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Grimoire:Allies: Difference between revisions
→The Queen
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"Mm." She cocked her head as if listening for a frozen heartbeat. "And remind them this: the Crows are mine." | "Mm." She cocked her head as if listening for a frozen heartbeat. "And remind them this: the Crows are mine." | ||
===Ghost Fragment: The Queen 2=== | |||
"You don't have one." | |||
The Hunter came to a halt in front of the throne, raised her covered face to meet the Prince's gaze. | |||
"No," she agreed. "My next death will be my last." | |||
"I know the feeling," the Prince said dryly. | |||
The Queen kept her expression carefully distant. She sat reclined in her throne, legs crossed, surveying the two figures at the base of the steps. Beside her, where the Wolves' Guard used to stand, Techeuns Shuro and Sedia hovered instead, their jewel-like augments gently humming. To her right and just before stood the Prince, facing forward but his body half-turned back toward her. | |||
"Your Grace," said the man before her at the foot of the stairs. His voice was soft but strong. When he spoke the Hunter started to turn her head toward him, then flinched as if someone had shone a bright light into her eyes. | |||
"Thank you for your gracious welcome," he said. | |||
The Queen inclined her head slightly. | |||
"Before we begin," spoke out the Hunter. "I will say this." She paused, her head tilted up to the throne. The Queen waved her hand in assent. | |||
The Hunter's pale lips tightened slightly, then resumed their usual stony mien. "Your Grace," she said. Shuro and Sedia shifted, a sudden rustling and whispering. The Queen raised one finger to silence them. Uldren's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. "I am not here for you." | |||
The Queen stared at the Hunter, her expression studiously unchanged. | |||
"I have no wish to play politics. I have no grievance with the City, not anymore. I have no grand hopes to end the war, for long have I known I will not see its end. I am here for one battle, and one alone, because it is a battle we must all fight, together or separately. So I will warn the defenders, together or separately. I will do anything—" her low voice shook with passion— "to end Oryx." | |||
A silence rang out in the room. The Hunter kept her head raised, her ambiguous gaze directed at the shadows in the throne where the Queen reclined. | |||
Then a small smile curved the Queen's lips. "Well said." She straightened, and leaned slightly forward so the room's light fell on her face. | |||
"So let us end him." | |||
===The Queen's Brother=== | ===The Queen's Brother=== | ||
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"There's news to share," he said, and offered the crow in his fist. "And I think I have earned the right to share it." | "There's news to share," he said, and offered the crow in his fist. "And I think I have earned the right to share it." | ||
===Variks, The Loyal=== | |||
They call me betrayer. They do not think I hear the words. "Bug." "Insect." "Fallen." | |||
I hear. House of Judgment always hears. No choice. Has to. To keep Houses together. Had to. | |||
First , the Great Machine. Then, sky fell away. Whirlwind ripped away the past. All honor lost, all hope. Judgment not | |||
enough. Cannot keep Wolves from Kings, Scar from Winter. Fell to fighting. Fell to hate. | |||
Judgment gone. Others slaughtered, slain. Death and docking. "Keep Eliksni together," lost to pride and rage. | |||
Traveled with the many houses before Wolves. We move, across the dark. Follow the Light. Advise Kells, worshiped Primes. House Judgment must survive, yes? | |||
Found the Light. Too bright in Darkness to hide. House Winter, attack. House Devils, plot. House Kings, plan. House Wolves circle. House Judgment... wait. | |||
Now at war. Fight for system, control the belt. Wolves Kell dead, dying. | |||
Skolas wins control of House Wolves. Attack, attack, attack. Place of learning, place of healing, put to the burn. Then Siege of Pallas. Year of cruelty. Held the line to rescue butchers, murderers, Servitor. Ends with Wolf fleet scattered. | |||
New tactics. Detonations. Blasts in civilian areas. Take the fight to them, he said. Cannot abide the hate. Uprising, they called it. Uprising on Cybele. | |||
Reach out to Crows, to Queen. Cybele attack stopped. Skolas captured. Ended House of Wolves with words. | |||
