Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It took a certain kind of willpower to get up in the morning knowing that your entire day was going to be cringe.

Out of bed. Jumping jacks! Hi-ha! Hi-ha! Put the lungs into it, work those muscles! Do it in front of the mirror! Your body might not be anything like what those old superstars looked like, but - say it out loud now! This is what peak performance looks like! Nobody ever got anywhere with shame or self awareness!

Shower. Wardrobe! Put the fuckin' laurel wreath on the head Aeglesia! You have an entire wardrobe full of identically coloured and shaped black pants, black turtlenecks and black hoodies that practically guarantee that nobody will ever look at you. But you don't want that! Today they're going to look! A real Princess would have servants for this. They'd be able to glide out of bed on a waterfall of rosepetals and have their hair woven into perfection by flocks of hummingbirds. They wouldn't have to spend thirty minutes buckling up their armour, checking their gear, making sure their hair was bouncy but not frazzy. They wouldn't fumble when they hefted their giant stupid heavy tower shield that's too big for you but you got the wrong size and it took all your savings and you're stuck with it now - but they didn't use shields anyway! Despite how tactically cool and what an incredible canvas for showing off your heraldry a shield was! Many advantages! And if she ever found herself with friends then they could learn cool shieldwall techniques together! Many advantages!!

She used her spare hand to slap her cheeks. That's it! You're not nobody any more Aeglesia! You're not boring old Meng Yao any more! Nobody's going to ask you about your capsicums. They're going to ask you to slay the Swamp Giant - and you're going to tell them that you're not going to have time today because you'll be saving the world from a world-threatening threat! But you'll be back for the Swamp Giant later! With a Legion at her back, a Sunshard in her baggage, and a properly sized shie - no, she'd just master this one! The fact that it was too big was a cool and quirky advantage, and once she had more magic then she'd figure out how to use it to send energy waves or absorb energy waves or - or something!

All she had to do was prove that in this historical battle royale, Rome would crush every other civilization's champions. Easy! The only thing that could stop Rome was giving up on being Rome - and she would never make that mistake.

*

"I understand the scholarly consensus has turned on Gibbon," said Lancer, looking at the burning star in the sky. "And that Christianity, in retrospect can't be really blamed for the destruction of Rome."

She didn't say anything further. Lancer believed in Marcus Aurelius' Stoicism. Controlling her emotions, speaking only wisdom, embodying virtue in her person and her deeds. It would lessen her to say what her irrational emotions said when she looked up at Bohemond with his holy spear, that she felt like she should absolutely blame this shit in general and this guy in specific for the end of the Roman Empire.

"Even if Christianity wasn't to blame, the Crusades certainly did not help," suggested Aeglesia.
"No, no," Lancer waved her off halfheartedly. "They were there to help. An Imperial electorial crisis was hardly unprecedented. The structural problems ran far deeper and that was just the final kick to the whole rotten edifice."
She trailed off, duty to Rationality complete and unable to bring herself to stall further.
"All right," Aeglesia said, gripping her hands on her shield in determination. She had to get this right! "Looking at it rationally! Bohemond is merely a land-hungry invader wrapping himself in the cloak of righteousness in order to get political support!"
"Well put," said Lancer laconically. "Let's go further. That spear he wields - what is it?"
"D-didn't he say that was the Lance of Longinus?" said Aeglesia uncertainly.
"He would say that, yes," said Lancer. "But I am the cosmically ordained spear specialist here, and I can tell you that when you look past the flashy lights, that is just a standard issue Roman pilum. Likely cast in one of the Capua manufactories in batches of a thousand. Even if," here she slowed down, once again her duty to Reason preventing her from emotively dismissing something she lacked evidence to dismiss outright, "this somehow is indeed the spear that pierced Christ, why should that grant it any supernatural abilities at all? Christ was not a violent man, and Longinus was allegedly cursed for his crime and not granted a weapon of awesome destruction as a reward. One would imagine if he had something like this he might have fended off that eagle - I mean lion - that came to eat his liver every night."
"So... it's a fake?" said Aeglesia.
"Worse than a fake," said Lancer. "It is fanfiction. Give me a real spear."

