Thanqol

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Their hands touch when the rose passes between them. The gentle force of it traces up her arm like a shiver, crackling into her spine. The barest transfer of motive force but after so much stillness it warms her bones. She hasn't been touched for a million years. An operational hazard of mastery.

< Am I. Like you? >

There's a difference to her signing when she was close. Close enough, bold enough, she could reach across and take Mirror's hand, draw it into the sign. Whispering with hands, making their combined movement form the same words. Almost dance.

< Sometimes I disassemble you. > she said, fingers touching shoulder, collar, ribs. < I think of you as maneuvers. Reaction times. Instincts. > Poetry in gesture involved choosing words where each gesture flowed into the next without need for reset. Do it right and she never had to break contact. < Sometimes you disassemble me. My thoughts are a ruin because of you. Tactics I adore torn apart. Nonviable. Unsolveable. >

There was an invitation here. She had to act on it. It was easy to think that she was bold, but in her mind she thought the reverse. Making the request, even like this, subtle and secret, was a courage she couldn't manage. Responding to a request was easy. She just needed to become, become, become -

< Are you like me? In pieces? Torn apart? Tearing apart? Barely functional, in a way that can't be expressed to anyone sane? > said Solarel. "Because. It's a [change/relief/blessing] to see you. Whole."

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

There exists a new technology called Projection Mining. Beautiful crystal mine equipment that can slice a mountain into cubes and result in more material than the mountain contained. A film of a Projection Miner was shown by the Sector Governor on her last visit to wild cheering and celebration, a sign of the Endless Azure Skies rising to new and greater heights.

But for now the work is done with sweat and muscle and bioacid.

The Stone Tribe is more specialized than most. An insular, eerie community, they work like termites. They break stone into cubes, scratching away at the rock with acid claws until they've cut them razor straight and sharp. Then they haul the stones short distances to surround their village, piling them up into walled rings. They'll keep going until they've disassembled the mountain.

Your task - well, Bari's task - involves stealing from the Stone Tribe. They sometimes fire home-made scrap solid projectile rounds to try and deter workers from taking their stone and occasionally send out a champion to duel for it, but they're not warrior breeds and withdraw quickly. There's a ritual character to these conflicts, and each victory is celebrated by the whole town. But for all the extra material you'll need to build these houses you're definitely going to risk a battle, and the Stone Tribe doesn't need to win but only to make it inconvenient for you to leave while hauling tonnes and tonnes of stone.

Your followers sense it too. There's excitement, anticipation, nerves - everyone knows that today is going to be special, and everyone is looking to you. Your legend definitely has room for stealing a mountain.

Ember!

Fake pack. They fall to squabbling.

The reason, as it has been explained to you while you were pinned to the ground, hands around your neck, lips inches from yours, that the Ceronians play-fight so often is to build trust. To smooth out any disagreements instantly. To create healthy ways for muscles to test each other, for weaknesses to be explored, for physical and emotional vulnerabilities to find safe release. It's important, Ember, that every part of you be put on display so that you can know that you're surrounded by people you can trust~~

The truth of all that long training is illustrated perfectly in the Corvii. Their facelessness is an illusion; their masks do not cover the truths that you pull out of them. It's all tension and battle hormones and dominance displays aimed at each other and their instincts don't allow any of them to roll over and show their necks and that's a weakness deeper than any that your packmates have dragged from you.

You've done such a good job even that you're not even out of their sight when one of them ELF-strikes another.

It's a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, a weapon discharge visible from the Warsphere. Immediately after there's an exchange of lightning, crack, crack, crack! It won't do more than stun them, but from above it looks like an ambush. The hangar doors of the Warsphere open and shuttles Corvii gliding on wing and rail start to fall out; reinforcements in force.

Dolce!

The mayor starts to fade into listlessness. His judgements become quicker and less considered. He doesn't wait for 20022 much of the time, resulting in several from the hip calls that are almost kind, entirely by chance. It's been a secret since ancient days that criminals judged after lunch receive lighter sentences.

After some time, he calls for a break and leaves to stand on the balcony and look at the sunset. During this interval, 20022 approaches you, politely holding out a chair for you to sit and then sitting opposite.

"Good afternoon," he said. "I am 20022, executive assistant. Am I interfering with some operation of yours?"

Polite, earnest, sincerely willing to believe that this is his fault - but also with the unspoken crystal clarity that he has seen everything you have done and understands the situation perfectly.

Dyssia!

Biomancy is infrastructure. It underpins everything in the galaxy, an entire hidden substrate of politics and theory, disconnected from the wider world. Biomancy is why there is peace, why there is plenty, why the Skies are blue. Biomancy doesn't decide what happens but it ensures that it can happen.

What's shocking is just how many people are clones. One in fifty of the Pix is a mimetic spy whose duties involves making regular reports to the biomancers. They reveal everything, from whispers of dissent, to acts of joy, details on romantic couplings. They observe birthmarks, fur discolorations, weird dreams, small diseases, on and on. To step behind the curtain is to see just how deep this goes. One of your attendants is a mimetic spy - in fact, all Azura have at least one.

It's to look out for your health. It's legitimately to look out for your health - none of the Biomancers can even conceive of wielding their power aggressively against you, an Administrator Species. The first and greatest Biomancers were Azura and the mark that they left on their disciples runs deep.

