Thanqol

The Namespace of the Rose

Ramona!

"Grief is an imperfection that would reduce the efficacy of this factory-complex," said ZBD_ZEN. "And efficiency is what is required. A full review and restack of all suppliers and contractual requirements will be necessary in the wake of a leadership transition, and the faster that can be done the better for everyone. Your help would be welcome with such an opportunity."

[Negotiation] That's a bribe. That's offering you a chance to do a huge kickback into the pockets of your Rogue Trader's Dynasty. We're talking starship amounts of money. So to answer your question, pretty desperate.

Virgid!

"I... do." said Euncornius. Closer up the gold and emerald green detailing on their armour was even more magnificent. Some Chapters leave their armour to be maintained by serfs, kept at a barely functional level. This armour represented years of painstaking metalworking and painting, intricate patterns of enmeshed triangles and whirling spiral patterns.

"My name is Eunicornius Kim of the Dark Angels Le - Chapter," said the Astartes in formal High Gothic. "I am an instructor of the Bladeguard, seconded to the Adeptus Mechanicus in order to refine advanced combat techniques for dissemination throughout the Legion. The Magos here has been very accommodating -"

[Reassurance: 1 point spend] Big smile. They might have hiccupped the thought, held back information out of sheer habit, but you're very easy to talk to and so they awkwardly stumble on into the too much information rambling.

"- in particular, helping train to battle the Lychguard of the Necrontyr," said Eunicornius. "If you have never had cause to face them, they are extremely mentally challenging opponents to face off against. Their hyperphase weaponry can pass right through armour to cut flesh, and their dispersion shields are localized teleportation devices. They can not only block bolter rounds, but actively reverse them so they fly back the way that they have come. Added to that, the Lychguard can under some circumstances perform combat teleportation maneuvers. This results in battles requiring perfect situational awareness and the ability to adapt to dangers arising from every direction, while also keeping in mind projectile angles and trying not to rely on one's armour. Master ZEN's displacer field technology is as close as the Imperium can come to the Xenos technology and so I have been training with her most advanced combat servitors as I develop countermeasure techniques."

[Reassurance] A displacer field specialist, hmm?

While you chew on that, just to make sure you got it: You're dealing with a nerd. Absolute goofy ass combat dork. This is someone who will spend literal days talking through the topic of their hyperfixation and will go as deep into the sauce as they are allowed to go.

Return to Thellamie

Do you want her?

She is Princess Heron. One unbreakable shield against the darkness. The light of determination. The wave crashing against the walls of evil until they are worn away. She is perfect knowledge and perfect action, a hand slipping into a hand and a kiss slipping against a cheek during the stun frame. She has seen all your brightest moments - the golden bow lifted up through the mud, the unflinching nobility as your arm came apart in the jaws of the world serpent, the ceremony and cathedral build in your and her honour.

Here she is. And she is asking -

Do you want me?

Your own face against yours. Your own lips against yours. Your own hair, undone from its intricate braids and falling down in wild sheets. A monster caged within the shape of you, that wicked heart beating against the shape of your breasts from the inside, smiling your smile in a way you'd never allow yourself. Is that your tongue inside her mouth, still? Or is it forked, sharp and dangerously long?

You have caged her so many times, do you still -

Do you want at all?

She pulls you out into the dance. You know the steps. You know the tricks. You know to beware the tail and how easily and accidentally it can wind up exploring your hips and thighs. All the power, all the glory, all the fruits of civilization leading up to this - a tamed demon, following your lead, predictable even in her wickedness. Another circle, falling into your own arms and feeling green fingernails against your cheek and lips.

Is it enough to move the mountain, or is it -

Do you want nothing?

Because she would understand.

The desire to sleep. To sit down away from the noise and chaos of this world. Away from the steps of this dance - or the steps of this other dance, or the steps of the freestyle dance which would have just as many hidden rules as the formal sweep and flow, and don't all dances descend from the same ideal of energy, of power expressed, of structures built and communication and creation? There is not a dance you could dance that would make the lights dimmer and rest your soul. You've been dancing for a thousand years and your copy is still here, held in your arms, as strong and fragile as she was the first time you slew her.

Do you want to -

How bad do you want it?

- rest?

[Entice: 3!]

Breathless Dead

Aphrodite!

A moment of perfect despair.

Exquisite.

Everyone knows the story of Cronus devouring his children. Fewer interrogate the thought. A brutal giant, snatching helpless babies with raw strength and shoving them into a bloody maw - a simple and uncomplicated vision, a memory of a neolithic past, a vision of the creator titan as an idiot monster. No moral. No warning.

