This episode carries content warnings for vomiting, mass death/genocide, mind control, manipulation, body horror, forced body modification, and extreme heat.  They arrive in the long rings of the Stellar Combustor to no greeting, and this they are thankful for. The path to their objective is known, but what lies on it (and what they'll find at its end) are not. As they travel the length of the arc, spanning half the circumference of the sun, they wonder: How are their friends, now traveling through lunar shadow, far across the solar system? How are their comrades? Might they find freedom in the dark as we search for it in the searing light? Futures tricked by the past / Spectre, how he laughs Dossier People Stargrave Elcessor (she/her): Leader of the Bilateral Interecession’s occupation of Palisade, assigned personally by Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh. As a Stargrave, she has been granted the means and “right” to detonate the star at the center of Palisade’s star system if she determines that those here are an existential threat to the Principality. Connadine (he/him): Commander of the BIS on Palisade. An expert in psychological operations and folklore. As a composer, his opus is the Adagio, a plan to get everyone on Palisade operating in ways not only predictable, but scripted. As a conductor, his orchestra now turns towards the second movement. Routine Rennari (he/him): Half-Apostolsian, scion of a minor Kesh noble house, and the Blue Channel's heavy.  Mustard Red (she/her): A cyborg who once served as a member of Brink Proxy, with a speciality in surveillance. Joined the Cause during the Devotees expansion onto Palisade. Midnite Matinee (she/her): Leporine scout and member of the Blue Channel. She and her trusty Pack-model light AutoHollow Popcorn used to run a repo company, but now are tentatively committed to the Cause and Millennium Break. Places Chimera’s Lantern: The second moon of Palisade, shaped oddly like a wasp’s nest or paper lantern. New arrivals to the world find its occasional glow unnatural and frightening. Thisbe and the Figure found evidence that it could be tied to driving the bulk of ancient Divine Principality forces off of Palisade. Home to the Chimeric Cadent (they/them, it/its), along with the warded corpses of a number of Divines, including Sagacity, Dissent, Felicity, Barricade, and Bounty—its newest resident. Objects Gambeson: The Gambeson is only about 10 meters tall (less than half an Altar), but it is nevertheless a terrifying scourge of the battlefield. Modeled after an iron maiden, except with it's tortorous doors attached to its back serving as wings. Its head features a metalworked face, twisted into extreme and offputting smile.  Its skeletal frame serves not only as body, but cage: pilots are criminal conscripts forced to pay off their “debt” to Kesh by the Divine Plight, earning their freedom through combat achievements. Paramerion: Cori’s new Altar, as designed by her brother Formido. Constantly twitching and rippling underneath the regal embellishments of its filigreed armor. Massive metallic wings stay folded on its back, a smaller pair cover its eyes like a visor and the sickles jut out from its forearms when stowed. A halo shaped like a crown rotates above its skull-like head. The Stellar Combustor: A weapon of immense destruction, capable of destroying countless star systems if deployed without a firebreak. Has been used in some form or another since the time of the earliest Divines. In current form they take the form of a twirling, 3-ringed space station that rotates around a system’s sun.  BAC Secateurs: Designed and built on Chimera's Lantern by the Blessed Armory of Consecration, an Altar who holds itself in the form of a tortured saint, with sharp, crystaline “holy expressions” emerging from its body, like wounds in reverse. As it pulls these from its body, its form glows like heated glass, then reverberates back into place.  Divines The Divine, Arbitrage (it/its): The amoral machine