[b]Mosaic![/b]

You arrive on the bridge of the Slitted.

Perhaps it is a joke of the Gods that your very own little cottage hangs upside down in the ceiling here, your own fireplace caught in metal treacle on its flight towards the throne of the Crystal Knight. 

The light is wrong. Everything here was meant to be controlled, every reflection accounted for, every officer and engineer gene-tailored to compliment the effect. Everything was meant to surround the Crystal Knight's throne and make her seem as radiant and divine as the Endless Azure Skies themselves. It's not surprising they have not fixed it - what's surprising is how hard they're trying. Even in the midst of a boarding action, even with the ship damaged and flooded, this is where the bulk of the engineering core is, trying to correct the lights that halo the Crystal Knight. 

They've almost got it. Shadow only falls on half of her face, like a scab falling to reveal a still-bleeding wound. Beauty is the first priority of the Skies. Beauty even above life. Beauty even above death.

She hisses as though beauty and hate were compatible.

[b]Ember![/b]

Mosaic has made her way. The Wolves have engaged the Armatii. But you have been separated from the pack and face one of these terrors alone.

Perhaps, on another day, in another world, the Armatii could be beautiful, even seductive. Most creatures have some sort of sensuality to them somewhere. You cannot even imagine it from where you stand here. This creature is too tall, movements less like a woman and more like a piece of malfunctioning construction equipment. Her skirt swings and slashes, the edges bladed so that she might dismember a phalanx with a pirouette. She wields her blades not like swords but like chopsticks, reaching down to impale a lesser warrior and then flick her away like imperfect sashimi. Something to the way she hunches makes her feel like a warrior statue, awoken to life and bending double to dispatch intruders. Something about that stirs a memory of someone who fought with kindness instead of this sociopathic cruelty.

There's no victory here for you alone. This is a monster from a horror tale, a trail of fish and rosepetals in her bloody wake. She clacks her blades together and pursues you as though born to it.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

While I am going to present the following information in a direct and straightforwards way, please understand that the context in which it is being given involves periodic interruptions of blinding light, choking gas, bone-rattling explosions and a general feeling like open wounds exposed to seawater except applied all over your body. Each interruption will be marked with a <3 rather than a detailed description of the hacking, coughing and violence implied by this.

"That's actually a common misconception. All of these rounds <3 bear the mark of the Intergalactic Clearing House, a logistical hub at the centre of the <3 Endless Azure Skies <3. The Clearing House is a planet sized warehouse for every exotic component, material, or fundamental resource <3 imaginable. Any Azura Citizen may request a delivery from the <3 Clearing House but as the minimum order size is one entire macrocarrier full of the requested resource, a single delivery of most resources can keep a planet stocked for generations <3. The local <3 solid projectile store is a partially buried macrocarrier palette that is mined <3 by local servitors, the unique <3 texture and flavour is due to sea water contamination and the <3 fifty year old bunker fire that <3 has partially curdled the admixture <3 <3 rendering it <3 less effective."

It's not really possible to die from Solid Projectile gas, but it can make you wish you could. By this point in the discussion you're both lying breathless on the arena sand, half-blind and half-death like you've just had the worst heavy metal concert experience it's possible to possess.

But you're not dead. You haven't killed each other.

So that's when they send in the tigers.

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Did you recover the ship from the Architect's station too?" asked the Assassin, face invisible beneath the hood. There was some sort of darkness emitter the Hermetics used; those shadows would stand up to a direct spotlight. "Don't worry about my mental state, I'm fine -" she reached for the tea, and knocked it off the table. She giggled. "Whoops!"

Artemis clicks her stopwatch.