[b]Redana![/b]

You might have done it. 

Your body is adrenaline and instinct and data. You've never been so in tune with your Auspex. You just need to run until the gods smile upon you. The spirit of the swift messenger who carried the warning to Marathon runs with you, mother Zeus runs with you, perhaps even the touch of fallen Hermes' caduceus touches your heels. You run with Imperial grace and the Kaeri formation stretches just a little too far as it flocks to keep up with you. For a moment you see the weakness of the formation. Zeus, Auspex and instinct unify into one. You move. You might have made it.

But too late you see Aphrodite standing in the shadows.

One of the Kaeri moves impossibly. Her limbs extend like rubber, extending a meter in length to catch you by the shoulder. All your momentum goes wild. You're off your feet, falling, flying, flailing - and landing softly in familiar arms. You're being held in a princess carry far too gentle for the black-feathered Kaeri blinking at you with reptilian eyes - and yet so firm that all your strength couldn't tear you from it.

"Shh," whispers Mynx. "You're safe now, Princess."

She opens the door into the Chamber of the Aspects.

[b]Alexa![/b]

You stare into the optic lens of the crane. Then you let your eyes trace across to the painted on eyes somewhat to the left. Neither of these feels correct. For its part, the Pisel lets out an industrial klaxon blurt that... sounds friendly?

"Instant chemistry!" said Cavel-4954 from below, gesturing for the crowd to applause. "This sure looks like a power couple to me! But don't get your hearts too aflutter, shippers and spaceships, because we have plenty of more candidates! That's right, we're going to discover Alexa's true love even if we have to go through every single machine on Baradissar! So what do the Augurs say!?"

Spotlights are swung around to focus on a council of four machine intelligences - one of whom is a surviving member of Molch's Board of Omens, and the remainder of which are random constructs haphazardly dressed as the originals. They buzz in conference and hold up signs to express the score they're giving to the match - 9.8, 4, 7, 8. Cavel-4954 makes a disappointed sound. "Oh, I'm so sorry Pisel-1132, it looks like they just don't ship it! Everyone give her a big round of applause, and don't worry - there's sure to be someone or something out there for you!"

The crane lowers you to the ground with slight regret. Okay, so that took about... a minute or two? So if there are a billion machine intelligences left on Bardissar you'll be out of here in a reasonable 2,000-4,000 years at worst.

[b]Vasilia![/b]

A silhouette looms out of the dark of broken lights. A giant of wild fur and gleaming metal, a machine beast. The musculature is herculean, a warrior in his prime. The mane of hair and knee-length beard speaks of a primordial savagery, and the spanners, screwdrivers, and plasma-cutters braided into it speak of the height of civilization. He is naked but for his hair and his scars which are as plentiful as his hair. Many of them are burns, come from plunging hands deep into the flaming wreck of this half-shattered machine that you see all about you. One wound is fresh - a glowing, brilliant and golden sword fit for an Empress, broken in half and still lodged inside him. Blood drips steadily from the wound and every footstep is marked with red.

You know this face.

Empress Nero, the great humanitarian who declared war on death and denied the lord Hades with all the might of Empire, was not about to start her reign with a [i]murder[/i].

Emperor Molech, the Warsage, looms out of the dark. A giant of the savage future and civilized past. He grins at you with mismatched metal teeth; all the silvers, golds and coppers the stars could provide. "Ah. [i]Guests[/i]. In the name of Zeus and Athena I bid you welcome to Baradissar. Come in peace, depart in friendship, and leave behind a little of the happiness you bring."

"It rather depends," murmurs Hades quietly, "which part of the machine you take."

[b]Bella![/b]

The Chamber of the Aspects is a testament to Athena. It's a great hall of sculpture where hundreds of visions of the goddess are depicted; renditions of every form she has been known to manifest in. The same face in a thousand different ways, male and female, young and old, gentle and ruthless. Here she is a craftsman, there she is a warrior, now he is a philosopher. All the faces of civilization, its magnificence and its depravity, are collected here.

The room itself is far more vertical than horizontal; a narrow cylinder, each statue in a wall alcove with an ornate balcony. The walls move frictionlessly with the slightest touch, thousands of tonnes of stone and marble rotating with a casual brush against the wall. It carries the strange impression of being on the inside of a rubik's cube, and indeed the Emperor used it as such - rearranging the placement of the statues from highest to lowest depending on what aspect of Athena he sought to invoke. Now, at the top of the chamber, the warlike aspects of the goddess are entirely ascendant, and their faces are cruel, calculating, and hateful.

Omn seems to have come into his power here, shining with an energy that is more than just its restored cleanliness. Revealed from beneath its burdens, the core machine is bright sphere of orange plasma energy, encircled by containment rings that diffuse the intense heat into a harmless glow and gentle rotation. It is not humanoid, it is an orrery of stars and assets, matter shifting so that it can provide information at a glance. As you observe, it becomes an impressionistic map of the palace as a gleaming star is driven closer, closer -

The door flies open, and Mynx carries Redana in. She sets your princess down in front of you upon a cushion laid out by a servile machine and steps back. Her clothes are torn to the point of uselessness, barely even modest, her strength and defiance tempered by exhaustion, her golden hair loose and cascading.

 Everything as you ordered. Exactly as you ordered it.