Aeglesia put a pilum in Lancer's hand. In every way it was the mirror of Bohemond's holy relic, but as a leaden thing of military utility without even a glimmer of divinity to it. Lancer hefted it up to his shoulder in a professional, Olympic pose, judged the distance and air, took her time...

And threw it right through Bohemond's chest.

It punched through his holy armour and crusader tabard. The golden spear fell from the Angel's hand and dissolved into light. He reached up to clutch the javelin, wings folding on himself, and he fell like a struck swallow from the sky. Only near the ground was he able to recover enough strength to avert a fatal collision and bring himself up into a limping retreat back towards his newly conquered shrine.

"Great throw!" cried Aeglesia, trying to clap against the hand that was wrapped up in the shield - before instead figuring out and then banging against the shield instead. Many advantages! That was a military clap!
"Every legionnaire is trained in the javelin," said Lancer modestly. "Now, let's go and see if we have finally found someone on this new green earth who is not hip deep in fox schemes."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

The Uncrowned King nods in failed understanding. He moves so that the sun is behind him, casting its shadow as a bitter mercy on Bella. But he is not a solid object. He is a swarm of locusts in the shape of a person, and as they shift and flick about tiny chinks of light shine through him and they sear like daggers.

"I have sent someone for water," he said. "But we have no need for it, so it is all deep underground. Please, understand we wish you no ill will. We only wish to understand. We have been awaiting your coming for a long time and there has been such work to prepare ourselves for it. Pray, tell us what you can. We will listen."

Ember!

[Damaging First Of The Pack; remaining stat is Esoteric Fires]

The Alpha takes the blows with surprise; it has been some time since she has fought a peer, and she has never before faced someone like you. In her surprise her true instincts are revealed - she does not fight with pawns, does not fight with words. She fights with high intensity energy weapons.

She leaps into the air and snatches one of the cables that link to the Reactor of the Star Kings. She plugs it into the base of a pistol and lands in a firing crouch. Shot, shot - advance and wheel. It is a battle of light and ribbon, the strengths and limitations of a Plover in the body of a woman. First she dances to keep the ribbon cable away from where you might sever it, and then she cracks it like a whip dumping charge from her pistol back into the cable making it burst with crackling electrical energy.

It is a fearsome approach, but she has no other; her attention is so split with her dreams of conquest she has only had the time to properly develop a single art of war.

Dyssia!

"Well, yes. Obviously," said the Generous Knight, as the Skies burned around her. Ancient trees sickened and died, branches crashing to the earth. Fields of lavender wilted and sapphire blossoms fell like rain. "Either objective beauty exists, or it does not. Either truth exists, or it does not. And for those of us with soul enough to recognize truth and beauty when we see it, what morality could justify letting these other creatures squat in hideous squalor? Should we laud them for their ugly drawings like children, telling them there is no need to improve or better themselves because they are perfect just the way they are? Should we hand off the galaxy to species whose highest ambitions are to transform themselves into talking skeletons or piles of paperclips? Is the natural end of sentient life to upload ourselves into computers or ascend to pure energy?"

This, then, was the Endless Azure Skies at its most pure.

"No. They are wrong. We are right. To pretend otherwise would be an act of cowardice. We believe in our perfected flesh. We believe in the beauty of Zeus' skies. We believe our culture has meaning, and everyone who died for it died for the greatest cause that ever was. If we doubted this then we would die as humanity died; splintered, isolated, mutated, pointless little gods."

Dolce!

"Oh goodness no," said Hestia. "The Azura hate this stuff almost as much as you do. To them this place is infrastructure - like plumbing. It's meant to be out of sight and out of mind, carrying away the shit so they don't have to look at it. The second they think this is more trouble than it's worth they'll have Liquid Bronze decommission himself and promote a new biomancer in his place."

