Thanqol

Breathless Dead

Redana!

You know intellectually that the Queen is unbound by the Law. It's still surprising when she grips you by the throat, her lightning talons running agonizingly into your neck. More than her speed and strength her absolute disregard for taboo still shocks you. This is someone who has done far worse than murder a guest in front of her daughter.

"They say the stranger may be Zeus in disguise," hissed the Queen. "Good! I hope you are so she feels it when I spit in your eye. How dare you question me? Do you know what I have had to do to build this place? My people are blind, stupid, savage slaves. They live for war. They live for honour," she spits that word like it's a curse. "Courage and honour. Those are the words of Ceron! Courage and honour! They speak them like a brave death has meaning. So I gave them the deaths they so craved. And see what I have built after freeing them from the chains of courage and honour! A paradise, perfect until you brought ruin to it!"

Her other taloned hand comes up level with your eyes. It burns a terrible red. ELF weapons are widely known for being nonlethal, a way to scramble electrochemistry and in sufficient dosage knock out even the most resilient of bioforms. But your auspex isn't registering that as normal ELF lightning - it's warning you that this is a Razorwhip, and whatever that means, it's a forbidden class of weapon.

"Your mother taught me this, princess," said Queen Hatchan, voice rising though it lacked the grace of Zeus' oratory. "In order to truly reign one must become a tyrant. In order to change a people gone mad one must defy the gods. In order to be free one must break the chains of courage and honour... and that means breaking those who cling to those damned words."

The talon comes down - and you're torn backwards. That crimson lightning passes inches from your eyes, but though off balance the Queen still manages to slash your leg as you're pulled backwards and...

You experience why this weapon is forbidden. It's agonizing. It's cruel. There's no justice or mercy in it. You have today endured the strike of a true Thunderbolt and there is nothing in common between these two weapons.

Princess Epistia has pulled you away from the dark queen's grip. "Mother, please -" she starts to say, but with that same ruthless lack of hesitation the queen backhands her daughter in the mouth and sends her to the ground alongside you.

"Some never accepted the first death I gave them," said the Queen, looking about at her dull-eyed servants. "No matter. There are other deaths."

[Take necrotic damage]

Vasilia!

Ivory Smile, despite his name, doesn't strike you as a man who has ever smiled. Smirked, maybe, but only while prefixed by words like 'bitterly'. His movements are so functional and basic as you fight him, literal combat automata have more range and variance in their motions than he does. You've almost taken him for a dullard when you notice him pull off his left glove when your eyes are focused on him making another lunge for his book - and there are words tattooed onto the surface of his hand.

He raised his hand and began an extremely complicated hand sign. Each time his knuckles arranged in a different way there was a flash of terrible red energy as the glyphs aligned in different ways.

Hades is there, eyes the colour of an arctic sky. "Dark Lord, King of Diamonds, I call upon the past," hissed Ivory Smile. "Drown this soul in regret."

[Take damage. In addition, Ivory Smile has cursed you until tomorrow's sunrise with memories of the past. You are still keeping him busy]

Dolce!

"Zeus..."

The name rasped from General Ralib's lips, half forgotten. Zeus. They lived. The Empire lived. And they... oh, stars and heavens, they had defied Zeus Cloudgatherer. "Zeus! We are... we need to conduct sacrifices. Auguries. Immediately! It may already be too late -"

A ripple goes through the formation. Ceronians move as one, or not at all.

A moment later King Jas'o is nearby, still standing atop the shields of his soldiers, looking down at you. He has the awareness, though, to bow his head to you. "Greetings, priest. Have no fear, the gods will get their due - why, I sacrificed my finest racing Plover to Zeus this morning! In fact, why not go on ahead and get started with the sacrifices, we'll go and fetch the princesses to ensure that they can be blessed by royalty."

You've actually put yourself in a position where you have enormous leverage, even though Jas'o is making a convincing counteroffer. Roll to Talk Sense with Grace or Sense and you might turn aside the entire army until they've completed their religious rituals; on a 7-9 result the King and his men will go on ahead.

Alexa!

Soft-eyed Hera looks at you with a sympathy that you've rarely seen from any other. Her hands reach down and grasp the shaft of the arrow and even she gasps softly at the touch of it.

