Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits was holding down the fort.

An important position! She was keeping the dragon Opalis a prisoner and guarding the mana core of the sunken giant, the two critical assets that would ensure foxgirl supremacy no matter how dark things turned out. She wasn't sidelined uselessly in the center of an impenetrable fortress because Actia didn't believe in her, she was doing critical work. Berserker knew it. She was sitting, legs folded, palms in her lap, eyes closed with the perfect stillness of someone who had nothing more to add to the situation. Kat was trying to imitate her.

She was so pretty. Kat wished she could talk. Why had she gotten stuck with Berserker? She didn't have a berserk bone in her body. She didn't even have an Assassin bone in her body - she was here with the means to seize the war for herself, she was very aware, but she hadn't even been able to properly steal her second tail. She'd just been given it as a punishment for someone else. She was a terrible foxgirl, she knew, and even having Actia and Cyanis kindly setting examples for her all the time they'd both known she was so hopeless that they could leave her in charge of the hencoop because she was more like a dog. It was so embarrassing!

The thought hurt so much that it messed up her sorry excuse for a meditation. She stood up, stuffed her hands in her pockets, walked to the pondshore, and threw a rock. It skipped across the water and impacted on the metal leg of the Shrine Giant.

The glowing metal leg of the Shrine Giant.

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits was terrible at being a fox. She didn't weave an illusion or throw a curse or conjure a thunderbolt or defensively marry anyone at all. She just dived to tackle Berserker out of the way of the energy beam, like a big dumb sucker. It'd serve her right if it burned off one of her tails in the process and she went back to being a shoulder fox.

But it didn't. The beam slashed through the ground, immolated Actia's shrine and cut through Berserker's castle walls from the inside. Glowing blue, wrenching itself free from the cables that bound it, earth and root sloughing off as the ancient metal giant tore itself from centuries of mud and sediment. A terrible machine of the ancient world awakened before her and it raised its mud-filled cannon to seek out the captured dragon.

She'd been wrong. She hadn't been benched somewhere useless. It was much worse than that. Now she had to save the day.

*

"I will not," said the angel Bohemond, touching lightly down in the throne room, "linger on your failure here, ancestor, because doing so will reflect poorly on myself. But I will suggest that for all the softness you may imagine lives in the hearts of Christians, they did know how to hold an empire together far longer than the Old Gods ever did."

His feathers have faded from radiant gold to a powder-yellow; his armour is no longer alight in all-consuming divine radiance. He is whole and hale, full of power - but only full of power. The tether that empowered him with a flood of energy has been severed and so it no longer burns out of him as it did moments ago. Even as he took your castle, someone has taken this opportunity to steal his from him.

But. He is too deep to escape now.

He conjures his longbow and holds it ready.

"Come, then," said Archer. "Let me consign you once again to the past."

Return to Thellamie

Tsane!

It is a weird thing to think, in the midst of a ritual prayer, in the midst of an organisation of one-armed mystics, when given the sacred opportunity to watch the scribes who would compile all the particular details of this meeting into the books that someone like her would one day read in order to understand this bit of history, but...

But she kind of hates how irreligious the whole thing is.

Tsane formed an opinion as a child, in that absolutist way that children do, that Civelia and Heron were both monsters just like the Dark Dragon. That didn't mean they were bad, just that they weren't normal. They had type affinities, unique compulsions, hunting grounds, and life cycles the same as Ghosthands or Solar Hecklers. One of her first bestiary entries had been an attempt to describe Princess Heron in the same way she did any other monster, but her mother had pulled her aside and explained to her that probably wouldn't go down well with grandfather.

The injustice of that still gnawed at her, deep down.

So the meeting felt wrong to her. People were listening to Civelia, of course, politely taking notes, waiting their turns to speak, but for all the religious trappings they were emotionally as checked out as if they were in a city council meeting. These people had either forgotten or did not remember that the delicate teenager sitting across from them was an unstoppable, eternal monster who had beaten empires into existence like a blacksmith hammered iron. Just because she hadn't done anything dangerous recently didn't mean she was safe.

