Thanqol

[Namespace] of the Rose

[History] Once upon a time, the vulpix and the felid went to war.

They were alike in many ways, being both predator and prey. Each of them hunted using guile, wit and patience; each of them died by force and brute strength. Their war took place in the shadows and burrows, and all the grox and equis knew of it was the bloodstains and the torn fur. In the end, neither triumphed. The vulpix withdrew to its arctic burrows; the felid to its arid deserts, swearing eternal vengeance against each other, but with too many scars to dare the others wrath once again.

And at this time the octopus peeked up from the rock pool, saw the blood, and shivered in fear.

When it felt winter's breeze come its skin flushed verdant red. When summer burned bright, it went as black as stone. And through it all, it hoped that the beasts of the earth did not learn to swim.

It has been a long winter.

[Art History] There is always song. From the chapels of the Sisterhood to the cathedrals of the Ecclesiarchs, hymns to His glory are always filling the air somewhere. The music seeps into bone and stone and steel, resonant and sanctified. The history of faith is a history of song.

There will come a time when the music escapes the churches and rushes out onto the streets. There will come a time when all the worlds are united in that song. It is history, it is present in your ears - and it has not happened yet. In the moment of clarity you have created you hear a fragment of it as a vision. It will be a solace amidst the coming darkness.

[Traffic Analysis] But you wanted to check your mail, right? You've got a message from the Lord General who is big mad that a major shipment of lasgun ammunition packs has been delayed. Checking the schedule, the train was loaded and ready to go - and in fact, it had *left* the station before your assassination and the Isohedron shutdown, but then it turned around and came back. Due to the frictionless nature of the operation, the decisiveness with which it occurred, and the marginal utility of the supplies to the Magi, you're pretty sure it's the Skitarii who are responsible. But the question is what they need all of those power packs for?

[Military Science] Theoretically, you can make an improvised solar panel out of lasgun power packs.

[Traffic Analysis] Hm, that's probably why November suggested you don't ask too many questions about where her power supply is coming from. This'll keep for a while - it'll become a problem eventually, but right now there's not a shooting war on so the Lord General won't rise above angry ambassadors.

[High Society] There's no content amongst the messages from the other Magi; those are simple meeting invites. It means you will have access to their Forges, which is non trivial especially for someone in your position. It has been known for confirmed Archmagi to be shot dead when attempting to access their subordinates' Forges uninvited. While Stoll probably wouldn't, especially after your conversation, interrupting PWD-40's work...? Even at the height of your power, what was the exact projection on that again, dear?

[Military Science] 70% of the Skitarii legion slain or wounded, production delays measured in years, major collateral damage to the surrounding Hive. You have never been quite clear which of 'refinery' or 'flamethrower' was the primary objective of the Magi's construction efforts.

[Reassurance] The war hit her harder than most.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

"It is the cat's," the Angel confessed. "I simply organize on its behalf."

It has always found a power in unpredictability and ambiguity. Most conversation reduces the possibility space; people talk until they are sure. It is rare to be able to increase entropy with words, and there is always something compelling and perverse about that.

"I lack names for the things around me," said the Angel of the Harvest. It remained crouched and still, aware that it was masked and bloody to the elbow - and maybe too much entropy might unravel the situation entirely. "Please provide me with the required words."

Return to Thellamie

You are no less doomed for the music.

Starlight stabs through her dark. It burns in her dress like diamonds, as corrupt as it ever has been. Not for the first time she wonders if she should have eaten the stars before eating the sun, but they always have such a way of not being the most annoying thing in the room...

Though they come very close. Very, very close.

There is too much new here; new rules laid down, new patterns to memorize and excel in. She cannot turn that fast. She can hardly turn at all; the vast weight of her unexamined desire plunges onwards, barely aware of the train tracks that misdirect it - though misdirect it they do. It may seem as though she is not playing when she strides through the crowd, sending rivals and obstructions tumbling like dolls, but that would be a mistake. She is dancing to this music; she simply dances in straight lines. It may seem like she is not waiting her turn when she seizes it, but that is to miss that she has accepted that a turn is a thing to be seized.

