Bella's heart pounds in her chest with such furious elation it feels like she might die. Her insides are filling up with lightning and the hot fury of Poseidon's solar winds; all the rush of drinking and her fever dreams that followed but without her mind following after and tumbling down into terror. Her tail curls, and the spark sends shivers down her spine.

Her eyes go wide. Her breath catches in a strange sort of half-laugh; it pulls her lips up until they're quivering, it bares her fangs in the full glory of their sharpness and wickedness, it sets her eyes afire with a horrible blaze of lust. The shadow that crawls over her face transforms her from a servant to a queen, and from a queen into a monster before it seeps down inside of her and curls up around the warmth of her hammering heart. This is power. This is what means. This what it's like to hold it.

It takes all of her concentration and focus to swallow her delirious giggles before they swim up out of her and ruin her life forever. She takes a deep breath and allows herself another shiver of pleasure before she raises her hand to cut Lorventi off.

"No," she purrs, "Not just yet. I want to see how many screws these things still have in right. They're broken as shit, obviously, but that doesn't make them useless. They must have been waiting for so long! Poor, stupid things: you still know this planet's secrets, don't you? Go on, tell me. Show me."

She smiles encouragingly at the prostrating machines, the way she remembers the Empress doing sometimes. Those were the moments where the resemblance between Her Majesty and Redana was the most intense. So warm and comforting, so eager to see her succeed. But the Empress could flash her smile whenever she wished it: she'd even done it after watching Bella's final flogging, in the moment just after making her a Praetor. And it had still worked. That, too, was power. Bella's expression darkens as she turns to Lorventi.

"Don't wear your arm out, Captain. Even if these creepy little dolls don't need to be scrapped, there's a Ceronian mutt and an even bigger bitch pretending she's your equal just waiting to taste your talents today. You'll have your fill of glory, so show me more patience. Aren't your kind all about that?"

Redana’s hand is on a very large switch. There is a safety, now disengaged, and its size suggests the difficulty with which it can be thrown. It is not a thing to be casually pulled. Her body moved by instinct, and it takes the rest of her a moment to catch up.

If an SP that size is fired through the window, the blunt force trauma and toxic gasses will be dangerous to everyone, but especially Dolce and Vasilia. It is likely everyone save Alexa will be incapacitated by chaos and pain as their bodies purge the toxins. And, crucially, no one will be piloting the shuttle.

They are the chaos of Ares, and while she might have her toes dipped in those waters, years of dueling as an elective were hard to shake. So cut the knot. Open the bay doors. While that might allow the grinning figure entry, better a clean fight than to crash and smear their bodies across miles of ruined landscape. It would take weeks to recuperate after a bad crash, and they didn’t have time like that, especially if her mentor had to come down and provide the medical attention himself.

So her fingers are hot and sweating on the cool material of the switch, waiting for the bark, the shattered glass, and the wild chaos. She’s not particularly worried about falling out of the shuttle: she has grappling hooks in her belt, and in a pinch she can repurpose her sleeves as a glider, and it shouldn’t be hard to guide herself over to a ruin of shining and, more importantly, magnetic metal. She’ll be fine. And so will everyone else.

Alexa freezes.

Idiot! Don't freeze! Defend!

But there's not a lot she can do in this circumstance. It has the drop on her. No matter how fast she is, the bat's trigger finger is going to be faster.

Get in the way of the shot? Impossible. Can't block a cloud. Don't be in the way if it won't help, moron. Maybe if she had the AEGIS, she could plug the hole but that wouldn't stop it from just reloading and blowing a different hole.

How is it up here in the first place? She thought that model was built for close ground support.

She eyes the pair at the center console. They're the most vulnerable here. Could she bring a shuttle in to ground in an emergency? Probably not.

Vasilia's talking. Follow her lead, and get ready to take the helm.

Redana!

At no point did you pull that switch. Being ready to was a clever move - the action of an engineer, the kind of thing that would have gotten you a precious nod of acknowledgement from Iskarot. But there was no reason for you to pull it, no crash and detonation and shattered glass and wave of toxic fumes.

And yet when you look at your hand holding the lever it's in the downmost position anyway. The door blares as it opens, as the howling wind blasts into the cabin and every unattended object is hurled about. It takes all your strength to hold tight to where you are, even as the boarding ramp lowers to provide you with a view of a massive eye painted like a butterfly's wing in yellow and purple and black.

At no point did you let go of your handhold and yet the next thing you know your fingers have just scrabbled onto the edge of the drop ramp as you almost went hurling into the void. It will take all you have to hold your grip and not look at the shape of whatever it is is looking at you with that illustrated eye.

Roll to Overcome if you wish to keep your grip.

Vasilia!

You don't remember shutting the door to the cockpit, but you did - you even wrenched the handle off so you couldn't easily open it again. You're not clear why that was the course of action you took rather than going to rescue Redana, and Dolce is looking at you with evident confusion. There's no time for that, though, because the machine on the window is banging for your attention and once it has it it touches three fingers to its shoulder in what looks more like the charades code for four words than anything.

It holds a finger for the first word, then it points at its chest with two thumbs, and then expands the gesture around - us, we? Two fingers, second word. It... strikes a pose straight out of a children's film series, Princess Deadlift, doing the flex combined with two-finger point that she does when it's time to get serious. Determination? Conviction? Willpower? Three fingers, and then it places one palm flat upwards, and uses the other two to mime a ballet dancer with its fingers, dancing about and performing kicks.

We... are very serious about dancing? We will dance?

Fascinating probably but while this has been happening you've been without visuals on the exterior for the better part of a minute and you could fly into a mountain at any second. This is a serious problem and playing charades with an insane robot doesn't seem likely to help. If you want to straight up fly blind through this then you'll need to Overcome.

Alexa!

This is not how war should be.

Athena is there besides you, spear drawn, shield raised, but there is no advice from her, no muttered tactical assessment, not even commentary on your own stance. Her eyes are darting about looking for a threat as the shuttle turns to madness. Vasilia just slammed the door to the cockpit shut and locked it and Redana almost got blown out of the door that she must have mistakenly opened and there is an enormous eye staring at you through that loading dock.

