She didn't so much look upon the Horse-Headed God as she placed herself between it and the world.
A shadow on the sun. The outline of something enormous and terrible. A... violence and intensity that she could feel from here. It wasn't the brutal cruelty of the Bull-Headed God destroying things weaker than it, it wasn't the aloof menace of those who spy and subvert and break. This was like her - a terrible vision of her. Broken just a little further. Pushed to the point where the pain became funny. Where regret and honour and love were transmuted through the terrible alchemy of madness into laughter.
This wasn't strength that she was staring at. It wasn't a shadow blocking out the sun.
It was a pit.
Deep and wide and in the centre of the road she was walking upon. A hollow place carved where light should be. She didn't know how she'd avoided that emotion so far. Had she already touched on it? Was she already in the process of falling into it and just hadn't hit the bottom yet? If she thought about it she could feel that same laughter welling up inside the darkest place in her soul, and who was there to save her from it? Anathet had said that these weren't the first High Gods...
She pulled her eye away from the telescope - biting her lip, fearful tears glistening. Oh, stars, of all the things that could have been at the end of the Great Chain. She'd thought the Annunaki at least had the direction right - that the chain went up instead of down.
Ailee, don't provoke them. Ailee, don't get angry. Ailee, don't hit that clown. Choruses of restraint right up until the moment she actually showed some. Indecision - that was it. Not just a word, a vice. The presence of the King in all his shadowed glory. Hellbent energy. Thank you for helping her bring it out, friends.
She breathed it in deeply. Power to chain. Power to bind. Power to lock entire lives away inside themselves. Exactly right.
Pride burst around her in its jagged emerald flames, spreading in technicolour black and poison green eyes. She was going to demonstrate why she was worthy. She was going to bind a Vice in real time. Willpower struck the flames and carved them into runes. Her eyes closed and she levitated off the ground, traveling cloak falling to the ground to reveal long, bare limbs covered in elaborate arcane sigils, burning green. The green and black caught and carved around the muddy maybe blue-gold-white. Pride dragged the fog into place, sharp and smiling with triangles like the Coyote in the moon.
She spun in place, wrapping the blackness around her in a dress. Midnight satin, jagged zig-zags of green, short and sharp and with a long flowing train behind her held aloft on their own dark wings. Her fur-sigils flowed and merged into brilliant green painted eyes, looking about everywhere with pure white irises. Her hair undid its loose, casual brushed-back state and resumed its destined form - as long and cascading as a unicorn's mane. The tip of her tail burst into emerald fire and left aftertrails like a paintbrush across canvas. The sword-smile settled into her hand, an optical illusion impaled on its tip.
Magical transformation complete, Ailee snapped into the air like a curse, carried by fire and vision into one perfect strike and fade. Her feet have touched the ground and her sword is already fading back into her smile - and Indecision is lodged in the heart of the Wreck.
A terrible vice for such a creature. Should it stay in its shell, or burst out from it? Should it threaten to detonate its gunpowder or avoid it for fear? Should it attack or flee? It stands paralyzed by the branching paths. Every second its options change and so it has to reassess - again and again. It's still considering its options when its skull is crushed by an out of control locomotive, bringing an end to its malformed existence.
[Finish with hope because she just damaged her Pride: 6,1,6 +1, making the total lucky 13.]
Ceronians are built around formation instinct. It's the deepest, most enduring part of their biology - the chemical telepathy that allows thoughts and responses to be transmitted instantly through a unit. Even when everything else is hollowed out the instinct remains.
So it is that Queen Hatchan's mindless soldiers fight and die the same as they might in life. Without fear or hesitation they move and feint, paying with their blood to establish the Athenean circles. Many of them die in the process. Without the War Goddess to favour them each mistake is paid in blood from that rending axe. The due is claimed one way or another. But there are enough of them and the noose tightens - a volley of toxic, choking solid projectile rounds, an escape route blocked by shields and spears - and a Queen racing forwards in a high, arcing leap, talons trailing streamers of bloody crimson lightning. She'll drag you down even if she has to spend every soldier she has to do it.
