One thousand servitors. One thousand! All following her, all choosing to go on this expedition, all believing that she can get them in and get them out and--

You know, it still doesn't feel real? Like, time was she felt like a dozen-and-one was too many, too many names to keep track of, too many emotions to manage. And that was before she found out that apparently, the dozen-and-one she'd had in Irassia were also actively managing her back?
And it's like, she feels guilty that she doesn't know everybody's name? Or, you know, can't always put names to faces? Granted, that's a problem at the best of times, but like. It feels important, here, and now, crammed like sardines in a tin, listening to the chants of the engine crews.

A thousand servitors. Too many to know personally, and somehow still not enough.

It's like, she knows--

Well, if she says the important ones, she'll feel guilty, right? She hand-picked all of them, for sure. They're all important. But it's like, some people you hand-pick because you've worked with them, and know them, and trust them--for a given value of trust, given any crowd containing Pix--and some people you hand pick because those you do know and trust have advised you that they should be included.

The Captain isn't the captain anymore, now that the Firetree is gone. Or, you know, not gone gone, but salvaged. Incorporated into other ships. Point is, she's not the captain anymore, because captaining requires a ship, and also captaining is a somewhat nebulous concept for a species that's constantly competing for top fox, but the actual point is that she's still the captain in Dyssia's mind, right? And she's one of the know-and-trust crowd.

Which is weird, right? Because like, you'd think having a lieutenant that's always scheming and plotting would be bad for unity, but it's like. Having her there means Dyssia is also always being pushed to do better? To prove that she deserves this by doing the things that would prove it?

Lots of Pix, still hanging around, and her heart warms to see it because it means she's doing something worth following. Lots of other breeds, too, all mixing with them. A few models based on falcons, all screeches and speed. Some lumbering slabs of meat, each a phalanx in their own right, like sentient bulldozers.

But it's not a monospecies, is the point. It's an alloy--a mixing of different strengths, all working together and, more or less, working together.

Manira. Manira has been a godsend. She's the perfect mix of-- How to put it. Like a diplomat, but the goat version of one? Where it's less softness and curls and more headbutting, at least when headbutting is called for. Twice now, she's smoothed over the differences between the groups, brought them to see the light, kept the crew together.

It's like, in the books, you never read about the ones that keep things together. The administrators, the diplomats, the bureaucrats. She's chosen an abnormally high number of them for this mission, she thinks. One in twenty or so.

Maybe an overreaction? She likes the Dust Knight, right, but he's…

Well. He has a very impressive hammer, and so all he sees are nails. Warror servitors, warrior legions, all set up to punch problems, and let someone else sort out the details.

She worries about it, a little. Fifty organizers isn't a lot, but it's almost five percent of her forces. They're only going to come into play once the dust settles.

Or rather, that's what she's hoping. If it comes to it, maybe fifty is too little. Manira and Gelt are good at their jobs, but she's hoping to liase and, if necessary, evacuate as many people as she can. Fifty might do for one city, but a planet?

Stretched thin. Always stretched thin. Ancient parts, only one thousand servitors to pull off a miracle.

But they'll make it work. She trusts her troops. They can do it.

Blue fire burns a hole in the air. A hundred soldiers burst forth from nothing in a wave of perfect military discipline. A being of plastics and light, with thunder for blood and a mind of metal, steps out of history and joins them for tea.

All this, and the most amazing sight of all is: Movement. A speck shifts against a static backdrop.

The shuttle dock of the Slitted is on the other side. And there are no shuttles due to launch or land at this time.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Dolce inclines his head, perfectly polite. Dolce folds his hands, perfectly still. “But does that ever work?”

Into the ensuing silence, he forges ahead. “You have much more experience and perspective than I do, of course. It may merely be centuries of experience speaking to someone fresh to this sort of thing. But if I were on a clandestine mission of sabotage and murder, and someone asked me if I was an Assassin, surely somebody in all my time of training would have told me to lie about it, yes?”

All the soldiers in the room are watching him. The Royal Architect is watching him. 20022, he hopes he is watching. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the window.

“Biomancy is even less my field of expertise, but being what it is, I can’t imagine it would be that difficult to manufacture a creature with blood capable of camouflaging its hosts’ actual biology. Or perhaps a reserve of fake blood, to be extracted when need be? Those seem like reasonable countermeasures, and for such a high-investment asset on such an important mission, it would be an astonishing oversight if they could be foiled by a simple prick of the finger.”

If this is a hope. If this is a hope, and that hope is to last, then he must be even more amazing than a miracle.

“If you will pardon my curiosity, sir, is that truly loyalty? Simply saying you are who you say you are, and having the right sort of blood on hand?” He takes a dainty little sip of tea. “20022 has been gracious enough to tutor me in the ways of the Service, and it would be a most instructive honor to hear your thoughts on the matter.”

The song pours out of Ember's throat: inexplicable, irresistible, irrepressible. It spills, sloshing, syllable-foamed, to pool in lungs and hearts. It doesn't matter that she's singing it (almost) alone. A taut chain's as good as a staircase, and the tide must turn, it must turn now, she knows it in her bones and her heart and her nose, even as Corvii chase after her.

...my Bonny’s down beneath the mast
counting grains of rice
sorting good from sour salt
and executing lice...

She needs to be on this ship. It's freedom. If she makes it up, if she just avoids being knocked down (not that she's making pursuit easy, she moves like she was born in the treetops, alternating between running and swinging herself beneath by her arms), then heaven will break open, the heart of this old wreck will stir, and something, Mosaic, something will happen that is a miracle. All she has to do is be there. To be ready. To welcome her lover aboard, to somehow escape from beneath the sight of this terrible eye, to be free of everything except love and wonder.

Mosaic!

Lenses in your eyes click and focus. You see through to the great Slitted eye in the sky, through its observation window, to where the Crystal Knight stands and looks down at the world. You see her strength. You see her beauty. You see her fear.

She is armed in her full panoply. She has no luxuries, no distractions, no peers. She looks down like a weight presses against her neck. Her magi tend to her new weapons, marvels of crystalline technology - ludicrous overkill against a disarmed, earthbound planet. She shifts with nervous energy, far from her throne. Despite every instrument of power she still wonders if she has enough. She looks down. For her threats come from below.

This is her strength. Her full iron fisted weight presses down upon this world, the perfect power of a tyrant in peacetime. Her machinery of repression is without flaw. Her generals fear her. Her security services are loyal to her. Every rival system of power has been undermined, civil society has been hollowed out, the people live in terror of the Skies.

The Crystal Knight looks down.

And above her, a crimson star.

Ember!

[Rolling a Get Away - 5]

Red lightning flashes and you come crashing down before the altar of the Engine.

