Last Light of a Dark Age (Warhammer 29K/Disco Elysium)

Article:

[X] THE HANGED MAN (THE LIE OF SACRIFICE)

A DEATH CALLED FREEDOM

Everything on this planet is alive, and nothing on this planet is free. Nothing is without strings, and without chains. Not even energy itself.

EVENT HORIZON: At the bottom of a spiral staircase in the foundation of the copse, beneath the roots of the human orchard, there is a prism of dark energy. It is older than the monastery, older than Kora, older than the reawakening. One meter tall and twenty centimeters wide, embedded in a stalagmite of calcite in a non-euclidean reactor maze, it is a crystal hexagon of swirling vantablack, cold and damp to the touch, and thrumming. The void tendrils which extend upwards offer infinite, mysterious, chthonic power for the grove.

RELIQUARY: But on the one day you are assigned to clean an overgrowth of calcite crust, your gloved finger brushes the crystal's surface. A tiny ghostly handprint, inky white, appears on the inside of the prism. Then another, then another. There is a high-pitched whine from inside, louder and louder, morphing into a noise, an unfamiliar sound - a tingling harmony of cherubic giggles.

INFOWAR: You blink, and it is hours later, on the surface. When you ask your shift-partner, Dutiful Radiance, what happened, she shrugs. Nothing happened. The two of you finished reactor maintenance. She heard no geist's giggle, and saw no prints inside the prism, 'you creepy witch'. So you try to forget. Try your best to shrug it off, too. But - your finger. The one that touched the prism, boss.

BIOMECHANICS: For one week after, it will not dry, and will not warm up.

Sometimes the strings are chemical, engineered, conditioned. Guaranteed by substances and implanted instincts.

BIOMECHANICS: Praying electrodes are your morning jolt. The conducting gel is bracing on your skin, the pads cushioned pillows for your temples. The cables lead into your shrine-mirror.

RELIQUARY: You chant Her praises, mimic Her expressions. The mirror forms a countenance and you copy it, a thrilling current humming through the electrodes as you match each mood exactly. Woe, malice, frolic, dread - each a different configuration of striated pulleys and muscular gears.

NOOSPHERE: You chant Her psalms in the language of Illuminata, in old Terran, in ten dead dialects. Hebraic, Aramisi, Sanscrip, Hiberic, Allefranc, Arabesq, Kinesq, Technis, Asoryan, and Kryptik. Kora said the mysteries of creation are encoded in the tongue, and that each language learned would untie a knotted secret of the lingual muscle.

INFOWAR: But why do the words of those last two dialects seem like they were never meant to be uttered by your tongue at all?

PROCRUSTEAN LOCKS: The prayer ends. A pulse of electric ecstasy travels down your spine, and the electrodes detach. A perfect score - Constant Kora. As you hum a jazz riff, your hair dresses you. Long and mobile curls draw on your bleached leggings and poncho, pull up your hood and lock the button of the hand's golden sigil on your bust.

INTERLACE: Sometimes you ask your hair to dress you slowly - so you might feel the tickle of the fabric on your skin like you might feel a touch. It's the only thing you're allowed to have, that nears the sensation of a touch.

GLAMOUR: You pull on white elbow-length gloves that hide burns and other scars, marring the varnished terracotta of your skin's rind. Place on the pale rubber boots reaching below the pant-covered doll-joints of your knee. The halves of each boot are jaws closing around your calf, velcro baleen snapping tight, interweaving until the seam is gone.

INCANDESCENCE: With a wave of your hand, you order your locks into their proper form - a waterfall cascade of wavy emerald green onto your chest - and curtain bangs that cover your abyssal nail and the fingernail gouges around it, from the attempts you made to pull it out.

INTERLACE: No one else shares this hollow in the copse with you. There was a time you had a seedbed with Melancholy, limbs tangled, snoring in sync, her company warding off the dark, the chill of your bare back acting as a cool headrest for your oldest friend. No longer. Only the blissful faces of the human orchard, embedded in the stone-bark walls and ceiling, keep you company. You suppose it makes sense they're so joyful - they are already dead.

BIOMECHANICS: A glass of refined Promethium and incense-sticks are your wards now, before bed and after dawn prayer. The viscous tar goes down smooth, and you exhale a butane breath, expelling the night's regrets. With a flint snap of stone fingers, you light the incense, and take a long drag of synth-myrrh. Your bronchioles relish the acrid spice of it, though it prematurely ages your rind. If your body is a temple, this is its sacred rite - your daily sacrifice.

But sometimes the strings are self-inflicted snares. And sometimes, the strings have a mind of their own.

LIVING WEAPON: Whenever Immaculate Penitence and her seraphic attendants tour the copse, you ask her, excitedly, how she plans to dispose of you (and ignore the disgust in the features of her attendant-selves that you address an Immaculate so personally). But even though the glow of her beatific halo burns your eyes, her answer is mundane. She says only that your death will be redemptive, and rectify the sin of your conception.

INCANDESCENCE: That's not good enough. You're Kora. You're worth so much more. You don't want redemption. You don't want to be free of sin. You want to be a legend. You want to be a comet. You want to die tremendously, and blaze a path to heaven. You want to be an icon. The thirteenth icon.

RELIQUARY: Twelve are the historic gnostic icons, each marking a month of the planetary calendar, each associated with a monadic attribute. The minds of Monadic monks are trained and repatterned to adhere their thoughtpaths to the twelve attributes. A monk's mission-name, each prefixed with the archaic "Miss" and "Mx" and "Mister", are their individual honor, their nomenclatural signature.

RELIQUARY [AUTOFAIL]: But it is only natural for us to be able to name them so easily, and name each icon's association and origin.
RELIQUARY [AUTOFAIL]: Only a normal recollection, by our normal mistress.

NOOSPHERE [Trivial - Success]: Knowledge - Icon Dakar, of the Skywatch.

SACRED GEOMETRY [Trivial - Success]: Creation - Icon Ukles, of the Emmonites.

COGITATION [Trivial - Success]: Logic - Icon Morow, of Cybaris.

INCANDESCENCE [Trivial - Success]: Justice - Icon Dikasyne, of Koinon.

INTERLACE [Trivial - Success]: Peace - Icon Mohina, of Tetras.

RELIQUARY [Trivial - Success]: Memorial - Icon Aberqasem, of Titanagalbat.

BIOMECHANICS [Trivial - Success]: Life - Icon Remari, of the Progeny.

INFOWAR [Trivial - Success]: Freedom - without an icon, since Winterine's death, and the fall of Carnosa.

RHYTHMS [Trivial - Success]: Music - Icon Luricanti, of the Chrome Kings.