There are thousands of branches of Biomancy. Biomancers specialized in skeletal structure, in noses, in eyes, in culture - all helpfully named things like Skeleton Specialist. There is a common pool of knowledge that they all draw from but creating and maintaining a species requires an entire scientific department hidden in the mezzanine layers. Complex scent-baffles and built in phobias prevent Pix from wandering into the wrong areas. It's explained that the commitment is unusually large - combat species get the most dedicated oversight to prevent them from running amok. Many of the Biomancers speak admiringly and enviously of their colleagues who work on the Ceronians.

But with knowledge as complex as Biomancy, there are multiple different channels to mastery. The most brilliant and dedicated arise from the Academies - prestigious institutions that manufacture their biomancers in house to astounding specifications. Transportation to and from the Academies is difficult, though, especially when operating on a mobile warrior species, so the Journeymen ranks are mostly filled out with clones - castoffs of the elites, though generally far less capable than an Academic. Even though the Apprentices are at the bottom, and you number among them, it's quietly understood that you outrank even the Academics by dint of your species. That's not that you can countermand them if they're working on behalf of the Azura as a whole, as much of their biomantic work is, but even the most senior biomancer will fetch you drinks with perfect servility if asked.

But still, the task most commonly associated with Apprentices is oversight of the Drones.

And drones are Fucking Horrifying.

A servitor is a person. A complete personality with thoughts, opinions, tactical awareness, strategic depth. Sculpted, directed, focused, but an independent sentient life.

A drone is none of that. A drone is a biomantic robot. Ranks of thousands of armoured shells line the walls, crouching in foetal positions, stacked on top of each other on pallets. Inside them is a mass of pink slime, more fungus than meat. Quickened by the right signal and that slime will condense into muscles, growing into its pre-built exoskeleton. It will not develop a brain, it will not develop an immune system, it will not develop a digestive system. It'll operate on a basic logic of move and kill until it starves to death or dies of bacterial infection a few days later. Incredibly efficient, incredibly lethal, incredibly cheap, incredibly easy to store long term.

But because drones are so simple and so disposable, they're also what's given to Apprentices to experiment on. With the right DNA-overwriting retrovirals you can give a drone wings or horns, make it grow four legs rather than two, alter its colour, change its imprinted instincts - even make one intelligent, though that is not recommended on your first few tries. It's the opportunity to work on a creature from scratch and wipe the slate clean if you accidentally create something unviable. Sufficiently complex custom drones are often seen as bodyguards, lab assistants, or even as templates for species modification. Perhaps unexpectedly, senior biomancers rarely have interesting custom drones - their work is on a complete species so they don't have time to do the kind of tinkering needed to create one-off masterworks.

What no one volunteers is why the Biomancers maintain tens of thousands of these things.

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

Amidst the brightness of the day, there's trouble. Unfamiliar faces in the crowd - no, not unfamiliar. That glittering crystal scent and taste. Rosedam... the town of Rosedam, it's the next settlement over. Not just a few of them either, there must be more than a score. Normally you'd see some of them on market day, and maybe sometimes one or two will be visiting, but it's not like they can stay. Servitors belong to the land, after all - free migration would cause inefficient pockets of labour.

"There's at least forty of them," Sunflower tells you. She's an old friend from the road and keeps her ear to the ground for things like this. She looks so young in that bright yellow dress it's easy to forget the wrinkles on her face. "They're asking around for accommodation, transport, even hukou," hukou - residency permits. A stamped document matched to a plastic tag generally worn on the ear like an earring. The law does regular sweeps for people violating their hukou - being caught in the wrong village outside a dedicated market day is like getting a parking ticket. "Rumour is that Rosedam's going to be turned over to the Surveyor."

Ember!

It's a slow day in the Skies. They're all slow days. Slow enough for a wing of Covii to pull you over.

The Covii are relics compared to the Ceronians, unsuited for purpose, overbuilt. They were designed for deep void and zero gravity operations - stocky, hairless, covered in pitch-black radiation absorbent feathers - but the changes went too deep. More modern warrior species can adapt between different biomes on the fly but the Covii are locked in to their single area of mastery. Obsolete on a species level, used to patrol backwaters like this, but still numerous enough to bully an unarmed Ceronian.

Half a dozen of them hover above the road - their grav-rails never turn off. Even just seeing how they turn to look at you from behind their faceless, reflective black masks lets you know that they'll grill you for hours just for something to do.

Battle Servitors

Battle Servitors
Various obsolete, poorly maintained, or last-generation servitor designs.
Following Orders: This stat must be damaged twice when the Trooper is in a Group, Gang, or Army.

Dolce!

For all the work put into the food, the Mayor seems to give twice as much attention to the chairs. He circles the entire room, sometimes touching the cushions to check them for softness. In the end he gestures and points and his bodyguards descend on the second-best chair, tearing it into smithereens and piling the stuffing into a heap on top of the best. Only then does the Mayor finally sit. There's a genuine contentment in how he does it, just a moment where he closes his eyes and smiles and is at peace with the world.

Then he gestures and his bodyguards begin clearing the rest of the room.

Tables, chairs, cutlery, everything goes directly out the windows. A space is to be cleared. The Mayor is holding court here today. Already a line of petitioners is forming.

But first enters your double.

All of the servitors of your line look almost identical. Only the red number spray-painted onto the cheek, repeated on the ear tag - 20022 - gives any indication of uniqueness. Where the mayor is grand he is simply dressed, an ill-fitting suit, a plastic folder full of paper, and an atmosphere that is deferential without being cringing or servile. He could be your clone. He bows to the mayor, then takes his place at his left hand.

