Everyone wanted a piece of the One-Eighth.

About the bronze-plated ziggurat now sprawled a massive Legion camp replete with neat rows of white tents, flapping battle standards, and fly-swarmed latrines. Aida guessed the Legionnaires there numbered in the tens of thousands. Palisade walls and ditches went up and down respectively, messengers galloped about on striders, and a group of Dynasts stared back her way from atop the ziggurat as Aida stared out from the Thorn. One of them sat upon a gleaming white throne visible only in snatches through the mirage shimmer obscuring the ziggurat's apex.

"Nice to meet you too, Rega," she mumbled to herself while waiving at them with feigned exuberance.

A ways away from the Legion camp, a cluster of boxy machines threw together what looked like a radio tower at the heart of a mass of lumbering tank-knights and marching columns of musket-wielding, gray-skinned and -garbed infantry. Clanking, caterpillar-like convoys ambled endlessly to and from the distant Syphon. All of it fell in a pall of rust and desaturation.

About the turtle, several armed camps milled and watched the distant Legion and Directory forces warily:

Freed slaves, refugees, and her original waves of settlers improvising weapons of bone, wood, and rock with many worried looks at and likely hushed conversations about the massive showings of Ancient and Ink power.

Mune Collectivists forging bronze spearheads as fast as they could make them, as organized and orderly as ever.

Gray-skinned refugees from the Directory carrying the odd musket or rusting steel sword moving in herds about ever-color-shifting people like the ones who'd backed up Eth back in Ink.

A much smaller, rougher version of the Legion's vast, precisely-ordered camp full of scarred, hard-faced soldiers carrying mismatched, battle-worn gear whom she assumed were the Mother's Militant.

On the far side of the Terrtle from the Legion and Keen camps, the Tangle seethed with insectoid and sauroid creatures of all sizes and descriptions. If it weren't for the uncannily-human Anticores wandering among them in their uncanny pairs, she'd have assumed it was a bug invasion from some movie, but in spite of their appearance, they stayed within surprisingly tight boundaries.

A stir began to rise among pretty much every camp, with much pointing of fingers and climbing onto vantages to get better looks. Aida turned that direction to see an uncountable horde of naked warriors painted with swirling, multicolored clay which sparkled and gleamed in The One-Eighth's diffuse, multi-sunned light. They carried an odd mix of short stone spears, slings, and a motley of Legion bronze weaponry and shields. Small units of Legionnaires marched among them, making it all even more confusing.

At their lead, a muscular man wearing only paint and carrying a stone rod who walked like a general strode, accompanied by a one-handed woman and a tall, one-eyed man both naked except for liberal coatings of the same paint.

An excited call of "Aida" broke her from her reverie. She turned just in time to stabilize herself for a hurling Aliasara and avoid falling off the Terrtle skull completely. They wrapped up in a hug before Aliasara released her and launched into a breathless description of the apparently-exponential increase in the One-Eighth's popularity that Aida'd mostly surmised from a one-minute scan of everything. One part did catch her attention though.

"Wait wait, you said there's a bunch of Masters here? Like, slave owners?"

Aliasara shook her head and gestured broadly to a cluster of varied, but generally fine-looking tents clustered not far from the rotter pens. "Apparently, various Imminent visited them in the last few months telling them to come here around now. As far as I can tell, all of the types of Mancers are represented from Clockpriests to Pheros to Anchorites."

"Great. Don't suppose the Imminent told them why they were coming here so I have some idea?" Aida said, sighing. "My frickin' verse and I'm always the last to know everything. How'd they all get here, for one? Must've been busy and tense at the Thorn here for a bit."

After another hug that did little to make her feel better, Aliasara shrugged. "They came because something about coming here when The Book was breaking. About you leading them to safety or a new verse or something. As for the Thorn, apparently they found another one off near the base of those volcanoes over there," she said, pointing off in the direction the Terrtle skull stared, vaguely off the direction of the Legion camp. It, oddly, wasn't the direction the painted warriors marched from.

"Oh good. A back door. Glad it's your verse not mine anymore. Also, nice to know what I'm supposed to be do done will did or whatever. Is the Terrtle shell like Noah's Ark and we're going to ride to a new world on a flood of magma?"

"No need to worry about any of that much longer," Eth said, as angry and grumpy-looking as Aida'd ever seen her. She was about to make a snarky comment when she caught Ghillie's eye. For whatever reason, the Feral waved her off and shook her head. Leave it.

"Whatever." Aida said, straightening up, adjusting her demon-goo-stained and ripped shirt and pants, and looking over towards the ziggurat. "I'm guessing that's all of the Ancients there... never mind. By the looks of it, they're on their way."

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Scanning the various parties, factions, and groupings spread out in the vicinity, it appeared small detachments from most of them were breaking off to approach the Terrtle as everyone spontaneously decided to send delegations.

"Apparently, they know I'm here. Guess I won't have time to change before we get down to horse-trading or making a treaty or declaring war on each other or me being proclaimed the Messiah or a heretic or whatever."

Aliasara turned to Stiller, the boy having arrived in Wake's wake as the Fraction Dynastic leader and entourage marched imperiously towards her. "Go get Aida a change of clothes, quickly!"

Stiller grinned and ran off as Wake marched over, now wearing armor, carrying a sword, and flanked by a dozen other Dynasts.

