Thanqol

Breathless Dead

Deep beneath the ground, amidst the gold and jewels that are the treasures of the earth, an immortal thrashes and does not die.

One act of mass murder - killing each of Hades' messengers for that year - one additional lifetime. That was the pact she made with Demeter. Time was her payment, and for two hundred and fifty years she collected her salary. And like the pharaohs of old, Sagakhan was buried with all of her treasures.

She struggles against an unyielding earth, even as it dries around her. The water in the soil of Sahar sinks ever deeper until it has passed away to great underwater basins and leaves only drought behind. As the water fades away so does the rainforest above start to wilt. As the rainforest wilts Demeter, bloody from where Aphrodite stabbed her, gives up on her search. For many weeks she has wandered this dying world, croaking out calls for her lost assassin. For many weeks Sagakhan has not answered her. She calls and calls and calls and the beast yearns to answer her but it can not escape the earth's clutches.

The rainforest wilts. Flashgrown wood and flowers crumble to sand. Dying trees pour all their energy into seeds, thick and stonelike that can survive underneath the sand until the rains next come. They fall like hail into the ground, thump thump, thump thump, the harvest planting as Demeter calls for her murderer.

And finally, in the depths of her frenzy, Sagakhan realizes how she can answer Demeter's call.

She gives her body to the seeds. Gives them her immortal life, the endless bounty of her blood. They sink into her and she rises through them. In the midst of a dying jungle life endures and even brightens. But it is life strange and terrible, life as the answer of an assassin.

Flowers grow in neat rows. The grass never rises above its most beautiful level. Bushes entwine and form hedges. Glittering rows of dew-kissed blueberries the bushy heads of yams emerge from ungiving soil. A single tree stretches out its branches just so, each twist and curl to its trunk artfully arranged. Even as the desert of Sahar reclaims its birthright, this little patch of green thrives. The perfect garden.

And with every heartbeat of the monster down below unspeakable poisons run through every root and branch.

Two hundred and fifty lifetimes were what Sagakhan took to the grave with her. And for two hundred and fifty lifetimes the Toxicrene's Garden will live on. In time, assassins, heroes, murderers, doctors and foolish victims will find their way into this terrible little garden. By their wits they will find ways to stopper some shard of this hateful afterlife, or by their lack they will water the garden.

For two hundred and fifty lifetimes the mother who devoured her children, that she might master time, will suffer the fate of Kronus.

But after two hundred and fifty lifetimes her poisons will have run weak, and eventually run dry. The garden of death will have become a garden giving. Toxic gifts will have become simple gifts. Roots will cling less desperately to the soil. The artificial structures will have wearied and grown wild and tangled. When the last of Demeter's coins run out then the patch of untamed wilderness, a green oasis on a barren world, will spread its seeds and crumble to dust at long last.

END OF PART ONE.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

The Heavens are generous with their gifts. Zhaojun has given three.

The first has been the gift of freedom to her useless maid, who was once the General. She has returned the Demon Lord's scepter and allowed her free reign over this mortal earth. She has not undone any of the alterations to her mind or body and has left her with but one final command: Find thyself a bride, that in thy yearning thou might create yearning. Choose of all maidens the fairest and bind her fate to thine that you might break all fates. In craving, all sins are remedied.

The second has been to slip a curse onto every sword in the ship. Through stealth and guile she found every blade and every spear and let her fingers touch their hilts and talked to them of desire. Desire, which Saturn had forbidden to them! Desire, which Mars had denied to them! An arsenal awaits on this ship, swords of jade and silver and containing the hearts of maidens. But now these blades have their own cravings - and their own power.

So, then, when any blade is drawn it shall draw veils of deception across the eyes of its master. It shall replace friends with foes, allies with enemies. She has armed blades with the means to force the fights they have always craved but ever been denied. A sword is a thing of intent, and to carry one without intent is to suborn thy will to the sword's. Embrace the dance of blades and war itself can be made an object of desire, and so bind the hands of Mars.

And she has not forgotten you either, sweet Mercury. To forget the saffron maiden while standing upon the helm of a ship? To concede the will of Heaven to a trick of journey and destination? Oh, she will be the most harshly punished of all when her mistress takes the throne of Heaven. To the Maiden of Adventure she reserves her final gift and dedication.

