This is a production all right, but it's not Shamash's any more.
As the world sinks into darkness and the arena into nightmare, so does she - bending low to cast her face with black sand and muck. Her light goes out and all that's left is the horror Marianne has bought. Eyes become accustomed to the light and beauty fades away into it - until the moment it vanishes. It's as shocking and disorienting as an electrical outage.
And a few seconds of total shock are lifetimes at the speed she and Shamash are moving at.
She sprints forward as invisibly as a sunbeam in space. She leaps, snatching the spear out of the sky seconds before Shamash's fingers close around it. She skids to a halt on the other side of the battlefield, feeling the twisted thing writhe beneath her fingers. She spends a few precious seconds to scan the crowd. Is Marianne here? Anathet?
She looks up at Tirzah. Despite everything she smiles. Despite everything her heart beats. Do you see? I'll never stop fighting for you.
[Directly engage: 11 - Avoid Blows - Take the spear from him]
"Telling the Captain would make things too," Iskarot buzzed, "organized. Ares has offered his favour as we are, his approval to your independent thought. Perhaps you have never seen him in this aspect before. He says, be bold! Be spontaneous! Though there may be chaos it shall be blessed chaos, and much can be done in those conditions."
He unravels himself into a standing posture, triskellion legs bringing him to his hunched-but-towering height, clicking across the metal deck.
"Now, the lesson begins and begins with safety. The D-Scythe is a way to focus the Engine into a single point. This implies enormous stress placed upon the device. As you hold it you will feel it vibrate under your fingers with increasing ferocity, until the point you can hear a sound like chiming glass. This is the focusing crystals impacting on each other and means the metal is beginning to warp. It is a bad sound and implies immanent detonation, immediately detether the device using this release catch and retreat twenty paces if you hear it. Following this all the crystals must be checked for fractures and replaced. Next, whenever the device is not in use remove it from the wall tether for strain is placed upon it even when not in use. The vibrations of the scythe can make it unsteady to hold, great strength must be applied to prevent it from shaking out of your hands - dropping a still-active D-Scythe is a perilous endeavour. Do not attempt to catch it if this happens, instead strike with your ELF against it as swiftly as possible which will momentarily interrupt the power flow. While the device is rebellious it is also simple and tends to struggle and fail in predictable ways. Steady authority will be required. Come, show me how you make this first cut - we will sever the internal structural bonds, then seal the floors above and below with omnifoam before cutting the exterior hull..."
Tell us, Redana, of how you come to grips with this strange device.
Dolce!
"Redana is blind to her strength," said Hera, "and Alexa is afraid of hers. Vasilia cannot command her own heart. Their curses are as real as yours. As real as everyone's. It is why Hades has not yet found a crew who can succeed at his foolish quest..."
She looks over at the window where the hulking wreckage of a broken ship drifts amidst red and violet nebulae-dust, like blood spreading in a pool.
"You must hope that they heal you even as you try to heal them."
Alexa!
"Ah!" Isty takes the spear with surprise and reverence. "Mother had these all destroyed..." she murmurs, tracing it with her fingers. "It feels like I know how to use this already..."
A wolf needs no instructor to teach it how to bite. Instincts of war are hard-coded into Ceronian biology. Medical tyrants throughout the ages have done their utmost to design the ultimate super-soldier - and many of their most brilliant innovations wound their way into the human genome over the ages - but no servitor species has ever dislodged the Ceronians. They aren't perfect soldiers, they aren't born Codexia, but they are optimized like no other war species, from everything from their omnivorous digestion to their ability to operate for weeks without sleep. You could make a better warrior than a Ceronian but no one has yet made a better army.
She doesn't do anything as formal as take a stance. She just reflexively falls into a resting stance that happens to present her with a deadly array of offensive options. The fundamentals of excellence are all there inherently, strength and speed and instinct. All she lacks is strategy.
Bella!
No chains nor scripture cage the Oratus. This is no aesthetic and no beast. The chambers are lit with steady flame and steady luxury, tasteful and restrained, and centred around a table heavy with maps. The only hint that you have not simply arrived in the quarters of a king is the soft roar of air in the distance, the steady breeze that runs through the room and the overwhelming scent of jasmine. No elaborate mechanisms of security need to be maintained when the assassin can be neutralized by mere air.
