Ambella's Personal Log

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 0:) A Beginning Well, today is the day. I left home to join the federation’s military. I can’t stay here on Azurestar if I’m not a citizen… So I have no choice. The endless knowledge here, it’s worth whatever horrors I may face. The glimpses I’ve seen… perhaps there will be chances to learn more in the coming years. Either way, I have to do this. If not for my mother, than in spite of my father… <> So, the Federation picked me out of the crowd. Some telepathic link got five of us out of the basic test. Among this new group I see another half elf who is stoic and unreadable, a human that feels out of place, a lizard who looks to be more entertained than anything, and a full elf who left no notable impression on me. Nonetheless, we were all going through special ops training, Psy Corp. Only one problem, one of us isn’t going to make the cut; I have a plan for that. <> Training had been rough lately. I have been doing well in marksmanship, but the psionic work has not been as profitable. Luckily, Glynfir, that high elf, had to work a memory puzzle. It wasn’t easy, but the man’s head was focused on his task. I simply removed the memory of the puzzle and forced him to fail. While I thought it was a stroke of genius, the drill sergeant seamed to disagree. I had to admit to my doings, only to realize that Seth had some tricks too. With a bit of teamwork, we made a bit of a fool of the elf and sent him home, or to normal soldiering, or to clean toilets; I don’t really know. In any case, we are working on furthering our training. <> Well, this ship sucks. We got out here after a bit of work by no one else other than Seth, who just took a transport out to the thing. I have to say, while at first I felt silly in trying to find an actual way out of that hangar, the thoughts of brass’s face when they heard how we got here has kept me giggling behind my helmet for the past few minutes. Getting this thing back to the main ship is going to take a while.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 1:) Well, That was Fast So that ship we had to get to for training? It’s ours now. The FSC Cadet has been retrofitted and made ready for our use, if you call call it a retrofit... We even have a pilot, Gil. Seth is our commander, even though we are all sergeants, Corvus, Northhorn, and myself are the other operatives of this cell, squad, thing. Pretty cool since we’ve been training together for so long. Our first mission is the investigation of this cult on this planet that produces lube in quantities that would make a pornstar blush. The precogs have all said something bad is going to happen here, like really bad, and a lot of precogs. As far as I know, this is going to be a trial by fire. The cult worships the sun or something, pretty primitive as far as religion goes, but whatever makes them happy. Gil thinks it’s going to take 2 weeks to get to Eritos, it was supposed to be 3, but he knows something the maps don’t. I respect that. This is going to take a while nonetheless, so I might as well have some fun, if I can. <> You know the holovids where you see ships pull into orbit of planets? It does no where near the justice the view deserves. This is truly beautiful. The way the planet keeps growing but the distance really stops getting closer… It’s like nothing else. The others don’t seem too impressed, but I guess they’ve seen it more than me, or don’t appreciate the little things. Either way, we’re setting down in Omen, the capital city. The landing was boring enough, but that’s the good kind. Seth decided to grease the hands of the dock master, or at least some guy I couldn’t be bothered with. He’s just so small… Probably doesn’t want to be picked up… <> We found a hotel the locals use, and let me be the first to say, “Fuck these low ceilings.” Seriously, I don’t even fit on the bed. Lucky I got one to be honest, Seth took the couch. I’ve been working on a mental map of this place since we got here. Some actual maps were a good place to start, but the alleyways and shortcuts need more attention. It never hurts to know where you are in relation to everything else. A few good places to shoot from too, but with luck we won’t need to use them. I’ve seen some book stores too, and I can’t wait to go see them, hopefully they have things in them I haven’t seen before. <> Seth got us a place to start as I’ve been digging. Found some interesting things on this “Church of Blood.” Interesting stuff, not the good guys, but they operate enough in the open to not be illegal I guess. Anyway, it’s going to be on a party barge thing. Best part, people could die… Yay… What’s a better way to start our mission than jumping head first into a situation like that? Either way, we’ll be on the lookout. <> It felt kinda like the parties back home, we showed up in our group with a bunch of drink (which I’m not really allowed to have yet… but hey, no one is checking ID’s) and we met up with the others. It was looking to be exciting, and then this weird looking Avian showed up. She was actually really pretty, but something was off. Seth filled us in on the fact that she was a demon: a succubus. Great, first other woman we meet is a soul sucking bitch. “Best to not keep her attention” is what I was thinking the whole time, but of course, she can’t stand to be bi-herself. Get it? Bi? Yeah, she came to hit on me too, but I wasn’t looking to have my soul eaten. After a brief conversation she was actually becoming keen on me, to a degree I couldn’t handle without something bad happening. So I did the best I could. I put my arm over her shoulders and told her about how great a guy my brother was, trying to make her feel that I wasn’t swinging her way but was still not a threat. I walked her over to Seth and dumped the problem on him. Not that it felt good to do, but it was a solution he was more able to handle. I think. She basically crumpled in his presence, pretty funny to be honest. After their conversation she fucked off, maybe literally, but she did leave. I thought we might actually get to enjoy the party for some time, but nope, nothing like that. The fucker I was looking into from the Church of Blood showed up. Torro the God Speaker was the name I knew. I figured I’d lead the conversation because I at least had some info on the guy, and seeing how the succubus worked for him… might be good to keep things short until we have a reason to dive deeper. He did offer to work with us, to a degree, and I can’t help but wonder what secrets and power the demon’s possess… It must be vast. I had to shake the thoughts away. Either way, after he left, I got to tell Seth about some of what I did today, and he actually agreed to send me and Corvus to meet the guy tomorrow. I’m kind of excited. The party finished up smoothly. Think I got a few of the civilians to push their limits. I’m laughing now about how they’re gonna feel in the morning. <> So… I’m not sure about this log… I started the day with Corvus and our trip to the Church of Blood. He wasn’t the best conversation partner and was quiet most of the time. Though I owe him a lot. I really mistook how they operate and tried to play my hand too strong. The conversation went well until I put my foot in my mouth. Talked about improving his power. Turns out he has all of it… Oops. Either way.. Corvus saved my ass and turned the conversation to our favor. They kept looking at me specifically and smiling… Figured out why later. So we were going to meet up with Seth and finish our agreement where they would help us. Seth picked a place, and when we got ready to leave, the demon teleported me and Corvus there. Well, not Corvus, he flinched away at the last second and we got to wait. At least the demon was fun to bother. My best move? No. But we were going to work together, it’s not like I was hostile, just having some fun. Soon enough the rest of the team arrived and we had our meal. Seth picked at his food and Corvus just didn’t eat. Northhorn and I were the only ones who actually had the food in full. After the meal the others left the table for drinks. I wasn’t done eating, so I stayed and bothered the demon a little more. Then he started to talk back, in my head… Good trick… Think I’ll try it later, but still. It was a long conversation, but he promised me more than the others got if I worked more closely with the church. He went on about the things I could do and know… Perhaps it’s worth the risk, after all, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I did gain a little fellow. He’s gross, but is my connection to the rest of the demons. I’m not ok with him in my hair, but I guess it’s a small price to pay for the future profits.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 2:) Mistakes and Consequences Turns out the party boys are going to be of more use to us. Seth is going to get us to Quingaul to investigate the church and the galaxy class freighter there. The part barge was directed in that direction with the bait of an epic party, not like it was a lie, but well placed words work just as well. I thought I’d mess with the partiers again and see how drunk they can get. Amidst the fun, Scara had a talk to me while the others slept. She gave me a snap box and showed me how to use it. Taught me the spell cleanse too. One of the things in the box was a coin… Torroo’s coin. I’ll hold onto everything, not like free stuff hurts in anyway. After settling back to sleep, I shot you not, someone killed a sheep on our barge. Where did this come from? Everyone had freshly cooked meat though. Everyone but Seth and myself, I don’t trust sky sheep, and Seth does his own weird things. Speaking of Seth, I’m starting to think he knows more than he’s letting on. He is either more powerful or has something up his sleeve. Maybe command is up to something, but I’m just glad he’s on our side. Konnek told me to watch him, so there might be something up. The rest of the trip was uneventful. <> Once we got to the outskirts of the city, a federation patrol ship came to tell us we were in a no fly zone. Maybe they hit us with something at first because the barge fell, or we flew… or just some weird shit happened. Seth eventually just gave our credentials and we got to land safe enough. Thank the gods Gil is a good pilot... <> After we waded through enough lizards to clog the planet, we asked the nice dwarven owners of a tent to let us have it instead, and like good little dwarves they said yes. Left a box of drugs some of their friends came to pick up too. After a little bit, Konnek started freaking out. Telling me we were gonna die, and to get the fuck out of here. Seth looked like he had a vision again and walked out to the front of the tent where Northhorn was on watch. I waited a beat and then followed, no sense in waiting in the tent like prey. Konnek didn’t like that, but whatever. Seth said something about not having the demon and stuff, and the guy started saying the typical “I know it’s here” “I will find it and kill it” “Don’t make me kill you” and an actual Knight of Legend showed up to tell the guy off. These guys are the coolest, I’ve been a huge fan of them for years. They take on contracts for dangerous hunts and protection services. These guys are true AI too, like real bad asses. They normally deal with demons, cut them down and make… well, legends about it! One of the few examples of AI left. Only publically know ones too. Most people don’t know the difference between AI and droids, really sad… The knights are really like the rest of us, except they were made, not born. Got to tell Seth about them too, but he didn’t share my enthusiasm. <> Corvus and I got sent to look for some information. Found a warehouse that looked abandoned and related somehow… I asked this high elf bastard nicely with my mind to go in and look around. Got to love the giant sentry bot that jumped down and told him to fuck off. Almost laughed at the elf’s reaction. Corvus and I were about to give up when Konnek decided he’d go look. Little bastard doesn’t listen to shit… Either way, I got corvus to sit down with me and wait for him to do his thing. He came back with a shipping label, which I ran and was just for boxes of lube… more lube… great. I just pocketed the thing. When corvus asked what that thing was I told him I just got an animal to do something for me. He looked like he bought it, but I wish Konnek would stop trying to let everyone know he was here, he’s kind of a secret... Come to think of it, Scarra needs to stop calling me sister... <> Seth gave the order to regroup for a debrief and had fun things to say about our future. By fun, I mean terrible tellings of danger and unknown fuckery. We got to know that an Ajax was going to be bothering us, most likely because of Scara, but now that I think about it… Is it me? I hope not… Scara would be better able to handle herself against this demon hunting demon. Speaking of Scara, she just had to talk to me in private about the Ajax that seth was telling us about. Says I need to be careful, the death of Konnek will kill me too… I’m starting to regret this, but it looks like I’m more than stuck on my path. I want to talk to Seth… but I doubt he’d be less than hostile… I think I’m Fucked… Looks like I’ll <> Had to cut that entry short. We almost lost Gil. The bastard was bleeding to death at our feet until Scara saved him. I couldn’t even get close to help. Demons attacked him for what we can only assume is his data on the star. Apparently is should have already exploded and killed all life in this system. All sorts of data saying the planet is too small, the sun is too big… Crazy stuff no one will believe, so why take it? But what’s worse is I was flagged as hostile by the Knights… Lance-a-Lot’s IFF said I was a demon. I’m more than worried now. I have to figure out what to do… This was more than I bargained for… I just wanted to learn some of the universe’s secrets and have the power to pursue them… Not be a demon… How will my soul find rest if this is what I become… I wish I knew who to turn to before it’s too late… Seth is going to turn in his report… I need to keep the facade of being normal up, but thats getting hard with Scara and Konnek trying to out me every chance they get. <> Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck… I hate this stupid thing. These fucking demons are going to get me killed. Seth got back from his submission and this fairy came flying into the tent trying to trade secrets. Seth was easy and so was corvus… But the prick wasn’t satisfied with me talking about my unwarranted escapades into the forbidden sections of the great library at home… The stupid thing in my hair kept wanting to eat the fey creature too… and eventually leaped off my head to try and kill it. Of course it failed and just like that I got into a confrontation with the squad. My loyalty is in question, my nature is suspected to be evil, and now I’m pretty sure Seth is going to have me killed for this… I don’t know what to do… I’ll just keep trying until I can’t anymore… however soon that might be...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 3:) Second Chances After some exiting troubles at the tent, that no one will remember, we made our way to the communication tower to group up with the boarding party of Tac-55. We were going to get on the galaxy class freighter one way or the other, and command wasn’t going to stop us. Seth may not trust me right now, but he is using me. Maybe I can avoid summary execution if I’m still useful… Best not to think like that on a shuttle though… Have to get my head in the game… boarding a spaceship isn’t what you call a walk down the fairytale isle… <> Ok, this was a lot… So, Dragon Corps greeted us on the way in, and seeing the elite troops of the Federation here was… confusing. Until Senator Ego broke the tension, and we actually got invited inside. Turns out, this is the Largest part ship this side of the galactic center. The whole ship was living it up. This was something Boomba would be proud of… The whole inside was cylindrical and had grass grown on the flood. Since they were spinning to make extra gravity, people where on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Some were even in the space inbetween, floating one way or the other. It was breathtaking. There are species here that I have never seen before… Important people have set u banners, everyone was high or drunk on something, and the music was loud enough to have a physical presence. Unfortunately, there was Toroo… Seth pointed him out to me. He was in some throne.... Of course it was my job to go talk to him, but I guess it made sense. I got to him, and he was pleased to see me, started talking about how he needed help to get out. I didn’t have time to respond before another man, in a monocolored outfit pulled me aside. The dude was in an old school trench coat. Turns out he was Ajax as well, the boss of the guy we had a run-in with. Kept offering me more power as well, and though it’s always nice to hear, and always tempting to say yes… I wasn’t ready to join some other random group, last time I did that I got roped into Toroo’s hands. I didn’t get a choice. He grabbed Konnek off me and crushed him. Blinding pain and white light almost toppled me. He spoke more… said something about hunting demons… and gave me a dagger. I can’t remember much, it was like my head was in a vice and my stomach was being pumped. I got dragged over to Seth at some point. Managed to mumble out the situation… Feel like I might have missed something, but I don’t even know what I missed. At some point I passed out… <> When I came to, we were getting ready to leave, Seth found some sort of teleportation circle. I still felt like I was dying, but I guess it’s better than actually dying. Scara is a liar… Noted. Literally. So great, this investigation keeps getting worse. Torroo is bolted to a chair, the cult is still doing their thing, all the power in the Federation and beyond is here, and this is supposed to be catastrophic… and they sent us? Yeah, there is more going on here than I understand… Seth is getting our report together to tell command what’s going on, but he wants to meditate and connect the pieces first. Fair enough, I need some fresh air. <> Oops… So, it wasn’t my plan to do that. Nope, just wanted to see some birds, maybe some dog type things. Even cat creatures. NOT WHATEVER THOSE WERE. I just went out for air, just for a few minutes. Started feeling better so I wanted to stretch my mind and work some muscles. I just focused on calling some native creatures, something calming. Maybe have some birds air strike the party with some shit as a joke… but that was as malicious as I wanted to get. NOT GIANT TUNNELING SPIKE MONSTERS. They stampeded through the tent city and fucked things up. I didn’t see or hear anyone get hurt, honest, but still… Ok… maybe it was a little funny. I mean… no one was hurt, worst thing is some food got ruined and people had to reput up tents… Yeah… that’s fine. Won’t be doing this again anytime soon though… By the time I got back to the tent, Seth was finishing up his meditation, and he had new friends. Well, at least we got some help… Might be less likely to die tomorrow. Either way, we have to go send this report. <> Well, that was probably the most fun someone could have while sending a report. When we got there, some hooded figure was talking to us about “our plan” and stuff that we definitely hadn’t told him. I wonder if our coms are bugged… Seth brushed him off as we had a job to do after all… Something amazing happened when we got into the control room. An imp had stopped time around him… He had the soldiers completely at his mercy as he destroyed a terminal. Luckily the little bastard was about as smart as he looked, because he could have killed everyone as they stood still, but settled for the destruction of his objective only. Amature… Still, he did fuck up the terminal. We sent our message and had to wait for a reply. In that time, we were going to deal with the terminal and any extra attacks. I got the privilege of checking the runes on the console, only about half of which made sense… The magic was… dirty. As I was too slow to piece things together, someone came up to the door and knocked. A little frog guy came to help. Luckily he knew more about runes than me, and started work on getting rid of the demon. Simple for him. I’m going to need to spend some time talking to this guy… Eventually, we did get our response. We had to question the high priest… Well, fuck you too command, but that’s the nature of the business. Seth seemed to be thinking about something and Corvus looked about as cheery as ever, so I guess no one was really surprised. Oh well, orders are orders. The problem is, only little lizards can go in there. I’m not little, or a lizard… so… this will be annoying. Wait… Seth is smiling now… I have to hear this.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 4:) Seth Wins The Fun Award Outside of the communication tower was what I can only describe as “what the fuck is going on here?” Literally. Hood guy was here with three others. Seth apparently got in contact with 5 guys in the space of an afternoon. Besides the frog guy, I was ready to write most of them off as giant muscle machines. I was curious though, because the hooded guy said he was a traveler… and his name was… umm… Seamus? I think so… either way, he had some very interesting things to say. Seth told me not to bother him, found out why… He travels time, not just space. I had to ask a few things, I figured it would be small enough to not upset spaghetti face, but then again, he probably said it for me. I asked Seamus about what happens if we fail. I mean, at this point I knew. Everything blows up, countless people die, blah blah blah. I wasn’t expecting what I saw . He offered me his hand and shared a vision I can honestly say way the most ominous thing ever to exist. The death of the universe… He showed me the last stars going out in explosions that shook the heavens themselves. It was at the same time slow motion and the fastest thing ever. Light so far away burning the brightest it could possibly be, then as they giant objects cooled and shrank to become nothing but dim spheres, all light went out. That’s it. That’s the end of everything… The inevitable truth of existence… How does anything we do matter if… It’s easy to lose sight of the now with that in mind, but we have a very long time to go before we reach that point… Time enough to do something. It was more or less a blur on the rest of our walk to the warehouse where the teleportation circle was. Somethings stick with you, the death of space will be one of them… I wonder if my father was right… <> Up on the ship, the distractions were easier for me to clear my mind. Turns out the Senator wasn’t a puddle of spilled ink like the rest of the politicians out there; Seth managed to convince him to be more cooperative with us, which is always nice. Nothing like being on speaking terms with a senator, probably won’t get any invitations to his parties, but we aren’t  done working with him yet. Nonetheless, the ship will be getting moved eventually, and if we’re lucky, before the Dorian Convergence Thingy. The next step was to get over to Torro for more questions and stuff. I’d prefer if I never saw him again to be honest, but hey, good news is if we fuck up, he’s as dead as we are. Always look on the bright side of life. <> I’ll never get used to this damn ship. Not that I’m complaining. The amount of people here is still breathtaking. The others seem to have gotten use to the noise level, but I just can’t. Even our parties back on Azuerstar were nothing in comparison. No noise dampeners, the flashing lights, the innumerable species and… enhancements. I’ve been tempted to grab some as we walk around, but I’m pretty sure not everything here will be accepting of my physiology. Maybe I could get corvus to test it out first… I mean, I’m half human, so if it doesn’t kill him it shouldn’t kill me. The important part is that Monochrome and Javanought are cooperative, bad news is Scara is on the ship by the elven camp. Seth is sending me and Corvus to check it out. <> If I ever have to rely on an Eleven Royal Guard for anything, I’m going to chose to do it alone. These guys are about as useful as a liquid bookmark. I swear. Corvus and I were coming over here to investigate and Scara got into the Princess’s tent. Two of the Royal Guard stopped us and questioned us on our approach. That’s fine, that’s actually their job. We explained to them about the danger and Scara, and they called her Jasmine, Princess Jasmine. Talk about a score in our favor. So these guys get their commander and enter the tent. We’re over here waiting like good little soldiers when we spot some demons heading towards the tent too. We start trying to flag the guards down, thinking they would keep an eye on us, right? Wrong. After that fails I say fuck it and start running right at the princess’s tent with my gun out. Think that would get the attention of a guard for someone important? Wrong. I try and get seth on the line for orders, but he wasn’t responding. So I do the only thing left I can without blatantly breaking the non aggression rules, radio Dragon Core. Now these guys weren’t fucking around, but it was going to take too long. Luckily Monochrome and Javanought were listening in and secured the two demons while corvus and I got right up to the tent. Turns out the guards didn’t even remember us from our talk a few minutes ago. Nice. Got them to let us into the tent where we found the commander and a few guards. It’s most definitely smaller on the outside… Letting my mind sense the room for trouble, I sensed Scara in the back of the tent. I told Corvus to get ready, and we approached. She was tampering with a box… not her box, something the princess would have. A brief exchange and a quick attempt at a grab on my part led to Scara teleporting away, but not with the box. That, apparently, couldn’t be magiced away so easily. The guards got to wake up from their trance at this point, and I’ve never seen an elf so flustered. Told these guys for the third time what was going on, and that we did their job for them. Absolutely beautiful. A radio from Seth a few minutes later got him here faster than Dragon Core, which is saying something. I gave him the cliffnotes of the report. Think this is the first time he was pleased with me. Kinda nice to not have him upset. I wonder what Corvus would look like if he was angry… Seth decided it was time for some answers and set up a circle to summon Scara with her true name. It was very interesting to watch. I didn’t get most of it, but the principles were… intriguing… We got the name of something big too, a titan. <> So, Seth needed some information on where our target is. Lucky for him, I knew just the people. I found this little anti blood cult organization while digging through this planet’s data on the extranet. Long story short, and more money than I thought we had, we have the location on this titan. Seth wants to raid his workshop as we distract the big guy himself. He got on of his helpers in position while we called an artillery strike on the big fucker. Seth is a cool guy after all, even let me watch the screen with him as the rounds hit their target. Nothing happened. Just when all hope was lost, Seth called in an orbital strike. I’m officially giving him the Ambella Seel of Approval. After nothing happened this time, we went to go check it out. <> Alright, we made a lake. We made a fucking lake. AND SETH WONT LET ME NAME IT. I mean, yeah… taking the blame for destroying land outside of town probably isn’t smart… But still. Kinda wanted to name it… Big H down there was actually chained up. Yeah, a titan was restrained. We got him out of his chains and he explained to us about the bomb throne Toroo was in. Then gave us a key to open any lock. Seth even said I could borrow it some time. He’s actually the best commanding officer in the Federation, and anyone who disagrees can suck the sharp end of Corvus’s sword. Good thing he is too, because we have to deal with this thing that will kill us all if we get it wrong. I think I’ve been going about this thing all wrong… I need to start working with these guys… It’s a squad, not a bunch of lone guns on the same side. I’ll keep that in mind.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 5:) Actually getting Work Done After getting some more magic passees to the locked doors of Quingual, we headed back to the city. Seth was in a good mood so I asked him if at some point I could use the titan key for some personal reasons. I didn’t think it would work, but hey, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Turns out Seth is still a great commander and said it would be possible, or something along those line. Basically he said yes. *Attached Audio File is of Seth confirming (more or less) this fact.* See, right there. In any case, the trip was relatively plain and gave me time to update this log. Think I’m going to call that crater… Armageddon Lake. Sounds good, but it’s not going to be official. <> .Well, add something else to the list of things I don’t want to deal with again: doomsday devices. We got that Chair disarmed, that's the most important part, but it wasn’t that simple. We had a brief moment of trouble before getting onto the ship, and once we were, Seth took us to visit the always fun, Senator Ego. Pretty short and simple, new rule: no violence with intention to harm. Not gonna forget that one. The next stop was Boomba… not that I was too worried, he’s one of the more tolerant dragons, but still, you never know. The strangest thing happened. We stopped outside for a minute and I had to get Seth’s attention by snapping in front of him, he was spaced out pretty well. Not too long after, we went in and had to talk to a dwarf, but some weird fire shit happened and boom, I was outside snapping my fingers at Seth. He was less than thrilled to remark that the situation had happened more than a few times. I don’t think I like the whole precognition thing… that was unsettling. In any case, the next time Seth just got past the dwarf and I was left standing in the entrance. I thought I’d stay here, away from the excitement and fire and time resetting nonsense. After a bit, we left for the chair thingy, and oh boy, let me tell you what; Corvus and Northhorn had helped the demons clear a large circle around the chair. People were lying stunned, or just asleep all around the place. Dragon Corps lent a hand too, but within a few moments, Seth had teleported next to the chair and threw a potion of some sort to the ground. It was amazing. Time itself seemed to pause outside of the bubble we were in. Some sort of magic induce time dilation… I had only ever read of conceptual studies on this, not even attempting to start actual work. Strange… Anyway, Seth and a few of our guys were over by these titans opening the chair locks, didn’t have much trouble by the looks of it too. I would have offered help, even tried for a moment, but when beings that powerful are that focused, it’s best to just wait. I’m happy to say that no one died or was turned into something… unnatural, and time didn’t collapse upon us like a weight of a dying star, so hey, bonus points. Now, after a little time to ourselves, we met the traveler again. He really is a cheery fellow, always routing for our success, regardless of how important it is for us to do so, it’s nice to actually have someone saying how nice it is for us to do it. Now, we did end up back in the tent, and I was about to ask questions when Seth’s gaze reminded me not to. I settled to think of it as a powerful teleportation spell. Totally not dealing in time stuff like the rest of his powers. Nope, that’s not involved at all… Yeah… writing it down didn’t help… Damn it.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 6:) About Time Ok, so most of the time you hear soldiers bitching about the orders they get. Saying that they are not equipped for the details of the mission, or being in unfavorable conditions, or even being just about unable to do as they were told. Yes, the plight of the common soldier is a sad one, but we are no common soldiers. With that stated, I love these new orders. Interrogate the High Priest of the Church of Quingual. How can it get better you may ask? Simple! The vision Seth had of the Ajax attacking the church was because he was going to do it for us, but wait! There’s more! We get to do this, break into the church and assess the threat these guys hold, and then decide our own course of action. Vague orders are the best. Hands down. Seth keeps saying that we need to know more about the nature of the church, but I’m damn sure they are the enemy. Talking all this shit about a star egg? Ignoring demons and giant death ships? Seth may think that they are redeemable, but I’ve always liked the idea of a scale bound diary. The plan is simple. Tac-55 is lending us some assault drones. They started life out as anti aircraft turrets, but hey, life evolves. Just ask the Knights of Legend. What’s best is the comparable reality is like sending monkeys with rocket launchers to raid a human base. AI and droids are not the same thing, and I’m laughing at Lancelot getting pinned down by some little droids. Ok, that was a little mean, but he started it! The rest are cool, and even he isn’t that bad… Ok, I hope none of them get hurt, besides the ego on those fuckers. I wonder if I’m gonna get my own comic story because of this. I’m totally keeping an eye on the market for something about this. I digress, we are going to take the party barge and drop onto a balcony. Once inside, we get to ask questions. This is going to be a cake walk! Heh… I bet Northhorn would like that phrase. <> Ok, Scara wanted to come too. Great. She made a deal about turning in the name of her employer for us letting her come along. When Seth agreed I almost laughed. He hates demons more than anyone, and they tricked me into doing a few things I regret… But still, if he agreed to it, that means he has them right where he wants them. The facts remain, with things as they are, we should be ok. We’re in the air right now, and this church is beautiful. I can see our little friends getting ready, I’d hate to be… woah, that’s badass… To think, just last year I would have paid for tickets to watch the knights fight, now I’m causing it. Seth is calling for us to get ready for the drop, I’ll update this after we get out. <> Ok, first things first, that was incredible! So we drop onto the balcony, Scara starts darting into the building and towards the office. We don’t have too hard of a time keeping up, but the short guys do… We get to these huge doors and Xandar throws them open. The little priest and his big fancy hat don’t look too happy, but also a lot more relaxed than I thought. We enter the room and secure the place well enough and the doors get put back in place. No need to be rude. Seth was letting him have it. High Priest Clayborn was just taking it too. Seth kept pushing him with questions into a corner. It was pretty intense, but under the cover of gentle words. Then these too psykers show up. Start telling us to leave and quit our mission. No one was really willing to shoot each other, but a few of us started throwing commands around, and I ended up on my ass. Xandar froze the guys in place, and that seemed to be the end of it, until a few more minutes passed. Then, I shit you not, an army of skeletons started marching at us with some giant thing in the back. Now, there are a few reasons why we get issued a laspistol. One of them being their effectiveness on unarmored targets. Now, skeletons are basically negative armored targets. Less mass, no skin, just old rotten bones. The team jumped to action and it was great. The others killed a few, and I lined up this shot, put the sights right on this guy’s forehead, waited until it lined up with several of his friends behind him, and the blast just ripped the lot of them to shreds. Bone splinters went everywhere. Then Daluth charged in like a wrecking ball. It wasn’t fair. Northhorn launched fire down the hall, and another few shots from me put the bone bags back in hell. The only thing left was this giant monstrosity in the back that Daluth was fighting. He placed his hand on it, and the entire thing turned to solid gold. A pretty statue to be sure. The whole time, Scara was sneaking over to the priest when Seth stopped her. A spell from the little Dorian tied her up in golden chains. Made her tell her true plans too. Before you knew it, she was gone. Just like that. Maybe I was too dismissive of the leader of the church, but hey. Xandar found some befuddlement thing in his desk after Seth accused him of a few more things. With that crushed into a fine powder, the priest finally had some questions for us. After another round of much more polite conversation, Seth got this wooden thing. Clayborn said it would act as our badge of office as representatives of the church. Nice right? Well, the two Psy Guys that had decided to fuck with us got told to piss off. Turns out, they were our baby sitters. “We are here to arrest you or help you…” What kind of shit is this? I guess it means we were walking too close to the line. Good to see we actually are on the right path, because they aren’t trying to arrest us anymore. We weren’t about to just leave, not with that statue out there. Daluth molded it into a ball and we rolled that fucker home. A job well done. They other Psy Ops are working with us now, so I guess our team got even bigger.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 7:) The Great Stage So… Death gods… I read stories, fairy tales, history books, first hand accounts, research papers, and everything in between about many gods and pretenders to the title. Each describing these beings is ways that would send any sane person running. Nephtys, Seth (The bad one), and Anubis… These are the things we have to contend with? I have no intention of letting my soul become some battery for these things to use… But faith has never been my strong suit, and my gods will not be going out of their way to save me from these monstrosities. Entire civilizations were laid to rest by these unholy trinity, and we are the vanguard in the fight against them. I must take precautions to keep my life intact, or at least die in a battle beyond their reach. I have to hide my wracked nerves from the squad, it wouldn’t do any good to increase the tension in the air. Even our Seth is less than sure at the moment, Though, that could be his discoveries of failure of the Federation Command structure… More than a few people have let things get as bad as they are, and it looks as if there is hell to pay, perhaps literally. With information comes power, I must take heart in facing an enemy I can name, for often the imagination of the unknown can be worse. We now have an idea of what to expect, which is more than before. Seth has been looking into things, and, well, as he’s doing that I’ve been updating this log, I hope we get something soon. <> Well, I guess we have a plan now. The unholy trinity of murder have decided to take the single defeat we dealt them in stride and start planning on blowing up the power plant on the other side of the city, much to the same effect as the ship that we saved. Seth figured two things: They have an innumerable amount of plans to succeed here, and we’re better off stopping this when they can’t fall back onto something else in time to kill the planet. So, we’re distractions now. We look busy, and we let them think we don’t know until the operation to save the power plant. I think it’s a good idea too. <> I stand amidst shelves and piles and stacks and drawers of the most boring knowledge in the galaxy, and I read Dr. Gallith’s Dissertation on the Impracticalities of Magic in Use of Accounting. Names and jobs… endless amounts for thousands of years. Family trees born in the mud and dead in the mud. Clerk’s recounting of “Holy Cataloging of Sermons” plague entire isles! The weight of each type of food used in each and every festival! The time it took for setting up tents and stalls! Endless and useless! I could dedicate my entire life to learning here, and waste every second of it! I was sent to the Church of Quingal with the sacred plaque, to look for information… If Seth wanted us to waste time, I think I found a goldmine! My home on Azurestar would banish me for adding these tomes to our ranks. The insult would be insufferable... I need to get a hold of myself… What a waste… Hold on, radio contact… I just transferred Seth the complete findings on the Chancelor guy and his 8 closest people. Gods have mercy, I’m getting out of the records room and going to their library. I think I’ve hurt my mind down here... <> Ok, I think I have a system in place; I find general information up here, then I get every detail downstairs in the old paper copies. This is much more tolerable. I’ve even found a couple things of interest to me personally. Extra books on a hidden magic I have only seen scrawled notes and whispers recorded of… I shall be sure to spend my spare time reading, but the mission must come first. It wasn’t bad at all searching up here, though I am sad to say, Dread was the one to find the details of my next report to Seth. It is my personal opinion he has more luck than brains, but as the old saying goes “Is it better to be skilled, or lucky?” Here, I concede to luck. Seth just called us back, so, I must leave this place. I find myself wasting time in order to remain as long as I can… It reminds me of home... <> Well, I’m back at the tent. Corvus brought back some tactical officer back named York. He was ordered by 55 to help out, and for the first time I can recall, Seth told him the he wasn’t just accepting help. He even told the guy to fuck off. In any case, he’s here until morning, after that, well, we’ll see. Though, in the quiet of our tent, I find myself wondering my memories. It would be nice to return home eventually. Come back after my service and save my mother from her mediocrity, show the council my power… Those cocky old bastards. They can’t hide it all for themselves, I’ll know one way or the other. <> York is staying, he’s officially assigned to our squad. Command may have some ruffled pages about it, but it’s not like they can do anything about it. Tac 55 says they have a more secure location for us, we’re in transit now, and I’m excited to have more space to myself, Northhorn’s snoring is… unsettling, even after all this time. <> This facility is… adequate. It’s a warehouse, but with defenses and other goodies. Seth is having us secure the place better right now. Corvus is outside looking for perimiter issues and escape routes. I have the roof, and the skyline… isn’t as secure as it should be… There is one spot, over… by the power plant. It’s a giant smoke stack. I could rain hell from there. I’m going to get York and have him set up some sensors and cameras with me. No way this place is getting hit without us knowing.