Tatterdemalion

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Zoooooooooooop!

That's the sound of a foxgirl getting sucked into a suit of armor. Your energy courses through the armor, which is handmade, which was made with the money of another, which is very frighteningly powerful now that you're powering it, which is like tumbling down a flight of stairs and then being sucked right back up the stairs, which is Xingtian's middle finger to everyone who doubted them, which is The Inexorable March Of The Past Against The Moral Dissolution Of The Future...

And then you manage to pull yourself into the backup capacitor to hide while the rest of your glorious fire is unleashed upon a Flower Mountain enforcer who is frantically running and leaping and trying not to get turned into barbecue by a villain who very much wants them to become said barbecue. The roof is starting to cave in, which would be really bad for everybody who lives here, and also everybody on the floor above. Not the whole building unless the outer and inner supports get melted. Well, a majority of the supports. Well, enough supports that the rest can't handle the strain. But that's probably a good 60%, what kind of idiot civic planner would let a skyscraper collapse into some sort of skyscraper graveyard with less than half of its support gone? It's not like there's 60+ floors above this one are weighing it down too much, after all.

Mentally, the backup capacitor is a prison defined by too much light, potential building up, ghosts stacked on top of ghosts stacked on top of ghosts like green-grey wailing lasagna. Presumably, you're the one who is making it such, using your incredible brilliant mind to turn this into something you can interact with; presumably, you're also the one who put yourself in the mandatory genie outfit and chained yourself to the walls. And, tragically, there's nobody here to leer at you and how hot you look right now.

This is the bit where Empress should show up and pull Xingtian out of the building, toss them up in the air, reinforce the support beams, and catch Xingtian on their way down. But instead, outside, a familiar cinnabar-red scarf wraps around Xingtian's head, and the Vermillion Princess makes a valiant but doomed attempt at pulling Xingtian off their feet, instead just sending herself scrabbling for footing. "Stop this, malefactor," she squeaks. "Innocent people are going to get hurt!" (On one level, you're aware of this because of Xingtian's excellent sensory array in the helmet. On another, it's a TV flatscreen outside your cell.)

---

Rain!

At that very moment, the sun drops behind the mountains, and night descends upon Sky Gate City.

You plummet right through the floor. And the one beneath that. And the one beneath that. And these skyscrapers have decent amounts of space! Finally, you manage to time going unspectral just close enough to the floor that you're able to roll with the chair, absorbing most of the landing on yourself, and neither of you sustain serious injuries.

Still, that's got to sting, right? If you'd panicked and just zapped right back into existence at the top of a floor, you might have sustained serious injuries, not to mention the guy in the chair probably would have gotten a concussion or worse. Your adrenaline is spiked, your heart is racing, and for a minute all you can do is cling to the chair and try to regain control of your body.

[Mark a Condition.]

There's a glow outside. Probably the fires, all weirdly green, because of the ghosts. The lights are off in the private office you've tumbled into, and you have no idea if you are once again on camera or not. If you're lucky, there's just an alarm on the front door, wherever that is. But take a moment and just... celebrate not being dead. More dead, that is.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

The dreadful helmet turns to face you; behind this imposing figure, there is the creak of chairs and tables being shoved aside as the masked enforcer starts digging her way out of the mess of the restaurant. Even with the added height, there's something incredibly solid about this figure; a mountain may weather a wildfire and still remain standing when the wildfire's fury has burnt out completely. In a fight, who's to say whether or not that suit of armor would melt underneath your hands?

Then the villain pumps an armored fist in joy. "Finally! Heaven Has Sent Me A Sign That My Quest To Cleanse This City Of Its Filth And Moral Decay, As Embodied In The Dockside Gangsters Whose Corruption And Iniquity Reveals Itself When Given The Slightest Excuse, As Well As The "Deep State" That Has Accumulated Around The Homunculus That They Created Using The Semen Of The Real Mayor, Is Righteous, Pure And Holy! Join Me, Sylph Of The Highest Airs, In Wiping These Vermin Off The Face Of Our Fair City, Which We Will Rule Together In The Name Of Heaven!"