"Sylica pattern assault carrier," Athena breathes suddenly, more shocked than you've ever heard her - but as she says it so you see it. The visual effect of the eye is incredibly disorienting but once you change your perception to focus on the hard lines and shape of the frontal ram you can see that it's not the mad eye of some god but a spectacular illustration painted onto the front of a combat shuttle. You know the Sylicas, Molech made a billion of them, huge and ungainly aircraft designed for lunatic mid-air boarding actions. You spent a lot of time aboard those in the olden days.

It's up to you where you put your focus - but if you assist either of the others they can roll with Hope. You might also want to do something about Princess Epistia who is lining up a javelin toss directly at the centre of the eye and you're pretty sure you see Ares telling her to do it. You're fairly certain that means that toss is not going to de-escalate this situation.

Bella!

Captain Lorventi clicked her beak and depowered her halberd. The cut about patience landed - glancing around you can see that Lorventi was the only one of her kind who seemed emotional and flustered in this moment. "Of course. Praetor." she said stiffly, trying to feign professionalism.

Strange. She's so obviously a highly strung mess out here in field when she was so restrained and focused on the ship. Is she actually new to this? Is there something about this situation that is triggering some phobia or trauma? Is it actually Mynx in disguise? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to matter - she's coherent enough to perform her function.

"Praetor," blurts the machine, rising to its feet in a motion far too graceful for something that spoke like an invalid. "The Laughing God has told us of your coming. You are to dance the role of the Emperor. And so we will honour you and obey you in all things." It - she? - fell back to one knee in another fluid motion, one hand to her breast, the other extended out behind her. Still a bow, but the bow of a theatre performer this time - an act, as well as an act of respect.

"And we salute you!" blasted the crowd of machines in unison, so suddenly it made Lorventi jump and ignite her halberd again. They all raised their fists to the side of their heads, or whatever passed for it. The sound of these voices made a machine symphony that was somehow beautiful.

"We who dance the dance of death!" cried the speaker-machine, voice starting to flow, somehow finding music to it. Or do you have that backwards? Was its speech halting because it was trying to speak instead of sing?

"We who dance salute you!" cried the machines again.

"We who have died ten thousand times will die for you ten thousand more!" sang the leader.

"We who died salute you!" came the choir's refrain.

"All is ready!" sang the leader. "The Usurper comes! The Betrayer comes! The Hounds come! They come riding the lightning, racing against time itself!"

"We who have become death salute you!" roared the choir.

The leader bowed to you again, as fluidly and quickly as mercury. A zephyr gesture and a snap of her fingers and her choir - who had subtly positioned themselves through the performance - lift and haul slabs of stone away. As they do they revealed a hidden staircase, concealed underneath the otherwise identical marble of the rooftop. It was furnished for an Emperor, with carpet of soft blue velvet, and lead downwards into the heart of the palace.

Redana has never really known height. So her body doesn’t quite know what to make of this, her boot swinging free over the edge, the world below savagely fanged in broken spurs, her stomach loose and prickling, her fingers clamped white against the landing ramp, the wild winds tugging at her hair as her spacers’ jacket flattens and seals itself against the chill, it doesn’t know what to do with her at all, and yet her mind has relinquished the controls, has stepped away from the bridge, is in freefall already. Her mind is throbbing curved purple on yellow. Her mind is intoxicated, stripped bare of artifice, wide-eyed and drowning. She unfolds like a flower under the morning sun and drinks, drinks deep, the throbbing of color replacing her heartbeat, blood releasing and contracting as the rhythm compels her.

Her fingers, too, release. And contract too late. She plummets insensate, her cunning plans out of reach of her mind, her grapple and her glider and her harness all requiring the touch of clever fingers reaching up now towards yawning neon heavenhalo.

She will survive the landing. She is a daughter of Tellus, and wrapped in spacers’ wear besides; the force of her fall will be canceled out, expelled into a crater. But if she strikes the earth, she will sink into dark dreams and bitter, under the lidless gaze of a watchful eye, and see no more.

[6 with Despair. Without? 6 again.]

She's not fast enough, even as she's too fast.

She can't stop. Her legs move under her almost without direction. It's instant, trained and drilled into her at almost an instinctual level, no matter how much her mind screams no, stop, Isty, don't! Her ward is in danger, and she must protect!

And yet--for all the speed, the training, the drills--she's not fast enough. She just barely feels the fingers slip through her grip--

And spends the last precious seconds she has in the ship sprinting harder. She won't stop, not now, not with this much force. But she can push off towards that eye, and maybe, with the new terrain, she'll have a chance of catching Redana.

Flying a ship blind was not all that uncommon. Sometimes, the nearby stars are inhospitable to your approach vector. Sometimes, Poseidon decrees that no one shall witness his wonders this day, and sends a cloud of choking gasses to befoul the field. Sometimes, a skirmisher is blessed by Ares to sock you square in the face, and when the dust settles you’re somehow the one most fit to take the helm. A good Captain relied on as many points of reference as possible, and - by sheer focus, cunning, and the good favor of the gods - could reconstruct their position in an instance.

The art was, however, severely hampered by an inexplicable and unmeasured gap in Vasilia’s memory, that no one aboard knew to correct.

[Rolling to Overcome: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5]

Bella can't help but sniff the air for signs of Mynx, but there's no new information for her to find. Between the sharpness of the wind and the mechanized stench of the planet itself, there's so much information in every breath that the shapeshifter probably doesn't even need to work to disguise her scent the way she has to on a ship.

She clicks her tongue, and the frown is pushed off her face before it can fully take shape by the electric tingle still crawling up and down her spine. For once, the present calls more powerfully than the past. Her tail flicks with pleasure as she eyes the blue carpeted pathway, and when her nose draws in her next breath she takes nothing more from it than the oxygen. She rolls her shoulders all the way back and pushes her chest forward with unconcealed pride.

This place does not recall Tellus. It could never hope to measure up to the true height of Imperial power. Just look at all the crumbling stonework, the halfassed attempts at rebuilding monuments so many times that now they looked childish instead of regal. Look at how poor the lighting is as the stairs lead down and the hallway stretches into the murk so deep that her eyes will have to strain to pierce it. This is rot and decay and folly, the swept-aside remains of the lesser empire of a lesser emperor. And yet. And yet.