And so she takes Hazel by the hands, though she must bend down to do so. Even in defeat and madness she has never been small.

"Trust not those wearing masks," she instructed. "You dance with me alone."

Breathless Dead

Dolce!

"That is the first and final problem of every government," said the Supreme Ruler of Earth. "What system of laws can endure a citizenry determined to destroy it? How can an Emperor's legacy survive a wicked heir? How can the dead force the living to be virtuous?"

She sipped her tea. Grimaced a little. But she took a breath, and the feeling passed.

"The problem is, always was, and always has been human nature. That is why our first act was to change it." She smiled a little. "Fortunately, we had several great teachers, and a starting population that had self selected for inner peace and nongrasping. We formed a maze of monastic centers and encourage those inclined to continuous movement to walk our winding paths. One of those paths passes through Jupiter, which you saw. The world we have built is a series of filters and mazes, a crucible that selects for kindness, empathy, contentment and joy."

She opened a palm expressively. "To maintain it, we have sacrificed the virtues of privacy, property and autonomy. Every citizen is surveilled. Every citizen is subject to the complete upheaval of their life if we so will it. If we observe a citizen spending days at a time inside, brooding in the dark, we dispatch an agent to deal with it. We will assign this person a roommate, or an adventure, or a nemesis. We will kick down their door and drag them to a mountaintop monastery or a foreign land. We will break or reassign all of their possessions to teach them that all things are transitory. If they object, they may curse us, and we will bear it. If they truly object, they can climb the mountain and join our ranks - but this is simply another maze." She chuckled. "Oh, the wrath in my heart when I seized this crown! I could do better! And I did! But they have such a way of making you appreciate the scale of the problem."

She leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. "We pay a lot of attention to the Princesses, because they are militarily relevant, but the emotional intensity of their game always burns out and settles down once it has had its fill. The truest weak point for our society is the Ministry of Curses, but the recruitment for that is extremely exacting - all of its members need to have tasted failure absolute, hit rock bottom, and pulled themselves out. Beyond that, we have mazes besides... there are those who obsess over failure points in our system and climb the mountain, then spend their years designing new mazes to be used in certain hypothetical situations. How would we react if a demagogue was to arise? How would we react if a population boom created new scarcities? If we had to accept refugees from outside our system? If the ecology collapsed? We have monasteries ready for sins that have not even been developed yet. We try our best. But in the end..."

She smiled. "All things pass. And that's it, isn't it? We can not and will not endure forever, and in time even this little garden will fail and die. We cannot even say that what comes after will not be better. We cannot grasp infinity, and we would damn ourselves if we tried. The best defense, then, that we can offer against our heirs and usurpers and children is to teach them that same lesson before we pass power on to them."

[Namespace] of the Rose

Vergil Hawr.

[Forbidden Lore] Good evening.

There are certain things that you have survived the experience of learning. You should not know them. You do not like knowing them. They echo in the back in your heads, little pieces of broken cogwork, dust in the cosmic machinery. You stand upon the precipice of obtaining another.

Here is my bargain. Either of you may spend a point of Forbidden Lore to avoid having to learn who Vergil Hawr is. Your instincts will act before you realize, with bolt or fist or a yanked cable, you will break this machine and end this chain of reasoning before it begins. You will receive no answers. You will receive no compensation. You will receive no guarantees that this does not happen again. You will receive nothing because the corpse who sits on the throne in the center of the galaxy offers nothing. He only takes, and takes, and takes - and He would take this from you too.

Make your choice. And as you do, tell me a story. Tell me the most intense emotion you have ever felt in all of your life. Love? Anger? Fear? Sorrow? What was moment you were so alive it felt like you could burst?

Breathless Dead

Dolce!

You are bought in bondage before the Supreme Ruler of Earth.

It is a terrifying experience. Not for the power she wields, though it is absolute. Not for the cruelty of which she is capable, though it is vast. What is terrifying about her more than anything else is that some day in the not too distant future she is going to die and then someone else is going to have to step up to do what she does. And you feel, as her gaze bores into your soul, the horrifying feeling that it might be you. You would be good at it. But more importantly, you would not be able to leave it alone.

