Thanqol

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

This was it.

She sealed away her tempestuous heart. Doubts and fears and loves all needed to be still for a little moment. This was the moment when the world might change, where she could undo all of her failures and have one more chance at saving the world.

She touched two fingers to her temple and then to her heart, drawing a mystic line of light between the two. She spread her fingers and pulled her hands apart, letting her hair fall backwards into a wave of raven disarray, and the line unfolded into a profoundly complex mystic circle. It spun as it stretched to the tips of her outstretched fingers, the heart-shape glyph centered above her own heart, igniting with pink and golden flames.

The roof shook, and then exploded, letting in a beam of brilliant noonday sunlight to strike her like a spotlight. It grew brighter and brighter as it touched her, the light burning away her robe, her veil, her menial civilian clothing. It soaked into her skin rendering her a silhouette of light amidst the lights and then overflowed, soaking out of her like honey and condensing into pink-gold crystals and metals. A gleaming gorget formed around her collar, engraved with solar rays. Arm-bands circled her wrists like cuffs and then lanced out a cage of quartz bars to guard to her elbows. A slash of indigo erupted from within her as her hands touched the top of the circle, cascading down her in consuming dark silk, barely not concealing feet that step into woven gold sandles.

She stands there for a moment, radiant amidst this darkened place. And then she snatches the mystic circle from the air. It doesn't just come in the form of light, it pulls the very reality from the air within the bounds of the circle, twisting and solidifying into a mirror in the midst of a barricade of light. Canada, the Light of Ra, stamps upon the ground sending a shockwave of sunlight from her that scorches away every shadow in the hangar.

And then she points with one outstretched finger. "False God Shamash," she declares, "I, Canada Taliv, challenge you to single combat."

So much for the stealthy approach.

[Taking foolhardy action to clear Insecure]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Oh, Princess... you may be wearing these rags, but that doesn't mean you can drool all over them," said Mynx, rolling her fingertips up and down Redana's burning-bright ear, ice cold against white heat. "I suppose that it was too much to hope that this place would have a gag worthy of royalty. Well, we will have to make do."

She leans in with a serrated smile, finger running up the place where your shirt used to be before coming around the back of your neck to tie Bella's handkerchief over your mouth. "It's such bad form to have to double-gag someone," Mynx lamented, "but I'm afraid it's the only way to protect your dignity. And besides, you're making so much noise through that gag already I think you're trying to get someone to burst in here and find you like this..."

She leaned in close. "You're going to have to get used to this, Princess. You're going to have to get used to me be being someone who -" SLAP! Mynx's hand hits you, open-palmed, across the face, "- hits you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" SLAP! Again, against the thigh this time, "- being someone who disobeys you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" she spits in your face, and it soaks down into the already dirty handkerchief, "- degrades you. I am going to be playing an extremely dangerous role in the presence of a singularly dangerous individual and the wrong," SLAP "squeak out of you will doom us all. Do you understand, Redana? We're going to have to play a game. We're going to pretend that I am strong, you are weak, and Bella can't get out of those ropes."

She flicked Bella's ear, and then petted it provocatively. "You see how good Bella is?" said Mynx, running her hand along Bella's tail as she circles all the way around. "She knows that she needs to be a good maid. She knows she needs to keep her eyes down. She knows she needs to keep what she's capable of a secret. She's going to let me do this -" Mynx tugged on Bella's tail sharply, "and worse because that's the price she has to pay to keep you safe. You're going to play this game, princess, because the alternative is playing it for real."

She stares into your eyes, deadly serious, cold as ice.

Bella!

You know Mynx a little better than Redana, and you know her signs of embarrassment and stress. Her scales are rippling in what you've come to recognize as her version of a blush, and while her hands are cool as ice cubes against your burning face and ears they're warmer than they normally are. She's as much talking herself up to this as she is beating it into Redana. In her heart she's shy and soft as butter. Being able to flirt and project confidence like this is something she's been consciously working on for years, and you can tell how nervous this role makes her.