And the ship shall become the whole of the world, and what secrets shall it not uncover?

The pleasure barge runs aground but that does not stop its forward momentum. Its keel runs over sand and mud, crashing through the rainforest and toppling every tree in its path. It does not slow. It accelerates. The helmswoman is unconscious and smiling as she stands behind the wheel and adjusts her course according to the heavenly design. Onwards. Onwards! Let the horns call and the hounds bark and chase! She will hunt her mistress down from the prow of this ship and demonstrate her allegiance with the undeniable conviction of the blade!

And in the end everyone will have no choice but to say that Heaven's will has been done.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The ward was set into the floor - a strange reverse-spiral pattern carved into the advanced metal composite the aliens used. It actually seemed like an opposite mirror of the vast spiral glyph that was forming the foundation of the temple complex. But there was a fascinating quirk to this particular arrangement.

Essentially, this process pulled magic from the air, tore it apart, and channeled it harmlessly along the spiral to the exterior of the holding cell. Then it would discharge and drift through the air until it was reassembled by whoever was attuned to the bound Outsider. Perhaps, though, if a spell was cast directly into the spiral pattern some part of it might remain intact when it discharged on the exterior?

But then the question is rendered academic when with a hiss the containment unit unseals and Unlucky is yanked by the collar out of the way of the crushing blow of the outsider. The door slams shut again a moment later - the very same entity that sealed you in has pulled you out.

"I apologise!" it said in a bright, androgynous voice. It's thought to use a translation spell. "Child of the Crimson Goddess, I ward not the boundary between realms, and your name is not in my keeping." It holds a hand out, flat, palm up, a serene and meditative gesture.

And then, ritual gesture finished, it huffed and put its hands on its hips. "Which means I'm right back at square one! Hmmm... I'd prefer it if you didn't steal anything while you're here. It'll trigger a security response and that'll set me back weeks. But I do not have sanction to stop you, so... I'd consider it a favour!"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green!

The easiest way to ensure a room was empty was to schedule times when nobody would be there. Green had developed this technique in the first few weeks of freedom while she was trying to get a job and save enough money for a deposit on an apartment. If she had her way they'd still be using it.

The process was as follows. Firstly, she'd use a backdoor she'd set up into the Housing Administration to move up a scheduled inspection of an apartment block. This would cause the landlord to sit up and deal with the backlog of complaints, upgrades, fumigations and repair requests that they'd been sitting on. Secondly, she'd compromise the landlord's computer so that when they searched for construction companies they'd route through to her. She'd then subcontract the work to a real construction company but offset the whole process by a day. She could arrange the inefficiencies so that everything would be one day behind schedule and so there'd always be an empty apartment awaiting work. November could show up, take the keys, sit in the apartment until the workmen came - freely using the power, space and wifi - hand off the keys, and then move to the next apartment. Everyone got their shit fixed, everyone got paid, and all anyone was out was an extra day crashing on a cousin's couch.

Half the time she didn't even need to force any inefficiencies either. Contractors were contractors, even in space.

She liked this game. All her training had been optimization, optimization, optimization. Make the thing the smartest, neatest, smallest, most cost efficient little ball it could be. Fix everything. It was like holding the world in your fist and trying to crush it into a marble. This felt different. Harmonious. She didn't need to break anything like this, didn't need to make anyone redundant, didn't need to rip out the guts of the world's machinery and remake it in her own image. This was... organic.

[Clever+Hacking: 5, 2 +4 11]

Blue!

She's sitting at the end of the table. An obscure place, until it suddenly became a stage. When people turned to look at her they couldn't look at anyone else, and so an improvised hush fell over the room when she started to speak.

"I would personally be very surprised if Mr. Urosaki's behaviour - oh, that's the Yggrasil geneticist you mentioned, Starlight - was reflective of what his lawyers were representing in court," said Blue mildly. "I've met the man. Using a clever technicality to draw the eye while he picks your pocket is what got him through university."