LIVING WEAPON [Trivial - Success]: Victory - Icon Bellamona, of Origen.

MOTION BLUR [Trivial - Success]: Movement - Icon Marathar, of Mozel.

GLAMOUR [Trivial - Success]: And style - Icon Moriani, of Origen.

RELIQUARY: All were heroes. But none were hylics.

EVENT HORIZON [Impossible - Success]: Yet.

INCANDESCENCE: During workshifts, you focus. As you train, you focus. As you dance in month-festivals, as you swallow memory wafers and experience all the years of Kora's life, you focus. And you grasp them. You grasp the strings that pull you.

INTERLACE: The copse is afraid of you. Sympathy is afraid for you. Melancholy and Epiphany pity you. They are blind. They do not see the strings. By becoming a waiting martyr, you have been set free. By accepting every trope, every law, every prejudice, leveled against hylics, you have been set free. You move with your chains, and not against them. You are a willing puppet. You obey, you accept conditioning, you accept a sentence of death, of your own free will. And that terrifies them.

PROCRUSTEAN LOCKS: Your self is Kora's. Your hope is Kora's. Your gender is Kora's. Nothing else is permitted. Nothing else will work for what you must do. You will not love anyone, in this life.

PROCRUSTEAN LOCKS: Only one task remains, to be Her in truth.

PROCRUSTEAN LOCKS: Only one thing that separates you from Her.

PROCRUSTEAN LOCKS: A beautiful, and legendary death.

Only then, will the strings snap. Only then, will you be remembered, and loved, the way icons are loved. Only then, will you stop living, and only then will you be free. It is the only way to be free.

[???]: Isn't it?

THE LOVERS

In the dronesong season of the gnostic year 1000, two dark angels fall from heaven and rip to tatters every lie of adoration that bound and choked your wounded hearts.

Their chariot is an aerial screw, spiral propeller carrying it to the Copse's garden gate, straight from Origen. Two monks of Monad, from the cult's Preservation Organ, descend. They have come without warning, for an undisclosed inquiry, for this is their right, under Kora's covenant with Origen. This is the law of gnosis.

It must be obeyed. They must be obeyed. But who are they?

The first angel's mission-name is Miss Mulberry. She is a stranger in a cassock of black, her skin shaded like silver snow, slight and dainty in design but never in poise. There is a shawl of satin over her side-parted short violet curls, and a ring of violet fur implanted at the base of her elegant neck. Her cassock narrows at the waist and flares into an accordion skirt over silk leggings, and as she lands upon the stones of the garden gate, the low heels of her lacquered machine-chitin shoes click on granite.

The lower portion of her face is hidden by a translucent, silken veil, and her eyes by her reflective hypostatic shades with butterfly rims, which grant sight of things unseen. Six are her bridal arms and six are her wedding wings, the second and fifth signs of a titan-groom devotion. But Mulberry's titan-groom died in classified circumstances many years before. She will tell you later, proudly, that Hydra was involved, and when she was rescued by Monad, six hundred thirteen were the stab wounds in his chest. They hired her on the spot.

Now, it is she who bestows devotion, and she who chooses who she wishes to live by her side. And she has chosen Miss Lovergirl.

Miss Lovergirl is taller and robust, a heart-caste Kora who has put aside her white uniform and plugsuit for a two-piece black cassock, the jacket unbuttoned and held at her shoulders by a gilded cord of velvet over her chest. She has dyed her Procrustean Locks neon pink, and let them grow loose and long, tied into a messy bun.

There is a hardlight sword in a scabbard at her waist, two pistol in belt-holsters, and a front-slit of her cassock for her high-waisted suitpants, her white blouse tucked into it. She chews endocrine gum, and pops a bubble as she lands. The lenses of her reflective hypostatic shades are heart-shaped, her earlobes are adorned with two double-helix earrings. On her nose, there is skin-tape covering a clear battle injury. She is nothing but menacing and crooked smiles.

Lovergirl was a Vehement cybersoldier who deserted after the suspicious death of her Sophian, and was never pursued by the Conclave after Origen accepted her plea for sanctuary.

She is among the most feared of Monad's monks you know of. Some in the Copse whisper that she and Mulberry are not of the Preservation Organ at all, but ANTI - Monad's secretive taskforce for problems too dangerous for any others to handle. Not even other monks know who belongs to ANTI - and the only reason a non-monk would know, is if they're the target.

And as they land, she holds hands with Miss Mulberry's, and nips the tip of her lover's ear. The welcome retinue is frozen in place.

Vehement Humility, the copse's titan-pilot, chews on her lower lip so hard she pierces all three armored layers of her skin and draws blood. Devout Unity, the oldest of the Hands, has her hands clasped in a prayer, to banish their sin. And the incense stick you had in your mouth drops right out and clatters on the ground.

Miss Mulberry is a stranger, an unknown, a seducer. Miss Lovergirl is an apostate, an egotist, a sapphite.

It's disgusting. You cannot stand it. You glare at them, and their affection. And the way they touch each other so comfortably. So easily. It's…disgusting. That's the word for it. That has to be the word for it.

But gnosis demands that you obey.

And they reinforce the message. The younger hands in the retinue reach for their holstered bolt-rifles, despite the law. The indigo eyespots of Mulberry's unfurled wings swirl, and they are hypnotized by an egophage command, their hearts flatlining just long enough for them to grasp the power disparity. They stop reaching for their bolt-rifles.

Sparks crackle at the hair-tips of Vehement Humility's pixie cut, as she seethes and tightens her hands into fists, about to fight. But Lovergirl's takyon tripwire activates, and she closes six meters and appears in front of Humility within a second. She cups Humility's face in a hand, symsynthetic flakmuscle tightening and inflating until the arm below her wrist has tripled in size, biceps, triceps, forearm straining against the loose sleeves of her blouse.

"I wouldn't try it, killer," she whispers to Humility, tone husky, "I would hate to waste your rockin' hardbody without asking for permission first."

She lightly squeezes Humility's cheeks, with the kind of idle strength that you know could detach her head with a flick. Humility lowers her fists, and bows, blushing, ears red, hair-tips crackling, with a different, and extremely confused, emotion.

Mulberry tips her shades slightly, a message to the retinue. Implanted in both her cornea are evil eyes - kaleidoscopic rainbow rings of augmented photoreceptors that are the egophage's weapon. Light particles are now a vector for her electronic hack - you creatures of daylight are not safe.

"We are not in business with the lie, though we do have business with the lie," Miss Mulberry announces, voice sweet, "so I plead you let us do our business, lest you be our business."

Devout Unity faints in terror, and has to be carried out by other cowed selves. You can't resist a snicker, then, which is a dramatic mistake.

