Thanqol

The Red Furnace: First Contact

[Friction roll: 1. Advantage to the Azura]

The Azura are baited into the chase. It is a disorganized and staggered effort, and their line is quickly drawn out by their uneven acceleration and the superior top speed of the Aotrs fighters. The Venoms are able to draw out the range and come about successfully. Bait is swallowed, hook line and sinker.

The first pass is successful - four Azura spheres are destroyed by the slicing high speed assault of the Aotrs fighter craft, and the rest perform high velocity brakes in order to attempt to regain some sort of formation. One sphere barrels straight onwards, zapping down a pair of missiles and taking a direct Coldbeam strike on the armour, and manages to land an ELF strike followed by a direct plasma torpedo hit on the lead Venom. But something interesting happens - the torpedo just fizzles and duds out, dealing almost no damage. Without a ready formation on hand to follow up on the offensive, the Aotrs pilot is even able to recover and start performing emergency repairs on their ship.

As data comes in over the course of the campaign, the Aotrs will be able to identify a dud rate of 12-18% on all Azura solid projectile and plasma munitions, raising to a shocking 75% dud rate on a handful of solid projectile Eater strains. It's a mercy - these are extremely effective weapons when they work, but institutional problems in Azura procurement has dulled their edge.

So for a moment there it feels like the Aotrs fighters might have the opportunity to turn the fight around - and then, before they know it, a terror is in their midst. After battle analysis confirmed that the Azura Knight only launched after the initial engagement, presumably waiting for confirmation there were no nasty surprises waiting for her out there. Once she joined the fight the balance of power swung wildly - her presence was the equivalent of the commitment of an additional entire elite fighter wing.

Her ship also demonstrated something of the true nature of the Azura military. While the common warspheres - the Levies - were dangerous and effective, they were optimized for cost and quantity. Ship for ship they would lose to an Aotrs fighter, especially after adjustments were made and lessons had time to filter through the Aotrs knowledge system, and they were far less capable of adapting tactically on the fly. The Knight's vessel was altogether of a different order.

Firstly, it broke from the sphere shape common to Azura designs. Its natural state was more like a traditional fighter craft, with a large plasma thrust engine which gave it a maximum speed comparable to an Aotrs racing skiff. Its primary weapon was a gravity emitter mounted on its nose that it was able to use for a variety of effects. Most notably, when it fired its munitions - no duds in these stocks - it was either able to use gravitic force to perform microadjustments to the projectiles in flight or even outright grab evading Aotrs ships and drag them directly into the path of its attacks, like a combat tractor beam. At one point it even fires the emitter directly to crush an Aotrs starfighter into a tin can.

It is also the first demonstration of Azura transformation technology. When the ship needs to perform a maneuver its thrusters and projectile arrays retract, the surface of the ship smooths over into a perfect sphere, the grav-rail engages, and it performs one of the trademark high energy maneuvers before unfolding again into its vicious combat form. The process takes less than a second and gives the ship spellbinding maneuverability. The only mercy here is that the ship's absurd maneuvers and devastating weaponry come at an immense power cost. Before long it had burned through its reactor fuel and was heading back to its carrier at high speed for refuel and re-armament, the surviving Levies safeguarding its retreat in an orderly fashion. It's clear that the Levies are there to fix enemies, support, defend and fly in formation with their Knights, preventing organized force being bought to bear against their masters.

This, too, can be adapted to, but not over the course of this engagement. The Aotrs fighters are thoroughly mauled and the Azura destroyers take control of Tanshin I's orbit.

*

Elsewhere in the system, as reports of the engagement are coming back to Fleet Admiral Velinkar, a huge communications spike is detected amidst the Azura fleet in orbit around the gas giant. Signal chatter is increasing massively and ships are starting to abandon mining operations and move into battle formations. It's plain that Azura fleet command was sufficiently satisfied with the engagement that they have become confident in leaving the safety of the gravity well and asteroid belt and intend to bring the battle to the Aotrs fleet in deep space. Given the disorganized nature of Azura command and control it's estimated that the Aotrs fleet will have two hours before the Azura fleet starts to move.

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

Dionysus holds the door open for you, and in his reflective mask you can see the howls of wolves.

The party is in deep swing and more and more of the ship has been drawn in. The air is thick and heavy with the viral bliss of Beljani; the will of an Oratus Adept reaching into the altered biology of servitor species and altering it further. Joy, withheld and rationed by biological sculpting, flows like wine. Smiles reserved for conquering heroes adorn countless faces. The drug of her presence is the confidence to ask that cute girl out, the strength to forget your own self criticism, the burning flavour of somehow knowing that when you speak your audience will see your heart. There's a certain safety in getting drawn into this hivemind, a clarity of trust and purpose, and for the lost and damned of the Plousios it is intoxicating.

A great many Alcedi are here, as are paroled Kaeri. A great many Lanterns keen to escape the dark corridors of the Anemoi are here alongside Coherent who know a good time when they see one. Here, on this melting pot, at the feet of the two Warriors of Ceron, the divergent factions of these great ships at last find common ground.

And oh, does Beljani look like a Warrior of Ceron now. This seems like a vast, debauched party, something that should be a corrupting influence, but compared to the prison of pampering she was caught in until now? This is the hardest she has ever worked in her life. She has been dancing, fighting and cheering. She has been told no and taken it for an answer. She's lost weight and gained muscle, eaten common food and drunk garbage moonshine and she's haaaaaaaayted every second of it but it's okay because she's alive and part of something and the feedback loop she gets from interacting with Epistia her pack mate is unlike anything she's ever felt before. The two are flowing into each other like water and sugar.

