Anarion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"That's extremely kind, thank you" Giri says before Piripiri steps away from her. And she means it, no sarcasm, no eyeroll, you've really put her in a situation that she thinks is kind of you.

"So" she says to the Banneret, while she begins drawing a magic circle in the nearby grass. "Now that your promise is done, are you planning on departing soon? I'm sure that Azazuka would like her body back, preferably not too starving and dehydrated either. Your work is appreciated, of course, we'd have lost them for certain without your help. I rather think this whole thing was quite sloppy. What would they have done if we'd been visited by a less puissant spirit who simply told us where to find them only to arrive too late?"

Giri takes a stick and deepends the lines, as well as picking a few nearby berries to enchant, and some loose foliage from the bushes to mark the edges of the circle. "I suppose Piripiri can track, but I'm happy not to have had to spend days camping out with no fire and marching through the night to catch up with them. And that's assuming they didn't slip us in a neighboring town. I'd say the Dominion seems a lot more shoddy than I expected, but we are here and I can't really blame them for not anticipating a Rakshasa properly. Ugh, we have got to get rid of that thing, it's such a problem."

Giri shakes her head and finishes the circle, beginning her enchantment on the berries. This is nothing particularly spectacular. She's simply casting some medical spells. A circle for healing or disinfecting any wounds, and some enchanted berries to offer additional strength and fortify the body (one immediately for Azasuka the second the Banneret departs). Hopefully most of it won't even be needed, but it's a far cry better than anything combat related and nobody will blame her for being prepared.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

For a moment, Slate tenses, but you’ve fallen onto the couch and what’s she going to do, reach down and slap you as you’re all splayed out and drunk? That’s no fun and it doesn’t have any of the satisfaction of throwing a proper punch when you’re standing up.

So, instead she turns her tension into a spring not at you, but the nearby kitchen door. She returns with something thick and grassy and puts it in your hands. “Here, you’re drunk.” She hands it off, stares at you until you sip it. It’s bitter, but you know that’s half the point of drinks to pull you out of being drunk, the bitterness itself gets your brain in gear.

Slate paces while you drink, a few steps then turn, back and forth in front of you, anything to direct that energy.

“Okay fine, you were…somewhat careful. And you have a theory about how this will improve things that isn’t completely stupid. Fine, fine. I suppose it’s on me to point out the first order problem that whatever creativity a restriction might offer, it might also result in you being unable to do something that could save your ass. You know because it’s a restriction. It restricts. You…you get the point boss, I’m not going to belabor it. This might help you come up with new stuff, and it might give me something to do in terms of running the numbers to suggest options to you, depending on what sort of restriction you get. That’s not boring, at least.”

Slate finally offers you something like a smile, slightly lopsided, more of a smirk really. “So tell me more about this new kitten you got for us?”

[If you want, you can roll an emotional support for this next part.]

***

Isabelle

Message sent, just like that. Cross your fingers.

You really don’t have a misread on Crescent and Annika. You were secondary, a chance to test something and they already got the answer to that test somewhat accidentally. They probably figured that you were as interested as they were in figuring out what’s going on here, that you’d want to find Solarel like they do, and that anyway you didn’t have anywhere else to go or another ride. It’s dismissive and more than a little rude. A part of you, the most cat part, might want to use your new powers to make trouble for them.

Your question brings up a new series of schematics added to the current map. You can see that there’s one small mecha currently in pursuit of Solarel in the lower caves. Solarel has referred to it as the Kathresis and as there was no prior name designation, the network has adopted this as well for you. There are two more dormant mecha in the level above you. Apparently there’s a large front room on the laboratory level that is for mecha experimentation. It’s where the Kathresis came from, and there are two other small mechas there of comparable size. Schematics tell you that one is partially disassembled, nanobots could begin repairs, but it would take some time. The other is functional but dormant. All three are unarmed, whatever they were doing here it wasn’t primarily combat. Engines testing maybe? Or they could have just been suits for heavy manual labor. You’re not getting that much detail, the system thinks it would short your brain so it’s dishing it out more slowly, question by question.

There are no other shuttles in this facility, just the one Annika and Crescent used, which still has a couple lionesses on it that you couldn’t take in a straight fight. It seems like this facility wasn’t meant as a primary entry/exit port. It’s a testing and science facility, so its inhabitants would come from other sectors to go to it. No inhabitants, no small transports.

Quickest route to the lab level and its two mechas is, annoyingly, following the route Annika and Crescent took in, then cutting to the left and taking an elevator.

***

Solarel

You’ve got the angle. It’s the angle you so recently took with Mirror. Of course it is because even if Hybrasilian mechas may not have the power of Zaldarian spirits, Mirror herself is the epitome of fierce and unpredictable. Of course it’s the tactics you refined on her.

The angle is to take a hit straight on, swing through it like you did when losing your legs. It’s just going to hurt a hell of a lot more than when sitting in the pilot seat of a TC mecha and getting the feedback via dampened neural mesh with failsafes. The spirit’s not shifting its form, it only has two arms and it’s not using any sort of fancy fighting style. If it makes a sword and stabs you, you lose a part of yourself but you bring it in close enough to hit.