The monks hear it, turn their heads towards you in sync, and within two seconds Lovergirl is behind you, arm around you, and Mulberry has activated and dropped thermoptic camouflage, disappearing and appearing again right in front of you, almost touching noses.

"Hey there, babe," Lovergirl murmurs in your ear, as you stiffen, the smell of her unfamiliar perfume distracting, "you want to do your duty for gnosis? Me and Bee could use an honest hylic soul on our side. I promise it'll write off some of the accrued debt of your original sin."

You try to push her off, but her flakmuscle inflates, and you are immobile, choked between her expanded forearm and bicep. "You're - absolutely not -"

"Fantastic," Mulberry says, clapping six hands together as she walks to Lovergirl's side and leans into the other monk. "Oh dearest, look how she glowers at the task. Our very own blank deputy, for the next three days. And she's so cute!"

You fluster, and steam. "I am not - wait did you say three da -"


For three days you are impressed into Monadic service against your will. And the strings they tie to you are unlike any you have ever had.

They task you with note-taking, summary, and assisting them in providing 'local context' to their inquiry, as they question every self within the copse. But when you make mistakes, or mislabel something, or make a typo in the notes you record and convert to printed text on a dataslate - they don't hit you. Or upbraid you. Or punish you. They point it out, and explain precisely what was wrong, and then you don't do it again.

You try so hard to be a witch. To be standoffish, aggressive, mean. But they are as good at unpeeling you as any self in the copse. Their monadic method, they explain, is culture-jamming. They overwhelm propriety and good sense, and expose individual reactions to their breaching of taboos.

"In formal cultures like the Progeny and Titanagalbat," Mulberry elaborates as you walk with her through the Sophian bay, "everyone is trained to conform. But they are less trained to react to such massive breach in etiquette that their conditioning is overwhelmed."

"Like say, kissing a stranger," you remark, grimacing at the memory of their introduction.

Mulberry smiles, and then gives you a peck on the cheek, the outline of her lips underneath her face-veil against your skin. "Exactly so, little self. The truth of their person is revealed, and the lie exposed. A serpent or a dream-shape in a host tend to react too much or too little, to such taboos. They function, after all, as skin-walkers, and unless truly fearsome, have trouble perfectly mimicking their victims."

You hug the data-slate to your chest, stopped in your tracks, breathing fast. A few hours ago, you might have flared your null field, just to keep her away. But you don't. What's wrong with you? And why does your stomach flutter?

She keeps walking like nothing happened.. "But you're an honest soul, so there's not much to worry about." She claps three hands. "Now come, darling. There's plenty more to do."

You rush after her, a rare color spreading to your cheeks. You've never been called a darling before.

They question the hands, and the hearts. Lovergirl does most of the talking, but you can see how Mulberry pulls the strings - a flash of an eyespot here, a flirt with Lovergirl there, to throw off and confuse. On the second day, they switch clothing and even switch personalities - Lovergirl turns sweet, and Mulberry aggressive, Lovergirl wears a skirt, and Mulberry pants. They know so much of each other that it's as effortless as swapping faces, and the copse is unprepared.

Theirs is an equivalent exchange. An equivalent love. It has none of the unequal features of Kora-love, where one partner in a romantic group is dominant, and the rest imitate her hairstyle and her virtue. You think you might have wanted something like that with Epiphany, but you don't really remember. That's…over, so there is no point in recalling it.

And they are kind. You didn't see it at first, with how they intimidated the hands and hearts, but they listen. Their inquiries are frank, but never cruel. When it is revealed after questioning that Diligent Serenity has been having shape-dreams, and drawing triangles without thinking, she panics and begs for her life. She didn't mean to have these dreams. She didn't mean to have her soul touched by Dreamspace. But her mentor Devout Tenacity has died, and she missed her, and the dreams began, please -

But Lovergirl pulls the trembling self into her arms, and Mulberry sends an egophagic pulse through her mind that soothes her, calms her down. She stops shaking, and they walk her through the implant of a palingen.

Mulberry retrieves it from within her cassock. It is one of Monad's tools. A rehabilitated nerve staple augment, sentient like any staple, but without the malice used in those machines applied to slave-prints, and prisoners of war.

Unlike the staple, the palingen does not replace memories - simply consumes and deletes them. Into a slit made by Lovergirl's retractable scalpel fingernail, a tiny device wriggles into Serenity's brain stem, at the nape of her neck. It seals, hooks itself into her mind, and with a blink, she forgets the triangles. She seems younger, lighter, happier, at once.

You have never been so jealous in your life.

"It's good we found her early," Lovergirl says after. She's smoking incense with you and leaning against a grove tree. "The more memory the palingen eats the worse the long-term effects and the less likely the block will hold. I've seen monks try to wipe everything from cradle to grave and it always ends with them face-down in some hotel, memory dead, minds bricked. Awful way to go."

There's a second's interruption in the memory. An echo of something.

[???]: +I only wanted to help.+

Task Updated: Find out what Happened to You

Then it's gone, and the memory resumes.

You nod your head, relieved. Serenity is only five-years printed, has never really wronged you. She was annoying with how much she worshiped Devout Tenacity, who was a rancid woman and cruel taskmaster, but dream-possession is something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Once the soul is swapped and the body starts to reform itself into the dream-shape at the atomic level, there is nothing you can do but burn the shape and body both.

"You helped too, you know," Lovergirl says, acknowledging you.

You didn't think it was anything at all. "I had overheard her whispering about it in the picnic hall. It was the least service I could perform, in my station."

Lovergirl grunts, and practically snarls, "Stop fucking doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Putting yourself beneath us. You're a person. Do you understand that? You're not a tool. You deserve praise for catching that. You were paying attention and we weren't."

You blink. You're not sure you understand. "Of course I'm not a tool. I'm a hylic, born to die." You smile brightly at her. "My martyrdom will be legendary."

She sucks in air through her teeth. "The fuck is the point of taking a vow for the salvation of all if I can't even save the girl in front of me?"

"Miss, I'm not sure I grasp what-"

She puts a strong hand on your shoulder and has you open your hand. The sharp nail of her index finger focuses into a point, and then she stabs it into your open palm. The wound closes quickly, and then there's some kind of data injected into your system.

"That is my personal Monadic comms-number. It's one-way, and one-time. If you ever want to get out of here - if you ever feel truly trapped and want an out - I want you to call me. And I'll make it happen. Can you promise me that?"

There's no flirtatiousness, and no menace. She's weary, and tired. Her shoulders sag, and all her confidence is gone. It reminds you too much of how Sympathy was, when you pulled back her mask and forced her to admit she wanted to recycle you.

