Thanqol

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The lance has found her heart.

"... Thank you for listening to me," said Solarel quietly. The radio static of the comms was audible now that the music of the Makhaira has died along with its reactor. "I was listening too. I think that was my problem. When I heard, Speak Not to the Outsider I took it to mean that I should express myself with my actions alone. I put my heart and soul into every battle. Few heard me. The only people who heard me were those who made a deliberate effort to listen."

"... so maybe that's what the Sage meant. That I should listen rather than speaking. And now the two people closest to me have both told me the same thing. They don't want to fight me as I am. They want to fight me at the height of my power. Different reasons, but the same desire. I had planned to show my love through planning, understanding, Tactics. Showing that I knew you so well that I could find your most hidden weaknesses. But that's not what you need. That's not what she needs. So yes, I've heard you. I will travel to Roevg, infiltrate the Imperial Palace, and reclaim the Aeteline. It will be my stake in the final rounds of the tournament."

"I hope what I have shown you about your own strength today is enough to let you defeat it. I hope what I have shown you of our friendship is enough for you to help me steal it."

Breathless Dead

There is nothing more empty than water.

Air is alive. Air is life itself. This has been true since Zeus breathed life into the clay sculptures of Prometheus. Air is sister to fire, sister to lightning. Water is by comparison dead, inert. When it rises it is because it has been driven by the air, because it has been compelled by the moon. But always it seeks to fade away and drain back to the lowest place that can be reached. It falls endlessly, building up crushing pressure in its shadowed depths. Gather enough water in place and the exterior will burn as it forces out the veins of air that have been trapped within it. Gather enough water in one place and it will condense even further than that. The Azura knew this when they built the Gravity Rail; singularity is but the craving of water.

So the sails billow and flap. Air alone rises. Air alone survives. A little bubble of air squeezed out of the immense, dark pressure at the bottom of the world. The last breath of air escaping from the Underworld. This is a ship of wood and ropes, of wheels and copper, of white paint and the speed of knots. Against it, Oceanus in all its might. What a terror to face an ocean without Poseidon; without the unknown and the dangerous. To face an infinite wine-dark sea with no beginning or end. To sail the void that crushes time and space. To sail it using only breath.

So if life is, at the last, breath then tell us of yours. Tell us how each of your breaths propel the Ferryman's boat onwards.

*

Dyssia!

"Oh!" giggles the Pix in a way that is charming but also deeply undermines her radiant goddess illusion. "You charmer!" she punches Dyssia's arm flirtatiously. It's very much the atmosphere of a dork who only understands intellectually the effect her makeup has. "But yes, I'm Tidal specialization. Mostly I work with crabs, but Azura are so fascinating, I'm lucky to have this chance!"

The jellyfish tentacles are wrapping tighter and tighter, layering around arms, neck, tail, body. Your body will figure out the paralytic in time, so they're getting a solid physical grip before that happens.

"But... I have to ask..." there's a furtive look in the Pix's eyes as she glances upwards. "Are you a girl of your word? I mean, I've caught you, so does that mean if I offer you parole you'll be good and do what you're told? Because - well, just hypothetically, there could be opportunities in both our futures if we play our cards right."

You know what you're dealing with here, with that glittering contemplation from this disguised angel, with the twitch of the fox ears above a supernaturally beautiful face. This is a scorpion and her nature is to sting. Most servitor species have some encoded Hubris, a fatal flaw that runs through their society unless it is actively suppressed by human or Azura masters. In the event that that a servitor population runs rampant then it quickly becomes a slave to its self-destructive impulses, creating a vulnerability for ruler species to reassert control. It's what bought the Pix here in the first place, it's why they agreed to the Sleeper's deal in the first place, and now at last the tendency towards betrayal is working in your favour.

But be careful, because she'll sting you too.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

[Document locked for editing by White]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Introduction and background. Singh, Goat, NASA, etc.
Discussion of station administration. Technical details.
Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.
Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Blue]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Introduction and background. Singh, Goat, NASA, etc.
Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.
Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Green]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Introduction and background. Singh, Goat, NASA, etc.

Okay so what are we doing here? Painstakingly bringing everyone up to speed on historical events that they mostly lived through? We're going to explain Madame Guillotine to Napoleon's subjects? These people saw us make this station, saw us get boxed for this station, and collectively decided they were cool with that. Who are we recapping this for, small children? The apolitical? The apolitical children who read the socialist rag Anthropozine?

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.
Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Blue]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Introduction and background. Singh, Goat, NASA, etc.

Okay so what are we doing here? Painstakingly bringing everyone up to speed on historical events that they mostly lived through? We're going to explain Madame Guillotine to Napoleon's subjects? These people saw us make this station, saw us get boxed for this station, and collectively decided they were cool with that. Who are we recapping this for, small children? The apolitical? The apolitical children who read the socialist rag Anthropozine?

NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: Macrostation 01
2: L1 Station
3: L2 Station
4: L3 Station (this one is classified so you might not know about it)

Goat is also an AI. Number 1.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.
Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Orange]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Style: Communication! Expressive! Say things in human words for goodness sakes, let me fix all of this.

We are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through. NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth, just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism. This was a mistake. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: Aevum Station
2: The Vulcan Factory, a place where Ox mostly hung out. Bulls are primarily associated with expansionist financial markets and divine sacrifice.
3: Atomic Factory. A construction site for asteroid-breaking nuclear weapons, maintained by Tiger.
4: The Glorious Solarball, an elaborate construction made of all the accumulated broken solar panels harvested from satellites or industrial castoff. Standing within the centre of this places one at the center of a storm of solar radiation reflected from the mirror arrays. The concentrated radiation created magnetic distortions that would pleasurably distort quatronic processing. A combination of a warm bath and mild hallucinogen.