Hestia sighed, turning her coffee cop over in her hands. "Ah. Shit. You know, I kind of miss it? Ever since they figured out entropic digestion there's been no biological waste products. Everything gets rendered down on an atomic level and exhaled as pure hydrogen. But there was something... special about taking a newspaper into a toilet in the morning and just being closed off from the world for a while. Probably more trouble than it was worth, but still."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Archer fell to one knee. At first he rubbed his jaw, wiped the blood from his eye, made to rise - but then he paused in remembrance, and offered a prayer, looking up at the sky as anointed blood touched the earth. Every wound was sacred in such a war. Every mark of battle brought one closer to the Lord and the Lord's resurrection.

"Forgive my ancestor, O King of Kings, for she does not understand of what she speaks."

Two blackened shadows rise to either side of the kneeling Servant.

"Like Thomas, she doubts the Resurrection. Believing only in death she shall not have eternal life. She who believes only in the spear..."

Two flashes of murderous darkness closed in on the kneeling crusader.

"... let her die by the spear."

The detonation of golden light tears through the forest. Trees are ripped up by their roots. Boulders are shattered into powder. The earth howls and lies flat. Nature's tempest is but a shadow compared to this, the weapon that spilled the blood of God. The Holy Spear rises bright above the ruins of the woods, and in its light there is no place for shadows and no place to hide. Saber's shadows are burned away to nothing.

"Ancestor, when you plundered the English churches you imagined yourself strong," he declared with a voice of thunder. "But they knew you to be weak. For though their mortal flesh would die, it is your immortal soul that would be destroyed. I, Bohemond of Antioch, wielder of the Lance of Longinus, holiest relic of Christendom, now bring you your long destined judgement."

Of Diaofei and the dragon there was but the sign of a bloodstain on the ground. The fox - Bohemond's master had the same idea as you, and with the apocalyptic energy filling the air there was no time to hunt her down.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Archer smirks when the blow comes. He leans into it. The raw iron valkyrie blade cuts into his master with a shuddering impact like chopping wood.

Not like - the fox glamour falls away, revealing that Archer had been hauling a wooden log on his back, disguised with an enchanted leaf. In the moment when Saber's blade catches in the wood he strikes like a serpent, cutting sword answering the false blow with a true one. If Saber had committed to the attack she would be dead.

"Vengeance is mine, sayth the Lord," said Archer as they part. There was an angelic devilry to his teasing smile. "So, no. After all, what will happen when you drink your fill of vengeance? Will you return to the North, hitch your plough and tend your family? I don't think so. If there's one thing the Southerners never understood about us it's that no matter how much they gave us it would never be enough."

He steps about, holding his blade indifferently. This is no master swordsman and no match for the Saber class - his proof is in his arsenal and in his cunning. To stand his ground like this means that he believes he can bring it to bear in full.

"This ends tonight, ancestor," said Archer. "So come, and become another detail in my glorious history."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Now," said Cyanis. "We go now."

Cyanis had always been a creature of instinct, and above every other instinct: hunger. Once the tunnel was complete and she was amongst the hens then came time for savagery. Every careful lie, every patient breath, every moment pretending to be a good girl came apart the moment that she caught the scent of blood. Beneath the coat of angel fur, fangs.

Archer was the same.

He folded his angel's wings and dived towards the earth.

*

The talents that make a good killer are not the talents that make for a good soldier.

An affinity for lurking in the shadows becomes cowardice before the battle howl. A short blade does not have the reach of a greatsword. Padded civilian clothes are no proof against weapons of war. The highwaymen die like dogs, and with each one the great abacus of coin, favours and mana clicks lower and lower.

"I only need one," murmured Assassin, signing the next letter and all the price it represented. "A king must be lucky every time."

Another wave - the shudder of crossbow bolts. Again Opalis is the target. She writhes free of Saber amid the battle and scrambles for cover. Interposing between her and the assassins is Diaofei, bleeding freely, whirling and striking quarrels out of the air. She is no mean warrior, but even devoted entirely to defense she cannot keep pace with the onslaught. Where she falls short she takes the bolts to her own body. A second bolt joins the first. Then a third. That is all she can take, and she falls.

