Thanqol

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Alced girl glares at you for a moment. She opens and closes her mouth as though about to speak but each time stumbles over the words. Finally, in an act of seeming frustration, she plucks three feathers from her right wrist. This seems to be a painful act from her, and the scar tissue underneath seems to indicate that these particular feathers have been pulled many times before.

She sets all three into the sand like nails, calamuses still wet with faint drops of blood. Then she clicks her talons - a scraping metallic click that sends a shower of green-yellow sparks. By the third click her talons seem to have actually ignited and she touches the ends of her burning talons to the end of the vane. Each feather flickers and starts to burn like a candle and the Alced girl shakes the fire off, fusing a few patches of sand into molten glass.

"Once, Admiral K'ten left on her canoe to pay tribute to the universal emperor," she said, though by the fifth word it was hardly speaking. Her voice was rapidly gaining strength and timbre, falling into a rhythmic chant. "And of K'ten's daughters she left behind Mas'ri, O'wouh, Ari'la, Captain Pth'na, Jadelis, French, and Admiral Katin. K'ten's daughters knew the currents and the tribes and they could sail for years without feeling the call of land in their bellies, and their flag was the sun drowning 'midst the waves. Their reign was great, and grew all the greater when Ari'la married Dandari from Second Fleet, and the two tribes celebrated their alliance with raids that shamed all the Fleets of Ridenki."

Boom, boom. She's sweeping her right arm over and over, the feathers clapping a burst of air each time they come down to the sand. Boom, boom. As she keeps the rhythm it echoes. It seems as though behind her stands a mighty heifer and its hooves stomp upon the ground in time to the wingbeat.

"Those days were the last, for deep beneath the earth the wolf Mengekalisk had woken from ten thousand years of slumber. At first when he was but stirring and lashing the sky with tongues of flame and soot the Fleets were confident, and they lanced him and struck him and sealed the volcanoes from whence he rose and all were merry. They thought they had his measure and thought that in time his wroth would pass and he would sleep once more.

"But Mengelisk's fury ran deeper than they knew, for he coveted Ari'la and resented her marriage to Dandari. He envied their love, he envied their canoes, he envied the might of the united First and Second Fleet, but even he could not break their power. And so the Mengelisk in fury sliced open his own belly and from it tumbled an egg, and from that egg hatched a golden rooster and named it Ne'ro - named it hunger.

"The golden rooster emerged from beneath the earth and his beak rose and fell with fierce accuracy. It splintered the ships Adelaide, Vladivostok, Remangrad, Saltzberg. With the hurricane of its beating wings it capsized the Brisbane, the Northampton, the Orleans, the Bristol. And as the Fleets fell back and reeled Mengelisk erupted forth from the world and with his burning jaws he devoured the Naples, the Seattle, the Roristok, the Zanzibad, the Modolusku, the Giza, the Logos. None could sate their hunger and the rooster and the wolf ate the islands bare and drank the oceans dry. In the end, though, it was the rooster Ne'ro who swallowed Ari'la and Dandari. Of course Mengelisk could not abide this, but the rooster clawed his face and chased him howling from the eaten world. Then, finally, content in his victory, the rooster laid four eggs in the sky and took flight."

There is more music now than just the heifer's stamping. Peacocks with beads woven into their glittering tails shake out a rattling beat, and a hundred horses march and snort along the beachside. The thunder of the waves rises and crests as the oars of canoes cut through it - one, ten, ten million, and all the horizons are darkened with the sound of breaking waves.

"At last, Admiral K'ten returned from the palace of the universal emperor, and oh did she weep to see her world broken so. In her grief she raised her spear and struck one of the rooster's great eggs. It shattered and spilled, and from it flooded all of the waters and scattered all of the islands and all of the fleets that had gone into it. And K'ten then packed her canoe with food and left once more, and once she was away from Ridenki she lit a vast cooking-fire," and here the girl pointed at a particularly bright star just becoming visible against the growing twilight, "to draw the rooster away." And here she gestures at a cockrel-shaped constellation on its way towards that starlit gemstone.

The feathers burned low. The beat of oars and hooves and beads fades and slows and drifts away. The Alced girl takes a long and deep breath, not noticing as Hera briefly touches her cheek in parting. Then her eyes snap open and she jabs her finger directly into Redana's chest.

