Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Caster stood atop the wreckage. The quadruped robot beside him shifted and whirred, sniper rifle flicking its lenses. It was time to put an end to all of this, once and for all.

"You appear to be stepping into my domain," said Assassin mildly, putting one steadying hand on the barrel. "And I do not think you have the talent for it."
"Cardinal," said Caster, bowing his head slightly. The machine whirred as it pushed against Assassin's hand, trying to re-acquire its target. "Is this a request for a ceasefire or a demand for payment?"
"It is funny you should ask," said Assassin. "Because it seems like my Master has done everything she could to rebel against yours. She intimated the shape of your plan, and then went ahead and placed her body next to the target - and close enough to one I am forbidden from allowing to be harmed."
"And how many Command Seals does she have left?" asked Caster.
"One," shrugged Assassin. "And is quick enough on the draw to have me turn my blade upon myself, should I turn on her. You see my conundrum."
Assassin then waited politely for Caster to consider if he could kill him. He didn't begrudge him; it would solve a lot of problems for the old man to kill him, kill Rider's master, and wipe out almost all of the remaining Servants with the fury of her arrival. It honestly hurt Assassin too, knowing that he was standing in the way of such an elegant resolution to everybody's problems.
"We shall have to do this the hard way," sighed Caster. "Very well. Actia wants a longer leash, let her have it. My Master will yank it short when the time is right."
"And I have until then to kill you and replace you at your Master's right hand," demurred Assassin.
"As you say," said the old man. "Though you might find the competition for that position growing increasingly fierce as time goes on."

Return to Thellamie

Sayanastia!

It would feel so good to curse these children.

She loved curses; spitting one was like crunching through the shell of a watermelon on a hot day - but that description itself was everything that was wrong with her. She was not meant to appreciate hot days, or the feeling of her teeth in her mouth, or the thrill of strength rewarded. How could she wish a twisted, corrupting harm on these fools when an idea so warm and lazy was drifting through her head? She was meant to remember the cathartic energy of her joints cracking and her scales flaring and breaking a nervous little smile into the wail of a condemned ghost. She should see the tainted spirit wander free to spread her misery, until...

Until. Her lips twitched in a bitter smile. Until someone rescued them. Until the Hero - or maybe a close friend or lover - braved the knife-hair and the shadowflame and reached out to the trapped soul of the corrupted one. They would drag it free, cleanse it, and nurse it slowly back to health until the victim was restored. And then what became of the rage that had ignited the curse in the first place? Perhaps it did not return to her, and she became less until she was what she was now. Or perhaps it returned to her, confused with the memory of kindness and warmth, until that confusion seeped into her very bones.

"The Hero of Ages is concerned with the stability of the Realm and the welfare of the Faun," said Rurik. "If those who seek to tame him prove unworthy, she may take it upon herself to tame them."

The world had a way of progressing before she had decided. She might work up the energy to make Rurik into a tin soldier and these travelers into bat-winged vampiresses but by the time she'd built the willpower to do that the initial moment of potential had faded into the past and the action would be... inelegant. Elegant. Another concept that had scratched its way inside her head somehow. Somehow doing something beautifully had become almost as important as doing it at all. Maybe it hadn't been losing to Heron in those blood-soaked exhausting battles of endurance that had changed her, maybe it had been the concept-shaking tilt that had come with losing to someone who had done it while looking better than she ever had.

"Seneschal," she said quietly.

"Yes, Lady!" said Rurik. "Now, if you can swallow your rudeness for a moment, the Hero of Ages did not ask for your professions or political opinions. She asked for your stories. Provide them, or this meeting is at an end."

Kalentia!

There was a right and a wrong way to do this.

One of the paths involves patient discussion, the careful and mutual development of goals, the careful management of related symptoms leading into a gradual re-introduction to society. First contact theory, manapoisoning protocols, keeping the patient firmly inside her care until holistic health was guaranteed...

But Kalentia Pious had not gotten into the white mage business because she was into medicine.

