Five figures strode like stick-and-rope men over a shaded expanse of frost.

Pale as the ice beneath their feet, they walked on deep snow as though they were gods on water, fearing neither the sink nor the slip. Rare moonbeams glanced between the mountains on either side, casting white light on a black and white landscape, and only the occasional beam from Mirus added colour to the scene.

A figure that may have been their dog, in a world where dogs could have five legs and antennae, kicked its heels into the snow and loped up beside the leader. She turned. The figure spoke.

"I'm gonna go up to sketch the horizon," it said, jittering, watching her through vertical eyes hidden deep beneath its skull. "Don't wait for me." Sticks of charcoal and styli clattered on its back as it dragged itself and its plates of wax up towards the razored stones.

"...Again?"

He was already gone. The leader put her hand on her hip and sighed deeply. The expeditioneer behind her took it well, at least until he didn't.

"I can not [i]believe[/i] she's seeing him."

The leader would have disapproved of the banter. Going behind each other's back in such a small mission was the harbinger of failure. But Upsilon truly was a special case, and as far as she could tell, he genuinely did not care.

"Just get over it, Delta. She's never going to notice you."

"I [i]am[/i] over it," said Delta, who was not over it. "It's just... Why him? Sampi I understand. It's just... I-"

"The High Priestess Lambda, blessed be her capacity for inexplicable drama," cut Leader when the verbal fumbling had gone on long enough, "has queer tastes, and I don't think you or frankly anyone else is ever going to figure out what her deal is. Let's go, Delta." 

The third member of their line had caught up, and was gently pressing her on the shoulder. His hands were made of bronze, underneath a papery skin of white, and his face was nothing but a wind-carved beak. She nodded. The Remph walked silently on, blind and yet seeing, ever the guide without a voice.

Then he stopped. Leader looked up through her blindfold. "Hey," she called to the rest of the team, pointing down the valley. "I see something."

Pause.

"It's a fort," she said. "Or a palisade. Some kind of settlement."

The men fell in line swiftly. A glance to the mountains, but Upsilon was still missing. So be it.

They crunched their way through the snow. Their feet were bare. Even in the smoothest ice, their step was sure. Their flesh recognised its own.

Ancestral memories burned in their minds. There had been a time when they, too, had come home to picket lines on the ice.

"Wood," said Delta, narrowing gaze at the spikes. "...Chitin. Something grown."

(Fungus,) signed the Remph.

They slowed their step. Javelin range. Such a settlement was not to be approached lightly, even by allies. Delta looked. Leader nodded.

[i]"Iy! Iyy-y!"[/i]

The shout echoed off the canyon walls.

A head popped up, clad in a bronze helmet that glinted in the sun. Upon spotting the soruce of the voice, they returned back behind the slope. Then, behind the slope, a trail of smoke began to rise.

[i]"...Do they have a gate?"[/i]

"We're not being addressed," said Leader over the tension of the party. "Don't come any closer. I'll go alone."

Tossing her cape that it might glitter with the moons, Leader fell into an easy walk towards the settlement. The palisade extended from wall to wall in the valley, and its gate was of the same constitution as its poles.

"Greetings, strangers," she called. "A wandersome explorer begs entry, and the name of this place. We've travelled far, and seek the Motherland." She had no doubt that her language would not be understood, but some things are universal, and may be carried on tone alone.

There was a pause, then a sharp yell that echoed through the canyon from the other side of the palisade. "Jyij id mon a vjade xog ltapegpewb! Rnaje voul iylegzioqw!" Further, the gates did not open.

Leader tilted her head, then glanced at Remph to confirm. It shook its head.

"We bear you no ill will," she continued. Behind her, the Jvanic construct signed her words unbidden, in case someone knew the speech of hands. "We can respect your use of our land. Please, let there be fellowship among travellers," and she took a solemn knee.

Delta touched the hilt of his swords uneasily. Something caught his eye on the slope, but he didn't let himself glance, and no one could see his eyes widen in his skull.

"Mleak Snawvem! Me qivf tod buzdex jeglej wokwuer!" came the reply. In the distance, a clamor of boots. The picket poked his head above the slope again, eyeing the group.

Leader glanced. Remph flattened its fingers and twisted its hand. She rose, turned, and took a few steps back.