They should be quaking in their boots. Tsane certainly was.

Injimo's here, wearing the Princess disguise. She'd be as checked out while idly hoping for violence as Heron herself would be, which means that she's an immaculate fit for this role. Sayanastia finds being in a room this elaborately bureaucratic physically uncomfortable, so she's in her dragon shape (the one that's about the mass of a rhinoceros, not her other dragon shape) up on the rooftop, staring at the void of the sky and warming herself in the sun. Sometimes her head will lean down to the window next to where Tsane is sitting to check in on things; sometimes she'll take an idle, corrosive bite out of the windowframe or the brick wall. Small acts of vandalism but by Dark Dragon standards she should get a gold sticker by the end.

Kalentia!

It all comes off. Everything gets washed. A warm and dry set of recovery clothes are applied afterwards. The Guild would sacrifice her to a dragon if she did anything less[1].

To accomplish all of that in safety and modesty, she is required to put up a - well, a barrier. But she is using the technique for its original medicinal purpose of forming a clean and sterile environment, keeping out any contaminants or curious Factorums. Beyond that there can be no secrets from a surgeon; who knows what else might be missed?

"It's weird to see someone sick like this," said Cair, trying and failing to see somebody sick like this. "I can't remember the last time I came down with more than a cough."
"It's because the last incarnation of the Hero purged the Destroyer Cult of Plague and banished their demonic patron," said Kalentia. She was entirely task focused; while battlefield wounds were romantic, illness was something to eliminate with cold calculation. "Since then, and since the link was discovered between untapped black mana and spontaneous disease outbreaks, there hasn't been a major sickness."
"The link between what?"
"Oh, you didn't hear?" said Kalentia. "I thought Roschel Flameskull was a household name for discovering that."
"Hell of a name for a healer," said Cair.
"She wasn't," said Kalentia, making a face. "She was a battlemage. She noticed that rates of sickness went down whenever she had a big fight. Turns out that she was drawing all the dark magic out of the air and turning it into explosions and attack skeletons and what have you, and that was preventing it from naturally seeking out ways to harm people itself."
"Oh, shit!" said Cair, snapping her fingers. "Is she why Warceror has those big burning skull banners up everywhere?"
Kalentia sighed. "Yes. Warceror, the Demolition Derby of Death and Destruction, was in fact started by Roschel Flameskull as a way to burn off excess mana in times of peace."
"Did you hear that Main Bloodcup invented a spell that makes someone's blood come out and punch them in the face?" said Cair excitedly.
"Yes," Kalentia said with a truly profound level of resignation. "So far I have received fourteen theoretical curative spells I'm meant to memorize and field test in the event where I encounter that spell in the wild, which I am then expected to write reports on."

[1] It is not fair to say that dragons are particularly attracted to White Mages above other magical practitioners[2], but for a variety of historical reputations the practice of sacrificing Guild members at the drop of a hat has set in. In particular, one Aspect of the Dark Dragon in Cycle Four was particularly obsessed with White Mages, and Sinbeasts would frequently identify a village's Guild member as its most valuable individual member, which made them particularly satisfying prisoners as they satisfied Greed, Envy and Pride all at once. This state of affairs, along with the general effectiveness of sacrificing a maiden of any kind in the face of military threat, has meant that the first response of a lot of towns to being attacked by anything from monsters or wolfgirls is to offer them the town's White Mage in tribute.
[2] unfortunately

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Ah," said Assassin with a smile. "I did not expect things to be this easy."

They stand on the castle rampart together, each holding a glass of wine. Assassin had dressed for the occasion; no longer in indistinct blacks, he wore his cardinal's red. Redder than the flare of the dying castle.