Your role here is to ensure the mayor's cup is never dry and his plate is never clean while he holds court. 20022 stands by the Mayor's side quietly as they both listen to the petitioners. Each time before the mayor speaks 20022 leans in to whisper into his ear.

"Mayor Kaspar, my daughter wishes to take the trials for uplifting into the glorious ranks of the Covii."
"Your other daughter failed the trials when she made eye contact with the Crystal Knight during inspection. The world of Rosefang will not insult the Skies so a second time. Denied."

"Mayor Kaspar, I represent the Royal Surveyor. We have discovered a vein of titanium crystals under the town of Rosedam but require labour to begin extracting it."
"The town and its population will be offered in perpetuity to the office of the Royal Surveyor."

"Mayor Kaspar, the Princess Redana was overheard arguing with Lady Triden about the aesthetics of the Lyri. The Princess found them charming, the Lady found them annoying."
"Princess Redana is a guest and so her tastes take priority for now. However, arrange for the Lyri to be arrested and shipped to Rosedam as soon as she departs."

On and on it goes, this succession of judgements. Beneath all of them is that same indifferent cruelty that had your furniture tossed aside to make the space more grand for the mayor to sit. The Skies exist for a purpose and Mayor Kaspar, with the perfect memory of 20022 to guide him, never for a moment forgets that purpose.

Dyssia!

"Biomantic ability transfer is profoundly unreliable," said Tidal Specialist. "No, if a Pix steals a job she's unready for then she'll have her badge stripped by her superior once her failures are noticed. In ideal situations this acts as encouragement for everyone to train themselves as hard as possible for the jobs they intend to occupy."

The seafloor is coming up into view quickly as the beach rapidly approaches. Soon afterwards your heads are breaching the water and in the distance the monolithic arrow slab of the Pix Battleship is seen looming in the near horizon above the molten crater where there once was a mountain.

"Which is to say, it's entirely possible to learn enough biomancy to get by," she said with a wink. "And if the topic interests you, how about you give it a study? Maybe it's the path of mastery you've been searching for all this time?"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

And I shall call you Tactics because it is all you are good for.

She couldn't stop thinking about that phrase. It had been buried on an artificial world in the frozen heart of the Kathresis and it still felt like it had been waiting for her specifically.

The Ancients had built the Spirit Realm. They created the order of divinity; the cascading waterfall of might from god to spirit to geist. They had made it first in language and the material world followed - as Zaldar wrote, the Gods exist as aspects of the Spirit Realm, and the matter of the Material flowed to reflect their purpose. Some Gods carved mountains or rivers. Some flew amidst the clouds to trigger thunderstorms. Some churned the earth and spread new seeds. All of these, according to the Sage, worked according to the common design of the Ancients; the physical forms of corrections made to the perfect worlds as they had originally written them to be.

And yes, she could walk the mountain, scale the height of the beast, fight through its guardian drones, peel away its defenses and break the physical echo of its brain. But there was nothing of purpose in that. When she had claimed the Haforn there had been exaltation, glory - but she had not fallen into it as she had fallen into the Kathresis. Was she - were the followers of Zaldar generally - the physical echoes of the will of the Kathresis and her sister machines?

What did that make the Aeteline? Manufactured. Cursed. What did that mean? Had the Empress inscribed a new Word on the fabric of the Spirit Realm, marring the design of the Ancients? Or had they found its Word and set it free to work its design once again? There had been no struggle, no breaking of it, no forcing it to fulfill a different process like the struggle with a wild God. It had been as effortless to integrate with as the Kathresis had been. It had been so complete that it had left a scar. Life outside it felt like a blur. Perhaps there had been a struggle after all, and it had broken her.

She took one last, craving look at the Aeteline and then tore her eyes away and stared directly into the narrow blue light of a quantum cryptography tube. The relief was absolute.

All of her thoughts turned and reorganized - rather than running over endless, unsolveable, philosophical problems of will and destiny instead her mind realigned around processing enormously complex but extremely solveable equations. It was a buzz, stilling her thoughts, slowing her reflexes, pushing her big slow deep thoughts into the background. It was pleasure, every few minutes getting a warm rush of endorphins as her brain reported another breakthrough success that made her want to kiss whoever was closest in satisfied triumph. It was the only way she was going to function at a social event, and she didn't want a repeat of the last gala where she'd gone into brooding obsession mode for the entire fucking time. No, this time she was going to get smashed on high quality mathematics. She was going to fucking talk to at least one of the girls she mostly interacted with through the context of - there needed to be a Hybrasilian word for high concept sex/robot battles/drama. She was going to get in a fight that had nothing to do with stealing a god. She was going to wink a lot and live dangerously.

She sees Mirror. She winks. She flexes her shoulders. Her arms were still strong despite all the time she'd spent in the cockpit but, oh - didn't they ache to hold something real and heavy? A sword. A girl. She was low to the ground and on the prowl tonight, full of a strength as blunt as her outfit, and she was going to find a way to use every bit of it before this night was done.

Mirror. More than an Empress: a Champion. Crowned in flowers and wrapped in a ribbon. Every revelation meticulously planned. Every part of this stage rehearsed. The shock of seeing her, the visual, the impact, the power, the sophistication, the meaning. So much language. So many silent words. So much planning. Oh, Mirror could be worse than Solarel when it came to overthinking, couldn't she? So much effort gone into making a mask say 'no more masks' that she'd lost sight of the basics.

