Thanqol

Sunshards

There are some forms of music that did not survive the long years spent underground. Music was an optimized thing of proprietary computer software, audio libraries, and rotating spirals of human stars sculpted for purpose. Things were done based on beats and earworms and optimization, the most efficient way to insert a buying craving in the mind. In the years since the emergence music has been discovered in bits and pieces again, learned anew or allowed to simply be a warm comforting thing sung between friends over a roaring fire.

The pipe organ - those enormous, insane contraptions with ten thousand keys, switches and pedals were too unwieldy for the old world and too complex to have been rebuilt by the new. So when you ascend the steps to the sound of a live performance of howling pipe music it is like nothing you have ever heard before. It's music performed not for financial gain, for how could a nightmarish device like this ever pay for itself? It's music not performed for beauty, for its sound is so unique and alien that no one would imagine it if they hadn't heard it first. It's music not performed to develop a useful skill, because each organ is so wildly different that talent in one is not guaranteed to be transferable.

The only reason to learn to play the pipe organ is as a response to the pipe organ itself. This device is a peer to the mountains. One cannot respond rationally to mountains - one can only climb them.

Princess Qiu Tian climbs this one in her bathrobe.

"Chen! You made it!"

From up in the mad control dais, surrounded by switches and levers, Princess Qiu waves enthusiastically with one hand while her other keeps the spooky beat rolling. She's dripping wet, hair long and hanging down around her shoulders, a trail of damp footprints leading up the marble to her musical throne. From the spacing of the steps a deadly huntress of the ancient world might determine that she'd had to practically bound from her still-warm bath and bound up the steps to the control seat of her terrifying instrument upon sensing the arrival of visitors.

She hits a long string of intimidating notes as she stands up - and in return, reveals a surprising detail about herself. Princess Qiu is... kind of average! Not slender, not rounded, not graceful, not clumsy, not tall, not short, not the most beautiful girl in all the world and not the least. She has a body that's well exercised but doesn't ripple with muscles, that isn't particularly curvy or flat. For all the talk of her exceptionalism she doesn't really show it. She's just a kind of normal looking girl (although when she turns her head to the side and you see her face in profile, oh - she is handsome from that angle.)

She leans forwards on the railing around her organ, resting her chin on her hands, tail swishing above her. "And you've bought friends," she said, eyes flicking through the group - and oh, it must be added that her eyes, too, are beautiful, even from here. They're filled with so much intricate detail they're distracting and compelling in a hundred ways, any of which can distract you from how intense the gaze coming from them is. "I am absolutely charmed to meet you. I am Qiu Tian, future ruler of the world and one true Princess."

She's eager, tensed, focused even though she's smiling playfully. Every part of her feels like it's on the edge of saying "But enough talk!" and pouncing across the room. She's an illustration of anticipation - but moment by moment she stays still and keeps that smile, and the faultless restraint that holds back that obvious intensity is a strangely reassuring thing. For all the sheer force that comes from meeting someone playing a pipe organ atop a pyramid of black marble there is no true danger here.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Once again she wears the chalice.

Confession of sin was insufficient for forgiveness; one must too complete penance. One commonly assigned to those who have committed great crimes is to walk the path of the pilgrim. To bear the chalice is more than just to travel, it is to travel as a servant. Any passing priest, mystic or holy man might assign the penitent tasks to perform - not mere labour and punishment, but opportunities to cleanse the soul through service and humility.

Robena has worn the chalice of Xristos for many years, but the last pilgrimage was not hers. It was Sandsfern's and she was a retainer. It had not crossed her mind how many sneers, dismissive waves, careful avoidance of priests and convenient forgetting to wear the chalice was required to avoid even the assignation of penance, or how eager village druids would be for another set of hands when it came time to work the harvest, to find the lost lambs in the moors, to clean the nave. She has crossed the world drinking and fighting and waging war, and then she has crossed it back in silence and solitude. Now she crosses it hauling ploughs, sweeping floors, with hands bloody not from war but from the birth of lambs.

For the first time she feels like she truly sees it.

