[b]Mosaic![/b]

"It's hard, isn't it?" said Hera. 

She stood beside you in her full panoply. An ox of gravity-bending dark matter, a peacock garbed in golden jewelry, a paper umbrella set with a ring of emeralds, a face that might launch a thousand ships. The Queen of the Gods, offset in the side of your eye as you watch the champions ride to war.

"Zeus gave you her lesson below," she said. "And you embodied it well. You did the impossible, lit up the night like a thunderbolt, and everyone followed you out of awe. And now you stand here aboard the docks and watch your lover fly away on that same thunderbolt. Today it is because you are injured. Tomorrow it will be because you are old. Zeus is glorious, to be sure, but she's never had to grow up. For a long time that frustrated me."

She stepped into your vision proper, unfolding a paper fan as she does to cover her lower face. It's an impossible stance; full of tension and also entirely comfortable; a mask of glory worn until it has become one with her.

"Today you do battle with gifts of ribbons -" she touched the peacock's head, it leaned into her hand, "- and armour." She touched the ox, it lowed softly. "The only weapons you have to bind wandering eyes and distracted minds. Do you think they will be enough?"

[b]Ember and Dyssia![/b]

The Cable is a magnificent invention. Through this miracle of arcane materialism the once-mighty mecha of the ancient world can persist in this liminal state as Plovers, bound to life on the Cable's life support.

The Cable is, at its most basic, an almost infinitely extendible length of thick wire that transmits energy along its length. With one plug into the Plover suit and one plug into one of the many power ledes on the exterior of the Plousios, the suit can draw on the infinite well of energy generated by the Engine. This inures it against the omnipresent danger of the Electromagnetic Flux; whereas a single short-range thunderbolt might render a chemical or plasma drive overloaded and inert, properly Cabled a Plover will experience only a short interruption. 

Severed from the Cable, a Plover is vulnerable. Drawing from the Engine, a Flux strike is a splash of water on a bonfire; a hiss of steam but no real damage. Severed and relying on its own emergency batteries, a Flux strike is a splash of water on a lit match - enough to render it cold and dark. Mecha combat, then, becomes a ribbon dance, where each warrior must be constantly aware of their long tail. An enemy might dive between a Plover and its ship to sever its Cable. Expert pilots moving in unison might cause two Plovers to tangle each other on their Cables. The further away from the ship you draw the longer your vulnerable tether. You might fight as gods so long as you preserve the delicate astral thread binding you to life.

You face ten times your number. They are entirely untethered, operating entirely on their reserves so far from home, and so a single Flux strike will disable each one. They are no fools and have trained extensively for exactly this scenario, and already they scatter, charging long range energy beams and arming railguns and other primitive weapons. They will give you war, and you need to drive them off and not merely delay them. How?

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Of course it's not my preferred title," snaps the Royal Architect, but there's more tiredness than anger in that. "But it's what I need to move about in this society. Accepting their titles, playing by their rules, shows of obedience to the right title - you do these things and the Endless Azure Skies will have a place for you. This society can accept anything so long as you do it in the proper manner. The polite knives of assassins are a far improvement to the open warfare I suffered before I learned to play the game. And so the Royal Architect I must be."

"But I did learn to play the game and - oh, look [i]up[/i], you ridiculous creature," said the Architect as his vast screen shifted to digital recordings. "This was the first one, an Ikarani assassin showed up under much the same innocent disguise. Offered to decorate the exterior of one of my bulkheads. I agreed and they wove a pattern that was quite beautiful, but especially beautiful to the children of Poseidon. I spent [i]years [/i]fighting off an unending tide of voidcrabs that wanted to mate with me before I made the connection. Slide!"

The screen changed again. "Another guest, a Diodekoi. Swore every oath of allegiance and hospitality imaginable, and then just fucking [i]jumped [/i]from where you are standing now directly onto my processing core and started breaking everything. Have you ever tried to fight someone standing on the surface of your own brain? I wound up performing a stasis lobotomy." The cameras blinked and showed a monster of bone and talon, frozen in place atop a pile of shattered bones. "She's still there," said the Architect. "If I lose power to that section for a second she'll escape and continue her rampage."

The screen blinked back to the enormous eye. "And these are merely [i]two[/i]. Do you understand what is meant by the existence of the Temple Assassins? They mean the defiance of every law and norm and custom. The assassin pays for their monstrosity with their suffering, death, and damned afterlife but they pay the price nevertheless. The Diodekoi did not know that she was an engine of murder until she was activated. No scans or tests I did could discover this about her. And after she was I could not stop her without great cost. You look at me and think me mighty? Fool. Let me tell you about the [i]mighty[/i]."

"The Biomancers who sent these monsters against me did so as [i]jokes[/i]. They challenge each other with these monsters as part of their games, testing each others reflexes and defenses, all in good humour. They express their affection in this way, coming up with ever more deranged monsters in the hopes of getting a laugh from their colleagues. They sent me these gifts as signs of respect and affection. I am beneath them, but the only thing I dread more than their friendship is their enmity."

"Oh, speaking of!" said 20022 brightly. "That's actually why I came here. I need you to transfer me to Master Biomancer Liquid Bronze aboard her flagship, [i]The Cancellation of Florence Nightingale[/i]. There is a servitor insurrection that the sector government failed to contain and I need to co-ordinate the decommissioning."