It’s a fairly simple dance. Step in and swing your gold blade overhand. The spirit blocks. Leave your hand up too high and step further in with your shoulder. An obvious opening, the spirit goes straight for the chest. You twist sideways and slam your own blade down faster than expected. You’re stabbed through the center area under your arm because the spirit’s got the most direct route, but your sword has too much momentum, too much power from putting your full mass into the move. It comes down on the spirit and cleaves decisively. You see its form flicker like static and in your head there is a scream of pain, and then it disappears to safety. To recover.

That hurt like hell and it’s going to cause you bigger trouble later, but you have an all important free moment to completely focus on your silver sword, on the heart of the Kathresis with no interference.

Mark angry and then tell us how you take your new god and how you make it yours.

***

Dolly and Jade

Ksharta was pleased with the soup, with how you received it. She wasn’t there for the saddest mew, but she could tell you were more subdued. Just didn’t know why. Angela looked uncertain when you let her go. The spank was good, the force was good, she did like that and it made her feel a little reassured, but she didn’t miss the way that Dolly had closed up compared to before. She doesn’t entirely understand it yet, but she knows that she made a mistake there. Now she’s gone and she’ll nurse her role for the next combat, in or out of the tournament. Don’t be surprised if she tries to kidnap you at some point if you make yourself too obvious a target.

Speaking of kidnapping, after you rest, Jade’s got some visitors the next day, with Dolly present to tend to her body in preparation for the next match soon. They’re supposedly there as supplicants, but six supplicants openly wearing the red armbands that officially unofficially mark them as members of Jacinta Niares’ Red Band Pirates. You know, the ones known for rampant deceptions, kidnapping, and “marking” their targets in much the way Jade did with Angela before. Those Red Band Pirates.

The dock team wants to know if they should let them through. If you don’t, they’ll probably spread the word that the goddess turned away earnest worshippers, it would be quite the scandal.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

“You did what?!” Slate’s eyes are very wide indeed, like big saucers full of feeling. And she’s standing on the balls of her feet, that old pounce instinct to attack on full display even though she probably won’t. She clenches her fists though.

There’s a lot to discuss with Slate. You could have started with the question of unusual noises beyond the general background din of people moving and chatting, the hum of containers being moved about on hovering platforms, and the distant buzz and clang of metal being worked and welded. Could have also started by asking for repair status, and Slate obviously has something to tell you (it’s the news about the flowers on the other planet you didn’t visit).

But you know what? Sometimes you have to open big and Slate’s the sort of cat who’s not going to take it any better if you bury the lead. So you’ve told her you shared details of the Nine Tails plans, that you have acquired a new…follower? in Matty, and that Trosta will be installing your new chains for you soon, certainly before the next match.

Now she’s taking it all in. She has also remembered to breathe, but it took her a second. “Okay, start again boss because it sounded like you just said, ‘Slate I gave away a bunch of our most important secrets on a whim to someone I just met and her hot assistant’ and am I hearing this right?”

***

Solarel

The plan goes off perfectly. You’re in one of the larger caves rooms, still on the lower level. Four entrances, as it’s a larger hub room, offering you space even if the Kathresis were to punch in from an unexpected angle. Bioluminescent lichen lights the room in a dim, soothing purple.

The spirit is following your camera pattern and floats its way through the door, the Kathresis just off the ground. It’s ideal, you float the drone near a camera and once it goes past, you leap and grab upon its back!

Touching the Kathresis is like touching a new lover after a breakup. You’ve felt metallic skin like this before, but not in so long, and not this skin. It’s full of mysteries. The Kathresis is not smooth, but molded, its metal skin full of bumps and texture, shaped roughly to its humanoid form.

When you land, the spirit lets out a shriek of surprise and spins. At first, the Kathresis hopes to throw you off from momentum, but you’ve got a sure grip and you’ve done this before. The thing may be powerful, but it’s not nearly as big as even the Sea Spike from your first match, and that one couldn’t do more than get you to slide halfway down it with far more torque.

As you pull yourself up to the shoulder, you realize that you’ve countered the spirit’s primary advantage. If it phases out of its position, it will be giving up its direct interface with the Kathresis and that could give you an opportunity to seize an advantage. It needs to hold its ground here.

“You. You!” It’s mouth works, and you can see the fury rise and fall as it struggles to find words and ultimately takes a different tack. “You disrespect your masters by disobeying me. You should be a servant. If you prostrate yourself now, I promise no harm will come to you or your traveling companions.”

You’re not going to take the offer though. Roll to fight with the spirit and tell us what it looks like when you do now that you can hit it.

***

Isabelle

Repair drone 1328 is not presently available. The network determines that you were confused but that it would be easier to accept the designation Tate than to remedy this confusion. You are aware that it will respond to Tate if addressed henceforth.