"And you are granddaughters of the rooster who have returned to consume our world again!" she said. "See there!?" she points up at the Yakanov in the distant skies. "One of the great eggs has hatched and returned and it's as hungry as its father! Its servants eat everything, gnawing bark and swallowing stone and drinking oceans! You take Alced and you fill them with hunger and teach them to eat too! You tempt them with our own canoes, dragging them from the sea-floor and repairing them and offering them to the lords of the Fleets! You buy their silence and their slavery with our own birthright! The stars are ours, those ships are ours, and you say we can only have them if we fill ourselves with the same hunger as you!"

Vasilia!

"You're confusing cause and effects. Games are a response to conditions. As the Azura grew complacent success they diverted their passions into games of chance and strategy. Opponents became enemies - and their traditional enemies faded into shadow and memory. When the war returned their enemies struck the Azura like a cat leaping onto the game board."

The Pilate folded his hands. "As the board shrinks so do the minds of the players. By the end, the leadership of the Azura had shrunken minds indeed - barely able to see beyond the ambitions of their own pawns. I think things are very different since the Empress Nero humbled them at the beginning of her reign."

There's a moment of silence, and then a chime like crystal-laid dreamcatchers runs through the ship. Many ignore it, but some Hermetics change direction. Pilate Borin stands.

"Come. We have a party to attend."

Alexa!

If there's one thing every Empire you've encountered has been incomparably bad at it's parties. You were wondering if Dionysus was simply a fairy tale before Baradissar. Well, this Hermetic 'party' is no more likely to attract the Laughing God's attention than any other stale function. It feels more like an academic conference - a room dizzyingly full of bright yellow robes and hushed voices whispering to each other in a mechanical susurrus. Notes are shared and exchanged and adepts are constantly coming and going with papers - but there is still enough drinking going on to raise the odd voice in uncharacteristically normal laughter. The centre point seems to be a massive exposed window showing the planet below.

The Magos Birmingham is here somewhere but who could pick him out of this crowd? Though perhaps you had best get your bearing quickly, for you can see Lady Artemis mingling amidst the guests and her presence rarely omens a pleasant and quiet evening.

Bella!

You've never seen more abject terror and total obedience amongst the Hermetics - who are ordinarily a fairly servile religion already - than when you namedrop the Ikarani. The name runs through them like lightning and before you need to say another word every Hermetic is on their face in kowtow and humming a kind of whimpering buzzing hymn that expresses total surrender. Some Coherent runners leave the hall, and soon after Magi following Magi start coming before you to throw themselves on their faces and join the begging hymn.

Finally, a Coherent comes back. She's a different type from the ones you've seen so far - leaner, sleeker, with eyes like black gemstones flecked with brilliant orange. You don't smell any fear from her and you know instinctively you've reached the limits of where threats will get you - the red streaks on the collar, the veil of diamonds and pearls, the scent of power and command all say that now you're dealing with an actual decision making entity. This is someone who can make the decision to blow up this entire sector of the station if she must.

"I am Khitava," said the Coherent general, dipping into a kowtow - though the speed and power she puts into it makes it seem almost like a pushup, and one that she could lunge out of if she had to. "Prime Reductor of this fleet. Magos Birmingham begs you to visit him in person, Praetor."

Fellowship: The Heart

Not every game can be rigged, can it?

She failed at the hammer game. Fine - perhaps she could stand to do some more push ups. Redemption was sought in the air rifle booths. This was a matter of precision and control and she should be ideal at this - and she was! Every bullet hit a target! Unfortunately none of them were her target and for some reason that meant it didn't count. Speed, then! See her hands blur as she misses mole after mole! That was fine, that was just another stupid hammer game - let's find a trial of intelligence! A nice, traditional game of Go would be enough to demonstrate her devastating intellectual superiority. And yet she finds herself staring at a board run through with lines of black and her clown-painted opponent gives her a pitying shrug.

What... was this? She was the most competent person she knew. She was brilliant. She'd blitzed through university, intuiting arcane secrets that eluded the most senior researchers. She'd learned every practical art needed, from first aid to dungeoneering. She'd worked night and day to learn the true nature of reality and the mechanisms by which it might be altered and nothing had stood in her way. She'd solved Parvit's Theorem while her classmates were still getting the names of colours down. These - these games should surely be lesser problems? By any objective measure she should be the most functional person in this den of wash-outs, runaways and literal circus clowns. Even if the games were rigged she should be able to figure out how and solve for that!

Ailee stepped off the ride, took two steps, and fell over. She couldn't even handle a little dizziness. Everyone else was barely unsteady. What the hell was this? What was she missing??