She sees it foremost in her aching back and shoulders, in the callouses on her fingers. Alas, to be so obviously strong! Tasks which have been deferred for months or years because of the physical might required all come due when Robena passes through town! She has hauled a boulder from a well! She has pulled a mighty oak stump from the earth! She has wrenched boxes full of silverware from a bargewreck at the bottom of the River Mersey! The animating fluid that runs through the veins of the earth is not blood, not wine, it is sweat, and now when Robena looks upon the fields she understands at last the oceans of it required to keep this land green and growing.

She has not turned from her penance yet once. She has not tucked away her cross, failed to pay respect or glared at a priest come to challenge her. Many days the exhaustion tried to tell her to do so - such exhaustion, and not even a celebration from victorious comrades to mark the battle's end! She had lived life as a vassal knight in her lady's castle and it had been comfortable. She had lived life as a vassal pilgrim traveling from tavern to tavern and it had been easy. She had crossed all the lands of Europe and it had not had been as hard as this little stroll across little England.

But then, she has always had the strength required. She simply never gave it before.

[Robena has taken the Penitent's Oath, which has given her the following Rights:
- The Right to visit shrines and holy places and pray before the relics within
- The Right to have penance assigned to her by holy figures, priest or druid or otherwise
- The Right to forsake worldly responsibilities until her penance is complete]

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee is a creature of vice - this truth is tattooed into fur. But she's a creature of virtue too, and chief amongst hers is imagination. With sufficient imagination you can perform certain miracles of the mind. She'd always known that she was heading into peril, and had always known that she did not possess the physical ability to fight the horrors she might find in the Heart. So instead she'd spent long hours in contemplation of violence.

She genuinely hadn't known if it would be of any use at all; if she'd be up against an unstoppable wall of force before which mousy strength was worth nothing. But she had determined that the one thing she could not abide was freezing, flinching, or hesitating at the critical moment. She'd be so ashamed if she went out like that that she'd come back as a ghost just to scream at any family members who burned incense at her grave. And so, she'd contemplated. In the small hours of the night she'd piece by piece peeled back ideas of restraint, dignity and social conditioning. She'd flexed her fingers and felt her heartbeat rise and made the decision again and again. She'd imagined every unstoppable horror she could, each death she could, and resolved to meet them all the same way:

Biting.

She's hurting, she's breathless, she's untrained but 'evil Jackdaw' was absolutely on her concept list of nightmares she might encounter in the Heart so she's in no way surprised. She goes for her friend with feral aggression and she'll contemplate the emotions later.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

"Right now is what matters!" Reality itself revolts against those words. The walls twist and thrash and the stars grow fingers and claw away the veil. Time dissolves in saffron light, rolling back further, resolving from yellow to silver-white.

Thriss walks with you through this. She is young now - fierce and feral, an intelligence so mighty that she might understand the problems you deal with and so predatory she would hunt the stars themselves. She does not know of Cronus' forbidden lores. She does not know that cannibalism in ritual to the ancient father has more power than the gods would like to admit. But you always wonder if she might sense it.

Would that there was another like her.

"It is as you suspected, Director," said Thriss. "Humanity as a species is on the brink. Too many have vanished into genetic solipsism - entire ecosystems are sculpted to serve the preferences of individuals. They build their own paradises and spend lifetimes with their own thoughts made manifest. They have become a billion selfish creator gods, each building their own worlds to their own preferences, and then abandoning them due to boredom, apathy or death. Agony follows in their wake."

Dolce!

The paper ignites with black fire right as Artemis has begun to reach for it. "She lives yet," said Hades.

He has come to you in the form of a pyramid of black marble, vast and surrounded by columns woven with gold. Look at him askew, try only to glimpse the fragments - to look at him directly is to confront the reality that scale and stone are but playthings of the gods.

"I apologize," said the Pyramid in a voice that was worthy of it - don't listen to it directly either. "If I had given you future warning that would have enabled Artemis to launch an even more terrible ambush. Redana is trapped upon Hermes' path."

"She is among the wolves," confirmed Artemis, all the more fearsome for how she stands in relation to the pyramid. Hades may be that ancient structure but before it she is the hero who will adventure into its terrible depths without fear.

"You must become a bandage," said Hades. "You must stretch yourself taught and stanch the bleeding. Tend not to your own wounds."

Moments later, the bars pull away and Alexa enters through the door.

Alexa!