The answer you receive to your communications query is anywhere. You can record right here if you don’t think Crescent and Annika will notice and turn around to bother you. Any set of nanobots can convey your recording to the communications array three rooms away and one level below you from any interface point.

The array is not multi-frequency, so pick one of your channel options, try to hide if you think that’s helpful, and send out your message. Let’s see who you get.

***

Dolly and Jade

You can feel the heat from Angela as you hold her. The closeness. She squirms, but you can’t help but kiss her atop her head. The chefs are forgotten for a moment, Ksharta is working calmly and slowly and doesn’t need to be bothered. The world is the touch of that soft hair, the warmth beneath it, just slightly damp with sweat, smelling of Angela’s body. A blush rises up through her cheeks, and you feel completely immersed.

Then Angela lets out a grunt through her gag and headbutts you straight upward. Your vision flashes white, and you can taste a little blood. Hers and yours, your fang doesn’t discriminate. Angela lets out a satisfied sigh and smiles at you.

And then, there is the greatest injustice. Before you can take revenge or even really get your bearings, Ksharta is back, looking slightly confused at the two of you as she sets down three bowls of her soup from the cauldron in front of you. Little herbs float on the surface and within you can see peppers and flecks of little seeds along with the meat from before. “Eat” she commands, and there’s really no choice in the matter.

It’s going to taste divine. A subtle palette of the herbal aroma and a slowly building numbing spice that makes you salivate with each bite of the meat. Even Angela is going to like it, though about halfway through she’s going to find it too spicy and have to take a five minute break just to drink water and let her mouth recover. She will smirk the entire time though, don’t doubt it.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giri nods at that. What else is there to say, one's hardly going to argue against a person whose stance is "yes, leave the innocents out of it." She beckons the Golden Banneret, then, tugging Azazuka's body along by the arm if need be so she's not left behind either. Scampering with foxes is one thing, but there's still a contract left unfinished and Han has quite the head start if Sagacious Crane was to be believed. Giri doubted they'd waited for a lavish breakfast with Han's sister running about, after all.

"Alright then, let's go."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel

A repair drone geist doesn’t get a complete humanoid form even as an aesthetic flourish. What you’re holding is instead something like an electricity spirit with a form not unlike its repair drone, although a bit thinner and shorter, like it nestled at the center of the drone. That means a round body with irregular borders as the electricity of the thing oscillates, with just enough features to represent a face and indicate direction of attention and activity for interactions.

“I…um…n-name?” the geist says, confusion rippling across its form as you press close to it. You can tell that it can feel the electrical energy from your hands, that so recently ripped it free of the drone swarm. It’s obvious in a visible shudder that runs through it, causing its borders to flicker. This is not a complex geist, but it has an understanding of the power you hold over it.

The bot swarm itself is now in a loose holding state floating above you, having ceased all work without its animating geist. The geist glances up at its bot swarm as though for inspiration “M-my designation is repair #1328, small and medium electronics repair protocol.”

If geists could blush, you imagine this one would be the brightest red. You’ve utterly overwhelmed it and it's struggling to manage even the most basic processing functions while doing its best to be compliant and a very good geist for you.

Assume that you’ve got free rein to enact a plan without anything else dropping in on you. How are you going to use this to approach the Kathresis?

***

Isabelle

Name? Name name name name? The word seems to bounce around your head like its a bouncy super ball thrown in a cathedral. Distantly, “M-my designation is repair #1328, small and medium electronics repair protocol” comes to you, but it’s like background static, an echo from somewhere else. Perhaps where Solarel is?

There’s a swirling of intent as you think about the oddness of the request, and then there is some understanding. You are dealing with a semi-autonomous drone system, organized for the convenience of the Trak’tho, under the primary control of caretaker and guardian spirit Tre’lasani. This generates images in your head of beings comparable to the spirit’s looks, vaguely Terenian humanoids with feathered arms. There are no words as such, this simply comes to your mind as a thought, like remembering something that was niggling at you until just a moment ago.

Messaging out of the planet is a simple matter in the abstract, you understand that you simply need to request it and a broadcast array can be activated from within the cavern system. There are two major problems though.

The first problem that you have is that this is very old technology, and that technology doesn’t have any data whatsoever on the new technology that your ships and stations use to communicate. That needs to come from you. Would you consider yourself enough of a comms expert to manually determine the right frequency and wavelength to broadcast for in-system communications to reach the intended recipient?

Your second problem is that off-system and off-planet aren’t the same thing. You’ve taken a hyperspace jump to reach the Aoi system, and getting a message out of Aoi can’t go any faster than the jump back to Akar can go. So whoever you’re trying to reach, immediate aid is going to be limited to Aoi system resources. That means a lucky passing Terenian transport ship, a small Terenian mining outpost, or perhaps a Zaldarian hold if you’re really feeling up to gambling.

It also occurs to you unbidden that a century is too short a timespan to demonstrate appropriate understatement in your circumstances.

