[b]Marianne![/b]

“I can’t,” Jerry sobs. “No no no no please let me explain please I’m sorry I’ll do whatever you say,” she says, as your fingers hover a sodden mass of fabrics dangerously close to her lips. “I, I can’t do it alone,” she gasps. Her ornate gold-flecked eyeliner is running and blotting on her priceless veil. “Caphtor only opens the lock if one of us— if [i]I,[/i], I’ll do it, but I have to do it with an Inquisitor, we’re not trusted with what’s inside, neither are they, we have to keep each other accountable, I swear on Ishtar’s holy foot that I’m telling you the truth, please, [i]please,[/i] I,” her voice is so thick and wet and you have to remind yourself of all the students who cried like this but didn’t get any mercy at the hands of the great machine she’s a pampered cog in, but that reminder’s not hard at all, “I’m your [i]good girl,[/i] I am, I swear, you don’t need to kill me please Ma-ri-Ann please please,” and in her eyes there is a terror of the waves and the dark and the certainty that you would.

“I’ll do anything, I’ll give away my household slaves did I say give away I’ll, I’ll treat them like treasures, I’ll pamper them,” she babbles, and your fingers tighten in her hair. “[i]I’ll free them,[/i]” she screams, and now all you need to do to sow some chaos is to get that on a recording. Jerioth ab-Ishtar, promising to [i]free slaves?[/i] The ensuing power struggle of her meteoric fall in power after tonight will turn the attention of the ab-Ishtari inwards, buying you time and breathing room to work on your next project.

The entire social system doesn’t allow for it. By the standards of her people, she might as well have offered to piss on a crucifix; [i]abolition[/i] is a vile heresy, and once word gets out, her possessions will be seized and her slaves redistributed, and she herself will vanish into the Temple of Ereshkigal for... re-education.

(The guards don’t count; it’s a classic “they said, she said,” and Jerioth would just get huffy over their [i]scurrilous[/i] accusations and have them... disappeared.)

Jerry sobs in abject terror, looking to you for some reassurance, some praise, desperate for something tumbling out of her mouth to be the key to her salvation.

***

[b]Set![/b]

The Nameless Library is built into a false support pillar; or, rather, a false section of a real pillar. The grand, vaulted chamber where Marianne even now waits for you is the only one that directly abuts against this section. On paper, it is nothing more than a Ecclesiastical Sub-Vault consecrated to Ishtar Tenebros, only to be used on the Day of False Radiance. (This is code, only understood by those high enough in the cult to understand the meaning; their lessers do their best to pretend of [i]course[/i] they know when that Day is in the complex liturgical calendar. It does not behoove one to admit ignorance of the festivals.)

It is part of an entire wing dedicated to Ishtar Warbreaker, and as such, there’s usually a heavier guard complement moving down these hallways. They are, instead, fortifying the entrance to the wing and preparing to sell their lives dearly for the secrets of their masters. If they were needed elsewhere, Caphtor would tell them to relocate; and so it is that you pad silently down darkened corridors. A word, and Caphtor would stir the lights into life, revealing huge doors and eyes cunningly concealed in the baroque wall engravings and icons of Ishtar.

Behind each door is a room the size of a megachurch amphitheater, because the Annunaki are so extra their religious right builds a room for each festival of the year, equal parts “storeroom for the rest of the year” and “perfectly decorated for the occasion” and “holy places for the priestly caste to meditate upon the facets of the gods.” The perfect place to hide a top secret library behind the name of a false aspect.

[[i]hate, long curdled and turned sour[/i]] is thought at you, but a little less loudly this time. The black-eyed girl pads silently next to you. Jump scare! [[i]a grudge held so tight the fingernails turn red with blood[/i]]

***

[b]Canada![/b]

“Uh,” the kid says, eloquently, his train of thought derailing. That’s good. Deescalate. (It’s exhausting having to be the one to break up fights all the time, isn’t it? Must be nice to just switch the brain off and go ham like Asterion.) “Jason,” he manages to get out. “My name’s, it’s Jason. And you’re Canada.” He pulls down his veil in solidarity; he’s got a Mediterranean complexion, dark curly hair. No way to tell if he used to have facial hair; the Annunaki like a clean shave. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but... shit. You know I could have taken it, right?”

He’s still defensive, but his conversational spear is wavering. He doesn’t quite know what to think of you, and the stories probably don’t paint you in a charitable light at all. It’s probably been on the backburner of your mind, trying to figure out how to make people see you only ever wanted to help... once you figured out how to survive here, of course. But treat him like you treated that dog in Kabul and you’ll be able to give him (probably metaphorical) belly rubs.