Ramses smiles like sunflowers - finger raising to point as the seeds begin to drip down onto the ground. You can feel the ants swarm across your feet as they gnaw away at the fallen seeds. The pink mist of Aphrodite starts to fade and your spear feels hot and wet beneath your fingers.

"Hunger for her," whispers Demeter. "Hunger for her. You want her. You want them. You want to bend and let them break you. You want to take their want. You don't want her to fill you. You want me to fill you. You want to drink me until you're free of you."

How is she like this? Her fingers sink into your shoulders like skin instead of stone. You've had the attention of gods before but nothing like this. She speaks in craving, and there is malice behind that craving.

You have a clear line to the kitchens and Isty is still with you, but Ramses and the Hermetics glitter in the radiance of the rising harvest moon and soon they will bloom.

Vasilia!

This is a place conditioned to obeying the whims of lionesses. There is no resistance from the Lanterns. The only one you must contend with is Demeter.

She walks behind you, casting seeds by the handful into every drop of blood that falls from your many cuts. Each patch explodes into a verdant riot of flowers, grains, tubers, and venus flytraps. Her calloused fingers tug away at your scarf and bite after bite of moths gnaw away at the fabric. Her hands pull your tail and stick into your mouth so that they can trace your teeth and always she's whispering into each of your senses.

"Lethe, lethe, lethe. Just sink back! It's right here, you'll be reorganized, you'll be in a new pattern. You are ripe, eggplant juicy, let me make you eat. It's just some indigestion, dear, it's just that you've grown so much that your trellis has ripped off the wall and now the rusty nails are showing and jagged and the clippers will cut you back to your knees. You want to taste it. Open your mouth wide, I can fit the entire river in there."

Bella!

You can smell more than the growth now. You can see more than the sensation. Demeter is still behind you, pulling the plough behind her shoulders leaving a deep channel through the steel, but you're more than just that. You can see more than the fact that these things grow; you can see how they can break.

It's just a matter of following the scent. How did you not smell it before? These saffron thieves had stolen one of Nero's treasures. You can smell it radiating out from the heart of the vessel. The enormous beam radiating down onto the planet - that's her. She's there, she built this, and she is more miserable and fragile than you've ever felt her. You just need to get through to the heart of this ship where they've weaponized Imperial suffering. Get there and you can break something that matters. Break that and it might be enough.

Coherent are everywhere, but you have Hera on your side.

Sunshards

You travel next in the care of Zatoichi the Blind Samurai.

In some measures this statement is inaccurate. Zatoichi is not blind, he is not a samurai, and his name is not Zatoichi. But in terms of driving style no statement could be more accurate.

The little white truck screams around mountain bends at speeds that require both a handbrake and a flexible attitude towards keeping all four wheels on the ground. The gear shift whirls and clacks from second to fifth and back to first with the wild speed and flawless footwork of deadly battle. The last second reaction to each corner speaks to the swordsman's blindness, the willingness to take off-road shortcuts through the underbrush speak to his connection with nature, and the unflappable stare of the gleaming sunglasses speak to his fearlessness. The roaring pulse of Mongolian throat-singing from his car's CD player that keeps him from hearing phrases like 'slow down!' and 'watch out!' and 'AAAAAAAAAAAA' represents his perfect battle focus.

If there's a silver lining to all of this it's that his driving is not meaningfully impacted when the windshield starts to become blocked by all the Assault Ribbons he's hitting.

In a way it's worse when he hits the flagstones. Yes, he's not putting you through wild turns and spins any more, but that just means he can floor the pedal and let the little truck roar to its fullest. Things are definitely worse when he hits the stairs and now you're going up diagonally, everyone thrown together into a heap against the back doors of the truck, left to helplessly watch as the Zatoichi takes one hand off the wheel to grope around under his seat for a bottle of water. He starts taking a drink right as the car hits the top of the stairs at a speed that sends it sailing spectacularly into the air and sets the bottle down right before the bone-shaking impact as it lands again.

Zatoichi then grips the handbrake and pulls it as high as it will go, throws the wheel hard to the left, and swings the entire truck around in a complete one-eighty degree spin. The truck screeches to a halt at last and the tangled heap of girls in the back of the vehicle finally sinks down to the floor.