***

Dolly

The chefs allow Ksharta to work. It’s kind of hard to say that it’s because of your bold statement. The way Ksharta is stomping around, well, you’ve seen kittens in your family get willful before and the options once they get in that mode are to let them have their way until they get tired or let them scratch and break everything they come across…also until they get tired. The chefs are not fools.

They are, perhaps, having their work disrupted though. They’re cooking for a large, mixed cook hall, so you might understand why they’d have gone for a somewhat bland, conservative recipe. Who knows if everyone here can eat their food. What Ksharta is doing will probably make it taste great for you (seriously, the Huntresses loved Ksharta for a recipe, she’s good at this), but it might drive off the Terenians and Zaldarians from Hybrasilian cuisine. Who knows, maybe the chefs here are even in some sort of competition with each other. It would make sense given that they were each working on separate types of food. Of course, it’s just as likely that it’s a more innocent explanation, like letting each chef work their specialty and then the visitors get to choose their preferred fare.

This is not to say that you were ignored. You invoked important Hybrasilian religion. And while, sure, these random chefs, long-stationed on Akar, aren’t going to be familiar with the details of Jade’s story in the way that folks back home might be, they get that you invoked a goddess’s protection and they’re not going to casually ignore that. It would be bad luck!

For her part, Angela laughs quietly into her gag. She’s been enjoying the whole spectacle and is just soaking it in. Maybe she’s trying to find weaknesses in Jade through all this?

Speaking of Jade, she’s a bit distanced from all of this, since you’re sitting by yourself holding Angela’s leash for a few moments while you take things in and stay out of the way of the kitten on a warpath. How much of what’s happening is Jade actually receiving, and through what filter?

***

Mirror

Marcina looks a little intimidated. Not actually scared, but there’s a physical reaction to that intensity of yours. Perhaps it’s that she’s very small and so, outside of a mecha, she’s learned to be careful of her physical space in a way that’s subconscious at this point. Maybe it’s that as a former champion and even before that a favored child of TC (surely raised in an environment that rewarded and exalted her for her natural talents) she simply isn’t treated with this sort of speech very often and so it surprised her. Perhaps it’s an affected reaction.

You can see the calculation happening behind her eyes as well. Whatever physicality your words have created, the woman before you is giving them her full attention and she is thinking very carefully about them. In fact, she probably responds to intimidation with this sort of calculation. You can almost see the words come into her head and start spinning about, being prodded and dissected from different angles until they’re stripped naked and fully explored. You can see, too, the building excitement as she does that analysis. It expresses itself in the slight lightening of her knuckles as they press into the arms of her chair.
She makes no move to take the money. Instead she says “I’ll still be paying for the drinks, though you’re free to leave the extra tip here if you like the service.” Then, casually, almost as an afterthought, she adds “you’ve been extraordinarily careful in your matches to date.” It’s a statement, not a question. She lets it hang there as she finishes her own drink, indicating that she’ll soon be going.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"So, do you want to take her with us?" Giriel asks once Sagacious Crane has disappeared into the inn to get her sister. They'll have a moment while she works the door. "Once we have Han with us, I doubt we'll be able to shake Sagacious Crane. She's always been the sort of person who thinks it's her job to tell everyone else how they ought to live. Not unlike the Dominion, really."

Giri laughs and hands Piripiri her teacup back, drained of its contents. If they're to pack up and leave, she'll be ready, or if they're to wait for Crane, she's content to relax and watch the wind blowing the grass between rainstorms.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel
The spirit has shaped a repair drone from a nanobot swarm. It appears as a solid drone, spherical, about half a meter in radius, but when it approaches a camera, it ripples and buzzes in flux. It shapes itself an arm from the nanobots to begin taking the camera apart. Perhaps the spirit thinks itself cunning, drawing from the resources of the station/facility/planet in this way, or perhaps it’s simply steeped in the use of nanobots to such an extent that it would entirely rely on them rather than have fully fabricated drones for this sort of function.

Regardless, the nanobots are efficient. They can extend a scanning appendage, subsume the camera, fabricate any necessary wiring, and then replace the fixed camera. The entire process takes only a few moments. There may even be several such swarm drones operating at the same time, limiting your ability to safely double back along the cave routes.

You can interrupt the drone at any time. It’s animated by a single simple geist of the same nature as Annika’s and obviously of this locale. It’s focused on a single function doing repairs and that function does not include area scanning for you.

This also feels like the tip of an iceberg. You’ve mostly run out of space in this facility. It goes several levels, but once you get deep enough you’re in natural earth and that eventually hits solid rock unconnected to any other cave systems. It seems like you’ve got three or so cave levels (some dip up and down but about three) and then at least two research levels and since you haven’t gone up perhaps it extends upwards a bit more. But all told this area you’re in is something like a large park in overall size and that’s it. The implication of flying a shuttle into the planet for this suggests so much more, but it’s not all right here.

Of course, thinking through what Annika wanted is a question for later, when you have finished being hunted/hunter. Right now, the question is what your play is with the drone?

