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Jackdaw!

The Tyrian Spire was extruded in order to be a lure. Those are the words rising up inside you, darling. You look up at these books and know that they were grown here for the purpose of bringing people just like you here. It is... difficult, right now, to say whether it is a lure of the Flood or for the Flood. It would make a terrible sense that the Flood would churn it up out of her waters, hide her knowledge inside it, and bring poor doomed fools right to her banks. But that doesn't quite fit the brief image you gained of her. It's just as likely, really, that something even more potent than she made this place so that she would coalesce herself around it and try to drag it down into her. To bring all those books (perhaps poisoned?) down into her deeps.

The books here are dangerous, dear. If you stuffed them in a bag, you'd be able to use them later, but you must not let yourself believe that doing so would be safe. They are quietly inviting, suggesting that you should read them, that what you want to know is inside, perhaps on the next shelf, or in the next chapter. Really, it's fortunate that you were touched by the Flood. Otherwise, maybe Ailee would have victoriously brought down that Wreck and then turned around and found you gone, scampered off into the stacks. As it is, looking too closely at the titles makes you sick to your stomach. Who knows how much time the clown spent here already? Perhaps you have saved him by stumbling across him.

As for fixing it? You would have to talk to the entity that caused it to be, in order to address or alter its fundamental purpose. Which would either be the Flood, or, perhaps...

Do you believe in the Shadow King, Jackdaw?

(They say he lives below Terminus. They say he is the first being who lived, or the last. They say he grows the Heart like a bonzai tree. They say he is the warden of the caged gods. They say all sorts of nonsense. But every story has its seed.)

***

Team Sasha!

You now are being guided by an elderly professor-turned-clown who is carefully holding onto a woefully face-painted donkey, perched upon Sasha's shoulder. "Climbing up was harder than going down will be, I think. The Flood likes things to be down and stay down, but Little Lightfoot here kept her footing, didn't she?"

The walls are clammy and water drips up and down, both ways, almost as if the tides were rolling in and out. The roar grows louder and louder as you make your way down upon Sasha. It's a very tight squeeze, and slow going, which means you all have a little bit of time to stress out about what you're going to find down at the bottom.
Canada!

“You have the eyes of the Lion,” the Cat says, her tone so acidic it could be used for etching steel. “Are you telling me that the most detail you could distinguish was that it was startling?”

A crack, a hiss, a pop: not coming from the Cat. The jewels you gathered are broken, and in several cases, reduced to molten slag. Burned out. Better them than your eyeballs.

(Their power is not like yours. In this place they are blind idiot gods, dangerous only by dint of their towering presences. They have not been touched by the Lion; this is not their home. Here, if you trained, if you somehow armored yourself against that burning spite and fury, you could fight them on even ground—)

“You saw one of the gods of the invasion. Shamash. They are an admiral, master of chariots, commander of fleets. If Earth had been space-capable, they would have torn your ships out of the sky like they did the Watchtower. They would have set thousands adrift to die in the ice up there, and would have been disappointed there wasn’t more of a thrill. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t want to do whatever it takes to stop them.”

[Label shift: +Danger, -Savior.]

***

Anathet!

The bouncer looks torn for a moment. On the one hand, she’s got a job to do here! She should be cracking a few heads together and then joining the janissaries as the representative of the bar! On the other hand, there’s chemistry here.

Roll to Provoke; if you botch it, she’s going to try to cut corners by laying you out, but she’ll follow through on a hit.

***

Étoile!

You breach the surface of the water. You’re in the great big Frontierland lake, and, ah, fortune! There are ducks here, too, making enough noise that the Annunaki who tossed you into the lake would be hard-pressed to hear you, as long as you’re careful and don’t gasp like a beached whale while you struggle your way to the shore.

Once you get there, you’ll have to work your way out of the ropes and figure out where they took Lady! Knowing Jezcha, she’s probably setting up some cruel display of Lady in order to serve as “human bait.” It would be her just desserts to let Marianne out to play... but would Marianne save Lady, or deliberately make her predicament worse? And would it be too suspicious for her to be here, of all places? But what is little helpless lamassie supposed to do to save her?

And why are there fences around the lake, like they didn’t want kids falling in? You’re going to have to suffer to pull yourself out and up and over.
"Eeeeek! Somebody, please, save me!"

The helpless Princess Stellabrande squirms against the totally incapacitating plush serpents wrapped around her forearms and kicks out at one of the vicious velvet squids approaching her. You can tell that she's a princess in need of saving because she's got a spare tiara on her head instead of a headdress. And, oh, goodness, how she squirms against those serpents, sent by Poseidon in his most wrathful aspect! Won't anyone save her? Won't anybody at all?

