Thanqol

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Even in her dreams she was losing to Asterion.

It was all she could do to hold the shield between them. It was like a blindfold, between her eyes and her opponent's. She couldn't see what was coming, and when she saw glimpses at the edges the shield moved faster than her conscious mind to block whatever that was. A fight was like a sensory deprivation tank being attacked by a bear, hanging helpless, staring at nothing, as bone-jarring impacts fell upon her from all sides.

But wouldn't it be easier if...

She was on her ass before she could finish the thought, before she'd realized she was acting on it, staring down the horrifyingly unpleasant reminder that this wasn't Asterion. And that losing hadn't solved anything.

Then the Cat cut in with her questions.

"I, um... well that is..."

She sighed, struggling to get back on her aching feet. No hesitation there. The celestial lion had immolated her sloth in its radiant jaws and ever since then Canada had never heard a digit preceding the word 'push ups' she didn't like. Why couldn't training involve more pushups? Pushups were awesome.

Her eyes flicked between the Cat and Goudan. What did they know? Was this a rhetorical question, forcing her to say the embarrassing thing so that she had to take responsibility for it? Was it a test, and the answer in the front of her mind was actually wrong somehow? Did they genuinely have no strong ideas and she could get away with saying whatever? What did they want from her?

This was important because she really didn't want to admit that she'd deliberately lowered her guard. That just for a moment she'd found the idea of defending herself less valuable than the idea of letting Goudan have the win.

She opted to take refuge in literality. "Well, as you said, I hit my knee. And then I lowered my shield. And then I got knocked over." That was indeed the sequence of events, Canada, good job, gold star. "Hey, can we do some more strength training next?"

[Pierce the Mask: 2,1 - +1 for mundane, -2 for being angry, so that's a two]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

You have trained with some of the greatest warriors of the Imperium, and part of that was learning to see anything as a weapon. A footstool, a dessert spoon, convenient chandeliers - the expectation being that when violence emerges it will be an unexpected assassination attempt so you must make do with whatever comes to hand. So you are no stranger to strange weapons - but at the end of the day all of those improvised weapons are tools to keep you alive until you can arm yourself with a proper sword or spear. That was how real fighting was done, after all.

And now you're seeing someone train with a scythe.

It's alien. Everything you've seen here today is familiar - it's marvelous, but it exists within the Imperial context. But what the princess is doing with that scythe is like nothing you've ever imagined. The motions are methodical and industrial, but then jarring and wild - weight and counterweight, sometimes she's swinging the blade and sometimes she's using it to catapult herself forwards. When one half is still the other is in motion. A sword is an extension of the arm; that scythe is like a dance partner.

"Your grace! You have a guest!" said Assistant Secretary Godal, slithering onto the practice field without even the slightest care about the whirlwind of blades he was moving towards. Epistia barely caught herself before she cut the brainsquid in half, he seemed not to notice and immediately went about fixing her hair - wild and flattened with sweat, oblivious to his interruption. "Princess Redana has come a long way to see you, you know, you should at least make a few concessions to appearances."

"Princess who?" said Epistia, trying to slap away the octopus' corrective tentacles as her breath and adrenaline still pounded, deeply disoriented by the sudden interruption.

Alexa!

This is how things are done between warriors.

The phalanx glides up behind you, spears lowered, shields raised. Galnius and his soldiers, for all their misgivings, stand alongside you on the field of war. They can do no less. They can conduct themselves with such pride because when the battle is joined they will hold the line. You are fewer, but you are not lesser.

King Jas'o stands against you across the field, bow held low against the ground. He still has not strung it - cautious, so cautious. If he places a Thunderbolt to that string then he is declaring in the sight of all the gods that he is worthy of wielding the power of Zeus. You cannot simply release your grip and put the arrow back in your quiver after such a statement. You can see the strain it leaves on him, overcoming his own reckless nature - hands shaking, eyes focused with hawklike precision.

The two of you lock eyes across the field as a strange breathlike wind sends the amber waves of grain rippling between you. The phalanxes stamp, stamp, stamp, each crash of heavy armour into the dirt an expression of their valour. Athena stands upon the battlefield, watching as the strange world fades away.