You have a moment to reflect on this before a trapdoor slams open and a goddess emerges.

Alexa!

You've walked in on - something. The Princess! And Bella, the maidservant you met back at the Palace - what is she doing here!? And there's a blur of liquid motion you're already coming around to face when -

"Oh, it's you," said Mynx tucking her bioplasma-blue glowing hand inside her sleeve with an air of faint embarrassment and letting out a relieved sigh. "The statue, right? Stand down, the princess is fine, I'm her bodyguard."

You know Mynx. One time she shape-shifted into you and stood directly in front of you silently for six hours before pulling a goofy face. And more, you know what she's capable of - the Toxicrene Temple was one of Molech's favoured instruments, for what better war than one where you controlled the leaders of both sides? She has a lot of strange tricks up her sleeve but all of them are useless against your lack of metabolism, so she'd only be a tactical threat if she was supporting a Trochidae.

Dolce!

One of the problems of distributed intelligence is that it very easily lends itself to indecision - and so the Assistant Secretary slides back and forth at the end of the tunnel as its limbs all vote differently as to if they should stay or go. But you are soft and harmless-looking and so the octopus comes to the conclusion that it is in no immediate danger here, talking to you.

"Oh, very well," said the Assistant Secretary, one tentacle taking the initiative to pat you on the head and delight in the fluffiness. "Look. I'm out of a job, to be honest... what's the point of managing a dead leviathan's fear? Oh sure I'm still on the organizational chart and my office is one of the ones that didn't get shattered when the ship came through but that doesn't mean I deserve to be here. My position has been destroyed and now I need to grow a backbone," funny. "and decide what to do with myself. Do I take a voluntary redundancy and return to the spawning depths? Do I transfer into a new position? There are so many vacancies, how do I decide what I want? What if I don't like it there? What if I need to apply?" it groaned.

"Help me out, little sheep," lamented the bureaucapus. "What should I do with myself? Retire? Start a new job? Maybe even go into the private sector and join a cancer colony?"

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Sometimes Canada feels like she's drowning in Marianne's presence - it's so easy to do. Follow the waves and undercurrents and riptides no matter how far away shore gets. But now she's under the surface and it's...

Fire and touch and tongue and lightning. Intensity and curiosity and intimacy. Her tongue touched the inside of her mouth and tasted her thoughts and she melted into that. Please. See me. The mask she could never take off was torn away and her knees shook in fear and her heart pounded in exaltation. She'd missed this. Please... she needed to be known because she didn't know herself. She needed to be vulnerable because being strong was so hard...

And then she was standing, blinking, lips glistening, hands trembling as judgement was passed.

She tried to speak but her tongue had not accepted the idea that it was free and untangled. She tried to fall to her knees but before she could she was supporting Marianne whose weight was on her shoulders and she couldn't drop her. She tried to blush and at least something went right.

And through it all she had the intense feeling she'd been found wanting. So much for confidence.

She started taking shaky steps forwards, the kind of stiff march that came when every footstep was an individual requiring dedicated care and attention. "You..." wantkissedsavedshattered "...disapprove." she managed, resisting the urge to touch her lips that still sparked like stars. "I'll work harder," she said because that was all she could think to do.

Fellowship: The Heart

"Philosophy is bullshit," said Ailee. "I'm interested in results. And I just want... urgh," she rubs her eyes, then swears as she realizes there was still sand on her fingers. She starts rubbing a lot more fiercely with the back of her hand. "I just want something to change. I just want..."

She sighs, but it settles into a smile. "I thought about it. You know, plan A, take my fucking shot at the king and see what's left standing at the end of it all. But an answer like that is both too slow and too short term."

She finished rubbing her eyes, one of them quite red and watery from the sand. The other... not much better. She gives a confident little smirk through it all. "So I'm down here instead. Going to solve the problem at the Heart."

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

Mynx bites her finger to stifle the giggles. "You two are so cute like this! Oh, I should have done this much sooner. And maybe I should find a way to keep doing it even longer," she daringly puts her finger under Bella's chin to affectionately scratch. "After all, from that expression I might be in danger if I were to let you go! You know, I told Redana that she should train you better."