"Zeus has turned her back on this place," said Hera quietly. "She sees only the darkness, sees only that it is a thing to be scoured away with the flash of lightning. She doesn't see that people live here too. That this is a place worth healing, not just destroying..."

The Thunderbolt comes free. Hera carefully tucks it away inside her robes.

"Do one thing for me. Find the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt - he is locked in the Queen's palace. He has the ability to move the Eater of Worlds, even in its current dismal state. Set him free and he will move the Eater of Worlds into the void, away from the Armada. They'll have a chance to decide what they want."

Bella!

You can smell the blood. You can smell the sickness. There are no gods here, inside these walls. Something here is terribly wrong and you're heading directly towards it.

You come to a halt on a rooftop, a clear view to the palace. Redana is there. Redana, on the ground, before a monster. Crimson lightning wraps around the talons of a damned queen. You watch someone, some replacement, try to do your job and fail. She goes down like a bag of mud to a single blow. That failure seems to fill the entire world. You have had nightmares of failing Redana. You have dedicated your life to ensuring you never fail Redana. You worked to eliminate that possibility, purging all possible weaknesses from your mind and body so that would never come to pass.

And here is... a pretender. A faker. Someone who dared to try and protect Redana while not being up to the task. These amateurs have no idea! No idea of the danger!! No idea of the responsibility!! No idea of the commitment required to protect a princess!! If it was you she wouldn't be hurt!! If it was you that woman would be fucking dead before she could even lay a hand on your princess!!

It's not Redana's fault. She doesn't understand how much she needs you. It's the fault of whoever these people are, making her feel safe when she's not.

You're some distance away. There's still some sprinting to do. You can make it. You're the only one who can.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

"WHAT IS MY MOUTH DOING?" said Jasper, experiencing her very first yawn. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"

This was a rebuke! A curse! A... a... a Buddha-thing! This was what she got for not obeying the Enlightened One's request to use her desired title! Her mouth was contorted into a terrible cramp, trying to bite the air, breathing the essence of sleep. Buddha magic! One time she'd tried to foot race a Buddha and he'd revealed that the entire racetrack was actually in the palm of his hand and it had made her head hurt. Like, she'd won the race, but he'd somehow made it like it hadn't mattered. How can a race not matter!? They - they matter, okay!?

She stabbed at her ramen with her chopsticks moodily.

She hadn't considered the show, honestly. A big musical event where everyone would be singing and dancing in the midst of elaborate pyrotechnical displays honestly sounded like the most boring and mundane thing she could possibly do with her time, the celestial equivalent of going to Shanghai and ordering a hamburger. But she did owe the Buddha for hosting her as a guest and had no desire to end up as the subject of a koan. So she nodded. "If you desire it, I would be honoured to serve," said Jasper. "You will have to inform me of this story. And, of course, the role you have in mind for me."

With any luck this would be a straightforwards role with minimal weird Buddha concepts.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Destiny or dread, she needed to know. Destiny or dread, her own feet had lead her astray. Destiny or dread, at least she'd be blessed or cursed.

She set the gems of seven dreams into their places. Light broken into seven colours - and now she was to look into the source from whence they each came. It should be a process that felt as mystic and grand as the quest to acquire them but somehow it didn't. There was no ceremony or ritual here and that disappointed her. Shouldn't she have to sing? Or kneel? Or at least change her clothes from this simple adventurer's dress, stained with grass and fire and mountain-ash?

Ah well. Just a reminder that whoever's dream this was, it wasn't really hers.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

She flattened herself against the cliff face as the wind howled. It had a malevolent hooking motion to it, trying to get around her to the side and peel her from the cliff face. Inch by inch she progressed, scrambling as quickly up the cliff face as she could in the wind's lulls. Her heart struck in her chest when her hand reached nothing but air, and then slapped down on a rough and flat surface. One final struggle and she rolled onto her back on the mountain peak, hands fastening around the brilliant sapphire, struggling for breath as she stared up at the pale blue ocean above her. She watched as whales broke the surface above her and caught her breath and senses in the mountaintop cold.

Was it cowardice? Was the Cat right? What kind of hero wouldn't fight? Perhaps she'd been spoiled, leaving others to do the hard work. And it was true that her reasons for not fighting were selfish...

