Thanqol

Huntresses of Hybrasil

This, at least, is no surprise. This is as natural to her as the beat of her heart - and that's what makes it special. On Roevg, every gift is returned. Every blow is answered. Mastery lies in transformation - to take what someone else has given you and make something new of it. Some part of her would always have been wondering if Mirror did not answer her sabotage, but to see it now returned even more beautiful than she had imagined... Zaldar herself could not have done better.

She had no choice but to answer in kind.

She steps forwards into the shimmering spike of Mirror's dress, her sword, where it pools in front of her. She draws the spirits to herself, and they come swiftly to their old mistress. As she steps forwards into the final duel against the Anemoi she wears Mirror's dress, shaped to her body, shining in bridal white. Her katana is in her hands as she faces down the sword-wielding giant, still deadly even as its crystal fires gutter and burn low.

The blade crashes down. She half runs, half scrambles away and for a moment it seems like the fire has caught her. Red races along her dress, up her body - but not fire, a reconfiguration of colour, so hot it burns into orange at where the light catches it. This, too, was a colour for brides. The sword of gold runs through the dress, merged into it, tracing from her heart outwards a network of golden thread in intricate, moving designs. As she crouches so does the golden thread curl into the shapes of a fierce tigress. As she leaps it snaps into the shape of a snake. A sprint takes her to the rising wrist of the Anemoi, dress trailing behind her in burning ribbons, golden thread unraveling into the air as she goes. Her silver sword raises high -

Too slow. The Anemoi is perfect. It was ready for this too, a sudden and violent backhand smashes into Solarel and in an instant she's gone in a burst of bloody rose petals, falling through the sky like teardrops.

There is an awful silence. Golden thread lingers in the air. As it falls it patterns into words, lying across the grass like an epitaph.

BEHOLD MY GLORY...

But those weren't the words that were said out loud. Those were "レグナムカエロラム エトジェヘナ……"

The Aeteline swings around, raising its blade. It does not understand. It never learned this language. It had no need to. But that's why Solarel uses it now - the Sage Zaldar said Speak Not To The Outsider.

It sees its target standing distant on the field.

Only golden thread wraps her now, surrounding her in falling, glittering spools. The crimson wedding dress is gone, falling on the white ash in a rain of petals. She is unhurt. She speaks again in her strange language, turning and pointing at the Aeteline with her extended blade, and as she does the golden words on the ground below her snap into a new configuration.

ONE WHO HAS BEEN GIVEN EVERYTHING
GIVES YOU HER ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE
TWO LAYERS OF DEFENSE
TWO POINTS IN HEALTH
TWO STRIKES FOR VICTORY

The Aeteline bought its sword up. It was ready. It would resume this fi-ht a-d --en -- --ou-

"Omae wa mou shindeiru," said Solarel, turning away, closing her eyes as the skeletal head of the Aeteline shifted, severed diagonally, and fell to the ground.

Breathless Dead

Portugal!

It is one thing to be told that these people are half-blind, half-deaf and completely without the sense of smell. It is another to see the work of art that the Warriors of Ceron have made out of their ignorance.

The Portuguese simply can't see colours the same way civilized people can. They can't see the ultraviolet or electromagnetic spectrum with their naked eyes, their hearing is too weak to allow them to echolocate or hear noises in certain pitch frequencies, and the only creature on the entire planet capable of perceiving something remotely close to the true colour spectrum was a certain kind of shrimp. "Don't blame me," Demeter shrugged, aglow in a verdant laboratory cloak made of white flowers. "When I started all I had was some contaminated water."

But the drab, thoughtless ignorance of the Portuguese is fading away as you get deeper into the heart of the city. Here and there buildings are painted in vivid, ultracolour gashes of pink and violet, like the rents of massive claws. The locals can't even see these colours, have no idea their grey buildings have been redecorated so. Real music starts to clatter above the tinny din of mechanical speakers, fast moving and complex patterns that speak of relaxed violence, inaudible to the teeming masses but perhaps as a whine that the most sensitive of them might manifest as a purposeless headache. Everywhere there are scentmarks, some too complex for the locals to perceive, some reaching down as incomprehensible compulsions or aversions.