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 8:) Uninvited Guests We’re going shopping! Now, before I freak out, it’s not for books or new shoes, but weapons! A close 3rd in my favorite things to buy! The black market has a contact out in the swamp. Now, I know that is a very general term, but any market operating without legal permission and with less than regulated goods counts as a black market, at least in my books, and this is my book… thing.. So ha! In any case, it’s another distraction from the mind of Seth. Corvus is almost as giddy as I am. Didn’t think he had emotions… cool. <> So, we got a few cool things: two new walker drones with some serious firepower, a missile pod, and a few odds and ends like ammunition. In the end, it was pretty fun. We’re getting the stuff back to base now, and I think I’m going to add a little personal touch to the walkers when we get back… <> Ok, in the time since we got back, I managed to get the ok to make some cosmetic changes from Seth, gods bless him. I got some tape and got to work. I named them Righteous and Fury, and gave them angry faces. Honestly, they look kinda cute… in a murder people kind of way. Gil was more than a little worried about my placement of the tape, and I had to change a few things every once and awhile, but hey, they look pretty good now, and aren’t going to malfunction. Best news is, Seth is sending me back to the library with Northhorn. It’s still exciting to see the Knights around, even if Lancelot dislikes me… I wish I could change that… <> --Video Uplink Detected-- --Connecting Optical and Auditory Sensors-- --Embedding recording-- Footage from Ambella’s helmet cam show a ragged floating creature only a few meters away slowly moving towards her as she is backing up, steady breathing can be heard through most of the video. In her left hand, pointing towards the apparition is a unique looking dagger, its blade is dark and carvings are seen in the metal as it is waved around. Ambella looks behind her as she continues stepping backward before her vision returns to the target in front of her. “We have contacts in the Library!” Ambella’s voice calls out. “Some kind of ghost type things! I need back up!” Multiple lines open up as several channels respond to the open signal. As the allied forces are responding Ambella opens a channel to Seth. “I’m dumping all the data I found out while I was here, I don’t know what can happen here.” Several beeps confirm the transfer as she rounds a containment unit for the digital storage of data. This process continues for about a minute before a large crashing of glass can be heard. Her head snaps to see on of the knights entering through a window with a plasma gun raised and aimed at the thing following her. She looks back just in time for the plasma bolt to rip through the floating entity and crash into the holoshelf next to her. Sparks and light debris fly and Ambella looks to cover herself from the spray. After she looks around for a minute, she calls out “Targets neutralized. We’re clear here.” She puts her dagger away and approaches the knight as another enters the room from the large doors across the room. The knight speaks in a digital tone “Are you alright ma’am?” “I am… have you seen anything like that before?” She asks in return. When the knight responds in the negative Ambella sighs. At this point dorian priests and scholars begin showing up, all looking concerned, scared, or some combination of the two. It isn’t long before High Priest Clayborn is there addressing Ambella directly. The camera angle is sharply pointed down and the conversation is quick, ending with Ambella’s data pad showing the floating creature in a still frame to the religious leader. He explains that they are used by the church and need to be controlled. “That means the one responsible is still here, and close!” She draws her las pistol and the other combatants do the same. Northhorn and the knights flank Ambella as the team begins searching the library. They start opening cupboards and doors in search of a dorian with the ability to control the spiritual assistants. Eventually one of the knights opens a cupboard and almost looks to jump back as one of the dorians falls forward from inside. Ambella catches the person and calls out. “We got him! He’s… out cold.” A single circular burn mark is placed on his forehead, drawing the attention of those around him. The dorian is transported back to the center of the library and Clayborn begins asking questions after a spell is cast of some sort, waking the dorian. “A human… he… made me do it. He was…” Ambella shows him a still of Stryder. “Is this the man?” The dorian nods as Ambella looks to the priest. “Your man was manipulated… he needs help now, not an interrogation.” Clayborn nods as he assists the other priest away, along with several other dorians. After a minute, a few officers with TAC 55 show up. “We heard your call… but things look to be good now.” 55 says as he looks around. “Yeah, some asshole is messing with my team… just one of his newest tricks. You wouldn’t happen to have seen this guy, would you?” She says, presenting Stryder to the officers. Confusion covers the tactical operatives’ faces as they nod. “He’s that Federation officer…” 55 started. “He’s not Federation… Fuck… Why did you guys see him?” The commandos looked back between each other and shook their heads. “We… don’t know…” A long moment passes in what appears to be an awkward silence. Ambella breaks it, sounding tentative. “I need you guys to trust me… I’m going to look in your heads… Your memories have been tampered with, and I might be able to figure out more from the inside.” The commandos waste little time before allowing Ambella to continue. She nods and starts with TAC 55’s officer. A moment passes with nothing, then several. Ambella begins shaking her head. “I… There’s something in the way…” TAC 55 steps up, “You better try me then.” Ambella nods before taking a deep breath. She rests a hand on 55’s shoulder and enters a silence again. After a moment, the camera snaps to the left as Ambella draws a sharp breath and takes several steps back. The soldiers look worried as Ambella straightens up and step towards them again. “What was that?” 55 asked. “I found it…” Ambella sounds out of breath and angry. “It’s like a minefield up there… but I know what I’m looking for… Let me back in.” TAC 55 look concerned but nods his head. Ambella once again lines up, and silence resumes. In about as much time as before Ambella shrieks and stumbles back, falling to the floor. The operatives rush to her as they ask what happened. “There’s… something in your heads…” She sounds in pain and shaky. They bring her to a seat at the small table in the library and a brief conversation begins with Northhorn about the sound Ambella just made. She offers to get rid of it, and the lizard quickly agrees. Shortly after Ambella falls to the floor and the footage is of the ceiling and Northhorn’s shocked expression. --Video connection separated post recording-- <> I’ve never been more violated in my life… The library was like hell… Stryder… I promise to every god, dragon, and titan out there, he will suffer for his transgressions. I will see him pay for what he has done to me. I was with 55’s man when it first happened… I shifted my consciousness into him. I felt it, in the void between us, something else was fighting me, was there… was exerting will against me. It stopped me… But 55… I wish it stopped me again… When I entered him… the presence surrounded me… I fought through it… to the memories beneath. Laid out before my mind’s eye… I saw the work of another erasure… The cuts were clean, stitched shut like a surgeon would do to a wound. I his work, and laughed. Then, as if stuck for my insult, my body ripped me out. A stinging on my cheek… I was slapped. I refused to give up, not when I saw where the work had been done. I would expose this bastard for what he was. Or so I thought. I was directed elsewhere… To another place… Stryder was before me, on a golfing field or something… The sun burned my skin… my armor was gone as I stood holding a flag, frozen… no… solid like a statue. I was helpless as he practiced his game. Taunting me… But he wouldn't have anything from me. I would defy him in face of his demands. Which I was punished for… He struck me with the club… I felt it. All of it… and I fell to the floor of the library. I was a fool… I should have waited for Seth and the others, they were coming… But I thought myself safe… free of the danger. I was wrong… and when Northhorn came to me for a simple task… To help him unsee my pain… I fell into a dream… My mind was pulled away from me… down through rock and stone and earth… To a place locked away from time and space… I… don’t know how long I was there for. I was at first tied to a chair, chained and gagged… my mind was probed and pushed and I could feel it… like fingers pulling my thoughts open. The hand was crude and cruel. Looking in the wrong spots… anger coursed through it and I find myself in many dreadful places… in many compromising positions… It felt like days… Weeks maybe… After some time, my consciousness could no longer support my pain, and blackness consumed me. I awoke, sure more pain and suffering awaited me. Something wrong greated my vision… Seth… and all his unnatural glory. My confusion was short lived as pain and smoke threatened to rip my mind away from me… I don’t know how I held on… But I didn’t give in. Seth told me we were in my head… In a prison inside my head… But it was mine… I was the warden to my own imagination. Just like that, we were home… My home. My Library. My mother… I almost cried… And she just looked at me like the real her… She greeted us… Just like she would have, and just like herself thought Seth to be… well, she’s as blind in my head as she was in the real world. I don’t think I ever told her before I left… Will she ever know? Will I die out here? I can’t think about that now… But after a moment, we were in my room… and I was there… Little me… Learning for the first time to reach my mind out to others… That old book on my lap as I focused so hard… And I almost felt it working… But Seth would see what happened next if he lingered too long… There was no reason for him to see me experimenting like that. Not that I wanted to either… The fact that she still loved me after that hurts more than the guilt of doing it… I never did learn to be careful… And here I am now… Because I didn’t learn… I’m never letting this happen again, I will tear down the planet before I let this happen again. Never again… <> Seth saw it fit to return me to active duty, not that I would have it another way. We have information about the death cult here, and he needed help finding likely spots. I know this city well now, after spending enough time mapping it out, and what we know about these freaks… I narrowed it down to 8 or so locations. We are going to investigate one of the graveyards soon. I could use some fresher air… the industrial district keeps reminding me of that fucker’s cigarettes… <> I kept an eye on that hunter for hours… I wish we knew it at the time, that he was friendly… but lost time isn’t regained by reading history… Senator Ego sent this guy to find us… with a gift… We didn’t find that out for a long time… Found a funny tombstone… Seth didn’t like getting called over to see it though… At the end of the night… we had a box with something to kill Stryder… but at some kind of cost no doubt… Seth said I could use it… but I don’t know… I’m not eager to return to the world of having my mind messed with… I’m going to have to think about this...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 9:) Whispers in the Flames My dreams are troubled as of late… Nightmares from my interrogator. He failed to gain anything from me, besides my suffering. Though I am alone in my head, there is often a presence trying to force its way in. I know it’s Stryder… His smell of smoke is overwhelming and disgusting. I take heart in being able to resist him so well, but it still has be worried. I have begun asking Seth for incense to help clear my nose in the morning… At least he’s kind enough to share. That’s the good news. Bad news is we’re running low on leads. We just can’t find these damn cultists. We had every death type location searched in this city… Seth knows about some demons hold up in the water treatment plants and sent Monochrome and his partner after them. As for us, we’ve been tipped off to a vine processing plant. I guess I’ve always wanted to know how lube was made… I mean… not really, but hey, nothing wrong with knowing more. Seth is telling us to gear up, we’ll be leaving for Lube City here in a little bit, I’m going to check my gear. <> It’s funny how simple things can become complicated. I was just doing maintenance on my armor… haven’t really thought too much about it lately, but I almost didn’t have this stuff. I remember it like yesterday, being home… arguing with my mother about joining the military for my citizenship… Couldn’t believe it at the time, but her condition was to meet up with Citrio’s dad. I thought it was to have the old officer tell me not to go in, or tell more horrible war stories. Never thought it was so he could fire up his old forges again. He used to be a hell of a quartermaster… if his stories were to be believed. Gods… when he fixed up that old suit… I couldn’t believe it was for me… Still fits perfectly too… I wonder what they would think of me now. <> There isn’t really proper words to describe that feeling when you show up to a place infested with death magic. The air is… well it’s thicker. Like something foul is there. If you focus too hard on it, you lose it. Only later does it crawl back into perception. I just remember thinking it was just the facility when we got there. We went in there, thinking it was going to be a few cultists and some skeletons. Or at least I did. That idea was burnt almost as fast as it was scribed though. Xandar told us of three large groups in the area. Seth split us up, put me in charge of a fire team too. I was more shocked than anything, but I wasn’t about to let him down. We split into our teams and moved down opposite halls. When both opened into a large area, fighting broke out on Seth’s side. Corvus was still pretty far behind me when I had to start shooting. This… rotting corpse, like out of a horror story and about 11 of his friends were coming down the hall with an army of bone walkers. Several of these death mages were behind them, directing them to the fight. It was a no brainer, or at least it should have been. Well, ok it actually kinda was, in a way. I sighted in on this ugly bastard’s head and blew the thing clean off. Now I read a bunch of stories and you always shoot zombies in the head. This putrid thing just stumbled down the hall a bit slower than his friends. I told the guys about it over comms, but I’m pretty sure the team was busy. As corvus caught up, I felt that crowbar prying sensation in my mind again… Stryder was here, and worming his way into my thoughts. I pushed him back with all my force and practically screamed out that he was here. Seth told me to stay calm and focus. Calm? How was this a “calm” situation? I didn’t panic, but I wanted to get the hell out of there. After a few seconds I had a death mage skull in my sights and game him a reminder that worshiping the end will not stop it from coming. It wasn’t long before I had the big targets cleaned up and had begun screaming back at Stryder every time he fucked with me. The adrenaline rush was intense. I barely had time to think as I saw Seth getting swarmed. One of the zombies had him grappled and the others were going to bludgeon him, or worse. I gave him a hand by removing one from the undead just in time to keep it from going for a second attack. He disappeared from the spot as Northhorn incinerated the rest. Corvus had clearly sighted his rifle in wrong, because he had completely missed a few vollies of laser fire at targets quickly approaching us. He switched to some more mental powers and cleaned up though. I should tell him more about the failed shooting than the good psionics… don’t want him getting cocky here. It was an easy approach to the main chamber after that. Seth and a few of our heavy hitters got there and removed the threats. Well, they ran. Still, it’s a win. Stryder left a terminal for us to pilfer in ways of rewarding his stupidity. Had some good info too, something about assassins, fake charges of treason, and money. Not falling for a trap, Seth took precautions in retrieving the data. We had to stick around for TAC-55 to get here as well as some dorian priests to get rid of the death magic here. I did find some ancient runes too! Ancient elven! Not the high elves of today, no, not at all. I mean the real ones. I copied it down in hopes of learning from the writing itself. I have only the slightest abilities in magic, so replicating it is almost impossible, but still, I like it. The rest of the time was strangely relaxing. Corvus was doing some weird warrior thing, so I tossed one of the bones at him to see what he’d do. Kinda just looked confused. Didn’t even have the courtesy to throw some back. I’m going to get him to have fun, even if it bores me in the process.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 10:) Changing Tides I hate waking up to this disgusting fucker trying his luck every few hours. Corvus has dubbed him “Count Cuntula” and I am more than agreed with the nickname. Hammering headaches and a mouthful of cheap cigar smoke is enough to make a woman dream of all the unique ways to kill a man. Some of the less civilized cultures, and the history of most civilized one, is full of great ideas here. I think burning at some kind of pole is in order for Stryder, or maybe that falling blade thing… Oh what was it… Some Old human thing where you get strapped in this wooden restraint and get your head chopped off into a basket. I heard it was then placed on a cake that the executioners shared. Such barbaric times. Guess that explains where half of my violent desires come from. Anyway, Seth is taking us shopping at the black market again. I could use something positive anyway. Maybe they have some kind of boots or something… <> In case anyone was wondering, being on the run is not as fun as the old vids makes it out to be. We were shopping around, and I found a nice rifle shop with some really cool ammunition when everyone started freaking out and packing up. Racing back to the group, I found them packing up large crates into the ship. Apparently we were going camping. I have to admit, I am very happy about a shipping order mistake. The team had gotten this robot in one of our food boxes, and the only one on the team hungry enough to eat metal would be Northhorn, so seth was going to have it walk with our ship transponder to Omen. Now, there is this ancient song that I heard Gil listening to. A quick extranet search later and I had it. So, I named the robot “The Proclaimer” after the band that sung about walking 1,000 miles. The team loved it, and not only did Seth ok it, he fucking laughed! Score one for me! Even Corvus smiled and shook his head. Gil rigged some speakers to play the song on loop too, and the bravest hero of the Federation began his march. I’m going to miss that guy… But here we are, flying for an endless amount of time to the south pole in order to hunt a general of the death army. Cool. Gil sent me a music file with the old classics on it to keep me entertained on the way there. Some of this stuff is pretty fun! I can’t stop humming along! “Have you heard the new? Bad things come in twos…” So catchy! Corvus is a good footstool, for future reference. Do I dare say it… This isn’t too bad, besides the possibility of being killed for working for a traitor. Wish the dumb asses in charge would stop thinking we’re the enemy. By the gods, we’re following orders here! I’m just going to relax while I can, it’s a long flight. <> We damn near died! The ship was going down! We hit some kind of energy pulse, and it caused the ship to freak out. If Gil wasn’t such a good pilot, and York didn’t know electronics better than Corvus knows melee combat… Well, I wouldn’t be writing this. We’re fine and in the air again, but we had to stop and pick up the cargo pod. Now here’s the kicker: The big guys don’t fit in here with us. They got to ride the cargo pod to the ground, with the lights off, with cargo and bodies flying around, for several hundred feet. Yeah… No thanks. Seth has them setting and ambush as we fly to the main station. Looks like we’re going to have some fun. <> Well… Um… I’m ok! That could have been very bad, in several ways. It all started in the ancient ruins deep in the vine swamps. Maybe I’ll write children books after my service… Ha! Anyway, we got to the place. Corvus got an autocannon welded to him and his now a walking tank. Don’t have to be a good shot to hit something with enough bullets. Didn’t stop me from giving him marksmanship 101 lessons from basic again. He was positioned by the generator as the rest of us moved to the front entrance as York’s spider drones went to do some recon. Now, what was inside was what you would call “a cluster fuck.” A sizable force of death soldiers, a titan, a giant portal to gods only know where, and a giant statue beast (guess what, it was a sphinx). They were blasting heavy classical music and just… relaxing. Seth ordered the spiderbots to cut the portal power and the music too, and what happened next was beautiful. The titan basically shit his pants and the minions were all scared silly. The sphinx was actually getting disturbed and decided to talk to us. It called us into the building full of murder puppets. After a brief discussion Seth said we weren’t going anywhere. Another minute passed and the sphinx made a deal with Seth. Boom, just like that, empty building. We secured the place and Seth went off with Gil to one of the corners. I got to sit in the titan throne and play around, even knighted Corvus. Wasn’t long after that and the realm was in danger. The portal started screaming. Well, the alarm went off, but it sounds more medievil that way. Seth apparently called dragon corps and their response time is somewhere close to legendary. We got in defensive positions, not that it matters, and waited for them. Seth got called by name and was restrained before being teleported away, not before giving up the scara gem though… He came back, but then it was my turn. I had to drop the rifle and stepped up… I still don’t know what happened… It’s like I was never there. I don’t really want to look for the work of an erasure… because I’m fairly certain it’s there… and last time I did that… we I still get nightmares because of it. Dragon corps isn’t know for being nice, so I’ll settle for what I already know. We were told to leave, and leave we did. We took the throne and ditched. They gave us a new ship… and a fully expect something bad to happen because of it, but here we are. It’s actually nice too… I got my own room and everything. I’m going to look for hidden surprises as we await our inevitable suicide mission in payment for this ship. <> Back on track for the mission, we were headed to the capitol to meet up with the team investigating the missing chancellor and his people. Turns out, dragon corps was going to have some use for us after all. On our way to their base of operations, I spotted on of the assassins that were looking for us. Lucky for the good guys, he missed us. After I told Seth, we started looking around for the others as we walked. I figured a few good sniper spots for Dawn to be… and one where I know I’d be if I was her… Scary stuff thinking about being the hunter, just to remind yourself how much of a prey item you are. Once we were in the HQ of the local corps, we were directed up an elevator to a specific room. In there… well we thought they were the chancellor’s people at first… They were supposedly cursed… I thought I could help, so I tried to remember this specific book from home… one from the off limits sections. The dark pages pulled at me as if a vision… and then I was in the halway, or some kind of hall. I saw a dragon corps soldier and decided not to do anything stupid. I just leaned up against the wall until someone asked if I had an appointment. Clearly I didn’t, so I said as much. Apparently, that means I get a special visit to whoever this guy was. A moment later and I was walking into an office and apparently this officer had seen me just a little bit ago. I was more than confused, but rolled with the punches. Asking questions led to hot water, but nothing boiling… After repeating the magic words, I was back with the team. Seth decided to smother one of the “dorians” and then explain they were… constructs… Golems. Very good ones… A brief moment later and we were looking at the map of the recovery sites. I’m no mage, but geometric shapes and magic go pretty well together, so… there we go. As it turns out, we need to reinvestigate these places. Just one problem… That assassin… he was in one of those spots… Great. Well, orders are orders… And we were given Scara back… At least she’s on a leash right now. Too bad Corvus doesn’t understand that his shock stick is… well… She did some very unlady like things right in front of us because of it... <> So, drinks solve everything. We were walking to a target site when I literally bumped into one of the assassin brothers. Now, in the moment of shock we shared with each other, the first thing on my mind was “Hey, wanna grab a drink?” Every single one of us stood there for a second in shock. Not that I blame them, it was an enemy who literally bumped into an enemy. After a reiteration, there we went. Arm in arm to a bar with an assassin we walked! Daluth cleared the place and we got a private meeting room in 10 seconds flat! The other assassin brother showed up after a bit and we had a basic plan and deal worked out in no time. Touroo, the bastard, decided to come by. Unluckily for him, I had a feel that he was close and we all got armed by the time he opened the door. We didn’t need to shoot, he knew he wasn’t invited to our party. So, having a plan in place for our “capture” and boarding a ship… is nice? Yeah… Nice...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 11:) Destiny and Deliverance Well, I can’t say that it wasn’t fun. Hanging out with these assassins is pretty fun. They were Federation soldiers at some point, even served with Daluth. Small galaxy… In any case, we made the deal. We’re going to be delivered to the guys that want us. Best part, is we get to be armed and ready for the meeting. I can’t wait to see their faces when we take their ship. The brothers are going to stun us so the reports come in clear and believable. I’m not going to lie… I’m kinda excited. The facade is going down in a club, and a shoot out to the beat of some heavy music… hell yeah! Just like the vids! Can’t wait for this! Business comes first though, we need to report to Dragon Corps… At least we didn’t get too far from their HQ. <> First thing I’m going to say: Dragon Corps are inflexible ass hats. Now, a good old fashioned backstab is never too bad of an idea, but our team is rather fond of these brothers, and would prefer they didn’t end up paste on the bulkhead. The commander was less than friendly with us, and… well… Seth transformed into one of them right before our eyes. One of the winged bastards too. I mean, I know he’s holding something from us… but it keeps getting weirder. After they compared dick sizes, we got the greenlight for our mission with Dragon Corps support. With some sort of payment in mind, we told them where Dawn was, maybe that would get rid of her… Whatever happened, we had other things to deal with. Seth maintained his form until we were back in the elevator before he turned back into himself. No one even said anything. Just how little do I know here? In any case, we have a meeting with the local authorities in that hotel we rented when we first go here. <> I hate this planet. After a unique meeting with the local peacekeepers in which we met a dark arts officer we mistook as a spy, we went back to our room to find the most disgusting scene I’ve ever seen. The dorians had turned our room into a party hub. All over the place there was sex, alcohol, vomit, drugs, and other unsavory things… We scared the fun out of them when we got back, but the damage was done. I tried to help clean with some magic… but I’m a very obvious novice. The big guys did their thing and soon the room was back to the state it belonged in. At least magic fixes the big problems. We have a big day tomorrow, so I’m going to sleep in this tiny bed, in this tiny room, and this massive planet. Fuck this place. <> I almost puked this morning… The smell of smoke was overwhelming… Stryder can’t get in, but I can’t keep him from knocking at the front door. I must have been crying by the looks I got when I exited my room, even Seth looked like he was concerned in his own way, or maybe not, it’s hard to tell right now. The incense is helping clear things up… I hear talking out there, must be the others waking up… I hate today already. <> When I left my room, I was greeted by the others that Gil brought over in the ship. They were discussing the magic involved with the golem people. Lord Grey was working on this… thing when he set it off. Explosions ripped through the city in a moment as the 8 points went up in smoke. Seth was getting us out of the building when we ran into a cop by our ship, apparently ticketing us for the A+ parking job by Gil. Rooftop access must be a handicap zone or something. Before we could make another step, we were ordered back into the building. Seth asked me where I would be to shoot us as we walked out the door. A quick look and I was a good spot in another towering building down the way. Seth called the location into Dragon Corps as Dawn’s hiding spot… I guess she got away the first time and shot someone is Seth’s future vision… Scary shit to say the least… We are heading to a large hanger on the outside of town at the moment. Got to say, things keep getting worse, and I’m tired of it. <> When we touched down, we spent a little bit of time setting up for some ritual before Seth pulled me aside and asked me a few questions about a specific long distance shot. No doubt another precog thing. I pointed out a nice perch on top of this smoke stack with a nice… premade stand… uh oh. Seth told me to I was running counter sniper and to get myself in position. I found a nice spot… on the roof of that building where I met with Tourroo all that time ago… I asked Scara to get me to the roof… Now don’t get me wrong, she’s not bad looking, and she’s very… suggestive… but gods, does the woman even know what “no” means? I must have told her 20 times. “No Scara, we aren’t going to have sex in that aly” “No Scara, you can’t give me a quicky in the elevator” “No scara, none of this is happening” and she didn’t even slow down. Poor thing must be hungry. I doubt Dragon Corps was feeding her. Still, not interested. Corvus looks like he has been, so telling her that took some of the pressure off me. Still don’t know why he likes her so much, but they’re always together… Whatever, to each their own. Once i got to the roof and found a nice little spot, I dismissed Scara back to the group. It’s best to be as low profile as I can, and I don’t want more people and things here than we need. The set up was easy, zeroed in my scope, got used to the wind patterns, had plenty of time to think about the distance and drop of the bullet, sunk into the most comfortable spot I could, Imagined taking a few pricatice shots, and even thought about a few escape routes. She won’t make it out of my sights alive. Now I just need to wait. Speaking of, Seth told me I need his greenlight for the shot… I’m not doubting his skills… just, well does he really want this lasting longer than it needs to. Every second I wait, she will have a chance to fire. I don’t like it, but… well, I trust him. <> Sitting here, in the evening light, watching the sun set on this foreign world has let me really appreciate the razor we walk on. Sitting on this metal vent has me thinking about how everything could be different right now. Maybe we are favored by the gods, maybe we forge our own path. Either way, we have a date with destiny, tonight proves that. <> I was sitting in my spot, thinking about the recoil and how it would leave me if I needed a second shot, when she showed up. Hell of a figure, and taller than me but a large margin. Distinct wings, armor to match, and a case with almost as tall as her… It was the special case for the legendary Volt no doubt. She had scorch marks and scratches all over her and her gear. Guess we had a good guess on her location earlier. I radioed in the contact, Seth told me I was to hold fire. I was more than a little annoyed, but he didn’t need to hear the back talk, so I just watched. She looked around and set up herself. Funny how those of our trade all have the same things to do when setting up, but every sniper has their own ritual. Hers wasn’t too dissimilar than mine, but then again, it’s all in the details. As she was completing her system checks I told Seth that time was running out, now was the time to take the shot. He disagreed of course. Almost took the shot right then and there… But this wasn’t the kind of game you just jump. So I watched longer. She began marking targets, searching the hangar, with a smile spread over her lips. I don’t know the order she spotted them in, but I watched as she began to frown, the scowl. “Where’s their sniper?” is the question she undoubtedly asked. As I watched the realization on her face grow, I felt my body tense, my trigger finger tightened and my body braced as if instinct had taken over, then she pivoted towards me. In slow motion I watched as the barrel of the Volt leveled on me as I radioed Seth, much more calmly than I had any right to. “This is it, times up. It’s now or never.” Green light. There are few things that compare to the moments before a shot like that. Your body braces itself, you time your breath, and a squeeze on the trigger sets the world on fire. The muzzle flash only lasts a second, but it’s one of the most memorable parts of the shot. My eyes were lock on that gun as I saw her head jerk, then her body roll, the she fell. Her foot caught on the strap and right there, in front of me, was the most feared sniper on this side of the galaxy, and she was hanging by thread. “Target neutralized.” She was swinging there as I put the crosshairs back on her head and began following it. She looked to just be knocked out. I sighed as I had a choice to make. Seth would want her alive… but she wasn’t walking away from this, I already made that call when I aimed for the head. Second guessing isn’t something I was prepared for. So, I decided to take her rifle and send her to the gods. A warrior’s death. She would have tales to tell in the great halls, and there was no reason she wouldn’t make it. So I cut the strings holding her aloft. Another breath, another shot… and she should have died. Seamus intervened… He caught her body and dropped her by my feet after a few teleports. We bound her with magic and… he gave me chocolate. My favorite chocolate… I know they don’t make it anymore, I’ve looked… He said some things to me… and… He likes me. Like, “like” likes me… A time traveler has feelings for me… I, don’t know how to handle this. I’ll just… Be nice. Having him as an ally will help quite a bit. Fuck… Dawn is waking up… <> Well, that was easier than I thought. When she woke up I gave her a piece of chocolate to show that I have a good side, I knew it wouldn’t be long until I needed to show some aggression.. Of course, as soon as she gave me the spew of “you better be careful, I’m still a threat” I had to stop that line of thinking. A boot in the back and a las pistol at max setting crammed against one’s cerebellum tends to correct poor attitudes. Turns out she’s a cheater. A precog sniper that shoots from miles away… Not bad… Seamus told me that the only reason I’m alive right now was because he ran interference on her… knowing collateral damage was acceptable to her, all I had to do was be sure that when her backup arrived, regardless if I died or not, she was the first to go. She kept going on about her drone returning for pick up, and I kept thinking about pulling the trigger and all the mess I’d have to clean up. Next thing you know, she gave me her data pad password and we cancelled any other interruptions that may have complicated matters. She wanted a drink from her flask, and I gave her what she wanted after making sure it smelled right. She passed out after that and I bagged the flask for later. Just had to wait for the guys to get done with their thing. <> Just when I thought things were going to be back on schedule… Seth wasn’t ok with just killing her, and offered us the chance to remove her precognitive abilities… It was a narrow vote… I sided with Seth on giving it a try. I had never heard of such a thing… I had to know if it could be done. I thought maybe I could learn from it… To protect myself in the future… Everyone else is… less than acceptive of the outcome. While I’m not proud of this… I know what I was asking for. I won’t wallow in regret or feel sorry for my actions. I intended to kill Dawn, the fact that she is dead now changes nothing. What is the difference between this and hitting a mark in a vital organ? They bleed to death slowly. Hells, a gut shot can take a very long time to kill someone. I agree it should have been a clean kill, but everyone seems so… defeated. I… I should focus on something else… Back on the rooftop, I was waiting for Seth to tell me they were done with the ritual, when he just appeared before me and stripped the gear from Dawn. He then teleported the three of us back into the hangar. Some connection with the planet that only lasted a few minutes… We… did the procedure and… well I collected the case for the Volt and put the weapon and the case in my room. Better not touch it wrong, it has biometrics and explosives in it. I’ll have Gil help me with it later… Dragon Corps came to get the body while I was out, and Corvus is… different. Perhaps seeing a dead avian has affected him more than the rest of them. I couldn’t say why, but his culture is different. I tried to talk to him, to say something comforting… but I’m not good at it. He appreciated the gesture though, so maybe I helped a little. We still needed to go get the Cadet… Maybe the trip will help clear our minds before we get captured. <> Note to self, should not have been excited about being shot by a stun gun. We got into the club we set as our mark, got a few drinks, had a bit of fun and boom, show time. I fired the Ion pistol a few times for show, and the brothers fired wildly about. Pretty cool light show. Most of us ended up back on their ship and we got ready for the transfer. This is going to be one hell of a show...