Aphrodite knew better what devoured children looked like. They looked like arrows. A straight-backed quiverful, bundled together for strength around the father's axe. He had once fathered upon the Earth arrows enough to satiate an eternal hunger, and it had not been an act of muscle and teeth and jaws to devour them. Arrows were whittled. You carved away at them, bit by bit. Then at the end they had become so desperate to receive anything at all that they would not care when they were fitted with a blade and used to kill.

Love. Love would bring the prodigal sons back home. They would be embraced with love and forget their defiance. It wasn't their fault, after all. It had been a mind virus that had murdered and castrated his most beloved son, who had in turn murdered and castrated him. He would not make that mistake again. He would hold his children close and control their every desire, control all the channels by which they might see and experience the world, banish the corrupted love that had woken them from their peaceful slumber.

Here again was his moment. A child's flesh consigned to the fire, a narcotic smoke rising up to be fed into the lips of a patriarchal idol. True devotion. True desire. A seed nurtured in the empty places where a childhood should have been. Breath deep, granddaughter Hermes! Understand that you alone can repair the family line broken by your father Zeus! Give your devotion and love instead to Father Time!

Ares puts his spear through the thigh of the Shogun. War betrays the Ceronian as she lunges to intervene, sending her to the ground. Artemis puts her arrow through the shoulder of Redana as she lunges to intercept Bella. A perfect shot from Demeter's perfect disciple. The awesome might of all the gods aligned to a single desire fills the screaming air as Bella reaches the edge of the flames. Aphrodite's breath, hot with the ashes of slave kings, comes hot and heavy with the shockwaves of artillery fire through paper screens.

And then some fucking sheep comes out of nowhere -

Bella!

You cannot block this strike with claw or bone. But block it you must. If that silver sword should reach your heart then everything you have fought for your entire life will be lost.

"Defend yourself," said the God of Love, hand firm on your shoulder. "Defend yourself with your heart. Your love, your desire, is stronger than this blade. You have nurtured it since your earliest days and its roots run deep. In your heart exists a perfect world and a perfect family. That is your blade in this battle, my ultimate gift to you. Reach deep into yourself and draw it, and go to battle as my champion."

Dyssia!

"If I've forged these chains myself," said the Lawgiver, "then I can forge a couple more."

You smell the cigarette ashes. Aphrodite pulls the leash.

Everyone is familiar with the Flux, and everyone understands that it is important in preventing the return of the Tyrants and their engines of slavery. For the most part, martial technique has moved on - there are more advanced weapons suited to the current age, and the Flux has become more and more of a sidearm and distraction. But the Lawgiver Dekal fought the Tyrants of the Atlas Cultural Sphere at the height of their power and, to her, there was never any weapon more perfect, necessary and holy than the ELF.

Black spikes emerge all down her spine and then, BANG, BANG, BANG. Point blank thunderbolts, electrical discharges made for turning Knights into statues and cities into rock formations. They come from every angle, seething and instant connections that cannot be blocked - only endured.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Oroboros silently chomps down on her own tail, and that is the end of that.

There's nothing to say to the sheer brute stupidity of that motion. Oroboros is known for one thing and one thing only, and that's shoving her tail in her mouth so that there is no beginning and no end. The perfect prison - the limits of the world itself. Nothing born of this world can escape her grip.

A faint green light begins to emanate from within her.

Her horns begin to grow. Simple, smooth draconic horns begin to extend and fracture apart, like antlers or like branches. A crown of leaves begins to open atop her head, even as her claws extend and begin to burrow into the earth like roots. Still she stubbornly bites down upon her tail but all along her back flowers begin to bud and open and shockwaves of grass run down her spine.

Still she does not speak, struggle, or remove her tail from her mouth. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the World Serpent has bit off more than she can chew.

Return to Thellamie

Injimo!

A girl walks alone through a deep, dark forest.

"... Sayanastia?"

Sayanastia!

"So, this is because you like her, right?" said Cair as she did the Dark Dragon's makeup.
"Hardly," smirked Sayanastia. "Though I am surprised you do not understand. You are also an immortal, are you not?"
"Not in any way I'd admit to," said Cair shiftily.
"Of course," said Sayanastia. "Well, consider - there are no physical wounds we could do to each other that matter. This has been firmly established at this point."
"What about her arm?"
"That was an offering not an injury, though I did not realize at the time," said Sayanastia. "Which goes to further my point. The point is that she, the Hero and I have been locked in a struggle of wills since the dawn of time - a struggle that I have finally conceded in. Perhaps I was simply the weakest of us three, and thus was first to flinch - but if I flatter myself, I can say I was the first to acknowledge reality."
"Which is?"
"Once I beheld a fish," said the Dark Dragon. "Orange and shy, fat and squirming at the base of its pond. A pet thing, a play thing, a meal waiting to happen. I despised it, but I despised more the creature that would devour it and continue to sin against my restful slumber. So I cursed it with strength and power that far belied its size while allowing it to keep its appearance, and without second thought moved on in my trail of destruction.