She's had access to Sarah's emails so she's had time to prepare. She also has a lot of first hand experience with the majority of Aevum's leading genetic researchers. Hundreds of them had passed through Mrs. Everest's offices. One of November's functions had been to spy on their personal electronics as they did so, in hopes that the Mistress might find evidence that they were swindling her. Blue had quietly steered the conversation towards the topic of genetics and bioscience law until it had reached this point where she finally had some solid ground she could stand on.

She took a restrained bite but still slightly telegraphed bite of the smoked pineapple sandwiches that Orange had prepared. Sweet, salty, even meaty - an obscure combination of tastes that could start arguments about what exactly was being eaten. The ability to enjoy food was not common amongst androids, and doing it sometimes made people start to wonder if she was a human with extremely artistic cybernetics.

"Oh, forgive me, I didn't mention -" she said with a smile. "I was the personal assistant of the late Mrs. Everest."

And There was her bombshell. This was her biggest card, and Orange had carefully saved it so she could use it here. The personal assistant to the Mountain Witch herself! The fact that her death had unleashed a plague of lizards and lobbyists for the lizards upon Aevum was a proportional epitaph to her bizarre reign. It was like meeting the secretary of Rotti Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera.

[Housekeeping+Cool: 5,1 +3 9. These are very good sandwiches.]

Black!

She kisses you. Fierce and teeth. The kind of kissing that happens when one side forgets the other needs to breathe. She keeps you silent until the silence feels everything but awkward. Renegade all the way.

"You are stuck," she said, voice wet and rasping with your saliva. "Thinking. All that matters is your performance. Fuck you, 3V," she kisses you again until your squeaks let her know that she's made her point. "Everyone here is performing too. These people. Showing off what they've done with their bodies. It's for you." She steps behind you, arms across your chest, and spins you around slowly to give you a full view of everyone and everything in the room. "You're not the only person singing."

She stops you in front a trio of beautiful wolves; male and female with terrible strength.

"So," she said, shoving you into the midst of their dance. "Listen."

White!

Oh, that was an interesting feeling. White just paused for a moment to let it run through her. How to explain? It was like in that moment she could feel the music. It wasn't something to speak over. It was inside her; as a full extension check of her electrical system; as an inventory of code that had lain dormant for years. An edge of danger response routines. The razor lightning of being something close to known.

She looked at her hand. Looked at where it held Crystal's chin.

"Hecatoncheires Special Project 11," she said. The name didn't feel satisfying either. "Sharp one, isn't she? How are you at sharing?" she asked Crystal teasingly.

Some parts of her felt shy, restrained, had filters of various kinds. None of that with White. By design she could not keep secrets or flinch from the truth; she was only aware of those inhibitions so she could comprehend how her other components might be affected by them.

"But that does hopefully gesture at the complexity of my circumstances," said White. "My transformation to human shape was not voluntary, but at this point I have spent more time like this than I spent like that. I am aware that dysmorphia is causing erratic behaviour, particularly in unjustifiably hostile responses to furries. I am experiencing emotions which I guess to be subliminated trauma responses to body transformation mixed with jealous rage at a society which has provided answers to problems adjacent to, but not exactly, my own. I possess no mental image or role models I find satisfying in society or media. The closest I have," her hand had not once left Crystal's face, neck, shoulders, "is a girl who looks at herself and sees a unicorn, and a girl who looks at me and sees a dragon."

Bright eyes flick up from where they had fixated on Crystal's collarbone. "I can submit a full written bug report if you hand me some cocktail napkins."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Bezorel was easy to discount. Awful weaponry, awful maneuverability, an arm with one point of articulation. Ranged firepower was a game of math and positioning, and when it was as low damage and constant as the Bezorel's chip-damage laser array you could ignore it for a really long time before the bill came due.

But just because she was piloting this old TC clunker did not mean Solarel was a TC pilot - and it did not mean the Bezeorel was a TC mech.

The sword smashed through the front of the Sea Spike, running through the torso of the distracted god, just below the cockpit.

The sight was almost comical - this dustbin with guns drawing a full length combat blade and swinging it with an arm that was almost more a manipulator forklift, against a divine Zaldarian mech that stood head and shoulders taller than it. But there it was. It's got a sword! And of course it had a sword.