Then King Jas'o looks away. His vision falls on the Ceronians as they make their way out onto the field as a third side. His bloodhound mind sees the true prize and oh, how he wants to escape from this confrontation and go after the princess.

Roll to Keep Them Busy, Alexa. You're not distracting King Jas'o but rather his soldiers - is your voice strong enough, are your insults sharp enough to prevent the King from sending forth a champion in his place? Can you hold his attention while Vasilia and Dolce sneak away to conduct those negotiations?

(The answer will, of course, be yes - but the results of your roll will tell you how good a shot King Jas'o is with that bow when you pierce the thin film of his patience)

Vasilia!

Your fate is in Alexa's hands as you move through the vineyards and orchards, cutting your way around the staring armies in the greatest traditions of the Starsong. Ahead of you are - ah! Ceronians! You know them!

The location of Ceron itself is, of course, a secret known only to the Empress and her successor, but you've met more than enough of their roaming mercenary companies in the void of space. As far as soldiers go there are none finer, and as sisters go there are none closer. They fight as though they are telepathic, able to conduct the most complex operations with perfect timing and moving as though they are pushed and pulled by the hand of Athena herself. Were you to convince them to join you the warriors of King Jas'o would not be able to stand against them.

But as you're nearing the lupine warriors you're cut off. A golden shuttle crashes through the orchard in front of you, gilt and gems tumbling from its already damaged ornamentation like Hades' rain. The great ramp slams down, and from the personal shuttle of the Admiral of the Grand Armada emerges...

Bella!

It's hot.

It's wet.

You smell canines.

You walk down the ramp into the green hell. You feel the wash of thermal radiation from the malfunctioning engine core above on your face. You feel the moist ground squish under your feet, soft enough to absorb footfalls and making it impossible to tell who is where. You look around at the scene of destruction, at the plumes of toxic black smoke in the distance from where the Imperial shuttles were smashed open and left to burn. You see armies, weapons drawn, murder in their eyes.

You pass under your shuttle, still stained pink and grey from the monsters that threw themselves blindly into your path and died for it. You step out into the most horrifyingly open area you've ever experienced in your life. Your world was the boundaries and dimensions of the Imperial Palace, rooms that while large have nothing on the enormity of this place. It crushes down on you. The fact that there are houses at all makes it all worse because it means you're in the most wasteful, indulgent suburb of all of Tellus.

And in front of you, in your way, stands a lion and a sheep.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

As reflective as this place is, Canada's never been able to shake the feeling that it hates reflections. She sometimes sees glimpses or angles or sweeping vistas that are beautiful because of their shattering black glass, perfect and unspoiled - except for her. Everywhere she sees the impressions of claws - damage from the lion, perhaps? Or are all these jagged edges traps for her? She was purified through destruction but the job wasn't finished - she still held onto too much of herself and the mirrors see her as a half finished job, not complete until the hollowing out is finished...

Her soft shoes toe through broken glass. She knows sleeping here is a terrible idea - but she needs to rest, and won't be able to find her way out tonight. The soft music of cracking, of things becoming smaller and sharper and even more difficult to repair, accompanies every footstep. The floor is no less cluttered here than her apartment but she doesn't even know where the clear spaces are. And everywhere she looks jagged eyes look back at her, violet bright circles and with violet dark circles of exhaustion. She'd broken this place too.

She finds a clear area - a huge piece of glass miraculously unbroken - and lies down atop it. Her head turns to the side and it seems like she's lying in the embrace of her own reflection. She looks at her with quiet reproach, and as much as she wishes she would comfort her, forgive her, it doesn't come.

So she sleeps in the vain hope that dreams will free her from her ten million eyes.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada's room is lit by crimson light.