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 12:) Echoes from the Future In almost every document I have found, it states that killing is hard. Everyone says it takes the right mindset, the right will, and that it can affect you in other ways… Why has it been so easy lately? The first time I shot my gun at something besides a target were those skeletons in the church. Easy, they were constructs… Then zombies and decay mages… More things that were not alive before and after I shot them. Dawn… My first real kill… I blame myself for her death after all. It’s not like I feel bad about it, quite the opposite. I’m more concerned that I haven’t written something like this sooner. Have I lost touch with myself? Just mere minutes ago we assaulted the ship. We were being inspected by the crew when the fighting started. This feline was the first to react, bolting away faster than I would have believed… Then hell broke loose. I killed two Cadaverous things before it all ended. Not the problem. After we took the ship and spaced the titan guy, not that it would actually hurt him… still not really the issue I guess… The human crew. We took them as prisoners… Got them in a containment room and… Dragon Crops doesn’t take prisoners I guess. I think I haven’t had a problem because it was combat. We just killed these guys wholesale. I don’t know… It just felt wrong for the first time since we got here. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe I was crazy and am now seeing clarity. I can’t tell. The mission is going smoothly and the cat.. Grey, is staying with us too. Shepard, one of the Dragon Corps assigned him to us. He’s a gunslinger, apparently as accurate with pistols as I am with a rifle. I wonder if he has gone through these feelings before. I’d ask Corvus, but he’s the least human one here, and I’m only half human. Seth is… maybe part human, but not half. I’d wager ¼ human, ¼ elf, half something else. He doesn’t look to have any problems with anything besides things working in his favor or not. I think the reason this is bothering me is something Corvus might actually relate to, sending souls to an uncertain fate… At least death in combat is widely regarded as appropriate. Several religions use other metrics, but are significantly more vague. In any case, I’m no judge; it’s just my job to send people to the gods. At least that’s what I get paid for, partially. We got a meeting to attend in the common room, maybe having a focus will get me back in the right mood. <> Visions… Seeing the past at speeds that make my life seem short and meaningless… Really puts things in perspective. Life on this planet is tied to a couple titans, bound in asteral shells. Fey dwells within the planet, harboring life and protecting the dorian people. Gilforn, the titan of the sun… wipes life out over and over until he is stopped, then contained. The battle that placed them there was… spectacular. Astral object used as clubs and debris. Power on scales we mortals cannot measure. Destruction so thorough that nothing I know could even withstand an argument with these beings. Such things leave the rest of the team quiet, if not humbled. Seth takes the silence in stride, and he begins to introduce us to the Grey. It is decided that some time spent relaxing would do us all well, so we’re going to dock with the super party ship. The guys are gonna give senator Ego his new chair. I really wanted to ride in it one last time… but I have a few ideas to take care of first. <> Fuck… Why can’t things be simple? I just wanted Gil to work on the Volt. Make it less explosive when I touch it. Things were going fine, even got the biometrics programed to me. Then, Touroo showed up. Gil, being his smart self, saw that the demon was interested in me and ditched us. Now here’s the thing, I don’t hate the evil guy. I genuinely believe that he’s more of a nuisance than a threat to me at this point. Not saying I’m not in danger around him, just that he has higher priorities than killing me and my friends. Like trying to bribe me with power. I know I want it, he knows I want it, but what he doesn’t know is I’m aware of consequences now. At least that there are some. Having seen enough of them, I’m inclined to pass on his offers. Now, being a classy gentleman like he is… He wasn’t happy with my answer and started to push a little. Like an all too prevalent guardian angel, Seamus showed up, pistol drawn and aimed at the back of the demon’s head. Touroo had no desire to be part of a conversation like that and disappeared. Seamus is a good guy… I think. I just don’t like the whole… “I’ve fallen for you in so many timelines” thing. It’s… kinda depressing. Trying to be nice, I agreed to go get something to eat with him. Now this is where we get to the problem. We ended up standing in a core world bank. Now, this wasn’t food… but I was curious. I followed his lead… and entered a vault especially made for me… by me… from seven or so years in the future. Gods… how much of this should I write? I ended up getting ditched… Time cops showed up… I was back where I belonged. I think… Am I back? I don’t know, and I really don’t like this. I just got a transmission from Seth to meet him at the elven encampment on the time off ship, aka galaxy class party barge. Now the comms are dead… I guess I need to get going, I hear someone messing around in the cargo hold, probably still Corvus… I should grab him before going alone with dead comms.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 13:) A Prophecy of Blood I went downstairs to get Corvus to go with me to the elven camp. He assured me that he hasn’t seen me since the meeting, which probably means I’m in the right spot, or at least helps me believe so. The walk was fine, a little tense with the comms out, but nothing happened. Upon reaching the group, I informed them that Tourro was around and up to his normal schemes and plotting. No one liked that, but I had another set of more personal questions to ask Seth. Getting him to agree, we went to the princess’s tent to discuss Seamus. I told Seth that he had come to see me… and took me to the future. Told him about how he felt about me too… I was expecting more in terms of help. The all knowing leader said bluntly that he had no experience here and that I should just make the most of it. So, just get what I can out of the guy… That’s something I can get behind. I won’t be mean or anything. Just… having him looking out for me can’t hurt. Next time I see him, I have a plan. Besides that, I thanked Seth for the advice and we got out to the others. The plan really was to just relax… Well, having a pass to the elven camp is about to come in handy. <> Let no one question that elves have a much better side than they present most of the time. Today was… helpful. A few cups of various elven alcohol, a cookie of some kind, a set of twins, and a tent… The rest is history. Beautiful history. My only regret… not getting their numbers. Damned is an intoxicated mind… and bounties. Why did they have to mark Scara? At least Seth gave us a few minutes to get there... <> Ok, things to note… We are harboring Scara and Touroo, who are both wanted for a large amount of money. Touroo paid for safe passage with a true name to Seth and a couple snippets of intel. Nothing great, so… I kinda pushed… and we ended up with a true name because he had nothing else to offer. Score 2 for the good guys? I’m counting it. The score is about to go up another tick too, we just got the location of the Chancellor and his little friends. Enroute now. <> It’s never easy, even when it is… We came onto a pretty simple op. Smash and grab. Dragon Corps was going to help, but only ended up getting in the way in the end. Got one of us killed. Caine went down in an explosion… tried to clear a way for Dragon Corps to continue doing nothing. Bastards. Should have done this without them… we would have been better off. Damn them. Came in hot and took down 75% of the hostiles in less than 10 seconds. The rest fell in half that time. Mission was a success. No hostage deaths and Dragon Corps evaced them instantly. Left us to deal with clean up. What’s more is Corvus has something fucked up going on. I have him at gunpoint… He started screaming in a voice that was not his own… Killing the soldier is fine, but it was a bit obsessive… then he screamed “Feed me your blood” as he laughed like a madman. No one else was as worried as I was, fuck that. If there is a chance he was possessed or being controlled by Count Cuntula I’m going to be safe. Once we’re on the ship again and we have this sorted out, I’ll feel a bit better. I don’t really want to talk about this… I’ll just leave it as is. <> It was just Corvus’s dagger. It has a will of its own… I guess that clears that up. Just about to the Proclaimer… Gods I could use something light hearted to cheer me up right now... <> There that beautiful machine is. Got his own little following too! Marching right down the street with a party on his heels. Now that’s a noble soldier of the federation. The guys are saying we have enough time to head to the Dragon Corps HQ before we really need to pick up the robot. Might as well, he’s gotten this far, he deserves to make it to the end of his trip. I’m going to salute the fucker as we leave. <> We were granted an interview with the captives we rescued, not like we did all the work and they should have asked our permission to talk to them… but whatever, that’s not even close to important right now. Right when Seth was getting ready to share his vision with us all again, a messenger of the gods appeared. I almost don’t believe it myself. He shared the vision himself, plus more. More to the start and more to the end… And then… Once we reach the current time, I found my vision forced towards the distant stars… I began moving forward, slowly at first, then faster until I was passing planets faster than I could identify them… Then star systems flew by… I screamed into the void as light itself grew dim… then distant… In the blackness of the space hurtling through the void the stars soon went out and I was consumed in black. When I almost felt my mind slip, I was standing in an ancient library of epic proportions. Moving shelves and books, floating tables, and rolling ladders were everywhere. The only person I saw was this old elf looking man. He was sitting behind a desk writing something. I thought that maybe I was dead… After all, it wasn’t like this was an expected journey. So, I stood before this being an attempted to check into an afterlife. At least I got a chuckle from him. He offered me a gift… to help me see the truth in all things… he passed me a monocle. I asked if I could use it… Once he agreed, I was back in the HQ with everyone else. In my hand was the monocle. I slipped it into my pocket fast enough to where no one would see it. I looked around and there was no sign of the messenger. The chancelor… what he said next was… He told Seth that he was the savior of many… then to me, and he called me the Destroyer. It was like the world zoomed out as I stared at him. I felt a smile creep up on me and I knew he was right… But why? Seth said there must be a balance to all things… but is my part to play in all this only to be destruction? Perhaps… in the waning hours of the day, I cannot replicate that feeling when he first introduced me to my future title… Know it only brings confusion and worry… but in the moment, it was as if I announced it myself. A truth in it’s own right. Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives all the same… We were going to go get the reclaimer before heading to the Church of Quingual, but it looks like TAC-55 needs to relay our message to the rest of the team because we just got teleported here… <> Well… that was… a lot. Old lizards put up quite the argument… Seth is crazy to sit through this… Thank the gods this visor can tint, oh, and has a vision based typing system. It’s much easier to update this thing right now. On our way in, I got to see a few of the Knights again, made sure to have Lancelot scan the pass, because he likes me sooo much. I guess not every hero turns out to be your favorite. On the other side of the cover, King Arthur just electrosigned my spare Volt magazine. Like, I can’t believe it. I have his actual signature and it’s on my magazine… I had to not squeal in front of everyone lest they record that… But by the 9 hells I got it! I wish I had their card pack… I haven’t been able to find it since we hit planetside… I’m going to check all my stuff again when we get back to base… They’re still going on and on out there… Maybe I should put them on mute… but then again, I might be needed. I’ll suffer through it just to be safe. I wonder what these things sound like without the translator… Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Bad idea. I don’t like that, too much hissing and shit. Never again… Ok… maybe not never…

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 14:) Checkmate We finished the little chat in the high priest’s office a little sooner than we intended. In light of our evidence, when a sermon bell rang, the ranking members of the church saw fit to lead this sitting themselves. At that point, we got to leave. I won’t say it was bad timing. Besides Seth, I believe I was the only one even partially listening. We knew the truth already, and Seth was " The Champion” so we just let him do his thing, answered a select few questions ourselves, and that was the end of it, for now. I wonder if we are going to end up in a mural or as statues… That would be pretty cool, I have to admit. If anyone deserves it, it would be Seth, but religions tend to get a lot of people involved. Case and point: humanity’s Christianity. If not, well, some history is lost forever… I just might have a secret in my grave. Anyway, we left the church and after some more love scans by Lancelot, got to see Shepard. He had brought 2 things with and left with one: a dwarf with a grav carrier full of luggage was the drop, and Dread was the pick up. Our guy might have statisite poisoning or something… the crystal bombs we set off. He has seen enough, including the death of his partner. Don’t think he’d argue much at some medical leave. The dwarf we got, SGT. Bjorn Alvstett (the o has and umlaut but i can’t find the damned key), is… a dwarf. He likes explosives, has a beard, is short, and talks a big game. He may be able to back it up, and if so may speak as he wishes. Until I have proof one way or the other, I will refrain from judgement. He sure knows how to pack though. He brought more than me. The male dwarf needs more personal items than the teenage half elf woman. I should give him shit for that eventually… I’ll wait until he’s not liable to catch my bed on fire first. Now for the best part, walking. The rest of the team is still flying over here as we get to go to base. I hope none of this highly lethal ordnance goes off… Oh! Read a great quote about this situation! In an interview with a bomb defuser of some sort, he said something to the effect of “The job isn’t stressful at all. Either I’m right, or it’s not my problem anymore.” I like that quote. <> So, we got to see some… mantis people things. They were failing to be stealthy as they observed us. Seth wasn’t bothered, said they probably needed help. If they wanted help they would have asked for it. My bet is they’re working for somebody. Anyway, we didn’t get jumped on the way back and I’m about to get some studying on with the demon guy about those snap boxes. Seth is hesitant about greenlighting snappable ordinance with the current box being compromised and all. As long as I don’t end up selling my soul this shouldn’t be an issue. So that’s my plan. <> Negemphrayl is great. Is that how you spell it? Do I really care? No, to both. He stopped by and I had to com Seth about the buggy bastard looking for him. Looked pretty upset, but I don’t think he was ever a happy thing. Whatever, maybe he has good news… Yeah, and maybe I’m the Archon of Azurstar. Ha! We’ll see. To both of them… <> Gods… This ship has some impressive runes all over it! Above doors, in the halls, floors, walls, the ceiling, windows, and everything in between! I decided to have a look around with the monocle in hopes of having a little fun, but this is way cooler than I first thought. I’m actually really excited. I have a few written down so I can ask Lord Grey the frog about them in the morning. I really want to know about them and what they do. I’ll have a talk to Seth about the Monocle too, probably should have told him before I started using it… but hey, No harm no… Ok, dumb move Ambella… Don’t go testing magical stuff without ensuring it won’t kill you… Next time… <> Mornings are… fun… well, if you make them fun. First, Lord Grey told me about his wards, those are the runes I found, taught me a bit about them too. Then, I was playing with Daluth and I think I stuck a nerve. I wasn’t trying to upset the big guy… I actually feel kind of bad. I wanted to have some laughs at the entrance he made into the warehouse the other day. That was all. Probably a sore subject… I told him there were no hard feelings from me to him, and that I was sorry. He brushed it all off, but still. Lastly, I got to talk to Seth about his blood soaking ritual. Real fun… Hey, his blood so his rules. I have to keep working on the snapbox stuff with Touroo anyway. I’m- Radio from Gil- SHIT! <> Now, I’m a bit stunned right? So… It’s not every day you get sent to the roof to overwatch with the Volt. I got to watch the cunts packing bombs into crates at power plant before marching over here like a regiment. Lead by Count Cuntula himself… I could have blasted his head 1,000 times… Must have thought about 1,000 more times than that. He showed up and vanished from my sight as he walked into the building beneath me. I had Canistorus Brace me for the shot for nothing… Or so I thought at first. He left and I heard Corvus lose it. He charged at the vampire with his insane dagger flashing like a pulstar against some kind of barrier. As Stryder laughed, I saw in perfect clarity his face turn to fear as Corvus’s psi blade (Looking like a lightning bolt) passed through that deflection field and ripped through his ugly head. All this before I could get my rifle repositioned to shoot down. I won’t lie, I was a little disappointed for about a second. I wanted to kill him, but gods be praised… It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders once he died. I can’t even put it to words… I felt refreshed and energized… hopeful and triumphant... pleased and satisfied. I guess that does an ok job describing it. It was glorious. His head soared through the air as the body crumpled… I could go on. Someone was left to take the blame for all of the death gods’ work, though he was brainwashed, and we let him go for 55 to get. Pretty fair if you ask me. The troops of death walked away like nothing happened too, so I’m guessing this was the planned outcome. Also fair by me. I hear the bug man come by and look over the edge to see him baggin the body as he tosses Corvus credsticks. I can’t help but smile, even now as I right this. If anyone of us needed that kill, it was our little friend. Back inside, Bjorn got to go through a new box of toys as we all settled down. As I right this, it’s a bit of down time… I have to say, I feel pretty damn good. <> Faircry decided to stop in personally for our mission report. Have to say, I wasn’t expecting that. Turns out the enemy is in full retreat, tail between their legs, and fresh with wounds to lick. Not like we knocked out a titan is a straight up fight, because we can’t do that, but hey, we literally won this time. We have a time sealed data chip with our next assignment, turns out we get to stay for the party. I have a bunch of ideas to work on, and things to do, and people to see… I don’t have the time to write it all here, but… Needless to say I’m going to be busy. That and relaxing with the team. They aren’t half bad… even the new guys. Scara is gone and the non Federation guys want to get back to their families. With everything dealt with, I’d say that’s about all there is left to do.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 15:) David and Goliath I miss this log. It’s just been so… busy lately. Now, not that I mean sitting in space for four months gives you a lot to do, but it does give one time to think. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Thinking. I suppose that’s what Seth is doing too. Locked away to do gods know what. I guess I need to start off where I left off though. Quingal was a success in every way. So good that we are being sent into titan space to capture the general of Anubis. Commander Hail and his bodyguard, who is “suspected” of being a precog, await in the most secure building known to the high races. I’m glad I spent time with Jennifer… Poor girl… At least she helped me delve into the mind shattering depths of mirror magic. Ha! Get it? Shattering? Like a mirror? In any case, she’s pretty cool. Taught me basics and is my lifeline out here. I have so many questions to ask… but the trauma she endured… I can be more respectful than a crowbar. I’ll say this though, why tears? The laws of magic are weird. Feels like they change at the turn of a page. Once I think I got something, the next thing I learn is almost counter the first. Are we sure someone isn’t out there changing it right now? Feels like it sometimes… I digress. After the way things went, I got a nice promotion. Lieutenant… Doesn’t really feel right, but hey, I guess it’s gonna make a hell of a dress uniform, or look good on my corpse. The atmosphere in this ship is… odd. We all act like nothing is different, but I still don’t know how we are going to do this. Even the Volt will do nothing more than annoy Hail. Still, the optimism is riding high. After all, we did foil the plans of a trio of gods. Yeah… If I keep saying that it might make me feel better. Oh yeah, I’m Wraith 2 and Mable now, a hunter and bodyguard to Lord Rowen… Seth, Wraith 1 is Lord Rowen. The others got new names as well, at least for this mission. Corvus is Wraith 3 and M.C., Grey is Wraith 4 and Claus, Bjorn is Wraith 5 and Bomb (how fitting), Northhorn is number 6 and… well his name escapes me at the moment. I’ll check the mission briefing again after this. The reason for all this is Wraith Actual, Shepard, is our handler out here in enemy territory. Federation assets are also target practice out here, so yeah, being alive is nice. The ships are flying civilian colors now too with nice new paper work. One more thing of note before I completely lose focus… No magic, psionics, or violence in the Bazaar. The odds are stacked against us… <> The mission dossia said this was a desert planet… but gods… the temperature is stifling. I felt sweat dripping down my body as we secured a parking spot all the way to that office we rented. From the supply trip to the front gates of the bazaar I felt myself getting a little light headed… A weapons check was in place, but most people walked right by, including us. Once inside, we had a few issues. 1. I saw someone who looked very much like Seamus… My timeless little stalker. The catch was as follows: this person was a woman. An old woman… But it gets better, 2. Seth had a problem. Blood coming from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth… As I was ordering the team to fall in, Seth waved us off, claiming to be fine. Yeah… One of the guards, a huge fucker with 4 arms, made sure there were no issues here. Rather than share our multitude of issues, we do the smart thing and lie. “No sir, nothing wrong here.” I mean, maybe it wasn’t a big lie… but there is a lot wrong. We had shopping to do though… Too bad I’m too occupied with the current situation. Seth was happy to buy some garbage though. Tried to buy a magic rug of some sort, and we got directed to the creator of it. On our way their, I got to see lover boy. Poor Seamus didn’t even notice me… Time lines… Whatever. When we got to the next shop, it turns out Seth likes clothes too, in specific, super, sticky spandex that can morph. To each their own. I spent my time their looking at the rather pretty dresses and leaning against the wall. Can’t say it was the most exciting, but some of these materials would look astounding. A few tight fitting variants did catch my eyes… The mind can wander… *Attached are some pictures of both elegant gowns and more scandalous tight suits.* I’ll just save these for the next time I need something made. Seth got his order put in, and had myself go with Bomb to get some good old fashioned statisite. The way in had a much more strict weapons rule. None at all. So, we got in line and got searched. Of course, I had to say something to the little gopher thing that had to cup me in all the wrong places. Just sharing the pain. After we got through, we did some walking, and some more, and then I got to experience the wonderful headache that comes with staticite. Just following the pain took us to the stand. I’m not a negotiator, but saying we had some money to drop made the clerc open his eyes wide. The shop keep talked business with Bjorn as I went to stop the pain somewhere else. Some… tea shop… The creepy fuckers around here made it look like the date rape store… Got some bad looks too. Good thing no one can touch me… Just had to avoid drinking anything, or eating anything… or letting my mind wander into the secrets of the universe and blacking myself out. Yeah, not too hard. With the whole thing taken care of, I went back to finish the deal. With the prices, Seth told us to wait on the buy. With that, we left. Made more remarks at Gopher Man, and linked up with Seth and the crew. Upon further explanation, we got sent back in… Made sure to tell gopher man some more perverse stuff, and made our way to the staticite stand. That traveler look a like woman came up, much to the fear of the shop keep and told him to give us a good deal. That was… creepy. I thanked her… Does she know me? I hope not… At least we got twice the goods we needed. With one more wise crack at the gopher, he asked me if I wanted to do something about it. I said yes… He’s a member of security, and appears to be of higher rank than the grunts… maybe it will help to get some intel off him. Either way, free drinks are the best kind. It took a moment to actually convince him to hand over his number, but in the end, I made a contact. Not the best way to do it, but… Seth would tell me when I got back that he approved. He did tell us to start taking the initiative… Any way, Seth got us this decent housing unit. Looks a bit like a science lab, but hey, it has beds. No need to complain too hard. At this point we’re getting ready to head over to the Sugar Bowl, blood bath extravaganza! This will be interesting. <> Well, can’t say that went as expected. Showing up, we were told we were expected. My first thought was more precog bullshit was in play, but not everything is at the fault of magical energies. We were simply mistaken for someone else. Seth didn’t feel that deception was the best way to proceed with this… Holly Jaxs lady. So, we came clean. I would have done differently, but hey, this worked so maybe I would have fucked it up. With a bit of friendly insults, she decided to see if we were worth anything. When she got to me, I told her I was “the best shot on this side of the galaxy” and when she gave me this “Heard that before” look, I told her to bet on it. With a smile she told me to find her target. A rather… boring person sat on the far side of the stadium. She told me to hit the bottle this guy was drinking from. I couldn’t help but let out a quick laugh. Easy. As I slung the rifle off my back I had already noted the safest spot to place the bullet to get rid of as much ricochet as possible. By the time I had both hands on the gun, I had the distance marked and knew to use the 3rd mil dot on the scope because of the range I used last time. With the scope lined up, I decided to put a little flare on my shot. I shot the thing hear the base, the glass held intact as the bottle flipped into the air and landed back on its base, much to the surprise of everyone around it. Good thing that helmet was on, because the look on my face was a little too contempt. When I looked back to Holly, she nodded and tossed me a cred stick. A cool million. Didn’t realize how big of a wadger this was, but she didn’t know what kind of a marksman I was. After some more business talk, we got interrupted by the real meeting. Some ass hat who’s name almost translated into “Anus” on my speaker. Made enough sense. Instead of having to leave, we got moved to another room to wait. We watched a display of violence in the sugar bowl that must have made Corvus blush… Big things do indeed eat small things, that’s all I’m saying. <> Don’t piss of Grey… He doesn’t give a fuck. We had to do a little competition with sphincter mouth. Holly said the winner of a duel would earn her business. Since Seth didn’t want to fight Anus, and the old senator didn’t want to die, they elected for their seconds to do the dirty work. It was a tactical decision… Any of us would do, but it fell to Grey. Could have sworn Corvus started crying, but I couldn’t be sure. Either way, Grey decided to disappear. The bodyguard of the porcelain prophet shot wildly into the arena as he tried to find Grey. He failed… Then with a magicians showmanship, flung his chameleon cloak off and shoved the pistols into that fucker’s face, before removing it. Game, Set, Match. After Anus sputtered some more diarrhea of the mouth, he was gone. With our meeting completed, we got free food. Really good free food...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 16:) Deftly Stolen Keys Never will I be tired of bad guys giving me food. Holly Jax is one such person. She’s trying to use us almost as hard as we are trying to use her… or at least that’s my working theory. All of they spy romance novels I read seam to have a few things grounded in reality. Back in the real world, Seth got us a presidential suite in the Sugar Bowl and the new plan is to move there. Fine by me, at least this one won’t experiment on us… I hope. <> It wasn’t hard to get everything over here either, but that wasn’t what the issue was. Seth had been… disappointed in our imagination. All mission Ideas kept falling back onto the premise of confronting the invincible commander and his bodyguard. I can’t say I had any good ideas, but at least I knew all the ideas were bad… In any case, Seth told us to gather up for story time. Except the story was us… Like children we were scolded; we were told how wrong our approaches were. I swallowed my pride and sat through it. Most of us got it. Stop trying to get ourselves killed, because direct action equals death. Bjorn decided to be a typical dwarf and think with a rock instead of his gods given brain. Seth decided a demonstration was in order. Bjorn was to throw a grenade at Seth. I knew we would be fine, because Seth could always do some fucked up shit… I wasn’t expecting nothing to happen though… Maybe a dematerialization, a snap portal to a pocket dimension like my snap boxes… But not nothing. With nothing more than the pull of a belt. The point was clear, we can’t attack something that powerful. Not just because we will fail, but because we just can’t. What Bjorn says next spoke volumes about his magical understanding. He blamed it on the grenade being a dud. Poor bastard must really not know… Seth told me to shoot him. Great, I get to lose a perfectly good bullet. Easy to comply… After an unsatisfying click, Bjorn then says that it’s my fault the gun didn’t go off. Insult yourself, not me. After telling him off and giving evidence to support myself, he finally agrees that magic is more than a rock moving tool. One small victory at a time… Northhorn keeps trying to get us to watch this match in the area… <> Offbloods… This one is Copper Manwise. I thought they were all dead, but hey, always up to learn something new. He just slaughtered some orcs… Must be invincible too… Or just about. Anyway… I get to go do some makeup work… I have a “date” with a gopher man. The things I do for the mission… <> Ok… I think I look Good enough. Charming this guy shouldn’t be hard, but if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. Never thought I’d be wearing a dress in the name of the federation, but hey… They did tell us to look like we were on vacation… I’m going to get some back up on this… Don’t feel like being out alone. Grey tends to be hard to see… should be a good wingman. I’m telling the guys that my distress call is “Public” and “Terminal” used in the same sentence. Either order. Should be safe enough… Time to go... <> What a night… Like seriously. Things started off pretty well, a nice club with a zero g dance floor, grey dropping me off and melting into the crowds, and the little fucker was polite. He was kind enough to pay for things too. Started things off by trying to get him to drink more too. Score one for Ambella. The plan was to get him drunk enough to start letting things slip, then get him home. After that, I would get him unconscious before searching for other intel. Phase one was off without a hitch. With our focus on our “jobs” I was able to weave a nice hybrid story of a bodyguard and exotic hunter. With some stories I used as inspiration from that market back on Eritos, I’m sure half of those are plagiarized too, so no real harm to the academic world, I was able to keep him in wonder lust as the drinks flowed. I took half sips or just fake ones to pace myself as he was going through his at a good pace. We eventually got to his work. Got info on “The Sheriff” among the small confirmations of how the peace runes dealt with things, as well as a teleportation network. Bingo. After a rather surprisingly good dance on the zero g floor, he was decently buzzed and was hinting at stronger stuff at his home. Phase 2. I agreed, of course. What I wasn’t ready for was the teleported to take us to his home. It was a nice place too, and the drink was even better. A little convincing got him more than plastered. I helped him back to his room and took his shoes off. I’m nothing if not considerate. With the little guy nice and asleep, I got to work finding info. His data pad was a good start. I got Gil to help me copy the files over. Before I could finish, his roommate got home… I played the coy date and acted a little more drunk than I was, After hinting Harold was in his room getting ready, the roommate got out of there. When I looked back, the file transfer was complete. A little more snooping got me nowhere, so I was getting ready to leave when Gil showed off the fruits of my labor: full access to the teleportation network. Next thing I knew, I was standing in our living room. Being caught off guard, I offered a polite curtsey to the surprised teammates present. Seth was actually surprised and pleased. I have to say, that felt good. <> Nightmares are never fun, especially ones that involve a titan smashing my skull like a watermelon. Still, I wasn’t the only one having odd dreams… The point was, Seth said he messed with our fate… as a whole team. Yay… He then proceeded to tell us that there was a future where we all get out alive and complete the mission. He offered to show us too… Nope. Not me. I know enough now. I live, we win, fuck the details. I’m already tired of fate and time magic. I’ll just go with Bjorn to buy “explosives equipment.” <> So, Seth must see this a lot… because after Bjorn caused an incident by describing our shop host as a “dirty greenskin,” we got visited by law enforcement. I stepped out and spotted Tress. Almost used the monocle too… Almost. Seth saw me die… says it was quick. It’s probably not good to think this way… but at least that version of me didn’t suffer. I wonder how many times he’s seen me die… I had to talk to the Sheriff though… It was like she was trying to find a reason to shoot me. Checked all of my papers too. Like, all of them. Good thing the guys who made this stuff know what they were doing. She has to suspect us… Bjorn tried to blame this event on me when he got back… Fucker. Grey just called an emergency meeting back at base… The day gets even better… <> So, we had a guest. A little spy was hiding in here. Seth flushed it out, along with several enchantments in a ritual used to clear the place of observance. Long story short, Tress has taken an interest in little Grey. Longer story, Grey was just shooting some targets in the Sugar Bowl’s training area when Tress showed up. They talked, and Grey managed to keep all of our mission details out of his mind. They apparently had some marksmanship lessons and took up so much time, that Commander Hail showed up. He even swapped personal comm codes with the bodyguard. I’m impressed. I guess this mission we all get to “date” somebody. I wonder if Corvus and that dagger are gonna be more than friends… Seth might end up dating… well… I don’t know. He’s too reserved I guess. Bjorn is one bad decision away from putting his dick in a grenade though, so, at least that’s an easy guess. Either way, Seth told us to get some positions ready for an ambush while he does his own thing. No disturbances was the order. Fun. It’s taking a while to get somewhere good… <> I love today… so much. Comms are dead and the team is all split up. After I got a position marked, I tried to get in touch with anyone else… No luck. I went back to hq, and only found Northhorn. After telling him what the issue was, I left a note for Seth before heading out. If we all got hit with a blackout, something was up. Nothing else was affected, so it wasn’t hard to guess that we were the target. On chance, I ran into Grey by the elevators. I got him up to speed and sent Northhorn back to the apartment and took Grey with me. I suspect something is going wrong… Seth was very adamant about being left alone… I guess that makes me in charge of this little operation. I just hope this mag train gets us there in time to deal with this issue, if it is indeed such a thing… <> When we got to the ship, it was still in one piece with defenses active, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of a threat. Grey and I approached the ship with weapons out in case. We cleared the entrance and made our way directly to the cockpit. No signs of trouble. When we saw Gil dancing to some of his ancient music we relaxed a bit and had a chat. He confirmed that life signs were on the ship… Everyone had a moment of pause as the gravity sunk in. I ordered the ship closed and locked as I redrew my rifle and turned to start clearing the ship and Grey rearmed and Gil started activating our drone. Suddenly, Shepard was standing in my way. At first I was unwilling to stand down in the face of a possible threat and the fact that they were supposed to be several AU away from here. It didn’t take long for me to confirm that he was indeed Wraith Actual… I let him issue his orders to the team, and surprisingly Gil asked for my confirmation. I guess that’s a good sign of our squad’s loyalty. We let Shepard and his goons finish fucking with our stuff before the Comms were back up and working. We stayed to update Gil on the happenings of the communication blackout before returning. Fuck this train, it smells like poor decisions and desperation. <> Back at the entrance to the Bazaar, we found that security had increased ten fold. No entry with our weapons. Not acceptable. One relocation and a comms call to Gil rewarded us with waiting. Yay. Good news is he’s going to get the thing to mask our movement completely. 30 minutes later and we had been teleported to the living room of our apartment. <> I was relaxing when an old public terminal hard wired…. thing… rang. Like old school. I answered and it was an internal communication from a representative of Holly Jax. She told me that our concerns of her spy would be addressed tonight in a meeting. Cool. Another problem solved. I’m going to wait as long as I can before talking to Seth, he doesn’t like interruptions. <> You know that your life isn’t going in the right direction when you go to talk to your commander and as soon as you open his door every sense you have hurts from looking at his work. I almost saw concern in his eyes as I sighed and just embraced his magical work. I told him about the important meeting we had in an hour as some symbols that looked vaguely painful floated across my vision. Seth confirmed that he was ok with this turn of events and I wished him luck as I closed the door behind me. I stood there for a second and regained my composure before sitting down on the couch. I’d say he has some explaining to do, but honestly, I found one question whose answer will just hurt more than anything. I’m going to ignore this one and chalk it up to the “Seth is some bullshit” section. As long as he doesn’t eat my soul, he’s fine. <> Dinner parties are always entertaining. Again Holly provided us food and stuff with vague threats. She also knows who we are, mostly. The only issue is that we’re supposed to be undercover and our Federation friends decided that it’s fine to keep our records open. So be it. At least Seth has this bitch by the balls. She’s dancing to his dance now and that’s the important part. I did like watching a different point of view of several highlights… Still feeling good about taking out Dawn… Looked professional as fuck. Still, I like praise, but I don’t like being an easy target. When word gets to the wrong kind of people, our strengths can be used against us. I’d rather not be considered a bigger threat than Dawn in the community of people who want me dead. I like it when they underestimate me… Oh, and yeah, there are enough WMDs here to make the Avians blush like elven whores. So yeah, it’s another Wednesday. Turns out, this planet is also hot. Oh, also forgot to mention our lives are in danger. Along that surprising news, Corvus likes to stab things. I’m just not surprised anymore. When your survival chances are less than 1% to begin with, a loss of 50% of that only shocks you so much. I’ve done more in my 16 years than half of the Elders of Azurstar have even read about in one hundred times that. I’m going to see if Northhorn has some chocolate… I have a craving that doesn’t go away… Fuck Seamus and his time breaking bullshit… There will never be anything that good ever again…

