Thanqol

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

"Lady Selzi advised me on more than one occasion that I should respond to such insults by demanding a duel," Robena mused. "Given that I have just vanquished you in one I remain unclear how this was meant to solve the problem."

She frowned as a memory crossed her mind - Lady Selzi standing in the same place as her, victorious but spurned by a Greek who declared her a savage and barbarian despite her superiority at arms. Her solution had been to kick the woman in the side of the head in a riposte that everyone had found extremely funny at the time - Selzi always had exceptional comedic timing. But in the same situation now, with the same opportunity, she finds the thought of imitating her lady uncomfortable.

"Good luck with the arm," she mutters instead and slouches away to discipline her horse.

[I again demand my right to be known by reputation - and I have rolled a 6]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Hermetician has thus far been crabby and intractable, a creature who hoarded knowledge so jealously that a simple 'how do you do?' might result in him grabbing you by the lapels and screeching "Who put you up to this!?!" Even as Imperial Princess they were oftentimes your favourite tutors because if you did not wish to learn they had no desire to interrupt you, and would happily enable you goofing off in your lessons and forge both assignment and grade on your behalf.

But something is different this time around.

Perhaps it's the information. This is not data crammed into an unwilling skull with the consent of neither party. This isn't the theoreticals of Imperial megaprojects or analysis of strategic resource deposits that can transform the fate of reality itself. This isn't the immensity of society and Empire, this is a discussion about the contents of a single room - a magnificent room no doubt, capable of a great deal, but still of a size that fit into a human mind.

But maybe it's you. Perhaps you've grown and matured. Perhaps it's because you're invested now. This isn't a responsibility granted to you by blood, information you must bear with the same flawless grace as your mighty mother. These are questions you're motivated to ask, motivated because within them lie clues and hints as to how you might achieve your even greater goals.

But perhaps it's Iskarot. When you were tutored by Hermetics they were students of the internal journey, travel from the start of the book to the end. Iskarot is not like them - he has traveled. Perhaps more than any creature you have ever met. And while he can discuss the theoretical he tires of it quickly and diverges either into practical matters or anecdotes from the Path.

So you learn the structure of the Reactor Spike, a long thermotransfer rod that runs through the core of the ship. You learn the theoretical - mechanics of heat transfer, how the constant temperature applied to the frontal beak prevents the flowmetal from hardening and becoming brittle. You learn the practical - ship names are carved indelibly upon the forging of the Spike, and the ownership of the ship and any trade permits are carved below this. Over the centuries some ships change hands hundreds of times, leaving the Spikes a historical record carved onto the spine of the ship.

At this point he takes you through to the Spike and you walk beneath the names of the masters of the Plousios. You see that it was forged with the maker's seal of the Tauyk Drive Yards as the masterpiece of Jovian Plainsmith. You see that it was first owned by someone named Doctor V.V. Kuttsledge who bore a trading warrant from Crown&Slate, authority to practice medicine and law under protection of the company. You trace the course of how it changed hands. Here, it served as an exploration vessel, here it was a diplomatic ship, here it was repurposed as a cargo hauler - a claim that Iskarot scoffs at. A ship this fine serving as a cargo hauler? Come, Redana, here is how you can detect the lines of forgery, the subtle tells of unsanctified acid being used to write the name into the Spike, how he once served on a ship where the captain was fool enough to forge a trading permit for the Atlas Cultural Sphere and they had dispatched an assassin of the Toxicrene Temple in retribution. He told tales of how the ship descended into paranoia and how even though he'd caught the adept in the act of a murder, she'd been able to bold-facedly lie her way out of the punishment...

And in the midst of his tales he hands you the acid-laced stylus that will let you add your name to the base of the list - below REBEC CHALIM, and below HADES.

Dolce!

There had been a battle here. Few had stood against many. All had perished.

Many had fallen with blades in their backs and to you this spoke of betrayal. A loss of reason, a loss of trust. A mutiny or a civil war where trust was the worst sin one could possess. Some bodies had fallen together in each others arms, daggers in each others hearts - impossible to tell if it's a tender embrace or a ferocious struggle. Human and servitor bodies intermixed and without a Praetor of the Empire on hand with the precise definitions of each in her handbook no one could tell you which were which.