Various dials (previously looking decorative) suddenly spin, and the ghostfires begin to pour back into the armor, limning the armor in light and, inadvertently, pulling you towards Xingtian. It's... possible that you could get sucked into however that armor's powered and become an adorable trapped power source if you don't shuck that fire off of your, for lack of a better word, self. The air around the two of you is full of shadowy light, incredible heat, and the moaning of the dead disturbed from their rest.

[Xingtian wants you to raise your Savior and drop your Mundane!]

---

Rain!

Here's the thing. He's a tough-looking guy. Like, he hits the gym regular. He's got some neck tattoos, he's got the build of someone who went for body mastery over looking impressively bulky, and he's got the kind of stubble that would drive someone into that sort of thing wild.

Not the kind of person who leaves a phone in a glittery peach-themed case (the fruit, not the princess) kicked under the couch. Or the kind of person who has college textbooks on the history of the Republic, auspicious construction, and modern economics in their trendy, deceptively expensive backpack. More the kind of person who looks after the kind of person who lives here.

The person who is very definitely not here, and probably wouldn't have left their phone behind. As if the lack of a trap waiting for them here wasn't enough to convince you of that. As for anything else worth grabbing-- well, it's not like you're looking for anything expensive, right? If you wanted to go into burglary (that's the right crime, right?), the paintings: cut them out of the frames, roll them up and rubber-band them. Which whoever hit this place didn't do, that's another point in favor of the obvious conclusion: that whoever lives here is currently not here, and not of her own free will, which is almost certainly related to the fire.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Hsien!

The biggest threat is obviously Xingtian. Every step they take is full of menace. Remember the bit where they peeled open steel doors with their gauntlets cracking open that bank? They’re also the cause of the fire that’s threatening this entire level of the Providence Tower. Fire is one of the five noble elements, but beyond the risk to the upper levels of the tower, which contain more residential areas and businesses (and some important government offices once you get past the fortieth floor), there’s also the risk of this fire damaging the structural integrity of the building.

Sky Gate City has (as far as you know) never had a skyscraper collapse. There’s a lot of failsafes and safety mechanisms built into every building in the city, to avoid the kind of corner-cutting tragedies that were common in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but water isn’t effective against this ghost-fueled fire.

Here’s an extra bit of intuition for being a good girl with such adorable triangles: this feels like a shell game, but Xingtian’s not the dealer, they’re the cup. Or possibly the table.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Exterior shot: the late afternoon sun casting its rays through the skyscrapers of Sky Gate City, painting their white-and-chrome surfaces with fire, drowning the color of the ubiquitous gardens and trees in shadows. The clouds rolling in off the mainland are hiding the penthouses and the glider pads, the blinking warning lights and the cloudfishers, leaving only the pillars standing between heaven and earth. The shadows are sharper than usual, harshly defined, and the lights switching on feel feeble in the face of night rising up from the sea.

---

Once upon a time, there was an old man who taught criminals the laws of the jianghu, the world beneath the city, the world of sewers and basements and access tunnels, of hidden dojos and stuttering neon lights, of tournaments and fat stacks of cash and, above all, honor. If a criminal did not have honor, even while breaking the law, what could they ever have?

The Flower Mountain rotated around the axis of that man: mastermind, martial artist, and enforcer of law on the lawless, the law that was the only constraint on those who had mastered their bodies and their abilities. And now that man is dead.

Which is why there is a fire spreading on the twenty-sixth floor of the Providence Tower, inside one of the residential blocks, and the outer windows are beginning to buckle and blacken from the heat.

---

"Pathetic Worm!" Xingtian raises their fist and, from one of the elegant flowers wrapped around their wrist, green-blue-black fire gushes forth, and underneath the hiss of fire is the howl of unquiet spirits. Spectral light throbs across their armor like blood pulsing through the body, and fire licks at the hem of their cloak. Like the snarl carved into their helmet, it's the kind of fashion statement that you have to earn. "You Are All Disgusting Parasites! In My New City, I Will Purge Your Vermin Dens With Cleansing Fire And--"

The Triad enforcer known as Ox jinks to one side, rolls, grabs a foldable bicycle someone abandoned in the chaos, and smashes it across Xingtian's helmet. And, to her credit, Xingtian takes two steps back, rocking on their heels. She follows up with two kicks to the head, sloppy Seven Shadows style, and then gets blasted through the front window of a Viet restaurant by Xingtian's Ghost Cannon, careening through tables and chairs.

