[b]Vasilia and Dolce![/b]

Zeus smirked and booped your nose, Vasilia, in an act of affectionate condescension even as she disappeared on her way to Olympus. 

"Drop by the Tunguska, if you can," said Hades to Dolce as he followed his sister. "That ticket will get you in."

And in the moments after you are settled and satiated, the walls burst in and nightmares flow like an avalanche. Alexa comes amidst it all, swarmed and beset.

[b]Alexa and Redana![/b]

It would be nice to say that you were beyond fear. That long and painstaking practice and warfare was enough to render you immune to Kaeri mind games. That it was possible for an avatar of Athena to be beyond the touch of Ares. But you were not, even before you came to this place at the heart of chaos.

You are inside the broken mechanical bowels of the palace, as the shadows of owls leap and bound and hunt all around you. You are in the depths of hell, melting and mad gears grinding dry amidst the flames. You can feel the presence of Ares all about you, a horrible negation of everything you are and were built for. You can feel the strength of steel and stone trying to keep warfare sane and, bit by bit, failing.

And then, like a twisted avatar of everything wrong with this place, [i]he[/i] is there. He is there with metal teeth and ancient beard and a brow like a neanderthal and a crippling wound in his side. Redana is in two of your arms... but your third and forth hold spears. In this moment, with this momentum, you could send that bad dream back into the bloody depths before you ever had to consider its reality.

[Alexa, damage your courage; you must replace your Agendas with Run Away while facing the Kaeri Phalanx]

[b]Bella![/b]

"Praetor," said the machine in tones of thoughtless correction, "you already [i]are[/i] a weapon. Your physical form has been optimized relentlessly for conflict by master gene-wrights. Your capabilities are immense, more than enough to contend with the Nemean directly. The bottleneck is in your mind. You are unable to access your full abilities unless certain conditions are met."

The shining metal rings orbit the plasmic sphere, reflecting orange light in new patterns as its thoughts manifest in the state of its physical body. Machine-minds are not true intelligences, geists of bio-electricity, they are clattering abacuses of stored knowledge and pre-programmed routines. Omn clicks into place like the final tumbler of a combination lock.

"A bypass exists," it states. It rotates, and ghosts away.

You follow, each footstep ringing in your head through the silence and you wonder how much more silent you'd be without those beautiful, useless shoes. The custodial staff have failed here. Your feet leave prints in the dust. The water drips down through leaking pipes to feed clusters of black mold and flatten your carefully groomed hair. Each step makes you feel dirty, and your fingers itch for the mop. 

The door is rusted. It must be yanked open. The room beyond, pressurized and sealed, is cleaner but it tastes stale, old, and dark - and it is cluttered with medical gear, beds, and eerie looking tools. In the center on a pedestal is a single gleaming, perfect eye contained within a soft stasis field of blue.

"The Director Nero won great favour from the Emperor for creating this, the Auspex," said Omn, reciting its lines. "A treasure worthy of Hermes, they allow one to see as the gods see. Two were made and it seems that the Nemean possesses the other. This has relevance to you for more than the information provided. It can be adjusted during implantation to always be sending the sensory trigger-signal to unlock your full abilities."