She makes eye contact, locks together in that fearsome challenge stare that the Hybrasilians hate and love, forcing her into scrutinizing every flicker of her eyelashes and movement of her iris. She stares at Mirror's eyes to make sure she has her full attention.

And then she smiles and drops her gaze to stare at Mirror's tits.

[Entice: 13
Spending a string: Solarel wants to be 'winning' this - whatever you think that means - for now. Mark XP if you accept]

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

The music is infectious.

It spreads from Mosaic's breath to a Lyri sitting atop a blue-tiled rooftop. She catches the beat, scratches her claws against the stone for a moment until she's sure she's got it, and then picks up her accordion. With a huge, stretching breath, her complicated device fills with the divine logos - and erupts the town into music. Dun-dundun-dun!

More Lyri catch the beat and other instruments join in - brass horns, violins, hands who crave nothing more than to keep a rhythm. Ornamental servitors who live spaced apart enough to bracket the entire town in the improvised symphony when the beat took them. Over the past few months they'd been going out of their way to refine and perfect what they considered to be Mosaic's theme music. After all, with all the divine gifts she bought to the town, this was what they had bought for them.

As the music spreads the town lights up. Servitors open their upstairs windows so they can lean out and wave to her. Siobud and Kaasj, feuding roadside chefbreeds, both try to one-up each other with the generosity of their offered breakfast - simple, hearty roasted chestnuts verses the overengineered masterwork titled the Byzantine Cup. Some girls stare at her from the crowd before blushing, stammering, and hiding their faces in their hands. Dolemon the Giant gets up from her bench without saying a word and starts to walk a few steps ahead of Mosaic, parting the crowd with her mass so that she doesn't have to push through the admiring faces.

It's not quite a celebration, not quite celebrity worship. It's just a bright and colourful morning where everyone knows your name and everyone is happy to see you.

Ember!

The task is complicated this time. Not just farmers to prey upon today - today there is a Warsphere above, floating unnaturally still in the air, a moon on the inside of the clouds. A patrol shuttle; company compliment, thirty warriors plus officers. No heraldric markings that might indicate a Knight, thank Zeus.

The Endless Azure Skies use a variety of dedicated warrior servitor species to support their Knights - indeed, Waverunner once said that they even had loyalist Ceronian clans, which was why you needed to be trained so extensively in resisting Ceronian influence. On a backwater like Bitemark, though, it was unknowable what dregs might be conscripted to serve in the military.

The downside was that they didn't seem to be going anywhere. On one side was the almost sheer cliff face, on the other side were fields and groves and an awful lot of open space. It was a long way to go if you were going to be pursued all the way.

Dolce!

It's Mayor Kaspar who joins you for breakfast today. He'd need to duck his head to step in even if it wasn't for his magnificent rack of antlers, but the indignity he suffered to fit himself into this space somehow made him even more grand. Not terrifyingly grand like an Azura, but more like an aura of health and charisma that made him as good as a king.

His species was called the Sophists, after ancient enemies of the philosophers. His nature was to be convincing and grand but mentally empty and stupid, a leader who needed to be fed ideas in order to function. His eye contact was piercing, his smile was glorious and the sheer compliment of his presence in this humble place made the whole place shine. Dirty? No, rustic. Small? No, cozy. A figure like the Mayor wouldn't be anywhere that couldn't be described in the most flattering words.

Two bodyguards come in behind him, scarred brawler avians, tall and slender and with swords chipped from each others' bones. They're slender but they both insist on going through the door at the same time - not impatiently, pushing and shoving, but so profoundly disrespectful of each others' presence that they scarcely acknowledge their rival even as they're almost cheek to cheek. They do not sit, they stand, ominously, sorting the room according to value and fragility.

"Please," said the Mayor with the smile of the forest king. "Your finest."

Dyssia!

"We've already acquired your entire household," said Tidal Specialist, like stealing the entire building you came in was the most obvious move in the world. "But yes, we are based off the original Bowman's Wolf architecture that became the origin for the Ceronian species, though based off vulpine species instead. The underlying instinct set is different but the uplift architecture is similar, if that makes sense? We were originally specialized for civilian influence work and economic interface but," she made a face, "the economy doesn't really exist any more. So we've got a choice! Carve out a socio-ecological niche in this post-scarcity hellscape, go extinct, or be reconstituted as a species of harem girls. We're currently in the middle of an experiment to see if rededicating around mercenary work would provide a unique service to the galaxy."

She was good at talking. She could talk a lot. Many servitors weren't inclined to speak like this, but words flowed from her more smoothly than the water she cut through.

"Our origin species was less social and hierarchical than the wolves which affects cohesion," she went on. "Accordingly we have what's called the Open Succession system. If you're wearing the captain's badge, however you came by it, you are the captain and everyone must obey you as such. Same for every other social role right down to maids. If you don't have any badge at all you are an Outlaw and can be punished or bullied by every other Pix until you find a role. The badges emit scents that get tangled if you have multiples, to prevent hoarding, and are manufactured by the biomancers according to the needs of society. Need more warriors, forge more soldier badges. It's honestly still extremely experimental, the idea is to prevent an inclination towards opportunism and betrayal from interfering with institutional structures."

