigid, all the way down through her tail. Her first several steps are awkward and stiff as the disgusting squelching of this nightmare mud filled hellscape assaults her poor ears. All around her are the sounds of battle being readied, and the oppressive feeling of this dense atmosphere, sweltering and still. She has to fight to keep her eyes in front of her, but her ears bend to every tiny noise whether she wills them to or not. Already there are beads of sweat slicking her neck underneath her collar, and the urge to claw at her chest is overwhelming.

That's before accounting for the raw stench of the place. Her squelching boots turn up a ghastly mix of earth and shit and something worse besides, something raw and rotting that fed the sweltering green of the world inside the leviathan's corpse. It might have been tolerable were it not for the acrid smoke billowing everywhere in the wake of King Jas'o's rampage, or the tang of sweat that seemed soaked into everything (her heart skips a beat when she smells her own mixing into the air. Unacceptable. If Redana noticed, she'd be...), or the crackle of ozone that preceded the release of a thunderbolt, or even just the scent of fresh entrails wafting off of her cruiser from all the gore plastered across it. But there were all these things, and more. The openness of the air had a stench all its own, something she couldn't even put into words. It belonged too deeply to the realm of the gods. All she knew is that this was a place Hades had stolen from Posiedon. This was not a place of raw rage and might and majesty. This is a land of death. A chill crawls up her spine despite the heat.

Bella's eyes sweep the space in front of her. She ignores the bootlicker's troops; as long as they were with their King they may as well not have eyes. Jas'o himself would be the bigger problem, but... ah, there's the Princess' pet sculpture. The snarl catches in Bella's throat, but she swallows it before it pushes her to do anything stupid. Get in, get out, get... ah! Up on that hill, that glint of gold! Princess! Her body flushes with a different sort of heat for a moment. She could swear she could even pick up the Princess' scent from across all that distance and over all these other smells. That was the strength of their bond, wasn't it? Redana wore such a particular scent, unique in all the galaxy. The barest touch of laser mixed with...

No. Wait. Bella's nose wrinkles, and she turns her gaze closer to her immediate surroundings. She extra sniff is involuntary. She retches immediately. That's raw laser, slathered on so obscenely thick it's actually overpowering everything. Disgusting. She knew she was bound to meet backwater savages on this trip, but she never for a second imagined that... ugh. A lion and a... sheep? Dressed up like a clown's idea of mercenaries. Which breeder was responsible for this travesty? Their pedigree couldn't possibly match the cat who served her venison today. Comparing them to Bella wasn't even worth the...

Her brow furrows. Her jaw falls slack for a single stunned moment. The lion is pointing some kind of ridiculous facsimile of a sword at her. And taunting her. Her!

Bella sneers. Her fingers stretch and then curl, brandishing her claws. Her tail flicks aggressively from side to side. This is all the warning she offers.

And then all of a sudden she lunges forward in a smooth rush, hunching low to the ground as she dashes at her prey. She's there in two steps. Worthless fool. Worthless toy. Are you the one? Are you supposed to be a replacement? That stance is less than useless; this is not a duel. Bella explodes upward with a thrust of her powerful legs and grabs Vasilia by the face with her bare hand. The momentum lifts her off her feet entirely, and in another blur of motion, Bella slams her into the disgusting muck. She's probably used to it anyway.

Bella steps forward and spins on the ball of her foot with the poise of one of the ballerinas who put on shows for Redana back on Tellus. Somewhere in the rush of action, she's gotten her hands on that stupid sword, which she whirls and presses against Dolce's throat. It's a moment frozen in time. Bella's deep, golden eyes are alight with the promise of death as she watches to see whether he'll parry, or bleat. But then... he waits. Eyes on her bells, eyes on Vasilia. Bella pulls back and lifts the blade in front of her face, examining it with curiosity etched onto her face.

"I didn't figure they'd make anything worthwhile outside of the capitol, but this is..."

She smiles coldly, and drags her claws against the metal. The blade keens horribly, almost as if it was screaming out in pain until she snaps her hand shut and it falls to the ground in several pieces. She scoffs.

"Well. I'm sure I'd love to stay and chat, but unlucky me I've got a princess to go rescue. So stay down and let me work. Got it? Good. Don't make me have to get nasty."

She spits on the ground, mouth full of the unholy miasma of this place, and starts toward the hill with contempt and a chiming of bells.