But Bella! Without Athena to warn her of hidden dangers that obsessive focus is dangerous. She's lost all perspective, doesn't see you, doesn't respect you. You can Finish her before she can close this trap around Redana.
Vasilia!
"As I thought," hissed Ivory Smile. He'd abandoned further applications of magic and was fighting in earnest now, inklike shadows pouring after him in jagged, vicious aftershocks. "You have no control. You fight like an animal, unable to restrain your emotions. You're a failure who has lived a life of failure, and all of those failures are coming due now."
Cloaked by a razor twist of energy, Ivory Smile frees his book and snatches it open into his hand. Indigo tendrils of light burst from the pages, and Hades reaches over his shoulder to turn the page to the correct one. "Perhaps if you'd done one good thing in your life you'd be able to resist this," said Ivory Smile, pushing his glasses snidely up his nose as power built. "Alas."
Dolce!
"I am a loyal soldier," King Jas'o said. He snapped his fingers and a soldier stepped up and condescendingly patted you on the head. Strange thing to have a hand gesture for. "And I wouldn't dream of abandoning my responsibility to Princess Redana by having her miss out on an opportunity to fulfil Zeus' will. However..." his eyes narrowed. "These soldiers are probably somewhat worthless as they stand now. Very well! Ceronians! Purify yourselves! Make obsolescence to the gods! Right yourselves first with Zeus, then Athena, and then join me! The rest of you, onwards!"
The shield-platform accelerated into a march, King Jas'o holding out his spear pointing forwards like he was posing for a painting. The soldiers he'd brought with him stormed past into the city, leaving the disconsolate and furious Ceronians to fall into chaos trying to determine how to make things right with Zeus.
But over there Vasilia is in trouble - but she's still holding Ivory Smile's full attention. If you go to her now you can Finish him before he completes his terrible work.
Alexa!
The Ceronians do not bar your way. They are confused, demoralized, falling about in lamentations to the gods or desperate sacrifices. They are in no condition to obstruct your progress. But your sprint is taking you in the same direction as King Jas'o - you see him, towering high on the shields of his men, focused razor-keen on the palace ahead. Behind you, you can hear the struggling run as Galnius and their soldiers struggle to keep up with you, refusing stubbornly to abandon you even now.
He himself pays you no mind. His phalanx continues its relentless pace forwards. But a rear guard of skirmishers detach from the main force and start opening fire with their toxic solid-shot weapons to deter your charge. Bereft of support, though, and with a phalanx at your back these soldiers are nothing more than a speed bump to you - you can Finish them if you wish, or you could roll to Overcome to simply bypass them at speed.
You know intellectually that the Queen is unbound by the Law. It's still surprising when she grips you by the throat, her lightning talons running agonizingly into your neck. More than her speed and strength her absolute disregard for taboo still shocks you. This is someone who has done far worse than murder a guest in front of her daughter.
"They say the stranger may be Zeus in disguise," hissed the Queen. "Good! I hope you are so she feels it when I spit in your eye. How dare you question me? Do you know what I have had to do to build this place? My people are blind, stupid, savage slaves. They live for war. They live for honour," she spits that word like it's a curse. "Courage and honour. Those are the words of Ceron! Courage and honour! They speak them like a brave death has meaning. So I gave them the deaths they so craved. And see what I have built after freeing them from the chains of courage and honour! A paradise, perfect until you brought ruin to it!"
Her other taloned hand comes up level with your eyes. It burns a terrible red. ELF weapons are widely known for being nonlethal, a way to scramble electrochemistry and in sufficient dosage knock out even the most resilient of bioforms. But your auspex isn't registering that as normal ELF lightning - it's warning you that this is a Razorwhip, and whatever that means, it's a forbidden class of weapon.
"Your mother taught me this, princess," said Queen Hatchan, voice rising though it lacked the grace of Zeus' oratory. "In order to truly reign one must become a tyrant. In order to change a people gone mad one must defy the gods. In order to be free one must break the chains of courage and honour... and that means breaking those who cling to those damned words."
The talon comes down - and you're torn backwards. That crimson lightning passes inches from your eyes, but though off balance the Queen still manages to slash your leg as you're pulled backwards and...
