macros.forgetall = macros.rememberall = {\n handler: function (a, name) {\n var s = state.history[0].variables;\n for (variable in s) {\n if (s.hasOwnProperty(variable)) {\n if (name == "forgetall") {\n delete window.localStorage[macros.remember.prefix + variable];\n delete s[variable];\n } else {\n window.localStorage[macros.remember.prefix + variable] = s[variable];\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}

It is the [[royal prerogative|transit]]<<set $transit = "stage5">> to occupy the bodies of her subjects.

<<if $day is 2>>She, we, walks behind the throne as we talk, letting the window light fall across our profile. While you're, she, us are orating, you, and only you, have a hand free for a nervous tic.<<endif>><<if $day is 3>>We walk back and forth, tracing the throne, gesturing for emphasis. While she's orating, you have a hand free for a nervous tic.<<endif>><<if $day is 4>>She goes to the window so the light can frame her.\n\nYour hand is free.<<endif>>\n\n[[Suppress the urge]]\nOr\nTap at the pale stone of the [[throne|throne_tap][$thronetap += 1]], or the meteorite-scarred [[glass|glass_tap][$glasstap += 1]].

The skeleton of the empress is displayed in the city square, strung from the highest branch of a colossal tree. The blue tiles around the tree are churned up by mammoth roots like frozen waves.\n\n[[...|to the garden]]

In the armor-dross you find a device. A kernel of captured sun throbs inside it. The device says, "SUNLIKE MORALE GOODERMAKER".\n\n[[Back into the dark|transit]]<<set $transit = "rushing">>

Priestess: "Does she enjoy this?"\n[[No|tired_convo]]--how could anyone live this long and not be tired?<<set $compassion += 1>>\n[[Yes|appetite_convo]]--she is a creature of appetite, with no capacity for empathy.<<set $compassion -= 1>>

You're stuck in the [[obsidian|obsidian ship]]. Your face sticks out, and a hand, and a foot.

I. Her Chambers [[❀|rumor]]\n<<if $swamp_chapter is true>>II. Criminal [[❀|stage2]]<<endif>>\n<<if $war_chapter is true>>III. Sap in the Veins [[❀|stage3]]<<endif>>\n<<if $agent_chapter is true>>IV. To Kill An Empress [[❀|stage4]]<<endif>>\n<<if $moon_chapter is true>>V. Palace of the Moon [[❀|stage5]]<<endif>><<set $day = 1>>

Carved of moonrock, cast through with ferrous striations.\n\n[[...|throne]]

Someone with [[green skin]] sits cross-legged on the grass.

As you enter the ship, the pulse syncs to your heartbeat. You're so transfixed by this basilisk vibration that you don't notice the other thing.\n\n[[A smell of chemical|transit]]<<set $transit = "cave">>

The greenhouse maintains the perfect [[humidity]] for [[rule of law]].\n\nA waterproof [[book]] dangles from the chain around your [[waist]].\n\nYou prune [[down the rows]].

You fling it down. The heart slides across the floor in a flow of bitter-smelling fluid.\n\n[[Stomp on the heart\n[[Burn it\n[[Shred it

<<set $die += 1>><<if $die gte 12>>[[<<display "deathmessage">>|death][$death = "bedroom"]]<<else>>The room is [[empty]] save for a [[mirror]].\n\n[[Wait|bedroom]]\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[garden]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[study|chambers]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[shrine]]<<endif>>

They take you to the [[garden|garden of the conquered]].

Bright sun on black sand.\n\n[[Walk|sick]]\n\n<<silently>>(cut to gray instead? or just change the description in the hourglass?). Is it so bright you blink?\n\nA lone wall?\n\nHow do you know where to go? A map? Follow the towers?\n\n<<endsilently>>

A glass dome bubbling out from the main dome. Plants are forbidden in the palace, so now they store honest metal here: fragments of metalwalker carapace, and the swords that fell from orbit.\n\nBut when the verdigris blossoms, a garden grows in your periphery.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]

You hear a rushing, whispering sound, flowing in and out. Slow and rhythmic.\n\n[[Drag yourself toward it|toward]]

"She's an animal that wears human faces."\n\n[[A prickling on your spine|enters]]

The assassin slides her dagger into the cleavage of your carapace, striking something you definitely [[needed|result]].<<silently>>an important, anonymous organ.<<endsilently>>

She meditates in the sun, drinking it with her skin. She is almost completely [[merged]] with the green.\n\n[[...|liason]]

The observatory.\n\nYou drag yourself [[inside|entrance hall]].

//Due to recent circumstances on the front line, convicts are being offered a one-time opportunity to enlist in the Stamen Vanguard.\n\nIntegration with phyto-armor will be required.//\n\n[[Keep reading]]

A heart floats inside.\n\n[[lab]]<<set $jar = true>>

<<if $window is true>>Specks of ash waft through the open doors.<<else>>Through the frosted glass, you hear a sound like the sawing of hard, knotted wood.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $window is true>>[[Shut doors|window][$window = false]] | [[Go onto balcony|balcony]]<<else>>[[Open doors|window][$window = true]]<<endif>>\n\n[[Turn away|chambers]]

An [[hourglass]]. A [[diadem]] <<if $window is true>>holding down papers down as they flap in the draft.<<else>>holding down papers.<<endif>>\n\n[[Vanity|chambers]]

"There is nothing to feel here. She is an act of god."\n\n[[I see|enjoy]]

Streaked orange along the angle from the anther.\n\n[[check|armor]]

Serrated like a nettle's leaf, stained with blood.\n\n[[check|armor]]

A smashed orrery. You can't find this world in the mess. Maybe it rolled away.\n\n[[Stop looking|orrery_room]]

You wonder if it would be better that way, not living half-way, no longer needing the itching bonds of the armor.\n\n[[maybe|green skin]]

A fragrance of sap is upon you.