And in the centre of the city, the tallest skyscraper - no longer an unremarkable glass box but a criminal palace hidden in plain sight, painted floor to ceiling with the refined violence of the Shogunate's warsign. Endless spools of text runs by, honouring fallen warriors and recounting legendary deeds; invisible vanity. A swirl of optically camouflaged cables spread out from the building in a mad weave, connecting to nearby buildings. At the highest level of the building the burning pulse of a small Engine - enough to power this entire continent and have enough left over for the Star Kings to run their esoteric weapons to deadly effect. The Ceronians have hooked their device into the local power grid, stabilizing the electrical grid enough that a stray ELF strike won't cause a city-wide blackout. From atop their tower the Star Kings look down at their new subjects and begin remaking the society to suit them.

Psuedowolves lurk in the shadows, blended in amongst the crowds, aware and awake with the senses of hunters, deadly knives hidden under their shirts. They move like gangsters, like predators - brushed with the beginnings of biomantic ascension so they can serve as agents for the Ceronians. They are the beginnings of a new dark age, a supernatural mafia from beyond the stars, the heralds of death for whatever society has grown here. In its place six billion people will be remade into the instruments of banditry, their civilization militarized until it can be traded for a greater prize.

Dolce!

"The Crystal Knight defeated," said Liquid Bronze, nodding. "Defeated. Impervious? Where is Impervious?"

The oldest Summerkind you have ever seen is wheeled out. He looks like a skeleton, beard down to his ankles, eyes faded in his sockets, hooked up to multiple external symbote organs that are pumping and filtering his blood. He blinks awake blearily. "Lord Bronze?" he rasps. "Why... why have you kept me alive?"
"Impervious!" said Liquid Bronze. "You remember when you said, and I quote, 'I think the Crystal Knight is an up and coming political figure, with a bright future in the Skies'?"
"Lord... Bronze?"
"And you said I should worry about her?"
"Yes... her focus on the underworld crystals... I remember, it was so long ago..."
"Well," said Liquid Bronze, "I just thought you should know that she went and got herself killed. In a servitor riot! Olympus above!"
"My lord..."
"And I hate to say I told you so, but I thought you'd appreciate me closing the loop on that little theory of yours," said Liquid Bronze as the bunker rattled under direct cannonfire. "Because, as I said at the time, I am fairly confident that Biomancy will never be usurped as the ultimate technology."
"... her death does not mean... the concept she represents..."
"My goodness, man!" said Liquid Bronze. "You're still arguing with me? Don't let me say that I don't respect it, but when I get new evidence I change my mind - do you?"
"... No, I take it back..." the old Summerkind bites the words. "You were right."
"Oh!" said Liquid Bronze. "Did I get through to you at last?"
"Yes, lord," said Impervious. "Now may I please... respawn?"
"In a minute," said Liquid Bronze. "Just, I'd like you to elaborate a bit - we're not the only people present here after all."
Impervious sighed raspily. "You were right. I was... wrong. The Crystal Knight was never a threat to you. Biomancy... will never be surpassed. May I please die?"
"What?" said Liquid Bronze. "I'm not going to kill you. Who do you think I am? We had a respectful disagreement and I finally located the right facts to convince you that I was right. That's what a healthy culture of debate means, Impervious. You're free to speak your mind whenever you want."
Impervious sighed. "May... may I request a tour of duty on the front lines, Lord Bronze?"
"Of course!" said Liquid Bronze. "Men! Take my friend to the armory, get him a gun and suit of armour. See, Impervious? The bigger man doesn't hold grudges."
"Yes... sir," rasped Impervious as his hospital bed was wheeled out.

So the direct answer to your question is: Impervious. Even if he himself is not long for this world, his coming reincarnation will likely share some of his attitude towards Liquid Bronze on an instinctive level. The broader answer to your question, though, is any of the older Summerkind - the older the better. The young ones are too lost in the awe of seeing Liquid Bronze outdebate one of their kind's greatest warsages that they haven't fully processed how fucked that encounter was. They just don't have anything to compare it to.