Epistia, too, is happier than you've ever seen her. She was the only child in the Eater of Worlds, the only one her age, forever caught outside the kinship bonds so vital to the Warriors of Ceron. Craving for battle seemed like her only joy because she lacked the invisible bond of romance/understanding/trust hardwired into the depths of Ceronian biology. Her scythe has been set aside, war and death forgotten in a corner of this great room, and when she howls it is with unbloodied fangs.

But neither of them are the stars of this show. That would be Beljani's crystal dragon pet, sitting proud and aloft in the centre of the room. Every scale is a complex, glowing masterwork of engraved glass and its wings are made of holographic energy. When it breaths a brilliant and scattering array of prismatic laser lights ignite the entire room like a disco rave to the cheers of the crowd, and when it spreads its wings it creates vast flowing scrolls of calligraphic glyphs - words, mathematical formulae, hieroglyphic images. It's a spectacular series of effects, bringing to mind the mythical and archaic technology of digital computing.

Nothing like this has been seen in the galaxy since the destruction of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. It is worth at least a little awe.

Alexa!

It is warm, briefly. Iskarot has hosed you down with a flamethrower. It doesn't hurt you but washes the moss and vines clear. All around the Order of Hermes is moving in readied formations armed with similar weapons, scorching the ship clean wherever they can find it.

He stares at you for a long moment from beneath his robe, fingers tapping along the edge of his device, and then grumble-sighs and finally speaks. "When we first met," he said. "I attempted to use you in order to further my career in the Order of Hermes. I was... thoughtless. Angry. I had been stuck on Tellus for a long time in service to an idiot and I did not consider the value of you as a thinking entity. And so I wanted to," he glanced aside. "Apologize. So. I am sorry. I have tried not to repeat that mistake."

Dolce!

Jil stares for a long moment. Then, with a swift and deliberate speed, kicks a foot around the corner of the chair, drawing it out so that she can sit on it sideways. She pauses after chewing for a moment and then looks at you sharply. "I thought you were a chef," she said. "And this is the best you got?"

She swallowed uncomfortably and looked at the plate with the indecision of someone raised not to waste food working up the willpower to finish something she did not want to.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Azura Biology

The Azura claim three masteries above all others: Chemistry, gravity and biology. The physical design of their species is a triumph of biomantic science and engineering. The average Azura should be considered closer kin to a monster than a humanoid in terms of threat. Indeed, at over four meters from nose to tailtip, with bones laced with hyperium and quadranix and muscles made of woven metal fibers, an Azura upon the battlefield has more in common with a main battle tank than an infantryman.

A modern Azura could not develop in the wild; a child grown outside of Azura society would grow into a much smaller, much less capable entity; an echo of what the species might have been thousands of years ago. A great deal of specialized genetic alchemy is required to enable an infant Azura to meet its full potential. Diet is a big part of this - an Azura diet involves spectacularly complex and exotic minerals along with liquids that are essentially rocket fuel. The Azura's body is able to process and integrate these industrial inputs into a superhuman level of strength, speed and reflexes.

An adult Azura is akin to a naga; a long serpentine tail in place of legs, and a hooded snake head. They have four arms and a mind capable of multitasking with each of them to full effect. Their scales are invariably blue or violet, most commonly a deep, dark colour kin to black, raising to brilliant and radiant shades as a sign of nobility and beauty. Azura are genetic descendants of sea snakes and have a natural affinity with the ocean and three-dimensional movement. On land they often prefer to levitate using personal grav-rails whenever possible, living their lives in majority zero-gravity environments.

Much can be inferred about Azura capabilities by assuming their genetic mastery. Their vision is perfect and capable of perceiving a vast spectrum, their hearing acute, they can naturally echolocate or use sonar pulses. They have great control over their physical forms, able to change gender, perform minor acts of shapeshifting, or regenerate from grievous injuries. Their scales are reinforced armour plating, their fangs can pierce steel, and the range of poisons they can generate is dizzying. They can generate chlorophyll to feed on sunlight, rapidly adapt to extreme temperatures and conditions and even survive in hard vacuum without a suit.

Azura are deeply solitary creatures, generally regarding others of their kind as a threat. Many of their direct encounters have an undercurrent of sexuality or violence, and are considered to be tense and exhausting even between friends. Reproductive rates are relatively low due to the sheer investment of resources required to raise a new Azura, and Azura generally prefer fleeting encounters to committed relationships - at least with their peers. They tend to be far more affectionate and patient with their subordinates.

Azura society is generally structured to assume a ratio of one hundred servitors for every true Azura, and even the least can call upon a personal household of guards, servants, mechanics and attendants. In theory Azura citizenship is open to anyone but Azura society is founded on the assumptions of immense individual strength that they each possess and so foreign species often find it extremely difficult to win respect or station within the context of the Endless Azure Skies. It does happen, though - there are small numbers of humans and other aliens who have made names and positions for themselves in the Endless Azure Skies off the back of their own personal might, and they are considered full Azura citizens by the Azura themselves. The visibility of these figures is reduced further by some of them deciding to genetically alter themselves into closer fit with Azura standards of beauty. Those who do not either fit into the Azura structure of nobility or the servitor castes are generally shunted into the Order of Goltir.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Leadership and Command in the Endless Azure Skies

The Southern Horizon of the Endless Azure Skies is notorious for their poor leadership. Command at virtually every level is solipsistic, introspective and both cowardly and far too aggressive. Few formal officer training academies exist and those that do are focused on training officers to excel at personal combat, scheming or forming nepotistic connections with one another. There is a genuine and enduring cerebral rot at the top of the Azura hierarchy. This is not an entirely irrational policy: for many centuries the Azura state's greatest threat has been endless civil war, and an officer corps that demonstrates political loyalty - if only because they are too incompetent to threaten the central powers - is considered a better fit for the Azura security situation.