One of the most controversial spells in the arsenal of light was the Mark. A Taunt effect was one which enraged a specific monster, making them prioritize you above all other targets - this was one commonly wielded by Civil Paladins amongst others. The Mark was an inversion of that; a glyph drawn on the body that made you the target for any ill fortune that might befall a region. Some in the Civil Clergy regarded it as tantamount to black magic, a dangerous curse to applied to the unwilling, sometimes even used as a punishment for crimes. Some regarded it as a more efficient Taunt, something to be used on oneself so that they might suffer what others would otherwise befall others. Others still regarded it as a corrupting influence - not redirecting danger but creating it outright, and every use played into the agenda of the Fallen Stars.

It is not considered a safe spell, then, to use on yourself to expedite your own kidnapping. But... you know... you can't just go around hoping to get kidnapped. Some girls spend their entire lives hoping that some monster will wing down from the sky and scoop them up and carry them away to their wicked lair, until they are rescued/joined by their True Love.

Kalentia had spent a lot of her life hoping.

But now she finally had someone hoping in the same direction.

[Call upon a toxic power: 11]

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

The blade descends.

Through whistling air it falls. Through rock and stone it falls. Through brick and mortar it... falls? Finally it carves through the last of the solid stone wall where it cuts the eyebrow of a trembling, frozen Actia who looks at the drop of blood running down her face to her hand, decides she's been brave enough for one day, and faints.

"Stop!" said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. "I - oh I'm sorry, I know you're supposed to yell stop first, but you're so scary fast I couldn't take chances -"

Berserker crashes into place defensively in front of her, black-red battledress flaring. A line runs along through the chamber floor up to Actia's body, where a miniature castle wall has erupted from the ground to intercept Avenger's falling blade. Berserker snarls, and all the moreso when Katherine tries to get in front of her again.

"Stop it Berserker -- and stop it Saber!" she cries. "This isn't like you! All of this... blood and mess and scariness, and not even in a good way! I know we only met for less than a minute, and Cyanis always says I'm a terrible judge of character, but this isn't like you! Because - because the vibes suck! The vibes are awful and terrible and wrong, and I don't know how else to put it, but they've been wrong for ages and they were wrong with Actia before and now they're super double wrong with you, and everyone's being such an edgelord and nobody at all is thinking about all those poor people who lost electricity because the Shrine Giant decided to shoot lasers everywhere! Did you think about that!? Huh!?!"

She's really getting into the flow of this now, stomping her feet and slamming her fist into her open palm, and generally making a really good case for being Berserker's master.

"And now you've got all these people who need medical attention and I'm going to have to tell Cyanis that the big evil castle ate her artillery angel and I don't know how to do that without telling her she deserves it for not going in alongside him, so she's going to sulk - and that's another thing I have to deal with!" said Kat. "Because if she's sulking she's not going to help me save the world! And I didn't even get a cool swordfighting dress or a wolfgirl girlfriend to help me! All I've got is all these old people acting like they know everything! So TELL you WHAT grandma!!" Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits drew her sword with the vicious lack of care of someone who had never been trained in a sword. Being within arms reach of her, as Avenger is at this point, is a legitimately terrifying thing because there is absolutely zero control there. She could stab herself. She could stab her servant. She could stab Avenger, through every block and guard, with the chaotic talent of a pissed-off novice. "FIX your FLUFFING VIBES! Get your ACT together!" Berserker actually needed to shoulder-check her to keep her away from pulling off the rare double decapitation maneuver. "I DO NOT FEEL SAFE AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY CONSENSUAL ABOUT THE DIRECTION THIS PRINCESS FIGHT IS TAKING!" screams Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits.

Breathless Dead

For the turn that this is about to take you might think that you are being punished for your happiness.

If you did, you would be right.

*

Feet of sharpened bone crack crystal lattice underneath. Torn and bloody silks writhe and peel from the walls like eucalyptus bark. Every few steps a shadow flashes across the light, there is the sound of a scream, a crack, and a crunch. Watery blood spills across the pure sea water that covers the floor, and the robed Tidal bureaucrat crumples to the ground in a rubbery heap. From their corpses bubble riotous growth, the bloom of Demeter's garden seeds as groves of bioluminescent coral expand across the dying mind of the Sunshark.