"I'm here!" The fabulous swashbuckling Princess Redana charges into the room, grinning. She sets about her with her training foil, dealing the velvet squids devastating blows! One! Two! Her sword sings as Stellabrande gasps excitedly. "Don't worry, princess, I'm here to save you!"

"My hero," Stellabrande says, smiling shyly. "So, what happens next?" she asks, as Redana unwinds the no-longer-resisting stuffed animals from around those white-furred wrists.

"Well, usually the princesses kiss," Redana says casually. Princess Stellabrande looks very carefully nonchalant as her tail stiffens. "And then Aphrodite warns them about danger and they have to run off together! And usually the running tires them out and so they have to sleep together."

"Well, you, you should let me go first!" Stellabrande says, her smile very big and not panicked at all. She takes Redana's non-dominant hand and gives the back a demure kiss. "You're my hero, Redana..."


***

For once, Zeus heeds the prayer of this humble Servitor. Even as the Nemean's hand slips underneath Bella's skirt, cradling the base of her tail (right where it's ticklish), the doors to the Seventh Dimension begin to open. Being so close is a terrible miracle: it is like an infinity of mirrors unfolding, cold and sharp. Ozone curls from the Nemean, and she raises her head and barks at the sky: "I'm not done yet, father!"

But it's too late. Bella falls from her hands and the cards are shuffled again, time and space correcting themselves as Redana stumbles out and collapses into Bella's arms, groaning in pain. Her journey to the couch of the Moirae only postponed her pain; the Fates did nothing to alleviate her suffering. The Princess is returned, and in a moment her blessed nanites will begin their work again to try and force her back up onto her feet, but right now she has collapsed insensate, head lowered and weight all on Bella, dazed and swooning.
Anathet!

The bar is a swirling maelstrom of chaos, one you flow through like water through rocks. You redirect attacks flawlessly, shroud yourself, and generally act like a ghost of bar brawls. The only thing that surprises you is when you bump into the bouncer, who’s wrestling down a Salamander.

Your eyes meet. She looks exasperated and sweaty, but when she looks at you, her eyes don’t look angry, but rather... well, her aura is that of someone watching a small, yappy dog do zoomies in the living room. She’s still underestimating you!

And that’s when there’s the sharp whistle of janissaries. They’ve arrived to break up your bar fight! By beating everyone senseless until they stop resisting. And they’re definitely not going to care who started it or who’s a bouncer or not!

***

Canada!

Right before you pull away from the vision of that shattered god, they look up. You catch a glimpse of a bloodshot eye, wide and staring, peering out from between trembling fingers.

You are seen. Only for a moment, and maybe they won’t recognize you, it’s not like they’re an actual god, but your fight-or-flight reaction kicks in hard. There are things that should not see you, and they are one of them.

“Tell me what you saw,” the Cat says, primly. She is very intent on you. But her gaze reminds you of that wild eye, that moment of revelation.

***

Étoile!

Tamytha rests her hand on your silly little head and smiles, her face crinkling into delight. “You’re such a good girl,” she says, her tone light and lilting. “You’re the best lamassie a girl could ask for.” Her thumb rubs a circle on your face, gentle and adoring.

“I wish we could just play here, lamassie,” she adds, and you know better than to let anyone else ever hear those words. “I could take you on a walk, and you could tell me about all your quaint little customs. These buildings... they’re connected to your myths, aren’t they? Your festivals and your legends. I recognized the iconography of your Bears— what did they symbolize? Strength, wasn’t it? Oh, you could tell me all of that, and it could just be you and me...”

Yes! This is it! This is your chance to tell her how much you want that, too! How nice it would be to pack up the awful rifle and the pistol and stop caring about the hunt, and just walk her around the park, kept on a leash that’s never yanked or pulled taut, explaining the memories and stories. You could tell her about Walt Disney, and share your favorite stories with her (and which were those, again?).

You open your mouth to speak, and that’s when the tranquilizer dart hits you in the rump.
There is a moment before everything goes wrong. Before disaster and apocalypse. Before the blood sinks into Bella’s lace. Just a moment, full of quiet panting.

”What a dangerous little knife you are,” the Nemean says with the voice of someone who appreciates the artistry of a knife, hoisting her up easily off of the queen with one hand. ”Good! Your princess will need all the protection she can get. She’s going to the end of the stars. I may have been there, once. Or perhaps that was simply another dream.”

Her lips are crushing, hungry, on the servitor’s own. She tilts her head down, holds Bella well off the floor. Then she bites down on a vulnerable lip, and laughs deep in her throat. The kind of laugh that suggests she may just pull that frilly lace off right here, if she’s welcomed.[1]

She is every inch her father’s daughter, after all. And Zeus cannot resist beauty.

What a tragedy, then, that there is no time and no opportunity for them.