Something is deeply wrong. She steps down the shuttle, and immediately knows it. Every part of her is crying that this was a mistake, and the worst thing is she doesn't know why.

It's not the numbers, of course. She's more than a match for what's arrayed before them, and with a shield wall at her back, nothing could stop them. She could wish for a better choke point, the better to even the numbers, but Jas'o won't let them huddle in the ship, and huddling would not prevent him from chasing his prize. Nor is it the Aegis, dangling from one wrist. She's a master with a spear, shield or no.

But there's still something--a prickling, crawling sensation--that cries for attention.

It's not important, she knows. Right now, in this moment, nothing matters but the figure across from her. The cries of wild beasts tearing apart shuttles, the town in the background (and her mind can't help but add a few exclamation marks to that), the moist earthen smells of loam and acrid tang of burning grass, all fade away. All that's left is the groaning of maneuvering hoplites and the warm, reassuring grain of her spears under her fingers.

Jas'o and Alexa circle each other, eyes flitting and evaluating. That's a non-standard shield, she realizes. Smaller than regulation, probably to facilitate the easy drawing of the bow. He's accomplished enough with a Thunderbolt that he'd willingly diminish his defense in order to make it easier to use it. Confident in himself, then. And the scars running along his arm tell of years of practice.

"Do they know?" she barks, and follows it up with a quick, testing jab. His reflexes are good, she'll grant that--the raise of the shield is textbook flawless, as is the answering riposte. She bats it delicately aside with one brass-inlaid forearm, and takes the opportunity to push forward, inside the king's guard.

She's close. Close enough that the king can't easily withdraw his spear for a second thrust, but neither can she bring hers to bear. Close enough to the king that she can feel his breath hitch in his chest, and allows herself a small smile. That's right, Jas'o. It's easy to dismiss somebody as merely a statue until the statue is close enough for you to realize it's got a couple feet, two arms, and several hundred pounds on you.

One arm comes down like a vice, and locks the king's spear shaft against her torso. "They know you are willing to throw them away," she answers for him. "Willing to throw away your entire kingdom, all that you own, to achieve your goals."

Jas'o, at least, has to know what's coming. She's armed with a spear, yes, but immediately closed to a grapple. By the time her arms cannon out, Jas'o's already dropped his spear, whipped out his shortsword, and shoved it into her shoulder. It's agony, especially when the shove connects and sends reverberations shooting straight to where the sword pierces her, but the king staggers back bereft of both sword and spear.

"And here come a new set of warriors," she thunders, and shoves him further off balance with the butt of her spear. It's as much for the hoplites' benefit as for her own. See him fall back, retreat. This is your king, men. See him cower before the might of Athena's chosen, realize what he's done. See the executioner advance, relentless, sword in shoulder and not slowing her down at all. "Perfect, you think. An upgrade! Ceronians! A legend, before your eyes, if they can but be persuaded to join you."

Jas'o finally catches himself just in time to catch a spear thrust against his shield. "Of course, that means that the warriors you have are useless," she states, and lets the words hang in the air. "Outdated. What will you do with them, I wonder?"

The onslaught of spear on shield feels amazing. This is what she was made for! See, Jas'o, your futility? Your hubris? With every crack and thwack, Jas'o's panicked rictus grows, and her satisfaction grows with it. She's not even dedicating her full attention to him now, turning to distribute slashes at the phalanx behind him and lash out at spears that would hit her own men. Galnius and their men are professionals, but she's still better. No harm in protecting those under her. And she gets to see the rage on Jas'o's face at being so ignored during a duel

And yet… Somehow it still feels wrong. She's doing what she's been taught! She's putting Jas'o in his place! But somehow, as Jas'o cries and shakes a hand as one spear-butt whips out in a lightning-fast crack against his fingertips, she can't bring herself to finish him off.

It's what she should do! He is a threat to Redana. Bring him down, end him now, and he'll never threaten her again. Show no mercy, Alexa. Be brave. He's off his rhythm. It'd be simplicity itself to deliver the final blow, one massive stroke at neck level. She whips the spear around and…

She catches a glance of herself in Jas'o's panicked eyes. She's a vision of terror, of oncoming death, lethality personified.

…twists her wrist. It's not much, but the change in edge alignment is just enough to turn a lethal decapitation into a glancing slap. She'll be punished, of course. The Warsage's champion can be nothing less than perfect.

