[b]Alexa![/b]

"It is natural that the Heir sees our lives as worthless," said Captain Lorventi. "Our entire species lives and dies at her whim. You are bound to her, and she will use you as a blade to spill our blood. We are humbly grateful she did not send a legion."

She seems perversely satisfied with this. The prospect of a pointless death seems to fill her with a strange serenity, and her feathers flick and rustle as she sinks into a predatory crouch. 

Another trick. She launches straight up in a burst of feathers, and as she does her halberd drags the floor up in molten lines to splash and burn you with superheated stone.

[hider][b]Captain Lorventi[/b]
[i]A Kaeri Bloodfeather can turn a duel into a murder.[/i]
[b]Frenzy:[/b] When this stat is damaged, or the Bloodfeather is Taken Out violently, she may damage three stats.
[b]Still Useful:[/b] The Kaeri will drag their champion back from the brink of death if at all possible.[/hider]

Behind her, you can see the Nemean surge towards you like an avalanche, but Lorventi does not see. She has begun her death dance, and your challenge becomes to prevent her from dragging you both down with her.

[b]Vasilia![/b]

Zeus gives you a look. This isn't a look of reproach or disappointment. This is the face of someone who's having to tell a truth so brutal she's honestly surprised you didn't already know.

"It's that nobody [i]likes[/i] you, Vas," said Zeus. "It's that you've got no [i]friends[/i]. You think it was a coincidence only you two made it aboard the [i]Plousios[/i]? It's not. Your crew fell behind on purpose."

She leans back, flexing her fingers, and the muscles that show through the sheeting gaps in that indigo-black silk could lift mountains. "I have strength, Vasilia," she said. "If all of my kin, all of my divine family, gathered all the physical mass under their respective domains and hurled it all along with themselves into the black holes at the heart of the galaxy, even their combined gravitation would be no obstacle to me. I could reach into those absolute depths and tear forth a new cosmos should I wish it. I could reign forever as a lonesome cosmic tyrant. That is strength, but it is [i]nothing[/i] compared to the power that binds them to me in joyous servitude."

[b]Dolce![/b]

"With Hermes, naturally," said Hades, never letting his attention fall from the game for a moment. There's an obsession there, a focus on each hand and each play, a craving and desire that renders this conversation almost an afterthought for the God of the Dead. "Ordinarily it would be her duty to bear this message from me, but she is," his lip twitched, "[i]busy[/i]. So each year I come before her to demand she fulfill her function and instead she bets on a group of mortals being able to make the trip on her behalf. She is playing for time, of course, but she has masterfully raised the stakes year after year."

Clubs drip from ivory fingers in mismatched sequence.

"I am [i]intrigued[/i] about what she will offer next year," he murmured. "How much room does she have left to move? It can't be much now."