Thanqol

Breathless Dead

THE GRAND ARMADA
RESPONSE LEVEL: 2
Redana has disturbed the dead, and Bella has assaulted the Seneschal of the Rex

Location Stats:
Imperial. This place is home to the Soldiers of Empire
Elysium Fields. This place is home to ???

Bad Weather
The dark storm of Poseidon commences, and all within are in terrible peril.

Bad weather is dangerous, and will need to be Overcome whenever it gets in the way. Bad weather always deals Soft Cuts.

Dark Secret
This location gains another stat - the Elysium Fields.

Redana!

The cosmic winds howl.

There is no weather on Tellus - it too was excavated to make room for the hives of humanity. Imagine it - the air moving? Water from the sky? When Zeus comes her storms run through the veins of the mighty hive cities, crashing flows of electricity that fills corridors with cascading sheets of lightning, making the screaming stars that power everything strain against their restraints like the titans of old. You've never felt anything like this as you struggle from the seat of the Plover. You've never felt the frozen teardrops of Poseidon shatter against your helmet visor. You've never been unbalanced by the magenta dust that pulls and glitters and stains anything it touches. You've never felt your hair bloom with white lilies and sapphires as the very matter of your being warps to mourn the dead.

The Vespine shakes beneath you as you seek the charging slot. The one in the hangar is dead - a micrometeor strike has gone right through it, savaging the wires - but the ill-tempered engine still promises life. You brace yourself as best you can through the hexagonal hallways - panels shredded everywhere, exposing views of the expanse at first - and then of the engine deck. As you do things get hotter and hotter, even through the void.

And then you reach a twisted, broken section of hallway. Molten metal has carved a path across this entire corridor - a breach from the plasma vents out of the engine still spilling molten power across the path. Through the gap you can see the engine chamber and it too is a marvel - the consoles melted into piles of sludge, brilliant green and blue light scorching against the walls of the stellar containment, stalagmites of molten metal hanging from the ceiling. As the winds blow from behind you, you can see the brilliant little flashes of impact as the stuff of space strikes the scorching slag.

It's not a long jump, but with the wind and the unstable engine, there's a lot that can go wrong. But this is where the power conduit is severed so as soon as you get on the other side you can charge your Plover.

"Careful, Redana," whispers Hades.

Roll to Overcome.

Decanus Galnius!

You are certain you made the right decision. The cause for this revelation is not a smile from blessed Apollo - his stone countenance on your signet brooch remains as stern and unwavering as ever - but because you only had to drag the goddamn statue for ten minutes to reach the Bridge. It would have been thirty minutes in the opposite direction and you are pretty sure that by then the question of allegiance wouldn't matter because you would be dead of exhaustion. Son of a bitch wanted you to haul this pile of murderous crap in full plate, who the fuck did he think he was, getting chanted at by this fucking cyborg all the while...

You drop the statue like an ugly baby the second you see the enemy captain, and your contubernium (squad of eight) does the same. You can see it stir, starting to awaken and you really hope that's not your problem. You take a moment to look around the bridge, feeling a sinking feeling in your gut when you see it completely abandoned. Damn it, your hunch was right... but at least you won't die tired.

It takes some effort to keep the smile off your face when you see the enemy captain - Vasilia, you think? Aww, someone dressed the servitor like a captain! You'd heard rumours but there's something about seeing it in person that is just so comical. Probably the Princess' idea, though, and better not to antagonize her by proxy. You click your heels and give a standard issue salute - one fist strike across the breastplate. "I, Decanus Galnius, and these soldiers, hereby defect to the direct command of Her Imperial Majesty, Redana Honorius Claudius. Blessed Apollo, God of Virtue, witness that I do not break my oath of allegiance to King Jas'o, but was instead the betrayed party - my loyalty to Empress and Empire runs deeper and it is the duty of all under the Sun God's light to seek the most worthy leader. If the gods object, send me a sign in my auguries that I might make sacrifices to earn forgiveness."

And just when you think you've got that all sorted you hear a shriek, distorted and unnatural, emerge from center mass of the Hermetician.

