[b]Redana![/b]

Time passes. Regret just burns it all away. If you had a mind to listen to Iskarot's theorizing about the nature of time and the secrets to Birmingham's technology you'd perhaps draw a parallel between that and the weaponized heartbreak at the core of the [i]Yakanov[/i]. 

And perhaps you do. It's easy to be drawn back into the world of machines by Iskarot as he is now - bright and vibrant and full of life and power. His age-old rival is dead and he is now the master of a contingent of powerful magi and has the allegiance of a full unit of the Coherent. His saffron robes are now fresh and fine and covered in elaborate codes in black and white mismatched checks. The faint whirring of his hidden augmentics is quieted, all his machine aches tended to and upgraded by expert ministrations. The Priesthood has accepted that he is to be the sinister left hand of an Empress and has poured their wealth and knowledge into his hidden form that he might honour their Order through his magnificence. You've never seen him so animated, so energized, such a perfect version of himself before and his mood is contagious.

"The Empire of the Azura," said Iskarot, tapping his new black wooden techno-cane on the beautifully illuminated hand-drawn star map. He is indicating massive expanse of violet stars on the map - bisected by the great tear of Aphrodite's Rift - but now, from your window, you can see that those colours are extremely literal. It's beautiful - the void gleams in strange uniformity, each star haloed with a shining ring of energy.

"The mechanism by which they energize these stars is still poorly understood," said Iskarot with his voice full of passion - this is a project that captures his imagination. "My reading suggests a certain hypercomplex hydrogen based life form that contaminates the entire star like a diamond virus - but that's still speculation. It could also be some sort of previously unrecognized boon of Zeus or Apollo. Whatever it is, it is evidently and enticingly [i]replicable[/i] given the lengths the Shah has gone through to keep it secret from us."

The Azura. So many of your lessons were about them; the Eternal Rivals, the only surviving peer to Nero's Empire. Her first act of Empire, even before the founding of Tellus, was to engage them in battle at the head of the Armada at the Battle of Watersweld Binary. It was a legendary test of might and tactics, and was what had secured Nero's fragile grip on the Imperial Throne - to take an Empire devastated by civil war, an Armada of extremely fragile loyalty, and use it to defeat the Empire's only peer power in spectacularly decisive fashion - it was perhaps one of the greatest acts of strategy and statecraft in history. 

Of course, Iskarot is only tenuously interested in the history, politics or grand strategy that formed the backbone of your education. He's just here to talk about their technology.

"But that, of course, sets the tone for all matters with the Azura," said Iskarot. "Their technology is [i]different[/i] from ours. You will see wonders there, and their [i]tricorns[/i]," you've gathered that's some sort of Hermetic slur for their Azura opposite numbers, "will not for a second allow you to forget that in many ways they are superior to us. Oh, yes they are! Their greatest trick, and one they make ostentatious and excessive use of, is the technique of the Gravity Railing." 

He gestures at a diagram of what you presume to be an Azura spacecraft though it looks nothing like what you're used to. Rather than a sharp and deadly knife, perfect for cutting through the void at infinite speeds, it's a massive and crude meteor. Around the centre band is a carved ring a repeating pattern of >>>>>. Iskarot then gestures at another diagram, this time of a shield - again with that >>>>> pattern all around the edge.

"Gravity Railings are evidently trivial for the Azura to produce and accordingly they place them on everything. Perhaps due to astrological correspondence they work best on spherical objects, partially on flat cylinders, and increasingly less well on anything that strays from those shapes - though size is evidently not a factor. An object with a Gravity Railing on it can be manipulated spatially with [i]exquisite[/i] perfection. They are, simply put, masters at levitation. They can make matter move to wherever they want it to be seemingly with a gesture. Azura starships are [i]astonishingly[/i] maneuverable, able to turn on a dime, and their warriors use these devices to mimic flight - often powered by a device worn as a belt - or will strike out with sling balls that can change course mid-flight and strike again and again as the distant warrior directs. The technology is the centre of their art, warfare, architecture, society and culture and its ubiquity will make you feel at first as though you are in a land of fantasy. Do not be fooled!"