She reaches into one of Bella's pockets and takes her time rifling around until she comes out with a silk handkerchief. She uses it to dab up the saliva from the maid's mouth, and then steps around to provide the same service to Redana - with the same handkerchief.

"You know the Empress didn't trust me with this?" she said. "She didn't even trust Bella. You should have seen how hard Bella worked to get to be out here with you... but don't worry, okay? It's not just us two. I've got assassins from all five of the temples standing by. I'm teasing now, and later when I'm pretending to be the King I might have to be really mean... but you're safe, okay? I'm going to get you and Bella back home and things can go back to normal." She grinned widely. "And then you can punish me as much as you want! Oh, should I start giving you some ideas? There are all sorts of things I can show you now so you know how to really discipline me when the time comes~"

Alexa!

"Oh, so polite!" said the Assistant Secretary. There's so much to keep track of - so much movement and motion - that you almost don't notice when it starts squeezing out through the bars. Despite its bulk, the rubbery body of the octopus is capable of deforming even through this narrow space. It takes a while though, the cage isn't entirely useless. It continues its cheerful patter while it's so doing. "And yes! A system like the Eater of Worlds doesn't collapse just because one office building is destroyed. Admittedly after the decades some systems will have grown cancerous and need to be put down, and resource scarcity will have done for some non-critical functions, but there's life in these old bones just yet, ha ha!"

For all the cheer in that burbly voice, you manage to finally spot the eye of the brainsquid as its core bulk emerges on the other side of the prison. It's nervous. Darting around frantically in all directions. It's latching onto politeness because it's terrified of violence, and what it wants more than anything is confirmation of its own physical security. The tentacles continue to move erratically - octopi are distributed intelligences and every single one of its limbs has its own brain that only works vaguely in tandem with the others.

"Anyway, it's been ever so pleasant to meet you Alexa, but I really must be going -" and oh whoops, that's the rooftop vent clattering down besides you, and before you have time to blink the entire Assistant Secretary has lifted itself up and crammed itself into the air vent. "Please put your request in through the proper channels - Form 20185 I think you'll need - and I'll make sure it's processed. Ta ta -" and it's slithering away into the vents.

That's what you should be cautious of.

Vasilia and Dolce!

They're still moving, yes, still coherent - but they're so slow. You can escape from them in moments if you have to and that might be desirable because the objective is whooping away down through an air vent. Alexa isn't going to fit down that but one of you might - if you're prepared to climb into a cramped air vent currently occupied by a giant octopus. The rest of you might be best served going upstairs into the palace and trying to cut it off.

Fellowship: The Heart

"Try again," said Ailee, "but arguing against my actual position this time. I didn't say that there should be no laws or enforcement. Like you illustrated, having laws is in the interest of the community because otherwise it's just strongmen. But say the Duke d'Nauvair starts that civil war at last and overthrows the King of Grand Jelt. From what Lucien says that might already be happening. He'll have proved himself through politics and warfare an exceptional individual - or at the minimum the most competent of the closed circle of land owning magnates who have a voice in the political system. The laws by definition won't apply to him, what with him being the king and head of a massive army. And yet his reign would immediately be constrained by laws he had nothing to do with! Laws that weren't far-sighted checks and balances placed upon an incoming magnate by a visionary founder-figure, but shit like 'the clerical estate has a veto over legislation' and 'thou shalt not regulate intercolonial tariffs'."

She leans down through the railing, stretching out her hand - and the gleaming magical talons that extended from it - and ran them through the sand as it raced by. She withdrew a handful of silver sand and looked at it thoughtfully.

"I mean, what's the point of having that civil war in the first place if the new king is exactly identical to the last king? Why are the laws vested with any sort of moral authority if they can't even perform their basic function of stopping a usurper? When an individual so exceptional they can single-handedly overthrow society arises, why would anyone hold to old, failed laws and traditions as inherently moral? Why not totally remake society in that instance?"

