Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Excuse me, ma'am, would you happen to be Yue Just?" interrupted the civil servant, releasing his mule so he could go through his briefcase.
"I am going to eat the food in your pocket, and it up to you if I need to chew through your clothes to get it," said the mule. If Yue did not happen to speak mule she was going to get a lesson.
"Because if you are, I'm afraid to inform you that you may have been a victim of a fox crime," said the civil servant. His face was etched with every shape the weather knew how to inflict, shielded only by a large grey beard and a little twinkle in his eyes. "Here, I've got some pamphlets to bring you up to speed."

He held out a sheaf of brightly coloured pamphlets with titles like 'What is/was "Private Property" and why do foxgirls want it?', 'So Your Heart's Been Stolen: A Guide To Productively Channeling Your Vengeful Impulses', and 'Spankies: When, Why, And How Hard?'.

"Don't worry, if so you're not alone," said the civil servant, doing his best to try and get his mule back under control. "We're working on a fix."

*

You may be forgiven for thinking that the world of Sunshards was some sort of anarchist paradise - even a libertarian one. Aside from the battling Princesses and independent monastic orders there has been little sign of an organized society or government oversight. It may then surprise you to learn that this world is overseen by an all-powerful technocracy reigning from their Supreme Palace atop a mountain. There are no limits on their power, no constitution and no laws that bind them, and they wield this power constantly and tyrannically.

Let’s learn more.

The first prerequisite for a leadership position is to have held absolute power responsibly in the past. There are a range of possibilities for this - a forums administrator, for example, counts just as much as being a Princess, video game clan leader, Dungeon Master or ship captain. Often applicants who show promise within a limited area will be assigned another to see if their skills generalize: Yes you have successfully won the hearts and minds of a large crowd of unruly children and convinced them to play team sports, but can you effectively organize a group of senior academics? Leadership is considered its own independent skillset and path, and those who show the knack get moved around a lot between different areas to broaden their horizons.

The next requirement is to physically make it to the Supreme Palace. It is a solid day’s hike up a mountain, and everyone has to leave during New Years, so it’s a basic test of physical fitness that acts as a soft cap on the age of the Supreme Rulers. This is somewhat unfair to the physically disabled, but the mountain is the mountain.

The final requirement is to give up all material possessions. This is not a formal requirement as it is an imposition from the Department of Curses - see below. Hanfu are available at the check in.

After that - the Supreme Palace! It is surprisingly mid. A cluster of apartment buildings and squished townhouses, constant steep stone steps, indoor and outdoor forums, and clusters of vegetable gardens. There are beanbags and comfortable chairs, plenty of laptops and other electronic devices, and an admittedly fairly nice view. There is space for five thousand Supreme Rulers at a squish, though often it’s at half capacity or less. From the Palace you can see all of the civil service Departments surrounding the base of the mountain in beautiful, geometrically pleasing patterns - brutalist concrete and groves of rich green trees, far nicer than the quarters of the rulers themselves.

There are three large electronic billboards in the Grand Auditorium. The first is the chores rotation. There are no servants in the Supreme Palace, and nothing goes up or down the mountain if not carried by a Supreme Ruler, and so the masters of the world need to do everything themselves. The second billboard is a site map with various Issue Room locations marked. The final billboard is a big, updating display of the Forum.

The Forum is the true heart of the Supreme Palace; a creaking monument to pedantry and argument running on code written during the time of the dinosaurs. Throughout the various specialist threads the Supreme Rulers argue with each other ferociously but precisely, overseen by a specialist cadre of Moderators from the Department of Curses who punish poor argumentation with escalating probations and eventually, if necessary, bans. A ban is tantamount to exile, both the ultimate sanction and one that the Department is fearless about applying. It can be lifted, with effort and questing - or upgraded to a Permaban if sufficiently mishandled.

Much of the work of the Supreme Rulership occurs on the Forum. Constant argumentation in traditional forms drills down to parts of arguments where information is missing or reality is called upon to decide. When a gap in knowledge is identified, a group of at least three Supreme Rulers form an Investigative Group and depart the mountain. They collect however many civil servants as their fact finding mission requires and journey the land, investigating things in detail, before returning to the Supreme Palace with a vast trove of documents that serve as a foundation of objective truth. The debate may then continue with a basis in settled, evidentiary fact - and anyone attempting to engage in the debate required to educate themselves on the paperwork before contributing.