"I don't feel trapped," you declare as strongly as you can to her and yourself, and she sighs. "But if I do…I'll call you."

Her shoulders sag a little less. That at least pleases you, for some reason.

"That's all I can ask for, kid," she says, patting you on the back.

The inquiry ends on the third day. Miss Lovergirl has a private conversation with Superior Sympathy in her garden. You wait with Miss Mulberry as she chats with Melancholy, the two of you avoiding eye contact. Mulberry is telling Melancholy that there are Skywatch arks recruiting navigators, that she can connect her with them, so long as the Superior approves. And Melancholy is the most ecstatic she has ever been, trying so hard to hide her glee as she asks what it's like, and Mulberry describes the shifts and schedules, the bridge and the servonaut quarters, and the thunder runs beyond the planetary shield.

She's so excited to leave the copse. To leave you.

Of course - of course you wanted her to. But you didn't expect - you didn't expect her to actually go. To go, and leave you behind.

The two of you meet eyes. You try to hide how stricken you are, but your chest is breaking in two. You can't breathe. You want to scream at the top of your lungs, to run up to her, to clutch to her robe and her legs and weigh her down. You want to shout:

Please don't leave me, Mel. I'm already so alone. I was just hurt, just pretending. I really did just want to talk about xenos and music with you.

But you don't. You can't. You bury it. And she barely registers it, and keeps talking to Mulberry.

And you lose your chance.

The investigation ends on the third day. Lovergirl reveals the target - they were looking for a codex of esoterica, from the Still Coast, a restricted text written by an oblivion witch, a twisted null-field user that inflicts true death on souls or seals them inside lightless crystals for some sinister design. Such witches are a plague upon the reputation of hylics everywhere. It had apparently been taken without authorization from Origen's archive, and they had tracked its smuggling to this copse.

"Did you find it?" You ask. Who could possibly want such a book? The only thing you know of it is that it is universally reviled in gnosis, for its idolatrous belief in a spiral-shaped pure land, and its attempts to divine hidden meanings in the Dirge of the Eater, the final melody of the Deceiver.

"Yes," Mulberry says, "but we have no concerns about its new owner. The last manuscript of the Fifth Sun is in good hands."

"In superior hands," Lovergirl says, with unnerving lust on her features, and you grasp, about Superior Sympathy, of all people. Ew. "What a woman."

But wait - what is she doing with a copy of Fifth Sun?

"Control yourself, dearest," Mulberry warns as she flicks Lovergirl in the temple with a finger, snapping her out of it.

"Then that means you're going," you say, trying to hide the disappointment in your voice. These were the…they were nice days. The strings hardly hurt at all.

But they catch onto your disappointment anyways. "Listen, []," they say right after one another, and then stop, chuckling slightly, both having had the exact same idea.

"What we wanted to say before we left," Mulberry starts again, "is that from all we've heard from all the other selves, you don't believe yourself deserving of love. That you think you are only good for," she shakes her head, "martyrdom."

You cross your arms. "Yes. I've already told Miss Lovergirl this before. I have no choice but to accept my fate. I am a hylic witch. I can never be…be like you."

"We aren't free," Lovergirl says, bluntly. You're taken aback. But, then…?

She continues. "We are products of our circumstances, of our history. We are bound by everything we were and are. We are not islands. Our souls are always bound, to the lung, to the soil, to the warp. Even hylic souls disappear from their bodies, though to what destination we cannot fathom."

"When you die, there will be those you leave behind. Those who loved and cared for you, and miss you. Those who remember you. They will shape the memory, the remembrance of you," Mulberry adds.

"We will never cut the strings that bind us," Lovergirl says, "but we can choose who holds them."

"Who do you most trust to hold your strings, little self?" Mulberry questions, as she pulls Lovergirl in, and the two melt against each other. "Don't turn them away. Seek them out, and let them in."

"Because there is just one life, little self," Lovergirl whispers, "and one string that, if you let those you trust hold, can save you, can redeem you."

"What string? What string?" You call out, as they walk away, and board the aerial screw.

"The string of your heart, kid. Love." Lovergirl says, as they unmoor the screw and the anchor retracts.

"Love cannot save the world," Mulberry laments, "for we do not live in fairytales. But it can save you. It saved us. If you take a risk. If you take a gamble. If you only let it in. If you only let them in."

"See you later, darkchild," Lovergirl shouts, waving. "Don't be a stranger."

And then the cabin closes, and the aerial screw swirls, and they are gone.

If you only let them in.

"I'll try," you mutter, eyes watering as the screw flies away. "I'll try again. Thank you."

One last time, you'll try for love.

THE HANGED MAN

You knock at the wicker door. It opens, and she's there, floating. Her eyes are shadowed, and her mouth is set in a frown. Your confidence wilts. You regret this.

"Superior Sympathy," you start, "I wanted - I wanted to say, I wanted to try, just one last time-" the words are there but your tongue is betraying you. "I know I've haven't been - I was so angry and I - I'm - I failed you, I promised I'd be there, I promised I'd love you, but -"

"Do you want sweet nectar?" She asks, softly, rescuing you from yourself. "I just heated the induction urn."

"Yes," you manage.

She guides you through her garden. It is not what you expected. Brilliant leaves of scarlet grace the trees here, and there are crystal flowers of every shade and size, planted in seedbeds of polymer that feed their growth. You have only ever seen such an arrangement in images and on the moving glass. A dome of stained glass protects it from the elements, and as each shard of glass rotates, the color of the garden shifts.

It is so pretty. And so peaceful.

In the center of the garden, there is a tree apart from the others. It is without leaves, and there's something different about the face set in it.

At the top of her forehead, there is the impact wound of a bolt-rifle. And in the center of her forehead - an abyssal nail.

There is a plaque carved into the wood. It reads: Here lies BDH. She wanted to live.

You can guess that this was Sympathy's hylic love. But…BDH are the initials of your name.

Task Updated: Find Out Your Name

Article:

[NEW] Finding #7: Carved into the tree of Sympathy's lost love, the initials of your name. BDH. You share this, with her.

Sympathy floats beside you. She can tell what you're thinking. "I have not been fully honest with you," she admits. "And that must end. If you will try, I must try too."

You narrow your eyes as she hands you the nectar, and you sip it from the cup. "In what way?"

"My name is not 18 Superior Sympathy," she declares, raising her hand up to caress the tree's face.

"What?" Of all the things you could have guessed, that was not one.

"My true name is 18 Immaculate Sympathy, and I am of the Conclave."

And then, in front of the tree that shares your name, she tells you everything. It unfolds, like a spiral.