She crouched down, coiling her muscles underneath her - and leapt. As she jumped she passed from gravity altogether and floated weightless in the sky above the mountain, subject to the breeze. She folded her arms in front of her as she passed into the gravity of the ocean, momentum reasserting itself and dragging her straight downwards into a magnificent dive. She slashed into the water like a knife and swam down, down, amidst the silvers and magentas of fish and coral.

Hadn't the lion tore away her weaknesses? When those claws had torn through her they'd caught on everything that had held her back. But it had left this feeling with her. Didn't that mean that this feeling was pure? Wasn't she, ipso facto, the greatest and most perfect version of herself as sculpted by the rending talons of the divine beast?

Her hands sank into the soft sand at the ocean floor, illuminated by a thousand anglerfish. From silt as fine as air she drew forth a shining amethyst, such a radiant colour that it turned the black into violet. She set it onto her belt alongside the sapphire and then began to dig with her hands in the sea-floor sand. Deeper and deeper, until the earth cracked open and she fell into the molten depths of the underworld.

Hell awaited her here, fiery and mighty. Vast industries, molten metal and molten earth, great rolling ramps that engines moved down with ceaseless purpose. The water stayed above knowing that it had no place her, and she stood upon the ceiling above the roads and conveyors. She leapt and ran with surreal swiftness against the flow. The conveyors pulled her in the wrong direction, the stampeding stone bulls came at her headlong, the ramps were all uphill and every motion brought conflict. On she ran.

There were three possibilities. Either she was perfect, she was not perfect, or she had been perfect but had somehow acquired a flaw. But which was it? She trusted the lion. She couldn't doubt it's gift. It had freed her from her shell of flaws, let her rise above everything that had held her back. But had it brought her into line with platonic perfection, or had it raised her to its ideal of perfection, or had it raised her to her ideal of perfection? Something foreign had gone through her mind and made changes - changes she'd craved, changes she celebrated. But now she had to decide if she was going to stand by those changes or continue to evolve...

She tore the ruby from the claws of the dragon. It smiled at her and shifted aside to reveal the sunlit passage out of the earth's depths. She emerged blinking into the light above a city with tangerine rooftops. It was a place of vines and waterfalls and verticality, a spiral staircase up towards the distant sun. She took a breath, whirled herself onto the back of a horse, and touched her heels to it, driving it at full pelt through the streets of the city. It leapt over wagons, darting through narrow alleyways, dream-creatures leaping from its path as she charged, up and up, galloping across rooftops as often as she crossed cobbled streets.

Maybe she was distracting herself with all of this. Maybe this was all besides the point. Maybe this wasn't about the lion, or even about her. Maybe... it was about Tirzah? Perhaps everything was in the end. Tirzah, clever and acidic. Tirzah, honest and wise. Tirzah, the princess she'd fought to save, Tirzah, the destination of this great journey...

The artist's brush whirled. The orange of the rooftops caught on a whirling brushtip, drawn up and struck out onto paper in a whirl. As she stepped back to admire her work, Canada's hand reached onto the canvas to pull the apricot gemstone free and set it onto her belt with its sisters. And then she was climbing again, up past rows and rows of paintings, going up forever. Up to the centre of the dome, and then out and up along the flagpole that went towards the sun itself. She lifted herself, legs swinging about acrobatically, and then she came up to stand on the metal flagpole like it was a tightrope. She walked, arms stretched, only the sky above and beneath her as she walked from the city to the sun.

She stepped down onto the fields of golden grain that made up the surface of the sun. She hefted her backpack, heavy with everything she needed, and walked. The wind cut across the vast fields and gently rolling hills as she pressed her way slowly through the rolling yellow ocean. Night time came as she passed to the dark side of the sun, so she cleared a space and made camp, sitting alone by a small campfire and tent, staring at the stars until morning. Then she was up again and continuing her trek.

Tirzah who she should have stopped.

That was it, wasn't it? If she'd had her sword then how could she justify not having used it to save the world? How could she have had a blade and kept it sheathed? If she could hurt people then that meant... logically, inevitably, that she'd at some point have to hurt Tirzah who started all of this. Once she accepted that power she'd have to follow it through to its logical conclusion.

She picked the topaz shard from amidst the shards of grain. This one stalk, alone amongst all the millions, had grown a perfect gemstone. Such was this place it had been all but indistinguishable from everything around it. But this was the end of the plains, and ahead loomed a vast and twisted forest, branches interlocking and only sharp angles of sunlight cutting through to a surface laid with moss. She cast aside her backpack, her jacket, tore her dress into a short skirt.