"An individual with a sword," he touched his breast, just below his crucifix, "I would have had difficulty with, despite what Dumas did to me. But the fool conjured a castle and an army, and that was checkmate. It takes a truly naive view of human nature to imagine that a holy army, united in purpose, is a coherent or sustainable thing. Even Bohemond knew that it wasn't, and he was far before my time and my sophistication."
Actia leaned forwards on the balcony. The fur on her black ears rippled in the breeze. Her eyes were locked onto the battle, blue technomantic lights playing across her eyes and face.
Assassin appreciated her quiet. He did not have many opportunities to give sermons, what with his responsibilities.
"For you see, while I am most commonly," his lip sneered as he touched the basket hilt of his rapier, "remembered for rolling in the gutter dueling mere musketeers, my true work was the destruction of a continent. The Holy Roman Empire is remembered as a joke; I was the one that made it so. In my day, it was unsurpassable; a monolith of blood and faith and gold, a pan-national array of wealth and splendor. The oceans ran silver with the wealth that poured in from the Americas and the Bishop of Rome would humble himself by placing a crown atop the head of the Emperor. All the world existed within the Hapsberg palm, and against it, mere France."
The Cardinal extended his closed fist and opened it. Sand ran through his fingers, blowing away in the breeze. "But all of this was built on the hearts of men," he declared, "and the Lord our God teaches us above all that men are but dust and ashes. It was not I that lit the fire of heresy, but it was I who fed and fanned it. I did not possess the treasure of Spain, but what little I had was enough to procure swords. Put a sword in the hands of a slave and she is a slave no more, and no amount of gold can buy back her servitude."

He spread his hands as his speech reached its crescendo, and from behind him poured an endless flock of doves. Unlike the Messenger of God, these did not bear olive branches - they carried with them letters, sharper than thousands of daggers.

"Behold, the weapon that ended the Empire," said Cardinal Richelieu. "My Noble Phantasm: The Thirty Years War!"

*

The Army of Vengeance falls.

A vast, bloody conflict has erupted within their ranks - loyalists verses traitors. It is not a clean break or a unified treason, but it is not meant to be; it is a quagmire. The loyalists gain an advantage and Assassin's dark magic strengthens the traitors. More mana has to be poured in to support them, and it works, grinding back against the tide, solidifying Avenger's position. But just as victory seems to come closer another regiment defects and the castle falls into bloody violence again.

The genius of this skill is in its manipulation of hope. Every time victory's jaws snap shut over empty air they got a taste. It was so close, only one more obstacle, only one more crisis and then everything would be perfect. The recognition that there will be no clean end to this is to be delayed until after it has taken far too much in the struggle.

*

"Wait," said Actia, ears focusing. "Stop."
"Stop?" scoffed Richelieu.
"Diaofei just went in there - the idiot," hissed Actia. "She has no chance. Stop your spell."
"My child, I could no more stop this than I could stop the moon," he said.
Actia turned to him, command seal burning bright. Assassin kept his composure. The two stared bloody daggers at each other.
"Fine," said Actia. "Whatever. Keep it going. But we're going to get her out."
"Why?" said Richelieu. "We are quite safe here. We are gathering power while our enemies tear each other to pieces. It's everything you wanted."
Actia was quiet, ears focused, jaw set.
"And besides, what is she to you?" said Assassin. "A stone you stepped on in passing. One who is responsible for this very horror with which we confront ourselves. A distant death in a distant land."
"I didn't know she..." said Actia. "We're going. We're going. It's not because I owe her anything, but she deserves better than this."

Return to Thellamie

Tsane knows better than to accept the gifts of the Outside.

Cair snatches it from the Shadow's palm before its talons fully open.

"Cair will do no such - oh damn it, Cair -" said Tsane.
"What?" said Cair, shoving the Charm inside her coat pocket. "That's a dangerous artifact. Someone could get hurt."
"Go and help Kalentia," said Tsane through gritted teeth.
"For real?" said Cair, glancing back over her shoulder. "She's got a patient, Tiss. She's happier than the Dark Dragon rolling in trash. Uh, don't tell either of them I said that."
Tsane tossed her head, then pocketed her book and pulled her hair back out of her face, binding it behind her head with a purple and black scrunchie. Then she folded her arms (ow) and set herself in a solid, unyielding pose. "I don't work for you, Shadow," she said(1). "I'm not going anywhere. Not unless you tell me what you're doing here."