***

[1]: in the Quantum Tomb, there is a sharp hiss of conceptual breath, as if from the lips of a dreamer who has seen something both dreaded and desired in her sleep. Insofar as anything can be said to happen in that place.
[Storytime: 3/9
Adventure GET: 5/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 2]

It’s fantastic!!! Oh, my gosh, watching Sessily in action is like watching a baby kitten fumbling around as it learns to use its legs! Everything’s new and wonderful and when it ends up doing a cartwheel on accident everything is adorable and pweshus and aaaaah!!! I’m barely getting any done because I keep getting distracted watching her put her whole heart into shopping, letting it outstrip her coordination and grace in favor of giving 110% right here and now!

Other people might say, oh, Rinley, isn’t it even better when you’re really good at something? And, yeah, it’s cool. But just because it’s clumsy doesn’t mean it isn’t heartfelt. And sometimes, it means it’s moreso. That your passion and love are bigger than your skill and you don’t even care.

I am on the side of finger painting on the walls. I am on the side of kids playing the piano as hard as they can. I am on the side of people crashing their bikes and cringy poetry and scratchy voices as your throat gives out. I am on the side of the heart, which permits no barrier. I am on the side of love.

After all, eventually that kid might grow up and learn skill, but it’s really hard to learn passion. Some people might say it’s impossible, but I know better. Nothing’s impossible if you put your heart to it.

Such as finding the objectively perfect Dulcinea bribe by putting my hand down on it while I’m watching Sessily and wagging my tail so hard I’m knocking things over, too, much to the distress of the employee (1, singular).
Canada!

There is a shadow at the heart of the sun. Look closer. There is a city in the heart of the sun. It is a thing of dreadful spires and terrible want. Look closer. It is a gnarled hand grasping outwards, each tower a finger. It is a terrible black that defines itself against that which it occludes. Look closer.

There are five thrones. They are seated there. Your eye waters. There are five thrones and five shadows.



***

Anathet!

You send the idiot flying into a table, with a little more force than you meant. Which is bad, because there were some sullen Salamanders drinking at that table. And Salamanders may drink soporifics, but that just makes them crankier when it’s disrupted.

They come boiling out at you, tails lashing and many arms flexing, and you need to do something about what’s going on, now! Show the bouncer that you’re a big girl, that you can handle yourself, that you’re not about to cry! She’s already on the move, halfway to you, so you only have a moment to really, really make an impression!

Or stand there and get a fist the size of your head to the face. That works too.

***

Étoile!

Tamytha’s veiled smile is relieved and shaky, and her eyes are so soft and dark and lovely, you could melt into them. “Thank you for handling the wildlife,” she says, sweetly. “Let’s... let’s find a place where we can sit and consider our hunting strategies.”

You lead her over to an abandoned restaurant that once advertised American Frontier Foods, entering first and scanning it for traps. From there, it’s easy enough to help her up the stairs to the outdoor eating area, where threadbare umbrellas still offer some shade from the sun.

“I wish we’d brought a Lynx,” she says, crumpling into a metal chair. “I shouldn’t expect you to do the tracking, even if you are a native. You don’t have the nose for it.”

She reaches out and boops you right on the veiled nose with a gentle giggle. “Even if you are my precious little lamassie! Would you like to use your sniffer to find treats for Lady, hmmm?” There’s so much affection in her voice, even if it is innocently condescending.
Lucien!

“What ho, a bit of civilization down here, what?” The clown agreeably pumps your hand. “Between you and me, this is a right ghastly place. I have all sorts of theories on why the true source of immortality is down here, and why it desires the fulfillment, no, the exaltation of passion. It is not just a rite of passage, it is a crucible, a prison for gods like itself. Only those who are willing to shed their restraining ego deserve paradise, which is internal irregardless of the external factors— why do you think we associate clowns with joy, with celebration of existence, with a numinous dread?”

Numinous dread is right; clowns are infamous for being unhinged and violent down here. You saw that with his response to Ailee, and while that’s cowed him for now, the more he “ascends” into immortality, the more likely he is to try and force a rematch. Traveling with him is like traveling with a growing bear: very useful until you realize it’s gotten big enough to rip your arm off. Double that if you ever visit the infamous Dark Carnival, of which you have only heard whispers.

“I wanted Grail lore,” he adds, swinging into melancholy again. “But now Miss Sundish has riled the local god. Every place in the Heart is under the dominion of one Power or another, you know, even if it is a distant feudalism. This place will be nigh uninhabitable soon enough. Do you think she would mind dreadfully if I were to bring my donkey along?”

If you were to convince him that he would get closer to understanding the Grail by tearing that thing’s head off, he’d do it. Especially if you convinced him Ailee would appreciate it. On the other hand, that might not kill it, but nobody appreciates a head being torn off.

***

Team Sasha!