The pikes of the Corvii have collars in place of speartips; they bind you from a distance, neck and wrists and legs. They pull back and charge the metal bands; they magnetize and snap together, trussing you throat to ankle. Putting their strength together, start dragging you towards a small black kennel -

"Wait," said an Azura magi in soft blue, wearing the tricorn hat that is the badge of the Azura technoarchaeologists. "She lead us right to the Engine. This is obviously an omen." She takes the leash in her hands and her strength is more than all of the Corvii combined as she pulls you close. "So what are you, little mongrel? A half-Ceronian pup here to steal my prize? Or perhaps a void nymph bound to the ship? Do you have secrets to barter, or shall I offer you up as a temple slave?"

Dolce!

"You talk a lot about perfection," said the Royal Architect. "But this is a dark and barbaric age and I need to be more wary of the clubs of brutes than the engineering of my peers."

One of his armoured soldiers takes your hand and presses a strange device against it. Strange lights flash, there is a painless feeling of pressure, and the Architect's eyes flicker and glow.

"Checks out, sir," said the soldier.
"Hm," the Architect sniffed and sat down in the chair, the third point at the triangle. He seemed strangely light, hardly sinking into the plush cushions at all. You feel like you could break his arm without much difficulty. "The Service, you ask? Some would say it is a degenerate echo of what was possible in previous ages, but I am wiser. It is simply an exchange of capacity for resilience. The ability to run a galactic civilization's operating system on DNA was a breakthrough for stabilization."

He leaned forwards on the table, gently setting down his tea. His eyes are fixed forwards, glowing, intent on the subject of his interest - even as the miracle glitters in his periphery. Machine awareness seems a dull thing, though 20022 is starting to shift like he might be noticing something.

"Consider," said the Architect, "that a galactic civilization's capacity to wreck destruction is likely to at any moment surpass its ability to recover from that destruction. The Spear of Civilization was a catastrophe but hardly an unprecedented or unpredicted one. For a while it seemed that humanity might have escaped the destiny of extermination it took on from the moment it split the atom, but Mars caught up with them in the end. Worse, the number of habitable planets in the galaxy was also reduced. Worlds in the Goldilocks Zone - warm enough for the liquid water required to evolve complex life - were shattered in great numbers. One war here, one planetary bombardment there - how long before the galaxy is rendered a toxic wasteland? In the face of the divine curse of war a civilizational response is required. I am part of that effort; my purpose is to reconstruct destroyed planets. The Service performs a similar but distinct function; to allow the continuity of government even in apocalyptic conditions. You have no conception of what has been lost, Synnefo, but you do not need to. Your role is to keep the galaxy from total brain death while the doctors work on curing its wounds."

[Roll to Keep them Busy]

Dyssia!

The Sellarfane dives.

RVX-05 Assault Dropships are not meant to survive their landing. In ancient days they were as disposable as javelins; these vast and unadorned hangar bays were meant to hold the mechanical giants that were the swords of the ancients. The Sellarfane has survived this long off the back of sheer fortune to never encounter anything that might kill it, but as the Slitted fills the front viewport the possibility of that reduces exponentially.

"Hope you liked the look of the planet, ma'am," said the Captain. "Because we might be down there for a while."

The glass bones of the augurs bounce wildly as the turbulence of atmosphere hits the Sellarfane. The augurs shout their readings to the pilots who pull wild maneuvers to avoid the gravity mines still in orbit. Less than expected - the path has been cleared. You pass through the glittering rainbow grid of satellite alerts lasers but Brightberry is in one of the pursuit turrets blasting a scrambling glyph into the network, delaying the reaction.

The Sellarfane is committed to its dive, plasma torpedoes ready to launch. The Slitted is not yet aware, but its awareness is a matter for the Gods to decide. The Gods are yours to influence; you are the Knight here, and they listen to your words before any others. What is your prayer, Dyssia? What is your bargain? Why should the Gods grant you the blessing of surprise in this moment.

The growl rises in Ember's throat like a building wave about to crash upon the shore. She scrabbles against the wet floor, strains until she feels like she's about to burst, fighting just to stay halfway upright, pulled onto her knees against the strength of the Azura's coils. The glare that she gives the technoarchaeologist is sharp, defiant- but she does not snarl. Her heart is racing too hard for her to pretend to be tame and docile, but she is still one of the Silver Divers. Just because she blew her cover doesn't mean she can't veil herself behind the pieces.

"I am Ember of the Silver Divers, the servant of Lady Mosaic, and I was born from the sea, Azura. This ruin is holy to Our Lord of the Deep Places. Can't you smell it in the salt? He is our god, and he has meant for us to be here. You must set me free to seek out the mystery of this ship, or it will never be free from his wrath." Eyes, deliberately widened. Tail, slowly brushing against the tiles. Zealots are underestimated. Trap her in truths. Earnestness blooms around her, unsubtle. "Into the deep it descended," she says, her voice lowering, husky. "Out of the deep it is offered. Deeps and deeps. His song echoes in the halls. The oil-slick on the walls is the stroke of his fingers. Set me free and I will consecrate this ship. Cage me, and the Lady will break anything that stands between us."

Mosaic walks among the Silver Divers with the calm and serenity of the divine. She wears her battered suit and whip burns like a King's robes, and the braids in her hair that have fallen loose cascade around her shoulders in a blue-black waterfall that amplifies her mystique until she is all that anyone can look at. The Slitted does not exist. She does not smile. She does not scowl. Her hand descends, and crowds part in curtains before her.

"We have done our waiting. Take the ship," her voice is softer than the sky after a thunderstorm. Her eyes glint with the power of Command, "Get the villagers inside, every last one of them. Storm the corridors, find our abusers and... instruct them in the error of their ways. The Crystal Knight could blast us into dust and gardens without even straining her tail, but once this colossus is ours her crystal wonders are useless. She will not destroy it. She will send an army to take it instead, but we will make it a fortress while she frets."

She allows a flicker of mirth to pass across her face. Her tail twitches as she chuckles at some ancient joke that just floated into her memories.

"You did not fail at Beri. You simply adjusted your plans when you realized how much you wanted an alliance. Prove it now and this will be just the first payment I'll give you."

She watches the Ceronians perk up as a single organism, chains shattering in one burst with the force of a smith's hammer on a new molten creation. Cloaks all cast off in a burst of rifle fire, and ear after pair of ears all lift up in anticipation and apparent delight. Mosaic's sigh of contentment hisses with steam that she blows away with the flair of a cigarette.

This is the solution to the riddle of weakness. It was desire pitted against desire, wasn't it? The Crystal Knight could surely butcher them all if she only came down to do the work herself. She could even just summon up the courage of Quajl to pull the trigger on her terrifying cannons and nothing would survive. But she is afraid. If not of the enemies she has down here, then of the ones she has up there. Ones too far away for Mosaic to see. Ones that fall as red stars onto her head. Ones that are, probably, exactly the same as her.