***

Isabelle
“Heee, heeee!” Annika laughs. Despite being a Zaldarian who seems really into the black capes and mysterious cult aesthetic, she laughs with a high, girlish joy to her. “It worked, Crescent, do you realize what this means? It can work without Zaldarian geists, the biologic systems of the Terenians and perhaps even the Hybrasilians with the right catalyst can function with the Trak’tho technology!

She giggles with an infectious joy as she gathers herself to enter the facility door, before gathering herself. She and Crescent begin to stride off, but seeing you standing there somewhat stunned, she stops again, obviously mulling back over what you said, trying to think of the problem before she thinks she’s got it. “You are not in need of medical attention, the facility is adequately sterile and the cut will not be infected. Now come, we need to try and catch up with the facility guardian. Perhaps we can placate it before Solarel does anything else to anger it! Or at least collect data from her untimely destruction.”

She beckons you onwards, Isabelle.

Meanwhile, the nanobots sing in your blood. You can feel them like a…well it doesn’t hurt exactly. Do you know the feeling when you drink something cold and you can feel it move through your body from within? It’s kind of like that but moving up. It is surely too late to amputate the arm, this is going straight to the brain. But it’s useful. The immediate thing that you’re getting is a station blueprint. Perhaps that’s what the designers thought would be most useful for someone who was accessing its systems for the first time, and everybody loves a map on their HUD, right? Though this isn’t a HUD per se, it’s more like you just have a good mental picture of the place as though you’d walked through it twenty times, except that you shouldn’t have that information. There’s more you can get here, there is so much more. Too much actually, it’s an information overload problem and whoever designed these nanobots was aware of that so it’s not going to start dropping tons of information on you. You’ll need to ask for what you want and provide them with some kind of direction.

Meanwhile, what you’ve got is that this particular facility has six levels. The top level is personnel quarters, the level below that is laboratory facilities, the level you’re on now is entry and testing, and the three levels below are natural caverns used for storage and relevant experimentation.

Oh and Annika and Crescent are getting away, and they might be your only ride out of here.

***

Dolly and Jade

“Jade!” Ksharta shouts before realizing it. Not Dolly, no. You can tell she liked it, the first kiss was a bit of a surprise, but she was hot for the second one, hot for the apology kiss, hot even for the public embarrassment of it because no, you haven’t wildly misread Ksharta Talonna and sometimes kisses are just very good no matter what the context.

But, she was trying to do something right now, and the chefs are snickering and everybody is staring, and Angela is laughing to herself through her gag, which is going to make quietly having a nice cooking session with these folks a lot harder.

And Ksharta Talonna, in even this short time, knows whose feet to lay that at and it’s not Dolly. So, despite her piety and her service, in the moment, when the kiss is done, she shouts “Jade! I am trying to do some cooking! Goodness!” And then she humphs, turns around, and walks over to the chefs, doing her absolute best to make sure that she doesn’t overheat completely from shame, even as her brain catches up to the fact that she just mouthed off to a goddess oh god oh no she’s committed blasphemy oh Ksharta what you done it was nice why did you get mad at a goddess aaaaaah!

But she can’t turn around now, Dolly would see her blush, and the chefs would laugh at her, and she does want to fix the food, which is good but not quite right. “You need more spice” she says loudly, as she walks up to the chefs, ignoring their snickering and their looks. “And more herbs, this is too plain and you’re over-relying on the way Hybrasilians are conditioned to eat meat! Put in some pepper, and something more earthy, like this.” She starts walking past chefs and picking up ingredients from their station, adding them to the big soup cauldron.

She’s on a warpath now because if she does anything else, she will collapse utterly into self-deprecation.

***

Mirror

You’re given a bubble of space with Marcina as you draw the glyphs and speak. Others are drinking nearby, engineers, training pilots, reporters, everyone who forms the sort of host around a champion. But she has given you her full attention and part of their social agreement to be allowed access to her is to respect that. This does not mean your work is not remarked upon, but it does mean that you do not have a reporter who has made a perfect recording of this whole conversation. It’s for you and Marcina.

For her part, she listens intently as you work. One hand on her chin, leaning forward, eyes open with only an occasional blink. She takes a drink when you pause then leans forward again, and the scent of her breath is a faint aroma of pepper and cinnamon so near you.

When you’re done, she sighs. “Maybe you’re right. I want you to be right.” There’s a building intensity to her words in that, a deep heart of fire. “I want an opponent who fights like you claim you can fight, who will devour the Jormungar itself. Show me something to learn One Day Defender.”

There’s the heart of it. A driven girl like Marcina Villajero, she wants an opponent who can teach her something new, that’s what she hopes to get from you, why she recognized you and called you over. It must be an odd sort of hell for her. A studious girl who was eager to learn and grow and build her skills. Happily willing to compete for her society, with a keen mind and an undeniable talent who became The Best. Who do you study from when you’re The Best? Who can even be a peer? She doesn’t want Adriana’s business empire, nor Isabelle’s charities. She might have a family and friends she cares about supporting, of course, but her drive is all internal and to reach such a pinnacle when what she wants most of all is still to grow and to strive? That is a special sort of hell. She loves to excel, Marcina Villajero, and that means there is a great generosity to her character because she needs others to excel up to her level for any of it to mean anything at all.