"On a very deep level, she may be subconsciously yearning for some kind of terminal point."\n\n[[A prickling on your spine|enters]]

<<if $crowned is true>>The crown digs into your skull, but you grow used to it. After a few days it seems to soften and mold itself to you.\n\n[[And it feels good|unite 2]]<<else>>Through the glass floor the pale desert of the moon curves into the void horizon. [[Empty vases|instead]] stand guard at the knees of the halls.\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Your chambers|moon chambers]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[The garden|barren garden]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Throne hall|throne]]\n\n<<if $day is 1>><<set $transit = "oceanheart">><<endif>><<if $day is 2>><<set $transit = "day 2">><<endif>><<if $day is 3>><<set $transit = "day 3">><<endif>>\n<<endif>>

The phytocracy dealt us a terrible blow, yet we live. (pause for effect)\n\nWe need new routes, new allies, sources of elemental sulfur and slaked lime, great heaps of salt, for battlefield bitterns and festive feasts.\n\nWe will treat with the most distant vassals and annexes of the phytocracy, those both geographically weak in plant life and logistically difficult to govern, and turn the phytocracy's empire into a noose.\n\n[[murmurs]]

<<set $die += 1>><<if $die gte 12>>[[<<display "deathmessage">>|death][$death = "garden"]]<<else>>Four stone walls enclose the [[garden|unsafe]], [[vines|green]] like the [[sun]] trailing emerald tresses.\n\nA little brown door leads back to your [[bedchamber|bedroom]].\n\n[[Wait|garden]]<<endif>>

Saltwater is gnawing on the smooth cylinder of the shaft. How far was the ocean when this was built?\n\n[[No time for idle thought|station]]

<<if $gorge gte 1>>//<<print $eaten>>//\n\n"More?"\n\n[[More|food][$gorge += 1]]<<else>>"What would you like today, empress?"\n\n[[Moon ice splashed with cochineal.|food][$eaten = "Moon ice splashed with cochineal. ";$gorge = 1]]\n[[Candied crab legs|food][$eaten = "Candied crab legs. ";$gorge = 1]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if $gorge gte 1>>[[Wave her away|moon chambers]]<<else>>[[Wave her away|moon chambers]]<<endif>>\n\n<<silently>><<if $gorge is 1>><<set $eaten += "An aspic replica of the palace. ">><<endif>>\n<<if $gorge is 2>><<set $eaten += "A bowl of thrice-broth. ">><<endif>>\n<<if $gorge is 3>><<set $eaten += "A barrel of hooves boiled to gelatin. ">><<endif>>\n<<if $gorge is 4>><<set $eaten += "Two hundred pounds of thighflesh. ">><<endif>>\n<<if $gorge is 5>><<set $eaten += "You can't even remember. ">><<endif>><<endsilently>><<silently>>//Later: You puke up today's meal. <<endsilently>>

//Due to [[recent circumstances on the front line|circumstances]], convicts are being offered a one-time opportunity to enlist in the Stamen Vanguard.//\n\n[[Continue reading]]

You failed to protect the observatory.\n\n[[...|orrery_room]]

"We're a living library."\n\nThe general nods: "I understand why she would need someone of my venerability around."\n\n[[But what use am I?|argue]]

You hear the slosh of the red canal slapping its banks. A copper smell intensifies. The empress walks in.\n\nWhy do you complain? You gave up your will long ago. You have only exchanged one master for another.\n\nThe general clears her throat as if to [[speak|turn]].

<<if $ship1 is true and $ship2 is true>>Something [[red and glistening|heart_next]] sprawls across the floor, brilliant against the black.<<else>>Something red and glistening sprawls across the floor, brilliant against the black.<<endif>>\n\n[[Lights swim|control panel]] in an outcropping of the obsidian, in front of someone dressed in a [[pale uniform|lunar guard]].

Your head slams into something hard. You're on the floor, sheets pulled half off the bed, blood pouring from your nostrils. You touch it instinctively then quickly wipe it on the carpet.\n\nShe pumped this blood for you.\n\n[[...|transit][$transit = "moon hub"]]

A translucent emerald structure like a colossal crystal formation, orderly and crisp against the chaotic tumble of the swamp.\n\nThe greenlock slides open, exhaling perfumed humidity.\n\n[[Enter|greenhouse]] | [[Dawdle]]

It feels good to sink into her power. To feel the itch as the velvety nubs grow into proud antlers. To feel the indomitable surge of her blood.\n\nShe rewards you with sweets.\n\n[[And she works|stunning]]

A bone-white room, the only window a [[mirror|Mirror]].\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Mirror]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Bed]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Ring for food|food]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Summon the sartorialist|clothes]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Return to the dome|moon hub]]

<<if $back is false>>You close the door and slump against it. <<endif>>The closed door you came through. [[Green and red stains|bloodsap]] streak the marble floor.\n\n<<if $metalcry is true>>A crying sound comes from the [[end of the hall|telescope room]].<<else>>A cold breeze comes from the [[end of the hall|telescope room]].<<endif>>

You let her blood [[swallow|moon hub]] you.

//The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.//\n-Alejandra Pizarnik\n\n<center>[[&#10084;|transit][$transit = "stage1"]]</center>

Now throw it at the wall.\n\n[[The cup flies so fast|so fast]]

Her [[siphon]] rests by her hand, oozing clear fluid through the cracks.

A wet, rough sound like seaweed being dragged.\n\nYou crank a rusty walkway across the gap and go [[inside|into ship]].

A [[letter]] rustles along the leaves.