She rises to meet you with a brilliant smile and immediately bows with humble respect. She's beautiful. The most well groomed and elegantly appointed of the Ceronians. It's impossible not to like her, not to take an involuntary and reflexive step forwards - into Mynx's outstretched and warning hand. There's a current running underneath the perfume and it itches your nose just barely...
"The Oratus," Mynx said, "possesses a weaponized mutation of Ceronian formation instinct. The Cerons communicate complex information at a distance using a combination of their enhanced sense of smell and pheromone glands in their necks. An Oratus doesn't emanate just scents, but a viral agent that triggers something similar to formation instinct in any species. It's not mind control but it... makes people think that they're a small part of a larger entity."
"Which is not inaccurate, Praetor," demurred the Oratus politely. "I do not merely issue commands this way, but I can receive information in turn. Of course, my influence can be resisted - providing the subjects have reason to resist."
"Which is harder than it sounds," said Mynx. "This is dangerous stuff, Bel- Praetor. She's a hive-mind who can expand to fill any environment not designed to contain her, and she can control dozens or even hundreds simultaneously this way."
"Not with any finesse, mind you," said the Oratus. "My name is Beljani, Praetor. And fear not. The toxin secreted by my colleague's fangs entirely negates my influence and I am certain she has been very thorough in ensuring all relevant personnel have access to it."
There is certainly something amiss with this priestess, Robena decides. She hasn't been insulted before in such a strange way. The priestess has implied that she was dishonourable for even asking after her opponent before a match! She then advised her to beg Constance for use of one of her sacrifices as though she was powerless to intercede with Xristos without it. And in the same breath to speak in such a mercenary way about its value! She narrows her eyes askance at the woman, wondering if she is perhaps a faerie impersonating a priestess for some arcane trick. More likely she is merely dealing with a chatterbox with very strange opinions.
"I already possess a crucifix, mater," said Robena steadily. "Moreover one that was cast in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as I am newly returned from the holy land. That should be sufficient for the new ways, but for the old I intend to ask Constance for a favour to bear into battle. You need not feel bound to these, ah, new customs of knightly secrecy when it comes to either of these facts."
And that indeed is the first matter of tournament preparation - to go down on bended knee before Lady Constance and request from her a favour for the tournament and offer to fight in her name. It would be a poor knight indeed who took to the lists without a maiden's kerchief to protect her. Robena herself has sat out a handful of tournaments when she could find no lady willing to sponsor her before the bouts. Some kingdoms consider her caution mere superstition, but she has not fallen from the saddle yet.
Apricot's regalia and her colours, however, are as faded from dust and rain as they have ever been. Robena has done what she could to polish her armour but she lacks coin and squire both, and so will have to ride dressed in the weathered and faded colours that unite all knights of the road.
A cross of gold. Robena's mind turns a darker way. A lot of crosses of gold in the guts of the dragon-boats - if not atop the hoards of dragons proper. It hung from her neck like a stone and she wondered why Xristos' blood could not be caught with the wooden cup of a carpenter than the jewels and ornaments that accumulated too easily in the hands of priests. The sin of striking a holy woman was deep enough that it seemed uncharitable to tempt wayward hands into it with wealth.
A melancholy cloud passes over her even as Summer is welcomed unto the earth. Perhaps this is a land where such things are unthinkable and all the knights are true. A scent on the breeze like rotting flesh tells her this is not so.
"Mm," she demurs to the priestess' question. A strange one. Who wouldn't know Constance river-blessed? Who did this priestess take her for? This question indicated that she knew Robena not at all, and yet asked this stranger about her relation to another. To what end? She opted to answer with an enigma in turn. "And you know the Azure Knight?"
"Your plan and explanation is coherent," buzzed Iskarot, "which is exactly why you should not give it. This is not a trial of your abilities as a leader. This is an introduction to the Mysteries. We can accomplish this task alone."
A complex motion was made beneath the saffron like an earthquake beneath the ocean. Steam hissed and flickers of light strayed out from the indistinct realm below before a bulky device emerged. At first it seemed to be a spear but the large and unwieldly horizontal slider at the top made it seem more like a curious broom. A number of faintly glowing rubies glinted within the mechanisms.
