The first smells she is going to observe are bronze, iron, and blood. She'll hear the clash of weapons and armor (bronze on bronze and iron on bronze) and the shouting of armies (two different ones, and in fact three).

When she looks around, the obvious thing is above her. Very above. That's - probably a li tall. Entirely stone, looks like, and an odd black stone she probably hasn't seen before. It's like a column holding up an invisible roof.

At its base, there is a fortress, its walls currently broken, which surrounds the tower, made partially of the strange black stone and partially of more ordinary granite. It has multiple rings of defenses and wouldn't be out of place around a minor Manse, though it's mundane to most senses.

The armies are currently fighting around and within the fortress at the Spire's base.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seems.

That tower is- she's never seen anything quite like it. It could be from the tales about Chiaroscuro, if its builders had worked in obsidian instead of stained glass. But... if it's worth fighting over, then it must important. Valuable. Powerful. Worth controlling.

Diving straight into an active battle isn't really her style. Is there perhaps a ridge or other vantage point she can slink over to that will facilitate further observation?

Not one that can see over the walls - they're fairly high. But from a rise outside the walls she can see some of the fighting. The two sides seem to be:

- A smaller but disciplined force kitted out in iron and decorated in purple uniforms, who mostly fight in a shield-wall phalanx. Some of them in purple cloth hoods are manipulating stone magically.

- A larger, unruly force, wearing bronze or leather, with minimal consistency other than a lot of red paint, blood, and scars. They seem to outnumber the other side four to one, but their bodies are more like seven to one. The most visible magic on this side is a lot of fire being thrown around.

- (Sharp eyes may pick up that a third force was previously here, with bronze and light blue in their uniforms. None of them seem to still be alive on this side of the walls.)

Hmm. She doesn't recognize the livery, but it could be some cadet house through together a half-baked legion against what, some Threshold barbarians? Looks like Dragonblooded on both sides though, which is strange-ish. This whole place is strange, so she shouldn't necessarily assume the same conventions she's used to apply.

Is either side obviously defending?

No, they're both attacking. There's a shattered gate in the wall, where there are more of the red horde, and a large break in the wall, with more of the purple legion, but they're both pointing inward through the gaps as much as toward each other. (The third type of corpses were defending, and they're accordingly denser on the ground the further in you look. There weren't very many of them, though, even the purples outnumber them.)

(The ethnicities of the people she can see look pretty odd, especially for Dragonblood - mostly pale (not Abyssal-pale, but white) or leathery brown, taller than usual, and wide eyes. But there's a mix, she might not notice if she's not thinking about it.)

Right then. With two competing factions, she doesn't really want to favor one over the other just yet. Better to wait til one side prevails and then have been allied the whole time. So while they sort that out amongst themselves... Celes will turn into a hawk and wing her way over the battle to the upper levels of the fortress which is its object. Any unguarded doors or arrow slits she can slip through?

It doesn't much go up, actually, despite the enormous tower. It's like the walls were built to protect something at the very base.

But the main yard where the burned gate opened up has an open doorway in, and there's arrow slits in the most central ring, which is about three stories.

Inside, there are:

- some more fights between purple and red, but not much, and purple is winning

- many more of the third faction's corpses

- a smell of not-quite ozone which may be regognizable as high concentration of magic, growing in intensity and coming from within

There's an obvious way forward and inward, a tangle of hallways but they lead toward a large doorway set in the side of the tower itself.

Ha, exactly what she was looking for. Navigating the hallways is no problem, she'll switch to a small snake form to stay more inconspicuous.

Has anyone beat her to the tower door?

Yes, they have. There's a group of defenders (the ones in bronze and light blue), and a mixed group attacking them. The attackers have:

A scarred, mohawked, wiry woman in leather armor with blood-red decorations, with a pair of swords at her sides and a bow in her hands

A huge suit of armor, tangled and spiky with what looks like multiple sets of iron and bronze armor twisted together, wielding an iron sword and shield.

A white-bearded, skinny man with a glowing magic staff and a large quill-like dagger, who is tracing symbols in the air and causing spells to take shape

And a large dark-skinned man in black and gold armor, also with a sword and shield, intermittently calling out directions to the others.

(Among the defenders is a middle-aged woman with bright white hair, wearing dark blue cloth held together with large ropes knotted like ship's lines. She is casting magic to support her side, but it doesn't seem to be working well.)

Ah, boo. More fighting.

She doesn't see any anima flux, though, so none of these people are actually Dragonbloods? She would strongly expect them to be flaring in this caliber of fight. The only hiccup with that is the mages, but still, no anima flux.

This does seem like a relatively contained situation, and a critical point, though. To get into the tower, she has to go through here, so...

She'll lend her weight to the attackers' side. She maneuvers to a flanking position and sheds her animal disguise, drawing her tessen from the sleeves of her white dress and laying into the defenders with the steel cases.

The archer reflexively turns to shoot the sudden newcomer -

But the commander calls "Save it, Verse. She looks to be helping us. Thanks, newcomer."

"Thank me when we're on the other side of this door," she responds, as her arm bends in at least two more places than an arm should bend to deliver a rib-shattering strike around an upraised shield.

He nods at the words, then blinks at the motion. "Certainly, ah, Archon?"

They were already winning, this won't last long with her help.

Hopefully she won't need to try too hard, then.

She will not. The spellcaster is stripped of her staff and falls, and in a few moments only one other is left alive - a woman with some rank insignia who's bloody and on one knee, with the walking armor holding a blade near her neck.

Kohl kicks the (large, but wooden, not stone) door in, and Ascension Hall is revealed. There's a large round chamber with sandstone-like walls and a neat tiled floor (whitish stone, not like the internal or external walls). On the far side of the room, between the two largest inner pillars, sits an empty throne.

Stepping into the room reveals no other doors; the one they've just stepped through is flanked by pillars similar to those up against the throne. There's no ceiling - it just disappears into the darkness.

The smell of not-ozone is even thicker here, and a buzzing you can feel in your back teeth has grown sharper. (The Edict can feel its conditions approaching.)

Doesn't quite match the vague mental picture she had...

Celes shakes the blood off her fans, pocketing one and flipping the other open to cool herself off a little. (The design on the leaf shows the phases of the moon from full to empty over a burning mountain.) She saunters over to examine the throne, deliberately casual despite the humming magic in the air.

(That won't be enormously recognizable; the phases of the moon always occur in the same places in the sky here.)

"If you don't mind, I'm going to do the formalities before we investigate Kyros's newest territory."