Flowers become houses. The view of the horizon vanishes behind sprawling trees. The straight line branches and splinters, weaving in a thousand directions. One landscape becomes a trillion, crammed in shoulder to shoulder with each other, every four meters a different biome, each home a different garden. An autumn breeze blows over the ocean, wherever it's gone. So strange that you could lose the end of the world. 

A wooden framed house up on stilts with a smaller house beneath it, cast iron tablesets set out as though for a cafe. Open green ovals of sweet grass, wet with morning dew. Soft white sand and concrete shower blocks that seem to say that the beach should be right here but it's somehow not. A labyrinth. Endless motion, new experiences, but no certainty of progress.

Despite the homes and the streets there are no people here. Everything human without humanity, and somehow you're losing each other too. Subtly at first but slowly with more and more tension. There's a main street here somewhere but the dreams of civilization are far more tangled than the wilds and the road. When you do see other people it feels like a trespass, an intrusion, a shock. After so long moving now the only way forward lies through someone else.

[b]Bella![/b]

"You know, I legitimately thought going in that this was going to be easy," said the girl. "But - you know that mental stress can make itself manifest physically? Hypertension, muscle strain, kind of thing? It's baseline tension physiology to maintain high awareness on mission, but there's also a better version that assassins have that maintains them in full hyperadrenaline battle readiness when certain mental stress triggers are met. It's a prelude chemistry that prepares the body to endure the physical transformations that come with Rampancy. You remember it still? Because it looked good on you. I mean that sincerely! [i]I [/i]look like I'm about to start plucking my own feathers, but [i]you [/i]looked like a skeleton tiger goddess."

She smiles. "I'm Beautiful, by the way," she said. "Ha ha, my little joke. Actually I'm Boldness. Actually, I'm Jacinth. Actually, I'm Asset 00498. Actually, I'm Killfucker Deathkill - I was in a [i]weird [/i]mood that day. Actually, I'm Justice - gods, you know that's actually the worst part? Not the amount of it all, but the amount of it all that's [i]cringe[/i]? Just every awkward joke that felt right at the time and maybe I had the charisma to pull off in all of those moments but smeared across the inside of my head. Anyway. Actionable: breaking into these houses, going through bathroom sinks, looking for packets or containers that look medical. Doesn't really matter what, they'll mostly be weak caveman drugs and I'll need to chug like three kilograms worth of the stuff before I'll even have a chance of them taking the edge off. Oh, shit, I just remembered - I used Justice [i]twice[/i]. Okay, change of plans, instead of the drugs search for a firearm and fucking shoot me."

[b]Redana![/b]

She's a maid. A scavenger. She's been walking behind you all this time, catching what you've discarded and left behind, cleaning it away with broom and brush. She's a leader, an empress. A warlord with the name Redana, wreathed in purple, smiling in your smile, wrapped in wreckage that might have been yours. If you have become a shadow she has become the light. 

"I would -" could? "- reward you for following me this far," she said, curiosity in her voice. Wondering if she had been the leader "If it is within my power to give -" what is my power? "- name your boon, and I will grant it?" May I? May I really?

[b]Dolce![/b]

"You understand what it means to be ready," said the old badger in the saffron robes. "Preparedness. That is the key. At any point a decision may be made. Her Imperial Highness might commission a new fleet and the alloys need must be ready. Her Imperial Highness might make a house call, and she shall not be well served by having to wait for dinner. By the time the Engine bursts to nova the time to repair the plasma coils will have passed. By the time we are asked it will be too late. So you see that it is impossible to continue before we have discovered what it is that we need to have with us for when we go. Come, friend. Sit. We must work it out together before we take another step."

[b]Dyssia![/b]

"The Oracle..." said the Sleeper, in his gradual way. "Has determined. That you represent a unique... capability. For the Azura."

Merilt stood in the back of this meeting, behind the fold-out lectern heavy with documents. She was saying nothing, as cryptic and distant as a star.

"The Azura are beyond compare," the Sleeper went on. "Nothing is beyond our reach. All we need is the desire to stretch out our... our hands and take it. This presents a prob... problem. For what challenge could we issue to the Pix? Should we say, so long as the Grand Sage remains undefeated, we shall not yield? Then they need only work their magic to convince a greater warrior to cast him down. And be sure there are the greater. In this perfect world all of society is aligned in a perfect ladder of skill and potential all the way up into..." he trailed off into mumbling.

"All things are possible," said the Oracle. "Apollo has shown me this. All things are possible, except you."

Except you.

"Yes," said the Sleeper, jolting half awake. "Except you. In all the Oracle's divinations the only thing on this world that was judged truly impossible was you... properly finishing a Path. Truly hopeless. The greatest masters of this planet have come before you to share their passion and willpower... rain on the salt flats. You're [i]entirely [/i]unteachable, even in the eyes of the gods."

"And so, you will be our challenge and our sacrifice to the Pix," said Merilt. "You will be turned over to their custody. They will be free to do whatever they like with you for as long as they like. And on the day that they inspire you, Dyssia the [i]Distracted[/i], to finish one of the Paths - whichever they like - then Irassia will bow down before them."

"Mm, yes," said the Sleeper. "One sacrifice to preserve our world. A simple bargain, really. A heroic action, even, and even although it has been assigned to you by others. There will be a ceremony... a dress will be appropriate. Do you have any questions?"