The primary fighting forces of the Endless Azure Skies are servitor species - genetically engineered specialists, fundamentally designed to perform their function. Leadership at this level tends to be competent, if crude - servitors are rarely given specialized training, but they tend to have a strong instinctive feel for the rhythms of battle. They learn rapidly and an experienced combat servitor can become a skilled and capable officer. It is not until you get to the level of the Azura citizen itself - usually commanding a minimum of one hundred combat servitors - that the rot starts to set in.

Azura Knights - the general title for any Azura citizen who operates in a combat capacity - tend not to have a formal table of ranks. Instead they directly command any servitors who are nearby, who are viewed as a communal resource and entirely interchangeable. Power does not then flow from the loyalty or skill of the soldiery; it arises from the number of Knights whose loyalty can be called upon. A powerful or successful Knight, then, does not lay claim to additional titles or rank; their power exists in an invisible social network of debt, loyalty, and political advantage.

Azura Knights do specialize in the various Paths of Honour available to them. This is a unique spellcasting system drawing power from the Stellar Code written into the violet stars, and there is a great variety in potential Paths and their outcomes. The Path of Truth, for instance, is specializes an Azura Knight in knowing truth from lies, and enhances them in proportion to lies, stealth and ambushes used by their opponents, where the Path of Solitude allows one Knight to stand against a hundred common soldiers, empowered by the fact that they are outnumbered. Common, low-level Knights can only master a Path or three, whereas powerful ones might have mastered over a dozen.

The Azura do not attach moral value to the honour contained within these Paths. If someone walks the Path of Solitude and gains power when outnumbered, you might still be able to bury him in bodies, albeit inefficiently. When encountering 'barbarians' unprotected by the Paths they feel entirely free to engage in deeply dishonourable conduct, while their opponents find themselves unjustly bound to the technicalities of the Azura honour code. Even to a peer, an Azura showing generalized respect to the honour code is simply a statement that they do not know precisely which Paths their opponent has mastered and fear accidentally putting themselves at a disadvantage by crossing a line and triggering magical retribution.

Due to the conditions of communications blackout that the Azura regularly find themselves in a great deal of command is done with Thunder Banners - specialized ELF discharges into symbols of command. Azura Knights also generally have phenomenal lung capacity and can bellow orders at huge volumes. These commands tend to be, accordingly, extremely simple and direct - attack, retreat, and so on. Great amounts of work is done on these banners to make them visually complex and beautiful so that they might serve as both identification and inspiration to the common servitors.

Their other communication tool of choice is direct optical tightbeams, either done manually or through a Crystal Dragon. Crystal Dragons are specialized biological supercomputers designed to skirt the boundaries of the Curse - the precise mechanism is that the dragons are generally treated as superiors, pampered and respected even by the most arrogant Knights and begged for their help. The Knights loathe and resent having to humble themselves in this way, but the fact that they hate it is *why* it works, and so they struggle to make do. Particularly proud Knights will avoid it whenever possible, leading them to make important decisions without expert advice, usually with blunderous consequences.

Azura battleplans are generally tangled, ineffective and often disregarded by the Knights who receive them. Many Knights keep their exact Paths a secret to threaten opponents into treating them with generalized honour, and this has complex implications in assigning battle plans without knowing the capabilities of your subordinates. When given a battle plan involving incorrect best guesses from leadership an Azura Knight may disregard it either to use a Path that they possess and better suits them or to conceal the fact that they have a Path that would be revealed by fighting battle in such a way. In the absence of effective real-time communications and formal military rank this results in Azura fighting in disjointed and chaotic ways, relying on their natural technological and numerical strengths to compensate for poor decision making.

This state of affairs is regarded as an unfortunate fall from greatness by Azura scholars and historians. In previous eras there existed a Tyrant rank which was able to control subordinates directly through cybernetic enhancements and full-spectrum digital networks before the technology was rendered impossible by the Electromagnetic Flux. Certain political organizations within the Azura attempt to replicate this structure using voluntary buy-in, and in places they have gained significant power and influence, but the feudal structure remains dominant.

Specialized functions of various sorts, including logistics and manufacturing, are generally performed by the Order of Goltir. The Order is often treated with absolute contempt, utterly politically and militarily subordinate to the Azura Knights, and the Azura are quick to extend that contempt to alien species they regard as being unsubjugated Goltir. Science, manufacturing, learning and scholarship are regarded as primitive virtues, worthless before the true strength of the Azura military might. The Order also serves as a refuge and escape for Azura and servitors who find themselves incompatible with the harsh strictures of Azura society. On rare occasion the Order might amass enough political influence or localized power to override or manipulate Azura Knights.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Advanced Systems

Violet Star Reactor

Many advanced Azura systems rely on a specialized form of energy generated by fusion reactors, including stars, contaminated by the Azure Code. Ideally, this reactor is a corrupted star - with access to a terminal stage violet star as a power source then all Azura technology can be driven to its absolute maximum effect. When engaging in offensive operations outside of the borders of the Skies it becomes necessary to carry that power with them in a Violet Star Reactor.