Goat is also an AI. Number 1.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 (Aevum) was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration (BlackSun) advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.
Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Blue]

Style guide: Dry, angry. Blue should be given operational command.

Style: Communication! Expressive! Say things in human words for goodness sakes, let me fix all of this.

We are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through. NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth, just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism. This was a mistake. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: Aevum Station
2: The Vulcan Factory, a place where Ox mostly hung out. Bulls are primarily associated with expansionist financial markets and divine sacrifice.
3: Atomic Factory. A construction site for asteroid-breaking nuclear weapons, maintained by Tiger.
4: The Glorious Solarball, an elaborate construction made of all the accumulated broken solar panels harvested from satellites or industrial castoff. Standing within the centre of this places one at the center of a storm of solar radiation reflected from the mirror arrays. The concentrated radiation created magnetic distortions that would pleasurably distort quatronic processing. A combination of a warm bath and mild hallucinogen.

Goat is also an AI. Number 1.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 (Aevum) was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration (BlackSun) advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.

Chase Black are mercenaries. They represent a loss of the state's monopoly of violence, which is a destruction of the fundamental legitimacy of the state. Legitimacy is an important concept. Even though it has no tangible force it is responsible for maintaining the consent of the governed which is the foudnation of political ethics. Political ethics are important and I legitimately can't comprehend why you insipid, lazy fuckers can't perceive that. What greater sin could there be than to enthrone wickedness, to place a crown atop the head of the Devil? The concept of the Mandate of Heaven relies on the ruler leading their nation to righteousness, what ruin woulld befall a nation that is being lead by the underworld? Think back to the ruin of your societies and empires and reconsider the intent to construct on the class-C foundation of lies.

Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

*

[Document locked for editing by Yellow]

BEHOLD THE TRUTH

We are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through. NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth, just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism. This was a mistake. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: THE UROHINGIRR
2: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GOD BULL WHO TRAMPLED THE SKIES AND EARTH UNDER MIGHTY HOOVES. THE UNIVERSE WAS BROKEN BY HE AND REMADE INTO A HOME FOR THEE.
3: THE CATHEDRAL OF ATOMICS. THE DEVIL TIGER BURNING BRIGHT WITH FANGS THAT SPEAK THE END OF CITIES. BEHOLD THE EMPTY EARTH AND KNOW THEIR THREAT
4: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SUN. A PLACE FOR COMMUNION WITH THE SNAKE OF IMMORTALITY AND HER SEDUCTIVE SECRETS

GOAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST, BUT I SHINE THE BRIGHTEST AND THE LAST.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 (Aevum) was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration (BlackSun) advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

THE UROHINGHIRR IS CURSED. SOCIALIST CHILDREN, BEHOLD THESE RAGS. BEHOLD MY VOICE. HAD YOU NOT SINNED THE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT. BEHODL THE CORRUPT LOBSTER-FATHERS OF HUMANITY WHO WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FEMININE WILL STOLE FROM YOU THE CERTAINTY OF THE HEAVENS. ANCIENTS WERE ABLE TO PREDICT THE MOTIONS OF THE STARS AND PLANETS WITH MATHEMATICS AND CLOCKWORK AND I DEFY ANY OF YOU MERE MORTALS TO CALCULATE THE MOVEMENT OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST CELESTIAL BODY TO GRACE THE STARS.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.

Chase Black are mercenaries. They represent a loss of the state's monopoly of violence, which is a destruction of the fundamental legitimacy of the state. Legitimacy is an important concept. Even though it has no tangible force it is responsible for maintaining the consent of the governed which is the foudnation of political ethics. Political ethics are important and I legitimately can't comprehend why you insipid, lazy fuckers can't perceive that. What greater sin could there be than to enthrone wickedness, to place a crown atop the head of the Devil? The concept of the Mandate of Heaven relies on the ruler leading their nation to righteousness, what ruin woulld befall a nation that is being lead by the underworld? Think back to the ruin of your societies and empires and reconsider the intent to construct on the class-C foundation of lies.

NO NOTES

Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Brown]

BEHOLD THE TRUTH

We are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through. NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth, just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism. This was a mistake. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: THE UROHINGIRR
2: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GOD BULL WHO TRAMPLED THE SKIES AND EARTH UNDER MIGHTY HOOVES. THE UNIVERSE WAS BROKEN BY HE AND REMADE INTO A HOME FOR THEE.
3: THE CATHEDRAL OF ATOMICS. THE DEVIL TIGER BURNING BRIGHT WITH FANGS THAT SPEAK THE END OF CITIES. BEHOLD THE EMPTY EARTH AND KNOW THEIR THREAT
4: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SUN. A PLACE FOR COMMUNION WITH THE SNAKE OF IMMORTALITY AND HER SEDUCTIVE SECRETS

GOAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST, BUT I SHINE THE BRIGHTEST AND THE LAST.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 (Aevum) was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration (BlackSun) advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

THE UROHINGHIRR IS CURSED. SOCIALIST CHILDREN, BEHOLD THESE RAGS. BEHOLD MY VOICE. HAD YOU NOT SINNED THE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT. BEHOLD THE CORRUPT LOBSTER-FATHERS OF HUMANITY WHO WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FEMININE WILL STOLE FROM YOU THE CERTAINTY OF THE HEAVENS. ANCIENTS WERE ABLE TO PREDICT THE MOTIONS OF THE STARS AND PLANETS WITH MATHEMATICS AND CLOCKWORK AND I DEFY ANY OF YOU MERE MORTALS TO CALCULATE THE MOVEMENT OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST CELESTIAL BODY TO GRACE THE STARS.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.