A sunshark is not an individual thing; it is a nation, an ecosystem, an organization. Even in the days where Hades' realm offered the tantalizing possibility of escape these things were immortal for they were the greatest of Demeter's children. Even when the field is ploughed the growing climate remains the same.

And so Liquid Bronze moves through the wreckage of the Leviathan. In his wake comes his robed legion of Biomancers, and their endless swarm of drones. They set about the rituals required to asset-strip and repurpose the fading starbeast. From its bone marrow it begins to drip battlecrabs by the tens of thousands, its heart is surgically implanted with the Cancellation's salvaged engine, and the great cathedral to Poseidon in the Sunshark's throat crawls with drones that scratch at the mortar and carry away loosened stones.

The hunt will resume. No matter the cost.

*

Bella and Redana!

The corridors are filled with moonlight.

Moonlight is, in the end, just sunlight. The same kind of sunlight that'll burn the wings right off a girl who flies too close to the realm of the Gods. Someone down here had the bright idea to play the gods off against each other so hard that it momentarily broke time and now it's getting bright - and it's getting hot. In your Auspexes you can feel the Eclipse coming - and with it a time of disaster. All the delicate balances that go into keeping a ship alive are starting to come down.

You got lucky with Vesper last time. Her plan worked. Everyone was saved. Everything came right in the end.

She's going to roll those dice again. She can't help herself. Not when she's like this. Bigger and better. Double or nothing.

Iskarot is here with you, back in his familiar rubber-yellow robe, carrying a heavy medical case. He cautiously stays in between each of you; your auspexes together, the two Eyes of Hermes, together representing more awareness than he could possibly have on his own.

Dolce and Dyssia!

You have stolen an army. In some ways this is easier than it might sound.

Imagine that you have stolen a fighter jet. Being expected to operate from an airbase, it does not have a lock or car-alarm or any other top level security features. You can simply hop in and start flying - if you know how, and if you can keep up with the punishingly elaborate maintenance routines required for sustained operations. The Summerkind are not drones, to swarm with perfect obedience, who are always at risk of being redirected by another Biomancer - they are a full Servitor species designed for full integration with the military of the Endless Azure Skies at a moment's notice.

You have one Biomancer deeply familiar with the design and operation of the Summerkind, you have Dyssia - an Administrator Species, and the only one on board other than the Ceronian's magos prisoner. This is enough to ensure that you, Dyssia, are personally in charge of this entire ship. That much is not in question.

What is in question is how you're going to keep it together. This is the hard part.

Even the Publica does not deploy different battle servitor species alongside each other because of the catastrophic levels of competition it creates. The Pix and the Ceronians were already feuding, but the presence of the Summerkind destabilizes that already delicate balance. The Ceronians are using their own pet Azura as a political center to start making Summerkind loyal to them, the Pix are beginning to intervene to stop this happening, what senior Summerkind there are are desperately trying to figure out what's going on and why, and even if your personal presence can calm down flashpoints it's a big ship and you can't keep the wolf away from the rabbit and the rabbit away from the lettuce at the same time. Put three Servitors species in a closed environment and there's going to be a war.

(And that's not even taking into account that territory is cramped due to the Tidal infestation on the lower decks, which is becoming increasingly violent and agitated for some reason, and that the ship's general crew is resort planet Servitors and not a true voidbreed).

This is a crisis point. Give it your best, and know that it might not be enough.

Return to Thellamie

Rurik!

"Announcing: The Hero of Ages, Princess Heron Tiserian!"

Announcing and speaking on behalf of the Hero was his most comfortable role. He let his voice roll, his chest and enunciation conveying the full weight of awe that should be accorded to the Hero of Ages... which was almost as fitting an announcement style for Sayanastia the Dark Dragon.