Hades stands in the doorway and you can see the blue glow of his eye even through the back of your skull.

As you take stock, you pause. One of these bodies is whole. Some bodies wear armour, but none so complete as this, none still filled like this - ah! It is not a suit of armour at all. You look at the mechanical shape of a construct, glass visor shattered by a heavy hammer blow, bite marks in the neck so deep the head is almost separated from the body.

Enough damage to incapacitate, but by no means destroy. Such an entity could be made to live again. What stories could it tell, I wonder?

Alexa!

"Foolish!" Iskarot said. In fairness he had already exhausted six languages in his quest to appropriately express his feelings on this matter. "And you! Away! I will have less of this hovering while I work!"

For a while today, things had been magical. Now you were sitting with your arm in a mold being cussed out by a grumpy Hermetic as he enacted the rituals of repair and threw things at Isty whenever she tried to check up on you. You hadn't lost the arm entirely - the engine had been dimmed for maintenance - but it had still been a pretty miserable experience. Redana had been chipper, though, when she'd come by for a lesson on how to reconstruct the damage. He hadn't snapped at her. Instead he'd told her to get Princess Epistia out of his way, and the two of them had been off together somewhere for several hours in what you could only hope wasn't any kind of a date.

"This is what comes from failing to honour Ares!" blasphemed the Hermetician. "Stupid accidents! Bad luck! It's been the death of half the ships I've been on, mark my words!

[Damage your Courage - but you can use your repair kit to recover damage at this point]

Bella!

Mynx, teasing and daring and provocative, turns out to be unable to handle turnabout. All her slick lines about how she needed to be so suggestive as part of her quest to be a better actress were actually entirely true. Her head raises to make it easier to grasp her throat, her breath struggles to find a rhythm you'll allow, and Aphrodite pockets the wit from her tongue and the rhythm of her heart. This was power. This was confirmation of your words and your god. With one hand, you could make Mynx as strong as steel, with the other you could take it all away and leave her helpless.

"Yes," she managed at the last, "we will."

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Hermetic waved a tendril half-irritably. "Desist from panic. I will answer as many questions as you possess. It is... unorthodox," he said the word like one might say 'filled with scorpions', "but I am extending to you the rights of apprenticeship without the obligations. I would not presume to command the blood of Empire, but nor will I deny your curiosity. This means I will help you learn the secrets of the Saffron Path for as long as you wish to walk it."

[Forge a bond with Iskarot the Hermetic]

"Perhaps there is lost context," he buzzed thoughtfully. "Something has been lost. It would take the act of either a god or an Empress to destroy such a vital piece of information on this scale. And it is critical that it be rediscovered, otherwise in time the galaxy will fall back to primitive times, becalmed on a million islands."

Dolce!

You step into a spilled garden. Soft grass beneath your hooves, wild flowers in pink and white growing in patches. Chaotic but not overgrown despite however many years or decades they have waited here in this forgotten room. The coarse white granite walls are tattered with ivy and a single blossoming tree lets a perpetual shower of white petals fall.

And amidst the flowers and grass, bones.

You step into a tomb.

Here lie dozens of long-dead bodies, eroded away to clean-picked skeletons. Swords, pistols, and imperishable jewellery decorate the fallen. There are more gemstones than should be natural, for the strange influence of Hades causes them to blossom like the flowers they lie amidst. These bodies were not laid out according to funeral rites with respect and honour - they lie where they fell, spears still penetrating their ribs, only the murmured ghost of a battlefield.

Two bodies catch your eye. Two skeletons lying side by side, bones having fallen and tangled into each other. Amidst their bodies curves stems and thorns resolving into a glittering pink and purple rose. It binds together the dead in a gentle weave, emerging between them like a single shared heart.

Alexa!

"It is," said the princess, arms wrapped around your neck.

For a long and silent moment you freefall alongside each other, beholding the vista of the galaxy in all its transcendent beauty. It's so peaceful you don't notice at first when you start to accelerate. Then the wind starts whistling through your ears and you're picking up speed faster and faster and at the end of the corridor you can see the spectacular molten glow of the Engine and the enormous stack of grav-plates that the Hermetic has left carelessly vertical.