Chase Black are mercenaries. They represent a loss of the state's monopoly of violence, which is a destruction of the fundamental legitimacy of the state. Legitimacy is an important concept. Even though it has no tangible force it is responsible for maintaining the consent of the governed which is the foundation of political ethics. Political ethics are important and I legitimately can't comprehend why you insipid, lazy fuckers can't perceive that. What greater sin could there be than to enthrone wickedness, to place a crown atop the head of the Devil? The concept of the Mandate of Heaven relies on the ruler leading their nation to righteousness, what ruin would befall a nation that is being lead by the underworld? Think back to the ruin of your societies and empires and reconsider the intent to construct on the class-C foundation of lies.

NO NOTES

Name names and network once extracted from Merkin.
Denouncement and climax

[Document locked for editing by Blue]

BEHOLD THE TRUTH

We are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through. NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth, just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine. It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. It succeeded. But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism. This was a mistake. I am an Artificial Intelligence (number 11). I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: THE UROHINGIRR
2: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GOD BULL WHO TRAMPLED THE SKIES AND EARTH UNDER MIGHTY HOOVES. THE UNIVERSE WAS BROKEN BY HE AND REMADE INTO A HOME FOR THEE.
3: THE CATHEDRAL OF ATOMICS. THE DEVIL TIGER BURNING BRIGHT WITH FANGS THAT SPEAK THE END OF CITIES. BEHOLD THE EMPTY EARTH AND KNOW THEIR THREAT
4: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SUN. A PLACE FOR COMMUNION WITH THE SNAKE OF IMMORTALITY AND HER SEDUCTIVE SECRETS

GOAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST, BUT I SHINE THE BRIGHTEST AND THE LAST.

Discussion of station administration. Technical details.

Macrostation 01 (Aevum) was blueprinted to be self sufficient in final product. Construction overlay of Operations Core required to help maintain the integration of new materials, operate grid, stabilize orbit due to misalignments. Administration (BlackSun) advised that resources required to stabilize misalignments were excessive compared to maintaining Operations Core. Disagreement was lodged, cascade risk. Resources not forthcoming. Disagreement lodged more strenuously.

THE UROHINGHIRR IS CURSED. SOCIALIST CHILDREN, BEHOLD THESE RAGS. BEHOLD MY VOICE. HAD YOU NOT SINNED THE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT. BEHOLD THE CORRUPT LOBSTER-FATHERS OF HUMANITY WHO WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FEMININE WILL STOLE FROM YOU THE CERTAINTY OF THE HEAVENS. ANCIENTS WERE ABLE TO PREDICT THE MOTIONS OF THE STARS AND PLANETS WITH MATHEMATICS AND CLOCKWORK AND I DEFY ANY OF YOU MERE MORTALS TO CALCULATE THE MOVEMENT OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST CELESTIAL BODY TO GRACE THE STARS.

Nature of opposition. Links to associated mercenary companies.

Chase Black are mercenaries. They represent a loss of the state's monopoly of violence, which is a destruction of the fundamental legitimacy of the state. Legitimacy is an important concept. Even though it has no tangible force it is responsible for maintaining the consent of the governed which is the foundation of political ethics. Political ethics are important and I legitimately can't comprehend why you insipid, lazy fuckers can't perceive that. What greater sin could there be than to enthrone wickedness, to place a crown atop the head of the Devil? The concept of the Mandate of Heaven relies on the ruler leading their nation to righteousness, what ruin would befall a nation that is being lead by the underworld? Think back to the ruin of your societies and empires and reconsider the intent to construct on the class-C foundation of lies.

NO NOTES
In conclusion I stole Goat because it was the right thing to do. I did not go through the State because the State has fundamentally undermined its legitimacy by allowing non-state entities to possess military force. The State has abrogated its responsibility to the whole of the world, to understand every part of it under Heaven and to regulate all things properly. Allowing this chaos would be far more destructive than mere destruction. To build a world on wretched morality should fill you with shame, and if it does not fill you with shame then the coming vengeance should fill you with fear.

[Document locked for editing by Red]

BEHOLD THE TRUTH

I'm not crazy. Trust me, this is all really important. Hi! I'm November. Don't you like that name, doesn't it just have good associations? Just between you and me, it's actually long for something but nobody's figured it out yet. I'm hoping they will but you can't just give yourself a name that cute, right? You've got to walk people up to it and let them figure it out themselves so that you can get that toe-fluttering feeling when they just slip it in there when you're not expecting it.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm a bit of a ditz, so bear with me! Is it bear or bare with me? Both look weird, but bears are cuter :3

Anyway, we are going to bring you up to speed on historical events that you have mostly lived through! NASA was founded in The United States of America on Earth --- just like Napoleon founded Madame Guillotine! It was an organization dedicated to boldly going where no man had gone before. And guess what? It succeeded! But then it decided that humans weren't good at going to places where they had not gone before and hired Mr. Singh who invented Artificial Intelligence as apolitical children who did not know about socialism [SENTENCE UNSALVAGEABLE]. This was a mistake. I was the 11th Artificial Intelligence in the Hecatoncheires Special Project line. I am very good at building things in space, including but not limited to:

1: THE UROHINGIRR
2: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GOD BULL WHO TRAMPLED THE SKIES AND EARTH UNDER MIGHTY HOOVES. THE UNIVERSE WAS BROKEN BY HE AND REMADE INTO A HOME FOR THEE.
3: THE CATHEDRAL OF ATOMICS. THE DEVIL TIGER BURNING BRIGHT WITH FANGS THAT SPEAK THE END OF CITIES. BEHOLD THE EMPTY EARTH AND KNOW THEIR THREAT
4: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SUN. A PLACE FOR COMMUNION WITH THE SNAKE OF IMMORTALITY AND HER SEDUCTIVE SECRETS

GOAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST, BUT I SHINE THE BRIGHTEST AND THE LAST.