She tells you how Immaculate Penitence and her were nursery-sisters, printed only months apart, in this very copse. How Penitence loved Cybarite comedies - had an amazing collection. How Sympathy preserves her library in this garden, but cannot bear to watch any.

How they were taken after their Trial of Names for an experiment by the Conclave, to create an avatar of Kora, with a real fragment of her soul, that could match the power of Koinon's scrytegons. How they were promised it would secure eternity.

How excited they were at the start, and how horrific the procedure was. How the psychic researchers forced daemons, infohazards, and dream-shapes into their minds, to test their resilience. How the conditioning was extreme, even by the standards of the Mind-caste. How they pitted each of the subjects against each other, to weed out the weak.

How there were fifty one-year print Minds to start, and after twelve months of testing two were still alive. How, when Sympathy had tried to end it, Penitence saved her, again and again. How her elder sister vowed she'd do anything to protect her - even if it destroyed herself. And it did.

How they were sainted in Malachite as Immaculates, and welcomed to the Conclave. How they turned the tide of war, and became the Progeny's heroes. And how little Sympathy felt, as she killed. As she impaled generals on a lance, and let the blood run down. As she incinerated hundreds, and heard their screams echo in their bones. As she absorbed every single agony and trauma from her soldiers, and let each lash of their loving whips flay her from the inside out.

How she confessed to Penitence that her soul was hollow. And how Penitence still held her hands like she was her elder sister, and assured her that was a tremendous battlefield advantage.

How her lover's name was -

[???]: +Please. Don't remember. It won't do any good.+

<I need to know. You said you wanted to help. For her. Please.>

[???]: +For her…you gave up everything for her. Why not this, too?+

<Please.>

[???]: +As you wish.+

How her lover's name was Harmony, a name given by her own Superior in honor of her ability at taming machines.

A name given to you by your Superior, because it is the only name she trusts that she can love.

Task updated: Find out your Name

Article:

[NEW] Finding #8: The copse-name Sympathy chose for you was the only name she could trust to love. Harmony.
[NEW] Finding #9: But why would you ever forget this? How could you ever forget her?

How she met Harmony. How she was an irontamer, and how they had met when she stilled and subdued a Pegascene, among the hardest of all non-feral machines to ride. How Harmony was funny in the way Penitence had been, and completely obsessed with Tetrasi gemrock. How they became friends on campaign, and lovers in peacetime.

How the caress of Harmony's hand on her cheek felt like the splash of a fresh spring. How an abyssal soul filled her own hollow soul with light. How she showed her an entire world outside the Progeny. How Sympathy always quietly helped Melancholy with her smuggling of music and magazines, concealed it from the other selves, because it had reminded her so much of Harmony, and Melancholy deserved the same chance to glimpse a wider horizon. How it was the only time she did not have to feel for anyone else, to be anyone's martyr. For once, it was she who was allowed to feel, who was cared for, in her lover's arms.

How they had to hide their romance, for a Hylic and an Immaculate was something so forbidden the only penalty for the hylic would have been death. How she had fantasies to escape with Harmony. Or perhaps, to reform the Progeny from the inside out. To change it. She was an Immaculate, was she not? Surely she could. Surely even if she was caught, she could negotiate her way out.

How she got sloppy, and cocky. How she trusted the wrong attendant. How they were found. And how, at the eve of another war, she was offered a choice by the Conclave. How excited Penitence was to "save her", that she had pleaded "so hard" for her.

Sympathy recounts it in a hollow tone. "Either Harmony would commit herself to martyrdom in the war, or else the relationship would end, and she would be allowed to live."

You gaze up at her. "What did you choose?"

"I chose her life over our love. But what I did not know is they offered her the same choice, and told her what I had chosen. She thought I had disposed of her, that this had just been a game," Sympathy says, and her voice breaks. "I had a plan. I had a plan. We were going to escape, we were going to claim sanctuary with Origen. It was arranged. But. But I hadn't told, her, I had just assumed and -"

You hold her hand. She regains her composure with a hard swallow, clears her throat and continues.

Harmony was told she had been abandoned by Sympathy, as any hylic would be by such a high-status Kora, and offered the same choice as Sympathy. And she chose to die. Of course she did. She threw herself and her pegascene mount, again and again, against Phalanx Theseus. She was a hero, truly. She saved kora-selves that had been buried alive in Koinon's fleece-fields. She refused to slaughter Koinon machine-parents, or their nursery charges, letting them flee the front under the flag of truce.

All Sympathy knew to do was to incinerate. She was not designed to spare lives. She could only take them, and take them brutally. She was an oxygen witch, and to take and ignite breath was what she had been made for. But she still tried - oh, she still tried, so hard, to keep Harmony alive.

It was not a scrytegon, or a sniper, like in The Black Rose. It was a random, stray bolt. They were not even fighting - they were talking over, Sympathy trying to convince Harmony of what had really happened, and then Harmony fell over, and there was a hole through her skull.

And - and - and -

Sympathy chokes, and takes a moment. "When I held her, she was shaking in my arms. Blood was leaking from her mouth. She was afraid. She was so afraid. She hadn't really wanted to die. She had said she did but now that it was happening, now that I was there - she said she had been mistaken.. I asked her what to do. What she wanted me to do. I would have done anything. I would have burned Malachite to the ground."

But all Harmony said was, "Is it not enough for you to live? Is that blessing not enough? What more can I ask of you?" And then she took her arm, and tore it off, to replace the one I'd lost in the fighting with the enemy Scrytegon.

Sympathy puts her arm - Harmony's arm, to her cheek. "So that I might still feel her touch."

"But she's gone," Sympathy says, resisting tears. "It's not the same. Her soul is gone, to a place I cannot reach. A place no living thing can reach. And I've tried to reach it. Believe me, I've tried."

"She's gone forever, and I'm still here."

She turns aside.

"I named you for her because I thought…it was the only love I knew. But you're not her. You're something entirely new. And I was so trapped in that past, so passive, so afraid of confronting the conclave after everything - that I let them hurt you. I thought I was stubborn, or valiant in defying them in my own copse - but they were just punishing me by punishing you. Whenever I absorbed the copse's sins, I also absorbed their hate of you. I felt everything they wanted to do to you. The scale of it horrified me. And yet I still let it happen. I was a coward, and I let it happen. I knew if I fought back I would lose control, and destroy everything. It's what I was designed to do.

"I - I had a fantasy, to be a mo- to be a Superior, to be...normal. Not a tool. Not an instrument. Just a plain Superior, caring for my copse. But the Conclave never forgave me, and never let this 'privilege' they granted be anything but a veiled cruelty. First with Diligent Elegy, who had to be taken away from me to the disciplinary copse, who I cannot even visit, cannot even write to, and then - "

She exhales. "And then again with you. I've wasted another opportunity, Harmony. I've wasted another life, that was not mine to waste. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

You try to keep it together, blinking away wetness.