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Being in control means wielding the knight. Wielding the knight doesn't require weakness, so her weakness is irrelevant. Being in control means not tormenting the Maid. A grip on this sword requires the illusion of kindness and that means she cannot punish her tame, fearful devil-king. Not yet. So she smiles down at her, and only from the Maid's angle can the glittering savagery be seen in that smile, even as she speaks for the Knight's benefit.

"Oh, noble knight, thank you for rescuing her for me," said Fengye, not breaking eye contact with her Maid even as her voice quavered with crocodile innocence. "Please protect us both!"

Breathless Dead

Five Years Later

When the colony fleet of the Endless Azure Skies first arrived outside of System 380-342-882, the Waterspines Knight petitioned the new world be named Celaphix in honour of her patron, Celaphix of the Riptide, Celaphix the Storm Knight. The request was dispatched on swift couriers through to the Administrative Palace on Mikeal where a herald would announce it to the assembled notables of the Galactic Council for Spans and Distances.

They would reject the petition. There was not only a world named Celaphix, but there were worlds named Riptide, Celaphix Riptide, Stormhome and 14 other pending requests that amounted to the same thing. The toadying of the Waterspines Knight was not only unoriginal it was interfering with the holy task of cataloguing and mapping the Endless Azure Skies. They returned the messenger to her origin with their firmly worded reprimand, along with instructions for the world to be named Podasia. The Waterspines Knight wore it as a badge of armour, the scrollwork of her denunciation pinned to the tilting shield of her armour, and she wore it proudly into the presence of Celaphix herself. This act of more original toadying was rewarded with governorship of a sector and the quiet termination of the careers of the bureaucrats who had dared to question Celaphix' right to have swathes of the galaxy named after her.

After decades of political back and forth were resolved, a courier was dispatched to the location of the planet that was to be known as Celaphix to inform them that their loyal and righteous request had been approved by the Shah of the Endless Azure Skies. By that point it was too late and the messenger arrived to empty void; for while the Galactic Council for Spans and Distances might be diverted by the functions of politics, the Royal Architect stopped for nothing.

The Royal Architect had arrived with a gravitational shockwave that had grounded every flight and flattened every grav-rail user in the system. Without a word he unfolded his Graviton Haulers - the "Gravy Trains" as the irreverent described them, not that there were many of those after seeing the Royal Architect in all his glory. The Haulers connected to the star-shackle, spikes the size of Neptune driven into nine acupuncture points across the length of the star, all linked through enormous chains to the great energy siphon that was transmuting the star to burn violet. And, turning the forces of cosmic momentum on their head, the Architect moved the star.

The process took more decades still. The star was burned brighter and brighter to fit with the Architect's designs, protostars hauled in from nearby nebulas to feed the star's size and growth. Planetary orbits were pushed backwards to maintain habitability, and then further as complaints about the glare reached the Architect's ears. In the end the star had increased 23% in size and brightness and been hauled 6AU out of its original position. Only then did the Royal Architect inform the citizens of System 380-342-882, nee Celaphix, nee Podasia, nee Celaphix, that they were to serve as the striking fangtip in the Constellation of The Rose Serpent, which would bejewel the northern hemisphere of distant Azura forevermore. The residents, hearing this message, rejoiced and named their world Rosefang in celebration - though up until then they'd been calling it Bitemark due to a quirk in how the planet's mountain ranges made it appear from orbit.

The Royal Architect withdrew to further the mission of beautifying the Endless Azure Skies. The citizens of Rosefang grew strong and prosperous, and multiple great Knights rose from this quiet home. The world gained a reputation for the beauty of its coral and for the landscapes where active tectonics shaped new islands. A powerful Satrap built a summer vacation palace on Rosefang. The world glittered, another jewel amidst the endless glory of the Endless Azure Skies.

This lasted, as so many things did, until the arrival of the Wolves of Ceron. They bombarded the planet for four days and nights, damaging the summer palace, and then launched a shock assault. They called it Operation Zone #1326, though when they heard about the old nickname of Bitemark from the locals they took the time to carve the landscape with orbital lances to make the feature impossible to miss. A love-bite from the wolves that blackened the sky worse than any volcano. And then, mostly, they were on their way, leaving the Azura survivors amidst the wreckage of their world.

This is Bitemark today; a world scarred from the worrying of the wolves. A world green and lush and vivid from the eruptions of volcanic ash. A world where the oceans bloom green with plumes of algae and are filled with fish and new plants. A world where the summer city-palace of the Satrap's vacation home dominates the center of an island archipelago, white ribbon bridges cracked and molten by plasma strikes - but others still intact, defended by their Guardians even against the roaring engines of voidships. It is a world of broken glass and broken lights and white marble veined with blue and the personal attention and blessing of the Royal Architect. It is a world with kessler syndrome, a glittering ring of destroyed space stations and satellites that fill the night sky with the beauty of space garbage. It is a world on the ravaged fringe of the Endless Azure Skies, a broken fang reminder of the limits of the Endless.

Few ships come here. There is only one Slipgate and it is small and intermittently used, its most frequent guest the annual arrival of the Sector Governor. Her coming is a festival and month-long celebration, not least because she brings news of how the Endless Azure Skies rebuilds its splendor - new warships, new generals, new Knights, a restoration of glory under a new Saoshyanet. Sometimes there are military flyovers and tickertape parades and it's all very splendid.

