The mountains dreamed themselves tall, and humans dreamed them taller. Ladders to the stars, pyramids to the gods. Here on their frontier the dreams blend together and the mountains become pyramids. Mountains of stairs, ever upwards, ever downwards, doors open to reveal the scent of mercury and embalming fluid. Atop each pyramid point of glittering crystal rests a ball of golden fire, a personal sun. The pyramids have crashed into each other, piling up edge to edge, like driftwood washed downstream and collecting on the shore. Amidst them are statues, bronze and sandstone, sphinxes and soldiers and lawgivers, piled amidst the valleys of the pyramids as though left by floodwater. Enormous faces smile beatifically or snarl with kingly cruelty. Weapons for giants arise in broken piles. Cathedrals stand proud amidst glittering fields of shattered stained glass.

Rivers run down from the distant mountains, the crystal streams of the mountaintop storms flowing down into this graveyard of pyramids, cascading down the steps in crashing, ever-roaring waterfalls. They pool into lakes and streams in the valleys and fill the world with swampish life. Lily pads and tangling vines and carnivorous plants that snap closed around the dreams of flies. Roman pillars have their marble snapped by the supple strength of crawling ivy, the barrow mounds of warrior kings erupt with wildflowers even as the flow of the Lethe carries them upstream against the river-currents, ships of dirt garlanded in riots of colour. Mortared stone cracks as fruit trees force their roots between them, and present their harvests of glittering pomegranates for passer-by to pick as they will

And then you see the slaves.

They carry water up from the flowing rivers to the heights of their pyramids. They scatter the grave soil and hoe the earth. Their backs are burned black beneath their suns. They smile with fading satisfaction as they watch their crops grow. And on the toxic, bitter scent on the breeze you catch a familiar smell, a familiar memory - and see a familiar face. Aged and care-worn, he smiles briefly but keeps his distance. He still watches the flashing sword that the wolf girl carries.

Aphrodite... Aphrodite, how could you forget? Here in the depths of the Lethe you have discovered his secret plantation. The tobacco farm where he grows the herb for his ever-present cigarettes. And you have discovered his most true slaves, the rapturous creatures who had everything and yet dreamed of immortality. Kings and emperors who built to outlast death achieved their goal, true enough. They would not pass into the realm of Hades as common men. They would not pass into the realm of Hades at all. Instead they will labour, working the fields beneath the scorching suns until their pyramids crumble into dust. What could be a sweeter drug for the God of Desire but crops grown by the sweat of the insatiable? 

He rolls his devil's leaf in white paper and ignites it, then raises it to you in bitter salute as you make your way through the Valley of the Kings. What do you carry from this monumental place, and what do you leave behind?

*

[b]Dyssia![/b]

The more common use of the Grav-Rail is to control one's own gravity, to turn sideways into down, and to reduce the speed of falling so instead one glides sedately along on the world's current. The militarized use, Gravity Projection is to try to alter someone else's gravity from a distance. To fight so with a Rail is one of the most complicated martial processes imaginable, a combination between elaborate martial arts and doing physics in real time. Essentially, chess boxing for control over reality.

The Guardian attacks you with a Projection. She stands in the centre of an inverted Grav-Rail, a ring that she twists and spins her entire body within as it orbits around her. It's a simple matter of flipping a Rail inside out and suddenly you're manipulating the universe's gravity rather than your own, but the universe is a far more complex beast. Imagine trying to identify a single point in space, then communicating that point in space through the medium of dance, and then trying to flip that point around backwards. If you do it right you can make someone fall in a direction of your choice, amplify or release the effect of gravity on them, or even create a microsingularity inside their body that crushes their bones under their own weight. If you can do it right it's the perfect weapon, and its use is the crown jewel in the Azura arsenal. That is definitely a load-bearing 'if', though, especially when you're using it against another Azura wearing another Rail.

Projection duels are the closest the galaxy gets to outright wizard battles; two powerful wizards competing for control of gravity, locked in fierce stares as the world explodes and shatters around them. But you're not up against a master, and you're just trying to cross a valley and not win a fight. All told, it's not too bad - the equivalent of needing to do a simple sudoku puzzle and go for a light jog at the same time. The Guardian must still be new, bless her. 

Tell us of how you overcome this challenge, and after you do, how you land and make your final preparations before approaching the sacred pavilion Great Sage Ohlemi.