(1): A note on Fear

Of course she's afraid. It's huge. It's deadly. It has its own section of the Library. She is practically inside its mouth. Any moment the realities of size and strength could creak through the flimsy barrier of social convention and the full weight of this monstrous beast could crush down upon a defenseless mage and there would be nothing she could do about it. It tells her to fear not? It must be mad.

But that's why she took this job in the first place.

Sure, she loves lizards and the various other small creatures that fill out the entry level bestiaries. But that's nothing compared to the intoxication of field testing. To stand before one of the most dangerous creatures in the world and bet everything on a type affinity weakness, to trust entirely in the words of an ancient and mouldering tome that took three weeks to dry and restore enough to become legible, to borrow the confidence of a true Hero - it's like being in the eye of a hurricane. Her heart is pounding, she can barely breathe, but survival depends on keeping the show without flinching. It's like skating on air, flying only as long as you can ignore that you can't. It's the biggest rush.

[Second question: What do you love most?]

Breathless Dead

Bella!

Hera picks out from her vast panoply a symbol. Engraved in silver within the eye of a peacock feather, a sequence of dots resolving into lines, she places it in the air between you and her. It unravels its magic in a whirl of ribbons. A transcendentally subtle masterwork of etiquette magic, a spell of translation and perspective. Its purpose is to create a protocol of language between the Greater and the Lesser. A clear set of expectations and social conventions that say: So long as you do not stray beyond your limits and your place, you may speak candidly.

It has been the death of many empires that they never had and never thought to ask for this spell. For them, an inferior speaking boldly to a superior meant weakness for the superior, and had to be rebuked. Kings entered bubbles and, cut off from reality, drove their empires to ruin. In this working is the ability to speak your mind without risking accidental offense; all of the caveats and 'but perhaps I am mistaken' and bowing and scraping accounted for by the humility in your heart rather than the precision of your training.

But the humility in your heart is not negotiable. This is still a God. As those peacock feathers unfold again you know that outside of the gift of this narrow path is still profound peril.

"You may speak, child," said Hera, Queen of the Gods. "How did you come to be here?"

Ember and Dolce!

There is a fast way out. Conveniently, the Cancellation is launching thousands of Boarpedoes at this very moment at the Plousios. Getting on one of those is simply a matter of wading through the blood and ruin of all of the Summerkind between here and there. But, because that means evading the defensive screens of two different ships, that is not at all safe.

There is a safe way out. It lies in a ring at the end of the altar; simply give into Aphrodite allow Love to conquer all. Bound and betrothed you will all be kept secure by Liquid Bronze through the fires of battle, close in his confidence, ready for the rescue of your many suitors.

Dyssia!

Once upon a time worth was derived not through glory and title, but through possessions. The universe was smaller then and every grain of sand could be measured, accounted and given a number and a price. In this world arose supreme the Smith God: Hephaestus.

He stood at the center of all things, for everything had to pass between his hands to have any value at all. It was his hands that built unbreakable armours, his hands that made glass think, his hands that made the great suits that raised up the original Knights. Each time something passed through his hands it became more refined, more rare, more desirable. And so it was that Hephaestus built a pyramid, the object of world's desire, the whole galaxy rearranged into this shape.

He did not care that the pyramid was the shape of immortality. Hephaestus never cared for what it was he built, what became of his materials or scraps. He was famous for this; he wanted merely to build. He did not see the scythe when it descended, didn't believe it even when he felt it. Who would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs?

Demeter lifted his bloody head from the floor and ate it whole.

The pyramid was the shape of immortality. With the galaxy arranged into this configuration then Summer might never have to die. The afterlife could be kept at bay outside the walls of perfected hierarchy, entropy conquered, changed quenched, and the realm of the Afterlife - the realm of Dreams - consigned to a memory.

This is how the Age of Knights ended: When Demeter picked up the Smith God's hammer and began to build. Each time a life form passed between her hands it became more refined, more rare, more desirable. The galaxy became an ecosystem trending towards a single perfection and extinction.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Diaofei witnesses with horror.