But for the most part, life in Bitemark is lived in the inches between the mountains and the sea. With so much geological activity the mountains cut right down into the ocean at sharp angles. Lemon trees and other orchards grow on steep angles, and in those places where the mountains have collapsed into shallower inclines towns are crammed in as tightly as they'll pack. White stone houses with blue tiled rooftops wrap around the edges of the mountainside connected by layers of stairs and winding cliffside roads. Where the mountainsides are heavy with spice and citrus, the water is warm and rich, filled with fish and pearl divers. The beaches are sharp gravel, baking under the sun, and the waves soft and pleasant. Sometimes during hot summer nights there are fireworks. The town you have found as home is called Beri.

It's a tropical, sun-tanned tyranny to live under, but it is a tyranny. All along the mountaintops are castles, filled with the watchful soldiers of Mayor Kaspar. The tithes Kaspar demands are extensive, but such is the price of keeping the sky blue. Sometimes groups will be called up and yoked together to haul more stones up to the hilltop castles, or to harvest trees to erect new anti-aircraft ELF-spikes. Sometimes people will be called on to spend months working in the guts of one of the defensive Warspheres that soar like zepplins above the towns below. Sometimes when the war drums sound the entire town may be rounded up, solid projectile muskets pressed into their hand, and made to stand in drenching tropical rainfalls on the castle walls, staring out into the sea as the dark shapes of Ceronian raiding vessels can be seen in the distance. Some of the wolves never left, or so the soldiers say, and the militia needs to be ready to fight them at any moment.

But on days when the arbitrary demands of the government are not being made, life is blessedly free. A riot of brightly coloured servitor species live and work shoulder to shoulder along their various arts and obsessions. Not enough Azura are present on the planet to make use of their services - the only Azura that lives in Beri is named Triden, and her only demand is that the town produce enough skilled wrestlers for her to practice her art against. There are no Biomancers - they were all conscripted by the Governor, taken away to assist with the great project of yoking the Tides of Poseidon. Only a few lesser hedge biowitches remain incognito to concoct the illicit drugs and various small modifications this untended garden requires.

There's nothing to do but enjoy the sunshine and the water, repair the damage caused by sun and storms, to manufacture things of beauty and to gift or barter them amongst each other. And, of course, to cover for all the chores of those taken away for governmental service.

It's not a bad life. The Skies never change, and that is for better and for worse.

Breathless Dead

The Starsong is pummelled by shattering waves. Ball lightning arcs in spectacular arcs. Slashes of sunlight illuminate the Eater of Worlds with a crown of Poseidon's rainbows.

The swell begins.

The smallest of motions, the movement of the giant's head to take a bite. Civilizations live and work inside it, trapped souls, damned souls, churning away in their thoughtless industry. Magma blood pours in channels. Plasma hearts pound at trillions of degrees. Cathedral observation decks with tens of thousands of optocytes standing, looking out and collating their reports to robed octopus scribes who send their reports through pneumatic tubes to the distant crystal brain. They see everything, including -

- including the way the glass shatters as Mosaic breaks through.

Panic. Optocytes run in all directions. Overseers start sending through panicked reports faster and faster. A few battlecrab security guards scuttle to engage. The disruption is immense; chaos, panic, an evacuation in a crowded football stadium.

It's barely a speck of dust in the creature's eye.

On the other hand, it's a speck of dust in the creature's eye.

In annoyed rage, the Leviathan rises.

*

Atop the sinking ship, Jil of the Lanterns raises her spear to the skies. Lightning flashes.

She knows the story. She knows it as well as anyone. How Queen Hatchan and the Warriors of Ceron killed the Eater of Worlds. Told in reverent, hated awe by the Kaeri. This was the bar that was set for them. To surpass the Ceronians they would need an equally legendary feat. They lived for it. They died for it. They strived for it with genetic yearning. They talked about the blow directly into the centre of the creature's forehead, shattering through into its brain.

Jil hefts her harpoon.

Her ship is not the ten kilometer capital ship of a warrior empire; it is breaking wood. Her crew are not the hardened killers of a warrior society; they are knights and princesses and magi. Her arm is not the biomantic perfection of a warrior species; it is firm but slender. She has no right to this legend.

The swell resolves.

The waves crest and smash.

The Eater of Worlds comes above the water.

The Beak opens. Slow, distracted, misaligned - eyes blinking in the wrong direction. Showing her the target.

She kisses the tip of her spear. She gives it a name. It's to help her remember what she's aiming for. She's not aiming for vengeance, not justice, not freedom, not glory. She's not aiming to bring light to a broken universe. She's not aiming to return the gift of flight to a shackled species. She stands against the craving for Immortality and all its kingly carnage, the wheel that makes kings so it can grind them into tobacco.

She has one name, one word to give to it.

"Enough."

She throws the spear.

No lightning bolts strike it. No gods catch it and speed it on its way. No hidden power ignites within it, no trick or secret or cunning. It's just a spear, thrown by a girl, against something that wants everything that ever was and ever will be.

And somehow, just this once, in this place between dreaming and waking...

It's enough.

*

You have never been warm before.

You who stood on the desert of Sahar, before the fire of the Engine, beneath the blistering fire of esoteric weapons. Your body reacted to those things but that was always a charade, an instinctive play-acting to hide the fact that your hearts did not beat and blood did not run.