<<set $break = 8>>\n<<set $metalcry = true>>\n\n<<set $drink = false>>\n\n<<set $tense = "third">>\n\n<<set $gorge = 0>>

[[Gold and silver balls]] litter the floor. A [[locust sigil|locusts]] mars the [[starchart]].\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Chamber of Outer Sight|telescope room]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Shrine of Astral Contemplation|fountain_room]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[The draft is coming from here|exit]]

Each steaming drop of condensation heavy with governance.\n\n[[...|greenhouse]]

With the last of her strength, the empress cuts out her heart.\n\n<<if $death is "garden">>It flies into the [[sky|transit][$transit = "stage2"]].<<endif>><<if $death is "bedroom">>It flaps around the room, crashing into the walls, until finally sliding to the floor, crushed by the assassin's boot.\n\nThey say she died peacefully in bed.\n\n[[{*}|Start]]<<endif>><<if $death is "chambers">><<if $window is false>>It flaps around the study, slamming against the windows like a trapped bird, until it finally slides to the floor, crushed by the assassin's boot.\n\nThey say she died a shameful death, devoid of style.\n\n[[{*}|Start]]<<else>>It flaps around the study, skittering toward the open balcony. The hot wind of the burning city beats against it, slowing it enough for the assassin to snatch it from the air and beat it against the wall.\n\nThey say she died a shameful death, devoid of style.\n\n[[{*}|Start]]<<endif>><<endif>><<if $death is "shrine">>It flaps around the shrine, knocking the lantern around, finally sliding to the stone tiles where it fills the cracks with blood glistening like veins, as if seeking to grow another circulatory system.\n\nThey say she died a pious death.\n\n[[{*}|Start]]<<endif>>

You trudge across the black sands. Behind you, discarded gauntlets, boots, helm, like a crumbling statue.\n\n<<display "directions">>\n

The classical regalia of a lunar guard.\n\n[[...|obsidian ship]]<<set $ship1 = true>>

With the drugs in your blood it takes a long time to realize the leaves are peeling on your armor and the green has turned to brown.\n\n[[Keep walking|thirsty]]

We have not forgotten our friends. The coral tributaries, the skulljhaba of the bleached provinces, and all other loyalists will be rewarded in the new age. Those who sided with the phytocracy will be placed in boxes.\n\n[[applause!!|murmurs]]<<set $coronation = true>>

You like the sucking sound the tray makes as it emerges from the mire.\n\n[[mm|swamp]]

[[Crimson fabric|clothes2][$outfit = "crimson"]]: The better to be stabbed in.\n[[White fabric|clothes2][$outfit = "white"]]: For a striking death.\n[[Black|clothes2][$outfit = "black"]]: Goes with everything.\n[[Lavender|clothes2][$outfit = "lavender"]]: Your new favorite color.

Somewhere between the smell of freshly cut grass clippings and a tray of used surgical instruments.\n\n[[...|entrance hall]]

Something human, but not quite, dangles in the sky.\n\n[[...|skeleton]]

The heart makes it easy to feel what you need to feel. [[Trade routes|trade routes]]! Amazing! If you're going to have routes, trade routes are probably the best. Get rich while taking a stroll? Don't mind if I do!

[[Look through telescope|stargaze]]\n\n<<if $metalcry is true>>[[Tighten the hinge|telescope][$metalcry = false]]<<else>>The hinge is tightened, a trace of your bloodsap on the knob.<<endif>>\n\n[[okay|telescope room]]

The few who survived in your regiment are given seeds of valor. Far away on a map, the battle must have looked important.\n\nYour seed grows like a rose of wax from your armor. A medal for heroism.\n\nFor a time it is [[peaceful]] in the barracks.

<<if $death is "garden">>[[The knife, thump spatter, discarded in a puddle of blood.|discarded]]<<else>>[[The knife, clang spatter, discarded in a puddle of blood.|discarded]]<<endif>>

<div id="medium">//BIRTH IS A DEBT\nWHICH CAN NEVER BE PAID//</div>\n\n[[...|swamp]]

<<if $death is "garden">>The grass is warm on your cheek. Ants crawl by, exploring your red droplets with their curious antennae. You clench your fingers around a tuft of grass, holding it as you disappear.\n\n[[Your heart beats in your chest|dead]]<<endif>><<if $death is "chambers">>You slam into the desk and knock the hourglass over. Black sand pours to the floor.\n\n[[Your heart beats in your chest|dead]]<<endif>><<if $death is "bedroom">>As you bleed out, you think someone is coming to help you. But when your fingers stretch for them, they meet cold glass. It's just your reflection in the mirror, reaching for you. But you couldn't find someone more empathic to your circumstances.\n\n[[Your heart beats in your chest|dead]]<<endif>><<if $death is "shrine">>Bleeding out, you think, what a fine sacrifice for the gods. They stare from their engraving, judging you in your final moments.\n\n[[Your heart beats in your chest|dead]]<<endif>>

Your antlers are lovely as ever.\n\n[[Look away|bedroom]]

<<print $fail>>\n\nPitch black [[consumes|transit]]<<set $transit = "sink">> you.

<<set $die += 1>><<if $die gte 12>>[[<<display "deathmessage">>|death][$death = "chambers"]]<<else>>[[Treasures]] sit on the desk.<<if $window is true>><<set $ash += 1>><<endif>><<if $ash is 1>> A dusting of ash floats in your wine glass.<<endif>><<if $ash is 2>> The floor is speckled with ash.<<endif>><<if $ash gte 3>> Heavy swathes of ash rest like shadows.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $window is false>>The [[glass doors|window]] of the balcony are dim.<<else>>Embers float through the open [[glass doors|window]] of the balcony.<<endif>>\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[bedchamber|bedroom]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[grand doors]]\n\n[[Wait|chambers]]<<endif>>

Such a light, fragile thing, so quick to escape your hand and strike the stone wall.\n\nBefore you can blink it [[shatters]].

Black sand from the lost coast of Calun.\n\n[[Look deeper]]\n\n[[Look away|Treasures]]

The petals nibble your nails, made bold by the breeze.\n\nYou do not grasp, though you know they would leave the\n[[prettiest]]

The empress turns and says: you governed others. Now I can govern you.\n\nShe leaves.\n\nThe evening passes [[quietly|transit][$transit = "moon hub"]].

