Thanqol

Fellowship: The Heart

"I get why it's in the interests of the community to create a whole stifling raft of laws," said Ailee. "I don't get why it's considered a moral good for exceptional members of the community to obey them."

She's not snappy, authoritative, demanding. There are no dramatic finger-points or declarations. She's got her arms folded on the rail, looking out at the desert with a pensive expression. Her hands twitch - twitcha twitcha, tappa tappa, conducting some imaginary symphony or playing air piano. She sometimes tilts her head like she can hear the invisible music.

"Once you get a group of seven or more somebody has to be in charge," said Ailee. "And that somebody then immediately does everything in their power to make sure they're in charge forever. In extremis they'll sell their souls to the clown god to make sure that it really is forever. Hereditary monarchy is just a primitive form of immortality. It's this fucking brain-worm that grows inside the head of anyone who so much as joins the student council. And then all the garbage that pours out of their mouths becomes tradition and morality and law - and none of that shit even prevents crime or civil war, it just means that when those things happen the new guy is chained by the same bullshit. Exceptional people," pause to admire herself in her hand mirror, "have to spend so much effort figuring out how to game the system in order to make even the smallest improvement. It's why civilization advances at a crawl."

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

"You will leave us," said the voice of Admiral Odoacer. "Form a perimeter outside and do not enter unless summoned. Further, you will collect all the shuttles from the surrounding area and consolidate them immediately outside on the training field, under guard. Dismissed."

As the Ceronians leave, the Admiral approaches Redana. A menacing smirk crosses her lips, the kind that makes you feel afraid and hopeful all at once. Hopeful because it suggests that your seduction is working... afraid for the same reasons. She hooks a finger under your chin and looks into your eyes. Her finger slipped up around your mouth, tracing where the skin met the leather of the gag. "Well then, princess," she sneered. "I've finally got you right where I want you."

For a moment everything seems like it could go in a very different way.

Then a viper-quick tongue slips out from between her lips and licks your nose. Aaah! Phbit! Mynx!

"You dummy!" said the shapeshifter, falling back into her natural(?) crimson reptilian form, sweeping you (and Bella, by proxy) up into a massive hug. "You see how close you got to getting caught? You had me worried sick! Are you -" she pulls back and scrutinizes your face, "you're not okay!" She's immediately tearing open your shirt - oh um, Mynx, you needed that shirt - and looking at the still fresh scorch wound where you were hit by the Thunderbolt earlier. "Redana!" she said. "That's it! I've had it! Bella was right! You obviously cannot take care of yourself and you are going to stay gagged until I get you home."

She leans in close, head coming down to your neck. You feel her breath for a moment - and then the tiny pin-prick pain as she bites you. It's soft and sharp, piercing skin. Mynx's fangs contain extremely potent antivenom substances and you have been running your barely bandaged open wound through the mud of an alien environment. Precautions are necessary. The fact that these precautions take the form of intimate kisses to the neck being taken while you hang mostly shirtless, bound and gagged are neither here nor there.

Again there's a moment where things feel like they could go a very different way.

And then Mynx is looking up at you with a smile and tracing around your jaw with a finger until her hand passes across to Bella's face. Again she coils it under Bella's chin, smiling brightly. "Don't worry, kitten~," she trills. "I'm taking this all very seriously, but you've left me with such a mess. Good work on catching Redana, but now it's my turn to drive. I'm going to have to disguise myself as that King you killed and take the two of you to the Admiral as prisoners, and then work something out where I spring you once we're closer to Tellus. It's a rough plan but the entire Armada will be running a blockade outside by now and I can't evade that. It does mean that you and the princess will be spending a couple of weeks bound and gagged, but who knows?" she pats your cheek in a way that would be absolutely perilous if you had access to your fangs. "Maybe you'll come to enjoy it!"

Alexia!

An enormous bulk loomed over you through the prison bars. Dark tendrils extended through the gaps, reaching out to grasp the construct woman who had stepped a fragment too far over the red-painted line on the floor. Tentacles seized your arm and - shook it. Up and down. "Good morning!" burbled the strangely pleasant voice of the enormous octopus in the jail cell. "And hello! A pleasure to meet you, I am the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt. Welcome to my office! I do hope I can assist you!"