There are exactly ten carefully placed positions for footsteps on the floor. Ten steps can take her in a full circuit of this space. It had seemed cramped when she'd first moved in, and that was before the junk had started to accumulate. Spare tires and pumps, chains and pedals and aluminium skeletons - all the paraphernalia of pushbike repair filling every available inch of floorspace. A bed that doubled as a workbench (it was certainly hard enough), that had the work-in-progress bikes removed she needed to sleep. The acrid smell of chemicals clashed with the uncomfortable heat that came from too-close proximity to the building's central heating. The sink was full to the brim with black fluid, and the bathroom had multiple large tubs filled with unidentifiable substances. Jagged black rectangles hung from the shower curtain like salamander scales. Step, step, step - and she was in bed, slumping face down, not looking at the one fully developed photo shining at her from atop the toolbox.

Photograph chemistry and bike repair. They'd always paid her way, no matter where the journey had taken her. Digital photography was the work of the devil, her dad had always grumbled - true artistry boiled within these vats. What's a collection of volts compared to something you could hold in your hands? What's a facebook page compared to something you can hold to your chest? Some part of her had always wondered if he wasn't as proud of her transformation into Canada Taliv, the Light of Ra, as he was of the fact that she'd disassembled the hated mobile phone to do it.

Her fingers brushed past the smiling faces in that photograph, tracing that same familiar line smudged into the glass. She'd turned to look at it again despite her attempt at resistance. The four of them together, close as family - shifting and unpredictable and wild, but oh, wasn't the danger so fascinating? A future that had the colours right even if the shadows had yet to congeal. And then the crashing, shattering, unwelcome white light that had washed it all away before it was strong enough to stand on its own.

It's in that state, mind yearning, heart aching, that the light bulb burns out. She plunges into the dark, fingers against the glass. The picture had been a reflection of her heart...

... but reflections had two sides.

Fellowship: The Heart

Judgement is a terrible weapon in service of vice.

Here and now it flows through Ailee in regal violet and white, the impressions of robes and scepters and the skulls of birds and men. It reaches across into his body and muscles and forcibly fills them with sloth and cowardice. He pulls his strikes against his will. He cravenly backs down when she glares at him. An assault of fury and rage is diluted, watered down, transformed into the sad flailing of an old man who should have known better. Trying to batter your way past her holy words of Judgement? You may as well be striking the shadow in your own heart. You are who she says you are, old man, and she says you are no one.

(The energy crackles up her own arm as well. Judgement hates being wrong. Enforcing this reality has a cost.)

[Overcome: 8, damaging Pride for a lasting solution. Next roll is made with hope.]

And like a winter wind through the streets of the capital she snaps out like a serpent, taking the bat from him and cracking it over one knee. She takes the shoe from him next and hurls it over her shoulder into the river. All the violence that broke an unsatisfactory outcome coalesces in a terrible crackling hammer of violet, Judgement made manifest. It is an ungodly weapon hypersaturated with the vice that rules the deepening realms, a weapon angels would fear to cross.

"STAND BACK, JACKDAW," said Ailee, evidently not taking that 'less angy' bit to heart. "WE'RE GOING TO CONDUCT SOME EXPERIMENTS ON CLOWN IMMORTALITY."

Breathless Dead

THE GRAND ARMADA
RESPONSE LEVEL: 4
The beasts of the jungle have been enraged by the presence of the Imperial Shuttles

Hider

Location Stats:
Imperial. This place is home to the Soldiers of Empire
Elysium Fields. This place is home to the Warriors of Ceron

Bad Weather
The dark storm of Poseidon commences, and all within are in terrible peril.
Bad weather is dangerous, and will need to be Overcome whenever it gets in the way. Bad weather always deals Soft Cuts.

Dark Secret
This location gains another stat - the Elysium Fields.

Wild Animal
When you reach this Response level, a Beast or Scourge threat will try to eat the next player who goes out into the open.

Show of Force
When you reach this Response level, the Boss gains one free Hard Cut.
They can make this Hard Cut at any time while they have the Spotlight. Once they use it, they lose it until the next time this Response level is reached.

Redana!