{TREASON} it screeches so loudly your ears ring.

You and your soldiers leap away as from it, reflexively falling into a shieldwall, but your heart sinks when you realize what a suicidal impulse that was in this moment. From underneath the shifting yellow robes limbs begin to emerge. The magos unwraps itself like an octopus, lifting up on stiltlike tripod legs and producing devices that glow in ominous and terrifying shades of toxic green that make you feel like you'll get cancer just by looking at them. It's more than doubled in size and now seems like a scrap of yellow rags wrapping the centre of a terrifying killing machine.

Iskarot, Tertiary Evoker

Iskarot, Tertiary Evoker
A magos of the Order of Hermes, dedicated to the craft of destruction.
Master of Machines: All machines, devices, and technologies do as the Hermetician commands.
Order of Evocation: Your cuts are hard cuts, and are both Area and Dangerous.

"NOBODY," shrieks the Hermetician, "MOVE. I. AM. THINKING."

There is a long silence of terror. Even the slightest twitch causes the creature to swing that horrible weapons system around with laser precision. Rubber tubes dangle out from beneath its central bulk, sloshing with high-pressure alien fluids. Incense and perfumed gases hiss out of it in obscuring vents, leaving the ragged central outline hazy but for banks of glowing eye lenses.

"Assessment of Athenian relic complete," it states. "Progression to status Secundus guaranteed if returned to the Order. Leverage identified; promissory control optimal. Primary strategy requires maintaining current allegiance, evading junior officer coup, multi-stage deception, expenditure of resources and expertise, location of transportation off-fleet - complex. New strategy assessment using current resources comparatively simple."

With a whirr of gyros, the main cannon came around to fix on Vasilia.

"Captain!" blurted the magos. "My designation is Iskarot, Tertiary-rank Evoker of the Order of Hermes. My demands are as follows. Firstly, I have full authority over maintaining and repairing this starship. Secondly, you deliver me to starbase Raving Direction. Thirdly, that my movements, activities and processes be unimpeded and unhindered. Direct your statement of compliance to Lord Ares."

That last part is arguably more intimidating than all the rest of it.

*

Bella!

"Of course, Puh-puh-puh-praetor!" squeaks the seneschal, and oh, isn't his neck soft? All of those bulky robes designed to make him look like a moving house, designed to let you know just how important he is, designed to scare kitties like you into doing better jobs scrubbing dishes... they're so finely made they weigh almost nothing. They don't do anything to stop you lifting him off the floor. They don't do anything to stop him being the one on the ground with the bloody nose and terrified eyes.

"I can't just... oh, oh, there is one, the Admiral's personal ship is in a different bay!" he said with the kind of swiftness that told just how 'accidental' all of this was. "But it's guh-guh-guh-guarded! There's a Codexia in there!"

Just one?

A thrill of fear goes through you. Deeply unwelcome after that moment of being free from it.

One Codexia is still a lot.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Ahnn.

Exposure burns through her, igniting all the scaffolding she's used to cover the broken patches of her heart. All the wounds are open again, old and new. The haphazard attempt at healing is undone in a stroke and what she'd thought was recovery was merely bouncing off the bottom.

She wasn't ready for this.

She hated being seen like this. She wished her power was invisibility. She wished the things she did never connected back to her, wished that she could pass through the world like a ghost. She'd never asked for the friends, the fame, the duty. They'd added to her burden brick by brick until she was lifting the whole world like Atlas. Of course she'd dropped it. She couldn't even lift herself.

Ahnn.

What was she doing? She couldn't even beat Asterion, let alone all the people Asterion couldn't beat. She had all the authority and potency of a stop sign. What was it about her that made people think she could?

She grasped her hood and pulled it up over her head. It'd do until she found a proper veil to hide behind.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

The ground felt firm beneath her feet for the first time in days. Here was a demon queen, tormented by the curse of morality (and of course a conscience was best kept in an ionic crystal, floating close-by like an orbiting moon - that was just how things were). And here was a supplicant devil, bounded by the strictures of formality due to their lesser power. And here was an appeal without asking for relief from a burdensome oath. This was a commonplace matter for the Sun.

