User:Najawin/Sandbox 4

Book Three
Porsena thought back to before, before he was dead. A hack comedian, magician and con artist, he was recruited by the Faction when he decided to see if he could make use of the new cult that had moved into his town. During his training, another new recruit was making waves, Cousin Antipathy. Porsena, along with the others near Antipathy, would lose time, lose memories whenever Antipathy had visitors. When he reported this to the elders, they confronted Antipathy, attempting a ritual against him, as he kills and wounds many of them and flees.

Clutterbuck and Urbanus move inward to the Epicentre for reconnaissance, before finding many people being tortured and falling back. Reconstituting their forces, they push inwards, rescuing the captives, including Keth, and turn outwards. Just as they leave, Keth, who was kept on in the Ignotian household for being somewhat precognitive, has a slight premonition that they need to get to the waterfront, which is on the other side of the complex. As the group turns to make the track back, the Manfolk of the Epicentre swarm forth in their counterattack.

Tobin and the Ignotian army enter the party St Marx is hosting. Tobin explains both that Mostyn was an undercover agent for the Rump Parliament and was using a biodata ritual to get close to St Marx, harming her election campaign and that St Marx is the one who killed him. She then goes on to explain that as Mostyn got close to her he figured out that St Marx was, in fact, half homeworlder, that Handramit is her father. As someone who is half human, she lacks many legal rights, such as the ability to hold political office, or even an academic post without special dispensation. And so, Tobin accuses, she found out about potent weapons through a contact in Manfold and had one sent to Mostyn anonymously, hoping that she could then disguise her murder of him as an accident. Cassius Ignotus then arrests both Allisheer St Marx and her husband, Anthony Fisher. St Marx for murder, Fisher for tyranny and treachery to the Roman Republic, as he was known on earth as Caesar Claudius.

Porsena thought back to the plans of the Faction to install an agent on the City Council, to his becoming Ved Mostyn, and how at the eleventh hour the plans had changed. Investigations into Manfold had determined that the Manfolk were engineered by a time-active power and the Parliament felt that they were sent into the city as a Trojan horse and that meant he had to get close to St Marx. Whispers in his head probed in throughout these memories, until they forced themselves in at very last, forcing Porsena to come to in his cell. Sitting in a cold chair, his jailer down on the floor, as were his chains. And standing in front of him, Little Brother Edward, framed in the sardonic posture of Godfather Avatar. Porsena agrees to let Avatar ride in him so long as Edward takes Lon Shel out of the Epicentre.

As the group left the party, Ignotus brings a message to Tobin from the temple of Civitata. The goddess of the City has asked to speak to her. Tobin travels by tube to the temple, climbs up Antonine Hill, and enters the inner chamber to see a statue. A statue that looks like Tobin herself. "I should have bloody known." The gypsum image of Compassion V says, "Who else would it have been?"

Avatar waddled towards the epicentre of the Epicentre, moving down to the basement where he encounters a looming figure, standing over a dark altar, still. At first Antipathy expresses shock that Porsena could be so stupid as to come to him, but Avatar insists he look again, and Antipathy realizes that he's a loa.

Notes for pages
Julian White Mammoth Tusk is a Neanderthal who used to date Lon Shel and hired the GDA under false pretenses to find her. Was sent on a mission by Mesh Cos to find the lost planet of Erath, bringing a potent weapon to UniMac.

The Romuline District is an area of the city run by the Romans, specifically the Ignotian family and Cassius Ignotus. As nobody can be harmed in the city, they sell violence, through spectator sports, veerees, XP simulations, and even cloned bodies which they will pilot to dismember other cloned bodies.

Mesh Cos is a Councillor, described as heartmurmuringly beautiful, a member of the last human species. Mother of Lon Shel, had her through parthenogenesis, "a perfectly valid lifestyle choice". Created the Universal Machine through stealing Great House technology and as a result doomed humanity to extinction.

Erath The lost planet of Erath inside the Great Park RealSpace was [insert more here, something about tourist attraction?] - only exists if you approach it from a specific string of hyperjumps, has very strong defenses. Has a colony of robots inside that are aspects of the Universal Machine. Inside it also includes the Downtime Gate.

Kempes District -Borders Manfold, Urbanus goes here on behalf of his g.grandfather and finds some ruffians who get into a bar fight, one of them actually gets hurt, he thinks this means it's damageable homunculi. Romuline troops would later mass in the district in order to invade Manfold during the beginning of the Civil War.

Keth Marrane is a menfolk hermaphrodite who went by the name Tiresias and worked as a spy in the Ignotian family, having minor precog abilities which they found useful for a time before becoming a tutor. He later defects back to Manfold because he worries about what's coming. Joins a rescue team to save Urbanus, gets shot by Gnas.

Gnas Gortine-

Little Brother Edward - remake created by Nina Gutierrez from fantasies, a personality from a legend, based on an actor, created as the plaything for a rich woman. Her younger sister ended up breaking the illusion of who he was, his false memories, leading to him having a fragile sense of self. He took a trip out into the universe, and broke apart their parents before they ever met, intending to erase his creator from existence, but when he returned, found her to still exist, and found the Rump Parliament to be interested in him. Due to his fragile sense of self he was often used to host Godfather Avatar, and in doing so this led to him being shot with a potent weapon [...]

Melicia Clutterbuck - Dr. Melicia Clutterbuck, the City's most distinguished student of comparative humanology, city born, has gone out into the universe on research expeditions. While at the University of Manfolk she and some students were attacked, leading her to take command and launch a counter offensive, including raiding Gnas Gortine's base of operations to free some students. Upon freeing Urbanus Ignotus her group decides to venture into the Epicenter

Epicentre - An abandoned industrial complex in Manfold where the breakdown of the City's defense protocols started. Place where Lon Shel was kept, as was Porsena, and those who died from potent weapons were resurrected.

Onesia - Location, ostensibly a planet, Handramit teaches at a university there, Allisheer St Marx grew up there.