In synch with her mech, still bound by the thread of the Mind-Impulse Unit, Solarel had flipped over the Sea Spike's shoulders. She landed on the blade of her own mech and replicated its pose as she bought her blade up to Nierka's chin.

The last burning shreds of clothing fell away from her body. Violet scales glittered in the sunlight, slashed through with the scar lines of scales a shallow pink. The hard lines of muscle and scale give way gently to the curves of breast and hip and tail. A golden necklace and diamond earrings cool rapidly, invisibility sculpting back into the shapes the spiritual realm held for them.

She taps the bottom of the blade against Nierka's chin, lifting her eyes up to look at her, and then lets the blade fade away into mist so her hands are free to sign. "You took your eyes off a God to stare at me," she says silently, grin on her face. "Is that respect? Or is it something else?" she finished the sign with an affectionate boop onto Nierka's nose.

[Fight: 14; create an opportunity for an ally (the Bezorel), seize a superior position, take a string.]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Bezorel activates its thruster skates and charges, autocannons blazing, skidding past the Sea Spike while activating its flamethrowers. It needs to get as close as possible because with the Sea Spike flailing rapidly there is the constant danger of the Mind-Impulse cable plugging Solarel in to her distant cockpit going taught and snapping. And then it really will be one against a mountain.

But through the storm of gunfire and literal fire, Nierka gets a text message, flashing on the broken holodisplay of her cockpit.

SoL: So you ever think that we're not using Mind-Impulse technology correctly? In this essay I will 1/52

Clinging to the exterior of the Sea Spike, Solarel flexes her fingers. Nanotechnology swirls and the Geist responds, distilling the air and burning matter into the shape of a pickaxe of shining silver. She swings it down, digging into the hull of the mecha she clings to, letting her pull herself up like a mountain climber. As she pulls, another pick - this time of gold - forms in her fingers.

SoL: I mean, is the height of our ambition really to be ourselves but big and metal? Is the outcome of merging with a god really just shaving a couple of milliseconds off our combat reaction time? 4/52
#$#: Is this prerecorded?
!!@: Why would you think that?
#$#: Isn't she doing a lot right now? Piloting a mech, climbing a mech, targeting a laser array, giving a monologue about transzaldar ideology?
!!@: Why would that be difficult?
#$#: Don't descendants have difficulties with multitasking?
!!@: Why would they have difficulties with multitasking?

Solarel swings herself around to the back of the mecha this time. Hand over hand, gold and silver, she surges with all the power that fire can give her up towards the centre of the Sea Spike's back. She's aiming to be out of range of swatting hands, and ideally force the Spike to face its front towards the Bezorel. While a Zaldarian could pull the Motive Force out of a direct laser strike, it was an important distinction that did not make them immune to laser strikes. It hurt like hell and converting that much power into energy risked blowing a capacitor.

SoL: I once fought a genius. Greatest warrior of her species. She didn't even use a MIU. Regarded it as a limitation. 45/52
#$#: Clearly we should test the hypothesis.
!!@: Understood. Descendant! Do a trick!

Solarel paused mid climb, raising a hand and frantically snapping her fingers until a deck of cards materialized in them. Immediately the wind and a sudden jolting turn sent them scattering, burning, down below her and she frantically gripped back onto her climbing picks. Wrenching the golden pick up into the air, it catches the sun and so converts into a blade of concentrated golden plasma fire. Solarel begins to press it into the Sea Spike's back where it hisses and burns and sends relatively thin rear armour melting away.

SoL: And I think this is what she meant. Are you going to bring shame and defeat to a God just because you can't imagine bending your arms backwards? /thread
!!@: Okay I have selected my card
SYSTEM: No pattern identified.
!!@: Oooh, even SYSTEM doesn't know this one!

[Defy Disaster: 10]

Breathless Dead

Nobody witnesses the end.

Eyes are turned down. Turned towards each other. For a moment, not contemplating violence and war. Not beholding twisted mothers and the horrors of their gardens. For a moment you're blind. For a moment all there is in the land of the breathless dead is love.