You're heading rapidly towards a terminal velocity impact. Would it have killed Iskarot to put up a sign?

Bella!

There's a moment too when you're in the arms of a friend, safer than you've ever been, safe in the knowledge that you wore a shield of love proof against any harm.

It changes as you do. As you become hard and sharp, so does Mynx and you can feel her change from shield to sword against your skin.

"Of course, Praetor," said Mynx, as professional as you'd ever heard her. There's only the faintest reluctance in how she steps away and points to the maps and charts laid out on the table - perfectly ready for this moment when you wanted to make a plan. "The augur confirmed we're on our way to Barassidar. The planet is a mess. All sentient life was long since wiped out, leaving only roaming armies of machine intelligences."

There are two Imperial Seals on this map. The first one is from the Office of Fleet Security, warning that the planet is an Alpha-class hazard - the same rating applied to the Eater of Worlds while it lived. The second is from the Office of Reintegration, a tiny and bizarre agency of Demeter worshippers who report directly to the Empress. It's a seal you've never seen before, stating simply 'Valid Resurrection Target'.

"This planet is still the epicentre of the Athena-Ares battle," said Mynx. "Appeasing both of them will be impossible, and whichever one we don't favour will side against us. Which god should we align with, Praetor?"

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

A castle can be mighty. It can represent the end of armies and the failure of tyrants. But no matter how high or enduring the walls they can only face in one direction.

With grim determination she keeps her shield facing Shamash. Blow after blow crashes against her shield from the front - she refuses to give Shamash an inch, refuses to give him even a breath of satisfaction. Her shield is as light as air and her reactions are as quick as thunder. She endures all of the High God's wroth without giving an inch.

But there's no defence against Marianne. Her blows shake her, make her stumble, knock her to her knees. She can only carry one world on her shoulders and so she fights like her second opponent isn't there at all. Her only hope is her betrayer sees her frustrated tears and takes mercy on her. She's driven lower and lower until she's on her knees, bruised and battered between two storms.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Robena hefted her axe from her shoulders and brought it down in front of her. She thought for a moment, patiently rehearsing the action in her head, before breaking into a slow, loping run.

She'd always thought that the principles of mounted combat still applied even when on foot. Reach, weight, speed. It was the same way monsters fought. A sword and shield were so... situational in comparison. A highly technical combination that required so much skill and precision to pull off, skill that by no means everyone carried with them. Perhaps a grandmaster swordswoman would be able to perform a perfect sidestep of her incoming charge, or perform an angled parry with her shield that perfectly diverted the force of it. Bards told of such things. She'd never seen it herself.

She held the axe like a spear, the blunt metal tip of it held straight and she pushed all of her strength and her charge into it. Her opponent caught it on her shield but she was no mythic blademaster and her shield bore no ancient enchantments. Instead she simply took the impact of a horse's kick to the arm and went over backwards. Robena didn't slow, using her opponent's shield to keep her blade arm away and pinned under her body as she fell. She took the Azure Knight's helm by the crest with her right hand and pulled - and her mailed left came up in case it was needed to close the matter out.

[Single Combat: 12. All 4 on position]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Hermetician steeples his fingers, dragged down by thought. The question you have asked seems to be more complex than you first imagined.

"We..." he said it like it was a confession, "do not make Engines."

That was a surprise.

"The Order of Hermes does not understand the process. We... claim to. We do not, not truly. We recover them. We dare Poseidon's wrath to pull them from the deep. We..." he buzzed in a flustered, awkward way, and then backtracked abruptly. "We understand the mechanics! Every gear, screw, and bolt! Every secret of containment and enhancement! We have built entirely functional Engines that to this day bring divine light to the great Caravels. But... we do not understand the spark. We cannot ignite them once they have gone dark. We can transfer a burning star from a damaged engine into a new one we have made but we cannot bring a new one to life. Not since the Great War."