"Of course, Princess!" said Assistant Secretary Godal with apparent relish as it started its chaotic and unpredictable path up the hill slope. "Under prior circumstances I was one of the administrators of the 'Eater of Worlds', holding an office of some distinction in the Palace of Thought." it pointed up at the enormous crystalline brain above - though it was hard to look directly at it with the small sun of the Engine at its heart. "A creature the size of the Eater of Worlds could not be administered through mere meat like you or I, and so Poseidon, in his wisdom, cultivated our society within its depths. I don't imagine this will be unfamiliar to you, from what I've heard your own ships and planets are maintained with similar social structures, it's simply what is practical for steering an entity of this size. Unfortunately," and here the Assistant Secretary of Shame almost seemed to be gloating, "the administrative caste of our society was optimized for intelligence and harmony. This meant my colleagues, Hades rest them, were not superlative warriors like the administrative cast of your society. The immuneoforms did what they could, Hades rest them, but the system broke down in remarkably short order once the Palace was breached."

It seemed so smug about this. Like this was the most satisfying thing that could possibly have happened to it.

"Myself and my surviving colleagues either surrendered or fled," Godal went on. "The Cerons were delighted to make use of my residual administrative functions. The atmospheric bubble, the triggering of the digestive reflux action to bring fertile soil up into the skull area - our work," it preened itself, pleasantly pink-maroon patterns moving across its skin. "Some others, of course, are out there trying to rally the immunoforms to attain some sad postmortem vengeance, but Lord Hades favours the Ceronians and the immunoforms have mostly - and rightly! - identified them as cancerous, and dealt with them as such."

Godal gave a happy little burble-sigh, as though the spreading of this tale of defeat and failure was the reason he was born. Perhaps it was!

As the brainsquid continues to natter its way through the shameful history, it's leading you up the hill through the Ceronian town. Everything is so spaced out here; houses have front gardens, streets are lined with flowers, running water flows downhill in spiral channels. It's idyllic, even as the signs of mobilization start to show everywhere. Old warriors step outside and squint at the distance, hands naturally filling with heavy, bladed farming tools. They move by instinct, flowing together, ones and twos and then in masses, coming down in the opposite direction from you. You alone move against the flow of ancient muscle stirring.

The temples here are all to Hades. This is shocking - no society you've ever heard of has ever shown as such monolithic devotion to a single member of the Pantheon. Perhaps it makes sense if they believe that they are dead and in the underworld, and thus Hades is the only one relevant to them - but it still sends shivers down your spine in the same way seeing a house perched on the edge of a volcano might, no matter how solid its foundations.

Vasilia! Alexa!

The Imperial Shuttles follow you down, cutting through the trees with their massive bulks, caring nothing for anything in their path. King Jas'o had taught them well: eyes on the prize. Don't accept distractions. Attack relentlessly and heedlessly.

A lesson for kings or fools about to be devoured by swarms of consuming sea life.

The immune response of the Eater of Worlds is shocking. Enormous killer whale creatures breach the water, orange and blue, snapping shuttles out of the air with their crushing jaws. Prismatic crabs raise their heads and claws above the surface, snapping shockwaves of such intense force that it knocks ships from the air. A grand school of flying fish moves over the surface of the water like a silver blanket, each of them generating an ELF pulse that rips into the sky like claws of lighting.

Suffice to say you lose your pursuers.

You scorch ahead to touch down not long after King Jas'o's shuttle scorches a massive, burned swathe through the fields as it comes to a stop. You come down the ramp just in time to see him and his remaining soldiers forming up at the bottom of the ramp. The King hasn't put a Thunderbolt to his bowstring yet but there is no doubt he will as soon as he sees a target come out into the open

Bella!

You cut through the storm.

The glowing lights of the Armada shine mistily behind you, still forming up into a defensive formation that will cut them through all of this, the most politically vulnerable ships forced to the wings. You're going forwards, the tub of a ship rolling and jarring with each cosmic wind, with every crack of technicolour lightning that leaves pink and green fires flashing all along the prow of your ship. You see dead ships drift into each other, the impacts of titans. The way ahead is lit with fires and chaos as mines slam into each other and into dead ships, carried by Poseidon's mad winds. The dead pour from breaches in slain ships and your path is paved in bone and blood.

Hades is behind you, eyes such a terrible blue. The storm screams and it screams in every other colour, a bruise in space.

And you cut through it all, driven by something more terrible than death and nightmare.

