Thanqol

Sunshards

"Every full moon!" said Cyanis, swish-swishing her tails while remaining extremely intently on the opposite side of the Yue to Rose. The way she moves in orbit with you clashes with Hyra's steady presence like the waves against the headland - here and there the fox moves in fluid motions trying a hundred ways and now and then she makes a bolder play for position - and there is Hyra to stop her. The wolf is not unkind, or unduly suspicious to the fox - but she is duly suspicious. There is an ancient kind of energy in their interactions, like at any moment the fox might cross an invisible line and be seized. The only part in question is if the fox's hubris would get the better of her.

"It's a really nasty curse," she said. "And I just don't have the power to break it outright. But, like I said, I'm a responsible and honourable fox and I am motivated out of genuine desire to help," and here she's looking at Rose, swish swish, fully aware that you as a monk have a duty to pre-emptively put her in fox jail. "Honest!"

The rules are really quite clear on this point, for this reason. Foxes as a category of spirits have used up every single benefit of the doubt they have ever been given over centuries. You can't give them fair trials because foxes are amazing at trials. An opportunity to tearfully declare that everything they ever did was for love and besides they didn't really do anything it was just a fantastic coincidence that they wound up with a harem of every eligible woman in a three village radius, funny story, let me tell you how it all began...

No, the scriptures are quite clear. Fox jail. No parole. It's the only way to keep the peace.

"In fact, I am so motivated to fix this problem that I'm going to get even stronger!" said Cyanis, hands on hips, striking a powerful pose. "Each tail would let me weaken it even more, and I reckon I could break it entirely with only seven tails! Normally a tail takes a hundred years to grow, but there are ways around that." That is to say: crimes. A kitsune can earn out of sequence tails for particularly impressive crimes. "And, you know, hear me out I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe if I happened to get my paws on a Sunshard or two I mii-iiight just be able to skip the whole process! Normally I wouldn't bring it up but we've got a princess on hand so - Princess Chen, how would you feel about doing a super-duper good deed at only minor risk to yourself/the world?"

[Rose, your devotion is clear: fox jail for Cyanis. Mark a condition if you spare her.]

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Robena and Alitel have at time seems like they were friends, they were peers, that they were rivals, even that they were courting. But in the heat of combat they are neither of those things. Lady Sandsfern is the Countess and Robena Coilleghille is her sworn bodyguard. No matter what exists between them the oath of fealty is the only aspect without ambiguity.

She is the shield she carries. It is hers to place that steel-bound wood between the King's blade and her Lady's heart. And when the shield fails it is hers to use her sword, her wrists, her shoulders and if needed her body. Whatever mistakes Sansfern makes it is Robena who bleeds and she suffers this duty silent and resolute. Again and again she turns her strength and speed and plate to the task of preserving her lady. She is battered, she is struck to her knees, she is hurled and punished and broken and all the while her lady becomes more and more akin to the fire that dwells within her heart.

Let her lady fight as she wills and use her as she must. She will carry this burden without complaint as she has for so many years. This blood, this pain, this is her reason for being made manifest upon her body.

[Undertaking great labour to open the path for Sandsfern: 8]

Sunshards

You are a thing of ancient commerce, Rose from the River. You exist half in the present world and half in an ancient and decrepit system of finance and power. And now, at last, this close to Yue Sunfarmer you finally and uncomfortably realize why the Scales of Meaning declared Yue to be the most valuable thing in the Terraced Lake.

Because in an extremely literal sense she is. She has a value of 75.9 trillion dollars.

She is also the inheritor of the Corporate Throne that commands your loyalty. The obedience algorithms in your head have been dormant for centuries but now, at last, stir to life as they begin to check and cross-check the cryptocontracts to ensure that you are not being hacked, but it's being confirmed by every law daemon in the undernet.

Somewhere, far out in distant space, the Chief Imperial Officer or their descendants have foresworn their wealth. And, with the speed of monarchy, the systems of this distant world have determined that the correct legal heir to the wealth of the underworld is Yue. Just Yue.

She is a Princess in the ancient sense, inheritor of this world. And you owe her your unquestioning loyalty.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Our culture here is a shadow," said the Elder sadly. "Our ships are sunken, our knowledge is rusted, our herds are small, our horizons reduced to those places that can be reached with sweat and oar. Have no mistake, despite all of Demeter's gifts we still dwell within the hateful House of Hades. The Hermetics do not need to be conquerors to defeat us; archivists are appropriate for what we are now."

There is an edge of deep despair in her voice, and when she speaks you can see the spark drain from everyone about her. This is a perilous state for any people to be in, you know - if Nero has imparted to you one lesson it's that a population cannot endure without a vision of the future.

Alexa!

The cassette tapes click and play and the hall fills with the music of Hermes. Orchestral and organic music that seamlessly transitions into glaring blasts of artificial synth noise. It's music without centre, or stability, weaving into different instruments and styles and tempos, almost a demonstration of exotic musical wealth collected from across the galaxy and woven together.