It does not immediately occur to Ailee Sundish that she has never even attempted fun in her life before.

Sunshards

Chen!

"That wasn't us," said Vogodoris the falling god. "We would not bring sheep into our crimes. There are limits."

"We were on the lookout for an opportunity like this, though," said Elkibrant. "Never negotiate with a fox without a maiden's heart, after all! Your own or a sufficiently gagged proxy."

"Such picky creatures," said Vogodoris, shaking his head.

"As to ol' stoneface here - where else do you meet a god? The Buddha cemetery! You should see it - this huge beach on the shores of Green Coral Bay where all the Buddhas of the world wash up. Plastic and stone and sodden papercraft, books and bronze and chocolate. Millions of them, laughing and calm, serene and warlike, rich and starving. Buddha statues the size of mountains and Buddha statues sealed within marbles. Temple playsets and motorcycle maintenance Buddhas and hitchhiker Buddhas. Enough Buddhas to enlighten the world, if that was how it worked.

"I grew up near there. Every winter when the tides are calm and the coral is hibernating we'd go down there with trash bags and grabby sticks and plenty of monks. We'd pick through the Buddhas looking for our yearly Buddha. Everyone gets to pick one of the ten million Buddhas to be their Buddha for the year. It's like a new years resolution, you know? The Buddha you're going to care for says a little about how your year's going to go. If you're tired and need a rest then you take a little Buddha and have a little year, but if you're bright and full of energy you pick a huge Buddha that comes with huge problems! Every year some dumb kid picks one of the mountains statue Buddhas and has to spend all year climbing it to clean the bird shit, hauling incense out to the beach by the barrel, and undergoing a crash course in stonemasonry in addition to all their schoolwork.

"Gods, of course, live in Buddha statues too - Buddha's kind so he lets them stay. Sometimes you get a wicked one, just like some years you get a wicked year. Sometimes you get a really good one and your life is blessed. But sometimes... sometimes you get a god who's going through some shit, just like you. A god who's on the brink of some kind of transformation and needs as much from you as you need from him. You get a god like that, well, maybe it's time to leave the Buddha behind and hit the road. See if the two of you can find where you're looking for on your own, together. Some days respecting the Buddha just isn't enough - you've got to try to be the Buddha too."

Rose!

"A sale!" squeaked Will0 in shock and delight. She bounced happily on her heels and fist-pumped, childishly delighted - and snatched the two coins without hesitation. "Oh! A sale! I got a sale!"

Immediately ten thousand other geists are present. They're swarming over your senses, piling into this dataspace like seagulls to the scent of chips. For a moment it's a total sensory overload of blaring data confusion before things start abruptly cutting off. Will0 is returning your senses to you piecemeal, and you perceive her walking back and forth with a large mop, alternately cleaning away the advertisements plastering your senses and beating other geists with it. Finally the crowd backs off a little and the world is yours again, none witness to your bargaining than the sheep.

"Sorry!" said Will0. "I wasn't thinking - wow, they're really bored, huh? Well, I better stick with you! I've gotta keep my end of the bargain!"

This is a demon and her own creature, but she is also a fragment of the Scales of Meaning in the same way the Scales is a fragment of the Pyre of Knowledge. Like a thought can change a person, her perspective can change the Scales and the Scales' perspective can change the Pyre. And right now she is beaming at you with such happiness and delight that at least some of that must be running up the chain.

"Come on! Let's go meet a fox!"

Yue!

good

These aren't thoughts that are haunting you. No evil will is this, no higher purpose, no agenda or unfinished business. This is instinct. This is all physicality, its lessons speaking themselves in bone and nerve and muscle. Clack clack clack! This time when the machines go down they land in twisted and ruined heaps, too damaged for even the golden light to illuminate. They struggle, and then the light moves on.

duels aren't about control. not about controlling yourself. not about controlling your opponent. not about surrendering yourself. not about making your opponent surrender.

The light flowed through ancient channels and ran into a wall covered in muck and filth. Bubbles ran out in lines - the force of ancient pressure seals breaking, releasing air held still for centuries. Through the filth emerged a structure of filth. A gown of muck, a feminine form with no head, dressed in sticky black tar which glows red-orange from the golden light trapped inside. It raises its sword in salute - the faintest fleck of metal visible through the decay. Then it steps, steps, twists its legs, raises its blade, all present and ready energy and oh so beautiful and oh so dangerous despite the sludge.

