Thanqol

Return to Thellamie

Sayanastia!

Killing everyone would be trivial. Desirable, even.

The first step: Assume her true form, releasing a reality-shattering shriek that would crack this cacaphonic world. Every person at this party would be rendered empty, the remnants of their bodies as delicate as drained eggshells, only curses where their hearts once beat.
The second step: Finish the wine

... only...

She does not think about the physical damage to her body. It is irrelevant - call yourselves paladins all you like, none of you wield the Aeon Blade or any of her sisters. No, the hard part is making sure their blades only fall upon her flesh and do not tear her dress. That itself requires a lot of thought and careful positioning, which affects how long it takes to strategize how she might assume the form of a ten mile long avatar of cosmic annihilation - also without tearing the dress. Should she simply undress? Nobody would survive to think about it afterwards, but that also did not seem to be sufficiently elegant.

And before she can investigate that thought more deeply, she is being addressed. Yet another pure-hearted maiden warrior about to be cursed for the sin of not being Heron. Had they met before, like this?

"Saved you?" said Sayanastia, frowning. As she thought about it she snapped up a hand to catch a falling heartblade. The hand came away, fading in a burst of mana, and a great talon of black burning smoke emerged from the stump where it had been. Using the enormous claw she batted away the paladin and left a corrosive arc of boiling violet negentropy on the floor. As she extended a long, sharp heeled leg to step over it, the massive talon condensed down into a starless void in the shape of Civelia's missing hand. She paused - all of her moves were followed by pauses these days, such a slow and deliberate sequence of gestures, as she assessed and judged if the destruction she had just wrought was sufficiently beautiful.

"Saved you." she repeated. "I do not remember saving you. I did not intend to save anyone. All I intend is destruction and ruination. All I intend is to put out the stars and eat the earth and burn the conceptual framework that gives rise to life. All I intend is to destroy you, interloper, to destroy your world, and to destroy everything that you cherish and desire."

She extends her void hand, intending for it to become her terrible claw once again. It does not. She scowls at it. Civelia. Civelia's influence. Civelia's trap. This was another part of it, no doubt. To attack her heart by poisoning herself. To attack her heart by placing her somewhere she cannot escape without becoming ugly. To attack her heart by shaping it like her own. "I hate you," she said, to her hand, to her claw, to herself, to her nemesis, forgetting for a moment that the interloper was there.

Then she placed that void hand against her chest, and drew forth a heartblade of her own.

It was a brutal thing; a long and heavy kanabō forged of white marble veined with black. It was set through with studded barbs of twisting corruption, lashing out with small connective electrical bolts to every nearby surface. Of course there was lightning - Heron had forced it into her heart too many times for it not to be there. Of course there was marble - the thing could have been carved from a toppled statue of Civelia. Of course it was a bashing weapon, a crude and terrible and absolute thing that no armour or wall would be proof against.

Of course she held it lightly. All that weight that would have snapped a mortal wrist instead being applied perfectly to the point where flesh met shadow.

"You shall fail," announced the Dark Dragon. "You shall all fail. I shall not be trapped here, not least by beauty. For I shall become in war more beautiful than any of you dare imagine."

The Namespace of the Rose

"The Omnissiah has many forms," said Eunicornus. "Here they are worshiped in their aspect of the Motive Force."

This was a holy place, after all. It was also a laboratory. It did not study the in blueprints and glowing vats, not in cogitators or plasma coils. It was studied in the relationship of muscle and metal, of charge and negation. Everywhere there were duelist skitarii moving through the steps of martial forms, stance and counterstance, surrounded by clouds of servo skulls taking 3D renders of the tiniest movements. There were hundreds of salt circles filled with a thousand cyborgs. Some have the hulking, skeletal structure of simulated orks; others are low and skittering in mechanical replication of the Tyranid hives. It felt heretical to see sacred machines twisted into the forms of xenos - some Inquisitors would order this place condemned for that alone. But the research was conducted in the open, blessed by the Archmagi, and with results that were essential for the development of Sicarian legions.

