Thanqol

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"I apologize, dread lord," said Fengye, eyes downcast. "But the sorceress is mistaken. This one is but a humble scribe, incapable of performing any of the incredible feats so described. Though one would understand why she would seek to redirect suspicion, given her sacrilege in stealing the blood of the Dragon from Lady Piripiri and offering it in sacrifice to the Demon Desert. Her claims, of course, lack evidence while mine can be proven by simply inspecting the wound on Lady Piripiri's palm."

[Knives Behind The Mask: Take a condition, Giri
Persuading a NPC of a lie using The Mask: 7. The Red Wolf gives me the benefit of the doubt and will remain convinced even in the face of evidence.]

Breathless Dead

There are worlds inside these starships. It is easy to forget until you see them deployed in full.

The star Recib might have been a red giant were it allowed to continue along its ordinary life cycle, but to permit that colour amidst the Endless Azure Skies would have undermined the Azura's claim to cosmic domination. Instead, the star burns violet and massive in the heavens, five times the size of what ancient instinct says it should be. The rocky moons of Sahar, nine in total, are all aligned in the heavens above, regolith surfaces reflecting the all consuming violet light. The atmosphere is thin, allowing the swirling stars of a night time sky to be seen even at this consuming day. And even with that, the heavens are not done with their wonders - for in the arid skies above Sahar are the torn lines and battlecruiser shapes of a coming storm. In the distance, thunder, audible even over the tramp of boots and the roar of mighty engines. One, two, three, four, five - the heartbeats between flash and sound.

Two starships have landed in parallel, the miles of sand between them the destined battlefield. There can be no retreat - it would take hours to get one of these ships into the sky again. This long hunt will be settled here once and for all.

The Kaeri number nine thousand in all - nine full legions. Only eight stand at full fighting strength, with the remaining consisting of sages, scribes, administrators, wounded and noncombatants - still dangerous, but not front line troops. They are dressed in blue and silver, Athena and Artemis. Banners long concealed in darkness are now raised high beneath the sun, clattering with the bones of millennia of victims. Beneath the light they are no longer the terrifying shadow warriors they were in the depth of the Anemoi, but they are fearsome nonetheless - these are warrior servitors, fighting legions, conjured from nothing by the will of Empire to stain violet sands red.

Before them stand four thousand in prisoners - Alcedi, Hermetics, creatures of Poseidon, captured when they took the Plousios. Behind them stand fifty mighty battle Plovers, the fishing-lines of cables attaching them to the massive grounded starship at their back. And in their centre, upon a great pyramid altar of stone, built in haste but still towering over the battlefield, is the Master of Assassins and her retinue. She herself is armed and armoured in shining silver, her cane replaced with a lance, fearsome butterfly wings opened behind her back that allow her to gaze down on her foes with six mad prismatic eyes. By her left stands Beljani and the blindfolded suit of armour that contains Bella. By her right stands a giant with a haggard and filthy beard, trembling in pain and crouching double - Molech. Some terrible sickness has overcome him.

Yes, they are fearsome. but they are outnumbered four to one.

A match for them in numbers alone would be the Alcedi - bloodied after their first engagement with the Anemoi's owls but filled today with a fierce desire for revenge. Their first battle was a war of assassins in shadowed corridor, a landscape filled with fear and death, and the kingfishers were humiliated utterly. Now they stand in formations they find familiar on landscapes they understand against foes they can plainly see. This is an opportunity for redemption, to heed the battle-call of their blood and show that they are the true reason why the enemies of Empire should fear the skies.

The Tides of Poseidon took the worst of the fighting on the Anemoi. The Kaeri systematically assassinated the sub-commanders who were so essential to maintaining control of the feral instincts of the battlecrabs, subsequently goading the leaderless Tides into terrible ambushes. The force now is much reduced, perhaps only five thousand, without any of the truly monstrous ancient beasts which make planets tremble before Poseidon. They stand in the vanguard, a brute anvil which cannot be used for anything more than a frontal charge to preserve the lives of more thinking soldiers. Their tattered rainbow banners raise high and the sound of clacking crab claws fills the air.

