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301 - Henshin; Metamorphosis [Cherno]

Before Krahe even left the safehouse, she had eaten more than her fair share from her test-run pie; as good as ekarone was, in its similarity to both pineapple and forest strawberry, the very thing that made it delicious also made it physically painful to eat after a while. This was not the case when it was cooked, so with a scalded tongue and full stomach, Krahe made for the shrine-clinic.

As she entered the clinic, Krahe glanced sidelong at Firminus. In her best approximation of Tieng...

300 - Sorcerer's Hand Pt.2 [Cherno]

Krahe explained the Sorcerer’s Hand and the reagents she required for its creation. Once she was done, she added: “If it is permissible, I intend to use the hand from one of Aldritch’s accomplices for the base material. If not, I would simply purchase a donated hand for the purpose.”

With a brow furrowed in mild bemusement, he stared at her, contemplating. After a few moments of silence, he finally settled on an answer.

“What you request is a somewhat grey area. However,...

299 - Sorcerer's Hand [Cherno]

While they spent some time simply reading and discussing the matters of the hunt, Casus eventually departed for a checkup. Krahe, after finishing the volume of Rampage she had been reading, returned to work, delving back into the preparations for her Zor’Aguhastra expedition.

Among the Wizard’s ritual secrets, there was a reference to a preparatory divination to ensure that one wouldn’t be in immediate peril when diving. The base ritual was called simply “Gulf Augury.” It was ...

298 - The Tracker, Shavren Pt. 2 [Cherno]

“Alright. Say I do take option C — you get claim on eight large plates plus an organ, in exchange you spare no effort or expense. Do you want first-pick on the organs?” Krahe asked.

Shavren thought it over for a moment, perhaps trying to decide if that specific wording was acceptable, and, apparently deciding that it was, he responded: “Assuming there’s nothing volatile, best to break down the carcass first and figure it out from there. Besides the plates, there’s n...

297 - The Tracker, Shavren [Cherno]

“G’day. I am to take that you are my clients for this hunt?” the saurian asked, glancing between the two of them as he approached. His voice didn't entirely match his rather humanlike appearance, sounding very much unlike a human, and more akin to the rumble of a crocodile modulated into speech. Somehow, it had a subtle drawl to it.

“There is likely to be one other, but she will not be joining us for some time,” Krahe said. She nearly said that Yao would pull her own weight, b...

296 - Finding Renzo [Cherno]

Actually finding where Renzo lived proved to be easier than she had expected. Zastreon wasn’t exactly an information civilization, which meant that, on one hand, a person could go under the public radar fairly easily. On the other hand, people weren’t always on-guard about their personal information, an average person just didn’t worry about his address being known, or in this case, recorded in the Audunpoint City Directory, edition of 5235. About four years old. She wondered h...

295 - Wrought in the Pit [Cherno]

What she managed to wrench out of the two wasn’t quite as helpful as she’d hoped for, but it was enough. Krahe left the Society and, following Glasses’ directions, found the store without issue. That mural truly did look stupid, and the redheaded, armored-bikini-clad warrior-woman that had been painted over part of it truly did have huge tits, albeit not quite as huge as Favonia. The original mural itself depicted androgynous figures with wildly disproportiona...

294 - Licht Equisetus [Cherno]

Krahe re-read the Wizard’s memslate several times, taking notes in the effort to fully parse what he was saying. It wasn’t the guidelines that gave her pause, but the actual ritual patterns, which, compared to a standard full dive ritual, were eye-wateringly complex. This was in large part due to the fact the ritual was a direct expansion of the ritualist’s own full dive ritual, requiring a high degree of variability and adaptation. She found herself getting lost in the weeds of prepara...

293 - The Zor'Aguhastra Guidestone Fragment [Cherno]

Meanwhile, Krahe was pressing on in her experimentation. She had yet to discern a method to impart lingering incendiary properties onto a high-propagation explosive — that is to say, to develop a “burning smoke” effect. It was not for lack of trying, she could almost hear the creaking of her Six Maxims Thauma bending as far as it could possibly go, but there was only so much one could do on the spot. Nonetheless, progress was progress. She had chanced upon a means of altering Lasher’s...

292 - Trismegistos [Cherno]

A/N: This one is shorter. The next one will be longer.

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Casus had begun the Three Virtues Ritual as he had done several times since Favonia had introduced him to it. The goal, just as with every prior attempt, was to glean critical insights into the fundamental principles behind Mamon Couplers through meditating on his collection. The theory of it, that which could be quantified and applied to most models, was one thing, but the phenomena...