Foxpearl! Xingtian's first appearance in the city was robbing from a bank, and there they got away after flying up into the clouds. But that crime had a lot more posturing and smashing through steel doors with that suit of armor, and a lot less fire everywhere in the middle of a nice neighborhood. You've got a vantage point from above (what kind?), and doubtless a theory on what's going on.

---

"Okay, everybody, let's go! You're going to be okay! Keep moving! Don't stop until you get to Tranquility, there should be city personnel there to help you! Nothing here is more valuable than you are! Make sure that you have all your family members!"

You can still distantly hear the Vermillion Princess, Rain. She's traded off going through the apartments on this floor and making sure everyone's evacuated to you, and now she's doing her best to act like the hero of the city, a beacon of calm authority that people can look up to in case of emergency. The slight warble in her voice doesn't matter; she's still making sure that this doesn't turn into a full-blown panic and nobody gets trampled.

You, however, have just found someone who hasn't evacuated.

That's because he's unconscious. And also tied to a chair.

Even by the standards of SGC apartments (tall ceilings, multiple rooms, designed to handle a family comfortably if necessary), this one is fancy. There's a decorative fountain in one corner, non-standard security cameras (the chair being at an intersection of a couple lines of sight), and a somewhat gaudy taste in wall decorations. That's an entire-ass halberd hung in the hallway, for example. And your brain's gonna be running through possibilities while you untie him, anyway, so why don't you scope it out?

Breathless Dead

"It won't work," Ember says, with conviction. "I will be good; I will follow your orders, Alpha. But she will smell betrayal on me if I come to her with secrets in my teeth, and she will defeat me, and you, and us, the pack entire, if we come at her with howling on our breath." Around her, the murmurs; she stares straight ahead, hands folded, ears perked, a signpost for the clan.

"And you know that." She takes a breath. Gulps. "The only path where Mosaic of Beri can be taken prisoner is one where she hands herself over to the pack willingly. She will not do this if I ask her; she will fight you instead, for daring to order me to ask her. You must take me prisoner and put me in peril which only you can defuse, and she will yield in order to save me. All this I share with you, packmate, Alpha of our clan, fellow daughter of Ceron."

She places one hand on her sword, drips Challenge onto the dirt. "But as a fellow daughter of Ceron, I cannot submit to betrayal of a lover." Her ears burn. This is the first time she's admitted to her packmates that what she feels for Mosaic is deeper than teasing a cutie and wringing information out of good boys and girls. "For her sake, I challenge you. Face me in any art and I will surpass you."

She won't. She knows she won't. This ends with her being used to embarrass Mosaic. But loyalty to a true lover is as virtuous as loyalty to the pack; she owes Mosaic this doomed fight to save her as much as she owes her pack information on how to overcome Mosaic. And if she, impossibly, wins, then she can throw her new weight behind Gemini's plan.

This is the way. Every Ceronian holodrama that Goldie has shared with her agrees. And Mosaic would understand too, wouldn't she? She might roll her eyes, she might make her lover a target of her barbed wit, she might even toss Ember off a cliff. But she knew she was falling in love with a Ceronian, and the bonds of the pack are just as much chains as the bonds of the heart (Beneath the Blood-Wetted Moons, dir. Xiophilina Entressus). So what if she will still lose? A knight is a humiliation-seeking device (The Knight of the Forfeit, dir. Nathan Svensson) and to share bonds with a lover is the third aim of romance (Dragon Among Lotuses, dir. "Simplicitas Pirata").

But Mosaic is worthy of being the cause of her first true pack challenge. Will you honor that, Taurus? Or are you jealous of her immeasurable virtues, not least of which is the thing she can do with her tongue?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

If the eye of the goddess was elsewhere, she could cut off the flight of the Zaldarian. If her attention was on Angela, she could shut a door, pen the knight in, give her a chance to catch up. She could read how Angela slows down, keeps an eye out for traps as she follows in the knight's wake, remembering the mine that ended their last battle together. The underhanded ploy, the trick that wins the battle. But her eye is drawn elsewhere. It is focused, entirely, on Seven Quetzal reaching up and patting her mouth, asking for permission to speak. Permission that the goddess grants her high priestess.