You've got the feel for her body now - a cascading wave of cybernetic tentacles from the waist down. Keeping her in the dance has kept her from binding you with them properly because she still needs them to hit each beat but as soon as you are done you have no doubt that you will be bound just as surely. You could, of course, throw her first but she'll take Isty with her when she goes.

"I am Ramses," said the Coherent, breath rising - she's drawn in by the motion. "Scion of the Cobalt Desert, vanquisher of Ragnar the Wretched. What manner of person are you, Alexa?"

Sunshards

Princess Yin, radiant Yin, puts her hand to her forehead in a sign of exhausted exasperation.

"Princess Chen," she said. "I have crossed this entire kingdom, fighting demons and river-monsters, enduring betrayal and rejection, to do you a favour. I have tried to offer you a hand of peace and alliance. I have put," her voice drops into a hiss for a moment - just a moment, "myself out there only for you to -!"

She cuts her words short and looks away. There might be tears in her eyes. Her hands are trembling with emotion and the light around her is broken so harshly you could cut yourself on it.

"I have," she said, collecting herself a bit, wiping at her eyes with a sleeve. "Done my best. For everyone. I have done my best to be a loyal vassal, a loyal lover, a loyal mistress, a loyal friend. And time after time this is what I get in return. I get spat upon. I get treated like a -" she bit the words back and let her brow darken. "Fine. Fine. You hate me too, I understand. What I have to do I will simply have to do on my own, that is all."

She waved her hand, and in an eyeblink her radiant light went out, plunging the forest into total darkness. By the time eyes adjusted to the loss of her, she had taken her enchanted deer and ridden far away.

Fellowship: The Heart

Do not fear deception, fear revelation. the words of Judgement ran through the back of her head. If one poses to you as a friend entrap them within that lie and suffocate what lies beneath. Then you will have a friend forever.

Ailee flicked her tail and slapped one of the smouldering glyphs dyed into her shoulder fur where it had begun to glow hot and painful. This close to the Heart...

<I'm on my way to the Heart,> she said. She didn't feel like being evasive with the thought of having her lies hammered into her soul fresh in her mind. <And honestly, if I make it back from there with even one arm I'll consider it lucky. So... I thought I'd at least see what all the fuss was about with the carnival.>

Sunshards

Yue!

Cyanis swallowed. "I - okay. Okay. Fine. I'll do my best too, just..."

Fox magic comes easily to foxes. They don't need to chant or wave their hands or perform rituals because being a fox is magical enough by itself. Where a human might need to spend a whole summer perfecting the exact hand gesture needed to perform a single spell, magic spoils foxes rotten - presumably because it, too, is a sucker for cute little triangles. So all a fox needs in order to do magic is wishes, their own or someone else's. They can just take that wish and think about how happy they'd be if it came true until magic relents and gives in.

But even easy things can be done with great effort and concentration if it's important enough. So Cyanis screws up her eyes and wishes as hard as her little foxy heart allows - and with a flash of teal fire the same colour as her eyes, it does.

Hyra of the Wolves stands here again, with blade and bow and brilliant strength. Hair of silver and eyes of red and might of heroines, reflexively stepping out in front of Yue in a guardian posture. Even as she does so, she takes Yue by the hand. "How long do I have?" she asks.

"I think - just while the full moon is in the sky," said Cyanis meekly.

"That'll be enough," she said. Her eyes fall back onto Yue, and a smile fills her lips. "Stay behind me, okay? I won't let you get cursed too."

*

The whispers of the world rise into crescendo. Light and darkness separate like oil and water, detaching and running in radiant and sombre channels towards she of midnight. And there she arises amidst the enraptured voices of the forest, bow in hand, arrow already streaking out like the first ray of dawn.

It soars through the air and penetrates the red string that bound Chen to Cyanis. Immediately the fox's magic dissipates - with a snap and burst of radiant light Chen is back in her normal clothes.

Princess Yin slams the base of the bow into the ground, and gives a brief wave. "Hey, Chen," she said. "Your mom sent me to help you. We're to capture Yue for the Campaign and use the exchange as an opportunity to ambush Qiu."

Her pose is confident even to the point of laziness, but cautious - extremely aware of both Rose and Hyra's positions, stance leaving her ready to block a strike coming from either direction.

[Declining this would be missing an opportunity to further your destiny]

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

No time for hearts, Robena? As though it was your choice to make.

When she took up arms and oaths she told herself that she was a creature of fire and passion, inheritor of Lady Sandsfern's righteous anger. She told herself that she was a knight without peer, forged on foreign battlefields and beneath foreign swordmasters. She told herself that her horse for all his grand gentleness still remembered the beat of battle and his role as an instrument of perfect death. She told herself that she could defeat all of England's devils with her lance alone.

She told herself these things so that when it came time to make this charge she would not doubt.