(And an ideal one, too! She wasn't bound by a morality crystal so she got to pick whatever she wanted! Nyeh heh heh!)

"Noble Shokyou," said Jasper, placing a fist in an open palm and giving a shallow bow. "I am cheered to hear that you find my voice enlivening, though in my carelessness I have almost lost it -" another aspect of the curse, she imagined - it was definitely rasping and soft compared to normal. She raised a finger and illuminated the world with a sunbeam, stately and magnificent. "Once it has been healed, I shall come before you and sing until your heart is full. Until then, I pray that you and your precious things endure these storms."

Again she bowed - then with perfect poise took Dulcinea's arm and lead her away, so smoothly and completely there was zero room to get a word in edgewise.

[Spending a point of will to get a result of 4 on courtly manners for an exceedingly polite disengagement]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

All is lightning. The plover rolls and jolts as the flashing storm of the ELectromagnetic Flux strikes hit it again, again, again. Starships primed for battle carry about storming curtains of electricity with them, clawing the stars with craving fingers in desperate search for something to cling to. You can see over your shoulder the vast pillars of lightning that connect the Plousios and the Veterosk, hanging spectacularly in the void like the searching tendrils of a tesla coil, stattico motion as the reactors feed off each other in an infinite circle. For just a second you were in depths of that same electrical storm and it stole everything from you - a full charge gone in a heartbeat, taken to stuff back into the greedy maw of the caged stars who gave it to you.

So you drift.

You drift past the Gdansk and every letter painted on that aquiline prow is taller than your entire plover. Your momentum and Poseidon's gathering winds carries you on like a doll in a river, passing the slain cruiser as prismatic lightning adorns its brutal surfaces with lurid and magnificent hues. It takes you two minutes to pass the prow alone, observing the micrometeor impacts or relativistic collisions that left scars and furrows on its adamantium surface. You pass by the first bank of gun batteries, barrels scorched violet by the heat and strain of constant fire. They are silent and cold now; a forest of tangled tubes pointing accusing fingers at the distant stars. You pass by the launch bays and the bony spikes that run through the ship's side like thorns. Through the open airlocks you can see the lines of battle even still - a phalanx, dead in place, boots still mag-locked to the floor, haloed by their crystallized blood. Around them float the smaller, vicious attack monsters spawned by the Eater of Worlds. The image strikes you as a parody of the graveyard as a whole, the entire thing reversed and rendered in miniature. A turtle shell damaged and dead, surrounded by the lesser pack hunters who brought it down in the end.

You drift on. Past the rear of the Gdansk and the impossibly twisted and deformed metal that tells the tale of that most impossible of stellar catastrophes - starbreach. A starbreach is when the containment on a ship's reactor fails and for a moment the full fusion power of a tiny sun is unleashed. The savagery of this moment is carved forever in this sculpture of mangled metal over kilometers of ruined starship. At the same time, the might of Empire is implicit in the moment - even the detonation of a star inside an Imperial warship didn't vaporize it entirely. The metal buckled, and twisted, and rent, and was sent into the void with all the violence that the natural order could manage - but enough remains to leave a wreck. Behold this, the final triumph of human science.

Finally, you impact.

Your Plover slams headlong into a piece of shattered debris, propelled by all the force of your initial thrust and Poseidon's vengeful winds. Around you swirls gold and gems, the precious valuables ruptured from the floating treasure chest that checked your momentum, but they have already given you something more precious than mere wealth.

Your display lights up.

POWER: 1%

One of the miracles of materials science is Energy Reclamation. When a plover physically impacts with something a tiny amount of the kinetic energy from the strike is captured by the suit's battery as charge. Not much, but there's a lot you can do with some charge that you can't do with no charge - for instance, you can finally trigger the emergency chemical propellants in the plover's feet. They won't last long and handling is very, very crude with power this limited, but they're enough to give a plover that's been separated from its ship a fighting chance. Definitely enough to land on one of these slain warships and refuel.

*

Vasilia!