20022 politely clears his throat and looks at you. Liquid Bronze seems to have lost the thread, and 20022 wants to know if you'd prefer him to finish the thought from here.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"... Spirit."

Daiofei's voice was flat. She didn't make eye contact, staring ahead at the shrine. It was a voice of resolve and command, possible only because she was not allowing herself any alternative.

"I told you before that I summoned you for one reason only. I will repeat it in words you cannot ignore: I seek vengeance on the kitsune Actia, and by my command seal, I would have you seek vengeance on her too. Let my pain be your pain, let my injury be your injury, let my justice be your justice. We will not rest until our task is done. Do you understand of what I speak?"

More quietly, almost to herself: "I have learned not to trust in desire. I have learned I am not fit for duty. All that is left for me is to undo my mistakes."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"I've always loved the Gods," she said. She couldn't help it; the words just had to be on the outside now. She felt like she'd explode if she kept them in.

She spoke even as she ducked under a slashing claw, wings wrapping around them both as they fell into a free dive. One snapped out, angling the flow, then a second, breaking momentum hard, legs swinging in front - and then extending straight behind her so that she could pass through the narrow gap of the Aeteline's legs. She hit the ground at a sprint, building momentum to hit the air again, passing the shockwave of her landing into the force of her next flying leap.

"Each of them is adapted to its landscape, to its context. They're specialized against each other, against the wilderness, against the damage and scarcity required to survive long term. Specialized against us. As time went on battle became less and less of their lives. From the ground it made them feel impossible. As the Aeteline it made them feel weak. And I hated that they felt weak, because they were so beautiful -"

She twists, turning her wings upwards, falling like a shot dove. The sword of flame crashes down, just missing her. She drinks in the heat and rides the thermal, exploding up out of her dive into a whirling corkscrew that takes them up behind the Aeteline. The wrong weapon for this battle.

"But!" she laughs wildly as her wing blades carve gashes along the Aeteline's back on her descent, "the specialization for peer combat came at the cost of being able to fight infantry! Against the Bezorel we would be targeted and destroyed in seconds but against this -" Solarel flipped out of her dive and landed again on the ground. Her wings glowed and flashed, breaking in half, returning to the form of swords. The physical silver sword she brought up into a fencing posture as she faced down the mad metal giant. The gold digital sword she left in Mirror's hands where she left her behind the Aeteline, with a clear view of the rents in the metal torso where the data core was exposed. "- against this," said Solarel with the serenity of the samurai she loved, standing alone on a windswept plain, "I can fight as an equal."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Daiofei was once again caught in a trilemmna. The Body helpfully informed her that there was no breaking the grip on her wrist - and then quickly added that there was no way to escape from Saber's embrace so she might as well not even try. The Soul was once again coming apart; it had been freed from monastic repression just enough to be able to imagine exactly what the shapes she is pressed against imply.

But the Mind remained focused on the singular concept that held it together. She twisted in Saber's grip so that she faced outwards and would be able to speak without a mouth full of chainmail, though she doesn't struggle more than that. "If this place is twisted it's because she twisted it," said Daiofei. "It needs to be purified -" her mouth formed a tight line. That was the priestess talking and she'd broken those vows. "It doesn't matter. She made it like this for a reason. She's getting something out of it being like this. If I destroy it then she'll come and then we can confront her."

Breathless Dead

Portugal!

It's like being in a world made out of cardboard.

Everything here is fragile. The buildings are made out of barely treated stone. The people are made out of calcium and water. The trees are uncondensed carbon. The streets are heavy with the discarded paper-mache pages of newspapers, cheap ink smudging and fading in the sunlight. The music that plays from hidden speakers is tinny and tuneless, the images that flash on archaic plastic screens would pale in comparison even to the museum of the Tunguska. It would be very nice to be able to romanticize an alien civilization - it is all very impressive when you consider they built all this themselves after starting out as water slime - but it's hard to appreciate it. It makes the amenities of even a backwater like Beri stand out.