The Spirit World, the mantras said, reflected and magnified. Give it peace and it will become a place of peace; give it rage and it will shake and roar. Stillness was required of a guardian; stillness that she had, to her shame, lost in the name of love. The walls had broken down and a demon had emerged - but it had been a softer demon, one made of yearning and compassion.

She had fed it rage. This, then, the demon had reflected and magnified. Now she saw its consequence writ large upon the world. The oldest wisdom that the Daily Affirmation of the Way <3 always came back to was 'You are not punished for your anger; you are punished by your anger', and she had not truly understood it until now.

Before when she had sent this creature against Actia she had been deluded; she had thought herself disciplined and in control, had thought herself making the rational choice to bring down a wicked spirit, cloaked in righteousness and justified in her duty as guardian. That had been a mistake, an emotional mistake. Her true duty was clear: to kill this manifestation of her rage, and in so doing expunge her shame and set the world right.

This situation was completely different.

She drank the healing potion Caster had given her, distilled from the oil of serpents. It tasted of grease and paraffin. Wiping her lips, she headed for the castle, not a single doubt in her mind.

*

A storm of crashing stones and bolts fall upon the ruined castles, smashing their agony into dust and mana. A divine silence rises over the battlefield.

Bohemond is next.

The Crusader of Antioch, released from Assassin's poison - though with his Master safely under Actia's stiletto heel - stands before the terrible castle. He is an Archangel besieging the gates of Hell, and there is no better champion for this battle. His great engines heave and pull, endless ranks of clanking machinery drawing back and releasing boulders and sharpened trees, the landscape around him torn up and made to fly.

This is a distraction.

It was not siege engines which had captured the great fortress - it had been treachery. All his beatific glory was bestowed upon him by others after the fact - Bohemond understood the powers of coin and cunning. So it is that as the storm of rock and wood rains down, Bohemond's true magic presses against the legions of the empty servants, seeping into some and filling them with rot and decay. These wretched creatures then, together and in secret, open the gates to the rush of Assassin's black-robed killers.

Once again, Actia seeks to strike the heart.

Return to Thellamie

"Cair," said Tsane before anyone else could react. "Cair thinks it's Kalentia, Kalentia will say the Lunarian to try to be polite." She's one-handing a book[1], which is no mean feat - turning the pages with her nose - holding her glowing arm raised like she's about to unleash a magical blast (rather than the reality, which is she's about to spend 6-12 hours experiencing a bad acupuncture session). "Why are you here, Shadow?"

Of all the Handmaidens, Tsane is by far the worst at emulating the Princess. There's no inspiration to her performance, no flash, no attention to the mannerisms or subtleties. Sometimes she'll read woodenly off invisible palm cards. This isn't always a disaster - a lot of the times when she's put on the spot it's because she's dealing with a demon or fey monster so far from human that getting the hair colour right is enough to fool it - but the others always find it a bit cringe.

But there are also moments like this where, even in the absence of any disguise whatsoever, she nails it better than any of them ever dream. Not in the precision of her performance but in how she goes beyond it; the furnace-energy of someone about to transmute knowledge into violence. It makes it seem like she is the Heroine, disguised as Tsane.

[Read a person's (book): 10. What do you hope to get from this encounter?]

"I, um, I do think you're probably very pure," said Kalentia apologetically to the Lunarian. "In a good way. Not in a one dimensional way. You have a really good energy."

[1] Riddles of the Ancient Beasts, which she carries with her at all times after being mortifyingly embarrassed at a team trivia night.

Return to Thellamie

Kalentia!

"Oh! Oh- oh wow, um, thank you for spotting that -" Kalentia said as she stopped by the edge of the distortion. She reached out, fingers surrounded by protective rings of gold, as she traced it. "This is really good work. It's so subtle, and just a little bit mean. It's locked in place between two doorways and a sewer entrance and I think I can sense a ribbon trap pinning down the edges. Tsane would love to analyze something like this, the craftsmanship is..."