You experience why this weapon is forbidden. It's agonizing. It's cruel. There's no justice or mercy in it. You have today endured the strike of a true Thunderbolt and there is nothing in common between these two weapons.
Princess Epistia has pulled you away from the dark queen's grip. "Mother, please -" she starts to say, but with that same ruthless lack of hesitation the queen backhands her daughter in the mouth and sends her to the ground alongside you.
"Some never accepted the first death I gave them," said the Queen, looking about at her dull-eyed servants. "No matter. There are other deaths."
[Take necrotic damage]
Vasilia!
Ivory Smile, despite his name, doesn't strike you as a man who has ever smiled. Smirked, maybe, but only while prefixed by words like 'bitterly'. His movements are so functional and basic as you fight him, literal combat automata have more range and variance in their motions than he does. You've almost taken him for a dullard when you notice him pull off his left glove when your eyes are focused on him making another lunge for his book - and there are words tattooed onto the surface of his hand.
He raised his hand and began an extremely complicated hand sign. Each time his knuckles arranged in a different way there was a flash of terrible red energy as the glyphs aligned in different ways.
Hades is there, eyes the colour of an arctic sky. "Dark Lord, King of Diamonds, I call upon the past," hissed Ivory Smile. "Drown this soul in regret."
[Take damage. In addition, Ivory Smile has cursed you until tomorrow's sunrise with memories of the past. You are still keeping him busy]
Dolce!
"Zeus..."
The name rasped from General Ralib's lips, half forgotten. Zeus. They lived. The Empire lived. And they... oh, stars and heavens, they had defied Zeus Cloudgatherer. "Zeus! We are... we need to conduct sacrifices. Auguries. Immediately! It may already be too late -"
A ripple goes through the formation. Ceronians move as one, or not at all.
A moment later King Jas'o is nearby, still standing atop the shields of his soldiers, looking down at you. He has the awareness, though, to bow his head to you. "Greetings, priest. Have no fear, the gods will get their due - why, I sacrificed my finest racing Plover to Zeus this morning! In fact, why not go on ahead and get started with the sacrifices, we'll go and fetch the princesses to ensure that they can be blessed by royalty."
You've actually put yourself in a position where you have enormous leverage, even though Jas'o is making a convincing counteroffer. Roll to Talk Sense with Grace or Sense and you might turn aside the entire army until they've completed their religious rituals; on a 7-9 result the King and his men will go on ahead.
Alexa!
Soft-eyed Hera looks at you with a sympathy that you've rarely seen from any other. Her hands reach down and grasp the shaft of the arrow and even she gasps softly at the touch of it.
"Zeus has turned her back on this place," said Hera quietly. "She sees only the darkness, sees only that it is a thing to be scoured away with the flash of lightning. She doesn't see that people live here too. That this is a place worth healing, not just destroying..."
The Thunderbolt comes free. Hera carefully tucks it away inside her robes.
"Do one thing for me. Find the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt - he is locked in the Queen's palace. He has the ability to move the Eater of Worlds, even in its current dismal state. Set him free and he will move the Eater of Worlds into the void, away from the Armada. They'll have a chance to decide what they want."
Bella!
You can smell the blood. You can smell the sickness. There are no gods here, inside these walls. Something here is terribly wrong and you're heading directly towards it.
You come to a halt on a rooftop, a clear view to the palace. Redana is there. Redana, on the ground, before a monster. Crimson lightning wraps around the talons of a damned queen. You watch someone, some replacement, try to do your job and fail. She goes down like a bag of mud to a single blow. That failure seems to fill the entire world. You have had nightmares of failing Redana. You have dedicated your life to ensuring you never fail Redana. You worked to eliminate that possibility, purging all possible weaknesses from your mind and body so that would never come to pass.
And here is... a pretender. A faker. Someone who dared to try and protect Redana while not being up to the task. These amateurs have no idea! No idea of the danger!! No idea of the responsibility!! No idea of the commitment required to protect a princess!! If it was you she wouldn't be hurt!! If it was you that woman would be fucking dead before she could even lay a hand on your princess!!
It's not Redana's fault. She doesn't understand how much she needs you. It's the fault of whoever these people are, making her feel safe when she's not.