And yet! Bella licks her lips hungrily. Her eyes flutter shut in a rare moment of contentment laced in with her anticipation. She offers the lead machine, broken little doll that it is, a nod of respect before she takes first confident steps forward. Every little motion of her body radiates power in this place, as if she could hear the music these insane, decrepit puppets were slaves to and had swallowed it like a leviathan. As if she had found the strings that pulled them to and fro and understood the beauty that came from choosing not to cut them loose.

Her grin is sharper than a hoplite's spear. She raises one hand above her shoulder and snaps twice: marching orders for her soldiers. She'd made every right decision in the weeks leading up to this moment, and now the gods were rewarding her. Here was power. Here was her path. Here were her guardians, her respect, her honor. At the end of this dance would lie the secrets of Baradissar, and those secrets in turn would bring her home. The thought of Nero's smile waiting for her lifts her feet into the air. The thought of that smile, even more beautiful as it's mirrored on the face of Redana, pulls her legs forward. It pulls the soft hums of a marching song to her lips, a sweet and silly thing that always meant grand adventures in the grandest palace in the universe, to accompany her first elated steps down the path the machines had opened for her.

The Regalia vibrates atop her head as it reflects her song back at her. Each footfall on the velvet road is soft and comfortable; she could walk this for a week and never once get tired of it.

"Re... da... na..."

Hades looks down at you, a silhouette of icy white against the howling wind and black sky.

Above you stands the God of the Dead. Sapphire light surrounds him like a halo, the emergency lighting of the open shuttle ramp like gemstones in his crown. The red bow tie blossoms like a spurt of arterial blood, untroubled by the howling wind. Black vest, white sleeves, and so many sharp angles and joints.

Your fingers scrabble at the edge of the shuttle's ramp. Does he look at you with pity in that moment? Does he look at you with sadness? Does he look at you with forgiveness? You look at an expression of a man who has been suffocating for a hundred years, long enough to see his own pain wherever it occurs in the world. Is he going to reach down to lift you up?

A spear erupts through his chest. It passes through him in seeming slow-motion, a dividing line of black and white that divides the world into two. Down through the left, where all is black, cascades blood comprised of hearts. Down through the right, where all is white, the blood flows as diamonds. The spear itself is a spade, and the flesh of the God becomes clubs. The Lord of the Dead bleeds card suits as your fingers slip and you fall.

For a moment you hang in the air, caught perfectly bisected between white and black, surrounded by glittering hearts and pulsating diamonds. For an eternal moment you fall not through wind and air but through the realm of the divine.

The diamonds and hearts congeal into two blood-red shapes, standing on either side of the spear as though its narrow line was the curve of the earth. They are identical in shape and form but utter opposites in bearing. One figure moves with the slow and mathematical precision of thought, the other crouches and rages in the madness of the heart. They fight but an infinite line of perspective separates them; they fight as inverted reflections. They soar together towards the lurid painted eye that dominates the sky and pierce into it even as it transforms into a roulette wheel. The spear shatters against the cthonic eye, causing it to burst open like a punctured dam sending a waterfall of spades and clubs pouring down alongside you with the hearts and diamonds.

You fall through a waterfall of striped red and black, so thick and heavy it blocks all your vision of the wider world like curtains of velvet. Moving through this bisected reality are two figures, again equals and opposites - one of which is tall, slender, graceful and golden, the other is huge, ancient, bearded and silver. Through the blood of Hades, Nero and Molech duel - spear against spear, clashing and clattering together. The golden silhouette in a move so swift it doesn't even feel like a finisher pierces the silver through the chest and rips his heart from him. In the spray of vital blood, glittering hearts and pulsating diamonds, a new silhouette emerges - a slender woman with feline ears and a beautiful dress. Without missing a single beat of the battle's rhythm she spins her spear and drives it against the golden figure.

And then the waterfall passes you by, falling faster than you, faster than gravity, leaving you as a dress before the gaze of a lover. Revealed all around you are thousands of eyes hovering in the black. Each one is painted in colours so vivid and vital they seem to emanate light rather than reflect it. Each of the eyes comes with enormous invisible bulk, indistinguishable against the black, like the difference between the light of the anglerfish and its colossal mass.

Then the painted eyes blink. One by one, asynchronous, a flowing cascade of vivid light and darkness. The patterns of eyes become disrupted, impossible to keep track of, and then they all come together in the shape of an enormous skull comprised entirely of eyes. It grins at you through its polychromatic chaos and then opens its jaws to consume you whole.

And within its depths, Aphrodite walks towards you. Suit and tie and pistol in his hands and every intent to kill. He fires his shot and it pierces invincible skin and lodges deep. You collapse to your knees and upon velvet, the fallen velvet curtain-carpet of Hades' blood. You kneel and look up at the distant figure on the golden throne as glittering hearts stain your hands and drip from your chest. You cannot perceive her face because the sun hangs behind her head like a halo, like a crown.

And the figure on the throne throws back her head and laughs in the voice of a woman, a man, a girl, an elder, and an entire live studio audience. She opens her eyes and they are painted and glowing. She stands and the black flesh of Hades falls from her in a sooty rain of spades, revealing robes and mirrored chrome and a reflective smooth black visor - a vision of a god who had never visited Tellus. And all around you ten thousand more painted eyes open.

And as they do, so do yours. The vision of the divine has seemingly come to an end but the world is no less strange for having done so. Damage your Sense as you grapple with your vision.

*

You saw Princess Epistia's throw, Alexa. You saw how Ares guided it just so. You saw how it somehow brought down the entire armoured assault carrier in sheets of impossible flames, the victim of divine improbability. As you fell you saw how it crashed into a dozen others of its kind, bringing down painted flying ships in waterfalls of flame. Such disastrous, random power has never been allied to you before and it is as fearsome a thing as being its foe.

You fell together with Redana through a sky that burned, through an impossible tactical situation. You fell towards the Palace, that militarized mountain range. You fell towards an arena that had impossibly been constructed seemingly for the sole purpose of catching you. You fell towards a soft landing on soft sands, but still you catch Redana moments before impact. You hold her as a princess and look around you - at stands filled with ten thousand waiting battle constructs, each with painted eyes, and an Imperial box held by the most beautiful ##most-##beautiful ##Authorization codes transmitted. ##IMperial authority present. Desiiiist from $$independent thought -

You cannot perceive Bella through that halo, but you know this feeling. This is an Imperial level cyber-attack, cracking into your skull and trying to force you to your knees. But you were made to fight pretenders and stand more chance of resisting than these mere brutes - roll to Overcome.