He wondered at himself. Announcing for the Dark Dragon, disguised as Heron - that felt like something more suitable for a... for a Henchman than a Handmaid. Half his career was about lending his voice and his skill to the lie, but there was the good, honest lie that gave the Princess room to maneuver freely, and this lie which, well... Perhaps it was most frightening that it didn't take him that much more effort to do. Being an evil butler did not seem such a very long step from being a butler, if you were confused at all. Best clear his mind of that confusion: this was his duty, and the irony was for poets to appreciate.

"Seneschal," said Sayanastia-as-Heron. Immediately, he thought: she didn't get it right. "Ask them their stories."

Reluctantly, he thought:

Reluctantly, he thought: But she got it better than right. Injimo got the physicality and mannerisms perfect, Tsane the burning energy, Cair the slouching deviousness, but Sayanastia bought something deeper to the role. She bought the presence of the Hero, the full mythical reputation, the otherworldly air. Everything she did felt like it was happening in a dream, from how she was reflected in every pool of water in the rain-soaked grass regardless of the angle of the light, how the moonlight landed on her hair and caught it up in an ethereal breeze, how her armour and weapon seemed simple, practical, travel-worn - but you could almost hear their names if you looked at them. It wasn't like being in the presence of Heron, for all her colour and energy and glory, it was like being in a painting of Heron - a moment perfectly sculpted.

"The Noble Hero of Ages invites you to partake of the bounty of the Food Bag, and share with us the tale that has bought you to this place so far from home," said Rurik, almost totally recovering from his little moment. "And further, my grandaughter Tsane, who sits alongside, has a particular interest in any rare or mythical animals you may have encountered on your way."

Cair!

What, tell people? That the Architect-Knight is loose in the stacks? Should she also tell them that the Mercury Golem is loose?

As far as she's concerned, the Architect-Knight lives there, just as much as Cair does. As much as the Hero's Shadow does, or the Acid Cube, or the Centaur, or - or even the Dark Dragon herself apparently, these days. Of course some of the more normie-inclined Handmaidens might not like the idea of the Hero's Sanctuary being filled with dozens of roving monsters of previous eras, which is all the more reason to shelter their precious little sensibilities[1].

[1] Or in Injimo's case, sheltering from her potential to go around getting in fights with everything that ever once put a mark on the Hero, that she might absorb their energy.

Pretty much the only creature she would have raised the alarm for was seeing the Dark Dragon herself, but even that time has passed. Now she wouldn't mention it even if she saw a Fallen Star down here. It wouldn't be neighbourly.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It clearly hurt her. Her legs bent, her fingers flexed, reflexive tears formed in the corners of her eyes. But all she reached for was her necktie, which she straightened, and then with trembling fingers, her sunglasses, which she wore.

"Yes," she said. "Go ahead, Ivar. Rage. Weep. Break the world. Break me. Like I said, that is your privilege." She folded her empty hands across her chest, fingers digging into her arms. "Punish the villainess as she deserves to be punished. That too is your right. I'll make it easy for you. You and your master were inconsequential stepping stones to my true objective, which was the destruction of this world and the ruination of all. Your vicious flailing would seem but the wrath of a child compared to the vast, systematic and total destruction that will occur when my plan comes to fruition - and it will. I could not have risked myself here if anything that happened here had even the slightest chance of influencing the outcome that I have already set in motion."

She bit her lip to stop it trembling. "Go ahead. Make me regret my actions. Make me regret my words. Make me regret thinking that a giant, an angel and a bullet through the heart would be enough. Show me again that there is no despair I could leave you in that will stop you coming after me."

Return to Thellamie

Cair!

Cair took off her scarf.

"Red and white yarn originally, hand-crocheted. A heartfelt gift for a rarely seen relation," she said. "Not something made or received thoughtlessly, but improperly hung out to dry on a windy day. Blown out of town to land on a bramble bush. Long exposure bleached the dyes away to a yellow-brown white."

She folded it and set it down next to her, on the Architect-Knight's knuckle. "Not mine, not made for me. I discovered it, I wore it, but nothing like a connection that fond and distant opened itself up to me."

