Nikia hummed slightly as she worked the loom, threading her wordless song aruond the rythmic noise of her work. They needed blankets, a lot of blankets, as many blankets as they could weave as quickly as possible. The thought of what she needed to do riased a thread of anoyance that was clipped quickly as her thoughts went on. The missive from the Daughters of Hera, First Sister Theadora was ire raising, it was rare that one Sisterhood would demand something of another, command even. The Sisterhoods are equals. Nikia, the Beloved of the Daughters of Aphrodite, nearly refused on princible until she read the missive from the Daughter of Nyx's Aranea. Half the city is to burn.

Every Sister, every Niece, every Cousin, every Gorgon that Nikia could get was now weaving. Every property controlled by the Daughters of Aphrodite have been turned into shelters for those who will need it.

Nikia felt her fingers sting and stopped to look at them. The calluses on her fingers throbed in pain, again. She sighed and took a dolip of a balm from the Sisters of Hestia and spread it across her hands and felt the pain ease until her fingers were free of pain.

"How many blankets have been finished?" Nikia called over to her Second, Phyla.

"Last tally was one thousand nine," Phyla said looking up from a collection of partchment. "Sida's House should be sending an update in an hour. It appears that we will have plenty of rough blankets ready for that spiders machination."

"Food?"

"Daughters of Demiter are working with us, one moment," Phyla searched for a moment, "they can spare a months worth of grain for three thousand people. They say the rest needs to be held for the Daughters of Athena, the Scythian is calling the sisters with the Huns."

Nikia stopped and turned to face her second, "how many?"

"Ten thousand of sixty thousand out of the Empire," Phyla said. "Are we going to war? What are the Spears and Spiders thinking?"

"That we can take the Empire for ourselves," Nikia said slowly, "That they can creat an event so grand that we would no longer be in the shadows tugging at the strings and take the throne in the light of day. A new Themiscyra wearing the guise of Rome."

"Troy is coming," was all Phyla said with a nod as they both got back to work.

"Be prepared to recieve victims of fire!" Theolete bellowed of the chatter and sounds of pestle that filled the hall. "The Spider said there will be fire a plenty with no caution! Use aloe and calendula for salves and keep knives sharp and handy to cut away the necrotic flesh!"

Women ran from table to table carying bundles of fresh cut aloe vera and dried yellow flowers. The veroius women at the tables would quickly squeeze the aloe into bowles. Then stripping the flower of its usefule parts to put into a motar. After grinding the useful parts of the flower into a fine powder they mix it into a portion of lard to make a salve for treating burns.

Theolete sighed and rubbed her face in an attempt to disipate the stress she had gained in just a few days. The Spider, that damned Aranea of Constantinople, and her machanations have never reached her Sisterhood before. At most a Daughter of Hestia needed to mend a wound of a Sister or a Gorgon befor. But now, Troy has come and is casting shadows and influence on all the Amazon Sisterhoods. Her Medica were going to be needed under the directions of both the Spider and Augusta to gain the favor of the people for whatever the next step of their plan is.

Something like this would normally require a Conclave, a meeting of all the Sisterhoods, for each sister to vote on wether to do it or not. But this was too time sensitive, a Daughter of Iris carried the reason for the descive action without a Conclave and Theolete had agreed with the decision. The Daughters of Hera and the Daughters of Nyx will still face consiquences for this but they will not be severe.

"Summa Medica," Vesuvia, her aprentice, called her attention, "I have a new salve for burns."

"What differs?" Theolete asked while she was looking over a report on their suplies.

"I replaced a forth of the lard with aloe vera and added poppy seed extract to the existing salve," Vesuvia said and handed her a container. "The aloe vera makes the burn feel cool and the poppy seed extract dulls the pain. I tested it on some prisoners yesterday and while the wounds do not heal much better the subjects with burns that would normally kill from the pain alone still live."

Theolete hummed for a momment and then nodded, "go to the secondary workshop and give the sisters there your recipe. Have them fully dedicate the secondary workshop to your new salve."

"Yes mistress!" Vesuvia chirped and started to turn.

"Remind the sisters that you give the salve to to use it in moderation," Theolete reminded her, "poppy seed extract can force the body to crave more if it is high enough consentration."

"Yes mistress," Vesuvia said again, slightly mullifide. "The recipe only calls for three seeds worth of extract, not enough for even children to crave it."

"Then go and work fast and keep records to see its effectiveness outside of testing on the Amazons enemies." Theolete waved her off and went back to her reports as more sheets were add

Venturia hummed as she picked over a wall of old, fragile scrolls full of old and forgoten knowledge. Things outside of her library seem to be in flux. A message came the other day, was it yesterday or the day befor, that said Troy has come. With that on her mind she has been going over the histories of every instance of Troy.

First was the original Troy. The city-state's tru name was Wisu and was renamed by the Greeks to Troy. It was the shift of power away from the Oathkeepers who founded and grew their civilization from when the Amazons were called the Ama, to the Sisterhoods that live on through their current orders. From the records it was the begining of the end of the Amazon Empire.

Second instance was the March of Alexander the Bloody. The fall of the last Amazon city of Themiscyra and the begining of the Amazon Sisterhoods existance in secret. They got their revenge as Alexander's Empire did not survive a moment past his assassination.

Third was the Fall of Carthago and the end of the Third Punic War. The Amazon attempt to make a new Empire in Carthago failed. Fourth was less dramatic and overt, it was when the Daughters of Hera managed to infiltrate and influence four fifths of the Roman senatorial families.

The Fourth was undermined by the Fifth when Gaius Julius Ceasar marched his legions south of the Rubicon. the Sixth and Seventh happened in succesion of each and the Fifth with Ceasar's assassination by Senators against the desires of the Amazons. Histories tell that the Amazon's at the time wanted to wait and see. If Ceasar would help fix the growing rot in the Roman Republic and be of use to them or if he was just a man grabbing at power. A Daughter of Hera, Cleopatra, was already in position to influence him.

The Seventh was when Augustus took power and restructured Rome into an Empire and culled the Senate of his enemies. It reduced the Amazon's influence to effectivly zero and Augustus proved to be too cautious to influence and his policies reverted much of the Amazon's progress as well.

The Eighth was some time after when a Daughter of Athena began making gains against Rome in Brittania and gained the name of Boutica. The local Sisterhoods hand a strong foot hold and the beginings of a new Amazon Empire was recorded. Boutica was captured, raped, and exicuted after her chariot broke it's wheel in a battle. Without her the local Celts lost a unifying voice andultimately lost.

After the Eighth Troy the Amazons have recorded that their best interest was to controll Rome. However controlling the institutions and individuals proved more difficult as the corruption and decadence grew so they needed to engineer an opertunity to take more power.

Three hundred years after the Eighth an entire century was declared to be the Ninth Troy, as the Western Empire was collapsing under wave after wave of barbarians. With the Tenth and last was when the Western Empire finally fell to the barbarians, it was deemed a seperate Troy because the Daughters of Hera, Athena, and Nyx believed it could resist the barbarians further but it deffied their expectations.

"So," Venturia hummed, "this is the Eleventh Troy. From the information I have at hand it may be the final Troy, one way or another. I wounder what this will mean for my Daughters of Hekate."