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 17:) Echoes of What is to Come Again, only so much surprises me right now. To be honest, this did: it started when Holly Jax left. We had a few moments to ourselves when gopher man Herold and his polite roommate showed up. Both were here in their official capacity. Security. Trigger happy, battle ready, angry, and surprised security forces were here, and looking right at me. Well, this is my mess, so might as well clean it up. I put on my best surprised face and went of to talk to them. I was “worried and surprised” he would visit me right now, and when he told me he was tracking the teleportation access we stole I decided to do my typical move. Lie out my ass until the problem goes away. Really, it was too easy. I almost want to complain about how often people fall for a pretty face and and pouty lip. I had him back pedaling in seconds. Then I offered to help in his search. Not only was he believing me, but was considering letting me work with him. I just needed a few more seconds… a little more time… but nope. Seth let his brain waves roam free into the void. Everyone here got blasted with his vision. Soon, and it was very soon, there would be reptilian berserkers selling cookies at our front door. Only problem was the cookie were actually death and pain. I’m really glad I’m just a telepath. I could never get used to the future bursting into my head and telling me stuff was about to happen. In anycase, there was a law enforcement knock on the door. Harold told me it was not his back up. Great. No one was moving, so I sighed and walked on over and opened the door. Tress stormed past me and up to an empty spot in the room. He then talked to Grey, who was cleverly disguised as nothing. I closed the door and toggled the lock as I looked back with annoyance at Tress. He then told me to move from the door because I was in danger. I told him that his powers of observation are truly limitless in my most sarcastic voice. A quick walk back to Harold as Corvus carried Northhorn out the window like a bag of groceries and down like a pile of plasteel. I guess it made sense, we didn’t see him in the vision… I took up position and I shit you not, Bjorn burst from the hallway giggling like a mad man. In each had was a bulky plasma grenade and his cannon was strapped to his back hastily. I was more scared of him than the incoming horde… It didn’t take long before a shimmer overtook the area around the door… That must have been Seth… All I know is the next thing to happen was our door melting and a rush of crocodiles turned to stone, had holes blown in them, chunks of flesh ripped off, and finally melted by plasma. Fire filled the hallway behind the door, and I could swear I saw skull bits flying and a suit of power armor in the flames… That one must be Corvus. The whole incident took about 10 seconds. Tress and Grey went away for 4 of those. When they came back, Commander Hail was here. Sometimes things just get better by the second. He actually fixed everything, interrogated a survivor, killed said survivor, and said “Hi” before leaving. Really friendly. Corvus killed the imp spy thing, and we got to live, and Grey gets to have a second date. Not one to be outdone, I plan one with Harold too. When everyone leaves, the calmness feels weird. Where’s Bjorn doing something stupid when you need him. I barely had enough time to write this and get ready for date number two… Alas, the great show waits for no one. <> Bedtime stories are supposed to be things that help children sleep. Too bad this one lets nightmare seep into the brain. Once upon a time, a valiant and dexterous princess went to a ball with a young woodland warrior. The two had seen monsters defeated side by side mere hours ago. After surviving the fight, the representatives of their two kingdoms met under the guise of a courtship to fool the evil wizard lurking behind the scenes. Together they discussed many things, like the powerful woodland ranger, the death of a kraken, a fake past the princess made up, magic, and of course the future of the realm. Only once the night was over did they discover that an ancient evil vampire who was thought to be dead, had cursed the princess. To the less imaginative, I went out with Harold and while the same plane was used with alcohol to loosen his lips, we soon found out that something bad was happening around the bazaar. Staticite buyers were dying, squidbilly was murdered (the one working for Jax), and the Sheriff had been active. Security was continuously ramping up too… The intel was much less important this time, except that I had the inside scoop on Tiamat’s new arrival time… I was heading out of the bar with Harold… he wanted to show me something and… and I felt his presence… Stryder… He was here… The cigar smell crashed through me as my body began stuttering and my mind screaming. I barely held control as I asked for a public terminal to tell my team I needed a pickup… With that, Gil pulled me out… I crashed to the floor of the apartment living room and began to throw up. I told Harold to run, and just turned of the data pad. I was shaking on the ground as I told Seth that staticite murders were happening, squidbilly was dead, and Tiamat was almost here. He was content with my ability to speak as a sign that I was fine… I could have used help… but I suppose no one wants to deal with a puking woman. I let the cleaning bot help me out before I told Corvus the news… Stryder was back. I went to Grey’s room and took his vampire hunting box. Turning the datapad back on I told him I had it so he wouldn’t freak out. As I was walking back out of his room, I heard Bjorn snoring like a chemfuel generator. I was about to head to my room when Seth called me out. Setting the box on the table and looking pretty bad… He told me to close my eyes and empty my mind. I couldn’t do it completely… There was too much hate for Stryder there… But when he finished him magic and I opened my eyes again, he was telling me that it was all in my head… Styder is dead. Stryder is dead. Stryder is dead… We watched him die. He isn’t back. It’s in my head. I may have had a bit of trouble believing it… but he did show me the truth… I let Corvus know my mistake and nothing more. I guess I’m not as mentally stable as I thought. Sleep isn’t coming easy right now either… So maybe getting this typed out will help… But it doesn’t feel like it… I’m just gonna turn this off and try harder… Stryder is dead. Stryder is dead. Stryder is dead… <> It’s fieldtrip time now! Finally, some light hearted fun. Going to an old mine, might shoot some sand snakes, and nothing is going to murder us!. Perfect! All we have to do is look for the most rare thing in existence: Corvus’s Personality! Ok, I really mean Mythril. Still, it’s going to be a relaxing day of doing nothing important. We’re just flying out- Gil sees a battleship of Horus hovering  over the mine… WHY DOES EVERYTHING END UP SUCKING HERE? <> I’m going to write this in order of events… but it’s the ending that’s important… It started so innocently… We went down a vent… Still light hearted and hopeful… I was even jubilant enough to show off some acrobatics as we disembarked the ship. The repulser pack was actually amazing. It was an easy way down for everyone except Bjorn who decided to just fall most of the way. He accidently slipped at the bottom too… In his defense, it was a possibly fatal mistake, and he took it very well. No scream, no fear… A brave man, or a stupid man. I lean towards brave, but hey, I’m not that nice as to believe it completely. I caught him before he could fall too far. Disaster was averted for now… We set up in defiance of gravity on the lip of the shaft, Grey was sneaking around, invisible to all but me and my true sighted scope. He explored for a while while I kept him under watch. Bjorn did some scanning and eventually found something wrong… Seth disappeared to go do some broken things after enchanting Bjorn’s helmet, who saw something wrong… he guessed some kind of radioactive material… I asked for his helmet to see for myself. Radioactive staticite. A stadium sized batch of ore. Something was very wrong here. That stuff… could destroy this planet with the nukes and mythril… About this time, Seth got back… Go figure, he had learned everything we just did ourselves. We decided Bjorn’s idea of “Blow this up” was actually a good one. So we started to make it happen. Using a powerful fate ritual, Seth used me as a conduit… the power slipped twice between my fingers, but when all hope was lost, I managed to ground myself, and I added my power to the ritual. Soon, Bjorn was walking around, suddenly more invisible than a nerd in high school. After 4 hours, we had the mine rigged up like a cannon… aimed at the battleship above us… Gods have mercy… for we have none.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 18:) A Monument to All Our Sins I couldn’t help but watch the raining rock. The team picked up enough comms traffic to rival the actual bazaar, but it was nothing compared to the sight before me. It was all so quiet as I watched armageddon… ragnarok… the end of the world in small scale… It was glorious and terrible at the same time. Something in my mind made me watch with more fascinating than horror. Such destructive force... I sat in wonder until reality pulled me back… During this mission, we acquired a block of mythril… Gil says it’s worth 5.7 trillion credits… I can’t help but remember the core world bank Seamus showed me… Seth is telling people to head back to the bazaar as he deals with our cargo. I decided to offer a hand. He’s good, but it might take more than one person to deal with a block this big... <> It was a long search… miles of sand and rock. Eventually I spotted a disturbance in the sand. We got closer and found it to be a large facility. It was abandoned long ago, and that was fine by us. We took a moment to check for life, and feeling nothing to connect to in any direction but Seth’s scary brain, declared the area safe. Seth did some piloting that could only be described as “Gods have mercy, I don’t want to die! Please let Seth recover from this madness!” Of course it worked. We dropped the shiny block out the cargo hold and put boots on the ground. Under this rocky overhang, and in the middle of this sand pit, Seth started trying to talk to some spiritual things. I sat and watched. So these are the air elementals I read about. Most sources say they are little more than fiction. I watched them play and dance, few took interest in me… but it was almost cute. This took a long time before Seth got them to bury the Mythril. That only took seconds. Then, with a typically bored face, Seth led us back to the ship and made contact with the team. Crazy bastards got two ships and as many pilots/conscripts. Seth was pleased, so at least he won’t be lecturing me about something on the way back. <> Spaceport security is up lately, probably our fault because of the ground cannon… But hey, who doesn’t like to see how they change the world? Anyway, we get inspected on our arrival. It wasn’t an issue, but it was tedious. Eventually we were cleared and the security personnel left. With that, Seth and I started to walk off the ship. Before we got more than 3 steps, Seth stopped. Before I can ask what the issue was, I found my mind being pulled away from me like a river. Long ago I learned not to panic like this. Fighting back is futile… Seth’s visions can grab those around him, and I will never get used to it. We found ourselves hearing from Commander Hail that he was turning himself over. This whole time, all we had to do was talk to them… As I stood watching, some armored figure dropped in for a visit. He said that we were going to hand over the commander. Really? You have to be either stupid or packing serious firepower and allies. Knowing our luck, we didn’t just find the local nutcase. Tress asked Seth if he was mid vision, and he nodded. The next thing I knew, a headache blasted me as the real world came crashing back… Seth gave an order to get the team back here, and it was a simple enough task. Not long after, we made contact with the extraction team. It wouldn’t be long until we were out of here… To speed things up, Hail and Tress just showed up. After introductions were over, Seth said we had a little more business to handle. Of course we did. After a magical carpool we had a dragon to visit. <> There are only so many times I can meet the traveler, right? Seamus is going to learn about me eventually. Literally he has to. As we talked to mister dragon, we got blasted with the typical “you’ve done this before, hurry it up.” Can’t we ever just do things in chronological order? Why does time have to spasm out around us? In any case, Corvus is going to lose an eye. I kinda want to “see” that. It would be hard to “not see” something like that coming now. The “look” on his face will be priceless. I’m ahead of myself… I need to save these for when the time comes. We apparently are out of time… again. With a backpack full of fun and my favorite order form seth, “Ambella, get somewhere to do some damage,” we all got to work. I was running down the hall, opening a call to Harold on the way. It took a lot more words than I thought it would to convince him that the world was about to end around him. I got him to my sniper spot in person, but he was hesitating to pull the lever on a system wide security overdrive mode. So I did the one thing I knew would work. I shared the vision that Seth shared with us, the end of the world. Turns out, demons destroying everything turns heads. As he got that set up, some friendly neighborhood problems showed up. Another Seth vision extravaganza showed this armored fellow being more than annoying later, so, I gave him a redesign of the inner cranium via a sweet 7.62x51mm interior to exterior decorating agent. Instead of a happy red mist cloud, this guy’s head shot sparks and metal everywhere. I couldn’t help literally groaning in annoyance. I confirmed to kill over the radio, thinking that maybe he was an AI… maybe he is, because some more body doubles showed up. I tried to pull the same move again, but I didn’t kill it this time. I guess the change in angle kept something alive in there. Grey moved like the wind to finish it off though. Nothing has any right to move like that… It’s… unnatural. The guys called out that more problems were on the way and grey fired his pistols hire up. I couldn’t see where, but they confirmed a kill nonetheless. When another one was spotted… Gods… How do I describe something so absurd? Corvus doesn’t like to be out done in combat, but all he has is this hammer... So he had Northhorn, the tiny lizard, launch him into the air. I watch in a dumbfounded awe as mister power armor screams and flails at this wall as a robot begins matching his fall. Corvus proceeds to hit the thing 6-9 times with a hammer during his gravity inspired landing. When he hits the ground, covered in bits and pieces of this thing, he stands up, shakes it off, and acts like he just shot one. What’s wrong with him? It took a minute for the all clear to go out, but once it does Harold told me things were going well and he had places to be. I told him that he should meet us by our ship with some entertaining instructions. I had to meet up with the guys on the roof now. <> It started innocently enough… We grouped up and were teleported to the central plaza. Gil had our drones set up around us… all good news and stuff. Then the sky ripped open and all hell broke loose. Literally. Demons… thousands… tens of thousands… I don’t know… So many poured out. For a small second it looked like out concentrated fire would hold them in the eye of the storm as we killed them fast enough to make a river of blood flow. Then they began making it out of the portal alive. My job began where the other’s ended; I shot anything large enough to make it out and not bleed to death on the ground. A screaming bull thing? Gave it a peep hole for its knocker. Giant misshapen Rahooman? Losts its seeing privileges. This went on until the literal imagination of my mind ran out of comparisons I could make between these things. I put enough rounds down range to make a machine gunner jealous. Still, I was only targeting the big things. Seth was tearing things apart with magic and mind alike. Wave fell before his mastery of the incaporial and intangible. Minds were melted, if not physically by Seth, then actually physically by the cackling dwarf who stood on a table with his bag open and enough plasma grenades for his naughty list. At one point, he tossed some sort of payload into the air and used his plasma gun to baseball bat it into some poor creatures natural face orifice. The thing didn’t get any uglier, but it got a lot more hollow as it died. Corvus was slick in gore as he cut and smashed anything dumb enough to challenge him. Gargantuan beasts were brought to their knees before the gladiator and their souls silenced with naught but a scream. There were few times I saw Grey, but everywhere I looked, his evidence was open for the keen of sight. Creatures executed in the back of the head, the beasts with the most surprise or actual fear in their eyes… Those too slow to see death itself float over the battlefield were often his targets, and there were many of them. Northhorn held entire sections himself with walls of fire that washed of these unholy targets. I can’t tell how many things I shot as fire burned away hardpoints and left soft skin open for precision strikes. It was all going too well. And then it happened. A brief moment of my mind slipping. A memory… A foe… Then a demon screaming above me with a godless crudgle hanging in its hands ready to crush me. I screamed in defiance and rage as the death blow came for me. As if summoned, Corvus hooked the massive weapon in his hammer’s arch and ripped the demon forward to meet his knee. Then again. Then once more. The hammer struck several times into the skull of the thing on the ground before he nodded to me. He shouldn’t have, as soon as he did, a twin monster sent him flyinging off into some structure. I had little time to do more than blast the thing’s face away before I saw Seth unaware of a similar fate. As the beast rose its hands, I severed them at the elbows with a well placed expander round. Bone and blood sprayed our valiant leader and he continued his work of ending the hordes himself. Moments later laughter and battle cries rang out as Corvus carved a way back to us. Soon we had friends as the Sheriff and several Guardians had joined our most glorious defiance of the end. I saw no way for this to end well… And soon waves of tiny things swarmed us. Gnawing, bitting, slashing, and pulling at us. Soon many of us fell… Myself included. All I could see was their little bastard faces screaming at me as they flailed against my armor. Then purging fire swept our own ranks as a battered Northhorn removed the worst of the subhorde. Hope was dying out… Even as Corvus would knock a demon to the sky as Grey would blast it down like a clay pigeon… I felt exhaustion gripping my bones, and the others as well. Their thoughts almost as easy to find as my own. The callous recklessness of Bjorn, screaming for more bodies to burn even as his supply was out called loudly and defiantly. The cold reserve of Corvus wavered as he began to suspect his own death. Pride filled his being and offered me a solace I did not expect. Grey was in constant shifts of fear and power. His being was in turmoil as our last moments came running towards us… He didn’t feel ready… The haze of Seth was even comforting as his mind hummed in powers beyond my reckoning. When I felt my rifle click, and my last round had been spent, I reached for my dagger and awaited my end. Destiny had a funny way of mocking us though, for her lordship, Tiamat, had decided to make that moment her entrance. With all the power of the universe, and only the wave of her hand, she had wiped every demon away and closed the whole in our reality. I wanted to fall to my knees and cry… But I couldn’t miss this chance, for she walked directly to us. Many bowed before her, but I refrained. I do not bow to those I owe no allegiance. She spoke to Seth… Called him by name and by “we” multiple times. “We are the ones who lead” or something like that. I’m sitting here flipping my monocle around as Seth talks to us… Not really listening to him… (Audio Input Detected) Seth’s voice is clear and forceful. “... With all that said, do any of you have any questions?” a small pause is heard before a rather flat sounding Ambella speaks up. “Who’s ‘we’?” another pause answered by a confused Seth. “What do you mean?” Ambella is quicker to respond. “Tiamat kept saying ‘we’ when talking to you. Who is ‘we’?” Seth doesn’t respond for a moment. Once he does, it’s in a clear and once again firm voice. “I understand you want answers, but now is neither the time or the place for this discussion. Trust me, we will talk about this, but for now you must wait.” (Audio Input Terminated.) He has promised to tell us after this ordeal is over… I guess waiting is fair, it’s not often you catch a god by the balls. <> While we wrapped up the Mythril, Hail took half of it as quiet money and claimed to be playing nice. All the assholes of the universe are playing nice, what a great time to be alive. Never thought I’d see a dwarf cry though. It wasn’t long until we had shipped them away and everything was winding down. We get to take a pleasure cruise back to federation space before receiving our next mission… I’m so excited… At least I have time to work on some stuff as Seth figures out how to tell us his big secret.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 19:) Execution by Official Orders Time has been going quickly on this cruise. Jennifer has been stopping by to help with my continued training of mirror magic and even introduced me to my doppelganger. It’s pretty interesting talking to her. We have a lot in common, but several major differences. I’m talking life changing discrepancies. Most of those are uncomfortable, and I politely refused to get into them. Mirror me is just as curious as me though, and I could tell she wanted to explore more about us and the differences we had. We had to cut things short when she poked too hard into family life. It’s weird, a stranger knows so much about me, and vice versa, but a stranger she is… Jennifer weighed in about her doppelganger too, poor things is probably dead. I don’t know, mirror me is cool and all, but I can’t spend all my time studying her… <> My order finally came in! These little drones will help me with targeting and range finding. Little bastards will help change the game. I was carrying them back home, when I almost bumped into Grey. He helped me bring them back to my room on the ship and we ended up chatting for a bit. Eventually we brushed on the mirror magic I had been using, after he brought up his magical lessons with Seth and his new pistol. In hope of inspiration to continue his craft, I introduced him to Jennifer and we had a fun chat. When she had to go, we got into some literature discussion. Grey, as it turns out, isn’t the next in line to be arch librarian or anything, so we got him settled on some nice audio recordings of Schiothor’s 89th Edition of “Sounds of Souls and Kin,” one of my favorite poetry books. It’s betting in print, but if I can share it in any way, I’m a happy woman. Grey sounded a bit worried, but hopeful. It sounded like he planned to read them to his gun… That’s almost cute. Knowing he might feel a tad… spoken down to, I went for a more simple gesture of my friendship and offered him Gil’s massive file of ancient classical music genres. I think he liked this gift more. He went off to do more Grey things as I figured out how these drones worked… <> Seth finally decided to make good on his promise of explaining his connection to Tiamat. It was gonna cost us a bit more than I was expecting though. Apparently, this was a big deal to him, enough to where our wills to honor secrecy were too weak to stand up to interrogation… For our safety and his, we bound ourselves in blood and secrecy. Now, as my thoughts can recall the details, I am unable to present my new information here, though it is extraordinary. Seth took a risk sharing this with us, and I shall not forsake him, even if I could. I don’t consider many to own my loyalty, but Seth does. Let that speak for itself. <> Mission time will never be the same. We stood there, on the side of this portal, being briefed one last time to find this thing and get info on it, and were sent out to die. Yeah, it happened twice before, but come the fuck on. “This planet has been under siege by the Hemeo Titan for like 80 years, the Scorch is there, they have been pushed back to this shitty little town, we’ll see you in four months. Fuck these Federation guys. If Seth wasn’t so keen on them, I’d offer them some high velocity criticism. Gods this place is a dump. We were “greeted” by the last semblance of command and got to learn a bit about the surrounding area. Seth gave me the go ahead to scout out this wasteland for a while. Before I went to check it out, a young Avian dropped in and helped out more with the info. Poor thing, reminded me of a much more pure me… He father on the other hand… was a tool. He had slaves to use as defensive personnel, but was also a dick. I got over to the wall and decided that being a target would suck, so I made a few distractions. Four extra me’s came into existence and I followed myself up to the ramparts. Does my armor really make my butt look like that? I don’t want to get a second opinion though… Might sound too much like and invitation to talk about it… In any case, I could see for miles. I had us all set up in unison and took a look. Only in a few spots did i find interesting things. Mines, sniper positions, that tank everyone was talking about, the repair shop the avian chick was talking about, and way out there, the city. I spent a while looking out there. A deadzone, a wasteland, and a bad sense of “Seth is making us go out there soon” was all I put together. I pointed out what I saw to Seth, and we spent a minute going over it before he took off. Fun times awaited… I talked to the young avian, Lilith, about assisting me in reaching a radio tower, but she wasn’t really of the strength to pull off a cary, or a boost, or more than handing me my rifle after I got into my spot. At least she really wants to help. <> Seth had us gather up, decided to make a move on that tank faster than I thought he would. The man is… well, he does like his action. Personally I would have liked a bit more time to settle in and learn the place, but his commander hat is nice and shiny, and mine… wait a second, he doesn’t even wear a hat. In any case, it’s a long ride out to this fucked up old shack… garage? Store. Repair shop! Place. Yeah, this place with the tank parts. Seth got us a truck. Of course I get to sit on the back of this thing. It’s one of those canvas covered things. Nice bench seats back here too. Totally feel nice and safe and comfortable. <> I just realized how many of these entries I start after a combat engagement that are negative. I’m gonna try and change that now. So, we are totally alive! No problems with any important organs with any of us (though I’m worried Bjorn eats gunpowder like the enlisted eat crayons)! We got to the place and I failed to notice before, but the place had a spider problem. Now, by problem, I mean infestation. When I said spider, I meant dog sized, web spinning, space spiders. Bjorn used the right amount of explosives to kill everything inside though, so it wasn’t too bad… We had to pick through the webs for the tank parts though, and no one looked pleased when I screamed after accidentally grabbing a spider mandible thinking it was a tool. Assholes… It wasn’t until we got out before the artillery strike that I realized how fucked we were here. We were driving away when a single drop pod hit the building, and a rather unfairly beautiful woman stepped out to look directly at us as we drove away. Now I often wave at things, mostly things I shouldn’t wave at. It’s just a thing I do for fun. I only managed a meek wave as we drove off… Think I’m being a little too… Uh… Fuck it, a girl’s thoughts are nothing to be ashamed of. <> Seth dropped me off at that radio tower I saw earlier. I have to admit, he knows what the ladies like. It wasn’t too hard to get into position either, the gravpack from our last mission is pretty helpful. I got set up and ranged a few things. With one look at the tank, I saw that drop dead beauty a mile away… Not one to waste a position, I got out the Volt. If I had to do something, at least this would bother her. I like my normal rifle, don’t get me wrong, but I could shoot my rifle out of the Volt if I wanted to. I told the guys about our new friends, then spent some time… admiring from a safe distance as the boys rolled up. <> Once Seth got there, he went out to talk to her. Strangely enough, Corvus was his bodyguard this time. Bastard is probably being about as dumb as I am with her, but at point blank range. The conversation is actually pretty short. Seth pulled the typical “Hey, watch me do this fun stuff” routine, the titan said hi to all of us and gave me my wave back, and we got to watch her vanish into the air. With some luck, we might be ok… Repairs are about to start on the tank, but I’m seeing something on the horizon… <> So, demons decided to welcome us to the neighborhood. They were hours away… But still… That’s pretty rude to charge your new neighbors in a suicide rush. I decided a warning shot was in order. Now, when a mass of demons is barrelling down the countryside, it’s only nice to give them something to chew on for their trip. One Volt canister should have been plenty. I hadn’t shot this thing in the many months since I had it, and I won’t lie, I really didn’t need to shoot it into the mass of demons. Gods it was worth 5 million credits though. I lined up the biggest fucker I could and started the firing process. It charged for a moment, then two… I could swear that I felt the draw of air into a void just before it fired. Silence filled the second I pulled the trigger as my body lurched violently and the thrusters all fired to keep me from blowing away like a leaf, then a defining explosion. I had a moment to yell in pain before I was my work though, my hand hadn’t been on the grip right, and I burned the tips of my fingers. Rooky mistake… I got my eyes back on the horde just in time to watch this round decimate their ranks. My first target just exploded into gore… then an unknown number behind him… then the ground exploded in the middle of their ranks. My ears had just stopped ringing when I realized I had fired a cannon into a soft target. I screamed out in joy as the team looked about as shocked as you would expect. Except for Seth… and actually everyone… Ok, they were all working on the tank, but I’m too excited to care. This was fucking awesome! Too fun! <> We had just gotten reinforcements called in the moment after I shot the Volt, and they showed up. Enough ground units to defend the tank, and another sniper, Killer Bee, to share my post with. Now… She’s not only a good shot, but a good… fuck it. This place is gonna kill me, I can say her ass looked good. We had a good chat while we waited… Turns out she knew Dawn. It was almost awkward, but hey, she took the news in stride. I got the sense the two were closer than she was letting on, but still, she eventually counter flirted me, which I am embarrassed to say, got me flustered. Our talk got interrupted when some monstrosity showed up on the battlefield. It looked smug and ugly, and disgusting and smug. I had to put something between its eyes. As I aimed, I was a forcefield of unparalleled strength and power. He was about to see why we were worth a thousand men though. I aimed the Volt and saw the targeting computer working the trajectory of my shell. I smiled and fired. The shell slammed into the field around the monster, and cracks and sparks flew in every direction and the thing went from smug and defiant, into a fearful child. Killer Bee lobbed two more round by the time I reloaded and vented the Volt. the second one showed the monster the fear of death, the third shot delivered that fear. No leader, the enemy continued its charge into the most unfair battle I have ever seen. Killer Bee and I just talked for a while. When everything was done, and I vaulted the security railing to land on the ground below, I unintentionally took Killer Bee’s signature move. She said I owed her drinks for that. I wasn’t gonna say no to that. <> Seth had other plans… We were going into the city now, tank joining the fight. The drive wasn’t even remotely fun. Mostly just sitting around until we found this strange thing. It was pompous and annoying, claiming to be spreading scorch. We all were ready to kill it, when Seth and some other future seer guy decided that doing that would be bad. Our friendly Commander Manwise isn’t having any, so I tried to tempt him with news of another offblood. He more of gets bored than interested, but comes over either way. I share my knowledge anyway, as I promised him I would. Learned something new about them too. Kind of a sad fate. In any case, we had ground to gain if we were to search this city for survivors.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 20:) What Was, Shall Be Again Our convoy arrived to the ruined city to the sounds of battle. Clearly, someone was against the idea of dying right now, and they had friends. We pulled up to some tents and we all filed out. I stretched and… Seth’s Chimera flag reigned of the encampment. I sighed as I realized that this situation went from fucked up, to completely fucking ruined in the face of time. I just fell into my own thoughts as we walked into the tent. I spent my time in the back row… eyes on a particular sniper’s back. Visors are actually really nice for that… It took a painfully long time to notice the proceedings before me. Some very large legionnaire was talking to our team, and he bore the Crest of the Waning Star wreathed around his Chimera flag. An honorary symbol to honor the glorious dead of Azurestar. Something no one would know but a native… Then it got weirder, I was grabbed, squeezed, and lifted by a legionnaire of another caliber. He called me “Lord Ambella” as he did as much damage with a hug that was ever possible. With little to do but hug back, in the air as I was, I did. This man had the horns and antlers of less than natural creatures fastened to him like trophies. The others meet similarly armored men, who address them with similar levels of familiarity and titles. Apparently, Corvus really does get knighted at some point… or maybe I have some more authority than I imagined. Seth’s even getting called the “Supreme Commander.” I was barely keeping up when we started moving out… I said underhandedly that time is convoluted… the bastards all laughed and said “typical Ambella stuff.” I guess they do know me. To my surprise, these legionaries were vicious. Captured demons were put to one of two uses; warnings from the scary bodies, and slaves from the appealing looking succubi were visible all around the camp. Sharpshooters and soldiers alike patrolled and we learned that they went from 1 million, to 1 thousand. Casualties didn’t really scare them anymore, and they were planning a sortie into the scorch to rescue their Commander Bloodmoon. Our Commander Bloodmoon? I’m already just done with this time bullshit. In any case, Seth is already giving orders and getting the men geared up. I have a little to get ready for our charge into hell… <> So, it was a charge into hell. I’m not a frontline soldier… But there I was, running head first into the fight of a lifetime, if things went wrong. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Seth and the commanders, we made our way into the scorch. I felt it like a wave… It washed over me like a… Imagine feeling your skin one moment. You can feel the atmosphere around you, sometimes the ionosphere of a planet, often the temperature too. You feel all of this, and if you are gifted, you can feel other energies as well. The scorch makes it all disappear and replaces it with a burning hot, sweaty scratching that tries to eat its way into your skull. Its a pressure that forces its way into you and wants to take everything. It is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. We marched for hours in this… Several times I wanted to fall to the ground and scream… but all that would do is kill me… so I marched on, almost in a daze. As we got close to the hulk, Seth pulled my mind into a vision. No matter how strong my defenses are, he rips into my mind and drags me screaming to his futures… Nothing is more jarring than having your mind dragged to an unknown time and place. I was in the hall with Corvus’s commanding officer. We were walking down a hallway, him in front with a shield of epic power before us. Shots slammed into it and the madman laughed as we advanced. I would peak over him for a second, if that, and remove one of the gunners shooting at us. It was too easy… That’s when something shot out of the wall to our right and took down the legionnaire. Visions of a bright future. No one else was bothered, so I figured that Seth was on top of it. Marching on was the only option anyway. It took a while longer, but we got to the crashed ship with the commander inside, and we found three bloodmages… One of them turned half of the ship to a bloodmist that the flame troopers were quick to fight. They weren’t fast enough, as several men were hit with its wave. They screamed as the mist dissolved them alive. Slowly pulling armor and flesh and spirit alike to nothing but a pulp. I found it a blessing the scorch had hampered my telepathic abilities… for deaths like that… I can feel them… The soldiers shot their own as they were infected by this mist, said it was my idea to start… I can clearly see why. In the moment, I had to stay on my feet, but the memories… Some things are too wrong for this world… I asked Seth if I should give them something to think about besides spells, reaching for the Volt. While I wont kill them, it’s hard to focus when someone shoots this cannon at you. As I was ready to engage, they retreated. Leaving us to mop up the blood mist and secure the commander. Seamus. I was almost out of my mind by that point, and I found myself laughing that he was tied to us so closely. He was more than happy to see us, but not a little lover boy caught up with me. So, time still saw it fit to play backwards. We gathered him and booked it towards safety. Well… Safer than that hellscape. <> Getting back wasn’t so bad, and the crashing of reality back upon me felt more satisfying than the elven twins on Eritos. Once back, it didn’t take long for Seth to start getting things in order. We were lead to a bar of sorts to relax and recover. For the second time today, a young elven girl grabbed me and hugged me harder than anyone ever had. She said she knew I would return… I had no idea who she was, and I think that hurt me more than what I saw before in the field. I could burn a thousand worlds to ash, but to have someone react this way to me, and only to feel confusion… It just isn’t right either. I told her I would love to catch up, but I had to deal with a few things first. She went back to the hug and told me she would be right outside the bar waiting for me. I hugged back, and left her for my comrades. We sat at the bar, and were served a few drinks. These… refreshments… were from a beast that took up the back wall. I’m not normally picky about food, but drinking untreated milk from something like that? I was uncomfortable. I wasn’t going to be the only one left out though… So I got a mug. Turns out I have a few screws loose still… The milk is hallucinogenic… I saw my mother, caring as always, but then Stryder took a step from the shadows and stepped next to her in a fake “loving” stance. It took every muscle of my body to resist grabbing my gun and shooting the fucker… but he is dead, and this wasn’t real. Stryder is dead. Stryder, is dead. Stryder. Is. Dead.