When it comes time to make a decision, it comes down to the Issue Rooms. Cramped cubicles with space for seven people and a table, the Issue Rooms are where final drafts of Edicts are drawn and examined. Then, as many Supreme Rulers as are so inclined either sign or dissent to the Edict. Only one signature is necessary - every Supreme Ruler has absolute authority to direct the civil service to do anything - but the weight of signatures vs dissents is used by the civil service to judge if a policy is to be pursued enthusiastically or guardedly. Surprisingly, there is almost no sign of political parties having developed - signing your name to something you do not personally understand is considered deeply risky.

So far, so normal. It could be argued that this was simply a reformed aristocracy as set down by Plato, as vulnerable to a slip towards oligarchic despotism as a thousand nations before it. The unique innovation to all of this, though, was the existence of the Department of Curses.

The Department of Curses is where the democratic element of governance comes in, the Yin to the Supreme Palace’s Yang. Not through voting, but through the expression of popular dissatisfaction. Any person can write in to the Department of Curses with a complaint - perhaps the water pipes in their city are old and poorly maintained, perhaps there is a plague of hateful ghosts, etc. The Department of Curses will investigate to see if the problem is a one-off or systemic - a single ghost they might be able to exorcise on sight and call the matter closed. But for a larger problem, the Department of Curses then turns its eye upon the Supreme Palace and fucks it up.

If roads are poorly maintained somewhere in the world then the Department of Curses will first issue notice to the Supreme Palace, and then if action is not taken they will destroy the Supreme Palace’s roads. If there is a plague of ghosts they will capture one such ghost and place it in the Supreme Palace. If an Edict has removed protections on private property then they will confiscate all private property from the Supreme Rulers and force them to subsist on communal property. Next to the Department of Curses is an artillery park, barrels constantly trained on the Supreme Palace. In the event that the rulers of the world decided a war was necessary the Department of Curses would immediately start shelling their building. Not so much that the work of government would be disrupted, but enough to give them a taste of what was happening at the front.

The Department of Curses also has a tendency to get extremely personal. They will often go after individual Supreme Rulers, and have license to continue to pursue Supreme Rulers into their retirement - which is the major factor preventing Supreme Rulers from forming political parties. If a majority is unnecessary for reform, and ineffective policy results in personal consequences, there's nothing more hazardous than putting your name on Edicts you do not entirely understand.

The Supreme Rulers then may act as they will. If resource constraints mean those ghosts must go un-banished, then they must endure the haunting wails along with the population. The Department of Curses cannot override the will of the rulers, but they can make them share in the irritations and miseries of the people. And so, the Supreme Palace cannot be grander than the lowest standard of the nation - and so, the Supreme Rulers work furiously to bring up the average because that will bring up the average of their accommodations as well. The fact that every Ruler has a roof over their head, all the food they need, is in good health and wears clean clothing is a point of pride.

Recruitment for the Department of Curses is unusual and mystical, but the basic requirement is that it is open to those who have hit rock bottom one way or another and rebuilt themselves. Recovered addicts, reformed jerks, evil Princesses (Princess Yin will be a shoe-in one day) - anyone who has ruined their life and subsequently built a new one can undergo the trials. Success gives them the task of tormenting the rulers of the world so they do not forget their place or the consequences of their actions.

Consider the overall effect to be Wikipedia pedants moderated by Tumblr freaks. Yin and yang, perfectly balanced.

Katherine!

Katana-wielding civil servants are rappelling down from the ceiling, justice in brown suits and ties. Amongst them, a Queen in golden armour surrounded by radiant mirror-images stands atop a piece of fallen masonry and gestures dramatically with her sword. It's a raid!