Come on, Jas'o. You're outmatched. Realize it, and surrender. And for a second, when he throws the shield to the ground, she sighs in relief. Good. Good. We both get to live today.

But then the bow comes out, and time slows to a crawl. Of course he wouldn't surrender. Not here, not to her. Not to four hoplites and a statue, even of Athena. He nocks the arrow, lightning crackling in a slow-mo halo around its head, and the spear refuses to come around. The universe holds its breath, gods and humans alike watching with bated breath. The spear at last starts to rise, point first. This is it, the culmination of all of this! A man, bow raised, in thrusting range of a spear. Either way, the battle ends now.

And as the universe crawls along its treacle-laden path, she and Jas'o's eyes lock, and she finally realizes what's wrong. She can see herself in his eyes, but more than that, she can see Athena looking at him. Looking at him, instead of her.

And she sees the angle of the bow, and it's all wrong. He's not incompetent, she knows. All of his actions have spoken to years of training, of experience in dueling. He wouldn't throw away his shot like this, not with Athena herself witnessing. What is…?

She can hear the phalanx behind her, and the realization crashes through her that the angle is wrong because he's not aiming at her. She's given away far too much in this conversation, and as their eyes lock, she can see his lips curl up in a smirk. Show me, statue. Show me how you should treat your soldiers. It's a trivial affair, after all. You're defending them in the midst of a one-on-one duel.

You don't think you should throw away soldiers? Prove it.

And without hesitation, she turns and throws herself into the bolt.

Redana!

Old Aphrodite smiles. Isn't he fragile? Dusty and old, tuned to a time that nobody else remembers. Isn't he kind? That smile of his is so gentle you might wonder of the accuracy the old stories that place him as the most direct inheritor of the Titans, reborn of their flesh - a lineage that perhaps even places him as the literal father of Zeus. See how easily he yields to you, releasing his shield of a mother's love so that he might drive his spear two-handed through the heart of Princess Epistia.

She looks into your eyes. Has she fallen to her brother Hypnos? Has she fallen into the realm of terrible Morpheus, that surly neighbour to mighty Hades? She takes your hand in hers, and her mouth opens to say -

"Stop!"

A chill runs up your spine.

The wind ceases and the world runs cold. The Queen steps onto the grass and it wilts beneath her feet. Her hands drip with the blood of the murdered. She comes armoured for war, great gauntlets with crackling talons, but the panoply of kingship does not gleam. Her soldiers have dull and lifeless gazes. You stand in the presence of the doomed.



"Epistia! I forbade you from the martial arts!" said the Queen. "And you! How dare you trespass in my realm, my house! How dare you touch my daughter!"

Alexia!

The storm strikes.

There is pain.

But your head falls not on stone, but into warm and gentle hands. As you lie upon the battlefield, an arrow of lightning through your false heart, Hera strokes your face in comfort. Zeus booms her triumph, the glory of victory divinely granted, and Hera turns her back, blotting out the lightning in a curtain of peacock feathers. Your sacrifice did not bring you victory, but neither did it pass unnoticed.

[Damage your Blood, and you must Overcome or seek the aid of the gods to remove the Thunderbolt from your body]

The King pulls his horse-haired helm off, revealing flowing light brown hair and elfin features. He snaps his fingers and his soldiers approach. They kneel in rows, three by three, raising their shields above their heads, forming a staircase for him to ascend without breaking his stride. He walks to the top of a platform of shields, borne aloft by nine soldiers, towering above the golden fields as he addresses the Ceronians. When he speaks, Zeus holds a crown aloft above his head, and his voice carries like a storm.

"Warriors of Ceron! The Empire calls upon your oaths! Admiral Odoacer, whom you once swore to serve before Zeus herself, has sent me here to rescue the lost Princess Redana, daughter of Empress Nero! You have been lost here, but you were not forgotten - and now I am here to return you in glory to service!"

A muttering ran through the crowd. Shocked. Horrified. She lied to us.

And then a soldier knelt before King Jas'o. Drawn by the inevitable pull of formation instinct the rest were dragged to their knees. The warrior king raised his arms triumphantly over his head as he accepted the loyalty of the Ceronians.

Vasilia!