This water is warm. It is full. Even here at the bottom there are fish in vibrant colours, corals in cascading arrays, columns of kelp reaching up to the skies, and of course the crabs who somehow seem to wind up everywhere. They stare at you as you emerge, the first witnesses to the slayers of the Eater of Worlds, and they clack their claws and know no fear.

But the sun calls. The sun calls, oh, how it calls. It calls with a brilliant, sparkling energy and you're kicking upwards, swimming, clawing at the water for any extra speed. It's hard, it's slow, it feels like you're so heavy compared to the birdlike fish. Your muscles burn like they've always burned. Every inch closer to that surface is precious. You see her up there, a beautiful shape in bright colours. Every moment, every second, every -

Your head breaks through the water. And before you can react, Zeus - brilliant, beautiful Zeus, dressed a in violet and white bikini, grabs you by the hair and presses her lips to yours and, with her kiss, she breathes into you. Her breath is everything. It's the breath of life. The breath you've always, always, always craved above everything else but never had. The breath you never knew you were missing. A lifetime of pretending to breath and now for the first time ever your lungs are full and your heart is pounding and the sun is warm against your skin and the tropical paradise that surrounds you in this cerulean green sea feels like being in tune with your body for the first time ever.

It's everything. It's everything. You're free. Resurrected. No longer a part of the ranks of the breathless dead.

*

The mousegirl sits atop the Eater of Worlds, staring up at the Fall as the impossible corpse drifts downstream towards the Valley of the Kings. Enough lies in her lap.

Her ears twitched. He thought he was quiet when he moved, but she was used to real stealth.

"You know you still might be able to make it up there?" said the voice of a friend. "I mean. I don't know how, but..."

"It's fine," she said.

"No, I mean it, I can probably organize some sort of lift effort with the remaining droneswarms -"

"It's fine," she brushed the skull-beads out of her eyes so she could look at him. Then she smiled, creasing her half-washed out skull makeup. "Trust me, that world's not for me."

"But," the Assistant - no, he was the Minister now, wasn't he? The Minister of the Eater of Worlds. "But you came this far. Just a little further and -"

"And I could go even further?" said Jil, with a smile. "Yeah, nah. Sucker's game, all that striving and yearning and memory loss. I'm good."

"But Lord Hades would offer you a wish - anything you wanted!"

"Mm!" she said. "He did! But that wasn't the best way to get what I wanted, now was it?"

She wasn't talking to the Minister any more. She was talking to Hades, smiling up at him as he loomed over her, blocking out the sun. She kicked her legs off the side of the Eater of Worlds childishly.

"I admit," said the god of the dead, crimson bow tie like a rose against his throat. "I thought I was going to win this one."

"Yeah, well," she said. "You weren't paying attention."

"No gods helped you. What you did was impossible."

"No gods that you know about," said Jil, rolling her eyes. "Like I said, you weren't paying attention."

"Explain yourself."

"You ever watch Prion Paula?"

"... no?"

"We'll start there. It covers the basics." She hopped to her feet and stretched. "Okay. Pay up."

Hades sighed, then laid a hand on her head.

"C'mon, give it some more juice," she said.

Hades grimaced.

"Eye level. Minimum! This reflects on both of us, you know?"

"What -" said the Minister, eye flicking back and forth between them. "- What is -?"

"You know, I always said that I wasn't short," said Jil. "I'm tall. I'm taller than almost everyone I know. And then suddenly I'm surrounded by all these giant massive people making me feel small, right?"

"Oh! So your wish was to be taller?" said the Minister.

"Nah," Jil grinned. "I said that if I won, Hades would have to make everyone in the underworld shorter than me." Jil grinned wider. "Like I said. I'm tall. By definition now."

She looked at Hades. Looked down at him. "Yeah, that's Enough."

"..."

"Ye-eeees~~?" she said, grinning at him.

"... do you need any more work?" Hades asked.

"Well," she said, flopping back down and spreading out atop the slain colossus. "I think I've got an opening in my schedule."

*

Dyssia!

The Biomancer looks at you with an exhausted, long suffering stare. "Sure, we can do that, ma'am," she said, her voice so flat that it seemed almost like this last part was imagined: "But I won't enjoy it."

But then the smile is back, animated and vivid. "Well, then! Don't think of this like a capture, think of it like the beginning of your montage! You know, we were delighted when we heard the challenge would be something so positive, right? We're wholesome creatures, us Pix, by nature and it is only the complete and utter destruction of the previous mode of production that has turned us to our current life of ultracrime. Come on, they'll have your training field all laid out for you by now!"

She turns and jets away through the water like a knife, jellyfish pulling you behind her in a cascade of tentacles. By the time she drops back to start talking again you've noticed she's forgotten entirely about asking you to swear the oath, which is definitely a mercy. "So have you ever been on a Pix ship before? You might find our way of organizing pretty unique!"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Solarel once knew a seer - a Terenian, actually. She could say when it was going to rain by the feel of the air on her skin. She knew the approach of storms by the stiffness in her joints. She could call the results of municipal elections based on not liking a politician's smile. It was miraculous each time, being able to predict the future with such effortless confidence. Some days Solarel couldn't even tell if she'd get out of bed.

That made the Imperial schedules all the more mind-bending for her. This document said exactly where everyone was going to be, down to the minute, weeks in advance. It felt unreal, a prophetic vision. Where people would stand. Where people would sit. Somehow she could look at this screen and see the future. She couldn't figure out if that was more or less impressive than the people who had decided that this would be the future. Did they not realize how impressive this was, how many instincts they were overriding? People weren't going to sit with their friends or vanish into the shadows because they didn't feel social enough, they were going to sit in their assigned places for the assigned duration and no one was going to question any of it.