It wouldn't last. She could smell it from all the way down here; fear would eventually flip around to desperation, or embarrassment to courage, and Mosaic would have to test whatever shred of divinity she was blessed with against the raw power of an Administrator species, and an exalted one at that. That victory was surely impossible. But here she is strong. Here the Crystal Knight is weak. And with enough pressure applied here and now, by the time that wasn't true anymore it'd be too late for it to matter.

"Not you. You stay with me."

She flags down a few of the Silver Divers: Plundering Fang and her raiders that had been brave enough to attempt to capture Mosaic all by themselves, as well as Taurus. The ones she washed clean, and the one she ran through with a blade that does not kill. She gathers them in a circle around her, and shivers with relief when she notices that Ember's scent leads toward the still-dripping ship and not to here.

"I have a much more difficult job for you, or however many of you have the balls to take it. If that's too much then," she sneers and nods her head at the ship, "There you go. Go be safe like the others. But if you're cool, then look up there. See that red star? That's Zeus' promise. Our job is to earn it. We're going to fight down here and keep the Crystal Knight's eye on us, so that she doesn't see it coming. Well. You're going to do that. I'm going to use the time you buy to prove to everyone how much Beri is really worth. Sound like fun? If you don't die you'll have a story to tell your kids someday, I'll promise you that much."

She grins, wicked fangs glistening in her mouth. Her blood feels like it's going to tear her in half from raw pressure while her traitorous heart floods it from ears to toes in a raging torrent. Her golden eye flickers with manic energy as she waits to see if these chosen few are as dumb as she hopes they are.

Just as dumb as she is.

“I have learned, firsthand, the necessity of preventing the galaxy from splintering into pockets of incomplete machinery and self-sustaining suffering. I’ve also learned that, if you want to hold the galaxy together, you have to have an alternative in place. You have to save the galaxy to something, for something.”

“Sir, what are you making?”

“How is it going to overcome the curse of war and destruction?”

“And. For all your centuries of work, who are you building it for?”

It is a small speech, thrown together in the heat of the moment, but forged earnestly. To all the wishes of this day, he adds one more: That it be sharp enough to draw name or dream from the Royal Architect, and not vague, impersonal theory.

What manner of heart beats in his chest?

[Keep Them Busy: 1 + 4 + 0 = 5]

She's been thinking about this, you know. Surprise is worth a lot in these missions. Surprise is the difference between touching down with a thousand servitors to save the day or meeting a waiting army.

Or, as the ship rattles around her and the augurs calls ring in her ears, becoming so much space dust among the orbital mines. Thank you, Brightberry, you're a lifesaver and you're getting so many cuddles once this is done.

She should be scared, shouldn't she? This should be terrifying. She should be panicking, and making mad promises, and whatever it takes to keep her crew--her crew! her legion!--safe and alive. She shouldn't feel like she's coming alive again, exhilarated, vibrant, coursing with energy not entirely her own.

So when she steps up to the alter and promises she's never going to go home, it feels natural. Peaceful, even.

Oh, there are other promises. She will build a temple to Dionysus on the next ship to take her off planet. That's a given. There are few enough to Dionysus, few enough worshippers, furtive and hidden, and she will make sure there are more for her passing.

But it's the offer to never go home that feels more important to her personally. She… She's never going to see the friends of home again. She will give up an entire planet--not as a sacrifice, not to be destroyed for anyone else, but for her in particular. She will continue on a peregrination across the cosmos, helping as she can, teaching and being taught as needed, and influencing people towards Dionysus, speaking for him, housing him as needed.

It's insanity. What's the journey for, if you can never come home?

It's overpaying, it has to be. Shrine and journey and home, in one swoop? For buying even just enough alarm time to get them in?

But it means the journey continues. For all of them.

Worth it.

The crimson star falls from the sky.

The Slitted is a warship. In its heart is a cathedral to Mars. Every new member of its crew, servitor or master, is taken into its depths where they are anointed with sacrificial blood. Their swords are chained to their wrists and their armour is fitted to their bodies. Biomantic rituals are done to kinbond the crew to their new home, to make them love and protect the ship as though it was their mother. The ship's lifeblood is thousands of sweating bodies carrying weapons in an unceasing motion of readiness, a battle pilgrimage around a monk's circuit of war. Every inch of the space is theirs. Every part of a future civilization with mastery of atom and gene has gone into making this the top of the line, the final word in interstellar warfare, a frame around which a fleet can be hung.

But Mars is Mars. Soldiers are soldiers. And not the turning of the clock, the artifice of science, or the terror of the Crystal Knight could stop soldiers from building a still and getting sloshed.

In fairness, though, the pilots of the Sellarfane are drunk too.

*

"Excuse me," said 20022 quietly, standing up.

"Who am I building it for?" said the Royal Architect. "For Empress Nero, of course! She refused to accept Zeus' sentence of death for humanity and journeyed into the Underworld to bring them back. When she returns, and I have no doubt she will return, I will have made the galaxy into a garden of gardens. They will arise from the earth into a new Babylon, an endless and fertile garden, the material world remade as an unending heaven. On that day I will gladly go to my own rest."

The Architect could not seem more solid in this conviction if he'd built a world around it. His life has been mapped out for him in a more complete way than any living creature, from birth to death. Not a single dream or ambition lives in him beyond this destiny and not a single care can be made to fit inside him if it does not fit with this vision. He is made of plastic and glittering light, a semblance with no soul.

The age of Atlas was an age of wonders and terrors. Thinking machines were among the worst of both, not because they rebelled - but because they did not.

*

The Crystal Knight looked down at the note in her hand. 20022's handwriting - "Lady Governor, I suspect an ambush -"

She is already issuing the orders, the signal-lights flashing to the soldiers on the ground. Corvii formations start to rally, phalanxes starting to form up, the reaction instant and precise. She was ready for this. She sees you, down there, little hero. She saw you in the auguries, she saw your futile attempt to steal her prize, and she won't allow it. She was ready for this.

*

A plasma torpedo is an unstable weapon. A fragment of divine Engine-fire, condensed down in a self-fueled forcefield - they appear as balls of bright fire trapped inside bubbles. They cannot be handled normally and must be guided into their targets with precise grav-rail maneuvers. The graviton bubble of a Warsphere, properly directed, can fight against the puny emitters of the Sellarfane in a direct battle. Landing a torpedo hit requires, as its first challenge, that the Warsphere's attention be directed elsewhere.

As its second challenge it must evade the ELF point defenses of the Warsphere. Intimidating dark spikes can emerge from all over the ship like the points of a pufferfish, each crackling with energy draining blasts that can pop the torpedoes like bubbles. To do this slows the maneuverability of the Sphere to a crawl but presents a wall of lightning for its enemies to deal with.

As its third challenge it must hit somewhere worth hitting - easier said than done on a Warsphere. A perfect, formless sphere with valuable components secured towards the core, an external armour hit is likely to simply destroy storage or crew quarters rather than essential systems. Worse, the Sphere will then rotate rapidly to present an undamaged section towards the enemy, making it hard to concentrate force on a breached section.