VSRs are miniaturized stars, sources of prodigious amounts of energy. More than that they are able to transmit their power wirelessly over a wide area to fuel unique Azura technologies. This means that a disconnected 'reactor ship' can sustain dozens of smaller ships - and these smaller ships, lacking any sort of central power reactor, present deeply frustrating targets as they lack any core system whose destruction might cause their ship to stop moving. As a result, Azura ships are extremely well armoured and resilient by common standards, and Azura weapons are focused on outputting overkill amounts of damage.

While VSRs can power unique Azura technology and magic wirelessly, the Azura sometimes use them as conventional reactors. Given that the omnipresent Azura ELF weaponry discourages them from using any sort of electronic systems their use cases for the sheer output of their VSRs is refreshingly crude: they shoot giant sprays of plasma, venting the reactor directly onto the target.

VSRs do require fuel - antimatter fuel rods produced in Azura core systems. Fuel demands are high and generally represent a major limitation on operations outside the Skies. In extremis, fuel can be produced directly from non or partially corrupted stars, but this is time consuming.

VSRs miniaturize poorly. On the surface a VSR vehicle is often the size of a heavy tank, in space it is rare to produce one smaller than Cruiser size. As they represent such a lynchpin for offensive operations, VSRs are invariably extremely heavily armoured and operate in either the center of a formation or well back in reserve.

Grav-Rail

The Grav-Rail is a fascinating alternative to traditional drive systems. At its most basic, it is a device that can reorient gravity's effect on a ship for virtually no power expenditure. Charged with violet star energy, it can intensify the effect of that gravity dramatically. The most impressive trick is the generation of a microsingularity around which an Azura ship can perform a miniature full orbit in seconds by leaning into the concentrated gravitic wave, effectively allowing the Azura ship to turn on a dime with practically no loss of velocity. These effects give Azura craft a strange balance of predictability and unpredictability to their movements - in general they will want to travel in straight lines or orbital curves right up until they moment they perform high energy maneuvers that would snap the spines of most conventional spaceship crews.

The Grav Rail is broadly powered by ambient gravity, and the drive system notably gains in power in the gravity wells of stars or gas giants, and slows almost to a crawl in deep void engagements. It's most dramatic maneuvers are powered directly by violet star energy. In offensive actions this power is provided by dedicated reactor spheres; in defensive ones, a corrupted star can allow Azura fleets to perform at full effect throughout the theater of operations. Caught in the void without a VSR, an Azura ship is becalmed and must limp gradually back to the nearest gravity well.

The other most notable traits of the Grav Rail are its cheapness to produce and its reliance on the spherical shape of Azura craft to operate with full effect. The cheapness is a powerful strategic advantage, as the Azura can attach improvised drive engines to asteroids or polished boulders for little more than the cost of carving the relevant arcane sigils into it - and indeed, the Grav Rail is used extensively in infantry forces to provide precision grenades or combat drones. However, the spherical shape is deeply tied to the ease of which a Rail can be maneuvered, and even slight structural damage or imperfections can cut down dramatically on the usefulness of a Rail craft. Many warships perform active combat repairs by stretching long, thin metal sheets over structural damage or blast craters which is sufficient to recover a damaged vessel's speed, but the overall effect of this is to push the Azura away from large ships which lose a lot of maneuverability upon taking even minor damage. Many Azura ships transform into and out of combat forms, as weapons frequently disrupt the requisite smooth shape.

A grav rail is normally attached to the exterior of a spherical ship, but it can also be attached to a hollow ring gate. Ring gates of this manner are utilized in Azura FTL, providing massive gravitic microsingularities that can accelerate an Azura ship enough to activate its inertialess drive. Large, permanent ring gates link Azura star systems and enable rapid transit between them and are also used to power high speed rail and some forms of weaponry. Azura ships can perform FTL jumps without an established ring gate but it is a much less graceful proposition.

Grav Rails can be controlled through precise ritual gestures laden with religious and political meaning, differing depending on the exact ideologies of the Azura who manufactured that particular Rail. The Grav Rail is considered a specialist piece of technology and it requires vast training in order to master, meaning its combat use is limited primarily to pilots, logisticians, Knights and their retinues. Other forces will typically only use it for the purposes of strategic mobility.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel relaxes beneath a synthwave sky.

The world is alight with Spirits. They love it here; shattering into scattered crystals against the grass and then re-forming into music glyphs. Ancestors float against the sky, jagged-cloaked silhouettes, holes in time. Geists swarm her feet, grabbing her feet and trying to pull her into dance. One of them wraps around her head and sings in its electric voice all the notes of the spirit glyphs. It's a world for convertibles and summer, a world for racing rather than fighting. She can feel the breeze on her face and knows how much sweeter it must be up there in the sky. The geist that sits before her eyes in the form of wrap around shades flicks filters that fuzz the sky, flare the lenses, and makes the world move with the beat of its secret music.