"This is a Disintegration-Scythe, one of the essential tools of the Order of Hermes," said Iskarot. "When fed directly by the Engine this device can cut through even the exterior armour of a starship - or for that matter, a hostile phalanx. Wield this and you will be able to sever the ship in half at the pace of a slow walk rather than with days spent with saws and cutters. I will instruct you in its use and care, how to channel the Engine's might and to manage its dark moods. Bear it with reverence and with caution, for these are not common and are jealously sought."
[D-Scythe: Melee, Slow, Dangerous, Piercing, Tethered Tethered: Can only be used when cabled into an Engine]
Dolce!
"Save them, little sheep?" said Hera, keeping her voice soft to avoid waking Vasilia. "Your friends are nothing but suffering, each one of them. Redana, Alexa, even the Hermetic and the soldiers are all condemned to carry their pain and regret with them all the way to the gates of the underworld. Each one of you is cursed. Brother Hades is both your tormentor and saviour and he has worse in store ahead. None of you will be able to lift the weight from your own shoulders, so look to the darkness of those you meet in the hopes that they will be able to look to yours."
Alexa!
Hades flicks his unreadable eyes up as the cards flow from his fingers. It's like a lance of ice through the heart, but he doesn't say anything - doesn't give any sign that he's angered or bothered. Instead it looks to all the world like he's taking an augury with the way the cards flow and cascade, without him even glancing down at them.
Isty's eyes, however, are clear and innocent and baffled as they look at you. "You don't enjoy it?" she said. "You don't - feel the thrill, the rush? You don't feel the sand and air and fire on your skin? The motion of sweat and blood, the strength? Even just in the practice arena there's nothing like it, it's like being lifted out of the realm of the dead to stand on the border of life... how do you not enjoy it?"
Ah, that mark of Ares upon her. That madness. Strange how she can seem so normal despite it.
Bella!
The sound-slaying acoustics of the ship might have been put in place purely to drown out the attendants of the Diodekoi.
The dim, low-light interior of the Anemoi gives way to something different - eerie, jagged moonlight cast and filtered through spectacular arrays of stained glass to carve spectacular, revolving images of language in motion. The words flow together in shadow and light to carve the shapes of beasts, humans, and everything in between in typographic shadow-puppets. As they stalk and engage in scripture, as scripture, meditating acolytes chant the constant flow in the raw rhythm of ancient days.
It is a place of darkening light, at once insufficient to see by but almost blinding in comparison to the murk of the Anemoi. Ship serfs, thin and nervous servitors, cluster in small groups near the entrance - drawn to the light but unready to enter it entirely. They scatter like birds when approached, to a one seeking refuge in the shadows rather than the cool moonlight.
In the centre, prostate before the altar, is a cathedral-engine. The clattering of the machine intelligence clicks away in the substrata below the din. Though there is no doubt metal and wire below the surface, every inch of her is covered in paper. On her shoulders she wears open books, upon her back a forest of prayer-strips hang like ribbons, and every inch of every page is marked with spectacular illuminated script and images. An art gallery, a war machine and a religious icon all in one - behold the Diodekoi.
"If you need to fight a god, this is your girl," said Mynx. "She's encoded to follow every aspect of the Code of the Hunt in thought and deed. When she fights it's as though Artemis has taken the field herself - not unlike the Athena statue that Redana took with her. She's a precision weapon though - there's nothing that can come between her and her target, but she's nowhere near as effective when engaging a group. Thing to watch out for, though, is that she's so close to Artemis that she can become fully possessed by the Goddess - something that usually happens when Artemis starts to enjoy the hunt too much. When that happens she becomes a rogue, bloodthirsty goddess who isn't particularly interested in things like taking prisoners."
Diodekoi Adept A sacred war-engine, divine and terrible. Avatar of Artemis: The Diodekoi is immune to all Custom and Core moves. She can only be engaged with the Basic Moves. Sacred Hunt: When the Diodekoi names a target, that target cannot damage or Finish her until she changes target. Rampancy: When a Temple Assassin has reached the stage of Rampancy, it becomes a Threat to the World. It also has the ability to instantly destroy any other threats contained within the Environment.
