Thanqol

Breathless Dead

King Jas'o!

The arrow hit the soft spongey surface with a soft thud. It hung there in the centre of the bullseye for a minute - and then was sucked into the target. It vanished inside the spongey plant entirely, leaving only a discoloured purple bruise where it had started. Inside the arrow would be digested, dissolved, turned into nutrients so that the plant could regrow the other injury it had just sustained - across the field, linked by a long winding vine, a branch was rapidly regrowing another of its strange fruits. Long, straight, synthetic feathers at the end - a perfect arrow, ready for the archer to snap off with a twist of his fingers and fire it right back in cannibalistic cycle into the plant's core surface. Once again he fired the shot, and another perfect violet bruise right in the centre of its bullseye was added to the plant's strange surface.

"Princess Jas'o? Are you - oh!" The voice came softly from the owlgirl servitor, a gentle announcement of purpose from a creature whose silent movement swould otherwise be entirely undetectable.

"Hey," said Jas'o, nocking and firing another arrow in a fluid but mechanistic motion. "Sup?"

"Your father sent me to collect you for your Tanderil geology lessons... you've shifted, highness?"

"Yeah," said Jas'o, gesturing at his now-flat chest. "These were getting in the way. Not badly, but I've got more range of motion like this, and every little counts."

"Ah. Um. Would you like to change your pronouns too?"

"Sure, whatever," said Jas'o, arcing and firing another shot. "Don't care."

"Would you like me to change as well, highness?" she said.

"Also whatever," said Jas'o, snapping another arrow from the branch. "Do what you want."

"And... will the prince come with me?"

"For what?" he snorted. "Geology? No thanks."

"Your father will -"

"Do nothing!" snapped Jas'o, and landed another perfect bullseye despite the rising tension. "He will do nothing! His father will do nothing! Honestly, Hili! What the fuck is the point of any of it! We're never going back! Even grandfather hasn't seen this planet we're apparently supposed to rule, and father's spent his entire life standing ready to swoop in and administer the shit out of it the day he's finally allowed to. We're let's-pretend kings sitting in a desk drawer, learning two hundred year out of date information, and I am," he fired another arrow into dead centre of the target, "too old to play pretend."

"Ah," Hili said quietly.

"The only thing in this world that matters," he said, focus never having left that distant target, "is war. The only way anything is going to change. The only way to advance. The only way to get out is by being good at something. By being too good to keep locked up in a drawer. It was war which brought us all here. Empress Nero's throne stands atop a pile of spears. Only Pallas Athena can change anything in this world. How tough are you?"

"Master?"

"I'm sick of shooting stationary targets. I know you're fast. How tough are you?"

"I... I am not entirely certain, master. But somewhat. I am designed for bodyguard duties and can probably endure a fair number of arrows, so long as nothing vital is pierced."

"Good enough," said the prince, drawing another arrow. "Start dodging."

Alexa!

How did he get to be such a frighteningly good shot?

You can see Athena herself draw in an impressed breath as King Jas'o turns and puts an arrow directly through your heel, an Achilles-slaying shot fired in perfect flow from one moving target to another. You're sent crashing to the ground but before you land Galnius and another hoplite catch your arms and continue carrying you forwards.

[Damage your Grace]

The King's troops pile into an open practice square, filled with dead Ceronians, forming up into a phalanx. You arrive a little behind them and see three figures waiting for you there - Princess Redana, unconscious in the blood-soaked arms of a feline servitor. There is another servitor nearby - a Ceronian, holding a terrible gleaming scythe, blazing with the dark glory of Ares. The ground is littered with bodies she's made.

"On your knees!" shouted King Jas'o, darkly menacing as he strung a thunderbolt to his bow. No hesitation now - he was lit by lightning, the centre of a thunderstorm, ready to land his fourth perfect shot of the day. "Step away from the princess!"

Vasilia!

Energy is crackling from the engine-sun. An overflow of power is ionizing the crystal waterfalls, condensing them into dark clouds that billowed out to blot out the ceiling-sky, brimming with dark and violet light. Winds start to pick up. Zeus and Poseidon together have spread the terrible storm that dominates the void into the interior.

"The gods are angry!" said Admiral Odoacer, never one to let a good divine omen go to waste. "They are giving you a final warning - serve me or perish!"

"What do you command, Lord Admiral?" cried a Ceronian, dropping to her knees - in second the army was again kneeling, united in fealty.

"There is only one way to make this right," she said. "An opportunity you were too distraught to see was in front of you before. Seize the princess! Bring her to me in chains! And if you happen to see a cutie of a catgirl, bring her to me in chains also!! And gag them!!"