As an example, it might be tempting to compare them to ants. But the ants on Beri were a useful aspect of the ecosystem - they would swarm over cliff faces, carving away edges that had been blunted by ocean wind erosion, creating impressively sharp angles and deepening shadows. The waste rock was then used to create aesthetically placed islets, which would then be tended to by birds genetically engineered with gardening instincts. The birds would fly to the ends of the earth to collect rare and aesthetically pleasing seeds and deposit them in elegant configurations. Swim to any of them and there would be honey and peaches waiting ripe on the vine, each one a unique delight designed to resist boredom. That was normal. Here - you've seen the same restaurant five times on the walk here. They just built the same structure, with the same colours, staff and menu five identical times. It's not even a beautiful building; it's just a grey stone box and the people inside have attitudes of resignation. Even your disguises regularly turn heads in the streets given the universality of drab, muted, clashing and mass-produced clothing on display.

They're trying their best, bless them. But this would be a hard sell even with just Beri as a point of comparison, let alone memories of the Imperial Palace. You have been on the inside of a civilization dedicated to universal beauty for so long that the jarring contrast of this moment makes the arrogant reaction of the Endless Azure Skies to outsiders at least comprehensible.

Dolce!

Oh, he's real dumb.

You can see it in the way the eyes of the Summerkind glitter when he confidently explains things to them. This is a man who surrounds himself with kids who don't know anything so that they'll think he's cool. You can see it in the eyes of the aged veterans on the fringe of the room, how they're just barely starting to wonder if none of this adds up. He's optimized the species to die at about the instant they become disillusioned with his bullshit and the turnaround for that is measured in weeks.

He doesn't see it that way of course. This is a guy who was born so correct he never needed to check anything. Speaking of, he tells the story about how he was so strong when he was newly born that he broke the doctor's finger - and how that was his inspiration for making the Summerkind hatch combat ready. He explains how he had to invent new martial arts because none of the existing ones could keep up with him and that's why he made the Summerkind so adaptable, so they could do the same thing. He spends like forty five unprompted minutes talking about ways he'd improve Doctor Ceron's genecode - not that he would, dead end design - and then suggesting that all the problems were caused by her 'emotions' which was 'typical'. Unlike him. Only Facts and Logic for Liquid Bronze, which is why he only drinks these protein shakes he invented.

And the cigars. Deep breaths of those, Aphrodite draped over the back of his chair, running his fingers through Liquid Bronze's hair as he turns to smirk at himself in the mirror-shine reflection of his bodyguard's breastplates. It's a good smirk. He practiced it for a long time.

"All that to say - who knows?" finished Liquid Bronze. "But that's the problem. My time is valuable because there are so many problems only I can solve. So, let's hear it! What do you need my help with this time?"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

There were two ways to be vulnerable. One was to be weak, to be defenseless, to be bound and gagged and rendered helpless, unable to act and so freed from the burden of action. The other, Solarel was learning, was to be hard read. No matter what thoughts existed in her head, whatever plans she had entered this battle with, whatever strength she natively possessed she was unable to wield it because her enemy had her downloaded on a level she couldn't comprehend. She struck directly into counters, she struggled directly into a lock, her tired and hungry body had spent so long in a stasis tank that it was utterly unprepared for direct battle.

... She'd been seen. She'd been so focused on what she was saying. If she'd be heard. On Speaking Not. Communication had been everything to her but that wasn't the only way to be known. Mirror had picked out parts of herself that she didn't even know she had. There was no defense. It would be easier to punch the ground.

"Thank you," she said.

Energy burns in her, the force of explosions, of high velocity staff strikes, of kisses. She's filled with the aching positive energy brimming in her power cores demanding release. She's never fallen from this height before, never fallen like this before, never would have written a battleplan which involved her surviving a fall like this. If it was her she'd have thought it was impossible - but someone she believed in thought she was better than that.

She called on the spirits of her swords. They had always been malleable things, in her hands as God and as mortal. Their nature was to be blades but there was more they could cut than steel. Silver flowed over her back. Gold ran through her veins. The molten power within her burned and crackled. Two blades extended from her back - then four, eight, sixteen, more. A radiant pair of angel's wings, one silver and one golden, spread out behind her, each plume a sword.