To you, the same question you asked her. As you answer, tell her what you truly love most.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly and Jade

Ksharta smiles a small but genuine smile. “I had fun tonight. It was a lot more…um…wild than I’m used to. I mean, I mostly, um, well I hadn’t really been doing much since I joined the competition. I’d just make dinner privately, maybe talk to the engineers, read a bit, go shopping once in a while. It’s been weird not being part of the Huntress Lodge or my family. So, this was… wild but it was nice. I’m still…I mean, even if I add Jade to the goddesses I worship, I’m gonna give it my all next time we fight. I’m not gonna let you get away with the same tricks.” She smiles a different smile then, one with some teeth. “I could have won that match if I didn’t get flustered, I’ve been thinking about it, I mean, when there was time to um…think.” She blushes, the color darkening the stripes on her face, but she lets it ride. She allows herself to relax and purrs contentedly for a moment.

Even Angela lets her have this moment and does not interrupt with any squeals or groans. She’s clearly treating Ksharta as the follower in this whole setup. Not blameless, but far more innocent than you two.

Ksharta’s reverie is broken when she picks up a bowl and starts eating her own food. “The chefs here aren’t that great,” she says. “Let me just…I mean, if it’s okay with the goddess, I think I could improve their recipe a little bit.”

She tenses as if to stand, but looks to you for permission to go, and perhaps for companionship?

[If you want to roll a comfort and support, you can help her. She’ll appreciate that a lot.]

***

Mirror

Several of the guests laugh when you force down the cinnamon liquor. It’s not particularly mean-spirited as these things go, you’re simply providing some entertainment by committing as you did despite your obvious discomfort. A few of them will respect you more for it. Marcina does not laugh. She does not smile. Her demeanor is a little cold and she looks pained in fact.

She lets you recover, lets you speak your piece, but her answer is to the drink first, not the competition. “That was very stupid of me. Please accept my apologies. Your herbal drink is on me as well. I, and most people I know, find the taste of cinnamon pleasant, it’s no hardship and I am no steel queen. It was very stupid that I should assume a Hybrasilian would have the same tastes, and that I knew of you but not of your people. A mistake I’ll fix tonight.”

She doesn’t seem to mean the conversation with you in that statement. There’s no prompt for any further information, no demand to tell her about Hybrasil or important facts she needs to know. If anything, the sense you get is that she’s going to finish hanging out at the bar and go hit up a library of some sort rather than sleep. Perhaps she has access to a private collection or a source for the latest information coming into the system.

She sips her cinnamon and spice liquor and smiles at the taste of it, allowing it to lighten her mood, though her composure does not really slip at all. Then she holds up three fingers. “I am interested in you because your mecha is unique and so I think you are unique. I watched your last two matches and I looked up what I could of the pilot of that mecha. I’m not sure I entirely grasp the title of ‘One Day Defender’ from the war reports though, nor how you found your way to this competition.”

She lowers a finger, then lowers her whole hand briefly to take another sip, before returning to holding two fingers up. “I am seeded into the quarterfinals because of my victory last time. I’m in the upper left bracket. If I recall in the first round of eliminations, you’d want to be, hm I think it was 8th to face me as quickly as possible. Though of course we could meet in the semis with a variety of placements and in the finals in any event.”

That she states matter of factly. She has every confidence she’ll at least make it to the final and nothing she’s seen of the matches thus far has shaken it. She lowers the second finger. “Being eaten is not my wish, but it would please me to face you sooner and learn in the proces. You shouldn’t throw any matches though, each pilot ought to compete to the best of her ability in every match she’s in, should she not?.”

She stops, the question is not rhetorical. She wonders if you share that opinion.

[If you want any confirmed reads on Marcina, you can roll dice, or take her responses and demeanor as they appear.]

***

Isabelle

There are several feelings that occur to you at this moment. The first is that you just did something very very stupid. The second is a searing pain in your hand. The spot where you slammed it sharpened right as your hand came down and, well, we won’t get into the details, but you’ve got a deep cut on the lower edge of your hand, right about halfway between wrist and pinkie finger. The third is a strange, tingling sensation running up your arm quite quickly, and the fourth and last is something almost electrical between you and the door console.

Annika’s staring. So is Crescent. You aren’t aware of this because the nanobots that have entered your bloodstream are very busy doing something. Something strange, something that you’re not sure nanobots are supposed to be able to do. Something a lot more complex than a few people controlling some clothing with a wrist watch.

Annika grabs your hand then, the cut one. Grabs it hard, holding it like a pincer with her own. You feel something, one of the geists she’s been carrying. Some kind of exploratory program, distinct from the one that Solarel stole, but still similar to this facility somehow. She holds your hand tight as the geist interfaces and then, you can feel the door???

“Open it” she says. And you can, you know with absolute certainty that you can will the door to open. Do you?