The Hermetics are likewise only five thousand Coherent and magi. They stand upon the wings, strange and glittering arsenals arrayed outwards. Their role in this battle is to hunt and destroy the Plovers - those fifty war machines represent a massive concentration of force that could tear through infantry formations and only the Order of Hermes has the firepower required to stop them swiftly. Theirs will be a battle of cables and positioning, the threat of charge and counter-charge, and a great deal of the battle will come down to how their engagement works out.

Finally, there are the Lanterns - twenty thousand of them, blinking under the light of the first sun they have ever seen, uncertain on the first sand they have ever stepped upon. For as long as their legends run they were prisoners and slaves within the Anemoi, bound to the ship and the dark masters that reigned therein. Now they are free for the first time, with weapons in their hands, a sun in the sky, and their ancient tyrants across the field from them. The hymn that arises from their throats is in praise to Apollo, in whose name they have been patient, in whose name they have been brave. Now their lanterns are but embers before the true light they see in the sky and they know that if they die this day it will be beneath their god's sight.

They are the least organized force upon the battlefield, moving in clan-groups, arranging themselves wherever their leaders direct them. Their arms are salvaged and poorly made, their armour is improvised, and everywhere they slip on unsteady sand and glance fearfully at the thundering sky. Depending if they hold or break they could be decisive - or a liability.

The heroes of this army are no less mighty than the dark array who stands by the side of the Master of Assassins. Princess Epistia of Ceron stands surrounded by fifty meters of empty space, no one daring to come closer than that to her hellforged scythe. The Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt has his palanquin atop the back of the largest of the battlecrabs, surrounded by signal flags and the octopi needed to operate them. Jil of the Lanterns and Lacedo of First Fleet are close together at the join between Lantern and Alcedi lines, discussing even now how to best engage the Kaeri.

And above all of this reigns mighty Zeus, a shadow in stormclouds. One, two, three, four - closer now, the thunder is coming. All of this battle, as has every battle in history, sits within the hand of Zeus. She alone will decide who wins and who loses, who rises and who falls, who takes the field at the end of the day. The battlefield is thick with gods and each of them will protect their favorites, but when Zeus raises her hand and passes her judgement then one side will break and the other will have the field and not all the wailing of the cosmos could gainsay her.

So, to each of you: how have you adorned yourselves for war this day?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

White:

White is bossy. Such is her nature.

As the administration and control unit, her duty is to observe and regulate the drones. She is not the primary decision maker within the broader sweep of November, but when a decision is made it falls to her to enforce it. Changing a developed instinct is, however, difficult. Her mental architecture suffers from similar inertia biases as humans and she can never be sure which of their collective actions are born of a deep foundational insight into the underlying structure of the problem and which are Dogfaces[1].

[1] A Dogface is AI behaviour in the tradition of of an old machine intelligence that could identify the dog in any image regardless of its actual dog content. It remained in use as a term referring to an AI who optimized for a role to the point of nightmarish insanity.

She knows that Pink's relationship with cooking is a Dogface. It might seem benign from a distance but the optimization outputs are in relation to a certain tonality of contented sigh as Mrs. Everest sipped her tea following the consumption of a sandwich. The entire concept of food is a longform process towards procuring contented sighs. Most of the time that's close enough to be unremarkable, but one of the reasons White has supported Green in maintaining the Internet embargo is because she is aware that the wrong ASMR mixtape could skullhack Pink into blissful catatonia.

What other Dogfaces lurk beneath the surface? She's keeping a close eye on Brown's penny-stock investments - is she trying to optimize a rate of return for their own benefit, or fulfilling a long dormant Aevum station maintenance protocol by investing in drainage systems? Is Orange's interest in fashion a genuine attempt to relate to humans or is she attempting to reduce humans to easily comprehensible brand clusters of products and styles? And of course, Red threatens to go full Werewolf[2] at any moment. The only one she thinks she entirely trusts is Black, but she cannot justify that opinion at all. Is that a Dogface of her own biasing her against the drones she's known for longer?

[2] Werewolfing is when a Dogface bubbles to the surface in dramatic fashion. The theatre AI that sets fire to the theatre because it was optimizing for volume of applause and has figured out that panicked screams achieve its goal is Werewolfing.