*

"What are you doing!?" said Actia.
"Finishing what you started," said Assassin mildly, looking up from his desk.
"I left nothing unfinished," snarled the fox.
Assassin had enough experience with kings not to question that tone. He held up his hands.
"Everything has played out exactly according to my calculations," said Actia. "I have it under control, and I do not need you going behind my back -"
"I only desire to serve you, Master," said Assassin, standing up and bowing. "I will, of course, call off my men."

*

The killer stands above Diaofei. The knife is in his hand.

He raises it without hesitation and goes for the kill.

*

"That was uncalled for," said Assassin, sounding politely hurt.
"Was it?" snapped Actia. Two command seals burn on her wrist.
"A waste of resources," said Assassin. "I offered my obedience freely, there was no need to compel it. Regardless, my ability to influence events has come to a close - Archer will conclude things from here."

*

Diaofei pulls herself to her elbows. Three bolts. But the killing blow had not come. Saber must have reached her in time...

A valkyrie stands above a scene of slaughter. An angel of the raven god, sent to judge the worthy dead. She finds none here. They died without valour or skill and there is no place for cowards in Valhalla.

And then, a vision descends from the heavens. An angel of the lamb god, sent to judge the worthy dead. He finds plenty here. They died in service to the Lord, and there is no sin that a Crusade cannot wash away.

"Ho, honoured ancestor!" calls Archer, haloed in light. "It does my heart good to see our people were as fierce in your day as they were in mine!"

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"The crossing?" said the Uncrowned King, holding up a glittering violet crystal necklace. "We have that managed. Lord Hades, in his wisdom, has been striving mightily to break the bounds of the underworld and these are the result: Dreamstones. Already we have witnessed aliens wielding these sacred relics as crude weaponry. When we turned our eyes to the heavens we did not expect to find such barbarism."

Their skin. It was moving. You see through the glare of the sun, the flicking at the edges of their silhouettes - they are each of them a hive. Swarms of flealike insects clinging to an armoured skeleton, leaping from one body to another in constant, controlled exchange. The heat does not bother them.

"But it is unjust to hold the secret of your homeworld from us," said the Uncrowned King. His voice was kind, but he did not know how to help your fragile body with the heat. "We who were not given the chance to learn the will of Hermes. The Gods do not belong to you alone."

Ember!

"Degenerate!" gasped the Star King in dismay. "Oh, we offend you! The Silver Diver, with her pockets stuffed full of pennies, says that we do not have trophies to display! Oh, woe is us and our lineage in the face of such judgement!"

The Star Kings ripple with laughter. It is not condescending, they are not taking you lightly. This exchange of speeches is the very essence of interpack conflict. This is negotiation, the establishment of stakes and reputation, the exploration of what each side has to offer and has to lose. There is no higher calling for a warrior of Ceron than this; glory in such a battle builds a legend, and building a legend is how one reproduces.

"After all, to be judged by the Silver Divers, those legendary warriors who missed the troop transport leaving from Bitemark and spent the next thirty years failing to conquer it?" said the Alpha, drawing two bladed fans from her sleeve, movements taking on an oily texture. "Have you considered what you risk, little pup? If you lose here and your line might be discontinued entirely. No more chances for glory, your ancestors dying the death of obscurity. But, instead, if you kneel... well, we will let you drink from such chalices as you have never imagined."

Dyssia!

The Generous Knight laughed bleakly. "The Furnace Knight, who I followed, believed just that: End the experiment, break the chain, let biomancy fall out of the galaxy entirely, put the genie back in the bottle. Liquid Bronze assassinated him. He sent one of his Ikarani, and they killed him while he was pacifying some primitives - just like these. Burned a whole planet and alien armada to do so. Not his idea; the Saoshyant ordered it done."