Vasilia and Dolce!

The phalanx of the dull-eyed Ceronians is in total disarray as they try to pull themselves from the impact of your grav-glaive. They're in no position to stop you - but they've also got the keys to the cell somewhere in that mess. They're not really a threat right now but you can act to make that a more permanent victory if it suits you.

You can move in with a Finish while they're too disoriented to stop you, or you can devise some other way to open the cell door.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

He was here for her.

From the moment she'd heard the news she'd known. No, from the moment she'd seen him in the telescope she'd known. He'd seen her and whatever he'd seen had been enough to tear him from the stars. This was a gesture of enormous respect - terrifying respect. It meant that Shamash was bringing his full attention and fury to her directly without any games. She was being treated as a once in a century threat by an alien god.

And now she had to earn it.

She's been half-dreaming of this moment. She choreographs the encounter in a hundred ways. He might move like this. He might speak like this. She writes him lines and writes herself responses like scripting a movie. She imagines the pain - for there will be pain. At night she lies awake in bed and imagines in vivid detail the breaking of her arm and how she'll fight on despite that. She needs to get this right.

New techniques are called for.

She can't come at this through the physical world. She's too obvious, even veiled, to get through security of this level. So she walks through the border of the mirror realm, wrapped in the void of her own heart. She has never done this before and there is good reason for that. It seems as though she is walking through the real world but every mirrored surface glows, the source of a strange black light. Where this light touches it's not reality she sees but the other place - deepest night and occupied with more true incarnations of everything within it. The streets are slashed through with lines of mirrored darkness - every gleaming suit of armour, every fine pane of glass, every pool of water creates a puddle of alternate reality where everything is different. The rules change with every step between dark and light.

She wonders if this whole idea is a mistake, and rather than solving her problems she's actually doubled them.

She wonders if the dark version of Shamash will be scarier than the light.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

All is chaos. The world does not function. The foundations of the heavens are but water. Tears and shouts are at once swept away by the storm. Things are at their worst.

Or so you thought before the Solid Projectile volley hits.

Human skin has long been proof against the mere ministrations of physics and smokeless powder. Assault rifles long ago joined the blowpipe and sling in the museum of obsolescence. Instead the military demand for ranged firepower has been filled with the noxious battle-chemical cocktail known euphemistically as 'solid projectiles'. They seem harmless enough in the hand - little glass marbles filled with multicoloured and swirling colours, like a bite taken from a rainbow. They seem harmless enough when they impact - certainly they sting like being struck by a paintball, and might leave painful bruises if they happen to strike unarmoured skin. But the bite of these weapons comes in the highly reactive gases that billow outwards when those hideous chemicals react with the open air.

The red ones merely detonate with sound and light, converting their contents into magnesium flashes and point-blank thunderclaps. The blue ones gust forth in clouds of smoke thick and heavy with poison. The green ones contain electrochemical lightning that overwhelms the nerves like a thunderstrike. Heightened senses and keen servitor hearing and smell renders one even more vulnerable to the sudden deafening, blinding, foul-smelling explosion of sensation. In time the body can adjust. In time one can deaden ones nerves to the point where even this detonation of suffering is no more than the wind. But there are many demands on one's time in this moment, not least of which are the hurricane charge of Ceronian warriors.

They have come equipped for capture. They laid down their spears long ago, but they have long since herded and trapped the squidlike Secretaries of the leviathan and other benign creatures to serve as workbeasts. The same trapping techniques and lashes are applied here with expert practice. Limbs are caught in rope snares and sprinters circle in leaping unison to entangle and net the disoriented targets. Finally, the strongest martial artist close from behind to twist and lock joints pending the final click of chain. The gagging is not an ordinary part of doctrine but they have their orders.

