[b]Alexa and Skotos![/b]

You have been sent with a simple task: to figure out what the deal is with the money.

This isn't something that can be done haphazardly. The Plousios is, frankly speaking, broke. It's scavenged what it could along the way and made what repairs and upgrades were possible but skilled labour only goes so far. What few valuables are aboard the ship cannot be bartered away to the sleezy dockhands or predatory moneychangers; the ship simply cannot [i]afford[/i] to make a bad deal here. So you've been sent down into the streets of Pomib to figure out how the local economy functions and who, if anyone, is a reputable broker.

On the one hand, it turns out that was actually a really good idea because you've just gotten confirmation that the Azura at the docks were involved with organized crime. On the other hand, you've found that out because a couple of them are following you. They're trailing at a steady distance but their heavy frames and poorly concealed weapons would stand out even if there was a crowd to hide in, which there isn't. Your first team mission is in danger of ending in kidnapping and, given the Plousios' financial situation rules out paying a ransom, slavery. 

You're not in immediate danger but you are very clearly being hunted.

[b]Vasilia and Dolce![/b]

The court of an Azura satrap is a curious thing. Part of you, a strong part, wants to buy into the simplicity of the Azura sumptuary laws and assume that power is simply colour coded; [i]the bluest snake is the best snake.[/i] But there are currents here that make you feel like that assumption would be hideously dangerous.

The bluest snake is [i]very[/i] blue though - and though that may sound flippant in a world where every colour is so tightly controlled, that means a lot. Satrap Vistica a font of light, with a dress that glows and agilt in gemstones that reflect and emphasize that radiance. In her presence everyone and everything seems drab and faded, not as an accident but as a deliberate extension to the satrap's own fashion style. The courtiers about her seem like the turbulence of cloudy skies and twilight mud, rendering that single glimpse of perfect noontime sun twice as powerful. Even the heat is controlled, with Vistica as the center of all warmth in the room, and the further you get from her the deeper you fall into chill.

This is no two bit pirate queen or planetary warlord. This woman answers to the Vizier, who answers to the Shah. She is justice, peace, and martial glory, exactly as an Azura satrap should be.

And yet the perfection of her colour is distorted by a group that stands at her left hand. They're deliberately at odds with the rest of the scene, so much so that they feel like an artistic rendition of a graphical glitch. They wear drab and dark colours in conscious asymmetry with the rest of the court, whites and blacks and even - scandalously - flashes of [i]red[/i]. One of them carries an impractically woven ceremonial spear and none of them hold themselves with any hint of deference. You might have caught off-handed references to 'the Party', but what they are party to is a mystery.

Other nobles are in attendance, from the greater to the lesser, and the hall has room to sit or stand three hundred. Over two thirds are missing, though, their seats occupied by either elaborate abstract paintings of mountains and rivers, or brutal spherical Azura glyphs. 

Already Redana and Vistica have exchanged ceremonial words and both settled into silence as their courtiers go through successively more important business. Right now you, Captain Dolce, stand opposite a curious middle ranked Azura senator named Thelis Thist who seems to be... shaking you down for money. For all the transcendent glory of the Azura throneroom this is an interaction that reminds you of your days in the Starsong Privateers.

"The damage caused by your scout to the glorious Boulevard of Pada, including the tremendous insult to the Shah and the Path caused by the erasure of the Tsolmis glyph and the near disaster that befell the Bronze, is intolerable to the Endless Azure Skies!" bellowed Thist from powerful lungs, hands held high in an orator's pose. She is addressing the crowd as much as you and you have no idea what the deal here is. "Foreign beggars have no right to access the Skies, for they bring nothing but destruction with them! You should fall to you knees and commit the I'tal thrice over before you are granted hearth and lodging here!"

[b]XIII![/b]

"Oh, I'm certainly not all that," said the Master of Assassins as though she could read your thoughts. Her actions were punctuated by the gentle click-click of her clippers working away on the garden, leaves falling in gentle cascades. "That's the thing about gardening, isn't it? One looks at the soil and thinks oneself mighty. Such tools you have! An arsenal of poison and blades and seeds, with years to plan and decide. And one's opposition are but insects and fungi and crows. How could I lose? But lose I did, and it's not hard to see why, really. I can go through the motions, certainly. I can apply centuries of skill and experience, I can re-use plenty of traps that worked before. But my greatest weakness is that I have [i]options[/i]."

Her hands were so steady as those razor blades moved to sever the throats of flowers, sending a cascade of petals to the floor.

"For the insects it is, of course, life and death. But for me? I could go inside. Put my feet up. Look out at the rain and the mud and decide that I could just let this season go. Live comfortably, and all that it would cost me is a shabby garden."

She smiled at her eggplants, a single flash of gold amidst tones of earth and soil. "That is where you children come in. For you two this [i]is[/i] life and death. That's why I'm not taking control, deary me no. I'll advise and help you however I can, but [i]you[/i], dear girls, are the ones betting your lives, and so I trust that you will have less tolerance for error than I do."