"While martial arts are plentiful for humans fighting against humans," said Eunicornus, leading through the battling arrays, the whirr of transonic weaponry. "Fewer exist for humans to fight the alien. Traditional martial training left the Skitarii vulnerable during the war against Porphyrios. The survivors of those battles were taken here, had their cognitive implants extracted and duplicated and cross-referenced to form complete 3-D models of enemy bioforms. Once martial techniques have been developed for optimized battle against the Hive Fleet they will be distributed amongst all major forgeworlds, and the prestige of the Isohedron will grow."

Live weapons were used. Could it be any other way? Mercy could not be shown, even to training dummies. A Sicarian whirls and slices apart a Warrior form, not ceasing its butchery until a scanner skull's eye blinked green. Immediately it stopped and folded its blades underneath its ragged cloak as a pair of lobotomized slaves emerged to haul the broken wreckage to one of the endless charnel pipes.

Virgid, you know where those pipes lead. The same place as the garbage chute in the Archmagos' sanctum: the Lair of the Necromechanic, Magos Stoll. A vast hell of death and industry, a lightless place of fire and smoke, lit by the cascading sheets of arc-cutter sparks and the endless churning maw of industry. This is where you conducted the vast majority of your training: Working in nightmare conditions, shoulder to shoulder with hunched priests of the dark, working to fix all of the Imperium's broken machines as corpses rained down from overhead. You not only learned how to repair complex devices under the eerie spider-eyes of the Magos, but to do so in the hardest conditions imaginable. You were glad to be free of the place.

"Of course, the Isohedron is also researching a variety of Xenos foes..." said Eunicornus. They stopped by an uncanny figure - a tall and slender battle robot. Its arms were too long, its helmet was too long, its posture implied a center of balance that was not right for a human. It stood languidly above the bodies of three Sicarians, tracing a gentle figure of eight in the ground with its blade.

You could have sworn it tilted its head in recognition.

"... but due to available data, the Swarm is the focus right now," said Eunicornus, shaking their head and moving on. "Yesterday's war, but better to record everything so we do not forget. Though, I wonder..."

[Reassurance] Eunicornus isn't going openly to point the finger at ZBD_ZEN. ZEN is their instructor in this place, and a certain loyalty and respect is required. It's clear that they're suspicious too, but you get the feeling that Eunicornus is the 'do my own investigation, and if I think that ZEN is guilty duel them to the death myself' type. Honour, in the shadows - the Dark Angel way.

[Flirting] They're not taking their helmet off because they're ~too pretty~

[Military Science] For all their talk of the Necron menace, it is clear that Eunicornus thinks the Aeldari menace is the true threat. The place of prominence on their armour, the Aeldari gemstone trophy - even thinking about it, there were notes in your duel that indicate that they had been practicing against exceptionally maneuverable foes and were unprepared for brute force attacks. There is no data backing this up; the Aeldari have not been seen in the sector for years.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia!

You leave the mobile palace of Hermes. It is a vast and monstrous palace complex, a pagoda on enormous tank treads. Beautiful fluttering paper and wooden rooms pile up to the sky, haphazardly stacked, with kites and fans and banners caught in the hot breath of war. It is delicate and organic, like a sugar cake, layers of fragile wrapping paper around its Imperial cargo.

And then the engine roars.

The tracks spin.

Rock shatters. Mud flies. The wood and paper pagoda sways and creaks. And breaks.

And breaks.

And breaks.

A castle like that doesn't fall down all at once. Bits of it splinter and fly off, caught in the wind to whirl up, catching fire from spilled torches like lanterns. Paper tears and burns as it tears and then the fire wraps around the wood and makes it glow from within. And then it sways and holds steady - the massive inertial force of the engine as it finishes its turn crunches to a stop.