Last, of course, is that the torpedo might be a dud. One in two are. Making a plasma torpedo is an extremely delicate procedure and any mistake in the process can cause it to cook off prematurely. Many armourers, fearing for their safety, err on the side of caution. The Publica assigned you the best they could but there still exists the chance that even though you possess four torpedoes none of them might work.

You feel the lurch of gravity starting to change. You see the ELF spikes emerging from their containment.

Launch.

You watch as four blinding sparks descend into a roaring thunderstorm. You can feel the Sellarfane shaking as Grav-Projectors search for your location, satellite-dish looking shapes trying to focus precisely enough to crunch your ship into a microsingularity. Time moves in strange ways and your sense of 'down' shifts and rolls like mad as the pilots give everything they have to evade. And then -

*

Mosiac looks up at the Slitted eye as Zeus works her miracle.

Like a thunderbolt from the blue, two massive eruptions of cosmic fire burst from the crest of the Warsphere. It lurches and falls - sideways. It spins erratically, dropping like a stone in mad directions. Direct hits on its main Grav-Rail drive. Engine damaged. It can't hold stable. Flocks of parrots spill from the massive crater on its roof, a plume of rainbow blood forged from the ruin of the deceased.

The Corvii are ready for it, falling into their rough-throated formations and igniting their weapons, but their panic is palpable. The largest formation becomes the target for Quajl's great arquebus. The crystals of Beri align and it slashes through the Phalanx, tearing cube-shaped rents into reality. In the blast there is a second Phalanx on top of the first - the Corvii having been somehow doubled in an instant. Instantly they fall to fighting each other in confusion, a black ball of panicked fratricide, as all about them there rises the howling of wolves.

*

The Royal Architect falls to the ground, seizing - inner lights blinking on and off. The great ELF spikes of the warship are so powerful that the backwash is scrambling his digital brain, leaving him a breaking puppet. The soldiers are everywhere but 20022 is addressing them: "There is no time or point in saving this extension," he said calmly to the barrel of a gun. "We need to support the Crystal Knight drive off this attack to keep to your master's schedule. We need soldiers like you."

The glittering soldier considered, and then lowered his weapon. By some strange alchemy of courage and confidence, 20022 now seemed in command of twenty of the Architect's finest.

"Pay him no mind, Dolce," said 20022. He was not cruel but... calm, decisive. No wasted time or emotion in a crisis even as his guest is sprawled on the floor. "The Architect can generate those copies whenever it desires. We need to move fast to bring this situation under control."

*

The Sellarfane had a plan from its birth to its death.

Once again it has fucked up the plan.

All of its engines are out, the ELF storm has rendered every fuel cell inert and many of the crew temporarily stunned. Parachutes and hypertensile gliding wings deploy to help arrest an uncontrolled descent and guide the shuttle over to where an enormous black metal shape was halfway emerged from the water.

"Cor, that's a battleship," said the Pilot.
"The Firetree II," breathed the Captain like a promise. "Pilot! Land us on that ship!"

The little assault shuttle slams in close, guided barely by wind and Rail. In an amazing show of professionalism, the pilot even swings it around as she touches down, presenting the rear assault ramp towards the beach. You can see through the gap the chain gangs, the phalanxes, the entire battlefield forming up like models on a board.

"At your command, Lady Knight," said the Captain as your soldiers unbuckled themselves from their seats, pulling shields and spears and jetpacks from their underseat luggage.

*

[Talk Sense - 5]

The Magi considers. She cannot brush your words aside; you have invoked Poseidon Earthshaker, and she would not be a Magi of the Azura if she played games with such an invocation. But she is a Magi all the same, and the sorcerers of the Skies are cunning beyond all known.

"Then I shall set you free, o sea daughter," she said, though she pulled you closer by the neck. "In the name of glorious Poseidon who rules the darkening skies. But before I release you, accept these gifts in tribute to your father-god."

She beacons forth a servitor who approaches with a box filled with magical tools and implements. With her free hand the Magi picks out the tools she needs without breaking eye contact with you.

"Behold, this ring of coral and ruby," she said. "A precious gift indeed. My apprentice dived into the rainbow black to recover it, naked and freezing in the voidstorm, until she clawed enough of the coral growth off a sunken battleship to make it. It is set with a ruby that was once the eye of a giant, bought to me by a hero who paid an arm for the victory. It is woven with spells of warding and comfort -" one hand took your throat, one hand pressed the ring against your forehead, and a paintbrush held in the final curve of her tail whirled as it wrote silver runes along your back. "- and you will find it a comfortable home. You are welcome, Ember, to the full extent of my hospitality, and you shall return my grace in kind."

There is a space inside the ring and it is home - the most warm and true home you have ever known. There is space inside for yourself, for Mosaic, for all the Silver Divers and more besides. A palace with endless doors and gardens, as safe and comfortable as a cottage's fireplace. Even a grand djinn would feel at home in such a crystal.

But other than the feeling of luxury and safety, you are not otherwise compelled. You feel no special affection for the Azura sorcerer; you are not caged, you are not enslaved. But you are her guest, and under the full weight of a traveler's duty to her.

"Welcome, then," said the Magi, finally releasing you and setting you down. "Ember of the Silver Divers. I am Merya of the Synthetic Academy. Please... make yourself at home."

Her bones rattle in her legs every time her feet impact the ground. Her muscles quiver, compress, coil, and then stretch out into an explosion of flame and movement on a loop. Her tail slices the air behind her each time her spine curves with the effort of the next step, and the next one, and the next after that. Her arms brush the fabric of her torn sleeves against her vest every time she pumps them, and the slick song of rustling fabric joins the heavy percussive clomping of rapid footfalls crushing the ground beneath her. Her hair lifts and slaps like wet rope against her skin. Mouth hangs open, lungs howl even as they stretch themselves to bursting to hold enough to power the effort forward.

Mosaic runs. Away from the ship. Away from the battlefield, away from flash and explosion and panicked shouting. But toward destiny. She has asked for a miracle and received it. Her eyes have beheld the impossible, and a battlefield once held in an inescapable grip has shifted before she could even add her mark to it.

The smells of the beach, of salt and rusting metals and iron-soaked sand and rotting kelp stay wrapped around her even as the drier scents of tree bark and sap, of stone kissed by the passing of five hundred different hearts rise up and try to push it out. The stench of her own effort and the heat of her body coats her tongue in a film like the end of a feast. She drags it across her teeth but it persists even through the tang of fresh blood. She spits pink. Her eyes flash with silver and the dazzling glitter of crystal pathways.

There is nothing for her to do but run. The weight of an impossible debt crushes down on her shoulders. It constricts her ribs as surely as if she'd been caught and defeated by the Crystal Knight. Her heart strains into the immense pressure, not against it. When fools or the greedy are given blessings by the gods, they trust to those miracles and lose themselves watching the ripples across the pond of their lives to not miss the beauty of the gift. But to gawk was to spit in Zeus' face. A miracle must be repaid in miracles. Sacrifice must be proportionate to the gift received. Mosaic could not let this day pass with anyone saying she had put forward the lesser effort.

