I'm conflicted between refuge/salvation, and culture/acceptance. The stuff like 'synthisis of man and machine' or 'iron dragon' sound cool (and in one case helps keep a song stuck in my head) isn't going to have the same context for the locals as it does for us.
 
4.4
Ella took her time reviewing her options before inspiration struck and she picked the basic design that she and the designer would work on. While the price tag was rather steep, she got more than one discount simply because the fact that she would be wearing the costume was an extremely valuable form of advertising, especially since she had been relatively high profile in the past few years. Oh, sure, the reasons hadn't exactly been the most favourable, but people knew her name and face across Green Owl and even in Indigo Hammer, and she had prestige from her positive accomplishments and her family.

Funny how power so easily compounded upon itself.

By the time Armand arrived in a heavily armed trade caravan - the base vehicles clearly of Green Owl design even if the weaponry and armour was Indigo Hammer biosculpting at work. Specially bred variations of some of the more cavalry capable life had been running alongside the trains during parts of the journey, but there were obvious places for them to climb aboard for when higher speeds could be achieved and they would be left behind otherwise. The clothing of the guards was lighter than was usual for even the Indigo Hammer people, more like the armour of ancient melee warriors than the survival gear that was typical, although to a keen eye the places where further protection from the elements could be added were obvious, should they venture out into the forest.

First Impressions (Chax2) 42 + 28 = 70

The man stepping out of the VIP car of the land train was not exactly the person Ella had expected, but fortunately she managed to blurt out something stupid like "I thought you would be taller." Oh, certainly, the man was taller than her, but he was only about two metres tall to the more typical two and a half to three of most men from Indigo Hammer, let alone the three and a half and seemingly as broad that Messermass had been pushing. Then again, it was fairly evident that he was old enough that he was born before the treatments had really come into widespread use, and as a businessman he was probably less concerned about being as huge as possible for fighting off wildlife as he was in making money.

"Xychro Enterprises Armand Yars?" Ella asked.

The man nodded and asked in turn, "Knight-Captain and Military Governor Ella Stone?"

"I am indeed. It is a pleasure to meet you and to host you here in our settlement," Ella stated warmly.

"Hopefully with more success than my predecessor," Armand said with dark warmth.

"Ah... I had hoped not to make light of such things," Ella said with a bit of stammer.

Waving it off, Armand said, "Of course not, which is why I made the joke first. Ah, but I came to bury such things. Now, my staff has already coordinated with yours to determine an appropriate itinerary, but walk with me a while."

Nodding, Ella walked next and slightly ahead of Armand as she lead him away from the train station and into the settlement proper. While he had obviously longer strides, he also obviously didn't know where he was going so she had to put on something of a hustle to keep the pace correct to lead. As such it was somewhat fortunate that he chose to lead the discussion, although entry onto one of the personal elevators down from the rail lines to the settlement proper gave Ella something of a break.

"I must thank you for your vigorous discussion with the management of the South Woods Company, the rearrangement of matters elsewhere has been most profitable for all involved," he stated, to which Ella could just nod with regards to his asking her for a bribe previously. "I must also compliment you on this settlement, it is not quite what I had expected, but it is still rather remarkable for what it is. We have rather little information on our own networks - which are rather more sparse than yours in the first place - on this settlement, but from what I am seeing, I might have to recommend it to those who make frequent business to Green Owl. Might, as it is unfortunately somewhat out of the way."

"Thank you, and yes, this is something of a concern. The location was not actually chosen for ease of accessibility, although the growth of infrastructure should make it more accessible as the years go by," Ella noted.

As they exited from the train station, into the main enclosed mezzanine and the nearly ludicrous amounts of lights that flashed and sparkled in every eye drawing colour of the rainbow, Armand noted dryly that, "Infrastructure is something you seem rather adept at, I must say. Especially if the rumours my staff picked up in Owl's Nest about the interests of the South Woods Company are correct."

"Most of the details remain confidential, but I can confirm that South Woods is developing a project in Razorleaf Meadows," Ella stated.

Nodding as they moved along towards the hotel district, Armand stated, "Good, good. Despite wrangling elsewhere South Woods and Xychro are not direct competitors: they are a shipping company and we are a manufacturing concern. We should be allies... but, well, both of our governments have their own concerns and it is often easier to side with Indigo shipping companies to supply our goods, and for South Woods to haul Green goods. Still, some mingling can be achieved at times, to mutual benefit."