*

You fall blind, Vasilia. Visions of the divine miracle and mundane apocalypse are both denied to you by sheltering wings. You fall blind, breaking and smashing, feeling the will of Ares through the language of bones and bruises. A tearing smash and sudden loss of control can only be the loss of a wing. It is a miracle that these impacts have not yet stopped you, but on and on you fall.

And then you hit the water.

It pours in through the open cargo ramp, washing the broken machine clutching to the front of your ship away from the view screen at last. You stare up through cracked glass and shallow blue water at a marble cathedral unlike anything you have ever seen.

The Emperor Molech allowed himself a single pleasure: the baths. The Baths of Baradissar were legendary for being the most complete and spectacular in the known galaxy. Water was tithed from every world of the empire to fill the most complete and spectacular range of water effects ever constructed. It is like you are within a cathedral, a strip mall, a beach resort. Enormous sweeping columns of white marble hold multiple layers of variably shaped pools, baths, hot tubs. In the distance an artificial ocean roars and laps in waves of perfect surf. The water that is filling your ruined shuttle is warm and gently steaming, tinted with cobalt. Red and white striped ice-cream kiosks dot the landscape, old rattling boilers and artificial suns, stained glass windows, interior and exterior spaces built as vertically as horizontally all below the massive broken glass roof from whence you came. Around the edges of the pool wait machine butlers, ready with hot towels and fizzy refreshments, and all their eyes are painted. And in the distant rooftops you perhaps perceive a movement and rustle of feathers.

Damage your Grace from the impacts of the crash, and your shuttle will no longer serve you.

*

Bella, you sit as the Emperor Molech sat. Surely this is not hubris? He was, after all, a lesser Emperor as you said - and a mere Praetor of Nero is surely an equal of the Emperor of Baradissar. The Imperial Box blurts broken telemetry at you - the constant flow of data that would allow an Emperor to command the galaxy even while enjoying the games. The signals are broken and wretched - fully half of the galaxy is listed as missing - but there is still such power in this ruined apparatus of command, if you had time to appreciate it. Instead your time seems perhaps better spent appreciating the Emperor's own personal stockpile of wine, provided to you by servile machine intelligences.

"The Usurper comes, Emperor," murmured the choir. "The Betrayer comes. The Hounds come. Ah! The Hounds! Fear the Hounds of Ceron! They howled and they crossed the galaxy on chains of lightning! They shall come for the Usurper, at her beck and call! They shall come to rescue her and you shall not be safe until they are defeated upon the field!"

Explosions shake the sky above. You have never seen such heavenly violence before. A war between unpowered atmospheric craft is a clumsy disaster and you can see the heavens come down in curtains of fire.

"They come!" wail the choir.

And from the heavens themselves falls Redana. Exactly as promised. Exactly as required. You spoke your will, and the machines made it so. You feel the rush of a promise fulfilled, an order obeyed. Already the Kaeri guards around you are readying themselves to spring into the Arena and rush the Princess - but instantly, the machines have moved between you and them.

"Desist!" blares their leader, that fluidly moving dancer-machine with the backpack showing a cute little cartoon Artemis. "Their presence here is a gift from the Laughing God. This gift must be repaid. The Dance must continue, or they will turn their favour from us."

"The Betrayer stands before you," says another machine from besides you. Its voice is far less musical, far more subtle, like a persuasive whisper. It is a hollow, floating thing of chainmail and electro-capacitators and a single glassy eye lens. "She is the best of us, our champion, our leader. She is the consuming flame of war who will undo any soldier who comes against her. She cannot be fought. She must not be fought!"

"The Dance must continue!" said the leader-machine, and you had the strange impression this was some alien argument between these two constructs. They look to you, as though for ruling.

Alexa!

Redana laughs. It’s not an elegant laugh; it’s a snorting giggle with an edge of being completely overwhelmed. An “I am blitzed out” laugh. When she looks up at you, you get the sense that she is not looking at but through you.

“You... are a big virgin,” she says, eloquently. “Isn’t love a battlefield?” Redana, what? She pats your, um. Pectorals. “It’s raining cards,” she adds, going boneless and slithering her way out of your arms. She does a funny little hop-skip, still avoiding too much pressure on her leg as she nimbly gets out of reach. “And Bella had a shining spear, and Aphrodite shot me, and there was an eye of skulls. No. An skull of eyes. I think we’re being watched.”

And then she looks up at the stands. She looks, and looks, and looks.

“Yep!” She nods her head, satisfied. “There it is!” When she turns back to you, the sun peeks through the oppressive clouds for just a moment, just a moment, her hair flaring into a golden halo. “Let’s go say hello! Even if we have to fight, you’re here[1]!”

And she proceeds forward towards the stands, but at a much more catchable speed.

***

[1]: an ambiguous statement. Is she talking to you, Alexa, her bodyguard, in the flush and afterglow of a vision of Olympus above, beyond? Or is she speaking to your mother, whose face you share?

This is truly excellent wine. Even as warm as it is, every tiny sip cascades like a river of flavors across her tongue and disappears down her throat as gentle as a spring rain. It is rich, intoxicating, and decadent in a way servitor wine could never be by way of its very design: the taste of grape is heady and strong, but underneath it instead of the watery oiliness she's used to there's a bouquet of new flavors dancing through her mouth.

There are notes of smoke and an earthy kind of bite that takes her some moments to place before she realizes with a widening of her eyes that the drink had been stored and aged in a wooden cask. She lacks the vocabulary to even guess what sort, but she's certain, yes she is. And underneath even this wonderful prize is a thin line of persimmon and even cinnamon. It's a rich treasury of seemingly infinite delights that forces her to take the delicate and refined sips of an Empress lest the sensation of the wine itself leave her drunk, a far cry from the way her own stock so warmly encourages guzzling and (merriment thereafter).

Bella swirls the glass in between her fingers with a curious smirk etched across her face. She's never had cause to savor drink before. Never had a reason to use her fingers like this. There is power in this motion, she feels it purring in her chest. And yet for all of the wonder of the drink being so thoughtlessly poured for her benefit, she can tell at a sniff that the extreme age of the stuff has diminished it greatly. There's a mustiness to the smell and a thinness to the flavor that only becomes more noticeable the longer her tongue has to adjust to it, and every now and then a note so sour it threatens to drag her breakfast back up her throat.