Firm and muscular hands wrap around your neck, tracing up your jaw to settle into a full and harsh grip, pinching down to open your lips. Shouts of defiance are cut short as the gags are pulled roughly into place, pulled harshly back like a tug on the reins by the Ceronian straddling your back. You're held firmly in place while the leather is twisted into place and buckled into position. Then it's to be seized roughly by the hair and turned to face the rain to wash the mud and blood away. You are to be presented to the Admiral, after all, and your bodies have value even if she has decreed your words do not.

By the time your senses have cleared themselves you are free from the rain and mud - the one positive to this moment, though you are still both soaked to the bone. You hang by your wrists with your feet just off the floor, back to back with each other, tied together at the wrists and the ankles, intimately aware of each others' attempts at struggling. You're in the tacky and backwards little throne room (the Empress' throne room is so vast one can hardly make out the distant side of it, this is barely a bedroom by comparison).

"Excellent," came a cold voice - cold, but not quite cold enough. "You have served me well."

Vasilia!

There are indeed guards. A squad of ten, eerily hollow-eyed, with none of the chatter or small talk or moments of distraction normally demonstrated by such guards. With Galnius' squad their numbers are even with yours but that is not a situation that favours you - they stand within a long, linear corridor with room enough for three soldiers abreast. They are not in a shieldwall formation now but it would take moments for them to manage such a thing, and once they have it will be as though the corridor is blocked with a gate of adamantium. Narrow environments with no possibility for flanking are the ideal conditions for phalanx stalemates - were such a thing to form those ten could hold against a thousand.

Fortunately and unfortunately these soldiers do not seem inclined to patrol, meaning you have plenty of time to develop a plan.

Fellowship: The Heart

"Good idea, Lucien," said Ailee. "This fucking noise makes me want to shoot myself too. Listen to these idiots! They're missing every, whatsit. Note? Bar? I could do much better. You know what? I will do much better!"

Her eyes ignite a brilliant green. As forgetfulness seeps into her mind the only things left to her are those supernatural concepts bound to her soul, chief amongst which is of course pride. She clambers up onto the bow of the train, clears her throat, and begins belting out her song at full volume.

"OH your man won't dance BUT I WILL
He's just a cup of punch that you'll spin
You're gonna hang him from the sail of a sinking sloop
Something something something and the dope you do
You get NA NA NOTHING FROM ME"

While she may not be the musical genius she thinks she is and didn't fully remember the words to this song even before the antisirens began to sap the memory from her mind, she makes up for it with total shameless from-the-diagphram loudness that will drown out the hypnotic music for just a little bit.

[Keep them Busy: 7]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Just?" chuckled King Jas'o, silhouetted in polar lightning. He looms above you like the shadow of Cronus. "You offer the gods justice? What an offer, princess! Perhaps you will allow me to make a counter-offer?"

He strode a step or two away, arms held wide open, looking up into the sky. "Zeus, Mother of Athena! I offer you a temple! I shall carve its pillars from the bones of a mighty planet! I shall fill its sacred fountain with blood from ten million sacrificed species! I shall populate it with a million slaves, and have them sing to your glory every hour of every day! I shall have a hundred barbarian kings collared and yoked, and together they will melt their crowns down into a great golden statue made in your likeness! Grant me freedom, o Zeus! Grant me freedom to travel the stars and make war as is humanity's birthright, as is humanity's purpose! I will carve from the bloody wreckage of the galaxy a new empire, far grander than the prison world of Tellus, and it will all be in your name!"

The King swung around and kicked you in the chest as fast as the lightning that filled the void. You fall on your back, splashing into the wet and mud as those heavy booming footfalls come towards you one final time. Boom. Boom. Boom. The final earthquake strikes you directly in the head, the boot of the king resting across your cheek as he leans down to look at you like a prize hunter standing atop a trophy.

"You offer the gods justice, little princess?" said King Jas'o, a wicked grin on his face as he pressed your face into the mud. "I offer them wealth and sacrifice and glory everlasting. Zeus blesses me with an army and victory after victory, whereas you cannot command the loyalty of a single slave. So much for justice. So much for you."

*

Vasilia!