"Luxury goods," Ella stated, causing Armand to turn to her with a broad smile on his face.

"Always glad to meet a politician who does her homework instead of making an intern do it. Yes, luxury goods remain one of the primary trade goods between our people, although the low volume currently makes for poor profit margins in comparison to what it could be," Armand stated.

"And, so long as their wealth is in a format that can be transmitted instead of physically carried, sometimes it is easier to move the people to the goods than the other way around," Ella stated.

The elderly businessman looked at her, shook his head in amusement, and said, "I stand corrected, this isn't your homework, it is your thesis."

"Part of it," Ella noted as they walked into the hotel where Armand would be staying.

"Well, I shall be seeing you out and about over the next few days, in particular at a party I am being told will be the highlight of the season, but I do thank you for meeting and greeting me, and I suspect you are thanking me for not immediately charging off into the woods," Armand stated.

"We appreciate it when visitors do not make our job of ensuring their safety harder for us," Ella stated diplomatically.

Leaving the old man to his laughter over Ella's failure and the death of his predecessor, she decided that she was glad that their itineraries diverged at that point. The next time they would have a chance to meet up on such a personal level would be at the masquerade, and the social situation would be significantly different, and she could pretend not to be Ella if she really wanted.

Also, she would actually be taller than him then. Sort of.

Her costume was a work of art, as pretty much of all the ones there would be, and it actually needed more people to help her get into than her mech did, although the overall maintenance team on her war machine was obviously larger. No, the primary reason for the number of people involved had to do with the number of pieces that needed to be juggled in order to get everything to work right. The overall design was of a very organic look but from obvious technological origins. Ella had essentially constructed a cage of transparent tubes similar to the vascular systems apparent in leaves or on the membranous wings of certain Earth insects, that wrapped around her like a cross between a second ribcage and an exoskeleton, and served as support and attachment point for further machinery.

The problem was that while many of the parts were rigid, many more were at least somewhat flexible so that Ella wouldn't be strangled by her costume and could otherwise move, and that made holding it all together a bit of a pain, especially since the quick, custom job meant that the assembly had been deliberately left unoptimized. It was meant to look good rather than be practical to get into.

Still, it looked really good, because the exo-ribcage portion that hugged her body was just the start since that plugged into a powered exoskeleton that was designed to appear to flow directly from that psuedovascular network into an elaborate latticework of additional features. The "shoes" were thirty centimetre platforms with an additional sixteen centimetre heel, although through MMI links and the legs being powered, she balanced using the bottom of the shoes rather than her own feet. The power supply was mounted on her back, but was cleverly hidden by a set of enormous dragonfly - the Earth insects, not the Dandriss animals that bore a resemblance to them - wings that brought the glassy, vascular appears of the exo-ribcage together into a more cohesive whole. Ella could even manipulate them to a degree, although considering the amount of space that would be swept out if she extended them, they mostly stayed vertical against her back in a most un-dragonfly like manner.

The mask - critical to the whole "masquerade" thing - was confined to the upper part of her face, although she also had a voice modulator cleverly hidden on her throat to disguise who she was just that little bit more. The twisting, psuedo-organic lattice thinned down to the point where it was almost like lace, the transparent tubes weaving about each other to the point where it became almost, but not quite, a solid white colour. The mask was sculpted to give a subtly predatory profile, not quite human but not quite animal either, with the eyes being solid disks of opaque black glass. There were cameras subtly hidden at the edges that interfaced with her cybernetics so that Ella had no difficulty seeing despite the fact that the eyes on her mask quite literally were just blank spots. Set behind her head was a great glass and diamond halo - a subtle nod and hint to her identity given that she had worn something similar her first year - that featured a twenty-five centimetre disc with nine additional forty-centimetre spikes radiating out behind her, which were actually mobile to get out of the way if she stretched her wings.

Of course, just being wrapped in what appeared to be glass tubing and little else that was actually a powered exoskeleton wasn't nearly flashy enough for something like this. Through a masterful integration of circuitry, the designer had managed to invisibly integrate display cells into everything such that it all lit up to look like she was wearing glow discharge tubes filled with ghostly, auroral fire that danced and pulsed in time with her movements. While actually doing something like that was possible, Ella wasn't a fan of third degree burns or having to swap power packs every half hour. As it was it was, waste heat and endurance were already problems, and she had already budgeted taking discreet breaks every two to four hours, depending on what she was actually up to.