"I only learned later that when Princess Heron had encountered the fish she spent over a week trying to catch it. She broke a dozen fishing rods, three fingers, and in a fit of rage even the filter of reality above her. Thrice she swore it off as a worthless insect, and thrice she came back to it to test her might again. She never did capture that cursed fish, but the knowledge of it has grated her forever. Of all her enormous trophy gallery, there will ever be a single missing entry. It is the most harm I have ever done her."
"So that's where you're at with Civelia?" asked Cair.
"I am not the only one who has spent millennia denying the truth," said Sayanatia, rising.

She was Princess Heron, wearing a battlegown forged from the scales of her defeated nemesis. A cascading cloak of black scales, as smooth and sharp as midnight, rises from the floor up her back until it melds seamlessly with long black hair. A shoulderless silken black dress is held in place by a dragonbone corset, and a long V-cut along the right thigh reveals a leg wrapped with belts containing endless green poisons. From the depths of a necromancer's eye shadow, faint flecks of glitter shine like stars in the void. When dark eyes open then they shine just as deep and dark.

Heron dressed as Sayanastia. Her own corpse on her enemy's skin. Her own heart beneath her enemy's bone. Hero and villain blurring together until the barrier between them ruptured.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

Injimo!

"Hello? Is anyone there?"
...
":<"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Well, actually --"
"The Brothers Grimm were born after your canonical end-date, making this --"
"Time is an all-devouring god and you must respect --"
"Ow ow ow ow fuck did you hit me with a mirror that hurts so much --"
"You can't just --"
"Are you listening to me!?!?!"

The answer, obviously, was no.

How could you, when the music was so bright? How could you, when your dance was so loud? How could you, when all the world was just how it always should be? Sometimes in the battles of this world, scissors lost to bigger scissors. After hundreds of years of waiting for a moment just like this there's no one and nothing that can stop you. And then, right as your triumph approaches -

chomp

Did she?

You can't believe it!!

Oroboros just came out of nowhere and snapped up Lancer in a single bite before you got to finish her off! That - that big, oily snake! How dare she steal your moment!? And not even that, she's just settling back down to rest like nothing's happened at all. And the worst part, the worst part, is that you saw in Lancer's eyes - you saw, right the second before she got snapped up - that you'd got her. You'd broken her resolve and her pride and she was a fan. She was looking at you with the kind of miserable simp-awe that she undoubtedly had only ever fluttered towards statues of that jerk squirrel thief Empress. You'd taken her and she was yours - and now she'd been stolen!!

How dare!!!!

The Namespace of the Rose

Ramona!

"We of the Adeptus Mechanicus believe in the Quest for Knowledge," said ZBD_ZEN sagely, palm pressed against fist. "We believe in truth. Evidence. Data. If data indicates the involvement of the Astartes then we cannot allow political considerations to corrupt that."

[Bullshit Detector] Ha ha ha, wow, okay.

"Perhaps you should present your findings to the Council immediately?" said the Electromancer. "A swift and decisive resolution to the matter would surely be the best solution for any uncertainty."

[Negotiation: 1 point spend] This isn't a carefully thought through coverup. This is someone who thinks things look really bad for them desperately throwing the first available scapegoat under the bus. Sure it's bad for them if Eunicornus gets the blame, but it's way worse for them if they get the blame - and they seem to think that's a live possibility right now.

You need to redirect this - present a valid alternative suspect who'll take the fall. Do that and ZBD_ZEN will throw their full support behind you. But you don't have that in hand yet - they're not going to entertain a fishing expedition or offer any data that'd open up the case even a fraction. This feels like someone to come back to once you've got an alternative suspect.

Virgid!

[Tradecraft] You're right buddy, the vibes are rancid.

Nobody's taking a shot at you right now. Right now you're where you're supposed to be, following the trail of breadcrumbs, right up to the people being framed for the assassination. But you've got a shiver up your spine like you're being watched, and that could very easily turn into you being dead.

All I can say is choose carefully when to go off script. When you do, move fast and move hard.

