[b]Bella![/b]

When you wake from your dreams, you are warm and loved and wrapped in blankets. Everything has been arranged for your care, exactly the way you once did it for Redana.

But you are alone.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

Brightberry's wing-projection flickers and she shows a holographic image of a servitor with the aspect of a mayfly; beautiful, glittering, chromatic, frail. "The Summerkind," she said. "Lifespan, one month. They are the first big breakthrough in the weaponisation of Demeter's Law. Upon death, rather than erupting into a variety of animal forms they spawn a clutch of new Summerkind eggs - the size of which is dependent on how many pieces their corpse is blown into. A full sized egg matures rapidly and achieves hatching within eight hours, at which point the Summerkind emerges in a frenzied, adrenaline-fueled state. After surviving for one day the adrenal urges cool into normal intellect, after surviving for one week the Summerkind has obtained full tactical proficiency, and after three weeks they have learned enough to become a first rate strategos, combat veteran or esoteric technician. Then," she made a face, "they die. Their corpse immediately returns to the egg for immediate resumption of the cycle."

"From what I've seen, they're [i]unreal [/i]fast," she said. "Unparalleled evasion instincts, and they learn like Ikarani Assassins. Their eggs are tough enough to be fired from orbit and take dedicated effort to dismember. Blend one into 1cm chunks and it'll take about three years to regenerate to full size, but mercifully only one will hatch, they don't multiply that way. And I can't emphasize this enough: these are [b]servitors[/b], not drones. They're fully intelligent, individual, capable people whose life cycle resembles psychotic attack drones. Biomancers have been trying to beat Dr. Ceron's work for three eras now - and rumour is that Bronze was a contemporary of hers - but this could genuinely be [i]it[/i]."

"As far as assassinating Liquid Bronze," she sighed. "Problem is that he's the guy who [i]makes [/i] assassins, it's what got him to the position of Biomancer-General in the first place. He was the mind behind the original Ikarani concept and collaborated on the creation of the other variants. I've been pulsing data on him while we've been talking and more and more my recommendation is to crash the [i]Plousios [/i]into a star and hope he doesn't decide to follow us in."

[b]Dolce![/b]

Blood and paper. These have been sacred to Artemis for a long time.

She is the Goddess of Civilian Violence, of murder between individuals outside the bounds of war or insurrection. This is something that must be managed. The hands of a killer must be bound in oaths, prayer-ribbons pulled tight to narrow them into a fraction of the possibility space. A slip, a leak, a death unwritten or unchanneled by divine law threatens a whole different world: the eternal predatory natural cycle of all against all. The Goddess of the Hunt defines herself in separation to the Goddess of the Harvest. And so, the ritual.

It will be bloody. A head must be hewn off and the stasis field must be lowered for that to happen. While the outcome is certain, it will be neither pleasant or without risk. Then, bloodstained paperwork must be filled out, the dark work required to explain to the Goddess that this is not a descent into madness and anarchy. Then, the arrow can at last be released again.

Do you help with the severing? It is not asked for or required; the difference will be a single bloody scar across the Assassin's face, but no more. Do you help with the paperwork? It is not asked for or required; the difference will be the chance to see her true name signed in triplicate: Sanalessa, of the New Yakanov Explorager Fleet. Do you wish her goodbye afterwards? It will be the chance to see her smile with an ageless regret, not knowing if, given the choice, she would choose between freedom or the chemical ascension of purpose fulfilled.