***

Solarel

You see impatience. When you go through the floor, the Kathresis and its spirit crashes after you, heedless of the collateral damage. The spirit is using vision to guide its machine, and the rain of metal and dust that it creates by moving too quickly is the perfect cover for you to slip away. It gives you space to move, a head start before it knows your direction.

You run. You cut cameras with precision. This level is more natural, tunnels shaped and carved by nanobots following the easiest lines in the rock, the softest routes, avoiding structural supports. It feels less like a test facility as you go further down and more like a living planet. Not…literally, probably, but like the natural forces of cave systems and waterflow were long ago merged with the nanobot AI in a way that simply sculpted these caverns and continued to sculpt and resculpt them to maintain stability and some small amount of beauty.

Most of that beauty blurs by though, and it will have to be some other time that you stop to properly shine a light on the strange crystals forming on the walls down here or the pools of water that reflect nothing because of the perfect darkness.

The Kathresis still tracks you, you can tell from the whine of its crystal fire drive. A few times, it seems to even be close, the spirit trying to guess your route by where it is losing vision and you’re forced to rapidly change direction, doubling back on yourself and cutting into different corridors. Deeper and further, places with fewer cameras or none at all.

You can maneuver here, but any break you make for more developed areas will be tracked. You’re playing cat and mouse now. Which one are you?

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giri sips her tea, glad for the cup to hide her own blush. It was not entirely without pleasure to be noticed in such a way, but it was also humiliating. Crane would probably think Giri was into this. She might even be right!

"Sagacious Crane, as I live and breathe" Giri says, once she's lowered the tea, a smile playing on her lips. "I didn't recognize you either without your usual priestly radiance, your goddess must have had quite the trial for you with her foxes. Oh, how is little Han doing? I saw her a week back or so at a tea house and she seemed to have found herself a girlfriend, of all things. Can you believe it? Why I remember when she was running around covered in mud pretending to fight off an invading legion by herself." Giri chuckles. "Not that I'd give her better odds than our knights, mind you, but the spirit was there and she has grown up so fast, hasn't she?"

Giri pauses, both she and Crane collecting themselves a bit. "As for me, I suppose I'm enjoying myself. I'm giving my Hymairean...companion..." (slight hitch on the choice of words there) "...a tour of the region. Somewhat unintentionally, I must admit, our river barge ran aground some ways back. I suppose it hasn't all been enjoyment, we've had quite an exhausting journey. I don't know that we have the time to really regale you with it properly. It feels like we've been to hell and back though, if I'm being honest." Giri's lips twitch just a little at that and she barely resists the chance to glance backward at Piripiri.

She is wondering though. Is this what you're hoping for Piripiri? The little small talk might pry out a hint about where Han is. Or it might meander for a while, letting the young dragon drift further and further away while our banneret plays hide and seek with a fox.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel

“What are you?” the spirit asks. Fury still burns in its voice, but there is a sense of wonder, of curiosity in it as well. It doesn’t wait for an answer though. It points and power arcs from the back of the Kathresis. Engines that you could not see flare to life, the white fire of its drive so near the surface that behind it the metal blast plates seem to twist and warp like a heat mirage.

In a single heartbeat, the Kathresis dashes across the room towards you.

It’s beautifully fast. Its crystal fire drive system, set in such a small frame and absent any weaponry that needs to be actively ready, is going entirely towards speed. It's nearly upon you before you even have a chance to test your newly acquired weapons stock.

However, the spirit tries to direct it to avoid the sensitive scientific instruments, giving you a moment as it diverts around those tables towards the lockers. It banks left of you, passes through a gap in the space and comes for you at a partial angle as it runs along the wall, its right hand outstretched to grab you, the spirit perched on the right shoulder staring you in the face, one arm still upraised.

“You threaten my domain, and now you dare to claim a titan as your own. Even this small one will show you the truth of your weakness.” The spirit shakes its head. “But be assured, you have intrigued me. When I have crushed you properly, I will keep you here for interrogation and study.”

It's over if locks you in its grip. What do you do?

***

Isabelle

Crescent laughs, but Annika nods in a way that tells you that you are not the first and will be far from the last to imagine making love to an AI in a sturdy robotic frame.

It’s odd though. What you said about the security actually seems to be right. It wasn’t right before you said that. You were quite sure you were bullshitting on that point, at best a data spike inserted into the control panel should have offered you a new interface if you could bypass the security, but it shouldn’t affect the security itself, at least not without some kind of virus loaded into it. The beautiful advantage of direct hardware access is that at the end of the day you can put anything you want onto it if you know enough detail about where to put it. But what’s happening now is that the controls seem to be offering you an interface that’s got nothing to do with what was on the data spike directly. Instead, it’s responsive to how you made up the way it should function while the recording continues to play.

“No Amber” Iralina called. “I want no stars for my own, and I would not see you go so far. I want only you, your strength, your touch. Please, stay here with me.”