It pauses in that motion, then stands straight and repeats the steps. As it goes through them your legs are dragged into the same places, the same angles, repeating its stance so the two of you are mirrors of each other.

duels are about the duel.

You step into the same step, you strike the same strike, slime-covered steel clashes with polished wood. Again and again - one! Two! Three! Faster and faster! So fast you're afraid of it, the speed, the whirling clash! It's striking a mirror - no, it's being the reflection. You're being made to imitate everything this spirit does and it turns out that you can. You can do it. You can move this way. There's nothing physically stopping you other than that you don't know how. You're leaning into it rather than fighting it and it's like learning the difference between falling and flight.

the duel has its own logic. its own steps. it is something that we create together, greater than the sum of our hearts.

Amidst the whirl of being a reflection lines of tar are leaving your opponent. With flicks and flourishes drips are leaving the hem of that animated gown and revealing gold and violet and orange, like a sunset emerging from beneath the sea floor.

The mirror shifts.

Now when she goes high you duck low, reflecting her in the inverse. You're still being guided but with each exchange the control loosens a little. Here is how you do this. And this. And finishing with that. Good. Again. Again! Again! One more time! One more again! And again! You're in spectacular beautiful motion, in sync with the duel - but every time it seems like it might conclude, that formless fabric recovers, withdraws, falls back into its stance and calls into your bones - again!

one more time, just one more - please. i'm not done yet.

It feels like this might go forever. And while you're keeping up you can't forever. This, after all, is a hungry ghost - the base craving instincts of the body, abandoned by the thoughts and compassion and soul that have gone on to the next life. It is simply craving, craving for the joy that it remembers in life. Craving the clash of blades, the whirl of steps, the beat of hearts. Just one more time. That is all it needs.

(But what is the filth of this place but the craving of the ancient world? What would blind a ghost so if not for endless exposure to the advertising geists and toxic excess? Perhaps one more duel truly would satisfy it were it not soaked in the corruption of ancient days).

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Robena nods. It's a distant nod, a dangerous nod, perhaps not as cursed as King Pellinore but hardly normal either. This is the motion of someone who has rewritten half of the details of your sentence mentally so she does not have to give her heart time to speak. "Then we shall start with them," she said. "Whatever their goal only evil will come of their success. Come, let us confront them."

She stands, the motion heavy with expectation. Lead her to her target.

Sunshards

Chen!

"Good afternoon, Princess!" said the thief as the car bounced down the dirt road at a sheep-startling pace. "I'm Elkibrant, gentleman thief, and this is my partner, Vogodoris, Fifth Sentinel of the Malachite Gate." He reached back one-handed to tuck a business card into your gag. "We're probably not going to be together long - you're hot cargo, haha, and I imagine by the end of this you'll end up traded a couple of dozen times. But hey! Today's prisoner is tomorrow's client, so I ask you - do you need a couple of rogues in your corner? Anyone you particularly do or don't want to be captured by?"

"Should I -?"

"Oh yeah, ungag her Dory, there's a sport."

For a confusing, relieving, disappointing moment your mouth is yours again.

Rose!

Oh, you are a Hunter most fierce, Rose from the River. Within the physical realm there is naught that can escape you. But the digital geists who swim the shores of the ethereal sea have ever slipped through your fingers and your ad-free subscriptions have long since expired.

"Are you someone who can keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs?" said an entity as timeless as you. "Are you someone who can keep her eyes on the prize despite anything? Daytrading may be for you, Rose!"

This is Will0 WZP, your own personal awareness organizer - and one of the sub-souls of the Scales of Meaning. It manifests in your vision as a version of yourself as you could be: dressed in the latest* fashions, with a swish watch, a modern* hairstyle, and a retro* sidearm. It's currently showcasing what your hair would look like reformatted into a towering beehive shape. It dominates your field of view, your hearing, even your sense of smell is overcome with its advertised perfume (Megasoda Nightclub).

"So let's start with the trading!" it buzzed peppily. "The Scales has placed a high stake in your conquest and subordination, but we don't need to deal in absolutes. Perhaps I can interest you in a timeshare arrangement? I could broker an arrangement where you sub for the Scales some of the time in exchange for a trial membership in the ad-lite premium package?"

