[b]Redana![/b]

The ancients wove many secrets into the genetic structure of the Warriors of Ceron. Honour was not one of them.

She is up and rushing in your moment of weakness. She slams you into the wall behind you, hard enough to drive the breath from your body. She is pulling the gag from her mouth and stuffing it into yours, still wet with her saliva and warm with her breath. 

"So it's a [i]stealth [/i]mission, is it?" the wolf princess' voice dips into a growl just as her fang touches your ear, dangerous for all the wrong reasons. "You insult my discretion while you are dressed like [i]this[/i]?" Talons reach under your collar and rip open your jacket, buttons clattering against the floor. "You stand out like a firebrand, Princess. Everyone knows your name. Everyone knows your face. Everyone knows how you dress." More clothes fall to the floor. "Good thing you came to me. I know [i]exactly [/i]how to render you incognito..."

A few hot and squirming minutes later and you stagger out of the alcove. Your flight jacket, traveling leathers and dignity are all gone. Your hair is unbound and is falling in a common cascade; your face is hidden behind a veil made of shifting liquid mirrors, and the only clothes that remain to you are revealing undergarments and gauzy silks. 

"There you go," said Epistia, swatting you affectionately on the behind while grinning a wolf's smile. "[i]Now [/i]you're all dressed up for your stealth mission, [i]princess[/i]~."

It'd be one thing if you fit right in, but you don't. Even by this party's standards you are under-dressed and getting [i]looks[/i]. 

But at least they're not looking at your face.

[b]Bella![/b]

Beljani's power is invasive, insidious, corrupting. Reaching inside people until the parts of them that matter are parts of her. Changing them so they'd do anything for her. She is used to people loving her, but she's not used to them having a choice in the matter. Even Epistia was the result of chance and broken biology, but this...

She's crying because she never knew that it could be different. Never thought that so small a change could make a galaxy of difference.

"To the ends of the galaxy, Bella," said Beljani. "I am with you until the end."

[b]Alexa![/b]

It was always difficult reading the body language of the Order of Hermes' Magi. Ensconced within their thick, rubberized robes, faces concealed by darkening mesh, and unknown numbers of limbs moving beneath meant that the only information that emerged from the depths was that which they chose to give.

Eventually, though, something emerged from the depths of his sleeves. Two aged hands, the fur running thin, covered with the burn scars of an enginesmith's trade. They point at you and - pow pow! Fingerguns. Before you've finished processing that he's stepped backwards into a decking vent and plummeted down into a distant level. 

Sometimes even wizards can be dorks.

*

You know more than a little about the capabilities of the Assassins, and what happens to them when they go Rampant. You saw the monster that the Master became, and she was not the first that had been sent to kill Molech. 

As you have heard it, Rampancy is a biological failure cascade. Genetic alchemy runs riot inside the body of the assassin during periods of maximum stress, empowering them to align fully with one of Artemis' bloody handed aspects before their bodies collapse into ruined and burned-out husks. Or worse. The original design saw assassins that could generate a plasma bomb explosion inside their own bodies, and centuries of twisted innovation in the Temples built atop that original hateful impulse.

Even if Bella and Redana capture Mynx, even if they talk to her and calm her, the possibility exists that she is progressing down the road to her terminal acts of violence. What you need to find in this moment, more than Mynx, is someone who might cure her. Do you know anyone who might be able to help you?

If not, the only people who you might turn to are the imprisoned Biomancers of the Kaeri. That is a dark path indeed. They are monsters even by the standards of their kind. 

[b]Dolce![/b]

"Uh, guy?" Jil snap-snaps her fingers in your face. "You waxed lyrical about how everyone in the Starsong votes on their captain and how great that is, and then you talked about how you [i]inherited [/i]the title from the previous captain, who was also not voted upon, and asserted your authority based on proximity to the throne, and now you're sad that everyone's treating you like an Imperial captain. Gosh wow gee, I guess we'd better summon the Sphinx's ghost because there's no way we could possibly unravel [i]this [/i]riddle."

She acrobatically flips back around onto her feet and pushes you into the kitchen. "Why the fuck would anyone buy into the whatever this is? As far as I can tell the major motivating factor around here is cashing out with imperial titles and ranks whenever Redana kills her mom and becomes new king of space. I mean, isn't that what she offered you? The Starsong are pirates so presumably you're in it for the cash money like the rest of them, right?"