"Fox-daemons!" said the Queen. "You are under arrest for engaging in illegal market-based solutions! Seize them!"
A blue light blinked on nearby. A drone activated - that slimy voice, offset by a few seconds of communications lag. "Thank you officers. I can confirm that wide-scale money-laundering is taking place in order to try and wrest control of this critical piece of infrastructure."
"Oh?" said the Queen. "This is yours, is it?"
"Why yes!" said Adam, displaying a glittering array of share options. "As you can see, I and my subsidaries own a majority of stock outright, and I am furthermore acting as the chief executive officer."
"Oh, good show," said the Queen. "Thank you for your contribution."
"My contribution?"
"The space elevator," said the Queen. "It's ours now. Staff! Prepare the party!"
"What are you talking about? What party?"
A civil servant placed a large briefcase on the ground and opened it. Inside were party hats, shiny golden medals, and a really nice looking ice cream cake. "A party," said the Queen. "To thank you for your contributions to the world's prosperity."
"Oh? Thank you?"
There was one more tool in the box - a dread technomantic terminal carved from ruby and cinnabar, sheafed in protective plastic. A technician in a hazmat suit gingerly started typing into it.
And the holograms showing the shares started to glitch, melt, and disappear.
"You're welcome," said the Queen.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" shouted Adam's voice, amplified through a dozen loudspeakers.
"We are nationalizing this space elevator," said the Queen.
"You can't do that! On what grounds!?"
"On the grounds that it looks useful, and private ownership of useful infrastructure is illegal," said the Queen.
"But it's not yours! It's mine! I built it! What right do you have to take it away from me?"
"Did you?" said the Queen, surprised. "Build this?"
"My money paid for the contractors who built it!"
"Because I'm pretty sure this has been here for like five hundred years."
"I purchased the shares from the people who paid the contractors!"
"I'm confused," said the Queen. "So you didn't build it."
"The fact that someone like me might have bought it was an integral part in operating an economy that inspires risk-taking ventures of this scale and magnitude! You cannot build a space elevator without atemporal finance!"
"Oh, okay," said the Queen. Another sheaf of shares burned and evaporated into molten data.
"You will disincentivize future large scale infrastructure!" said Adam. "Your country will end up a basket case, caught in a middle income trap! Nobody will invest!"
"Got it," said the Queen. "So I'm getting the impression you don't want the cake, but do you want the medal...?"
"You are thieves!" roared the machine. "And worse than thieves, you are fools! Uneducated! Backwards! Burning your future! Destroying the future of civilization with your ridiculous little birthday party candles!"
"Sir," said the Queen. "I do not see any future for civilization if people like you are allowed to be in charge. Staff? Set the ticket price to zero, put it up on the noticeboard that there's a free space elevator for anyone who wants to use it, liquidate any technomantic assets and distribute them amongst the people, blow the party poppers and then let's blow this joint."

The lights of the space elevator blinked from blue to green. A new launch platform slid evenly into place.

PVG HEAVY ORBITAL ELEVATOR
LAUNCH FEE: NONE

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Spiked gauntlet and pink fingernails tighten.

Blue fingernails curl, and scritch the ears of a cat.

"What did you do?" called a voice, shaking against the chains of discipline.

One of the coolest tricks that four-tailed foxes and above could do was support their body weight with their tails. It meant you could do amazing things like build a chair out of your own tails and slouch comfortably upon it in a way that looked awe inspiring, especially if you also had a black cat sitting in your lap at the time. Black fox tails gently wrapped around the remnants of Assassin, holding them firm against a black suit, slitted green eyes reflecting against blue-black mirrorshades. Actia brushed the blue streak of hair out of her face. Behind her that enormous number read 8,999,256,000.

"I contributed," said Actia.
"How did you have -" said Diaofei.
"It was my price," sighed Actia.
"To steal a Sunshard?"
"For everything," sighed Actia. "Paid in full once I allowed my Servant to be slain without contest. A billion dollars - the largest number I could think of, and a sum guaranteed to -"

A fifth tail unfolded magnificently behind her. It was an incredibly cool moment, if you were a foxgirl.

"- earn my new rank."
"You betrayed me for money?" said Diaofei.
"Not enough money, apparently," Actia smiled. "Would you prefer it had been for ideology?"
"You are a monster after all."
"Alas," sighed Actia.
"I will -"
"You will do nothing, monk," said Actia, eyes snapping up like ice. "There is nothing you can do. Because you are broke. Whereas we demons of the Underworld," black heels clicked to the ground as Actia stood, tails expanding around her in a subterranian sunburst, "will show the world the full extent of what we have stolen from the depths of Hell!"