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 21:) When the World Ends, the Immortal Shall Fear the Mortal I was in the bar with the team, that’s what was happening. The world shifted back to what it was supposed to be as Seamus took a sliver of mythril from Bjorn. I was more curious than anything as the dwarf normally went rabid at the thought of someone touching his beloved super metal. To everyone’s surprise, the traveling commander just broke it up and shaped a bunch of marbles out of it. Seamus kept one, but sent the others floating back to Bjorn. I’ll be damned if his eyes didn’t light up like a child on The Blessed 3rd. He got this wicked smile… and I could tell something had just changed in our favor. Some time ago, I gave Bjorn a Volt round in hopes of his improvement. We theorized that with mythril and staticite we could make a round of immense power. He just couldn’t get the pieces in the right shapes to do it. I had almost let it slip my mind, but maybe Bjorn was thinking the same thing right then and there. All I know, is Seth was. With a moment is passing, Seth started getting us to act on some fun sounding orders. Bjorn was to finish production of his God Killer Rounds, as the name implied, they were our new weapon against these titans. I was to get a nice spot to shoot from, as we were going to be having a party out by the ship we got Seamus from. The others had a meeting to attend with our Offblood friend. We just had to get him on board with our little operation. The fake surender sounded good to me, and Seamus swore we could get ships down here if we offered him as tribute… So we went about it. If we could just get a ship to evacuate our people to Nel Frane we would be in good shape. I took my leave to start the task of hunting down the right spot, when I was the young elven girl from earlier still waiting for me.I walked up to her in hopes of clearing up our position. She gave me another hug, to which I was inclined to respond with similar force. After a moment she asked me how I had been. It was hard to answer her in any sort of way other than just starting with the truth. I asked her if she knew what I meant about time being… odd. She said I had taught her much on the issue. I then, in a long winded way, told her this was my first time meeting her. She was sad for a bit, but then was happy enough to introduce herself as my niece. It took me a moment, but by the gods, I had family here. I hugged her with the strength of all our ancestors and smiled. If she was family, nothing else mattered. With Samantha in tow, we got to a nice spot for me to set up position, when she offered me a skating lesson. I was confused, until she told me to just start skating and she would handle the rest. With a shrug a mimicked the actions and soon found myself in the air and moving towards my position in the air with Sam right next to me. This was actually really awesome. <> We spent a long time just talking, it turns out I’m going to teach her about mirror magic… Me a teacher? That’s a worrying concept. I don’t like to doubt myself… but my track record is… I need to learn a lot more before I’m really ready to teach other people. The only thing I’m confident enough to teach is how to shoot a rifle, and that’s only because the consequences are a lot more manageable. I know this war has been going on for 50 or so years, but we Corvus is there, and I doubt I’m going to be a master of anything in a human’s combat effective lifetime. Whatever happens, Sam sure as hell knows her craft. It feels good to have family close by that I find myself caring for. It’s been too long since I saw my mother, and my father would only bother talking to me if I fried another psychic tester. Odd how the worst mission we’ve been on yet is feeling most like home. <> It wasn’t too bad of a wait until mission time came around. Seth had everything planned out and I had only one job: kill titans on command. The test round Bjorn made me fired flawlessly and I was eager to use the real thing. I had 4 rounds. There were four titans… I wanted to use them all, but Seth convinced me that leaving survivors would be to our benefit. I’m no tactical genus, but I saw the merits of his plan after a brief explanation of first hand witnesses. I was to kill Leukemia when Seth gave the signal. Well, the hope was to kill her. I ran over the wind and elevation one last time and double checked my range. These things were worth small freighters if my math was right… Missing wasn’t an option. Not that it ever is. Whenever I get assassin detail, it’s a guarantee someone is dead. I smiled as the plan started moving. Columns of soldiers marched out of the city as we moved to be ready. I lost most of the team as things fell into place, but they weren’t my targets. I find myself in a special trance when something like this comes about. With little in my way, I watched. I saw the blood mages make an appearance. I saw Seamus being brought out to the front slowly. I heard the comms as the team infiltrated the ship. It all felt like I was watching a movie through my own eyes. Then, Seth appeared out front, nest to Seamus. The titans all reacted in a confused, but uncaring manner. Seth told them how things were going down as I sighted in on Leukemia. It was perfect. She was squared off with me. Like a target silhouette. A little imagination and I could start to see rings and numbers. She wasn’t aware of the danger I guess, because she started to talk back to Seth. It was easy to miss, if I wasn’t waiting on it. A simple hand motion: the order. Instinct took me and I found myself acting as I had always done. The Volt registered the trigger, the draw of power sucked my breath away, and then the sonic boom of the projectile leaving the barrel. I had but a moment to feel the heat radiating off as I watched for the impact. Leukemia opened her mouth, a look of contempt on her face, right as the bullet, if it could be called that, collided with her spine, right behind those teeth. There was an explosion that was brilliant and aweful at the same time. Blue and while fire and smoke with red mist expanding rapidly in all directions. It was less than a second before it all dissipated. The titans were stunned, but Seth kept right on going as I loaded in another shell. I began setting up another shot, when a bright flash caught my eye from further down the ship. I saw as Grey lept between the legs of Arturus and into the ship. The titan looked more than a little murdery, and was a contender for being a better shot than me. So I decided he may like a little reminder. As he had his back to me, I lined up a quick shot, for the titan was about to follow Grey back into the ship. Another hum if energy, more power pulling away from the world and into this weapon, and another sonic boom. The titan was faster than I really guessed, and instead of another spinal tap, I believe I hit him in a vital organ. About where the human liver is. I still was the explosion, but it was more contained and muffled. Burning sinew shot out the front of the once mighty man, and if it wasn’t for the instant collapse he had, I would have heard his scream. Seth had ordered me to wait for his commands to shoot, but this was more important. Grey wouldn’t have lasted long with that thing on his tail, and personally I had something against him already. He could tell me about his disapproval later. In his defense, he kept right on with the script, and by the time I got the next Shell cycled, it was over. Mission complete. The team got the ship going, and I stayed ready to shoot more titans until the transport vessel was right above me. With the assistance of the grav pack, I jumped up and got on board before we flew for Nel Frane. Two titans down, many more to go. At this point, I would imagine they are rather unfond of me in Hemo HQ. <> Once we got back, Seth told us to start getting ready for retaliation. I had the idea of turning some of this militia into half decent sharpshooters, but most of the men were rather comfortable with their sub par training. After a while of training, Seth said to use some combat footage as inspiration… So I did. Projecting the killing shots of the two titans made for… a more enthusiastic crowd. I’d have my hands full for a little while. We all would be busy for a while...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 22:) A Prophecy Fulfilled Well, here we are. Since my little stunt with the murdering of a couple titans, the Hemo Titan’s forces have decided no more surrenders. Personally, I think it was Seth’s plan that made this happen, but I’ve gotten the nickname “The Destroyer of Nel Frane and Neptor. Everyone blames me, and is celebrating it. Strange… but I kind of like it. As for what’s actually happening, Nel Frane is a little more active than normal. The past days have gone by in a blur of work and training. Seth has been getting us into final prep recently though. Corvus is getting some rest, for he has a magic portal to hold open for 20 hours. The problem comes with mirror collection for this magic portal. The town is being raided for all the shiny things. I’m kinda keeping a few from the pile for myself… but it shouldn't make a difference. As time passed, and people scattered to get things finished before hell came, these titans showed up, pretty far away, but this sent everyone into a frenzy to finish. They were sitting behind a big shield, and as I ran to a perch I had set up, I stopped at the corner of a building, loaded a standard round into the chamber of my sniper rifle, then reminded that childish bitch that there was a friendly sniper who would be watching their every move. In my foolishness, I forgot how powerful titans are. Instead of bouncing off the shield in front of the bitch, it stopped, and she pulled it into the shield. No one touches my shit, even if I shoot it at them. I don’t know if it’s possible to get revenge on a titan, but by the gods I will find a way. I continued to run up broken stairs and eventually got to a high spot where I had a clean killzone set up, and a view of the wasteland beyond the city. That’s when I was him… it? That thing… It looked like a cross between a failed abortion and an outrageously cheating bodybuilder. Power flowed around it in such a way that I could see it from here… As I watched in horror, it looked at me. Our eyes met from here and then I felt it… digging at clawing into my mind. Sharp pain, lanced the back of my skull as it whispered to me with a gravely and terrible voice. Pressure and will bubbling from the cracks of my brain… He told me to shoot my teammates… to kill my friends. I stared at him for a moment, and did the only thing one can do when confronted with power so overwhelming; I laughed in his face. I don’t think he expected that, but hey, he had to contend with the absolute mountains of bullshit that have tried to fuck with my mind. No one gets to fuck with my head besides me, and I’m the best at it. Because Stryder is dead in real life and tortures my sleeping mind as if I wanted to hate myself. Oh wow, I’m ranting now. Bjorn got the shield up to protect the city a few hours ago and the sky has since been replaced with the rage of a flotilla in combat formation with a hard on for static target annihilation. We have runners getting messages to people now, and I’m honestly a little sad I can’t share more insults with the enemy comms specialists now. I guess I can recount the rounds hitting per second, but Corvus keeps fucking that up with his stupid “saving our lives shield” that Seth made. With nothing to do but wait, I feel that I’ll get bored soon, and that never ends well… <> Well, runners don’t deliver pieces of paper with phalices drawn on them, or Seth would have had a serious talk with me. In other news, there was a massive explosion of light above the shield with Corvus’s portal thing, then in the next moment, the portal was gone. I leaned from Seth later that a rather impressive command ship, in full retreat, got the saved up bombardment right up the ass. I'm going to make sure to stay extra far away form his bad side. Style of the season looked to be “on fire and exploding in the void.” With that out of the way, Seth had to start up the second part of his plan: fairies. He took Corvus to go look at the little things, and I half expect only Seth to come back… I hope to see them soon, this is no place to die… <> I am not good with patience. Now I know what you are going to say, “Ambella, you are a sniper, it’s all about patience!’ and I say fuck you, I can do it, it just sucks. As those two were gone, more titans showed up. The worst one walked out into the open, called me out by name, and asked me not to shoot him! He literally just walked out and asked me to not kill him. That’s literally asking me to kill him. Then it gets worse, he started screaming for Corvus to come fight him in single combat. I have never had somethings head in my reticle for longer than him. It took an hour for Seth and Corvus to get back. An hour of this thing screaming and crying about not wanting to get snipped and wanting to fight Corvus. I got to spend too much time looking at him though, after I couldn’t find a diversion force trying to set something up that is… and he looked a lot like Corvus… Way too much like Corvus. When Seth got a look at him, he shared that it was Corvus… Future Titan Corvus… I give up, time is bullshit and means nothing. We all die eventually and at any point in time you can just rewrite the rules. Fuck it. <> Seth had to explain to Corvus that there is no way to beat himself in combat. Titian Corvus is just better in every way. I wonder if Corvus was listening, because sure as day turns to night, he walked out alone into the field. Everyone looked surprised. Even the titans. Then, like idiots, they stripped all their armor, and got ready to fight each other. I had the Volt ready to deal with any cheaters or bullshit, and to save Corvus from his own death, but I wouldn’t be fast enough… Corvus, the dumb fucker, found the one rule of time. If the past dies, the future cannot happen. It was honestly a blur of swings and parries… but I saw him hook the titan’s blade and plunge in into his own heart. The titan screamed as his own chest opened up, and that little bitch, Capulus, stepped out of the shield with her thieving little hands. One outstretched and she looked like she was about to do something rather stupid. If Corvus was going to die for this kill, then no one was going to interfere. With a simple shot, I lined up at her elbow, and reminded the titans that they are bound to mortality as much as we were right now. The payload left my cannon with a sonic boom, and my stabilizers fired and roared. In a heartbeat the explosion severed her arm and massive fire burned at her side and face. Shrapnel of metal and bone put holes in her that would take more than a moment to heal. Her screams echoed Titan Corvus as our own fell to his knees, then to the ground. I cycled the magazine release and slammed another round into the chamber, ready to kill the next thing to dare defy the sacrifice Corvus had just made. Capulus just screamed as she fell back into the dome with her coward friends. Hate burning on her face, and rage flowing from them all. I didn’t move. I wasn’t going to let them do a damn thing. <> It’s been two days of this now. Us watching, them setting up. I’ve had very few chances to snipe anything, and less of a chance to do more than train the small amount of troops in my crash course sharpshooter program. Though it has become harder to dedicate myself to these duties. In times of doubt, I found myself focused on one thing, killing as many “gods” as I could. Two deaths for one of ours was not a high enough price to pay. There would be enough blood for their mages to blush at as I cut swaths of their kind down. My only regret is the merciful quickness my shots would entail. The fear though, I would have the living know me. Let them cower before a mortal, and their shame will eat them alive. This is the promise I have made for Corvus. I intend to fulfil it. We shall burn his remains tonight, lest this cursed world swallow his corporeal being. May his soul be at peace. <> I have seen many things, known of many things, but what we saw at Corvus’s funeral was… Unique. We had gathered for the pyre and as we set the base aflame lightning struck in rapid succession on Corvus's prepared body. I know little beyond lighting is bad to be hit with for internal organs, but three hits and the will of someone powerful, and Corvus was moving. I barely remember anything, but it felt like Corvus, his mind was his own and I stepped onto the flaming pile and hugged him. I might have stood there for a little longer than I should have, because he sounded worried about the heat. Right, fire burns things. We got off and after a long round of welcomes and smiles, we were back to normal... Or as normal as we could get around here.                                                                                                                 <> Seth pulled me aside today, and he spoke to me of his plans to leave for some time. He had magical work to do. While we held the city, he was going to secure the portal beneath us. He said it would take his full concentration lest he fail and the death of the universe and beyond come to pass. I tried to offer some trinket he could use, in case he needed some sort of extra magical boost, but the bastard had something akin to pure magic in his possession. Where he finds things like this, only the gods know. He placed me in charge and told me to make them bleed for every inch they wanted. Funny, even among my human peers I am too young to even enlist properly. My elven kin would laugh at this situation. Yet, I stand as the leader of the final hours of a planet. I can’t help but smile, even now. Then Seth said something strange… He told me he would prefer to make it out of here, but the mission had to come first. I told Seth he’d have something to return to, and I would do everything in my power to assist. With that he gave me his normal nod and we made our goodbyes. He walked towards the fountain, and myself back to the city. We had work to do. <> My first order of business was to task our legionnaire commanders with a simple task: work out strategies and situation in small war games. I want to know what the enemy will do and how best to counter it. Since they had the most experience, they got the job. I needed a base plan here, and I knew nothing about the sieging army, beyond their goal of killing us. I have Bjorn, poor bastard is being worked into the ground, set up a powerful cannon, something you would see on a ship. With this, we take time shooting at the army that landed in the city. It’s hard to organize yourselves when random artillery keeps taking apart anything that looks slight put together. In time, they return fire and we have to get creative. One cannon is no longer enough, so I ask for volunteers to go to the downed ship outside of town for more parts. Corvus takes charge of the operation and we allocate a mobile shield generator to their cause. Within a few days, 7 Cannons stand strong. The group of these trigger happy, loud mouth, artillery men earn the nickname “Bjorn’s Bombardiers” for their quick work and high yield weaponry.                                                                                                                 <> We have suffered little, and the enemy have been losing most of their heavy weapons to the cannons, but we aren’t working fast enough. They have begun working hard to stop our strikes. Soon we are facing return fire almost immediately. Their command ship, or the new one that is acting like a command ship, has been rather annoying. I get Samantha’s help, and with a little magic, and some shiny surfaces, we are looking into their bridge. On instinct I get the Volt ready to kill the titan Capulus, sitting at the helm. It was there that an idea slipped into my mind, like it wasn’t my own. I got Bjorn and told him I had a very special mission that requires a very big explosion. His eyes swelled up and he smiled in a way I have never seen. He grabbed a plasma grenade, 3 magical generators, and a roll of duct tape. The next minute, he dropped this dirty bomb through the mirror and we closed the link. Seconds later, we looked to the sky and saw their command ship crashing to the ground with nothing but flames and slag where the bridge should have been. The impact of the ship must have killed thousands of ground troops…                                                                                                                 <> The next few days, we suffered renewed bombardment, and ion fighters came with the intent to make openings. While they came close, the shields held. It wouldn’t be long until they made it through though… I had another idea. All we needed was another mirror lined up with the cannons, and the outside… The problem is with the second one. If we were to get them to shoot down fighters, we would need someone to fly. Lucky for us, Seth had invited many water fairies to come live with us before he left. I went to speak to them, but they wouldn’t let me get a word out until I took off my helmet. I obliged, and tried to look as friendly as possible. The little fey looked at me and rubbed my nose, a small purple circle formed where she touched, and she instantly flew away. Little bitch… We’re here trying to save them, and they won’t talk to me over this? I was half tempted to have a little problem with the water supply and these insubordinate freeloaders. Reason prevailed and I just got Corvus to relay my plan to them. Turns out, they love Corvus. He’s now in charge of talking to them, fuck it.                                                                                                                <> Turns out, getting the fairies involved was the best move we made. We didn’t have to drop shields anymore to fire, so we didn’t stop firing. The battlefield looked like a graveyard. Burning wrecks, craters, downed ships, active fires, and bodies everywhere, all littered the scene. So we shifted to psychological warfare as the fey worked magic into the enemy lines. We prevented them from sleeping, induced friendly fire, took out leaders and command chains, and made any simple task a nightmare. At some point, Bjorn told me the shield would fall eventually, and when it did, he had an idea. A last ditch attempt with some very broken looking tech… He told me he could fire up the generator after it failed for 1 minute. All we had to do was let the first wave in, then remove them. That was the hard part. I told him to do it, and once he did, fire elementals came. It must have been Seth thinking we would need the help. Or maybe some magical creatures don’t hate purple and all that entails… In any case, they liked the idea of having captives to burn alive when the shield rebooted. I have to say, things have gone well. I know that all I am doing is buying time, but still, it at least feels as if I had done something. <> Seth has returned, but he has done something strange. Four versions of Seth stood before us, all his shapeshifting identities we have seen. Stranger still, a woman has accompanied him back. Her name is Luna. I gave Seth the rundown of our situation and what has been done, with a nod he takes the reigns and says we need to get the enemy to attack. Guess I bought enough time. He gets Corvus and myself to see some fun things with a small enchantment. Our vision would be able to move with our will, as in, we could see like a drone. After a quick second where I pretended to be a third person camera, Seth directed us to the enemy battle field. He told us to get some nice friendly fire going. I settle my mind by a machine gunner, and begin weaving my way in his mind until I have him gunning down lines of his own men. Poor bastards never knew what hit them. As I returned to myself, I feel the familiar sensation of Seth’s mind pulling me in. I sigh, and roll with it. It looks very familiar… As in, Nel Frane, but soon. Mass chaos has taken our defenders and there is fighting all around us. Our team is running for the portal out of here, but many of us are leaking blood… lots of it. Several of our comrades die where they stand, and the future looks grim… I snap back into reality and frowned beneath my visor. Things were heating up. Just then, a shot is fired inside the city and someone yells “Stop!” Immediately followed by a massive explosion… The shields drop and I looked for Seth. He got what he wanted… but I wasn’t seeing him anywhere. I figured he went back to the fountain at some point… Probably should have paid attention better… Hell began breaking loose and everyone began fighting. The second shield snapped up, and I knew we had a few moments… I began taking shots at some of the enemy troops, but this wasn’t a place we should linger… My mind began screaming in pain and my body was close to follow as the Hemo Titan's approach echoed in my mind, along with everyone else's. I told Corvus to organize the retreat and took off to the fountain. I heard the fighting growing behind me… and all around me… We were encircled after all… I dodged bullets and las fire on my way to the entrance of that damned place. I saw Luna barely carrying Seth out of the building, and the two of them almost collapsing. I got to them with time enough to slip under one of Seth’s arms. Whatever he did, it cost him, clearly. Luna and I hauled him for a while, and eventually he started using his legs a bit, and then we were only supporting him as we ran for the portal… We’ve been in Federation custody for a couple days now. Separated and interrogated as we are, it is less than fun. They asked a lot of questions, and for the sake of the others, I told the truth. It’s the only story we had in common anyway… Of course, a few details wouldn’t come from me, but if they knew, they kept quiet. Considering they didn’t ask for my belongings, I’d consider this not terrible. <> It wasn’t long before we were all gathered up in a room together, big old mirrored walls, and a nice set of interviewers. I waved to the windows, an audience was present after all. We were asked about how good of a job we did, and when we defend ourselves, they claimed we failed. Dumb asses. When I actually scoffed, they asked if we disagreed. Hell yes we disagreed. After a brief “discussion” we were asked to explain combat footage of us from the start of the war. Since we couldn’t, we moved on. We were asked what we knew of Tiamat. I gave a little thing of bullshit that basically said “I know more than I’m supposed to” but didn’t jeopardize any details in case it was bad to do so. After that, we were dismissed one by one to the hall. Black ops teams that don’t exist and being dismissed tend to go poorly together. As we were directed further down a hall, we entered a large conference room with Commander Hail at the table. I still didn’t trust this situation, and fully expected to be removed from service… In a more dead kinda way… Still, no need to let them hear me beg. I’ll see how far this goes...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 23:) Floodgates Hail filled us in on the situation better than I could have hoped for. Turns out, we weren’t about to get shot in the back of the head and be disposed of. On the contrary, we were promoted from shadow ops to… they don’t really have titles anymore for people like us. Spooks, agents, and operatives were the words we go by now. When the title is small and short, it carries more weight. Today, we are delivery boys. Our job is to get Hail and Tress to a special place for reasons. It’s after Hail’s synopsis that our dragonling interrogator came back into the room, and she explained how we are in service to lady Tiamat now and gave us the details. I rolled my eyes, but I understood what that means. I guess I should be more respectful, but after being told how bad we fucked our last mission up, I’m less than excited to keep listening to her. Tress showed up after a while and invited Grey out for food, he got new gear too. Personally, I liked the old look better, but no one asks my opinion on fashion. They make a good pair, and I worry about them. Our lines of work make it hard to stay safe… I’m sure they have a lot of pressure between their infrequent visits. After they depart, the rest of us are guided to some temporary housing. It’s actually pretty nice too. After I spent a good hour looking around and doing nothing of importance, I seeked Seth out to spot me as I practiced a new spell. Worst case scenario, Seth would have had my back, and he could do some scary things in a pinch. As it would turn out, I had it under control. Linking two mirrors would be possible now. Just a bit more work and I might be ready to start doing some of the crazy shit Samantha had going on… <> Dreams are a funny thing. Ever since I signed onto this crazy train, I will find myself pulled into visions of Seth. Last night was one of those. A moment ago I was in my own mind, now I sit within a large trial room of some sort. Tress calls to Seth as if to confirm his own vision. I just wanted to sleep… I found myself letting out an exacerbated groan as the others settle in to the familiar feeling of the vision. I let myself look around… The mixed races of this council melted away when I saw him though… The voices of my friends and the strangers faded into nothing. Whatever we were doing, wherever we were going, it lead to my father. He stared back, for a time, but the waking world would reclaim us before I could regain myself in the vision. The bastard himself… I thought I had left this side of me in the past… But I felt my dark rage return and my mind spin with the raw emotion. I hated him for so long that just forgetting about him wasn’t going to fix anything. I just had to think about how to handle this… I should at least control myself when i meet him, whenever that vision was… I have some time to accept that much at least. <> Later on, as we were all gathered in the apartment, Grey tells us about the recent “terrorist attack” on Atlantis Station. Turns out, the people after Hail and Tress were willing to take everyone around them down too. Fun… Best part was, as we were on our way to departures, we caught glimpse of our favorite roach, Negemphrale. He just shook his head and was gone… I could hear it in his head, not literally, he wasn’t close enough, but i could imagine it… “Whatever they’re paying, it’s not nearly enough,” or more likely, “Fuck shit? This is too fucked, price is shit.” Yeah… that’s what he would have said. Now the scary part is Capulus was also here. I’m much more worried about her than a bounty hunter that knows us… At our ship we find two men awaiting us. A larger version of feline species similar to Grey, and a human from the looks of him. Ralph and Payton I believe their names were, and they would be joining us. Interesting. <> The way was easy and boring… We had been worried for nothing as Gill had done his best to keep us from harm, not to say it was uneventful, just that it wasn’t nearly as bad as… everything else we have dealt with in the past.. Can’t say that's a bad thing though. I had spent much of my time alone and focused on myself and tried to gain some inward peace. Mostly it failed, but I soon turned to magical studies and applying myself helped keep me calm. My time outside of my quarters consisted of some small training sessions and a few conversations. At one point, Ralph was having a small chat with us about how he and his team had found a way to turn back the scorch. Naturally, I was worried. The last time I heard mention of the kind of bullshittery was on Neptoor. Upon further explanation, he told us about this mystical liquid shit that he had been privileged enough to work with. Some powerful stuff it must have been. After that, Gill decided to turn the ship into a roller coaster, and no one was as excited about it as me. With that out of the way, Ralph offered to help us in martial combat training. I wasn’t really thrilled about it at first, but when most of the crew was training with Ralph in hand to hand and weapons combat, and I was nowhere near as capable as the others in a melee, I figured I might as well learn something. I think Ralph expected the same level of skill from me, because the first thing that happened was a royal ass kicking. He toned it down after that, and I got more used to holding my dagger. Even got some stance work in. As all this was going down, we had a meeting one of the days where Ralph explained a lot to us. <> After a small pirate scare, we were clear for docking with the station we had been trying to reach for so long. Before we got to step onto the damned thing, the pure power on this place filled my mind. It is similar to walking into a humid room from a dry one… the different sensations are… jarring at first. I kept my head down as we walked on, escorted by some dragonlings, as I adjusted to the power in the air. We walked some pretty decorative hallways before finally coming to a large meeting room. Once we were filed in, it became clear this was the place Seth had drug us in his vision… I tensed up once we got in, and began bracing myself. It was to my benefit that Hail and Tress walked up to the from and addressed Tiamat and Hail began giving his allegiance and all that fun stuff. After his song and dance were over, the more personal matter took center stage: Seth. One of these high lords began the process of commissioning him and his team… When Tiamat interjected and spoke her malcontent, I was a little surprised. Apparently the little mistakes Seth had been making lately were more than bad luck. Our mission on Neptoor had done something to him. He confirmed this when he explained that his condition was due to his sacrifice on that hell hole. Tiamat’s tone changed as she addressed the room now, and emphasized a few selfless traits of our leader. With that, she moved to the winning side and concluded that Seth was worthy of this position. What happened next was a bit more interesting. We were all offered a spot in this job. White robes were brought before us, and if we so chose to embrace this position, we were to change into them and make a proper introduction. Seth was first to start changing, of course. The other followed in quick succession as I stared through my visor at the robes in front of me. I wasn’t all that patriotic, nor was I obsessed with balance like Seth. I wasn’t running from something like Corvus, or redeeming myself like Grey. I was here out of spite… Spite and hate lead me here, to serve the person I wished to defy. I looked down the small row of my team all changing, then back over the high lords of the Federation. They were all ready to serve their country or principles, and I had a choice to make. I could walk away from it all, but not only does that feel wrong, I’m not sure what happens to people who refuse the council… Besides, this crew is the closest thing to family I have… Strange how there was actual family in the room at the time too… My reasons for being here changed right there… or maybe they had been changing for a long time now… I don’t know… I have my own goals that I need to achieve now, and I’ll be damned if anyone is going to touch these bastards that I’m with. So I began taking off my armor. Problem was, as soon as my helmet was off, my father recognized me, and called me by name. He asked his council for a moment alone with me, which they denied. The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me, towering over me. He tried to explain something, but it took all of my restraint to keep calm. He said it again, something about me not knowing, and then we were in space. As my eyes burned into his he told me about who I really was. His claims made me half Silmarillion… I still don’t know how to react to this… Seth has since told me it was true… or at least appeared to be… but still. When I was back in the grand hall, I had more questions than answers. Way too many questions, and only one way to answer the. Before he left, my father told me I could always call on him... My anger took a back seat to the new things introduced to me… It was too much to take in, and my eyes felt weird… Things were… brighter? Almost like I was seeing through an old haze I never noticed. It was strange. As we were introduced I was deep in thought until my name was called up. For the first time I realized who was speaking. A dragon. Seth had told us that his father was on a council like this… Some people believe in coincidence, but finding my own father on this council was… more than an accident. So I told this dragon who I was, and the small title awarded to me for slaying titans themselves: The Destroyer. It was a point of pride for me, and I waited a while to have it awarded. This seemed like the place to use it too. The only other thing to draw my attention during this meeting was Corvus. At first, I thought he followed suit and proclaimed one of his own little titles, but then there were two, then three… He had 8 titles he introduced himself by. Eight. Look, I was being a bit pompous with one… but gods below, he has a big ego if he thinks that’s how he’s going to be remembered. Hell, most of us will never be remembered. That’s when an Avian in one of the big chief chairs stood up, as if he took offense to that speech. Turns out, he did, sort off. Corvus was accused of killing his brother, to which he didn’t deny. I’d never tell him this, but for the second smallest of our team, he might just have the biggest balls and the smallest brain. First off, how do you kill an the brother of the most powerful avian in the universe and live? Secondly, why in any god’s name would you kill the brother of the most powerful avian in the universe? In any case, the problem grew no more than his annoyance and disdain, so we were all introduced and made official operatives of this true council. For better or worse, we were all a part of this machine now. <> It wasn’t long until we had our mission; we were going back to Neptoor because Scorch had fucked with the teleportation network. That’s a serious problem for sure. Since this fuckery exists, we have to go the long way back to that planet. Also fun… Outside of the council chamber, Ralph had a bit more of an in depth talk about his magic Scorch killing juice. Turns out it has some serious ingredients too. With some of that and a few delivery systems, things should be ok. We started making our way back to the ship, and that’s when some magic happened. Gill told us about some bounties on our heads… coming in as the galaxy’s second most wanted, is little old me. Wanted for… nothing I really did, and not wanted for what I did do. Cowards couldn’t admit I killed one of their kind, so they drew up some other fun charges. Corvus is number three, so that’s cool. Only reason Hail is number one, is because of us, so I guess we are pretty good at this. Kinda weird how no one is worth more than 200 million credits besides Hail, but it’s kinda cool this way. Of course it has way more problems attached than the cool factor is worth, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun with it. I spent a bit of time memorizing what they said about me, in case I need to crash a party, but really just because I couldn’t stop reading it. ( Attached is an image of a wanted ad for Ambella Dakas ) Comedy gold right here. <> I didn’t have too long to relax before I was drawn to the fact that I had a new appearance, and that Seth’s little spaghetti problem is visible to me now… I had a talk with Seth about my new identity… Here’s where he told me it was most likely true… that only helped me so much… I had to get more answers… So I called on my father, and I learned more than I was ready for… More than I wanted… And all that I needed… I have been such a fool for so long...