Each footstep was so soft, falling upon gently flowering moss. Above the wind spoke in clinking clatters as green glass bottles impacted on each other. This place was a descent, jumping down and down along the mighty and roiling chains of roots. The sunlight was dimmer and dimmer, dark green except for those moments that it wasn't. Distant clouds rolled across the sky, making the light in this living cavern turn on and off. Those spots where trees had fallen were explosions of new life, hundreds of tiny trees and vines eagerly stretching up to drink deeply of those puddles of light.

It was clear to her now that she'd been the one who'd broken her blade. It hadn't been a fortunate coincidence. It had been deliberate. She'd tried not to think about it. Tried to gloss over it mentally. But she hadn't wanted to make that choice so badly that she'd made it subconsciously and pretended it was fate.

Could it be undone? Had she permanently cut that part of her off? Had she purged something from herself in the same way that the lion had? If it could be undone, did that mean that the other flaws she'd freed herself from could come back too? Had the lion missed a vice, or had she destroyed a virtue?

She took the emerald from the cauldron in the woodland hut, the heat from the broth leaving her hands an angry red. She stared into the reflection for a long moment, looking at herself with helpless honesty. She blinked and was on the other side of that reflection and when she looked up she was in the city of night, dark and sleek and modern and lit with streetlamps. She hugged her bare shoulders against the chill as she walked through the dark, into and out of the office buildings still illuminated in pale blue light.

Goudan was wise, in that same way Asterion was. He'd said that by the end of this she'd either change or decide not to change, and either way she'd be done with these thoughts. But despite meditating on it for an adventure of 70,000 leagues she didn't feel a single step closer to a decision. All she'd learned was the lengths she was prepared to go to in order to avoid it. The right thing to do felt so inevitable. It felt so necessary. Save the world, blade in hand. As soon as she held that blade there'd be no stopping it, no excuse that could slow her. But at the same time she was breaking her very self to prevent the inevitable from beginning.

She plucked the indigo gemstone, a shard of liquid darkness, from the government computer screensaver that was still filling the shadowed office with light. Seven flawless jewels, the raiment of a princess. She wished they'd guide her. She wished her heart knew the answer, deep down, and would tell her in love and light.

But these were as silent as she, leaving her lonely, confused feelings to voicelessly whisper.

She stared up at the Sealed Tower. Perhaps here she'd find her answer.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

Old Aphrodite smiles. Isn't he fragile? Dusty and old, tuned to a time that nobody else remembers. Isn't he kind? That smile of his is so gentle you might wonder of the accuracy the old stories that place him as the most direct inheritor of the Titans, reborn of their flesh - a lineage that perhaps even places him as the literal father of Zeus. See how easily he yields to you, releasing his shield of a mother's love so that he might drive his spear two-handed through the heart of Princess Epistia.

She looks into your eyes. Has she fallen to her brother Hypnos? Has she fallen into the realm of terrible Morpheus, that surly neighbour to mighty Hades? She takes your hand in hers, and her mouth opens to say -

"Stop!"

A chill runs up your spine.

The wind ceases and the world runs cold. The Queen steps onto the grass and it wilts beneath her feet. Her hands drip with the blood of the murdered. She comes armoured for war, great gauntlets with crackling talons, but the panoply of kingship does not gleam. Her soldiers have dull and lifeless gazes. You stand in the presence of the doomed.

Queen Hatchan

Queen Hatchan
Oathbreaker, foresworn, doomed - and no longer able to delay the moment of reckoning.
Godless: This foolish soul has angered the Pantheon, and her doom is written. When this stat is damaged her doom has arrived in full, and woe to those around her who will be caught in her dying storm. However, she is free of the laws of the gods and may break any taboo.
Fury of the Forsaken: The Queen's words and deeds are area and necrotic.

"Epistia! I forbade you from the martial arts!" said the Queen. "And you! How dare you trespass in my realm, my house! How dare you touch my daughter!"

Alexia!

The storm strikes.

There is pain.

But your head falls not on stone, but into warm and gentle hands. As you lie upon the battlefield, an arrow of lightning through your false heart, Hera strokes your face in comfort. Zeus booms her triumph, the glory of victory divinely granted, and Hera turns her back, blotting out the lightning in a curtain of peacock feathers. Your sacrifice did not bring you victory, but neither did it pass unnoticed.