Dolly licks her lips as her gag turns to smoke, fades away by the magic of her goddess. The goddess perched on Valynia's shoulders, trying very hard to look casual, staring intensely at her. The goddess who is trying to give her a space pirate despite the roiling emotions in her heart, who is trying to find a way to incorporate Valynia into their play without melting down so that she can... carry out a plan? She never asked Jade about Valynia's plan, about her offer to incorporate Jade into the pirate gods. She opens her mouth, lets out a pathetic little huff, tries to find her words even as the pirate undoes her finger by finger, nibble by nibble.

"What do I want? I... I want the adventure," she admits to herself and to her goddess and to Ksharta Talonna and to Angela who is cursing at the receding back of Solarel. "That's why we're out here. The stars, and the aliens, and the pirates. But I want everyone to see Jade, too. She picked me. Out of everybody on Hybrasil she picked me to help her show the universe her glory, her divinity, and... when you kidnapped me, I. Well. Well." The inquisitive vibrates through her flesh.

She wants Valynia Bander. She's dangerous and takes what she wants and is the star of Dolly's teenage fanfics come to frustratingly sexy life. But there's a dangerous edge to being with her, too. The loss of control. The way that she wants to use Jade. There was tension and worry in that kidnapping, even while she got memories she'd only just started to blushingly share with Jade. Worry that she was going to be used to blackmail Jade, to make her serve the Banders, to be married off to a hot handsy pirate who saw her as a pawn. Jade is watching her intently. Is this all part of the plan? Valynia is tugging at the sensitive spot on the back of her neck.

What can she even say? I want you to teach Jade how to be you? I want to be your captive queen, since Angela is my rival and Ksharta is my student? I want you to pin me down and tie me up, to smuggle me out of the party in luggage, to show your Red Band how easy it is to kidnap me? I want you to be my villain, but safely, but dangerously, but in a way that won't hurt Jade? The heat of you, the smell of you, is driving me wild? I wish Jade had a body like this? No, I don't, I love her as she is, but your body makes me weak in the knees in a different way?

"If you promise," she says, as serious as she was piloting the idol by herself. She pushes back, dares to try to assert herself. "Promise me that she will be your goddess. That you'll make her your patron, and when you rule the Red Band that Jade will be the first one in your temple, the highest idol, the, the goddess of the Jade Band. You'll rename the entire pirates. The entire! You'll be the Jade Band! And Ksharta Talonna gets a free pass through your territory forever! Then..."

She swallows, dizzy, giddy. What she's getting from Jade is shock, but she's committed. For you, Jade. This time she won't fail. If this is what you want, then Seven Quetzal will perform miracles for you, too. As thanks. As a promise. And because she's very, very horny right now, and that gives her courage, too.

"Then I will fight as hard as you want," she says, and shoves Valynia Bander backwards, as hard as she can. Only a step or two, but it's enough. She pushes her hair back out of her face, lifts her chin, tries not to melt. "I will be a worthy conquest. You'll have to do your worst. Your worst. I'll scream. If you want. I'll try to escape. I'll use everything Angela taught me." (She should not have blurted that out.) "And. I'll enjoy it. Especially if you let me out for a chase every now and then. Planet to planet. A sacred hunt. My chance to see the universe with her again, your chance to catch me again, to take what you want, to... make me a prize. A trophy. Your Dolly."

"Dolly, you don't have to do this," Smokeless Jade Fires says, stepping between them, small again, flustered, her hologram-body fuzzy at the edges. "We're going to win the tournament anyway. You don't have to sell yourself to Banders just to glorify me!" Just to glorify her. Her heart's tearing. She steps forward, interlaces her fingers with her high priestess's gloves, even in front of the Bander, because she has to touch. She has to touch, as much as she can. She has to hold her beloved's hand. The high priestess who would do anything for her, and so it's up to her to look out for her sweet, vast-hearted bride.

"I can do this," Dolly whispers back, loud enough for Valynia to hear. "Like you wanted. I want to do this. Like in "Nine Parsecs Deep." The lodge back home will be... disappointed, but you'll have more worshipers than ever, you'll be able to change them, you and me and Valynia and Ksharta and maybe even Angela. That's why you told me to, you know... to seduce her."