You're some distance away. There's still some sprinting to do. You can make it. You're the only one who can.
"WHAT IS MY MOUTH DOING?" said Jasper, experiencing her very first yawn. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"
This was a rebuke! A curse! A... a... a Buddha-thing! This was what she got for not obeying the Enlightened One's request to use her desired title! Her mouth was contorted into a terrible cramp, trying to bite the air, breathing the essence of sleep. Buddha magic! One time she'd tried to foot race a Buddha and he'd revealed that the entire racetrack was actually in the palm of his hand and it had made her head hurt. Like, she'd won the race, but he'd somehow made it like it hadn't mattered. How can a race not matter!? They - they matter, okay!?
She stabbed at her ramen with her chopsticks moodily.
She hadn't considered the show, honestly. A big musical event where everyone would be singing and dancing in the midst of elaborate pyrotechnical displays honestly sounded like the most boring and mundane thing she could possibly do with her time, the celestial equivalent of going to Shanghai and ordering a hamburger. But she did owe the Buddha for hosting her as a guest and had no desire to end up as the subject of a koan. So she nodded. "If you desire it, I would be honoured to serve," said Jasper. "You will have to inform me of this story. And, of course, the role you have in mind for me."
With any luck this would be a straightforwards role with minimal weird Buddha concepts.
Destiny or dread, she needed to know. Destiny or dread, her own feet had lead her astray. Destiny or dread, at least she'd be blessed or cursed.
She set the gems of seven dreams into their places. Light broken into seven colours - and now she was to look into the source from whence they each came. It should be a process that felt as mystic and grand as the quest to acquire them but somehow it didn't. There was no ceremony or ritual here and that disappointed her. Shouldn't she have to sing? Or kneel? Or at least change her clothes from this simple adventurer's dress, stained with grass and fire and mountain-ash?
Ah well. Just a reminder that whoever's dream this was, it wasn't really hers.
She flattened herself against the cliff face as the wind howled. It had a malevolent hooking motion to it, trying to get around her to the side and peel her from the cliff face. Inch by inch she progressed, scrambling as quickly up the cliff face as she could in the wind's lulls. Her heart struck in her chest when her hand reached nothing but air, and then slapped down on a rough and flat surface. One final struggle and she rolled onto her back on the mountain peak, hands fastening around the brilliant sapphire, struggling for breath as she stared up at the pale blue ocean above her. She watched as whales broke the surface above her and caught her breath and senses in the mountaintop cold.
Was it cowardice? Was the Cat right? What kind of hero wouldn't fight? Perhaps she'd been spoiled, leaving others to do the hard work. And it was true that her reasons for not fighting were selfish...
She crouched down, coiling her muscles underneath her - and leapt. As she jumped she passed from gravity altogether and floated weightless in the sky above the mountain, subject to the breeze. She folded her arms in front of her as she passed into the gravity of the ocean, momentum reasserting itself and dragging her straight downwards into a magnificent dive. She slashed into the water like a knife and swam down, down, amidst the silvers and magentas of fish and coral.
Hadn't the lion tore away her weaknesses? When those claws had torn through her they'd caught on everything that had held her back. But it had left this feeling with her. Didn't that mean that this feeling was pure? Wasn't she, ipso facto, the greatest and most perfect version of herself as sculpted by the rending talons of the divine beast?
Her hands sank into the soft sand at the ocean floor, illuminated by a thousand anglerfish. From silt as fine as air she drew forth a shining amethyst, such a radiant colour that it turned the black into violet. She set it onto her belt alongside the sapphire and then began to dig with her hands in the sea-floor sand. Deeper and deeper, until the earth cracked open and she fell into the molten depths of the underworld.
Hell awaited her here, fiery and mighty. Vast industries, molten metal and molten earth, great rolling ramps that engines moved down with ceaseless purpose. The water stayed above knowing that it had no place her, and she stood upon the ceiling above the roads and conveyors. She leapt and ran with surreal swiftness against the flow. The conveyors pulled her in the wrong direction, the stampeding stone bulls came at her headlong, the ramps were all uphill and every motion brought conflict. On she ran.