[Damage your Blood, and you must Overcome or seek the aid of the gods to remove the Thunderbolt from your body]

The King pulls his horse-haired helm off, revealing flowing light brown hair and elfin features. He snaps his fingers and his soldiers approach. They kneel in rows, three by three, raising their shields above their heads, forming a staircase for him to ascend without breaking his stride. He walks to the top of a platform of shields, borne aloft by nine soldiers, towering above the golden fields as he addresses the Ceronians. When he speaks, Zeus holds a crown aloft above his head, and his voice carries like a storm.

"Warriors of Ceron! The Empire calls upon your oaths! Admiral Odoacer, whom you once swore to serve before Zeus herself, has sent me here to rescue the lost Princess Redana, daughter of Empress Nero! You have been lost here, but you were not forgotten - and now I am here to return you in glory to service!"

A muttering ran through the crowd. Shocked. Horrified. She lied to us.

And then a soldier knelt before King Jas'o. Drawn by the inevitable pull of formation instinct the rest were dragged to their knees. The warrior king raised his arms triumphantly over his head as he accepted the loyalty of the Ceronians.

Vasilia!

[Damage Vasilia's sword]

There is a certain subgenre of trashy maid theatre productions in the stranger cafes on the galaxy's fringes. Supernatural powers are sometimes ascribed to these chief servants, servitors whose job it was to embody every strength and skill that their masters could think to ask for. They don't seem like jokes any more.

You've fought people before, but there were comprehensible rules to those fights. They were elegant exchanges of sword techniques and banter. They were distractions, full of trickery, mobile and fluid and full of thoughtful strategy. You don't even know what this was, only that you were not ready for it.

"Excuse me, sir," came a nasal voice that impressively managed to say polite words without even the faintest hint of politeness. "I am going to need you to answer some questions."

Ivory Smile, High Priest of Hades, came down the ramp (and was that a flicker of a tail for a moment there...?). He wore an unceremonious basic soldier's uniform, dark blue in the Admiral's colours, thick glasses and functional ponytail making him look like an armed bureaucrat - but for that book. It hung from his wrist by a chain, heavy and black and filled with terrible curses.

Ivory Smile

Ivory Smile
High Priest of Hades, an inveterate gambler and bearer of terrible relics.
Shadowcaster: The weaver can manipulate shadows at will, creating illusions or darkness as they see fit. These illusions can cause no harm, but are otherwise extremely convincing.
Doomed Soul: When this stat becomes damaged, the shadow weaver suffers an ironic and terrible circumstance that takes them out of the scene. Whether this is funny or tragic is up to the Horizon. If this is their last stat to be damaged, they are Taken Out instead of leaving the scene.
Dark and Terrible: The shadow weaver can leave curses upon those unfortunate souls who cross them. When the Shadow Weaver deals damage, they can also leave a curse, limiting or hindering the cursed person in a way they describe. The curse is lifted by dawn's light the next day.

Bella!

You're just in time to see King Jas'o's declaration to the Ceronians.

Son of a bitch. He's always been worse than good - he's lucky. Did he really just stumble into a legion of supersoldiers off the back of a quick duel and shitty little speech...

"Of course he doesn't deserve this," said Hera, speaking to your thoughts. That quiet, soft voice that's always there for you when the world demonstrates its injustice. "He's just convenient. The Gods want the queen dead and this is how they plan to do it."

There's only one gate into the city that you can see, and it's crowded with the entire Ceronian army. It's not obvious how you could get past them all, especially if the King spots you amidst the crowd. He might not recognize you, though? There's the wall itself, but it's made out of frictionless materials - maybe you could scale it by breaking handholds?

Commit to a plan, or take a moment to Look Closely.

Fellowship: The Heart

The entire party had come together to thwart her righteous vengeance.

Fire burned in Ailee's eyes, the wroth of a dragon who had been told that the whole world was against him - and so the entire world would need to be destroyed. Arcane power ran along her glyph- patterns, violet and red and green and black and the concentration of indolent vice seemed to hang in the air like a singularity. Everyone here was well within the blast radius.

And then, incongruously, Ailee took a deep breath, raising her hand from her diaphragm to her throat as she breathed in, and pushing it out in front of her as she breathed out. The storm of arcane power quelled like it had been sucked into a vacuum. Ailee was back to being a regular mousegirl instead of the immanent arrival of the Lord of Fire.