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 24:) Reflecting on Reflections I’m not supposed to randomly get teleported off the ship anymore, I need to warn everyone that I’m up to stuff. Leave it to my father to have a chat in another dimension rather than just talk in my room. He’s… not as bad as I thought. He even watched over me in his own way. Giving him a chance is taxing on my mental stress right now. It’s hard to find out that you’re immortal, actually loved, wrong about life, and being sent on suicide mission number fucking four. I’m going to have a chat with Seth here… maybe he can help sort a few things out. <> Had to wait on the whole Seth thingy, some bumbling excuse for life decided they wanted to come after us. Corvus and his murder party got us into a bit of trouble when these space trolls picked up our signal. Gill called the warning and Seth commanded us to battle stations. I got into one of our four space cannons and felt the smirk on my face grow. Las cannons have a pretty far range before their energy disperses at significant levels. The problem is, that range is well beyond a normal person’s effective range. The slightest twitch of the finger can send your shot off mark by hundreds of meters at this range. I wasn’t very familiar with the controls here, but there was a reticle, and a big gun, how hard could it have been? I lined up a shot at ranges most would consider extreme and shot at one of the troll craft that flanked the massive battleship, some sort of boarding pod I guessed. It was hard to see, but my shot ripped through the bottom of the thing and kept going out he back. Sure enough, that pod stopped being a problem. One shot goes wide from the direction Northhorn ran for, so I figured he missed. Then, from below, another shot lanced forward and punctured one of the troll craft, sending the whole thing to explode. I was more in shock than anything, at this range, I didn’t expect anyone but me to hit anything. That’s when Bjorn started laughing over the comms. As I was about to take another shot, Seth cut in and told me we had been targeted by missiles and Gill needed more time to get out of here. Targeting data started piling up as the number of missiles raced towards us. I smirked and realized that this was madness to ask, who could shoot down something point defense guns had a hard time with? Me. Corvus lit up the comms and said something about us shooting better for some reason. I was more inclined to turn off the comms, but his little speech had me shooting better more out of spite than anything… I guess that means it worked? I lined up one hell of a lead on the first cluster and popped it like an explosive balloon. I saw more shots aimed at the pods missing but used the fire to help time my shots. Soon enough, I had 3 clusters down, and Gill hit warp. I still think we should waited to give them some more hell before jumping, but that could have left us open to some problems… Damnit, I guess Seth was right again. <> With our lives out of danger, or so I thought, I went up to Seth and told him I had some issues we had to talk about… He was acceptive and we wound up in his room. Long story short, we talked a bit about some shit my dad said, then about my mirror magic… and it turns out that I fucked up. Big. To explain, when Seth showed me some simple logic, his mirror exploded. Good sign. With that, I had to start a bit of a clean up on reflective surfaces on the ship. I went around for awhile basically crying all over the place and rubbing reflecty things. It was going well until I got to the ship’s bathroom. This mirror was locked, and not my me. First, oh fuck, thats bad. Second, oh fuck, that’s creepy on a stalker level. Fearing the worst mirror magic had to offer, I elected to not touch the damn thing. That’s when Peyton showed up, perfect. I got him to smash the mirror, but… It started to regrow. The cracks began to repair and the whole thing started to mend. Not good. With Luck, Bjorn was in the hall and with a little talk of “This is fucked, please fix it,” I actually managed to get him to take it off the wall. Obviously we took that fucker to the airlock and spaced it. I had a small army asking me what the fuck was going on, but there wasn’t a reason to tell everyone. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but I ignored all the questions. I was more worried about something over hearing me. I just had to finish the ship… <> With every mirror and reflective surface that could realistically be used against us covered and locked, I felt a bit better, but it’s hard to be ok when you just earned you may have an extra dimensional group of hunters after you. I’m not sure what they want, but guessing it was bad seemed to be the most logical conclusion… but with this revelation and the one that my father isn’t the monster I thought he was… I had plenty of things to go over, and for once, the time to do it. I’m going to spend most of this trip thinking things through and… I guess seeing where things are at with my father… <> It wasn’t too long after that we needed to stop for resupply. Our choice was a Federation station, so we figured we should be safe from all the space baddies we had on our tail. In case this wasn’t really the situation, Seth gave us a simple order: if you find trouble, flash your badge, and anyone dumb enough to not listen is to be killed. Easy orders. We got split into teams and I ended up with Northhorn on the mission to restock our food stocks, which had mainly been because of Northhorn in the first place. Seth said to look for a reasonable place… but on our way to find food, we only saw stupid shops selling civilian items. It didn’t help that Northhorn apparently had a specific destination in mind and none of the store layouts were similar to any I was used to. We found ourselves in a very expensive and high quality food store. I figured it was above budget (even Seth had to have an acceptable fund limit, right?) and gave the pyromancer 30 minutes to get food from here. That was dumb, because he just ran down the isles with an arm buried into a shelf knocking everything into a cart. At least we have decent food now… <> I will never doubt the level of stupid that can be achieved by Corvus being in charge of Bjorn again. I know that it can be hard to keep proper eyes on the little fucker, but Corvus dropped the ball big time. The idiots were looking for ship parts. They found the ship parts, but decided now was the perfect time to go power armor shopping. Then, they found a fake shop, got Bjorn almost drugged and stolen, and then caused enough of a disturbance to attract Seth’s attention. All of this in the time it took Northhorn to fill a cart and me to find a place to sit and write. We got back to the ship after checkout in time to hear what happened in its entirety. As it turned out, the wonder twins found a rather dangerous criminal organization, killed the shop owner, looted his shop, and had fucked things up to the point where the rest of the guys were now conducting a raid. I need to stop being surprised by this kind of shit. Anyway, Seth got the close quarters team together and told me to keep things ok on the ship. I almost bitched, but decided to not have a terrible time getting limbs and shit removed. This didn’t stop be from pouring a drink or five and listening to the comms traffic. Got to hand it to the fuckers, they are really good at breaking shit. <> So no shit, there I was, feet up on the table and drink in hand, listening to Corvus dueling some Syndicate big shot when the whole team jumped him. Best I could tell, they gave him such a thrashing that he ran. Not surprising. If I had any of those bloodthirsty simpletons bashing me over the head with weapons the size of children, I’d run too. The thing is, I’d run faster and further than that guy did. Apparently, as they booked it out of there Corvus went poof in the stairwell, then returned a few flights later covered in enough blood to make someone scream shortly. Maybe that was Corvus… Someone made a bad sound at something… But he claimed to have killed the “titan” for Mortus before opening my private channel and saying we were even now. As much shit as I give him, I honestly think there is nothing more scary than his psycho ass in a melee. With all hell breaking loose for the losers of that raid, the team got back to the ship with only good times past. I can smell something heavenly coming from the kitchen, so I’m gonna go see how those procurements are doing in the lizard’s hands.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 25:) What’s the Price of a Credit? I feel like I’m having less and less time to write in here nowadays… The last entry was a bit over 6 weeks ago… and that was a solo party I had as the others did the real work. My point, dear little data pad, is that it’s been busy. In my time off, I had done a lot of inward reflection. Too many times the word “awoken” has been used to define me recently. In all actuality, nothing has changed but some of my senses… I spent almost every day searching my magical knowledge and some of the books I have access to. Not much is coming up, so for the time, I had focused on doing a bit of improvement to my spell arsenal. Besides some actual magic I’ve picked up, that field was kinda a waste. The rest of my time was spent training with the crew. My favorite moments had to have been Corvus asking me to fuck with him while he practiced combat. I figured I’d just give his brain a little flick, but felt the presence of Seth for a moment. I ended up kicking his endocrine system into a situation where it was jammed in “murder you before I’m murdered” mode. I figured it would sort itself out, but when he spent three days sleeping I just giggled and remembered to pester him later. The chance to have more fun like this happened a week or so later, but Corvus decided to be a bad ass instead of breaking. The other highlight was with Grey. Not only did we have paint guns around for some fun, but we also ran drills in competitive fashion. Grey is something of a savant with pistols, and it shows. He often displays a lack of fucks to give in combat situation, and while we played around with dummy guns and saw who could disassemble and reassemble a Federation lasgun quicker, I realized just how scary he was. All things considered, I believe we’re both happy to have each other’s backs. The one problem I had was when Seth and I had a discussion… Most of the time, that implies I fucked up, but not this time. My father gave me information in our last talk that Seth needed to hear. Corvus is in the service of a titan. Guess who? Mortus is that titan and has some relationship with Eros, a real death god. With Corvus’s allegiance in her hands, it creates a bit of a problem. Seth has assured me of the fact he will handle this. In all honesty, that was an adequate response and I feel the situation is under control. The simple fact is, we are about to land on Ashroar. This place has some rather powerful companies on it and fun wild life. Of course when i say “fun” wild life, I mean that shit kills more people than minor galactic plagues. Having Corvus need to scratch the “I need to kill a sentient being” ich will be even worse than in deep space. I’d rather not have to go into hiding like we did on Quingal. Still, everyone seems excited for their own reasons, and I’m just happy to not be at a wasteland planet for once, and yes deserts count here. No reasonable atmosphere needs temperatures above 26 galactic standard degrees. At least this planet looks beautiful from orbit. <> Once we got on the ground and docked, Bjorn took Northhorn of to go meet some people or something. He said he’d be alright, so we gave him the go ahead. The rest of us went with Seth to some big company building.The walk was pleasant enough, and once we got to the place were put here in some waiting chairs, some dude was looking for Seamus and we made sure to stay away from him. Some assistant guy made sure we would have an audience after all. Dumb asses almost turned us away. In anycase, its meeting time. <> Couldn’t have gone better. We got a rather stuck up butler to take us to a “waiting area” of more importance. This turned out to be a restaurant, with a wine fountain. I’m not gonna say I overdid it, but I showed my graciousness for this snooty little club by drinking a lot of their wine. Rich people always have the best wine, and for some extra dumb reason don’t like it when people have more than a sip. I did my best to bother them, simply because they we rich and powerful. I think I had… maybe six glasses? I wasn’t counting as we waited. After I took my seat and was in a good position to draw a weapon, I saw the most beautiful thing I’ve seen yet. Pure magic. It was running up through the building in a conduit of some kind… I heard about ley lines, but wow… I just drank and looked. Eventually another rich twat came over and introduced himself to us, initially asking me about… something. When I told him to take it up with the boss, he said something about really being a snob and having nothing better to do but bother the half elf about not giving him what he wanted. God I hate the masking of insults these pompous fuckers do. An insult is an insult, no matter your vocabulary. I would have said something back, but Seth had his thing to do, and I swear to the gods, this “man” was a bit more powerful than I was ready to antagonize in its home. With some other words from Seth the the twat, we had our table moved to a more secure location. We just slid back into a new room. Kinda fun. Once there, Seth got to business. He asked the guy if he could make nanite armor with a little twist, mythril cores. The counter question was one I got to respond to. He pulled up a nice picture of Arturus and his new physical appearance I gifted him. He wanted to know how. Knowing Seth, he would have just answered like a polite guest. I told him I shot him, and would sell him the combat footage for a credit, I was 1 shy of a nice even number. He looked surprised and i got a credit. Sent him about 3 seconds of footage. All you can really see is a bit of the Volt, nothing to get anything useful from besides its a big gun, the not best shot on this side of the galaxy getting a nice big explosion of some energy focused on an impact point, and the meat tube slamming to the ground. I’m sure there’s other places to find that individual recording. After all, I did show it around a lot on the battlefield. The look on his face was almost worth that single credit. He wanted that ammo pretty bad. I bounced the question upstairs just so Seth could be the one to tell him no. Surprise, this time when I had something he wanted there was no insult about being a subordinate. When he offered Seth a planet, we got to watch his little greedy heart sink when Seth told him he had enough planets. He made sure to request that once I have no use for the Volt, to come back. Sure, once I have no use, he will be the first to get it. Too bad that by that point, the galaxy will have probably figured that out on it’s own. Still, we have the situation set for our next meeting. He even told us to have a safe Blessed 3rd. What a nice guy… totally nice. Leaving felt good, and I got a pair of sunglasses to hide my new eyes. Don’t really like broadcasting “I’m either an awaken being or a high elf wannabe wannabe.” I still have trouble believing that some of those fuckers dye their eyes for fashion… In any case, we got back to the ship with little issues. <> I woke up this morning to another nightmare… Stryder… In my dreams he now hurts my mother. I just can’t show Seth again… not after the buzzaar. I told him I would get over it, and as far as he know, I have. He’s starting to have faith in me, and I don’t plan on letting him down… The others looked just as bad as me though, so I guess it’s just something Seth did. We have a meeting to go to, might as well get it over with. <> The walk here was… entertaining. Turns out there are a lot of bounty hunters around. Someone has decided to mark them with little sticky notes. I got one person handing me a note, turns out our less than legal friends are here: The Brothers Grim, and Fuck Bug man. Missed those guys. They made sure to let us know exactly who was going to be a problem. We made it to the building with only a few laughs. They even wished us luck. Nice guys. <> The second visit was pretty good too. We got a decent look at the place and saw a lot of places of learning and stuff that made it feel like I was home oddly enough. A great ent was teaching a class, though I did not envy them, for even a translator can do little to speed up the creatures slow and methodical speech. We eventually found ourselves in a conference room where Seth and the higher up of the R&D group got to talking about our soon to be armor. Long story short, we agreed to have the suits built, but for every three they made, they would keep the 4th. At one point during the meeting, Negemphrael decided to stop in and give us a good old fashion greeting. Seth gave him a cred stick and told him to share with the brothers. I’m looking forward to having fun with them again. Now here is the fun part: We got asked a few questions about a little scene we did on Xoncelara where we murdered a bunch of demons and didn’t die. Little too close for my liking, but hey, I don’t have any scars. A few little jumps in my head from the word “action” lead me to a great conclusion, I might be able to get these guys to make some action figures of unparalleled quality. Now, as a weapon company they had to decline, but they told me to check out the Brazen Fair. The fucking BRAZEN FAIR. I hadn’t even thought of that place since the ads back home. I could never afford anything but their most basic models, but they were THE BEST. No one could beat them. Mom used to get me a new knight ever year for my birthday. I’m sure she saved up a lot. I might not have that collection with me, but I have the money to buy the whole series and then some. Maybe I’ll get some of the automated ones… oh, I bet they ha- No, wait… I remember they had been talking about pre ordering the newest in action figure technology… Fully interactive and responsive units. Oh my gods… Nothing is going to stop me from buying them. I’m going fucking shopping tomorrow and I’m bringing Grey too. He needs to have fun. I’d bring Seth, but the last time we had fun together we made a lake. He’s too much of a party animal for me. I wonder if I get Corvus to come if we could get some new weapons. That’s about the only thing that stick in the mud seams to like anyway… I can hear him yelling at himself with that stupid dagger voice still… Maybe, just maybe, one of these days I’ll get a real party set up for the guys, have something for us to do other than kill and shadow ops stuff. I’m also going to dye Bjorn’s beard pink the next time I find dye… That’s going to be perfect.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 26:) The Stage is Set Honestly, it’s nice to be out in a world where relatively few things are out to get you. I woke up this morning with little more than excitement and enthusiasm, which is opposed to the nightmares and stress of combat missions. I can tell the others are feeling it too, happy thoughts and content smiles give everyone those looks on their faces. While the tech heads at megacorp work on some new armor, I had an early date with a toy store. With the promise of other stops, I got Grey and Corvus to come along as well. It’s been a while since we did something just for fun, not that Corvus has fun or anything… Or so I thought. Turns out, he’s a bigger bitch than me! We were walking to the toy store when we say this ass hat, more on him in a moment though, because the store was amazing by the way. I walked in and it was like heaven. New Mighty 7 comics were up, the complete series I missed since I last took interest was on the top shelf. The current line of Dragon Corps Adventure were on display on the central rack too, but comics were for another day. I made my way to the figurine section and saw every group and faction of realism and fictional displays before I made it to the central exhibit. Behind the glass was the full Knights of Legend interactive display with a giant “Try Me!” label much lower than my head, either for whole humans or children. I didn’t care which. When the store attendant come over to see how serious I was, it dawned on me that I had been there for 15 minutes. He asked which figure I wanted, only to show shock that I wanted the whole set, plus the enemy figures for them to fight. I saw the dollar signs in his eyes when he rushed me up and tried to keep me from changing my mind. Obviously he had no idea who he was dealing with. He listed all the features I already knew, talking about top of the line and perfect gifts and more salesman crap to keep me from wincing at the price. Even tossed in a discount. When it was all said and done, I was walking out with the smaller items in some bags that I wanted to look at on the way back, and the important ones safe in my snap box. Enter ass hat stage right. Now, before we entered the store, he was being thrown out of a bar before planetary noon. An impressive feat only an alcoholic could do with such shame. We heard him cussing out various people and stumbling around as we made it to The Brazzen Fair. Upon our exit, we saw him being thrown out of another bar. A real professional that one. With more rage than an elf his size should have, he decided my happy face was gonna hear about “childish toys” and “acting like a proper elf” or something. First off, yeah buddy, I’m 20 and only half an elf and still more mature and elfy than him. Secondly, wrong group of bad asses to talk shit to. Grey was about to shoot him when Corvus decided a one on one was gonna offer some appeasement to his god. Sure, beat up the drunk for the death god. He did just that too. Like not even a fight kind of fight. Then again, Corvus is a soldier and that guy was… Trash. So I got one of his kind from a bin and opened a hole in the bag before letting him stew in that disgusting shit. A team of better people would have tried to rehabilitate him or something, but honestly, I found that to be more palatable. Our next stop was a market style shop for weapons of various styles and types. I got a few strange looks because of the Brazzen Fair bags I had, but that didn’t last long once I started talking to one man selling a nice gauss rifle. Beautiful thing really, called it the Power Bolt, and it was plenty mean for mid threat level targets. A woman needs to have options, ya know? With a rifle for the meak, strong, and gods among us I felt pretty good. Still laughing about the confused looks we got on the way out. Gods below, people don’t like mixing business and pleasure I guess. Grey was looking pretty sharp too, with a new set of twin pistols named Ester. Both of them. I’d give him shit, but I didn’t name my rifles… So he wins by default. Corvus looked at a few things, but was mostly there to window shop. By the time we made it back to the ship, I was about ready to gush from my excitement and spent a while getting everything set up. Just looking over it now makes me smile. In fact, I have plenty of time for later. <> So, we’re just getting ready for take off from Ashroar and a few things have happened. One, I’m only allowed to play with the knights in my room. Two, Seth has began guiding me to an “awakened” status. The term is thrown around a lot around me and I figured it was a pretty clean way to move forward in my career. Less blood magic and evil stuff with more power to boot. It hasn’t been going well, but I have to say, Seth is surprisingly patient with me. I can’t tell if it’s because he genuinely wants to help or is scared of the kind of nonsense I get up to when unsupervised… Ok, it’s probably both. Either way, I’m actually having a hard time keeping up. Seth keeps saying something about “being farther from my connection than I should be.” Oops. With our sessions being mostly spiritual in nature, I find it more relaxing than I knew he could be. Seth has always been the calm before the storm and then the storm, so I find him to be relaxing to meditate with. I’m sure my more wired and explosive nature grinds on his nerves, but for his part he shows naught but a frown when I fail to progress. I am redoubling my efforts, but “waking up” is hard. We have about a week until Neptor, so I have the time...  <> I find it strange just how finicky magic is. Today started with a dream. A dragon in space, advancing at me at incredible speed. It’s ears roared even as my slumber ended. Things were normal for the day until I went with Seth for our daily session. We went to meditate and I told him about that dream and he said it was good and to focus on it. As I opened my memories and found it there in my head, I felt a strange power to it and latched on. I tried pulling on its strength, but as soon as I did I felt it grab back, Seth began to speak and the next thing I knew we were sitting in a desert as far as the eye could see. I resist the urge to panic, but Seth knows this is no dream or vision, because we are actually here on this planet, far away from home. His teleportation is inadequate and he asks if I can fey step us home like my father… I can barely move in line of sight… I tried to, latching onto everything of home I could, thinking of our ship flying through space at speeds of death if I missed. I took my breath and readied myself for fate. When I took a step we found ourselves further along the planet overlooking a city in the sands. Deserted as the rest of the planet. Seth got us the rest of the way there and into the city gates. He told me to follow my instincts, but as I started to walk down a path he grabbed my shoulder and redirected me. I mainly followed him until we found the cheers and roars of an old style theater, though Seth heard none of it. Guessed it’s something to do with me… We walked down the stairs to the stage where there was but a single chair and an empty stage. Seeing nothing better to do, I sat. As soon as I did, a loud bang echoed from the city, and Seth and I turned to look. Once our attention was away a woman appeared behind us on stage. An aged woman, but not quite old, her hair was still firmly a natural brown. I would have guessed her to be human, but she was more of my height. There was a power in her eyes, an inevitability in her gaze. I found it strange in that moment that I found more comfort than unease from that. She called me by name and offered a fair greeting. I would know her as Minerva. Seth asked if she brought us here for any reason in particular, but it was me she was after, and she said as much. With that, Seth asked if we would be harmed, which she then proclaimed that it was a peaceful summons. Then Seth asked how we would get back to our ship, and he was gone. As I often find myself doing in such situations, I waved at her. I had no idea what she wanted or why I was here, but there is no way to go wrong with a gesture of friendliness. She smiled a knowing smile and asked why I had been so foolish in my attempts to seek her out. It took me a moment to understand. All my attempts to make contact with my “spark” had been rather forceful and blunt, much less introspective and understanding. Minerva smiled as the thought crossed my mind, telling me that I was beginning to understand. She asked me what I understood of magic, and I found myself repeating tomes almost by heart of theories and teachings by masters that I had only read from. She told me that was what I knew, not what I understood. My protests were pushed aside and she asked me to try harder. So I began another explanation on what my magic did and how I harnessed the power. Again I was wrong, so with nothing else to say I looked to her and said “clearly not as much as I think I do.” With that she smiled and nodded. I wish I could say it was just as quick as this sentence, but alas it was not. Real magic, Awakened Magic, is much more than spells and rituals to pull power for a very specific effect. It is the power of the mage’s will as they shape reality to match their thoughts and desires. Her teachings were… mind opening. Displays of power and will tore apart the city, stitched it together, filled it with life, and drained it of essence. I watched as the very fabric of fate was warped around her thoughts and words. As reality began to set in, she told me this was but a demonstration, a drop in the bucket of what there was to learn and see. I begged her to show me, to teach me. This was the first time she stood, as she walked to me. She took my hand and told me that we would be seeing much of each other. A gentle kiss to my forehead and I found myself standing next to Seth, sand everywhere in my room as well as several shocked crew members. My eyes burned with new sights around me. A reality that I can only describe as more clear greeted my return. I took a step back as people asked something, their words to far away for me to care. I told them I was alright and sat on my bed, just looking at what used to be so muddled and foggy. The universe is open to me now… So vast and powerful, full of the most beautiful and ugly things I have ever seen… All of it was glorious… There are few things I want to do more than share these thoughts and sights with someone. Maybe my father understands, maybe my mother would like to hear from me. I’ll wright a few messages actually. <> Every day of the past week was more amazing than the last. Seth and Minerva have helped me beyond measure. Even so, I could never have been ready to see what awaited us at Neptor. A massive bubble surrounds the enemy supercarrier in a battle without equal. Dread eats at my emotions as I fear we were to be targeted next, but all is still and silent. Very strange indeed… before I know it, I felt myself being pulled into Seth’s mind again… his visions are often intrusive to me as well… I saw with him the carrier blasting apart almost every ship around us as we flew towards it. A terrifying prospect… Should that bubble fail, I assume we shall die, if that vision is true. Seth looks to be already thinking of ways to avoid that fate. <> It wasn’t long before we decided to go down to the surface, Seth began surveying Nel Frane and found a “small” team of mostly science operatives with only moderate security backup. He came up with a shock and awe plan to crush them quickly. The Cadet would be our decoy and Grey with Payton’s help would crush the rest of the security from the air. We would act as the clean up and take what prisoners we could. Solid plan… but when do plans ever really work? <> Turns out that was a perfect plan, we took the science team prisoner before they could even react. They are just as confused by these bubbles as well. The one on the surface was a bit more confusing, at first. On our inspection, and a little mirror magic, we found Seamus and that mind touchy white fucker fighting over something. Of course it’s Seamus… Why wouldn’t it be? Seth wanted to tip the odds in the little guy’s favor, and there are few things I like more than shooting titans… so… I got a shot lined up to where I thought the ugly fucker was, checked the mirror and smiled. I aimed for his eye upon Seth’s recommendation. Was just gonna offer him a normal head shot, but since it was just a normal Volt round, I probably wasn’t going to kill him, so getting some nice extra pain is always good. I knew the shot was perfect, but confusion gripped us all when the round entered the bubble and disappeared. It took a solid five minutes before Seth finally noticed the beginning of the Volt round flying in on the edges of the bubble. Scary. Gill is on the calculator side of his brain figuring out just how slow time is moving in there, and let’s just say its really fucking slow. We had about two weeks to kill, so we get back on the ship and enter orbit and wait for the time to catch up. <> I have to admit, it started as just something to do… I was in a turret shooting at the supercarrier for fun. Making laser smiley faces in the void and shooting at the frozen target. Seth quickly asked just what in the hells I was doing when I told him it would be funny for their time to just snap in place and get hit by a bunch of fucked up laser fire. A saw a smile only revealed once before cross his lips… One time before ordering an orbital strike… He decided everyone should spend the two weeks firing all four las cannons into that ship… two weeks of sustained fire in a second for them… Gods below… He’s breathtaking. So here I am, typing with one hand and pulling the trigger of the joy stick with the other. I just check my aim every few sentences and have a good time. Nothing bet- We have a battleship dropping out of warp close by, Bjorn is saying it’s dwarvish… But I’m still nervous. Seth is on the comms now with them, and we’re all left waiting… At least we aren’t getting shot at yet. Not that I had to worry, Seth claims we’re invited for a meal and that the ship will join us in firing at the damned carrier. I can’t help but smile, we might actually destroy this thing before it has a chance to do anything. Seth has some really good ideas… 

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 27:) The Itch Beneath My Skin I’ve seen few things as destructive as this bombardment we have been saving up, and I’ve lived through the Neptorian War for Survival. The Battleship had joined her guns with ours and each shot awaits a crack in time to propel enough firepower into this ship to crush continents. I smile now as I did in my observation. Let these blood bastards get out of this punishment. Anyway, we’ve been getting ready for the dinner with the dwarves and I feel like my military dress is adequate… Though the accessories are where I’m finding issues… As Seth says… there’s always a balance… I think a necklace and studs for my earrings will look classy and not flashy, also, not get in the way of anything in case of surprise attacks from the hemotitan forces. Always have to plan for sudden combat these days. Time to get things moving. <> Things could have been worse, though I must say I am no fan of dwarven architecture. They may be kind enough to consider human in the way they build, but I’m only half human, and wholy inconvenienced by 6 foot ceilings. Short bastards… Still, they were more than a little uptight as unease permeated the air. The dining hall on the other hand was much better. Enough head room to feel like I was more at home here than the rest of the ship. Seth held our introductions to Captain Beowolf, I’m introduced as the marksman of the group, Corvus as the melee specialist, Grey as the bodyguard, Bjorn as the demo expert, and Northhorn as cook and pyrotechnics master. Over all, accurate titles. I was still feeling a bit off when Seth began talking to the Captain. Grey got up to use the restroom, and was a little… odd about it. I began to sit in my chair in my signature draw stance. A flick of the wrist and a draw of my hand could deposit any of my rifles right into my hands. Sadly, the Volt was out of the question, being back on the ship and all, but we wouldn’t have needed it anyway, for no sooner than I began picking targets as it dawned on me what was happening, Seth calmed it all down. Good thing too, because I wouldn’t have wanted to take on a whole ship from the inside… Not without a nice long central corridor and Secure flanks. That might be rather fun, all things considered. The point is that nothing happened besides some serious alcohol being brought out. I may have been the only one dumb enough to have some, but Fairy Wine is not something you pass up on becaue “can cause blindness and organ failure” is labbled on the bottle. After all, sometimes fun is dangerous. Seth gave me that lesson. It probably wasn’t the point… but it’s what I took away from it. <> So, we had been blasting away into this time bubble for a long time now, but Seth had to bring reality knocking. The ship has not only started to move towards the past, but all the fire we are unloading into it will just go away. But wait! There’s more! We’re already there! Our ship is in that battle, having all sorts of fun without us… or well… other us? Gods below… I don’t know how to phrase this… What tense should I even use? Supposedly we will be long gone by then though…  <> Nothing is more entertaining than a skirmish with dwarves… We decided it would be fun to play around and have some combat training with them. Three of four wins go to us… It was like picking… well, dwarves out of a social event. They were woefully under prepared. I think my favorite moment was when Corvus was single handedly holding off 5 of them in Melee combat as Seth and Grey took out their reinforcements and I shot anyone attempting to get a gun in on the scrap. Our one loss was due to a “dwarven battle tower” where the little bastards piled up on each other’s backs to get on equal height with my sniper post. I was too busy laughing with the team over the comms, I forgot these weren’t bearded children and got one angry hammer dwarf dumped in my lap in melee… I promptly got my ass kicked as the others got picked off at the same time. Little cheap, but then again, all’s fair in love and war. They were well trained, just not up to snuff with the most elite team of bad asses on this side of the galaxy. Maybe I’ll get a t-shirt with that on it… Grey, the fastest draw, Corvus, the sharpest blender, Bjorn, the biggest bomb, Seth, the sharpest mind, and of course, Ambella, the best shot, all of this side of the galaxy. Not a bad idea. Probably get laughed at by the guys for it though… They have no team spirit…  <> Guil gave us a comms call, we’re all responding now… -- Emergency Combat Camera activating… -- Liking Audio Input… -- Activation Successful -- A large blast of energy rolls over the group as shouts from all of them can be heard. The helmet mounted camera is panning over from Seth to each of the others as they are all frantically scrambling from the now collapsing time bubble. “Fuck!” Ambella’s voice is heard yelling as she reaches for the closest member of the squad, Corvus. He’s currently in a kneeling stance with his hammer and dagger slammed into the ground. Grey is seen skittering by at breakneck speed before a quick yell is heard as Ambella begins to fall. A quick green and purple light flashes for a split second before the Camera is now looking into Nel Frane from afar. The view pans around, tracking small objects being sucked in towards the city on a light breeze before another curse is heard from Ambella “Gods below… Fuck this…” she sprints towards the entrance ramp of the Pilgram and makes her way through the corridors to her room with her footsteps pounding away the whole time. She throws open the door with a massive slam. Without a dive, she slides towards her bed and hands go under it as the Camera adjusts to the darker light of her dim living corders. Besides the Volt case, several magazines ranging from explicit to scientific studies to comics are seen as well as a few toys of heroic figures. She grabs the Volt and unpacks it while whispering obscenities to herself. She slams a bare Volt magazine with a standard round into the receiver of the massive cannon before grabbing a signed magazine with a very different round in it and strapping it to her hip. The camera shimmers again as the view shows a smooth standing motion and the light is blinding for a moment. A small window appears in the top left of the video feed with a terribly zoomed in view of the ship’s roof and the words “Targets are closer to Death than they appear” in small lettering on the bottom of the window. The helmet cam is showing the city in a much stronger vortex now and Ambella kneels down and swings the Volt into a firing position. The corner cam of the Volt scope moves and enlarges to take up about as much space as Ambella would see over her left eye just in time to see a massive explosion and a dwarf sailing through the air with a trail of debris and blood. The scope follows the body for a second before identifying the rest of the crew in various stages of escape or bracing poses before centering on the focal point. Ambella’s voice starts in a worried tone as she tries the comms. “Seth! What the fuck is going on?!” A blast of static comes in before Ambella yells again “Seth! Seth come in!” Static returns in full force before being cut off as the suction of the time bubble begins to pull on her in ernest again. Ambella’s voice sounds strained as she speaks next, “Gods curse it all…” She stands and turns to face the direction away from Nel Frane and steps off the back of the ship. A small thruster is heard right before she hits the ground. She begins to brace as the wind, grabbing onto the Volt case with her trigger hand, and holding the Volt upright with her right hand. The scope screen has shrunken and returned to the corner while showing the dead skies of Neptoor. A wash of light and energy shakes both cameras and the first thing each sees are clean concrete and clean blue skies. Shouting can be heard in the distance and as the helmet cam begins to look around, a siren goes off. Ambella grabs her case and slings it over her back as is seen looking onto her data slate. She hits “integrated stealth 3” and an odd humming sound begins to rumble into the mic as she hits “integrated stealth 2” she begins to blend into the concrete around her. She looks up in time to see soldiers circling her team and weapons being drawn. Little is seen as too many people are in the way. A few soldiers run past her position as she sits still awaiting a moment to move. A small shimmer covers both cameras as the position changes to a rooftop of a nearby building. Seth is breathing some light into Bjorn as his body looks a little less like a corpse and the Volt is swung into a combat stance and the scope camera takes its larger