Paladins find me hiding, cowering. Nowhere else to go. No one else to be. I become Variks, the Loyal. House Judgement envoy to Queen of Awoken. | |||
No choice. House Judgment must survive. Yes? | |||
===Petra Venj, Queen's Wrath=== | |||
To My Lady Mara Sov, Queen of the Awoken | |||
My letter is a plea, my lady. A simple one. Please let me come home. | |||
It has been years now since my appointment as your Emissary. Once, I was proud to call myself a Corsair in your service. My sisters and I were the sharp edge of your will, cutting across the stars in protection of the Reef. | |||
It was your service that kept me from sorrow after Amethyst was razed. The loss of my sisters, my whole life, as our station burned... it took something from me. | |||
By your will, it was given back to me. | |||
Promoting me to the Corsairs, allowing me to strike back at the Wolves. Letting my fury find purchase in defense, in support, and in glorious battle. I know, as I’m sure you did, that without focus my heart would have grown toxic. | |||
It was my pride in my position that sustained me through the Hildean Campaign. That led me to victory in battle against Veliniks, the "Forgotten Kell", the last hope for the unchained Wolves. I know now that it was my willful pride that brought me low. | |||
My lady, I offer again the only explanation I can: I did not know the Guardians would act as they did. All I had known, all I had ever known, were the ways of the Awoken. | |||
The Wolves were entrenched in that valley. The approaches were blocked, all sight lines covered. An assault on their position was madness. We would have spent precious Awoken lives. For nothing. I saw the Guardians, knew they were on the move, but I assumed they saw the situation as we did. That it was folly to call in the Crows. | |||
Prince Uldren’s fighter wing did a masterful job. The blast was pinpoint precise. The blasts tore apart the Wolves, and the Guardians, and their Ghosts. Three strike teams of Guardians, gone in an instant, on my order. The City’s anger, the Speaker’s condemnation—all earned. All fair. | |||
But it has been years since the Reef Wars. The City, these— people. They are not like us. They do not understand their place in the world. And do not listen when I speak it. | |||
Please, allow me to return home to my people. | |||
To serve you once again. | |||
===Reef Frames=== | |||
Many of the Reef's oldest Frames were salvaged from cargo ships that washed up on the Reef hundreds of years ago. | |||
In the City, Frames are equipped with a basic learning capacity, able to mimic behavioral and personality quirks. Not so in the Reef. There, Frames are seen as computers with robotic appendages—no more, no less. The Reef Cryptarchy is careful to back up and encrypt all data stored on Frames, and to wipe the Frames' processors on a regular basis. | |||
===The Royal Awoken Guard=== | |||
In all military matters, the Queen's commands are carried out by her seven Paladins. Four command the Royal Armada, including the Corsairs and the Vestian Guard: Abra Zire, Kamala Rior, Hallam Fen and Leona Bryl. Two command the Royal Army, including the Reef's battle stations and military installations: Pavel Nolg and Devi Cassl. | |||
The seventh Paladin commands the Royal Awoken Guard, whose primary task is to safeguard the Queen in any and all matters. This includes threats not only to her person, but to the Reef as a whole. As such, the Royal Awoken Guard work closely with the Queen's brother, Master of Crows, Prince Uldren Sov, and every Guard member is trained in espionage and diplomacy as well as in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. | |||
===Master Ives, Cryptarch=== | |||
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ARRIVING GUARDIANS: | |||
PLEASE NOTE: The Tower Cryptography operates under many false beliefs. | |||
By the Queen's mercy, the Reef Cryptography will educate you on the true nature of encryption, if you so desire. | |||
In ancient times, Earthlings thought there were three states of matter. We now know there to be four: solid, liquid, gas and engram. Of these, the engram is the purest state of matter. | |||
The role of the Cryptarchy is to encrypt and safeguard civilization's informational infrastructure, not to decrypt anything and everything for any lowdown scavenger who happens upon an engram. | |||
==Rasputin== | ==Rasputin== | ||