[Damage Vasilia's sword]

There is a certain subgenre of trashy maid theatre productions in the stranger cafes on the galaxy's fringes. Supernatural powers are sometimes ascribed to these chief servants, servitors whose job it was to embody every strength and skill that their masters could think to ask for. They don't seem like jokes any more.

You've fought people before, but there were comprehensible rules to those fights. They were elegant exchanges of sword techniques and banter. They were distractions, full of trickery, mobile and fluid and full of thoughtful strategy. You don't even know what this was, only that you were not ready for it.

"Excuse me, sir," came a nasal voice that impressively managed to say polite words without even the faintest hint of politeness. "I am going to need you to answer some questions."

Ivory Smile, High Priest of Hades, came down the ramp (and was that a flicker of a tail for a moment there...?). He wore an unceremonious basic soldier's uniform, dark blue in the Admiral's colours, thick glasses and functional ponytail making him look like an armed bureaucrat - but for that book. It hung from his wrist by a chain, heavy and black and filled with terrible curses.



Bella!

You're just in time to see King Jas'o's declaration to the Ceronians.

Son of a bitch. He's always been worse than good - he's lucky. Did he really just stumble into a legion of supersoldiers off the back of a quick duel and shitty little speech...

"Of course he doesn't deserve this," said Hera, speaking to your thoughts. That quiet, soft voice that's always there for you when the world demonstrates its injustice. "He's just convenient. The Gods want the queen dead and this is how they plan to do it."

There's only one gate into the city that you can see, and it's crowded with the entire Ceronian army. It's not obvious how you could get past them all, especially if the King spots you amidst the crowd. He might not recognize you, though? There's the wall itself, but it's made out of frictionless materials - maybe you could scale it by breaking handholds?

Commit to a plan, or take a moment to Look Closely.

"The populace of this planet [Nemi] have a quaint custom, passed down from their forebears; there, Zeus founded an apple tree, with gilt branches and gilt leaves. Around the boughs of this tree was wrapped Nemesis in the form of a Python, blind and lethal. And for three miles around no thing might grow, but was poisoned root and leaf; and no stone could be placed upon another, but would shiver themselves into shards. And the Rex [king] of this planet is held to speak with the voice of the gods, and at their word is the fate of nations decided.

And any who seek the title are bade to seek out this tree, and climb upon the sun-bleached bones of all who have come before and been found unworthy by the fangs of Nemesis; and then, to seize firmly one bough of this tree, and if the gods are with them, then the branch will cleave from its mother like the daughter who is given to her suitor's hand. They are then to carry this bough before the Rex, and cast it at the monarch's feet, still bearing fruit.

Then they are to fight until only one remains alive, and whosoever lives shall be the Rex; and in the case of mutual destruction, the people of this planet shall mourn for thirty days; then they shall send those youths whose coming of age was on the day of ruin, and one by one they shall be sent to meet the jaws of Nemesis.

- Sullust, The Histories.

***

No. No! Redana's hands fly to her mouth to stifle a cry. No! This is a horror. Her muscles clench involuntarily, her instincts telling her to run, to flee, or to strike the queen down where she stands. She swallows it down, but it is all of her discipline, her self-control, not to satisfy the mania that Phobos, daughter of Ares, stirs within her. Thanks be to Athena, quencher of passions; thanks be to Zeus, who holds the chains that bind both guest and host.

She stands, stiff, feeling the blood pumping through her neck and forehead as the queen advances in a passion. She means to say something pleasant despite herself, to weakly thank her hostess for her hospitality, but what tumbles out instead is simply: "What have you done?" She advances, a fallen fragment of sunlight against an oncoming storm, trembling. "I worried I brought something terrible to this place, but the rot was already here! How dare you stay here! You have a duty!" Phobos cups her fingers shut into a fist. "If you have any honor left, Rex Asebeia, then ostracize yourself!"

How dare she? How dare she? The duties of the monarch are clear! The pursuit of the common good, the mediation with the gods on behalf of the nation... even if Redana disagreed with her mother's stagnant quarantine of humankind, even she would expel herself from Tellus if the gods had made such omens clear, wouldn't she? No, she can't even imagine her mother clinging to her marble throne, watching the skies darken and the earth crack under the hooves of Poseidon Enosichthon, spitting defiance at the heavens the way that Molech did at the fall of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. But it is a self-fulfilling doom; if the queen of Ceron has fallen so far, then of course, of course she gathers her strength about her and tries to spit in the eye of Zeus Olympios. A woman in such a state might do anything.