"We [i]will[/i] proceed," she called back, "as soon as we've-"

Her gaze caught Upsilon's. Upsilon looked back. He went back to his charcoals. Behind her, Delta sparked.

[i]"I swear to Death's god-"[/i]

She stood silent as he ran at the palisade and kicked off on it, leapt up the stones to the architect.

The picket yelled something, in the same unknown language as before. poking his head back behind the slope. The palisade shuddered against the force, though, and there were some distant shouts. Then, a hail of bolts emerged from behind the palisade, aimed for Delta.

Though he turned to the sound, they had already hit their mark. Red spattered the snow. Red lines trailed down his chest. Leader watched him fall, and when he braced himself on the earth to cough blood, she nodded the Remph forward.

The Sculptor stepped towards its ally slowly and with obvious purpose, not inclining its head to the wall. Kneeling beside him, it lifted the shard of glass over his left siphon, and, collecting his last words, raised its hand to pronounce him dead.

There was a sound of stretching ropes, and a series of heads poked over the palisade. They seemed nervous as the Sculptor moved forward. Then, whether by panic or design, one of them loosed their crossbow. This set forth a wave of bolts, as the rest followed the lead.

Leader swirled her cape and a flare of snow dust obscured her and the expedition. They heard metal clang on metal behind them as they fled laterally to the crags.

Paper flakes drifted from the body of the Remph, short bolts embedded in its head, chest and shoulder. The force of the projectiles had twisted its chest and neck but otherwise it had not moved.

Then it stood.

Touching its cold metal hands to the frosted wood of the palisade, it threw itself up the wall, and over, scattering dwarves with ice. A hot orb of an elbow collided with a crossbowman's helmet, and bronze fingertips gouged another's eye in a perfect martial strike.

The crossbowmen screamed, scattering across the palisade. In the distance, Remph could see a massive group of dwarves enroute, seemingly drawn by the smoke. Then, once they saw the palisade was being overrun, the gryphon riders in the group took to the air, rapidly covering the distance.

They reached Remph long before the rest of the group, each one attempting to impale the head of the Sculptor upon a lancepoint from a different angle. None of them got in each other's way- this was clearly practiced.

A flurry of paper like moths fell from the creature. Very slowly, its hands took hold of the final lance to pierce its beak, and snapped it; and then it fell still.

Leader's feet thudded on the walk and were followed by a warrior's. They bore glass blades and felled a dwarf between them as Leader glanced to the sky.

They had come at a lethally fortuitous time.

Leader backflipped from the wall and sprinted out over the valley in a cloud of snow, the warrior remaining to win her a moment's time. They could not afford to stay.

A section of the relief party stopped, rapidly taking out crossbows. Taking aim at the warrior, they fired as the gryphon-riders harried him. The bolts landed true, testament to the good aim of the dwarves. His siphons sparked with lightning as he sank to the boards.

Leader heard an expeditioneer yell about Upsilon. A four-legged lope at their side answered the question. One by one the explorers began to ignite, melting the snow in trails of steam to hasten their own ice as they fled.

They were not chased, as the dwarves remained at the palisade.

A hand waved to Upsilon and then to the sky. Upsilon's hidden eyes focused near the top of his skull and saw nothing. "Clear," he said, and the survivors settled their pace into something sustainable. They would be gone from the heavy army within hours.

And, within hours, they were.

Leader pulled the surviving expedition behind her as they approached the furthermost outpost of the Old Sea. Still in construction, its packed-ice walls were being glazed over by a cryomancer, rendering them smooth as glass.

"Hail," cried the leader.

[colour=8882be]"Upsilon!"[/colour] called back a familiar voice. Upsilon skittered forwards and into Lambda's arms.

"Priestess," said Leader, taking a knee. Lambda nodded. [colour=8882be]"I know, Tau-Twelve. I saw everything. Remph sensed the loss of its own."[/colour]

The leader sighed. "What shall we do? They're marching as to conquest."

Lambda looked at her, without moving her head. Upsilon stepped back. [colour=8882be]"We do what we were made for,"[/colour] she said. [colour=8882be]"We hold the ice we lost."[/colour]

And Upsilon pulled his tube of sketches from his back, revealing an charcoal mirror of the shapes they had seen beyond the palisade, gryphon, dwarf and bow. And Lambda grinned her bitter smile.