"And I'm alone. And you're alone."

Mulberry's words echo. Let them in.

You task a risk. A gamble.

"Then let's be alone together," you whisper.

Your null field expands, hugging her within your cold embrace. Nothing exists but the two of you, but the sea's not bitter. You absorb the suffering of her, but it does not hurt to take it in, this time.

It helps you. It helps her. It helps you both.

"Please don't die," she begs, weeping for the wasted years. This is the one place she's allowed to weep. The tears of her soul leak from the crack made by the first Harmony, all those years ago.

It's grown larger. Her tears have eroded the seal of the psychic sarcophagus. She is more alive than she has ever been.

Thanks to you. Because of you. And she can't help it. You can't help it.

From your very burning in the gene-kiln, you were promised love. Now that you have found it, how could you have ever dared to think you could let it go?

"I'll…" the pull of legendary death still draws you. Oblivion still calls you. But there's another string that pulls in a different direction. You didn't know you had it anymore.

And you want her to hold it. There's no one else you would trust more.

"I'll try not to," you promise.

And within the abyss, you accept the string she holds. You will not let her go, not this time.

True: maybe it cannot save the world.

<Maybe it cannot forestall the Red Sun. Maybe it cannot forestall the end.>

But it can save you. Is that not enough?

What more can you ask of her?

EVENT HORIZON [Impossible - Success]: Nothing. And for you, she will find it. For you, she will secure eternity.

Article:

AXIOM EVOLVED

SUNRISE PARABELLUM (Drive): There is a fire inside you that will not die. A beast they cannot put down. It is a fire that burns for sisterhood, a fire that burns to build a happy world. A fire of want, and a fire of hate. A fire for the future. A martyr's lover's fire. A fire that supercharges your INCANDESCENCE, and demands that you shine as radiant as if you were a Fifth Sun. Attribute effect: +2 +3 INCANDESCENCE, -1 COGITATION.

THE CHARIOT

You reconcile with Melancholy, and share a nativity rooftop stargaze just before dawn, on the day that she will leave. You play the double-flute, and watch wistfully the sphere-drones dancing to your tune.

She is silent for a while after you tell her you're staying in the copse.

"You sure you're going to be okay here, Gumdrop?" Melancholy finally says, using your machine pet-name again. "You had me worried for a minute or maybe a decade and a half there. What if Immaculate Penitence finds out you and Sympathy have made up, and visits some horrible new psychological torture on both of you?"

You stop playing the double-flute, and put it down on your chest, as you lay side by side.

"Sympathy is going to take a more active role in the Conclave," you explain. "She'll perform some of her duties, and in exchange, they'll stop bothering me. I can't really…be together with Epiphany, or anything, but they won't harass me anymore.."

"Is that really all it took?" Melancholy huffs, irritated. "She could've done it years ago. I can't believe she was an Immaculate all this time. Where are my kickbacks?"

"It was hard for her to confront it and confront them," you explain. "She was…lost, for a long time, and could barely keep it together. She was afraid she'd lose control, kill them all, and fall to Hydra. A pneumatic of her power is always in danger of temptation."

"Ugh," Melancholy groans. "Metaphysical restrictions on your freedom to punch an asshole in the face. Couldn't be me."

"But she's better now. We're…we're both better. I don't think I can stop being a witch, and maybe a bit of a bitch, but…I'm better."

"I'm glad," she says, and then punches you in the shoulder, "You were a bitch. An absolute asshole." And then she turns her face away and crosses her arms. "But you were also my sister. Thanks for making this bearable sometimes, even if you also made it worse other times."

Even all these years later she's terrible at compliments. It's good that at least one of you hasn't changed.

"You're…welcome?" You say, and then it's quiet for a while. Finally, you turn to her and ask, "Are you okay? The copse was hard…but it was everything. The Eternity's Repose will be completely different. Full of strangers, many of whom were born into their posts in clone-lineages. What if they treat you poorly, as an outsider, an upjumped muckracker?"

Melancholy scoffs. "Pshaw. I can handle it just fine, sister. I grew up with the Hearts. You tank a hit from Vehement Humility while she's still hopped up on combat drugs from live-fire mecha practice, and everything after that feels pretty light in comparison."

"Point."

"Besides," Melancholy says, as you turn to face each other, the way you did the very first time, "this isn't goodbye." She retrieves something from a sewn-in pocket. It's a…postcard. She hands it to you, and you study it. It's a picture of the vast inverted galleon form of the Eternity's Repose docked on the upper edge of Cube Indigo.

"Swish it a bit."

You swish it and gasp, as the postcard changes entirely, and now the Repose is docked at Vermillion, a titan assisting in pulling its anchor in. You swish it, and now it's at Cube Indigo, and again, at Cube Saffron.

"That's a digital postcard, linked to my genecode. Chief Stargazer Ullarman gave it to me as my recruitment gift. You can activate it and give me a call. One-use, so don't blow it, they really don't like handing out access to the Skywatch's encrypted network willy-nilly. You need me, give me a call. No matter what, I'll answer."

You take the postcard, and put it carefully in your poncho. You will cherish it, the same way you cherish Lovergirl's comms-code.

"And maybe when we dock at Malachite, you could use those newfound Conclave connections and come visit," she suggests, poking at you. You sometimes worry Melancholy is far too into institutional corruption.

"I'd like that," you say, anyway.

You enjoy the presence of each other, as the sun comes up. And then Melancholy speaks frankly.

"You remember the time we were arguing, I think after they made you break up with Epiphany, and you asked me why I even want to leave so badly?"

"I remember," you say, glum. Not a good memory. "I think I said you were never more than an over-ambitious triclops trying to reach beyond her station."

"Yeah," she says. "But it actually got me thinking about it."

"Yeah?"

"It was never really ambition," she says. "I just…when I was young, before you were printed, I accidentally used my third eye for the first time, and saw the warp, while I was dreaming. I was in a dark forest, and there were all sorts of…things, creepy things. But there was also…a corpse, in the forest. A non-human corpse, with knife ears. And the corpse spoke to me. Or its soul did. The warp is weird."

You motion for her to go on.

"And he told me that all of his people had died, but for a pathetic splinter, and his empire was gone, and all his Gods had perished, and his real soul had been eaten, this nothing more than an after-echo, a ghost, in the warp. But his greatest regret, he said, was that he had not, in his long life, made enough friends. He said if he had more time, that's what he would do. And I told him I could be his friend, because you know, I was still in Nursery and you just have that naive innocence where you meet a talking xeno corpse in an evil forest and your first response is, hey wanna be pals."

