[b]Beljani![/b]

It is a comfort, of sorts, that the Alcedi girl's efforts were even more illiterate than yours. She was some sort of tribal, born to a primitive and backwards colony beyond the reach of Imperator Nero's light. The Imperial Princess must have been desperate indeed to rely on primitives like these.

[i]Good[/i] hands, though. There were evidently certain skills you picked up with a lifetime of lounging around on tropical beaches all day. 

The [i]Plousios[/i] is the second starship you've been on, and it could not be more different than the [i]Anemoi[/i]. The Anemoi was as compact as a kilometers long starship could be - cramped, dark, cold, every convenience sacrificed on the altar of speed and stealth. The Plousious is a sprawling affair, a magnificent Tellus district with blossoming interior trees heavy with fruit, and interior open spaces the size of football stadiums. There are lights everywhere - transparent view ports to coursing Engine plasma, glittering suncrystals, magnificent arrays of evercandles - giving the place a pleasantly polychromatic look as the different hues compete with each other. It's very nice, although the Kaeri are doing their best to ruin it. Work crews of the owl servitors are moving about, painting over viewports, snuffing lights, shattering crystals. There's the smell of the ocean and occasional scuttling little crabs beneath your feet.

In a puddle of light that does remain, three armed Kaeri are standing over the wreckage of a Hermetic. It's still alive, huddled beneath yellow robes, but its tripod legs have been shattered in conflict and all about have been scattered multiple broken weapons systems. The Kaeri look up at you lazily as you pass - there's a faint shiver of tension at first, but then a stillness as they realize that they're powerless to stop you, harm you, demand anything of you. So instead, they ask. "Greetings, Assassin," says their leader. "If you would convince this one to talk it would save us a lot of time."

It's not respectful. It's barely even hopeful. Like a passing 'pspsps' at a cat who cannot be expected to move from its sunbeam.