[hr]

Albe surveyed the settlement as it was dug -- he had been escorting settlers to their new fortress sites. This was going to be the beginning of Fortress Laaran, and should it grow large enough, Citadel Laaran. The miners worked tirelessly to bring this vision to reality.

They had dug little more than a pit at this point, but in the future they would use stone from the site to construct mighty walls and looming parapets. Regardless, it had been dug out exceedingly fast -- beyond his expectations. He could move his army as soon as the site was secured.

There had been attacks on the pickets -- but these were strategically insignificant. He simply needed to keep the guard up and the locals would settle down. He began to walk back to his quarters. There, he stored his bedding and more importantly, his aviary.

He was always glad to see his snow owls. He kept a few with him in his journeys, and ocassionally let them out to hunt. He had trained them himself. They'd always return to his aviary, and he knew he could even trust them with messages, should he need the service.

Esquire made a cooing sound upon seeing him enter, and he rubbed the snow owl's head. His sister, Sophie, was asleep in the corner. He let her sleep.

[hr]

The ambassadorial convoy rode well-bred Heraktati, stood armoured in chitin and wore sponge-glass swords at their waists. Some of them had no legs, others had no arms; some of them had neither, yet were united all the same.

There were greater things holding them together than keeping them apart. Discipline. Honour. Loyalty. To God and Throne.

They wore banners on their backs and at the tip of their spears, depicting many symbols: the Lantern, the Scythe, the Eye and the Humbling River. Their Jvanic entourage rode stranger mounts, and wore stranger marks, attractors, spirals and dendrograms. Remph had appeared in many bodies. Those were unarmed.

Lambda wore Omicron-36 on her back, that limbless, blindfolded pixie of a pronobis. She approached at the top of the column. Sampi stepped forward in his roach-like Jvanic prosthetics, wary that the High Priestess had come here in person.

[colour=8882be]"Hold,"[/colour] she warned, eyeing the barracks through her blindfold. [colour=8882be]"They've seen us. Let them come."[/colour]

The dwarves, remembering all too well their lost brothers, grabbed arms. They suspiciously began to approach the Pronobii, some wielding crossbows, others bronze swords.

Sampi looked to the Priestess, who nodded. He motioned to a warrior and was handed a pike with a black flag wrapped around its haft. With a simple spin, it unfolded over the snow.

'PARLEY', said the lettering in Dwarvish. With a Remph at his side, he stepped forwards, leaving the convoy behind him, unphased by the weaponry.

The Dwarves whispered amongst each other, seemingly coming to a decision. They walked up, the crossbows drawn. "Lay down your arms!" they cried.

Sampi inclined his head to the Remph and spoke softly, and was answered in a hand. The Remph planted its pike deep into the snow. Sampi removed his impressive belt of swords and let it hang from one hand, then fall. He removed a belt of knives, and set it to the snow the same way. Another belt of darts followed. Somehow, with all his weapons stripped from him, he only seemed a little less dangerous.

The Dwarvish swordsmen stepped in close enough to kick away the weapons, before, suddenly, all the swords and crossbows were raised against them. In Dwarven, they ordered, "Hands behind your back!" One dwarf brought a length of rope.

The Remph translated. With no interpreter necessary, Sampi said, "Why?" The Remph made a sign meaning 'explain yourselves'.

The swords were thrust forwards threateningly, barely missing them. "Hands behind your back!" they repeated. The crossbowmen behind them moved for a better angle. 

Sampi had no patience for such dishonourable conduct.

At the signal of a small motion, the Remph ever-so-gently took a sword's blade in its fingertips, and bent it into a V. Its hand flicked, and broke someone's wrist; its fist made contact with a helmeted skull.

As the Remph rapidly turned a moment's peace into a full-blown fight, Sampi released the catch on his artificial legs and dropped straight down into the snow, disappearing as if in water. The lower body leapt forward, bowling over half the sword-wielding dwarves and sprinting at the crossbowmen with the speed of a stallion.