291 - Piling up burned corpses to reach the heavens [Cherno]

Casus awaited at the safehouse, but beyond a silent welcome-back nod, he didn’t pay her much mind. His eyes were closed, but the Third Eye sat open, thrumming with a solar blend of yellow and orange, lazily tracking Krahe as she passed him by. A warmth, akin to the rays of the midsummer sun, spilled out of his gaze. Krahe dared not disturb him — the banisher was clearly engrossed in some sort of meditative ritual, having surrounded himself by a multi-layered circle of what appeared to be ...

290 - !!!ARCHETYPE EVOLUTION DETECTED!!! [Cherno]

Based on the last number ticking down by the second, she surmised the first number was for hours. Krahe observed for a few moments more, and thereafter decided to smash apart the calcified layer so she could take-with the scornbeast’s synthetic components. The substance crumbled remarkably easily, and before long she had stuffed her Kenoma Sack to near-full with graft-beast hardware. Altogether, the scornbeast hadn’t been particularly mechanized, its sheer size had simply demanded a great...

289 - What does an omniphage do when its host dies? [Cherno]

A/N: Added Solomon Howitzer thaumaturgy creation/finalization poem to end of ch288.

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Krahe crawled out from under the monstrosity before the ensuing waterfall of viscera could splash down onto her, let alone before the scornbeast proper could crush her beneath its prodigious bulk. She even went so far as to exit sideways and skim on her way out just in case the monstrosity’s death-knell were a final attempt on her life. It rem...

288 - Scornbeast Pt. Final [Cherno]

One after the next her tracers set off to hound the creature, their already dark appearance darkened further still by black salt. Krahe completely bottomed out her tolerance solely to unleash the biggest tracer salvo possible, and as they spiraled through the air, she felt a familiarity. Surely this was distinct-enough to warrant a new name. Were these even Tracers anymore? They didn’t slavishly depend on bullets to drag them along, and were more akin to anti-cyborg mini-missiles both in th...

287 - Scornbeast Pt. 2 [Cherno]

The Cinder Flash’s range was far too short for this use case, but peppering the monstrosity with Cinder Gatling shots proved remarkably effective in slowing it down. This was not because of their firepower, but because she salted them, rendering the orange beams into dark streaks, with only their cores remaining orange, while the outer layer became as black as the swirling mask formed by Salt Mountain’s Visage. The impact alone was enough to turn the scornbeast’s leap into a startled tu...

286 - Scornbeast Pt. 1 [Cherno]

“Well, Rocinante, our first giant has come,” Krahe uttered, grinning at the patent absurdity of her own words. She drew in a breath as the monstrosity climbed at last toward the surface, and ignited the Implosion Furnace, funneling the first of its energetic bursts into her left arm. A mass of writhing smoke streaked-through by red gathered about the clawed limb merely from the presence of her evolved thauma, while her right hand remained securely locked around one of her steed’s contro...

285 - Sword of Six Maxims [Cherno]

There was no doubt in her mind that she had stirred up the Astral Gulf. No matter how real the mindscape of her Soul Furnace appeared from her perspective, Krahe had no doubt that the pillar of red-lit smoke that rose from her as a consequence of her work would be visible to anyone with eyes to see. But who would look? Out here, in the middle of nowhere, at the edge of the ruin of ruins.

She settled back into the world, releasing her leftover Entropy and siphoning as much Isotope into h...

284 - THE MAJESTIC STRUGGLE [Cherno]

Back in Megacity Gamma, especially the more desolate sectors, even a smalltime subsector lord could muster hundreds of borged out bodies hopped up on half a dozen stimulants, not even in an attempt to kill her per se, just to inconvenience her, just to try and annoy her into leaving him to his cartelpilled favelamaxxing in peace. Life in Megacity Gamma could truly be that cheap. And oftentimes, Krahe did leave, because oftentimes the price of the bullets and self-maintenance by far e...

283 - The Second One [Cherno]

Eventually, after five or perhaps six rounds, she came to a rest near the very platform from which she had disembarked those months ago. It had collapsed into the pit since then. In fact, she could swear Jas’raba’s edge was in a far worse condition than before. Large boulders had crashed down, smashing buildings and blocking even more of the streets. Only the corpse pile in the very center remained untouched.

She had intended to sit down at the edge and peer into the pit, but now th...

282 - Rocinante Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Krahe and Casus settled down in the safehouse, both resting for their own reasons. Krahe, for one, had a stomach far too full to do anything, and could feel herself slipping nearer and nearer a food coma with every passing minute. Casus didn’t exude an immediate sense of exhaustion, but it was clear he was glad to have the opportunity to take a break. They caught up with each other over the next several hours, with Krahe sleeping for two hours straight even with the effects of adefron incen...