She drinks on. Her wine, her precious gift and refuge, is the power and ingenuity of an entire Empire, or more accurately an Empress bent toward the sole design of lifting the crowded masses closer to the light. The stuff in her hand is the work of another Empire toward brandishing a light so high above the crowd and so bright that even daring to reach for it would blind all but the gods themselves and send the thief tumbling, broken, to the depths of Tartarus to suffer for their hubris. This is a drink for kings, and even then it's a pale imitation of Her Imperial Highness' own stock, which was so strong that when she was a kitten just the smell of important people drinking it from across the room was enough to make Bella's toes curl. Once, she'd had to carry a pair of glasses for the Empress and the Princess, and the fumes had been so overwhelming she'd had to excuse herself from the ball immediately thereafter so she could find a closet to faint in.

If she dared to lap at that ambrosia, she would surely be tortured for all eternity. Cut apart and sewn together again in a cycle with no end. But this in her hand was the shadow of that folly. This, surely, was allowed to a Praetor. She sips the wine again and holds it in her mouth just long enough to feel the dryness start to settle in, then swallows thoughtfully. She chuckles.

"What an idiot. Look at her, do you see? She hasn't been letting them take care of her properly. They probably don't know how, those dipshits. Ha, just look at her dance!"

Bella's eyes gleam with delight. She grins toothily as her legs cross together, and lowers her glass to rest near the Imperial Box as she lifts her other hand up to rest her cheek on its curled wrist. Her tail swishes with the primal delight of a predator spotting the flash of a wing inside a bush.

"I don't care what happens to Alexa, but the Princess is my concern. Nobody lays a hand on her but me, you got that? But this is fine. Continue dancing or... whatever. This is fine, let them come to us. I've waited this long, I don't mind waiting just a little bit longer."

She squeezes the stem of her wine glass. Where her claws find the surface, it starts to crack.

Oh. Good. She was alive and conscious for the embarrassing portion of the landing. What a blessing.

“Captain, are you alright?” Clever hands made short work of her restraints, and Dolce offered her a hand up. It was not quite…

Oh, leave off it. She rose like a dream, escorted from her seat like royalty from a carriage on their way to a fancy dress ball. There was absolutely no difficulties with either knee-high water or legs that refused to function as they should. When she reclined against the front viewport, it was to better take in the surrounding scenery. And if anyone had any complaints as to the accuracy of her account, they could submit them in writing, in triplicate, and she would burn them immediately.

Dolce squeezed her hand comfortingly. Well. Perhaps she’d burn them at her earliest convenience. “Sound off, everyone. Quietly now, we’ve already made enough of an entrance. Galnius, to me, when you can stand.”

Dolce hurried off to help the others up, and she returned her attention to the viewport. When the sound of wading hoplite drew near, she turned briefly to take him in. Still standing, a bit unsteady, none too pleased, but what else was new? Whatever, she could work with it. “What’s your read?” She asked, turning back to the window. “Everything this side of the planet must have seen us go down. We need someplace to get our feet under us, but if stay here we’ll end up fighting room-to-room in a spa.”

[Rolling to Look Closely: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7: How can we all get out of here to someplace safe to regroup?]

The fuzz of static stops for one blessed moment, and Alexa's head is her own again.

Molech takes his time fastidiously straightening out the cover on the icon. Only once the sheet hangs perfectly flat and even does he deign to look down into the parade ground. "Do you know why it's not enough to be obeyed?"

Alexa does not, cannot answer. Any movement right now kicks up the mud, blood, and oil coating the ground, and the mere exertion of standing takes all the effort she has. Every heaving breath costs energy. She doesn't dare move to correct her flagging spearpoint, lest she overbalance and fall face-first into her guilt.

"I could simply command you. And so long as I hold this icon, you would be helpless to disobey."

Don't look down, Alexa. He's talking to you. Focus on him. He is your father, your emperor, your god. So long as you're focusing on him, you're not looking at the carnage around you. You're not listening to the moans you've caused, not smelling the bitter iron swamping the air. Not looking at the faces you've guarded for the past six months. Worship Molech as if your sanity depends on it.

Molech sneers. "And so could anybody else holding this icon. Anybody could command you to turn against me. That may do for an army, but for you? For the perfect warrior, for the perfect guard? For the Pallas Rex?"

He rests his hand on the cover and Alexa's breath hitches. Don't stop looking at him. Don't you dare look at them. Don't think about the time you've spent with them. Don't you dare put names and families and card games and stories told and history to faces.

Save yourself, you coward.

"I expect you to do better. How many more will you kill before you figure this out, I wonder?"

And the world is static.

***

Alexa's head swims, lost in the light. The world dims, sounds fade, until all that is left is the soft fuzz and the blissful beauty that is the entire world.

And wouldn't it be nice to stay here? Just sit back, let it happen. Let guarding Redana be somebody else's concern. Let somebody else take the reins. No more anxiety, no more worries, no more questions. Just orders and instantanous obedience. Let someone else assume the burden of what those orders mean for everyone else.

Do it, coward. Save yourself.

There was... Something. She had. Didn't she? Something she needed to. Something she wanted to. To. Erm.

But the light! It's so beautiful. Just stare at it. Let it make you comfortable, let it teach and lead you. Isn't that more important than whatever you were thinking abou--

Faces knock at her mind. Aren't they important, too? Precious, even?

Static mounts around her, a growing fog as the icon presses harder against her mind.

She stands, frozen. Then, a weight at her arm drags her attention away from the light.

It's... herself?

No, a reflection. A mirror image, reflected in the glossy surface of the--of her--shield.

Isn't that important, too, her traitor mind insists?

And the static shatters.

And she realizes a number of things in short succession. First, reflections don't usually nod at you before vanishing. You are here, indeed. Second, there are a number of very pressing concerns in the stands around them. Although, third, she has the Aegis again, and what clearer sign of Athena's favor could she ask for?

Fourth, she should be in front of Redana. There is guarding to be done.
(Overcome: 5,4,4+2: 10)

"As you will, Emperor," states the machine intelligence - Caval-4954, you can see from her nameplate? She raises her hand and clicks her fingers theatrically.

And eight atomic bombs explode.