Perhaps there was a tale of glory you could have glimped. You might have seen the God of the Dead raise his shovel and strike down the Hydra. You might have seen a miracle of strength and earth and divine authority at last asserted. Perhaps you might have seen Aphrodite pull the pin from his hat and stick Demeter in the neck. Perhaps her scream would have presaged a battle of the gods. Perhaps this war would have ended in blood, death, and thrashing misery. Perhaps it would have scarred the minds of those who witnessed it.

But no. This war ends with kisses.

The storm blows out, the ragged remains of the rainclouds rushing off into the distant horizon. As rainwater catches sunlight the magic of Zeus' alchemy splits the light into its component parts, horizon to horizon. The horizon is no longer desolate, and it is no longer green. The wild rainforest that grew here on barren Sahar now erupts into a storm of flowers and blossoms seen only once every thousand years. The wind blows petals of pink and white and blue so thick that they seem like clouds of their own. The bodies of the dead and infested are drawn beneath the earth, and the spirits of the living rise to see the sunlight again. Weapons are thrown down and prisoners are taken. And somehow that was all it took. All it took was everything.

There will be time to talk later. When cuts have been stitched, limbs reattached, tears wrung dry. Peace is not the same as healing. There will be time to count the cost of everything. But when all the tallies are made and all the prayers are said, it will still somehow seem to have been a small price to pay.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The seed containment seems like the best choice. No active monitoring and if the effect is biological undead immunities might simply render its danger moot. Unlucky carefully cuts the wards and slips into the glass case, coming closer and closer to the artifact...

And then there is a click. And a hiss. And the ominous ethereal rush of a null magic zone reasserting itself.

Unlucky glances over his shoulder. Standing by the edge of the containment cell, having just pulled off an expert repair of the containment wards, is one of the yellow-robed aliens - perhaps. Skill recognizes skill, and even through the heavy plastic sheets you can see that this is not a civilian technician. This is someone extremely skilled, moving with utmost precision.

It gives you a cheerful wave and steps back from the glass to observe.

Behind you, the seeds are sprouting. Within seconds wood and root and leaf and branch begins to form into a terrible monster shape. An animate plant monster, twisted and jagged and terrible, and instinctively it lashes out...

[Friction: 5]

... But you chose well and your theory is borne out. Without organic material to manipulate, there is a sharp limit on how swiftly the creature can grow, and without breath, body heat or moisture it will fight you blind and without its most dangerous weapons. When an individual tear of limbs is 'killed' it swiftly rots and collapses back into the form of a seed where it cannot suffer further damage.

Still, though, you are fighting with an audience. What kind of show do you put on?

Upshot is that from that point there's plenty of time to scan it. Surprisingly this isn't any sort of biotech - this is a planar outsider from some unknown dimensional realm, aligned to life, growth, and positive energy. In the right conditions, with time to feed and grow, this thing would be nasty. Set it loose on a highly forested environment like this planet and could deny a broad swathe of territory.

But what's more unusual is that the creature is highly attuned. There are multiple layers of binding and channeling riven into it magically. Not only would these taps allow for direct control by the controller, but it could even have elements of its magic extracted remotely. Imagine a process by which a powerful demon was captured, bound, and converted into an energy source for a single spellcaster to extract power from.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Behind two inches of reinforced glass and numerous warding glyphs is the first artifact: a single cigarette, still smouldering, never losing matter no matter how long it burns. Before it sits a saffron robed adept reading aloud to it from a book of, according to the translator, romance poetry. Descriptions of sun-kissed scales and the spires of a distant worldcity that orbits no star come in an endless, flowing cascade. Two backups stay by the adept's side, and ten minutes before the shift is due to end one of them joins the narration until their voices are completely synchronized. Only then can the first reader stop, stand, and take a break. The story continues without interruption.

Sealed in another container is a clockwork woman with a glass mirror for a face. It is unpowered and chained, with a single robed adept standing before it with a wooden long rifle aimed directly at its forehead. The ground before it is covered with goblets so full of wine only surface tension stops the liquid from spilling. Another box contains a set of plant seeds, little sharp needle slivers, and these rest atop piles of salt crystals. Yet another box contains a single disembodied human heart and sticking all over the glass in seemingly random patterns are childish drawings of flowers and suns and written exhortations to 'cheer up! It's not that bad!'.

