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The Consort of Destruction sat near the main fountain of the Pantheon colonnade, a few large tomes stacks beside where they wouldn't be damaged by splash while they weren't immediately being used. His usual, neutral robes were replaced by a white phase of a parade-form lorica hamata, like to aquilifer's armor. The black crisscross of the leather thong and heavy pendant were still apparent, couching on the wrap of his cape and the breastplate.

He looked up sharply, whether he heard or felt approach and source of power unclear. It was accompanied after a brief waiting moment by words, and a inclination of his head, "And they say desiring something does not make it come to outstretched hand. Yet here she walks. Lady of Greed."

"What brings your steps to these halls?"

"We keep what titles we take with tooth and nail. But there is no need to flaunt them without purpose in closed conversations. Back rooms or...in this case fountains, are where power is dealt with in amiable courts without pomp, " He set the book he had on his lap aside, closed on the stack beside. "Aristogeiton or Aris work equally well. "

"What morsel would please the insatiable for a moment or two?"

"One pebble of Ancient Days, depending the source and make can be ...lucrative. But I tire at the whole dwelling of all things wholly on the restoration of the past instead of looking forward to what is to come. "

"And scrabbling is certainly not in my repertoire, I'm afraid. I play to win, not to dwell in uncertainty. As for purity, it is conquered with the right tools. Which I believe we have between us."

"When talking with dragons, it usually pays to be mindful of claws and teeth, in case they should get excited, " he rapt a knuckle against the breastplate. "Or even just with the gods. If one's words are possible to bring disfavor."

"The Council is impotent. It served its same function as a preteen babysitter that does little more to enrich her charge than put movies on and offer pre-made snacks for nourishment. It needs to go. "

"For you, I think it would be a step up for the Twin Crown to reinstate totalitarian rule, as one of the lieutenants of my lover's reach. It woudl unlock the fetters of discourse with the lot who don't move at all and disagree with the worth of progress at all costs. To complete the gesture, I will present Him with all the star sigils he gave out to lay at his feet. "

"I'm tired of one or the other, His aspects unbalanced and swinging like a pendulum. Return to throne, a wedding to that pale god he seems to fancy, a child, and the triumvirate will be complete. Then Our Crown will show in addition to the other, the right hand of light and the left hand of darkness. And you and I will find ourselves a great deal more free to gather and sow for the future instead of the past."

The cordiality or interest he did not trust more than to be self-interest and feigned. Though he couldn't complain much, he wasn't much different in some aspects. Still, he liked knowing where things stood, and self interest was easier to calculate and work with. That she would not willingly give up her sigil to any other hands he had guessed. No one took anything from the hands of Greed lightly, and not without consequences later.

Oh the battles of old, and fond reminisces of old scars. They had all been glory then.

What mattered was that she would give it over to the Crown's hand, if he would but take again that title and state. It was a good ploy as well. Favor might be one and the guise of the dark one might wear gold as well as blood. His attention was piqued at mention of Glyph's choices, laughing "Well, Wood might have needs bigger than trees. What better to seek than the great dragons for comfort. Lesser men and women would be wasting effort."

"Hopefully it doesn't involve splinters. As for Underworld, while the god may be dispersed and less self aware as parcel to his realm and loosing himself to it, the items he carried are not part of that. They will be in the great and vaulting forms, maybe needing mined out. It will take an expedition that can do some flying or climbing."

"You ask many questions, but give few advice. What are your plans?"

"See that's the rub...I've told plain my immediate purposes. What help I need is in expediency. If you would like, you could add two stars to your turn in...sponsor the expedition with your followers and aoide and win the sigil from the lost Underworld. "

"Giving with two hands, at least to Destruction, is better than one." Even if they both had a more usual tendency to offer with only one. "It saves me time, gets you clout. "

"The paths of the underworld are the paths of guts and bones of a God. Twisted, private, shifting on occasion according with how he stretched himself out beneath the roots of the tree and the false sky. It is harder, also, for living mind of any sort to keep the paths straight in mind. It is a hazard of being out of place. "

"The best made maps long ago were blotches of zone- the paradise fields, the great hall of feasts, the chase-holes and warrens of the child dead, and so on. Marked with basic ideas of the type of landscape, they let travelers know vaguely where they were and what they were near. In spite of the twisting there are truths- exit is only three ways and some things always touch others. The crying walk is the main gate and is the Mouth, then there’s the back passage and root passage. “

“It isn’t much, but in these tomes there happens to be some such maps I penned myself long ago….apparently I oft visited thence.” He took up the book he’d been leafing before and removed from it a folded, delicate sheet of metal beaten into paper, then offered it over. “Don’t be concerned with your personal right or left. In the Underworld, the only thing that matters is HIS right and left. “

“Within it are the other dangers more mundane- if you find you way, and find the sigil, his aoide and the spirit servants won’t take kindly to any taking what is not consented to give. Word may also be sent to his Brother, the Spirit Guide, and it isn’t easy to predict if that one would be sympathetic to the mining of Nergal’s bones.”

"The warren ways where the spirits of dead children play will not be dangerous so much as frustrating, They'll have little fear of you, and may be bold enough to play tricks and to steal things to goad you into playing with them. Hide and seek."

“ Speaking of children, I have heard that Underworld sowed seed finally in anothers womb and new brought a Ceaseless Eye to replace the loss of the old. The hounds of the great house and beast of the Guardian were never ones to like the passage of the living in the lands of the dead without tribute. The walking shadow corpses, half rotted and yet unresting of the old ones to the old master may still prowl Nergal’s bones. Guardian is still a child, he has not enforced his dominance or recrafted the pack of his predecessor. “

“So the child himself maybe a threat. The phantoms of the old cerberi certainly will be. Your claws will be able to wound them, but as long as they remain in the underworld, they regain strength. Your followers won’t be so lucky, not being gods. Appeasement, or trapping them in rockfall or other traps using the environment are your best options. Honey cakes used to do wonders, but that was for a single passer by.“

"Actually, any of the children, or the wife. Who knows how they feel, good or bad, about outsiders removing treasures of their father and husband. Or of wounding him, slight though it may be, to mine out the sigil from the collar walls."