Yue!

like this

It's not a coherent thought that runs through you, and it's certainly not your own. It's a trigger of some sort of deep muscle memory - an instinct so deeply ingrained that it would hurt more to not follow it. A basic, wide horizontal slash that catches one of the rusted machines in its centreplate and knocks it over.

then this

It's almost like falling. Not the glamourous high altitude falling with a view, but the tripped over your own feet and oh no I'm going down in front of everybody kind of falling. Your body barely keeps up with the impulse, stumbling forwards and putting your weight into the reverse sweep that strikes the second decrepit machine.

ending like this

You're spinning, being spun. Situational awareness is an impossible concept and your feet have never felt more treasonous. They don't know how to tell the difference between left and right - what use to feet have for language? You figured walking out as a child and didn't particularly need to revisit the concept. And now they're doing this totally unnatural thing and absolutely none of it feels right - other than the fact that by the end of it you're standing and they aren't. Even when you run you never move that quickly.

again.

Just when you thought it was over. A radiant, platinum glow wraps around the heads of the machines and one by one they stagger back to their feet, held like puppets - just like you. They set their clubs into ready stances far more elegant than the ones they had before and then before you know it you're being shoved through the motions a second time.

Breathless Dead

Response Level 2
A stirring of the clouds reveals the moon, full and dominating the skies, far stronger than the distant sun.

Location Stats:
The Order of Hermes: The Order of Hermes is present here in force.
The Huntress Awakens: You are being observed, no matter where you are or what you do.

Redana!

Iskarot is patient with you, Redana. He, too, has had this moment, and he has not had it long enough to grow jaded. He folds himself into a seated position and for a long hour it is just the two of you and the waves. For a while you are three, as Hades seems to sit on the same shoreline alongside you. He is there for only a little while, though, coming and going without comment.

It is not he who breaks the silence. A Coherent patrol jogs along the beach in the shadow of their clanking MRU, billowing sooty and yet somehow spicy smoke. The soldiers are almost barbaric in how they appear - no gleaming metabronze plate, these are warriors with bare chests, shields of black marble, and cloaks of yellow and black. On full display are their unique bodies - some flawless fusions of human and machine, some simply biological but perfected, some abstract blurs of gears and blinking lights. It is pointless to guess at what they once were, these are creatures who have transcended their origins to make their souls manifest in physical form.

And they have with them a captive. An Alced girl, trussed and thrown over the shoulders of one of the Coherent like burlap. She squeaks when she's unceremoniously dumped onto the sand in front of you.

"Ho there, priest!" booms the Coherent soldier, saluting bombastically. "And apprentice! Lady Artemis has favoured us and we have captured a new recruit for the Order! The auguries say she has the mind for the Path but she's been nothing but bratty, so we're hoping you could have a word with her and maybe stop her from kicking us every step of the way."

"Put me down! You won't get away with this! Mirvan will find me no matter how far you take me!"

"Ha ha! Then we shall have two recruits!" said the Coherent.

Hider

Coherent Phalanx
The line infantry of the Order of Hermes, armed with wonders and terrors.
Tethered: Damage this stat if you can take the ground between the Coherent and their MRU.
Epic, Dominating Bursts: You must Pay a Price to close the distance to the Coherent Phalanx. They have the tags ranged, area, dangerous.

Mobile Reactor Unit
A font of divine energy to power the weapons of the gods.
Reactor Plating: This stat can only be damaged by Dangerous weaponry, or by the attention of a skilled engineer.
Unlimited Power: If a threat Tethered to the MRU takes damage, immediately heal that damage.

Vasilia!

"Oh, of course! I'm actually writing my very thesis on the ancient Azura game of 'chess'. Most notable for the illusionary promise of advancement offered to the infantrymen - strive hard enough and they may be added to the sovereign's harem, though such a promise is rarely realized."

Pilate Borin happily natters away at the subtleties of the ancient wargame, though the basic principle remains clear. The king remains the king. Different Pilates attempt to gather favour that they might serve as the Magos' right hand but there is no realistic advancement beyond that - Birmingham works to keep his subordinates locked in contests so that they can never challenge him directly.

"But then of course the three dimensional variants come in, and suddenly the lives of the pawns become all the harder. Just try penetrating a layered defense when trying to avoid mixing up and down! Can't even talk to the referee like that."

As Pilate Borin talks, it's clear he's disgruntled with this whole situation. Not long ago he was playing the game with the best of them and was close to the centre of power. But then he accepted what he thought was a promotion into a diplomatic role. As it turns out, the only ambassador with clout is the one that talks to the Empire. Now he's almost been knocked out of the game entirely and he's fairly salty about it. He's annoyed enough to even make a play against the Magos if he thinks it's plausible.