"I what?!?" The goddess's jaw hangs open, without her even telling it to do so, moving on its own. A strange miracle that just adds to the shock it cannot help but express.

"You... when I was kidnapped... I thought you were ordering me to... that's why I..." Dolly's eyes flicker between her goddess and the pirate who she wants to pin her to the floor. She's overheating. "Did you not?! I could feel you being all seduction and want and... oh goddess." She slumps to the floor, and she can't even hide her face because Jade's still holding her hands. "...I really hope it worked?" Her look to Valynia is pleading, mortified, hopeful, insecure, vulnerable. "I still... mean it. About. I'll make that trade for... it's not even a trade. Everybody gets what they want. You get Jade's blessings. And Jade gets all of you. And I get to discover if... well... I... you know? And you get me. You get me. I want to be. gotten. Even if, I, and the seduction, and... do you still want me, Valynia?"

Jade turns to look at her rival, her potential cult leader, the impudence of Mu Ysha made flesh. The only person in the tournament who could really, truly take Dolly away from her. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius plays games, and Ksharta Talonna wants to be cherished, but Valynia Bander wants to challenge her for Dolly, to give Dolly the kind of special pleasures that only Jade could give her before, and to make Dolly a captive queen. Fear roils inside of her; fear of losing the ball game. Of being hung on the tree again. And if she lost Dolly then nobody else could fill her. Not Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, not Ksharta Talonna, not Whispered Promise. A memory not her own surfaces from within her, hugging a beloved bird-doll so tight that part of her worried that it might pop, nuzzling it like it was the only thing in the whole world.

Her whole world, sitting on the floor, looking up vulnerable and hopeful at Valynia Bander, the way that she'd looked up at her that first night.

And she can't even grab Valynia Bander and shake her by the front and toss her up and down in the air.

"No," she declares, before Valynia Bander can answer that dangerous question. The sudden sharp sting of disappointment from Dolly hurts even more. "As if I would need the worship of this, this scum! This pathetic bandit trying to take what the gods have not allotted for her! It is an insult to you and to me that she even thinks herself worthy of touching you! Why doesn't she keep her hands to herself, or better yet, why doesn't she go and hide under a rock somewhere? You, you handsy, stinking, reeking, oversexed, presumptous thief! She doesn't need you! Go keep your temples and your brands and your musk and your ion cannons and go fuck yourself with them! And then you can--"

Everyone feels it at once. Ksharta, curled up under the table. Angela, almost caught up to Solarel making her way to her mecha. Jade, phantasmal, up in Valynia's face. They all feel Dolly burying her face in her gloved hands, sobbing in embarrassment and shame and the backwash of Jade's overwhelming fear and the shock of betrayal.

And Valynia Bander gets to see, face to face, a goddess's world come crashing down around her ears.

[Insecure: take rash action to confront the object of your jealousy. Harmony drops when: one of you feels neglected or scorned by the other.]

Breathless Dead

"ShhhshshSHHH!"

Mosaic fixed her with a flat stare. The kind that made Ember feel small and silly and flustered. "Are you that ashamed of me?" The question was almost certainly a bit of barbed wit, but Ember wasn't about to let that pass, just in case. Just in case. Mosaic deserved nothing less.

"No," Ember whispered, Sincerity misting her breath, the bright orange-yellow of flowers on the mountainside, the sky at dawn as the sun broke free from the sea. "I don't want you to get in trouble for being found, like this, with a Ceronian. You might be arrested, or ostracized, or trapped underneath a very large rock!" In her mind's eye, she pictures Mosaic with her head and shoulders sticking out from underneath a mountain, chin cupped in her palm, glowering at the world for witnessing the shame of her being trapped by something too heavy for her to lift. She'd scare the sun down earlier and earlier every day, until dusk stopped existing. And then everyone would say: Ember, it is your fault that Mosaic has scared the sun into jumping down out of the sky every day. You should have known better than to seduce her and then let her get caught. You are a bad girl and you are on laundry duty for the rest of your life.