Black sand and rolling fog.\n\nA cube of bright sun is behind you, surrounding your armor like an aquarium of light with some decorative wreckage at the bottom.\n\n[[Walk back to the cube]]

You step into [[darkness]].

Examine the [[anther]] | [[gauntlet 1|gauntlet 1]] | [[gauntlet 2]] | [[breastplate]]\n\n<<if $armor1 is true and $armor2 is false>>Something is still wrong.<<endif>><<if $armor1 is false and $armor2 is true>>Something is still wrong.<<endif>><<if $armor1 is true and $armor2 is true>>Your armor is calm.<<endif>><<if $armor1 is false and $armor2 is false>>Something is wrong. Its [[siphon]] hurt you.<<endif>>\n\n[[leave it be|war]]

<<cyclinglink $sky "A square of domesticated sky." "A pool of cloudy milk.">>\n\n[[Too bright|garden]]

<<timedgoto $transit 3s>>

You think about going fallow, but entombing yourself in the sand would be a bad idea. The soil isn't rich enough for the rhizomes to drag air and water into any cocoon you could form, even if there's enough green left in the armor to switch modes.\n\n[[...|remnant]]

You let your greave-roots extend into the water, drinking up precious life.\n\nIt is peaceful, right? It would be nice if she could stay like this forever, drinking up the water. They say the gods will, in a rare while, stick a finger in a person's wheel and keep them right there, at that place, forever.\n\n[[But this is not that while.|fountain_room]]<<set $drink = true>>\n\n

Protrudes from the gauntlet like a mangy bulrush. <<if $armor2 is true>>Tiny dots of pollen are growing.<<endif>>\n\n<<if $armor2 is false>>[[Reload microsporangia|anther][$armor2 = true]]\n\n[[check|armor]]<<else>>[[check|armor]]<<endif>>

You clink back along the pier, to the coagulation of earth from which it extends. To think the accretions of the sullen earth, silently toiling in primordial gluttony, would one day serve as the brute throne to such a sight as [[this...|emerald]]

"Her flesh is given to the garden. She joins the other overthrown rulers."\n\n[[...|reason]]

Speak with\n[[reluctance]]\n[[force]]

Your chest bears a black stain, wilted by the herbicide.\n\n<<if $armor1 is false>>[[Prune the suffering strands|breastplate][$armor1 = true]]<<else>>The auxin regulators have been clipped back to their undamaged roots.<<endif>>\n\n[[check|armor]]

The petals nibble your nails, made bold by the breeze.\n\nYou do not grasp, though you know they would leave the\nprettiest\n[[stain|transit][$transit = "garden"]].

You don't know why she tolerates the pattern.\n\n[[...|Bed]]

Rust-rotten gears, a frame so overgrown it seems like a creature of the swamp itself, feeding on the tall grass along the pier.\n\n[[...|swamp]]

"We have everything but the seat of her reason."\n\n[[...?|want]]

The empress has made you strong enough to carry her heart, so when you steal your body back, the window cannot withstand it.\n\nDid she let you? Or was it just a forgetful moment? Did she fight you as the shards made her train? Or did she embrace it?\n\n[[fall|red dot]]

You can't breathe. It isn't like drowning, sucking down water, it isn't like being strangled, it's just your nostrils pressed flat against [[absolute hardness|stars]].

[[North|trudge]] | [[East|trudge]] | [[South|trudge]] | [[West|trudge]]<<set $trudge += 1>><<if $trudge gt 3>>\n\n[[Sink to your knees|transit][$transit = "chambers"]]<<endif>>

<<if $glasstap is 1>>Your tap is louder than you expected, but the dire-organ at the end of the hall seems to swallow the sound.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]<<endif>>\n<<if $glasstap is 2>>The faintest spiderweb has gathered in the glass.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]<<endif>>\n<<if $glasstap is 3>>Tap. Tap. Tap. Your acrylic nail hovers over the glass.\n\nA lightning jag has formed, visible only from this angle, under the peripheral gaze of the sun as it breaches the horizon.\n\n[[Fling us into the window|suicide]]\n[[Unite with her|moon hub]]<<endif>>

The nectar-addicted loyalists of the slain empress.\n\n[[...|starchart]]

You had the religious icons torn down across the land and replaced with your image. So why is that here alone you can find the image of the old gods?\n\nPerhaps you wanted them all to yourself.\n\n[[Look away|shrine]]

When the order came to purge the [[lunar palace]], the observatories became war rooms. But then the locusts came, and the greenhouse-ships rotted in their scaffolds.\n\n[[...|starchart]]

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The people in here are hard, controlling people. The empress only has bad influences. Maybe you're the first real person she's ever incorporated.

<<timedgoto $transit 3s>>

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A [[red dot|dot]] appears on the white sands below.

Is that an ant struggling amid the sands?\n\n[[Look deeper|transit][$transit = "sand"]]\n\n[[Look away|Treasures]]

You stroke the velvet of your new antlers. You are wearing <<if $dressed is false>>a silk sleeping gown.<<else>>a <<$outfit>> adorned with <<$adornment>>.<<endif>>\n\n[[Yes...|moon chambers]]

Porpentine Charity Heartscape

Professor: "Do you think she has a choice?"\n[[No|biology_convo]]--the empress is an organism fulfilling her biology <<set $compassion += 1>>\n[[Yes|cycle_convo]]--she has the power to break her cycle <<set $compassion -= 1>>

As you prune, you follow the rulebook, transcribed from rings of bark and the casting of dandelion seeds.\n\n[[...|greenhouse]]

Walls come into view, glimpsed by the dim phosphorescence of the tidepools. A rust-eaten metal ladder leads [[up|station]].