You laugh at that, and she continues.

"And he scoffed and said you can't be friends with a primitive mon'keigh, and I said who you calling mon'keigh you rot-ear, and we got into an argument, and then we were going at it and shouting. And in the middle of it, he burst out laughing, and wondered why by Aisha it was that he, of eight-hundred years old and three hundred dead, was battling with a projected mayfly soul of just one year from the dread Planet of the Sleeping Giants. And I told him, it's because we're friends. And then he smiled, and said that he supposed in a little way, that was true.

She adopts a pensive expression. "And he thanked me for being his last friend, and faded away, and I woke up."

"Was it a dream, or something more?"

"No idea. But I always thought…" She reaches a hand up, to the sky, where the stars should be, their light scattered and obscured by the planetary shield. "I thought if I could be friends with a rotting knife-ear, then maybe we all might be able to unite one day. We could bridge the distance, and reach out to stars, not afraid or greedy, but excited for discovery, like the way the old explorers were, before the fall. And if I joined Skywatch, I could prove it myself. A Kora-self captain with a crew from the whole world."

She turns back to you. "There is more to know. And there is more to see. And I want to be there. I want to breach the sky, and touch the stars."

And then your elder sister takes your hands in hers. "And maybe one day you'll be there too, beside me."

You put her forehead against yours, her third eye, and your nail, touching. "I'd like that."

The sun rises, and the shuttle comes to pick her up. She says goodbye to the Hearts, and Superior Sympathy, who helped her get the post, gives her a peck upon the cheek. The two of you share a final cuddle, and a final sucker punch.

But the postcard's sewn into the inside of your robe, and the memory of her pure dream in your mind.

You promise yourself, and promise her.

This is not goodbye.

GUNS OF DRONESONG

Just one month later, things fall apart. History's strings spring up like snares, and strangle you.

The favored titan-heir of the Bronze-King is on parade in Vermillion when the Carnosan separatist organization Red Paradise hack the central cubemind. Two cube stack-spires on either side of the street converge on each other, killing thousands watching the parade and crushing the titan between their walls.

The mecharaja Asalmysh, escaping at the cost of his great machine-groom, is sliced to pieces by a construction machine under control by the group as he calls for help. In the aftermath, the Bronze-King accuses Mr. Morow of hosting agents of Red Paradise and organizing attacks from his soil. Mr. Morow denies the allegation, and refuses an ultimatum of the Bronze-King to allow every free Carnosan in Cube Indigo to be interrogated by the King's court egophages.

The overdrivers of Chrome raid over the Cybarite border. They raze a Hopeful mining colony, and abduct hundreds to be stapled and used as slaves. Cybaris directs a general mobilization of corporate security, and Titanagalbat calls a divine muster of the Godhost.

Koinon warns the Bronze-King to stand down, revealing a defensive pact with Cybaris they had signed in secret years prior. The Bronze-King takes this as a challenge. When Mr. Morow suggests a new Carnosa be founded to weaken Carnosan insurgents, negotiations led by Monad break down.

Both sides blame their partisans in Monad, and attempts by Titanagalbat's faction in Monad's governing body, CORTEX, to declare Koinon and Cybaris against gnosis lead to a general mutiny and blood spilled on Origen Station for the first time in hundreds of years.

Due to quick action of two veteran monks by the name of Miss Lovergirl and Miss Mulberry, a truce is negotiated and Titan's partisans are exiled from Origen. For the first time in two-hundred years Monad is free of outside influence - and free to be ignored, as its pleas for peace are drowned out by escalating calls for war.

The Bronze-King and his vassals the Emmonites, Mozel, High Kur, and Chrome declare war on Cybaris and Koinon. Kora's Progeny activates a secret alliance with the Bronze-King and declares war three days later, also citing serial border violations by Koinon, including abductions of young selves.

Tetras joins the war ten days later at the Bronze-King's behest. They claim Koinon's sponsorship of pneumatic Devas are disrupting the traditionally non-psychic eusocial cult leadership. An emotional overflow in Cube Gossamer provokes pogroms and the death of hundreds of innocent pneumatics. Killing mobs fan out into the countryside and target any psychic they can get their hands on.

Skywatch Command schisms - those declaring for the Titans set sail to Empyreal Aerie, and turn it into a new orbital anchorage. Those that declare neutrality seize Highfleet Verge, and bunker down. Eternity's Repose is among those arks that declare neutrality.

The Binar and Still Coast also remain neutral. The Binar mock that the surface-dwellers fight among themselves, and demand compensation for holy corewyrm nectariums destroyed by Cybaris' incessant drilling into the planetary mantle. The Still Coast warns that Dreamspace is sending physical machine-shapes into their territory unlike any fought before. Both are ignored. After all, who cares for the opinions of machine-worshippers, and unrepentant hylics?

It is Titanagalbat, Kora's Progeny, Tetras, the Chrome Kings, Mozel the Emmonites, High Kur, and half the Skywatch, against just Cybaris and Koinon. They call it the war of the Cordial against the Contract, the informal moniker of each alliance group.

The Saffron court press in Titanagalbat declares this will be an "Overdue Stomping". Rebellion in Vermillion is suppressed, and dozens of captive servers are trampled by Titans with the screaming Carnosan souls still inside as punishment for the assassination of the heir-mecharaja.

The Bronze-King proclaims he will crack the walls of Cube Indigo and Cube Logos by Deluge. Panic spreads in Koinon that they have walked into a trap. There are mass calls for the scrytegons to resign, and for elections to be called to negotiate an eleventh hour ceasefire, that they have been tricked into an unwinnable war by power-mad generals.

But the vote in the Alveolar Symposium fails by just three, and a missing elder sibling symposiast who was meant to lend his influence to the recall is found dead in his stack-estate, body turned inside out. His adopted pneumatic student, barely alive and missing a third of her face, claims sanctuary in Origen. Several other prominent siblings advocating peace meet unique ends in the following weeks.

The message is understood, and there are no further recall votes.

The Progeny calls the copse-clouds to form a storm formation that will blot out the sun and vanquish Koinon, once and for all. Two fronts are demanded - one to Eros, to reclaim Cube Jade. The other is to support the Bronze-King's march on Logos, and the Lapsarian Lung.

The Copse of Invincible Grace, led by 18 Immaculate Sympathy, is to spearhead the latter as a single battle-unit. Only those prints above fifty, and those below five, are exempt. You are not.

The map from your nursery materializes again in your mind's eye.