Galnius froze for a moment. There was nothing there to righteously stand against, nothing for him to get morally outraged over. He clearly didn't like it. His Imperial pride was clearly looking for something, anything he could use to denounce you as a barbarian servitor whose orders and council he could ignore but it didn't come. And with the idea alone, without any evidence to support it and an important job to do...

He touched his symbol of Apollo, took a breath, and put palm in fist. He dismissed that pride with the focus of a votive. Visibly the haughtiness fell from his features and the scales fell from his eyes and when he looked at you again he was calmer, more focused.

"As you say," he said. He waved about and the phalanx's members picked themselves up after their rest, folding their spears in half so they'd be more suitable for tunnel fighting, and falling back into order. "The Admiral cannot be allowed to triumph here. We're ready to follow in your lead."

The corridor to the castle's dungeons were not far ahead, but you do not doubt there will be guards waiting for you there.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

The Twilight Market!

The Annunaki don't believe in idle hands. All must labour to strengthen the Great Chain. Idleness is freedom, and freedom is an abomination, so purpose will be found for all - even if it is as one of the multitudes kneeling for ten hours a day in the great cathedrals to the Gods. During the day the streets are clean, wide and open - the luxury of space and solitude afforded to those atop the Chain. It is only when the sun rests that the teeming mass of humanity is hurled out onto the streets en-masse. During this liminal moment of contact and transition the Twilight Market forms - slow-moving street stalls run by vendors on their ways back to their homes. Only a scarce few hours exist for this trade before the streets empty out again - this time because of crime rather than the whip. In between has to fit the entire human cultural experience. People make do.

There are the Scrapmongers, those rickshaws heavy and laden with kitchen scraps left over from the Annunaki's feasts - sugars and berries and tarts turned stale or over-ripe but still desperately sought by those who can't stand another day of the gruel. There are the Sharpeners, those fleeting shadows who offer broken weaponry to those terrified for their safety or plotting doomed rebellion. There are the Gossip-Shouters, carried atop the shoulders of their fellows, calling out the news of the day, reading lists of births, deaths and missing persons. There are the Chainsmiths, who have enough connections with the authorities to arrange for a soul to be moved to a different place on the Great Chain. New times call for new occupations and the market has a way of adapting.

There are old occupations too. Canada rides her bicycle rickshaw, pulling along her mobile workshop with its sides plastered with photographs. Smiling faces, pictures of cats or beautiful places or angles of the landscape and sky that are not yet filled with the grandeur of Annunaki architecture. Bicycles are more in demand - a customer will take over pedaling her rickshaw while she takes their bike up into the workshop in the back to work on - but that is only because pictures are so expensive. The chemicals she requires to develop them are irreplaceable, and besides, few even have access to a camera. But it, too, is known that she makes exceptions for the needy and there's oftentimes a small cluster of children following her cart and speculating loudly about the people and places in the coveted photographs. They do their best to come up with heartrending explanations for what those wonderful photographs mean to them - "that bowl of soup was made out of my best friend, Ricksty the Dinosaur, oh I wish someone would give me that picture so I could remember him," - but playful imaginations and unpracticed deceptions made the attempts at begging more comedic than sad much of the time.

Today there are no freebies. Today is a time for bargains of her own. She's not looking to just get by this time - she's looking to acquire, and a photograph goes a long way in the modern economy. Her eyes gleam with feline hunger as she haggles with the Chainsmith, stepping to the offense with uncharacteristic intensity. The picture of the smiling Ugandian man isn't his beloved, but he looks close enough to make it too precious to pass up. Hands are shaken and promises are exchanged and a little scrap of chemically treated paper changes hands in a strange echo of how commerce used to function. For a strange echo of how love used to function.

Of how it would function again.

She felt bad for playing on his emotions. She felt bad about the moment when she'd hinted that the picture might wind up with one of the children - a particularly loud and obnoxious one - if it didn't get sold soon. She'd talked about his beloved in the past tense. She hadn't warned him that she intended to use this connection for rebellion and that it might get traced back to him. She'd built a false sense of urgency and then gouged the man for everything she could get and it felt cruel.

But that was the cost of wishes.

She had to change the world. She had to. Whatever it takes, the Cat had said. Everything she had broken needed to be put right and it started here, with the access a bribed Chainsmith could get her and the Phantom Thieves.