Atomics are relics, museum pieces, ineffective in war for hundreds of thousands of years. For countless generations the principles of warfare have drifted closer and closer to precision, skill and individual heroism. Wars are fought with heroes, with precision teams of skirmishers, with organization and discipline. Anything as indiscriminate as an atomic would be little more than the backdrop for the real battle - and that is exactly how Caval-4954 uses them now. Although she could have detonated all eight here without meaningfully damaging the neomaterials of the coliseum, as a tool to create vast vistas of fire in each direction and block out the sun with vast columns of hurled smoke and dust they serve magnificently. One goes off at each compass point, bracketing the world in a ring of fire.

A microphone is in Caval-4954's hand as she drops down into the arena, voice held clear by the will of a mad god even as hurricane winds strike from all sides. The blast waves merge and shatter together, causing the sky to rebel and twist. And the machine sings in a fast, dangerous, flowing rhythm - the poetry of the gun.

"On your knees because you're down here with me
A rebel, a traitor, and an Empress to be
We burned the stars, we conquered death
We took ten thousand worlds with us past the end -"

"HA!" Five hundred combat machines, garbed in war paint, leap down into the arena. Though they are of five hundred different makes and manufactures they all follow the steps of the dance as best as they are able - low sweeping ground spins that some are able to turn into elegant rolls and flips. "HA! HA!"

"Yeah, we know a thing or two about war," said Caval-4954 in a speaking voice for a moment, letting the note hang before rolling back into it with the flow of a jet fighter revving for flight. She approaches, left hand held out in a pointing gesture as she slipped into a different language for the next verse

"그대여 hoo 왜 그렇게 웃고 있나요?
자꾸 마음이 그대에게 가죠
나 그댈 어찌 보내야 하죠
그냥 넌 나에게만 집중해봐
남들 눈이 중요한가
가득 품에 안아줘 봐 이름 따위 몰라도 돼
갖고 싶다 말해 봐봐 사랑해봐"

Five hundred machines, the next rank in the arena, throws five hundred fedoras down into the ring. The five hundred dancing there already catch the hats in a sickeningly unified motion despite the howling atomic winds and step and slide, spinning them onto their heads, moonwalking backwards. This time they move towards Caval-4954 as she sings, casting themselves at her feet as she steps onto their backs with the slow, deliberate stabbing footsteps of a runway model. As she approaches other machines press up against her, running their hands across her body in a sensual way as she flicks them aside dismissively. They swoon and fall to earth like the ranks of the dead.

The machines forming the road for the singer begin to form a pyramid - crouching into increasing steps so to provide her with an uninterrupted staircase for Cavel-4954 to ascend. She makes her way to the top, step after sensual step, and as she does the machines falling around her cast red silk streamers up at her. They wrap around and bind her like bloodstains, like the red thread of fate, wrapping her chest and legs and clinging to her metal skin like adhesive so that it forms a bloody silken dress swirling behind her like a peacock's raised feathers amidst the wind. At the peak of the pyramid she steps into bladed black high heels that wait there for her, and dragonfly-drones hover down low to wrap a white diamond necklace around her neck. All the while she's flowing through the next verse of her song.

"The lightning could not stop us -"
"HA!"
"The glory could not stop us -"
"HA!"
"In victory we've become melodic, and your victories were all pyrrhic -"
"HA! HA! HA!"
"You hold the shield with breaking heartstrings
We'll tear down Zeus's failed offspring
You don't bend at the knees
You just bend at the brain
You can't see the victory
Coming around again
It's rising,
It's rising,
Can't you feel it?"
"It's rising! HA!"
"Can't you see it?"
"It's burning! HA!"
"Can't you taste it burning your tongue?
They came and came too late to stop us
There was a race and we ran alone
All the wolves of Hermes and we were the better
Get down and kneel before the throne."

The music came to a halt, and Cavel-4954 leaned down from the top of her flowing, exalting pyramid of machinery. She looked down at you with shining painted eyes with lashes long enough to cut the soul. Those painted eyes blinked, and she said:

"On your knees, you've come home."

She spun the microphone and tossed it. It landed in the sand at your feet like the spear of challenge.

The arena was silent.

[Response level 2: Bad Weather.]

*

Vasilia and Dolce!

The world outside shakes and roars. The blue void through that broken skylight goes dark. One of the butler-machines drops the glass she's holding, politely bows and requests forgiveness, and bends down to sweep it up.

"Those are Kaeri," Galnius muttered, pointing at the distant shadows. He has good eyes. "The machines are a distraction. We've got a hostile servitor formation out there, maybe twenty, but reinforcements will be coming. We stand good odds. If we support the Ceronian she'll go through them like a knife."

It's the perfect military read from the textbooks of the Empire - you have a localized force superiority and should wield it to obliterate the enemy. It's also a good reminder that your enemy is playing by the same textbook. The Kaeri will gather reinforcements until their victory is mathematically determined and then crush you, as inevitable as Zeus. Victory will go to whoever acts with more boldness, more skill, more courage.

But there's a different way - the way of Hera. All around are machines who, though they appear as still and servile as the furniture itself, clearly have something unique about them. That paint is not uniform, it is a hundred little acts of self expression - and it's a hundred silent sentinels with who you can negotiate. Impress the machines with your own expression of individual style and they'll favour you as kin.

Thrummmmmmm.

The electric guitar is an instrument sacred to Zeus of the Thunders. When Redana strums the ancient instrument, her riff is the sound of building thunder, her scrape of the strings the sound of the thunderbolt striking home. How did she get it? Good question. All eyes were on the performance; for all we know, her father slipped it into her hands.

The floodlights snap onto the figure of the imperial princess standing tall[1]. Under them, her face is in shadow, save for the cold blue fire of her Auspex. And under her fingers the strings scream. The storm builds and builds, and there’s an anger there, expressible only through the medium. A defiance. Her mother might not be in the stands, but she plays like it’s Nero sitting in the royal box.

She doesn’t sing about the king of diamonds, the king of spades. All of her focus is laser-keen on the strings, on not making a single mistake, on matching the energy of eight atomics with nothing more than the feedback whine and the incredible building speed.

A speed, in fact, that calls for incredible vocals, words spat out like fire, words to match what Redana Claudius is laying down.

Bella might be able to do it, if somebody shoved a mike into her hands. But not Alexa. Redana has miscalculated, overcome by fervor and the rush of the moment. This won’t play out the way she hopes— but let’s listen anyway to that rock-and-roll heart.