"Ah, but there's not much to say about games when you don't play them, is there? There is a mingle happening tonight between all the senior players if you'd like to attend."

Alexa!

"The great muster at Ridenki? Of course. All of the daimyos of Ceron were there. Mengekai, Tharao, Thriss, Kai'yen, Vatemoral..." names from the songs of ancient soldiers. Nursery rhymes for Ceron children, the pantheon of Imperial protectors who roam the distant stars to keep Tellus safe from afar. Epistia's voice is almost singsong as she looks out at the planet. "Ruin there was to be found there, ruin cloaked beneath a mask of order. Ruin was the reign of Molech, ruin was the cast of his spear. In ruin was his true imperium, and so ruin was the one thing that could not be allowed to exist. Concealed within the hand of the Director was the love of Demeter, and when she raised it to the sky the harvest moons came in their dozens and all were struck dumb by their splendour. In the shadow of the moons the Director stood as the bridge between life and death, and in the light of resurrection the legions of Ceron swore their final oaths."

You have wondered what became of the Ceron Legions. They are not stationed on Tellus. They are not discussed in the Empress' military briefings. You have the mind for logistics and planetary campaigns; certain forces simply cannot move without enormous quantities of resources being deployed to support them. Even their shadow should be recognizable in thousands of ships leaving Tellus for reinforcement and resupply. Did those galaxy-conquering warriors really all return to Ceron to beat their swords back into ploughs? Did generals like Mengekai really accept exile from the centre of Imperial power at the mere word of Nero? Did Thriss never attempt to seize power for herself?

They have disappeared directly into myth. As someone who has disappeared into myth yourself you understand how that is possible, but surely not everyone is as broken as you?

Tell me, Alexa, of which of the Ceronian Daimyos you crossed spears with. Who were they? How did they lead their legion? Why would they never have accepted a quiet retirement?

Bella!

"We apologize!" gasped the Hermetic so fast that it felt like she was prepared to break into this begging at any moment. All the nerves come tumbling out in a rush. "Tell her majesty we're sorry! We aren't questioning her authority, or her histories, we'd never act against her - we're just trying to serve her better! We're -" the Pilate stops abruptly as Mynx puts her foot on top of her neck, gazing down with the same dispassionate and annoyed look.

"We're - we're chronomining for data," stammers the Pilate. "We intend to use the primary weapon of the Yakanov to gaze back in time and observe the Empress' activities during the invasion and reconstruction of Ridenki. We believe that the Empress is the closest living soul to Hermes, if she is not Hermes herself. We mean no offense! We only wish to understand her better that we might serve her better!"

She's not lying. You're aware that at least some of the Hermetic order considers Nero to be a manifestation of their goddess. While this operation probably isn't entirely a spiritually motivated duty - enough of the Order will just be out to collect whatever secrets they can find - at least some of them are genuine about it.

More from instinct than anything, though, you don't think that the Magos himself is one of those true believers. There's too much guilt pouring out of the Pilate for her to have genuinely bought into this plan.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

"To drive the knights, sheriffs and retainers of King Uther Pendragon from the duchy," said Robena. Ah, simple treason then. At the least she does not consider it within her power to ride on London to confront the king directly.

Sunshards

Chen!

"Is this yours?" said a voice - we will call them 'he' because that is how they feel today. He has a suit, he has a sword, he has a grin and those are all one truly needs to accomplish mischief. It is the driver of the little car and how did he get back here? Hadn't he gone on ahead?

"This pretty little thing?" said the Technomancer, hand on her own sword. "No. Can't say that it is."

"Can't tell if I'm lucky," said the thief, still ready with that tension. "Or unlucky."

"It's hers," said the Technomancer with a gesture at Rose. "Wouldn't want to fight that. Wouldn't want to fight any of the others that'll come after her."

"That's fine," said the thief, stepping cautiously close and lifting up Chen with the hand that wasn't on the hilt of that sword. He tosses her over one shoulder. "I've got a buyer close by."

"The fox?" said the Technomancer. "You're a bold one."

"Speaking of buyers, you for sale?" he said. "I can put in a good word with the fox if you can slow the Ancient down a little."

"I'll take cash, if it's all the same to you."

"It's a deal," the thief tossed a thick wallet on the ground. The two exchanged one more glance, full of tension that could have broken into violence or passion - as any confrontation between sword bearers always could. But then they glanced aside and he stole you, Chen, away - running low through the ditch beside the road to toss you, still trussed and gagged, in the back seat of his car.