The cries of the soldiers travelled outwards, attracting yet more soldiers. They began to crowd around as the fight escalated, crossbowmen, pikemen, and sword-dwarves entering the fray. There were even a few axedwarves. The pikemen prodded at the Remph, while the sword dwarves and axedwarves focused on finding and taking out Sampi. Their hopes were in vain. When Sampi emerged from the deep snow, he was back behind allied lines. Lambda nodded, and when the Pronobii raised their hands, a great ice wall rose up between them and the crossbows. Omicron's vanes fluttered with the effort.

Out on the battlefield, the Remph knew it had completed its purpose, and promptly disregarded further attempts to engage. Crossbow bolts threw papery plumes of stuff from its body, and swords and dwarves were batted aside; it walked, slowly and unstoppably, towards the nearest warrior who seemed to be in charge, and thrust a scroll into his hands. Then it dropped to one knee and died of its injuries. The rest of Remph watched it placidly through clear glass.

[colour=8882be]"...Not bad I guess,"[/colour] said Lambda as Sampi's lower body scrabbled back over the ice wall with axes in its shell. She ran one of Omicron's vanes through two fingers, for comfort. [colour=8882be]"How are you, my love?"[/colour] 

Sampi frowned as was his usual response. "I find them displeasing." Yes, curt and frowny. Lambda giggled. "And we need better translators."

[colour=8882be]"Remph does the best it can."[/colour] Her tone was a little sharper. [colour=8882be]"Now we'll wait."[/colour]

The dwarf who had been handed the scroll, meanwhile, threw it upon the ground, stomping on it. The other dwarves went to work, chipping away at the ice wall while the wounded were dragged away.

Lambda watched a peasant dwarf hack at her partner's construction with an ice hatchet only four feet away and raised a single crystallised eyebrow. He paused.

[colour=8882be]"You're a tenacious bastard, aren't you?"[/colour] He shuffled along to some other piece of wall and started chipping at it, determinedly looking anywhere but the Pronobii in front of his face. Omicron wiggled a vane and repaired the damage in an instant. [colour=8882be]"Your thoughts?"[/colour] said Lambda, reaching for another scroll and chucking it over the top of the wall.

[i]"Diplomacy has failed,"[/i] said the cryomancer on her back, [i]"and you act like a child, Priestess, for you refuse to admit it."[/i]

[colour=8882be]"Damn, you're right,"[/colour] said Lambda lazily. [colour=8882be]"Good call. We'll give them a minute."[/colour] Sampi reattached into his sea-roach lower half and sighed.

The gryphon riders, meanwhile, took off, one going in another direction. The others circled the ice wall, throwing spears and javelins down on the other side of the palisade, hoping to impale the Pronobii. Most picked up shields rapidly from the snow or pulled hide ones from their back. The heraktati scattered slightly to make poorer targets. But most were not expecting combat, either, and some were struck.

One died.

[colour=8882be]"...Alright,"[/colour] said Lambda, reaching for her crucifix. [colour=8882be]"Enough of this."[/colour]

The ice wall exploded, and at Lambda's signal blindfolds were ripped from their skulls, drowning the dwarves in warped gazes and a hail of icy debris. The Heraktati sprinted for their marks, and liquid ice flowed in great rings around Lambda and Omicron as her partner launched spear after spear of cryogenic glass into the gryphons.

Lambda impaled a dwarf on the end of Recombinance and sampled his genes, then shot a harpoon full of liquid into the skull of another. Sampi retrieved his swords in an orderly fashion. The dwarves were overrun.

One of the Pronobii fell, their face firmly caved in. Something flashed in the corner of their vision, something silvery. Yet another Pronobii fell, this one with its head dismembered from its neck. Sampi then had his arm firmly grasped, then removed. The blur circled them, moving at incredible speeds.

Lambda watched it from fifty different angles at once, and knew something was wrong. She watched from Sampi's perspective as he grabbed his own shoulder and collapsed onto red snow.

[colour=8882be][i]...that's my[/i] boyfriend, [i]you bitch![/i][/colour]

Lambda roared and rose on a wave of Omicron's ice. She had a perfect knowledge of where it was and how it was moving; with a sharp turn, she flooded its trajectory head-on with a crush of heavy snow, stopping it in its tracks. Her herakt skidded over the impact and she landed, still astride the creature, Recombinance gleaming in winter sun as she charged the aberration from behind.