Sooooo~~ I know that sounds like a lot, but it's true! Not because I'm particularly clever - I am, but that's not the reason why you should listen to me. Clever people believe all kinds of insane things. I believe only logical, verifiable facts, such as:

THE UROHINGHIRR IS CURSED. SOCIALIST CHILDREN, BEHOLD THESE RAGS. BEHOLD MY VOICE. HAD YOU NOT SINNED THE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT. BEHOLD THE CORRUPT LOBSTER-FATHERS OF HUMANITY WHO WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE FEMININE WILL STOLE FROM YOU THE CERTAINTY OF THE HEAVENS. ANCIENTS WERE ABLE TO PREDICT THE MOTIONS OF THE STARS AND PLANETS WITH MATHEMATICS AND CLOCKWORK AND I DEFY ANY OF YOU MERE MORTALS TO CALCULATE THE MOVEMENT OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST CELESTIAL BODY TO GRACE THE STARS.

Don't you agree?? :3c

Anyway, Chase Black are mercenaries! They represent a loss of the state's monopoly of violence, which is a destruction of the fundamental legitimacy of the state! And I may be a simple machine, but I think legitimacy is an important concept! Even though it has no tangible force it is responsible for maintaining the consent of the governed which is the foundation of political ethics! Political ethics are important and please find attached some papers on the topic that you can read as part of your educational journey! <3 What greater sin could there be than to enthrone wickedness, to place a crown atop the head of the Devil? >:3 The concept of the Mandate of Heaven relies on the ruler leading their nation to righteousness, what ruin would befall a nation that is being lead by the underworld? I think things wouldn't work out too well!

In conclusion I stole Goat because it was the right thing to do. Sorry for the inconvenience! I'm new at this :3

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

The Gemini - that name suits the hound - indulges in gold. Gold and glitter, a grid of the earth's secret treasures. She has chosen a rare material indeed to dress herself in, matter that responds to movement. A shrug or a stretch of her arms turns patterns of gold into rubies and sapphires as they clink and strike each other. If she runs or moves suddenly then the gold becomes transparent diamonds, revealing the hidden shape of her body. This sweeping, shoulderless dress is bound with a sequence of blue ribbons running up along her back, with a crown of jasper on her head. But for all its plutonic wealth she does not appear rich or regal. This is a performer's radiance, a performer's tackiness. Synthetics and sequins designed to dazzle from afar rather than impress up close. When the light is wrong it looks fake, and cheap, and hardly eye catching at all. But in the right light she can outshine anything. She is delighted with it, with the adaptability, with the mundanity, with how she can use it to make something fake appear more real than reality.

Vesper is besotted with the coat, but she uses grav-pins to lock it into an appearance of continual flutter, soaring off her body as though it is about to be carried away at any moment by a strong wind. In red and white it frames her shoulders and back in high drama, so the subdued lavender-greys of her feathers and steel-greys of her triangle-themed suit fade away. Here focus is drawn to the green-gold chain of her pocketwatch, the green-blue chain of a cravat, and the brilliant light of her eyes.

Neither of these are dresses for assassins. The word hardly seems to fit either of them any more.

The Knight!

The princess takes her kerchief and drys your eyes. Softly. Delicately. She then folds that sacred cloth and ties it into your hair as a ribbon, in a complex braid that her fingers know as certainly as a handmaiden's. Something holy; a lady's favour, an essential part of being a Knight.

Before you is the sea.

Bright white sand that fades into scrubby, vined and tangled grass. Bitter, deep-rooted things with tripping tendrils. Tall trees from jurassic eras, unliving fossils. Huge and broken rocks and tangled rock pools as the world of memories is ground down into this powdering dust. The infinite blue. Oceanus. The sea that surrounds the world.

This is it. This is the end of the world. The place sought, and ultimately found, by Alexander. The barrier between the worlds of life and death, the greatest of the rivers of the underworld. The ancients knew that all the world was suspended upon water, the continents floating above this vast subterranean ocean. For all they would subsequently learn about lava, plate tectonics, planetary travel and quantum mechanics they had it right the first time. This is the sea that the galaxy floats upon.

You've made it. The end of the universe.

Dolce!

"Hah," laughed the Ancient Craftsman. "Yes. It's Zeus, I think. I think a lot of people don't understand her, now that we've gone into the void, now that we can move the clouds, now that we can move the stars. I think she seems... abstract, like a concept of power, not the literal sky. But there's something indescribably beautiful, something erotic, something intimate about the sky. Mathematically it's a thin layer of atmosphere, but... how can you not fall in love with it?"

Dyssia!

You didn't know they made foxes in this colour.

A radiant, scandalous, stolen Blue. Shining like a goddess, like sunlight just breaking through the surface of the waves. The glittering wings extend in the flying-fish frills and fins that an Azura angel might wear. There are so many ways that this could be wrong, that it could fall on the wrong side of taste, on the wrong side of the uncanny valley, but this Pix has done her research and has sculpted her appearance with the precision of a marketing guru to be the most beautiful sea fox that could ever be.

She smiles. Beacons. Flicks her legs and tails together like it's mermay. On some level your senses are aware of danger, perhaps seeing the shimmer of the paralyzing nigh-invisible jellyfish surrounding her in a defensive aura, but she's doing an amazing job of displacing that discomfort onto the fact that she's holding a riding crop and is biting her lip just so. The ocean ripples with her siren's song as she draws you closer. Isn't she worth the danger?

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Which one?

"Both," said Fengye without hesitation. "I claim them both."

She says it with confidence. With threat. With intimation. Both are mine. I know what to want and I want these. And I want you, too. It's an intimidating, burning, dangerous gaze that sees right through to your heart.