A sword does not see its potential. A weapon alone cannot live. This is her final surrender; not to wield her blade for her own will, but to become a sword in the hands of Whispered Promise. What else is there to do when the one who loves bids you to fly?

Breathless Dead

The Plousios!

The Portuguese, despite having turned their civilization towards the militarism of space, have no real way to prevent a hostile landing. But neither can they be ignored entirely. Some decisions have to be made.

Dyssia: How do you intend to land? There are a range of options, the simplest being a long range Boarpedo. Quick, quiet, fast - an ugly landing but it'll get you to the ground without drama with the locals. The catch is you can't leave the way you came. The next step up is a flight of Plovers - swift enough to skirt the edges of the defense fleet with only minimal contact, but once you land you'll have to park a dozen mechanical kaiju somewhere where the locals won't try to disassemble them. A full shuttle is the brute force option, with capacity to carry a full legion which can handle its own defense, but that's a big statement. If you really wanted to, you could also fly the Plousios close and base jump in from high orbit, but that's doesn't have many advantages over the Boarpedo.

Bella: What is the stylistic character of your visit going to be? A state visit, dressed as alien aristocracy? An infiltration, with your Hermetics and Sorcerer tasked towards concealing your true nature? Are you going to dress yourself as government agents, as in-system tourists, or as fellow kids attending school? You don't have a clear view of the alien culture but you do have a folder filled with out of context photographs provided by NBX.

Ember: What is the armament you're going to bring down with you? NBX has advised that even civilian solid projectile weapons work as a lethal neurotoxin to the inferior Portuguese biology, but swords alone will put you at a disadvantage against a presumably far better armed pack of Star Kings. Quajl has found a collection of esoterics aboard the ship but none of them are entirely perfect for this kind of operation - what do you choose, and what are the limitations?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Beneath the waterfall stands a metal giant.

Once it was a thing of corporate war. Each of its components was designed to come apart and be replaced from oceans of identical replacements. Replace every plank in Theseus' ship and the warp and weft of the wood would be different to those who knew and loved it; replace every screw and fitting in the giant and not a molecule would be out of place. Once it had stood on the surface under ten suns and done battle with its kind.

Now it stands beneath a cliff, water cascading onto its head. Centuries of collected dirt and sediment have built on its boxy chassis, choking networks of reeds and mosses. It has sunk up to its knees in the muddy soil and its white paint has oxidized in spectacular blooms of orange and brown. Trees have grown up around it, their leaves landing on its shoulders and mulching into soil in which new saplings are starting to grow. And finally, its guts have been ripped open, revealing the still screaming and still glowing reactor at its core, casting a baleful orange light over the evening lake.

And up to this giant has been hooked a mad web of electrical cables. Hundreds of them, extending out from the giant in a mad cobweb, spilling into the water and out the side of the pool to where they connect to strings of electrical bulbs. Each cable is connected to endless cascades of lights that run up and down the cliff, up and down the trees, under and over the water, and then splintering out and running over rolling fields to distant houses and communities that draw their electrical power from the sleeping giant's ever pounding heart.

At the base of the giant's legs, by the waterside, is Actia's shrine. It's an ominous collection of buildings, constructed with the same kind of madcap energy that resulted in the mad spaghetti of cables, none rising higher than the half-sunk mecha's hip. Technomancer masks are visible on the outside, crackling satellite dishes pointed down at the water even though it could not be more than a meter deep at its lowest. The atmosphere is half idyllic and half crazed - similar to the Kun Shrine but without the edge of positive wholesomeness.

Diaofei tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, looking at the scene as it was lit up by the Kun Shrine's headlights. She had her finished molotov cocktail on the counter but it almost seemed to be slipped from her mind now. "It didn't look like this the last time I was here," she said. "It looked... wholesome."

Breathless Dead

Dolce!

It is not often in the Age of the Shogunate that you see anything that resembles a hospital.