It's a little testament to King Jas'o's arrogance that he doesn't close the connection to you while everything is happening. Overlapping voices bubble over the connection.
"My King, the Princess escaped -"
"Just a Plover, there's no way it got past the ELF screen at this distance -"
"It wasn't our fault, the Boarpedo must have malfunctioned -"
"We follow!" yelled the king, voice rising sonorously. "Forget this floating shit bucket, the Princess is the only thing that matters!"
"My lord, the storm -"
"Galnius, what I said to the mongrel applies just as much to you."

There's a bit of a pause as everyone mentally changes the answers they expect to be giving on the next employee satisfaction survey.

"Yes, my lord," came the reply.
"Now get back to the ship. We're going after her."
"Yes, my lord," said Galnius. "You should go on ahead, sir. We'll just slow you down, what with this heavy statue we'll be lifting."
"Now you're thinking like a professional!" said Jas'o, slapping Galnius on the shoulder with a clapping ring of metal. "Everyone else, withdraw!"

*

Alexa!

It would be nice if it was just a gentle relaxation. An abrogation of responsibility. A step into Lethe, freed from burdens of memories and return to the purity of function.

But that is not the kindness extended to you by the Order of Hermes.

With the Order it is never clear why they do the things they do. Is the command impossible, and this is his best approximation? Is he deliberately following his own agenda? Does he simply not understand what he is doing and this is the results of his enlightened guesswork? Whatever process that mechanical mind is following, it is not the gentle descent into passivity that Jas'o requested. It's an interrogation.

+You who were made with the grace of god, we honour you.+

The smell of incense suffocates you, metallic and rectangular. Booming music fills your ears, layered and mechano-cosmic. The secret signs of alchemy are painted upon your crown and throat.

+Show us the path. As you are enlightened, so shall we be.+

You can see Pallas Athena, eyes grey like the clouds of her mighty sire. You see her kneel before Zeus, that terrible vortex of deepening and lightening indigo.

"I have a mind to strike down this Admiral and be done with the whole business," said Zeus.
"Strike down the chief celebrant in the midst of a feast in your honour?" said Athena.
"It is my honour that would have me act!" snarled Zeus. "Why, look at her! Blood and death inflicted upon her noble guests!"
"Noble father," said Athena. "She is merely fighting for you. This is how wars in the Empire are conducted these days, something you consented to when you favoured Empress Nero and her Emergency Decree. See how she observes the forms - she does not slay unless driven to it."
"Her strategy drives her to it!"
"Yes," said Athena, eyes gleaming. "Doesn't it?"
"You are on thin ice with me, my daughter," said Zeus.
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.
"You are pushing the line of what is blasphemy," said Zeus, "but you are still my favourite daughter. Very well, I will hold my wrath for now. But I will not intercede on your behalf with my brothers! If they wish to bring you to heel you will not have my protection."
"I understand, noble father," said Athena.

+The augury is pure. The clarity is magnificent. The applications of the relic in divining the War Goddess' intentions is unparalleled. By this art we may eavesdrop on the very conversations of the gods, blessed be thy names, and know the full measure of their intentions. It is our considered opinion that this asset is too valuable to fall into the hands of the Empire, even if they are unaware of it. A forgery shall be created to... adorn the king's foyer. The original shall be exalted by our order, and I shall ascend the golden ladder.+

+Blessed Alexa. Access your formative memories. Remember when you were but uncarved marble. Remember the process of your original construction. Details shall be necessary to help construct the forgery.+

*

Bella!

It's unreal how easily you slip from the hall. Perhaps it was Aphrodite you saw there behind the helm of one of the guards who didn't quite see you. Perhaps there were no religious grounds to stop a priest of Hades from his work, and for all their bluster the Codexia weren't prepared to risk their places in the underworld for the Admiral. The next thing you know is that you're outside and the shaking is finally starting to fade.

Practicalities.