"Okay," she said. "Fine. I understand. I won't kill everyone. I am a team player and understand when I've been outvoted."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

"I don't know how to want that!" she blurted.

She's frozen there for a moment in the midst of a step, hand outstretched. Then she crumples, sitting down and hugging her knees to her chest. There's more genuine defensiveness there than there was in the fight, and she looks off to the side to avoid eye contact.

"I hate hitting people," she said. "I hate hurting people. What's so special about m-" she cuts herself off. She can't say that part out loud. They wouldn't understand.

"I don't even like doing it when it's important," she said. "I have nightmares afterwards. I had..."

She bites her lip. She'd been glad when the sword broke. It had been the worst day of her life... but that at least meant she didn't have to make it any worse.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Even in her dreams she was losing to Asterion.

It was all she could do to hold the shield between them. It was like a blindfold, between her eyes and her opponent's. She couldn't see what was coming, and when she saw glimpses at the edges the shield moved faster than her conscious mind to block whatever that was. A fight was like a sensory deprivation tank being attacked by a bear, hanging helpless, staring at nothing, as bone-jarring impacts fell upon her from all sides.

But wouldn't it be easier if...

She was on her ass before she could finish the thought, before she'd realized she was acting on it, staring down the horrifyingly unpleasant reminder that this wasn't Asterion. And that losing hadn't solved anything.

Then the Cat cut in with her questions.

"I, um... well that is..."

She sighed, struggling to get back on her aching feet. No hesitation there. The celestial lion had immolated her sloth in its radiant jaws and ever since then Canada had never heard a digit preceding the word 'push ups' she didn't like. Why couldn't training involve more pushups? Pushups were awesome.

Her eyes flicked between the Cat and Goudan. What did they know? Was this a rhetorical question, forcing her to say the embarrassing thing so that she had to take responsibility for it? Was it a test, and the answer in the front of her mind was actually wrong somehow? Did they genuinely have no strong ideas and she could get away with saying whatever? What did they want from her?

This was important because she really didn't want to admit that she'd deliberately lowered her guard. That just for a moment she'd found the idea of defending herself less valuable than the idea of letting Goudan have the win.

She opted to take refuge in literality. "Well, as you said, I hit my knee. And then I lowered my shield. And then I got knocked over." That was indeed the sequence of events, Canada, good job, gold star. "Hey, can we do some more strength training next?"

[Pierce the Mask: 2,1 - +1 for mundane, -2 for being angry, so that's a two]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

You have trained with some of the greatest warriors of the Imperium, and part of that was learning to see anything as a weapon. A footstool, a dessert spoon, convenient chandeliers - the expectation being that when violence emerges it will be an unexpected assassination attempt so you must make do with whatever comes to hand. So you are no stranger to strange weapons - but at the end of the day all of those improvised weapons are tools to keep you alive until you can arm yourself with a proper sword or spear. That was how real fighting was done, after all.

And now you're seeing someone train with a scythe.

It's alien. Everything you've seen here today is familiar - it's marvelous, but it exists within the Imperial context. But what the princess is doing with that scythe is like nothing you've ever imagined. The motions are methodical and industrial, but then jarring and wild - weight and counterweight, sometimes she's swinging the blade and sometimes she's using it to catapult herself forwards. When one half is still the other is in motion. A sword is an extension of the arm; that scythe is like a dance partner.

"Your grace! You have a guest!" said Assistant Secretary Godal, slithering onto the practice field without even the slightest care about the whirlwind of blades he was moving towards. Epistia barely caught herself before she cut the brainsquid in half, he seemed not to notice and immediately went about fixing her hair - wild and flattened with sweat, oblivious to his interruption. "Princess Redana has come a long way to see you, you know, you should at least make a few concessions to appearances."

"Princess who?" said Epistia, trying to slap away the octopus' corrective tentacles as her breath and adrenaline still pounded, deeply disoriented by the sudden interruption.

Alexa!

This is how things are done between warriors.

The phalanx glides up behind you, spears lowered, shields raised. Galnius and his soldiers, for all their misgivings, stand alongside you on the field of war. They can do no less. They can conduct themselves with such pride because when the battle is joined they will hold the line. You are fewer, but you are not lesser.

