NOVEL NEXT 107 – It’s a Research and Development Montage Pt. 2
It was done, and it made Casus grimace in apprehension when he first saw it.
He’d seen grisly talisman designs before, sure, but there was something malicious about this one. The central image was a disembodied forearm, clawed and with gnarled skin like cooling magma, a more monstrous version of Krahe’s own arm, clearly, with smoke billowing from its back and rays of crimson killing light shooting from its palm. Around it swirled ominous patterns that dragged the eyes, resembling at once the legs of a centipede and the bones of a ribcage, but it was the back of the talisman paper that gave him pause. In the center, a three-cornered eye with three pupils fused into one shape, and around it, letters which he could not read, alongside the typical occult patterns seen on all talismans.
Killing intent. Malice. Hate. Hate beyond hate. Hate so virulent, so vitriolic, that it alone could teach an eidolon, a thoughtless spirit that knew neither death nor emotion, what it was to deeply desire another’s demise. Casus had read that the exposed theurgic patterns of a Reaper exuded a ceaseless, furious forward drive, and those of an Atropal did the same with the impression of a coiled snake, locked onto prey, ready to pounce. He had even examined archival examples of old scrolls just to get a feeling for it, part out of curiosity and part out of a desire to understand Lady Blackhand’s capabilities, thinking it only fair since she had shown an interest in the workings of Mamon Couplers. This was, nonetheless, fundamentally different compared to a mass-manufactured pattern; not merely more intense, but more profound, in the same way that the feeling of transforming into Silberblut was more profound than transforming into Omniphage.
Keeping quiet, stilling himself utterly, the Banisher looked on as Lady Blackhand completed the third talisman and began on a fourth. Horrible, murderous malice poured out of her, smoke of blackest pitch, filling the room with the smell of sulphur and stinging fumes, only to gather at the tip of her brush as she raised it from the inkwell. With a small handful of strokes, she rendered the clawed hand’s outline and filled it in.
“How long do you intend to wait?” came a deadpan statement as she dipped her brush. From the windowsill, a horrible noise followed. Once more, that distorted section of music, like alarm trumpets coming out of a speaker made of scrap metal reading off of a broken and glued-together memslate. He hadn’t noticed it at all, but now, he could see that infernal crow perched next to the window as clear as day.
“I merely did not wish to disturb you, and at the same time, I was curious.”
“If you want to watch, just watch. It disturbs me more if I know you’re trying to avoid my notice.”
As if to punctuate her point, she clicked her tongue and tossed the talisman paper into a nearby baking pan of odorous liquid. Coming closer, Casus saw that within the dish half a dozen more similar papers floated in various stages of having the ink leached out of them. He wanted to comment on how Blackhand would have saved a great deal of money if she had learned of this solution earlier, but she had already started over. For a solid half hour Casus looked on, watching three of the malicious talismans being completed and a fourth started, only for his stomach to rumble and cause Lady Blackhand to make the tiniest of errors. It was a deviation he himself could just about notice, with his vastly superior vision, but she nonetheless tossed the paper… And shot him in the head. A single beam of burning wrath, searing away at his Wards and briefly glaring his vision like a bright flash of light. It was much weaker than he had expected.
“Next time it will be a real one. There’s some leftover stew in the fridge. Heat up the whole pot, and don’t call me over.”
“Very well,” he acquiesced, already starting the work of mending his Ward as he left Blackhand to her devices.
Later that day, Krahe tested her prototype dregshot - well out of sight, in a subterranean gymnasium of the Grafting Church, of course. She also sicced Barzai upon several dummies to ascertain the eidolon’s natural combative abilities, and found herself satisfied with learning that it could ram into foes as a potent kinetic attack, as well as create seemingly instantaneous explosions with flashes of its eyes. The range of this “Blast Flash” was limited to only around ten meters within Barzai, required line of sight of the bird, and, from testing against artificial wards and barriers, Krahe ascertained that it was of an Arcane nature.
Nonetheless, both Barzai’s natural capabilities and the performance of her new theurgy were anything but disappointing. Casus had expressed that he wished to come along but couldn’t due to apostolic duties.
Yet later still they met once more, and as was his nature, the Banisher immediately opened with: “By your demeanor, I presume that you are not dissatisfied with the fruits of your work. What do you intend to call the theurgy? Another alien play on words?”
“Of course,” she said. Then, purposely speaking actual German, she intoned: “Wandrei Faust.”
“That must be in a language from your world, I presume. What a strange sound. It will eat at me if I do not know what absurdly stretched play on words this one is.”
Krahe chuckled.
“Nothing so far-fetched as Six Trees Killer. Wandrei is the surname of an author who wrote of creatures called Fire Vampires, thus the connection to my element, and it sounds somewhat like the word for wandering. Faust was the name of a fictitious man who made a deal with an otherworldly entity. It also translates to fist, and there was a long line of directed-blast missile weapons with that same word in the name. Though it’s not the exact same operating principle, my Wandrei Faust is inspired by the descendants of those weapons.”