She's watching the sand fade through her fingers.

She's worried.

She's not arguing this in the abstract. She's arguing this while she's thinking of her family at home, trapped in a nation on the verge of civil war.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

There are other presences, but none as overpowering as Marianne. Canada can drown in that flow - the ferocity, the confidence, the musical and flowing speech and motion. She seems like genius made manifest. Each sentence she wants to replay in her head, first listening to the rhythm and grace of it, and then descending into the meaning. Each glance between the shadows and light, each act of transdimensional acrobatics she wishes she was filming. The eyes that flash out of that shining mask like thunderbolts see not only her but her futures as well - the ones she seeks, and the ones she will not attain.

She's stomping her feet a little. Letting the armour rattle. So direct and lumpen in comparison, a castle amidst a sunstorm, hoping the noise and regularity steadies the rhythm of her pounding heart.

"I-I didn't know I could do this," she said, and what an embarrassing coincidence that she stepped into this puddle of shade and shivered right as Marianne was talking about punishment. "I never had to before."

Some part of her wonders if she regrets the wishes of her youth. She'd dreamed of who she was now - the speed, the face, the curves. She'd wanted to be this - exalted that she was this. But there was something about the motion of that tail, the creak of those broken wings that made her struggle not to stare. How did they feel to touch? Would it be rude to touch them? Were they like hands or shoulders or... something else?

"Well - uh," she swallowed. "It's not that I'm twisting myself, Marianne," she said, raising her head and speaking clearly - and oh, in that moment she does not know how clearly she's speaking. How commanding. How bright! "My heart is set. I know the world I wish to create. As long as that remains unchanged all that's left is building it. Shield, spear, they're both tools and I will wield whichever one I must."

Replace every colon with a question mark and you will know the shape of her heart, though you would not know it from her voice alone. She still struggles with the lesson of the Cat.

[Canada is explaining how she thinks the world works, looking to shift your Superior down and Danger up. Accept her words or reject her influence.]

Fellowship: The Heart

"I get why it's in the interests of the community to create a whole stifling raft of laws," said Ailee. "I don't get why it's considered a moral good for exceptional members of the community to obey them."

She's not snappy, authoritative, demanding. There are no dramatic finger-points or declarations. She's got her arms folded on the rail, looking out at the desert with a pensive expression. Her hands twitch - twitcha twitcha, tappa tappa, conducting some imaginary symphony or playing air piano. She sometimes tilts her head like she can hear the invisible music.

"Once you get a group of seven or more somebody has to be in charge," said Ailee. "And that somebody then immediately does everything in their power to make sure they're in charge forever. In extremis they'll sell their souls to the clown god to make sure that it really is forever. Hereditary monarchy is just a primitive form of immortality. It's this fucking brain-worm that grows inside the head of anyone who so much as joins the student council. And then all the garbage that pours out of their mouths becomes tradition and morality and law - and none of that shit even prevents crime or civil war, it just means that when those things happen the new guy is chained by the same bullshit. Exceptional people," pause to admire herself in her hand mirror, "have to spend so much effort figuring out how to game the system in order to make even the smallest improvement. It's why civilization advances at a crawl."

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

"You will leave us," said the voice of Admiral Odoacer. "Form a perimeter outside and do not enter unless summoned. Further, you will collect all the shuttles from the surrounding area and consolidate them immediately outside on the training field, under guard. Dismissed."

As the Ceronians leave, the Admiral approaches Redana. A menacing smirk crosses her lips, the kind that makes you feel afraid and hopeful all at once. Hopeful because it suggests that your seduction is working... afraid for the same reasons. She hooks a finger under your chin and looks into your eyes. Her finger slipped up around your mouth, tracing where the skin met the leather of the gag. "Well then, princess," she sneered. "I've finally got you right where I want you."

For a moment everything seems like it could go in a very different way.

Then a viper-quick tongue slips out from between her lips and licks your nose. Aaah! Phbit! Mynx!