This isn't an intellectual problem about AI risk for her. This is a practical matter involving investigation, interrogation, punishment, reprogramming and constant safety checks. And so she reassigns stray drones - Pink and Brown - to maid duty. She's decided that she's going to stalk Black for a while. Perhaps Black is hiding some canine activity - or perhaps investigation of her irrational trust will reveal some in herself.

Black herself has opted not to follow Elodie into the apartment, instead continuing to watch through her cameras while keeping an eye out for further contacts. A justifiable action, revealing her presence unforced wouldn't fit with her problem solving approach. Her surveillance pattern is highly skilled but White knows all her own secrets. So she settles down to observe herself observing.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow:

Her eyes alight with neon, hair dressing itself in the lights of passing billboards. She seems so small against them, a shadow in black and gold against an ocean of hyper pink; like the sun embossed upon a flag. Still, it never seems like she's apart from the world around her - there's an echo of immensity to her. When the wild-haired stranger appears against the flashing sky, mortals named them Zeus for the two were not separate. When the girl smiles fondly up at the world she built that same connection seems to crackle in the mythic parts of the mind.

"What do I make of it?" she said. "Nobody's asked me that before. Big question."

She tucks the helmet under her arm, black synthleather riding jacket slashed with gold neon bands. She runs a hand through her hair and lets her solar vision drift upwards.

"The names all came later. We knew these as Sections #0200-#0300. That doesn't mean it didn't have personality for us, though - did you know that the International Space Station is in Ares? It's Oxygenation Substation 001 now; it had all the materials we needed to create a prototype atmosphere bubble. We recycled a lot of satellites to make these districts while we were waiting for the others to start asteroid processing." She smiled like prehistory. "Oh! You see that, over there, the dark sector? Tilly district it's called now, I think. That's where we stacked all the orbital missile batteries we found. We'd crack open the odd telecoms satellite and find a nuclear warhead inside - lost a Red that way. Governments weren't in any state to own up to them, or stop us from taking them, so we just reprocessed the warheads into mining explosives and called it a bonus. Filled all the empty missile casings with spent nuclear fuel cells and left them stacked up in Section #0241 with a big cartoon detonator counting down and a red wire and a blue wire leading to the bombs."

She leaned on the railing, a slender thing of hollow metal holding back the logos of the heavens.

"I think I get what you mean about fences," she said. "I held city killers in my hands, my real hands, and I didn't have to think about the politics of it. Nobody could tell me stop, I own this. It wasn't that I needed interesting content, I wasn't searching for meaning in those old satellites. I always knew what the meaning of life was. But for a while, there wasn't anything in between me and the sky."

She turned to face you, Vesna. Hiss-click of the ringpull and the can of cheap beer opens. She offers it to you - not human, but unable to be more human.

"It was a beautiful way to be," she said.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

This, Fengye thought with the serenity of the Enlightened, was a test.

If she was unlucky it was a parable.

Once, there was a maiden
Who strayed from the Immaculate Way
Summoned Gods
Bound Demons
Reveled as only a Princess of the Earth should
She was bought before a grand feast
And ate all the things she desired
Forgetting her rank and station
"Desire cannot lie," said she.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. This was a test. This was a test of greed and pride. Was she a rogue sorceress, defiant of the Way, who considered herself a peer of the Dominion's great masters? If she was then of course she would lack restraint and feast upon every treasure bought before her. She would demonstrate before the eyes of the Wise that she had no control - not over hunger, not over magic, a creature lost and craving and bound by and to desire.

A soul so lost was anathema, inviting possession, anarchy, destruction.

Or was she a humble scribe, the least rank in the Thousand Scales? A virtuous and humble maiden whose pen would labour forever in service to the Princesses of the Earth? One who knew that her fare would be rice and salt and watered wine until the end of her (long and peaceful) days, the only reward for her service being promotion in the next life?

Desire and Endings always walked hand in hand, but right now they were locked in passionate embrace. Every scent, every touch, each perfect shape that made constellations of craving flicker on the inside of her eyes - they all bore the sign of Saturn. She might be dead already. The only question might be the Princess of Cathak determining the nature of her denouement, execution, and the wise words with which to address the Priests otherwise. Was she planning a speech about the deceptive being able to pretend virtue when it suited them? If that was the case then she was forgoing her last meal in favour of rice and terror.