It is a terrible thing to ride towards death. It is worse to ride with duties unfulfilled - wishes unfulfilled. To ride without discovering if the soul of Sandsfern is in fact damned? To ride without the favour of Constance? To ride without telling either of them what they mean, without telling them good-bye? No surer way of ending as yet another miserable ghost haunting England's moors, suffocated by the weight of her own wishes.

No time for hearts? As though the heart was weakness rather than strength. As though you were not going to battle unarmed.

[Leap into Action - alas, a 6]

Sunshards

Rose!

You sing, but it is not wordless.

"Princess Yin! Princess Yin!" the air itself twists into shape, for the wind and air itself know that the Sun is their ruler. "Princess Yin will forgiveness bring!"

The surviving sun begins to creep towards the horizon again, beginning that early and eternal twilight. A deep stirring of magic begins to run through Yin. Exhaustion washes away and the light of Yewan Night Sun starts to glow within her once again. Your wordless joy battles for expression and freedom but as the Radiant Princess awakens again in her majesty, Shard renewed, it slips further and further away. Magic starts to coil out from her, touching the trees and beasts in passing, darkening them as their light flows stolen into Yin herself.

You try to silence yourself but your voice carries on in the air around you, defiant of your closed lips. "Princess Yin! Princess Yin will sunbreak bring!"

You may be a creature of the ancient world, but if the ancients feared anything it was the suns. Toushui Water-Stealing Sun, Dongtian Cold Sun, Emo Demon Sun, Shoucheng Harvest Sun, Hangye Industry Sun, Fengbao Storm Sun, Wuxing Invisible Sun, Kuwei Wilting Sun, Yewan Night Sun. They burrowed beneath the world to hide from these primordial powers and even you knew better than to walk in their light.

Princess Yin, it seems, does not.

What is fear like for you, Rose?

Chen and Yue!

The darkness begins to gather, though its cause is distant still. Hyra's ears lie flat and she lets out a whine, and Cyanis does likewise. As Hyra presses up against your legs in warning and warding so does Cyanis scamper down the stairs to take cover behind Princess Chen.

"Oh, hey, Yue - you know, sorry to interrupt, but did you have a wish you wanted to make?" she asks. "I mean, you know, maybe you always wanted to visit the Sky Castle? I hear it's lovely up there!"

Breathless Dead

Redana!

The Elder has a long stick with a crook on the end. The metalwork of the twisting head says 'symbol of ancient authority' but the way she uses it to hook around the legs, waists, and wrists of young children, smoothly picking them up and depositing them out of the way with the gentle firmness of a shepherd says 'grandmother' - and the shocking speed with which she goes through the crowd says 'martial artist'. Many of them squeak with delight when they're lifted up into the air by their collars but none of them dare rushing back across the field for a second try. Stories are filled with ancient martial sages and your heart tells you that this is one of them.

She wears dark round glasses, a necklace of shark teeth, and what might have once been a steel grey military uniform before it was turned into an arts & crafts project by a classroom of children who all had far too ambitious ideas about depicting her legendary deeds with cloth patches. There are a lot of crudely depicted burning ships and stick figure fights. The faded patterning on her wrist feathers suggest that there is likely a far more professionally done version worked onto her body - many of the Alcedi around here have elaborate curving oceanic designs dyed into their feathers - but the Elder seems content with the children's depictions.

She looks at you - well, tilts her head in such a way that you suspect she might be blind behind those glasses. Even so you get the impression that she's taking note exactly of where your hands are. "In the name of Hera, the First Fleet greets you and gifts you with twenty pigs and fifteen chickens," she said. "We also offer you the hand in marriage of Lacedo, rank within the Fleet, and an honour belt woven by Jain Ovardaughter should you join our war."

She pauses, and there's a silence of expectation. Try not to give offense, Redana.

Vasilia and Bella!

Machine Intelligences, for all their subtleties, are not people. You can almost hear the audible click and clunk of gears realigning - lulled into a different formation by the hypnotic swaying of Bella and Mynx. With threat assessment regulated again to a background process then its other processes begin to re-engage and normal operations resume all over the ship. As Birmingham eases, so does the hall full of Hermetics who - while still paying close attention to what happens on the dais before the viewport - also start to maneuver for position in the coming dance.

Alexa!

"Yes!" said Princess Epistia. "A heroic and daring rescue against terrible odds! You're right - inaction would shame my ancestors!"

Okay so it seems like the Ceronians tell a different version of that story. It's too late to explain the military philosophy at stake - already she's leaping into action, mark of Ares shining upon her brow.

And not five seconds later she's wrapped in half a dozen cybernetic tentacles by the Coherent soldier. Athena's eyes! This is why fighting the Hermetics is such a miserable experience - you've never got any idea what they're going to do before they do it.

"Hey, so, totally up to you," said the Coherent to Epistia, "but if you want, we can dance for a bit before I take you over to the Anemoi? I don't know a lot about that ship but from what I gather this might be your last chance for a while, hey?"