31 - Smokery Pt. 3 [Cherno]

Liquid metal flowed out from the belt over the man’s skin, enveloping him before it solidified into a full-body suit with compound, insectile eyes. It was made up of sleek, case-hardened armor all over, as if a stealth hoverbike had been given human form. Perhaps it was due to the Cassia’s inhibition-releasing effect, but Krahe actually made an effort to watch his fight; from her booth, all she really needed to do was stand up to see into the pit well enough. He went up against another belt-user like him, the other man armored in the guise of a humanoid grasshopper, reinforced by what looked like a heavy-lift exoskeleton on his upper body. The grasshopper’s punches carried appropriately explosive force, whereas Monochrome outsped his opponent in nearly every other aspect. It was a typical power vs. dexterity matchup, and the technical fighter prevailed without any apparent struggle, wearing down his enemy until the grasshopper limped and his helmet’s left eye came off, exposing its goo-smeared wearer’s face beneath. Monochrome Man took up a low, wide-legged stance, and both of them operated their belts; Monochrome Man pushed the lever down twice in a row, while the grasshopper pressed a button in his belt’s center.

The grasshopper’s arm bulged outward before a mantis-like blade erupted from his forearm, while the Monochrome Man’s belt emitted a warning klaxon and steam vented from the gaps of his suit. His right leg’s plating came apart, an ominous blue glow between them.

Monochrome’s belt once more uttered an ominous phrase: “WARNING: Overpressure. Stand free.”

The grasshopper charged ahead, howling in desperation.

Monochrome kicked him in half with a standing roundhouse, then almost immediately fell to all fours, the canister popping out of his belt. His armor melted away, and he heaved until his blood showered down onto the sand-covered floor, mixed with a blue-glowing goop. It was a Meltdown, as made abundantly clear by the barlady’s croaking bellow calling it out; her voice blasted as if from a speaker, but Krahe was sure there were no speakers here. When she turned to look, she saw that the woman was just speaking through an O made with her fingers.

“Palehead does it again, that’s a five win streak! Get the loser out of the pit and get him grafted back together, he doesn’t owe enough to just let him die yet!” the barlady harked, putting down her hand. Monochrome had recovered and climbed out of the pit, heading towards the bar. The barlady handed him a bottle of Thaumine, presumably his winnings, and said to him: “At this rate, you’ll get to fight Semzar.”

“I would rather not,” Monochrome replied coldly, walking to the exit.

“I’m afraid you won’t have a choice. Semzar doesn’t like losing out on a fresh new skinsuit…” the barlady commented grimly under her breath, watching him leave.

A few moments passed, and the barlady perked up at the arrival of a new figure; several of them, considering the number of footsteps. The barlady greeted the figures out of sight in a sycophantic fashion that utterly clashed with her demeanor up until now; Krahe filtered out most of what she said until she heard something worth paying attention to: “...right this way, Mr. Hashem. We’ve plenty of free booths.”

“Speak of the devil…” Krahe thought. There were, in fact, not many free booths at all. Now that she looked around, she realized that there was actually just one free booth, right across from hers. A curse and a blessing at once, she supposed. It took absolutely ironclad mental focus to pay attention to Hashem’s coterie while giving off the appearance of an out-of-it smokery-goer. Watching someone using only her peripheral vision was significantly harder when she didn’t have perfect vision focus in her whole field of view and couldn’t use an implant to lock her gaze to something. Nonetheless, she managed.

Going by “Mr. Hashem’s” appearance and demeanor, she was quite confident that this was Semzar rather than Damrus. His body was young and barely had any visible deformities, besides what looked like bulged-out veins on his neck. She wouldn’t have been able to tell that he was a baneworm if she didn’t know. His four-man coterie contained exactly one individual of interest; a tall, lanky woman whose appearance made it feel like she stepped straight out of a late-20th-century biker gang. Black leather pants and a vest to match with nothing underneath, edgy tattoos covering her arms, her orange-red hair in a mohawk. Perhaps most interesting of all, she had bent-back horns, pointed ears bedecked by earrings, and ominously glowing eyes with black sclera. There was an elaborate pentagonal sigil on the left side of her shaved head; the mark of her void key, Krahe guessed. A pair of strangely 17th-century-esq pistols sat in holsters on her left hip, including large external hammers, though their heads were solid tapered strikers rather than holding flint.

For more than twenty agonizing minutes, Krahe listened in while quietly smoking all the cassia she had left. She heard absolutely nothing of interest beyond a single offhanded mention of getting someone called Gorguk to pay protection money.

Then, something changed. Rather, someone arrived. A small figure, face hidden by a gold-trimmed burgundy cloak. There was something “beyond” about that little person, a killing grace that she couldn’t place. The figure sat up at the bar and openly said to the barlady: “I’m looking for Semzar Hashem.”

The barlady, aghast, lied: “He’s uh, not here. Come by tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Pity,” said the cloaked figure, the tone of its voice making it abundantly clear that they hadn’t bought the lie. Nonetheless, they left, walking with an unnatural grace.

Every soul in the smokery seemed shaken, so Krahe appropriately sunk into her seat and took a long drag of the hookah, sighing in an exaggerated manner. It wasn’t long before Semzar leaned over to the lanky woman, a tense expression on his face, and spoke to her without the slightest effort to even lower his voice: “Bring my new skinsuit. You know the one.”