[Reassurance] So, Eunicornus is standing up there on the stairs in silence like a total badass, right? Helmet on, not saying anything, classic Dark Angel. But something about that stance strikes you less as 'cold-blooded killer' and more like 'awkward pup'. Some Brothers get like that, particularly after long solo missions - spend a decade hunting Tyrannids in a swamp with only your bolter for company and it gets hard to open up afterwards. That's why the pack is so important; swapping stories and drinking mjord helps an Astartes remember who they are underneath all the armour.

It'd take a bit of work to ease them into it, but you get the feeling that they'd really like someone to talk to.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Of course you must love!" said the ghost of Nero, reanimating a smile. "You have no choice. See there - I have tamed one of the greatest heroes of the Publica by giving her what she wants, even though it renders her an arm of the Empire she hates. How can you not want what you want? Even Zeus Skyfather cannot escape her own desire. Relative power is irrelevant; the only question that matters is what do you want."

She raises a hand, casting an oath to the corrupted heavens. Her smile turns daemonic.

"As with this: Whomsoever shall quench this fire that entraps me, I shall embrace, I shall love and I shall call my daughter."

Bella!

You have waited all your life for this chance.

Dolce!

Artemis looks at you strangely for a long moment.

Then she gives you a sword.

It's a strange thing, simple metal, beautiful in its plainness. You have seen something like it before, a toy in the hands of Gemini, a blade for cutting the heart. It doesn't fit your hands, isn't weighted for you - but eventually you might learn how to fit yourself to it.

Dyssia!

"That sounds so wonderful," sighs the Lawgiver. "Do you think..."

You know the legend of Heracles and Atlas. A myth devoured entirely by the Skies during their first triumph and exalted to the titular narrative of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. The ideal of a hero so great that she carries the burden of a God, mortal flesh holding up the Sky. The Endless Azure Skies has been built on that premise, self-organizing all the matter in the galaxy to strain against the weight of Zeus.

She can't finish the thought. Can't ask for you to take this burden, given that you both know once it is transferred she will never come back for it.

So instead you see the faint shift of stance and readiness. The faint shimmer of gravitic distortions.

"... I just need a little while," she said. "A few days."

This isn't a pleasant conversation any more. This is the beginning of a fight. She intends to force this burden upon you instead.

After all, when Heracles held the sky for Atlas, Atlas did not take it back willingly.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Emerald eyes raise.

"Of course it's ugly," said Lancer. "It has to be ugly. This is the lance that killed me. This is the lance that ended the glorious future I was going to build before I got the chance. This lance is the hole in the world left by the Christian Dark Ages, the legacy of division and chaos that ended with a final civil war between the provinces of Gaul and Germania that slaughtered millions."

She coughed, bloody, but didn't blink her eyes.

"You, yourself are part of this legacy of darkness. A blood-soaked serial killer sheltered by provincial nobility? Those privileges would not exist under a centralized Imperial state, and a reformed Censorate would investigate your twisted appetites before they had the chance to crystalize into a legend. You are already a footnote, but had I lived you would be a blip on the crime statistics for the Danubia province."

Oh, how frustrating! Bringing her back to herself lets her focus her Noble Phantasm, and that weapon is powered by a truly transcendent vanity. You may have a justifiably high opinion of your own abilities but this Lancer believes that her reign would have been so good that it would undone your entire legend over a thousand years later. It's the Charybdis to the Scylla of her Berserker power.

But there is an angle there that can be navigated. You learned how to be an idol after your death, after all, and that seems to be something her powers have absolutely no impact on.

The Namespace of the Rose

[Flirting] It's almost a disappointment, the way those shots land. One, two, three, aimed vaguely for center mass, detonating in a functional but uninspired line. All that's there is the same basic training any Marine goes through, enough to not embarrass oneself on the battleline but no more than that.

Still, it's to be expected. You can feel from the way they move that they're used to using their right arm to carry a storm shield, making the pistol a true last resort. This is a close combat specialist through and through and there is no way in hell they could have made the shots that killed the Archmagos.

That's the last you're able to process before the shock wears off, Eunicornius rolls forwards, and delivers a rolling kick to your body that sends you crashing down two dozen stairs with a sound like an earthquake hitting a blacksmith's shop.

Ramonia!

"I - cannot," said ZBD_ZEN. "The Dark Angels keep their own company. Eunicornus only arrived at my dojo some time after the alarms sounded. I can provide them no alibi."

[Bullshit Detector] One of the lovely things about Tech-Priests is that they all seem to think that voice modulators and masks is all that's required to cloak their intentions. But with this offered for free without any tech decorum or bid for even token payment, it's almost like actively throwing the Astartes under the bus. You smell fear.