Mosaic stared at her very, very hard. Her lips twitched. That's a smile, right? She's trying not to smile? It's easier with her packmates, who broadcast what they're feeling, what they want her to feel. Mosaic just smells like Home. Like safety, and exertion, and the oil she uses for her hair. On first sight, Ember had lusted after Mosaic; on first sniff, she'd fallen in love.

Then Mosaic rolled over on top of her, pinning her down like the mountain, the muchness of her flesh sending Ember's heart racing like an athlete down some sort of prized contest's track. In the back of her head, she could hear Taurus scolding her, telling her that what she's feeling is what she needs to ignite in the hearts of her targets. The perfect operative uses desire as a leash and a garrotte, depending on what is needed to complete their mission. Between their legs, Ember's tail thwapped helplessly against Mosaic's voluptuous thighs, and underneath her, Ember held her breath, staring adoringly into the gold and the ruby of her mistress's eyes.

"I guess we'd better be quiet, then," Mosaic said, and clamped her palm over Ember's mouth. "There. Now you can't 'get me in trouble.' Is that what you wanted, Emb...?" A narrowing of the eyes, and then the curl of a lip back from a fang, one that knew Ember's neck and breasts well. "Oh. I see. No wonder you're always letting yourself get punished by that pack of strays. Well, I won't be shown up by them." Challenge glinted in Mosaic's eyes, and Ember realized that she was sweating out Lust again, hot-pink tongue-drool spread-lips Lust, growing damper with every half-hearted squirm and muffled meep beneath her lover.

This place would be obvious to any passing packmate for days.

---

"So, like, did the Earthshaker point anything out to you specifically~?"

A good girl shakes her head. A good girl flicks an ear. A good girl does not struggle more.

"Of course not, what am I sayyyying. He shows up in person for, like, the death of planets. You ever seen him, Emby?"

A good girl... isn't sure. A good girl doesn't remember, so a good girl shakes her head.

"Thought not. Wouldn't that just be wild, though, packie? Seeing Poseidon show up and knowing, ooooh, shit, we're sooooooo fucked. Well, maybe not us. Everybody else, though. Maybe us. If we were slipping. Probably not. We're his wavecaps. His silly rabbits."

You've always got to have a spotter for breath-holding exercises. Goldie volunteered. So she's lounging on top of Ember, wearing a strategically torn looted top over her wetsuit, presumably all Joy as usual. It hangs around her like a cloud, like the dye in her hair, like the oil on her cheeks, like the smile on her lips, like the servitors tripping over themselves to get her attention. Both of them are hiding out in the mayor's offices, away from most prying eyes, where Goldie can take a break from being adored and Ember can be face-down, hogtied, and buried in Gemini's craftsmanship without making anyone wonder if the wolves are turning on each other.

If she takes a breath, she'll regret it. Chastisement, blossoming hot and red and intense in her nostrils, and Disappointment hanging low and heavy underneath. In a real fight, Ember, this breath might be the one that makes you start drowning. Goldie will keep track for you and change out your gag every few hours; let's see how well you can do for the clan, little wolf. And a knowing smile, a caress of her cheek, a reminder of the incredible high of being loved by the pack.

And yet, unbidden creeps in the thought of Mosaic opening the door, tossing Goldie out the window with one hand (not that Goldie deserves it, she's one of Ember's pack favorites, but Mosaic absolutely would), asking Ember what she'd gotten herself in to this time, tossing her over one shoulder, maybe spanking her a little, and carrying her off as a trophy, daring anyone in the pack to fight over her. For her. Unable to so much as squeak, feeling Mosaic's hand on her side, paraded out in front of the village as Mosaic carried her off as a prize, telling Gemini to her face that she'd trained Ember too well in seduction and sensuality...

"You're doing real well, Embs," Goldie continues. "Too well. How about a little challenge?" Her claws whisper up and down Ember's sides, the soles of her feet, right behind her ears, as Ember strains every muscle in her body and grinds her forehead into the floor, holding her breath like a true warrior, seconds stretching out into infinity waiting for the playful gold-dyed Ceronian to end the semi-random spike in difficulty, each and every one of her strained whimpers swallowed up into the thickness of Gemini's cloth, almost as beloved as Mosaic's palm.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

How Do You Do, Fellow Teens?