Zatoichi hops out and walks around to the back, opening the doors like a gravedigger opens a coffin. "We're here," he grunts as he bites down on an eucalyptus drop, crunching it like a candy. "Princess Qiu's palace."

This is a palace worthy of the Empress of the Middle Kingdom. A great field of stone, filled with enormous black marble pillars rising regularly up to the sky like a great stone forest. A great terraced pyramid of stairs rises up, layer by layer, and continues within the palace itself. It is bright, bright in a way it rarely is - the sun dares not disappoint the Princess who dwells here. It is a field that calls for armies to stand upon it and their absence is deliberate, it is a palace that should be forbidden but the doors are open wide, it is a landscape that would make a spectacular battlefield and its potential is exciting.

Zatoichi is already climbing back into his truck. There's only one way back out of here and probably no one thinks much of it right now.

Breathless Dead

Response Level: 6
This was a trap a year in the making, and your journey was destined to end here.

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.
Patterns of Enforcement: Investigative channels have opened from the Magos to the Order's forces; they will attempt to arrest any player character they encounter
Deathless Murder: The dead will arise as bonsai
The Jungle Hungers: Demeter is immanent, and she brings with her hunger
True Hunter: This area has a second Boss

Redana!

It is Thriss who stands by your side as you look at the radiant wreckage of burning stars. An entire sector of space alight and ablaze. The laws of gravity tugging at the unleashed powers as the moon holds back the tsunami. Half the galaxy dead and bleeding all the blood-soaked colours of Poseidon. The Spear of Civilization thrown through the heart of the cosmos and sending it down to the House of Hades.

A lesson. A vision. A reminder.

"Humanity may have been the first," said Thriss and her voice was exultant, "but even they are not peers to the gods. When the end comes calling it shall be Zeus Storm-Mother who shatters the heavens and Poseidon One Eye who shatters the earth and Hades Root-Gnawer who consumes all within his gut and Demeter Fairest who brings forth new life, rampant and wild. And the wreckage shall be ours to inherit. From the fires of Ragnarok shall come the Wolftime."

She looks at you with a terrible vigor that you do not feel in your ancient bones.

"For all things, there is a season."

Alexa!

A smile cracks those ancient lips and brown-green eyes twinkle through the smoke. "If you're willing to die for something, Alexa, then the worst thing that can happen to you is being kept alive while you lose what you were trying to protect. So be honest about what you're prepared to die for, yeah?"

He stands up as flashes of sickly yellow-green light up amidsts the purple-grey smoke. Coherent - dozens of them. Setting up their grand and unwieldly weapons as priests scuttle for safety in all directions, the clanking shadow of a MRU looming over them, sculpted into the face of an empty fish.

"After all," he said, "your life isn't at risk here. The assassin can't hurt you until she's killed Dolce. All of this is delaying action."

That's not entirely a comfort - there are plenty of really bad non-death things that can happen when walking into a Coherent phalanx, and Isty and Ramses are well within the blast radius. Aphrodite's smoke is currently keeping the three of you concealed but not so much that you can close the distance to the Hermetics easily - but you do have a moment to think.

Dolce!

"You know, it's not often anyone takes an interest," said Artemis, going over the paperwork from behind discreet silver glasses. "Normally it's all running and screaming, and I guess that's at least quick."

She seems so normal, just like any other person. Some gods have a presence like a pulled bathplug, sucking reality in all around them, but Artemis emanates such a mundane stillness it's so easy to overlook the intense violence that dwells underneath that suit.

"Most of my assassins master a single art. This one has all four - and the price of that is that she must go through them in cycles, as the moon does. Planning, disguise, poison, violence. Planning did for Redana, disguise did for Birmingham, poison was for you, violence was going to be for Vasilia, coming around to finish off Alexa with planning again. Now the cycle is broken she has to kill you with violence before she can move on to any of the others. That means she's going to come at you directly and as soon as she's tooled up, and you will not be able to fight her - but at least she can't kill anyone else until you're dead first."

The Master of Assassins

The Master of Assassins
First, murder death.
Chosen of Demeter: Overlord Stat The vessel of unrestrained life, unblemished by death.
Threat to the World: You must pay a price to act against her
Cycles of the Temple: The Master of Assassins can take on the aspect of each of the Temple Assassins in turn, though without their Rampancy.
Gardener of Fate: Anyone killed by the Master of Assassins rises again as a bonsai tree - still alive, in a sense.