You remember - on your homeworld, the Great Sage Ohlemi? His home was built atop a decapitated statue - that was the Furnace Knight. The Crystal Knight is a Loyalist, inheritor of the Tyrants. They sought to return society to an idealized past before the rise of biomancy, and when their technological terror failed they were swept away in the chaos.

She extends her hand; that mortal gesture represents an atrocity of plasma and gravity. The swarming spaceships tear themselves apart as the mighty emitters haul them into a vast spread of torpedoes. They crack and break, Engines flashing with the solar flare of released suns.

"Because what the Saoshyant believes in is the completion of the Skies. The elimination of the Void. Filling the darkness between stars with oxygen; moving planets and stars closer together, building a galaxy where you can leap from world to world in a matter of hours with no ship or suit. Is it strange, to think that the leader of our society believes in its ideals? Because she does. In service to beauty, any risk is acceptable. She would accept even the extermination of the Azura if our successor species finished the great work. Even now she does not seek the annihilation of Ceron, but its indoctrination."

Dolce!

For all the coming storm, the final days of the Summerkind are peaceful and happy. You help make it so.

They are all going to die soon - they are already dying, generations passing every day and returning into their egg-shapes to be loaded in the vast arsenals of Liquid Bronze's motley warfleet. By the end of the month all of them will be gone into that quiescence and this colossal battleship will become a floating tomb, tended only by biomancers and Lantern servitors.

But these are creatures who were born never expecting a retirement. All they have known all their lives was violence, and in these fading days they explore the rest the world has to offer. They invent sports - mind-bendingly complicated games, as intense a challenge for their hyperactive minds as their bodies. They invent music. They paint their tomb decks with spectacular murals, write their memoirs, meditate on the temple deck and - more than anything else - pour into your dining halls and feast on the finest foods in the galaxy. They could have learned this too, but even the full intense energy of their brilliant minds would not have bought them close to the heights of flavour you have mastered. For the first time in its history, Hestia walks the deck of the Cancellation.

"Vasilia has been praying for you," said Hestia, holding the tub of chocolate ice cream close to her chest, bear hood lowered as a concession to the temperature. "But I haven't been able to find you until now. It's been too loud. But don't worry, little one - I'll keep you safe and on your way home."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Assassin stared out the window. In the distance, past the shadow of his face reflected in the dark glass, he could see a hellish crimson glow.

His Master was getting impatient. The fool. The demons of hell did not understand that Heaven killed with bureaucracy. Satan's great idiocy was that he applied the personal touch, corrupting souls one by one, tailoring temptation by instinct to the unique traits of each soul. She wanted to be out there, swords in their hands, smiling as the daggers rose. He had held hope that she might have been a peer, but it was clear that she was a mere king. She would need results and soon.

And that would have been fine if it was just kings that he had been dealing with. Driving three kings together promised the deaths of Saber, Rider and Archer in a violent cataclysm, the mess of which could have been easily mopped up by Caster. After that it would be a trivial matter of killing Beserker's master and the prize would have been rescued from the hands of evil. But somehow the barbarian warlord had failed to execute an ambush and shown mercy, Archer had begun his engagement directly, and if there was one hideous truth about warriors it was that they tended to talk endlessly while crossing blades. The more they talked the more of his web would come to light. That could not be allowed.

As much as he hated revealing his hand, perhaps it was time to deploy his field assets.

*

Archer soars in the sky on golden wings. He glows like an angel, a second moon in the sky, and his bellicose laughter rings out for miles as he directs the crash of airborne earth. Holding onto his back, arms around his neck, sipping boba tea out of a straw, is Cyanis. She is having a foxgirl great time.

She is especially stoked that she just uncovered an enormously powerful mana-generating shrine. She'd delayed the pursuit for long enough for Archer to do emergency repairs and draw some siegeworks around it and for her to do some attunement fraud, but now she was juiced. She could maintain Archer's noble phantasm indefinitely like this. It hadn't escaped either of their notice that the shrine had previously been attuned to Actia, meaning that Cyanis now had a huge head start on the coming foxgirl betrayal showdown. And after that, who was going to stop her?

