[b]Mosaic![/b]

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 [i]Slitted [/i]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.

[b]Ember![/b]

"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 [i]you [/i]are the greatest reward on all this ship? I am [i]devilishly [/i]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~"

[b]Dolce![/b]

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 [i]alive [/i]-"

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.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

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.