A wall-spanning network of [[constellations]], blue and white like blueprints, with dark purple notations, the gall ink of [[generals]].\n\n[[...|orrery_room]]

A void-sextant, a bismuth breath-finder, the cornerstone of the sacked Asteroid Cathedral.\n\n[[...|fountain_room]]

The heart booms inside you, lapping at your blood like a mouth. A mad moon, red tides, flashes behind your eyes. Your veins pulse, red-hot wires of control.\n\nYou speak the fuck about [[trade routes]].

<<timedgoto $transit 2.3s>>

Her blood contains us all. Between us we have done the most terrible and the most gentle things, and now we are all together. It is hard to think consistently [[in here]].

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<<display "chapters">><<set $break = 8>><<set $metalcry = true>><<set $drink = false>><<set $tense = "third">><<set $gorge = 0>><<set $ash = 0>><<set $die = 1>><<set $window = false>><<set $day = 1>><<set $spoken = true>><<set $crowned = false>><<set $ship1 = false>><<set $ship2 = false>><<set $glasstap = 0>><<set $thronetap = 0>>\n\n<<if $fall_end is true>>@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@Fallen from the palace of the moon, broken on the white sands.@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@<<endif>>\n<<if $invasion_end is true>>@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@A moon shattered like an egg to spite the earth. An empress reigns over dust and pestilence.@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@<<endif>>

An ivory dome with two rough holes. But the sun burns through the wind-scoured ceiling like light glowing through the webbing of your thumb.\n\nIt's little more than a place to briefly ponder your [[options|fallow]].\n\n[[Onward]]

Her heart is an ocean murky with the dead particles of every soul she's ever borrowed. You can't tell memories from dreams. You try to hang onto your life, keep it separate. An estuary against her tidal bore.\n\nBut the [[visions|like0]] come.

Your obsidian ships fall like black seeds to the earth, where you stride among the scouring storms of moonrock, watching the cities of the phytocracy succumb to boiling tides and bone-shattering earthquakes.\n\nYour lunar guards struggle to keep up through the hail which you seem to preternaturally avoid. Their white uniforms are dirtied with ash, making them seem like lost underworld shades struggling across some abyssal plain.\n\nBut through the splintering of the moon and the sundering of the earth, you are at peace, her heart beating a reassuring, unbreakable tempo.\n\n[[End|Start]]<<set $invasion_end = true>><<remember $invasion_end>>

You wake calm and cold in the coffin of your body. Your veins feel like an iron cage.\n\n[[...|transit][$transit = "moon hub"]]

You can't [[move]].

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She takes you to an empty room. It has no windows. \n\nThe floor is [[blurred]] in one spot.

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You climb down the ladder and \n\nShe grabs you with her glove and you disappear.

[[Relics]] from the astral crusades are suspended in crystals jutting from the ceiling.\n\nA fountain bubbles.<<silently>>from the hole in her belly/the sun.<<endsilently>><<if $drink is false>> [[Drink.|fountain]]<<else>> <<endif>>\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Orrery Chamber|orrery_room]]

Then the deserts of the moon shake until the sky is full of white fog. Slowly, with a terrible agony, fissures split and mountains crumble. The moon tears itself apart, and your [[armada]] leaves behind the sacrificial battleground.

The cultivation of phyto-minds began during the immaculate sovereignty arms race. The most common example of an immaculate sovereign is the skull empress, who reproduces organically and rises to the highest possible place of power in the ecosystem of governance. Rule as infestation - or what all rule wishes it were.\n\nNational borders became irrelevant. There was only hers and not-hers (less heretically: soon-to-be-hers).\n\nPhyto-mind XVIII was given control of a small border province, easily quarantined due to the way trees grow out there, in the form of walls and tunnels. We cannot say what the result of this experiment was, because train rides to this province take longer and longer with each passing day, and the possibility increases that the next ride could last indefinitely.\n\nA new vocation arose around the phyto-minds: the phyto-tender, who prunes, weeds, and fertilizes them according to prevailing models of sovereign gardening. And in turn, the phyto-minds do the same to their subjects, enacting indirect processes on each other, the reasoning behind each practice growing dimmer with each year.\n\nPhyto-mind LXX was burnt by its subjects. The spores swarmed into the sky and created unstable pockets of governance across the forest, intoxications of statehood.\n\nSingular plant species were dropped as a concept in the civilized regions: no more tyrannies of roses, no daffodil despots. Sovereignity-gardens became the accepted standard for rule. Flower cults still cling to life in the border regions, but most agree a completely interlocking garden operating according to the green hierarchy is the height of wisdom.\n\n[[...|greenhouse]]

[[Seize the heart with the tips of your fingers|fail][$fail = "A hostage, you think. The only way out. But the heart wriggles away and the guard waves her hand at the controls."]]\n\n[[Grab the guard's knife when she passes by|fail][$fail = "The guard sidesteps you and waves her hand at the controls."]]

One of those old stations for launching ships at the moon.\n\nA [[shaft]] descends into the earth. A [[ship]] floats in the shaft, still as stone.\n\n<<if $floor1 is true>>[[You hear something inside the ship.|to the ship]]\n\n[[Down|floor]]<<else>>[[Down|floor]]<<endif>>

You leave behind the ruin of your armor, skin tingling with chlorophyll withdrawal. You're going to burn pretty fast, especially with lingering photosensitivity from the phytochemicals.\n\n[[Take another step]]

Stars bleed behind your eyes. The sweat can't even escape from your pores, burning you alive in a [[mold of hot salt|mold]].\n\n

[[Then they come for you|come for you]]

<div id="big">[[I|transit][$transit = "petals"]]</div>

<div id="big">[[II|transit][$transit = "swamp"]]</div><<set $swamp_chapter = true>><<remember $swamp_chapter>>

<div id="big">[[III|transit][$transit = "war"]]</div><<set $war_chapter = true>><<remember $war_chapter>>

<div id="big">[[IV|transit][$transit = "briefing start"]]</div><<set $agent_chapter = true>><<remember $agent_chapter>>

A [[locust]] lays at your feet. Its [[face]] is obscured with orange powder.\n\n<<if $armor1 is true and $armor2 is true>>A [[stone dome]] hulks in the fog.<<else>>You're surrounded by fog and trampled grain.<<endif>> <<if $armor1 is false or $armor2 is false>>Esters and aldehydes cloy from the wounds in your [[armor]].<<endif>>

You ordered the instruments of sleep removed, so you would not give into temptation.\n\n[[Thoughts drift|bedroom]]

But your body fights when you have given up.\n\nWhen the blur sharpens, you see the heart. Her pulmonary artery intones: [[Keep her|prerogative]].

