akasoindustries

130 - Battlefield

“The stench isn’t particularly attractive either,” Zefaris added wryly, popping the cork of one bottle and taking a swig. “Oofh, that’s strong.”

Strolvath also took a long swig of the liquid, letting out a satisfied sigh as he corked the bottle back up, “It’s their version of Liquid Vigor, I think they call it Vitamax or somethin’. The Greks know how to keep their soldiers going, I’ll give ‘em that.”

For a few minutes they rested in the clearing, sitting ac...

129 - Close Encounter

Something about the stones felt timeless, like they had been here for far longer than they had any right to be, had endured things that would’ve destroyed any natural stone. When she walked upon them her steps were lighter, her stride quicker, and this effect clearly extended to both Zefaris and Strolvath. Enchanted paving stones?

For a solid fifteen minutes, the trio walked in silence, surprisingly with Strolvath in the lead as he hurried along as quickly as his feet would carry him....

128 - Departure

It wouldn’t have been much of an issue at all, were this a normal journal - he could’ve just flipped through until he reached a part actually interesting to him. But, being encoded, Makhus couldn’t help but decode it linearly to ensure he didn’t miss out on anything. Hours passed, and the alchemist continued decoding the journal bit by bit, watching over his glassware and checking in on Sigmund every once in a while. Zelsys returned from her errand run at some point, apparently having...

127 - Multitasking

“It will be a few days’ trek there and back,” Crovacus explained as Zel and Strol both intently looked at a map that had been laid out overtop the mess on the desk. “I could get you access to motorized transport, but that’d be like painting targets on your backs.”

“March there, exterminate the bugs, march back,” the singer nodded. “The more things change the more they stay the same, huh?”

“Uh-huh. Just make sure to reach Rally Point Gamma on time, you’re to...

126 - Infestation

The gut feeling. He wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest. Zel maintained eye contact, but from her peripheral vision, she could make out the papers that covered Crovacus’s desk.

Photos. Documents. Letters. Some printed, others handwritten. One was written in panicked, shaky handwriting, stained with blood.

“Could you please explain, sir?” Zelsys asked.

Crovacus chuckled darkly, “You killed three of ‘em yesterday, my men found the corpses. One had passed for a nor...

125 - Unforeseen Consequences

For a little while, there was silence while Zelsys processed the flood of information. She was not at all used to the manner in which the older woman trailed off on tangents so easily. After blinking a few times, she managed only a question whilst she pulled a quartet of silvers from her belt pouch to pay for the ammo, “Why’s it that it seems like everyone of note in Willowdale was somehow involved in the war?”

“Because that was very much the case dear,” Collier answered with ...

124 - The Quiet Morning

“Alright, done,” Makhus said, reaching into one of his pockets for a cotton swab and pressing it against the point of entry as he pulled the needle. He squinted at it up-close, as if trying to peer into the tiny glass window of the mostly metal-encased syringe. Zelsys was just about ready to turn and walk out before he tried to further involve in his research, but was stopped by a drawn-out, “Say… If you were to pick somethin’ about the Necrobeast to use for yourself, what would it ...

123 - Rebound Pulse

Even her wounds were practically gone, only the deepest stabs holes in her back still felt when she stretched. In perhaps a day more, even the faint scars would fade, and her skin would be spotless as the day she climbed out of that bunker.

“Should probably take a bath myself,” she pondered as she returned to lounging on the bed, once more reaching for the Tablet and once more tapping its wellspring of knowledge. Each time she picked it up after having undergone a substanti...

122 - Mysticism

“Probably less than you,” the markswoman laughed in response, but still began an extensive explanation of what she knew. “Aside from what’s common knowledge, they really didn’t tell us much, in part ‘cause Fog-breather families were more protective of their secrets than most governments. In many cases, they would intentionally mysticize the foundations of their knowledge to obfuscate the truth even from their own members. From what Makhus told me of his short time in one of these ...

121 - A Day Off

The chef’s entire workstation was laid out bare for the customers to observe, and he clearly took great pride in making a show of his work, flicking pieces of meat high into the air with a cleaver only for them to land on an upward-facing skewer. Despite his piercing gaze and ice-cool attitude, Zelsys felt no apprehension as far as approaching him, offhandedly asking, “What’s the daily special?”