Her predictions worked on the range of seconds, her plans worked on the scale of individuals. She had, like, impressions of what she was going to do going in but that was about equipment - possibilities she was giving herself, adaptive ways to experience the moment. She'd been kind of confused and intimidated the last time she'd gotten involved with Imperial ceremony, at the co-ordination of it all, but seeing this hidden substructure to it was even more terrifying. The door guy reading out all the titles wasn't just, like, doing that because he was a skald, drunk, and wanted to amp everyone else up? Wild.

She feels cold. Just the kind of cold, shivering tiredness that made her want to just layer on furs until she was invisible. Her metabolism isn't working right, her battery charge is misaligned, the clouds aren't cooperating and the heat from the fire isn't soaking in. There's so little here that's for her, that she's good at, and now she needs to figure out how to navigate this world of fabric and smiles and clockwork precision. It's not what she signed up for, can't she just come down sick? The thought is a shiver of relief. All she'd need to do is just physically fall apart and then...

... but Mirror was going to be there, and that was a Reason that prevented her from dissolving into blankets. The effort needed to be made. She could see the shapes of things in the distance - watches and leather, spiraling belts and veils, restraint in time - but she couldn't articulate the thought to the spirits. Her hands weren't smart enough to hold the idea. So she had to go to her fallback. Something she'd worn before, something she knew worked.

It was as brutally straightforwards as she could get: a skintight bodysuit in a cool grey that complimented her scales, with a vibrant fire-patterned jacket that blazed with heat and light. It was a straightforwards, raw uncomplicated kind of sexy and that was enough to provide the confidence she couldn't get anywhere else. She felt a long way from the glittering ice-planet brain, but this was a way to be she could manage from here.

Breathless Dead

Amidst the crashing storm, the Praetor takes the prow.

This is a vessel carrying knights and princesses. This is a vessel carrying magi, ancient and new. This is a vessel carrying sisters and lovers. This is a vessel carrying the soft and the kind. This is a vessel carrying a community that dares the storm together, dares the horizon together, dares the dragon together. But only one hand can hold the spear.

Leviathan turns. Despite the distance of the horizon it sees. Despite the crash of the Fall it hears. Despite the immensity in scale it cares. The beast turns with all the thrill of Love, with all the crushing enormity of desire. Though it be a nation and you but a ship, though its beak is still hot and wet with the molten yolk of a fractured planet, though it is everything and you are nothing, to the Eater of Worlds this is everything. Muscles the size of continents pull. Bones the size of mountains stretch. An skull that could hold up the dome of the sky turns as thoughts the shape of stormclouds tear through an unimaginable brain.

But for all its scale those stormcloud thoughts are simple. Ancient. Directed by the man in the battered tuxedo who stands at the barrier of life and death and says that this, too, must be a thing of desire. Let this, too, be cursed. Let Aphrodite, phallus of Kronus, work his revenge on the death that dared to take him. Let all men, all women, fear Hades. Let all hate him. May the final dream of every king be immortality.

Sleep is the brother of death; Lethe is the river of dreams. And here swims the dream of Immortality, the Eater of Worlds, the monster who inspired the pyramids.

But even as it roars away the stars, the Praetor hefts the spear.

She carries herself like she is tall. Surrounded by those taller than her, as she is, it makes her seem defiant. In the face of impossibility that is a champion's skill. She dresses herself like she is dead. Her garb is funerary and timeless. Black lace and black leather and her face painted with the impression of a skull. She carries herself like a warrior. In the end, who else to call upon? Who else could make war on this hateful dream?

"My name," said the Praetor, "is Jil. I am of the Lanterns. I was born into darkness. Raised amidst death. I have worn the bones of my ancestors. I have carried the axe in the night. I have made war beneath the desert sun. I and all my kind are the grandchildren of this Imperial dream of immortality."

She raised a finger and pointed.

"And I am what it fears."

All the gods were silent to witness this, a mouse standing unafraid before a dragon.

"Sail me closer," called Jil to her storm-wracked crew. An octopus creature slithered up alongside her, meek and wretched beneath her feet - but though it quavered, it breathed steadily. "Sail me closer! From hell's heart! Help me give up my spear!"

*

Dyssia!

"I apologize," said Tidal Specialist, now sounding increasingly like she was reciting from training. "The hypno-indoctrination technology that allowed the inserting of parental memories, while proven to be effective at improving relatability scores, was lost with the downfall of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. The Academy apologizes for any discomfort you may be experiencing from heightened awareness that you are speaking to an artificial life form. While feelings of empathy and outrage are natural, the Academy would like to remind you that you are a natural life form and this biomancer is not, and its desires are aligned with its role."

Normal servitors didn't talk like this. There was that awareness that they were built and wired fundamentally different, sure, but they wouldn't go into disclaimers no matter how you pushed them. It wasn't often that one talked to a biomancer directly - and if this was what it was like, it was clear why it was considered a path of mastery all on its own.

"Note that if you would like to upgrade this individual to the status of friend, due to a high degree of specialization, the biomantic work required will take four to six weeks in laboratory conditions," went on Tidal Specialist, voice having lost all of the colour that made her a Pix. "A clone can be procured on a shorter timeframe if that would be preferable."