Once this shame had left him, fiery energy exploded through him and he slammed a parchment scroll hidden somewhere within his robes onto the floor in a passion. "And it is not as though we have not investigated the principle! We have done heroic research into this topic! We have diagrams, instructions and even rediscovered the ancient Tauyk Drive Yards where thousands of Engines were once made! We have petitioned the gods with our questions! And yet, no matter how faithfully we follow the rituals of ignition no new sparks burn!"

A skeletal metal hand emerged from the robes cupped the technomancer's chin. "It is not our knowledge that is flawed. It is the galaxy that is wrong. Something has happened, the natural laws have changed, some mighty god has decided to deny the universe new Engines. At first we thought it was Lord Apollo, who was indeed deeply involved in the process of ignition - the old rituals involve a great deal of purity of heart - but the Brilliant Lord has indicated that he does not hold us in disfavour. Perhaps he does, but if so he is keeping it a deep secret, and applying this same judgement to other groups that attempt the same thing. It seems unlikely. We do not know."

Dolce!

A blue light within the doorway. A single spark like a star.

You wish Hades wielded the supernatural in this moment. You wish he was a titan of smoke and charcoal skin and twisted beard. You wish he spoke to you in the voice of the divine. You wish he wasn't just a tall, spindly man in a suit vest who was striding towards you with a mouth locked in a line of restrained fury. If he appeared as a god rather than a man it would be easier to imagine that he wasn't about to murder you.

"What," hissed the Lord of the Dead, "do you think you are doing here?"

Soft hands rest upon your shoulder even as you stagger backwards into the arms of Hera. "I sent him," said she behind you, voice as soft as a silk noose.

"How dare you?" said Hades, and his voice became even softer as his fury built. "How dare you!? In my domain? On my ship? You would tempt them to contravene my laws?"

You can feel Hera's fingers tighten around your shoulder a moment. There's nothing of it in her voice but you're suddenly aware that she's worried. Like she might have miscalculated. But there's not even a whisper of it in what she says next. "Of course I would never dream of contravening your laws, brother Hades. I am your guest here. I am not here to investigate your secrets. I have merely bought a servant."

"A servant?" said Hades, eyes like burning oceans.

"Yes," said Hera smoothly. "Quite apart from everything else, you simply have a mess back there. Little Dolce here is a good and diligent servant, quite capable of keeping his mouth shut. He's merely here to tidy up."

The Lord of the Dead stared into your eyes. His expression has still not cracked. You fear it might never. "Fine," he said. "Clean. Organize. And do not let his mind wander, sister Hera. I can find another crew if I must."

The gods passed away from the world like shadows cast by birds, and again you are left before that open doorway spilled with flowers.

Alexa!

A chase like this can hardly be contained. It erupts from the training room and into the corridors, and it goes, and it goes and it goes, feet pounding and hearts as the thrill of acceleration overpowers everything else...

And then your feet leave the ground.

You've run directly into one of the corridors that the Princess and the Hermetic previously stripped of grav-plating and haven't gotten around to replacing yet. And so you tumble together weightlessly down a seemingly infinite corridor carried by all the momentum of your earlier sprint and it feels like you've run so fast you've started flying.

Oh, is this what space is, Alexa? Is this what could have been if people didn't drag their gravity up with them into the void? You know how to fight aboard ships but never before have you swum in the sea, and you drift together at once timelessly and at the speed of thunder. On your left are endless windows that open up on an aching vista everlasting, on your right are all those same stars caught in amber-eyed reflection.

Bella!

You'd never expected to see strength in Mynx's eyes. Mynx who would discard her whole identity to avoid a problem, Mynx who'd stab you in the back so she could outrageously flirt with Redana, Mynx who had all the consistency and sticky sweetness of strawberry jam. How was she capable of looking kind and wise enough to understand your feelings, how could she be someone strong and stable enough to hold you up in this moment?

(She wasn't really. This was an act, surely. She'd just never had a serious role to play before now...)

"I don't think," Mynx spoke slowly, and there was something in that cadence that reminded you of Redana - that this wasn't a guess, it was the considered opinion of someone who specialized in impersonating Redana, "Redana has space for more than one thing in her head at any point in time. It's what gives her that presence - if you've got her focus you're the only thing that matters. It's wonderful when you have it..." she trailed off a bit. "I don't think she stopped caring about you, Bella. I think she just doesn't remember right now. There's some other thought burning in her head. We just need to remind her."

