[b]Mosaic![/b]

"This is serious!" said Taurus. "What could be more serious? Glorious battle in the eyes of the Gods!" her breath is so hot it steams in the night air. Purpose is pounding in her blood, rushing in her ears. She is a Ceronian with blood scent and every cell and impulse screams that she is made for this. "An army's job is to fight. A general's job is to find them worthy foes. A civilization's job is to raise them, arm them and send them on their way."

No past. No future. An endless hunt for the next battle. She left Elysium for this. Left that glittering, wet afterlife because this craving poison dripped in her blood. She was...

... she was the daughter of a mother who'd cursed the gods themselves. She was the daughter of a people who had beaten their swords into ploughshares. It had seemed a blasphemy at the time. A corrupted rebuke to the Gods, a prison in an eaten world, locked with a lie that had also been the truth. Of course she had died for it. But...

The girl raises her battle-scythe, blood of Hades alight in her veins. 

There is a sword in your hand. You can smell your sisters close at hand.

You look past the physical force of the chariot as it charges, the scythe as it swings, the wolf as she snarls. You see your true enemy in the darkness of the blood rushing through her heart.

And you know that this is not a hopeless battle.

[b]Ember![/b]

You back up past the edge of the belltower, onto the rickety scaffolding. Your steps disturb the doves who burst out in a great flock. Sagetip has you dead to rights with a pair of pistols. The fall wouldn't be half as unpleasant as having those go off in your face at this distance. The fight was short and violent, her bandoleers are scattered on the floor, she only has these shots left. She is determined to make them count.

But in the scuffle you've knocked over the tripod that held the glorious crystal rifle. It gleams on the floor behind Sagetip and so long as she's holding you at gunpoint she's not picking it up and shooting Mosaic.

"Good show, now," said Sagetip, gesturing with one of her pistols. She's proud. "Off you pop." 

She expects you to jump? Oh - of course, if she fires here then the smoke will throw off her own aim when she takes up the rifle again. At this distance that irritation will make it impossible. A fall by comparison won't add more than bruises but will give her the time to snatch up the rifle and make her shot before you recover.

Quajl is slumped but stirring. Her eyes are focused on her rifle. She only needs a moment.

How will you buy it for her? 

[Pay a price]

[b]Dolce![/b]

"The Royal Architect is a digital intelligence," said 20022, pausing for a moment to see if that registered. It didn't, so he went on. "A remnant of the Atlas Cultural Sphere and a survivor of the Long Storm. Extraordinarily powerful and influential but profoundly fragile. He is a direct agent of the Skies' collective purpose and makes decisions about the demolition of planets, the relocation of stars, and the bending of physical law itself. He answers only to the Saoshyant. He has taken an interest in a mineral deposit under this planet and has requested its extraction - a process which is likely to destroy the entire peninsula on which we stand. This cannot be meaningfully prevented.

"The Crystal Knight, as sector governor, while not having the power to prevent the Royal Architect's operation can make it inconvenient. She wants to acquire... something of her own, sunk beneath the waves," he waved a hand. "Not important, ultimately, but she's willing to put the local servitor population at risk in order to get it. We could stand on principle but that will likely result in the deaths of thousands, so it's far more effective to ensure that what does happen is well organized. That means conscripting the local servitor population into satisfying the Crystal Knight's obsession, then pivoting immediately to the evacuation afterwards. If we do it right a lot of people will be very tired and somewhat homeless but they won't be dead."

[b]Dyssia![/b]

"Oh, sure there is," said the Dust Knight. "It's called the Publica."

That winsome little smile of his flits back onto his face as he looks up at the sky. "It's not a complicated idea," he said. "[i]Be good to each other[/i]. But the implementation is complicated enough to even stir the mind of an old warhorse like me. The challenge is really just about implementing a stable, respectful form of government that can integrate all of these hyperspecialized biomantic species without the expedient of just biomancing them 'better'. In fact, we'd as soon see the whole fucking field of biomancy regulated back into the box of medicine where it belongs."

"Which," he sighed. "Makes it hard. Going to war with the Skies when your ethics prevent you from just biomancing up a warrior servitor species and sending them to kill the enemy's biomantic warrior servitor species is a bit of an ask, especially when that courtesy isn't returned. Make no mistake, we're outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed, and constantly on the run. Every twenty minutes we need to stop and deal with two servitors brain malfunctioning at each other, the pay is shit, everything is so scarce that pay is a relevant internal concept, and also if you have personal assistants you have to pay them or face administrative sanctions. But," he said, "as cures for boredom go it's way better than the fucking Skies."