Rose!

The confrontation looms larger. The falling god faces you with eyes that had picked the monkey king from amidst a crowd, with a spear that itched to carve the calligraphy of martial perfection. Oh, doesn't he crave it? Aren't his desires the same as yours? Distractions and duels and precious victory and indulgent defeat?

But then he abruptly bows. He offers you the nails. And then he turns and strides magnificently back to the little car and crams his bulk inside, and it speeds off down the dirt road, bumping all the way along. It happens so fast and so decisive that you're left stunned, unsatisfied, burning at that anticlimax - that shove from a violent embrace that seemed so immanent for a second there.

It takes a long moment to unpack how he transitioned away from it so seamlessly. He was feeling the craving too but he did not have to apply willpower to tear himself away from the challenge. He did not have to swallow his pride. The only way he might have been able to do that is if he was vastly more advanced in the Way than you were... or...

If he'd just won a different way.

Where was your Chen?

Yue!

Whoever had made this place had not feared the water. The entire place is built around it. The walls are meant to glisten in eternal waterfalls and the floor is meant to open up into great pools and fountains. The floors were scattered with crystal flowers meant to catch sunlight falling through thick yellowed marble slats in the walls. A tree grows in the centre of it all with the ancient character of a bonsai, each root placed like a ribbon, each leaf like a blade of glass. This was not a place that feared anything.

It should have. The flows have run brackish and stagnant. The pools bubble with mud and rot and pollution. Robots sit dead and rusted waist deep in water, robots swim living and pointless beneath it. Toys and shopping carts and endless cans and the snapping pincers of crabs that lived within those cans. One entire wall has been decorated with a painting advertising personal injury insurance, but the machine that made this work did not have access to the colour green and so the painting sits garish and half-finished. Its mechanical creator slumps without power in front of its unfinished graffiti.

Of course the ghost would be mad at this. Anyone who had to live here would be disgusted. And while there is silence here there is not stillness. The entire room is filled with hunger - not wishes, not yearning, just hunger. Hunger enough to wake the dead.

And wake they do.

Three ancient machines, corroded and covered in algae and slime, wrench themselves to their feet - perhaps one intact machine between them. Two of them have clubs, heavy and brutal, and the third has a fist that isn't much better. They shuffle towards you and though they are slow, oh, how you wished they were slower!

Breathless Dead

Redana!

For a little moment there it had almost felt like you'd gotten used to galaxy outside Tellus. You'd seen the clouds and nebulae of Zeus, you'd seen starships, you'd even seen a whole new planet - just as built up and developed as Tellus, but covered in a faint sheen of fine ash and dust and entrapped beneath thick and obscuring pollution haze. You'd seen a garden jungle inside the interior of the Eater of Worlds and that had been amazing. You've seen marvels and been traveling for over a month now, but you were starting to see the patterns.

You have, however, never seen the blue sky.

You have never seen clouds.

You have never even dreamed of the ocean.

It's the most total sense of vertigo you have ever felt. You've seen space, but space is full - wherever you look there are colours and lights and storms and debris. This narrow band of atmosphere creates an optical illusion of greater vastness than you have ever comprehended, with enormous flying castles of spectacular white ice cream towering up on a scale that rivals the great Imperial battleships.

For the first time in your life you feel the breeze on your face. It is salty, carrying with it the faint flavour and coolness of the ocean. There is water in inconceivable quantities, advancing steadily upon the shore as though it is alive. The crashing, rolling breath of it seems to drown out all other sounds. Water was meant to move with the rattle and groan of pipes, air was meant to be the steady roar of air conditioning megastations. Basic facts of the elements.

But this, it seems, is what happens when the wind and water are unchained to do as they please.

Alexa!

You fought here once.

Ridenki was a critical world in the path of Director Nero's Rebellion. This was the world that supplied the food, water and logistics base for the rebels to strike Baradissar. The Alced were a servitor species placed here by the Emperor to defend this world and you fought alongside them as the sky darkened with the fiery rain of Ceronian drop pods.

You remember the great Alcedi surface ships - enormous naval flotillas that projected vast fleets of atmospheric fighter craft and carried enough anti-aircraft guns to ignite the skies. You remember the oceans erupting into vast columns of steam as reactors melted down on dying battleships. You remember as enormous starships dropped from the heavens in columns of fire, victims of the space battle or destroyed by planetary defense lasers. The jungles had burned. The volcanoes had erupted. And by the end, Ares triumphed. You remember seeing the war god arise, massive and bloody, covering horizon to horizon with ships - star and sail - crammed into his mouth as the evacuation sirens howled.