“Of course my dulcet heart, If it would please you, I shall never leave your side again.”
There’s an insight here, lurking just under the surface in how all this works. You might blush at the thought that Asil would probably already have it figured out. But you’ve done a lot of work on mecha plans, AI reactions, all the things that one could justify to themselves they ought to know as a pilot if they really enjoyed the engineering aspect of the work to a debatably obsessive degree. So, try something and see if you can grab at it.

***

Dolly (and Jade)

It takes a moment to bring your head back to reality. You sit down, sure, but even when Jade lets off enough of her tantalizing to let you eat a bit, your head is still spinning with thoughts of Mirror and Mayze, of dress designs and Jade’s combats and mysterious thoughts of girls whose spots didn’t form the right pattern and what that ought to mean.

The food’s half done before you even realize what you’re eating. Ksharta got you some of the meat in the soup broth. It’s good, very salty with a hint of Hybasilian herbs that give you just the slightest hint of euphoria to go with the meat and salt. Ksharta’s been scurrying off and back. She wasn’t sure what to get for Angela, initially brought her the spicy food because it was being made by Terenians but she hadn’t liked that one bit and Ksharta had raced off for water and settled on just bringing her the roasted meat, which she had busied herself cutting into small pieces to feed to Angela. The latter was bearing it with dignity.

Ksharta notices that you’re noticing her for the first time in a few minutes. “So, uh, is this how your evenings u-usually go?” She’s trying to sound cute and light, but she hitches a bit on it. You know enough to know she’s really saying this was a lot, right, it’s not just me? It’s a processing kind of question, but she’s already grinning and trying to move past the awkwardness of it. “I mean, not that you’d need to answer that or anything. I mean, I’m not sure if I’m even asking Dolly or Jade or um, should I be posing it formally to Jade’s high priestess maybe? But I mean, well, I guess it doesn’t matter because it’s a dumb question. And I mean, this was fun, is fun, we could do more! But um, also what do we do with our um…prisoner after dinner?”

So many questions for you Dolly! Some of them maybe even good ones!

***

Mirror

It seemed right to leave the planet after that whole exchange. Eventually you need to question your hangar crew, go back over anything they heard, even sounds that might have seemed innocuous. And you’ll need to get Slate up to speed on all the information you just shared and your new…acquisition. That will be fun, probably.

But going back to the Hangar is work and you have time before that. Even so, it somehow seemed right that you leave the planet. So you find yourself on Akar Prime, not at the jungle but at the Saloon by the spaceport.

It’s an interesting place and steeped in Terenian aesthetics. Well, if you could call them that. The spaceport and the saloon were part of the mining colony and that meant cheap, functional, and quick to build. So you get a lot of exposed pipes, open radiators, and square shapes with hard corners. Even the bar itself, built as a sort of central hub into the space, is square with four distinct counters and staff only entrance/exit sections on two of the four sides.

They did try to decorate to counter this somewhat. The tables are small and round in contrast to the surrounding walls. This makes them look almost a little sad, like they didn’t get the square memo and showed up dressed in the wrong style to the decor. The bar is doing a bit better. It’s lined with five tiers of shelves in its center, with hundreds of differently shaped and colored bottles with all sorts of interesting drinks in them. Some of them are tall and lithe, others squat and wide with big stoppers set into them. Some seem to have a bit of their own animating energy from within the bottle, and a few even glitter and shimmer in the dim light that shines translucent through them.

The attraction, aside from the scenery, is that Marcina Villajero is staying here for the present. Her actual quarters are upstairs, somewhere in the third to fifth floor of the building, probably higher up and in a fancy room. She is the champion of the last arena season, after all. Yet despite whatever fame or fortune her victory and previous wish may have brought, here she is fighting again. She won’t actually be competing in the round robin you’ve been in, of course. She’s seeded into the elimination matches as the current champion. Which, perhaps, explains why she has time to enjoy a drink and entertain some hangers-on.

She’s established in a table near the bar, a tall bottle at her table with something bright red about one third already emptied out. People are packed around it, a few sitting, most standing or squatting nearby. And the champion herself…well the rumors are true. She’s absolutely tiny. You’re actually taller than she is, she barely crests five feet and if she weighs more than a hundred pounds, it would be shocking. The short hair in a pixie cut really makes you think of ancient Hybrasilian myths of small forest-dwelling spirits who would waylay the unwary, and the bust-revealing short black dress she’s wearing does not dissuade. She looks like she’s enjoying her drink though. She’s conversing with a man who’s kneeling next to her chair about something.

The party seems to have been here for some time and some of these folks might be security for her. If not, people are being damn respectful all on their own. Nobody is going up and trying to demand her attention, they’ve simply gathered around her and have now started mostly conversing among themselves in a general din of noise.

Despite her distraction, she sees you when you come past the bar, pauses with the man, and calls out to you. “Hey, you, Hybrasilian. You’re Mira Fisher, right? Pilot of the Nine-Tail God-Smiting Whip? Come have a drink, my treat! Whatever this is, it tastes like cinnamon and fire.” And she grins and holds up her glass to you.