There were three possibilities. Either she was perfect, she was not perfect, or she had been perfect but had somehow acquired a flaw. But which was it? She trusted the lion. She couldn't doubt it's gift. It had freed her from her shell of flaws, let her rise above everything that had held her back. But had it brought her into line with platonic perfection, or had it raised her to its ideal of perfection, or had it raised her to her ideal of perfection? Something foreign had gone through her mind and made changes - changes she'd craved, changes she celebrated. But now she had to decide if she was going to stand by those changes or continue to evolve...
She tore the ruby from the claws of the dragon. It smiled at her and shifted aside to reveal the sunlit passage out of the earth's depths. She emerged blinking into the light above a city with tangerine rooftops. It was a place of vines and waterfalls and verticality, a spiral staircase up towards the distant sun. She took a breath, whirled herself onto the back of a horse, and touched her heels to it, driving it at full pelt through the streets of the city. It leapt over wagons, darting through narrow alleyways, dream-creatures leaping from its path as she charged, up and up, galloping across rooftops as often as she crossed cobbled streets.
Maybe she was distracting herself with all of this. Maybe this was all besides the point. Maybe this wasn't about the lion, or even about her. Maybe... it was about Tirzah? Perhaps everything was in the end. Tirzah, clever and acidic. Tirzah, honest and wise. Tirzah, the princess she'd fought to save, Tirzah, the destination of this great journey...
The artist's brush whirled. The orange of the rooftops caught on a whirling brushtip, drawn up and struck out onto paper in a whirl. As she stepped back to admire her work, Canada's hand reached onto the canvas to pull the apricot gemstone free and set it onto her belt with its sisters. And then she was climbing again, up past rows and rows of paintings, going up forever. Up to the centre of the dome, and then out and up along the flagpole that went towards the sun itself. She lifted herself, legs swinging about acrobatically, and then she came up to stand on the metal flagpole like it was a tightrope. She walked, arms stretched, only the sky above and beneath her as she walked from the city to the sun.
She stepped down onto the fields of golden grain that made up the surface of the sun. She hefted her backpack, heavy with everything she needed, and walked. The wind cut across the vast fields and gently rolling hills as she pressed her way slowly through the rolling yellow ocean. Night time came as she passed to the dark side of the sun, so she cleared a space and made camp, sitting alone by a small campfire and tent, staring at the stars until morning. Then she was up again and continuing her trek.
Tirzah who she should have stopped.
That was it, wasn't it? If she'd had her sword then how could she justify not having used it to save the world? How could she have had a blade and kept it sheathed? If she could hurt people then that meant... logically, inevitably, that she'd at some point have to hurt Tirzah who started all of this. Once she accepted that power she'd have to follow it through to its logical conclusion.
She picked the topaz shard from amidst the shards of grain. This one stalk, alone amongst all the millions, had grown a perfect gemstone. Such was this place it had been all but indistinguishable from everything around it. But this was the end of the plains, and ahead loomed a vast and twisted forest, branches interlocking and only sharp angles of sunlight cutting through to a surface laid with moss. She cast aside her backpack, her jacket, tore her dress into a short skirt.
Each footstep was so soft, falling upon gently flowering moss. Above the wind spoke in clinking clatters as green glass bottles impacted on each other. This place was a descent, jumping down and down along the mighty and roiling chains of roots. The sunlight was dimmer and dimmer, dark green except for those moments that it wasn't. Distant clouds rolled across the sky, making the light in this living cavern turn on and off. Those spots where trees had fallen were explosions of new life, hundreds of tiny trees and vines eagerly stretching up to drink deeply of those puddles of light.
It was clear to her now that she'd been the one who'd broken her blade. It hadn't been a fortunate coincidence. It had been deliberate. She'd tried not to think about it. Tried to gloss over it mentally. But she hadn't wanted to make that choice so badly that she'd made it subconsciously and pretended it was fate.
Could it be undone? Had she permanently cut that part of her off? Had she purged something from herself in the same way that the lion had? If it could be undone, did that mean that the other flaws she'd freed herself from could come back too? Had the lion missed a vice, or had she destroyed a virtue?