• Vermillion Princess - dork, colleague, bearer of the Armillary Sash
• Bai Xiuying - transbian grad student, bass player for BABALON

Old Enough To Know Better

• Director Li - runs the HOUND Rapid Response Team, thinks guns keep people safe
• Stone Monkey - wants to run the city's jianghu so that he can do whatever he wants
• Tiger King - wants to run the city's jianghu so he can profit off crime
• Doctor Huan - desperately trying to explain to the funding committee that she didn't cause the ghost crisis
• ArAN - Tumblr illustrator who hit the big leagues, nearly didn't make this list but is barely old enough to be an Adult(tm)
• Joshua Chan - runs on coffee, runs Terochimomo Net Cafe

Respect Your Elders

• Empress - bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, Hero of the Republic
• Kirin - sorceress supreme, diviner of possible futures
• Lady Foxfire - lost a tail in her last fight with Empress, vanished into one of her many secret identities
• Jade Mayor - on his eighth consecutive term in office

Mysteries

• Xingtian - apparently the power source they needed for their armor was ghosts
• Thunderbird - apparently the power source they needed for their winged jetsuit and lightning cannon was ghosts
• Helldiver - apparently the power source they needed for their dimensional-hole-tearing gauntlets was ghosts

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

The promise of Sky Gate City is the promise of the nation: that no one goes hungry, that no one goes without treatment, that no one lacks the opportunity to make something of themselves. The Big Peach is the shining jewel of the Republic, built to exacting geomantic design in order to promote good fortune and prosperity for all.

But the promise is for sufficiency, not the fulfillment of dreams, and there’s no magic spell that can cure human nature.

In Welcome to the Big Peach, you read about Hsien Lang as she uncovered the mystery of her origins as the tail of Lady Foxfire, lost in her last battle with Empress and Kirin; you fell in love with Rain Lanahe, the grad student pursuing the mysteries of magic and science; and you marveled at the heroics of the Vermillion Princess, mystically empowered by the Armillary Sash.

You were shocked by the death of the Grandmaster of the Flower Mountain Triad at the hands of a mysterious assassin, which sent the city’s jianghu into uproar. You were on the edge of your seat when Rain got herself sucked into the underworld during the Night of Eight Million Ghosts. You winced as the Jade Mayor announced that the chaos in the streets could only be met by a special task force, given Empress’s heroic effort holding the Doors of Yama shut. And you had to wonder:

Is HorizonCon really going to be canceled just because of a few mad scientists and an outbreak of ghosts?

Find out in Ghost Gate City…

Breathless Dead

Of course the rest are for fun. Gemini is all about fun.

She's the Fun Mom of the pack, where Taurus is more serious. (Ignore that Taurus is about the same age as Ember; age isn't important to the Silver Divers, just experience and competence. The only requirement for being leader of the pack is proving, over and over again, that you are the leader of the pack.) When there's plunder to be won, Gemini is there. She's the one who receives the loot and the one who parcels it back out, stopping arguments over ownership before they can even begin. When there's a party to be had, Gemini is the one at the middle of it, playing scent like a harp, supremely indulgent but never losing control of her self. Taurus wins arguments by wrestling her opponents into submission, but Gemini wins arguments by making them never happen in the first place, or redirecting their energy when they happen.

Both of them are happy here. That's part of why they offered pack membership to Ember; they took pity on her and wanted to let her share in their joy.

Even so, approaching Gemini while she's working/playing is difficult. The crystal-clear images in Ember's head keep her from veering off to play, despite the squirming clerks all around, tied to chairs dragged out from their archival office, drowning in Indulgence and Defeat and Invitation, with scritchies and ear-rubs and kisses from passing Ceronians, and with the conductor in the middle of the sharing circle, sunglasses perched on her forehead, dressed in a loose gown with flowing sleeves, a vision worthy of an Azura master-painter as she runs a bolt through her hands, soaking it with artisanal scents, impossible to look away from as she stoops and pulls it snugly over just the right clerk's face, her sleeves whispering against their bound arms as she knots it snugly into place...

