[b]Canada![/b]

“You have the eyes of the Lion,” the Cat says, her tone so acidic it could be used for etching steel. “Are you telling me that the most detail you could distinguish was that it was [i]startling[/i]?”

A crack, a hiss, a pop: not coming from the Cat. The jewels you gathered are broken, and in several cases, reduced to molten slag. Burned out. Better them than your eyeballs.

(Their power is not like yours. In this place they are blind idiot gods, dangerous only by dint of their towering presences. They have not been touched by the Lion; this is not their home. Here, if you trained, if you somehow armored yourself against that burning spite and fury, you could fight them on even ground—)

“You saw one of the gods of the invasion. Shamash. They are an admiral, master of chariots, commander of fleets. If Earth had been space-capable, they would have torn your ships out of the sky like they did the Watchtower. They would have set thousands adrift to die in the ice up there, and would have been [i]disappointed[/i] there wasn’t more of a thrill. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t want to do whatever it takes to stop them.”

[Label shift: +Danger, -Savior.]

***

[b]Anathet![/b]

The bouncer looks torn for a moment. On the one hand, she’s got a job to do here! She should be cracking a few heads together and then joining the janissaries as the representative of the bar! On the other hand, there’s [i]chemistry[/i] here.

Roll to Provoke; if you botch it, she’s going to try to cut corners by laying you [i]out,[/i] but she’ll follow through on a hit.

***

[b]Étoile![/b]

You breach the surface of the water. You’re in the great big Frontierland lake, and, ah, fortune! There are ducks here, too, making enough noise that the Annunaki who tossed you into the lake would be hard-pressed to hear you, as long as you’re careful and don’t gasp like a beached whale while you struggle your way to the shore.

Once you get there, you’ll have to work your way out of the ropes and figure out where they took Lady! Knowing Jezcha, she’s probably setting up some cruel display of Lady in order to serve as “human bait.” It would be her just desserts to let Marianne out to play... but would Marianne save Lady, or deliberately make her predicament worse? And would it be too suspicious for her to be here, of all places? But what is little helpless [i]lamassie[/i] supposed to do to save her?

And why are there fences around the lake, like they didn’t want kids falling in? You’re going to have to suffer to pull yourself out and up and over.