Vasilia!

This knife is an Anathame. It is your death, a fated dart that you cannot defend against, something that will be your end. An awful, wretched thing to have, but better that you have it than any other. For as long as you hold the fate of your death like this no other blade will claim your life and no copy can be forged. It will seek to betray you in ten million ways but it is limited to the manifestations of chance that can befall a knife. As your blood already speaks, it cannot be trusted - but it can be controlled and it can be destroyed.

Once you have time to come to yourself, you must make a decision of how to handle this wicked blade. If you break it damage a stat, but such will be the end of it. If you hold it, gain Protection from a Location Stat though it will seek to betray you when it can.

Bella!

Demeter sits kindly here and there, maiden of spring. Her hair is crowned with flowers and strawberries bloom about her feet and every glance at her is a <##########> of raw sensation. Here she pours you another glass of wine and there she places a blackberry in your mouth and now your bare feet are crushing the grapes beneath your toes. She is so easy to lose yourself in, the way she touches your neck and her teeth brush your ear and she's biting it so hard it really hurts but that's the only way she can whisper just how incredibly mad she is that you denied her promised murder -

But all of those sensations cannot lift your heart, heavier than all the gifts of Hermes. The storm of thorns slough off your regal clothing and Hera helps you lift your head tall. If nothing else, Bella, you are still beautiful.

And your beauty is illuminated. Lights in the dark ahead - knights in armour and plate, lanterns held across from their mighty swords, leading an army. The Lantern Knights light you up and you see a ripple of awe run through the crowd of menials. Silently they kneel before you in their dozens, their hundreds. You may be heartbroken, but you are a heartbroken queen.

"They cannot help you," said Hera. "But you can help them. That is power, Bella."

Sunshards

Yue!

One magic! Soft and crinkly paper, old enough that its sharp edges have faded away enough to make it fit into your hands comfortably. There are only eight images in the sequence but nearly forty pages of commentary. When transitioning between stances #2 and #3 ensure to let your thumb brush each of your fingers. This discharges the accumulated energy and prevents mana burn. It's very daunting; there's a lot to remember! If you do it right then you should be able to complete the motion in exactly five seconds, but you've got to satisfy the conditions of each of those forty pages. It's a lot! It almost seems hopeless, doesn't it, learning to fly? Training at some arcane skill that may or may not ever resolve into a thing of beauty?

Hyra watches on sympathetically, wishing she could help but unable to do anything other than provide a fluffy pillow for Cyanis who is taking casual selfies and then spending extremely non-casual sessions sorting through the dozens of pictures, applying filters and photoshop, endlessly working towards the perfect prison mugshot. You can't leave these things to the monks!

You have a long autumn afternoon to practice before the ship will arrive to take you to visit the most powerful Princess in all the lands, with the triangle squad as your cheering section. Tell us about magic. Do you know any other spells, or is this your first? What is learning it like?

Breathless Dead

Redana!

Daimyo Mengekai - he should never have been a soldier. He was a creature of golden fur and faultless trust. His gifts were a smile and a kind word. If only you hadn't had to mislead him so.

"Of course, Director," he said and oh, so gentle! "Simply put, we reclassify this world as destroyed. We signal the Sowers."

And isn't this atrocity upon atrocity? A blood-soaked innocent, still naive despite the oceans of blood upon his hand - he believes you so totally he doesn't see a problem with extending your lies on to your last pure children. Like a drop of ink in the water your falsehood extends twisting tangles to corrupt everything without end. And yet tick, tick, tick. The number on the Auspex counting down until the Spear of Civilization is finished grinds down so fast and there's no time left.

The emotions crush upon you, the agony of racing against time and losing - but they're not quite yours. You can feel its colossal heaviness but the full weight doesn't stand entirely upon you. Something has gone wrong with the weapon - you're experiencing someone else's pain and your own self becomes clearer in the contrast.

Dolce!

As warmth spreads through your veins your ears pop - Demeter is howling, howling so loud you have spent minutes entirely deaf without knowing, and that sound was hollowing you out from the inside. But as calm starts to settle in the kitchens the sound starts to resolve and it's not a howl at all. It's a song, sweet and twisted, the song of a maiden on an island all the wet and raging things in the ocean.