But Ember is a good girl. She stands to attention and radiates Urgency. Two of the clerks start struggling harder, ears twitching, trying to look anywhere that isn't a wolfgirl, only able to slowly rotate in the spinning chairs, but that's enough to get Gemini's attention. The sunglasses come down with a huff, and if she wasn't here on serious business, Ember would be tucking her tail between her legs and trying to make herself smaller, apologizing for interrupting Gemini's art.

"Share your report."

"I was on a training exercise," Ember dutifully recounts, hands behind her back, legs apart, chin up. Respectful stance, as befits the pack omega. "I still remember the exercise data and can recount it if you want. However, while returning to base, I encountered something new and noteworthy on two separate occasions." Gemini nods. There is no fear in Ember, only the relief of being able to share her sense experience. "First, while diving off the coast to avoid patrolling Corvii, I saw a dragon in the sky above, fifty meters above the water. It was five meters long, nose to tail. It was translucent, but filled with colors and light; I don't know if it can hide the colors to make itself more difficult to spot. The impression was crystal, not glass. From its mouth it projected a grid of light on the seabed, and this grid highlighted three-dimensional objects, including myself. After I was scanned by the grid, it focused the grid into a laser which it used to alert the Corvii patrols. Notably, it didn't attempt to use the laser to disable me, and it didn't chase after me. It's possible that it represents new discoveries in silicate-based biomancy, but I believe it's a relic of the gods, possibly Apollonian in nature."

Gemini nods. Not the nod of a new discovery for her, but of something she isn't surprised was new to Ember. Bashfulness coats Ember's inner arms. She's still the sapling, still the cub. But she hasn't done anything wrong; she's done exactly what is expected of her as a member of the Silver Divers by reporting this.

So she continues.

"I was pulled deeper out to sea by an unnatural current that I believe was a sign from the Horsefather. After swimming for approximately thirty minutes, approaching the limits of my ability to sustain my breath, I discovered what I was being shown: a structure of cyclopean size and make on the seabed. I can't estimate its length or height, but it was like a mountain range on the bottom of the sea. The water around it was polluted, and my instincts told me that it was leakage from the structure. In delirium, I approached the structure despite the toxicity of the water around it and had a vision which was difficult to interpret. It involved stars, and a star beneath the water, and crew instead of attendants. My original guess was that it was a temple built by humanity and drowned, intentionally or otherwise, by some change in the planet's climate, given its impossible scale. However, after having the vision, I think it's some form of starfaring craft, one which would require the entire clan to function at its barest minimum. I estimate that, drained and made functional, it could carry multiple Ceronian warhosts, or an entire planetary population. As I left, in need of air and disturbed by the nature of the vision, the Warsphere in orbit approached the site. I don't know whether they were previously aware of the site. It is possible that they have been charged with keeping us unaware of the site and now will need to escalate in an attempt to drive us away, but I think it's more likely that they were also unaware of the site and that they will move immediately to secure it. However, we have the edge in war in our patron's domain. We can take it and secure it, perhaps even repair it if my instincts about its purpose are correct."

Ember licks her lips.

"Do you still want the information from my training exercise, Gemini?"

Probably not. This is more serious than one of her training games. But she can't assume. It's possible Gemini will want her to recite the information just to prove that she is capable of holding it all in her head. She stands in submissive attention, waiting for her Alpha to require more of her or to dismiss her. She is Not looking at the clerks. It would be really fun to be told she can do whatever she wants now. There's one with a mop of curly hair and a lap that's begging for her to sit down in as she practices her own tactical pheromone usage with scarf and kiss and the remnants of his stuffy buttoned shirt. But she can't yet. She hasn't finished her duty until Gemini tells her she can stand down.

Ember is, after all, a very good girl. The one who takes this seriously, because she's the bottom of the pack. The one who takes this seriously, because the god of the Silver Divers has given them a sign. The one who takes this seriously, because she's so hungry for praise. And the one who takes this seriously, because Gemini might toss her right back to Plundering Fang, who might pull out another chair and make her an honorary clerk for the day. The Silver Divers may be egalitarian, but Ember's still earning her place among them, and being the bottom of the pack makes for a very respectful and dutiful young huntress. And, besides, nobody mouths off to Gemini. She'll just smile and then arrange your imminent downfall, possibly by having Taurus get you when you least expect it.