King Jas'o stands against you across the field, bow held low against the ground. He still has not strung it - cautious, so cautious. If he places a Thunderbolt to that string then he is declaring in the sight of all the gods that he is worthy of wielding the power of Zeus. You cannot simply release your grip and put the arrow back in your quiver after such a statement. You can see the strain it leaves on him, overcoming his own reckless nature - hands shaking, eyes focused with hawklike precision.

The two of you lock eyes across the field as a strange breathlike wind sends the amber waves of grain rippling between you. The phalanxes stamp, stamp, stamp, each crash of heavy armour into the dirt an expression of their valour. Athena stands upon the battlefield, watching as the strange world fades away.

Then King Jas'o looks away. His vision falls on the Ceronians as they make their way out onto the field as a third side. His bloodhound mind sees the true prize and oh, how he wants to escape from this confrontation and go after the princess.

Roll to Keep Them Busy, Alexa. You're not distracting King Jas'o but rather his soldiers - is your voice strong enough, are your insults sharp enough to prevent the King from sending forth a champion in his place? Can you hold his attention while Vasilia and Dolce sneak away to conduct those negotiations?

(The answer will, of course, be yes - but the results of your roll will tell you how good a shot King Jas'o is with that bow when you pierce the thin film of his patience)

Vasilia!

Your fate is in Alexa's hands as you move through the vineyards and orchards, cutting your way around the staring armies in the greatest traditions of the Starsong. Ahead of you are - ah! Ceronians! You know them!

The location of Ceron itself is, of course, a secret known only to the Empress and her successor, but you've met more than enough of their roaming mercenary companies in the void of space. As far as soldiers go there are none finer, and as sisters go there are none closer. They fight as though they are telepathic, able to conduct the most complex operations with perfect timing and moving as though they are pushed and pulled by the hand of Athena herself. Were you to convince them to join you the warriors of King Jas'o would not be able to stand against them.

But as you're nearing the lupine warriors you're cut off. A golden shuttle crashes through the orchard in front of you, gilt and gems tumbling from its already damaged ornamentation like Hades' rain. The great ramp slams down, and from the personal shuttle of the Admiral of the Grand Armada emerges...

Bella!

It's hot.

It's wet.

You smell canines.

You walk down the ramp into the green hell. You feel the wash of thermal radiation from the malfunctioning engine core above on your face. You feel the moist ground squish under your feet, soft enough to absorb footfalls and making it impossible to tell who is where. You look around at the scene of destruction, at the plumes of toxic black smoke in the distance from where the Imperial shuttles were smashed open and left to burn. You see armies, weapons drawn, murder in their eyes.

You pass under your shuttle, still stained pink and grey from the monsters that threw themselves blindly into your path and died for it. You step out into the most horrifyingly open area you've ever experienced in your life. Your world was the boundaries and dimensions of the Imperial Palace, rooms that while large have nothing on the enormity of this place. It crushes down on you. The fact that there are houses at all makes it all worse because it means you're in the most wasteful, indulgent suburb of all of Tellus.

And in front of you, in your way, stands a lion and a sheep.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

As reflective as this place is, Canada's never been able to shake the feeling that it hates reflections. She sometimes sees glimpses or angles or sweeping vistas that are beautiful because of their shattering black glass, perfect and unspoiled - except for her. Everywhere she sees the impressions of claws - damage from the lion, perhaps? Or are all these jagged edges traps for her? She was purified through destruction but the job wasn't finished - she still held onto too much of herself and the mirrors see her as a half finished job, not complete until the hollowing out is finished...

Her soft shoes toe through broken glass. She knows sleeping here is a terrible idea - but she needs to rest, and won't be able to find her way out tonight. The soft music of cracking, of things becoming smaller and sharper and even more difficult to repair, accompanies every footstep. The floor is no less cluttered here than her apartment but she doesn't even know where the clear spaces are. And everywhere she looks jagged eyes look back at her, violet bright circles and with violet dark circles of exhaustion. She'd broken this place too.

She finds a clear area - a huge piece of glass miraculously unbroken - and lies down atop it. Her head turns to the side and it seems like she's lying in the embrace of her own reflection. She looks at her with quiet reproach, and as much as she wishes she would comfort her, forgive her, it doesn't come.

So she sleeps in the vain hope that dreams will free her from her ten million eyes.