You're on board the Rex - the most extra battleship of all time. It's deliberately built to one-up the Empress' personal warship, the Classical, in the most 'I'm not touching you' way possible. The front prow can be retracted so that it's 1cm smaller than the Classical, and everything else can be reduced, lowered, or hidden away to the absolute bare minimum of humility in the same way. But out here in space, away from direct comparisons to the Classical?

Even by the standards of someone who grew up in the palace It's A Bit Much.

The ceiling is an intricate pattern of diamond chandeliers. The walls are lined with gold and red oak. Paintings from ancient days plaster the walls. Magnificent live trees grow indoors, bracketing the corridors like an avenue, seasons changing from summer to autumn to winter to spring over the course of the time it takes to walk from one end of the corridor to the other. Choirs of songboys follow visitors around softly crooning sweet background music at them as they walk. Each room has a pipe organ, a piano, a chello, or some other big important piece of musical hardware constantly playing the same tune in the same time. The entire ship is filled with the same piece of music from a hundred sources, and the only thing that changes as you move is the instrument that's in focus. Ivory Smile follows in your footsteps like a hound, too shaken to say anything just yet.

"Excuse me," said a seneschal in magnificent, overdone crimson robes, approaching and bowing. "Honoured guests. There has been an accident in the docking hall and the shuttles are unavailable for use. Please accept my kind apologies and allow me to escort you back to the feast."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

The thing about Danger was that she looked and sounded exactly like Asterion.

Coward, she snarled, pacing fore and behind. You pretend to be so very helpless just because you don't have your pointy crutch.

Their voices were inextricable - the demon of the labyrinth and the shadow she cast in her best friend's mind. Was Asterion truly as hard and cruel as the voice of Danger? Was Canada too soft-hearted to comprehend the full might of her friend's fury.

That's the legendary hero. The crusader. Throwing herself beneath the trampling hooves because somebody might feel sorry for her.

She clutched her shield like it was her lifeline. It was the only thing she could rely on. She was helpless here. It didn't matter how fast she was - distance meant nothing. Asterion could change distance like she was tilting her head, and on that awful horizon the crimson outline of the minotaur hunted.

But you're weak, Canada. Too weak to say how you feel. Too weak to trust your friends. Mundane was Asterion too, now. The shadows of the bull's horns closed in on her from all directions, a cage of triangles. You're jealous that it was her and not you to get crippled. What kind of sick mind envies a broken spine?

Asterion is not your equal any more, hissed Asterion, Asterion's voice, her own voice, so close her ear felt wet. You failed her. You didn't even suffer with her. She's been through something you haven't.

A weak voice, as though from far away, How can you call that love?

It's simple. You can't love her until you're equals again. Until then it's just pity.

*

Poor Asterion had no idea what she was walking into.

The mental fragmentation of the Labyrinth was usually such a fearsome advantage. It rendered the foe confused, disoriented, unable to work objectively, tilted towards their extremes, rendered easy prey. She underestimated the sheer, violent toxicity of Canada's thought processes, the guilt and pain and rage that was going on inside her friend's head. The last time they'd done this Canada had been rendered almost helpless, easy prey for a terrible monster, struggling to reach her friend.

This time she came at Asterion like a thunderbolt.

They're fighting - they're really fighting.

It spills out everywhere in the arena - in the stands, in the prisoner complexes, in the monster pits and in the royal box. Rolling, shattering blows, sharp with the intimate ferocity that comes with the knowledge that the other person can take anything you dish out.

The bull and the eagle fight until there is nothing left but shattered breath and stone. Canada is clearly the loser in terms of bruises, in terms of position, in terms of willpower... but that she dared to fight Asterion directly at all is shocking to both of them.

[Directly engage: 12-1: 11
- Impress, frighten or surprise my opposition
- Create an opportunity for my allies

Taking a powerful blow in exchange: 8 - marking Angry and Guilty]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Auspex always gives you the impression that it is condescending to you.

Denied the opportunity to pump raw, unfiltered data directly into your cerebellum it finds creative ways to get its ideas across. So when it looks at the Phalanx it overlays them with pictures of silly, fat, fluffy animals - plush sharks falling over whenever they try to stand on their tails. It's how you'd explain to a toddler that these soldiers are not a threat - a Phalanx is so slow and immobile, and the hangar is so wide and open - that you could almost walk around them and they wouldn't be able to stop you. They're here to stopper an entire corridor if a scout reports a large armed group is coming that way - after all, they don't know just how skeleton your crew is.