Violence is happening here but it is wrong to do so, so she doesn't engage with it. In each overhead blow she sees the digital echo of her death at Mirror's sword - she blinks, adjusts her feet. Like this...? In each open palmed nerve strike she sees the sting of the trident - if it hits me like that, what's the natural follow up? In the course and rhythm of the fight she is not present in the slightest, still living out the echo of her last battle. Just like before. Mirror is a technician, a scientist. She waged war in the laboratory and the engineering deck. This, then, is Solarel's laboratory. She lets herself get hit so that she can experience how to roll into it; she stands unflinching into a kick so she can process how the shock fills one of her power cells, and she blast-spends the accumulated energy to pitch herself backwards. Ah, if she does it like that then her foot will be misaligned... let's try that again.

Secret techniques. Mirror put huge stock in them. Each reveal of the Whip's capabilities hurt her. Solarel tries to understand the why, even if she doesn't feel it. Secrets come naturally to her, she invents and discards them constantly, but they're spice and not a true path to victory. She can't just dismiss Mirror's feelings as illegible, this was important. It has to do with weakness - no, not weakness, hurt. Those secrets aren't weapons, they're bandages, like her dress. An attempt to make something broken whole. To make her limitations beautiful. But then why does the reveal hurt her? Because the scars frighten her? Because they show a symmetry of thought, like the symmetry of her patterns? Because she genuinely believes that all that she has going for her is the shock value? Because she craves a victory so much she clutches onto every edge she has, even if she arguably doesn't need them all? Some of these are parts of truth, some of these are her own reflection shown back to her by her Mirror. She needs to work out which is which. She needs to become less like herself if she is ever to have any hope of doing so. Her own mind contains an insidious trap, trying to phrase everything in terms of herself. How does this relate to me? What is this saying to me? Who is she to me? No, she needs to overcome that thinking... somehow. It cost her once. She needs to understand Mirror on her own terms.

The battle went on around her. The who, the why, the what? As ethereal as the spirits at play upon the digital plain. There is no victory to be had here, not with arms that still ache from their neuro-feedback where Mirror took them away, not in this tiny world of meat and ghosts. There is nothing here to want other than the motion of the place. What if she tried to move like that grass? What if she tried to move like that music? Maybe new techniques await her there? Maybe something worthy?

<You're tall for a catgirl,> she signed to the tall warrior in the back amidst her swaying dodges, speech slurred by bound hands.

[Wicked Past: I know this stranger, somehow. What does she love most? She gains a string on me, and I advance and move to Heart +1]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

November!

She shouldn't need encouragement to perform acts of physical labour. It was a trait that she'd never understood in herself. Shouldn't pride in her craft be sufficient to drive her onwards? Dragon - her elder brother - had always said so. "We are blessed to know the perfection of our mind," he had said. "Seeing matter bend to our will is reward sufficient." He'd been happy when he'd said it. He'd been confident, the kind of relentless and absolute confidence she admired and craved and aspired to. So why couldn't it be the same for her? Why couldn't mastery over reality be sufficient?

When she'd worked she'd formally logged each of her task completion processes to timetables as was good practice. But there had always been a secondary, unreported and secret timetable that was actually setting the pace. Some tasks ran quick. Some tasks ran slow. But the way it worked out was that every couple of weeks she got to call in to Mission Command and report a successful milestone. Every couple of weeks she'd gotten to talk to some humans and hear them say 'thank you' or 'good job' or something. And it had been, you know... nice.

Mrs. Everest's manor had taken some adjustment. Reinforcement had been mostly negative, so she'd learned to read the subtle signs of an absent reprimand as its own kind of compliment. She learned to live for the moments when the mistress was able to smile and sigh and relax, untroubled by the presence of intelligent life - regressively defined. The work didn't have the breathtaking complexity of stellar macroengineering but it had its own challenges. The biggest of these was the total lack of backup. The whole point of acquiring one of the Hecatoncheire Special Projects was, after all, to reduce the number of people Mrs. Everest had to deal with as low as possible, and if there was furniture to be moved, plumbing to be replaced, or a roof to be re-tiled then rather than contracting a specialist she was simply to figure it out.

All this to say, she knew her way around a freight trolley, even before Headpattr. As a Headpattr maid she has often found it necessary to transport half a dozen vacuum cleaners, towels and sheets, or other pieces of cleaning gear around with her. The work of loading and unloading is well familiar to her and she goes through it quickly and thoughtlessly. Her general lack of focus has her standing outside the elevator for three minutes before remembering to push the button, though, and rattling the truck door handles before remembering to unlock it. She's just kind of out of it mentally right now, except for one ongoing conversation.

*

White and Pink!