281 - Rocinante [Cherno]

The following hours passed remarkably quickly. Favonia spoke at length of her battle with Skullhead for Casus’ benefit and of a number of other exploits for Krahe’s, and though Krahe paid close attention and committed them to memory, she didn’t feel entirely present in the conversation. This was not out of a sense of exclusion or a dissociative impulse, but because her focus was mostly on the food. Regardless of the prices, to say the food was to kill for was an understatement — after...

280 - St. Gauna's [Cherno]

Krahe raised an eyebrow, not sure if this was a result of Favonia being at a stage where money begins to lose its value. Nonetheless, she began the process of opening up her kenoma sack. Infuriatingly, as if reading her thoughts, Favonia looked over her shoulder, adding: “Bet it seems like too much for what you did, but the church would’ve paid out almost as much if you had gone through the paper pushers. I’m just skipping the bureaucracy here. And I don’t need the money, besides.”<...

279 - Crucifixion Upon the Pyre Tree [Cherno]

Finally, Krahe saw her window of opportunity. She lit a cigarette, rolled her shoulders, and began leisurely walking towards the fray, knowing full well that any stray strike, any  near-invisible sword-wave could kill her on the spot. She had means to protect herself, but these two were fighting at a speed nearly beyond her ability to comprehend even in the most rudimentary way. Still, she moved forward. The operation of Skullhead’s favored attack became clearer as she observed them, t...

278 - Skullhead [Cherno]

“I won this flesh in a fair duel agreed-upon by both parties,” the skull-headed man said, smugly.

Favonia gave him a hard stare. With a measure of controlled, yet seeping disgust in her voice, she spoke.

“How many before him did you bait into duels they had no chance of winning, by concealing your own strength, by devouring and impersonating those they had quarrel with?! Spare me your hollow words, and I will spare you mine — you and I both know this is no matter ...

277 - Seekers Pt. 2 [Cherno]

“Nine years. He’s been evading the church for nine years, killing and feeding, mostly through semi-legitimate duels,” Favonia said. “By this point he is strong enough to operate in the open, but also smart enough to know he is better off not doing so. No living soul has come to that shrine since the baneworm moved into this subdistrict, even the Seekers being given the go-ahead to conduct their training there was part of the honeypot, even the fact one of them is always apart from the...

276 - Seekers [Cherno]

“You can say that twice,” Krahe agreed, “Can’t help but expect roundabout mystical solutions or pitfalls placed for those without secret knowledge.”

“Not necessarily an incorrect mindset. One must only be careful to also consider the path ahead,” Favonia said. 

Krahe wanted to ask something, but she was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on sand. Favonia perked up, turning towards the sound.

“They’re here. We can continue this conversation at the sa...

275 - Mutatis Mutandis [Cherno]

“Awake and aware? Good, because it turns out we’re encroaching on a local martial society’s scheduled time, so it would be best to go over this quickly. I’ll start with your movement technique, since it’s the easiest one,” Favonia said, wasting no time from the moment she saw Krahe awake.

Krahe slowly sat up, stretching in place and hissing when she came upon a particularly sore spot. She glanced at Favonia sideways and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue as she b...

274 - Hexenmesser Pt. 3 [Cherno]

Favonia was unharmed. She struck out with a fist that would have sent Krahe flying, just as before, had the woman not skimmed straight through her. A simple kick — a pivot of the body on one leg, barely engaging in proper generation of power — ought to have caught that evasion, but again, Krahe evaded, eruptions of scarlet flame from her left arm shifting her out of the path by a hair’s breadth. Another swing of the flaming sword followed, this time accompanied by an explosive-tipped te...

273 - Hexenmesser Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Slowly, painstakingly, Krahe picked herself up, dusting the black grains from her scraped skin. Not long ago, she would have taken this moment to catch her breath, but that was no longer a limitation she needed to work around. Akin to a bird’s lungs, the Dead Man’s Root provided a continuous flow, and her body was still far from being able to use it faster than her lungs could provide. If this whole exercise was meant to help her work through any dead-ends and blockages, then… Why not g...

272 - Hexenmesser [Cherno]

Contrary to what she had claimed earlier, Favonia actually took them to a shrine some distance from the safehouse, circumventing two shrines that Krahe knew for a fact had underground seclusion-gyms. The shrine was large enough to be in some ways considered a small temple, but lacked some of the design elements that Krahe had noticed throughout all “proper temples” of the Twin Churches. There was an elevator, a stone platform atop an enormous screw pillar that descended at least twenty if...