Ice trickles down her spine. A woman in such a state might do anything. She is freed of the bans laid upon all beings, the ancient laws set by Zeus Aegiduchos over all who strive, for having broken one she is damned, and refusing repentance, may do as she pleases. It is forbidden for her to raise a hand against Redana, just as it is forbidden for Redana to raise a hand against her, but only Redana remains bound. It is forbidden for Epistia to take her mother's life, but...

Redana takes one step to the left, putting herself between mother and daughter. Her throat closes up and the world narrows. The mist's kisses trickle down her neck and she does not flinch. If she lashes out, if she does anything to respond to whatever violence the damned queen may choose to inflict, she is condemned in turn, but... but there are no laws concerning where one may stand. That is given to everyone to choose freely. And right here? Right now?

Redana stands between mother and daughter, and forces her fingers to splay, to not become a treacherous fist. She mouths something, but not even she knows what is trying to come out, and there is no breath in her, not any more. All that is left is the way she grinds her heel against the grass and refuses to look away.

Dolce helped Vasilia out of the muck, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief to see murder in her eyes. Murder was good. Murder meant she was unhurt, save for her pride. He could help that later-

And that was when the air split apart, and a terrible sound brought him to his knees. Loud, impossibly loud, threatening to tear him apart. His ears rang. His vision went white. All of it, a terrible harbinger of the world that slowly returned to focus.

The cat was gone. Long gone. Off to take Redana away from them, because they couldn’t stop her.

A man with a grim book and an aura to match stood over him. A priest of standing high enough to crush them beneath his god’s favor.

There was Alexa. Thunderbolt through her stone heart. Fallen, and not rising.

Here he was. A little sheep with a host of impossible jobs, and the doom of his dear friends should he fail.

“I say!”

Vasilia soared before him, one hand stretched out behind her. Expectantly. At once, he put his sword in her hand[1], and she swung out in a wide arc, catching the book’s chain and batting it away. Again and again she struck, keeping the dreadful book at arm’s reach, until one precise thrust caught the chain around her blade. The two of them pulled, book and duel hanging in the balance, neither giving an inch. “This is such a coincidence.” She flashed him a wild grin. “I’m going to need you to answer some questions too.”

...if they weren’t in a fight, he could have kissed her on the spot.

“Dolce! The Ceronians!”

Hrm? Oh! Yes. Yes of course. They had to stop Jas'o. That was the mission. That was...that was his job now. His only job. Wasn’t it nice, to have so much less to do? So much easier to focus. So much less to get distracted by. Just do his job, do it well, and all will be well. That was it. That was...all there was to it.

So. So he’d best get on it right away, and stop his dawdling.

Dolce disappeared into the underbrush without another word.

[Crossing Dolce’s sword off his gear, giving it to Vasilia. That’s a 9 on Keep Them Busy, Vasilia stays behind and they are now Working Alone.]

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

Ceronian General!

What is your name, actually?

Whoever you are, you smell the cream-colored sheep long before you see him, which is approximately when he steps out from behind your next-door neighbor and bows low from the waist. You’ve heard of servants fading into the background until called for, but perhaps that wasn’t always a figure of speech. “Good sir, where may we find offerings to Zeus suitable for the occasion?” Even he couldn’t speak without a tremble in his voice. A big day for all of them. “Might I recommend spirits of triumph, brewed from the bounty of your harvest? They are a favorite of Lord Zeus’.”

You’re still not sure where this fellow came from, or why Jas'o might keep such an odd priest in his retinue, but it is a momentous day[2]. And it would be a foolish army that marched their way out of retirement without the proper offerings.

What do you do?

***

[1]: He was a professional, and they had practiced similar maneuvers dozens of times. He would not say if he still felt tempted to give her his hand instead of his sword. That was intelligence suitable only for his Captain.

[2]: If you tried to count the number of times a priest were to coincidentally appear on a day of great happenings, you’d run out of numbers before you were done. It’s a staple of theatre and song for a reason, you know.

This is not the first time she has been struck by the power of Zeus. And yet, past experience does nothing to prepare her for the way that the lightning sparks and crawls across her, arcs from the bolt lodged in her back to the sword and back again, steals the breath out of her chest, spins around every impurity in her stone and lights trails of fire down every brass inlay. Her fingers, unbidden, scrabble against the grass, finding no purchase.