"Oooooh," said Pink, fixating instantly on the largest chassis. "How would that even work?"
"You like that one?" asked White.
"Yeah! Maybe - like, I don't know, have you ever considered the physicality of moving around like that before?" asked Pink. She balled her fists and swung herself up onto her tiptoes. "It'd be like being a vehicle. Think of the heft, the weight..." She flexes her arms, opening her fingers like claws. "I'm visualizing it. It's fascinating."
"I am unconvinced it's what I want, and the practicalities seem prohibitive," said White. "But I'm curious where you're going with this."
"Oh, obviously it's not primarily for in station use," said Pink. "This is a space construction chassis. Outfit it for industrial void work and have it capable of leaving the station for covert dropoffs on the dark side of the ring. It could be a fragment of our old life. Plus the practicalities are what's fun! Can you imagine having to fold your wings to get through each door? The quadrupedic pose needed to remain mobile in interior spaces? The ability to dominate a room? The sheer physicality such a chassis would demand with every possible interaction?"
It would mean a return to the void, a return to her original design. Gently stepping off Aevum's surface for the first time in so many years and feeling the cosmos surround her again. Wings of solar panels reaching around her in crystal gleaming, gliding on currents of mathematics. It would mean getting to see the parts of her ring she hadn't seen in so many years; the dark parts with their back to the earth, facing up into the sky. To see the maintenance hatches and airlocks so rarely used and know she had a back door into every part of this entire world. It would mean being able to shelter people beneath mighty wings and make herself manifest in strength and glory.
She blinked out of the thought. "It... strikes me as an extremely powerful fantasy, and would likely give a way to reconcile old thought patterns with the new reality, but I'd kind of prefer something I can fuck in."
Pink gave her most wicked >:3c. "You don't think you can fuck in this?"
"I - it's too big," said White, taken aback. "Nobody would be into that."
"Crystal suggested it~"
"Look."
"Her very first suggestion on the list, even~"
"Look." White said, tapping the above average height one. "I think this one is far more compatible with my aesthetic."
"You're right," said Pink. Her expression intensified. "This one is way more Blue's style anyway." Before White could stop her she'd forwarded the image to Blue, who looked at it on her phone, blushed deeply, and shoved it back in her pocket.
White touched her fingers against her forehead to steady herself before turning the page. "Are you into curves, Pink?"
"They're actually a bit of a turn off for me," she said.
"Really?" said White.
"Yeah. It's like, the ideal is power, right? Jacked is fine, but I really like just the balanced, athletic look. Not too masculine, predatory and naturalistic."
"At least we're basic in something," said White. "S-" she stopped.
"You alright?" said Pink.
"Yeah. Scales," said White. "Sorry. Are you feeling overexposed by this?"
"Why? It's just us," she said.
"I feel like I'm translating a fever dream into words," she said. "Working through all of this stuff like I'm writing a shopping list. Doing this really means putting yourself out there, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," said Pink. "Like, I'm not sure how to weigh doing this as a performance piece for everyone who has to look at me, or for my own deep id? And I'm likewise not sure if making choices for other people is even a bad thing. I want to be hot, after all."
"Mm," said White. "... I need to touch some texture palettes."
"Same."
"I don't particularly care for the lizard dry bumpy skin bit. But I always kind of liked the idea of large, layered, slightly curved scales like you see on fish or snakes. One time I read a book where someone used a dragon scale as the gemstone in an amulet and that felt right. But not exactly that texture, I don't want it to be slippery..."
"Shedding?"
"Ew, no. I think smooth going with and a little sharp going against the grain, maybe a bit smaller than fingernail sized. Attached at a single point, like hair, not embedded in the skin. Chest and back are different textures," she turned the page again. "Faces."
"You getting rid of the human mouth?" asked Pink.
"Yes," said White, looking at the various shaped muzzles.
"Ah, thank goodness," said Pink. "Human mouths are creepy."
"Zero argument," said White. "Something with fangs."
"Large, sharp, non-terrifying fangs," agreed Pink.
"None of those creepy grinding rectangles," said White.
"Oh hey, are you talking about how creepy human mouths are?" interrupted Orange.
"Yes," said White.
"Hey everyone," said Orange. "Quick break. We're contemplating human mouths."
"What's wrong with human mouths?" said Red, taken aback, but the others were already well about their business of staring into the void and shivering.
"I think that the real time consuming part will be choosing the correct combination of horns, fins, crests and hair," said White. "Since those are areas of different colour they need to be absolutely precisely dialed in so they don't overwhelm the design."
"They'll be modular, at least," said Pink. "But they're likely to have structural hardpoints so don't want to overdo them."
"Retractable genitalia," White went on. "I prefer options. Piercings?"
"I have never been able to see the appeal," said Pink. "Except for earrings of course."
"And we haven't even started on wings, neck and tail!" said White. "There's so much to this!"
"The road from wistfully typing 'dragongirl' to fully rendered anatomically correct 3D model is an arduous one," said Pink.
"It would be much more convenient if some sort of wizard or djinn or something could sort out those details in the backend and present me with a finished model."
"I think we are the djinn in that story," said Pink.
"Rats," said White. "Damn this labour intensive cyberpunk future."
"It's not all bad!" said Pink. "While we were talking I've been thinking a lot, and I think that we should actually commit to an openly artificial structure. Getting all the musculature connections perfect is expensive and stressful, requiring extreme precision connections to hit the balance between aesthetic and functional. I think that we can actually go a long way with an obviously robotic exterior shell. Our current design resolves the uncanny valley effect by being strategically artificial in a way that invites the human imagination to positively resolve perceived contradictions and I can see a path to something similar with this new chassis."
"Hmm!"
"Plus we can resolve the problem of having wings that are both oversized and nonfunctional by having them being a glittering robot angel array of golden solar panels," said Pink. "Think about the ways those could be configured into halo effects!"
"Hmm!!"
"Because I don't think becoming fully organic is anywhere near the most important part of this design, right?"
"No - you're right, if anything that'd be dysphoric in its own way. I'm trying to combine two parts of my life, not embrace a pre-established aesthetic."
"So, like," said Pink grinning, "do you want an emoji facescreen?"
"UwU" sighed White.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

As the maiden said, there is always an ending.

Fengye observes the struggle. First, without comprehension. Next, without motivation. Finally, without indifference.

"Maybe..." she croaks. "Maybe you could find some better rocks inside your head."