It is a battle for the ages, which mostly means it’s adrenaline-packed and you spend most of it trying not to die or accidentally set off all that gunpowder.

Walls are torn open. Stalactites fall from the ceiling. Bookshelves collapse. This place is close to falling apart: stay much longer and the whole thing might collapse into the Flood.

That would be a Bad Thing, by the way.
The Nemean looks at Bella over her shoulder. Her green eye is the impossible verdancy of a sun-blessed jungle, piercing and bright. As if one glance turns all she looks upon to glass.

Then she takes her axe and slams it down into the ground. The explosion of power sends turf showering up into the air, splitting the earth with jagged fractures. She sets one boot upon the axe’s head (one of them, that is) and turns to face the awestruck servitor. Beneath her armor, decorative and embellished, shining like sunlit gold, she wears a full-body aketon as sheer as silk and tight as her skin, shining with the subtle colors of the storm-toss’d void. It conceals everything; it reveals everything.

”Don’t get your pretty tail in a twist, little concubine!” The look she gives Bella is too unsubtle and hungry to come anywhere close to sensual. ”Your princess lies dreaming of this battle on the couch of the Moirae, where I make my home! There will be time enough after this battle for you to be ravished well and excellent before her safe return! So says Redana Chrysopelex!”[1]

One of the dead Ceronians flings a spear straight and true at her shoulder, and the shaft groans in its flight as it is sped along on winged feet to its home. The spearhead shatters into eight hundred and four shards when it touches her, and the splintered shaft cartwheels into the grass.

The Nemean does not so much as flinch. Instead, she employs an eyebrow. It is a very expressive eyebrow. Then she tears the axe up out of the grass, spins it once, and then just barely bats away a savage blow from the Ceronian queen. Too barely. She’s showboating. And if she dies, Redana might be stuck in the House of the Moirae[2] forever!

Something has to be done.

***

[1]: The Golden-Helmed One.

[2]: also known as Conceptual Space, the Seventh Dimension, or the Quantum Tomb, depending on your school of thought.
The pain is impossible. It would be wrong to call it indescribable: it is her nerves burning like the lightning-stroke that splits the tree, it is the blindness that turns the world white and her auspex's information stream into scrambled nonsense, as it tries to inform her exactly how badly the nerves of her leg have been corrupted, spiked, undone. This is a weapon made to kill humans. This is a weapon intended to draw out and prolong the death, to send the foe to the embrace of Hades piece by piece.

She gets up, her leg collapses underneath her, the next swipe tears out the auspex— no.
She goes for her sword, the queen breaks the bones of her wrist underneath a cruel heel— no.
She cries out for help, sobbing, and the queen tears her throat open, makes a red flower— no.

Redana succumbs to her pain, instead, and falls deeper. The world folds around her, and there is the sharp smell of ozone. There is a sound that is something like a thunderbolt and something like Hades shuffling a deck of cards. Is this yours, the Princess? Watch, I tap it, and it is the Warrior. It is the Nemean. This child of Nero was never locked in a gilded cage; no, she must have been taken by secret arts and delivered into the hands of her father, suckled at the teat of her caprine great-nurse, trained by both centaurs and titans.

The amount of energy that is required to turn a possibility's shadow into a superimposition... it is truly divine. Only by the grace of the gods could such a thing be done.

When the Nemean rises from the grass, she stinks of storm-tossed skies and sweat. It is difficult to tell where her mane of shining gold ends and her lionskin cloak begins. Where Redana has an auspex, the Nemean has empty night and the light of a dying star forever caught in its last gasp. The razorwhip's next stroke wraps harmlessly around the haft of the axe that could have killed Typhon. As the Nemean unfolds, she towers over all, taller even than the statue of Pallas Athena on the green below.

"REJOICE!" Her voice is a thunderclap. "The gods have sent their response, little wolf! Are you not delighted?"

The razorwhip lashes out again, and the Nemean moves more nimbly than she has any right to. She is not yet injured, after all. How could she be? A moment ago she only existed as a might-have-been. Her knee-high boots tear a groove in the wet grass, and she barks a wild laugh, a war-laugh, a berserk-laugh. "Come, let us dance! Did you not wish to spit in my father's eye? I shall do, and do, and do for you!"

Her backhand swing carves through three Ceronians at once, so cleanly that it takes a moment for them to realize they must fall in pieces to the grass; the thunder that follows knocks down another six, sends the queen skidding back with her bracers held before her face. "Sword-day! Red-day! Hahaha! Come, come, come for the Nemean!" She opens her guard deliberately, her grin wild, daring the Queen to strike at her, a free blow, provided she can stand its return. "Come for Redana Chrysopelex!"

***

[Marking damage to Blood and necrotic damage to Grace. That's a 7 on Keeping Her Busy, however.]
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