The aberration continued to move so fast it was naught but a silvery blur, grabbing hold of Lambda and throwing her. She went flying in the other direction, as the rest of her convoy was attacked by a rallied dwarf grouping.

Lambda flew through the air with a stunned look on her face and eventually landed in powder snow, face down with Omicron showing an ever-so-slightly disgruntled look to the sky. She clawed her way through the ice and sprinted to the fray.

[i]"I recommend combination number eight,"[/i] suggested Omicron as Lambda snatched up her spearaxe and focused Death's Sight. She could see through every pair of Lesser Eyes on the battlefield, from hers to Sampi's in the snow, to Delta and Tau-Twelve and Kappa and Omicron's fractal goggles on her back. [colour=8882be]"Got it."[/colour]

Lambda threw out her off-hand and her power and Omicron's combined, raising ice that hardened into shrapnel and spat at the moving blur, one burst after the other after the other. It didn't matter that her reaction time failed her; she had plenty of eyes to aim from, and the spray was wide enough to hammer the monster in her sights.

The ice hit home, but the blur did not slow down. It came towards Lambda, and she felt a weight on her hand, before it flew off in an arc, flying through the air in a scream and a shower of blood. The blur then kicked Lambda to the ground. She skidded on one knee, halting herself with Recombinance stuck in the ground, trying to balance with her off-hand and unable to comprehend that it was no longer there.

Meanwhile, the other dwarves had organized, entering into practiced battle formations. They had begun to surround and conquer the remaining Pronobii.

[i]"It's time to leave, Priestess,"[/i] said Omicron. 

Lambda screamed and ignited into flames, the world around her growing that much colder and deader. Dwarves crumpled around her path, swept aside by blasts of slush that burst from every footstep. Her siphons ate life and boiled it away to make more cold.

She slashed Recombinance into the blur.

The spearaxe was grabbed, the weapon being wrenched half-out of her remaining hand and thrown right back into her face. Then, Lambda began to get a horrible headache. It soon became unbearable, and she felt like she was being filled to the brim with power she couldn't handle.

Omicron's discharge arced through her vanes and struck the assailant's silvered breastplate, contracting his muscles hard enough to throw him down. Before the fizz of electricity had faded, a burst of snow launched Lambda away over the snow.

[i]"Lambda, go."[/i]

Lambda's Herakt found her with five arrows stuck through its flank and she crawled loosely onto its back, Omicron covering for her with shards of ice as the creature leapt far away from there. Sampi pulled his sword out of a tenth dwarf and shouted the retreat.

Heraktati galloped out over the open snow, many without mounts and some with double, carrying Remph and Pronobis out back over the wasteland.

Albe got up from the snow, surveying the damage. They had killed far too many dwarves to be simple locals. He had to investigate further. He ordered the wounded to be brought to the field hospital. He knew it would be useful to bring along a full medical suite. He had several notable details on these creatures.

One, they wore blindfolds, and two, they were extremely powerful. Possibly Jvanic in origin... Yes. Almost certainly.

[hr]

Lambda's Herakt let her drop at Kappa's bidding outside the same outpost where she had recently regrouped with Tau-Twelve, now complete. Omicron closed her eyes and undid the straps binding her to Lambda, raising her body up with the same ice, using it once again to pack around Lambda's wound. After a moment's hesitation, she froze up Lambda's stump-arm near the shoulder, and once it had gone numb, amputated it. It made a brittle sound. Some kind of Jvanic wires protruded. From the fallen arm there was no blood. In the time it took them to ride here, the limb she had lost had almost completely exsanguinated.

Sampi's cryomancy was much more crude. His side and machine were painted in blood. Another Pronobis took him aside to better ice the wound. He motioned that he'd rather it done where he was, at Lambda's side. Her blindfold had come loose in the fight and fallen around her neck, leaving her blind. Power had its costs.

[colour=8882be]"Hey,"[/colour] she said, dropping Recombinance and raising a limp hand (her only hand, from now on) to Sampi's chest. [colour=8882be]"Hey. Hey."[/colour] Her head slumped on her neck and she smiled. Sampi held her hand in his. He followed her by the wrist as she felt tenderly around his wound, waved her remaining arm where Sampi's sixth had been. [colour=8882be]"We match."[/colour]

Sampi pulled her close and held her tightly against his chest.