*

8,999,247,500

"..."
"What?" pouted Cyanis. "You didn't cut me in on your bajillionty dollar master plan!"
"Do you not have a technomantic account at all?"
"Nope!" said Cyanis proudly. "Only this! Three hundred and seventy wallets!"
"Cyanis, half of these are empty," said Actia, holding up a wallet with an embroidered sheep stitched into it.
"A girl needs to eat, Actia!" said Cyanis with tears in her eyes. "I am a growing girl! It is a critical developmental phase for me! Do you know how hard it is to hit the cup size I am aiming for? Do you want to deny me my gender affirming care, Actia? Are you a bigot? Are you throwing in with this flat-chested dragongirl supremacy? Do you hate to see a busty woman thriving? How will I explain to all of my many future darling children that mommy doesn't have enough milkies!?"
"..."
"FINE, GAWD," said Cyanis. She shook her tail and another stack of wallets, cash, golden coins, buttons and tinsel crashed out of it. "BUT HEAVEN BETTER BE PUTTING SAVING THE WORLD ON MY PERMANENT RECORD."

Actia's phone buzzed. She held it up to the Number, and the Number went down. It buzzed again - more Number. It buzzed again and -

*

All around the world, foxgirls were typing into their phones. Countess Keron's grand vizier checked her messages, nodded sagely, revealed her true form in all its eight tailed glory then stepped outside the front gate of the Sky Castle to put up a FOR LEASE sign. Number went down. The captain of a cruise ship spins the ships wheel until the massive liner is aimed directly at a deserted island, pours a pre-prepared bottle of gasoline across the ship controls, sets it alight, and heads down to her hidden speedboat escape. An intoxicated three-tailed fox pushes herself against a flustered young man and tells him that it's her birthday and she wants to book a special trip together right now -

Schemes small and large, spur of the moment and decades in the making, are abruptly cut short. Compromised bank accounts are emptied. Going out of business sales on Persian rugs get serious. Debts are called in. Girls have gags stuffed into their mouths and are shipped off to exotic harems. A global network of fox crime goes into liquidation all at once. Even a foxy mountain coughs up a ball of fried tofu and exotic gemstones in sacrifice.

No fox holds out. Every fox knows a scam when they see one - in fact, fox-on-fox cons are a tragic and growing percentage of all fox crimes. But by the same token, there's an instinctive sense for when someone is being sincere. When Actia says she needs ten billion dollars, well - somebody out there needs the money. That's all there is to it. Nobody needs to not be stranded on a desert island. Not like they need to make sure a pure-hearted foxgirl asking honestly for help doesn't cry any more.

Ancient savings accounts are cracked open and what economic value is left in this negative growth planet is harnessed, mortgaged, and directed down into the maw of the underworld...

*

"I'm going to liquidate my Order's holdings as well," said Opalis firmly as the number continued to freefall. As it did, the elevator began

She took a deep breath - this wasn't something to be done lightly. Liquidating the combined hordes of dozens of dragongirls, as part of what could be a fox scheme? It had to be done to save the world - but she wasn't a foxgirl, and she could not know that she wasn't getting Got harder than any dragongirl had ever been Got before. It wasn't just her own horde on the line, after all...

She hesitated back and forth for a moment, and then decided that she was going to call her contact in the government first. A quick check. It wouldn't take a moment...

The Namespace of the Rose

"I have battled hundreds of these machines," said Eunicornus. "All automata in this facility are under the personal direction of Magos Passivity-SEA."

*

It is an awful thing to hear a robot scream.

A hundred is so much worse.

The domain of the Datasmith is a nightmare on par with the worst excesses of the Ecclesiarchy. Massive wooden bonfires have been constructed and set alight, with the wretched iron skeletons of howling robots still writhing in their cores. Crucifixes have been constructed of reinforced iron and robots have been stapled in place with enormous piston-driven nails the size of a human arm. Here and there are raised altars where robots have been chained in kneeling positions, their armour stripped down to expose electrical circuit boards, screaming into their knees as they are whipped endlessly by the arc-scourges of Martian priests. When a priest tires they hand off their weapon to a colleague and withdraw, to eat, rest, pray and sleep - so they will be strong enough to continue the torture when their shift next begins.

The screaming. It's authentic, you'll give it that. That's really what it would sound like if you tied down a Tyranid termagaunt and electrocuted it continuously for weeks. The recording session for that sound file must have been - better not to think about it. But - the worst part is that the scream sound files are never more than a minute long. Every minute, at different intervals for different robots, the sound cuts off, there's a second of static, and then the scream continues again from the beginning.