He's in full flow now. Iskarot Has Opinions About Technology. "The great limitation of Gravity Railings is that they're enormously dependent on local gravitic conditions. The higher the gravity of the planet, the closer to the star, the stronger the Azura technology will be - and in the vicinity of a massive stellar object like a black hole they're unstoppable. And while Gravity Rails can support each other they're in just as much danger of interfering with each other. A cliche in Azura movies is whenever there's a duel in the throne room the whole castle collapses because the duelists' power disrupt the supports to all that fancy levitating architecture and that is rooted in truth. The Azura love their displays of power and complexity but frequently the ability to manage that complexity escapes their mortal minds. They will show you wonders when their phalanxes drill in the yard, but when it comes to battle nine in ten of those soldiers will retreat so that their real champions will have room to actually swing their blades."

He is not gesturing at it directly, but behind him there is a hand-drawn illustration of an Azura - tricorn? The hat has three points, but the robes otherwise say 'grand vizier'. She's smiling but her eyes are cold and wicked and the caption reads DON'T BELIEVE HER LIES. 

While perhaps the talk of technology interests you, you have the sense that Iskarot is getting really close to 'ranting against a strawman of my rival techno-religion' and if you want actual information you'll need to pull him up.

[b]Alexa![/b]

You have changed. You're beyond sentry duty. You're beyond engaging in the ritualistic war for dominance with the Alcedi (a bloodless affair - everything is ritual and ceremonial, contests of skill and strength to win the favour of Athena). But where does that leave you?

Athena has turned her face from you. Here and there you glimpse her in the distance directing the Alcedi but she vanishes when you approach. You are bereft from skill, from strategy, from advice. The most basic of crafts end in disaster, the simplest of plans drift and go awry. You've offended Athena, perhaps beyond recovery, but Ares is sealed within her stomach and he can't help either. You have never felt so actively [i]useless[/i]. Tell us of this time, after your meeting with Mynx.

[b]Vasilia![/b]

Hestia looked at you with bleary eyes, and the moment it took her brain to process the words was enough to rob them of their humour. She then smiles belatedly in a 'nice try, not your fault it didn't work' kind of way.

"... okay, so more than any awkwardness, the plan to contact the Starsong involves obtaining a void-capable ship, crossing multiple uncharted and hostile systems [i]or[/i] heading back directly towards the entire Grand Armada which is currently in hot pursuit. The backup plan is to make a living by performing." She put on a serious face, so serious that she had to finish her cocoa first and set the cup down to let you know that she was serious. "Listen, Vasilia. These kind of hairbrained seat-of-your-pants style antics have been working for your whole life because Zeus liked them. But you're on your own now so we've got to start thinking more seriously. Like, do you know how to weave? How to sequence? How to sell space insurance? What did you do to make a living [i]before[/i] all of these adventures?"

[b]Dolce![/b]

Your long, dark fugue is interrupted when you hear a name from Galnius' Imperial Guard. [i]Mynx[/i]. Apparently they've captured her and are holding her for the princess. It's useful being invisible, sometimes - you hear all kinds of things like this.

You do owe her your life, though - and if that's not a cause to shake yourself a little and put the effort into making some kind of really special dish as a thank you, then what is? Do you investigate first or do you trust your chef's intuition to tell you what to cook?

[b]Bella![/b]

Any other god would have interrupted at some point. To make commentary, give advice, rise in your mind as thoughts and inspiration. Apollo simply is. His silence and presence fades into the background like the sun itself. Oh, the sun can be spectacular sometime - or so you've heard - but most of the time it's invisible. As invisible as the evercandles that light the halls. Blinding at first, pressuring at first, but eventually you adjust and come to take them for granted. And so you gradually adjust to the fact that every moment somewhere in your presence is a smiling god whose warmth and good humour is too perpetual to be insincere. It rises here and there but it always settles back into that deep eternal contentment. Athena would have had harsh words for your weaving but Apollo just smiles wider and gives you a thumbs up when you are done. 

That thumbs up bothers you for a while. What did it mean? It couldn't be the craftsmanship. He'd been so - well, silent and still wasn't correct. He shifted around a fair amount. Sometimes he stood up, stepped down from his cloud, and went for a walk. Sometimes he did tai chi or pushups or practiced archery. He made noise when he did but it too had faded into the periphery of consciousness. In time the question of the thumbs up does too, drifting away to the edge of your consciousness, like a distant moon beginning a new orbit.