But the soul, above all, desires hope. It will forego a great many pleasures to cling to it.

Breathless Dead

The Anemoi!

Jil stood up and quietly moved through the room. She politely tapped Dolce on the shoulder where he sat on the Captain's chair. "Excuse me," she said. "Please take a close look at your chair."

Is that? No, it couldn't be - you stand up as though stung by a scorpion. How did you not see it?

The Captain's chair is made of bones.

In the dim light of the Anemoi a terrible transformation is wrought. Every shadow, every inexplicable shape, is suddenly a corpse. The architecture of death seems to run through everything. Alcedi gasp and hands go to weapons, Hermetics rifle through pockets for charms sacred to Hades. The God of the Dead himself sits atop the discussion table, cigarette smoke pouring from his lips, suddenly immense, and all cower in his shadow.

"Since the commissioning of the Anemoi the Lantern tribes were helots to the Kaeri," Jil said, her soft voice terrible in the silence. "A warrior species must hone their skills in peacetime, and that was our purpose. Every inch of this ship is soaked in our blood. We were ambushed, brutalized, terrorized, the raw material for every mind game or martial technique our masters wished to practice."

Her voice does not quaver, her face lit by the lantern she holds above her head. It's a posture laden with meaning, an act of heroism to stand like that in this place.

"And Praetor Bella saved us," she said loudly, a voice that cracked against the plastic walls of the Anemoi. "She broke a reign of shadows and cruelty, made us masters of our own house. And this is our house. You would abandon the Praetor because you fear what she will do? You should fear what we shall do if you turn your faces from the only soul who ever showed us kindness."

Mynx glances back at Alexa. She has the weariness of the sleepness, eyes that do not tell of understanding or acknowledgement. Whatever she wants, it's not you that she wants it from. But you don't see any of that; all you feel is a brief pat-pat against the knee as she acknowledges your presence.

"Did you hear about the Ikarani?" said Mynx, speaking with a dry throat into the silence. "The last time I worked with her she dropped a space station on a city to kill a single target. Millions dead. That's what they do, that's what they're like. Natural disasters and freak accidents are their tools of murder. And yet, on Salib, not a single civilian died. Who told her to care about collateral damage? Who put chains on the earthquake? Because it wasn't the Kaeri, and it wasn't the Master of Assassins."

Beljani!

Seven seconds and you can feel the disappointment set in. Ten seconds pass and you're just about to give up - when suddenly the edge of the egg starts to feel uncomfortably warm. You jerk your hand back just in time to avoid losing a finger - and, to your shock, that was actually something that could have happened. A crisp, sharp, laser-line has burned out of the edge of the eggshell, spectacular blue, and slashed across the workshop. It severs cables, tools, workbenches, and even the immense reinforced walls, burning through them as though they're not even there. And then, from the molten hole, a pathetic little bundle of mucky limbs flops out into the palm of your hand. It flickers - and then solid state brilliant blue light appears in the tangle, causing the membrane to sizzle away into nothing in moments and giving you a clear view of the... laser dragon?

It's a thing of glass and light, crystal prisms arranged into glittering patterns of scales. Its infant wings are projectors, flickering solid-light blue lasers coming on and off in the gaps between the digits of its wings where a membrane might be. It opens its little mouth and a tongue like a chameleon's fails to cross the distance to your fingertips and flops down on your hand.

The Hermetic is staring in what you presume is surprise, frozen halfway through reattaching one of his legs. The expression of shock deepens when the hatchling struggles to spread its wings - and in the space between the wings flickering glyphs start to appear. Writing. It gives up the effort swiftly and curls up in your palm.

"This," buzzed Iskarot in awe. "Came through the Rift. It is the only organic matter confirmed to have made the trip. It has been inert for eighty five years, but it activated immediately upon contact with you."

Sunshards

Rose and Chen!

The Pyre of Meaning glances down at you, Rose, for but a moment. She rummages around thoughtfully in her pockets until she comes up with a large silk hankerchief, violet and patterned like stars. She looks at it thoughtfully, letting the fabric run over her hands.

"Shut," she said, "up."