And that is the only reason why someone would come here. This is not a place of glory or privilege. There is wood rot in the walls and the footprints of demons on the floor and the windows rattle with each gust of wind. There is no treasury of gold and jewels, no fine art or badges of station, no swords or legacy of military glory. Apollo gave Lycurgus his iron laws to build the nation of Sparta; these were imposed upon the poor, while the rich were spared. So Sparta went the way of all nations, and all nations went the way of Sparta. It was only in the cleansing rains and the shattered ruins of nine suns, when the Earth inverted and all the low became high, did those with courage and vision have the chance to do what Snowball and Napoleon never could: They burned the farmer's house. They took the gold and cushions from the throne. They forged an iron crown so heavy it would bend the neck of any who bore it. And then, stripped of all gilt and ornament, they gave their pauper kings power more absolute than any constitution would dare.

In this Omelas, the king steps willingly into the forsaken pit.

The ancients knew this too. It took the spilled blood of the summer king to safeguard the green and pleasant land. The Fisher King's malady cursed his land; how might he have reigned if his land's malady cursed him?

There are many Supreme Rulers such as this nameless old woman, the base of a vast inverted pyramid. They have power to demand any sacrifice, to abridge any right, to say 'get it done!' and have it be done no matter the cost and the consequence. Their only checks are the curses: any evil which endures under their domains is inflicted on them by the Ministry of Curses; any hatred the people have for their world or society is placed upon them in full.

As that understanding soaks in, the fact that this woman sits with unmarked skin, in a house of her own with four walls and a roof, with food and medicine in the pantry and clothes for every season - it is the realization that she has built this house in the heart of Hell itself, and not one among the abyssal host begrudges it of her.

And then, to demonstrate the terrible immensity of her virtue, she pours you a cup of tea.

[Namespace] of the Rose

The Inquisitor's official message was exactly the same as her automated reply: YOU ARE SUMMONED BEFORE THE LEFT HAND OF JUDGEMENT, complete with extremely cool rotating skull image.
[Law] That actually makes things a little more comforting, and a little more tense. It's the kind of thing you see when a Tech-Priest sets something up for the laity and tells them not to touch it. The Inquisitrix is generally fairly interested in staying in her lane so she is not going to push the boundaries of her technology even a little, but keep in mind she has easy access to a specialist if she needs something specific done.

[High Society] And I should lay fine odds that her mystery assistant is Passivity-SEA. Those two are as close as Terminators in a Rhino. If the Inquisitrix's dreadful rigidity were not enough to rule out a scheme involving orks, one of the leading theories for your death was that she and Passivity aligned to assassinate you and install Passivity in power. Honestly, it might still come to that - you have no doubt that half the reason the Inquisitrix is getting involved right now is to throw her weight behind her favourite for the election.

Kota - this is relevant to you too, darling. You know your way around the Ecclesiarchical elite, you know the names and personalities discussed here. You also know that the Inquisitrix fancies herself the future shadow ruler of the Houndclaw sector and intends to bring the entire Church under her personal authority in preparation for the coming war against Hollzenstein. This is something that is deeply politically contentious within the Church more widely and your order in particular. Where do you fall on the topic?

[Namespace] of the Rose

"We have not detected anything such," said Stoll. "But I will observe that hallucinations are a stage two side effect for the particular stimulant compounds that the Skitarii Marshal is utilizing. As to the Motive Force, the entire Cathedral is offline with the death of the Archmagos. The sacred reactor is dark and cannot be restarted until a new Archmagos is proclaimed. The Magi are operating off various portable generators and batteries, most of which is being dedicated towards personal protection."

[Military Science=0] Shit, don't our defense lasers run off the reactor? That sounds bad.

*

You do not get a vox link to the Inquisition. All you get is an, admittedly, very cool animated cogitator image of a flaming skull emblazoned with the =I= and the message YOU ARE SUMMONED BEFORE THE LEFT HAND OF JUDGEMENT. It does not provide any information as to where the Left Hand of Judgement currently resides; but in Inquisitor Iconium's case, one presumably need only seek out the choral music and smell of burning flesh.