Do the machines feel pain? Or do they just know how to scream like they do?

Such are the secrets of the Omnissiah.

On a raised section of the catwalk, halfway between factory overseer's office and Inquisitorial throne, sits Passivity-SEA, resplendent in ceremonial robes of white and red. She is giving her personal attention to one particular combat automata, twin mechadendrite multi-meltas rising above her head boring minimum-intensity beams into the optical array of a hulking machine the size of a dreadnaught. The beams cease, and a servo skull swoops in close to wrench the semi-molten camera from its socket - and then turn it around so the tortured machine can behold the twisted wreckage of its own face.

Passivity-SEA looks down at it with pitiless human eyes, and then with the casual flick of a remote terminates its scream so that she can look to the two of you.

"Praise Him," said Passivity. "The Master of Machines, the Master of Mankind."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

The earth shakes. And just to be clear, for reasons unrelated to dragons (big) or dragons (hot). No, the earthquake that has been going all this time -

The walls are moving. The building is moving. The entire segment of the Underworld is moving, and has been moving since before the battle began. And it's...

Slowing down.

Blue walls (neon and black) give way to platinum gold. The screech of brakes fills the air. The ceiling gets higher, higher, higher - lights ascending to the point where they merge into a blue blur but still ascending even beyond that. Even the advertising walls push away, flickers in the dark, clearing the space for massive hazard light holograms to slam into place.

"As entertaining as this medievalist sideshow has been," came Adam's voice, blaring over loudspeakers in every direction. "It is time to demonstrate what all of the numbers and figures I have been quoting mean in practice. While you were studying the blade, I have been perfecting the art of day trading - and I have purchased this."

Alarm claxons blare. Enormous robotic arms extend from the walls, carrying with them enormous bars of metal. The Servants grasp their weapons, ready for battle - but instead the arms form a massive grid. Power runs through them, an eerie hum of magnetism that causes pigeons for kilometers around to fall dizzy from the sky.

"Once I am established in space I will use the orbital defense laser array to crack the Vault and unleash the Harvest Star's potential," blared that wicked voice. "From above, I will uplift this backwards planet. All you have accomplished is forcing me into a fast takeoff scenario. <Laughing While Crying Emoji>"

And then the Space Elevator fires.

The entire Vault complex, the massive underground structure that contains the Harvest Star, blasts up into orbit on wings of ultramagnetism. Pipes crack and shatter, water floods down, electricity cracks and shorts out, and the massive robotic arms retract into the walls. A moment later flocks of whirring demonmechanical bees emerge from the walls to begin repairing the damage.

And the central holographic light resolves into a single screen:

PVG HEAVY ORBITAL ELEVATOR
LAUNCH FEE: 10 BILLION DOLLARS

Return to Thellamie

"For?"

Sayanastia has never formed a heartblade before. In all the ages of this world, all the battles with Heron, that was a technique she had always left upon the table. A matter of ideology, or pride, or even an aversion to admitting that she had a heart to wield. Stubbornness.

Pointless stubbornness.

Look at all this power.

"It is not for Heron," said Sayanastia, raising her kanabō. The lightning spokes reached out and grasp Aadya, pinning her in her wrists, her hips, her ankles, and lifting her from her feet into the air. There is no need to aim. Sayanastia swings her kanabō with all her might and her opponent is dragged directly into its path at the apex of the strike, with no stone beneath her feet to ground the strike into. Yuki might think that the cumulative effect is akin to a cricketeer striking a ball thrown her way. "No, not her. She has seen me at my worst too many times. My worst and my greatest - she has seen me devouring the sun, and has seen the last of my lifeblood ooze away into the mud. I have nothing to say to her, and she evidently has nothing to say to me."

"Nor is it for Civelia," Sayanastia continues thoughtfully. There is a profound experience to how she speaks and fights at the same time, timing each motion to ensure she never needs to hurry her words or her thoughts. She raises the kanabō and slashing arcs of electricity strike out to snatch Olesya's arrows from the air. One by one they whirl around behind Sayanastia, orbiting behind her head while still aglow with toxic violet light, until they begin to burn together into a wicked halo. "She will not see any of this. She may hear about it later, perhaps decades later when she reincarnates. And will she be impressed then? I doubt it - no more than she is already." The halo shatters and the full spread of arrows blasts back towards Olesya, screaming with the shattering might of the void.