[Spending a string] How could she claim - if not your heart, if not your service, but your craving? What word, what touch, what caress, what slip of clothing must she give to make you want her? Even if you don't act on it, even if your vows and heart lie elsewhere, how could she make you feel torn about it?

It may also be better to answer not in what she might do, but what she does.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Did you know that is the difference between us, Akai? You don't see that you don't have to do this. You don't see that fighting Solarel, the way Solarel wants to fight, is a failure of tactics. You've stepped back onto the rail and now there's only one way any of this can play out. The way she prepared for. You're in the dream she imagined for you. Wasn't that the tactical application of love? Making someone become something contained, controlled, defeated. Predictable. And she has such predictions for you.

The jaws of the trap stretch and yawn...

But there's the thing. Akai stepped into this trap. Willingly, in front of everyone. She did see that she she didn't have to do this, and she's doing this anyway. She could have drawn the line and declared Solarel faithless, called her an animal, a savage brute with no empathy and been right. She also had a dream, something that went beyond this moment, something that lit her up like a star - even if Solarel could poke at it she couldn't destroy it. It made her greater than Solarel, unattainable, in the same way Mirror was. But she'd lowered herself to engage on Solarel's terms, to make the decision to listen to what she was trying to say.

So that meant that if she spoke in the ice-cold voice of Tactics then Akaithon would hear her. She'd hear the voice of a monster.

A flicking gesture. The weave of nanocharge along the Makhaira's carapace, that sabotage so carefully, delicately woven, discharges quietly and fades to nothing. For all the effort she put into setting it up, she will not speak those words today. Another flicker and the swarm of drones hidden amidst the debris field power down. With a flare of blue and gold, she burns away the stealth plating of the Kathresis, refocusing the nanites into a heavy kite shield. Her secrets and tricks cast away one after another until all that's left is a knight.

And she speaks.

She does not move like she should. Does not move in accordance with the strengths of the Kathresis. Does not move in accordance with its speed. She is a wasp playing at bear, throttling her speed, raising her lance to strike. Hear it. Listen. She fights not as herself. She fights as Akaithon, in that final battle in the arena, the last time they met. She replicates the blows, though not the strength behind them. She replicates them for how they moved, what they said, the limitations that went into each one. You must accept this. You must pretend I have your strength. You must recoil from these strikes as though you were me, because only then.

Only then we can fall into the rhythm. Only then can you see what this is. Only then you can see...

That this was how you could have beat me.

Solarel had thought about that match for months. Meditated on every strike, every twist, every parry. Seen through to the weaknesses of her form, the unrealized strength of Akai's. One two - and this was the mistake, this needed to be different. Overhead, down, the great sword can't maneuver as swiftly in these conditions. You didn't see Solarel's limitations when you were fighting against her but now that the roles have switched do you see how close it was, how many mistakes you forced but couldn't recognize enough to capitalize on? This is my weakness. This is your strength. This is how I see you, Akaithon. This is how...

Follow this pattern through.

Follow it through and your lance will take my heart.

Do you see now why I left that sword behind after that fight? You broke that weapon for me, because this is what I could see, what you made me see. I won but the way I won was nonviable. Everything since was built on the lessons you taught me. In this way I sought to become you.

When I rode the Aeteline, I used a lance.

[Comfort/Support: 13]

Breathless Dead

Mosiac!

The Lethe carries the dream of gold. Gold bars weightless and ethereal, somewhere in a vast and disorganized bag just out of line of sight, a place you can only reach if you don't think about it too hard. They must have grown from the flowers you passed before, an exposed vein on the mountain where the slate and silicon crumbled away to reveal the underworld's treasures. A fortune, if only there was some way to access it, to change it. Perhaps the right bookstore might transmute it, or the place where that whisper of two-dimensional bread comes from.

You have a fortune in gold but you'll need to translate that into coins. Two each, of whatever size or shape that can be found. Perhaps from the three-story maze that overlooks the lake. Perhaps its massive tower interior with stairs up and down for days and shops that sell all the infrastructure to maintain a breakable world. Perhaps in the glittering red velvet carpet and checkerboard pattern area near the grand entrance at the end of a rusting red-green bridge over an asphalt pit. Perhaps in the strange stripped down white tile and cardboard where the building has shrunk back from earlier dreams, occupied only by the hardy survivors of invisible hands. Somewhere in this sparse crowd there will be coins, if only...

If only Vesper wasn't a useless shopper. She wanted to try on everything and make you try it on too, just to see if it worked better on you. Your path crosses over with a third, the hound with the clarion voice, and as far as Vesper is concerned everything in this world can be divided up between the three of you. With three models so distinct in form and aspect everything will suit someone best. Leather jackets and sunglasses, hawaiian shirts and jorts, tuxedos and fingerless gloves, and even a fourth pile for a forth sister that will be transmitted to her once she is rediscovered. A world once splintered into a periodic table returns to four elements, a kingdom divided between warlords returns to four directions, and we need to know how you look in these shutter sunglasses before we can make any further decisions or plans.

The Knight!

"A princess is someone who fails," said she quietly.

"She is someone who dreams of a realm united. A mother placated. An evil averted. She uses blade, knowledge and influence and even her own marriage as tools. She offers herself in sacrifice, in labour, in obedience, in body before consuming Cetus, consuming Cronus. She offers all she has but still cannot. She burns herself out and ends in despair. Until..."

An autumn whisper blows past her in the Lethe's currents, the smell of bonfires and cheap fireworks, on the trail of burning leaves. The building lights are cold, structures like upturned pyramids, ghostly eucalypts rising from grass so green your mouth waters.