A narrow [[window|glass column]] bisects the wall behind the [[throne|throne_desc]].\n\n[[Back to the dome|moon hub]]\n\n<<if $spoken is false>><<if $day is 1>>Edicts will be declared tomorrow.<<endif>><<if $day is 2>>Everyone is assembled here, waiting for you to [[talk|speak][$spoken = true]].<<endif>><<if $day is 3>>Today is a day of [[edicts][$spoken = true]].<<endif>><<if $day is 4>>Proceed to your [[coronation][$spoken = true]].<<endif>><<endif>>

This will be the last thing you learn from me.\n\nYou watch the sun come up together.\n\n[[End|transit][$transit = "abscess"]]<<set $fall_end = true>><<remember $fall_end>>

A green slab of [[engraved|engraving]] wax depicting Vie the Forest Nurse and a few lesser spirits entwined around her trunk-abdomen.\n\n[[Look away|shrine]]

A meadow of [[floral patterned]] silk, fringed with fur. A nightstand with an old [[eclaire]].\n\n<<if $gorge lt 1>>She's too hungry to sleep, you can't rest with her racing heart.\n\n[[Leave|moon chambers]]<<else>><<if $day gte 1 and $day lte 3>><<if $spoken is true>>[[Sleep|transit][$day += 1;$spoken = false]]\n\n[[Not now|moon chambers]]<<else>>They're waiting for you in the throne room.\n\n[[Okay|moon chambers]]<<endif>><<endif>><<endif>>

In the shape of...\n[[a dress|clothes3][$outfit += " dress"]]: Whispering as it sweeps the floor.\n[[a romper|clothes3][$outfit += " romper"]]: This will be a sporty, athletic reign.\n[[fitted shirt and trousers|clothes3][$outfit += " shirt and trousers"]]: Tapered and bold.

Moonlight pours through the dome, bathing the observation platform in a silver pool. <<if $metalcry is true>>A telescope waggles like a weathervane in the wind, whinging on its hinge.<<else>>The telescope is still.<<endif>>\n\n[[Examine telescope|telescope]]\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Entrance Hall|entrance hall]] \n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Chamber of Inner Sight|orrery_room]]<<set $back = true>>

The <<$image2>> rattle and spin, scraping your face. <<print $image1 [0].toUpperCase() + $image1 .slice(1)>> oozes from your cheeks. Under the wetness the <<$image2>> twitch and erupt into <<cyclinglink $image3 "branches" "pistons" "arms">>.\n\n[[...|like3]]

-warld (war world)\n-agent with inventory stash\n-meadowlets\n-woman holding another woman's head down by hair\n-she parts her hair to reveal\n-beauty is boring.\n-the desire cycle\n-not repeating past things in my work\n-plant computers. an eight-stack of myco-minds.\n-myco-infested bug steed, myco-infested other things. a forest of mushrooms on the back of a flying ship.\n-domestically do a few things then pick up a knife and plunge it into someone suddenly.\n-the swamp dredger machine. brings up rare little trinkets, mostly garbage.\n-the heart has formed a web in the swamp, glistening and hungr-\n-it can resonate and amplify desires moving back through time?\n-it wants to be fed.\n-trying on clothes\n-dark purple meadow like a field of soft/wet amethyst\n-the angular petals of the creatures are open to the sun. they sit on their haunches drinking silent hot droughts.\n-theory. enormous assemblings of it, physically\n-\n\na series of small self-contained zones\n\n\n

No.\n\n[[Release handles|chambers]]

The Soft Rumor of Spreading Weeds

You are taken past the wall of thorns, into the [[Citadel-of-Thorns-Kiss-the-Canopy|square]]. The capital of the phytocracy.

A glass cup.\n\nPick it up, she says.\n\n[[Pick it up]]

You remember why you tried so hard to avoid conscription. The stories told by the few that returned. //Soldiers tumbling into compost pit chasms, the wet sound of worms grinding their bones into dirt, brave sisters, leal as lilacs, lush in death, deadheaded darlings...//\n\nProclamation: "In a decade this war will become the sweetest garden."\n\n[[shiver|Break the seal]]

You're walking through a stark cement structure in the innermost hedge labyrinth of the garden.\n\n"The heart is three [[stories]] away. Near the Dark-Sand-Bitter-of-Sun."\n\n"It will take me forever to get there," you say.\n\n"You will arrive there [[today|empty room]]."

Your armor sheds, leaving a trail of dead leaves and bark.\n\n[[Something|remnant]] sticks from the endless desert.