But the Skirmishers - the Auspex gives them the faces of scary (but not too scary!) tigers, with big triangular eyebrows and smug tiger mouths (>:3). They're dangerous, Redana!! They're mobile enough to chase you, and if they catch you then you'll be buried underneath a pile of goofy sharks!

The Auspex gets a little carried away with animating that particular scenario. It snaps back to attention, and then animates a big angry wild boar crashing in amidst the pile of sharks and tigers and sending them running and flopping in all directions - yes, okay, thank you Auspex, you get the idea now.

The boarpedo isn't an escape vessel, but it does still have fuel and powerful thermal cutters on the front end. You just need to get on board for a second and you can send it crashing across the hangar firing lasers in all directions.

Skirmishers

Imperial Skirmishers
Underpaid, underfed, underappreciated
Solid Projectiles: If hit by Imperial Skirmishers, make your next roll with despair

Vasilia!

"In a heartbeat," said Jas'o, and you realize you've miscalculated. "Let me be extremely clear: you are negotiating with the voice of Imperium. Compliance will be rewarded on a scale grander than you can imagine. Defiance, however, will be punished in similar scope. Defy the Admiral and she will find your homeworld. She will shatter it with a single blow. She will find the survivors and work them to death mining the shattered ruins of their planet. She will make a wasteland of the entire sector of space you originated from as a warning to others of your pathetic kind. Everything that you can imagine as valuable is but dust and starlight before the whims of Admiral Odoacer and the Armada."

There was a long, cold pause.

"So, what do you say? Let's put those silly threats behind us and work together! Everyone will be happy that way - even the Princess! We're just taking her home, after all!"

Alexa!

You are thrown in an unceremonious heap before the feet of King Jas'o right as he finishes his speech. "What's this?" he said. "Some sort of statue?"

"Deadly, sir," said one hoplite.
"Right fearsome," confirmed another.
"Mm. Looks valuable," he said, looking Alexa over. His men exchange glances like the bloodstains and rents in their shields should be telling a more sombre story, but the King is treating this as lightly as a feather. "I think I'll take it as my prize for capturing this vessel."
"My lord, I -"
"Up-up-up-up. I'll make sure you're rewarded for bringing it to me, don't worry, Galnius," said Jas'o. "But don't you think it'd look fine in my foyer?"
"I - as you say, lord," said Galnius with a sigh.
"Get the Hermetician in here," said the king. "Bring it to compliance - and then move on. The princess couldn't have gotten far."

A shuffling, clanking hunchback in yellow robes makes its ungainly way through the crowd of soldiers. Gleaming metal and rubber tubes like intestines are visible through the folds of its heavy saffron cloak. Sleeves unfold as appendages, tendrils, tools and assortments of limbs emerge from under the cloth. The subhuman cyborg cultists of the Order of Hermes, technology specialists who seek the Divine Mysteries left by their elusive deity. The Empire treats them with strange contempt - assuming they can do anything but that they're worth nothing. Pet wizards, attendants to kings when they deign to interact with technology.

There was a rotary click from somewhere inside that clattering machinery, and a voice like a soul preacher recorded on cassette tape. "Blessing be upon you -" another heavy click "- child of Athena. In the name of Hermes I will speak to your secrets. In the name of Zeus I will show you your place. In the name of -" heavy click, "King Jas'o and Admiral Odoacer I will return you to function. Blessed be, o miracle! Show us the golden path through your enlightenment!"

Bella!

Have you ever spoken that way to a human before, Bella? Have you ever spoken that way at all? Was this the first time you ever really let your mask slip and your true feelings out like this?

Because it's had an effect. You got to watch in real time as cold, haughty pride cracked into a moment of wide-eyed panic. You got to see the kind of person who'd lord it over you without thinking instead thinking of how to not be crushed underneath your boot. The Praetor title didn't come with respect, the Olympic medal didn't come with respect, being the Princess' faithful servant didn't come with respect...