She just needed to make sure she was too tired to dream. If she trained hard enough she could outrun even the nightmares. If she ran just fast enough she might outrun the person she was afraid she might be becoming.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

They come through the storm in their hundreds. Spreading out, encircling, making use of every sight-line and observation nook and choke point they built into the bones of their city. The warriors of Ceron know how to wield their numbers and everywhere you look is filled with ancient soldiers and their ropes and slings. Not here. Not here. Not here. They know how to search. Trap. Consolidate. The sounds of horns and drums gurgle through the clap of Victory-Granting Zeus' thunder. Everything here is your enemy.

The wolves close in from all directions. Circling. Flanking. Threatening. And sprinting ahead of them at their fore comes their king.

The alley goes dark, light blocked by the sudden shadow that fills the entire exit. The silhouette ignites as a violet-blue arrow leaps to his fingertips. You duck behind a building and the building ceases to be. Through the rubble and the wreckage the King steps forwards to the sound of drums. Boom, boom, boom.

The world is shrinking. Step by step, obstacle by obstacle. Soon it shall be you, Redana and the King.

And then it will be Redana and the King.

Galnius!

"Because you're a pirate," said Galnius. "You're a rebel. You're a servitor who has ceased performing her function and has gone on to lay claim to strength and station that does not belong to you."

She speaks frankly. You are a hero, after all, and one does not dissemble before one of your reputation.

"So your prediction for dishonour and treachery will naturally incline you to find alternatives to fighting. You plan to seek Aphrodite's aid rather than Apollo's, and will attempt to seduce the Admiral to distraction. And I cannot help but recall the legend of the time the Starsong Privateers smuggled an entire phalanx into a palace disguised as harem dancers."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

The empty spaces in her heart began to fill with a different kind of light. Hunger! Fire! The keys to changing the world! Because she wanted to have a changed world - she wanted to close her eyes and wish and have it all be different. Instead she had to channel that dissatisfaction. She had to get mad! Be a fighter! Want things bad enough to be okay with trampling over other people's dreams!

It was easy to think this way under the eyes of the Cat. She was never good at saying no. She was never good at letting people down. She'd gone through all of this, today, so that she could be the kind of person the Cat wanted her to be. Once she understood the shape of that person she could strive to be it. If she didn't take action that meant she was satisfied with how things were! And she wasn't! She wasn't satisfied! She was mad! And hungry! And that meant she was going to get the things she wanted! Because that was the only way she'd be able to make everyone happy!

That's right. She just needed to work harder. She needed to do whatever it took. Strength. Speed. Turn this uncoordinated mess of doubt and uncertainty around and train. Her shield to this point had been a heavy, massive tower shield almost as tall as she was, a castle to cower behind - now it shifted, becoming smaller and lighter and more evenly balanced. Her sparring changed as well - still defensive, but not rigid, not craven. Not afraid to retaliate. More sparring. More weights. Harder! Faster! She'd show them all how much she wanted their smiles! She hadn't been vigilant enough! She hadn't been strong enough! She just needed to be stronger.

She felt like a werewolf. Senses alight. Heart pounding. Muscles letting her know that they were in pain but that they could keep going if she needed them. And she did. There was too much to do to slow down now. She needed to keep going until everything was fixed.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

No culture on the planet had ever drawn any association between the sun and cats - chariots, sure, boats, absolutely, eagles, makes sense, wolves, could see it, dung beetles, well, still more logical than a cat. These associations held true in this new incarnation of the sun - cats were just like lazy foxes right? And foxes were basically dogs that laughed. And she understood how dogs worked!!*

"Alright!" she said, brilliantly, grinning. "I shall perform the role of cat!"

And as far as she's concerned, that was it. Rehearsals were an alien concept to Jasper Inkra - music and dance came as naturally as conversation. She finished her cereal-ramen and presented Shokyou with a handful of leaves she'd gathered earlier, in replication of the strange exchange Dulcinea had made yesterday. "When shall we begin?"

* Dogs are tiny horses