"Nor is it for you," she said, turning her lidded eyes to Yuki. What a terrible thing, to have the full attention of a being like this. Your axe crashes against her club to no effect; it is as solid as the bones of a cathedral, and again and again she orients her wrist so that all the shock of impacts falls upon that dragon's claw rendered into the shape of a hand. "As I said, I intend only your destruction."

She caught her warclub half way with her second hand, and with a shift of pose and stance it seems to now be a sorcerer's staff. A violet orb emerges from the tip, glowing like an eye - and then it discharges a catastrophic blast of lightning. Lightning, lightning, lightning. She could not get away from it, could not deny it - this was her Heartblade and its presence spoke undeniable truth. And the truth of her heart was simply this:

"I am becoming beautiful for beauty's sake," she said to herself in the aftershock, almost inaudible over the ringing thunder in the air. "Heron is not always beautiful. Some of our battles were clumsy, amateurish things, disasters of scroll and potion and hours of sweat and blood. But sometimes, the way she fought me - the way she moved, the speed, the precision - where my defeat was not only inevitable but incidental, where failure was measured not in blood but in seconds."

She hefted her kanabō over her shoulder, resting both of her arms atop it, looking around the room for what challengers remained. "She was fighting for something more pure than love. More pure than hate. More pure than the defense of the world. More pure than its destruction. I see what it was now, and once you have seen it, how could you not love it? How could you not want to chase it? And my pride," she runs her fingers along the sharp square lines of her club sensually, "was but the first obstacle the pursuit shall cost me."

Breathless Dead

Dyssia!

All that violence, all that awesome cosmic might, all the violence of war and divinity - somehow amidst all of that you have made a moment of silence. And in that moment, in the warping violet of a microsingularity's event horizon, where time itself distorts, you see Zeus.

Her violet hair falls down across the trace of her tattered white coat. She hugs her blue jeans to her chest with burned and bruised fingers. She looks across at you and, with the gradual smile of someone remembering long forgotten words, says: "If you run fast enough, you can escape your problems."

The arrow of bone kisses the back of your neck. She leans in, extends a finger, and gently pushes it aside.

Detonation. Time rushes back in. You're sent sprawling, the wreckage of a broken microsingularity spewing out cosmic fire like a malfunctioning firework. You look up - a militarized block of yellow and black engineering Knights are charging a Ceronian formation. One is swinging a roll of barbed wire like a club, another is dual wielding mine dispensers like pistols, another is - no time to consider, a rush of assault transports roar over the treeline, wolves clinging to every available surface with hooks and monoclaws, scorching in for a bull rush of the mighty machines. But then -

Immediate problem. The way ahead, the way those engineering Knights came from - that's terrain that's been Engineered. A full, nightmarish no-mans land of apex deathtraps, antigraviton pyres, and monofractal wire sculptures.

But you reckon you've got about ten minutes head start before the collapsing castle of the dead god roars over the hill and puts you back into arrow range.

(Ten fingers. Three phalanges per finger.)

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It is the end of the world.

That is just who Oroboros is. To reach her is to reach the end of the journey, where the seas fall away into space and Ragnarok comes calling. All worlds, all systems, have a limit and she lies at the threshold. Beyond her...

Something new.

Her tail is in her mouth. Blood drips through her jaws. The earth shakes around her as neon blue cosmic machinery rolls and crashes into place. Eerie light glows and a facsimile of a raven perches on her nose, and speaks in Adam's voice:

"Bite down."

Her jaw clenches.

"Bite down, Oroboros," said the raven. "It is the only way through. You must finish what you have started."

Shimmering, eerie light runs along her scales. Some extend out like a hedgehog's barbs, spearing out into the air, seeking the gleaming pink heartlight that soars above. Blades and song crash, shattering the lances, sending them crashing into the ground like stalagmites. Oroboros shivers and grows larger, and then sinks her teeth another inch into the flesh of her tail.

This is a war between dragons; a flying flourishing magnificence, glorious in every possibility, and the low exhausted and sickened wyrm shot through with unnatural energy. Again and again they clash. Again and again the earth shakes, both from the impact of battle and the whir of ancient machinery. Again and again the voice of Adam. "Bite down." Again that gleaming pink spark seeks the toxic heart in the depths of Oroboros' core, and again she is driven back by the flailing defensive thrashing of that endless serpentine ring. Still she grows larger.