You plunge into the maw of the Eater of Worlds.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

The sky sharpens to blue long before the sun comes over the distant mountains. Light enough to write by.

As soon as she'd seen Shokyou's blank notebook she'd begged for it, and she didn't regret it. Not only was it a treasure in its own right, imitating Dulcinea's process of writing everything down in real time was as relaxing as she'd imagined it to be. Her pens flowed, curling past each other in intricate dance, a waterfall of celestial calligraphy. The first hand was dedicated to marking all the strange flows of physical sensation, the second was detailing everyone she'd met here so far, their traits and possible interactions, the third was reflecting on the place itself and the strange manifestations of physical law, and the fourth held a large mug of corrupting acid Shokyou called 'orange juice' to her lips. She reflected in motion, like a sky caught in a mountaintop river.

She paused and looked up at the sun as it crested the horizon, pursing her lips thoughtfully, tapping her self-pen against her lips as the others continued to write.

She sun turned around and went back the way it came, dipping back below the horizon.

Never backwards, never down, unmoving am I, the worlds are drawn to me, bound by me, the center point, I will hold them close and bring them love and never ever fall

The self-pen lowered back to the paper and noted its observations on the return of the water-response. It continued to do so until the sun rose over the horizon for the second time, and the pain in her chest loosened a little.

Finally, as Shokyou blearily emerges from the little house with a bowl of cereal, she folds away her arms and closes the notebook. She took a deep breath and her mind cleared in a moment, organizing and clarifying. She was again called to duty. She took a perverse little pleasure in standing and giving a formal bow to Shokyou - she'd never been outranked before, but such was the nature of being a guest. She had already come to the conclusion that Shokyou was a Buddha - who else could live so simply? Who else could seem so tranquil?

She needed to be careful. Buddhas were dangerous.

She accepts the cereal and starts to diligently eat it using her pens as chopsticks, not understanding the significance of the spoon that came with it. As the taste sets in she stares at it in shock for a moment.

"There really are infinite varieties of ramen," she murmurs. "Thank you for your gift, Awakened One."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

"Given?" she laughs a little, despite herself. "You should know this, Tirzah. There's only one gift you gave me that I care about - and that's the chance to keep fighting. I left a much nicer home than this to become a hero, and for me, the stakes haven't changed at all."

It seems like nothing's changed. There are still those nails against her throat, marking the passage of every breath. There are still the bruises from a fight with Asterion and the exhaustion from a day of peril. There are still night-time confessions with Tirzah. There's still no guarantee there'll be a dawn tomorrow.

"But you know why I'll never stop. You are the expert, after all," she said. "You know I'll never stop until you're free."

Breathless Dead

THE GRAND ARMADA
RESPONSE LEVEL: 3
Redana has disturbed the natural order by setting out to steal from a god.
There is not yet additional response generated by the fight in the air.

Hider

Location Stats:
Imperial. This place is home to the Soldiers of Empire
Elysium Fields. This place is home to the Warriors of Ceron

Bad Weather
The dark storm of Poseidon commences, and all within are in terrible peril.
Bad weather is dangerous, and will need to be Overcome whenever it gets in the way. Bad weather always deals Soft Cuts.

Dark Secret
This location gains another stat - the Elysium Fields.

Wild Animal
When you reach this Response level, a Beast or Scourge threat will try to eat the next player who goes out into the open.

Redana!

The two old guards stand to look at the distant fires and pick up their weapons - like spears, but with strange loops of something like rope instead of points. Some sort of farming, animal handling tool and not a weapon of war, but there is still something just so about the way they hold them...

Ceronian Veterans

Ceronian Veterans
No longer young and spry, but there isn't anything they haven't seen.
Storm Trooper: Elite Troopers never deal damage to the fellowship. They automatically capture anyone they can surround and separate from the group.
Formation Instinct: Anyone who keeps the Ceronian Veterans busy cannot get higher than the 7-9 result, and one of their commanders is summoned in the process.

You shiver. Warriors to overthrow an empire indeed.

