akasoindustries

152 - Before the Execution

“...The new occupation was initially none other than Cao Hu and his goons swooping in right after the attack, using it as an excuse to raid the homes of several known pro-Ikesian activists, after which point he took over in the mayor’s stead, claiming a state of emergency. He was recently joined by the Lady in Red, who, as the title suggests, wears red, and that’s all anyone knows. She wears a bizarre three-horned mask that distorts her voice beyond recognition. I’d wager it’s eithe...

151 - Plan of Attack

Sodan approached the suit, looking it over, tracing his fingers over its plating, looking in what few seams it had, even sniffing it. Without so much as getting a peek inside, he looked up at the mechanic and, eyes narrowed, asked: “You almost had me with the heat-shielding line, but you missed one crucial detail. The Type-7b C-HS was not only never adopted, it never left the facility due to how easily the coating chipped off. None outside an extremely small group of people could’ve known...

150 - Bloody Zero

Portions of the walls and ceiling were stone, but larger portions still were scrap metal. Despite the workshop’s spacious entryway, the amount of various machining tools and parts made it feel cramped - not to mention a variety of blueprints and the massive essentech terminal in one of the corners. Alcerys noticed several brass Tablets with basic storage glyphs etched onto them laying on a table, which she inferred to mean that what was laying out and about didn’t even cover everything, o...

149 - Burgess

There came an explosion that shook the ground and sent shrapnel flying skyward. Alcerys wondered how exactly Strake had made the suit move without a person inside, but she both wished not to risk asking such questions and thought she had a good enough idea. She wagered he’d somehow imbued its mechanisms with a memory of the specific movements to get it past the corner, then had it perform the same automated walking motion she’d seen it do during long stretches of marching, merely faster.<...

148 - Steel Commander

The noise from the other room stopped, and without a word, the Recluse began drawing lines and directions on the outstretched map whilst Sodan derided the Brass-eye Drunkard without cease.

“If you truly live in fear and pain, and if you truly believe that you have no hope of ever escaping this hell, then let it consume you. Drink deep of its waters and do as your ancestors once did, become the Beast of Retribution that your oppressors deserve - you’ve no excuse, I know well that eve...

147 - Brass-eyed Drunkard

Trinkets were scattered all over the place, with a frankensteined-together aetherwave terminal taking up much of what she presumed to be the Recluse’s room, the door sitting wide open. Her nostrils filled with the smell of oil, stale air, metal shavings, and body odor. Paint flaking off the walls, water damage stains on the ceiling, several broken floor tiles - all sorts of unkemptness.

And yet, that terminal was the most meticulously put-together thing she’d ever seen. It stood out...

146 - The Recluse

...And yet, he waited for them in one of the tunnel’s side alcoves wearing a battered, old-model Ikesian chest plate and carrying a gun, the idiot. The weaselly-looking young man double-took at the sight of them, nearly jumping before he caught himself and got his bearings.

“By the Dead Ones, they really weren’t lying huh? Come, I will open the door for you - y’know, I was about ready to off you two or die trying if you turned out to be glowbugs. Then again, you might be…” h...

145 - Guerilla Warfare

Hidden within one of Rigport’s many tidal caves, illuminated from above by the light of the moon, and using a small Ignis burner to cook food without fire, Alcerys and Strake hid.

Alcerys now knew why Estoras had been so insistent on her participation in this operation.

She wasn’t just here to keep a rabid dog in check - she was, as an Inquisitor, as close to a guerilla combat specialist as the Grekurian Statehood’s armed forces got. Quite possibly the best partner for him.<...

144 - Gunshot to the Head of Subservience

A short while later, Zelsys was the new owner of a monstrous bike and the tools to keep it running - paid for in three thousand gelt and several pieces of dungeon jewelry.

“Now I’ve just got to give it a test drive,” she said, turning to Zef. “C’mon. There’s enough space for two.”

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Near the top of Rigport’s great lighthouse - whose very peak and central spire were the sole porti...

143 - Steel Steed

A/N: Having another flareup, so unfortunately no chapter tomorrow. 

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Zelsys dug deep into the recesses of her mind, hoping that some facet of her knew what it would take to create such an arcane object, and though she could not find anything concrete, she had a vague idea.

“Why don’t I just show you?” she suggested with a grin, pulling out her tablet, to which the shortest among them...

142 - Of Three Manly Smiths

After a short while he settled into flipping between some half-dozen entries, then frowned and looked up.

“I- Hm… Do you mind providing specifics? If you can tell me exactly what you want I’ll have an easier time finding it.”

Despite his politeness, the spark of mischief inside Zel made her mimic his mildly snooty way of talking, albeit with no malicious intent - merely for her own amusement.

“I use a heavily recoiling firearm and, as you can see, I have need of a ...

141 - On the Health Risks of Business Negotiations

Soon, similar vendors gave way to weapons again, though as they plunged deeper into this “nice” part of town, so did the vendors become oriented towards clientele of greater means. Instead of a generic firearm salesman, they saw a gunsmith offering a “build-your-own-jezail” service, with a great number of different parts and options listed. Despite the name used, many of the options offered would cause the firearm to technically not be a jezail - that is to say, an onerously long musk...

140 - Snake-oil

Despite his reluctance to leave his post due to the difficulty of traversing even a short stretch of the Living Storm’s territory, he had no choice now.

The mud was shifting, trenches collapsing, old puddles of Rubedo being absorbed altogether, all swirling and shifting and mixing together as the beast at the center of it marshaled its strength.

One could see towers of rock slowly rising from the muck as clay was dredged up to encase skeletons in new shells. Moreover, he felt a ...

139 - Tremor

It was the ground under, shuddering in a decisively unnatural way. Before she could focus to hone in on the source of it, the Moneychanger rose from her seat and performed a series of quick gestures involving all four arms, rumbling an otherworldly incantation. A flickering point took shape in the midst of her connected palms, flickering out into an undulating slit in the air that bled Fog and the sound of another place in equal measure.

In the few seconds it took her to do this, she lo...

138 - Immortal Beast

“Right, the matter of what I am, as you doubtlessly wish to know - I am what Kargarians call an Immortal Beast. Their folk myths - and, as I’ve found, those of many other cultures - state that an animal which lives for a certain length of time or achieves some other feat of longevity will take on more and more supernatural traits over time until it becomes a sort of minor god, gaining speech and even the ability to change into a humanoid form. This is… Not entirely incorrect, if a gross...

137 - The Moneychanger

The shape of its head was somewhere between a lizard and a human, four horns poking from its skull and two pairs of disparate eyes staring ‘twixt the bars. The lower pair was where one would expect a person’s eyes to be, they were even shaped correctly, yet they were milky-white, as if blind. Right above them, two freakish chameleon-like eyes swiveled about, which deigned not to even look at them, instead tracking the myriad things the lizard-person was doing with its four arms.

It ...

136 - Speak of Iron

A laugh rang out from him, “Because I am! I thoroughly appraise each and every item you see upon these shelves, and sometimes, something with a will of its own comes through. They don't like being on shelves. They demand new owners. New wielders, most often. I am not one to keep such objects prisoner, so I leave them untagged. They sell faster that way, and I can make sure the wrong sort doesn’t buy one. That belt…”

He gestured at the box.

“That belt has...