So the loyalists rained their keening coins down onto the planet, and the locusts came, and the greenhouse-ships rotted in their scaffolds.\n\n[[...|starchart]]

The glass shoots up to the ceiling. When the moon is kissed by the sun, it turns to a river of fire.\n\n[[...|throne]]

<div id="big">[[V|transit][$transit = "moon hub"]]</div><<set $moon_chapter = true>><<remember $moon_chapter>>

She produces laws of stunning mineral splendor, intricately etched with regulations and clauses by the diamond barb hanging from your fundus that inks itself in your stomach acid.\n\n[[The passage of time|invasion]]

You sneeze.\n\n[[Enter|greenhouse]]

She casually uses the old measurement of distance, now taboo, rarely heard outside of vestigial villages. Maybe she's trying to build rapport with you, provincial felon that you are.\n\n[[...|distance]]

Half-eaten, gathering dust, jam like hardened sap.\n\nWe feel two ways about this eclaire. One heart detests the cloying sweet. The other craves it.\n\n[[...|Bed]]

Every now and then she waves her hand over the circle and the lights obey. These upshifted materials often have weak points where they can be acted on: flaws refined into interface.\n\n[[...|obsidian ship]]<<set $ship2 = true>>

"She's stained with every vessel she's ever used."\n\n[[I'm a stain|argue]]

The shore is gnarled rock pocked with tidepools. Lichen clings in fevered crimson.\n\n[[Something cuts the dark in half.|Closer]]

She has been crowned many times, but we have not. The crown represents the unification of flesh with her heart.\n\nThe crown looks frightening to you, but it must be designed in such a way that it can fit past the antlers.\n\nShe [[addresses|murmurs]] the crowd.<<set $crowned = true>>

You see a cracked universe.<<silently>> The lens is cracked. You see a cracked universe. / The stars are cracked. / The universe looks cracked.<<endsilently>>\n\n[[Let it go|telescope]]

<<cyclinglink "You are" "Your armor is">> so thirsty.\n\n[[Keep walking|sheds]]

//Due to recent circumstances on the front line, convicts are being offered a rare opportunity to enlist in the Stamen Vanguard.\n\nIntegration with phyto-armor will be required.\n\nRemember: to take up arms against the ruiners of life is the innermost ring of valor.//\n\n[[...|wonder]]

She opens her eyes.\n\n[[//Come with me//|saplings]]

[[Surrender to the tyranny of time|white transit]]<<set $transit = "disappear">>

To keep even this little scrap of garden feels unsafe. But you must have certain privileges.\n\n[[Think of something else|garden]]

The Sister's Smile, the Alert Mantis, the Empress' Foot.\n\n[[...|starchart]]

Tonight you are in a very old place, in a very young body.\n\nYou have extruded something from your body. Your jaw hurts.\n\nThe heavy door creaks [[open|laws]].

<<if $thronetap is 1>>The throne stone is unyielding under your stolen-back fingers.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]<<endif>><<if $thronetap is 2>>Faint nail marks have accrued, crescent moons.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]<<endif>><<if $thronetap is 3>>You flick away the powder of this week's tappings and begin to mine another pile.\n\n[[...|moon hub]]<<endif>>

The wall of the observatory lavatory is blasted open. Silver grass waves through the hole.\n\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@[[Orrery Chamber|orrery_room]]\n@@opacity:0;"@@*@@opacity:0;"@@<<if $drink is false>>Thirsty. Need to find water before leaving.<<else>>[[To the field|field]]<<endif>>

You try to find the words. "You want me to [[kill an empress]]?"

The canyon disappears into a haze of yellow smoke. Embers flit like hellish fireflies as ash swarms from your burning city.\n\n[[Avert gaze|balcony]]

Looks like upshifted obsidian: they unlocked the material's next highest nature, awakening the obsidian-self of a more detailed and celestial universe.\n\nAs a child you saw these flit through the sky like someone spitting watermelon seeds, but never imagined you'd see one up close.\n\n[[A strange feeling|station]]

The windows are shattered.\n\n[[Look out window|observatory_window]]

You're just a heartbeat throbbing in the stone.\n\n[[throb|transit]]<<set $transit = "thud">>

The hours disappear and turned to [[sand|ruin]].

Far below, the palace gate is barricaded with the wall of your soldiers, shields grinding against the spears of the enemy, their struggle as slow and obdurate as the tectonic moaning of the earth itself.\n\n[[Stare beyond them|further]]\n\n[[Step back|window]]

//The beating of the heart...is similar to the throbbing of an abscess.//\n-Αριστοτελης\n\n<center>[[&#10084;|transit][$transit = "Start"]]</center><<set $fall_end = true>><<remember "fall_end">>

The stone melts from your face. You're so gone you can barely remember to [[inhale|breathe]].

You step back into the warmth. But you notice the goosebumps are still on your arm.\n\n[[Investigate armor]]

The stone floor at the bottom of the shaft is stained carmine.\n\nIt took over 200,000 gallons of traitor's blood to fuel a single launch.<<set $floor1 = true>>\n\n[[Up|station]]

You wake in a dark cave of smooth, inky facets.\n\n[[Get up]]

It feels good to sink into her power. To feel the itch as the velvety nubs grow into proud antlers. To feel the indomitable surge of her blood.\n\nShe rewards you with sweets.\n\n[[And she works|stunning]]

You see others from your regiment in the distance. You trudge toward them, your armor rich with someone else's fertilizer.\n\n[[The moon burns coldly in the sky|transit]]<<set $transit = "stage4">>

<<set $die += 1>><<if $die gte 12>>[[The slap of bootsteps...|death][$death = "shrine"]]<<else>>A captured sunbeam sings from the censer, illuminating the [[altar]] in vapor bright as summer mist.\n\nYour [[bedchamber|bedroom]] is back through the stooped arch.\n\n[[Wait|shrine]]<<endif>>

You walk for [[so long]], following the sun like she told you to.

You come to a row of trees. [[Fresh, dark earth]] is at the end of the row, where a sapling grows.

You miss, she misses, the old garden. But the phytocracy has shown green life cannot be trusted.\n\nWhat will we grow instead of plants?\n\n[[...|moon hub]]

You think of the four years, three months, and twelve days remaining.\n\nIn the end, the choice is [[simple|transit][$transit = "stage3"]].