But showing your anger? That got you respect.

Ivory Smile doesn't even manage to comment as you drag him up by the collar - him, a priest, a human, in a room full of the Empire's elite. He's shorter than you, hauled up to the tips of his toes, eyes glancing down at the long scars on the tabletop over and over as that powerful mind of his unhelpfully wastes valuable time by imagining how easy it would be for you to do that to him.

"Your way, Praetor," he said, voice so dry he barely got the words out. "Your way sounds better."

How does respect feel?

Fellowship: The Heart

"For want of a sail, the shoe was lost... Chin up, old horse."

@Count Numbers

"You look like I kicked your stupid beetle," observed Ailee. There's no followup. No comforting words, no condolences. She just drops you unceremoniously on the deck, ended her conflagration of arcane energies, and immediately started doing cooldown stretches and breathing exercises. Urgh! People are heavy!

It must be emphasized again that Ailee is not annoyed at the idea of having to get wet, or cramped, or exhausted, so the idea of going spelunking does not impact her in the slightest. On the contrary, she's almost looking forward to it - nothing worth doing ever got done without hard work after all. The vice mouse has many horrible cosmic flaws bound to her soul, but sloth is not one of them. "You reckon you can fit your train down there?" she asked Coleman - an innocent might read that as idle concern, the wise would recognize the implicit question of 'do you need me to blow up that tower?'

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Nothing focuses the mind like a lion attack.

Divine speed plastered over a lot of sins. While her shield seemed to her opponent like an immovable wall of light that blocked and blinded at every angle, each impact ran up through her arm and jolted her shoulder painfully. She wasn't strong enough to absorb the blows without comment, wasn't skilled enough to roll with them and deflect them at angles. "Lucky mediocrity," was the growling assessment of Variance when it came to her combat abilities, and the words rang in her head even now.

Her style is a band-aid over her flaws. She is either a brick wall, taking the impact of the strike head-on, or she's elsewhere - blurring back in glittering lines. It looks effortless, like a swan gracefully and supernaturally sliding around her opponent, leaving them wild and frustrated, but like a swan underneath the surface is furious paddling. Shit. Shit. What do I do? How do I close this out? Each impact hurt, moving this quickly was tiring, and she simply could not see a path to victory from where she was now.

She'd relied on Asterion for far too long. As long as she'd covered her fierce friend's side, blurring in to intervene whenever an attack was leveled against her, then she hadn't needed to think about how to end a fight. She could just defend, Aster could just attack, and they never had to figure out how to balance themselves. She has no idea how to get out of that pattern on the fly, and so with clash after clash, she defends the scared teenager while making no gains and no progress. Shit. This is so much harder than I thought it'd be.

But even though she was flailing, it looked like she was toying with her opponent. The followup wasn't coming because she was humiliating her foe in a move that'd make perfect sense to an Annunaki, surely not because she had no idea how to subdue an angry lioness.

[Defend: 2d6+3 10. Take influence over the kid]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

An indigo hand catches the coin out of the air. Zeus smiles as she passes by, ruffling your hair with a hand that feels like a birthday gift - static and excitement and paternal warmth.

"The reason why I am king and Athena is not," said Zeus, showing you the wreaths side of the coin. "Is that there are paths to victory other than battle."

She's gone in the next step, on her way to visit some distant affair, coin jangling in her pocket.

Vassilia!

"Be reasonable, friend," came the voice in return - young, brash and reckless. You get the sensation of a loyal dog barking - so fixated on chasing the stick that it's blind to anything else. "We just want the princess. That's all! Keep the ship. Take a dozen! Take a royal title! The Admiral has a lot of job openings going right now."

You've never been in a position to negotiate with the Empire before, and oh wow this is different from shaking down rusty old merchant tubs. You could double the strength of the Starsong pirates at a stroke.