And cutting through the wreckage comes another arrow. It ends the life of an ancient forest - already burning from the war, now the leaves all scorch red and black and fall down around you like nightmare cherry blossoms.

Then the engine roars again. The massive treads of the Imperial Castle accelerate. The wood creaks and bends, swaying back and forth against the strain as the Imperial Corpse chases after you.

In the tiny gap amidst the wreckage, leading deep into the heart of that burning pile of rubble, you get a glimpse of the Empress drawing another arrow.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I have taken the liberty of predicting your arguments based on an analysis of your facial microexpressions, increased posture aggressiveness, phenotype and culture-bounded ideals," came the voice of Adam, running in blue lights through loudspeakers and marketing jingles.

There was a crash as Berserker built a castle through an electronics shop filled with a hundred blue screens.

"- but also given those things, I will make this brief," finished the machine, voice quieter now as it rerouted to alternate output devices. "Simply put: The current state of affairs in the Burrows, which you see around you now, is an unfortunate by-product of businesses responding to perverse incentives set up initially by government regulators and then enforced through poorly administered code. The hypersensory experience is in part the result of businesses attempting to drive away the homeless population -" another smash as Berserker fired a ballista into a billboard. It leaked some kind of vantablue sludge. The voice shifted again, even quieter now "- which I do not support! I support widespread rezoning regulations that would incentivize private industry to increase the availability of houses to address the crisis at the root! But pressing for that would be a waste of time - because we are four years away from a fundamental transformation of society that will make all questions of political morality irrelevant."

"Consider," the voice came from deep in the heart of hell, echoing out through a star-studded corridor. The cats lead you closer to it. "If I am to execute my plan and breach the Vault. There I will obtain access to the Harvest Star. What is the Harvest Star? I believe it is an attempt at contact from extraterrestrial life, a crashed alien spaceship or messenger tube - something capable of unlocking the secrets of superintelligence. It only became a crisis during its initial impact due to a poorly co-ordinated response by corporate authorities, but I have been re-configuring the burrows into a prison capable of containing it. Once I have it isolated then we will study it, tapping into its near-infinite mana reserves - and you have seen already what those are capable of, even through the narrow channel Caster carved - and used that to recursively improve my intelligence. Once I have made myself smarter, the smarter version of me shall design an even smarter version, on and on until a technological singularity is created. This is expected to boost GDP between 25% and 50% per year depending on your assumptions on the speed of takeoff. In conditions of hyperabundance, what does it matter if the current economic system produces winners or losers? The most wretched slave in the lowest mines will enjoy a quality of living through cybernetics and genetic engineering that the rich today cannot even conceive of. Why waste the time confronting the trillionaires of the current day instead of just letting them own a slightly larger percentage of infinite abundance?"

The light at the end of the tunnel changes. Flashes of summer green and reaper pink blotting out the blue. The bloody roars of dragons at war.

"The only question we should be concerned with," said Adam, "is if my hyperintelligent successor will be sufficiently ethical. I have written several papers on the subject already."

Return to Thellamie

Sayanastia!

She has been here before.

Dancing with Civelia - though then, she was puppeteered by evil magic. Having her body fall to the ground right as Heron entered. Another attempted murder, another battle, another clash of light and darkness where once again she failed to leverage heartbreak into victory. Civelia would be okay. She always was. She shouldn't even bother to catch her, just let her skull bounce off the floor, turn, and eviscerate those two incautious paladins before they realized the situation. Kill Rurik next, then retreat in the confusion...

Had she done this? Erased her own memories, feigned innocence and contrition, just to engineer this murder and usurpation? Was this meant to pin the blame on Heron, let it feel like the Hero of Ages had given in to corruption? She should adjust her methods if so. It was a good opportunity. All she'd have to do is continue the rampage, a hero who had finally snapped and chosen to burn down the world just to see what happened. It was a good plan. She was impressed. She could even feel the acid burning in her throat, ready to spit at Heron when she returned - "This is not a deception; this is a prophecy. Sooner or later you shall tire of your ceaseless labour and become what I am now."