[colour=8882be]"How are you."[/colour]

"I'm f-"

[i]"You are NOT fine. Do NOT say otherwise. The Priestess is old enough to handle the consequences of her actions."[/i] Sampi glared at her, but Omicron's fizzling voice was not to be trifled with. [i]"Lambda."[/i]

A faint nod. Lambda shrank into Sampi's shoulder.

[i]"That engagement was extremely crude. You should have overrun them in an instant and captured prisoners to force diplomacy, or absconded in respectful order as soon as the message was given. I allowed you to take charge, but I see I have made a mistake."[/i] Lambda bit her lip as it trembled on Sampi's body. [i]"May this mutilation be a lesson unto you."[/i]

Sampi felt Lambda's muscles coil and tense against his grip, and give a faint shake. Lambda choked back the sound, but he could still hear. He ran a hand through her crystal hairspikes. Omicron pursed her lips and said no more.

[colour=8882be]"...Where's Tau-Twelve."[/colour]

"She is dead."

[colour=8882be][sub]"Fuck."[/sub][/colour]

They stood there for a while, Omicron motioning the rest of the convoy to go.

"...Did you see it?"

A nod rubbed against Sampi's sling. [colour=8882be]"It was a dwarf. Some kind of warrior. I didn't get its blood."[/colour] Sampi sighed. He was in great pain, but he was patient. Lambda was grateful for that.

[i]"You will,"[/i] said Omicron, gazing out over the snow with her lenses. [i]"Feed it time, young hero."[/i]

[hider='but termite, that's not how exsanguination works!' SHUSH I KNOW]

An expedition of Pronobis explorers head down south into dwarven territory, seeking to map their former homeland. They have some interpersonal drama for no particular reason! featuring Upsilon, Lambda's weirdest boyfriend.

They also encounter a palisade erected by dwarves and manned by them, which doesn't seem to be at all friendly to outsiders. After what starts as a misunderstanding, a Pronobis is shot and a skirmish ensues. Two expeditioneers and a Remph are slain. The rest escape and regroup with Lambda, who is overseeing the expansion of the Pronobii onto the southern ice sheet.

Jump to Albe, a warrior-Legate, who is establishing a major dwarven fortress and settlement, Laaran, not far from where the Pronobii intend to expand their territory. He so far pays no heed to what dwarves view as an attack on their borders. Also, he's a bird enthusiast.

Later, Lambda leads a well-armed convoy over the ice towards Dwarven territory, hoping to have some proper diplomacy. This time she's escorted by Sampi and the third boyfriend we haven't seen yet, Omicron. They all ride heraktati and are escorted by numerous bodies of Remph.

Their second attempt at communication ends with yet another Remph dying as dwarves attempt to arrest Sampi and decide not to read any diplomatic documents. Lambda is optimistic that they'll come to. She is also very wrong.

A gryphon team kills another Pronobis and injures several more, and a small battle breaks out. While airborne and better armed, the dwarves are mostly outmatched by the sudden appearance of magic and land mounts. The tide of battle changes when Albe shows up, single-handedly taking a massive toll on the Pronobii. 

Albe breaks off one of Sampi's arms. 

Lambda is pissed. She and Omicron attempt to show Albe who's boss.

So Albe breaks off one of Lambda's arms too.

Having indulged his arm-ripping fetish adequately, Albe watches the Pronobii retreat as Omicron cover's Lambda's escape. The Pronobii regroup, and Lambda is harshly scolded for her poor leadership.

[b]Mightwise,[/b] where do the Remph's insane hand-to-hand combat skills come from? From Jvan's third and final Might invested into Beauty (the collected works of Chinese-American actor Bruce Lee), is where. Also, each of Lambda's three boyfriends has been offered a gift, worth one free point each- So far we've seen Sampi's land legs, turning him into some kind of monstrous Jvanic landroach centaur, and Omicron's fractal goggles, which GEE WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THOSE BEFORE

[b]Jvan
10 Might Ambient
0 Might in Ovaedis
3 Free Points
2C / 0D
Level Six

3/3 Might invested in Beauty (Performance)[/b]

[/hider]