She took the emerald from the cauldron in the woodland hut, the heat from the broth leaving her hands an angry red. She stared into the reflection for a long moment, looking at herself with helpless honesty. She blinked and was on the other side of that reflection and when she looked up she was in the city of night, dark and sleek and modern and lit with streetlamps. She hugged her bare shoulders against the chill as she walked through the dark, into and out of the office buildings still illuminated in pale blue light.
Goudan was wise, in that same way Asterion was. He'd said that by the end of this she'd either change or decide not to change, and either way she'd be done with these thoughts. But despite meditating on it for an adventure of 70,000 leagues she didn't feel a single step closer to a decision. All she'd learned was the lengths she was prepared to go to in order to avoid it. The right thing to do felt so inevitable. It felt so necessary. Save the world, blade in hand. As soon as she held that blade there'd be no stopping it, no excuse that could slow her. But at the same time she was breaking her very self to prevent the inevitable from beginning.
She plucked the indigo gemstone, a shard of liquid darkness, from the government computer screensaver that was still filling the shadowed office with light. Seven flawless jewels, the raiment of a princess. She wished they'd guide her. She wished her heart knew the answer, deep down, and would tell her in love and light.
But these were as silent as she, leaving her lonely, confused feelings to voicelessly whisper.
She stared up at the Sealed Tower. Perhaps here she'd find her answer.
Old Aphrodite smiles. Isn't he fragile? Dusty and old, tuned to a time that nobody else remembers. Isn't he kind? That smile of his is so gentle you might wonder of the accuracy the old stories that place him as the most direct inheritor of the Titans, reborn of their flesh - a lineage that perhaps even places him as the literal father of Zeus. See how easily he yields to you, releasing his shield of a mother's love so that he might drive his spear two-handed through the heart of Princess Epistia.
She looks into your eyes. Has she fallen to her brother Hypnos? Has she fallen into the realm of terrible Morpheus, that surly neighbour to mighty Hades? She takes your hand in hers, and her mouth opens to say -
"Stop!"
A chill runs up your spine.
The wind ceases and the world runs cold. The Queen steps onto the grass and it wilts beneath her feet. Her hands drip with the blood of the murdered. She comes armoured for war, great gauntlets with crackling talons, but the panoply of kingship does not gleam. Her soldiers have dull and lifeless gazes. You stand in the presence of the doomed.
Queen Hatchan Oathbreaker, foresworn, doomed - and no longer able to delay the moment of reckoning. Godless: This foolish soul has angered the Pantheon, and her doom is written. When this stat is damaged her doom has arrived in full, and woe to those around her who will be caught in her dying storm. However, she is free of the laws of the gods and may break any taboo. Fury of the Forsaken: The Queen's words and deeds are area and necrotic.
"Epistia! I forbade you from the martial arts!" said the Queen. "And you! How dare you trespass in my realm, my house! How dare you touch my daughter!"
Alexia!
The storm strikes.
There is pain.
But your head falls not on stone, but into warm and gentle hands. As you lie upon the battlefield, an arrow of lightning through your false heart, Hera strokes your face in comfort. Zeus booms her triumph, the glory of victory divinely granted, and Hera turns her back, blotting out the lightning in a curtain of peacock feathers. Your sacrifice did not bring you victory, but neither did it pass unnoticed.
[Damage your Blood, and you must Overcome or seek the aid of the gods to remove the Thunderbolt from your body]
The King pulls his horse-haired helm off, revealing flowing light brown hair and elfin features. He snaps his fingers and his soldiers approach. They kneel in rows, three by three, raising their shields above their heads, forming a staircase for him to ascend without breaking his stride. He walks to the top of a platform of shields, borne aloft by nine soldiers, towering above the golden fields as he addresses the Ceronians. When he speaks, Zeus holds a crown aloft above his head, and his voice carries like a storm.
"Warriors of Ceron! The Empire calls upon your oaths! Admiral Odoacer, whom you once swore to serve before Zeus herself, has sent me here to rescue the lost Princess Redana, daughter of Empress Nero! You have been lost here, but you were not forgotten - and now I am here to return you in glory to service!"
A muttering ran through the crowd. Shocked. Horrified. She lied to us.
