[b]Redana![/b]

It's a quiet night on the road. Your feet are sore but your sandals are soft. The sky is hot but your hat is wide. Your staff is broken but your purse is full. You've got the stars for guidance and what more could you need? You could wander forever like this and see all that there was there to see.

But there across the plain stands the dropship, grey steel and Imperial in every aspect. The recruiters smile as they stand outside - "Join the Imperial Forces - see the galaxy!"

And for some reason the infinite expanse of the planet you're standing on seems very small - small compared to all that which could be out there. And so you took the coin from the recuiter to see where it might lead you. But for all the millions of miles that ship carried you it always felt like you'd walked into a cage. No matter how the view behind the bars changed that oath, that coin weighed you down and pulled you into the depths of the Underworld. 

[i]A miserable journey is no journey at all.[/i]

Such is the regret that festers in the deepest heart of Empress Nero.

[b]Alexa and Dolce![/b]

The Alexas stare at each other for a moment. Then one of them throws up her hands. "Augh!" came Mynx's voice. "Artemis! Why!?"

"Because you didn't trust your instincts earlier," said Artemis from across the room, mouth full of the honey-glazed nuts served to her by Dolce. "This is life and death, Mynx. You can't let your feelings get in the way."

"Mmmmmnnnn[i]nhhhhg[/i]," said someone who was doing her best to not let her feelings get in the way. "Okay, [b]fine[/b]. Let's -" and in a dizzying shift of colours the false Alexa [i]cracked[/i] and fell away in a cascade of scales. "- get this over with."

Mynx's shapeshifting is in her scales: Imperial perfection of the concept started by the ancient chameleons. She's not tall in her natural form - in fact, she's a perfect match for Redana - and adding the height and width needed to impersonate the mighty guardian of Athena had required her to grow strange bone protrusions from her body. It's an unsettling organic exoskeleton look, armour plates that extend away from her body; a shape of violence. Only her obviously and relatable exasperation stops her from seeming a true monster in this moment.

"Right, shut up, we're up against the Master of Assassins," said Mynx. "And it's my fucking fault for not noticing but shut up - just, shut up and keep the sheep alive, all right?"

She looked as if she was about to head out through the door alone, and then hesitated. "There's a ritual - a cycle, it's like - uh," she stumbled, evidently having never had to explain this before. "If I do this right then I can save Redana. But it won't work if you die... so don't, okay?"

[b]Vasilia![/b]

Demeter looks at you for a moment in a curiously human expression. For a moment the vibrancy of the world stills.

And then she does [i]indeed[/i] rip your arm out of its socket.

It's still attached - small blessings - but it's [i]sickeningly[/i] dislocated and agonizingly painful. She has somehow twisted it to strike every nerve on its way out. 

"Va-si-la," said Demeter, accent warping your name into an entirely different shape. "I am not tired. You are not tired. You are dead. Trees don't feel the heat when they burn. You don't feel the fire of Asphodel even though you're drowning in it. This," she cracks your arm again, "is not murder. I don't [i]murder[/i]. This is, how you say, [i]coffee[/i]. Drink!" She snapped one of your fingers. "Drink!! You need your wits and your husband or you'll never be a mother, hmm?"

[Mark damage]

[b]Bella![/b]

One of the more agreeable traits of the Coherent is that they tend to blare music when in battle. It's the secret to their formations and tactics, it's how they communicate on calamitous battlefields. All armies use horns and drums to signal above the din of conflict, but the Coherent fight according to clockwork formations that change tempo with the beat of music played loud enough to disorient foes who did not deaden their senses beforehand.

Parlor tricks to defeat primitives and pirates. All the rush of sound from the Hermetics does against you is give you a satisfying backing track. You can see why they like it - it's [i]satisfying[/i] to fight to music like this. It's satisfying to stay ahead of them. These are soldiers who see battle as a chance to pose and flex their muscles, and oh how they [i]scramble[/i] as they realize how seriously they need to take you.

But oh you need to take them seriously too. Even if they were all fools - and only most of them are - they are fools armed with rocket launchers. You can never know with each raised fine wooden gun if it's going to be fire, ice, thunder or stranger things. There's only so much you can do to dodge a weapon that shoots flocks of angry crows. 

[Pay a price to close the distance to the Coherent]