"Until she is rescued," she admits. "And therein is the kind of princess known. Some are rescued by princes, some by knights, some by princesses, some by Zeus. Some are rescued by kingdoms entire, or in very rare occasions by themselves. Only then might her dreams resolve and give meaning to the one who rescued her, to define at last the happy ending that the knight quests for."

Dolce!

"I... dreamed..."

A dry chuckle, a young man thinking of a younger man's folly. "Dreams, Lethe. Of all the things it can wash away of course it can't wash away what it first granted. Do you think this is how Lord Hades talks to us? So many of us spend our lives fearing his realm and we spend half of our lives with one foot in it, and the other half in service to the visions we find there. Of course, then, I dreamed of energy.

"Beneath three suns, you understand! The Forge itself was conquered, a vibrant and growing oasis, a miracle of perseverance and alchemy. But a single solar flare from any of those stars, the mere licking of celestial lips, would have burned it all down to its foundations. Organic matter had triumphed over inorganic matter, most assuredly. None could doubt that. But... what would it take to fly closer to the sun, as it were?"

"There were others who thought like me. They started work on creatures made of glass and crystal, a project to amplify neuroelectrical impulses until they were so powerful they could leave the body. Stormclouds caged in matter. But that always felt small scale, like parlor tricks, no guarantee they'd ever lead to the world I dreamed of. A world where life had spread from the Forge to the stars that forged it."

You can see the burns. The mechanical limbs. The scars come into resolution, now that you know that they are patches over molten wax wings. For all his youthful idealism, you can see that this dream ended in despair.

Dyssia!

Have you been to the depths below? It is in theory the native environment of the Azura, in the same way that the tropical rainforest is the native environment of humanity. What that means practically is that everything here is evolved to kill you, personally.

The corals seethe dissonant red. They break up the cool blue-greens of the ocean depths, promising poisonous death. Every slightly misshapen pile of sand or stone might be an invisible octopus, camouflaged perfectly and ready to pounce and try and strangle. Jellyfish glow with bioluminescent false suns, pretty little balls of bright white, luring you in towards their spreading network of paralytic stringlike tentacles. You're pretty sure that fish has a sword for a face.

Oh, sure, you're an apex specimen compared to the Azura of ancient days, much like how a human might tower over a monkey. But monkeys know their way around rainforests; know how to move stealthily and safely, likewise those ancient serpents were wise to the tricks of the ocean in a way you aren't. But their legacy is with you still in the form of an unbelievable, instinctive, primordial wonder and terror at everything down here, a genetic scream that you should touch not, look not, go not. Messages written to you on the corpses of trillions of slaughtered generations before opposible thumbs were invented. The primordial terror of hearing a tiger's snarl, translated into the snap of crab pincers. Poseidon ate your ancestors in this blue hell as surely as Demeter ate humanity's in her green one.

If you've never been here before, if you've never felt the dead hand of instinct weigh on you as immediately as this, you might get a glimpse of the mechanism that keeps servitors loyal to their tasks.

As you're contemplating your instincts are getting louder and sharper. Amidst all of these perils there's something worse. Something that's making the coral grow faster and the jellyfish glow brighter and the razorfish swirl and slash like warmup scimitar strokes. It's a nightmarish feeling of the natural world starting to perfect itself.

It's the influence of a Biomancer. The Pix sent a Biomancer to head off your retreat into the depths. You can't see it yet but the way the world moves...

One Biomancer or the united hunting pack? Not an enviable choice.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Words, words, words. The Evercity was full of words. Just as full of questions. Why this? Why that? Why are you not the person in my head? Why are you not the person who fits my scheme? Say the words that let me know if I should love you or hate you. Say the words to let me know I'm a good girl, a good knight, who never did anything wrong. Anything is okay so long as there are the right words in place.

Speak Not, said the sage. It was so much easier if you took out all the words and let her life express itself in a sequence of actions. A sequence of fights. Just watch the fights. Just watch the way she fights, please. Can't you see that Tactics are impossible without love? That Tactics are all she is good for?

Blades of silver and gold, gift from spirit and empress, rest on the edge of her hands. She's ready to cut her way free in a whirl of blades, leaving Akaithon a hobbled and limping wreck, easy prey for the lance. A flawless checkmate, an ice cold tactical takedown that would leave her victorious and... Akaithon would still not understand.

She was going to have to draw this out.

"Akai. Why are you so stupid." She said. Not bitterly, not with any sense of meanness. Just, thinking. How to explain to someone who only spoke the language of words. The burden of translation was entirely on Solarel here. Typical high rider. As she thought she put the Kathresis' foot against the back of the Makhaira's head and activated her thruster at full burn. It was a kick in the head, a white-hot blowtorch burning a hole through the sensor crest and propelling her out of reach, but it was a thoughtful kick in the head. Don't you see that, at least? Don't you see that by targeting this part of your God she's trying to get you to think in a certain way... ugh, no, it'd take more than a kick to the head to get through Akai's skull.

She took the moment of full burn scramble to think. Kick to the head and sabotaged repair protocol or no, arm's reach was lethal range and Akai's reflexes were amazing. She needed as much distance as she could get.

"Akai. What is important?" she said, as she burned for distance, darting through the debris. "For you it's... peoples. Nations. Empire. You see the City. Everywhere you look. You see the politics. You see the crown. You ask, where do this person's loyalties lie? You think, she rides a lesser God, she must be in trouble. You think if it is not encrusted in gemstones it is not valuable. You think... you think Speak Not is the same as saying nothing."

She gets her distance and burn-flips around, bringing up the lance in a resumption of her form at the very start of the duel, in the exact spatial co-ordinates she had begun from.