She'd never expected her career to take her into reality-weaving. As an arcane art it was vanishingly rare, almost a study in the movements of the Eternal Hero and the Nexus that formed her storehouse, retreat and weapons locker. Even getting to encounter another practitioner was exciting, even if it also put into perspective how crude her own technique was. Just about the only thing she was good at was closing portals. It was an important duty sometimes; leave a portal like this open and the torn edges would start bleeding in Outside influence until it turned into a monster-generating pit. A lot of the more complex reality rewiring stuff still went over her head but if she conceptualized it as a wound in reality then it wasn't that difficult to imagine herself bandaging it over.

"Hold up," said Cair, coming down the stairs behind her. "Word came down, new mission. We're heading into the Stacks."
"Oh!" said Kalentia. "Oh, are you sure? Because this looks like -"
"It looks like not our problem," said Cair. "We've got to get buns here a new suit and Civelia wants us to fetch her hat so she can eat it."
"Maybe someone got trapped in there before -"
"Then they're in a cozy hell," said Tsane, following down after Cair. She'd torn off her sleeve to reveal her arm, still glowing with radiant rainbow light from the marker pattern. Kalentia winced - that looked like a nasty mana burn. Nothing to do until it burned out though. "That's a foxhole, and it looks like one left by either an extremely scary fox or a whole pack of them. Anyone who goes through that is going to get gnawed silly, and that includes us."
Now it was Cair who was looking at the portal contemplatively.
"Really?" said Tsane.
"I mean, it does sound nice," said Cair.
"Well, then be my guest," said Tsane.
"No, no..." Cair sighed. "Buns before huns," she started to pick out her portal tools; heavy spotlights filled with glowworms from sacred springs, a book written entirely in blue ink, a long black ribbon. "It's lucky we found this, then. I can repurpose it into a link to the Nexus."
"It's amazing how you can do that," said Kalentia. "I mean, just... you can repurpose anything."
"Oh! Haha!" said Cair. "It's not that hard. Nobody's looking after it, all you've got to do is... pick it up, sort of?"
"I wish I could do that," said Kalentia. "The way you move around with those is like how Heron does it."
"Aw, pshaw," said Cair. "It's nothing. Not compared to what you can do -"
Tsane stepped through the portal without a word.
"Did - did you finish?" said Kalentia.
"Uh, I don't think so?" said Cair.
"Yes, you finished," said Tsane, leaning back through. "You didn't realize?"
"There's this whole additional section with the glamourdust I'm supposed to do at the end," said Cair.
"Oh, that was never necessary," said Tsane, as she slipped back. "I thought that was a grift thing. I didn't realize."
"A grift thing!?" Cair said, outraged.
"You do kind of grift a lot," said Kalentia apologetically.
"I only do what I do because people insist on charging the Hero of Ages for the armaments she requires to defeat the Dark Dragon!" said Cair, stepping through into the Stacks.

Mountains of crates. Weapons and armour racks forming vast corridors. Phalanxes of mannequins armed and armoured in enchanted green glass or soft golden bronze. A battering ram with the head of a wolf carved in silver and aluminum, combat golems on ceaseless patrol, flocks of buzzing astral wisps, and enough armour to outfit a hundred horses.

"We're practically defenseless!" Cair said as she lead the way into the endless armoury of the Hero of Ages.

[Astral Dance: 10]

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

Of course, you're right. You never had a chance.

Vesper shatters like glass beneath you. The room cascades and breaks, reality slipping and destabilizing. Your organic eye aches, your vision distorting and going out of focus. It'll take you a moment to realize why: for the first time your real eye and your Auspex are seeing the exact same thing.

You have passed through into the realm of the Gods.

The crystal storm you stand in the center of is, of course, Dionysus, mirrored face atop the body of a stuffed clown puppet/eer. It bows and stands aside, a revelation of the field of play. Mars, inert and red and pulsing with canals full of bacteria, clacking away at an abacus and rolling dice as he administers the battle. Poseidon prowling at the edges, vengeful and bitter, holding the end of all things in his hands, wrapped with a bow and a card. Zeus in the center, one hand raised up towards the heavens, one hand keeping her family's peace. Aprodite in distant shadows, snapping lines into place like the bars of a cage.