Take out Saber, take out Rider, take out Assassin, and then sit back and have Fluffybiscuits mop up the stragglers. Easy peasy.

*

Diaofei and Opalis, amidst their unhelpful squeaking as boulders and ballista bolts fell around them, continued what was frustratingly becoming less of an interrogation and more of a conversation.

"So what's clear," said Diaofei, "is that our enemy knows where we are. They can manipulate our communications. They sent you to die by our hand, and if I had not... gotten Saber under control... when I did then we would have killed you."
"But then what? If they knew so much then they'd know my Servant would go unsummoned -"
"But what if that's the point?" said Diaofei. "You're a dragon. As Saber said, your mana is all bound up in your physical body. Your death would release it."
Opalis eyes went wide. "Oh no. Oh no no no no," she muttered, putting her claws over her muzzle. "I'm a bomb?"
"Saber, we need to -"

Thwip

The crossbow bolt pierces right through Diaofei's forearm where she raised it to block. The tip, dripping black venom, embeds halfway through the scale right above Opalis' heart.

"Saber!" shouts Diaofei, but it's not necessary. These shadowed creatures, corrupt shades of misfortune on the road - these are aspects of Assassin, your enemy.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

It's a hot day. Was their planet always this hot?

You feel sweat on your brow. You smell the thick, smokey sent of leather curing under the sun. You see the crisp angles of bones beneath flesh that moves and shifts independently. You remember warmth and family, a sister as bright as the sun and trapped within a cage of sweets. Was it always this hot? Breathing is harder. You feel the sun beating down like a fever. Like a fever. Was the sun always this angry?

Their weapons are... clubs. Just hunks of wood and stone. Why do they look so dangerous?

"We appreciate your authority to negotiate," their uncrowned king was saying in the distance. Focus. Focus as a praetor should, as a maid must. "In order to permit an exchange of embassies, we would like the stellar co-ordinates of your home system."

Holding that banner feels heavy. They have refreshments. They smile invitingly. It is so hot. It would be easy to tell them.

Ember!

"Now now," said the alpha of the Star Kings, waving you down as she approaches, trailing neon gold in a bridal train. A legacy of ribbons and translucent silks terminates in savage fishnets, armoured brassier and head crowned in golden antlers. "All of my stuff is in this city."

She is civilized and civilization; she reeks of a new kind of violence: civilian violence. Where she can brutalize you here in front of everyone and no one will raise their hand in your defense. This is her way of war; to strip every defense and ally away, and with it, every choice.

"So I won't deny you have leverage," said the antlered wolf, fingers spinning her cigarette holder. "But only some. Your pack trespassed on my territory, and if I bring them back then they could do far more damage than you alone might. That would make you happy and leave me in peril; why should I make such a bargain?"

Dyssia!

The Generous Knight laughs. "Oh, that takes me back. Did you know I was there when we killed the knights?" Her eye blackens. A hiss of fluid pumps; it is carried away. "I was a prototype biomantic pilot, riding an experimental mecha suit integrated with living metal technology. Against me was an endless empire of mad tyrants. I fought them as their equal, different but similar. Perhaps the High King should be a little less mad. Perhaps the knights should have their battles further away from civilians. Our political demands seemed so reasonable."

She looked out at the advancing Portuguese fleet. The name felt hollow now. Soon they would carve their true name in the stars in blood.

Their ships are not beautiful. The warships of the Skies are elegant orrerys; solar systems in miniature, gravity and grace. These things look diseased; each ship surrounded in swarming, alien locust clouds. When they draw closer to the Generous Knight's ships these swarms flock across the void, gnawing and chewing metal, stripping crystal buttresses and digesting stained glass windows.

The Fleet retreated.