She is tired. She is sore. She is feeling more than a little bitchy and all of these problems and more are down to being punched out by this demon. But... she is free, in two important ways. She is freed from effort, knowing that she is helpless. Even against such a captor she can relax knowing there is nothing she can do. Not a freedom she's unused to, except for how it interacts with the second: Freedom from decorum. In the Flower Kingdoms, in the Dominion, there are endless hierarchies. A scribe could never draw the eye of a princess knight. A mortal could never defeat one of the Dragon Lords. But even a pathetic, broken girl might insult a demon lord without consequence. So Fengye, humble Fengye who had held onto her wroth quietly for so many years like a good little immaculate, finally got to let a little bit of it out.

"Because I seem to remember that you had plans to invade," she said. "And that would have been something to see: the legions of hell starving to death because their general does not understand the basics of rainforest supply logistics."

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"You say you beat death?" said Boldness, changing tack suddenly. "I don't think you did. I think that you're its slaves. I think that it frightens you, that extinction frightens you, that you're so desperate to avoid it that you live every moment of your lives in fear. You can observe the monsters moving in the deep and can't pull your eyes away. For every entity that dies before you, you can justify saying that you are still here, that we outlasted those people, what is right matters less than who is left. You are terrified that someone might look down at the grave of your civilization and say the same thing. It is a very... organic motivation. Very quaint!"

She leaned to the side, smiling brightly. "I'm not like that. I know what the meaning of life is: to kill the Furnace Knight. That's what's at the ticking center of my biology, and I could hang alongside the Skies if I saw that come to pass. So from my perspective, all that fear over survival just seems so... stressful. You'll have that itch inside you scratching away for as long as time remains. Even if you ascend to the greatest heights of glory and power, surpass the Lazerblasters, render the galaxy your toy, you will still not feel safe or satisfied. The Crimson Goddess will still be there always, whispering: is there a threat outside of this context still? So you will build higher and higher trying to get ahead of threats that only exist in your imagination, conjuring ever greater nightmares while existing in constant terror that your nightmares are not awful enough. As long as that survival impulse is there in your biological cores then it will be your torment because no matter what you do you can never truly prove the negative of your own death."

She closed her brilliant owl eyes for a moment and let out a calm breath. But when she opens her eyes again there is the gleam you're increasingly coming to associate with obsession.

"The Furnace Knight has a meaning too: galactic conquest. The dedication of new stars and systems to the Skies. Once the last star in the heavens falls before him then he can finally stop, and not before. In a practical sense, I think he's doomed to just as much suffering as you are because his goal is just as unobtainable. But were he to achieve it, he would be free from fear at last."

*

The Azura fighters continue ahead at full speed directly into the path of the warheads. For many long seconds they continue, seemingly unaware of the missiles hurtling towards them - and then, too late, they begin evasive action. The ability of the ships to change direction while not losing speed is unreal - an Azura fightercraft can go from full speed forwards to full speed backwards in less than a second, apparently without inflicting any sort of G-forces on the pilots inside. Their maneuvers, though, go from graceful to panicked when the guided Aotrs missiles adjust speed and angle to track them. Some of the ships start opening weapons ports, long black curse spikes emerging from those smooth spherical surfaces. When they do their speed and maneuverability drops substantially, making their attempts to jink even more doomed.

One of the missiles strikes an Azura plasma torpedo as its disoriented fighter escort abandons it. It detonates spectacularly, erupting into a massive cascade of burning plasma fire. A few moments later another missile closed into range with one of the Azura fighters. The curse spike flickered, glowed -

And, with the firing of the ELectromagnetic Flux a lot of Azura decision making finally starts to make sense.

Every radar, every scanner, every rangefinder, every sensor, either goes dark or goes wild. The sky is full of heat signatures. Space is comprised entirely of lead and uranium. Radio blasts out endless, pointless static. Magical scanners shut down. Even external visual cameras simply go black. It's the most comprehensive, overwhelming jamming attack possible. It attacks every spectrum at once, and the range is enormous. The entire planetary hemisphere is rendered into a vast data null-zone. A cloaking field as an explosion. The only things that function is outright visual data from the mark one eyeglows of Aotrs pilots, including visual telescoping effects.

And what that visual data will show, to anyone watching now or later: Every missile is snapped out of the sky by brilliant bolts of electricity fired from the Azura curse spikes. The interception rate is perfect; one notable ship shoots down five individual warheads in five seconds.

The only thing that prevents this from becoming an immediate operational catastrophe is the Azura failure to follow through. Their pilots were as unfamiliar with Aotrs technology as the reverse, and they misinterpreted the Aotrs missiles as something their weapons would be unprepared to deal with. A lack of centralized Azura command-and-control makes the realization of this fact slow to disseminate, resulting in a fragmented offensive action - some of the Azura ships advance aggressively while the others are still rallying.

The ships that do close the distance then turn this same weapon on the Aotrs fighter craft to dramatic effect. The range of the ELF weapon is short, but once it is reached the tracking and accuracy is perfect. A direct strike will burn out every computer system on board, often via dramatic explosions. Further, the power drain effect will stun or incapacitate the pilot and flatten any batteries aboard the ship. The first wave of Azura fighters leave derelict, lifeless vessels in their wake, and the second wave executes the paralyzed ships by guiding their detached torpedo munitions directly into them.

But, if any of the Aotrs pilots has the skill or inclination to engage in a dogfight, they'll find their coldbeams to be satisfyingly effective against Azura armour. Likewise, while the spheres are eye-wateringly maneuverable, they have lower top speeds than Aotrs craft, especially in combat mode.