"You finally got back," Wake said by way of greeting, glaring out at the Legion camps as if they were Aida's fault. Strings thrummed resonance into each word.

"Good to see you too," Aida said, rolling her eyes. "Any idea what's going on?"

"War," Wake said, resting her hand on her sword's pommel.

"You got some strings I see."

Wake brushed her fingers over them disdainfully. "Seems gauche wearing faux-Seneschal attire, but Ocyl's Seneschal showed up with an old little Optimime who fitted a bunch of us with them. Ancients have a surprise in store for them when the fighting starts."

"Okay, but why here? If they want the Terrtle and Tangle, they can have it," Aida said, gesturing about her. "Not much else here."

"Rega's come to claim the One-Eighth since she's already conquered pretty much everywhere else that the demons didn't destroy first. At this rate, she'll be fighting the Mon for the carcass of the Book."

Aida blinked at that. "Demons? The things that attacked us on Stacks? They're attacking elsewhere too?"

Wake frowned then grinned. "They've taken out Stacks? Finally, something to rub in Jaxe's face for a change."

"Yes they... what?" Aida said, her heart skipping a beat. "Isn't Jaxe dead?"

Wake gestured off-hand towards the Legion camp city. "I saw him from a distance a while back. Not dead, yet anyway. All the other Ancient seem to be here, why not him?"

"Because I killed him?" Aida said, feeling heat rise as her confused brain tried to process everything going on.

"Apparently not. Jaxe's slipperier than one of Ocyl's gons pots in Jadeye. Had secret passageways carved into every stack in Stacks it's said so he always has a way out."

Aida thought back to the dome inside the dome on Jaxestack. She'd just assumed he was dead but never checked the rubble for a stairway, trapdoor, or ramp. From the morose digging of his Feral's she'd figured he was dead, but the slimy bastard probably trained them to do that as a contingency.

"Mother fucker," she growled.

"He did, didn't he?" Wake said, winking. "I seem to remember seeing the two of you trailing silk in the Jadeye."

Aida shuddered and wiped at her arms as though sloughing off imaginary filth. "Don't remind me. The thought of me and him... bleh. Feel like I need a shower just thinking about it."

Wake frowned and looked at the streaming black clouds overhead. "Well, doesn't look much like rain so might have to settle for killing him again."

"Perfect," Aida said, then sighed again as she made her way towards the new ramp. "Guess we may as well get this over with."

When they got to base of the ramp, the Mother's Militant converged on her, led by a heavily-scarred woman in a battered set of Legionary armor.

"Commander Eudora, head of the Mother's Militant," the woman said, curtly, nodding to Aida. For a supposed militant religious zealot, she didn't seem too impressed with meeting The Mother herself in the flesh. Some of her followers were not so detached, staring at Aida with wild looks that made Aida a bit nervous, especially considering how heavily armed they were.

"The Mother, apparently," Aida said. She gestured at the throng rapidly gathering as ex-slaves and refugees of all varieties began to converge on her calling her name. "Don't suppose you could set up a perimeter or whatever to keep these people back a bit? I think we're about to parley with some powerful mucky-mucks and don't want any toes stepped on. Literally or metaphorically."

"Done," Eudora said, turning and issuing some curt orders to her cadre of officers. Within minutes, a couple hundred of the Militant had formed up a wall of partitioning soldiers any municipal riot control police commander would envy.

Aida did her best to ignore the cries, pleas, prayers, demands, and calls coming from the other side of the armored wall. Not much she could do to help any of the hungry, lost, injured, sick, and/or homeless horde packing the One-Eighth. It was almost a relief when the various factions arrived.

Rega arrived first, clad in a suit of gilded scale armor that looked too heavy for the woman's frame. Once the woman stopped, she stood perfectly still, only the slight drift of her eyes asserting she was actually alive and not a brilliant bit of statuary. Aida didn't fail to miss the strings around the Dynast's throat.

"Not as much a surprise as you think, Wake," Aida said softly.

Wake grunted, the sound amplified almost comically.

Aida's heart stopped for a moment as her gaze drifted among the dozen-odd Dynasts around Rega, locking onto the distinguished-looking older man bearing the gleaming strings of a Seneschal embedded in his throat. He looked so much like Fallon, for a moment she was sure he'd survived somehow, resurrected in some way that aged him a couple decades in the process. Then her rational mind asserted itself as small details broke the match: a nose too long, the hairline receding, the bit of weight he carried about his midsection. The much-complained of father?

No time for musing; behind him, Jaxe glared at her, snarling. The armor he wore seemed to be hand-me-down, not quite fitting on his barrel-chested frame.

"Motherfucker of Shitholes," he said by way of greeting.

"Jaxe? Is that really you?" she replied, feigning surprise. "I figured you were just a greasy stain we left an entire verse just to get away from. Oh wait, you are."

"Smart enough to trick you into thinking you'd beaten me," Jaxe spat back.

"Gosh, and all you had to do was abandon all your people, your Ferals, and your entire verse to deceive me. Well played, sirrah," she said, slow clapping.

He began to push towards her, drawing his massive blade from his back as he did so, but Rega stilled him with a whisper of his name. Still glaring, he stepped back behind her and released his grip on the sword's hilt.

"What a good boy! Good little doggy," Aida said, leaning forward and baby-talking as if praising an obedient chihuahua. The look he gave he was almost worth finding out he hadn't died.

Aida turned to the woman. "You must be Rega."