Troia Cell is a subsection of the Ctesiphon wing of Blood of Eden. It was created for the purpose of determining Nona’s identity and potentially developing her Lyctoral power into an asset for Blood of Eden.
History[]
After Pyrrha Dve emerges from the River with the unconscious body of Harrowhark Nonagesimus, We Suffer vouches for them, despite calls for their execution. When it becomes apparent that the soul in Harrow’s body has no memories of her former life, she is renamed Nona and Commander We Suffer charges Pyrrha and Camilla Hect with the task of determining her identity and monitoring the level of her necromantic skill.[1] Blood of Eden hopes to be able to weaponize Harrowhark’s necromantic skill against the Cohort,[2] and issues Troia cell a deadline of one year to deliver on the promise of a Lyctor.[3]
Shifting power dynamics between Blood of Eden wings culminate in Merv Wing abducting negotiators from the Sixth House and causing a fracture between Troia cell and BoE leadership. Despite Ctesiphon Wing being “short on cash”[4] and We Suffer’s waning power and influence, the commander arranges for Nona, Camilla, and Pyrrha to live in the Building, an Edenite safehouse. Troia cell is expected to provide for themselves, and give occasional reports at Blood of Eden’s discretion. Though Crown Him With Many Crowns is nominally the leader of the cell, her supervision is conducted from a distance, and she mainly acts as a liaison for the other members during BoE meetings and briefings.
Nona the Ninth[]
Despite Troia cell being given a one-year deadline, Merv Wing gets restless around the five month mark. Six Edenites single out Camilla while she is on the beach waiting for Nona to finish a swim in the jellyfish-infested waters. The Merv Wing squad surrounds Cam, threatening her with guns and asking for intel, apparently on the orders of their leader, Unjust Hope. When Camilla does not comply, the Edenites switch to a different language to discuss shooting her, at which point Nona surges out of the water to warn Cam.
One of the Edenites instead shoots Nona, who sinks beneath the waves to play dead. On the beach, Camilla and Palamedes commit temporary necromantic synthesis, allowing them to quickly kill the six members of Merv Wing. Worried that the sound of gunfire brought unwanted attention, Cam and Nona steal the attackers’ bike and leave the bodies where they fell.[5]
Day Two[]
While she’s walking Aim’s dog Noodle in the school courtyard, Nona makes a fake radio call to Crown. Merv Wing overhears and suspects it to be a coded message to Ctesiphon Wing, which heightens the tensions between the two factions.
Day Three[]
Six Blood of Eden soldiers forcefully enter Troia cell’s apartment in the Building. The household follows protocol, complying with the Edenites’ actions to disarm and restrain them. Pyrrha, Camilla, and Nona are driven to a BoE facility, where they meet with We Suffer, Crown, and Pash. We Suffer shares intel about a House spaceship that has entered the planet’s airspace. Upon seeing the shuttle, Troia cell concludes that it must’ve traveled to the Ur system via the River, navigated by a Lyctor. While other factions of BoE support violent tactics, We Suffer sees the value in being open to negotiation with Lyctors. The reappearance of the Cohort puts pressure on Troia cell to produce a Lyctor, despite it being six months before the deadline. Merv Wing in particular wants possession of a Lyctor to use as a negotiating chip, and their demands are bolstered by their leverage of the Sixth House Oversight Body’s incarceration. Camilla promises “a Lyctor, or equivalent, if they wait.”[3] We Suffer adjourns the meeting.
After the meeting, Camilla and Nona accompany Crown to visit Judith Deuteros, who is suffering from the blue madness and being kept in the facility’s basement. A medical emergency induces Palamedes to use necromancy, confirming Crown’s suspicions that he occasionally supersedes Camilla and occupies her body. Crown promises not to reveal this to Blood of Eden.
Troia cell leaves the BoE facility hooded and restrained. Crown accompanies them and directs the driver to drop Nona off at school. Despite Camilla’s protests, Crown gets out to walk Nona into the school. They run into Aim at the door, who denies Crown entrance on account of her gun. Though the interaction is short, Merv Wing interprets Crown’s presence at Aim’s place of work as a political move by We Suffer to put more of her own people in.[4]
The House shuttle lands in the city, and Pyrrha unexpectedly disappears. Neither BoE nor her housemates are aware that she has gone to the Cohort barracks under the assumed identity of Gideon the First.
Later that evening, a city-wide broadcast reveals that the House negotiator is Ianthe the First, using the body of Naberius Tern to avoid the effects of the Resurrection Beast. She is accompanied by what appears to be the corpse of Gideon Nav, which is introduced as the Emperor’s heir, Kiriona Gaia.
Day Four[]
Camilla decides to spend the day searching for Pyrrha, but agrees to take Nona to the school to say goodbye to her friends. At the school, Palamedes takes control of Camilla’s body and shakes Aim’s hand. He identifies a necromantic implant in Aim’s body. When the city cuts the power off and Aim sends most of the children home, Palamedes, Nona, and Hot Sauce stay behind to help close up the building. Palamedes reveals himself as a necromancer and urgently asks Aim about their implant. Aim’s dog, Noodle, begins growling at Palamedes, and Aim moves Noodle into the kitchen. It is presumably during this time that Aim radios in an order to shoot Palamedes.
The Merv Wing unit keeping tabs on Aim from a building across the street executes the order, shooting Nona in the head and Palamedes in the chest. While Nona’s accelerated healing goes into effect, Palamedes manages to remove the bullets from Cam’s body and heal her wounds. Pash, Aim’s designated lifeguard, temporarily secures the school building, locks Hot Sauce in the generator room, and attempts to call off Merv Wing. Incensed by Ctesiphon Wing’s recent incursions on Aim, Merv Wing insists on the necessity of taking Aim into custody.