His brow furrowed, he gave her a stern look, then with an equally powerful and frien...

120 - Momentary Respite

By now, they had caught on and regrouped back to back near the remnants of the campfire.

He could charge in and kill one, perhaps two by leveraging his sheer physicality, but that wouldn’t be enough.

A war-knife’s center of gravity was a little strange for throwing, but with some effort and his momentarily superhuman strength, Sigmund was confident that he could throw it hard enough to skewer two people. He threw his war-knife and did, indeed, skewer two of the soldiers where ...

119 - Vision Quest

The phantom sound of distant guns drowned out the noise of the street outside the window. The yelling of men, the foreboding crackle of a campfire and rustling of a bush. All these noises were familiar, to all these noises he fell asleep. In their absence his

mind occasionally conjured phantoms, much like it was doing at this very moment.

Another swig.

Another.

And another.

His mouth was numb, as was much of his left side after having seized up. He didn’t have ...

118 - Training Montage

Attempt after attempt, they spent hours on this fruitless effort, dragged along by Zef’s continual incremental improvements. But they were too incremental. She might develop a sort of Fog-breathing eventually using this brute method of teaching, but there was clearly a greater issue at the root of how she viewed the method.

Perhaps she needed a practical application to spark the initial breakthrough.

With the sun beginning to near the western horizon, Zelsys decided that, “Thi...

117 - Breathing Method

A/N: God I don't look forward to fnagling the blueboxes when this chapter comes out on RR

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A shake of her head and another sigh, “Almost got it. Almost. Was that really necessary? Not that I mind, but…”

“Figured you’d have an easier time learning Lover’s Breath, considering how I learned it,” Zelsys grinned, draping her arm around the cyclops and beginning to walk again. “Though...

116 - Code-speak

Emerging from the cornfield still gripping her cleaver, she saw Zefaris standing over the motionless corpse of the pistol-wielder, pointing her revolver at his heart and breathing heavily. Her face was flushed pink, Fog pouring from her nostrils with every breath.

She looked… Disturbed. Extremely so. The reason became clear when the soldier’s burst-open head raised from the ground, his mouth curled into a manic grin. Though he had no eyes, he turned his head towards Zelsys, and thou...

115 - Roadside Robbery

Another cock of the hammer. Another can. The subtle anvil-clang of the hammer striking the ignition glyph, the violent thoom that accompanied the blazing lance of hot lead. A disgusting splurge as the can’s contents splashed over the dry soil.

One more shot, seemingly just for good measure, obliterated the old helmet.

She heard an ecstatic laugh bubbling up from Zef as the blonde turned the gun over in her grip, cocked the hammer to turn the cylinder, and quickly checked for any...

114 - Doing the Honors

With a mild chuckle, the markswoman peered into the open box… And froze in place, entranced. She stared at the gun, taking in every detail for a good minute and a half before she snapped out of the trance and reached in, visibly surprised by the distinct lack of bulk as she hefted it up with little effort.

“...It’s light,” she mused, furrowing her brow as she turned it over a few times in her hands before taking hold of the grip. She cocked the hammer and dry-fired, a small puff...

113 - Tinkering

“Alkahest solution’s good… Burner’s good… Seals are good…” the alchemist murmured to himself, meticulously adjusting the tangle of glyph-etched glass and ensuring all of its myriad components were in full working order.

His mind was not entirely focused on the task at hand, but what distracted him was no longer the need to fight his own discomfort, but purely the intrigue of whether or not Zelsys was a homunculus. To his relief, even this small friendly exchange managed to...

112 - Samples

He could afford to price it cheaper than mediocre whiskey, and still manage a decent profit margin. A small taste of the liquid came first, a drop that hung from the edge of the faucet. Less aggressively herbal than he was used to, but more minty. Weaker than the military recipe, perhaps ten to fifteen percent Viriditas by volume rather than the usual twenty. The mint probably came from a mint brew meant to mask the lower concentration of the active ingredient.

No surprise, but disappoi...

111 - Implication

Both of them made their way up the stairs and into the front of the store, with Makhus taking the lead in dealing with a stranger as was usual for them, whilst Sigmund just delivered the wizened soldier stare that came so naturally to him. After all, it was just his resting face.