And then a soldier knelt before King Jas'o. Drawn by the inevitable pull of formation instinct the rest were dragged to their knees. The warrior king raised his arms triumphantly over his head as he accepted the loyalty of the Ceronians.
Vasilia!
[Damage Vasilia's sword]
There is a certain subgenre of trashy maid theatre productions in the stranger cafes on the galaxy's fringes. Supernatural powers are sometimes ascribed to these chief servants, servitors whose job it was to embody every strength and skill that their masters could think to ask for. They don't seem like jokes any more.
You've fought people before, but there were comprehensible rules to those fights. They were elegant exchanges of sword techniques and banter. They were distractions, full of trickery, mobile and fluid and full of thoughtful strategy. You don't even know what this was, only that you were not ready for it.
"Excuse me, sir," came a nasal voice that impressively managed to say polite words without even the faintest hint of politeness. "I am going to need you to answer some questions."
Ivory Smile, High Priest of Hades, came down the ramp (and was that a flicker of a tail for a moment there...?). He wore an unceremonious basic soldier's uniform, dark blue in the Admiral's colours, thick glasses and functional ponytail making him look like an armed bureaucrat - but for that book. It hung from his wrist by a chain, heavy and black and filled with terrible curses.
Ivory Smile High Priest of Hades, an inveterate gambler and bearer of terrible relics. Shadowcaster: The weaver can manipulate shadows at will, creating illusions or darkness as they see fit. These illusions can cause no harm, but are otherwise extremely convincing. Doomed Soul: When this stat becomes damaged, the shadow weaver suffers an ironic and terrible circumstance that takes them out of the scene. Whether this is funny or tragic is up to the Horizon. If this is their last stat to be damaged, they are Taken Out instead of leaving the scene. Dark and Terrible: The shadow weaver can leave curses upon those unfortunate souls who cross them. When the Shadow Weaver deals damage, they can also leave a curse, limiting or hindering the cursed person in a way they describe. The curse is lifted by dawn's light the next day.
Bella!
You're just in time to see King Jas'o's declaration to the Ceronians.
Son of a bitch. He's always been worse than good - he's lucky. Did he really just stumble into a legion of supersoldiers off the back of a quick duel and shitty little speech...
"Of course he doesn't deserve this," said Hera, speaking to your thoughts. That quiet, soft voice that's always there for you when the world demonstrates its injustice. "He's just convenient. The Gods want the queen dead and this is how they plan to do it."
There's only one gate into the city that you can see, and it's crowded with the entire Ceronian army. It's not obvious how you could get past them all, especially if the King spots you amidst the crowd. He might not recognize you, though? There's the wall itself, but it's made out of frictionless materials - maybe you could scale it by breaking handholds?
Commit to a plan, or take a moment to Look Closely.
The entire party had come together to thwart her righteous vengeance.
Fire burned in Ailee's eyes, the wroth of a dragon who had been told that the whole world was against him - and so the entire world would need to be destroyed. Arcane power ran along her glyph- patterns, violet and red and green and black and the concentration of indolent vice seemed to hang in the air like a singularity. Everyone here was well within the blast radius.
And then, incongruously, Ailee took a deep breath, raising her hand from her diaphragm to her throat as she breathed in, and pushing it out in front of her as she breathed out. The storm of arcane power quelled like it had been sucked into a vacuum. Ailee was back to being a regular mousegirl instead of the immanent arrival of the Lord of Fire.
"Okay," she said. "Fine. I understand. I won't kill everyone. I am a team player and understand when I've been outvoted."
She's frozen there for a moment in the midst of a step, hand outstretched. Then she crumples, sitting down and hugging her knees to her chest. There's more genuine defensiveness there than there was in the fight, and she looks off to the side to avoid eye contact.
"I hate hitting people," she said. "I hate hurting people. What's so special about m-" she cuts herself off. She can't say that part out loud. They wouldn't understand.
"I don't even like doing it when it's important," she said. "I have nightmares afterwards. I had..."
She bites her lip. She'd been glad when the sword broke. It had been the worst day of her life... but that at least meant she didn't have to make it any worse.
RPM
Fenn
Phoe
Tatterdemalion
Mustang1907
Balmas