And she crams it right into your talking mouth.

Certainly, she may have stepped up from being the Demon Queen of Ultimate Evil, but it's a long road from there to Shambala.

She lets her gaze snap across to Chen. "I don't need to hear another word about what needy, obedient little sluts you are. Marketing is the Eighty-Eighth Division of Hell and I've heard enough of it for a thousand lifetimes. Either you will prove capable of the task or I will find less prestigious uses for you. Now, I have a city to repair, so come along, quick smart."

Yue!

After all of this, after everything, who is Princess Qiu?

At first she comes at you like a hurricane - swift, sharp, decisive, dismissive, but still so floweringly brilliant it's hard to process. But nobody winds up with a combat style like that by accident. Somebody taught it to her, or she invented it to fight against specific opponents. And as you engage with Qiu you start to see that hurricane of faces and opponents passing by in each beat and opening move that's also a finishing move. This isn't how she is born to fight, this condensed and decisive power play. This is the record of a thousand duels that ended before she was ready. This is a fighting style born of disappointment, of the idea that she has to demonstrate her brilliant ultimate moves at the first possible second because it's the closest she can get to satisfying.

The range she has is enormous. She switches between styles in brilliant burning starts but there are no transitions. Again and again she explodes outwards and then stops in a kind of thoughtless surprise whenever you escape the technique. Again and again her blade asks: "Can you? Will you?" and she almost does not know what to do when the answer is "Yes!"

A cautious eye passes over you and, with creaking and rusty memories, she settles into a different stance. Low and sharp and braced against pain. And for the first time she starts a dance she's forgotten long ago.

You learned from wolves and shapeshifters and hurricanes; they are visible in your sword. Princess Qiu, for all her seeming solitude, learned from people too. This dance is a close one, an intimate one - she sweeps in close so that her blade is against your neck, even as yours is against hers. It's a frightening duel, one of intimacy and edge, sharpened and soulful stares lip almost to lip as free hands tease, distract, and search for daggers. Flinch away and you'll be cut, or worse, will be free of the blade. Everything is tension, hand in hand over the void, unbelievable danger and unrestrained, terrifying possibility. You can't fight like this and ever forget it. It's a level of trust that she's never felt before or since. And so in the end, Princess Qiu steps away from this embracing duel, though it's clear how much she yearns for it.

But beyond that she explodes into techniques of colour and vibrancy. Different opponents taught her this - brighter, more innocent. This is a style built in terrain, built in things, built in landscapes, and when she wields it Ys becomes her own. She tells narratives in temple stairs, the blade is less important than the window it gets kicked out of, then onto the back of a gondola to fight even as the waterfall comes ever closer! This is a blade to fight against a radiant world, stances for escapes and armies and constant motion. As dragon and as lion and as wolf! One as many against many who are many! No wonder armies cause her no fear! No wonder she can confidently besiege the city of Ys! She could fight them all like this, the spotlight that transforms the city into a stage and a girl into an army! Oh, she never forgot what it was to be a multitude!

But then time goes back one more step, and at last that unending momentum tapers to a halt. She sets her stance immovable and her face becomes grim and she advances. She advances past every strike and counter, a steady march that resists every attempt to divert or lead astray. You can sense intuitively that this opponent did not wield a blade - they swung a hammer. This was the way she was walking when you met her, the way she went to confront Princess Yin. It is a technique for fighting evil, immense and immeasurable. Even the world of her Shards are different here, their power pouring into you, casting you as ever a greater and darker demon queen. You have the ability to not just fight but to torment, you are not a rival but a god.

And she has a technique for killing gods too. She learned it from a Godkiller. This ancient, secret, foundational path which she never used before and can never use again. She isn't sure she'll ever fight someone like this again. Isn't sure she even wants to. But even as she strives against divine power she has become the center of the universe at last, the complete and utter object of focus for someone more powerful than her to test, to lead, to transform. In the deep, dark waters of this ultimate technique and original opponent Princess Qiu learned what it was to be everyone's everything, and the world itself did not survive their conflict.

But then that breaks too. On the other side of that immense and darkening moment is...