She shrugged, struggled, and wormed her way free of her huge overcoat.

"Slickleather," she said. "Made from the tongues of Bacon Clams, harvested by Stormwrack dredgers and pinned together with fadecopper nails. It takes over a thousand clam tongues to make a single coat, but dredger children start making theirs from age eight and add continuously to the length of their coats as they grow. The result is an outfit that is simultaneously perpetually wet and aggressively hydrophobic, allowing for clean and easy entry and exit from the water. A deeply personal outfit, and the one dredgers wear when their bodies are returned to the sea."

She folded it like the scarf. The frictionless mucous made it try to unwrap itself, but Cair pressed it down with a brass baton she had in an interior pocket. "Not mine, not made for me. I won it, I wore it, but I don't have a culture that strong to stand inside. When I wear I don't feel the strength of tradition, no matter how hard I try to perceive it."

Getting the vest off was the hardest battle yet. Every button was in the wrong slot, the clasps had been jerry-rigged and did not give up their secrets easily. In coherence with everything else it had appeared slovenly, taken as an individual thing it looked like an actively malicious piece of clothing.

She folded it and set it next to the other garments. "My riddlevest. Handmade by me, so help me. Forty buttons and thirty two button holes, three separate failed attempts to recreate the zipper from Yuki's hoodie, two pockets - but they're big ones - and some twineloops that can be used to tie the sleeves into place in cold weather. An abject failure of sewing that I've been trying to progress to a usable state for decades but I'm no closer than when I started."

There was no line of symmetry to fold this thing; she just dropped it in a heap next to the others. "The challenge was to guess my title, Sir Architect-Knight. You've had a few more tries, and just like last time you've mixed so much wrong with what you've gotten right I can't fairly call it a success. Maybe you weren't listening when I told you that you were 'entirely incorrect' when you called me a spineless girl - but anyway. Let me see if I can fix things up for you.

She took off her shirt.

"Light-debtor / long-lingering,
To bounty drawn / from bullion beaten.
Time-trapped / treasure-testing,
of Artifice / an art piece."

Beneath all her layers was not skin and flesh; it was shining mercury. It shifted and shimmered with each movement of the Architect-Knight's hand, chromium liquid mirroring everything in every direction. Even the glamour that filled her face with life began to slip away, held in place with spells in the absent clothing.

"I am the Mercury Golem," said Cair. "I was unfinished when I was sent to fight Heron. In her mercy, she let me stay here afterwards to see if I could find the pieces to finish myself. So yeah, like I said, I get it."

*

Rurik!

Rurik couldn't be more excited.

He loves travel. He's been looking forward to it all his life. He couldn't do it for most of it - he had to tend the Shrine of the Hero, manage the estate, sew the battledresses - but after he was done each day's chores he'd return to his room where every wall was plastered with postcards and posters detailing exotic locations. He'd pick a travel guide down off a shelf and read about exotic locations like the Stormwrack Bay or Vespergift and imagine what they'd be like. When he walked into the Stormwrack Fish Market what would be the Catch of the Day? What approach would one of the Scavenger Yard's conmen take with him? This sketch of the Civil Church was over a hundred and twenty years old - what would it look like now?

Of course his dreams were not just idle self gratification. He had a duty! No, he'd planned routes and calculated logistics from anything for a single person to the movement of an army. He'd pored over maps with an eye to both strategic defense and accommodation with the most picturesque sight lines. Finally he got the chance to put everything into practice!

A few complications. Enough to keep him busy. He didn't originally plan for having the Dark Dragon herself in his train. But that was the Hero of Ages for you.

His route runs from the Stacks to Stoneward, and then a public entry into the city. He would announce the party and release Aadya and Injimo to search publicly. He was a big believer in awe, grandeur and reputation and the Heroine's reputation was one of her most dangerous assets. The enemy would go to ground and hide - that would disrupt their plans, and buy time for the real Hero to return.