spot on the recording. The cross hairs switch from a few heads until landing on a higher ranking individual talking to Seth. Two quick comm clicks are head originating from Ambella and then Seth appears to be looking around at the soldiers. They are spend a moment talking as other people show up to talk and begin raising their voices. A moment later Grey comes out of the ground to rejoin the group. The scope rests on Seamus’s head for a moment before he looks directly into the scope before shaking his head slightly and returning his attention to the group. After a few moments, a stretcher comes for Bjorn and the rest of the team are rounded up and are escorted away. Ambella follows from rooftop to rooftop around a very heavily guarded fortress city until the team is brought to a secure looking HQ and are brought in through the front door. Ambella spends a minute looking around before a familiar shimmer leads to her standing on top of a hatch. A blur and a silentish pop are heard as the Volt camera faces backwards and then moves violently as the lock is removed from the hatch. Ambella slips through as closes it behind her as she moves on a catwalk in various directions following a few guards and making a few jumps before finding the room the group was brought to. She looks at a few guards on the catwalk with her, all armed and mostly looking into the room her team was at. She lines up a shot on the interrogator and waits. Seth leads the responses from the squad as he gives enough information to explain himself, without giving up the future too much. After a while, the Volt looks to be moving oddly and ends up in its case right before the scope cam disconnects. As the meeting draws to an end, Ambella hits her data pad and decloaks before standing up and stepping into the group. As a more than a few weapons are drawn, the helmet collapses and the video terminates just as she says in a cheery tone “Awesome! Where are we going now?” A bit more talking is done as several armored boots clip off of stone floors until The group is brought outside, over a courtyard, and to another location. At this time, Ambella’s helmet is reappearing and the video feed is reestablished in time to see a storage shed. As she steps through the door to the glorified shed, massive statics rips over the camera and a scream is heard somewhere far off, but somehow sounds like Ambella. The video feed and audio clear up in the portal room after the mission from Neptoor with large amounts of soldiers both drawing weapons and returning the draw. Those protecting the group are obviously Neptorian, and the soldiers of the council are quickly appearing as Nuhal begins shouting orders. A slightly disoriented Ambella begins yelling back over the others while lifting her badge of Tiamat into full view. The room is silenced by Seth and the team is moved towards the previously broken portal room where they are hurried to Tiamat for an immediate audience. Ambella looks down at her wrist mounted data pad and ends the emergency recording software. -- Emergency Combat Camera Manually Disabled-- <> Where to begin… I decided to leave to combat footage linked into my log this time… It just hurts my head thinking about it all… I’ll just pick up after we entered Tiamat’s reception… Soon as I did, I felt my father nearby. His presence overwhelming as I felt his curiosity probing and poking at me. It wasn’t even friendly… I stood there, as stoic as I could be as the great Tiamat was stumped by our new position in time. She explains a few things, but basically says “just fix it” and then waits. She doesn’t dismiss us as my father presses harder against my aura in an ever growing curiosity. At least I know where I get mine from. She smiles at me as my discomfort must radiate at this point. It takes only a moment for my father to step into this room. He’s almost angry as he asks who I am and why I’m here. Tiamat doesn’t seem to worry about the intrusion, nor does Seth. The others feel a little worried. I take a deep breath and turn around to face him from behind my helmet. I greet him by name, which just makes things worse as I feel his confusion warp to worry then the accusation of prying is all but crystal clear to me. He demands to know who I am, and not to offer excuses. I sigh, and let my helmet dissolve around me. “It’s me. It’s your Ambella” I see all his feelings drop and his powerful gaze softens. Actual tears well within him and he steps closer, placing a hand on my cheek. I didn’t recoil, but stood still and stoic. My feelings for him were still muddled, but I could still help him catch up to me. “Let’s go home for a moment… We have lots to explain, but no time to do it. Surprise floods him, but he quickly gains his composure as we step to his crystal fortress. We spent lots of time going over what I had already been doing to forgive him, and he seems all the more happy for it. I even break down a bit and we end in a long hug before I promise to spend more time with him. I’m brought back to the crew as we are getting ready to spend some time before shipping out. Seth heads off to talk to Ventrus and I ask if he wants me to set up a kill shot on her. He claims that he is only wanting to talk, and can handle it himself. I mean, he can, so I let him go with just a nod, but still, after seeing those fuckers on Neptoor, I feel like we need to blast them apart one by one. Ventrus at least appears to be the better of them, not so violent and disgusting, but still a blood mage… I trust Seth’s judgment, and if he thinks she’s redeemable or useful, then we can try. Nonetheless, if it was up to me, I’d kill them all and let the reapers sort them out. <> We awoke back in the past this morning… I hadn’t been able to pinpoint the stange feeling until now… but I feel me… and me…. and me…… all out there feeling the same an- nope. Just nope. My skin crawls thinking of it. Like actually it does. It’s a disgusting itch under my skin that only my soul feels. I hate it. I can feel it slipping into my head again as I type. Like things are speeding up… very… Gods help me. <> It was a blur again… But when I could focus and move on my own, we were in the council chambers readdressing ourselves. Things were less flashy this time, and were a bit more quickly. For the past few days, we have been retracing our steps and trying to get back to our equivalent, but the itch burns at nights and cries in the days. Seth says he feels it too… but he can’t get it out of his system either. Even after we cleared up the Syndicate in a very impressive legal sweep, I found no release of this pressure. It grows no easier to bear either. I just hope we can get this over with soon. I want nothing more than my senses to be back to normal.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 28:) Our River Flows I found myself back in the storage shed on Neptoor’s past again… Even now I feel the dread of war encroaching. Wasted life and death only to serve our enemy. Futility reigns on our actions yet again it seems. So cruel is fate that I must see my failure twice from every angle. While I awaken to see our river of existence, I am powerless in its currents. Thrashing about only to see the bigger picture and our failings in full. I feel rage and hate… and regret. In my brooding, I failed to notice the others wake. It would seem that I was not alone in these thoughts, as we began talking about what we could change here. Seth showed us that he had given himself enough information to change the world… If he so wanted. Or it was enough to step through our footprints back to our future. Risk ourselves or save the world… Safety and secure endings or a chance for others. Our lives, or billions… I spend all my time reading about heroes and the glorious deeds of those who shaped our universe… and I have the nerve to dare put myself and what I feel comfortable with over the lives of a planet? No… I may want to go home at the end of the day, but this is too much. I can’t let history repeat itself, literally. Grey was on my side, if not for his own reasons, but Corvus wanted to let the past be the past. He said we could break more than we knew… Seth played the middle for a while, pointing out flaws on both sides before eventually deciding to be a tie breaker if Bjorn sides with Corvus. Blood stains our path, and death follows in our wake. While natural, too much death is never good. While I follow entropy, I know that too much will lead to nothingness. Not all death is good, as Seth states, there must be a balance. I find his ideology to make more sense every day… I know where his choice will fall, I see it in his eyes. He sees it too. This is about right and wrong, selflessness and selfishness. We’ll save these people, or die trying. In the middle of our debate, Grey has a pistol lined up for a shot before I knew it, and with a precision shot that made me smile, blasted a bug away. Someone has been listening… And someone powerful is coming… <> Yesterday, after the bug and was taken care of and a diplomat soothed, Seth and I still felt that person… We would find out later that it was a blood mage the Corvus ran into on a night walk around the place. Before that though, Seth had been getting ready for his meditation into what to do next. He said he had lots of information to go over… I offered to lend a hand and soon we found ourselves in Seth’s little quiet place. It was strange at first, but somehow, an underlying current of joy was shared. Information being something I rather liked and all. An old fashioned white board came to be in the space and Seth began a very long process of getting all our information out in the open. It looked extensive, like a well documented history report, but with one glaring flaw, the enemy could never be predicted or countered properly. Their objectives were hard to pick out, as were logical moves. We spent hours theorizing, thinking, planning, and finally guessing. We simply had an incomplete puzzle. I felt like a child reading the pages of tomes I only partially understood, but the thrill of unravelling the mystery was pushing us on and on. Soon, we had only surmised that because of the Neptirian genes and composition, they were unique in the galaxy, thus valuable to the enemy. Pinical Bay was always the start, and Nel Frane always the end… We had begun to get a time table together and realized the truth in a moment of glorious horror… We had two months to save the planet and redirect this river of time… It would mean leaving our own for sure now, no denying it. We had two months before the scorch hit the surface of the planet from the oceans, and all efforts would be directed to saving lives where we could, and a drag out blood bath again… Two months to redesign history. We both agreed we had followed our threads to the end and needed more if we were to continue. We awake to breakfast in the shed and I had only a moment to exclaim such glory before we were spinning to see Bjorn boldly blasting into the room with a new arm, more metal and less flesh than before. We all start sharing info and before we know it, some more officials are here and we are “invited” to meet the emperor. We were getting packed into a truck when Grey pointed out a young woman to me. She was a sniper, much like myself and was rather good looking. Sly was her name. She was on the other end of the truck, and a bit occupied in her own conversation for pleasantries, but she seemed cool enough. Seamus seems too happy and relaxed to be up to any good, and there is too much going on to be that careless. I guess he gets detached from timelines… after all, he sees more versions of events than I care to imagine… probably more than one death… How many times has he seen this? <> We arrived at some communications station within a few hours. The place didn’t look abandoned, but it wasn’t well used either. Troops were everywhere, as expected for us though. We were walked into an interrogation room where Seth barely answered some questions for some officials from the capital. I was leaning more towards open communication, but Seth was hells bent on only working with the Legion. He’s always been better at big picture stuff, but still… I felt this was unnecessary. After they weren’t getting anywhere, they left and sent the other Hunter in, who promptly turned off all communication equipment. He almost begged Seth for help… If it wasn’t for the respect I had for him, I would have just told them all we knew. But then again… I tend to leap before I look… It was only after hearing that Commander Hunter acknowledged that only the Legion would act with no red tape that I understood. Everyone else would just get in the way… I hate it when Seth is right before I have even asked the question. Seamus interrupted about getting us home, and I amy have snapped a little at him about either being a help to the situation or fucking off. It was then that I saw his surprise while looking at me. He said I had never been awakened before. Guess he’s seen a lot of those deaths… I asked him a bit more calmly to help us with our task here, right before Seth took the conversation back. Commander Hunter took off his helmet in front of us and asked if we knew what that meant, of course we did… We learned of it the last time we were here. They don’t just do that for anyone, and the respect it showed was great. After a bit more of a discussion, a small girl with red eyes shows up to transmit a message to the Commander. We get to go directly to the Emperor… and it’s advised that we leave anything of strange tech here, as to keep it from being taken. I opt for putting most of my stuff into my snap box, along with a few items from the team. The armor stays here in secure crates. Can’t say I like it this way, but we didn’t have much of a choice… <> The ride there was… Interesting. They sent some government lacky to try and lie to us on a helicopter ride to the palace. As is the custom, I began to mess with him, although it wasn’t too effective until Corvus joined in. After a few minutes, we had the guy back pedaling and running in circles until he admitted he was here to try and pull info from us. At this point Seth forced the man to down a bottle of scotch. He spent the next 30 minutes sick as hell on the edge of the chopper. That should serve as a lesson in diplomacy.  <> The palace is a much better experience than some little assistant in a helicopter. First of all, no one is trying to hide anything as we are puth through security. Not to mention that the place looks fucking amazing. It isn’t long before we are lead up to a large meeting hall being used for our gathering. Plenty of officials are everywhere from many walks of life, all scared and in disarray. I figured the guy with the crown must have been the Emperor, so I gave him my signature wave to see where he falls on the spectrum of friendliness. To my surprise he offers just as friendly of a wave in return. I liked him from that moment forward. Emperor Pasys… Fun little name. The conversation was mainly between everyone and Seth, with a little intrusion by Seamus, but mainly it was Seth holding most of the info and only letting the council know of what needed to be done on their end with only enough of our hand shown to be “not a lie.” After a while, we had given them enough to get them to just let us do our thing and they all started heading out. Pasys decided to stop over by us personally and ask more direct and pointed questions to Seth. Seth promised that we could save the world if they listened, and the Emperor seemed like he actually understood the stakes. All things considered, we got things sorted out well.  <> We get teleported back to the comms station with a little of my practiced Fey Step and Seth using normal magic teleports. Pretty fun. What was even better was Commander Hunter’s face when he realized just how special ops we were. We started getting some plans set up as we regeared. For starters, Bjorn was gonna get some ammo set up for us. If we had an army to repel, I needed more Volt rounds. Seth had a little 4 second displacement while we were talking though, as he randomly does. When he got back, he confirmed that Federation support was possible and that the next step was to kill the bloodmage precog. I liked that idea. He called up T00N, an AI from our info mind meeting thingy… Anyway, he used it to help us find the bitch on the planet and once that dot showed up, I had a few thoughts of popping her head. Then she jumped location across planet and I giggled as I pictured her teleporting right into a shot. Silly imagination, because she jumped off planet after that one. The hunt is on, and I feel the thrill already growing. I have a history of taking the big game, despite the danger, she would be no different. Seth began talking about the plan to take her out in more detail and called for the Legion’s top shot. Venatus, the shiny, unfucked bastard walked into the room, and all I could remember is how the first time I met him, he had to give me a bear hug that popped ribs. So, might as well start the cycle correctly and give him one. I called his name and grabbed him before he could react, all he stated was “today just keeps getting better” which he would repeat in a moment when Seth told him we were assassinating the bloodmage precog. With that set up, Seth began talking about our two month plan to save the world. It was a long shot, and everyone knew it. Luckily for us, there just happened to be a long shot specialist in the room. In all seriousness, We had some powerful advantages on our side, we just had to play the game now.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 29:) Another “God” Down The plan is simple, our actions clear, and our purpose noble. We will kill the precog saving the hemititan forces from a crushing defeat and destroy the super carrier in orbit of the local moon before two months pass, or die trying. I hate to admit it, but I’m a little nervous… I mean, more than normal. There’s a lot on the line now and if we can’t win, it gets even worse for everyone. Seth likes to meditate in moments like this… We have a few hours to collect ourselves for the night, and I might as well try it out, but first, Seth has had an idea to help us stop these titans from running. <> We spent the night getting this spell down… It was more than I was capable of on my own though. I failed more times than I succeeded, but eventually I started getting it. Once they made their shield, we would steal it, then make it a prison. Fun Seth has fun ideas, and with little more than an hour left, he left me to recover for tomorrow. With our time together I had been thinking Seth’s visions were leaking to me again when I saw several deaths of Bjorn, but as my visions lasted longer, my mind was filled with the death of Bjorn in so many ways I lost count. I learned from it though, after the shock settled down. Two thing, one Necrosis had some strange power of redirection, and there was a titan here similar in combat style to Actorus. This one used a bow as well, but with mystic arrow. Besides that, it was rather important to keep a nuke away from the little bastard… Where he finds one is beyond me, but that little fucker kills all with it so many times… It wasn’t long until we were roused though and my visions would wait. I had a lot to process, so I kept quiet for our trip back to the capital. Another meeting with the Emperor was in store for us, and the bastard had just survived two assassination attempts. In the middle of the meeting, I feel a real Seth vision grab my mind. This time we all saw the Emperor get assassinated by that magic bow titan. Everyone looks shocked, and from that angle of the vision, that shot was impressive… I’m still a little alarmed, but just about everything is in my range though, so two can play this game. After that little episode, Seth finally lets everyone know just why we know so much, we’re from the future. They take the new well, even after we say we watched the planet fall… Decided it wasn’t a good place to explain my little title… Seth needed to get to a portal, and Commander Hunter needs time to get a team ready for our ship assault. To get us away from the craziness, we went out another way, and eventually find ourselves in strange and glowing halls. I could see the magic everywhere… We ended up in a massive room where a leyline nexus burned away close by. Damn thing was distracting… However, this all made sense when a group of mages began calling for Morjorn… and I shit you not, a mountain decided to get up out of the wall and walked towards us… With little else to do, I waved at him. Turns out, he’s a nice mountain as he returned the gesture. He already knew of us too, and that I was the Destroyer of Worlds… Specifically his world. Strangely enough, he wasn’t too upset about it. When we tell him about scorch on the planet, he gets concerned. When we tell him it’s in the ocean, he summons his sister, a water goddess who found many of us to be interesting, along with my eyes... She was stopping very close by to Seth, myself, and then Grey. I feel like beings of this strength are oddly interested in me. Seth, yeah I get that. Grey, well she said she smelled her people on him, and the man was dating a member of an ancient species of aquatic type people, it would make sense that he was somehow a magic fish guy, though Grey does say she when he goes on those little lover boy rants… You know, I’ve only ever seen the suit…. Oooohhhhhh. I digress, this water goddess spent some time studying me, and did that little fairy thing where she touched my nose, only to reveal a purple spot. She was interested, but like the water fairies, left me wondering what that meant. It isn’t long before we have six gods all talking about their planet and what to do next… That's where we came in. Seth told them our plans, and soon we got more than one blessing, in fact we got six. Some were a bit creepy, but still. Still laughing at Bjorn’s face when he got that ooze pulled out of him. Not laughing at seeing the gods killing him in my head because he insults them. Due to god logic, this event is unique. They can’t all appear in the same area normally and all that. So we’re doing all this for the first time. In the sense that the traveler hasn’t seen this yet. Strange… But nonetheless, we were ready to get things moving. Gods are interesting beings. <> We’re in two teams, myself, Seth and Grey will take the bridge while Corvus and Bjorn go take the engine room. Simple plan really. Grey is going to blast any blood titans if they use that damn shield because Seth and I will be taking their shields for our little prison spell. I’m linking combat footage again, I want this one saved before I have to go back and find it for later. -- Manual Combat Footage Link Enabled -- -- Activating Video Link -- -- Activating Audio Link -- Both the helmet cam and scope cam of the Volt are seen looking at a portal and the ground respectively. Ambella’s Voice is heard softly speaking “Audio Check… Confirmed.” She looks towards Seth then back around at the squad and their additional escorting Neptirian soldiers. Seth goes over the plan one more time, reminding everyone of where to go and what to do. He tells two soldiers they will be guarding the portal room once we get to the other side and asks if everyone is ready. With everyone checking in, they move forward and the portal opens. Once everyone is through the small hole in reality, it is closed behind them. Ambella looks around at the already dead blood soldiers and a couple technicians still alive and shakes her head. She, Seth, and grey exit the room and turn left as Grey slinks into shadows and corners like a ghost. Ambella looks to her wrist and turns on her stealth features as she takes the lead and starts directing the team down different halls on their way to the bridge. As if from the depths of hell all of the fire alarms start blaring and a mix of water and fire foam drop from the ceiling. Ambella begins looking around as music starts playing from the announcement systems and all comm channels linked to the ship. The Ring of Fire screams out at a volume louder than the fire alarms, making most noise silent in comparison. Loud thumping is barely heard as Ambella asks “Were those escape pods?” As if on cue, a giggling Bjorn is heard over the comms. “Hey boss, I uuhhhhh…. I just uploaded a virus to the ship…. And I think its fucked.” Seth asks him what it did and Bjorn is more than happy to explain that he crippled all telemetry, ejected all the escape pods, jettisoned the fuel, broke the fire suppression system, started the music, and emailed some guy who wasn’t alive yet… Silence fell over the three on the bridge team for a moment before Seth said “Good job, get back to the portal room.” and ordered the bridge team forward. It was just a few more halls anyway before they found absolute hell breaking loose in the command room. Gunfire and cursing could be heard as they approached. For a moment they paused, before the camera focuses on the friendly fire episode on the bridge. Everyone watches for a moment before Seth says our job is being done for us and all that was left was to extract. Everyone turns and begins at a breakneck speed back towards the portal. After a few corridors, Corvus reports that they were under assault at the portal room. Grey speeds up and a familiar shimmer washes over the cameras as Ambella starts jumping from one end of the hall to the other, just as fast as Grey can run down them. A few moments pass and the helmet cam focuses on a large breaching team about to enter the portal room. Two blood titans are in combat stances, Necrosis charging his energy, and another readying a spell. Ambella kneels down and the lock of stabilizers are heard as the Volt scope swings over the back of the bald head of the unknown bloodmage. The crosshairs and the words light up in red as a charging sound is heard right before a rather unsettling giggle. With a click, a powerful rush of energy is pulled in from the very air of the hallway and a massive shockwave of fire explodes down the hallway as an explosion rips through the enemies at a sonic level. The fire remains despite the suppression systems of the ship, and burned carnage is all that remains of a once impressive attack group; the entire hemititan assault force is slaughtered and lies in pieces across the floor. Necrosis, looking rather unharmed beyond cuts and burns looks up and yells over the the chaos “Ambella! It is good to see you!” An almost crazed voice yells back “Likewise you fucker! Now stand still!” The Volt is quickly being reloaded as Grey and Seth run past Ambella and stop a few feet in front of her, just in camera shot. Necrosis shakes his head and teleports away. Ambella shouts. “Damn it! I wanted that one!” before Seth shoots her a look and she stands up. “Alright alright…” she says softly. “Now wh-” A massive explosion sends her crashing into a wall and the Volt cam goes wild as it bounces down the hall and disconnects. “Fuck! No!” Ambella tries to get up after it, but Seth holds his hand out and pulls the cannon back to him before tossing it to Ambella with a disapproving look. The whole team runs back through the portal except for Corvus, who has to be dragged away from a Lionman corpse by Seth. Once everyone was through the portal, Ambella looks back to see Bjorn literally kicking a Nuke back through it. The portal closes just as fire begins to engulf the ship. Ambella can be heard laughing as she puts her Volt back into its case. It wasn’t long before everyone was gathering back with Seth as he explained they were going to Pinnacle Bay to get ready for the assault. Ambella looks to her wrist and toggles off the footage link as Seth speaks. -- Combat Footage Link Manually Dissabled -- <> After the Command Carrier was taken out, Seth jumped us over to Pinnacle Bay and we entered this cave… and a bloodmage began running. Seth called to Grey and a rocket flew by not a second later. I hadn’t ever watched this event from so close and unobscured by a camera… I watched as the explosion attacked the titan’s link to his host god directly… I had to stop Corvus as I wanted to see the reaction completely, for there must be a way to create the same result magically. After the reaction, I nodded to Corvus and he went to go poke the corpse. His dagger spoke through him and chidded him for cutting dead flesh. Seth was busy looking through a data pad and chuckling to himself at its content as he explained how they were going to invade Pinnacle Bay… This portal would bring an army in… We’ll be getting ready for it though, and they won't stand a chance.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 30:) Things That Should Not Be We had been setting up for the assault on Pinnacle Bay for hours. They city was evacuated, traps placed, battle plans made, positions dugin, and we all got ready for what we thought was going to be a very large fight. I had found two elevated positions that would act as sniper nests. One was on a construction crane, the other in the clocktower. Turns out the clocktower was taken. Sly was there. It appeared she had done all of the hard work by range finding and setting the rest up herself. We got to talking for a bit and the question of how I got here was brought up. I explained that I was getting my secondary position ready when I found her, I was just over at the crane when I teleported here. She got rather excited at that, and before long, we were both at the crane as I was telling her the distance marks. As the time kept going on and on to zero hour, talk smoldered out as we both got ready. Silence fell until a storm of such unnatural strength that it had to be Seth’s fault began ravenging the waters of the bay. Good luck bringing an army into that, or so we thought. Time dragged out much longer than expected until portals to all the various types of hells ripped open and spewed demons into the city. Corvus was giving his battle speech as I began finding the biggest demons to fell. The snap back to reality was jarring as I hadn’t even felt the pull of Seth’s mind… Strange indeed. It was quickly reported that a bloodmage was seen with a white flag in the courtyard of the town square. It wasn’t a second until I had that thing in my sights, as I imagine every other soldier had done. Seth was meeting with him before long, and it would appear that the titans were now looking for a way out of this fight. They asked for a parle and Seth decided to give them a hearing, and it isn’t long before the bloodtitans are filling up the square. Some I know of, some I have seen in my visions, and one pulled my gaze as if destiny was calling to me. The dying prune of a face that is Leukemia beaconed me to end her terrible existence. The first to step back was the precog, and following that, everyone else left the witch in the open, alone. My blood was boiling as I wished for nothing more than to answer the call of fate and smite the bitch. I was even thinking of breaking the truce. I doubt I really would have… but gods below I wanted to. The bastards gave Seth a list of desired objects that when delivered would end the war. I only knew one item on that list, but I remember it scared me… The Lay of Blood Roses… A terrible artifact whose power is legendary. It is said that Pandora herself was the bearer of the lay. How it ended up here was… a mystery. I knew there was no way we would be handing that over once Seth knew more about it, and told him as much… and if that was a clue to what the other things were, well, they wouldn’t get those either. The meeting wasn’t over at their demands though. Necrosis had decided I needed a gift. A small box awaited me, and he was pleased to say he already knew how I would react before leaving. No one found anything wrong with it, and it was scanned several times by all sorts of devices and people. Upon opening it, I found myself smiling ear to ear. A skull stared back at me in all of its lifeless glory. I saw the features and knew instantly it was vampiric, and the card confirmed who it was, Stryder. Necrosis needed to die, but he was probably my favorite enemy now. Too bad those guys are brainwashed so hard that saving them is impossible, because he might have been worthy of that now in my eyes. A vampire’s skull is a powerful artifact indeed, and having sentimental value in it is all the more important. It was odd that he knew of this, but I suppose not knowing how might be better, for the moment. After opening my box, I made good on my promise to tell Seth about the ley. We teleported back to the comms building where we discussed its power… until a powerful entity approached. Ventrus had decided to stop by, and sadly, all I had out was the Volt. I had never wanted to be caught in the blast of a GKR, but was ready to find out just how bad it was if she tried anything. Pretty sure she could see it in my eyes, because she made sure to keep calm and easy going until my nerves finally calmed down. She was… well, she wasn’t a very loyal bloodmage. Seth described her best as “having her own agenda that we just happen to be fitting in with.” It was odd, not hating one of them. I found myself still distrustful of her, but ready to at least hear her out. As it would be, she was more involved here than I knew. Seth had suspicions he confirmed with her, like this planet being designed to fight the hemititan forces directly. Ventrus was actually involved in seeding the planet and its populus. It’s easy to forget that she’s older than dirt… Probably because she looks that good. Funnily enough, Seth had that same though, because he decided he was going to just kiss her. Like, no real warning, only casual flirting, not that I wasn’t doing that too… according to Seth… But still. I guess that’s one way to get a traitor interested in you cause. With a little goodbye, and me poking fun at Seth, and him poking fun at me, we ended up returning to the group in a rather good mood. <> We all returned to base at the comms building to discuss all the crazy that had happened, besides the kiss. That was something I couldn’t tell anyone, Commander’s orders and all. Point is, we got to talking about why they wanted this crap, and how we could give it to them and not give it to them. Obviously, forge the book. The crowns… were another story. Couldn’t fake them… It was still a matter of discussion when Seth decided getting them first was at least smart. We’ve been given a legion escort for this, as to help obscure and, well, protect us. It’s the good old boys we’re used to working with. We’re making arrangements now to go pick up the Crown of Emperor Oolurus from the museum it’s held in. Teleporting sure does take a lot of the time out of things. Still, that’s going to be in the morning. I’ve been wanting to practice a few things with Grey involving auras. I’m not used to using them to identify people, so Grey is gonna help me sort them out. After that, I think I’m going to spend some time doing the Seth, meaning I’m going to meditate on magic. <> I have to say, it was fun learning who is who. Still can only guess at what all the colors and patterns mean, but at least I can see them and I know ours pretty well. While everyone is getting their morning stuff done, I’ve decided to just relax and enjoy the day. I got a nice tree to lean on and a bunch of running soldiers to watch.  <> We have just secured the crown… but I almost shot Corvus. We got to the museum and Sly and I had taken position across the street to watch for trouble. They guys went in, and found the crown. Apparently it was… weird to be around. No one was really wanting to touch it until Corvus did. For a second he was gone, and then back. His aura was different and when I called out that Corvus was gone and something replaced him, it took Seth to get me to stand down. That thing changed him… or well… lead him to Alura the death Goddess, who then changed him. Still, he almost died on Neptoor… again. He did try and grab it again, which lead to him getting tackled. We got the crown though. Wasn’t easy, but we had it. Actually, compared to all the other stuff, this was easy. I just hope Seth has a good plan on what to do.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 31:) Two Things in Life are Certain: Death and Taxes Things started off so promising… We had the crown locked up and stored when we sent Commander Hunter to get the Log of the Azure Legion, which still confuses me… I guess out of all the names in the galaxy, there would be some overlap somewhere, just weird how it’s home and these guys… Still, we ended up waiting about 30 minutes before it was decided we would go looking for him. The task was pretty easy, he was just in his room. The problem was the necklace holding him in stasis. I figured taking it off was the least I could do… He damn near punched a hole in me… Good thing Corvus was there to step in or that would have hurt. He was confused as to what happened, because to him he had just entered the room. That’s when Corvus sprinted off to check the crown, and Grey phased through the walls and began shouting about fairies… I told him to tell me where, and he said they were going north west. A second later I had cut them off and with my Power Bolt out, demanded they stop. To my surprise they did. The problem was that they had formed a defensive circle. At least I had bought time for the rest of the guys to get outside, which only took a second. I watched as Grey weaved through them like a phantom as he snatched the log from their tiny hands before being forced back my a wave off magic missiles. I had only just begun to raise my rifle when three of the little fuckers launched 10 missiles each at me… Time slowed down as I stepped out of the way of the wall, but I didn’t get far enough away… I felt two strike my leg, then two more zap my chest and somewhere another had stuck me. I don’t remember hitting the ground… Or anything before Bjorn pulling some syringe out of my neck. It’s hard to remember, but he looked genuinely concerned. The daze had only just started to wear off when I looked up to see a much larger fairy talking to Seth. I could still feel electricity dancing through me, though it was most likely just my nerves twitching or something… before I could reach for my gun, the larger fairy waved her hand and all my pain disappeared. I just fell back into the grass and sighed in relief. Who can say they went from dead to perfectly fine in 10 seconds? Me, thats who. I don’t recommend it. Still, I’m alright now… Just a bit messed up.  <> We had gathered back inside to start going through the log, where everyone lets me take the lead. Books are my thing after all. The log in ancient, and not even made of the same paper… some is parchment… some is almost leather… a few pages were actually woven… It’s an honor to handle this book. We eventually find some writing by none other than Ventrus herself… Some kind of spell I don’t know. Seth decides to have the log copied and asks T00N to do as much… But he then says the original needs to be destroyed. I almost punched him for that one. This book is one of a kind and can never be replaced properly… but it will be better to lose this artifact to save the people themselves… Besides, the information inside can be saved, just the vessel will be lost. Tragic, but sustainable for the needs of the Legion. I just wish there was another way… I know scribes and curators back home that would willingly offer their lives to save this thing… Hells, my mother would be disappointed in me for not putting up a bigger fight to save this thing. Huh… Mom isn’t even around right now… Better not dwell on that kind of stuff though. T00N tells us to get to Spine Meadow Mountain, his home installation, for this procedure. Seamus decides he will teleport us all, simply because he has the ability to take everyone with him. We found ourselves being brought to Nel Frane… Outside the portal room. Someone was in there too. We all got ready for an attack, but when a dragonling disguised as an elf comes out with a badge of Tiamat, we all get a bit more calm. This guy, Diethon, is looking for some portals in the name of some laws that I would never really care about. Basically, this is a taxman here to enforce galactic regulations. He just so happened to be investigating all the portals we were using… Great. Seth decides to let him come with us in order to keep things civil or something. In the name of galactic law, the portal is fragged. With that out of the way, Seamus gives us another hop to T00N HQ. We’re greeted by a fucking cart… Guess we have some riding to do before we meet the AI of the hour. <> We eventually got to meet T00N and all its glory. The machine intelligence was honestly a lot of fun to talk to. I spent a little while asking dumb questions and fan girling over AI as I always do… T00N didn’t even seem to mind. After I had stalled for as long as I could, Seth had me put up the log on a table, and T00n made two copies, our edited version, and one for the legion. I watch in silent horror as the original was then broken down to atoms. Such a shame… Still, I keep telling myself it had to be done… but I don’t enjoy killing history. The reason for all this was the previous traveler’s true name was in this book, along with directions to his corpse. At the end of the day, it had to be done this way. Our next stop was to get the ley, and Seamus teleported us once again. This time we were all in a hemititan warship… Gods only know how that happened… Another jump and we were right above the ocean by the bar holding the ley. Most of the others had a splashdown, but I don’t like to go swimming with priceless military hardware on my back. A quick midair feystep landed me nice and dry on shore, much to everyone’s complaining. It was an easy grab, the ley was on some stuffed hag thing…  just had to get the legion guys to get a picture taken and we were free to take the whole thing. Beast mermaid and all. Not a bad trip, all things considered. I took the ley back to base myself, it was safer that way. To be honest… I kind of didn’t want to put it in that box when Seth told me to. I did because, well it was the plan. But… I know what this thing does… It would be a one stop shop for building up my power… Seth is a little concerned about my fascination with it, but he just needs a history lesson. The one problem I have is after we sat and meditated together on the crown and it’s future, he told me I shouldn’t be in the same room with it anymore… I helped come up with our current plan to replace it with the mirror realm ley… why can’t I just see the real one before we go? <> First things first, I see why Corvus tried to put on the crown… these things are crazy. They have a will of their own almost… Something I missed in my readings… Good thing Seth wasn’t as tempted as us, or we would all be in trouble. Some good news though. Seth and I went exploring around the bar to get ready for our mirror walk and we ran into another mirror mage. He was powerful in his own right and he was someone who knew the area on the other side and was looking over the ley. He was willing to help us out when he found out we were the ones the Emperor had told to save the world and all. Who would have thought things would be going our way for once? After we had a decent talk, we went back to the Comms Building to get ready for tomorrow. Not that we had much time left after our run in with the mirror guardian guy. <> As the plan was finalized, I was very disappointed to find out I would be staying on this side as backup in case I had to go pulling people out. Maybe it’s because I still kind of think the ley would look extra pretty on my head… Probably part of it. With that decided, I begged Seth to pay attention to his experience… I was more than a little envious that as a mirror mage, I would be the last of our squad to experience the mirror realm.  <> Well… Things went pretty fast after that. We got the mirror ley, crown, and log all ready for transport… Just a portal dial away… then boom, everything was taken off our hands. I just wish I would be able to see what happens when they nuke themselves with those artifacts… That was it… All we had to do here. Our time before our time was completed. I feel strange about it. I know it was the right thing for everyone else… but I don’t feel like it was right for me. I worry as we stand here waiting for the right moment to leave. What have we just traded for? Do I regret it? No, but being selfless is hard. I just hope we made a better galaxy. I feel like only good can come of this though. How can saving a planet do any real damage? I probably shouldn’t be asking that though… 