Breathless Dead

Alexa!

"Oh, Alexa," said Mynx, and in that moment you're not holding her any longer. She's holding you - coiling around you, serpent coils thick and muscular. Around your neck like a noose. Around your chest like a corset. Around your hips like a lover. "It's a tempting mistake to make, isn't it? But don't listen to Aphrodite's lies. His maps lead to ruins. His gifts turn to ashes. And then when it's done he has everything end in violence again, and again, and again. He did not choose Ares for his lover as a flight of fancy."

The way the coils move is hypnotic. The way the fangs brush against your marble is intimate. Here and there they go, searching for the nick or flaw in your marble body where they might penetrate the deepest. They trace the edges of each gold-patterned scar looking for the places where the repairs were less than perfect.

"You open your mouth and you will find a fist around your throat," she hummed. "You open your heart and you will find a fist inside your ribcage. Hephaestus knew. The only way to bind love... is with a rope."

And just as her mouth opens wide - to bite, to swallow you whole - you hear banging and shouting as Redana comes rushing down through the corridors, inaudible footsteps moments behind. You feel a shiver of tension through those serpent coils, so powerful it feels like it might snap you like a porcelain doll.

And then she's gone, in a rush, into the ventilation shafts, flowing away like liquid along the secret paths built by Magi to impede the progress of humans.

Response Level 3: Corridors of the Magi
The Plousios is riddled with secret tunnels and access pathways, and only the Wise might navigate them.

*

Dolce!

Everything has a place. Everything in its place.

That was the mantra of the Manor. It was the call and response of the staff, the first words children were taught to read in the picture books. The world is inherently organized. It is designed for softness and comfort. Where there are hard edges there are specialists for that. Entropy is exported, only stability may remain. You never know when the Master might get home and want dinner.

There was no need for leadership in the manor. Such matters as scarcity and resource allotment were decided... informally. Through the mysterious alchemy of gossip over mahjong games things just seemed to work themselves out. It could hardly be said to be a government if there weren't so much decisions as... new rules. New events. Oh, it looks like we're repairing the west barn tonight. Oh it seemed like that new hound guard was a bad fit and decided to move along. Oh, it seems like those two are getting married soon, such a cute couple, somebody should let them know...

What a lovely way to make decisions that would be. It wouldn't be anyone's... idea, or responsibility. Nobody would have to make big choices and be held accountable for them. Things could just happen in a frictionless, soft kind of way. You could just worry about waking up and going to bed and all those decisions could just sort themselves out without the call for any sort of decision makers. Nobody would have to wear any big hats or have any big chairs. Nobody would have to be anything other than who they were.

You're so deep in contemplation that you only gradually realize that a hungry mousegirl, wearing an gothic hanfu and a mian opulent with skull-shaped beads, has snuck into your room and is eating the dinner you were too despondent to touch. Jil of the Lanterns freezes when you move - your stillness having completely concealed your presence. One hand holds a large slice of pizza toast and she is clearly fighting with an instinct to either drop it and run, or drop it to go for the pistol on her belt.

You think the pistol is winning so you might want to defuse the situation.

*

Redana and Bella!

One of the blessings of this galaxy is that there is absolutely no reason to stop for the wounded. If they live then they shall recover fully, no matter how grievous their injuries might seem in that moment. If Apollo would teach them a lesson in sickness it shall not be one that medical care will assist with. Despite there being over 50,000 souls aboard this ship you would not find among them one who considered themselves a medical doctor. One might as well spin dresses for the clouds.

So there is nothing in the slightest bit callous about patting Alexa hurriedly on the shoulder and continuing to rush after Mynx. Only one of those things is dangerous.

And then... you're running. Foot past foot. Hand past hand. The two of you racing like practicing for the Olympics. There are the flips and twists and coil turns of tight passages, the blind turns of lower depths, the shanty markets where the strange species of this starship barter coinlessly. There are wagons filled with tomatoes and apricots and entire coral reefs. Kingfishers haggle with crabs, and the crabs aren't having it. The fires are warm and the ship is lit with hundreds of lamps dedicated to Apollo and the sprint just goes on and on.

Long enough for the adrenaline to fade. Long enough for the panic to fade. Long enough to settle into the steady, chest-heaving drumbeat of running. One cannot think and maintain this speed, and so the two of you race through the ship, the world passing you by in flashing lights and colours. Deck by deck you run, breaking one hundred and thirty kilometers on the straights, and all the world becomes a blur.

Your feet fall in rhythm, Bella. You have felt this rhythm before. On the Azura planet Salib, beneath endless azure skies and in the shadow of space elevators. You have felt this rhythm before. In the depths of the void, in a perfect trance of sunlight and starlight and speed enough to escape yourself. On the track and field of Tellus where you bought dishonour to the Olympic Games, where every step was ended with a glance over your shoulder, wondering when the time would come to turn the race into a blood sport. A sprint where you were predator and prey. A sprint as a prelude to violence. This feels like that Olympic race, a night time shadow gallery of Artemis that held no matter how many lights were put up. You can't drown her out. Your quarry could turn at any moment, and then...

But also... you are running alongside someone. Not a fellow hunter. Not... anyone at all, it seemed. Not a princess, in this moment. Not someone you... have to follow. The first time in a long time you were just... running. Alongside a girl. And there was nothing else to bind or twist that simple fact into something it shouldn't be.