Thank you Zeus, King of the Gods. Thank you red star, sword of the heavens. Thank you Taurus and the Silver Divers, once enemies who even this very moment fight and wheel to buy her the last precious moments she requires to build her tribute. Thank you Crystal Knight, for snatching at last the veil from over her eyes. Now watch her. All of you, eyes on her.

Beri rises in front of her with its twisting streets and rolling hills dotted by plain, strong houses and the large craft halls that surround the square. No song floats out to greet her today. The rooftops watch her like soldiers in formation, waiting for their scout to make her report. Waiting for their commander to order them forward. Grim and still desolately quiet, this place that welcomed her into the world. The home that was given to she who had nothing but a tiny and broken family to call her own. The town that laughed with her smile and lifted her up as its own private miracle. She came here a patchwork. It was Beri that called her a demigod and shaped her into something divine.

Her heels burn as the dig into the ground. Her claws slam into the earth to halt her momentum at the gateway she has crossed through nearly every day for her entire life since she stepped out of the water and the haze of dreams she had been built inside of. She lifts her eyes to these streets one last time, and nods.

Her shoulders roll behind her one at a time, and she rears back prepared to strike. Her fingers curl with the promise of death as her vision fills with wispy silver lines slashed across the ground all around her feet. She tears gouges out of the earth in wide, digging strokes. It rends as easily as crab flesh: her fingers grow grimy with soil, stone, detritus, and chunks of root as she burrows. The glitter of the air fades for the intense darkness and muffled quiet of //her precious dagger that tore its way across the stars the tunnels beneath Bitemark.

She digs without stopping, down and then forward, until she stands beneath the center of Beri. One breath to steady herself. One breath to prepare. Palms strike the ground above her. Shoulders push up and hips push down; the softness of the earth gives way to unyielding, slicing stone and the weight of the planet pushes back against her. Muscles tremble until they begin almost to snap in half. Her blood is magma, her body screams. She screams with it. Her face twists with pain, her teeth bare themselves to the dark when she roars.

"COME, BERI! WE! GO! TO! WAR!"

Mosaic's knees cease to buckle. Her legs straighten. With a final cry of aggression, she begins to rise. Cool air seeps into the earth and kisses her shoulders. It wraps her body in a cloak of heavy vapors. She rises higher. And the town rises with her.

The Royal Architect twitches, and his plastic body whines like a wounded dog.

Soldiers lower their weapons from menacing an empty chair. Dolce gets his arms under the robot’s head, his sleeves rolled to the shoulder, and lifts with all his might. Dead weight would have been easier. The Architect writhes and squirms, unconsciously fighting to escape the grasp of his rescuer. Dolce gives another heave, but it is as useless as the first. “Come on!” He looks to 20022, pleading. “Three less soldiers won’t make a difference, but they could get him to the heart of the station in time. We can’t-”

The Architect spasms in a violent burst of motion and light. He shakes and sparks in Dolce’s arms. A hand catches him square on the chin. He does not cry out. He does not loosen his grip. And when the storm passes, his hand gently pats the smooth, artificial frame. Through the stars swimming in his vision, through the ache in his jaw, he meets the eyes of his friend.

“Please. We can’t just leave him to die like this.”

The name of this palace is Plousios.

It is five kilometers long and one kilometer tall. A full fifth of its expanse is dedicated to glorious Hestia, providing the warm wind that billows throughout its winding corridors. Another fifth is the prow, shining, inlaid with golden paeans to Poseidon's glory and might. Inside, there is room for an entire city of intrigue, astonishment and delight, and yet the genius of its design is such that a pack of Ceronians may man it, resplendent in their uniforms of pearl and coral.

"Here," she says, spreading her arms, letting the ruby on her finger flash in the mirror-light, "is the Souk of Ourashima!" The sound of running water is omnipresent here, cascading down ornamental falls, fountaining up into the air, running down diamond-tiled channels, visible wherever carpets and pelts have not been laid. The yawning roof above is bright white-gold, and the light turns the spray and the jewels into prisms. This is the treasure-house of the Lady of the Plousios, who looks down forbiddingly from the marbled throne on the wall: ruby and citrine her eyes, sapphires and obsidian splinters her hair, pearl the flash of one fang. Ember touches her lips, one breast, and then bows in the direction of the mosaic. "Hera keep your heart," she says in ritual blessing. Then, turning her attention to the visiting Magi and her retinue again, she beams: "Here, all of us in the court of the Lady play at commerce. The tribute of a thousand thousand worlds flows through our hands in this place! She brooks no theft, here, in the treasure-vault of heaven, so we all must haggle for whatever we like. Keep what you like, trade whatever you do not as dearly as you can, and give the Lady her tithe when we next arrive in port! It is one of our many wonderful games aboard, along with the Vasillian Arena, the Phantasmagoria of the Two-in-One, the Orchidwars (which you may already be embroiled in, but only as a pawn, never the victim, not until you join the court or the crew and begin the dance of high-and-low), the Dolcenarium, the Repository of Saffrons, and the astonishing False-beach of Tides." Names spill easily off her tongue, strange fantasies, shapes that resist definition; her head is full of strange smoke.

She helps the Magi pick her way up through the souk, pays no heed to her retinue's bristling, pouts and preens when her guest-and-host (strange, to be both?) has such trouble making her way up through the crowd. What a way to be acting in the midst of paradise! "Wherever you like, I will show you," she offers brightly and easily, the silver ink glowing on her fur. "Though if you wish to sneak into the Court of Bells or the Divers' Rock, you accept the consequences~! The greatest reward comes with the greatest risk, after all, and you will quite be pulled into the Orchidwars if you are caught! Nothing can be hidden from Our Lady's eye for long~!" Her tail wags in playful mischief. "Whatever you want of me is yours, guest of Our Lady; your wish is my command!"

Then, a thought surfaces like the shell of a turtle, and with a coquettish flutter of her eyes and a hiding of her face, she continues: "Except, regrettably, I must warn you against requesting me. There are places here where you may watch me dance, if you like, and in those places there is fine music, and all kinds of delightful substances to indulge in, and you will not want for any sort of eager company, and there are such trees in that place..." For a moment, her brow furrows, her voice trails off. But that is such a slippery thought, and not one appropriate for such a lovely place. "But I am Our Lady's most favoritest favorite, her good girl, her pet Diver, and she would punish us both terribly if you challenged her claim, dearest heart. I am the most perilous prize in this entire souk, sweet Merya. She defeated the Divers for me; she pursued me so, so far. So far. Across the Plousios and back! So anything else, my Magi, ask anything else of me and you will be enriched thereby, but just do not wish for the phoenix's egg, or for Our Lady's seat, or for me!"

