[b]Mosaic![/b]

There exists a new technology called Projection Mining. Beautiful crystal mine equipment that can slice a mountain into cubes and result in more material than the mountain contained. A film of a Projection Miner was shown by the Sector Governor on her last visit to wild cheering and celebration, a sign of the Endless Azure Skies rising to new and greater heights.

But for now the work is done with sweat and muscle and bioacid.

The Stone Tribe is more specialized than most. An insular, eerie community, they work like termites. They break stone into cubes, scratching away at the rock with acid claws until they've cut them razor straight and sharp. Then they haul the stones short distances to surround their village, piling them up into walled rings. They'll keep going until they've disassembled the mountain.

Your task - well, Bari's task - involves stealing from the Stone Tribe. They sometimes fire home-made scrap solid projectile rounds to try and deter workers from taking their stone and occasionally send out a champion to duel for it, but they're not warrior breeds and withdraw quickly. There's a ritual character to these conflicts, and each victory is celebrated by the whole town. But for all the extra material you'll need to build these houses you're definitely going to risk a battle, and the Stone Tribe doesn't need to win but only to make it inconvenient for you to leave while hauling tonnes and tonnes of stone. 

Your followers sense it too. There's excitement, anticipation, nerves - everyone knows that today is going to be special, and everyone is looking to you. Your legend definitely has room for stealing a mountain.

[b]Ember![/b]

Fake pack. They fall to squabbling.

The reason, as it has been explained to you while you were pinned to the ground, hands around your neck, lips inches from yours, that the Ceronians play-fight so often is to build trust. To smooth out any disagreements instantly. To create healthy ways for muscles to test each other, for weaknesses to be explored, for physical and emotional vulnerabilities to find safe release. It's [i]important[/i], Ember, that every part of you be put on display so that you can know that you're surrounded by people you can trust~~

The truth of all that long training is illustrated perfectly in the Corvii. Their facelessness is an illusion; their masks do not cover the truths that you pull out of them. It's all tension and battle hormones and dominance displays aimed at each other and their instincts don't allow any of them to roll over and show their necks and that's a weakness deeper than any that your packmates have dragged from you. 

You've done such a good job even that you're not even out of their sight when one of them ELF-strikes another.

It's a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, a weapon discharge visible from the Warsphere. Immediately after there's an exchange of lightning, [i]crack, crack, crack[/i]! It won't do more than stun them, but from above it looks like an ambush. The hangar doors of the Warsphere open and shuttles Corvii gliding on wing and rail start to fall out; reinforcements in force. 

[b]Dolce![/b]

The mayor starts to fade into listlessness. His judgements become quicker and less considered. He doesn't wait for 20022 much of the time, resulting in several from the hip calls that are almost kind, entirely by chance. It's been a secret since ancient days that criminals judged after lunch receive lighter sentences.

After some time, he calls for a break and leaves to stand on the balcony and look at the sunset. During this interval, 20022 approaches you, politely holding out a chair for you to sit and then sitting opposite.

"Good afternoon," he said. "I am 20022, executive assistant. Am I interfering with some operation of yours?"

Polite, earnest, sincerely willing to believe that this is his fault - but also with the unspoken crystal clarity that he has seen everything you have done and understands the situation perfectly.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

Biomancy is infrastructure. It underpins everything in the galaxy, an entire hidden substrate of politics and theory, disconnected from the wider world. Biomancy is why there is peace, why there is plenty, why the Skies are blue. Biomancy doesn't decide what happens but it ensures that it can happen. 

What's shocking is just how many people are clones. One in fifty of the Pix is a mimetic spy whose duties involves making regular reports to the biomancers. They reveal everything, from whispers of dissent, to acts of joy, details on romantic couplings. They observe birthmarks, fur discolorations, weird dreams, small diseases, on and on. To step behind the curtain is to see just how deep this goes. One of your attendants is a mimetic spy - in fact, all Azura have at least one. 

It's to look out for your health. It's [i]legitimately [/i]to look out for your health - none of the Biomancers can even [i]conceive [/i]of wielding their power aggressively against you, an Administrator Species. The first and greatest Biomancers were Azura and the mark that they left on their disciples runs deep. 

There are thousands of branches of Biomancy. Biomancers specialized in skeletal structure, in noses, in eyes, in culture - all helpfully named things like Skeleton Specialist. There is a common pool of knowledge that they all draw from but creating and maintaining a species requires an entire scientific department hidden in the mezzanine layers. Complex scent-baffles and built in phobias prevent Pix from wandering into the wrong areas. It's explained that the commitment is unusually large - combat species get the most dedicated oversight to prevent them from running amok. Many of the Biomancers speak admiringly and enviously of their colleagues who work on the Ceronians. 

But with knowledge as complex as Biomancy, there are multiple different channels to mastery. The most brilliant and dedicated arise from the Academies - prestigious institutions that manufacture their biomancers in house to astounding specifications. Transportation to and from the Academies is difficult, though, especially when operating on a mobile warrior species, so the Journeymen ranks are mostly filled out with clones - castoffs of the elites, though generally far less capable than an Academic. Even though the Apprentices are at the bottom, and you number among them, it's quietly understood that you outrank even the Academics by dint of your species. That's not that you can countermand them if they're working on behalf of the Azura as a whole, as much of their biomantic work is, but even the most senior biomancer will fetch you drinks with perfect servility if asked.

But still, the task most commonly associated with Apprentices is oversight of the Drones.

And drones are Fucking Horrifying.

A servitor is a person. A complete personality with thoughts, opinions, tactical awareness, strategic depth. Sculpted, directed, focused, but an independent sentient life. 

A drone is none of that. A drone is a biomantic robot. Ranks of thousands of armoured shells line the walls, crouching in foetal positions, stacked on top of each other on pallets. Inside them is a mass of pink slime, more fungus than meat. Quickened by the right signal and that slime will condense into muscles, growing into its pre-built exoskeleton. It will not develop a brain, it will not develop an immune system, it will not develop a digestive system. It'll operate on a basic logic of move and kill until it starves to death or dies of bacterial infection a few days later. Incredibly efficient, incredibly lethal, incredibly cheap, incredibly easy to store long term.

But because drones are so simple and so disposable, they're also what's given to Apprentices to experiment on. With the right DNA-overwriting retrovirals you can give a drone wings or horns, make it grow four legs rather than two, alter its colour, change its imprinted instincts - even make one intelligent, though that is [i]not [/i]recommended on your first few tries. It's the opportunity to work on a creature from scratch and wipe the slate clean if you accidentally create something unviable. Sufficiently complex custom drones are often seen as bodyguards, lab assistants, or even as templates for species modification. Perhaps unexpectedly, senior biomancers rarely have interesting custom drones - their work is on a complete species so they don't have time to do the kind of tinkering needed to create one-off masterworks.

What no one volunteers is [i]why [/i]the Biomancers maintain tens of thousands of these things.