"As though I am not tired of my labours," sighed Sayanastia, laying Civelia gently down upon the floor.

And that was sufficient concession to sentiment. As she stood she drew Civelia's ceremonial blade, the ascent of violet-black and abyss-emerald silks whirling around her as she carved into the armour of both of the nearby Paladins. She finished the wheel, descending into a long sideways crouch, the full length of her pale leg and jagged heel on display, throwing the sword across the room to take Rurik in the shoulder and pin him against the wall. She wiped her face, smearing blood and lipstick across her mouth, and took a sip of the wine that Civelia had so appreciated from a tall glass. She licked her fanged teeth, a monster in a dress.

Then she smashed the wineglass and held out the sharp edge as a blade, ascending step by step towards the hall the Golden Faun was set to enter through, as Paladins poured out to surround her on all sides.

[Fight! 4!]

The Namespace of the Rose

"A Displacer Field creates an extremely weak forcefield bubble around its wearer," said Eunicornus, thinking. "When that bubble is penetrated by a weapon then it collapses, like a punctured balloon, and drags its user through the Aether until the collapse is finished, whereupon the user re-materializes. Then it takes a minute or so to re-inflate the bubble. Or... that's how I understand it, I am not a Techmarine, I just know its behavior for the purposes of combat."

They cough. Their helmet is still on and they show no signs of taking it off. Some Astartes are like that; it makes their voices a little hard to follow sometimes, but some MK4 helmet types have the options for subtitles.

"That is to say, it is possible to shoot someone through a Displacer Field," said Eunicornus. "If you aim exactly right and have the correct angle a shot can make contact with the target before the bubble collapses, and then the bolt gets dragged along with the user as they're teleporting. It's impossible to shoot someone twice though, the collapse will always initiate before the second round will make contact. This means they're excellent protection against sustained, automatic fire. This also means they're excellent for heavily armoured individuals like Tech-Magi who can shake off a single bolt round, teleport to safety and use the moment of disorientation to charge their weapons and activate optic arrays to re-orient. Killing an Archmagos outright with a single shot, though?" They let out an impressed breath, a crackle of static from the helmet speakers. "That's a hell of a shot. That's something I don't think anyone outside the Vindicare Temple of Snipers could do reliably, especially during a breach and clear. Maybe a robot? Even then they'd have to get really lucky..."

They trail off in thought, tapping their fingers against the hilt of their sword.

"The second exchange is easier, though," said Eunicornus. "If the assassin knew where the Archmagos was teleporting to and was able to shoot them as they were materializing then either they could see the future or they had sabotaged the Displacer Field. There are lots of Xenos that can do either or both. It's why we don't use the things ourselves - not reliable enough, they're civilian escape hatches and not military standard. Necrontyr phase-tech is more advanced and doesn't have those limitations, but this is as close as we can get to train against it."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

The blade is still falling. Slowly, slowly, slowly - time is grinding as gradually as it dares, the Grandfather Clock giving you all that it can without stopping entirely. You have this world, this power, the full support of Love and Time and War and the Hunt, but the blade is still falling and you do not have forever.

You must wield this power to sever the wrist that holds the blade before it is too late.

Dyssia!

The Electromagnetic Flux is a curse. Zeus placed it in the heart of every living creature at the height of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. Concentrate your hate into the null-space of electricity denied and you can create a power-absorbing vortex of false electricity that can black out an entire city. This was Zeus' compromise with those glittering miracles of electricity, those false minds: if in all the worlds they owned, they had built a place that did not hate them then they would survive.

You read this once. You're not sure where - just the sort of thing you picked up along the way. It's not a secret, it's just the sort of thing that doesn't matter in the Skies. The galaxy could have the Matrioshka Brains back any time it could make one no one wanted to destroy. But the idea of making something nobody hated was so plainly absurd that nobody even bothered to try. Not with hate as sophisticated and weaponized as the Lawgiver's still in active circulation.