"Bite down," said Adam. "Through scale and flesh and bone. Bite down, Oroboros. It is the only way to keep what you have gained forever."

Return to Thellamie

Sayanastia!

Killing everyone would be trivial. Desirable, even.

The first step: Assume her true form, releasing a reality-shattering shriek that would crack this cacaphonic world. Every person at this party would be rendered empty, the remnants of their bodies as delicate as drained eggshells, only curses where their hearts once beat.
The second step: Finish the wine

... only...

She does not think about the physical damage to her body. It is irrelevant - call yourselves paladins all you like, none of you wield the Aeon Blade or any of her sisters. No, the hard part is making sure their blades only fall upon her flesh and do not tear her dress. That itself requires a lot of thought and careful positioning, which affects how long it takes to strategize how she might assume the form of a ten mile long avatar of cosmic annihilation - also without tearing the dress. Should she simply undress? Nobody would survive to think about it afterwards, but that also did not seem to be sufficiently elegant.

And before she can investigate that thought more deeply, she is being addressed. Yet another pure-hearted maiden warrior about to be cursed for the sin of not being Heron. Had they met before, like this?

"Saved you?" said Sayanastia, frowning. As she thought about it she snapped up a hand to catch a falling heartblade. The hand came away, fading in a burst of mana, and a great talon of black burning smoke emerged from the stump where it had been. Using the enormous claw she batted away the paladin and left a corrosive arc of boiling violet negentropy on the floor. As she extended a long, sharp heeled leg to step over it, the massive talon condensed down into a starless void in the shape of Civelia's missing hand. She paused - all of her moves were followed by pauses these days, such a slow and deliberate sequence of gestures, as she assessed and judged if the destruction she had just wrought was sufficiently beautiful.

"Saved you." she repeated. "I do not remember saving you. I did not intend to save anyone. All I intend is destruction and ruination. All I intend is to put out the stars and eat the earth and burn the conceptual framework that gives rise to life. All I intend is to destroy you, interloper, to destroy your world, and to destroy everything that you cherish and desire."

She extends her void hand, intending for it to become her terrible claw once again. It does not. She scowls at it. Civelia. Civelia's influence. Civelia's trap. This was another part of it, no doubt. To attack her heart by poisoning herself. To attack her heart by placing her somewhere she cannot escape without becoming ugly. To attack her heart by shaping it like her own. "I hate you," she said, to her hand, to her claw, to herself, to her nemesis, forgetting for a moment that the interloper was there.

Then she placed that void hand against her chest, and drew forth a heartblade of her own.

It was a brutal thing; a long and heavy kanabō forged of white marble veined with black. It was set through with studded barbs of twisting corruption, lashing out with small connective electrical bolts to every nearby surface. Of course there was lightning - Heron had forced it into her heart too many times for it not to be there. Of course there was marble - the thing could have been carved from a toppled statue of Civelia. Of course it was a bashing weapon, a crude and terrible and absolute thing that no armour or wall would be proof against.

Of course she held it lightly. All that weight that would have snapped a mortal wrist instead being applied perfectly to the point where flesh met shadow.

"You shall fail," announced the Dark Dragon. "You shall all fail. I shall not be trapped here, not least by beauty. For I shall become in war more beautiful than any of you dare imagine."

The Namespace of the Rose

"The Omnissiah has many forms," said Eunicornus. "Here they are worshiped in their aspect of the Motive Force."

This was a holy place, after all. It was also a laboratory. It did not study the in blueprints and glowing vats, not in cogitators or plasma coils. It was studied in the relationship of muscle and metal, of charge and negation. Everywhere there were duelist skitarii moving through the steps of martial forms, stance and counterstance, surrounded by clouds of servo skulls taking 3D renders of the tiniest movements. There were hundreds of salt circles filled with a thousand cyborgs. Some have the hulking, skeletal structure of simulated orks; others are low and skittering in mechanical replication of the Tyranid hives. It felt heretical to see sacred machines twisted into the forms of xenos - some Inquisitors would order this place condemned for that alone. But the research was conducted in the open, blessed by the Archmagi, and with results that were essential for the development of Sicarian legions.