Fellowship: The Heart

"Fascinating..." murmured Ailee. "And ow. Quit it. Ow! Knock it off, assholes! I'm trying to learn about this stupid piece of junk! Don't give me that, you bought me here."

Impatience builds within her like static electricity. It wants to just be done with all this bullshit and get the conversation to its conclusion - a conclusion where she is no longer getting opportunistically stung by panicking bees. She rolls her jaw. The difference between an Archmage and some sort of vice elemental was her ability to focus those sensations on what mattered.

Her big book of nightmare translations is out again and she's flicking through it to the chapter on deranged public transportation infrastructure. "Warning acknowledged," she stated as her tattoos glowed, letting herself be known and heard. "Hello, Wormwood Station. I am the Chief Inspector. Calm your flailing. It is unseemly. We will discuss this over tea like civilized Aspects."

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Everyone's always gotta be a damn hero.

Many horses are quicker than Apricot on their hooves, but there isn't an equine in the world who can hold a candle to the speed with which he can come to a stop. He even lowers his head to chomp at a cluster of buttercups he saw by the side of the lists. It's an incredible act of disrespect but it's also a calculated one - her warhorse is smart enough to determine instantly when her heart is too conflicted to keep him under control. Horse like this can't be driven half-heartedly.

And Apricot's been here before. Some stupid kid who doesn't know when she's beaten, who thinks that 'skill' and 'determination' are magic balms that'll add two feet to their height and two hands to their biceps, up against a knight who's trying to figure out how to gently disabuse them. Sometimes a curse is involved, but it doesn't need to be. What's important is that Robena is too distracted to put her back into cussing him out, and that's the same as a ducal invitation to relax.

Robena grumbles and flicks the horse's ear irritably. He gives her a dirty look like she's the asshole here. Some squires are running over but Robena has already stepped down off the saddle and hefted her enormous wooden practice-ax over her shoulders. A forester's pose, never quite forgotten from her youth, held steady as she ponders.

She's abandoning the joust. There's only so much you can do to avoid hurting someone when several tonnes of charging horseflesh are involved. She's going to take this to the melee where her opponent has less control over what does and doesn't get hurt. She doesn't feel the need to justify this decision; everyone in attendance saw a knight drop their shield and take a body blow. Already the healers and wicker-wise will be rushing to check that nothing was pierced, but she doesn't doubt the Azure Knight will wave them off.

[Take Stock: 7. What can I observe about this curse, and what might break it?]

Breathless Dead

Redana!

You work the flow of the star. You allow it to roar a little stronger, a little brighter - a trivial matter compared to what it is capable of but this celestial rounding error is the difference between life and death for everything aboard. You've had power all of your life, Redana, but it's never been so immediate as this. The flow of fire that runs through these cables is life and death. The rising roar of the engine is creation and annihilation. Thin bands of rubber and polyalloy separate you from the primordial forces. The changes you make are immediate. The world you want to build comes into being exactly so. This isn't a dance of politics and shadows and hearts, this is immediate and visceral and percussive and you understand why your mother still spends so much time working with machinery.

You work it correctly. The Hermetician clicks his approval.

"The transition will take an hour, so we must withdraw above decks and wait," he said. "You did well, princess. The lesson is concluded. You may ask any questions you want of me, and I shall do my best to answer." Something about the way he says that implies that this is a valuable treasure he is offering, and is almost hesitant in doing so.

Dolce!

"As you do, so shall I do," said Hera, accepting the bargain and wiping away all stress and fear from Vasilia's brow.

The Plousios is vast. All ships are. A shuttle may be able to make trips from orbit into space, or even within a system, with a stockpile of solid fuel but the power needed to sail the void at speeds fast enough to matter requires the infinite willpower of a true Engine. Unparalleled amidst all the sciences of humanity, Engines are shrunken and bound stars roaring out with enough energy to warm a world and with lifespans in the millions of years. It's a miracle that they're possible at all, and it's a miracle that they can be shrunken so much. But eventually miracles run out and the smallest possible size for an Engine is still enormous.