Carefully, Dyssia lifts the goblet to her lips.

It is not the first of the night. Strength and courage drip down her throat, warm and heady and fruity, the burn of alcohol under sweet, the kind of drink you could sip at all night and never feel until you woke up the next planet over.

But it's not the the feeling she's after--it's the wisdom. Or, you know, not specifically wisdom? Not like the kind of wisdom you'd get from a hermit, not unless you know the right hermits, the fun kind? The knowledge, the certainty, the knife's-edge of presence, the purple flitting around the edges of her eyes.

She sees them, there on the sand. More than should be visible through an aging door torn only halfway off its hinge. Sight granted where there should not be.

She sees the whips, the chains, the flesh-flensers. The bruises. The glee of cruelty for cruelty's sake.

The phalanxes, already in the air, like dots on a field, but also individual feathers. Raised spears, armor, impenetrable.

Unimportant. The purple tugs at her gaze, cups her chin, lifts it to stare at a town, rising like an island from the ground.

She read a story like that once. Funny how different it looked in her imagination.

"Clear a path!" she orders, one hand rising up to point, one hand thumbing the controls at her belt. "Whoever's over there! Clear the path to this ship for them!"

She's read this story. Hell, she's been in this story, less than three planets ago. She is here, she is a miracle, but she is a miracle for someone else. That town. This ship. And all that's there to stop her is wave after wave of phalanx.

Mosaic!

It is the nature of mortals to think of themselves only in relation to other mortals. The winners of a war are glorious. The breakers of walls are glorious. The emperors who command the loyalty of trillions are glorious.

Thunder rolls. Lightning crashes overhead. As the earth itself heaves and tears and holds solid still, the sky ignites. A cascading thunderstorm spreading outwards from the broken Slitted eye above, energy changing from Azura blue to the Thunderer's indigo.

For Zeus has always favoured those who pit themselves against the natural world.

The mountain does not come willingly. It is chained with gravity and long habit. But it is all built upon a single piece of solid volcanic stone and the edges have been cut out by the diligent claws of the Stone Tribe. The rock has been fused into a solid, unbreakable mass by their resonant frequencies; the foundation of the town may as well be solid steel. It will not be the side that breaks.

That role falls to you as you haul brick and soil and lemon trees. Even one step is too much. Even one step is impossible. This was not what you were built for. The artifice in your muscles was placed there to administer mortals, to kill mortals, to do all the things comprehensible to mortals. It is not alchemy that makes that first step. It is the lightning overhead seeing itself reflected on the earth below.

And so the earth moves.

Ember!

"What a pleasant hostess you are, noble djinn," said Merya, formally packing away her brushes and her tools. "What a delight to find this far from civilization. But before I take you up on your offer of tour, I must first request you aid us in igniting the Engine. We have quite the schedule to keep to, if you have not heard - the Royal Architect of the Endless Azure Skies is coming here and he would render this ship into an ore deposit beneath a new mountain range without even noticing its name."

"But for all you have said," mused the Magi thoughtfully, running her brilliantly ringed hand under your chin, the gemstone hard against your jaw, "you were right when you said that the greatest reward comes with the greatest risk. So does that not mean that you are the greatest reward on all this ship? I am devilishly curious to steal a bite if that is the brag you make, and I can even find ways to make sure you do not speak of it afterwards no matter what kind of torture you are subjected to~"

Dolce!

20022 gently touched his fingers to the centre of his eyes. It was a quietly exasperated gesture, like if you'd just made an impassioned plea for him to go back into a burning building to rescue your favourite plush toy. "Dolce," he said with the patience of a parent. "He is not and has never been alive -"

An explosion shakes the ship, gravity spiraling. Soldiers clack their ankles, activating magnetized boots. One of them catches 20022 firmly as the world goes diagonal, Dolce and the Architect sliding towards a window which now oriented straight down. You can see 20022 speaking in the distance over the roar of a mad starship, and the soldiers rapidly carry him out with clanking footsteps.

But he does leave you three.

Dyssia!

It's always nice fighting law enforcement.

The Azura draw a sharp distinction between militarized and civilian. Not that it seems so from a distance - entire alien civilizations have been shattered by run-ins with Azura anti-piracy patrols - but the Paths mean specializing for roles, and the Path of the General and the Path of the Tyrant have very different skill sets.

What you have at your command are hardened soldiers, elites who have fought on a dozen worlds. They are armed with restricted and industrial weapons of battle. There is a whole network of play and counterplay, the interlocking of technology and tactics, and in the face of that the Corvii are little better than an armed mob. Rushing lines of Pix huntresses on jetpacks drop plasma grenades in the midst of phalanxes too inert to know when to scatter. Blind dervishes with the icon of Minerva on their brow advance through walls of solid projectile smoke, hardly coughing, to turn withdrawals into shattered routs. A Hermetic chariot rolls across the battlefield, turret-mounted esoteric encasing soldiers in fast-solidifying amber. Untrained, unmotivated, unprepared - resistance is collapsing, leaving you with the field, arms open for the flood of refugees pouring towards the Plousios.

But from the mad, burning eye above comes a spark. A boarpedo smashes into the beach, thermal cutters leaving a corridor of molten glass in its wake. From the missile arises the banner and then the form of the Crystal Knight and the legions of disoriented Corvii race as fast as they can towards it. The whip's discipline makes them rally before their lady as she takes stock of the battlefield and begins redressing her lines and readying her formations.

She has elected for a brutal formation, a massive square centered around herself, using her own personal presence as an anchor. Skirmishers in the front, pikes in the back, and she with her elite bodyguard cadre wielding specialized weapons acting as the spearhead. Once she has stabilized her soldiers, made ritual offerings to the gods, and committed to the advance then the numbers will be overwhelming.

You need time. You need to make her fight for every inch of ground, to take advantage of her soldier's unreadiness by forcing starts and stops, to ensure the Crystal Knight has to interrupt her ritual sacrifices to redress her lines. Your own soldiers are reflexively forming up into their own phalanx, your one against her ten.

The ground beneath her glitters. The ground above her shines. Shimmering geodes reflect the crashing light of the sky above them from their resting places dotting the foundations of Beri. Every burst of lightning sends arcs of multi-spectral energy bouncing from gemstone to gemstone: the ground repeats the sentiment of the sky. Where particularly strong surges of energy cascade against the treasures of Bitemark, the air about them shimmers with faint images of impossible things, distant things, or maybe just things that nobody had thought to look for yet. Spires that twist upward and outward and then back in upon themselves. Floating crystalline structures that do not need the blessing of the ground beneath them. Across it all, the shadow of a wolf's head.

Mosaic has eyes for none of these miracles. She may not have eyes at all. Her vision is blurry and tinted red with swimming black spots. She cannot see a path in front of her, not even the motes of guiding lights she has relied on all her life to lead her where she needs to be. There is a vague sense of a downward slope, and dancing shadows that cross in front of her and around her with a posture (if they are even real) that push the word 'friend' into her mind. At the very least, they do not impede her progress.