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After enough time, there is no difference between us.\n\nDid you think you could avoid being changed by me?\n/

The locust you killed by the observatory. Her blood turns to <<cyclinglink $image1 "sap" "saltwater" "oil">>.\n\n[[It was like that|like1]]

<div class="semifade">"You want me to kill an empress."</div>\n"Just her heart."\n\n[[This way|distance]]\n\n<<silently>>Different colors and opacity for dialogue?<<endsilently>>

The person who meets you is non-descript, utterly [[forgettable]]. She doesn't need to be anything.\n\n\nThere is more to her. Like anyone, her life could swallow the world if placed at the proper angle.\n\nBut it doesn't matter.\n\n-more\n-back

A glass tube garnished with a trigger, herbicide tank leaking a smell that makes your hide wilt.\n\n[[...|armor]]

A <<if $jar is false>>[[jar]] of liquid<<else>>heart in a jar<<endif>> rests on the counter.\n\n<<if $jar is true>>[[Smash the jar|smash]]<<else>><<endif>>\n\n\n<<if $destroyed is true>>[[descend|caught]]<<else>>[[descend|station]]<<endif>>

The petals nibble your nails, made bold by the breeze.\n\nYou do not grasp, though you know they would [[leave]]

The wet sound sharpens into guttural definition. A [[pulsing|pulsing]] that seems to reverberate from the walls.

Sealed in crimson sap.\n\n[[Break the seal]]

A year passes without battle. People murmur but never near the click of your feet. All you do is order geological surveys and the construction of new mines. But few weapons are forged from the issue of the mines, and your army remains small compared to the phytocratic legions.\n\nThe flotilla of the phytocracy approaches, greenhouse ships blazing with reflected light as they descend. Plant knights, sealed in pressurized bark segment armor, [[charge]] the palace.

Your feet sink into the sand.\n\n[[Look around]]

General: "Why does she keep us here?"\n[[Knowledge|knowledge_convo]]--to learn from us <<set $compassion -= 1>>\n[[Accident|dregs_convo]]--we are dregs stuck in her craw <<set $compassion += 1>>

The <<$image1>> flows and hardens like it was set in a mold. You're at the you-empress feast table, gripping a roc leg gnawed to the quick. But she isn't satisfied, your teeth sink into the bone. It turns to <<cyclinglink $image2 "thorns" "gears" "teeth">> in your mouth.\n\n[[Ow|like2]]

Cinching a burlap dress, though that term dignifies rags acting under gravity.\n\n[[...|greenhouse]]

Heavy enough to kill.\n\n[[Look away|Treasures]]

Black sand and fog in every direction. The distant sound of waves.\n\n<<display "directions">>

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"She's lived for a very long time. She's had time to weigh the consequences of her rule."\n\n[[I see|enjoy]]

Cunningly disguised in the body of a woman.\n\n[[...|war]]

Bees crawl in sequential lines along the rose stem blocks packed like dried pasta.\n\n[[Down the rows you go|rustle]]

Suffocated in pollen.\n\n[[...|war]]

<<set $break -= 1>><<if $break lte 0>>The cigarette has burnt down to your fingers. Your nostrils itch forcefully.\n\n[[Breaks over|break over]]<<else>>An enormous [[sign]] rises from the swamp. <<if $action is "cigarette">>Your smoke blurs into the humidity.<<endif>><<if $action is "silence">>The whine of cicadas.<<endif>>\n\nThe [[swamp dredger]] <<print either("gurgles","whines","hums","squelches")>> as the [[tray]] brings up <<set $r = random(0,100)>><<if $r gte 20>><<print either("drowned grass","slimy bark","gouts of algae","clouds of frog eggs","flopping eels","mosquito eggs like clumps of rice","decomposing sludge","oozing muck")>><<elseif $r lt 20 and $r gte 5>><<print either("broken glass","burnt weapons","machine guts","sinuous coils","a rusty dagger","a child's doll","canvas tatters","war limbs")>><<elseif $r lt 5>><<print either("anonymized bones","swamp glass","mire gems")>><<endif>>.\n\n[[Drag on your cigarette|swamp][$action = "cigarette"]] | [[Stare in silence|swamp][$action = "silence"]]<<endif>>

Adorned with...\n[[an ascot|clothes4][$adornment = "an ascot"]]: Smart two-toned scarf tied around your neck.\n[[a brooch|clothes4][$adornment = "a brooch"]]: Silver framing a red resin intaglio of heart-piercing antlers.\n[[a veil|clothes4][$adornment = "a veil"]]: Black lace that rises and falls with your breathing.

Simple, seeking life, tubes of longing. Thirsting for water and light and soil, asking nothing more than to be part of the world they were born in.\n\n[[Thoughts drift|garden]]

Inside her heart is a city the color of evening where we all live. Our memories form the architecture, stucco sutured to clay clad to brick bound to reeds.\n\nI play snap dice and red tile with the priestess and the professor. The whittler only whittles, but I think she used to be a general.\n\nSometimes we [[talk|why]].

Very good.\n\n[[That will do.|moon chambers]]<<set $dressed = true>>

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"This law is too soft, empress."\n\nWith her rasping glove she takes your face and presses your cheek against the stone.\n\nStone. Do you feel that? The material of fortresses. The material of the earth.\n\nThe foundation.\n\nAnd then she's gone. But you do not leave your [[corner|transit][$transit = "moon hub"]].

You look over the farmland, turning black like night sweeping across the land. But you know that night is spraying from their herbicidal weapons. It is nice to imagine everything is normal though.\n\n[[...|orrery_room]]

Crawling through the moon dust, freezing void stripping the skin from your throat.\n\nShe doesn't want to go. She pumps blood desperately through your veins, burning centuries of strength for seconds of life. You stagger to the top of a dune, then [[collapse]].

<<print $image1 [0].toUpperCase() + $image1 .slice(1)>> pumps through the factory pipes, powering machines of flailing <<$image3>>. The noise and smell crashes around you, you run but you're caught in the grinding <<$image2>>.\n\n[[Tear away]]\n[[Stay]]