And Hera, every colour of authority, an anthem of peacock feathers, even the loose and molting patches implying a greater beauty than mere symmetry could manage. She is coming here to enforce the dignity of her family against those who would play games with it.

You have but two pieces of hope.

The first is that Vesper gave you a note, pressed against your breast in the moment of your collision. A typed letter, simply stating 'Ask her about her son'. On the reverse was a '<3'.

The second is that, in the moment before reality broke, you got a good solid second of Vesper in a state of total shock. For all her calculation, in that moment you did what Thor could not and outran Thought itself.

Dyssia!

Oh, is that all you need? For it to be later?

Good news! It's later!

Dionysus whirls his puppet strings and brings you to bear. Vesper is coughing - all the air pushed from her lungs by Mosaic's collision. The typewriter is open to you, all the knowledge of what is and what could be laid before you as a buffet. A hyperfocus learning pit trap for you to pour yourself into. Nobody to judge you, no responsibilities, no one at risk other than yourself. Sometimes all a gift from the Gods needs to be is enough rope.

Ember and Dolce!

The designers of this Drone were limited creatures. They thought in terms of open white room engagements where everyone stood at reasonable distances and traded blows in a sporting way, not in terms of close quarters grapple and unarmed leverage. It flailed dangerously, wildly, completely incapable of resisting being put wherever it was directed to be put.

A droning buzz echoed through the ship, one that then resolved into a primitive butt rock blasted through the ultra-acoustics of the speaking tubes. The Cancellation was raising its alert level, tens of thousands of eggs quickening in vast awakening chambers. Sanalessa glanced up and down the corridor, alert but not alarmed. "On that note, do you want me to kill everyone?" she asked.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"So what do we do about that?" said the machine-crow to Caster.
"Against this terror of the ancient world?" said Caster. "We can do nothing."
"Getting the feeling that's your answer for everything," said the crow, scratching its beak.
Caster glanced aside at the creature, eyes heavy above his beard. "It is the answer for everything. That is humanity in its purest form - the sword, the castle, the hate. No matter how high civilization rises it is only ever the froth at the top of the cresting wave, breaking ever more people in its fall."
"Sure," said the crow. "Or it could get just high enough that we could jump off and activate our wing-gliders and soar into the sky. Leave the old system behind, move to a new and better equilibrium."
"In this metaphor, humanity is the wave," Caster said irritably. "Its own nature -"
"Yeah, I got it," said the crow. "And I'm saying we leave humanity behind."
Caster looked at it pensively.
"What?" said the crow. "I don't mean leave truth and art and beauty and stuff behind. Those things are all human values but I believe they have value beyond that. But mouth ulcers are part of humanity and nobody champions those. Likewise, some people are born without the ability to feel pain or sadness - they still feel enough not to burn themselves or anything, but there are no negative emotions associated with that. Their brain chemistry makes them no-effort saints. People used to insist that society arose from material conditions and class interest, I think it arises from the fact that we haven't built perfect immortal ageless robot bodies yet."
"So how would that philosophy address this monstrosity?" asked Caster after a moment.
"Oh, man, I don't know," said the crow. "That's all kind of the opposite of a perfect robot body, right? I guess prescribe her some SSRIs and see if she can maintain that emotional intensity?"
"No, our course is much simpler," said Caster. "We wait for the battle to begin and then strike and kill the dragon. When Rider manifests she will destroy every other servant - and then I shall kill her."
"Oh, that's great for simplifying the problem," said the machine-crow. "Human psychology is complicated enough without having to account for dragons and foxgirls."

*

Before Avenger's castles are others.

These are not works of fairytale beauty. They are squat and unlovely works of stone, reservoirs of violence and oppression. They are territory claimed and held, an announcement that the new rulers intend to stay for-ever. A sprawling map of dozens and dozens, blocking every path across the landscape. Berserker's Noble Phantasm constricts and thwarts, and every strong point must be purchased with toil or bypassed at the cost of blood. How does this campaign continue in the face of such opposition?