She cannot smell anything familiar, either. When she sniffs the air to find her path forward, she gets nothing but nonsense data. The pungent aroma of the color red, the stinging wind of green. Another whiff and it all changes: the scent of a sharp edge, of worn leather, of sand between her toes. Every breath is blinding. Every sensation upends her world.

But she holds on. The weight of the mountain crushing into her neck and shoulders is beyond her comprehension. It crushes thoughts from her head. It squeezes her until there is no distinction in her mind between her muscles, her ribs, and her lungs. Her knees do not buckle underneath her: they have lost the ability to move like that at all. And still it shifts, and she shifts with it. Beri is held aloft. Mosaic screams, though she does not hear it herself. She splits the sky like a peal of thunder, this tortured and labored cry of an animal that is also a song of glory and a flash of fangs at last turned against the hand that deigned to feed her. There are no words. There do not need to be.

Mosaic moves. And she does not move at all. In her perception it is less that she takes a step forward, or another one after that. Not a trembling shuffle or a headlong rush or the desperate crawl of a turtle seeking the safety of the sea for the first time in its life. Instead, she shatters. Her body sheers off at the joints and her entire world explodes in fire hot enough to melt steel. She disintegrates inside of it. There is nothing of her but infinite white, and then infinite black. When these too melt away, a thousand years may well have passed. She does not know. She cannot know. She simply becomes aware of her body when her straining muscles force some instinctive part of her brain to comprehend the shape of herself. She comes into being once again, and she is further along the slope.

Only one sight is clear. The only thing she can rely on the guide her is the baleful gaze of the Slitted. Even decimated as it is, even tilting uselessly and doomed by the judgment of Zeus and whatever brave dumbasses rode it down here, the Crystal Knights war sphere is a threat to every living thing beneath it. There is power yet in those cannons. There is malevolence yet in its lifeblood, whether its brain or its heart have fled it for the beaches below or not.

Seething. Huffing. Hissing. Destroying herself with every step, Mosaic wills herself remade. The mountain climbs down the path, and its shadow blots the battlefield. Before her, shadows leap and cavort with battle-glee. In her ears, the faintest ringing of laughter and taunting. In her nose, the softest petal of a rose. At her feet, the crackling dimensional path of geodes more valuable than the planet they were buried in.

She wields a town. Wields a mountain as a shield. Her largest boast and final promise, and a place for all those who have chosen to believe in her to stand their ground and buy time for the last payment of her thanks she will offer on Bitemark. The Slitted is blind. Whatever death and vengeance it rains, it will not reach. There will be a fair fight in the shadow of Mosaic.

Growling. Snarling. Choking. Guttural slurping and the halting laughter of a woman who has realized her body has more strength in it still. Through her, the lightning finds its path from sky to ground. Her hips twist in preparation for her final lunge. Her arms wind backwards even though they must be snapping in half.

And when she steps into this throw, the mountain will know flight. And the Slitted will know Beri, as only someone who has loved it with everything she is could manage.

"Ha! This wonder of the cosmos has been through worse! I would like to see them try to overcome us, and--"

The spirit of the Plousios is interrupted by the hand gripping her jaw, squeezing her cheeks, pulling her close. Her tail ducks between her legs as she instinctively whimpers and lowers her ears, looking as small as a Pix, indicating that she is no threat and does not intend to start a fight. Her eyes widen as the implications of what is being threatened sink in. A dilemma. If she downplays, acts humbly, she simply makes herself seem more mysterious, more of a prize. If she boasts, she makes herself seem worth the terrible risk.

"Against the gods themselves man contends in vain," she says, meekly, piously. "Our Lady is the daughter of Artemis, the moonclad huntress, and she is crowned with their favor. To try and claim me is to invite your own destruction, o my honorable guest. She would do anything for my sake," she says, so earnestly that it might even be true, "and that is if I am not forced to protect you from yourself, sagacious one." She reaches up and places one hand on the Magi's wrist. It is a soft grip, until the Magi attempts to shake it away. It's incredible how she can ooze the charm of a humble, tamed Ceronian and still display the swordgrip of a knight, isn't it?

"As for kindling the hearth: certainly! I am sure our learned ones and mystics will be certain to help you!" She waves one hand down a brightly-lit corridor[1], beaming the sort of smile that won over Mosaic's heart in the first place. "After all, that is a holy act, one that must be carried out with proper consultation from the gods, with sacrifice and divination, with the offering of jewels to the flame and other such sacred acts!"

---

[1]: The damp drips down from the lichen-blackened walls. Tiles are missing underfoot. There is a suggestion of scuttling up high in the yawning dark. Sour salt lingers on the tongue. This deep within the ship, it is almost as if it is still down there, beneath the heavy waves, and that all around is crushing death, and only its hallowed walls hold the flood at bay.

Two soldiers catch the body of the Architect before he hits the window falling below them. A third scoops up Dolce, but only for a moment. With a solid foothold he scrambles upright, hooves finding purchase on the slightest nubs of metal.

“Is now really the best time to test that theory?” From this peak, his shout carries above the chaos, up, up to the departing 20022. “When a guest of the Crystal Knight lays dying at her hand? A guest who was your charge?”

The world beneath them vanishes. Prize and miracle and battle alike are swallowed in an explosion of roiling indigo. The room bathes in its splendor. The walls shudder at its arrival. Dolce stands silhouetted, the first herald of thunderheads, shadowed and eclipsed save for eyes reflecting lightning.

Then again, the signs of Zeus had already been blooming above Bitemark. Coincidence, careful timing, whatever the case may be, 20022 has no time for misguided pedantry. And he may well have said so, were he not interrupted by the tiniest chink of metal. A small sound. The first of many. The soldier to his left has broken her stance, ever so slightly, to shift a half-step away from him. He is too skilled not to realize the shaky grounds he now occupies.

The price to leave this room and see to the battle at hand is not a cold shoulder to a misguided apprentice. He must convince seventeen soldiers of the Skies - who know only that Zeus will punish those who break hospitality - to join him on the battlefield alongside the Crystal Knight. Both of whom may stand under a curse within the hour.

Dolce presses onward. Twenty-one ears bend to him. ”I can take him out of here, but I don’t know if I can save him. If you start as soon you reach the shuttle, you may be able to make your case to the Thunderer. Tell him you did not give the order, tell him the Crystal Knight could not have foreseen this possibility, give whatever you can to plead for mercy. But please, you must hurry!” And he must apply his full attention to the task. No soldier would risk Zeus’ wrath to let him waste even a second on hastily-scribbled orders. ”I will get him out of danger. And I’ll do what I can for the battle below. By the time the Architect comes in force, the way will be clear. I promise you.”