Judging Fashion (Int + Intr) 90 + 24 = 114

When Ella walked out onto the party floor, a giant glass insect of the aurora, she caused heads to turn, and she knew that she had judged this right. She fortunately wasn't the only one with obvious cyberware integration, since the point was to put up at least some pretense of disguising who you were. There were also definitely several individuals with Indigo Hammer style augmentations going by their height, with the President of Xychro enterprises not really standing out despite his unique features. Perhaps he was wearing one of the more elaborate and voluminous costumes, perhaps it was something more radical entirely. In any case, people had definitely gone to significant effort.

There were people in frilly and lacy costumes of black and white fabric of primordial design from Earth, their faces concealed by porcelain masks like in the original masquerades so many millennia ago, the effort having clearly been going towards authenticity towards the ancient concept.

There were people in elaborate costumes intended to invoke the images of predators of the forest or savages from the time immediately post-Starfall. Ella noted a particularly gauche group of young men, bare of chest and in pale, chalky make-up and cobbled together masks. While some would probably mistake them for reaver cosplayers - never a particularly popular subject, if also usually something that always appeared among a particular brand of young male who thought they were being funny - Ella knew enough about military history to know that they were dressed roughly as a group of warlord era warriors. Less offensive than the still extant reavers, and actually showing more than a little effort than the typical body paint, loincloth, and ear prosthetics that such costumes usually entailed, they were still dressed as a group of rapacious murderers.

Ella also wasn't a fan of the dragon costumes.

There were also those of a more religious bent who were wearing elaborate danse macabre costumes, with the wealthier among them using their resources to produce skeletal images that moved increasingly away from elaborate painting and costuming and towards completely the illusion of actual mobile skeletons. There were actually two different variations on the powered exo-skeleton idea that Ella had gone with that had been used to such effect, the machines towering over everyone but the visiting nomads, the operators tucked in the rib cages and partially concealed by dark fabric and the correct assumption of lowered lighting for the party.

Then, like Ella, there were also the truly outlandish costumes that required cybernetics just to function. There were two people she recognized right away simply because as the party planner her staff had had to ask for her to vet the designs. One was Samantha, wearing nothing but a filmy sheet of silken fabric, elaborate body paint, and a full head mask of gold in the shape of an Earth felid, but borne aloft by a bed-like litter carried by a pair of "robots" made to look like canid headed men cast from bronze that were actually integral with the litter. Apparently the theme was "early agricultural fertility goddess". Since the litter was basically a small autonomous vehicle, Ella had had to ensure that the software controlling it wouldn't run over or otherwise hurt any guests, even if the operator got completely drunk.

Similar requirements were needed for Mayor Milvus' costume, which was by far the biggest damn thing there. It was a robotic "throne", seemingly made from a several tonne cube of marble that had sprouted legs, upon which the man and his wife were borne in opulence, their knees at face height for most people, their faces hidden behind smooth masks of artificial opal layered with refractive diamond, their bodies cloaked in robes of woven golden, crystal chalices borne in their hands. Along the sides of the throne were two fountains, from which flowed wine that other patrons could sample. The sheer size had required extra scrutiny, and the wine dispensers special inspections to ensure health and safety compliance, and Ella had nearly rejected it before deciding that the whole thing was just as likely to backfire on her little rival as it was to seem impressive. Plus she didn't want to appear especially petty, even as she was keeping her eyes and ears open for any more trouble from his direction.

Still though, the whole thing was just spectacular, with dozens of different costume philosophies expressed across the hundreds of guests. Unless something particularly unpleasant occurred the opportunity for the rich to cut loose in terms of ludicrous expression would make people well disposed towards her, and she was hopeful that the artistry and technical prowess on display would be of interest to the business-people here, not just to Armand.

Now... what to do with the modicum of freedom afforded by her partial anonymity?

Ella's primary objective for the night was to...
[] Mingle with the people
[] Flirt shamelessly
[] Look for allies new and old
[] Undermine rivals and opponents
 
That mayor is full of some decadent bullshit.

if this were still 40k i'd be ringing the slaanesh alarm bells.

as it is… well theres probably something awful in l space willing to take advantage.
 
[X] Flirt Shamelessly

It'll be a good chance to vent some stress. Which we need, given how the Nightmare Cube is fucking us up.
 
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