"You want to sail - you want to stop
You want to thrive - you want to lie
You don't want to see
Let my hoe break your spine
Let my hoe grind your bones
Let my hoe till your soil
Till you're all just compost
It's the way you want it
It's the way it is
It's the way you want it
Come back next year"

The voice fades away until it takes up unwelcome residence in the back of your mind, a twisting earworm that runs deeper.

Then - Ding! Order up! The receipt from the service desk slides into the back and you hang it up on a peg on raw instinct. It's the glyph of Artemis, a black circle of ink like an iris - a simple and ancient ritual and message: You are being hunted. The assassin knows you have evaded her first attempt and she must now ritually appease the Goddess of the Hunt by giving you notice and a few minutes head start before she tries to murder you again.

The door out is still locked.

Alexa!

"What are you on about? You don't give a single shit about the Alced," said Aphrodite between puffs of smoke. It hangs preternaturally thick and heavy, spreading to block out the external windows. "At best you care about these girls. So just steal a ship and get the fuck out of here. Leave the others to die, fuck 'em, what are they to you?"

The smoke flows grey-purple and faded pink, curling and cascading, filling the whole room and rendering everyone else flickering red silhouettes. "You go to Athena for tactical solutions to military problems. You come to me to get what you want."

Vasilia and Bella!

Green light strobes softly somewhere deeper in the Anemoi and the ships silence and stillness begins to break and stir like rain on a stagnant pool. Distorted footsteps echo in the distance - heavy boots stepping on soft and wet mush rather than sound absorbent alloy. You are not in immediate danger but this place is not safe.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Had something... happened to Sandsfern? Was this truly her? The leader she remembered could have driven this guilt from her mind. Her charisma would have been enough to drown her doubts for long enough to reach the next drink. Her smile would have been able to chain her heart in a moment. What had happened? Where was she? Why wasn't she convincing? Way wasn't she able to get inside her head and make everything else go away?

She turns her head to the side, looks at her mistress. She looked the same as always. Sounded the same as always. But this time her heart did not pound and her stomach did not churn. Something was different and if it wasn't with Sandsfern...

"I am glad," lied Robena, for she had to shed all her oaths now. "That you are content, for such was my final service. I have died here tonight, Lady Sandsfern. My oath is fulfilled, and I can be at peace that you were pleased with my service."

She dropped her axe. Its mighty weight sinks inches into the soft earth and it stands tall like that.

Then Robena walks from the field.

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee looks at the book pile with deep suspicion. She's not touching that. That's got mold. That's unhygienic.

And besides, she's never given a single damn about first editions or figured out why some people go ga-ga for them. What a worthless hobby! You're getting the same book but with extra typographical errors, and often with the unspoken assumption that you'll never actually wind up reading it. And a shelf full of lovingly maintained first editions provokes the same suspicion that this heap of moldering antiques in a stack do: this isn't for people who like reading. To go digging through this heap of trash for buried treasure is the act of a treasure hunter, not the act of someone who loves books.

There exists a middle ground. There exist bookshops where everything is dry and musty and just faintly yellowed, books with broken spines held together by tape, books where some sociopath might have written commentary in the margins, books that you might pick up to find a hidden letter drop out of. And even then none of that stuff is necessary, or even desirable in and of itself - they're just side effects. What makes a book valuable is the story inside of it, and any physical damage to the work itself is only valuable insofar as it means that someone loved the story so much that they tore apart the physical container trying to get more of it, trying to live it one more time. If the story was somehow detached from paper and placed in a realm where a little number incremented by one every time somebody looked at it that would communicate that same sense of love.

But she doesn't say any of that. She doesn't even let out an acidic quip at the professor, even though she's got an audience. She... knows she probably won't have time for any more books, and she's going to have to go to the Heart with the stories she knows already.

"No," she said. "I just wanted to be dry."

But did she? Her eyes turn towards the doorway and it seems like the rain is calling to her. Melancholy swims uphill against emotions fixed in tattoo-fire, but she flexes her mind and tidies it all away. Then she glances at her new friend. "If you need to fight these guys, I can probably take the guy in the hawaiian shirt."