She's done everything in her power to avoid this arena. She's resisted, evaded, hidden. She's veiled herself and averted her eyes. She's tried to be a Phantom Thief and win her name back from the shadows. She's tried to play smart. She's tried to play cool. She's tried to play merciful. And she keeps getting dragged back here. She keeps winding up in this fucking place where the only thing she'll be measured by is the amount of blood she leaves on the sand when she's forced to fight people she'd like so much to save.
She doesn't want to fight Shamash, any more than she wanted to fight Asterion, any more than she wanted to fight Tirzah. To dance, perhaps - to engage like lovers, fast enough to dodge and weave in and out of embraces, able to trust exactly where the spear was going and how to make it one of the steps in her own dance. But feline eyes weigh upon her shoulders and her right hand curls around empty air. This is it, Canada Taliv, bearer of the Light of Ra. You've tried everything you could to avoid this moment and it's here regardless. How many times can you put it off?
She stands tall in the arena, waiting for Shamash. That empty air in her hand feels heavy. She doesn't trust herself to hold it. She doesn't trust herself not to drop it.
She's not smart enough. Fast enough. Cold enough. She had a soft, bleeding heart and had done nothing but bleed for it. What value were hearts in the arena? What value were hearts when they came between her and doing what needed to be done?
The fingers of her sword hand twitch.
Shiver.
Release.
Both hands come up to brace behind the shield instead.
She can't tell if it's resolve or cowardice. Both are warring still in her mind, but neither of them are triumphant, neither of them are making this decision.
Her feet shift in the sand.
She's making this decision because she can hear that music again. Distant, distant, but just barely starting to rise. The rhythm of battle, the dance steps that call to her. A song half-remembered, as though from a past life, gaining speed and pace.
She didn't know where the music was going to lead her, but she knew she wanted at least one more dance.
Antioch was ablaze when she arrived. The city burned from within and without, and all the sky and the land were alight.
Massive braziers filled with smokeless fire heralded the positions of the Shah's army, and forever on it stretched. A quiet landscape of hills and olive groves was by night rendered an inferno, and the watching beasts of the zodiac were snuffed by the flaming comets of oriental siege works. In the night the fire seemed like a living thing, like the waves of the ocean that cast themselves upon walls of stone and desperation. The Empire of Eagles would fall, proclaimed those fires, and a third great temple would be built upon the sacred mount of Jerusalem.
She hadn't wanted to fight - her knees had trembled and the screams had echoed in her ears and she'd wondered how any dared to stand when the fires of Sekhmet raged. She had been a creature of many fears, but it was there beneath the walls of Antioch where she'd obtained the chief among them: the fear of burning.
She'd tried as best she could to talk Alitel - Lady Sandsfern - out of joining the battle. They were here as pilgrims, not as warriors. No oaths held them to the Empire of Eagles. There was no need to divert away from Jerusalem. Her pleas had been weak, and Alitel had scorned her for what she correctly saw as her cowardice. And so they'd stood together atop the walls of Antioch - Robena trembling, but Alitel's eyes filled with brilliant fascination as she watched the ocean of fire come towards them...
Robena's left hand twitched. Beneath her glove the skin was raw and creased with the memories of that battle, and it needled her still.
But now she is here in the land of milk and honey, watching two priestesses natter how to best bring the harvest and bounty. No sermons screamed from the mouth of berserkers who wore fire as a cloak, no reference to light and pain and rebirth, no black pyramids to be built in honour of Emperors to wait out eternity. For a moment it's all unreal. That these could be matters of religion! That a harsh stare and folded limbs might suffice for holy dialogue! She had wondered if she had been naive as a child, unaware of a mad evil that had surrounded her in her younger years as it did in her later. But all here in England, blessed land, seemed removed from that world.
Again the wave of nostalgia comes over her and again she learns that never more shall she wander.
"Do not second guess yourself, you were correct the first time -" started the Hermetician. "Steaming the ship is the only way to ensure that the oceanic life does not simply enter hibernation, the question is... how do we... do it safely..."
The robotic voice trailed off as your idea began to sink in.
"Bold," he murmured.
"Decisive," he said, a bit more loudly, more confidently.
"Smart," said Ares, standing besides the Hermetician, causing that saffron-robed head to nod.
The War God smiles.