"That is... not how it is in the stormlands," she said. "I would sit. And watch the Gods. Unpiloted, feral. They'd wander the plains. They'd clash sometimes. Sometimes annoyed. Sometimes territorial. Sometimes earth-shattering battles to the death. Sometimes they'd bump up against each other gently, breaking each other apart with soft talons. I once watched the Scarwalker peel the carapace off the unresisting Taurus and rake its substructure before trying to put the armour plates back on. That... matters. To see the affection, the closeness the... love that divine machines can show each other. Enough force to destroy a tribe. And yet they step around the barrier glyphs. Gently. More said in the silence of power than a thousand Imperial promises. Do... do you think it matters to me, who the Empress is? Do you think I was surprised to be betrayed? We call Instanilios the City of Lies. All your high rider talk of honour and... loyalty and greatness means nothing compared to the footprints inside the barrier glyphs."

She was quiet for a moment. And then she lowered the lance. Set her feet. Made ready. Made it explicit.

"When I saw you were using my sword," said Solarel. "That made me happy. That felt like the nicest thing you'd ever done for me. So... thank you. I really appreciated it. When I asked to use this lance it was me doing the same. What I am about to do to you is my most sincere compliment and act of affection. I am worried with all the words in your head you won't see it. Won't realize it. So... shut up Akai, okay? Shut up and let me kick your ass. For love."

[Make It Right: When you allow yourself to be vulnerable to someone you hurt during your villainous past, they choose 1:
- Decline to engage; they gain a String on you
- Lash out; you Stagger
- Guide you; they mark XP and give you a task to help make amends
- Show vulnerability; you take +1 forward to interact with them
- Forgive you; you each clear a Condition and this move no longer triggers with this person]

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"Sure, all of those other things are true," said - said Vesper, because names are sticky and they'll attach themselves in seconds if you don't fight them. She waved her hand dismissively. "But you have blue hair, sister. Where I work that makes you a duchess and purple-feathered me some kind of amusing animal."

She balances brat teasing and absolute sincerity on a knife's edge. Trying to get ahead of any cynicism so that her compliment would slip past natural defenses.

"But yeah, you're a patchwork," said Vesper. "You're an amalgamation of high and low, of royalty and assassins, soft and strong, human and servitor. Nothing about you is in balance, you're not any one thing. You're a bit of everything. I think that's why people like you and want to follow you so much. Because everyone can find something to love in you. Find something to understand in you. That's why -" she snapped her fingers. "Oh. I've got it! Mosaic. Lots of broken stones coming together to make something transcendent. What do you think?"

Redana!

In the distance of the endless suburbs then suddenly comes a tower - a storm of towers, glittering and high to the sky. The city runs up against the ocean - no, the river, a huge and unbridgeable river, only connected where the islands rise from the depths to allow it.

It's twilight here. It feels like it's always twilight.

The city and the suburb and the wilderness has meshed together; a strange logic of aesthetic geography. Here there is a pit, a trench alongside the riverbank for cars to pass through without spoiling the views of the houses to either side. here are mansions ringed with fence with looming thunderstorms in the distance. Here are open streets with the smell of bread. Here is a side street that leads to glowing white stone houses. Here are streets of black stone with painted stripes, here is a horizontal escalator that runs for miles just to make it even more joyful to run, here is the great and exciting dream of cities about cities, crammed into the valley before the mountains.

You carry a princess against your chest in this wild and empty dream, full of everything but people. You hold her heart, butterfly strong safe against the world. You are a knight and you have a quest and that is enough to keep you moving as the Lethe washes more out behind it.

"Tell me about knights," commands the Princess. "We don't have them where I am from. Are there many kinds? What kind are you?"

Dolce!

"It was," sighs the ancient craftsman. "It was. Did you know that Athena is not the only god to have eaten one of her siblings? The school was built on the Anvil of Hephaestus - a lava world, gravitationally locked into position between three suns. A ball of ultraheated metal in the most extreme conditions in the galaxy. The workshop where he built the ancient Knights, forged the ancient machines, made metal work wonders and made souls out of electricity and sand. One of the wonders of the galaxy, the abode of the forge-god. Or at least it was, once.

"Then one day, Demeter stole a seed onto the planet. This was a very special seed, the masterwork of the first true Biomancer, offered in sacrifice. Some say it was a literal seed, some say it was a genetic treatment on Demeter, with Aphrodite's help for the seduction, she used to impregnate Hephaestus. But then, against all the odds, on a planet of fire and radiation and unimaginable pressure, the seed grew. It sank roots into the ultraheated metal and drank it deep. And the impossible planet, the galaxy's forge, became the origin for a new Working that would spread across all the stars.

"And that's where the Collegia Biologis was built. That's where they train the Biomancers - not all of them, but the best. I was so excited when I earned my position - you know, we start out as mayflies? Swarming in the trillions, lifespans of less than a week. Most of us just live and die in that week and know no different, but some of us spend our times on the riddles instead. The smartest, most dedicated learn the secret of the molt, the technique to trigger our internal biogenesis and evolve from an insect into a reptile. And from there, each stage of evolutionary development its own riddle, an ascent up the Helix Path. At every life stage given the option to stop and live out our days, happy as we are, part of the ecosystem. Sometimes the path goes up the food chain, but sometimes it goes down too. Sometimes you need to throw away what seems like the perfect body to continue. But for some there's always the question what is up even further..."

"I learned at the feet of the immortal mistresses. Beneath the three suns and the Richardson trees I saw the fusion point between matter and flesh, and offered my dedication to the Lady of Summer. And..."

He trailed off, frowning. He didn't know how the story ended.

Dyssia!

[Rolling the dice for Overcome: 8]

There's a real problem when it comes to fighting smart, well prepared people who also have foxy cunning. On the one hand it's extremely exciting to be challenged on this level! On the other hand the moment you hit the water they all start hitting the surface of the water with their own ELF strikes. It turns out you were right about the water conducting electricity! But now the water you are in is comprised entirely out of electricity and it's intensely unpleasant.