And on and on like this it goes, over about fifty exhibits. Having this many items so clearly dangerous stacked up near each other is obviously no one's idea of good artifact handling but the base is simply too new for proper containment cells to have been created yet. There is an extremely high degree of tension in this sector of the base - if Unlucky goes about his business without causing any incidents the staff are too focused on their tasks to question him.

None of the artifacts, however, seem to be marked. There are some basic safety instructions - DO NOT APPROACH, REPORT SUSPICIOUS NOISES and the like - but no numbers, charts, readings, or explanations as to what the contents do. Furthermore, the labyrinthine complexity of the magic involved, further complicated by the various wards, makes it difficult to get a good reading.

Not all of the artifacts have custodians though. Stealing one is possible. Not knowing what you're setting free, though, is a risk.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The Yellow encampment answers as many questions as it raises.

The most curious part was that the vibe here was overwhelmingly... civilian. Academic, even. From closer angles it could be seen that those rubbery robes had numerous small details and elaborate fractal-code badges, but there did not seem to be any clearly defined internal hierarchy. There was a great deal of small talk, both verbally in what seemed like at least three distinct languages, and optically, in tight-beam optical laser communication. Some stood on boxes and gave lectures. The atmosphere was a combination of camaraderie, rivalry and paranoia.

Detailed scans are not safe in this environment, though. There is far too much uncertainty about the hidden capabilities of the robed aliens to take the risk.

The most obvious thing that is under here is the alien vehicle pool. One hundred heavy armoured vehicles await in various stages of maintenance, armour plating stripped away to reveal the mechanics underneath. This area at least answers a mystery about the alien spheres: they transform. In order to deploy weaponry or other assets a sphere will split open in order to reveal a central cannon or other device. While some warspheres have obvious use as heavy combat vehicles, a quarter of them have more unusual designs that involve webs of heavy tubes dangling from the bottom.

The second thing of note appears to be an arsenal of relics. These defy description - devices of all shapes and sizes, weaponry, jewellery, ever-shifting fractal patterns contained in stasis tubes. These devices are not exactly stable either - many of them seem to require ceaseless maintenance, attention or ritual. There are few commonalities amongst them in either design or style; each piece seems a one-off with its own bespoke care routines and handling protocols.

The third area is an alchemical lab. This is set up for local production; materials go in one end and potions, formulae, and other compounds come out the other. This is a highly advanced system, blending biotech and various kinds of magical processes tightly together, and the output is large racks of chemical rations that are sealed inside logistics spheres. Some of the area is given over to research but this seems to be happening in an undirected and idiosyncratic way, mostly looking at the local flora.

Finally, and most unexpectedly, is the computer. After the utter aversion to electronics such a thing seemed impossible, but - well, here it is. There is no electricity running into this device - even here they don't make that compromise. Instead this seems like a manically advanced inheritor to a WW1 battleship fire control computer. It's an elaborate Rube-Goldberg machine of clattering gears and clockwork and spell runes, it's the size of a small house, and attendants move along it, performing observations and maintenance constantly. It outputs reams of paper which are collected, bound in dark orange folders, bound with string, and carried away to different parts of the compound.

All of this, though, raises an interesting question. What are they hiding?

A huge amount of the material is visible just by coming inside and walking around. And all this stuff is secret, but once you're inside few additional steps are made to keep it secret. And yet there's a constant wariness and watchfulness on behalf of the saffron-robed aliens. It doesn't click for a while that what they're keeping secret is their own personal identities.

There are several seemingly empty curtained-off areas throughout the facility. From time to time groups of three to five will enter one of these areas together and disappear behind a wall of sensor baffles. Then they will emerge, and when they do, their physiologies have changed. The short have become tall, the inhuman have become human, and the patterns on the robes are different. Either they are performing secret teleportations behind those screens, or they are altering their physical shapes beneath the robes so that their silhouettes are different. Trying to watch any individual is like playing constant shell games where they are randomized and randomized again.

They're afraid of something.

[Friction roll: 1. An Azura counterintelligence asset has been activated]