[b]Redana![/b]

"Ah. Just like an Empress to ask so much," murmured Hades. You can hear his footsteps but his face has become multifaceted through the tears that have come unbidden. "It isn't simple even for me to snuff out one of sister Zeus' sparks - but then, that cuts both ways."

The crimson light you are bathed within goes dark. Hades has fastened his two hands around the glittering head of the thunderbolt and you can hear the lightning stutter and choke as those long fingers strangle it.

"Let me give you some advice," he said, the slightest effort audible in that papery voice. "Land within the World Eater. Inside it you will find a child of mine, Epistia, who has cried out to me in the dark so many times. Make her happy, Princess Redana. Bring a smile to the lips of my girl, or at the least, dam her tears. However you can manage this will please me because I..." his fingers tighten around the crackling celestial fire. There's the sound of breaking glass. Breathless, inert sparks of electricity cascade to the floor, "... have been unsuccessful."

[b]Vassila![/b]

The Grand Armada is [b]vast[/b]. They darken the heavens, blotting out the stars and replacing it with their own electric lines. Banners of warfleets hang like constellations, the multicoloured hues of their engine aftershocks carving dot-point images in the sky - a form of high art and honour for the idle captains to perfect. You can see through the viewscreen the shapes of serpents, of warriors, of bulls and a thousand other kinds of heraldry, carved in the glowing afterwash of thousands of perfectly drilled starships. Imagine having so many warships you could [i]paint[/i] with them.

It is some boast to claim that you could have survived even less than a quarter of this number. A quarter is still tens of thousands. It was a subtle jab, a brag by inference - and the sort of thing the gods appreciate. Just like tea. If we know anything from ancient days it's that no horror of the darkening world will turn down tea.

But horror there is plenty as Poseidon gathers his wrath.

"Hades satisfied me before," said Poseidon, "by promising to make this place a tomb. A graveyard! A sanctuary! A place that would never be disturbed again, where no scavengers would pick over the bones, where the ships broken in this place would drift here by my child forever! Hades! Brother! You have lied to me! You have broken your oath! You disturb my child's rest! Athena! You insolent brat, thick and fat on Imperial favour, I will remind you that all of your precious wars are but the conflict of two ants crawling across my mighty palm!"

The bruises on the fabric of space break and rupture. Mountainous eruptions of emerald energy, tinged with electric blue, begin to pour into space. Celestial dust rolls and crashes, lit darkly from within by polychromatic lightning.

The storm builds.

The [i]Veterosk[/i], though, is not yet shaken loose.


[b]Alexa![/b]

There are a great many poets and storytellers who favour Athena. When they speak of cunning plans and twists of stratagem, of war heroes and great generals and the violence of empire that is offered up on vast scale as offering to Lord Zeus, Athena is the principle they swear to. She is terrible in her element. No less mad than brother Ares. She does not fight in poet's wars, she is violence itself, and her belief is that violence is a good thing. A craft that can be mastered as readily as weaving.

"You know the forms," she said, "but your heart is wavering. I say this because I favour you, Alexa: master it. You cannot afford weakness in the face of war and there will come a time where your spear weighs heavier in your hand than the one who fights against you. On that day not all the skill in the world will keep you from the House of Hades. Instead, glory in it!"

She walked over to the wall, rapped it, and the metallic composite of the Plousios went transparent, providing a view of the Grand Armada as its celestial banners stretched from horizon to horizon.

"Glory, glory, glory," she said. "Fight with pride. Fight with passion. Fight with skill, and discipline, and unity. Those who don't will die. Those who do will ascend. Such is war. Such is war."

Then she was gone, and the breach alarms and emergency lighting came back into focus. 


[b]Bella![/b]

You're not tuned into the politics. The posturing. When King Anthi stands and announces he's taking his leave, defiant of Odoacer, every eye in the room is drawn magnetically to the conflict between the Admiral and the King. You know better than to watch the magician's flourish - your eyes are on her hands, and you are the only one not surprised when a Codexia steps out from behind a pillar, raises his spear with Athena's aid, and casts it clean across the room. You don't even need to turn your head to know that it will take King Anthi through the heart and pin him grotesquely to the wall of the great hall. You are a little surprised that the Codexia takes the time to fist-pump and give a thumbs up to his buddies, who have appeared from behind every corner and door of this now suddenly [i]extremely[/i] tense and armed hall.

[hider=The Codexia]
[i]The hand-picked hundred strong elite masters of the Warsage's Masteries of Battle.[/i]
[b]- Adept of the Codex[/b]: The Codexia are masters of every form of battle and cannot be defeated. [b]Damage this stat when things descend into chaos.[/b]
[b]- Warshrine of Athena[/b]: Athena will actively intervene on behalf of the Codexia so long as the Warshrine is intact and undespoiled.[/hider]

"Friends, friends, of [i]course[/i] I cannot let you leave," said Odoacer, cloyingly conciliatory, smug smile creasing her face. "We have not yet begun the rituals. We have not taken the auguries. We have not made offerings before the gods. Without these things we may as well go into battle unarmed and unarmoured. Anyone who would disrespect the [i]gods[/i]," she says this like it's a shocking concept, like this was a lamentable and self-inflicted suicide, and not a series of precision insults designed to goad King Anthi so she could publicly assassinate one of her major political rivals, "would bring doom upon the entire fleet!"

From the outside, cosmic lightning crashes. As clear a sign as any what Zeus thinks of this murder-by-technicality, but with the Codexia standing ready nobody is willing to challenge Odoacer's interpretation of the auguries. The revelry is gone now and the hall falls into discontented and furious whisperings.

You don't need to whisper to figure this out. This is the beginnings of a coup. Once Odoacer has Redana in hand then she's going to abuse sacred hospitality as far as she is able to remove as many of the Empress' loyalists as possible to consolidate control of the fleet. You're not high on the list, but you're definitely on it somewhere. This feast is now a death trap.