Having ruled out any viable exit, Pash prepares to defend the room against Merv Wing. As a precaution and in accordance with BoE custom, Pash announces her intentions to behead Nona and Camilla, who have been playing dead. Nona sits up abruptly. The movement startles Pash and she shoots Nona again, to little effect. Camilla sits up more calmly and expresses displeasure that they had not been made aware of Aim’s identity. Having learned that Camilla and Nona are part of “the Troia experiment,”[4] Aim acknowledges that the circumstances have changed and unsuccessfully tries one last time to call off Merv Wing.
While Nona goes to hide in the generator room with Hot Sauce, Cam and Pash prepare to fight the liquidation squad. Aim opts to remain in the room with them to lower their chances of getting shot, as using a firearm in the Messenger’s presence is punishable by death in BoE. The fight is violent, but ends with Pash and Cam relatively unharmed and all eleven members of the Merv Wing squad dead.
Hot Sauce is disturbed upon seeing the wreckage of the classroom and realizing that Nona is a zombie. Despite Aim’s protestations, Hot Sauce shoots Nona in the head. The bullet gets stuck in her head and complicates the healing process. Aim, Pash, and Camilla rush her back to the BoE facility, where Palamedes performs emergency necromancy in front of most of Ctesiphon Wing.
As a retaliatory measure, Camilla is fitted with an electronic shackle on her ankle, and Nona is immobilized and locked in a room guarded by Edenites. When Nona wakes up, she breaks free from her restraints, breaks through the door, and attacks the guards. Blood of Eden is impressed, in their own way, with Nona’s display of blood and guts, though most people refuse to be in the same room as Nona after the incident.
Troia cell is not invited to participate in Blood of Eden’s consensus process or the concurrent vote to determine the organization’s next moves. We Suffer personally works with Troia cell to orchestrate a mission to infiltrate the Cohort barracks and gather intel on Ianthe, the Houses’ official representative, and Kiriona Gaia, whom BoE believes to be the key to the Locked Tomb.
Day Five[]
Early the next morning, Crown claims asylum at the barracks and reunites with her sister. We Suffer, Nona, and Camilla listen to the interaction on a radio. We Suffer is surprised and betrayed to learn that Crown had taken Judith Deuteros with her. After some veiled comments about Crown’s earrings, Ianthe speaks directly into the BoE listening device to demand the return of House assets, including Camilla and Harrowhark. Recognizing that Crown’s cover has been blown, We Suffer orders the sniper to line up the shot, but Camilla urgently stops her. Pyrrha makes her presence at the barracks known by ordering Ianthe to ditch Crown’s audio device and retreat inside the barracks.
We Suffer considers BoE doubly betrayed—by both Crown and Pyrrha—but Nona claims Pyrrha used codewords to signal that they could still trust her. At Camilla’s prodding, We Suffer discovers that Crown had placed an additional audio device on Judith. While they wait for it to activate, Palamedes manifests in Cam’s body, revealing himself to We Suffer. Palamedes, and then Camilla negotiate with We Suffer by offering the retrieval of the key to the Locked Tomb in exchange for the Sixth House Oversight Body. The audio device on Judith activates, proving Crown’s continued allegiance to BoE, and Pyrrha uses coded language to communicate that Nona is the only one capable of retrieving Gideon’s body from the barracks.
Camilla disguises Nona as Harrowhark, and with We Suffer’s blessing, they are escorted to the barracks by Pash and Aim. Nona and Camilla are met by Crown, Ianthe in the body of Naberius Tern, Pyrrha in her guise of the Saint of Duty, and an army of undead soldiers. Camilla challenges Ianthe to a duel which results in Camilla—at the cost of being stabbed through her abdomen—touching the bare skin of Naberius’s body. This allows Palamedes to mentally duel Ianthe for control of the body. When Ianthe loses, her undead army also crumbles, solidifying Troia cell’s coup of the Cohort barracks and instating Palamedes in Naberius’s corpse.
While Palamedes tends to Camilla’s wounds, Crown retrieves Judith, who is still unconscious, and Pyrrha and Nona follow Palamedes’s directions to the body of Gideon Nav. Pyrrha uses Nona’s regenerative ability to break through the blood ward protecting the body. Nona touches the corpse and sees it move, but by the time Pyrrha has entered the room, the corpse has gone still again.
The corpse maintains this ruse while Pyrrha carries it back upstairs, the body only moving again when Palamedes attempts to draw its blood. Priding herself on playing dead, Gideon confirms that John brought her back as a revenant and renamed her Kiriona Gaia. After Camilla tries and fails to take a blood sample, Kiriona explains that the Emperor enhanced her body to make it extremely difficult to injure her or harvest her blood. Despite her hostile attitude towards the group and her apparent allegiance to the Emperor, Kiriona asks to accompany them to the Ninth House, though she obscures her reasoning for this request. The group warily agrees.
Because of BoE’s homicidal mistrust of zombies, Kiriona plays dead once again as they leave the barracks. Unwilling to risk keeping such valuable assets together, We Suffer commands that Nona and the corpse be separated, and Cam accompanies Kiriona to one BoE truck while the rest of the group congregates in a different truck with We Suffer and Pash.
Known Members[]
References[]
- ↑ Nona the Ninth Day One, Ch. 6
- ↑ Nona the Ninth Day Four, Ch. 17
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Nona the Ninth Day Three, Ch. 12
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Nona the Ninth Day Four, Ch. 18
- ↑ Nona the Ninth Day Two, Ch. 9