"You dummy!" said the shapeshifter, falling back into her natural(?) crimson reptilian form, sweeping you (and Bella, by proxy) up into a massive hug. "You see how close you got to getting caught? You had me worried sick! Are you -" she pulls back and scrutinizes your face, "you're not okay!" She's immediately tearing open your shirt - oh um, Mynx, you needed that shirt - and looking at the still fresh scorch wound where you were hit by the Thunderbolt earlier. "Redana!" she said. "That's it! I've had it! Bella was right! You obviously cannot take care of yourself and you are going to stay gagged until I get you home."

She leans in close, head coming down to your neck. You feel her breath for a moment - and then the tiny pin-prick pain as she bites you. It's soft and sharp, piercing skin. Mynx's fangs contain extremely potent antivenom substances and you have been running your barely bandaged open wound through the mud of an alien environment. Precautions are necessary. The fact that these precautions take the form of intimate kisses to the neck being taken while you hang mostly shirtless, bound and gagged are neither here nor there.

Again there's a moment where things feel like they could go a very different way.

And then Mynx is looking up at you with a smile and tracing around your jaw with a finger until her hand passes across to Bella's face. Again she coils it under Bella's chin, smiling brightly. "Don't worry, kitten~," she trills. "I'm taking this all very seriously, but you've left me with such a mess. Good work on catching Redana, but now it's my turn to drive. I'm going to have to disguise myself as that King you killed and take the two of you to the Admiral as prisoners, and then work something out where I spring you once we're closer to Tellus. It's a rough plan but the entire Armada will be running a blockade outside by now and I can't evade that. It does mean that you and the princess will be spending a couple of weeks bound and gagged, but who knows?" she pats your cheek in a way that would be absolutely perilous if you had access to your fangs. "Maybe you'll come to enjoy it!"

Alexia!

An enormous bulk loomed over you through the prison bars. Dark tendrils extended through the gaps, reaching out to grasp the construct woman who had stepped a fragment too far over the red-painted line on the floor. Tentacles seized your arm and - shook it. Up and down. "Good morning!" burbled the strangely pleasant voice of the enormous octopus in the jail cell. "And hello! A pleasure to meet you, I am the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt. Welcome to my office! I do hope I can assist you!"

Vasilia and Dolce!

The phalanx of the dull-eyed Ceronians is in total disarray as they try to pull themselves from the impact of your grav-glaive. They're in no position to stop you - but they've also got the keys to the cell somewhere in that mess. They're not really a threat right now but you can act to make that a more permanent victory if it suits you.

You can move in with a Finish while they're too disoriented to stop you, or you can devise some other way to open the cell door.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

He was here for her.

From the moment she'd heard the news she'd known. No, from the moment she'd seen him in the telescope she'd known. He'd seen her and whatever he'd seen had been enough to tear him from the stars. This was a gesture of enormous respect - terrifying respect. It meant that Shamash was bringing his full attention and fury to her directly without any games. She was being treated as a once in a century threat by an alien god.

And now she had to earn it.

She's been half-dreaming of this moment. She choreographs the encounter in a hundred ways. He might move like this. He might speak like this. She writes him lines and writes herself responses like scripting a movie. She imagines the pain - for there will be pain. At night she lies awake in bed and imagines in vivid detail the breaking of her arm and how she'll fight on despite that. She needs to get this right.

New techniques are called for.

She can't come at this through the physical world. She's too obvious, even veiled, to get through security of this level. So she walks through the border of the mirror realm, wrapped in the void of her own heart. She has never done this before and there is good reason for that. It seems as though she is walking through the real world but every mirrored surface glows, the source of a strange black light. Where this light touches it's not reality she sees but the other place - deepest night and occupied with more true incarnations of everything within it. The streets are slashed through with lines of mirrored darkness - every gleaming suit of armour, every fine pane of glass, every pool of water creates a puddle of alternate reality where everything is different. The rules change with every step between dark and light.

She wonders if this whole idea is a mistake, and rather than solving her problems she's actually doubled them.

She wonders if the dark version of Shamash will be scarier than the light.