There's a bit of staring. The Admiral seems to have gotten caught up in a rush of... something.

"Don't question me!" she said. "It is important that it happens like this! Go!"

The army of Ceronians stand fluidly, and then march into their city. The Admiral fanned herself with one hand, grinning in a flustered kind of way, and then hopped down to follow them. You'd bet that she's heading towards the palace - you don't know what the Admiral is like in person, but you get the impression that for whatever reason she wants to be sitting on a throne when she receives her prisoners.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada is outside the Sealed Tower. At the base, on the stone drawbridge over the river of fire, hand over her heart - shaking and mortified. Oh no. It had happened again.

Her speed was a strange and inconsistent thing that didn't operate fully under her control. It wasn't a linear acceleration, it had to do with the speed of her thoughts - and she never moved faster than when she was afraid. She'd once watched a horror movie with Tirzah and Asterion and had jump scared herself two suburbs away and had never been able to live it down. She took deep breaths, heart still pounding, and then groaned with her hands over her forehead and began the long, slow slog back up the stairs.

She slumped back into the room under the withering gaze of the Cat, swallowing and flinching back under that eerie intense stare. Oh boy. Oh damn. Terror and humiliation swirled in her head and she did her best to focus on the humiliation because that at least probably wouldn't kill her.

"The, uh, Horse Headed God," she said. "It saw me too. It's..." she swallowed. She was already dying of shame, it wasn't the moment to start giving her weird dumb ideas about how it was more a mental state than a single person. "It startled me," she finished lamely.

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

Princess Epistia looks down at the body of her mother. Everything had happened so fast. The whole world and all its laws overturned in an eyeblink. She took a breath and looked away. She couldn't regret it. Just like in the ancient stories, evil parents had to be slain for the world to take shape. Some matricides were holy.

And some evils needed to be ended.

The scythe came into her hands again as she stood and it's moving to its unnatural purpose before she even knows it. It cuts through the hollowed-out bodyguard in a wave - a crude, unthinking strike but it is nevertheless rewarded with red ruin. She starts, eyes shocked as she's carried through into the counterswing, bloody fury of Ares igniting in her veins. Her next move is faster, far more frightening, and takes another of the terrible, zombified soldiers at last to a true ending. Faster, faster, the speed and flawless precision of a girl discovering her true purpose in the midst of the war god's dance. Blood and death comes to the slaves of Hatchan.

It is a terrible freedom - or a glorious final curse from Zeus.

Vasilia!

Hades stared at you for a long moment after his priest fell to the ground, unreadable energy in those brilliant blue eyes. And then, without commentary, he is gone.

"Warriors of Ceron!" cried Admiral Odoacer, standing over the crowd. "Rejoice! I have returned to lead you! Rejoice! You shall have another chance to fulfill your oaths and return to the grace of Zeus Cloudgatherer! Rejoice! You shall be returned to glory as the bloody speartip of the Imperium!"

You know that face - you've seen its cold stare in paint, looking out over the shoulder of every Imperial bureaucrat you've ever had the misfortune of being challenged by in the void of space. But here!? With no entourage, no fanfare, no vast court of sycophants and hangers on? You never imagined that the Admiral of the Armada could be so... humble.

But there she stands, atop a rock, addressing the crowd of Ceronians.

"But the Empire has changed, friends - it is a different place than you remember it! Lies, intrigue, betrayal, civil war - the situation is chaotic and perilous, and it is for that reason alone I did not have time to seek you out before now. Serve me - but beware! Many will attempt to deceive you, and many things that you thought were true are different now. Only I can be trusted. Only I can redeem you."

Alexa!

You plough through the feeble line of skirmishers like a locomotive. You and your phalanx cut through them while hardly breaking stride, shrugging off the ragged volley that tries to slow you on your shields. Ahead King Jas'o urges his men into as fast a run as they are capable of while carrying him, calling for triple-time as he turns to face you, hand once more hovering over the shaft of the next deadly Thunderbolt in his quiver.

Neither phalanx can stop now. Whichever one stops running and falls into a shieldwall will be able to be bypassed by the other. The situation is strangely akin to a chariot race through the streets of the city, a contest of speed and endurance.

You could attack the enemy phalanx directly - in its disorder it could be Finished - but committing to the charge will leave King Jas'o with a free hand. He could shoot down your soldiers, making your victory bloody, or he could abandon his men to the brawl and once more commit relentlessly to his objective. With another man which he will choose would be more of a mystery. Alternatively you could commit all-out to winning the race, attempting to get to the Princess before the King does and fall into formation there - this will be a Get Away.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

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.

Fellowship: The Heart

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.]

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

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.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

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.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

"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.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

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.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

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.