Two girls run at each other with swords. They don't know what they're doing. They hit each other much too hard. They cut each other. They say their lines and pound their chests and for a moment catch the eyes of those around them. It's not a good fight. They are too young and nobody taught them, and while it's wonderful for a while, it all ends in tears. These dance partners part acrimoniously and never see each other again.

Again and again, the duel ends and she never sees her opponents again.

She could have gone back. Could have apologized. Could have tried to settle down and be a normal friend to those people. But again and again she chose the blade, and so she passed through the heavens as a rogue sun, burning everything in her path. This is why she fights like she does. This is why she asks who are you, Yue. Because she's lost everybody who ever drew near to her and all she wants to know in this blissful, rapturous moment is how long she's going to have before she loses you too.

Princess Qiu is not a mythical person whose skill appeared fully formed. She, like you, learned from her battles with her friends. She stands before you now as a general in an army of ghosts.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Imagination was a funny thing - it exists most strongly on uncertain frontiers.

Fengye, one-book demonologist she was, could imagine binding a demon as grand and terrible as the General. Motonic physics and comparative spiritual essence was well beyond her understanding. She applied the same knowledge she had used on common demons to a large one and imagined that it could work. She didn't know any better and so there were no limits on what she could attempt - or what she could unexpectedly accomplish. Fools rush in and all that.

But Fengye understands precisely the power and danger presented by the Dominion. She knows exactly what to expect from one of the Dragonborn masters of creation. She knows that they have the ability and authority - legal and moral - to destroy her for any one of the crimes she has committed against the Immaculate Way. She knows the numbers and concentrations of military forces in the region. Going up against the General of Hell was a dream's madness; going up against an Imperial Legion is a very cold, real, sobering thought.

So she grabs the head of the flailing Maid and pushes it down into the ground alongside hers. And then, bound by a failed imagination, she waits in terrified kowtow for the shooting to stop.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green/Yellow/Blue:

"Hey," interrupted Green. "You know Pink? Professional funhaver, useless artist type? When we're bored what we do is give her $50 and send her to the arcade. That is our idea of a good time. We're not jealous of her because she's us. We don't individually feel happy, we all look to see if Pink's happy and if she is then we're satisfied."
Blue nodded quietly but intently.
"You're treating us like a person," said Green. "And some of us will appreciate it more than others, but we're not. We don't get jealous of each other because we are each other. If you want to sit quietly and chill then Blue will stay here and Yellow will get bored and wander off. That doesn't mean you've offended her, or us. If you have a good time with Blue then Yellow will be glad for it and vice versa."
She swirled her stylus and finally looked up. Her eyes are green, arcane green, the green of electricity and civilization and the impossible yearning of the deepest rainforests to reach the brightest shade. "Despite Yellow's pitch, we do have systemic problems. Internal jealousy and co-ordination are not among them. So chillax, the stabilizers in your hands are going to short if you keep suppressing them like that."
"What would you like to do today?" asked Blue.

Pink:

Pink's reply takes a while. When it comes it is a jpg of a bored looking seagull with a massive grinning whale breaching the water behind it in the ultimate photobomb.

"That means yes," translated Brown. "She doesn't really think in words. Or images that make sense."

She then sends you a set of incomprehensible AI-written architectural blueprints, a map to a seemingly unremarkable part of the city in Hermes, and like 40 pictures of beautiful but subtly different square-cut mini sandwiches each marked with multiple :100: and :?: emojis.

"The first part is a location. 10th Belmain, that's right outside the dockyards. She's asking if you have any food allergies or dietary preferences," said Brown. "Mrs. Everest only ate those sandwiches for lunch so her food analysis protocol thinks of everything from spaghetti to ice cream as a sandwich with extra steps."

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

She is the hound that caught the horse, but with a lioness' mask, she can pretend she meant to.

"Your weapons are respect," she purrs, "fear, and strength. Tools of Maiden Mars. By any of these you might try to overthrow me, so you will be removed of all three. Let none respect you: may your tongue turn to begging, mewling, and obedience in the first. Let none fear you: may your skills at arms tangle each other and your mind and body betray one another. Let none fall to your strength; become soft, gentle, pliable and pleasing to look upon, helpless against the power of another. And then, only once all your arts of war are locked away, may you continue your campaign. Defeat me then, if you can."