The city of Sanguine Primus stretches across a vast steppe, bordered by low mountains to the north, a dropoff to the south, and tall glass-like walls to the east and west. Farmland stretches south from the cliff face for half a demispan, worked by machines and Archon Golems.

An Archon Golem is a large, ponderous beast, with six splayed legs, an eye at each end of its body, and several manipulator tentacles slung under its belly. Its flesh is a bland, milky white, and while not visible from a distance, it contains a human criminal within its main body, one who was sentenced to civil service; a euphemism for being medically crippled and relegated to life as an involuntary empulse generator.

The city itself shines under the light of the solfire. Spires of blocky construction tower high enough to break up the line of the mountains beyond. Much of it is actual glass, used to complement the aesthetics of the more-than-glass spread through the city's heart. A suspended High Road bisects the farmland, jutting out from the center of the cliff and continuing through the air above the fields.

An airship patrols the sky above the fields, but this airship is not intended for speed or stealth. Its envelope is a thin shell of exemplate glass, forged in extreme heat to contain a set of rotary light sails in near-vacuum that power its propulsion.

Her own (stolen) airship ran out of compressed nitrogen a while ago. Shae stashes it in a craggy copse overlooking the fields and makes for the High Road on foot, leaving the bulk of the Isht behind. She puts on her shoes and her jacket and, after some effort, her leggings, finds pockets for all of the crystal eggs, collects two full canteens from the airship cabin, and cradles her swollen belly in her arms as she treks across the crop fields towards the small town that hangs from the underside of the High Road like a boxy stalactite.

Ebb shades into Shadow as the solfire passes beyond the mountains and the Celestial Sea emerges from above the Echelon of Light.

The starlight is brilliant, here. Sanginue Primus is an old city, and even this far out from the city itself, generations upon generations of stars fill the sky and shine down with enough light for the colors of the landscape to remain vibrant even in the deepest part of the night.

The town under the High Road is a sleepy little place, home to only a few dozen overseers and their families or associates, plus a handful of merchants.

Shae is out of water and after walking all night at twice her usual weight her feet and her back are begging for mercy. She's very glad to finally reach the town.

A few people are milling around the upper areas, but no one is looking at her. The crops give way to packed earth in the shadow of the High Road. Two ladders, three sets of stairs, and a lift platform provide ways up from the ground.

On the second level, just below the ramp that drops from the middle of the High Road, is the town's plaza, which contains several shops and a small inn.

Up on the High Road itself, a caravan of rail-cars sits half loaded, with a pair of Archon Golems lifting heavy crates of produce onto the cars.

Shae goes straight for the lift platform and throws the control bar, which releases the pulsebound counterweight to fall. The platform rises smoothly and silently, taking Shae all the way up to the plaza. To be polite, she ought to winch the counterweight back up for the next person who needs the lift platform.

A woman in cut-off shorts, leather vest, and work gloves sees Shae and rushes over.

"Here, let me."

She takes the crank from Shae's hands and turns it herself while she gives Shae a once-over.

"You look like you've had an exiting day. You just get into town? I haven't seen you before."

Shae is grateful.

"Exciting is one word for it. Thanks. Do you know if the inn is open?"

"Sure. Just over there."

The woman points at one of the buildings. Then she gives Shae's belly a look.

"Are you gonna be okay? You look pretty far along there."

"Any day now," Shae agrees. "I was hoping to get a bath, a meal, and a ride into the city. I'm traveling there to give birth."

"Shouldn't be a problem. There's always space on the driver. Get yourself a room. Ask Madam O'lua to introduce you to the boy, Kiv'ese. The caravan ships out day after tomorrow."

Shae gets herself a room. Shae gets a bath, and a meal. Shae gets a nice soft bed.

After the subtle and not-so-subtle looks she gets for her choice of clothing, she also buys herself a skirt to attach to her leggings. Walking around with her pelvis bare is improper enough to be conspicuous, even if it isn't quite indecent and looking pregnant earns her extra leeway.

Kiv'ese is young, cute, and overly serious. He solemnly agrees to give her a ride on the caravan driver when she asks him. Shae lets him pet her swollen abdomen.

When it's time, Kiv'ese brings Shae onboard the driver, which is a large, sleek, aerodynamic rail-car at the front of the caravan. Kiv'ese steps down into his own seat, which is inset in the floor of the car with an unobstructed view of the rails ahead.

The boy inserts a key into a metal box under the seat, and comes out with a fist-sized aetherlight sphere, glowing blue. He crushes it, and breathes in the vapor. A visible blue aura rises from his skin as he forcepulls the driver to the rails.

The caravan accelerates rapidly, gliding smoothly along the High Road at higher and higher speed until Kiv'ese's infusion of force aetherlight fades away, and they coast the rest of the way.