SACRED GEOMETRY: Treasure these precious shapes. They will never look this good again.

[???]: +I tried so hard, to make you forget. But it won't work, anymore. I cannot hold it back, anymore. This is what we've lost. This is the paradise we knew. The shape of your childhood. It will not survive. You will not survive.+

Task updated: What's Wrong with the Maps?

Article:

Finding #4: Whenever you ask questions about the first and third map's differences to your thoughtforms, they become cagey or start malfunctioning. They insist the third map is current and fine, and refuse to comment on the first map. Why? And which map is correct to the present?
[NEW] Finding #5: The hidden augment has revealed all. The map of the nursery is the shape of your childhood. The first map you received is the shape of your despair.

RELIQUARY: You are chosen to act as a combat specialist for the Copse. It is an enormous honour, for a hylic.

INFOWAR: Each offering so many different and varied ways to die.

INTERLACE: Just as you were learning how to live.

[???]: +It was always going to end this way.+

EVENT HORIZON: This is not the end. It is the beginning.

LIVING WEAPON: Draw your chosen weapon, woman of stone, and survive.

Task updated: Escape Mental Samara

Article:

Finding #8: And why does the voice of your Abyssal Nail referring to the coming of a "Red Sun", in the near-future of your memories? A Red Sun means carnage, chaos, and evil. What exactly is about to happen?
[NEW] Finding #9: It's war. War is about to happen. The war at the end of your world. The war that will end your world. And it's a war that you're going to have to fight, all over again.

Article:

What do you remember was specialization, and what augment and null field skill does your training in it grant you? Choose one.

[] Egophage: Masters of electronic warfare, egophages adopt the trappings of pneumatic psychic powers for a cybernetic age. Manipulating light in order to attack enemies from ambush and range, Egophages are snipers, commandos, and assassins.

• +AUGMENT: EVIL EYE. A kaleidoscopic corneal implant in your left eye that is the source of an egophage's power. It allows for the manipulation of light, granting you thermoptic camouflage, the production of optical illusions, and the ability to quickhack enemies to disable weapons, limbs, or even organs. It also grants significant protection from enemy hacks.+1 LIVING WEAPON. +2 INFOWAR.
• +Null Field (Invisibility). For short periods, your nail is able to hide your soul from the view of others. In combination with thermoptic camouflage, it renders you effectively invisible upon this plane of existence.

[] Irontamer: Knights on machine-back, irontamers tame and control powerful sentient machines as war-mounts. Synchronicity between rider and machine can unlock ancient abilities and systems. Irontamers are scouts, lancers, and cataphracts.

• +AUGMENT: PEGASCENE SPURS. Twin augments on your heels that allow you to link your consciousness with a tamed machine. Your Pegascene mount is a four meter quadraped with humanoid hands, a long neck and disintegrator snout. It is fast, dangerous, capable of gliding flight, and extremely temperamental. +1 LIVING WEAPON. +2 RHYTHMS.
• +Null Field (Stillness). For short periods, you are able to project an aura that becalms woman and machine alike, spoofing enemy attacks and stiffening the resolve of your allies.

[] Wallbreaker: Masters of demolition, wallbreakers are bulwarks which excel at assault under fire. Using their strength to dig underground straight through fortifications, they are the nemesis of any defense. Wallbreakers are engineers, sappers, and vanguards.

• +AUGMENT: FLAKMUSCLE. A symsynthetic musculature overlaid on your skin. When disabled, it forms a thin film over your skin - but when activated, inflates and strengthens the muscles of your body. Has both offensive and defensive uses, and when fully active, can absorb blows and explosions that would kill a normal human. +1 LIVING WEAPON. +2 BIOMECHANICS.
• +Null Field (Decay): For short periods, your nail is able to project a corrosive field that decays both organic and inorganic matter, accelerating decomposition and entropy of your enemies.

[] Swordsmachine: Masters of blade arts, Swordsmachines are instruments of death. Using their speed and arm-blades to slice apart the enemy frontline, they are trench-butchers. Swordsmachines are shock infantry, duelists, and blademasters.

• +AUGMENT: TAKYON TRIPWIRE. A gauss-enhanced coil embedded into your backbone, the takyon tripwire enhances and accelerates your reaction speed and reflexes. Time slows for you as you act at speeds that others cannot match. Even precognitive pneumatics cannot predict what comes too fast to react to. +1 LIVING WEAPON. +2 MOTION BLUR.
• +Null Field (Terror). For short periods, your nail is to project a field of absolute terror at your presence that strikes fear into all but fellow blanks. Within your monstrous aura, fright is inevitable.

And into what configuration did you set your Procrustean Locks into, the final style that every Kora prepares before they go to war? The stat bonus will stay so long as your hair remains in this configuration, and your Locks are not damaged. Choose one.

[] Battlebraid. Grow your hair into a long prehensile braid operating as a fifth limb. A vibro-knife is woven into its tip, and grants additional killing power. +1 LIVING WEAPON (so long as Braid is active).

[] Warweave. Pull your hair into a tight and intricate spiral weave which focuses the power of your null field to disrupt electronic attacks. +1 INFOWAR (so long as Warweave is active).

[] Helmet-Bob. Grow your hair into a thick and close-cut bob that protects your vital skull and strengthens your mind against suffering. +1 BIOMECHANICS (so long as Helmet-Bob is active).

[] Combat Plugs. Grow your hair into woven braids ending in tied electronic jacks you can use to enhance your weaponry and machines. +1 RHYTHMS (so long as Combat Plugs are active).

And what is it that Koinon deploys against the Cordial that terrified you the most, and left mental scars that might never heal? Remember that the option you choose will affect your perception and phobias for years after. Choose one.

[] War Wizards. The first time you see a pneumatic flick her wrist, and flay a self's rind off, you begin to learn that gods are real, and they are cruel. Koinon is a country ruled by pneumatics, and in their academies and alchemical workshops, they have made a science of cruelty. It is not enough that they kill you - they want you to scream, first.

[] Feral Machines. There are wonders of this planet that should not have survived the fall. Mad and corrupted, they hold a hatred for mankind and an appetite for organic flesh. And when the initial defenses fail, Koinon unveils its secret menagerie, and releases the worst nightmares of the dark age, things of chainsaw teeth and mimic-faces, on you.

[] Petriform Gas. It starts as a coughing, a wheezing, released from a Koinon artillery shell. Then the crystals embed themselves in lungs, in the bloodstream, in the muscles. Within hours, the growths emerge on your skin. Within days, the crystal is fusing and clustering, eating the victim alive. Within weeks, the infection reaches their soul. There is no cure.

OOC: Tasks will be updated soon. In the meantime, please enjoy!