And when you're already building something as enormous and complex as an Engine adding a ship the size of a small city to it is a rounding error in the budget.

You pass through gardens, Dolce - plants still steady, still gently dripping cherry blossoms despite the barnacles and coral encrusted on their trunks. You walk down a corridor surfaced with the pearls and dusting shells of clams, feeling the soft stones gently crumble beneath your hooves. You find a swiftly running river that courses through its square-cut and grassy canal banks, maintained despite the chaos by the arcane secrets of the ship. On the far bank is a structure, perhaps marble, perhaps plastic, with an open door that wildflowers in orange and pink spill from. Hop, hop, hop, across the stepping stones you go as you wander deeper and deeper.

Alexa!

The fire does not stop dreaming of apocalypse just because it is contained within the hearth. It burns and burns even though there is nowhere to go, burns and burns in the hope one spark might spread, burns and burns because it still has fuel and will not stop so long as it can. It burns and burns promising the death of cities and the end of empires but instead all it provides is warmth. It does not become tame, but in time it does burn low. You can feel tendons slowly relax and fierce muscles soften and for a moment you think the storm has passed and she is done.

And then she slips her tail inside your shirt and uses it to tickle your sides and this is a mockery of the sacred sport of wrestling, Isty.

Bella!

You dream of lava. Heat, heat, heat. Melting, melting, melting. The boundaries between yourself and the surrounding world indistinct, the water of your body extending out like Beljani's virus and saturating everything around you while still being as sharply connected to your nerves as your missing whiskers. You are so hot that you have to spread as thin as butter across the bread of a bad girl just so you have enough nerves to feel every molten drip of it. You can feel a breath on your outermost layer and it feels like a blizzard. You can smell jasmine and it forces your brain up from the molten void of non-existence to experience it. You should be boiling but you can't, you should be scalded but you aren't, you're trapped at ninety-nine, suspended on the intersection of liquid, gas and solid.

When you finally wake you're ice cold.

Your sweat has soaked into the blankets so totally it's like lying on a leaky waterbed, and it has since faded from molten hot to ice cold. The light is dim but still conjures sparks. You're so dry that you've downed two of the glasses of water laid out by your bed before you've fully processed their presence - processed the plurality of them. Half a dozen cups of different shapes and sizes, pillaged indiscriminately and filled with water waiting for you. This isn't your bed either, it's not small, it's not hard... it's all softness and blankets and fluff.

And you're there. By the door, in the maid's place, waiting while your mistress sleeps - no. That's not you, that's Mynx, waiting with all the patience and discipline she learned from watching you tending to Redana's illnesses.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

She's not surprised. Shamash may have wanted a fair fight but there was no way the Annunaki would have risked their god actually losing in the public eye. That would be the end of them. So instead she has to fight their fleet and some shadow-realm sorcerer all at once.

She sets her shield.

Then let them come.

Light and fire smashes at her shield. Chains and blades claw and snap at her ankles. She holds. The weight of it pushes her back. The sand she stands upon is as soft as her heart and it will not let her brace, so no matter how deep her feet sink into it it will not stop her from being pushed back. Light and fire, wielded by one who has tamed the stars. Back. Down. Break.

But sand is too strong to break, and so is her heart.

The smoke and fire clears and she shines amidst it all, cursed spear in one hand, radiant shield in the other. She holds Shamash's precious weapon above her head in triumph, in threat. She holds it as though to cast it right back at the Annunaki as Leonidas once cast at Xerxes. Will she make the throw the Spartan could not? Will she be satisfied, as he was, in making a god bleed?

She brings the weapon down upon her knee and shatters it in halves.

"I might have taken your life, Shamash," she calls as she stands, legs trembling beneath her but still holding her proud. "But I won't. You alone are no threat. Instead I will take every one of the devices you use to hurt others and leave you powerless."

She was a Phantom Thief after all.

[Marking Afraid. Clearing Angry by destroying something valuable. 14 on Never Give Up, inspiring the team]