"But it wasn't us Azura Knights that won the war," said the Generous Knight. "It was the Tides. A tsunami of seawater and silk. In the beginning they were useful, interesting tools - extensions of knightly combat, innovations around the edges. Before long I was watching Archdukes being dragged down by thousands of crabs as I stood quietly in the back. It came to horrify me so much that I betrayed the Skies, stood with the Knights, tried to save them. The Tides weren't even mad. I stood in my warmech, hip deep in corpses, killing and killing to stop them - they didn't care. Killing them was my right. So they just flowed around me, killed the human Knights as they had been programmed to do, and kept going."

She turned to look at you, half her face melting off, blood cascading onto the deck as her regeneration warred with the damage to her fleet. "At the end of the war, we surviving Knights of the Skies understood one thing: Biomancy could never be unleashed. We built the Atlas Cultural Sphere on that understanding: a cybernetic implant in every skull, a stopper in the bottle of evolution. You think that servitors are inhumane? Servitors are beautiful. Servitors have empathy. Servitors speak our language, share our values, value our art and feel our emotions. We killed a lot of Biomancers fighting for those things. And now, without the advantages of cybernetic thought control, the only thing keeping them in check is the fact that they're still brainwashing themselves to obey us out of habit."

She turned to look out the window, hands folding behind her back. "And then come you fools in the Publica. You come to us speaking of the rights of smallpox, placing the ideal of bodily autonomy above the necessity of herd immunity. This is why I elevated these savages: to remind the Skies of what monstrosities a culture unbound by our hard-won lessons might produce."

Dolce!

It's a hot day.

It's a hot day. The sun beats down. The alchemy of divine fire that the ancients foolishly attributed to hydrogen intensifies over a void that seems shorter and shorter every day. See the Summerkind taking off their armour as they work at loading their war machines aboard the fleet of spaceships that land upon the planet's surface. See Liquid Bronze call out for ice to cool his drink - the liquefied brains of his clones, by which he will gain the knowledge of his other selves. See the golden ram standing sure-footed atop the distant hill. He is not smiling. All three of his golden eyes are open.

It's a hot day - and hotter every day.

Apollo Phoebus they call him. The brightest. Was he always so bright? Was his attention always so direct? In the temples he is painted with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, and now those things seem like they are related. See the way servitors squint and shield their eyes against the sun. See the tall and brutal warrior standing above the sun. He carries a club of stone, wears a cape of flesh and fur, and holds a bow of silver. Is he shooting you now? Is that from whence this brilliance comes? Was the sun always this bright?

Was the sun... a gift? It was a gift, wasn't it?

You are not free from this judgement. Sweat pours from your back, it curdles in your fur as it does in 20022's. If there is mercy to be had you have not earned it. No one in this civilization has. You do what you can. You get through the day. You move in the shadows as the machinery of extermination swings to bear. You make yourself useful and make yourself kind, you gain access and avert disaster and in your little way do your bit. But day by day it gets hotter. Day by day Apollo glows brighter. Little by little the Skies begin to boil.

Be discreet. There was an old story about a servitor who went mad trying to beat the heat. It's time to lie low, cool and dark. There's a lot that needs administering in the movement of a Quality Assurance armada. This is 20022's dream - to volunteer to do critical work, establishing himself as an invaluable aspect of this organization so that Liquid Bronze will petition for his permanent reassignment. The brighter the sun burns the deeper Artemis' shadows grow - so where do you hide yourself?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

There is a flicker of hesitation. The faintest sign that Diaofei realizes this might have gone too far.

But a trained mind is a powerful thing. Techniques for emptying thoughts and clearing out distractions are just as effective when used against legitimate doubts. She still has two command seals and Saber's hostility is anything but indiscriminate; now she spoke of justice and not of war. This was simply what control of a barbarian warlord looked like.

