The stars burn violet within the Endless Azure Skies, and this is but the beginning of their marvels.

From the right angle, with the right sunglasses you can see the Spike driven into the heart of the star named Olean. A subtle megastructure, almost invisible from a distance except for a strange black dot against the sun. In radial lines stretching out from the Spike all throughout the solar system, from the closest sun-baked ball of molten metals to the most distant storm-wracked gas giant, asteroids marked with gently blinking teal-blue guiding lights and wrapped around with the gleaming patterns of gravity rails drift in impossible orbits. These intersystem asteroid belts chain together planets, managing orbit and rotation. Even the planets themselves have monolithic equatorial carvings visible from space channeling the might of the Azura miracle. Why let the growth of the Azura be contained by the number of planets that happened to fall in the narrow band of stellar habitability? 

But the Azura forgot the lesson of Atlas when they rearranged the sky. When their strength slipped so those endless skies did fall.

One planet, Manaemede has accelerated beyond all control, spinning so fast that its days last hours and continent sized chunks of rock break off into the void from the centrifugal force. It whirls in a chaos of broken math through the star system, flanked by a too-thin cascade of Azura ships who might be attempting to tug the wreckage of the planet back into a stable orbit - or perhaps just keep it from colliding with any of the surviving planets. Once this planet was the mausoleum of a Shah, hauled into place and worked with endless art to commemorate unparalleled victories. Half of the mighty pyramid still stands on the planet, a mountain range monolith sinking into the exposed magma of a flayed world.

One gas giant, Igorthian, has been turned inside out. Through some sorcery of gravity the Azura have extracted the hyperdense core of metal from the heart of the gas giant while leaving the gas itself somehow frozen in place like the ghost of a planet-sized storm. Cosmic industry is at work on the huge ball of exotic metals, explosive-based strip-mining where the tumbling fragments of hyperium and quadranix are sent along the asteroid gravity chains toward the Spike where they will be smelted and refined in the heat of the sun itself. The metals will return to Igorthian where they will be sent back into the core of the gas giant in new configurations. When this megaproject is complete the Azura will have built a space station [i]inside[/i] of the gas giant, with views in every direction of a planetary storm held in place with tricks of gravity. An unbreachable fortress wearing a storm as a shield, an art installation unmatched anywhere in the cosmos, a brand new ghost city built for a civilization that can't half fill the cities it has already. 

And the sector capitol, Salib. A perfect, textbook Azura planet. A luxury in oceans and shores, a bounty of open space and engineering miracles. A proud regional hub with bases of the Party, the Orrery, the Aspects and the agents of the Shah. The pride of the Sector fleet hangs in orbit, a sleek and curved supercarrier named [i]Fraternity and Tyranny[/i] surrounded by swarms of spinning fighter spheres. No matter that whenever the carrier's orbit passes over the eastern continent those fighter spheres descend into atmosphere to launch a bombing campaign to support the loyalists in the ongoing civil war there. No matter that with each flocklike descent many of the spheres do not return. 

This, then, is the Olean system. Grand beyond imagining, opulent beyond reckoning, and merely one of the many systems in the Endless Azure Skies. So too is it riven by natural disaster, technology failure, civil war, and impossible monuments built in the desert. 

*

[b]To the crew of the Plousios![/b]

Take a minute to reflect on the Azura and their works. Then tell me: what specifically do you hope to gain here? You are on the threshold of wonder; do you seek power to help you in your quest? Knowledge of the perils of the rift? Or even just to see the sights of a place that has so long been distant?

The gods of relevance in this place are Poseidon, Apollo and Artemis. You may wish, too, to make offering to them.

[b]XIII![/b]

You were a child when you met her. Less than a child. You were unsold property, unworthy property, barely fit for the kennels until [i]she[/i] picked you out. Out of all the world it was she who saw your potential and raised you to the station of Imperial Pet.

You did not know then that she was the Master of Assassins. You remember grey hair and deep wrinkles and a gingerbread smile. You remember hands stained with soil and bone meal and eyes the green-gold of the harvest that could see an ancient oak in an acorn. You remember kindness from a passing stranger, because whenever you saw her in the palace she would glance around and stealthily slip you some home-made treat or vegetable and a wink that was just for you. You didn't see her often, but she liked you. [i]Saw[/i] you. And was perhaps the only person who ever did.

The smells of the Anemoi are sane again. The Lanterns are safe, hidden in the shadows where they have always lived. The Kaeri are more prominent but lack their previous sense of arrogant cruelty. They are unsettled and shift restlessly and seem as drawn towards the dark as the Lanterns. But the light is warm and yellow from a dozen red paper lanterns, enough to illuminate a strange and darkening garden. The Master moves through rows of roses and daffodils and peaches, always seemingly to have infinite layers of vegetation between you and her, and despite your Auspex you constantly lose track of her. There is a riddle here, written in the soil. All of Artemis' greatest murders are riddles.

"I honestly [i]don't[/i] get why she likes you so much," huffed Beljani, adept of the Oratus Temple of Assassins. Her jealousy is palpable. "No disrespect at all, of course, I love what you've done with the dress, but we happen to have a transcendent super-genius genetically designed for engineering perfect plans in a box and we're running frightfully low on second chances."