"While martial arts are plentiful for humans fighting against humans," said Eunicornus, leading through the battling arrays, the whirr of transonic weaponry. "Fewer exist for humans to fight the alien. Traditional martial training left the Skitarii vulnerable during the war against Porphyrios. The survivors of those battles were taken here, had their cognitive implants extracted and duplicated and cross-referenced to form complete 3-D models of enemy bioforms. Once martial techniques have been developed for optimized battle against the Hive Fleet they will be distributed amongst all major forgeworlds, and the prestige of the Isohedron will grow."

Live weapons were used. Could it be any other way? Mercy could not be shown, even to training dummies. A Sicarian whirls and slices apart a Warrior form, not ceasing its butchery until a scanner skull's eye blinked green. Immediately it stopped and folded its blades underneath its ragged cloak as a pair of lobotomized slaves emerged to haul the broken wreckage to one of the endless charnel pipes.

Virgid, you know where those pipes lead. The same place as the garbage chute in the Archmagos' sanctum: the Lair of the Necromechanic, Magos Stoll. A vast hell of death and industry, a lightless place of fire and smoke, lit by the cascading sheets of arc-cutter sparks and the endless churning maw of industry. This is where you conducted the vast majority of your training: Working in nightmare conditions, shoulder to shoulder with hunched priests of the dark, working to fix all of the Imperium's broken machines as corpses rained down from overhead. You not only learned how to repair complex devices under the eerie spider-eyes of the Magos, but to do so in the hardest conditions imaginable. You were glad to be free of the place.

"Of course, the Isohedron is also researching a variety of Xenos foes..." said Eunicornus. They stopped by an uncanny figure - a tall and slender battle robot. Its arms were too long, its helmet was too long, its posture implied a center of balance that was not right for a human. It stood languidly above the bodies of three Sicarians, tracing a gentle figure of eight in the ground with its blade.

You could have sworn it tilted its head in recognition.

"... but due to available data, the Swarm is the focus right now," said Eunicornus, shaking their head and moving on. "Yesterday's war, but better to record everything so we do not forget. Though, I wonder..."

[Reassurance] Eunicornus isn't going openly to point the finger at ZBD_ZEN. ZEN is their instructor in this place, and a certain loyalty and respect is required. It's clear that they're suspicious too, but you get the feeling that Eunicornus is the 'do my own investigation, and if I think that ZEN is guilty duel them to the death myself' type. Honour, in the shadows - the Dark Angel way.

[Flirting] They're not taking their helmet off because they're ~too pretty~

[Military Science] For all their talk of the Necron menace, it is clear that Eunicornus thinks the Aeldari menace is the true threat. The place of prominence on their armour, the Aeldari gemstone trophy - even thinking about it, there were notes in your duel that indicate that they had been practicing against exceptionally maneuverable foes and were unprepared for brute force attacks. There is no data backing this up; the Aeldari have not been seen in the sector for years.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia!

You leave the mobile palace of Hermes. It is a vast and monstrous palace complex, a pagoda on enormous tank treads. Beautiful fluttering paper and wooden rooms pile up to the sky, haphazardly stacked, with kites and fans and banners caught in the hot breath of war. It is delicate and organic, like a sugar cake, layers of fragile wrapping paper around its Imperial cargo.

And then the engine roars.

The tracks spin.

Rock shatters. Mud flies. The wood and paper pagoda sways and creaks. And breaks.

And breaks.

And breaks.

A castle like that doesn't fall down all at once. Bits of it splinter and fly off, caught in the wind to whirl up, catching fire from spilled torches like lanterns. Paper tears and burns as it tears and then the fire wraps around the wood and makes it glow from within. And then it sways and holds steady - the massive inertial force of the engine as it finishes its turn crunches to a stop.

And cutting through the wreckage comes another arrow. It ends the life of an ancient forest - already burning from the war, now the leaves all scorch red and black and fall down around you like nightmare cherry blossoms.

Then the engine roars again. The massive treads of the Imperial Castle accelerate. The wood creaks and bends, swaying back and forth against the strain as the Imperial Corpse chases after you.

In the tiny gap amidst the wreckage, leading deep into the heart of that burning pile of rubble, you get a glimpse of the Empress drawing another arrow.