“My apologies, but uh…” the alchemist began, giving the singer’s battle-scarred visage a once over. Not only was he missing an eye, not only did his face bear obvious ritualistic scars, but he stood in ...

110 - Pentacle

“What even is cold-iron?” she wondered, but dared not ask. Cold-iron Sovereigns didn’t look any different than tarnished iron, they were far less richly detailed than even silvers, with naught but a simple line design on either side. The only special property she could discern was the fact they remained cold to the touch no matter how long she held one of the coins, absent-mindedly flipping it in her fingers whilst she idly admired the detail work on a particular revolver.

Zefaris Bust - Finished

New chapter later today, having some sleep pattern issues so my schedule is all fucked up.

109 - Spoilt for Choice

Zefaris looked around, squinting her eye as she looked for price tags. They were present on the lower-grade pieces, but not on the uniques. “There are no price tags,” she stated flatly as she looked back to the gunsmith. A sly smile formed on the old woman’s face, and she put the cylinder back in its place before she tapped on the side on her nose.

“Everyone gets a different price, some don’t get a price at all. I won’t sell these masterpieces to just anyone,” she explaine...

108 - Locusts

He tossed it over, and little squares of laminated parchment spilled out, bearing eerily detailed photographs, clearly taken in moments where the lengthy process of using a traditional camera would have been impossible. The contents of these photographs, however, were far more shocking than the implication of fast image capture technology.

The images were of Pateirians, both young and old, both men and women, but all wearing tattered, filthy versions of the uniforms she had seen the thr...

107 - The Governor

“I didn’t expect the occupying governor to defend an Ikesian patriot from the soldiers of a country allied to Grekuria,” she shot at him with all the snark she could muster, confident that he wouldn’t take it personally. She almost lazily slipped into the chair and idly scanned the room, its lacquered wood and velvet cushioning as comfortable as any throne.

All of the office was opulent, in the most tasteless possible sense - from the elaborately patterned green-gold wallpapers,...

106 - Displays

Zefaris briefly froze in place, then let out a frustrated exclamation of “Hey!”

The blonde markswoman let out a short sigh, just about catching a glimpse of her lover’s rear end as the town hall’s doors closed behind her. She could feel her face burning up, and knowing that it wouldn’t go away any time soon, decided to just cross the street and try to distract herself from one enthralling mental image with another.

Immediately, well before she was even halfway across the...

105 - Errands

“Just strips should be enough. I need at least two sets of chest-wrappings that won’t remain torn up if they are damaged. Can you do that?”

“Of course, that’ll only be a couple days. Anythin’ else?”

“Underwear.”

A small, self-satisfied chuckle from the old man, his trained eyes already making educated guesses as to her measurements, “Figured as much, the mass-produced shit chafes to no end. C’mon, I’ll measure you. We can discuss the style and cut onc...

104 - The Tailor

They passed by more closed stores, dust-covered displays staring at them from the empty storefronts. Pottery and porcelain, paintings, even moth-chewed dresses that hung off the skeletal frames of puppet-like mannequins. Then, for a good long while, nothing - just the front ends of perhaps a dozen houses. At the other side of this gap, nearing a huge mill that stood as part of the town wall, they found a small stretch of stores which were all open, likely kept afloat by the increase in traffi...

103 - Riverside Promenade

Neither Makhus nor Sigmund were to be found anywhere on the ground floor when they made their way down those old, wooden stairs. Both of the women looked about for a few moments, soon realizing that the metallic rattling coming from the basement was caused by their compatriots. They vaguely heard Makhus yell something along the lines of, “There’s months of waste backing this fuckin’ thing up!”

“They’re probably cleaning an alkahestry still. Let’s not disturb them,” Zefar...

102 - Nonverbal Persuasion

But then, he was rather curious as to how the lab looked, and forcing Makhus to stop acting like a petulant manchild was something that bothered him far less than the prospect of disturbing what was doubtlessly a bonding moment for the two warrior-women.

A small albeit very real part of the reason for his apprehension towards disturbing them and his investment in seeing this curious relationship develop was simple academic curiosity. He’d read much about such relationships in the hist...