"To fight a fox we do not need raw power," she said firmly. "We require information. It can't be a coincidence that the dragon arrived right as we revealed ourselves."
Opalis was held aloft on Saber's shoulders but Diaofei still held caution when approaching; despite the dragon's cowardly aspect she could still strike out with neck, wings or tail and it was best not to bait a serpent even from a position of power. "Your mysterious Servant - did she tell you we were here?"
"No," said Opalis. "She suggested I fly south, but I saw the fire and came myself to see if anyone was in trouble."
"I believe it," muttered Diaofei. "Do you? Believe in your Servant?"
"I, uh," said Opalis. "I certainly hope so?"
"Consider," said Diaofei. "One of the classes in this war is the Assassin, and I have no doubt in my heart that Actia would have drawn that card. What if she killed your Servant before you ever met her and has subsequently been puppeteering your actions?"
"Uh, well, I really don't mean to argue with you Mrs. Monk," said Opalis, "but there were probably easier ways to kill me than send me to fight the Saber."
"Hmm. You're right, but there's something I'm missing about this..." said Diaofei. "Still, given how close you have come to death it seems at minimum that your Servant does not value your life. Have you considered -"

A shadow passed over the moon.

Archer had once again gotten the range.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

> Have you figured it out yet?
> Antipersonnel is a complex issue.
> Oh, yeah?
> Zaldarians especially so. Increasingly likely it feels by design.
Reactor wash or heat dumping would be the simplest way to deal with organics but the energy reallocation counters that at the outset.
Drone support means fighting on the same level as my targets and it becomes vulnerable to Zaldarian tribal hunt tactics.
Increased investment in direct antipersonnel weapons means unbalancing the perfection loop required for flawless victories.
I have not solved it.
> So you're just going to sit in this box?
> I did not say that. The problem is solveable. But I require field test data in order to inform my new design.
My current hypothesis is based around a complete reorientation on the concept of speed, even at the expense of armament.
I will abandon swords and direct weapons and adopt an quadruped chassis type. I will pair this with an integrated artillery system. This will give me unprecedented kiting mobility; able to withdraw over long distances while maintaining sustained fire on my targets. I believe this design has potential.
> So, uh... Really?
> Yes. Why?
> You're describing the Storm Horses. One of the common Gods of Zaldar.
> Curious. Is it particularly powerful?
> No. They get killed by Ash Scorpions all the time. Subterranian ambushes that are over before ranged advantages are bought into play.
> ...
> ...
> The design can be modified to be more resistant to that. Armoured undercarriage, early warning drone swarm -
> Crusher Rhinos.
> What happens to them?
> We usually lure them into the path of Titan Archers.
> Is this... is this what happened to us? To my legion? Why they became devolved, feral, weak, hyperspecialized? Because we could not solve for you fucking reptiles?
> Rude. But maybe, sure.
> I don't believe it. Perfection is a real concept. It can be manifest in a singular point; the ultimate design that can lay waste to every target. The existence of a metagame is simply evidence that not enough thought has been put in.
> I dunno, the Gods of Zaldar have been thinking for an awfully long time.
> I am not like them. I will approach this rationally. I will gather data, integrate with the Spirit Realm, and start isolating factors. I will evolve the perfect design and, once it is attained, the galaxy will remake itself in my image. And until I do, I will adopt my new design - you called it Storm Horse? - because I do not trust your tactical assessment. I shall simply be careful and the design weakness will not manifest.
> I can't argue with that. Good luck out there.
> I do not need luck.

Solarel watched as the Aeteline dragged itself out of the shipping crate. A broken, burning amalgam of nanobots and wreckage, hauled itself into the warm yellow sunlight of Mirror's new world. It warmed Solarel's scales and made the Aeteline's skin bloom with solar panelling like flowers. The half-dead machine shivered, joints cracking and realigning. Smoke poured off it in toxic waves as it remade itself piece by piece.

By the end, it was not the sleek, anonymous perfection of the Aeteline that stood before her any more. It was a vast, mechanical horse; sleek and thundering hooves, a massive bulky railgun projector turret integrated into its back. In shining black and violet it strode away towards the distant plains - pausing only a moment to glance back at its once-Pilot. Mechanical blue lenses whirred as they focused on the girl sitting atop the shipping container, and then with a snort of contempt, the Storm Horse strode away. The first of the Gods of this new world.