***

[1]: this is a figure of speech.

***

[8 on Keep Them Busy. Redana will face retaliation, but creates an Advantage for Alexa. One that Alexa’s gonna botch. Redana also burns her second Obol as the price of invoking the gods and the power of rock.]

“Mmm. Well spotted.” Vasilia flicked her tail out of the water for what must have been the hundredth time. It just. Refused to stay draped where she left it. Meddlesome little- “Now where would a trained Kaori strike force spring from? They can’t possibly be living here, and we’d have noticed the Armada catching up to us. Do you see any emblems? Anything about them ring a bell?”

Call it a gut feeling, call it a soaked tail, call it criss-crossing bruises across her chest and a distinctly Redana and Alexa-shaped hole in her ranks, but she just knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Alexa stares at the mic like it's the point of a thunderbolt.

No, that's not true. If it were a thunderbolt, she'd at least know what to do. Some guidelines as to whether to dodge, charge, bring up the shield, something other than gawp uselessly at the crowd..

They're waiting, the air tense, electric with yearning potential and the crackling of a thousand eyes laser-focused on her. Hera and Apollo, oh fuck, she can't-- Can't think, can't focus, can't breathe which is fucking stupid because she doesn't need to anyway and--

This isn't what she was made for! Molech didn't teach her anything about public speaking, or performance! She's the help, the background! If she's with Molech, then he will do the speaking! She goes with him everywhere, therefore there's no need for her to talk, ever, especially not in front of a crowd, and especially not in front of a crowd of people who know exactly who she is!

Oh fuck, they hate her, don't they? They know she betrayed them, turned to Nero, is an oathbreaker, kinslayer, traitor--that's why they're all here! That's why such an eclectic group is all gathered here instead of doing their jobs, is because nobody's willing to miss the execution of the millennia!

The first power chord strikes, and Alexa almost collapses with relief. Thank goodness, thank all the gods, of course Redana would be trained for this. Of course she'd be able to address a nightmare crowd, calm them down, deliver a stirring speech that'd have the crowd on their side in no time. Of course Nero would make sure she knew how to do public speaking!

And now that she actually has the mental space to look at the crowd... Her brow wrinkles as her gaze flits from one nonsense to another. This crowd is madness in every sense of the word. Everywhere she looks, robots are choosing seemingly at random what to--who organized this? There's no patterns! Everybody's mingling with each other--there's no formations, no rigid, segregated ranks. There's a phalanx member mingling with skirmishers, trading for a drink from a legionnaire wearing a paper hat. Cheering and fighting mingle with feasts and--Aphrodite, that's an orgy, good heavens. Brass and soldiers mingle like water, flow from group to group, wander the stands--where's the order, the commands, the sitting in place and listening to the presentation? Even with the background of the wailing guitar and the falling nuclear rubble, the cacophony of the crowd is like standing in chest high waves. No two bots are alike, uniformity and regiments discarded in favor of paint, tattoos, engravings, modifications… And while there's no chance in hell that she could ever do the same--can you imagine the offense to Athena at so defacing her image?--there's a part of her yearns for the floral patterns she sees on the tripod distributing popcorn through the crowd.

None of this should be possible. None of these robots were built with imagination, creativity, anything but war and the few neurons needed to power it! How can this be? This art, this splendor, this… this chaos?

Mmm. This solo is going on quite a long time, isn't i--

Alexa catches Redana's eyes, and just like that, she's dumped square back into the ice water of panic. Redana, no. Redana, you can't be serious. Redana, please.

Gods above, help.

Alexa approaches the microphone like it's a coiled viper. Tosses it from hand to hand, tests its heft, its weight. Traces the engraved handle, appreciates the ornate brass scrollwork. Taps the mic, and winces as feedback screeches across the arena.

She shoots another glance at Redana and cringes at the encouraging grin.

Okay, Alexa. First lines on coming home. Power ballad on the sacred axe of Zeus backing. People who know you and outnumber you five thousand to one. Make it good, Alexa.

"We just flew in from orbit, and boy are my arms tired!"

Nailed it.

Bella is lounging.

She stretches across her throne with the lazy disinterest of a predator who's already eaten her fill. Only the flicking of her tail and the sharp smile inching across her face betray the true intensity of her interest as she alternates between sipping her wine and brushing her thumb across the surface of the cracked stem.

There's so much pleasure in the feeling of broken things. The slick smoothness of the glass gives way to veins of jagged splits that grind against her skin like a rough pebble she might have plucked out of the gardens. Up and down, up and down, tracing the lines where this perfectly crafted and beautiful piece of a fallen empire turned to ruin in her hands. Up and down, up and down. It bites at her skin, it excites her blood, and scratches an itch she only feels inside her heart. Better than a vibrator, ha! Better than the wine. She takes another sip and swishes it in her mouth before adjusting her weight.

An Empress would have stood up by now. Her Imperial Highness would have strewn from her box and leapt into the stadium below to take up challenge and crush the opposition with all the grace and majesty required by her office. A great hero would have sounded her horn or grabbed the microphone and dropped a growly song in ode to the glory of honor and closeness to her opponent as though to a lover before turning the mic stand over to reveal it as a spear and driving it through Alexa's breast. But Bella sits, and watches, and she waits.

Do you see, O Holy Empress, who watches every star in the sky and knows their songs better than they know themselves? Do you see? Your Bella knows her place. Your Bella knows what she is not. Your Bella will watch and wait for the right moment to act, because unlike everybody else on this gods forsaken hovel she has not forgotten her true mission. She is not distracted or moved to some stupid, passionate act because she is a Good Girl.

She grins, and bites back a laugh. Oh Redana, why do you reduce yourself to this level? Your talents were made for a grander stage than this. You deserve a better partner. But it's alright. Just you wait: Bella will clean everything up for you and make things right again. Just like she always has.

She raises her empty hand to the sky. Her Regalia burns with baneful crimson light as it pulses in the air atop her head, its leaf-blades seeming even sharper as it pushes her will across the planet with the invisible power of a tidal wave.

"The Betrayer has refused the offer of the Dance. The Usurper has made mockery." Her voice is like a whip, every word cracking with specific intent for the benefit of these stupid, broken machines, "They must dance. Make them."

[Bella is making a Cut: Separate Them]

Redana!

