67 - Re: Slaughterhouse 9 Pt. 4[Cherno]

The ground shuddered again before they could approach the area where Casus’ belt was held. It was past a corner, through a courtyard, into a building, into the basement, then into a hidden sub-basement under a trapdoor concealed by a rug and something called a “weak cognitive filter”. The corridor to that courtyard was in sight, but a mass of Gor’ah bodies sprinted past the duo and rushed in, quickly building up a flesh clog that blocked the path. Another shudder of the ground, closer now. Then, some distance away, the creaking of improperly fitted mechanicals sounded, followed by thunderous stomping. A monstrous flesh-construct the size of a small building sprinted out, a lanky man in a stained leather apron riding atop it, holding on for dear life. He jumped off onto the roof of a nearby single-floor house at the first opportunity as the Pet came to a halt, idly scanning its surroundings.

The man’s screechy, raspy voice rung out, filled with false smugness and self-confidence, “Well, well, well, how the tables have-”

Krahe popped a trio of gunshots in the man’s direction. Each trailed a Tracer. He scrambled to raise his barrier, but two slammed into his Wards and one flew wide. Little chips of bone broke off from him as his Wards’ remnants.

“Don’t you know not to interrupt when someone’s talking?!” he screamed, genuinely offended. He pointed towards Casus. A strange ray flashed from his palm and struck the Banisher, but did not harm him… Instead, it tagged him with a faintly-pulsing glyph. He aimed at Krahe, but she knew better, and dodged out of the way, raising a thin, 5-charge slate of cover. Audibly frustrated, the Foreman barked: “Tindalos, kill!”

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For a moment, Casus thought it to be a grotesquery; a living thing damned to a torturous, short-lived existence as a living weapon, overgrafted beyond extremity, held together with vast volumes of drugs and thaumatech. High sacrilege to the Grafting Church, so much so any grafter who produced a grotesquery could find graft-saints bashing down his door. But, no. It wasn't. Grotesqueries were easily recognized by a number of distinct markers, and this thing had none of them. It was just a graft-beast. A gruesome meat-machine, in this case made from spare body parts on a solid frame. Revolting, but not inherently sacrilegious.

What was inherently sacrilegious, however, was the fact large portions were clearly made from dismantled human corpses in addition to the bestial musculature that most likely allowed it to move at all. Human muscle was only used in non-loadbearing positions, but it was still stolen, desecrated flesh, all but seething with impurity. The whole thing was a collage of grafting malpractice and hackneyed engineering, almost brilliant in its ingenuity, but equally revolting. grafted onto a hexapedal skeleton with a head built around a large predator’s skull, with bladed teeth and crude, anatomically improper muscle bundles for actuation. Most likely grafted together from the major skeletal muscles of saurians; it was at least better than human muscle for the purpose, if nothing else. The creature’s limbs ended in three fully mechanical claws each, two facing out and one facing in; they were sharply pointed, clearly intended to be used as weapons.

Scrap metal had been haphazardly applied as physical armor on the graft-beast’s center mass and parts of the limbs, but it obviously had no wards of its own. The hexapedal layout made sense; much easier to make work than a humanoid at the Foreman’s level of expertise. The Pet was extremely impressive given the circumstances of its creation, that much Casus had to admit, but it nonetheless fell short of anything he would call well put-together. Twin barrier generator pylons jutted out of its back where a human’s shoulderblades ought to be; at least, that’s what Casus wagered they were, being rather poorly hacked together. Four-pronged jagged forks, they were, unstable greenish magic crackling between the prongs as equally unstable, glassy barriers wavered into being, covering most of the beast’s front half except an egregious gap in the middle, where its head jutted out… Meaning the barriers weren’t properly integrated, acting as indiscriminatory walls. A pair of reinforced tanks bulged out of the graft-beast’s underside, mostly concealed, but clearly there, right behind a bundle of bulging cables that had to be the main power plant’s hookups. It was hard not to spot it, since the powerful energy it gave off bled through even the layers of physical protection that had been layered around it and the two tanks. Casus had a good guess as to both tanks’ contents. One had to hold a Thaumine-based fuel compound, likely something commercially available for powering large vehicles, at best refiltered and redistilled with some basic additives, and that was giving the Foreman the benefit of good faith. The other was graft rejection suppressant, doubtlessly based on baneworm venom. Since a graft-beast had no soul or consciousness there was no concern for the venom’s side effects, and it could be pumped throughout the whole thing to curb all but the most violent rejection. If the Foreman had been smart enough to not use tissue tainted with dense, actively vengeful energy, his beast wouldn’t pull itself apart unless the suppressant ran out while it was still active. Depending on how much was in the tank and the delivery system, that could be minutes… Or hours. Casus very much hoped for the former.

The Foreman barked a command, pointing at the tag he had managed to place on Casus moments earlier, and the Pet turned in place with a deceptive agility for its scrappy construction. Its maw gaped open, revealing a glistening array of nodules that lit up, and a moment later, a rippling blast of kinetic energy ripped forth, carving a shallow channel into the ground where Casus had stood a moment earlier. It was unmistakable: A Blasting Array, the bigger sibling and ancestor of the Blasting Ring. A revolutionary mining tool at the time of its invention… And one just as easily weaponized as alchemical explosives, or anything else that could be used to quickly and reliably break apart hardened rock. Casus wouldn’t be surprised if this very Blasting Array had been involved in the construction of the ill-fated tramline beneath their feet.