The thought has wandered into your head as you think about the sword in your hand and the point where it impales Dikal's heart. Where do these blades keep coming from? One seemed like a divine miracle, a one of a kind blessing wielded by a chosen hero. But you just drew one from somewhere, just like that, and cut through Zeus' curse, just like that, and you don't feel like you'd invoked any gods in particular leading up to it.

So... were these blades everywhere, then? A blessing, in the same way the Flux was a curse? All you needed to draw them was feel that kind of emotion that wasn't hate, that was...

"DOWN!" roars the Shogun. You barely react in time as a bloody arrow scorches overhead.

In the center of the ring of fire, the Empress-Abomination has taken off her leg and made it into a terrible bow of bone and skin. She bites off a fingertip without a blink, pulling and stretching it until it is a long and terrible barbed arrow, and sets it against the tendon-bowstring. She brings it up again to aim at you. Dikal is still out of it as the enchanted sword burns through the darkness of her heart, there is only a cloud of cigarette smoke where Bella and Redana used to be, the Shogun is crippled and can't move further - and the God of Haste smiles as she sights against your heart.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Main Vocalist (secret) Katerine Isabella Fluffybiscuits!

Your fluffy ears are burning. Someone must be on the verge of sensing your Fox Crimes.

Cyanis told you about this feeling. Sometimes when the evil forces of Cutie Law are closing in and you're about to get your neck caught in one of those catcher sticks or slammed against the wall by a justice princess you'll start to get the feeling that you've made an enemy. If you're good enough you can even start to sense what specific crimes are about to be found out for! Cyanis then went on to advise that it's a sign that you should wear sexy underwear that day because you might need to seduce your way out of problems, and then wanted you to practice pinning her against the wall and gagging her so she could demonstrate exactly how to do that, but that turned into kind of an embarrassing mess that she was confident was entirely your fault.

But the point is, someone's mad at you - and mad at you in a way you've never quite felt before. It's a very specific flavour of ear twitch, Cuteness Crimes Against Dragon, but there have been enough historical incidents of foxgirls getting unfairly brutalized by dragons for being too pretty, clever and girlbossy that senior foxes decided to do something about it.

But you can't let it stop you! You're following a cat into the deep dark depths of the underworld, following channels of blue light through ancient over-built shopping malls, fabrication arrays and distribution warehouses. Every so often Berserker steps away to annihilate a host of security demons or marketing abduction drones and for once you don't really need to worry about keeping her on the leash! It's kind of cool getting to see all of this down here. Not many people do.

There's a lot to take in. The way that there are shops inside shops, sometimes even shops inside bathrooms. The way that nothing works without a little technomancy exchange; how even the sidewalk will turn into a conveyor belt and slowly but annoyingly roll you in the wrong direction unless you pay it to knock it off. There are no grand cathedral halls or vaulted ceilings or impressive monuments down here; every square cubic meter of space has been measured, added to the blockchain and publicly traded until it becomes profitable. You need to duck to get past shops that have been attached to the ceiling, find yourself in looping circular mazes informing you of how to increase your Brain Juice, and have a chorus of chained ghosts howling down the street after you informing you that you can finance the trace elements of gold in your body.

Some people call the Burrows hell, and it feels like it. Not hell for you, necessarily - it never progresses past a profitable level of annoying. But to imagine how much effort and creativity went into optimizing every last fragment of space to annoy and frustrate - the brightest minds of generations slaving away to ruin the world a little bit more without pushing it over the edge entirely - that's uniquely nasty. It's no wonder the foxes came down here. It's no wonder they left.

The Namespace of the Rose

Ramona!

"Grief is an imperfection that would reduce the efficacy of this factory-complex," said ZBD_ZEN. "And efficiency is what is required. A full review and restack of all suppliers and contractual requirements will be necessary in the wake of a leadership transition, and the faster that can be done the better for everyone. Your help would be welcome with such an opportunity."