[High Society] And you really should leave it at that. An Inquisitrix acting in her official capacity is not to be tampered with or disrespected, and an essential part of their official personality is the ability to have you shot on the spot if they do not like what they hear. Speaking over the comms to an unknown is going to make her, in the vernacular of the day, big mad.

[Electronic Surveillance] But that's all social custom. The only true law is the law of the Machine, and while they might have certain elevated access codes, while they are operating within our Noosphere we can remind them that their machines work for us. Spend a point and we can begin extracting data as to their location and communications.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

The Angel of the Harvest drank in the knowledge. In ancient days, human explorers starved to death amidst the most fertile hunting grounds of native societies. The difference between nature's abundance and its indifference was knowledge, and the Angel took all it could from the flesh and bone it had been gifted with.

It did not find the creature any less majestic because it had been designed. Excavators were not any less mystical for that they were made in factories. The personalities of the engineers and programmers and sorcerers atop their ivory towers was not relevant; one did not have to be agreeable to cast a spell, and one did not need to like the wizard to live within a world of magic. To cast a spell like this creature was to make reality bear the consequences, and in this moment she was no more than the world shifting under a new weight.

So she sorts and inventories the scales. Many of her tools have rusted and decayed over a thousand years; she will improvise replacements. She milks and bottles the poison in jars meant for honey. She will need to perform some tests before she can properly calculate the dose for an adult human, but having a mechanism for switching off troublesome people will certainly be an asset. She cleans and carves the bones; they will become handles and levers. And besides all of this, she needs more than anything the practice. To know what the creature has within it is to know where to find more of that material when it is needed. She has no illusions she is doing anything other than reinventing the wheel; surely the people here know their way around this death more precisely than she does.

But it is the first part of a larger puzzle. Perhaps, amidst more death, she will be able to see the whole of this world.

Return to Thellamie

Figure out a person? You presume? She is no more a person than the Hero of Ages is. To imagine yourself the same manner of thing as the Dark Dragon or Hero of Ages, separated only by age and power, is almost as egotistical as to imagine yourself entertaining. She is not, and you are not. Nor, while we are discussing your delusions, is she wrathful.

Nor is she wicked.
Nor is she cruel.
Nor is she kind.
Nor is she in love.
Nor is she scheming.
Nor is she hateful.
Nor is she hopeful.
Nor is she loyal.
Nor is she brave.
Nor is she proud.
Nor is she beautiful.
Nor is she strong.
Nor is she deep.
Nor is she vengeful.
Nor is she tame.
Nor is she joyful.
Nor is she patient.
Nor is she reasonable.
Nor is she sane.
Nor is she aware.
Nor is she prepared.
Nor is she tender.
Nor is she wild.
Nor is she transforming.
Nor is she blind.
Nor is she -

Can you feel yourself, stretched around her like light warped around the presence of a black hole? She is not. All these feelings and emotions and quirks of human empathy you project on her vanish into the supermassive depths of blackness and give you nothing in return. You do not receive your answers. You do not receive a question in exchange. You do not interact with Sayanastia the Dark Dragon. She is the end and the death, ruination and revelation. Nor this. Nor that. Nor this. Nor that. You are not correct to approach her. You are not correct to be in her shadow. You are not correct to live in this world. She is as weary of it as she is of you. She is

She is tired.
She is.

A mistake. A contradiction at the heart of negation. She is tired. It is lodged within her unbeing like a seed. She once split the sun and revealed the ten thousand colours, but when Heron slew her then it split her just as surely. Night, fatigue, despair, malaise, ennui, depression, ten thousand ways to crave rest without being able to attain it. And along with everything else...

She is tired of failure.
She is tired of weakness.
She is tired of defeat.
She is tired of solitude.
She is tired of herself.

This is the ache that has grown within her most recent incarnation; the weariness at being as she is. It only took a request for her to become a storm of curses. Now she seeks to avoid losing at curses. To draw her eye is but a matter of harbouring a curse within your own heart that she will draw out of you and break you upon.

And what is that curse, little deer? What are the words the Dark Dragon sings as she draws it forth from inside you?