"We're going to be busy," growled Sands. "Take the brainsquid." He unlocks a metal door near the gate while Leon tenses as if looking to catch someone trying to flee. Sands pulls the door open in a sudden gesture and an enormous bulk that had been pressed right up against the door falls and impacts on the ground in an amorphous mess and...

"Greetings, noble princess, in the name of the mother of storms!" burbled the octopus as the complicated mass of tentacles sorted themselves out. It's voice contained no hint of embarrassment at being caught evesdropping, and its orange and purple skin colours pulsed and shifted strangely. It was huge. "I am Godol, Assistant Secretary of Shame, Guilt and Self Awareness, I am charmed to meet you -" a tentacle tried idly to grasp your hand but the octopus seemed to pay it no mind. It pulled itself up, standing on the tips of its tentacles, taller than Bella and many times as bulky. "I of course will serve you in any way you demand! My function is to assist! And secretary!" It chortled at its own joke.

Vasilia!

Combat is not normally done in shuttles like this on the Imperial side. Normally there's a proper ship nearby that can just clear them away with a sweep of its ELF weaponry, or they're landing unopposed on a ship that's had its ELF weapons disabled. The idea of fighting in-atmosphere with them is completely alien to Imperial thought though it's the sort of thing that happens in resource scarce frontier territories all the time. You are by far the most experienced person here.

What you need to watch out for is the Imperial shuttles getting close. They're defaulting to what they know, which is to ram and board - and that's the sort of thing that's actually still very dangerous in this situation. But you start looking at this place as more than just a wonder, start looking at it as a battlefield and...

"There is life here," said Artemis, pointing. "And where there's life there is danger."

And you see it. Those deeps hold more life than the trees. Those shapes are not rocks, they're life. This place is filled with the strange and dangerous aspects of the Eater of Worlds, and you could provoke them into terrible response.

King Jas'o is focused entirely on the prize like a bloodhound. His ship hard burns directly towards the town on the hill-top, but it's not an attack position - he's flying proud and regal, looking to land and announce himself to the local ruler. And that stirs an idea...

"He doesn't have loyalty to his men," murmured Artemis, huntress' mind razor sharp alongside your own, focused on the weaknesses of your foe. "He thinks they've failed him and wants to switch them out for whatever local allies he can rally. Prevent him from winning over the locals and he'll have thrown away his army for nothing."

Bella!

The Codexia runs.

It's startling how fast she goes - she's not an olympic champion like you, but she's doing this in full armour. She's keeping pace and even gaining on the shuttle as it thrashes through the launch bay, Athena at her side like a storm cloud, winds flowing underneath every footfall. You're still getting your grip on the controls when you see her tearing along the catwalk at a dead sprint, leaping into the air with a battlecry, raised spear coming down to tear right through the transparent steel of the viewscreen...

There's a faint click, like the impact of marbles, and with a massive jolt the ship kicks forwards. The Codexia glances off the back and rolls all the way along the back to land in a heap on the hangar floor behind you. She's on her feet in seconds again and racing again but you're clear free into the black before she can gain enough speed. You're in the black, amidst the brutal spear-shapes of the Armada, on your way to the wrecks.

Ivory Smile, sitting next to the engine amidst a scattering of cards and a hastily written prayer strip stuck to the golden machinery, lets out a long, shaking exhale of relief.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Once again, she submerged herself in another's presence. It was so easy.

With Set she was the questioning Watson, the one who gently doesn't understand to help tease out brilliant ideas. With Marianne she was subject, kneeling before the inferno. With Asterion she was a wrecking ball of glass, breaking and broken all at once. And with Tirzah...

She doesn't know how to be. Doesn't know who to be. Please! Please, tell her! Tell her if she should kneel! Tell her if she should stand! Your whole society is based around the Great Chain and that divine promise that everyone will know their place - so tell her where hers is! Why torment her like this, her alone in all the world not knowing if she should kiss lips, hands, or feet. Damn you, Tirzah, please...

She melts, drawn out and in-between and so fragile, a mirror reflecting nothing and rendered into mere inert glass. She aches into that touch on her throat, as vulnerable as the moment she was first broken.

"Tell me how to save you," she whispers. What must she give? There must be something, there must be something of herself still to sacrifice.