You've never seen him in peacetime before. You didn't know he could appear in peacetime. But now you can see him clearly, without the blurring motion of violence that normally surrounds him. In form and figure he is identical to Athena - he has her face, her eyes, her breasts, her four arms muscled like wire - but the lighting falls differently upon him. His shadows are deep and hard, transitioning between hard black and vibrant colour like a figure from an illustration. His clothes are different too - he comes not garbed for war, but in open-shirted plaid like a longshoreman, sleeves rolled up, ready to work.
"Correct," finished the Hermetician. "You solved not only the first problem, but the second within the same breath. Impressive. One adjustment. We will sever the occupied part of the ship and steam-cook the submerged part before venting the excess moisture. The work will be hazardous -" Ares smiles "- but less so than the alternative. Come, let us gather our tools."
Vasilia!
Apollo smiles and bows, fist in open palm, and steps away and elsewhere. He takes the golden peach with him, and in his wake you can feel your nose start to run and your throat start to close. It is a humble cold, a thing as enduring as life itself. A price to pay for falling short.
But Galnius nods in understanding. His patron god did not give you his blessing, but another did. Strong fingers tingling with electric power rest for a moment on your shoulder, making your fur run and fuzz and stand on end - just for a moment before they're gone again.
"I see," said the hoplite, in her own voice once more. "You rule your domain as a king. I was wrong. I am not your subordinate, I am your guest, and will behave as such."
She gives a respectful nod and turns to go.
Alexa!
"I don't know... mother tried to defy her purpose and look how that ended," said Isty, scratching at a tear in the fabric over her knee. "I guess she tried to shortcut the process. Fight gloriously and die in battle, and enjoy peace in the real Elysium Fields. What's wrong with that?"
Bella!
"She is more bomb than person," Mynx agreed. "We all are."
The Ikarani's eyes are moving. You only notice because of the intensity of your fascination, but they're following the course of an almost invisible mote of dust as it's carried within her own breath. The matter seems so mundane and minor but the more you look the more absorbing it is, like watching a star dragged into the black holes of those gleaming eyes. The philosophers say that all of physics is present in the motion of the smallest grain of sand and you wonder just how much information she is extracting from breath and dust.
The wine arrives. Tinny, weak, the taste of the farms that line the vast heating shafts that run all the way to the core of Tellus. Familiar. Home.
"The first words the Ikarani hears in this state will form her obsession," said Mynx. "They'll become the foundation of her identity and she will not be able to rest until she has achieved that goal or solved that problem. After the goal is achieved she'll return to quiescence. The art to this is giving her concrete goals she can solve within a day or so - in that time she'll be a superlative detective, thief, scientist, strategist or planner. After that she can be reset to use again." Again, that hesitation, and again a stubborn decision to continue talking regardless. "But the final use for an Ikarani is as a society killer. Unleashed she can consume kingdoms, fleets or worlds in madness and strife. It's not quick and she won't survive it, but it's what she's capable of."
Ailee sketches the glyph of the Queen Awaiting - she has her own will, pride and agenda (the line across the face symbolizes a veil, meaning that last one in particular must remain hidden). Tribute must be paid to receive her blessing. She is not here to perform for your amusement - she will do so when she is satisfied, and not before.
(The bees made a terrible mistake when they revealed they comprehended a language other than dance. Now she has leverage)
Another character set: a migratory queen, with swirls symbolizing wind - companions lost, scattered by the breeze. She wants to know where to find them.
There's been a thought in the back of her head since all of... this started. Where would she go if she had to fight Tirzah Asterion? What kind of landscape would play to her strengths and minimize the chances of collateral damage? Where could she go to gain the advantage? Perhaps it could occur in an Annunaki military base where the collateral damage would destroy enemy military assets, or on a prepared landscape with traps or hidden weapons or something. Marianne would probably do something like that, maybe even with strategically placed costume changes so she could go through the fight morphing into ever more beautiful and glamorous shapes.
One small problem, though. Every time she's tried to work through it she wound up crying into her pillow instead. And she doesn't think the process would have been any easier if she'd known she was going up against Shamash.
She's used to having time - at least enough to take a deep breath and decide to be brave. With the monstrous god bearing down on her both time and bravery are impossible to find.
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