The cleanliness is... Normal air has a bit of a metallic tinge, so omnipresent that you just don't think about it. That's actually the work of Exomites - bioengineered dust mites seeded on every planet in the galaxy. These mites work tirelessly to collect the infinitesimally small trace fragments of exotic hypermaterials like Quadranix required for modern engineering. Some of these materials are so rare that an entire planet infected with Exomites might only produce a hundred kilograms a year. But here they're gone. The air is clean. A perfect, sterile, flavourless oxygen-nitrogen mix, strained of every contamination.

The layout of the building is slipshod and haphazard, having been expanded at random, following the changing requirements of functionality without self reflection. You walk through a ward of drone tubes observed by various apprentice biomancers. You walk past a break room with a single chair facing a wall covered in posters of menacing looking Ceronians, marked with the words WE CAN BEAT THEM BY FOLLOWING POLICY other such inspirational messages. You walk through an open air cubicle farm where over a thousand apprentice biomancers work frantically with stylus and ink, illustrating muscle joints and connections and graphing out genetic sequences longhand, not looking up when the ceiling rattles and lights flicker as artillery shells impact on the bunker's roof. You walk past treatment wards, blue curtains and mechanical beds, where Summerkind sleep, leaf through magazines, or engage in high speed parallel conversations. Carts carrying food, laundry or failed drones force you to move aside constantly.

Every so often the P.A. crackles and a voice rings out through the facility. Sometimes it's functional: "Phalange test for Drone Batch 402," or "Incoming atomic. Brace for impact". Sometimes it's motivational: "Minimize idle chatter. Remember: Mouths are a privilige and not a right!" or "Remember: Containment breaches are to be expected and are not an excuse for missing deadlines". Sometimes they're unhinged. "The sign of a healthy workplace is being able to offer a stranger a high five - and get one! The sign of an unhealthy workplace is the deployment of Killer-T Drones!" or "Beauty is not an afterthought. It's critical to future funding! If you notice ugliness anywhere report it to the Eradication Team immediately."

Contribution leads you through, numbed and cold eyed. And then you arrive at the Dais - a prefab room that's physically been tilted on its side to add more verticality. At its bottom, crammed into the narrow space along the 'wall', are hundreds of Summerkind military strategists pushing past each other, laying out maps, discussing possibilities. A ladder leads up to a hastily built catwalk halfway up the room, where Biomancer-General Liquid Bronze sits in his command throne surrounded by his aides and assistants, issuing directives and imparting wisdom in between puffs of his cigar.

"See, the problem with Doctor Ceron's designs," he was telling his assistant, while flexing his bicep and pointing. "Is that she didn't understand the power of wolf social structures! Yes all of the Ceronians are sexy, powerful wolfgirls, with the rare few wolfboys mostly made as concessions to investors and they're not even in charge. And the way she'd have you hear it is that's the point! But that's wrong! In the wolf pack there's only room for one alpha, and all the others are betas and omegas - and that's what makes them such effective hunters. The betas work hard so they can usurp the alpha and get access to the omegas, that's motivation right there. You want my advice? You've got to biologically neg like 95% of your creations. Oh! - hold my cigar, we've got guests."

Liquid Bronze kicked his chair. It rotated on little scuttling feet and waddled across to face Dolce, Contribution and 20022. He gave a snap military salute, and Contribution returned it with tears in his eyes - he was meeting his hero, his creator, and at last something in his life made sense. "Good show, soldier," said Liquid Bronze. "Your sacrifices won't be forgotten."
"Yes, sir," said Contribution. "Thank you sir."
Liquid Bronze held the salute for another long moment. His assistant continued to hold the cigar as it burned away. Then Liquid Bronze broke it and turned back to face a massive map on the wall. It was being constantly updated by winged Summerkind who erased painted unit markers and replaced them in response to new reports. "Make it snappy, sheeple. This is probably the hardest battle I've ever fought and my opponent - well, he's a genius. No other word for it. Probably the best commander in the galaxy. It's going to take all of my cunning to turn this around. Adjunct! Order another frontal assault!"