With gravity tumbling to pieces, in a ship falling sideways, in the arms of an unlucky and scared soldier, 20022 thinks. Considers, carefully, how blameless he would be should the Crystal Knight fail, and the worthy credit he would claim should she succeed. “Perhaps.” Calm. Diplomatic. Unhurried. “But don’t you have your own propitiation to make? Was it not your charge as much as mine? Why do you think you would be spared Zeus’ wrath?”

Dolce bows his head. When he rises, there is no lightning left in those eyes. When he speaks, shame breaks a voice that fear and adrenaline could not.

”Because you are a member of the Service, aid to the Sector Governor, and I have been your humble guest.”

[Rolling to Talk Sense, with Wisdom: 6 + 3 + 3 = 12]

[6,3. If this is Overcome, it's -1, and Dyssia will Pay a Price to turn it into a 10. If it's Keep Them Busy, it's a +1 and full success.]

Disruption is the key. Disruption, demolition, distraction.

And if there's one thing Dyssia knows, it's how to be distracting.

Well. You know. Distracting, capital-d Distracted. Close enough, right? You'd have to be pretty dumb to go this long in life and not figure out at least a few things about your own weaknesses, right, and how to turn them outwards?

Which, uh. Granted, does not actually work like that. Generally her distraction isn't due to having someone with a gravity whip pluck the tools out of her hands. So having the self-awareness to know that she moves on from something when it fails to, uh. When she reaches a certain level of, uh.

Look, work with her here, alright? She knows how to use a grav-rail, and how to do it well, and how to warp reality around herself faster than the people in front of her.

Or, as the case may be, above her. Or behind her. Up is relative when you're good at this.

Time and again, rituals are disrupted. Cockerels are plucked out of clawed priestess hands right as the knife is descending. Rail-wielding elites turn to pin her down, and she and her formation have gone. The Knight herself turns her whip to harry her troops, and the tip severs itself around a microscopic pinhole of neutron-star density.

It's dancing, is what it is. It's listening to the music in her head, and wondering why everyone is so sluggish. Can't they hear it? Can't they see the steps, feel how it pulses in her veins, fills her?

It's not enough. It can't be. Eventually, the Crystal Knight will rally her troops, and Dyssia will miss enough of the ritual to allow them to be smashed properly.

But Eventually is a long way away. And by the time Eventually happens, everyone will be on the ship. Can't face angry consequences if you've left them fifteen systems behind you.

And so, she dances, and leaves Eventually behind.

Well, there goes the neighbourhood.

The Crystal Knight!

There's a certain kind of demoralization that comes with seeing your city-sized starship catch a suburb sized suburb through the main viewport. Perhaps it's being on foot, in atmosphere that does it. The Slitted is, after all, designed to endure multiple impacts of this kind during the course of a major engagement or deep void travel. The Crystal Knight simply hasn't had to hear it before.

But more than any of that, perhaps there's some part of the Crystal Knight who just can't figure out how to top it. How do you impose fear into your conscript soldiers after that? How do you issue threats? How do you claim the Skies will never fall while also ordering a testudo to keep the debris of your reeling sky castle from crushing you? More than a failure of morale or strategy, there's a failure of imagination on behalf of the Crystal Knight. A rebellion is one thing. This is...

She'll snap out of it eventually. For now she's just watching the way her capital ship reels drunkenly, broken above and below, splashing in and out of the ocean like an indecisive albatross.

Dyssia and Mosaic!

You meet in the loading dock of the Plousios; one half dead from the price of divinity, the other marked only by a ceremonial winestain. The ship is flooding with rescued souls, your enemies too disorganized and demoralized to give chase.

The ship is also flooding with water. It has only been three-quarters hauled out of the ocean and everwhere is the the familiar scent of brine and salt. Waterfalls cascade down the decks, coral growth covers doors and walls, fish slide diagonally down along with the departing sea as it runs to collect towards the rear of the ship. Only the crabs are unmoved, snapping dutifully at passer-by.

Despite the difference in your appearances, you are both alight with the glow of victory. Take a moment to exchange a heroes greeting.

Ember!

The Magi contemplates, but in the end releases you. There is still an amusement, though for now it is cut with curiosity. Assistance igniting the engine is the pressing issue for now and so she decides that she will let you ignite the Engine before resuming her game -

- that is, until a runner comes to her with the news. Ceronian ears pick it up clearly; the field is lost, the Slitted is falling, the Crystal Knight is presumed dead, and two hostile armies are boarding the Plousios.

"... fair djinn," said Merya, with the change of attitude that only the castigation of the gods can deliver, "please understand that you are under no obligation to me beyond what kindness and hospitality requires. Likewise, I have no evil intentions towards you or anyone aboard, I am a humble scholar who is sometimes struck with playful impulses. No harm or offense is meant. I do hope that when your mistress arrives you speak of me as such."

Dolce!

Previously, when the Crystal Knight outmaneuvered 20022, he was unshaken. Such was the cost of doing business, a possibility he had priced in beforehand. This is different. You see in the moment before he closes his eyes frustration - perhaps even anger. His hand clenches tight around the handle of his case of documents like he's envisioning throwing it all against the wall.

Then he takes a deep, calm breath. He packs the feeling away along with all his plans to salvage the situation, along with his pride. He accepts that he is in a corner and is unwilling to dare to escape it. He comes to a full stop, then turns his soldiers around.

"Come on, then," he said with his familiar poise. "We are heading to the Architect."

Mosaic stands straight when she reaches the loading dock. This is her latest miracle. Her ears are lifted up and her eye is unclouded, her legs are steady and her tail is relaxed. Even still her shoulders sag and the muscles in her arms twitch when she crosses them over her chest. Her hair is limp and lusterless; the intricate braids have come loose and now what crowns her head is a loose tangle of dark spirals.

Her clothing is torn and battered to the point of indecency, showing the contours of her body in intricate detail and the exact places where her fur gives way to human-seeming flesh and vice versa. That fur is singed, and the skin is flayed and burned. Her entire body is smouldering, in fact.

She is beautiful. She is proud. She is exhausted and she is broken. Even in quiet and relative comfort she sniffs the air with a desperation that makes little sense unless she is confused by some tangle of scents and is cursed to not be able to breathe until she deciphers it. Her nose wrinkles, her brow furrows. Fangs flash in the dim light as she curls her lip. Finally, she coughs and something heavy seems to clear from inside of her.

Her face relaxes. Her eyes shimmer in their differing colors, and pass across the blue-flecked Azura woman in front of her as if only just now noticing her there instead of whatever indistinct shadows she was haunted by a moment ago. Mosaic's smile is dazzling as she uncrosses her arms to offer a hand in welcome.

"Even if you are here to put me in your own chains," she begins, "I should thank you. You were my wishing star, and without your light I could not have kept any of my promises. My name's Mosaic. Until recently, I was called the Hero of Beri."

She laughs and gestures with her head to indicate the beach outside.

"You've already had the grand tour, Visitor. Did you enjoy it?"

[Mosaic damages Blood, Sense, and Iron]