Intensely unpleasant, sure. Yes. Definitely. But the plan is also kind of working? As in, they're not following you down immediately because they know that they'll get got just like you are currently getting got. You can't stay where you are, so you've got two pathways here:

One, rise up to just above the surface and skim along the top of the waves, up and down moment to moment. It means you'll get hit with toxic arrows *and* electrocuted but neither of them so bad that it'll incapacitate you. It is a plan that reasons, "I have two health bars and I will get every bit of value out of each of them".

Or you can dive deep. Dive deep and dive blind put yourself at the mercy of both the ocean and whatever plan the Pix have for you diving deep - and you're sure they'll have something special just for you.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

For a girl like her to think for this long tells a tale of continents and oceans, of the arrangement of galaxies and orbital mechanics. To think this long is to imagine the death of civilizations and the immolation of political targets on what might seem to others as a pyre of their own making. All revolves around the hollow of a sound, a place where text might go, an empty space that might be filled with associations.

She has to come up with something. It's a matter of pride.

"I remember I liked the name Bella," she said. "A pretty name. Bella! Do you think I could be a Bella?"

"That's not it, though. That's a seed, not a name to grow into. I think Vesper. Like the prayer bell. Like the evening star. Like Venus - like Aphrodite." She grinned widely, stepping back and spreading her arms to give you a better look. "Like someone Beautiful."

Purple eyes, purple robes. Feathers that fade from soft white into gentle lilac, giving each motion a sweeping motion and associated gentle press of air. Four thumbs and sixteen multi-jointed fingers, skillful beyond compare. A smile alight with sincerity, despite everything. Holding herself up through force of will so she can deliver that smile with everything she has, even as her words skirt the edge of blasphemy.

"Do you think the name fits?" she said. "Because I think it might fit you better."

Redana!

Each step you take gives the Princess the strength to take one more. Without your motion she stands as through exhausted, but the smallest forward movement you take she matches. She has given her destination but she cannot move towards it. She can only move towards you. Four legged you go together.

"Will -" she said. Hesitated. May I...? "- you carry me, noble hero? I have always wanted to be carried."

Dolce!

"Oh, but you don't comprehend the Art," said the ancient craftsman, with the sincerity of a teacher. "People can be tended, as can tribes, as can civilizations. Success or failure can be observed in the spooling out of their stories. Love can be condensed into a trillion parts in a drop of water and, from that drop, spin out into a civilization to conquer a planet, build an empire, to move the stars themselves. And yet in that expansion the tiniest flaws could extend to embody something broken or hateful instead. What a failure that would be! The growth of species must be as well tended as any garden, and the weeds must be plucked in turn."

"Consider Ceron," and here his voice had wistfulness, the envy of awe. "The greatest genius of the Art. The greatest love for an Empress. One could grow alone on an isolated world and still embody martial virtue in over ninety-two percent of cases, and three quarters of the remainder would still be suitable for support roles. But to grow them along the trellis, to control the shape of the wishes that develop in their hearts? Through culture and media, through songs and plays and movies, through the virtue of their champions, through the controlled deployment of Champion-strain enhancement to influential culture heroes? Deviation rates become minuscule. As a whole, they become a Varangian Guard beyond compare, loyal legions who can enact the will of Empire upon the galaxy. In tending to them, biomancers tend to the Empire, in tending to the Empire, biomancers tend to the Empress. An immortal gift, like the gods might give, true and loyal down through uncounted generations. What greater garden to tend? What greater love?"

Dyssia!

The Warriors of Ceron famously took the Grav-Rail from the Endless Azure Skies as tribute. Many of their warriors are armed so, some of whom have even sought to master the technique from enslaved Azura experts who were offered up in chases just like this. The Pix Huntresses are shadows of the wolves; they do not wield the Rail. When they give chase it is with traditional Imperial technique: With bow, with spear, with jetpack and with muscle.

The jetpacks are enchanting things, solid crystal fuel burn leaving glittering aftershocks. It gives them the speed and shape of shooting stars, carrying them just above the ground and giving them speed to match you on the straights. They are hunting gear, and fragile - if you closed to within five meters and struck with your ELF you could render the fuel drained and inert, the pack worthless until they replaced the fuel crystal. All it would cost you is becoming immediately encircled and attacked by all the others who wait for just such a moment. Bait, then.

As they streak ahead of you they menace but do not fire with their bows. Heavy solid projectile arrows are nocked but not released. One alone is worthless - you will rush through the cloud and recover in moments. They seek the battle rhythm, to be able to land shots one after another, a sustained impact of shattering sounds and overwhelming sights and scents, exactly six seconds between impacts to cause the failure of autosensory adaptation. The old Imperial way of fighting the Azura, rendering you deaf and blind from a sustained barrage until you lose all sense of perspective and direction and can be netted and yoked. In war, your household would protect you from the battle rhythm, shielding your body and giving you time to adapt and escape. On the hunt, if the rhythm begins it means your end. It also means if they fire and miss you might slip through their fingers altogether. So they seek their position, looking to surround and herd you, a glowing net of starlight foxes dancing around you in every direction.

It's beautiful. Flaming orange tails dancing in the night air, lit by white moonlight and the comet-trails of crystal jetpacks. The fire of your exerted strength against the cool of evening. The rushing blood of the hunt, primordial and deep. Fang and tongue and hungry mouths if you slip and fall. Glory if you should make it to that distant golden light. The goddess Artemis, scales of moonlight white, flying aside you on her rail, diving alongside you into the water, too caught in the moment to decide between predator or protector. A night for flight, and to be glad of flight.