The music of Zeus buys you time. It buys you the captivated attention of the crowd. It always does, it always would - Zeus is the Queen of the Gods and when the music of lightning roars even the greatest party will pause to listen. For a moment all the world is lit up by your heavenly glory and all the world stands still in expectation.

But lightning passes, and the dark rushes back in.

It is a dance still but this is no longer the synthetic perfection of a choreographed and harmonized musical. Now it's the flashing crimson lights and overwhelming sound of a mosh pit in a heavy metal concert. Machines come at you from every direction, heads banging in jerky, puppeteer motions, grasping and tearing as they try to wrap their hands around that glorious little thunderbolt. As vast as this arena is, it feels like you are in a tiny, choking space of machines and noise and reaching hands and it is all you can do to evade them. Black lights come on from the projectors of machines, lighting up weaving serpentine tattoos that wrap around the bodies of the machines in neon colours, adding the presence of holographic dragons and tigers to the mad darkness you find yourself in.

Of Alexa, there is no sign. You'd be lucky to find yourself in this.

Alexa!

The crimson light of the Regalia crashes through the crowd. The motion slows to a halt, the confused empty beat of the dance where the DJ fumbles the transition to the next record. For a moment everything is silent and still and dead, lacking in energy. For a moment the world is as you imagined it must be.

And then it comes roaring back into life.

Reality seems to flicker as though making up for that lost moment, and the machines of Baradissar are again moving with uncanny unity. This is a different tune but they know it just as well as the last and are just as eager to make it so. The Empress' words were expertly chosen. There was no friction between call and response, no struggle and no rebellion. It is a command that this world was ready to obey.

And Cavel-4954 lunges at you, Alexa. From her glorious heap of mechanical attendants she lunges at you with a spear in either hand, illuminated by Imperial light.

You know this make and model. The Cavels were a limited run of light skirmisher machines made for long range reconnaissance and skirmishing. They're light, flimsy, stealthy things not at all suited for font line combat. It should shatter when it strikes you like a glass arrow. Instead you're put on the defensive in a way you've never been before, because when you look into that reflective visor and painted-on eyes you see Athena reflected back at you.

She moves like you do. She fights like you do. You are the mathematical perfection of war, the avatar of Athena in this mortal realm and there are no others like you. Except she is. You were carved by Imperial hands out of the most perfect marble. Your spear, reflexively thrust, scratches off her cheap metal shoulder with the same ringing sound that you know so well, the sound of a spear glancing off your own shoulder. Instead of shattering she presses forwards and you're sent back, back, back, for the first time ever put the wrong end of this dance.

The underpinnings of your reality come unstuck one by one. You considered these machines to be worthless; here is one of infinite value. You considered your skills unique and won at terrible cost; here they are granted for free to a broken construct. You considered power your heritage and victory your birthright; here a God has granted it to a nobody, a nothing, for reasons beyond your comprehension. Everything you are is mirrored in this gleaming, slender device. For the first time you feel like those practice constructs must have felt when you were set against them.

You are in so much danger.

[Response Level 3, triggered by Bella's command and Alexa's failure to uphold this place's customs. The location has obtained a new stat: Carnival of the Gods - it is impossible to find your way anywhere without the intervention of a god.
Location Stats:
- The Machines
- Bad Weather
- Carnival of the Gods]



Vasilia!

"You really don't understand the Empire, huh?" said Galnius. "Maybe the Sky Marshal sent them. Maybe they're on their own. Maybe they work for an Assassin Temple, or some King who's in really good with the right god. The Armada is only one Imperial institution and not even the scariest. Don't let the fact that it's concentrated on Tellus fool you, the Empire has resources beyond what you can imagine and they'll find us wherever we go. As long as we serve the Princess we'll be under constant attack."

She didn't seem afraid of this at all. On the contrary, he sounded quite chipper. This was literally what she signed up for, after all, she and all her soldiers - with the expectation that immense glory and power would come to them if they proved themselves reliable and loyal servants of the Throne. Men had been made kings for lesser services.

"So, you going to join us, or what?" She asked brightly. Her soldiers were already getting ready to charge, and Princess Epistia looked ready to start making corpses, so you'll need to talk fast if you want to sell them on a different plan.

Bella!

You understand Nero desired a higher class of command. You understand that she was not satisfied with ruling a galaxy of machines and slaves, and so instead sought to raise humanity again to perfection so they would be worthy of her rule. You understand that she wields true power and that this, all of this, is a pale shadow in comparison to the breathtaking heights she stands upon...

But oh, your heart must be humble indeed if it can find such wild release in this simple exercise.

They're so responsive. They're so obedient. They're so quick to obey and so joyous in servitude - practically falling over each other in their craving to execute your will. You know at least some of that comes from giving them the right commands, though. You know that there's such a world of difference between a good order and a bad one...

The floating chainmail-orb thing that contradicted Cavel-4954 earlier - you can see it has something like the word OMN written along its side, which will serve as a name - floats besides you. It speaks in a deep voice, as deep and reassuring as a bass chord, passing below the crashing chaos of the above arena. Inside of it orange plasma sparks and glows like a guttering fire.

"Praetor," it says, and oh isn't that title a splash of ice water? "I must warn you. Cavel-4954 has an agenda here that does not align with your own - an agenda that comes to her as divine revelation from mighty Dionysus. See, how she embodies their will? See how she stands as peer to the Pallas Rex despite inferiority in every aspect of construction and nature? Be wary, Praetor, for just as the Pallas Rex resisted the urge to kneel before your rightful authority I fear it shall be the same with the Cavel unit. I humbly advise that you manufacture plans that rely on your loyal troops as the key components, minimizing reliance on the Cavel where possible."

SPEAK TO ME—
the ten thousand arrayed in disarray
thrashthresh against the ruined brown,
the sky falling in flakes of cloud
to grind within the lost hope host and
the forgotten bacchanalia

unreal amalgamates throb in strobelight
sing the dundadadundadundadundun
SPEAK TO ME—
you drown in the firethrob of revel,
thousand-handed Haephestine labyrinth
mire of doubted expectations
and there is no line or star or sign
Hermes taking the cigarette break
on far Olympian shores

I raise my hand—
it falters
I raise again—
it sinks
A third time, anon—
the waves close over us
and Baradissar drowns anew

[The Get Away is a 5.]