You had thought this planet had been destroyed, to be a ruin as total as Baradissar.

Instead it's a tropical paradise. The planet is greener than it ever was, the oceans a shining teal scattered with emeralds. Even with the buzzing flow of gold-striped ships rising and falling from the surface the planet is healthier now than perhaps it was even under Molech. You sense Empress Nero's hand here, though you have no idea why she would have taken the time to fix this planet.

Vasilia!

The worst thing about being in a room full of Hermetics is that you have no idea of their hierarchy. They have one - an exceedingly complicated and binding one - but it is deliberately kept obscure from outsiders. The corridors bustle with figures of incredible shapes and sizes swathed in identical saffron robes that cover their features from head to toe, darklight generators inside their hoods keeping their faces hidden. Look closer, though, and those robes have dozens of minor variations. Different sashes, stripes, hats, external robes, cuts of shape and colour. Academic robes have carried encoded information about rank and specialty since ancient times and the Hermetics have embraced that whole-heartedly. You're surrounded by information and have no idea what any of it means.

Say what you will about the Empire, at least they leave you in absolutely no confusion about who is in charge.

On that note, Galnius and their hoplites are doing incredible work. Their deeply ingrained Imperial arrogance let them cut through every single layer of protocol and paperwork on the way through here, somehow instinctively knowing who they could brush aside and who they had to take seriously. They've navigated you here to some sort of promenade - a large walkway with an expansive view of the planet. Sandstone tiles, grand statues of abstract shapes engraved with dedications in secret Hermetic script, and rivers of ever-burning fire running in channels for warmth and illumination. It's darker than an Imperial ship - not quite as dark as the Plousios, but where your ship is dark because it is broken and unmanned these lights are dim because secrecy is valued by the Hermetics.

"Captain Vasilia, and retinue," said a Hermetic - without face or body language to go on you're only able to figure out which one by the fact that it was standing still and nearby. "I am Pilate Borin, and in the name of Zeus we humble pilgrims of the Yakanov grant you welcome and hospitality. What wind has bought you to us this day?"

Galnius glanced at you sidelong, and nodded. This is someone worth talking to.

Bella!

For a moment you might have worried. For just the barest fragment of a second you might have been aware that you were a long way away from Tellus, and your assault frigate - tiny in the shadow of the Yakanov - would leave you at the mercy of the Order of Hermes. Perhaps the galaxy had forgotten what was meant by Empire?

Not so the Order of Hermes.

Some barbarians might have greeted you in force, with a full military parade demonstrating their order and discipline as well as their respect. The Order of Hermes greets you with vulnerability. You stand alongside Mynx on the top of the docking ramp - the Yakanov is a mobile spaceport large enough to dock the entire Anemoi without the need for transit shuttles - and look down upon a field of treasures.

Latinum and quadranix and hyperium and hydronix, stacked high in enormous engraved shipping containers. Silks by the bale, enormous crates of prayer weaves, wheeled bookshelves full of charts, archives and records. Relic devices from the deepest vaults laid out on woolen blankets and dozens of the Order's senior priests with their foreheads pressed into the ground in kowtow. In the back, silhouetted in the shadows of the distant loading bay, is one of the Order's legendary god-engines. It's a fortune, the plunder of a dozen worlds, and it fills every spare inch of the docking bay. Even if you packed the Anemoi's corridors you would not fit it all. Your Auspex does not give you precise numbers, exact tonnage reports - instead it gives you a feeling deep satisfaction and control. It hurts them to offer this much. The Empire's - and by extension, your - good will matters to them more than all this fortune.

(Though - perhaps that is not accurate? Perhaps this show of wealth and vulnerability is not mere loyalty. Perhaps it is fear. Perhaps it is distraction.)

"Imperial Praetor," said the lead Hermetician - a Pilate, your Auspex picks out from the patterning of her robes, lieutenant to the Magos. "The Order of Hermes is at the Empire's disposal."

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

The drink is drunk. There are no answers to be found in a full mug.

Robena slams it down as she sits down next to him at the table. "Tristan," she said. "Monster slayer. I understand what you are saying, and I will help you slay your beast if you help me slay mine."

The zeal that burns in her eyes lets you know that her quarry is fierce indeed and she has been wronged indeed. This is a fire you will be descending into if you agree. But how can knights relate to each other if not by this?