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 32:) The Future We Made I found myself feeling self doubt after everything we had done. It takes someone smart and determined to change the course of time… Was I really one of those people? I have time and time again failed to make the right choice… Was I really someone to be trusted with destiny? And who was I to save the world? I was the destroyer… a harbinger of death and bringer of the end. How could I add to good the others had done? The thoughts ate away at me for a while, until I asked Corvus to meet me on the roof of the comms building. We were bound by similar ideologies, and I thought he might be able to help. We talked for some time about where we fit into the group and how we brought the balance Seth was always preaching. He had a point. We were two sides of the same coin. We brought death to those who needed to die. To save the world, we had to remove the blight. The end for evil… Perhaps that’s the good I can offer. After a while, we ended up sitting there, just watching the sun set. It was poetic. As our day ended, we saw the last setting of the sun in this time. In the morning, we will be going home… whatever that may be. <> Things are already very wrong… We left the past only for my world to scream and the very reality of space and time to be skinned in front of me… When we came to on the other side, my vision had me clinging to consciousness as I fell into Grey’s arms. I heard shouting and felt violence at the tip of the air. I could only hold up my pin while the others tried to defuse the situation. That was when Seth’s voice crashed through the air. “Stop!” and just like that, it all did. The tension dropped as I began gathering myself. Someone called to Seth in that moment, and as I began to look around, I saw another spaghetti man… That’s exactly what I needed… more burning eye pain. It would turn out that this person was Seth’s brother, who had not survived in our timeline. He and Nuhull are there and as my senses started to return we were being marched off to some quarters. Our arrival was expected, but not for a few more days, so we get to have a place set aside just for us. <> Strangely enough, we ran into the same taxman from all those years ago. He had taken the long way around and was also surprised to see us. He decided to stick around with us for a bit as we began learning of our time. Grey was practically whisked off his feet when he heard that Tress was here. I can only guess as to where he is now, but it is a good guess. Oddly enough, I have found myself in the arms of Ventrus for our gathering. The only thing more surprising than being kissed by the woman I had almost murdered several times is unnerving. She ran up to us after Seth had covered some basics, and now I’m in her lap... She isn’t even bothered by my hesitance or the fact the version of me she had been getting to… know… is not me. Still, no one is really bothered by her, and I hate to admit that she is rather attractive. I see no reason not to see where this leads. While I admit this entry is a little out of order, no one has the right to talk to me about time flow right now… when we entered, Seth found out that he was an uncle. Little baby dragon… except he wasn’t really that little, or really a baby… still, Seth was surprised to see the little tike. Our mission is going to be to escort Commander Hail to the council… again. He’s not that bad, just I kinda want to not be in a time loop. Still, more mysteries are being unraveled, for starters, I am in the elven military… a Chief. Seth is getting access to our files now as I try and unscramble my brain. Reading some reports might help me focus a bit more...  <> Reading the reports… I’m not who I am… The biggest problem was the fact that my mother is listed as deceased. She died when I was young… Some raid that barely did anything last I recall. Trolls… It just doesn’t make sense… That’s only the cover of the book though… I was raised by my father, along with my twin brother. Armond is also elven military, but I don’t have access to everything. He’s assisting my father with some stuff that I don’t know. My history is rather impressive, if not a little over the top. I earned my rank when fighting a rebellion. Single handedly I ended a massive assault from the top of a hill, with a sniper rifle. I killed more than a few people… more than a lot. The report makes me out to be some sort of hero, but I just feel uneasy. Perhaps it will grow on me. High Garden, the elven capital is my homeworld now… and it’s where I cut down that revolt. All of our missions were much more violent. More deaths, more slaughter, less fixing… We just cut through our objectives. All of us are more ruthless… I am not comfortable with the person I had become here in this time. It was at about this time I saw Seth exiting his room, I had spent all night looking over these logs… A minor note was my name being Mirth now… I confronted Seth about this and he confirmed my suspicion that this name had no power over me. That’s one mistake I won’t be so ready to make again… Still, we have to get ready for our day. <> It wasn’t too long until we had a knock on the door. I answered to see Payton and Ralph. Judging by their reaction to me calling them by name, they had not met us yet. Good. I don’t want my reputation to precede me right now. Through them, and a few others, we learned of the fate we left the blood titans. Necrosis is now more vengeful than me, and is hunting his one time brothers and sisters like animals. A large number, including Leukemia, tried to unite the crown and ley. The explosion had maimed them, but left them more powerful. While I am worried about this, I know they can die, and I’ll be happy to fix those power problems for them in the future. Seth goes to prove our meeting to Ralph in a spar. Using his own signature move against the lion man, Seth proves his point.   <> The ship had arrived and we were heading out for pick up when some very strange events took place. For starters, we saw a particular buggy bounty hunter, then Dawn and Killer Bee. I had no idea where we all stood, but once we saw a blood titan, I cloaked and took up position for overwatch. I pointed out the target to Seth, and it took only a moment for her to see the problems. Dawn kept looking over at me, but I had a drone watching her too… so I guessed it was fair. Seth got a data pad from the titan, who must have been feeling lucky with the passive insult she leveled at us. If my rounds weren’t so inclined to collateral damage, I might have considered that as my next kill, but patience is a virtue. I will see her again. I will see them all again. We got to the ship with no more problems, but the ship was… wrong. The wards were even higher in strength, godly power… Servant bug guy… my baren room full of nothing but a super mirror and runes… Then there was my brother. I wished for home… But after a deep breath and a realization that my sacrifice was for the betterment of the galaxy, I remembered where home truly is; Home is where you hang your enemy’s head, and I had heads to hang.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 33:) Shattering Expectations I had not expected to take Hail back to the council again… but here we are. I had tried to spend time getting to know my brother, but he was mainly interested in sleeping. The time we did spend together was odd. He expected me to be upset or angry a lot. From what I gathered, I wasn’t a good sister. The sad part was, he never knew mother… And father had brought us into a different life. While we wanted for nothing, I feel like we must have grown up a bit more hollow. It was sad really. I wasn’t ready to give up on him, but I got the feeling I didn’t really fit into his picture of his future. I ended up getting used to the ship when I found some notes about some rifle modifications to a gun I didn’t own. I was curious and followed the trail to Bjorn where I found him and a bunch of cute little angry things running around. After I spent a few minutes trying to pick one up and failing, I got back to the task at hand: asking Bjorn if he knew anything about this gun. He didn’t, but there was this giant locker system. When I went to look at it, Seth told me to not be stupid… So this thing can cause problems for sure… After getting Nova to open it, and watching how it was done, it opened to reveal prototype Volts… smaller, less technological… more military than private weapon, but the rounds down there that fit my Volt proved the point… These were some powerful fuckers. I both was excited, and worried. These things were crazy powerful. After a little digging, it turns out that the neptorians may have redesigned a weapon based of Bjorn making some ammo back on their planet. Clever bastards… So that explains that. After that, I was basically just testing some awakened magic. I had recently spoken to Minerva about forces… and in my favorite way, I tested it out on the crew to varying degrees of annoyance. The only one to get out of it was Seth who was sleeping after his magical exploits. Turns out I can manipulate energies decently well.  <> We arrived at the council chambers again. Long ago for me, this place has stopped feeling like a show council of the secret rulers of the Federation. I’ve been inducted a few times now, and I’ll be honest, the whole thing has lost its charm. Is this how senior officers feel? Strange… This time, Tiamat had set up a bit of a show for the council. It must have been to show who we really were. When I felt my father’s gaze, it was curious. I was different than his Ambella, and he saw as much. I’m sure Seth’s parents, who were here instead of that other guy, noticed something as well. Still, Tress was called forth to disarm and stand in some mystical light, then Grey was called up. Well, they called Ash, but we are those people and all that… When ordered to kill Tress, he refused. The little man with the remote must have been some sort of handler. After finding a way to piss Grey off with a whistle, I could tell he was ready to snap. That’s when Tiamat told Grey to kill him. That he did. I don’t know if the poor fool even got the chance to be afraid before he hit the ground. In a much more quick introduction, we all presented our true selves. Many were confused with Grey not being Ash, Seth drew a few eyes, and my father was visibly confused when I used Dakas as my name. His reaction was odd to me, my father who left me at least said he had feelings for my mother. I put it up to how he dealt with her death here… I always did take the human approach to feelings and grief. The few in our squad that hadn’t already received Tiamat’s pin had received them now, and the meeting was over. I knew a meeting was about to happen again, and after we agreed to take Ralph and Payton to Ashroar, the guys started getting on the ship as I waited for my father. He was more direct and inquisitive this time, but then again he had seen me recently and all that. I explained what had happened and he still accepted me as his daughter. I had just warmed up to my old father, so again I would be starting over. We talked for a few minutes, and I hate to say it, but I expected more of an emotional response, not just a clasp on the shoulder and a nod of approval. Family was much different here… or at least family by blood. As odd as it is, the closest thing to family I really have now are Seth, Corvus, Grey, and even Bjorn. Though Bjorn is more like the crazy drunk uncle that Seth warns us all about every time he comes over for diner. With that, we are off to clean up an infested station and Ashroar, again. We just have to make ourselves right with time… Easier said than done. <> Gil has added some weird “Through Jump” travel system to this ship. It’s magical in nature, but I have no idea about anything else. With that thing, he got us to the station in hours… Impressive. It was easy to clean up the station in a way that saved even more lives. The whole operation was done before we made it to Francis. This time, we arrived and Seth locked the titan in this area. As we got close, his loyal bodyguard tried to challenge Grey for a dual. It felt sad. Just a waste. Grey had taken more time to walk over to their “fight” than he had in killing him. Nothing special, just a man embracing eternity. A good reminder that not all ends are pretty, or even worth anything… Lessons to be learned everywhere, Seth would be proud. Speaking of, Seth channeled his goddess and with two voices, ordered Francis to repay the world he had so robbed. He demanded an oath… and this was one of those unbreakable and crazy ones. When he asked what would happen when he refused, I chuckled and started opening the Volt. He probably had no idea what it was, but he seemed to get the idea that he didn’t want it. With a glorious glow, he took the oath and was sent to right some wrongs. Maybe it would all turn out well. Maybe. I saw a bunch of people taking pictures and videos too, at least they were most interested in Grey… Poor bastard. None of us wanted the public’s attention… Overall, just another road bump. Glad we got to help those people though… Why does nothing good ever happen on Syndicate stations? Wait… Kinda just answered my own question.  <> We have to get going to Ashroar the old fashion way now, since the through jump system is down. Not a problem to me, but more space travel is starting to get to me. I kinda want to spend some ground time. Lucky us, that’s the destination. In my boredom, I found the birthday log for the team… Didn’t really have any coming up, but the closest was for Gil. With that sorted out, I’m gonna get a party started. <> The party was decent. We managed to find a bunch of alcohol around… most of it supplied by Bjorn and… well, me. We had a bunch of games too! Pin the tail on the dragon, steel beam toss, drunk darts, and some good old fashioned drinking games. Even the support crews showed up! We spent a few hours having fun, and Northhorn even saved some cake for us. Have to say, things have been iffy lately, but this was a bit better. Maybe things will keep getting better.

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 34:) A Glimpse Into Creation. Now, I believe we all need hobbies. For the most part we all have something to do… I’m a bit of a nerd, Grey is a pistol and Tress enthusiast, Bjorn tinkers with things he shouldn’t, Corvus kinda just… Well he trains a lot, that counts, and Seth meditates. So when Seth went from meditation to just growing plants and placing them everywhere… Well, that’s a bit odd. First I thought it was just because he was having fun, then I remembered Seth’s fun is planetary annihilation, so this was something else. When Seth does a “something else” it normally means another “something” is going to happen to us. I did not like his, “Just working on a plan” explanation either. It boiled down to us just not messing with them in the end. Can’t say I mind the fresh oxygen, but me and curiosity tend to mix like Bjorn and foundation shaped charges… I’ll try not to do more than look at the cute little fern thing Seth let me put in my room.  <> Landing on Ashroar was pretty great this time. We got a high end landing zone where we could mill around in private. It was rather late, but I still wanted to try my luck at getting into the Brazen Fair. My room was… well boring. Other me had decided that books and KoL weren’t the best things ever, so she could just fuck herslef as I tried to fix that… Too bad she would if she could… Still, I took Bjorn, Northhorn, and Corvus to go shopping with me and had a couple stops. One was in the street to tell Bjorn that just because he’s the size of a child doesn’t mean he gets to act like one. If he did anything to get me kicked out of the store, I promised him I would peel his skin like an apple and drown him in a barrel of lemon juice. The other stop was at a street hat vendor, who looked confused when I asked for the ugliest hat he had. Bought it for 5 credits then planted it on Bjorn’s head. He looked rather angry and had to hop up to get it on Corvus’s head. At that point I continued towards the shopping district, but that was the last I saw of the hat. We made it to the store not long after, but it was already closed. With nothing left to do… I took Corvus’s advice to go around looking for stuff to do. I was half tempted to go out alone and look for Ventrus… but I still don’t know what to think of her. So we ended up going downtown where… I felt a blood titan's presence… Not Ventrus… We cautiously approached as we drew closer and closer to the source and found our way into a club. I saw an ancient looking Capulus held above the crowd. Now, I had no love for this thing, and had threatened to deliver such pain to her before… But this wasn’t right. We looked around as a wave of energy washed over us and I saw Northhorn start acting strange. Bjorn looked wrong too… I told Corvus to control the dwarf as I stepped Northhorn out of the club and back to the ship were I told Crystal to watch for abnormalities and went back to Bjorn looking overly stoic, and Corvus looking overly blank. Whatever it was, no one was going to tell the elf. I told them to get a drink and stay in control while I went to go talk to some Legion soldiers I saw in the back. I approached them and hailed them, they were a bit weary, but  once I identified myself, I was taken to meet Sly and her husband. We talked for a bit and I got a few wristbands of staticite to keep the mental effects from messing with me. I figured it better to be safe than sorry and wore it while telling the others to meet up with us. Eventually we got back to the problem at hand. This war criminal they had was being toted around instead of being transported for execution. I tried to be subtle and suggestive, but they said they weren’t going to do anything without orders to. Soldier talk for “yeah, you aren’t in charge here.” I was disappointed to do so, but I made our excuses and got their comm codes before leaving. The next thing I did was comm Seth and told him that there was some fucked up stuff I wasn’t able to solve and gave him the location and the problem. If they wanted to play the kick it upstairs game, I’d send them someone they would listen to. Bastards… I expected more from the Legion. The rest of us started walking towards where Ventrus has landed, maybe I could stall her while Seth dealt with her sister… undoubtedly I thought that was her target. We made it a while before an explosion of magnitudes unparalleled erupted behind us. Before Bjorn could get on his knees and pray to his new god, I had already armored up and had the Volt in my hands. I told Corvus to get ready for our “Air Drop” that we had only discussed briefly before. With our stack ready, I stepped us over. I wish we had a better trial run, but the explosion was growing more than I thought it would and the blast was still going… We were almost swept away, but the flow had inverted. I got to the two in mid air and dropped them onto the reforming roof of the bar and told them to sweep the place for hostiles on the way down and to be slow about it unless I called for another approach. My next step was to plant myself right into the center of the bar. What I saw, is something I will remember. Few moments stick with me like this, but watching everything and everyone reform… From atoms to spirit… I ended up sitting and watching until it was complete. Close to the end, Corvus and Bjorn came in from the floors above as Ventrus teleported in. At this point it was clear that Seth had killed Capulus in a way that she was not going to return. Odd that he gave some sort of essence to Ventrus, but I guess it was the right thing? Perhaps. Still, Ventrus came back to the ship with me after a little bit of making sure Seth was alright, which he kinda was. He wanted to do a few things before going back, so that’s when we stepped back. I was surprised that she wanted to be… well she was intimate with me again. I guess she isn’t too attached to the other blood titans… or at least Capulus… In fact it happened again this morning while the guys were going out to their meeting. I’m getting a strange message though… Something about this store… I’m going to let Ventrus finish getting ready and then go take a look. <> Slight Interruption in that idea, a rather striking Avian decided to show up and talk to us. She was, as I would lean, a justicar. Great, I wondered if she was here to kill us, because she might have a chance at getting a few of us before Seth shredded her… Not fun. Lucky for us, she just wanted to give us some information, and share some. She had a nice vision orb thing that showed us yet another timeline where Neptor had killed us all, along with all the blood titans. Not that I wouldn’t lay down my life to kill them all, I’d rather be around to kill the next generation of them too. She asked if we had seen this future, and when we all said no, she was a little satisfied. She spoke to Seth about some more time fuckery, which I had started to really hate, so I couldn’t help but zone out until she offered us some actual information about our mission. A data slate and words of warning about the dangers were passed our way… along with some flirting with Seth. For once, he actually flirted back. I don’t blame him, she was more than pretty, and plenty powerful. I guess that’s what he likes. Good for him. When it was time for her to go, she did, and she did a little strut away. That’s when we found a drunken dwarf that wasn’t Bjorn sleeping against our landing gear. I left him to the other dwarf as I went back into the ship to finish my prep for the day. <> So we went shopping, I got to finally get to the Brazen fair where Ventrus was surprised to see me buying lots of toys, posters, and comics. While she may not of approved, I was happy. Next stop was for gun shopping, which I loaded up on ammo for the Power Bolt. Then the book store. I got a new shelf for me and one book for everyone else. It wasn't perfect, but I figured at least they would be good for a laugh. After all that, we arrived at the location that was marked on my HUD for the magical market, but only found a dead end. It kept trying to tell me to go through the wall… So I did. I found myself in a hall alone. Turning back I found Ventrus looking very confused. I stepped back out to ask her why she didn’t follow me. Turns out she couldn’t. I told her to wait a reasonable amount of time before getting help, which hopefully she wouldn’t need to do… I mean, what’s the worst that could have been in there if I was invited? Well, let’s just say that I should be careful. I was greeted as Lady Mirth and again I found myself drawing the attention of others in ways I shouldn’t. So I just went with the flow as best I could. I found myself almost being drugged horribly. I almost passed out from this magic bread thing… ended up buying it along with a bunch of fucked up jelly beans. I had a few bad ideas of what I could do with them, but I really didn’t like how many things old me liked to put in her body… I soon found out that I had more than a few things awaiting me here. When I inquired about something I actually wanted, a way to improve foci, I was brought to a gargoyle who… remembered me for getting into a fight with him… great. He said something was off with me… I tried to pass it off as just having some drug stuff, but gods only know if he believed that. Still, he lead me to what I asked for, and I couldn’t help but thank him, which again drew his attention. I can’t really help it… I’m not enough of a bitch to pass as me. With that under wrap, I asked to see the other book… I soon found myself holding some evil bloodmage book… It wasn’t something I was interested in… at first. I mean, now that I own it, I kinda want to look inside and stuff… Probably shouldn’t… I won't. But I want to. I paid for it with almost everything I had on me… Years of saving gone to waste… Well, at least I own secrets and stuff. I made my way out after that to find Ventrus with some food waiting for me. It wasn’t half bad, and when I asked if she was teaching me anything like her magic, she was a little shocked to have to tell me “not here.” I wasn’t asking her to do it, only if I had asked that in the past… Turns out, yes. Old me was… learning blood magic at a quick pace. I shouldn’t be surprised, I almost did it myself, and I wasn’t even as messed up as me. Point being, I was unsettled. 

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 35:) Some Would Call me Crazy for Turning This Down… I came back from my shopping trip with two types of purchases: for me, and for others. I had thought that it would be entertaining to get everyone a book. No one really likes reading but me, so it might have been kinda funny, and maybe a way to kick off an interest. Most of the books are more of jokes than actual entertainment, but we’ll see. For Corvus, I found an avian cookbook. I know he’s about as good in the kitchen as I am with a knife, but the connection is obvious. Grey got a field guide on how to interact with beast-kin. Something he had no use of, but the thought of him reading it and seeing how random people may see him is kinda funny. Bjorn received “Thermonuclear Dynamics: For Dummies” and I can imagine him looking over every page for a way to make a warhead. Seth was a bit harder to get a gag gift for, so I eventually had found him a book on the differences of stars and the basics of real astrology. When I got to handing out gifts everyone laughed a bit at the subject matter and moved on, until I told Seth we needed to talk, again. Once in his sanctum I brought out the super good blood book of friendliness and told him it was just too cheerful to be left in the world, lest it burn the eyes out of anyone who read it. It practically had an aura of its own… A discussion about my father was had, and I was glad that it appeared that only my dumbassery was at play again. With a few things off our minds, I almost forgot to leave the book, that is until Seth noticed. Too many things going on in my head… Glad he saw my mistake. When we exited, it wasn’t long until Dawn and killer bee showed up… They had expected some sort of party, which sounds good until you realize that they also expected sex. I won’t lie, Ventrus is growing on me and I’d rather not just fuck anything that moves. One partner at a time is enough for me. Plus I killed Dawn last time we saw each other… Well, I was the reason she died. The whole thing would have been easier if she just hit the ground… I wonder if that moment is why we are caught up in fate’s web? It was there that everything started… Seamus first altered our fate and plunged us into madness. Upon reflection, I was most likely going to die there… I would not have overcome her precognition on my own… I find that death and fate surrounded me, even before I knew why… Perhaps it was just my ties to the two, being a creation of Minerva and all.. Still, I wonder just how much of our lives here are guided to something greater… As Seth said, there really are no coincidences… Where was I… See! I can’t even think of her without having my mind shift to the reality bending fuckery that haunts us. How am I supposed to work with her, let alone sleep with her. I’ll stick with the murder bloodtitan, thank you very much. Speaking of which, she is being kind enough to talk to Dawn and Bee for me about the whole, “don’t fuck the half breed because she’s just an innocent librarian,” or something like that. Yeah… that’s it. Totally what she’s saying. <> Yeah, that’s not what she was saying. Not even close. When I finally got to reenter MY room, they were more than a little shocked. First things first, the Volt. They were very similar still. The only differences were the skull mounted to the end of mine, and the shell ejector being set to shoot out for a lefty. She was a little worried about how I got it, and I just told her she died when I out shot her in a combat dual. She was surprised, but I reassured her that there was a reason I spoke of myself as “the best shot on this side of the galaxy.” She looked to not believe me for a second, then grimaced at my holding the Volt the same way she held hers. After that it was just a down hill sprint to see how fucked up I was and how I compared to “The Queen of Death.” It wasn’t a bad title, but knowing that my second title was “The War Criminal” because of it… I was just happy to say I was only the “Destroyer of Worlds.” A few brows raised at that, and I told them that multiple planets I visited ended up with catastrophic level events playing out… and the title was awarded when the Neptorians had their “free surender” option taken away because of my titan kills, thus switching the orders to “Die with your desolate rock.” I didn’t tell them that it was first used on me by a terrified politician who had seen my future in a divine vision who’s first response from his returning mind was to tremble in abstract horror at my face. Some things aren’t meant for others to know… As we talked, it would turn out that rather than respecting death as an art, Ambella Mirth treated it as a pass time. An entropy mage who’s sight only lingers on the kill is a shame to us all… It saddens me that in a life where all my worries were taken care of I would turn to such depravity… We all had monsters dwelling within us though… After the conversation, Dawn and Bee left us to go get a different party set up. At least they were kind enough to understand. Ventus and I talked between ourselves for a bit, and I was shocked that she was actually… well, she was more than she lets others see. I felt bad for her, being stuck in her world like that. With Ventus, there was only one destination though, and after our talk she quickly turned it to sex. Feels to me like she’s trying to keep those moments few and far between. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I still don’t fully trust her. She’s good fun though, and maybe there is room for her to grow. I think I’ll put her in the “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” category. 

--Accessing Personal Log-- --Please Input Password --Password Accepted-- --Decrypting log-- --Welcome back, Ambella-- (Session 36:) The Shadow That Hangs in my Dreams Ashroar is nice and all, but I’m beginning to grow tired of it. Every day it feels like we just find more and more to do though. The others have been doing everything from surgical enhancements to hunting. I have been reading my Focus and Foci book and trying to understand how to create proper foci and atune them. It’s fascinating, but I would enjoy some of our usual exploites to accompany my study. It’s hard to read a good book when no one is shooting at you… Still, I have made a large amount of progress and will be testing out some designs and tricks in the next few weeks. Also… Ventrus has a rather intense sexual appetite, and I fear I am unable to keep up... Every time we even bump into each other we end up in the bedroom, and considering how crowded it is on this ship… there is a lot of bumping. I never thought I would be complaining about this… but I really need like a week to let some soreness die out… It’s clear Mirth didn’t have that problem based on how foreign the idea is to Ventrus… Long diary entry short, Heaven is not just books and sex with hot women. <> So, Grey is awake. Little guy came out of a Seth meeting and was shining brightly with an impressive aura. I stepped out to meet him just to see his wide eyed look of amazement. He seemed to be soaking it all in, but it was a lot. I offered to help him control it and attune his senses to the shift in perception. As powerful as it is, there is a bit of adjusting to do. He said rather quickly that he needed a bit and ran off to his room, his door closing before my hair was brushed by his breeze. I looked to Seth who just shrugged. Fine by me, it takes some time to get used to it. I’ll be available later. <> On the list of things not to do, agreeing to more drinking games with Corvus is on top. Played a bit of a brain training game… The idea was to make each other drink until we dropped. Well, 2-3 isn’t bad until you realize the third one crushes your liver… Took me a while to not taste vile in my mouth… let alone feel sober… Good game Corvus… you crazy bastard. <> We got our next mission details, lots of shit happening in Avian space… mass suicides and destabilization. Our job is going to be to find a very important ship. Most of the important people of the galaxy decided it was a good idea to get together and go missing, so we’re investigating. Corvus says he knows the guy in charge of the avian sector we will be starting in, so that’s a bonus. Only weird part is that it was old Corvus that knew him… so acting time. <> We arrived at some backwater planet of the avian empire, but still not decadent. First time being out of the federation for me, and I have to say, I love it. Going to the places you read about as a kid… well, it’s a special kind of experience. Most avians use roof level access and they have a literal top to bottom hierarchy. Sad to see slaves though… Kinda feel for those rebels. Seth told me it would be bad for a civil war right now… but sometimes balance feels wrong if it keeps people down like this. I find myself thinking it would be worth it to start something. Despite my personal opinions, I have to solder on. Seth is in charge and has decided it’s best for us to preserve the status quo. I just hope we fail in that regard. As for the meeting with the governor, we land on the roof of the administration building and make our way inside. We get some very worried looks, but hey, I can’t blame them. It isn’t long until we arrive in a meeting room and get some strange looks and questions. I act like a total bitch and I swear Ventrus is turned on my that. She got all mind gropey again at least, and whispered how much she like the old me. Shame… Still, we explained that it was a very clear occurrence that many parties were interested in this ship and we had all kinda agreed to work together to find it. I mean, how else could we explain this crew? Blood titans, elven nobility, dragon representation, and federation assets all in the same room is a hell of a thing. I guess it meant we had enough pressure to push the guy around, so we used it. We would have an Avian escort ship with us, but that wouldn’t be too much of an issue. Another fun bonus was another “Last of the offbloods.” Got to show him videos of his brothers and I think I annoyed him decently well. Hurried away after that, but it was worth it. I’m keeping score now… It’s going to be a pet project to find them all.  <> Grey would never forgive me for that… The poor bastard… Dawn and Killer Bee had it coming though. They thought it would be funny to pick on the new awakened mage, so I might have done a little picking of my own. They had decided to try and throw targets at him and try and hit him. I knew he could dodge it all, but he had been doing so well in practice, and I wasn’t about to let them ruin his confidence. I just made it so he would always guess right… I manipulated fate around him so that he would act as a master… and It worked. It worked so well that it was terrible. He made Bee and Dawn look like idiots and I spent the entire time laughing on the floor watching out of teary eyes. Seth gave me a raised eyebrow and a knowing glare, while everyone just watched Grey destroy every exploding target disk he saw move. When he was done, he looked so proud… He asked why I was laughing so much, I just had to lie. I told him that I had never seen someone do so well, and on a first try. I thought it was funny to watch Dawn and Bee get scared of him. He told me it wasn’t that funny and I told him it was. I’m just glad he walked out of there looking mighty big and confident. <> I haven’t been this upset in a while. It all started when we had found a lead with our missing ship. The damned thing had gone into this fucked up nebula. The moment we tried to follow it, I felt what I can only describe as an extremely familiar sense of dread grab me by the soul. It took me several moments to snap out of it, but I felt a smokey rage bubbling inside me as a response. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the only one acting strange. About half the crew had some issues as well. Seth and the others had got things under control when we realized that the nebula was missing a giant spot in it, about the size of our ship. Stolen from space… We eventually tracked the signal after we had to save our avian escort… Transponders moved a signal, and apparently matter, through a black hole… Absolutely incredible. Even knowing what I know now, I can’t help but me blinded by scientific marvel. We made prep and Seth gave the okay for me to make a record of this. We used magic to travel the same path as what was pulled through and found ourselves on the other side. It was there that I heard Stryder… I know it was him… I didn’t hear what he said, but I can’t forget that voice. There was a debris field from dead ships around a massive battle carrier. A hungry force tried pulling at us, but we found the trail we needed from our target ship. We ended our ritual and I made all the notes I could. After that, I have some time to hate Stryder some more. Fuck him. <> We made a jump to the area on the other side of the blac hole the long way. I saw the long way, but Gil just used our magic jump drive to get there safely. Well, it was safe until we got there. I felt him before anyone knew what was happening. Stryder was here… Somehow and somewhere. It was then that we had to fight Gil for control of the ship. He was seeing things and believing falsehoods, telltale signs of psionic manipulation. It was after we had regained control that we heard his voice… Struder told us to leave, he had no quarrel with the dragons… I was ready now… I wanted to go kill him again and again and again, but Seth pulled the plug. He got us out of there, for now. <> Damn it all… I’m heavily sedated now… Back on the ship. I was pulled to the bridge of that ship. That damned graveyard. Gods below… There were too many of them. I stood face to face with five identical Stryders to the one Corvus killed, along with an army of skeletal adventurers. All over the backdrop of the dead planet… They all spoke into my mind… Silence and explosive voices burned at me as I tried to stand my ground. They called my name, and as blood trickled down my nose I stared into each of their eyes, begging them to try and take me. I would have killed all of them. I felt the hatred fill me with resolve. Their voices boomed again, blurring the edges of my vision. They told me even as small as I was, I was a distraction to the abomination. I could either stop, or die. When they said die, I felt my very soul being pulled and mind crushed. Pain of untold proportions wracked my body, but I stood and stared. I would not beg. I told the things I would stop, reluctantly. An instant later I was back on my ship. Fucking thing. Seth was right about needing time… So I just ran to get the old tranks for Ash. Now here I am… Seth had a few questions, but that’s all behind me for now. I just need to get away from Stryder… before we kill him for good.