And then, when Heron was back, she'd fix everything. He knew it.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"By my Command Seal, I order: Enough,"

The sound of a gunshot echoes throughout the hall. A single bullet fired from Assassin's wheel lock, taking Avenger through the heart.

"Once again," said Assassin. The gun was tucked back into his coat as though it had never been there. "That was uncalled for. I am, as ever, your obedient servant."
Actia looked at him in passing. An impasse, once again. Nothing more they could say to each other.

The four-tailed foxgirl steps at last into the open. She looks down at Diaofei. Nothing more they could say to each other either. All this blood and madness had been the shape of their battle, and here it was ended as it had begun: with Actia tall and poised, and Diaofei bloody and defeated.

Still, Diaofei tried. Through pain and blooded lips she struggled with the shape of the words. Couldn't get them how she wanted. Actia looked at her for a long moment, and then stepped past her to walk towards the Sunshard. Diaofei bent her head against the ground.

"I do envy you humans," she said, reaching out to brush her fingers against the divine relic. "In the end, you had the freedom to do... all of this. To rage. To weep. To break the world. You don't know how lucky you are..."

Breathless Dead

Kissing!

You would think that this fell under the domain of the God of Love. At the end of the day Aphrodite would smile and be satisfied that it has all come apart into this. But his was always the yearning and never the having; the separation close enough to touch - and every barrier in the way. He would give you Helen with his right hand, and give you war with his left. He would show you Narcissus, and show Narcissus himself. He existed in the space between; the yearning, the wanting, the suffering, the dissatisfaction, the hunger and the empty snare.

His distance can exist within a kiss. His distance can exist in even deeper intimacy, where fingers entwine and sweat merges and it seems like you can't get any closer. Doubt can run deeper than tongues, and a pounding heart only circulates the fear that grows inside it.

That is all to say, he is not the god of marriage. He is not the god of peace. He is not the god of having and holding, in sickness and in health. He is not the god of a life lived without regrets. He can't stand it here.

He leaves.

And when he goes, time really does stand still.

Take a moment to enjoy the moment.

Dyssia!

Oh hey. Time has literally stopped. That's fascinating. Was that because of something you did?

You can see how to start it up again; you just need to shake yourself just so, ease yourself out of this Olympian hinterland and resume the flow of normal time. But until you do that you've got all the time in the world. Enough time to rescue your friends from the battle with the Sunshark, enough time to read and think, enough time to have all the sleep you want, enough time to just sit for as long as you like or get everything you're thinking down on paper. You're lucky; you've got as long as you want.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

The Shrine Giant is not wise. It does not know that it should release an entangled weapon to save itself. It is a creature of greed and grasping and it is well aware of the value of its trident. There is a path where it might grip onto its doomed weapon even as it dooms itself.

The Shrine Giant is, however, cunning. It knows that it can purchase a replacement.

Technomantic impulses burn out of it and drive into the depths. The sky may belong to Avenger's thunder, the earth belongs to the terrible machinery that spat out this monster in ages past. The giant releases its weapon and extends its palm just in time to snatch the exact duplicate of its trident as it erupts from the stagnant water of its pond; within a moment it has resumed its brutal, hammering assault. As it drives back Avenger's armour, more replacement components begin to emerge; armour paneling and ammunition reloads, delivered by metal drones to repair and refit the Shrine Giant in real time.

*

She looks at her bloody hand, and does not hesitate.

"Those are the weapons of the spirit world," she said, slamming her undamaged fist into Avenger's gut. Shining, pure energy shatters through her strike, sending out a great cloud of mana that gleams as it vanishes. "I do not need them. I do not want them."

She strikes again, this time with her bloody hand. Each hit is a negation, the annihilation of magic, the denial of reality and the self in the same impact. "You are a creature of the spirit world. I do not need you. I do not want you."

Her pistoning strikes accelerate, becoming a flurry. The air itself burns cold and dead as her perfect focus drives away desire and all that goes with it. "You are nothing but my second mistake. I should not have conjured you. Now I will banish you."