And through it all, she makes no sound. Makes no complaint, nothing that could be taken as an objection. Zeus and Athena judge her wanting, as is their right, and she will not countermand them. But as she locks eyes with Hera, and lifts a trembling arm, is it selfish to hope for mercy? Let her demand what she will, and Alexa will fulfill it. Just let it stop.

"It's because he's human, isn't it?"

Bella's voice is soft and melancholy, but tinged with frustration as she prowls back and forth along a small length of the wall. She strains her neck to look at the gate again. Shakes her head, no. Suicide. Even if she gets past unrecognized she'll be swept up in a wave of Ceronian vengeance.

"That's why it gets to be him. Feh. What makes the Bitch of Ceron so special? Better give her the fancy executioner, the kind you get songs for!"

Not for the first time, she runs her fingers across the surface of the wall. It's a strange material, whatever it is. It feels slick, almost greasy on her fingers, but when she pulls her hand away her skin's as clean as the Empress herself could ask of her. She taps her talons against it experimentally. She hisses; this is im-- no! Not here! Not this close!

She pulls her hand back and smashes it against the walls of the village with a sharp and impossibly loud crack, her fingers splayed wide apart and curled to give her claws maximum purchase. Immediately, she regrets it. Her ears bend themselves silly straining for sounds of approaching enemies. Her head whips from side to side of its own volition, staring across the vast and horribly empty fields where anything at all could be waiting to get her.

But for once, nothing is. She turns again to look at her hand, buried to her first knuckles in the polymer. Bella takes one last sidelong glance at King Jas'o and his new army of legendary super soldiers. Lucky fuck. All because he's human. Shining. Sacred. Like he'd be worth any of this if there were a single qualified person around.

"It's all for shit anyway, right?"

She seethes, launching herself up several meters with a violent lunge that ends with a crushing blow to the wall with her opposite hand. Her eyes flick down toward the ground again, just before she kicks off the wall and lunges up again. Her boots scramble madly on the enigmatic coating, and it's impossible to find any real purchase, let alone make any sort of fast and graceful leap the way she was intending. She swings awkwardly from her hand as her fingers scream at her to let go and drop before they break.

Her right hand smashes itself into the wall a little ways above her. She pulls her legs close together and wraps her tail around her hips to keep her balance as perfectly as possible. Fine then; upper body strength it is. Every lunge is vicious, a perfect kill strike. She pulls her entire weight up with nothing to support her but the power of her arms and shoulders. By the half way mark, she's trembling.

"...I mean, once he's gone and sacked this place, he'll go right back to being a useless, scum sucking pawn with a shiny toy crown. Not even! When Odoacer finds out he doesn't have the princess, haha, she's going to kill him! I wish I could be there to watch. I wanna see the light in his eyes go out when she strings him up by his balls. Heh..."

She turns to look, but Hera has no more words for her. She never does, after she's left her balm. There is a smile on the goddess' face, and then she turns away to other matters is is gone completely. Bella smirks. She's not shaking anymore. She claws her way up to the top, whether it wants her to or not. Whether she's a favorite of any of the high and mighty war gods or just a pawn of a few others. Bella is determined. This is just another Game for her to conquer. She is inevitable.

She is Queen of the Ceronian Wall. She pauses for only a moment to catch her breath. That moment is filled with a vision of the future. Her back is shivering with agony, but she makes no complaint of it. Her ship, the Empress' gift, is as dingy and uninviting as it's ever been, but in this moment she welcomes it. There is a bath with hot water, and Bella is washing her Princess' back to take her mind off of her terrible journeys. She is quiet and respectful, not even requesting an apology from Redana while she recounts her many ridiculous adventures out here in space. The Princess is stepping out. Bella averts her eyes and stares respectfully into the water, watching Redana's reflection wrap itself in a towel and saunter off to the one well-furnished chamber where she'll be sleeping for the trip home. Trembling, Bella slides into the water herself, still hot, Redana's water, sharing her warmth and soothing her wounds and...

She leaps from the wall and banishes the image with the dark swoop of flight. Some kind of garden she's never seen before breaks her fall; the tangle of destroyed vegetation wilts pathetically as she springs off of it. She doesn't spare any of it a second glance. She runs, form of a champion, only forward, forward, forward, and up the final here.

She is coming, Princess. She is here.