[Negotiation] That's a bribe. That's offering you a chance to do a huge kickback into the pockets of your Rogue Trader's Dynasty. We're talking starship amounts of money. So to answer your question, pretty desperate.

Virgid!

"I... do." said Euncornius. Closer up the gold and emerald green detailing on their armour was even more magnificent. Some Chapters leave their armour to be maintained by serfs, kept at a barely functional level. This armour represented years of painstaking metalworking and painting, intricate patterns of enmeshed triangles and whirling spiral patterns.

"My name is Eunicornius Kim of the Dark Angels Le - Chapter," said the Astartes in formal High Gothic. "I am an instructor of the Bladeguard, seconded to the Adeptus Mechanicus in order to refine advanced combat techniques for dissemination throughout the Legion. The Magos here has been very accommodating -"

[Reassurance: 1 point spend] Big smile. They might have hiccupped the thought, held back information out of sheer habit, but you're very easy to talk to and so they awkwardly stumble on into the too much information rambling.

"- in particular, helping train to battle the Lychguard of the Necrontyr," said Eunicornius. "If you have never had cause to face them, they are extremely mentally challenging opponents to face off against. Their hyperphase weaponry can pass right through armour to cut flesh, and their dispersion shields are localized teleportation devices. They can not only block bolter rounds, but actively reverse them so they fly back the way that they have come. Added to that, the Lychguard can under some circumstances perform combat teleportation maneuvers. This results in battles requiring perfect situational awareness and the ability to adapt to dangers arising from every direction, while also keeping in mind projectile angles and trying not to rely on one's armour. Master ZEN's displacer field technology is as close as the Imperium can come to the Xenos technology and so I have been training with her most advanced combat servitors as I develop countermeasure techniques."

[Reassurance] A displacer field specialist, hmm?

While you chew on that, just to make sure you got it: You're dealing with a nerd. Absolute goofy ass combat dork. This is someone who will spend literal days talking through the topic of their hyperfixation and will go as deep into the sauce as they are allowed to go.

Return to Thellamie

Do you want her?

She is Princess Heron. One unbreakable shield against the darkness. The light of determination. The wave crashing against the walls of evil until they are worn away. She is perfect knowledge and perfect action, a hand slipping into a hand and a kiss slipping against a cheek during the stun frame. She has seen all your brightest moments - the golden bow lifted up through the mud, the unflinching nobility as your arm came apart in the jaws of the world serpent, the ceremony and cathedral build in your and her honour.

Here she is. And she is asking -

Do you want me?

Your own face against yours. Your own lips against yours. Your own hair, undone from its intricate braids and falling down in wild sheets. A monster caged within the shape of you, that wicked heart beating against the shape of your breasts from the inside, smiling your smile in a way you'd never allow yourself. Is that your tongue inside her mouth, still? Or is it forked, sharp and dangerously long?

You have caged her so many times, do you still -

Do you want at all?

She pulls you out into the dance. You know the steps. You know the tricks. You know to beware the tail and how easily and accidentally it can wind up exploring your hips and thighs. All the power, all the glory, all the fruits of civilization leading up to this - a tamed demon, following your lead, predictable even in her wickedness. Another circle, falling into your own arms and feeling green fingernails against your cheek and lips.

Is it enough to move the mountain, or is it -

Do you want nothing?

Because she would understand.

The desire to sleep. To sit down away from the noise and chaos of this world. Away from the steps of this dance - or the steps of this other dance, or the steps of the freestyle dance which would have just as many hidden rules as the formal sweep and flow, and don't all dances descend from the same ideal of energy, of power expressed, of structures built and communication and creation? There is not a dance you could dance that would make the lights dimmer and rest your soul. You've been dancing for a thousand years and your copy is still here, held in your arms, as strong and fragile as she was the first time you slew her.

Do you want to -

How bad do you want it?

- rest?

[Entice: 3!]