When they stop in the city, Shae slips away from the caravan and hires a pedicab to take her into the theater district.

The trip through the city takes another half a measure.

Sanguine Primus is a prosperous, if indolent place. Most labor is done by the various Archon Golems (which, to those in the know, were obviously Origin Core units all along), and every citizen has the right to minimum living space and enough of a stipend to feed themselves. There are no homeless and no poverty, but only a moderate minority have access to luxuries like aetherlight healing or birth control or participation in the city's thriving economy of the arts. Thanks to the transformative Gyneca Halo and Andeca Eye at the peak of the mountain range, sickness and death are quite uncommon, but using either of the relics is indescribably painful and reaching either is a bit of a hike if one isn't affluent.

Crime is rare, when no one is desperate, but that fact is also the Archonate's public justification for every crime having the same sentence: civil service a.k.a. rape by 'domestic' erovore. (The conditions are actually quite humane for lesser offenders, such that they would certainly get volunteers if the practice wasn't aggressively stigmatized, but it is aggressively stigmatized, to the point that no one would dare admit anything but abhorrence at the idea in polite company.)

Empulse is holy, after all. It is deeply uncomfortable to think about the way it is used to power their civilization.

Signs in the windows of many venues read, Lovers Only.

Signs on the walls of many businesses read, Singles Need Not Apply.

Hanging banners advertise the services of prostitutes with various themes, but of course only the affluent minority can afford them. While there is nothing wrong with solo pleasure per se, it is theologically revolting that empulse can be kindled that way, so only those with active sex lives may use empulse powers in public without being unforgivably vulgar.

Eventually the pedicab reaches its destination. Vena'ese's Massage and Show is a modest brickwork building decorated with pornographic tapestries and posters, and it notably lacks either of the ubiquitous warning signs.

Shae slips around to the back entrance and goes inside.

The dormitory is quiet. The faint sounds of soft music and the low murmur of conversation come from the main floor, but the sound of the back door opening brings Ese out of her office.

"Shae? You're home!"

Ese gets a look at Shae and freezes.

"Stars above! What did you do to yourself?! Are you pregnant? You can't be pregnant. You've only been gone for a ternion!"

Ese pulls Shae into a hug, careful of her swollen belly.

Shae giggles and returns the hug with wandering hands.

"I'm not pregnant," Shae confirms. "It's a long story, but I did what I set out to do. How've things been here? What have I missed?"

"A few of our regulars have been asking after you."

Ese takes Shae's hands and tugs her into Ese's office.

"Tyn's started on a new song. Recco's been out recruiting more extras for the next Ambient Orgy. Ziie and Lece have been arguing because Lece wants to mess with the nuru formula again."

Ese stops and gives Shae a smile.

"It's good you're back. What have you been doing out there?"

"It's still probably safer if you don't know."

Shae shakes her head. Safer for Ese, and safer for Shae herself. It's better if her friends don't know she's a murderer until they can have the right... context.

Shae pats her swollen abdomen.

"I've created something, though. Something new. I shouldn't say more than that for now."

"I won't argue."

But Ese does give Shae's pregnant profile a pointed look.

"How long is this condition going to last?"

"I should be back to fucking fit as soon as I get a chance to visit the tentacle monster in the basement."

Ese quirks an eyebrow, but laughs.

"Yes, ve's missed you too. You're totally still veir favorite. Come on."

Ese meanders back out of her office and leads the way to the large trapdoor at the end off the hallway.

"I am a tentacle-loving deviant and proud of it."

Shae makes a detour to collect a box of jars, then follows Ese down the hidden stairs.

Descending into the basement is like walking into a womb. The light is soft and golden, shed by bioluminescent orbs in the corners. The walls are lined with pink flesh, decorated with vertical rugae, and the floor is soft, padded skin over bone plates. It is furnished in a mix of fleshcraft and plush fabric cushions.

Velitanar rests on a fleshcraft chair thing, reading a novel.

A shok'ush like vem shares the basic body plan of a human, in that ve is bilaterally symmetrical, with sense organs at one end and motive limbs at the other, but that is the end of the resemblance. Veir short blue body is rigid, with parallel spinal columns splitting into 'digits', thin finger-width prehensile tentacles, at the top of veir body. Ve sees with three nimble eyestalks, but doesn't otherwise have a face or a head. Veir motive limbs, called rachi, are serpentine and longer than a human's entire body, with articulated fins at the ends. Most notable are the pair of articulated lobes protruding from the front of veir body, each containing a lubricious yonic orifice and three retractable phallic tentacles.

An eyestalk swivels up from veir book and veir eye goes wide.