The King

King Jas'o
A royal warrior, armed with the might of Zeus
Thunderbolt Strike: King Jas'o has the weapon tags ranged, dangerous, piercing.
Commander: Cannot be harmed or distracted while surrounded by his soldiers

Imperial Phalanx
They're not the best, but they're impossible to shift.
Shieldwall: A Phalanx in good order is immune to damage from anything short of a Dangerous weapon
Immobile: Any attempt to Get Away from the Phalanx automatically succeeds on a 10+

Alexa!

Athena's warnings are not idle. They are immediate and specific and terrible.

You realize much too late that the Phalanx was not heading to the reactor as doctrine demands. Instead they're hunting for individuals like you, not caring if the ship continues to have mobility. Distracted by your brooding thoughts you don't realize until it's too late that you've blundered into the worst possible tactical position.

You're in a narrow corridor with a full Phalanx blocking the way either direction. It's reminiscent of a trash compactor - unbreakable, unyielding walls of steel and spears slowly closing in on you from both directions. You're trapped between two rocks and the void of space.

Bella!

The seating arrangements were weaponized. All the elderly, sensible, restrained figures are at one end of the hall, and all the young hotheads are at the other. Insults and snubs were leveled against the young, while full respect was paid to the old. You can see how the dominoes fall in accordance with the Admiral's scheme - a group of hotheads is gathering to rush the Admiral with drawn swords in a pre-emptive act of suicide. The Admiral, despite her threatening posture, cannot simply order her soldiers to attack at a feast in honour of the gods - but defending herself from a charge of young fools is a different matter. Pallas Athena walks amongst them, whispering words of panic, and the wise are still too far to give their restraining council.

There are only two points of stability around you.

One is the priest of Hades, Ivory Smile. He's eye-wateringly blonde, bookish, simply dressed with no honours or embellishment other than a large black book handcuffed to his wrist. Hades, while necessary, is seen as unpleasant by the Empire and he has been seated here with the servitors, aliens, mercenaries and you. He's a priest of Hades, in a landscape that is sacred to the God of the Dead - that's useful. He's a human, which might save you a lot of trouble, and despite his coolness you're sure that you could break him. From what you know about him he has a chip on his shoulder about all the humiliations he's put through, so he might be a kindred spirit.

On the other side is one of the Azura mercenaries, Parchment of Bronze. Deep violet scales, adorned with bones and trophies and scrips of paper bearing her oaths to the gods. When you were cheating your way through the Olympics one of your most important acts of cheating in the wrestling was to make sure you never fought Bronze - after seeing how effortlessly she demolished the competition in the first two rounds, easily manhandling the previous champion, you collapsed the entire hallway outside her room to stop her making it to your match. Pound for pound there's no scarier muscle at this table, but she's not the sort that'll easily accept a subordinate role.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

No point concealing herself. If Asterion was loose it wouldn't be long before she made herself known.

Her hands linger covetously over the weapons. She touches a sword and it seems to fill the hollow in her hand. Reflexively she swings it once, twice, turn, counter -

BANG

It comes apart in a blaze of sparks and light and molten metal. She shakes the debris off her hand and stares at the floor. There was only one blade she'd ever been able to trust with her life. A blade that had been mistaken when it had judged her worthy. Just like everyone else.

Instead her hand brushes through a jar of black paint. Her fingers slash a dark line horizontally across her face, darkening her eyes, in the same gesture as she pulls her veil loose and steps into the light. Her concealing clothes are left behind her in a trail. Beneath, a half-cape of fluttering black cloth over her empty right hand. Form fitting armour in violet and black, woven across with glittering silver thread in a short skirt with bare legs and arms. The shield that appears in her hand is a mirror that reflects the sun no matter the angle, but even that blinding radiance is nothing compared to Canada herself. That paint was not an affectation or to conceal her identity - it was a deliberate marring of her radiance out of consideration for the crowd. If she stood unmarked before them they would pour into the arena, heedless of the danger. Instead she was merely dazzling, like staring at the sun through a cloud.

She pointed at the ranking Annunaki, whoever was in the royal box, and gave them the thumbs down. For all her failings, she at least had a little showmanship in her.